We must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in response. - Indira Gandhi

BOAST OF QUIETNESS

Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigous than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and death, I observe the ambitious
and would like to understand them.
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of humanity.
My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty.
They speak of homeland.
My homeland is the rythym of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword,
the willow grove's visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensible, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away
he doesn't expect to arrive.

JORGE LUIS BORGES

Ps: I know Borge Sahab was bi polar

Written on a rickshaw:

"main bara ho ke corolla banon ga"

Often overshadowed by the scenic beauty of well manicured Islamabad, Rawalpindi hardly gets the attention it deserves. Whilst Islamabad is planned suburbia, Rawalpindi depleting buildings and deserted chaats. It has been loved and discarded long since.

I am always the silent observer when the Islamabad v Rawalpindi debates pan out in public ('Pindi mein dekha hai kis thara ghor ke dekhtay hain loag?' (Have you seen the way people stare in Pindi?' 'Tu Jinnah Super mein bhee hotay hain cheapsters...' 'There are cheapsters like that in Jinnah Super too' 'Haan woh Pindi se Uth ke atay hain!' 'Those come from Pindi!') :)

To gauge the the merits of one against the other (although this is well settled with Pindi-ites proclaiming 'we have cinePAX...' in a lofty tone of those well contended with life) is fruitless but who don't know Pindi well or who are oblivious of its history and the weatherbeaten intricate wooden cravings cornering jharokas in the shambled buildings of it fail to see it as a city in mourning for former its lovers.

Mobeen Ansari captures some bits of Pindi in his work.

Silence
Billy Collins

There is the sudden silence of the crowd
above a player not moving on the field,
and the silence of the orchid.

The silence of the falling vase
before it strikes the floor,
the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.

The stillness of the cup and the water in it,
the silence of the moon
and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

The silence when I hold you to my chest,
the silence of the window above us,
and the silence when you rise and turn away.

And there is the silence of this morning
which I have broken with my pen,
a silence that had piled up all night

like snow falling in the darkness of the house—
the silence before I wrote a word
and the poorer silence now.

I just got back home grinning from ear to ear carrying a liberty books bag filled to the brim - and flat out broke, of course.

The fusst thing I'm going to do tomorrow is to see if this year's booker winner is available at Saeed's. Never have I been this excited to read a book.

Wolf Hall

Oh, it releases on the 13th. Hopefully, it wont budge up Britain's history the way BBC's version of the House of Tudors did. Now that's one awful show. Thankfully it ends with three seasons.

Blog of the month: Photos by Emilio Morenatti
















Pakistani boys play billiards in the Christian neighborhood of Khashi Kaluni in Islamabad, Pakistan, Tuesday, April 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)