black

It is a black day. I am haunted by the smile of the young man to the left, a LUMS Bsc. student who decided on the 22nd of April (coincidently my birthday) to take his life soon after he was expelled from LUMS due to his inability to bring his GPA up to standard in his final year.

No, I did not know this young man. I wish I had. His name was Hashir Munawer and he hung himself in his LUMS hostel room, where he was found by his brother. He was also in his fifth year of what is traditionally a four year degree, I was in the same position less than a year ago.

The reason this seemingly happy young man in the photograph haunts me is because he was like me. In fact, scratch that, he was like me and what I would have aspired to be. Confident, charismatic, a wonderful person [as per those who knew him], extremely talented at his work and making friends wherever he went.

the will

Only one amongst billions that made it and to what end?

Is there anything a single person could achieve that would justify his/her edging out so many others for the privilege of being born? The right to be human?

Whose would be the sadder lot: the one who “won” or the ones who remained and ceased to exist before they had begun?

Angels and demons swirl around me and ask me what is my Will. I remain silent, as always. Soon they will leave me alone. And they do. Always.

mental prostitution

What the heck is all this about, you may be wondering upon reading the title of this post. it’s quite simple, really, and it’s an idea I’ve been toying with for some time, and after all the beating it’s taken, it deserves a chance to be aired on this blog.

Prostitution, of course, consists of people (mostly women and Deuce Bigelow) being made to engage in the activity of having sex with someone to give pleasure to the person on the receiving end, and being subsequently paid to do so.

Now personally, I have difficulty understanding why it is that people have so much issue with sex in itself, much less sex as a means of income. Given the choice, I would not indulge in it myself, but I am fortunate enough to be literate and able to earn a reasonable living without having to resort to blow jobs a la mode. Unfortunately, a lot of women out there aren’t and many of these turn to prostitution. Leaving aside the moral justification for preventing someone from exploiting their talent (when someone is talented with a guitar, we call them rock stars and practically worship them), their looks (when people do this in the mass media, we call them actresses and supermodels and make them walk up and down runways for our viewing pleasure) and their skills (if I can make ugly shapes with metal, people call it art) to make a living if the person wants to and is in no way being forced into it, my post is about mental prostitution.

Honey & Clover

I figured it’s about time for a quick anime series recommendation and review. I’ll start off with a series I’ve been watching every spare moment I get for the past week and a half: Honey and Clover. The creativity put into the series can be seen from the highly quirky and original opening sequence which, for once, features no angsty character shots or clips of the main characters, but clay models of various foods in various states of activity. Gives a whole new meaning to “playing with your food” and is one of the memorable opening sequences I have ever seen, which immediately piqued my interest (check out the opening sequence on youtube here)

character study – i

Hello.

I am a green character on a black background. Because I am a single character, my demands are meagre, except when I must call upon my fellow characters to arrange themselves just like this in an arbitrary manner decided upon my man many centuries ago to represent ideas. Characters are a moody bunch at the best of times, and will not often make the effort to please the one who is trying to express something with their help. Many writers can attest to that fact. I wish I could encompass and convey a myriad emotions within my own self, but this desire only brings my attention to my own inadequacy.

I alone cannot do much, save for transform my form from upper and lower case. I don’t have much use for myself, hence I would not expect you to have much use for me, yet you do. In every other sentence, you use me to describe yourself and how you feel. Let me take this opportunity to say that my fellow characters and I are proud to represent you.

A little secret I must share with you: I actually feel very self important when you use me to write. I must come at the beginning of any personal declaration you make about yourself, my fellow characters must eternally follow me.

“I feel really good today!”, you proclaim. “I must be going now.” you declare. “I love you!” you muster up the courage to say. I must confess a little shiver of pride when I am used so very often to refer to any self aware creature that may use this language. In that, I must confess that the stereotype about myself, the letter i, must be true. “I” am the most selfish of the letters and the most self centered, for I feel overly important when I should not.

I am often troubled by these matters, as I should be, for when you are the traditional character used to denote a selfish declaration or perspective, one must also be selfish and introspective to the point of alienating other letters. The few letters I enjoy working with are ’s’, ‘n’ and ‘t’. I do not much trust S, but he is a wily fellow, filled with interesting anecdotes about love, life and salamanders. ‘N’ is a good friend of mine. We are often out together, which may be considered mildly ironic since together we form the word ‘in’. ‘T’ and I also get along famously, although he is a quiet chap and takes his time about expressing an opinion or saying anything much at all, something else that one may not have thought of “T” since he is, after all, the second most used alphabet amongst us. It is a popular misconception. I recall I myself did watch him from afar in the days when I did not know him and gazed in wonder at how outgoing he was, how easily he made friends, as opposed to I, an introspective loner. It is all a show, and I know this now for I know T well. We have spent many a warm summer evening together, drinking beer and enjoying a comfortable silence.

I suppose I have take up enough of your time by now. Surely my musings must bored you, as they eventually do everyone I come in contact with. Even my good friends S, N and T cannot stand my company for long periods alone. I am just that sort of letter. Thank you for listening so far.

Regards,

I (i)

right

Sometimes, “What’s wrong” is an absolutely academic question.

There are times when what matters is whether or not ‘right’ is what it should be, what it once was.

How then, would you answer the concerned query, “What’s wrong?” to the satisfaction of the questioner?

bleed

As he lay on the road, paralyzed, all outward signs indicated that he was already dead.

The futility of his life, he realized, was perfectly captured in this moment where he lay absolutely inconsequential, another life about to leave the earth and everyone around him stopped, stared, received their novelty view for the day and moved on, for they had inconsequential lives of their own to deal with.

And so he remained, weeping without physical movement for all he could not do and all he had not said, as the nearest pothole slowly began to fill to the brim with his blood.

Nobody knows exactly when the man actually died, but he was wrong in believing his death to be completely without consequences. The same morning, many a shiny corporate office buzzed with exciting whisperings of the thrilling early morning visual of a young man lying dead at the side of the road. They shook their heads and tsk tsk-ed at the inhumanity of a society that would not stop to help a man retain his dignity in death or in life. Then they returned to their excel sheets and wondered whether to go to Zouk or Arizona Grill for lunch.