One unique thing about fathers

 A friend recently told me a thing, and I found it true for myself: 

"There is something unique about fathers. You miss them more as you grow older. As you become a father yourself, you realized that how much you didn't avail him."

An old lesson

 

Alternate realities

 There is no right or wrong decision, it's just alternate realities. 

Love, hate and indifference

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." 

~ Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Slippery slope

 Main aur Naeem Mohsin medical college ke dost the bulke class fellow the. Hum ne saath saath USMLE ki tayyari ki. Saath saath America aaye. phir Chicago main bhi saath rahe - residency ki. Us ke baad alag ho gaye....woh Chicago reh gaya. Meri la-ubali tabiyaat mujeh dusre shahron le gai...

Aur phir aik dusre ke phone number bhi kho gaye...

....barson yun beete jese bus abhi palkain jhapki hon..... aur ye khabar bijli ban ke giri ke Naeem Mohsin ne Chicago main khud kushi ker li....

2 din tak main kuch sochne ke qabil na tha. Zindagi ke 10-12 baras saath guzare the. Achha khasa samjhdar aadmi tha. 

Kab kahan kahani main kesa moR aaya kisi ko khabar na hui. 

Doston ne bataya - Us ne saare doston se raabte toR liye the...har kisi se jhagra kerne laga tha ....biwi bachhe bhi choR ke chale gaye....peeche Pakistan se bhi ghar walon ne nate toR liye....

........kab kis zehni bimari ka shikar hua - aur kiun huwa - pata na laga... 

license bhi haat se chala gaya... paise khatam ho gaye...kisi shelter main panah li

...aur phir aik raat khudkushi ker li...

Ye zindagi bhi bari kutti cheez hai. Aik dafa 'slippery slope' pe paun phisal jaaye to phir sambhalne nahi deti. Ye koi pehli dafa to nahi huwa. Ye blog aesi kahanion se bhara paRa hai...

.. apne doston se milte rahiye. Zindagi ke kis muqam pe kis ko kis ke sahare ki zaroorat paR jaaye, kiya malum.

(In the United States - on average - one physician commit suicide every day)

rafu - gulzar

تھوڑا سا 

!!رفو کر کے دیکھیئے نا 

پھر سے نئی سی لگے گی ....

 زندگی ھی تو ھے 

 *گلزار*

ThoRa sa 

rafu ker ke dekhiye na 

......phir se nai si lage gi 

zindgii hi to hai

Gulzar

On - crossroads in life

 

Happiness and Success

 Allan Karl said a beautiful thing:

Success doesn't bring happiness

Happiness brings success

Wow!!

The best line!

I was advised years ago - and it helped me always. 

If someone is going through any kind of grief, the best thing to say: "I am not sure if I can share your grief as my words may not heal everything, but I AM HERE for anything you need".

Is say ziyada dilasa aur kuch bhi nahi  - ke kisi ko ye yaqeen ho ke - aap waqt pe mojoud the 

- werna aik insaan to dusre insaan ke liye patta bhi nahi hila sakta

on Facebook and old friends

 On Facebook, we connect to many friends and acquaintances from our long long gone past years of child and younghood. In many cases, we feel it would have been better we would not have bump again - as people grow on different axes over decades.

Shayed woh bhi aesa hi sochte hon ge

Devine, humans, acts and signs

 Devine writes the first act. Humans write the second. In between comes the signs. Watch it strikes.

On Amar Jalil's Khuda Gum ho gaya hai

I was shocked (and still in shock) the way Pakistani conservative society has reacted to Amar Jalil's short story "Khuda Gum ho gaya hai" (God is lost). It is nothing but a masterpiece of literature. I didn't even find a grain of insult to anyone. I guess people have not read Iqbal's Shikwa, Manto's and Ismat Chughtaii's short stories. 

It was a beyond idiotic reaction.

Jitni tezi se Pakistani logon ko kafir bana rahe hain, Pakistan ke jhande main sirf sufed rang reh jayye ga - range-kafan.

Synch

 

On travel

COVID has disrupted many of my bucket list travel plans. I usually travel by myself and many of my friends don't like it. But the whole idea is to liberate oneself in travel. I found to travel as a form of meditation when I travel alone.

'Dead Sexy'

 Interesting story regarding writing an obituary. 

 "just a rockin' dude from Omaha, NE. It attributes his cause of death to "either leukemia or more likely being 'dead sexy'. (Eric's) departure was just in time for him to make his spiritual appearance at every Red Sox spring game. He is preceded in death by billions, including his dog Harvey who most of us loved to hate. We are confident they are joyfully reconnecting right now. Eric loved, in this order, his smoking hot wife, his brilliant kids and family, his many friends, the Boston Red Sox, the Kansas City Chiefs (before being a Chiefs fan was cool), the Huskers, Liverpool Futbol, QT iced tea, Adidas sneakers, fishing, backpacking, hiking, hunting, and any old Chevy he saw on the road. Eric hated sad stories, beets, romantic comedies, a snow packed driveway and turning off the garage light. That's it, Eric was content with most everything else."

Link here: https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/21/us/eric-sauser-dead-sexy-obituary-trnd/index.html

Hafiz Shirazi says

Do yaare zeerak o az badaye kohan do maney

 fara'gte     o kita'be    o   gosha'ye chamanay

(two intelligent friends and two kilos of old wine

 - and may have leisure and a book and a corner in the garden)

"The Sun and the Cave"

"One day the Sun and a Cave struck up a conversation. The Sun had trouble understanding what “dark” meant and the Cave didn’t quite get the hang of “light and clear” so they decided to change places. 

The Cave went up to the Sun and said, “Ah, I see, this is beyond wonderful. Now come down and see where I have been living.” 

The Sun went down to the cave and said, “Gee, I don’t see any difference.”

When the sun went down, it took its light along and even the darkest corners were illuminated. That's why the Sun couldn't see any difference. 

There is a quote from an old book that says "The enlightened ones can never be sent to hell or pushed into darkness. They carry their heaven on their shoulders all the time".

We thought that a heaven is a place where we are supposed to go, perhaps it was a state of mind we were supposed to achieve. 

If you are full of darkness within, full of negativity, fear, and doubt, you become a Cave unknowingly. It's hell within and no matter how much you accumulate, you still remain hollow. 

If you are illuminated like the Sun, then the darkness of the cave wouldn't matter. You could be in the worse of circumstances, you'll still be able to find a blessing somewhere.

You'll be carrying your Heaven with you.

Love at first sight

(Found this beautiful story on the internet: Sounds like a true occurrence: Author not known)

She watched him from a distance. He definitely looked lost, a lone brown figure guarding a sewer pipe. He stood out in the green field because of his color.

He would move forward a little, try to talk to passersby and then retreat back to his comfort zone, in front of the sewer pipe. She was drawn to him and watched every move of his with keen interest. 

Those around him were reluctant to approach him as they did not know what to expect from him? what he was trying to say? what he wanted? who he was and where he had come from? He looked too young to be wandering around on his own though.

She wondered whether he was asking for help. She knew that his behavior could become unpredictable but while all spectators watched, she felt an impulse to run down the field to comfort him.

She heard a commotion nearby as an animal control van screeched to a stop right next to where she was parked. Out jumped a pleasant young sheriff holding a neck collar. It was clear that this young man had been called to rescue this lost creature. 

She was expecting some sort of a reaction from her focus of attention but to her surprise, the creature displayed no agitation or fear but patiently waited for the young sheriff to approach him. 

The sheriff sat down on grass, right next to the lost soul, and appeared to be uttering calming words to gain his trust. The sheriff made several patient attempts to place the collar around this dog’s neck but the dog took this as a game and playfully jumped up and down for a bit. She wondered at this rare spectacle for this Pitt, was not being aggressive or combative at all. After several failed attempts, the sheriff was finally able to get the collar and leash around this dog’s neck. 

When the sheriff tugged at the leash, encouraging the dog to follow him, it was clear that the dog didn’t want to budge from his favorite spot. She wondered if he was trying to tell them something about his owner and felt a pang. 

The sheriff finally succeeded in nudging him to a small dog cage in his van. As the main character passed right close to her car, she saw him at close quarters. He wasn’t angry, he wasn't barking, he just looked defeated and melancholic with tears filling his eyes & his head hanging low. 

She had been afraid of dogs while growing up and for a good reason too. Her experience with strays back home had not exactly been favorable. But this was one dog that made her heart melt. As he passed at arm’s length from her, she wanted to reach out and pat his sad and remorseful head. 

She offered to help the sheriff look for anything that was bothering this sad creature. However, even after a thorough search of the sewer pipe and the surrounding field, the officer found nothing that could be holding this dog back. She felt saddened as she sensed there was something amiss but was unable to do anything about it.

The young sheriff assessed the dog to be about a year old as he was drooling and looked nervous. This dog was one of the mildest and gentlest creatures she had ever set eyes on. She felt so moved by this incident and the personality of the dog that she wanted to bring the dog home. 

She surprised herself with this irrational thinking. Was she really physically and mentally able to take this responsibility? Wouldn’t there be religious connotations of having a dog? No one in her family liked dogs, particularly her mother who had been bitten by a stray once. 

For some reason, this trapped, doleful animal reminded her of herself. Of late, she had been asking people to help her with the care of her mother when in the past she had been able to handle most of such challenges herself. Now, some unavoidable circumstances had rendered her helpless. 

She was informed that the dog would be taken to the animal shelter where an attempt to find a chip on him (and thereby his owner) would be made. If no owner was found for 15 days, he would be given up for adoption. She wished that he would either find his owner or another loving home. 

She noted that during this time, all worries and stressors had left her and she had felt as light as a cloud. In those few moments, she had felt united with a kindred spirit.  

She promised herself to find this lost creature home. If she couldn’t care for him herself, she would beg her friends to do so. This was indeed love at first sight and her restless soul wished to see this kindred spirit again. Their connection was unexplainable and all she could gather from this incident was that her destiny had brought this dog into her life to fill the chasm left by those who she had once held dear and those who were soon to leave her...

Illusion of knowledge

 

Accident and God

 I have written 2/3 of posts on Naeem Sahab before. 3 months ago, he was very sick with COVID in ICU. Now he lives in some inner rural town in Lubbock, Texas. During his sickness, I frequently talked to his doctors. Fortunately, he recovered. Once I had my 2 doses of vaccine, on his insistence, I traveled in my car to his place, as I needed some time for myself. Evenings in rural Texas can be mesmerizing with layers of never-seen color-combinations due to the bright sun, open skies with scattered clouds (see pic below). One eve. he took me to drive the area. While we were watching the beautiful sunset, he said:

"Ye sab agar accident hai to phir yahi accident mera khuda hai"

(If this all is a mere accident - I embrace this accident as my God)