Monday, February 27, 2006

on old movies
i just saw 'come september' and i have to say that it was really fantastic; subtly intelligently funny not in a high-brow way but in a good-acting, witty way. much fun! it's surprising how puraney zamaney romantic films leave you feeling amused and entertained, not soppy and 'whatever, yeh kabhi asal main nahien hota'.

the fakhta and i
yesterday i spent one and a half hour with looloo and B at the airport, waiting for khala number one to aa bhi jaayen (some miscreant made away with her suitcase, it so happens, and three flights landed at the same time. much confusion), B meeting people even at the airport (gawd that woman knows the WORLD) and looloo and i whiling the time away singing 'copacabana' and teasing B about the strapless backless "and ruched capris bwahaha" outfits we'd wear to her shaadi and generally having a lot of fun away from our censuring mothers (and sister, in my case). kal i realised how much my little looloo reminds me of a me i haven't been in a long time, or felt like at any rate.

on old and present loves
zahid uncle is here! yay! i'd love to call him 'chacha' but since i've never called anyone chacha it feels funny to say it. he's known me my entire life, he was there when i was born, he did the azaan in my ear, i trashed his kitchen regularly, the whole shebang. he manages to come to lahore about once a year, from arizona where he still lives with his family and insanely busy life. i love him with an abiding, instinctive affection; like family you don't meet often but love continuously at a sub-level of your self. i wish he and his family were still our neighbours.

on surprises
reading the lahore metblog today i saw this link in the sidebar: butterflies for release for any occasion you want! what this company basically does is package butterflies for you and puts them in a pretty box, and you can release them as a beautiful grand gesture....and after pondering about the humaneity (?) of it (they say it's perfectly harmless but c'mon, dabbay main band hoti hain..) and the general weirdness about ordering two dozen butterflies as if they were flowers or chocolate, i have decided that i would indeed be bowled over to be in a cloud of surprise butterflies. imagine! what a knockout mushy thing! a beautiful leather-bound book o' pomes-and suddenly butterflies! kaafi magickal. speaking of which, another adventure forthcoming, moment of supreme wow :D

Mina at 10:10 PM

7 comments

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Discover your Orc Name! bruhuhahahaha, laughed Shataaz the Villanous, Bîshûk, the wicked - Uruk of Morrrrdorrrr

Mina at 6:29 PM

6 comments

Thursday, February 23, 2006

a dear friend is undergoing surgery tomorrow; if you could, please remember him in your prayers for a safe procedure and speedy return to the most magenta health.

Mina at 6:15 PM

2 comments

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

the wind is always a silent, clever energy. at lunch it rustled a crisp leaf down the concrete outside and K knew that it was coming. the sky was just right- smudged smear of faint charcoal, white-grey, expectant. the leaf was followd by another, and, characteristic of aandhis, suddenly the air exploded into a great gust of rustling foliage and whistling wind. a veil of fine dust settled upon the shining red-brown of the dining table as trees danced outside, lifting their arms to the music of currents blowing in from faraway lands. leaves flug themselves into the swirling lure of the wind's fingers, joyously pirouetting across the sky and down into the waiting lap of the grass. K was inside, watching the wind sing to the trees, cocooned in the warmth of cinnamon and butter turning golden in the oven. half inside, half outside, her spirit was flying with the tempest as she opened all the doors and windows in the house to the gale. the air-conditioner spat in leaves through its vents, leaves of every shape and size and texture were tumbled upon the stairs and dust crunched silkily underfoot. K ate a warm cookie and went outside to read poems to the pine trees.

Mina at 4:22 PM

4 comments

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

warm
blogger ate up my last post!! I WILL SUE! not only was stalwart childhood companion right about it being missing *grumble* but poetry baba said something nice about it too grrr i quite liked that post, it flowed nicely >:P you goo bloggeeerrrrr!!!

warmer
today i crashed my left elbow into the car doorjamb with an enormous clatter of my bracelets hitting the metal thingabob the door clicks into. the result is the removal of several layers of epithelium and a cut, and what will be a proper bruise in a few days..it's exactly like the kind of elbow mashings that resulted from falling off your bike on the road! i love it! i haven't had a bachon wali chot in the longest time! quite happily nursing a bruisy elbow, and i also got a happy meal out of it hehehehe

warmest
"abbu when're you going cycling?"
"in a bit."
"okay"
he drinks his tea, i putter around.
"oooooooo *eureka moment* can i comee!?!??!?"

i went cycling with abbu today, it was the best fun ever! it's been years since i've cycled with him, and he usually never quashes spontaneous plans so when i suggested i come along, he said how soon can you put on shoes? so he got the other bike out and we pumped the tyres a bit and went whizzing off into the late afternoon sun, people staring, me whooping in glee, abbu cruising along smoothly. we raced down one of the roads that branch off johar town's main boulevard- "come on, old man!" "bring it on!" vrooooom!- and back, indicating at turns and shouting over the wind. glorious...shiny smooth road, curvy italian bike, grinning into the mellow buttery sun, linen ajrak streaming a redbluegreen flag behind me. and spending time with daddy :)

Mina at 5:55 PM

9 comments

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

I.
kissi aur ko shayad kam hogi
mujhay teri bauhat zaroorat hai

pehley bhi bauhat main tarsa hoon
tu aur na mujh ko tarsana

(probably)


orpheus

Mina at 3:40 PM

8 comments

there are several things i don't understand about the world. maybe all this yatter about the death-wish is true, and not just analytical literatureness- creativity demands self-annihilation, that the artist can only find her/him (zir?ha-ha) self in isolation. that one's art and self comes alive, connects completely only in a death of sorts. and there is no survival without connection, and since it cannot be perpetual the artist is perennially searching for what is in fact destruction. maybe all art demands it- a fanah, you could say. the terrifying, the hopeful, the resigned thing-i-already-know in a completely unpretentious way is that this is true.

Mina at 12:15 AM

3 comments

Monday, February 13, 2006

Mina at 2:12 AM

1 comments

Friday, February 10, 2006

this one's for the boys (particularly the fat guy having a tantrum in the link-site sidebar, that one's specifially stalwart childhood companion's)

perhaps this is only one more example of how nothing in life is random (gasp goosp aarrr): in the morning i had my legs up on the CPU playing freecell on zehra's computer, discussing rishi kapoor films and whether dev anand had a zeenat aman obession with the maqs and the other law RAs (i have to say that hairy boy is quite the miscreant for pretending not to want the waggly headed hamburglar pencil holder, i hope its sub-conty waggle from nadia's decrepit dell makes him repent our largesse although he did know manymany songs) and abhi abhi the H sends me a link for none other than what greatbong calls mithunism!!!! hahahahahaa and the best part is that i have seen 'darya dil' pictured in the sidebar!!! the only thing kitschily funnier are the mister T jokes qasim keeps on his Z drive, pitiable fool ;)

Mina at 10:11 PM

3 comments

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.
In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood


Pablo Neruda
(obviously)

Mina at 12:27 PM

6 comments

Sunday, February 05, 2006

unleash the sarcasm a.k.a mina is a mean little punk

why do we have to single days out to do something? is it some strange compulsion of the human being that we must have anniversaries and birthdays and valentine's days and groundhog day and oh-look-can-put-a-banana-up-my-nose day? i don't get it. chalo birthdays i'll give you, being born was your mother's accomplishment primarily because you don't remember your efforts, but everyone should have the supreme self-indulgence of being rewarded for one's presence in the world for at least one day. the rest is flimflammy balderdash. valentine's day? oh jee i love you pliss make franship with me and this here yeti a.k.a white stuffed bear and we can go to mcdonald's wearing matching red outfits, YAY! geev me a breayuk mayn. love someone every day. and anniversaries, counting days like neanderthal man counting his sheep when they came back by putting a stone in a pot, one sheep two sheep, one month six months one year. we made it, we have crossed an invisible line! whoopee! then what, re? it isn't a competition to see how many days you've put into one specific person, just go with the flow; nobody gives you a prize and it isn't something you can wear on a t-shirt so everyone knows. "guess what i've been with my boyfriend for two years! *smug little smile*". chances are that the person you told is a bitter, violent, agnostic dumpee who hates God for letting this happen to them and will then proceed to beat you into a pulp with an empty pepsi ki choti botul, crying 'i'm a good person! why don't good things happen to me!' [special note for the sand at this point: why oh lord why;)] sub capitalism ki ghalti hai i tell you, aur asal wale bohemians ki, not the people who wear berets and big butt-ugly rings just to be cool and not because they like to but coming back to the original point: why do we need specific days to do a b and c, you don't need an excuse to celebrate something, or the permission you think a certain day gives you.

Mina at 10:44 AM

9 comments

for a, with love.


caffiene makes my stomach
ache (as do you, only
caffiene goes away but you
are like a winestain on a
white carpet; a
stubborn memory always
there but hidden beneath
a cushion or
a fern
.); a spill

everybody but your eyes see-
somehow you are
looking through your fingers but
never at me

impervious, i think
you came wrapped in plastic,
a ken doll:
untouchable, perfect. everyone's
all the time each one thinking your smile is theirs wholly-

but i know

Mina at 2:14 AM

3 comments