Stories

There are 6,885,500,000 souls on this planet. Each soul different from the other. Each writing a unique story. Can you imagine the gratitude of six billion stories being formed? This has been happening since the earliest of times, since the existence of man. Each one of us has a different story to tell and a different way to orate it. A painter composes his thoughts in colors. An athlete in his endurance. A teacher in his understanding. A president in his leadership. And yet we all write. No I don't mean scratching a bunch of symbols on a piece of paper by writing. Writing is creating. Be it emotions on your heart or memories in your mind or punching keys on a keyboard: you're creating something. And that creating is writing because it becomes something that you can always refer back to.

You remember when you were five and your mom used to read you the bedtime stories? And that was the only thing you looked forward to when you were asked to go to bed? That magical feeling of believing that everything ends well? Every story is a ravel of that world. Dragons and fairies and magic doors and animated animals were not just fabrications of your imagination-they were real. As real as it could get and you believed in it. You believed in the goodness of people and the power of fortitude. Ever wondered why kids are so much more happier than adults? Not only because they are unaware of the negative aura of this world but also because they live on the fact that dragons can be defeated. Stories give you hope and we could all use some hope at times.

A few days ago I was walking to my government class, alone for once. It was really cold and pretty and I thought I should take the long route from outside the buildings which is about a good six minute walk. Instead of trailing in my own thoughts, I looked around at the people for the first time in years. And I felt I understood everyone. Every face with a different expression. Every soul with a different emotion and yet among all this ambivalence I found something ubiquitous-a story. There's a story behind every little crush and every gossip exchanged. There's a story about every friendship and every joke. I felt alive not because of the weather but because of a fire kindling inside me. I want to write stories: of old and new, of fire and ice, of tress and animals, of everything. I want to write and write and write until I get tired of writing. I want to write for the people who deserve a voice. I want to write for people who already get too much publicity yet no one really knows them. My English teacher yesterday asked me to think about joining the newspaper staff. I had been planning on doing so but after that bit of 'appreciation' I realized this is something I love. I don't care if people think Pakistani's are terrible at English, I am going to write for it is my haven and I love it.

Facebook

The clock strikes 2:30 PM marking the end of our school day. Alas, it is the end of a tiring day and our brain has lost all its acuity by this time. Normally a person would be expected to go home and rest; maybe take a nap or watch some T.V. to relax. But we, the high school students, or teenagers in general run to our laptops/computers and log on to the depraved yet reputed website-Facebook. Oh no homework can definitely wait but updating our status to “Had a terrible day at school” must be done immediately in vain attempts to gain some sympathy from our esoteric fellow classmates. And so the process of procrastination begins. The debate over who has the most amount of homework, who has tougher classes and who had a worse day starts off and soon you realize its 6 pm already. Oh no we still have to reply to all those comments about how ‘pretty’ our supposedly artistic profile picture is. And so we begin our series of ‘thank yous’ and ‘no I am nots’. And by the time we’re done replying to our inbox messages and our wall posts and the rest of our fan mail, its 7 pm already. By now we have sumptuously wasted about three hours on Facebook and finally force ourselves to begin homework. But wait, “OH LOOK! A notification” and we go back to wasting some more time. Now it’s about 9 pm and we have done nothing fecund so far. So we garner ourselves to get off the computer and open our textbooks. When we go through our homework we realize we need to print a million pages of notes from our teacher’s website and so while waiting for the website to load our mind fiats us to wander off to Facebook, again. The idiosyncrasy of not seeing the little red highlight on the left side of our screen disappoints us a bit and therefore we start delineating gossips on Instant Messaging or “IM’ with our friends. The conversation goes something like this: “did you know [insert name] is in a relationship with [insert name]?” “But how did you find out?” “Obviously it’s on her profile.” “Ooh! let me stalk!” And so by the time we start homework its 10 pm already and consequently we’re up till 2 am working on our homework. This leads to our sophistry the next day about how we barely slept last night ‘doing our homework’. Facebook is not just a distraction from homework; it enervates one’s mind and acts as a dissocializing agent. Some people have hallowed logging on to Facebook and so they start living in the figments created by cyber-world and loose their touch with reality. It’s an ignominy that they are aware of what’s going on, on a friend’s Facebook profile but are impervious to the everyday mundane concerns which will actually affect us on a greater scale. Facebook also makes a person less social when it comes to real life because when one is talking to someone in real life and the conversation gets awkward one can’t always excuse oneself by saying ‘brb’(be right back) and log off on them. For once we actually have to make an effort and talk to the overweening people upfront. Sadly, I too am a culprit of this penchant towards Facebook and probably seem like a hypocrite speaking ill about it but my opinion still holds. And come on you have to admit such ubiquitous addicts are the reason you ever actually got a Facebook account and now even a nuance from your everyday routine of ‘socializing’ seems like a calamity.

The hardest things in life are the most rewarding things. Why you may ask people like to take thousand AP[Advanced Placement, basically university level courses in High School] classes when all they do is complain about the amount of homework they have? It's because when you get an A on a test in an AP class, you feel real happiness. It's like all your hardwork pays off and so you're willing to do thousand more tons of homework as long as you get to experience that few moments of happiness in shape of a reward. It's not that you have to do good anymore, it's more that you want to because that feeling is so addicting and mesmerizing. I was debating on taking Med terms instead of Econ next semester and I dropped the idea, not because I want to look nerdy[well sort of that too] but also because I want to challenge myself. Next semester is going to be hell but that's the fun part of school you get to experience hell in a heaven at the same time. Like a paradox. haha oh English Lang & Comp -_- So next time when you're thinking of giving up you should think about the feeling of content and happiness you get when you achieve something impossible or really hard. Be it finishing all your hwk for once ;) It's definitely amazing.

No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don’t want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.
And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life.
It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new.
Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else ‘s life.
Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.
Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary.
-Steve Jobs

Nothing.

Life is a circle. We’re all running in circles. We start from nothing and end with nothing. But here’s the irony we spend our whole life trying to be something, someone..What’s the difference between the decayed bones of a rich dead or a poor dead? Nothing. What’s the difference between a new born baby of a rich person or a poor person? Nothing. Both are young beautiful naive human beings with a pure heart. Both have no knowledge or experience about the world or it’s happenings. Then why do we discriminate so much? Why do we assume people with money are supposedly the brains of the society? Why do we associate success with money? Why do we treat someone with no money as a worthless piece of filth?

Have we forgotten that most heroes rise from nothing but poverty, pain, sorrow and sufferings. We condemn things we believe in. We put our wants above our needs. We put ourselves above others hoping that someone else will have enough heart to do the opposite. We are nothing but hypocrites. We lie, after all if you don’t step on other people how are you going to be successful? We cheat, we steal. We deprive people of their basic human rights to fulfill our wants. We cry for justice yet we are the ones responsible for all the injustice in the world. We know wrong is being done but we put a hand on our eyes claiming we don’t see anything. We justify the sufferings of innocents.

We are running in a circle of nothingness and soon we will die being nothing.

and you call yourself a teacher?

Me: so I think I am going to be a teacher, there are way too many illiterate geniuses out there who deserve to be taught

Friend: wtf why on earth would you want to be a teacher? that’s so…like no one cares about teachers & you barely get paid compared to doctors or lawyers & you’re not given any respect.

Me: …..

although what she said REALLY infuriated me, she is right. No one thinks of teaching as a profession that requires talent, people take it for granted. Like “oh well if I suck at everything, I can always be a teacher”. NO YOU CAN’T!! Teaching requires talent. Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you can teach. Teaching is an art, it’s being able to adjust your mental capability well. You have to deal with people who absolutely suck at that particular thing and go down to their level and help them rise. And you have to justify/answer the people who are really sharp and will come up with maybe college level questions at junior high/high school level. You have to create an equilibrium in your class. But most importantly you have to educate. A concept neglected by teachers. Oh this test is an easy 100, wtf are you teaching then? We are forced to play the GPA game BY the teachers. Very few teachers actually try. Very few teachers actually care about their students and whether they understand something or not.

“Oh this will be on the AP test you need to know this”

have you ever heard an AP teacher say

“you need to know this because it’s a genius idea or perspective or whatever”

you blame our generation for being too competitive, well who inclined us that way? You may not realize this but a teacher has a lot of influence on a persons character. Gambling for grades is basically like saying we should do whatever we can to get money & power in life[grades in class]. So ‘teachers’ are basically ‘teaching’ us to be corrupt in order to prevent corruption. Oh yes, that’s definitely going to work. We definitely have a bright future ahead. Thanks a lot ‘teachers’ we owe it all to you.

Grading!

“Did you grade our tests yet?” I think I decipher my class fellows saying the phrase at least ten times a day; followed by an animadversion or appraise. “What did you get?” “Aha! I got a higher grade than you” and so on. A few days ago, while taking notes in my Government AP class I zoned out into a maelstrom of thoughts regarding the origin and system of “grades”.

My curious mind summarily led me to Wikipedia, aka the devious little machine serving as an incendiary to a teacher’s abhorrence towards a student’s ease, where I came across some interesting articles regarding the whole system of ‘grading’. Although it began in China to distinguish and pick out the best of the people for running bureaucracy, I still hunted for some more information and therefore began to think about the “why’ of the situation. Why are we graded? Why is it that a certain number determines our mental capacity and where we will end up? Why are we to dedicate huge number of hours to something that we are not even sure will help in ‘life’? And to figure out the why, I surveyed some people including the brains of our class and some successful people, or so as the world perceives them.

I accost certain ‘intelligent’ people who thought grades determine the level of our intelligence and claimed I have a myopic brain since I thought otherwise. “Well yeah, if you get an F on your math test, which by the way everyone got an A on, you are dumb! How can you not understand math?” My friend stated in an overt and pejorative tone. This is like expecting a fish to climb a tree as well as a monkey and humiliating it if not accomplished. If we are living on this vision, we might as well expect the whole world to believe in one thing and regard anything otherwise as sacrilege.

This brackish mentality was disproven when I asked the similar question from some successful people who are content and halcyon with their life and found that their success is not a talisman or because of getting 100’s in all their classes, but because they were greedy for knowledge. They found the positive in negative prospects. They created something out of every bit of knowledge they learned, something useful. Although their goals undulated at times, they never stopped dreaming and sought suppliantly for knowledge, even from their juniors.

My trail of thoughts also led me to the whole concept of standardized testing. Fine, I admit, I was studying for the ever so dreaded SAT test and so my conclusion is probably prejudiced because I absolutely loathe opening that preparation book but my point of view is that the whole concept of “standardized testing” is just wrong. From gambit of our educational lives we are taught to be original, to be different, to create ourselves, to find ourselves and so our mind starts functioning like that. But as soon as we reach high school a race begins. Who’s better than whom? Who has higher grades? Who has a better GPA? Who got a 2300 on their SAT? Who is going to an Ivy League? We are tested, not on our originality, but a generalized and common assumption.

For example, you give a piece of paper and a pen to two people; one uses the ink to create a beautiful story on the very paper while the other makes a paper plane and uses the pencil to enhance it’s celerity. By the whole system of grading you are saying that the person who created that paper plane is stupid because he wasted paper by not writing something on it, your definition of intelligence. But I see this situation as difference of perspectives. Our brains are different. We define things differently. We view things differently. Then why is it that we are compared and ‘graded’ based on what your mind thinks should be correct?

This may seem like a histrionic rant of a desperate student avid for straight A’s, or maybe of a human being yearning for some change in the propriety of our system; but then again your brain is different than mine and you have every right to your thought.

9/11

Today is a sad day. The tragedy of what happened 9 years ago still haunts our minds. The cries of the loved ones are still decipherable. I was 7 when 9/11 happened, so I had no idea [naturally] of what was going on. But I can say that loss of innocent lives because of another supposedly human being is the worst tragedy of all. When your kind kills you, that is what hurts the most. Losing your loved ones is never easy but imagine you get a phone call from your newly married husband telling you he is alive, for now, but the building is collapsing and he won’t be able to come home that night. Imagine a single mom calling her 5 year old to say goodbye forever. I can’t even imagine the magnitude of that pain. And when a tragedy happens all you can do is pray for the victimized and try to find a ray of hope in that darkness. It was a very sad day indeed, and not just for the people affected but for everyone around the globe. It changed our lives, all of us have been targeted. Although we can’t feel the immensity of your pain, our hearts still ache. We all still wish we could erase that day somehow. So here’s a sixteen year old Muslim-Pakistani girl praying for the people who were affected by this tragedy. I hope your strength and courage to bear the loss never fades and that your loved ones rest in peace. Amen.

Where is your heart?

Eid Mubarak!! This is a day of joy, but alas there is nothing to be joyous about. There are 20 million effected by floods in Pakistan. No Eid for them. No new Clothes. No new jewelery. No Eidi. No Mehndi. The horror right? No. This is worse, they have nothing to eat. No shelter. No clothes. No family. And the worst of all, no hope. While we sit here and pig out on our moms yummy Sawaiyan(vermicelli), Dahi Baray, Chaat and what not…they are fighting death. People our ages, people younger than us. Can you not hear their cries? Can you not see that they need you? Are you really that blind? You are putting religious differences before humanity? You are accusing the whole nation for what some lunatics did? You are punishing that 5 year old by letting him starve just because some crazy-headed, I can’t even call them humans hence, animals did? Are we really that backward in our thoughts? For the love of humanity, help those people out. I didn’t make new clothes this time for Eid because I wanted to spend that money on someone in need. I am not trying to sound noble, because I am not, but I can say that if you think getting that new Coach purse or that new PS3 game is better than providing a meal to someone then yes I do think that my thoughts are better than yours. So it’s my humble request, please donate. You might be able to put food on someones plate, their definition of Eid. There are so many organizations doing beyond amazing work, trust them for once and be a little largesse.

Look, Where?, There, But I don't see it.

How come no-one told me

All throughout history

The loneliest people

Were the ones who always spoke the truth

The ones who made a difference

By withstanding the indifference

I guess it's up to me now

Should I take that risk or just smile?

Misread-Kings of Convenience

I think at times, one should go with the flow. Like if something is happening certain way, I guess it was meant to be so why not just let it be? But then, if you let things be the way they are, the next generation is looking for a HORRIBLE future. If no one stands up against the wrong and let things go smoothly, let wrong be done without any hindrance then there is NO TOMORROW. It's like THE END. Like this verse by Faiz Ahmed Faiz says

"Jigar dareeda hun chak-e-jigar ki bat suno, umeed-e-sahar ki bat suno"

Translation: I’m torn inside; hark what my tormented entrails tell, hark to the hope of dawn

Our generation is THE perfect example of "Ignorance is a bliss". We have closed our eyes from seeing the truth. We believe that by turning our back to the reality, we will defeat it. We will triumph by giving up, which is a paradox itself. How can you even think of not trying and winning? How can you possibly even THINK about changing the world when you're not ready to budge yourself from your lazy ways? It's like saying "I'm guna loose the marathon tomorrow" when you haven't ran in 7 years. And all anyone could say to you is "wow". Our generation is like that, relying on what we are FED and refusing to actually RESEARCH. Tomorrow if some 'educated person' proves that 2+2=5 using fantasy scientific words, chances are we WILL believe him. And that is exactly the problem. Believeing anything blindly and refusing to open your eyes.

So my advice and request from the 'youth' is TO WAKE UP !!!

I Dream and I Achieve

I have been blogging a lot lately :/ It's true a person goes crazy near exams, well AP's in my case but this is going to be a very optimistic post.

So a few minutes ago, I was NONPLUSSED( a vocab word I quizzed over today :P) and I asked for some 'older' advice and SHABAM I got an answer. You know of all the things experience teaches us, one thing it lacks is the ability to 'trust' someone else's words. Cause experience teaches you to make your own mistakes, well sometimes you gotta listen and let someone else do part of the thinking for you. Cause maybe they know a perspective you never even thought of in your wildest dreams, but when they actually tell you about it, it's like "duh..that makes perfect sense". I think experience makes us extremely judgmental. We start judging people for tiniest things and I think that's why most relations fail. I mean even if you're best friends with them, you still have no right to judge them for their actions because you might have NO IDEA what they might be going through. That's why I believe we should put ourselves in their shoes before actually stereotyping them.

So till a couple of years back I used to believe in reality. I used to think that there is no truth beyond reality and the faster we snap out of fantasy world, the better for us. But these past 2 years made me realize how wrong I was. I mean I was missing out on a whole new world called dreams. I had visions of bringing a change and doing something big when I was asleep but did I really dream? Not exactly, in fact, the circumstances made be stop believing in myself and I started saying phrases like "pshtt...like that's ever guna happen, I can never do something big". I was wrong. Extremely wrong, in fact I can't believed I missed out on this for such a long time. But somethings happened that made me realize that even though I might not be as amazing at everything I do, I still can and will bring a change. I will make a difference, cause I know I can do that. I believe in myself not because I am conceited but because there are two people who worked hard for me. There are two people who KNEW I could do it and so they planned for it. There are two people who backed me up always, even when I KNEW I was hopeless, screw the world. There are two people who stood up for me, against all the odds and you know what? They deserve it. So yes I am guna put my best efforts forward and do it for them. They never got rewarded for their hard-work but I am guna give this little token to them. So yes, I am dreaming, and dreaming huge, I am working, and working hard and Yes InshAllah I will bring a change, and a huge change cause they deserve it.

Keep Dreaming and Keep Achieving and Keep Living

Cause without dreams, you're not exactly living. (:

I Dream of a World

I dream of a world without War

Peace, Happiness, Freedom and Rights

Where Red represents Life

Terrorism, a concept unknown

Where the only T word is Toys

I dream of a world without Murder

Danger, Dying, Tears and Loss

Where these words are extinct

Compassion, a concept virtually known

Where the only L word is Love

I dream of a world without Greed

Envy, Hatred, Anathema and Gloom

Where these feelings fail

Green, the color of Peace

Where the only F word is Frienship

Change...Really?

So today after TAKS (this pointless test Texas forces us to take -_-) instead of going to sleep I actually sat there thinking about what I had tweeted about yday which was do people really change? and my best explanation was people don't really change, they just discover a new side and they let that side overshadow their personality so people start assuming they have changed. I mean it's just not possible that something you have been for quite sometime, you can entirely change that. Like no matter what happens in your life you cannot completely take a 180 degree turn and start believing something opposite, can your opinions change? of course they can but its sort of like a deviation not a change. Our personality is sort of like Javert's perspective from Les Mis but not completely. Like his theory is that a person is either black or white, theres no shade of gray in their personality. He's born with what/who he is, well I don't exactly agree with him but where I do agree is that again you can't entirely change, its just somewhere in you that you hadn't discovered till now. What I don't understand is why people think its annoying and go all dramatic about it. I mean if someone is happy with who he/she is why the heck do you care? What is more important? A friends happiness or your satisfaction of a characteristic in their personality? I do understand you might miss that sometimes, but going all "OMG WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY OLD FRIEND" I mean just chill and go with the flow. Let things be the way they are meant to be at times. Not like your going against the nature is guna make any difference. My dad always says "its your world, but its not all about you" and hes right. You can't just want-expect everything around you to be the way YOU want it to be, sometimes you HAVE to compromise and give in.

Another thing, sorta related to changes. Why do girls act differently around guys..just to seek attention? thats just PATHETIC !! You know what they will think of you? A SLUT !! Yepp extremely pathetic. OH also if you think acting dumb in front of guys makes you look cute? think again cause it DOES NOT !!! It just really annoys me.

Step by Step

Walking down the aisle, with dreams in her eyes
And a nervous smile, her parents by her side
Wearing clothes a girl could only dream of
A glimpse of her soul, and a thought to herself
How can someone be so happy? Maybe it's a dream
For that special day, a girl waits all her life
That one special person by her side
She makes the vows worth her life
Closes a chapter, and starts afresh
A new life, new people and new ties
All of a sudden her world is flipped
From being the "daddy's lil girl"
To being his sweetheart
From being a princess of their house
To the queen of her palace
And from being the favorite sister
To a sister-in-law
Step by step she makes a journey
Leaving her whole life behind
And starting something very fragile
Hopes, dreams, excitement and love
She carries with her to fulfill her half
He reaches for her arm and fills the other
Promising to be her companion
Moving with her step by step.


P.S I know this is EXTREMELY clichéd BUT sometimes life gives you some lemons that aren't that sour at all !! :D

P.SS This is for someone very special hehe :)

Don't Stop Believingggg !!

"Stop dreaming, it's not reality" They Say
Well Dreaming is Living, fool
"But dreaming lets you fly like a free bird"
Then why would you cage yourself
"To prevent myself from falling"
Then you might as well stop breathing
"But thats like giving up"
You can't give up something you never tried
"But dreams equal disappointment"
Dreams give you hope
"False hope, and then you shatter"
You need to build something before it shatters
"But why put forth the effort?"
But why live at all if you're going to die?

Untitled

With an aura of childhood around me

And a glow of innocence on your face

I look at you

With a broken heart

And tears in my eyes

And you stand right in front of me

A face filled with sparkle

Heart filled with love

And a smile filled with assurance

Of being right

I still remember your tiniest gesture

As you giggle

And every time you caught me before I fell

And pushed me when I froze

And helped me move forward

And said “Life is cruel, yet so beautiful”

Tears trickling down my cheeks

And heart filled with pain

I remembered the times

When you taught me how to walk

And every time you caught me before I fell

And even when I fell

You taught me to rise

And told me

Fall a hundred times and people will laugh at you

Succeed once and they will envy you

Fall and succeed anyways

As I see your beautiful face

With the same smile spread across

And the same heart full of love

But not saying anything

Where did you go?

Why did you forget to catch me before I fell?

Why did you leave?

For the beautiful memories in hand

And for the thoughts that will prevail

And reminiscences that will never die

Along with those words of wisdom

And those wishful lectures about life

And the glared filled expression when I screwed up

And the profound answers to my simple questions

I bid you farewell while I continue my sojourn

Because a farewell is necessary before we meet again

They Took You Away

They took you away

And left me with a ray

I'll see you in heaven

Is what they say

And I believe in heaven

God loves you more

Just because you're so pure

I give in

Just because you say "worry no more"

And I am soar, within

The smell of your cologne

Await my senses alone

And as they took you away

Making my heart a stone

I say "I just wan't to be alone"

People shouldering to see you

A last glance before they take you

To a place unknown

And I fear life without you

When you whisper "dear, you're not alone"

Will you remember your word?

Just like that foster bird

Who promises return before leaving the nest

My pleas, will they be heard?

Or will you forget and cease to rest?

When in queries and in troubles

Will you solve my mind's doubles?

When I am confounded

And I begin to mumble

Will you keep me bounded?

Where You End

The things you hear around you
Realities of life that surround you
You try to come up with a solution
And you end up in more agitation
Each day you try more and more
Drenched in hopes of pure
And you make a a vow to bring a change
When you know the world is way too strange
There comes a point when you start to bend
And that is the place where you end

Puzzle

Sometimes I feel restraint

Trying to prove my point

My words take betray

As I think through things

Starting from where we bloom

To where we demise

I ponder with a vow

Life's like a puzzle they say

I rethink the rotation of every piece

Trying to fit in any possible way

I hear my conscience speak

"The piece is from another puzzle"

And I start off with another one.