Writing

"I have always been an outcast. An impostor and a charlatan. A complete bastard. I have never felt comfortable in my own skin. And yet this state of mind has been imposed on me, I feel, not due to some internal defect, but rather forged out of the unfortunate confines of the communities I have sought to mold into. I am a disturbed man. A grotesque human begin. I do terrible things. And then cast them off as mere fantasy. What is more dreadful than appalling action is a mind riddled with anxiety and fear. And this unease transmutes into guilt. Guilt about being seen, about being heard. Given a choice, I would hover amongst the darkest shadows and crawl seamlessly through crowds unnoticed. And so my life is also one that is a constant struggle inflicted with the burden of passing each day inconspicuously whilst trying to maintain relationships within the limitations of “civilized” society. I wish I were born another creature. Like a rat or a slug. It would suit me, or better yet, a being with little consciousness, like bacteria or some plant.

I think the trouble started in my childhood. Yes, yes.. I was not yet sixteen, when I first swallowed those pills. There were eighty-two of them in total. Eighty-two. I had sat on the bathroom tiles and counted them meticulously. Held the pills in my palm and clenched my fist, letting them flow through. Picked the fallen bits and consumed them in three gulps. The idea had formed as a mere fledgling of a speculation, a morsel of a thought. It lay there unsheathed in the bottom rungs of my mind. Tossing and whirling, gesticulating till it began to ossify into something concrete. And the pills. How fastidious I had been in amassing them. I had escaped on several occasions, furtively visiting numerous pharmacies in order to acquire them over several protracted weeks..."

- Page 1

Book Cover (Designed by Sher)

O28. Cityscape

"I once saw a man who had hung himself. It was my father. He had finally found a purpose for the disused sisal that lay abandoned in the shed for years. I was not yet twelve. I had been playing with my younger neighbor, Hamid, in the fields. Mother had told us not to play there since we were to ruin the potatoes. We played in any case. It was a Saturday. I remember the day, but I don't remember the exact date. I remember it was a Saturday, because we weren't in school that day. Because on Sunday we would visit our grandmothers grave, and I don't recall going to the graveyard that morning. There was a scream from the barn. We had both stopped dead in our tracks. It had immediately struck me as something unworldly. That scream will remain embedded in my memory for my entire life. The source of this heartwrenching howl I attributed to my mother, even though a bystander may not have been able to associate the sound to that of a human being.

Perhaps, she had been saying something afterwards, but the initial cry had caught me off-guard, so that I couldn't consciously register any sound afterwards. I remember that scream; it was the scream of an animal. Such as when you are slaughtering a goat and it wails its final blubbering bawl as the blade makes that first incision. It was that kind of scream. And so, for a split second I had believed that an animal was being massacred. The fear it had induced in me had immediately torn away at my heart and I could feel an extra load begin to weigh down on it. That extra weight has been growing heavier ever since..."

- Page 1

"When one of my friends came to the studio and looked at the pieces, he commented that they were quite good, but I felt a great disdain for him at that moment. I thought he didn't understand what I was doing. That he could never understand. I didn't want to hear that it was good. What I wanted was to bring the viewer down to their knees and begin to weep. To see the beauty of their whole lives scan in front of their faces. To say to themselves, now that I have seen this, there is nothing else left to see, to feel. Nobody would ever appreciate the art that I was making, no matter what they said it would never be enough for me. I was never satisfied with my work. There was always something lacking. The colors did not come out the way I had envisioned or the painting did not express the feelings I was trying to evoke. I was in pursuit of something that was theoretically unattainable.

At the exhibition I lingered in a corner meekly observing all who would pass by my section. I thought about going and speaking to them. To explain to them what I was trying to show, so that they could see the meaning behind the paintings, but I stayed at the back just observing their expressions. There weren't too many people at the exhibition. An old lady came and lowered her glasses slightly as she looked at each of my paintings. She seemed to show some interest. A girl who must have been in her early twenties, dressed in jeans and a tshirt came by. She was chewing gum and didn't spend more than a few seconds on each painting before she went away. Most of the people just crossed by and did not even stop to look at the paintings. It seemed as if they wanted to walk towards the end of the exhibition and leave, that they had somehow been forced to be there and wanted to get it over with. Two middle aged men wearing starched up shalwar kameez's came and stopped by my paintings. One of them whispered to the other pointing at one corner of a painting and they both started to laugh..."

- page 29

"I will make poetry today, he thought. Real poetry. Should he write about that leaf he saw on the window sill? It had floated gently in the air and come to settle there with some vigour. It meant that autmun was in the air. But was it really autumn? It was a dried leaf. He hadn't seen a leaf in a while. Perhaps it had been a few months. Maybe more. Or had he seen one and hadn't taken notice of it? The sky was bleak. Was it the dust and smog or were there genuine clouds out there? He didn't know any more. He couldn't be bothered to find out.

'I will write a sonnet!' he said aloud, for my lover. This lover he alluded to, he had only seen once, and that was many years ago. Would he be able to muster enough material from that one sole meeting. He didn't remember her name. He remembered the face. The lips and the hair. Her eyes. But the name escaped him. Did he remember the face? Or was it just any face that his imagination has conjured up? No, he was sure he remembered it. It was a sweet face. It had a warmth to it. She had her blonde hair in a pony tail. Her lips were full of life. And her eyes, they were a light colour he imagined. She was from Estonia. He had held her hand while she crossed over the bridge, and they had shared a bit of a smile. But that was the end of it. No, it will be too sappy to write a sonnet.

I will make poetry if it's the last thing I do, and considering that his rations were coming to an end it might well be the last thing he did. I will write a short poem about the sun, he thought..."

- page 1

W73. Monday

"He could hear the footsteps just outside. He bent down in the darkened room, knees to the floor and peered underneath the door. As his ear hit the floor there was silence. He felt afraid. Someone was going to come for him. They were waiting for just the right moment, and then they would close in. He lay there on the ground waiting for the footsteps to resume, but nothing stirred. He must have stayed motionless for at least ten minutes and as he lifted his head, there was a sound. A clicking sound. Coming from the window. He quietly made his way to the window, cautiously taking each step so that his steps would not be heard,and yet the soft sound of his foot hitting the ground sent shockwaves in his ears and he could not bare it. The clicking resumed. He inspected the source, it seemed to be coming from within the wall right next to the window, but he was not too sure..."

- page 1

"They will come for me today.

Room is darkened, single source of light emanating from computer screen. Man sits in front. His hands rest on the keyboard. The sound of the keyboard clicking. On top of that a thumping can be heard from above. The shutters to the window are closed. The man stands, walks to the window. With one finger lowers the shutters and peers out. He stares at the ceiling. Walks back to his computer. Sits down.

It is I who is here.

He reads his words. Slowly reads out aloud each word. Emphasis on I. He clicks the mouse. Changes windows. Clicks back to the document. Deletes the words. Looks at the empty screen. Types again.

It is I who is here."

- page 1

O46. Wednesday

W75. Wednesday Study 1

W76. Wednesday Study 2

"There was a blue one and a white and a pink one, and with all of them in his right palm he tossed them into his mouth jerked his head back and swallowed them with one sip of water. He felt dead inside. He felt like he must leave this place. It was a terrrible state to be in. A pergutory. Everyone was out of their minds here. Even the nurses seemed mad to him. He must leave this place, as it was not a place where a human being could survive. This place, with it's unbearable, cold, dark and deathly wait. There was always the wait. Waiting for the next meal, waiting for the medication, and waiting for his treatment. If he wanted to talk to the doctor they would make him wait, and he would stand outside the door, without moving sometimes for upto three or four hours, till he felt that he was positively going to collapse from the anticipation. There was no real external stimuli. There was one chess set that they kept, but unfortunately no one else had a clue of how to play and he could not indulge in even this simple pleasure. So he sat staring out the window, into the dreary mounds and the gray sky. Everything had lost its color in this place. He thought that perhaps he had gone color blind, for even the food seemed as though it was gray..."

- page 2

"An email! There it was. Right there. A new message. How exciting, but he would not open it immediately. He would not even look at who it was from. He would savor the moment. Who could it be from? He quickly got up from his chair and walked to the far end of the room, to the kitchennete and began to prepare some coffee. This was an occasion almost to celebrate, that is how excited he became about the email. As he waited for the water to boil, he began pacing up and down in front of the sink, with one hand on his chin, contemplating who the sender of the email could be. Would it be a distant relative, or perhaps an old friend? It might even be an ex-girlfriend he thought to himself. What a delightful surprise to receive an email on a Friday. Perhaps it was someone asking him if he would like to a party in the evening? No, no, he must not get carried away. No one had invited him out for years, and there was no reason to do so all of a sudden. Who would ask him now? Or would it be? It wasn't out of the realm of possibility. If they were to ask him out now he would of course have to refuse. It was simply out of the question, he would say. It was not possible, he would say..."

- page 1

"He then averted his eyes to the side of the bed where she lay, breathing softly and he felt empty inside when he looked at her; he started to feel within him a deep hatred for himself well up, but he still lay there staring at her and he had always thought that his loneliness would suddenly go away if he had someone next to him, but he was so lonely. So what if he had someone to share breakfast with? He was still going to die alone. He must breathe alone, live his own life, no matter who was next to him. He touched her and it was a cold touch and she woke up and turned towards him and smiled..."

- page 2

"Room is completely dark. Buzzing sound of electricity.

Turn it off! Turn it off!(screaming)

Spotlight on a single hand appears. Only the hand can be seen and not the whole arm. The hand reaches for a switch and turns it off.

Everything is dark again.

(In a whispering voice(female)):

But they mustn't find out..whatever happens they mustn't find out. It will be the end of me. They mustn't find out..."

- page 1

"In my dream I am 12 years old again. I am walking across a river bed. I can hear the soothing sound of water slowly drift across the rocks. I feel the cool smooth surface of a large stone over my bare feet. The full moon shines grandly in the clear starlit sky. Over to my side is a large dense forest. But nothing stirs. No insects, no birds or wild animals. No leaves shuffle and no branches crackle. Only the sound of the calm water can be heard. I feel like I am running away from something. Or perhaps I am moving towards something. I try to think where it is I was going, but cannot remember. I keep walking. The river meanders up and down the valley..."

- page 1

"I often walked this way home from school. With my brother by my side holding my hand. To make sure nothing happened to me. It wasn’t too far. Just a few streets; maybe a couple of blocks away. I look at my hands and they are small again. Not wrinkled and calloused with the burden of the years. I look up at my brother. I feel safe. In my mind I sing a tune and it comes out as a light murmur. And now the sun is already setting. There is a donkey tied to a pole lying on the ground on its belly, and waving its tail about to keep the flies away. A woman sits on a chair close to a group of boys playing cricket. She is knitting away a scarf of some sort. Knitting seems like it should calm your nerves. She looks moderately calm and yet there is a slight twitch in her fingers that betrays some sort of restlessness. I get the feeling that if her knitting equipment was taken away from her she wouldn’t really know what to do with her fingers. They would be a useless extension of a useless limb, controlled by a useless mind..."

- page 2

"Why did you kill the dog? He asks, and as he says it I see some blood appear on the windscreen. I open the door and step out. There is indeed a dead dog lying in front of the car. Suddenly the boy opens his door, jumps out and runs into the worn-out building. I see him race up a flight of stairs. I begin to chase him, but the mist thickens as I enter the building. There is a thick fog that engulfs the rooms and I can't make out much more than my hands directly infront of my face. I start to scream “Boy, where are you?” but there is no response. I keep moving ahead. It seems that each time I enter a room it has changed and I begin to lose my sense of orientation. I am not sure where to find him, nor how to get out of the building. It is a maze with no escape. I extend my hands out and reach for the nearest wall. I begin to follow it. Surely it must lead to a window or a door I think, but instead I soon reach a staircase that leads downstairs..."

- page 2

"In my dream I am brushing my teeth in a toilet, in front of a misty mirror. When I wipe the mirror with my hands, I see the face of another person looking back. I begin to think about where I am and especially the question of who I am begins to vex me. When I exit the toilet, I find myself in a hospital. A nurse is pushing a wheeled bed with a patient whose head is shaved. She has some kind of drip attached to her arm. The patient tells the nurse to stop. She looks at me. The look in her eyes confirms to me that she is dying and that she knows that she is dying. She asks me to come closer and reaches out her hand to touch mine. I move my ear close to her mouth. She whispers in a hoarse voice.

'Don't feel bad for me,' she says, then she stops and coughs a few times. 'You are the one who is dying.'..."

- page 1

"I rush in the other direction and see a tower where there is a life guard. I ask for his help and tell him I have found a baby in the sand. He seems concerned and says he will help out, but first I must do something for him. I ask him what it is and he tells me to beg him on one knee. I am rather confused by this but kneel down on one knee and ask him again. He tells me that I must mean it, so I try again. This time he is convinced and says he will come with me. We go back together but when we reach there is no one there any longer..."

- page 2

"I once saw a man who had hung himself. It was my father. I was twelve then. It was a Saturday. I remember the day, but I don't remember the date. It was a Saturday because we had not been in school that day, and on Sunday we would visit our grandmother. I had been playing out in the garden with my brother when we heard a bloodcurdling scream. It was difficult to tell that this was a human scream. It was the sort that animals make when they are being slaughtered. Yet, I immediately attributed this scream to my mother. I am not sure how I knew it. I will never forget that sound. It infiltrated through to my very bones and I felt a slight shudder. I looked at my brother. He too locked eyes with me. We both stood there. There was nothing that permeated my thoughts. It was only the remnants of the sound that echoed in my mind, but everything was extremely silent. There was such a serious expression on his face. The ball was lodged underneath his foot. The blades of grass had not been cut and I don't remember any distinct shadows, yet when I think about the day, I have a picture of a clear sky...."

- page 1

"I have always felt a certain satisfaction at having completed a particular project. It gives me no greater pleasure than to look upon a work of art that is mine."

- complete

"The boy, who could not have been more than sixteen years old, but looked rather mature for his age, so mature in fact that there were the hints of wrinkles that already formed on his forehead, perhaps due to the excessive time he spent out in the sun, holding a bucket in one hand and a rag in the other, a dripping filthy rag, a rag that had perhaps outlived its purpose for it refused to absorb any water, yes, this same boy with bucket in one hand and a filthy rag in the other approached the car with a determined look, dipped the rag thrice in the bucket- it had to be precisely thrice: one, two three; thrice was sufficient- and even though the man sitting behind the wheel made no eye contact, he went straight for the windshield and layered it with a thin film of foamy dirt, and in that split second the windshield vipers were turned on, the man opening the door just slightly ajar, began to scream, away with you, away with you, and the boy unperturbed, turned around and started moving towards the next car, the driver of who immediately started wagging his finger to let the boy know that he would not tolerate any nuisance, yet he approached the car, a black toyota carolla, dipped the rag thrice in the bucket, one, two, three times, and with a splash began wiping the windshield, unaware that the man in the black toyota carolla had jumped out of the car and was standing behind him, arm raised, ready to beat the boy, so he did not see that first slap approaching the back of his head, but as the blow landed, and it was a hard blow, his neck jerked forward and his face struck the glass, leaving him rather stunned, for he had not seen it coming..."

- page 1

"...He enters and it is a large mostly empty room with a table in the center of the room where an old man, clean shaven and with ruffled hair is seated. He goes to the table, each step echoing loudly across the chamber.

'I see you have come here for your application to be considered a human.'

'Yes.'

'Take a seat.'

The lamp points towards his face, so that he has to squint and can only see the light and not the face of the old man clearly.

'Well I have gone through your application, and made a decision.'

'You have lived a sorry life till now. Not much to be considered.'

'But father, I have done all to please you. In fact I have always lived my life in such a way, so that you could be proud of me.. but it seems as though no matter what I have done you will never be proud.'

'Nonsense, I am not your father!'

'I have worked hard all my life. You can never be pleased with the way I am. You have never accepted me.'

'Yours has been a most despicable existence, neither providing hope, nor sensing any despair for your fellow human beings.'

'But I tried! his lips begin to quiver. I have lived a good life.'

'You have only ever cared about yourself. Never did you pay attention to anyone but yourself.'

Daud curls up on the ground, burying his face in his knees and covers his ears from the sounds and sheltering his eyes.

'I hereby relieve you of all your former duties. You are no longer fit to be a human being.'

And with that he stamps the application with a big block, the sound of which echoes across the chamber.

In red letters it is written 'DISQUALIFIED'."

- page 7

"She walked to the well and started pumping out some water in a bucket. She heard a cry come from the well and stopped pumping.‘Save me.’ it said in a soft voice. ‘Save me.’ And she was rather surprised by this shrill distant voice. She peered down the well but her eyes in their old age were not as sharp as they had once been and she only saw darkness. ‘Save me’ the voice said again, and she decided that she would go down the well. She took off her slippers and using all her might, climbed over the wall and started to go down the ladder. With each step it got cooler and the sounds from the outside world were replaced by a dull monotonous wind that sweeped from within to the outside. She kept stopping after every few rungs to catch her breath and look down but the well was quite deep. She decided to pause for a few minutes. Her eyes attuned to the atmosphere and now she could make out her surroundings. The well had become quite wide and it was made of hard stone all around. It glimmered at this depth and gave off a blue shine. She didn’t remember ever having climbed down the well, but she thought that she must have, since the memory of these stones were etched in her mind."

- page 2

"Yes... yes, that is correct. The boy was found right there, in the playground, in front of our house. But, I had nothing to do with his death. May I remind you that he was found not by me, but by Ayesha, the daughter of Abdul Karim who lives next door, while she was putting the clothes out to dry in the early morning. He had hung himself with a rope tied to the swings; a most pitiful way to die. Her screams had echoed across the courtyard. I still remember the scene quite vividly. The morning fog had yet to settle as I scrambled out and there the boy hung. His eyes were popping out his distended blue face, as though Shaitan himself had gripped his forsaken soul and embodied him. And even though the villagers had begun to gather, there was a lingering seclusion that encompassed the atmosphere."

- page 1

"I make my way into the condensed congested room, the furniture laced with concoctions of all kinds of various crumbs, dirt and grime. I have entered the lodgings of that maniac, Sherlock Holmes. On the walls are scattered hysterical writings in ink, and bits of paper are glued to the ceiling, depicting equations of geometry befitting knowledge of secondary school education. The curtains are drawn and only a few rays of the midday sun seep through, which creates an even gloomier ambiance as specks of dust glimmer in the thickened atmosphere. On the far end of the blurred room, his arm chair faces towards a wall, and a cloud of smoke emerges from the other side. I clear my throat so as to make my presence known, but nothing stirs. He is coiled up in a fetal position I imagine, so that he is not visible from where I am standing.

'Sherlock..'

I hear some papers shuffle. I take a few steps closer. There is no movement. Then all of a sudden, in a rage of fury, the man jerks upwards from behind his chair, steps on the cushion and jumping over, dashes towards me and grabs me by the collar.

'Do you know what this is?'

There is a maddening look in his eyes, which is transfixed on my mouth, as if he is anticipating the words that I am about to say. His eyebrows are slightly raised, and his mouth open in an 'O' shape as if he is sounding the word 'Nooo' in his head. I am slightly taken aback and my eyes wander down. There, right next to his cheek, in his right hand he holds a stick.

'Uhh, no.'

And as I say it, he mimics the word simultaneously, slowly and deliberately, bobbing his head up and down.

'Allow me to elucidate the situation then, Dr. Watson.'

I am not a doctor, I have told him this countless times. Yet, he insists on calling me doctor. I am yet a graduate student in training, and have taken up, for my thesis a case-study of the neurotic mind..."

- page 1

"There was a strange crazed look in those morbid eyes as he lifted that stick, stretching his arm fully behind his back. It went through a full one-eighty before descending upon my friend. The stick made a swishing sound as the echo of the final thwack reverberated across the hall. I winced. Rumor had it, that the man had been a tennis player in his youth, which doesn't seem altogether out of the question. His face was rather calm, but I think I noticed the slightest hint of a smile appear as that stick cast another heavy blow. He seemed to be getting more excitable with each sordid stroke."

- page 1

"Yesterday, I overdosed by ingesting thirty Zopiclone 7.5 mg sleeping pills with some alcohol. I drank three bottles of beer, and had decided not to eat the entire day so that the pills could be easily absorbed into my body. I began to feel drowsy and then I thought about covering my head with a plastic bag and tied it with a shoelace, since the chance of a successful suicide nearly doubles this way, I had read somewhere. But the oxygen from the hermetic bag began to suffocate me while I was still quite cognizant and the urge to breathe over-powered my mind so that while gasping for breath, I was forced to remove the bag. I perhaps should have timed it better so that it was a larger bag and I had enough oxygen to last me before I fell unconscious. What went through my mind is difficult to say. There was a bit of panic. Should I call someone perhaps? I thought it better just to fall into a deep sleep."

- page 1

W191. Heroine Addict

O122. Faisal Mosque

w198. untitled

"Traditionally, the manipulation of social and cultural environment has played a vital role in the suppression of individual freedom for women in Pakistan. Associated with this repression is a form of blissful and acquiescent servitude, whereupon many women are compliant to be represented as second class citizens. This form of consent is deeply ingrained within the infrastructure of society. The suggestion for example, that women are not as competent in mathematical and scientific ability, comes not as a consequence of mental limitations but rather emerges from this presupposition of inferiority, which results in a certain kind of intellectual and emotional conditioning. It is indeed regretful that this still needs explaining today..."

- page 1

"... Even if we could vote on many issues, the argument would still be flawed. Take the instance of a simple case, say a community is in support of enslaving a minority in a particular state. Under absolute democracy there is no general conception why such a ballot should be unconstitutional. Therefore, it must first be acknowledged that a majority rule is not always right nor just, even if 99% of a population wishes to enslave the remaining 1%, there must be some other means to establish that it is unreasonable to do so. Enslaving a population seems like a rather harsh constitution, but in reality, is no harsher than many of the legislations and rules that are in place today. There are many cases against democracy, which I will not venture into. My general view is that if people in a society are reasonable then there is no real need for external governance, and if the people are unreasonable then a democratic government is meaningless. At its very best the State would be a peaceful mafia who has established the means of ruling over a group of people, who willingly forgo a fraction of their earnings in order to be allowed to continue their means of livelihood. At its very worst a democratic State is the kind we see in Pakistan today..."

- page 2

"...When it would rain I would lie in my tent with a few candles burning just staring at the patterns the drops would make on the fabric. The ground beneath would become softer and colder. There was something disconcerting about knowing that I would have to step out into a puddle of mud. Somehow, even if it wasn't raining, my shoes were always muddy and grassy. No matter how much I tried to stomp my feet, by the time I would get to the institute my shoes were full of grass. What struck me most was how cold one feels when there is no apartment to warm you up in. If you are spending entire nights out, the cold somehow seeps into your bones, and remains there. I would wear a jacket, even if I was inside, since the chill from the night lingered on. Eventually, I had to find proper housing when winter began to roll around, otherwise it might have become unbearably cold..."

- page 1

Vismarkt

Watercolor - Vismarkt

W22. Untitled

W25. Untitled

W26. Untitled

W27. Untitled

"...It was in my 30th year that I found myself in a mental asylum in Stockholm while pursuing my graduate studies. I had been there before but this time I was to stay longer. I had overdosed on prescribed anti-depressants and been taken in for observation for a few weeks before the new medication began to take effect. The first few nights I was alone in my room, hardly venturing out other than during smoking hours and meals. I kept to myself and furthermore I had asked a friend of mine to bring my paints and books to me so that I could pass the days painting and reading. I was not given any sleeping medication which I have developed a dependance upon and so hardly slept for two or three hours for these days. I would start my day at five, with a one-hour work out that consisted of push-ups, sit-ups and ab-crunches. The first smoking time was at 6am and I would be there so the nurse could accompany us smokers outside. Visiting times were from 1 pm to 8 pm and sometimes I had a visitor which was a great change from the daily routine of nothingness. We weren't allowed to have any kinds of chargers either for safety purposes so we had to hand in our phones every time we had to charge it, which I found to be a bit of a headache. We didn't have access to the internet so I could not work from there (since most of my work is theoretical and computational in nature and can be done with a laptop)..."

- page 1

W192. Meeting beginning separation

View of Tirich Mir