So, its april now and it has been quite a while since I have posted any new blog. My last two blogs, relating to my personal life and the important people in it, received mixed feedback. Some people found them to be deep and the others found them to be hysterical. Text book “Usman Khalid” eh?
Well in both cases I hope I gave you your time’s worth.
Religion is something that gives meaning to life. Everything in life cannot be realized in the cloths of logic. Where logic stops working, that is where the magic begins. I bet no scientist can explain how Beethoven, a deaf person went down in history as one of the greatest musicians. For Beethoven, music was something that he never apprehended with the senses that he had, but he had faith that it existed and he dedicated his life time in the pursuit of it.
I see atheism spreading around me. it has taken over our society in ways that we cannot imagine. We do associate ourselves with islam to get social acceptance, but my question is do we really believe in it? Because if hell is real and heaven is certain, if past is gone and future is un promised, all we are left with is this moment. Are we spending this moment in the pursuit of heaven? We hardly say any prayers during the week, we have millions of jokes to crack on Mullahs, thousands of songs to listen to, hundreds of party friends and yes a career. Get a job, marry a girl, raise two beautiful children and then die in peace, is that all to life? life that begins with a pumping heart inside the womb of a mother! Life that in itself is a miracle!
I spent years in the pursuit of God, I studied Bible, Torah, Vedas and some other books to some extent and thought about their philosophies! I came to the conclusion that God is too great to take the form of his creation.
If you can visualize God, if you can give Him a physical appearance, if you can understand His being, if you can bound Him in the limitations of time and space than that entity cannot be God.
God is that beauty that cannot be explained in words, painted in colors or heard in the symphony of life.
God can only be felt, in the depth of your despair, in the moment when everything stops for a while and you are surrounded by your demons and your devils and they are laughing at you. You are helpless and you cannot do anything about it. Everything that you believed in has been wronged. The fears of your life are your realities and you are down there, broken and lost! That is when you feel God. Someone once told me that a broken heart is where God lives and it is so true.
When the day comes, we try to escape it! We run to our allies, but they are laughing at our helplessness! We run to the people we rejected because we were way out of their leagues, but they can’t hear us and when all doors are closed we run to God and we ask him “God, have you forsaken me? Don’t you know that I need you?” and He says you chose this; I called you five times everyday! “come to success”, you didn’t respond and you were so sure about your desires that you forgot me and now your desires are your biggest nightmares!
Whatever you do, wherever you run He still forgives you when He wants because He knows that you are weak, He pulls you up from the gutters and makes you the best, He takes you from the throne and rots you in those same gutters when He wishes to.
He is Allah, He is the reason why whatever is, is!
I love Him, and whenever I think the impossible, whenever I pull up my socks to fight the odds, I look up to the heavens and I say “Oh Allah! Here we are again, back to square one! Usman Khalid the same old loser and You my great Allah! I know I am not the best, I know I have made a lot of mistakes, I know I haven’t been purely loyal to you but please don’t let me fall, please don’t let me fall!”
HOW I MET HOPE
I met hope when I was 11. I played a character in “Julius Cesar”, at a function of my school. Somewhere on that stage, hope was there but I was too naïve to grasp it back then. As a result, one of the most important aspects of my life was right in front of me and I let it go.
I lost hope back then and after 6 years I met her again. 2009 was a year in which I was shattered physiologically with my OCD problems. I was going nowhere with my life and I had a lot of figuring out to do. I went to hope and I asked her “Can we be friends? “And she denied my request. Probably she didn’t believe that I was good enough to be “hopeful” and rightly so, I had a lot of figuring out to do….
I travelled a wonderful journey without hope for the next two years. I was in great shape that summer, when I ran into hope again. I was surrounded by hope through the toughest of examinations back then. We trained together, we fought together and we shared some of the most memorable moments of our lives. Hope became my friend, actually hope became my family.
One day hope came to me in 2012 and told me that it had to go away, far far away. I wanted to stop her, but I knew I can’t do that. Probably it was the last time I saw hope. She went away, leaving me alone to make wrong decisions in life and suffer the consequences. I found desire. I thought that now this is my life and well hope…. Its an old story now.
Life is funny but fate is even funnier. Earlier in that year life took hope away from me and later that year fate took me to England and guess what, I met hope again. I spent one of the best days of life with her that fall and when I was coming back from reading to Paddington, I was at my gate and for the last time I looked in hope’s eyes. They had a lot of pain in them that was never expressed and above it was a thank you note, thank you usman for coming.
In 2013 Desire made me abandon hope forever. I wasn’t allowed to look back at her ever again. I was weak, I was vulnerable and the demons that I had created were ready to bring me down. It was a dark dark night. I called upon hope and I told her I need you. I don’t know what is at the other end of this tunnel, help me out here and then suddenly I asked her aren’t you disappointed in me? I abandoned you for desire and she said those words that will always echo in my head “I am very angry at you but at this moment I know you need me so we will settle our scores later tell me all your problems and lets figure them out.”
My relation with hope stretches over ten years. Hope is not my lover, hope is not my obsession actually hope is something that defines my entire journey until today. Hope is something that guides me through the toughest of my times. Hope is something that I take for granted and I will always take it for granted. Hope is something that is always supposed to be there no matter how hard it gets. Hope is something that must always understand. May Allah always keep hope there for me, in the best of ways and even when I am 60 (if I get there that is) and I see nothing ahead but death if I can see her face, talk to her and recall all the journeys that we have been on together, all the obstacles that we have jumped over and all the tests we have been put through over time it will make me hopeful, hopeful that what has to come will insha Allah be better than what has past in a world with no time or space limitations, a world with no desire, a world with no pain, a world with me and my hope!
Usman, everthing is going to be alright
I met her at a debate competition. She was different. So not like the girls that I came across in my life and trust me I have seen some pretty messed up girls. She cared, she loved and she respected not only me but also her values and most importantly her own integrity.
There is a certain trend here. You meet a girl, you talk to her once or twice and the next thing you know is that you were “the missing link” of her life. The missing twilight to the night of all her problems.
I have heard this so many times in my life “Usman! I was so lonely before you came in my life. I love you so much and you are my best friend please always be there”. So many times I have been on the receiving end of this sentence. As you grow old you realize the reality behind these typical lines and you laugh at the fact that u believed in the nonsense. Years later, When you are thinking and laughing on all those times, suddenly u stop and a smile glorifies your face and your eyes sparkle like diamonds for a mere few seconds. Because in that chest of memories you accidently touched something real and meaningful. The words were similar but you just know, the person who said them wasn’t.
She was different! She didn’t use superficial fake sentences. She didn’t use similes in her texts. She was very dry, rude and afraid of judgment.
At the same time She was a revelation. A new type to her kind. I wanted to know her better. She was a phenomenon for me. I spent nights talking to her trying to figure out what she actually was. I would end up talking about myself or giving her a lecture on “how to live”. She would listen to my non sense quietly. No comments no questions.
It was weird, she was weird, but somehow it felt right.
She became one of my best friends. Who would have known that in the years to come our friendship would really be tested by time. It will win against adversities. It will get lost somewhere in the ocean of foolish desires and rise again. And then…..as all good things do, it will die down leaving me with nothing but respect and love for this weird girl.
Whenever I am down there, sad and depressed trying to run away from the images of my past. Trying to focus on the challenges that the future withholds and trying to play my A game in the present moment. I hear her words in the silence of the cold foggy nights of February.
“Usman, everthing is going to be alright!”
My friend, the old pathan!
i experienced a very unique thing today. i woke up late, wasn’t really in the mood for university so i decided lets have a nice saturday afternoon all to myself with some “usman” time. i was browsing for watches over the internet when a thougth struck me that i didnt have enough money to buy a nice caterpillar. but i so wanted a watch so i buckled myself up for a tour de streets hoping to find a diamond in a mine of coal posessed by some weird pathan!
from one stall to another i browsed and browsed in my attempt to find the perfect watch! and then finally i met him!
i dont know his name but he was a very old man, i didnt really notice him when i walked up to his stall as i was too preoccupied with my watch obsession! i was searching and searching and suddenly i grabbed a watch placed somewhere down a pile of shiny meaningless pieces of rubber,leather and metal.
and there she was, a black swiss army design, so simple so elegent. it was like falling in love again. i was feeling the watch when the old man came to me and said “hey, take your time browse all that you want i’ll be back after lunch” and he walked away leaving me with his stall.
i had time, so i decided to hang around for a while and see if i can find another peach. suddenly a man walks up to me with his child and says “bhai koi achi ghari to dikhana”! i felt embarrased and i really unloaded on him. he said okay we will be back when the real stall keeper comes back and started walking away. the old timer was watching all this from a distance. he said to me “hey show them some watches” and this time surprsingly i wasn’t offended at all. infact it got me thinking, what is wrong in being someone who has a small stall in the street? why was i rude to the person who miss took me for being the stall keeper. infact, it could have been a great oppurtunity for me to experience a different life style right there! i felt embarrased for my actions.
i sat down on the old man’s chair waiting for him to finish his lunch. as i waited i analysed my new watch. he called upon me again and asked me to join them for lunch. i polietly refused.
i decided if anyone walks up to me asking for a watch i will be really calm and show him/her watches as if i was the stall keeper.
i waited and waited but no one came. the old man finished his lunch and came back. i was waiting for him with money in my hands. he looked at me and said “hey if you dont have the money just take the watch its alright” and that right there was magic. i paid him, really didnt push him to a discount as per usual and walked away with a smile on my face.
it is sometimes the smallest thing, a smile, a few words, an apology or a simple pat on the back that can take an ordinary person and make him special. for me, his final words made him my friend! a friend that i will probably never see again but as long as i have the watch i dont think i’ll forget him!
usmankhalidnain 