Politically Incorrect

There are few contemporary personalities that you grow fond of regardless of all the other opposing ideas about them. Raza Kazim is one of those personalities that I grew fond of, because of his work in Mentology; particularly, because of coming in contact with his works through Sanjannagar Institute and through Andreas and Birgitte in the last two three years. I was forwarded a one page summary (titled ‘Mentology in a Nutshell’) of Raza Kazim’s work and I have to admit that just reading it in distressing times has helped me come out of that state. It’s not magic; it about understanding your mind’s workings. Here I copy ‘Mentology in a Nutshell’:

• The standpoint of Mentology is nothing other than enabling an individual to reduce the contradictions and conflicts that he is facing today and increase his pleasures and happiness. This is the basic purpose of it. Any quantum consciousness and string theory I have done is for this purpose.
• If we take an overview of the contemporary state of human life we can see two levels of it. On the surface we see a lot of scientific and technological progress and its continuously emerging and growing fruits in the form of new inventions, etc, while on the other hand if we look inside through the other window we see stagnation in the happiness and pleasures systems of man and growing conflicts and contradictions in his internal life, which in turn impact upon his external life. At that level man is still going round and round in circles and trying to cope with the complexity that has emerged in the wake of his growing intelligence about the outside world and his unintelligence about his internal world.
• In this context my work is nothing other than to enable man to break free from this state and if not eradicate completely at least keep reducing the element of contradictions and unhappiness in his life and increasing the quantity and quality of pleasures and happiness.
• There are three steps I think which can enable a person to move in this direction. These steps I can clearly layout now after gaining a practical experience of applying them in the Institute.
• The first step is of pushing back your pre-existing ideas about yourself and the outside world; moving away from them and replacing them with new ones. The second step is to increase your understanding and corresponding capabilities in relation to your mental processes. And the third step is to do any work at a group level in which you pursue cutting edge quality.
• Now all these steps are actually processes and not an instant formula or magic. They are a continuous process of struggle whose results will manifest after you start proceeding in that direction.
• This is the manifesto of your time. Unlike the communist manifesto I am not saying that the ultimate goal is a communist society I am only saying that it will be a continuous struggle through which you will be able to reduce the conflicts and contradictions in your life and increase both the quantity and quality of happiness and pleasure. I am not spelling out what type of a society you will make because I know that after a certain stage of proceeding in this direction you will know what type of a society you want to make and there you will have the required wisdom and the capabilities to concretize it.

There are day when you’re calling everybody on the planet, sending messages, dropping emails but nobody replies back. In the cold winter evening, you feel bad at times; real bad I mean. You feel down, left-out.

Sometimes it’s really hard describing what you want to say, and you just feel flustered without any solid reason. I hardly find music to be relaxing or soothing in such times, it even worsens the feel. Rarely you feel like really talking to people, rare even that you find it interesting. Since I’m into my own business, the time-frequency has changed. You get the impression your time-frequency is of a fly or an insect rather than a human; you feel that an event was long ago while it has just passed. Such a feel begets a certain sensation that make you shiver in horror the way you’re living your life.

The word-count for ‘feel’ in the above para is 5. Interesting.

I use the word ‘adhoc’ a lot for such living still I don’t get the courage to shut out the doors of such life on me. For a couple of years, I’d been of the view that long-term planning does not always breed results which in turn, unrealisingly of course, compelled to stop planning my life at all. Like having target in specific in life. I had to adjust and compromise a lot. Just the last night, speaking to Jakob Steiner, I realised that perhaps you should also have long-term goals. Like when making a decision, you should also consider that how you would feel about it after 5 years, and what would be subsequent results on your life in general.

Yasir[angry]mailed

Ma ji asked about lahore’s weather over phone and I said,
“kabhi kabhi andar aur bahir ka mosam kitna mukhtalif hota hai”

zabt ka ehad bhi hai, shauq ka pema’an bhi hai
ehad-o-pema’an se guzar janay ko ji chahta hai
dar itna hai kay har rag mein hai mehshar barpa!
aur sakoon aisa kay mar janay ko ji chahta hai!

Yasir[stupid]announced

“hoi takheer to kuch bais-e-takheer bhi tha”

I’m back. Almost back. Things had been out of place for some time. And I’d been getting ‘where are you?’ and ‘are you alive?’ for the whole mango season! Only that I got to read them quite late, but thankfully, mangoes are still here! Yaayyyyyyyy!

Oh yes, I’ve grown sharp teeth during all this period, so beware! No really, I mean it.

Yasir[serious]poked

Sometimes, somebody smiles at you and you feel like iss ki bateesi nikal doon! Happened to me today actually. Smile can be that cruel/sarcastic, I had never imagined before. At other times, it’s totally the opposite; you fall just by hearing someone over phone. Aamer is down these days – slightly recovered from the shock but nevertheless down – and the air is all gloomy around. Because of him, of course. We watched Rehna hai tere dil mein consecutively for two days. But the most exciting piece in the lastest happenings was the sufi night festival at Alhamra Open Air. I never thought my voice – in fact it was almost a shout – can actually break through thousands of people but how could I have left the place without requesting Abida Parveen sing my favorite tere ishq nachaya. It was fantabulous! Surreal! ‘Your love makes dance’ and I get lost!

I’m not song-type banda, but I would lament not sharing one of my all-time favorites:

Long Gone Day by Mad Season

So much blood I’m starting to drown
Runs from cold to colder
Time to time the sky’s come down
To help me lose my way
Tears and lies for answers
You and open veins, God knows I’m gone
Girl I just want you to
Come on down
Lord it’s a storm and I’m heading to fall
These sins are mine and I’ve done wrong, oh babe
Come on down
Long Gone Day
Mmmm, who ever said
We wash away with the rain
See you all from time to time
Isn’t it so strange
How far away we all are now
Am I the only one who remembers that summer
Oh, I remember
Everyday each time the place was saved
The music that we made
The wind has carried all of that away
Long gone day
Mmmm, who ever said
We wash away with the rain
So many tears I’m starting to drown
The rain in heaven’s all come down
Silver spoons affix the crown
The luckless ones are broken
Fears and lies for answers
You and open flames
God knows I’m gone
And I just want you to
Come on down, hmmm
Lord it’s a storm and I’m heading to fall
These sins are mine and I’ve done wrong
I want you to, oh, I just want you to
Come on down
I fear again, like then, I’ve lost my way
And shout to God to bring my sunny day

Yasir[wicked]researched

Life is run on ad hoc basis these days. It wasn’t the same ever, at least, when I was in Islamabad. Aamer has a wedding to attend in the beginning of next month, and I thought, in the mean time, I would take a break and go back to home for a few days. I had that on my mind for the last month or so, but things just started to deteriorate a bit. A client is coming on Friday, which means 31st; the day I was planning to leave for home. I thought, okay 1st then. And last night, Khala called in from Karachi saying that Nana ji is coming for a wedding which is scheduled on 2nd here in Lahore and would like to go to Islamabad afterwards. Now, if I go before he’s done with this shadi, I won’t be able to accompany him for Islamabad. He’s anyway too old to go alone. If I wait for him, I’ll burn to ashes. I had this visit for so long on my mind that I don’t find any compelling reason compelling enough to stop me going home on 31st. What a mess!

Yasir[stupid]sent

Out of nowhere Aamer suggested yesterday that I should get an insurance policy. The point is, I should get it while I’m young and it won’t make a dent in my pocket anyway. I reckon it just didn’t pop out of nowhere; one of our friends had a terrible accident a few weeks ago and another had an operation. I’m not sure whether it is okay to get one but anyway, he has me thinking.

AB called in about two hours ago. Everybody at home were looking at the family pictures I took in Karachi. I could hear giggles in the background. I wish to be there but nevertheless I am happy!

Our new company Proloka Pakistan have been registered while I was in Karachi. I have some big plans for that. Al Rug is doing fine at the moment, but somehow I always had the urge to do something in my own field. It’s nice staying connected to so many around. I’m getting more and more complacent by every passing day. Let-it-be type of mentality is creeping into the core. Don’t know the reason. I deem it appropriate to take over once you’re old, but now? Na-na.

I hate when people are on Government’s tail. I’d done the same a few years ago in my more public writings; bashing and bashing and more bashing. I normally avoid it now.

Today I wept after a long time. Alone as always. Helps sometimes.

Yasir[frightened]announced

Yasir[frightened]mailed

Over the weekend when I was lying before my family dentist, I was cursing myself to the core. It’s just not my type gulping those panadols and other weird tablets/syrups that leave you bitter for hours. And I hate doctors, be it dentists or whatever. They prick you where it hurts most. And he was donig it in such a dreadful way that I almost felt like knocking him out. It was ruthless of him. And then we decided to do a Root Canal Therapy instead. Only that it costs hell more than normal filling. But it didn’t hurt as much as I guessed earlier. After all, five injections are more than enough. He drilled out vein in one of the front teeth and put some paper needles – dippnig in some weird solution – into it, asking me to come back after a couple of days. But only to be told that Moi was coming back to Lahore in a few hours time. So he put temporary fills in place and now I’m destined to go back to him again to get my Root Canal Therapy completed. But one thing is sure, the medicine leaking out of the temporary fill leaves your throat bitter all the time. I’m gonna knock him over if he did anything disrespecting this time!