Come on in, it's Kool inside

I have set out to ruin everything. At least, I've set out to set out to ruin everything. Most of it has fallen apart anyhow. One way or the other, it'll all be gone. The only question is, what is it going to be like afterwards?

A few months ago, I was sitting on one of the small stools in the kitchen, the ones that make you feel like a little child again, waiting for the water to boil. I was making tea for my dad and thought how cool a feeling that was, to be home again, doing home-things in a warm kitchen where everything was as familiar as it was leisurely. But later, in a different city, in a place just called home, a place that I have to remember by numbers - fourth right turn, third house on the left - a place I have to recognize by signboards and which I sometimes pass over in the dark because I miss the gate, a place where almost-strangers let you in when you ring the bell; I waited the same wait, standing and waiting for the water in a newer pateeli . It wasn't warm at all; it was just a cheerless, empty, disconsolate feeling. It made me feel low to even think of another place as home. Eating in alien plates, drinking in alien glasses. I never learnt to memorize the house number or the telephone n...

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The Law school just started, and they're making a new school of Physics and Engineering and what not. They're having such a difficult time trying to fit 3000 people in here that they've overlooked the most fundamental issue: the bloody name of the university! Pokerface (staring at the logo on the cover of her Contemporary Philosophy pack): Why is it still called the Lahore University of Management Sciences? They're going to have, what, Physics, and Chemistry, and (quizzical look) Biology? Decaf (shaking head): No, not biology. But yeah, all those other things. Pokerface: Well, where's management in that? Decaf: There isn't. PF: Well, what're they going to call it? LUS? Lahore University of Sciences? LUDS? Lahore University of Different Sciences? Decaf just sits there thinking while PF goes through LUAS (Lahore University of All kinds of Sciences), trying to save good ol' LUMS with (the ingenious) Lahore University of Many Sciences, or even . . . . ....

You know, when things go wrong everyone finds their own reason. Not an explanation - that's the logical thisishowithappened and thisiswhyithappened . The reason , the illogical, unprovable, but significant happening(s) that we thinked caused something to go wrong. "This wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been so . . " and "I'm sure it's retribution for . . ". None of it is sure to be true, but more importantly, none of it is ever false. Everybody feels there's a reason that it went wrong, and we're all convinced that our slight was important. And see, none of us ever believe that it wouldn't have happened without our reason . It would have. But our reason is why we deserve it, why we're not lowlifes or criminals but just people who've lost our way, people who made a mistake and are being punished. God humbles us all, sometimes quickly, sometimes late and sometimes very very late. Feeling helpless ( meeting people . . ) is eas...

Walking out into colddarkwinternights, stumbling while you're climbing footpaths, being slightly, strangely short of breath - your head starts spinning the way it only can when it's dark and a little lonely. You stare straight ahead trying to maintain this . . this dignity that walking alone at night in the dark seems to rip away from you. I tend to walk briskly but that's not the point - the dignity doesn't drain away because you feel like you have to walk fast. It's just that the space seems infringed upon if you walk in the quite night. The people on the sidewalk? They're superior- they either ignore you or stare through you with disdain. You haven't interrupted anything but you still feel like it's more theirspace than yours. Or nightspace. Or anyspace but yours. Sometimes this cat roams the dark alley which the searchlights can't quite invade, and sometimes the orange glow of the construction workers' lights sets off some memories that are...

Temporary Lull in Creative Thinking Originally uploaded by hohenmagnolie . My desktop from 'A' levels - it's from the old, old, old Radiohead website.

Winning your first game of (online, not-for-real) poker, on a pair of dealt tens, no less. How cool is that?

Philosophy is personal. No wait, philosophizing is personal. It’s not supposed to be twenty people standing and nodding their heads, with little private conversations proceeding on the side – private conversations, maybe, about who saw what on TV last night. It’s not supposed to be people piping in with fucking trite observations with smug smiles on their faces. Either they’ve thought about something simple like that – there was a video of a woman with no hands, and she did about everything with her feet – for the first time in their lives, or they’re just so fucking stupid that they actually have some reason in their head to go and whore out their thoughts, with a smugness that’s even more infuriating. I can understand someone making a hesitant, impassioned speech about something that they feel strongly about. Smugness in discussing something motivational and inspiring? That’s about as dumb as you could get.

When my cousin Asad was born 5 years ago, my chacha wrote him a letter. A proper, go-to-the-post-office-and-add-stamps letter. It was so beautiful that I just smiled, thinking how lucky Asad was to have gotten something like this; thinking how lucky he'd feel, when he'd grow up and have this letter for him, a testament to everyone's adoration, his innocence and all that hope . Chacha wrote two more letters, and they were equally wonderful, so I'm posting them all. Click on the thumbnails for larger images, and I'll try and transcribe them soon, in case they're easily readable. I just wonder, how will they affect him as say, a ten-year old, if they could affect me, with all my cynicism? It must be such a warm feeling.

It felt like there was a lake there, almost. At night the windows full of white light were reflected in the water and it felt like I had a lake-front room, with a lake-front view, for just a day or two. This morning:

National Geographic's "The Photographs" had a picture of forked lightning that was titled "Nature's Most Spectacular Special Effect". Their picture must have had 15 forks and this one has only one. It's even blurry. But I took it and it feels like the first time I've 'captured' something, and so it's here.

Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death! Virginia Woolf

(Click here for the original picture) Wouldn't you want to drive along this road?

Are there deadlines in fourth grade? At that time homework left over for after ten o' clock was a taboo. There were phone curfews, some people slept early, others did their homework right after reaching home, and I admit I've done it in school if someone was late picking us up. Calling a friend to ask a particularly difficult question at eleven in the night was outrageous. You could tell it was - your parents thought so, their parents thought so, they thought so and you thought so. Eleven! What did you do the other six hours you had to yourself? That's what everyone asked implicitly, always implicitly because the question spoken aloud was always about how long it would take, when you would sleep. I remember calling a friend at six - six! - in the morning, to tell him excitedly how I'd solved the question we couldn't understand last night - this was seventh grade - and setting off a whole chain of calls that ended with people hurriedly scribbling homework before clas...

Light the sky and hold on tight the world is burning down I don't post lyrics as a rule, but this just came at the right time.

There's something with driving that I'm always hard pressed to define - when I do, it's always cliched, never being able to convey the meaning I want to. Everyday, I see the gorgeous orange lights curving their way across the wide empty toll road, and I can't help but wish I had a car to take to the road. A car not just to drive, not just to speed across the tarmac, or to hear the air rush by, but just to set me free. There it is again. I suppose I had to try. I once drove as an escort for my cousin. She is a naturally fast driver, and she was in a hurry that day - I was only there because it was late and she had two small children with her. She drove really fast, but never in an attempt to lose me in traffic. I think that, given the choice, I'd never have been a fighter pilot - I'd choose to be the escort for a bomber, or some important plane that had to be protected. Like a lioness protecting her cubs: never the aggressor, but always defending staunchly. I fol...

There are black and white mono bands on my desktop. They're beautiful. Black and white spirals that make pretty bands when they're large, and go deeper and deeper inside the picture until they look like faraway monolithic machines with several legs and minimal intelligence. The 'legs' look like giant gyrating pipes that spawn more and more legs as they go down. And if you look close enough, there are diffused little circles of black and white. It's all rather pretty, actually. And artificial - it's too smooth a black and too smooth a white. If you stare deeply, you might get the sense that you're looking at something which you could encounter ordinarily. But there's always this sense of artificiality holding you back. Not so with black and white movies. I once glanced up from the screen and saw my yellow wall with the UHU-tacks from old stickers, the marks of old scotch tape, the dust-covered connecting cradle on the desk and the colours, all the tacky ...