musaafir-e dasht

Company or more specifically suhbah is a phenomenon whose effects are difficult to describe. There is this teacher of mine who always says that 'environment is silent speech' and I always used to think how right he was... The effects and impacts are so subtle that one does not even notice how one gets transformed without noticing it ever. There are few verses by Shaykh Sa'adi (rahimahullah) that I came across in a book called, Bayt ki haqeeqat . I am compelled to write them on my blog. The poetry is extremely beautiful and rhythmic. Someone who has ever experienced such company would testify to the truth contained in the verses of this hikaayat . Gili khushbooi dar hamaam roozi Raseed az dast-e-mahboobi ba-dastam Be-oo guftam keh mushki ya 'abeeri Keh az boo-e dil-aaweez e tu mastam Be-oo gufta, man gil-e naacheez boodam Wa-leekin muddati ba-gul nashistam Jamaal-e hum-nasheen dar man asar kard Wa gar na man hamaan khaakam keh hastam [One day in a hamaam* , I g...

The road leading to the main gate of the campus. I took the picture on my way back home at around 7.30 pm, Friday. Those who know what changes this place has wrought in us, well, they can never cease to love this little walk that we take from the gate to the department and vice versa. The road that helped us define ourselves and shape our identities... The road that put us on to the path of self-discovery and led us to people to whom we owe almost everything that we have today in terms of thought, ideas, views and... Life...

The current situation of the displaced people of Swat reminded me of the following poem by Shaykh Sa'adi rahimahullah , which was there in our Persian syllabus. Although the poem is about the famine that struck Damascus - as a result of which massive devastation of life occurred -, I am able to relate it to the situation of those who have become 'displaced' within their own homeland: Chunaan qehet-saali shud ander damishq Keh yaaraan faramoosh kardand ishq (When famine struck Damascus, lovers forgot their love) Chunaan aasmaan bar-zameen shud bakheel Keh lub tar na kardand zar'ae wa nakheel (When heavens became stringent with waters, the lips of the seed and date trees remained parched) Bay-khuusheed sar chashma-hayi qadeem Namaanad aab, juz aab-e ashk-e yateem (Ancient rivers dried up; no water but that of the orphan's tears was left) Nabuudi bay-juz aah bayweh zani Agar bar shudi duudi az ruuzani (No voice except for that of the widow's rose from casements lik...

It's psycholinguistics - semantics tomorrow and I am terribly, terribly facing the problem of lack of concentration. I am reading newspapers, writing emails and see here I am on my blog too. My mind's roaming somewhere in Swat ... no in the refugee camps perhaps... and I am not able to take so many things out of my mind. This is the bigger picture. On a small scale level, another portion of my mind is roaming in some other places. I wander... I wander... And I wander... the journey seems endless....

I remember when I was a child, once going through some very old family pictures I came across a picture in which two extremely beautiful pathaan children were sitting outside a traditional shop of some household items. I remember asking my mother with great fascination as to who these kids were. She told me that when she and my father went to Swat after getting married they took the picture there. And then she started telling me about Swat - the beauty of the place itself and its inhabitants. I also remember she promised me that we will visit Swat sometime soon. A promise that she never fulfilled though. :) But the picture never ceased to fascinate me. Never. The innocence. The beauty. The carelessness. The tradition. And what not. And then came a time when we collected all those pictures in a huge plastic bag and dumped them somewhere in the store-room on the first floor. And today, another picture flooded my mind with the memories of that old picture which once fascinated me endless...

I have my TESL exam tomorrow. For the past two days I have been wrecking my brains with teaching techniques, more teaching techniques and yes... more than many teaching techniques. Huh. I really don't feel good about it. Okay, I agree there must be a lot of truth to what these techniques propose, however, I feel there is something which eludes all of them... And while reading about all these 'techniques', I am constantly being reminded of this verse by Iqbal which one our teachers also recites quite often: Woh faizan-e nazar tha ya ke maktab ki karamat thi Sikhaaye kis ne Isma'il ko aadaab-e farzandi! - Iqbal How I wish there be a 'teaching technique' that takes into account the miracles of Faizan-e Nazar...

After waking up and before settling down to study in the morning, I thought I should first have a look at today's papers. With everyone around in the house sleeping soundly (yeah it's a lazy Sunday morn), I thought this was the best time to get my hands on both the English and Urdu newspapers... ... I wasn't expecting anything 'good' to have happened but still there was a hope that something positive might have taken place. But no! Similar statements from the PM and the army personnel. Scores of people dying. Scores of them being displaced - have we ever thought what pain this little phrase Internally Displaced Refugee carries in it... ... I shook my head and opened my books with a heavy heart. Lately, I have developed a great distaste for 'discussing' things; specially the current political and military situation in the country. I feel that when we talk too much about it, we lose our ability to think and feel deeply as to all that's going on around. F...

I have always highly admired Amjad Islam Amjad's exceptional talent for composing nazm . The following is, however, what he has titled as a Na'atiya Nazm in his collection, Baarish ki Aawaaz . It is beautiful, indeed. Poets are poets because they externalise our internal feelings and thoughts by transforming them into words. And words undoubtedly are too valuable at times... Na'atiya Nazm Amjad Islam Amjad Yeh jo bay-rung si bay-aab si aati hai nazar Issi miTTi pe paRa karte thay vo noor qadam Jin ki aahaT ka tasalsul hai yeh saara aalam Jin ki khushboo mein haray rehte hain dil ke mausam Jis ki hairat se bharay rehtay hain khwabon ke nagar Vo jo ik tang sa rasta hai Hira ki jaanib! Uss ke phailaao mein konayn simaT jaatay hain Aankh mein chaaron taraf rung se lehraatay hain Paa'on khud jis ki taraf khinchte chalay jatay hain Yehi jaada hai jo jaata hai Khuda ki jaanib Kitni sadiyon se mussallat tha koi shak mujh per Apnay hone ki gav...

I just saw a picture of the janaazah of Maulana Sarfaraz Khan Safdar... and I feel overwhelmed. Not by the sight of the masses that thronged his hometown but the feeling as to how meaningful a lives some people spend... Not only their lives are so full of meaning, even their deaths are also never without it! Probably it is for such a death that Iqbal wrote: ...maut kya shae hai faqat 'aalam-e ma'ani ka safar! ****

Today when I was preparing my evening tea in the kitchen, my younger brother came in and announced the sad news of Maulana Sarfaraz Khan Safdar's ( rahimahullah ) demise. Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raaji'oon . He was a renkowned researcher, scholar, writer and a lectrurer of both Tafseer and Hadith. He was also one of the leading authorities and masters of tasawwuf. Today when he passed away, his was in his early hundreds. There goes an Arabic saying, Maut ul 'aalim, maut ul 'aalam (A knowledgeable's death is the death of a world)... One after the other these gems of knowledge and wisdom who are responsible for wroughting change, in only God knows how many lives are leaving this world. Last year it was Sayyid Nafees Shah Saheb ( rahimahullah ) and this year it is Maulana Safdar. May Allah protect those who have the light of true knowledge glowing in their hearts - the light which is transmitted in to the hearts all those who are keen to receive it. These people ne...