Come With Me

I have finally signed up to live in a parallel world of immature and unphilosophical existence of no glory. And here it begins -

Come, let's go catch a butterfly again! It's been years, we have been talking about you, me, this thing called world and the like . I am tired of it. Now, let's just be quiet again. Enough with all the drama - let's just keep it simple again.

I walked the other day under a half-lit moon. And at the end of a dream, stumbled upon two trinkets that I had sold to that gypsie woman a long time ago. A piece of your song and a bit of my dance.I found them burried under sheets of forgotten times, borrowed happinesses and layers of dust. No guitar tune, no piano playing. I just hummed those tunes to the children of this town and skipped my way home.

Some day, will you come with me to meet those orphaned dreams we left behind? Dreams that we won't chase. Dreams that lie in a baby's eyes, in the tiny hands and toothless smile. We will blow some soap bubbles and look at the world through them again. Try talking into an emptied bottle of soda and giggle at our distorted voices. We will sit on the porche and feel the wind on our faces again. Shush with all their stories of pain, love and life; we will just break some of Mom's crystal, get yelled at and run away to buy some softies again.

Will you come to catch a butterfly with me again?

A Sunday and A Chaufferur

Here is another snapshot from my life. Strangely, I do not know which category to put it in. So far, I have recorded events that have touched me. Today I speak of another one of those but one with a very different effect.

My company provides for a ride back home in case one is working late at night or over the weekend. Since my work mostly meets both the above criteria I have taken countless of such town cars home. Naturally I have met many chauffeurs who I carelessly would toss "good night"s and half-hearted "thank you"s at the end of my journey while talking over the phone. But last sunday when I climbed into the back seat of one of those black Lincolns after a short five hours of weekend work, I was relatively happy and cheerful. It was pouring and my denims were wet upto the knees. The man on the front seat turned to me and I apologized promptly for my wet clothes spoiling the car seats. He smiled and said, "no umbrella in New york?" I offered a guilty smile in return and we were on our way. He was a regular sort of a man in his late thirties. There was absolutely nothing striking about him. All I noticed was that he was wearing round "Harry Potter" kind of spectacles and he had rather heavily accented English. I couldn't quite place the accent though. Five minutes into our journey, he asked, " what do you do?" This time instead of offering some vague thing like I work for xyz firm, I said, " I work on a trading desk in this bank". He looked at me in the front mirror and said,"You are an Indian, are you not?" I smiled into the same mirror saying "absolutely". He offered, "I am from Jordan." Now that was something I couldn't have guessed in a year. I asked if he has been driving in New york for long. The lights turned green, he took a turn into the tunnel and casually said, "No, I have been US for five years but I just started driving few months ago. My wife got pregnant. I don't want her to work. So this is my extra money." I shrugged and said "Congratulations, you must be excited about the baby. So what do you do otherwise?" The answer was somewhat unsettling. He responded in his same plain, unmodulated voice, "I am a PhD student in Finance". I mean, come on!! FINANCE???? Of all the things!! Suddenly, I was feeling like a complete idiot. I attempted lamely to cover the damage and said, " Ah, that's fantastic." ....Nah, couldn't help myself and blurted - "but why?" He smiled weakly and said " I am from Jordan, I speak arabic and my first name on my resume is Usman. We don't get paid too well in our country. I wanted my wife to live better than that, so I came here to do my masters. I finished 8th in my class. Then 9/11 happened and I kept applying to every firm in New york that was even remotely related to Finance. At first for front line positions, then for operations, technology anything. But every one said they didn't have a position for me when my friends kept getting accepted by the same people. One after another, every one of them till I couldn't bear getting a beer with them and looking at their faces and feeling what a loser I am. So I decided to go back to school, get a PhD - besides, my professors were the only people who knew me, had seen me work and didn't think I could blow up the faculty building. My wife started working too and it's not that bad, you know. " He put the breaks and stopped under my building, turned around and said, "Enjoy the rest your weekend, you are way too young to spoil weekends at work". As I started towards the elevator, I still did not how to react. And all my life they taught me, what's in a name. I trully wished , wished for him, it is not that bad!

Antispetic Beauty

These are words from a Felt's song called " Crumbling the antispetic beauty". The song has no particular relevance here, but those were the only words that kept coming to me every time I attempted writing about this beautiful city called Montreal. Have you ever felt that there are categories of beauty? I suppose what I am referring to is what one feels within while in view of certain spectacle. At times some things can be so beautiful that it's intimidating. I have felt exaulted, inspired, humbled, breathless and even morose at different occasions with various forms of beauties that I have chanced upon. But this one was, you know, more like ... calm; so assured and content in its prettiness that had an effect that was almost "healing". Unlike my trendy, gorgeous, runway girl like New york which would give you a high-five and a wink, this city kissed me welcome - soft and elegant like a composed and happy lady in her settled household. It's queer how most of us are so busy with everything around us that we learn to forget what hurt - certainly helpful for self defense in the mad rush, i suppose. But I feel , that is why most of us don't heal. We are like fractured postcards held together by carelessly put cello tape and good for us, that flies! And then, there are few things, people, places that are so innocently beautiful that unknowingly, one breaths, slows the pace, makes peace and heals. In this city, I was cold [ :-) ], got lost (f***ing GPS!), gained my legitimacy (Visa), lost two days of work and made new memories with a song I found again that was lost in the past. An antiseptic beauty???

PS - The picture is from La basilique Notre-Dame cathedral of Montreal