tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61029302024-03-07T23:36:50.985+05:00Nameless FacelessImages that passed on the car window when I was 7... and still they pass as the world goes round and round...Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.comBlogger137125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-63333953529617378452009-08-31T12:29:00.003+06:002009-08-31T12:49:14.129+06:00Accidents Happen<div style="text-align: justify;">My dad always says that when you're on the road and driving, you need to have two eyes in the back and two in the sides of your head apart from the pair you already have. No one has that many eyes nor is it possible to have that many but what Dad means is to keep your eyes and ears open and not be distracted while driving.<br /><br />So it was no surprise on Saturday night that a motorbike rammed into my friend's husband's car.<br /><br />Her husband was out of the city and so she'd asked me to stay the night with her because she didn't want to stay alone. Since she can't drive very well, I was the driver for the night and for Sunday.<br /><br />Even though it was the fault of the motorcyclist but I have to admit that I was distracted and disturbed. I was only saved serious injury because of the way I was parked. If the motorbike had rammed into the door then I would have been in the hospital. The angle of parking also helped keep the motorbike driver out of the hospital though he was coming at a very high speed.<br /><br />He had scratches and I'm sure his body must have ached badly once the adrenaline cooled because that's what happened to me too. A policeman came and asked me to forgive the person. He must have been 23 or so and looked so miserable and I knew he'd be too poor to pay for the damages or anything.<br /><br />On top of that my friend was in a shock as her husband would be mad at her. I had the car fixed. We sat waiting in it while the guys fixed the dents and the broken light. Obviously, the job wasn't good. We got home at 1 am (a very late time for both of us). I couldn't sleep for many hours due to the pain. It was both psychological and physical. I was feeling bad that I had been distracted and didn't look properly at the road. I could have killed the poor guy. I don't care what happens to me but the thought of hurting someone like that is a terrible one.<br /><br />In the morning I was experiencing the effects of mild whiplash. My arm is still hurting. I didn't tell my friend because I didn't want to worry her any further. Yesterday before going back to my place, we went to pick her husband from the bus station. When we reached my place, he went around the car to see if something was wrong.<br /><br />It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life and I haven't had that many I guess. He was suspicious and I felt so bad lying that nothing had happened. Knowing that he'd proverbially kill his wife made me feel less guilty about us lying to him but still.<br /><br />When I talked to my mom yesterday, she kept asking if every thing's okay but if I tell her she'll not only get worried but then I'll have another issue to handle. Why did that happen? Was I distracted? What was I thinking? What's wrong with me? Why am I always lost? I can't answer these questions. I do know that I am definitely not driving <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">anyone's</span> car again. I can't take these risks with other people's life even if it's not my mistake.<br /><br />God forbid if something happens, nothing will be left and I will only have myself to blame. So there goes another thing from my life. I can say this shamelessly that I'm feeling very sorry for myself and thus wasting my time rambling on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">internet</span> instead of working.<br /></div>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-47687808292684061712009-08-13T02:46:00.004+06:002009-08-13T03:02:28.571+06:00Lost Between the Lines<div style="text-align: justify;">(This one was only ever for you because you're the only one. I only ever said those three words to you. They don't mean anything of course. Now I know why you were so sceptical when I sent you this poem. You were always sceptical that I could love you. Was it a compliment or an insult? I don't know. I know this: You're the only one I loved, as much as I did and with so much nervousness, innocence and shyness.<br /><br />You were right. You never said those words ever first but I did. Now everything is really lost. Now there's static and there's such a distance that you will only cover upon my death. Perhaps just as well. Because I said I love you first. One of my many many sins. My endless punishments.)<br /></div><br />Tomorrow I will talk to you<br />I have thought of every word<br />I want to say<br />I have written things on a paper<br />And now I am looking at them<br />This is not what I meant<br />When I said that I love you<br />I meant more than that!<br />Try to understand<br />These are the feelings that are<br />Stuck somewhere<br />Feelings lost between the lines<br />Lost in the static of silences<br />That have come between.<br /><br />Now I am talking to you<br />I have forgotten what I want to say<br />I have mingled sentences<br />and minced some words.<br />The look of surprise in your eyes<br />Has me confused<br />I am saying I love you<br />But I mean more than that...<br />When will you understand<br />There are the feelings that<br />Want so much to come out<br />Feelings lost between the lines<br />Lost in the static of silences<br />That have come between.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">(2001)</span>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-16004822724841264652009-08-13T01:56:00.003+06:002009-08-13T02:02:27.561+06:00Birth of the Living StoneI was dead<br />the day I was born.<br />Why was I born?<br />why all the pain?<br /><br />This is no time to ask questions<br />This is where you cry.<br />Unwrapped from the holiest of wrappings<br />All I had on was<br />Placental remains and blood.<br />Go and clean her nurse<br />If you please will.<br /><br />Why all the pain?<br />You almost died that day.<br />Why the anger now<br />Your love turned into hate.<br /><br />I was born<br />Naked, and without a gun<br />Or I would've ended the misery.<br />That's to put it without pun<br />as you like it<br />So you like it.<br />It would've been me in the end.<br /><br />Ignore? Ignored the pain<br />But deep down you liked it.<br />Ride it this time<br />Don't let them ride.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">(2001)</span>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-72279291243809193052009-08-06T00:31:00.005+06:002009-08-13T03:01:49.652+06:00The Wanderer<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size:100%;">There</span> must have been a hole in the sky<br />From where I fell<br />Because tears filled its mourning eyes.<br />Not coming to life until dawn<br />And then the never ending journey begun.<br /><div style="text-align: left;"> Once a full moon and then<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> A whole sunless course.<br /></div><br />And yes, up there<br />That Master, the Great Puppeteer<br />Me dancing to His tune<br />A melancholy move<br />Chanting indiscernible notes<br />Moans and painful cries<br />Heard over a blue moon<br />Remind people of what lies behind.<br /><br />The whole world moved to complete its eccentric turns<br />Wounded and vain, I walked without direction.<br />Alone I came to this world of mocking loneliness<br />And alone I went on this dreary road.<br />No one to cry over this writhing pain<br />And now not even that sky.<br /><br />Where I walked, the earth became grey<br />It's supply bosom dried<br />The land weary under this pain<br />Twisted time and again,<br />Still carried my weight.<br /><br />People stood and gazed for some moment<br />Seeing me burn in my rotten fate<br />Then again buried themselves in their mortal cage.<br />I dragged on with a shameful face<br />For making filthy, the heart of the mother<br />With unholy games<br />But it is her that brought me<br />To my restless wandering<br />And I even forgot when it had begun.<br /><br />Lying naked on burning sand<br />Vultures circling above the head<br />This is me: the wanderer<br />A soul embodied in despair.<br /><br />And now lying in the lap of the earth<br />With face to the sky<br />I wonder if ever this wandering will cease.<br /><br />Waking up, find myself in another world<br />Coming to life in the darkest night.<br /> Once a full moon and then<br /> A whole sunless course.<br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />(1998/1999)</span>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-8032580589641731312009-08-02T01:01:00.006+06:002009-08-13T03:01:01.144+06:00Forlorn in West: A Heart Broken by EastSitting all alone<br />In New York<br />in a jazz bar<br />Way past midnight<br />With a drink in one hand<br />and tear filled eyes.<br />I look out<br />At dying traffic<br />And blinking signs.<br />In the background<br />Someone tries to sing<br />For those of us<br />Foolish enough<br />to stay behind.<br />I think she's singing<br />'Why do you have to be a heart breaker...'<br />She's ready to go<br />The make up is wearing out.<br />I look at her for some time<br />and think,<br />'Yeah, she got soul'<br />Then look at<br />The snow falling outside.<br />How many seasons<br />Since it snowed in New York?<br />I see it reflecting colours:<br />Red, blue, yellow and green<br />I think of the time,<br />I think of the times<br />I had thought of being here<br />But never alone.<br />I think of the times<br />I wished to call<br />Someone my own.<br />But sitting here<br />I just watch things go by.<br />Slowly even the bartender is gone<br />Someone says it's time to close.<br />I have to leave.<br /><br />Down the empty streets<br />No walking hand in hand<br />No cabs to catch<br />No hurrying home<br />Because no one's waiting.<br />Snow falling on bare head<br />But I am oblivious to the cold<br />There burns a fire inside of me.<br />The cell phone is off<br />For who will call<br />There is no one there<br />Who would care?<br />Slowly the wind is catching speed<br />I pull my coat to my face<br />I wish someone would hold me close<br />To keep the cold away.<br />Suddenly I'm in a hurry<br />To go back to my empty place.<br /><br />In the cab<br />An Asian driver<br />Chatters away<br />Absentmindedly, I listen.<br />The ride into Manhattan<br />Or out of it<br />Can sometimes be so painful<br />For some, because of the memories<br />For me, the lack of them.<br />The cabbie talks of back home<br />I ask him where he belongs<br />And even though he answers me<br />It's lost on my ear when<br />Something outside catches my eye<br />A man walking all alone<br />Down the street<br />Dark hair and brooding eyes<br />Seems like I've known him<br />Long time before<br />He passes by<br />And then he's gone<br />Like everyone,<br />When you pass corners<br />And lose track of what's behind.<br />I pay the fare<br />"Keep the change"<br />The cabbie waves with surprise.<br /><br />In the elevator<br />All alone<br />The bellboy has left<br />Long gone.<br />In the midnight hours<br />There's no mystery<br />Just a sorrow that<br />Envelopes this building,<br />which I call home<br />And the silent cries<br />of tenants long gone<br />Their souls haunting<br />The very foundations<br />of the place they reside.<br />No one to kiss hurriedly<br />And then only to be caught,<br />With a face<br />Reddened more by love<br />than embarrassment,<br />By someone<br />that lives next door.<br />No, there is no one.<br />I'm all alone.<br /><br />With trembling hands<br />I open the door<br />Move outside,<br />This 5th floor balcony<br />New York in all its<br />Man made glory.<br />No one to share the view<br />In this apartment I chose<br />With utmost care<br />And decorated with all my soul<br />All the hours spent<br />Searching, selecting, setting<br />Painting the ceilings and the walls<br />Wasted...<br />Since there's no admirer<br />In the bedroom<br />No lover awaits<br />With open arms<br />To hold me tight<br />To never leave out of sight.<br />With a sick feeling<br />I watch myself<br />in the bathroom mirror<br />Sunken eyes<br />Half drowned in tears<br />A heart floats forlorn.<br /><br />Dressed in a black gown<br />I sit on the deck chair<br />And look at the half moon<br />in the misty sky.<br />Light a cigarette<br />and wait for dawn<br />Too late to sleep<br />To early to morn.<br />Think of the times<br />When there had been<br />Voices in this world<br />Now the whole place is covered<br />In silence and snow.<br />Far away in the night<br />Sirens scream<br />Then all is still.<br />In the distance<br />Long Island is just a shadow<br />Illuminated by lights<br />And where is Central Park?<br />Where I jog every morning<br />All alone<br />No one for idle chat<br />And when I come back<br />There's no one to tease<br />With the smell of fresh coffee<br />No talk of breakfast in bed<br />And no one to fight<br />Over the morning paper.<br /><br />Beautiful New York mornings<br />and<br />Beautiful New York nights<br />Spent all alone.<br /><br />And then I come back<br />to the present<br />Back in my chair<br />As the first rays of sunlight<br />Kiss my face<br />And rouse me from light sleep<br />And the first<br />Morning birds come out.<br />In some downstairs apartment<br />A canary sings<br />Perhaps a 'Sonnet to Freedom'<br />I smile a sorrowful smile<br />All knowing<br />Nodding my head in<br />Understanding and admiration<br />and think,<br />I am not alone after all.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">(24th September 2001)</span>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-86273606032924998362009-07-30T01:01:00.004+06:002009-08-13T02:58:02.438+06:00I Will Marry a TreeWhen I will find not a companion<br />Someone to lean on,<br />A shoulder to cry upon,<br />I shall marry a tree.<br /><br />It will give me shelter;<br />The leaves will be my clothes.<br /> In the summer,<br />It will keep me from the heat.<br />I shall drink its sap to quench my thirst.<br /> In winter,<br />Its leave will cover me.<br />It will keep me safe from harm...<br />Its boughs shall be my house<br />And near the top,<br />When I shall sit<br />be able to see<br />Far and wide, the countryside<br />And the ocean too.<br />When I talk, it will listen to me<br /> And patiently.<br />When I sleep, it will sing to me<br />The breeze's lullaby.<br />I will talk to it in whispers<br />The way it would talk to me.<br /><br />When I am old and dying<br />I will come down and lay on the ground<br />I will sleep in its bed<br />And be a part of it.<br /><br />And when I find that tree<br />I will certainly name it thee.<br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />(2000)</span>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-44303149611703076722009-07-26T22:05:00.004+06:002009-08-13T02:59:17.118+06:00The EpitaphEvery day you grow dearer and dearer to me<br />It's crazy!<br />You are going far away, every day.<br />Wherever you fly,<br />Take care of your heart.<br /><br />How will we take care of this,<br />Bird of Spring,<br />My illness and your departure?<br /><br />Over the blue mountains,<br />and above the Golden Tower<br />I search,<br />Second, third: sadness,<br />Thunder and rain.<br /><br />How happily the candle of life burns in you!<br />How happily it shines.<br /><br />I want to stop writing to tell you<br />The words I should say:<br />How I love you,<br />Endlessly, Wordlessly, Selflessly.<br /><br />Oh God!<br />What will become of us, of you?<br /><br />My jewel,<br />My flowers in spring,<br />My water in summer.<br /><br />You are my daily light:<br />Moonlight, fire, dawn and dusk.<br />Firefly and all.<br /><br />You are the Light of my eyes<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">(2000)</span>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-38056416588173917992009-07-05T14:32:00.016+06:002009-08-03T02:44:48.495+06:00Alif<div style="text-align: justify;">I might love but I'm not beholden to it anymore. I can't apologize for what I feel. How do I know that God loves me? I just have to keep on hoping and believing. Perhaps I don't even care. Perhaps I just want to love Him in the best possible way.<br /><br />Perhaps I have moved beyond men & women and just want to look at mankind.<br /><br />Do I need what I gave away freely? Was love not given with an open heart? When you give, aren't you supposed to forget? Why would you keep a tab on feelings? How can anybody?<br /><br />I am just looking into myself and finding myself happy without being sorry that I loved or for whatever I gave. I love but it doesn't matter who or what.<br /><br />It just is.<br /><br />I just am. Alif.<br /><br />Some couplets by Bulleh Shah from a song by <a href="http://www.cokestudio.com.pk/episodes/episode01/aik-alif/">Sayein Zahoor & Noori</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Parh parh ilam te fazil hoya</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wei kade apne aap noun parhya nayein</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bhaj bhaj warrna aen mandar maseeti</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wei kade mann apne wiche warrya nayein</span><br /><br />(Learning all that knowledge has made you wise<br />Oh but you never have the time to read yourself<br />You run entering your temple and mosque<br />Oh but you have never entered your heart)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Larna roz shaitan de naal</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wei kade nafs apne naal larya nayein</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bulleh Shah asmani udd diyan phharro nayein</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Je jeira ghar bheitya onoun phharrya nayein</span><br /><br />(Quarrelling with the devil every day<br />Oh but you never fought your ego<br />Bulleh Shah stop trying to catch the ones that fly in the sky<br />You never caught the one who sits at home)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Basein karyoo yaar</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ilmoun basein karein oh yaar</span><br /><br />(Stop it my friend<br />Stop this (so-called) learning my friend)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ikoo Alaf tere darkar</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Haq!</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Basein karyoo yaar</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ilmoun basein karein oh yaar</span><br /><br />(You only need one Alif (the first letter of the Semitic (Arabic, Hebrew and probably Aramaic?) and Urdu languages)<br />Haq! (righteousness/right)<br />Stop it my friend<br />Stop this (so-called) learning my friend)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Allah!</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sayeinyan!</span><br /><br />(Allah!<br />Lord!)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nein mein jana jogi de naal</span><br /><br />(I want to go with the jogi (wandering ascetic))<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jo na jane haq ki takat</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rabb na de vei oss ko himmat</span><br /><br />(He who doesn't know the power of right<br />God does not give him strength)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Hum mann ke darya mein doobay</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kaisi nayya kya manjhdhar</span><br /><br />(I have drowned in the river of my heart<br />Who needs a boat, (getting lost) midstream does not scare me)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Haq!</span><br /><br />(Right/Righteousness)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bas karein ho yaar</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ilmoun bas karein ho yaar</span><br /><br />(Stop it my friend<br />Stop this (so-called) learning my friend)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Allah!</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sayeinyan!</span><br /><br />(Allah!<br />Lord!)</div>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-38207268257229241112009-07-05T05:01:00.002+06:002009-08-03T02:45:04.546+06:00No Fireworks )):<div style="text-align: justify;">Happy Independence Day to all my friends and family from the USA.</div>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-59291263526556311432009-07-05T03:28:00.005+06:002009-08-03T02:45:31.128+06:00Living with COPD<div style="text-align: justify;">Life is such a joke sometimes that you have to laugh it off. One has to live and breathe and do everything in this short little time.<br /><br />I was having an okay time in life, not too good and not too bad and then something happened and the plane went down and something broke inside me or maybe it was broken already and I just felt the broken edges trying to pierce my insides. May it be any reason, you or shall we call it love or happenstance or rose by any other name etc but I stopped living. It was like being suspended in time but with the time passing.<br /><br />Seeing my x rays for the first time with those lungs like maps meant nothing to me until the doctor explained that mine are like that of a 40 year old smoker. Innocent that I was, I said, but I don't smoke. It's not smoking, it's something else. You have to be more careful than the rest. I didn't give a damn because I suppose when you're in your early 20s, everything is bullshit and you're so high on life and friends and university and colors and trees and driving fast and listening to all sorts of new music and experimenting with that music and trying to discover yourself and God and forgiving and forgetting that you just don't give a damn about a couple of badly scarred 40 year old lungs inside the body of a 20 year old.<br /><br />I'd been away from the internet for long and away from everything and I started thinking, why has it stopped me from living life. Just because you weren't there, why did I stop breathing. I couldn't breathe anyway.<br /><br />The realization hit me that it was almost (less than) a decade ago that I was given that black & white plastic picture of my tattery breathing sacks and I wondered if my lungs were 50 years old now. So I remembered that I started smoking to kill myself and I smoked on and off without any conviction of addiction (because other than you, I never got addicted to anyone or anything) and it hit me that now my lungs must be older than just 50.<br /><br />A person like me is not scared of death, just what they're taking to the next world and what they're leaving in this one. I have known it for more than a year now that I don't have much time and I didn't want to give myself the false sympathy nor take it from anyone about 'making it' but something happened and I wanted to live!<br /><br />I think it was the hope that you'll come back to me. I kept that flame alive in my scarred body parts. Young old body parts. I used to cry when someone young died. I never wanted anyone to cry when I was gone (the delusion that someone might remember me long enough... ah!).<br /><br />Then the flame left and I thought what am I? Am I an empty shell? But I wasn't. I have too many scars, killing scars, pustulating scars, itching scars. I have things to show for my journey, shorter though it may be than others but what does it matter.<br /><br />So at first I faked a laugh. It hurt my lungs. It really did. I coughed. It even made me huff and puff. I couldn't breathe or maybe I was used to the feeling of not breathing so much that I just didn't want to anymore.<br /><br />But when I actually heard my laughter, I remembered how I used to laugh. Even I used to love my laughter. I, who never much loved anything about myself, used to love my laugh and enjoy it. I was encouraged and I laughed again and again and I smiled to myself. So what if you don't love me anymore and what if you wouldn't care if I died? You won't even know it until I was gone for many many months. Perhaps many many years.<br /><br />That stopped the laughter but I wasn't going to give up. I wanted to capture that essence. The crazy essence. People still tell me I look like I'm 16. I heard it in the gym that I didn't look a day younger than 18. Someone didn't want to talk to me when I came back from England because they thought I was just 14. It used to make me feel worse not because it couldn't make me happy that everyone thought I was so young but that no one could see how old my heart and lungs had become and how I had let everything wither me so much.<br /><br />No more. I realized that I don't want to be old. It's been my goal since I was a kid. To die young. I wanted to be the literal member of the 27 club. How Gothic! No more. I love nature. I miss it. I miss that I was lying among pines and listening to the sea.<br /><br />I miss writing poetry that was based on other people's emotions. I miss writing at all. I miss looking and seeing. I miss talking to my friends. I'm afraid that I've lost them to this old young self. I miss drawing and painting and playing. I miss being quiet, calm and collected. I know that I might not regain any of that but I want to get that essence back. I know it's somewhere inside me, lost though it may be.<br /><br />That essence is needed for the happy survival. To not pretend anymore. To not wait anymore for someone or something that won't ever arrive. To just be happy in the small things. To listen to my happy self. To leave the darkness behind or to meet it when the right time is there.<br /><br />I still get sad. I weep more now but I don't hate myself for it. I let the sadness roll off me and like waves leaving me clean and pure. I cried that I was just an innocent. I wept that I was just a baby when I met you. I didn't know anything. Someone had been cruel to me when I was a child but I still didn't understand it. I forgive! I forgive!<br /><br />I must learn to forgive myself too. The blood of the innocent is on my hands as much as anyone else. I suppose more so on mine than any others. I love myself too.<br /><br />Now when I laugh, I mean it. It's not like the days haven't been tough but just to hear my lungs making an effort to do something nice is good. When I come home, I wash the stains of everyday. I don't let them ruin my being. I want that when I cease to be, I don't have to carry them beyond this world.<br /><br />Scars are okay but stains are not.<br /><br />Gut nicht!</div>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-83591440227814520342009-05-06T23:43:00.003+06:002009-08-03T02:45:52.895+06:00How this will end<div style="text-align: justify;">Did I get saved today? I don't know. The guy who was supposed to come see me fell ill apparently. I suppose he got saved. That much I do know.<br /><br />Whenever I feel happy for even the briefest period of time, something happens to bring me back down again. It makes me wonder if anyone else has such an efficient safety switch against happiness.<br /><br />Still good things come out everything and I have decided to be dependent only upon myself rather than my parents or my family in general. Being a girl is a big enough issue without having to hear about how you're a burden.<br /><br />There was a time I used to think that my parents are not like the countless other parents out there, that they are different and wouldn't bend to society when safeguarding the interests of their daughters.<br /><br />Oh but I should have known that every ounce of trust I put in anyone or any relationship comes to punch me in the face.<br /><br />It felt stupid that I cried. Thinking about myself lying balled up in pain made my cringe. It's enough for me to bear the physical pain. Emotional pain is torture. I take medicines for my pains but I don't know what to take for mental agony.<br /><br />Deciding to be fully independent is a great thing but I don't know how I'll afford to live, to feed and clothe myself. It has hit me time and time again that on my own, I'm now one of the poorer people of this country. Obviously not poor but certainly, I have fallen down the economic ladder.<br /><br />It's time to kick myself for listening to my parents, my family and friends (most of whom are going back themselves) and coming back from the UK. At least, it's not a sin being a female there or to work any menial job. I can't do that in this country.<br /><br />I have come to a conclusion. It's cringe worthy to discuss ones financial situations on the www but nonetheless. To myself, I'll say this is my therapy blog. So! I'll stop eating. I'll get the cheapest lodgings, which my parents didn't allow but now that I'm no more their responsibility, I don't think it matters. At the end of the day, I bring myself down less than the whole world does.<br /><br />Why am I going to do all this? I'm saving money to apply for the UK work permit, for which I'm eligible. I'm saving to buy a ticket and then leave. I am hoping to die in peace over there and have a nice unmarked grave most probably.<br /><br />Since I'm a fallen angel, there are so many things that don't matter anymore. To know that no one loves you truly is a killing thing but also liberating. Then you can up and leave all the beautiful people behind who never needed you.<br /><br />It doesn't feel bad anymore to be fat and ugly. It doesn't feel bad anymore to know that I was deluded into thinking I'm normal. Normal changes. Normal is relative.<br /><br />At least I'll be free of conventions.</div>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-40020233081116874402009-05-06T05:40:00.004+06:002009-05-06T06:23:55.315+06:00I want a Giraffe staring down at me<div style="text-align: justify;">I came home for the weekend to relax and not think about my worries but my mother and aunt had different plans.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It didn't help that some couple of weeks ago my aunt called up late in the evening to tell me that I should consider my abuser cousin as a future spouse (thanks for keeping my trust like everyone else, mom). When I calmly asked if mother knew, the reply was that she was asking on her behalf. Of course.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The effort it took me to contain myself was more than I could bear. I cried all night. It started raining and then I just stood in the window for many hours until it was time for morning prayers. I don't know if I ever felt as faithless as I did that night.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sometimes, I feel like it's not my life that I'm living but my life is being lived by everyone else. I don't want to get married but I have to because my mother and my aunts want that. I don't want to have kids but because I'm a woman, I'm expected to. I love someone else but I should jump into a marriage because that's what the society expects me to do.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So here I was in a better mood for the Labor Day weekend when my mother announced that there are two different people coming to see me for their sons. I really wished at that moment that I had not taken the extra day off.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Like all the rituals in this blasted place, one has to get all dolled up and be ready but for people like me, we have to hear how we're not beautiful and fat etc despite everything. Nobody cares how intelligent you are or how many books you've read or how much time you wasted studying.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As of yesterday, one of the people have asked for my hand in marriage (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">lol</span>... the phrase smacks of barbarianism; oh, well!). It's almost 5 in the morning and I haven't slept a wink because I have been thinking and asking myself why I'm going to do this for my parents.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I've been asking myself for a long time whether it's right to marry just to make your parents happy? I don't even live with them anymore. It's true that our society requires girls to stay at home and then get married and stay at home. Basically, pass the weight to someone else.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's more than that. There was a brief period when I wanted to marry the person I love and it's true that it made me want to have kids and what not but that feeling has completely been wiped out. I have been trying to tell myself that perhaps getting married will distract me enough to forget everything and that I'll enjoy it. After all, I don't know the person. It's another thing that when he sees me later in the morning, he might reject me. Part of me minds that because the whole of me knows that I'm not a cow or a sheep to be rejected but that same whole knows that's how we are treated and that's how I have been treated even by the persons who claim to love me.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Try as I might, I cannot convince myself. How can I fob myself off on someone like that? How is it expected that we will do things together in life without knowing each other at all? How is it expected for strangers sprung on each other to survive? It's not like we are living 30 years ago in our parents (and I suppose 40 years for his parents) time where everything was decided by someone else because you just didn't 'know better'.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since yesterday, I have been trembling, not with fear but with a growing sense that I am going to lose my hope forever. I know that despite everything I still love just that one person. I have been hoping and praying that he will come around (thus proving that females are sentimental fools). Added to that is the fear that if all goes like society expects it then I am a hypocrite of the highest order, set to deceive someone in the same way that I fear I have been deceived. I don't know if this other person deserves it but who are any of us to judge.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The counting of hours is so difficult. No one has asked me what I need or want. I'll be skipping office for the 3rd straight day today for nothing. I am 28 and I still have to do things to make people happy when I know that they will still be unhappy no matter what I do. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I am praying that on the way back to Lahore, I have an accident and as I'm flowing out of body, the thin, tall man stares down at me because it is my wish that he should be the last being I should see before I go.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That's how I treat my problems now. Death is my solution to everything. I am afraid of and for myself. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Being stared down by a giraffe is my highest dream.</div>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-36571915001225949832009-05-01T02:30:00.008+06:002009-08-03T02:46:14.000+06:00You Never Loved MeMy state might be summed up best in Rumi's following verses:<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Sometimes I forget completely</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">what companionship is.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Unconscious and insane, I spill sad</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">energy everywhere. My story</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">gets told in various ways: a romance,</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">a dirty joke, a war, a vacancy.</span><br />It took me 20 years to forget and move on and learn to love.<br />I was just 3 or 4 years old when I was sexually abused by my cousin. I never told anyone for many years. Then I told my parents and my siblings. Before that only God, my cousin and I knew and I wished to take it with me to the grave.<br />It took me 20 years to stop trying to scrub the skin off my bones and spending hours in the shower to wash away unseen dirt.<br />20 long years wondering why it happened to me and if I deserved it.<br />I didn't tell anyone else.<br />I told you.<br />I told you because you told me that you loved me.<br />I told you because I believed that what you told me was true.<br />And now I'm wondering why I told you because you never loved me.<br />You threatened so subtly to leave me bleeding on the floor of lost love that I thought life would end without you. I didn't know I was so weak.<br />It took me 20 years to fight and defeat my demons.<br />What did I know that they weren't dead but just lying low to surface one night, stronger than ever to maim me?<br />I used to wonder what it was like to walk with your insides on the out and now I know and I don't like it at all.<br />As Rumi says once more,<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">A night full of talking that hurts,</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">my worst held-back secrets. Everything</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">has to do with loving and not loving.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">This night will pass.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Then we have work to do.</span><br />How cruel is this world? I have always wondered. I know that I was much wiser when I was younger. I took risks but I was cautious. I never fell in love. I tried it and you knew it because you knew all my secrets. Then Rumi shakes some salt on my wounds.<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">I used to be shy.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">You made me sing.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">I used to refuse things at table.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Now I shout for more wine.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">In somber dignity, I used to sit</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">on my mat and pray.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Now children run through<br /></div></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">and make faces at me.</span><br />I gave them all to you against all the philosophers' judgments whispering out to me through the books I'd read and what I'd learnt from others.<br />Now I'm wondering if it was all about sex. Does the whole world revolve around it? I tried to give myself to you. God and you know that. Did you leave me because I couldn't? Shall I be a hypocrite and say it was my morals? But that would be a blatant lie.<br />For 26 years, I was a violated virgin and then you violated me again but I didn't know. So Rumi says,<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Joseph's brothers did not see Joseph's beauty,</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">but Jacob never lost sight of it. Moses at first</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">saw only a wooden staff, but to his other seeing</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">it was a viper and a cause of panic.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Eyesight is in conflict with inner knowing.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Moses' hand is a hand and a source of light.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">These matters are real as the infinite is real,</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">but they seem religious fantasies to some,</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">to those who believe only in the reality</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">of the sexual organs and the digestive tract.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Don't mention the Friend to those.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">To others, sex and hunger are fading images,</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">and the Friend is more constantly, solidly here.</span><br />How long will it take me this time? I forgave you but I haven't forgiven myself. I forgave my stupid cousin too but it took me long.<br />Did I hurry in forgiving you because I loved you? Did I forgive you as compensation for my inadequacies? Because my fears didn't let you cross the final frontier?<br />Is this whole love thing about breaking and entering? You only love because you can break into someone?<br />But I assure you that my soul is broken and so is my body.<br />I'm only waiting for my grave as a last salvation. Everything is a punishment to me. To be not able to forget is my punishment. To love without being loved is punishment. To realize that everything was a lie is punishment. From the day I was born, it's been a 28 year punishment.<br /><br />Isn't it enough God? Isn't it enough?<br />Punishment is to know that you fooled me. It's no punishment to be proven a dupe. I guess I always knew. Punishment is to be surrounded yet be so alone. Punishment is to pretend that you got something in your eyes.<br />The pretenses. Punishment is love becoming a habit. To love someone and think about their every second and even dream about them when you finally fall asleep. Punishment is dying so young. Punishment is losing hope. Again, Rumi says,<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">My worst habit is I get so tired of winter</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">I become a torture to those I'm with.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">If you're not here, nothing grows.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">I lack clarity. My words</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">tangle and knot up.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">How to cure bad water? Send it back to the river.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">How to cure bad habits? Send me back to you.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">When water gets caught in the habitual whirlpools,</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">dig a way out through the bottom</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">to the ocean. There is a secret medicine</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">given only to those who hurt so hard</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">they can't hope.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Look as long as you can at the friend you love,</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">no matter whether that friend is moving away from you</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">or coming back toward you.</span><br />Unfortunately, Rumi never tells what that medicine is. Since he's dead, I won't get it. Nothing is curing this hopelessness. All will has taken flight. The butterfly thought it's wings were broken but it had flown away into the sun.<br />It may be said (Rumi seems to know much) that<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The minute I heard my first love story</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">I started looking for you, not knowing</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">how blind that was.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">They're in each other all along.</span><br />and<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">When I am with you, we stay up all night.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Praise God for these two insomnias!</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">And the difference between them.</span><br />Now there's nothing. When I'm awake, you're there and when I fall asleep, you're waiting there as well.<br />Is it because...?<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">When I remember your love,</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">I weep, and when I hear people</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">talking of you,</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> something in my chest,<br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">where nothing much happens now,</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">moves as in sleep.</span><br />Rumi doesn't say how it will end but I know. I've been hearing the echo of a cry for some time now. The echo repeated, the end is nigh. I wanted to die before you. That's true but I wanted to die with you near me. I wanted to die of old age. I wanted to die with a thought that I had been loved. But it wasn't to be. I said that I was you. I lost myself in you and now I can't find myself. You said it doesn't matter to me if you told me that you loved me but it did and it does. If only it were true. If only. I can rub my hands together in the frustration of loss, I can hit my head against the walls. I can jump off cliffs. I can drive into the river. I can turn and gouge out my eyes if only you loved me.<br />You never loved me.Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-2234434153772006912009-03-14T18:11:00.006+05:002009-08-03T02:47:31.115+06:00Dynamic Performances<div style="text-align: justify;">Well, it's amazing how some people get so used to losing that they think it's the only way and when life presents chances to them, they go on and lose again.<br /><br />I don't know how many chances I've been presented with and how many more I'll get before I go, but I'm sure I won't be able to count them. I've been a train wreck that I have watched as an out of body experience, hovering first, above myself and then watching from the sidelines as I've rolled, turned, crashed and finally come to a halt.<br /><br />I must say I didn't like it at all. The terrible thing is the loneliness and how it's gnawed at me all this time. I hate being alone. I hate that I'm alone and I have to whine about it to no one in particular.<br /><br />Worse than that I hated that I got back to the person I loved more dearly than life and he sent me a birthday present and then told me that we just couldn't be together. So what am I supposed to do with the present? I don't understand. I've tried and thought about it.<br /><br />Why do people follow you, make you believe they love you, make you fall for them and then just up and leave giving the dumbest reasons.<br /><br />You're older than I am.<br />We don't have the same beliefs.<br />My family doesn't know yours.<br /><br />Why don't people ever think things through before they kill a person's feelings and their hope for living? I gathered the strength to forgive and forget and just be happy in the last moments and what do I get?<br /><br />He asked me to marry him but then told me that he couldn't. I have been asking myself if I ever asked him the same question or if I expected him. I just simply wished to be with him.<br /><br />At the end of the day, I'm only left with questions about myself: Am I ugly? Am I really that old? Am I not worth anything? Am I stupid? What are my beliefs when I've never forced them on anyone? Am I not enough as a person, as a human being? What are my faults?<br /><br />Am I so useless that I can be rejected with the most foolish three reasons ever?<br /><br />Why didn't you think about this before you started following me around? Why didn't you tell yourself that when you ruined my vacation in Malaysia? I went to get better but I only thought about what you said to me.<br /><br />Why did you remember all your reasons after so many years?<br /><br />Questions. Questions. Questions.<br /><br />What is wrong with me? Is it because I'm dying? Do people really leave those who are dying? Is it fair?<br /><br />I stuck by him. I never asked for anything. I never said, commit to me, never said, buy me a diamond ring, never asked for gifts. Is it because I never asked for anything?<br /><br />People are such liars. They say they don't want the high maintenance ones but they always go for them. You told me that you would never be with anyone else but one of these days you will.<br /><br />What about me? I don't even have time to start over. I can't bring so many years back. The investment has all gone down the drain. There are no returns. I'll be dying lonely.<br /><br />How much have I lost? Everything. My ego, my self confidence, my esteem, my honor.<br /><br />People say they don't like games but they lie. Everyone plays games. The straight arrows lose. If you don't ask for anything, you've sold yourself short, if you ask for something, you're a hussy.<br /><br />You just ask for love. That's too much to ask in God's lovely world of hatred and deception. Ask for a bullet and you'll get it. In this world, where an animal is dearer than a human being; your own blood is thinner than water.<br /><br />Why did I love? Why did I bow down? I don't have the heart to swallow injustice anymore. It's at bursting point.<br /><br />I'm done giving a tough performance of pretending not to be hurt. But I'm hurt. I'm so very hurt. I might be dying but I don't care. I care that I'm dying alone. I care that I won't get another chance.<br /><br />I care that I don't know and I'm lost. You told me that you found me but for what?<br /><br />Was it all just a show? I want to know why. I asked you but you say you don't have an answer.<br /><br />'We can't be together'.</div>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-43912465198074616942008-12-21T02:06:00.008+05:002009-08-03T02:48:38.766+06:00Down Again<div style="text-align: justify;">I've been away for some time now. Don't have my PC here. Still haven't found a place for myself so I'm getting on the nerves (I think, they deny) of the people I'm living with (very good family friends).<br /><br />There's no Internet access for us (as in the new hires) for now and I don't want to be caught on blogger in the office anyway.<br /><br />It's been tiring but fruitful. I'm learning new things. They're not just about the workplace but generally so much. I feel like a small town girl (not a good feeling) but I'm integrating (or pretending to?) quite well.<br /><br />Of course, among all the great big positives that should make one feel like flying is that one nagging little negative that brings one down.<br /><br />I'm coming close to the date of 1 year and the dread that's unfolding in my heart feels palpable in the night, when I've only got my thoughts to sleep with.<br /><br />It's too bad that I can't go anywhere because I've to follow the rules of the house I live in. Living here hasn't been bad but I've discovered some things, which I had rather not.<br /><br />Sometimes I feel like I'll throw up with the burden of secrets I have to keep now.<br /><br />I'm beginning to hate myself a little again.<br /><br />As I think about the one year anniversary coming up, I can't help but go over all the mistakes I made. Dumb mistakes, stupid, childish mistakes.<br /><br />On the other hand, I've realized that if someone didn't want something, they'd reject it just because they didn't want it no matter how perfect it was. You might try to point out mistakes in that perfect thing, just for your satisfaction that perhaps you didn't do it right but it's not that.<br /><br />Life is presenting me with unprecedented difficult choices and I'm as confused as you Mother. In fact, I know you're more confused than I am or ever could be.<br /><br />You still asked me if I missed him. I don't know how to thank you for all your kindnesses. I can't ever thank you enough. I can't even begin to thank you for forgiving me so easily.<br /><br />You are my mother and you love me and we fight with each other and you still love me.<br /><br />He wasn't my mother. He couldn't stay. His mother is not you, mother. No one's mother is you, mother.<br /><br />I miss you but when I'm with you, I hide in my shame.<br /><br />My heart dies every time I can't say it out loud that I'm dying and I'm sorry I didn't tell you.<br /><br />Tonight when I saw this picture from a Christmas party, shining, smiling faces, it made my heart wither. I go like a widow in this life.<br /><br />I wonder why?<br /><br />Why can't I feel anything when someone looks at me nicely? Nothing in me responds anymore. I've died before my actual death.<br /><br />When I think how all that will come down on you mother, it kills me more. I never want you to forgive me because I neither deserve forgiveness nor love. I don't deserve kindness. I deserve all the punishment I can get. I deserve the burdens of people's secrets. I deserve the coldest and the hottest hell fires.<br /><br />Sometimes by my stupid mistakes, I find that no one cares and I don't know why I get hurt. I know that but every time I find it again, I get hurt all over again.<br /><br />You care mother. You care.<br /><br />No one else does. I'm not their anything.<br /><br />Why do I care then if it's so simple?<br /><br />Maybe I'm just mad.<br /><br />I'm hoping that the act of making cauliflower with the utmost love and affection would get me a punishment that's unbelievable. Cauliflower that he didn't like.<br /><br />Did I repel him? My air? Perhaps my everything.<br /><br />So may nothing of me be left in this world. The repulsive being be gone from this world, far far away.<br /><br />Mother, I only hope that you will forgive me.</div>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-47819423087940160652008-12-09T03:04:00.003+05:002008-12-09T03:11:06.651+05:00Kidney for Sale!So it's okay to sell my kidney now if I want to get something that I need.<br /><br />It's not a thing that I ever thought of but thanks for giving me this great idea. Better use whatever I can before it becomes redundant.<br /><br />Since I can sell a kidney and survive on one, nothing wrong with selling blood either. Too bad my blood does not benefit anyone because I'm sick but since it's not even dangerous, I think it should be okay.<br /><br />Come to think of it, you can grow a liver with just a piece. So I guess, that's another thing I can sell: a piece of my liver.<br /><br />Selling all this 'stuff' wouldn't put anyone in jeopardy. I think there will still be much left for my organ donation when I die.<br /><br />Eyes, heart and God knows what else.<br /><br />I suppose it's a win win situation if ever a person saw one. Thank you for this excellent idea. I salute your genius and kindness.Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-63622426921320252872008-12-09T02:04:00.005+05:002008-12-09T02:52:42.645+05:00Lost LambAfter spending a week in Lahore, I came back home for the Eid holiday. There's no doubt in my mind, at least for now, that I made a good decision and that I have a good job.<br /><br />But there's something wrong. It went wrong when I moved to England.<br /><br />Tonight I want to admit to myself that I didn't move for studies but moved for love.<br /><br />I made a fool out of myself and I lost myself.<br /><br />Something went wrong. I stopped being with my friends; I stopped responding. I didn't want to. I didn't even realize if I did or didn't.<br /><br />I thought I'd found some direction but I became directionless. I thought I discovered myself but I lost so much that I can not ever recover, least of all the time that has slipped through my fingers.<br /><br />I didn't build myself a hermitage but I did live in one. I drifted so aimlessly that it's going to take me some time to find myself.<br /><br />I lost my home.<br /><br />I lost and lost and lost.<br /><br />I didn't even gain any significant wisdom, just bitterness and a thought that I would not be loving again.<br /><br />More thoughts that I would never have children. The thought of them abhors me and I love them and want to protect them but my own children shall never be.<br /><br />For a brief period of time, I felt like a woman. I wanted to be settled, I wanted to have kids. That was like a big stain on my mind. I don't know how I removed that stain. I'll never have children.<br /><br />Someone might force me to get married but no one will ever be able to force me to have children.<br /><br />I drifted like a ghost in the world's busiest city. I wept stupidly on the bank of the Thames. I wanted to jump in but I didn't want to ruin my expensive business suit.<br /><br />I wondered if I was just making excuses to continue a stupid existence.<br /><br />I still wonder.<br /><br />I didn't use so many I's then because I was gone and it seems now as if someone else controlled me.<br /><br />Whom had I become then? How did I reach that place?<br /><br />I lost myself with help but ultimately it was I that lost me.<br /><br />Sitting lost on New Street Station, weeping quietly and looking for that one familiar face, which I would never find, I was like a lamb. The guards looked into my eyes and so wouldn't confront me.<br /><br />No one acknowledges lost lambs. There's no one to lead a lamb anymore.<br /><br />So I'm in a new big city. I'm still lost. I think I've found my anchor by seeing so many things in the first week that told me to be a child.<br /><br />Be a stupid child and something inside me told me to pray or else I'll be lost forever. I can crawl on all four and walk blind but at least be in the right direction.<br /><br />Something is telling me to find my faith and maybe that will give me legs to stand on again.<br /><br />Everything is wrong and I'm not going to try to make it right anymore because I can't.<br /><br />I don't know if I can ever be sure that I was the only one in love but nowadays, I suddenly discover something and it tells me that I was.<br /><br />I'm standing somewhere and I'm fine and then I'll start crying and realize I was never loved but something wants me to say it out loud that at least you've been loved. I was the one who loved you.<br /><br />Now I don't know what love is. I'm confused and I tell myself that maybe I did not.<br /><br />I blame myself because I get confused. I didn't do this or I didn't do that. Maybe I should have ruined myself further and put myself through more trials than I did. Maybe then I wouldn't be an image of the person I used to be.<br /><br />I'm not sure at all anymore. I know that I forgave but I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself.<br /><br />I don't think I can, when I murdered my dreams in connivance with the person who claimed to love me.<br /><br />All I know is that I'm still a lost lamb. What I don't know is if I'm a lamb lost forever and for good or if I can be found.<br /><br />I feel bad for the lost lamb that is me. Between pot smokers and acid trippers and drinkers and people who think they're prostitutes and people to whom I've to prove that I'm asexual, I feel like I will reach new heights of madness...<br /><br />If only I start praying again, I won't.<br /><br />The only thing that stops me is the fear of finding myself.<br /><br />And the thought of the fear when I stop loving you.<br /><br />Because when I do stop loving the fool that I loved is the day I will lose the small fight for life I've got left in my bones. My lungs won't ache with the effort to draw in life.<br /><br />The fear is because I don't want to die. I haven't even felt loved.<br /><br />I wish you would have loved me. I begged you, I think, I did.<br /><br />Too bad it doesn't matter anymore.<br /><br />I wanted to be like you and maybe a part of me will. I enjoy the fantasizing about exercising power over people who are fools like I used to be; people who think they're going to get me like someone actually did.<br /><br />Lost lamb or should I be lost wolf in sheep's clothing? So I need faith to help me. I need faith to stop me from being a monster that I love and loathe because I won't have the same feelings if the monster is me.<br /><br />I'm asking for faith.<br /><br />So please God, return me to my faith. Today, I'm begging You for Your love.<br /><br />I was wrong to beg stupid humans. They're all like me. Forgive me and grant me that I love only You. Protect me from sin and help me to not hurt anyone.<br /><br />Take my life sooner if I ever come near to hurting someone like I was.<br /><br />Lead the lost lamb to Your mercy and love.<br /><br />Lead the lost lamb to Yourself God.<br /><br />Save my soul and spread the dust of my body everywhere so that it touches your dust and mixes with it finally and try as you might, you can't separate it from yourself.<br /><br />I loved you more than my life and gave what wasn't mine to give; perhaps being lost is punishment and perhaps I should take it.<br /><br />The only thing that I ask for again is to have my soul saved because it used to belong to a good person even if that person is dead.Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-72195064412469542842008-11-29T02:56:00.002+05:002008-11-29T03:13:53.952+05:00I'm leaving because you want me to goSomething I wrote in '97. Full of teenage angst but I read it after so many years and though it meant something else back then it's taken a real meaning to me now. Nothing poignant here. Just lots of passive aggressive anger (I feel quite so nowadays).<br /><br />You don't have to say with your mouth<br />Because your eyes are speaking.<br />You don't have to say it in words<br />all that's on your mind;<br />I know you want me out.<br />You ask me why I'm going away?<br />I'm leaving because you want me to go.<br />I'm leaving because (I know<br />how much) you hate me.<br />I never took it to my heart<br />whatever you said<br />Because I always thought<br />that you might always be right.<br />I made myself believe all the time<br />that I was wrong.<br />Yes, I was wrong. I think I was.<br />But just about myself.<br />You ask why I'm leaving now?<br />I'm leaving because you want me to go.<br />I'm leaving because (I know<br />how much) you hate me.<br />When I used to see you grieve<br />My heart would burn and bleed.<br />I would feel like it was my pain.<br />But I guess your feelings for me<br />were washed away in the rain.<br />Or I guess<br />that they just weren't there before.<br />So now I can't<br />waste my life with you anymore.<br />You ask then why I'm going away?<br />I'm leaving because you want me to go.Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-29636266311823908472008-11-27T21:04:00.005+05:002008-11-27T21:44:40.102+05:00Hair there, everywhere; goodbye!So after thinking about it for quite some time, I've decided I need to cut my hair as it's not going to last anyway. I know I'm going to actually cry and weep over it once the deed is done. I've had long hair since I was 7. It's a been a good journey.<br /><br />I always used to think about cutting my hair when I was angry. True to my tradition of taking all the anger on my body, this was the first thing I used to do. I always used to say, okay, calm down and if you still think you need to cut them then go ahead. Obviously, I didn't.<br /><br />So I'm feeling so weird. I thought I should take a picture of them for posterity. I asked my brother (bless his sweet little heart) to take a picture of them and he did, though he kept saying it was a bit difficult to get them all into the viewfinder. So I allowed him to arrange them as he pleased, which obviously he didn't do too well.<br /><br />Nonetheless, looking at the pictures later is going to make me feel weird as it is now. I'm also going to change the color though the stylist I consulted said the natural color was great and looking at it, it's really appealing to my eyes but I've told myself that I'm not going to make anymore excuses. I've noticed that my eyelashes have started to fall as well. It was the weirdest thing. I still don't know how to feel about it. I hope that I will die with dignity.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8KPO3WAyR8zzJWNXoXOhopNRRYpicIHV1WAg7tWVKupOdCexnQ2Y7BDHgbpTKjwRFyBVEY8-sIUscklZExB7Apc7-moN0LMfIpQo9FNJ6s_Zgk7gG57R5RuaEz9GSkzNTm5Ciwg/s1600-h/My+Hair.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8KPO3WAyR8zzJWNXoXOhopNRRYpicIHV1WAg7tWVKupOdCexnQ2Y7BDHgbpTKjwRFyBVEY8-sIUscklZExB7Apc7-moN0LMfIpQo9FNJ6s_Zgk7gG57R5RuaEz9GSkzNTm5Ciwg/s320/My+Hair.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273375483560390914" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />My almost 3 feet long mane<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ojX7TQHiymeQPoklEU2Vs9MyoWxYvKLo-7WxbjVj0TADcnHKq8Cuop-vys0Jo0yNfDQ0qR1GQlU_1JrTKtqZj34tTEc2crrplG3gAaGn6cflzbZ__5nNGTSR5iLCgkSO-I2W9Q/s1600-h/Color.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ojX7TQHiymeQPoklEU2Vs9MyoWxYvKLo-7WxbjVj0TADcnHKq8Cuop-vys0Jo0yNfDQ0qR1GQlU_1JrTKtqZj34tTEc2crrplG3gAaGn6cflzbZ__5nNGTSR5iLCgkSO-I2W9Q/s320/Color.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273374141836132098" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The color and the shape<br /><br />So tomorrow by this time, they'll be gone. Bye bye my poor hair. Maybe they'll make a nice hairpiece out of it for some rich dude or lady. Who knows? If they had some donation service, I'd donate it but now it will go to the salon and I'm sure they'll really enjoy it.<br /><br />The world is going mad with terrorist attacks and there are so many bad things but this evening I'm selfish and I just need to feel sorry for myself, just a little bit.Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-25604062389200799432008-11-21T23:23:00.004+05:002008-11-21T23:45:52.197+05:00Take Her to the Christmas DanceInflections in your voice say you don't mean it. When you're steady, you're lying still.<br /><br />When you want to act dumb, you ruffle your hair. What an endearing habit. How cute! I'm to forget that your eyes are scrutinizing me for weaknesses.<br /><br />Your fingers try to find fissures and cracks, some hole to break open wider. When you don't find it, you get frustrated and leave me exposed and broken.<br /><br />There's an opening in me but it's not normal because its not at the bottom.<br /><br />It's right in the middle. How did you miss the gaping hole in me?<br /><br />Like a black hole, it sucks the sunlight out of every sun and then eats it whole.<br /><br />Just like my soul, going through spasmodic damnation.<br /><br />How I hate these pockmarked surfaces, so then I wonder why I loved your face. I despise holes because they remind me of the emptiness.<br /><br />No holes in my body but the one in the wrong place, right in the middle. A place where my soul used to be.<br /><br />Extinguished, though not like the lights at dawn but like a life snuffed. Nip the evil in the bud, they say but the evil was left and the best and biggest part of me is gone.<br /><br />No blazes of glory.<br /><br />No fireworks.<br /><br />No marching bands.<br /><br />No gun salutes.<br /><br />No mourning.<br /><br />No dancing. No rejoicing.<br /><br />So much silence. Such madness.<br /><br />The morning, that short morning ended so suddenly.<br /><br />I waited for night but it's always evening now. No one saw where the sun set. No one knows where the sun is. No one knows where the first ray of sunlight has gone.<br /><br />The last ray is etched on my retina forever and ever and ever.<br /><br />I prayed for it to end well.<br /><br />It's ended. I don't know about well.<br /><br />18. 11. 2008<br /><br />Postscript: my name has a number of meanings and one of it is 'the first ray of sunlight' among others. No sunlight if there's no sun.Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-40248684797337751652008-11-21T19:33:00.005+05:002008-11-21T23:23:11.110+05:00UntitledGod, take my soul but don't put it into the flames of the hellfire. May this body perish as it would but may the soul live as it should.<br /><br />God, renew my blackened heart. Remove the dark shadow of doubt from my soul. Make it pure as it was the day I was made.<br /><br />God, help me in slaying the monster that has taken my body for its home. Shield my soul from its corrupting influence.<br /><br />God, make me the guardian of my honor and be the Guardian of my soul. Help me root out the infestation of hopelessness.<br /><br />16. 11. 2008Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-45256845361400739942008-11-20T21:52:00.005+05:002008-11-20T22:35:26.212+05:00And so......I finally came to a decision.<br /><br />I had to but what drove me to the proper conclusion of my life's chapters until this point were a few things and I like to give credit where it's due.<br /><br />First, I thankfully signed into blogger this morning right before I had to make a big commitment and here was a comment on my previous blog from Tuishimi (would I be wrong in saying he's a great friend?) and I realized that I did have to lay it all out on the table for me. I had to think about myself as long as it didn't hurt anyone.<br /><br />Then a few things happened and I knew for sure what I had to do. I wasn't feeling confused; I wasn't feeling like the world was imploding beneath me anymore.<br /><br />There comes a time in one's life when one has to make a choice and it's not just for oneself but also for others because one thing that I've learnt in life is that our choices do affect others whether we accept that or not.<br /><br />There comes a time in one's life when one has to leave everything behind and start over/anew or just plain start somewhere.<br /><br />This opportunity couldn't have come at a better time.<br /><br />I feel sorry to say this now but for a couple of months, I've been planning to end everything before new year's eve. The low points (no singulars here) that I'd hit, not even snagging a bottom or at least something that would help me not slip off further was just not happening.<br /><br />Self pitying and self loathing became so commonplace, it was just like second nature. Not wanting to do anything and waiting for someone to come and change my world was all I did do (because in the first instance, it did change for worse due to people; but on the other hand, I wonder how and why I gave them such complete rights over myself that it had to come to that).<br /><br />It's not easy to want to end ones life. Planning it is even worse. I realized this morning that if I wanted to live beyond this December, wanted to not be a part of the non coveted 27 club, then I just had to make a change.<br /><br />I also feel like I've burdened everyone with my presence far too long and it's time to give others a time out as well. The way I am right now, even I don't want to be near myself. I don't expect any better from my family, friends or the people in general.<br /><br />I suppose it boosted my confidence to find out that I'd been called for an interview at a great company. Then I got a further ego boost when I got the job offer the very next day.<br /><br />The only problem was whether I should or could move to another city especially a city that people from my city consider as a fast, heathen city full of sins and colors. Ah! Lahore, the city of my childhood, the cultural capital of Pakistan, the centre of modern drug usage for the refined.<br /><br />So much negativity: where are you going to live; good for you; good on you; it's too far; why don't you teach, it's safe for 'ladies' (so condescending) ad infinitum ad nauseum.<br /><br />Such a storm in my mind. So much conflict of interests for everyone else except me. It's about me but I don't figure anywhere. It becomes about everyone else's ego. Relatives from Karachi to Gilgit, from Massachusetts, USA to Birmingham, UK weigh in on it.<blockquote></blockquote>Then I read the message and I thought, this is nothing if not from God and God does channel through His people.<br /><br />Being the least superstitious person in the world, I don't look for signs but today I did and I found them in places where I wasn't even looking.<br /><br />I've said yes and soon I leave this city of love and hate.<br /><br />Maybe things will be worse or maybe they'll be better or maybe they'll be the same but I won't be here to bother anyone and I won't have things bothering me. The nomad soul is restless anyway.<br /><br />I won't have to turn corners thinking here's this memory and that. Worst of all, I'm too weak physically and emotionally to take anymore emotional abuse from things, people and (even) inanimate objects.<br /><br />Never wanted to commit suicide, no. Never wanted to go like a coward and a fool.<br /><br />Perhaps, now is my chance to redeem that never again.Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-84246560267743415722008-11-19T23:22:00.002+05:002008-11-19T23:25:20.666+05:00So ConfusedI'm so confused. I don't know what to do.<br /><br />Do right by myself (which I never do) for once or do right by everyone else and be sorry like always?<br /><br />I wish it were that simple.<br /><br />I'm so confused I could kill myself to end it all. My hands have this itch, extending all the way to the tips of my finger. The golden revolver with the ivory is so near, so very near. End it all and no confusion.<br /><br />I just don't know what to do.<br /><br />Help me.Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-32439423903044117182008-11-16T00:37:00.002+05:002008-11-16T01:01:18.169+05:00Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Or How Green Was My Valley<br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span></span><br />So I'm going to Lahore tomorrow and I think it might be for good. Last time I went there alone like this, it was also a contemplative journey but I knew I'd come back. Not so sure this time.<br /><br />Before I go and God knows when I'll be back, I just wanted to comment on how things are steadily going downhill in the city where I live. The city of Peshawar. Last night, we could hear the bombs falling.<br /><br />On 12th November, Stephen D. Vance and his driver were slain by terrorists. A day before that an Iranian diplomat was kidnapped just as he was leaving his house. His driver was slain in the kidnapping. On 13th, journalists were fired at by terrorists.<br /><br />Terrorists. Terrorists. Terrorists.<br /><br />I've had it with all this. Somedays I wish I could give them the same. Say, come get some. The civilized part of me says how can you lower yourself to their level but the human part says, why? You can't talk to animals. You may train them but they're still animals.<br /><br />The powers that be don't care about these animals and what they do to us. They're off on their fancy trips to New York or Hajj in the Kingdom (oh God) of Saudi Arabia or begging for oil and money, none of which will trickle down to the stupid masses.<br /><br />How am I supposed to accept that these people are Muslims (even in name) when they don't accept the basic tenet of Islam that is tolerance?<br /><br />On the other hand, no amount of condemnation will bring Stephen back to his wife or children. The poor driver, his kids and wife are going to be the worst. Fucking cursed Pakistanis. We're all cursed.<br /><br />If you don't shake it off yourselves, no one's coming to help you take it away. You won't help yourself though. Just sit, drink your tea with 3 spoons of sugar and tsk! tsk! about how nice it used to be.<br /><br />You've left nothing for me, for my generation.<br /><br />Put us on a ship and sink it.<br /><br />We can't take it anymore.Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6102930.post-27381350934763047532008-11-15T11:22:00.008+05:002009-05-01T02:13:47.387+06:00BathOur story takes place in the ancient city of Bath, when the Romans were setting up the foundation of the modern city... not really. The city is ancient but it's eponymous ancient baths are under the trademark yellow cobblestones and pubs and shops.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhryHHAiTk3ipcmTcAWKsvZulXILwJOI0CdKH6QdZrjfDHB1ambBAm_ejrZl7Q1ZRaF-AYOwyR0lJfrmaxDMvxOTRieOWK-hBfYquAg_h1-MstxbR3l9MFmx5lP6996s8TS9vaoGQ/s1600-h/DSC00379.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhryHHAiTk3ipcmTcAWKsvZulXILwJOI0CdKH6QdZrjfDHB1ambBAm_ejrZl7Q1ZRaF-AYOwyR0lJfrmaxDMvxOTRieOWK-hBfYquAg_h1-MstxbR3l9MFmx5lP6996s8TS9vaoGQ/s320/DSC00379.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268771527360562882" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Still, if you turn a corner, you might suddenly feel you saw Rome and then it vanished just like that.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRZPsQ2HrTcPqZ6-bzDDlMaM9NjwYZXN55OtMKUh9jK3cpWMQqi3PXelozB4Tk4jjaRZE4TNsVjGMUqAnTvtAk1pa0eu7VIF5KLzQwDLLj8wto0XyvE0maDHiwVUtejUCQr5EjmA/s1600-h/DSC00383.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRZPsQ2HrTcPqZ6-bzDDlMaM9NjwYZXN55OtMKUh9jK3cpWMQqi3PXelozB4Tk4jjaRZE4TNsVjGMUqAnTvtAk1pa0eu7VIF5KLzQwDLLj8wto0XyvE0maDHiwVUtejUCQr5EjmA/s320/DSC00383.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268773262468658818" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />I visited Bath at the beginning of this year with a Chinese friend of mine, as part of the University's annual trip program for students. It was just a day trip, most of which was spent traveling to and from Nottingham, so I just got to see the usual touristy places (something I don't enjoy but being a poor student, had to contend with).<br /><br />It was drizzling when we got there and got colder and colder. Bath is a city to visit only when its sunny. Otherwise, due to all the limestone, it seems dreary and drab (err...).<br /><br />Still, going with the mood, I don't think I missed the sun too much except when it got colder and colder.<br /><br />It was somewhat difficult to take decent photographs as well and not just due to the rain but also because it was too busy, including the fact that the camera was borrowed as I didn't have a camera while I was in the UK.<br /><br />This reminds (I'd forgotten to mention it in the York post) me to thank the Malaysian friend, who not only lent me her camera but also gave me a chance to visit York. The poor kid couldn't go and insisted I go in her stead. Thanks to her generosity, I not only visited York but it also pushed me to forget my finances for a while and just go see a few places before I left; though the only other place I saw after that was Bath (the last one before coming back).<br /><br /><div>Will post more pictures later.<br /><br /></div>Girl Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123487325763434093noreply@blogger.com0