just 4 random thoughts together...

Choose - Your Soul is the spark... It lights the path of your Life - the path you walk on, the walk you go through; it leads you into the light, or into darkness. When something good or bad touches you, it is your soul that takes on the light of that very glow and leads you to the next place and time. Look into your heart and you know - see - the light you are following, the light that is guiding you - the light that you are becoming; You can be the sunshine - or you can be the darkness - choose - for yourself.

Control - Wear your shoes, but don't forget the ground beneath them, the surface that you exist upon. Shoes may be there to protect you from the thorns, the rocks in your path; but they will also never let you feel the springy grass beneath your soles on the sunny happier days - so let there be days when you let your soles go, and let your soul get drenched in the rain and the sunshine!

Believe - Some days are just plain painful - It's almost as if life is purposely removing the props you intricately arranged around yourself, the very things that made-up your comfort zone. Life will upset you. Life will provoke you. Just let the spark be. Leave that light on - let it guide you, love you, hide you, thrill you, hold you, help you.

Reversal - About getting breaks in Life - Some of us may see them as break-downs, when in reality they may be the break-throughs that you needed most...

- JB

Risk Factors –

To eat an egg, you must break the shell.
~Jamaican Proverb

I don't want to be the one who changes, or makes a change, just for the sake of change.

Neither do I want to be the one who watches life pass by - simply because one’s grown comfortable and complacent. With these thoughts in my mind, I recently questioned the cause and effects of taking a risk...

Why do we take a risk? Why do we call it a ‘chance’? - Because it’s a chance to become, BE, something more, to go beyond... A risk is taken to gain something; for something we believe in – even if we know there is a 50% chance that we may not get our dream. When we fight against reason, society, logic, ethics, norms, rational thought – just to fulfill a dream, our goal, we do it to make our dream a reality. But what are we doing/ thinking if we are taking a risk without a purpose, nothing to gain from it - What is the return on the investment of all the pains, tears, fears, blood, and toil? Does it please you, pleasure you in the end? – should we take a risk that will lead us no-where?

I believe the point of taking a risk is to feel good, great, happy… Feel alive.
So much so, that when you make it through to the other side you feel a sense of pride, joy, immense peace; You feel complete; resolved – Like, you want to scream from the highest mountain-top, you want to jump from the tallest waterfall knowing you can land safely – because you took that one risk; you gained so much freedom of spirit, your passion doubled – You reaffirmed your value in your own eyes, in the eyes of those who matter, and earn the highest sense of respect and belief in your Self.

Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide? ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I think… If one is not happy taking the risk – it defeats the purpose of the risk – there is no cause, and so, no effect. There is literally no reason for one to take such a risk!

What’s in it for You?

I see people around me who have passionately pursued their dreams and failed at them. The silver lining - They are the ones who have lived a complete, much more fulfilling life. Compare them to the ones who shelved their dreams – They were so afraid to be laughed at, the thought of failure made them anxious. They have no passion for life left in them, simply because they never took a chance, a risk that meant something to them; something that would complete them.

Yes, risk taking is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing-taking. ~Tim McMahon

Life is a synonym for Adventure. Take a chance to Live.
~Jane Bravo

A Poison to Love.

There are Poisons in this life that go beyond the realm of our supposed reality.

Life will offer them to you. And you will accept them for the headiness they bring to your body, and for how they make your heart beat faster. The vessel that holds them is mesmerizing too, and the scent so passionate that you can’t get enough of it in fast enough. You’re afraid. You hold yourself back as long as you can...

Till the day you yearn for it so badly that you can bear the wanting no more, making you dive like the lost girl who wanted to go to the bottom of the sea to find what was reflecting on the glittering surface of it in the dark. She didn’t know it was a mirage. It was just the moonlight playing tricks, teasing her, daring her… come closer...

As you raise the poison to your lips and sip it, you’re scared; you drink it in a little at a time. You feel like everything's under control; that’s when you impatiently gulp it down – like a big bite that chokes you, which you can’t chew, nor swallow.

That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the Point of No-Return - When you take that leap, it slides into your life, Life as you remember it changes; in every way...

It gets into your system so fast, you hardly feel it seeping in. It’s only a matter of time before you realize it; it's too late to rectify now. These are strange poisons, like magical spells that can not be undone. It won't instantly kill you, it'll live within you. The minute you try to drain it out, you will die. It’s deep in your blood, gotten into your heart. It’s in You. It becomes You, and You become it. It controls you. You live for it, it feeds on you to live. You become something else. Someone you don’t know about, someone you don’t really want to be, someone you don't know how to be... yet, you are this mutant thing fallen from grace for the sake of Love. Neither dead nor alive, like a stone, with just this poison gushing in your veins taking you through each day, your senses heightened, the pleasure, the pain like multiple waves, hitting against you on the inside one after the other... You live from then on with the knowledge that letting the poison out will turn you to dust. You will be nothing but smoke as it rises and blends into the air…

“I know about the antidote that will free me of my pain,
But I cannot owe indebtedness to the one who breaks the chain…”

- JB

Who is John Galt? Is Jane Bravo a little bit like him? She likes to think so…

I speak my mind; Because I know what I feel, when I feel it, how I feel it.

Don’t let my words hurt you; know that they are only my opinions and my thoughts. And that I offer them when you ask me, ‘What do you think?’
I can’t not-say what I am feeling!

That would be disrespecting myself and also disrespecting who I am saying it to.

How can that be a good thing? Is it not better then, to speak your mind!? Isn’t that what ‘free will’ is all about. To know who you are, and know exactly what you mean when you say it. Why sugar-coat things? Why lie? Why should one say things that one does not feel, does not own -things that one does not mean. Such meaningless things are of no significance. They are unimportant.

Why not tell it like it is – my perception of it?
I will speak my mind. Understand that.

If you don’t like me - I won’t say things to make you like me. Because then I am not being me, and you are reinforcing that you don’t/wont/cant like the REAL me.
I believe – and I have proof (proof is important, it leaves no room for doubts) - the people who matter to me, and who I matter to: will love me/ like me/ need me/ want me - for who I AM, and for the way I am. Just as I love them back. I never expect anyone to change their nature; they never expect me to change mine. My true loves and deepest friendships are based on this mechanism. My tribe (my people, those who own me, those who are mine) is my proof - for me to know this system works in my world.
The people who don’t get me and my words – I am not trying to insult you. If you ask me a question you should be prepared to hear what I feel – simply because when you ask me ‘What do you think?’ - I will tell you precisely that!

I’m a bitter pill to swallow, but I am the better drug – I never give you a fake high. Like a circle in the sand – never-ending. I am what I say am, I am what I do, I am what I see, what I paint, what I write, I am what I love – and it’s all real, it’s all the real ME.

So next time you want the whole truth and nothing but the truth – ask me.
If you can’t handle my version of the truth – it’s ok, but don’t expect me to lie. Accept this.

Coming back to my concept of Free Will – Ayn Rand said it exactly the way I embrace it - “That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.”

Happy Independence Day!
May you all be emancipated ;)

-JB

One Art - by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

I absolutely LOVED this poem.

We can accept losing things - sometimes we are meant to lose.

Accept it, and don't let it feel like a disaster, even though that is what it feels like - we all lose our place, and the people we love sometimes - but, the 'art of losing isn't too hard to master'...

Sometimes pain is inevitable - but suffering is optional...

I hope you learnt to master the One Art... I'm still practicing - losing, and 'losing farther, losing faster' and not letting it seem like disaster...

- JB

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful, you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

This is a poem by E.E. Cummings...
*sigh* just sharing...

How lovely is the portrayal of Love.

-JB

Smoke has Substance as it rises from a Fire, just before it blends into the Air…

She begins… then understands that her finishing lines for every race are her starting points.
She walks down the roads of her life, meets different circumstances that enhance her beliefs, teaching her new things about herself.
She evolves.
She grows.
It is not a process, it is a journey. Like a nightmare that becomes a sweet dream, and then a nightmare again. She wanted to find easier paths – without the rocks that gave her blisters, but this is what the universe had planned for her - for her to BE this way, and this way alone.
As she met so many stories along the way she kept the tune in her heart playing and her mind danced to it. She can be so many things – a mother, a daughter, a teacher, a child, a girl, a woman; she can be a war, she can find peace; she likes to remember, she cannot forget; she plays a relay race with herself – running back and forth between dreams, realities, ideas, and needs…
She owns the paints, holds the brush, and the canvas belongs to her too. She will show you how she sees the perfect. Pay attention - you'll see all her colours in black and white.

- JB

Random Poem at Midnight...

As I sit alone on this solitary night
Another day gone by, another solo flight…

I’ve dreamed too much in this existence
Through all my tears, I’ve been consistent.

I’ve willed good things in to my Life
Through each back-stabbing, cruel knife.

As I sit alone on this solitary night
Another day gone by, another solo flight…

I wonder where real Beauty lies,
Why is this place full of merely ugly lies?

I yearn that the Truth be spoken!
I yearn for Love, and bonds unbroken.

As I sit alone on this solitary night
Another day gone by, another solo flight…

I hope for simple Joys and inner Peace.
I am in pain, I’m feeling incomplete.

I long to find my other Soul -
Bound to me, making me whole.

As I sit alone on this solitary night
Another day gone by, another solo flight…

I wish only pure things for my World -
And this is how my Earth shall turn -

With dreams of Truth and Peace and Love,
I own my Faith in the Heavens above.

-JB

just a little bit of pixie dust...

I like how children can make-believe...

It is a trick we forget as we grow older - how to make ‘believe’.

Why do we lose that super power as we grow?

When do we stop ‘believing’?

And why?

...how the socks that came alive as hand-puppets, are just socks now – not lions and tigers and bears as I once imagined. The coloured glitter powder is just that – not magical pixie dust that can make me fly. The pasta necklace is ivory-coloured, hard, hollow pasta – not elephant tusk from the jungles of Africa. Wearing Mama’s high heels and red boa will never turn me into a Rockstar... that was a long, long time ago, but I can still remember...

It was so easy to make magic before I learnt that it was all in my childish mind.

Not fair that the child in you dies so soon. And as you grow up, grow old, you forget the magic of being a child.

I wish I was ten again...

-JB

L to the O to the V to the E?

I reflected much on LOVE this Valentine’s Day.
I reflect on love most days anyway – regardless of V-day! And I realized I really wanted to BE in Love.
The last time that I fell in Love - it was a beautiful heady feeling… That soon came crashing down! Why? Well, because I wasn’t in love with a person. I was in love with the ‘love potential’ I saw in him. The actual character was one I could not love. And with time, could not stand for extended periods of time.

Most Women make this mistake all the time. Men make it too. But the ‘love’ continues because an ordinary person will ‘mould’ him/her self for the person he/she believes he/she loves or wants to be loved by. Guess, I don’t want the ordinary… And so my ‘love connection’ did not last…

I want the REAL DEAL. Not something imaginary. I want ferocious. I want passionate. I want heart-warming and soul-forming. Not the kind of love one has to work to make and keep going. A love that is deep-rooted.

A love based on love, not based on friendship or blood relativity - A love between two different people, who love with an identical intensity.

I want to be loved, I want to love. I want my happy ending... And I want it soon… yes, like a fool rushing in… I want that magic, I want that beauty. I want the hugs, and the kisses, and the holding-hands. I want to feel warm feet under the covers, I want to dance to slow music, and I want flowers, and romantic weekends away from the usual weeks.

I want to have all that. I don’t need it. I want it.

It's not that I don't value my independence. I do, very much. And yet as I grow older I realise, it’s no fun being all alone all the time. It’s great to be with my friends, it’s wonderful to enjoy my space, and do what I want to do, when I want to do it; but at the end of every day I want to come home to a man who loves me, adores me, treats me like a goddess. And yes, I am a goddess. I wasn’t always a goddess. I became one over time. So, please deal with it. I am a goddess – the gorgeous sort of goddess who can make anyone go weak in the knees – this has been tried on men, women and children. ( I seem to have derailed from the topic at hand… as always...!)

Beethoven wrote a love letter to his ‘Immortal Beloved’ – I want this kind of feeling –

“My thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved. I can live only holy with you, or not at all. Become my life, my all. Only by calm consideration of our existence can we continue to achieve our purpose to live together.
Oh, continue to love me.
Never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
Ever mine.
Ever thine.
Ever ours.”

To all those lovely couples out there – keep the love alive.
For all the singles out there - keep searching... it's out there.

Life is all about learning to love and learning to be loved.
To romance, and warm feet under the covers…

-JB

Here I am - once again!?

2008 seems to have gone by at lightning speed.

My 2008 List – What I did, got, earned, found, met, learnt… all good things don’t come to an end!

Got my Flat
Got my laptop
Fell in love – with my job
Evolved some more as a person
Lost some weight
Lost (a lot of) emotional baggage
Found some wonderful people, who became amazing friends
Learnt how to blow dry my hair to perfection (2009 will be a Good Hair Year – Oh yeah!)
Danced every chance I got – sometimes in the privacy of my own lounge ;)
Got Tablaas (!)
Dived into a Volcano – and lived to tell…
Tried Sushi
Took a camel ride - in the moonlight - on the beach – with a cute stranger
Finished a painting – The Magic Crystal
Read a lot of great books
Watched some really good movies
Ate plenty of fruits and veggies
Had a supernatural experience
Became a Facebook addict
Did not quit smoking
Made a modeling portfolio
Did two live radio shows
Attended two award show ceremonies
Sang at The Second Floor
Watched a play
Watched my babies grow…
Strengthened my Faith
Did good deeds just for the heck of doing good deeds
Found that Good Karma is not just a theory

Went to Sunday Bazar – once
Met my estranged aunt after 15 years

2009 is here – This too shall pass? And it shall be fantastic :)
Let it not pass you by quietly – let it shake you, move you, change you - make it special, make it happy, make it a life worth living! And a life worth loving…

-JB

It’s not the crown that makes the Queen.

“The worm that destroys you is the temptation to agree with your critics, to get their approval.”
…Don't forget, "As long as you love yourself people have no choice but to accept you.”

I have walked down both those roads at different times in my life. First, being ‘destroyed’ by the ‘worm’ - wanting to win the approval of others, and to be accepted by them. Often trying to fit in, but never feeling like myself, and never feeling good about making that effort. Then learning to ‘love yourself’- being hit by the realization (accepting) that I am different – I just can’t always fit in. Learning to accept who and what I am –embracing my self - was a big challenge. Loving myself, and finding people who genuinely understand and love me as I exist, without one iota of me tweaked for anyone’s approval.

I used to be selectively cautious. I did some things too early, and others very late. But then realized that despair and failure lead me to my clarity and my truths – and ‘I’ accepted ‘me’, my life, and my individuality. I have been very brave and very bold in the search for my belief system. And having found it, I adamantly remain true to my own beliefs and perspectives.

Now I always look at my reflection in the mirror with a smile. I can meet my eyes, I can wear my skin, I can hug my soul…

I know I am not the only person who wonders what they are doing here. I think we’ve all asked ourselves this question more than once in our lives. Shakur once said – “Remember to keep yourself alive. There is nothing more important than that.” I believe that is our mission here on Earth for this life. Our mission is to find our real self, without bias accept who we are and grasp it, to live freely and at peace with our lives. This is for the greater good. Because one is only capable of sharing love and happiness and freedom and peace after one has found it within. And then maintain a balance by giving these elements to other lives that touch the circle of my life, as I touch the circles of those lives.

“Sometimes we are forced in directions that we ought to have found for ourselves.”
Maybe because, “There are no regrets in life, just lessons.”

-JB

If I was a tree growing tall and green, all I'd want is for you to shake me, and be my leaves...

I remember the little ten year old who used to eat Ovaltine powder out of the tin when Mama was sleeping in the afternoon, and laughing out loud when Mama opened the tin after a few days horrified to find the Ovaltine stuck together from moisture getting in. Hey! Ovaltine was hard to come by in those days - and no one was allowed extra portions with salivated tablespoons...!

I remember the first Barbie I ever owned. My aunt got it from London and it was the most beautiful doll in the world. I showed it off a gazillion times, beaming with owner's-pride as my friends looked at it with envy. I also haven't forgotten the torture of seeing it being flung into the ceiling fan by my naughty elder brother - and the doll coming down in two pieces!

I remember fighting over a little red post box my father had brought - that we both wanted to own - and my brother got it - it was the most beautiful box I ever saw.

I remember baking my first cake. My father got me a box of Hundreds & Thousands. It was the most deformed looking cake in the world, when I think about it now. But back then, it was the most perfect cake in the world...*sigh* Didn't taste too bad either, by the way.

I remember my younger brother helping me make my MSN account - and patiently explaining to me how it works. He was such a little brat as a kid, always Mama's baby when we were all little - I would play the role of the bossy older sister, and enjoy it so much. Simply because it annoyed him!

I remember my first trip to the beauty salon with my Mama (for the first time to get something more than just a school specificated haircut), and wearing make-up for the first time to a family wedding! I remember getting my first pair of high-heels. They were shiny hot pink! (I nearly tripped... they were also a daring three inches!)

I remember driving a car for the very first time, and my Dad showing me how to use the clutch on the battered old car he'd borrowed from work to teach me on - just incase I hit something! Dad - always so practical.

I remember falling in love... And then learning other things that come with it... I remember learning to let go, and letting go...

I remember writing my first article and getting my first pay-check. That was a great feeling of having achieved something. And getting my first real job - as a teacher.

I remember seeing my picture in the paper for the first time - WOW - when I scored the highest in my exams. I remember my parents beaming with pride that day. They were proud of me.

I remember stepping into motherhood. The most beautiful of my memories - I remember how it felt to bring life in to the world. I have no words to describe the feeling of complete and utter bliss. I remember learning a new kind of love with this title - Mother. I remember teaching my children to paint. Letting them make a mess as I made hand-prints for me to keep. And giving them their first lychees to taste... their little noses crinkling, wondering how the jelly-like, white-looking thing will taste on their tongues. I remember the first time I took them to see the snow... and we attempted to make a snowman. I remember teaching them how to walk, run, speak, sing, and go to school. I remember baking my daughter's first batch of brownies with her. I remember the first time my son fell, and how brave he was. They are my masterpieces, like symphonies - my 1st and my 2nd.

I remember the first diamond ring I ever owned. It is the most beautiful ring in the world. And though I don't wear it anymore, it is a special thing, it makes me smile to myself when I see it in my jewellery box.

I remember a recent summer abroad, when I met my parents as a mature adult. And fell in love with them all over again. We made many new memories that year.

I remember laughing about 'Pajara da tax' and 'Kitchen ki batti off?' and 'Yeh kya hai?!' and the award-winning 'Hum khatay thay pehlay...' inside jokes we own.

There have been good times, and there have been great times... I remember these times with a full-colour picture. They heal me over and over again from all the bad stuff that I have been through.

Whenever I was hurting, I think, little bits of me dropped away. These memories brought new bits, that were gradually plastered over the spaces left empty, and I kept growing into who I am.

I make an effort to always remember the good times and focus on forgetting all the bad times. It's a constant process. I feel like a sculpture, and the sculptor who made it - simultaneously. I chisle away at myself, letting what I don't want, or can't have, go. Keeping what I love, and own it. Crafting and molding and shaping - making me who I am eventually: The Daughter, the Sister, the Mother, the Woman - all glorious, all beautiful.

To my parents, my brothers, and my children - I love you from within. I'm not great at showing it sometimes. But I think of you everyday...

'In the morning I wake up, before I put on my make-up... I say a little prayer for you...!'

-JB

Post-Drama/ Post-Trauma

It is so lovely when the littlest things and moments bring the largest smiles. There is an intense sense of Peace to have Joy without the effort of searching for a smile or hunting down Happiness.

What alarms me at times is when the seemingly smallest of things bring the biggest of tears and heart-wrenching, soul-killing grief. When everyone around you believes you are falling apart over nothing - or something trivial, and you can't make them understand, maybe because you only feel the pain and hardly understand what to do with it yourself.

There are such days... when I feel exhausted inside... but I keep on going.

I question what holds me together, often. Sometimes I feel I have no strength to go on - and yet somehow I (maybe I become inhuman?) continue to go on; through my pains, through the tears, through the undeserved tormenting hurt. Dreaming of a rectification and of Justice... Perhaps, something will change; some one will come - and save me sooner than later?

This Life is a just winding road - no one really knows where it is going... We just keep on walking... pretending… searching? But what for, and do we ever find it?

Life can be a bottomless pit - As if I am falling... falling... falling... way low, perhaps lower than last time, a brand-new low even! Will I have the strength to climb back out of this thick darkness that surrounds me?

This Life presents itself as an endless uphill climb when all I want to do is fall down and evaporate into nothingness. But I charge on, my dreams keeping a tiny hope alive, dragging me through the rocks, taking me higher...

I know I numb myself sometimes, as if a meditated killing of myself, temporarily dying just to stay alive for later. And what if some day this clever little trick I’ve taught myself becomes irreversible - that I remain in this sequential death of my soul forever, and I cease to be in spirit? I’m scared that this may happen one of these days…

We all play with fire. But what happens when one dives in to a volcano - Can I ever heal? How must I swim through this - the burning, the hurt, and the ashes? How do I reverse this? How do I get to the Stop, Erase, and Rewind buttons on the control panel?

Ah, yes. There is no Control Panel – I broke it. I lost my control.

I'm feeling like the Fat Lady's about to sing... anytime now...

- JB

Mother is a VERB - never a noun

-JB :)

Now I lay me down to sleep, a pile of Hate inside I keep...

So many people in my life. People I see often enough. People I see through some of the time.

And I play along... Letting them bury themselves deeper and deeper in the fallacies they create to court attention. How shiny and bright they seem. How lustre-less and bland they are. No depth, nor beauty beyond the colours they paint themselves with, and the borrowed feathers they wear. So removed from the truth - all their words, and all their acts. They really believe people can not see their real faces. Perhaps this is the only innocent thought that ever crossed their minds?

They are all snakes, waiting to strike as they slither in your sleeve... And sometimes when I take the covers off their concealed realities - exposing what and who they really are, they hiss in angry tones, 'We are not your friends! You have hurt us!'

I ask, 'You were my friend?'

They have no answer to give.
It always saddens me when I am forced to accept who they really are. Deep down in my heart I wish... That for once, just once, I may have read them wrongly, unjustly. For once I should be mistaken and them desperately misunderstood. Not one has said yet, that I 'misunderstood' them, only that our 'friendship' is over... I wish my hardest that for once I am wrong, that for once they are real, that for once all they speak is the truth.

Oh, Stupid World! Give me one real friend?

-JB

Women & Children - Health, Death, Disaster?

The conclusion of a US Agency for International Development funded study on Population and Health issues presented a bleak picture recently. The survey exposed a substantial gap between family health knowledge, contraceptive knowledge, and the use of solutions in the local population.

*The Facts -

96% married women know about modern methods.

Only 22% use them.

1 in 4 married women has a need for family planning, but does not know how to go about fulfilling that need.

More than one-third deaths of women aged 25 to 29 years are owing to maternal causes.

35% women receive no pre-natal care during their pregnancies.

Only 44% married women have heard of AIDS. However, they have NO actual knowledge of the causes and precautions of HIV or AIDS.

20% know that using a condom can prevent AIDS but less than half will benefit from this knowledge.

One-third births take place within 24 months of a previous birth.

47% children aged between 12 to 23 months receive all recommended vaccines.

Over 9 of every 100 children die before they celebrate their 5th birthday.

* 95, 000 families across Pakistan were individually contacted in this survey.

Sadly, it doesn't seem like we are going to have the progressive and promising future that we were aiming for.

Love/Luck/Perfection... I'm rambling... thinking out loud... 'scusi moi.

I used to believe in my lucky socks, magic sea shells and gratitude rocks - I used to be an advocate of Luck, Love, and Perfection – Now I only wonder about the realities of the three abstracts - Are these all that we run after perpetually our whole lives? Do they really exist?

Luck – Will hanging up a horse-shoe change your life? Or perhaps investing in a Rabbit’s paw? Maybe I’ve become a bit of a cynic... In truth, I want to believe, and there are those rare circumstances when people make me want to believe in Luck so badly. I wish I got that ‘lucky’ just once?!


Love – The definition of many different relationships and feelings – friends, family, and children – these are 'loves' that we often don’t have to prove we deserve, we feel them, we have them and share them (usually unconditionally) – of course, there are exceptions here too. Interestinging though, the kind of Love we most yearn for, hope for, search for, and want to get lucky with – can exist only between a man and a woman (also a man and a man, or a woman and a woman – hey, whatever works for you!)– A Fairytale, possibly? What do I know…? I am trying so hard to be a cynic! This Love happens to be the most complicated kind of Love. Especially today, when people are nothing but fickle, one way or another- they’re either going to cheat on you, or act like a martyr, or leave you when the realization strikes them that they were not in love with you to begin with – that their definitions of Love are different from yours - Enter, Perfection...? Or you will do all these things to someone who ‘loves’ you. You see!? In the case of Love, you need Luck the MOST! Let’s hope you only fall in love and not fall from grace in the process *tough one*.


Perfection - A standard we ‘create’ (even breed) in our minds, over time, based on experiences, observations, and preferences. Although, when we go out to find this ‘Perfect-ness’ we realize it does not exist, we are at quite a loss. We even learn (sometimes painfully) that as we aim for Perfection it is a moving target! Either we eventually see imperfection in what we believed to be perfect, or we alter our perception of Perfection during our search for it. All this running around eventually will tire us, and we’ll wonder if we should stop looking for Perfection- continuing to live our mediocre, non-perfect lives. Then shall we turn again to hope for some Luck to come our way…? *sigh*


Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps… I'm just trying to see that rainbow (made up with colours of Luck/Love/Perfection).

"Please Check Your Parcel Before Receiving"

Thursday evening I decide to treat myself to something pleasurable - no, no, don't let your dirty mind wander - more along the lines of a good meal I've been craving for days and some new literature to read at the end of my long and tiring (but quite rewarding) week/ work days.

I drive to a famous bar-b-que joint, place a take-away order with the waiter (remembering my dad the whole time - incidentally, this is the good meal he often craves too!)and walk into my favourite bookstore adjacent to the bustling restaurant.

I buy my books, walk to my car where the waiter is patiently waiting for me to collect my order and pay him. Paid and tipped he leaves. I drive off home, happy.

I stuff my face with the food [understatement]. Make myself some green-tea and clear up the kitchen as it cools.

It is then that I see at the BOTTOM of the packet, like some words of wisdom out of a fortune cookie after a Chinese meal, a statement sent to me by the Universe - to answer the questions I have been shooting out to it this week :

"Please Check Your Parcel Before Receiving"

I am puzzled. How BEFORE 'receiving'? Not before 'taking' your parcel, but before 'receiving' your parcel. Hmmmm... Really?

I sip my green-tea. I must try out this very new concept given to me. I smile, and Kane plays in my head...

"Tell me do you wanna believe it
Tell me would you wanna receive this life
That's only meant for you
There is so much that you can choose
Without giving in

And one of these days
It's gonna come right back to you
One of these days

I got the heart and soul
Got the right from wrong
O I'll sing it
Yes I believe it
Got to believe it
Got my heart and soul
And the will to go on
Yes I believe
And it feels good
It feels good"

-JB

The Monsters that come out in Karachi

It is the year 2008.

You're in your early 50s. You've lived a dignified, honest life. Done no harm to anyone, raised a child, cared for a family, worked hard at your small business.

You live in Karachi, Pakistan. Your car-radio clock displays 9.58 pm You're driving to your ordinary home, in your ordinary car, with your valuable family. You're just getting to the flyover that'll bring you closer to your home.

You are aware of the Monsters that are everywhere in Karachi now. They steal, they rob, they kill, they harm. You hold on to your Faith, you hold on to that peace in your mind.

You have your wallet, your mobile, you wear your watch - you are mentally prepared that these may be snatched from you at any point, any time... these are the times you live in. You are prepared to give them up to any Monster that may come.

But what happens next you were never prepared for, not in a million years, not after a million hold-up stories of Karachi...

You are driving at middle speed. A man appears out of nowhere in front of your car. No gun, just a raised hand, signalling you to stop: you think he is mad. You slam the breaks to save his life. And let him in. To destroy yours.

In the car there is silence. He has a gun! He points it at your wife at the window, he can shoot and kill through the glass. You realise he is not mad, he is a Monster...

He motions for your wife to open the door, she does. The three of you sit frozen and tense. Ready to give up your money, your phones, your car... but this is not what the Monster is after.

"Do do kahan leja rahay ho?" [where are you taking two women?]
Pause.
"Aik mere saath jai gi..." [one will come with me now]

As he says that last sentence he is looking at your daughter, she whimpers and starts crying. You are stunned. It is a nightmare sequence where nothing is making sense and everything feels terrifying, and beyond your control.

He moves back slightly, as if to open the backseat door to get in with your daughter, you wife, tears in her eyes says,

"Mujhey le jao.." [Take me]

He holds her arm from behind as she gets off the car. You can do nothing, say nothing, you can not move...

Traffic is moving. No one stopped to help before, no one stops now. Life stops. Your life stopped. In those five minutes of negotiating between giving your wife or your daughter.

Your daughter is crying, shaking, terrified. You look around again, hoping your wife will walk back to the car... it does not happen.

You can't remember how you got home.
You don't remember making the calls.
You don't remember what you tell the police and your people.
You are numb.

24 hours go by... then 48...and 72 hours later, your wife returns home. She is mute. She looks dirty. And broken. As if she was battered and then glued back together, just enough to stand and walk temporarily.
She doesn't look human.
She is already a ghost.

You quietly go to your room. Take your gun. And put a bullet through your brain.
You aren't prepared to live with the Monsters anymore.

*** Written in memory of a real-life incident, in Karachi, in August 2008, for a family that was destroyed by a Monster ***


Be afraid... Be VERY afraid.

- JB