There never was before this, and there never will be after this, a little brother as great as you my Danyal.
Proud of you.
Happy birthday!
Showing posts with label Lahore. Show all posts
Danyal Zafar - THE CARRIAGE OF KNOWLEDGE
My dearest Danyal
As elders, our natural
instinct is to want to protect our kids; we aim to take care of them, we
imagine that without anchoring them they might waver in life. As time winds
down, the realisation dawns that when your children have grown up, the first
thing you do is stop telling them what to do – not because they would oppose
you – but simply because by stepping aside on tiptoe, you can observe them etch
a forte for themselves where they would be a role model for the rest of the
world to idolise upon.
The day I watched you spread
your wings my dear Danny, I grasped that it was my time to tiptoe and observe, from
afar, how humanity was taking to you quite like iron takes to a magnet. I found
myself finding such rapture in your eminence, and it was not something that I
could express via any medium: art or words. It was a feeling that an elder
brother felt for his younger brother, and it was a feeling that I would want gone
with me when I cease to breathe, embedded and buried deep within my heart.
However, when the world
is shrouded in mist, and the atmosphere is so bloody that only the stupid are
fairly untouched, whilst the sensitive wither like a bug-befouled leaf, my chest
rather swells with honour when I see light at the end of the tunnel because of
you my Kidd, or do I even entitle you that, because you are now an admirable
young man who has acquired such a secure grasp on how to shape civilisation
just by being yourself, that calling you a Kidd would be most violating that
very essence, although, the fact does remain that regardless of how older you
grow, you will still remain, in my heart and soul, my little Kidd . . . my little
Danny. And as severe as this may sound, this is also precisely why I am rest
assured that even if I were to die, my greatest treasure, you, would be the
beacon who would manoeuvre the mislead to the zenith of peace and harmony that they
most rightfully need to find themselves in, for god knows that the world needs
a healer, and most urgently.
Thus my Dan, a man with
such a gifted ability and influence to make a dent, remember that when I close my
eyes never to wake up again, live so that your very presence would have made all
the difference to mankind. Commit to memory that your alluring
lips must speak words of kindness. Your lovely eyes ought to pursue the good in
people. For an athletic structure, share
your food with the hungry. For beautiful
hair, let a child run his fingers through it at least once in a day. For carriage, walk with the knowledge that you will
never walk alone. Remember that whether we elders are there with you or
not, we leave you a tradition with a future that
you will try your best to the tender loving care
of human beings, and you will strive that it will never become obsolete.
That you will keep in mind that it is not things, but people even more than anything, that have to be restored, renewed,
revived, reclaimed and redeemed. Be mindful that these very people will displease
you to such irksome levels, whereby you may desire to toss them before the
guillotine, yet, never toss anybody out, for
everyone who traverses your course does so in order to teach you something of
value. Most important of all, bear in mind that if you ever need a helping
hand, you must find one at the end of your arm, and the other one, you must use
for helping others, always.
While I wish you the best of everything in life and nothing
more my Danny, do not think me callous when I say that I would also like that at
different walks of life for you to experience defeat, suffering, struggle, loss
– it is these occurrences and their responses, laterally with delight and humour
that are rather responsible to provide you a way to find your way out of the
depths of delirium. It is these encounters that will help inculcate in you an
appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that would fill you
with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not
just happen, the trials and tribulations of life make them what they are.
I am infinitely
thankful that you exist, my Dan. Now go along and mend the world. It is indeed
your forecourt.
In deed and thought
I remain
Your very own
– Farahdeen
PS: I know, I know, I vowed I would step away and watch quietly, and even then I ended up giving you the longest lecture in the world. For that you officially have the freedom hereon to hold a gun to my temple and pull the trigger (as swiftly and painlessly as possible), as I mouth the last words – But, my Kidd, old habits die-hard, so do I really deserve this?
Photographs by Izzah
Shaheen Malik
Home Is Where The Heart Is - A Note To India And Pakistan This Eid
A note to India and Pakistan this Eid
I can fly to London as frequently as I wish, and yet it
pains me that I cannot step into my own brothers’ homes in Lahore – homes where
a measure of my heart resides.
The statesmen can preserve the border dispute and
celebrate blood with blood to satisfy their insignificant vendettas as long as
their agendas exist, BUT we, the people, do not want anything to do with this,
so this Eid please present us this Eidee India and Pakistan. Return us our
lives. Allow us the comfort to breathe the same air our brothers’ breathe for
nothing can be dimmer than that a nation has the right to butcher me simply because
my brothers’ live on the other side of a line and that our people have had a
quarrel, even though I have not quarrelled with him.
So this Eid please give us this Eidee India and Pakistan,
will you? Give us our freedom to BE. Give us the canvas to express our true
LOVE, something we both feel EVENLY for each other.
This dedicated to my younger brother Ali Mohammed Zafar and my Kidd
Danyal Zafar, who are my life.
To my alter ego, my brother Imran Abbas Naqvi, he and I know
how the loss of loved ones has welded us, and what we have gone through due to
that loss together, yet apart.
Also, to the one man Fawad Afzal Khan who has unfastened
the locks of such floodgates between our nations that one can truly see how
love defeats any semblance of hate.
And of course my Zain Zafar. Can I ever forget
you? Never!
Our World Our Mission – Imran Abbas
They say that a
beautiful face lacks the tenderness of the heart. Since such talk has been alive
since eons, there might be some truth to it, and I am no entity really to
challenge its validity, though my experience has found the contrary to this belief.
In accidental cases such
a maxim might be applicable, and that is simply because one gets rather
accustomed to being lauded for one’s appearance and when one is not bathed in
such accolades, it begins to affect the psyche leading then to terrible low
self-esteem. So in extreme cases such as these, an entire lack of kindness, stemming
clearly from a deep sense of missing that acknowledgment, methinks, might have
triggered such a notion to flourish in the society. However, there are exceptions to
every rule, and one such dazzling exception is my brother from Lahore, Imran
Abbas, whom I fondly call Eemuuu (mouth that with dollops of love and emotion)
because that is the affection he stirs up in you by being him. As you can
fathom from the drift, I could go on forever about Eemuuu, but I shall refrain
from doing so and post instead something he posted most recently on his
Facebook wall letting you decide whether beautiful faces do really lack the
tenderness of the heart.
Saturday 14th May 2016
Dear All
Will you
please post this message in the known groups so that it gets circulated to as
many people as possible? Thank you.
This is the
season of fruits like mango, jamun (black plum), jackfruit etcetera. My request
to all of us is kindly don't throw the seeds, wash them instead and keep them
in a plastic pouch in your car. Whenever you go out travelling and find any
barren land, especially on a highway, do throw these seeds around. They will
germinate easily the coming monsoon. If with this act we can contribute even a
single tree each to our world, our mission would be most successful.
This is not
just a random idea – it was initiated decades ago. Many other districts have
appealed to people to spread abundance in nature this way, and many citizens
have joined this wonderful mission. It would be wonderful if all of us also
join this and contribute back to our next generation, to this world in general.
Please
forward this to all groups....
Thanks
Imran Abbas
Bear in mind that it is not the surface splendour that
is significant, but what we contain inside our soul, and what we contain inside
our soul is most revealed in what we like, because what we like is what we are,
and what we are is what our soul is made up of.
So people, let light into your lives today and let its
luminescence consume you, and when it does, do thank those who evoke such an
emotion in you: in this instance my dear brother Eemuu.
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