jo guzari na jaa saki

every night seems a little longer, so i live through it and sleep through the day

Sep 09, 2023

In a bid to get better at Urdu and to find more things to translate, I went back to Jaun Eliya, who has spoken to me whenever I have found myself underwater.

I sat down in the reading room and started writing his sher down, a type of poetry that stops at being a couplet, but does more than the former for the ruins inside of you.

The one I was writing down was -

जो गुज़ारी न जा सकी हम से
हम ने वो ज़िंदगी गुज़ारी है
Jo guzaari na jaa saki humse
Humne wo zindagi guzaari hai

It roughly translates to -

The one that could not be spent by me
Is the life that I have lived through.

But funnily enough, I went through five pages, five clean A4 sheets in a notebook that I bought with the last of my money I had, because I kept making the same mistake. Instead of writing zindagi, I kept writing raat. As in, the night that could not be spent, I have lived through that one.

In the end, I wanted to tear all the pages and eat it until the tears would just go back. But I couldn’t do that. I was in the common study area, and I have spent not just a life, but also all the energy I had. I am spent. The life isn’t. That’s how the night goes.

L'ami de mon amie (1987) dir. Eric Rohmer

University is different, it’s a small world holding multiple smaller universes inside of it. I feel like a star, without any super or rock qualities, although I do feel like there are multiple rocks weighing me down, making the journey to the bottom super slow; after all I am but suspended inside a jar of memories - viscous. I hate memory, I hate remembering, I hate missing.

One thing that I have had to make peace with, everyday, is the fact that people fall in and out of each other quite frequently. Sometimes it is because of something Big and Brutal, sometimes it's somebody’s temperament, sometimes it's other people. The falling out is bad, the falling in is comforting. This is worse than going to somebody whom you love and getting bits and pieces, this is that combined with your loneliness that has structured itself around the next best thing to actual romance, and wants company other than misery. This loneliness wants to resign from Misery Business and wants to join the Companion Company where everybody hangs out with you, stays back for you, and asks you if you ate. Oh, to be a wonderful friend and to have wonderful friends.

Well, all I can say about it is, it will happen sporadically. The girl you love, the one who will be your Tara, will be out of your life for a while, and the fear of that danger happening again will loom over you both, and yet you will sustain — yourselves and each other.

I have been thinking about how so much happens everyday, and how less of it remains. I am in front of the world, and I promise myself I will remember the good parts, but a fortnight later when I need some comfort, nothing comes back. I force myself to remember, but the goodness is spent, the world has furled back in. A few weeks ago Ishmael and I ended up in front of a religious procession, with “coloured gods” of India dancing, and everybody looking at it. Blue, green, red, black, every colour. The bigger god swallowed fire, and I remember it even now. Maybe because it was not a good part, but it was the child in me viewing something exciting, and new. And the child in us remains and remembers.

I then looked at the crowd, people video calling home, to wives, to brothers, to sons, and instead of looking at the procession, the Act, they became a proponent of the Act to an Audience Barely There. I thought of technology eating up our brains and conscience, and how none of us is actually present anymore, because we want to be available everywhere, as a figment. Then I recorded a video to send back home.

hi, how are you all? getting back to writing, and instead of beating myself over it, i am going to be kind and gentle to myself. things will be ok. writing a fantastic piece on my friends and lovers, and i hope to put it up by tuesday. kisses. love you. tell me about yourself.

love,

heera