LONG AGO, I DIED...

                                                                          LONG AGO, I DIED…

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------TAHA  MUGHAL

Tonight the fumes run down my hollow spine… I unexpectedly breathe, but only to discover a strange kind of strangulation. My pen selflessly goes on and on, towards the destiny unheard of. I find myself forlorn in the vast arid of pains and tragedies… Now I know; myself to be the inhabitant of a village, ravaged of all its valuables. There is nothing but the dark lull, which I see. I quiver-I shiver and make a trial to go on. The sand beneath flees away, making me believe that I have been moving on the ways! Verily, these are the ways akin to a mirage and as I write this, I strangely feel these ways to be my destiny. I know I have lost nothing actually, then why do I feel, there is left nothing in me---some kind of intoxication, I will have to believe! None can feel anyone’s pain and certainly, I feel short of the words today. May be, words were never meant to say everything…

Being honest with my words, I must admit that I don’t know, what left me here in the cobweb of my alien thoughts. Perhaps, that single query tormenting many a thousand minds, ‘what do we exist for?’ yes, simpler the question is more heart aching it turns to be. I have been racing along the life since the past 19 years. Today, as I approach the 20th one, I feel to ask the fainted mirror in front of me, ‘where do you stand in the queue of the eternal assets?’ I went on with the academics, welcomed friends and even witnessed them going away. I made love to them; sometimes selflessly, sometimes in the attire of a compulsion and at other times as an excuse! I secured positions and at times nourished the ‘mediocre me’. Yet, I lament now! I went on living the way, that I know now to be actually nothing more than a colorful dream; only meant to steal away the precious moments of my ‘real life’.

At this dose of discouragement that is but a virtue strange; I fall in dire submission…my soul vibrating on the chords amidst the world and my part… all these words are testimony to the existence of mine in a state of a deep slumber, where you wake up with a feeling of being looted very badly…I feel the treasure is moving away--- (Alhamdulillah! At least I feel; for I say, you can’t be a murderer without that single lament of having done something wrong.). O myself! Why do I paint the heart in black that reddens my mind? O Satan, you were made to be defeated and I continued doing otherwise! I let you get hold of me. How falsely I believed to have followed my heart. It was Allah to bless me with an individual identity and existence; and, how I erased it all! I lost myself in the arms of the spirit of evil that seemed to be the bloomed flowers--- I trusted it for ruining me. Although I knew everything, yet I never accepted that Satan was me. How badly I veiled the treasure that was eternally mine…I never paid heed to the voice of the human dwelling within the dark frame of my skeleton. I believed eternal solace to be in the inferno of my wrongdoings…I let you down, my Lord! You had created me for an eternal noble cause. I let you down… I neglected that spark and as I burn down, I even doubt to call you!!! Astagfirullah! Had a smoked a cigarette tonight, it wouldn’t have been as painful as is now. It could have helped me in escaping the reality very easily. Stealthily in the smoke, I could have left the stage itself; for, now I’m in a state where I can neither go forwards nor backwards. The words ‘All is vain!’ resonating within instead of ‘All is well!’ I am a failure! I lament how steadily that voice of the ‘ideal me’ echoes within me and how badly I push it back inside every time or perhaps let it go with an air of forgetfulness----pause---that voice shouted a heartbeat before, ‘ O man; since we have departed from each other; we lay in a state of solace; Ah!  You too are a big liar (in saying that) as I am…’

Huh! Hokum! Don’t I enjoy mocking at the teacher behind his back? Laughing at his mispronounced words? Partying with the vodka bottle! ‘itna chalta hai yaar!. Abhi nahi to phir kab? Budha hoke?’. I really enjoy the cigarettes in my mouth rather than pen in my hand. B-U-T.but, where resides that feeling of being as alive as the aroma of the wet soil?

Today I get backstabbed as I once again pay a sojourn to the bygone times, far down the memory lane…

I wake up two hours late than my mother. She calls me for help in the kitchen to prepare my breakfast, whilst I lay busy in discussing the bunk and the date with one of my girlfriends. Proud of being a matricide, I rather bawl back ‘Can’t you see, I’m busy! Will you excuse me and get lost!’ I then overlook my mother’s broken being and gulp down the food. My father orders me to attend some household chore; and I, tired of his ‘Hitler attitude’; leave the house for playing cricket saying, ‘ek hi to Sunday milta hai, us din bhi sar khatey ho!’ I play cricket all day long and return back to the house-cum-hotel and order the dinner. Then? Then I really love my father for providing me a mobile and an unsupervised internet access! I wake up the next morning as usual and leave for the college. There lays a man badly wounded in an accident by the roadside. Forced by the circumstances that I had got myself into; I move past him fearing shortage in the attendance. Today my girlfriend and I are going to the class after seven long days. I let the wounded human die, falsely believing that I myself am alive. . .

The worst kind of deceptions is self-deception. For how long shall I deceive myself by believing that I have lived a worthy life and done my part? When shall I realize the actual motto of our existence? When shall I understand that nothing is more liberating than to fight for a cause larger than myself…something that encompasses me but is not defined by my existence alone? I admit to be the person who won’t ever be forgiven for polluting the pious word ‘love’. ‘Love’, ‘Tragedies’, and ‘Death’ have a million forms and when shall I realize that I have died long ago in the flames of this materialistic world, whilst I believed to be alive in the illumination of my pseudo-goals!

Why do I give up comprehending?

‘King, thief, saint, madman---love has grabbed everyone by the neck and takes to God by secret ways… How could I ever guess that God too desired us?’

                                                                                                                                                              Moulana Rumi(RA)

O Allah! When am I going to realize that we are living to die at last? Have I really done my part over here? A day in my future when I wouldn’t get a chance to help anyone--- will I really weep that night for the unproductive day? How many people forgot their pains due to my comforting (empathizing) words since today’s morning? Nobody but me can give these answers… The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we live…The sky tonight is lour. The candle beside me is dying to extinguish and shouldn’t I close my eyes for three minutes in this age of global fervency; and ask myself, ‘what do I want from my life (both actually as well as eternally) and what am I doing to achieve it?’ is it only about materialistic gains? Shouldn’t I be wise enough to gain from my losses?

I am certainly not a lone voice, you see. I am a youth in the ‘MAKE IT’ or ‘BREAK IT’ stage of my life. I really miss the yester times and I fall in prostrate with the eyes half barren and half fertile . . . Ever read the language of love? Of eyes? I present you the following alien words…



‘What avail was my running so fast?

Shades of evening fell ere I reached my goal

My zest and zeal were in vain; I lost my youth

Where has gone the Darling, the consolation of my heart, O’ where…



The autumn wind has bereft me of my senses

The golden oriole is killed, the flowers have withered

How has the blossoming summer or the spring slipped away?

Oh! Where has gone the darling of my heart, O’where! ‘



Do I want the next 20 years to be like the past 19 years that went astray in eternal terms! Before my pen splits into two; these years, I proclaim, have already shouldered my cadaver; long ago. . .

TAHA MUGHAL
SHRI MATA VAISHNO DEVI UNIVERSITY