Time is a Fire That Burns us all -

Time is a fire that burns us all. - Not suddenly, not dramatically, but quietly and relentlessly. It does not announce itself, does not warn, and does not negotiate. It simply moves forward, consuming moments, people, dreams, and certainties alike. We live inside this fire, often unaware of how much has already been reduced to ash.

Someone said this yesterday in an interview and it resonates so deeply with me as lately, I find myself thinking about time not as something measured by clocks or calendars, but as something felt—felt in tired faces, in silences that grow longer, in conversations postponed, and in lives lived on pause. What disturbs me is not that time passes; that has always been true. What disturbs me is how confidently we assume it will always be available later, we want to live later, enjoy later and fulfil our dreams later but is there a later ever? 

Everywhere I look, I see people exhausted. Not necessarily from hard labour or physical strain, but from waiting. Waiting to be successful. Waiting to be secure. Waiting to be respected. Waiting for the “right moment” to begin living. Roads are full of impatient drivers, offices full of anxious workers, homes full of distracted parents and children. We are present everywhere except in our own lives.

We are taught early to delay joy. First study, then enjoy. First struggle, then rest. First achieve, then live. Happiness is placed at the end of a long checklist, as if life itself is merely preparation for living. Many spend their best years rehearsing for a future that never quite arrives. Time does not pause while we rehearse. It burns on.

What makes time particularly unforgiving is our illusion of permanence. We behave as if relationships will always be repairable, health always recoverable, opportunities always repeatable. We tell ourselves we will make time later—for parents, for children, for friends, for ourselves. But time has no obligation to honour our intentions. One day, “later” quietly expires.

We also waste time living lives that are not for us. Years are spent trying to meet expectations set by others—family, society, tradition, comparison. We chase definitions of success that exhaust us and prove our worth to audiences that are never satisfied. Time is consumed not by living, but by performing. And performance, too, is a fire—it burns from the inside.

The real tragedy is not that time burns us all; that is inevitable. The tragedy is that many reach the end having never truly lived. They survive, they comply, they compete—but they do not feel alive. Joy is postponed, peace is rationed, and meaning is sacrificed at the altar of “someday.”

If time is a fire, then the question do we escape it—no we don't. The question is how to sit beside it. Do we let it destroy us with anxiety, comparison, and delay? Or do we use its heat to shape a life that is honest, present, and meaningful?

Perhaps wisdom lies in recognising time not as an enemy to outrun, nor a possession to hoard, but as a reminder. A reminder that life is fragile, moments are finite, and happiness is not something to be earned later—it must be practiced now, imperfectly and deliberately.

One day, the fire will have done its work. Until then, we owe it to ourselves not to live half-burnt lives—consumed by fear, expectation, and postponement. Let us live while the fire is still warm, while our hands can still reach, while our hearts can still feel.

Omar Khayyam understood this truth centuries ago. He did not deny the certainty of dust, nor did he surrender to despair. He simply refused to waste the moment chasing illusions of permanence. He warned us, gently but firmly, that tomorrow is a promise time never made.

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend.

Time is a fire that burns us all.
The only question that remains is this:
did we let it destroy us—or did we let it light our way?

I am back here after ages  first one since 2014 but something compelled me to do that 

Mothers Day

It is 11^th of May and the whole world is celebrating mothers’ day. There are tributes to mothers all over the television screens, the newspapers are filled up with nicely worded messages for unknown mothers by their unknown children.

I am not writing this piece as a tribute to my hardworking, quiet, and non-reactive mother for she neither needs a tribute nor an acknowledgement either on mothers day or any other day. I am writing this only to share the pain that I have been going through since I saw those innocent faces on TV screen, who were poisoned by their mother just on the eve of the mothers’ day.

I don't know how and why this happened but the television was showing this six-seven years old boy with an oxygen mask on his face, dressed in very ordinary shorts and a tee, moving his head in pain, struggling to open his eyes, his body full of filth for probably he was never taken care of, and his hair full of dust that was either there before he was poisoned or was a consequence of his body rolling berserk after being poisoned. My heart moaned with pain and the only words I could utter were oh my child God be with you.

As if this wasn't enough there was a small probably three years old girl dressed even shabbily and even filthier for she was too young to take care of herself, lying just besides her elder brother. For her the struggle was almost over for she was no longer struggling and had probably given in to the pain and was just waiting for the process that takes us from mortality to immortality. Her fingers folded softly as if she just let her clinched fist lose.

There was neither hope nor pain, there was neither protest nor disappointment and there was neither loss nor triumph on the faces, for these innocent souls didn't even know what stuck them and why.

When their mother fed them poison they would not have even imagined what is going on with them. For these small little ones their mother must have been their universe. All what they needed – food, clothes, toys, goodies – was to come from their mother. The mother who protected them in her womb for nine months before bringing them to this world, the mother who fed them with her blood when they were in the womb and with her milk when they were born, poisoned them.

Why did she poison them- because their father married another woman and she wanted to avenge. What a revenge, dear mother, you haven’t taken revenge from one man you have avenged the entire humanity. You have avenged parents like me for whom every child in this world – white, black, neat, filthy, Muslim, non-Muslim – is just another Ibrahim who deserves as much love and care as Ibrahim does. I am neither blaming the mother for what she did nor the father for what he did but my heart bleeds for those little ones who died at the hands of their mother on the eve of mothers day 2014 for something that they didn't even understand. My heart bleeds and my soul moans. I struggle for answers on behalf of those little ones.

Happy mothers day!

Drifting

I am travelling. I have travelled thousands of miles and I am not yet at the destination. When I reach Melbourne tomorrow morning; I would start planning for another journey back home on the 2^nd of June. Does Melbourne qualify to be a destination at all?  

Are there any destinations at all? This is the story of my life, and I have always been looking for a destination.  When I asked a friend about destinations and destiny the response was unexpected “these are ports of call, where you stop and move on”. I struggled to relate myself to this unusual thought and finally agreed. But I have travelled enough now, both physically and symbolically. My life has been a constant voyage.  I have been to places across the globe, I have met people; made friends and so on but where do I stand today?

I stand at crossroads of life; at one end I am tired of this journey and on the other end I want to live.  I want an anchor in life that will hold me to whatever I am. All these years it never crossed my mind that there could be an anchor that will hold a free soul like I. I was so wrong; there are no free souls; only souls wandering to find a home.  Free souls are just free till they find their ordained home - divine abode.  I am just another ordinary person who wants to hold onto life and needs to reach my abode before the time is over for me. Where and how do I find my address and the anchor that will hold me to it?

I looked for you far and wide. I searched you in the hustle of Time Square in New York, I looked for you on the busy Oxford Street in London, I tried to find you on the Swanston Street in Melbourne, I sought you in the serene mountains of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya in Sri Lanka, I tried to find you in the depths of Indian Ocean while scuba diving; I did everything to find you but made a fundamental mistake. I didn’t look for you inside me.

When tired and restless I decided to talk to myself. I never did it before – a fatal mistake though.  I asked myself who am I, where am I going, what am I looking for and why can’t I find what I am looking for? Amazingly there were answers to all these questions. Everything was laid out within me. I did not need to travel wide and broad to find them, all my endeavours were such a waste; my anchor, my destination and destiny were all there – right next to me since ages and I was looking at the wrong places.

It is you my friend – nay it is not you it is me – you are just a physical extension of me. I still cannot make out where one ends and the other starts. I know whenever you are sad, angry, hungry or frustrated. I know what are you about to say, I know what do you need and when; and then you know that all too! Do we have a spiritual connection? Are we two or one soul?  I am struggling for answers once again and I know your answers!

This has never happened to me. Never in my life have I been through this. I know nobody will believe me but then who knows me more than I? You – maybe! I am losing it but my loss is my victory, pain is my pleasure, and annihilating myself is making me eternal. Do you know this feeling? No, yes, maybe – look inside you; be honest to yourself and you will figure out what I am saying. Maintain whatever external face you need to keep the world guessing but know thyself.

I discovered the reality in me, made corrections and changed course. I am a different person but you still judge me on the older criterion when you give me deadlines! Don’t you realise these are two different people you are talking about? Haven’t you witnessed the death of a vagrant and birth of a settled, rooted and grounded being? You are right in evaluating me to the standards that I have followed all my life but if I am the person that I think I am, then the deadline is worthless.

I urge you to take it back. Even if you won’t I will pass the test! This is destiny my dearest. We can’t change it. See what my favourite Khayyam has to say here:

The moving finger writes;

and having writ Moves on:

not all your piety nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all your tears wash out a word of it

Soul Searching

When I talk to my soul I have to answer difficult questions.

But let’s start some time back when I rediscovered me. Do I have a soul? Yes I have a soul and she and I talk often to each other. We talk intermittently but for hours every day. She once asked do you know about the ragas of classical sub-continental music. Yes I know about the seven notes of the classical Hindustani music. She asked do you know every note is for specific time and mood. Yes I do? But why are you asking? I want to know why you have started your swan song when the time has long gone dear!  Listen to me carefully if you do not heed to my advice you will suffer and will get nothing but pain – a pain that will neither let you live nor die.

Well dear soul you have to answer some questions too. We always existed side by side but we never knew each other. We existed in two separate planes and occasionally came across each other but our interactions were seldom pleasing. I for one was not oblivion of your existence and you, as always knew me but never acknowledged. You are the soul and a superior being so you had the responsibility to find me. I am just a persona so how could I reach out to you? Why did you not find me earlier? She smiled and replied “do you think I did not watch over you”, I was just waiting for you to get to your base. Though it is late in the day that we have united but still is better than never uniting at all. I faithfully watched over you for decades and patiently waited and now you accuse me of ignoring you! Have you ever realised what are you without me? You are just an empty shell nothing more nothing less. Cherish me and thank me for coming to you.

After this strong retort I composed myself and respond to the ragas question. Do you think I am an ordinary being? I was an empty shell but no more. This world and its timings have to follow me and not I. I decide when it is time for a note. While I cannot change the physical universe but this is not the material world where we exist - timings do not matter. We are a universe apart. While the soul can exist without a persona but there is no existence for a person without soul. You are the essence and I am just a casing but together we are the universe. Dear soul do you still want to leave me? She responded angrily did I ever leave you alone that I will abandon you now. It is not me but you who ignored me and refused to acknowledge. I am here to stay but do you have the strength to face the world as a different person – a person with a soul, a conscience and vision? Can you live with this curse of having this ability to see through people all the way to their hearts?

Yes I know this is a curse. I know it is painful. I know it is a difficult road that will lead us nowhere nor will it ever end. But I have known nothing like this feeling - a feeling of being an exalted being. I am on top of this world and the world is moving the way I want it to. Just because I have a soul. I have the power to decide, see, think and act all because of you. Why should I not live with this honour of being a glorious mortal? Do you know you can lose everything that you have including your existence? Ah! What are you talking about? Do I have an existence anymore? When the soul and body came together I was extinct. It is something else not you not I.

She stayed quiet for centuries and asked one day again ‘have you realised what price you are  paying for travelling on this road that is seldom taken by? Yes dear I know I am in pain, enormous pain. The pain of revelation of the universe around me, the pain of seeing the real face of people around me, the pain of seeing humanity stooping to animals, the pain of betrayal, the pain of existence. But dear soul my pain is my existence. It is my life and it is what takes me to the next day. I am alive because I feel the pain. I won’t leave you and will bear the pain instead but will you ever leave me? Have I ever? You know what Omar Khayyam has to say?

“I sent my soul through the invisible,
some letter of that afterlife to spell;
and by and by my soul returned to me,
and answered, "I myself am Heav'n and Hell”

Once you pass the test of hell;I will lead you to heavens my dear!

Happiness

I am struggling. Not that life has been easy so far and I have never struggled before but this is a different struggle; something that I have never experienced before. I am struggling to find a happy face around me. Everyone I see on the roads, markets, restaurants, clubs, offices and homes is unhappy. Everyone is stressed to the extent that they can’t even keep an externally calm persona. I did not believe myself and made a small prayer in my heart to be wrong and asked a friend to find me a happy face in a crowded market place ... lo and behold he couldn’t find one either. I am so disappointed to be right. What an irony being right sometimes too is a disappointment.

The other day when a cab stopped besides my car on a traffic filter, I came across a sad face, saddest that I have ever seen in my life. This is a sixty something years old woman, dumped on the passenger seat along with another occupant struggling to remain seated. I wonder if she was even sixty but looked much older. She was in my thoughts for the rest of the day and I kept on wondering how could one person accumulate so much of sorrow in one life time? .

Driving along the main road just this morning I saw a middle aged man digging a paved road with a sledge hammer that was almost his weight. Those of us who have lifted weights know how difficult it is but this poor sould does not have any choice. Life is difficult here. It is damn so difficult but should this be an excuse for unhappiness.

We, as a society are an unhappy lot. We find reasons to be unhappy rather than being happy. We are so worried about others that we forget ourselves. We live, and die for others rather than us.  Knowing fully well that we can neither make everyone happy nor can we win everything in life; we keep struggling for that elusive end. We are bad losers, anything and everything is a matter of competition When a car overtakes us on the road we enter into a competition. The whole purpose of our existence in to compete and win. In the process we forget our own being. We exist for others not us.

Growing up in the same social environment, the biggest threat that was used to make me confirm was what would others think? You have guests you serve them more than what you serve your own children not because of anything but what would the guest think. I went to an engineering school and when I failed in the first year my parents concern was not me but what would their friends and family think. Why are we so concerned about others?

We are in a constant race with everyone. A cricketer competes in cricket field with other cricketers so does a footballer but we compete with everyone without realising what we are – a cricketer or a footballer or someone else? Can the Cathay Mullays of Pakistan run forever and win too? The best athlete can run a race in the track and win but cannot be a winner forever. Making life a race where we have to win every moment of existence makes life unliveable. For us victory and defeat is the only criterion of success. Can we not have a broader definition of success? To me the only criterion for success is being happy.

Russell elucidates reasons for unhappiness in his famous essay on Conquest of Happiness. He refers to mistaken views of the world, mistaken ethics, and mistaken habits of life as the major causes of misery in human life.  This is so true for our contemporary society. We are led by things that we do not define for our self. We have entrusted the right to define right and wrong to others forever. We live by standards set by others and not us. If we are born with a unique identity and personality then how can we ever come up to standards that are not our? In the whole tamasha of our life there exists no individual but institutions – family, society, etc.

What is this obsession with success and failure and that too on standards not set by us? It all breeds out of expectations that others have from us. For havens sake why can’t we love our children because they are our children why do we need to expect them to make us proud in the eyes of others when they grow up? Is parent’s love for their offspring contingent upon their success in life? Sad but true for our society - yes.

The whole world is looking to define poverty. Economists define poverty in terms of money and the public health professionals in terms of food intake. I define poverty in terms of misery. You are poor if you are unhappy even if your table is full of food and your bank full of money. If your life is morose no amount of money and no exotic foods can fill the gap.

Life is tough; it was supposed to be but it was not supposed to be a sad affair. When we refer to someone as full of life what are we referring to? Is it not happiness? Happiness is the essence of life. For us howsoever pessimistic you think I am, but happiness comes at the end of our priorities. 

In order to be happy we need to be at peace with our self. We must not burden our kids, friends and parents with expectations. This will only come when we let the welfare approach to life go. We must let people make their own decisions and not take this responsibility onto us. We are no one to decide about others life exactly in the same manner as no one else has the right to define success and failure for us. It is absolutely possible that there are more than one winners if we treat life different than a race. Let everyone win; we must not lose, for loss is not loss as others define it but loss is how we perceive it. There are no universal standards of failure or success. We as individuals have the right to define them according to our circumstances.

Let us make ourselves happy while it is still time. Khayyam said and I quote

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!

Dark Alleys

We all have a fair share of successes and failures in life. Each of us feels the heat of this complicated experience that we call life. More often than not we see ourselves in difficult situations and once into a difficult condition we tend to remember it forever. It is difficult to forget and get over with the despair and anguish of a failure. We feel trapped in a dark alley which would lead us to nowhere.

The darkest of alleys too leads somewhere. Testing times are there for a purpose. A purpose we do not understand. Our pain and agony won’t benefit anyone, though sometimes one person’s success is others failure but why this pain is associated with failure.

Difficult times are just like examinations. As a child I was very afraid of examinations where often I did poorly than good. A wise man then told me that every examination is an opportunity.  School examinations get us promoted to the next grade, a job test gets us a new employment and trials of life get us to the next stage of human intellect.

I had more failures than successes. Every success mad me happy for a very short while whereas my failures haunt me even decades later. These failures are like old wounds which start paining whenever there is a reason. Even wounds that healed left behind scars as reminders of the difficult times that I once went through. Sometimes life seems just a collage of wounds and scars. 

When I take a stock of my life so far, amazingly I reckon that my failures were my successes. Yes they gave me strength that enabled me to fight even tougher battles, though it is a immaterial whether I lost or won, but I survived. The darkest alleys where I often found myself struggling, cursing, yelling, crying and kicking led me somewhere. Every failure taught me a lesson and gave me strength to survive the newer onslaught from life. Had I never faced a major defeat I would not have been the person that I am today. Every time when I thought life could not be worse it worsened but amazingly I survived.

Is survival all what I wanted from life? No I wanted successes, I wanted to be a winner, I wanted to be on top of the world but I could not get most of it. I find it hard to believe that successful people are better than failed individuals because I have seen wonderful people failing and a world of mediocrity succeeding.

My failures were in fact my successes. Whenever I found myself in a dark alley I came out into a new world where I emerged as a stronger person. I would never have reached this stage where I do not cherish victory or dread failure. I attained peace within and without. With so much in my hands I do not believe I am a loser. The darkest alleys and dead ends were not the end of life but they were just the means to another world. I discovered myself only after I attained a degree of failures. I would have never known my strengths had I not failed so often. I would still be running in the race of life cursing myself and others but still running. Amazingly my failures gave me the depth to appreciate world from an angle different than ‘success and failure’.

My love you have all the ingredients to take you to the top of the world, you are honest, straight forward, happy go lucky sort of person but you have to liberate yourself from the desire of being successful in every sphere of life. You will only know yourself when you disenthrall yourself from the mundane meanings of failure and success. You will one day define these words for yourself and the world.  I am sure you will find your failures counted towards successes once you are free from other people’s meanings of failures.

The darkest alleys in life lead us to self discovery. This is the success that only emerges from failures. My dear I would have been a different person whom you know today had I been always been successful. I would have been unsure of myself if I had not faced more than my due share of failures.

You are so strong and honest that at times it is difficult to face you. That amazing quality comes not from a stream of success but failures. Did you or did you not? May you be successful and strong without the pain associated both with success and failure however you perceive them. 

The most powerful expressin in the face of defeat is from Milton when he says:

What though the field be lost?

All is not lost—the unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield:

And what is else not to be overcome.

                                    (John Milton - The Paradise Lost, Book I, 105)

Constants

What does the word constant mean? In terms of mathematical sciences a constant is a value that does not change with changing variables. A constant is something that does not change and helps us resolve complex problems of this world. In physical world of ours, where we exist for a specific period, constants play a pivotal role. Gravity, for one is a constant that shapes every moment of our life on this plane of existence. It keeps us hinged to the earth, helps us walk and makes apples fall down on earth and not fly upwards towards sky. The sun in the solar system maintains the planets in their position and the earth does not collide either with Mars or Venus in its moment of madness. All because some constant keeps everything pivoted to its place.

Beyond the physical and mathematical worlds, which are essentially the same because mathematics just explains the physical world in complex equations and explanations, there is a spiritual world. A universe shrouded in mystery and rarely understood by the majority of people who often experience their lives through their five senses only. This is a world where we exist before we are born into the physical world. Some constants exist here too that hold us to the positions destined for us. These constants push, pull and squash us but do not let us move away from the furrow of life. Who and what are these constants that seize and control every moment of our lives without us realizing their existence? Parents are the among the first emotional and psychological constants that hold us through the difficult times when we are both physically and emotionally at the weakest. Parents are not enough to cover the whole nine yards of life so we let other people into our lives and some of them, often a beloved, a teacher, a friend or a mentor becomes a constant to hold the thread of life through this extremely complicated journey that we call life.  

Just like the physical constants, the metaphysical constants remain at a distance to maintain their objectivity and do the balancing act for they are meant to organize our lives. The sun maintains the planets from a distance of about 150 million kilometres from earth, the gravity is sourced at the centre of earth some 6400 kilometres below our feet, our parents let us fly away once we are young adults, and our mentors leave us to this world when we are ready to survive. What does that mean? Probably every constant will only remain constant if it maintains the distance.

This brings me to the most contested conclusion in terms of love. Each of us falls in love and probably keeps falling in love during this brief period we are alive. We go through this experience many a times though we loath to accept this for a whole lot of reasons that we will discuss some other day. But for love to remain eternal and act as a constant we must be separated from the beloved. For love exists not in the mundane but extraordinary. Whenever we stumble we like to believe in that one special person who would not have let us fall but alas we are apart. Such is the power of faith that even when this faith is unrealistic we still want to stick to it. Existence of this faith in our lives keeps us moving through the thick of life.

  If this conviction is that important for life to sail through then why bother validating?  The veracity of this faith is not important; its existence in the first place is the end in itself.  Determining the truthfulness could in fact deprive us of this important buttress of life.

My love, you are the constant in my life and I do not want to know anything beyond this. I have lost and won so much in life that I am no longer afraid of loss nor do I look forward to victory. I am not a loser, I am not a winner. I don’t want to be either.  I don’t even want you to miss me when I am not there besides you because neither I want to be a source of pain for you  nor do I ever want to believe that I am not there besides you. I have nothing to win over you. I got what was for me. You, my love are the constant that will keep me sane through this crazy world. You are my strength, you are my life, you are my sanity, you are my touchstone in life. How can I live upto you is the question that I struggle every moment. I will do well, though, not because of what I am but because of what you mean to me.

Too long for the day ... I close here with my favourite Khayyam:

Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears --
     To-morrow? -- Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years

(Omar Khayyam translated from Persian by Edwards Fitzgerald)