Night of Rain

On a glass window, the rain drops fall… Drop by drop, a crystal mosaic forms; shiny droplets sticking to the glass and then dripping ever so gracefully down its smooth surface. Behind the mosaic, a backdrop of an overcast sky and wet tree tops excites my mind. The neighborhood cars and apartment buildings are all bathed clean, their grime and dust collecting in the puddles that now form on the street. On a glass window, the rain drops fall, only a figment of my imagination as I wait ever so expectantly for the monsoon rains that never arrived.

Monsoon in Karachi is one of those things that I look forward to every year. It’s just one of those times of the year which has its own charm, the rare cloudy skies, cool summer breezes and those rain showers which bring out the colors of the city. This year, Ramadan fell in what would be the peak of our Monsoon season, and even though the skies were overcast for the first few weeks, the rains never came. There were those occasional moments when I stood in Taraweeh prayer in our Masjid courtyard and it began drizzling, ever so lightly. But the drizzles lasted only for moments, coming and going on occasional nights stretched far in between. It just wasn’t the same. Likewise, this Ramadan wasn’t the same.

For starters, this was my first Ramadan experience since I got my first job last year. Gone were the easy school and college days, where you could doze off for a nap in class or laze off at home during holidays. I was apprehensive at this new prospect of how I’ll have to adapt my Ramadan schedule with my work demands. Anticipating a tough month, I went in with a plan to balance my spiritual, work and personal objectives. There are so many things that I have been intending to do for the past many months, yet procrastination, distractions and other priorities left me no chance of chasing them. Secondly, the past year has been relentless at pulling me into the fast lane of the rat race of life. Ever since I started working, I have fallen prey to the same work-eat-sleep-repeat cycle day after grueling day. There has been no time spent in planning for the long run, and I could feel the rust start gathering on my personal ambitions. And it seems right now that I’m heading for the path I have dreaded all my life, that one day I will look upon my personal ambitions as myths and dreams only a part of my imagination, like the rain I’m still waiting for.

I had gone in with a plan to explore the long term possibilities (career track, higher education) seriously and rekindle some of my old hobbies once more. I had planned to start reading more, writing more and discovering some more knowledge to keep on learning new things and break out of my stagnant state where I was aimlessly spending time online, playing video games or just wasting time. Hence, the idea was to have a more productive Ramadan, establish some good, new habits and come out the other side with a clearer direction on where I was going. It was a time for self-evaluation and strategic planning.

Alas though, the short term objectives for work have been overwhelming for the past month or so. I can’t be grateful enough that I have gotten the chance to work in full on a 360 degree marketing campaign, being able to channel good influence on most campaign components; I have been living an amateur marketeer’s dream. However, the need to plan for the long term was still strong because my future growth at my current workplace remains in question, with a likely glass ceiling preventing my rise. My current project has been extremely demanding and I have been spending day and night working on it; however, it has also been extremely rewarding in terms of what I’ve managed to learn. Therefore, most of my month was spent working and in spiritual pursuits, hoping for answers.

So even though I was apparently gaining in the short term from my work on the campaign, my long term outlook still remains bleak. I am torn in conflict for I have been using all my time productively and yet have not been able to find the time for myself, to squeeze in my personal objectives or plan my long-term work objectives.

This period has left me confused. At a time when I actually shunned all kind of distractions and tried to focus solely on what’s important to me, I found that I still could not find the time. So how does that bode for the future? Responsibilities will surely increase… at home and at work. So how then will I cope? The question troubles me greatly, and I struggle to find some way to continue with the plan I had made.

During this time, fortunately, I got the chance to get back on track with an old friend who now happened to be working with me. I eventually discovered our mutual love for some things, which included some of my hobbies and interests at heart. We discussed the love for books, for writing and for getting lost when traversing God’s green earth; I often found a few of these things in another person but I realized that there was hardly anyone I knew who shared exactly the same interests. Yet there she was, someone I already knew but had chosen to overlook for the longest time. We managed to find some time to talk in between, as I worked helplessly during the morning and afternoon. It was with the help of some of those talks that I finally mustered enough motivation to squeeze, bit by bit, some time to start reading again, to start writing again. I came to realize that not all my objectives can be covered through self-isolation. Sometimes, we need that extra push from a friend to start us on our way.

To look ahead for the long term, I realized that isolation and focus is not the simple key, but invited opinions and help from those close to us is what we often need, plus always a little faith. However, that only answered half my questions. I may have some clarity on how to get back to what’s important for me (my personal goals), but I still do not know exactly where the road leads. I do not know where my long term work objectives lead to? What is my next step after my current project ends? Will I be recognized for all the effort I have put in and allowed a growth path at my current workplace? Or is there an entirely different path… a path where my long term, hazy goals are related to the interests that are important to me. I am confused. My current work on the campaign has set me up for another trip of Pakistan like last October. I am confused, but I look forward to traveling the diverse-scape of Pakistan, and to discover new paths where I can get lost… get lost so I can find myself again.

Today is the last day of Ramadan and the monsoon seems to be over. The overcast clouds have dissolved to make way for the intense sun and heat which was missing for the entire month. Ramadan’s parting has left me confused, but still I wait… hopeful for some answers. The glass windows shine bright with the glare of the sun, dry of the silver mosaic which never formed. The rain drops never fell, but the road to the heart of Pakistan is about to open once more… so I hang on to hope. Pakistan beckons once more, a confused land with much to discover on every path; it calls out to me. Just like I rediscovered how a friend can motivate me, I hope to rediscover Pakistan. I am confused, but still I hang on, hopeful for answers, waiting for the rain… I hang on to faith.

I decided to share this little poem here, a discovery I made while riding a subway train in NYC in June; a little discovery helping me to discover new paths in more places. Noche de Lluvia, Spanish for Night of Rain:

Stuck on a Ship

This post is quite unexpected in that it was never meant to be blogged about. For my second post, I wanted to put up a story I have been working on for the past week. But it turns out that I have lost my way again, though not as badly. For starters, I can just tell you that this story is set to take place on a sea vessel and I have already placed my protagonist on the ship's deck.

Now the trouble is that I have little knowledge of layouts of huge ships, and I need to form some accurate blueprints in my head to move myself around, along with my protagonist. Dear ol' Google has been of some help and I am more familiar with certain terms, practices and ships now than before. But it has been frustrating work so far, and I still have not acquired some knowledge that I desperately seek. Perhaps I am not searching for the right terms as I am not well-versed in sailor lore.

This search and seek practice of the past few days has opened my eyes to a new kind of irony: my dependence on facts and research to form the support columns of my imagination. Imagination is supposed to be an all-powerful weapon that can define new frontiers. However, it is something that can neither exist nor develop on its own.

For a powerful imagination, one must be open-minded and absorb the lessons of their surroundings. Even for an imaginary setting where the imaginaut has defined surroundings completely other-worldly and alien to what is known to us, they form roots out of what they gained from their own experiences on the real earth. Wonka's great glass elevator may not have the same characteristics as our normal elevators, yet it was imagined from the foundation of a normal elevator of which the esteemed imaginaut Roald Dahl was aware of. Tolkien was a skillful linguist and used that knowledge to create languages to support Middle-Earth. He also used his appreciation for the wide-open spaces in England, where he lived, to gain inspiration to conjure the Shire.

Right now, I may have the imaginary power and the inspiration to write my story but I lack the knowledge to do so. I can still define the boundaries of my own ship, the like of which has never been made before, but I believe that will not connect my audience too well with the setting. The artificial layout will need to be polished and waxed too well, and the depth of characters will need to be quite intense to delusion the reader into believing that those walls can really exist. After all, Khaled Hosseini re-imagined a true Afghanistan that gave him the power to connect well with his readers. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle placed Detective Holmes in London so well that his statue actually graces Baker Street today. And I have simply not reached that level of experience as an imaginaut yet.

So I am afraid that unless I find some true knowledge about sea travel which I need, I cannot proceed with my sea tale. It's not that difficult, but will need some time and more effort on my part. I think I need to go to the Karachi Port and have a tour of a huge cargo ship myself. And if any of you are guessing as to what the story is about, well, it's not that hard to guess and the theme may be predictable but not in the way you imagine it. For now, I shall leave my protagonist to stand at the ship's deck on their own until I can create the world for him to move about in.