Waiting to explode
A box full of butterflies
Caterpillars they were…
…
…

A day’s end nears…
Dark night to follow…
Fireworks await us…
To light up the sky
And wake us from slumber!
…
…

Let go my love!
Set yourself free!
Help me free myself!
Help me… Help you!!!

Promises forgotten
Hope set aside

“Maybe tomorrow? … Will I see it (again)?”
…
……
………

In a bag of secrets I carry this burden:
“Pick and Choose!
Destinies Assorted”

Delightful, but short lived!!

… … …

But Stop!
and wonder…
My Dear Friend,

Why so lost?
Why so anxious?

Where is the patience
that you seek so vehemently?

Where is this ‘New Person’
(that) you aspire to be?

One foot in Hell’s fire
one ahead… leaping… …… ……… …………

Hang in there,
This is just the beginning!

I want to take a look at all this, as an outsider, objectively. I want to look at history, especially in context of where I come from – i.e. Pakistan and its cultural influences.

Let’s talk about ‘Love’ first:

Let me start by mentioning the fact that the word ‘Love/Ishq/Pyaar’ has no meaning whatsoever! It’s the most abstract word you can ever know, and no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to pin point what it exactly is.

And that’s the beauty of it all! You can put it in any context and you’ll still find some relevance. That’s what all drama/literature/movies have been about. The setting can be poverty, epidemic, revolution, war, thriller etc., but at center-stage runs a love story. There are no cultural boundaries to this phenomenon, it pervades everywhere.

The good thing about figuring out the whys and how’s of it all is that it doesn’t take much to find a reasonable answer: it’s ‘emotions’!

The pursuit of any art form, in all eventuality, is to resonate with, or (simply) arouse emotions – first of the artist (while he/she creates art) and then of the audience, through their inclusion into the experience.

When it comes to ‘Love’, you go up to the heights, yet dive into the deepest complexities of emotional experience; because that is exactly what it is about. And I think all us who have fallen in love (if even once in a lifetime) can vouch for that without hesitation. Can’t we?
…

Now let’s consider our (Pakistani/South Asian’s) own heritage – our folk tales, our poets (especially the pre-partition ones). The only theme we can see running consistently throughout the lyrical content (poetry and prose) of these times is ‘Love’. Be it the tales of Heer-Raanjha, Mirza-Saahiba, Sassi-Punnu, Sohni-Mahiwal, or be it the most refined verses of poets like Ghalib and Meer, ‘Ishq’ is always the keyword.

And then consider all the Sufi literature – the Ishq-e-Haqiqi concept. There you see how love is elevated from the human to the divine. A perfect example being Waris Shah’s Heer, which according to literati is an explanation of the verses of the Holy Quran (I have even heard some people say that Ghalib’s Persian verses are explanatory of the Meccan Verses of the Quran).

If I were to give my personal opinion, I would say that if there has been a culture that has mastered the concept of ‘Love’ or ‘Romanticism’, I strongly believe that it is the culture of this region (South Asia, Persia and surrounding areas).

Now, if I were to begin mentioning the reasons behind this, then I will need more than just this space, and much greater attention from the reader, as we’ll be entering an extremely complex discourse on history, geography, psychology (and so on) of this region. Maybe I will delve into some of these factors as we proceed. But for now, just to put it in short, ‘this land is a very spiritual one’, and that ‘Love’ and ‘Romance’ are the essences of the life that nurtures itself here (at least it did).

….

Now let me fast forward (time) and take an air jet to the West:

The Beatles, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and then Bob Marley, and now U2; these guys made love songs, many, but the real stuff they are remembered for is their revolutionary lyrics. Each one of them has attained legendary status, a lot for their musicality, but much more due to their lyrical content – which, in each case talked about change; talked about a better, freer and peaceful humanity; talked against oppression and violence.

This too has a context: It starts from the European Renaissance and then moves on into times of War, Revolution, Nationalism, Capitalism, Communism, and then back to Capitalism…

When we are in really bad times, we are so engrossed that we start forgetting the past and stop thinking about the future. However, if ever given a chance for retrospection, we will realize that us Humans have been in a state of major flux and violent change for over 200 years – ever since the French Revolution started. Compare the number of paradigms coming up in the last 200 years with those over the 2000 years prior to that: the scale has more than quadrupled!

Obviously, artistic expression has been tagging along in the same journey – at least in the West it has. And we also know that the West made sure (for the sake of business, if not anything else) that the phenomenon spreads everywhere else – that’s Imperialism for you.

And so we have it that one fine day, sometime around the Partition of Indo-Pakistan, this young man, bored (yet inspired) by translating Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment into Urdu, decided to write a masterpiece of his own; it’s called Thanda Gosht, and the writer is our very own Saadat Hassan Manto. Oh he’s still talking about two lovers in this story, but the context is ‘partition’ and so is the focus of attention.

And then a decade or so later, another socialist revolutionary, by the name of Faiz Ahmed Faiz writes from his prison cell:

Bujha Jo Rozan-e-Zindan Tau Dil Ne Yeh Samjha
Keh Teri Maang Sitaaron Se Bhar Gayee Ho Gi
…
Chamak Uthay Hain Salaasil Tau Dil Ne Yeh Jaana
Keh Ab Sahar Teray Rukh Peh Char Gayi Ho Gi

Once again, it’s love in context of revolution!

All these guys were icons of their times (legends after demise). Nonetheless they belonged to a tradition that was continuously being imported from our great grandmother – the West.

Now the purely emotional ones will end up taking sides and understand this as an ‘us-versus-them’ thing. The intelligently emotional ones, however, will understand and appreciate in all this the positive side of being human (humanity anyone?), before anything else!

To be continued…