In abundance bottle of liquor accessible to one and all, abstainer’s queue is the longest seen too early. A common man is ashamed for his attendance at congregation where abstainers weep and cry. When he rises to occasion he is labeled notorious and when he puts up with the proceeding around, then they say he is ignorant. On shelves books and scripts are replaced by brands unique with unimaginable vintage, a mark that makes wine rare and makes well off people fond of it. And when a sensitive mind asks for justification, insensitive plays a game of puns to over wit but then they say: Bottles carry blood are prohibited.
A barber in a corner of his shop at third floor of a building owned by a rich landlord was heard murmuring within himself that his customers knock at his door on Tuesdays only when they know on Tuesdays tools don’t speak and mirrors don’t shine and towels enjoy the company of blazing sun and makeup kits along with aftershave lotions take pleasure on shelves otherwise empty and dull looking. When the poor barber summons his customers, then they say: Beard keeps no calendar.
Houses were gutted down, rapes and raids too ravished the vale and graveyards look silent and contented, no mess around the tombstones except difference in date line and size of the headstone they are sealed under. A martyr from a grave in a corner loudly laughed at the grave digger for digging the soil so deep and wept for his sacrifice was replaced by currency notes by those claiming to be alive. Dead corpse do say and people around do listen. When they voice their woes, people around then say: Graves have no correspondence.
Dreams and desires lure youth of this era to touch the pinnacles they create to be in a rat race. They leave their nests and shelter under the blazing sun to honour their desires, leaving their parents at bay. Now that no son comes at fore to attend the parents lying at hospitals, they only at leisure they buzz them to register their care like a student in a class who is more interested in attendance than to his lesson. Now that another patient of the ward pays a visit to his neighbor lying in the same posture. When these ailing parents ask for, their sons transfer a handsome bundle as a compensation for their absence and when they are asked to pay a visit, then they say: Learn to live and let others live.
Stones have well over the city walls high pasted posters of pain and the death has followed the suit by inscribing tales of terror. Headless effigies of headless carcasses are returning from their haunted houses to loot the solace of all. Those who are paid write histories and unpaid create tragedies to challenge their counterparts and the race is on. When paid ones are summoned before the mass, then they say: Money makes the mare go.
Now that blue eyes bear silver pellets and the veins go astray to find reservoir anywhere, how shall a beloved bedeck her face to lure the viewers when no way eyes need eye liner to betray and lashes deny lavishness at old shop. When such bruised eyes wish to see the blue up there and crimson horizon again, their foreign particle deny access and in tune low they whisper woeful tales between their dried lips and fissured fancies. When they in public demand justice, their lenses are broken by tyranny and then they say: Every stone has to pay seriously.
Divided we stand, division is the tools that has fissured our globe, division of land creates country, division of houses create colonies, division of opinions promote groups and division of hearts destroy healthy relations. Division has divided one and all save our Holy Book which unites even indivisible part of the Division and now when on every Friday sermons are divided, we leave our faith at the mercy of division and when a sinner asks for unity, then they say : Sinner are not saints.
Draped in silk and decked with jewels are the eves and what is so called masculine counterpart doing at market places, they meet where two rivers must have been separated by a barrier. They bulldoze the Great Wall of China for a mere dale where rush of adrenaline finds a reservoir, where two directionless brooks sing a common classical song, where fame and name raise the cup high in the air to celebrate the malice of air. When a man in uniform attends, he is pain and when in plain clothes he is abused and when a saint summons them, then they say: Love is blind.
Mushtaq B.Barq is a Columnist, Poet and Fiction Writer. He is the author of “Feeble prisoner, “ Wings of Love” and many translation works are credited to the author like “ Verses Of Wahab Khar” and “ Songs Of Sochkral”
