Love.

May 8, 2018May 8, 2018 ~ Zaynab Chinoy ~ 2 Comments

Love. The kind through which one first enters the heart of another. Pure, fresh, unblemished. The kind that emerges with the exchange of that very first glance. The kind that, for a moment, dissolves everything else into oblivion, and engulfs two souls in a universe of their own. In that single moment, all that two hearts seek and yearn to offer transpires between them: fidelity, friendship, acceptance, comfort, relief, loyalty, eternal support and companionship. This single moment is the culmination of all that a mortal heart desires from a mortal being. But it is a feeling that is as fleeting as its existence: one that never returns after it has passed.

Once pure love makes its visit, it is gradually worn down by the weight of expectations, selfishness, impatience, untempered words, betrayals big and small, unbridled ego, deliberate injury and ingratitude.

Ah… pure love leaves behind such a shadow of itself, that the heart exhausts itself for a lifetime seeking just one more moment of that unblemished love that pumped life through its every vein.

Why do we feel what we do? Why do these bonds come into being? Why do they take root where nothing was meant to grow? How will they end up if they are nothing like the way they began? Why do they begin if all that will remain is their end?

We Had a Life

January 16, 2013December 18, 2014 ~ Zaynab Chinoy ~ 5 Comments

I was part of the generation of kids that pointed at planes and went “LOOOOK! It’s a plane!” and waved like mad at them.

We cycled in the summers and ate ice pops and spent our whole day outside, we had picnics on the terrace, swam in plastic pools in the balcony, told ghost stories to each other when the electricity got cut, we bought sugarcane from push carts for half a rupee, we flew kites and plastic balloons (not fake metallic ones) and our grand treats were icecreams in mango-shaped containers. We drew with toothpaste on anyone who slept during sleep-overs, we hijacked our neighborhoods with toy guns, we set up adventure camps on terraces and we wrote on neighbors’ catus plants and smelled their beautiful white roses. We watched Home Alone 20 times and laughed harder every time, we went to waterfalls and beaches and hill stations as large families, and ate home-cooked food out of 5-stack hot cases. We painted on pots and made leaves and flowers out of plaster of paris, we created puppets and held puppet shows in cardboard boxes, we attended karate classes, we watched different colors of paint as they swirled down in water. We baked cakes and made omlettes on weekends, we played hide and seek and hop scotch and “kitchen-kitchen” for hours and we made garlands out of yellow flowers growing on trees in our lanes. We climbed trees, ate their fruits, planted seeds, cooked in tiny earthen pots for all the neighborhood’s kids. We played dark room and spun under the sun till we fell down laughing. We would try to burn paper by focusing the sun through a magnifying glass on it, we would be thrilled out of our senses if our uncles took us for rides on their motorbikes.

We soaked in the sun, we HEARD the waves for real, we FELT trees and sand, we SMELLED flowers and plants, we PLAYED, with HUMAN BEINGS, we got hurt in reality, we baked and cooked and swam and ran and won and lost and got scared for real and we laughed out loud FOR REAL.

We had a LIFE. And we had the time of our lives!

The Past After the Future

March 30, 2011May 18, 2011 ~ Zaynab Chinoy ~ 2 Comments

It was one of those ritual trips to KLCC that students take while trying to deal with the short-semester boredom. As the LRT rolled on, the three of them sat watching the rain battering against the train windows… trees swinging wildly in the wind, cars caught in the jam below… and they began to talk about the train. What could possibly have existed a 100 years ago along the same route they were travelling on? People moved about on foot, rode animals, primitive carts maybe; taking hours to cross distances that we now cross in minutes. Their clothes, technology and food would have definitely been different from ours… ours developed, exotic and stylish; and theirs quite dull and monotonous. But what if, for a moment, we were one of those people who lived a 100 years ago that these bored friends were talking about on a train? Where exactly would we be as they spoke?

Somewhere deep below the ground, walked upon by millions of busy people. Rarely or never thought about. Our faces nameless, our positions taken over, our institutions and houses destroyed, our contributions ridiculously insignificant, our lifestyles outdated… our entire civilization buried. Our once existence on this earth would be imaginary.

Caesar’s dead for all you could care to know about him today. The mighty Pharaoh lies lifeless in a box somewhere in Egypt. The affluent Ottoman Empire has crumbled. And we would never ever know the multitudes of common people that lived during those generations. So too, we will one day be. Meaningless to those that live when we are dead.
If to learn from the past is to realise the true insignificance and temporariness of everything that humans have always cherished, it is also to marvel at the timelessness of the lives of revolutionary people throughout the ages.

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