How strong will you be on your worst day?

An event recently got me to thinking. How strong will you be on your worst day? The days when you feel invincible, when things are how they should be, when everything you touch turns to gold are easy to get through. However, in my experience the days that can leave lasting impressions are the ones where you find yourself walled in, unable to move or breathe; days where you can feel yourself slipping towards the gaping chasm of darkness; days where you desperately search for some sliver of happiness to hold on to.

All of us have had good and bad days. Usually, you get through the bad ones by focusing on the good ones. But what if you get a day where all hope is lost; a day where despite your best efforts there is nothing to hold on to. What will you become on that day? What will you do on that day?

The thought is scary. We all hope that we don’t encounter something beyond our endurance but that is just a hope. If that hope is futile and you find yourself at the precipice with nothing but darkness around you, will you survive?

The funny thing is that there is no way to prepare. You won’t know it until you are there and by then it might already be too late. It’s a simple question. How strong will you be on your worst day?

Were you paying attention?

Once again my thoughts are unclear. I once explained to a friend that you must let an idea form completely in your head before jotting it down albeit with the warning that not all ideas make it that far. Ironically, I have been grappling with that problem recently. I feel like I am losing important thoughts and that is why I have been trying to jot down those abstract and slightly malformed ideas. I am generally a fan of clarity but maybe capturing the abstract is the next step in learning to write. Only you can decide if this will make any sort of sense at the end.

I like to believe that I am a keen observer. And I guess if you pay even the slightest amount of attention to what goes around you then you might have wondered about the complexities of human motivation. The multitude of factors that push and pull us in all sort of directions are indeed interesting but what really astounds me is what goes on inside the mind before a decision is reached. I say this because of what I feel and go through every time I try to come to a decision. Yes, there are the snap judgements but when you sit down to weigh the pros and cons of doing something, so many things come up. In fact its an oversimplification to say that you just weigh pros and cons; you weigh so much more.

Observing is born out of curiosity. There is a distinction to be made here. There is the curiosity that killed the cat and then there is the one which does not lead to any end result. I am talking about the latter. Plain and simple curiosity. I try and use it to learn. There are so many things that one can learn just by paying attention. It is my opinion that "paying attention" is a quality that is being lost slowly but surely. And this brings me to my original thought. People are complex. Their motivations even more so. If you don't pay attention and more importantly if you are not patient then it is very possible that you will make gross misjudgements about people as well as life in general.

Linking this further, we stumble onto another ailment of the society. Their over eagerness to pass judgement, to brand and to stereotype people. It is crazy how passing judgement is now considered a sign of being forward thinking. Your personality and your convictions are questioned if you are not forthcoming and stinging in your judgements about everything under the sun. What does it achieve? So not only is it totally pointless to brand human beings that possess such multitude of motivations with a single brush, it is also rash. There is every chance that our judgements would be wrong simply because its hard enough to understand a single human being. Here we are claiming to understand hundreds, thousands or even millions of them.

A set of people can share goals and motivations, of that I have no doubt. They can be very similar but in my humble opinion they can never be identical. If I just look to my siblings, I can see so much difference. We have lived through most of the same stuff but so many little things are different. The eldest child is treated different, the smallest is treated different. And sometimes we take different paths from the same crossroads. This signifies two things. Firstly, that in identical circumstances people choose differently highlighting the power of what goes around in the head and secondly how two seemingly similar lives can be so very different.

Recently, my thoughts have been revolving around the little things and I guess this writing does that thought better justice than I have been able to do before. what I wish to highlight is that the little things are often what make the difference. Again taking the example of my siblings. In broad terms we have had similar luxuries but little things have had such profound differences on our personalities. In our haste brought about by this nonsensical rat race, we have slowly tuned our minds to just look at the highlights. The problem is that the "devil is in the detail".

We live in broad definitions as well. Big house equals success. The fine print that says a big house with happy people, living people, loving people is a success is no longer visible. We must at least aim for something tangible, something that makes sense. I try to explain this to others that when I look at the details something does not make sense and they stare back like zombies. When you have lived your whole life avoiding the fine print then off course it is going to be impossible to comprehend it now. We must have a goal that survives a detailed examination otherwise all the effort might be for nothing.

So much more to say that is floating around in my head but to wrap things up, do you know why you are doing what you are doing? If you died today or tomorrow, would you die happy and satisfied? Or is it that you are going to keep striving towards some abstract idea because you missed the fine print in the beginning and now you cannot bear to stop and re-evaluate? Have you touched other peoples lives in a way that matters? Or were you so concerned with the next paycheck that you forgot to pay attention? Have you ever tried to be compassionate? Or have you lost all track of compassion in your quest to succeed? Is there room in your life for sacrifice? Or do you subscribe to the global definition that "you must always snatch what you want"?

We live in a world today that is grotesque and twisted. There is proof out there that bulldozing your way through life works but my question is - Is it worth it? Is it enough? Were you paying attention or did "life" just pass you by?

Life just happens

Life just happens
It’s not pretty
It doesn’t wait
It doesn’t care

All I have is me
My convictions
My choices
Myself

Take that away
I have nothing
No purpose
No hope

I learn from
Your mistakes
Your lies
You

Don’t tell me
I am young
I don’t know
I can’t see

I have lived
Your dreams
Your nightmares
Your mistakes

I know about
Your failures
Your regrets
Your life

I can see
You are broken
Impulsive
And rash

I don’t want to
But I judge you
Because you
Force me to

Can’t you see?
We are different
Do you listen?
When I speak

I don’t want
What you want
My world is not
Black and white

I don’t judge
Like you judge
Nobody is perfect
You see

I don’t hate
Like you hate
People are complicated
I think

I don’t love
Like you love
It’s toxic
Sometimes

Will you please?
Open your eyes
Take a breath
And hear me

I have a story
I have 25 years
I have a voice
I have a view

Your failures are
Your, not mine
On your regrets
You should dine

There is a life
That happens
Let me face it
Leave me be . . .

Today

Today, I feel like writing but I have nothing particular in mind. Some ideas are boiling beneath the surface but nothing very concrete. Don’t say I did not give you fair warning, this writing might not be that coherent.

I am a football fan. I am not sure when it happened exactly but I do know that up until the 99 cricket world cup I was not really into football. But things change – they have to. If memory serves me right, I was reluctant to play football at first. My father was the one who came up with the verdict (he lives to give verdicts and implement them) that cricket did not contain enough exercise. Like any good Pakistani worth his salt, I took this accusation very seriously and fought hard but alas, parents have a way of getting what they want – at least mine do. So my general frustration with Pakistani cricket and my father’s insistence on playing football slowly and steadily pushed me towards football.

It was a painful learning experience. Anyone who has played a bit of football knows that if you get a new player to play against, it’s like taking candy from a baby so for a good five years I distributed free candy. Ultimately my persistence paid off and I stopped looking like a complete idiot while playing. Mind you it was still comical but not embarrassing.

During my O and A-Levels I played in a lot of tournaments because of two reasons. One, there were only 11 players in the school. Two, I had mastered the art of not thinking of myself as David Beckham meaning that I stayed back when asked to stay back – which was all the time. Through all of this I kept taking baby steps in the right direction.

During my university, I was able to do the impossible and convert a number of people from cricket to football. The culmination of all my effort was a semi-final appearance and defeating the tournament organizers in the final football tournament I played in FAST. FAST saw me improve the most, simply because there was always a field available to play – well almost always. This is a huge problem in Lahore – you can’t find a decent place to play at. All the good ones cost you money and lets be serious you can’t pay to be playing daily – at least I can’t.

Near the end of my university education, I was invited to a ground in Defense Phase V by a friend. It was beautiful; lush green grass, perfect rectangular shape and empty. I mention all of this because I have played most of my football in dust and stones. Most grounds were triangular or pentagonal or something and all of them were filled with people – lots of people. So this was footballing paradise. I have been playing there to this day which means it has been around two years now. My game has come up in leaps and bounds. It now looks like I know what I am doing when I play football. They still don’t let me play up front but I guess not all of us can be Ronaldo.

Anyways, here comes the real sizzler. A few weeks ago, an ‘uncle’ came to the ground and argued for a good 20 minutes that we should not play here anymore, the reason being that his kid got hit by a football. This incident makes my blood boil on so many different levels that I can’t even begin. First of all, I don’t remember running to daddy every time I got a scratch. Secondly, daddy dearest did not feel the urge to bare his chest and scare away the offenders. Thirdly, people who think they can just come in a bully their way to success. There are a few other choice words I would like to use but let’s continue the story.

The uncle was alone and there were 20 of us so he naturally lost the argument. He had no answer to a simple query, where should we go? How many football fields do you know about? But off course this is Pakistan, the next time we went to play the ‘society-police’ came. No points for guessing who called them. Now a sizeable number of our players live in defense so we are pretty aware of the rules. The rules say that you cannot play in grounds where there is a track or there are children rides. Both of these don’t exist in the ground we play. Also wherever you are not allowed to play there is this big ass board placed to this effect. The society-police person who came looked dumbfounded himself. He kept repeating in his radio. “ these are defense residents, there is no track here and no one else is even present.” We could hear the replies on the walkie talkie and they were profound. “Bas aap band kerwa dein” meaning “Just get it stopped”. That is what I love about this country – common sense does not exist. In fact its singled out and annihilated.

This leads me to another question. What do they want us to do? Without trying to sound too full of myself, we are a group of 20 something year olds who are willing to spend their Saturday and Sunday evenings in a football field. We have been doing that for over 2 years now. All of us could spend this time in a multitude of Café’s and Sheesha lounges that have crept up all over Lahore. Better yet we could be spending this time smoking or indulging in other totally frivolous pursuits so why is it, that us playing football in an empty field is a problem? What do they want us to do?

The thing is my father is a doctor, he doesn’t have “PAWA” so to speak. I can’t call my uncle and ask him to set the Defense Authority straight. Even if I could, why should I? Why isn’t sound reasoning enough to convince someone? Because as the security guard who came to stop us said: “Sir, mein tau apni duty kar raha hoon.” Meaning “Sir, I am just doing my job.” The thing is we understand that, fighting him, arguing with him or insulting him will not solve anything. At worst he might lose his job because he wasn’t able to do what was asked and that is how it goes. Its all about who you know and how high up that person goes.

This reminds me of another thing. A few years ago, our neighbors sold their house. A serving army general bought the house and a few months later served us notice that we were encroaching upon his property. A 5 feet strip in our house belonged to him apparently. What happened was that the previous owners had built our side of the house for their sister so being family not much attention was paid to the exact dimensions. Now it turned out we had 5 feet more. I have no idea what actually happened. There were strong words said and there was a court case but ultimately one day they just smashed our wall down and built a new one 5 feet in. The Cantt. Regulations say that you must have 5 feet between your boundary wall and actual construction so naturally a whole side of the house then had to be reconstructed and what did the General do with those 5 feet. He grew grass on it. I have no words to express to you my anger at this. I mean 5 feet of grass – Aaarghhh . . .

The funny thing is that the General loved his grass and whenever the Cantt Board widened roads, the grass outside his house was never touched. He had to retire ultimately and the next time road construction came around his grass was massacred along with everyone else. Oh I could not wipe the smile of my face for days. But jokes aside that is how our country operates. I always say that we love our grand theories and schemes but these little things tell us much more about who we really are.

An empty ground, a five feet strip of land, the grass outside your house – little things that can give you profound lessons on life.

Pakistan vs India Semi-Final (2011) - My thoughts

These are my thoughts on Pakistan going out of the semi-final. Many people will have many views. These are mine.

At the very beginning of the tournament, if you had told me that Pakistan would lose in the semi-final, I would have gladly taken that. By no stretch of logic or imagination were we among the tournament favorites. The bowling soul had been ripped out of our team. Any team that loses two bowlers of the class of Asif and Amir would struggle. The debate of their innocence is for another time. Just the fact that they were not able to play is being considered and that was a huge blow for Pakistan. In their absence we had an aging and crocked Shoaib Akhtar and a reluctant (to ball a new ball) Umar Gul. Other than that we had Wahab Riaz who despite his performance against India would not have made the team had either Amir or Asif been available.

We had good spinners in Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Ajmal and Abdul Rehman. Even Hafeez bowled well throughout. Our bowling was good but could have been awesome instead. Anyways the batting is where it all went wrong. I heard some commentator say this about Hafeez

“He is the most accomplished and classy 30 making batsmen I have ever seen.”

And that just sums up Mohammad Hafeez. I don’t know if its brain freeze or any other psychological problem but once past 30, he just loses the plot. The shot that he played today to get out was just atrocious. The fact that it was the widest ball Munaf Patel bowled in his whole spell, and Hafeez was trying to paddle/dabble/whatever sweep it is just astounding. Moving on, for five matches we tried Ahmad Shehzad and I have no problem with that. I have always felt that Pakistani selectors don’t give enough chances to batsmen. To cut a long story short he never really looked like doing something. He might become a wonderful batsman one day and maybe the world cup came too early for him but I doubt he would ever have the ability or class of say a Saeed Anwar. In all the years I have watched cricket, Saeed Anwar is the only decent opener I have seen. I am told there were some good ones before him but back then I was kicking it with “you know who” in the heavens.

But I digress; the fact of the matter is we do not possess a world class opener, hell if I am being honest we do not possess a world class batsman in our line up. Before you start baying for my blood please read further. Let’s go back to the openers. We promoted Kamran Akmal and let’s just say he was Ok because I am going to annihilate him later on when I discuss his keeping. One of the bright spots of the tournament has been the discovery of Asad Shafiq. There have been suggestions that we should use him as an opener. I have no opinion on that. That is something for the coaches to decide. I would say this much however that our first preference should be to search for a new opener who has played there his whole life rather than trying to fit players in there ala Kamran Akmal or Asad Shafique.

Let us now move on to the middle order. I am of the opinion that Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq are good batsmen but they are not and will never be world class batsmen. They just do not possess the class or the range of strokes of a Ricky Ponting or an Inzimam-ul-Haq if you want a local example. We needed Younis Khan until we discovered Asad Shafiq but now he must be politely told to either stick to Test cricket or retire altogether. There is the argument that we need stability in the middle order but I might bash your head in if this is the kind of stability that is on offer. To those who are too thick. The stability on offer from Younis Khan is of the kind where you block 20 odd balls and then get out just when it was looking like you were settled.

And now ladies and gentlemen we turn our attention to Misbah-ul-Haq. To say that he lost us the semi-final single handedly would perhaps be too harsh but make no mistake about it he had a huge part to play in it. I don’t care if he scored 56 of 76 in the end or if it is said that his job was always to hold the innings together. At number five, as a specialist batsman you have got to do better. He brought so much pressure on the batsman on the other end that it was impossible to play with him. At least thrice I saw him turn down fairly obvious singles. Keep in mind I am talking about the start of his innings and not the end when he had Saeed Ajmal for company. Anyways he has been a good servant for Pakistan but again he is not a world class player. He just does not have the ability you would expect a number 5 to have. I don’t want to give examples again. You all get the point.

Then we have Umar Akmal. He has plenty of talent and all the qualities required to become a world class player but he is not yet there. Talent and the realization of it are two different matters. I have however a huge problem with him with regards to his behavior whenever Kamran Akmal is threatened to be dropped. Someone needs to sit him down and set his mind very straight and clear about this. He does not play for his elder brother, he plays for Pakistan and if Pakistan is going to achieve something Kamran is not going to be playing. Please wait a little longer for my Kamran Akmal rant.

Moving on to Razzaq and Afridi, now that the tournament is finished (for Pakistan) can someone explain to me why he was in the team? Yes he scored a half century and took some important wickets but it was very clear that Pakistan didn’t really need him. If we had played a specialist batsman in his place, we might have got more runs; a specialist bowler and more wickets. I almost felt sorry for him every time I saw him chasing after a ball; the fact that he was too old for all this was oozing out of every plod. Shahid Afridi clearly didn’t trust him with the bowl as amply demonstrated throughout the tournament and overly highlighted by the fact that a completely out of sorts Umar Gul was given the bowl when Razzaq had 8 overs left. The less said about the batting the better. I agree with Imran Khan here, cricket is a game of specialists. “Reloo-kattas” should be left for street cricket. It would be wonderful if we could produce an Imran Khan or a Wasim Akram again but until then let’s just stick to specialists. Afridi we can all now agree is a bowling all-rounder. He has talent in abundance as a batsman but no temperament and no technique. Someone in the post-match commentary summed him up as well.

“He wants to hit the ball too far and too hard”

If only he could play shots like the one he played against Yuvraj when he first came to the crease; a glorious and well-timed drive through the off side. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, he has been a wonderful bowler throughout the tournament and deserves his place in the team and had Misbah or Younis or Kamran Akmal caught Tendulkar of his bowling, maybe he could have taken us to the final as well but I guess it was not meant to be.

And that is the end of our batting. I do not see match winners in there, maybe you do. If I was in charge (speaking of wishes) I would have two proper openers, Hafeez might still be in contention because of his bowling and tendency of making 30’s, Asad Shafiq at one down and Umar Akmal at 2 down. Umar Akmal must be allowed greater time on the crease. Imagine what difference he might have made if he had come in place of Younis Khan and not when Pakistan needed more than run a ball to win the match in this semi-final. And then we must look for two young batsmen that we can groom for 5 and 6. We must either find a proper all-rounder or decide on match to match bases of playing a specialist bowler or batsman in place of Razzaq.

There is not much to say about Pakistan’s fielding. We just don’t learn. There are signs of improvement and with all three of the semi-final culprits on my hit list, I have hope. Kamran Akmal is and will NEVER be a keeper. He just doesn’t have the reflexes. There is no point in justifying it, we MUST search for a new keeper no matter how much he improves because a natural will always be a natural. And a smart/outrageous catch can often be the difference between winning and losing a match. There is this thing called anticipation. I saw in the match that whenever Misbah shuffled across the stumps to dab the ball to leg side for a single, Dhoni was half way there as soon as Misbah played the shot and this happened many times. It’s called ANTICIPATION. It is IMPORTANT for a keeper.

This brings me near the end of my rant/thoughts. So given what I have just dissected in front of you a respectable semi-final appearance is more than what we could have hoped for but having gotten so far, I believe we could have done better than what we did. If we had taken our catches and if Umar Gul had not decided to have a howler I might have been sitting here writing a different article or no article at all.

I am proud of what we have achieved given the circumstances but I am sad because true greatness was just within reach and we let it slip through our fingers. It is not a time to rejoice but it is certainly not a time for doom and gloom either. We must accept the fact that we were just not good enough. We must learn from our mistakes and move on. Pakistani cricket doesn’t have a history of doing that but maybe . . . just maybe this time would be different . . .

Revolving Doors

Revolving doors ladies and gentlemen



Revolving doors through which

People walk

Dreams fade

And wishes fly away



Revolving doors that remind

Of opportunities lost

People that are missed

Nothing is going to stay



Revolving doors that are testament

To fickle things

Broken promises

And structures made of clay



Revolving doors that

Bring people back

Dreams anew

And happiness along the way



Revolving doors that wait

For you

For me

“For everyone must go”, they say

The grey stuff

This piece of writing is inspired by Basim Qureshi so a big shout-out to him. I sound like a radio host.

Some people have their life so brilliantly figured out. I envy them but they baffle me as well because the level of surety and clarity that I would require to figure it all out just seems absurd. I am not saying it’s not possible, just that for some it’s nigh impossible. My parents ask me what I want to do with my life and I just go blank.

To be honest all my life I have just made the best out of the circumstances I find myself in but I have never made a conscious effort to create or bend them to my liking. And after 23 years that is the only way I know how to tackle life. I fit, I adapt, I compromise and I stay happy through most of it.

I am sure; in fact I am positive that there is a philosophy out there that says that this is the ultimately crappy way of living your life. Let’s see…if you want something, go and get it. In life you should be proactive and not reactive. Take control of your life…blah blah blah. The thing is I don’t particularly want something. I am satisfied with things the way they are. Again I remember hearing or reading somewhere that the moment you are satisfied is when your life is over. What a load of crap! If you are going to keep running all your life with no destination in mind, you might as well buy a treadmill…I know the joke doesn’t quite fit the mood; I just couldn’t resist.

My point is that not everyone wants to change or rule the world. I know I don’t. Let me make a distinction here – I love to make a difference, I just don’t live to make a difference; if I can – good; if I can’t – so be it. I don’t lose sleep over what I couldn’t do and I hate people who just plaster all their goodwill on their forehead. This writing is taking a weird direction. Bear with me…

Appeasing society is all we ever do now. We love to follow someone or something. People love to be the outcasts because it’s in fashion. You want to belong to a certain group because they are classified as intelligent and brilliant. My point is that even if you are in a minority – you are following someone. Again, I am not against following a doctrine or a philosophy – just make sure it’s for the right reasons. Thinking someone else was great and following a philosophy because that someone did so is not reason enough in my dictionary. If that philosophy appeals to you despite everyone and everything associated to it – then these are grounds to follow it.

This discussion is getting weird even for me. Wrapping it all up, success is relative. Happiness is even more so. Make sure you are not just subscribing to a dictionary definition of everything. Explore, fall, falter and find your path. Maybe wandering is all you were ever capable off. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. People talk based on their experience. Their experiences might have been similar but they can never be the same.

Like I told Basim – if I am going to get blamed for all my life’s choices in the end – I would be damned if I let anyone else make them for me.