آج میں تجھسے دور سہی اور تو مجھسے انجان سہی 

تیرا ساتھ نہیں پاؤں تو خیر تیرا ارمان سہی 

یہ ارمان ہے شور نہیں ہو خاموشی کے میلے ہوں 

اس دنیا میں کوئی نہیں ہو ہم دونو ہی اکیلے ہوں 

تیرے سپنے دیکھ رہا ہو اور میرا اب کام ہے کیا ...

Sanson Ki Mala Pe

The following material is based on the qawalli 'Sanson Ki Mala Pe' by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The poetry written in Urdu are the words spoken by the great Khan Saheb, what follows is the interpretation, reasoning and influence entirely in terms of love.

2:17 

آ پیا ان نینن میں 

میں پلک ڈھامپ توہے لوں 

نہ میں دکھوں گیرکو 

نہ میں تو ہے دیکھان دوں 

All love begins from a feeling. You know you are in love when you truly feel something for someone. You can live with that feeling. But there comes a time when a lover wants more than that. Just like a difference between a need and a want. You need your beloved, but you want love in return. Similarly, you want to see your beloved. When you see your beloved, you want to possess your beloved. Moses, is God's most mentioned Prophet in the Quran. Moses loved God so much that he couldn't live with the feeling of not seeing His beloved. Love erases all others. The qualities you see in your beloved, make no difference to you when you see others who have it. They call it blindness, I call it sincerity. Sincerity, is a huge value. Right up there with loyalty. It is highly valuable at the same time priceless. Its a give and take, if not given in return, love seizes to exist. 

3:38

کاجل ڈالوں کرکرا 

سرما دیا نہ جائے

جن نینن میں پیا بسے

بھلا دوجا کون سماے؟

In his book, 'The Rules of Life', Richard Templar emphasizes 'Dress like today is important. People will react differently to you if you dress as if it matters'. Although it is a lost art, personal grooming is one of the most important things in life. Ne-Yo once said, 'There was a time when people didn't leave their houses until they looked their best'. When one is love, one either appreciates this or loses it all. Loses it because the beloved has ignored the lover and appreciates it because the lover wants to become the apple of the beloved's eye. In other words, آنکھوں کی ٹھنڈک. 

4:13

نیل گگن سے بھی پرے

سیان جی کا گاؤں 

درشن جل کی کامنہ 

پتھ رکھیو ہے رام 

They say love is a feeling that knows no distance. They are damn right. Meta-physics, finally I know what you are. How can you be without someone and be with them at the same time? How can you be so distant and be so near at the same time? Love. God is up there above the seven heavens, we down here on earth. How can He be way up there and inside us at the same time? Love. How can you be in the west, and still be inside me in the east at the same time? Love. 

4:55

اب قسمت کے ہاتھ ہے اس بندھن کی لاج 

مہینے تو من لکھ دیا ساوریہ کے نام

جانے کون سے بھیس میں

 ساوریہ مل جائے

جھک جھک کر سنسار میں

 سب کو کروں سلام 

Like all relationships, His Royal Highness, 'Love' is very complex and sensitive. Anyone can fall in love, and the question is, does everyone know 'How to love'? My philosophy in life has always been, 'Do your best and leave to God the rest'. The great debate between: "Our destiny has already been written" and "We write our own destiny" will never end. I believe God opens doors, its on us if we enter or not. Sometimes, under the influence of love, one raises standards so high that the lover starts to expect the same qualities of the beloved from others. The lover shall never find it, because what the lover doesn't understand is that its not the qualities, its the beloved itself. 

5:46

وہ چاتر ہے کامنی وہ ہے سندر نار 

جس پگلی نے کر لیا ساجن کا من رام

جب سے رادھا شام کے نین ہوے ہیں چار 

شام بنے ہیں رادھیکا رادھا بن گی شام 

Men and women are equal.They are both strong. Where men are, physically. Woman are emotionally. We both have our weaknesses too. A woman cannot survive without love. Even the most capitalist kind, need it. Again comes the issue of 'how to love'. Majority of women don't, even though they are in it. They spend their whole life thinking, 'why me?'. The ones that do know the 'procedure' have truly led a life worth living. Love is the process of losing oneself, emptying oneself, to achieve the beloved by filling oneself with the beloved. You cannot define this in words, it would be an insult if tried. 

.....سانسوں کی .... 

سانسوں کی مالا پے 

سمرو میں پی کا نام 

اپنے من کی میں جانوں 

اور پی کے من کی رام 

یہی میری بندگی ہے 

یہی میری پوجا ہے 

Love is worship and worship is love. Devotion is submission and submission is devotion. 

اک کا ساجن مندر میں

اک کا پریتم مسجد میں 

....پر میں

Those who think 'Love' is child's play have nothing more than child's mentality. Love can be extremely satisfying and it can be extremely barbaric both at the same time. Love has vastness. Love is extreme. No one worth loving is you take them for granted. The world is famous for categorizing each other. Most of the historic fictional love stories always categorized the lover and the beloved in 'rich and poor', 'hindu and muslim', 'black or white', etc etc. How beautiful God is. Adam and Eve, perfect for each other. No race, class, color, or religious difference. Separated when arrived on earth. Muhammad and Khadija, the former a trade agent and the latter an elite-class businesswoman, but had nothing but love for each other. Separated only by society's 'class difference'. What normal minds don't understand is that it's this separation that forces and beings the lover and the beloved to each other. 

12:20 -14:53

Khan Saheb interprets by himself...

16:33

Listen... and tell me you don't feel love inside you...

17:33

..... 18:00

...Listen and tell me you don't feel me inside you...

19:18

Listen... and tell me you don't breath a life for me...

20:06

Listen..and let all yourself loose all control...

20:52

پریم کے رنگ میں ایسی ڈوبی

بن گیا ایک ہی روپ 

پریم کی مالا جپتے جپتے 

آپ بنی میں شام

Love is like quick-sand. With quicksand, the more you struggle in it the faster you will sink. If you just relax, your body will float in it because your body is less dense than the quicksand. Love takes you places you would never imagine yourself in. Love is when you stop thinking about yourself, and are only concerned about those of the beloved. A devout Muslim uses a تسبی، praising God continuously. A lover, under devotion is constantly calling for the beloved to eventually become the beloved itself. 

22:04

پریتم کا کچھ دوش نہیں ہے

وہ تو ہے نردوش

اپنے اپ سے باتیں کر کے 

ہو گی میں بدنام  

You can tell a person is in love, when no matter how much you criticize the beloved, the lover will see all past that. 'You can do no wrong, in my eyes'; is what the lover says. Innocent until proven guilty? Its innocent until my last breath for a lover. Last year, on a visit of Kuwait, after the Jummah prayers I decided to sit for a while. In that huge hall which could place around two to three hundred worshipers, were hardly 20 at that time. What I saw surprised me. People are fascinated when they see something unusual, its human nature. I saw a man talking to himself. I observed him for around 5-10 minutes. Generally, people would find this kind of behavior weird, awkward and even mentally challenging. I, on the other hand, had other thoughts.  This man was talking to God. I`m not saying he was a highly pious man or had the ability to hear God. He was simply 'talking' to him. Simply having a conversation. He was indifferent to what others might be thinking about this. Lost in love. That was one of the most beautiful things I ever saw in my life. That was love, I witnessed.  

22:52

پریم پیالہ جب سے پیا ہے

جی ہے یہ حال 

انگاروں پی نیند آ جائے 

کانٹوں پے آرام 

Love is pure. It is what Abraham felt for God. He lost all, and gained everything. I can't imagine how he never ever thought of putting himself before his beloved. Sincere, honest, responsible, devoted, submitted...walked bare foot on fire without any hesitation, for what? Love. Nothing else. When one is in love, there is no right or wrong, there is no pleasure or pain. There is only love. 

23:46

جیون کا سنگھار ہے پریتم

مانگ کا ہے سندور

پریتم کی نظروں سے گر کر

جینا ہے کس کام؟

Life is not life, if there is no love. Love is not love, if there is no beloved. 

"I am nearer to you than yourself to yourself."

How very close
is your soul with mine
i know for sure
everything you think
goes through my mind
 
-Rumi

"You, sovereign queen of my heart, Regina, hidden in the deepest secrecy of my breast, in the fullness of my life-idea, there where it is just as far to heaven as to hell—unknown divinity! O, can I really believe the poets when they say that the first time one sees the beloved object he thinks he has seen her long before, that love like all knowledge is recollection, that love in the single individual also has its prophecies, its types, its myths, its Old Testament. Everywhere, in the face of every girl, I see features of your beauty, but I think I would have to possess the beauty of all the girls in the world to extract your beauty, that I would have to sail around the world to find the portion of the world I want and toward which the deepest secret of my self polarically points—and in the next moment you are so close to me, so present, so overwhelmingly filling my spirit that I am transfigured to myself and feel that here it is good to be. You blind god of erotic love! You who see in secret, will you disclose it to me? Will I find what I am seeking here in this world, will I experience the conclusion of all my life's eccentric premises, will I fold you in my arms, or: Do the Orders say: March on? Have you gone on ahead, you, my longing, transfigured do you beckon to me from another world? O, I will throw everything away in order to become light enough to follow you." -Soren Kierkegaard.

"یہ جو ہم ایک دوسرے کے لئے محسوس کرتے ہیں... یہ کیا ہے ... 

بیان نہیں کر سکتے ...صرف محسوس کر سکتے ہیں "

دوڑرہا ہے ساتھ لہو کے پیار تیرا نس نس میں ...

Life & Times of S. Bukhari

"Life is a stage. And we're all actors". -Shakespeare. 

The Englishman was a genius. I guess Einstein wasn't the only one who knew me. Everyday, every meeting, situation, experience...I learn something new. Seems like a scene from a movie, where the camera is always rolling. The title is, 'Life & Times of S. Bukhari'. Its a co-direction. God and myself. I`m the lead actor. My life, correction: my movie is full of drama, comedy, suspense, romance, music, thrill, excitement and a whole lotta mystery. I've always considered a good movie, one that keeps the audience guessing, 'what's coming next?'. And damn, with me...that never stops. 

میں ہی ہوں وہ جو رحمت سے گرا 

اے خدا... گر گیا گر گیا

میں جو تجھسے دور ہوا 

لٹ گیا.. لٹ گیا  

Within 2 months, this particular flesh and bones will be 24 years old. The question is still the same. 'What the hell is going on?'. Don't get me wrong. I`m not confused. I have an idea of how the world works. I thought I had an idea how I work. But believe you me, neither the world nor myself know who and what Suhail Bukhari is. I try to think and understand the world, I cant even crack my own code. 

Everything that happens in life, every interaction...maybe with someone you even don't know, is meaningful. You might not get it straight away. You might even forget about it. But it happened for a reason. There is no coincidence in life. There's always a reason. 

God is everything. Don't take me literally, take me metaphorically. When I think about myself religiously... I`m like a guy with one foot in one boat and the other foot in another. 

نہ خدا ہی ملا نہ وصال صنم 

نہ ادھر کے رہے نہ ادھر کے رہے 

We say all the time how we should fear God and be afraid of him. And there are extreme consequences to our mistakes. Did we ever think about loving him? Did we ever think how of all our short-comings, he still takes great care of us? Nah. We're stuck in a weird mentality. God is above all that. God is love. God is pure. God is patience. God is light. God is peace. God is everything. 

I remember this verse, it went like "Whatever good happens to you, is because of Me. And whatever bad happens to you is because of your own-self". سبحان الله . The ocean of knowledge. I can't get it out of my mind. But then again, talking about God doesn't guarantee you heaven. Intentions do. Actions do. A clap doesn't happen with one hand. 

There are very few people in this world that can truly understand you. You feel at ease with them. You share something that can't be described in words. When you talk to them, you feel... worth living. When you are not with them... you feel some sort of an uneasiness, again beyond words. I don't know...I have this feeling that you are coming back... to me..for me. I can feel your presence. 

کس طرح چھینے گا مجھسے یہ جہاں تمہے

خود کو میں ہار گیا تم کو... تم کو میں جیتا ہوں

گیر فرمابردار

I don't know what you take me as, or understand the intelligence that Bukhari has. I`m from rags to riches, nigga I ain't dumb. I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one. Hit me!

Pour me another one of em artificially flavored mango juices. Ooo, I just got the shivers. Reason? The cold breeze of autumn. Call me گیر  فرمابردار ، my mums been telling me to wear a shirt for a year now. I`m a man of principles. One of them, is to be as comfortable at home as one can be. One of them, is to not wear a shirt at home. I know it sounds less of a principle than my stubbornness. But hey, a man can't function if he's not comfortable. How come Pine Nuts cost PKR 1622 per kilo? They used to be my favorite dry-fruit during childhood. Then I found peanuts. Maybe because peanuts are more accessible, economical, satisfying. Pine Nuts... rare, expensive... never fully satisfies you, always leaves you wanting for more. Comparisons; always interesting. Oh damn, I hate it when I take the effort of peeling off the cover, just so the inside can fall away. 

"Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all senses of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end". 

Helplessness

The following material is inspired by 'my thoughts and Aur Ho' / Rockstar OST

One of the most uneasy situations, feelings, thoughts, anxieties, moments... of life. Helplessness; is when you make your moves and there is nothing you can do about it. Power is just a step away. Power is when after making your moves, you let it go, but it still falls in the palm of your hand. Is when you have things under your control. 

Helplessness has everything to do with time. It slows down. You look around. The clocks ticking, the seconds go by, but you're still in the same moment. There's nothing you can do about it.

You want it, you crave it, subconsciously; you even need it. You love it, you loath it, you desire it, you lust it. The feeling is so badly desired, you want to be destroyed in it. You're willing to lose everything you ever earned, just to spend a moment of fulfilled satisfaction. 

What I want, I know not. 

Every single one of us, what he want, we know not. We think we do.

Snatch it or let it go? In this moment, what might I just do....

This very moment is the most important. My achievements, my loved ones, my regrets, my miseries, my morals, my sins, my clothes, my health, my assets, my senses.... in this moment, right now...nothing matters. What matters right now, is this moment; and what I do in it.

Everything comes down to 'peacefulness'/ سکون . Whether you're a moralist, or a killer, a religious scholar or a capitalist sinner. We all do it for سکون . We all deny it, but we all want it...furthermore we all need it. All of our efforts are focused on the achievement of some sort of  سکون . Different paths, same destination. Different drugs, same diagnose. Workaholics; addicts. Moralists; addicts. Politicians; addicts. Lovers; addicts. We are all addicted. All we want is that...state of ecstasy...that  سکون . Just because junkies are impatient doesn't mean they're alone. 

The more you breathe, the more intoxicated you become. 

The more our souls meet, the more I burn.

I meet you the first time; every time. This is my helplessness. 

When you are unable to plan conversations. When you're uncertain. When you're hating and loving it at the same time. When you put all of yourself at one side and all of yourself within you at the same time. When you are a child and a father-figure at the same time. 

It all starts from within. Within the heart. Within the mind, and within the soul. Nobody can make you feel anything, unless you want them to. No one is in your way, but you. 

When you desire, the desired object in your mind is constant. Its all you can think about. You want it. It is this moment when your morality comes into question. The difference between right and wrong is questioned. Right now all you think about is its achievement. By any means necessary. 

Should you snatch it? 

The desired object is being kept from you. Either by those who possess it, or the object itself. The solution is taking it by force. Will you finally have  سکون ?. Here all that matters is ownership. The consequences do not matter. They never have.

Should you leave it?

Should you let it go? Will you be able to live without it? You know its bad for you, you know its not easy to have. But still... can you live with feeling of not having it in your life? Will you be able to have any  سکون  without it? Will you be able to replace it with something else? I don't think so.

Should you ask for it? 

Will it be given? Was it ever so easy? Are you sure this is how you wanted it? To ask for it or to earn it? 

Should you tear it?

Should you destroy it for making you're day and nights miserable? Should you be a killer of you're own salvation? Would it provide  سکون or a living hell. Not the proper questions.

Again, its what I do in this moment. So that I get some  سکون .

Just because you're modest doesn't mean you cant have wishes. Dreams, necessary to survive. What keeps us going. But there comes a time in your life, you start to question...is this what I really want? Maybe you might justify yourself, yes, this is what I want. But the things that kept you going...the support...its not there anymore. What do you do now? You miss it, but you need to get to other side of the river.... I`m no motivational speaker... you decide.

Helplessness, right here, feeling it, living it. Nothing seems to control it, it wont stop by itself. Harsh breezes seem to send a message. Why wait for nature, its right here in my breathe. You cant know, where what burns. There's a bit of fear in all of us, in our mentality and physicality. The wish wont stop to bother me, seems to igniting more and more. The smoke from my breath seem to make more and more complex patterns... This is my helplessness.

This... is... my...