A Delightful Cut

Valiant #35

yup. thats all we needed now. another exponent of the `admonish them and beat them with sticks` school of thought. the woodwork is must really be getting crowded these days.

dL

okay its gross and shocking, but --WHATS THE POINT? a married lady autopsy physician whose habit is to get all sexed up go to the morgue and self pleasure at the mutilation of cadabers? All you have done is introduce a character. now lets hear a STORY.

Ayesha,

My last post was abit rushed and sloppy....I liked your use of alliteration in the early three paragraphs which gives the opening a stanza-like poetic structure and rhythm- an arresting and original device, creating mystery and questions-- it works well.

Also, the tone of the narrator`s voice is of hushed, whispered confessional, taking us straight into her mind, where we find her relaying the events with, if not delight, then certainly not with regret...unnerving.

Your other piece also contained an image of violation and penetration of the body with knives....is this a coincidence?

I like it when I read something that stays in my mind, is ambiguous and unresolved....looking forward to your next piece,

Harpreet

Ayesha,
Please stick to the old fries. This one contains
a problematic topic which is taking the attention
away from your writing style.
The ``cut and paste`` (literally) in your articles is quite interesting. You certainly have the reader`s attention.

Ras

The sight of cadevers and death could normally serve as a reminder of transitory nature of even the worst human condition and could act as a release. Instead the protagonist? utilizes death to reinforce her `bondage` with suffering by voluntarily perpetuating her victimhood with her own actions. Thats a really horrible concept, I have to say. There was no guilt or sin attached to being a helpless victim, buts its horrible to see such voluntary slavery. Holding others responsible for one`s own inhumanity(what else is desecration of the dead and gone) signifies a really devilish bondage and an ultimate loss of `self`. Spare me the terrible sight :-).

Sadhana

Ferozk #74

I`m just curious as to how a single Marine brigade (even if its a reinforced brigade with integral air support) is going to make any difference at all if Pakistan falls apart? I know that Marine divisions are about the size of US Army corps, but just how big is a Marine Brigade anyway? The size of TWO US Army Corps? Are you sure that the brigade is not supposed to merely assist in the evacuation of US and other diplomatic personnel in Islamabad? Granted, after the Gulf War when 1 American equalled 1,000 Iraqis, the US military thinks that it can kick any Mozzie ass anywhere, it will still take more than one Marine Brigade to pacify Pakistan. Even the British Raj, and they knew something about Pakistanis/Indians, thought that one Britisher was only worth two (at most three, if non-martial race) Indians.

While the average Pakistani soldier`s weapons handling skill is not up to that of the average US Marine`s, our army is not at the same pathetic level as that of the Iraqis or Saudis. At an individual level, its competence is (to be conservative) at least at par with that of the Egyptians/Jordanians/Indians, none of whom are exactly completely incompetent militarily. Heck, we train Jordanians.

Similarly, the various mujahideen/fundamentalist groups are not as incompetent militarily as the Iraqis either. Having fought the Russians and now the Indians for years, they too would need more than one Marine Brigade to be pacified. Mind you, I am not one of those idiots who think that the Afghans/Pathans are `unconquerable.` The only reason why the Soviets failed to pacify Afghanistan is that they did not, would not, commit more than 100-120,000 troops to the war. As far as the US goes, 550,000 soldiers (OK, the US Army`s Ice Cream soldiers have a teeth-to-tail ratio that would have shamed the Mughals) couldn`t pacify Vietnam. The US could have certainly bombed all of SE Asia back into the Stone Age (which it tried to do) but that defeats the purpose of the original intervention, n`est pas?

If the brigade was a typo, then I apologize. But I get quite ticked off, as you may have realized, about the level of US ignorance about our Army. I recall reading some years back a very well respected defense analyst, I think it might have been Cordesman, saying that the Jordanian Army had a training mission in Pakistan and that with their help we would convert to the M48A5 Pattons. What are the Jordanians going to train us to do? Other than ride camels? Actually, our Bahawalpur/Thar recruits are probably better camel jockeys than the Jordanians.

Regards.

#27

I think I stopped breathing half way through. Brilliant.

dL

These women... what is wrong w/ them?? They NEED to be disciplined; but not only them. Their male counterparts are also guilty. What is wrong w/ these ppl?? Shameful, shameless heathens, and what is this?? An era of feminism among South Asian women? This is garbage, and little do they know. It is only pseudo-intellectualism, but many women (and men) who fail to take responsibility, and justify their ``modernness`` to fit their own immorality. What a disgrace.

Dear t,

BTW I was speechless in jaw-dropping-awe sort of way.

Dear Aisha J. Ikram,

You have severe sadomasochistic tendencies. Go see a shrink. Give these people some respect because they’re giving up their most private possession, their body up for the rest of us. And don’t give me no crud on them getting money for this.

Nothing would give me more pleasure than anaesthetising you and snipping your ovaries in front of your face or clamping crocodile clips on your urethras and buzzing 10,000 volts through them. What would also give me immense satisfaction would be to…naah, maybe I shouldn’t say that. The point is, it doesn’t mean you should have to write an article on it. Something called taste I believe, unless you don’t have a mental tongue.

Cheers

Omar Phoenix

t #27:

:) great going t! Love it! And it was about time we read something contributed by you. Agar oos tara nahi toh iss tara sahi...

Was waiting for you to comment on Ashi`s piece. Worth it. So spontaneous and real. Makes me wonder whether you really have had an OBE, (which reminds me... later). I love the way you blended her words and actions into your story. Loved:

[[Pity you are cutting my insides to come to terms with the hurt inside you. We drift -- a life long drift -- undirected -- at the whims of time and tide controlled by Him, or him or her, but never ourselves.]]

More later...

love,

Lubna

t-bhai #27,

YOU ARE TOOOOOOOO GOOD!

``Forget my cadaver. This is no

sublimation. Nor a retribution. Our paths never crossed.``

BRILLIANT!

``You can’t dance around or over me, cannot provoke me, even arouse me or hear the scream of my soul. You could never hear that scream. I have stopped screaming...``

Very few writers can put such heart and soul into their writing.

I don`t mean to embarrass you (cause I know you hate that) but I believe you are better than most of the writers who publish on Chowk.

Temporal,

As I read this piece, I physically had to cover my ears, because I started to hear some of the writer`s screams. Very moving, piece. Thank you.

What a sick and demented person!

t!

I am speechless.

Ashi nee Akram NOT Ikram?

Here is the response from the cadaver. I am giving up on Chowk. So submit this story as a rejoinder to yours to come out simultaneous in the Herald or Newsline wherever I read you a fortnight ago. (Contact me at temporal3@hotmail.com first: this is still a draft. Would like to brush it some more.)

Note for other friends: Please read Ashi first, and then continue with this story.

_____________________________________________________________

FROM THE TABLE

“Tu paire sanbhaal,” the Edhi attendant said to the driver.

They put an unwashed blanket, reeking of intimacy with cadavers, over me. The para-medic grabbed my head and the driver grabbed the feet. My body was still warm and some droplets of urine dribbled out from the bottom of the jeans to the ground.

“Bhenc--ud, marnay kay liya yahaaN aajatay haiN,” the hardened volunteer said to the driver. Not knowingly, but fairly accurately.

I was here, there, everywhere. My body was dead but I was alive. It was a strange sensation to follow my body in the groaning Suzuki ambulance to the Abbasi Hospital. At times I was in my old body gazing at the roof of the ambulance in the stifling heat with electrical wires protruding from where the lights were ripped out. And then I was flying over the ambulance, to the side, behind, front through the windscreen over my body and through the rear windows back over the ambulance, hovering, feeling, seeing.

At the hospital they picked me up by the head and feet and threw me down on a rusted stretcher, wheels squeaking love songs for some grease. Not Alfred J. As my head fell on the cold floor of the mortuary I felt a wave of pleasure start from the head and then pass through the rest of the body. Then they switched off the lone dirty bulb and closed the door behind them.

The first time I had toka ---- TOKe+vodkA ---, suburban Fairfax, fall ‘88, that first time I felt the same out of body experience. We were in the third year of marriage. My third, her second. They fetched my body to another room, ripping open my clothes, before dumping me on the cold slab. Rigor mortis must have set in. My body was getting stiff. They threw another coarse, previously touched blanket Somebody turned on the light -- bright lights in my face. I tried to look up, dark hazy covered face, the perfume --- I could almost name the perfume --- it was Rasheeda’s favourite perfume, she had picked it up on that jaunt in San Andres, what is the name? So when you are dead the memory still remains imperfect. Hmmmm. She pulled down the coarse sheet none too gently and put a cross on my chest, rather unartistically, I felt.

So I was another destitute for her. Another body to carve up dispassionately. Only she was passionate in an impassioned way. Another cross above the belly button. Markers to open me up. Why the silly formality? Force of habit, it must be. Why does it matter how long the cut is? The body is not going to be entered into some beauty pageant.

She struggles with clamps, opens the chest walls and cuts loose my once aching heart. I get a closer look at her. She is beautiful in a natural way. But she is dressed up as a teenage slut at the corner of Jarvis and Wellesley wiggling ass in high stilettos, bending over whispering 50 for a blow, 100 for a f--k 200 for a round the world.

I can see trouble -- sense trouble behind the plastered cheerfulness of her demeanor. Other time, other occasion I would have helped her out of her trouble. Hah, I haven’t changed even after death. Could not straighten out the mess in my life. Three failed marriages, one great relationship, two maybe five children all came to this. Just instantly...

Oh, I recall now. It was the Evening Mist, ever so delicately sprayed between her cleavage. She is troubled. My initial suspicion is confirmed. She want to rouse the dead! My lids were pinned open. She look into my eyes, looking for my soul. I was just behind her, in her, over her, to her left and to her right. I was everywhere but behind my eyes. I sensed the sadness behind her eyes. In-laws? Mother? His or hers? Shahid? Nasir? Ken? Damn, there I go trying to help her resolve her demons. Damn, even when I am dead.

Her eyes tell me, “I`ve had my share of suffering at the hands of men, bending down to them; succumbing to their will; enduring their looks and what not.” My eyes don’t. But I tell her, cut it out babe. It is a two way street. I wouldn’t be on this table for you to slice me up if it weren’t for the wounds lately self inflicted but originally caused by your kind. Sure marriages flicker and flounder and go on the rocks, mother and child go their separate ways, relationships bloom and go bust, but amidst all the probing in the dark I did find her. My beacon of hope. My lighthouse. My Noor. I volunteered for rehab. Was mending my erratic ways. Even found that steady behind the counter job at a 7/24 coffee place. True, no comparison to the VP for Human Resources for the #33 of the Fortune 500. Was it after my second wife walked out or third?

I should have stuck to soft drugs. A toke here or there led to serious abuse. First self. Next close ones. I thought I was laughing and enjoying. Just reflected an intense loathing of the self at not being able to cope with life, pressures and relationships --- it all had to blow in my face someday. From a pedestal to the gutter the journey was a fast ride. And I laughed all the way down. No tears for this boy, missy.

Then Nuri picked me up literally from the Church and King corner where I was pan handling. Fed me. Bathed me. No more lining up for beds at the Scotts Mission to escape the bitter cold. Slowly the fog cleared in my mind. With realistic and lowered expectations I began a slow climb out of the morass.
Told you I even started working. For a change I began to see at the distant horizon rather than just over my back.


So you want to “do with them what I wish, how I wish, when I wish, without them being able to even utter a moan.” Pity you are cutting my insides to come to terms with the hurt inside you. We drift -- a life long drift -- undirected -- at the whims of time and tide controlled by Him, or him or her, but never ourselves. You are still not a bad person, I can see. Just look up. Not down at my dead innards. Look up at those around you. Who are still loving, smirking, f--king, loathing, hating, grunting, and abusing you and others. You have to stand tall, confront yourself first. Then look in their eyes. Fight your battles there.
Let them know your hurts and hates and loves. One understanding look or nod will be worth it for you. Forget my cadaver. This is no sublimation. Nor a retribution. Our paths never crossed.

One morning Nuri left for work early. Left a yellow sticky on the coffee percolator with this message: ‘love you, sleep well.’ She had a habit of leaving messages for me all around. Sometimes I will find them on my pillow, sometimes on the bathroom mirror. Reassuring for me and I guess for her as well. Last one ever. Some crazy demented person shoved her in front of the subway car at Old Mills. She died on impact. Metro’s finest came knocking at 11am. I was fast asleep. After they left I still thought I was dreaming. That was the first toka in over a year for me.

I was drugged and shocked. Faintly recall the funeral. Packing some books and clothing and heading for the airport on a Tuesday. Took a PIA back to Karachi. Bought a Silent Sam at the duty free to ease me through the long flight. When I woke up next I was at a bus shelter in a new area of the city that wasn’t there 20 years ago. It was dusty, dilapidated and worn out like what I remember of the area between PIB and Golimar along the river. Or like the one behind the Columbus -- was it Ack Ack School? I had no bag, no papers, no money, no clothes. I soon found out I could live in that city without any thing. Not even will. Passerby occasionally threw money at me. Other squatters will trade it with drugs. So I lived in those bustees, wandered and consumed my organs for deadening relief, and died one day to end on your table.

You can’t dance around or over me, cannot provoke me, even arouse me or hear the scream of my soul. You could never hear that scream. I have stopped screaming...

Forget me. Another listless cadaver. Look after that fellow. He is good. You are not bad either. I am sure you can resolve the bothers. Learn to listen.


Ja’nay dou yaar
marnay dou yaar
hum tou azaad hogaye
wahaaN pohanch gaye
freed finally
of all desires, whims
of any retribution
from friend or foe
[ achcha bhi nahiN lagta hay
kahaaN ki kaisi yeh sharafat hay
takaleef pur auroN ki haNsna
ya haNsaana?]

SaNbh’lo aur saNbhalo
abhee waq’t guzra nahiN
Naz’r say pehlay apni hee naz’r milao
phir jhanko apnoN ki nighaouN main
haal-e-dil su’no aur su’naao.

Listening
to the pain of others
speaks volumes
--- this ability to listen
is worth more
anytime anyplace
than those sermons
from the mounts or pedestals.

haal-e-dil su’no aur su’naoo
aur mooskurao
aur phir mooskurao

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