unknown...

here's a story I read a few days back ...

An oldy, but a goody :)

This is one of the best explanations of why Allah allows pain and suffering that I've seen. It’s an explanation other people will understand.A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. Barber began to work; they began to have a good conversation. They talked about many things and various subjects.

When they eventually touched on the subject of Allah, the barber said, “I don’t believe that Allah exists”.“Why do you say that?” asked the customer. “ Well, you just have to go out in the street to realise that Allah doesn’t exist. Tell me, if Allah exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If Allah existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain, I can’t imagine a loving Allah who would allow all of these things”.The customer thought for a moment, but didn’t respond because he didn’t want to start an argument.

The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop. Just after he left the barbers shop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt. The customer turned back and entered the barbershop again and he said to the barber, “You know what? Barbers do not exist”. “How can you say that?” asked the surprised barber. “I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!” “No!” the customer exclaimed. “Barbers don’t exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards like that man outside”. “Ah, but barbers do exist! What happens is, people do not come to me”. “Exactly!” affirmed the customer. “That’s the point! Allah, too, does exist! What happens, is, people don’t go to Him and do not look for Him.

that’s why there’s so much pain and suffering in the world”.

Lovenote to a stranger by Atif.

why have you drifted so far away
from my body, the scent of your sweat
faded from my teeshirt why have you
slipped away so silent so cold beyond
the words the walls the reach

of grasping fingers the animal
thirst of blinded hours

The demons have choked in my head, the doorways
lost. The streets where your breaths
welled like the ocean wind, filling cries
of seagulls and unborn children in my head...

the streetshave been devoured by mist, as if
they never were. As if you never were

the ancient god

of storms and frenzied prayers
and secret shrines; as if you never
spread the night sky around my shoulders,
your body - feverish, bright - burning like stars.

Tell me why I can'trecognize your name anymore,
why your body
has become a land I have never tread - my streets
devoured by mist, as if they never were.
Why did you let me drift
so far awaythat I cannot return?
For I stillnurse the ghost of you
in my mind, like a hidden madness, an
imaginary wound... so far, so
unreal that nothing
can ever touch you
no love
no tears
no blood

Insanities by Atif.

I could've been the desire in your eyes, and stayed like that forever. Bathed in the seething fragrance of your body. Breathed in the red dust of your soul. Spilled in the liquid rudeness of your purple gaze.

Let me drown
Let me drown
Let me drown

I bloom like the last finger of jasmine on your stormy nights.

Matterialism...

We're shifting, and in the process of packing I have found myriad of small useless colorful things which were perfectly hidden in the obscurity of my room. Old broken things that are mostly of no use, that deserve to be thrown away or given off. I would do neither. The narcissist me would cajole me to keep them only because they're mine. The logistic me would give off wild persuading logics to put them in my prospect cupboard. The creative me would tempt me about the beautiful color they possess and how they would decor my room. The possessive me would take over and I would want to keep them no matter what.

I don't like the notion of people collecting so many thing, and I don't even like the idea of me doing the same. It make me something of a materialistic person, A lover of things - breathless, worthless, emotionless cold things, which don't feel and cant love you back.

Also, Materialistic people are mean, they possess things and only things can bewitch them, fascinate them and ensnare them. I guess they don't even have the capacity and desire to love people.

I will give off all, I think. I don't want to be materialistic and I wonder if loving cold, bleak, emotionless, worthless but breathing people, who don't feel and cant love you back, will ever make me one?

I am still a moth trapped in the coldness of cold. and locked securely in the pristine cages of norms, notions, ethics. Chained and cuffed to have someone, anyone, lead me, coerce me, persuade me into doing something I will loathe to do. and the moth still yearns for something impossible - freedom. and Transformation - in to a butterfly!

Pain is only thr wen thr is no pain..by Atif.

Sitting under this tree that echoes both the symphony of life and death I see students playing before me…..mostly these are freshmen playing cricket occasionally producing strange sounds to bring me back from my melancholic reverie to see them and cheer at how good they look. I laugh at their naivety and then keep moving my fingers in rhythm to the rhythm of my thoughts. Slowly and gradually they are disappearing into the fogginess of life. their faces getting dimmer and dimmer…their movements becoming slower and nimble…I felt myself alighting into a stage where there is no space and time…no worries and no elation… where there is a longing to cry and feel nothing at the same time….I am alone here and cool wind is blowing playing with my veil..disturbing it…chilling my blood in my veins and leaving my fingers weaker and weaker and yet I go on writing.I am frozen in my own melancholic thoughts but I feel an extraordinary coldness in the environment.

the murmuring around me is like death and yes there is ……death before me.

I felt a chill passing through my each limb as I hear some one around me saying…

“It’s a funeral …..Quite for a while! But behind me chatting continues.

I see a group of men coming towards the graveyard with a man in front holding a bundle of white sheets.

“Yes it’s a funeral but a funeral of someone who had barely opened his eyes”

someone said.

Why is it that my emotions are different from the women who bore that child….

Had it been my child I would never have handed them over to bury him here alone…..

away from me.

But brave is the woman. I wonder...But perhaps too much pain leaves us numb.Perhaps when we suffer a lot we cease to feel painPerhaps….Pain is only when there is no painAndThere is no pain when there is too much pain.I wonder if it’s right.

Silently resolving by Atif.

Wired and tired of trying – all again

Spoke to the ones, I didn’t met in pain

Story I spoke or even wrote did twice

And a while, I spoke the allies disguised

Voices that burn fires in my head

Talking and talking – and turning once said

Spoken once or twice or even thrice

Heard did who? – raise up his voice

Working out with some what confusion

Breathing – air as none I spoke a vision

I stay quite, or silence, do I indeed

But the voice is clearly, seen in my eyes

If not heard as a voice of greed

So I stay away, and stay quite

Kept a somewhat violent right

That music – so wonderfully tuned
And the dance – so delightful

I compromised – but paused the day

Difference that spoke by it self

I did not view – but overview

I did do – not did – but for you

I kept silent and once again

I kept silent – so I viewed

In the rear side of the story

Denied I did not neither declined

But defined, with conformity I sat and I wrote all I had

But and then it was “goodbye”

What happened to it, all a question..

That rose and demanded an answer

It was the end – that end, I have not seen

But heard a lot about

nd its beauties

So shall when it come

I shall see – and

then only

I shall be…

I Repel by Atif.

Death inspires me, in a different way

I succeed, reluctantly with greed

Emotions deep within, I’d rather say

I indeed haven’t sow the seed

Vivid it might seem, vivacious as life

I recommend silence, when seen

Remorse comes after thee thrive

Remembrance is just so mean

Chaos, Confusion, Restrict, Repulsion

I insist with anger but politely

Re-confine my attitude or vision

I repulse the strain, is I,

I or me

Completely diagnosed, with intelligence I repel …

I ain't You by Atif

That art though my head

I indeed might instead

Of though that I shall

Indeed I as well

Is we?

Or is a broken arrow falling from the

Stems of a tree, like the leaf’s fall

Before winter thou called spring

A fluctuation in a slight burnt thought

Of as a human mind with though greed

But dressed in humanity –

with heavenly

Feathered angel wings

I thou we – reconsider a remedy for

Peace or indulgence – to retreat – as thou

Can consider but cannot deny – if is –

Then what is you greatness about?

Is thy face or thee mistake

I take, I take, intake

Responses, vision, a view

I ain’t, no, I ain’t you

lost in the Cage by Atif

Sometimes I see things,time I realize

Things that I cannot explain – neither visualize

It sticks in my head and stimuli-ze

The cells of wondering brain of mine

I complicate sometimes the thoughts

Though it’s so simple a lot

Little higher, beaten wire

I speak of a different style

I did not see neither did define

What has been found in an either line

I complicate but ain’t not inside

I simply to thy self define

Simplicity dissolved in not greed No,

not even selfishness but

The need of not equality

But a slight bit of equilibrium

Oh! Where am I?

A changeWhat was I supposed to range?

Humm… define but lets not

Let it stay untouched and purely engaged.