Faraar

 I made a bunk from work today. My mind is so cluttered and it needs a good long break. I am sitting at Chatterbox. It's usually quiet around here (ironically) here but there are two ladies on the table next to mine and they are uncomfortably loud. One of them created such a racket out of the fact that there was yolk in her omelette. A part of me wonders if this is such an issue next to all the wrong in the world. I chuckled at the thought because it  inevitably made me think about Barrister Huma's take on Sharmeen Obaid's apology and how there are just two kinds of divisions, the rich and poor. I choose to divorce myself from those  thoughts. Enough of that. I begin to ponder over my restlessness. I'm so badly looking for an escape, I think.

  There are urgent matters to attend to and I abhor the nature of their urgency pressing upon me. The HR file which I conveniently avoided submitting because I bunked, the article review for OHIP research, Zahabiya's sister's tray's doves, the exam i have tomorrow. My phone vibrates. There's a notification from facebook. My friend from the public library project has tagged me in a comment to bring me back to reviving the projects. I had let go of them in the past few weeks after someone in my life began to talk me out of the many commitments I had taken up. They had all the best intentions at heart. The prospect of one huge commitment seemed to have made the remaining ones seem heavier, and so I had allowed myself  to cut them loose. My library project was one such commitment. "And well, I would be needing your time as well", I remember him saying on the eve of the hashtag-sunday.  I remind myself that I'm no longer bound to that prospect and can go back to living my causes again and go back to my sanctuaries, until it dawns upon me. In the few weeks that we interacted I had allowed him to be part of nearly everything and everyplace I had taken up as a sanctuary, through conversation or actual participation. Chatterbox for one. I looked at the table to my left. We were sitting there and chatting away about religion. Real conversations, good real conversations stick with the soul, primarily because they are a product of the soul itself. Sigh. Chatterbox, NYC, and my mere spirit of discovering new places; I had chosen to share. My eyes met with the tears they were holding back. I feel vulnerable and in need of a new sanctuary. The urgency to seek one presses upon me.

   I picked up reading Origin and immersed myself in it.. I finish reading the prologue and it's great. I pick up my phone to text him about it and then I pause. This is my Me-Time but I want to tell him about it, I shouldn't. I put the phone down. Relax, I tell myself, have this time to yourself, you need it. I had ordered coffee for myself. The cappucino had a pretty coffee lather pattern and they had given an "Aztec" chocolate with it. My mind/heart was still conversing with him; telling him about it. Why? Cause we had touched upon everything mundane in those few weeks. And what do you think life is filled with? Definitely not the extraordinary .. there's a reason it's "extra". Life is largely mundane and we had touched upon everything mundane. There's something extraordinary in the mundane. What a paradox! I shut the book.

  This cafe is filled with a sense of the past. I submit myself to it and backtrack my trail of emotions. I call the cab and pay my bill in the process with a clear sense of where I want to be right now. I board the cab. My heart is going back and forth on all it felt... My conversation with another friend on my resentment and how it wasn't fair to me and that i deserved him trying harder than how much he did was not enough, even if it wasn't going to work out. I then realised what he said "at least you have something to hate". Did I? No. I couldn't hate. Who could with the knowledge that To Him We Belong and to Him We Return and the knowledge of what that could mean. He seeked mercy from the same Lord I did, the same Who had led our paths to cross and the same Who held our hearts. My eyes met with the tears they usually fight off. I wanted to break down with somebody. I wanted to cry and wanted to be held as I do so. I was crossing my days budget to spend and I knew that I ought to save but that would be another commitment pressing me. Why I was chosing to go ahead with this ? Because at the end, I am the only one picking up pieces of me. I let go of my moment of self-pity and shook off the thought. I am buying my happiness or peace, I know because I'm the only one who's been there for me. And it suddenly dawns upon me. Allah has been there for me. He has taken care of me. I prayed Surah Fatiha and took a deep breath.

   We are all seeking His Love. We get attached to humans because we can see and feel humans responding. Allah's responses are very much there but we feel they aren't direct. Our love for one another is also part of His way. For all the love and mercy He has put in our hearts.. Overthinking. I stop and direct my mind to where the cab was heading. We were near my dropoff location and then finally there. Lo and behold, of the three names of this place was "Faraar" (translation: Escape). The others are T2F and Peace Niche. This shall be my new sanctuary.

   T2F or The Second Floor is a cafe. It's a part of Faraar and the Peace Niche, all initiatives of Sabeen, a liberal activist who was shot dead for the views she held. As I entered the place I couldnt help but feel grateful to her. The ground/first floor is a wood-panelled studio-ish large room with a cornered library area. The cafe is upstairs on the second floor. I had heard and read a lot about this place but never been here before. As I walked upstairs admiring the interior and it's creativity I kept thinking about "What you seek is seeking you". Every inch of this place truly was and every nook shouting "Freedom" out loud. I enter the main cafe. It is so blissfully quiet. Let's write. And as I sit down to do so, a part of me wants to tell him about it. But the louder, inner voice saying "My time, my sanctuary" takes over. Later, perhaps :)