واصف علی واصف

Life is not a name of any sphere of activity. It’s a manifestation, a manifestation of beauty _______ It is a bustling bazar _______ a buyer passes through it, makes purchases till his belongings end. It’s amazing that his purchase is still incomplete but he returns empty handed. The fervour of the market remains intact and the buyers go on ending. Life denotes no perplexed affair but it is a scene of infinite delight. This scene is so delicate that it cannot bear the burden of comments or satire. This is a scene worth seeing _______ A song worth listening _______ It is not a plan worth thinking _______ not a difficult enigma. Life itself is only life. It is someone’s bestowal _______ Someone’s benevolence _______ An act of someone else.

It is like an ocean _______ vast and boundless _______which only has one side _______ one shore _______ having hustle & bustle, gatherings, illuminations & large crowd _______ It also have loneliness and sadness. No one knows about the other end of this ocean. Those who went to explore the other end are not back yet. This side is full of colours, a wide spectrum _______and the other side is colourless _______having only one colour. Who knows what is there in this ocean and what is beyond it. Here there is a large crowd but afterwards everyone will be alone.

Since when & upto when does this life exist _______ From a beginning to an eternity _______ or before this beginning and after that eternity _______ Before creation life was alone in the will of its Creator to whom it will be handed over after its completion.

Nevertheless life will remain life in all forms. Life engulfs time _______ swallows many ages _______ gulps centuries and remains unaffected _______ yet on other times it generates many revolutions within a moment _______ Some how life lives within life _______ as it is an island of its own ocean _______ life was living there before its creation and it will be there after its end. Life never dies _______ can never die _______ nor can it live forever. It is ever stable as well as ever changing.

As life is denoted as to flourish, it also gets burnt in its own fire. Life carries on new creation, it also keeps on disintegrating during these stages of creation. Hence it remains in between being and not-being _______ Thus this flickering flame of life stays between hope and despair _______ Life is an amazing clock woven with white and black threads _______ It has a lot in it _______ Laughters and sighs.

Life can dwell happily in mud houses of the poor and may remain sick in glaring palaces of the rich. If wish so, life may get attached to wheel of time ­­_______ or it may keep on finding new dimensions for it devoid of time and space.

Life cannot be encased in any formula. Say whatever to it, it keeps listening, smiling and then manifests in a new form leaving the formula behind.

If life is called perpetual journey then what is a complete halt?

If life is wakefulness then what the sleep and negligence are?

If life is termed as love then hate also is life, yet hate is more prevalent in life _______ Hate, anger, prejudice, envy, keep life more active. Anyhow both love and hate are the names of life.

If religion is taken as life then what is secularism?

If life is Earth what is sky then?

If creation is taken as life what then that Being be called who creates them?

It is hard to define life _______ even more difficult is to know and cognite it _______ It is a mystery _______ such a secret that whosoever conceived it he was lost _______ and who couldnot, he got lost.

Life is in a search _______ for whom? Life discovers him who searches life. Life is in pursuit of death and death itself pursues life. Both are in quest for each other _______ Until one of them finishes, the affair goes on _______ the affair of Light and Darkness _______ of Being and not being _______ of belief and disbelief _______ of day and night.

In its lap the life have innumerable and countless blessings. It contains desires, wishes _______ hopes and despair _______ realities_______ deceptions _______ crowds and solitudes.

Life is an ocean _______ which sets forth its clouds to an unknown journey _______ bids farewell to them _______ and then this ocean welcomes it voyagers, its rivers.

Life begets life _______ life is adding to life _______ Life is departing from life and life is uniting with life.

In fact life is but life, far beyond parting and nearness _______ devoid of achieving or loosing _______ intimate of its inner changes but unaffected by them.

Life is so remote, much ancient and very old but this same life is brand new, most modern and very young.

Every ancient was modern once and every modern will become ancient then.

Thus this life is modern and ancient at the same time _______ old cities and new citizens _______ old citizens and new cities. Man of today remains happy in ruins _______ He wants to know who were inhabitants of these ruins _______ These ruins were palaces then. Modern man is set forth to explore the old universe _______ He regards it as progress _______ It is strange that this man takes birth in the same old style _______ He studies the classical authors and displays new knowledge. What is new then? Same old faces _______ same old eyes _______ old tears _______ Everything is as it was _______ then the same old destination for the new man _______ same old graveyards _______ All this could not be understood _______ It is all life _______ Marriage and funeral processions both are life _______ but hard to understand. Life now is parent’s home and then will be home of In-laws. Very strange! Four men carry the palankeen of bride and four brothers carry the corpse _______ It is same _______ All of it is the same _______ all these are chapters of the book of life _______ irrespective of beginning or end. Life was there before its beginning and it will be there after its end.

Life is but life _______ who knows its day of

beginning or day of death?

Who knows from where this limitless journey began and when eventually will it end.

Nevertheless, life is going on all the way _______ like a river which keeps on flowing _______ Perpetual, permanent _______ neither diverts, nor stops, nor gets exhausted _______ River is a message of mountains for the ocean carried by flowing water _______ This message is life _______ and the bearer will remain alive.

Life is its own honour _______ itself may loose this honour. Life itself is respectable and honourable _______ at times it is exalted and sometimes down trodden _______ Life is a blazing fire in freezing cold _______ Life is a flower bed inherent in this fire _______ It is so simple to understand _______ It can be understood with reference to its Creator. If creation refers to its Creator then it is safe’ otherwise it is a disaster.

Life is hidden in its own veil, knocks its own door and itself responds to that knock saying “No one is inside” _______ If someone’s gaze bestows this life then it calls its ownself “Get in _______ I am waiting for you” _______

Life is to face your ownself _______ to be near to your self _______ to be intimate of your own _______ It is its own name _______ I am the life _______ I must admit that “You” are also life, “He” is also life _______ Respect for all is indeed respect of oneself _______ Life for all is the life of oneself.