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1. An Evening At Glo­ria Jeans — Poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir

   Today, after so many days
   while hav­ing cof­fee at Glo­ria Jeans…
   I have gulped down the evening too
   with the last sip
   My stom­ach is now full of
   Choco­late soli­tude
   and you, hold­ing the paper mug
   in your hands,
   silent and frigid in awe, like always,
   look­ing at me on this sud­den encounter
   won­der­ing, how on earth the time
   that stood still before the gen­e­sis
   has found its way to Glo­ria Jeans?

   The evening, I had seen you
   for the very first time
   was just as murky as it is today
   The his­to­ry was­n’t born yet
   On the Earth, there was geog­ra­phy
   defined by the birds and the ani­mals only
   The time used to drift in shad­ows and you
   awestruck and appre­hen­sive like always
   were look­ing at me

   You nev­er kept your­self aware of any­thing
   You don’t even know that
   my world is too small these days
   like the realms of flo­ra and pests
   in which there are columns of march­ing ants
   and the birds’ nests
   snakes made of flex­i­ble plas­tic and
   the fly­ing and crawl­ing insects
   and a lit­tle off­spring who plays
   with the epoch of ice-age
   No won­der if he does so
   because, the chil­dren of cyber-age
   play with the eras not with toys
   and just like that the his­to­ry begins
   and comes to an end
   Boat-hous­es and the water­ways
   and the cities full of painters and the sculp­tures
   are estab­lished and then ran­sacked
   and with the dead bod­ies of the kings
   thou­sands of toad­ies get buried alive too
   and just like that, time after time
   cen­turies turn into despair

   You don’t even remem­ber
   that I had seen you the sec­ond time
   right in the mid­dle of hos­tile lands
   Stoop­ing and crawl­ing
   in the under­ground tun­nels
   and in the abodes carved into the caves
   where ven­ti­la­tion was made pos­si­ble
   through holes and the chim­neys
   Your dreams cam­ou­flaged
   even in the deep slum­ber
   and your lips tight­ly sealed with a grin
   as if, if the world was split into two halves
   But now, the world has been divid­ed
   into so many parts that, to show it to some­one
   even the lines in a palm are not enough

   And right here, at this very place
   where this city is hus­tling and bustling
   and we are sit­ting here in Glo­ria Jeans
   I had seen you for the last time
   here, there were only a few dwellings
   there was a trail and a bend
   where I was stand­ing
   With the worst defeats and dis­graces
   streets were desert­ed and the rooftops des­o­late
   smoke was ris­ing up from the trees and the abodes
   and only a for­lorn glimpse of you
   The ene­my had jammed all the com­mu­ni­ca­tion
   between hearts and the minds
   The hills had denied the refuge to us
   and the clouds were burst­ing out of nowhere

   And today yet again — after so many ages
   we have met at Glo­ria Jeans
   and like always you don’t even know
   that we live in the same hous­ing soci­ety
   We have no his­to­ry, no geog­ra­phy
   just one civic cen­ter and
   a necrop­o­lis
   and in Glo­ria Jeans
   the time has not come to a stand­still
   it is strid­ing on a light­en­ing pace…!!!

   (Eng­lish trans­la­tion by Kam­ran Awan)