Mehreen Ahmed > Quotes

“Where do you live, where do we live where is our home? Under this tree, over the mountains, and beyond, the sky, a time-rider. Dancing colours! Life was more surrealistic, this short life than death, death was natural, not the other way round.--Mehreen Ahmed, Incandescence.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Incandescence

“Were those dots, she doted, connected on any linear pathway, where the past joined with the present as an invisible time chain? Time’s effects were certainly not invisible, no matter how invincible.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, The Blue, Red Lyrae

“Rhonda looped, as unmitigated suffering descended on her; one wave of thought crashed over another without sensible demarcation; bamboo leaves swayed in maddening winds; jaded wetness danced upon purpled drizzles on towering trapeze; grapefruit vines bottled in brine; dewdrops on her eyes. All this, as though, a nonsensical midsummer’s night dream had occurred in an enchanted forest under the influence of Puck’s flower juices, wavering in the moonlight like many of her dreams. A thin line separated reality from dream; like being on a continuum, further up, cross over to another reality; an illusory realisation of a past hollered. Our roles played, but in innate imperfection, to the tune of some charm thrust upon as disposition in this enchanted forest of life.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Jacaranda Blues

“A shape across space beckoned her. Her spirits sank. She thought of the other world; the temporariness of this existence. Oh! The wall, a cold wall stood between this Emma and that; this stormy morning and the sprightly spring afternoon. She walked along the solid wall for an opening. There were no exits. None at all. The sky cracked up into terrifying thunder sounds.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, The Pacifist

“Aspirations,dreams were some of the most powerful components that also held life from falling apart. They propelled life towards the fulfilment of a destiny. All those hard tests required to pass in the boot camp and outside in the Dravi community on this journey to the safe haven were worthy trade-offs thereof. The presence of the paradoxical absence of the ONE, and His selective random process as to who won and who didn't was one of those many unresolved puzzles. However, His existence was as immutable as the law of gravity to the faithful." - Moiae, Mehreen Ahmed”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Moirae

“In life we have no time. In death we've got all eternity.”
― Mehreen Ahmed

“MD’s letter finally reached the village. But no one opened it. Winds glibly carried it away in casual chase and whispers of ghastly horror through the bamboo bush. The house of the Monsoon rain and the pretty pink knitting was now deserted; front yard had fallen decrepit as though struck with the dark fever of pestilence. Branches from storm lay randomly across the yard as did poles and the shack roof. Doors hung from their hinges, in the process of coming completely apart. Ravens came and sat fruitlessly in the yard in search of salted fish.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Moirae

“At the time I made a decision, a sensible one, in which love might or might not have had a role to play. What was more appealing, was a promise of a peaceful life that she has had until now, untouched by quandary. But that too was slipping away and she was powerless to recapture it, a virtuous relationship and its limpidness that knew neither quarrels nor deceit.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Jacaranda Blues

“It was beginning to get late in the afternoon. On the edge of the earth, the sun slowly diminished. An unexpected calmness dropped in the atmosphere. In one short life, this drama would end. And that would be the end of it all; those, who suffered the worst, were the ones most deluded by the notion that this life was forever. Oh, how calm? How peacefully the River Murma flowed today? A mere twitter of a bird in the heavy groves, the shepherd’s distant tune caught in the flute wafted through the air. There appeared to be no grimy crimes threatening such delightful sensations of undulated serenity. The night forest illuminated by fireflies everywhere. Lights sparkled, as they flew ubiquitous around the slim, tall trees and the heavy bushes of the blue forest.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Moirae

“The placid sea shines like an aluminium sheet rolled out to the end of the horizon.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Snapshots

“If one were to typify a place, then these are snapshots that need to be captured. Brazen realities frozen in time; progress impeded because of a tradition of cultural sloth. The world goes by without a moment’s reproach and I retire for the day; however, a line drones mindlessly in paradox.

“Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized on a table (The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T.S Eliot, 1920).”

Splendidly juxtaposed, I chuckle."

Juxtaposed Realities - Mehreen Ahmed”
― Mehreen Ahmed

“I didn't see it coming.
That the great ospreys of the wetlands were after us.
I was just basking in the sun, regurgitating with my offspring in our knitted nest.
Ospreys said they were taking us under their wings.
That we never had to worry about food ever again.
Days went by, I realized they took our flying away."
Birds of Prey--They Move Away Like Waves.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, They Move Away Like Waves

“Mother I had a beautiful house in Shingdi a vegetable garden Vines of bitter gourd lettuce English spinach and tousled coconut trees Coconuts fell on my darling husbands head One day we made love under the tree Now I was pregnant just like my orchard full of fruits with the love child Oh I ran as hard as I could from the shadow These were shadows of time shadows of the past ...”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Moirae

“No living creature should have to feel so exposed in death, washed up on the beach in mangled meat of bloody distortion.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, The Pacifist

“At the time she made a decision, a sensible one, in which love might or might not have had a role to play. What was more appealing, was a promise of a peaceful life that she has had until now, untouched by quandary. But that too was slipping away and she was powerless to recapture it, a virtuous relationship and its limpidness that knew neither quarrels nor deceit.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Jacaranda Blues

“The bamboo bush listened without a word. Winds rustled sweet nothings through and around. Satisfied, yes, she was satisfied. Her heart was lighter. She had found her bearings here. This place which had become a spot of solace for her; she couldn’t stay away or stray away— summer, or winter, fall or spring; the bamboo bush, an extension of herself, couldn’t be parted with. The rainwater dripped down its leaves. Skies above, far above, somewhere the greyness matched. It matched not above nor below but at the core, not the core of the earth; it was all a connected cycle. It matched the color of her mood, the greyness of the heart, an organic interconnection. The rain, the bamboo bush, the grey skies, her heightened mood, all in one chain of cosmic order. Separate, yet connected.Connected through a natural network. She loved her life, she hated her life, she just didn’t know what to do with her life; her sufferings purpled like the blooming jacarandas under a silent, grey sky.”
― Mehreen Ahmed

“Being a published author is not just about selling books, or winning awards but it is also about the authors’ own maturity and sensitivity as a person. It is an inward journey, to the contrary.”—Mehreen Ahmed”
― Mehreen Ahmed

“Nothing moved him. No sense of remorse could knock him back into reaction; no tears of regret flowed from those weary eyes.This seemingly innocuous episode, transpired into greater tragedy and it left him vaguely disengaged.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, The Blotted Line

“I am the promise that cannot be broken.
I am the love that will never be severed.
I am the dream that will not be realised.
I am the desire that will burn forever.”
― Mehreen Ahmed

“Tinges of crimson glowed momentarily, before masses of ink and grey crowded in. Constable’s sky would not have looked more poetic on its canvas with such a spillage of riotous colours. Vapours crossed broodingly about in emptiness, right before a melt-down. Quick lightening crept through unpredictably in toothed lines, followed by bellows from heavens above. Nalia began to run like a petrified black gazelle.”
― Mehreen Ahmed

“One doesn't have to cry all day to be sentient. One has to be strong enough to stand up to those who aren't.”
― Mehreen Ahmed

“Bloody evening sky A lonely boat travelled on the ocean of huge waves Headed in search of new land A child was born incognito People threw up everywhere No land was visible No No Conflict of free will and pre-destination; what choices could this child exercise that he was born on a boat full of riders destined to go God knows where ...?.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Moirae

“It didn't stoop because it didn't know how to.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Jacaranda Blues

“Belatedly, I realized that writing wasn't about fame or money, but an inner struggle of discipline and perfecting this skill.”
― Mehreen Ahmed

“She loved her life, she hated her life, she just didn’t know what to do with her life, her suffering purpled like the blooming jacarandas under silent, grey sky.” Incandescence.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Incandescence

“Such is the mood of the sea today, changeable and unpredictable.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Snapshots

“Under a full marmalade moon, she sat with her wedded husband in a small thatched room. Through the portal of the cane latticed window, she heard the ominous crow lapse into terrible wail, as it flew through the stooping, bunched up bamboo bush.”
― Mehreen Ahmed

“She loved her life, she hated her life, she just didn’t know what to do with her life, her suffering purpled like the blooming jacarandas under silent, grey sky.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, Incandescence

“Their eyes wide open, they stared into empty nothingness. There was silence everywhere. Apart from a few twinkling of stars, masses of dark void pressed down upon the atmosphere. Moments passed slowly. She could not sleep a wink. A pale light peeled the darkness off. She felt she was in slumber-land; a land of the living dead - then thoughts returned: an anguish; life appeared to be too short; it melted away so easily into bleak oblivion. She felt that she passed through space, a path designated by ethereal time. Her spirits soared like a falcon...despaired...and more...it fell into a dungeon of dark depression. Laying there. like a fallen log of a dead pine, she heard from her bed a roaring noise of the westerly knocking on the shutters of the window. It was like an ancient calling of Nemesis to wake her up to the fact that surely an end was closing in.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, The Pacifist

“When others die, I grieve. When I die,they grieve.”
― Mehreen Ahmed