Of Fairy Lights And City Nights.

Two years ago, I started this blog in an attempt to explain (to myself and anyone else who may be interested) how I saw the world around me, how I saw love, how I saw life and how I saw me. However, I've never really expected anyone else to see what I see or even understand it. But tonight it felt like someone did, and all it took was 11 directors and 17 writers. What I'm talking about is the movie "New York, I love you". In my previous post I tried to explain what it was that drew me to the various cities of the world, the sense of wonder, possibility and (though it may seem odd) peace that only cities bring me. This movie did that. For me it wasn't just about New York, New york was just the back drop, it was about life, it was about people. How they feel, how they think, how they love and how their lives intersect without them even knowing it. I felt it was about fate, about destiny, about the grand scheme of things, whatever you want to call it. My favourite stories included the Shekhar Kapur segment with Julie Christie and Shia LaBeouf, and the Joshua Marston segment about the old couple. I don't know how others feel about the movie, but I got it and in a way it got me. I hear it's based on an older movie called "Paris, je t'aime", I guess I'll be watching that next.

There Will Be Fairylights As Bright As Any City Night.

There is something amazingly breathtaking about city nights. A city skyline aglow across an inky sky, pinpricks of light drawing out this perfect spiderweb down below, streaks of colour like brush strokes sweeping back and forth. I'm trying to explain that feeling you get when you look out the airplane window, just as it's landing, at the sleeping city down below. When you're standing outside on your roof or your balcony, just breathing in the chilly air and looking out at this sprawling mass of life around you. Specially around dinner time, when things are relatively quieter, when all you hear is the clanking of pots in the kitchen, and mothers calling their kids inside, with the occasional siren wailing in the distance along with the honking of the minibuses and the whooshing of traffic. To me a city signifies millions of people, all with their own separate lives and stories. I love the anonymity of a big city, how you can be entirely alone without ever really being alone. Some people may find that depressing, I find it exciting. Whenever I pass the lit up windows of some house, or people walking on the street, or even people driving in the car along mine, I always wonder what their lives are like. What are they doing, are they happy or unhappy, what are they thinking at this very minute? But that wonder is never more alive than at night. At night every city in the world comes alive, the city shows you it's true character, it's personality, the magic it wields...for every city is magical. I remember sitting on the windowsill of our hotel apartment in Paris, at 4'o'clock in the morning and looking down at the bright empty street and never being more in love with that city than at that precise moment. I remember sitting on the pavement outside my hotel in Edinburgh around 10-11 pm, looking out at the ancient illuminated castle right in front, and never feeling more at peace with the world. In London it was during the walk back to the hotel, late at night after a long day, again the streets were almost empty but the city was still bright. It's been like that with every city that I've ever visited and with the city to which I belong. It's during its' bright silent nights that we bond. I love cities in general and I love Karachi in particular. Even with all the load shedding and its somewhat discontinuous skyline, at the end of the day all that matters is the city's soul, it's life force, and what it says when it speaks to you during it's hushed and enchanted nights.