Author: Ajmal

“Every job from the heart is, ultimately, of equal value. The nurse injects the syringe; the writer slides the pen; the farmer plows the dirt; the comedian draws the laughter. Monetary income is the perfect deceiver of a man’s true worth.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.”
― C.S. Lewis

Location: University City, Sharjah.

“All my life I’ve always come back to one thing,
my need to feel free and the need to feel the breeze,
the ride provides a freedom this gypsy needs,
where every road is another blessed memory,
a new experience to carry inside my journey,
a sense of belonging to a familiar tribe,
a brotherhood that goes beyond a bloodline.”
― Jess “Chief” Brynjulson, Highway Writings

This illustration is inspired by a photograph of my father that I took in 2017 from Coorg.
Illustrated by The Border of a Mind Studios

Not different from my usual proclivity to correlate everything into quotes, this time also, it’s not an exception. As Edmond de Goncourt put it, “ A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.”

This day, for me, it’s all about violin. I was late to discover this gem of a piece of music and this brilliant musician online. Make sure your eyes are closed and headphones are on so that you won’t wain any of its bliss. Perhaps a benign testimony to it’s soothing nature is a moving post by a doctor that I read somewhere today mentioning that he used this singer’s performances as a relief to patients enduring severe pain as a part of their treatments. Being someone in love with instrumental tones during my chores, this was an instant addition to my playlist. You might see more of these in the future also here, God bless friends! May you’ve a content, serene day walking a day closer to your dreams. This piece of music just coalesces with the essence of this page.

“Years vanish. Months collapse. Time is like a tall building made of playing cards. It seems orderly until a strong gust of wind comes along and blows the whole thing skyward. Imagine it: an entire deck of cards soaring like a flock of birds.”
― Dani Shapiro, Hourglass: Time, Memory..

A flower from my office’s garden nudging that life is fragile.

I’m adopting this from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. If you think about it profoundly ,that’s absolutely remarkable. It’s detailing about those “extras” in the background of our routines and a realization that each of them has their own intricacies. I believe, sort of an empathy is manifested through this, only if you think deeply about it. God bless =)

sonder n. “The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.”

Some nuances that leave you in awe. Sharing the reading. I shall call this the ponder series wherein I could share in my readings so that we can ponder together. Apart from the technicalities of any subject, it’s the inquisitiveness and inference that matters. And that’s where we explore the child within ourselves.

“Going inside the body and then inside the cell is a journey to wonderland. Enclosed by its outer membrane, a cell’s functions are walled off from the outside. When we look at any structure from outside, we get a highly simplified version of its essence. We decide to pick up a pencil and then do so. Not much to do it. But in the path leading from the thought to the act, millions of cells and millions of atoms acting on command were required to accomplish that mundane feat. From the outside, it seems so straightforward like starting a car: Just turn the key. Or a computer: Just press the power button. A myriad of hours were required to design the circuits and invent the components so that one simple act will activate the billions upon billions of atoms in just the right sequence needed to ignite the motor or light the screen.

If we could see within as easily as we see without, every aspect of existence would be an unfolding encounter with awe, almost a religious experience even for a secular spectator. A biology text presents a diagram, a cutaway view of a cell. Within the cell, a dozen or so components are shown and labeled – the nucleus, chromatins, cell membrane, ribosomes, and so on. If this were the reality, our metabolism would be one thousandth of what it actually is. A sketch showing all the cellular organelles would be one smear of ink, such is the density of the parts pumping life within. ”
– Gerald L. Schroeder

#PonderSeries

“If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I bet they’d live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize there are more important things than what people do all day.”
– Bill Watterson

Original photography by Mervin Harif.

This is sort of a prelude of my concept of kind of a “studio of the mind” vision, let’s put it that way for the time being.  In the note about the intent of the blog, I had mentioned that these would a personal repertoire of my deliberations. Today, I’m postulating my thoughts on The Border of a Mind Studios.  Au fond, this is my vision of a virtual studio of arts, ideas and minds built on the idea of embellishment of childish curiosity that we’re born with and to manifest it through fine writings, arts, visuals, and moving images. It’s to articulate that novelty visually in the best way possible without any slack of any form. It could be a photograph that would paint a beautiful story from a timeless memory in its attributes or it might be an illustration that conveys an intent in its subtlety.  I’ve been running this on the backdrops over the past several years as a private project with visual gifts crafted to delight my friends and loved ones. Personally, I’m enamoured by the repose it instills within me and also the gratification of using this craft as my signature to put a smile on their hearts. Here we emerge! (chuckle!)
God bless you!

Original photograph by Nasna Nassir.

A mosque near university city, Sharjah that I frequent for evening walks and occasional prayers. I’m just drawn into the silence and serenity at this place during non peak hours. If you think about it, regardless of wherever we are, chances are that there’s some sort of noise that plays an extra in the background. It’s difficult these days to get yourself a taste of some pin drop silence. Walking here with some calm music is a penchant and pastime now =)