What Were Your Favorite Subjects in High School? my son asked.
Easy.
English.
Urdu literature was too rich
Math too dry
Algebra made no sense
Geometry, no relevance
History was history
Geography? As if I was going places
Civics: I know this, I know this,
My parents talk about it all the time
What else?
I guess that was it.
Aaah the novel. I could take it and go anywhere.
A tragedy:
My belly twisted in knots
Feeling Oliver’s hunger.
I wept with Heathcliff when Catherine breathed her last
Pages of the book curling under his revenge
The winds howling over the Wuthering Heights.
Poor darling Tess
Betrayed, abandoned, doomed.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
That tale of two cities had less of best, more of worst
The guillotine falling over the sacrificial man
I felt my heart crack.
A romance:
How else would I know what it was like
Were it not for Pip and Estella
Such great expectations.
I shimmered in happy endings
Holding ‘Just Married’ sign for Elizabeth and Darcy
Cast off that pride, abandon the prejudice.
I would have if I could have
Punched Miss Scarlett in the face
And frankly my dear
I would have given a damn
Were he my dashing Rhett.
One day, my Romeo will serenade me
from the street below
Singing ‘chodhween ka chaand ho’
You are as beautiful as the full moon
I would just swoon
And ride off with my knight
In his shining blue suit.
Dream on
It was the closest I got to the real thing.
Drama:
Juliet’s death
Romeo’s grief.
Shylocks pound of flesh
Sent shivers down my back
I promised myself
Never to go in debt.
And poor, dear Hamlet
So that is what it is like
To come that close
To be, or not to be
Phew!
Poetry:
Wordsworth was o.k.
Keats was fine
But one who captivated me, was Byron
She Walks in Beauty
Had us 15-year-olds walking on a cloud
Byron was our hero
And we the heroines
Who walked in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
Byron was our Don Juan
“Tis strange,-but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction: if it could be told.”
Yes. English literature, for sure.
I have been places I never would have gone
I have lived lives, more than any cat
Felt pain, without breaking my heart
Sensed hate, and left it behind
Faced fear, knowing it wasn’t real
Felt the stirrings of love, before I fell in love.
I could dream
Have nightmares
And wake up saying
It was only a dream.
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