Tag Archive for: Love

A Trilogy of Grief – Part 1

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Today is March 3rd, 2023.

Finally, De La Soul’s back catalogue has been released on all digital platforms. 

I’ve been waiting for this moment…I don’t even know how long. 

I just know that digital streaming felt strange. 

At least for this hip hop head. 

I’d go onto Spotify, but I couldn’t stream most of my favourite De La Soul songs.

Why?

Doesn’t really matter. Some legal bullshit. 

3 Feet High and Rising

De La Soul is Dead

Buhloone Mindstate

Stakes is High

Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump

Art Official Intelligence: Bionix

That’s a heap of goodness, totally absent on Spotify and other digital streaming platforms. 

But De La Soul had been working tirelessly to negotiate a way to get their work onto the steaming platforms. 

And they succeeded. 

The date was set. 

March 3rd, 2023.

Today is the day and it feels bittersweet.

February 12th 2023 I had another restless night of sleep. Tossing and turning. I reached for my mobile phone. I went onto Facebook to check my feed. 

I see someone writing this massive essay about De La Soul.

That’s cool. 

De La Soul deserve dissertations and thesis’ dedicated to dissecting and celebrating their genius. 

I went back to bed. Tossed and turned some more. 

Woke up again, returned to Facebook.

Now I’m seeing my feed saturated with posts about De La Soul, with a special focus on Dave aka Plug 2 of De La Soul had passed away aged 54. 

I sobbed in bed. I had to mute my grief as I didn’t want to wake anyone up where I was staying.

I may have been manufactured England, but the craftsmanship is Pakistani.

My people grieve hard. Without reservation. Muting my grief was fucked. There’s something there…this is not the time or place for that. But that wasn’t innocuous. I’m gonna nip my ADHD in the bud and get back to the topic at hand…

The news hurt. I saw friends of mine, grown men in their 50s mourning. Another musical hero. Gone. Aged 54! That’s too young. Too young. 

The next few days I had to go onto my iPhone where I saved all of De La Soul’s songs and revisited EVERYTHING. 

A rush of thoughts, emotions and inspiration flooded my senses. Heart, mind, body, soul, ALL engaged. 

1998-2000 was an important time in my life. 

I’d always loved music, but this was the time when I went in hard. I’d gotten into hip hop in 1998 and for those two years I snapped up so many albums. 

No streaming, no iTunes.

I’d go to HMV, log onto Amazon (in the very early years) and pick up everything I could. 

3 Feet High and Rising

De La Soul is Dead

Buhloone Mindstate

Stakes is High

These four albums got me through college. 

College was hard (final two years of high school for my American cousins).

I was 17 and I’d returned to London after spending 5 years in Pakistan.

I grew up in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbett. 1980s Britain was racist as fuck. 

My mum took me out of school in 1993 and took me to Pakistan. I left while John Major was the Prime Minister. 

1998 I came back to the UK 1 year into New Labour. 

I decided to go to college instead of a sixth form. 

I wanted more freedom and that’s what I got at college. 

But it was hard a tricky time. I was still 22 years away from being diagnosed with ADHD and autism. I was experiencing constant social and academic challenges and had no idea why I kept fucking things up. 

I was smart, had a relatively kind heart, but yeah, things always went sideways. Always. 

Hip hop was a sanctuary in this time. And within that, two groups stood out for me:

A Tribe Called Quest

De La Soul

De La Soul appealed for so many reasons.

I loved how unapologetically themselves they were. It would take me another 22 years at least to get that comfortable in my skin. But I know that De La Soul planted some of those seeds that allowed me to blossom into myself. 

They modelled the best behaviour for me. 

Provided me with a map. 

I’m a romantic and an idealist. 

I remember listening to Eye Know from De La Soul back in college. 

This is Dave aka Plug 2’s verse:

May I cut this dance to introduce myself

As the chosen one for speak?

Let me lay my hand across yours

And aim a kiss upon your cheek

The name’s Plug Two (is Plug Two)

And from the soul, I bring you

The daisy of your choice

May it be filled with the pleasure principle

In circumference to my voice

About those other Jennys I reckoned with

Lost them all like a homework excuse

This time the magic number is two

‘Cause it takes two, not three, to seduce

My destiny of love is brought to an apex

Sex is a mere molecule

In this world of lust that I have for you

It’s true

I know I’ll love you better

Fuck!!!

I was floored. 

Now I love blowing out backs as much as the next man. But love, that’s…love is…I love love (shout out Metaphorest). 

I’ve never heard love expressed in such an innocent and tender way. I was 17 when I heard these rhymes, and I’m gonna be 42 soon and these rhymes still make my heart flutter. 

I don’t need to quote anymore lyrics by Dave aka Trugoy aka Plug 2. 

You know everything you need to know about his skill and his heart from those lyrics. 

Altho, I’d say also listen to “Trying People” on De La Soul’s album Bionix. 

Dave’s verses on their always made me cry even when he was alive. 

Now…those verses are unlocking so many layers of unexpressed grief. 

  • The loss of a close friend and my closest uncle to Covid
  • Divorce
  • Navigating fatherhood from a distance
  • Finally making sense of my brain (Autism and ADHD)



There’s more, but…

Dave was the heart of De La Soul. 

He worked with my brother Ty who so many people miss. 

De La Soul’s music was honest, sincere and at times fucking weird. 

I’m coming up to my 42 birthday and I realise that for most of that time I’ve masked myself. Suppressed it.

Who knows how long I have left. 

“Tomorrow’s not promised for none of us” Ty – I’m Leaving

I want to be:

  • Honest
  • Sincere
  • Fucking weird

Dave aka Trugoy aka Plug 2 and De La Soul’s work left me with a blueprint for this. 

Today is bittersweet.

But I’ve been up since 5am and writing furiously while the birds cheep and…despite the bittersweet feelings and grief (re)surfacing…I’m good ya know?

I am up and I’m looking forward to today and to the rest of my life. 

I’m living a life infused with passion and love.

De La Soul played a huge role in that.

They will continue to be a huge part of the soundtrack of my life. 

Dave aka Trugoy aka Plug 2 – September 21, 1968 – February 12, 2023.

Thank you for your generosity.

Thank you for sharing your heart with us.

Thank you for modelling a form of masculinity I could get with. 

Rest easy sir and look after Ty. Remind him how loved he is. 

Time For a New Story

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The narratives we tell ourselves are important.

Partly because what we tell ourselves is what we’ll live out. There’s no escaping that.

But also because we have a tendency to centre ourselves. Which is dangerous.

It also means we can hurt others….

Let’s look at love (and sex).

Over the years all I’ve ever done is focus on how another person didn’t reciprocate my feelings or respond the way I want them to.

But……..

I’m not the centre of the universe.

Neither are you.

The more I interrogate myself and my past….I realise….I’ve rejected people…I haven’t returned feelings. 9/10 times those people have dealt with it better than I have. Their kindness towards me hasn’t diminished

There’s a lesson in this.

Whatever you want….

Love
Sex
Pleasure
Joy
Friendship
Understanding

You are likely being rejected by someone for those things….but you’re also likely rejecting others too.

I know I’ve rejected people for some of these things and denied some of things to others, I’ve not been aware until recently as I’ve taken time to reflect and interrogate myself.

I need to get over myself. We all do really….

Love, sex, companionship….all of this shit is a multi-sided thing……we get rejected, we reject others….but we’re all gonna find what we’re looking for…..the right fit, it’ll come….until then though, we gotta just get on with life.

Want love?

Be more loving to others.

Want friendship?

Be a better friend to others.

I’ve fallen short on these and numerous other dimensions.

But, I wanna do better.

The work begins now.

To turn up to life as a more generous and empathetic person.

加油.

Zaynub

/in , /by

So, I’m currently summoning up the energy to go through heaps of notes and drafts and ideas for drafts for the blog. There’s a lot I want to say, communicate and share. But this year’s events have thrown me massively off balance.

While I do that, to keep the flame burning, I’ve been performing and reading poetry on Zoom calls.

As I’ve run out of newer material that I wrote this year, I’ve gone through and found work from last year that I’m really proud of. Work that I hope to publish in my debut collection of poetry.

Until then I put things out on the blog as I’m a big believer in sharing creative work instead of hoarding it.

This poem is about and dedicated to my daughter Zaynub, someone who has and will continue to feature in my writing, my work, and my blog.

Here’s the poem:

Zaynub

Catalysed by opposable thumbs
Hips move
Hope is a groove
The future makes movement manifest in the present
This present was almost miscarried on the day of my birth
I can think of no greater tragedy.

Haroon (proud dad)

Written in Morden, South London

Love Is a Balm

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I’ve been part of a poetry reading group set up by a friend of mine I used to work for last year. It’s been great fun sharing a lot of my newest writing with them, and being exposed to poetry in Hindi and Urdu too.

We get to choose between reading our own work and reading poems by other writers. I ran out of poems I’ve written this year and was going to dig out work by other poets…but glimpsing through an old folder I’ve found forgotten poems.

Like so much of my work it documents the changes I’ve been going through in the past year.

I’m working on my first collection of poetry that I want to self publish. I hope to include this poem.

Love Is a Balm

Love is a balm
Apply gently
to surfaces corroded by a lifetime of neglect
then to those who see you and accept you
Nuclear winter is imminent
We are each other’s garments
Ready to endure
A better world awaits us




My Lover Is…

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I’m trying to push myself out of my comfort zone with writing and was challenged in a workshop by this wicked poet, Desree to use an “extended metaphor” in a poem. My understanding of an “extended metaphor’ is taking one metaphor, and running with it for the rest of the poem.

You’ll see the metaphor I used in the first line, and I decided to use this metaphor as a metaphor love, a lover to be precise. Love and lovers are a theme that I really enjoy exploring and will continue to write about.

I’m stepping into a period in my life where I’m looking to explore love and sex unapologetically and free from the shame my upbringing associated them with. The combination of repression, coloured by religion, and culture, coupled with repeated sexual abuse during my teenage years at the hands of an older man definitely created dysfunction. It led to compromised decisions around marriage and what was and wasn’t an acceptable level of intimacy.

Shit, I spent almost all of my decade long marriage NOT sharing a bed with my wife and thought that was normal.

Am now working on getting past that and looking to a future filled with love and intimacy and

My Lover Is…..

My lover is like a warm beanbag
Taking me in
Accepting me, with all my faults
Adapting to my contours
Never judging 
She is inviting
Beckoning me to let her wrap around me
Her embrace like that of my favourite beanbag
Comfortable
Comforting
Soft foam like flesh
A balm for the cruelties, hurt and misunderstanding of the outside world
Sometimes I wrap myself around her
We adapt to each other
Each day is closed out pressed against each other’s naked flesh

Surrender to Love

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I’ve grappled with my relationship with my daughter. 

I love her unconditionally. 

However, the first 7 years of my relationship with her are a blur. 

Mental illness and an unhappy marriage with her mother made it impossible for me to be as mentally present as I wanted to be. 

Coupled with my own self-esteem issues rooted in a traumatic and unloving past, I struggled with fatherhood, despite an unlimited reservoir of love that was exclusively reserved for my daughter. 

I bring all of this baggage to my relationship with my daughter. It’s unfair and it acts as a barrier to intimacy.

I need to resolve my issues and I need to do so fast. My daughter is growing up fast and with each passing day, my sense of urgency grows. 

I want to find ways to get closer to her. I’ve had this desire for the entirety of my daughter’s life, and I’ve struggled to find more ways to bond with her. 

If you want a different result, then try something different innit?

My daughter loves gaming and I’ve tried to tap into this by buying her a SNES complete with games such as Super Mario Kart, Streetfighter 2 Turbo, Zelda, and all the classics from the 90s. It worked for a while, but she didn’t connect with it the way I’d wished. Not the plot twist I was expecting, but I decided to pivot. Over the following months, I noticed my daughter and my niece regularly play a game called Roblox on the Internet on their iPads. 

I decided that a good way to bond with my daughter was to ask her if she would let me play this game with her and my niece. Much to my delight, she was open to it. 

Once I downloaded the game, my daughter, my niece, and I logged online, booted up Roblox, and then connected on FaceTime and talked to each other for the duration of our gaming session.

I grew up with Super Mario Bros and Streetfighter 2 Turbo. I couldn’t wrap my head around the games my daughter enjoys and Roblox was no exception. I couldn’t play this game at all; I was rubbish at it. Inept. 

The whole experience of trying to play Roblox was humbling. My ego took a battering. 

But in a strange way, I loved this experience. I got to spend time in my daughter’s (online) world. She took the time to patiently help me navigate the controls of the game and figure out what I was doing. She loved every moment of it, and we engaged with each other. This Saturday afternoon was not what I expected, but the outcome far exceeded my expectations. My heart was full. 

Sometimes fatherhood is about just turning up. It’s also about surrender. You have to be willing to meet your daughter on her terms. 

I am learning to surrender to love.

It’s terrifying.

It’s also fucking beautiful.

7 Bar Loop

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This is the first poem I’m sharing on my blog. I will continue to share current drafts of poems I am working on. Feel free to leave feedback or if things were not clear in the comments.

It’s all love. I welcome what you have to say. Here it is:

7 Bar Loop

Loop the loop 
Tie shoe laces
Perfect bunny ears
Can’t afford to trip
Run around the track
Like a needle traveling through grooves
I travel through time and space
Non-linear trajectory
Like shooting stars
Edges frayed
Pray hope don’t fade
Can’t promise myself a better tomorrow
Because tomorrow might have been yesterday and today might be tomorrow
Speed this up
Switch from 33rpm to 45rpm
Suddenly it makes sense
Music playing at the correct pitch

Write the truth
Love is an act of sacrifice
Anonymous
Otherwise it is sullied
Finally, I’m released from the groove that played in a loop
My hand unfurls
Presenting my heart to share with all

Love Is An Act of Sacrifice

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“Love is an act of sacrifice”

This is from my favourite poem I’ve written over the past 3 years.

It was inspired by the closing lecture given by Robert McKee when I attended his Story seminar in May 2019.

This line is poetic. Beautiful. 

But now I have to put it into practice.

I’m sitting in a cafe trying to arrange a coffee with my ex-wife. She’s received a lucrative job offer that will take her and our 10-year-old daughter out of London.

Where exactly? I don’t know yet. My ex-wife wants to discuss the details over a cup of coffee. It’s apt. I don’t think I want to have this conversation on the phone. 

But I’m feeling very emotional. I’m sat in a Pret a Manger just off Berwick Street in the West End and I’m crying. The pain is too intense for me to have any success in fighting off the tears. I let out my emotions but occasionally scan the room self-consciously. 

I need to hear my ex-wife out and carefully listen to her. Process what she says and then figure out what’s best for our daughter. 

It may mean that my ex-wife takes the new job and I’ll have to make the compromise of not living near our daughter. 

I feel like I’d just got my life back on track and now this development has knocked me off centre.

Over the past 3 years, while my ex-wife and I navigated our divorce, I hopped around from one dwelling to another. Eight times in total. Each place in which I lived was not suitable to bring my daughter back to when I had my weekends with her. 

Then in November 2019 I moved to Morden in South London to be closer to my daughter. Finally, I’d found a place that was suitable for her to come and spend time with me.

My daughter currently lives a short 15-minute drive away. I’d managed to engineer the perfect set up. However, several weeks into settling into Morden, my daughter and ex-wife told me they’d be moving to Kingston Upon Thames.

My daughter wants a shorter commute to her school. Her mother wants a shorter commute to the school she teaches in. I can’t knock that. 

This required minor adjustments and I wasn’t bothered. However, now, I’m sitting here, speculating over today’s development. This isn’t a slight move around South London, this move will mean I can’t just pop down the road to see my daughter.

How far away will my daughter and her mother move?

Can I put what’s best for my daughter above my own selfish desires?

Assuming I’m able to do that, how will I adjust to this new dynamic?

The only way to find out is by leaning into the change. I must learn to trust myself.