rant? no.

Presumptuous behavior is always, always amusing. Hurtful sometimes, but primarily amusing. This is not a choice. This is trial within a blessing, and we do the best we can with what we've got. When life gives you lemons, etc. I can't expect you to understand, your predicaments are of a different variety altogether. And maybe this is another presumption. But then again, I was never one for revealing myself. Too much.. what's the word for it? There is no English word. Too much khuddari. There comes a point where it is easier to share emotional realities, because then someone can see eye to eye with you. But never when it comes to life. We've spent so much time pretending, that every now and then something/one tugs at our masks, hits us in places we've covered with resolves of iron, but something falls through cracks. Unintended strategy, because you did not mean it, and I know this better than you. Then why this bitterness?

Because, my dear, it's the expectation. The expectation that you will be considerate, that you will be aware and that you will empathize. Nothing more, nothing less. You don't have to reduce yourself to a place no one wants to go to except those who are forced into situations by necessity. Be grateful for what you have, and let others feel content with what they've got, no matter how little it is, and how insignificant it may be compared to your empire. They're trying to make the best of it, and you don't understand what that takes. I wouldn't wish it on you either.

15th December, 2009.

Text message from a good friend asking if I'd checked my admission status, because her friend just got her acceptance letter.
One of the most memorable days of my life. Thank you.

I don't like revenge. I don't like the thought of trying to harm someone to get some sort of fulfillment and feel more pleased about your own existence. I have always, always tried to forgive (but never forgotten), and when things have gone entirely wrong, I have tried to apologize for my mistakes. An apology doesn't mean I am willing to take back what I have done, just by virtue of the fact that I invested too much, without meaning to, into something that has become part of me. I try not to be selfish, but sometimes you decide what is precious to you without even knowing whatever it is completely. Selfishness can arise out of selflessness, isn't that strange?
It doesn't matter what comes of it now, at least I helped.
****

"I sometimes feel so angry that she's dumb."
Look at us now. Look at where you are and what you did and how you made me feel. Remember how you dismissed me, patronized me without meaning to and in subtle ways reminded me of my worthlessness. I remember your bitterness, you attributing all that I have achieved to sheer luck. Never an acknowledgment of my sacrifices, except in passing. Always, always you tried to talk to me about things I did not quite understand then. And I accepted that I would always be less, always the weaker one. You want to talk about free will? Or would you rather discuss spirituality? Or shall we talk about how you made me feel unclean? Because I can do all of that, and I can do more. And you will probably never know how much there is to this, because at each moment I think about you, and every time I read the words you wrote, I feel a strong wave of repulsion. I have forgiven you, because I know better, and because I do not care enough.

Of course you're not worth my time. I will throw you all away because you mean nothing.

self destructive? perhaps.

another chapter.

"Ugh, why do I have to be stuck with the awkward girl?"
"Oh her? Her mum committed suicide in 2004. Our sophomore year she started crying in class and had to be taken to counseling services."

So before you think another thought, think of all the stories that make us what we are and how we got here.

homesick.

picture this,
a million souls under
a starless sky next to
waves high, so high and
the shore so quiet

picture this,
this home amongst one too many
twisted alleys and rotting sewage
smells and thick smoke on
your face, your clothes clinging
with a day's grime.

picture this,
the summer monsoon
a little too late, inconvenient
and ugly as soon as it touches
roads the tar falling apart,
late afternoon traffic and acid rain
on skin.

picture this,
the smell of summer and salt,
the warm evening breeze and scents
you find here, just here,
on rooftops as you smoke
a guiltily hidden cigarette.

now picture this,
your soul in that grime,
your heart in those waves and
home in those chaos,
not in this civilized, beautiful valley but
in that debris of too much falling apart
and too little coming back.

picture this, picture this, picture this.

Placing faith in the Eternal.

“No amount of guilt can change the past & no amount of worrying can change the future. Go easy on yourself, for the outcome of all affairs is determined by Allah's decree. If something is meant to go elsewhere, it will never come your way, but if it is yours by destiny, from you it cannot flee.”
Umar Ibn al-Khattab

Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be.

growing up

.. is the realization that you and those you love will grow up and, more often than not, grow apart. Growing up is learning to deal with it, and growing up is letting go. It is pain, anger, bitterness, acknowledgment, closure and healing, often in the same place and at the same time. It is knowing that what once belonged to you no longer does, and you must learn to let it go. That losing is painful, but you will lose time and again, and you must accept that because in losing you will find new beginnings and chances you never saw before. It is the shock of discovering the all too common knowledge that nothing is forever.

So, growing up is letting go.  Yes.

You are the past that I would rather not recall, so it's ironic that it's you who never changed and now you're stuck. You know what? You don't even know it.
I grow increasingly hesitant to talk about love. The possibility of having it wrenched away almost chokes me into a panic I cannot express.

Allow me a moment to recollect my thoughts. Because we are no longer young, nor innocent. In gaining all that we have now, in achieving these not-so-ordinary successes we've left behind a childhood we cannot get back. What a wonderful mistake to  be thinking of yourself as significant, as mature when you were only just on the brink of it all, quite unprepared for what it would bring. But here you are nonetheless, better prepared for.. yet more unpreparedness, with so much lost and so much to be wistful for. Learning how to cherish anew everything you took granted as a part of yourself, but now it slips away, and now you watch it fade. And here you are, no longer part of this landscape, and it no longer protects you. My point is not a desire to go back, but something quite different..just a degree of comfort. That's what I wish for. But all the same... all the same.

Most of the time the things you convince yourself to laugh at are not laughable at all. They are painful reminders of a past that was ruthless in its ability to devastate you till you were reduced to less than nothing, till you curled up into yourself, both in the physical and the psychological parts of your existence. Till you cried until there were no more tears. You laugh because it is easier to recall the ridiculous in all of it, as opposed to the painful.
You laugh because you have yourself convinced that nothing will ever get through to you that way again.
Except that it's not funny.
It's not funny to remember how it actually was.

You learn to block it out. You learn to like... not like, like would be the wrong word to use. You learn to accept the silence, and live with how much quieter life seems to become every year. It becomes a habit to the point that when you look around yourself without feeling this or that, it doesn't strike you as strange that things do not ignite curiosity, that they no longer beg you to be looking for something else.
This is all you ever aspired to be, and it's funny because now you have to figure out where to go from here onwards, and that seems to be the most difficult part. To be able to decide whether it's not knowing what you want, or being hesitant about wanting for fear of not getting it; which one of these prevents you from saying, from imagining?

You were are special. Now it takes convincing, validation, allowing the outside into your own separate self. This would be sacrilege before, but now it's just life. Sometimes you wonder if this slow dying has something to do with home, and how home fades away a little more everyday, loses some more blood. But then it makes you smirk at yourself, because this is pretentious and who has time for an existential crisis anyway? It doesn't even mean anything. You can't touch what's in your head, and if you can't touch it, how are you feeling it?

You ask yourself if you're happy. You convince yourself that you are.

I wonder if realizing the world is a lot bigger than us and what we think of it stops us from trying to think about it altogether. Is being ungrateful sometimes a good thing?

Tumultuous year. First month in. So overwhelmed. Dearest Moho, I love you and all... but.

grateful

to be here, to be alive, to have this, to have you, for everything.
We forget in our hurry and in our race for more to be happy with what we have. And I've come to realize how big of a problem that really is.

Restless.
I know why people stick around with old ghosts now. Or at least I think I might.

So.

My carefully numbered days at home are nearly over. The city that's part of my soul is still bleeding away, with temporary breaks here and there, but mostly just open wounds that we've learnt to ignore. 40 dead. 28 dead. 70 dead. Dead dead dead dead. Sitting at Hotspot and someone's parents call, telling them to get home asap. Shehr ke haalaat kharaab hogaye hain..
We take our time, so what's new? Finish our frozen yogurt, light a few more cigarettes, watch the smoke spiraling from the end of the burning cherry. Someone's talking about getting high. Someone else wants to go to the beach. Let's get drunk, are you mad? It's Ramazan!
I'm listening and watching, and every now and then I will add my two cents to a conversation that doesn't mean much either way, to anyone. We're all guests here now, going soon to run after a better future. But who's to say what's better? It's all so relative to these ideas of what you think is right and wrong. Things move along, change so fast that if you were to chase the past running to the present and try and catch up with the future, all you'd end up with is a stitch in your sides and not much else. That's how I feel. A little bit tired, and a little puzzled about how I got here. I do try to take out the time to find out why, but time is exactly what none of us have here. Too fast, this world, these days.

We leave Hotspot. The beggars swarm around our car. Lock your doors, they might try to open them. This is so uncomfortable, he's asking me for ten rupees, Baji aik sou pachaas rupay kaa juice pi saktay ho, das rupay nai desaktay? (You can drink juice that costs Rs. 150, but you can't give me Rs.10?)
Somewhere in the back of my head my conscience pinches me. But I ignore it.

And then we drive away.

countdown.

There's one thing this city doesn't let you do. It never allows you to forget. It's difficult, in fact nearly impossible, to block Karachi out. You can try, and I know those who have, but even in people's best efforts to let it go, Karachi holds on with a persistent grip that shows no signs of weakening. Not always good things, these imprints  belonging to a sprawling city by the Arabian Sea. There's the simple fact of lost lives turned into stats that increase day by day, almost challenging you to dare and do something about it. But you can't, and for that you can hate the city. And then there is the balmy summer night breeze- barely there, except in one or two gentle waves that wash over you and then disappear like they never were. Can't forget that either, but that's one of the beautiful things about here. I'm trying to memorize this place so that when I close my eyes in the middle of a winter I find impossible to comprehend, I can recreate this. Soon I'm going to leave again and home is going to turn into an idea that exists, carefully preserved, in corners far away from the mundane and the everyday. A thought to be drawn upon every once in a while, and hidden quickly before it dries out and shrivels up.
But it never does. That's why it's home.

We're still at the part where I worry about how my hair looks. And then after that, the rest of me. The place where you secretly steal a look or two in the mirror and wonder how long this will go on.

And yet again we find ourselves in the same places, thinking of the same past.
The same, all of it. With different players, yes, which is apparently a crucial difference.
But really, is it?
Even destruction takes a great degree of courage. But it's selfishness that comes easily, the easiest of all vices. Because you can drown out a conscience, you can drown out a soul, forget stories and promise to start once more, tread once again on dangerous waters.
Then you're hurtling down full speed and there is not one to save you and no one to throw you that hope you'd held on to.

Even in all my anger with this place, with the people that fuel it and with the general hopelessness that surrounds our lives, I am afraid of leaving. Because you always run that risk, the risk of coming back and realizing everything has changed. Even that static silence (not that this place is ever silent, but it has been quiet of  late) isn't reassuring. It exists because there are bodies falling. People are dying over mere words, the charred remains of a bus next to a burning tyre, closed petrol pumps- they tell me this is not the Karachi they grew up in. It was cosmopolitan, their Karachi. There were no locked doors, there was ample proof of life and most importantly, there was pride in the wonderful city by the sea.
But now this place is as tired as those who hold these faraway memories. I imagine her to be misty-eyed and arthritic, slowly losing the ability to defend herself. But her children are only just growing up.
So much changes, especially when you become a guest in the place you called home. That's what's frightening.

I think it's safe to say that the decisions we make at this point, more than ever before, will haunt us till the very end. Whenever that may be.

The following story was taken from Gawaahi.
Here is the original link:


"I still ask myself why was I so stupid. There was nothing special about him. He was just another boy.
For him, she was the one he would marry. It wasn’t that he loved her, it was because he felt safe with her, he said.
She wasn’t the prettiest girl around. In fact, he often told her she should cover her face with a brown bag. She didn’t have the courage to talk back, or retaliate. It didn’t matter what he did — whether he yelled at her, abused her, or shoved her hand in the frying pan, she stayed with him.
When did it start? On the day of the nikah. The rukhsati was to be 6 months after.  There I was, sitting on the stage smiling away, oblivious to the nightmare that was going to change my life forever.
The day I retaliated, he used the only way he saw fit to keep me in his control. As he said, he ‘branded’ me. The rukhsati had not happened, but I was married to him. It was marital rape. How could a person I gave everything, subject me to this? I felt that my integrity was shattered. I lost my faith, my respect, my dignity. I wasn’t pure anymore. I was ashamed. But above all, I lost my will to stay in a relationship with a monster. I walked out.
I kept it a secret, and filed for a khulah (divorce initiated by the wife) much to the dismay of my family, and I hadn’t even told them the whole truth. I knew that if I did, they would do anything in their power to send me back to him. After all, who would marry me now? I would never get a decent proposal if anyone discovered that I had lost my virginity.
I am glad that I didn’t tell anyone the actual reason for the khulah. Pity is all I would have gotten. I would have been shunned from society.  Oh, wait. I did get all that by being a divorcee.  Being twenty-one and divorced isn’t easy. Imagine what being twenty-one, divorced and a rape victim would have been like.
It’s been almost three years, but I still have nightmares.  I can’t say anything to defend myself. It was my fault. The decision had been mine. The mistakes had been mine too.
My point is that people like me don’t speak up about marital rape because of the pressures of society. Instead of punishing the rapist, it is the victim who is subjected to torment. Everyone makes mistakes, but women are blamed for their own mistakes as well as those of others."

This is what I was talking about when I spoke about this girl.

Clifton Beach.

There is a man driving up and down the beach on a go-cart that's covered in cheap neon lights. I watch him zoom from one corner to another, and think to myself "Well, this is interesting.". Another attraction for the people of Karachi, apart from the camels and the semi-emaciated horses. There is a power cut, and none of the hundreds of painfully bright streetlamps that line Clifton Beach are switched on. Only the moon illuminates the white waves that crash calmly into the shore, and the fluorescent glow of tacky, 50 rupee (less if you can bargain) decoration pieces lends a strangely psychedelic glow to all the visitors. A tiny little girl in a sequined dress runs towards her mother, looking quite like a disco ball.
I sit in the car while my mother and sisters take a stroll down Clifton Beach, looking out into the vast, open space littered with people and things, all kinds of things. I suddenly think about how there could be a party here. Just like this, but perhaps with different people. It catches me by surprise, this distinction that I often make between 'us' and 'them'. But then it occurs to me: they are having a party here.
I'm just not invited.

Have I spoken about NYC? About the time I had my heart broken in the city? Or when I lost my passport? Or about being unbelievably happy while being simultaneously upset, because there's just something about that place?
I'll talk about it soon.

my life.

Mum: "Why do you know so many people? Stop this nonsense, I don't like it."

Y u no give me job?

Quick blurb: I really don't like the fact that potential employers will be able to utilize the magical powers of GOOGLE to find out everything (or most) things there might be to know about me on the internet. And by that I am in no way admitting to engaging in shady activities on the www, I am merely suggesting that at times....okay who am I kidding, my point is I am shamelessly, blatantly, quite proudly politically incorrect/culturally insensitive in about 75% of my interactions with people (most of which take place on Facebook).
Now social media is a lovely, lovey thing. God knows what I would do without Mr. Zuckerberg tricking me into believing that the internet is a wonderful place and it is good for me to have random third parties go through information I voluntarily post on Facebook under the impression that only my "friends", yes all 477 of them, are able to read it. It also doesn't help that unlike the really "cool" individuals who happen to be on Facebook because it's just convenient to be on it, and basically just use it to reply offhandedly (and that too on occasion)to something that may have been posted on their walls, I use Facebook religiously. I reply to everything. Everyone always knows what I'm doing. Or not doing, for that matter. No one gives a flying fuck about where I was/what I did/who I was with, but after I volunteer the information myself and invite people to start getting interested in my life, I sit and whine about how people are stalking me. People sometimes don't like my status updates because they don't want a barrage of notifications when I start talking to someone on my status updates. Because we're too lazy to "write" on each other's walls, you see.
And what about appearing offline on Facebook chat? Oh, forget about it. I tried it for a while, but I have no intention to be like the cool kids. Who will probably have jobs later on in life, unlike me, because my all in good fun wit will probably not go down well with a future employer who will spend about two seconds going through my Facebook profile before realizing that sanity is a facade I put on rather well. (Before you ask what makes me think I will be important enough for someone to go through my profile, I will answer that for you too. I'm not. But I've been told that employers like to be aware if they're hiring someone who might have even the slightest chances of being carted off to the loony bin at any point in the near future. For me that probability is, in all likelihood, rather high.)
The most I can hope for is to have really rich friends who will allow me to live in their house and be their manager/secretary/assistant/receptionist. Kind of like that girl who's Khloe Kardashian's assistant. Wait, my bad, she quit after whining about how she's not happy to be mooching off her insanely rich best friend and her insanely rich athlete husband. You know what I call people who do that? Ungrateful.She even had a WikiPage. How many of us have one of those? Despite the fact that I am splattered all over the internet for the most inane and obscure of reasons (I reiterate, this does not mean I am a sketchball. I am so unabashedly sketchy that I can't even be classified as shady anymore. What do you do with a person who is so openly weird?), I don't have a Wikipedia page. And that hurts. It really, really does.

"You know, before all of this I was just like you. I had the starry-eyed optimism of  change... I wanted to be that person. Hell, I even wrote my college essay on all those things we see everyday but choose to ignore. I wanted  to come back and save this place. So it's just ironic how something that was supposed to empower me did just that, but in a selfish, selfish way. That probably makes me a horrible person. I'm going to keep putting myself first, and I will keep making excuses for it. But at the end of the day, this is really for me. Of course I care...just more about myself though. I have an excuse for it. I have all kinds."
Another cancer stick lit, another story begun.

Remind me

There's two of them on the mattress that she's moved on to the floor, four of us on the bed and one sitting in a corner on the couch, staring intently into the laptop screen. The two on the mattress are together, you can tell by the way they're comfortable with the angles of each other's bodies, moving slightly at the same time, a little here, a little there, till they're sitting just right.We're all playing Taboo and she cheats a little, helping him with a word although she isn't on his team. I suppose that's a form of adoration too, and rather sweet. I'm sitting here observing. If there's one thing I've learnt, it's the significance of just looking at things. Patterns are important, and paying attention you realize there are a lot of times when you will find yourself in the same settings, albeit with people and places that aren't the same.
It often makes me wonder if the comfort I derive from being around people comes from the presence of those particular people, or from a situation I find some part of my past in.
We've ordered pizza, and when it arrives, half the people in the room declare they have no money, but we eventually end up finding enough anyway. It makes me smile because it's so very typical and, later as I sit in my bed at home talking to mum, it reminds me of myself back in high school- perpetually broke, and always ready for a new adventure. She laughs in agreement and asks if I'm broke at college. I sense carefully hidden guilt behind her laugh, because she has mentioned before how she doesn't like being unable to help me more than paying for my tuition. It always leaves me wondering why she feels obligated to do more than she already is, because what she does now is something I will never be able to repay.
I shake my head carefully, it's a little more complicated than just being broke or not. I suppose I could be a little bit of both at college, but I never really think about these things until a lot later. Moments have always been very absolute for me, it's always a question of yes or no, but then later the lines get muddled up. So I try not to think too much, about anything.
Every fifteen minutes or so some of us will get up and go to the bathroom for a smoke. When it's time to go home I will spray myself with perfume and hope mama doesn't smell the smoke on me. I know she knows, but like many things, we don't talk about it.
All of them are going to college this fall and they'll be different when they come back to Karachi. But when they get together like this in someone's room, it will always be as the saying goes, just like the old times.
That's what I love about this place. Embedded memories.

It's still the same in some respects, but things have definitely changed since when I was last here. It's not as.. alive(?) as it used to be. The traffic jams, the power cuts, the throngs of people at Clifton beach, rush hour traffic in Saddr, the inconvenience of roads broken to be rebuilt two years ago, more flyovers, the immense divides amongst the people that no bridges can cover, afternoon madness at Sunday Bazaar, all of that remains the same. But there is more suffering. This city had life pulsating in undercurrents, it fueled its residents' resolves to keep going on no matter what. But now there's an air of defeat. The people of Karachi are tired. They are tired of putting on brave faces everyday, and they are tired of hoping for the best. Where is this hope going? The silent question looms over this city, in the air around us. What are we running from, and to where?

Oh but you can have it all, they don't lie when they tell you that. It's the hows complicating things, yes.

4.

Every once in a while I come across something that makes me very glad that I had the choice and made the decision to study at a women's college. In South Hadley it can become difficult to see how choosing an institution can also be a statement of the politics you believe in. There are people who attend because they did not get accepted into their first choice colleges, there are those who become disillusioned with the somewhat militant versions of feminism (me being amongst them) that exist on campus, and then there's also the matter of becoming complacent about the bubble you find yourself in, and with the passage of time you inevitably start taking your environment for granted. It's easier to dumb yourself down at college more than anywhere else because you find yourself caught up in trying to maintain those grades you need to get into that graduate program you've wanted to be in for as long as you can remember now, because it will help you get that career you've always dreamed of. The things you were once passionate about either recede into a "temporary" insignificance because you promise yourself there will be time to attend to personal interests later, or they become part of your academics, and as much as you might love them there will be times when you feel sick of them because that's the difference between having to do something and wanting to do it.
My point is that these things never occurred to me while I was at Moho, and even if they did, it was easy to forget about them. Till I came back to Karachi. I've learnt again and again that distance gives you clarity.
Last night my friends and I were talking about a certain couple and their not-so-strange relationship. The boyfriend is an emotionally abusive, patriarchal, pig-headed and overly possessive waste of space, and the girlfriend is, accordingly, meek, obedient, afraid to death of him and acts as the fuel that feeds his already inflated ego. These kinds of relationships are fairly common, granted. However, what I fail to understand is that this girl is one of the few in a country like ours who have been given the opportunity to have a certain degree of autonomy over their lives, and yet here she is, willingly involved in an abusive relationship with someone who claims to love her but will refer to her as a whore if he catches her even saying hello to another man. While women all over Pakistan are involved in a struggle to be considered human beings and first class citizens who should be able to enjoy equal rights and liberties, should have access to fair justice and should be able to have a say in how they will live their lives, there is this girl who insults these struggles by allowing  a person to determine every aspect of her life, down to when/if she can breathe.
While I am in no way disregarding any emotional attachments that come as part of being in love with someone, my main problem here is the abuse of choice. There is something absurd about being with someone who insists that you cannot be friends with girls who are not in committed relationships or are not married, because women who are single are a corrupting influence. She has chosen to be with someone who abuses her emotionally and perhaps even physically, but there are women who have to suffer the same kinds of relationships everyday of their lives without being given the choice to put their foot down and say no, I will not take your nonsense, I will not let you take ownership of my person, I will not let you make the decisions I should be making for myself, and I will not let you make me so dependent that I have to rely on you for my survival. And perhaps some will argue that she should be left alone, and I suppose they would have a point, but it wouldn't be one I believe in. By choosing to stay in a relationship so poisonous, this girl belittles me, she belittles my mother's struggle as a single parent to three daughters in a country so deeply steeped in sexism, Mukhtaran Mai's fight for justice, the work of institutions like Aurat Foundation and the common struggle of thousands of women, for many of whom it takes the form of hope that perhaps their daughters will not suffer like they are suffering.
I could say it in one line, or I could say it in a long post, but dear girl, you have no right. Really.

Question.

Would I rather have fame acquired through a highly active social media presence, or the assurance of financial security through something that would not necessarily amount to fame?
Hmm.





or both?
And additionally, to Tumblr, or not to Tumblr?

There will be disagreements as there always have been. She sent me off and expected me to appreciate home more when I came back, and I disappointed her on that count. Our definitions of appreciation are different, and by that I mean polar opposites. Coming back feels good, this place is in my blood- I don't want to complain about breathing in the hot, polluted air, because at least it's familiar, nor about the constant power cuts. I don't know what I try to achieve when I take Karachi in, sights, sounds, smells and all. Perhaps it's an attempt to reclaim this place and make sense of it. I don't have words to describe what home is, but this is the closest I've come to feeling it. When I'm asked what Karachi is like, I say "You'd have to see it, it's wonderful.", but it occurs to me as an afterthought that someone else will not see what I do. But I digress.
We squabble everyday, her and I. I'm still learning how to dismiss these things as a minor, temporary inconvenience one must face when the person in question is one you owe your entire existence to, once you're not entirely dependent on them for survival.Perhaps it's that faraway itch in my head to be able to exist as I am, but I wish I could ask her to accept me just as. There is nothing more difficult than a situation where there is no one to blame, and my desire for approval is probably outlandish.
But Mother, this is not Western imperialism. This is just me.
Nevertheless, much love.

I thought posting on my old blogs was cheating  myself, so here this is.