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.