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.