I am running. It is my third lap. The time when you feel that your heart beat is not in rhythm with your legs and you can hear your heart beat. Yes i can hear mine in a way. I stand on the side of the track watching girls playing soccer. From this side of courtney park the houses look right outside from a post card scene. There are couples, happy? walking and living between these wood houses.
Remember what you said once?
Cardboard houses... i feel the same way today. The music is too dim for a run. Yes i listen to Fareeda khanum at times. I know i am weird. who listens to ghazals on a running track?
It is third time..i am humming now.." woh ishq jo hum se roth gaya"..
Don't think..blank it out ..no..
The old recipie i use to forget you. I try desperately looking at things around me. But each sound and each word is making me realize the emptiness around me.
You know what i told amina today about that house thing. The way you had collected the money for the down payment and all that pictures you use to send.
And i as a naive girl has asked?
house?
what will i do with it?
It is so different when you love some one and when you are marrying some one.
I remembered you a lot when i went to university centre last term. There was this guy who had eyes as green as yours...
I don't like men with green eyes..But it is weird i loved you so much that it still hurts.
Remember how i use to hate that smell, the same smell you and baba use to carry.. kind of ...and you would laugh.. and that..You stink..
well thats work..
Those little moments we would steal in between. The secret rendevezous in library.
It was so stupid. I laugh now when i think about it.
You know what ..I miss so many things..Like when i make chikcen karahi i remeber how you use to hate beef and mutton. And how you had made that face when mom made fish the day your folks came to my place.
Fish and i had laughed..
You know what i remember you in many weird ways. Last time Zaima aunty took me to this all pathan party and this woman said some thing..i said thek tak and she started laughing..
I still hate pushto and every thing about it..except i had loved you..
I some times wonder what is love. What was love? Was is the need between us to build a home?.
Or was i loving some one like my father? I still wonder mano i still do..
was it you or was it again baba?
You know what i told amina how you use to get all excited about buying that house in suburbs. And she started laughing. And how you hated that old cycle and the fact that i hated your pager.
The small little details. For some reason i don't think about her in your life.
At times i wonder that do you miss me? Do you remember the laughters we share and the stupid jokes i use to crack?
Do you remember my temper bouts and my anxiety.
Remember when they had those blasts on tube and i started weeping in front of ammi. And at that time you were doing locum..what if?
All the ifs...
I don't cry now..not even on big things..not even on fact that i am watching all things in life which i loved dying day by day...
i wanted to call you few days back..i wanted to curse you..to weep on your shoulders and tell you that there is no one except that emptiness in my soul.
I don't care about her any more. Yes i am mean..
I feel weird..when i think about some one else in your life..is she that alive?
can she read us?
Then i feel sorry for us for her and for you..and yes mano you were right..
All houses here are of cardbaord...
Monday, July 7, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
मेरा Pakistan
There are certain evenings which become a part of memory. You think about the time and wonder that whether it was true or just a fragment created partially out of memory and partially out of the story maker every human has in them. Being a Punjabi (by blood, by culture, by language) I find certain traditions very amusing. We distribute sweet rice (zarda) on both occasions, death as well as on times when we need to celebrate and dance.
The things other than firecracker, the jubilant faces of people I loved and continuous phone calls, I remember my nani making and distributing zarda. Today when I look back and think about that time I find it a bit inhuman. We on the eve of august 1988 were celebrating the plane crash of Zia ul haq.
The dictator, who was responsible for the judicial trial of Bhutto, the 2 years political imprisonment of my maternal uncle and yes the afghan war. I was too small at that time to understand what does democracy means for usual individual lives. During those days cycling in the huge compound of civil lines and collecting toads were the best pleasures life could offer. I as a naïve kid had looked heard and then memorize the tit bits of those days.
I can’t remember much. I ask I listen I try to remember. My parents had returned to Pakistan after working 5 years abroad. I guess my mother hated the hospitals and work load in Pakistan. I wonder why she took the decision. Woman at times is helpless in front of their husbands. It was a new dawn. My parents were one of the few couples of that generation who have left their exuberant paying jobs and had moved to work in the infested infrastructure of Pakistan. My father never regretted it. And I guess Pakistan has given him more than he has given to Pakistan.
After that evening there were many more evenings to mourn and to celebrate. The election campaign, another election campaign and yes then another campaign. I grew up in 90’s in the election dominating era of Pakistan. Elections were like a game, a play a drama. We all waited, like the next cricket world cup. The tents being enacted in the lawns of my maternal home, the election office and tamasha unfolding in front of the eyes.
There was hope, then there was no hope and then there was more hope. We are from the last 20 years in state of the same cycle. Dictatorship, then corrupt politicians, then again dictatorship. It is like a whirlpool which is pulling the whole nation down.
The only thing which has changed the topology of the country is the religious landscape. In the last 40 years Pakistan who was made in name of religion by leaders who were not very religious to a state which has become synonymous with intolerance, suicide bombs, racial killings and religious bigotry.
The seed of religion which Zia ul haq planted has become a full-fledged crop over the last decades. He had not only destroyed the civil institutes, introduced drug culture but had developed madrassas as the grounds for a new intolerant version of Islam.
We had the first bouts of religious riots in Pakistan. Unlike the warmongering evil India on our borders, which we all believed killed Muslims, we Pakistanis at large made a fame in international media for killing Muslims. In the early decades of 90’s the first shai Sunni killings became a headline.
Unlike riots in other countries, the one in Pakistan should be labeled more as killings. Who killed who is still a big question mark? There was a visible political divide governing the social landscape of Pakistan.
I have rough time in my life for shelving thing which were religious to the one which were cultural. I come from a family where value system is based on a concoction of religion and culture. A society, which still believes that divorced women are a taboo. Polygamy is a nefarious act (though Islam allows 4 wives). A culture which over the years have allowed their daughters to have access to equal educational opportunities but had issues with them as decision makers. I come from a value system where I wear a duppata as a respect for an elder uncle, brother or father. Where acts of modesty are well defined in black and white. Yes I became a feminist later because the man who brought me up is a feminist.
In the same context I had problems with the religious issues which were folding in front of me. Who is a Shia?
Are they non Muslims?
In Muharram there was a ban (still a ban in my family) to buy new clothes. There was sadka done a lot during the whole month followed by at least 3 khatums (those who are not aware khatum is the act of cooking and distributing food in name of Allah). I have loved, to fry puris on “kondon ka khatum”. Later on I came to know it was a Shia practice. I still have no idea how did it enter a family where daughters were taught madoodi when they graduated from high school.
This was tolerance I know. This was tolerance I was brought up with. I revere people with their own believes because that is what an average Pakistani is taught. A value system which is based on cultural and religious values amalgamating with each other.
I had hard time to be politically a Marxist and then a practicing Muslim. It had taken me time to understand what I am and what I really believe in. Today I saw news where a group of students were expelled from a medical collage on basis of being Ahmedi. I was shocked by the name of the school given I have some personal affiliation with that place.
Where are we heading to as a nation? Embassy bombed, mosques conquered, students labeled as Muslims / non Muslims (academia has only one religion which is curiosity to learn).
Some times I feel that the whole nation is going through identity and political crisis. Nations born out of believe which died on the eve of 1971 when Bangladesh came into being. A nation which is struggling to survive on issues which it believes and does not believe.
Islam is not a problem of an average Pakistan. His problem is that he should feel safe when he goes out to work. He has food on his table, and he has a proper stable job. I never agreed on Marx on issue of religion. “Religion is like opium”. It was quoted again and again in my own circle.
I still have very middle class Pakistani morality. Where praying is part of being who you are.
But when I see Pakistan, going through the process of dis integration step by step I question..
Pakistan was made in name of Islam and it will die in the name of Islam...
I have fears to write this word out because I am a Pakistani...and when your own home is burning then you can understand what pain is all about.
The things other than firecracker, the jubilant faces of people I loved and continuous phone calls, I remember my nani making and distributing zarda. Today when I look back and think about that time I find it a bit inhuman. We on the eve of august 1988 were celebrating the plane crash of Zia ul haq.
The dictator, who was responsible for the judicial trial of Bhutto, the 2 years political imprisonment of my maternal uncle and yes the afghan war. I was too small at that time to understand what does democracy means for usual individual lives. During those days cycling in the huge compound of civil lines and collecting toads were the best pleasures life could offer. I as a naïve kid had looked heard and then memorize the tit bits of those days.
I can’t remember much. I ask I listen I try to remember. My parents had returned to Pakistan after working 5 years abroad. I guess my mother hated the hospitals and work load in Pakistan. I wonder why she took the decision. Woman at times is helpless in front of their husbands. It was a new dawn. My parents were one of the few couples of that generation who have left their exuberant paying jobs and had moved to work in the infested infrastructure of Pakistan. My father never regretted it. And I guess Pakistan has given him more than he has given to Pakistan.
After that evening there were many more evenings to mourn and to celebrate. The election campaign, another election campaign and yes then another campaign. I grew up in 90’s in the election dominating era of Pakistan. Elections were like a game, a play a drama. We all waited, like the next cricket world cup. The tents being enacted in the lawns of my maternal home, the election office and tamasha unfolding in front of the eyes.
There was hope, then there was no hope and then there was more hope. We are from the last 20 years in state of the same cycle. Dictatorship, then corrupt politicians, then again dictatorship. It is like a whirlpool which is pulling the whole nation down.
The only thing which has changed the topology of the country is the religious landscape. In the last 40 years Pakistan who was made in name of religion by leaders who were not very religious to a state which has become synonymous with intolerance, suicide bombs, racial killings and religious bigotry.
The seed of religion which Zia ul haq planted has become a full-fledged crop over the last decades. He had not only destroyed the civil institutes, introduced drug culture but had developed madrassas as the grounds for a new intolerant version of Islam.
We had the first bouts of religious riots in Pakistan. Unlike the warmongering evil India on our borders, which we all believed killed Muslims, we Pakistanis at large made a fame in international media for killing Muslims. In the early decades of 90’s the first shai Sunni killings became a headline.
Unlike riots in other countries, the one in Pakistan should be labeled more as killings. Who killed who is still a big question mark? There was a visible political divide governing the social landscape of Pakistan.
I have rough time in my life for shelving thing which were religious to the one which were cultural. I come from a family where value system is based on a concoction of religion and culture. A society, which still believes that divorced women are a taboo. Polygamy is a nefarious act (though Islam allows 4 wives). A culture which over the years have allowed their daughters to have access to equal educational opportunities but had issues with them as decision makers. I come from a value system where I wear a duppata as a respect for an elder uncle, brother or father. Where acts of modesty are well defined in black and white. Yes I became a feminist later because the man who brought me up is a feminist.
In the same context I had problems with the religious issues which were folding in front of me. Who is a Shia?
Are they non Muslims?
In Muharram there was a ban (still a ban in my family) to buy new clothes. There was sadka done a lot during the whole month followed by at least 3 khatums (those who are not aware khatum is the act of cooking and distributing food in name of Allah). I have loved, to fry puris on “kondon ka khatum”. Later on I came to know it was a Shia practice. I still have no idea how did it enter a family where daughters were taught madoodi when they graduated from high school.
This was tolerance I know. This was tolerance I was brought up with. I revere people with their own believes because that is what an average Pakistani is taught. A value system which is based on cultural and religious values amalgamating with each other.
I had hard time to be politically a Marxist and then a practicing Muslim. It had taken me time to understand what I am and what I really believe in. Today I saw news where a group of students were expelled from a medical collage on basis of being Ahmedi. I was shocked by the name of the school given I have some personal affiliation with that place.
Where are we heading to as a nation? Embassy bombed, mosques conquered, students labeled as Muslims / non Muslims (academia has only one religion which is curiosity to learn).
Some times I feel that the whole nation is going through identity and political crisis. Nations born out of believe which died on the eve of 1971 when Bangladesh came into being. A nation which is struggling to survive on issues which it believes and does not believe.
Islam is not a problem of an average Pakistan. His problem is that he should feel safe when he goes out to work. He has food on his table, and he has a proper stable job. I never agreed on Marx on issue of religion. “Religion is like opium”. It was quoted again and again in my own circle.
I still have very middle class Pakistani morality. Where praying is part of being who you are.
But when I see Pakistan, going through the process of dis integration step by step I question..
Pakistan was made in name of Islam and it will die in the name of Islam...
I have fears to write this word out because I am a Pakistani...and when your own home is burning then you can understand what pain is all about.
Scattered lives
The time I set the foot back on Canadian soil I felt that my life is scattered. Scattered on each continent like small grains and I am unable to collect it. I have lost my centre, my home, the feel which pulls you back to a destination. I am scattered in the hotel rooms I have lived for few days and sometimes few months. I am scattered in the countless projects I have managed over the last five years. I feel desolated, dissolving in each day. Stepping with each dawn I feel more alone and alienated.
I live in many worlds and I don’t live anywhere. I live on the lost memories of bygone days and I live on the frugal phone calls of loved ones. I live on prayers and on the lack of prayers. I live on love and the mere yearning of love. I am lost like a small kid in a crowd finding its way.
And this sunny afternoon I am feeling more depressed in some way. I spot my brother waiting impatiently outside. It takes me only few minutes to get the luggage and place it in the back of his trunk.
How many days will you stay in Burlington?
How many days are you in Burlington?
I cross question.
3 days maximum, I have to go back to work. He answered silently..
Yes work.. and I am silent on word work.
I am not a doctor neither I am a lawyer. I hated business and I still wonder why I do risk analysis.
During my high school I started believing that a life that cannot create change is worthless. I am running for a meaningful life for others making mine worthless in this process. People usually do not understand what I do.
And I usually answer patiently “ I am a consultant”. No I am actually a civil servant who has taken oath to be faithful to the queen. A new product of post colonialism. Iam one of those lucky ones who are send as doctors are send to wounded enemy camps. We reconstruct and analyze economies which are dysfunctional. The war zones of afghnistan, the restructuring in Iraq, the poverty chaos ridden areas of Bolivia. I have a long list, of refugee camps and landmine zones. I have given my mom a constant headache and depression which stems from my work. I some times feel she hates me and she hates my work more.
Get married, I am..
I will answer..in my monotone
I am married with work.The work I love. The work which pays but not so well. The work which has created a survivor in me, the old warrior spirit I inherited through the blood lines.
I am not anti marriage. I was never anti marriage. I fell in love when I was 18. Young stupid naïve.
The kind of love they depict in old bollywood movies. The messages on small papers and late night phone calls.
It never grew out of that, and the end result was his mother at my parent’s house. It never worked out because of problems which are so desi in nature that it still nauseates me. The issues of language and blood lines. But I guess it was all economics, which at that time in my mere naivety thought was traditionalism. He went to Uk after that episode, writing emails of locums and long work hours. I graduated from one university , then another with my clock’s needle still struck on him.
Some where I believed that it will happen. He was perfect but not perfect. The only thing which made him desirable was the fact that he had desired me. Desired to the extent that his mother had actually humiliated my mother in the confinement of our own home. I hate him, I hate myself for loving him and I hate my mother more for loving me that much to allow that women to humiliate her. So it was a usual story. I laugh on it now. I laugh on a wasted life for a man who had the heart to love but lacked the spine to stand for love. He married another woman. The woman I have known, there was nothing special about her except her credentials. And I learned my first lesson that year. Lesson that we all are on sale with different price tags. He sold himself for something I cannot fathom. What I saw was a plain woman with a tag.
We never talked again after that year. I killed his memory by deleting everything from my life which reminded me of him. It was so weird that I never spend a whole day with the man I supposedly loved. Not even a complete hour except that tea evening in our own home.
I had created a perfect love story out of nothing. Or was there anything about him to love?or not to love. To remember and then suddenly not to remember.
So I step in today celebrating my 31th birthday. There is a little difference in being 30 and 31. I am happy in my own way. Life has given me so much that when I look back I smile. My sister and brother in law are also sitting in my parents lounge. I don’t like my brother in law. My sister is exactly 4 years younger to me. She married a man of my age. It was a perfect campus love story. They had bumped into each other in the library. She is doing her phd in math, pregnant with twins. A baby and her thesis.
Things are same. Struck as the day when I left Toronto 4 months back. I am enjoying the mundane ritual. Iam loving it. In spite of the jet lag I am again in kitchen smiling and cooking. My brother in law is kind of rude. When are you getting married?
I want to get out of this conversation. “Remember I am antique in age of minimalism so find a good buyer.
That is the only way to shut his mouth, for a while. I guess he does it intentionally. The bantering and the criticism on food. Both ensure that he gets the witty response and spicy food.
I guess my sister is suffering from some Freudian symptoms. The one which imply that we fell in love with kind of men who resembles our fathers. I do not find anything common with Mehroz and abu.
Except that my sister was born to urologist and she married a nephrologist. Pretty near and pretty bore.
I am trying to escape the greek my father and my brother in law are speaking. Gone are the days when I had fascination for greek. Now words like PCNL and dialysis makes me cry. I lost my best friend to renal failure. Nothing could have saved farhan. Thus I hate every one who is related to this field. I feel as if it’s a lie. The same kind of lie we speak when we write reports. Lies that doctors speak..transplants are successful. Ya sure..
I am just bitter. Bitter about life as whole. I meet the same kind of people. The kind of people Mehroz abu , bhai are..the kind he was..greek speaking men. Men with the word superiority written on their face. It is so weird that I have started hating those men. The same kind who makes the warp and weft of my own life.
I am unsure about men as a whole. They are more complex than an arch model. I am wary. I feel relationships are over rated.
And yes today in this very evening I call him again. The only him which is permanent in my life. The him who is just a friend. My 38 year old friend Talha usmani. I had the sameold feeling that he was in Toronto.
I don’t dislike him, neither do I like him. I am indifferent. Being indifferent is good if you are a student of economics. How are you? He is all excited.
I am silent.. Home.
The word resonated in my ears..home?
Is it actually home?
Yes I am back..for 2 months until CIDA finds funding.
So can we meet? He asked again.
He can read me..my words my thought. We had the comfort zone which develops after years of knowing a person. He knows small trivial details about me. The fact that I drink ice tea with the food. I order cheesecake as desert. I love strawberry ice cream . And that I weep when I eat sushi.
Trivial , small details we remember about friends and people we love.
So where I ask him again?
Same place same time..
Yes same old place.
It is an old overpriced restaurant in down town. We talk more and eat less. And sometimes I forget what we talk. He always have stories about his girls, his work and usual politics. I hear and sometimes answer him.
He tolerates my comments. He hates my assertiveness and he hates the fact that I live in his world but I belong to another world.
I find makeup similar to money neutrality. We try to hide the faults, wear a mask and fool other around us to get the required results. My sister is still at my mother’s place. I occupy a single room on second floor though I have my own house in the town I live.I don’t live in that room but my presence live there when I am away. My presence in the leather bound journal. The over stacked rack and old wardrobe.
I ask her. Chanel or H and M. Chanel. Will I look over dressed?
I am scared of looking too modern or too conservative. The covered shawl, dazzling earrings and makeup clad face. It is a new look out of old women.
The evening is usual. I have looked towards the idea of meeting him. The kind of excitement you feel while you meet an old friend. I am actually excited not indifferent.
How is New york treating you.
Like a faithful mistress…he smiled in his usual way.
Mistresses are never faithful so be careful.
He orders and I listen. I don’t have to say anything this evening. I know he knows my taste in food. We talk of old days and old friends. Talha and I have a weird relationship. I know the number of women he had dated in last 7 years. My sister claims that there is not a single woman in whole greater Toronto area who is eligible and has not met Talha.
He is a pariah in my household. There is a weird episode years back. He narrated the story of 18 year old he met on star bucks. I knew he was preparing for bar those days. There was nothing unusual about the story. It was one of his usual conquests. He had criteria for women. A very simple philosophy. Date young ambitious women. The kind who are eager to change classes. The kind who can smell money.
The formula worked well. But yes on a certain sample. I am also a woman but certainly not the kind he dates. A chicken in his collection of chicks. Too old, too independent and some one who is not impressed by his business card. Or wait..probably I am.
I am infatuated with him in a weird way. If men are arch models women are garch. I am suffering from bad boy symptoms. So that 18 year old.
She was my sister’s class fellow. She found him on my facebook , on my facebook and thus it was chaos and drama. Cyber world can do wonders. The malice of real life is converted into drama in cyber space.
I know my sister’s friends . Most of them. She was a usual girl from her high school. But then to balm my ego I will say that he dates usual girls. Those who smell money.
So I am silent. I am waiting for a story. I know he wanted to meet me from 2 months.
Bolivia suits you. The tan suits you. Are you implying I am more dark?
I answered with a smile.
He is not talking.
He is smiling. Alarm…
I am trying to indulge in the shrimp alferado he has ordered. Food especially good food is heaven.
There is something wrong.
The time cheese cake arrived on the table, he is smiling more.
Alarm..Run..
The same sixth sense is shouting.
He gets a small pouch out of his pocket.
Listen, I a m not 30 any more and you are no longer 23 year old.
We both are old. And we know each other. I like you and I guess we should get married.
The man who changes girl friends with each season was proposing me. I am all lost in another world.
I feel I have eaten cockroaches. It was suppose to happen one day sooner or later.
I am silent.
I move outside. He looks and say think..
Queasiness,
Apotheosis.
Silence.
I am judging him. The way I have judged all other men in this situation. There is less time to think. What does I want from life?
He is giving so many things in plate.
I love kids ..i might have one of my own..
Instincts and desire are overwhelmingly capturing my rationality.
I move I am home.
My grandmother use to narrate folk lore when I was a kid. Women are like animals. Some are tigress ready to defend their cubs, some are bitches true in their nature bite and run away.
I found the lore boring and fabricated. I am home, waiting for next assignment.
My director emails, to send reports. I can walk out or resign. Or I can just file a sick leave. I need to run away from the whole chaos. Mehroz and his sick humor. Very pregnant sana and her tantrums. My own scattered self.
I need to run away.
I wrote a small email. I need a break if I can have vacations?
It needs two weeks to pack and sublet?
But where?
I open the pouch Talha had given me that night. It had a ring, small plain the kind I love. The kind he knows I love. I remove the ring and place address of Lahore in pouch.
I call the travel agent. One ticket for Lahore.
I am a cat. Cat who always find the way back to home.
I mailed Talha the pouch with address. I am thinking to settle with my promiscuous friend. Or should i?
The plane is landing on Lahore airport..and I feel I have collected a grain of MYSELF
I live in many worlds and I don’t live anywhere. I live on the lost memories of bygone days and I live on the frugal phone calls of loved ones. I live on prayers and on the lack of prayers. I live on love and the mere yearning of love. I am lost like a small kid in a crowd finding its way.
And this sunny afternoon I am feeling more depressed in some way. I spot my brother waiting impatiently outside. It takes me only few minutes to get the luggage and place it in the back of his trunk.
How many days will you stay in Burlington?
How many days are you in Burlington?
I cross question.
3 days maximum, I have to go back to work. He answered silently..
Yes work.. and I am silent on word work.
I am not a doctor neither I am a lawyer. I hated business and I still wonder why I do risk analysis.
During my high school I started believing that a life that cannot create change is worthless. I am running for a meaningful life for others making mine worthless in this process. People usually do not understand what I do.
And I usually answer patiently “ I am a consultant”. No I am actually a civil servant who has taken oath to be faithful to the queen. A new product of post colonialism. Iam one of those lucky ones who are send as doctors are send to wounded enemy camps. We reconstruct and analyze economies which are dysfunctional. The war zones of afghnistan, the restructuring in Iraq, the poverty chaos ridden areas of Bolivia. I have a long list, of refugee camps and landmine zones. I have given my mom a constant headache and depression which stems from my work. I some times feel she hates me and she hates my work more.
Get married, I am..
I will answer..in my monotone
I am married with work.The work I love. The work which pays but not so well. The work which has created a survivor in me, the old warrior spirit I inherited through the blood lines.
I am not anti marriage. I was never anti marriage. I fell in love when I was 18. Young stupid naïve.
The kind of love they depict in old bollywood movies. The messages on small papers and late night phone calls.
It never grew out of that, and the end result was his mother at my parent’s house. It never worked out because of problems which are so desi in nature that it still nauseates me. The issues of language and blood lines. But I guess it was all economics, which at that time in my mere naivety thought was traditionalism. He went to Uk after that episode, writing emails of locums and long work hours. I graduated from one university , then another with my clock’s needle still struck on him.
Some where I believed that it will happen. He was perfect but not perfect. The only thing which made him desirable was the fact that he had desired me. Desired to the extent that his mother had actually humiliated my mother in the confinement of our own home. I hate him, I hate myself for loving him and I hate my mother more for loving me that much to allow that women to humiliate her. So it was a usual story. I laugh on it now. I laugh on a wasted life for a man who had the heart to love but lacked the spine to stand for love. He married another woman. The woman I have known, there was nothing special about her except her credentials. And I learned my first lesson that year. Lesson that we all are on sale with different price tags. He sold himself for something I cannot fathom. What I saw was a plain woman with a tag.
We never talked again after that year. I killed his memory by deleting everything from my life which reminded me of him. It was so weird that I never spend a whole day with the man I supposedly loved. Not even a complete hour except that tea evening in our own home.
I had created a perfect love story out of nothing. Or was there anything about him to love?or not to love. To remember and then suddenly not to remember.
So I step in today celebrating my 31th birthday. There is a little difference in being 30 and 31. I am happy in my own way. Life has given me so much that when I look back I smile. My sister and brother in law are also sitting in my parents lounge. I don’t like my brother in law. My sister is exactly 4 years younger to me. She married a man of my age. It was a perfect campus love story. They had bumped into each other in the library. She is doing her phd in math, pregnant with twins. A baby and her thesis.
Things are same. Struck as the day when I left Toronto 4 months back. I am enjoying the mundane ritual. Iam loving it. In spite of the jet lag I am again in kitchen smiling and cooking. My brother in law is kind of rude. When are you getting married?
I want to get out of this conversation. “Remember I am antique in age of minimalism so find a good buyer.
That is the only way to shut his mouth, for a while. I guess he does it intentionally. The bantering and the criticism on food. Both ensure that he gets the witty response and spicy food.
I guess my sister is suffering from some Freudian symptoms. The one which imply that we fell in love with kind of men who resembles our fathers. I do not find anything common with Mehroz and abu.
Except that my sister was born to urologist and she married a nephrologist. Pretty near and pretty bore.
I am trying to escape the greek my father and my brother in law are speaking. Gone are the days when I had fascination for greek. Now words like PCNL and dialysis makes me cry. I lost my best friend to renal failure. Nothing could have saved farhan. Thus I hate every one who is related to this field. I feel as if it’s a lie. The same kind of lie we speak when we write reports. Lies that doctors speak..transplants are successful. Ya sure..
I am just bitter. Bitter about life as whole. I meet the same kind of people. The kind of people Mehroz abu , bhai are..the kind he was..greek speaking men. Men with the word superiority written on their face. It is so weird that I have started hating those men. The same kind who makes the warp and weft of my own life.
I am unsure about men as a whole. They are more complex than an arch model. I am wary. I feel relationships are over rated.
And yes today in this very evening I call him again. The only him which is permanent in my life. The him who is just a friend. My 38 year old friend Talha usmani. I had the sameold feeling that he was in Toronto.
I don’t dislike him, neither do I like him. I am indifferent. Being indifferent is good if you are a student of economics. How are you? He is all excited.
I am silent.. Home.
The word resonated in my ears..home?
Is it actually home?
Yes I am back..for 2 months until CIDA finds funding.
So can we meet? He asked again.
He can read me..my words my thought. We had the comfort zone which develops after years of knowing a person. He knows small trivial details about me. The fact that I drink ice tea with the food. I order cheesecake as desert. I love strawberry ice cream . And that I weep when I eat sushi.
Trivial , small details we remember about friends and people we love.
So where I ask him again?
Same place same time..
Yes same old place.
It is an old overpriced restaurant in down town. We talk more and eat less. And sometimes I forget what we talk. He always have stories about his girls, his work and usual politics. I hear and sometimes answer him.
He tolerates my comments. He hates my assertiveness and he hates the fact that I live in his world but I belong to another world.
I find makeup similar to money neutrality. We try to hide the faults, wear a mask and fool other around us to get the required results. My sister is still at my mother’s place. I occupy a single room on second floor though I have my own house in the town I live.I don’t live in that room but my presence live there when I am away. My presence in the leather bound journal. The over stacked rack and old wardrobe.
I ask her. Chanel or H and M. Chanel. Will I look over dressed?
I am scared of looking too modern or too conservative. The covered shawl, dazzling earrings and makeup clad face. It is a new look out of old women.
The evening is usual. I have looked towards the idea of meeting him. The kind of excitement you feel while you meet an old friend. I am actually excited not indifferent.
How is New york treating you.
Like a faithful mistress…he smiled in his usual way.
Mistresses are never faithful so be careful.
He orders and I listen. I don’t have to say anything this evening. I know he knows my taste in food. We talk of old days and old friends. Talha and I have a weird relationship. I know the number of women he had dated in last 7 years. My sister claims that there is not a single woman in whole greater Toronto area who is eligible and has not met Talha.
He is a pariah in my household. There is a weird episode years back. He narrated the story of 18 year old he met on star bucks. I knew he was preparing for bar those days. There was nothing unusual about the story. It was one of his usual conquests. He had criteria for women. A very simple philosophy. Date young ambitious women. The kind who are eager to change classes. The kind who can smell money.
The formula worked well. But yes on a certain sample. I am also a woman but certainly not the kind he dates. A chicken in his collection of chicks. Too old, too independent and some one who is not impressed by his business card. Or wait..probably I am.
I am infatuated with him in a weird way. If men are arch models women are garch. I am suffering from bad boy symptoms. So that 18 year old.
She was my sister’s class fellow. She found him on my facebook , on my facebook and thus it was chaos and drama. Cyber world can do wonders. The malice of real life is converted into drama in cyber space.
I know my sister’s friends . Most of them. She was a usual girl from her high school. But then to balm my ego I will say that he dates usual girls. Those who smell money.
So I am silent. I am waiting for a story. I know he wanted to meet me from 2 months.
Bolivia suits you. The tan suits you. Are you implying I am more dark?
I answered with a smile.
He is not talking.
He is smiling. Alarm…
I am trying to indulge in the shrimp alferado he has ordered. Food especially good food is heaven.
There is something wrong.
The time cheese cake arrived on the table, he is smiling more.
Alarm..Run..
The same sixth sense is shouting.
He gets a small pouch out of his pocket.
Listen, I a m not 30 any more and you are no longer 23 year old.
We both are old. And we know each other. I like you and I guess we should get married.
The man who changes girl friends with each season was proposing me. I am all lost in another world.
I feel I have eaten cockroaches. It was suppose to happen one day sooner or later.
I am silent.
I move outside. He looks and say think..
Queasiness,
Apotheosis.
Silence.
I am judging him. The way I have judged all other men in this situation. There is less time to think. What does I want from life?
He is giving so many things in plate.
I love kids ..i might have one of my own..
Instincts and desire are overwhelmingly capturing my rationality.
I move I am home.
My grandmother use to narrate folk lore when I was a kid. Women are like animals. Some are tigress ready to defend their cubs, some are bitches true in their nature bite and run away.
I found the lore boring and fabricated. I am home, waiting for next assignment.
My director emails, to send reports. I can walk out or resign. Or I can just file a sick leave. I need to run away from the whole chaos. Mehroz and his sick humor. Very pregnant sana and her tantrums. My own scattered self.
I need to run away.
I wrote a small email. I need a break if I can have vacations?
It needs two weeks to pack and sublet?
But where?
I open the pouch Talha had given me that night. It had a ring, small plain the kind I love. The kind he knows I love. I remove the ring and place address of Lahore in pouch.
I call the travel agent. One ticket for Lahore.
I am a cat. Cat who always find the way back to home.
I mailed Talha the pouch with address. I am thinking to settle with my promiscuous friend. Or should i?
The plane is landing on Lahore airport..and I feel I have collected a grain of MYSELF
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