That you are given a chance at life is the greatest blessing. Death no longer terrifies you as much as a life that is not lived.

Little girl standing at the red gate, I remember that the poster outside the Computer Lab is something you always stopped to read. That you smiled at the girl smiling in that picture. That you dreamed too.

Remember Arfa, not because she is no longer there but because she lived.

Remember.

My grandfather brought it from Germany. The cartographer has inked in his name at the bottom. I find it difficult to pronounce it.

Toppling over caused the globe to be freed from the steel clasps and wooden stand that held it in place. It rolled across the room noiselessly. Amongst other things, it too became a casualty.

My little sister was the first to tape it together but it ended up with northern Africa having South America as its base. So I took it and gently removed the tape. The globe was repositioned, with the continents and cities repositioned the way they are, and then taped back together.

With time, that is what you learn to do. Owning the broken and messed up as yours. Fixing it. Holding it close to your chest. Knowing that it is yours- cracked, broken, but never beyond repair.

That is why I went to the rally. That is why I filled out my brother’s Lyceum form. That is why I know I won’t forget how to smile.

I wasn’t there because I have made up my mind. I don’t know who I am going to vote for, nor do I know if I’ll live to see that potentially world-changing election. I do know however that I was there because I wanted to know what they had to say. What Mr. Imran Khan had to say. And he said it. Perhaps not all of it, perhaps not what many wanted to hear, but he did talk of things that matter.

You can call me naive, but having a leader speak of animal rights in a speech being broadcast to millions was worth the long wait. There were times when his speech wasn’t grammatically correct but the audience did not laugh nor ridicule him. I think that in itself says a lot.

In all honesty, it was worth it.

It was worth getting almost killed at the jam packed entrance. How I braced myself, how the men made human chains to get the women, children and elderly through.

It was worth singing the national anthem only Allah knows how many people. Admittedly not everyone had the best pitch or were in sync but if I could, I’d sing it all over again.

There were moments which still resound in me. How people spread the PTI flags on the dusty ground and prayed Asr. How it started with a few people and then became an entire group.

Even the picture of Mohammad Ali Jinnah was something I will always remember. It wasn’t the stern expression or the distant look he has in most pictures, many of them in banks, notes and other official things. He was smiling. And Mr. Jinnah has an amazingly reassuring smile.

25th december was my first concert but most importantly it was the only 25th december I remember in which i have smiled, cried and laughed along with Pakistanis who I may never meet again.

To have my city and country reunite, to have people smile again, to have hope. What more could I ask for.

Yes there is still pain here. People are dying and there are still those who do not find the strength to live. But reaching out for your people, embracing them, telling them it’s going to be OK again is not that hard. There will be times when you will find it difficult to believe your own reassurances, but there will be times when in some flash of understanding, you will find what you never knew was lost.

makola

city of lights

P.S. 2:01 to 2:06 was the best part. I have never seen a Pakistani leader this close to crying.

You “make” friends like I knew you would (see, it wasn’t so hard after all) and I wish they were my friends too so that we could have memories in common. Laughter. Tears. Memories.

Do you trust me to understand everything that has happened so far? Because I don’t understand and I don’t trust myself. I do know however that there is a wisdom behind everything and some day, I will know it too. Just not today.

Distance, time and a void of shared “magic moments” has become the measurement of the gap between us. In all this, I’m surprised at how well I seem to be taking it. I know that you aren’t surprised. You’ve deemed me strong. And some part of me wants to believe that.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is, it makes me happy to imagine you happy. You know me, it does.

I know it’s not much but I keep praying and hoping you truly are happy and that you remember you’re loved.

Ayesha

The right word

by Imtiaz Dharker

Outside the door,

lurking in the shadows,

is a terrorist.

Is that the wrong description?

Outside that door,

taking shelter in the shadows,

is a freedom fighter.

I haven’t got this right .

Outside, waiting in the shadows,

is a hostile militant.

Are words no more

than waving, wavering flags?

Outside your door,

watchful in the shadows,

is a guerrilla warrior.

God help me.

Outside, defying every shadow,

stands a martyr.

I saw his face.

No words can help me now.

Just outside the door,

lost in shadows,

is a child who looks like mine.

One word for you.

Outside my door,

his hand too steady,

his eyes too hard

is a boy who looks like your son, too.

I open the door.

Come in, I say.

Come in and eat with us.

The child steps in

and carefully, at my door,

takes off his shoes.

“You have more conviction in one memory than I have… in my entire being.”

-EverAfter (1998)

We built memories together. Do you remember how I laid the foundation and you cast the roof? We built them, that was we why we knew where the cracks were. Whenever someone would come to investigate or perhaps even just appreciate what we were working so happily on, I saw how your eyes strayed towards the cracks and how you bit at your lower lip, hoping no one would notice. I knew then that this is how it would be from now on. We would build sandcastles and you and I would ignore the presence of the crumbling walls, the irregular flooring, and the not-so-hollow tunnels.

I remember looking towards the vast expanse of blue, telling you how near the water was. We built ditches so that the ocean would not crash into the walls, would not wreak havoc, and would not cause the demarcations to dissolve.  It was hard being cheerful then. I marveled at how coolly you dug at the sand, your hands getting lapped with the cold inrush of water, mine still working on securing the boundaries.

Once the sea could not be avoided, I thought of how years ago I would have leaped back choking out laughter and perhaps some tears. But now, I was with you and I knew right then that no matter which storm struck, we would remain where we were as the ocean reached out and erased our sandcastle from the canvas of the world.

As much as this city has given me pain, it has given me love. Raw, real and powerful love. The kind and form that matters. It would be cliche to suggest that I am nothing without it, that it is too large a part of me and that being the traveler I am, all my journeys and trips are to end here.
But it is true.
Karachi has been more than a lighthouse. It has been home.
And for that, I will be forever thankful.

makola
city of lights

Natural yes.

Easy never.

They speak of other things too. Things which can latch themselves around the very air you breathe, acting as the cocoon. But never the butterfly.

The city no longer roars as it did. You try to lean in, try to fathom its heartbeats but they are nothing more than gentle thuds, sounding as though they are miles away when really they aren’t. They can’t be.You’re still here. The distance was never covered but mostly because there wasn’t much cloth left.

The cloth was warm. Like the dupattas  you speak so often of now. Like the handholds you miss so frequently these days, weeks, months. Like the hugs in which you now wish you hadn’t been the first to let go.

makola

city of blinding lights

“I was trying to feel some kind of good-by. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse.”

-the catcher in the rye by j.d. salinger