Hope against hope ( My Jobless Time )

Every day in the morning, I go near the window and try to gaze out at the sun with my swollen eyes. With my subtle smile, I turn up my head and try to look outside in search of hope. Every day I try to search through the sky for an answer, for a sign. A sign that can perhaps tell me that today will be different, that today the world will be mine. In search of that sign, I have fatuously gazed the sky. Yet when I fail in my search for that answer, I gently turn my head away and gaze towards another source of hope. I look at the screen of my mobile phone to see if this moment is the promised moment, the moment that can rid me of my misery, the moment which can save me from ignominy. When my phone lets me down, I relentlessly try to pretend that today is not like other days that have gone past by. I relentlessly try to think that today shall not disappoint me, that today the world could still be mine.  Living in denial, I turn to my laptop to show me a sign , a sign that can save me from devastation, a sign that can save me from despair . 

    
    After some time the inevitable sense of joblessness creeps into my mind. The inevitable demise of hope storms my brain. I look outside at sunset and I see light fading away. I look at the time and I see it racing away. I turn my head down amidst despondency and despair. I go towards my couch and try to throw my thoughts away with a cup of tea. Accepting defeat, I close my eyes and sip my tea . A sense of burden shoves my shoulders, a sense of fatigue conquers my brain.

Can there be light outside ?

    A sense of hopelessness haunts me throughout the night.  A sense of insecurity shores up my fears. I go to the window again for a sign. Darkness greets me and so does despair. I go to my room and lie on my mattress. I look up towards the ceiling and hope my sleep takes away my fears. My sleep has promised to never disappoint me and it never had disappointed me and it never will. It has promised me to give me hope when I wake up and so it has always and perhaps it always will. I lease away my soul to the heavens with a covenant for hope in the morning. Somehow this is what keeps me going, this is what keeps me living.

In the next morning, I again go near the window with a subtle smile and hope, that perhaps this day shall be mine. Perhaps this day would not betray me like those before. 

In this perpetual cycle of despair-hope, I continue to strive for a day , a day that would certainly not belie my hope.

My affinity with Pakistan.

This might come as a surprise to many. Many regard me as “anti-pakistani” or worse the antagonist to Pakistan. Those who have spent time with me speak boldly about the scathing criticism that I blast at Pakistan. Some people perhaps might even think this article is a mockery. I have received ample “accolades” which are somewhat justified considering the harsh censure I fire at Pakistan at almost any gathering.

I personally do admit that I criticize Pakistan for all its shortcomings. But the word Pakistani carries a very very deep and broad meaning in my mind. To be Pakistani to me means living in a land where you can yell, scream as loud as you can without having to worry someone would come and convict you of a wrong or condemn you. To be Pakistani to me means you can go out of your home with the utmost confidence and own the roads you walk along. To be Pakistani to me means I can go out late at night and still find ample lively places to enjoy. To be Pakistani to me means I can endure any calamity, any water shortage, any power shortage that befalls me and come out strong. Pakistan is the epitome of freedom that anyone can experience. You can go along the streets meet people who feel like you, walk like you and talk like you. But perhaps the most outstanding quality about Pakistan is the natural feel to it whenever someone visits it. The artificiality that has overtaken major urban centers around the world has luckily still not found Pakistan.

 Pakistan may be poor, corrupt, divided but all of this can change and may change. Whenever you talk to any one of them you can feel the people, you feel the emotions coming out of them. This suggests that deep down Pakistanis can feel , their hearts are not hardened , their hearts might be bleeding but they are certainly not stones. They are not numb to the surroundings. They donot exhibit apathy. They are humans. They have emotions. And this is exactly what the outside world lacks. Cynicism characterizes the outside world. The thought of cynicism being the most productive way of achieving goals , for the country and themselves, governs the outer wilderness.  Pakistan is far away from all this. Its an isolated cave far away from the noisy wilderness .

The fact that I criticize Pakistan only portrays that I have feelings for Pakistan. You criticize only whom you love and for whom you have feelings. Four years have taught me my place in this world. They have taught me where I belong .They have taught me where my heart lies.

Luckily for me, my heart lies in Pakistan. 

My Angel

At 18 pounds and a height of under 2 feet , she is my niece !

Chaklala Scheme 3 Part 2

Still in August 2006,

After leaving the airport and arriving at my Mamoo’s house, there was a moment of silence which irritated me immensely. Just in four hours and something minutes I was way away from my loved ones and feeling like a complete stranger with absolutely no one to talk to. My relatives didn’t know me that well, since it had been four years when I last came to Pakistan. Nervous as I was, I failed to shut the silence that was haunting me. But as I constantly found out in my time in Pakistan, the more perilous the situation became, the more I rose up to the challenge. I decided to end this silence and went out of my room and started chatting with my “unknown” younger cousins. My sense of purpose was reignited and I felt motivated once again.
After a couple of hours I went to the roof of my house to just feel the air and analyze what my home country ,Pakistan, was like .My first impressions of Pakistan were somewhat mixed. I could not stop observing the apparent vast difference in attitudes. In Pakistan there is a breed of people who are stuffed with haughtiness, insolence, arrogance and then there is a breed who is humble, kind, helpful. As much as I liked the natural ambience of Pakistan, my feelings for the artificiality that existed within a certain segment of Pakistanis was the exact opposite. Perhaps this was to be expected considering the vast difference in the quality of life that existed within the society in general.
Chaklala Scheme 3 was the place where I was to spend the next 2 years of my life. From the famous ayaan bakery to the maghroor shop (as we called it) , this was a market centered in a community filled with active and former army personnel. This was the place which I was to call home. People told me that my university was supposed to be somewhere near Scheme 3. On my first day I couldn’t locate the university (the reasons will be obvious in the coming posts ) but in general , my first day in Pakistan started what was to be truly an eventful, momentous part of my life that I could never really have anticipated at that time.
It was to be my first steps towards independence and these were the moments which I was to cherish the most in the later part of my life.