Home-grown

When I was two, we moved to Pakistan for two years. My parents missed the country they had grown up in, and wanted to be around friends and family again.

My grandfather always had a government post, which meant our house was in a gated area, outside the city centre. To me, the house was a haven: stone staircases, secret doorways, and a rooftop terrace – it was incredible. We lived there for two years, and I vividly remember the strange and wonderful sights and sounds.

What I remember most, however, is ‘the help’. Shehnaz, Nazia, Imtiaz and Asma. I’m sure there was a fifth sister, but her name escapes me. These girls, under the management of their mother, maintained our household: cleaning, washing, sorting, shopping – everything, except maybe the cooking. And even then, they were still expected to be available at all times – just in case a new daughter in law didn’t know where the spices were kept, and risked being shown up in front of her army of sister in laws.

Shehnaz was my companion. We met when I was two, and she couldn’t have been much older than 10 herself. I would sit by her, moving from room to room as she performed her daily duties. She would sing to me, or tell me stories – taking my dolls and us on the most wondrous adventures. We were inseparable.  Dinnertime was a particularly challenging time for my mum. Having spent the entire day with Shehnaz, I would insist on eating dinner with her too. My mum would try desperately to explain that Shehnaz was ‘the working girl’ (a phrase which carries a completely different connotation back home), and that my place belonged with my family at the dining table. But I would not take ‘no’ for an answer.

After all the pleading a blistering summer evening would allow, she would angrily push my plate away from hers and tell me to do as I pleased. Having won what seemed to me as being the most important battle of the night, I would proudly lift my plate and go and join Shehnaz and her sisters in the storeroom next to the kitchen. My tiny feet made such a loud noise on that cold, concrete floor, as I would run hurriedly to the kitchen, before anyone had time to scoop me up and bring me back to the main dining room.

The storeroom always smelt of wet dough. It was a cool, dark hole in the wall – stacked high with produce of all sorts. In the middle of the room, Shehnaz and her family would sit on tiny stools, and share food from a large platter. I loved that experience – huddling close, catching each other’s eye as rice fell from someone’s hand, and the subsequent burst of giggles it would induce. I have never known such pure love and genuine warmth. Those girls loved me, and I them. They were my own, before my own were.

We came back to England when I was four. And I hated it. I would call our house ‘Daddy’s house’, and demanded we return to ‘our house’. A year later we did go back. I remember being dressed in a deep red and black velvet coat, with a matching hat. The gate opened to let our car in and all I could think of was Shehnaz. The family greeted us and we all settled in the formal living room. The adults discussed my growing height, the weather, politics. Even though it had been my own home, there was a reservation in my manner that wouldn’t allow me to even ask about Shehnaz, let alone roam the entire house to find her.

After what felt like hours, I realised if I didn’t pluck up the courage to move, I probably wouldn’t get to see her that night. I put on my most adorable face, and asked my uncle if I could go to the kitchen. “Of course!” he bellowed, and promptly pulled my small frame in for a suffocating cuddle. Breaking free, I nervously headed towards the corridor. Turning right, I found myself stood directly opposite the kitchen. And there she was, standing in the doorway, with the biggest smile on her face and a yearning in her eyes I have never again seen in anyone. She put out her arms and I ran like the wind – my small beret flying off in the process. She lifted me up into her arms and held on for dear life. And I felt like nothing in the world could hurt me. I would be safe for the rest of my life. This bond, this secret beautiful bond would protect me forever.

When I left that year, I tried to postpone our departure as long as possible. Shehnaz still hadn’t arrived to see me off, and I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. I stalled and I stalled. But it was no use. We had to leave. I tried to wipe away my tears, lest anyone see me upset and ask why. ‘Crying over the help? She’s crazy!’ We got in the car and drove off. And then I heard her – calling my name. I turned to look out the window, and there she was, waving madly and running behind our car. No matter how much my mind pleaded with him to stop, the driver kept going – immune to the telepathy I so desperately wished we shared.

That was the last time I ever saw her. When I was 12, my mum invited some of her friends over for a garden dinner party. There, she casually let slip that one of the girls from ‘the help’ had died a month ago. And that it was sad because she was the youngest, and such a sweet girl. My heart came up into my mouth. I could not breathe. Dead? How is that possible? She must be, what, 20? It can’t be. Only old people die. I ran inside and sat very still, waiting for the wave of pain to pass over me. And then it came – crashing out in tears and yelps I didn’t even know existed in such a little person.

One evening, whilst finishing her final chore, my uncle asked if she was okay, as she looked pale. She said she was fine but felt a little dizzy. Those were her last words. Shortly afterwards, she fell unconscious in that same kitchen corridor. My uncle put her in a car and drove to his friend’s hospital as fast as he could. But it was too late.  Shehnaz had an undetected heart defect. It remained undetected because the poor never went for health check-ups. That was 11 years ago. And nothing has changed.

Two months ago, my perfectly healthy 26-year-old cousin drank a glass of water. A month ago she complained of pain to her OB. A week ago, she died, having contracted Hepatitis E, which too lay undetected.

There are 127,859 medical professionals in Pakistan to oversee a population of over 160 million. Medicine is too expensive, yet the health industry is a trade. So, practitioners charge premium prices for ‘life-saving’ drugs, cop-offs of which are administered to the dying patient, whilst the practitioner pockets the profit. Meanwhile, families’ race up and down the hospital halls, filling prescriptions they themselves can’t even read to save the person they love – selling property, personal items, anything of value to raise cash for the ‘life-saving’ drugs.

Of course that is not everywhere. Where the practitioners are legitimate, and capable of performing ‘life-saving’ procedures, there is no money. So, people die. But someone still has to foot the bill left over from the now-empty bed in ICU previously inhabited by his or her deceased loved one.

But then I guess the working class suffers everywhere. What of those who can comfortably afford a living? Well, provided electricity finds its technologically advanced way to said house that is paying for it, most of their time is spent on the Internet, asking Google what makes the most credible visa application so they can get the hell out.

But wouldn’t I do exactly the same if I were living in a country where corruption seems inherent at birth, and money will buy you a man’s dignity? Where young, ambitious, beautiful young people contract absurd viruses from the water they confidently drink from a plastic bottle – believing it to be mineral and never wake up the next day? Where people and their aspirations are disposable? Where greed and vanity are more apparent than honesty and gratitude?

Change is inevitable when a force large enough demands it. With 90% of an under 25 population, one would imagine Pakistan to be a ticking time bomb; ready to finally explode and rid itself of the vile infestation of age-old corrupt politics and regressive thinking. Young, dynamic, forthright minds would take centre stage, and demand answers; make valid assessments of the country’s financial position, explore energy-efficient ways to tackle the absurdity of waterborne diseases in the 21^st century, create jobs for the young and able, build state of the art medical facilities – prompting those 17,000+ medical professionals of Pakistani origin in the US – and those who would follow in their footsteps to take advantage of their own scientific development and invest in cementing a positive, healthy future for their people.

Effectively, I am no better. Surrounded by my gadgets, in my very comfortable home, moaning about the lack of jobs and having nothing but my diminishing savings to worry about, I am no better than the credible visa application web surfers. My musings are always about these wonderful people who have entered my life, and made it worthwhile. Yet I myself exist without purpose or direction, having achieved little to nothing in (almost) 24 years of existence. What have I given them back? What have I given back to that place I called home all those years ago?

One of Us

A few days ago, I wrote about my (almost) 24 years of life. My arrogance was ever-present; reflecting and writing about my 24 years as if they were a birth-right, something guaranteed to me, a contract. I wrote about accepting things as they were sometimes - 'it is what it is' - and whilst I wrote about the irony of that simple reality being so difficult to accept, I boasted proudly about how it was a lesson I was fast learning. 

Admittedly, that was a lie. I know it was a lie because late last night, my cousin died. And despite what my self-assured ramblings may project, I could not be further from 'it is what it is'. Because what it is, is a fucking joke. A joke I just cannot understand. 

At 26, she was a graduate, happily married with a beautiful 3 year old boy. A few weeks ago, at 7 months pregnant, she began feeling ill. 8 days ago, life happened, and after giving birth to a baby girl, she never woke up. Her body slowly failed her, and last night, it decided it was done. 

Despite all my realism, I cannot count how many times I have wished this to be a mistake. She has been buried, and yet I cannot seem to stop wishing her alive. You read in newspapers sometimes that people just come back to life. I keep telling myself that happens to some people. Maybe those people could be us? And that's just it - it could have been us. Any one of us. All us girls are the same. We were raised the same, we played together, we led similar lives. As we all sit, immersed in disbelief, and seeing ourselves in her - that's all we can think. It could have been any one of us. Until we realise, it was one of us. 

But why? Why such arrogance, such vanity, such solid belief that life is guaranteed more to us than any other because we still have our youth? Babies are born into the world lifeless. Mothers lose their newborns as they cradle them in their arms. Children stop breathing. Teenagers sometimes go to sleep, and don't wake up. Young people die all the time - casually defying the natural cycle of life. So why not one of us?

When I was young, I used to scoff at people who used to throw themselves at God's mercy when something was wrong, or they needed help. "That's so hypocritical" I'd say. "You only pray when you need God's help. What about all the other times when you're just living? You don't pray then." Yesterday, for the third time in my adult life, I was once again that very hypocrite. As I grovelled before God, I asked what was hurting me more: begging for the life of one of us, or knowing that I was not worthy of begging for anything, let alone expecting that prayer to be answered. 

This beautiful girl, who was so happy and content in her life, had ambitions and desires for her future, a husband who loved her dearly and whom she adored - just stopped living. Her reflections on her years were only going to take her this far. Somewhere, it was written that this absurd tragedy, this completely senseless and twisted reality, was going to play out exactly like this. And whilst we all existed, blissfully unaware, we all played our parts in getting to this very moment. It's funny - you try to play the game your way, not realising you're actually just another piece on the board whose moves have been numbered. And yet, I cannot help but feel slighted, cheated, betrayed, even. But why? Because my own illusion of 'forever' was shattered? People don't belong to us. And yet such is the toxic nature of love - it fills you with the disease of 'forever'. 

Then I think, perhaps her 26 years were plenty. She had such a beautiful soul; always smiling, always content, never a bad word about anyone. Perhaps 26 years of leading a life full of gratitude, and with contentment meant that she had passed. She had proven herself to be what the human mechanism strives for - kind, patient, and loving. So why drag her through the trials and tribulations, pains and slights, ups and downs of this unsteady life? I guess that's one way to make peace with it. Truthfully, however, peace is far from it. For those two innocent children, who deserve the love of their mother, there is no peace. For the man who had planned to grow old with the love of his life, there is no peace. For the parents who have had to bury their wonderful daughter, there is no peace. 


In the shadows of this great despair, you can but only hope that peace comes in the form of realisation - that life is fragile, and people don't live forever. That love and kindness are the foundations of living well. And that without one another, we are merely empty vessels, floating aimlessly. 

"And it is He who has brought you all into being out of one living entity, and has appointed for each of you a time limit on earth and a resting place after death." (6:98) 

Countdowns

Next month, I’ll be twenty-four. I wish that meant something significant. Of course I am grateful; for my health, my reliable old heart and the wonderful people in my life who make it all worthwhile. But for as long as I can remember, my age, or rather, the ‘number’, never quite felt right. I think I’ve always had what people call an ‘old soul’. I don’t know where it came from, but I’m pretty sure it’s there.

Twenty-four isn’t a particularly large number (albeit the rest of me seems to be filling up on the dimensions fairly quickly) – especially when I consider that I have a friend who is in her 70s. And yet, despite the fact that our relationship would warrant a granddaughter-grandmother label, we are friends. She confides in me, shouts and curses when she’s angry, seeks comfort when her morale is low, and loves me as if I were her only confidant. Admittedly, I do the same.

I have come to learn that relationships aren’t defined by any particular characteristic; neither are matters of the heart governed by points on an agenda. You love because you choose to love. I’ve faced the reality that nothing lasts forever, although I seem to be struggling to ‘practically’ accept that. I’ve learnt that actually, my ‘number’ means nothing. You can learn in twenty years what some can’t in forty. And every day is an opportunity for a new experience.

As a writer, the most valuable lesson I’ve learnt over the past few years is that ‘writer’s block’ is a nonsense excuse. In fact, it’s such a painstakingly embarrassing sentiment that even the word ‘excuse’ seems too sophisticated for it. When all else fails me, words never do. To those who know me well, that will not come as a surprise. The motor on my mouth laughs manically in the face of energy sources, for it almost never requires its battery to be recharged.
On the odd occasion, however, even words fail me…

I am a wordsmith. Words are what I do. I will refrain from saying words are what ‘I am’, because (almost) twenty-four years of life have also taught me that ‘I am’ more than just a singular matter. In reality, the fact that so many definitions string together to explain the one me there is, should illustrate that I serve a purpose. Sometimes, however, you find yourself existing without one – a purpose, that is.  So, you attach what you ‘do’, with what you ‘are’. But the problem is, sometimes what you ‘do’ decides to show you up. In this case, words.

Words, which to me are like a lifeline, have become stifled as of late.  I realise that my experiences over the past few years have been so unlike any other, that I am at a loss for words to describe them, to communicate them – even, simply, to understand them.  Life is guilty of that often. One may even argue that those experiences are life: moments which dazzle you, beguile you, leave you stunned and confused, moments which make you long for more, moments which puncture your core with wounds. All of them are life. Thus all of them must serve a purpose, or so we like to believe.

Some things are just supposed to happen – without rhyme or reason. They were, as the phrase is so casually uttered today, ‘meant to be’. But how do you explain that to your ever-logical mind, the Chief Immigration Officer of the ‘You’ sphere – poking and prodding at everything in sight? How do you explain to a small child why he’s lost both his parents in the space of a year? How do you provide justifications to your best friend about why the man she loved left her stranded? How do you forgive someone who you feel has taken everything from you, and given nothing in return?

I think the hardest thing I’ve learnt (and admittedly, am still learning), is that at some point you have to relinquish control. Sometimes, there just isn’t a justification. Sometimes, there isn’t a comprehensive explanation to alleviate your unsettled heart. Sometimes, it is what it is. And there lies the irony – despite its simplicity, that is perhaps the most difficult lesson to grasp.

As my countdown continues, I realise with every year that I am more willing to acknowledge and accept my flaws. I never realised how difficult that was before. Was I ever foolish and self-absorbed enough to think that I was perfect? Or is it just that experience taps relentlessly at that hard exterior shell, until you are forced to confront those uncomfortable realities you’ve been trying so hard to conceal all this time?

However it happened, they are very much alive and present – my impatience, my greed, my destructive need for control. They perhaps don’t manifest in the ‘conventional’ way that one would interpret them, but they are very much real and bear their ugliness when I least expect it (much to the dismay of Monsieur Control, of course). So what do you do? It all comes back to that incredible feat of learning to relinquish control. To allow situations, experiences, life itself to soften you, to sweeten you. To accept that just as you acknowledge the existence of a new flaw inside you at each hurdle, so too is the world and its people. Love, in whichever capacity it is given, is not to be regretted. Ever. However many bridges you’ve built and broken, however many hurts and slights, however many losses – this moment right now is what it is.

Countdowns seem only to live in the present – willing this moment, this now, to be, so that it may run its course until the next.

'The One'

A vintage snap of a Victorian couple sitting down for a portrait

A few months ago, I was enthralled one evening by a cousin’s horrific account of a ‘set up’, orchestrated by her eager parents. As I listened mortified to the details of what seemed like ample material for Quentin Tarantino’s next cinematic display of gruesome violence, the thought finally dawned on me: ‘There is a very real possibility I will never fall in love’.

Hearing my cousin’s account of the horrific set up made my insides churn. I’m not unrealistic, am I? I know fairy-tales are bogus. But surely the notion of ‘real love’ isn’t completely dead? Today, I can tell you, it is well and truly dead. It was slowly tormented and mutilated in a ‘Reservoir Dogs’-style torture scene by the birth of Asian matrimonial services. For today, I experienced my first, and what I desperately hope to God was my last ‘Muslim matrimonial event’.

Firstly: Shannon’s Night Club – really? Yes, I realise there is a banqueting hall beside it, and that’s where your event was technically held, but it doesn’t do much for first-impressions, does it? For those of you who don’t know, Shannon’s is like the ‘Faces’ of Essex, circa 1993. Now, imagine within this very haven, a room filled with round tables, and chairs draped in white head covers, with purple organza bows, a stage at the end covered in large, plastic-floral arrangements, and a division running down a quarter of the room with bits of fabric. No, I’m not describing a poorly decorated Asian wedding reception. This was my setting to find ‘love’…supposedly. Of course it wouldn’t be complete without the sound of instrumental Bollywood music, flowing softly from the speakers above my head, serenading me into the arms of Number 39 – whoever he may be – so that I, for one second in my life, can feel like Kajol, and he, Shahrukh Khan.

‘Stab me in the eye with a fork now, please!’ my brain yells. No, no – be realistic. You came to support your cousin. Who, by the way, is sharp, witty, beautiful, creative, ambitious, loving, and 5’10. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Did you run out of adjectives?’ No. In fact, there aren’t enough words in the English language to convey the delights of her character. And yet, she is defined in the eyes of said matrimonial service and its attendees by the fact that she is, first and foremost, 5’10.  5’10 for an Asian girl is a slight predicament, in that on average, Pakistani men don’t exceed 5’7. But Pakistani men above 5’10 are not unicorns – they exist. Difficult to find, perhaps. But they exist. Somewhere. Just like normality exists. Somewhere. At least that’s what I hoped after this afternoon…

It’s difficult, of course. One table, four girls and four boys – five minutes to introduce yourselves to one another, and then the boys rotate to another table. The idea is that you get a fair idea of the person, and note down their ‘badge number’ should you want to talk to them further. Once that’s over, lunch is served and you are free to proceed to ‘The Wall of Profiles’ to find out more about your badge-crush. Should you be satisfied by what you read, mount your steed in search for the fair maiden, and ask to speak with her further. The idea isn’t abominable. The potentials, however, are.

I know it’s difficult, men. There’s a lot of pressure on you. You are encouraged to begin the conversation, fill the awkward silences, and seem interested without appearing to be a pervert all in the same breath. It’s a hard job. And I sympathise, I do. But it’s really not a good idea for basic etiquette to leave you at such a crucial time. And if you feel you don’t have any – basic etiquette, that is – please, for your sake and ours, pretend. If you’re a Bollywood-fan, in that moment, channel Shahrukh Khan in Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham as best as you can (we both know you try in your bedroom mirror at home, anyway – so now is your time to shine) If you’re a Hollywood fan, think Robert Redford in Out of Africa or Leonardo DiCapiro in Revolutionary Road. It’s really not difficult. You just have to exude some poise and decorum. It will save you from the following fatal car crash:

Badge Number X: I’m X, 27, I live in Ilford, I’m a businessman; I own three chicken shops – you know – us Asians – gotta’ have the chicken *pervy and unnecessary wink and nudge, followed by snorting laughter*….You know Ilford Station, yeah?
Me: yes…
Badge Number X: Turn right, yeah – an’ you see those ‘free shops on the right, yeah? They’re ALL mine.
Me: …

Lesson number two: I promise you we don’t award brownie points for number of chickens shops owned. I know it may appear that way – given that I obviously look like I enjoy my food, and value it greatly in my life – but I assure you that your chicken-shop inheritance will not be sealing the deal for us.

Also, your mother is lovely - in her fluorescent pink shalwar kameez with gold embroidery. I can tell that she has made a great effort to pick out her largest set of silver costume jewellery, bedazzled in large cubic zirconia, with an equally impressive, subtly dyed hairpiece. She has taken time to apply a myriad of eye shadow colours at 11am on a Sunday morning to look ‘just right’ for her search for a daughter in law. I see that she is smiling lovingly at me, and has already been over to The Wall of Profiles to decipher my credentials. As she continues to spy on our table, I can see her already envisioning our impending nuptials. I will fit in perfectly with your family – you are very fair, and short, and overweight. I am – well – exactly that. You see – it is fate. We are meant to be…

These, my dear fellow blood-liners, are not ‘credentials’. Fair, skinny (or should I say malnourished), 5’6 – how, HOW on God’s green earth is this the criteria for love? Ah, but it isn’t. It is the criteria for marriage. And how depressing is that sentiment alone? In my (almost) twenty-four years, I have only seen one – maximum two – examples of a loving marriage. Otherwise, the idea basically seems to be a ploy to pro-create. Or if you’re Asian, have an extravagant party. 

If anything has saved, and simultaneously destroyed the idea of marriage, it is those infuriating Hollywood rom-coms, with the dazzlingly unobtainable Ryan Gosling, gushing with love for the woman of his dreams – who, by the way, is always much less attractive and ‘obtainable’, but realistically, will never be one of us.

But here we are, at Shannon’s Nightclub, obviously with a view of getting married, and me having accepted that you will never be Ryan Gosling, just like I will never be J Lo. But perhaps we can be the starring couple in our own love story? Let’s give it a go. What would you like to ask me?

“Would you live with your in-laws?”

Yes, your situation may require that question to be asked first. But here’s some advice: deliver the question with a little more enthusiasm instead of your current, grim reaper expression. How am I to envision you as being someone I could love, when you currently look like my executioner? With that face, I am AFRAID to live with my potential in-laws – are they part of a cult? Do they gut daughters in law like fish?  “I’m a doctor.” I’m going to assume that’s your attempt at remedying the current situation. Okay, I’ll happily meet you half way. “Oh, that’s interesting. Have you specialised in anything?”
“I’m a General Practitioner.” … Please, tell me more… Or not. Yes, that’s a better idea – just sit there with your arms folded, and that foul expression on your face. I will consequently think of and sympathise with London’s diseased and decapitated who will have to face a doctor with no bedside manner – or any manners at all, for that matter.

And there goes that bell. Lunch is served. The aunty in the fluorescent pink hovers at our table and smiles at me lovingly once again. Before I have a chance to speak, my cousin yanks me towards her, “Please let’s go home now”. Yes, let’s go home…