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?