Duality of our Lives: US Vs. Pakistan

We go back to America after two years for ‘U.S.A. Vacation 2006.’ It’s a special kind of holiday rather a celebration. After living in U.S.A. for two decades we move back (and its not because of 9/11) to Lahore, Pakistan, our ancestral city. The friends that we left behind are like pieces of ourselves that we scatter to string them later.

The time to string the scattered parts of the whole arrives, and so do many perplexing questions. Do our friends miss what we once shared: the laughter, the jokes, the stories, the funny and not so funny, oddities that eventually wore out and became a quality that you would miss if they didn’t have it? Do they feel that vacuum as if the ground is sucked away from under your feet as in the sci-fi movies and you ‘swish’ down in the black hole and are lost forever? And last but not the least, do they miss us the way we miss them?

Now we are going back to be with people who we were completely in sync with. How can you explain the feeling of being ‘in sync’? Definition: You don’t need to have words to communicate you can read their minds, and what’s in their hearts. That’s when you become one. One mind and one soul you pull then they pull-and forward you go.

We lurch forward in a choppy flight of the time machine, Emirates from Lahore to Dubai and then New York, exiting Third world that still stands at the miraculous brink of becoming a developed country even after 50 plus years of its existence. We enter the First World, the Superpower.

The asphalt black bump free roads, the upright heavily foliaged green trees, the jeans clad independent, individualistic, highly literate people, the carefully inspected, cleaned and hygienically prepared, lists of ingredients, calories and servings detailed on each carefully designed packaging. Everything demands respect. So we pay homage, to every individual specter of being.

“This is home!” Our US born offspring says with pride and will never glance back at the, deeply fragmented education system, zero emergency aid, bureaucratic muddle and sewage filled potholed roads. Where, in short, everyone is riddled with a bullet of tragedy.

Its okay, now. The comfort food lines the pantry shelves. The cupboards are filled with bright, happy, packaged, tasty treats. The nostalgic memories ricochette from Oreo cookies, Quakers granola bars, Sundance beverages, Mars candy bars, whole wheat crackers, Honey Wheat cereals, the granola mixes, dried cranberries, raisins, nuts and thanks to American business ingenuity specialty foods from all over the globe are available in the average Americans’ well stacked pantry. Each and every healthy morsel of nuts and whole grains and not so glorified mouth watering candy bars tell a tale of the families that we visited when growing up in the past.

Nursing the past, we excitedly embrace the present, knowing that the future is here. East or West. The East of the Past is where the Sunset transcends into another realm. Now it’s the East Coast vs. the West Coast, the hub of Ivy League schools for that small minority of Pakistanis vs. California where we grew up as a family. Now nothing should bother us. The time machine pushes the East of the Sunset way back into our stream of consciousness. We won’t lose our tempers.

No more lashing out at the rickshaws conveniently chugging into our faces heavy black clouds from the wrong side of the road. Or when on the alley leading to our house becomes Aitchison College’s parking lot. Aitchison College, a relic of the Colonial past but now a colossal communal nuisance. Not accountable for any civic duties, it becomes a neighborhood bully. First the 2 yards encroachment of the public land then the unruly traffic and trash generated, litter our houses.

The Aitichison college guard responsible for the traffic generated by its servant quarter gates facing our lane, twirls the thick black handlebar mustache, rolls the coal black eyes under swampy growth of busy brows, and rolls away his eyes and turns to the opposite direction as we approach. He avoids what now it seems to be a usual routine.

Weaving through the parked rickshaws our 1996 model used Pajero with 300 km on it, shoves and nudges on the narrow lane for space. We proactively perform our civic duties when we vandalize the gray rusted mini Suzuki and the blank faces frozen, stalled and zoned out, with spray of our angry bile. We fight like everyone for space head on, fender to fender. The conclusions are foregone. The mighty wins.

We adamantly refuse to become another Malthusian algebraic number in this game of mass destruction while the sectarian rifted, non-democratic government eagerly awaits and aids natural and man-made disasters like epidemics, plagues and floods in hopes of effectively controlling population explosion.

Paupers cannot be beggars. Resources limited- they cannot afford a lot of elbow space. With proximity emanates pungent body odor. In our country of origin, the open sewage criss- cross through the city engulfing it with the toxic fumes and deadly diseases.

That pungent deadly air might be the reason why the rose garden dug up in Pakistan never blooms to its full potential, the roses shrivel and the disease whittles away the limp, spotted leaves. In USA, even the soil black and loamy is vibrant with life.

The sleeping senses wake up as if by the heavenly kiss of the Prince Charming. Inside the carefully thermostat controlled environment, we inhale the vanilla sprinkled dried sweet smelling potpourris and outside lavender, roses, and gardenia in full bloom that add colorful flair to the so symmetrical landscaped grounds. Every green glossy leaf and unblemished blade of grass sings.

Every life is worthy. Here we become civilized. Graciously, we mend bridges with aunties and uncles who we see after so many years. And whom we plan to eventually meet later when we come back after paying our dues to the country that raised us.

So many options are offered. The late bloomers as well as the fast trackers get properly accommodated. At Harvard University, where once you get in you stay in and get groomed with the likes of Russian leaders’ offspring and other names on the rosters of the leaders too many to mention in this limited space, Wellesley College, of darling Hillary Clinton, all girls’ schools and more, Smith College, one of the seven sister schools, Hailey College where a friend graduating from LAS will go, Columbia where the Uncle’s son went and now set up in a successful career in GM accounting division, or NYU smack in the middle of the city, its real estate sprawling into parks, dormitories and apartments. All these academic institutions state the most obvious, ‘I am not only rich but powerful and you can become that too.’

“I can easily live here in New York City.” After two years of heavy dosage of living in Lahore, seems like nothing. Further a short jaunt to Connecticut and Wellesley where uncles and aunties live will help make us in Pakistan comforted in the thought that she is safe around such wonderful people- family.

Enticing visions of a studio apartment, Ikea shelves, weaved baskets, plastic trendy colored organizers and routine breaks to Starbucks Café for a shot of espresso creates a perfect harmony in my daughter’s life. Now she has a ‘life.’ ‘Ah, yea right!’

Coming back to America seems to be so easy. It is like falling into the groove. No one can shake us out of it. The humid sultriness of June in Connecticut is barely discernible when driving a fully loaded Mercedes rental car or sitting inside our friends’ million dollar mansion in an upscale part of Connecticut surrounded by two acreage of lush grass pile thick carpet bordered by the trees that stretch, as far as the eye goes, into the national conserved land.

Welcome! Every being seems to be saying. The roads visible and the GPS latched on to the dashboard, we visit places, savor the sights and absorb the essence in our ‘U.S.A. Vacation 2006.’