of uncontrollable things

8 April. 1 am

Tonight is the first night. When the sky thunders above and I am cut off from the world. Thoughts of ahm flood in. but I have learnt to live with this particular void in my heart and have accepted its reality. I’ve developed some anger management issues. Everything riles me up more. Each mistake, every shortcoming is magnified as if it is part of some badly directed, low-budgeted movie, where the director focuses on a particular scene by slowing it down only for the purpose of emphasis.

I have been watching Sex and the City these days. I’m on my final season with just a few episodes left. Although the lifestyle of those four friends is extremely different than mine and that of my closest friends, I have found something strange. Almost all friends of mine, myself included, relate to this show in some form or another. At times I find myself relating to Charlotte (the prude). At others I catch myself wanting to be like Samantha (the playgirl). Coming from a culture which is entirely different than that of the West, and that of those four fictitious girlfriends, it is almost unexplainable how my girlfriends and I can relate to a life entirely alien to our own. I blame (or credit) my imaginative confusion to reading a lot of American teenage fiction as a kid. This is why I identify more with American shows than with Pakistani dramas.

Nothing hit this point home better than my babies who came last year. Since I was working full time and couldn’t take any days off, I planned different activities for them. One of them included tuning all kids’ and informative channels in one sequence so they could spend at least an hour or two every day entertained by the idiot box instead of me. These channels included Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Wikkid. I had seen my other nieces in Lahore watch Wikkid religiously so I was excited to show my babies that we also have a kids’ channel. After I tuned in the channels, they turned to wikkid and switched the channel after five minutes. It didn’t hold any interest for them. I also found that they would not watch a cartoon if it was dubbed in Hindi/Urdu even though they understood Urdu quite well. It was just too alien for them.

Now I wonder, having grown up on western literature (Sweet Valley Twins, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Enid Blyton, Famous Five and Secret Seven), have I lost the cultural closeness that comes with being raised on local literature reflecting ideologies of this land?

I witnessed a parallel universe tonight. A world I had heard of, seen in glimpses but probably never experienced as I did tonight. It was the alternative Lahore, the Lahore of LUMS, NCA and BNU kids. It was the Lahore of terrace parties with vaguely British sounding music in the background, spiked punch, beer and those American sounding 22 year olds in casual jeans who are friends with half of the crowd and know the other half by face because, hey, the cool crowd of the city is only that big. It is not my Lahore. It is not the city in which I have grown up. My Lahore is of getting two of three girls, holing up in a friend’s room and gossiping till the knock on the door by a discreet mother or cook with food, smuggling the food in quickly, locking the room again to revert back to gossiping. As opposed to wine and cheese parties with parents in the house, my Lahore is of sneaking to the bathroom to refill nicotine in the body. It is the Lahore of going out for early dinners because everyone’s parents start calling as soon as the clock hits 10 pm. It is the Lahore of begging our parents to let us sleep over at a friends’ place, going to the extent of concocting wild stories about exams, project deadlines, presentations and what not.

Have I missed out on something? An entire culture maybe?
Or is it just my anti-social self talking. I don’t like talking to people. No, correction. I love talking to people (déjà vu! I’m pretty sure I have talked about this in a previous ilog). It is the inability to talk to others which drives me against the wall. But that is not the point. This is an alien Lahore, with which I cannot bring myself to relate.

How strange. And how frustrating. But I am glad I have been able to avoid lamenting about ahm, and the fact that he messaged to curse me and came on msn after maybe 4 years and how I could not bring myself to message him. I’m especially proud of myself for not dwelling on him as songs like Paimana Bideh, Chal Diye and Raat Humaari To are playing on my playlist. I’m learning to live with myself, not be afraid of having a silent moment, not dread ahm’s heart empty of love for me, not run away from his memories, to welcome them as dear visitors but making sure to close the door after they leave.

I am learning to exist. Life is too short.