Breathing In...

The week had depressed me to torturing heights, from books to social burden. Circumstances had at last taught me that the truth isn't always crystal clear. People are judgmental and the most obvious explanation is never correct...apologies do not make up for a broken heart and puzzles cannot be completed until you find the last piece.

As I settled in the bus to head home, my sister called.
"Do you mind a little drive-through directly after we pick you up?" she asked keenly.
"Oh, of course not..." I assured her, leaving half my thoughts unspoken.
I don't mind this at all. I actually need this. In fact, we can go shopping. Shopping is my medication.
I shut my eyes.

Time passed like a snail. The two hours to Lahore never seemed to end. I asked the Lord how much more he was going to make me suffer before some rest. The answer came to me as distraction. Hence I looked out the window, soothing my eyes with green and gold...

...I hopped in the car as soon as it arrived in the parking. My little sister hugged me as a greeting and gave me a self-made card. I was too tired to open it, and slid it in my pocket. We reached the mall, and I dashed inside to heave a long, deep sigh of relief.
Clothes! Lots of clothes and a fresh splash of color! Flashy lights and large air-conditioners! This is divine! I hugged my luck with a word of thanks. My sister eyed me with a little pity all the time I feasted my eyes upon the designer dresses, shoes and accessories. She could see how desperate I was to be free, and now that caged monster was breaking the chains. With every dress I tried on, and every shoe I slipped my feet in, I felt better. The hurt seemed to get less. So much for an ordinary girl.

As soon as I saw the Sweet Factory, I ran to get my bags full... jelly, marshmallow, sugar belts and what not.  I grabbed a few bars of chocolates from a shelf, and was out with the heavy bill and millions of shopping bags, the mall's hideous logo gazing like a dozen eyes at the world.

I unlocked the car, stuffing everything on the back-seat. before I could settle myself in the car, the air brought about some sweet music. I turned around to see a man play the flute.

The flute...always magnetic. Magical. The music melted in my ears like butter, and my heart melted likewise. My dad was calling out to me, but I think I couldn't hear him. I walked to the music. The player was sitting in the corridor, leaning to a pillar. His eyes were shut tight, a frown crossed his face every now and then as the music rose and fell.

The flute...I sat down in front of him, leaning to the opposite pillar, listening with attention. A light breeze blew my hair away from my face. My brows descended and my eyes sought darkness to feel the music leave a pleasant impact on my mind. The agony rose to its peak, the heart sinking, the pain erupting from the crater: my eyes.

The music stopped abruptly. I looked around. The man was gone. He had left my soul dancing like a maniac, celebrating the freedom, the escape from all the sorrow I had piled up inside me.

I shuffled my hand inside my pockets, suddenly remembering my little sister's card. I opened it.

"Dear Mina,
I miss you when you go. I hug you to be happy. I wish I could hug you everyday.
Hamayal."

For once, the spelling mistakes she made were to be forgiven. I looked at the cover of the card. She had drawn two stick-figure girls holding hands, and two BIG, RED hearts.

The Randomness and the Skill

"Sajni"...The song is always new when you hear it in his voice. And yes, Awais Butt adds the magic-music all along.

A song, dedicated to PMC mates...by Kamran Hussain Hashmi

The Family Charade

Fast forward one day at my house and all you’ll hear is a high pitch chirrup. :D

It’s us, talking, arguing and wailing. From “what’s for breakfast today?” to “I don’t want wallpaper in my room!”; from “Hey! Stop singing this song!” to “Don’t hang out with EVERYONE in your class.”…and yes, I end up being grounded.

The clash of ideas is inevitable, and so are the consequences that follow (like I told you, my being grounded). :/

However, one thing bonds us all together as a family, and that is my dad’s old car. :D

Charade, sparkling like gold some twenty years ago, as my dad knelt down on his knees beside it to propose to my mom. (=

Charade, as they drove across the green fields together, looking forward to seeing life as a welcoming host.

Charade, as my elder sister and I would fight for the front seat after school, and would end up both squeezed together, one of us a serious obstacle for my dad as he tried to change gears. However, I would always wonder why the goddamn gear had to dance about for the car to move forward.

Charade, when a third baby arrived, who was another volunteer for the front seat. =/ I remember how we once annoyed mom to an extent she told us she’d have to put the front seat up for auction if its demand doesn’t fall. As children, that actually shut us up. :D

However, our golden charade was pushed to a side in our hearts when a brand new white car with flashy lights took its place in the main garage. =( It’s golden paint faded, and the windscreen was blinded by a thick layer of dust…the ignorance was heartbreaking.

Charade entered our lives again with a new boost of energy…a boost that sent the car smashing right into the fence. :D Yes, my elder sister was testing the race. My sweet father was encouraging her as she gave her first try to starting a car.

There came a phase of another boost of energy, this time smashing the car right into the gate of the garage: I was learning the gears. :D

Then came a time when mom realized that Charade needs to be thrown away…it was quite true, for now when someone would start the car, the whole car would tremble, and at a speed-breaker it would seem like the body of the car would break open in all directions. :D

My dad refused, I refused. We both care about the memories Charade has added “gold” to. They are priceless, so is my parents’ Charade, my sisters’ Charade, OUR Charade, because this is not just another car, but this is the Family Charade. =)

Teyni Saved Me

At university level, you can never judge your test paper to be good or bad. The moment I came out of the examination hall after giving in my "upper-limb-stage" answer sheet, I knew I'd done the best I could and now deciding the mercy was all up to dear God! Then, I'd forgotten all about it...

For one whole week, Aymi had been praying for the result to arrive. We'd all scream and wail when she'd say that, and everyone used to refuse to say "Amen". However, we all knew that the snake had to shed it's skin some day, and it finally it did last Wednesday. It was a nerd I overheard, whispering to her friend, and the word passed around in the Physiology lecture hall. By the time the whispers caught my ears, I was caught by Sir's vigilant eyes, shuffling about uncomfortably in my place, and was sent OUT OF THE CLASS. =D I obeyed his orders with a screwed face.

The humiliation of being sent OUT OF THE CLASS had blown my mind so, that I forgot all about the stage result. I appeased my fiery soul with some Japanese music. =(

It was when I saw the first years storm OUT OF THE CLASS to the Anatomy department, that I remembered I had once taken an "upper-limb-stage", and the whispers suddenly made a lot of sense. (dumb me :D) I joined the storm like another spec of dust uniting with the swirling wind.

Girls pushed and shoved one another. In the background, I stood still with an eyebrow raised: wow, these guys are really keen to know their marks. Nerds!
I looked to my right, r.a.k. had her fingers crossed at her heart, eyes shut, as Hania read out her marks. Suddenly they both screamed. "We both passed! Yay!" All around, I saw girls hug one another, some just turning away with a heavy heart. Both extremes depressed me.

Where did I stand?

I plucked courage to make my way through the suffocating crowd, as near to the notice board as I possibly could: the wild mob kept pushing me back like there was a ten-minutes sale about to start. :D

Where was my roll number? Where was it? Oh, it's right there. So they didn't miss me out, eh? I saw, slowly.
Two figures...that added up to...sixty-four...sixty-four?


SIXTY-FOUR???

Out of a total of two hundred, I had failed at sixty-four marks? Was that how bad my stage had been? I recalled my viva. Yes, it had been horrible. I had rightly argued over the course of a nerve with a grim-looking teacher, whose long, black moustache had evaded me. That's all I had been staring at throughout my viva. :D

So he'd failed me. Good revenge, I thought.
I decided that the day was extremely unlucky for me. With my face hung, I walked out of the Anatomy department, to walk into Aadi, who seemed happy.
"How's your result?" she asked.
"Don't ask, they've failed me at sixty-four." I was really upset. She hugged me.

Aadi's coaxing words had made me feel better. That was when Kamran passed by and reminded me of the result AGAIN. =/
"I failed. Sixty-four." I told him too. He shook his head in pity.

Teyni dragged me to the dissection hall. There, I had to confront more happy faces. It was when I shed a tear that Teyni knew I had expected much more of myself. She took me to the notice board, ensuring me I hadn't made the right calculations.

What EXACTLY could be wrong with simple addition? But Teyni knew. She knew because she is an angel. =)

"Sixty-four..." she read.
"There, I told you!" I exclaimed, but she read further.
"...plus FIFTY-SIX!!!!" she suddenly squealed.
"What does that make?" I asked her coldly.
"It makes one hundred and twenty, you IDIOT!"

My eyes popped out of my head. I couldn't believe I had been dumb enough to ignore half of the result, and believed that I could actually fail like THAT. But then again, at university level, you can NEVER judge your test paper to be good or bad. =)

Three in a Row

When you're suddenly home-sick and you know you can't digest whatever you eat in hostel, you head home. It was the three of us this time. A little bit of disappointment here, because we always try to be an even number of people when riding the bus home; it's always more fun when so. No one has to sit beside a stranger and feel uncomfortable, and everyone else doesn't have to make an extra effort to help that friend keep pace with the gossip! :D

This time, Jay-G joined Teyni and me in our "back-home" journey at the eleventh hour.

It was a shock. =o

We knew that one of us would have to sit alone, but which one? =/

We got the first three seats of the bus. I fell into my "window-" seat lazily beside Teyni. It suddenly made me uncomfortable to know that Jay-G quietly filled her seat, miles away from us on the other side of the aisle. Teyni had to stretch half the length of her arm to poke Jay-G. She was THAT FAR AWAY. =(

Suddenly I had an idea!

I squeezed into the corner of my seat, making space for Jay-G in the middle, and called out to her. After all, the three of us weren't really fat: we fit in the couple of seats without squishing one another.

The road-hostess looked at us with sheer amusement in her eyes. We looked crazy sitting like that, but love knows no boundaries. Ha ha ha. =D

We talked about cars, and how all three of us had been driving without license. :D

"Ha ha ha! So we all have been breaking rules in our lives!" Teyni exclaimed. It was good to have a lot in common.

I opened my Kit Kat Dark Chocolate, and when I saw Teyni and Jay-G stick their tongue out, decided we weren't all that similar.

"Guys like dark chocolate, not girls!" Jay-G teased me. I didn't really agree with her, because I could finish a big bar of Bournville in half an hour without complaining about its taste. Anyway, I was glad I didn't have to give each of them a bite. :D

It was when I opened my big Dairy Milk that Teyni and Jay-G jumped upon me to snatch it out of my hand. Our fight over Dairy Milk is always hilarious. It starts with tickles and ends with faces smudged with chocolate. By the time our fight ended, my chocolate was half melted. =(

*tragedy*

When we reached Lahore, all three of us were "suffering from serious muscle fatigue of the face and thorax", we'd been laughing so hard.

Cherishing Home (:

Every time I visit home, I make the most out of the time I spend there. I am less fiery and more patient; I narrate the college gossip to my mom, bring gifts for Hamayal, the little one. =)

This time though it was a long weekend (Friday evening, a whole Saturday and half a Sunday) I spent most of the time buried under the burden of books (test this Tuesday =/). I talked less, even the stories of the sports week’s closing (I’ll narrate later!) I cut short in a nut-shell.

I always feel a little weird when I’m home. Diet is back to chocolate cereal and chicken kebabs as usual. Sleeping hours extend, and I know I don’t have to make my bed when I wake up because mom is kind enough to do that for me. However, there’s a strange feeling of shrinking back into that shell of a child I just crawled out of. I realize how safe it is to be at home, how brave my parents are to send me by myself to a world outside this shelter we all call “home”…

I shook the silver paper-bag so the last bit of cereal popped out into my bowl. I was going to throw the cereal box away with the empty paper-bag when I remembered there was always a “free gift” inside. =D the box felt heavy. Yes, there was a CD inside! Delighted, I tore the box to expose the neatly taped CD. It was a car-race game. The corners of my lips curled up into a wide smile and my eyes suddenly shone…all just to see I had got a free toy with cereal!

My elder sister saw this and laughed. I got goose bumps with embarrassment. :D

I started to tell her all about the Netizens Art Exhibition and how I was slightly jealous of a class-mate who sung better than me. =/

I told her all the jokes. I told her all the tragedies. We talked for a long time; I realized we were both were changing somehow. Then I read out a funny text message a friend had sent me:

“I want to hug you…

Around the neck…

With a rope!”

:D

My sister laughed heartily. I smiled.

Then she told me a funny joke from B.D Chaurasia’s book on anatomy. The book said “the deep fascia of the gluteal region is dense, opaque and pearly white.” She said that B.D claims our pearly whites are in our butt! That sure made me laugh. The way she twisted sober statements into jokes in her hilarious gestures was truly the old her. =)

Suddenly she said, “I want to hug you.” I glanced at her and back at my cell phone.

“…well I hope you’re not talking about the funny text I read out to you!” I replied.

“Oh, the joke is pretty obvious now we’ve heard it once!” she answered quickly.

“Aww, then I want to hug you too!!!” I said with a cheeky smile.

We both laughed.