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.

The White-wash Refugee Night

Wednesday, 8_02_2012: …We (excluding me =D) woke up earlier that day…there was a great hustle bustle in the common room, our present residency. We packed our bags, and shifted everything we own to the back side of the common room, our trunks, mattresses and so forth.

I, as usual, lazily woke up at seven in the morning, folded my bed, stuffed everything into my trunk, and settled it with the others’ bags. We headed for college then…

Our hostel is getting painted inside out. It didn’t bother us much at first, even when we heard the news that girls from our neighboring hostel had to shift out of their common room for the purpose and spend the next three days God knows where. It started to bother us only when the same time broke unto us.

Most of us roommates got free at noon, and we kept wandering in the college as is our hobby.  =D We waited for the others to get free. Then we decided to stay in college as going to hostel would be a waste of our energies: we had no place to stay anyway.

Fourteen sorrowful hearts with lots of complaints and harsh feelings (x’@) settled in a circle in one of the college gardens. As light as butterflies, these fourteen hearts were carried away with the “photo session” that started soon (again, as is our hobby =p). Then the Netizens meeting was over and Aadi appeared, smiling at us. She’s an active member of the club. The club I myself don’t know much about as yet (=D).

We relaxed for half an hour on the bed of grass, and went back to the hostel at 3.30 pm. The common room was only half painted, rather only half white-washed by now. Disappointed, we scattered to find shelter in some seniors’ rooms. Teyni and I went to relax in the warm sun, and also to munch on some sweet. We talked and laughed for some time, then went to decide our near future (that is where we were going take an evening nap =D)

Dabi, a really sweet senior invited us to sleep in her room. We thanked God for bestowing upon us His mercy *slow dramatic violin*…but this feeling drowned immediately as we saw two charpoys awaiting us.

 *doh* =D

I tried and tried to tell myself that this is THE most comfortable bed I’ve ever known: I pictured a soft and bouncy four-poster, with muslin drapes and a silk sheet…*trrrriiiing*

The alarm for 6.00 pm rang, and it was time to attend a lecture on religion that a pious woman from another medical college had come to deliver.

She made us all cry for two hours: her words were touching and her prayer was harsh!

Then again we all were back discussing the same issue: where do we sleep tonight?

The first thing decided was that as we would get fourteen burgers delivered for fourteen empty, growling stomachs.

=D

We had a small party then at the back-side of the half white-washed common room, and then went to the warden’s room to beg for mercy (=p). However, all our whining and wailing was in vain.

At long last we won the battle against our self respect, and collapsed in a senior’s feet =D.

I told her she resembled Kristin Stewart…and check out the magic of my words, she agreed to keep us!!

*HILLARIOUS*: P

By the time we shifted 5 mattresses to her room, it was past midnight. The moon was laughing at us mercilessly. It hid behind dark clouds with shame when it saw we had finally found refuge under a roof of BRICKS rather than the star studded sky!

We were fourteen girls on five mattresses in a small room…Imagine that! R.a.k tucked us in this tiny space most comfortably. We had fun for some time (as time passes quickly :P) then on recalling the exhausting day, we remembered how tired we were. This sent us to sleep. =)

Hostel (part II): Dedicated to R.a.k.

Somehow, living in the common room has turned out to be a blessing in disguise, the major reason being the motivation for studying from my thirteen room-mates. Then not just studying, I've learnt to enjoy life to its fullest, something I would not have realized otherwise because I am not a multitasking person. =(

R.a.k, my roommate and a good friend taught me multitasking by simply letting me follow in her footsteps. However, no matter how much I try, I cannot be half as active as she is. Sometimes to see her run around under the burden of responsibilities (burden to me) makes me tense. I just want to stop her and let her take a deep breath. The best thing about her is that her words are promising and so are the actions that proceed.

She’s someone who helps gladly and does so like it’s her job. I used to see her being tense about my research work, when she wasn’t initially part of the research group, and guiding me with utmost concern where or where not I asked for help. Her suggestions are convincing and her ideas are strong.

Then the help for my part in the farewell of our principal: I needed the music of the song I had to sing in the function. I was quite tense as I had no source to download it. One afternoon as I was heading towards the computer lab to try the download out, I saw R.a.k sitting in the stairs thumb-punching her QWERTY, a frown on her face. I asked her presence and she looked up and told me she was trying to download the instrumental of the farewell song. I seriously wanted to hug her then. ^_^

Lastly, our “white-wash refugee night” (the story I’ll relate soon) was made sleep-able only due to R.a.k’s leading quality. She always knows what to do. She knew it two nights back too. She organized us such that we could fit in easily and were also satisfied with our places. She is the reason we slept in the maximum peace possible that night.

She truly is a leader!

There you go R.a.k!! Happy Birthday!!! (whenever it is =D)

The Flute in Me

A hollow flute when plays inside my chest,

My heart sinks, but my soul wants to dance instead.

Lifted from peace to celebrate the sorrow;

Burning like fire, as it rises from its rest.

You will see it as light in my eyes,

But only if you look deep enough,

And only if you search at all

Will you find where it really hides.

The music never stops to play.

I close my eyes, listening to it night and day.

Whatever may interrupt I do not move.

The flute chains me up and burns me through.

Cuts me and wounds me with its waves.

My soul spins to the climax of the music it makes.

When it pauses, my heart stops and waits.

Ears pricked, I cannot rest till it drowns my hate.

The flute. Curls me up like I am safe.

Gives my soul that dancing grace.

Blesses my eyes with the gift of tears,

For peace is when I cry, not silently bear

The truth. The flute. Turning me to stone.

Not numb, my soul shuffles with pleasure.

Taking out the sorrow, only to be fed with more.

Won’t you retrieve me by what is inborn?

The flute. Was grown and nurtured so well,

Won’t it die in you and me. Can’t you tell?

I keep returning for we are one music torn apart.

It can’t stop. It will pause, but again will start.

The flute. Listen for it was always there,

For the music never stops to play.

Why can’t you see your soul slightly sway?

When death comes along, it will only dance away.

The music never stops to play.

I am blinded with what is love they say.

I hang on to every note, each wave I closely hear.

You and I will make that music together one day.