Day 3 - Where I talk about baby shark and my childhood

Sharks weren't very popular with us when we were kids. Maybe it was Jaws which set the tone for how we were to think of sharks for the rest of our lives. When we were growing up, sharks were not wearing ties or tutu and dancing - they were ruthless killing machines. And somehow a bunch of us cousins made it our mission to kill a shark and save mankind from utter ruin and devastation. Or so we thought.

Imagine six kids, between the ages of 14 and 4, who held meetings (mostly outdoors) every week during hot, sweltry July afternoons in Karachi. Why afternoons? Well, that was the time when our moms were mostly out to buy stuff (trips to Zainab market and Tariq Road), our grandfather was taking his afternoon nap, our Uncle was at his job and our grandmother was engrossed in her Urdu digest magazine. The servants were also not around and so, it was the perfect time for conducting meetings to discuss how we were going to, well, kill a great white shark.

I think I've skipped the most important part of this entire endeavour. Each one of us (except our eldest cousin) was supposed to bring some sort of snack at the meeting. Before the meeting started, we placed our respective snacks on the table as a sort of offering and prayed for success. I recall our last meeting very vividly. We were all sitting on folding chairs in the porch (I'm not sure if we had the pedestal fan or not) with the table laden with goodies in the centre and each of us was trying to come up with a grand plan. My eldest cousin suggested we talk to my mother's uncle who was in the airforce as we might require air power to kill the shark. But how will we go out in the ocean in the first place? A valid question raised by another cousin. To which I had replied that my paternal uncle would help us as he was in the navy. With the logistics settled we started munching on the biscuits and daal moong and cake rusk when suddenly a voice broke the spell, asking us what we were doing sitting in the hot summer afternoon in the car porch?

It was our grandmother who, finding the house very quiet considering her six grandchildren were around, had put her digest away and got up to investigate. I think she was amused but we were terrified. We had taken stuff from the cabinets which we knew we weren't allowed to unless we got permission from an adult. And the cook had been complaining for some time that the dry goodies were disappearing rather quickly. Anyways, our grandmother told us all to get our asses inside, put the goodies on the dining table and do something constructive like read a book or play a board game.

We were quite disappointed that our secret was discovered. What came as a bigger disappointment in the evening was when we told the details of our mission to the elders at the dinner table and our uncle told us that there are no great white sharks in the Arabian Sea.

Childhood is so innocent and now, when all of us cousins are in different countries and haven't come together in years, these memories are a reminder of the good times we shared. Memories have a way of resurfacing and while I hadn't thought of those 'shark-hunt' meetings for years, they came back to me one evening as the twins were listening to the current nursery rhyme sensation, Baby Shark. At least the sharks have nothing to fear from this generation.   

Day 2 - Where I talk about my 8 years on Twitter

I was a Twitter junkie till a few months back. I checked Twitter first thing in the morning and several times during the day. It was my go to place for all kinds of news and without reading the newspaper or watching television, I knew what was happening in the city, the country and the world. And then one morning I realized that I'd turned into a sponge. I was just absorbing news,  updates, viewpoints, rants and letting it all affect me. Didn't I have enough stress of my own? Why was I increasing it ten times more by reading stuff I didn't agree with or found outright unacceptable at times? 

I got off Twitter. My account still exists and the app is still on my phone but I'm not clicking on it every time I turn on my phone. It was weird at first to not be abreast of what was happening in the world but at the same time, it was strangely liberating. I was free of hearing what others had to say and even though most of the people I follow are ones whom I like, they're still 'others' and I guess I'm at a point in my life where I don't want to hear what they have to say. Not because what they are saying is pointless or unimportant but because everything they say affects me deeply. 

Maybe being a new mom has made me sensitive and more fragile. Maybe seeing my grandparents grow old and helpless has made me sad and question the meaning of life. I don't know what it is but I just feel Twitter isn't the space for me at the moment. It's a great space and it's still my go to source when I need information but that's all it is at the moment. Nothing more, nothing less. 

How does social media affect your life? 

Day 1 -I return to the beanbag & talk about my twins

Day 1 of my return on the beanbag. May it be long-lasting. Amen!

It's not that I don't get little windows now and then during the day to write. It's just that somehow, after managing the twins most of the day along with juggling everything else in life, the brain refuses to get into creative mode. As soon as the twins doze off in the afternoon, my brain, too, goes into sleep mode and avoids any task which requires thinking/pondering/creating. Which is the reason why I've not come back to my writing even after a year and some months have passed since I've had my twins. 

Who are my twins? N & Z. Sister and brother. Two little bundles of energy, curiosity and of course, joy! Though when they sometimes wake me up in the middle of the night, joy is the last emotion I register. Being a parent is an experience unlike any other. It's the one job we don't get any formal training for even though it is the most important one we ever do. Taking care of a tiny being - of a minuscule human life who is completely dependent on you is the stuff of, honestly speaking, nightmares. Yet it somehow comes so naturally - or at least it did for me. I won't deny that it wasn't daunting and at times, frustrating, confusing and very tiring but I never really had to refer to a book for advice after the twins were born. Not that there is any shortage of advice in our society - from the mother-in-law to the maid, everyone is an expert when it comes to babies.

Alas, time is passing by too quickly and my babies are already 14+ months. I'm trying to capture their childhood in a little notebook which I've been keeping since their birth. It's a diary I'm keeping for them of their milestones, special events, achievements etc. I hope to give it to them on their 18th birthday. The problem is that there is the one notebook and both of them will want to keep it (or so I think!). Well, they can get copies made 'cause Mommy Shark gets to keep the original.