Post # 29 - The Real Monsters aren't wearing Costumes

I recently re-read George Orwell’s 1984. It wasn’t an easy read and maybe I might never have re-read it had it not been the October selection for the DWL Karachi Readers’ Club which I moderate. If you’ve read it you’ll immediately understand why it’s a difficult read. It is a bleak, dark book which depicts the worst in all of us. It makes you cringe with fear and doubt because of the one question that seems to scream out from every page - what if this happened to me?

The book covers torture in detail and though nothing gruesome is described, there is enough to make you wonder what happened to the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. One of the torture methods described in the book is taking prisoners to a place called Room 101. Here the prisoners are made to face and experience their worst fears. It might be the fear of drowning, of fire, of starvation or like in our protagonist’s case, a fear of rats. The book shows how a human being is willing to go to any length, is willing to betray anyone, is even willing to have his family slaughtered rather than face his/her worst fears. 

My worst fear, for the longest of time, was numbers. Any mention of math froze me. Studying math was my worst nightmare. Math exams felt like facing a shooting squad. Discussing the paper afterwards felt nothing short of an interrogation. I think if I was taken to Room 101 during my student life, I’d have come face to face with complex mathematical equations. 

Fear can be of anything. Growing up another fear I had was of the video camera. This was during the 90s when mobile phones existed only in books or movies and the handy-cam was all the rage. My cousins had one and their favourite thing was not just to make a movie of get togethers but also to immediately connect the camera to the television and make everyone watch it. I was never photogenic and a combination of bad skin, frizzy hair and ill fitting clothes made viewing myself on a large screen even worse. When the handy-cam used to come out at family gatherings I tried to avoid it as much as possible, ducking into another room or covering my face with a book or a newspaper. I never fully escaped it though. Big Brother always managed to get me. 

I was never afraid of the dark or of sinister creatures hiding under my bed. I was afraid of being judged and criticised. I was afraid of sharing my writings - both prose and poetry with others and this fear is still there. For the longest time I was afraid of not blending in with the majority.

Unlike vampires, witches, zombies, ghouls or banshees, these are solid fears. These fears can actually shape us and if not checked, can define us. Now my biggest fear is parenthood. Whether I’m doing right by my children and being a good mother to them? It’s very easy to tell them the boogie man is coming if they mis-behave but inculcating fear into them of other creatures who are different can plant a seed of distrust which can snowball into something more complex as they grow older. My daughter is already a bit scared of the dark - I don’t know how it happened but it has and now I have to, somehow, help her overcome it. She isn’t afraid of dogs. Nor is her brother. And the way they play and run after our pet cockatiel makes us worry about the safety of the poor bird!

Fear is not a bad thing as long as it doesn’t take over our lives. Being afraid isn’t a handicap as long as you have the courage to address that fear and overcome it. And what I’ve realised is that one cannot live a wholesome life if there is a fear of failure or judgment haunting us at each step. So, this halloween, tell all the scary monsters to go away. 

Post # 28 - Finding Your Story

We start weaving our stories the very day someone asks us, what do you want to be when you grow up? Growing up, this was my least favourite question (read an earlier post I wrote here). No matter what answer I gave, nothing seemed to please the grown ups. I always wanted to be a writer but when I used to say it out loud the usual response was yes, that’s nice but what is it that you want to do when you GROW UP? Their complete disregard of my writing ambitions confused me. It made me feel inadequate and somehow in the wrong. So I changed writer to scientist. At five years of age I had no real idea of what a scientist does except a  vague notion that he/she goes into space. The answer worked and the grown ups, except for some annoying ones who pressed me for more details, were generally impressed or amused or both. 

Our environment often starts killing our story before we even get around to writing it. 

Here’s my story. I loved to read and write. At age six or maybe seven, I was creating my own stories and telling them to whoever cared to listen. I went everywhere with a bag, an old Saudi airline one, with my stash of books and stationery items. If we were visiting a house without kids our age, I usually sat in a corner of the room (under my mother’s eye of course) and busied myself with the contents of my bag. Sometimes, I wish I could do the same even now!

I grew up in the 80s in a regular Pakistani household. At that time the focus was only on studying, getting good grades and choosing a rewarding profession. That reading and writing could become a profession was something nobody thought of, least of all me. Instead of being proud of my creative endeavours, I was mostly ashamed of them. Reading and writing was all very good but if you barely passed in the math exam in grade 8th, nothing else mattered. I know it’s important to get good grades in math but how come nobody berates a math genius for being below average at writing stories? 

Stories aren’t important. Math is. 

Which is why I never showed the novel I had completed in grade 8th to anyone. I was ashamed of it. I didn’t make a stand and say, so what if I barely cleared the math exam - I’ve written this novel. I’ve created something. But I was afraid. I didn’t have the courage at age thirteen to talk about this beautiful story I had written. Instead I destroyed it, page by page in the small pond in our backyard. 

We can’t write our stories in isolation. We also can’t write our stories if we’re governed by fear of being judged and shunned. Most of us never get to write our stories, our way - we just follow a socially approved narrative. 

Which is why I didn’t fight against all odds and become the writer I wanted to be. I was always afraid to be a non-conformist. I was afraid of doing something which might generate comment. For the longest time my greatest fear was not of failure but of others. It is still there because such fears are hard to get rid of but its impact on my life is almost negligible, thanks to the love and support of my husband (who never really concerns himself much with the opinion of others!)

But growing up there weren’t many people who were willing to allow me this leverage. I followed a very traditional academic path and finally graduated from one of the top business schools of Pakistan. Even during my time there I dreamt of working as a journalist or a writer. Immediately after graduation I got a chance to work with an amazing editor for a fashion magazine. And you know what I did? I walked away. All the voices around me kept saying things like, you’ll work for such a small sum in a magazine place? With this degree you’re going to just sit in an office and write articles? Will they be providing pick and drop? I got a chance to re-write my story and I screwed it. 

But life works in mysterious ways. Even when we think we’ve reached a dead end, it gives us another chance to re-write our story. 

Are we ever in control of our story? My answer is yes, we are always in control of our stories. Even if external factors create situations which aren’t to our liking or which tend to make us deviate from our plot line, we can still be in control of certain aspects of our story. We can choose to be the hero of our tale or we can choose to be the victim. The latter role means we’ve surrendered our story to the powers that be. So many of us who choose to be the victims of our tales end up empty from the inside - never living to our fullest potential. I know it because I’ve succumbed to playing the victim card. It’s a miserable state and while in it, I did lose control of my story. So how did I regain control of my story and come back in the driving seat? The answer is simple. I started contemplating on my mortality. 

There is nothing which shakes you to your very core than the thought of death. 

Me =Writer. Reader. Traveller. Flower lover. Photographer. 

We all have to die one day and we all assume it’s sometime in the distant future. But death doesn’t work that way. And when you start thinking in this manner, the layers of doubt start to peel off. You dig out your superhero costume from the corner of your inner being and start living your life on your terms. At least that’s what I’m doing at the moment. I’m re-writing my story once again. It’s arduous and daunting but it’s also very liberating and fulfilling. And that’s how life should be.

Own your story. All of it. The good parts, the regrets, the achievements, the failures - embrace them all. Forget about what the world thinks of you, how do YOU perceive yourself? What is the role you’re playing in your own story? Are you the victim or the hero? Above all, be honest with yourself. Only then you’ll be able to change your narrative. And if you’re able to change your narrative and re-write your story, you can change your life. You really can. 

Post # 27 - The Power of Stories

What is a story? A couple of thousand words printed in a book form? A re-telling of fables and folklores? A collection of characters who are assigned roles and thrown into situations by the writer? A lot of us tend to disregard stories - we feel they are not necessary or important in our lives. Which is quite ironic because we are surrounded by stories. No matter where we come from, what our lineage is, whether we’re brown, black or white, or who we worship - stories are an integral part of our lives. 

A good story is a wonderful thing.  

For me, personally, a good story is one which stirs up something inside. A story which makes me question life and the choices we make. A story which gives me a glimpse of other worlds and lives. Characters form a very pivotal point for me in any story and I find the best stories to be the ones which have characters I can a) relate to or b) derive inspiration from or c) develop feelings (admiration, hatred, love, sympathy) for. It doesn’t matter what the genre of the story is - strong characters and a solid plot line create impactful stories. 

I’ve always loved creating stories. I think being a reader from a very young age inspired me to write. But now I find it a bit of a struggle to write stories. It’s not a case of lacking ideas but more a case of trying to please everyone but myself. Growing up I never had this concept of writing for others. I wrote stories which pleased me, which made me happy. Now, it’s all about what will ‘sell’ and be lapped up for publication. Which, I’ve finally realised, is not the route for me.

The thing with stories, I feel, is that they belong to you only for a limited time. If you don’t write the story, someone else will. It won’t be yours forever. Which is a good thing because stories need to be told. Their power is immense and long 

lasting. Sometimes a story makes you feel something, sometimes it teaches you an important lesson and at times they inspire and uplift your mood. 

I’ve been thinking of stories and their sources for some time. The stories I wrote or narrated in my teens, the stories which I’ve heard from my elders - you know, the stories of incidents and events which get passed down from one generation to the next, each generation adding more to the original narrative? Recently I came across this quote in Iris Murdoch’s book, The Black Prince, which made me sit up and collect my thoughts on storytelling.

‘Only stories and magic really endure.’

And sometimes, the magic lies in the story. In fact, I think it’s sheer magic that helps stories last so long. There’s something almost magical in the process of writing a story and creating a world of characters and events which lasts, in some cases, forever. What is the one book you've read which has never left you? Or a character who you wish was not fictional? Or the story you turn to again and again, never getting tired of reading the same words for the nth time?

[Next post: Creating our own personal stories and how writing the right story can change our life.]