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 # 23 - birthday wishes

I was into fantasy fiction and role-playing from a young age. Probably because I read the abridged version of Tilism-e-Hoshruba when I was around nine. My imagination was also a wild one and often playing alone in the garden at my grandmother’s house in Karachi I’d enact fantasy stories of my own. One of them which I distinctly remember was of me as the queen of the snakes with a deadly cobra (invisible to the world) by my side who was my protector and wazir. My favourite pastime during long hot afternoons was to sit in a secluded spot in the house and solve all world problems with my retinue of snakes. 

I never shared this with my cousins because girls of my age were more into fairies and less into snakes. Whenever we played a game that involved fairies I was the evil one who was defeated and either shunned or forgiven if I turned over a new leaf. At the end of every fairy game one of my cousins used to make a wish. Right smack when the maghreb azaan started, she would close her eyes and bring her hands together and whisper something. For a few days I let her be but then my curiosity got the better of me. Turned out she was making a wish to become a fairy because she believed that wishes made at maghreb always came true (try telling this to a nine year old now). 

I can still recall the scene as if it happened yesterday. She made me wish too but little did she know that I didn’t wish to become a fairy. I wanted to be the Queen of Snakes, the master controller, the woman everyone feared and revered. Alas, no deadly cobra came to my bedside swearing allegiance the following night.

When this memory floated into my mind in the morning today, I thought how the media (books, movies and now the internet) construe our image of a being. Not all fairies are sweet little creatures and not all snakes are evil. In our folklore djinn often assume the shape of snakes and come to warn humans of a catastrophe. There is one thing though, a good fairy is a good fairy and a python is a killer snake, unless it’s a djinn. Can we say the same things about us humans? 

Sometimes I wonder who I am? More importantly, who do I wish to be? Do I still want to be the saviour of mankind with my snake army? What about the other avatars I’m trying on - the writer, the yogi, the makeup artist? Do I choose or wish for one or can I be all three? 

Even though maghreb time has long gone by as I type this paragraph, I still want to make a wish on the eve of my birthday. I wish to be everything I ever wanted to be and more importantly, I wish for patience and perseverance to see my wishes come through in the coming year. Happy birthday to me I guess! 

Thirty days to a new-ish me

There was a time when writing here wasn't so difficult. The blog is an online diary of sorts which one mostly writes for oneself but also with a faint hope that someone out there in cyber-space will read it, like it, share it and comment on it! Which, of course, doesn't happen all of the time. Or in my case, MOST of the time. And you know in the initial days of blogging, it really didn't matter. What was important for me was to write everyday. No, that isn't correct. Let me rephrase it. What was important for me was to write what 'I wanted' everyday. Over the last year or two, I've become so affected by what other people will think about me, I've not done any 'honest' writing here. When I do write it's with so many ifs and buts in mind that I usually end up not writing a single word. 

I've been struggling with writing for almost my entire life. And isn't it dumb that I'm always thinking about writing but never end up doing it? Maybe I haven't been true to myself about what I really, really want to write about. Do I want to write epic fantasies or chick-lit novels or maybe, literary fiction (gulp!)? Maybe all three or none of the above? 

While driving the other day I heard one of the RJs on City FM 89 say something like how Ramzan is sort of a break from our everyday, all year round-the-clock routine. It's true. For thirty days we get a chance to unwind a bit and get our shit together. Some of us find this the best time to lose weight while others consider this as a chance to reconnect with God. And I thought that maybe THIS Ramzan I, too, can change. No Ramzan Reading Challenge this month, oh no! What I want is to feel different after these thirty days are over. I'm sure I won't turn into a completely different person and that's not what I'm aiming for also. Maybe someone who is at peace with who she is; mind, body and soul. Yup. A simple goal during the one blessed month we have all year. Besides my birth month, of course!

The importance of creation

Creating stories was a part of my life since a very young age. As a little girl of five or six I had this habit of telling stories to whoever cared to listen. Most of these stories were made on the spot or were a mixture of stuff I read. Mostly unsuspecting aunts and uncles became a victim of these sessions. Some, like my dear youngest Chacha Jeff, encouraged me immensely and I distinctly remember sitting in my eldest phuppi's big living room, telling some spur-of-the-moment-created story to him.

The love for reading came at a very early age too. It seems I was born with it. Maybe the reading genes of all my ancestors from both my parents' sides came into me. And of course, when a person is a reader, he/she naturally wants to write. 

Although the love for stories and storytelling was something I identified with at a very young age, the ability to transfer that onto paper was something I failed at. I've been thinking about this for a while now. Writers create stories from fragments of life around them. Some stories come from experience, others from observation, and some from a combination of both. Sometimes a certain setting inspires a story, at other times a memory. One of the first stories I wrote, and that too for a writing competition in school, was about the pets of my friend and neighbour who also happened to be in the same class as myself. In the story the pets, two rabbits, drowned. The story almost won, I forget why. However, I was asked to read it out to the entire school, which I did and found myself at the receiving end from my friend. In fact, he was so upset that I had killed his pets (even if in a story) that he said something like I deserved not to win.

That hurt. 

Maybe it's that fear of hurting others or more importantly, being judged for what I write, that has held me back. There is this thought, always, at the back of my mind about the audience, whether it is the unknown reader or the friend. 

This fear, more than anything, is what had crippled me as a writer. It is still very much present, filling me with doubts and anxiety. Nobody will read your work. The world doesn't need your stories, it has better ones out there. The truth is that yes, there are better stories out there and yes, maybe no one will ever read my work. But that doesn't mean I stop the process of creation. After all these years, and more recently, weeks of agonising over this, I've realised that I need to create. For myself. I have to write what I want to read. I have to write without shame, judgment and fear. And most importantly, I have to write because I do think I have a story to tell. 

Love Happens

When we fall in love, the scenery around us changes from bright colors and defined forms into fuzzy Instagram pictures.

I experienced life the Instagram way when I met my husband in Dec 2008. From the very first interaction, everything around me assumed hues of warm, endearing colors. Our courtship just lasted three months which, as my friend assured me the other day, was enough to lend excitement to my otherwise regular arranged marriage story.

I've been struggling to write about love. What made me believe, in a matter of a few weeks, that my husband was the one? Besides the common interests, love for books & theatre, what made me so sure that this person will keep me happy for the rest of my life? That he'll take care of my needs and support me in every way? That he'll be able to fulfill all those dreams and hopes that I had tucked away somewhere in my soul and forgotten about?

And my answer is simple. Nothing.

Love can come by when you're least looking for it. When I met Adnan, I had crossed our society's 'marriage-able age' mark. I wasn't on the look out for a Prince Charming myself and was ready to marry whoever my parents deemed fit for me. In this case, I must admit, I was very lucky because had my parents ever come under societal pressure, I shudder to think where I might have landed. 

I found love at the right time in my life and this love has made me a completely different person from who I was five years back. And that, I think, is what real love does. It makes you grow and blossom into the person you were always meant to be. And when a man loves and takes care of you when you're down with fever and throwing up in the toilet or when he doesn't snub you when you're complaining about a bad hair day or shares your enthusiasm for almost all your hobbies- you've found true love. 

Almost.

'The deepest love is not the most carefree.'

Travels with my Aunt - Graham Greene