Earthquake Ordeal

No one should ever have to go through what I did that night. I was eight and we were in LA, California at the time.

I heard loud screams of my parents yelling at us to wake up. My father's hand grasped my arm firmly and yanked me out of bed. I hadn't even woken up properly and struggled to understand what was going on. I stumbled to find my footing as he pulled me out of the room. I screamed in pain as the friction from the carpet burnt my knees. I got up ran with my father. I looked back and saw my mother as she followed us with my sisters in her arms.

It took a while for me to snap out of my state of slumber and realize what was going on - it was an earthquake.

I held my father's arm with both hands firmly as we ran through our corridor into the kitchen towards our back door which led out into our open backyard. We were running in zigzags as we struggled to find a firm footing as we made our way out. I realised we weren't even running -we just couldn't. The ground beneath our feet wasn't swaying, it was vibrating. All the crockery in the shelves and the kitchen cabinets were tinkling in their places against each other. I still remember that tinkling sound and it was eerie and horrifying. Since houses there are built mostly of wooden the whole house creaked and shook. Windows shattered in their frames. We made it out into our backyard and onto our driveway and stood close to each other as the ground shook beneath us. I could see other families had come out and stood in the middle of the street huddled together. The deep pitched roar of an earthquake is unlike anything you could ever hear in your life. I could hear the asphalt road crack beneath us. Children crying and car alarms blazing. We stood there just waiting for it all to end.

Perfect Day

Taha and Sufyan gave us all a birthday treat today. As always we had our fair share of fun with our own brand of shenanigans. There is seldom a dull moment when we're all together.

I went about taking pictures as always.

Later Danish and Nayab gave us the news of their engagement which was a very pleasant surprise. Most of us couldn't even believe it and took a while to digest the news.

Umair thought Danish and Nayab were getting married separately and on the same date xD

I know what I'm doing

Norms…This conforming to a standardised set of beliefs among the people around you. Alright, so I messed up a couple of years of academics to fall behind. So what?? I am going to turn 25 this June and I just graduated. Most of the friends I knew graduated when they were 22 and went on to do their masters and graduated from that at the age of 24. I get the “Sharam kar!” from the much younger friends I have at university so much that they gave up saying it altogether. That’s because it doesn’t bother me; the whole age thing? It never did.

I have always proceeded with the things I had a special interest in. If I had buckled under societal norms and peer pressure I would have probably been majoring in finance with them. One of my good friends, Pappy as we affectionately call her is a prime example of how one succumbs to pressure coming in from family and peers both. She went along and chose finance as her major and later regretted it. A semester later she was sitting beside me in my marketing classes. How she scored a B in the finance course she took still eludes her.

“Finance kar le, behtar hai. Aagay chal kar faida hota hai, high paying jobs milti hein, kar laiiii”

I probably heard this phrase a thousand times from my friends when the time came to choose my majors in the final year of my undergraduate program. The idea of sitting behind a desk holding a calculator doing taxes and audits just doesn’t sound appealing to me. Which is why I was drawn to marketing and advertising. Now there was something I could indulge in. Practical application of your perception and ideas.

Versatility is what I’m aiming for at this point. I’ve applied to colleges in Canada pursuing courses in creative advertising and graphics design in hopes to explore my potential since I have always been able to draw and sketch exceptionally well without the aid of arts classes of any sort. Besides that I am learning french from Alliance Franciase Karachi. Learning different languages has always fascinated me. And if I have it in me I shall keep pursuing to learn even more languages.

Bottom line is I know what I’m looking for in life, even if its a little late. I’m still going to go after it. So instead of prodding me with forks of “Sharam kar!” ask yourself whether you’re truly sure with what you want in life and are you happy with where its headed.

Kill the banana peel

I was making my way to the grocers one day, when I saw this old man across the road, probably in his late 60s. He wore a shabby old shalwar kameez with a dirty piece of cloth hung over his shoulder. His skin darkened from the blistering Karachi sun. As he made his way down the footpath, he noticed a banana peel lying right in the middle of the sidewalk. Now, one would expect that he’d just pick it up and throw it aside, or better yet…just push it aside using his foot.

I don’t know what unfortunate occurrence this poor chap had had in the past involving a banana peel. Maybe he slipped on one and went tumbling down a flight of stairs. I don’t know. But this man, he advanced towards the banana peel like a soldier would towards an enemy in close combat and began pummeling it. He pounded it into the cement sidewalk with the heel of his foot like a lunatic. He kept on driving it into the floor until he was convinced he had wiped the damned banana peel off of the face of the Earth. He adjusted his ragged old cloth over this shoulder with a satisfied look on his face and continued down the walkway.

I stood there with a blank expression on my face for a few minutes before I too made my way to the grocers with laughing voices inside my head.