The college campus and everything I know in this strange land is quickly left behind. I sit in the back seat of the car next to one of my favourite relatives.

When I saw her on this continent for the first time, she seemed... different. Perhaps it was that I had never seen her in jeans before, or perhaps it was because the image of her sitting in the back seat of the her daughter's car contrasted so sharply with her social butterfly persona back in Karachi. But then she demanded a tour of my campus, asked lots of questions and delighted in everything I showed her and everything felt normal again.

She peers at me from over her glasses. "So," she says, "tell me about who you'll be rooming with next year. Did you pick him yourself?"

I nod and give her his name. She nods thoughtfully at his Muslim name.

"And why did you pick him?"

"Well because he's a practising -"

"Practising Muslim? Hmm, what do you mean by that?"

It takes me a split second to come up with an answer. Unfortunately, I start speaking before that has happened. "Well he prays and -"

The trap, however, has been sprung.

"Does he lie? Cheat? Does he say bad things about people? Does he steal? Fight? Is he a good person?"

Flustered, I nod slowly. "Yes, of course."

Satisfied, she turns away. I, too, turn to face the trees zipping by, silently grateful that such conversations and ideas do not exist solely in late-night conversations on the campus of a fancy, private liberal arts college, grateful that I have people like her in my family. Not everyone is so fortunate.

--

"How about these?" he says, handing me a pair of glasses. I replace them with my own and peer into a small mirror. Without the proper lenses, the whole world is blurry. For a proper inspection, I bring my face so close enough to the mirror that my breath fogs its surface. I make a noncommittal sound, take the glasses off, and place them in the small pile I've made for frames that have passed the first round of inspection.

"I like these, but they're a little too rectangular," I say. "I'm looking for something a little rounder."

He strokes his large, black beard, nods, and begins picking out glasses from a rack. While I wait, I look around the shop. The man's father, similarly bearded, sits in a corner reading something.

The sound of the front door opening - or rather, the intensification of the sound of Karachi outside - makes my head turn in the direction of the newcomer. Probably in his sixties, he walks in with a gait that may have been rolling and fluid in his youth. His hair is as white as his dark glasses are black, and his moustache is stubbornly in the middle of the two colours. He sends a loud greeting in our general direction.

"Assalaam alaikum." 


We all reply appropriately.

He then walks up to the counter and positions himself next to me and my pile of glasses. Taking of his dark glasses, he gives the man - who is still picking out frames with the right amount of roundness - a hard look. "Oho! Iss ko bhi maulvi bana diya hai?"

At this, the father walks to his son and thumps him on the back. "Haan ji, he is a haafiz now."

"That's very nice! Aik baat yaad rakhna. Aik dafa toh Quran tarjumay kay saath toh parhna chahiyay."

Two taken-aback beards bob slowly in agreement.

Somehow we always pick the very cold days to go out into the city. It was freezing that day. But it had to be done. I had run out of detergent and she needed eggs; we were planning to bake brownies for a friend's birthday that evening. The same friend had once told us that there was a Trader Joe's not too far away that was more well-stocked and significantly cheaper than the department stores closer to campus.

It was on the first bus that we realized that neither of us had remembered to bring gloves. The unusually mild Minnesotan winter that year had spoilt us, making us complacent in a land where every warm layer counted.

We waited at the bus stop where we'd switch buses for a while, rubbing hands and stamping feet. I pulled my phone out and checked the time. The bus wouldn't be arriving for another twenty minutes. It was too cold to sit around and the shop was only a few blocks away so we decided to get there on foot. 

Bad decision. 

After getting slightly lost and then getting back on track (but nowhere near Trader Joe's yet) we were cold and miserable. Giving up, we rushed to the first, tiny grocery store we saw. 

The walk back, however, was much worse. Since we were carrying plastic bags, there was no was we could keep our gloveless hands in our pockets to provide them some semblance of warmth. 

A few minutes of walking later, she stopped in her tracks, asked me to hold her bags for a minute and looked at her hands. 

"I can't feel them," she said. I looked at them. 

They were red and clawed. 

"Try moving them." We still had half the walk and a whole bus ride left. 

"I can't." She looked worried. 

We glanced around and decided to go to a small coffee shop a few feet away. 

Warmth.

We put our bags down and took seats and waited. After a few minutes, her hands didn't seem to be getting better. I could see panic in her eyes. We walked up to the counter and and she told a concerned bearded barrista what had happened. Without a pause, he filled a large paper cup to the brim with hot water and told her to hold it. 

All this while a man had been standing behind us. He cleared his throat and I turned around. He was wearing black, had spiky hair, and a wide smile. There was a hands-free phone headset plugged into his left ear. 

"You're at the right place at the right time," he beamed. He grinned at our nonplussed faces and gestured at the table behind him. A motley of about fifteen people was sitting, squished at a table that would have been hard-pressed to seat eight. "Today, we're having a conference for alternative healers," he said. "And we're here to help."

Fast-forward five minutes into the future and my friend was standing at the counter, clutching her cup of warm water while everyone at the table sat expressionless with their palms facing her, channeling their positive energy into warming her hands and I was trying my best not to grin. 

Soon the mixture of heat from the cup and the collective positive energy in the coffee shop worked its magic. We picked up our bags, thanked everyone and left, waving away invitations for tea.

Once outside, I smirked at her. "Do you believe?"

Snapshots of Fall

I

Applause greets me. They have been waiting for me and even though they do not yet know how to pronounce my name properly, one or two of them exclaim a butchered interpretation of it.

"You're here!"

"We were beginning to think you'd never show up."

"I'm so glad you finally made it."

Grinning, I take a seat as the class resumes. Yes, I have made it.

II

It is the time of the day when it's hard to tell if it's too late in the night or just too early in the morning.We sit cross-legged on the floor, each facing the other two, the points of a triangle, each representing one of the religions of Abraham. In hushed voices we speak, talking about the small, isolated differences in beliefs and practices, rites, rituals and stories amid a sea of many, many fundamental similarities. There is little doubt that we swim in tributaries of the same river.

We speak into the night.

The girl who has been working quietly at the table shuts her laptop purposefully, edges a chair towards us and sits down, chin resting on palm.

"This is just way too interesting."

Conversation continues. The girl's eyes move to follow the flow of words, spectators to a three-way tennis match.

A lull. Someone yawns. I check the time on my phone. It's late; I have to be up and about in a few hours.  Begging leave, I rise to my feet. The triangle breaks. One of the two gives me a sad smile and apologizes for keeping me up late. I wave the apology aside.

"This was important."

III

Lightdarklightdarklight. Music. Bad music. The only constant sources of light are the glowing bands around everyone's wrists and necks. People surround me. I can't really tell which ones are just staggering around and which ones are dancing. 

I stay for a while but it soon gets too crowded and hot and sweaty. Grabbing some like-minded people, I leave in search for something that fits my idea of fun. 

IV

I'm out in the city on my own for the first time. Even at half past four in the evening, downtown Minneapolis is pretty deserted. With hardly a car or a soul in sight, it seems like a scene out of some post-Apocalyptic movie, especially to someone used to the hustle and bustle of Karachi. The only person around is a middle-aged woman smoking on a bench next to the bus stop I'm standing at. 

I have one hand huddled in the pocket of my jacket and the other clutching my phone. I alternate hands whenever my vulnerable hand starts going numb. It's cold. 

I'm lost. I had not anticipated that the bus drivers would only mumble the name of each stop and, so, stayed on the bus much longer than I was supposed to. When I realized that, I panicked and got off at the very next stop. 

I check the time on my phone and then look at bus routes and timings on Google Maps. The bus seems to be late. 

In an attempt to stamp the cold out of my feet, I decide to walk around the bus stop. It is only then that I spot the bus I had been waiting for stop at a traffic light on the opposite side of the road. I've been waiting at the wrong bus stop. 

The traffic light turns green. 

My heart sinks as the bus jolts into motion. 

I break into a sprint. 

V

Chicago. H&M is a madhouse but my friends want to stay a little longer. Tired of awkwardly standing around, I walk out into Michigan Avenue and drown in a river of sights and sounds.  

People, hordes of them. Families. Couples. Businessmen. Window-shoppers. Women obscured by shopping bags. Hipsters. Accents. Hairstyles. Scarves worn in at least seven different ways. A sprinkling of Halloween costumes. A bride with her bouquet and groom and bridesmaids carrying the train of her white dress. Tourists with DSLRs for masks. So many iPhones. 

Fascinated, I try to guess the age, the gender, the sexuality, the socioeconomic standing, the religion and the ethnicity of everyone who walks by. I like putting things in boxes; boxes are easier to stack and organize. 

Lately, however, people have developed this tendency of not staying in the boxes I put them in. 

VI

I am terrified. I have no idea what had come over me when I decided to do this but here I am, at the gates of the Jewish Community Center. Apprehensively, I enter and find my way to the seminar room. 

Everyone here seems to know everyone else. With nobody to mingle with, I quietly take a seat. Part of me finds interest in the fact that I did not feel this alienated during my first few weeks at college, in a completely new country, far, far away from home. 

But then the lights dim and the speaker I came all the way here to listen to begins to speak. He's a Palestinian doctor and speaks of the loss of his wife and daughters due to bombing by the Israelis. He speaks, also, of forgiveness and understanding. He speaks of peace. 

We all melt together, differences set aside, into pure humanity. 

It took me a while to realize that the handful of fiery red trees sprinkled amongst the many, many green ones were not in full bloom but were, in fact, slowly going to sleep for the winter.

The fire of Fall had engulfed almost everything by the time my compass stopped spinning madly, pointing towards What on Earth am I doing here? one moment and This is where I want to be the next.

There are still days that set it aquiver, but those are becoming further and fewer by the week.

This is where I want to be.

KHI - DXB - AMS - MSP

Life is a whirlwind today.

Is this really happening?

They hang high in the air for a split second, brilliantly coloured baubles, vivid against the slate grey sky. Then, like rain, they fall to the earth, shattering on impact until the ground, stretching for miles and miles in all directions around me, is littered with the colourful remnants of broken dreams.

Undeterred by the constant bombardment, I continue my search and scan the glittering earth as I walk. I carefully pick my way to avoid treading on the already defeated dreams, but there are so many here that this cannot be completely prevented. The crunch of disappointment, the crinkle of hopelessness issue from under my shoes every few steps.

So many broken dreams. Seven billion people's worth of broken dreams.


This is beginning to feel futile. They all look the same, these dreams. I cannot possibly find my own and attempt to nurture it back to its wholesome form. I cannot tell one apart from the other, for while they might all appear in different shades and colours, they all share a fundamental similarity. They are all worthless, sent here only to be forgotten.

I shake my head. This is futile. Maybe I should forget too, and move on.

I turn on my heel and head back.

I dream anew. Maybe this one will stay airborne. Maybe one day I will be able to return to this land of broken dreams, cradle my old, shattered ones in my hands and fondly remember the times we spent together.

My suitcase stands in the corner of my room, patiently waiting to devour the contents of my closet one day. Everything else is done, the vaccinations, the paperwork, all done. Now we're just waiting. Every night I fall asleep wrapped up in a blanket of hope for the coming morning; every noon, I wake up and as I check the time on my phone, the same blanket becomes a shroud of disappointment.

It's too late in the day. Were today the day, I would have known by now. The office closes after noon. 


I await a call from the US Consulate telling me that my passport is ready with a visa stamped on it and that I may pick it up, a call that is the only thing that stands between me and the kind of education I have been dying to immerse myself in for months.

I have been waiting for over two months now, and the next few days will decide whether or not I will be on board when the plane leaving for St Paul, Minnesota takes off.

Today, however, was different. I woke up at around midday as usual, flung a heavy arm towards the bedside table, plucked my phone from it and saw that it was 12:32 PM. No missed calls from strange numbers. Nothing. But before my blanket became an envelope of tangible, weighty, constricting disappointment, I cast it aside.

There is a certain feeling of liberation that comes with the knowledge that you have done everything necessary to achieve something and now the final outcome depends upon variables you have no control over, and a certain giddy joy that I welcome with open arms. August has not been a kind month. Between wearing away the floor of my room with my incessant pacing and constantly checking the calendar, fearfully ticking each day off, between doctor appointments where I'd be told that stress had made my blood pressure rise and frequent, random outbursts of anger, time has both lingered on forever and rushed by impossibly fast. Now, though, I feel at peace. I have let go.

Life has not been particularly cruel to me now that I look back at the eighteen years I've been around for. In fact - and I say this with both gratitude and a little bit of shame - the cruelest moments of my life have been receiving bad grades or something else along those very lines. In a way, that seems to mean that things have favourable odds of working out for me. But if they don't... I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.

With that in mind, I think it will be easier for me to bear the brunt of whatever, good or ill, happens, and make the most of my situation. To thrash and cry and vow to be unhappy and unforgiving if things don't go your way is to lose, to fail, to not deserve any more than what you got.

So, dear life, it's your turn to roll the dice. I'll be alright.

Leaving Lyceum

With close ties to the family that owns and runs the school, as well as a parent who teaches there, I have been acquainted with Lyceum far longer than most of the students who walk its corridors. I have seen the various buildings it has occupied over the years, met with most of the teachers, and watched (almost) every play the students have put on in the past decade.

When I was little, my mother would sometimes pick me up from school and take me to Lyceum if she had unfinished business to complete, an exam to invigilate or a meeting to attend. Sometimes I would tag along when the second-year Biology students went to the beach for their class trip. It was there that I saw the genuine smiles on the students' faces, saw that happy they were and saw, also, the ties between then, bonds which were strong, permanent, palpable. It was there that I fell in love.

It was there that I sealed my fate and decided that Lyceum was for me. 

Two years ago, I walked through the doors of this school expectant. I was ready to make life-long friends, ready for adventure, ready to grow. I was ready for Lyceum. 

Or so I thought. 

In retrospect, I was not. Changes needed to be made.

I came to Lyceum slightly smug and quite self-assured. I had topped my class as far back as most people could remember. I had done so effortlessly. I had even been called by the Principal once and, in front of everyone, been declared an asset to the school. My old school. Lyceum, however, was much, much different. Humility was hammered into me as soon as I realized that almost everyone of my new classmates - every God damn one of them - had been just like me. Class toppers, chart toppers, my classes were all full of them. Suddenly I wasn't above standard. I was standard. 

I came to Lyceum with a habit of judging people. Sometimes I would come across a seemingly unremarkable person and instantly deem them unworthy of attending such an institution. You do not belong here, I would think. But then they would go ahead and do or say or write something - anything, a gesture here, a word there - that would blow my mind with its brilliance. I am ashamed to say that this happened many times before my habit deadened. 

I came to Lyceum without a clue of how true friendship worked. I expected people to just click and be friends. Forever. Initially, I had big doubts about the group of people I suddenly found myself with. I found it difficult and uncomfortable to be myself around them for some reason or the other. At times I even considered leaving them altogether and trying my luck elsewhere. But something made me stay. And I'm glad that it did. By the end of my first year, when I had begun to loosen up a little, I realized that I loved them dearly. All of them. It was through this experience that I learnt how to be proactive when it came to making friends and not wait around for it happening by chance. Even today, I surprise myself sometimes by how easily I have started to make friends. There are people out there who I've known for a painfully short time but feel like I have been with for years. 

Once I had been... altered, I became attuned to the magic of Lyceum. It was everywhere, in Bashir Bhai's greasy food, in the constricted corridors, on the benches, under the mooras, everywhere. 

I had what I had asked for, life-long friends (who are permitted to hunt me down and beat me up if I ever lose touch with them), adventures and growth.

I came to Lyceum one person. In less that forty-eight hours, I graduate. I am leaving Lyceum another person.

I am leaving Lyceum, but Lyceum will not leave me. 

An undulating mass of people, vehicles and bloated shopping bags throngs the street, every square inch of it. We're all looking outside the windows of our car, our eyes sweeping for a potential parking spot. No luck. There's no space at all.

"We shouldn't have come this early."

I check the digital display of the clock on the dashboard. It's 1:30 AM.

My parents stare wide-eyed at all the activity going on around us. I hear someone mutter the word deewanapan. I sigh inwardly. After living in Karachi for so long, I wonder how anyone could still be amazed by this. This is Karachi. The city that never sleeps.

We find a place to park in some random gali and then proceed to pick our way through the muddy, post-rain streets as we walk towards the restaurant (read: dhaaba). It's a shabby place. Only men lounge about on the ground floor. There's also some tables upstairs, 'for families only.' We make our way up a flight of marble steps. The din of people and cutlery meets my ears. There's no space to breathe. It's 2 AM now. A family of about seven suddenly gets up from their table, done with their food. We rush to grab their seats.

The table isn't exactly a pleasant sight. It's littered with used napkins, spilled water, bits of bread and the occasional squeezed lemon. A waiter appears and hurriedly sweeps the stuff aside with a dirty wet rag. We take our seats, careful not to rest our elbows on the table and order our food. Another waiter brings out a silver pitcher full of water and some glasses. We look at each other and order mineral water; small bottles so nobody has to use the glasses. The food arrives almost instantly. The steaming hot nihari and the crispy naan fresh out of the tandoor are delicious. Of course it's not easy eating while making sure nothing touches the table.

I look about the room. Most people sit comfortably cross-legged, with their slippers on the floor and their plates in their laps. I feel out of place with my bright green Converse shoes and my thoughts forming in English.

It's funny, in that utterly un-amusing way, how life suddenly steps in and forces you to change your perspective. It's funny how one minute you're bitching to yourself about how tough life has become, about how hectic your A2 year is, about how college applications, SATs, the tons of homework you get, and the many extra curricular activities you've somehow wound up with are slowly tearing away at your essence and then the next minute you realize how trivial and petty your grievances are and how you cannot even begin to imagine what some people might be going through that day.

It's also funny how no one is laughing.

Crumbling

What do you do when the pillar that stood strong and firm all your life, the pillar you imagined would stay that way forever, begins to show signs of age? What do you do when you see cracks in its once flawless surface? You probably always had a feeling, deep down, that one day that pillar would no longer be there to keep the sky  from crashing down on you, but what do you do when you realize that it crumbles faster than you thought it would? What do you do when you realize that the day the pillar finally falls isn't obscured by the unfathomable mists of the future but could be tomorrow?

Emergence

So yeah, I started a blog. Here it is. I've been meaning to start one for a long time but I never really came around to doing it. I guess I never really needed one; I have blogged for as long as I can remember, not in digital form, and most certainly not on paper, oh no - my perfectionist self would maim too many sheets of precious paper before I'd be able to produce an 'acceptable' amalgam of my thoughts. I've always done it in my head, etching each vague, amorphous idea into the inside of my skull in sentences complete with parentheses and semi-colons.

Lately, however, I haven't been able to treat every single stray thought in this way. The unlucky ones saturate my brain, randomly materialising every now and then, screaming at me to chronicle them so that they may rest in peace. I'm ashamed to say, 'There is just too much going on,' because there is not. I have probably made myself permeable to the screams of these thoughts so I may divert myself from the haunting calls that resonate from the pile of textbooks making my desk groan at this very moment.

I am letting trivial things grab my attention so I don't have to face the important ones glaring right at me. Important is such an objective word. Important for me? Important for my future? Probably, but only as long as I am part of the system.

But now that the ugly monster has come so close, ignoring it would be sheer stupidity. Only the fit and the well-prepared survive in this world. I must stop my rambling and take the bull by the horns.

Perhaps this will be where the moaning phantoms that endlessly haunt the passages of my mind will be put down to rest.