Yesterday morning, long before the sun shone its first ray, I turned 25.
Now I am not one to talk about myself…even when asked, which by the way annoys Janay Dude. But 25 is a big milestone don’t you think and looking back at all that I have lived for, I feel like I owe myself at least one post.
I had to really nudge my memory for this one because I wanted to record snippets of some of my good memories lest I forget.
1984 – Was born in Quetta, Baluchistan.
1985 – Apparently, the room heater attracted me enough to touch it and I burnt my hand. This was only the beginning of my curiosities.
1986 – Somehow I still remember my beloved teether. It had a delicate baby blue chain that I always had around my neck.
1987 – I’ll have to revert to the old photo albums. I don’t remember anything from this year.
1988 – Younger sister,
Izzah, was born in
Rawalpindi, in January. I remember there was a bush outside our home wall that had small orange flowers on it.
1989 – I tried to be friends with some of the geese near our home. Apparently they didn’t like the idea too much because they smacked me with their beaks until I ran back home.
1990 – We went to spend our holidays at my maternal uncle’s home in Cavalry, Lahore. We used to watch ‘He-Man’ (what a funny name for a cartoon hero) and ‘Thunder Cats’ on television every morning. I remember my cousin, Ali, was so engrossed in the cartoon that he hadn’t noticed a black ant walk into his sandwich until it bit him on the tongue.
1991 – I hit my head against the wall while playing ‘Dark Room’ with friends. Ami and Daddy were out for an official dinner and they returned to find me at the neighbor’s house with a bandaged head. I hadn’t cried at all through the collision or the stitches, but when the kind lady at my neighbor’s offered me a glass full of milk, egg and turmeric powder to make me feel better, I cried because I didn’t want to have it.
1992 – We had a big house in Bannu where Daddy was stationed at the time where we kept lots of pets; 33 pigeons, 4 cranes, some chickens and a pair of turkeys.
1993 – Nana Abu, my maternal grandfather, who was very proficient in Urdu, English and Persian, taught me the difference between “R” and “r” in Urdu language. He kept asking me to repeat words like ‘baarish’, ‘sarak’ and ‘rungeen’. He also taught me to write Urdu properly. He said, to be illiterate under the shade of literacy was the biggest crime.
1994 – We lost my elder sister,
Summayyah, in November. I remember that night.
Ami and Daddy had promised to take us along to visit her in the hospital the next morning. Me and my sisters had just completed drawing into our hand made Get Well Soon cards,
Apa called bed time, we had just changed into our nightwear when Mama, my aunt, came running upstairs…
1995 – My passion for writing was fueled; amongst many essays and poems that I wrote, I complied with some of my class fellows who wanted me to write a poem on them. The poems were so stupid I can’t even write them here out of embarrassment.
1996 – I finally, involuntarily, moved on from Enid Blyton. For the record, I still miss the books.
1997 –This was the only year I scored 85% in Mathematics, the highest I would ever achieve; My maternal uncle, who we call Abu, passed away.
1998 – Moved to Okara, naturally hated it; Suffered from a mild dose of Hepatitis but it took me about two months to recover.
1999 – Survived Okara; Nana Abu got diagnosed with Cancer.
2000 – We lost Nana Abu in May, I remember feeling completely helpless when I saw him on the hospital bed; Moved to Rawalpindi; Completed my Matriculation from school; Enrolled in college to study for my B.Sc. Home Economics; met my future best friend Hina.
2001 – I had opted to take ‘Anatomy & Physiology’ instead of ‘Urdu’ but the course was taken by the college nurse and she always let us go after having us read out two pages of the course book. So every other day, about twelve minutes later into the class, I used to join my friends in ‘Urdu’. That teacher never figured out I wasn’t actually part of the class and she let me read out loud the essays and poems in our course book.
2002 – My Chemistry teacher and I shared a mutual hate, which grew by the day. She referred to me as ‘mohtarma’ and I referred to her as ‘whatever’.
2003 – Apa got married. We had the time of our lives and I made sure every member of the family participated. I didn’t have to force them too much though because it was the first wedding of our generation and spirits were high.
2004 – Graduated from College; Attended YLC: Went to Kinnaird, Lahore, to study for my Master’s degree; Went to perform Umrah with family and was enchanted by the Holy Kaa’ba in Makkah; Also had the time of our lives trying to get Nano through all the escalators.
2005 – My darling
nephew was born in December;
Ami couldn’t stop crying when she told me over the phone that night. I was having my Mid Term Exams at the time but since I had one day off, and because I was completely ecstatic, I took an early Daewoo bus (5.00 am) to
Islamabad. Daddy picked me up from the terminal and we talked about how Yahya looked all the way to the hospital. I was overjoyed. The next morning (5.00 am again) I took a bus back to college.
2006 – Completed the two best years of my academic life; Graduated from Kinnaird; Went to Haramosh on a trekking trip, saw an avalanche, got a sprained ankle in the Gilgit hotel on our way back, found Kara Koram Highway blocked by landslides and a swept away bridge, trekked through it all ON my swollen ankle which I sprayed numb every fifteen minutes, helped our trekking instructor escape out of a quagmire, since we had left our coaster behind, we returned home via Speedy Gonzales a.k.a. Niazi Express bus, its wicked.
2007 – This was a difficult year; I left my first job because I hated the hypocrisy of real estate; lost my cousin
Uxi in a tragic road accident; Three days later, we lost
Dado, my paternal grandmother; Went back to thinking of the people I had hurt in the past and much to their confusion, I apologized; Found another job in September; and in an astonishing turn of events, I got engaged in December.
2008 – Fell in love with Janay Dude and found a life long best friend in him; My dear niece was born in June, in Australia, so I couldn’t be there but my mother and younger sister went, Usman
bhai,
Apa's husband, named her
Summayyah, after our late sister, it was very emotional for the whole family; we finally moved in our own home, one that Daddy put years into saving up for, thinking and developing; I also got married the same month, in October.
Here’s to new beginnings…
