It was 8:00 am and like always, I was late. "I had to be at the talk at around 9:45, but oh my, I woke up at 8:00", I said to myself, "for God's sake, hurry up.
You're speaking in this Ted Talk. I mean, wasn't this your all-time dream."
You're speaking in this Ted Talk. I mean, wasn't this your all-time dream."
To which my brain replied, "Hahaha! Yeah. But you know the rule, Ahmed, sleep rules over everything."
I jolted myself up from the bed and rushed into the bathroom, quickly dressed myself up. I didn't pay much attention to what I was wearing, and it was like I was just throwing clothes all over me. One after the other and then other until eventually, I looked in the mirror and found myself all ready and set for the talk. At least that's what I thought.
I didn't have much time, and I still have to prepare my speech; therefore, I opted for an Uber. Now, I am someone who uses Uber Pool and that too with walk option. But I was in a rush. I also knew opting for the usual would delay me to my first ever Ted Talk; therefore, I opted for an Uber Black.
It didn't take much time, and soon the app notified me that my Uber driver is waiting. I picked myself up from the couch I was seated on and made myself towards the door. One step after the other, with each step, I remembered how I envisioned this day and that each step created within me a feeling I couldn't comprehend. I felt ecstatic, yet at the same time, I felt nervous. No matter what I did, I couldn't calm my nerves down. It was that very moment I realized that apparently, all those mediation gurus were lying.
Stepping down, I looked around myself, it looked so beautiful today, even in the dreaded winters of New York City I felt pleasant. I walked over the ice, pull the lever, and sway opened the door, smiled, and said, "Hello! Good Morning".
"Good morning to you too," said the Uber handler, "where are we headed today?"
"Oh! New York University."
"Umm. You don't look like a student, though."
"Hahaha. You guessed it, right, bro! I am not."
"So, you teach there?"
"Ha-ha! No “.
"Then?"
"It's just that I am going to attend a Ted Talk there."
"Oh! I see! Who's coming today? Would I know someone?"
"Umm... well, let's see..." I mentioned a few names which I thought he might have known, but he didn't know anyone of them. Maybe, he might have been assuming someone from Hollywood; hence I didn't mention my name, but that ecstatic boy within me said, “... yeah, me too."
"What?"
"I mean, I am speaking today."
He looked at me as if he thought I was lying, but then he smiled and said, "you famous or something ?"
"Maybe! Maybe not. You don't know me."
"Well, I would love to know more about you?"
I looked at his enthusiasm, smiled, and said, "Yeah! Go ahead. Ask me what you want?"
"Everything, bro! Summarize your speech for me."
"Oh! I didn't have anything, just thought I'd prepare one in Uber."
"So? What are you waiting for? Go ahead, make one; I'll add what I think would be necessary and is missing."
I smiled and gathering all that I had to say. I began, "So I was born on the coldest night in the largest city of a country, just west of India, called Pakistan and city, well, it's called Karachi. I was the firstborn of the Athars. It's fabled that my parents had a love marriage. Still, the twisting part is they didn't have that typical protagonist of their family against their marriage. After a happy wedding, they chose to live in a rented house at one famous street in Karachi, 'Gulshan-e-Iqbal.’ The building was a renowned monument too, well that's what I think, and is called locally as, 'Bhayani Heights.' Now! I don't till to-date know what it means, so don't ask me, and apparently, Google is unknown too.”
He laughed and said, “I was just going to ask that, but anyway, continue.”
“Yeah! I might not know that, but I know for sure that my city is one of the famous cities of Pakistan. I mean, after all, I was born in the metro-capital of Pakistan. It was then known as ‘the city of light’ now I am not sure but anyhow. I was born in one of the largest hospitals, or rather, it wouldn't be incorrect if I brag and say I was born in the largest hospital in Pakistan. By largest, I mean in terms of size, health care, and other services.”
“Oh! So, your parents were rich, mate?” He asked with excitement.
“Well! That's one way of looking at it. Still, my mother was a high ranking federal employee. Her office was the one paying all the bills. Therefore, they had the liberty to choose whatever hospital they want, and they chose the best.”
“I see! Then?”
“Now! You'd expect that I was in a hospital famous for its health care, and hence I would have a perfect birth, but no! This isn't true. See, when I was born, I was premature, and my mother went into a cardiac arrest due to an allergic reaction. Thus, I was neglected this let amniotic fluid to fill in my lungs. As it was the coldest night, the wet lungs eventually resulted in me suffering from pneumonia.”
“Nah, man!”
“Yes! It looks dramatic, but it's true. But this is true for the majority part of my life. So, my mother was a working lady and my father? Well, he too tried to earn dimes each day. Therefore, the mornings of my infancy were with my aunts and maternal grandmother. This continued for a while until eventually, my parents asked each other, 'are you thinking what I am thinking?’ and finally, they sent me in for a pre-school. My pre-school is something I vaguely remember though till to-date I distinctly remember my first crush who studied there."
"Well! Who does not? Childhood love !"
"Right? I thought I was weird. Anyhow, soon after that, I got admission into ‘St. Michael's Convent school’ for my upper nursery.”
“But bro! I read your name on my device, it sure didn't look like a Catholic.”
“Well, it wouldn't because it's an Arabic name, and neither am I Catholic. See, you know British ruled back in Asia too, and we were their colony. They had all these schools opened there, and this was one of them. Again in my home, if you want your child to be good at English or extracurricular activities, you just close your eyes and choose either Karachi Grammar School or Convent schools. So, my parents opted for both; apparently, I got into the former one too. But as they had this long-lost dream of both of their children to be in the same school, so they opted for St. Michael's. How that made them happy is beyond my comprehension.
Anyhow, life at St. Michael's was very different than many schools in Pakistan. See, our school had this Cambridge's system of O-Level and A-Level and therefore from the very beginning we were made to prepare for them. That was considered one of the most robust school systems, at least when comparing it to the local Pakistani system of matric and inter. The difference was of mindset. From the beginning, we were thought a problem-solving approach counter the usual Pakistani approach of road learning.
Now, I wouldn't say our local system was terrible, it isn't. It's just like the imperial system and the metric system in America, where half of the world uses the metric system; here in The US, we never consider it. This doesn't mean that the imperial system is terrible, it's just that everyone has their own perception of things.”
“Oh! I see! That's amusing.”
“So! In our school, we were taught to balance studying and other extracurricular. I distinctly remember my parents trying for me to be part of at least one of the annual events that the school hosted. Therefore, I had a massive heap of certificates representing my participation in those events.
Now, I wasn't very good at sports unless it was swimming. I was three-years-old, and it was then when my mother thought I should learn swimming and believe me. I hated it initially as the coach, Hafez, was one tough guy. One day, I was too scared from the deep end of the pool, Hafez asked me to follow him towards the deep, and on reaching close by, he grabbed my hands. I was confident I am safe, but on reaching the deep end, he slipped his hand away, and there I was in deep with no support. I thought I'll sink and die, but I never knew that the adrenaline within me would somehow be able to take me back to the other end, shallow end. It's that day till today, my fear of swimming in deep waters is gone. Maybe that's the reason when I first went to Dubai, I was able to swim towards the farthest side of the permitted boundary of Jumeirah Beach. Building upon this same incident, I learned how to face my fears, and it literally worked for me each time. It’s simple: ‘just jump right into it.’”
“That’s great,” said the Uber handler with excitement.
“Well, I was a tranquil person all through my early school ages. I was more of a semi-introvert kind of person or as they call them now, ambivert. I had difficulties in making friends. I wouldn't lie, I had acquittances, but I wouldn't call them friends. I was more of a friend to my younger sister, and we were close and share things with each other a lot. Majorly, I loved playing video games, reading comics, goofing around with computers, and traveling. I am not sure would you believe me or not but installed my first operating system when I was three years old, and at that time windows, 98 had recently been out. It was then when I got my first computer an 8086, and from that onwards, my love for computer began.”
“What about travels?”
“Yeah! About them? Actually, my parents loved to travel in our summer and winter vacations. This created within me a love of traveling. Now, whenever I am presented with an option, I chose to go.
Anyhow, from my being an adolescent to me being a teenager, I had a lot of travel outside of Pakistan. Starting with Saudi Arabia and ending with Dubai as it was the era when my father had his business in there. I hated to travel at that time because every winter and every summer, my mother used to take leave and travel to Dubai.
Now, though I didn't have friends at that age, I did wanted to enjoy some leisure time with my schoolmates like concerts and field trips. I never realized at that age, how essential lessons, I will be getting from my travels.
I distinctly remember I had this competition in my swimming club for state-level team selection. Though everyone insisted I to be a part of it, my parents had another amusing idea, they were like, 'umm… yeah! That's all glitter. Let's get to Dubai once again’.
Anyhow, years passed, and I eventually got into my mid-school or said locally, the ninth class. Teenage did hit me hard, like right on my nose, and it’s just the acne. So, I was twelve when I had to go on a court date.”
“Really? Why? Twelve?”
“Yeah! I had to be at court alongside mom for me to testify against my father.
“What?” said he with a shock.
“Yeah! It was the year when my parents had a fight, and no matter how hard my mother tried, she couldn't hold it, and her marriage split apart. My father, who was merely making dimes earlier, started to create domestic violence. He eventually wanted to break his marriage, and to top it off, he wanted her to suffer by winning over our custody ...”
“I am sorry! What?”
“Yeah! Well, that was his plans, but then there is God's plan, which was utterly opposed to it. It took us 3 years, but eventually, the court ruled in favor of my mother, and she was granted our full legal custody.
In these three years, I learned a lot. From seeing my father trying to kidnap my sister to he trying to fake a gunshot on himself for him to frame my mother, I have seen it all.”
“Kidnapped?”
“Unbelievable, right?”
“Yeah! I literally have goosebumps,” he said astonishingly.
“Yes! My kidnapped my sister in an attempt to inflict trauma upon my mother. But I can remember that day, till today. Well, actually it was a night and was not a normal one, a great Pakistani leader, Benazir Bhutto was shot dead, political correctness: ‘martyred.’ We Pakistanis don't take these things lightly and use these events to try to show the world that what we're literally capable of ( in terms of violence). The street was having unidentified people destroying cars and burning petrol pumps. It was that same time when my mother and my aunts were on the road after having to receive a call that my father was keeping my sister a captive. They reached there somehow, but after eventually reaching there, my father held my mother as a captive too, and my aunts returned empty-handed.”
“Bro! You're making it up?”
“No! I am ready to swear upon anything to prove to you that I am not lying. The police didn't help too.”
“Well, then after a week, my father asked my mother to bring me to the same place as that might let them from the captive. My mother still wishing to make things work did what she said, but the intentions of my father weren't clear. The moment I saw this, I rescued my mother and sister out of there.”
“But how?”
“You won't believe it. For you, it would be as if I am describing a scene from John Wick or some other Hollywood movie of that genre.”
“I mean! That's something I have been thinking from the past couple of hours,” said he followed by a laugh.
“Well, here it goes, the night I was brought to my father's relative's house, I hid myself a cellphone. I kept on updating my aunt until the moment I saw my father. He met me, and instead of ending it, he laid the foundations that from now on, it will be our house and that he would marry off my younger sister to someone and put me in a government school. It was as if he thought of himself as Goliath. But we all know how that story ends for Goliath.
“True! I would love to watch it.”
“Anyways, so the following couple of years were tough, O-levels exams, court cases, and best of all, I was hit with clinical depression. I had no friends, and this incident made me more socially awkward, and hence all I did was either spent my time with computers or books. The best part was that I started to swim again.”
“But you sure don't look like clinically depressed,” he said with perplexity.
“Yeah! I am not anymore. So, basically, I learned a lot from a few people; my mother is on the top of the list, she had always been this woman with a head start. She saw so much, but I never saw her defeated. This always kept me pumped up. I mean, she used to love my father hopelessly, and now she is trying to combat that. She maintained her status in her office, though men at her office used her situation to work and exploit her. I swear, one of her bosses, literally ruined her annual report because she didn't agree to what he demanded, but yet she kept her head up. Slowly, after having to have a look at her, I tried to recover on my own. Obviously, I failed and had to be in therapy for some time but yet the only reason that I survived it all was my mother.
The depression did help me in two things, firstly I got a fantastic o-levels result. I mean, I had the highest number in biology, and secondly, I grew as a writer. It was then when I started writing poems and prose. Though my prose and poetry were initially very dark and people didn't like them much, but I continued writing.”
“Oh! I can sense that you have what it takes to be a storyteller.”
“Right? Anyways, after a successful result, I did get some boost, and that drove me away from depression for some time. Now, I knew with this result, I can get into any high school of choice (in our case, A-level college), and I did. But education isn't free in Pakistan, and thus, though I got into them, I couldn't opt for them. The reason being the fact that legal battle was still going on, and each month, roughly $1000 were spent on them. That being said, my sister was studying too. Therefore it was monetarily tricky for my mother to maintain the balance between everything. Eventually, I chose my previous school’s high-school as they offered me a scholarship on my result, which ultimately lowered my tuition fees.
My A-level had been a whole new chapter of my life. I mean this was when I was social, went on debates and MUNs. I was appreciated as a writer, but out of them all, I made my first friend, Syed Soban Khalid, and till to-date, we're like brothers. I did make some other friends too, and I am still in talks with them. So, eventually, that small, scared, hidden in closet boy started to step out of it. I took all those baby steps, and from being socially awkward, I became a social butterfly. No matter what event it was, my name was always there as a participant.
It was the same era, I realized my passion for filmmaking. I got introduced to directors as Bollywood's Anurag Kashyap and Hollywood's Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino and David Fincher. Having to see their work, I realized I was not alone as someone who admired dark writing. There are many like me, and that's the reason movies made by these directors are critically acclaimed. This realization made me take film-making classes. This taught me writing and directing, eventually making me realize what I actually want from life. But,..”
“I don't like these 'buts' man.”
I laughed, “no one does, but the reality is there would always be 'buts’ in life. Anyhow, here the ‘but’ was that my school ended. I did have good grades but not as good as I had in my mid-school. The reason? Well, I was too social. This wasn't a big issue for people around me, they were happy that I am recovering.”
“You didn't date anyone in high-school?”
“Dated? I didn't have friends, let alone dating. I did have some female friends, but no, I didn't date. I didn't have time. I was experiencing this whole new era of being social.”
“That's great too.”
“Anyhow, I didn't go to film-making.”
“Wha…? What? Why?”
“Actually, in my family, everyone wanted me to be a doctor, I mean to pursue medicine. So, I made my way towards it. Though I tried, I couldn't get into public medical colleges, and private were way too expensive for us to afford. This drove me back to depression.
Everyone around me got into Universities, but me. In fact, I had to bear all those mouthfuls from my family. My mother wasn't included. She kept on supporting me. It was then when I gave up medicine and chose my second love, Computers. I gave the Pakistani SAT Alternate, NAT, and applied to Comsats and eventually got admission on merit in BS(Computer Science), and this started a new chapter in my life.
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