Growing Pains

Words will set you free

[lailababar]

On the opening of Tim Horton’s in Lahore

I was 8 when McDonald’s opened up in Lahore, 12 when KFC opened in Sialkot, 21 when Burger King entered Karachi, and every single time I was beyond thrilled. It felt like a nod from those in control of this world, like a reassurance that we were indeed developing, like maybe we would live to see pakistan not be the third world. Every time there was concern about pakistan being a failed state someone would say, but see, now we have the scions of western capitalism, we cannot be too far from western development. It felt like a nod from a hard to impress teacher, like your school bully offering you a bite of your own lunch, like maybe, maybe, we were being invited to the owner’s suite. It was a balm to our frayed nerves, how can we be anything other than economically sound if the west is willingly investing here, if they have a stake in our future, then surely our future cannot be grim.

This, of course, was not the case. We were being invited to the table, but not as guests, but rather we were being placed on the menu. It was only after I moved here that I realised how pervasive the operating models for these chains were, open mostly in food deserts, popular in low income areas and neighbourhoods with people of color, they are one of the tools of oppression employed with precision in this capitalist state.

We half heartedly did a research month in AKU once, and our topic was to gather local opinions on the food available at a mall food court, and the public opinion was that western fast food cost more, was western, therefore it must be the healthier option, everyone ranked Pakistani food as most unhealthy. It’s hard to believe that sort of opinion is created in a vacuum, when we are constantly bombarded with white is better, fairness cream ads, fake accents, coloured lens every time someone wants to feel pretty, hair burnt from being bleached so often. Colonialism left us hating our selves and with a deep seated belief that we are less than. The global north perpetrated that belief, every time a drone strike kills hundreds of Pakistanis and none of us even acknowledge it, we accept, our lives are worth less. It’s not that we do not grieve, we are a nation riddled with grief, but the most sinister part of our grief is the acceptance, yes this happened to us, but of course we are not as valuable as them, our lives are cheaper, and so is our craft, therefore it’s less of a tragedy than if it had happened to them.

So I understand the line outside Tim hortins, hell, 10 years ago I’d probably have woken up early, dressed my best, and taken a couple hundred pictures in it myself. But I wish we could acknowledge what this is, the carrot before the inevitable stick. These profits will be shared with a global firm, even the Pakistani investors will want their share to not be in rupees, they’ll take this money and buy an extra investment property in Miami, or London, or maybe Toronto, and we’ll keep being reassured that the rupee may be in free fall, but we are on the path to becoming the west and isn’t that the ultimate goal?

I hope Lahoris lose their fascination with Tim hortons, just like they did with Pizza Hut and with Burger King. Maybe I can also believe that when they lose their fascination, and a hundred local alternatives pop up, we will, in a very small, almost negligible way, be sticking it to the man. Until then, I hope the coffee was at least worth the effort and that they tipped well.

[lailababar]

It’s women’s day and I’m reflecting on what it means to be a desi woman. My mom jokes that when I was younger I would say ‘kaash mein larka hoti’ and we both laugh about it but truth is even when I was a child I knew there was a difference in the way my brother and I were treated by the whole world and that difference was because I was a girl. When I played sports I had to always prove that I was tough, when we rode horses I had to prove that I was the most fearless, when we took rides I had to prove that I could go without a belt on all of them, the whole world kept asking me for proof and letting the boys in for free. The only place where I wasn’t asked to earn my place was my boarding school. I may have hated being away from home, and there were a million things wrong with the school and the hierarchy but there were no men and therefore negligible sexism.

In Murree when I ran I was merely running, at home when I ran it was a matter of ‘can girls run’, in Murree when I cried it was just crying but at home it was ‘girls cry too easily’ , everything I did became generalisable when it was done at home. I spent a majority of my teenage years planning my escape from Lahore, from home. I had plans, I had cost sheets, I had backup plans, I applied to not a single college in Lahore, I hated that city and I hated how I felt when I lived there and it all came down to how aware I was of the fact that I was a girl.

I have very few fond memories of Lahore, all I knew was that even my most private diary was not mine, my brother could access it whenever he wished and it would be a dissected by him and my mother and all I wanted all through my years in Lahore was to never ever see that city again. When I left for Karachi I never came back to Lahore for more than 2 weeks at a time, I divided my time between friends houses and Sheikhupura, I just simply hated Lahore.

When I met Obaid i told him every single hurt I had ever felt. Told him how I envisioned my own life. Laid my roadmap out for him. In this life, in this country, I refuse to work around my gender. I am woman. And I will cry. And I will focus on my appearance. And I will wear what I want. And it does not detract from my brilliance. It adds to it. This is my country. I define my boundaries here. No one will read my diary here. No one will get angry at me for crying. No one will tell me what I can and cannot do. And mostly no one will use my gender as a weapon against me. I refuse to allow it.

I love being a career girl, I love getting a salary, I love taking myself on little solo dates and shopping sprees, I love my independence, and I absolutely adore that no man can tell me he works so hard to make my life easy. I work for me, and it is my greatest joy and my ultimate pride. Women are phenomenal, and I hope there comes a time and a place where we can just be, and not have to keep proving our worth to be allowed to exist.

[lailababar]

My nani was special. She was the oldest of 13 children. She was the first person in her entire Mohalla to be educated. She was part sister part parent to all 12 siblings. By 13 she was Bibi to all. She was a firecracker. A brilliant badminton player who had a badminton scholarship through college. She loved people watching and had a masters in sociology.

My nani did not know how to accept no. She passed her unbending thumb to my mom who passed it to me. She believed in science but loved desi totkas. She would teach me about Chinese acupuncture spots while massaging away my headaches. She taught me to put a lick of black salt on my tongue if I felt ill. It worked when I was 4 and missing my parents, and it worked today when I learned of her passing away.

My nani raised two of the most opinionated, strong, loud, obstinate women. She showed me, in her actions and in her daughters, women are whatever women want to be. Meek isn’t a word any woman who comes from my nani could be. My nani was always a fighter. She fought her society, her university, her husband, her children, she even fought death, before finally accepting it, on her terms, in her time.

She spent most of my life in Lahore but when I think of my nani she is sitting in her favorite chair in our Sialkot house, the door is open but the screen door is closed, there’s filtered sunlight making her wild black hair glisten, she’s peeling peanuts and putting them in a bowl for us to snack on. There would be a rotating door of people stopping by to talk to her, get her advice. This is how nani will always be to me, strong, immovable, brilliant, In that chair, in that sunlight, with her voice changing as it switched from Punjabi to Urdu to English, the cadence softening as she would turn to us.

My nani passed away as she lived, surrounded by love. She was, and will always be, the light of our lives. I’ve never thought of death as final and so I repeat these words to myself Over and over:

Kon kahta hai maut aye to mar jaoon ga

Mein tou darya hoon, sumandar mein uttar jaoon ga

Who says death will end me

Im a river, I’ll join the sea

We are the sea she leaves behind, and in us she will always live.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un

[lailababar]

There’s lots of talk about nepo babies online and as a self identifying nepo baby I figured this is my time to shine 🤣

My dad being a doctor has helped me in ways I didn’t even imagine. I knew from the start what subjects to take, I knew where to concentrate my energy. I knew of the different fields within medicine and what the schedules and lifestyle for each was. During med school he gave me first hand knowledge about what working in pakistan would entail and encouraged me to look into other systems. My dad got me 3 of my 5 electives in the US, and he got me 4 of my 6 residency interviews. When my Ck score wasn’t good his friends let me work closely with them and prove myself beyond my score.

During my intern year every-time I did nights he would stay on standby in case I needed help, I would send him any EKG I couldn’t interpret and he’d send an interpretation and differentials as well as easy to understand teaching points within seconds. This does not even account for the financial aspects of things. The tuitions, the med school fees, the exam fees, the steps, the electives, my dad even paid for my research publications in residency when my program couldn’t.

This is not to say that those of us with physician parents aren’t as good, but we have absolutely not gone through the hurdles that first gen physicians go through.

Maybe this is something unique to me, but the way I see it, my entire journey through medical training, was made significantly less difficult because my dad is a physician. And if my dad wasn’t a doctor, I don’t know if I would’ve gotten here.

I have so much awe and respect for first gen physicians, and I don’t think it is at all an exaggeration to say that they’ve worked harder and have had far more obstacles and it takes nothing from us to acknowledge this. Anyways, all this is to say that like her father, Lily-Rose Depp is wrong and she should reconsider her words.

[lailababar]

I was maid of honor and kind of sort of loved my toast 🙈

Beenish is a household name in my family, when I visit pakistan and we drive by gulberg, her old house, Shahzad (our driver) will say ‘baji beenish kaisi hain?’, how is beenish? when my sister Sassi is talking to me about her friends she’ll say ‘haan lails she’s like beenish to me’. when there’s a lull in my conversation with my mom she’ll ask ‘aur beenie ki sunao’ tell em about beenie, if there’s a brown woman on tv talking about international relations my dad will send a link in our WhatsApp saying ‘I thought it was beenish’ because in my house it is already accepted, that beenish is kufi anan, she is the un and she is the present and future of Pakistani women changing the world.

All this is to say that I’ve known beenish almost as long as I’ve known myself. And I’ve never seen her happier or more content. I was going over our old WhatsApp conversations and she had asked me, a few years back, ‘can I let myself fall deeply for him?‘, I had known then what I’m sure beenie always knew, it was less of a question and more of a confession. Never have two people been more made for each other, more in sync, they fit like two puzzle pieces, like the right sides of a powerful magnet, and it gives me so much joy to see them together, and to see their families together. Alistair is brilliant, he is funny, he is kind, he is smart, and most importantly his love for beenish is worn on his sleeve, you need only to look at them to know just how right they are for each other and how much love is shared between them. He makes her smile wider, her eyes shine brighter, he makes her unconditionally happy and understood, and for all this and more I cannot be happier to see them together.

Love is a tricky feeling to pin down, it is what makes this world worth while, it makes the hard days easy, and it makes the easy days phenomenal,it means you always have a friend, a support, a cheerleader, it means you never have to be lonely even when you are alone. It means there is someone who sees the best in you even at your worst and it helps you be the best you can possibly be. Love is what brings us all here and it is what binds these two families, across these two cultures, languages, countries and continents together. Love may be tricky to pin down, but it’s pretty easy to see it is what is abundant between beenish and Alistair.

So here’s to a love of a lifetime, beenish and alistair, May you always be this happy and may you fall deeper in love everyday❤️

[lailababar]

My mother has always seemed larger than life to me. Her laugh is booming, her voice is echoing, her words are immortal, her life is mythological. My mother has never seemed quite real to me, maybe it’s the fact that I left home every early or that I never truly lived with her or maybe it’s that everyone I have ever met has told me stories of my mom’s brilliance.

When I was younger I would sit in mama’s closet while she got ready. I would be surrounded by her clothes as I looked on at her sitting in front of that small black vanity doing her makeup. She never seemed to mind that I used her lipsticks to paint the walls. She had a roll on foundation, it came in a small green bottle, she always had a box of the parrot green stillman’s cream next to it. She told me that Color was parrot green, I hadn’t seen a parrot before, I think of her cream every time I see one now.Once she was done with her makeup she would get up and lock her bedroom door and I would follow her and sit on her bed. She would then open her cupboard, it was a number lock, Usama knew the password to it, and she would take out her purses which all had pieces of jewellery littered inside. She never had a well organised jewellery box. Gold and emeralds and rubies and sapphires were haphazardly thrown into her purses and she never knew quite where everything was. She would always ask my opinion, this or that? Too much or too little? And I would sit there on the bed and wonder at how beautiful she was and how she always sparkled. If there was a small necklace she would encounter in her rummaging she would hand it to me and say do you want to try this? I always said yes. And nine out of ten times I never returned it because i would lose it. And every time I had to tell her I had lost another one she would say it’s okay, your mom has lost so much more, it’ll make its way home and if it doesn’t ‘sadka go gaya’. And so I would look on and imagine growing up to be like mama, wearing her things, looking like her. She always had a story about what she wore. Sometimes those stories were about her grandmother wore this when she was her age, sometimes she would talk about my nani and how she loved saris and would wear brooches which mama got turned into pendants. Sometimes those stories were more recent ‘your dad gave this to me on my birthday’ or ‘oh remember my friend? She sold this to me when she needed money’. Every single piece of jewellery my mom dug up had a story with it. So I learnt that unless it’s accompanied with a story it’s not jewellery

The men in our family pass down their names, the women pass down their jewellery. On my nikkah I wore the set my mani wore on her valima, on my baraat I wore what mama wore on her nikkah, and on my valima I wore what my MIL wore on her baraat. Generations of women before me had hand selected these pieces, they had held them during good times and bad, they had used them as collateral back when they could have neither jobs nor land. This was the assurance they would pass on to their daughters. And I loved every single family lore that came with this ownership.

[lailababar]

My nana was Afghan. He moved to Pakistan and he refused to talk about Afghanistan. He was strict and he could not be argued with. Mama told us of our heritage, but part of me believes she made it up. There was no evidence of Afghanistan in my nana’s house. No flags, no rugs, not even the language. None of his children. Spoke the language he grew up with. He eradicated himself to save us the pain of belonging to a ravaged nation.

And here I am. On 15th august. A day after Pakistan’s Independence Day. On call in a hospital in rural America. Reading about the fall of the country I’ve only ever claimed peripherally. When someone says Afghan, my mind adds ‘refugee’ automatically. The two words are synonymous in my mind. And my second thought is always of my nana. My proud angry belligerent nana who took the world by its horns, who succeeded in a world designed to make him fail, who raised children with absolutely no knowledge of his homeland in a bid to help them belong.

And now in WhatsApp groups I’m witnessing the fracture, my Pakistani acquaintances wanting to save Pakistan from the fall out. Afghanistan should just not have been our neighbour, Afghanistan should’ve just been it’s own continent. Pakistan shouldn’t have been so close to Afghanistan. I want to scream, what did the Afghans ever do to you? Ofcourse I understand their pain. My own thoughts stray to Pakistan so much more than Afghanistan. I want to create a vacuum, a moat all across the Durand line, I want to wrap my Pakistan up in a shawl like a mom with a neonate, I want to hide my Pakistan from the violence, I want my people to be safe. So I understand wanting to dissociate with Afghanistan. And I hate that I understand.

There is no right here. Since the start of the Cold War we knew Afghans were being sacrificed for Foreign egos. I’m so afraid to write about the taliban takeover, so afraid that my hopeless echo into the void will give encouragement to the powers that be to invade once again. I’m terrified for Afghan women. I’m terrified for Afghan girls. I’m terrified for the comfortably living Afghans who will be turned to refugees soon. I’m terrified for Pakistan. How will we handle an influx of refugees? Because Pakistanis can say what they want, they cannot block the Durand line. How do you block a border you cannot understand?

I want to put my head in the sand. I want to hide and pretend I don’t understand. I want to have a moral high ground. I want to not be collateral damage. I want my Pakistan to stay safe but I know that borders are imaginary and there is no escaping the fallout from this tragedy.

[lailababar]

Nothing is good nothing is bad, only thinking makes it so.

These words I’ve repeated over a million times in my life. My mom first taught them to my brother when he got accepted at Aitchison for boarding school. He was 5, and he was leaving the house, and she needed to give him a talisman to hold on to. I learned them with him, repeating them every time something difficult came up.

On the car rides to murree as the roads got steeper and narrower, our voices would get quieter and more somber. When the car would reach the little corner canteen that marked Pindi Point, where the road would go from a wider double road to a narrow single lane road with narrow bends and huge potholes, my mom would move me from my seat to her lap. There perched on her knee with my heart in my mouth, she would look me in the eye and say ‘what does mama always say?’ And I would repeat ‘nothing is good... nothing is bad..’ and she would say the second half with me, our voices in unison ‘only thinking makes it so’. She would have me repeat it, over and over. Like a prayer on a tasbeeh. I remember sitting on her knee, looking out at the mountains and the sky, repeating ‘nothing is good, nothing is bad, only thinking makes it so’ over and over as the bottom of my stomach continued to sink further and further down.

The narrow broken road ended in a quiet entrance to our historic school. A simple black sign with ‘convent of Jesus and Mary, established 1883’ marked the gate. The car’s engine always bemoaned the sudden incline it had to conquer before reaching the stairs that took us up to the parlor. There with the engine still on, mama would once again have me face her and say ‘meray bohat khwaab hain tumharay lye, tumhein main Sheikhupura se bohat door rakhna chahti hoon’ ‘I have very big dreams for you, I want to keep you very far from Sheikhupura’ and when I would nod she would say ‘who loves you most in the world?’ And I would reply ‘mama’ and she would hug me. And then as we would walk up the steps she would have me repeat ‘nothing is good nothing is bad, only thinking makes it so’ over and over. With each stair. With each breath.

You ask me how I’m so positive, I’ll tell you how. My mother trained me, with words and actions, with love and discipline, rewired my brain to see every situation as a good situation. To see myself as nothing except lucky. To find every trial trivial, to find every silver lining and when there was none, to trick my brain into seeing it. To this day I have done nothing harder than walking up those steps. To this day I say ‘nothing is good nothing is bad...’ a hundred times a day. It’s a prayer, a hope, a talisman. It’s my safety and it’s my assurance.

I am now eleven thousand seven hundred and fifteen kilometres away from Sheikhupura. I wonder if my mom’s dreams ever saw me being quite this far away. I wonder if she knows how much and how often I repeat those words she taught me.

[lailababar]

Somewhere between it’s Babar and it’s B A B A R

In shortening karthik to carl

Obaid to obi

We coloured over our existence

Deleting and smudging our multicoloured lives

Pretending to be blank pages to be rewritten by our new surroundings

Coconuts

Brown and hard on the outside

White and weak on the inside

On the phone when someone asks my name I spell it instead of simply stating it. My husband has shortened his name from obaid to obi. All the Dr.T’s and the Dr.A’s know what we know. To fit our foreign names in these foreign climates, we must break them apart, rip them into two, take out the bits that hold our tongues, suture them back up and make sure that when they are spoken, they don’t smell of curry and roti, they go down like a small pill with a tall glass of water. That they are comfortable and easily spoken. But we all know babaaar is not Babar, just like dhania is not coriandar and rainstorm can never be barsaat. so let’s be grateful for our ability to speak multiple languages but let’s not forget, somethings just can’t be translated.

[lailababar]

When I was a child I loved pink. My dad would buy everything pink for me. Pink suitcase, pink clothes, pink bike, pink rollerblades. Pink. Pink. Pink.

Then I learnt that pink is the colour of not being good enough. That girls who like pink don’t have brains and can’t do well in school. That pink wearing girly girls don’t play sports, they don’t know how to bowl a googly, they can’t understand how Great a cricketer wasim akram is, they only watch cricket because Ricky ponting is hot. So I stopped liking pink. And I started loving purple.

Purple was a good compromise. It’s girly so I’m not a boy, but it’s not frilly. You don’t think of barbies and afternoon tea. It’s royal. It’s regal. I bought a purple rug for my room. I decided I was a purple kind of girl.

Over the years my feminism has been evolving with me. It’s a battle to recognise the internalised misogyny within myself, to confront it, to overcome it, and to liberate myself. It has taken decades, and I’m not even halfway there. But I have reclaimed the colour pink. I can wear neon pink and still be smart. I can wear pink and still be a doctor. I can be feminine and accomplished. I can enjoy dainty teacups and dressing up all while also enjoying medicine and being independent. I can drive long distances, swim in the ocean, climb mountains, all while also being able to enjoy dressing up and being beautiful.

As girls we aren’t allowed to have interests. If we like music then that music is rubbish. If we read then those books are rubbish. If we study then those subjects are easy. Whatever young girls do, society ridicules them for it. So I hope that young girls will flip society off and do whatever they enjoy. Read those books they call trash, watch those movies they call chikflicks, do everything and anything you want. You decide what’s good and what’s rubbish, and the only thing that’s truly rubbish, is men telling us what we can and cannot love.

And so I’m reclaiming pink. If pink is the colour of women, then it’s the colour of strength. It’s the sash we tie around our heads when we go roaring into battle. It is the colour of the handkerchiefs we pass quietly to each other when we discuss the injustices of our lives. It is the colour of the tampons we hide in our own homes so as not to upset the men who live with us. It is the colour of the degrees hanging in my office. It is the hugs we give in loud bathrooms inside clubs, it is the subtle ways we warn each other of predators. It is the colour of strength and accomplishment. It is whatever we want it to be. And it is good enough.

[lailababar]

When I was 15 I read an article in an old Australian version of seventeen magazine. It said you have to love 3 men before you’ll find the love of your life. I was 15, and on the precipice of my first love. I had known this was not the one, this was a tepid sort of love. Like lukewarm water at the end of your shower, enough to soothe not enough to scorch. And so I moved to a new city and tried 29 times to break my heart and move to my second love.

He was an inferno, every touch seared, every look burned. In his presence I felt like a wildfire, uncontrolled, unihibited, destructive and dangerous. This love also I knew was not the one. For even though he burned hotter than the sun itself, he was never allowed to know me. I kept a version of myself, a safe and disposable version, for him. We could burn a thousand flames and I would still be unscathed.

And in this time I also found my third and final love. Where my second had been an inferno, my third was like the arctic. Frozen and cold, with depths that I could not fathom. With every fire I lit, he would thaw an inch and then freeze again. With him I wanted to be the person he would be compatible with, but I wasn’t. And so with a heavy heart I had to accept that he was also not the one.

And then I met my fourth love. If that article from a decade ago, written by a bored girl in between jobs, meant to inspire awe in children, was true, this would be the one. And yet he was neither hot nor cold, he was meant to be my friend’s. I said no to him long before I met him and yet, that night, when we had stood waiting for the elevator, when he had waited for me to set my limits, when I had tested the waters with a hesitant hug, he had felt right.

I told him I loved him 16 hours after meeting him. I had not told either of my loves that I loved them, not in those three words. I had used other words, little gestures, but never I love you. And here I was, 16 hours of knowing this man, and I couldn’t stop screaming I love you. It is now 5 years later and I cannot fathom loving anyone more than I love him.

[lailababar]

Death

I escorted someone to death. Took his hand, walked him to the land unknown. The great adventure. His eyes had been scared, his hands tremulous, his voice quivering. And yet he kept resolutely saying, I’m ready. I’m ready. It is my belief that you’re never really ready to die. You are ready to end the suffering, and ready to see if there is an afterlife, but ready to die? No that’s a different thing. He kept asking me to help him, to make it faster. Kept opening his eyes every few minutes, asking if it was over yet, if I had crossed with him to the other realm or if we were both still stuck here.

We talked to his wife, he said a tearful but resolute goodbye. He said he loved her. She said she loved him. There were tears, on both ends. And a few in my eyes too. It’s a painful thing to see, a man of 80 and 5 years, saying goodbye to the only reality he has ever known. Surrounded by strangers, in a bed that can never be comfortable, a pillow that is just too clean to be personalised, a room too austere to be comforting. The only thread to his life, a weak arthritic voice on a phone that keeps going in and out of service range. Such is the grim reality of dying in the age of corona. no familiar hand to squeeze, no gazing into the eyes of your beloved. Alone, but surrounded. Aware that your loved ones must stay away for fear that they may contract the deadly Covid-19. leaving the world, like Hemingway predicted, with a whimper not a bang.

He asked me if he could eat. I gave him all the options I could think of at 4 am on a Saturday morning in the cancer wing of a small community hospital. Chips? Pretzels? Graham crackers? Peanut butter? The diet of an overworked, underpaid, overnight resident physician. He shook his head no to all my options, after all none of these hospital staples constitutes a good last meal. And then he asked me, hesitantly, what about ice cream? Something about the timid way he asked and the childhood nostalgia of ice cream struck me as particularly poignant. I nodded my head and brought over a small vanilla ice cream cup. He wanted, so badly, to hold the cup and feed himself. A last independent stance, in a life that for the last few months had been stuck in dependence. How cruel time is, how unforgiving. Even in this last moment, he could not eat on his own, and silently, I started feeding him. Small bites, evenly paced, peppered with small talk and words of encouragement.

We silenced all alarms, the cacophony of dings and Trills that make up the music of a hospital room. He denied having any pain, just anxiety. Anxious to pass quickly, anxious about what to expect, anxious about being alone. My pager was uncharacteristically silent, I think the hospital understood that at this moment, his last, I needed to be with him, needed to make his final moments about something other than loneliness. He lay back down in the bed after eating his ice cream, and just as I thought he had dozed off, he opened his eyes and asked if he could walk. He was weak, he hadn’t walked in a few weeks, but who was I to deny a dying man such a simple wish? And so I nodded, and together with my intern, stood him up, both of us with one arm on his back and one in front of him, making a human walker, guided him around his room. He decided he would like to sit by the window, in the reclining chair. With a sigh of relief we sat him in his chair, laid it back and then proceeded to sit next to him.

‘I would like a popsicle now’. His meek voice once again permeated the grim silence that had descended. We both had a popsicle and then he lay back in bed and closed his eyes.

He kept opening his eyes every few minutes, is it done? Is it over? Am I dead yet? Each time I shook my head he looked at me and asked why after being so close to death it was now evading him. I had no answers for him, so just squeezed his hand and stayed by his side. He finally fell asleep and I prayed he passed with ease, while asleep, so that this time when he wakes up, he’s actually in heaven. He woke up one more time, this time to tell me to make sure his body made it back to his wife. They would want a proper burial, closure for his wife. Even in his last moments he wanted to make sure she had her needs met. A final goodbye. This time when he fell asleep I sneaked out of the room to check on other patients.

He passed away that night. I hope he wasn’t as lonely as he had been afraid he would be. I hope the final ice cream and conversation made his austere surroundings just a tad bit more palatable. I don’t know if they did, but hope springs eternal. This is a weird time to be alive, Australia was burning, world war 3 was just barely stopped and now we’re in a pandemic. Through all of this the only thing we have is each other, our humanity and our kindness. May we come out of this softer, gentler, kinder, more caring. May we learn that when our backs were to the wall it was our humanity that saved us.

[lailababar]

People have been telling me since I was a child that blood runs thicker than water, to be careful about what I share with my friends, to trust family over friends, and it has never made sense to me.

The first page of one of my first few diaries has it written in bold, underlined with a glitter pen ‘friends are the family we choose’. I’ve always loved being part of girl groups, of having secret languages and inside jokes, of speaking in code when surrounded by others, of giggling when everyone looks at each other quizzically. Strange as it may be, I get it from my mom, she’s always had several close groups of friends.

I grew up with multiple god mothers, and so so many aunties who told me they’re my Khala, my Massi, my Lala. And I loved all of them. On my wedding there were a handful of people from my mother’s side of the family but there were droves of her friends, my aunties. They travelled to three cities to attend three events, and each time seeing them in the crowd reminded me that the family of my heart was present. When I walked down the aisle with usama and papa, towards the stage, I was stopped at almost every 3 steps by an Aunty, each prayed over my head, each had love shining out their eyes, each gave me a hug and whispered in my ear ‘sadaa khush raho’.

In between my events there was a lot of jewellery changes, it was these aunties who kept the gold, who made sure nothing was lost, who came up to the stage quietly and fixed my dupatta so as to make sure I looked my best. When I was running late they made no scene, asked no questions, when we left early to take pictures they laughed at my excitement.

I know my blood relatives were at my wedding too, but I remember my aunties more. They were there, because they are the family my mom chose. Just like I know my friends will always be there, because they are the family I chose. This is an ode to female friendship, to always being able to confide in someone, to always feeling validated, heard, and loved, to knowing that I have an army of strong, powerful, accomplished, women who I can always rely on and who can always rely on me.

And now I’m an Aunty. I have friends who have children. I relish being called Aunty, Khala, maasi, lala. I love when my friend Facetime’s me and turns to her daughter and says Laila Khala ko hi karo, I love when I pick up a friend’s son she says ‘Aunty ko kiss kar k dikhao’. I love that with age, I have become the people I grew up loving. These aunties contributed so much love, learning, happiness, and respect to my life, and I hope I do the same. Being an Aunty means so much to me, being in my friends’ children’s lives means so much to me, because my mom’s friends have meant so much to me.

God bless aunties, and the way they enrich our lives!

[lailababar]

A little disclaimer, I have been in medicine pretty much for as long as I can remember. At the age of 13 I chose sciences in my O levels and sealed my fate. At 15 I chose pre Med in my A levels and further cemented my path. At 17 I joined Aga Khan. At 22 I graduated from Aga Khan. At 24 I started residency. And at 27 I started fellowship. For as long as I can remember I have been in medicine. And for as long as I can remember I have been questioning my place in medicine.

In Aga Khan the boys would often talk about how there should be a quota to restrict the number of female Med students in government colleges even though Aga Khan had a near 50/50 split. The underlying supposition was always that women were the outsiders, disrupting a naturally male environment. Nevermind that women regularly outperform boys in fsc, in Med school exams, the fact that society forces these women to quit medicine to get married was always seen as the women’s fault and is largely cited as the reason for a doctor shortage in Pakistan. You could argue for days with men in medicine in Pakistan, the end will always be their voices growing louder, their demeaned angrier, and their belief that women should be restricted, stronger.

In my clinical years of Med school equal numbers of boys and girls wished to pursue surgery. I remember one of my friends would spend all her free time in the OR and the boys in our group often ridiculed her, often saying that they’ll talk to her in 10 years when she was in family practice because that’s where all girls end up, with kids, a husband, and a part time job.

In my residency there was a great push for women in medicine and lots of encouragement from leadership. But almost half of all my patient encounters started with ‘oh I thought you were a student’ or ‘yes but when will I see the doctor’ or ‘honey the nurse is here’. Encephalopathic male patients are perhaps the hardest because you cannot hold it against them that they refuse to believe you’re a doctor. On one of my night floats as a senior resident my patient was so adamant that I could not be a doctor I had to ask a male nurse to talk to him and pretend to be a doctor so he would calm down.

When applying for fellowship so many people will ask you insanely personal questions. Have you had a kid? Will you have a kid? When will you have a kid? As your twenties pass your colleagues start seeing you less as a person and more as a quickly ripening banana forgotten in your fridge at a high risk of going bad. It’s such a common question asked of female trainees, often used to discourage us from pursuing further training or competitive fellowships. Yes you’re smart but your uterus is more important. Small ways to keep reminding us that we may be half the Ned students but we are still the outsiders.

And so today, after 11 years of medical training, I still find myself questioning my place in my profession. A profession I have been married to since I was 3 and first asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. A profession I have left my country for. A profession I have chosen over my husband. And yet I am unsure of my place in it. So next time you see a female physician try and not ask about her uterus or her ring finger or her cooking skill. And if you have female trainees lift them up and try to understand that they are fighting battles in a hundred invisible fronts.

[lailababar]

March 15, 1999, was my first day at boarding school. There were 8 of us. Next year 2 girls left, 3 new girls joined, and we were up to 9. We slept in our teeny tiny little beds in what was aptly named ‘the baby dormitory’, 7 primarily spoke Pashto, the new kid spoke punjabi, and I was the eternal mongrel, half Pathan half punjabi, but not Pathan because mama is Afghan but not punjabi because I don’t speak punjabi. Just a half bred little mutt who would use the next 6 years to try to figure out who she was.

In the next few years our personalities were cemented, all the things I enjoy today, I learned to enjoy in those 6 years, and all the things I’d dislike, I learnt to dislike in those 6 years. The taste of close-up toothpaste, the smell of burning wood, the slight chill that creeps into your bones as the sun sets on a cold winter day, the numbness in your hands when you don’t wear gloves, the taste of mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, all of it takes me right back to that time. No other time period of my life gives me flashbacks as strong as those 6 years. Not all flashbacks are good either. The strict unnecessary rules, the scoldings over mispronouncing a foreign word from a foreign language, the inability to speak in fluent Urdu lest we be overheard and punished, the cold beds and burning hot water bottles, the cruelty of my Urdu teacher, and the 5 million steps you’d have to climb to get back from the field.

I have no nostalgia about or a desire to go back to that time, nor to change it, but even then, memories of that time are more real than anything else, as if time was slower then, than it is now. A week lasted so long, the minute hand on the large clock behind the teachers desk would move so much slower than it does now. But some things haven’t changed since then. Sunday’s were special, you woke up an hour late, you chose your cereal, and you talked, loudly and happily, over breakfast, and you were surrounded by friends. You also got an extra phone call from home, and if your family lived nearby, you got to go out, walk on the mall road, and come back with food and novelty key chains.

Growing up in a boarding school is an odd experience, one you can’t put into words. I neither want pitying looks nor envious ones when I talk about it. It was amazing but it was awful but it was the best time, but all I wanted was for it to be over, but I loved every minute of it. The only people that can understand it, are the people that lived it with me. And I feel so very very lucky, that in this country, thousands of miles away from the foothills of the Himalayas where we grew up, I can still have that.

I’m so glad that in the year 2000 My friend’s mother decided that 400 miles away from home would be the best place for her to flourish. And therein gave me someone who has known me for pretty much my whole life, with whom I can discuss everything from the childhood bullies I can’t remember to the harrowing things I can’t forget.

[lailababar]

10 years ago I was home for the holidays and on my way from Lahore to Sheikhupura. My driver Shahzad was driving the car. We were driving fast because it late at night, the roads were empty, and we were young. A car started driving alongside us, matching our speed. We would go faster and they would catch up. And then they started flashing their lights at our car. When we did not stop the car, they tried to overtake us, and when that didn’t work, at 100 km/hr, they hit the rear of the car so that their car was wedged into ours. Then they started braking making our car slow down too. Once we were slowed, they overtook us and parked their car diagonally across ours so we could not escape. 4 men came out. It was like a scene from a bad Bollywood movie. 4 doors opening, 4 men stepping out, in my memory the time slowed down and every detail left an impression. 2 had rifles. They held them with both hands, and flanked the other two men. I recall this night perfectly because it is always playing, over and over, in my head. A loop recording from hell. One man rapped on Shahzad’s window, and when he refused to open the door they pulled out their guns and rapped again, this time with the butt of their pistols. Shahzad has told me to try to lay low on the backseat. He was in his 20s. I was 17. (When I look back on this I’m shocked that we were so young, but then again, you grow up fast when you grow up afraid). I did not have credit in my phone. I couldn’t make a phone call. I found his phone and called his brother. I didn’t know exactly where we were, I didn’t know how far from Lahore or how close to Sheikhupura. I was afraid and trying to find details in the dark. I had a blackberry and the BBM messenger was on. I messaged my cousin Sherdil on it and blissfully he replied. The sheer fear I had in this moment will never leave my body. I know myself as pre fear and post fear. I told him we had been stopped by 4 armed men. That they were talking to shahzad but it looked grim. He said he’ll send police officers out to look for us. We both knew the police would be too late, the details I had given were so vague.

I remember thinking of what I would do when the men had me. I had notions of bartering, of asking, pleasing, begging, them to not rape me in exchange for any amount of money they wanted. It’s odd how even in the worst moments of your life, you have time to imagine it being even worse. And then I heard a ‘thunk’. They had slammed shahzad into the car window with just enough force to convey their intentions. And then one of them said the sentence that haunts my every waking moment “bachi aur gari de do, tumhare se Kuch nai chahye”. Give us the girl and the car, we don’t need anything from you. They had a gun to Shahzad’s temple. And I was sitting helpless in the backseat of my car refusing to let panic set in. Refusing to show fear, never mind that I was alone. I heard Shahzad’s voice clear as day ‘nahin’ (no). The man hit him with the butt of his pistol and suddenly there were gunshots in the air.

This is the point where the panic seeped into my bones. I didn’t know what would happen next. And I hate the theory that there are infinite alternate universes and each of them have different outcomes for every scenario. I kept flirting between the present and a make believe future. Suddenly the car door opened. It took me a few seconds to realise it was Shahzad. My legs were shaking, my hands had tremors. He sat down, locked the car, and asked if I was okay. He joked about me looking afraid and I let out a nervous laugh and said no I’m not. When I looked outside there were a hundred people around our car. Some local man had had a few burglaries so he was on high alert for thieves. When he heard some commotion near his house he came out and thought his house was about to be robbed. And so he shot at us. The men who had stopped us thought it was our back up and got into their cars and sped away. And suddenly the whole neighbourhood woke up and was on the road. I had wanted to drive out of that area within seconds. Shahzad explained to me that those men could be waiting ahead to attack again so we had to sit and wait for 15 minutes. Enough time to have them get bored. To clear our path. Those 15 minutes were agony personified. It took every inch of my self control to not show fear, I’m sure I looked afraid, but I tried so hard to not show it.

And you know what my take away was back then? I’m so lucky. Lucky to have escaped. Lucky that that man thought he was being robbed. Lucky that there was no crossfire. Lucky. Lucky. Lucky. And I was partially right, I was luckier than most. Definitely luckier than the woman who needed petrol on the motor way. (This incident was on the GT road btw, so CCPO sahab can fuck off with that). But you know what, as women are options shouldn’t just be terrified or broken. I was not lucky to have had men chase down my car and try to kidnap me. I was not lucky to worry about being raped when I was 17. I was not lucky to be in a country where basic safety is not just not guaranteed but it’s considered unnecessary. I was not lucky to have known that my clothes, the fact that I was in Pajamas would be talked about more than the men who were attacking me. I was not lucky to have been scared so bad, so early. I fared better than my counterpart did yesterday, this news story could’ve been broken 10 years ago with blurred pictures of my face. It was a miracle I survived. But I was not lucky to have been in that situation. And I hate that I cannot escape that night. Not even in my sleep.

I am still afraid of that road. I’m also afraid of dark roads. Im afraid when cars tailgate me on the highway. I am afraid when I notice the same car in my rear view mirror for more than 5 minutes. I’m afraid so often that it’s just another facet of my being. This happened 10 years ago and i am still afraid. And I am not alone. So many women have near miss stories, so many of us get followed home by men, so many of us have had to drive slower or faster to shake off the awful cretins that are Pakistani men. And we are all afraid. 50% of your population lives in perpetual fear. Does that not worry you?

I don’t want men calling for death penalties or stricter laws, the laws are strict, you just don’t implement them. I want men to worry about every word that leaves their mouth. I want them to think and rethink their sentences, weigh them against their guilt. I want all men to look at themselves like I did that night. Analyse your life to see what all you did to contribute to rape culture. Do you know even today I think I might have invited that attack. I was so ashamed to show fear because I believed that I had done something, laughed while looking at their car, or had my windows down, or something, to entice them. When we march, don’t play devil’s advocate. There is no dignity in contributing further to the plight of those already marginalised. Instead play our advocate. Use your arguments to fight with your male friends when they minimise rape, when they objectify women. Talk to each other and the women in your life about how you have contributed to life being harder for us. Don’t get salty about #menaretrash, instead understand that women are afraid. We have been for our whole lives. Your discomfort is not oppression. Be better and if you have harassers and rapists in your friends group, and we all know you do, call them out, refuse to associate with them, or at the very least don’t give them awards for bravery *ahem* ALIZAFAR *ahem*. Basically try and make life just a little bit easier for women, god knows we need it.

[lailababar]

Azaadi Mubarak Pakistan.

20 years ago my Maths teacher told me that no matter how many green cards I got and how many times my passport changed colours, I will never be as accepted anywhere as I am in Pakistan. She was wrong. I still have a green passport and am no where near a green card, but I am accepted. I walk in the streets, alone, at night. I carry a pepper spray with me because I’m not stupid, but no car full of men follows me home. I drive alone for hundreds of miles. I stop for gas in remote areas. No land cruiser comes and hits my car or speeds up close to it to scare me. I bike the trails, I swim in the lakes, I wear shorts and I wear dresses, and when I’m lazy I forego my bra. And no one tells me that I’m offending their god with my skin. I am free, like the men in my country.

On the days when English feels heavy on my tongue, when the food feels bland in my stomach, when my name feels foreign after being mispronounced a few hundred times, when aitebaar plays on my Spotify list and there’s no one around to get excited with, I miss you then. I miss the small moments that you gave me, the pockets of happiness which I will always cherish. But I do not miss that you did not have a place for me.

I hope that the little girls growing up in Pakistan, grow up to take more space, to leave the chaar diwaari, to wear what they damn well please, to eat at Dhabas, and watch cricket live. I hope they do all that I did, and I hope they don’t feel that it’s a revolutionary act to simply live as a woman, in Pakistan.

Azaadi Mubarak jaan, you beat the English, you’ll beat the patriarchy someday too. Until then, #freejulie and let her have azaadi too.