Tag: Pakistani love

  • Pakistani Love: Love in Expected Places

    Pakistani Love: Love in Expected Places

    I was 23 years old when I met my husband for the first time. After a whirlwind courtship of gorgeous flowers and overseas calling cards, we were married a short eight months later. By the time I was 28, I had three beautiful babies.

    Becoming a mother was the most momentous and profound turning point of my life. I realized with every sleepless night, with every poop call, every gurgle of laughter, the resilience I was capable of. It seems trite to say, but for the first time, I knew what it felt like to love unconditionally; blindly and completely. To know that forevermore, I will think of others before even beginning to consider myself.

    As the children’s demands grew, date nights were few and far in between, travelling seemed overwhelming, showering appeared to be a luxury and doing anything for myself, an unnecessary and guilty indulgence. In these years, I YouTubed fervently, teaching myself how to do my own hair. I researched to figure out the shortest and most effective forms of exercise at home and to keep my separation anxiety at bay, googled how to make my own candles while the kids were at pre-school.

    Juggling being a mother, a wife, a daughter and daughter-in-law occupied all of my time and my life was full to the brim. Occasionally, my husband and I would go out with friends. Out at dinner or to a party, in the midst of the fun and revelry I would realize that as much as I was glad to be out, I would much rather be doing something else.

    In 2014, we moved to Dubai. Being a pakka Karachite, it was emotional suicide. Outside my comfort zone, it was also when I realized I had stopped having an opinion. I began to wake up to the sudden thought that while living for others is a natural by-product of being a mother and wife, forgetting to think of yourself is not.

    But old habits die hard, and I continued delaying everything I wanted for the benefit of the greater good. It was always about what other people expected of me, what I needed to be doing, what I had to be responsible for. I seemed to be guided completely by the wants and needs of everyone around me.

    It took losing my father this year to absorb something multitudes of books and thousands of songs push on repeat: learn to love yourself.

    No one really explains how losing a parent changes you. For me, it made me reevaluate everything I have ever believed in. It’s almost as if something tangible breaks inside of you, and you have to put yourself back together again, piece by piece.

    Except now, you can decide what to put back and what not to.

    What tiny bit of yourself to leave out and what to glue back. There is also the huge piece of you that will remain forever missing, and you have to learn to factor that in too. With grief, you are irrevocably changed, in a way no motivational talk can achieve.

    Losing my father taught me that life is fleeting. You will never find the right time to be or do what you want- except now. So in the midst of my turmoil, I am learning to fall in love with myself again. To give myself time to heal, to be myself, to say no, to say yes. To teach the people around me to give me space; to learn it myself.

    I still have a long way to go, but I no longer accept invitations that I feel I have to. When I’m mired down in a conversation about clothes and jewelry, I feel no guilt in zoning out. When I really should go to that dinner, I stay in to watch Netflix. I stand up for what I believe in and no longer apologise for what I don’t. When I’m exhausted but bored, I force myself to get dressed up and go out. I make time for yoga, I order in that burger and when I get a strong feeling, I trust my instincts.

    But when my journey began to feel a tad too self-indulgent and a bit rebellious, one recent Sunday night the whole family was sitting and watching Jurassic Park. I got up to check why my seven-year-old wasn’t back from the bathroom. When I saw her peacefully coloring in her room, I asked her why she wasn’t watching the movie with the rest of us. What she said was a validation of sorts:

    “I don’t feel like watching Jurassic Park again, mama. I just want some me-time and do what I feel like”.

    I felt like clapping, loving the fact that I was teaching my daughter to love herself.

    I have learnt, until I am as giving and kind to myself as I am to others, I can never really love completely. No one will look after you, except you.

    This Valentine’s Day, let that be a priority. Today, I hold my loved ones close and pray that of all the lessons I teach my children, I really, really hope they always remember this one.

    Read the other ‘Pakistani Love’ stories here:

    Pakistani Love: The Story of Survivors

    Pakistani Love: They wanted to dream

    Pakistani love: The Pleasure Quartet and Black Ships

  • Pakistani love: The Pleasure Quartet and Black Ships

    Pakistani love: The Pleasure Quartet and Black Ships

    There are only four things in life worth chasing:

    Serotonin, Dopamine, Endorphins and Oxytocin.

    Belonging. Reward. Achievement. Trust. Release. Butterflies in the stomach. Warm blankets. Enveloping hugs.

    Every feeling worth having is borne upon the backs of those little molecules of the Pleasure Quartet.

    We’re all addicts, because to be otherwise would be to be inhuman, or no kind of human worth being.

    Read more – Pakistani Love: They wanted to dream

    We throw ourselves off cliffs with oversized rubber bands attached to our waists, we bankrupt ourselves in games of chance and dice hoping for that jackpot cascade, we consume drugs of every size, shape and nature, hoping for the magical brain-fairies to work their happy wonders. (Or so I hear).

    Of these intoxicants, the most widespread, arguably most dangerous, certainly most sung-about (followed closely by heroin) is love.

    And like all intoxicants, it comes in a great many shapes and forms and ingenious varieties.

    That special burst of laughter that signals the moment you become inseparable friends. The nearly imperceptible but utterly unmissable flush on a cheek before a kiss. The soft shrinking of the world to a warm room with the sounds of rain outside. The sudden relief in the eyes of someone who’s been waiting to see you – a partner, a parent, a pet.

    Most of us try to fill our lives with people that pour us some combination of the Pleasure Quartet, whether we know it or not.

    And if you stumble into someone who inspires all four? It hits your brain like a cocktail stirred by lightning.

    There are a great many experiences that can be called “love”, just as there are a great many experiences that can be called, say, “sadness”.

    But there are times where you feel something with such an outsize intensity that it can hardly be called the same emotion. A Black Swan that, by its appearance, upends your idea of the world because heretofore you had never believed such a thing possible.

    Read more – Pakistani Love: The Story of Survivors

    For me, love was a pleasant, powerful but ultimately controllable phenomenon. I cherished it in all its forms, and it was worth chasing and worth mourning, but never more.

    My wife’s appearance in my life and impact on my idea of love was not just a Black Swan, it was a Black Ship like those that had steamed up to the bay of Edo in Japan, changing in an instant – and forever – how they saw the world.

    She would laugh and the sun would rise in her eyes and the world would lose its weight.  

    She dared me to chase her, with a look and a raised eyebrow, as she drove off into a night full of stars.

    She dismantled a wayward motorcyclist with linguistic savagery that would have made Shelly proud and sailors blush. Not coincidentally, that was the day I decided to marry her.

    None of this, most likely, means anything to you. It’s not supposed to.

    The Pleasure Quartet is True with a capital T whereas love, like art, is subjective. No two people experience it quite the same way.

    For some people, that intensity of feeling, that lightning cocktail, comes packaged within one person.

    For others, it comes from success, children, friends, meditating in the mountains – whatever. I promise you, where the Four Ingredients come from isn’t nearly as important as finding them. 

    Life is short. Don’t spend it agonizing over what SHOULD make you feel a certain way, find out what DOES.

    And if you find all the passions of your life to be pleasant, powerful yet ultimately controllable, pray for a Black Ship.

  • Pakistani Love: They wanted to dream

    Pakistani Love: They wanted to dream

    The first time I saw her, she was wearing a beautiful blue shirt, seemingly lost in a deep conversation with herself on the balcony. It was one of the most intriguing moments in my life. She stood there, lean, tall and a head full of short brown curls. I couldn’t hear what she was saying to herself and I felt this urge to lean in and listen to her. Her warm, brown eyes met mine and she gathered herself. I had entered her personal space but she didn’t seem to mind. She smiled at me, awkwardly, and went back inside. 

     I wanted to meet her again.

    It wasn’t even a question because I wasn’t allowed to ask any. I belong to a desi, typical, religious family in Pakistan. Parents who were slaves to their patriarchal mindset and bound by the stereotypical standards set by society. There was constant shame. Shame for wanting to understand myself, asking about and saying words like sex, vagina, menstruation, puberty.

     Little brown bags hiding the shame of being a natural woman. 

    If it wasn’t for my sister, I would have never had the guidance that every girl needs. 

    After I hit puberty, I realized I didn’t fit. I wasn’t like the others. And there was no one I could tell. It’s the loneliest feeling in the world. Not having the courage to tell your family who you are. Tell them there is nothing wrong with me. I just love differently. Please let me. Accept me. I’m gay. And that’s okay. 

    It was fate. There is nothing that can convince me otherwise. A few days after I saw her on the balcony, I saw Sara* in a park. I walked past her and looked back. It was her. Fidgeting with her headphones. I walked on but I felt her gaze on me. I turned around. She was staring at my legs and when she saw me look at her, face flushed pink with embarrassment. 

    I smiled. 

    “Hi.”

    “Hey.”

    “Do you…want to jog together?”

    “Sure.”

    My curly brown girl.

    I felt suffocated and I wanted to scream. 

    “I am a lesbian!” I screamed, but not out loud. In one instant, every moment, I was two different people. I sat in a room with people defining the ‘normal woman’, and I felt this heavy burden. My heart, my mind desperately wanted everyone to know. My face revealed nothing. Being part of the LGBTQ community in Pakistan is a huge struggle. I do not have the courage to come out to my family because the chances of acceptance by my religiously inclined family are very thin. 

    Can anyone hear me?

    I dreamed sometimes. I would tell my parents, my sister, sitting down in our living room, me, sitting opposite them all. 

    I’m gay, I’m different.

    The burden would magically be lifted. I would be one person.

     They would sit silently as I would die a little inside. Tears streaming down their faces. Father, stoic. Mother, silent. And a crack would emerge.

     They would smile and say, it’s okay. We love you, just the way you are.

    I would cry tears of joy. And then I would drift out of my head and the dream would walk away. It would come back but would never stay. 

    I tried to kill myself many times. 

    Maybe in death, the dream would stay on.

    “I’m from Lahore,” Sara said. 

    “Why did you move to Karachi?” I asked

    “I’m a journalist, so for work really,” she replied, “but I don’t have any friends…” 

     “You have me.”

    Sara was luckier than I was. Smarter.  She had never tried to end her life, had gone for therapy but she faced the same internal struggle. We formed a bond that I always craved. 

    She was the image that stayed on.

    It’s been more than a year since I told her I loved her. We are happy. But there’s a cloud that forever hangs over my head. I know nothing good ever lasts. This society cannot digest the relationship Sara* and I dream about. But for now we are lucky to have each other.

     There are so many others like us. 

    They dream.

     They want to be able to find a partner who they can bring home. Smile with, hold hands with, be with. But they can never say it. They go missing from their homes, live their lives in despair. 

    God’s mistake. 

    There is no mistake in the love I feel for Sara. But there is a sadness attached to it. My parents will never know who I love. They will never feel the love their daughter feels. They will never hold my face in their hands and know, “She is happy”. They will never accept.

    As our fingers touch in secret, there are times I let myself drift. The dream changes. I am no longer sitting in that room alone, facing my parents. I sit with Sara.

    “Abba, this is Sara. Ami, Sara,” I would nudge her. 

    She would smile, her awkward smile.

    “Salaam Sara beta, it’s so very nice to meet you.”

    *Names of the author and characters have been changed to protect their identities.

  • Pakistani Love: The Story of Survivors

    Pakistani Love: The Story of Survivors

    “But he’s never been married,” was something I heard often when I told people about Moayyed. It was blurted out, said pointedly, sometimes unintentional and sometimes very intentional.

    I had become immune to it because being with him meant that it didn’t matter.

    Remember your far-fetched wishes?

    Yaar, bus Pakistan saare matches jeet jaye, India saare matches har jaye tou hum jeet jayein gay, Please Allah, all planets align with the north star on February 31st, Usman Buzdar grows a tongue and Aamir Liaqat loses his…

    Imagine all this and you’d still have very little idea of what needed to happen for Moayyed Jafri and Amnah Shah to get hitched.

    There is no greater love, nothing at all, than the love for your children. I should know. I have three of them.

    One girl and two boys.

    14, 13, 10.

    My heart beats three times, my day complete, after I see three smiles and as I slip into tired slumber, I give thanks three times.

    Four times now, because I had three children before I met Moayyed.

    “Baba, how come people in natural disaster movies dodge every deadly accident while everyone around them is dying, ” I remember asking my father as a child.

    “Stories are biographies of survivors. All of nature’s forces combined with relentless will, create survivors and that’s what a miracle actually is”, he used to say.

     Moayyed hit pause. He stepped back and took leave from his own life’s desires to help his family after his father passed away. I didn’t have to take leave from my life like he did but I did give mine up for my children. I never, ever regretted it. No mother ever can. I didn’t wish or want for anything except for my three and life didn’t pass me by. But when I met him, life hit pause, as if allowing him a moment to hit play and catch up with me.

    “I love life,” I would claim, hopefully optimistic in what people assumed was a difficult life.

    “It’s alright,” would be his somewhat cynically said response.

    We were ying and yang, opposites, in every way. Ours was a love of heart and mind, a fusion of the cultures of the edgy northern mountains and the grounded central plains. We came together like gratefulness does. A loss leading into happiness.

    But reaching that level of certainty, that there was no running away from this, was only half the battle. We were well aware that although it is the year 2020, we live in Pakistan and come from relatively conservative families.

    It took two years for him to tell his family after which I broke the news to mine.

    The hardest part of finding love elsewhere is telling your children that someone else is about to be just as important as them.

    You know the song you listen to when you’re in love? My children have always been that song for me. On repeat, they have lifted me up, cradled me, comforted me. My children are my strength, not just partners in my dreams, but advocates for my right at a shot at happiness.

    I was so scared to tell them.

    There is nothing bigger in life than acceptance. Being accepted for who you are and what you want. Surviving life’s big tests and being apprehensive to start new ones. There is nothing bigger than knowing no matter what you choose, the people that love you will stand by you – as long as you are happy.

    My young, small children approved. Overwhelmed and teary-eyed I hugged them. It  wasn’t just their approval, it was something bigger. It was all doubts shattered by that moment, all uncertainties that typical societal mouthpieces had thrown at me.

    Akeli Maa aur teen bache, is shehr mai kaise reh sakte hai?

    Shattered.

    It was a feeling which words fall pathetically short of expression to describe. 

     Surviving what life throws at you is nothing short of a miracle. When Moayyed and I first met, it wasn’t love at first sight. We were both too good at surviving for it to be so simple. It was intrigue, a simple mysterious desire to know each other. It was quiet at first, as we looked, talked, smiled, letting each other in, layer by layer, like to love.

    We were survivors, ready for a miracle.

    Marrying Moayyed is probably one of the easiest things I have done in my life. Not because it’s love, but because we are easy. We were transparent in what we wanted, truthful and pragmatic. Our marriage is a triumph, not only of love but of hope over dejection. A defiance of stereotypes and a challenge to the toxic standards of normalcy.

    Hai dekho, teen bachey hain aur kunware larke se shaadi.

    Is larke kay parents kaise maan gaye?

    Apne bachon ka nahi socha?

    Society is ruthless but we don’t need to be. These words bounce off from us – my children, myself and Moayyed. People can say what they like and they will. But having the courage to ignore them and do what you know is right – surviving – that is the real miracle.