Songs= Window to your memories

I saw an interesting ad recently about each song having a story. It led me to wonder if there are songs that have been a part of my life. As I recalled one song to another, I realized that I could not remember a single song. That was very odd because I listen to music almost all the time; some have been my special favorites and travel with me on my cell phone wherever I go. And yet I thought of nothing as I listened to these songs? How could that be?

My bafflement was so great that I did an exercise; I turned on all the music I had on my computer and discovered songs that did bring back memories, those that have certainly been my friends for life. Although the lyrics, melody and the beat is the same, these songs became the trigger to remember lost memories. I must admit though, all the memories were not happy. So I thought to voice out some interesting “adventures” I have had as certain songs played in the background, just like in the movies...

1.  My hands were shaking, my right foot could not stop fidgeting and my heart was pounding in my throat when a boy next to me tapped me on my shoulder and offered one of his earplugs. I was reluctant to take the earplug from the kindly boy though; I wanted to be left alone in the cocoon of nervousness I was in. It was my first acting performance in my whole life, in front hundreds of people of all age groups and I could not think about anything but my lines and listen to my heart pitter patter as I sat behind the curtain waiting for my curtain call . The kindly boy tapped me on the shoulder again and waved the earplug in front of me; I couldn’t help but take it and insert it into my ear. He then turned on “Amplifier” by Imran Khan and began making silly faces and rolling his head around silently. This song is so ostentatious and it was the no.1 song on all iPods and car radios of Karachi at one point or another. Yet, this song helped me calm down and this song reminds me of the kindness that boy did for me. The moment soon came when I was motioned to go on stage, I gave the boy back his earplug and squeezed his shoulder gratefully and went out to perform. It was only a school play at the Arts Council a couple of years ago, but no matter how big a stage, one always has a nerve-racking moment just before one is about to be somebody completely else. That boy helped me get my bearings and I will always be grateful to him.    
2. This song always brought a smile to my face when I heard after such a long time. It was 2 a.m. when my sister and I were dancing on this song. Yes, we certainly woke up in the morning feeling like P Diddy, in fact we did not sleep much at all. We were youtube-ing some dance moves on this particular dance on my sister’s Dholki. We though to do sort of a sister’s dance number at the Dholki, just the two of us and so we found two Asian sisters who had made an amazing choreography video on “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha. However, unlike the very fit Asian sisters, my sister and I pooped out after a few steps. We abandoned it after a few more tries and then just talked about silly things. I was most probably the happiest at that point. They were just a couple of days left for my sister and I to share a bed with junk food all over, the music on and wearing the shabbiest PJs. We played “Tik Tok” the whole night and we had learned the lyrics by heart as well. It was a point in our lives where we were both young and single and ad no care in the world, exactly what Kesha meant in “Tik Tok”. After that, my sister got married and yet, this is song became a trigger to a very sweet memory. I suppose I will be adding this song to my cell phone again
3. This song does not have one particular memory, it is a collection of my whole pre-teen to abut fourteen years of childhood that I give my thanks to. "Everybody (Backstreet back) by Backstreet Boys" has been my companion through years and years of dance mania, angst and boy craziness. It has been the background music in my head when I would pretend to be a princess who kicked ass at dancing. The song used to console me when the boy I liked in class did not ‘like’ like me back. It was the assurance that even though I would never be able to meet any of the Backstreet boys (since I live on an entirely different continent than them), I knew that I would always be able to meet them in my dreams. Yes, Nick, Kevin, AJ, Simon and Howie were my best friends and I truly bonded over them through their songs but especially with “Everybody”.
4.   There were even some Bollywood songs in my exercise and a couple of quite interesting songs brought back memories. One of them was “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai”-Kuch Kuch Hota Hota Hai. I have seen the film a billion times; the Kajol and Shahrukh Khan combination was one of my favorite Bollywood on-screen couple in the world! All of my friends have seen it and I have a particular group of friends (all girls) who had a tradition of having sleepovers on New Year’s Eve. As time passed and our lives got more complicated and fast-paced, our New Year’s Eve tradition faded. One of life’s changes was that a good friend of ours, R, was moving to Canada and another was soon to get married. We HAD to have a sleepover for the last time when all of us were in the same country and single, hence the sleepovers which come high or low, we all attended no matter what. To keep our childhood alive for that one night, we decided to watch a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. All of us knew each and every dialogue and we would foretell the next scene to come with explicit detail. When the theme song came up, I sang it out loud along with the film. I was really belting out the lyrics, with a shriek pitch which made my friends beg me to have mercy on them and stop. It was the peak of my contentment to be around friends I love and am loved. One of the best times of my life.

These are just a few of my memories that I wanted to share, I'm sure everybody in this world has at least one song that triggers a fond or perhaps a sorrowful memory, but a memory nonetheless. The point of the exercise was to know how effective a song can be for a person to trigger a thought, memory or feeling. It can consume you until there is nothing but that one song that goes over and over in your mind and sometimes you don't know why the song is stuck in your head in the first place. Yet, it maybe because it brought back a part of yourself long ago, tucked away in the corner of your mind where you had kept bits and pieces to keep safe.

Fishing Rod = My dad's mighty sword.

I wrote a story a month ago in perspective of my dad's fishing rod. I have a soft spot for my dad's passion for fishing. He loves it so much that when my siblings and I were younger and couldn't be left alone at home, he would bundle us up in jackets over our pajamas and take us to the sea-end of my country to fish. Where was my mother? She would be with us too, also dozing off in the boat  and not always happy about being on a boat but she married a fisherman at heart, so what could she do? Anyway, this story is especially dedicated to my dad, the fisherman :)

  September is the time when my master wakes up at 4 a.m. goes to the mosque for prayers at 4:15, comes back home at 5:15 and then goes up to his room. However, rather than switching on his television at 5:20, he comes down again, dressed in frayed khaki pants, black Nike T-shirt and a baseball cap. He switches on the storeroom light at 5:25 and takes me out of that rat hole. Who am I? I’m my master’s servant, his beautiful fishing rod. I anticipate my master’s appearance every day but he fits fishing into his schedule when he has wrapped up most of his obligations at work. In a world where professional competition is a battlefield, my master takes out the time to look after his mechanized sail boat at a fisherman village called Mubarak Goth. I believe my master was a fisherman, living in a rundown shack, in another life. The fact is that I have a bond with my master that he may not even have with his own children, the most primitive characteristic of a man comes alive when he hunts and I am the tool that my master uses to hunt fish.

He was about to put me in the car when he patted his pockets, searching for the car keys. Ah yes, an old habit of my master, he would never remember to take the keys and he would go up to his room, open the lights and look for them everywhere. As I wait for my master’s return by the entrance door, I look down the empty lane. I can see the blue board that says Clifton, Block-9, some punk though spray painted “Anda Group” on it with silver. It is sad the way some humans mistreat public property, heck I’ve seen the fishing rods lying around for rent at the village. They are badly rusted, some loops are missing and the grip is practically ripped off. I am thankful to be in the ownership of such a thoughtful master. I smile grimly at the other graffiti on the walls of bungalows across from me, the crumbling paint on some other wall and the crows, perched on the wires that are entwined with the palm trees and hedges, beginning to get loud as the sky did a transition from a dull grey to a bluish shade. The scent in the air is of early morning, I breath it in deeply, I love this dewy scent. It smells like what clouds would smell like. I’m drinking in the sight of how time has changed the picture of the roads at the end of the lane. I can see what used to be the main Gizri road, which has become quarter of its size on each side due to the flyover built on it. I’ve heard my master grumble about it when it was under construction. The noise was a constant headache, the dust and the rubble was the source of my master’s countless coughing fits, it was a nightmare. It took three years to build that bridge and I thank the Mighty when it got done and the roads were remade. However, time did not change the board signs of the shops across the road, there is still the yellow board of ‘Dunlop’ tyre shop, the image-full of lamps and lights on the ‘Roshni’ board or the four story mosque with its tiled walls and white domes. Oh how I missed being outdoors. A few cars are zipping by to and from, echoes of minibuses and their unique horn tones are audible, I also see some familiar house guards walking by, probably on their way to work, leaving their families even on a Sunday. I felt sorry for the guards, but I didn’t feel sorry for my master leaving his family to go fishing with me. I am the main reason for his steady blood pressure, I can tell the expression on his face since he picked me up from the storeroom, and he looked twelve years old.

My master returns, jiggling the car keys from his finger in stride. He picks me up and puts me diagonally into the car so that my one end lies on the floor of the passenger seat and my other end can almost touch the back wind shield. He settles into the car and turns on the ignition. Then he looks out towards the almost empty road of this maddening city called Karachi and slowly drives the car out of his lane. On his way to go to the fishermen village where the sea awaits him, where there is nothing but fresh air, his underdeveloped boat and I, his friend, his fishing rod.  

Z.

Cinema = Completely fake and exaggerated. Just the way I like it

There have been around 11 movies that I've seen on the big screen in my life time so far. I cannot describe the joy I feel when I'm sitting in the cinema hall, staring at the images playing in front of me. It is the best feeling, like my own world has faded away and it's just the movie and I. Talking about the experiences I've had watching these movies is a bit of a drag, so I shall list down all of them (in random order), but I will give some minor but memorable incidents involved with certain movies.

1. Jurassic Park: Ah yes, as I say in slang: "Whattay Movie!" You see, once upon a time, my parents enjoyed going out with their friends and "chilling out". They would usually love just having a good time, and taking their young ones along so that they could also have a good time. My love for movies is mostly due to the reason that my parents took my siblings and I to the cinema when they would go with their friends. Thus I came to see Jurassic Park on the big screen and boy, did I pee my pants (figuratively). It was the scariest film I had ever seen and dinosaurs were the main characters in my nightmares for ages. Especially the part where the T-Rex snaps off the high voltage electric wires and comes out on the road, where Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) and the kids are stranded in the jeeps, I was crying and crying for them, knowing they were going to be ripped into pieces (though that didn't happen).  
2. Cliffhanger: This is the movie in which my brother cried. He was devastated that one of the main characters let go of  the cliff he was holding on to, to save his friends. He was really small at the time though, so my parents consoled him by telling him again and again that the character went to candy land. Unfortunately my brother was inconsolable. I, at the time, had no idea what was happening in the whole film. I thought Sylvester Stallone was really scary. 
3. The Bee Movie: To think that I watched this movie in a cinema is embarrassing! I don't know what I was thinking. What made it worse was that I coaxed my friends to come watch this "amazing" movie with me. It wasn't the movie that was pathetic or anything, but the whole theater room was filled with less than ten year old kids and their mothers or adult chaperons. My friends and I were the only teenagers there and we looked so out of place. Plus the noise, Shoot Me. I could not look at my friends in the eye after the movie was over.
4. Khuda Ke Liye (Pakistani movie): Watching this movie in cinema was the most spontaneous thing my mother has ever done in her life. I don't know what came over her but on a lazy Sunday, when there was practically a rainstorm occurring outside our window, Mum decided to go watch Khuda Ke Liye on the big screen. Another surprise was that my siblings also agreed and well I didn't want to be left behind so I also tagged along (inwardly groaning because I hate watching Lollywood or Bollywood on the big screen, I think it's a waste of money). However, was I in for another surprise. I actually enjoyed the movie. A lot. Perhaps the plot was a bit haywire, but it was a really good attempt.The rain had stopped momentarily and we left our home, reached the cinema and watched the whole movie and even came back home without a heavy shower of rain. However, the flood on the road due to our horrible city sewage system (at the time) to take in excess rain water was unable to take in the rainwater from certain roads. We made a mistake of taking the route where there was A LOT of rainwater and our car got flooded! Literally!. My brother was the designated driver and considering the hysterics Mum, Sis and I were in, he was the superhero of the day because he remained calm the whole time. Bless his soul.
5. New Moon: I predict that whoever reads this is going to groan out loud that I actually went to watch this movie on the big screen. The only reason I went was to see Jacob's awesome pecs, biceps, triceps and six-pack abs. The whistles and hoots when Jacob took off his shirt was deafening.
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Dead Man's Chest/ Underworld 2: Why do I have two movies in one heading? Well, that's because I was going to go see the former but ended up watching the latter, which had already come out in DVD. The reason is plain and simple: My friends and I were late getting to the showing on time, and so it was houseful. Totally devastated, I just wanted to sit and sulk but my friends insisted to go see some movie so Underworld 2 was showing, there was also a Bollywood film showing but I refused. I wasn't that desperate.  

The most eventful times were the films I have seen above, here's the rest of the list of movies I've seen on cinema and enjoyed every minute of it. 

1. The Mummy
2. King Kong (New version)  
3. MI3
4. In Time
5. MI4

 

EWS = Essay 4 = A son....

There is a small story attached with this essay. Our teacher took the essays and blacked out all our names from it. She chose people randomly to read aloud whatever essay she gave and the rest of the class that listened to it had to guess the writer. It was a lot of fun! My essay was given to a guy, M. Now he has a mellow way of talking  and it was a coincidence that our teacher gave my essay to a boy. When he spoke the first line,"Aliya and I have been married for more than fifty years" we all burst out laughing. He blushed! After that he tried again but we all couldn't stop laughing and he gave the essay back and even the teacher thought it best that a boy not read it. To get us serious again, we guessed all the essays until this essay was the only one left, so it was obvious that the last essay was my essay. So a girl read it, and once she did start reading, there was silence.   

“A son is a son before he gets a wife. A daughter is a daughter all her life.”

Aliya and I have been married for more than fifty years. That’s quite a record, considering the divorce rate these days. I had seen her for the first time at a funeral. Yes, finding love at a funeral seems like a bad omen, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of her the moment I laid my eyes on her. I had nudged my sister, to show her my future wife. I did not even know whether she was already spoken for and I didn’t care. My elbow felt nothing where my sister should have been sitting. I averted my face from Aliya and looked for my sister and then it hit me like a ton a bricks. I was at my sister’s funeral.

My poor brother, I felt such sorrow when he had looked away from Aliya and realized that I wasn’t there. His face had crumbled for a split second and then he had gone back to an unreadable expression. He was devastated that I was dead. He couldn’t believe that his twin sister is not glued to his side, playing video games or getting hit by a football over and over again, just for fun. He bowed his head slightly and didn’t dare look at Aliya for the rest of the day. I know what it’s like to feel that way, falling in love. I was also falling in love when I died. It came too late. Love came when I was in the hospital, getting treated for leukemia. Hussain was so nice to me; we talked and tried to laugh while needle after needle was pricked through my skin. He finally blurted out that he loved me just before the good news that my turn for a bone marrow transplant was possible as the doctors had found a match. And then I just died. Poor Hussain. I could see him sitting with his father, one of my many uncles at the other side of the room.

However, it was not because of Hussain that I stayed around for a while. I stayed to make sure my family moved on. That they continued on from this horrible stage in their lives. I was dead now. They couldn’t do anything about it. My parents seemed to be drowning in their tears. What is wrong with them? They shouldn’t be like this. How do I convey to them that their daughter is fine? It is a tricky thing, this dead business, once you’re dead, you can never ever go back. So I made myself comfortable, hoping that my family let go of their grief over me, so that I could move on as well.

A few weeks passed, the number of guests diminished gradually until the days came when my family had no reason not to continue their normal routine in their lives. This was difficult in itself. My parents relied on my brother’s strength to live as normally as possible and I could see the superhuman strength my brother exerted not to cry. He was eighteen going on thirty. My mother took the longest to get over my absence and heavily relied on my brother. He woke Mum up before going to school, he would come back and sit with her for an hour or so every day, just talking about me or updating her on the outside world. He would get her small gifts now and then, and made sure she had her antidepressants. My brother’s support helped Mum immensely and she got better as time passed.

A few years passed and my family was almost back to normal. They smiled and laughed a lot more, especially when my brother broached the subject of marriage. He actually blushed! My father patted him on the shoulder and asked that if he had any girl in his mind. My brother immediately told them about Aliya. I clapped with glee. My parents made arrangements for a formal meeting with Aliya’s parents, even though they were related, but it was tradition to make an official request for matrimonial purposes. I waited a bit longer; I wanted to know just a bit more. As I had already known, because my brother would be the greatest life partner, Aliya agreed. Mum’s tears did not stop that day; they were of joy, for my brother.

I fast forwarded to the life after my brother’s marriage. I swore to myself that I will leave after a glimpse of their happiness. I naturally assumed that there was nothing to worry about. I guess I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. I saw my brother deliriously happy with his new bride. My mother though was breaking down to weep more often than before. She wouldn’t show it in front of others, but her depression got worse and worse. What I couldn’t understand was that why was she still so upset. She had a very sweet daughter-in-law, now she wouldn’t feel my absence. Something was amiss.

I fast forwarded again to events that would tell me what was still causing Mum so much pain and then I saw it. She was in the tiny store room, which was squeezed between the kitchen and my brother’s room. She sat squished up in a corner of the room, and looked through a box called “Baby”. She took out what seemed like certificates. I scrutinized the certificates and realized that they were the ones I had collected since childhood. From spelling bee contests to swimming meets. Then she took out these beautiful pieces of clothes, laces and embroideries. The colors were so vibrant and uniquely combined that one could not help but notice the care and effort gone into choosing each piece. A lump formed in my throat and my stomach sank. These pieces were meant to be my wedding clothes. I was shaking when Mum took out the graduation gown and remembered how proud my parents had been of me for finishing high school.

I couldn’t bear this pain Mum was inflicting on herself. I rushed to Aliya and tried to communicate that she should go out to the store room. Aliya sensed that something was not right and went out to investigate. She saw my mother and gently put all the things back into the box and took Mum to her room and brought in a cup of tea and biscuits later.

Aliya was such a nice and attentive daughter-in-law, but I finally realized what was wrong. She was not me; she was not Mum’s daughter for whom she had dreamt dreams since she had conceived. I felt like my heart would break. In this dilemma, I remembered a principle told time and again by an eccentric aunt. A son is a son before he gets a wife; a daughter is a daughter all her life. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. My guardian angel had finally come to take me to the beyond. I pleaded to let me stay there forever, but he just shook his head, it doesn’t work that way. So after one last look at my family, I left. 

EWS = Essay 3 = When I saw that fork in the road just ahead in my life...

This essay is a foresight and an hindsight essay combined. A foresight essay is when one writes a story about a choice being being made in the future and what could be the consequence of making that choice. A hindsight essay is when one writes about a choice being made and  going through the consequences of making that choice. 

This essay is special to me because it is non fiction and fiction. It is a peak into my life in a way and my predictions into what caused me to make a decision of a certain issue. 

P.S. I got full marks in this essay.

When I saw that fork in the road just ahead in my life, I chose to be a woman in purdah than to be a woman in jeans

I remember that when I was around five or six, my mother had asked me a question that would more or less define her for the rest of her life. She asked me whether she should accept purdah or not. I was baffled and emphatically said no, it was close to a shout I didn’t realize though what it actually was that I was denying my mother. What had really bothered me was that I wouldn’t be able to recognize my mother when she would wear a ‘rida’ (a style of purdah worn by Dawoodi Bohras). She wouldn’t be the same. She wouldn’t look like my mother. I was baffled to hear my siblings’ encouragements to our mother to accept it. I felt betrayed that they could so easily let our mother change herself into almost a stranger. How dare they?! I cried that day and my mother soothed me and assured me that she will remain the same forever. She did not change in the ways that I thought she would, she still had the eyes that understood everything, the lips that always quirked knowingly when I was lying and she still had the voice that could make me sometimes feel like a princess and sometimes feel like an immature child. She most definitely was my mother and wearing a rida did not change it. What had changed was the perspective of the society that we lived in. 

Living in a certain community has its own pros and cons. I believe that a community that has more pros than cons is the community where one can grow and prosper spiritually, mentally and physically. Thus, my parents moved from their old neighborhood to Clifton. It has a community that has a mixture of views of men, women and children. Women especially had no qualms about wearing anything other than ridas, they roamed however they wished and there wasn’t anyone to raise a question. My mother had no qualms either but somehow, something changed within her that made her decide to wear the rida. My father had no involvement in her decision, in fact, she told my father one day that she will be wearing one from then onwards and my father was as stunned as I was. He was incredulous that this change will last, but it has been twenty years and my mother has worn a rida without fail. She changed only in her views of how to bring up her feisty daughters; she did not push us into doing things such as cooking or covering our heads in front of unknown men. She changed in her views of doing business with some men who looked at her with superiority and even though they appreciated her purdah, but they did not appreciate them working for/with her. After all, we live in a patriarchal society and conversing with a female who sits on the ‘masters’ chair and a male sitting on the less important chair on the opposite end, is somewhat incomprehensible. Her male workers having to listen to taking orders from a woman, is rather unacceptable to the male psyche of our society.     

I wish to walk in her shoes one day as well. The only time I wear a rida is during religious congregations in the masjid. Every time I adorn these traditional clothes, I feel safe and comfortable. The beautiful embroideries, the soft cotton and the colorful appeal of it bring forth a confidence that I don’t get from any other style of clothing. It is appreciated from not only Bohras, but also from people of other communities. What is even more appealing is the fact that my parents have not forced me to wear a rida. They themselves advised me to go slow, start from somewhere and eventually I’ll get the hang of it and will wear it all the time automatically. The most important reason however, is that it is a part of who I am. I cannot ignore a significant part of my identity and in the near future, I will fulfill this promise to myself.  

I had made this promise eight years ago and as some say that mothers are always right, so was mine. Something inside of me shifted, evolved into another stage of maturity perhaps. The factors I have mentioned later are not the essence of what had actually changed within me to finally accept purdah but they were parts of my reasons. The religious side of me believes that God had helped me cross the hurdle-full road. I believed the term ‘history repeats itself’ when I told my husband. As my father was stunned and incredulous when my mother told him about her purdah decision, so was my husband. We don’t have children yet, so I did not have the support of my children as my mother did (except one). He asked me a question though, why?    

The road to reaching the final destination was filled with obstacles. These obstacles were of the kinds that are always in one’s way when almost abiding by a decision made in the past. There were nails of fear stabbing my feet each time I took a step to wearing one of the ridas in my wardrobe to work, but my confidence would fade as soon as I would open my closet and see the dresses and styles I have worn since forever. There would be endless ditches of hesitation, not knowing when I would be clearly able to answer my mother’s questions about accepting purdah, what pricked me like needles on the way down these ditches, was when she would say that I’m even married now, it’s about time. My husband is not even aware about this indecision; he did not mind me wearing traditional clothes or the trendy styles appropriate for my age. I was as confused as to what was really stopping me from fulfilling a vow to myself.

This path though didn't just have obstacles, it also had slides and roller blades that I rode to lead myself nearer to my promise. One of them was that one day I had to take a cab on my way to work as my car had a punctured tire and my husband had already left for work. I stood by the embankment, hoping to find a taxi and reach work on time (which I didn’t). My home is in a secluded area and one has to walk all the way to the end of the lane, which is a main road to the commercialized area. As I waited for an empty cab to pass me by, a white car slowed down near me and a big burly man with a handle-bar moustache gestured me to sit in his car. I was shocked and disgusted, but impassively faced away from that man. He waited for a bit and drove off when it showed that I was not interested. I was shaking by the time I power walked back home and called my husband and sobbed the whole story to him. He immediately picked me up and consoled me on the way to my workplace, but something inside of me was stirring, an anxiety that my security was jeopardized. Another factor was the fashion obsession of the society I lived in. The moment I would bring home the clothes I had just gotten stitched, they would have been replaced by another trend already, not only was that frustrating but tiring. One-third of my time would be spent pouring over magazines to have know-how on the new clothing styles. My colleagues were ruthless when anyone would come to work dressed in some way differently than them. They were definitely shocked that one day I came to work in my rida.

Their gazes at the soft folds of my rida were filled with skepticism. I never gave an inclination to my spirituality or piousness and that was the exact intention they assumed would be my reason for it. One would sometimes relate traditional change to religious epiphany. They were wrong. It was between me and my conscience, but then some say that conscience is a gateway to communicating with God. Who knows?

My first day wearing the rida was a bit odd. The news of my ensemble spread fast in the office far and wide, all the way to the manager’s office. He came by around lunch and asked me to come to his office with my tea. I was a bit nervous. My mother had her own business and she could wear whatever she pleased. I worked at a publishing company, and had superiors to answer to. After we had conversed about the usual pleasantries, my manager changed the topic to my dress code and asked if it was permanent. The nervous butterflies in my stomach did not obstruct the confidence in my voice as I affirmed that the rida is permanent. He just nodded his head in approval (as if I had asked for his permission) and changed the topic to the upcoming book release. After a split second hesitation, I also went along with the change of subject. It wasn't the end of that but it got easier for my colleagues to get used to my dress code since my boss approved. It was the natural order of things in the company I worked in.

When it came to telling my friends, they were not as surprised as my colleagues were. That actually surprised me. Their reasoning was that they knew me better than I knew myself. A close friend told me that if I had never taken purdah, it wouldn’t have made sense for me. It was just who I was, and it suited me. I was pleased by their positivity but even if they had protested, they wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it except assent to the change. With the tough change at work, I immensely appreciated my friends’ supports.

Now ridas have become the wardrobe that I shuffle through for work and it also comes with its fashion dilemmas, but comparatively minimal to other dress codes. There are days when I do think of wearing something else for an occasion. However my mind wipes that inkling away as I know that even though I have the option of reverting back to the pre-rida days, I wouldn’t want to. I am happy with my choice, safe from eyes that may look in a certain inappropriate way and content with the fact that it has not inhibited the normal routine of my life.

EWS = Essay 2 = It is true...

This essay is completely fictional.

It is true that public speaking builds confidence, but it is also true that to be able to speak for what you believe when no one else does builds character.

There have been a number of public-speaking competitions that I took part in. The feeling I would get when I would be up on stage, delivering paragraph after paragraph of researched and prepared work, would be worth a million dollars. I would know that what I’m saying is true and I had reference of other scholars who have stated the same the thing to support my arguments. There was an inter-school debate competition that I worked day and night for. My topic was in favor of the government policies of our country. Every day I would practice my speech and modify it here and there, trying to make it perfect. The day of the competition, as I went up on stage and I looked around at my audience, I knew that they would fall under the spell I would create by my practiced lines and I was confident that I was one of the best speakers among the other candidates. I had felt great and a little foolish as well. I felt foolish because it seemed as if I was an actor, entertaining the audience. I would bring out emotions of encouragement, inspiration, etc. for our government, no matter that my actual feelings about it were the opposite. This event didn't do anything for my own personal beliefs, but just built my confidence in how to speak in front of an audience or public.  

Being able to speak in front of a large crowd is significant in connecting with people outside of one’s comfort zone. However, when one speaks for what they truly believe in when no one else does, builds one’s character and one not only achieves confidence, but also obtains a following. This is what my father taught me. I never really understood it until I went for the debate competition that I mentioned before. He said this not just to me, but to my siblings as well. None of us understood it until we all were given an opportunity to speak up for ourselves when no one else did. My brother had an opportunity like that. He was a freshman in university and was getting his bearings in his academics and social life. The transition from school to university takes its toll on everybody and my brother was in the same boat. He had his midterms and in one of the exams, my brother was accused of cheating. My brother said that he didn’t cheat, but his friends did not support him. They weren’t sure either. My brother was called in front of the disciplinary committee and he clearly stated that he didn’t cheat. The confidence he exuded at the time confused the committee, even though a faculty member was a witness to it and he brought an almost convincing story. My brother was not fazed. In the end the committee dropped the accusation against him. The truth was that a friend sitting behind my brother was cheating, and because he did not want to get caught, he blamed it on my brother.

Not only did my brother face a challenge with confidence, but he also believed in himself and was not deterred when an entire committee thought he was guilty of cheating. There have been similar circumstances in which many get beaten down for not being able to speak for what they believe, let it be something about themselves or about the government policies of our country. My advice to all is to speak up, before it’s too late. 

EWS = Essay1 = Once I was, Now I am...

This essay is completely fictional.

Once I was ignorant, I was in university when terrible news hit the gossip vineyard. A senior girl had been raped when she was on her way hone from a birthday party late at night. There was a girl companion with her and a car slammed into their car. Three men got out of the other car and pulled the senior girl out and took her away in their car. The victim barely survived. It was such horrific news and something like happening to somebody that walked the same hallways as I did, sat on the same patch of garden in our university as my friends and I did, brought hairs on the back of my neck on end. The next day, this news had not ceased to spread and the raped girl was clearly not going to be forgotten for a while. My life went on as usual though, I went to classes, submitted assignments, cried over horrible exams and enjoyed my time with my friends. What I did not realize was that this senior girl who had been raped had her whole life changed. She wouldn't think the same way, talk the same way, and even see things the same way as she did before her terrible fate.

However, after a few weeks, I saw the girl walk around on campus alone. I was with my friends, enjoying a laugh over a grotesque joke and my eyes had gone to a girl wandering alone. A friend had nudged me and whispered to me that it was the girl who had been raped. I gave my friend a knowing look and then we went back to talking about trivial things in our lives. So consumed were we in our own selves, I did not give a second thought to the girl that walked alone.

I saw the girl again. She was in one of the senior classes I had taken. She sat at the back and since I was late, there was an empty seat only beside her. I made my way there and sat down, already hoping that the class gets over. There was nothing wrong with her. She listened to the lecture and wrote down notes as the rest of the class. But there was something about her; I knew something very personal about her. Her ordeal was open to the public and yet she sat there as if she was still like one of us. As if she wasn’t raped. A boy in the class got on the professor’s nerve for some comment he made and he was ordered to leave the class. I jumped up immediately and took the departed boy’s seat, so uncomfortable was I. How ignorant was I about that girl’s own discomfort at being snubbed so easily by me.    

Now I am just like the senior girl, a rape victim. I was astonished to be in such a position. My family background, financial or political was so normal that one wouldn’t assume that the rape was because of that. I was adequate looking. I was not an exotic beauty or a delicate doll, I was like plain Jane, and so it wasn’t because some mad stalker just had to have me. I was not even friends with anybody influential, so that some psycho terrorist could use me as leverage and rape me but not kill me. I was as plain as the Punjab province. My face must have showed the question in my head. Why me? The perpetrator had whispered hoarsely in my ear, his breath so foul, I wanted to choke. The sweat on his forehead was dripping on to me. He grunted off of me and then he said that it was because I was a girl, and I was worthless.

A couple of years after my bachelor’s graduation, I had been driving my car over to the supermarket close to my home. I had just come back from a tough meeting after which I may or may not have been fired from my job. That’s how my boss makes everyone feel, every weekly meeting was a ‘fired or not fired?” one. I got a car park in front of the supermarket and I opened my door to get out of the car. Something slipped off of my lap; I realized that it was my phone that I have a habit of keeping on my lap. I bent down to retrieve it from under the car and suddenly I felt a prick at my back. I felt a voice extremely close to me, growl at me to get into the car. Icy fear trailed up my spine, I turned my face just a bit to see if I could ask anybody for help. There was no one. It was late evening, quickly getting dark. Whatever was held at my back went a bit deeper and I had no doubts that it was a gun when I heard the man unlock the safety belt. He urged me to get into the car or get shot in the head. I tried to control the shaking that was rapidly increasing, hoping desperately that somebody would sense my distress. There were cars driving by on the road, some parked far away from where I was, if I shouted for help, I was sure they could hear me. The question was that would they come over to help me? I had no choice but to get into the car again, with the man sitting behind me, his gun positioned very close to my head.

He gave me directions to the place I knew well. It was close to the beach and so secluded, you could hear the air causing the sand to swirl around. The man suddenly told me to stop in the middle of nowhere and he got out. He had his gun directed at me as he pulled me out with just one hand. Fighting was futile. If I had to fight, I would have shouted outside the supermarket, but I would be dead too. As I stood there, my knees were almost about to buckle under me. They actually buckled when he pulled the trigger but the bullet did not hit me, he had shot the fire in the air, to just to let me know that the gun was real. Then he ordered me to take off my clothes and after that, I blanked out everything else that happened later.

I survived especially because after the rape, the man threw my phone on the ground and drove my car away. I called my sister to get me. The horror had just begun and it has remained a part of me ever since. Oddly, I remembered that girl who had also gotten raped when I was in university. How offhanded I was about it. Only because she was just a stranger to me, I had no idea what her name was or where she lived or anything. All I knew was that she was also a girl and some deranged, psychopath had also told her that she was worthless and deserved to get raped. Now we both had something in common. I would probably be able to sit beside her now.

I quit my job afterwards as a columnist from a newspaper and became a humanitarian. I would visit women crisis centers and help out with women who were also victims of rape. However, I would always remember the girl who I didn’t help. I had actually turned away from her when I should have given a friendly smile at least. How could have been so ignorant, so unfriendly, so inhumane? I wish to God that no one goes through what the senior girl and I went through. Unfortunately though, it happens more often in my country than probably anywhere else. The rapes have increased enormously and don’t plan on decreasing yet. What does a girl have to do in this situation?