i just got back from a job interview of sorts. Well actually it was a survey that i had to fill out on the computer..
so i sat there answering rather disturbing questions like : are you comfortable selling something you personally dont like? did your parents punish you for stealing? etc etc
yes rather random. The thing is its a minimum wage retail job but all this fancy bullshit has to happen.it just has to.
selling my soul to the corporate world. ahhh isnt the world a lovelay place?
and then sitting in the subway i was reading this book that won the booker prize.I dont really like the book thus far. but it has to be good for it won the booker prize. Shallow you say? ...the protagonist is an adoloscent very much acquainted with the f word. And right beside me these two guys are standing using f-ck in every single sentence...their conversation went something like this
"he f-cking expects me to f-cking help him when he f-cking doesnt give a f-cking piece of f-cking crap"
and there i am reading vernon god little (thats the protagonist) talking about how f-cken unfair the world is. Rather surreal i'd say. book, reality - both share profanity.
do guys think they look more macho/good/handsome/attractive when they use 'fuck'?

uncertainty my friend is the name of the game. it aint all that bad...but it does tend to get to me.
applied twice to the teachers program - didnt get in. Accumulated as much volunteer experience as i could in these two and a half years which is supposedly why i didnt get in (lack of volunteer experience) and spent $200 but to no avail. I didnt get in. What the hell yaar? i mean in two and a half years, studying full time for the most part, how exactly am i supposed to have 10 years worth of volunteer experience?? haan?
and then when i apply to the less-recognized, less-worthy certificate for edu, that doesnt work out either! apparently none of the courses offered this semester are in that Godforsaken 'list' of courses that i need for the certificate. And i have done 5 that are needed - sirf ek baaki hai! only one course needed but just my luck - not offfered in the semester after which i graduate. Isnt life sweet?
im sorry to bitch so much but it just frikking gets to me. Can you please understand muy dilemma i want to ask them? as an individual student? not as some number on your system...make an exception thats what you tout yourselves for - for being pro-social justice and blah blah...well what abt it?
lagta hai i will end up with this most generic degree and have nothing to do...well surprise surprise. Perhaps i shouldve stuck to the old business one - atleast job mil jaati.
i hate them - i have a bad feeling this wont work out- that the certificate wont happen either. I thought of writing them a long letter...perhaps something of this sort tthat ive written here.You pride yourself at being multicultural and socially aware and give 'minorities'precedence - well aint that deep? and whered all of it go ? its not like i didnt try...
sorry this is such an angry narcissistic post but hey what the hell

i feel so clueless sometimes...where am i going? where will i be five years from now?
so many things to do, bursting with ambition....yet so ambivalent.
i want to go back to karachi. If not to satiate my homesickness, then to do something with this degree.
i see all these great pakistani people, people i respect, people who have done so much for their communties for underpriveleged Pakistanis, activists, lawyers etc etc and theyre middle aged. That gives me hope.
i mean if i have to do my masters, my phD and have a baby, thats about ten years right there. So by the time i actually DO something, i will be 'middle' aged myself.
Sigh...all this planning. Man plans God disposes sunna hai? Indeed. So lets not go too far in this mapping-out-of-future.
When i got engaged, I had little idea about whati wanted to do in the next three years, now i have plans for the coming ten!
it is selfish of me to want to put myself first...over everything. i dont mean that in a self-sacrificial sort of way...just reflecting. I mean it HAS been 4 years now...it would make everyone so happy if i had a baby. It would make me happy too. But i understand what comes with it. More of this uncertainty, and feeling of being useless..
Allahmian please forgive me.

Fast Car
I was making calls for this NGO i volunteer for when one of the people i was calling put me on hold and there it was..the song i had long forgotten. Fast Car by Tracy Chapman..i promised myself i would go home and look it up on the net and possibly try and hear it. And I did. That song is associated with my alevel days. The confusing time when i was shy, starting-to-get-philosophical, starting-to-make-guy-friends (after having been in an all girls school for a long time) and just plain confusing. And one day me, and three of my art class mates had gone to paint a fellow classmate's ceiling. Yes, she had a new house and a new art studio which she asked us to help paint.Perhaps her inspiration came from Sadequain's ceiling in frere hall...who knows. But there we were painting a ceiling! it seems so exotic and faraway now. Me, the shy lonely little person having this art gang and us painting a ceiling! we were listening to H's cassette (the only guy who had agreed to come) and thats where i first heard FastCar. What i realized yesterday was that i had not bothered to 'hear' fast car, the lyrics i mean. It was just cool to agree it was a good song, in a non-confirmist, non-popular sort of way. H always did listen to these 'alternative' songs. he was an avid fan of Marylin Manson too. But FastCar's lyrics mean so much more to me today when i understand what chapman is singing about...

You got a fast car
And I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
We won't have to drive too far
Just 'cross the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living

and it ends with..

You got a fast car
And I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinking late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do of your kids
I'd always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me would find it
I got no plans I ain't going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving

i didnt know shit when i heard that song and pretended to enjoy it for its "depth" . what about h? was he pretending all those times when he acted philosophical and aloof? and r and s and m all of them...living in the rich suburb of karachi, applying to universities abroad, having access to any and everything...is it good to be clueless as adoloscents? or to be aware? or both? but isnt it worse to fake being so politically aware and philosophical?

Having said all that, i do have great memories of my art class. I wish i had done better than a D and then maybe i wouldve stuck with it for longer..

i am so frustrated...i thought that having two years worth of job experience
should get me a retail minimum wage job atleast...well surprise surprise! it dont
work like that. But then again, its only been three days since i started searching
for a job and dropping my resume off at places.
all this talk about dropping business and going for something i "enjoy" and that
"means somehting" - its all exploding in my face. Im about to graduate in 3 months
with absolutely no idea what to do with my life. What exactly does a BA social
scientist do? my only hope seems to be karachi. If i go back atleast i can teach. Isnt
that strange that this "meaningful" degree will be useful in underdeveloped little pakistan
as opposed to rich Canada? Then again, this fact has other implications. In no mood for that now.
i bought a watch today. I lost my old seiko watch that A had given me. The one i gave him got stolen when our place in karachi was broken into. So we're even :) i got this really "cool" thick black leather strap watch. It makes me feel young...not that im very old mind you. And i made sure i didnt get any of those pretentious brands. ALL and i mean ALL my friends, cousins, acquaintances have guess watches. Fricking uniformity - even in brand names.
SO much uncertainty...buying a watch that makes me feel young...why? today i was thinking what if i was to have a baby...and then i thought of all these people here who would look down upon me. Since i became a mother so soon. No work experience. Aakhir zindagi hai kya? what makes it liveable? work, a baby? ambivalence. new word i learnt last year. I am very very ambivalent about alot of things.
ive been watching tanhaiyaan ever since exams ended..compare that with dramas today and youll notice two things : 1. current emphases on location (either it will be dubai or some mansion in defence) 2. the story just doesnt run smoothly in new dramas and events like shaadis are elaborately shot which were avoided in older dramas in order for the story/plot to develop.

PS: whenever i click on "comment" (in mine and in other ppls blogs) nothing happens...anyone know how to fix this? since i can access comments on my blog through the haloscan site, i will be able to read replies..

it wasnt that bad!!
that is so funny...from now on whenever i have to go there i will write in this blog beforehand..maybe then the uncomfortableness wont happen!
kher yes so it wasnt. on the contrary, i felt very good after coming back. BUT the difference was that these people were much nicer and they knew my family so i capitalized on that and also the hoity toity people had their own little groups so i didnt have to interact with them. I am very lucky to have found T. She's a gem . She's my age and pretty much in the same boat as me. She picked us up and dropped us with her hubby. I did have the occasional i-feel-like-im-a-wallflower and i-have-noone-to-talk-to-and-everyone-must-be-looking-at-me awkwardness but all in all it werent that bad!
what can i say..i was pleasantly surprised!

Richmond Hill

I have to go to another "gathering" today...in about half an hour in fact.. its such a strange, ambivalent mixed thing to go to this part of the city - one because we need a ride and two, because of the people. But i think one is more important. I never knew i was such an ego maniac...but i guess i am. I mean so what if someone has to pick us up? what if i have to show that i am oh-so-grateful to them for doing this? i can just see myself an hour from now in the backseat...feeling that strange gundi feeling...that im obligated. All this because of not having a car...sigh who wouldve thought.
The interesting thing is it makes me reflect on how we treated people in khi who didnt have cars..most of the people we mingled with did but this one particular family related to my mum comes to mind who didnt. Very very nice people..they used to come in a rickshaw and i remember the last time they came - they got so much stuff for us.."chewra" and other condiments people of southasian origin who've lived in africa make. Anyways so these people were really really genuine and nice and my mum is quite close to them..but there was an element of "pity" in how i saw them.. i almost dont want to say pity, but really thats what it was...or maybe sympathy. And thats why being in their shoes here makes me squirm...the last thing anyone want is to be pitied.
but it is a mixed thing because when i go to these places, there are people i genuinely like and its nice to feel a part of something..even if it is a group of people that look and speak like you (relatively) yet the pity part overshadows the shortlived momentary satisfaction
kher dekhte hein..

For Anon:
"you dont have that thing on your blg where it tells us where you are and what you are doing there!!! ..."

well those are very good questions indeed, where am i? what am i doing here?
...thats just me being a smart ass
actually i dont know how i can get this thing which tells you where i am etc. So ill just say it here..
i'm in toronto, canada and yearning 24/7 for karachi, pakistan. Have been here for 2 and a half years now and hope to go back to karachi one day - forever. I'm a third year university student and started this blog after reading a friend's whose is brilliant and now that i look at other blogs i see how mine seems like a cheap attempt at immitating hers..:) thats me being reflective.

I promised myself i would write this somewhere...so here goes
one of my education course profs identified herself as "lesbian" the other day; she said those very words
"I identify as a lesbian" in context of what we were discussing ie homophobia in schools. As
she said that, i thought that is such a huge thing to say - i mean its such an essential yet
controversial part of her identity.Rocks should fall, or hugs should be given or something but there we sat about 30 of us - silent. No smirks, no smiles, no expression. And she went on to talk about other things...i wondered how she felt at that point. This is a very "communal" class - there's personal connections with the prof, she's very open to discussion and hearing what we have to say - but nothing. we were awestruck..atleast i was. Here was a lesbian! and she was so "normal" and yet, this was a person doomed by my faith..

Day before yesterday, she had something else to say. we had to do essays for this class regarding course texts. One of those texts were about homophobia. Lets call the prof M. M said alot of those essays expressed how students were "religous" and that they were willing to tolerate homosexuals as long as the homosexuals made no show of their identity - or expressed their love for their partners. At this point M said "this is very hard for me..so maybe we can do this together". And she gave us a line. She said "if your tolerance relies on someone else's silence" there is a problem. She is a very gentle person so my words here dont convey the way she said it..very quietly, very gently. although it mustve been earthshatteringly painful for her to read that people will "tolerate" her..but as she said it, her lips started quivering crazily as if any minute she would burst out crying.. but her lips quivered yet she went on...same quiet voice...elaborating on that statement..."you guys will encounter homosexuals as teachers" she said "there is no question about that". and the lips quivered. "i just want you to think about this" she kept talking- alone. Lips quivering and eyes starting to water despite her apparent attempt to control herself. We did not do this talking "together".

Why am i saying all this? because it made me think. I wish i had the guts to say something supportive to her...but what about my faith? So my faith tells me that homosexuality is a sin.And that there was a whole nation of them that were destroyed - no question about it- it is wrong. BUT what about this breathing, feeling, lips-quivering-like-mad human being? who felt isolated and betrayed in her own classroom? If i dont believe in it, does that mean i should despise people who practice it, some of whom have no choice for theyre "born this way"? does that mean those people have no right to "be"? to express? to live?