The Walk and The Talk.

I miss walking around the streets of Dubai. Even with the intense heat, it's so good to be able to just... walk. I love Lahore more than any place in the world but you just don't have the liberty of walking around the streets here, especially at night. In Dubai, we'd be roaming around at 1 a.m. and nobody gave a shit. No leers, no cat-calls, no inappropriate comments. I'm not saying that's all you get when you're out in Pakistan but come on. It's intensely liberating to just walk around and take pictures and eat and have shee- never mind. Aside from shopping and eating, there really isn't much to do in Dubai either but God, the freedom. I crave that.

Indecision.

Tossup between Steelheart and The Wise Man's Fear. Which one to start first? 

Reviving Happiness

Sounds so nice, doesn't it? NO, IT'S NOT CORNY. So, every Eid I upload this post about how much it sucks, how bored I am, whine, moan, etc. I'm really looking forward to this year's though, because of: https://www.facebook.com/events/501298896616342/?notif_t=plan_user_joined

A group of my friends got together and decided to do something worthwhile on this Eid for a change; not that stuffing our faces isn't worthwhile. Of course it is. But this is way more fun and hey, who wants to pass up a chance to do good?

It's an event dedicated to helping those children who are stuck celebrating (heh) Eid in hospitals. Some of them probably won't even have their families to be there for them. How about we get off our fat behinds and help these kids have a nice time for once? There are different activities and gift baskets, volunteers are always welcome along with donations. Please, please join us and help make a difference in someone's life. Who knows, you just might be exactly what those kids need to get better =)

The event takes place in Shaukat Khanum, Lahore. If you aren't in the city, please ask your friends and family to donate/ participate.

Spread the word, people. See you there!

Still Here.

I love Saturday mornings.

Except they have now been completely ruined with these massive power cuts and temperature reaching 50 almost every day.

I DON'T EVEN FEEL LIKE EATING IN THIS HEAT and THAT ladies and gentlemen, is blasphemous. 

Shards.

"I just want to be happy."

"Being happy doesn't always mean doing the right thing. What you want is to be at peace."

Sometimes, its ridiculously easy to go back to being a 3 year old with the simplest, most basic of needs. 

Gimme That.

You know those 70 year old ladies, smelling of moth balls and cat pee and this unique scent of just being old? The ones who refuse to throw certain things away until they have this big-ass pile of trash that they are obsessed with and like I said REFUSE TO THROW AWAY?

Yeah, that would be me. Except for the age and smell. I'm way older and smell way better. Seriously, if my mom didn't run intervention every now and then, I'd probably have a bed made of:

No, not asian women. Of random things I love to collect and don't want to throw away because I have an unhealthy attachment to them. Unhealthy is very unhealthy. 

I AM A HOARDER. I really am. There are a few things that I cannot bear to part with, even if they're old and broken and useless. It used to drive my siblings nuts. They just did not understand. 

See, I love stationary. Papers, pens, pencils, markers, rulers, erasers, fancy envelopes, you name it I had it. And I kept it. And kept it. Refused to use it. Refused to throw it away. By the end of a few years, I had this immense collection in a very very big shopping bag and nobody was allowed to touch it. No, not even mom. Then I moved on to other things...

Stickers. Make up. Jewelery. Old broken headphones. Pretty boxes. Everything was special, everything was attached to a memory (I'm totally making this up, btw. Didn't have any of those lame memory attachments, I just liked the stuff), everything was an unhealthy obsession.

And then my mom decided she'd had enough. I was like an old hobo who was slowly edging into mania. "NO, DON'T THROW THAT AWAY, I WANNA KEEP IT." "Why?" "I JUST DO, OKAY." 

I had piles and piles of random strange things that I loved and everyone else hated. And then the unthinkable happened...

Mama cleaned my room. 

Aka, threw out most stuff. Aka made me give that BEAUTIFUL stationary and those AWESOME stickers to all my younger cousins. And siblings. Oh how that BURRRRNED my heart, seeing the smug grins on my sister's and brothers' faces, finally getting their hands on my holy grail. Here, meet them. 

Brother 1:

 Sister:

 Brother 2 (I know, its a young girl. Shut up. He really was this evil):

Sigh. My heart weeps, mom. My heart weeps.

Mom:

Learn to Live

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”

― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman.

My Heart In These.

Two books that I love more than I can say:

1. The Name of the Wind
2. The Rook

I've only just started the second one but oh my God. I love. Reading is about all I do these days. That and listening to music. Day and night, night and day. This is all. Sleep doesn't come easily hence... Read and read and read some more.

If you're into Young Adult, do read books by Melina Marchetta. Yes, I realize how creepy 'young adult' sounds. Go read, anyway. 

Hollow.

Written by an anonymous friend.

We all have begun to realize that we aren't that important after all. We grew thinking about the fairy tales where the world would resolve around us and slowly we are adapting to the fact that we hold no significance. Nobody is going to write our praises when we die, nobody is going to remember what we said or did. We aren't leaders; we aren't the people we always idolized. We are ordinary human beings.  Ordinary, and hence astoundingly disposable. We now are aware of how easily we can be replaced.

We have begun to realize that butterflies aren't beautiful and rainbow on a sunny day isn't perfection. we are opening up to the possibility that there is a chance, a slight chance that god doesn't like us after all and maybe this existence and us being trapped in our skin is just his way of belittling us and the fact that this world might just be hell.

We are growing up to the fact that our life might have no purpose and there is no bigger picture, we are random assholes little more than a hollow husk coated with flesh and skin, being dictated in every sense of the word.  We aren't going to save the world, we can’t even save ourselves. Maybe the only reason why we like to kill others is because of the rush to the head, because we like it, because our lives would be pretty boring otherwise. Maybe we don't want our issues to be sorted, our problems solved, our hearts mended and our souls healed because if all that happens, what’s left in life? Paths not known of which we are afraid to embark upon? and we are just cowards we don't want to discover the unknown.

When it’s all said and done, maybe we will put a chair outside in the yard and look up in the sky and accept things. Accept that there is no purpose, and life is just a big empty space.. Hollow. unfilled. Life is a punishment.

The Magic Button — Make Everything OK

The magic button — Make Everything OK

Especially for Ridx. Because I promised you I'd let you know if I found something.

A Little Bit of Happy, God?

3 years ago, I lived somewhere else. We had this family living in the flat above ours. They had an 8 year old who spoke only Pashto (except when swearing), randomly came into our homes and started wandering around.

Today, this boy died of cancer. I can't even begin to know what to feel. I knew this kid. I had weird conversations with him; me talking in Urdu and laughing when he'd yell back in Pashto.  I'm shocked, yeah. Grief is a given: such a young child who died. I don't know what to write here, I don't know how to explain this whole jumbled up, brightly colored, painful ball of grief and dread and shock and despair in my head. I just need to talk to you, whoever is reading this, whoever is listening. I don't care who you are, I just need you to listen.

And God? I'm still waiting for that little bit of happy I hope I'm going to get. A tiny sign of 'it's all going to be okay' because I desperately need to believe in it.

Pitch Perfect

You want a girlie movie with lots of singing?

Get this:

When Will This End?

I know I'm supposed to expect this. I should be getting used to it. But sometimes it hits so hard, so bad. It's like I suddenly stop breathing and go blank. Like my heart is contained inside this cold metal fist that squeezes harder and harder until there's nothing but the pain. I'm supposed to accept it, let it go and move on. I can't. Every time, every bloody time this happens, I'm back to square one. The panic, the scrambled brain, the fear that no-things-will-never-be-okay... I don't know how to stop. I don't know how to accept or let it go or move on. How am I supposed to do that? 

Waiting for the Numb.

It doesn't hurt because if you keep hurting the same part of you again and again and again, the nerve endings all die. And when that happens, that part of you goes numb. That's why it doesn't hurt. Don't be proud of it.

- IWTFY

We're Not All Hazara: We're All Victims.

Regardless of where you live, Shias are being eliminated very efficiently all over the world. You know what the worst part of these tragedies are? The 'after'. Living with this. Living after it. Holding your dead and feeling like your heart will shrivel up and die with the pain and grief and senseless cruelty of it all. The dead... I don't know where they go. But we assume they reach oblivion. We don't. We're the ones left behind, the ones expected to do something about it.

There are peaceful protests happening all over Pakistan today and I'm going to one, too. I saw comments on these event pages and people outright refuse to show up claiming "This won't do any good." Sitting on your ass at home does? I'm not saying we should go out and overtake the government, achieve cures for AIDS and cancer, or establish world peace. What everyone wants right now is support. A participation in these events that tells them you care, that you'd at least be willing to show up with hundreds of other people. If for nothing than standing there, at least SHOW THE HELL UP. Believe me, it is at least way better than twiddling your thumbs, hiding in your room and ignoring the rising death toll on the news everyday. For one bloody day, stop being a cynic and please. Show. Up.

Protest in Lahore today: https://www.facebook.com/events/359604887471720/

Pow.

"Why do nice people choose the wrong people to date?"

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

"Can we make them know they deserve more?"

"We can try."

- Perks of Being a Wallflower.