Wanderlust

Wanderlust is defined as a strong desire for or an impulse to wander or travel and explore the world... And I suffer from it time to time.
 I enjoy getting behind the wheel and hitting the road. I learned to drive at the young age of 14 years and i still enjoy driving my car.
 The anticipation of what might lie ahead or what awaits you on the road...what new landscapes you are going to see...what wildlife or livestock you might come across...what people you come across.... It is all very exciting for me.

Reaching the destination is one thing but the journey is the most interesting part for me.

People wonder why I like to drive and why don't I just take a plane and get to my destination in a much shorter time...but...for me travelling by road is a whole another experience...it is "Organic"...you are in touch with your surroundings...you interact with the environment.

You get to see the road, the cities, the scenery, up close. You get to see the weather and the changing weather...you get to see a storm forming far away...you see the beautiful display of lightening in the clouds far away...it is electric. 

You see rotating clouds changing shape really fast and pray that the rotation doesn't get stronger and turns into a full fledged Tornado.
Sometimes you end up in the middle of a storm and everything turns dark and rain pours down like buckets of water... and all you can see are the red lights of the cars ahead of you and you follow that...you can't see the side of the road, it is almost by instinct that you  drive...full attention and full focus on the little red lights of the car ahead of you...it makes one feel alive. ....or... you are hit by hail and you try to find shelter real quick...Find a bridge and park under it, a Rest Stop or a gas station...you run inside and get some warm coffee or a cold drink and wait it out...and there you are among strangers but you are all experiencing the same thing and you form a temporary bond with the fellow travelers...people you will never see again.

Sometimes we get to see a beautiful huge Rainbow after the rain and thunder. The atmosphere after the rain is so fresh and clean...everything looks new and washed...the green is greener and all the colours of nature look punched...the air clean and everything looks sharper.

Once I was driving at night time and we saw these Bluish green ribbons of light waving in the sky...it was "Aurora Borealis" or the "Northern Lights" and they are a sight to behold. I have never seen anything like that in my life...it was amazing! If I was not on the road at 1 am that night in the Northern hemisphere, I would have missed experiencing such beauty.

You see the landscape change from flat to Rocky mountains and you drive by lakes and rivers...you see beautiful birds in the lakes sitting idly....you see forests that were burnt down by fire with just the burnt tree trunks remaining...where there once used to be a lush green forest....that has a beauty of its own.

The sun changes its position...as the day goes by...and you see fields and lakes and trees in a different light. Evening light just before sunset makes everything look beautiful...that is the perfect time to take photographs.

With change in landscape there is a change in the people as well...it is subtle but you notice from town to town how people are different...the way they dress, a little change in dialect...the way they decorate and the symbols they use in their decor are very telling.


Maybe i like all this driving because i have been used to it since i was a child and my father drove us everywhere and we got to see different places on the road and had some memorable trips with family and friends...and ended up having some adventure as well....

Once it was middle of the night and we were travelling from Zhob to Quetta and it started snowing hard...the roads became slippery, our car's heater died on us...it was a Mazda...and then our car got stuck in the snow...in the middle of nowhere. (This was before the cell phone days.) The ice started to form on the windshield and windshield wipers were of no use...( It was just sheet ice) my father had to go out of the car to try to scrape the ice off the windshield with a comb! That was the only thing we had that he could use to scrape the ice.  My father smoked so we had some matches with us and he tried to light the matches and melt the snow but they were little matches and died real quick. 
My father couldn't see anything and the car hit  a train's gate... thank God he didn't hit the train.
So... we were stuck, with no heat...and little kids in the back with some blankets...
 I was just seven years old and i was the eldest...the rest were younger and my sister was hardly a few months old.
Fortunate for us that at that moment in the distance, my father saw a light...it was a little roadside Chai place. Lucky for us. He went there and got some hot water from them and poured on the windshield...the ice melted and he could see better and we drove off to Quetta...we made it home safe with some damage to the car but from that day onward one of my father's rule was never to travel at night...especially with young kids.

Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis ) (Not my photograph)

Sunset in Montana

Burnt Trees in Montana.

Another memorable trip was a drive all the way from Turbat to Quetta. I wanted to see the whole of Baluchistan by road and convinced my siblings to go by road with me...it was a long trip (469 mi ) and the roads weren't good at all, but me being the eldest got my way.
 I was in the 11th grade at the time...the landscape was beautiful  but at places there was no road...only tire tracks that our driver followed ( he was a local and he knew his way around )

There was hardly any population on the way...no Truck driver stops or shops etc...very few places where you could stop for food or drink...mostly dry parched land, rocky mountains and dessert with some oasis here and there....and we slept under the Satriest  sky one has ever seen. Because there were no city lights to dim the Star light.

 It was in Khuzdar where we slept in "Machardanis" ( mosquito nets ) under the open sky. It was really a beautiful sky and i have never seen a sky like that again in my life.
My siblings still remember that night and that is the only thing they liked about that whole trip...the rest of the trip i got cursed for making them go by road...where there was no road at all and their backs hurt form all the off road driving.

We did stop at some local's house and they offered us Tea and snacks as we were the Commissioner's children...He was a Hindu and a local leader. He owned some gas stations there. I found it interesting that a Hindu was a local leader and that the locals had accepted him...he had lived there all his life and his ancestors had lived there before him...so this was his home as much as any other Baluch, Bugti or Mengal's home...But those were the good old days...now we have a different yard stick to measure people's worth and value with.

Anyway after Khuzdar the road was paved and we were thankful for that... reached Quetta in 2 days from Turbat, but i did get to see places that no one has ever seen and the images are etched in my mind....the Stary night Sky, the tire tracks in the sand that we followed...an Oasis or a grove of Date trees...the beautiful sunsets...someone playing beautiful flute in the silent night while we slept under the starry sky...Beauty,Peace and Tranquility.

Now a days sometimes when i am driving around town and hit a highway...i have this strong urge to keep on driving on the Highway and see where it takes me...just keep going...but then i remember that i have a life and obligations and that brings me back down to earth. Maybe in my previous life i was a Wanderer...and so to quench my wanderlust i drive.

I am nobody and everybody!

      I don't belong anywhere...that is how i felt ever since i was a child. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we traveled a lot and didn't stay in any place for long. I went to about 7 different schools till tenth grade. I was always the new kid in the class and just as i was beginning to settle down and getting accepted in friends groups, we would move again. But all this moving around and changing schools helped me build social skills that have helped me till today. It helped me to get to know different people and different cultures... i got to see different landscapes too.
But everywhere I went, I was a stranger...the new kid on the block...the outsider. Being alone and not belonging to any group made me stronger because everyone can feel safe in a pack....but then you loose your individuality in a pack...you become a sheep... it is harder to face things on your own...and be your own person.
I never learnt my native languages till I was in 4th or 5th grade. My mother's family spoke one language and my father's family spoke another...so we learnt Urdu first then English and then Pashtu and Saraiki.
When i was at my mother's house I was called a Khajikzai and when I was at my father's family, I was called a Gandapur.
I could not speak any of the languages very well...when I went to my Nana's house, they told me to speak Pushto and my pushto was not good enough for them...when I went to my dada's house, they would say that their jaws ached from speaking all the Urdu with me, because I couldn't speak Saraiki well enough. For Khajizais, I was more like a Gandapur and for Gandapurs, I was more like a Khajikzai....that is how it went on in my family. My grandfather jokingly called me a Mohajir form UP, because I spoke Urdu.
Both my parents were the eldest in their family and I was their eldest daughter, so I was loved by all. But when I went to my hometown for vacation, I always felt like an outsider... no matter how much I wanted to fit in.
The same story went on else where in schools as well. When I was in Islamabad... I was the Pashtun girl and when I was in Peshawar... I was not Pashtun enough, because my Pashto wasn't great. In school and colleges, I was constantly reminded of what I was... or was not.
My father always taught me that when ever anyone asks you ,who you are, just say, " I am a Pakistani" and that should shut them up. But that didn't help much, because the next question would be... but from where in Pakistan?
Anyway... then we came abroad and have been living here for a while... Pakistanis here thought we were not Pakistani enough, because we spoke English and interacted with Americans and made local friends as well...I let my children play with our neighbors and their school friends...some Pakistanis don't even let their kids interact with American kids! So to them we were not Pakistani enough.... The Americans identified us as Pakistanis....We are moderate and modest Muslims, but not Wahabis... so the Arabs thought we are not Muslim enough but the others living in USA know us as a Muslim family...
After 9/11 we were definitely the Muslim family from Pakistan...we had to constantly defend our faith and our country. We took it upon ourselves to educate the locals about our Faith and our culture...we tried to get rid of some misconceptions they had about our faith. I feel bad that my kids had to grow up in this environment where Muslims were labelled as the bad guys and we had to be on the defensive.
While doing that we were still not good enough Muslims for some local Pakistanis...because we didn't dress like Arabs and my kids couldn't speak Urdu very well....and I didn't wear a hijab. But if I wear a hijab, then am I a good Muslim no matter what i do in my real life? Isn't that a hypocrisy? We are judged by our appearances and not our deeds. My Pakistani family calls my kids and me Angrez but in America I am a Pakistani Muslim...we call ourselves "Desi" while living in "Pardes".
 So who am i?  A Pashtun, a Pakistani, a Desi, a Pardesi, an Angrez or a Muslim???
 I am everybody and nobody!
I am a contradiction... an American Muslim...a Pakistani Angrez...a non Pashto speaking Pashtun....a non Sariki speaking Derawal and a Desi Pardesi............i am me.......i can identify with all the labels and maybe because of that i have empathy and i can see things form other people's perspective... because i am always the other one.... the one that doesn't belong anywhere.                  

"BhaRka rahay hain aag lab e Naghma gar say hum"


BhaRka rahay hain aag lab e naghma gar say hum
Khamosh kiya rahein gay zamanay kay dar say hum

Kuch aur barh gayay jo andheray tou kiya hua
Mayoos tou nahin hain talou e sahar say hum

Lay day kay apnay pass faqat ik nazar tou hai
Kiyoun dekhain zindagi ko kisi ki nazar say hum

Mana keh iss zameen ko na gulzar kar sakay
Kuch khar kum tou kar gayay guzray jidhar say hum





                                       Abdul Haye Sahir.

Blind and Living Dead

Too much light can make people blind, if they are used to being in the dark........the light is unbearable...it hurts...
So they just shut their eyes.

The truth is so harsh that they have to lie to themselves, so they can live....but is that really living?
People with sight, hearing and speech.... Deaf, Dumb and Blind!      
How can one show them the light...they don't want to see and you can't make them see.............

Let the sleeping sleep....and maybe i should sleep too....shut my eyes and dream of a place that only exists in my dreams...just go to my heaven that exists only in my dreams and away from the harsh realities of life.

Maybe, the seeing should also stop seeing and enter the blissful sleep of idiocy...maybe...

People living in hell, thinking it is heaven...should be left alone... their Hell is their Heaven...let them be in their "Heaven"...why wake them up from their blissful sleep...why show them that their Heaven is really a Hell...why torture their souls?

Maybe, we are the living dead....that is why death looks like life...

What can one say about the living who value death over life?

Maybe...they can see and know the hell they are living in, so they choose death over life..........they are not the living dead and they are not the blind!

They can see and they are alive!

                         

Khalil Jibran (Sorrow and Joy )

Then the woman said, speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
   And he answered:
 
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
   And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
 
The deeper that sorrow craves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
   Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
 
   When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
   When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

  Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
  Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

  Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrows and your joy.
 Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.