To the simple things in life

                                              Why are you so enchanted by this world                                                        when a mine of gold lies within you? Have you ever thought about this claustrophobic feeling you get when being detained in a prison of your own worldly desires that seem so distant and the energy you have wasted in trying to reach out to them, is it all worth it? Ever thought?  With the immature and faulty  minds that we have grown up, we often ask ourselves,what will happen if we are left behind? How important it is to have what the others have? Isn't everything about the money? The richer you are, the better good looking? Why not show off a bit? Sadly our crave to be noticed alwa...

We see with the eyes but we see with the brain as well.Seeing with the brain is called imagination. We are familiar with the inscapes of our imagination because we have lived with them all our lives. Then, there are hallucinations. They are not part of our creation. They are not under our control. They seem to come from outside and mimic perception. It was summers of 2012. I was spending  vacations with my aunt in Portsmouth. One fine day my aunt received a call from a friend that she was attending a conference nearby so wanted to visit. My aunt welcomed her and informed us that a visitor is coming over and then she said and i quote,"You might find her a little different but don't worry". Aasia was in her early 40s. She was tall,grey haired and very simply dressed. A doctor by profession, never married. We started talking. Discussed anything and everything. She was intelligent. Owned a house in Glasgow. Loved her job. Not for a single minute did it occur to me that th...

My mother was right for once. Alya did come back with her husband, Arham. They registered in UK as husband and wife and rented a house a few streets away from ours. Arham was 15 years older than Ayla, as i had expected. He was the dominant one in their relationship. But then most men are. Ayla did join school. However, she had changed so much. She hardly talked. Hardly laughed. Liked being isolated. Nothing broke my heart so much than to see her like that. Above everything, she had started to maintain distance from me too, which killed me inside. My only sister was a stranger to me now. It angered and frightened me at the same time. I was angry with the way she was treating me. I was angry with the way she was treating herself. I was angry that she was keeping it quite. I was angry as to why it all happened to her. And then i was frightened. There was a lot she was keeping inside, hiding away. I feared her life.  "Ayla, how have you been? Don't you think we should talk. I ...

One fine morning,we both were escorted downstairs where a bunch of familiar faces awaited us. At the corner of the room, i saw three to four luggage bags. The three of them were already packed whereas the one empty was put in front of Ayla by my mother. "We are leaving for Pakistan tonight, better pack your bag". Pakistan has never dreaded me. We have been to Pakistan earlier on family marriages and other vacations. However it's been a while that we last visited as a family. The timing bothered me. The school was about to start in two weeks time and above all i was told i will be staying back. Ayla and i hadn't been separated like that before. Nothing was normal about that situation. Ayla ran back to her room, crying. Ayla, always the clever one. She knows, i thought to myself. I followed her. "What do you think is happening?", i asked. By the time, her sobs had changed into proper cries. "Don't you get it. Don't you remember when Fatima's...

Until Ayla turned 15, life was good. Despite my dad's lack of interest in us and my mom's constant reminders that a woman's place is only in the kitchen and her subjective notions that a girl's duty is only to look after her family, we both were doing good. There was a lot happening in life to distract us from the reality. I was into making friends, recently enrolled myself in a language class and was doing well in sports. Whereas Ayla had her GCSE's on the way so she was more concerned with her grades than anything else. During the winter vacations, we had a visitor from Pakistan,my dadi. I had always found it hard to be comfortable in her presence. Whether it was due to her constant complaining of how careless we girls were or her being very judgmental of our every move, not sure. But she was anything but lovable. Dadi stayed for the next six months until Ayla's exams which was convincingly very fishy but as a 11 years old, i believed i was thinking too much...

Inspired by the actual events, this post will revolve around the concept of forced marriages, an act still being performed by families living abroad. The story is a journey of the victim's sister after the victim is flown to  Pakistan to marry  a family friend. Here's the first part. Ayla and i were inseparable from the day i opened my eyes in this world to the day she left us to begin an arduous and mentally painful life journey. Despite the 5 years age difference, our relationship was beyond what was expected of us. We fought over clothes, scuffled over television remote and quarreled endlessly over  petty issues. However, the contrary is true too. My  bedtime was incomplete without Ayla reading out a tale to me. Her mornings involved everything from waking me up, helping me get ready to accompanying me to school. Not to forget our lunch break catch-ups. It was as if i never needed a friend. I had her and she was enough.  I lived in a very humble househ...

I am a believer of  the rainbow after rain I am a believer of the malwa flowers that bloom on the floor of the driest place on Earth. I am a believer of the sky reaching mountains and Congo river that is the deepest of all. This earth and the other galaxies that exist in the universe so vast. I am a believer of this all. I am a believer of peace unlike war. Tranquility over agitation. Harmony, not chaos. The content  humans rather than the hungry souls I am a believer of love before hate, destiny and fate. I am a believer of the paradise and the hell that exists. The home of the good and the bad. I am a believer of the life that awaits, beyond the limits my eyes and mind can reach. The words of God and the lessons His messengers preach I am a believer of  the Truth in that.