Welcome Back..?

So I am back here after a good 4 years.

Now in these four years much has happened to me, with me, and by me. And if you're still on this journey with me you'll be able to pick up the pieces and help me put myself back together.

I have completed my degree.
I have experienced the sights and sounds of Montreal and now my heart can't think of any other place I would rather be.
I have gained about 20kgs.
I have lost about 20 really close friends.
I have moved back home.

And I have learnt that the world according to me is still messed up. But now I also now, I am a little more messed up than I was hoping to be.

Be

To be or not to be was never the question. It was meant to be, to be me or not to be me. 

Someone tells me to be me. And then someone says don't be me. So what do I end up to be?

Being you never does work out unless it's a crappy rom-com movie and your goofy/dorky but unbelievably cute prince charming loves you for being you. Even if the you you're being is just not the you that you actually may be.

Is there a button I should press somewhere in my head to not be the me I am being? 

Charades

She walks with her head held high, 

But what's missing is the spark in her eyes, 

Her heels click and her jacket shines. 

The hair is so perfect and so is her smile. 

Mirror staring back is the only witness

All she craves is less of this bitterness

She powders her nose and pinches her cheeks 

All smiles for the camera when the girls say cheese 

She feels an itch, but she cant scratch it 

Her body aches but still she dances 

The whiskey and water, that most boys wont dare 
She laughs loud and pretends to care

She has to be strong because she cant cry

Tears just don't come to her eyes 

A drag of her Malboro

She is good to go

A conversation snippet here and there but she is too lost in her mind to care. Her cigarette's ash falls on the new dress. She doesn't give a damn because its not real. If it burnt her soul, she would feel it, but its just the clothes and she has more. She notices, when they notice her not noticing the burn, and quickly calls herself clumsy.

How much can make them enjoy her company? Its all an act and it may just be the final scene. She doesn't belong in her mind, let alone here. Why are the lights so bright and the girls with too much makeup? 

Casually, they remind her, 

You're one of us and not a stranger. 

She doesn't know what more to do, like a ticker on a time bomb, her head is ready to explode.

She is not afraid to say anything on her mind, yet at times she is tongue-tied. That's who she is and has always been. But is she still that now? All she wants is to let go and live free but she is a prisoner inside her own body. A faint scar under her chin, her fingers touche it and move back to flip her hair. Its like her brain is playing games with her. 

Not a look, not a murmur
Not a single one around her can know it's back
Her eyes scream but her lips curve up
She is scared, so she keeps it locked up 


Laughing so hard, it makes those tears finally come to her eyes. She covers them up by calling him funny. He takes a bow and asks her to dance, she politely refuses and points to her friend. 

She is afraid, her soul will slip through with her jokes and laughter. It is a strained cry of despair. 

The night is young so she shuts herself off, pretending, again this time, that this is where she belongs. 

But she needs to save herself, before she falls down again because now she knows it's only herself messing with her head.

We learn to hate before we learn to love. At least thats what I feel.

A child cries at his birth because we steal from him the world he knew for so long and put him in a place he does not know, a place where he may be safer and grow and conceive a child of his own. Yet, he isn't safe. Not at his birth and not at his death. Because the world isn't a safe place. Theres too much hate.

Is it even possible to learn to hate? What is hate? How do we collect that rage that boils inside us, enough to annihilate the universe and label it to be hate?

We realize the monstrosity inside us and let it hold us tight without a fight. The unknown existence of it is buried deep in the layers in our hearts and the realization pushes it to the surface. The bubble of our sanity bursts all around us engulfing everyone who surrounds us and everyone who cares and everyone who just wants to do good. But does anyone really want to do any good?

God made man in his own image. Yet we are no gods in our existences. We fight, we burn, we cry and we never think good for others. Self motivated. Manipulative. Self centered.

If there is a God, which at times i do hope there is, he wouldn't have made us like this would he?

Burn baby, burn.

My city burns today. In the brightness of the day. And it will burn in the darkness of the night. The flames will engulf the nation into a solitude of hatred and a blanket of fear. 

Every single life mourned at the death of a city, at a death of a nation and now the world will mourn at the death of humanity. 

Where is the love gone? Where has coexistence disappeared? 

Or i forget that we never had love and coexistence written in our DNAs. 

We are vile creatures. We are self destructive and we are moral less imbeciles devoted to love of hatred. 

There will never be a light at the end of the tunnel for us. Because the crowd has burned it down and the remains have caved in. 

Dany

"Wear your jacket. Dany's in five."

Its not a question, its not an invite. Its always a statement.

The after midnight meal I became used to looking forward to on most days i ate early. Halal pepperoni pizza.

Not that it made a difference. Im more of a eat all but pork type. Its not a religious thing. Pigs eat their own shit. So im eating their shit. Which is grossly unappetizing.

Thin crispy crust and the extra fries from the Allie on weekdays if we reached almost before closing. Its made me gain the freshman fifty. Yes, fifty. Not fifteen as the rest of them college kids.

Kinda miss Montreal now that I'm home. This is good food. Not the stuff i got used to eating there.

Getting food whenever I want isn't a problem there, I'm hoping I just don't get used to getting 'good' food whenever I want to. 

Days

To put this life into words seems easy. When you sit down to do it you cant remember why you sat down to write about it at first. 

You dont remember the day you were brought into the world. Yet everyone around you does. They laugh and scream and want a piece of you. You're never actually a part of it. 

And nobody will remember your last day except you. They'll mourn and cry. But they'll never be a part of it.

 Its messed up, isn't it?

The day your life starts you dont know, and the day it ends nobody else knows.

The all nighters have begun.

Pakorey.

Its been raining every hour since the past two days. I see it from the tall windows right across the room from my throne in the library. 

Security guards see me walk in early in the morning and new ones see me leave late at night. I dont even think they wonder about the timings. Everyones living at the library. They know the drill.


I take a break, i hang out with new people everyday, i wait for my brain to wake up, i smoke, grab a french vanilla from timmys on campus if it isnt too late.

And then I crave.

All i need now is chai with pakoras. And if my stars are aligned right may be my mom would bring jalebis and samosas on her way home.

But i forget.

Trois ans de plus de la torture dans les régions glacées du nord de l'Amérique.

Sigh.

Snow in Disguise

Ive been borrowing one book from the library all of the past month. Its the only one that NO bookstore in Montreal has. Its a Canadian Edition, and you know how they roll. (I actually dont know what their deal is man. Like seriously.)


So i wake up, go to the library, stay there for an hour, eat on campus, issue it and study. Until 3. When a loophole lets me keep a course reserve till 11 am next morning. So i issue it at 3 and go home. And i rush to campus at 11 am and repeat.


Yesterday, i couldn't. I checked back since the moment it was due back till the borrowing closed. The person who had borrowed probably payed some crazy ass fine on that book now. But i simply could not get the book. And there has never been a day where i couldnt borrow this book. 


And then from 2.44 to 7.16 am, I witnessed my first snowfall. 


I ran out in my flip-flops and pajamas. I welcomed winter with uncovered arms and feet. And the smile on my face, when those tiny flecks metled on my skin, was the only warmth i had. But it was enough. Enough to pull me through the minus 8 of Montreal snowy night. 


God didnt want me studying and sleeping early so i could return my book because he wanted me to see the first snow fall of my life.


He works in mysterious ways. Ones that never fail to amaze me.

College life. Y u no b easy?

Im sitting at the library. Choosing to write about how i dont have a topic to write about rather than finding a topic to write about and not write about not having a topic to write about and writing on that topic.


So exactly how does one decide on a topic out of a gazillion? With about like a billion books published on everything that socio has to offer.. Im stuck reading a book that would be easy for my sister to even understand. Who by the way is 14 and is not at all a socio person. But im here without a clue how to stretch a topic over 10 pages with 4 "scholarly"* references. 


*Who is not a scholar these days? 
Amir Liaquat called himself a scholar. Look where that got him :P

Bold and Beautiful.

I got whispered at in the elevator by a man really politely that i should wear that shirt with dress pants, it would accentuate my gorgeous lower body. Never had i known what accentuating the lower body meant, but when i did try it on. Oh man. I knew what accentuating my lower body meant. And also, that someone as fat as me could even have a gorgeous lower body. I mean seriously. I've never thought twice about putting clothes on. And i think i've used accentuate enough.

Effeminate men made me uncomfortable.


I would put them in the same category as aunties at weddings with their plates full, big upper bodies coming to hug (read: suffocate) you and when i have to go to the "ladies room" and there are another 10 girls already there not wanting to use it for its actual purpose but to stare and glare...


This isnt a bitching or anything discriminatory but its just a thought.


Maybe i used to get so uncomfortable is because it wasnt so common in my society, then the issue of a language barrier (the one i face with most girls) and then just seeing them do their thing.


I see my prez strutting down the caf stairs and i say to myself, man, that guy really has some guts. I would never be able to be that confident and showing the world who i really am. He's bold. He's daring. And he's actually not full of himself. By far, at my rez, he has been the most welcoming and warm person ive met. 


Now, i look at effeminate men and i see a way for me to be bolder. Believe it or not, its just really overwhelming to see them carrying themselves off better than most women. Their sense of style, talk and most of all their elegance. 

Strange

So this space has been neglected since a few months.. The guilt does come up at times when i read other blogs but then I quickly log off so that the urge to write about two months of my life goes away. But i think the whole caught up in a new country and in a city that only predominantly communicates in French and then getting here a month late with midterms is a valid excuse to be away. 


Not justifying leaving my baby here. But you get what im saying right? 


Its been tough. The cold, the newness and then the readings. I miss home. I miss the system and most of all.. I miss the dependency. Its just so unnerving to like not being able to call the car when my class gets done..


Actually, what am i saying? 


I love it. 


What i love the most is the fact that i can actually be who i want to be and whenever i want to be. College is a funny place. Nobody looks at what you're wearing, whether you've had time to brush your hair before class or what music is blasting from your headphone to or how tall your coffee mug is when your face clearly shows no sleep for days. 


I can wear my flashy wayfarers and t-shirts with bands i dont even listen and to be a hipster one day or i can boot-up and catwalk my way into class or on some early days just sneak into class quietly with my pajamas. 


And trust me, its actually relieving to know that nobody would stare. 


Montreals my home now. Whether it be minus 30 or sunny like it was today. Although i cant wait to go back. This feels like mine. 


Ive missed you, bloggy. I'll be back soon. 
A LOT NEEDS TO BE TOLD TO YOU.


Love
Anam

Ordinary

My brain functions weirdly. It screams out when i can't.
 
Good screaming. Loud screaming. Angry screaming
Nirvana kinda screaming.. Wrestle Mania kinda screaming.. Stock market screaming.. 
 
My screaming is not anything psychological or medical just to make sure you know. It gives me that calm that maybe a pothead gets from weed or an alcoholic gets from booze. 

My brain just lashes out and this pain erupts inside. My blood boils and i look away and cry. The adrenaline never gets me to the flight or fight response. Instead, it just gathers in my head. Slowly but surely suffocating every bad cell inside until i'm clean. And i can start over. 

It takes 7 years for your body to replace each cell. And i guess at almost 19 i dont think i can say that I've been cleansed well. The next ones in 2 years. I guess i just need to wait it out.

Sometimes i just dont want to be strong enough to deal with the stuff that makes me want to scream inside.. Because it doesnt make me ordinary. My brain wants to be ordinary at times and not be so mature. I wish i could take it out but for the sake of the people i love, i plaster a smile on my face and go on with whatever life's plan is. Trying to be strong when im not kills me. This tough girl image cant be broken now. I have to be strong because if im not strong, life is gonna screw me over and move on.

In the sacred words of The Killers, 'Its only natural'. 

Isnt it?

See you never, CIE!

GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE CIE!

I didnt think getting my results would feel so awesome. I feel grown up. Now anyone and everyone stuck in the CIE phase seems like a kid. Friend from a grade below seems like a child. I have unleashed the college spirit inside my self. 

And i feel fucking awesome.
I feel like Fawkes from Harry Potter. New life. Reborn.

Life's good. Its good-er when you cant believe it yourself.. And its good-est when the first people to congratulate you are those who never believed in you.

Reality.

The past year and a half has been wonderful for me. I had made a promise to myself to regain everything that i had lost. My self-esteem, friends, my sisters love and most of all my parents' trust. And as i stand here today, i feel like all the progress I've made has gone to waste.

I never understood how i got to the point where my honesty would be doubted. But as with all things, it happened in a flash. Remembering it is always like looking through a kaleidoscope. Every turn and every angle of new light causes the reality to change.

The guilt eats you up even when you're not wrong. And because you've wronged the people you love before, your apologies and honestly mean nothing now. Life falls into place eventually, but never does the love come back the way it was. 

I cant help but think that the next 4 years I will be the only one controlling my life and yet I wont be in control. Even though my kaleidoscope will have new colors but a few old ones will always catch a light and look the same as before. 

Reality is only reality when you shut yourself to the prospects of parallels. Every reality is different. Its just a matter of how i want to look at mine at this point in time.

But nothing would ever be the same as before. 

Not me, not them and definitely not my reality.

On this rock I will build my church

The reason why im writing this is uncertain. 

Everyone goes through this phase that i am going through - atleast thats what ive been told.

With my last month at home starting, leaving family and friends behind and entering a new sphere of university life and amidst many things words cant explain.. Life's coming at me fast. 

My world is sort of in the middle of a natural disaster, it one i CAN avoid, but im just avoiding the avoidance.

Sometimes when life hits you hard, you need time to brace yourself for the blow. If you dont hold on tight you might just end up like a that cow that flew into that hurricane in the movie Twister. When i see myself not strong enough to hold on, i remember that cow that flew off.

Im not that cow. Thats what i need to remind myself everyday. Life doesnt end on heartbreaks and leaving people behind. 

Motto for this month. No crying over anything. Be it family, friends or lovers.

So i thought my math was bad -__-

All i did this weekend was watch TV.. And by watching i mean flipping channels and here and there stopping at every Indian channel to hear a cry of agony about some one's plastic surgery face change or some vamps crazy tactic too woo the protagonist or just a hayee about some "masoom bechari larki ka badluck" and Cinderella type stepsisters ka 'atyachaar' (which BTW means cruelty). 

DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN? TOO MUCH TV THIS WEEKEND.

So anyhooooo. 

During all this flipping i came across this really intelligent commercial...  

Yaar, dekho naaa!

I know i never managed to do well in math. The 3 years i wasted on it, is my life's biggest fail. 

So basically. I'm a leeetul concerned here. 

Is it that i didn't pass because i knew my tables or didn't?

Whats a bigger fail than my 3 years on math, is this STUPID advertisement! 

Its literally making me cry at the B that i managed. I mean i am SOO fricking glad that my teacher knew that 3 times 3 is not 3. Or is it? o_O

I have nothing against this because its an Indian commercial or anything, their ads are kick-ass most of the time. But this is simply ridiculous.

The plot has a kid who wants long hair like a girl standing near by. The mother thinks growing hair has got something to do with a stay-at-home mom. Then the kid is all sad. And then, out of probably a 100 kids in that mall, the girl with long hair, turns out to be her teacher's daugher.

(Alright fine, thats not so bad. i mean its better than their usual double roles and crazy re-incarnations =P)

And then the crazy mind boggling math which is worse than my crazy calculus in A level.

So now the bitching.

Okay we understand that the new woman is about all corporate-y stuff, but hey, you CAN take time out to check once day if your kids have showered, cant you?

Im all on for women holding crazy important jobs and the fact that we need to be liberated from our family duties, the children and other things. But if you can roam around in a mall then you can surely work on improving your hair condition. And no mother says no to that. And in this day and age, everyone is aware of the products available, especially the woman who is not confined to the house at all.

So plot base. Teeeeeeeeeeeeent. FAIL.

But the maaaaaain issue is the math.

I mean a teacher is telling her student that 3 into 3 doesnt give 9 but rather 3? Okay too many numbers. Braaaainfreeeeeze.

Anyway, so the whole idea of a teacher being the saviour.
Lol. In your face.

The whole idea of an advertisement is to make the consumer aware of your products 'qualities'. We understand that youre able to help grow hair 3cm every 3 months but why would i buy your product at the expense of my intelligence?

The only thing which I really like about this ad is the shiny hair. 

Congratulations, Clinic Plus. You have succeeded in making the dumber..  oh sorry, how rude. The less than average intelligent children and a few illiterate mothers to drag their bums to their nearest store and grab a bottle of this magic 3x3=3 potion.

I wonder if the bigger sized bottle makes 6x6=6?



Okay so i think i should put this here before they take me to court or something:

I do not own this video. Its courtesy of youtube. 

Which is just second to Google btw. 
But I'm saving that post for later ;)

Sensitive. Killjoy. Me.

Last week's only highlight was child abuse campaign on Facebook. It annoyed the fuck out of me. I mean I really didn’t get the point of changing display pictures as a means of protest and awareness. As my personal protest I updated my status in hopes of finding some people out of a 1000 on my list who'd agree. And I think I found far many than I expected. But then there were those who just liked it because of the heated debate on it. 

"78 people have changed their profile pictures" 

I had no clue what was going on but then I remembered my sister telling me about some child abuse campaign thing till Monday. Till status updates its fine, but pictures? That is just absurd. I’m not against protesting or creating awareness. But all I am against, is how every digi-activism campaign eventually turns into a mockery of the cause. 

Child abuse is not something you can play on Facebook with. I have friends who have been victims and this issue has always been close to my heart. And by changing my picture I feel that I would be disrespecting them.

Do you actually think that a cartoon character will bring smiles to children who have been abused? It’s like saying that 'Oh you got your tooth pulled out ‘cause of cavities? Here, watch me have candy.'

I have been disagreed with and called sensitive for the past whole week because of the fact that I am not changing my picture and my protest is my status. And it kills me to see how easy it is for people to just say that it’s just "harmless" awareness. Just because something is harmless does not mean it’s useful. And if its not helping anyone then why the fuck are you doing it?

The idea behind my ranting is not to show disrespect towards those who actually care for the cause. It is just to tell them that there are better ways of showing support. Wearing a ribbon is symbolic, as my teacher says. But what is this a symbol for?

Changing your picture isn’t a symbol. What it just does is punch the kids, who've already been through a bad childhood, in the face and say here this is something you never got to enjoy because you were being beaten up etc. Why can’t we be a little more civil and show a tad bit of respect?

How many people do you personally know who thanked you for the changing your picture? 

ZERO

Our social responsibility goes beyond digi-activism. Although, this is the only morality we have left because we are scared of good old marching out on the streets and protesting. And I know we can’t get out on the streets and bring about overnight revolutions now as our predecessors could but we can still do our bit that is not on Facebook. I understand that it takes lots of people, lots of time and money and most of all lots of influence to actually do some sort of substantial work for causes like these.

Sitting at home in front of a computer screen and changing pictures can't really be awareness. My homepage is flooded with likes and comments which really aren't serving a 'cause'. Everyone is saying to me that the idea is to stir up a thought which eventually can be turned into a planned, organized protest or a cause.

Stirring up some awareness is alright, just till the point where people know the cause of the cause they are supporting. I have people on my homepage really having no clue but just following suit because 'oh that girl got so many comments on her picture, I’ll find a better looking Cinderella picture'. That's all I am against. 

I want people to say WTF a million times. But I want that call of what the fuck to be the ultimate eye opener that leads them to begin that planning that is needed. This is wtf shouldn’t be the same as a bra color status update would bring.

May be the person who initiated this did it for a whole different reason which may not be the same as what it became. I applaud the person for the efforts. But dude, sadly, your efforts just initiated flooding of homepages with cartoon characters – which btw weren’t even from the same era as the kids themselves (I don’t remember watching Betty Boop and Spongebob while growing up and I’m 18) – and Facebook to earn a couple million more that its usual in an hour with all the hits that people got on their pictures.

If you really support the cause, don’t change your picture back to old ones or for some, to hotter newer ones for a while. Why does your contribution have to be for 2 days? Have you ended child abuse in those two days? Kids who are still sewing footballs in Sialkot haven’t been helped. Kids in Afghanistan who are forced to be militants are still learning how to fire Kalashnikovs. The sex trade all over the world didn’t even stop for a single second. Those kids you are supporting don’t even know that youre supporting them. So whether you change your picture or tell the world where you like it- my purse that is- you are just mocking what some people may stand for by pretending to support it.

And if you really want to help and you cant trust the charities that claim to help then give it to UNICEF. Im sure we have faith in them because those “foreigners” will help.

But I think we’re able to help ourselves and those around us without the support from cartoon characters.

I really need people to understand my (non)participation.

My participation is to tell the idiots out there, who have no clue what they are supporting, that your efforts are not appreciated. And to tell the girls out there, seductive pictures of Betty, Veronica and other damsels will really just show the world your actual cause, which may just be to get people to like and comment on their pictures.

If you can’t do justice to a cause don’t support it. And if my non-participation will even cause 10 people to remember this day next year, I have succeeded in playing my part as a member of humanity. Because now, next year, same day, there will be 10 less people changing pictures to show support. Maybe those 10 people will make a 100 people realize that their contribution can be better and more supportive than a picture change.

I really hope that next campaign is a a lot more than just status updates and picture changing.

Dusty Weekend

Last months rotmun research finally found its use in my general essay. I felt like killing myself during those two hours that i sat there. Because using your 'research' for general is the lowest low one could have. It took me a month to get all those facts in order so i would get to go to Harvard MUN. 

But i guess thats where it was actually supposed to be used. I should really get over it now. 

Never again am i using nuclear, non-proliferation, Iran and Israel in one sentence -__-

All i can think of is how new year is gonna fall during Moharram. Not that i will wear black and head to the majlises. But its just gonna be a bad new year.

And its getting a weird sort of cold these days. My house is cold. The smell of winter is halfway here. But its not the cold i like. I go out wearing a hoodie and by the time i reach where im supposed to its not cold anymore.  

Im guessing i have to wait another couple of weeks so i can sip coffee all day without my mom screaming.

Midterms in a week, I havent even touched my books. 

I dont think im cool that way.

Yet another unproductive weekend.