“For thou art my rock and my fortress”

For as long as I can remember I’ve needed someone to depend on. Someone to save me. Tell me that its going to be okay when I know deep down that it won’t.

Pathetic people like me rely on people to save them. Sometimes it’s your family or your friends. But if you’re really lonely, someone on the street can save you too. (I’ve read enough chicken soup to justify that)

Superficial people rely on expensive shoes and clothes. Every purchase gives them hope that it might fill that deep hole in their lives. I love that saying, “I know my life will be all right, if I find the perfect outfit”. So it’s an unending cycle of consumerism and materialism. Dior to Balenciaga, liposuction to butt implants, Lamborghinis to private jets; everything goes!

Knowledgeable people rely on wisdom. They learn, they teach, they read, until they have no time to think about the unending misery of their lives. You’ll see them get Ph.ds in neurophysioplathyetics. They’ll immerse themselves in their jobs. Their career ladder reaches the skies. There is no end to their self-actualisation.

Religious people rely on prophets and messiahs to save them. If they can say the right prayer, act the right ritual, God will instruct any monster to back off. They hope that they will be like God’s Jonah, vomited onto dry land after being in the stomach of a fish.

We constantly look for a rock of our habitation. A way to move beyond the winter of our discontent. And in the end, someone or something always needs to be crucified for each one of us to be saved.
What is this absolute need to be saved?
Maybe it’s the absolute powerlessness we feel in situations. As much as we try, from tornados to death, humans can’t change, stop, prevent create or even predict anything.
Even the proudest amongst us will have to recognise that we have no control of our ultimate destiny.

So with no control, why do we spend hours fretting and worrying? Do we all realise that our salvation isn’t infallible.

I live in constant fear that one day that my salvation plan will run out. Family will die, friends will lose touch. And if I do find that right outfit what if it still doesn’t save me? What if I reach the last step of my career ladder and there’s no where else to go but down. What if my prayers were not good enough or my rituals too stoic?

I’d love to know what’s your salvation plan is and who or what is saving you tonight? Maybe, it will help me save myself!

A letter to myself

Dear me-when-I-was-nineteen,

Stop wearing so much makeup. You look ten years older than you really are. Stop making yourself sick over those love handles. They’ll disappear. Talk to people. Some of them are really nice. Stop feeling misunderstood. That constant sad look on your face is depressing it breeds more sadness and contempt. Stop lying to your parents about everything. Anything that you have to lie for is not going to be worth it in a few years. 

Lying in the college corridor reading Stephen kings and listening to Sinead o Conner is something your going to miss all your life. The stupid and meaningful stuff you read today will help you write better 5 years from now. Show your literature teacher your personal essays.You might not know it but you’re smart and funny. So stop with all your insecurities.   

You shouldn’t have destroyed your immature writing. Some of it was really good. Don’t feel bad for talking back to your psyche teacher. She was a bitch and deserved it. You will see her in the future and you will still have the urge to spit on her. But you’ll change into a goody two shoes, hold back everything, conventional and conservative almost religious person. You’ll say hello to her like she did you no wrong. Hard to believe huh? 

You’ll also stop singing like a crow and dancing like a leper when you’re happy. You’ll keep your emotions in check all the time. Your parents will never like you as much as your sisters so stop trying to please them so much. You will get over him. I know it seems impossible today. But it will happen. I promise. It doesn’t mean you won’t think of him once in a while but in a less wistful way. They’ll be plenty of boys that will feature in your life in small and insignificant ways. You won’t care about any of them. You’ll get to dump all of them. HA!

You’ll get to write. You’ll be published. Not so much of your creative stuff. But a writing career is something you only dreamed of. You’ll be thin. Not as thin as you would like to be but thin none the less. You wont grow taller, im afraid. You’ll find yourself the greatest pet in the world. You’ll eventually afford some brands. You’ll travel quite a bit. You’ll find a best friend who will make everything all right for you. Regardless of how complex the situation is. 

Oh yea wax don’t shave! Thread don’t pluck! Oil that dry hair and freaking moisturize! Cap sleeves are not your friend. Leggings and Skinny jeans will be back so be very very afraid. You’ll live through an almost plane crash. But it wouldn’t be as scary as that nightmare vicky B haircut you’ll get.

Listen to music. Good music. It spurs your creativity. Write. Write. Write. Good…Bad…everything…stop judging yourself…you have enough people in your life doing that already. Don’t rethink. You’ll get to redo anyway. Prove people wrong. Wear high heels. Walk it fierce! Wear bright red lipstick. FLIRT for god’s sake! Have fun. 

Take chances. Love yourself. Let go. SCREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM
If you haven’t guessed it already YOURE FABULOUS. And if you don’t take care of your fabulousity itll be gone before you know it and you’ll be left writing another woulda coulda shoula letter to yourself.


Toodles. (Say stupid stuff like that)

Me at 24


 

Stop and stare

Have you ever had a moment with someone?

When words become meaningless.

Gestures insignificant.

All you have from the other person is ‘one’ look.

And in that one look

Heaps of history is unfolded.

Love expressed.

Forgiveness given.

Regret displayed.

Wounds healed.

I’m a firm believer of ‘the moment’.

Words always defy.

Gestures can be mimicked.

But you can never fake that life-defining moment.

Maybe the moment is nothing but a deluded prophecy

Maybe the moment is mere fantasy.

Just a way to satisfy the id.

………………………..

I’ve been getting the feeling
that some of my moments never existed.

And sometimes
I want to run up to some people and scream “YOU HAD A MOMENT WITH ME!!!! Or was it all in my head?”

But that’s the funny part.

You have nothing to show for it.

Nothing to prove it by.

And so it’ll remain

Nothing but a fleeting moment.

Blue Blue Sky

I think there’s a time when you realize you are ordinary.

When you fall on your face from your rooftop and realize your not superman.

When you look in the mirror and see those wrinkles.

When your art is nothing but random scrawling on a canvas.

When your writing fails to move you.

When your jokes become stale

When conversation runs dry.

When you realize you’re nothing but part of an endless blue blue sky.

When greatness is galaxies away.

When you realize you are

Ordinary!

One jeans and a man on top please!

I’ve spent a lifetime searching. Searching for the perfect jeans and the perfect man. Believe me they’re just as important. The jeans/man that makes you feel beautiful despite all your flaws and gives you a reason to shake that booty. You’d be surprised they both don’t come easy. Believe me I’ve tried. Countless stores, parties and sometimes on the internet too (Internet shopping not dating)

With jeans they’re either too loose or too tight. With men you either find a drunk lunatic grabbing your friend’s ass when he thinks you’re not looking or a guy who takes you to a bible study on your first date.

And if they fit right then they’re too long or too short. You can get them altered, dyed and hemmed but they’ll never look perfect. They’ll always remind you of their imperfections. Ditto that for men.

I’ve gone so far off the limb that I’ve spent my whole paycheck on one of those expensive diamond studded jeans. They look perfect almost but you keep wondering if you really belong in them. Like, they’re just not your style.

With cheaper flea market versions, no matter what you do, how hard you try they’ll never hit exactly where your heels start and magically tuck in your fabulous 50 pound tush in some magic pocket!

And sometimes you buy a pair that feels just right for a day or two. But just when you swallow a jelly doughnut with a crème center you feel it coming. You know you’ve landed the scariest of them all jeans- the muffintop jeans. The ones that won’t let you free, that’ll bind you forever, tie you up in ropes, follow you around like a stalker jeans.

And then they’re mirages and decoys. They lead you on and lure you in, make you believe, make your heart skip a beat. But once you’ve tried them on and god forbid brought them home you always find out that they just weren’t right!

But when all else fails you go back to your old trusty pair which is slightly tattered, slightly torn slightly faded slightly old from all that waiting and slightly pissed that you keep looking around for the perfect jeans. In their opinion (my jeans are called earl and I have an ability to talk to inanimate objects) the perfect jeans don’t exist, never did and never will.

What do you do? Do you finally let your trusty pair sneak up on you and become your favorite jeans if not perfect? Or do you keep searchin...searching for that lost cause!

So help me circle the correct option! Should I buy into the:

a) Perfect Size 2 jeans with the right color size fit and makes you look like heidi klum

b) the trusty old pair which accepts your unshaved legs and your not-so-cute dimples!

c) the scary spill all over muffintops!

bleaching my WHAT?!

Just today a friend of mine informed me about a new very popular salon practice “bleaching your vagina”. YES MULTIPLY YOUR EXPRESSION A THOUSAND TIMES AND YOU CAN BEGIN TO IMAGINE MINE. Women in California have started getting their vaginas scrubbed and bleached. You ask why, “because men like women blond down there.”

I mean, are these women for real? How far would you go to please a man? What happened to being yourself? Aging gracefully? Are we heading towards an age where we all will be botoxed, knifed, bleached to every inch of our body? Do we seek approval that bad? Do we all want to look like porn stars with blond pussies?

If you don’t believe me, check

http://www.pinkcheeks.com/analbleach.html

YES! They offer that too!

Oooh baby babyy its a fat world!

Every time I need some inspiration I climb up on my old roof with my five year old German sheep dog in tow. He races me to the stairs and head butts all the way till we get upstairs. He adores this place as much as I do. Amongst all the old tattered boxes of clothes and furniture, in-between the remains of dead birds and the gunk floor we both can just be ourselves. He runs around freely and pees at every corner, barks at anything that moves and sniffs every nook and cranny. Me, I grab onto my old letter pad and write my heart out. It’s usually dark when we go there and I can only see my pen moving and the paper crustling. When I return usually an hour or two later I have in my own twisted mind a masterpiece. I look at the roughly written words and almost think of myself as a crazy scientist who has just discovered ummm something. 

So today while I was lying on the floor of the dirty roof watching my dog eat the remains of some old bird, I realized something.

I hate other people eating.

And especially if I think they’re overweight.

And I don’t mean just my dog eating.

No..Noo..nOoo

I’m the friend who will raise an eyebrow when you upsize your meal.

I’m the sister who will tell you the exact time if you god forbid eat after 11pm.

I will clear my throat if you ask for another serving.

Don’t be so quick to judge.

I’m neither an anorexic nor a bulimic.

I just think that I’m the savior of all fat people.



You can very well imagine the stuff I’ve been told because of this annoying habit.

FOOD HATER! FOODANAZI! THE FOOD POLICE! Junk Buster!

But frankly…I don’t know how to fix this problem.

And I usually mean it in a good way.

But of course no one understands it.

My sisters have gone so far as to avoid me while eating.

They’d lock up their rooms and eat eat eat. I’d knock on their rooms and scream ITS 11:33 PM.

Maybe it’s the fact that all my life I’ve had control over one thing in my life.

How much I eat or how little I eat.

So I take this control very seriously.

So for me to see someone have 5 glasses of coke or 10 pieces of chicken wings or an upsized meal makes me wonder how someone can be so okay with having no control at all!

Leave comments people :)

Tick tick tock!

Every time I read someone else’s blog I realize how inconsequential, insignificant and immature my own blog is. I immediately get intimidated by their big words, their well-developed points of view and their adept writing skills. All creativity and ingenuity leaves me and I have no choice but to re-edit and revise all my posts.

Every time I look through someone else’s face book and see their party pictures, travel anecdotes, career stories I start matching my achievements with them. I suddenly realize my life is ordinary and stupid compared to the multitudes of experiences other people have had.

Even with best friends aren’t we at all times judging who’s achieved it all. You know the whole package. Happy Marriage +Kind but Brad Pitt look alike husband+ 2 good natured kids Girl and Boy+ And of course a possibly large house decorated with an urn filled with dead mother in law.

We keep putting a tick every time we achieve one target. We secretly laugh at the other when they can’t seem to tick the one we’ve just ticked. An if horror of horror one of us ticks them all we all conspire secretly and start doubting her worth, doubting her tick.

Wouldn’t it be a better world if we’d all stop caring about each other ticks and concentrated on our own?

Leave a comment! :)

this is where i live...this is where i do my screaming

This is where I live…this is where I do my screaming”

Wake up. Take the dog downstairs to pee. Lazy Steps. Walk back up the stairs. Messy Hair. Aggressive toothbrushing. One long and hard look in the mirror. This is not how I imagined my life would be. Something to look forward to. Oh yea my personal haven. Mouth still toothpasty. A bowl of cornflakes in one hand. The paper in the other. I turn the Pc on. 10 New messages. Click-all spam. Click-Britney Spears Shaves Head instead of giving head. Click-Writing Website. Click Earning Report. “Still Unpaid”.

This is exactly how all my mornings have started since I graduated. After a few bad interviews I realized I didn’t want to apply ever again. Okay so I lied at an interview and they figured it out. Is it really important to know the course ‘Media Management’ for a media management company? I don’t think so.

Hell. My social life is non-existent. The friends I had made in college were too busy with jobs and mostly their own ‘grown-up lives’. My school friends had all gotten married and had actual real life babies.

Masters. Another thing on my mind. I didn’t want to study further. I didn’t want to spend two more years doing something I wasn’t passionate about. This is what I had initially thought right after graduation. After day in day out of sitting on the pc searching the latest celebrity breakups and meltdowns I’d now actually enjoy studying warehousing even. Anything to get me out of this dump.

When you’re a kid, every time you’re having your exams the best stuff comes on TV. I had always fantasized of sitting at home with no school or homework and just hours and hours of television. After watching re-runs of re-runs of friends Seinfeld and MASH, I have realized TV is just overrated.

Family huh? Parents. Both too busy. Sisters. Both working. My mothers a political-religious-freakavist. She spends all her time at home and outside campaigning against the Jews. “Can I go to the school party”…”No beta these parties are Jewish conspiracies to make our kids forget Islam”. My dad on the other hand is a very intelligent man, makes lots of money trading on the stock exchange. Though slightly KOOKOO. If you tell him you have a particular disease or an illness or even a headache. He’s going to tell you he has the same thing the same symptoms. Quite neurotic actually. Last month he thought he had glaucoma. He went to 5 different doctors took five different tests. Doctors told him he was perfect. He couldn’t believe it so he started the Glaucoma medication anyway. Last year it was some kidney problem, the year before his stomach. I’ve just stopped counting now.

My eldest sisters getting married. She’s this big career woman with “goals” and “objectives”. She knows what she wants in life and always gets it. And yes I’m completely and totally jealous of her. I can’t decide what shoes to wear let alone what I want in life.

The other one’s a party animal. She’s funny and smart and people genuinely love her. She has a million friends. Again I’m completely and totally jealous of her. Yea but her happy persona is all outside this house. When she comes back from work she’s just tired cranky and depressed. The last time I saw her laugh was actually never.

So we’re all living in our own little personal hells. Hiding behind happy masks. Waking up everyday hoping the next will be better. Pretending to be a happy picture perfect family.

Stranger than Fiction

I picked up Stranger than fiction on an utterly boring day. Let’s just say the big bad wolf had decided to close down everything in Karachi. With only one movie lying at home I decided to watch it anyway. Just to add to this list I’m not particularly a big fan of Will Ferrell. So I fully expected it to be another cringe worthy comedy like the Holiday considering it had another star studded cast. Contrarily, this film was quirky and incredibly ironic.

Will Ferrell plays a boring IRS agent named Harold Crick who takes no risks and calculates every decision in his life. He measures and counts everything from the brush strokes he makes while brushing to the steps he takes to the bus stop. Until one crazy morning when he un-expectantly finds a woman’s voice narrating his every movement, feeling and desire. Confused and angry he looks up at the heavens to make this voice go away. This is where Emma Thompson introduced to the audience. She plays a writer named Kay Eiffel with a severe writers block. She is half way through writing a book on Harold Crick without even knowing that he actually exists. She doesn’t realize that as she writes the book things move and respond in the same way in Harold’s Life. The only problem is that Eiffel only writes Tragedies. While she figures out how Harold dies she helps him change his views on life love and relationships in general.

Emma Thompson gives a brilliant performance in this film. Her soothing narration in the first half compels you to wait until she makes an appearance. Highly recommended for people who liked Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The age of the airhead!

I have to admit, if I had to choose between reading about the war in Iraq and Paris Hilton, I would guiltily click on the blond drunk eyed DUI mug shot of Paris Hilton. We have all publicly called her names; made fun of her horrific music albums and laughed at her entrepreneurial skills as a clothes and bag designer. It is incredible how a person with absolutely no talent or ability can stir controversy and excitement in the media world everyday. Yet, there is something about this girl that mesmerizes and enchants the public..

Maybe, it’s the fact that she will one day own the Hilton Hotel and Real estate fortune of her father Richard Hilton that makes us, materialists, pay attention. It is estimated that she will one day own about $30 to $50 million for being oh-my-god Paris Hilton. Perhaps its her influential lineage that makes us care which club she went to last night. Her uncle and aunt Kim Richards and Kyle Richards were popular child stars in the 1970’s. Elizabther Taylor and Zsa Zsa Gabor are also related to her

In my opinion it is the “prom queen” phenomena that makes us love and hate her so much. She reminds us of the girl in school we all hated. As a teenage girl she lived in different hotels in Manhattan, Beverly Hills, and the Hamptons. She attended the best schools of California and New York. She was modelling since she was a young girl and by the age of 19 had herself signed up with Donald Trump's modeling agency, T Management. She had also appeared in many advertisements such as Iceberg Vodka, GUESS, Tommy Hilfiger, Christian Dior, and Marciano. After 2001, she was no longer only "New York's leading It Girl” but a worldwide epidemic.

We were forced to watch her dance on tables and make pouty faces on magazine covers. She was constantly on the best dressed and the worst dressed list at the same time. And just like Marlboro Man commercials made a generation of cigarette smokers, we are a generation addicted to the shenanigans of this waif. Men were captivated by her “acting debut” in One Night in Paris. She sweared that this leaked sex video was not a publicity stunt. However, the timing makes us think otherwise. It came three weeks before the launch of her The Simple Life series.

The show was extremely sucessful. It intentionally or unintentionally made young intelligent women believe that being stupid, beautiful and rich could get you out of any trouble. It was officially okay to act airheady and bimboish like Paris Hilton and her co star and ex best friend Nicole Ritchie. Being smart was now considered geeky. I saw this trend being following mostly by the tweeners. They all wanted to have blond hair, wear clothes too old for their age and use the infamous Paris line “that’s hot”.

Paris and Nicole also became the poster girls for anorexia. Many young girls wanted to be a size zero like them. Designers pushed this image and introduced the minus zero and zero sizes in their collections. Not only were women supposed to act dumb but they also needed to look like a bag of bones.
When I heard that Paris Hilton was sentenced to 45 days in jail I smiled to myself evilly. It was one of those smiles that you have when you see the most popular girl in school trip in her high heels. For a second she is embarssed and scared just like all of us. That’s how I presume Paris is feeling right now. However, in the back of my head I know that the paris hilton hungry, frothing at the mouth, reporters and fans will replace this attention seeking queen with another one. Better yet, reporters will climb prison walls and get million dollar pictures of Paris in her jail cell. She will appear ofcourse still as thin beautiful and perfect in her jail attire. Reinstating the fact that some people will always be famous for being famous.

The Lal Masjid Debacle

It was embarrassing to see Lal Masjid’s Maulana Abdul Aziz try to make an escape clad in a burqa. Heads were lowered, all hope was diminished and the (correct or incorrect) struggle was brought to an end. Television spared us no mercy and the image was repeatedly shown for days. The world laughed at our once respected religion, made an absolute mockery of the shariah and spat at the concept of burqa.

But hearing Nawaz Sharif hold opposition talks in London in an attempt to rescue Pakistan and restore our so called democracy was almost too hysterical and ironic. How easily we had forgotten traitors from the past and replaced them with burqa clad present ones! Wasn’t this the same man who had run away to Saudia Arabia from all the cases filed against him of corruption, hijacking, tax evasion, embezzlement, and terrorism. He left behind his trail of supporters, closest allies and friends in the middle of the night with no trace. And now he wants to come back?

I wondered some more and remembered our very own daughter of the east. Was she too terrified of facing more than 90 legal cases? Is she scared that she might face arrest if she returns to her dear homeland? Have people forgotten how she and Zardari laundered millions to offshore accounts all over Europe? And now she wants to come back?

And don’t even get me started on Altaf Hussein. The man who ordered millions and millions of Karachiites to die on May 12 while sitting comfortable in the confines of his million dollar home in London.

And so I wonder….why werent these people shunned…why werent the images of them leaving shown repeatedly on television. Why have we suddenly forgotten what they had done? Why have we forgotten their crimes? Why do the crimes of religious fanatics seem worse than the crimes of these brutal dictators?


Where were these guns, tanks, rangers and policemen that we see planted outside lal masjid on May 12.

Wasn’t the government hiding in a burqa that day?

So why oh fucking why should my brain be painted with images of Abdul Aziz Ghazi? I have too many images of burqa cald men and women escaping in the past already.

That too for bigger crimes.

And I do mean bigger than buring CDs, kidnapping Chinese and two policemen.

The Safe Mountain

You’re standing on the edge.

You can almost taste the feeling of the cool water against your body.

You want to swim and explore.

You want to look at the coral reef for hours.

You want to be on your own at the edge of the world.

You so badly want to JUMP.

But wait.

Someone or something stops you from leaping into the unknown.

They hold you back physically.

They convince you that its better on top of the mountain.

They tell you about the sharks that live in the sea and the rocks that could split your head wide open

Or they undermine your abilities. “You can’t swim”. “You could never survive a day alone”.

And then lady reality walks in.

You remember you have 3 kids.

You remember you have old parents.

You remember you’re not smart enough.

You remember you don’t have superman powers.

And you grudgingly step back.

The dream is over.

And you’re back on the mountain.

Not scared.

Not happy.

Numb.

But that combined feeling of utter happiness and terror is absolutely addictive.

So every once in a while you go on top and fantasize.

My recent fantasy:

One day, while I’m spending my kazillionth hour on the pc, I come across a website. APPLICATIONS FOR SCHOLARSHIP AT HARVARD. Study literature with all expenses paid. So I write an admission essay about my leap of faith. Harvard people go crazy. They think I’m the next Sylvia plath. Morbid and suicidal. So they ask me to join in foran.

The real clincher is that my parents freak out but they eventually let me go.

Wait wait…wait.

That can’t happen

What happens in real life is

They make me step back.

Reassess the situation.

And manipulate me into changing my mind.

So I’ve stopped coming on the mountains for the last few days.

The more I come, the badly I want to jump

And the more I understand I can’t.

Responsibilities never go away.

They just keep building on top of each other.

Some days its family.

Other days its financial constraints.

And on particulary bad days its religion.

But on truly horrific days its society.

P.S How often have you been on the mountain?
P.P.S What do you fanatsize about?
P.P.p.S What stops you?
p.P.P.S: If you see me there PUSH!

who says chivalry's dead?

Eve-teasers kill objector

By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD, May 27: A young man was stabbed to death after he tried to stop a group of men from teasing a girl at Soan in the jurisdiction of Shahzad Town police station on Sunday, police said.When Babar Shahzad, 25, a decoration shop owner, tried to stop the young men they got offended and exchanged hot words and then attacked and thrashed him.On hearing the screams, the shopkeepers of the market rushed to his rescue. However, the group attacked and injured him with a dagger before the arrival of any rescue.As a result Shahzad fell on ground and starts bleeding. When the accused saw people running towards them, they tried to escape from the scene, however, one of them was overpowered by the colleagues of Shahzad.Later, Shahzad was shifted to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences where he died of injuries.



How many times have you stood somewhere...while men sat araaam se and didnt offer you a seat...

and to top it off.....stared ridiculously at your mid parts, your lower parts and then their eyes stayed glued for the next two hours on your upper parts...

until you felt so disgusted you wanted to twist their slimy necks until their eyes came out?

probably countless times!

How many times have guys stood up for you when you walked in...or went to the ladies?

probably never!

How many times have you been whistled, cat called, dog barked, wooo wooo wooo fied?

probably hundreds of times...

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE GUYS OPENED DOORS FOR YOU?

never in my case..

But when you read this news piece you realize that good guy breed that your mamma always told you about...ACTUALLY EXISTS!

...0.0000001 % of nice guys that your best freind always spoke of...HAVE SIGNS OF EXISTANCE!

Oh wait...but they killed one of them....are they anymore left?

I dont know...

But atleast this story gives me hope!

Some nice guys are living right here on this planet

I need to find one of them before they all get killed!

THERE’s something about Zoha

If you ever see her, you’ll never forget her. If you talk to her, you’ll never forget the conversation and if you get into a fight with her, you’ll never make it out alive.

Ladies and gentlemen that’s the phenomenon known as Zoha Baber.

As long as I can remember I’ve been best friends with her.

Crazy. Hilarious. Stupid. Flamboyant. On top.

Troubled. Emotional. Scared if you know her deep inside.

And then she has this way with boys. Wherever she goes she leaves behind a trail of panting men.

Most women are either scared of her or completely intimidated.

If she doesn’t like you now….she never will.

And she’ll make sure she tells you that.

But if you’re on her good side.

You’re in for some crazy drives all around Karachi. Add some random conversations and throw some doodh ki botallein in for good measure and you know what it’s like to be friends with her.

She’s taught me everything from wearing makeup to the tricks of tossing your hair.

Sometimes I wonder if she’s stuck in the wrong decade. Like a lost child from the 80’s.

Don’t worry…you’ll figure this out when she’ll make you listen to Madonna ALL THE TIME.

Maybe she’ll sit and convince you that you have Attention Deficit Disorder and make fun of you later because you fell for it.

But no matter what she’ll be there right outside when you want to sneak out of your house. She’ll convince you to call that cute boy from your biology class. She’ll even let you borrow her sexy black dress on your first big date.

But whatever you do, DONT make her wear flats. Or convince her to buy beige or brown clothes. Talk about politics or god forbid SPORTS or dare to tell her to tone down her makeup or force her to watch Shawshank Redemption or teach her how to use a computer.

But most importantly I’ll never forgive you if you ask her to grow up and act normal.

I have faith that when I’m 45 menopausing with three runny nosed kids, she’ll still come in her beat up red Toyota, wearing bright lipstick and high heels. SCREAM SABA KHALID. And take me out for a crazy girl’s night out.

The Set-up

Saba!”

“ZOHa!”

“I just saw a guy you’re going to LOVE?”

“Is he on TV?”

No..Hes Real and so cute and he has this great car..and he went to Harvard and he’s so hot and he said he likes difficult girls and wefhefw qeiufheif ewfiohguierg wuefeghuwergh” (I blank out and start counting the ruffles on my curtains)

After she’s done giving me his whole life story I ask:

“Is he a Grammarian?”

“Yes!”

“Does he want a relationship?”

“No”

“Does he want marriage?”

“No”

“Does he want a one night stand?”

“Maybe”

“How many times have you met him?”

“Once”

“Why are we having this conversation?”

“Because he’s so HOTTTTTT”

If you haven’t guessed already my best friend loves setting my up.

In my opinion she likes to see me squirm and squiggle in front of an audience of not so single boys.

Just kidding.

She always has great intentions.

But in her dating history she has never failed to set me up with one of her boyfriends’ best friends.

Hmmm….the first guy she tried to set me up with looked at me briefly and said:

“Not her you idiot….I was talking about the other friend”

So I spat at him and called him a kutta ka bacha. (I was fourteen and that was an insanely bad word. I was such a rebel- I tell you)

The next one was in a serious relationship with a girl for two years but didn’t mind seeing ME on the side. (The nerve)

Then a grammarian. (He thought I wore too much makeup)

Then a guy with a great car and a dudly personality.

Then a guy who scratched his balls in front of me.

The list goes on.

And no matter how hard I try to convince my best friend not to set me up, she still somehow convinces me to go and meet this new guy anyway.

The date always starts smooth.

But it usually ends up with me walking off.

But there’s hope for me! She’s getting married in December inshallah.

Which means?

You guessed it!

No set-ups

No married men, no cross dressers, no axe murderers, no nothing for me to be set up with for eternity.

The only thing I might actually miss is making fun of these guys a week after the date.

Neutering my baby!

My eyes were blurry from all the researching reading and contemplating. If I had worked as hard on one of my own papers I’d probably would have finished school early. But this was important. It could alter my baby’s life in every way. The procedure was supposedly painless and quick under general anesthesia. The risks were minimal. My mind boggled from the callous terms carelessly thrown in on various websites. Neutering, castration, spaying. Could I really let some vet take away my little doggie’s masculinity? What could be the consequences? And the painnnnnn…..Images of little Travis gaining weight and growing boobs came to my mind.

Of course he had some problems. The lifting the leg and urinating in front of friends and family was one. The scratches and bruises from his humping on my leg was another. The running out of the gate to meet his many “girlfriends” was by far the biggest. But cutting of his erm reproductive organs was alittle too severe. The whole night I tossed and turned. The dreams always started with SNIP SNIP and then blood and gore falling everywhere. I woke up twice in between and gave travis a big kiss on his furry little ear. He opened one of his eyes and I could’ve sworn he said “aunty are you really going to cut me off”.

2 months later

He's still urinating with one leg up...he still leaves the house for hours and doesnt return...and my leg...lets just say...i need some therapy

I think the doctor cut off the wrong organ or something..

If anyone knows anything about neuteration...CALL ME!

The Reverse Card

One of my male friends asked me today what the best way to get a girl was. I’ve never been a relationship expert but I knew this particular one at the back of my hand.

I said, “Nothing works better than ignoring a girl, then making fun of her and if you manage to make her feel insecure and ugly you’ve hit the real jackpot”.

Yes, we are dumb enough to fall for the cheapest reverse psychology tactic in the world.

It’s maddening for a girl to see that no amount of hair flicking, eyelid batting is going to make this one person pay attention.

Some step up the game.

They wear their mum’s expensive French perfume. Nails and hair are done a little suggestively maybe even a slightly low-cut blouse.

Yet he will pass by, make a face and say “How much perfume are you wearing?”

This is when realization hits. Anything and everything will be done to change his mind. The more you run after him the bitchier he gets and the more in love you become with him.

The asshole wins.

But it’s stupid to think reverse psychology only works on women.

The suggestive attention seeking woman ALWAYS has a best friend.

This guy gives great advice when she needs it.

Brings Kleenex and Bridget Jones when she gets told she has a big butt.

And although she doesn’t treat this best friend unkindly she doesn’t pay attention to him either.

So he continues to cook her Chinese when she’s too depressed to eat.

He persists on shopping till she drops and holding her bag while she tries five different feel better jeans.

Wait.

This best friend has a girl in class who thinks he’s adorable. She wears the too much perfume and low cut blouses BUT the best friend never notices. So here we go again. The cycle continues forever and ever.

Until one of us gets that Wild Card we all continue to enjoy the reverse cards.

Dreaming with so much ugliness

I often spend hours imaging this elaborate scene in my head. I’m standing in a hot pink dress. My hair is long and tousled sexily. I’m wearing the slightest makeup but it hardly shows on my almost perfect skin. I have four inch prada heels on and a drink in my hand. My group of adoring friends are standing in a circle around me. Someone makes a joke and I toss my perfect hair backwards, laugh prettily and raise my glass.

I look down and there he is. The asshole who burnt a hole in my heart, crushed and stampeded on it and then forgot to return my phone calls. Ofcourse, none other than the X factor.

With each dream his appearance gets worse. This time he’s bald and has a pot belly. He’s sitting alone and looking miserable. His shirt un tucked, his shoes unmatched and looking absolutely blah. He looks at me and for a second cannot believe his eyes.

He tries to say something but I look away untouched by his presence. Instead of running away and crying I sit directly in front of him. But he still doesn’t have the guts to say anything. Suddenly (this is my favorite part) the music slows down, the glasses stop clattering and the voices die down. The DJ announces that the club would like to welcome the world renowned writer Saba Khalid today. He goes on about he loves my sex and Karachi column. And I stand up gracefully take a little bow and the crowd claps appreciatively. throng sof waiters bring expensive drinks on the house towards me. I pick a nice pink one and raise it towards the X factor. He looks away flustered.

His wife returns to the table right then. She gets fatter and uglier in each dream. He knows exactly why I have my glass raised. He knows I’m thanking him for his betrayal. Showing gratitude for the mess he left. Because if it wasn’t for his cruelness, I’d never be able to be brave and show the world who I really am.

These crazy elaborate imaginings have done great things for me. Whenever I’m feeling down and leaving the house looking like a mess. I go back and change. Put something extraordinary on and then leave. Never in a million years do I ever want him to see me looking like a mess. When I feel tired from giving interviews and think I should just sit at home and become a nobody. I try again. Because I want to be more successful than him. When I gain weight…I….you get the idea. You might disagree with me and call me utterly superficial and stupid. But to me, looking fabulous and being successful is the best way of taking my own silent revenge.

Bosnia

I was very young when Yugoslavia was dissolved. I don’t remember everything clearly except a particular exhibition my political activist mother took me to. It had many pictures and documentaries of children crying, wounded men and women in war struck Bosnia. To this day, the images are hard to forget.

A decade later when I read that a former Bosnian Serb soldier was sentenced to 15 years in prison for raping and torturing Muslim women and girls in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, those images returned. I wanted badly to know how this nation had recovered from such a huge tragedy.

After hours and hours of extensive research I realized, it really hasn’t. Children who had been born out of the systematic raping of Bosnian women had all grown up. They had started questioning who their fathers were. Some women had given up their babies to orphanages scared of the fact that they might never be able to love them. Suzannah, a rape baby living in an orphanage has no birth certificate or bank account. When she was born the Croatians refused to register her. To this day, donations for Suzannah cannot reach her directly. Unfortunately, Suzannah isn’t the only one with a sad story in the orphanage.

The state does nothing for the abandoned and sexually abused women and children. The rapes were committed in order for these Bosnian women to give birth to Serbian children. No counseling or help has been given to them. They were shunned from their communities left by their husbands with little babies to raise. Most were teenagers when this mental and physical abuse occurred. Some raped women find it difficult to hold jobs and are extremely impoverished. Very few of them have kept their babies while majority of them have given them up to orphanages.
One of the rape victims detailed that she was imprisoned in her own house for a year and raped in front of her children. She suffers from extreme depression and has tried to commit suicide a number of times. It is sad how no international organization has focused their attention on the women and children of post war Bosnia. The war has still not ended for many Bosnian women. They can still see the perptrators around their community. The police and the state are well aware of their identities but do nothing to catch them. Some abused women have photographs of their abusers but are not willing to come forward with this evidence. Some are scared of the response of their coommunities or that the Serbs might come to take revenge once again. Very few women have testified and government has started paying a minimal amount to rape victims.