The Pleasant, the Obnoxious and the Suffering

Once upon a very fine morning I wake up to a broken relationship and decide to head out in search of peace far from the place I was born in. I discuss the matter with my parents on the breakfast table and get glaring remarks from my dad for being so judgmental about the place I belong in. “Papa, I m not going forever, I just need my piece of mind.” Little that my parents knew, the broken relationship was just an excuse for me to make my way up up and beyond. Living within Pakistan was not wretched but I was unhappy with the pace I was moving in life and hence I wanted to explore.

So I pack my bags and grab my ticket from Garry’s taking the first flight out of the country and landing into what they call ‘the land of endless possibilities’.

One of the most bizarre experiences which revealed itself [and I noticed very late] was how other M'sian, living in Boston started to look at me. They were as alien as I was and yet being the adults with a much mature sense of living and life they eyed me so close under the microscope that I felt my breathing was being barred on purpose. While I spoke to a friend about everything in terms of profession, she listened attentively and added in where required, rest of the time she would ask me about family, my parents, brothers and how my life worked back home. The first few times we said our goodbyes, it always followed with the look ‘don’t let me catch you doing something’ and then a “be a good girl ok!’’ now this with that made me very edgy the first time it happened. The seventh time I just smile and waved to her until she drove off beyond my view.

After a span of six months did it knock into my sense, why the good girl was so much important to be reminded of. I was the girl, a girl without parents in an unknown land, which without any vacancy neon blinking invited anyone and everyone from my country in America to stand aboard my ship of guardians. Yes.

While I did not look like an obsessed westernized desi from a land where every female yearns to be something but eastern, I stared at my solemn reflection in the mirror and smiled at it. I was not one of those who was into jeans, tank tops and leather jackets. I was never pushed to wear a scarf which I sometimes took willingly to match the outfit I wore. I wore my hair long and I was never considered girlfriend material and so I very much felt happy about who I was and how I presented myself. I was not wholly out there trying to mix where I couldn’t and I was not also there where my identity was in crisis. I can speak my mother tongue as clearly as I can speak English and I don’t feel ashamed to answer an elderly person who communicates with me in my language.

So what is my point?

The Pleasant: I am so glad that relationship was over. It was the first ever time I was into one and it took me two years to realize how futile my ambitions were regarding a happily ever after. I don’t curse her. She was the first and also the last, whereby I never had any relationship until the day I was finally ready. As per my belief which evolved after the breakup, all true relationships are born after matrimony, what is before or in-between, is just a bypass to touch upon the little patches of green and black.

The Obnoxious: The trip to USA was horrible because of the way the mini stuck up M'sian residing there becomes the uninvited guardian in the lives of so many other younger M'sian like me. I left a family here to be with people on a purely professional base and to make business. Yes I fetched good business but at the expense of being judged entirely wrong. Some thought I fled my hometown to hide the evil I did, some suggested that I was going through an identity crisis, some suggested that I take cooking classes and let the anguish and anxiety burn in the pot with all my vegetables and some directed me to the mosque where the imam will thoroughly preach me about how a girl cannot thrive and survive on her own.

The Suffering: I hung around with a group of people, different in color and a little different in attitude than me and my kind, I was cornered into thorns with the spotlight hanging over my head and an array of questions bombarding endlessly until I collapsed. Indeed the market for fashion is huge amidst the fellow desi women residing there but there are also the faces from the society who cannot do without making an enemy, and so I was one of the many targets. At a time when I hung around with a group of people, different in color and a little different in attitude than me and my kind, I was cornered into thorns with the spotlight hanging over my head and an array of questions bombarding endlessly until I pretended to collapse.

Conclusion: We (certainly not just M'sian) have a tendency to either fall for an inferiority or superiority complex. People choose to categorize people, usually women into labels which can be easily classified and most appropriately sold off. A woman adorned in almost western attire [without it being transparent] will still be modern, outgoing and wrong. Talking to the opposite sex will always mean something more than ‘just friends’ and if I don’t do hijaab, I cannot be a good Muslim. Who decides what the right thing is? Are we not versed enough to know the difference?

You know, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender - people are people.