As My Memory Flips Back The Pages..

Every day when my dad would come back from work, I would run towards him. He would take his shoes off and I would ask the same question from him a thousand times in a row, like a broken record, until he would finally answer me.

“Have I got admitted to the school?”

“Have I got admitted to the school?”

“Have I got admitted to the school?”

…

“Not yet, Yusra!”

And then I would frown and start praying for that day to come quick and with that I would picture a school building. Every time when I thought about school, I couldn’t help but imagine a dark room with a fat lady sitting between two piles of sacks, scrutinizing the class. That fat lady was what I thought how a school teacher looked like.

One day, to my extreme happiness, my dad told me that we were going to the school and it dawned upon me that I would have to take a test before the admission because that’s how children get admitted to the school. My mom dressed me up and my dad drove us to the school. On our way, I asked my mom what I was going to be asked. She told me that I was taught all the basics at home so I did not have to worry, it would not be difficult for me. We reached the school and it looked nothing like what I had imagined. A big gate. A large school ground with swings, surrounded by a good number of classrooms that I couldn’t event count. Oh, so that’s how a school actually looks like. I highly doubt that I managed to see that view without dropping my jaw.

My mom was right. I knew just about everything on the test. The Urdu/English alphabets. The forward and backward counting. Spellings of some words. The first and second kalma. It was a piece of cake and that too with generous amount of chocolate sauce for me. Of all the tests I’ve taken in my life, this was the easiest one. The principal smiled at me and patted my cheeks and told me that I did great on the test and gave me a juice pack and a bag of chips.

I got admitted to the school.

I woke up early in the morning for my first day of school. Out of sheer excitement, I didn’t even want to eat my breakfast. Mom dressed me in my school uniform and did my hair. With my school bag perched on my back, I shoved my feet into my new shiny brown shoes and my mom stooped down to buckle them up for me. While buckling my shoes, she looked up at me, smiled and said, “Don’t forget this day and time when you grow up.” I had no idea what to say to her, so I just smiled back at her. That was a five-year-old’s response. A way of ensuring her mom that this day would be remembered. Forever. So, right then and there I promised myself that I would not let this day slip out of my memory.

And now it’s safe to say that after all those years, I still haven’t failed to keep my promise that I had once made to myself in secrecy.

My dad dropped me off at school. The day I had been waiting for eagerly had finally come. He came inside the school with me and took me to the principal’s office. The principal asked a lady worker at the school to show me the way to my classroom. My dad kissed me goodbye and told me he would come to take me home when the school hours were over. Being left in absolute unfamiliar surroundings and watching my dad leave me in the hands of a perfect stranger was that episode of my imagination about First Day Of School which I never watched. My heart started pounding in my ears and I tried in vain to keep myself from crying. Suddenly, I didn’t want to go sit in a classroom. I didn’t want to discover more about that school. I just wanted to run back to my dad. I wanted to go home. All I could see around me was an enormous building and alien faces. I was crying. The people at school were brutal. Like robots with no feelings, they watched me cry my eyes out but no one took me back to my dad. I was taken to the classroom instead.

I was assigned a roll number. 43. It took me a while to settle down and observe my surroundings. This time, too, the scene around me caught me by surprise. There were no piles of sacks and no fat teacher. Instead, what I saw before me was a big black rectangular thing on which, a pretty, happy faced teacher was scribbling down the English alphabet in different colors. Fat? No! Fat was absolutely not the word for her. With time, I started to acknowledge what I was seeing in my vicinity.

The bell rang after sometime and everyone started to get out of the classroom in pairs, with lunchboxes in their hands. This is lunch break, I was told. A girl, (let’s just call her ‘The Nice Girl’) while leaving the classroom with her friend, halted where I was seated and said that I could come with her if I wanted to. I didn’t have any friends to have my lunch with. I hesitated a bit at first but then I realized I was a total loner at this new place so I took my lunch box out of my brand spanking new school bag and tagged along beside her.

I don’t know why but I have always been the weird one since my childhood. I have weird desires now and I had weird desires back then. I wanted to see how school toilets looked like. I decided to ask The Nice Girl to take me to the lavatory but I found it so embarrassing to tell her that I only wanted to go to the loo just because I wanted to see it. I thought she would laugh at me. Even though she was really really nice, it still seemed a bit embarrassing to me. So I fibbed. I told her I wanted to go the loo really bad. She, being as nice as she could, told her friend that she was going to show this new girl (that was me, of course) the way to the loo and she handed our lunch boxes to her friend and said that we would eat our lunch once we get back from the lavatory.

So instead of eating my lunch and playing on the swings, I was heading towards the toilets just to see how they looked like at the school. The Nice Girl took me where the school toilets were. She stayed outside while I went inside and counted the number of toilet doors. After examining that place, I came out concluding that I didn’t really like the school toilets. Too small. The classrooms were a lot better. Wide and colorful.

I was feeling hungry and so was The Nice Girl. She suggested that we should start munching on what our mommies had packed for us before the bell rings. So we got back to where her friend was but what I saw next brought back that I-want-to-go-home-RIGHT-NOW feeling within me. Her friend was not at all nice like she was. She had hogged on my lunch. She was laughing devilishly, running around the school ground still chewing on the last bite of my lunch and giving me that same bully look they show in those school bully movies. She was just making me want to kill her. But I couldn’t kill her of course. Standing in the middle of the school ground, helpless like a fish out of water, I broke into a fountain of tears and cried my heart out. The Nice Girl got all mad on her friend. She told her that she was a bad girl and tried to calm me down from crying by offering me her lunch. Although, feeling like it was the end of the world, after all that had happened, somewhere in between the weeping and the longing to see my parents' faces, I couldn’t help thinking how nice, caring and sweet The Nice Girl was. I wonder if I had told her that. I highly doubt I had though.

Nevertheless, I made a friend that day.

I had learnt a lot that day. Like how hard and challenging it was to say goodbye to your loved ones. And that the school classrooms didn’t have piles of sacks. And that the teachers did not necessarily have to be fat. I finally knew how school toilets looked like. But above and beyond all, I had learnt that I could then proudly call someone my friend.

The Day I Had My First Ever Job Interview

I was just purposelessly scrolling down the Facebook page of Güzel, my sister had left open on my laptop, when I saw this job availability status, there. Güzel is a multi designer fashion store, which got open in my city a couple of months back. I didn’t know we had it here in our city, until Roxen happened to perform there. The vainness that was dwelling inside me, made me email them to see if there was any suitable job post available for me. I got a reply to come there, the next day. I had absolutely no intention of applying for a job, but taking a year out from studies, and spending vain hours at home made me thought, maybe I should go for it. So I asked my dad to take me to Güzel for my first ever job interview.

That day, in a nut shell, was a day filled with turmoil for my dad. For me, on the other hand, it was fun. We set off for our destination. My dad also had to drop off my sister for she was running late for work. The direct path to that road was blocked by the agitated public, protesting against load shedding, so my dad had to take the indirect path instead. That cost him a good half of an hour as the indirect road was also thickened with traffic. Nevertheless, we reached there, dropped off sissy and began the search of Güzel. After dragging the car in random neighboring roads to Güzel, we finally found the right road & then discovered what we had been searching for, ultimately. As I entered inside the gate of Güzel, I asked the watchman if that guy, whom I had emailed to, was available there. He nodded and showed me the way inside. I had quite got which way to go to by myself though, but still I think it was nice of him for directing me inside the shop. So I stepped inside with my eyes locating for a guy figure but all I could see was two girls, who were more likely the sales assistants, and some exquisite dresses hanging on the hangers. Normally people going for job interview get a bit nervous, I have no idea why I wasn’t feeling anything at all. I think that was a bit abnormal of me. Anyway, one of them girls asked my name, buzzed on the boss’s intercom, “Somebody named Yusra would like to meet you” and gestured the other girl to take me to the boss’s room. As the other girl was ushering me to his room, my mind was portraying the boss’s face. That was the only instant I felt a bit scared because what my mind had sketched was a man with furious face, creased eyebrows and a round shiny head semi circled by patch of hair from one ear to the other on the back of his head. That was because everyone I know picture their boss in such a scary manner that my mind couldn’t help but portray that face. But to my relief, I saw nothing like that when I opened the door of his room. Pheww! was the very sudden involuntary sound produced by me. After that, some light questions were fired upon me and I returned the answers correspondingly. Although, while I was in the middle of the interview, I got quite convinced that this was not the job for me. Still, the very first experience of me giving a job interview was subtly great. I’m marking this date in my “the-very-first-things-done-by-me” calendar. June 22, 2012 was the day of my very first job interview!!!!! (Please mind my excitement, I do get thrilled about trivial episodes of my life)

NOT regretting my decision of applying in Güzel, I came out of that place and sat in the passenger’s seat of the car. I absolutely knew how my dad was going to respond to the job situation I had put down before him. The response was not in affirmation of course. But that did not upset me. I didn’t quite want to do that job either. But I really liked the shop though. I must plan to go there with my sisters, someday. If you’re reading this and are a girl and are from Peshawar, please go and visit that place once. Ravishing dresses, oh you’re going to love them.

What happened later, made my dad overwrought big time. We drove off from there and on our way back home, the car engine started to heat up so my dad had to pull up the car every now and then to pour the water in that overheated radiator. After a couple of pouring-water-in-the-radiator sessions, it dawned upon my dad that the car radiator was leaking. This great event took place while our car was submerged amid the neighboring cars in the stream of traffic. When the traffic started to rupture gradually and my dad finally got to press the accelerator, another distressing news broke in and that was the news of TIRE FLATTENING! Yeah so my dad managed to steer the car off the road and inside a CNG station and started to change the flat tire. The very next worry was to repair the flat tire before the spare tire or any other of the three remaining tires gets punctured too. With that, the pursuit of ‘the tire repair’ shop commenced. So we found a shop, got the punctured tire inflated and put it back in its original spot while the spare tire went back in the trunk. This event was followed by the CNG refill event, where me and my dad finally found something to drink as that over 40 degrees hot weather had sucked up the water from our bodies. We gluged down the drinks and dad hauled the car to join the traffic once again. After the crawling, dragging and inching the car closer to the one ahead of us, we finally aced through the traffic and arrived our house after the anguishing four hours(for my dad, THAT IS) I enjoyed every occasion that had happened. Yes you’re allowed to call me crazy.

The traffic scenario. I loved the sudden weather change when we got stuck in the traffic.

The new radiator cap, my dad had bought, was absolutely of no use.

Notice the tires in the background? Yeah, that’s me at a tire repair shop, waiting for our car’s tire’s turn to get inflated.

How do I Spell Love? D.A.D!

I may not be very good at expressing my feelings considering keeping them inside is what I usually do. But I’m well aware of the fact that keeping your feelings stored down deep inside the pits are worth nothing. So here I am trying to write down my feelings for the man whose love is never going to die for me no matter what. This piece of writing is actually a way to convey my love to my dad, on father’s day, who doesn’t really believe in these specially-specified-days, as he made me aware of this fact when I wished him a happy Father’s Day this morning.

I’m pretty sure my dad knows how much I love him though. Even the word ‘love’ isn’t enough to show my feelings for him. I can write a cliché essay for him saying “My dad is the greatest dad in the world” but that just won’t do justice to his glorious, credible, considerate, diligent, hard working, charming, witty, conceivable, super duper mega epic ultra FINE personality. I know I’m missing out on a lot of adjectives up there.

I have a very close relation with my dad. I can share EVERYTHING with him. He has the power to become a brother whenever I feel like sharing that ‘brother-moment’ with him. He can turn into a best friend whenever I feel like sharing my thoughts with him. If I’d sacrifice my life for him, even that wouldn’t be equal to what he has done for me. I owe him eternity.

I’m proud of my dad, a self made personality. He lost his parents at a young age. He then studied, found a job for him, lived on a petty pocket money that he used to get from his elder brother back in the days, worked super hard and now he is proudly established enough to run his proud family with a proper spot in the society.

It’s not like this special day aroused my sentiments for him. I just feel like I don’t give him even half of the quarter of credit for how blessed he makes me feel. Surrendering to my every stubborn demands, absorbing my annoying talks and doing his very best to provide me with my untimely, stupid demands is what his day starts for. He wakes up in the morning, kicks off his day trying to make us happy and hits the bed at night, lullabying to the thoughts of how to keep us happy when he wakes up the next day.

Making me happy is what he’s trying to do from the day he held me in his hands for the very first time till now. I’ve only grown taller. I’m still a kid to him. He might deny this but I know he still feels so possessive about me. My siblings think he loves me more than them. Call me self centered, but it actually makes me feel so good. But that’s just a natural phenomenon, almost everyone I know says they’ve got this special affection towards their youngest child, so does he.

And well that was just about me, he has to deal with my three more annoying sisters as well, during the day. It won’t be wrong if I’d call him a blessing in disguise.

This is just a way of moulding my feelings into an article because I don’t think I can share all of those feelings with him in one go, considering how prone I am to a low attention span when it comes to sharing my thoughts.

He is not like those typical dads, who only go to work and come back home with hands full of grocery bags. He’s much more than that. I swear he’s more talented than half of the M.B.B.S doctors we have in our city and he’s not even a doctor dad, he’s an M.Com dad. Genius is the word that would love to sit beside his name.

Charisma, well that’s the word coined for him. His personality is flooded with the self contained charm. That’s not only my contemplation, those are the words, every other person who has met him, would agree me on.

He used to be a proper heart throb among girls of his time *winks* and well oh well, not only the retro hunk lad he is, the advancement of years has done good to him. Super good looks with immense personality are his very distinct traits.

When I’d make my dad read this, I know all he’s going to do is laugh and say, “that’s mere buttering, what’s your next demand, you didn’t have to do all this to get your demands accepted” but seriously dad, I love you and everything that’s been composed above has come straight from those cardiovascular muscles of mine. (Thanks for making me study Biology)

Happy Father’s Day<3