Joy (or lack thereof), busy bee me and teachers

First up, apologies for being mega late with my turn to blog. You remember during one of our conversations you reminded me it was my turn and I thought otherwise. Yes, that’s what’s become of my memory. Short-term memory loss issue ho raha hai. Anyway, the past two weeks were incredibly busy with work and family that I didn’t get the time to write. 

When I asked if there was something specific you wanted me to write about, you said you wanted to know what brings me “joy”. You know, quite surprisingly, I had never thought about this. Ever. Till you asked me. I thought and I thought. But what came to my mind was boring, clichéd and redundant. I realised there were certain moments that brought me joy, not something or someone or some place or anything specific. It was all cluttered, momentary. 

Sometimes being with friends and family makes me happy, something seeing someone else happy makes me happy, close family weddings make me happy, music and dance makes me happy. But that’s pretty much it (or maybe it’s my memory problem again). All this may make it sound as if there’s been nothing significant in my life, but even that’s not true. My features getting published, my going to the US, or someone praising me should ideally make me happy, but they don’t/didn’t. And that I feel isn’t really normal. I’m sure if a lot of people were in my place they would have been ecstatic and over the moon over the ‘achievements’ I mentioned above. But well, that’s me I realised some time ago. That’s how I am. Nothing will make me overjoyed or excited or give a sense of achievement, because I tend to find a logical justification for everything happening and in that case feel life taking its normal course. I go, “So what? It’s happening because blah blah blah…nothing unusual.” Hence, I feel I’m an old, boring soul. No I’m not saying I’m unhappy with myself; just that I’m not as fun as zillions of people out there. But then, that’s also fine, I tell myself. Everyone cannot be same and alike. THAT would be boring J

Now let me tell you what kept me busy the last two weeks. I had quite a few social/fashion events to attend (for work), from small fashion presentations to brand launches, to one of the days of a fashion week that was held in Lahore last week. Then I also interviewed Farhad Humayun, lead singer of the band Overload. They have a very distinct style of music. They use dhols and drums as primary instruments and make very edgy, musical (if that makes sense) music. I interviewed Farhad about a website he’s launching in a couple of days, called riotarts.com. He says it’s his answer to the Youtube ban here so that people around the world can have access to Pakistani music, audio and video. He says he’s taken on board quite a few local musicians and continues to reach out to the rest of them to contribute their stuff for the website. More details you can read when I post a link to the interview as soon as it’s published.

With a friend and fellow journalist at the fashion week. Loved this funky jacket I wore.

Family and friends also kept me quite busy. I went to a very good friend’s nikah last Saturday, which was a lot of fun. As always, I ended up being among the only three people dancing. Because we just had to! You know, can’t control when the music starts playing, even, as per my brothers, if it’s in the chotha mohalla. They even say I can dance to a news bulletin. There were lunches and dinners with family and friends, separately; friends get togethers, cousins visiting from abroad. I even had to travel to and from Islamabad twice, for less than 24 hours, in three days for some urgent piece of work. That really made me frazzled and I’m still recovering. Have another friend’s wedding to attend tomorrow Inshallah. I enjoy most weddings even if I don’t know anyone there.

At the friend's nikah, with other friends

I may have missed a few things out. And you know because of this hectic schedule, I couldn’t even watch any movies. I missed Mein Tera Hero, which I wanted to watch as its music reminded me of those silly Govinda films, some of which were enjoyable too. Now I really look forward to 2 States, which is out. Also, I'm a massive Game of Thrones fan. Its fourth season just started 2 weeks ago. If you havent watched it, NOW's the time!! I got hooked to it in the first episode that my friends made me watch. 

I remember you also wanted to me talk about my teachers that I haven’t liked. I even used a specific word for them ;) What I meant to say was that I’ve never ever liked teachers, from school to university, that have favoured a student, passed him/her at the cost of a deserving student just because some students are thick with a teacher to get favours at the end. And that has happened to me a few times, which I found extremely unfair, obviously. You can’t talk to the teachers about it; that’ll make them hate you even more and even justify their not giving you what you deserve. But overall, I’m thankful I’ve had great teachers from whom I’ve learnt a lot. They have all been very helpful, kind, guiding and encouraging towards me that developed in me so much respect for them.

And finally, many many congratulations on getting that Maine peace programme thing. I’m sure it’ll be a lot of fun. I’ll formally congratulate in person when we meet next week Inshallah. Looking forward your trip to Pakiland, and then you writing about it.

Until then, keep rocking and smiling.

Sheharyar