It was the 22nd of August 2014. With a ticket to Lahore in hand I was on my way to start my new life as a LUMS student. Add to the already daunting big step in life I was taking, I was also about to move and live in Pakistan for the first time ever. Yes, ever, and yes I am a Pakistani.
Having lived outside Pakistan my entire life, I never really had truly ‘Pakistani’ friends. My friends who shared the same nationality were all brought up in the same multi cultural environment as I was. We referred to ourselves as “Mellowed down Pakistanis”. How was I, a mellow Pakistani, supposed to fit in and socialize with out there and “in your face” Pakistanis. The thought of it caused Goosebumps all over. My hand trembled as boarding for my flight was announced. Was I about to board the flight to Loner Ville or Alone Town?
Now if we were to fast forward to today, and you were to ask me how my time in Alone Town went this past academic year, I’d tell you I never moved there! I don’t know how it happened but I just met some of the most amazing people there. A lot would argue that the elite of Pakistan attend LUMS, but I disagree. There is a multitude of people who study there and this multitude collectively changed my perception of what I thought people of my age in Pakistan would be like.
For the first time in my life, I could bash the Indian Cricket team- and the entire country without fear of a mini-war breaking out (all in good humor, I do not hate the country)! It was in LUMS that I could discuss shows like “The Newsroom” and “House of Cards” with people who didn’t watch the show for ‘particular’ scenes or just found it too boring! (Side Note- why did my friends back in school not like House of Cards, what’s there not to like, the show’s got Kevin Spacey-KEVIN SPACEY!) What may have possibly shocked me was the multitude of YouTube videos we had all watched and could discuss. May it be the one of a little boy saying “blood” in the most hilarious way to Stewie from Family Guy calling Lewis Mom in a million ways just to get on her nerves.
One of the perceptions I had about people why age would be that they would only listen to cheesy Jay Z songs or just listen to Bollywood music. (Side note: maybe a lot of my assumptions are due to fact that I have like one cousin who is my age. Therefore my assumptions are really based on no real observation because that one cousin is pretty cool) The people whom I met had a far better taste in music than I did! They introduced me to Arctic Monkeys and The Killers, not to mention some home grown Pakistani artists like Janoobi Khargosh and Usman Riaz. In the pool of premonitions I had, one of them would be that I would be alone in my love for old songs and Sufi Kalams. Boy was I wrong! Unlike back in school, I could now share my love for this music with a huge throng of people. Although very few of us actually understand what’s happening in the Sufi Kalam, I can now enjoy it better since I have more people to go all out malang with!
These things were small compared to what turned my friends into family for me. 2015 has been tough so far. Nothing came easily and nothing was quite going the way I wanted it to go. With having lost so many of my close family members and falling quite ill myself, I had my friends to turn to in that time of need. They were my shoulder to cry on, they were the people who became the ones I could call at 4AM in the morning and unload my emotional drama. This was a bond I hadn’t had with my friends in school. I was now making friends who were themselves on the threshold of adulthood and were my partners in the scary and uncertain road ahead. Knowing that I had people who were going through a similar roller coaster ride made the journey a little less intimidating. It was because of this, I believe I began the process of blooming into the person I am meant to be. I became more aware of the fact that I am now becoming an adult and now have some responsibility toward my family. They have changed the way I look at things and definitely changed the way I perceive myself.
I do not know why I felt the way I did about the people my age who lived in Pakistan. They are exactly like all other people, and most importantly they are a lot like me! The love, the support and the friendship I made at LUMS in the past 9 months has changed my paradigm and I see Pakistan’s future in the hands of these amazing people! Although I have lived abroad my entire life and consider my city as my home, I now always sit at Lahore Airport sad, knowing that I won’t see my LUMS family for a while. These people are the reason I love Pakistan at a deeper level than I ever did before.
