Of failing and failure.

Everyone tells me I am quite crazy to go back home whenever a long holiday approaches. They ask me why I don’t travel to other exotic places like the Caribbean or Mexico or hey even the west coast. I really want to. I do. But honestly, when your country is 1/5th under water and both your sisters in their last leg of hard pregnancies and when you have grandparents aged 92 and 86 waiting to see you, not knowing if they will ever see you again, the heart isn’t wanting a cruise or craving an authentic taco. Not to mention not seeing your parents for 7 months. Or your nephew who you practically raised, the one who asks everyday if you are coming home “tomorrow”. I sound incredibly dramatic don’t i? That aside, nothing I have said is untrue. And so despite disapproving head shakes and “tsks” of apparent lost opportunities, I went home in August for three weeks.
A friend of mine asked me upon my return how I felt having been back home.
Sad. Happy. Disheartened. Proud. Broken. United. Hopeless. Faithful.
That is Karachi for you.
You watch the older apparently wiser politicians destroy it only to watch the younger passionate average kids try and fix it. You watch a natural disaster swallow your neighboring cities and you buck up and invade the streets and go yourself to provide relief because not trusting the government doesn’t mean you sit back and do nothing. You don’t listen when they officially ban you from celebrating your country’s independence day, instead you go celebrate the way it should be celebrated; by making a human chain around Schon circle proclaiming unity in hard times. You watch your president stroll in the country after 2 weeks into the nations drowning and instead of wasting time hating him, you make fun of him and move on to actually taking care of the bigger problem at hand. You get upset that while the country is dealing with such a tragedy some people just wont stop fighting and killing over differences like sect and different political ideas- but you sit tight and wait for the fire outside to put out before letting the fire inside you take over and continue to help the people in distress.
That is Karachi for you.
You ignore the people who write smart columns about how Pakistan is a failed state because you look around you and see how many people are working so hard to prove that wrong; because you know like in school, to fail overall you have to fail everything. If you pass one test, you still have a chance. And you see people passing that test all the time, be it the kids of IVS or the kids of Szabist or any other place. But where you should not deny the failures you produce like certain cricketers, we should acknowledge the winners we produce; like certain tiny frail and incredibly kind men who we have been rooting for years to get the Nobel prize. Failed states do not produce men like that. Nor do they sustain men like that. But Pakistan did.
You also realize, no matter how many years pass you will always have people you can call your own back home. That when you return they will flock your house to see you, spend time with you, throw parties for you, organize meetups for you, because you belong with them. You realize how good it feels to fill up a diner with friends on a spontaneous night out for coffee or get turned away from them because they cannot fit all of you in. You realize how much they mean to you and you mean to them when they come over to your house for your birthday uninvited, all 30 of them, even when they do not like or have spoken to certain other people in that room for months. But they are there because they want to be with you and the other stupid stuff doesn’t matter.
So you tell me, would I have been happier in Mexico eating food I don’t even really like, alone, backpacking with some stranger or on a cruise with some other random nobody? I had a plan when I came to New York. To travel like crazy at any chance a got. Alone, with a random stranger, I didn’t care. I thought time was running out for me and I had to do all that. Since then I’ve realized, what’s the hurry? I rather see those places one day with someone special instead. Who is to say I wont? Right now, I rather listen to my heart and go home. Be with the people who are waiting to be with me because yes, time is running out, and who knows whether or not they will be around when I go back next year.
Mexico, however, aint going no where.

☺
ps: my sister just told me she doesn't get the trip-tyc. :/ i hope someone does. :/

cheers.
k