The Sunday after

 I sit here today as I try to ponder on the inner workings of my mind on this silent afternoon, the Sunday after my escapades. It is something I often do after a long bout of extroverted-ness, my chronic condition of expanding more energy than I would care to on various musings of life. So much has happened in the past three weeks, but most of it too private to tell-tale on a public blog. 

But know this: there's a bitter coffee to my right, just within reach, and then the ever pervasive sound of the ceiling fan running as my mind tries to count its rotations with accuracy. I sit donning a jade shalwar kameez, buttons of the sleeves in place, back straight as it soothes the pain, I am back in the confines of sunny equatorial Lahore, the city of gardens, home to guardrails of the Punjab. 

I am reminded, suddenly and somberly of my grandfather, typing as I typed, with both hands on his keyboard, fingers pushing buttons, the learnings of his typewriter days being translated to the memory I have of watching him from my window in the garden as he worked on his Pentium 4. Sitting as I sit. Feeling as I feel. Breathing as I breath. I feel a pang of sadness as I often do when thinking about him, not for reasons most might assume, but for rather private reasons much too private to share on a public blog. And then I think, so much in life we give importance to, but not enough to what matters. Here I cant help but think of the saying "People only remember how we make them feel"

As I transition through the phases of life that have graced me, I pray the people I have met and the ones I am yet to meet can say that I at least made them feel peaceful. Because is that not what we all seek, peace? 

Ceiling Fans

When in Pakistan, there are a few things that are certain in life, Chai, Family, Chaos and Ceiling fans. The four horsemen are inevitable, unescapable. I could write essays on all of them, but today I am concerned with Ceiling fans. They amaze me. I distinctly remember while studying in the confines of my studio apartment, with too much snow outside for me to care to crack a window, I was homesick and turned on the electronic sound of a ceiling fan. It felt like my mother rubbing balm on my aching soul, it felt like a warm embrace from someone I loved, it began a cascade of childhood memories I can still see to this day, and it has been over four years. Ceiling fans are a part of life in Pakistan, they are a part of every household every village, every room every guesthouse every corner of being. In the winters they are silent guardians keeping watch, collecting dirt and dust and gossip of the household, in the summers they are wiped clean and asked to work non-stop. They are mostly three pronged, some with light and bells and whistles, others simpler, more somber. We had a fan that was old, when I say it was old you might question me "But how can a fan look old?" this one did, and rightfully so, it was my great-grandfathers fan, which my father was particularly attached to for sentimental reasons. The fan weighed half a ton, its three wings were leathery in nature, a fine yellow-cream mixture visually, something that can only be achieved with years and years of exposure to the elements. Where was I... I have lost my train of thought - I will come back to this