The journey from San Diego, California takes twenty-something hours depending on the airline you use. Why do I take this arduous journey to Pakistan every December?

Straddled in my economy class seat flying halfway across the world, I ask myself that question many times. It’s not a comfortable journey nor is the destination a coveted vacation spot but it’s actually more than that.
Pakistan is where I was born and bred, went to school, college and spent a few years of early professional life. Half my life belongs there, though the second half spent in America, makes me the multi-cultural, complex Pakistani-American.

Being a filmmaker and an occasional writer, my mind is constantly drawing analogies between there and here, my past and present — trying to derive some cosmic truth from all this.

A Pakistani-American returns to here home cournty and reflects on how methodically life goes on after the madness that was the Peshawar tragedy

Going to Pakistan helps me keep in touch with my roots, slowly fading but yet very much there. My parents and many of my dearest friends from school and college are in Pakistan. Others who do not live in Pakistan anymore visit in the winter, spending time with aging parents who simply refuse to emigrate to other parts of the world.

Going from America to Pakistan is also a mind shift. Everything changes the minute you land, the airport, the immigration desk is where you first taste a different world. You notice the way people talk and look at you, with a peculiar familiarity though they have never seen you before. You know the expression of the bored officer stamping your American passport at 2am. She wonders why in the world you come back — to this.

The porter approaches you — “baji, you need help?”,from just an incognito person you become “baji” (elder sister) and a warm feeling of home sweeps over you and just then you know why you came back.

This December 2014, when I landed in Karachi I was already aware of the Peshawar massacre perpetrated by the Taliban. The news was broadcast on TV screens at all the connecting airports. I saw the word ‘children’ and ‘140’ and could not look anymore. As a woman, a mother, a human being, there was nothing to comprehend, nothing to analyse, nothing to rationalise. I blocked out the news from my system, never let it sink in.

One night under my parents’ roof has the power to heal a year’s worth of hard working life in the US. The food is cooked and served, the driver arrives and the social meet-ups with family and friends are arranged over whatsapp. The bustle of Karachi takes over and I need to keep up. Blow-drying, bargaining at the open fabric markets, pleading with the busy tailors, a must-attend wedding of my father’s cousin’s son, coffee rendezvous at the new mall and family dinner at a restaurant by the creek side — two weeks seem too short. “You are only here for two weeks?” cousins and friends complain although no one has more than an hour to spare for me.

In December, Karachi becomes a crazy social zone with weddings and guests arriving to make the best of the short winter spell. All this amidst a working life, hence, people have learnt to compensate with words to make you feel special when they can’t actually give you time.

Schedules and appointments are tossed out when in-the-moment living takes over. When one friend cancels lunch, another one calls to check if you want to catch a movie. Nothing goes as per plan but everything gets done.

Because of the Peshawar tragedy there was three days of mourning in Pakistan this December. All concerts, balls, public events and celebrations were cancelled or postponed. However, the private parties, the close family and friends gathering and wedding receptions booked for months in advance, went through as planned. Even the markets were open. Everything went on as usual, and that is Karachi for you.

The locals have adopted disconnected “survivor” approach. Just as I could not let the news of the Peshawar attack sink in because it would paralyse me and destroy the core of my humanity, the people of Karachi don’t let it sink in. Mosque attacks, killings of religious minorities, burning, looting and abductions — the media hammers daily with this news but nobody watches anymore. How could they go on otherwise? You need a thick skin to live here but this time it was a bit different. Even those who make light of the crime statistics in Pakistan were in shock and disbelief over what happened in Peshawar and there was an ominous quiet instead of the usual drawing room banter about the corrupt politics of our country.

My two weeks this winter in Karachi were spent like any other vacation in Pakistan: catching up with friends and family, watching my parents go about their routine, reassuring myself they are fine here on their own. I immersed myself in a life that is a contrast to my “American” living so I can temporarily transform into the glamorous Cinderella version of myself.

I hope when I return I can appreciate what I have in the US that I cannot find in Pakistan. I find in these two weeks what I have left behind but also I always find the reason for having moved. It usually hits me when I am having a particularly delicious meal at a restaurant and then a child appears with hands pleading for a coin and is shooed away by the manager or when a family friend walks in with an eight-year-old as a maid for her kids. Sadly this time, I felt that these kids were lucky.

Despite all the pain Pakistan now symbolises, it is always painful to take the flight away. I rationalise to myself in a hundred ways that it was for the best to have moved but I can’t stop the tears as I board the plane, finding solace in a prayer that all will be well for Pakistan.

Landing in America always brings a sense of reassurance to be back home, a safe place, and a predictable way of life where things go as planned ... where my children are safe? I don’t want to think about this too much as the hectic life here awaits me. My daily routine starts at 7am and ends at bed time. Taking care of a house, job, children and an artistic career doesn’t allow much time for such reflections, but as I unpack I can’t help but draw comparisons.

Pakistan has had its fair share of external wars, wins and losses but it has failed to wage an effective war against terrorism that has festered within its borders and a heavy price is being paid for it. Is America different? The super power has had a knee-jerk reaction to external attacks and has quickly waged wars and won them but what about internal threats? Gun control, racism and intolerance towards blacks and immigrants — America, like Pakistan has failed to handle its internal cancers and we see these issues surface ever so frequently. It’s always more difficult to look inwards and cure from within.

Being far from Pakistan brings the perspective of someone looking at a society from a distance. A small country with big problems: corruption, population explosion, failing infrastructure and to top it off, the purge of terrorism. Having lost their base in Afghanistan since America’s military operations after 9/11, the Taliban are now reorganising and asserting their force in Pakistan. Despite American intelligence and Pakistan’s internal military operations, the attacks are growing more and more vicious. After each attack I feel the powers that be in Pakistan will muster all the courage and strength and wage a final conquering battle against this evil but it has not happened yet. This year again, I hope that we have seen the last of this madness, I will pray so everyday till next winter.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, February 22nd, 2015

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