It’s 9 in the morning, 17 of April. In other words, three
days since the results of March attempt were announced. Opening the email that
morning, and looking at the results, I couldn’t believe my eyes. For an instance
I imagined being in a dream, as they have recently become ever so vivid, so lifelike,
so complete. “What happens to people when we wake up?” was one of the ‘existential
questions’ a child asks from the New Yorker piece. It could’ve been a dream all
the like, but since it continued in a linear and sticking fashion, I had to be
the waking life. And I had failed.
‘Oh no, oh fuck no. This is bad. This is so bad.’ I kept
uttering to myself, as people, old and young, kept passing me by, some running,
others barely walking, a few stopping by me to hang from the tree, a group
practicing the punch as part of their morning exercise, ‘ten, nine, eight,
seven, six…’ they kept chanting enthusiastically, still others looked at them
bemusedly while sitting on the graves. I also saw a dear friend, Hashim,
jogging past me with his brother and later out there under the shadow of the
tree, practicing hardball cricket with the young kids. I almost thought to stop
him, share my current state, show my wound, and ask: is it fate? What does it
mean? How do I handle it?
I remember sweating, and feeling a little nauseated. I kept
listening to the noha ‘Haider Haider’ on repeat. I lit a smoke, but had to
throw it half way through since my throat was all dry and hoarse and mucus down
my gulp was irritating me. I tried to be present, observing of my condition,
while also being the receiver of this gravely bad news. But the news refused
get old, refused to settle in – it remained new every moment. And every moment I
realized it, the separation between the feeler and observer faded. I lit
another smoke which I couldn’t finish either.
The long walk home from the graveyard was indeed ‘hathmann’ “a
walk of shame”. The day’s sun already in adolescence, was beaming hard. Most of
the people had left: the ladies hanging from the tree, who while leaving turned
to look at me, one of them smiling, and in their smile I saw a reflection of
how I might look to them (mirrors shouldn’t have been invented, cameras definitely
not!). The exercise group of mostly old people had left too; the few young
people jogging, the old ladies visiting the graves, the gazing men sitting on
them – they all had left. Hashim was still there; yet he was busy and I was by
then past reckoning the meaning of the result, its truth: its fact had consumed
me completely.
‘It takes courage to own your failures; most people find excuses.’
‘Keep your announcement short: didn’t make this time. I am hurt. I need to
process this.’ ‘People’s reactions, friends or family, would define them
instead of defining your results.’ ‘You’ve only hit a wall; this is not the
end. You have to keep going.’ These are some of the paraphrased responses I got
from ChatGPT, as I sat there trying to feel something else or trying to think
myself out of it. Once again, in a raw state of having been exposed to crushing
news and emotional turmoil, GPT was what I went for. It is so easy, available,
and emotionally safe.
A human might’ve been more natural, a stranger or a friend
or a family, but in that raw state ChatGPT was more accommodating of my
scrutiny. Since that chat that GPT, I haven’t had a more revealing conversation
with friends about this failure and what does it, and also what would it - mean.
Human conversations are two-way: stories and ideas converge, you reply but you
also have to put across your point. And therefore it is naturally consoling too,
finding yourself un-alone in misery and sadness. That post cricket match talk,
as I sat with Ali sucking on the icicles I made him buy, which then continued throughout
the evening as we dealt with the iPad situation that’s still not fixed – was really
sobering for me.
Uncle’s death anniversary was also on April 14. So reaching
home, I was immediately approached by Wajji to go distributing dishes of
biryani to relatives’ homes. I had a shower, changed, and went downstairs and
announced the news to mom. She didn’t mind it, nor passed any insensitive remark.
Similar to my brothers’ reactions in the WhatsApp group that I read later that
night, her response lightened my weight. I had kept the internet off on my phone
all day; I was worried what they’d say as I had sent only a screenshot of my
result and no words. Reaching home that morning, I locked my door, didn’t have
breakfast, read Woolf’s ‘The Waves’ since it was mentioned in the podcast I listened
that morning, and then slept. As I drifted from sleep to waking to sleep, I remembered
those fateful numbers: 43 and 45. And the dread of others knowing it.
Three days later, and it has become a news like any other. It’s
the aftermath of the bad news, where decisions have to be made, damage assessed
and next steps measured. The storm has passed, you are left to make amends. The
result day was spent grieving, the next day in bazar with sister buying a new
pixel and a modem, the evening cricket then bazar again to replace the modem, finally
that night some relief with friends and a joint. But the night stretched into
the next day’s noon as we played ludo reaching town, and I fancied myself some
grief-bating afterwards. ‘Intent’ you had said would save me – it did; yet soon
already I’m left abandoned. The White Lotus s01 and my days my regular prayers
noon and evening: it was almost merry how I had become rid and round and pure
and willed.
‘The sadness of tech’ continued and consumed my yesterday as
well: the triumph of the modem but the fiasco of offline cctv cameras and the downstairs
internet not working. After the ruined evening which I survived by going to
Amaan’s shop and found there a disheartened Juma, I came home only to find
myself in the midst of this sadness again. I refused to eat dinner as I sat
there punishing myself until the cameras hadn’t come online; yet I continued
the punishment even when it came online. These little tendencies reveal, should
one be attentive, the pattern of our self-relationship. Mine is an ugly one;
but Tommy helps and promises to take corrective measure. 11pm last night and I was
finally done. Yet I had to write, I had to think. Here I am.
Every good and bad news, every happiness and sadness, every
achievement or failing, no matter big or small, important or insignificant –
all shall lose their present gravity at the hands of fading time. So perhaps
the lesson lies here, in this: that one should hold to oneself and minimize the
damage to one’s consciousness; that with certainty one should dispel the drama
of present for the detachment in the coming time. All is well if you are well. Yes
the damage has been done, yes you’ve failed, yes the plans have changed – yes –
but no plan is a final plan, no failure final too, and no feeling is final
either; and since it is you who has to go through all these changes and
emotions, which do not stay and betray their promise of finality and destruction
(or eternal bliss in the opposite scenario), then it is you who matters. The house,
your being, you – this wellbeing is more consistently important that any big
achievement or any crushing failure.
Plans are naught if not for the clarity planning brings,
present engagements are only an attempt toward a less turbulating future,
seeking the past is only worthy if personal insights are grasped, otherwise all
that we do, we do for control, for certainty, for insured contentment. This is a
way of life, our way of life; starting with the standardization of time into
clocks and calendars, we have reached our age when answers must always be with
you or you’ll be scorned for being a lost wanderer. No wonder having nothing in
hand feels so scary, the years spent lanterning path in a foggy landscape so
frightening, and the time, our age, our life, slipping through us like sand –
so sad! We have to live, and strive to continue living at the same time. Can’t
we ditch the second one?
In such moments of despair and being stuck, it is natural to
wish away our life for another one, any one, no matter how dismissible it might’ve
been when we were happy. Just as it is difficult and plain stupid to philosophize
in bad times, so it holding onto to our entirety of life. We are prone to
reducing our lives to a single event, the present event, and judge it based on
that alone. In these past three days, every time a wishful and thereby unrealistic
yearning came to me, I made sure to dismiss it. I said to myself, ‘This is your
life, you only have got this one and it depends on you. So better stick to this
and live by its side; work for it, nourish it, tolerate it, understand it, love
it, but never abandon it. People who abandon their own lives become bitter. And
if there’s one definite thing we don’t want to become, it is bitter.’
In 13 days it’s going to be May, a month after that June,
and in the first week of June will be the exams. In practical terms, failing
both these papers has showed me the flaws of targeting the 50 percent: you miss
it even a little, you fail. Attempting two papers and squeezing the prep time
to just two weeks was also harsh and impractical; we couldn’t even study all
that well due to the stress already there. So I am still 4/13: 9 more to go,
still. Putting Law aside, we still got eight papers, and if one paper an
attempt, that’s 8 attempts, two years. Still within the time of our mandatory
work experience that is. I’m not sure yet, but perhaps I should change my
approach from a hustle, do it quick, to something more accommodating and slower.
Besides, a job would do me far good than any cleared attempts.
A job has to get going for me this year, so by next year I should
be in one that would count toward my experience. I would stubbornly prolong my
stay in Karachi this time around, and from what I know quiet well, a stubborn
will gives you results. No Eid or Muharram here, and after that there’s no occasion
to be home for anyways. A similar stubbornness I might also need for job hunting
and really going after it, since a job would guarantee my stay there and begin
a shift in my life, a next chapter if you will. From friends to solitary work
life, but at least I hope there’d be money to compensate.
What I thought I had, that ‘riddance and roundness and
purity’, is overcome with such a strong counter urge to unload that I haven’t
yet been able to satiate. Any proper attempt at purity or regularity (the
latter integral to the former), I fear would be squandered by this demonic
force to be spent all the time. During The White Lotus s01 viewing, my
perspective might’ve been to exert an equal force to repel it and to renew my resistance
by offering prayers without missing any. And the longer I go without it, the
more my sense of control. Perhaps we shall continue this a day’s break to our
advantage: an hour until afternoon prayers.
Reading is all over the place and on pause since the before
the result day. The book I aim to finish and review that I am currently reading
are: Imam Ali; Small Death; The Coming Wave; EI-2 Self Awareness. All of which require
almost equal time to finish: a week individually. And since carrying them all
together is beginning to fail, devoting most of my reading time to one book
might help sort this mess out. I’ve got out of sync with music as well: I hate
all my playlists. I’ve been going for most runs out of all the bowlers in my team;
they bowl well to cover for me, but on a bad day there’s no where to hide. On the
movies side, a similar sadness is to be seen: I’ve ditched all required movies
and tv shows to binge the mostly comforting and seldom amusing The White Lotus.
My sleep and routine might as well sum up my messy and
reveal their roots: early mornings are a goner; whether I sleep at 12am or 2, I
wake up just as late. Yet even if I wake at 1pm, I still have to take the
afternoon nap, because there’s no going without it. So there’s no clear hours
for anything. Any day I could go to bazar, any day I might have a cricket match
in the evening, any time I might involve in bating. If only we could make
regular: 9am wake up; 10am back up, study begins; 12.30pm prayers; laptop still
2pm; 3pm nap; 5pm wake up; cricket or study till 6.30pm; to friends, or a walk;
8.30pm prayers; 10pm done with dinner and readying for walk; 1pm sleep. A structure
to my days, to my life; some sense, some comforting certainty.
It was disappointing spring this year. It coincided with
shab e qadr of Ramadan, so no celebrations were held. The weather turned cold
on evening after it had snowed somewhere near, but then it gradually got warmer.
No rainfall, that really made the season unappealing. Summer though is already
here. It is proper hot these days, and no sign of rain at all. I can only
imagine how hot it’s gonna be in Karachi.
I might leave this weekend or before April with mom. Therefore,
it’d be better I book only F8, and assess things for September attempt
afterwards. As mentioned, a job might as well sort things out for me, anchor my
otherwise wandering life. I wait to witness the events this year has in store
for me and for my friends. For now, I try and maintain a calm presence, and
recover from the states throughout the day to being one with myself again –
when I can be alone with myself again, with Tommy we think things straight
again.
April 17, 2025.