Memoir of my early reading habits

Reading is one thing that I thoroughly enjoy, and it’s also part of a very privileged and of course short list of activities that I’ve constantly been engrossed in since my childhood. I don’t exactly remember when my affair with reading started but my earliest memories are of my late aunt narrating me the stories from a local magazine. She was a polio patient and was very restricted with her movements, so she used to be mostly on the bed or on her wheelchair and I usually would sit in her lap or beside her bed and we used to enjoy those long stories together.

Not very distant are the memories of my maternal grandmother’s house where the most attractive thing alongside a park at the back of her house, was a magazine called Saathi (Friend). It was a children’s magazine which my uncle used to bring very religiously every month partly because it was published by a political party to which he still feels proud to belong. That magazine is still published but I rarely see anyone holding a copy.

With that I also used to read another child magazine by Late Hakeem Saeed’s Hamdard Foundation called Naunehal (Toddler). Naunehal was relatively liberal; it lacked the religious undercurrent which was very evident in Saathi. It published stories which most of the times carried a moral lesson or some sort of civic etiquette. One could actually relate to those stories. Overtime it became my personal favorite and I used to wait for the last week of every month when I could hold a copy and have my dose.

In those days, stories on the audio cassettes were very popular; I used to listen to them for hours and hours. They were more convenient and enjoyable since they have different characters and proper theatrics. I still have some of them left with me, though I’ve dubbed them all with my own voice and spontaneous jokes on the proceedings so what remains is really nothing more than a funny time killer.

However, despite its appeal the cassette stories were unable to impress me for long and I returned to the books completely and more devotedly. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I kept most of my books in very good shape and ruined all of those cassettes but just perhaps.

On my sixth or seventh birthday my father gifted me a set of books published by the same organization. It had a travelogue by Hakeem Saeed himself called “This is Turkey” and a translation of the famous novel “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexander Dumas, both in Urdu. I was lost in the amazing world of words created by their authors and lived through each and every episode with a fizzy heart. By the time I reached 3rd or 4th grade I had a bag full of non-text books which was later abandoned by my mother.

The interest in reading somewhat coupled with above average general knowledge started rewarding me very early. I was the darling of literature and social studies teachers throughout my school and college. Of course science and engineering teachers would hate me but my active involvement in extracurricular activities kept them from doing so. I never excelled in technical subjects; I detested mathematics and was afraid of calculus even during my years in the university. Sleeping seemed to be the best option during those classes. On the other hand when it came to writing essays I used to write 2-3 versions of the same essay for my friends keeping the best one for myself. I was made the reader of the class when our literature teacher felt he is too old to read several pages long chapters.

Now when I recollect all those memories I wonder how I ended up being a computer programmer!!

Note: The abrupt ending to this article demonstrates the state of dismay that the last sentence has put me in :)

Sometimes...

Sometimes I feel like throwing myself out of the window beside my seat in my cozy office. It’s not that there is anything fundamentally wrong with me, or that I’ve turned crazy. It’s just that I am fed up of all the machines surrounding me. I am also fed up of money centered life (astonishingly in a year). I see money as a tool to bring comfort and to some extent joy in our lives but here am I, finding myself in a world where our lives have become mere tools to bring in more and more money and earn without ever thinking, why?

My life asks for some meaning, some destination that could bring a sense of achievement, a sense of pride and fulfillment. A close circle of family and friends continuously ask me to get married but they might not know that I am passing through an identity and emotional turbulence and an unstable person has nothing to offer to anyone else. If I am meaningless without a wife, I’ll continue to be so with one. The only possible difference it could bring is a load of responsibility and under the pressure of which I might do the duties, fulfill the commitments but essentially I would continue to be unhappy.

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about happiness, what factors count towards it and how can we standardize the process to be happy. After every article I tried using the applicable advices but I ended up being unhappier by trying to be someone else, so I stopped this practice altogether. I later realized it was for good because happiness that comes after an external stimulus is always temporary. A long lasting happiness is a result of some change or feeling that is deeply rooted. A happiness that worldly sorrows cannot deter and apparent losses cannot take away from us. So my quest for eternal happiness continues.

Rebels, happiness and fears

A society is an interdependent community. These interdependencies give rise to relationships that often grow so complicated that the basic building blocks of societies, we the humans, suffer. It’s like a tyrant having norms, regulations and an expectation from all its members to oblige. Thus like every such genus, it also looses control over its people and rebels are born. Out of a whole crop of rebels, some successful ones emerge as leaders for the future societies, the rules are set again and Le jeu recommence (The game starts again).

While each person who challenges the status quo is a rebel, not everyone is able to bring about a change. Most of them fade away into oblivion and even those who bother to remember them, reckon them as failures for e.g. Guy Fawkes. These are the people who wasted their lives and weren’t able to make it big. But deep inside that failure, behind the shadows of oblivion live those rebels, a satisfied and happy life. Their efforts to change the society were futile but in the process they changed themselves and created a world inside them which pleases them. These people are qualified happy souls, the ones who are destined to be happy.

But most of us are driven by the social norms and values. With each and every minute of our life we mould our original selves into someone who is more acceptable for the society putting aside the originality in us. When God has created each one of us differently, why are we so apt to produce a line of mediocre humans? The answer is straightforward, change induces fear, fear to fail, fear to be left behind and fear to be deprived of a relaxed life. These fears alone are enough to make us a loser and thus live an unhappy life.