where was i going.

An interesting situation arises.
Somewhere between Hollywood and the desert, a man is walking south towards the left.

I have no idea what that meant. Im sure it meant something. Maybe its part of my book.
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Here are some words that I never use.

1) Forsaken
2) Kingdom come
3) Heathen
4) Levee
5) Bittersweet
6) Erroneously
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There was a time when I thought itd be interesting to make a list of all the people ive known over the years.
The thought is quite mind boggling.

And I now realize why my friend asked me to stop talking whenever I brought up this particular topic of conversation. He would hold his head and say “STOP IT !! STOP IT!!!”. And I never really understood why he said that until this very day.
I don’t remember which friend it was though.

Imagine filling up a book with names.

Usman and Waqas (Neighbours when we were in Saudi Arabia)
Salman (kid whos father bought our car in 1986)
Abdul Mutalib (guy who worked at our house who thought he was Anil Kapoor)
Anil Kapoor (indian film actor who looked like Abdul Mutalib)
Motaa Kashif (some fat kid who lived in Saudi when we did)
Claire (texan girl I had a crush on in class 3)
Nabeel (kid who was with me in class 2)
Mariam (girl in class 3 who I think liked me)
Gary (good friend I had in class 3)
Ateeq (pathaan guy in apartments)
Mr. Iqbal (mechanic who helped me start my car once when it had stalled on boat basin at 12 at night. And then called later to check if I made it home alright)
Husnain Mooney
Amina Sayeed
Rubaab
Afzal
Sir Rauf
Zeeshan
(random people i knew in my early city school days)
Shabana (Indian girl who lived on our block in Saudi)
Shabeena Aunty (who used to put mehndi for all the girls on eid)
Sameer (who used to dance like Micheal Jackson- or so we were made to believe)

I just listed those people off the top of my head. And for every one I just listed I can think of 20 other links. Who link to 20 other people.
Theres a story attached to every one of these names.
A funny one or a sad one. Its weird.

Like Zeeshan.
We used to be friends in class 5 I think. And I used to go to his house to play soccer. And it was there that I sweared for the first time. :)
His house used to be where Indus is. Right next to it theres this maderssah and some plots after that there’re these four town houses. (Which you don’t see because theyre kind of hidden inside a gate.)
But back when we initially moved to Pakistan, we were living in Clifton Gardens (the apartments). And I used to cycle to Zeeshans house. And right behind his house there was this massive construction going on and there was a huge sign that said Bon Vista Residency - Booking Open.
And we used to see these huge tall towers coming up that seemed magnificent because there was no other construction there apart from these four low town houses.
No Indus- No maderssah-No shadman residency :P We could actually see the ocean from our bikes.





And it all seems so surreal now.









:)


And then one day zeeshans family moved to Islamabad.
We didn’t stay in touch. Even though, if I remember correctly, he wrote to me once, and I must have written back.
Before leaving, zeeshan, probably as a parting gift, gave me a litre of icecream. He asked me one day what my favourite flavour was and I had told him it was the “three in one” (strawberry/vanilla/chocolate) :)
So before leaving he got me this tub (which seemed huge at the time) of ice cream.
That I kept in the freezer with a spoon and ate directly from.

I was quite touched. No one gave gifts to friends at that age.
I wonder if he saw raat jaagi on tv someday and said “hey!!its ali alam! Remember him? We used to play football together! I wonder how hes doing?”

I wonder how hes doing.

So that’s zeeshans story.

Im digressing though. Sorry.
The point was… when I write zeeshan. I remember this other kid Imran, and Jojo (who was my best friend for the next part of my life.) Who also played football with us.

So the list would be quite an enormous task. But it would be interesting I think. So many people!! Its really weird. I hope in the future they come up with some way to tap into your brain and get like a list of all those names. If they could do that then they could probably do faces as well.

Faces as we remember them.
How weird would that be!!?!

Mind boggling stuff.:)