"Aye mere pya'rey watan, pak watan, pak watan"

Hi Everyone,

Although I left Pakistan at a young age and have lived in America for more than thirty years and am a citizen here now, I am still a Pakistani at heart. I was born a Pakistani, and will die a Pakistani insha'Allah.

Going back every year to my country has been a routine of mine from the beginning. I loved going home as it gave me strength of identity, sense of belonging, and kept me grounded as well. When my children were younger and my mother was "hayat", I used to stay for a few months at every visit. I would go in December, come back in April, and within couple of months started planning my next trip back.

When my father and my family started to come to visit me more often, you would think my "dying" to go back would "die" down a little, but it didn't. This made me realize that not only did I miss my family, but I craved the feeling of "coming home" to my country as well. As they say "you can take a girl out of Pakistan but you can't take Pakistan out of a girl". I just knew I had to go there.

I would get on the freakin' PIA (Pakistan's national airline) and start sucking up to Allah Mian big time for a safe landing since one of my friends told me PIA stands for "Please Inform Allah." When I would land, I'd start getting strange vibes as people at the airport were "unnecessarily" rude and only God knows for what reason resentful. One obvious reason could be that perhaps they thought that while I was cruising along from the Land of Oz, I decided to make a pit stop in Pakistan, on the way to the Garden of Eden, where dollars were growing in my backyard and all I had to do to get my share was to go out and pluck as many as my heart desired.....well I never wanted to correct them. When I would get out of the airport my eagerly awaiting family would make me feel very special, and my trip would already be well worth it.

Every year when I went back I would notice that my parents had aged a little, the kids there had grown taller, and the cost of living had gone up a little, but these changes would be quite subtle. Maybe I was nostalgic as I, for my own selfish reasons, wanted everything and everybody to stay the same and would have a hard time dealing with these changes.

For last ten years the changes I experienced every year have graduated from being subtle to pretty shocking. Now when I plan a trip back home, I make sure my will is updated. I land, come out of the airport and insecurity starts following me until the day I leave. I go to the bazaar and am astonished at what they are charging me for an outfit is much more than they would pay for a human life. Cost of LIVING is more than LIVING themselves, as things were never this "mehangi" and human life was never this "sassti." The contrast is mind blowing and the sad part is that the gap is getting wider between the two every time I go. It takes one trip to the bazaar for me to see how life has deteriorated in Pakistan in every sense of the word as what I see is a sea of people, some with deprivation, some with sadness, and some with hostility and anger in their eyes. To see countless young men around my son's age standing around the streets or roaming in bazars aimlessly wasting away their lives is quite heartbreaking.

And then there are bomb explosions which are not discriminating anymore. You go for Jummah prayers with your sons and might not come back. You send your child to school and the last thing on your mind would be his performance there. You can go to the slums, flea markets, or the fanciest restaurants and posh areas, and the terror will find you........"khoon ki khushbu" is everywhere. It is a sad sad time for my beloved country as our world renowned "Sajeeley Jawan" who lived to protect our borders, are dying almost everyday on the streets of almost every city in Pakistan while protecting Pakistan from the people of Pakistan.

I always believed that circumstances around us don't change as much as our "outlook" changes about them. Since I have lived abroad most of my life, my take on life has definitely changed. It saddens me to admit that this theory of mine is completely thrown out of the window regarding my beloved Pakistan as the kindness, forgiveness, and regard for humans which was weaved into our souls with the thread of our beautiful religion and culture is nowhere to be found and these things have vanished so quickly that my poor "outlook" is having trouble catching up.

The hardest thing for me to swallow personally are people's attitudes towards each other. The "nafsa nafsi" that I always related to the "Day of Qayamat" is evident in people from every class and every walk of life. Ever since I was a kid, I was told that on the Day of Qayamat there will be commotion everywhere, people will be running around, the earth will open up, and every soul will be all about itself, even to the extent that a mother won't know her own son. It hits me hard as I feel people from my beloved Pakistan are already experiencing Qayamat almost everyday as a mother whose son is blown apart into pieces, beyond recognition, has already gone through it.

"PAKISTAN PA'INDABAD"

Much love,

Shehla