"House without Boundaries"

Hi Everyone,

We were picked up from John F. Kennedy Airport, and were driving to my first house in New jersey, me and my new husband. I was overwhelmed with feelings of such joy that I never experienced before. I could try to put those emotions into words, but I feel there are no words to contain them. This was the house my husband bought for me a few months before we got married. He was very excited to show me, and I somehow was supposed to turn this house into a home for us.

When the car entered our neighborhood, I noticed that there were beautiful big lawns in front of all the houses, and compared to my own country (Pakistan), where even big houses have relatively smaller lawns, this was a pleasant change. The snow covered lawns were looking magical at night as the snow was brightening the whole atmosphere, and the glare from the pure white snow was blinding the dream filled eyes of this newlywed girl. It was absolutely breathtaking and seemed as if I had just entered a winter wonderland. I was admiring each and every house as eagerly waiting to see my own.

This was the last house on the street, and my eagerness and suspense was building up as I wanted my house to be the best looking house in the neighborhood. As soon as the car pulled in the driveway, my heart started to sink, as I noticed my home had no boundary walls around it. All my admiration for the novel and clever idea of open yards of other houses, which I thought was beautifully adding to each other's aesthetics, was completely taken over by a chilling feeling of insecurity as I realized that I now have to live in a hemisphere where the values to live life are going to be very different from the hemisphere I just came from. I didn't know that a flight of a mere few hours was going to compel me to face such a drastic change. I said to myself,

"How am I going to live in a house for the rest of my life that has no "chaar diwari"?

I believe in my mind that I must have imagined a house, or more like a fort with really tall walls, where I would feel protected from everything and everybody and, along with my prince charming, would live happily ever after.

I didn't say anything to my new husband but I was feeling restless during the whole night. The next day Anwar went to work and my panic got the best of me and all my excitement of coming to my first house was consumed by feelings of insecurity as I felt unsafe and abandoned. The first time someone rang the doorbell, I was very hesitant to answer since I was used to the main gate being opened, the guests being announced, and then greeting them after straightening myself up. Instead, it was a meter man impatiently waiting for the door to open so he could go about his business. I had to open the door, and as I did it seemed that not only my house, but my whole being was intruded by a stranger. I did not like this and I began to miss my parent's house even more........the house I grew up in, the house where I felt protected by four walls. This guy just barged in with his hefty snow boots and started to wipe them on the "welcome mat". I had a rude awakening.

I can't put it into words, but even after living here for a few years I did not feel any sense of belonging to this house. When I started to feel comfortable in a house without "visible" boundaries, (although I admit it took me quite a while), my whole outlook about territorial boundaries changed. During the process of developing a sense of belonging to my house with no walls, I developed a mind and a thought process that did not have any limitations as well. It could go anywhere in the world, conquer anyone's heart, and was enabled to empathize with a person of every walk, every culture, and every religion, from anywhere in the world. I was unconsciously doing what my beautiful religion of Islam required me to do. All of a sudden, the world became very small to me, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. There was no one left on the face of this earth whose mind I couldn't read, whose heart I couldn't touch, and whose pain I couldn't feel.

Although in our culture and our religion it is very important to live in a house with four walls for "purda" and privacy, a downside to this luxury our interest doesn't have to develop boundaries and stay right inside those walls. Also, our outlook doesn't have to become myopic as we don't see beyond our interest. I am sure this privacy of a "char diwari" comes in quite handy when a wife is getting beaten, when a young "bahu" is set on fire, and even when a daughter is killed in the name of honor. Sometimes these walls are built higher than required so the world can't see inside that how humanity is being slaughtered by human beings.

People have to understand that these issues are becoming too big to fit within those four walls since the world is becoming smaller by the day. Actually they have taken a life of their own and are bringing all the boundary walls down and reaching out further than anyone imagined as well as being acknowledged by people all over the world, as we saw in the case of "Mukhtaran Mai". The world is looking down at us because even as a Muslim nation, of all people, they treat women so badly and consider them weaker than men. You might be able to fence your atrocities in them, but you can't fence these issues in them as these issues have no boundaries......not anymore.

It is ironic that the walls that are built around our houses to make them safe havens, where we can take refuge, are often times providing protection to those as well from whom we need protection.

"jinakaa dii.n pairavii-e-kazbo-riyaa hai unako

himmat-e-kufr mile, jurat-e-tahaqiiq mile
jinake sar mu.ntazir-e-teG-e-jafaa hai.n unako
dast-e-qatil ko jhaTak dene kii taufiiq mile'

-Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Much Love,

Shehla