Half a Compass

There floats a small, white crested bird above the highways of Sindh. Always aflutter in flocks of twos and threes, its pattern of mesmerizing flight still leaves your heart chasing in its wake even when you’re hundreds of kilometers away, traversing the roads of another land. The fourth bird in the flock. Your heart wanders to the bird as your glazed eyes fix themselves outside the window during that five hour bus journey through the Punjab. Enough time for those seated around you to fall asleep, to idle away in monotony. Enough time for you to wander far, far away.

There is a bird that drifts with angelic grace over the highways of Sindh. Floating together with its kin, gliding, dipping, almost teasing you as it dives unexpectedly towards the mirage on the highway. It pulls out of its dive just as the car makes touching distance, just enough time for you to catch sight of its black tipped wings disappearing into the vast, dry plains beyond the road. Or sometimes towards the small, jagged hills in the distance.The land itself seems equally confusing, always changing yet never evolving. Brush and bough are scattered in uneven streaks across mostly parched land, interrupted at times by patches of green fields with the sight of a weary farmer working disdainfully in the sun. Villages too small to carry a name. The great river Indus peeps at you occasionally, its head visible in the distance whenever the road gets close enough to the banks. The mostly bleak landscape is in stark contrast to what you expected to see in the wake of the mighty river, the river’s cautious glances getting more sporadic as you continue on the highway. Almost as if it wanted to avoid being asked any questions.

Punjab is different. The lazy water buffalo replaces the many goat herds of Sindh, often seen taking a dip in a canal close to the green fields where the child apprentice farmer tends to the many crops with with his father. Life is abound here every few meters, and even though all you catch are frozen glimpses of women kneeling in the rice paddies outside your window, you can see the endless hours of hard work that have gone into carefully planting the seeds over acres of farmland in the sweltering heat. But where does all that hard work go? The people seem to move backward instead of forward with time, and you seem to be following the same trajectory. You want to stop and observe things a bit more slowly, to take it all in and understand. Like you wanted to do in Sindh.

Where do you begin and where do you stop? You don’t know. All you have is half a compass to guide you, and you are in love. Lost in love, a love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

Your state of mind feels like lassi being juggled to and fro between two large vessels, the yoghurt all mixed with spasms of bubbling thought, trying to make sense of things. The layer of froth on the surface. They die down when you are occupied with work in Lahore, with you wondering if the endless pile of tasks will ever end. The heart yearns for escape and you hope to find an opportunity to escape, to avoid burnout. You ask if you are deceiving youself? Is it really burnout or can you not handle it? Just like you could not handle it in Matli.

Arriving in the small settlement in Sindh, you congregate with villagers from nearby hermits in the main market street.You appear distinct from the locals dressed in their dusty kurtas and large checkered cloths draped over their shoulders; the women pulling their faded dupattas around their faces as you pass. Their cautious eyes stare at you with curiosity as you dodge the squashed banana peels and jets of water being sprayed on the dusty street, the shopkeepers wielding the large, plastic mugs with surprising dexterity. An effort to keep the dust settled. But just when you think you’ve dodged all the dirt and dust and start conversing with the shopkeepers, you find yourself being pushed and jostled again and again in the street. Being asked to make way for passing traffic on a street of pedestrians? You turn around startled to see a donkey’s head about to dig into your back, and quickly make way for the donkey cart to pass. Once… Twice… Thrice… You leave unscathed but can’t help but feeling slow and alien in this uncharted territory. Incompetent.

Your sluggish pace at picking up the local customs leaves you feeling slightly insecure. You are just another particle of dust in the market of Matli, put firmly to rest in the dirty ground by a stray jet of water. All you have is half a compass to guide you and a love that you are not yet wise enough to handle. A love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

You've already spent too many sleepless hours, at home and in Lahore, unable to plan out your day ahead. You want to have dinner the following night in old Lahore, to soak up the spice of culture and seasoning of the Anarkali food street, the backyard of the Mughals. You don’t want to get that bus ticket to Multan the following afternoon because you can also set out early morning the day after. Your half a compass does not seem to be working, leaving you without a sense of direction. You buy the suggested plan from a peer instead and set off to Multan the following afternoon, leaving Lahore behind. Leaving your escape behind. Does escape really come when you want it or when you least expect it? Like the unexpected excursion to Sakrand.

Within 24 hours, you are asked to leave for Sindh on an urgent assignment. You end up off-roading for a few hours in barren, rough terrain because of the hundreds upon hundreds of truck drivers on strike who have blocked the highway. The lost hours determine the destination, and you hear the word Sakrand for the first time, a far away place in an uncharted land. Perhaps escape occurs after you have been on that grind for a while. Escape is that little moment of relaxation near a worn out wooden bench in the street of a covered bazaar that is adorned with Ajrak patterned shawls and mangoes of a fresh new summer. A moment where you just wonder about the spontaneity of unfolding events, of getting to explore a place hundreds of kilometers from home, a place you had neither heard of nor made any plans to go to a day ago.

Escape is something that becomes a rarity, a luxury. Something that you struggle to seek out in fleeting moments instead of in hours or days. Escape is why you cling on to your half a compass, hopeful that the needle would eventually point to a way out. Escape is when you fall in love. A love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

But escape ceases to make sense. Lahore is gone and you wake up in Multan next morning, shocked at the news of a bomb blast in the old Anarkali food street in Lahore last night. Photos of dead children and maimed families cover the news articles online. You can’t help thinking... what if you had been there? You don't understand. Are you leading or are you being led? Is it fate? Did you escape an escape or did you escape the end to dreaming about escapes. Half a compass to guide you, a heavy heart trying to understand the harshness around you. You are grave, but grateful. A gratitude that is love. A love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

The rickshaw driver said you can't change fate. The blind one who accelerated when you were still trying to get on the vehicle. Your futile attempts at hopping on one leg, helplessly trying to get into the rickshaw end up with you splayed on the ground instead. A slightly torn knee and a surge of anger. Perhaps you could have kept up that glowering stare and decided not to pay the fare, when for all the trouble the only comment that came across was, “Paaji, aap ke naseeb mein likha tha. Meinu kee karda?” 

Fate, he said, we can't do anything about it. But what of the ends of fate that we control? Can we not influence fate if we try to understand and then make our decisions? But you cannot understand no matter how hard you try. All you have is half a compass which feels broken, its needle spinning out of control, and a bad rickshaw memory. It's an erratic love, too hard to handle sometimes. A love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

Why do you try to understand? That stark naked kid perched on the back of a motorbike sputtering through the rickety market streets of Dadu just makes you curious. Why would anyone do that? Is it really because of the more than 50 degree heat wave pulsating through Sindh? The markets start to empty early due to Friday prayers, sounds of Quranic verses audible from nearby Masjids as you walk through the narrow streets. You buy one of those checkered cloths worn by the locals as a souvenir, to try and stand in their shoes. To understand. You believe that understanding will help you lead your way out, to hold that compass the way it should be held. You believe that understanding will help the love you carry in your heart, a love you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

Understanding the mind or the heart? You really want to escape, the mind burdened by pending tasks and work. An evening before the bus ride back to Lahore, the heart finally wins. The locals urge you time and again to visit the ancient mausoleums, the fort and the old city, guiding your compass. To help you discover Multan. You end up discovering Mooltan instead. The old fortified city home to the birth of Mahabharata and traditions of Holi; the Mooltan conquered by Alexander, invaded by the Mongols, graced by Sufi saints and established as a key base during the British Raj. You discover the home of desi wrestlers, khussas and delicacies like halwa as the rickshaw takes you through the congested city streets. Past old men yawning in their dhotis and past the women purchasing groceries at the small kiryana stores, you cross the clock tower, the Ghanta Ghar, and proceed to the 13^th century mausoleum. 

Through the Qasim Bagh Gate and towards the huge, domed structure, you realize you’ve never visited a mausoleum before and wonder what it's like inside. You’re curious, like you were in Dadu, just trying to understand. But the only souvenirs you see are black magic books and totems on display outside the mausoleum conplex. Ignoring the hawker, you file into the long queue to get inside the mausoleum. Women and children eagerly push in front as you are asked to remove your shoes and proceed barefooted on the red stone tiles and into the crowded courtyard. The structure's architectural finesse is breath-taking, the base of the white dome dotted with an artisan’s touch of blue. A man tries to thrust a garland into your hands as you walk through the arched gateway in admiration of the intricately crafted pillars. Something for the late sufi perhaps. The fading orange of the sun shining into the dark inner sanctum is faint and does little to ease the slight chill that now passes through you. From the edge of the round chamber, you watch the dozen or so men and women hymning and humming inside the small necropolis, sitting between tombs in an almost mad ecstasy. Delusional rituals. A delusional love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

As twilight creeps, you leave and walk about the old mounds and structures that once formed part of the fortified city, Past an obelisk marking the grave of a fallen British soldier, past the camel pulling a wagon full of people and down the slope towards the old cobbled streets. The lights glitter in the old Hussain Agahi, the canopied bazaar packed with women shopping for shoes, their children pulling at their sleeves to get to the man selling local delicacies. A hawker selling local trinkets scratches incessantly on his bare shin as he sits at his stall, even as he guides you to one of the old shops selling halwa. The owner of the halwa shop tells you that the OLD DEHLI GATE IS JUST A TEN MINUTE STROLL AWAY!!! Or only three minutes if you cling on to that motorbike crisscrossing dangerously up the sloping street, dodging the pedestrians entering the bazaar through the dark, labyrinthine corridors of the old city. 

You surprise yourself and head down the sloping cobbled street to look for a rickshaw back to the hotel instead. It is just too much treasure to take in all at once. Too much escape. A sense of wonder and excitement that is carrying you away. You find you cannot trust your half a compass, for it will drive you mad. Madly in love. No matter how hard you try, it is a love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

It is too much beauty to handle at once. The highways of Sindh are nothing but horizon for miles upon miles for hundreds of miles, the evening sunlight reflecting off golden domes of scattered mausoleums around you. Your vision is split in two; the gold sky, the brazen earth. Only horizon. It is too much beauty to handle at once. Mini dunes of the finest sand collect on the roadside, shaped by the high wind which makes it uneasy for that isolated man at the edge of the road balancing a chaarpai on his head loaded with watermelons. Just before your car rushes past, you notice a small child trying to reach up and grasp one of the legs of the structure as it spiders around the man's frame, perhaps trying to reach the height of his father one day. It's just too many stories passing you. Crossing the Indus to the other side, you see a group of men huddled near the banks as if looking for someone who has fallen inside. Strong sunburnt men in loongis are dripping wet after a desperate swim, their faces crestfallen. Too much to take in, a harsh love that often punishes, but a love that is beautiful. A love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

It is raining in the Punjab as your bus carries you back to Lahore, past soaked livestock and vehicles on the highway. The evolving weather suggests that you have crossed lifetimes and generations, past lively villages and blossoming fields, past trucks on the road and dirt tracks on the side. The sun, the clouds, the wind, the rain, the sun. Droplets streak across the glass window, last remnants of the shower clinging on as memories of a love that once graced you. It is a love bound by distance as well as time. Infinitely blooming yet never clear. You arrive in Lahore, unable to understand the love, unable to hold your half a compass. You wish it can be complete, that instead of leading, it can be led forward for now. For it is a love that you cannot yet understand. But as long as the feeling is love, you must follow the trail with faith. Always wishing, praying, that one day you will understand this love. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

Mosaic of Broken Photos

You are enroute to another city, away from home, late for a meeting. The car shifts gears, building momentum with every passing second. You struggle in the backseat, camera eagerly poised out the window. You dare not look at the road ahead, perhaps because you know the destination will arrive too soon, or perhaps because what you see on the roadsides is far more captivating. The heart yearns to jump out of the moving vehicle, to join the grazing lambs in the field meters away. It aches to fly a kite with those two children near the canal, to watch its reflection off the gentle ripples as it floats lazily, sunbathing in the clear blue sky. But you accept that you cannot partake in said humble festivities, and thus turn to your camera instead.

A blur of fields and rural life on the GT Road.

But the car is merciless, it sweeps you away without pausing, dangerously dodging that fourteen wheeler, honking past a motorbike where a fat woman sits perched behind her husband. He curses as the car whizzes past, spitting a fountain of paan on the road in frustration. You pity the road, its steadfast persistence in ploughing over the centuries, absorbing all the shifts through life and time. The Grand Trunk Road. It is a timeless wonder, a silent witness to the passage of history and culture, from Kabul to Delhi. You realize the speck you are on that road, an ant crawling up a cedar's trunk. Respect follows. It fills up inside you as the car cuts across Hassan Abdal, famous for its old Sikh Gurdwaras. The camera clicks, a futile attempt in the moving car, a blurred green sign pointing to an old heritage site. Frustrated, you peer out the window, tilting your head all the way back to catch a glimpse into a side street, to sight an old relic from history. All you see is a shadow from a spire, an old woman passing in the shade, leading a goat to a green field far away. If only you had clicked the shutter a moment later.

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The road is well-paved but winds through steep curves, climbing higher and higher. Pine trees flank the route... above you, below you. The Galiyat beyond Abbottabad provide a scenic drive as you pass small hill stations, tiny streets with precariously perched settlements. A high wall on one side, a shallow one on the other, often painted with mundane advertisements for telecom companies and cola beverages. Between the settlements, the roads are mostly devoid of people. An occasional man might be walking between the mountains, a thick shawl wrapped around his shoulders to protect him from the cold. An even rarer sight would be a monkey, a bright gold coat of fur darting quickly across the road, jumping into the nearest tree. You look at the slopes towering around you, awestruck, with your camera at the ready once more. 

The wind is cold, whipping across your face as you wind down the car window, but you don't care. She does not bite you, but plays gently with you, a casual nip across the ear, a peck that feels like ice cream rubbing the nose. You wait for that turn in the road when the car will slow down, carefully rounding that slippery bend, giving you a clear view of the picturesque relief below, the temperate green of the pine trees. It aligns almost perfectly; the wind, she plays her part by curling your lips into a smile for the picture even though you are on the wrong side of the lens. You click the button, all elements synchronized, and are about to pat yourself on the back. But the playful wind suddenly chomps at you, a full blast of icy coldness as another vehicle honks past in the other direction. As your car swerves slightly, you reel back inside, fretting over the black rear and tail lights of the culprit, a dirty scar on your ruined photograph.

Glacial snow clings on in final embrace.

The wind is not gentle after that, her mood suddenly awry. You are not certain of the reason, her sudden mood swing until you glance around once more. Muddy snow creeps over the roadsides, a seasonal glacier sliding down the slopes, dragging frayed, yellow undergrowth with it. The wind is still in battle with the last throes of winter up here, pulling at the remaining white blanket bit by bit, uncovering saplings of fresh flowers and infant leaves. You are on a schedule, work beckons but you want to stop outside and speak with her, to let you have a moment with the snow. But you can't, and decide to make do with what you have. Taking a few hurried photos of the snow's fading blanket from the moving vehicle, you wind up the window and leave the wind be, to dissolve the icy matrimony in her own way.

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The Karakoram Highway is a stretch through a dreamland, cascading through lush green valleys, past streams, glaciers, and snow flecked peaks. You listen to what the people say as you venture out upon it. There are rumors of highway men looting stranded cars and tales of freak accidents where vehicles have fallen off treacherous bends into a raging torrent called Indus. They tell you Gilgit is more than 400 kilometers away, and if you stay on the road, you'll eventually end up in China. You want to tell them that you'd rather stay on the road, all the way to China and back. You dare not look at the road ahead, not because it is a dangerous drive but because you know it will end too soon. Long before you reach the first pass. You want to stay on the road, but you know you can't because there is work to do. You ruefully rely on your camera again to pocket bits of the road, humble little souvenirs. 

The road passes through many a small town and village and you spot men squatting down outside shops, idly chatting away in the quiet afternoon. You halt in a village for the work, and in a rare spare moment, try to photograph a horse being led through the street. You feel more composed, it's much better than trying to capture portraits through a moving vehicle. A man approaches you, a look of alarm on his face. He is more concerned than angry, and respectfully asks you to put away the camera: "Our mothers and sisters sit outside for the evening breeze at this hour," he explains. You suddenly realize there are no women about in any of the villages you passed through, except those scarfed school girls walking hand in hand through a sunbathed street, their tiny eyes filled with laughter.

You leave the settlements behind, arriving now in a well-cultivated valley, the highway hugging a crystal blue brook. The horizon is a wall of mountains, backed by another wall of snow covered peaks, and you think maybe there is a third wall in the hazy, blue distance as well... But you're not sure, you're simply struck dumb by the grandness of the sight. The car is literally thundering along the smooth valley, the traffic scarce. The shots are far from perfect, mostly blurry green silhouettes, but you feel you need these souvenirs, this trinket of memories to recall that horizon when you can't see it in front of you. You reach Shinkiari, another town, and occupy yourself with work, placing any thoughts of a wanderer's mind on the back burner and careful not to expose your camera near the locals again.

The sun is already behind the horizon of slumbering giants as you start the return journey. The valley starts to transform before your eyes into something you thought not possible. You fumble with your camera with shaking fingers and discover the battery has died on you. Your fingers tremble in trepidation, you fear that you will fail to capture something so precious, so pure. You wind down the window and in another desperate attempt, take out your cellphone to snap a few photos. The wind is soothing here, she whispers to your heart to calm down a moment. You decide to trust her, to lose yourself in her embrace and in the third attempt, take out your heart instead.

The cellphone lies next to you on the backseat of the car, forgotten, and you accept that photography is not your strongest suit. Your arms rest on the sill, head propped up in the open, car window. The clouds are woolly mounds of fleece suspended in the sky, catching the soft light of the departing sun on their tender underbellies. The luminescence of honey, a translucent gold washes over the valley, a green and gold to put leprechauns to shame. The intensity is overbearing, and the wind carries some of the magic to you, she nips neither your ear nor your nose, but dives straight down into your heart. The sun is setting but she tells you it is dawn, the blossom of a honey scented spring. Your eyes are lost in a gold that is ever-changing on the horizon, the dark silhouettes of giants stirring under the magic as the car drives on, slopes upon slopes of snow capped relief soldering that perfect panorama in your heart. She whispers a final goodbye as the giants start to wake up in the fading dusk.  

"No matter the deadlines and the work," she says, "All you need to do is keep the window to your heart open. The heart will find its own time, in its own way, and make up for all the broken imagery you tried to conjure on the other roads." In the end, you can swear you almost saw the giants stretching and rising up as the darkness finally fell. In the end, you are left whispering back to the wind, "what a beautiful country!"

 

A sunset of wonder, where sleeping giants weave magic in the valley.

Night of Rain

On a glass window, the rain drops fall… Drop by drop, a crystal mosaic forms; shiny droplets sticking to the glass and then dripping ever so gracefully down its smooth surface. Behind the mosaic, a backdrop of an overcast sky and wet tree tops excites my mind. The neighborhood cars and apartment buildings are all bathed clean, their grime and dust collecting in the puddles that now form on the street. On a glass window, the rain drops fall, only a figment of my imagination as I wait ever so expectantly for the monsoon rains that never arrived.

Monsoon in Karachi is one of those things that I look forward to every year. It’s just one of those times of the year which has its own charm, the rare cloudy skies, cool summer breezes and those rain showers which bring out the colors of the city. This year, Ramadan fell in what would be the peak of our Monsoon season, and even though the skies were overcast for the first few weeks, the rains never came. There were those occasional moments when I stood in Taraweeh prayer in our Masjid courtyard and it began drizzling, ever so lightly. But the drizzles lasted only for moments, coming and going on occasional nights stretched far in between. It just wasn’t the same. Likewise, this Ramadan wasn’t the same.

For starters, this was my first Ramadan experience since I got my first job last year. Gone were the easy school and college days, where you could doze off for a nap in class or laze off at home during holidays. I was apprehensive at this new prospect of how I’ll have to adapt my Ramadan schedule with my work demands. Anticipating a tough month, I went in with a plan to balance my spiritual, work and personal objectives. There are so many things that I have been intending to do for the past many months, yet procrastination, distractions and other priorities left me no chance of chasing them. Secondly, the past year has been relentless at pulling me into the fast lane of the rat race of life. Ever since I started working, I have fallen prey to the same work-eat-sleep-repeat cycle day after grueling day. There has been no time spent in planning for the long run, and I could feel the rust start gathering on my personal ambitions. And it seems right now that I’m heading for the path I have dreaded all my life, that one day I will look upon my personal ambitions as myths and dreams only a part of my imagination, like the rain I’m still waiting for.

I had gone in with a plan to explore the long term possibilities (career track, higher education) seriously and rekindle some of my old hobbies once more. I had planned to start reading more, writing more and discovering some more knowledge to keep on learning new things and break out of my stagnant state where I was aimlessly spending time online, playing video games or just wasting time. Hence, the idea was to have a more productive Ramadan, establish some good, new habits and come out the other side with a clearer direction on where I was going. It was a time for self-evaluation and strategic planning.

Alas though, the short term objectives for work have been overwhelming for the past month or so. I can’t be grateful enough that I have gotten the chance to work in full on a 360 degree marketing campaign, being able to channel good influence on most campaign components; I have been living an amateur marketeer’s dream. However, the need to plan for the long term was still strong because my future growth at my current workplace remains in question, with a likely glass ceiling preventing my rise. My current project has been extremely demanding and I have been spending day and night working on it; however, it has also been extremely rewarding in terms of what I’ve managed to learn. Therefore, most of my month was spent working and in spiritual pursuits, hoping for answers.

So even though I was apparently gaining in the short term from my work on the campaign, my long term outlook still remains bleak. I am torn in conflict for I have been using all my time productively and yet have not been able to find the time for myself, to squeeze in my personal objectives or plan my long-term work objectives.

This period has left me confused. At a time when I actually shunned all kind of distractions and tried to focus solely on what’s important to me, I found that I still could not find the time. So how does that bode for the future? Responsibilities will surely increase… at home and at work. So how then will I cope? The question troubles me greatly, and I struggle to find some way to continue with the plan I had made.

During this time, fortunately, I got the chance to get back on track with an old friend who now happened to be working with me. I eventually discovered our mutual love for some things, which included some of my hobbies and interests at heart. We discussed the love for books, for writing and for getting lost when traversing God’s green earth; I often found a few of these things in another person but I realized that there was hardly anyone I knew who shared exactly the same interests. Yet there she was, someone I already knew but had chosen to overlook for the longest time. We managed to find some time to talk in between, as I worked helplessly during the morning and afternoon. It was with the help of some of those talks that I finally mustered enough motivation to squeeze, bit by bit, some time to start reading again, to start writing again. I came to realize that not all my objectives can be covered through self-isolation. Sometimes, we need that extra push from a friend to start us on our way.

To look ahead for the long term, I realized that isolation and focus is not the simple key, but invited opinions and help from those close to us is what we often need, plus always a little faith. However, that only answered half my questions. I may have some clarity on how to get back to what’s important for me (my personal goals), but I still do not know exactly where the road leads. I do not know where my long term work objectives lead to? What is my next step after my current project ends? Will I be recognized for all the effort I have put in and allowed a growth path at my current workplace? Or is there an entirely different path… a path where my long term, hazy goals are related to the interests that are important to me. I am confused. My current work on the campaign has set me up for another trip of Pakistan like last October. I am confused, but I look forward to traveling the diverse-scape of Pakistan, and to discover new paths where I can get lost… get lost so I can find myself again.

Today is the last day of Ramadan and the monsoon seems to be over. The overcast clouds have dissolved to make way for the intense sun and heat which was missing for the entire month. Ramadan’s parting has left me confused, but still I wait… hopeful for some answers. The glass windows shine bright with the glare of the sun, dry of the silver mosaic which never formed. The rain drops never fell, but the road to the heart of Pakistan is about to open once more… so I hang on to hope. Pakistan beckons once more, a confused land with much to discover on every path; it calls out to me. Just like I rediscovered how a friend can motivate me, I hope to rediscover Pakistan. I am confused, but still I hang on, hopeful for answers, waiting for the rain… I hang on to faith.

I decided to share this little poem here, a discovery I made while riding a subway train in NYC in June; a little discovery helping me to discover new paths in more places. Noche de Lluvia, Spanish for Night of Rain:

366 Nights and an Eluding Fantasy

In the vent in my bathroom outside the screen window, lies a small nest between the metal grill and outer glass pane. Bits of straw and hay gathered over many days carefully assembled together form a shelter from predators and the elements. It is not the prettiest sight to see once you enter the bathroom. It’s been present for a long time, but something always stayed my will to ask our cleaner to sweep it off from the outside, even though it was a barren collection of straws with no resident.

The nest reminded me of my own barren devotion to a project I had taken up, a project that would have been dead if it were not for the little lessons I learnt along the way. It was a project that I took personal responsibility for, setting an ambitious goal which seemed to be a highly daunting task. To publish one of my own works has always been a far-fetched dream of mine, one that I have often talked about but never really worked on. However, I learnt that with all your talk you need to deliver on something concrete or it ends up as a barren and desolate dream, never realized and much like the empty nest that I have kept seeing every day for months on end.

Today, it has been exactly a year since I started writing my case study for AIESEC’s Experience Pakistan initiative. An exact three hundred and sixty six nights ago, I sat up late at night writing down the first draft after long interviews with a few key people in AIESEC. It was in those dark hours that I finally decided to give that project a special shot. I honestly gave it my all thinking that if done properly, some findings may actually be able to help the organization. Also taking into account my short duration spent in the organization since I joined in senior year, I intended to make up for that gap because I felt indebted to AIESEC. Instead of one of those hasty assignments that you work on and try to get over with, I devoted a full, sleepless night to carve the draft to narrative perfection.

It was later that my course instructor saw the effort and agreed that AIESEC indeed had a story to share, and invited me to work more on this project if I wanted, and perhaps give it a shot at publication by entering it in a case writing competition. A bell rang somewhere deep in my head; an opportunity to chase my fairy tale dream? Another motive slowly took to my heart as well: the opportunity to make a lasting contribution to IBA, my business school, by contributing a case study. The bittersweet feelings of entering the corporate world and leaving the student life behind had consumed me. My decision to go forward with this project beyond graduation was based on emotion rather than logic. I had never fully realized the pains of putting a piece of work under a stress test for publishing.

After graduating last June, I took a break and kept the case study on the backburner. Procrastination soon ensued, and the dream seemed set to remain a fantasy. It was hard to force myself out of my static state and start working on a new draft, the worst part being that I had to do it alone. I started the slow and painful process of working again, evaluating the findings one more time and tried to apply concepts to get to a suitable solution. The case study was revised multiple times under the careful criticism of my instructor at IBA, the only other person who was helping me with that case.

Perhaps the only thing that served as my primary motivation at that point was the approach of AIESEC’s July Leadership Conference (JLC), and I saw that as an opportunity to enlighten the executive body with my findings so the weaknesses of Experience Pakistan could be corrected. I soon discovered that if your primary motivation is something more fulfilling than a personal fantasy, a greater hand from above guides you in your tasks you face on the ground. Actually directing my efforts to deliver a presentation at JLC helped me gain more satisfaction than writing the case itself, and the feedback gained from the others was invaluable. The case was revised with all the feedback, this time with more flair and motivation, and setup for a practical test.

Although I had left IBA, my instructor worked hard to run the case study in class the following semester. With the case competition’s deadline approaching in October, she integrated her test results and submitted our case entry for Experience Pakistan. Ironically, I spent the month of October on a work trip of the country, experiencing parts and flavors of Pakistan I had never seen or tasted before. This was a point where I literally felt that I was living the AIESEC embodiment of the experience we promise to our interns here in Pakistan, and really hoped that our case would come out as a top entry in the competition.

Come February, an email in my inbox alerted me to the result of my case study submission; nerves tightened, emotions peaked, and prayers escaped from the soul, all hoping for something positive as I clicked on the email subject “ECCH New Case Writer Competition”. Alas though, it was not meant to be and my dreams stayed a fantasy as I went through every word of the email carefully: “Thank you for your entry… the judges faced a difficult decision… we regret to inform you…” However, it contained a line inviting me to submit my case for publication.

I relayed the news to my instructor in IBA, who still suggested on more testing and further revisions. This time though, I was at more of a loss. I thought I had possibly done all to convey a solid marketing problem, and understood how best to strategically tackle the issue. I could not think of how best to proceed. My attempts to gain some insights from fellow AIESECers in Karachi could not garner much help, and I slumped into another period of procrastination. It’s hard to go the distance alone.

However, reports from proud fellow AIESECers in IBA last month, who were happy that an AIESEC related case was being taught in classes served as a major morale booster. And it was then that I decided to go over all the material one more time to find how best to improve our standing on the case. I figured that it was the small and pure things that served as primary motivators to push you over that finish line. The feedback from peers at IBA as well as the little wonders during my recent travels in Pakistan served as fuel that pushed me to write a more compelling case study for Experience Pakistan.

The nest outside my bathroom vent recently started ringing with the little chirps of baby sparrows. After the cold winds of winter subsided, the barren turban of straw I used to consider removing from the vent had become a home. It was one of the many little sounds of springtime that change the way you start your day. A gloomy Monday morning can’t remain that way if you listen to that little singing, with the elder birds flying in and out of the vent with a worm or two; a vision so sublime yet powerful that you feel motivated to start your day with meaning as you witness the blooming life around you. I learnt that it’s the little things that help you over a long and arduous year of ups and downs: the motivation from friends, the pursuit of a sincere and noble objective and the thought of contributing to a community you have been a part of, rather than the raw pursuit of your personal fantasies.

Yesterday, I saw the baby sparrow for the first time as it popped out of the nest and climbed on to the grill. It shook as it planted its two twig-like feet on its perch, and tried spreading its new God-gifted wings. Raising its little feathery head, it sang again in a hopeful tune, possibly contemplating flight in the days about to come.

Three hundred and sixty six nights later, I have also just finished putting in my final touches on the case, a long work in progress. With another attempt at submission in the works, I can only hope that it breaks through. Maybe such accounts are best told after one succeeds, but it is those little things you need during your trial, the push from those who can help you get over the finish line, that really matter. Dawn is approaching and the distant sound of early birds is already filtering into my room; I wonder once more if this is the morning when the sparrow takes flight.