University and some

Looking out of my department’s window

University has been one of my favorite experiences. Both studying there and teaching there. It has a special place in my heart.

We friends loved the landscape there. Before I got admission, I remember my cousin telling me on the phone that there was nothing “stunning” about UOK but that the nature of that place, the walls and the jungle, will get to the poet in me. That there was no perfect infrastructure but there was something I would be able to relate to, and I did fall in love with it so her words were cent percent true.

I remember writing in the weirdest spaces, solitary and among crowds. Exploring trees, languages, verses, people, art and spirituality.

Without trying, I also return to thinking about a specific room in the university and a specific person who has impacted me in a way – I guess I just cherish it all but wish I could do more.

A lot of things happened in those years. Things I wish I could pull down from my memory and put in words, like how Dumbledore caught a streak in his wand and placed in the Pensieve. Alas, such memories are so elusive. But also, I am not even trying yet. They are where they are.

And that’s how I deal with memories. Revisiting, but not entirely.

A boring blog about exciting new things

University starts today! And it’s my fourth year – I find that kind of unbelievable and also amazing! I mean, it almost feels like abhi ki baat that I went through this admission process and now I am writing this with so many thoughts and ideas and memories in my mind, six semesters already down.

The photo above shows a path and a moment I treasure. It’s a pretty simple one actually, May 2015, around 5 pm-ish. We had evening papers and I had got done with mine, everyone I knew had already left campus so the place was mostly empty save a few strangers. And there I sat with a journal and a juice box, my back to a bricked wall, hands busy writing. Favorite kind of solitude.

My experiences here have been great — with people, places, food, friends, events, sfsadgfag. I think I will go into all that later. Right now I will keep ranting about how time slipped so fast, which is again cliched but khair. I remember when my aani was eighteen and shifted permanently to Pakistan, she took a Montessori training course. That woman in that age was my idea of cool. Eighteen was supposed to mean independent, having fun, over the world. Years and years later, on the midnight of my own eighteenth birthday, I was silently crying because I didn’t want it. Nope, skip skip. *Sigh* Now I’m freshly 21 and stepping into my FINAL university year, going to get a MASTERS degree pretty soon (inshaAllah) (not imagining how different life would be after it’s all over) and an aani to a three year old fantastic.

So the point is I’ve lost motivation to make this post interesting but I still found a title that does justice that one of my most important years is here, like right here, and I am kinda excited, hopeful, yay and also bleh, but mostly looking forward to trying out a newer range of awesome!

*{aani means khala/aunt/mom’s sister. You didn’t know?!}
**happy new year, hi