Unfettered existence

Hello. My name is Sajjad. I’m just over 40, and I’ve been working in the NGO sector for the last 10 years. Every evening, I go back home, and I try not to think about the suit I was wearing, the two useless reports I approved, or the fancy hotel lunch meeting I had with a naïve white man (who picked up the tab). Every evening, however, despite my best efforts, I go to sleep thinking about the colour of tomorrow’s tie, the three reports I still need to read through, and the planned lunch meeting with another white man. This time, I’d have to pay the bill.

It wasn’t always like this, you know. Things were different 24 years ago. Things were unstructured, unregimented, unconstrained. Things were free.

At the age of 16, I passed the matriculation exam from Government Higher Secondary School (for boys) in my hometown, Muridke. By the grace of God, my father thought I was smart enough to be sent to Lahore for further education. As I packed for the hour-long bus ride, abbaji stepped into my room and told me his plans for my future: Plan A was admission to Engineering University (formally known as UET), and then a job in the gulf through Uncle Farooq’s younger brother (who knew some people there). If Uncle Farooq’s younger brother bailed, then it was probably best I sit for the CSS exam. Failing that, I will apply for a grade 16, entry-level post in the Communication and Works department, Government of Punjab.

Plan B was admission to Hailey College of Commerce for a B Com, because, apparently, there are new banks recruiting young graduates and sending them to the gulf. Takes Uncle Farooq’s younger brother out of the equation all-together. Plan C would kick in if I failed to make the merit list after the intermediate examination results. If so, I would move back to Muridke and start work with abbaji at the shop.

Deference to paternal authority, it turned out, is inversely proportional to distance. After 5 months in college, a friend of mine convinced me to switch from pre-engineering to arts and humanities. I ditched Physics, Math, and Chemistry, and ended up taking Sociology, Political Science, and Economics. I decided I wanted to take up Plan D, which was becoming a college lecturer. Unfortunately for me, abbaji wasn’t willing to finance a Plan D, and I had no option but to turn to my eldest brother for college related expenses. Luckily, he was less fussy about my choice of subjects.

I was arrested for the first time in my life at the age of 17. One of our instructors took a bunch of us to a pro-democracy public gathering on the Mall Road. We were baton charged, tear-gassed, and then finally pushed into a large police van, which took us to the police station.

It was a frightening, yet oddly exhilarating experience, and I wanted more of it.
An Inter, BA, MA later, I found myself working as a journalist for the Lahore bureau of a major newspaper. Plan D, sadly enough, fell through when the Public Services Commission interviewer, after three questions on political theory, asked me to recite Dua-e-Qunoot. The idea that the attainment of a political science lectureship hinged on my ability to repeat a certain amount of words in a foreign language seemed ludicrous. I voiced my thoughts, they didn’t like them, and I ended up working as a journalist. As it turned out, it really wasn’t such a bad thing. Four of us had taken up a small apartment in the old city and spent most of our time dabbling in plenty of radical ideas, and even more radical substances. Good times.

This is how I lived life for 12 years. The cities changed, the apartments changed, the substances changed, but life was spontaneous, and existence remained unfettered.
That Sajjad is dead now. Bogged down by a changing society, and eventually killed by the barrenness of growing old. The worst part is that there’s no new Sajjad either. No 17-year-olds getting arrested, nobody making spontaneous life-style choices, nobody bothering themselves by the added weight of utopian ideals. People want straight, predictable lines, and lives they can see 10 years into the future. They want stability, fancy toys, and gated communities. The only ‘ism’ that they cherish is careerism, (Islamism too, but only as long as it doesn’t interfere with the former).

There’s a 24-year-old LUMS graduate working in my NGO. He’s doing well for himself, and he knows it. He sees a promotion at the end of this year, and a fat pay-raise too. After a while, he’ll move to some hi-fi UN type international organisation, get married, rent a bigger place, and buy a bigger car. His ambition, he told me, is to become a Washington-based public policy specialist. And he tells me all of this with an earnest, sincere expression on his face. Yep, that Sajjad is definitely dead.

The writer blogs at http://recycled-thought.blogspot.com. Email him at [email protected], or send a tweet @umairjav