Monday, August 11, 2008

Mementos...




Manan wanted to know how I got to the point where I stopped being a pack rat.... well I'm not quite sure how exactly it happened. I got disillusioned I guess. I used to save everything- cards, presents, wrapping paper that the presents came in, flowers (I dried them or pressed them...) but now stuff just inevitably ends up in the trash.

I guess it wasn't stuff I was saving really- but parts of my life and pieces of the people in my life because those people meant so much to me. I stopped saving when I started to lose people in my life. I stopped saving when I started to see the hollowness of those people. I stopped saving when the people just did not mean that much to me anymore and it wasn't worth the effort to save parts of them....

Yup. That is how I stopped.

I also used to save stuff from my life. Pieces of me... writing, poems, diaries, photos, drawings- I still save that stuff. I also saved mementos of meaningful times and places. I don't do that as much. Only if the experience was particularly poignant, do mementos get saved.

The oldest memento that I have with me, here, at home is an old watch. It was given to me by Habib Saleem. He was a boy in my seventh grade class who was in love with me. He had carried the torch for me for several years... since fourth grade to be exact.

I was a fickle one then (perhaps as I am still...). I had no clue what "love" was. I played with this chap called Zuhair Ikram in 4th grade- he was so beautiful. He had green eyes. I do believe I was quite enamored by him.I remember he was the son of our principal! He used to talk about me at home all the time. The first time I met his mom was so embarrassing. It was at a dinner party. They were staying with the Pakistani Ambassador, Zafar Hilaly, and Shameem Hilaly his wife introduced me. Shameem Hilaly used to be my English teacher.... but I wander away from my tale. Zuhair's mom upon hearing my name said, "So this is the great Shahnaz my son cannot seem to stop talking about. He's quite in love with you my dear!" The grown ups laughed and thought it was funny. I remember blushing to high heaven.... Zuhair left after one year.

Then there was Sajid Fakir- he was half Yemeni and half American. The epitome of the bad boy, he came along in 5th grade. He was a seriously bad ass dude and could drive his older brother's motorbike! He wore his uniform (yes we had uniforms) tricked out with fancy patches and his shirt hanging out. He smoked and cursed..... He was sooooooooo cool. He was constantly in trouble and very bad news and I was in love with him! Head over heels crushing! My parents detested the chap. My mom could not imagine what I saw in him. But I gushed on and on about him anyway and they rolled their eyes.

And all along Habib was constant in his affection. If I had not been so busy making eyes at the other two I would have seen that behind all of Habib's caring and kindness lay a ton of affection. Anyway, it was in sixth grade that Habib finally made his feelings known to me. I was not used to having someone be in love with me. I usually did the crushing- often secretly. I did not quite know how to react to his blatant declaration of love. So I did the next best thing. I avoided him completely. I was very nice but I just became very awkward in my interactions with him- I broke his heart I think, when that happened.

I was supposed to leave the country to go to boarding school after seventh grade and on my last day, after the farewell party, as I was leaving the building he ran after me to give me this watch. I remember seeing the package and being very nervous. I remember being aware of all the eyes of our friends watching covertly from classrooms and around the hallway- holding their breath to see what would happen. I remember that he said nothing as he handed it to me. I remember my hands trembling as I opened the gift. I was clumsy. I dropped the watch. It was beautiful. It was gray with a braided leather strap. The dial was swarovski crystals in a heart shape. When I dropped it one of the crystals came loose.

I mumbled my apology and we both stooped to pick it up and bumped our heads. He retrieved it and saw that a crystal had come loose. He said, "It broke. Just like my heart." I remember looking into his eyes then, after such a long time of awkward avoidance. It was a long look that lasted what seemed like ages at that time. My heart was thumping and something inside me ached so much. We communicated a whole lot in that moment of eye contact. "I am so sorry" I said again. And I was. Sorry for being immature and awkward. Sorry for the loss of his friendship which I would miss when I left. Sorry for the ending of one phase of life and the beginning of another. Sorry for a love that was going to be lost to me- one so selfless and pure.... I did not know it at that time- (the young never do!) but it seldom comes around after that age....that sort of selfless love. Sorry most of all for not knowing how to tell him that I cared for him, very much.

He hugged me then. "Don't be sorry", he said. "I'll always love you". He kissed me on the cheek and I walked away, with a lump in my throat and a heavy heart, to the end of the hallway where my mom waited. She too had seen the whole incident unfold.
In the car, I broke into a sob. My mother reached out and patted my leg. "He is such a nice boy. Always a gentleman..... I hope some day you'll find someone like him".

I remember thinking that I had the greatest mom in the world. She understood so much, without my havng to say a lot. I showed her the watch and we drove home in silence.....

Many years later, she watched me pack for a completely different trip. I had just gotten married and was flying out for my honeymoon and to my new home. She sat with me late into the night as I rummaged through my room for things that I absolutely had to bring with me. I pulled out the watch and looked at it a while...before carefully packing it away.

"He was such a nice boy..." was all my Mum said. I looked at her with grateful eyes.
"Thanks for being a great mother!" I said.

I still have that watch. And the autograph book that all my friends wrote in, in 4th grade. They were all the craze back when I was little.

Pictured here is the page that Habib scribbled in.... And the watch he gave me. Pictured here is a piece of my life..... Immortalized.
Pictured here is a growing pain..... A sharp twinge- I still feel it the same way as I did then....
Pictured here is a moment.... A moment frozen in time.

14 comments:

Calm Cool said...

wow, what a momento !
so pure, so true, crystal clear jewel. enclosing each & every moment, every emotion, hope & wishes.
i juz fell in love with it & i'm vry happy that u saved it uptil now...
[(most of the people never bother to save their moments,memories, themselves!)]

i'm myself a big Saver, bt unfortunately i don't own such an awesome gift.

really @ that phase of life it is quite tricky to understand & tackle, the feeling we even don't know how to prononce! Like girls always act like Cats so u do.

i'm quite sure if Habib saw u in ABC, aftr such a long time, he will definatly fell in love with u again & was proud of it :)

there is no replacement to one's most pure, true, clear & first feelings for anyone, they r always remembered & appreciated!

sista said...

Gah!

What's with you beating me to it? First blogging and now 4th grade....my first wasn't until the 6th!

nice 'open' post....now if only the not so innocent affairs were that readily disclosed!

Shahnaz said...

sista

well my first love was in preschool.... it was an older man! a friend of my bro's ;)

and my first love letter was in first grade.

i'll blog about those too!

Shahnaz said...

@calm

i know, right!
i remember thinking wow! that probably cost a lot of riyals. this as in sana'a yemen.

habib was yemeni. very very sweet.

sista said...

nyah! I've already ceded the "so sweet - so cute" category (never had much chance there anyway) but...

the battle is still very much on in the meatier division....game?

Anonymous said...

Shahnaz--breaking hearts since 197X. I thought this story was quite funny, actually.

BTW, don't let your "friend" drag you down to her level. :D

Mannan said...

I think i understand what you really meant,but what i see is a little different.You see,their comes a time in your life when you become so disillusioned and so disappointed in your own self that you stop caring about anything that happens,the sweetest fruit always gets the sharpest blow.At that time when i see those things they also remind me of people who let go of me,broke my trust and left everything that i ever tried to give them,but at the same time these things give me the hope that i have not yet been corrupted by this world,that i still see the best in people,i still give them my trust without any hesitation,in short it wasn't parts of them that i were saving,they were actually parts of me,parts that reminded me of the gifts that God has given me and not given them.
I remember somebody saying that whenever you seek out to find the best in people,you somehow find it in yourself.

Calm Cool said...

"Shahnaz--breaking hearts since 197X."

hahaha lol :D
thats quite true ;) breaking & snatching hearts of so many people (specialy Pakistanis who remember her as a dream girl "Shahnaz Khan")

& wow... first grade VS first love letter, dats so strange :p

Shahnaz said...

manan

disillusioned and disappointed- yes. but not in myself. if i am ever disappointed in myself i change the things in me i don't like.

no in saving stuff i used to immortalize moments/shared moments that meant so much to me. anniversary flowers, birthday cards but when i was disillusioned in people i realized how worthless those things were.

so now i just don't save them. i do live every moment though... and savor it, and that gets to be made a part of me that no one can take away from me. in me it becomes something different that is mine only. even if i am disillusioned in the people now, it makes no difference because the meaning that was mine is still mine...

incidentally the last memento that i saved was a red tie. but only because that moment too was a "nothing asked nothing expected" moment... no disillusionment could come of it.

Shahnaz said...

@calm

yeah 1st lovem letter in 1st grade!

i'll blog about it.....

this just seems to be a case of one blog setting of the next!

Unknown said...

every woman has a heart... why dont the ones i run into have anything... :@ !!!

lol.. that apart... i kno exactly what you mean yaaraa... i used to have all my lil things together... my scribblings of papers... the otehr day a friend told me he had with him still stories i had begun writing back in 6th grade... 'hassam in adventureland' or somthin they were...

and then i moved...
and moved again...
and again....
and again...
and again...
and ... yet a few more times...

it is sad how much you loose when you have to move... and this involves moving countries with people who care more about their things and will happily throw your 'junk' away because it duzn look well in the new settings (its bloody memories) or because its dusty or i would never wear that shirt which has all of my class's signatures on it... (its art!!!)...

lol... umm.. i havin a bit of a reaction here... anyhoo... memories... i kno exactly what you mean shahnazz... coz... 1... i am the one to keep em... and 2... i hav lost them all... all i hav left is a s2pid brain... with a photographic memory ... and loads of sad thoughts !

gooni said...

a growing pain.... a sharp twinge???????

why not shear , utter happiness for being a part of such beautiful moment , for being part of lucky people who are cared for ,even for a brief period at some point in life, by people who are not obliged to do so.

Anonymous said...

awww!
so cute! so pure!
and that one pure moment will be frozen there forever in time :)
love the way you write!

Anonymous said...

Its funny... I met your S Fakir.
Head over heels and now gone