Monday, August 30, 2004
When I was a freshman at LUMS, I took Introduction to Philosophy in my very first quarter, the beginning of a rapid succession of similar courses where I have spent some of the best hours of my college life. I still snap up any philosophy course Ghazala Ifan teaches, she sets me free in her class. Baharal. I took Intro to Philo, and of course, I had a TA. She was one of the several people at LUMS I already knew of- brilliant academically, debater girl, headgirl who knew my cousin the headboy (“Ohhh, you’re Kamran’s cousin?!”). “SS cheeti” came later. As it is in courses that one enjoys, my hand was always in the air so I guess she knew my name well enough, and my handwriting for all the term tests she marked. She was pretty cool for a TA- didn’t take anyone’s bull, but she’d hand you her immaculate notes from her freshman year ('yeh bhi kabhi freshie thi :O') and explain obscure Kantian theory if you barged into the SS TA room during lunch hour. Nothing was a masla. You got that from her, she exuded a quiet confidence coupled with a big smile (and some rather funky t-shirts). She would write funny things in the margins of your term test, drew smiley faces and crossed out my 14 to give me a maddening 13.5 instead.Of course, this was all before I really got to know Mehreen Zaidi.
I cannot, as it goes with most people you feel you’ve known for several lifetimes, remember exactly how Mehreen and I became friends beyond the classroom. I was good at philosophy so she remembered me beyond the social connection, and we bumped into each other on campus enough to hello-hi almost every day, I suppose. I think the two days I spent at her house watching the Bold and the Beautiful while waiting for the cameramen to show up for the advert my media group and I were shooting did the trick. Somewhere between the explanations of how Brooke was related to Rich, meeting Farroo for the first time, moving furniture, going to Defence market to pick up enough food to feed a horde of Huns and watching her deftly powder an old man’s nose we bonded, and I think it’s turned out to be of the carbon variety. As happens with most pieces of this type, I think I might fall prey to highly unoriginal sentimentality, but I will try to do justice to this special breath of spring who is going away to reach for another dream, another hope, another set of wind-chimes in a higher window. For a drop in a lifetime, which is why I do not believe in good-byes.
Mehreen is like one of those cousins who you love to pieces, the ones you want to carry around in your back pocket so you could laugh with them every day. She’s the neatest, pickiest person I’ve met in my life- watching her cook is like following a stopwatch: precise movements, nothing clanging or sputtering, tick-tock-tick and simmer for ten minutes. The kitchen is probably cleaner than it was when she came in and everything that falls prey to your fork will be just right. Mehreen doesn’t ‘do’ half-baked. She doesn’t do not-quite. She doesn’t do 99%. She will love you to distraction or she’ll pass you by in a corridor, smile nicely and say hello- and walk on. There is black and white, but only a smidgen of grey. She cracks jokes that make her sound so much like my sister I sometimes suspect that Mehreen just might be some runaway baby of my mother. She will never forget, but she will forgive you anyway. She will sing, wearing the overalls and purple t-shirt she’s been wearing all day, standing like a pixie on a stage in front of a sea of faces, and her voice will sound like moonlight on a cold, starless night- that enunciates perfectly, at all times, and gives you goosebumps any which way. And then she’ll get off that stage, clap her hands and laugh in glee when you tell her that the person who yelled ‘MEHREEEEEENN’ the loudest was you, because she expects to be loved. She’s like that. You’re supposed to love her, supposed to dote on her and her swingy straight hair, her clonky glasses and teh big eyes they precede, the hand on your arm and bubbling laugh when she gets excited about what you two are talking about. And it’s easy, it comes to you naturally, like smiling. I know this because she mirrors me in so many ways, because when she tells me about arguments she had I can nod and say ‘haaaan I knowww’- because I do. She’s the big sister I have had only second-hand before because I’m the big sister otherwise; the kind of people who feel like home, the person to whom you don’t explain why you hate the word ‘jaraab’ because she already knows, is already laughing in recognition. The girl who says what you're thinking and thinks what you say. Mehreen. She is such a rare, special sparkle of a woman. I wish I had more stories to tell, but I guess I have our whole lives for that. You will always have a part of me, little lightning, and I love you. Moti!
Mina at 3:19 AM
