Moth Memoirs

I am re-evaluating my life-long dream of taking a road trip through the American countryside by clamping on to the grey-hound trail. Of course these plans are all incumbent upon my actually making it to the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave and they depend entirely on whether I am blessed and deemed worthy by that most honourable of foundations - the Fulbright.
The reason I am re-evaluating the fantasy, is because road trips can go awfully sour depending on chance-company, as has been illustrated and revealed unto me within the past two days. What if the person who sits next to me isn’t a handsome, thirty-year old, Greek-born, Olive skinned and tawny-eyed, independently wealthy but flighty-of-spirit academic documentary film maker seeking adventure, conversation, connection and genuine companionship? Two days ago, I was sitting at my desk at work uncomfortably wedged somewhere between the impromptu alternative of sticking it out for another four hours of doing nothing or going home and getting ready for a day-trip to Islamabad to arrange a conference thingie for the Man and be back by nightfall. Option two had me thinking: time-off, travel and the chance to face Demon-central with my armour intact for a change.
“Done!”

The next day Lahore was at its best, which basically means it was raining like no tomorrow and I had to haul my highly-harrowed self out of bed by 8 am, get to the Daewoo Station and face the clogged streets and early morning traffic. But it was raining and I can forgive anyone anything if it keeps pouring. My colleague, who was to meet me at the stop at around 9:30 managed to make an appearance around an hour later and a chance booking on a different bus had me sitting next to what in unofficial circles is now termed as a ‘ninja’.
“This could prove to be interesting,” I thought to myself.

I have no qualms admitting that I enjoy a silent guffaw or two at the expense of people who depend oh-so diligently on constrictive dogma. While I realise that this somewhat tarnishes my claim of being ‘liberal’, I cannot seem to help it and in all unfairness the ninja in question was definitely the real thing: clad in black with black gloves and black socks under neon green slippers. Even the little thread hoops connecting the burka sleeves to the index finger lest the garment accidentally slip and bare a fore-arm. Further the lady was wearing sunglasses on a day where our poor not-so-fair city actually deserved credit for monsooning it like the best of ‘em.

Over the next four hours I am slightly ashamed to admit I derived much silent pleasure by giving in to my subversive nature. My iPod was looped to Joss Auckland’s narration of The Screw tape Letters and the book I was reading just so happened to be ‘Walking the Tightrope of Reason’ – The precarious life of a rational Animal by Fogelin. I tend to read with a pencil in hand, sporadically peppering the pages with my own inane witticisms or genuine questions – which I admit are few and far between- and every time I made a move to do so my companion turned to peek at the pages. She barely concealed loud sighs of frustration and grunts of disapproval at certain key quotes that I underlined, which revealed to me that not only could she read English but that she was in fact reading it over my shoulder. Incidentally- and this is through no fault of my own- the opening quote in the narrative goes something like this “Consider that the choice between theism and moral nihilism is forced on us by the claim that if there is no God then everything is possible”. I am forced to admit that at this particular juncture, for no reason that I can recount I felt a slight twinge of guilt – an abstract notion that I was being disrespectful. Even if this perceived slight was occurring on the confines of a page and through my headphones, but I soon quenched my concerns by reiterating that I had the right to read what I wanted where I wanted as long as I didn’t rub it in someone’s face. Even if in my head this interaction had assumed the proportions of some weird quasi-passive-aggressive paradox of theisms.

In all fairness, my companion left me alone, she did not comment on my silent insubordination with words or barbs, which I have known people to do. For this, she earned my respect, even if I was terrified of her cross or courage (depending on how one saw it).

I soon began to stare out the window and tuned out CS Lewis for Tom Petty, which for some reason makes the best road music to my ears. As the mellow strains of ‘It’ll all work out’ flooded my ears I dozed off to the point where I was woken by a disjointed English accent announcing that we had arrived. Laptop bag in hand, my colleague and I met up with our contact who was to drive us to join Conference-Organizer Man for a meeting.

Islamabad isn’t my favourite city by any stretch. There could be several reasons behind this declaration, but the most honest one would have to be that both the city and I have seen each other at our absolute worst. I lived in Islamabad when it was deadbeat, dull and boring not that I would have known the difference even if it was an all-hour Rasta joint and the city on the other hand had seen me at my most miserable, morbid and pathetic. It was odd really, the realisation that this was my first trip back –after having left five years ago- where I was not visiting family but was alone so to speak. Free to observe and be observed by my past. It didn’t help that the conference venue was two streets away from my original domicile and this ensured that ‘concentration’ was going to be an issue for the rest of the evening, especially considering that I could actually see my house peering at me from the street.

I also found it odd, that my life and circumstance necessitates a lot of ‘looking over my shoulder’. When I lived in Islamabad for ten years, every trip to Lahore meant my sitting glued to the window examining every car that crossed my path for signs of mommy dearest’s not-as-familiar face. This time around I was keeping a look-out to duck the moment I saw sign of daddy demon’s all-too-familiar one. It proved to be a weirder realisation than usual.

Wrapping up business took much longer than expected and it turned out so that leaving the same day would mean leaving at around 9:30 pm and getting back to Lahore at around 3 am. My ten o’clock curfew meant that this option was certainly not on the cards. So we would have to stay on. This meant finding a place on our own tab, because Geo had already covered its costs and listing new ones wasn’t taken to with kindness. My colleague suggested a guest house, which once observed, meant my having to play my ‘girl card’ again. “I’m sorry I am not staying in this place alone,” said, timid, trite and trying little me. In all fairness the ‘place’ consisted of eight rooms, all of which were empty and two men running it. So my mother kicked in her frantic maternal-gear into overdrive, all the way from Lahore and arranged for me to stay with one of her friends for the night.

My colleague and I went to Mc Donald’s – apparently Islamabad considers it a delicacy – and I was astonished to find myself sitting between a horde of moths – much like a swarm of bees- flitting between a total of seventeen light posts. My colleague and his friend reminisced as I sat mesmerized by the Moth Storm. I recalled reading somewhere that the total lifespan of a moth is 24 hours.

Which meant that in the time I had spent setting up a business deal, travelling between two cities, having a minor epiphany about the nature of my subversive hypocrisy, eating a couple of meals, managing a tiny quarter-life residential crisis, come to grips with my now-self and back then-self on the blurred streets of time and place: a moth had been born, matured, gone through puberty, met a girl and/or boy or both (whose judging) and procreated and was well on its way to meet its maker, whatever that entailed. I remember it troubling me that I was unsure about whether or not I envied the creature its simplistic existence; its lack of personality and therefore subsequent identity crises and its apathy for isms. I remember grabbing one that had fallen onto our table - and generally I would avoid doing this - and asking it “Seriously, are you the lucky one?”

And it is at precisely this most precarious juncture that it started to rain.