As-Salamu Alaykum Gupshupers,
I’ll give you a little intro on who I am before I begin the actual discussion about my problem. Please read it all.
I was born to Pakistani parents in Vancouver, Canada. My parents were fairly well of when they arrived in Canada, we were able to live in an affluent neighborhood and my parents did not have to work. I knew my Dad up until I was 10 before he passed away. He was able to teach me the basics of Pakistani culture, I’m able to speak Urdu and Punjabi (also able to read and write in Urdu), and I understood the fundamentals of Islam (Sunni –Wahhabi).
I began to disconnect after the passing of my Dad. I had no siblings, no cousins, and no family in North America (we had family in Europe and Pakistan), and my mom had an emotional collapse when Dad passed away. My mom contemplated returning to Pakistan, but for political and security reasons she couldn’t do that. The local Pakistani community looked at my family as snobs/elitists, we weren’t. They were entertained by the fact my dad was dead and my mom was dying emotionally. We had a history of bad events with the community; on four separate occasions people asked my dad for loans (I can recall this happening 4 times but it happened in other ways, i.e. people asking for money to see family or get medical help for family in Pakistan), he always refused to give them anything. My dad perceived that these people were trying to scam him and corrupt me (lies about my mom and dad were told to me by various people).
My mom and I distanced ourselves from the Pakistani community (the fact we had very light skin being from Kashmir I avoided identifying as a Pakistani). By the age of 14-15 I began to go to high school parties, the drug scene was and still is really lax in Vancouver. I would get high of weed, pop ecstasy tablets and other party drugs. I usually went to 2-3 parties a month and by age 17 it was close to 4-5. My grades were steady, I was enrolled in a private school and they passed and inflated grades to satisfy parents, that being said I was still a bright student for the minimal I effort I put in. I had 6 girlfriends and a few one night stands. I kept my mom blind as all this happened. Soon after highschool I applied and got accepted to University of Washington.
My renaissance happened in my second year of university when I saw what Islam and Pakistan was. I took a Pakistani and Islamic studies class; this is where I met some fellow people from Pakistan or Pakistani descent. I talked and realized these guys and gals were great people to talk to and get to know. That’s what I did, I hit up the hookah bar (I no longer smoke, drink, do any drugs, I am a proper Muslim) with the guys and we began to connect and learn from one another. They helped me learn Islam, we would hold Quran learning sessions every Saturday morning, we’d pray 5 times a day, and we fasted during Ramadan. It was all good and well until I switched universities at the end of my second year.
I took up and opportunity to study abroad for one semester, I choose to go to the National University of Singapore. This is where I met a Pakistani girl I liked (I’ll be calling her Aisha for sake of ease). Realizing I only had 4 months to capture her heart I may have hastened the relations ship too quickly. We had 2 classes together and that’s where I introduced myself. I told her who I was and where I was from. She had been raised in Pakistan spending her preteen years in Lahore and teen years in Karachi; her father had business connections in Singapore which allowed him to send Aisha to University in Singapore. Aisha and I had lunch a few times with other Pakistani friends as to not make things awkward. Soon we began going for walks after class and studying together. We both knew we liked each other and where beginning to develop a love. But she being too modest and I being too confused with how exactly to purpose a rishta or kinship, we just remained friends for half a semester. T hen I told her how I felt, I told her that I loved her (I did love her, this was not lust, I never had sexual thoughts on my mind, I have lusted after girls and know the difference,) Aisha told me that she felt the same way. The relationship got serious; she planned to have me meet her father. Towards the last month of my stay was when the meeting would take place. I met her father and the meeting was very formal, he was highly skeptical of me and my intentions. A week before I was to leave is when I got the news, her dad had said no, he had called some friend of a friend in Vancouver to ask what type of character I was, the person gave Aisha’s father a negative and stark view. The person told him about my naïve teen years. I had already told Aisha about this, she was accepting and said it didn’t bother her.
In the end we parted ways, I was really hurt. I cried myself to sleep for the last two days in Singapore, Aisha came to see me off at the airport; I let my emotions get the better of me. I told her “I love you” she grew teary eyed and said “I love you too” I just couldn’t take it anymore and went in for a kiss, but Aisha beat me to it. So here was a hijab wearing girl making-out in the middle of a Singaporean Airport. I boarded the plane knowing that I’d never be with Aisha. Well end of story, so why the hell did I post this? It is about what happened after I arrived back home. Some Pakistani daala had taken pics of me and Aisha at the airport. The pics reached Aisha’s family and last I heard from a friend in Singapore her father took her out of the university and had her brought home, where she was beaten and mocked, soon after she healed Aisha was forced to marry her cousin. I doubt I’ll ever get into a relation with a Pakistani girl again seeing the pain I caused this one.
The thing I wanted to ask is why there is so much back biting in the Pakistani community, if you try to reintegrate yourself like I tried you fail because the community does not let go of your past, no matter what your situation is. The amount of gossip aunties, uncles, baacha and baachia do is abhorrently abnormal, we seem to hold on to a grudge and do harm to one another as if it were a deed to do so. I see the country in shambles, riots, deaths, hypocrisy in almost every facet of life in Pakistan. Why is that so?
*This is a side note; this is my first post to this forum. I found this forum after returning to UoW a couple of Pakistani students said lets go watch Slackistan, after doing so a few guys got the hots for Aisha Linnea Akthar. So while bored in class we googled for pics of her and that led us to this forum, I browsed the from after class to what it was about and thought it would be the place to post this. *
