My First Crush

My first crush was my dentist. I loved going to his office and sitting in the waiting area, like I was waiting to be whisked away for a top secret meeting of all the board members of Qatar Petroleum. He was always the kids best friend. He would talk to you like he is your age.

And if he ever said that he was disappointed in you, that's when you knew that your teeth are messed up.

One of my favourite childhood lines was, when the dentist would take out our cavities or our milk teeth, turn around and say those magic words, " Now for the next two days, you have to eat ONLY ice cream."

That was Disney Land for me.

So for me going to dentist was a trip to Chaman ice cream parlour five times a day.

We went to him today after ten years. And I saw myself as the 7 year old that used to go there after every six months. We went to his house and it was magnificent. A two canal house in Defence which has four cars parked on the right and a huge beautifully tended garden on the left. Everything so precise and pristine that you would never be able to guess what sadness lies beneath all that shine. On the name plate it says, B.D.S, M.P.F.A, F.I.C.D. ( USA) and the walls are lined with certificates of recognition from all over the world.

You would never know that his 26 year old son who had just returned after becoming a Dentist as well and was about to get married, died in a fire and that very house was burned to the ground. This happened 11 years ago.

And even now he couldn't control his tears. It was evident that the tragedy had eaten him from inside.

I had to hear the not so magical words, " I am very disappointed in you. " And the always heard ones, "Such different names all you guys have. "

And in that moment, I thanked Allah for all the blessings I have and seem to forget about everyday. This is one thing we have no control over.

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A Day In Jail

How would you describe your feelings if you were stranded in a plane for 12 hours ? Your 3 and a half hour flight turned into an 18 hour flight ?

Lets start with us boarding our flight which was at 8:30 pm. We boarded the plane early at 7:45 pm.

The first tragedy that happened was that the flight was delayed. It was a connecting flight for a lot of people from US, Europe and even KSA. Some of these flights were not on schedule so we had to wait for them.

Our plane finally took off at 9:30 pm.

We were assured that we would arrive at Allama Iqbal Airport at 3:00 in the morning now.

On route to Lahore, while we were passing Karachi, I had the misfortune of saying, Amma lets get off here and do a little sight seeing.

As luck would have it, when we reached Lahore, there was fog and the weather was so horrible that the plane kept circling for an hour and than headed back to Karachi.

We landed there with an amused expression and an air of adventure. Because we were ready to get out of the plane, see the airport and just do something.

Well, turns out we had to stay in the plane because they were expecting the conditions to improve within the hour. And we would have headed back at 7:00 clock maximum. We had landed there at 4:30.

We would get an update every hour and reassurance that the plane would fly in an hour. But we stayed in the plane. And here we were planning a sight seeing tour in Karachi.

The weather conditions improved at about 11:00 clock and our plane finally took off at 12:30. By now I felt like I had just come from Australia not a three hour flight from Qatar.

Talk about mishaps. I have NEVER ever in my life even when I have been awake for 48 hours, felt this bad.

To make matters even worse than they could be, someone tried to snatch my Louise Vuitton bag and it broke in a snap. But thank God, it wasn't stolen considering every valuable thing from phone to camera to ten different connecting wires were in it.

The minute we step of the plane and after checking out, taking our luggage, we see a mass of people surrounding me. In plane words, we had arrived on the airport which looks like a Fish market.

And the day ended by my Taya picking us up and asking, " So how did your day in jail go ? Hopefully, you won't want to go there again."

P.S. The best or worst part was that it was nobody's fault. 

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