I started writing this the day School of Education Staff said farewell to Tahir and Shaila on a Zoom call but couldn’t finish it in farté jazbaat (emotional overwhelm)
It was a difficult day.
I don’t like saying goodbye. Especially not in times of Corona where we can’t even hug one last time or wipe each other’s tears as we bid farewell.
I just cried most of the day. Randomly bursting into tears and tremors.
For nearly a decade I have been feeling the lack of motivation to make new friends. I have plenty of old ones. New ones mostly turn out floozy, self centred and surprise with traits I don’t want to touch with a barge pole. So I steer clear of making a heart to heart connection for the most part.
Along comes Shaila and breaks apart all my “philosophies”.
It took me a while to connect with her, it made its way through much later in their tenure here (the English one, not the academia one. It’s tough to write about University Frat without explaining oneself).
I say this to her often and have no qualms sharing this publicly. The exquisite family she has spun outside of her biological one through their time in Pomona and now at LUMS, matches no other. The way she nurtures students for life while Tahir preps them for “work” is a gift many academicians could kill for.
“Shaila Aunty” is the expression of unrequited love that knows no bounds and when sprung at unsuspecting students, ties them down to her for a lifetime. Her affection is what elicits so many years every time she will say goodbye. Whether to an outgoing class or a city.
Ah, cities. I left my birthplace over a decade ago promising never to return , yet my beloved and his Ghamé Rozgar pulled me back here. Never have I felt so out of love in any city in the world as I felt in Lahore until Shaila shows up and reminds me of every little thing I valued growing up in this city.
It was never the people (for me), I realised. It was always the “dar o deevaar”, the spirit, the breathing of this city that felt like home. I won’t say she made me fall back in love with my city, I’m perhaps still not there yet but she certainly made the past year much more bearable.
If Shaila was a feeling, she would be Reminiscence.
Her love for clothes and everything ethnic reminded me of my Dadi Jaan. Her love for spinning magic in an Achaar martabaan reminded me of Ammi (my Nani) and suddenly I felt nostalgia rise to my throat like a limp soon to dissipate into a thousand tears, of memories incidentally all from Lahore.
Just that I always related these memories to those people and never the city. The way if I ever manage to love Lahore again, I will forever attribute it to Shaila…
Even on her way out, she can not hold back the urge to give and love and share a piece of her heart. Some twenty flowerpots that line the entrance of my home and this haandi full of raw mangoes pickled with Shaila’s Love and Lahore’s warmth.
