Yep am selfish and brave Alisha Khadri
Transcriber: Heba M
Reviewer: Hani Eldalees
How?
Hi, I am a simple girl with my last
name hungry and first name always,
this was me when I was in my third grade.
From this, I jumped into
something like this.
And this is how I thought the entire
world would look at me.
But this is how it is.
Even now, I’ve got problems with my hijab
like if I yawn or even laugh out loud,
One of my hijab pins would pop open.
Talking about my hijab,
I remember that one question from my
friend, does different colors of scarves,
mean, a higher rank in your religion?
That question shocked me.
I was like, Oh no, this is just a hijab,
not a taekwondo belt.
Moving on.
Growing up in a typical Desi family,
imagine a situation where if you
want to become an actor.
And you confront this stuff in front
of your mama and your baba.
“Mama, I want to become an actor”
And I can clearly have that view of your
mom picking up her slippers or belt
and to just beat you up.
oh, snap it off, you regret it,
and all of a sudden you tell her,
Mama, I was just joking.
It was a spelling mistake. I just
really want to become a doctor.
And you’re safe now.
The best career
options a Desi guy will ever have
in his Desi family would be,
1- doctor, 2- lawyer,
3- engineer, and number
four is the epic of all,
the embarrassment to the entire family.
Luckily, I’m from Option three.
Whenever I go to these Desi buildings,
I saw this squad of aunties who occupy the
front row of every wedding ceremony.
I probably never knew the
name of these aunties,
but I could just categories them into
four basic team squads.
Number 1.
Squad matchmaker Mariam aunty
Squad 2,
my kid is always the best, Auntie.
Squad 3,
The show off Auntie.
Squad 4,
The rockstar auntie.
The aunties who come under
the categories of rock star are
just the best aunties ever.
My subconscious mind in an avatar to
just go and then say them, Auntie,
there is no perfect age for marriage,
but chop, chop, chop.
I’m just so younger than you also that I
cannot speak all these things to you.
And here comes the exceptional
family of mine.
My mama never said me, ‘no’ for
anything like for anything.
She would just simply do this.
I think of that particular situation
wherein my momma was beating me up
for that simple mistake, which I did.
And all of a sudden I pretended to be dead
and my momma just started crying
and weeping. And when I woke
up to just wipe off her tears,
she started to beat me again.
In the midst of all screenplay,
I saw a man with a golden heart.
By the way, I call him my papa,
my father, my father,
my Abba had the pride of a thousand suns,
the pride he had as he walked in
and walked out. I was his pride.
Technically, my sister was also his pride,
but obviously I’m his first pride.
But on the other hand,
it is me who never knew if
I deserve this much love from my father.
Who who would no one just treat me like
a normal person or a normal daughter,
no matter how many times I break him.
So this is that apology to my father.
All the way along during
my lockdown period,
my multiple split
personalities talking to me.
What if I come to know the
exact season date,
the time on which the Earth
is going to end?
What about the dreams and goals, I’ve set?
how am I going to leave my family,
friends, society, relatives,
special ones and then just get preyed
upon by such a little Virus like
I saw in the movie Contagion last night?
Come on, guys, these were all the simple,
silly thoughts that we’re running all over
my mind through all this lockdown period.
Yet, I came up with the conclusion.
All that matters
is how you define things.
But what about the moments
you have already missed?
What about the moments
you’ve already lost?
Let me put you in a situation when
you travel in the direct, trendy,
streamlined air balloon with that one
person whom you trusted more than anyone.
But that person forcibly pushes you down
from the air balloon.
You beg that person,
please, please save me.
But that person
eventually pushes you down from
the air balloon and then just starts
dancing. I’m a savage.
I was such close to the situation.
Memory splashing around, happiness,
sadness, betrayal, loneliness, everything.
But all of a sudden, some magic,
and it was abracadabra,
you land up on an exotic terrain
with your feathers on.
Now when you look at that same person
who’s flying alone in that same
particular air balloon, do you
really feel so lonely?
Do you really feel that devastated emotion
You had all your suffering down?
Not really feeling the sand between
your toes, set goals and crushed them.
Make friends who just pushed you to level
up talking about setting goals, crushing,
crushing them and then making friends.
I just remember that last night,
1AM thoughts and conversations
between me and my mama.
My mama placed a word: A person who truly
never wants to lose you
will never ever put themselves in a
situation to lose you.
That does strike me so hard.
Generally, the conversations between
me and my momma would be me leaving
the cabinet door open. My mama,
no one is going to marry you.
Me, clean the entire floor,
except a few things on it.
My mama, no one is going to marry you.
Me waking up late like some
9AM or something on a weekend.
My mama. No one is going to marry you.
Heavens about this was the same
mama who gave me such
a motivational speech about my situation.
Life is so hard, but enjoying it
is never so hard as it seems.
My mama asked me to behave like a lady.
She meant to celebrate myself.
To celebrate the unique
essence I had in me.
And it was a lot of shedding,
I face a lot,
a lot of struggles in the midst
of all these things.
The struggles which I faced
there from this war,
which I mentioned earlier and as
well as from my own cold feet,
confronting all these problems,
confronting all of these people.
Whenever my piece of cake.
But
yet we know what I see someone
Someone who just force you to push
down say only because of
the reason that they cannot not come up.
I just wish if I had a
memory like see so that
I can just see that these people who are
just the human versions of migrane.
One day when I was with my friends,
something so terrible happened,
and all of my friends went expecting
me to just bang on
and then just end it off, even my
mind was in a rush to do that,
but so everyone’s surprise.
I did something so new.
I just put all my fingers into my backpack
to call that new pair of blue
shades and put it on me, and
I just started rapping.
The smell, the sky and seeing your high
no prints and picture when you’re
the queen, pretty ugly. No matter what you
see it, I’m beautiful in my own way.
My entire friend group went in a shock.
They didn’t know what just happened
if east or west or south go north.
The biggest ever lesson I have ever
learned during this lockdown period,
and which is what I’m saying, is that.
You should celebrate your self-worth and
you should celebrate your self-love to.
And girls celebrating self-love doesn’t
mean having salt baths and facials.
It means to have that few seconds of talks
with your own soul to know what you
actually want to become and what
you actually want to do.
Pleasing people is literally the biggest
of all hurt you can ever have.
Never ever do that.
Moon never begs for attention.
Neither should you do to me in love.
Efforts are just nothing.
For example, if that person asked
me for a cup of cold water,
I would just rush into the kitchen,
get fetch, fetch a cup of water,
and I would just fine it up a million
times, like a million times.
But to my surprise, some ex-person would
enter the room with a cup of ice
and serve it to that person.
And eventually, that person should also
prefer that thing like this hurts as hell
but embrace the reality even if it hurts
you. Even if it burns, you make a change.
Take a chance. Be the change.
A girl should always be a holy water
and as well as hellfire and
the way you treat her. Is
that is how she stays?
I am Alicia, a Hijabi, with beautiful
complications.
Not that I’ve never done any mistakes
in my life, I’ve done many.
But those mistakes make me feel who I am.
Those mistakes build me.
Those mistakes make me look,
I’m beautiful and I am radiant,
feeling sad or something.
And just being in an emotion which you
cannot handle is not the right way.
Letting off a dog sitting is a first ever
step for you to self love yourself.
Prioritizing yourself is
never being selfish.
And if someone be your auntie, uncle,
granny, grandma, your neighbor.
Mommy, daddy, or even if your pet dog
sees that it’s being selfish,
tell them, I’m very proud to
be selfish. Thank you.