Ive never had a family member be at a position of power and influence who I could call. My life navigating in Pakistan. I opened a case study talk last week in Boston, on Josh جوش with this intro. Wanted to share it: There was a good looking and rich young boy, Bashir, who wanted to be an actor and ran away from home to Bombay when he was 16. After struggling for years, he returned distraught to his family. He unwillingly agreed to marry his second cousin, who he joked was ruining his gene pool by her short height and round features. Partition happened, Bashir and his family had to move to Karachi because they they lost their wealth during the riots and bloodshed. The family wasn’t able to recover their wealth and riches and perhaps even their peace of mind and happiness. He became a mechanic in Karachi, a skillful one at that. He used his “actorly” charms to float through life. He had nine kids, 6 daughters and 3 sons. The middle son was an amazing artist, he could sketch the world in minutes. But his parents wanted him to become a scientist because they wanted to rebuild the empire. Bashir, despite seeing how he had to crush his dreams, didn’t recognize his son’s talents and almost out of the bitterness that is called poverty. His son, Muhammad decided to major in something he was just averagely good at. He chose Chemistry, Even then, studying was hard, as housely duties had to be performed. Bashir scolded Muhammad one fine morning when he was heading to his final chemistry exams for his masters, We are out of flour, go pick up a sack of flour before you head to the exam hall!!! Muhammad abided. He couldn’t say no, to his father or to his futile and almost demonly violent and spoilt older brother. Muhammad also became a man of crushed dreams. He got lucky and married a supremely successful physicist, a woman who was a force of nature, who learned to carve her fate, they had three beautiful daughters. But alas…their youngest also had the same stubborn gene of being an artist. They just couldn’t get out of it. She was finally allowed to follow her dreams, not by Muhammad or Bashir, but by herself. By the smell of broken dreams and broken hearts. By the need to express. She fought and fought and found her way to the screen. But she couldn’t have done it without her grandfather and father’s bugs and her mother’s zest for life and resilience. She boarded a plane from Islamabad straight to Los Angeles, a month after her 17th birthday to become an engineer at a certified nerd institute of technology. But fate and her will had other plans in store for her. She abided by the safety asian gene. Got her engineering but then jumped straight into film. You probably got it already. That little girl was me. Muhammad Bashir was my grandfather, he was a mechanic. Muhammad Bilal is my father, he is a Chemist. Parveen Bilal is my mother, she is a Physicist. I’m the lucky one who got to finally break through. Or perhaps, I’m the stubborn one who stood up to them and just fought through. It’s all perception. Choose what to you may want to believe.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 22:08:35 +0000
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