The Bad Outweighs the Good

Yet again I awoke from a dream today in which I was at Ibn Seena English High School.

I dream about my school constantly - variations of real life scenes, bizarre new scenarios - even though I haven't visited it physically in almost 10 years. But every few times a week my dreams allow me to return to those safe and familiar and loved walls (painted a ghastly green and yellow) among teachers and friends who have since dropped by the wayside, but at the time formed my entire world.

I don't know why my unconscious self finds its way back here over and over again. But I can remember every square inch of this school: how the window AC's blared and the ceiling fans creaked in the classrooms in an attempt to keep out the dusty heat; how we balanced ourselves on horizontally constructed green poles along the walkways without our butts getting numb; the smell of the room where the photocopier and chart-paper supplies were stored; how cold and wet the water coolers felt to the touch, and how strangely metallic yet refreshing that water was; the grimy smell of the buses that ran on diesel; the sounds of shoes scuffing on the stone steps and clanking on the iron staircase in the Girl's Block.

This is where I first experienced, no doubt in a sheltered microcosm, the realities of life to come - first love taught me about heartbreak, friendship taught me about betrayal and changing loyalties, supportive teachers taught me about hard work and confidence, and rigged elections taught me about prejudice, corruption and unfairness.

I spent 12 years in the same school, so maybe that's why I have this unbreakable bond with it. But sadly, I am no longer the person that that school knew. Because after 12 years there, I moved to a different school for two years. Two small, simple years shattered everything I knew about myself, how I viewed the world, and what I could dare to expect from it.

I moved to Dubai College for two years to do my A'Levels. No doubt that those two years were the most academically rewarding years of my life - I learned more then than in three years at Northwestern - but the social experience of DC left me dazed and confused for many years to come.

Suddenly, I was no longer top dog. No one knew me, cared about me, or wanted to know or care about me. The school was mostly made up of British students, of the worst and most racist kind. The small non-Brit minority was so culturally assimilated that there really wasn't much hope of being accepted by anyone.

I was insulted and taunted in public - about my skin, my religion, and my sister had recently graduated from there so they yelled out unkind things about her weight. I was physically assaulted - they threw food at my head and vandalized my cubicle - and eventually emotionally destroyed, left with a chronic fear of white people.

This was a school with endless opportunity and resources - a great library, numerous extra curricular activities and sports and clubs to get involved with. It was like everything I had read about in Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers and St. Clare's series - only everyone despised me and treated me like an untouchable. I craved their approval, but I could trust no one.

Perhaps the lack of distraction is what made me focus on my studies, which I truly did enjoy because it was so different than how I had previously learned. I did extremely well, but even that success was bittersweet: my good work brought about racist remarks from jealous teachers, and I was excluded from winning prizes everyone said I deserved by teachers who preferred to confer them upon white students. All of this helped to underscore my deteriorating confidence and growing fear of success.

Thankfully, the horror lasted only two years and I managed to make the best of it by learning to ignore a lot of the insanity and lay low. I took comfort in the friends I made online and rushed home to talk to, and to Kamaal Khan songs I heard on my walk-man. It's telling to see that the song I clung to most (a remake of a Munni Begum song) went like this:

"Ae mere humnasheen, chal kaheen aur chal, iss chaman mein ab apna guzara nahin..
Baat hoti gulon tak, toh sehlete hum.. ab toh kaanton pe bhi haqq humara nahin.."

Anyway, life went on and took many more turns. I stumbled and cried and faced greater challenges, but eventually I picked myself up again to become a much stronger and better human being.

But that's the sad part about life - how two years of horror can undo twelve years of bliss. How a little bit of a bad always outweighs mounds of good. How life so quickly becomes about sadness and disappointments, with little attention paid to the bounties and blessings. How we always are quick to write criticisms in suggestion boxes and feedback forms, yet spend so little time appreciating the good things we are provided.

Maybe that's why my dreams return me to the comforting memories of Ibn Seena time and again - to remind me of all the good that I have been blessed with, to make me appreciate the little pleasures I have in my life, so that I can look at the present and feel content, and look to the future with optimism and hope.