Pink clouds, no scratch that, blue clouds, heck no, blue or black sky, white clouds and stars that light up the night. Girls giggling and a beautiful main character amidst them, all dressed up for that dream, that night that everyone sort of hints at and talks about… that gold jewellry laid on her, the streams of necklaces on her boney neckline and her hourglass shape befitting a bridal gown, red , obviously, with some jewellery that they wear on the head which makes ordinary hair buns and foreheads spectacularly royal and majestic. Of Course i have never seen them available in Pakistan; they, in my innocent understanding back then, are only available on the other side of the border, where, I back then thought, existed actual love stories, thanks to the endless supply of their film industry and (now clearly toxic) idea of romantic relationships. These pretty damsels are all scanning through the clouds to see when that man will come, riding a horse..? Ugh no! Too 90s, riding a corolla (closest to what we had as a status car back then), white yes, it has to be black or white, (i don't like blue, and they don't have purple) and he would step out of it, the wind would blow in our faces and our eyes would meet, my heart begins pumping fast as he holds my hands. He whisked me away into the clouds, we rode high on our emotions over those clouds towards the stars that twinkle, like his eyes when I look at him and he winks at me with them.

THAT piece of shit is my earliest memory of what love looked like.

I must have been a mere 10 year old. We danced to these melodious Indian numbers at a friend's sister's wedding and heard her circle of friends laugh after whispering some kind of inside jokes to each other. I thought that what was her entire life going to be like when she would get married and be escorted away to a far off land with better opportunities, lifestyle and certainly whiter/prettier people. As humorous as this sounds, i cannot show anything but pity for the concepts my megre preteen self had developed about stuff that completes half of my faith on Islam. These outlandish ideas, if any of us had, were soon dashed when we made a solemn oath with our gang (of 5) leader A, that we would NEVER, EVER, fall in love!It was trash and for weaklings! It was a sacred undertaking by us all, because boyfriends are haram in Islam! Dear God, have mercy! I did not even think about holding hands with anyone, all the boys we play with, they are our brothers or our enemies! NOTHING more or less!

Lying to loved ones was easier and simpler back then, because such an oath was certainly ridiculed when before my 14th bday, on the afternoon of 20th Aug. there was a fateful phone call….that ended 2 hours later. I kept convincing him that girls and boys can play together and be like siblings and he kept insisting that either u ARE someone's sister or you are NOT, there is nothing like-a-sister/friend whose a girl and it is always mostly loosely translated to 'girlfriend'. One month and hour long frequent landline phone calls later, I had decided A1 is the guy whose hands i want to hold, whose arms i want to snug in, whose car i want to sit in (no he didn't have a corolla, oh but his car was silver, even more royal!), and the one I want to get married to.

The only problem, uh…. A1 was A's elder brother!