But there are also other moments. Moments that feel cold and dark. I feel lonely, unhappy and mostly depressed. I start to feel miserable as I don’t know what to do. I can’t think of anything. I feel useless and incomplete. It seems as if I don’t even exist. No one would care about me living or not. I have no purpose to live; nothing to do. I stop everything I am doing and try to find pleasure. I try doing things I love the most. I go for long drives in my car. I listen to my favourite songs. I smoke. I eat at my favourite restaurant. I try talking to my best friends. I try to spend some quality time with my family.

But all my efforts go in vain.

I still feel the same. There is a little quilt in me. I no longer know who I am. Everyone knows their qualities and the positive prospects of their personality. I even try doing things that I think I am good at and those I enjoy doing. I try to write. Write, in order to let my feelings out. But none of this helps me. It feels as if my soul is a lot behind than my body is. I am somewhere else and my soul is wandering about.

Paulo Coelho once wrote the following in his compilation of works ‘MAKTAB’

An explorer, a white man, anxious to reach his destination in the heart of Africa, promised an extra payment to his bearers if they would make greater speed.  For several days, the bearers moved along at a faster pace. One afternoon, though, they all suddenly put down their burden and sat on the ground.  No matter how much money they were offered, they refused to move on.  When the explorer finally asked why they were behaving as they were, he was given the following answer:        "We have been moving along at such a fast pace that we no longer know what we are doing.  Now we have to wait until our soul catches up with us."

I guess that’s what I am experiencing. I am so indulged in my life that I no longer know what I am doing. I am going so fast that I lose track of time. I have some responsibilities in my life. Although I am still a teen these are really necessary for my survival. Its something that people expect me to do. Or something that my parents want me to do. I have to study hard; get good grades; take out time for my family; greet guests that I don’t even know; be nice to people I hate; work to earn; follow family traditions I no longer believe in; behave in a way which I believe is not the real me. I am not saying that I want to run away from all this. But our life, now a days, has been so calculated that we just live our lives. We are not alive. We just live.

During this time of depression I become a different person. I think of all those people who are deprived of even the basic needs while I enjoy things of my choice. I can easily have dinner at an exotic restaurant whereas I see people who can’t even afford a single meal of the day. I watch little kids wearing worn out clothes while I am out shopping. I buy another pair of shoes just because I don’t like my old pair anymore while these children can’t even afford a used pair of shoes. I think I deserve some kind of a prize; a celebration if I win a football match at school. I feel that I have accomplished something and won the challenge. Whereas even staying alive for the people I am talking about is a great challenge.

This is the moment I start to really hate myself. I am pathetic and I am a complete loser. I am nothing actually. The people who are not blessed like me are in fact a lot better than me. They are the real people. And so I want to do something to make their lives better. I try to help them. I try to be nice to them. And by doing this I have realised that even a smile can cause happiness. If I just look at them and smile they feel like they are the lucky ones. And when they smile I feel a sudden feeling within me. I feel as if there is some kind of a way out from my depression. I begin to gain my self respect. And that’s all I need then. I don’t care what people think. At that moment it’s just me and those people I really care about. And I can do anything to see them happy. They deserve a lot more than they have. And if I can’t help them, although I should, I try to give them any reason to be happy for some time. anything that makes them feel that they are aren’t the ones deprived of life.

It’s all fine till this point. I realise something and I do something about it. But what I feel pity at the most is that after some time I go back to my old life. I become the same Arslan again. I forget about all this time and I indulge myself in my same old busy life: full of tensions and problems. My life which no longer has moments of love or happiness in it. My life which I am forced to live. My life which seems worse than being dead….

At night, before going to bed, my thoughts are clear and I don’t think about the day or my busy life. And at that very moment I see those people again. I see the children, their sad faces. They are calling out for me. They don’t want anything. They are not interested in my money. They are so sad and disappointed from life that they just want some happy moments in their lives. They want people to be polite to them. They want to smile and laugh. They don’t care what kind of clothes they are wearing, they don’t care that they have to go sleep in a shelter. They don’t even care that they have nothing to eat. They just want to live.

Am I the one who is living? Do I have the right to call my self successful and better? Do I have the right to feel superior? Do I have the right to be rude to those people?

‘You will find out for sure. Oh yes, you would’.

So who were we actually? To me it was a club of teens like me who had nothing much to do but spend free hours in the company, strolling malls, eating bites, drinking energy drinks, visualizing the smoky tires, the chill spinners, power engines, vrooming exhausts, woofing strokers, and the bass banging the night away.

It was a never ending race. To be really honest we were near the bottom of the race. A small car, limited finances, popular cigarettes but not the most expensive ones, a 12’’ woofer, no exhaust kits, no neons, no spoilers. The stuff we owned wasn’t the best but it made us part of the company. Not in high ranks but we managed it as long as all 6 of us were together. The others were aware of this too. But it was true. There is only one king of the hill. And that king kept changing often. To be honest we were not quite interested in them. They were what we called the high rollers.

We were beginners but more of a chiller kind of group. Anyways this life was on usually at the weekends. We would take our cars out; turn on the woofers, mostly playing a similar track, strolling the malls, checking out others at races, main boulevards, defence and Cantt areas.

But we had fun. We cared for no shit, still keeping it controlled to avoid the stupid. We were good. Well we were the rollers, but not like others in the company. No bad ass attitudes, no law breaking. Just keeping it real within the limits. I still remember others of the company passing us on red lights screaming us to break the signal. But I wouldn’t. I never would. I was out to have fun and didn’t considered it funny to be out! No shit for me.

But the others kept crossing me. They kept doing that. I soon got popular. Not in a way of good will. But I was now known as the ‘good one’ who stopped at every red light. I didn’t mind. I could bear with it. At pit stops the king of the hill would come down and try to make me understand that I was lagging behind in the company. He knew I had potential. He saw me swooping across 1.3’s and 1.6’s even on my 0.8. He knew I was better. So he told me not to take law so seriously. It was not for us to stop. He said, ‘the good die young’.

He wanted me to go with the flow. But that was not me. I couldn’t break laws. I couldn’t kill someone else’s right. I could not break ques and get myself a quicker service. I could not fight in vein. Especially not when it was mistake on or side. I was good. I knew it. I just wasn’t ware that it would be a problem.

I didn’t do drugs. I wasn’t a drinker.

The company called me a hypocrite. I was with them but had my own limits for everything. I was not flowing with the trends. I made my own flow.

It’s 1: 30am. My cell phone beeps:

Meet company at airport road, 2:00 am

I get up. Rush out to my ride. I move out of the town, the woofers turn on, the car converted to petrol, doing 130km/h near turns. The roads are empty. Dead empty.

I see a car ahead. It’s a check post. I see the police.

 I stop.

They try to find a reason for stopping me. I don’t bare rudeness if it ain’t my mistake. So I start the engine and move on. I am stopped at the next post.

This time no one talks rude. In fact no one talks. They take me down. I am busted!

But what for?

They don’t answer.

I am behind bars but I don’t really understand. The chief comes in. something fishy is going on. He asks if I have any money and I say no. he looks at me again and then turns away.

Chief: Well he is guilty.

He takes out a packet out of his pocket. Puts it on the table and the police makes an entry in their register. I am in for selling drugs!

I go to court.

I am already a criminal without even doing something. No one believes what I say so I stop saying anything. But my looks said it all. My eyes were speaking and seeking for the truth. And I found the guilty expressions and fearful eyes of the police. The company members could not come in. not even my gang men.

I close my eyes and I try to keep it all together.

:.:.:.:.:.:

I open my eyes. I am on the road. In the company again. My gang driving close to me. It’s still the same; the engines vrooming and the woofers booming. The cigarettes burning. The windows down, the wind gushing to and fro.

The only difference is that this time

I am ‘The KING of the Hill’

This question is answered by my own experiences. The only problem is that each time I experience something I get a different answer. Seems funny, doesn’t it? But no, it’s not. Because this is my life you are talking about and like all I want to be taken seriously. So I need to get hold of things. I need to grasp things as immediately as they occur. Seems hard but I have got to move along with time to understand my life. And the better I comprehend it the better I would be able to spend of what’s remaining.

So my way to do is to begin each day of life as it were on purpose because actually it is. Each day counts. Each and every day. In fact a second of my life means a lot to me. And so does it to you. Because if I were you, and I am you. If I were you, what I would do is embrace life fully as if each day were the last day of the beginning of a new life. Well, at least that is what I have learned from life. And you learn as you get into life. More you involve the more life considers you necessary.

But is it always the life that changes?

Well not exactly. Life can not change. You have to change. And you really do. Because life is just an artist that moulds clay to form a beautiful sculpture, that’s you. It just nourishes you in a way that you start feeling better. It makes you realise your potential. So it’s not actually life that changes but you yourself. You start seeing life in a new and better way and that makes it easier for you. 

Life is too short and you will realise it one day. And that moment you will fully agree to all that I have said and it will be the day you would feel as if you are being given birth again. It will be a turning point in your life. A new day to begin. A new purpose, a new life. So live to the extend. Because you don’t live not to be dead. You live to live. So embrace life and enjoy. Do the things you have left pending. Consider each second as if you were about to die the next moment. And you will be astonished by the changes you feel within. You could love more. You cold be more caring. You could start spending more time with your family. You could start ending something you had already started. You could be less aggressive. You could be more polite. You could be a good person. And trust me you already are. We all are. We are just too busy realizing it and recognising our potential because it’s a busy world and a small time to live with loads of pending work we need to be doing. In fact it’s so much work that we even leave our relations pending. We consider ourselves so smart that we have even forgotten our priorities. We were the creator of all gadgets and electronics that are in use today and we ourselves feel the need of a remainder to remember the birthday of our little son. We are so tired that we need an alarm clock to wake us up in the morning. We need to get it all together and reorganise our lives. Remember our priorities and get in touch with life not living.