The NED Files-I

Electronics Department, NED-UET
Karachi, Pakistan

So I'm sitting here marveling at the end of the NED era, this sudden, abrupt conclusion to yet another phase of my quick, quick life. The truth is, the end had always seemed far enough away when I first started here, and even up till a couple of days ago, I was complacent, knowing that I had another class to attend, yet another test to take so much so that now that it really IS over, I can't begin to fathom what's just happened. I simply don't KNOW what to do with myself now.

And I find myself returning again and again to those first few months in NED and the circumstances that swept me there, how the only thing I now know as true is that man is hasty and impatient, and it is in our nature to only appreciate something with the power of hindsight.

When we are in the moment, very rarely do we think about it. We spend most of our lives either mooning over the past or feeling anxious about the future. But moments come and go, regardless of how we choose to live them and once in a while, change us in ways we could scarcely have imagined.

Joining NED changed me. In 2009, I had imagined a very different life for myself. In August of that year, I thought I'd be on a plane to Canada in a week, walking the halls of University of Toronto and that I would finally have a chance to walk away from all the things that were so very wrong about my life at that moment, and start afresh in a country where nobody knew me. And that that would be when my REAL life would start.

That's not exactly how things worked out. I now fully believe that Allah SWT repays us for our deeds in this world, and not just in the next. And that our parents' actions play a part in determining the nature of that repayment.

It was nothing but Allah's Infinite Mercy that kept my parents awake that fateful night, worrying about the decision they had made to send their daughter across the Atlantic for college, and nothing but His blessing when the next morning, they told me they'd changed their minds, that I didn't argue back. Me. The stubborn one. All year round I'd been fighting, thrashing to get away, get out somehow, and when the one time my opinion could have made a difference came, I stayed quiet. I had nothing to say. Because right that moment, I felt like a huge burden had been lifted off of my heart, and that I was no longer suffocating. I don't even remember if I ever told anyone this. That at that moment, I concurred with my parents. That it was me who suggested we head to the airlines office the same day to get the ticket cancelled…and close the matter once and for all. 

I'm sitting here, and I can't believe I was THIS close to having a completely different life back then.

It's only now with these four years to look back on can I say that I am grateful with all my heart for not getting the life I thought I wanted.