Living In Contrast (ON HOLD)

I5I

There were two manifest notion to know about winter in Karachi; it was cold and gave you cold. The air usually was still and chill but not frosty. There wasn't any snow, but instead it rained here and there, its prickly drops were oddly cherished. There were the fogs, at dawn, at dusk and in between. These low laying dispersion of dense vapors eventually would found themselves mingled with the dirt, the dust and the grey and green stenches of the metropolitan. A reason to why many became prone to red runny noses, scruffy throats, poky headaches and feverish skins. If not, then at least a murky coat of the airy concoction would be there smudged in every face.

Nonetheless the winter was a welcomed change from the scorching summer heat. A relief in its way because why not? Days were shorter, blankets thicker and most comforting, and a cup of hot tea couldn't taste any better.

Having been born and brought up throughout most of his childhood in a small town in Azad Kashmir, Baba's winters then were orthodox to their definition. Wide clear skies, silver steep mountain terrains, bracing gusts, wooden huts and layers and layers of virgin glistering snow. Those were what he knew as winter and it came to no surprise that he disliked the alternative in Karachi.

''Take the worst things from the winter,'' he said during one of his visit, sipping his tea as he gazed out the balcony to the fog infused scenery, '' the biting cold, the sordid flu and this blinding fog, you get Karachi's sarma mausam.''

When Baba came to know about Mehreen and I's then new found friendship, he had been ecstatic to say the least. And when the first winter had hit after such, he took me and her to where he had known to have real winters. No, it wasn't Azad Kashmir, he simply had no one to go back there for. His parents had long died, his sisters married and moved foreign lands and no close relatives remain there as well. Instead he brought us to Malam Jabba, where he owned a small cottage near the ski resort.

It was just the three of us, in an aesthetic backdrop. This jaunt for ours, it had been exciting, alluring and heartening. It had been perfect, and as I think of it, it had been the best time of my life.

''Say Zehra, you are acting quite odd lately,'' said Mehreen from the front passenger seat of the car as we passed by the Mingora exit on NH45 freeway. We were heading to Malam Jabba, 14 years after Baba had first brought us there. Fahim was escorting us and after we three landed at Peshawar, he took liberty of driving us the rest of the way.

Not entirely intrigued by her question, I peered past the window, realizing the roads getting steeper as we moved and sign of the frozen precipitations were starting to show. '' Entertain me Mehreen, how so?''

'' Well for one you've been quiet,'' she insisted. After a short chuckle, Fahim joined in, '' Well she is always quiet, although I also noticed that she is quieter this time around.''

Mehreen nodded in agreement with Fahim, ''True that bhai, Zehra I thought you would be more excited considering you were the one suggested on this trip in the first place,''. She wasn't exaggerating about that, I needed an escape, even if for a while, and I needed it fast.

''Now that's more peculiar, who knew the staunch Zehra expressed more than grim,'' Fahim quipped.

''Oh I express enough delight whenever I see you make a fool out of yourself, which happens quite often I might say.''

He huffed. ''Quite often, please,'' he almost sassed. And before I could put my two cents, Mehreen does so. " Well you did try to flirt shamelessly to someone named Nazia that day at Rashid's party and turned out she was married and her husband was just behind her,'' she began laughing and I joined, having already been told how that ended, '' and you almost gotten beaten if wasn't not for Farhan bhai to save you.''