Aussified

Ok So i have not written in a while. Mainly because i was unwell. Now let me get straight into this.

My mum came to Australia when she was four,  back in 1955 so she spoke like an Australian with the pure aussie accent, but if someone was to see her walking down the street they would automatically assume she did not know  a word of English because she always wore the Pakistani traditional dress-the shalwar kamiz ever since I could remember, but her accent was as if she had walked straight out of the outback, even my accent was not as Australian as her accent was, I suppose it was because my grandparents settled in the country side in a small town called Coonable. My mum would sit and tell us all, stories of all the different animals they had and how they owned a small corner shop where mum would make sandwiches.

Ok Now here is the funny part, i don't know what my grandfather was thinking at the time, but he changed all his kids names, well not changed but gave them an extra Aussie name to aussify them. My mum was given the name Phylis, Yes Phylis- i call her that at times, mainly when i can't find something because she really didn't enjoy that name growing up with it in all her school years. My Uncles, were Bruce, Joe and i'm not sure of the third uncles name i'm pretty sure it was Wayne, i don't remember it because we grew up calling them all by their Pakistani name. My aunties were named Cynthia and Barbera. My Aunty Barbie never got a pakistani name, it just stuck and my other aunty eventually got a pakistani name when she got married. But they are both still called Aunty Barbie and Aunty Cynthia!  

Yes some of you may be thinking, what? how can a Pakistani man straight from the chak (village) give his children these aussie names- didn't he fear his children becoming "too aussie" like all the other pakistani men settled in Australia? Don't get me wrong, he was the strictest man ever! as to how strict he was? well, when my mum was young she played basketball, she was actually captain of her highschool basketball team, they had a game away from home, so all the kids were getting on the school bus to be driven over to the courts, but no, not my mum she was in a car behind the bus with my grandfather driving her there! when my mum told me this, I didn't know whether to feel sorry for my mum or to laugh at my nana (grandfather). But my mother was everything to my parents, they believed she was the Dr, lawyer, interpreter, and well everything you can possibly be. My grandparents didn't no a word of english, so where ever they went my mum went to translate everything. When my grandparents came to learn some basic words of english to get them by, my grandmother went to the Dr for some reason, and was prescribed a medicine, but oh no my grandmother couldn't take the medicine, she actually told the Dr to call her daughter (my mum) and ask if the medicine was right for her and she was being prescribed the right medicine. So yes the Dr to put my grandmother at ease called my mother and told her, Mrs Khan your mother seems to believe i can't prescribe her anything without your permission. All i can say again is my grandmother thought the world of my mum. 

Sam aS i am

GreenWhite Crescent and the Southern cross

 

I am and still trying to get in terms with weather I am a Pakistani-Australian or and Australian-Pakistani, it is confusing living in two different worlds I think anyone from a different ethnic background will agree with me, that we want the best of both worlds and try to erase the bad bits, which we don’t like or our parents don’t like, whom I might add are living 30 years back in the way Pakistan used to be when they left it, and forget to realize how much a society can change in 3 decades, sometimes I believe that in some parts of Pakistan people are even more advanced and less cultured than the way our parents have made us to be, or shall I say want us to be. But reality is ,we all know we have to take the good with the bad.

Sam aS i am

Green Grass

I was running, running for my life, and as I ran I could smell the  freshly cut grass, I loved the smell, it made everything feel and look fresh, and the sun was scorching down on my back and I was sweating so hard that i was thinking of a callipo ice block at the same time. My legs were running so fast, as if I had no control over them and they were running on their own I could not stop, I wasn’t running from anything, I was running to something, I was running to the other side of the stumps in a game of cricket, it was so important for our team to win, I skid and made it, as my cousin came thrashing the ball on to the stumps and everyone on the opposite team screamed

“Howzat?”

Another cousin of mine was playing umpire, and as she raised her finger to declare that I was out, the batting team started screaming,

“you’re cheating!”

Shes not out” they ranted on even I myself was caught up in the argument, thinking back now, we were all such sore losers when it came to a game of backyard cricket, losing was not in the game of a Pakistani childs dictionary when cricket was at stake.  After about a good ten minutes of arguing, we had realised the game is over and there is not point arguing until we were blue in the face, we all ran to the kitchen to gulp down some water, the water tasted so good after a good game of cricket and all of lay under the fan. 

My mum made us all mango milkshake, it was the perfect summer, cricket and mangoes. When I say all I mean my brother and a bunch of my cousins, I have fourty five first cousins, and it was only eight of us, if all my cousins were there we would never have all fit in the backyard. No weekend was boring for me, every weekend there was a cousins house to play at, any friends you made outside your cousins made your parents very cautious and didn’t what you to become like the ‘ghorays’ which literally meant ‘the white kids’, but mainly it was fear of the unknown. 

Rain drops and lollypops

My life, before it all began? well, what can I say? It was just like any normal Childs life, carefree, playing cricket and lots of it... to the minute where your legs can’t take it anymore. Walking in the rain and shaking the water drops off the trees just so you can get drenched that little bit more. 

 Knocking on the neighbours doors and doing a runner, was the most exciting rush at the time, running to the corner shop without your parents knowing to buy a slurpee or a chocolate was the biggest thing ever, that you would do against your parents’ knowledge. Liking a boy at school or at some other occasion was the biggest secret ever and was written in your diary with a little lock up key. 

Sitting at school and when the clock reached 3pm we would pack up our books to run for the door and it seemed to be the longest 15mins of your life waiting for the bell to ring and you thought you were the coolest person by getting out of the class room first. Trying to get home in time to watch saved by the bell and round the twist. 

I don’t know about anyone else but I always wished I was apart of the baby sitters club and then I tried to make my own club with my cousins, I’m sure most of us tried that, but of course it wasn’t as good but the slumber parties did last for a while. 

The only day of the week worth waking up early was on Saturday to watch Saturday Disney and cartoons. Oh yes back in the days of my childhood was the days of the walkman and anyone with a double story house was considered rich. It was the time when being able to rap the rhyme from The fresh prince of Bel Air was essential.