I was born in Karachi, Pakistan. Growing up, I was a dreamer and lived in a world of my own. I was the youngest of four, I had two brothers and one sister. I wanted to be happy and loved reading books, loved listening to anyone reading books to me. Life was all about playing outdoors, with my siblings or by myself digging into things and trying to find all the stuff that I imagined existed somewhere.
My father was in Navy and my mother was a stay at home mother. She was my first teacher and taught me all the letters of alphabet, both in my native language (Urdu) as well as in English. She taught me all the numbers etc. so that by the time I was about to start school, I was very well prepared and was given admission to the school right away. Unlike US and Canada, you had to know some basic stuff before you could be given admission to a school. I was super excited to start school because I grew up watching my three sibling get ready and leave for school every day. I felt left out as they would leave…no more…now I would be doing the very same thing.
We had to wear uniforms in our school, I had to accompany my parents to certain shops which carried the uniform for our particular school. I so enjoyed getting the uniform the first time and each consecutive time after. The new shoes, the hair ribbons which had to be a certain colour for each individual school as well.
I loved talking, chatting and hence made many friends. I was confident and teachers liked giving me responsibilities such as assigning me class monitor job and later the school monitor. Life seemed pretty good…seemed pretty normal…seemed happy!!!