Family

It was with some trepidation that I set out on Monday. I was going to be visiting family that I hadn’t seen in a really long time. What would they look like? Would we have anything to talk about? The weather did not help.  It’s 104 degrees with 47% humidity - weather that will bake you while making you feel that you are drowning. And the roads, though a little better than what I remember, still feel like you’re traversing a moonscape in certain parts of town.

Still, all of this was forgotten with the very first visit to my cousin’s home – a small apartment in a densely populated area of Karachi (not that there are many sparsely populated parts of Karachi). I hadn’t seen him or his kids in eight years, but it felt like I had just been there a few months back. There was backslapping and joking. Shock on my part at how much older my nephews and nieces had become. Disappointment on my cousin’s part that my wife and munchkins were not with us. But in all, a great reunion.

And this same story played out over and over again, at every home that we visited. There would be a look of surprise on the part of the host (social visits here are usually unannounced, and no one in my family knew that I would be visiting Pakistan), then there would be hugs all around, some initial small talk, and very soon we’d be gossiping as if we had just seen each other a few weeks back.

The day was long as we wrapped up our last visit, but it has been fulfilling.