Well, I’m currently homeless. Well, not quite, I’m crashing over at a friend’s place, but having a dramatic line at the start helps with the retention rate :D. I’ve been thinking about it a lot because it’s very interesting I never imagined that I’d be homeless (I know I said I ain’t but come on just go with it). So this blog will be a blog, where I’ll walk you through the series of events that got me here. If you are interested in that then keep reading.

Essentially, the problem is that I need to go to Saudi Arabia, and I can’t get the visa because of the Hajj season. The earliest I can apply is June 12th, and staying in Hong Kong is cheaper than buying a ticket back to Pakistan. Every day since homelessness has been interesting, to say the least. I feel like the MC of a movie these days. I can’t describe every single day, so I’ll describe one of the most interesting ones. Buckle up!

I woke up from the sofa that I was sleeping on. It’s dark and I see my buddy sleeping in a sleeping bag beside me. The living room is full of suitcases and there is barely any space to move around. I navigate my way to the toilet, have some coffee, and then head out to the city. Outside, it’s raining and I don’t have an umbrella. I used to have an umbrella, but it broke down and I never bothered to get another one. “It’s just drizzling”, I think to myself and get moving. It’s a 10-minute walk to the bus stop, I jam my earphones in and get going.

I was making my way to the visa center, to inquire about the visa. Earphones still plugged in, I make my way off the bus and onto the train. I don’t sit down on the train, even though there are several empty ones. Instead, I lean against one of the poles, offering my seat to someone who might get on at the next stop. It’ll be another 20 minutes to my stop, so I just stand there staring into nothingness (you see what I was talking about being the MC of a movie).

Anyway, I got off the train, and it’s still drizzling outside. Everyone besides me has an umbrella and I feel a bit out of place. There was someone outside the station selling umbrellas but I decided not to buy it (I don’t know why I didn’t. I should have bought it). I moved out of the station briskly, walking through the streets as if I had something important to do, and I did have important business to attend to, but in reality, I was just worried about the laptop in my bag getting soaked. I somehow make it to the visa center and they tell me, even if I get the visa before 12th June, I can’t enter Saudi because Pakistan is one of the 14 nations on some blacklist. Absolutely brilliant, I think to myself. Defeated, I exit the fancy, tall building and call my father.

Ahh, my father has faced his fair share of visa and other legal problems. He worked in Oman before he moved to Saudi Arabia. When he applied for the Saudi visa, the agent lost his passport, making matters worse his ID was about to expire as well. Now he was in a country and had no proof how he got there. Anyway, he gets a new passport from the Pakistani embassy. However, he wasn’t allowed to board the plane. The airport staff wanted a document confirming that he indeed lost his passport. Finally, when he got to Saudi, the immigration department was suspicious. How did he come here from Oman if he didn’t have an Omani visa? Long story short, he faced a lot a lot of problems, and I’m only experiencing a tiny slice of what he had to go through.

That made me realize that our parents go through so much and they don’t have anyone to share this with. He had to live through that burden, through that uncertainty on his own. He only mentioned this to me just because I’m old enough now and kind of going through the same problem.

These few months that I’ve spent in Hong Kong, I’ve been able to relate to my father more and more. In the winter, I did an internship and had almost the same routine as my father, except that he worked much harder than me. He woke up several hours before work to pray Fajr, which I on most days failed to do. After I came back, I mostly crashed down on the bed, while he took the time to cook himself a proper dinner. I was already exhausted from the one month that I had to go to work and it’s hard to imagine how he does that every day of his life.

Back to the story, I’m now outside the building, still no umbrella, talking to my father. I look around I’m surrounded by tall buildings and people hustling around on the streets. At that point, I thought to myself that I was just tired. I’m tired. But there is so much to do.

My exams had ended and didn’t perform as well as I’d liked, even though I worked as hard as I could. Looking back, I remember waking up before everyone else and studying long hours. But none of that paid off in a way I’d like. This reminds me of this song that I found randomly on YouTube: “Anson Seabra - Trying My Best (Official Music Video)”. For a while, I found comfort in listening to this song, but then after a while, I realized that it’s just a load of crap. Is my ‘best’ not good enough?

Even though I’m tired and apparently trying my best and still not getting the results that I want, do I just give up? The thing is that I can’t. I owe this success to my parents, to my family to all the people who helped me get to this point, and to all the people that believed in me. Even though I’m tired I need to carry on. I need to carry on.

Well, that was quite and rant, and if you read through all of that I sincerely thank you. I discussed quite a few topics: things in the movies can and do happen in real life, respecting parents and not finding comfort in material things, and then giving up. Anyway that’s all and I’ll see you in the next blog!