The Meaning of Life

I have always thought that I would come to terms with the meaning of life, as I got older and gained more experience. I mean at 22 what is the meaning of life anyway? The ink has hardly dried on our offer letters, and our options are open to taking ballet classes or studying for the GMATS. They say life begins after college, but does it really?

So in my attempt at getting to the core of this age old question, I had the pleasure of taking this on with my eleven year old cousin, Izam. I still remember the first time I saw him. It was in Pakistan and he was just a few months old. His eyes were laced with surma and he was wearing the cutest green onezie. I fell in love instantly. This all happened towards the end of our family’s second round at the baby boom. The first round, my round, was where half of my mother’s eight siblings gave birth to beautiful boys and girls, and now with us aging into our teens, the second half took their turn at having children. Izam was born towards the end of the boom. I was twelve.

About a year and a half later, his family joined the rest of us in the U.S. His older brother, who was born towards the beginning of the second boom spoke solely in Lahori Punjabi with some hard core SAT like Urdu words, which even I, being the American-born that I am had never heard of. With most of my maternal family already being settled in the NY tristate area, we had family gatherings almost weekly. The children had all created their alliances with one another and were extremely adverse to allowing a stranger to come join them. So when Izam’s family joined ours, their process of assimilation took more than a beating to get them to join the SNOB SQUAD. This was evident in the following comment supplied by my- at the time 5 year old- cousin Bilal as he so eloquently answered his mother’s inquiry about not playing with Zaim " Ami, wo SWORD ko TALWAR kiyoun katha hein?? We don’t understand him. Case and point, Our future.

As time went, the offspring of Boom #1 took the two new family members under our wing. I remember this one time when we were entrusted with the responsibility of the boomtwoers, we had to change our first diaper. We were in denial for the first hour, until complaints of a foul stench started coming from the rugrats as they ran past poor little Izam. Following the pandemonium came operation change diaper. My sister got the new fresh diaper, my cousin ran to the garage and got brown duct tape and my brother held Izam by the diaper while I got the garden hose. There we stood, in our backyard, all 19 of us prepared to go to war with the dirty diaper. With child in one hand and the hose in the other, we carelessly un-taped the power ranger diaper and threw it on the deck. "EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.." screamed the rugrats. Next, my brother took the hose and with the water on full pressure, he wiped clean the once soiled behind of Izam. Following the cleansing, we taped the new Barbie diaper with all the duct tape we had and VIOLA! the stench was gone, and the child was new again. Ohh what fun times.

That summer, as Izam was beginning to take his first steps, my cousin Mateen decided to give him a run for his money. On this one awfully hot July day, we were all told to stay indoors for fear of being struck by heat. Boredom had set in and we were beginning to get violent. As Mateen took some ice cubes out of the dispenser in the fridge, a brilliant idea came to mind. Silently he took two ice cubes, found little Izam and slipped them down his diaper. That day Izam learned not only to walk, but also to fly. He began jumping up and down on our kitchen floor, screaming and yelling, tears falling on his rosy little cheeks, while we all shrieked with laughter from the family room. His mother came running to see what all the commotion was about and could not, for the life of her figure it out, until she felt a cold gust coming from his diaper. It all made sense. Needless to say, we were all made to sit and recite Surahs for the rest of the day.

So now ten years later, the once bubbly and abused Izam had finally grown up and last night in an instant message conversation, he finally explained to me the meaning of life through the eyes of a sixth grader.

Me: How’s school?
Izam: Good, I only get one "C"
Me: a C?? In what?
Izam: socal study
Me: Why did you get a c?
Izam: I had a roza and I had to study for my math test
Me: How did you do in math
Izam: I got a A, its Ez
Me: easy, not EZ.
Izam: whatevr
Me: What do you want to be?
Izam: When I grow up?
Me: Yes
Izam: I want to be a mechanical engineer. ( he spelled it correctly, impressive)
Me: What exactly does a mechanical engineer do?
Izam: He fixes stuff
Me: Like what?
Izam: cars and things
Me: That’s a mechanic foolio
Izam: yeah I wanna be that, mechanic.
( keep in mind, his father is an engineer.)
Me: So why do you have to do good in school Izam
Izam: So you can get into a good college.
Izam: Sadia baji says if you do good in high school you can have fun in college
Me: She’s right.
Me: so what about after college.
Izam: you get a good job
Me: Right, so when you get a good job
Izam: You can buy fazool things, My mom says we can’t buy fazool things
Me: LOL
Izam: then with a good job, you can buy a car and then
Me: and then what
Izam: You can get a good wife!!
Izam: LOL hahaha
Me: A wife? how old are you?
Izam: not just a WIFE, a DESI wife
That about did it for me. Izam is worried about finding himself a wife, no wait a DESI wife.
Me: LOL what’s with you and marriage anyway
Izam: why you don’t want to marry desi
Mind you, the topic of my wedding has swam through the circles of this family and seeps into just about every conversation which originates within the walls of any of my mamus houses.
Me: yes I wanna get married
Izam: Well you did good in school, you have a job now get a husband.
Izam: I gotta go
Izam: Hoothafeese

Definitely the best rendition of Allah-Hafiz to date.

So there you have it folks, life through the eyes of an eleven year old.

There you go, reality, sincerity and simplicity all in one. Boy did he tell me, now get a husband. Get a husband, like they are sold at discount at the nearest Pathmark. Don’t we wish it were that simple.

But maybe he’s on to something, doing well in your adolescence may in turn help your life come time to face adulthood. I mean it should, shouldn’t it? We break our back to get "A’s" in school and work our way through college to land decent jobs only later to still feel unfulfilled. Why is it that we search for meaning in every next step, when all along meaning is in every single step. Carpe Diem, I suppose. Live for today Could the old favorite lines of Descartes ring true here, Cogni Ergo Sum, he said. But wait, Descartes didn’t get out much, his size prevented him from leaving his home, so he had to think to be. How profound and robust, yet mundane.

I think, but who am I? We can ask ourselves that for years to come, but I suppose the answer is simple. We are who our memories dictate us to be, and we will become what our dreams mandate us to do. So in the meantime I should sit back and allow my eleven year old cousin to convince me of his meaning of my life.