My neighbour Mr. Shoaib is a cannibal. I say this because I remember asking who was at the door once after a particularly aggressive knocking sound. My question wasn’t answered, but I opened the door anyways to a tall, wiry fifty-something man wearing a distinctive snapback decorated with a marijuana leaf and the slogan “Keep Blazing, Stay Amazing!” In his left hand was a transparent bag filled with what appeared to be raw mutton, but was probably human meat. After uttering a rushed greeting, he handed me two crisp 100 notes and instructed me to pay the garbage man on his behalf the following morning, as he’d be out of town.
I re-entered the house and reported to my uncle that a mysterious man had given me some money to pay the garbage man the next morning. He laughed and immediately was able to pinpoint the identity of our neighbour. “That must’ve been Mr. Shoaib. He lives next door.” His amusement was apparent as he told both my mother and aunt how even I was able to pick up on our neighbour’s strangeness after only a single fleeting interaction.
Apparently, Mr. Shoaib’s disposition was common knowledge to the rest of the house, and even the other neighbours. My uncle and I swapped fake stories about Mr. Shoaib’s habits of eating only the children who strayed far from home, or how he hunted only during the night when the rest of the world was asleep.
Truthfully though, Mr. Shoaib isn’t really peculiar for a Pakistani man. The meat he brought home every few nights was really nothing more than a fresh cut of lamb for him and his father. The weed hat is surprisingly common in Pakistan, as people just seem to wear whatever they want without understanding the complex connotation of their clothes. The crisp notes he handed me were worth nothing more than a couple of dollars.
As I came to learn more about Mr. Shoaib, I realized that he’s probably the most normal person possible. He lives in a modest house on rent and has a dead-end job that’s the main subject of his and his wife’s woes. Besides being a little bit awkward, he is the definition of a classic lower-middle-class man in Lahore.
In fact, if anyone stands out in this city of over 11 million inhabitants, it’s myself. Despite all the efforts I make to keep in touch with my heritage when I’m in Canada, I always seem a step or two behind the chaotic harmony of Pakistan: the motorcycles hazardously swerving between rickshaw drivers on their phones and cars packed with three or four children sitting in the laps of disgruntled parents. Even comforts which seem recognizable, like Pizza Hut and Popeyes chicken are wildly different than their counterparts back home.
Back home. What is home? Can I, as someone who has grown up in Canada my entire life get to question it. Does it seem treacherous to say that Pakistan is not my home? The place my parents watched grow older with them; the streets they watched get more crowded, and the mosques they watched fill up.
But home is not a place, it is a feeling. and perhaps even though I feel that I am a step or two behind in Pakistan, am I not a step or two behind here in Calgary? Canada is bland by comparison; uniform, regular, and predictable. The difference is not that Pizza Hut puts sugar in their sauce over there. The difference is not that my neighbour over here doesn’t unknowingly wear apparel proclaiming his stance on cannabis.
The difference is me. I don’t look it, but I am the puzzle piece that never seems to fit wherever I go. Perhaps I never will.
But that’s not so much of a nightmare, is it? After all, that’s a personal issue.
