My Life and 9/11

As I turn 20, I look back at the two decades of my life. I see that they can be neatly split down the middle by one event: 9/11.This event, although so removed from my world, has had profound effects (both good and bad) on my whole family and I.

I was born the year the Soviet Union went kaput (1991). The world I emerged into kicking and screaming was one of hope. 'Evil' had been defeated. We had a female prime-minister. Communism was no more. I saw this Old World Order hatred first hand when I once wore a Soviet Army shirt to my aged grandmother's. She was furious. To her, they were still the enemy. Terrorism to our grandparents generation was not Al-Qaeda but the Red Army Faction.

Before 9/11, my family was your average upper-middle class Memon Karachiite family. We weren't overtly religious, or as is the popular misnomer 'fundos'. Religion to us was the 5 pillars and abstaining from alcohol and pork. We had family board game nights and an inordinate obsession with Ghostbusters, Beavis and Butthead, Cartoon Network, MTV, Space Jam, Sega and Disney films. We listened to Vanilla Ice, and watched the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Every Friday evening, our nana (grandfather) would play Khaled's 'Didi' and all of us kids would dance to it. I had pool parties for birthdays.

I remember how everybody wanted to live the American Dream. You were an idiot if you hated America, the saviours of the planet. This love seeped into my 6-year-old brain and I made it my mission to collect enough money in my 'ghalla' (piggy bank) to buy a ticket Stateside and experience first hand the wonders of Disneyland (which I thought was all America was about) and see the 'white man'.

I remember how my mother used to read from 'The Stories of the Prophets' to me and sing Ahmed Rushdi's 'Do Akhiyan, Do Sakhiyan' when she tucked me in. I remember how the biggest news on TV was not a bomb blast, but how Princess Diana died, and what President Clinton used the Oval Office for ('He lied about having a girlfriend, and American Presidents are not supposed to lie' is how my mum explained the whole affair to me. Remember, I hadn't had the birds and the bees talk yet).

Those were innocent times. We weren't as cynical as a nation, or maybe that's what my child's mind perceived. The world was kind and just and I was going to win a Nobel Prize someday.

Then came 9/11. Before then, I didn't even know what the World Trade Centre was and thought the tallest building in the world was the Empire State Building. Within a year, our family changed. Before 9/11, my family and I had been gradually shifting towards the much maligned 'Wahabist' (for lack of a better word) version of Islam. 9/11 and it's aftermath accelerated this process. Al-Huda had its share in this change. Alhamdulillah, we stopped listening to music and celebrating birthday parties. I remember how I wasn't allowed to go to my grade 5 Halloween party, because my mother was upset about the Afghanistan invasion and felt that it was not right to party like this when our neighbours were suffering. I saw polarisation in society, where people were either putting more clothes on or taking them off. All of a sudden, America was the bad guy. It just so happened that around this time, I began to undergo puberty (Although this has nothing to do with 9/11, their happening at the same time has lead to the association).

All of a sudden, girls didn't have cooties and the sissies who played with girls in the past were now macho. Along with the hormonal changes, my outlook on life changed as it does when you become a teenager; the world lost its innocence and I became more cynical. I started asking questions that were taboo. Does God exist? Is the meaning of life, the universe and everything 42? Is Elvis dead? Our family's game and movie nights decreased in number and were replaced by meetings for social causes. We realized that life is short and we're here for a purpose. We stopped believing the news blindly and gave everything deep thought before accepting it. Logic and the desire to live by reason replaced irrational thinking and believing stuff just because it was the 'done thing'. Ayn Rand would be proud.

9/11 changed me for the better in some ways (religious IMHO) and for the worse (cynicism) in others. You may disagree with what my idea of a good and bad change is but you cannot deny that 9/11 changed everyone in some way or the other. That's what this article is about, in essence.