I have grown up watching, playing and impersonating "Who
Wants to be a Millionaire" and that too with siblings. The real excitement
of the game was those tricky questions and use of three lifelines. For me, it
was more like an IQ test. Later in my life while maintaining a balance between
IQ & EQ, I realized that my real life’s LIFLINES are also three, some call
them SISTERS but I owe them as real LIFELINES; without whom I am nothing and
with them I am a Millionaire.
These are my bestest friends since childhood, magical-eyed
talking machines, non-identical twins, sassy, spunky, melodic, crispy, honey
bunch, sugar plum, older-wiser, younger-wonder, forever darling, homies and my
strongest connection to Faisalabad.
I always thought that I’ll never find a right time to write
about my 'Sakhiyan' and even if I find so, I would not be able to write the
right feelings. Anyways, finally I am penning down My Millionaire Story, paying
tribute to these lifelines available to me since my first breath.
Once upon a time, we were all together under one roof called
HOME. A month passed, then a year and then a decade, before we could blink;
life of this story has had changed. . .
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From careless Childhood to careful Parenthood,
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From home Fights to homing Flights,
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From What’s up Whoop to Whatsapp Group,
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From craze of Online Chats to Online Orders,
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From Our home to Own home,
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From rental VCRs to Netflix subscriptions,
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From Dish TV to Dish making,
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From Whispering on the back seats like kids to Shouting from the
front seats on kids,
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From mutual Money Box to Independent ATM cards,
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From placing personal Diaries in Lock to Locking Smart Phones,
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From sharing a bite of Cornetto Cones to sharing life’s Pros and
Cons,
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From Dippity-do Lifestyle to Do-it-yourself Lifestyle,
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From buying old exam Papers to buying new Pampers,
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From playing Ghar Ghar to serving Ghar Bhar,
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From being Together for 24x7 to Get-togethers once in 24 weeks
or 7 months(that's why I am waiting for you desperately) ,
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From Hi-5 Life to 9 to 5 Life,
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From Babies then to Beauties now,
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From Weight Loss Campaigns to Weight Regains,
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From giving funny nick-Names of siblings to suggesting Names for
sibling’s new born (I can see the sheer resemblance of you in one of your kids
and that feeling is great to see that "little you" growing up. Now
there’s more of you to double my love),
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From being Junaid ki 'behnay' to becoming Mama Bears,
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From real time Ludo Haar to Ludo star.
In short, I can’t muster up enough courage to furnish every
change we are experiencing. Because its a bit painful that now we cannot reboot
our lives thus these changes make me smile and sob at the same time. But I’m so
happy that I got to establish some life-goals with my lifelines whilst we were
together. Supposedly, the only thing in common today is cracking Faisalabadi
type jokes even if not that funny at times but still make one feel good.
Just like, I cannot differentiate the happiness of Bari Eid and
Choti Eid, similarly be it 'Choti Behan' or 'Bari Behan', both are special source
of Junaid’s jovial. You all are so 'close' and so 'far' at the same that even
if I close my eyes, I can still see our HOME and ourselves running one room to
another as we were (and still) too vibrant to stick to one place. Every now and
then, my heart recalls our “very own” following endless memories...
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Those Umra blessings, Gatwala picnics, Northern area trips and
single-day Lahore leisures,
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Those epic covers of famous songs we made together,
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All those home-made versions of famous games shows be it
singing, bait bazi or Neelam Ghar(Let me tell you that all those childhood
audio recording tapes are so hilarious)
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Our expertise of playing domestic Punjabi street games,
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Watching uninterrupted movies together (religiously),
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Finding neat pages for playing name-place- animal-thing,
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Surrounding PC for video games especially Commandos and Who
Wants to be a Millionaire,
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When I used to be a test-bench for all your Ayuverdic beauty
hacks,
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Memorizing those heavy mathematical theorems and listening to
each other’s ratta,
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When one of you used to be our cricket umpire and was duty bound
to fetch the lost ball from neighborhood,
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Your selfless pocket money spending on me,
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Those bike rides when your college van used to vanish,
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Listening short summaries of Imran Series novel from you,
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When you gals used to write my eid cards in 'baron baron wali
likhiee',
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Those photo-shoots with Kodak reel camera,
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Presenting your books and important notes when I was too bad in
my studies,
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The way you used to save me from 'Ammi ki mar' and 'abu ki
daant',
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Stuff you shared with me, be it internet cards, TV remote or lil
secrets,
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Our "same day" exams, birthdays and marriages,
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Then your 'Rukhsaties' one after one; the day I bid goodbye but
could not bade bye to all your memories.
Thank you for every single thing you did/do for me. I hope you
can still listen me in the crying cacophony of your kids that...
Your memories run faster than the speed of airborne COVID-19, I
love you sosososososososo much and literally cannot function in life without
you three 'lifelines'. You are three pieces of my heart and your faces I miss,
day & night. May 'our' Millionaire Story blossoms further and we always
celebrate these 'lifelines' together(amen)
JSK
