The Journey Within: Part 2

Posted on August 7, 2009
Filed Under Daily, Journey | 29 Comments

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Happy weekend, Readers!

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“Uzma! Sabrina!” my dad called from the basement.
My sister and I darted from the living room to the top of the staircase leading into the basement, and stopped just outside of our dad’s visual radar.
I peeked my head around the corner, and saw my dad sitting in an arm chair, one leg folded over the other.

“You go first,” Uzma said, as she gave me a hearty, I’m-two-and-a-half-years-older-than you, Big-Sister shove.

My chubby little 9-year-old body jerked forward, and I grabbed hold of the railing, digging my toes into the tile. I was about to take a step forward, making myself a target in plain sight of my dad, when the gravitational pull of the earth showed me some pity, and I slowly rocked back to where I was standing.
I uncurled my toes, and glared at my sister.

“You go first!” I snapped in a loud whisper. “And don’t push me!”

“Girls!” he called again.

My mom leaned away from the stove in the kitchen where she was standing to see what we were doing.

“Both of you,” she said. “Go!”

With that, the pair of us slowly crept down the stairs to meet the man who was about to distribute the joys of television viewership privileges, like the guy with the snow cone machine at a summer carnival.

It was Sunday evening, and this was a weekly ritual in our house.

Throughout my elementary school years, my sister and I were allotted four hours of television a week. Not a minute more, and we made sure, not a minute less.

“Have you picked the shows you’re going to watch this week?” my dad asked, tilting his head back and examining the TV Guide that was folded open in his hand.
I eyed the yellow highlighter on the table as he reached for it. Some weeks he used a blue ball-point pen, other times it was red fine-tip marker.

“Uzma,” he said. “You can go first.”

“Circle wrestling for me,” I blatantly interrupted. “And this time it’s coming on Tuesday, and Saturday, so circle both.”

“Beta,” he said in a stern voice (which translates to a term of endearment for your children) “You need to wait until it’s your turn.”

“I already know what she’s gonna pick,” I muttered impatiently. “Give me the marker, I’ll highlight it myself.”

My dad looked at me for a few seconds uninterested, and slightly annoyed, and then turned to my sister.

Uzma enjoyed “My Little Pony,” “Care Bears” and “Full House.” I think “Darkwing Duck” was too edgy for her so she’d opt for something like “Tailspin” instead – although I’m pretty sure she got nauseous while Baloo flew that little two-engine plane through the storm during the intro song.

Update: Uzma has just informed me that she liked “Darkwing Duck” as a kid.

I’m still skeptical.

My selection usually consisted of a few cartoons (i.e.“Duck Tails”) mixed with some wholesome family portrayal of growing up in the ’90s (read: “The Cosby Show”) topped with some steroid-using, spandex-wearing, mostly-nude grown men growling and barking at each other while throwing toothpicks, pretending they were returning from the dead, mixed with voodoo, throwing trash, rubbing their opponent’s face in their tag team partner’s armpit, and death-defying stunts all while in a ring – or sometimes even in a cage.

God, I loved that hour of brutality.

I had been watching wrestling since I was about 5 years old. I’m not sure how I got into it, or which barbarian responsible for my upbringing was neglecting to do their job properly, but at age 5, I watched Neanderthals duke it out for the ultimate prize: The WWF World Championship Belt.

When I was 10 years old, my dad surprised me with tickets to go see all my heroes in a real-life wrestling match at the The MCI Center in D.C. (now known as The Verizon Center) and to this day, I think that was the happiest moment of my life. Not to mention I smirked a little on the inside when I realized that we had better seats than the father-son family friends we had gone with.
But since so many of the best matches came on Pay Per View, otherwise known as Only Accessible if You Have Cable Television (and a box) but Since Your Dad Doesn’t Believe in Cable (or the box) You Missed Out on So Many Could-Have-Been Amazing Childhood Moments, often times, my dad’s close friends would order a match, tape it, and surprise me with it later.

My parents knew how much I loved wrestling as a kid, and they embraced the fact that I didn’t want to play with “girls’ toys” the way my sister did. Eventually, I did fall in love with Cabbage Patch dolls, Rainbow Bright, and Barbies (and Holy God, did I have A LOT of Barbies) but my parents never fell into the societal stigma of gender-bias toys. In our house, it was never what we “should” play with, instead, my mom and dad gave us the freedom to put out our own feelers, and eventually we weeded out what didn’t interest us as we got older.

As a kids, anytime my sister or I had to go to the doctor, it was inevitable that we’d stop off at the toy store on the way home, and my mom would let each of us pick out one toy. It was her way of giving us a reward for braving the waiting room, or keeping a stiff upper lip while getting a shot. One year, after getting our annual physicals right before school started in September, we headed to our regular after-doctor spot, KB Toys.

Uzma always bought a “My Little Pony” doll, and some candy at the counter, while I hastened toward the aisle with all the “boys’ toys” in it. I scrambled through the wrestling figures to see which one I could add to my collection, and one day, I found the newly released “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase figure. I ripped it off the wall, and ran to the counter. But when I got in line, my mom told me to put it back.

“What? Why?” I protested.

“You have too many now,” she said.

“No! No I don’t! This is Million Dollar Man and he just came out!”
I started to raise my voice.

“I don’t care,” my mom said. “He’s not wearing a shirt.”

“None of them wear shirts!”

She was digging through her purse for her wallet, and turned to give me a Don’t-You-Dare-Raise-Your-Voice look.
She told me to quickly pick out something else, and that’s when I knew she was for real. I felt like she had stabbed me in the gut with a serrated knife, twisted it, yanked it out, and then jammed it into the back of my leg.
Even though she told me to pick something else out, I was so mad, I thought not getting a toy would show her.
Because that’s how smart I was when I was 9.

As Uzma pranced her My Little Pony along the edge of the counter, I sulked my way back to the place where I found Ted Dibiase, and returned him to live among his shirtless brethren. That day, I left with two packs of giant chewy sweet tarts, which I finished by the time we got home.

School always started just in time for me to reevaluate my friends, and pick who was going to be invited to my birthday party in October, and who wasn’t going to make the list this year. I don’t remember the theme of my 10th birthday, but I do remember the cake saying something about “double digits,” and the arrow on my Cocky Radar maxing out in the red zone.
It was an amazing feeling to blow out TWO of those giant number candles for the first time ever.
After the party and cleanup, my family presented me with a large gift-wrapped box, which they had saved until the end. When I opened it, it was the WWF wrestling ring, which I had wanted for months, and laying inside of the ring was “Million Dollar Man.”

“I had already gotten it for you,” my mom said. “That’s why I made you put it back that day.”

I distributed a few hurried hugs, kisses, and thank yous, because I didn’t want to waste a single moment of playing assault and battery, and then sprinted up the stairs to unite my new wrestler with all the others that were neatly lined up along my headboard. I had a ring now, and my wrestlers had a new home. Bret “The Hitman” Hart was no longer going to put “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels in “The Sharp Shooter” on the carpet (nor was I going to put Uzma in it again after my parents had a talk with me about that) now, they all had a home.
And Pay Per View or no Pay Per View, there was going to be a Smack Down series at our house, and Uzma’s little ponies were about to be next.

***

In a lot of ways, we were like The Cleavers growing up, only not in black in white.

I don’t remember a single evening from age 4 to 13 when my family didn’t go on a family bike ride, or family walk after dinner. On the weekends, my dad would mow the lawn, and do yard work outside while my mom cooked, and sang songs, which would gather all the forest creatures who would help her sweep. Saturdays were for family time – either the four of us, or a 40-minute road trip to visit my aunts, uncles and cousins. My sister and I played with the neighbors outside, riding our bikes, climbing trees, jumping over bushes, waving down the ice cream man, and eating Fun Dip until our lips were blue.
My mom would call us in to the house when it was time to pray, and sometimes make us read a line or two of Qur’an before we went back outside. Often times, I’d get called in the house at such a critical moment of “Race Car Driver,” which was a game my neighbor and I made up on my monkey bars, that I’d sprint into the house, rush through my prayer, and then realize I had just prayed in my shorts.

Dear God,

If you recall, the reason I was in such a hurry that I prayed in my shorts, was because I had to prove to Andrew and Anthony that I too could do a flip off the swing.
Please forgive me. Amen.

My mom was a working mom, but since she was as teacher, she was always home before my sister and me. And without fail, every day of my school-going life, all the way through high school, there was a note on my napkin in my lunch box, an afternoon snack prepared and kept on the table for me when I got home, and a gift on my bed for absolutely no reason – I guess that’s how it is for moms when they only have girls.

But for my dad, having two girls was a whole different story. Due to his phobia of my sister and I growing up to become overweight, unemployed, phone and shopping addicts, which was (and still is) his impression of how most Indian and Pakistani women from his generation are, we did every sporting activity known to man.
And not only that, but we did hard labor, too.
In fact, my sister and I still joke to this very day that our dad did his best to raise us like boys.
Don’t believe me?
I had a bowl haircut until I was 6 years old to prove it.

When my dad built the deck to our house, my sister and I were out there every day helping him. We had to measure things, and watch how he laid the cement. We had to hold cinder blocks half the size of our little frames, and learn how to hammer a nail. We were responsible for helping my dad wash the cars once a week, and when he needed new tools to build our swing set, my sister and I had to go with him to the Hecenger – a hardware store that no longer exists, probably because it was the most boring place on earth – well, for 7 and 9 year old girls, anyway. The only reason we wouldn’t rip our hair out, and scream bloody murder while we were there was because my dad would let us ride on the large carts used to haul wood, and other supplies around the store.
And also because back then, kids weren’t made like that. One Look of Death from a parent, and your little baby heart could stop beating out of pure terror that you could lose that precious fourth hour of TV.

But even with all the fun, games, and extensive travel that came with my childhood, the hoopla didn’t come without rules. We had lots of rules, and the four-hours of TV watching was only the beginning. But the rules at The Enayatulla House were different from what you’d expect knowing that I come from a Muslim family of South Asian decent.

Sometimes, the rules we had didn’t seem to make any sense, and being born and raised in upper-middle class white suburbia, without having any clue that you’re weren’t white, was even more confusing when you and your friends compared privileges.

All the kids in our neighborhood would spend the summers sitting on the pavement outside of their houses drawing hop scotch, and rainbows in their driveways with sidewalk chalk.
Not in our world.
My dad actually had a specific rule about us not being allowed to use sidewalk chalk.
Point, White Kids.

All the girls in school had to wait until they were 8 years old to pierce their ears (some had to wait until they were 12) like it was some right of passage, but my parents took me to the pediatrician when I was 5 months old to have my ears pierced.
Point, Me.

There were little to no rules about clothing in our house. In high school my dad would frown a little when our skirts were too short, and my mom would expect that there was some kind of fabric that was going to cover our exposed shoulders, but when it came to sports uniforms like leotards for gymnastics, bathing suits for swimming and diving, or even my little track shorts that were so small I could actually fold them up and squish them in the pocket of my jeans, there was hardly even a peep from the parental units. In their Rule Book, it was appropriate for their girls to wear activity-appropriate attire — no religious, or cultural interference necessary.
But sit on the front porch with the neighbor and eat a Popsicle? NO WAY. In their world, it was a total taboo to sit in the front yard, and watch cars drive by. If we wanted to play, it was either in our house, at the neighbor’s house, or in someone’s back yard.
No Exceptions.

The most strict rules in our house, even from a very young age, surfaced when it came to befriending, and mixing with the opposite sex. When I was invited to my first boy-girl birthday party in 5th grade, all the kids’ parents let them go without batting an eye, while I had to beg my parents for weeks until they finally said yes — even though I had been in school with my male classmate since first grade, and acted opposite him in the Japanese versions of “The Little Mermaid” (in which I was Ariel, and he was Prince Eric) and “Aladdin” (in which I was Jasmine, and he was Aladdin.)

Come to think of it, I did have a little crush on him.
Who knows, maybe my parents sensed it.

Phone calls from boys were also not happening at our place. The only exceptions were calls for homework, and even then, the moment my mom or dad heard ONE WORD that didn’t have to do with Science, History, or English class, they’d hover over us like bees trying to pollinate.
Yet somehow, letting their 5-year-old daughter watch naked men slap each other around seemed perfectly okay.

­***
But the one good thing about rules is that they’re mailable when you travel, or have visitors. Sure, the rules travel with you, but they’re not as prominent. And though I’m sure many parents prefer it not to be that way, it’s just one of those times when a kid knows that God is totally cheering them on as they see how much sugar their body can hold before they vomit.

One summer, we took a trip up north to visit my mom’s childhood friend who was married and had three children around the same age as Uzma and me. One of the boys was talking about wrestling with his little brother, when my dad looked at him and said, “Oh, if you like wrestling, you should go find Sabrina. She’s really into that stuff.”

That little boy found me, and we spent the next few hours upstairs playing with his basketball figures, talking about wrestling rivalries, and upcoming matches. A few hours later, I went downstairs to find my mom in the living room who asked me if I was having a good time.

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s pretty cool, and he likes all the same wrestlers as me. You know mom, if you and dad ever wanted to pick my husband, I would probably marry him.”

My mom laughingly dismissed my comments, and uncomfortably looked around to see if anyone heard. In our house, marriage was never discussed, which is probably why my mom was so surprised by my remarks. But that day, at the tender age of 9, and thanks to my parents’ nonchalance over exactly what I watched during those four hours of allotted time, I was united with someone who would prove to be a central figure in my adult life.
That day also proved that my only criteria for men was that the “Ultimate Warrior” had to be in their top three favorite wrestlers.

***

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