Creative Consolidation of Language and Identity

I was always reminded of how tough and demanding education was like back home, but never really came to believe it, nor had I ever experienced it back then. As a 12-year-old, middle school wasn’t really the greatest factor of excitement on my schedule, especially when it came to the dreadful and weary mornings, on days where you just can’t cope with waking up early, or walking down the stairs for breakfast, as you ponder at your timetable, only to reveal that the first period of the day is the one you detest the most. Although I’d always attempted to avoid these regular hurdles during this era, they soon became the least of my concerns after my family decided to relocate back to Pakistan.

Initially, I wasn’t expecting any disturbances in my academic progress, after spending all my life in the UAE (approximately 9 years), I had grown accustomed to their approach to learning, studying most content in English and enjoying the additional languages we explored, mainly consisting of Arabic and French. Once we had settled in Lahore, where most of my paternal and maternal family was situated, and the summer break had concluded, school was in sight, and unlike most years, I was astonished as well as uneased by the rigorousness of learning, through events like having to study and learn pages from textbooks or preparing for weekly timed assessments which occurred for each and every subjects four times in a year, between a span of every two months. Occasionally, all subjects were lectured and studied in English, nevertheless, the requirement of having to learn Urdu (my native language) as a separate subject at an advanced level, was perhaps the greatest variable that affected, not only my academic result at the time, but also the way I was perceived by others. Fortunately, my parents always spoke (and still speak) the language with me at home, which allowed me to be capable of understanding the tongue in terms of spoken reference, however in situations where I had to speak, read or write in Urdu, I was unable to do so.

Relating back to my first session of Urdu, after a brief 10-minute introduction, we were presented with our new textbooks, which contained a variety of texts, comprehension questions, vocabulary building activities, written and oral tasks. We were asked to open up to the first page and read certain lines from the text aloud one at a time. Sitting at the end of the classroom, I began to panic, aimlessly staring upon the different words, that seemed as if they were derived from Arabic, yet had different pronunciation to them. “If only it was Arabic, then I’d be able to read it…”, I thought, as the voices rapidly shifted, with each change increasing my already tense heartbeat, I looked at my surroundings for any sight of hope, as the clock had suddenly come to my attention. Unwrapping my timetable, I found the lesson we were at, discovering that it would end in around ten minutes (as period only lasted for 40 minutes there), nonetheless now I gazed upon the current reader, who was just one row ahead of me, as a little sweat poured down from the side of my face. I struggled, once again, inflicting myself to read the words, being unable to, until… I was summoned to read. At first I depicted myself as if I was not conscious that my turn had come, up till the point when the teacher said “yes, Ali please read”, in Urdu, then I knew I was in a difficult condition, as the whole class looked back at me, I finally began to utter the words in front of me, “میں ایسا نہیں کروں گا”, with an irregular, very high pitched tone produced by the nervousness, along with the uncertainty of what I spoke. The students burst out with laughter, as the bell rang, marking the beginning of lunch.


Once all the students left, the teacher approached me, this time speaking in English, “I see you are weak in reading Urdu, why is that?”. “I have never learnt the language” I replied, “I have lived all my life overseas and recently moved to Lahore. I can understand most of it but am unable to read, write or even speak clearly”. “I see”, she handed me a blue textbook, which seemed like a simple beginner’s guide to the language, covering its basics. “Tomorrow we shall start with this, come to class like normal and I’ll teach you from the start, now go, enjoy your lunch”. “Thank you”, I said while walking out the door. The next day I was greeted with some more harassment and laughter by the class, as one boy had seen the blue textbook I carefully hid behind my writing copy, in my hand, and shouted “My younger brother reads that book, and he’s only in grade 1!”. I silently sank into a seat, feeling unsettled once more.