Dear Pakistan,
The time has finally arrived, I am packing away my room and making the final preparations. I have, for a couple of years now, been imagining this scenario, and every year this urge of breaking free from this place has been getting stronger. However, something in this time and space is different from what I imagined.
In my imagination this moment was accompanied by a strong sense of happiness, and why wouldn’t it be, I was finally coming home, to you, to my homeland and as cliché as it may sound, my dream of building MY life in MY land was becoming a reality.
But a different kind of reality was drowning the voice of passion in my head. The voices say MY land isn’t mine anymore, terrorists have taken over. They say I am no more free there than I am here in the land of Saudis and Audis. They say you feel trapped in this land of the foreigners wait till you get there, the land of the stereotypes. You can’t go there unless you are an extremist, a fascist, a liberal, a democratic, a fanatic, an activist or an expert. They say you can’t go there to make a life, learn lessons or grasp oppurtunities because MY land has been hijacked, and who I want to blame is purely my choice.
Now I’m thinking, I am thinking hard. I am thinking of what to do of this heart? What to do of all that I feel? The liberating feeling of belonging, that overwhelms me when I step on your soil, the feeling that I am exactly where I should be, the feeling of being whole again, not torn between the comfort of where I am and the images of my homeland on television, and most of all what do I do of this feeling of HOPE, that maybe when I am in MY land, I can learn, I can discover, I can be the best that I am capable of, and maybe, just maybe, I can be part of a generation that will reclaim what was lost and rebuild what was destroyed.
But I am not naïve, I know what the voices tell me has some truth in it, but if I let the FEAR overcome the HOPE, then I will truly be oppressed forever, and that I’m not yet prepared to be.
However, I have a favour to ask of you, Pakistan, when I step on you soil, could you please reveal those little secrets you have, can you make me grasp how our forefathers migrated on a wing and prayer, penniless but fearless, can you give me a glimpse of the wisdom those early day thinkers had, can you help me understand what your poets and writers so deeply expressed in their work, can you indulge me in your art and architecture, can you explain to me the strength your soldiers have to this day and can you lead my finger so I can pinpoint exactly where your heartbeat lies so I can fathom how your inhabitants, my fellow countrymen, not only endure, survive, live on but also inspire all those who come with an open mind? Because, Pakistan this is all I seek.
Yours truly,
Sameen.
Ps: Your sportsmen keep defying all odds, don’t they?!! 
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