A Story I will never forget
Assalamoalikum fellows, friends and family. It is that part of fellowship where it becomes difficult to keep emotions embedded behind a smile, though I will try to keep them to myself. As we all have learned by now that emotions are contagious, so let’s keep each other happy by sharing the beautiful memories we have about this amazing journey.
I would like to share the story of one of our fellow. A fellow whose story makes me feel like “ksi kaam k larky nai ho tum (hahahah!)”. It was our first project work after the resumption of fellowship. We were five members in a group, and for that project work we were required to conduct a meeting over Zoom and were required to discuss with our group mates, one of the activity assigned to us and that was “To find your Why”. The meeting was scheduled at 6 pm, I don’t remember the date or day precisely, it was in July 2020. We were 5 members and only 3 made it to the meeting as the other 2 may be busy with some other important tasks. I was taking the meeting while I was in a shop, and was unable to turn my mic on as my handsfree was not working properly. At some point this fellows started telling her story of her student life till now.
The story was about her struggle she has done till now to study, being a girl what hardships she faced, and what was her attitude towards those challenges. I will share two stories actually, so bear with me.
1st Story: In 2019 this fellow of ours was given the task to perform in a debating competition in Punjab University by her Principal. She agreed to participate and putted her day and night in effort to prepare for that competition. About 48 college’s and university’s students were there to participate in that competition. This fellow of ours was really afraid for this event. The dice she stood on was greater in height as compared to hers’. Putting up the confidence and courage she manged to deliver her debate and went down from the stage praying to win that competition. Later on at the end of the competition when “Zil e Huma” was called on stage and was asked to collect her prize and trophy. She sat there not knowing that it was her name being called on stage. Her teacher pushed her to give her a wakeup call to go on stage. She was really shocked to see that she won the trophy.
2nd Story: The 2nd story is about her struggle with a political party. She was very social and used to actively participate in social events, used to organize events. Due to her social engagement she received several threats. Threats to kill her, and any other threat one could imagine which could be given to a girl. When they saw her strengthened and standing like an iron lady, they even gave her offers to be the president of their political partie’s wing in that university, and their efforts ended up in vain and the found her firm in her decisions. They concluded in letting her do the initiatives shewanted to take and social work she wanted to do. She said and I copy “If my parents could somehow got to know about the threats I used to receive they would never allow me to continue my studies.”
These two stories provides me reinforcement whenever I am facing either plastic or elastic deformation due to load which creates bending and shear force in me. I don’t think I will ever forget these stories. I have many more beautiful memories but wanted to keep it precise. We will discuss more later on. I will discuss them when I will be tired of life and when I need motivation which I will get by reflecting back to this beautiful journey. When I will be in need of knowing how beautifully people think, I will share the conversation I had during my conversation with my Program Associate. When I will be feeling like the life is getting harder, I will describe the story of our fellow who was there in the meeting even she was having emmense body pain. When I will be shy of speaking in public, I will share the story of one of our fellow who spoke English even though he knew he is not speaking fluently. When I will be demotivated of people’s shitty behavior I will share the story behind our meetup, the time issues I was facing and the efforts of one of our fellow to resolve that timing issue.
Thanks for reading. Jazakallah!