Tower Of Memories

I decided to go along with them too; after all it was only for an hour and with the pc and telly being so distracting at home at least I could get some recitation of the Qur’an done in peace.  As soon as I stepped into the large room filled with small children, an old familiar feeling rose within me. As I looked at the young girls in headscarves, their attention focused on their books, their innocent eyes shining with dreams and hopes, I was taken back to my own madrassah days.

Back then I thought I was the smartest kid on the planet, which I was. I just don’t know what happened to the smartness along the years. I didn’t leave one rule untouched, more like unbroken. Breaking rules was fun and my world only revolved around that. You weren’t allowed to eat sweets in class, especially not chewing gum because some overly smart kids would stick them behind their ears to chew later on.

But sweets were my best friends. They still are. And without them my head just doesn’t function properly. The thing was you could take sweets into class, you could even eat them. You just couldn’t be seen eating them by the teacher.

So everyday when my brother and I left for madrassah at quarter past four, we would walk six steps down the street and then run back to our door where mum would be standing watching us till we turned the corner.

“What happened?” she would ask. “Can we have some money,” I would say starting off.  “For sweets, please?” “You’ve already ate the ones I put in your lunch box, now when you come home ill give you some then, “ she would say. I would nudge my brother. “Please mum, those weren’t even nice..” he would say. “And plus you know Gul, he forgot his lunch today, so I gave him my sweets so I haven’t really had mine,” he was trying so hard to sound serious and upset at the same time, it would almost make me laugh. “How do you know they weren’t nice when Gul ate them eh?” mum would say smiling. I looked down at my shoes. “Cos…em..he told me,” “ of course he did,” and then she would go inside laughing, bring us some money, while my brother and I high fived over our success. Some days we would get a pound which we had to share. Other days if we were lucky we’d get a two pound coin.

The first few days of sweet eating during class went really well. Then I got caught. My teacher asked me to empty out my pockets. And then he took my sweets, never to be seen again.  I was very annoyed. When I went home that day, I swung open my wardrobe and searched for something I could wear that had loads of pockets. That would conceal my sweets. As I swung each item of clothing across the rail I found the exact thing I was looking for.  It was my maroon velvet waistcoat we had got from Saudi a year or two ago. And all it had was pockets and pockets and pockets. Six to be exact. It was one of those funky pocket waistcoats. Not the type you would actually put anything in, but I sure was going to use these pockets. So I would wear my waistcoat and then on top of that id wear my coat or jacket, and then I headed off to madrassah.

On the sixth day of waist coat  wearing, my sweet drama took place. I remember it as though it happened yesterday. My teacher called me up to the front of the class, he’d seen me put my hand into my pocket twice now and asked me to empty out my pockets. I put my hand in my coat pocket and pulled out a neatly folded up tissue mum gave me for emergencies. Nose emergencies.  My teacher would gesture toward the other pocket and I would empty that out too. That would already be empty, after all my valuables weren’t kept in my coat pockets. He would look puzzled obviously wondering were my sweets were, but I continued with my oh-so-innocent face and was told to return to my seat. What I really wanted to do was jump up and say “They’re in my secret pocket, ner ner ner ner. Poo on you!” but I didn’t because that would obviously be very disrespect, so I went back to me seat and silently marvelled at my smart doings.

On some days I really didn’t have any sweets, and on others I was hiding a massive gob-stopper in my pocket.  But nothing prepared me for the horrible day that was yet to come. FairyG was a girl in my class. She was short and mean and had a scar exactly like Harry Potters on her forehead. She didn’t like me and I just couldn’t be bothered with her. One day I bought in my Pokemon stickers and she goes she wanted to swop. I said no. She said I had to. And I said I didn’t HAVE to do anything. To which she became royally pissed and said you’ve bought sweets into class, wait till I tell sir. I thought she was just goofing. There was no ways she could have the guts to tell. But she did. The grasshopper.

I was in trouble. I got 30 minutes detention after class on Friday. Plus clean up duties.

I was very annoyed. So I quickly excused myself and raced off to the loo. Why did I go to the loo at such an important moment? Because it is in the loo that I get my best ideas. After a few minutes of contemplation on the loo seat I finally got up and walked out of the loo area and went to the shoe shelves. Now those of you who don’t know, when you enter a mosque or a madrassah you remove your shoes out of respect. I looked up at the tall wooden shelves filled with shoes. My eyes scanned every pair till they landed on the ones I was looking for. Hers. I carefully picked one up, using only my index finger and thumb and making sure no one was coming I walked round the corner to the madrassah bin area, lifted the lid of the large wheelie bin and threw in her shoe. [Oh Allah, I know that was very very naughty of me, please could you forgive me for that, ameen] No, you never ever do this to both shoes. It’s more painful when its one shoe. Because you’re totally stuck then.

The breaking news in our classroom the next day was about fairyG’s missing shoe.  What got this piece of news the big headline was the fact that she hadn’t managed to find her missing shoe at all and went home one foot shoeless.

This whole event came back to haunt me a few years down the line. It wasn’t exactly the same but it involved shoes, so I’ve always linked it back to this event. It was my final day of madrassah. I had completed my first ever recitation of the entire Qur’aan and now it was time for me to leave. As the tradition goes whoever completes their recitation the first time round, there is always a little party at madrassah and the entire class is invited. My party was fun, with loads of food and snacks. It was also a sad moment saying farewell to my friends, and at the end I hugged each of them and wished them the best in their years ahead.

As I walked out of madrassah with a heavy heart and tears at the back of my eyes, I was deep in thought when without even realizing I slipped and landed on my nose.  It hurt. It hurt really badly. But it hurt even more when I heard high pitched giggles from behind me and got up to see FairyG and her bunch of friends standing there, arms folded across their chests, grinning like a group of geese.  I straightened my headscarf, checked my knees and continued to walk out. My bottom lip had taken a nasty blow and had begun to swell up. It was almost as though I could hear God saying you totally deserved that for what you had done to FairyG’s shoes. I hid her shoes that day and hurt her, today my own hurt me.

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In my first year of college, my tutor went for pilgrimage to Saudi and we were given a new tutor for the next three weeks. Her name was Roxy and she was absolutely awesome. She had this habit of clicking her fingers and saying “yoo-hoo!” whenever she wanted us to be quite during tutorial.  I found her technique quite amusing and often try it out at home with my sisters who always end up laughing.

There is one thing Roxy said to us one day in tutorial that I will never quite forget. We were talking about heading off to university and discussing all the planning and organising that is involved in making such a decision when she said “In a few years time, you’ll all be off into the big world, some of you will be working, some of you will be studying, others might even be married with children, but when you look back at all the wonderful memories of college and university it will give you a different view of life. Memories are there so we can fall back on them. As we go along in life, we slowly build our very own tower of memories starting with the foundation, and sometimes when we stumble we have our memories to save us.”

I didn’t quite understand her words then. Not fully. But now I do. Our memories are always with us. They’re a part of us. We carry them around with us. Our little secret which no one else can snatch.  Its memories that we look back on and sometimes shed a tear or even smile.

When we stumble in life, we can always take a free trip down memory lane and know that life isn’t that bad after all. It’s the happy memories that keep us going, that give us the little bit of courage we were looking for or the laugh that we really needed on a dull Sunday morning. And it’s the sad memories that give us strength. That bring with them realization and hope.

And its memories like these ones that I’ve shared with you today that teach us a few precious lessons about life and people and ourselves.

Hii! Apart from eating sweets and hiding your shoes I blog at Sparklingsmiles.com

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