Growing up in Lahore in the 80s ..

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this on the Tech Lahore blog. It brought back fond memories.

Read in full here

Related posts: here, here and here

To start off, I am incredibly lucky. I was born to a privileged family in Lahore, Pakistan. I attended the best schools around (Yes, a proud Aitchisonian!) and was exposed to people from all parts of the world at a very early age. My parents were more focused on making sure their kids got the best of everything – including their own time – than on anything else. They always had time for us. My father would spend hours upon hours painstakingly explaining arcane concepts to me, narrating ancient history, telling us stories from the Quran or explaining mechanics, physics and math for which I really had no grounding. But because I asked, he humoured me. And I did pick things up.

My mother encouraged me to be as curious and creative as I wanted. Even in the days when the latest LEGO sets were hard to come by in Lahore, she would have a friend or an acquaintance somehow arrange to send my favourite pick from the catalog; even if it had to be shipped from London. Yes, like I said, I was (and am) extremely lucky. My childhood was, in many ways, absolutely amazing because it was so comfortable, stimulating and love-filled that I really never even dreamt about wanting to be in someone else’s shoes. And it was this feeling… of NOT wanting to be in anyone else’s shoes, the sense that I would never ever want to change who I was or where I came from, that was the seed of a sense of self, and a sense of identity that I have built myself, and my life around.