First of all let me clear this, I do not intend to start this as a diary. This is a piece of paper with my life written on it. My life is not an ordinary one, as it has many unusual things going on every day. We are a family of four members, me, baba, mama and my younger brother.

My baba is a great man, he always takes great interest in my work and together we are able to make something sensible. However, one thing which I am really not interested in, and which is my baba’s favourite hobby, is a regular visit to the Sunday market. Despite mama’s strong disliking (and I agree with her), he would often fetch my brother a lot of junk from the bazaar, some of which he uses and the rest is thrown in the trash or given by mama to someone who needs it.

My life is full of fun facts, for example, my date of birth is ‘888’. Too odd for you to understand, I know, but let me explain. It means I was born on 8th August, in the year 2008. Three eights, right?

The other is that my cousins are ‘AAAA’, who I fondly call ‘Double A, Double A’, because their names start with A, which are Ali, Aun, Abuzar and Aliza.

My younger brother ‘Hunny’, always makes matters worse. He is a master of mischief, oh my! He ruins my day, not just a day, but all days. He is like a punishment to me, always teasing, always playing tricks on me with a devilish grin on his face.

Turning to mama now, she is a sweet lady, she loves us and always wants the best for us, like all the mothers in the world. However, there is one thing which I dare say I don’t like at any cost, and that is the type of clothes she buys for me.

Mama makes me wear clothes which I really don’t like, but as I don’t want to hurt her, so I accept what she selects. This also means I have no control over my own life, all my decisions are made by mama or baba, whether I like them or not.

Apart from that, the amount of time which I am allowed to see a screen is exactly 40 minutes, which is too short. And on some days, I don’t even get that much screen time. I hope you agree that my screen time is too less. So the next time you happen to meet a kid named, ‘Samin Raza’ be sure to convince her parents for some extra screen time for her.

However, there’s a secret very special to me (regarding screens) and promise me that you will not tell this to anyone.

The secret is that I often wake up around 2am, and then I turn on my iPad and play Clash of Clans. I play for an hour or so, and then I go back to sleep. I know this is bad, and I can’t keep it that way for long. Eventually, I will tell mama about it, which will result in the iPad being taken away from me for a long time, but I can’t keep things from her.

As far as my class fellows are concerned, oh, they are a headache, of no help at all. They just seem to make matters worse! They tease me from the time I enter the class till its home time! They are just a bunch of brain-eaters, chatting for hours and for no particular reason, laughing on something, which I don’t see funny at all.

See, my life is different from that of others. This was about the humans in my life, let me tell you about one non-living thing as annoying as anything could be ­­— it is our one and only car. And all the people around in our area call it ‘the ultra disturber of humans’. You may be wondering why such a cruel title for a poor car? Well, there are many reasons behind it.

First, when we try to open the car’s doors, they refuse to open. And in summer, the air conditioner won’t work, or the windows won’t slide up or down. These are some of the special features of our car.

I keep telling baba to change the car, but he always says that this is the best car in the world and we need to learn to appreciate it and be grateful for the blessings we have. Yes, he thinks that the car is a ‘blessings’. I don’t know from where he got this idea, since everybody gives it such weird looks. Isn’t it embarrassing?

I have made a wish list and I can’t wait to have the things I wish the most. One of them is a cell phone of my own, but there’s no chance of me getting a phone till next year.

I also wish to discover a talent, or skill in myself, a talent for which my parents would feel proud of me. I wish to get into grade six soon because that is when I’m going to get all the good things I want, as baba and mama promised me.

For instance, mama told me she will buy me all new stationary, bag, pencil box, and baba has promised to give me a separate room in the house.

The wait to get into middle school feels like never-ending. Still I am hopeful that one day everything will get better. My life has everything in it, moments of joy, fights, sadness, craziness and happiness. And together all these things make life complete.

Published in Dawn, Young World, April 14th, 2018