he clock nears midnight as the stone stuck in my chest slowly descends to my stomach. The cheery discourse of friends and elders in this mehfil as familiar as my own face in the mirror, rings in my ears. The journey I’ve to make back home fogs my mind much like the winter fog that blankets the roads outside.

My best friend had reassured me earlier, “You can stay the night, or my brother can follow you home. Please stay till the end, don’t worry.” She’d always said so, like clockwork, over all these years from when we were pre-teens to now in our early twenties.

Just as I check the time on my phone for the nth time in fifteen minutes, it rings and the room grows cold as ice, despite the three heaters blowing hot air onto our feet. It’s my father, undoubtedly calling to know my whereabouts, even though he knows exactly where I am. “No, you don’t need to come pick me,” I tell him. “I can’t come home immediately, bura lagay ga. Please sleep. I’ve made this journey over a hundred times... Yes, I’ll share my live location.”

My friend’s uncle now takes centre stage and declares that Lahore is heading towards better times. The AQI has officially dropped below 200. The smog is no longer the threat to our health it once was. He looks towards us youth and urges us to ignore international standards for clean air. We were born here, we are immune, it’s all fine now, he says. A friend comes from behind and locks her arm in mine. Her trembling body and her stiff, cold hands make me shiver as well. One of my male friends catches my gaze and winks, probably to tell me to calm down. A while earlier he had told me to “fix my face” and that “I worry too much about a lot of nothing.”

*********

When he termed my concerns “nothing,” that day flashed before my eyes so vividly as if I was reliving it in the moment. Five years ago, I was driving home from the same friend’s house after celebrating her birthday. My car broke down in the middle of the road. It was around 2am and the only difference between then and the afternoon on the main roads of DHA Phase V was the colour of the sky. I managed to pull up on the side, honking SUVs flashing their headlights and zooming by. I called my father for backup and my friend to inform her. She told me to stay on call. Four men on two heavy bikes pulled up next to my car and demanded I lower the window.

When I did, they claimed to be the police. One of them pushed their hand onto my steering wheel. Another asked why I was being so unsafe and the third asked if I had alcohol in the box on the passenger seat.

Nothing beats the adrenaline of being a woman in DHA, Lahore, mocked for her privilege, overlooked for her fortitude, adept at scoffing at every misinformed remark. 

It was just some cake my friend had given me to take home. The fourth man tried to open the car door but it was locked. They accused me of everything under the sun, just didn’t ask for a driving license or car registration. I still hide my pepper spray between the two front seats of the car just as I had then; it was ready to go, when my father pulled up. The ‘police’ fled away.

My mother often tells me how she wouldn’t let me drive around so freely if we didn’t live in the DHA. In DHA, no harm will come to me, she says, but it is still improper and inconvenient to stay out late, and I have to care for my health in the winters. I can’t stay the night at my friend’s house either, as she has brothers and it would be improper too.

My parents are growing old and telling them to perform a pick-and-drop service doesn’t seem like a viable option. Someone following me home dries out my mouth as the familiar feeling of being a liability weighs me down, till I cannot move.

********

The crowd has begun to disperse. I say goodbye to the elders and all my friends. The way back home is like a dream; the kind you have when you fall asleep accidentally in the middle of a busy day. I cannot see anything ahead but I continue at a comfortable speed of 15 km/h, slicing the fog into two. The steering wheel feels brittle, the air in the car a slow and comfortable suffocation.

When it’s quiet and my heart settles into its usual rhythm, truly immune to the weather, I relax into the car’s seat like it’s a khandaani sofa. I remember my privilege.

I remember that I have the car, to begin with; brown parents who have let me drive around since I was seventeen and who don’t age when it comes to caring for me; friends who open their homes to me and their families who genuinely consider me their own.

I also have the audacity to carve a freedom within the confines of a society that does not relent in deeming my words, actions and appearance as improper regardless of what they are.

The painful pit in my stomach, the unhealthy rises of my heartbeat and the unyielding headaches as my mind fills with worry — all prices that pale in comparison to the drive back home. Nothing beats the adrenaline of being a woman in DHA, Lahore, mocked for her privilege, overlooked for her fortitude, adept at scoffing at every misinformed remark. Men may take the same route home, but their journey remains untouched by the simple rebellion of doing it all over again, even when you know what it costs.

Nadia Ahmed Uqaili is a content strategist with over five years of global agency experience. She also writes short fiction on Substack. She can be reached at [email protected]