Things I used to believe when I was a kid:
- I thought we lived inside the world, not on it. I once asked my mother why we couldn’t see the floors above our heads where the people in the north lived. Not until my parents bought me a small globe and explained that we lived and walked on the surface did I understand this concept.
- an older cousin once convinced me that vhs tapes could record our dreams, you just had to sleep with the tape under your pillow and if you played it in the morning, your dream would be on tv, but only if you woke up really really early. Alas, I was never early enough.
- another cousin convinced me that pink tissue paper, properly crumpled up and twisted around a few times was an easy way to make cotton candy at home. I don’t know how he got me duped, but I embarrassed my parents a couple of times at other peoples houses, asking if I could borrow that pink tissue paper to eat as cotton candy.
- I used to think people went to restaurants to read a book and then have food. Like you sit around a table, read the book, and then order. It was extremely important. I often demanded the waiter give me a book to read whenever we went out to eat.
- i thought there was a special cloud that collected stray balloons that floated away in the sky, they probably gathered into a single colorful cloud and lived happily ever after.
- Because I was so scared of lightening and thunderstorms, my dad convinced me that the lightening was just a flash of God’s camera, He was taking pictures from the sky.
- I believed my dolls and toys had feelings, if I didn’t hug them or play with them equally every day, they would feel sad and hurt and lonely. I did have favorites, but I always tried to make up to the not-so-favorite ones.
- I thought little tiny people lived inside the tv all day.
- I thought elevators could go anywhere in a short time. When my aunt got married, she stayed at a hotel for a few days with her husband before leaving for New York. I thought we went all the way to New York in the elevator to see her when we visited her in the hotel.
- I thought London, England, and Britain were three different countries.
- I thought Iraq and Iran were the same country, only spelled differently by different people.
- I thought Kenya was another name for all of Africa.
- I thought lakes were just stations for rivers and streams to rest in a place, like train stations.
- I thought MQM and PPP (the political parties) were actually NTM and PTV, the two television stations.
- I thought cats were people in disguise, always keeping an eye on us. This was probably inspired by my aunt telling me she went to my school every day as a cat, and she used to sit on the wall and see me around, so I wasn’t lonely.
- I also thought all teachers were supposed to wear heels, and their hair in a bun, and chew gum after lunch, this was all part of their job description.
- I thought writers sat and wrote the books all day, every single copy of the book by their own hand, and also colored the illustration.
- I thought things we bought at the store, like cake and pudding mixes, would come out looking like the pictures on their boxes. When my mother made them, they never looked anything like on the box. I was always so disappointed.
- I thought some eyeglasses could make you see right through the floor. This is probably because I often borrowed (stole) my grandfather’s glasses when he was taking a nap in the afternoon, and they made everything look a little hollowed out.
- The Morven Gold cigarette ad with the tag line “har dum tawana” (english: Always strong) made me run from the room every time it came on. I believed the guys enjoying the cigarette and grinning into the screen were some kind of monsters like the dracula with their pointed flashy teeth.
- I got annoyed whenever my uncle sang the song “gorey rang ka zamana” by Vital Signs for me (which he did often) I thought he was making fun of me.
- The same uncle used to dissuade me from touching his shiny-rimmed glasses by his classic quote “don’t touch the glasses” in a sing-song voice. I used to repeat the rhyme anytime I saw another person wearing glasses and tried to touch them anyways. I thought it was necessary and I was asking permission.
Now I think about it, I was pretty gullible.
