Life Studies...

One of the dudes at the Karachi airport decided to do a pretty thorough search of my suitcase this time around. I'm not sure why, something in the way I moved I guess. As he was rifling through everything I own, he was pretty talkative, which is just no good because I get nervous around these people. "Is this all personal clothing sir?" I wasn't sure how my clothing could be public but I said, "Yes." He started checking the bottom of my suitcase for secret compartments and such, and suddenly he licked his finger, wipes the bottom of my case, and came up with a white powder. He sniffed at it with authority and said, "Soap." My heart skipped a beat because for a split secod I thought he said "Coke." I told you, I get nervous in these situations.

Anyway, then he grabbed my passport and asked me how long I've been in Pakistan. I guess this must be some kind of skill testing question, since it's written right there, but I was on the ball and told him I'd been in the country for just over seven months. Then he asks me, "Are you a student?" I told him I was not. "Why not?" he says, and goes back to shuffling my shirts around. The question kind of threw me. "Ummm," I started, and he looked up sharply (I've found people in positions of authority are very suspicious of "Uhmmms"). "Well," I continued quickly, "I guess I'm done with being a student." He picked up one of my books (The Holy Quran, as it happened) and says again, like a three-year old, "Why?"

At this point, I'm getting a little exasperated. Do I really need to get into my disenchantment with academia, my desire to write rather than analyse? Finally, I came up with, "I don't know... Just because." For whatever reason, this was satisfactory and brought him back to more standard questions, "Why were you in Pakistan?" I gave my standard, "Travelling, visiting, writing, exploring." This earned a raised eyebrow. "So," he says, in a contemplative way, "You are a student." I was at a loss. Here we go again, I thought. I tried a different tack. "Yes?" I ventured. "Ah," he says, seemingly happy now, "I thought so sir. What do you study?" Now I was in open water with no safety line. So I just took a leap and said, "Life?" Apparently, this was exactly the right answer. "Ah, very good sir, carry on." At first, I didn't know whether he meant to carry on studying life, or that I was done, but he was gesturing that I should re-pack, so I kept my mouth firmly shut.

Finally, I walked over to the foreign passport desk, where the FIA agent looked at my passport and asked, "You are a student sir?" I couldn't believe it. I looked her straight in the eye and said, "Yes, a student of life." With a flourish, she stamped my passport, and says, "Good, Go ahead."
"Fair enough."