I am as old as Pakistan’s Cricket World Cup trophy. There is only one, so further specifications are unnecessary. I have lived in Lahore since forever. Yet this pandemic makes me wonder if I truly lived in the same city as others around me.

The resentment voiced, incessantly, about being housebound feels as if Lahore has picnic spots that others are privy to, or has less harsh weather than I have always accused the city of.

I think the best way to figure out this confusion is to remember all the summers my memory allows me to, for they have been spent in no place else. I acknowledge that my experiences or opinions might only be shared by other female inhabitants of Lahore who share the same privileges, or lack thereof.

Growing up in a joint family meant spending the summers playing what-passes-as-badminton-or-cricket in the garage. Our house was on the main road and there were no parks nearby. Even if there had been one, nobody would have been allowed to frequent them. Long summer afternoons, unaccompanied children, busy mother and aunt, parks; they just never added up.

Many childhood summers were spent ringing the neighbours’ doorbell, begging for the shuttlecock or ball to be returned. Naturally, the neighbours did not. A fight would break out, blaming the person who had aimed too high and the day would end. So would the summer break.

The evenings were spent watching TV. PTV used to broadcast at 5pm (Mid-East time), if I remember correctly. Being allowed to watch TV during the day was a novelty; this was followed by 6pm Disney Hour, broadcast on a television channel transmitted through dish antenna. The 9pm PTV News could only be watched in summers, as during regular school days bedtime was hours before that.

Perhaps, we went to the Gulshan Park or Joy Land once in a while during the three-month long summer, but that was only when our father could manage sparing time and the weather allowed. We did visit northern areas, though, but that was also for a maximum of 10 days, not more. So the summer break was largely a home-based affair.

After the joint family fizzled out and we moved into a house in a regular block, with regular neighbours, the summers were usually spent studying. There wasn’t a pre-this or a pre-that, but with older siblings in higher grades, I remember spending the summer break of 7th and 8th classes at home as well.

Travelling was not possible, and wasting time watching TV all day was unacceptable. I remember reading or napping, both of which were done inside the house. The summer after the life-defining oversell matric exams was also spent at home. As a regular newly-turned-teenager, the best way to spend the break was to learn cooking. I have yet to meet a girl who hasn’t spent the summer following her matric exams learning to cook.

Summers during and after the intermediate years are borrowed time — there are universities to be visited, entrance exams to be taken, a lot of academies to be attended in order to feel less competent and more a waste of paternal wealth. So, two summers went by, trying to feel better about my mortal existence.

The long summers in university were also spent largely at home. Summer semester was meant for students who had missed a course or chosen to take on fewer courses during the academic year. Internships, a requirement of the degree and not a choice, could only be done at a hospital or a school. Nobody wanted an intern for more than a month, therefore, despite an internship the large part of summers was spent inside the house.

By this time, the country’s political climate would not allow travelling north, so there was no vacation to plan for.

Spending three years working in a school meant getting a month off from work and spending it at home. Schools mythologise the summer break for teachers and staff; it is not three months long anymore, it is only four weeks. The students are still on break so there is no reason to switch on the airconditioner; Lahore’s blazing summers are to be spent sitting under a fan that has witnessed history, cursing the administration (yes, I have quit my job).

The summer of 2020 is, for me, another stretch of time spent inside the house. But if all my summers have largely been spent indoors, and of my female friends and their mothers and their grandmothers, why does it sound as if this summer is different? I am not ignorant of the occasional trip to an amusement park, or going out (sitting inside a car or inside a restaurant) that occur during the summer. Shopping malls, a recent development in Lahore, allow much opportunity to escape the four walls of the house, but can only be visited frequently by those who live close by.

Summers in Lahore, for me, have been long periods of warm and humid weather. There were not enough places to visit unless there was a reason, which included only buying something necessary. The time spent studying or interning was also spent inside a building, even if not my own house.

Whenever it rains, the city floods. In the heat, people on the roads get angry and a censorship board should be at hand for what follows. The pandemic has taken away the once-in-a-while evening/weekend retreat, but if something hampers only the anomaly, does it revamp one’s summer routine?

In my opinion, the routine might not have changed for many female inhabitants of the city. This summer, like many summers before and many summers to come, is being spent inside the house.

Yet there’s a longing to escape. The summer being fondly remembered is not one that existed in the past, but one that is being imagined for the future. It is not a memory, but a wish. If women of Lahore could freely visit places or parks, leave the house for reasons that do not involve spending money. If, despite the heat and humidity, there were places that felt like home but didn’t look like the four walls of confinement.

The summer being desired is an urban fantasy; the narrative of the women of Lahore tries to reframe it as history for it to not be questioned as harshly in the utopian future. Why do they long to go out now? The pandemic has only made the women who live in Lahore aware of the freedoms they never had; they’ve always been inside the house, all summer long.

The writer has studied psychology and education