Where: IBA Boys Hostel
Room No: 175
Inhabitant: Azeem Kamal Mir
Azeem Mir is objectively the coolest person I know. I don’t even know what he’s doing at IBA. “LeAdErS oF 2moRROW?” Azeem rules his own world TODAY. He knows what he wants. He knows what he likes and dislikes. But most importantly, brother doesn’t lie to himself about anything, which is more than what could be said about most of us.
Smells of the room
Azeem likes floral bed sheets because they aren’t dull and boring. While I kept staring at the bedsheet, and did think it really adds character to the room, Azeem asks me “what’s your favourite scent?”. It sounded so silly at the time because that’s something I never thought about. I just pick what I like. If something appealed to my nose, like an animal of the jungle I just picked that up.
But Azeem knows what he likes.
He likes fruity smells. All his products, ALL HIS PRODUCTS have fruity smells. He made me smell his armpits. As gay as this may sound, if I had my eyes closed, my nose would’ve mistaken his armpits for watermelons. But get this, he doesn’t have a fruity smelling air freshener. In fact, he doesn’t have an air freshener. He uses agarbattis. Yes. Agarbattis.
Butterfly tattoos and decisions
Azeem has a huge butterfly tattoo across his chest. He said he spent months on making sure he found the right one. But better options kept on popping up. So, he just decided to go with the butterfly. Azeem says nothing in life is IT. There is no final, superior, all surpassing thing. There’s always something better. In life you have to MAKE decisions. You can’t wait for the right time for the right thing and so on. There will never be a right time and there’s no such thing as the right thing.
Pacho!
Azeem has a pug back home in Lahore. It’s absolutely the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. He said in the six months at home whenever he used to go for a jog, Pacho (yes, that’s his name) would run after him. So, Azeem started taking Pacho with him.. In the beginning the small chubby bag of love couldn’t keep up. Months later, Azeem said the small pug looked more like a bull dog with his muscled up legs and physique.
Should’ve been at NCA
Did I tell you Azeem also doodles? More like crafty pieces of art which might give artists of the past centuries a run for their money. He sometimes draws journal entries, which are recordings of the day shown by doodles. The characters in these pieces are portrayed as objects. For example, in one Azeem was sitting on the roof with a simple thumbs up sitting next to him. The thumb had eyes and everything. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures because his friends would’ve hated him for it.
When I thought I would document hostel stories with this series, I knew right away Azeem should be featured first and he really didn’t disappoint. I spent days slacking because I thought I couldn’t do justice to his story. And now when I’ve completed this piece, I don’t think anyone at the IBA hostel would even come close to this. Azeem truly is the coolest, nicest and sweetest person I know.
One thought on “IBA Hostel Stories: Room 175”
Soo cooolll *-*