Asim Rafiq Mirza

Earwigging

She couldn’t really express her feelings on the phone

    Interview               English

“She couldn’t really express her feelings when we tried to talk on the phone, so all of a sudden it just came into my head, one day, we had a tape recorder at home, I thought you know what, I’m going to start recording, it might make things a little bit easier – so we can express each other’s feelings.

We were getting married to each other so I want to know a little bit more about her. I didn’t get to know her as much as I wanted to when I was in Pakistan and we had a tape recorder at home and I thought, you know, I’ll start recording.

So I just started recording my voice to her and in between, I used to record one or two songs just to complete the cassette, because it was a 90-minute cassette, 45 minutes each side. It wasn’t easy talking, you know, it’s like talking to yourself, basically.

So I used to lock myself in my own bedroom and I used to put like a towel or something underneath the door so nobody could stand outside and listen to my recording. I used to be on the other side of my bed and I used to talk really quietly, just in case my brothers or my sisters were earwigging outside.”