Days go badly, and if too many of them go badly, they roll into tough weeks. And I find myself obstructed from the act of living, from being able to do the things I enjoy, and sometimes even need. And how does a day go badly? In ways more than one, I suppose, but it... Continue Reading →
With a lot of hiccups and pauses, I am trying to read literature from 100 years ago. I pick up a page or two and life, usually in the form of a notification or a chore or a thoughtless distraction, gets in the way. My mind is like a room full of scattered belongings strewn... Continue Reading →
475. I wonder if the night is old and wise. Or if the night is fresh and undiluted. Because it is a new night every time. Or: the notes I make inside my journal. 474. I am hugely grateful to Spotify / YouTube Music for using the Urdu script to display the lyrics whenever they're... Continue Reading →
Things go wherever they need to go; they go missing from home and are never to be found again. I think of the things I have possessed and now they’re sitting somewhere unknown to me. I don’t wonder if they’re happy because only mortals die and impending death makes us measure our happiness. One teaspoon,... Continue Reading →
SF and I are buddy-reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and all I want to say is — what on God’s good green earth is happening in this book? I picked it up because I was so enthralled by his writing in Of Love and Other Demons, and SF picked it... Continue Reading →
April was tough. Tough and magical. Tough, magical, and surreal. My heart has been stretched, full, and wrung at varying times during the warm, Gulmohar-laden month of April. I’ve written 30 poems for NaPoWriMo, kept as many rozas as women can keep (23, because: periods), cooked whatever dish was fancied that day for Iftar, and... Continue Reading →
“It has become routine to assume that the rewards of life are public and that our lives can be measured by how we are seen rather than what we do.” — How to Disappear, Akiko Busch The intense activities of the last few weeks have left me feeling emotionally spent. As we come closer to... Continue Reading →
Our sunscreen is melting The house we stand in front of is made of broken white,collected silence, unloved days, and empty water ductsthat have been dry for so long we find bird nests strewn in them. We are afraid to sweep away the beds of brown leaves,nests et al, because we know we won’t be... Continue Reading →
I have stopped looking for women in the annals of time who might have been like me. A strange shadow has been cast over me that shies away from the magic of the revolving universe. Uncounted heaps of bangles have been tidied away, tied with a thread, and stored inside tin boxes never to be... Continue Reading →