Acknowledgements, an essay

I often hesitate in sharing certain accomplishments publicly because they can be so misleading. These are usually only small respectable slivers of very difficult, complex moments. Rejections, all kinds of heartbreaks, fears, loneliness, and failures are often not included in these social media accomplishment updates. But these so-called accomplishments are not mine alone. Just asContinue reading “Acknowledgements, an essay”

karachi, a postcard

this city is a palimpsest. all texture. peeling into self. layer upon layer upon layer. language and skin and dust and polythene waste and political graffiti, pan stains and rickshaw poetry, chai shops and cigarette butts, aunties in flip flops, families squeezed onto motorcycles, english in urdu and urdu in angrezi, traffic uncles maddeningly usheringContinue reading “karachi, a postcard”

Written from the edgelands of my gentrifying neighbourhood, Queensborough

Everyone knows – after a sentence or two of explanation – their local version of the territories defined by this word ‘edgelands’. But few people know them well, let alone appreciate them.

“Don’t you know how much I hero-worshiped you when I was a kid? You were Marie Curie crossed with Emily Bronte crossed with Joan of Arc to me when I was ten. And when I told you that, you said my cultural references were the sign of a colonized mind.” ― Kamila Shamsie, Broken Verses