Shubnum Khan

Sold.

You sold me down the river.

I dream of the village every night.

I keep replaying the moments above Bhatpura in my head. The promises we made. Kids shouting. Setting sun between trees. Names carved in stone. A fistful of chinar leaves in the air.

A Moment (From The Morning Of)

On the morning Of, I went outside with the thick utility scissors and above the bin outside the backdoor (where, on winter nights in the dim yellow light I remember another moment), I cut up the last memory I have. The rubber is tiny and stiff and I struggle and […]

South Africa’s Untold Success Story (Huffpost SA)

This story on the success of a Muslim minority in South Africa was originally published at the Huffington Post South Africa here: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/04/09/south-africas-untold-success-story-a-christians-nations-peac_a_22032852/ Religion, the one thing that has divided the rest of the world so starkly, has not done so here. This has perhaps been one of the most […]

South Africans Married to Foreigners Face Hurdles (Huffpost SA)

This piece on the hurdles South Africans face when married to foreigners was originally published in Huffington Post South Africa here: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/02/13/for-south-africans-married-to-foreigners-there-are-more-than-th_a_21713128/ “I never thought I would marry a foreigner, let alone live in a different country,” Sarona Reddy a 34-year-old law graduate from Durban, tells me over Skype from […]

For South African Indians Love Is Not Colour Blind (HuffPost SA)

My piece on skin lightening on South Africa’s Indian community for the Huffington Post. Originally published here http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/01/25/for-south-african-indians-love-isnt-colour-blind_a_21655793/ When I was little, an aunt pulled me aside to give me some marriage advice. She told me to find a man so fair that when he stood next to a white […]

The empty shape of grief

Sometimes when I remember abbajaan now, I don’t feel sad anymore. The air has left the balloon. The empty shape of grief. How time wears away the edges. Rubs raw the points we pierce our chest with. Every day I pray for God to take away the grief of […]

This tender, fierce heart

This tender, fierce heart, the end of all my beginnings, the beginnings of all my ends, how my love rages, rages, rages like wind upon the glass how it rattles in its cage and at dawn, such a tender bruised thing a murmur on the floor, I would do anything! […]

A Moment (from the KTV)

Once at the KTV we were singing and L had her camera and she came round and videoed us and Ai and I sang a song together and that was the night I thought I was getting sick but still we sang and then A sang that Taiwanese cowboy song […]

At the Edge of the world

Once on a beach at the edge of the world near the small sea I had to cross to reach the island where the shells broke open my feet, I wrote your name and I didn’t look back to watch the shore wash it away. I never looked back.