I fall asleepI wake up, I turn my head to the windowlisten to the birds, the sky is bluemore blue than that day at the beachwhen I wore yellowsmiling in pictureslike I was the sun I am 6, sitting on the carpetI am praying to God,asking him to help me, […]
I was sitting in the room in the tower. I was cutting green peppers in the kitchen when I checked my phone. I was sitting in a road side dhaba in Jaipur eating mushroom soup. I was sitting in the back of a restaurant waiting for our lunch. I was sitting […]
Nadine Gordimer writes in Telling Times: Writing and Living: “What is a writer’s freedom? To me it is his* right to maintain and publish to the world a deep, intense, private view of the situation in which he finds his society. If he is to work as well as he […]
1. Blue skies and fresh air 2. Good food 3. Being able to communicate with anyone properly (English is not a first language even for most of the non Chinese people I meet). 4. The beach 5. Family, the kids especially 6. Cheap prices of anything (in Shanghai everything is […]
I am walking in New York. Somewhere near the Flatiron building. I have my camera with me. I am always walking. Always bewildered. I am always cold. I am always tired. Always amazed. I am alone. I know I am alone. There are buildings around me as I cross the […]
Shanghai, 14:01 12 June 2016 The rain in a big city can teach you many things. It is rainy season here now and almost every week it rains. The city shines in this weather, the lights which are already so many, double, triple, there’s lights everywhere. In the evening the […]
One night when I was eleven, we were eating dinner. Spaghetti. The tablecloth was red. Cross-legged on the floor. Forks in hand. And it was the first time we had a strange male at dinner; he wanted to marry my sister. And we, the other three sisters, were giggling until […]
She takes his hand. Leans her forehead into the fist. She is shaking. She opens his hand with her face still against it. Let’s her face rest in it. In the palm of his hand. Her eyes are closed. They sit like this for a long time.
“ما زلت أؤمن أن الإنسان لا يموت دفعة واحدة و إننا نموت بطريقة الأجزاء؛ كلما رحل صديق مات جزء، و كلما غاردنا حبيب مات جزء، و كلما قتل حلم من أحلامنا مات جزء، فيأتى الموت الأكبر ليجد كل الأجزاء ميتة، فيحملها ويرحل “ —جبران خليل جبران “I still believe that […]
I miss abbajaan. Of his 90 years of life, we’ve spent 30 living together.
