BOOK LAUNCH: HOME #ItsComplicated

Each time I come home, it’s with a foreboding sense that this time I won’t experience the same ecstasy and bliss of returning to an innocent and purer cocoon that still binds and bonds me to my childhood. Each time, I’m happily mistaken. The airports and points of departure continue to keep pace with my journey of self-discovery, but my mooring, my anchor, remains steady as ever. Despite the changes to the scenery and the people, there’s a part of Pakistan that all of us carry within us. It’s that part that calls us when we’ve been away for too long. And it’s that part that always makes me feel like I’m walking back in time to an era where everything seems to stand still. […]

Roadside Buddha and the Meaning of Life

What is the meaning of life? How does one attain happiness and, more importantly, hold onto it? These are the type of introspective questions that are bound to pop up in one’s head when you forget to bring a book along, your phone is about to die, and the person in the seat next to you has made it clear that they would rather pretend to fall asleep than talk to you.  As the sun is a sullen red ball about to dip over the horizon, traveling by bus during the afternoon is perhaps the best time to indulge in actions, lazy cousin: introspection.  Just make sure to fulfil all the requirements mentioned above in addition to a window seat. Because no amount of explanation […]

A little kid wearing a fake moustache and glasses while his mother looks on.

Accepting Who I Was Allowed Me to Change My Life

For the longest time, I kept a secret from everyone, including myself. I always wanted to be a writer but felt that sweeping it under a rug would allow me to be happy. I was so wrong.  Don’t you sometimes wish there was a chance to go back and rewrite history? Granted, if that were possible, one would want to give Hitler a wedgie or prevent colonization. But if there really is such a thing as the ‘butterfly effect’, I’d rather start small and just change my own past. Or, at the very least, one teeny tiny decision.  Out of Sight isn’t Out of Mind Our brain is a funny animal. It plays tricks on us all the time. And the way it does that […]