sidewalk scribbling

June 24 “ Bijli aagaee? ” chirps two-year-old Arhu. Every job has its own vocabulary, terms and phrases that are tossed around like balls between jugglers, foreign to those outside of the office space.  Banking, telecom, journalism – I can of course only recall ones related to journalism because it is obviously the most interesting of these fields! Annoying pomp aside, eras have lingos too.  Who can forget the infuriating but convenient acronymization and abbreviation of already colloquial words! LOL, WTF, and the dreaded one I seem to blurt out too often – O-M-G.   All the words that come with changing fashions and technology.  And so we have our era of electricity issues.  Load-shedding, UPS, generator, battery – these are part of everyone’s everyday language.  My short week in Karachi with its erratic but still not-too-frequent power outages did not prepare me for this resigned ritual of one hour of electricity followed by one hour of load-sh...

June 21 The question really throws me off.   Even if I am lying on a beach under a shady umbrella, with sand flecked toes and a perspiring cold drink in my hands, the question about happiness makes me pause.   I am never sure.   Do you mean right now, this very instant?   Or do you mean generally, overall?   Do you mean ‘most of the time’ or a ‘majority’ of my days?   Do you mean satisfaction with where I am headed?   Do you mean to say if I have many regrets or complaints?   Or do you mean a sense of sated peace that makes it easy to breathe and sleep, that makes my heart feel as light as a wispy cloud, that makes me want to perpetually smile, with my lips, my eyes, my soul? There are very few mornings when I wake up and think to myself, what a beautiful day to be alive! That may be partly because of my sleeping, eating, living habits, or maybe it is because of my tiresome dreams… nevertheless, I don’t wake up with a spring in my step and...

June 6 Soft tendrils of smoke swirl above my yellow mug, caught in the morning sun that has joined me for breakfast. I could only see the smoke from a certain angle, and it moved continuously, changing shapes, beautiful and dreamlike, like a lovely memory that stirs when you hear a certain song, or catch sight of a silver chain around someone’s neck – you have no control over it, you can only see a part of it, and you can’t reach out and touch it. And just like that, it slips away, dissolving back into the past that follows us around on tiptoes. I love mornings. Especially when everyone else is asleep and the solitude of a cool day that hasn’t quite stretched itself out and started about its business, with the warm sunlight that brightens all colors, the promise of a new start, the resolve of getting things done strong like coffee brewing in a pot. Add hazelnut creamer to give it just a little sweetness, stir, inhale. A cup of hot tea, strong with a teaspoon of sugar to b...

June 3 Bagels. Low-fat cream cheese. Enough cute, quirky cafes hidden in neighborhoods to still boredom for years. Live music in restaurants. A gym within walking distance from my house. Actually going to the gym and all the joys that come with it: buying yoga pants for the first time, moving from 5 lbs. to 10 lbs., being able to fill out ‘three days a week’ in health questionnaires, looking at guys that have found the right balance between tank tops and trees-for-arms. The less-glamorous but just as important skills of cleaning the toilets, realizing the never-ending chores that come with living in a house without parents. America, and in particular St Louis, was kind to me, with its million varieties of bread and cheese that always make grocery shopping a nerve-wracking experience, and its relative first world calm where people obey traffic laws, stand in queues and you can look to the police and the courts for justice. Usually. People always talk about how young men an...

March 7 I can remember the hysteria I tried to suppress inside my chest, like an overstuffed suitcase you have to get your friend to sit on so you can zip it shut, or a sandwich that threatens to spill out all its contents. It’s never easy to pack up and leave for a new beginning, especially if you can’t bring some of your favorite things (fiancé, best friends, monsoon rain fragrances) along for the extended trip. But despite the bouts of loneliness and the sneaky panic that would shoot up throughout my body at random moments in the first few weeks in St Louis, I think I was pretty determined to make the most of it. I always have a special place in my heart for cities. Like an earnest young professional, I have the highest expectations from a new place. I do my research, start specialized bucket lists and slowly and determinedly, fall in love with the quirks that make each city unique. I like St Louis because it doesn’t put on many pretenses. It has its problems – ra...

April 9 From generating electricity by playing soccer to creating a farm in a school to collect rainwater and increase agriculture productivity, from solar-powered lanterns in Kashmir to using better architecture to improve health outcomes in Bolivia – the Clinton Global Initiative-University (CGI-U) is one of the most inspiring and wide network of young, passionate people. Look at cgiu.org to find out more about the cool projects going on all over the world, designed and led by individuals as young as college freshmen! When I filled out the extremely long volunteer application, I didn’t think too much about how awesome the event was going to be. And my pleasure at being part of the photo/video committee was short-lived because right after that I saw I was signed up for 8 hours on Friday and 12 hours on Saturday. Like come on, I’m a grad student. I have 15-page papers to write about important social issues with minimum solvability and practicum and laundry! And prospects ...

March 8 I don’t know exactly when or how it happened. I can’t look back at a certain day or even remember what year it was. But somewhere, somehow, all the clocks of the world were wound up to run faster than before. The gods nudged the universe a little too hard, spurring the solar systems into overdrive. The sun rises faster and the stars spin into the light quicker, and so, time cartwheels away, always a few steps ahead of us. I can distinctly remember the years when time would trudge slower than an old lady pushing a walker. The memory that always comes to mind is those months of summer holidays when it would be so hot we’d feel like our body was melting away (in Karachi) and the flowers would wilt and char under the relentless manic sun (in Lahore and Islamabad). I can hear the hum of the air conditioner, and I can remember the arguments over whether the ceiling fan helps in cooling the room faster or hampers the process. I can feel the lethargy that weighs down our bod...