sidewalk scribbling

Autumn came for a short visit this year, strolling along, lightly trailing her yellow fingertips along the tops of trees, painting them with liquid sunshine.   She didn't stay for long though. I guess she had better places to visit.  Always leaves in a huff, as if she's mad about something. Maybe it's Winter that drives her off, with his bitter cold winds that whip the pretty gold orange red leaves off branches, scattering them in crispy colourful paths along the ground where they slowly curl up and die. Winter this year strides in in-synch with the second wave of Covid, followed by what should have been an expected lock-down in England but caught me unprepared. The remains of the First Wave had yet to recede and this Second Wave has already crested and crashed upon us. I remember cheering myself up during the first lock-down on how amazing it would feel once things went back to normal...  How great it would feel to hug friends, to go sit in a cafe and have a frothy ...

Wollaton Park must be beautiful right now - trees bursting in a kaleidoscope of greens, wildflowers carpeting the track that goes around the lake, willowy branches casting dancing shadows on the walking trails and the beautiful mansion standing regal on the hill top, framing the blue summer sky. Wouldn't it be nice to go for a picnic, pack some sandwiches and crisps, pick up coffee afterwards from the cafe, lay out a blanket on the grassy slope along with scores of other people, with their dogs and babies and footballs and talking parrots (it happened once!).  But of course, the 'New Normal' has rendered the above scene pretty impossible (for now). On the other hand, I have seen my tiny backyard become more enchanting this summer than ever before. The neighbour's tree leans over the fence, it's branches casting a perfect shade on our side. It has leaves of an indescribable colour, each a rainbow in itself with shades of green and rust and maroon and brown and...

The thunder woke us up.   The sky outside glowed blue, purple, white and the light and thunder poured in from our bedroom windows and the open door across, shadows jumping all the way from the adjacent room windows, across the short corridor, toppling onto the carpet into our room. Our pale curtains billowed out and then sunk back into the window alcoves, a giant practicing deep breathing – we could hear the rain falling in waves, the drunken trees dancing without abandon and see the lightning glow in the distance, rapid, short lapses in between, just long enough to let the clouds clang their response. The thunderstorm (the very first I’ve seen in England since we moved here almost three years ago) took me back home – the sheer life of the rain was just like the storms we have in Pakistan.   The rain in England, as I have droned on many times, is terribly mundane routine wet boring.   The rain in Pakistan – much like the country – is chaos and madness with ro...

Nottingham might not be as quaintly English as Lincoln with its shiny cobbled streets and old toffee shops, nor as flippantly grunge and artistically gritty as Bristol – definitely can’t compare it to the magically majestic Edinburgh or the chaotic mad land-of-the-fast walkers-and-shovers-move –aside- where-did-all-the-polite-Englishmen-go-London ... It may not be haughtily beautiful like Oxford or Bath, nor situated along the coast of ancient white cliffs from the era of dinosaurs, not hipster like Norwich nor posh like Brighton – Still, there is something about the city that makes me quite happy we have chosen it as our tempoary home. It’s got a quirky mischievous character, somewhat hidden between the standard high street stores and the more grimy alleys with shops nursing cracked window panes and sad wayfarers looking for spare change to buy a bus ticket or perhaps more likely, another beer instead – You can always expect a place to be much bigger than it seems f...

They say the world is a much smaller place now – with faster airplanes, safer sea routes, phones and apps that can help you stay in touch with your best friends 2,000 miles away, all the while giving you the option to put on bunny ears and whiskers – because let’s face it, communicating is much easier when you can distract yourself and your 7-year-old nephew with magic hats and fire-vomit filters. In some ways though, the world doesn’t feel very small at all.   My family is split over three continents and four countries, my cousins and best friends are strewn across the globe in a wide arc so that no more than two are in the same city and while it is great to have a place to stay if I’m planning a trip to Netherlands or Toronto or Dubai or Boston or St Louis, it would be much nicer still to have one of them idiots a ten minute walk away so I could actually poke an arm and share a coffee in person. The mad quest to leave our country for brighter horizons – higher ed...

You slip into the comfort of your own country so seamlessly you don’t even notice it.   It’s like wearing your favourite sneakers – you don’t realise how important they are till you buy new shoes and have to break them in.     We landed at the shoddy little Islamabad airport – Daewoo bus stations are better than the Islamabad airport, as my uncle put it – and I walked out into the crisp cool morning of home,   donning on a coat of smug confidence that was held up by invisible fairies right outside the plane door.    It’s that confidence which makes you stride with your head held high, pushes you to say “ex CUSE me!” loudly and indignantly to the aunties and uncles that try to cut the line in front of you, that helps you strike a conversation with a stranger on a bus, or offer help to a young mother with her antsy baby without blinking.   It’s the confidence of belonging to a place without filling out paperwork and supplying bank docum...

Snowflakes, light, uneven, like god shredding cold clouds up above, they fall, almost like a dream that evaporates when it touches your skin – The asphalt is covered in sludge, ice and mud, people catching hold of one another as they hurry across, slipping out of their thoughts and into the present before they hit the curb.  The buses are running late. The sky has been white all day, like a blank canvas – no paint, no inspiration, it’s all been done before and maybe god doesn’t feel like sketching a replica today.  It’s darkening now and the street lights switch on, automation, magic, call it what you please. An old man wearing a navy beanie sticking like a gnome’s hat on his head rolls onto the bus stop.  He is sitting in a scooter, a grocery bag stuffed in a small black basket on the front.  His eyebrows are bushy, sticking out in all directions – with eyebrows like that, his expression was forever a scowl.  “Greg died five years ago, Norma!” h...

Is it like the ocean with its never-ending gray, blue waves, stretching as far as the eye can see, cresting and falling, persistent, enough to cover most of the globe? Or does it run out, like water in a tap that’s been running for too long? Like puddles of rain drying up under the scorching summer sun? Does one person have enough grief inside to mourn the loss of 3 people? What about the lives of 30? 3,000?  What about 5 lives every day of every month in a year? (That’s how many people died in terrorist-incidents in Pakistan in 2016 – see source at the end.) Can grief peter out, like a stream in a drought-stricken village? Or can we be more generous and dole it out as, when and where it’s needed? Does anyone really need your grief? Can you offer it like a tissue to wipe someone’s tears? Maybe cancel out a small part of their grief by showing them yours, like same signs in an equation? When people point out that a tragedy somewhere is equally tragic as those...