sidewalk scribbling

I don't know when I noticed it, but at one point in my life I realised how my mother always served us first - chose the ugliest fried egg, the smallest piece of chicken, the scrappiest slice of bread. At one point in my life I tried to stop her from doing that, instead offering up my share of a chocolate or an extra bite of my chowmein, thinking, hey, I'm so grown up and mature now, being selfless and all that ! Now that I have Zain and mind you, he's just a year old, my mother has four of us (oldest being in his 40s!), I realise how I can never repay my mother for everything she gave up for us, most of which we never even noticed or acknowledged. Our happiness, our comfort, our needs. It  was, and is, always me and my siblings before her ownself. I have never doubted the strength of women and as I grow older, I see more clearly than ever that women are stronger and more amazing than the world cares to let on.  And to some extent, that's okay.  If every selfless act of ...

  At any one point in time, an infinitude of human experiences fold out, like an undulating silk blanket being whipped out in the skies by robotic angels, a galaxy of bright stars exploding in unison, giant infernos in themselves but so, so tiny from afar. At any one point in time you’ll have an array of events and emotions occurring simultaneously – a worker in an ill-fitting black uniform at a salon, looking up from the calloused foot of a client who is flipping through Instagram pictures on her phone; an old man sitting at the side of his four poster bed, his wrinkled fingers resting on silken sheets, his head bent; a baby being born, slippery, crying, silencing his mother’s screams; a young woman dying at the side of a road next to a smashed car on a highway; a veteran staring at himself in the mirror, a loaded gun gleaming in front of him on the dresser; a wife staring at her snoring husband, wondering if she would be happier without him; a toddler taking his first st...

January 12 “Puppi chaheye?” my two-year-old nephew asks in his tiny voice. (He sounds just like Nibbles, Jerry’s tiny grey nephew from Tom and Jerry). I was saying bye to him and pretending to cry, which he usually can’t stand – his small face wrinkles into this sweet look of anxiety, he wrings his hands and emits little squeaks of concern mixed with comfort. He might offer a hug or he might smack your knee – not quite in control of his emotional expressions. I was lucky this time because he offered me a kiss. I love tiny toddlers who look just like miniature real people in their real-people jeans, scarfs and sneakers. But they are so small I am always amazed and amused when they speak in almost full sentences and run around. Arhu is the only grandchild in the city so he is always in the limelight. And boy does he know it! I will miss his parroting of every word he overhears (coffeechai chaheye? Awaz arahi hai? AWAZ ARAHI HAI? as he holds a cellphone to his ear; and ever...