sidewalk scribbling

It felt really good to step outside and not freeze. And it was even more liberating to be able to take off my coat and sit under the open sky – I realized I hadn’t been able to do that in around five months.  I turned my face up towards the sun and felt a strange, almost foreign sensation … warmth, almost heat, really, almost enough to want to turn my face away but I didn’t because it had been SO LONG since I felt that! It was truly a beautiful day – a whopping 16 °C.  Pretty much the same temperature I would whine about in September when we initially arrived in England.  How we adapt and forget and then remember again… the mystery of the human brain. Memory can be quite erratic, faulty, like a sieve really, things slipping through and disappearing.  Images stick much better than sensations like pain.  That’s why women have more than one baby – (I read that or saw that somewhere – can’t remember exactly … see what I did there?), because they forg...

I enjoy penning my thoughts down (what, really, what a shocker!) especially when planning a trip, and yes I’m slightly abashed to say that I like details – so if our bus is supposed to reach Manchester at 2:30 pm I’m going to be optimistic and hope that it ends up getting there earlier and since our budget inn with its sweet purple moon is just a 16-minute walk away, we should be all checked in by 3… Listen, time is short and there’s a lot to see in Manchester! So ideally I’d like us to be sharp about it and march on straight to one museum, then maybe sneak in the art gallery before the city shuts down all museums and galleries and churches and switches on its orange streetlights to guide the way to nightlife (except, what nightlife starts at 5pm?). Of course, sometimes, alright, often, the best-(detai)laid plans go awry. So the bus we were on left at exactly the right time but then sort of just slowed down and instead of the motorway/highway we seemed to be on a sights...

I know why it doesn’t rain in Karachi that much – it’s because all the rainclouds are in England.  I have yet to see a sky without clouds.  Even if the sun is out, giant fluffy white clouds are lounging about nearby, often closing in and darkening to send down a short spray of rain, just for fun, and then moving apart as if they had nothing to do with the shower.  There’s never a definite warm sunny day.  The rainclouds are always a head-turn away. The weather is erratic.  But I do feel like it’s a special, magical moment when there is a quick spurt of rain while the sun continues to shine, and the rainbow that’s always there if you just take a moment to look for it. It feels nice, kind of a peacemaking gesture from the gods, as if to say, we know it’s cold and overcast and it can get kinda gloomy, so here you go, a translucent arch of colours to brighten your day. I just have to remind myself to stop the grumbling for a minute and look up. T...

The little house – it actually belonged to a British man who used to live here and then converted it into a guesthouse before leaving – was cozier than a sheepdog. There was a small kitchen and living room with beautiful mirrors, dark wooden chairs and dining table, and a chic cart-turned-into-a-coffee table (straight from Pinterest), plush sofas with lilac and white cushions. Every time I sat in the lounge the hotelier would bring me a cup of coffee. Our room was tiny with a lovely window down which the rain streamed steadily, the bed was soft, white and comfortable and the rain outside made you want to stay under the soft cloudy blankets forever. The sound of the rain on the tin roof, the cozy blankets, hot cups of coffee and our 9-year-old matching LUMS hoodies – and even though we were back in our guesthouse at 5 pm, the rain called for an early evening –  we were content as two kittens in a basket. Still no TV but we watched Youtube videos on my phone – Fahad’s selecti...

One of my favourite slogans, aptly carved on a wooden sign outside a chai shack in Karachi, is: “Live Life, Love Tea” and the drive from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya is perfect for living life and loving tea. Bernard had very kindly arranged a driver and car for us to take us on the rest of our journey (he told us if we wanted to keep it cheap, trains and buses was the way to go but a car was more convenient) and we had another wholesome Sri Lankan breakfast before leaving the next morning. Our driver was pleasant, providing interesting facts about the animals or plants at an interval of 20 miles. The clouds were still low, a beautiful blue-gray that made the green of the hills and plantations stand out even brighter. The color of tea-leaves is a special green, so vibrant it’s almost gold, a fresh young green that seems to be lit up from the inside. Our driver had promised to take us to the more famous of the tea factories that lay scattered around the hills, some shabbier than ot...

You know the kind of vacation in which you wake up late, stretch luxuriously in a soft bed with creamy white sheets and feathery pillows and then keep lying for another hour or so, languid and lazy? The kind where you spend half the day indoors on a comfy couch in front of the TV or by the hotel pool ordering pink cocktails and mango juice? Yeah, I don’t do those. I guess you could call me annoyingly perky and organized but I prefer the word adventurous or the phrase ‘making the most of a holiday’. And you might curse me when it’s time to wake up but later on you’ll like me – when we avoid traffic and long queues or see a beautiful garden or a quaint café all without getting lost more than once. Don’t get me wrong, I also enjoy getting lost and just strolling aimlessly in a neighborhood but I always have a plan A – and usually plan B. Now my husband – not so much. It’s kind of like a see-saw, it takes a few tries but eventually you can reach that balance in which neither of you...

February 22 I admit, my preferences for weather have changed since I came to the US. If I wake up to an overcast sky and the sound of slow rain, my face doesn’t light up with a terrifyingly big smile. I do not feel the need to throw open my window (which in my case would require me using a brick to break the glass cause the window in my room isn’t really a window) and lift my face to the light cool breeze. The reaction is more whiny here. A melodramatic groaning and turning over in bed. My heart complains and my body cringes in the anticipation of the cold wetness that will envelop me as soon as I step out of the house. One of the reasons I don’t like rain here is obvious: human nature is designed to appreciate rarities. A gray sky hanging low with clouds and cold rain felt good in a warm, humid city like Karachi or in the burning heat of Lahore because it would be a welcome, seldom break. Another reason of course was that I did not have to walk around everywhere and travel ...