sidewalk scribbling

I can feel its presence, just around the corner, always a few steps ahead of me but in the last few months, slowing down, letting me get closer, turning back every now and then to assure me that it’s there, and eventually, I’ll be right beside it. I can see its shadow from where it stands today, just around the bend in the road.  I can feel its eyes on me – the number 30, waiting patiently, knowingly. Is it smirking? Will it greet me with a consolatory arm around the shoulder and a “it had to happen, mate” or is it going to utter a smug retort – “remember when you were 20 and in college, walking around campus like you owned it, like you owned the world, barely smothering your giggles at the older men and women who sat in close-knit circles on the grass, seemingly always singing With or Without You by U2, always playing an acoustic guitar? Remember how you thought they were just so lame ?” Yeah I remember, I’ll tell 30. I just didn’t realize then that those Masters’ s...

The sun is bright today,  Top right corner Of my window.  It's keeping pace,  Like a competitive jogger In bright yellow trainers It's quiet on the bus today, Like a museum For adults, Or an expensive exhibition  For somber (but obvious) Art lovers Quiet -  Except for the music notes That escape from a young lady's Subtle white headphones. Would you feel a connection If she were listening To your second favorite song In the world? If you look hard enough And squint your eyes Just a bit And let your mind Breathe - You can see the thoughts In people's heads (mostly blond But some brunettes)  "Was it a mistake To not iron my shirt  Today Tommy actually ate his breakfast Thank god Just one more day  Of work Of family, of love Unmade beds and dirty dishes Maybe he will wash them Without me asking Today"

Sometimes I think of god as a being with a pretty decent sense of humor, someone who can laugh at others and at himself, the kind of being who waits behind a door for five minutes to pounce out at a friend and yell BOO and then finds true delight when the friend jumps a foot off the ground, someone who wouldn’t be afraid to splash some water at a colleague on a work trip to the lake … you know, someone who doesn’t want you to take life too seriously, at least not all the time. That’s the explanation that comes to mind when I’m walking out on a beautiful sunny day with the breeze dancing around, perhaps like a semi-talented ballerina, whipping small yellow leaves off the trees and swirling them around in an animated piece of art – and for a minute I feel like I’m in the middle of a sweet romantic drama – and then suddenly a large dry leaf strikes me in the face.  Like a blooper.  The director calls CUT! And I look up and imagine god suppressing a giggle. Or when I loo...

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...

It’s hard for other people to understand what a victory in cricket means to us.  Why there will be hundreds of thousands of people out in the streets of our cities and in the dirt lanes of our villages, dancing, celebrating, causing traffic jams and shouting their hearts out, why fans across the world glued to their 52 inch TVs or their cracked 14 inch laptops vacillated between high pitched screaming and cheering, and crying (tears of joy, of course) – I mean, great match and all, you might say, but aren’t these Pakistanis kind of going a bit overboard? And I’ll tell you, after I’ve wiped my red sniffling nose on my sleeve, that no, we are not.  This victory (in the ICC Champions Trophy FINAL, against INDIA who we never beat in finals, INDIA a team much better and more experienced than our fledgling one ranked the lowest at the start of the tournament) is not just about cricket.  Don’t get me wrong.  Pakistanis love cricket.  There are many things ...

Some people have excellent memories – like my younger sister who claims to remember details from family holidays when she would be 2 years old, bringing to mind the concept of fake and made-up memories, however, too often her words are corroborated by someone else, someone who wasn’t 2 back then, or maybe a photograph or something harder to ridicule than a younger sister... My mind, on the other hand, is like a sieve, and while most slips through the small holes and disappears into the fading black of my unconscious, some memories remain, sloshing about silently till a random stimulus from the present dives in, hook, line and sinker, and slowly swivels it up into the bright light of now.  These memories exist like snapshots rather than film, like a 2-second clip you’ve accidentally trimmed and then, even worse, deleted the rest of the video, so I won’t remember what happened before or after, but I’ll remember that precise moment. One of these Polaroids from the past is ...

Let’s paint a picture.  You’re sitting in a small waiting room at a train station in a global, multicultural city like, say not Charleston, South Carolina, and there are people of different ethnicity around you – an African American man reading a book, a couple of white ladies listening to something on their respective iPhones, an Asian couple wearing matching Adidas sneakers with a very cute very chubby baby sleeping in a pram in front of them, and a Pakistani (or maybe Indian – let’s say South Asianish?) woman in her late 50’s. You’re scrolling through pretty photographs of everyone in the world who has a better life than you on Instagram when suddenly you smell a strong spicy, garlicky scent emanate from somewhere in the room. Instant reaction – before you look up to see who has opened up the Tupperware of spicy curry- what comes to your mind? (If you're honest you'll admit:) You think about that Pakistani lady in the corner and wonder why she had to ope...