sidewalk scribbling

“What’s up with them?” Fahad says, looking at a couple of Asian students rush out of the train. “Must have gotten on the wrong train,” I reply, settling down, relieved that we had found empty seats.   [Our train journey to Grantham had been spent standing because the train was so busy.   I made my way down the aisle and stood right next to the priority seating, my jacket open, sneaking sulky looks at the oblivious young people sitting there.   ‘I thought English people are supposed to be polite,’ I muttered darkly to myself.   There’s that lack of confidence in foreign countries, the penalty of leaving home where you can demand your rights a bit more hotly.] Anyways, it hasn’t been a minute and the train has just picked up speed when Fahad says, is this train going to Norwich? The next stop is Peterborough. The tiniest spark of anxiety puffs up, and I look at the blue screen confirming what Fahad said.   We are most definitely not supp...

It’s tough being a moderately well-off Pakistani millennial.   Little do you know that if you’re seemingly fortunate enough to go to one of the top universities in the country – like LUMS or IBA (inserting IBA after LUMS with a benevolent smile on my obnoxious face, because if I genuinely believed both institutes to be equal, would I even be a real Luminite?) then you’re actually setting yourself up for a lifetime of excruciating decision making.   Life becomes   really hard – choices open up like randomly labelled doors in front of us with little indication about what any of them will lead to: Behind Door No. 1 is FURTHER EDUCATION, and behind Door No. 2 is a JOB YOU MAY BE HALF QUALIFIED FOR ... Come to think of it, life after college pretty much involves a dilemma after every 1-2 years.   Do I still like this job? Am I being paid enough? Why am I still in Pakistan when half my friends and cousins are already in Dubai – or, even better, in the Western World ...

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...

It may be April and I’ve still got my Michelin man grey winter jacket out, the one that was designed for someone whose arms get colder than the rest of their body. BUT spring is in the air.   The days are longer now.   The sun sets around 7:30 PM and it's already bright outside when I wake up in the mornings. Some of the grumpy bare trees are slowly sprouting new buds – pale green buds that make one wonder what’s going to magically unfurl one day – leaves or flowers? Pink or yellow? Then there are the pale pink and white blossom trees that make you think you’re in a beautiful painting, a romantic film with no twists to the plot and just sweet uncomplicated love.   The whisper-soft petals sprinkle the green grass below or waft in a slow drizzle if the breeze blows, and every time I see them my heart flutters and peace descends. The daffodils with their bright yellow duck beaks, the tulips in shop windows and Instagram squares – it is easier to be happier in Spri...

You can tell by the sideways look your two-year-old nephew is giving the little girl playing with his up until-a-minute-ago-uninteresting plastic truck that there is a storm brewing.   “My truck,” he says loudly.   He lets go off the blocks he was playing with and looks you in the eye. “ My truck.” Toddlers, you may have noticed, have more important things to do than bother about extra adjectives or verbs (let alone something as useless as prepositions).   “MY TRUCK!!!” (It was also a toddler who created the wise saying about persistence being the key to success).      “Come on, you can share,” you may try but then thunder lightning rain and tears are upon you so you cave in to the fury of a tiny being and sheepishly cajole the little girl into giving you the truck in return for,   I don’t know, say five bucks or maybe a Barbie with shorn hair. “Here you go,” your reproachful look slides off the nephew’s adorable head like the skate...

“But seriously, don’t you think the MeToo movement is just a bit over the top?” says a 31-year-old Pakistani man with his feet up on the coffee table, flipping through the TV channels as his wife stands over the stove in the kitchen, cooking dinner.   “Well maybe- ” begins his mother only to be interrupted by his father: “Of course.   That is the problem with today’s generation.   They’re just complaining all the time and turning small things into big issues.” “Things have changed you know, I could see women crying about equal rights before but we’ve pretty much achieved equality now,” the 31-year-old man continues.   “Honey can you hurry up with the food, I’m starving!” Isn’t it delightful when you’re in the middle of a situation so saturated in irony it’s almost unbelievable that you haven’t slipped and broken a collarbone yet? It may be a difference of opinion but you know what, I don’t think equality of the sexes has been achieved – not in th...

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...