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The Lake
My mother-in-law had been pining for a trip to the lake since the day she had arrived so we finally decided to drive her up there and spend a night by the lakeside this weekend. It had been a while since I and Fatima had visited the lake anyway so I pushed my workout up
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Paper Boats
I have four tabs open in Chrome. A Google Slide for a presentation coming up at work next week, a paper on macro-human factors in aviation maintenance that’s going to help me with that, a dense Cambridge university publication exploring the relationship between Marxism and Islamic Mysticism that I might give up reading halfway through,
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Abandoned Cars
My love for abandoned cars is fed by my running in urban areas. These neglected cars parked often in the leftover construction rubble, outside bodywork shops, or just in the roadside garbage dumps Karachi never seems to run short of, make for strangely nostalgic sights. These remind me of the fleetingness of the elaborate drama
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Saturday
Ever since I have ramped up my workouts and started a clean diet to get back in race shape (six-pack and all, for laypeople), my cheat day is stretched over an entire weekend during which, given my wife is very skilled at cooking, I can consume anywhere north of 2500 kcal per day. This also
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Longing for Kashmir
It was 8 Oct, yesterday. Exactly a year ago, we had left Islamabad for a fantastic trip to Kashmir. From my son to his great-grandparents, there were four generations of my family packed in a 14-seater brand-new Mitsubishi coaster that sailed effortlessly through the scenic mountains of the Northern Areas. The memories of that trip
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Quiet
Lately, I have been running out of things to write. I am drowning in my own daze. It’s almost peaceful, like death. I guess it’s one reason why people drift towards it; one less word at a time. Until their radical thoughts have dumbed and their wildest imaginations cowered into utter silence, or whimpering Yes,
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Genter
The instructor wrote ‘Genter’ on the whiteboard as some sort of innovative shorthand for ‘Generator’ which left me wondering if he had just accidentally coined the manliest word ever. Gent-er. Like butcher, fighter; only manlier. Perhaps at par with lumberjack and cowboy.
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A Walk in the Jamshed Quarters
Saadat was not an easy catch. Ever since he had left, he appeared to be on the run. Away from the familiar faces. From the dreadful “whys”. From a hauntingly good career that was bad in personal ways. From himself. Toward himself. It took me half a dozen attempts to eventually get him to see
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Rat Race
Rats are not dumb. They race into sewage tunnels to escape ominous predators lurking in the backstreets like cursed shadows of death; they nudge and bite and trip and screech and claw at each other in an ugly frenzy that ends in a mutilated body on a bad day. They race only to make sure
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Cooling Vesuvius
Having a cup of tea with you in a ramshackle dhaba by the road reminds me of Frank O’ Hara’s iconic poem, ‘Having a Coke with You.’ The cold dusk has just fallen upon the October Himalayan mountains casting their shapeless silhouettes against a lavender sky, and upon us as we hold our cups over
Eastern Vagabond
Essays on travel, cities, memory, and the unnoticed textures of the world.