An Ode to Chowk

Trapped in the bowels of a paper called "Dawn"

I thought, three years ago, I hadn't the strength to go on

Calling myself a writer? What a cheek! What a joke!

And then I stumbled upon the haven called Chowk.

Safwan Shah, mild mannered, gentleman extraordinaire

(He even still had almost all of his hair)

He told me about a new little site

He and his better half had worked on all day and most of the night.

It was to be, he told me with hope and with pride

A place where Pakistanis had no need to hide

Where Indians could join in, and Bangladeshis too

South Asian writers - it'd be quite a zoo!

He asked me to write and I said that I'd try

So I put pen to paper and it was quite a high

I wrote my first piece and hit 400 replies

And now I must say I think that I'm really quite fly

But I wasn't the only one to contribute to the dream

Chowk is above all, the result of a team

There were so many more that made it a hit

The winners that made it worthwhile to wade through all the sh\*t

Jawahara weaves threads that are finer than gold

Rehan tells us of Lahore, the City of Old

Shandana can shock us with laughs and with tears

Feroz is a sport - just buy him a couple of beers!

And let's not forget our friends from across the border

Who so quickly remember to put us in order

When we become a little too big for our britches

We can always enjoy calling each other sons of bitches.

The interacts are fun, too, if you can stand the dramatics

Of grammatical wizards and religious fanatics

And if your replies aren't so good, why, just mention Kashmir,

The numbers will jump through the roof, so I hear

So here's to Chowk, my favorite site any day of the week

It has something for all those who come here to seek

Good writing, solace, poetry, a flirtation or two

Let's hope Umair's dreams for a Nobel Prize winner someday come true!