Live In

“The world outside the campus is very cruel. There are people who pass sarcastic remarks or start giving patronizing advice regarding my job, career, potential marriage” she told as they sat together

Common Sense Left Behind

The principal called her and told -“We have prepared the school-leaving certificate of your child. Please sign it and then we are free from any obligation to each other.”

Timeless

Ever so gently, he took her old fingers in his hand and uncurled them lightly. His face was now trembling, as if he were fighting a great storm inside of him

A Little After Three

I lay face down, pretending to have fallen asleep. Soon I heard random words like boy, Muslim, Sindhi, dowry, next week, dinner, and blood pressure.

Lost That Loving Feeling

Is love bound to end? Is very relationship doomed to
die a natural death at the hands of time?

It Is Raining

It is silent outside, except for the steady rain; everyone is huddled inside their rooms like us. I have my face pressed against the window.

Saawariya Targets Eternal Love

Sony Picture’s “Saawariya”, a new Bollywood-Hollywood movie is set to release in the United States and worldwide on November 9th. Based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's short story, White Nights.

Dreams of Dania

Kamran lives in the old part of Lahore, near Lahori Gate. Living there, he says, makes him feel in sync with the heartbeats of the City.

Catharsis

This house was her mother’s. This house was killing her slowly but surely. She could feel mother’s presence everywhere in every nook and corner of this house…

I can still remember . . .

your flying hair, the gay laughter
your black eyes
you and me

The Gust of Suspicion is Not So Kind

Forcing its entry like a wanton thief
It steals from Heart the jewels of belief

From Lahore with Love

Collection of poems written in Lahore, somewhat inspired by the Baba Bulleh Shah, one of the first modern poets of the Sub-Continent.

White

A lone tear escapes her eye. And burns a trail down my cheek.

He and She

She ran after him and they looked like two small kids playing in the water.

He Dared to Call His Own

He screamed and he screamed, until he was certain his lungs were forced empty of fury intermingling with paining love. And still, nobody listened.

Psychobiology of Love, Truth and Deceit

Recent advances in medical science tell us that neural systems which are responsible for emotion and intellect are separate. Here, in the ethereal world of neural synapses, emotions apparently trump reason as many times as any romantic poem or novel trium

Allama Iqbal and His Women

When we study the psychological aspect of Iqbal’s life, we find out that despite having a sensitive heart and a brilliant mind, he had to struggle against many romantic contradictions through out his life.

A Teacup in My Hand

Sonya sat at the kitchen table, early Monday morning, with a cup of hot tea. She had some time to herself before setting off to battle her job, and the tensions that went with the package.

To Have Loved and Lost

I learnt to distinguish between sincere and leering eyes of men, jealous and envious looks of women, how to notice small changes in women’s body, demeanor and how to interpret it

A Failed Romance

He was a swarthy, handsome lad with a respectable height, husky voice and a boyish, round face. His name was Mustafa and he was proud of it.

A Cold, Rainy November Night....

His impassive, vacant eyes did not seem to contain anything anymore, not tears, not sight not even the slightest hint of a desire to live

Obsessions

Jasmines in Colorado (final part)

Nothing in life had prepared me for the past four months. The highs and the lows; the excitement and the pains; and most of all, the truths and the lies. I feel like an amateur caught in a world made for professionals...

Foreigner in My Land

I have discovered life again and again by doing things people feared the most. I was told by a Pakistani consultant living a prosperous life in Saudi Arabia that Pakistan has nothing to offer. It is full of corruption and most of the youth don’t get

Proposal

I feel like a piece of paper flowing with the waves of water

Story of the Night

They had known each other forever, and they loved each other more than any family ever could. Love sometimes transcends even romance. It moves beyond man and woman, here and now. It’s a bond that ties you to someone so hard, that even if you aren

Thanking and Complaining-

Alka and Ulka

Composed and appearing a bit contrite, fresh ticket with her correct name on the table in front of her, the beautiful lady said, “I’m sorry for creating a scene, but I get very upset when I’m called Alka instead of Ulka.”

My memories-

. I wanted to write on stuff I miss about Szabist, stuff that has made me smile, laugh, frown, cry and at times raging mad.

Cyber Love

Online shopping is attractive because a lot of products of different brands, packages and prices are easily obtainable. The same is true of Internet dating. A wide variety of individuals are available

The Balloon Seller

Chutki fondles its sand-ridden scabby skin. Rani responds with an effusive wagging of it’s balding tail. Dog and girl sit together for sometime. With a brisk movement Rani aims at one of the balloons

Love is when

Love, lov n all love

Loveless in London

The lech of Longing leers, the lust for love seduces her sinless spirit.

Personal Ads

These are bound to work (99% of the time)! Enjoy!

The Minute After the Demise

Most people get casual headaches or heartburn, I suffer from random depression

To Hold Up the Floor

How gently you knock when your blood
courses underneath, can you teach me that?

Opaque Particles of Sunlit Sand

omnipresent, the eyes shift naturally
and we envisage a future with crimson skies
she whispers words of irrevocable honesty
and we follow each other into the sea

Vandalism

'How do people walk on stars?' The question caught me off guard. Smiling my most enigmatic smile, I said, 'Bare feet.'

Four Poets: Four Poems

Perfect Moment by Imran Khan
My Soulmate by Asma Fikri
The Way You Loved Me... by Niranjan Regmi
Behold by Fahd Butt

I miss you

She sat in the dark listening to the clock ticking away trying to get rid of the deep grief she was feeling. Turning her head she stared down at the empty space beside her and felt her sorrow claw at her insides.

anti-depressant

come give me little deaths
stroke my pain
silence will come
encore

Away and Far Away...

What is life I ask the One
If life is love I have got one
If thou didn’t come and hold me well
What life is worth, I’d rather have none

The First or the Last Letter

I have considered what will I do with you and what will I do without you? I guess it is time that I find an answer to one of these questions and leave the other alone.

More Tales of Sufi Wisdom

Onlookers were amazed, the venerable old Sufi kneeling next to the stray dog

Dusk

Dusk prays for me to transform. Out the pavement through the sliding doors of life into a crowded capsule of deafening music and empty conversation. Your spirit shaped with rumors; a cesspool of redundant make-do conversation.

Visitor

He didn’t know what he’d say, but he couldn’t wait to see her. Now all he wanted to do was fall into bed and close his eyes, wake up in his bedroom back home. He got up.

Unpoet

float and fall like flakes
one after another
in a suffocating embrace
to the ground
unloved and undead

A Fobby Love Story

My love vocabulary increased tenfold here, with words like relationship (it was always love, what the hell is a relationship?), breakups (no breakups in pakistan, either you marry the girl or her parents marry her to someone else), ex ...

Nowhere

Sorrow screams inside the caves of silence. Time boils in the vat of anticipation.

Dark Places

Helena’s story rekindled some age-old longing that had been put away in a back corner of my heart. A love I had shut out in pursuit of education, in pursuit of foreign places and exotica.

Down the Memory Lane

Today since morning, your cute face is flashing up in my mind every now and then. Your bright eyes, snub nose, shiny black hair and strong built body...

Oh So Vicious

She had instructed me to stay away from him because she really liked him. She was only joking about how he was the type that I usually went for. She was one of my close friends; a little boy sacrifice from my side wasn’t a big deal- at that point.

Asoka

I’m sitting and rubbing my back, smiling.
I want it to hurt.

Somebody’s Done For

I am very pleased today because all the servants of the house got a scolding. Look at me, I have never been scolded.

Premala ka Pyar

She waited with patient resoluteness for the rising sun as he slept with his fingers entwined deeply in her hair…

Sometimes…

A translation of Sahir Ludhiyanvi’s Urdu poem, “Kabhi Kabhi”

The Baby...

Sometimes he was unable to hide his impatience with her when he came home from his job at the pharmacy and saw her sitting in the same hunched over position as he had left her that morning.

Eternal Love

He had always felt her presence. She was there with him, in him, by him.. She was inside of him. She was him. And he was her. Collectively, they were a living yellow that which becomes, or is, with a natural unavoidable union of blue and green. It was wri

Aloo Gobi for the Choosy

After years of nagging and ominous reminders that if I didn’t learn how to cook I would be considered an uncultured specimen of the female desi specimens

Punching Bag

“Yah, I don’t think I’ll want to die before meeting you either,” he laughed and added, “are you sure you will be able to recognize me, just from my photos, that I e-mailed you? I don’t want you to run away with someone

Still in Love

If you just hold me the way I want you to
I would spare you the cruelty
Of being in love with you

Strangers Upon Meeting

Ama thinks I am with Fahad and Fahad thinks I am with Ash. Perfect. I park the car outside Meer’s house and opened the rusty gate. The main door was slightly ajar and I inwardly prayed that his mother wouldn’t be around.

What Dreams Are Made Up Of

I will disappear from your sight, but I’ll always be sneaking glances at you whenever I can. I will never call you but your voice will be playing in my head everyday. I will never write to you but will imagine what you are doing at every minute of

The Nightingale’s Feather!

He ran as if his life was meant for running. His mind was blank, not a single thought; his face was cold, not a single emotion.

Synchronicity (Novella part 2 of 2)

..in my restless dreams...I shall await you... forever..

History of the World

See, I always wanted to save my boys
from ending, from breathing, from stifling themselves.
But they don’t last – that’s what I’ve found –

Synchronicity (Novella part 1 of 2)

'I wont tell you to remember me, but I cant bear for you to forget me..'

Two Poems

I walk around the house, restoring solitude
From room to room, only to find your smile
Wrapped around my hand, opening doors.

Of Eros and Erosion

Jelaluddine Rumi, the 13th century Muslim poet and mystic wrote, “Love is reckless, risks everything and asks for nothing, having died to self interest”.

City Connection

It was at the FTC intersection on Sharah-e-Faisal when Bilal looked out of the window and saw her sitting in her shiny new gray Civic.

The Lost One

And watching his broad back getting smaller and smaller, Priya becomes aware, that some mighty power, somewhere long back, in a fit of cruelty, has seared one name deep on her heart............. Angad.

Yavanika

Yavanika – “yauvan ki rani” literally the queen of youth

Firefly

in my ear, your voice is friendly, bantering, teasing
I close my eyes and make a wish,
not on any star but on my tiny jugnu...

Pocket Days

Will he turn around to see if I look
Or be on his way, a signal mistook?
Her eyes meet mine, but not a smile
She puts my heart back in denial.

You and I

Do you remember,
The many times I entertained You and myself with a caustic monologue
You were my only audience and the victim of my diatribe
You never spoke once, but I heard You all the while

Solace

My eyes fail the fight to remain closed. I can hear the muezzin just finishing the druud-o-salaam before he begins waking those who are faithfully asleep.

Half a Night

...you bleed her bits and call her a bitch? Roll over, dog.

Tears of a Broken Heart

May you never be, in your lover’s arms

Prudent Rosy Knew My Vital Signs

There are other men too…thousands… passionate… but smoldering like soaked wood… plenty of smoke to burn others eyes but not enough heat to warm one heart -… Sami…. promise me you’ll never change.

Hold Karain! Movie Bun Rahee Hai!

Flashes go off from around the room as friends and relatives try to greedily capture the moment through their lens while those looking on blink their eyes from the glare. Soft music is being played in the background ...

How’s It Gonna Be

He saw her, recognized her – and turned away. Time doesn’t stop, background voices don’t fade away. But they did. They did fade away and those few seconds stretched forever.

Translucence

So come, search me
Who knows what we’ll discover
About you
About me

Yom Kippur 5764/Flight

I am surrounded.
I have no wings and no claws
to fly and dig my way
out of you.

In a Glass of Red Wine

I bend down and pick up the largest, the brightest shard of glass from the glittering gems by my feet. I can see the shadow of red gleaming along its edges. Definitely a sign. In each piece of glass I am someone else. Every reflection of me is a reflectio

Basement

Don’t know where you came from and where you went afterwards. I only knew that my house was in your way, and you were always thirsty whenever you passed it.

i see red

reverberates around, bouncing off walls, windows, boundaries: echoing inside a dungeon

Indifference and Difference

Has Shampa started liking him? She hasn’t told him though. Could she be in love with him? The difference between their ages is hard to ignore...

Kahan Se Aap Zamaney Ke Bad Aye Hain

When I first saw her she was about fifteen. I was in Senior Cambridge. We lived in a Catholic hostel where it was compulsory to attend the morning Mass at dawn, six days a week...

Lipstick Scars

Of Love unto lovers, Of Guilt unto sinners, Of fate unto suckers

The Myth Of Three Words.

'Only if life had been so much blissful, I would have just sat and cried!”

Paradise Tea Shoppe

Hate was perhaps too strong a word, but then again it appeared to originate from Love. Afterall you can only hate a person you love. Otherwise, why would you care?

A Black Spot

There is a black spot at the centre of his heart. Actually, it is a little bit to the left

Unsent

Oh well, my wondering about all these what-ifs is absolutely pointless because now I have to stick to the choices I had made three-plus years ago when my mind was still unformed

She Loves Me? She Loves Me NOT!

As a teenager, I came to realize for the first time that love stories can transpire in real life as well. It happened after one of my school friends fell in love with a girl in another class

Spell Undone

Gone are the days
Of you and I
The spell in undone
The magic died

Confessions of the Average Joe

She was Maya, or more precisely, she is Maya. I am me; I remain nameless, because it doesn’t matter. I saw her the first time when we entered college

The Rumi of Kashmir: Mian Muhammad Bakhsh Qadiri (may his secret be sanctified!)

even the illiterate peasants often know whole chunks of it by heart

Ali G and his Bling - Bling

The first time I came across Ali G was in.....

The Recompense

Ten years ago, when Samina had come to Shakeel’s house in her bridal finery, she dreamt of a happy family life amid a brood of children.

My Beautiful Rizwan

Such was the overpowering presence in my life, of Rizwan - my husband, my friend, my soulmate, my shaheed.

From Childhood to Youth

translation

The Desert of Barren Hate

For the children of palestine...

Under the Hill (part 1)

Do not enter, for you may not like what you will find...

Dear Aliya!

Dear Aliya

Aurangzeb The Nude

Religions, Violence, Justice

Frost Bite

Music in Pakistan

I can tell you hundreds of naats and hamds, which have been composed in raags

An Interview with Govind Nihalani

For Hindi film buffs, Govind Nihalani needs no introduction.

The Infidel

Translated from Urdu, Ismat Chughtai’s short story ‘Kafir’

Forty Winks

Where do you draw the line between fantasy and reality?

Agent Pinkyfeld

the glamorous life of a Hindu Jewish spy

And then God Spoke!

I would like to share with you something that happened to me some time ago.

Resurrection

That night he dreamt of her hands again. They threaded small, white buds of the queen of the night into long strands. And wove them around his heart.

Midnight's Knights?

Both Rushdie and Naipaul belong to the streets. They are clinging to roots they have no claims over.

The Case For and Against The Satanic Verses

Evaluating Diatribe and Dialectic as Art

Saveray Jo Kal Aankh Meri Khuli

When a jackal is hounded by death, he heads towards the city...

Shammo’s Curse

falling out of love is easy if the foundations are weak

Jealous

Call me a jealous guy? I admit it.

The Music Of The Song Of Life

Everyone knew there was something seriously wrong with it

Sohail Rana: Musings on music

His adorers are surrounded by a lifetime of numerous memories of his immortal compositions.

In Celebration of Ramadan (Part 1): Ala Hazrat’s Poem About The Onset of Ramadan

O’Saqi, I will forever be yours, bring me some wine, Ramadan has come!

Obscure Conclave

the world spins out of my desperate grasp

The Wave

The future is ELECTronIC...

Nasreen

Translated from Urdu, a story by Shafiq-ur-Rehman

Wagah and Thandi Hawa

The Discovery

A young office worker makes a discovery

Don Shultz

He was a thin dangling creature nearing eighty

His Hurry

I had my gut punched for being brown

Love

Love, he says, I’ve trapped it in a bottle.

Search for Identity -1, Saeed Anjum’s Short Stories

The day you kill me.
in my pocket you will find
a ticket to Loveland.

From The Table

You can’t dance around or over me, cannot provoke me, arouse me or hear the scream of my soul.

Crazy Night

Which once blossomed with delicious fruit

A Father’s Letter To Daughter: A short story

whichever clan rules the earth, I shall always be the outsider

Top Ten South Asian Pieces of Music

What to take in the event of natural disaster

The Virgin Bride

The idea of doing that with some sophisticated American bombshell...was paralyzing

Heart of Silence in the Place of Chaos

Two months later she found out he got married to a suitable girl

The Evolution of Urdu Literature in the 20th Century

Literature is the narration of time

The Shah of Chicago II

the place was thick with smugglers and heroin factories

Loves loved {some not so loved}

My future has been flirting with his past

Ode to Sisyphus in Love

do not let yourself fall in love with ice

A Little Death

Money we protect

A Tyre In E Flat

Five year old boy drowns in the lake ...

Nothing’s Forever

An ’epic’ poem on life, love, relationships etc.

They Changed My God

I do not know how God is related to me

Spew

the city staggered to its feet like a dazed Cockroach

Brocade

Like a worm they have crept inside my perfect daughter’s heart and mind

Beating the Donkey

The Minister roared from the ground

For a few words of love

my god is better than yours

Ganapathy and The Drillmaster

Ganapathy loved food. In any form, shape or size

Ismat Chughtai’s Autobiography -- A Transalation

Let her, said my father

My First Love

your pain, my pain

Basic Levels of Awareness

...Do We Really Know What We Don’t?

Touch

In the West, by the way, that is where our son will eventually go to study...they brutally electrocute an animal to death...

Conversations with the Indignant Dead

I remember two things about my father before he shot himself

To Western Women

from a muslim woman

Remember my sweet?

a lifetime away, in a world long gone by

Calendarical Sense

What has cricket got to do with my problem?

Let’s talk about Bollywood

While many people would rather drown in a nearby lake than admit that they watch Bollywood movies...

Autobiography of a Forgotten Indian

Our story is set in 13th century Delhi

Her Other Self

Why did she wake up in nightmarish sweats chased by dark fears?

Fate

What happened to you, my friend?

Close Encounters of the Musician Kind

I can’t believe you told Eddie Vedder, he couldn’t sing

Days and Nights on the Grand Trunk Road: A Review

the future of most Indians looked like hell

Threads - Part 2

the city she would greedily crave for after she left

Deprivation

This is my story. Leave me and you die

Reshma: Voice of Mother Earth

The voice of Reshma is the voice of Mother Earth

Misty-fying Haze

Thoughts on a poetry recital at The Cafe Blue

Threads (Part I)

He wasn’t that bad, for a desi man.

Fishhooks

Some men are like fishhooks. They slide so easily into the softest flesh they find

For S

A love poem

Why Did Led Zeppelin Name the Song Kashmir?

A tongue-in-cheek look at a song that is ostensibly related to South Asia ...

Looking Through Glass

... he serves on M.A Jinnah and, yes, pops the question ...

Peter Pan

In circles flow all the great rivers of our hearts

Full Moon on the Ganges

Night time on a cremation ground, among the bones and the spirits.

Justa Simple Sad Poem

Tears congealed into words

Dancing in the ruins

...they say the aura of a person is imprinted on a place where they have lived.

A Courier With Urgent News

Out there, up there somewhere is tomorrow and tomorrow will make today okay

Conversation with Mukul Kesavan

What was your Akbar S. Ahmed thinking casting Christopher Lee as Jinnah

Talha el Ghafoor

The redutio ad absurdum of an average man’s life in the best of all possible worlds.

Vanishing Point

... if by chance our lives, unmolested, had been allowed to continue

Khodoki

Down and out in Leninsk, Kazakhistan: an old technician at Russia’s largest spaceport

India Day Parade on Madison Avenue

it is special here every day.

Incantation

Where intelligence can be enhanced with expensive pharmaceuticals, a poor boy needs an alternative medicine

The Life Hereafter

And just when we shelter under death, life comes at us sideways

Leaving so soon?

You want to soar free and I will let you go.

When Colours Fade....

Come to ease my sorrow! Come and set me free!

Until the End of Time

For centuries I have been roaming the earth.
I’m a nomad, a drifter, a mohajir by birth.

Calligraphy of Coils

A conversation with Kashmiri poet Agha Shahid Ali

The Friend

To those who think in worldly terms
This search confounds all reason....

A Fallen Man

An unexpected encounter on a cold winter’s morning in Minneapolis.

Water Buffaloes

...I could probably use a shave, but I’ve got on this outrageously expensive shirt from the A/X that makes up for any other visual short-comings.

Azadi

A woman in Tehran intervenes when her husband becomes a smuggler of alcohol

Me and My Creator

We have a strange relationship, my creator and I.

Diary of an Agnostic

In my time I have been an inveterate but shallow reader. Everything I have read has shaped me and I can’t quote any of it.

Tania

Tania. He has looks, he has a BMW, he has all the girls he can handle, said Saadia beginning to wrap the phone cord around her fingers.

Lest It Spread into the World

I and you will go together down the hill …

Threadbare

Its a little lump of cloth pulled from the weave, rough when my fingers glide over it

My Fallible Lord

And do you think the big man upstairs is satisfied with his creation?

Pygmalion Revisited

Yes! you have given me life…

The MIT Commencement Mystery, and Other Stories

Did Kurt Vonnegut pay Mary Schmish to write the MIT commencement speech for Kofi Annan? Well...

Faani Here Baaqi There

From the Kew Continuum comes a eulogy for the late, great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Dies at 49

Ustaad Nusrat’s sudden death shocks the world. Read the tributes; add your thoughts.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under a Nightclub

Going well beneath the glossy surface.

Fifty Years of Pakistan Cricket: A Look Back

Take a long, relishing look back at Pakistan Cricket.

The Stop Sign

If you have never seen this road sign, are you sure you are awake?

The Present Age

A Revolutionary Age is an age of action; the present age is an age of advertisement, or an age of publicity: nothing happens, but there is instant publicity about it.