The In-Betweens

I wake up every morning, unnaturally, with the sound of the alarm or the touch of my daughter climbing into the bed next to me, usually not rested and with a feeling of heaviness in my limbs - another day, satisfyingly predictable, but too full, always, always too full like a cloth sack stretched taut across its seams, bulging and swelling in places, oddly angular in others. It is those first few moments in the morning when I am still wrapped in my fleece blanket with one arm circling my daughter that I am filled with penetrating sadness and self-pity. There is no good reason for this. It is the idea of getting out of my bed that fills me with such dread. Those minutes with the world utterly quiet around us, the drone of the heating system starting and halting, the muted light of dawn filtering in patches through the window, all the worries of real life still so far away from my consciousness that they seem non-existent - it is these first few minutes of wakefulness that make me want to cry over the predicament I am in, namely that of being gainfully employed, because this singular fact dictates the interruption of my serenity. I know this must sound a bit ungrateful. I do love my job, but in the haze of broken sleep, I am simply not yet aware of this fact. By the by, however, strength returns to me. I rise. I move sluggishly around the house. Get ready. Get on the road. For an hour on the freeway with a good book playing in the car, I share the loss and elation of each protagonist while day breaks around me and mountains loom on the horizon. That's when I realize this will be another good day. 

I used to measure life in units of months and years. I used to think it was evident in accomplishments and failures, in daunting times, dark days, in celebrations, and milestones. I thought of life in discrete units of time pivoted on one or another focal point - the years before I came to America and the years after; the years before I had Jahan and the years after; the years before someone died and the years after; the years before I got married and the years after; the years of Davis; the years of Stanford; the years of Lahore; the years before my brother was born and the years after. I thought somehow life existed only in these focal points, these events, harbingers of significant change, and it radiated outwards from these nuclei, weakening in strength until its concentric orbit collided with another life event. Hopefully this picture will help in illustrating what I am trying to say.

The years are beginning to feel short now. If you asked me to name one major milestone of 2013, I would probably pause for a long time. A lot happened this year, certainly, but what of real significance? When you reach a certain age, late twenties, early thirties, I think you begin to get somewhat suspicious of significant events. By this time, you've witnessed death - someone close to you has died - grandparents, friends, family members. You begin to turn your ringtone off at night, partly because you want to sleep undisturbed, and partly because if it's bad news, you don't want to hear it. Then, if you don't answer the phone, it didn't happen. When one of my sisters gets the time difference wrong and I see her name blinking on my phone at an odd hour, I immediately ask, "Is everything OK?" By this age, one or both of your parents have probably had a brush with a serious illness. If your parents are living far away from you, the serious illness sounds even more sinister than it would if you could oversee their medical care yourself. You know, for instance, that dengue fever could kill your mother because her blood group is AB negative and the blood bank in Lahore never has it on site. You know that your father has had a TIA and if he doesn't take care of himself, another could follow. You know you mother has battled with cancer and won, and you know that the sneaky bastard could come back and there's nothing you can do about it. You also know that it could be waiting patiently inside you to proliferate at age 47 - when your mother was diagnosed - or sooner. It is at this age then, your third decade or thereabouts, that you start looking at cuts and bruises more carefully. What is this new ache in the small of your back? Was it there last week? Why does your daughter have a bruise on her leg? Did it appear for no reason, or did she take a fall? You observe her in school. She runs too fast and collides with things. You breathe a sigh of relief, but you don't stop worrying. You never stop worrying. Your perfect picture of the definition of life, that it ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes, peaks and troughs, is disintegrating. Life could never be so clean, so predictable, so measurable. 

Life is not present in the major events your memory draws you to when you ruminate in quiet moments. Life, instead, is in the in-betweens. It is in the lull. It is in the time that stretches from one nucleus of an event in picture above to another. It is maybe not in the picture I have drawn at all. It is mostly absent from any recollections and stories you are able to create about the way you have lived. It really exists in the moments before the fateful phone call or after it, because inside that particular time capsule, the seconds or minutes or days or weeks it takes for you to fall into and rise out of a tragedy or triumph, there is a sense of time having stopped, and therefore life having stopped. Life exists in the unremarkable observation of exhaustion I make every morning. It is in the curve of my baby's small body as she presses her little head underneath my chin. It is in the long drive to work, the long drive back from work, when I smile upon hearing a good line or gasp at a turn in the plot. It is in the long phone calls with family during which we irritably ask each other, "Aur sunao" ("Tell me something else...") because we've told each other everything, and there is nothing else of note to discuss. Life is in the satisfaction of each other's company, just knowing that we are listening to each other, we are still here, everything is good. It is in all the days, back to back to back, that begin and end the same way. Life is in the sameness rather than the difference of things, and I am living it all the time. 

Photos by Rebecca McCue

Defining Principles

prin·ci·ple

noun: principle; plural noun: principles

a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.

It is a hard truth to stomach when you are made to realize that no matter how loudly you toot the horn of “your principles,” you are not in fact living by them. If in fact, you were living by the principles you hold so dear, maybe you wouldn’t be in the house you are in, maybe you wouldn’t be married to the person you’re married to, maybe you wouldn’t even hold dear the possessions you presently prize. No matter how hard I try to reason with other people, vehemently and often quite belligerently, in order to elucidate my principles and beliefs and all the things that are wrong with “the system” in terms of discrimination on the bases of religion, caste, color, wealth, gender, and other such constructs, I am in fact living in “the system,” and haven’t done anything to discourage these discriminatory behaviors around me other than speaking against them, which in itself is a little hypocritical, isn’t it, for I am talking against something, but still living by it. Am I even allowed to call these ideas my principles then, if a significant portion of the above definition is absent, that is, while I use these grand ideas as a belief system, they don’t often translate into my behavior by virtue of the limitations I have in my present situation and my actual origin. 

Let’s state facts. Who am I? I am a 28-year-old woman, born and raised in Pakistan until the age of 18. I moved to America for a college education ten years ago. I left behind my parents, two sisters, and a brother. I am married to a Pakistani man, whom I fell in love with while we were both living in Lahore, Pakistan. He also moved to the United States to go to college and left behind his parents and two sisters. We have a daughter, a child of Pakistani immigrants born in America – by definition, a Pakistani-American. What are my principles? It is hard to define what these are succinctly and comprehensively. I believe in the basics – you know, like all good people, don’t lie, cheat, or steal. Don’t screw someone over for your personal gain, give charity, et cetera, et cetera. 

But let’s face it. I didn’t start this post to go on and on about the basics, did I? Something sparked me into action here and it wasn’t the one white lie I told yesterday, so it couldn’t be the discrepancy between my belief of not lying and the actual practice of doing precisely that. No, it’s something bigger than this. While speaking with someone about how unhappy I become when I have to defend my principles of fairness and gender equality among primarily Pakistanis, the response given to me intimated that if I really wanted to live by my principles, then I shouldn’t even be married to my husband, should I, because in fact we disagree on some fundamental issues. Essentially, my life as I am living it does not show that I am living by the principles I claim to hold so dear. Let me take a step back here. Gender inequality exists everywhere, including America. I was talking about specific things that I have witnessed in the Pakistani culture, like the expectation from a woman to sever all but the most formal and superficial of ties with her family after marriage, because her allegiance now should rightfully be with her married family. I’m sorry, I call bullshit. And this particular act of calling bullshit is under question here. If I am so concerned about a particular expectation that is ever present in my culture, then why am I married to a Pakistani man, who may actually support this very ideology (he doesn’t and neither does his family)? Why am I not living by my principles rather than simply talking very loudly and very ineffectually of possessing them?

Let me tell you why. This has been an uphill climb for me, even to reach a point where I can very openly and without worrying about consequences, voice my opinion about the gender inequality issue – you could perhaps call me an accidental feminist. One fine day, I suddenly started to voice my counter-arguments about this very issue in polite company and I haven’t looked back since. I have faced a few things in my life. I have witnessed injustices that women very close to me withstood only because they were too afraid of the alternative. Loneliness. Divorce. Stigma. “A woman alone has no respect in society,” I have heard reasonable, educated, modern  women utter this. “If a girl is not married, she has no future.” “There is no man that does not push around his wife. It’s completely normal.” We are made to realize that our men do us favors by accommodating us in their lives. “You are so lucky.” No, let me tell you why the vast majority of us are the exact opposite of lucky. In Pakistan, a male-child is a coveted blessing of God. A girl-child is a burden. Yes, even now in the 21^st century. I have been so conditioned by this very idea that when the ultrasound technician told me that I was pregnant with a baby girl, I told him to “check again.” This single, almost inadvertent act of ignorance is the most shameful moment of my life. I do not believe that my daughter is lesser in any way than a boy. Yet, I uttered those two words in that small office. If this is not social conditioning, I don’t know what is. It was not a temporary lapse in the practice of my principles. That weak moment in the hospital was a lapse in conscious thinking. 

It’s like scaling a mountain, you see. It’s treacherous and back-breaking. Sometimes I stumble backwards, and I have to reevaluate my approach, but I am working towards a goal to reach the apex. I want to one day be able to say without reservation exactly what I think of the unrealistic expectations society has of women. I want to tell self-important looking Pakistani aunties with their opinionated first-born sons in tow to wait and think about what they are saying. Do they really mean to say that their son is better than someone else’s daughter or even their own daughter? Do they really believe that a woman is successful only if she is able to secure a well-suited groom? Do they really think that a battered woman should continue living with her husband because “he doesn’t mean it” or “she drove him to do it” or “he was just rough-housing?” Are we ever going to be free of the traditional gender roles that require us to cook and clean and keep house and change diapers and raise sons so that they think they are invincible and raise daughters with a sense of submission? I didn’t lie when I said that it is like scaling a mountain. I don’t always vocalize my discontent, and conversely, sometimes I yell and scream about it. I am an amateur at this. I am learning along the way. All I know is that I cannot support these ridiculous notions. I simply cannot – being a woman, being the mother of a girl – I cannot overlook these ideas that have penetrated into the very fabric of society like a systemic infection.

I also know that sometimes I do not live by the principles I claim to have – I stay silent, I give in to something, I overlook or shy away.  There are many ways in which we do not live by our principles. Does that mean we should stop having a belief system? If I am married to a Pakistani man, for instance, am I not allowed to criticize the expectations and ideas surrounding marriage in Pakistan? Do I have to sit down with my husband and parse out every last detail of what we disagree on before I can voice my opinions about subjugation, misogyny, and gender inequality? I don’t think so. I am going to continue to talk about the principles I believe in, the principles I would one day like to live by even if they are not reflected in my current way of life. Or maybe I won’t talk about them and continue to write about them here in this space, because this, at least, virtual as it may be, is my own.  

Christmas Through the Years

I cannot recall now if the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Lahore, the beautiful and imposing building I came to love during my childhood and early adolescent years of schooling, had a Christmas tree every December. When I close my eyes, I can see the beautiful red satin bow that appeared on the door of the main hall (a room I imagine every time I read about the Great Hall of Hogwarts) during the month of December. I cannot decide whether there used to be a Christmas tree somewhere on the grounds or not - I can picture a Christmas tree when I try to think back, but I don't know if it is a true memory or something that I have crafted after seeing hundreds of well-decorated trees around me over the years. I do remember clearly, however, peeping into the main hall when classes were in session, or passing by one of the audio/visual rooms and seeing the Christmas play preparation by the Catholic students. 

I have always loved this time of year. I am not sure now if it felt as festive back home - too many years have passed and my memory is rusty. I feel as though Lahore used to light up from within during December, maybe because this month coincided with the settlement of winter in the city. A thick fog became ever present in the evenings. Roadside stands opened up, selling everything from toasted peanuts to hunter beef. Street vendors sold walnuts and pine nuts and raisins by the kilo. Chai-sellers boosted their sales, too. Chicken corn soup stands sprouted up overnight in marketplaces. On Christmas Eve, my father used to buy cakes from the local bakery and we would drive to one of the local churches to visit his friend, Father Morris after evening mass and distribute the cakes. One year, my father bought a beautiful crystal slab with a sterling silver cross embedded into it. I presented it to one of my teachers as a Christmas gift who was overjoyed by it. I only have a handful of these memories, but they still fill me with so much warmth and comfort. Just thinking about the great airy corridors and verandahs of the school fills me with a sense of security. 

When I first moved to America, I started helping out a family friend with her business at the mall while taking classes full-time. I memorized all the Christmas songs on the track that was played from 9AM to 10PM every day in the mall as I worked. I began to hum "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer" absentmindedly at home. Some days I worked well past midnight preparing orders for customers. For two consecutive years, I stayed in the mall until the small hours on Christmas Eve. On those days especially, even with so much Christmas cheer around me, I found myself wishing to be transported to the simpler days of childhood, for the cobbled pathways and perfectly manicured lawns of the Convent and the small L-shaped cafeteria counter where I used to buy my lunch every day. The girls used to call all the men serving at the counter by the same name: "Bernard." Perhaps the man who worked there many years ago was called Bernard, and the name just became associated with whoever was behind that counter. Generations of girls probably called different men "Bernard." Simple times.

Christmas in Utah

UC Davis

I stopped working at the mall during my junior year because of my upper division class-load and plant science research. During the last two years of college, I spent my Christmas break in the lab, extracting DNA and doing PCR and watching ABC's 25 days of Christmas every evening. One year, I went with my college roommate, who has been nothing less than big sister to me, to Logan, Utah to visit her parents. It was the first time I saw real fresh powdery snow, a blanket of it all around me. My roommate, Haena, and her mom made me warm and satisfying meals and we spent long mornings underneath quilts watching Korean dramas. On Christmas Eve, we went to the church and Haena's father, the pastor, introduced me to the congregation. We prayed. They sang. It was beautiful and touching (and so, so, so cold outside - I don't think I have ever worn that many layers. Living in California has spoiled me).

Photo by Rebecca McCue

The other day, while talking about Christmas at work, I suddenly realized that we are already two weeks into the month of December, and I have not had the time to watch a single cheesy made-for-TV Christmas movie! I have come to associate the month of December with general laziness, shopping, and watching television and films guilt-free. I am only now realizing, during my third December with Jahan, that the Christmas season has once again undergone a profound change for me. This year, I will watch all my favorite movies during my two weeks off from work. "Love, Actually" will probably be played multiple times along with "Home Alone." But I am also looking forward to doing a great deal of thinking and writing - an annual winter organization of thoughts and ideas, so to speak - a quiet and reflective Christmas break.

Tell me something...

Two readers (family members) have complained that I talk way too much about my family and friends in this space. The underlying exclamation that I translated was that Goll Gappay is become repetitive and boring. Well, I want to ask you, is it?

What happens when I run out of things to say? And I am talking about big, inspirational things - things that will make a difference, things that will make you all say, "Yes, I feel this way, too," or "No, I don't feel this way, but I get that perspective." Do I just become quiet and the half dozen or so readers I have acquired drift away? Does it make a difference to anyone other than myself if no new words appear on these virtual pages? I am really trying to work through this. When I describe Goll Gappay, I often use the line "Little matters that matter," because it really is a collection of events and stories that matter, that may be insignificant but deserve to be told and shared. That was what I envisioned this blog to be. Am I losing this vision?

Why do I write so often about my family and friends? It's a valid question, really. I think the reason my posts so often circle back to family and close friends is because these relationships play a very important role in determining the type of inspiration I get for my writing. I am, quite unapologetically, a homebody. I am entirely unadventurous. My idea of a perfect afternoon is lounging on the sofa with a cup of coffee and a good book. I get my sense of nature by watching rain from the window, or by looking at the hills that seemingly undulate on the horizon. Even before we had Jahan, my husband and I spent our weekends relaxing at home, watching movies, reading, and cooking. We both just loved being in each other's company, and that was enough for us. We weren't hermits, but we didn't seek out big groups or busy venues to get a sense of fulfillment. We were both, to put simply, enough for each other. This still remains the case with the substantial modification of having a cute little toddler who loves to run around and explore, so now we do seek out parks and bookstores and child-friendly restaurants. 

If you are like me and are juggling work and family and writing and have no inclination to go and find inspiring stories, then you seek inspiration within, and you realize that it's really all around you. There is not just inspiration around me, you see. There is also goodness, and I am very, very grateful for this. I am in the company of good and interesting people. We are ordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell. Where else are you going to find a Pakistani woman who writes about a city she left over a decade ago and a city she hasn't yet fully discovered even after a decade? Who else is poised to tell the stories that I am telling here? Stories about acculturation and alienation and immigration and middle-class Pakistan and middle-class America and raising a first-generation American (or is my baby second-generation?) and confusion and finding meaning in mundanities and making the ordinary extraordinary and drive and passion and potential and success and challenges and disappointments and love and life and people and distance and loss and laughter and disaster and recovery and support and...family...and friendship...


To me, these stories are worth being told. Maybe I tell the same story in different ways sometimes. Maybe I keep going back to certain things, some little matters that matter, truly, to me. And I shall go on telling them so long as you're there to listen. Are you?

Photos by Rebecca McCue

Pickled Shrimp and Letting Things Pickle

It is not always easy for me to let things go. In fact, I have often been criticized on my habit of holding on to emotionally charged exchanges, incidents, memories, and outbursts for an unhealthy length of time. It is hard to explain, but I am not dominated by the moments I am not letting go of; they are not holding me captive. I would submit that it is, in fact, the other way around. I am safekeeping them to remind myself not to invest too much again, not to make the same choices that led to emotional meltdowns of the sort I am guarding, and most importantly, not to allow anyone or anything unravel my composure for reasons that really don't warrant such a reaction. 

I find then - in keeping these moments alight in my memory - that at some point or another, I find a lesson or two to savor from them and let the bitterness go. They pickle, so to speak, instead of stewing. It is a different kind of mental energy that goes into this specific effort, you see. When I let certain things stew, there is a conscious fire of resentment burning under that particular cauldron. Unpleasantness is bubbling and brewing and cooking and sputtering. It has, shall we say, rather different consequences that do not always result in amicable discussions. Stewing has its purpose however, and I try to reserve such a reaction for people who really matter to me. I let grievances concerning my loved ones stew so that they can bubble over, we can air our differences, and be done with the whole irksome business and move on. For subtler things, however, such as hurts I encounter without the intention of the one causing it, inadvertent misadventures of the heart let's call them, need a markedly different treatment.


Making Bon Appetit magazine's Pickled Shrimp was a quick and delicious substitute to cooking an elaborate meal, and thinking about the write-up I wanted to accompany this food post with made me think long and hard about 'pickling.' You take something raw, put it in different spices and oils and juices and what-have-you in mason or earthenware jars (or a bowl, like I did), and then you put it in a corner for a predetermined length of time. Lo and behold! When you open the jar, you have perfectly pickled, savory, special-somethings. 

It's kind of like that when I file things away, or if you really want me to tell you the full truth, hold on to them when I should really just forget them and move on. But pickling, like stewing, also has a purpose. I put these disagreeable events in a jar with helpful facts (it was not intentional, they really are good people, everyone makes mistakes, et cetera), and leave them there for a while. Eventually, I find that the event loses its rawness and takes on the flavor of the facts surrounding it. One day, I miraculously find it to be perfectly pickled, a different beast really from what I first imprisoned in the jar. It is easier then for me to move past it in a more savory manner. It is better for everyone involved. 

Try it - it does work, and by the way, the pickled shrimp was delightful.

Photos by Rebecca McCue

Giving Thanks

During the last two months of the year, we inevitably receive constant reminders to reflect on what we are thankful for. Magazine covers show perfectly roasted birds laid on fine porcelain platters in November for the Thanksgiving and transition to glossy stacks of perfectly wrapped presents in December for the holiday season. It is quite impossible not to dwell on the things you are grateful for during the few weeks that round up the year. There are naturally the obvious things one is thankful for - health, comfort, family, success, possibilities, the liberty and ability to do anything, be anything, to aim and achieve. However, when I read Rachel Ray's letter in last month's Every Day with Rachel Ray magazine, in which she talks about being thankful for "food," I wondered if it is not worth being more granular in my thinking as well. After all, the hunger statistics in the world are staggering. 

I am thankful for food, too. I have more than I need, and it is a great pleasure for me to write about it. During this season, however, it is important to observe that with my fridge bulging with leftovers after a magnificent Thanksgiving feast, I am far from the despair that is brought on by a hungry belly. If you are like me, even a quiet moment of meditation will go a long way if it results in you sharing a small slice of your pie of prosperity with the unfortunate. It is really very simple – just one recurring payment to your favorite charity hidden between the monthly evidence of a comfortable life (charges for beauty boxes, video subscriptions, book purchases, etc.). There are obviously other ways to give back. A friend of mine volunteers in soup kitchens during the holidays. Another friend is planning to capture portraits of patients to give them hope. My roommate in college used to invite all the stragglers for a Thanksgiving meal - college students who couldn't go back home and wanted a nice meal and good company...


I am thankful also for having a welcoming home, and more importantly, I am grateful for having it frequented by guests. I was talking to my sister the other day and she mentioned that in most religions and traditions, to host guests is an honor. In Islamic tradition specifically, we grew up listening to the story of Hazrat Abu-Bakr Siddiq (r.a.). He gave away all his wealth in the name of Islam. One night, he was sheltering travelers, but had very little food. He offered all of his food to his guests and lowered the flame of his lamp so his guests would not know that their host was forgoing his own rations to feed them. I had forgotten about this story until she reminded me of it. I have been guilty in the past few months of wrinkling my nose at the prospect of hosting guests. With a demanding schedule that encompasses work, family, baby, writing, studying, and teaching, I am left with very little patience to entertain – even though I feel my best when I am doing exactly that – entertaining. This story made me realize how guests really are an honor (I also agree with Benjamin Franklin that “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days”). Let’s face it. I am not the only person in the world with responsibilities and a grueling routine. If my guests are willing to take out the time to visit me, I should take it as the compliment it is meant to be. 

Finally, I am thankful for my friends. All of them – near and far. Some of my family members are my best friends. There are others who, over the years, have acquired a familiarity that is akin to being related by blood. We are all separated by time and distance, scattered as we are across several continents. Sometimes, we don’t speak for months, and then suddenly some kind of magic takes hold of the air around me and them at the same time, and we are propelled into the perfect harmony of “having free time” to Skype for hours (I should also offer thanks for Skype and Facetime). Speaking of friends, though, I must say that everyone should have a Rebecca in their lives. There is very little about my life that Rebecca does not know. While she does not always understand the complexities I encounter as I tread two identities in two different continents, she is always able to sympathize. Every year, she cooks me a fantastic Thanksgiving meal and has become a part of my family so completely that all you have to do is look at my baby’s big smile upon seeing Rebecca to realize how much we care for her. This year, Thanksgiving was spent with the usual preparations and piles of delicious food as you can see in the pictures. The turkey was beautiful to look at and perfectly moist and wonderfully flavorful with crisped golden-brown skin. Creamed corn, fluffy mashed potatoes and salty gravy, crisp string beans with pesto sauce, smoky roasted cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, and tangy apple pie for dessert with a flaky crust. It was a memorable dinner to say the least. 

Being in the presence of other family members, I sometimes find it difficult to transition into and out of accents, inflections, and even languages. While Rebecca was busy cooking in the kitchen to prepare our feast, I was going back and forth between Urdu with my family and English with her. The juggling made me wonder, quite profoundly, if I have sometimes inadvertently left her out of conversations, and worse, if she has felt that way. 

It is one of the aspects of my personality I have struggled with. I have never been at ease with speaking a language that a part of my audience does not understand, but over and over, I fall back into this pattern, perhaps by habit or by circumstances. I noticed, for example, my mother who does not converse fluently in English shying away from the company of my American friends  and preferring to stay in her room after greeting them, because we spoke English among ourselves, and I often forgot to translate for her benefit or include her in the conversation. I wondered anxiously on Thanksgiving Day, if I had somehow alienated my best friend, too, by not having the discipline to stick to one universally understood language. I may have – I will hear about it either way after she reads this. 

For now, I am sanguine. The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we met up with Rebecca at the mall. My two-year-old daughter rushed into her arms, ran around her in circles, and stayed with her for two hours, just playing and laughing because she was so excited to see her. There is no language between them, but they understand each other perfectly. My daughter is able to communicate with everyone she loves without saying anything at all. Maybe that’s a universally understood language in itself, and I am thankful for being privy to it.

Photos by Rebecca McCue

Back Again in That Place

Lahore, New Year's Eve, 2002. A few of us piled into my mother's minivan and went to Food Street. It staggers me to realize that this was 11 years ago. I don't remember the evening, but I can feel those 3o minutes we spent in the heart of the city. I wore a thick polyester blend shalwar kameez, navy blue. The fashion was drastically different at the time. The slim-fitting shirt reached my knees and the pants were bell-bottoms. I can still feel the cold metal chairs, the unsteady table, my breath coming out in warm puffs, the heat of the barbecue pit, the smoke from the grill, the easy laughter between us. Was it really over a decade ago? Two drunk men on the table next to ours. Their argument. My best friend's panic-stricken murmur: "They've got a gun." All of us backing away, breaking into a run, reaching the van and laughing in a mixture of fear and exhilaration from cutting through the winter air, the cold slapping our faces, our noses beginning to run, our eyes watering. Deciding itt was probably just a prank, but wanting to get out of there anyway. Did we actually eat something, I wonder now...

It was a bare street back then compared to the beautiful gazebo-lined haven it has become now. The palm trees dotting the sophisticated roadside eatery stalls shocked me today when I saw this picture. I remember the bitter cold, the asphalt underneath my chappals, uneven and cracked in places, a gutter running along some parts of the street, uncovered cooking stations, crude grills, plastic outdoor furniture, delicious food. My memory has become insufficient, I realize, and unreliable.

My city, if I can still call it that, has changed in the last decade - like me. Every morning I see the two gray hairs I have acquired, one on each side of my forehead. The makeup I have been wearing for years is beginning to settle into the finest of laugh lines around my mouth, noticeable only to me for now. Two fingers of my left hand are arthritic. I cannot bend them comfortably until early afternoon every day. My wrists crackle like corn popping on an open flame. The inflection in my voice changes, depending on who I am talking to. "Do you realize your accent transforms when you talk to someone from home," my American friends ask me, which is a sharp contrast to my family's playful taunts, "'Nor' is just soooooo American." I don't try to speak one way or another. It just happens because I have lived here for 11 years. And there are certain words I accentuate differently that illuminate this fact for both Americans and Pakistanis, but the focus of this reality changes based on who is observing it. To Americans, my shifting accent confirms that I have only lived here for 11 years rather than my whole life; to Pakistanis, the variance in intonation is a testament to the 11 whole years I have been away from home. It is the same fact, but the interpretations are vastly different, though equally significant. The fact is simple. In a space of a decade, change simply happens. It's not something you do consciously, "Today, I am going to work on pronouncing 'schedule' the American way." You just wake up one day and stop saying it the British/Pakistani way. You've been saying it for months before you realize you've made the switch, and when you do, you observe a private moment of both triumph (for acculturation) and mourning (for leaving the past behind). Change just cocoons you in such a space of years.

Then why is it such a visceral shock for me when I see pictures of Lahore and its streets look nothing like I remember them? It feels scandalous, this change, improper, like a wine stain spreading on a starched white lace doily - the result of over-indulgence or incapacity. It also unsettles me that even after so many years of living in California, I cannot write about its sounds and smells and sights with the familiarity and ease I experience upon describing Lahore. I have made this place my home, but what is home, really? Is it the 25 miles of scenic freeway between the door of my house and that of my office? What about the vastness beyond - the breathtaking landscape that stretches before me in every direction, which I recognize only from a distance. 

I wonder then, will I always dream of the narrow alleys of Old Lahore, always write about a certain river drying up in the heat and swelling with the monsoons, always return in my thoughts to the places that no longer look like I left them? 

Photo by Rebecca McCue

Chicken with Cilantro Pesto and Striking a Balance

All weekend I had this nagging feeling that I was forgetting something. I was relaxed, cuddling with Jahan all day, shopping with the family, cooking and cleaning the kitchen. The sudden calm was strange because I have been so wound up lately. I have had a mental list of things that are overdue, trying desperately to cross items off, and this weekend, quite surprisingly, the list disappeared, and I didn't know what to do with myself. Have you ever felt this way? You become so used to completing tasks that you forget how to live in their absence.


I have struggled for a long time to balance the different "categories" of my life. It's more than work-life balance - it's an effort to stand on a narrow platform that perches precariously between sanity and insanity. It is impossible to function entirely in the Sanity Meadow and a nightmare to imagine doing so in the Insanity Jungle. People like me, therefore, who are often zigzagging into and out of each realm prefer to strike a balance and exist in the narrow border between the two. I am not always successful at this endeavor, but it is worth striving for.

Having a temporary reprieve from the pestering task list that is bound to multiply its contents rapidly, I felt a pull towards the kitchen. I wore my mother's clothes that she had left in my closet, because I was missing her. Wearing them, I felt closer to her and told her so over Skype. I regretted the days I wasted when she was here in my house, and I was too busy crossing off items on my task list to sit down with her over hot cups of chai and talk about whatever was on her mind. There were too many "should-haves" on the tip of my tongue and dwelling over them in any detail would disintegrate my composure, so I strayed away from that topic altogether. I was talking to her after a long time. Calling my mother, I am ashamed to admit, had not been checked off on my to-do list, but mothers have superhuman abilities to forgive.

I promised myself to consciously make an effort to strike a balance. I want to never let the things that matter to me lapse again because there is too much to do. The fact is, there will always be too much to do. I don't want these days, months, and years to pass me by because I was too busy looking the other way. I want to live, really live. To me, that translates into doing things I love with the people I love. I will love more, give more, and write more. I will call my mother and tell her, you know what, Mom? You're pretty damn cool, and I am proud to be your little girl. I hope one day you can be proud of me, too. I will cook and bake and write and tell the whole world about the things that matter to me. 

Happily fueled by my resolutions, I was all set to get back into the kitchen and resume my collaboration with Rebecca, in which I cook and she photographs. I adapted a Bon Appetit recipe for this occasion. I used pine nuts instead of pistachio, added more garlic, used dark meat instead of chicken breast, and added red chili flakes to the chicken in addition to salt and pepper. It was fitting, then, that I chose this recipe for my inaugural day in the kitchen after a long hiatus. It was like I had created a dish to seal my promise of striking a balance in my life. The nuttiness in the pesto was perfectly complemented by the garlic. The red chili flakes gave the chicken a slight dimension in flavor while not taking away from the mildness in the sauce. Perfectly balanced, I thought. The dish turned out to be terrific. I made a small salad on the side with Ceasar dressing. For dessert, we watched Jahan devour a chocolate chip cookie.

Photos by Rebecca McCue

A Handful of Memories

I often tend to liken memory to a mosaic, small pieces of the past haphazardly joined together to create a pattern. A mosaic that I hold in my hands, which ripples over my skin, one specific incident of the past catching light, jogging some deep-rooted recognition I held of it that I have long since buried underneath the mundanities of the present. It takes me by surprise sometimes. I am jolted awake right before drifting off to sleep when an odd image makes its appearance just when consciousness is slipping away, beckoning me. Something new, or something from my childhood. Something wholly ordinary that should have no meaning and no place here, now, after a long day when all I want to do is close my eyes and be lost to the world. Just the complete peculiarity of a memory asserting its presence when I have made no effort to conjure it is enough to unnerve me and wake me up.

I was thinking about the workbook I have been meaning to start working through - Story-Starters - and the first exercise, which is to write about where you come from. Lahore, I was thinking. Ravi. Jasmines. Cliches, all of these. Kalima Chowk. Liberty Market. Convent of Jesus and Mary. The images were coming slowly now. Street food. My father's farmhouse. Earthworms after a monsoon downpour...Pigeons! What?! Pigeons? All of a sudden I felt very awake as if someone had called my name inside the darkened room to rouse me.

For many years during my childhood, my uncle raised pigeons. He built a roomy cage for them on our rooftop, filled with moss and leaves and bird feeders. I remember the birds pecking on grains that he used to scatter on the concrete floor of the roof, their funny little necks bobbing backward and forward. They would fly off in groups, in white and gray rings, swooping and rising, disappearing, but always coming back, always finding their way home. I wonder what happened to them. I distinctly remember a time when my uncle had them and a time when he didn't. Perhaps he sold them, or found them another home. I felt an odd pang of longing for those birds I had no particular feelings for during my childhood. Where did they go?

There have been memories in the past that have startled me awake from the shallows of slumber. The way my grandmother used to keep a small linen pouch pinned to the inside of her shirt holding a round cylinder of small bills. The smell of new notebooks and the brown paper we used as sleeves for them right before the school year began. A walk on the Mall Road in Murree more than two decades ago when I bought a fur hat that was too big for a 7-year-old head. The time my sister and I were sent to school on a holiday by mistake and spent the whole day with Sister Grace, having tea and scones, visiting the chapel, playing in the kindergarten play room. The sound of water rushing out of the tube-well's spigot at my family's farmhouse. The smell of a large bouquet of tube-roses my father always arranged in a crystal vase in the drawing room. Knitting a scarf that was destined to stay incomplete in front of the gas heater while my mother shelled pine nuts and handed them to me. The roasted and salted almonds served as an appetizer at Mei Kong restaurant in Barkat Market. The way the canal was dressed up like a bride to celebrate the spring festival with beautiful hand-crafted floats dotting its calm waters. Turning towards the airplane window, away from other passengers on my journey here, a weight in the pit of my stomach, sobs heaving my shoulders, rubbing my throat raw as I saw Lahore receding underneath me...

I could write a thousand or more words on each of these fragments, and I might just do that in the coming days, so strong are the recollections I encounter when my defenses are diminished. It is like I am cupping hundreds of these tiny memories in my hands, treasuring them, and if I move just the right way, one slips trough my fingers and lands on the floor. I am compelled, then, to bend down, examine, retrieve, and restore it. Back into the pile it goes just to resurface another day. Some of them tighten ther grip on my heart, give me a dull ache where once a stronger sensation used to be, like my memory of the journey away from Lahore, towards my life as it is now. Others leave me with a warm happiness; I see it spreading through me thick and golden and sweet like honey, like the memories I have of the day my sister and I spent in a deserted school building with Sister Grace. Yet more leave me wondering, or with a sense of longing and regret and confusion. 

Why was I startled awake by the image of those pigeons that appeared behind my eyes and swiftly vanished like a picture in a book whose pages I am rolling between my thumb and forefinger? I am only left with meaningless questions about some memories that are not salient in and of themselves, but lead to other strings of events, people, milestones. The pigeons got me to think of my uncle, the love he has given me unconditionally and liberally my whole life. I started to recall other details I observed about my uncle during my childhood. The brand of cigarettes he used to smoke, the small golden pack, the contents of which I used to break into tiny pieces in an effort to make him quit, for instance. Or the huge kites that he used to store in his room. For months he collected kites and rolls of string in every color and size for the annual spring festival called basant. And this is the spark that lights the fire under all the basants I remember, the tiny kites dotting the azure sky, the little girls dressed in yellow dresses symbolic of new beginnings and growth...

It's a spiral, really, and the pigeons are the place to start. Round and round and round it goes, it burrows through the handful of memories to a deeper place - the place I go to so I can write this.

Photos by Rebecca McCue

Good Coffee, Good Company, Good Collections

I discovered coffee, real coffee, in college: The rich smell of a hot cup warming my senses in the UC Davis Coffee House as the heat emanating from it rejuvenated my frozen, aching fingers after a solitary walk from my off-campus housing to an early morning class; the thick layer of cream I added to it and two packets of Splenda; such joy in the first sip, such satisfaction, every single time.

I am proudly and unabashedly addicted to coffee. And I take my coffee with cream and Splenda - no black intense business for me, thank you very much. While coffee is a pleasure to be enjoyed in solitude for me, it is also the perfect accent when I have company. It makes bad company tolerable, allows me to slug through the endless conversations that often have a circular nature, refreshes me so I can keep the pointless and inane small talk going, going, going until I can mercifully extricate myself from the situation without being enervated. It enhances pleasant company, too, highlights the easy flow of stimulating conversation, adds to the element of savoring the moment.

I am surprised to realize just now that I have never mentioned my collection of coffee mugs in this space. I started collecting them in college. I suppose the timing coincided perfectly with my morning brimming with the promise of a steaming cup of coffee at the destination. I have about 50 mugs now - not a grand collection by any stretch of the imagination. They are beautiful, each one having its own significance. I remember exactly where I bought each piece. I also have a pristine recollection of who gave me which mug if it happens to be a gift. I would love to display them in large glass cases arranged neatly in rows, the character of each mug visible, the vibrant and muted colors lined side by side. Unfortunately, they are gathering dust in a kitchen cabinet, but I do try to use some of them from time to time.

While I still adore coffee mugs, I am shifting my focus slightly to bone china. I have two fine porcelain sets, which I have loved dearly for the last few years and used with care. I was satisfied with them until recently when my sister introduced me to Royal Albert bone china. I am sure it was polite and casual interest at first on my part, but as I have looked at it more on eBay, and especially after buying a few pieces, it has become a sort of scaled-down obsession, much like the coffee mugs were when I first started collecting them. Each one of the pieces I have bought is beautifully crafted, and I can already tell that if this transitions into a collection, it's going to be a burden on my wallet. This is not a humble coffee mug with a clever message. This is vintage fine china. The Big Leagues.

My love for coffee and coffee mugs is still flourishing. I will always reach for a tall sturdy mug to pour perfectly brewed coffee. But this new interest in vibrant pieces of china manufactured many years ago, this has a different feel to it. It's like grown up love as opposed to young love. While it may not have the same degree of passion, it's sure to have endurance. I am looking forward to being swept away.