Zainab's Writings

This poem is about Karachi, the city where I was born and raised, and where I have lived my entire life. This is probably the most honest piece I could have written about this city. I still don't feel like I have done justice to it.  Since this poem is meant to be spoken word (ie. it is written more for the ears than for the eyes), I am thinking of making it into a video with my own voice-over so people can listen to it the way I want them to hear it. Not sure if I will ever get around to doing it, though, so here's the poem anyway. --- The City by the Sea This is the city by the sea, the port city, the sea city. The sea is what it is famous and most known for. The sea is what people from all over the country come here to see. But the sea, like all precious things this city has to offer, is tucked away at its southern tip, on the other side of the bridge that divides, a luxury for the privileged. But when you see things more closely, more clearly, you see that t

Hello. Here's a story that I wrote. :) It has been inspired by some of my own life experiences and feelings about them, which is also why the narrator bears some resemblance to myself (it wasn't intentional). ---- "Sannaaaa!" Ammi called from the kitchen. Reluctantly, I put down the book I was reading and went up to her to hear what she had to say. "Put on fresh clothes. Your phuphi is coming to visit." I was instructed. I frowned. "Samra phuphi?" "No, your other aunt -" she said, pausing to taste the kababs she was making. I racked my brain. As far as I could think of, I had only one phuphi, one who came over almost every weekend with her two sons who would mess up the whole house each time they visited. "Which phuphi ?? " I asked, perplexed. "Sameena phuphi, your father's other sister. The one who lives in Canada. Remember?" I recalled. Yes, I did have another aunt whom Abbu sometimes mentioned wh

One. Sit down. On a chair, a sofa or on the floor. Pick up a pen or a crayon. Find a piece of blank paper. Let the blankness of the page and the range of possibilities its emptiness brings intimidate you. Get up. Make yourself a cup of tea. Eat a cookie. Or three. Light a cigarette. Two. After failing to distract yourself, return to the sofa. Find another blank page, because the wind blew away your first one. Now write a sentence. Cross it out immediately after; it sucks. Now pick up your paper and find another place to sit because people in the room are talking . Three. Sit down again. Bend over your piece of paper. Wince at how blunt your pencil is. Write a whole paragraph at once. Wince at how the protagonist in your story resembles yourself so much. Four. Stop wincing. Throw away your paper. Write something else. This time it turns out better than anything you could've imagined. Admire your talent for writing. Imagine how wonderful this would look published as a book.