This was my second time dipping into Tahir Shah's In Arabian Nights. It's a book about stories and storytellers. He speaks of his father, his life in Morocco, Arabian Nights, Sufism, and life in general. It's an interesting book with illustrations and Sufi parables. I had a great time laughing over Mullah Nasruddin's exploits. I loved hearing stories featuring Mullah Nasruddin as a child. The subtle humour delighted me. Even now, these are stories which put me in a happy place, and the way, Shah scattered them in, here and there, felt right. Like treats deliberately left to be discovered by others on a meandering path.

Reading is such an interesting experience, in how we end up linking what exists on the pages to other thoughts, other places, other time periods. Blasphemy by Tehmina Durrani is a novel inspired by true events. It is a horrifying story about patriarchy at its peak and sexual exploitation. Heer, the protagonist of this story, is a teenager when the novel opens who is married off to a Pir in Southern Pakistan. The man who is respected by everyone around him, is a monster in private who uses his power and privilege to exploit everyone who falls within his circle of power. The story is horrifying and reading it, I was reminded of another story, a podcast I heard a while back about Peter Nygard, the fashion tycoon, and his world of exploitation and debauchery. Both stories are about people with enormous wealth and privilege, and completely unchecked power. Both are horror stories.

My first time was at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Prior to that, I had visited plenty of art galleries and looked at lots of paintings, but nothing had ever moved me. I used to look at paintings dispassionately. Don’t misunderstand me. I knew when I was standing in front of something beautiful, but it is one thing to look at something beautiful and recognize its beauty, and something else altogether, to look at a person or an object and be spellbound. My very first experience of being spellbound was at the Andrew Wyeth exhibition at the National Gallery. I spent well over an hour looking at the collection of his paintings brought together in one of the rooms of the gallery for this exhibition. I did several rounds of that room. I stood enraptured for several long minutes before each painting before tearing myself away and moving on to the next. I sat on the couches in the center of that room, doing nothing, just admiring the light captured in each piece. I can’t describe how I felt except to say that each painting of his spoke to me in ways so intimate. It was as if each painting was breathing and I, able to register each breath within my own. I like the word, spellbound. It is a rare gift to be moved profoundly by someone or something. It requires an openness to being moved, but it requires more than just an openness on your part, it requires a connection of the most intimate kind. To be spellbound, you have to allow magic to work on you. That carpet doesn’t fly if you don’t give it wings.

"For photographs are not, as is often assumed, a mechanical record. Every time we look at a photograph, we are aware, however slightly, of the photographer selecting that sight from an infinity of other possible sights. This is true even in the most casual family snapshot. The photographer's way of seeing is reflected in his choice of subject. The painter's way of seeing is reconstituted by the marks he makes on canvas or paper. Yet, although every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciations of an image of an image depends on our own way of seeing." - John Berger, Ways of Seeing The first eight pictures in this post were taken by my daughter. Beauty, I was always told, lies in the eyes of the beholder, but I never understood this until I saw myself in my daughter's pictures of me. But it isn't just me whom she captures with such loving eyes, there is beauty in all of her captures because there is beauty in her. She looks out at the world with a vision which holds beauty within it. And I will continue to post pictures she takes in this space as if they are my own. :)

"Stories touch us even before we enter this world, she said, and they continue until we go to the next world. They are in the dreams of an unborn baby, in the kindergarten and school, in news reports and movies, in novels, in conversations and night mares. We tell each other stories all our waking hours, and when our mouths are silent we are telling stories to ourselves in the secrecy of our minds. We can't help but tell stories, because they are a language in themselves." - Tahir Shah, In Arabian Nights

"Having a sister or a friend is like sitting at night in a lighted house." ― Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping The past three weeks have flown past. I am heading home now, all the richer for the memories created. Sometimes the lines between sister and friend blur, as do the lines between mother, daughter, sister, and friend. And most of the time, love doesn't flow in straight lines at all.

I have been reading books borrowed from my mother-in-law's collection. The first ten days or so spent in Karachi were spent reading the two volumes of India Partitioned; The Other Face of Freedom edited by Mushirul Hasan. The first volume is a collection of short stories, while the second one is a collection of essays. I liked some, I disliked others, but on the whole, it was a good reading experience. For the past two days, I have been reading Pakistan Here and Now: Insights into Society, Culture, Identity, and Dispora edited by Harris Khalique and Irfan Ahmed Khan. Harris Khalique is my mother-in-law's friend's son and so she was eager that I read this book of essays edited by him. I am glad that I did. There is an Urdu word for what I felt reading this collection of essays. The word is apnaiyat. It means belonging. It is something else altogether to read words which feel like home. I will be returning to Canada in a week. There will probably be snow on the ground when I get there. My body will reel from the shock of going from Karachi's balmy weather to Toronto's frigid clime, but soon enough, Luna and I will be out again spending hours loitering about outside examining every bend in the Don River, and I know I will inhale deeply because that too, is home. These past few weeks were spend with my parents, my mother-in-law, and a few dear friends. This next week will be spent with my daughter. When I leave my heart will be heavy from saying goodbye to the three elderly people in my life. When I get home, my heart will rejoice at the comfort of my own bed, the warmth of my own shower, and best of all, I will delight in finding myself squashed between Madam Luna and my taller half while sleeping at night. My heart has been for decades now, a creature torn in different directions, and so, I tell myself: I am, my own home. I belong to no one. I belong to myself, alone.

...I used to go about in a jeep armed with shot-guns to help keep the peace, and intervene in the event of trouble in the areas of New Delhi that had become notorious for stabbing and looting incidents. One of the most troublesome spots was around Minto Bridge. Muslims fleeing from Old Delhi had to pass over it on their way to the refugee camp in the Old Fort. They were frequently waylaid by bands of miscreants who rushed out from the Minto Road area and stabbed and looted them. We related this to the Prime Minister and were discussing with him what remedial action could be taken. To our surprise the Prime Minster suddenly dashed off and then came back with a pistol in his hand, looking very pleased and excited. He said it had belonged to his father, Motilal Nehru. Then he made the astonishing suggestion that all three of us should disguise ourselves as refugees, and stroll down Minto Bridge. Our appearance and apparent helplessness, and the articles that we would be carrying would attract the gangsters. They would try to get at us and when they did we would shoot them down! It was only with great difficulty that we were able to persuade the Prime Minister that the adoption of such tactics was foolhardy and hardly worthwhile. Some less hazardous and more effective method for putting an end to this kind of crime should not be too difficult to devise. We were careful not to mention what was uppermost in our minds, that it was unnecessary for the Prime Minister himself to play such a personal role in dealing with it." -Badruddin Tyabji, "The City of Djinns" from India Partitioned: The Other Face of Freedom edited by Mushirul Hasan

Adopting Luna, our Rhodesian ridgeback, was my husband's choice. I used to be scared of dogs in general, and large ones, in particular. I didn't really want a dog and I, most especially, did not want all the work which goes with having a dog, but I found myself going along with what he wanted because I am a sucker for the boyish grin which lights up his face when he is chasing an idea he likes or playing with a child or rough housing with a large dog. And so he ran around, calling up breeders, filling out forms, talking people into adding our names onto wait lists till we got a call saying we could come meet a particular breeder and their new set of pups. Luna was the smallest and the most timid of that litter. They chose her for us, or rather they, the breeders, chose her for me because of my own obvious timidity. They, my husband, the dog trainers who came in to train us on how to train Luna, all told me that I needed to be firm with Luna. I did try but not really. She quivered with fear all the way home and then soon after, turned into a land shark, chewing on everything including our feet. Toilet and crate training felt so difficult to me. I began resenting my taller half for bringing this brat into our home, but all that frustration only lasted so long. Within a few months, the brat wormed her way into my heart, our bed, and these days is being sorely missed. I sat down to write this post because I often think about how Luna spends her days just sleeping, eating, running around. She creates work for me, and yet, she also makes my life so much richer by just being her. She is not productive in any way. Many of her habits are actually annoying. Yet, I don't expect anything else of her. To me, she is perfect as she is. Isn't that the way to love other people as well? To accept them as they are and not measure value by rubbish measures like productivity and usefulness. But also to love ourselves the same way, I am of value because I exist and I am me. I don't need to do anything else to be loved by others or to love myself. This picture is in no way related to this post, just that I like the way my hair looks today and so took pictures of it.

Makes absolute sense to me now that these verses from the Qur'an were my favourite when I was a child. “Read in the name of thy Lord who created; [He] created the human being from blood clot. Read in the name of thy Lord who taught by the pen: [He] taught the human being what he did not know.” (96:1-5). This is how the Qur'an begins. The very first lines. I may not agree with much of what the book says but there is immense beauty and power in its words. And even this makes absolute sense because it is the responsibility of the reader to read with intelligence; to think, to understand, keep what works and discard what doesn't.