an itinerant observer

Back in 2020, while COVID-19 was peaking during its first wave, as a front-line emergency physician I was frustrated. It was not just my hectic work routine in one of the busiest emergency departments of the megapolis   of Karachi to blame. The unavailability of my gymming routine because of the pandemic-mediated lockdown was adding to my woes. To keep sane, I, therefore, settled into a nice daily home-based exercise routine: 2.5 km of outdoor running followed by 15 minutes of indoor creative movement (aka Zumba-like dancing, to be precise). The fact that I went overboard with my routine and ended up fracturing my right ankle is a story for another day .  After I had reflected enough on my intra-pandemic/post-fracture predicament and my ankle (with a metal screw inside) had healed enough, I resumed my home-based Zumba routine. But this time I added Salsa steps to it so I could make it a high-intensity/low-intensity workout. Although I became quite happy with my workout, I ...

“Baba, today you may pick me up early and take me to the zoo”. And thus Noori had spoken. Noori the kindergartner was obviously having some withdrawal symptoms since she had not been to the zoo in over a month. Noori and Baba frequented the zoo, at times twice a month, albeit for brief visits. Having a yearly membership to the Houston zoo enabled such frequent jaunts to one of the most favorite shared activity spots for the daughter-dad duo. What was more likely though: Mowgli’s spirit had entered Noori that morning, the way she was rattling off about the characters of the jungle book. After school I took Noori straight to the zoo. Hence, the jungle book, without offense to Mr. Kiping, was re-drafted by Ms. Noori. Mr. Sher Khan and Mrs. Sherni Khanum were ignoring each other. They had an argument about who was arranging dinner that night. Colonel Haathi was brushing his tusks after a huge meal of elephant chow. Bagheera was pacing up and dow...

“Aren’t you glad that you left Houston when you did?” I was asked recently. In the wake of hurricane Henry’s devastation, perhaps that was a valid question - not an insensitive one. However, on further introspection, I realized that I was neither glad that I had left Houston when I did, nor could I wish that I was still there. Au contraire, I was pensive about family, friends and former work colleagues having to deal with this newest water-related calamity of Houston. That Houston is flood-prone is not news to me. During my 15 year-long ‘sojourn’ in Houston, I had to deal with several flash floods and hurricanes. Allison, Katrina, Rita…. I can rattle their names off in my sleep. In June 2001, within a year or two of moving to Houston for graduate school, I confronted Allison, a ‘freak’ tropical storm that dumped so much rain on Houston in just a night that I was flabbergasted. I woke up to find my car flooded and the apartment complex grounds in disarray. At that time, I ...

What’s the chance of a bad outcome,lik e death, in Karachi? Based on anecdotes circulated on social media and what you read in the news, you might assume that chances for a series of unfortunate events remain high in this city. This prompted a friend to do some calculations to gauge chance of an unexpected death in Karachi, compared to any major metropolitan city in the U.S. Assuming how the percentages were arrived at was fairly accurate, the bottom line, if true, was intriguing: the likelihood of an untimely, unexpected death was similar in the two places. Delving into death rates in Karachi vs. elsewhere was perhaps meant to be an intellectual discourse following the meaningless death of a colleague’s sister in Karachi. Being gunned down outside a famous restaurant after a meal there is hard to rationalize as an expected outcome of a botched cell phone robbery attempt. But this is Karachi. And such occurrences are unfortunately all too frequently heard and shared. Ev...

Having left youth behind, in the throes of my midlife crisis (per my dear wife), I often ponder: What is change? Why is it needed? Where is it needed (most)? How is it brought about in a sustained manner and by whom? Before delving into this more, let me introduce you to my two young friends: Alezeh, a 14-year-old 9 th grader, and Mayank, an 18-year-old college student, with whom I conceived ‘ Biloongra -Books for Change ’, a grass roots effort promoting global child literacy and education. They pondered the above questions along with me at a café, over coffee and kolaches, at Rice village in Houston, on a sweltering summer morning. The discussion, dialogue and debate were timely. I had struggled with the questions primarily because it was unclear to me why we wanted to do something that might affect ‘change’ in public sector kids’ education in Pakistan. The oft cited ‘there’s a crucial need’, fell by the way side, once the going got tough. Such work from afar, while...

Today marked week three of relocation to Karachi from Houston.  My family comprising my wife and two young children, aged eleven and six, respectively, had finally taken the plunge. We had moved back irrespective of the predominantly discouraging comments of well wishers in both cities – their basic contention being that it was not the ‘right time’ to move to Karachi given the volatility, insecurity and unpredictability inherent in that city. Initially, my rambly writings had helped me tremendously in settling down, or at least that’s how it felt. Each week I had attempted to write on something related to Karachi that could be compared and contrasted with Houston. As I had mentioned in a previous entry of the Karachi-Houston diaries, finding something to write about was not always easy. I would scratch my head aplenty and if that didn’t help then I would beseech the muses, more in my heart now, to reveal to me my next writing mission. That morning, I had walked out on to the...