Mixed Bag

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Of Cigarette Packs and Elephant Dung

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Where can you go to see the following? (1) Creative photography on cigarette packs. (2) Innovative co-existence with elephants. Answer: Sri Lanka. Last summer, my family and I went on a week-long sojourn to Sri Lanka. That it happened to coincide with the heat wave in Karachi needs further explanation, in case you think I created a respite for myself primarily because I wanted to get away from angry sun gods. Truth be told, I felt guilty that I was vacationing in a tropical environment while the heat-facilitated death toll rose in Karachi… Anyway, after that trip, there was a strong urge to write about the island. I'm not a travel writer, but after experiencing the ‘wonders of Sri Lanka’, I couldn't stop myself from telling you about that land. Although considered a ‘developing nation’, there were aspects to the country that completely defied that label. As I was visiting from Pakistan, the analogy thus created was insightful. A runner's tale "Are you a...
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The Observer by Natasha Khalid (guest writer)

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Photo-credit: Saniya Kamal, AKU MBBS ' 18 I enter the corridor of my new work place. I’m welcomed and introduced all around. For some reason, best known to her, the human resource lady took so much of my time that I am already pissed and looking angry. I don’t feel comfortable in this different setup and I terribly miss my old working place. Every single thing about it which previously used to get on my nerves is acutely missed. However, I succumb to my new work because it has been over a year since I practiced medicine and the sole reason for me to be here is to get distracted from my mental chaos and to focus elsewhere. In a matter of hours I find myself adjusting here, understanding the work dynamics, and the system around here. It’s easy - not challenging, likely because there’s ample time at hand which I can utilize to study while earning. Not a bad deal!    This is a dialysis department of a semi-private hospital. Every single patient here is dependent on dia...
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Fragments from a Pilgrimage: Rumi, Shams, and the Rest of Us

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I didn’t think much of it back then - Konya. A few days carved out from a longer trip. A loosely held plan. But now, years later, I can still recall how it felt. Getting to Konya wasn’t easy, or at least not emotionally. I took a ten-hour overnight coach from Gaziantep. It wasn’t just a geographic shift. It was me, testing myself. Years ago, on my first trip to Istanbul in the late 2000s, I was mugged; trapped, manhandled, left shaken . That experience embedded a quiet anxiety whenever I thought about returning to Turkey. But this trip was different. I needed to reclaim something. I wanted to prove to myself that I could be in this country, move through it alone, and feel safe. And I did. Nothing happened. Not in Konya, not elsewhere. That, in itself, was a kind of healing. Now mind you, Konya wasn’t dramatic. There was no thunderclap, no burning bush. Just presence. And silence. Not empty silence, but the kind that listens back. I stayed two nights. Walked between Rumi’s tomb an...
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