17 Dec, 2014

landing…

17 Dec, 2014

I land in Houston, and for once, I am able to clear customs without any problems. René is waiting for me. As we walk to the car, he shares the news about Peshawar. We are silent on the entire drive back to our house.

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no city feels like home…

Sehba Sarwar

My first afternoon in Delhi is at the IIC – the Indian International Center – at a lunch hosted by Professor Alok Bhalla and organized by writer Noor Zaheer; writer Sukrita Paul Kumar also joins us for a visit. A few days later, I return to IIC to sip...

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15 Dec, 2014

spaces in the city…

Sehba Sarwar
15 Dec, 2014

My childhood friend Fawzia, who’s now based in Delhi and who started the Big Chill restaurants with her husband Aseem, takes me to Khirki Village to visit Khoj, an art gallery where we view “The Other Woman” exhibition. The gallery curators are out of town, as are many representatives of...

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12 Dec, 2014

home is where it’s not always a comfortable path…

Sehba Sarwar
12 Dec, 2014

I am introduced to artist Masooma Syed by family friend and artist Salima Hashmi, who knows Masooma through Lahore, where Masooma grew up. Currently based in Delhi and married to an artist from Kerala, Masooma has offered to help me with VBB’s Borderlines project. Inevitably, the conversation shifts to...

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05 Dec, 2014

“home” is where you go when you’ve lost everything…

Sehba Sarwar
05 Dec, 2014

On a quiet Thursday morning after sharing tea with eL Seed and Asad Ali Jafri – who are visiting Houston as part of the Mitchell Center’s Intersections project  at Doshi House, I drive them to Almeda Mosque, a square one-storied building that lacks a minaret. The building is marked by a...

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03 Dec, 2014

the space for “home” is moveable…

Sehba Sarwar
03 Dec, 2014

My friend Kairn Klieman responds to questions about home: Home is feeling relaxed and free and at ease–hidden from all of life’s demands. It feels cuddly. Home is not my childhood home. There was tension there. It was not cuddly, not easy. My home is what I created here;...

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19 Nov, 2014

“home” is my family…

Sehba Sarwar
19 Nov, 2014

In a conversation over coffee at Café Brasil, Maha Khan talks about home: For me, “home” is my family – a sense of belonging that has warmth because of the people around me. You could be in this gorgeous place, but that doesn’t make the space “home.” It’s just...

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“home” is where you’ve been the happiest…

Sehba Sarwar

Over a snack-lunch of papri-chat, bhel-puri and Bombay roll at Sri Pavan Bhavan on Houston’s Hillcroft Avenue, Zeba Shah – after being away from Houston for several years during which time she floated between Madrid, Los Angeles and Islamabad – talks about what “home” means to her: “Home” is...

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10 Nov, 2014

documenting the home by the freeway ramp…

Sehba Sarwar
10 Nov, 2014

photo by Minal I hand Minal my phone-camera before we enter the freeway ramp, so she can document the temporary “home” she sighted a few weeks ago: a tent that sits in the small grassy strip by the freeway ramp with glass towers hovering above. In Pakistan, we are...

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07 Nov, 2014

it’s taken time for me to be okay with being in-between…

Sehba Sarwar
07 Nov, 2014

Shirin Herman, who works with Houston Independent Services’ Refugee Program, talks about her personal journey: At this point in my life, Houston is home; being with my husband at home is home. I’m from Kenya and Tanzania where there was perpetual strife. And then political strife followed me to...

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04 Nov, 2014

feeling “at home” means being unself-conscious…

Sehba Sarwar
04 Nov, 2014

Writer Lacy Johnson talks about feelings about “home” (photo: selfie by Lacy): Feeling at home means not being aware of my body or appearance to others – being unself-conscious; being present and attuned to the rhythms of others. I don’t have one answer to that question: “what is home?”....

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28 Oct, 2014

how to make “home” beneath a freeway…

28 Oct, 2014

I grip my the steering wheel and focus on the ramp that will spill us into the fast lane of Interstate-45. Minal calls out from the back: Did you see that? See what? I ask, still looking ahead. There’s a shopping cart and a man was sitting there on...

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I was inspired to begin my blog when I visited the library at my alma mater, Mount Holyoke College, and saw a framed photograph of my friends and me calling for divestment of funds from South Africa.

In 2007,  I began a blog when I visited my alma mater and saw a framed photograph of my friends and me calling for divestment of funds from South Africa. I use the blog to document my movement between spaces, Houston, Karachi, Delhi, Dhaka, Los Angeles and elsewhere, recording observations, images and conversations. Here, I document the multiple realities that I inhabit – writer, artist, mother, activist, educator, and transnational. Interviews from my blog were exhibited at Houston’s Baker Ripley Community Center (2014) and at Houston Public Library in downtown (2015). My papers are archived at the University of Houston’s library.