27 Sep, 2022

homelessness and flooded fields…

27 Sep, 2022

L: Photo of tents by Quratulain Bakhtiari along a street in Sindh (August); R: Image from a helicopter by Haris Gazdar of submerged fields in Dadu district (September) In...

Read more

visiting new and old corners of houston…

Sections of murals by Genzo; (L) Tu Lucha; (R) Every Beautiful Poem “Women’s rights are human rights,” said Dr. Sima Samar when talking about the future of Afghan women...

Read more

memory versus truth . . .

February 1987: Posing at Hiran Minar, outside Lahore “These photos were taken when we went to Hiran Minar,” artist Ali Mehdi Zaidi told me via a WhatsApp call after...

Read more
12 Nov, 2020

farewell, asmi sahib…

12 Nov, 2020

Veteran activists gather for a visit (from L-R): SM Shahid, Saleem Asmi, Zawwar Hasan, ABS Jafri, Dr Haroon Ahmed, Iqbal Jaffery My sister, Beena Sarwar’s remembrance about our family...

Read more

week 11: honoring legacy…

Yesterday, more than 50 invited family members and friends from around the world signed in on Zoom to celebrate my father and share stories about him. The baithak was...

Read more

“the present is a transit lounge…”

Arundhati Roy talking with Imani Perry on YouTube; organized by Haymarket Books Yesterday morning, I disrupted my schedule to listen to Arundhati Roy’s conversation with Imani Perry, The Pandemic...

Read more

end of week 4: lockdown & discrepancies . . .

staying home; enjoying California blood oranges Two weeks ago, once LA county closed hiking trails, beaches, and parks, my family and I have maintained sanity by walking in our...

Read more

on lockdown with the rest of the world…

Week 1: a Saturday evening sunset at Redondo Beach, a site that is now closed Week One (March 16-22): Two weeks ago, all schools in Los Angeles and most...

Read more
19 Dec, 2019

“black wings” best of 2019 fiction / entropy magazine…

19 Dec, 2019

I don’t check my twitter account that often, but today when I visited the page to see some updates, I was surprised to see myself tagged by multiple writers....

Read more

another border…

I take a drive up to the Wagah border to experience the raising of flags ceremony that has been documented many times over. The afternoon is humid and hot,...

Read more