Friday, December 29, 2006

happy birthday bagheeraaaa yayy :))

Mina at 10:43 AM

1 comments

Thursday, December 28, 2006

wandering word of the week: past


i do not want your monochrome

Mina at 3:29 PM

0 comments

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

i was in shezan the other day buying samosay and sandwich bread for amma's Fammilie Tea [and how angry i am at shezan going all revamped and doing away with the bumpy brown exterior and triangular foyer from my bachpan is another story] when i found myself next to a father buying his son ten rupees' worth of sticky sugar-rolled jelly cubes, and a sandwich for himself. he had an anxious energy about him, pointing out to his little boy what he could have if he liked, unwrapping his sandwich, sniffing it before taking a bite, counting out ten rupee notes with one hand. on my right there were three little girls wearing jeans and barbie sweatshirts, piling the counter with packets of chips and candy whilst their tweed-coated father smiled benignly at them. "i don't want any chocolate," one piped decisively. once their pile was a small pyramid, the father pulled out a credit card. i looked left, and looked right, and felt mighty glad that i was only buying samosay and sandwich bread.

on another note, inna lillahe for James Brown, the #1 soul brother.

Mina at 9:46 AM

1 comments

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

your waist curves, a wavelet
on the shore of your body

a beach i long to walk, sand and
mist i dream of knowing

your voice sounds far away,
a low horn sounding from a

distant ship. you stand next to
me and i can see how your hair

curls at your neck, the weight of
your marine fingers as they grip your arm.

your back is a smooth, ridged reef-
i swim the waters of your eyes and

wish you knew me.

acquaintance

Mina at 1:13 PM

4 comments

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

this one goes out to the mean girls ;) hahahaha!

Mina at 12:42 PM

0 comments

Monday, December 18, 2006

on three-row seats on planes
so the big uncle fell asleep as soon as he landed his bottom in the seat, and didn't thus clasp his seat belt shut. his tweed coat smelt like stale smoke.
"yuck," mina thought. "if the plane crashes and he falls on me i'll die of asphixyation by fat uncle, would i be able to push him off me?"
soon, the uncle's snoring became wet. he woke up and coughed
"sickkk" mina thought, edging away.
then he coughed some more, and went KKKKKCCHHHHH.
"OH DEAR GOD NO!!!" mina shrieked in her head as the uncle began to fumble for the barf bag, "I'LL DO ANYTHING PLEASE DON'T LET WHAT I THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN HAPPEENNN NOOOO-"
"KAACHHHHH!!! PATOOOOIIIEEEEEEE" went the fat uncle.
"AAIIEEE" mina screamed in her head, plastering herself against the window, a horrified expression on her face that remained there until the landing.

on dancing
"i can't do that step! i go to oxford!"

skies
at a quarter to seven, karachi skies are mango-coloured, with a smudge of dark guava at the bottom. even a city that vibrates with such energy is slow to wake, and the roads are empty. a man washes his car at six a.m, i watch him from the apartment window.

having the flu
every beggar, khusra and mazdoor volunteer at the sunday bazaar zeroes in on me, for some reason. in retaliation- because i don't shout at them, which is effective but something i can't muster- i cough like i've been for two days, but make it sound dangerously consumptive; i add a few wheezes for good effect and then croak 'maaf kardein'. they all beat a hasty retreat, the khusra saying 'haw, dil torr diya mera pyarichandsibeti nein'.

Mina at 2:12 PM

5 comments

Friday, December 08, 2006

these are the phonecalls i love the best: familiar numbers, familiar voices yelling "malik sahaaaabbb" down the line, texting in deliberately deadpan messages right off the plane...the universe is aright again :)

Mina at 10:13 AM

6 comments

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

so today i went to cal class. calculus. me. okay. first i had an argument with the guard over parking angelita- i wanted to park it on the pakka but he insisted i was blocking the rasta which was eminently not true (i am not obnoxious enough to do driving bastardies like that) so end main i had to park in the kaccha, muttering ominous repercussions if angelita busted a tyre. choti malik siding with the guard did not make the sit. easier (am reading lots of wooster, forgive me). so i grumped off to class where there were freshies. who stare. people don't stare at you at lums- okay mbas do but they're just sad anyway- unless you look super hot or something, and superhot i was not. disbelieving and miserable yes, but not superhot at that mo. so the ugly beanie-wearing (the kind that poofs up at the top as if it housed a gerbil beneath) freshie boys stared and a little friend of mine introduced me to her freshie friend thus: "this is mina. she's a super-senior." which naturally caused visions of a jaahil wanton flunker methusaleh to dance about in my head with sarhey huey sugarplums and TI calculators and the suchlike. so i sat in class with a teacher that has a cowboy accent and conjured up images of him wearing a soft-brimmed stetson and those leather thingums and riding around a ranch to the soundtrack of 'home on the range' while scribbling things like "the product of the limits is also the limit of the product" down in important bullet points. but i did understand why if limit coming from the left doesn't equal limit from the right then "the equation blows up". touch wood.

Mina at 12:41 PM

3 comments