Cup O' Coffee!

Not to boast, but I consider myself good at making coffee thanks to Techlogix! On the very first day I came to know that coffee is the ‘official’ energy drink that is used as a stimulant by my fellow colleagues to gear up to combat the daily challenges at work.

When I joined their ranks I was kind of allergic to coffee and drank tea seldom, but now I wonder there are very few days when I don’t drank either of them…

It all begins on a usual day when I was feeling out of sorts due to viral infection and decided to take some coffee to sooth my sore throat. I found out that I was really bad at ‘whipping my coffee’ although I use the word whip or beat quite randomly when I’m feeling out of order (bcoz  of my siblings) , but beating the coffee was a rather different and tricky affair…

With Love for Ammi

‘She the one who has been blessed with the gift of Heavens beneath her feet’, I heard it first from my grandmother(dada), and that night when I went to bed, and as Ammi was leaving the room after tugging me in the covers and smothering my brow, the little girl of four wondered in awe staring hard at her mother’s retreating feet, if she could only catch a glimpse of the Heaven beneath, dada told her today!

Fast forward a handful of years and today I feel a rush of gratitude for my mom as she handed me a glass full of creamy banana shake and reminded me to take the multivitamins, that were kept on the saucer with biscuits for me, as she hurried over to keep my lunch box in my bag..... That’s my daily ritual, which I call breakfast(to her's and baba’s annoyance). I’m not a kid rushing to catch my school van, I call myself independent and grown up, yet I can never imagine what I would’ve done without you Ammi!

Have you ever noticed that whenever we got hurt the first word that instinctively escapes our mouth is either “Allah!” or ”Ammi/Amma/Mom” whatever you call her.... it’s been there since the first hurt! Just like our eyes and feet used to look for her when we needed some toy, wanted to show her our new discovery, needed a nappy change, to reach up where our legs can’t help us or to whine about a sibling, she was always there, always the same reassuring figure we knew would be there for us.


Our needs grow up and change with us, and I still need her but in a different way, she’s busy in her daily chores in the kitchen and I’m sharing my troubles with her, she listens to me gives me her attention(how does she multi tasks so admirably! I wonder now) and share her views or advice on them. I’m still fretful but now when I start to complain I have her example to be patient, to me modest, to be thankful and contented.

She’s been my first refuge, my first teacher and now as I have grown up I think that I knew more than her, now I say ‘Gosh! Mom it’s a surprise you are operating the computer!’ or ‘Ammi, you always forget how to access the phonebook in your cell’! She was the one who taught me my first word, had been patient with me, and had never complained how slow i was, and I, how selfish I've been in my place. Ask her worth from those who have lost their mothers, I shudder to think further. May Allah keep you with us always ... ameen my heart prays.

Just let this day be the last day in our life when we don’t have time to say I love you mom, when we don’t have time to look her full in the face and smile at her. Kiss her heavenly forehead and listen to what she have got to say, regardless she’s angry with you at the moment, go ahead and hug her tightly and tell her how much you love her, tell her how you couldn’t be here without her!


Ammi I’m glad that I’ll never be to old(no matter how I aged up) to rest my head in your lap and forget all my worries, I’ll always remain your little girl -to whom you are a friend, a confiderent, a counselor , whom I trust and look up for guidance - and you'll be my mom. May Allah fulfil all your dreams, May He bless you with health, happiness and peace always, ameen. I love you Ammi, love you more than mere words can express....

Another Bend in the Road....

It was a bright morning, sunny yet cloudy the rare may mornings in Karachi... As I glimpsed from my window to the sky upwards just for a second or less may be, it was blue- clear blue with floating clouds hiding sun.... it was beautiful!

The van was late this morning and to get ahead with the running minutes our driver decided to take the M. A. Jinnah Road route instead of the usual Stadium Road bend to Karsaz. I groaned slightly at this alteration I don’t agree with our driver, that route is more polluted and takes almost the same time.

But nearly every time it has given me something to think, something to ponder... either be it my old school dear S.T. Patrick’s (with delight), my childhood, sometimes the traffic sometimes the bazaars of Sadder, the painting of Frere Hall, and much more, every time I went there Sadder seems like a town out of the Alif Laila... my Alif Laila!

I was unaware what the other bend in the road might bring along. As we took a turn around the little roundabout at diagonals with Mazar-e-Quaid heading towards Sadder my gaze went up to the doom of the mausoleum.

It sounded distant yet gloomy, sort of sad I thought can buildings be sad yes may be they could, the once marble white tomb now gray with the impurities of the air defiantly looked wistful, it wasn’t just the doom, the beautiful and majestic garden, the graceful trees bending low seemed bend with a sort of weight just like the weight of conscience, that doesn’t shows up but bends and wrinkle the bearer with passing time! These trees just like the doom have witnessed more than a 50 years pass by! May be, I thought, may be all of them share the Quaid’s sadness at seeing his nation grown up but still so weak. As we passed the last grill faring the garden from the footpath I saw thick clouds of smoke wafting from a old overflowing dumpster filled with garbage…. Just in neighborhood of the Quaid’s resting place… what a shame I sighed…