Almas Sadique

A wide grin stuck on my face. My eyes twinkled. My pace fastened. I was meeting my father after 35 days. The sight of him alone was enough to make me feel at home. We chatted about random things and experiences, initial feelings and the latter ones and my transcendence from living in a protected environment to living in an independent one.            A three hour road trip and fourteen hour train journey later, I was finally in the city that had always been my home. When my first trip back to my city had been confirmed, I had gone over the whole journey in my head; and I had then imagined to be filled with nostalgia as I moved through the city. But the reality quite surprised me. Instead of feeling like a guest in my city, I felt very much at home. Instead of being pricked with nostalgia, I was met with familiarity. It felt as though I had never left my city. My home did actually feel like home and it was then that I realised that some people and some places are supposed to feel fa

White, black, brown, dusky, bronze-coloured--yes, those are skin tones. Only skin tones. Nothing more than a mere colour. Yet, they dictate our opinions. They dictate our behaviour. They dictate our motives.  A turban wrapped around a man's head, a cross hanging from a woman's neck, red threads adorning a boy's wrist, a head scarf wrapped around a girl's head--put on any of those and get ready to be labelled as anything else but a human.  Today, if you make two individuals stand side by side and ask them,"How are you different from each other?", you are most likely to get a reply involving comparison on the basis of physical appearance, colour, religion and nationality. Nothing too significant-it seems. But then, these little points of comparison take on us individuals as the basis to get into fights and wars. How trivial it seems when a little kid uses slangs to insult his/her healthy or darker friend or when he/she crushes their friend's beliefs thro

The rains have always got out the poetic side or the writer in me, say a lot of people. For me, the rains have a far deeper meaning and importance. Under the "feel good" emotions are a flurry of reasons for their commencement. The monsoons have always been my best friend, not only because they bring rain or because my birthday falls during the season, but because they bring along an atmosphere that subtly sets my mood to its best. Be it the light drizzle, the petrichor, the thunder, the lightning, the dark grey clouds and later on the clear blue sky when the drops have been shed, or the heavy rainfall thundering onto the ground like bullets, and even the hefty and dense downfall that belittles everyone and everything, I love it all. Unlike a lot of people, I like to watch the rains from afar instead of getting wet. I feel like it helps me look at the bigger picture, like the way a particular drop came and fell onto the ground (instead of a shower that wet me and went its own

Dreams. A six letter word. Four consonants and two vowels. A normal word. Insignificant. Ordinary. And then you dwell on its meaning. There's a world in those six letters. Your world. Or rather the world you'd like to have. And then another world, for another person. And so on for every person. I wonder how this six letter word that seemed so insignificant and ordinary in spelling and pronounciation could hold so much of importance, so much of weight, something that has the power to guide anyone's life--alone and fearless. Its beauty lies in its modesty. Behind that sweetness and simplicity, is a guiding light, a light that dispels darkness and a light that ensures hopefullness, a light that helps garner confidence and a light that sticks a smile to your face. For as long as I can remember, my guiding hands, namely my parents, teachers etc have put forth before me the importance of simplicity and the beauty of modesty. But, today, I've found myself a role model. Yes