Blogs

CAI’s India, Senegal, Mali, Bangladesh Sayed Kaneez Fizza is the clerk who handles all the CAI project compliance paperwork for India. She is a typical Mumbayte of UP origin, complete with the education and mindset of an urbanite Indian upbringing, including the omnipotent head-wag, which can mean yes, no, maybe or I don’t know. So…

CAI – Nothing Is Impossible! My late brother Mohammed Raza (Bha) loved to support charitable causes and was a pioneer in encouraging and funding CAI activities. He was a firm believer that his life was incomplete if his assets, however meager, were not shared by the less fortunate. This was the underlying paradigm mindset change…

Speak Not, They Are Our Fallible Ulemas! I am at my home office in Sanford, FL, at peace with the world for a change. The air outside is a crisp 48F; I am shivering when I drop Maaha Zainab at her high school at seven, when the sky is a deep ebony. Imagine! I wish…

Amongst The Rohingya Refugees – Nasser Jetha We have all been witnessing the immense cruelty and ensuing tragedy meted towards the Rohingyas in Myanmar (Burma). One persistent question haunts my mind. How can I help? Emotionally affected by the pictures sent by Yusufali of his recent trip to the refugee camp at Cox’s Bazar in…

Ashoora Eve At Kasar Bagh – A Distributing Ritual Back in India, it takes me almost two days to calm down and begin eating normally, after my highly emotional, haunting and turbulent visit with the Rohingya refugees rotting at the squalor camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Since I have been away almost all active nights…

Emirates flight EK508 from Dubai descends to about 10,000 feet and begins the final approach towards Mumbai’s Chhatrapati International Airport. I am relieved, since I’ll soon be asleep in a comfortable bed at the Leela Hotel, after almost 24-hours on an aircraft from Orlando. Alas, not so fast. The plane lurches, turns course and heads…

Masi Irma Comes Visiting Masi Irma blows into Florida like an enraged ex, packing a hefty punch, huffing and puffing, spewing destruction and mayhem, upsetting routine and instilling fear. But like most exes with an ax to grind, the fury, devastation, and death she spits out are based on emotions churned by passion rather than…

Yes, I’m A Grouch I wake up this morning in a sullied mood, because of multiple overnight global alerts that make any decent sleep impossible. The Rohingya’s are going through renewed genocide by hardline Buddhists aided by the Burmese army, a ten-year-old destitute, orphaned girl is going to die in Herat, Afghanistan because CAI is…

Amna’s School Dream Comes Alive I strongly suggest a read of Amna Naqwi – The Unwanted Daughter, so that the subsequent narrative will be a natural transition and make for an easier read and comprehension of the following: The jarring, uncomfortable, pot-riddled road from Sirsi to Halwaana is over 200 miles and takes over six…

A Slaying Too Close To Home Many of you will recall the name Wasi Muhamadian, perhaps, since I have mentioned him several times in my past Blogs that pertain to Afghanistan or CAI activities in that country. Wasi is the CAI Country Manager for Afghanistan. His father, Ahmad Ali Mohammadian, son of Mohammad Mahdi, was…

Kuku Na Chipsi A trip to Tanzania, my birth country, especially in the temperate winter month of July, bodes well with my temperament. I can see the rapid construction progress of the long awaited new terminal as my Emirates flight taxis towards the current one; it looks beautiful and modern. The arrival hall is crowded,…

On the eve of the last Friday this past Ramadhan, I sit at HIC for the ritual duas. As in the recent past years, I have, deep in my bones, an inkling of pending disaster. So, I pray, I beseech, I implore Allah to make the last Friday of Ramadhan a day of peace for…

I return home from my extended trip jetlagged, harassed and homesick, with tons of pending home tasks and office paperwork that a ten-week hiatus entails. I tackle these troubles quickly, within a couple of days, alhamd’Allah. But the month of Ramadhan, in a few days, is staring in my face. Hot, long, weary, dog-days of…

There is very little joy in Amna Naqvi’s (alias) tender life of eight years so far. All she knows as the daughter of a peasant farmer is an arduous and dreary existence; a daily routine of early mornings, drawing water from the backyard well, sweeping dirt floors, washing clothes and shaping stinking, still wet, sometimes…

Most places we think of are defined by perceptions and personal experiences. Such is mine about Afghanistan, as I prepare to visit it with a team of Comfort Aid International Trustees, to see firsthand some of the amazing work being done in changing lives of orphans, widows, the sick and the destitute in the badbakth…