Blogs

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…

Sydney / London Diaries Sydney Diary Alhamd’Allah, Sydney is sunnier and a bit warmer than Melbourne and Adelaide. At first glance, the city resembles any others in the US or Canada, with wide roads, traffic snares and a downtown with skyscrapers. Except they ape the British and drive on the wrong side of the road.…

Flying three hours from Mumbai to Dubai and another fourteen to Melbourne, Australia is tasking, especially for a young lad like me; take my word for it. Unlike my last visit to this mammoth country where I was grilled for almost two hours for stupid reasons, I am pleasantly waved through immigration and customs without…

Summers in Mumbai are hot and steamy, but Allah has bestowed many advantages and mercies in this furnace-like weather as well. The tropical fruits I so lovingly covet mature in the sauna, so they ripen and sweeten. The results are spectacularly delicious jackfruits, jamuns (Java plums), papaya and the king of all fruits – the…

Flying into cooler Nairobi from Mumbai is such a relief, even for a few days. The best part of Nairobi, I think, is the weather, because let me tell you, traffic frustrations will take my life, in one form or another, should I choose to stick around for any length of time. I thought it…

Happy Birthday Clearing immigration at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport is now a piece of cake, since I have done it so many times, and I am at the Leela less than ten minutes later. My mind reeling with jetlag after almost twenty-four hours of flying, I am dead to the world the moment my…

On the first leg of our flight to Haiti, a woman announced to me that she was returning home after eight years, overjoyed yet simultaneously somehow dazed.  In the same breath, however, as she rattled off all the places she was going to visit (in a sputtering frenzy of spit projectiles landing somewhere between my…

It is apparent that Mullah Mchungu is haunted by various frenzied doodoo’s in his head. Not the pacified ones I find here in Sanford, FL. These are the fiery ones from jungles of Africa, settled in Dar es Sallam. They sting and cloud up his intellect. The intellect that would caution people like you and…

Khoja, Khoja? Unlike the 14-inches plus snow on the streets of New England states up north, it’s a beautiful Florida winter afternoon here; abundant warm sunshine, with nothing but blue in the skies. I am in the middle of giving profuse thanks to Allah for this blessing when Mullah Mchungu calls on WhatsApp with his…

Timbuctoo! Geography, in elementary school, was a treat; for me. I would close my eyes and conjure images of different countries, peoples, cultures, and foods of our world. Timbuctoo, in Mali, always had an aura of mystery and danger, an irresistible air of adventure, of camels and trade caravans akin to the time of our…

My role as CEO of CAI brings me in contact with a lot of people, of varying characters, in many countries, mostly the poor and desperate. These people, overwhelmingly women, because it is the fairer sex that is sadly the most qualified poor and desperate, especially in India, seek me out. For help, Baba…! Somehow…