Blogs

As part of her charitable activities, CAI donors help very poor girls beat India’s dowry scrooge by paying up to US$500 in marriage assistance. When I lived in India, Mir Mohammed Mirza, a father of two girls seeking such help approached me. His application was rejected, as he did not meet CAI threshold of ‘poverty’.…

Saifi Hospital located at Maharshi Karve Marg in Mumbai is a grand, regal and handsome building, outstanding amidst her neighbors that show age, torment and scars from Mumbai’s infamous monsoons. Built by the Bohri community of India, the hospital, unlike Leelavati in Bandra or Kokilaben in Andheri where the stiff upper lips of Mumbai’s recouparate,…

I am near to finishing a nine-mile run about a month ago when, with about one mile to go, when I slow down considerably for the mandatory cooling off stretch, I realize something is amiss. At about this time in the run, the good feeling hormones in my system get released and I cherish the…

‘Hair,’ my marhoom friend Shafiq Allaina, who was blessed with thick, almost unmanageable mane of wiry hair once disclosed at a Banyani saloon in Tanga, Tanzania, ‘is everything. Without hair, a person is inadequate, almost like a man without manhood.’ The Hindu barber, with a pate as shiny as a simmering desert wasteland, nodded his…

I seem to have kicked up a Minnesota style blizzard regarding my latest Blog – Baby Sultana’s Eyes. Some people, mostly ‘family members’ imply, no, accuse me of fabricating a fairy tale, ha! Some say I used ‘unpalatable’ words like prostitute and brothel while others opine my description of (possible) Sultana’s beauty excessively vivid. A…

Continued… I encourage her to leave the brothel, but she is scared of Khaala and the consequences; Zulaikha might have her face disfigured by acid by Khaala’s goons. I accompany her to a local but foreign affiliated and funded NGO for battered women who refuse help initially, but quickly change their minds when I assert…

In Dubai recently, at Emirates Mall, browsing for nothing in particular, I notice an Arab family of five, with a nervous maid (Indian, Sri Lankan?) in tow at a department store. Why? The scent. And racket. The whiff of exotic oud coming from this group is overwhelming, but peculiarly, alluring as well, so I linger…

‘O Land Of Kerbala, My Son Is Innocent…’ This is the lament of Sayyeda Fatemah (A) today, as we commemorate the spilling of holy and innocent blood of her son, Hussein (A), his family, relatives and companions in Kerbala, Iraq, some 1,400 years ago. Hundreds of millions worldwide will grieve, shed untold tears of anguish,…

Some five years ago, Nazim Mirza, a destitute peasant farmer from Mursheedabad, WB India, moves to congested and grimy, smelly community of Matia Bruj, Kolkota in the hope of work and a better life for his family. He staggers around Matia Burj, followed by his frail wife and two very young daughters for a few…

While I jump at the opportunity to accompany Yusufali on his most recent adventure to Afghanistan, his only condition that I write about my experience afterwards is a rather daunting task; something that ace Yusufali has been doing for more then a decade! After a short and restful flight in Dubai, we fly to Kabul…

My recent trip to Afghanistan has been grueling, one of the most taxing I have experienced. The return flight from Kabul to Dubai has been delayed nine hours and we had been caged within the tiny departure hall of the airport without food or refreshments all the time. By the time I reach Dubai, my…

So Muamar Ghadaffy bites the dust, pulled out of a sewer casing like a rabid rat, dragged through the streets of his hometown, beaten up like a criminal, shot through the head, body unceremoniously dumped into an animal meat chiller and his people sneer and jeer in the backdrop. Surely he did, at one point…

I am in an exceptionally good mood today, sitting at my desk making headway on my novel when my cellphone goes off, displaying a number that is not registered in my contact list. Hmmm… ‘Hello?’ ‘Hey Kisukaali, vipi? How are you, my friend?’ ‘Good, alhamd’Allah, who’s this?’ ‘Allah, wacha wewe, you think you are so…

My 4 Days In Haiti For almost three years, Ibraheem Al Mahdy, a Christian convert to Shia Islam some six years ago, has been pleading for me to visit his lot in Haiti. He says he reads my worldwide travel blogs, claims I will find lots to do for his pitiful country, painful people, please…

The earliest childhood memories I have are of my eldest sister Marhooma Kaneez Zehra (Bai), who was by then already a divorced single mother of two. She was not allowed to take her elder with her when her husband’s family earlier kicked her out pregnant. Bai was the pillar of our family after her return…