I am in love with a country I have yet to visit all because of the stories from my uncle and all the ways he filled our lives with this culture…
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With such an eclectic mix of people, the city had to foster pluralism and harmony. One of the key venues to do so was the Karachi Theosophical society…
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I still remember it vividly. I was 10 years old, and I had just come home from school. I opened the door to our townhouse and found my mum in a near foetal position on the chair sobbing. This was the first time I’d ever seen my mum in such a state...
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I had thought of it lacking cultural fluidity, when in fact Singapore was a smaller version of Asia…
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"愛してたと嘆くには (I was in love once, I sigh) あまりにも時はすぎてしまった (far too much time has passed me by)." There's an uproar in the karaoke box...
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So what did you do if you were in Tokyo with limited funds? The new year began and we were still deep in our french fry quest…
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On the silted shores of that Kashmiri lake from my childhood - my shoes slowly ruining in the slush of snow, mud and plum blossoms - I stood beside the houseboat we were staying in (which once hosted Henry Kissinger). That was the month Indira Gandhi was voted out and my whole family got stuck in India.
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Your eyes watched me faithfully, fingers carefully following the dips and turns of my imperfect singing, matching the patchwork of words to the rhythm of music.
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Declarations such as “shame on them”, “I’d rather my daughter died than bring dishonour to the family”, “she must’ve dabbled in black magic to brainwash that poor boy”, and “I hope they’re found and shamed publicly” were made with great gusto, and to my adolescent brain, conjured up horrific visions which nearly made me throw up my dinner...
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You wonder whether you have traded one death sentence for the next as the engine fails and the old boat moans under the angry tumbling of ocean...
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The storm was forecast to be a 10 out of 10 in severity, authorities had warned. Jokes about the apocalypse arriving rang between the desks. I’m sure I even heard someone blaming Trump for the huge weather event that was going to hit...
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I miss waking up to the salty air and seeing the small dots of surfers on the water paddling out to catch a wave back in…
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With the whole of my heart (and my guts), I believe that your accent is fine just the way it is. There isn't really a right way to say 'tomato'. While you can't expect others to agree with your cultural identity, you can expect people to respect it...
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Every time he would be the absolute best human and make me want to be more like him. Nothing was more important to Sisto than the people he worked with and his loyal customers…
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It was about half an hour in, and most of the attendees are comfortably settled into the conversation. It is the right time to hurl a brick through a stained glass window during a funeral. “I was thinking of boiling a tongue today for dinner...”
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The meal is comforting but a little bittersweet, since the usual suspects aren’t around the dining room table tonight for this adventure with my Lola’s written recipes. The food just didn’t seem as complete without my Lola hovering over us to see if we’ve gotten enough sauce over our rice mounds…
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As a third culture kid, she looked for a partner from an Indian background to avoid having to explain her cultural specificities on an everyday basis. And look where it landed her…
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I couldn’t make up my mind so I bought one of each. My fingers were the worse for wear because the bags were only big enough to cover them, not carry them…
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It’s a tea towel. Why apologize?
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My friends asked me why I went out with him at all, knowing that he wasn’t from here. I said that’s why I was attracted to him…
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