Fatima's Archives

Around this time yesterday, I made a decision that has been eating me up inside since. Writing about it is just an attempt to clear my mind of it and remind me of why I did what I did.  Now this isn’t something most people would consider a big or important decision, but for me, it was. I was faced with two options - one of them involved not doing anything, hence I might as well say that it wasn’t a choice but a necessary outcome of the current situation. The second one was entirely different, opting for which would be an active, conscious decision on my part. It involved working very hard to achieve something that, were I not to make that choice, I would have gotten anyway. Why then, might you ask, did I even bother to think about it? Obviously, it would be so much easier just to take something you’re being offered right away, than to go the long way just to get the same thing in the end. Why did I even think of it as a choice? Well, as Albus Dumbledore once put it, We must al...

Hey there! I wrote a poem. This one took a lot more thought and effort than most of my poems - which are usually spontaneous, raw and emotional - that I don't post anywhere. I thought a lot about this idea and took almost a week to complete it. I also had to cut out several words, rearrange certain stanzas, and rewrite it a couple of times. I'm quite pleased with the result though - I think this is the best piece of poetry I've managed to write so far.  I would appreciate some feedback on it, if you have any, as I know this is far from perfect. Also, let me know if you have any suggestions for what kind of poetry I might write next. I could do with some new ideas. Here's the poem now: It is easy to dream When the eyes are closed -  When the mind is numb.  When there is no expectation Of life or living -  When there is no burden to carry.  But when the eyes are open -  And the mind can see What the universe has to offer. When the hea...

Last night, my brother casually mentioned that Ramadhan would begin in around twenty days or so. If you keep track of the Islamic calendar, this might not come as big news, but being oblivious to changes in dates and months, I was shocked. I had been aware that Ramadhan would, this year, begin at the end of April, but it still seemed to be a while away. Until I realized that it was April already, and the holy month was just around the corner.  It wasn’t the fact that Ramadhan was coming that shocked me. It was the fact that so much time had elapsed which we hadn’t kept track of at all. Right now, twenty days have passed since I last left the house, and not much has happened since.  In a normal routine, twenty days mean a lot. They can be enough to complete a couple of chapters of studying and get a lot of work done. When travelling, twenty days allow for a luxurious tour. When you start a new sport, twenty days are enough to get in the flow.  And here, twenty days ...

Hey! I haven't posted here in a very long time, and might have stopped posting altogether had it not been for the circumstances we are in. Covid-19 has probably changed the life of every human being on the planet, and that too in a very difficult and frustrating way. And like a lot of you, I've had quite a lot of thoughts buzzing around in my mind, making it difficult to focus on anything. So it occurred to me that I might as well write them down - for writing helps me think better - and even post them here. So here's the idea: I will be posting on this blog more frequently than I used to, random ideas and thoughts that I think a lot about. Don't expect those posts to be very profound and well-written, since the objective is not to create fine pieces of literature but to unclog my own mind by writing about the things that are clogging it. I hope you find them worth reading - if not, you don't have to read them. I find it quite interesting how this pandemic has mad...

Hey everyone! This is a poem that I wrote a while ago - in fact, over a year ago - when I was desperately moved at hearing the news of another relative planning to move abroad. To be honest, this subject that has been of significant pain to me since an early age. I've seen many close family members, friends, and teachers move abroad over the years, and each time I hear of someone else planning to do the same, it hurts. To think that one would push aside their own community, the place in which they were raised, and the ties with people who are so closely related to them at the mere prospect (and not even assurance) of being able to live a better life in a foreign land is hauntingly painful. I do, however, also acknowledge that there are quite multidimensional reasons for people choosing to leave this country. Of course, I am well aware of the unstable economic conditions, and the fact that they greatly affect the living conditions of the majority of our population. I know that...

A few weeks ago, I attended a program at IVS, about which I discussed in my last blog post . One of the tasks that we were assigned during the week on 'Space Odysseys' was to create a piece of art - be it a painting, a write-up, a poem, or a sculpture - based on a space from a story. The story was a ' cassette kahani ', an old-fashioned audio story about a prince and how he risked his life to fight an evil magician and rescue his father. The story, which was in Urdu and was probably recorded at least thirty or forty years ago, was fast-paced and adventure packed, telling a thrilling story of the prince's journey. We listened to the story on the first day of the week, and then were assigned the task of working on an art piece inspired by one of the spaces in the story. We were asked to work on this project throughout the week, and had to present it on the last day of that week. I decided to write a piece of poetry on a scene from the dungeons, when the prince is tr...

This month, my siblings and I had the amazing opportunity to spend two weeks at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture (IVS). We had joined their Crossover Program, which was a program for students aged fifteen to nineteen years. The full program consisted of four weeks, but students could choose to join any of the courses, so we had signed up for the last two weeks. The first week that I attended – which was actually week 3 of the complete program – was on space and architecture, called ‘Space Odysseys’. It started with an introduction to space and how we see it, in relation to our own selves. There were several interesting presentations, numerous discussions, and even field trips that focused around the topic of space. Although there were a lot of things that we had already seen, this course provided a new angle of looking at them. This course was led by four instructors – Dr. Suneela Ahmed, Ms. Natasha Mukarram, Ms. Rakhshaan Qazi and Sir Usman Ansari. All of them be...