We should have stories in common, I found myself thinking. We should have stories, and jokes no one understands, and memories that we know will stay alive because neither of us will let the other forget.

Pride! In English it is a Deadly Sin. But in Urdu it is fakhr and nazish - both names that you can find more than once on our family tree.

Decisions. Where, what, why. Can't handle them. So I'm prolonging the indecision with higher education.

The truths we conceal don't disappear Raheen, they appear in different forms

Can I ask you a personal question"? Of all the rhetorical questions in the world, that is the one which irritates me most with its simultaneous gesture towards and denial of the trespass that is about to follow.

You have this ability to find beauty in weird places.

Don't you know how much I hero-worshiped you when I was a kid? You were Marie Curie crossed with Emily Bronte crossed with Joan of Arc to me when I was ten. And when i told you that, you said my cultural references were the sign of a colonized mind.