It was not often that I received odd parcels. True, my job at the paper did occasionally warrant a few peculiar hate-mail or rebuttals, but this was nothing of that sort

Mrs X's parents were not interested in spending money on their daughter's room because they would have to give her new furniture when she got married

Mohsin would burst into laughter, saying, "Justice for rape? Is that even a crime worthy of justice?" Rabeya, laughing alongside him, would add, "People expect justice for rape these days? I'm speechless at their naïveté!" 

You tell me stories of the sea—of its waves, of how it speaks to you in a language only you can understand—whenever you write back to me.

The rain began at dusk, its cold fingers tracing the cracked panes of the house like an unwelcome visitor. By midnight, the storm had grown wild, wind howling through the trees, rattling the fragile bones of the dwelling. I stood before the door, my hand trembling on the tarnished brass handle.

The cream colored bowl held the steaming, almost translucent yellow broth with traces of white, garnished by an array of green onions slashed in an angle.

Nuri had just swallowed a little orange pill dry, when she noticed that the portrait of ‘The Sexual Revolutionary’ had been taken down from the wall of her childhood bedroom.

I see her now, but not in the way I have always seen her—through the lens of service, of duty, of roles—but as a woman whose edges were softened long before I learned her name

At last, God heeded Sisyphus’s prayer—a plea he had been making for countless centuries. Each time, he hoisted the rock onto his shoulders, convinced that this would be the time it ascended with ease

One sits silently. Her eyes blink sometimes. Sometimes her lips tremble a little, or they don’t tremble at all.

He had consistently disregarded the villagers' accounts of bhoot-prets as local folklore. To him, they were just stories to scare the gullible

That night, the wind howled like the wolves as Shyam and Alameen rowed silently, their boat traversing through the misty air and the water rippling gently beneath them.

Mother woke before sunrise with the weight of the house pulling at her bones and moved against the cold floor, the chill biting at her ankles. In the corner hung the gutted rabbit, its blood pooling on the floor. Her fingers trembled, as she bathed herself in it, coating her skin red.

I plead but I know there is nothing I can do. Akbar, in a rare fit of courage, tries to intervene. But the old man does not budge. Maybe he knows about Mina and me.

Is it true that when we migrate, we lose a few people from our past?

The mosque committee was quite displeased with Rashed, their young muezzin.

The love of the city prevails over the love of kulfi

This is the first time I let you in, but you’ve already made yourself at home. You are bumbling around in my kitchen, as though you have been making me tea for a lifetime.

Umar stood in line with all the patience in the world. He could smell the anxiety and fear in the air. The room was filled with people once glorifying death and taking pride in solitude, now filled with panic in the face of reality.

TRIGGER WARNING: animal brutality