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PART ONE On the Paris metro, a teenaged girl sits next to her mother. Her mother speaks to her in Urdu, reprimanding her softly for something she has done. Tumhe ye nahin karna chahiyye tha. Je suis désolé maman. Agar tumhaare abu ku pata chala tho? Je ne recommencerai pas. It’s an exchange I’ve had before, that I’ve… Continue reading On Language and Identity →

I've never felt the ocean more viscerally than that hour I spent surfing. We swam out maybe 50 yards into the ocean, close enough to be in sight of shore and far enough to be at the mercy of the waves.  Floating was really easy on the board, the thick material and the long shape… Continue reading Surfing →

Two hours drive from the city, up the forested roads of Mt. Rainier, comes a parking lot below a clearing. On the eve of a new moon, on a warm summer night, we hiked up and settled down, turned off our headlamps and looked up, dilated our pupils and gasped. There was not an inch… Continue reading Stargazing Reflection →

As the dusty, weary, thirsty pilgrims approach the blessed house they fall into orbit around it, eyes full and hearts yearning, hands outstretched towards the magnetic black cube towards which they prostrate back home. This lonely brick structure in the middle of an uninviting desert, unremarkable save for its symbolism, continues to attract longing souls… Continue reading Vignettes on Hajj →

Dear Mohsin,Mr. Cook made us read a lot of books my junior year of high school, but the book that stood out the most to me was yours, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. I had read books that I had seen bits of myself in before: The Power of One, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part… Continue reading A Letter to Mohsin Hamid →

Imagine you are on a team tasked with writing a novel. At first you all huddle together and figure out what it’s about. Who is the intended audience? What will readers take away from the book? You hash out the arc of the story, the characters, how they’ll interact with each other to drive the… Continue reading What It’s Like to Write Software on a Team →