Echoes of Mahnoor

I thought leaving would hurt the most. Everyone talks about how difficult it is to let go of someone who once meant everything to you, so I prepared myself for sleepless nights, for the urge to text them, for missing them in places they'd never even been. I prepared myself for grief. What I hadn't prepared myself for was relief. The day I walked away, I wasn't counting the things I had lost. I remember feeling lighter, almost guilty for how light I felt. I kept wondering if something was wrong with me. Wasn't I supposed to be heartbroken? Wasn't I supposed to miss them? Why did breathing suddenly feel easier? Relief almost felt like guilt, especially when the people around me made me feel as though leaving had been the wrong choice. It made me question myself. Had I given up too soon? Had I failed to fight hard enough? Was I the problem all along? For the longest time, I convinced myself that I had escaped untouched. I told myself that maybe I hadn't loved deepl...

I think one of the most dangerous things a person can possess is not charm, or intelligence, or influence. It's the ability to convince others that they are someone they are not. The funny thing is that these people rarely reveal themselves immediately. If they did, nobody would stay. Nobody would trust them. Nobody would let them close enough to matter.  Instead, they arrive carefully packaged. Kind enough. Honest enough. Genuine enough. They say the right things, laugh at the right moments, make themselves easy to trust. Before you know it, they've settled into your life so naturally that you stop questioning them altogether. And perhaps that's where the trouble begins, not in what they did, but in how much faith you placed in the version of them they chose to show you. Looking back, I don't think I was blind. I think I was hopeful, and there's a difference.  Blindness means there were no signs.  Hope means the signs existed but you kept searching for kinder expl...

I think one of the strangest things about university is that nobody really prepares you for the people. Before coming here, everybody talks about grades, attendance shortages, assignments that will keep you awake until 3 a.m., presentations that will make you question your existence and teachers who apparently enjoy making life difficult. Nobody tells you that one of the most exhausting parts of university will be navigating people. When I first entered university, I thought making friends would be easy. After all, everyone is new. Everyone is looking for company. Everyone is trying to settle in. How hard could it be? Turns out, quite hard. You walk into a classroom with forty or fifty people and suddenly you're expected to build an entirely new social life from scratch. Some people instantly click with others. Some already seem comfortable despite it being the first week. Some somehow know everybody's name within two days while you still struggle to remember who sits beside yo...

One time, I tried explaining Instagram Stories to my grandma. “Dadi, it’s like a photo or video you post… but it disappears after 24 hours.” She stared at me the way teachers stare before announcing a surprise test. “Disappears?” she repeated. “Phir faida kya hai? What’s the point?” I tried again. “It’s just temporary. For fun.” She shook her head slowly, deeply disappointed. “Memories are not for fun. They are for keeping.” And just like that, my entire generation was humbled by a woman who still stores wedding photos in plastic-covered albums inside a metal trunk in the store room. To her, memories live in albums, not on apps. You don’t let them “expire.” You protect them from dust, humidity, and overly curious children who might bend the corners. Honestly, I didn’t have a comeback. That moment made me realize something. We aren’t just different in age we operate on completely different software versions. As Gen Z, we communicate in memes, reaction emojis, and “seen at 2:14 PM...

It’s been almost a year since my dadi passed away. She left us in late October, but the house hasn’t been the same since. When you live with someone your whole life, their absence is not just felt in big moments. It’s in every hallway, every sound, every smell. The silence feels heavier now. I miss her in ways that only make sense if you’ve shared a home with someone. I miss hearing her call out to ask if it’s time for namaz. Her voice would travel from her room to wherever I was, like a gentle reminder that faith was part of our daily rhythm. I miss the way she’d make the crispiest parathas, their smell filling the entire house so you’d know breakfast was ready before you even entered the kitchen. I miss her namaz dupatta, always neatly folded beside her prayer mat, carrying the faint scent of her creams. I miss how she’d tell me to study instead of cleaning, saying, “Dust will still be there tomorrow, but your grades matter now.” Living with her meant having that constant presence,...

I recently staretd making UI designs when I found out that they were pretty easy to make and since then I been just going down the rabbit hole. Figma was, of course, my tool of choice. I downloaded the iPhone 15 Pro design templates and dove into Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. This gave me a solid foundation for understanding the unique screen dimensions, along with the new features that the 15 Pro offers, like the always-on display. I wanted my app’s UI to be as smooth and calming as the experience of meditation itself, with soft colors and intuitive navigation that felt at home on the iPhone. The whole process was a great learning experience. From balancing aesthetics with usability to harnessing the iPhone 15 Pro’s high-resolution display for a truly immersive experience, creating this app was both challenging and fulfilling. Designing for a device like this has pushed my creativity and given me a deeper appreciation for thoughtful, user-centric UI design. Attaching only 3 of t...