Echoes of Mahnoor

It's crazy to think how someone can make a set of rules for themselves to follow, and they're doing very well at following them, but then someone comes into their life who starts challenging those rules and makes them question: do they want to bend them, or do they want to keep following them? They ignore the question, put it aside, and keep going. Then, when they look back, they realise those rules somehow became a way around themselves, and they ended up falling for someone really hard. And perhaps that's the strange thing about a slow burn. It doesn't announce itself. It starts with friendship. Then somehow, that person becomes a really good friend, the person they look for in a room, the person they tell the stupidest things to, the person whose presence becomes a little too familiar, a little too comforting. Somewhere along the way, without a clear moment when it happened, they start falling for them. They begin hoping, quietly, that perhaps the other person feels ...

Talking to my friend the other day, she casually mentioned that her younger cousin doesn't know who Mr. Bean is. I genuinely had to pause for a second. How does a four-year-old not know Mr. Bean? How does a child grow up without knowing the characters that practically raised an entire generation? It sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, but it made me realise just how different childhood has become. There was a time when coming home from school meant throwing your bag somewhere, grabbing a snack and rushing towards the television because your favourite cartoon was about to start. There was no scrolling endlessly through hundreds of videos, no algorithm deciding what you should watch next and certainly no option to replay an episode whenever you wanted. You simply waited for it. Then there were the weekends. The kind where waking up early didn't feel like a punishment because there was a Ben 10 movie playing at noon. You'd already seen half of it before, but that didn...

You're so used to bundling everything up, closing it as tightly as you possibly can with a zip tie, throwing it into a box, and putting that box somewhere so far away and so deep within yourself that you eventually forget it ever existed. You become so accustomed to shoving everything away that when someone suddenly asks you to reopen that box and untangle everything inside it, only then do you realise how terribly you were treated, how much you tolerated, and how much of yourself you had quietly abandoned in the process. That's what dismissal does to you. You tell yourself to "forget it", to "leave it", to "not make such a big deal out of it", when somewhere deep down you know that it did pinch you. Maybe it hurt more than you allowed yourself to admit. But you leave it anyway, because hiding something away is often easier than having to look directly at it. Perhaps that's what running away does to a person. Instead of fight, you choose flight...

Perhaps everyone carries a cemetery of unlived lives within them. Versions of themselves that existed only for a heartbeat before a single decision quietly buried them. Somewhere, in another version of the world, there's a person who chose differently. They boarded a different bus, replied to the message, stayed instead of leaving, left instead of staying, chose another university, trusted another person. They aren't real, yet somehow they feel familiar. A decision is the death of another possibility. Every choice is an introduction to one life and a goodbye to countless others. Choosing one road isn't simply about moving forward; it's about quietly closing the door on every path that could have been. Sometimes, life places us at a crossroads where neither road is wrong, yet neither comes without a cost. One asks us to choose ourselves. The other asks us to choose everyone else. So we sit there, drawing out every possibility in our heads. One life lets us keep the peace...

It's strange how all your life you've held yourself together. Like trying to carry all the groceries in one trip, refusing to make a second round because you've convinced yourself you should be able to manage it all. Like gathering every piece of laundry in both your hands, carefully making sure not a single sock slips onto the dirty floor. Like standing in front of the stove, watching the milk so it doesn't boil over because you know you'll be scolded for making a mess. Somewhere along the way, you learn that everything is your responsibility. Dropping something feels like failure. Asking for help feels like weakness. So you convince yourself that you're okay, even when every part of you is screaming that you're tired. And then they come along. They hold you the way you'd hold a butterfly with torn wings, afraid that even the slightest pressure might hurt it more. They hold you the way you'd cradle a weak kitten, careful enough not to frighten it. T...

There are people who spend years in our lives and leave almost nothing behind. Then there are people who stay for a few months, a few conversations, or even a single afternoon, and somehow leave fingerprints all over the person we become. That makes me wonder if they know the change they instilled in me. I wonder if my Physics teacher knows that he saw potential in me when I couldn't see it myself.  I wonder if my Sports teacher knows that entrusting me with the netball team taught me confidence and responsibility.  Seeing potential in someone is much like sunlight falling on a flower. The sun doesn't ask the flower to bloom overnight, it simply keeps showing up every day until, one day, the flower blossoms into something beautiful and fragrant.  Sometimes, all a person needs is someone who believes in them before they can believe in themselves. Then I wonder if that friend who broke me ever realized that they taught me when to leave. We spend so much time thinking about ...

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...

Navigating Life as the Eldest Sibling: A Personal Reflection Sometimes, it feels like I’m just another teenager overwhelmed with frustration. I’ve spent years accumulating emotions that seem impossible to release. Although I long to let them go, finding an easy way to do that often feels elusive. But that’s not the reason for this blog post. Understanding the Elder Sibling Experience Being the oldest sibling comes with a unique set of challenges and responsibilities. As the eldest, I find myself in a role that’s both rewarding and taxing. It’s not just about setting an example; it’s about navigating the expectations and pressures that come with this position. We often end up understanding each other’s struggles in a way that only fellow eldest siblings can. We share the same jokes, the same frustrations, and, most importantly, the same sense of unspoken responsibility. The Role of the Role Model I recall a memorable piece of advice from a teacher: “You’re the eldest; you have to be the...

"Just for this summer", my mom told me when she enrolled me in an Arabic calligraphy class and I was not having it. I mean I just had given my O level exams two weeks ago after months and months of sleepless studying and I certainly didn’t have the will to go and listen to someone talk about painting for hours.  I mean I did like to paint in my free time but I just wanted to lay in bed and sleep for weeks without any care in the world. As they say, going to bed without any academic stress is certainly the best slumber of all.  When you realise that you no longer have to wake up at four in the morning to do Maths past papers and then read practicals for the Biology exam your whole body screams with the joy of endless social media scrolling.  But that’s what I wanted to do… When does life even happen the way you want it to? Anyway, after five weeks of different brush stroke techniques, canvas preparation, colour patterns and writing styles I was on top of the world. I mean ...

From Hamariweb.com Pakistan: A country where 240 million people live, won't believe it when you tell its people that the number of elderly residing in it will increase to 45 million, by 2050. As of 2021, approximately 6.8% of Pakistan's population was aged 60 and above, amounting to over 15 million elderly individuals. Common Beliefs There is a belief that there's a higher number of youth in this country and ‘certainly there can't be a lot of 'old people', this is true, but, if we look at the picture from a bird's eye view, we will also see a large amount of elderly people in our country who, sadly, have been neglected by their own... I'm not talking about those who, because of their financial difficulties, have to ask for monetary support on the footpath. I'm talking about those whose own blood 'can't afford them as they're medical needs are too expensive' or they're 'burdensome' or that ‘my mother keeps on forgetting wha...