Echoes of Mahnoor

"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...

Diversity in Thought In this current day and age where we as members of society use social media to display ourselves as abstract art pieces or to highlight our creative ideas, we often leave behind specks of our personal perspectives in between, namely as our thoughts (be them intrusive or not), opinions or points of view.  We showcase one little piece of ourselves to the world thinking and knowing that it doesn't define us. But do the people on the other side of the screen who read our comment, retweet or thread also think the same?  Do we come off as ignorant? Rude? Or perhaps insensitive? Where our voices are heard as something else when purely the text means the exact way it is phrased in... We get notifications of our post 'not meeting the community guidelines'. Dangers of Cancel Culture  Cancel Culture, while most of the time is used to reject harmful behavior or beliefs, sometimes, it may result in the arrow hitting the wrong target. It may result in dismissing or...

When I am asked what I like to do in my free time, I simply reply 'I read'. And I kid you not, in return, 90% of the time I get the most disapproving looks which people give to a person who's giving an exam wearing maroon socks with giraffes on it or someone who likes the combination of pickles and jam (been there done that). But the point is, just because BookTok provides the 'best book recommendations ever' there are oh so many hidden gems that people tend to undermine because 'its not popular' or 'I only read from this particular author'. I believe, that as a member of the society we should take a little step backwards and give a chance to that dusty book in the corner of one's shelf not just because the 'cover isn't pretty'. Trust me you will have the time of your life while finishing that book chapter by chapter. And that's what Toshikazu Kawaguchi does with his 'Before The Coffee Gets Cold', it's a normal little ...