Echoes of Mahnoor

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,...