Guest AuthorLeave a comment

Question of death: Comfort in philosophy or religion?

I have never been a religious person. I used to grudgingly partake in religious ceremonies in childhood, and as an adult, I have deliberately stopped it altogether. With all the baggage an organized religion comes with, it was a conscious decision on my part.

The question of dying and how to prepare for death is something that has always intrigued me. After all, for all of our discussions on politics, society, economy, and every other thing under the sun (termed imagined reality by Yuval Noah Harari), this is the ultimate thing, the philosophical and literal final nail in the coffin. Continue reading “Question of death: Comfort in philosophy or religion?” →

Guest AuthorLeave a comment

The conscious-unconscious uncoupling: A series (Part II)

This is the second story in the 3-part series of partition tales by the author. This story is based on true events, and the family members mentioned below are relatives of the author’s maternal grandfather. 

You can read part one here.

15 August 1947.

A date to be remembered eternally by the inhabitants of India and Pakistan. It
was a tryst of life and death, a scramble for preservation of identity and honor.

While the didactic and legislative attributes of this partition have been memorialized in multiple books as well as museums, those who viewed the unfolding of these events remember it first-hand as an anthology of trauma and agony. These memories of disquiet and paranoia are inscribed into the families of those displaced and left vulnerable, every scar commemorated, and each tear shed pulverized into folklore for the children of millennia to come. The lineage of refugees and those of the partition diaspora, carry with them the past never told, their reminisces intangible and aged, and yet preserved.

I belong to an aged ménage of one of the many families who fled from Pakistan during the partition. My predecessors belonged to the myriad inhabitants of Peshawar who absconded or succumbed to death, leaving behind everything they knew – fearful yet proudly donning their Kesari turbans as they marched towards a world unbeknownst to them. Continue reading “The conscious-unconscious uncoupling: A series (Part II)” →

Guest AuthorLeave a comment

The conscious-unconscious uncoupling: A series (Part I)

15 August 1947.

A date to be remembered eternally by the inhabitants of India and Pakistan. It
was a tryst of life and death, a scramble for preservation of identity and honor.

While the didactic and legislative attributes of this partition have been memorialized in multiple books as well as museums, those who viewed the unfolding of these events remember it first-hand as an anthology of trauma and agony. These memories of disquiet and paranoia are inscribed into the families of those displaced and left vulnerable, every scar commemorated, and each tear shed pulverized into folklore for the children of millennia to come. The lineage of refugees and those of the partition diaspora, carry with them the past never told, their reminisces intangible and aged, and yet preserved.

I belong to an aged ménage of one of the many families who fled from Pakistan during the partition. My predecessors belonged to the myriad inhabitants of Peshawar who absconded or succumbed to death, leaving behind everything they knew – fearful yet proudly donning their Kesari turbans as they marched towards a world unbeknownst to them. Continue reading “The conscious-unconscious uncoupling: A series (Part I)” →