I love you, but please stop asking me to RT everything

My phone pinged again. “Hey girl! Pls share this for me? Xxx” a Facebook link was in the message. I locked my phone and dropped it on the bed. Advertisements

I took an Ancestry Test and as a Pakistani, I learnt little

I am a British Pakistani born in London. Both my mother and father were born in Lahore, Pakistan. I can’t speak my mother tongue and I know little to nothing about my ethnic culture – what can I say? They didn’t bring it with them when they came. As I got older I became curious […]

On Being a Non-Bilingual Brown Person

“You can’t understand Punjabi?!” Rishma* said, mouth open in a grin stuck on pause that evolved into rolling laughter of disbelief. “No,” I smiled, clenching my fists that lulled by my sides to prevent them from instinctively floating up and punching her in the jaw.

Exercise saved my mental health

I have suffered with mental health issues for as long as I can remember. Even in primary school, I just found life too overwhelming. What I didn’t consider though was that my diet and lifestyle didn’t help – I bunked every P.E class and I lived on fried chicken, ramen noodles, frozen food and concentrated […]

Can I celebrate Christmas as a Muslim?

I think it’s pretty safe to say at this stage that hatred of Muslims is brewing into something that can no longer be halted; there’s no other option now – it is going to get worse before it gets better.

He Came In The Dead Of The Night

It was the dead of the night, and Maria was dead to the world. Her legs sunk into the mattress, the weight lifted away, her mind finally tranquil when the first pebble hit her bedroom window. The cul-de-sac she lived on was quiet; a safe space away from the city, the throng of trees a […]

My First Love Broke Me

The first time I fell in love, I thought it would be forever. We had kids names planned and I had our futures mapped out in my mind. He was the first man to meet my parents – in all my twenties so far, I haven’t met another man worthy of the honour. But it […]