A Pakistani woman in a tattered burqa
I once met a woman in a tattered burqa. She had come to visit my mother at our home.
Her uncovered eyes blinked in the shadow of her homely footsteps.
Can you please spare me some money? You see my husband has to invest in the business
And we cannot afford — my mother shushed her.
I know hung pregnant in the air as she went to the almirah to get the purse
I looked at the woman. She turned towards me, What's your name, beta? It's Bakho, aunty.
That brief exchange between us sent my nine-year-old neurons into a Kathak of curiosity.
I noticed her voice had Sindhi fingerprints, calloused yet gentle.
She held her statuesque arms rigid in Attahiyat, fists clenched, eyes locked on the floor, like an anchor,
expecting her world to shift at any moment. I waited for her index finger to rise in prayer — it never did.
I put her under a microscope to probe the black veil, but she was transparent as ice.
A typical Pakistani housewife, who could change masks in a heartbeat—and with them, her roles:
An Abida cooking in the scorching summer heat, wiping sweat, nervous, looking at the clock.
A battered Rani with broken bangles pleading with a merciless husband for mercy – with silent eyes.
A confident Laila laughing at her maika, speaking truths about her Majnu she wished were true.
Her smiles forced, forehead marked, lips in repair and hair like cracked granite.
On the edge of tearing apart, if only her zimmedariyan* allowed it.
Looking at her, I felt clouds behind my eyes, threatening rain, but I held back the tide
Not in front of her — the rain might make her burqa wet.
So, I went to my mom squeezing my eyes shut like little dams, spilling questions.
Her husband beats her daily – I wondered at what, ludo, cops and robbers or hopscotch.
I dared not ask further, fearing I’d be ‘marked’ a problematic teen— to be cast in irons of Vani or Cha.
Somewhere, wedding bells clanged like air raid sirens, forcing me to bury my questions in a frozen grave.
Ziada sawal puchnay wali larkion ki jaldi shadi ho jati hai**, ominously ringing in my ears.
As mom went back to her, she unsheathed herself from her burqa to prove she wasn’t lying –
her upper back laid bare to us an ancient star map—
deep purple galaxies with yellow planets and dark blue moons bathed in crimson sunlight,
a distant lavender supernova, beige-pink stars fading into silence.
The gravitational pull drew me and my mother into her universe.
In it, we saw floating in the void Women with crushed windpipes, strangled in the name of honor.
Women with their noses, lips, and eyebrows disfigured by acid.
Women with ugly scars across their bellies, and Women holding bloody coathangers.
Many planets, many stars, many galaxies we traveled — in the story of her skin.
Then the burqa descended like a black hole, swallowing it all
in its ominous darkness.
Chicken Noodle Soup/A wedding night-cum-death-bed
Trigger Warning: Domestic abuse/Marital rape
Ingredients/Traditions
Egg noodles/Golden, flowing strands - 3628 g/curling like question marks of innocence
Boneless chicken breasts/Soft, tender cuts, stripped of armor and bone - 1 ½ tbsps/—fragile, defenseless.
Low-fat chicken stock/A thin, pale broth simmering - 2 cups/Unspoken words
Chopped parsley/Flecks of green - 3/4 tsps./first steps into womanhood
Finely diced thyme/Fragments of time - 3/4 tsps./sliced and scattered
Chopped tarragon/A bitter sharp herb - 3/4 tsps./Umpteenth edges of rituals
Shredded carrots/Silvers of orange - 4/Vibrant but torn apart
Freshly cut celery stalks/Rigid stems - 4/Fit to perfection
Diced onions/Layers peeled away - 2/pungent truth burning eyes
Olive oil/Liquid gold - 2 tbsps./Unmeasured, unsized
Assembly/Bed
Place all ingredients on the kitchen worktop/A woman sat adorned in a crimson sharara. Bring out a large cooking pot and saute onions in oil over medium heat/golden threads weaving stories of tradition through the fabric./Rose petals carpeted the floor beneath her./ Add carrots, thyme, rosemary, parsley, tarragon, and celery to the oil./their scent mingling with the jasmine canopy overhead/Let them cook and cover them with the lid./framing her waiting figure in the soft glow of candlelight./She awaited her groom/her hennaed hands trembling slightly/their intricate patterns telling a tale of love and anticipation./
The Boil/The Pause
Once the mixture gets ready, transfer it to a large skillet and stir in chicken broth./He entered soon, a smile lighting his face, his footsteps firm, his voice gentle as he sought her consent to begin what the world calls "love-making."/ Let it simmer for about 30 minutes. Whisk in egg noodles and chicken breast pieces./But midway, he paused. His hands froze; his breath hitched. His eyes, dark pools of disbelief, searched hers with a question unspoken, as the air between them thickened, heavy with silence.
Serving/The Aftermath
Dish it out after 30 minutes more./His gaze dropped to the sheets—those pale, pristine witnesses— now stained with streaks of red, but not from her body’s expected offering. Not from her vagina, but elsewhere./Ladle the soup into a bowl and garnish it with pepper and salt./The betrayal was not hers, but his assumption. Yet the evidence lay there, stark and unyielding, a false testament to purity he’d demanded. /And the room, once fragrant and sacred, grew cold beneath the weight of his disappointment. /His manhood.
The Yellow Mirage
I have a love-hate relationship with the sun
since the moment I came into this world.
My khala tells me I’d leap at her as a child
whenever she wore her yellow dupatta during namaz.
I’d jump into her lap, refusing to stop
until she got too tired to hold me and handed me back to my mother.
Even then, I’d keep fussing until I was distracted by something sunny—
or a small sun on a plate: a fried egg or a half-boiled egg.
My khala would carefully prick the yolk with a silver spoon,
letting it flow —
liquid gold in a treasure hidden from the prying eyes of pirates
I was obsessed with yellow.
I threw tantrums until my mother bought me bright yellow clothes—
nothing else. No shade lighter. No shade darker.
Even my illnesses seemed to pay homage to my love for yellow.
When I had jaundice, I remember asking my khala
why she got me a purple bracelet instead of a yellow armlet.
I even demanded a fried egg, despite the doctors forbidding it.
Reluctantly, she made one with more water than oil, calling it "pani wala anda".
When she placed it on the table, I got excited by the bubbles forming in the safaidi (albumen).
I counted them one by one,
distracted from the yolk’s slightly lighter shade of yellow.
That was the first time I felt like I was swallowing the sun—
and it wasn’t a good feeling. My tender mind didn’t know what triggered me, but my stomach seemed to, & it promptly rejected it as if it had been waiting all along.
Later that night, I dreamt I was in a plane, leaning out of the cockpit window, facing the sun, and feeling
A-L-I-V-E
The next day, I went to the rooftop, spread my arms, closed my eyes,
and let the sun’s rays bathe me.
I didn’t feel consumed by them,
but like I was part of the sun & those rays are my tresses
Disheveled & uncombed
Sunflowers became my favorite.
I’d stare at their pictures on the internet,
trying to tell them how much I adored them.
But neither did they listen, nor did I speak.
It was a tête-à -tête between silences.
At 23, I got married, but my obsession with the yellowness of the sun never waned.
At my Mayyon, I finally had the chance to show the world my devotion for the yellow star .
I flaunted my bright yellow sharara, adorned with green & red stars, my body glowing with ubtan
& danced my heart out for the first time in front of people.
‘Listen, listen, everyone, I’ve finally turned yellow!’
Since that day, yellow has become my symbol of happiness,
sun, my lifeline, my eclipses, my unmarked grave.
One midnight, during the early days of my marriage, I surprised my husband
by pulling out my yellow sharara and wearing it again.
Over time, I became one of those people who feels a strange joy when someone says,
“Your eyes look yellow—are you alright?”
(“Yes, I am—alive in yellow, more than they could ever know.”)
They’d never understand, assuming it was just one of my eccentric whims. But in my mind, I lived
in a world of yellows
yellow deserts
yellow camels
yellow bellies
yellow infants
Orange has ceased to exist for me.
Whenever I close my eyes and slip into my world of imagined colors,
all the images I see are either black or yellow.
Once, I saw a black tunnel emitting yellow light as I entered.
I kept walking until the yellow became white, then a blur,
and finally a dot.
Now, I’m not sure whether I truly love the sun
or simply tolerate it because it mirrors the bright yellow world I carry within me—
a world that exists only when I close my eyes
and paint its images onto the secret notebooks
hidden in my unmarked grave.
The White Clouds
Whenever I look at white clouds, I feel fairy lights are lighting up the sky,
and that it’s always Shab-e-Baraat up there.
Except they’re white—
perhaps they haven’t seen many reds, oranges, and yellows,
unlike the kids who decorate their goats every year, for the annual slaughter.
Or the children who fly kites on rooftops,
Pretend, F16 fighter jets defending the motherland
One saying he is Major Abdul Aziz Bhatti, the other claiming he will make his own legacy.
I ignore those children, and imagine what clouds look like, inside.
They say clouds are tiny water droplets floating everywhere,
but I feel they’re finding cozy nooks to snuggle up with a good book.
Except they don’t have a favorite book.
They get recommendations, though, in their circles, but they disappear
into tiny bubbles
little polka dots
dancing in a kids birthday party,
wearing a colorful hat with pom-poms
blue confetti everywhere
We use them to create our own stories, thinking they are original,
their thoughts floating in our bubbles,
which we later turn into comic characters
who speak like us,
except when they
KABOOM
CRASHHHHH
AYEEEEE
with exclamation marks!
These little fluffy cotton balls come in different shapes:
The big, puffy elite aunty with an anglicized accent gossiping about others
“Oh have you seen that weirdo spinning around?
Ha ha, somebody please give her a reality check. She is not the ‘bombshell tornado’ she thinks she is”
the flat, gray-haired uncle, with wet newspapers tucked under his arms
& thunderstorm dreams in eyes,
always muttering, “Looks like rain... again”
the wispy, unsure woman going through ‘midlife stratus’,
and the wild, excited kid running around at the skyland
with no handkerchief to wipe off his sweat,
stirring up the rain
They often have parties with stardust and galaxies,
where moonbeams twirl as disco lights,
and the Milky Way serves as the open mic stage,
where comets come and crack lame jokes:
"Why don’t stars ever throw wild parties?"
"Because they don’t want to get black-holed into trouble!"
& constellations read poems by Sara Shagufta
‘izzat ki bahut si qismen hain
ghunghat thappad gandum’
Auroras sway like ribbons, wrapping the clouds in hues of green and pink,
and the stars, ever the gracious hosts ask everybody for drinks & snacks
Nebula nachos, meteorite cheese, planetary popcorns, & their signature shooting star cocktails
the ceremony ends with milky way singing a love ballad, “Ay Dil Mjhe Bata De”
for her introvert lover, Andromeda
who silently blushes, her bright blue cheeks turning red
as comets & meteorites whistle & tease her playfully.
& somewhere down on the earth,
an orphan boy at Edhi foundation finally puts up fairy lights on the Mithadar streets.
Under the belly of Margalla Hills, Islamabad
I recently visited the Margalla Hills and saw the cervixes of mountains opening up
like congealed, old brown blood exiting my body—
eleven days past my due date.
The sight gave me ‘brown’ goosebumps
which I imagined
as brown bears moving freely through Antarctic snow
their territory
where they reign as kings
and we, the slaves.
It made me think of the brown little babies
that might have been hidden in my particles of blood—
fat little eggs and goofy sperms that lost their way
slipping
from the hands of their brown mother and father
tumbling around
with cardboard boxes.
The boxes—16x12x12 holds the chaos of those children
endlessly packing and unpacking their toys,
not questioning the why of it because why?
The boxes allowing it,
their cardboard minds drifting to their own children,
packed away with books, CDs, and kitchen gadgets
their freedom sealed with edges worn dry
lips parched & chapped
unlike their elders constantly breathing air - crinkle craft paper–
lungs stretched wide from the impatience of small hands,
sipping on the ‘arctic bluey, what-is-there-in-the-sky’ innocence of little beanies
& the canary yellow, oh-wow-sun-is-yellow curiosity
(None of that is truly childlike, if you think about it.
But poets lean on images, serious metaphors to frame the questions
they forget to ask at times.
Child-speak
is the most natural form of poetry:
unscripted, maximum effort but unseen
but we don’t understand so
because to us, blue looks bluer when it is with sapphires or oceans,
green, greener when grass tells us so
yellow, yellower ‘cause the sunflower dictates us
Is ‘as’ the criminal here, or we?
...let the rhythm break (for once, please)
…let us make fools of ourselves
because why not?)
But nobody cares for those tiny boxes
(just as I didn’t during my monologue,
bhashan)
I don’t care for those bloody particles leaving my body too
I let them go,
changing pad after pad,
allowing the cotton and plastic to soak them up
They die
in the faint floral-powdery fragrance of a new pad
while I look at the cracks in the mountains of Margalla,
matching the linear cleavage of my skin—
dry, cracked, itchy, and rough.
Blisters form, break open during eczema,
itchy, making me rub my palms and feet on every surface—
rough, soft, doesn’t matter... every touch counts.
These mountains make me rub my skin against them during every flare-up,
their rugged skin mine, mine theirs.
And we both end up with more blisters, more crags—
could be a tourist site, my sketch on the mountains
& their cracks on my fingers –
another way for the government to make taxes:
“Look we have mountains with drawings of human hands and feets from 5000 ABCD”
Archaeologists will come from far and away, carbon-dating the hell out of them
articles will have headlines, “Ancient Civilizations Discovered in Margalla”
religious folks will call it ‘Mini Arafat’ and will pray around it, from noon until sunset:
(a miracle of god with tax: for both man and god)
Historians will document the sacred rocks, sharing legends of the first human markings
and lost civilizations—
the Epic of Gilgamesh, Mayan glyphs, and Indus Valley symbols swirling in their minds,
comparing them to the Nazca Lines,
finding no answers, only more questions.
Museum curators will polish every inch,
putting a price tag on the ‘sacredness’ of what was once free.
Tourists will snap pictures and ‘gram them with….’ interesting’ captions:
"When your ancestors were better at tagging than you #UnfinishedBusiness"
"Mountains are just Earth's way of showing off their tattoos #MysteriousMarkings #NoWiFiHere",
whereas I’ll be lying in Margalla’s belly,
laughing.
Fizza Abbas is a writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. She is fond of poetry and music. Her work has appeared in more than 100 journals, both online and in print. Her work has also been nominated for Best of The Net and shortlisted for Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition 2021.
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