by Shadab Zeest Hashmi As the election season seemed more and more like being trapped in a carnival where the uncanny is orchestrated to play up primal fears, we witnessed language itself veering off into the realm of the irrational— not only because statements did not reflect facts or reflected only partial facts, or arguments…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi We are at the Original Pancake House. Walking through these double doors, a life-size mirror is always the first to meet me, but I am never shocked by the reflection as I am now. Does the wallpaper seem more ivory than before? Are the white tablecloths casting a glare? Am I…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi One point six miles from the Pacific, the house with the terra cotta fountain and the carob tree, on Crescent Point Road. You all came home in rear-facing car seats, swaddled in blankets and matching caps, different colors, different years, but from the same hospital, about ten miles away from here.…

by Shadab Zeesht Hashmi Okra, mint and chilies grow in the back and marigolds and roses in the front yard; they’re in my peripheral vision as I bike and study. The seeing is important. Before my grandmother began teaching me and before I owned a student desk with wheels, I didn’t care much for Math.…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi Photo by Ayesha Bokhari. A breathless list of what you’re likely to see fifteen minutes before sunset on my Iftaar table: fruit chaat, a sweet and spicy fruit salad made mostly of apples from my yard, bananas, grapes, orange or lemon juice, chick peas, sometimes guavas and pomegranate seeds, dahi baray,…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi At an Australian cricket club in Manhattan so dimly lit that I lift the nearest tea light so I can see the menu, I feel oddly at home; it is likely the haze of cultural nostalgia in these surroundings. As a Pakistani I grew up with cricket though I’m not much…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi At the end of the story, in its final pages, is a queen. Her name is Morayma. Refusing to be erased or memorialized, she is an inexhaustible figure in a book I long finished, a book of poems tracing the history of Al Andalus. I am in Granada again; after all…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi My first encounter with the ghazal had to have happened at home where my parents played ghazal LPs on their Phillips record player, along with Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Harry Belafonte and Edith Piaf. The ghazal entered my consciousness first as music, accessible only to the extent that Edith Piaf was accessible; through…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi From the outside, Lorca’s summer house in Granada reminds me of childhood laughter, something he vowed never to lose: doors and windows painted promise-green, white walls, sunlight sliding like a child on snow, belly down. On my way here, I’ve seen tomatoes nearly as big as cantaloupes in a shop not…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi Award-winning essayist, novelist, critic, and poet Anis Shivani's second collection of poems Whatever Speaks on Behalf of Hashish was published a few days ago. Here is our conversation about his latest book: SZH: These poems are first and foremost an ideational field, one in which the emotional takes the form of…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi Once, in Italy, I had gelato in a place with a hidden door that opened into a garden with a gazebo. When I discovered it, it was like entering a movie set. Minutes ago I had herded my young children, negotiated foot traffic carrying ice cream and now I was in…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi The sun burnishes the walls every day for just over three quarters of an hour out of the fourteen I spend at my shop; the mannequin assumes a buttery glow then, her organza scarf liquefies in the golden light. The CD skips at mi amour every time but this hiccup is…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi I was first inspired to write a Qasida in English when I came across Lorca’s “Casida de la Rosa” while researching the history of Al Andalus for my book-length series of poems on Muslim Spain. I also knew of Qasida poems in Urdu. For Lorca, who was a native of Granada,…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi In a lineated poem, the line-breaks are used to produce verbal or sonic emphasis, in addition to creating a structure that is arranged such that it is easy to parse and comprehend the poem. When line-length varies, emphasis shifts and dramatic tension or narrative effect is produced. Generally speaking, in a…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi WRITING IS ALL ABOUT EXTENDING: When I was a child, I heard the story of the scholar jinn disguised as a boy, who once extended his arm all the way to the end of the palace courtyard to reach his ink pot, thus exposing his identity to his human tutor and…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi When home comes back to you as a calamity, its name appearing with death tolls and gut-wrenching photos of its youngest population, it feels as if the place itself, its memory, is lodged inside you like a bullet. The wound, inflicted by the War-terrorism binary, is a complicated wound, worsening with…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi As I put my wildly colicky baby to bed, I would unclench his tiny fists, and hold each finger, one by one, listing names of desserts in Urdu: gulaab jamun, halva, russ malai, jalebi, burfi. Adam was taught names in a garden; I taught my son names that likely came from…

by Shadab Zeest Hashmi Allahu Akbar or God is Great, the anthem stolen by the wicked terrorist, whose attack is aimed at life, what holds life together for me— the zikr: Allahu Akbar, God is Greater, greater than prayer, greater than the spectacularly leaping science, the elegance of logic, the morality police, the lust of…