Category: Uncategorized
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A minor update of sorts.
My review of Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi’s brilliant and humorous novel Mirages of the Mind (Aab-e-Gum in Urdu) was published in the August issue of Words Without Borders. Goes without saying but still: read it if you want.
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On dreams
My dear, remember the time I used to write to you about my dreams: just last night I dreamt about a woman talking to me in words I had never heard, her pink lips moving through her sheer black veil looked so beautiful in the soft sunlight that I wanted to photograph it but just…
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On Staying (II)
Looking at my somewhat grim face in the mirror, I remembered what a writer from New York had said to me about the city that is home. Sitting across from the table, he told me that Jaipur had made him sad. It was the first time he had witnessed Indian poverty and he could not…
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On something resembling a dream
My eyes closed for a moment and suddenly everything seemed slower. I sat down trying to make sense of it: things were more tactile, filled with more sensuality, absolute feeling—I knew even as it unfolded that it was a dream. Was it? It must be, for what else could it be, so abundant and ominous? I rested…
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On Staying
I wanted to write to you, dear, I wanted to tell you how foreign I’d felt standing at the Abu Dhabi airport, waiting for the security official to hand me back my passport and boarding pass, as everyone around me spoke languages unknown to me, as another man came and asked me what my name…
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On smoke
I woke up at 7:30 in the morning from a dream of a woman whose face was covered with the smoke of her cigarette, and even though the smoke must have disappeared almost instantly I couldn’t see her face and from then on, on this walk I was taking in a space accessible only through…
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Theatre, etc.
A small update: Alok Dhanwa’s poem ‘Theatre’ (with my translation and photographs) is now up at 3:AM Magazine. Many thanks are due to the editor, Tristan Foster. S.
Beyond Six Rivers 