Author: Iqra Asad Khan

In you and I there’s a whole new land (Opening the Cabinet # 2)

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In the book Show Your Work by Austin Kleon, there’s a section called “Open Up Your Cabinet of Curiosities” with a bunch of questions, all of which I am determined to answer. The first one was “Where do you get your inspiration?” The second one is:

What sort of things do you fill your head with?

I’m a big believer in “you are what you eat”, especially when it comes to the type of media I consume. That means I fill my head with good stuff. The problem is, there are so many neurons firing away in there that it takes more than just taking in good media to get them trained to think positively. I have to act on what I read/watch/listen to, in order for it to have a lasting effect.

Which brings us to the point of actually answering the question. I fill my head with a good dose of Muslim women writers, funny stuff, Islamic lectures and blogs. I confess that before, it used to be a good dose of any novel that I judged badgeto be “clean”, with a bit of non fiction thrown in, and the random reading of an Islamic text translated into English. I am steering myself towards buying South Asian or Muslim or women writers, and if it’s a South Asian Muslim woman writer who writes Islamic stuff, I am the ultimate fangirl. In the sense that I still have to purchase Sadaf Farooqi‘s books, while I follow her blog and tweets and even managed to end up in a Whatsapp group with her in it (I didn’t know at the time of asking to join the group that she was in it. Hidden bonus. Achievement unlocked!) I ended up getting books by Na’ima B Robert, Umm Zakkiyah, and Yasmin Mogahed first. This post shall serve to drive me on to order Sadaf’s stuff and become a true fangirl.

The next question is more related to reading, so I will save the details (yes, there’s more!) for then.

The doodling damsel draws directly

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I made my latest display picture myself on the app Autodesk Sketchbook and edited it in the app Pixlr. The drawing shows a niqabi girl resting on a table with her phone and handbag beside her, with bookshelves in the background. It represents any tired college student going “heads down” in the library, but it also represents all the times I actually did that as a college student.11754251_10207585811192270_4231970042924882547_n

I used to sketch drawings of my friends in school. Then I stopped. Now, in the long search for Islamic photos and drawings to use for Wattpad book covers, I found a lot of good material, but not as much depth and breadth as I would like. You know what they say, if you can’t find what you want, make it yourself. I revisited my old doodling habit and started making doodles again, only this time they were of faceless hijabis and niqabis. I have fun making them and spreading them around on the Internet. If you come across them, feel free to use them as your own display pictures (or in your Wattpad books). In fact, I’ll direct you to them.

You can find them here:

 

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/iqrawrites/free-to-use-muslimislamic-iconscoversbanners/

Weheartit: http://weheartit.com/iqraasad/collections/97478571-free-to-use-muslim-islamic-icons-banners-covers

Now, I’m off, for it is time to doodle some more.

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#TenThingsNotToSayToAWriter

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#TenThingsNotToSayToAWriter is trending on Twitter.IMG_0858

My favorites are:

*So what’s your real job then?

*I’m so jealous! Being a writer is so easy! I’d love to be able to make stuff up all day and get paid for it.

*You should write a book about me.

*But what do you actually do all day?

*You’re STILL writing that book?

*Can you help me with this? It’s not like you’re doing anything important.

*So glad you’ve found an outlet to deal with your issues.

And so on and so forth.

What’s your top thing not to say to a writer?

Readwrites: your procrastination is my “novel research”

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That’s basically what the name of this site means. Iqra=”read”, so “readwrites”. “Iqra” is my name so of course what I really mean is “I write”.

The funny thing is that I’m moving between reading and writing like a ping pong ball being bounced on a table between two players who definitely don’t want the ball to fall on their side. Writing a novel seems easy enough, just sit down and start writing until you stop. That is, unless you get sidetracked by, let’s say, a book on writing. Then you want to read a well written book, you know, just to see an example of good work. Of course, what actually happens is that you get discouraged by reading excellent writing. “I can never pull that off”, you say, tossing everything aside and opening the black hole of the Internet: Facebook.

Once you travel through the black hole and get thrown out on the other side, you realize that you have some non-novel writing to do. So you do it. After which you have no more energy to write, so you start watching a video instead.

The good thing is that nowadays I’m listening to the Leadership workshop by Nouman Ali Khan. It’s relevant. Come to think of it, everything is relevant. Like the author Bob Mayer says, living life gives you material for your novel. That means all procrastination is actually novel research work.

When push comes to shove, what I really need is to stop addressing the intangible “you” and talk about myself. While living life instead of actually writing and posting #amwriting tweets is all fine and dandy, that novel isn’t going to write itself. So why am I writing this blog post instead? I put this into the “exercising my writing muscles” category.

After I’ve exercised my writing muscles, read about writing, and listened about leadership, it’s time to…live life. Yup, actual novel writing time is not here yet. Hey, I do have 1800 words down (unedited), which I really should stop bragging about on the Women Writers, Women’s Books Facebook group, and not just because there are published authors there.

How about a goal to write at least 1000 words until next Friday’s blog post? Let’s see.

Opening up my cabinet of curiosities

Iqra Asad Khan Diary Entries

I finally took the plunge and registered my dot com domain name (previously I had a wordpress.com address). I was spurred on by the book “Show Your Work” by Austin Kleon. I was further inspired to take the questions from the section of Show Your Work “Open Up Your Cabinet of Curiosities” and to answer the questions here, one at a time.

Where do you get your inspiration?

I get my inspiration from people and their work. Sure, there are times when I get the random idea out of nowhere, but I think that’s just the works I’ve read going through my subconscious and popping into my consciousness after being filtered through my perception.

In a broader sense, I get my inspiration from Pinterest, where I have a private board for story ideas. I pin photos and artwork that makes me think of characters, places or concepts. I get inspiration from my quotes collections, whether written out by hand or saved in MS Word documents that have stood the test of several computer transfers. (Credit goes to Dropbox for that, really.)

In the olden times (before I had an internet connection in the house), I had a Word document called “Iqra’s Mail” that contained everything from actual email to snippets of interestingness, samples of nothingness and everything in between. That “Iqra’s Mail” document is the parent of all my inspirational quote, art and website collections.

I get my inspiration from life. They say write what you know, some say write what you like (that’s Austin Kleon again), I like to do a bit of both. Write what you know of what you like, what you like of what you know, and any other combination you can cook in your mind.

Live, write; write, live. Both occupations feed off each other. That’s inspiration.

Young Adult Syndrome

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You know you have Young Adult Syndrome when you’re expected by your elders to run on the infinite batteries of youth because, well, you have the elixir of youth instead of orange juice for breakfast, don’t you? When your middle-aged or older relatives start getting aches and pains, they look at you lounging in your easy chair and go, “Look at you, get me this, that and the other, and then go around and pick that up, and don’t make that face, you’re still young!” I know immediately getting up and obeying is what is proper, but I confess it does get tiring when you can’t sit still for any amount of time because the elders have you get up every few minutes to do something or – icing on the cake – don’t even let you sit down between one task and the other. OK, yeah, I’m complaining, but hear me out: I’m trying to make a point here.

The point is this: we youngsters don’t run on electricity. More importantly, youth – as the previous generation remembers it – is not at all the same as the youth this generation has received. We’re getting aches and pains and blood pressure and what not way before they did. We don’t have the same diet, the same routine; therefore, we don’t have the same energy. You can knock down all the energy drinks you want, but you still can’t beat the natural high that your parents and grandparents got when they were young. Now that I’ve touched upon grandparents, let me appreciate that since they have observed the youth of their children, they are not so hard on their grandchildren. They have seen their children succumb to “old age diseases” twenty years before they did; they have seen them lose sleep and age quickly, and therefore they don’t expect a higher quality of youth two generations down the road. They are realistic, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Why? That is because as far as parents are concerned, they have yet to realise that generation Y, or alpha omega Cornetto (whatever one we’re on now), is not as rough, tough and ready to rumble as they were. We’ve had the juice sucked out of us by our erratic sleep patterns, wonky food intake, and you know all the rest. I can’t help but suspect that there is some underlying factor beyond all this that affects the vitality of youngsters. Perhaps it’s just being above the poverty line that makes us so feeble. The youth working away in the fields and furnaces seems to be as lively as ever, or maybe that is just how I see it.

Don’t get me wrong, the youth is engaged in as many productive and constructive efforts as ever before. Whether it be the skill of churning out perfectly crafted fondant rosette after rosette on a handmade made-to-order cake, or raising money for a good cause, the youth has it and knows how to rock it. However, you have to talk to teachers, or other people who observe year after year to know how depression cases are increasing and emotional disturbances are spreading. All work and no play may make Jack a dull boy, but an entertainment-focused lifestyle is sure to get to your nerves in the end. It’s like Sean Covey says in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers: family, friends, entertainment, school and all the rest are part of your life. Any one of them should not be the centre of your life. Your life should be principle-centred (honesty, hard work, faith, and so on are principles) because principles never fail you.

Still, I think even if become principle-centred, we cannot live as voraciously and energetically as our grandparents or even parents did. We have to find our own niche in the world and live as healthful and balanced a life as possible, with our own level of highs and lows. Also, we have to grow a thick skin against carefree remarks made about youth, because in the end, we are still going to hear the same old, “You’re young! You should be full of life!” comments from our good old parents.

Originally published in Us Magazine, The News: 

http://magazine.thenews.com.pk/mag/detail_article.asp?id=10588

The Artist’s Meow (a story)

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The moment was frozen in suspended animation. The inkpot hovered in the air above the map, spread out below it in all its handmade glory. Then Myu’s tail snapped forwards and the illusion dissipated; the inkpot smashed onto the table and the ink spilled all over.

Myu disappeared as quickly as the details of the map did underneath the indelible ink.

Now it was Lielle’s turn to be frozen. She was frozen with horror as she took in the damage to her beloved map. Drawn in painstaking detail over the course of half a year, under the instruction of her tutor, it was her masterpiece and her joy. She had dedicated the main table of her study to it; pinning the paper carefully to the edges of the table and making sure nobody and nothing remotely harmful came close to it.

Until now.

Now Myu, her cat, had infiltrated the study and flung a pot of black ink over it with a swish of his tail. What made it worse was that the event unfolded right in front of Lielle’s eyes. Had she come upon the disaster later, after it had already happened in her absence, she would not be eaten away by the thought that she could have prevented it. However, right there, in front of her eyes, Myu had carried out his mischief. Sinking into the beanbag in the corner of her study, Lielle dissolved into tears as she contemplated the almost deliberate malice with which Myu regarded her work of six months. He didn’t like being barred from the study, which used to be his domain before the map project started. In fact, the whole house was his domain ever since the fateful day he had appeared on her doorstep.

It was the morning of her assignment to her tutor, the revered Huoyhnhm, who did not take on any but the cream of the crop. Basking in the glory of her first lesson in the presence of this celebrated mind, she had opened the door to find a gold-flecked tan cat, sitting comfortably on the doorstep as if he owned the place. The cat looked up at her without the slightest bit of hesitation, and, taken in by his confidence, Lielle took him in. She had in her mind’s eye the perfect picture of the art student who blossomed under the watchful eye of her tutor and the inspirational company of her pet cat. How ideal, she had thought.

How disastrous, she thought now.

She finally brought herself to look at what remained of her handiwork. The intricate details lay blotted out beneath a sea of black. She wiped away her tears, unpinned the paper and folded it up. Now, instead of washing away in helpless tears, she burned with firm resolve. She clattered up the stairs into the attic, where she took out a huge roll of special paper, and, shouldering it, came back down more quietly. She unrolled the paper and pinned it to the table. Then she took out her map-making materials and arranged them on the work space.

The energy that had churned within her stilled as she considered the blank paper. She had gotten so used to continuing work already started that she had not faced the challenge of the empty page for months.

Taking out her charcoal, she began to sketch the border from memory. Golden-tan flicked past in the corner of her vision. She did not raise her head and continued working. Myu came near. He did not seem the least guilty or disturbed. On the contrary, he was alive with curiosity and watched her as she worked diligently into the wee hours of the night.

******

“What is this?” Huoyhnhm said next morning, upon seeing the new map, which was blank except for a border.

“A clean slate, sir,” Lielle answered.

“Hmm,” was Huoyhnhm’s response. He viewed the expanse of white for a minute before sitting down in his customary working position, motioning for Lielle to begin.

“But, sir,” Lielle said, slipping into her work pose and picking up her instrument, “where do I begin?”

“You have already begun,” he said, motioning towards the borders of the map. “Now you may continue.”

Lielle looked back at him inquiringly before turning back to face the blank map. She paused, put her instrument down, and said, “I must bring Myu in, sir. I want him to see me work.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Huoyhnhm.

“But—” said Lielle.

“I said,” Huoyhnhm replied firmly, “continue your work.”

And she did.

*****

The next morning before her tutor was expected to arrive, Lielle searched far and wide for Myu in order to bring him into the study before Huoyhnhm came, but he was nowhere to be found. She usually left Myu to his own pursuits while she worked with her tutor, and had no idea what he did during those times, so she did not know where he might be. Sighing, she ambled back to her study, only to find Huoyhnhm already seated. She glanced at the clock.

“You’re late,” said Huoyhnhm.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Lielle. “I was looking for Myu.”

Huoyhnhm looked back at her as if he were studying the page of a textbook. He cocked his head to the side in the way Myu did when he looked at her. Then he straightened up and motioned towards the map.

Gathering her materials, Lielle settled down to work.

******

A few map-making sessions later, Huoyhnhm said that he had something important to relate. Lielle perked up to listen.

“You have shown prowess in the face of adversity,” he said. “I have watched you grow under my tutelage. You have grown to the point where further instruction on my part is not required. I release you.”

Lielle stared uncomprehendingly back at him without replying.

“I will write a letter of recommendation to the university,” Huoyhnhm continued. “You may sit the exam and receive your qualification. After that, the world is yours. You may do with it as you wish.”

Lielle looked at the unfinished map, then back at Huoyhnhm.

“Ah,” he said. “That is something you may complete on your own. You no longer need my assistance. I have observed your response to a great setback, overcoming something like that is more important than advancing seamlessly from one achievement to another. You have what it takes to be an artist. I release you.”

Lielle finally spoke up. “You honour me,” she said. “You will always be my teacher.”

Huoyhnhm smiled.

“Before you go,” Lielle said, “I would like you to give me…I would…that is…will you give me an autograph?”

Huoyhnhm stared at her for a moment. Then he chuckled. “Of course.” Taking the pen from her hand, he signed the proffered piece of paper with a flourish. After he left, Lielle pinned the paper to her work table along with the map.

*****

Try as much as she could, she could not find Myu after that. She alternated between searching for him and sitting and wondering about him. In a way, Myu had been as supportive as Huoyhnhm, only Huoyhnhm had watched directly over her art, and Myu had been the overseer of the rest of her life. However, an artist’s art is not separate from the rest of his or her existence; so it seemed that between Myu and Huoyhnhm, she had been very well guided in her training.

Finally, she went back to the study, only to stop at the threshold, arrested by the sight within. There lay Myu, curled up on the map, apparently sleeping. She walked quietly over to him so as not to disturb him, tears of joy welling up in her eyes.

Myu’s eyes popped open, and he fixed her with an unwavering gaze. Lielle gulped at the intensity of his eyes. Moving slowly but deliberately, he slipped off the table and went to the door, where he looked back at her as if to ask her to follow him. She followed, and he led her to the front door. She opened the front door, and Myu went onto the doorstep, where he looked up at her, then down at the street, and meowed.

Lielle sighed. Would conquering one disaster mean that she would have to part with all her instructors, and find new ones? That was how it seemed. She looked out into the street, then down at Myu, and finally said, “I release you.”

As if he understood, Myu rubbed against her legs, purred, and then set off into the street, weaving in and out of the patches of sunlight that streamed through the dense trees.

When Lielle went back to the study, she observed something different about the autograph pinned to her table. There, in black ink, was a cat’s paw print, next to Huoyhnhm’s signature. It had not been there before.

She gazed at the piece of paper for a long time. Then she spoke into the silence of the room, “You were a humane cat, and a feline human. In my entire journey as an artist, I will never again find a teacher like you.” She closed the door of the study and left. Behind her, the human-cat instructor’s signature blended into the darkness of the room.

– Published in Us Magazine, The News (Pakistan): http://magazine.thenews.com.pk/mag/detail_article.asp?id=9716#sthash.64vwqC1B.dpuf

A burger bachi’s guide to eating out in Lahore

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Those days when you can’t come up with a killer hashtag for your latest dine-out meal’s photo are the worst. The worst, I tell you. Everyone’s Instagram updates (puh-lease, Facebook check-ins are so yesterday) are overflowing with snazzy snaps of yummylicious food but the real foodies are those who tag their photos effectively. Of course, my Instagram is public. Want to show up in the “explore” pages of all the happening folks, yo.

Which brings me to the word “foodie”. Every Tahir, Danial and Harris calls himself a foodie nowadays. Huh. They think hanging around MM Alam, drinking designer coffee, and ordering customized cupcakes to go counts as foodie material. Time to wake up, dreamers. Real foodies only go out to the most exclusive restaurants, discovered ethnic cuisine before you even heard the word “Thai”, and only drink hipster chai tea. Yes, it’s “chai tea”. Not chai, not tea; chai tea. If the gora calls it chai tea the desi foodie shall call it chai tea also. Don’t worry if you can’t grasp it yet. You probably still drink Nescafe sachet coffee.

Frozen yogurt is for people who can’t afford Movenpick. Piling up toppings onto huge dollops of frozen yogurt like there’s no tomorrow, is not classy. Going to high-end restaurant and paying top dollar for a microscopic scoop of pure heaven is the real deal. Taking a cool photo with your DSLR macro lens makes it all worth it. What, you’re still using the “food” mode on your point-and-shoot? Gosh, I don’t even know why I waste my time with you.

Let me walk you through the basic dine-out, you poor uninformed thing. First, there’s the pre-dine-out meet-up at someone’s place, where we take selfies and group photos. This is a good point to upload a photo to Instagram and announce how much fun we’re having. Then, it’s time to pile up into the car and tell the driver where to go. On the way, it’s perfectly legit to touch up makeup, rearrange hair, or even do a full makeover on the guinea-pig tagalong of the group. (Don’t tell me you don’t know what that is. That’s the socially bankrupt, wannabe coolster classmate we let come along with us because we’re just that generous.) Then, upon arrival at the destination, we all make a graceful exit from the car and take a photo next to the name of the restaurant. We wait until we get inside and use the restaurant’s wifi to upload that photo. This is the critical time where hashtags must, must, must be up to the standard. We stake out the area – you must keep tabs on what the aunties at the next table are discussing, and which waiter seems overly pleased at the arrival of a group of dolled-up teenagers, and then we establish ourselves at the best table. It’s perfectly fine to refuse the table the maitre d’ picks for us. We can wangle our way to the table we choose. We take as much time giggling and fussing over the menu as we want. After placing the order, it’s time to hit the ladies’ room for—you guessed it—more selfies! Polishing off the meal is no issue. Taking the perfect shot of it is. This is the part where we upload the photographic masterpiece to Instagram. Rounding up the meal with a dainty dessert, it’s time to pile into the car again and go home for a good old fashioned gossip session. There you have it, your basic dine-out, “the matchless experience” that is the best entertainment Lahore has to offer.

Originally published in Us Magazine, The News (Pakistan):

http://magazine.thenews.com.pk/mag/detail_article.asp?id=9915

– See more at: http://magazine.thenews.com.pk/mag/detail_article.asp?id=9915#sthash.8xBw7fxY.dpuf

‘Tis the season to be sneezing

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Summer’s in the air. It’s in the chirping of the birds, the swaying of the trees and the trundling of the ice cream truck, but most of all, it’s in my nose.

Atchoo!

My nose forecasts the weather better than the eight o’ clock news. It’s hardly done with the last flu of the winter season before it lets loose with the first sign of the season of love. You know, the season when flowers get all romantic and spew pollen into the air. If one of those love letters happens to enter my respiratory system, my nose is convinced that the envelope contains anthrax.

Pollen: Yoo-hoo! I’m here, where’s the reception party?

Nose: Code red, code red! Fire in the hole!

Pollen: Wait a second, there must be a mistake, I’m only—

Nose: GET BACK, YOU! You pose a major threat to the wellbeing of this organism! Open the floodgates!

The nose never learns that freaking out about the allergen is pointless, maybe because it doesn’t pause to look before it goes into freak mode. The non-allergic nose is a calmer and more observant entity than the allergic nose. It lets all sorts of things pass by without comment. This is the basis for a major divide in the population of the world: people who are allergic, and those who are not.

Allergic people communicate in a wordless language. They see the signs and respond without having to be told what is going

on. Those who are prepared always keep tissue paper on hand in case their nose starts ringing alarm bells in the middle of nowhere. In my case, it’s a tissue roll, others prefer carrying around an entire tissue box. (The ladylike “single piece of tissue” is only found in the pocket or purse of non-allergic females, kept there for greasy fingers or stray lipstick. It probably thinks it’s a very serviceable little piece of tissue, and indeed it is, but if it were in the employ of an allergic nose, it wouldn’t last beyond a sneeze or two.) I did try switching to handkerchiefs somewhere along the way, but I kept leaving them behind in other people’s houses, so I switched back to my trademark tissue-roll-with-a-plastic-bag-to-put-the-used-ones-in. It sounds hilarious, and it probably looks so too, but it eventually becomes something you are known for. In any case, whether people know I am allergic or not, they definitely know that I always have a roll of tissue paper with me. Hence I, along with the rest of the allergic population, function as a “tissue paper dispenser”. Spilled ink? Go to the tissue person! Ketchupy fingers? Tissue, please! I like being able to help with little everyday emergencies, but it’s funny when some people only talk to/know you with regard to that one thing.

Then there’s the type of anti-allergic medicine that works for you. Put two snifflers together and they will ultimately begin talking about which one works best for them. Some antihistamines, along with being effective, also turn you into a “jahaaz”—and I don’t mean the kind that flies. The world keeps moving at the same pace, but you slow down. You function almost in a state of suspended animation. You register the fact that someone is talking to you, but you may not get what they’re saying. The only way to avoid this is either to find a brand that doesn’t turn you into a

zombie or to not take any anti-allergic altogether, in which case you will be a zombie anyway. It’s not just the sneezing that reduces you to that state. It’s the constant drip-drip-drip, either at the tip of your nose or at the back of your throat. The sensation that your head is stuffed with cotton wool. 70% of your attention is unavailable for normal use. Which is why people prefer to take the medicine anyway; it’ll turn the sneezing switch off even if it keeps the zombie mode on.

While allergic people are usually in tune with each other, non allergic ones are on a different wavelength. Not only is it difficult for them to understand what it’s like, they take a surprising amount of time to grasp the fact that you are allergic. The first time you have an allergy attack in front of them, they’re convinced you have the flu and are going to pass it on to them. The second time they see your nose and eyes flooding, they wonder why your immunity is so low. The third time, they finally understand that you aren’t kidding. Some of them still persist in saying, “Flu again?” even though they have been seeing you having attacks for years. I still remember the time when my father, tired of the amount of tissue I used in one attack, handed me two pieces and told me to survive on them for a two-hour car trip. Thankfully, my mother (from whom I have inherited the fussy nose) had a backup supply on hand. That was a long time ago, though. I have become more economical in my use of tissues, and have developed different strategies for emergency and special situations, which every allergic person comes up with independently and then discovers that the rest of the world does the same thing—the allergic ones, I mean. Stuff like plugging your nostrils with wads of tissue so that they keep soaking up the steady flow (like when you need to study for an

exam and can’t devote so much time to handling your nose). Or, in dire circumstances, reusing used pieces of tissue when they become dry. No points for guessing which readers are going “ewww” and which ones aren’t.

Summer isn’t the only thing I’m allergic to. My nose is also very suspicious about dust mites. People who aren’t allergic to them nearly always respond with, “Well, keep the house clean, then!” This is because they are unaware of the great distinction between dust and dust mites. The little bits of sparkle floating in that ray of sunshine coming through the window—that’s dust motes for you. Dust mites, on the other hand, are tiny eight-legged cousins of the spider. They like to hang around us humans because they eat the particles of skin we shed every day—not on us, I should add, but in carpets, sofas, bedding and the like. (A fussy nose really drives you towards research!) There are no carpets in my house, and when the season changes and the blankets come out of the storeroom, they get put out in the sun before being used. Still, those little buggers find some way to torment me now and then, like when an absentminded relative kindly puts a straight-from-the-storeroom blanket over me while I’m sleeping. Of course, to my nose, that is just plain sacrilege.

Some people are allergic to allergies (I don’t think humanity has produced a specimen that isn’t irritated by the sound of someone sniffling) and expect sufferers to hate it as much as they do, but I don’t. I could have had something much more serious; comparing allergies with other things makes me feel that I got off easy, even if I sometimes don’t know exactly what caused an allergic episode. To quote James Thurber, “I used to get up at 4am and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out

what kind of allergy I had but came to the conclusion that I was allergic to consciousness.”

’Tis the season to be sneezing

Aa, aa, aa, aa, aa, aa, aa, aa-tchoo!

With red nose and eyes full streaming

Aa, aa, aa, aa, aa, aa, aa, aa-tchoo!

Bring some Kleenex, or Rose Petal,

Aa, aa, aa, aa, aa, aa, aa, aa-tchoo!

Whatever gets your nose to settle

Aa, aa, aa, aa, aa, aa, aa, aa-tchoo!

Originally published in Us Magazine, The News.

A writerly milestone

Iqra Asad Khan Diary Entries, milestones , , ,

I won third place in my age category in the first Commonwealth Essay Competition I participated in. I was 14. I won 120 pounds, and my parents made me buy a gold necklace with it. (I would have splurged on random stuff if left to my own devices). It was a great milestone for me and after that, since 2006, I started writing for local magazines. Now, I’ve sent in an entry for the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Let’s see what happens. The results will be announced at the end of May 2015.

Here’s what the judges had to say about my 2004 essay:

Nearly all the essays in the book review category were complimentary. This splendid diatribe made one think that we have a future critic in the making–authors beware! There is nothing to recommend, it seems, in this unfortunate book and we are told of its failings in well-chosen words. Even the description of the plot is used to demonstrate shortcomings. It is hard not to become convinced by the essay writer’s scorn and disappointment. That said, Iqra has a lightness of touch and an underlying wit which allow her to write such a devastating critique and get away with it!

Here’s my winning essay:

Topic: “What book have you either liked or disliked? Why did you like or dislike it?”

It was the summer vacation and monotony was driving me mad. So, I hit the bookstores, scouring the shelves for some series new to me, or the works of any writer which I had not read. Good fiction is soothing for a mind lethargic with boredom. A friend who was passionate about the “Goosebumps” series recommended a book to me. It was “Let’s Get Invisible!” by R. L. Stine.

After reading the book this became apparent: I did not see eye to eye with the friend who had recommended the novel to me. It was not according to my taste; too bland and frivolous to be delightful. It did not possess the charisma which many books had; the charm which made me read them repeatedly.

The plot revolves around Max, the protagonist and narrator of the story. He and his friends discover a magic mirror in the attic, and they soon find out that there is more to it than meets the eye. It is capable of granting temporary invisibility to whoever uses it correctly. The children play with it, but whoever stays invisible for a long period of time is drawn into the mirror and held captive there, and his reflection replaces him in the corporeal world. In the end, the imprisoned children are released when the mirror is broken, and the reflections go with it.

Now you might be wondering that what was so disagreeable about the book that it served as an impetus for me to write this essay. There are many reasons why I do not rate it amongst the treasured books of my collection.

The first thing I must point out about the novel is that it is supposed to be frightening. I singled it out from the other “Goosebumps” books because I wanted to see if there were other ways to scare people other than with monsters, devilry, carnage and the suchlike. The storyline is far from bloodcurdling. I read the book expecting to be scared afresh with every turn of the page. Instead, I was left waiting for something to happen. The plot tends to abate rather than arouse interest. It is the kind of book one can gladly stash under the

bed and forget. There is nothing horrifying or alarming in “Let’s Get Invisible!”, unless one tries to count the innumerable false alarms that mark the end of almost every chapter. As an example, say: a boy crosses a room enveloped in absolute darkness, and something howls…and it turns out to be his idiotic kid brother. The first false alarm gives the reader a satisfactory jolt; the second is easy to predict, and at the third one it becomes a monotony; another aspect of the continuous ennui that inhibits every last line of the story. It might terrify a five-year-old when told as a bedtime chronicle, but to me there is no element of terror whatsoever. If one selects a book because it is categorized under “horror”, then what is the use if it fails to instill any sort of fear at all?

It is not worth wandering in the bleak world of Stine’s magic mirror, because it is composed of nothing truly new. Invisibility and magic mirrors are among the trademarks of fiction. Creativity is extremely valuable.

Some writers are so good at writing stories that along with making their plots strong, they express, portray and elaborate very well. Such authors compose books with such dexterity and ingenuity that the reader is spellbound from the beginning to the end. All of us have read such masterpieces: stories with narrators so charming one cannot desire to quiet them or worlds so richly painted one does not want to leave. I am afraid that “Let’s Get Invisible!” cannot be rated so highly. It is simply too mediocre and insipid to be pleasurable; it takes only a moment’s contemplation to tell whether you like it or not. If one seeks literary bliss, it is better not to read this book.