Venial Sin

Have you noticed that in some ways, getting older actually means getting younger? I’ll be 27 very soon, and yet I find myself occasionally getting ready to write bad poetry, with lots of rhyming couplets and really bad metre, the sort of stuff at which my 17-year-old self would have laughed hysterically. Whether the laughter would have kicked off before or after my past self set fire to the author of said tepid verse, well that’s an issue of some [...]

I’ve pretty much decided I’m not going to stay at my current job for much longer. I have a couple of different options coming my way, including final round interviews at one of the better multinationals in the country, and my present “career” is so incredibly awful, in the sense that it’s so massively far removed from anything in which I’m even remotely interested career-wise, that spending more than another month there is absolute anathema. Observant individuals may notice that [...]

“You do realise, you’re completely fucked.” “I know,” I replied, glumly stirring my fourth coffee of the hour. “So what in the world happens now?” My friend stared at me blankly. “You could stop drinking coffee for a start.” “Are you completely mental?” I asked him, adding another empty sachet of sweetener to the Canderel™ graveyard. “I’ve been at work on a Saturday since six a.m., I’ve had a shit week, my bosses are assholes, and now I can’t actually [...]

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

You know the only way to describe a party that starts with dinner being served to me on the beach, the ocean at my feet, a dance-floor playing Madonna and 80s music all night, and ends with cheese-and-mushroom omelettes at dawn, eaten with a croissant while standing in the surf?  Fabulous.  DAMN.

I met him on New Year's Eve at the Opiate's, after our fabulous exclusive dinner party.  He came with friends, they left without him.  I was going home at 2:30, I was dragged away by angry phone calls at 6:45 so I could make it to Eid prayers.  He had a partner, but he stayed behind to talk to me, even after (at 4:14 a.m.) I pushed him up against a wall to drunkenly slur, with whiskey emanating from every [...]

You know you're in trouble when your actual job differs significantly from the job description you were given while interviewing, and the people around you think they're hot shit because (I kid you not) one of them once actually got drunk off eating a banana flambe and is therefore convinced that he is the authority on all things alcoholic so you should LISTEN TO HIM when he informs you that "wodka is a voman's drink" (pronunciation all his). It doesn't [...]

Now while I'm definitely proud of the fact that I've dropped about 15 pounds since I've returned to Karachi, as I discovered today during my annual physical, as well as the facts that my cholesterol is low, my blood-pressure normal, my lungs clear and all that jazz, I can't help but still remain somewhat traumatised by the distressing fact that between last year and now, I have magically, mysteriously, unobtrusively, and with no trauma or invasive surgery whatsoever, somehow managed [...]