Momina's Space

While eid can be an occasion for fun and festivity for most, it can also be somewhat exhausting for some. This exhaustion mostly stems from the emotional toll borne as a result of staying with family for extended periods of time. It can be tiresome because having more than usual family time reawakens many wounds of the past that one tries to constantly bury deep inside one's unconscious mind.  For me eid, or any other holidays for that matter, can be triggering as hell. I had a pretty sad childhood growing up and having to put up with family members who were somehow responsible for the trauma can be quitr damaging for one's mental health. Since, such gathering can't altogether be avoided, I try to come up with boundaries with my family so as to limit the damage as much as I can. This isn't always helpful though because one has feelings of ambivalence towards one's parents and siblings: on the one hand, we know that they are toxic to certain extent and need to get av...

I read this novel a while back but didn't get a chance to post its review here, so here it goes:  The novel is a story of a young man, Dorian Gray, who gets his portrait made by a renowned artist, Basil Hallward, and the portrait in question eventually becomes the reason for his ruin. In the beginning, the character of Dorian Gray is introduced to us as a youth possessing astonishing charm and beauty. It's his beauty that first mesmerises Mr. Hallward who then tries to replicate his likeness onto the canvas. The painter falls in love with his own handiwork and also with the person who inspired it in the first place. He begins treating Gray as an artwork himself and develops a strange tendency to protect him from the prying eyes of the world lest he be "spoilt" by the exposure. Speaking of spoil and exposure, another important character, Lord Henry, Hallward's friend, is introduced here, who upon realising Gray's importance in Hallward's eyes grows...

This book is about a jolly old man called Mr. Hoppy who hold only two things very, very close to his heart: his various plants that he grows in his home garden and Mrs. Silver who lives in the storey just under his balcony and who he falls absolutely in love with. The problem, however, with this happy love story is that his beloved Mrs. Silver has no idea how smitten the poor man is with her. The reason for this is that Mr. Hoppy happens to be a shy man and doesn't manage to say a lot to the lady other than the usual polite conversations that these two share while standing on their own separate balconies. How very sad indeed! Another obstacle that Mr. Hoppy is faced with is Alfie the tortoise who is the sole  object of Mrs. Silver's affections. She adores her pet tortoise so much and cannot seem to get enough of it. She carries it around with her all over the house, keeps it in a comfortable little hut made just for it, feeds it all sorts of nice vegetables, and says nice...

Roald Dahl is one of my most favorite children's authors ever. Today I borrowed this lovely book from my niece to read and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. This is a story of a brave fox, his wife and their 4 baby foxes. They live happily under a tree in the jungle by a village. Mr. Fox takes good care of his little family by going to the village farms and bringing food from their by stealing hens, turkeys and geese. In fact, there happen to be three particular not so gentle men of whose farms Mr. Fox takes a liking to. They are called Boggis, Bunce and Bean. And these people, horrible as they are, do not approve of this even a little bit. Mr. Fox, however, proves to be a very clever young fellow and manages to take what he wants from them all the same. After some stealing sessions though, their patience fails them and they decide to hunt Mr. Fox down by surrounded his hole under the tree. Fox manages to evade all three of them and goes back deep into his hole but this makes them...

For those of you who don't know Urdu, this book claims to have the 13 best Short stories by Prem Chand, the famous Hindu Urdu writer of the Subcontinent. Following is the list of stories included in the book: 1. Kaffan 2. Sila e Matam 3. Baray Ghar ki Beti 4. Haj e Akbar 5. Nayi Biwi 6. Zaad e Rah 7. Do Bel 8. Eid Gah 9. Burhi Kaki 10. Sawa Seer Gehun 11. Insaan ki Qeemat 12. Chori 13. Pos ki Rat Prem Chand is one of those writers who exhibit the quality of writing both complox and obscure topics as well as about simple things in life simultaneously. And because of this reason, his writing is quite unpredictable. Most of his stories included in this collection have simple themes related to daily household issues faced by people which makes reading this book very interesting. He often makes the usual skirmishes between family members, whether they be husband or wife or brothers or sisters, the subject of his tales. Reading it makes you realize how good of an ob...

I posted tgis review on Parhai Likhai's website as well. I'm sharing it here for the convenience of those who like to visit my blog to read book reviews 😊 A huge thanks to Parhai Likhai for sending me this beautiful book. I loved reading it so much! Here's my review of the book (It has spoilers. Read it at your own risk): The shortest way to describe this novel would be to say that it is a study in madness and death, and the correlation that these two enjoy, in living beings. I say living beings because humans are not the only subject of this book. As its name, Raja Gidh - The King Buzzard, indicates, it is as much about the quest for the reasons of madness in birds as it is about humans. And the way Bano Qudsia juxtaposes the two together is simply amazing. In fact, she does not just limit it to a mere comparison, sometimes the characters themselves metamorephose into either the greedy buzzards waiting for its prey to die and present itself as its hearty meal, a...

So first of all, I want to thank the team of Parhai Likhai for being so kind and sending me this lovely book. The delivery was prompt and the book so nicely packaged that it just filled my heart with so much happiness! Also, the book itself was very nice quality and reading it was an experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. .. Here’s my review of the book: It is indeed one remarkable masterpiece of a book. Although reading it requires a little patience at the reader’s part as it can get a bit difficult at time. The excellence of this book, in my opinion, lies in how the author navigates through so many time periods, each significant in its own way, so effortlessly. Covering the time of the war of independence in 1857 to the post-partitipn Pakistan in 1947, the author makes his characters – or more precisely tge generations of those characters – inhabit and engage with the lives that they have been entrusted with and evolve as the time goes on. The best thing about Hussain’s wri...

The Story of Philosophy  by Will Durant I'm reading this book these days and enjoying it so very much. I try and read one chapter of it daily and usually talk about it on my Instagram page where I have joined a challenge called #betterreadschallenge from the 1st of January. In this challenge you have to basically update your followers about the books you read everyday whether you get to read a hundred or merely five pages a day. I think this is a really great challenge as it pushes me to do at least a little bit reading everyday.   So this book covers the lives and works of all the important Western philosophers. And it's simply fascinating to read about these great thinkers as real people with real, exciting lives. Most of the times we get to know about these intellectuals with reference to the work they have produced without thinking of them as real human being made of flesh and bones, having relationships and all. So The Story of Philosophy is very useful as it le...

It feels like a thousand years since I last posted here. I don't know why but I developed an inexplicable aversion to posting. It started feeling like a chore that I didn't want to do. And that's kind of sad because posting here is something that I used to feel really passionate about. But then it just got a little frightening all of a sudden and I gave up on it completely. I think one of the things that was stopping me from posting here was the fact that I wanted my blog to be absolutely perfect. I wanted it to be something I had envisioned it to be for such a long time. But having that mindset and running after perfection didn't do me any good. It just made me feel hopeless and unmotivated. But for the past few weeks I just can't stop thinking about it. I think I really strongly wish to write and that suppressing this need would only make me feel sad. I post on my Instagram page almost daily and get such a positive response from all of you lovely people, but post...

I started reading this book quite a while ago and it took me a lot of time to finish. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, I just don't stick to reading one book at a time and start reading any book that comes my way. Yes, I'm quite desperate like that. The disadvantage of this is that I rarely finish any book quickly. Secondly, I had taken a huge break from reading books that are not related to my MPhil thesis, although I wanted to do so very much. But because I had t discipline myself and read the ones that would help me write my thesis better, Beloved got really neglected. Now, however, I've submitted my thesis and can spend all my time reading whatever I feel like. So I just managed to finish this one and it didn't really took me that long  to finish after that. Enough about me now, let's talk about the book itself.  It's a book about an African-American woman, Sethe, who used to be a slave and had had to escape her previous masters in order to...

I bought this book a few weeks ago just because I saw it in a bookshop. To be fair the purchase was not entirely arbitrary because I had definitely seen people talk about it on Instagram. So I got the book along with a few others and began reading it the very same day. And I was pleasantly surprised because, as the name suggests, the book seems to be quite a daunting one, one that treats Pakistan as a land of darkness and horrors. However, by the time I was done reading the introduction I had realized that it turned out to be the exact opposite of my expectations. The introductory chapter, which may be taken as the crux of the entire book, gives a wholesome picture of Pakistan as a country and sheds light upon various different problems it has to deal with due to its geopolitic location. As the author points out that the book discusses "Pakistan's internal problems" as well as "the sources of [its] internal resilience.  The book was published in 2011 and is ...

I watched 13 Reasons Why a few days upon my friend’s recommendation. She warned me that it may affect my mood negatively. To be honest, I had heard that the show is about suicide but almost all the shows I watch are about death and gore so I didn't know how this one is going to be different. But it was certainly different and immensely depressing. It is one thing to see someone’s head being chopped off and another to see someone pushed to a limit where they take their own life. The show is about a high school girl named Hannah who commits suicide in the beginning of the show and leaves behind thirteen cassettes each explaining a reason for her suicide. Watching the first season made think how each and every person in our lives has the ability to have a significant impact on our lives or how we can change somebody’s life by our behaviours towards them. It made realize how awful school life can be and how it can maim somebody’s self esteem for life.  The show discusses issue like...

(Disclaimer: This is the last one of my old posts that I wanted to import here. Hope you enjoy reading it!)  (Courtesy: Google Images) First of all I need to define what I believe beauty is. For me beauty is to have a healthy, functional mind as well as body and it doesn’t matter what size you come in or what skin colour you have. If you have a positive mind and your body works properly, you are beautiful to me! It is not only important to have a beautiful body but to also have a beautiful mind and more often than not, these two things are very much interrelated. I believe that our bodies go through so much stress every day in order to function properly so they need extra care to maintain themselves. I am no beauty expert or guru by any means but following are the things that I DO to take care of myself and stay beautiful! 1. Drink loads of water: We all know how important drinking water is for our health. It is essential for all our bodily functions. If we do...

(Disclaimer: This one, too, is one of my beautiful memories originally published on my previous blog. It was published on 16 March, 2017. Hope you guys like it. ) Last week my students and I planned to go on a hiking trip to the Margalla Hills. I was so very excited about it, probably even more so than my students. This might be because of the fact that they keep on going on such kinds of excursions from time to time, but for me it was going to be a whole new experience so I was completely thrilled by the thought of it. I spent the entire weekend planning for the trip; thinking about what I would wear on it, what we would do once we reach there etc. Unlike me, my students spent the last week ACTUALLY preparing for the trip i.e. arranging the food (which I will talk about presently). We began our trip at 10 am when our little group left the university campus on foot. I enjoyed this journey very much as well because the moment we got out of the campus and made our way towards ...

(Disclaimer: As with the last post, I am importing some of them from my previous blog simply because I loved writing them and certainly enjoy reading them myself. They are life cherished little memories for me. This one was originally published on 25th March, 2017. Hope you like it!)  The ingredients you will need: 1. 2 large eggs 2. ½ cup oil/ butter (I use vegetable oil) 3. ½ cup sugar 4. 1 cup flour 5. ¼ teaspoon baking powder 6. ¼ teaspoon baking soda 7. 1 teaspoon vanilla essence 8. Cocoa powder (as much as you want. I like to put loads because I like my brownies quite dark and chocolatey) 9. A pinch of salt 10. A dash of milk (if necessary) Procedure: 1. First mix all the liquid ingredients i.e. eggs and oil in a pot. Then mix all the dry ingredients in a separate pot. Mix these two mixtures together until they form a homogeneous paste. If the paste feels too thick, add a bit of milk to make it a little less dense. 2. Preheat the...

(Disclaimer: This post was originally published on my previous blog on October 26, 2017 and has now been deleted from here. I enjoyed writing this one so very much that  didn't simply want to discard it just like that. Those of you who have not had the chance to read it before, can enjoy it now :).) Life can be pretty stressful sometimes. Well, let's be honest here; life is stressful almost all the time. The good thing about it is that stress can be dealt with. The downside of it is that it takes a huge toll on your mental as well as physical health. That is why it is so important not to just ignore it when it does come up in life.  A couple of weeks ago I started feeling a lot more stressed than usual. I felt like I could accomplish nothing at all and that made me feel even more panicked. This severely affected my performance in studies and work as well and that is something that I simply cannot allow to happen. Thankfully, I am out that phase now, but during al...