Threads (Part I)

Star, a first rate tale. Do hurry on with the second part. Especially, I like the flashbacks that you have akin to some good desi movies-if there are any such things. Also, your aversion to complete sentences is beneficial to readers like me- with the attention span of a three year old.

re: star

look for my ear in the mail.

rizvi

Made me smile and laugh my head off. Waiting for part II. I feel the same way you do (about what you wrote in the ``author`s introduction``).

Sairah :)

Re: *

Robert Penn Warren is not the only who said that, so have many anthropologists (Ruth Behar, et al.) studying death, memories, wars, etc.

Although, I like the reference to to Warren. You

ask:

``Who`s to say which is closer to the truth?

Assuming there even is a truth to approach.``

-- and to this I can only respond with how I felt about the piece you wrote... (using Warren, of course, simply because I`m so damn cool)...

``Here is the shadow of truth, for only the shadow is true...

...Everything seems an echo of something else``.

(A Way to Love God)

I wonder what you refer to when you discuss nostalgia ... Pakistan... or the echo of something else.

Sometimes I wish I didn`t know what really happened ... and only read fiction.

I apologize sincerely for any boundaries I may have crossed.

I also (this is really a post-script) think that some of the best writing is that which comes from that ``emotional reality`` you speak of. The memory that fades and becomes an emotional reality. (this is an attempt to justify my assumptions...)

i still find the piece arresting.

Re: chowk editors

Apologies. I must have forgotten the first paargraph. Although I could have sworn...

Re: Uzma

Nostalgia is the right word i think. Its more real to me than reality. Pakistan, to me, is more an aroma than a tangible real place (though i visit alot). Robert Penn Warren once expressed the fact that memories as they fade and become less factual accurate assume an emotional reality at a deeper level. Who`s to say which is closer to the truth?

Assuming there even is a truth to approach.

*

Being a tad slower than the average person, and generally picking the stories I read based on the one liners and not the titles, I only just realized that this story was a `part I`. Title or not title, I guess that means your set up was extremely effective in getting the reader to want more!

CheGhaz

Hey Star,

I really enjoyed your story. In fact, I enjoyed your story so much that this is actually the first time I`m `replying` on Chowk since I became aware of the site a year ago.

Given your mind-catching introduction and the way the story ends, I feel like this should be the first installment of a longer story.

I look forward to reading more from you.

later

CheGhaz

The author did not include the first paragraph of the story in the submission. However, the article has now been modified to include the first paragraph.

cheers,
Editor

Wonderful story, very sensuous. I`m

intrigued to find out why and how Zainab died.

Looking forward to Part II...

re: wasiqnawaz

I interpreted Ali to be Zainab`s infant son.

And I think Abbas is her elder son.

Fozia

the guy scored, he made the girl feel like the center of the world while coming off as true to himself, if it only came from practice or instruction, but it never will

By the way, I didn`t quite understand where and when the italicized portion of the piece took place. Who was Ali: An old boyfriend, fiance, or brother? Perhaps it was intentionally ambiguous in which case it worked to draw us into an inner life of longing and loneliness

Wasiq Nawaz

Re: Story

hate to do this. But apparetnly the first paragraph of this story was mistakenly omitted by the editors. I have cited it below. Im sure you`ll agree that it changes the entire feel of the piece.

Thanks and apologies,

*



On the day she died, Zainab was sitting in the backseat of a 95` Nissan Sentra hypnotized by the calm power of rain and lightning striking the distant corn fields in claps of deep bass. Memories drifted in and out of her mind like sheets of rain on the blurry gray horizon. Thoughts igniting like streaks of lightning between memories. Her husband`s voice smiling softly that morning. But he was so far from the moment. The car`s monotone acceleration lulled her towards sleep. Her brother driving steady and straight through the blackened coal Texas Interstate. And she, relaxing with a friend in Karachi. 1987.

couldn`t stop reading it... something very real tugged inside prodding me along...fear... a sense of confused reality... a certain amount of power lies in the hands of a struggling young author... can you be so close to God as to change the outcome of the story... tred carefully on paths already marked. circumventing fate...reinventing it almost... what is reality but our perception of it? perhaps i see too much of something that isnt there. perhaps i make assumptions i am in no position to make. you capture a sense of mystique in karachi that i have missed for so many years... but, have always longed to go back to. im not sure it has so much to do with the place...or perhaps more the `age`.

ah, to make an old mind ponder so much... *bharpur taliyaa(n) *... good work istar.

complete sentences are overrated anyway.

I got a lot of enjoyment out of reading this.
By the way, you are not as confused as
you let on.

Ras

I loved it. Utterly. Completely. I think you perfectly captured the anxiety that desi men feel when first going up to a girl. I also have a better perspective, being a desi dork.

AzizS