How travelling helped me recover from burnout and love myself again

When life gets hard, my go-to answer has always been to get a new life.

Problematic Travel Terms We Should Have Stopped Using Yesterday

I’ve had it with travel being described with lazy, cliché, and most importantly, problematic terms that carry colonialist or patronizing connotations. I’m not writing this so you stop using these terms, I’m writing this so we can think more about word choice and whether the diction we’re using actually means what we’re trying to convey. Not…

An Open Letter To Anti-Black Pakistanis

With all that has been going on in the US lately, from a white woman calling the cops on bird-watcher Christian Cooper, to the chilling murder of George Floyd, many of my Pakistani friends are showing support over the Black Lives Matter movement. Some marched in solidarity in the streets while others posted black squares…

What I learned in my first week of self-isolation

Before the closure of borders, a total collapse of the global economy and a loose therapy session with a newspaper about being stranded in a pandemic ridden epicentre, I was living my best life. This time last month, I gave my family a tour of London on their visit. The following week, I was in Munich eating…

Queer comedians of colour bring all the laughs in Ottawa

Have you ever been sitting there, casually getting in your daily upper-body exercise by swiping left on 50 men in a row on Tinder, and all of a sudden, the white guy you matched with three weeks ago messages you: “What’s up, my caramel mocha princess?” No? Just me? Cool… As a woman of colour,…

Going to grad school as a broke ass bitch

It was always clear to me and my sisters that our parents didn’t exactly have a “tuition” plan for their three kids. With that in mind, I started working in high school to prepare to save for a post-secondary loan I hadn’t applied for yet. That’s nothing new, though. Most people in my circle did…