Raising the profile of South Asian writers since 2007
Aunty Safia was Uncle Safdar’s wife and she talked to people in the air. This is how my mind sketched her first portrait in my childhood. Uncle Safdar was my father’s elder brother and lived with my grandparents. He was a tall thin man with one of the kindest faces I have ever seen, and …
By Najma Yusufi Yasmeen Begum divorced her first husband for the better prospect of the second. He died. She then married again. The third marriage was still going because he had a title and hadn’t let her kill him, yet. His title was something she had always craved. She became Mrs Khan of Hoti. My …
by Farah Ghuznavi I’m not crazy, you know, even if they’ve sent me to you for an assessment! My husband wants me committed to a Rest-and-Reprogramming facility “for self-protection”. For his own protection, Jai means… The consequences of marrying a much younger man chrystallised with my daughter’s arrival; Jai didn’t want to be a grown-up, …
‘So what exactly did you decide?’ It was two years later that Sato-san put the question to me. The two of us had been hiding for two whole bloody years, terrified every single moment while moving about in the marshes along the river, where I caught small, skimpy meals to support us. We couldn’t turn …
He was glad he had a Thai-Indian girlfriend. On military leaves he didn’t have to go back to the States anymore where the war followed him everywhere. Daily, you could see something about Iraq. It was all around. Americans protesting on the streets, politicians debating on the television, columnists writing in newspapers, the president giving …
It was supposed to be a joke. After so many years I bumped into my best friend from childhood, Kelly in the local launderette. We greeted each other with a big hug and wished each other a Happy New 2011. She introduced me to her 14 year old daughter Tilly. I couldn’t believe that time …
Ahmed looked at the battered sign above the shop window. His pride and joy, the first restaurant in the road to have neon lights. But these days not all the lights worked, his once prized possession now read “TANDOO BATI HOSE”. He put his key in the door and opened the rickety door, a waft …
“Please, sir, can I have a break?” I looked up from the photocopier-cum-printer. Who said that? Everyone was either on the telephone, tapping away at their keyboards or reading through some legal document. I didn’t recognise the voice. “Angela, did you ask me something just now?” I asked the lawyer whose desk was the closest …
Sunshine sparkled through the grey afternoon. I sat in on the bench, wrapped in my own obliqueness. I was lost. I looked up at the clouds, at the tiny tapering ends, almost invisible. Was it an infinite haze of vapour droplets? I mused, watching as the black birds circled the pale billows. Suddenly the sun …
Kashif Choudhry is 28 and lives in Solihull. He spent parts of his childhood in Saudi Arabia before moving to the UK and fulfilling a life long ambition by qualifying as a doctor. He currently works for the NHS. He began writing two years ago. He is a fan of the short story art form …