Essays

Callaloo
HEARTBEAT

New York Times
LIVES

Chowrangi
SAMOSAS/TAMALES

Houston Chronicle
EDUCATION KEY TO PEACE

“samosas/tamales: reminiscence on a chicano-pakistani marriage”

in Chowrangi, Volume 1, Issue 1, January 2005.

Opening excerpt:
For the past five months, I've been inhaling Mexican corn tamales—black bean tamales, spinach tamales and cheese tamales—for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks and I haven't cooked, or eaten, even one Pakistani dish. Everyone tells me that I’m obsessed with tamales because I have a Mexican baby growing inside me. I don't know if that fact holds true, but I am aware that before I got pregnant, I was cooking and eating Pakistani food every day and now I’m shying away from daals and sabzis, and instead, am yearning for a food I didn’t know existed when growing up in Karachi.