Shükir, Rahmet
It’s my last few hours here.
I had planned to step out, to walk the city one more time, but instead I slept. Properly slept. Almost 7 hours after 1 mg of clonazepam. (Sorry, S — the jewellery isn’t happening. The last time this happened, it was perfumes in Dubai. This is now officially a pattern.)
I am usually a 4–5-hour person, which is not a flex — like, c’mon, my aim is 8 hours. But this was strategic. I have to travel through the night to get home, InShaAllah, so I thought I’d borrow some rest in advance.
Pre-payment for exhaustion. Lies you tell yourself.
Last night, I emptied out my suitcases in an attempt to do vertical packing — something I had seen on an Instagram reel and, for reasons I cannot fully justify, trusted completely.
I tried it once before. Life-changing. Tried it again today. Still incredible.
I feel the need to explain this, even though I probably shouldn’t — you keep your suitcase upright, like an almirah, and just… stack your life into it vertically.
This will not make sense unless you’ve seen the reel.
Which, to be fair, you probably have. And if you haven’t, this is me admitting that I am, in fact, chronically online — despite periodically disappearing from my main account as if that resets anything.
For those who don’t know me closely — although if you’re reading this, you probably do in some capacity — I had left home for Bangkok with two suitcases. One for me. One for people I love.
I realize now this is how I travel — never empty-handed. This feels… inherited. From Mamma. Obviously. Of course.
I had packed shockingly light. Even my sister noticed, which is rare because she thinks I lack restraint.
This is also the same sister who, along with her friends, can pack two suitcases for a two-day trip.
Meanwhile, I have been living out of two suitcases for three months now — across cities, climates, and completely different versions of myself.
I don’t lack restraint. I don’t apply it to people I love. With them, it always feels like there is something to be done, something to be given.
When in Bangkok, it was decided I would go to Geneva.
One of my favorite colleagues was becoming a Dad — the kind where you don’t question for a second.
And who am I to question, but most people around me having kids… I worry for those children. Future traumatized adults in the making.
But not him.
He is the kind you root to have kids — because somehow, you feel like this child might heal something in you.
You just know he will be an incredible father. The kind of person who has never made me feel small in a room, despite the very real gap in intellect and experience. And if he can hold that kind of space for his colleagues, imagine the world he will create for his child.
So I was going to be his paternity cover.
Big shoes. Big responsibility. Big opportunity.
And suddenly, this wasn’t just about showing up and doing the work. It was about how I showed up.
There are rooms where you can be slightly disorganized, slightly unserious, slightly yourself. And then there are rooms where you inherit someone else’s standard — and his standards are high. Not in a way that pressures you, but in a way that quietly insists you can do better.
The kind that makes you think: this is who I want to be when I grow up.
Which is saying something, because I am, at best, a five-year-old adult.
I am still myself. It’s just that there are versions of you — and you learn which one to bring into which room. But when it came to him, I wanted no slack. No loose edges.
I wasn’t just replacing him. I was stepping into a space he had shaped — with ease, with clarity, with a kind of generosity that doesn’t announce itself but is simply felt.
His brilliance is known. And to step into that space and not do it well felt less like failure and more like disrespect — like not doing justice to something I had been trusted with.
Now Geneva has not just a different climate — read European winters — but also a different vibe.
I can’t show up in my pink kurtas and my slightly chaotic, borderline tacky combinations. I mean, I can. But I have this lingering belief that people won’t take you seriously.
It comes from my mother. She insists on effort. On showing up like you mean it. And I think, reluctantly, I agree. (Don’t tell her!) Which is also how you realise that, at some point, you quietly become your mother.
Once, in Kashmir, I walked into Mushq in a sweatshirt and trousers. I may as well have been invisible. The next day, I went back dressed properly — and suddenly, I existed. The attention was immediate. Unmistakable.
It’s a simple theory, but it holds: how you show up shapes how you are seen — and eventually, how you see yourself.
So for Geneva, I needed blazers.
I went to buy a blazer. My first stop was Uniqlo. I did not find the blazer, but I did find this incredibly comfortable Airism dress in black — which, many weeks later, was burnt by hotel staff who didn’t think this was information I needed.
I found out after I had done my makeup, done my hair, and fully committed to the outfit.
There is a very specific kind of betrayal in that moment.
I could have made a fuss. But the dress was already burnt, and some poor chap would have gotten a scolding. I don’t like being that person — the one who creates unnecessary chaos over something that is, at this point, irreversible.
It’s fine. Mistakes happen.
Yes, if they had told me, I would have just planned something else. But who cares. I still wear the dress — burn, tear, and all.
Character development. And my Pristiq personality no longer gives a damn.
I now plan to get it embroidered. I’m thinking sunflowers — but my Bilal tailor can fix anything, and he will have opinions, so I’ll probably listen to him. I don’t usually fix things. But this, I will — the dress is cute, has pockets, and was expensive.
Until then, I will continue wearing it torn. As I am today. Adds character.
And btw, I have now learned makeup using AI, which feels like an entirely separate but equally important development.
It told me to use more bronzer than blush — and for someone who claims to be against AI, I have been sending it my makeup selfies for three months straight.
We all have our contradictions.
The dress was so good I bought it in two more colours — blue and rust — because apparently, when something works, I commit.
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But the blazer was still pending. As was an outer layer.
I also got Heattech — and I swear by Uniqlo Heattech.
My sister, who used to wear 15 layers out of principle and miserliness, finally gave in after two years of my insisting. She now swears by it. So if you want good winter wear, buy Heattech. Kangri nhi lena padega.
Having said that, last year I learned that Uniqlo is not particularly better than Shein when it comes to labour rights.
As Kalpona once said, the issue isn’t where you buy from, but whether you are willing to insist on a living wage, not just minimum wage. This is how I justify my fast fashion choices.
Not perfectly, but sufficiently. Kalpona did say Uniqlo cares about quality, just in case you needed that final nudge.
And to be fair, I had none of this for Bangkok. I would show up to the office in whatever I felt like wearing. It’s the least judgmental city I’ve been in — or maybe I just felt least judged there.
Then in Switzerland and the Netherlands, I picked up small things for friends and family, which is a nice way of saying I was slowly turning into a hoarder with intention.
But Colombo changed the scale of things.
People I met there — some I knew, some I barely did — showed up with so much love. Not just emotionally, but materially too. In ways that felt… disproportionate. Generous in a way that makes you pause.
Yesterday, when I unpacked, I didn’t just see things. I saw people. Every item carried a memory, a moment, a gesture.
And I felt overwhelmed. Just like my suitcase — which I had to sit on and do cardio on to close.
And for a second — a rare, inconvenient second — I thought:
How do I have the nerve to complain, to spiral, to cry, when I am this loved? And if being loved should cancel everything else.
The way I write is also how I talk — I move. From one story to another, quickly, sometimes without warning.
My friend PR finds this charming. She’s particularly relieved that Pristiq 50 hasn’t taken it away yet.
My ex therapist, on the other hand — before I ghosted her (sorry, Z, if this somehow reaches you) — was less impressed. We are no longer aligned in our methods.
She told me, very calmly: Muda, do you realize you move from one story to another without ever really talking about the feeling of it?
She’s right. Which is exactly why… some other day.
Yesterday at Green Bazar, I couldn’t help but pick honey for my Baba.
He is a simple man. The kind who will scold me for spending — sirf fazool kharchi karti ho — and still somehow be the person I most want to buy things for.
But how do you buy something for someone who has given you everything? Everything starts to feel insufficient in comparison.
So I’ve reduced it to a system: white shirts, honey, or nuts.
I told the lady on Google Translate, “give me your best honey… but a small bottle, I don’t have space,” and then immediately picked another one with nuts and seeds — because of course I did. My father is a sucker for this.
Yes, I know airport authorities will probably loot me again. I don’t care.
Green Bazaar felt like it was made for him. Every stall, every sample — I kept thinking, he would have loved this. He is a nuts person (not like that… although, a little).
I genuinely wished I had the space to buy him everything I tasted. He would have appreciated it in that quiet, approving way of his. He’s anti-junk, so this would have been a goldmine.
I hope someday I can convince him to travel with me — InShaAllah — and that he gets to go slightly wild in a place like this.
Now, with all of this, my luggage has officially betrayed my identity as a light traveller.
I am, today, a Ryanair passenger in spirit — wearing my heaviest coat, shawl, and Heattech. Which is perfectly fine for now. Slightly less fine when you remember I have to transit through New Delhi.
I have approximately 8 hours before I catch my flight.
I could have gone out. Walked the city one more time. My Airbnb lady — who is kind, despite the fact that the “mountain view” I paid for only appears when I contort my neck into some very questionable yoga position — even offered to keep my bags.
But packing my life into two suitcases somehow took till 12. Then breakfast. Then this slightly pretentious writing, which will easily take me to 4.
And yesterday, I was told to leave early for the airport because of traffic. And then, of course, the toe woes.
I started this essay wanting to understand the difference between shukur and rehmat, and how that has been changing me. Clearly, I am still circling it.
But being here — in Kazakhstan — language complicates it in a way I wasn’t expecting.
Shukur — shükir — is not just “thank you.” It feels heavier than that. Quieter. It’s not something you say to people. It’s something you sit with. An acknowledgment that what you have exceeds what you control. That you are, in some way, being held.
Rahmet, on the other hand, moves differently. It’s what you say to people. It travels outward. It recognizes effort, kindness, and intention. It’s social. Immediate. Almost easy.
And what I find interesting is that the language refuses to collapse the two.
I think in English — I grew up with the familiar colonial logic that English gives you social mobility. And it does. But it also flattens things.
In English, “thank you” does everything — for God, for strangers, for small gestures, for life itself. One word, for everything.
But here in Kazakhstan, the language refuses that convenience. It separates what is meant to be held from what is meant to be returned.
Rahmet — what people give you. The visible, the immediate, the human. The honey, the gifts, the love you can point to.
Shükir — what you sit with. The excess you didn’t earn. The way your life keeps… holding you, despite yourself.
And maybe that’s what I’ve been struggling with — this instinct to blur the two. Treating everything like rahmet.
Something I should respond to, match, or repay. When some of it… isn’t asking anything of me.
Colombo. These people. This suitcase I had to sit on and negotiate with.
Not everything needs to be balanced. Not everything needs to be returned. Some things are just meant to be received. And survived. And held.
This life. These people. This overwhelming, inconvenient abundance — shükir.
And also, always, rahmet.
