Review of Who Knows the Bounds of Desire

“All roads leading towards despair are devoid of floral traces; we don’t know where they will us take us,” notes Zehra Nigaah in one of her poems. Similarly, Noon Meem Rashid’s Andha Kabariya (the blind junk seller) laments how pa shikasta, sar bareeda khwab (broken and silenced dreams) lie strewn across the city. This woeful atmosphere swells to apocalyptic proportions in Osama Siddique’s Who Knows the Bounds of Desire.

Here, the elegiac strain intensifies, recording the fall, decay, and degradation of a city already in shambles. Remorse and regret turn into nostalgia. The once glorious past bears no resemblance to its present self. The rot runs deep, unapologetically. The monstrous expansion of the metropolis eclipses all logic, acumen, and character. What remains is a fitting modern day elegy for Pakistan’s colossal decline into the pits of a smoke empire, both literal and metaphorical.

The arrangement and design complement the lyrical flow of the narration. Two major characters take turns in this grand Dastangoi — time and city. The former recalls, remunerates, and records the golden and beleaguered, the rebellious and the subdued chapters of history in a performative satire. Memories and imagination abound. Fiction embraces experience, and vice versa. Alif Laila resurrects, and the portals to hidden realms open in fragments.

Just when one feels dreamy, the city takes over, simmering with its own laments. The pretentious, predatory, delusional, and corrupt hold the reins. Their self-aggrandizement strikes an absurdist note which is comical yet too relatable. The judiciary, academia, bureaucracy, and law enforcement, the whole state machinery, are reduced to a farce. An everyday spiraling of a country that no longer dreams, dares, desires, as it moves in constricted circles. In this mesmerizing chiaroscuro, Khalid and Tayyaba Khala resemble mourners around a city collapsing beneath a heavy sky.

The epigraph alone establishes the tone for a riveting act. Each chapter, each moment in time and space, carries its own set of tales within tales. The richness of the poetic and prose references thus curate a narrative that moves in loops and spirals, layers and rhythms. The chapter titles work like refrains, while the city, the lives, the heart, the space within and outside, and the memories come alive like a magician’s panoramic spell.

Siddique’s narration embracing poetry, intense satire, magical realism, adds grandeur, depth, and a sense of utter despair to this epic downfall. Are there any last straws to grasp, any star blazing in the darkness? Yes, but you have to meander through hidden, often crowded spaces to shade the flickering flames — the last hope, the lost hope, the art of creating from nothingness, from dust, the art of کوزہ گر (koozagar).

The potter, the narrator leads you through dark alleys, moonlit streets, and surreal gardens, the play of particles in evolving spaces, in medias res, encouraging readers to pick a strain and create their own melody of These Days, Those Days.

© Maria Khalid 2026

Who Knows the Bounds of Desire
By Osama Siddique
pp. 568, Book Corner, Pakistan
ISBN: 978–969–662–642–8

I started it in April, so while reading, T. S. Eliot’s lines kept playing in my mind:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Do share your thoughts if you are reading it or planning to add it to your TBR. The book can be purchased from Book Corner from the following link:

bookcorner.shop - Who Knows the Bounds of Desire

Mapping an Empire of Smoke was originally published in burnttoasts on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My poetry journey

There were days when I thought I’d lost it all — when I thought I’d stayed behind for too long; when it seemed as if language itself had given up on me; when it looked unreal to even dare to venture again.

It started unplanned — with small scribbles on old diaries, a torn page, notes on my phone, a phrase here, a verse there — until it all began to channel into a quiet flow.

A routine was born when Medium opened its Partner Program for my country. Though my initial writing was full of errors and breaks, it was also brimming with raw honesty and an effort to play with form and words. The response was encouraging enough to help me write every day.

A reading and writing rhythm developed. For three straight months, I contributed to some incredible poetry publications. The editorial feedback and warmth filled me with sunshine. It slowly transformed into a healing awareness, especially when I connected with poets and contributors who were experiencing the same creative chaos, frustration, and madness.

And then one fine day, with over a 100+ contributions on Medium, I twirled with the idea of experimenting with a chapbook. I worked on one, gave it an introduction with all my heart, and launched it on Kobo.

✨You can have a look at it here:

https://www.kobo.com/ww/en/ebook/how-much-a-heart-can-take?sId=f319851e-8825-4b02-b48c-da18ebf5e586&ssId=VSe2TNTN3BbZuw1A9-bVH&cPos=1

I’d be truly happy if you’d read, review, and share your feedback on what I can do better with my poetry and my next collection.

I’d also be over the moon if friends here and everywhere could spare some time to review it. I’d be happy to share a copy with them.

Here are all the places where you can connect with me:

X: mariyakhaled
LinkedIn: mariyakhaled

I just realized that for a very long time, I was ignoring the small sunny patches in my life. But once I noticed them, the journey changed, the scene changed, the path changed.

Here’s to all my fellow writers, creatives, and dreamers:
May you soon find your sunshine 🌻.

Much love,

Maria.

How Much a Heart Can Take was originally published in burnttoasts on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Mera Sar Hazir Hay Lekin Mera Munsif Dekh Lay
Kar Raha Hay Meri Fard-e Jurm Ko Tehreer Kaun
(Justice should see that I bow to the law
But look who is the author of my indictment)

— Parveen Shakir

Red —

Not Offred as you’d think
but an unknown growth
never seen before
among the age-old cold boulders.

It takes a different color on drying.
I didn’t know until I saw my own
trickling through the dust.
Red is now the color of my dasht*.

Shrunken veins across
my heart — a barren land
like the unmarked sand
I heard in late night tales — 
dear mom, who can I tell about my pain**.

When the gods of my land
fired their honorable shots,
the earth didn’t rip apart,
the heavens didn’t fall.

Earth sweated a little more
as bruised ego leveled its score.
I’m living a dystopian nightmare,
as they proudly share
how they shot just another one somewhere.

*dasht is an Urdu word for desert.
**English translation of the famous words of Sufi poet Shah Hussain: Mai Ni Mein Kinoun Aankhan

With a heavy heart we all watched the barbaric killing of a couple in Balochistan.

Pakistan arrests 13 suspects as 'honour killing' video goes viral

Every year hundreds of women in Pakistan are killed in the name of “honor” and buried in unmarked graves. Most of these incidents remain unreported.

I fail to understand why a man’s honor only awakens when a woman chooses to exercise her right to marry by choice. That same honor remains asleep when it comes to empowering women through education, providing access to quality healthcare, and standing up for their basic rights.

This horrific tradition of siyahkari or karo kari defies all sense of humanity and evolution.

Just leaving this here — with a broken heart.

Thy Ugly Honor was originally published in burnttoasts on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Pakistan’s volatile social, religious, and political divides have given rise to a deeply fractured and unstable society. In an atmosphere full of fear, silence, and chaos, few writers attempt to reflect with full sincerity on the complexity of the situation. After all, it isn’t easy to lay the truth bare in a land uncomfortable with its own reflection. Yet this is precisely what Sanober Nazir’s book, Khayaalon Ki Art Gallery, chooses to undertake.

Questioning the hollowness of our social constructions, this collection of essays, short stories, and commentaries paints a nuanced portrait of our collective decline. The writer stands amidst the chaos as things fall apart, and slowly unravels an existence scarred by violence, hatred, and hypocrisy. Through her narration, we see a world where cultural norms turn to monstrous stigmas, and societal behaviors leave little room for individuality.

Bigotry and discrimination glare blank-faced in stories like “Maqfal Dil Maqfal Darwazay” and “Dard e Dil Kay Wastay”, accentuating the damage wrought by our holier-than-thou attitudes. In pushing minorities to the margins, we quietly overlook some of the basic tenets of being humane. Through everyday characters, readers witness how deeply prejudiced beliefs are internalized and passed onto generations.

The pen doesn’t stop here — it moves with even more ferocity when it comes to womanhood. With nothing left to celebrate, “Woh Jo Tareek Rahoun Mein Mari Gayeein” laments the horrendous murders of women in the country. While “Kharab Aurat” closes in on society’s distorted sense of morality in judging a woman’s character, “Tamgha Ya Kalang Ka Tika” tears into the honor narrative imposed on the female body.

The heart comes apart at the seams, and the empowerment statistics collapse to the ground as a picture soaked in blood forms through Nazir’s words.

When it comes to grief, the writer takes you to another land steeped in longing and loss — the Partition of the subcontinent. As hatred renews itself in growing communalism, we confront a brutal emergence of borders within borders. The parallel narratives in “Payal” offer a panoramic view of these sectarian rifts that continue to traumatize generations in both Pakistan and India.

Much like the vignettes in Saadat Hasan Manto’s Black Borders, this work, too, captures the deep-rooted hostilities and extremes of human nature. A character’s refusal to believe in a religion that robs a person of the right to live echoes the book’s core purpose: a critique of our collective apathy.

Zahra Nigah’s words on the state of lawlessness in Karachi, Raat Bhar Kaan Mein Ronay Ki Sadaa Aati Hay (cries echo all through the night), resonate powerfully in “Chipak Raha Hay Badan Par Lahu Say Pairahan”, which tells the story of an innocent life falling victim to the city’s recurring waves of ethnic violence.

And when it begins to weigh on your nerves as you walk through the terrain of broken dreams and lost hopes, turn to the stories “Zamana Ab Teray Madd-e Muqabil Koi Kamzor Si Aurat Nahi” and the most powerful opening confessional note, “Aglay Janam Bhi Mohay Bitya Hi Dijiyo”. Here hope appears in trinkets — you have to catch it in dialogues, in closing notes, and in layered commentary.

How to tell a shattered story?
By slowly becoming everybody.
No.
By slowly becoming everything.

— Arundhati Roy

One marvels at Nazir’s art of achieving all this — telling a tale of our shattered existence from the shadows, where the air chokes with muffled griefs and old wounds refuse to heal.

A mother’s cry, a lover’s heartache, a woman’s sorrow, a young girl’s dreams, a city’s silence, a crowd’s madness — an existence baring itself, layer by layer, piece by piece, in her art gallery that displays the ugliness of our virtues and moralities.

Sans sense, sans law, welcome to my homeland.

© Maria Khalid 2025

Khayaalon Ki Art Gallery
By Sanober Nazir
pp. 303, Book Corner, Pakistan
ISBN: 978–969–662–575–9

Khayaalon Ki Art Gallery is available at the following link:

bookcorner.shop - Khayaalon Ki Art Gallery

Keep checking this space for more book reviews and recommendations and don’t forget to follow Burnt Toasts.

Recommending another story of another land, The Country Without a Post Office by Agha Shahid Ali:

Memories of War and Peace

How to Tell a Shattered Story was originally published in burnttoasts on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Do houses have souls?
I have been thinking about it because in my neighborhood about a dozen old houses are being demolished. New structures are erected in place of dilapidated ones. So right now the space is a war between the old and the modern structures and architecture. But coming back to the question. Why does it feel incredibly sad to look at the dismantling of a house? The cupboards which once held our dearest belongings, the walls which once echoed with the voices of our dear ones, the garden, the furniture, the curtains, the movement, the memories – random, sweet and bitter are taken apart piece by piece, brick by brick. Until what remains is a flat land, holding nothing.

Is departing from a house as disturbing as departing from a loved one? I think the whole act of departing is traumatizing. The flawless, shiny facade of the new structure is often enough to reduce the old inhabitants to tears. For the new, it is home. For the old, it is the tomb of their beloved memories.

This short poem is for the house that will never be forgotten.

59 Z 5

When the landlord brings new tenants,
even Memory is a stranger.
...
I’m moving out holding tombstones in my hands.

Vacating an Apartment, Agha Shahid Ali

That last glance
on the fine
memory infested
structure of
forgotten times
rips through
the heart
like the
final breath
of its longest
inhabitants.

Maria Khalid

Do Houses Have Souls? was originally published in burnttoasts on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

(This book review was first published in The Friday Times of July 25, 2023)

The events surrounding the Fall of Dhaka – 1971 remain shrouded in a narrative marred by omissions, lies, and silences in Pakistan. The state historiography of the three countries, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, appropriated this chapter of history according to their own nationalistic aspirations. As a result, any personal experience contesting the overarching official versions of history is usually censored or ignored, and any concerns raised on the veracity of the facts are also vehemently refuted as propaganda.

In this scenario, Anam Zakaria’s 1971: A People’s History from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India tries to present a panoramic picture of the past by narrating experiences of the individuals who lived through those troubled times of separation and violence. In addition to personal histories, the author details the institutionalisation and celebration of selective memories by the three countries through museums, textbooks, and official historiography.

Divided into four parts, the book takes you on a journey to understand one of history’s most blurred terrain. What resonates the most is the author’s sincerity in entangling the truth. Throughout the narrative, you find her struggling with the reductiveness present in popular history and lamenting how its obliteration and imposition generates flawed perceptions and prejudices.

The slowly brewing sense of marginalisation among the citizens of the then eastern wing and the ensuing actions by the West Pakistan authorities to curb the rebellion is traversed through personal memories, which allows the readers to access the chaotic years from multiple points. At times, the recollection of traumatic experiences is too overwhelming to absorb but they eventually develop into an account where the suffering and violence knew no boundaries.

The silence surrounding the 1971 war in Pakistan’s popular and official history, and its shift of blame on arch-rival India and the political cadre of East Pakistan, shatters once the language controversy, protests, state-backed operation and mass killings that are revisited through survivors’ experiences. Bangladesh’s interpretation of history holds no relevance in Pakistan’s version. Similarly, the violence perpetrated against the non-Bengalis and the awful state of the stranded Bihari community remain out of history’s boundaries in Bangladesh.

Besides negating the celebrated history, 1971 also highlights the effects of this severe appropriation on the young generation and how it is used to keep the narrative of hatred and nationalism alive. Years of misconceptions and lacunae in history only contributed to a wider abyss, thus destroying all hopes for a peaceful coexistence.

In South Asian context, this history is rare because the personal raises a question on the collective and the latter thus appears to be glaringly inaccurate. The crime of circumventing the fate and erasing the experiences of stranded communities — Bengalis in Pakistan and Biharis in Bangladesh — as they fail to fit anywhere in the projected official narrative is committed by both sides.

Zakaria successfully weaves a past that is humane, encouraging you to look beyond the statist history. The silences, the unspoken hatred, the direct anger at the injustices experienced by the citizens of Bangladesh is recorded meticulously. She observes, listens, empathises, and contemplates the partiality in history.

First published in 2019, the book is now published in Pakistan, giving readers a chance to revisit the events leading to the war of 1971 and the creation of Bangladesh through people’s histories where a sense of loss drowns all ideas of borders, ethnicity and nationalism.

Reclaiming the Past: A People’s Narrative of 1971 was originally published in burnttoasts on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

­Book Review

by Maria Khalid

Mein Hun Jahan Gard

By Farrukh Sohail Goindi

pp. 786, Jumhoori Publications, Lahore

ISBN: 978–969–652–196–9

The world witnessed unprecedented geopolitical alignments and drastic upheavals in the most decisive decade of the Cold War, the 1980s, which ultimately proved to be the beginning of the end of bipolarity. The two divergent philosophies — Capitalism and Communism, had evolved into massive blocs, each unwilling to accept the existence of the other. The latter gained significant support among the students and intelligentsia of Pakistan, and eventually led to the making of the country’s biggest socialist democratic party Pakistan People’s Party.

One such student activist, Farrukh Sohail Goindi, who was disillusioned by General Zia ul Haq’s strategic alliance with Washington in Afghan Jihad against USSR, and intrigued by the idea of a socialist utopia, undertook a journey by land from Lahore to Bulgaria which then belonged to the communist bloc. The resulting travelogue, Mein Hun Jahan Gard, is a rich commentary on the historical, political and cultural landscape of Iran, Turkey and Bulgaria of the early 1980s.

While covering these aspects, the narrative gains a monumental dimension as it slowly delves into the centuries old history of Mesopotamian civilization, and the presence of the Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, Ottoman, and other empires in West Asia. Accessed through the historical landmarks of Iran and Turkey, the details of the distinct architectural styles help readers to develop a timeline of the ruling empires. The author skips no detail in explaining the significance of the places and sites he chooses to visit, thus showcasing the preparation, study and planning involved in his journey.

At times, the voice develops poetic traction as the traveler, a student of history and political science, visualizes the journey of human evolution unfolding in the vast terrain, which once belonged to some of the greatest empires. The candid expression, maintained throughout the book, makes the flow of information and observations highly accessible. Further contributing to this feature is the division of narrative into multiple chapters. The movement between episodes of historical and political accounts, personal experiences and cultural commentary keeps alive the reader’s interest.

Eventually it turns into history in motion where Iran, engaged in a conflict with Iraq, is echoing with the slogans of ‘Death to America’ while experiencing its early post Islamic revolution years; the democracy in Turkey is in a state of repression under the military regime of General Kenan Evren. The subdued leftist and liberal voices in both the countries strike a resemblance to the situation back home. And then in Bulgaria, the perceived image of an excessively harsh and brutal socialist world falls apart. In this section, the narration pivots on understanding the reality of the great Iron Curtain and an unwavering effort to study the dynamics of a socialist state in all its entirety.

Adding fascination to this expansive journey are the train and the bus rides. Meandering through the changing landscape, the traveler, inspired by the tradition of the great classical explorers, paints a graphic account of the region in terms of borders, ethnicities, cultures and histories. For Goindi, the map holds its charm because of its intriguing history and his own struggle to find answers.

First published in 2021, the second edition of this travelogue is now available. A must read for history buffs and travel enthusiasts of our times to know what it meant to explore without GPS and an easy access to information.

Traveling Through History: A Chronicle of a Different World was originally published in burnttoasts on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Unaccustomed Earth

By Jhumpa Lahiri

333 pp. Random House, India

ISBN 978 81 8400 060 3

Unaccustomed Earth is a compilation of migrant tales with their customary baggage of nostalgia, rues, cultural disarrays, accomplishments and the looming tragedies concealed in each one of them. Jhumpa Lahiri’s plots are simple, her narration’s flawlessly smooth; nowhere does the reader catch any glimpse of a deliberately forced poetic intrusion or lyricism.

Her story-telling mastery in Unaccustomed Earth distances the common criticism about her stories only being a plethora of the cultural clash of first generation Bengali immigrants. What’s distinctively unruffled about her characters’ portraiture here is that their seeming inwardness follows an idyllic restraint.

The title story and Only Goodness paints the estrangement of the blood relations, compelling the characters toward an alienated existence. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s opening quote, “My children will have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth” reverberates most poignantly in these two stories.

Hell-Heaven moves along a foreseeable storyline but nonetheless is striking. It’s the Choice of Accommodations that many will find pleasant reading. Amit and Megan after years of marriage feel like drifting away to their separate accommodations. Hema and Kaushik’s tale towers the rest as does their life’s catastrophe. Kaushik runs away from the excruciatingly painful memories of her mother’s death. Lahiri encloses that how their personal tragedies evolve and assimilate into their lives. The flux of migration is so expansive that it lasts through the entire life of an immigrant.

She has unfolded tragedies with such consummate subtlety that despite of their ordinariness they weigh gravely. You seriously can’t skip these set of short-stories from Lahiri.

Mere Tragedies: Book Review of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth was originally published in burnttoasts on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

By Daniyal Mueenuddin

248 pp. Random House, India

ISBN 978 81 8400 035 1

In Daniyal Mueenuddin’s collection of eight short stories, the mesmerizing elements of a compelling narrative are all poised perfectly, thus, truly justifying it as a Pulitzer Prize Finalist. Underneath the narrator’s entirely stoic objectivity, readers experience some truly emotional moments. Diction’s immaculately plain and unruffled. And it is through this perspicuous expression that he dissects the societal nuances of Pakistan in all its integrality and failings.

The eight interwoven stories are arranged around the ailing landlord K.K. Harouni; his vast lands in Dunyapur and his huge mansion in the throbbing metropolis of Lahore; his kinsfolk; his servants and managers. Mueenuddin’s characterization of the influential Harounis, Talwanis, Jaglanis and the remaining dominating gentry is virtuously incisive. All his characters take chances; almost all are opportunistic; from the likes of Nawabdin Electrician to the ones in the ruling class. They all rule and gamble in their own dominions. But his women characters from the lower strata are not only weak but they all meet a despairing end. Husna, Saleema and Zainab all thrive to ascend a little in the patriarchal world through physically pleasing their respective lovers, who at the end leave these women with neither any names nor any security.

The stories represent the diversified social cluster of Pakistan and embody the peculiar theme of manipulation, undisputed class supremacy and iniquity. In stories like, Saleema; Provide, Provide; In Other Rooms, Other Wonders and A Spoiled Man, he subtlety gives a penetrative view about the servants’ hierarchy that how they control their domains and slyly manage to draw their undue share from the excessive wealth of their master. A Burning Girl is a lamentable tale narrated remorselessly by a Lahore High Court’s session Judge that how he no longer believes in law to be “a sword of the Lord”. But it’s Lily and Our Lady of Paris that stand out from the rest not only because of their setting in a high class but the author’s storytelling skills are promisingly entrancing here.

For many, these stories are an honest account of the contemporary Pakistan, if, and indeed they are, then, it’s a demeaning picture and there’s nothing significantly worthy about our social setup. Moreover, the order of the stories could have been changed so as to conceal and break up the expected storyline of the few that share similarities.

The stories do cover the magnitude of the components of the introductory Punjabi proverb, “Three things for which we kill — — land, women and gold”. Daniyal Mueenuddin revealed in an interview that “he’s always admired the way in which Balzac covers a wide canvas” and he has doubtlessly achieved this.

Though Mueenuddin’s genius blooms marvelously here but it’s a little too early to bracket him with Chekhov. Let’s wait and see how he spins his gripping mastery in the next set of stories, meanwhile, please yourself with a copy of In Other Rooms, Other Wonders.

A Societal Labyrinth was originally published in burnttoasts on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.