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Hijabi’s Path to Jane Austen’s Longbourn
It might seem like a stretch. What does a 19th-century Englishwoman—preoccupied with balls, bonnets, and social standing—have to do with a 21st-century Muslim mother of ten in the UAE? On the surface, our worlds are oceans apart. But when I open a well-worn copy of Pride and Prejudice, I don’t feel like I’m reading about a stranger. I feel like I’m looking into a mirror. The Path Through the Woods I’ll admit, my love for Austen didn’t start with the dense, original prose. English is not my first language, and the intricate, looping sentences of the 1800s were a challenge to grasp. I took the scenic route. I started with…
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My TV Memory Lane, from Oshin to Si Komo
Memory is a funny thing. When I look back at my childhood in Indonesia, I often lump all my favorite shows into one giant, sunny morning. But if I’m being honest, they didn’t all happen at once. They were a patchwork—some were for Sunday mornings, some were for rainy Tuesday afternoons, some for those times after school, and others were the quiet, heavy dramas we watched with our parents in the evening. They didn’t just occupy a timeslot; they occupied different seasons of my soul. Oshin Taught Me About The Lessons of Resilience: If I think about my very first “telenovela” experience, it wasn’t a glitzy soap opera. It was…
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The Books That Built Me
Before I was a mother of ten in Sharjah, I was just a girl in Indonesia with a book in my hand… and a very specific obsession. British stories. I know exactly how it started. My paternal grandfather and grandmother were the ones who paved the way. I still remember my first encyclopedia; my grandmother bought it from a walking salesgirl who came to our door every month for a year. My grandma paid for it in installments—month by month, page by page—investing in my mind before I even knew what a “future” was. Then there was the time in Grade 2. I had broken my arm at school and…
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Rewatching Titanic as a Grown Muslim Woman
Around 10:00 PM, the house is finally quiet. My kids sleep early (Alhamdulillah), so by then, the noise of the day—voices, footsteps, little arguments—has softened into stillness. I sit with my laptop, the glow of the screen lighting up the room, and decide to watch Titanic again. I remember watching it twice in the cinema back in the 90s. Back then, it was everything. And yes… I had a huge crush on Leonardo DiCaprio. Watching it now? He’s… very meh And that alone tells me how much has changed. I’m not watching it as a girl dreaming of escape anymore. I’m watching it as a wife of twenty years. A…
