Safeena ~ Stories from Urdu

Safeena
(Urdu, noun; a boat)

A collage of faded news stories and matrimonial ads from 1983 make up her body.
Your grimy, 7 year old fingers had given her uneven edges and a sharp, curved nose.

33 years later.
Bent with age.
Water-worn.
She still carries your childhood dreams to the shore, every night.

~hyperbolemuch.blogspot.com

Watch the video here.

#StoriesFromUrdu #PeopleAreStrangeWordsAreStranger #HyperboleMuch  #Urdu (the picture of the gorgeous paper boat from @manju6180)

Awam ~ Stories From Urdu

Awam 

(Urdu; noun: the common man)

When the barrel of cities,

And brick and mortar of guns

Leaves in its wake more hunted and hunters,

Than even the jungle,

Nature says

"That's not how I made you."

~hyperbolemuch.blogspot

#StoriesFromUrdu #HyperboleMuch 

(To Kashmir, Madinah, Nice, impending dangers in the South China Sea, the #BlackLives movement in America and the sadness of knowing I'm sure I've left something out in this map of horrors.)

Watch the video here.

Itifaaq ~ Stories From Urdu

Itifaaq
(Urdu, noun; a coincidence)

Living in the same city
And never having met you.

: Itifaaq

~hyperbolemuch.blogspot (word from my permanent cutie Ankita Gauba​) #StoriesFromUrdu #PeopleAreStrangeWordsAreStranger

(All videos on Instagram @hyperbolemuch. Watch this one here.)

Ada ~ StoriesFromUrdu

Ada

(Urdu, noun: a style that's completely yours.)

Affectionately stroking the tea-cup rim, every time you were mid-sentence.

Mistakenly dialling my number, five years too late.

Laughing too loud to encourage a small, shy joke.

Arranging waves of hair that smelt like a night of jasmine.

Talking Love into sitting still.

See video here.

#StoriesFromUrdu (video from my friend and photographer @madamphotographer)

Stories From Urdu

Impatience and lack of a new writing project lead to this: On my Instagram (@hyperbolemuch) now, a new series where I write a short story on a word from Urdu (which other language has so many words that sound like rain, bells and pain?).
#StoriesFromUrdu

Send me an Urdu word you love, and I'll do a post for you.

Below, on Mashooq.


Mashooq
(Urdu; noun): Beloved/Lover


A lover.
The one who would map the distance from his house to mine in sighs.
On some nights I still hear them, 

but Ma says, "That's just the wind searching through the leaves for its lost belongings.
Go to sleep."

~hyperbolemuch.blogspot.com


#StoriesFromUrdu