Taiba Abbas
@BibaT_Abbas
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Writer | #CompLit @SOAS | Founder @AlaBooksAuthors | The Night In Her Hair | Who Will Speak For the Men of Gaza? – available at
Pakistan
Joined October 2016
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With all my faith. With all my heart. For these beloved people of light. After months of working, waiting, for this book to be ready, today this Eid al-Adha it is finally here, I hold these smiles up in the sun, and could there be a weight, a pain more unbearable?
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Two months today since this book came out. And I’ve struggled to take a picture, to put up posts. What can one possibly say? What is there left to say?
Each time I see this book reaching
@Maisara_Alrayes
’s friends, his loved ones, his only surviving family – his sister, and his
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wife – I feel an indescribable wrench of pain. I read their messages, hear their words and what this tribute means to them. I keep asking myself, what does a book mean in a time like this? What does it mean to write when we’re paralysed by our powerlessness, when we feel language
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dying inside us in this collective grief. I can only answer that one way. Anyone who has known devastation in any form, anyone who has seen death and lived in loss, untethered from the unreality of this world will know that the hope we hold onto is 'this too shall end' – this
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life, this world. It must. It has to. Death is an affliction of the living, not the ones who’ve gone. The only world we seek is the one where we find the ones we’ve lost, regaining them in stories, in prayer, in dreams. A world that begins with the beginning of imagination.
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Grateful to everyone who ordered the book, who contributed so generously, and made the memories inside these pages a part of their homes and their identity.
Copies are still available in bookstores across Pakistan, and you can order directly from me by DM or email.
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My piece in
@TheNewsonSunday
today. I wrote about
@TheSalamAward
writing workshop hosted by
@LifeAtLUMS
@GurmaniSchool
last month, and the value of such initiatives for writers in Pakistan. Thank you
@wajihahyder
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The brutal Trail of Tears happened in the 1830's, at the same time American Transcendentalism, with all its ideals of sublimity, took root and flourished. If you’ve ever wondered HOW that could’ve been possible, it is now in front of you. Don’t let it happen again. Not ever again
This is the modern-day Trail of Tears. It's happening right in front of our eyes.
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Here. We. Go.
At long last. All moonlit and ready to set sail.
A quick video spin and unboxing glimpse, with more to follow.
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Resuming some binge-watching chronicles:
#Sanditon
was such an enjoyable experience. An adaptation and remarkable continuation of Jane Austen's last unfinished novel.
How can I not admit that
#TheoJames
as
#SidneyParker
is what drew me to the show. (How beautiful is this man?!)
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A fun and invigorating afternoon at The Last Word with
@usmantm
Thank you to everyone who joined us!
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Heart wrenching. To live with so much fear. This is their HOME
Look at them waving white bits of paper and cloth, arms up in the air in a vain attempt not to be described as a human shield and bombed, maybe not so the bomber will see their innocence, but the wider world that keeps believing the lies that makes their killing easy.
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No Man's Language: Urdu Classics in Translation. I'll be in conversation with
@microMAF
and
@DrOsamaSiddique
on 20th March, 4.30pm at the
@lhrlitfest
Do come!
#LLF2022
#LahoreLiteraryFestival
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What does it mean to retell our ancient stories with a modern relevance?
I'll begin with Mirza. Mirza as I imagined him. Mirza as he might be today. A headstrong 19 year old boy. A gleaming athlete. Mirza, the inimitable archer. Mirza, who could be Achilles, who could be Arjun.
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No Man's Language. A clip from a talk at the
@lhrlitfest
earlier this year, where I was in conversation with
@DrOsamaSiddique
and
@microMAF
on Urdu classics. The full video's now up on YouTube.
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My kind of summer morning. Received my copy of this luscious, much-awaited book. Lahore’s sun and breeze are perfect for these pages today. Will be sharing plenty more on this very soon ❤️
@irasroom
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The Night In Her Hair at the
#FaizFestival
and
#PakistanLiteratureFestival
. The book will also be available at the
#LLF
happening this weekend. And do join me there this Sunday at 3pm for the session Folklore, Myths, and Contemporary Fiction
@lhrlitfest
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Ananke’s Women in Literature festival – always a warm, beautiful place of the most inclusive, stimulating conversations. It was an immense joy to be in conversation with these two brilliant women
@anniezaidi
and
@BShrayana
@anankemag
#AnankeWLF2023
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The Night In Her Hair now sees the light of day! Available for pre-order at . To be released this December Insha'Allah.
They say when you finish writing a book you feel empty, disoriented, longing to return to the world you've set free on the page. That's
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Happy to share that
@usmantm
and I will be teaching a two-hour class on short fiction, at The Last Word bookstore, on Saturday 12th March. If you're in Lahore, do join us. Limited seats available. You can sign up here via DM:
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It was an absolute delight hosting the second session of Creatives on Creativity with Naveen Kishore
@seagullbooks
and Musharraf Ali Farooqi
@microMAF
sharing their profound knowledge and expertise, discussing the less talked about aspects of publishing - book production, pricing
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My grandmother Alima Agha made this painting a long time ago, in Srinagar. She named it Habba Khatoon. Habba Khatoon (Zooni as she was first known) – the poet from Pampore, who lived in the sixteenth century when Kashmir was conquered by Akbar. Habba Khatoon wandered the valley,
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Massive respect for those brave students. And just listen to that soulless crowd of ghouls, that disgraceful woman saying "this is not the moment". So When, WHEN exactly is it the right moment to STOP licking the blood of children off your lips?
#GazaGenocide
#FreePalestine
Cambridge University students disrupt a talk featuring the vice-chancellor as a guest speaker, calling her out for “the university’s silence and inaction on Gaza.”
The students called for a ceasefire and demanded the university to adopt boycotts, divestments and sanctions.
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A little bit of pink and some Chiaroscuro. Back home from an enchanting
#Valentine
’s evening spent at the Lahore Heritage Club where I was in conversation with the incredible Huma Safdar. I even got to witness an impromptu riveting performance by her troupe of actors.
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No better way to end the year than with the news that your book’s sold out. Here’s a short video I recorded for
@LibertyBooks_
I don’t think I’ll ever stop thanking you all for the wonderful readers that you are.
Happy holidays and Merry Christmas!
#TheNightInHerHair
#books
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Words fail us when we need them the most. I don’t know how to begin describing something that has consumed my life so immensely, so incredibly in these past two months. When and how this became a book is a mystery to me, and proof that we are ineffably led and guided in a way we
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Zara’s honesty is commendable. Laying bare the West’s original unshakeable style statement. Death, Havoc, Genocide.
Rubble and dead bodies… New photos published by Zara of its new collection stirred outrage on social media platforms.
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Seeking Shahrukh, Unraveling Loneliness: Love & Longing in a Personal Metropolis.
Join me,
@anniezaidi
and
@BShrayana
for a conversation on urban loneliness, power, intimacy, unpacking the lives of women behind a culture of fandom/fantasy for an icon like
@iamsrk
@anankemag
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The number of times I've turned and returned to this book. These honest, electric, healing words charged to a beat.
Who would have thought a memoir could be such a scintillating thing. A fistful of magic and power.
@tkiramadden
#writers
#books
#writingcommunity
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Thank you dear Ira for furthering this generational connection with Trinidad, and for letting my words for
#Gaza
be shared this Christmas Eve. As writers the world over, there is no language that can exist for us anymore unless it speaks unceasingly for a Free Palestine
#Christmas2023
offering 🙏🏾
@GuardianTT
‘Devastation, grief, horror, trauma. With 20,000 people dead, some two million displaced, 10,000 children dead, thousands more orphaned,Gaza is where language goes to die, beyond words.’
@BibaT_Abbas
#Gaza_in_Genocide
@SthAsianWriters
📚🎄
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Creatives on Creativity was a riveting session, listening to Naveen Kishore speak about
@seagullbooks
's ingress into publishing from an 'independent passion of European translations, filled with a need to share a sense of humanity, responding to the human condition as content.'
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A fun, spirited, well paced watch. The boat ride before the regatta and the one-woman-in-a-man's-cricket team sequence were particularly favourite parts. And I loved the
#soundtrack
by
@ruthdbarrett
- Fits the story to a T!
@Sanditon
#adaptation
#books
#writers
#writingcommunity
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A rare, and beautiful conversation with Naveen Kishore. And one that I treasure.
Watch here:
@seagullbooks
@anankemag
@mfhusayn
@HammadHRind
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Yesterday, 31 January, was
@Maisara_Alrayes
’s birthday. Yesterday, while his friends relived their most beautiful memories, sharing an unforgettable video of them together as students in London, surprising Maisara on his birthday, I held this proof copy in my hands for the first
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WHERE is your devastation? Is this all you can say? Maisara Al-Rayees was a luminous irreplaceable scholar & doctor from Gaza. He was murdered by Israel, he and his family were bombed in their home. You will NEVER be able to make up for this loss, his immeasurable contribution to
We are devastated to learn about the death of Chevening Alumnus Dr Maisara Al Rayyes and members of his family. We send our deepest condolences to his surviving family. Our thoughts, and the thoughts of the Chevening Alumni community are with you.
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After a long day, when you’re cold and tired and dishevelled, and staring at your copy of Manet’s Irma Brunner (Woman in a Black Hat) you realise a hat is a handy thing to have around.
#lahore
#writers
#artists
#painting
#edouardmanet
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Proud and grateful to be one among Publishers for Palestine
@pubforpalestine
– a global solidarity collective of more than 350 publishers. Follow their page, and add your name.
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'Security breach'? That courageous spectator stepped onto your field to stand against the biggest breach of human security this world has seen. If this farcical World Cup will be remembered it’s only thanks to this moment 🇵🇸
And no, it wasn’t about meeting Kohli
#FreePalestine
#ICCCricketWorldCup
| Security breach during the India versus Australia ICC World Cup 2023 Final match, in Ahmedabad after a spectator entered the field to meet Virat Kohli
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A Mood of Mists continues tonight. Dazed by the haze of my bedside lamp.
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When you turn a book around this is what you want to see. A portrait of the author. A smile, a glance, a lowered gaze, a shadow of the writing in the writer’s face. This is what you want to see. Nothing else. Definitely not those crowded tedious blurbs filled with
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Concluding this year's
@lhrlitfest
with our oldest stories.
#classics
#urdu
#LLF2022
@DrOsamaSiddique
@microMAF
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I got to share some thoughts in
@TheNewsonSunday
on why memoir and poetry are important genres for me, along with the writers I’m looking forward to reading this year
@tobylitt
@LoebDavon
@maggiesmithpoet
@_joseolivarez
@ReneeRosen1
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`Ala Books & Authors is up and running at
Friends, writers, readers, please visit `Ala's website to know more about our story, and to read about the books we will be publishing this year.
Excerpts, book cover reveals, and other updates coming soon!
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An exciting new addition to
#PakistaniLiterature
And what a gorgeous publication!
Congrats
@usmantm
and
@KITABcompk
#writing
#publishing
#WritingCommunity
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Gearing up for printing month, and I almost forgot it's been 2 years now!
@AlaBooksAuthors
's first steps ♥️
#writers
#books
#writing
#writingcommunity
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Not only as a writer, but as a publisher, the idea of a book launch leaves me blank. How do you begin to talk about a book that holds so much of your life?
For now, I will let these pages, and a glimpse of these notes do the talking.
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Who Will Speak For The Men Of Gaza will be in bookstores across Pakistan in the coming days. And wherever you are in the world you can get your copy directly by emailing
@AlaBooksAuthors
at sales
@alabooksandauthors
.com
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A December book selfie, with my father right behind me – holding the most incredible gift this year could’ve given me. So grateful.
#TheNightInHerHair
#books
#writers
#writing
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So thrilled with this sexy book haul at
@TheLastWordbks
today. Books I’ve been meaning to get my hands on for a long, long time. Equal parts fiction and nonfiction. And a woman’s delight all the way.
@moniqueroffey
#HanKang
#ClarissaPinkolaEstes
#bellhooks
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A book to make us all proud. In these terrible painful times, losing so much of our country right in front of our eyes, such moments come as a balm to lift one's spirits. To know that as artists, scholars, we still have the ability to create beauty, and further a tradition that's
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Shouldn’t that overpowering green put a final end to the West’s terror and mass murders? But no, the security council’s 'veto power' must decide it all. Who are we? WHAT are we?
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The Night In Her Hair.
Visit to know about the stories included in this collection.
And follow us on Facebook and Instagram for our next cover reveal, happening very soon!
#writers
#WritingCommunity
#books
#authors
#writing
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At
#ThirdCultureCoffee
. Going to your favourite coffee shop only gets better when you glimpse your book on their shelves. That too in great company.
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Beautiful. And almost identical to the Kashmiri pheran and headdress
An old photograph of Palestinian women in Ramallah harvesting in the 1960s
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The way he’s looking after her. The beautiful, beautiful men of Gaza
Julia, a little 3-year-old girl, lost her house after Israel bombed it, she also lost both her mother & her father, & all other family members. Julia has no place to call home or family.
This journalist, Ismail, has been looking after Julia & is in search for a shelter for her.
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Precious moments from a workshop and panel discussion 'Dialogues on Literature and Creative Writing' earlier this week, where I was in conversation with Athar Tahir sb,
@AwaisKhanAuthor
and
@SidraFSheikh
. Here’s a lovely video put together by the Institute of English Studies
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Some more pics from today, with Hina Jamshed Khan,
@MHM1657
, Mehmood ul Hassan, and
@DrOsamaSiddique
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can never know. All we can do is give ourselves over to it completely. And that’s how this book happened. That’s how Maisara Alrayyes’s glorious life became an indelible part of my world.
Please read this book. It is free and available to download at
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My review of a qissa translated by
@microMAF
Can’t stress enough how important it is to regain our stories of today through the literature of yesterday. This series of classics is an excellent way to get these conversations started. Hats off to
@KITABcompk
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@Maxi_Iglesias
as Victor in Netflix's
#Valeria
is worth ALL the binge watching you can and cannot allow yourself.
Coupled with a well-fitting soundtrack whenever he comes on the scene.
@Bobmosesmusic
@Imaginedragons
@thenewraemon
@OhWonderMusic
- have been a thrilling discovery
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An afternoon spent rotating these shelves at
@Readings_PK
where a fresh new batch of
#TheNightInHerHair
has just arrived 💚
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Overwhelmed by the warm appreciation and support. Thank you so much Osama. What a joy to see the book in your home ❤️
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A story about beginnings, and girlhood, and women; about the ambivalence of triumph and fruition, that first descent into awareness from where there is no going back. "Night was so boundless, and she was still so young."
#books
#writers
#writing
#literature
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Just received! What an exhilarating year for books this is turning out to be. After
@ohaneef
and
@usmantm
I'm so happy to be holding this beautiful debut by
@SabaKarim
And I love how she calls it her 'song'
#writers
#WritingCommunity
#PakistaniLiterature
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After watching
#Fedelt
à, and making a sum of every Carlo Pentecoste on tv, I think their message is pretty clear. Never marry a writer.
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have limited them as cultural artefacts of an archaic past. By entering them, becoming them through the world that we know, through the language that we speak, through the emotions that we understand. Because the divide of a 1000 years means nothing. What we were then, we are now
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Apologies if I haven’t been able to respond to everyone over here. The book is currently only available in Pakistan, but if you email me your order at it will be shipped internationally.
@pubforpalestine
I am looking for resellers in the UK & US who’d be
Grateful to everyone who ordered the book, who contributed so generously, and made the memories inside these pages a part of their homes and their identity.
Copies are still available in bookstores across Pakistan, and you can order directly from me by DM or email.
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A powerful debut. And a story that needs to be read far and wide.
Congrats
@ohaneef
on a wonderful achievement!
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Curating this session for
@anankemag
was an exciting experience. Diverse voices, questioning the meaning of literary freedom and representation.
'Something Old, Something Borrowed: Reclaiming Spaces in South Asian Speculative Fiction' will be streaming on Thursday March 31st
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Some photos from last weekend’s 'Women in Literature' event, with
@wajihahyder
at
#Kinnaird
. A necessary and far-reaching initiative put together by For A Cause, in collab with
@PakUSAlumni
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Some serious word-love. The Corps of Guides of 1846 was the first regiment to wear the first khaki uniform. They dyed the cloth a dusty beige, and in keeping with its camouflage-inducing quality among the mountains of the frontier, they gave it the Persian name Khaki. Khak – dust
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Happy to share that Àla's Instagram page is now up and running at
Do follow for all our updates, and to see these two cover reveals happening this week!
#WritingCommunity
#authors
#bookcover
#writers
#writingcommunity
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An alternate, cost effective means for some momentary warmth, while
#Lahore
freezes away. Find your nearest floor lamp, hang around it, and let the light take care of the rest.
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Christian Bale in
@LouisBayard
’s origin story of Edgar Allan Poe! Cannot wait to watch the transportive brilliance that this is bound to be.
#ThePaleBlueEye
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Some
#Christmas
booklove next to a warm fire glow. How I love returning to this old cranberry hardback at this time of the year, leafing through these golden brown pages that smell like wood and chocolate. It was December when I first discovered this book in my house and I was 14
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Yes they are. The entire Arab world is. European settler colonialism couldn’t care less about religious/ethnic identity. Anti-Semitism is just a bludgeon in their hands to dupe the masses (failing miserably) to further their cannibalistic 'manifest destiny' into the Middle East.
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recycled, regurgitated descriptions. You want a book’s experience to be your own. A quiet encounter between you and the writer. Like this beautiful 1963 Collins edition of Clair de Lune. I’ve loved this book ever since I was a child and before I was old enough to read the story.
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And now in Delhi. Another dream made possible. No words to express the joy I'm feeling right now
@siddharthagigoo
"from the world of kash kash jinn and the haunting snake forests of nagrai in Kashmir to marvi's thirst for the golden sands of the thar", respected Huma Agha Abbas Ji and her daughter
@BibaT_Abbas
's magnum opus book of legends published by
@AlaBooksAuthors
Pakistan ~ ❤️
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A significant shift. The BBC showing a flicker of a conscience. The presenter looks positively tired of Israel’s psychotic genocidal bilge
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A safe and familiar sound, no one notices it. 14 August fireworks pounding a midnight sky. And the same sound, pounding differently elsewhere, striking fire on human life.
#GazaGenocide
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