The last few days in Pakistan felt strange. I had spent years working towards this moment, dreaming about a new life, a new country, a new version of myself. I was excited, more than ready, and still somehow heavy with the thought of leaving. Packing your life into a few suitcases makes you realise how much of yourself is tied to a place. There was excitement for everything that was waiting ahead, and sadness for everything I was about to leave behind.

Some cities are explored on foot. Others follow you home in the form of books.
I came back from London with a small stack of urban planning books, each one offering a different way of looking at streets, neighbourhoods, children, public life, and the people who make cities work. Books by Jane Jacobs, ideas about streets for children, questions about how cities are designed and who they are really designed for. My kind of souvenir.

A purple haze, a moonlight hush. Tonight, the sky reminds me of all this city gave me.
familiar streets that knew my silence,
moments I didn't know were memories in the making,
tears I hid behind sunsets,
kindness from strangers I'll never forget,
laughter that were louder than the pain,
walks that led me back to myself,
songs that now belong to this city,
the courage I found when I had none,
goodbyes that never felt finished,
a softness I learnt to protect,
the peace I didn't know I was searching for
and a version of me I never want to forget. 💜

For years, the Santiago Bernabéu existed somewhere between television screens, match days, and childhood imagination. Then suddenly, I was there. The lights, the stands, the sound of the anthem, thousands of voices singing together. I had imagined that moment so many times as a kid, but nothing really prepares you for standing inside a place you once thought belonged only to your dreams. A very old dream, finally checked off the list. ❤️

I have spent more of my life in your streets than anywhere else. More time wandering, getting lost, finding my way, growing up. I know your chaos, your colours, your smells, your old buildings and your restless evenings. I miss rooftop dinners and long evenings at Haveli, plates of Lahori nashtay arriving one after another, hot puris, channay, halwa, pathooray and jalebis. I miss the noise, the food, the heat, the people, the feeling that there was always somewhere to go and someone to meet. Somewhere along the way, Lahore stopped being just a city I lived in. It became part of me.

There is something lovely about meeting someone for the first time when you already feel like you know them. Years of emails, shared work, names you have seen again and again, and then suddenly you are sitting across the same table in Brussels. Work brought me there, but the people made the memory. Grateful to Urban Forces, Bram, and everyone who made those few days feel less like a professional trip and more like one of those unexpected chapters you are happy to have lived.

Some days arrive quietly and feel heavier than they should. Losing someone you love, missing home, waking up far from the people and places that make you feel safe. There are days when you simply do not have the energy to be productive, positive, or particularly brave. I am learning that this is part of life too. Not every season needs to be turned into a lesson. Sometimes you can have a difficult day, miss someone terribly, let yourself feel it, and still wake up the next morning and carry on.

I remember reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities and realising that the city could be read differently. The sidewalk was no longer just a sidewalk. A neighbourhood was more than its buildings. People watching, street life, mixed uses, children playing, shops opening onto the street, strangers looking out for one another. Suddenly, all these ordinary things felt like pieces of a much bigger urban story. Somewhere in those pages, the way I looked at cities changed.

A little cafe in Sialkot, a book, something warm to drink, and an afternoon with nowhere else to be. I have always loved places that let you disappear for a while. Places where you can sit alone without feeling lonely, read a few pages, underline something you like, look out the window, and lose track of time. This photograph takes me back to a much simpler kind of happiness. My hometown Sialkot, I love you.

2010. Somewhere around then, I started watching football. And somewhere along the way, Kaká became one of the reasons I fell completely in love with the game. I grew up watching him on a screen, never imagining that one day I would be standing just a few metres away from him. Fifteen years later, there he was, right in front of me. There are childhood heroes you admire, and then there are the ones who quietly become part of your story. He was one of mine.

There were years when I didn't quite know how to make sense of what I was feeling. Books became a place to disappear into, but also a way to understand myself a little better.

Some gave me company when I felt alone. Some gave me words for things I couldn't explain. Some simply gave me somewhere else to be for a few hours. I don't remember every book I have read. I remember the ones that found me at the right time.

There is a part of me that needs to make things. Not everything needs to become a project, a publication, a portfolio piece, or something useful. Sometimes I just want to draw, paint, cut, frame, stitch, experiment, make a mess and see what comes out of it.

Art gives me a space where there are no indicators to measure, no outcomes to justify, and no right answer waiting at the end. Just colour, texture, mistakes, instinct, and the quiet satisfaction of seeing something that existed only in my head become real.

Maybe that is why I keep coming back to it.