
PodCastle 830: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – When Shadow Confronts Sun
Show Notes
Rated PG-13
When Shadow Confronts Sun
By Farah Naz Rishi
[Allah] will say, “Enter among nations which had passed on before you of jinn and mankind into the Fire.” Every time a nation enters, it will curse its sister until, when they have all overtaken one another therein, the last of them will say about the first of them, “Our Lord, these had misled us, so give them a double punishment of the Fire.” He will say, “For each is double, but you do not know.” (7:38)
The paan seller’s cart has a very particular smell: burnt roses, sugar syrup, cumin. Spicy and sweet, like Nani’s sticks of sage, the ones she burns every Sunday after fajr to ward off jealous eyes and jealous spirits. But I am hungry and I breathe it in, letting the newfound familiarity of the fragrance settle into my bones.
Perhaps if I smell like paan, this world would accept me as one of its own — because that’s what Pakistan is in Ramadan. Its own world. (Continue Reading…)