You taught me to think, and you put ideas in my head. People read to forget. Books don't change the world, ji. You didn't tell me that. You talked of the dignity of the human spirit to a hijra.

~ Faiqa Mansab

Faiqa Mansab Books Human Spirit

I was an utterance in absentia. I was a forgotten word, uttered and mislaid long ago. I was the word that existed because there was another word that was my opposite, and without it I was nothing. I gained meaning only by acknowledging that possible other.Nida

~ Faiqa Mansab

Faiqa Mansab Fiction Lgbtq Literary Fiction Tragedy

It is not often that I have two options to choose from. It is nice to be compelled towards something, otherwise one drifts through life unimpeded.Bhanggi

~ Faiqa Mansab

Faiqa Mansab Contemporary Fiction Fiction Fiction Novel Lgbtq Literary Fiction Tragedy

I had never said those words because there were no words left. My beloved and I were both exiles from language. Our love couldn't be expressed in words. Our love had been woven into the melodies rendered by his flute, and it was subsumed in the atoms of the air we breathed. It had been consecrated in this shrine. It had never been named. It was an unnamed thing that had remained unspoken, unuttered, unsaid. I did not need to name it when he could already hear it.

~ Faiqa Mansab

Faiqa Mansab Culture Identity Diverse Characters Fiction Poc

In the nights though, I couldn't help but weave the golden cloth of my dreams. Each stitch from heart to thought, and thought to heart, was painful to bear, even if it was joyous at times. Because each thread was fraught with the fears of being broken midway, lost and never found again.

~ Faiqa Mansab

Faiqa Mansab Contemporary Fiction Diverse Reads South Asian Literature Tragedy

They were happy, I thought. As a child, laughter is all you need as proof of happiness. As a child you don't know there are so many different kinds of laughter - like different varieties of birds. Some are flightless.

~ Faiqa Mansab

Faiqa Mansab Laughter