We can’t choose everything we experience, but we do choose what inspires us.
To me, sharing what has shaped or resonated with me in life tells a deeper story about me than a resume or ‘about me’ blurb. :)
Here’s a small list of things I’ve read, watched, or experienced that have inspired me:
Joan Didion’s 1961 essay “On Self Respect”
‘The Danger of a Single Story’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The work of Gloria Anzaldúa
This photo of my parents in 1985. And this one
My entrepreneurial stint as co-founder of a gelato company called Bluenoon, which you can read about here, here, here, and here.
Urdu, my mother tongue
Urdu words like kashish, nazaaqat, saahns and ahista, which sound phonetically like what they mean
This scene from ‘Under the Skin’
‘Hiba’ trees of Japan
Joan and Don chat at a bar
These profiles, of Toni Morrison and Kendrick Lamar, written by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah
Honestly, everything written by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah
My cat, Hayaa
Michaela Coel’s McTaggert lecture
Peter Levine’s work on somatic experiencing and healing trauma
Tasbeeh herwees on her name
This interview between Brene Brown and Oprah Winfrey
‘The Loneliest Stars in the Milky Way’ by Marina Koren
Taylor Swift and Bon Iver, “Exile.” Actually, the whole album
Oatmilk draft lattes from La Colombe
‘The Other Side of Silence,’ by Urvashi Butalia
‘Since Living Alone’ by Durga Chew-Bose
This book of poems, by Warsan Shire
Adele gushing about Beyonce in her Grammys speech
This conversation between Sandra Oh and Kerry Washington
Pink sunsets
“Two Words” by Isabel Allende, translated to English
“Precarious Life” by Judith Butler
The script of ‘Little Miss Sunshine’
This interview with Nick Hornby, about his screenplay for ‘An Education’
‘Little Women,’ which I reread every year
‘Eloquent Rage,’ by my favorite professor, Dr. Brittney Cooper
AOC on gendered harassment in the halls of Congress
This interview with Angela Davis
Audre Lorde— everything she’s written
Olivia de Havilland’s performance in Dark Mirror
Beyonce singing ‘Die for You’
‘No One Belongs Here More Than You’ by Miranda July
‘The Laugh of the Medusa,’ by Helene Cixous
Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird
Peggy quitting on Don, Mad Men.
‘The Hours’
Keira Knightley’s gown from ‘Atonement’
Mohsin Hamid’s ‘How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia’
‘We sinful women’ by Kishwar Naheed
‘Feminism without borders’ by Chandra Mohanty
‘Love in The Time of Cholera’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
‘The Alchemist’ by Paolo Coelho
Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet