South Asians like myself have some of the highest prevalence of cardiovascular disease — I have always loved eating Pakistani food — desi food is rich, spiced with aromatic flavours and packs a punch. And the stereotype that it can be oily… well, that can be true. Even though I knew heart disease ran in our family, it was not something my family actively…

How magic mushrooms helped me come to terms with my childhood — Each orgasm shook a new memory from the depths. The soft, feathery texture of a Persian carpet against my cheeks. The shape and colors of a vase with elephants painted on it. The smell of monsoon rainfall in Lahore. Two years into doing regular, therapeutic psilocybin trips with my husband…

In Star Trek, Dad could imagine a life free of shame and heartache. — “To be human is to be complex. You can’t avoid a little ugliness — from within — and from without.” — James T. Kirk Growing up in Pakistan must not have been easy for my father. A high school dropout and morbidly obese at 5 feet 9 inches, his alcoholism…

Hina Husain reflects on an intrepid daughter-mother journey to northern Pakistan — The aroma of barbecued chicken sajji fills the air as Mom and I sit on a wicker charpai engulfed by soft smokiness coming off the charcoal fire. Shades of pink and indigo diffuse through the twilight sky above us, silhouettes of surrounding mountains framed by fluffy, granite-grey clouds. …

Canada allowed me to become the person I always wanted to be — Finding a place to live in Singapore is a frustrating experience at the best of times. The real estate agent on the phone is making things worse. “Canadian is just a citizenship, lah,” he says, his voice impatient and dismissive. “Where are you really from?” It’s a conversation with which…

The 1996 Grammy-nominated album, a collaboration between the Canadian musician and Pakistani legend, turns 25 — “It’s a big world now — at the time, it wasn’t.” Michael Brook has seen world music evolve a lot over the years. In the early ’90s, a time in which the expansion of the genre was “a notable innovation,” Brook, a Canadian musician, teamed up with Pakistani legend Nusrat…

My grandmother was half Kashmiri, which means my father was a quarter Kashmiri, which means that I’m an eighth Kashmiri. But if you were to ask me about my Kashmiri heritage, all I’d have to offer up is Kashmiri chai. Growing up, my friends were always very fascinated by my…

Wikimedia Foundation’s Heart of Knowledge Contest Grand Prize Winner — I still remember the day my mother first took me to our local British Council branch in Lahore, Pakistan. I was around eight years old. …

A few weeks after Christmas, I went to visit my mother in Toronto and she shared with me a recent dream she had that didn’t make much sense to her. It involved her father, who died more than 35 years ago, my father who died six years back, her brothers…