Nargis Naqvi | Nani Sifting Daal

Every summer, we would travel to Pakistan for a few weeks and I loved sitting in the courtyard of my maternal grandmother's home with my Nani. She was a little woman bent at the waist, wearing her white sari, quickly getting the cooking done for everyone. She would take daal (lentils) out to soak in the sun and pick pebbles out before she needed to cook them. The stray cats and chickens would come in from the street and I would enjoy helping her. This is a reflection of the nostalgic times of visiting a country that I associated with via my relatives and yet was always removed due to never living there. It is a tribute to the hardworking adults of our past that made these memories.