The Discovery Channel

The unconditional love for a baby-a part of you-the conditional love for a friend-a part of you-the sudden new love for a place-you are a part of-all a process of discovering even more hidden reasons for loving, of finding yet another level in your capacity to absorb and make something your own.

Amna’s baby has shown me a completely unselfish aspect of me which only thinks of him without expecting or wanting-without analysing, without questions, without answers. I love this part of me. This is the part which will make me the mother, not a daughter, wife or sister-just the mother. For the first time I feel a slight tug at my heart of that obscure maternal feeling so talked about by all women past the age of puberty. Barefoot and pregnant becomes a reality.

Discovery of a less monumental nature, but with its own essential place in the scheme of things, is the discovery my friends and I made of this stylish manhattan-ish coffee place aptly named espresso. Some places just make you feel right and this is definitely one of them. There is always someone you want to be, some feeling you want to cling onto, some image in your mind of YOU that you want to feel yourself in, and this little tiny place does all that for me. I am a smart working woman in London who stops in for coffee with her friends after work. I am a character from F.R.I.E.N.D.S hanging out at café perk. I am bundled up, dressed for winter, walking briskly through a New York square, while a jazz musician plays his sax. I am a hip and happening karachiite with some amazing friends I love chilling with. I am all these people, because of that little coffee place. It is a real high. Makes me also think of how I would love to have a bookshop/coffee place of my own-a little comfortable place with cosy nooks, excellent coffee, and events like book club gatherings, lectures and discussion groups. Till I make this dream a reality, or let it remain just a dream which makes me misty-eyed, I will continue to have my café latte and drink it too-with banana bread & cream on the side.