The pelmets for the curtains in the bedroom were simple wooden ones without any carvings. The curtains were maroon and worn out for most part. When we closed them on afternoons we napped, they would make the bedroom look maroon. You could watch reflections of people walking by on the street on the roof through the small openings on the top of the pelmets where the curtains did not stop the sunlight, an interesting thing that sunlight did. In these reflections you could watch the cars on the street. And amid the constant sound of cars and crows, children playing in the parking lot of the neighboring building and the cool air being blow downwards by the ceiling fan making a constant sound, one could sleep the soundest sleep ever. On winter nights we would huddle up inside a black woolen blanket with red, blue and cream lines running across it, and peek through the little tears they had until the lights went out. My father would say a short prayer, and we kids would all chime in. He would clap thrice, and he said that the evil spirits would not dare to come to any place where this clapping sound was heard. Perhaps he said this to reassure us so we would not be scared at night. We would then say another short prayer for all the dead in the world. Finally we would say Shab-e-Khair and lie down in our sleeping spaces or ‘addas’ as we called them. Often our father would tell us stories of his childhood in Amravati, and gradually we would go to sleep, as the car sounds on the street outside faded away. The lights in the apartments in the opposite building would go off, one by one, each house having its own story to tell.

- Via Selma Mirza