life rattle show no. 1322

Presented on THURSDAY, november 13, 2014

hosted by john dunford

featuring

"The Seesaw"
"Fakeer"
"One Day at Centennial"
and
"An Extraordinary Journey"
by Amna Bhutta

tonight's Show

Life Rattle No. 1322 features four stories by new writer, Amna Bhutta.

Amna Bhutta was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in April of 1993. She is the youngest child and the only girl of four siblings. Her parents envisioned quality education for their children and moved the family to Canada from Pakistan when Amna was eleven years old. She started grade six here and today majors in political science at university.

Amna still watches “Tom and Jerry.” She loves to read and often writes in her journal before going to bed. She mostly listens to country and rock-alternative music. She loves Chinese cuisine and a lot of chocolate. People find her quiet and shy, but she is the loudest person in her family. In her free time, Amna watches movies, reads, cooks, bakes, and spends quality time with her family and best friend, Nisma.

Amna Bhutta’s quiet, almost gentle writing belies the weightiness of her poignant stories.

In "The Seesaw," set in Karachi, Pakistan, a little girl and her cousin slip out of the house and away from their mothers during an afternoon nap to visit a nearby playground.

In "Fakeer" a child befriends an old beggar, ignoring her mother’s warning to stay away from him. Every day, she saves a few rupees from her lunch money to place in his bowl, until he disappears after her visiting cousins make disparaging remarks.

"One Day at Centennial" brings us to a Canadian classroom where the narrator, newly arrived from Pakistan, feels ostracized from her elementary schoolmates, and becomes the victim of a racist prank when school is let out.

In "An Extraordinary Journey" the narrator, after hearing different versions of a story that has become family lore, finally gets to hear the whole story from whom it happened to—her grandmother.