I’ve known Sikander for a few years now, but the extent of our inter­ac­tion only hap­pened online. We knew each other through the Ottawa blog­ging com­mu­nity, but at this point, nei­ther of us can remem­ber who found who first.

Now he lives in Toronto with Lunato, which I didn’t know wasn’t her real name, and whom is now his wife (I think they were just room­mates when Sikander and I first started talk­ing). I’d see lit­tle glimpses of their lives through their pic­tures, along with their per­pet­ual smiles, kawaii details, and mot­ley assort­ment of friends. It was inter­est­ing to see how two peo­ple from dif­fer­ent cul­tures could get along so well; as Sikander said to me, he used to be a good Muslim boy before he met her.

Sikander and Lunato

Coolest cou­ple ever.

They hap­pened to be in town for a wed­ding, and it was the per­fect chance to finally meet in per­son. We set­tled on some gelato over which to talk; I always mar­vel at how small the cup sizes look, and then how full I am after a medium.

Love by Oka

 

We’d send music back and forth over the years, though usu­ally it usu­ally stays in the ambi­ent, elec­tronic genre between us. Funny story: Lunato told me she liked my video of Hong Kong mar­kets, and it was actu­ally Sikander who gave me that music from the Code 49 sound­track (which I slowed down about 50%). He said it sounded famil­iar but never real­ized where it came from.

Before part­ing ways, Sikander gave me an album by Oka, an Australian elec­tronic reggae/dub out­fit. He once saw them per­form at a busker fes­ti­val in Toronto (though they’re not buskers), and it was the first hard-copy piece of music we shared. A music rec­om­men­da­tion is always gift, and an actual phys­i­cal album feels all the more special.