The Courage to Simply Be – A Conversation with Sulaiman Ansari
Meet Sulaiman, a man who has lived across borders and built a life in the corporate world, yet his truest work has unfolded within – through reflection, longing, and language. In this intimate conversation, a quietly powerful and compelling new voice shares not just his poetry, but a gentle, deeply poetic way of being – grounded in an enduring affinity with the human condition. His words invite us to sit with our own questions, to honour the ache of becoming, and to embrace a simple personal philosophy shaped not by certainty, but by presence, surrender, and the courage to simply be.
Over the course of your life, you’ve lived in 15 cities stretching across the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia. Of all those places, which version of yourself felt most like home?
I felt at home pretty much everywhere. This was initially because of my upbringing of moving from place to place, I had lived in four countries before I was eight, but more importantly the realisation that each location was nothing more than a caravan serai on the journey of life, and so my attachment is to the journey more than the places I stop along the way.
That’s quite something… Four countries before you turned eight – home must have been a very fluid concept in your childhood. What do you remember about your early years in India, and what was it like leaving later when you were sent to boarding school?
My father was a diplomat for India, and his postings abroad meant that our family moved every few years. As a result, my childhood in India feels splintered – I have only a few faint memories from between the ages of four and six – a school, fragments of places, fleeting moments. The next set of memories begins when I went to boarding school at the age of 10, where I spent about four years.
Life as a boarder was tough, a mix of some good memories and some pretty awful ones! I was a lost little kid, which made it hard to blend in, except with other misfits.
Left: Sulaiman as an infant with Ammi, visiting his grandparents in Karachi, Pakistan. Right: Sulaiman at age 10 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
So much of what you’ve shared is about movement and not quite belonging in one place for long. How has living as an expat shaped your sense of belonging and your sense of longing?
I am the quintessential outsider. Being an expat reinforced this role – I have spent my entire life at the fringes of almost all social groups I encountered. It taught me to rely on myself, which in turn gave me the strength to forge and hold my own identity.
As for the sense of longing… there is a hole in my heart that I do not know how to fill. I do know I cannot fill it with family, success, money, sex, drugs, etc. Prayer and meditation are the closest things that help me deal with it.
I am always alone.
You travel a lot for work. When the boardroom empties and the hotel room grows still, the noise of life fades – the work, the movement, the roles you’ve had to step into. In those moments of silence, who do you become?
The seeker trying to find his place in the world, trying to answer the question “why am I here? What am I supposed to do?”
When you strip away your name, your title, the corporate behind you, who remains sitting quietly inside you?
A mature version of the young man seeking a connection with a dream which refused to leave him.
Sulaiman at age 22, a university student at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.
That dream stayed with you when it would have been easier to let it go. What was it about that dream that kept calling you back?
For the longest time, I could not verbalise the dream. It was not something concrete, an aim or ambition like becoming a doctor or making money; it was an elusive scent that occasionally would enter the periphery of my senses and then be gone before I could focus on it. Even today, I understand it better than before, but not in its entirety.
It is a siren song which pulls at the soul of all sentient things, like the drop of water returning to the sea. Once you are aware of the song, there is never any peace, no matter what you do or where you are, your soul is pulling you back to the source.
Was this a subconscious dream?
It is, now, both a conscious and unconscious dream, like an operating model in a laptop, which hums away. When I was younger, it was more subconscious, but as I have worked on myself, it has started to become a conscious part of me.
What did it know about you before you knew it yourself?
I was confused. I had no direction or purpose. I was neither a bad boy seeking experiences nor a good boy following the system, I was the invisible middle boy – lost. It took a long time, decades of living, to find my place in myself and the world.
How do you make space for softness in a corporate world that rewards certainty and control?
By remaining authentic, refusing to subsume my identity to the corporate world. It comes at a cost and I need to remind myself there was a Sulaiman before I joined the workplace and there will be a Sulaiman long after I leave the corporate world.
Sulaiman, aged 22, while a student at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Photographed by keen photographer Rodney Koh.
When did you start putting words together so eloquently?
Late 90s – we were in Saudi Arabia and Sanaz had to leave for long periods because of visa reasons and I wrote my first set of poems “49 Nights Alone”. I always enjoyed reading poetry but I think it was this period of separation which created the necessary wound from which words sprang out.
You said, ‘the necessary wound from which words sprang out.’ That’s such a powerful phrase. It makes me wonder about the relationship between pain and creativity. Some artists say their greatest work is born from suffering, while others believe it emerges through the process of healing. When you look at your own poetry, where do you think yours lives?
Without my wounds (emotional, spiritual, psychological), I am unable to write or connect with the world. Pain and suffering are the currency of evolution. You watch your daughter learn to ride a bike – it does not happen without her falling a few times and skinning her knees, does it? Vulnerability is a superpower – you can only truly feel when you block nothing and put yourself in situations where suffering leads to growth. Everything good in my life was on the wrong side of suffering.
Sulaiman with Nala, his daughter’s toy poodle, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Photographed by Carina Lissek.
When I read your poetry, I feel you have this affinity with the human condition. Where did this come from? Has it always been in you?
Yes. For as long as I can recall, I’ve been plagued by questions like: why am I here, what is the purpose of this life, and what is this sense of longing that sits so deep in my heart – what am I longing for? I’ve also often asked myself how I come to terms with the imbalance I see around me, where some have so much and some so little. And then there’s this question that has always stayed with me – whether there is a divine power, a God, a rhythm to the universe.
How would you describe your personal philosophy?
Everything is energy. Energy connects us, feeds us, builds and destroys us. The human emotion that comes closest to understanding the dynamics of this force is love. I feel like a blind man, touching this love and trying to make sense of it. It is addictive. It is terrifying. I run to it and I run from it. I hope to subsume my ego and drown in it – perhaps then I will find peace and salvation.
Can you take me into your creative process – what you’re drawn to thematically when you write, and how the actual process unfolds for you on the page?
I am fixated on certain themes – searching for meaning, searching for love, trying to connect my inner world with my outer world, and trying to make sense of the world around me. There is also a constant need to improve myself – to be a better version of myself… to seek redemption.
When I’m writing prose, the process is much longer – I just keep pecking away until I get it to where I want it. When I was in Rotterdam, I did most of my writing at night, but in Delhi I prefer to write during the day, often while enjoying the view of the garden, and I tend to keep a more temperate lifestyle.
Of all the lines you’ve ever written, which feels truest to the boy you once were?
The lines of longing, of purity lost, of an ache I don’t understand….
Where does this raw tenderness come from?
The awareness that vulnerability is the key to growth and the endless desire to dig deeper into my psyche.
You recently turned 60 – happy birthday again! What questions are you finally brave enough to ask yourself?
What comes next? By deciding not to go back to full-time work, I am rolling the dice on the remaining years ahead of me, I must find a new path to walk, which helps me find the answers I have been looking for since I was 20.
Do you believe writing has healed you?
Yes!! I believe any creative process – writing, singing, painting, or playing an instrument – helps soothe the soul and acts as a balm.
If your poems are letters, who have they truly been written for?
Anyone walking a similar path, dealing with similar questions…
What does purpose feel like in your heart? Does it arrive as an ache?
I don’t know if I can say I have a purpose. I have a need to improve – to become a better version of myself. Each day is an opportunity – to craft a better line, to last longer in the gym, to find a sense of flow when meditating. And yes, all of these come with their own version of effort and ache. It is the fuel which feeds me… or more like the addiction that drives me.
If the next chapter is less about proving and more about being, who do you allow yourself to become?
What a lovely insight! I slow down, I enjoy the pause, I listen better, judge less, I connect better, simple words carry complex messages, I surrender to the universe.
XIV
from 49 Nights Alone, March 1999
hurry back to me
49 nights I passed without you
each a journey in itself
to live in dreams,
eat in shadows
49 nights without greeting
even the sun pities me
the moon sings me a lonely lullaby
and the shadows await your return
hurry back to me
Some Songs
August 2025
Some songs
the heart never
forgets
wheels on a wet highway
when leaving home
the silence at the end of a conversation
when only the heart beats
the call for prayer
as dawn breaks
and pilgrims gather
half asleep
To Hold Your Face
July 2024
To hold
your face
inches from me
and inhale
an imagined scent
oud, crushed rose,
the warm dark
of your skin
off the soft side
of your elbow
as you push away
to watch
your eyes flicker
from fear to abandon
as I turn you
inside out
in search of your
molten core
that burns in me
and lay beside you
spent and still
at peace
with your breath
I Am Learning to Grieve
October 2025
I am learning
to grieve
with all my heart
to welcome
every sorrow
like the afternoon fog
on a dry winter’s day
I shall not flinch
or withdraw
from the dull ache
that bends
good men double
or hurry
to fill
the hollow space
where sorrow
takes root
and haunts the mind
I will grieve
with a full heart
and embrace
the void she leaves
a silent shrine
in her honour
for, the heart that aches
is the heart that grows
To explore more of Sulaiman’s work, follow him on instagram or subscribe to his Substack, where he regularly shares his latest writing and reflections.