January 17, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode of FARSIGHT Chats, host Farah Bala, founder and CEO of FARSIGHT, along with guest speakers Sadiya Abjani and Ambarien Alqadar, dive deep into the complex topics of faith, race, and gender within South Asian identity. The conversation delves into the impacts of colonialism, caste discrimination, and the role of community in shaping identity. Sharing personal anecdotes, the guests discuss the complexity of being South Asian Muslim women in America, the immigrant journey, the power of storytelling, and the need for solidarity in social justice movements. It also includes the backdrop of significant movements like Black Lives Matter and Dalit Lives Matter. The dialogue encourages listeners to reflect on their own identities and the importance of community and service.
| KEY TOPICS DISCUSSED |
Complex Intersections of Identity:
- The guests explore how being South Asian, Muslim, queer, and women creates unique challenges and opportunities for advocacy and connection. They discuss the silencing of voices in both personal and community spaces and efforts to navigate these complexities.
Cultural Narratives and Representation:
- The conversation critiques Bollywood and mainstream media for perpetuating archaic narratives and highlights alternative storytelling avenues, such as comics, animation, and independent films, as powerful tools for capturing diverse experiences.
Challenges in Building Community:
- Both guests reflect on struggles to find or create inclusive communities that honor their intersectional identities. They share stories of isolation and the importance of service and storytelling in fostering genuine connections.
Activism and Accountability:
- The episode discusses the South Asian diaspora's response to movements like Black Lives Matter and Dalit Lives Matter, pointing out the need for intersectional solidarity and self-reflection to address double standards in advocacy.
| SHOW NOTES |
00:00 Introduction to FARSIGHT Chats
00:31 Today's Topic: Faith, Race, and Gender in South Asian Identity
00:34 Meet Our Guests: Sadia Abjani and Ambarien Alqadar
00:41 Context: Black Lives Matter and Dalit Lives Matter Movements
01:05 Understanding Dalit Identity and Caste Discrimination
01:35 Exploring South Asian Identity Beyond India and Pakistan
01:54 The Immigrant Experience and Advocacy
02:21 Guest Introductions: Personal Stories and Backgrounds
04:30 Complexities of South Asian Identity in the Diaspora
04:46 Acknowledging Loss and Trans Day of Remembrance
05:38 Faith, Race, Gender: What Intrigues You?
07:49 Silence and Intersectional Identities
10:18 Creating Space for Diverse Faiths in the LGBT Community
13:00 Personal and Political: Growing Up in South Asia
21:29 Navigating Multiple Identities
24:23 Finding Community as an Immigrant
26:28 Personal Journey of Community Building
26:55 College Experiences and Feeling Unseen
28:10 Finding and Serving the LGBT Muslim Community
30:59 The Power of Storytelling and Representation
39:20 Intersectionality and Social Justice
46:55 Reflections and Takeaways
49:24 Conclusion and Next Episode Preview
| WORKS CITED |
The Ghetto Girl. 2012. Film. Ambrien Alqadar.
Connect with our guests:
- Sadia Abjani | Director of Learning & Equity, SAGE USA
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to Farsight Chats, your guideto navigating complex and important
conversations on society and culture.
I'm your host, Farah Bala,founder and CEO of Farsight.
We specialize in leadership andorganizational development, focusing
on equity, diversity, and inclusionas core leadership competencies.
(00:23):
Join us in these conversationsthat aim to foster understanding,
growth, and positive change.
On today's episode.
Faith, race, and genderin South Asian identity.
I am joined by our guests, SadiaAbjani and Ambreen Alqadar.
We originally recorded this inthe fall of 2020, while the Black
(00:45):
Lives Matter voices in the UnitedStates were spreading to the east.
And during this time, the Dalit LivesMatter movement in India was rising
on the backs of a historic patternof sexual assaults on Dalit women.
Most recently, the rape of a 20 yearold woman in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
The Dalit community are a group of peoplein the Indian subcontinent who were
(01:09):
considered untouchables and outcasts,and till today, experience unimaginable
discrimination in the name of caste.
The term Dalit.
It comes from the Sanskrit word dalita,which means broken or scattered.
My South Asian communities wereactively talking about the role of
colonialism and the caste systemsin dividing and oppressing South
(01:33):
Asian communities for generations.
Now South Asia doesn't onlyconsist of India and Pakistan.
It also includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh,Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka.
So as you might imagine, anyconversation on this topic is
vast, complex, and nuanced.
(01:54):
While the goal was to start a conversationaround faith, race, and gender in
South Asian identity, we invite youto join us as we also explored the
immigrant experience and how that shapesour identity and our own advocacy.
we invite you to explore this topic more.
On this episode of Farsight Chats.
(02:15):
Abjani and Ambreen Al Qadar.
Welcome to both of you.
I'd love to ask you tointroduce yourselves, please.
Hi, my name is Sabia.
, I love reading and publishing comics.
I love role playing games.
I am a South Asian queer woman.
(02:37):
, and I, I like to live , my life in astate of joy, , and for work, I am the
director of learning and equity at anational nonprofit that works on providing
competent care to LGBT older adults.
I've done quite a bit of work in LGBTadvocacy, , queer Muslim advocacy and,
(03:01):
, disability rights and housing rights.
Hello, everyone.
I am Ambreen and I will absolutely,I absolutely love the way you
dismantled conditioning, Sadhya.
So I'm going to start myself aboutmyself by saying I am a glitter lover.
I love everything glitter.
And that's because Ithink I have grown up.
(03:23):
In New Delhi in streetsthat are full of glitter.
My work is about that.
A lot of times I am a filmmaker I'vegrown up in New Delhi and for work now
I teach at the Rochester Institute ofTechnology Film and Animation Program.
It's been fascinating how I've lovedmy, I have discovered my love for
superheroes much later in life.
(03:44):
So I'm just so many differentthings, but I think for our
purposes, this should be good.
Thank you Farah for thisopportunity and Sadia and everyone
else for joining all of you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I love this.
I identify as Persian Indian now American.
My ancestry is a refugee population fromIran and the fable goes that my ancestors
(04:08):
got on little boats and reached the westshores of India, and India took us in.
And I grew up in Indiaand identified as Indian.
And then moved to the States and keptgetting perceived as, oh, you don't
look Indian or you don't sound Indian.
And that's when the hyphenatedidentity started percolating for me.
(04:30):
And It's been 19 years in the UnitedStates and the conversations around
what is South Asian between thediaspora and the history and who we
are today and who we are emerging astoday and what's getting in the way.
, we want to acknowledge the immense lossthat these conversations are born out of.
(04:52):
And today is Trans Day of Remembrance.
And so we want to acknowledgethe countless trans lives lost,
especially trans women of color who'velost their lives over the years.
We want to acknowledge.
The Dalit lives lost basedon caste discrimination.
We want to acknowledge the liveslost based on faith, based on
(05:15):
gender, based on race discrimination,based on pandemic loss.
And the Black lives lost this yearthat have fueled so many more of these
conversations that are helping us,guiding us to go deeper in our own
reflection and our own conversations.
(05:38):
Friends, I am curious.
To know from you, what intriguesyou about this topic, faith, race,
gender, and South Asian identity?
What does that mean to you?
You reached out to me, I think it's acouple of weeks ago, and at that point I
was having a conversation with a friendof mine, Vishali, about being South Asian.
(06:03):
In, in, in this time, in this countryand what does that really mean?
The context was at the immediatecontext of my conversation with Vishali
was there was this TV series thathad come out, Indian matchmaking.
And and there was just a lot ofconversation about how, what does Indian
match because it was trending on Netflixand I was just trying to make sense,
(06:24):
okay, the South Asia obsessed about.
arranged marriage?
Is this all that there is to us?
And I just had a moment of just sortof questioning, looking back, , and
since then I, we spoke and I there's somany parts to, again, to this response,
because Immediately then after myconversation with you, I was I was
(06:45):
thinking about what I do, why I do whatI do, what drives me and I think, , all
of that at the core of it is the ideaof this constant feeling of not only
me, but I think, a lot of people and theintersectional experience of race, class,
gender all of that, you feel invisible.
And then, How do youreally shift the lens?
I'm a filmmaker.
(07:06):
I constantly use the terminology ofthe lens all the time lens and lights.
You know, that's the tools that I have.
So how do you sort of reframe andshift that conversation and focus?
The conversation on from the point ofview of some of those those positions
and I think, the idea that the worldhas to be an empathetic place for all.
(07:27):
There has to be multiplevoices that need to be heard.
It just stuns me.
The past, since summer.
Looking at what's happening in the, inhere and also back in India, because,
it's, we are, we live between places.
We just don't belong to one place.
We are split in that sense.
So just trying to make sense of thatentire what's going on right now.
(07:49):
I think for me, the conversationwas very similar to Ambreen's this
it was a meditation on silence.
I think that for quite a while,especially lately, I've been feeling
a bit disconnected from both my SouthAsian identity and my Muslim identity.
And.
(08:10):
Those disconnects happen both in spaceor happened in spaces that were supposed
to be uplifting those identities andended up silencing those identities.
And I think we'll talkabout why at some point.
But as someone who's been personallystruggling I felt like this would
(08:31):
be a great moment to talk about theways in which those intersecting
identities and spaces of activismtend to get silenced, right?
Because we're, it's complicated.
We're considering, I think the exampleI gave you while we were speaking
was being a South Asian LGB, orspecifically a Pakistani LGBT woman.
(08:54):
And spaces that are heavilyqueer Muslim dominated.
There are voices that, we deserve,or we need to make space for.
So our, it leads to all of these, theseintricate intersectional identities
often lead to a lot of silence.
So I resonate with thatquite a bit on green.
We have to acknowledge that while weare having a conversation around South
(09:16):
Asian identity that South Asia is morethan India, Pakistan, that it includes.
The areas of Afghanistan, Nepal,the Maldives, Bhutan, Bangladesh,
Pakistan, and we don't have thatrepresentation in this trio here.
And that does not mean that voiceI want to create that space to
(09:37):
acknowledge that just because thatvoice is not present here and if that
voice is represented in our in ouraudience, we would love to hear it.
, we had a question from one ofour the folks who registered.
How do we move past this pervasiveidea that when you think of
South Asia, it's only India?
And as you were talking about thesilencing, that's what I'm, reminded of.
(09:59):
The idea of creating spacefor all of this to coexist.
What are the spaceswhere you feel silenced?
In the intersectional identities thatyou both hold, and what are the spaces
of silence that you are striving to shinea light on in, in the work that you do?
The thing that comes up for memost importantly right now, in this
(10:22):
moment, is creating spaces within theLGBT community for people of faith.
There are varying relationships to faith.
And the faiths that often come up areJudeo Christian, so creating space
specifically for non Judeo Christianbelief systems within the LGBT community
(10:45):
there's a lot of silence there andsilence that we're working to eradicate.
And then, to the, to the first partof your question, where I personally
feel silenced, because we existin a society and in a community.
Where we are dealing with racism,homophobia, transphobia, all of the isms
(11:09):
and all of the phobias, all of the issues.
And we are a microcosm of amuch larger society that is
also dealing with those issues.
It becomes complicated to say the idea ofsilence is complicated because sometimes
we are complicit in the silence as a formof protest against those issues, right?
So, You know, within the Muslim, doingwork within the Muslim community and
(11:29):
saying, as a South Asian, I'm going tosilence myself in order to create space
for Muslims that are often unheard,like converts, like Black Muslims, who
are a large part of the population,but often don't get their voices heard.
So on the one hand, we're complicitas a form of protest, and on the
other hand, we're trying Where arethose spaces where we can exist and
live and breathe in that identity?
(11:51):
Because often I can't find them and I helpcreate them and I don't feel safe in them.
So, you know, to be South Asian ina Muslim space and say that, I
am not going to speak because Ineed to create space for others.
And to be queer or LGBT.
And a person of faith in an LGBT space?
(12:13):
Well, I can't talk about my faith becausethat would make people uncomfortable.
Or to be an LGBT womanat home with my family.
Well, there are certain thingsI can't talk about because that
would make people uncomfortable.
So I feel like there aretwo sides to the silence.
One that we're complicit in andone that we are a victim of.
(12:34):
And sometimes it's hard to separateor hard to see where the line is.
And so I think those are things thatcome up for me quite a bit as we're
walking through this conversation.
Which forms of silence are protest andwhich forms of silence are stifling?
For me, it has just been a lot, avery long process of just finding
(12:55):
gaps after gaps in, in tryingto even make sense of who I am.
You know, it was much late in life that Irealized that I really never grew up with
role models who were really questioningnorms, who were really breaking out of
social norms, and so One of the firstfilms that I made, this goes back to
2004, was actually a film about threeMuslim women who were crossdressers
(13:17):
in my neighborhood in New Delhi, andI grew up in a Muslim neighborhood.
That neighborhood has also becomevery, has hit international
headlines because the women from thatneighborhood led India's India's fight
against the recent citizenship laws.
But there was these, so theidea that, how is it that these
women are now suddenly leaders.
But when I grew up, I never thoughtthat I had didn't have the lens or
(13:39):
the vocabulary to call them heroes.
Why, so, and even in that in2004, when I was making this film
about these women who cross dress,these women were my neighbors.
I saw in them, the joy and thelove for life and this, this kind
of attitude that I am rebelliousand I'm going to break the rules.
So for me, , this relationship betweenthe personal and political became
(14:03):
very important in a sense that mypersonal experience of growing up in
a Muslim family as as a woman, nothaving the role models or the spaces
of conversation where one really talksabout what does it mean To grow up?
What does it mean toeven be a human being?
I also grew up in a traditionalMuslim family where the role of women
(14:24):
was limited to the domestic space.
I mean, I must say my father wasa big believer in the idea of
empowering women and educating women.
But, you know, my father was also partof a social system and in, in South
Asia, hierarchies and social systemsare such, so deeply entrenched even now
that I have nieces who've told me that,they wanted to go they, they, or their
(14:45):
friends wanted to go to med school.
No, but there are men in their family whowould say that you can't go to med school
because you cannot touch another man.
I mean, what if you are actuallyin your clinic and a man shows
up so you can't study medicine.
I'm much older, you know, I mean, Ithink that that time had passed, but
it hasn't, it continues to just shuffleitself around in this kind of way.
(15:08):
So, for me.
The experience, I mean, I spokeabout this a little bit earlier,
the idea of the relationship betweenthe personal and the political.
My work is political, even when itfocuses on very intimate stories
of characters and portraits.
And what would it mean to lookat the world from the point of
view of that girl, of that woman?
And I think there's animmense amount of power.
(15:31):
If I've experienced this, someoneelse also has experienced this, let
us try to figure that out and createa little bit of a bigger narrative
around that experience so that we cantalk and we can make sense of that.
Both of you have named growing up asSouth Asian identifying Muslim women.
I'd love to hear more aboutthat complexity of not just the
(15:52):
hierarchy of class, Class andcaste but also gender, right?
Primarily gender and faith.
While I come from a minority communityof Zoroastrians who are called Parsis in
South Asia, we are an elite community.
We are not as marginalized as ourMuslim brothers and sisters, as
our Dalit brothers and sisters.
(16:14):
And I'm curious if you couldshare a little bit about growing
up as a South Asian Muslim woman.
I am a storyteller and my it'sconstantly going back to stories.
I was thinking about, I sometimes writevery short, quick five page screenplays,
very quick ones when I have I have time.
(16:34):
And I was thinking.
It's just so confusing tomake sense of how grown up.
I mean, there's just suchso many layers to it.
If I have to explain this to somebodynow that if I have to explain to my
nieces and nephews, what it was likegrowing up, how would I do that?
So I wrote up something whichwas basically from my from my,
when I was 18 and I would wear.
(16:56):
You know, in my family, women wouldcover themselves, wear a hijab and all
of that in order to wear it from on yourhead, which is called a dupatta, I knew.
And I would in my, to my mother and myfather, I was this good girl who would
dress up exactly that they wanted me to.
I would wear the dupatta from my headand Be the nicest girl and then there
(17:17):
was this tree and I remember the treein the road just that leads to it
and I would take it off right there.
I remember it because as soon as you usedto see the tree, I just start looking
left and right because I didn't wantpeople to look at me taking it off.
When I look back at it, it bafflesme because that's how I grew up.
I grew up hiding parts ofmyself in both the worlds.
(17:37):
The way that I used to do that iscalled the border because there's
this language of borders and thisis of separation of the Muslim
neighborhood from the rest of the city.
And I did a film in 2012, The Ghetto Girl,which looks at some of this complexity.
I would take it off and then I wouldgo into this cosmopolitan New Delhi.
That should not know that I'mthe girl who covers her head, I
(18:00):
asked myself, why did I do that?
What was I trying to hide?
Because I was hiding parts ofmyself in both these worlds and
none of them really embraced me inthat, at that point, in that sense.
What does one do with thatexperience of not being embraced?
Because there's a genuine there'sa genuine need to belong, to
(18:20):
have that sense of belonging.
There's a genuine need that allof us have of being nurtured.
I mean, in my mind, I was always thiskind of a superwoman rebel hero, but
you know, the real world never saw meas one because you know, these fights
of you taking off your headscarfor whatever, it's Nobody saw that.
(18:40):
I mean, it happened at the border.
Nobody really saw what I didto fit into this other world.
My parents never saw what itmeant to actually go with the
dupatta in this other world.
And I felt that actually made mevery angry because I used to say,
well, I am a very unique person.
Why does nobody ever treatme as this special person?
I'm never special for anybody.
(19:02):
So I just became made sure that then Imake become my own special person and
I create I think, writing and creatingfor me becomes so meaningful because it
comes from that place of yeah, so thatwas my response, I think, the complexity
of growing up Muslim in South Asia.
I resonate with that so hard,especially this idea of, I'm special.
(19:23):
I'm doing something superrebellious, but none of you see that.
You don't see how brave I am.
Oh, that's so cool.
So real.
My parents came to the UnitedStates when they were very young.
My dad was 11 and my mom was 12.
They met in Chicago, fell inlove, eventually moved to Texas.
(19:46):
And I was born in San Antonioand my sister was born about
nine and a half years after me.
My parents, because they came very young,education was at the top of their list.
Also raising empowered women was atthe top of their list for both of us.
You know, they never wanted sons.
They wanted daughters and theywanted to raise them as badasses.
(20:06):
And I think, I mean, don't want tobrag, but I think they succeeded.
Um,
But I don't think they expected my sisterand I think that we are, we're definitely
a product of the home that they createdboth in good ways and in not so good ways.
So my parents had a bit of a roughrelationship to the point where my mother,
(20:30):
as she raised me, basically said you know,get your education, don't depend on men
will do nothing for you uh, no cookingrotis, no nothing, no men at all, you're
not, you're being raised outside of thatwhole paradigm, which was very shocking
and very different from my friends,my, my Muslim friends who, At 20, 22
(20:53):
years old, we're looking we're, gettingmarried and doing all of this stuff.
And for me, it was continuegoing to school, continue
kind of living your own life.
I, moved out of the housewhen I was 22, when many of my
friends were getting married.
I moved to DC and started work.
And I've been working outof the house ever since.
(21:14):
And I think there's a very strongrelationship between my independence.
and my parents kind of rocky relationship.
I don't think my mother would havebeen so like, go out and live your
own life had she not been struggling.
That's a piece of it, but growingup as a South Asian Muslim woman and
also plus sized and also a nerd andalso, um, gay, there, there were a
(21:40):
lot of complexities in that moment.
And I think because I was so Sodifferent from my friends, different
from the people around me, myparents were like, pave your own way.
And I say that to say that there are alot of expectations on South Asian women.
They have to look a certain way,they have to act a certain way,
they have to dress a certain way.
And from very young age, Iwas none of those things.
(22:03):
So I think that created adoor for me to walk through.
I think the biggest thing for me wasWhen I got to college and realized that
these kind of different pieces of myselfthat I was showing to different people,
the, the, the Sadia that was, exploringher, her sexual orientation was only
for, like, two classes in high school.
(22:26):
That was the only place whereI was allowed to talk about it.
The Gay Straight Alliance.
and my homeroom class with my best friend.
Those were the only two places whereI was allowed to be that person.
And then the Muslim sadia wasoutside of school only on Saturday,
religious education classes orFriday during Jummah prayers.
And the South Asian sadia, I couldbe that at school, but it was only
(22:47):
in my, my special gifted and talentedcourses because everybody else was
white and the South Asians were allin the gifted and talented program.
So I could be that person there.
And the nerd was only with these,like this one table of white boys that
used to play Dungeons and Dragons.
So I could go hang outand be the nerd there.
I started seeing that there were so manydifferent pieces of myself that I was only
(23:08):
allowed to show in certain situations.
And so much of the unlearningthat you were talking about.
So I think, I don't rememberif we mentioned this.
during the session or before the session,but you had mentioned unlearning.
So much of the unlearning thatI've spent my twenties and my
early thirties working on is thisidea that I can only be a certain
piece of myself in a certain place.
(23:30):
And the unlearning is aroundconnecting all of those things, right?
How can I be this?
whole and complete person that isa product of my parents troubled
marriage and their love for each other.
That is a product of, my sexualorientation and gender identity,
my history, a product of beingin a smiley Muslim, a product
of being a South Asian woman.
(23:51):
How can I be all of thosecomplex identities in one?
And it's not easy, but to me, Beinga South Asian Muslim woman is really
about how do I live into all of thoseidentities at once and do them justice?
And what does it mean?
There's a saying that, if youcan't go to therapy, you should
(24:12):
sit down and write a screenplay.
And that's what I do.
And you asked me, howdo you deal with that?
That's what I do.
That's why I am constantly writingand thinking about stories.
I want to
connect that to a conversationAmbreen and I had when we had first
talked around finding community.
(24:32):
And then as you move across the world.
to continue life as an immigrant.
We had spoken around this place ofisolation, this feeling of isolation,
that you are around newness andeveryone who sees you wants to point
you to your South Asian community,who perceives you As other.
(24:56):
And so where does one go?
How does one find that communitythat lifts you up that really sees
you for who you are and the workit takes to find community whether
you've moved across the oceans or not?
I came here as a graduate student in 2009to Temple University MFA program and that
(25:17):
was the first time I was living on my own.
There were South Asian groupsand they would do just these
cultural Diwali and all of that.
I just found myself nevergoing to those places.
And then I thought, okay,why don't I do that?
And the answer was that I, I neverfelt like I just belonged to those.
I never sensed that sense ofbelonging in those in those spaces.
(25:41):
I also grew up in a placethat was called the ghetto.
So for me, the idea was that how, if Ihave come far from that place, I really
need to experience what it means to,expand and have different be friends with
people who are not like you all the time.
Though I was all constantlybeing shifted and nudged.
Hey, go, they're doing thisDiwali or whatever they're doing.
(26:01):
And also, I would also feel thatnobody does anything for Eid and
that was made me feel very likewhy don't we do anything for Eid?
That process took me to aplace of extreme isolation.
So for me, the idea of creatingcommunity and creating conversations
became really important to alsoslowly try to come out of that place
of extreme isolation, because thatI felt was extremely damaging to me
(26:25):
personally, it was hard, it was damaging.
And as part of that, I've alsobeen very, very aware of reaching
out and and being the communitythat I sometimes probably miss.
So it's my job.
Because I have gone through thatexperience, my job to extend my hand to
someone else in my similar in situationso that I can be that friend or that
(26:45):
colleague or that, sort of ally.
I think, you used the word of beingan ally earlier on, and I'm here
to be an ally because I know howhard it is when you don't have one.
So back in college, I hadsimilar experiences, right?
The the South Asian group was very Hindu.
Very Indian.
And my family's Pakistaniand I felt unseen.
(27:07):
The MSA, or Muslim StudentsAssociation, very Sunni.
I'm Shia.
Right.
And very, very male dominated.
It was uncomfortable.
A friend of mine, Sunni,and she worked with the MSA.
She was on a board for something andthey were putting together this this
like a walkthrough for people to come andwalk through an open fair or something.
(27:28):
And I created their video package for it.
So I was helping set everything up.
And some guy was like, sister,you should really wear, you should
cover your head in the masjid.
And I'm like, That'sgreat, but I'm a Smiley.
We don't cover our heads andI'm helping you with something.
Please don't do that to me.
I felt unseen there.
And then there was an a Smiley studentsassociation, I, it felt uncomfortable
(27:51):
there too, because what about queerness?
What about this other, this kind of, this.
Other way of understanding.
And a lot of it wasprofessional and all of that.
And so I did feel very isolated,very kind of unconnected, very
set aside from so many things.
And then I found the LGBT Muslim retreat.
(28:14):
I found the Muslim Alliancefor Sexual and Gender Diversity
became a huge part of that.
As an Ismaili, we're taught froma very young age that service is
our connection to our community.
It's our connection to the world.
That's how I was raised.
That's how I resonated.
That's how I connected.
I can't find community.
I can't feel connected to communityunless I'm of service to it.
(28:35):
That idea of being an ally, right?
That it really is through service thatI feel some bond or some connection.
And I know that comes from my Ismailiheritage, from the Ismaili community.
It's something we're taught.
So I started, volunteering and becomingthe chair of this board, and then the
chair of the entire retreat, and the chairof the steering committee for masjid.
(28:57):
And all the while, I forgot onecentral tenet of community building.
That it is not just about what you havein common, But it is about the effort
that you put into those relationships.
It is about that deep spiritualconnection that you have to one another.
(29:21):
And so these bonds of shared identitieswere not enough to keep us together.
And it was not enough to keepme tethered to a community
that I felt so distanced from.
There wasn't a smiley representation.
There was like personal conflict.
There was.
A new generation wanting to talk aboutall of these like educated classes
things and an older generation thatwanted to connect to spirituality,
(29:42):
but maybe didn't understand socialjustice in that younger context.
There were all of these issues and Ifelt so pushed out and so disconnected.
And so I stepped back from everything.
I, after my term on the board wasover, instead of taking a new term,
I stepped back and this past yearwas supposed to be my year of trying
(30:03):
to figure out what my next step is,there's work, there's personal projects,
there's all of this, but if I am notof service to something, I don't.
I don't feel good.
I don't feel connected.
I feel like something isbroken or something is missing.
And so this year wassupposed to be about that.
Of course, COVID happened.
So there goes that idea.
(30:26):
But through COVID, I found thiswonderful group of queer women who
play RPGs like Dungeons and Dragonsor, Role playing games is super nerdy.
I know, but just stick with me fora second, but through role playing
games, as nerdy as they sound,you are able to tell a story.
You're able to create a world.
You're able to work throughwhatever complications you have.
(30:50):
You're able to pretend like you'rethis other person that you always
wanted to be and see, Hey, that's not,that's not all what's cracked up to be.
You're pretty cool.
Just, just the way you are.
I think that through this community,I've really been able to understand that
underlying importance or the underlyingmechanics of community building.
(31:10):
And it really is.
It's not just similar identities.
It is the bonds underneaththose identities.
It is the effort that you putinto that human connection.
I'd like to connect that to the stories.
So turning to, the verystereotypical stories, let's
start with Bollywood, right?
(31:33):
Those were the stories, those wereintentionally created with song and
dance and very boxed in rules ofgender norms of who you are allowed
to love based on caste, class, faith.
You have archaicstorylines and structures.
And then you have thisnew world coming in.
(31:57):
What does it take to create thatnew world of the new narrative?
How do we fill in the gap?
Or does the gap need to be filled?
I think I fill in thegaps by being disruptive.
That is just somethingthat I have started doing.
And by being disruptive, I meanthat in a structural sense.
(32:18):
How does one disrupt thesestructures which are absolutely,
you're right, Bollywood.
I love Bollywood and there issomething to the cultural form.
I switch on Bollywood andI just listen to music.
That's how I've grown up.
I never thought of actually makingnarrative fiction films till
the time I really came to the U.
S.
and I could think in thiskind of a global way.
(32:41):
I never thought of that making a Bollywoodstory about a girl who was growing
up in the kind of the neighborhood inwhich I grew up because I also knew
That probably Bollywood is not goingto be the place for it I just needed
a different lens to listen to look atmy own stories with because till the
time I lived in india till 2015 Thesethings were not apparent even to me.
(33:02):
They were not even visible to my eyeThere was not even an idea that I can
create a story out of my experienceof actually wearing two different
sets of clothes Beyond this borderlineand now I see that as a story.
I see that as a story thatabsolutely needs to be told.
Again, you don't want to box yourcharacters into just being Muslims,
because they are multiple things.
They're not just Muslims.
(33:23):
But is there a layer?
or a nuance to their character becauseof the fact that they're Muslim.
And I don't see that.
It's my so called calling.
It's my purpose in life to then figureout what am I going to do with that?
I actually have done 12, 12drafts of the screenplay.
I have friends who would say thatthey get a producer, even before
they finish the first or the couple,the second draft and writing is It's
(33:47):
fun, but it's also draining becauseyou're going into the core of that
experience that was also very traumatic.
So you're revisiting that traumaover and over again, over those 12
drafts, and you're constantly writing,How do I make that film come alive?
So for me, it has become that onceI finished the screenplay, I am
going to create a series of make apicture book or explore comics or
(34:15):
explore other forms of storytelling,which are not as capital intensive.
My stories will find their place.
place and their form where they have to.
So we've been talking back and forthabout exploring animation, about
exploring other forms, so whichwe can, I think the purpose of it
is to, can we have a conversation?
Can we even have that one imagefrom these multiple images that
(34:37):
I'm thinking of that are missing?
Can we have that even one photograph,one image or a drawing that can, at
least that sparks of a conversation,I've started doing this one project,
which is basically about my neighborhoodand we're starting To do that through
animation, the everyday process of doingthat work is important and I have had
a rethinking of my, I'm working on thenarrative feature and I'm very sure
(35:00):
that in the future it will be made it.
I believe it's a film that.
That needs to be made and seen, but alsoasking myself, how can I use Instagram?
How can I use the short form?
How can I use short stories?
I will do internet.
I will do whatever I can whatevertools I have like in this unrelenting
way to to share this experience.
(35:22):
It fills me with life and energy and joy.
Because we can't live in isolation and wecannot live with just the silencing of all
these stories and all these experiences.
Uh, in the comics world, I ampart of a, a two person team.
I'm one person in a two personteam that helps publish comics.
(35:42):
Most people when they think of comics,they think of superheroes and the
Avengers and all of that, but The indiecomics world is a very small niche
community that's popping up all over andit is regular people, everyday people
that have stories to tell finding theamazing and super in the ordinary.
(36:06):
You can find stories that reflect yourlife experiences and meet the people
who wrote those stories and askedthem about what it meant to them.
There is a press that was createdby amazing, amazing trans women
that is just for trans folks.
The only thing that thispress publishes is stories for
(36:28):
trans people by trans people.
There are presses that arejust for black artists.
There are presses thatare just for queer folks.
There are presses thatare just for Latino folks.
There are stories that are beingtold that don't get a place to
be told or a space to be told.
There's a place in Brooklyn calledDesert Island and they host a con
(36:52):
every year called CAB, Comic ArtsBrooklyn, and it's a great place
to see a lot of these things.
And it was actually when we wereexhibiting at Comic Arts Brooklyn
last year that I met this artist.
He's a, a young, Sikh man.
And his, he showed me his book becausehe wants to be published by us.
And right now he's self published, buthe showed me his book and it was all
(37:13):
pictures of, or like really beautiful,artistic drawings of of plus size women.
In Shalar Cortez doing regular everydaythings, going to the grocery store,
holding an umbrella, all of thesethings, and I asked him about it, and he
said that, this is basically differentversions of my mother, and doesn't my
mother deserve to have her story told?
(37:34):
Doesn't my mother deserveto be the center of my art?
And I just, it struck with me.
There are so many stories of heroes,of women of people that don't get their
voices heard or their stories told,and Amrine, you are so, so phenomenally
right that these stories deserve tobe told and they may not get told
in Bollywood, but they are, There'sso many different places and spaces.
(37:57):
And I love facilitating that, our presshas been around for a really long time.
And before I was involved withit my partner was running this
with his, his ex ex husband.
And they were the first press topublish a trans artist, the first indie
plus press to publish a trans artist.
Like there's, there's so much that'shappening in this underground world that
(38:20):
I wish people could see and be a part of.
It's amazing.
Bollywood, the stories that they tellcould fit on the head of a needle.
They're so niche and so small.
And so like only oneparticular experience.
It feels like again and againand again, but Bollywood is so
(38:41):
special and so important to me.
Growing up in the United States.
States.
I feel like the three things that reallyconnected me to my culture or connected
me to being South Asian and Muslim was thelanguage, the food, and the faith, right?
Those are the things that connectedme, my, connected me to my culture.
(39:02):
The language came from Bollywood.
It came from watching Bollywoodmovies because we only went
to Pakistan once in a while.
We couldn't afford it.
And so watching Bollywood moviesis where I got my practice.
And then I'd be ableto talk to my parents.
So it always holds the special placein my heart, both for ShadowCon
and for the language practice.
I was watching this video thatAngela Davis put out soon after
(39:25):
the 19 year old Dalit woman wasgang raped in Uttar Pradesh.
A month or two ago, and she said somethingreally powerful around the Black Lives
Matter movement and the Dalit Lives Mattermovement are not separate from each other.
And that one can't happenwithout the other in preparation
(39:47):
for this conversation.
I came across an article.
I believe it was in the Times ofIndia that ends with you cannot be
a South Asian and America caringabout black lives matter and
being on the streets protesting.
If.
If you don't do so about the lives matterlike they have to have that intersection,
(40:07):
and I've been having, conversationswith various South Asians in this
country around these topics as well.
And I, the questions that Igrapple with , why is it so easy
to look away for our community?
And what will it take for us to trulyleverage our privilege in a way that
shows an intersectional solidarity?
(40:30):
I don't have answers, but Ikeep questioning these spaces.
Do you all have any thoughts on this?
I think you asked areally important question.
Why is it so easy to look away?
And I want to offer two things.
The first thing is, if I look at mypersonal experience, I have a hard time
(40:51):
connecting with that movement becauseof how Muslims are treated in India.
There is so much energy that I have, somuch power that I have, so much voice
that I have, and I feel like we'reconstantly striving to figure out what
we're going to use that energy on.
(41:13):
And it's easy, it becomes easy tolook away from things that we're so
far removed from that we feel likewe don't have any power in changing.
I'm not saying that's right or wrong.
All I'm saying is that I feellike that's one piece of it.
How can I influence somethingthat is so far away?
How can I influence something in a countrythat I'm not a part of and if I were to
(41:36):
step foot in, I would not be treated well?
How can I connect to anything happeningin that space when I am an enemy there?
And then the other piece of it I seeis that when we, and I speak from my
own South Asian Muslim perspective inthe United States, That when we are so
(41:58):
viciously fighting to be seen as anythingother than, terrorists and things like
that here, that to admit that we arealso doing things wrong in other spaces
is to admit that we are at fault,is to admit that we are not perfect.
So I feel like being introspectiveand being honest about the ways
(42:19):
in which we are not showing.
up the way that we should opens, itfeels like it opens us up to criticism
from those people who never liked usin the first place, who thought we were
terrorists from the very beginning.
So I think those are two thingsthat are coming up for me.
And again, I'm not putting avalue judgment on either of those.
I just know that those two things exist.
(42:40):
Yeah, I agree with Sadhya.
I feel that in just the time lookingat the, this summer and looking at the
movement for the Black Lives Matterand just seeing how solidarity was
built around, The movement itself,not just by the black community
itself, but the whole idea of beingan ally and standing up to it.
That was a learning moment for me.
(43:01):
I and not to say that in, in South, inIndia, I have perspective in India, that
there are groups and networks that are.
very vocal about what is happening tothe minorities there, both in terms of
the Dalits, the Dalits and the Muslims.
In the U.
S.
I've seen that there have beenactionable results as part of that
organizing or that solidarity.
(43:23):
I mean, look at the, look at howthe, this election played itself out.
The, the contribution of blackand indigenous and people of color
changing the outcome of this election.
And then when I look back at my atIndia I look at the fact that, this,
the re the election itself, thereelection, and then this current,
(43:43):
what's going on at some level.
I think, it is time that we Callthis out in terms of this sort
of this is a double standard.
There's just no, there's no way tolook, to use any other word for it.
The fact that as a South Asiandiaspora, we support pro people
politics in the United States.
But when it comes to India it.
(44:04):
becomes again, let's supportthis extreme right wing.
And that's when the idea ofintersectionality plays itself
really well, because I don'tthink it's just Muslims.
I think it's the, it's a certain sectionof an upper caste Hindu identity that
has become this prominent idea of India.
India is diverse.
India is the languages, Indiais the mosques and the temples.
(44:25):
When I was growing up, I used tolive in a Muslim neighborhood,
but I used to hear temple bells.
When I was growing up, so I used to hearthe azan and I used to hear the temple
bells at the same time when those soundsare no longer there in our in our world.
I have nephews now but that temple, hasbecause of this extreme polarization,
that temple stopped being a temple.
(44:45):
They actually left and they went away.
My nephew is just hearingthe sound of the azan.
It's a very differentworld he's growing up in.
They still live there.
So for me, it has becomea very Unapologetic.
I'm very unapologetic about it.
I call it out.
You have to believe in a just worldfor everyone, not just for yourself.
The whole conversation on justicesometimes becomes limiting when
(45:10):
it becomes justice just for me.
So, you know, the South Asian diasporatalking about being the victim.
Yes, of course, you know, wetalked about as terrorists.
We talked about as people who havecome here and taken the jobs away
from the rightful Non immigrants.
I mean, we are the immigrants here,but when it comes to our own country,
we cannot So we want justice andequity here, but we don't want
(45:32):
support justice and equity in our owncountry And that is double standard.
It has to be called out and it has tobe I mean look at the Howdy Modi event
That event in Houston just did notbecome this huge fan parade without
the huge popularity that that ourprime minister has in, in the diaspora.
(45:53):
That is a contradiction that,that has to be unpacked and
addressed and talked about.
And which I believe, you know,this idea of conversations and
holding the mirror up to each other.
I think, you know, allof us have blind spots.
I have my blind spots.
I probably am going to be biased on aview that I might have if I don't have.
(46:14):
people telling me or holding up theso called mirror to me and saying
that you have to rethink this.
And I think that is thepower of a community.
That is the power of being like,so we are all from South Asia.
And if you're looking at the diaspora, youknow, in an expanded sense, we can trust
each other and we can actually believe inthe idea that South Asia is bigger than
(46:35):
what we have reduced it to right now.
We have a comment here.
Perhaps our community has troublevaluing itself, much like how
we have trouble giving ourselvescredit for surviving our lives.
It is even harder to expand that focusof care to others than we relate to.
(46:55):
My friends, we are almost at time.
What are you taking away?
I am staying with community,building the community you want to
be in, and community as service.
My mother strongly, strongly believes.
in that her life is service has alwaysbeen irrespective of everything and a lot
(47:16):
of the strength that has inspired the twoof you that you have mentioned today is
reminding me of her and her life story.
So
I think I'm taking away the fact thatI think, , we all feel at times that
we are alone in doing what we aredoing, but there is a bigger community.
If we tap into that biggernetwork, then there, then we
(47:37):
are powerful in our solidarity.
This idea of reaching across andholding each other up and supporting
each other, I think is, it's important.
So for me, I'm taking away the factthat I'm going to probably be doing a
little bit of role playing games myself.
I had not thought about that sofar, but I, I actually made a note.
(47:57):
I make, I write, so I wrote ourRPG after Sadia mentioned that I'm.
Exploring that.
So
I feel like year and a half ago, theversion of myself that I was recently
felt so disconnected from community.
And even though this year has beenall about COVID, it has allowed me the
(48:18):
space and the time to reflect on thecommunity that I want to build, the
society that I want to build, the lifethat I want to surround myself with.
What does it actually look like?
And through this conversation, ithas reignited my desire to really
look at my identities, look at theSouth Asian again, the Muslim again
(48:43):
and reconnect with those in a waythat I feel like I've been paused on.
Because of some of the experiences Ihad doing the, the LGBT Muslim work.
So I think this has really beena wonderful moment of reigniting
that passion, that desire toconnect because through this.
I, I realize that there are other womenout there who are doing such creative
(49:09):
and beautiful work that is centered injustice, and it is centered in connection
and joy, and I did not get enough of that.
So I'm very happy, and I'm taking awaymy connection with the two of you.
Thank you for listening to Farsight Chats.
I really hope that this episode isthe start to future conversations
(49:30):
you have with your colleagues,teams, and communities.
We continue the exploration ofidentity this season with our next
episode, exploring white identity.
Subscribe now to Farsight Chatswherever you get your podcasts,
and don't forget to follow us onInstagram and Facebook at GoFarsight,
LinkedIn at the Farsight Agency, andcheck out our website, GoFarsight.
(49:55):
com, to know more aboutwho we are and what we do.
Thank you for answering the call todo more, do better, and do different.
Welcome to Farsight Chats, your guideto navigating complex and important
conversations on society and culture.
I'm your host, Farah Bala,founder and CEO of Farsight.
We specialize in leadership andorganizational development, focusing
on equity, diversity, and inclusionas core leadership competencies.
(00:23):
Join us in these conversationsthat aim to foster understanding,
growth, and positive change.
On today's episode.
Faith, race, and genderin South Asian identity.
I am joined by our guests, SadiaAbjani and Ambreen Alqadar.
We originally recorded this inthe fall of 2020, while the Black
(00:45):
Lives Matter voices in the UnitedStates were spreading to the east.
And during this time, the Dalit LivesMatter movement in India was rising
on the backs of a historic patternof sexual assaults on Dalit women.
Most recently, the rape of a 20 yearold woman in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
The Dalit community are a group of peoplein the Indian subcontinent who were
(01:09):
considered untouchables and outcasts,and till today, experience unimaginable
discrimination in the name of caste.
The term Dalit.
It comes from the Sanskrit word dalita,which means broken or scattered.
My South Asian communities wereactively talking about the role of
colonialism and the caste systemsin dividing and oppressing South
(01:33):
Asian communities for generations.
Now South Asia doesn't onlyconsist of India and Pakistan.
It also includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh,Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka.
So as you might imagine, anyconversation on this topic is
vast, complex, and nuanced.
(01:54):
While the goal was to start a conversationaround faith, race, and gender in
South Asian identity, we invite youto join us as we also explored the
immigrant experience and how that shapesour identity and our own advocacy.
we invite you to explore this topic more.
On this episode of Farsight Chats.
(02:15):
Abjani and Ambreen Al Qadar.
Welcome to both of you.
I'd love to ask you tointroduce yourselves, please.
Hi, my name is Sabia.
, I love reading and publishing comics.
I love role playing games.
I am a South Asian queer woman.
(02:37):
, and I, I like to live , my life in astate of joy, , and for work, I am the
director of learning and equity at anational nonprofit that works on providing
competent care to LGBT older adults.
I've done quite a bit of work in LGBTadvocacy, , queer Muslim advocacy and,
(03:01):
, disability rights and housing rights.
Hello, everyone.
I am Ambreen and I will absolutely,I absolutely love the way you
dismantled conditioning, Sadhya.
So I'm going to start myself aboutmyself by saying I am a glitter lover.
I love everything glitter.
And that's because Ithink I have grown up.
(03:23):
In New Delhi in streetsthat are full of glitter.
My work is about that.
A lot of times I am a filmmaker I'vegrown up in New Delhi and for work now
I teach at the Rochester Institute ofTechnology Film and Animation Program.
It's been fascinating how I've lovedmy, I have discovered my love for
superheroes much later in life.
(03:44):
So I'm just so many differentthings, but I think for our
purposes, this should be good.
Thank you Farah for thisopportunity and Sadia and everyone
else for joining all of you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I love this.
I identify as Persian Indian now American.
My ancestry is a refugee population fromIran and the fable goes that my ancestors
(04:08):
got on little boats and reached the westshores of India, and India took us in.
And I grew up in Indiaand identified as Indian.
And then moved to the States and keptgetting perceived as, oh, you don't
look Indian or you don't sound Indian.
And that's when the hyphenatedidentity started percolating for me.
(04:30):
And It's been 19 years in the UnitedStates and the conversations around
what is South Asian between thediaspora and the history and who we
are today and who we are emerging astoday and what's getting in the way.
, we want to acknowledge the immense lossthat these conversations are born out of.
(04:52):
And today is Trans Day of Remembrance.
And so we want to acknowledgethe countless trans lives lost,
especially trans women of color who'velost their lives over the years.
We want to acknowledge.
The Dalit lives lost basedon caste discrimination.
We want to acknowledge the liveslost based on faith, based on
(05:15):
gender, based on race discrimination,based on pandemic loss.
And the Black lives lost this yearthat have fueled so many more of these
conversations that are helping us,guiding us to go deeper in our own
reflection and our own conversations.
(05:38):
Friends, I am curious.
To know from you, what intriguesyou about this topic, faith, race,
gender, and South Asian identity?
What does that mean to you?
You reached out to me, I think it's acouple of weeks ago, and at that point I
was having a conversation with a friendof mine, Vishali, about being South Asian.
(06:03):
In, in, in this time, in this countryand what does that really mean?
The context was at the immediatecontext of my conversation with Vishali
was there was this TV series thathad come out, Indian matchmaking.
And and there was just a lot ofconversation about how, what does Indian
match because it was trending on Netflixand I was just trying to make sense,
(06:24):
okay, the South Asia obsessed about.
arranged marriage?
Is this all that there is to us?
And I just had a moment of just sortof questioning, looking back, , and
since then I, we spoke and I there's somany parts to, again, to this response,
because Immediately then after myconversation with you, I was I was
(06:45):
thinking about what I do, why I do whatI do, what drives me and I think, , all
of that at the core of it is the ideaof this constant feeling of not only
me, but I think, a lot of people and theintersectional experience of race, class,
gender all of that, you feel invisible.
And then, How do youreally shift the lens?
I'm a filmmaker.
(07:06):
I constantly use the terminology ofthe lens all the time lens and lights.
You know, that's the tools that I have.
So how do you sort of reframe andshift that conversation and focus?
The conversation on from the point ofview of some of those those positions
and I think, the idea that the worldhas to be an empathetic place for all.
(07:27):
There has to be multiplevoices that need to be heard.
It just stuns me.
The past, since summer.
Looking at what's happening in the, inhere and also back in India, because,
it's, we are, we live between places.
We just don't belong to one place.
We are split in that sense.
So just trying to make sense of thatentire what's going on right now.
(07:49):
I think for me, the conversationwas very similar to Ambreen's this
it was a meditation on silence.
I think that for quite a while,especially lately, I've been feeling
a bit disconnected from both my SouthAsian identity and my Muslim identity.
And.
(08:10):
Those disconnects happen both in spaceor happened in spaces that were supposed
to be uplifting those identities andended up silencing those identities.
And I think we'll talkabout why at some point.
But as someone who's been personallystruggling I felt like this would
(08:31):
be a great moment to talk about theways in which those intersecting
identities and spaces of activismtend to get silenced, right?
Because we're, it's complicated.
We're considering, I think the exampleI gave you while we were speaking
was being a South Asian LGB, orspecifically a Pakistani LGBT woman.
(08:54):
And spaces that are heavilyqueer Muslim dominated.
There are voices that, we deserve,or we need to make space for.
So our, it leads to all of these, theseintricate intersectional identities
often lead to a lot of silence.
So I resonate with thatquite a bit on green.
We have to acknowledge that while weare having a conversation around South
(09:16):
Asian identity that South Asia is morethan India, Pakistan, that it includes.
The areas of Afghanistan, Nepal,the Maldives, Bhutan, Bangladesh,
Pakistan, and we don't have thatrepresentation in this trio here.
And that does not mean that voiceI want to create that space to
(09:37):
acknowledge that just because thatvoice is not present here and if that
voice is represented in our in ouraudience, we would love to hear it.
, we had a question from one ofour the folks who registered.
How do we move past this pervasiveidea that when you think of
South Asia, it's only India?
And as you were talking about thesilencing, that's what I'm, reminded of.
(09:59):
The idea of creating spacefor all of this to coexist.
What are the spaceswhere you feel silenced?
In the intersectional identities thatyou both hold, and what are the spaces
of silence that you are striving to shinea light on in, in the work that you do?
The thing that comes up for memost importantly right now, in this
(10:22):
moment, is creating spaces within theLGBT community for people of faith.
There are varying relationships to faith.
And the faiths that often come up areJudeo Christian, so creating space
specifically for non Judeo Christianbelief systems within the LGBT community
(10:45):
there's a lot of silence there andsilence that we're working to eradicate.
And then, to the, to the first partof your question, where I personally
feel silenced, because we existin a society and in a community.
Where we are dealing with racism,homophobia, transphobia, all of the isms
(11:09):
and all of the phobias, all of the issues.
And we are a microcosm of amuch larger society that is
also dealing with those issues.
It becomes complicated to say the idea ofsilence is complicated because sometimes
we are complicit in the silence as a formof protest against those issues, right?
So, You know, within the Muslim, doingwork within the Muslim community and
(11:29):
saying, as a South Asian, I'm going tosilence myself in order to create space
for Muslims that are often unheard,like converts, like Black Muslims, who
are a large part of the population,but often don't get their voices heard.
So on the one hand, we're complicitas a form of protest, and on the
other hand, we're trying Where arethose spaces where we can exist and
live and breathe in that identity?
(11:51):
Because often I can't find them and I helpcreate them and I don't feel safe in them.
So, you know, to be South Asian ina Muslim space and say that, I
am not going to speak because Ineed to create space for others.
And to be queer or LGBT.
And a person of faith in an LGBT space?
(12:13):
Well, I can't talk about my faith becausethat would make people uncomfortable.
Or to be an LGBT womanat home with my family.
Well, there are certain thingsI can't talk about because that
would make people uncomfortable.
So I feel like there aretwo sides to the silence.
One that we're complicit in andone that we are a victim of.
(12:34):
And sometimes it's hard to separateor hard to see where the line is.
And so I think those are things thatcome up for me quite a bit as we're
walking through this conversation.
Which forms of silence are protest andwhich forms of silence are stifling?
For me, it has just been a lot, avery long process of just finding
(12:55):
gaps after gaps in, in tryingto even make sense of who I am.
You know, it was much late in life that Irealized that I really never grew up with
role models who were really questioningnorms, who were really breaking out of
social norms, and so One of the firstfilms that I made, this goes back to
2004, was actually a film about threeMuslim women who were crossdressers
(13:17):
in my neighborhood in New Delhi, andI grew up in a Muslim neighborhood.
That neighborhood has also becomevery, has hit international
headlines because the women from thatneighborhood led India's India's fight
against the recent citizenship laws.
But there was these, so theidea that, how is it that these
women are now suddenly leaders.
But when I grew up, I never thoughtthat I had didn't have the lens or
(13:39):
the vocabulary to call them heroes.
Why, so, and even in that in2004, when I was making this film
about these women who cross dress,these women were my neighbors.
I saw in them, the joy and thelove for life and this, this kind
of attitude that I am rebelliousand I'm going to break the rules.
So for me, , this relationship betweenthe personal and political became
(14:03):
very important in a sense that mypersonal experience of growing up in
a Muslim family as as a woman, nothaving the role models or the spaces
of conversation where one really talksabout what does it mean To grow up?
What does it mean toeven be a human being?
I also grew up in a traditionalMuslim family where the role of women
(14:24):
was limited to the domestic space.
I mean, I must say my father wasa big believer in the idea of
empowering women and educating women.
But, you know, my father was also partof a social system and in, in South
Asia, hierarchies and social systemsare such, so deeply entrenched even now
that I have nieces who've told me that,they wanted to go they, they, or their
(14:45):
friends wanted to go to med school.
No, but there are men in their family whowould say that you can't go to med school
because you cannot touch another man.
I mean, what if you are actuallyin your clinic and a man shows
up so you can't study medicine.
I'm much older, you know, I mean, Ithink that that time had passed, but
it hasn't, it continues to just shuffleitself around in this kind of way.
(15:08):
So, for me.
The experience, I mean, I spokeabout this a little bit earlier,
the idea of the relationship betweenthe personal and the political.
My work is political, even when itfocuses on very intimate stories
of characters and portraits.
And what would it mean to lookat the world from the point of
view of that girl, of that woman?
And I think there's animmense amount of power.
(15:31):
If I've experienced this, someoneelse also has experienced this, let
us try to figure that out and createa little bit of a bigger narrative
around that experience so that we cantalk and we can make sense of that.
Both of you have named growing up asSouth Asian identifying Muslim women.
I'd love to hear more aboutthat complexity of not just the
(15:52):
hierarchy of class, Class andcaste but also gender, right?
Primarily gender and faith.
While I come from a minority communityof Zoroastrians who are called Parsis in
South Asia, we are an elite community.
We are not as marginalized as ourMuslim brothers and sisters, as
our Dalit brothers and sisters.
(16:14):
And I'm curious if you couldshare a little bit about growing
up as a South Asian Muslim woman.
I am a storyteller and my it'sconstantly going back to stories.
I was thinking about, I sometimes writevery short, quick five page screenplays,
very quick ones when I have I have time.
(16:34):
And I was thinking.
It's just so confusing tomake sense of how grown up.
I mean, there's just suchso many layers to it.
If I have to explain this to somebodynow that if I have to explain to my
nieces and nephews, what it was likegrowing up, how would I do that?
So I wrote up something whichwas basically from my from my,
when I was 18 and I would wear.
(16:56):
You know, in my family, women wouldcover themselves, wear a hijab and all
of that in order to wear it from on yourhead, which is called a dupatta, I knew.
And I would in my, to my mother and myfather, I was this good girl who would
dress up exactly that they wanted me to.
I would wear the dupatta from my headand Be the nicest girl and then there
(17:17):
was this tree and I remember the treein the road just that leads to it
and I would take it off right there.
I remember it because as soon as you usedto see the tree, I just start looking
left and right because I didn't wantpeople to look at me taking it off.
When I look back at it, it bafflesme because that's how I grew up.
I grew up hiding parts ofmyself in both the worlds.
(17:37):
The way that I used to do that iscalled the border because there's
this language of borders and thisis of separation of the Muslim
neighborhood from the rest of the city.
And I did a film in 2012, The Ghetto Girl,which looks at some of this complexity.
I would take it off and then I wouldgo into this cosmopolitan New Delhi.
That should not know that I'mthe girl who covers her head, I
(18:00):
asked myself, why did I do that?
What was I trying to hide?
Because I was hiding parts ofmyself in both these worlds and
none of them really embraced me inthat, at that point, in that sense.
What does one do with thatexperience of not being embraced?
Because there's a genuine there'sa genuine need to belong, to
(18:20):
have that sense of belonging.
There's a genuine need that allof us have of being nurtured.
I mean, in my mind, I was always thiskind of a superwoman rebel hero, but
you know, the real world never saw meas one because you know, these fights
of you taking off your headscarfor whatever, it's Nobody saw that.
(18:40):
I mean, it happened at the border.
Nobody really saw what I didto fit into this other world.
My parents never saw what itmeant to actually go with the
dupatta in this other world.
And I felt that actually made mevery angry because I used to say,
well, I am a very unique person.
Why does nobody ever treatme as this special person?
I'm never special for anybody.
(19:02):
So I just became made sure that then Imake become my own special person and
I create I think, writing and creatingfor me becomes so meaningful because it
comes from that place of yeah, so thatwas my response, I think, the complexity
of growing up Muslim in South Asia.
I resonate with that so hard,especially this idea of, I'm special.
(19:23):
I'm doing something superrebellious, but none of you see that.
You don't see how brave I am.
Oh, that's so cool.
So real.
My parents came to the UnitedStates when they were very young.
My dad was 11 and my mom was 12.
They met in Chicago, fell inlove, eventually moved to Texas.
(19:46):
And I was born in San Antonioand my sister was born about
nine and a half years after me.
My parents, because they came very young,education was at the top of their list.
Also raising empowered women was atthe top of their list for both of us.
You know, they never wanted sons.
They wanted daughters and theywanted to raise them as badasses.
(20:06):
And I think, I mean, don't want tobrag, but I think they succeeded.
Um,
But I don't think they expected my sisterand I think that we are, we're definitely
a product of the home that they createdboth in good ways and in not so good ways.
So my parents had a bit of a roughrelationship to the point where my mother,
(20:30):
as she raised me, basically said you know,get your education, don't depend on men
will do nothing for you uh, no cookingrotis, no nothing, no men at all, you're
not, you're being raised outside of thatwhole paradigm, which was very shocking
and very different from my friends,my, my Muslim friends who, At 20, 22
(20:53):
years old, we're looking we're, gettingmarried and doing all of this stuff.
And for me, it was continuegoing to school, continue
kind of living your own life.
I, moved out of the housewhen I was 22, when many of my
friends were getting married.
I moved to DC and started work.
And I've been working outof the house ever since.
(21:14):
And I think there's a very strongrelationship between my independence.
and my parents kind of rocky relationship.
I don't think my mother would havebeen so like, go out and live your
own life had she not been struggling.
That's a piece of it, but growingup as a South Asian Muslim woman and
also plus sized and also a nerd andalso, um, gay, there, there were a
(21:40):
lot of complexities in that moment.
And I think because I was so Sodifferent from my friends, different
from the people around me, myparents were like, pave your own way.
And I say that to say that there are alot of expectations on South Asian women.
They have to look a certain way,they have to act a certain way,
they have to dress a certain way.
And from very young age, Iwas none of those things.
(22:03):
So I think that created adoor for me to walk through.
I think the biggest thing for me wasWhen I got to college and realized that
these kind of different pieces of myselfthat I was showing to different people,
the, the, the Sadia that was, exploringher, her sexual orientation was only
for, like, two classes in high school.
(22:26):
That was the only place whereI was allowed to talk about it.
The Gay Straight Alliance.
and my homeroom class with my best friend.
Those were the only two places whereI was allowed to be that person.
And then the Muslim sadia wasoutside of school only on Saturday,
religious education classes orFriday during Jummah prayers.
And the South Asian sadia, I couldbe that at school, but it was only
(22:47):
in my, my special gifted and talentedcourses because everybody else was
white and the South Asians were allin the gifted and talented program.
So I could be that person there.
And the nerd was only with these,like this one table of white boys that
used to play Dungeons and Dragons.
So I could go hang outand be the nerd there.
I started seeing that there were so manydifferent pieces of myself that I was only
(23:08):
allowed to show in certain situations.
And so much of the unlearningthat you were talking about.
So I think, I don't rememberif we mentioned this.
during the session or before the session,but you had mentioned unlearning.
So much of the unlearning thatI've spent my twenties and my
early thirties working on is thisidea that I can only be a certain
piece of myself in a certain place.
(23:30):
And the unlearning is aroundconnecting all of those things, right?
How can I be this?
whole and complete person that isa product of my parents troubled
marriage and their love for each other.
That is a product of, my sexualorientation and gender identity,
my history, a product of beingin a smiley Muslim, a product
of being a South Asian woman.
(23:51):
How can I be all of thosecomplex identities in one?
And it's not easy, but to me, Beinga South Asian Muslim woman is really
about how do I live into all of thoseidentities at once and do them justice?
And what does it mean?
There's a saying that, if youcan't go to therapy, you should
(24:12):
sit down and write a screenplay.
And that's what I do.
And you asked me, howdo you deal with that?
That's what I do.
That's why I am constantly writingand thinking about stories.
I want to
connect that to a conversationAmbreen and I had when we had first
talked around finding community.
(24:32):
And then as you move across the world.
to continue life as an immigrant.
We had spoken around this place ofisolation, this feeling of isolation,
that you are around newness andeveryone who sees you wants to point
you to your South Asian community,who perceives you As other.
(24:56):
And so where does one go?
How does one find that communitythat lifts you up that really sees
you for who you are and the workit takes to find community whether
you've moved across the oceans or not?
I came here as a graduate student in 2009to Temple University MFA program and that
(25:17):
was the first time I was living on my own.
There were South Asian groupsand they would do just these
cultural Diwali and all of that.
I just found myself nevergoing to those places.
And then I thought, okay,why don't I do that?
And the answer was that I, I neverfelt like I just belonged to those.
I never sensed that sense ofbelonging in those in those spaces.
(25:41):
I also grew up in a placethat was called the ghetto.
So for me, the idea was that how, if Ihave come far from that place, I really
need to experience what it means to,expand and have different be friends with
people who are not like you all the time.
Though I was all constantlybeing shifted and nudged.
Hey, go, they're doing thisDiwali or whatever they're doing.
(26:01):
And also, I would also feel thatnobody does anything for Eid and
that was made me feel very likewhy don't we do anything for Eid?
That process took me to aplace of extreme isolation.
So for me, the idea of creatingcommunity and creating conversations
became really important to alsoslowly try to come out of that place
of extreme isolation, because thatI felt was extremely damaging to me
(26:25):
personally, it was hard, it was damaging.
And as part of that, I've alsobeen very, very aware of reaching
out and and being the communitythat I sometimes probably miss.
So it's my job.
Because I have gone through thatexperience, my job to extend my hand to
someone else in my similar in situationso that I can be that friend or that
(26:45):
colleague or that, sort of ally.
I think, you used the word of beingan ally earlier on, and I'm here
to be an ally because I know howhard it is when you don't have one.
So back in college, I hadsimilar experiences, right?
The the South Asian group was very Hindu.
Very Indian.
And my family's Pakistaniand I felt unseen.
(27:07):
The MSA, or Muslim StudentsAssociation, very Sunni.
I'm Shia.
Right.
And very, very male dominated.
It was uncomfortable.
A friend of mine, Sunni,and she worked with the MSA.
She was on a board for something andthey were putting together this this
like a walkthrough for people to come andwalk through an open fair or something.
(27:28):
And I created their video package for it.
So I was helping set everything up.
And some guy was like, sister,you should really wear, you should
cover your head in the masjid.
And I'm like, That'sgreat, but I'm a Smiley.
We don't cover our heads andI'm helping you with something.
Please don't do that to me.
I felt unseen there.
And then there was an a Smiley studentsassociation, I, it felt uncomfortable
(27:51):
there too, because what about queerness?
What about this other, this kind of, this.
Other way of understanding.
And a lot of it wasprofessional and all of that.
And so I did feel very isolated,very kind of unconnected, very
set aside from so many things.
And then I found the LGBT Muslim retreat.
(28:14):
I found the Muslim Alliancefor Sexual and Gender Diversity
became a huge part of that.
As an Ismaili, we're taught froma very young age that service is
our connection to our community.
It's our connection to the world.
That's how I was raised.
That's how I resonated.
That's how I connected.
I can't find community.
I can't feel connected to communityunless I'm of service to it.
(28:35):
That idea of being an ally, right?
That it really is through service thatI feel some bond or some connection.
And I know that comes from my Ismailiheritage, from the Ismaili community.
It's something we're taught.
So I started, volunteering and becomingthe chair of this board, and then the
chair of the entire retreat, and the chairof the steering committee for masjid.
(28:57):
And all the while, I forgot onecentral tenet of community building.
That it is not just about what you havein common, But it is about the effort
that you put into those relationships.
It is about that deep spiritualconnection that you have to one another.
(29:21):
And so these bonds of shared identitieswere not enough to keep us together.
And it was not enough to keepme tethered to a community
that I felt so distanced from.
There wasn't a smiley representation.
There was like personal conflict.
There was.
A new generation wanting to talk aboutall of these like educated classes
things and an older generation thatwanted to connect to spirituality,
(29:42):
but maybe didn't understand socialjustice in that younger context.
There were all of these issues and Ifelt so pushed out and so disconnected.
And so I stepped back from everything.
I, after my term on the board wasover, instead of taking a new term,
I stepped back and this past yearwas supposed to be my year of trying
(30:03):
to figure out what my next step is,there's work, there's personal projects,
there's all of this, but if I am notof service to something, I don't.
I don't feel good.
I don't feel connected.
I feel like something isbroken or something is missing.
And so this year wassupposed to be about that.
Of course, COVID happened.
So there goes that idea.
(30:26):
But through COVID, I found thiswonderful group of queer women who
play RPGs like Dungeons and Dragonsor, Role playing games is super nerdy.
I know, but just stick with me fora second, but through role playing
games, as nerdy as they sound,you are able to tell a story.
You're able to create a world.
You're able to work throughwhatever complications you have.
(30:50):
You're able to pretend like you'rethis other person that you always
wanted to be and see, Hey, that's not,that's not all what's cracked up to be.
You're pretty cool.
Just, just the way you are.
I think that through this community,I've really been able to understand that
underlying importance or the underlyingmechanics of community building.
(31:10):
And it really is.
It's not just similar identities.
It is the bonds underneaththose identities.
It is the effort that you putinto that human connection.
I'd like to connect that to the stories.
So turning to, the verystereotypical stories, let's
start with Bollywood, right?
(31:33):
Those were the stories, those wereintentionally created with song and
dance and very boxed in rules ofgender norms of who you are allowed
to love based on caste, class, faith.
You have archaicstorylines and structures.
And then you have thisnew world coming in.
(31:57):
What does it take to create thatnew world of the new narrative?
How do we fill in the gap?
Or does the gap need to be filled?
I think I fill in thegaps by being disruptive.
That is just somethingthat I have started doing.
And by being disruptive, I meanthat in a structural sense.
(32:18):
How does one disrupt thesestructures which are absolutely,
you're right, Bollywood.
I love Bollywood and there issomething to the cultural form.
I switch on Bollywood andI just listen to music.
That's how I've grown up.
I never thought of actually makingnarrative fiction films till
the time I really came to the U.
S.
and I could think in thiskind of a global way.
(32:41):
I never thought of that making a Bollywoodstory about a girl who was growing
up in the kind of the neighborhood inwhich I grew up because I also knew
That probably Bollywood is not goingto be the place for it I just needed
a different lens to listen to look atmy own stories with because till the
time I lived in india till 2015 Thesethings were not apparent even to me.
(33:02):
They were not even visible to my eyeThere was not even an idea that I can
create a story out of my experienceof actually wearing two different
sets of clothes Beyond this borderlineand now I see that as a story.
I see that as a story thatabsolutely needs to be told.
Again, you don't want to box yourcharacters into just being Muslims,
because they are multiple things.
They're not just Muslims.
(33:23):
But is there a layer?
or a nuance to their character becauseof the fact that they're Muslim.
And I don't see that.
It's my so called calling.
It's my purpose in life to then figureout what am I going to do with that?
I actually have done 12, 12drafts of the screenplay.
I have friends who would say thatthey get a producer, even before
they finish the first or the couple,the second draft and writing is It's
(33:47):
fun, but it's also draining becauseyou're going into the core of that
experience that was also very traumatic.
So you're revisiting that traumaover and over again, over those 12
drafts, and you're constantly writing,How do I make that film come alive?
So for me, it has become that onceI finished the screenplay, I am
going to create a series of make apicture book or explore comics or
(34:15):
explore other forms of storytelling,which are not as capital intensive.
My stories will find their place.
place and their form where they have to.
So we've been talking back and forthabout exploring animation, about
exploring other forms, so whichwe can, I think the purpose of it
is to, can we have a conversation?
Can we even have that one imagefrom these multiple images that
(34:37):
I'm thinking of that are missing?
Can we have that even one photograph,one image or a drawing that can, at
least that sparks of a conversation,I've started doing this one project,
which is basically about my neighborhoodand we're starting To do that through
animation, the everyday process of doingthat work is important and I have had
a rethinking of my, I'm working on thenarrative feature and I'm very sure
(35:00):
that in the future it will be made it.
I believe it's a film that.
That needs to be made and seen, but alsoasking myself, how can I use Instagram?
How can I use the short form?
How can I use short stories?
I will do internet.
I will do whatever I can whatevertools I have like in this unrelenting
way to to share this experience.
(35:22):
It fills me with life and energy and joy.
Because we can't live in isolation and wecannot live with just the silencing of all
these stories and all these experiences.
Uh, in the comics world, I ampart of a, a two person team.
I'm one person in a two personteam that helps publish comics.
(35:42):
Most people when they think of comics,they think of superheroes and the
Avengers and all of that, but The indiecomics world is a very small niche
community that's popping up all over andit is regular people, everyday people
that have stories to tell finding theamazing and super in the ordinary.
(36:06):
You can find stories that reflect yourlife experiences and meet the people
who wrote those stories and askedthem about what it meant to them.
There is a press that was createdby amazing, amazing trans women
that is just for trans folks.
The only thing that thispress publishes is stories for
(36:28):
trans people by trans people.
There are presses that arejust for black artists.
There are presses thatare just for queer folks.
There are presses thatare just for Latino folks.
There are stories that are beingtold that don't get a place to
be told or a space to be told.
There's a place in Brooklyn calledDesert Island and they host a con
(36:52):
every year called CAB, Comic ArtsBrooklyn, and it's a great place
to see a lot of these things.
And it was actually when we wereexhibiting at Comic Arts Brooklyn
last year that I met this artist.
He's a, a young, Sikh man.
And his, he showed me his book becausehe wants to be published by us.
And right now he's self published, buthe showed me his book and it was all
(37:13):
pictures of, or like really beautiful,artistic drawings of of plus size women.
In Shalar Cortez doing regular everydaythings, going to the grocery store,
holding an umbrella, all of thesethings, and I asked him about it, and he
said that, this is basically differentversions of my mother, and doesn't my
mother deserve to have her story told?
(37:34):
Doesn't my mother deserveto be the center of my art?
And I just, it struck with me.
There are so many stories of heroes,of women of people that don't get their
voices heard or their stories told,and Amrine, you are so, so phenomenally
right that these stories deserve tobe told and they may not get told
in Bollywood, but they are, There'sso many different places and spaces.
(37:57):
And I love facilitating that, our presshas been around for a really long time.
And before I was involved withit my partner was running this
with his, his ex ex husband.
And they were the first press topublish a trans artist, the first indie
plus press to publish a trans artist.
Like there's, there's so much that'shappening in this underground world that
(38:20):
I wish people could see and be a part of.
It's amazing.
Bollywood, the stories that they tellcould fit on the head of a needle.
They're so niche and so small.
And so like only oneparticular experience.
It feels like again and againand again, but Bollywood is so
(38:41):
special and so important to me.
Growing up in the United States.
States.
I feel like the three things that reallyconnected me to my culture or connected
me to being South Asian and Muslim was thelanguage, the food, and the faith, right?
Those are the things that connectedme, my, connected me to my culture.
(39:02):
The language came from Bollywood.
It came from watching Bollywoodmovies because we only went
to Pakistan once in a while.
We couldn't afford it.
And so watching Bollywood moviesis where I got my practice.
And then I'd be ableto talk to my parents.
So it always holds the special placein my heart, both for ShadowCon
and for the language practice.
I was watching this video thatAngela Davis put out soon after
(39:25):
the 19 year old Dalit woman wasgang raped in Uttar Pradesh.
A month or two ago, and she said somethingreally powerful around the Black Lives
Matter movement and the Dalit Lives Mattermovement are not separate from each other.
And that one can't happenwithout the other in preparation
(39:47):
for this conversation.
I came across an article.
I believe it was in the Times ofIndia that ends with you cannot be
a South Asian and America caringabout black lives matter and
being on the streets protesting.
If.
If you don't do so about the lives matterlike they have to have that intersection,
(40:07):
and I've been having, conversationswith various South Asians in this
country around these topics as well.
And I, the questions that Igrapple with , why is it so easy
to look away for our community?
And what will it take for us to trulyleverage our privilege in a way that
shows an intersectional solidarity?
(40:30):
I don't have answers, but Ikeep questioning these spaces.
Do you all have any thoughts on this?
I think you asked areally important question.
Why is it so easy to look away?
And I want to offer two things.
The first thing is, if I look at mypersonal experience, I have a hard time
(40:51):
connecting with that movement becauseof how Muslims are treated in India.
There is so much energy that I have, somuch power that I have, so much voice
that I have, and I feel like we'reconstantly striving to figure out what
we're going to use that energy on.
(41:13):
And it's easy, it becomes easy tolook away from things that we're so
far removed from that we feel likewe don't have any power in changing.
I'm not saying that's right or wrong.
All I'm saying is that I feellike that's one piece of it.
How can I influence somethingthat is so far away?
How can I influence something in a countrythat I'm not a part of and if I were to
(41:36):
step foot in, I would not be treated well?
How can I connect to anything happeningin that space when I am an enemy there?
And then the other piece of it I seeis that when we, and I speak from my
own South Asian Muslim perspective inthe United States, That when we are so
(41:58):
viciously fighting to be seen as anythingother than, terrorists and things like
that here, that to admit that we arealso doing things wrong in other spaces
is to admit that we are at fault,is to admit that we are not perfect.
So I feel like being introspectiveand being honest about the ways
(42:19):
in which we are not showing.
up the way that we should opens, itfeels like it opens us up to criticism
from those people who never liked usin the first place, who thought we were
terrorists from the very beginning.
So I think those are two thingsthat are coming up for me.
And again, I'm not putting avalue judgment on either of those.
I just know that those two things exist.
(42:40):
Yeah, I agree with Sadhya.
I feel that in just the time lookingat the, this summer and looking at the
movement for the Black Lives Matterand just seeing how solidarity was
built around, The movement itself,not just by the black community
itself, but the whole idea of beingan ally and standing up to it.
That was a learning moment for me.
(43:01):
I and not to say that in, in South, inIndia, I have perspective in India, that
there are groups and networks that are.
very vocal about what is happening tothe minorities there, both in terms of
the Dalits, the Dalits and the Muslims.
In the U.
S.
I've seen that there have beenactionable results as part of that
organizing or that solidarity.
(43:23):
I mean, look at the, look at howthe, this election played itself out.
The, the contribution of blackand indigenous and people of color
changing the outcome of this election.
And then when I look back at my atIndia I look at the fact that, this,
the re the election itself, thereelection, and then this current,
(43:43):
what's going on at some level.
I think, it is time that we Callthis out in terms of this sort
of this is a double standard.
There's just no, there's no way tolook, to use any other word for it.
The fact that as a South Asiandiaspora, we support pro people
politics in the United States.
But when it comes to India it.
(44:04):
becomes again, let's supportthis extreme right wing.
And that's when the idea ofintersectionality plays itself
really well, because I don'tthink it's just Muslims.
I think it's the, it's a certain sectionof an upper caste Hindu identity that
has become this prominent idea of India.
India is diverse.
India is the languages, Indiais the mosques and the temples.
(44:25):
When I was growing up, I used tolive in a Muslim neighborhood,
but I used to hear temple bells.
When I was growing up, so I used to hearthe azan and I used to hear the temple
bells at the same time when those soundsare no longer there in our in our world.
I have nephews now but that temple, hasbecause of this extreme polarization,
that temple stopped being a temple.
(44:45):
They actually left and they went away.
My nephew is just hearingthe sound of the azan.
It's a very differentworld he's growing up in.
They still live there.
So for me, it has becomea very Unapologetic.
I'm very unapologetic about it.
I call it out.
You have to believe in a just worldfor everyone, not just for yourself.
The whole conversation on justicesometimes becomes limiting when
(45:10):
it becomes justice just for me.
So, you know, the South Asian diasporatalking about being the victim.
Yes, of course, you know, wetalked about as terrorists.
We talked about as people who havecome here and taken the jobs away
from the rightful Non immigrants.
I mean, we are the immigrants here,but when it comes to our own country,
we cannot So we want justice andequity here, but we don't want
(45:32):
support justice and equity in our owncountry And that is double standard.
It has to be called out and it has tobe I mean look at the Howdy Modi event
That event in Houston just did notbecome this huge fan parade without
the huge popularity that that ourprime minister has in, in the diaspora.
(45:53):
That is a contradiction that,that has to be unpacked and
addressed and talked about.
And which I believe, you know,this idea of conversations and
holding the mirror up to each other.
I think, you know, allof us have blind spots.
I have my blind spots.
I probably am going to be biased on aview that I might have if I don't have.
(46:14):
people telling me or holding up theso called mirror to me and saying
that you have to rethink this.
And I think that is thepower of a community.
That is the power of being like,so we are all from South Asia.
And if you're looking at the diaspora, youknow, in an expanded sense, we can trust
each other and we can actually believe inthe idea that South Asia is bigger than
(46:35):
what we have reduced it to right now.
We have a comment here.
Perhaps our community has troublevaluing itself, much like how
we have trouble giving ourselvescredit for surviving our lives.
It is even harder to expand that focusof care to others than we relate to.
(46:55):
My friends, we are almost at time.
What are you taking away?
I am staying with community,building the community you want to
be in, and community as service.
My mother strongly, strongly believes.
in that her life is service has alwaysbeen irrespective of everything and a lot
(47:16):
of the strength that has inspired the twoof you that you have mentioned today is
reminding me of her and her life story.
So
I think I'm taking away the fact thatI think, , we all feel at times that
we are alone in doing what we aredoing, but there is a bigger community.
If we tap into that biggernetwork, then there, then we
(47:37):
are powerful in our solidarity.
This idea of reaching across andholding each other up and supporting
each other, I think is, it's important.
So for me, I'm taking away the factthat I'm going to probably be doing a
little bit of role playing games myself.
I had not thought about that sofar, but I, I actually made a note.
(47:57):
I make, I write, so I wrote ourRPG after Sadia mentioned that I'm.
Exploring that.
So
I feel like year and a half ago, theversion of myself that I was recently
felt so disconnected from community.
And even though this year has beenall about COVID, it has allowed me the
(48:18):
space and the time to reflect on thecommunity that I want to build, the
society that I want to build, the lifethat I want to surround myself with.
What does it actually look like?
And through this conversation, ithas reignited my desire to really
look at my identities, look at theSouth Asian again, the Muslim again
(48:43):
and reconnect with those in a waythat I feel like I've been paused on.
Because of some of the experiences Ihad doing the, the LGBT Muslim work.
So I think this has really beena wonderful moment of reigniting
that passion, that desire toconnect because through this.
I, I realize that there are other womenout there who are doing such creative
(49:09):
and beautiful work that is centered injustice, and it is centered in connection
and joy, and I did not get enough of that.
So I'm very happy, and I'm taking awaymy connection with the two of you.
Thank you for listening to Farsight Chats.
I really hope that this episode isthe start to future conversations
(49:30):
you have with your colleagues,teams, and communities.
We continue the exploration ofidentity this season with our next
episode, exploring white identity.
Subscribe now to Farsight Chatswherever you get your podcasts,
and don't forget to follow us onInstagram and Facebook at GoFarsight,
LinkedIn at the Farsight Agency, andcheck out our website, GoFarsight.
(49:55):
com, to know more aboutwho we are and what we do.
Thank you for answering the call todo more, do better, and do different.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.