The Platforming Autists podcast series is supported by Tooch as part of humanity's cultural programme.
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our second episode of our podcast. And we're really excited to welcome this on Our Métier today.
Here is one of the spoken word artists on Madad. Thank you for coming.
How are you? Hey, man, thanks so much for having me. How are you?
Not doing badly at all. We're gonna have hopefully a very interesting discussion today about your work 2020 and what the [INAUDIBLE] that is entailed.
But let me just introduce you to all listeners.
So as our own studied English and drama at the Royal Holloway and then trained as part of the Army,
the young company and the twenty nineteen young company, and then as well, it's sort of across many different theatrical productions.
You did Conspiracy at the Underbelly Edinborough, which then translates New Diorama Festival.
So you're wonderful at that. But we've also obviously got your incredible poetry involved with our production, your incredible spoken word, poet.
And so you've got quite the credentials there. Semi-finalist on the BBC World's best spoken word scheme.
And just very recently, a month ago, finalist of the 2020 Roundhouse Poetry Slam.
You're preparing for a national theatre show next year.
And you also currently set something that I'm sure we'll talk about at length on the Almeida's Youth Advisory Board and often even young company.
You talk to the Armida and about diversity and about many of the things obviously we discuss and represent here comedian.
So it's so great to have you on. And thank you again so much for joining us. Thank you.
Well, with having lifted read out.
Well, we met yesterday sort of a quick midia intro. We met through Fran obviously, who has just had a podcast should go that one if you haven't.
And yeah, you're gonna be doing a sort of spoken word in the middle of all of our show.
I mean, Madea bit of a road project. We sort of approach you with what now?
Three months ago. Yeah. No. Yeah. Fran is is amazing.
And definitely cheque out that episode because she has. Yeah.
She's just an amazing artist and person. Yeah. Yeah.
And here we are three months in and I'm excited. We've not met obviously.
Twenty twenty. Know each other in person. But let's talk about it obviously.
Lockdown. Lockdown now for 3.0 in tearful.
How is lockdown baby. I mean, obviously no one wants talk too much about the credit myself being an autistic.
Hopefully an interesting autistic space for you. Here he had dispensary's locked down talking about her.
I think, you know, the initial one artistic sense for sure.
But what was really interesting for me, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate in the sense of self development.
I sort of had a phone call from my best friends are looked down.
And he was he said to me, you know, you need to spend some time doing stuff that has nothing to do with acting.
Because I you know, I graduate in 2018. And it's not that long ago.
And I'm super young still. But it's just been kind of non-stop. Mentally, yeah.
And the last couple years have been really hectic. So to have that space, to actually not do anything.
And discover and rediscover myself without sounding super sort of wonky about it.
It's been really, really nice. Well, I got up, too. I started doing meditation, which is great.
Like, I was always super sceptical about it because I know wellness culture got that big fat W, which can be wellness or or whiteness.
Yeah. But it's giving me a lot of space.
It's been lovely and it's been a really nice journey to sort of get back into the creative stuff because obviously you've had the poetry slam,
so you've obviously had time to write on your writing for us right now.
It's been a creative space, not just acting wise, but poetry wise for you as well.
Poetry wise. It's been amazing. I've done I think it was the most time I've spent writing.
I was really lucky to do the world's first game with the BBC over summer.
And it was online workshops. And it really challenged my craft and got me thinking about writing different ways,
which then helped me get to roundhouse, which is which was amazing.
Yeah. And we're going to talk about the piece that you did at around us later on today.
I'm talking about Lockton. Obviously, we've had the coronavirus this year.
But the other thing that's been going on that hopefully everyone is still thinking about is this massive race recording that we've had.
And it seems impossible to talk about 2020 without talking about that either.
I mean, have you found that this is as a person of colour, as an intelligence or a Pakistani?
You spent four years studying guitar, so you've had sort of a more international outlook, your Muslim and your work, as, you know, discoveries.
It's very to do with your identity. I mean, how is that self new this year?
And what have you been thinking of more broadly feeling about what's been going on around us?
It is a strange wanted to know, because I'm an optimist, right?
And it feels like with things like social media, which can be a blessing and a curse,
that a lot more people's lenses have been widened to these things, especially with, you know, George Floyds murder and the whole the resurgence.
The BLM movement feels like more people are aware of that now.
And that's a great and necessary thing. But what's more important to me is seeing how many of those people.
Keep paying attention to it and keep doing the work themselves.
We've all got work to do, you know. And it was. I thought it became a conflict zone.
I like seeing it. I think it put up on everyone's stories and stuff.
It was great. But then I felt the sense of, you know, people like me, you friend.
You know, our network, our generation of votes of colour, people of colour have been talking about these things.
And we're not the first the generations before us. So how do we keep this momentum going?
And it's not all on us. So, yes, it's it's a mix.
You know, this is a real mix. We're in a sort of different position whereby sort of south South Asians,
Indian subcontinent, obviously Pakistan and India being a unique positioning, I think,
because there's been an incredibly necessary focus on on what it means to be to be a person of colour,
but obviously very specifically that the real struggle that it can can be to have a BlackBerry.
And we come from a culture that struggles with racism, obviously not as much,
and also has our own racism to deal with when it comes to other other any other people of colour.
I mean, where I'm from, India and Pakistan, there's a whole different story.
I mean, there's a wonderful line in one of your poems, duets between minarets and Mondays.
We see constant fighting between the nationalist nature of India and Hinduism versus stone.
There's so many really nuance conversations that what you have to say about I mean,
the long list of things I just gave you there that have been food for thought over the last six months.
I mean, you know, within South Asian culture is rife with anti blackness and, you know, rampant colorism, which flows throughout.
And it's something we have to really address. And that was something I was glad to see come up.
Amongst the conversations that started over the summer was that, you know.
Yes. Middle-Class White liberals living in Hampstead have work to do, but we also have work to do.
Absolutely. Yamana is I know.
How do you feel as a South Asian person going through this? I think it's both.
I think that I have a feeling that our community doesn't take.
This is serious. It should not only for its own, as you say, colorism, which is huge.
I mean, India is one of the biggest buyers of whitening products globally, but also more relation to to to black bodies.
The fact that my parents, as as many Indian immigrants did, grew up in Africa.
So they have a very my my family has lived in India for over 100 years.
This is really strange sense of. Diaspora that goes in my family from Madagascar to Malawi to Kenya to eventually ending up in England.
And so it's such a bizarre story that I think is so unique. But on the flip side, we don't see that much.
And I'm sure you're great and we don't see that much South Asian representation. I can take the example.
Not in Fashion Week, just in February where I was working and there were maybe one or two brown models.
There are really a diverse set of models, but there seems to be a blind spot still for what is one and a half billion billion people.
Might your work obviously directly addresses that in a very interesting way.
But what do you have to say as a as a sort of South Asian? So I particularly am about all representation in this whole larger narrative.
I think it is these two things. And I like to pick apart from this and like.
The first one is with this, some of the antiblack missing colorism that we have right within the South Asian culture.
I was thinking about, you know what? Why is I think, you know.
And it's to do with this whole history of empire. Yeah, sure.
Right. And this idea that white whiteness.
Yeah. Whiteness is close to civilised living and godliness and whatever, whatever.
So it was darker, as you know. And so you.
I don't if I'm allowed to swear, but it's just so messed up.
And the thing that I always points back to Empire, which is what I'm finding, is something that I want to maybe try and push against.
But, you know, it is is matter.
And in terms of representation, can I ask you and then I'll answer as well and I'll go into it.
But do you consider yourself English? Very good question.
I think that I, I, I. Studied English literature.
I have grown up in London. I am. I am English.
I speak English as my first language. But on the flip side, you know, my mom very much, my mom didn't grow up.
She's spent her first 18 years in Malawi and considers herself, well, our way.
And my dad spent a few years in Kenya. So he more considers himself Indian.
I feel like especially with these South Indians who've moved South Asians or who've moved across Selimi different places.
There's a reluctance to call myself English, but it's sort of necessary.
I am. But equally, I don't know whether to call myself Indian because in one hundred years has passed since any of my close family.
And anyway, I've lived in India and I'm not, you know, does that make me sort of half mile away?
It's so confusing.
The sense of diaspora has been so separated from any sense of origin, in just my opinion, that I find it very hard to call myself anything.
It's a great thing. In some ways, I love being able to draw from so many different things.
But the reluctance to call myself English, the reluctance to call myself engender reluctance to call myself.
But either way, I know my grandmother spent 20 years in Madagascar. It's given something that I just don't know.
I think it's the best answer to the question. I mean, please. Yeah, you answer. That's really honest, man.
Appreciate that. And that's the thing when it comes to representation, which we'll chat a bit about.
In effect, your family story is so layered and there's so much going on.
You're not just Indian. Right. Yeah. But that's how we're seen in the larger picture.
But I ask that question because I was doing a workshop for a play last week.
And it's about, you know, it's generational story about a Brown family.
That's what I can kind of say, a living in Britain. And the director asked that question to us.
People in the room being me, myself and third generation British, Pakistani.
And there were some people there who were old enough to be my dad and my mom also, you know, British, Asian.
And it's super interesting because the older generation, those actors were saying,
yes, we are English like because we've not been anything else but English.
Even when she's back to Empire, those two hundred years, everything was shaped by the English.
How we we we move we've morphed ourselves into the.
And that was his response. And there's a duality there of like the historical historical accuracy,
but also that sort of when he was comparing nothing in Britain, it was very different.
And there was that sort of desire to fit in, to be seen as English, not good immigrant.
Yeah, exactly. Whereas you come to me and unlike Nahar, you know, it's I, I reject the word English because that for me reminds me of that.
Was it St Georges? Is that the cross the word.
That has connotations of that, and that reminds me of like an F skinheads and that sort of Englishness, that idea.
What I would say is British, Pakistani, right.
I am British. For me encapsulates, you know, what I see when I go down.
People from everywhere and we all are united by this commonality of Britishness, of queuing up the politeness or whatever, whatever.
But then I have to mention to Pakistani because because that's a big part of me and I get the argument of like, yeah, but we're just British.
Cool. I get that. But that doesn't mean I have to erase.
I have to delete the Pakistani from when I say, you know, I mean, yeah, it is very interesting.
And I think you've got sort of further complication.
I know what you would use there,
but you're also Muslim and that comes with its own whole set of different stereotypes and different prejudices that if you want to talk,
talk a bit about that. Yeah, I feel. Yeah, man.
I mean, someone asked me once a few years ago, like,
I you could go back to any time period in the world where which one, which one would you go rather.
And the first thing that kind of came up to my head was this like maybe the 90s or just anytime pre 9/11 because I was four when 9/11 happened.
And I've really I've not really lived in a world where Muslims haven't been public enemy number one in the tabloids and stuff.
There's a brilliant, brilliant photography book by a friend of mine, my DOB Hussein called You Get Me.
Where he sort of, I think over eight years, maybe longer.
He photographed working class British Muslim men. Different ones.
And has their quotes, along with the pictures in this book and on the back of the book.
It's just riddled with headlines. You know, to see how much is affected.
Muslims, British Muslims. I think that's why. You know, I I feel compelled to include the Pakistani side within a sentence because it's like.
You know. I know that I'm Muslim. Right. You know, I'm Muslim.
And. Like what we're trying to say in in Britain today.
There is that big othering of Muslims. So we can always we can try and be British, but if we're Muslim, you know, that's on the you know,
you know, the premises talked about in letterboxes, all that sort of stuff. So I'm not going to shut up about that to.
You know, if you're going to say this thing about Muslims than me telling you I'm a Muslim and Pakistani.
By me saying that I'm showing you what else a Muslim can be.
It does make sense and obviously I can. When we get on to your work, I mean, it's obviously very clear that you you your name is.
Is the name of the Muslim call to prayer. I mean, it's sort of hard to hard to avoid.
But. How do you think that I'm going sort of more to the theatrical world?
How do you think that affects your work, your writing, both as an actor, obviously, and a writer and your identity?
How does that play into the roles you get? The roles you work on?
How you try to position yourself within this hopefully changing industry?
Here is an. It is I've been very lucky, really lucky since I sort of stepped into the industry professionally.
I have a great relationship with my agent.
And I've not been sent any terrorist rules very lightly because we have the understanding, but also the industry is shifting away from that.
It's still there. But, you know, I don't want to be a part of it.
My agent knows that. And, you know, I. What I really love is when I go into an audition, there's two things I really love.
When I go when I get the script that is that honours and acknowledges the rich culture that we have of South Asians.
And then the other time is when I go into an audition room or a waiting room and
I see guys of all different colours and creeds going through the same path.
And that has happened a few times less than I would have liked.
But something like that really is like, OK, cool.
Like the playing field is being sort of level.
Talking of theatre and this potential change in production is like I wrote in so many good jobs and Taliban and Tamasha and tell us there are great,
great companies that are doing this. What do you think? I mean, we've seen these last five months.
You sit on the board of an extremely influential theatre.
Do you think the industry is changing? I mean, what do you think? It is happening, which I think should happen.
I'm into a little bit about what is going on in states particularly, obviously,
that's a much bigger narrative socially that just in Beijing, the industry, obviously, that we're working in right now.
I think, you know, I can only speak from my perspective and being so.
Yeah, I sit on the Olmeda Youth Board. And it seems when when all the faces is their statements and whatever, it was nice to see at this point.
Everything feels performative. And I know I know it's been halted, defensive, covered in everything,
but when things start starting up again, then we'll see who's really doing the work.
And from from a youthful perspective, it's been really enlightening because it's one thing.
You know, just young people always talking about change and really being know loud with it and then actually doing the work.
So I loved being on the board and sort of learning the the logistics behind stuff.
And I think the biggest thing and we've spoken about it before, like a lot of theatres are getting in their own way.
You know, they stand in their own way of their own progress.
So I can only hope, but the real change comes from having people of colour in the room, in the room, in the very step of the way.
Yeah, absolutely. And we see that happening in some grimy young black is a fantastic example of a group that has has people of
colour all across the building and the army to having youth food is an example of things that needs to happen.
And hopefully we'll see that change that you are one of the people making that change with your work.
And I think it's it's just about time we talk about these in court.
I was lucky enough yesterday to have you said me sort of seven, eight, seven, eight of your recent works.
And I've seen, obviously, that the stuff that you did for the Roundhouse and you create work that's very close to.
Your heart very close to who you are and your identity, your very vocal. And just to quote yourself, you about your say in voice and can't cry.
My poems, quite matter of fact. I don't hold back. And later on, you say my poems are used to incite racial or religious tension.
My intention is to highlight, to mention and bring our stories to to attention is a very interesting I mean,
is a clear statement of view on what you do. I'd love to talk about your writing and this particular idea.
You're not using your inciting anything. You're just bringing things to attention.
I mean, talk to me about that.
Yeah, I I think, you know, especially the earlier poems was just a way to get things off my chest that I had thought about saying over.
I think my three years at uni were even before that man.
Like, the way I got into poetry was a bit weird.
Like I thought I was I had never written before. I was an actor.
I was really naive. And I used to think that, like all you know, you know, you see, those people were actor,
writer, director, producer, prop maker, you know, tap dancer, you know, like.
Yeah. And I used to have the thought of, like, okay.
But like, if you really want to be an actor, stop doing all that other stuff. You're just wasting your energy.
Very nice. But yeah, the poetry stuff came about because I was attending National Shoot Drama Festival and STF in twenty nineteen.
I came there and one of the associates there, the brilliant actor and Craib, called Neema Talabani.
He noticed me probably because we were one of few brown people in the building and we had a little chat.
And later on that night he said to me, you know, four years ago he got noticed here by doing raps at the open mike.
Right. And then he turned and said to me, I think you should write something and do it.
OK. I've never written before. But let's see, I kind of dismissed it, went away that night where I was staying.
And for whatever reason, you know, just the words I was coming.
I was reading a poetry book at the time, so call it divine time and call it whatever you want.
I wrote this poem which ended up being called me by my name.
And then I was like, OK, cool. I've written this. I have no idea if it's completely crap or not.
So I'm going to get a coffee enema spit to him. And if he thinks it's all right, I'll do it.
If not, I'll just, you know, whatever way in self-pity and just discard.
I never do again. Got this coffee within the next day.
And right at the beginning he was out. OK, cool. Halfway through, my friend Roy might join us.
Okay, cool. Yeah. Roy is just another student. That's fine. But I'm going to do this poem for you.
And it turns out that that Roy was Mr. Roy Alexander Wise and B.
E artistic director of the Royal Exchange in Manchester.
I never met Roy at all. I'm sitting in front of them both.
Got this poem on my phone. I'm shaking and I decide to do it because I have to.
And after I finished it, they didn't say anything, they just put their fists out in this sort of spot moment.
And coo coo I'm going to do that in the open Mike.
And then Yemen going off isn't a tangent, but it's one [INAUDIBLE] of a story.
I don't think most people do the best performance that they also started. Well, let's talk about a poem.
Can we call me by my name. Obviously that have a play I think on the film.
But what's interesting here is, I mean, I don't think there's anyone who has a name that is English.
They can't relate to it. But, you know, is on the second day is long.
But what's longer is your reluctancy to say my name correctly.
And just this week, I was doing, of course, about three weeks ago whether it was a great cause.
And I was with a producer. But the seven days and the whole time he avoided saying my name so that, you know, oh, you know, just wouldn't you say.
I think what's so interesting, what you stay here, the final word in this thing is sinister.
And there is something sinister about this reluctance to even call me by by my own name.
It's such a strange. I think we all do.
It's such a weird, universal thing, our name is perhaps the closest thing to our identity.
And yet so many people who don't have the name John go through their life with people constantly avoiding saying their name and your name,
as you say in your poem. It's why don't you talk about the importance of your name and why it's almost ironic that people don't say your name.
Yeah. Well, I just I don't know. It might be kind of selfish.
I just love my name. I think it's helpful. You know, I have one other person with that name.
And I think I went through a lot of uni and some of school and everything as, um, as, um.
And I don't know if you had this as well, but sometimes when someone sent me an email I can read, I can listen to how they've said my name.
Yeah. And it's like, okay, cool. I know where I stand today.
But I just. Yeah. Tired of it. And that's why I'm saying this early poetry of mine is this reclamation.
It's taking back those silences that I swallowed. You know, because that's the thing.
White people can say Denarius Calgarian and Timothee.
Yes. That's a go. My name is low letters man. Eh, that, eh.
Yeah. You know, and I get it as an if that comes to you first.
If if I say yeomen's is on it.
Oh cool. Thanks. I was, I was. There's something there's a chip missing in your head.
Yeah. It's incredible. I, it's such a strange, it's such a strange reluctance.
And you're right. I mean it's something that so many people it's it's sort of like the phrase but microaggression that people experience so much.
But what people have is it's just the name like it's just what we call I got a weird name.
It felt weird like you. I'd much rather you said wrong ask and I'll tell you how to say I understand that it's not a name that you know or comical,
but to not even try or to consistently get it Rohloff to be told is just part it.
But yeah, you're right. Someone's got something missing. There is such a bizarre experience to have.
One of your other early poems is folk, and I think this is probably the one I sort of laughed at the most relate to the most bizarre.
Anybody who's been at a university, especially in England, relates I'm to go read the sort of I don't see colour within the space time.
I don't see colour. Oh, that's nice, but oh wait. I spy with my big brown eyes.
You carefully organise your outfit today and you go in in that same standard to say so what you mean is you avoid seeing race.
And there's this interesting conversation.
I'd love you to comment on this like this new like I'm so well I don't see colour, but it's it's such a strange phenomenon that seems to have this.
This woke Lester. It it's just completely bizarre. I mean, it's no sense.
Yeah. It's just yeah.
It troubles, man. You know, the impetus for that poem. I was in front of it the other day.
I remember just once at uni I was walking somewhere and I was walking with an East Asian woman and.
I think we were just chatting and then she's talking about race and then she responded with,
oh, but you know, we're all just human, you know, we're all just human, aren't we?
And I'm like, yeah, but but but where I'm from is rich man.
Would you mean white diluting at dusk? That's what it is. Why are you diluting the rich tapestry of of moments?
And you know, all that stuff that comes from being from where we're from.
And I think the, you know, stuff like I work in Kosovo, my name.
It's the acknowledgement that I wanted to get across. I mean, I was at uni.
I spent my first year sort of facilitating wage jobs.
I haven't always been, you know, on it with this sort of weakness or the the articulate myself and my identity.
It's been a journey because I remember my first year sorry, my second year coming back from first year.
I make, like, weird brown jokes. I was any brown person my year for contact.
Right. OK. Right.
And I used to make jokes about terrorists or brown people to make the white people in the room feel like, oh, I'm not one and I'm not one of them.
Right. And I say, yeah. And then this shift happened where I was coming back.
First time I seen some roommates since summer and my best mate was standing in front
of me walking up to the pub with you and I are Dare's my favourite terrorist.
Jesus. Yeah. And I just sort of had this moment in time where I was like.
I I facilitated that. Yeah. And I don't ever want to do that again.
So these first poems were just a way of addressing that and being like this is this is who this is.
These are the things that I want you to know.
You say in the same poem, know your history and know that it affects mine and that the two have been intertwined since before fifty ninety nine.
It's such a such a trend. People don't realise the extent to which how long Britain was in our country.
And it wasn't just sort of trading that was in there sitting, living, taking over.
And it's it's so true. We've had these conversations about education and how little people know.
And I think that comes part of that comes from this. I don't see what you have to do because as you say, no, your history know that it affects mine.
You can't not see it because, you know, for 400 years, you certainly didn't not see it.
And that affects the very way we live our lives.
Like when you say at the end of the poem to sort of use your own words again to comment on the culture.
President, my bones, body and face is something you could never erase.
I mean, it's just thought, you know what I'm about right now and it might change.
It's just. You know, too long and we've spoken about this a bit, where South Asians and Brown people are seen as meek and subservient.
No person to theatre shows what they are.
Is the best friend who's just there on stage.
He takes the box and like but what I want people to know is that we've been emperors, we've been poets.
And we can definitely come to you go in the theatre. Sure we should.
It is interesting where all these things and we need to sort of be given that depth and space.
And you certainly can't be given that depth and space if everyone is supposedly colour-blind.
I mean, this all you do. Right. Going to sort of your more recent and lifespans.
You've got these wonderful. Something I love.
But I think any South Asian will love is your use of, you know, holiday behaves pounded onions and garlic and [INAUDIBLE].
Beezus. Where are you really from. How did onions and garlic. So many of them sort of relate to and speak to such integral things in our food.
I mean, any South Asian is obsessed with food.
All grandmothers are obsessed with food. All we do is think about eating and then we draw on these wonderful things.
But you also write, I wonder if I can find it. You write in an earlier poem, I remind you that chicken tikka masala was made for the white man states.
And you've also got this strange. You use these images who point out that they even they're sort of compromised and in a strange way.
Yeah, this new Senate is all about nuance like this. This stuff isn't black and white.
This will be black and white. We were brown, right? You saw grey area.
And the food thing is, that's our sort of legacy, I feel.
Yeah. To each other. You know, people pass on recipes and we only write stuff down.
We do it by and we'll do it if we do it by. Undoes the yapping by feeling it all.
Dad. That's what my grandma said. What I'm getting to see what feels right. It's salt.
I don't know how salt fields, but apparently I should just sit there and you do. You end up landing somehow and landing is right.
Beautiful thing. And I think in terms of my creative process and stuff, that's where I won.
That's what I'm interested in. And we've had that phase of.
And there are people still battling with it, with how I'm Asian, but I don't want to be Asian.
I just want to be British. But it's a massive, massive part of our culture.
Yeah. But what I'm interested in is acknowledging what's happened before, you know, and taking that with just like these recipes,
like I didn't know until twenty nine, twenty seventeen that my granddad was a poet.
And a legit one lie published in Pakistan and everything, and, um, you know,
talking stuff like Raise Resow made me feel mogel mostly incredible where.
You know, he acknowledges the generational trauma, like going back.
Looking back at where you've been so that you can catapult yourself forward.
Trust me, I'm so interested in you directly at, you know, talk about I mean, one of your poems is called.
That he a.k.a. But a word that is used.
I mean, you actually Pakistani I mean, this is your word that's used to describe everyone in the South Asian subcontinent.
I mean, there's one and a half billion of us. Whenever Labour is seven of the world's population.
And yet we were referred to by this time. But then you said,
but this is such a brilliant way because you point out what it is and what that actually means and the strength of what that actually means.
Yeah, yeah, that was a nice one to get off my chest. I wanted to sort of test myself lyrically.
This is some of this work. We'll speak to two brown people.
Way more than excuse to white people.
It's like I want I want I want people like us and my brothers and cousins and whoever to feel like it was the coolest stuff, that uplifting.
And then I want other people to be aware of all the things that inconsequent.
But you also I mean, you do that. And I've been very moved.
I spent six, seven hours yesterday sitting there working and reading it and thinking about it.
And it's extremely moving to have someone who speaks to that.
You have little you have a phrase and maybe you can go reiki on which no one who isn't a job Himba would understand.
Maybe you can translate that for our for our for our listeners who don't speak any other language.
But it's incredible to see these snippets of things that you hear is kids that you never hear in Western anything ever.
What does it show? Yeah. Quick translation. I think my resume is good.
Seven out of ten times. Good. Good. OK.
Just this as a white person dies. What gave this the thing?
I think I spent, you know, a certain amount of time being weirded out and embarrassed.
Some of the things that are maybe brown, you know, Bollywood films, I still find some cringe.
They are extremely rich. Yeah. But, you know, stuff like the language and the and the colour, the colours that we have.
You know, I'm sorry. So I wanted to meet some of them are shiny. I was embarrassed by that stuff when I was younger, like a young teenager.
And it's just about reclamation. You talk about my grandmother was sorry every everyday I see it every day.
We were runs to weddings. We're so surrounded by it. And I think there's spent my grandmother's and speak English.
She lives with us in a house, a very traditional Indian setting. And we're surrounded by all the time.
There's always Indian television in my home. There's always some ridiculously dramatic Indian Hindi.
So there's always a sari on. There's always a wedding going.
I mean, we seem to be married every week of the year. Somebody. But it it's so omnipresent in our lives that there's such a disconnect from it.
It's like it's separate sort of secret life. I am leading as a kid, a brown life that I had that was completely separate from my being British,
British in school and certainly that sort of posh university that was very white.
Yeah. And, you know, I just felt I didn't have to be separate.
You know, my the generation from partition. Right.
So our grandparents generation. Yes, they are. So they survived.
So that our parents generation could live. And then you've got people like us who can dream.
Great job holding it like my my dad when my dad's been telling me stories of Eve when he used to be a European Stonebridge.
And when him and his cousins used to go onto the High Street with their sure welcome is on, it was like a real act of protest.
They could, they could and they did get into fights because of it.
But now we can do that and it's all fine. So why shouldn't we? This is it.
Yeah, it's incredible how quickly I mean, partition, 70 years ago, the biggest forced mass migration killed.
This is all, well, people. Yeah, it's fantastic. Pretty.
It's bizarre. It's a million people died more probably. It destroyed two countries and continues to really cause tension.
And they say that no one thinks about it. You're right. Our grandparents neither neither in the country, I don't think.
But on my side, I mean. But it completely transformed and continues to transform.
And everything that happens between between our two countries. Partition is something we do not talk enough about.
I mean, people barely know about it. Forget about talking about it. Yeah, but you right.
To sort of get to get to a more recent time where there's a there's an incredibles.
I feel the constant need to impress your paille.
Pressure's got me stressed and I'd rather not justify my existence just to pacify your insistent curiosity of colonial consequences.
And I think I was right. I remember I sent you an email in full capsulises after after getting this.
And I think that sort of is a great way to please talk that I read it awfully and your performance of it, please people cheque the performance of it.
It's much better than the nonsense I just read. But I'm.
And pacify and this pressure that we have, this curiosity now that it's almost been caused by the movement.
Let me hear about everything it means to be brown. I mean, to sort of round up.
What do you thinking forward now? We've got this incredible space.
We've got media coming in, which we're so excited to work on. Why would you want a production company?
You're doing your incredible work. We're reaching out. We're making moves.
We're we're changing things. What do you think about this pressure, this need to impress, are we are we still sort of bearing the mantle of it?
Is it changing? And what's your hope, even if it's not what's going to happen?
What's your hope of what we see in the next few years as we are the young people that join the industry and hopefully shape it?
Yeah. I hope that we all.
Make the work we want to make on our terms. You know what I mean by that is.
Yeah. Like in Desdemona, you know, that whole poems about essentially a pillow talk with her,
with a white woman who just wanted to know all about Islam and stuff.
And I'm like and I've we've spoken today about, you know, how much I want to make people aware and stuff.
But it's like on my terms, the way I speak about it when I want to speak about it.
I'm not here to just sort of give you your brown story.
You know, the greats are sometimes the most personal touch, but it comes from a personal place on their terms.
So you look at McKayla Cole and you look at Rami Yousef, who has this series, Rami, who won a Golden Globe.
Those things are deeply personal, but it's constructed from their terms.
And that, I think, is what I want to see.
And I hope people continue to make work like that. Thank you so much.
But to do that, you've spoken really honestly. And I think that's that's it's not so easy to do.
I don't think people listening to this maybe necessarily realise that it's not so easy to speak so honestly
about these topics and talk about your own complicated identity in such a such a transparent way.
So we're really grateful for you being so honest with us, sharing so much of your work with us.
Everyone listening. Please cheque out on all of the stations and everything will be link to the podcast.
Some of his work to ensure will be linked. Obviously, you're going to be able to see his work.
Cheque out his bio page on our Web site. You'll be able to see his work, the media coming soon.
And yes, yes, this won't be the last. We have resigned. We'll do another podcast with them, I'm sure, about media work.
But, yeah, keep your eyes on him because I think you're gonna go great places and we're really grateful that you working with us.
So, so good to have you on board. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
And facilitate this and let me get to work on this Monday thing is really exciting and I cannot wait for people to hear it.
Absolutely. Thanks so much for joining us. Everyone listening. Thanks so much for listening.
And there will be another episode out soon with another one of us backing that artist.