When Philip Larkin wrote his poem “This Be the Verse” in 1971 – which begins with the oft quoted line, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad,” he was staying with his mother in Loughborough, UK at the time. It begs the question: how much of what we inherit (both literally and figuratively) is … Read More
In a word, Adeeba Shahid Talukder’s Kundiman Poetry Prize-winning collection Shahr-e-jaanaan: The City of the Beloved is virtuosic. It sings, thrums with the force of centuries of Urdu and Persian verse. In doing so, it owns the strength of a woman’s voice. In the title poem, Talukder writes, “At December’s end Benazir died / in … Read More
My first overseas journey was to Hyderabad, India at age one. I slept under the kind of net that you cover cakes with, a holdover of a home that once filled with the smells of baking. In my senior year of high school, I wrote an essay about the relationship between my nana – my … Read More
This piece was originally published in Kajal Volume 3: Plant Life. Find it here. Tanaïs, née Tanwi Nandini Islam, is a polymath. She published her first novel Bright Lines, about a Bangladeshi-American family living in Brooklyn, New York in 2015. Since then she has launched her own cosmetics and perfume company, Hi Wildflower, which is … Read More
Rajiv Surendra is a Canadian actor, writer, painter, and chalk artist with Sri Lankan Tamil roots. After rising to fame for his role as Kevin G in the 2004 movie Mean Girls, he published The Elephants In My Backyard in 2016. The memoir explores successes and failures through a six year attempt at securing the … Read More
In a time where nostalgia is at a high, there is no shortage of old Bollywood covers. The problem with most of these covers, however, is that many artists and producers fail to retain the integrity of the original songs. Keerat Kaur’s new EP Pink Guava doesn’t suffer from this problem. Kaur and producer Wisechild … Read More
Peter Cat Recording Co.’s (PCRC) new album, Bismillah, is meant to be heard in high definition. From the grand gestures of trumpets and keys to the subtle electronics and sound bites knitted into their music, the true intricacy to their sound can only be captured in HD. The chirping birds, distant car horns, and synthesized … Read More
Following her debut book of poetry If They Come For Us, Chicago-based poet and screenwriter Fatimah Asghar is back with a new collection. Co-edited with Safia Elhillo, Halal If You Hear Me is an anthology of poetry from Muslim writers who identify as women, queer, genderqueer, nonbinary, or trans. Kajal caught up with Asghar shortly … Read More
Ramy, streaming now on Hulu, follows the life of Ramy Hassan, a Muslim American man who lives in New Jersey with his family. It delves into the classic trials of being a first-generation immigrant Muslim. The show’s creator, 28 year old Ramy Youssef, is also an Egyptian-American Muslim from New Jersey. While the show isn’t … Read More
“I am not a girl, I am a storm with skin” reads one of the first shots in the title sequence of Four More Shots Please, Amazon India’s latest original “woman-centric” show. The phrase serves as a manifesto for the show, in which each character is less complex, layered individual and more vessel for a … Read More
