This is depressing. But grateful for people like @sandeepbak.bsky.social who create space for dialogue and solidarity, which keep hope alive.

The Hybrid Aesthetic | Substack Writer, editor, researcher and artist. I hold a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing. I work with archives & write about colonialism, migration histories, memory, mothers/daughters & cultural inherita...

I’ve been writing over on Substack recently, here’s the link substack.com/@nasiasarwar...

I’m trying to educate myself about the political dynamics in Iran. But one thing I know is that liberation will not come via the west.

I’ve been thinking a lot about decolonial ethics and how it is not identity-based, but practice-based. And how shared racialisation does not equal shared ethics, accountability, or methodology.

Pleased to say last week I passed my PhD Viva with minor corrections.

I look forward to getting my hands on a copy!

To flatten South Asia into one story is a colonial impulse disguised as empathy. The universal ‘female body’ and its easy ‘we’ erase class, caste, and difference, turning complexity into aesthetic comfort. Writers need to do better than this.

Bloviated navel-gazing - absolutely!

‘Recognition’ of Palestine is simply colonial theatre. Palestine is a nation long occupied not ‘invented’ by imperial signatures. Anti-colonial solidarity means standing with a people whose sovereignty lives beyond Western permission. #FreePalestine #Decolonise

White-on-white gun crime seems to be a big problem in the US.

The fact that he had a big influence on Said speaks volumes.

Mubarak!

Congratulations!

Likewise! I had so many questions about your books, but I didn’t want to hold up the queue.

On my way home from a super interesting talk by @arifa.bsky.social about her book Wolf Moon which is brilliantly researched with so many passages that have stayed with me long after reading it.

Colonialism’s most insidious weapon is linguistic erasure; violent severing of communities from their epistemologies, oral histories, and cosmologies. Decolonising lang is not mere translation; it’s the radical reactivation of suppressed worldviews & refusal to think in the grammar of the coloniser.

Seeing a lot of “you’re so brave for speaking about Palestine.” Brave are the journalists reporting genocide. Brave are Gaza’s children & men risking their lives to find food. Brave are the mothers holding what’s left of their homes. Standing with Palestine isn’t bravery, it’s basic humanity.

Absolutely. We need to decolonise decolonisation itself and interrogate the frameworks, the gatekeeping, and who gets to speak for the South.

After 10 years of bold, brilliant work, 404 Ink is closing its doors. A small press that always played big, fearless, sharp, & committed to its authors. I’m so grateful they gave Gathering a home. Brilliant work by Heather & Laura looked after their authors with such care. Thanks for everything.

@ronsexsmith.bsky.social thought you’d like this one.

Blue

Khawaab Mahal and Absent Presence

Delighted to have two pieces of work exhibited at Manchester Museum until 31 August. I am also running a series of writing workshops around material memory. Check out MM’s website for further details.

www.museum.manchester.ac.uk/event/khawaa...

So well deserved, especially because of the work by curator Nusrat Ahmed for South Asia Gallery.

This is such joyful news!

The "Chowk" column at Lakeer is open for submissions throughout the year. The theme for 2025 is "Borders/Boundaries – سرحدیں/حدود". Submit your poetry, essays, art and photography to chowk.submissions@gmail.com.
lakeermag.com/chowk2025

Postcolonialism has quietly morphed into neocolonialism, visible in climate imperialism, where the Global South bears the brunt of extraction for the Global North’s ‘green’ futures. From carbon offsets to conservation dispossession, and of course Palestine. Colonial logics persist under new guises.

My Pantry, My Mother’s Tupperware: A Tale of Reused Biscuit Tins and Mysterious Masala Mixes.

It’s obviously a very Pakistani pantry.

How sweet!

Similarly, when institutions claim to operate within a ‘decolonial’ framework but fail to shift power, resources, or authorship, it becomes a performative exercise. Decolonisation and representation isn’t branding, it’s structural, material, and deeply uncomfortable work.

This begs the question, what were you wearing when you first met your partner?