WRITER Jaya Rajamani JAYA RAJAMANI is a freelance writer and journalist who writes Time for Jaya , a newsletter about life, politics, art, love, the internet, and the terrible (and wonderful) things we do to each other when trying to improve the world. She has written for Current Affairs , and The Forward , among others. WRITER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

NON-FICTION EDITOR Aisha Tahir Aisha Tahir is a journalist based in Karachi s on climate and development. She is the co-founder of Kitab Ghar Karachi, a political public library dedicated to resisting erasure through archival practices, oral histories, and community workshops. At Kitab Ghar, she leads programming initiatives that center collective memory and radical education. Aisha graduated from Princeton University in 2021 from the Department of African American Studies. NON-FICTION EDITOR WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

NON-FICTION EDITOR Shahzaib Raja Shahzaib Raja is a grassroots political organizer, and researcher-writer based in Islamabad. He is also the founder and chef at Zaiby’s Tacos, a pop-up restaurant and delivery service. NON-FICTION EDITOR WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

“I think of works like Shona N. Jackson's Creole Indigeneity, and fleshing out the narrative of brown movement. And, importantly, doing it in a way that decenters the United States, because, with indentureship we're talking about the movement from South Asia largely to the Caribbean.” COMMUNITY Romantic Literature and Colonialism “I think of works like Shona N. Jackson's Creole Indigeneity, and fleshing out the narrative of brown movement. And, importantly, doing it in a way that decenters the United States, because, with indentureship we're talking about the movement from South Asia largely to the Caribbean.” VOL. 1 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Romanticism 13th Nov 2020 Interview Romanticism English Postcolonialism Gayatri Spivak Postcolonial Poetry Romantic Literature & the Colonized World Colonialism Race Post-George Floyd Moment Black Solidarities Indigeneity Creole Indigenous Space Vijay Prashad Ruhel Islam Hufsa Islam Browntology Brown Left Kinship The Undercommons Diaspora Guyana Australia Subaltern Studies Intellectual History Internationalist Perspective Indigeneous Spaces Egbert Martin Henry Derozio Immigration Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. I couldn't imagine devoting any more time to Keats and Wordsworth and Shelley and Byron. So I turned to Brown Romantics where I looked at how Romantic ideas, philosophies, politics, and techniques were mobilized ends towards nationalist ends by 19th century writers in India, Australia and British Guyana. RECOMMENDED: Brown Romantics: Poetry and Nationalism in the Global Nineteenth Century (Bucknell University Press, 2017), by Manu Samriti Chander. More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

· FICTION & POETRY Poetry · Guyana Six Poems "In Ayodhya’s sacked Mogul masjid / vultures scrawl Ram on new temple bricks. / Brother, from this mandir of burning" Artwork by Kareen Adam for SAAG. Monoprinted, digitally-animated collage, ink on paper (2020). Ghee Persad I. You know straight away it’s ghee and not oil but you can’t eat it without gambling for the price of home-feelings, you may soon lose a toe, then a foot, then your leg. Call it faith—like drinking Ganga water? Call it an offering, like this sweet, that stood at the bronze feet of the ten- weaponed, tiger-riding Devi. You’ve recounted the tale of how she slew the demon-headed asura who made a compact with the gods so strong they trembled in heaven, how sugar is also divine and terrible. II. First hot the karahi with ghee and paache de flouah till ‘e brown-brown den add de sugah and slow slow pour de milk zat ‘e na must get lumpy. Like you mek fe you sista fust picknki ke nine-day, how you tuhn and tuhn ‘am in de pot hard-hard you han’ been pain you fe days, but now you see how ovah-jai you sistah face been deh. You live fe dis kine sweetness. You eat one lil lil piece an’ know dis a de real t’ing. Like when a-you been small an’ you home been bright wid bhajans play steady, how de paper bag wha’ been get de persad became clear from de ghee you been hable fe see you own face. III. You pass though ever kind watah, there is always new life to celebrate. Seawall At Morning Georgetown, Guyana 2019 What starts at night startles the dawn: rain water replenishes the trench lotus stalks and petals stand tall Seawall signs painted Namasté in acrylic Beyond, the sea silts brown as mud as a frigate soars wings of stone. And beyond: a ship with sails from 1838 I look twice— an oil rig? Another form of bondage? Pandemic Love Poem One by one the yellow jackets leave their nest, a hole covered with decaying leaves that warm the ground and an inert queen they’ve fed all autumn. What sleeps inside will one day burst into a wind of wings. What will wake a sleeping queen? Beneath my waist growing larger, the sting of nights one by one, when I am stranger and stranger to you. We sleep in a converted porch, wooden siding, the wall that insulates what’s inside it which is not you, nor is it me. The bedclothes stiffen with cold. Remember me? One by one peel the yellow sheets from our nest. Prick me with your heat from sleep. Place a cardamom pod under my tongue. Come, dissolve with me. Sita ke Jhumar स्टाब्ब्रुक के बाजार में अंगूठिया गिरी गयल रे। स्टाब्ब्रुक के बाजार में अंगूठिया गिरी गयल रे। हमसे खिसियाई बाकी हमार गलतिया नाहीं । सास करइला चोखा खावे, ससुर दारू पिये। ससुराल में परदेसिया रोटी थपथपे अउर दाल चउंके। आमवा लाये भेजल हमके जीरा लाये भेजल हमके। बाकरा ठगल हमके संगे जाने ना माँगे है। गिनिप लाये भेजल हमके जमुन लाये भेजल हमके। ससुराल में परदेसिया, मासाला पीसे अउर बड़ा तले। ओरहन पेटाइहे हमार माइ के, बाबा से खिसीयाइहे। साँइया खिसियाई हमसे गलतिया नाहीं हमार रामा। स्टाब्ब्रुक के बाजार में अंगूठिया गिरी गयल रे • stabroek ke bajar mein anguthi giri gayal re stabroek ke bajar mein anguthiya giri gayal re hamse khisiyayi baki hamar galtiya nahi saas karaila choka khawe sasur daru piye sasural mein pardesiya roti thapthape aur daal chaunke aamwa laye bhejal hamke jira laye bhejal hamke backra thagal hamke sange jane na mange hai guinip laye bhejal hamke hamun laye bhejal hamke sasural mein pardesiya, masala pise aur barah tale orahan petaihai hamar mai ke baba se khisiyai hai saiya khisiyaiyi hamse galtiya nahin hamar rama stabroek ke bajar mein anguthiya giri gayal re • Me ring fall from me finga a Stabroek. Me husban’ go vex. He mudda’ wan’ eat karaila chokha, he faddah suck rum steady. Me na nut’in’ to dem. Me does clap a-roti an’ chounke de daal. Me husban’ send me a market fe buy mangro an’ fe get jeera. Backra been tek me ‘way wid dem come, me na been wan’ fe come ‘way. Me husban’ send me mus’ buy guinip an’ jamun. Me na no one fe he mai-baap. Me does pise de masala me does fry de barah. ‘E go sen’ complaint to me mumma an’ vex wid me faddah. Me husban’ go vex wid me but nut’in’ me na do. Me ring fall from me han’ a Stabroek. • My ring slipped from my finger, in Stabroek market. My love will be angry for what was his fault. His mother’s eaten karaila chokha his father’s sucked rum. I’m a stranger in their home, clapping roti, spicing daal. My love sent me to buy mangoes, he sent me to buy jeera. Backra kidnapped me; I didn’t want to go. My love sent me to buy guinips, to buy jamun. I’m a stranger in their home, grinding spices, frying barah. He will complain to my mother, gripe to my father. My love, it’s not my fault. My ring fell off in Stabroek market. IN SHIPS [HONORING MAHADAI DAS’ “THEY CAME IN SHIPS”] West— They came dancing and despondent hungry gaunt alone do not forget the field or your blood I lost the yokes of rage in chains. Janam Bhumi In November of 2019 the Indian courts allowed the Modi administration to construct a Ram temple at the site of the demolished 16th-century Babri Masjid built by the Mogul ruler Babur. On August 5, 2020 they broke ground for the new mandir. Jai Sri Ram, now god of murder. What is real, Rushi, the forest is now deforest, home its own undoing? Trench lotuses hard as dicks release truth, even the skinks and hawks shrink back into scarcity. What of shanti—? In Ayodhya’s sacked Mogul masjid, vultures scrawl Ram on new temple bricks. Brother, from this mandir of burning, each sunrise mantra shoots itself a poisoned arrow. Each snake prays. The unlit path sparkles maya. SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Poetry Guyana Indo-Caribbean Bondage Colonialism Mahadai Das Babri Masjid Ayodhya Historicity Georgetown Pandemic Creole Guyanese-Hindi Ram Temple Oceans as Historical Sites Personal History Antiman The Taxidermist's Cut The Cowherd's Son Cutlish Histories of Migrations Code-Mixing Multilingual Poetry Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 31st Oct 2020 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

· FICTION & POETRY One-Act Play · Manipur Disappearing Act “Welcome! Models politicians auto drivers butchers bankers accountants actors liars cheat saints masters slaves herpes gonorrhea HIV syphilis tops bottoms bottoms who top tops who bottom preferably top miserably bottom white black pink yellow brown blue high caste low caste no caste...” Artwork contributed anonymously for SAAG. Editor’s note: The author of this play as well as the accompanying artist elected to publish this work anonymously. In the words of the author: “It is a matter of great shame for a democracy that its writers have to submit their work anonymously.” This piece was workshopped and honed over a period of six months with SAAG editors Hananah Zaheer, Neilesh Bose, Nazish Chunara, Kamil Ahsan, Aditya Desai, along with the playwright, a dramaturge, and the artist. The world has folded. A tree in Manipur now hangs upside down above the bed in KUNJA’s room in a city in India. The tree is a Panggong Tree (Butea monosperma) used in Manipur to make effigies of the dead when the body is not found. A bed is the focus of the room. Scene 1 Projection on a wall: June 5th, 2015. Rebels ambush an army convoy in Manipur killing 20 soldiers in the deadliest attack on Indian army since the Kargil war. GAURAV is tackling KUNJA who is hysterical. GAURAV Kunja, there is no one. You are high. KUNJA Hide me! Hide. GAURAV We are not in Manipur. KUNJA They’ll catch every young person they can find. This was a big attack. They will spare no one. GAURAV It’s the drugs. KUNJA I was here with you right? You’ll tell them I was here with you. Don’t let me disappear. GAURAV manages to pin KUNJA to the ground. GAURAV You are safe. KUNJA They eat our flesh. GAURAV You’re hallucinating. KUNJA Why aren’t you doing anything? GAURAV Remember— Remember what we said? GAURAV hugs KUNJA tightly. GAURAV There is no one outside. We are here, you and I. Here, where we go out holding hands and no one harms us. KUNJA stops struggling. GAURAV In this big big city, no one can find us. No one breaks house doors down. Guns don’t exist. Bombs are fire crackers. This city is a rainbow. They speak together. KUNJA Manipur is far far away. 3190 kms. 5 hours by plane. 70 hours on a train. GAURAV Manipur is far far away. 3190 kms. 5 hours by plane. 70 hours on a train. GAURAV They can’t just come here, right? KUNJA No. GAURAV In this city, there is only police. GAURAV releases KUNJA. Both sit up. GAURAV Only police. KUNJA Only police. GAURAV Cold water bath. Glucon-D. Fries. It will pass. GAURAV gets up. KUNJA (dazed) Are you with them? . . . Scene 2 GAURAV is asleep. KUNJA is sitting next to him on the bed staring at the tree above. KUNJA One day you’ll wake up and find me gone. No body, no trace. Will you look for me, Gaurav? What do y’all do when you find out that someone has disappeared? We make an effigy of the person from the branches of the Panggong tree. Will you make an effigy of me? Keep it with you? On this bed? Beat. KUNJA This bed has been my country for a long time. GAURAV doesn’t wake up. . . . Scene 3 KUNJA is painting GAURAV ’s back. There are paint bottles strewn around. GAURAV twitches every time KUNJA touches the paintbrush to his back. GAURAV It feels icky. KUNJA You want me to paint or not? GAURAV On paper. GAURAV It helps you, right? KUNJA It helps you . You like watching me paint. Mountains. Flowers. Dicks. You think I am recovering if I’m drawing mountains. GAURAV You relapse whenever you start painting flowers. KUNJA I relapse when I think you’re going to join the army. GAURAV takes a rag and starts wiping his back. KUNJA What if they find out you’re gay? GAURAV Do I look gay? KUNJA Won’t you get expelled? GAURAV I’m only gay for you! KUNJA I had a friend Faariz in Manipur. He wanted to join PREPAK. It’s a UG. GAURAV (sighs) Another terrorist story— KUNJA We call them freedom fighters. GAURAV Wrong history books. We’re already free. KUNJA He was also involved in some tax collection things for them in college. Very motivated. Then he realised he was queer. With that he knew he could never join PREPAK or any other movement in Manipur. Forget the army, if PREPAK found out they would kill him first. I remember telling him that we don’t have to join any movements that don’t have a place for us. And I am saying that to you now. GAURAV I was born to be in the army. KUNJA You think the army has a place for you? What are you going to do when other officers bring their wives and girlfriends to army parties? Take me along? GAURAV holds KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV The results will be out in a week and I’m getting in. KUNJA Don’t join the army. The army is sick. GAURAV You are sick. KUNJA What if I told you I wanted to join PREPAK? Fight the occupation. Kill soldiers. Would you still love me? GAURAV looks away. KUNJA (shouting as if he’s sloganeering at a protest) Then how do I love you if you join the army? Army rapes us. Takes our flesh! Beat. GAURAV They’re people, you know? With wives, mothers, sons, sisters. Lovers. Like you are mine. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t. I spent the night holding you down waiting for you to come back to your senses, you fucking druggie. . . . Scene 4 FAARIZ is hanging from the Panggong tree. KUNJA is making his bed. KUNJA If love keeps people together then what does ideology do? FAARIZ Can you separate the two? KUNJA What if my freedom lies in the struggle between the two? In the middle. Gaurav struggles to keep loving me. FAARIZ Occupation takes work. KUNJA That’s not how it is between us. FAARIZ Can love erase identity? KUNJA Sometimes after an orgy, we all sit around and discuss how we started slamming. I want to tell them that I was tired of identity. The first time I slammed was the first time I had sex without identity. It was the best thing in the world. FAARIZ And then you became a slammer. KUNJA But it’s an identity without history. It’s light. Has no weight. No matter who you are, where you are from, once you get inside that’s it! FAARIZ Do you become Indian after slamming? KUNJA Yes. Till I’m high I remain Indian. FAARIZ Feels good? KUNJA Feels like community. When I first came here, a boy I met on Grindr took me for a party. I was blown away the second I entered. It felt like another nation, one where I fit in. And then I started meeting people and realised this community I so terribly want to be a part of, that I feel I’m part of, doesn’t know anything about me. Where I come from, what I have lived, what I want. And they don’t want to know either. FAARIZ Ay chinki! KUNJA It’s not just about words, it's about the gaze. You know when you first look at someone how you imagine their history? You see them at their home. You see them growing up. Celebrating a festival. Eating at a restaurant. You imagine them having sex, shaving, crying. The way people look at us here, their gaze is empty. They’re not able to imagine our histories. That’s why they act the way they act. I tried to make this country my friend. I told them about my past and showed them how I eat. But I just couldn’t fill their gaze. And then I slammed, and for the first time I didn’t look into their eyes. All I could see was dick and ass and balls. And I knew that’s all they saw. Our vision was united. Years of abandonment vanished the second I injected. I found community. Something I never had. KUNJA gets up on the bed. He looks at the audience and mimes taking a slam. His eyes start to glow. A visual is projected on the wall: A very close shot of a hairy asshole opening into a universe. FAARIZ The freedom struggle ends at a slam? KUNJA Slamming is the celebration of freedom. And it's so intense, this party, that we forget we’re not actually free. FAARIZ We also take drugs to forget about the occupation for a while. KUNJA No matter what you do, the occupation finds a way to occupy you. I’d forgotten about Manipur. My bed had become my country. And then I met Gaurav. He told me the first time we met that he wanted to join the army. Later that night, when I was slammed, a soldier appeared outside the door. And then more and more. Gaurav stuck with me through all of it. Can you imagine staying up night after night trying to convince someone there is no one outside the door? FAARIZ What are you going to do if he gets posted to Manipur? KUNJA I will go visit him. FAARIZ He tortures us? Or disappears someone? KUNJA (stoically) The Supreme Court has declared that the army will be held accountable. FAARIZ Maybe as collateral damage then. In an attack. What are you going to do when he comes home after that? Beat. KUNJA Cook him a meal! Pork and bamboo shoots. Smoked. Exactly like Imaa makes it. A spicy beef salad on the side. FAARIZ He doesn’t eat those things. KUNJA I’ll make him. KUNJA starts searching for something under his bed. He messes up the bed he just made. He opens drawers and tries to empty out pockets of his clothes and trashing the room. KUNJA Why are you still here? Go home to AFSPA! FAARIZ Won’t you visit? KUNJA I don’t give a damn about that shithole. I hope they disappear the entire place. FAARIZ So many effigies you’ll have to make. Do you still do it? Make effigies? Paint on them? Give them names? KUNJA I never made an effigy of you. FAARIZ When you do, paint me with the memory of a fierce battle. Where I kill 100 Indian soldiers. Beat. KUNJA Got stuff? Just one more time. Or my veins are going to burst. . . . Scene 5 Several anxious guys enter and stand around KUNJA who takes his clothes off slowly as he speaks. In the end, he gets naked and positions himself on the edge of the bed on all fours. The men take off their clothes and slam each other. KUNJA (manic) Welcome! Everyone is welcome. Fat skinny sissy sluts down market on the market fake commercial prostitute destitute dudes studs uncles aunties boys guys hunks punks from this place that place small place no place come find a space sane sorted insane distorted models politicians auto drivers butchers bankers accountants actors liars cheat saints masters slaves herpes gonorrhea hiv syphilis tops bottoms bottoms who top tops who bottom preferably top miserably bottom white black pink yellow brown blue high caste low caste no caste hindu muslim, sikhs christians tribes even the denotified atheists monks fanatics junks english speaking and those who stopped speaking altogether 8 inch 10 inch 3 inch tight loose open close. GAURAV enters without KUNJA noticing. KUNJA From here, there, everywhere, everyone, everyone is welcome to the ocean. Come take a dip, it doesn’t matter if you can’t swim. Just get your own stuff and that will keep you afloat. Or find someone to pay for your ticket. Three thousand rupees to take so far you will forget where you are from. Bareback at your own risk. Break the needle after one use, sharing will give you things you don’t need. If you feel like you’re losing it just smoke some weed. That’s all. Now come on! The universe is begging to get fucked. KUNJA spots GAURAV. GAURAV walks to KUNJA and helps him stand on his feet. KUNJA You were supposed to be my de-addiction program. You give me time. But no energy. GAURAV picks up KUNJA ’s clothes. He makes KUNJA put them back on. GAURAV Let’s go home? Beat. KUNJA I like the sound of that. KUNJA and GAURAV walk away together. . . . Scene 6 Bottles of alcohol and half filled glasses on the floor. GAURAV and KUNJA are in bed. GAURAV is trying to penetrate KUNJA. He can’t get hard. KUNJA It’s not hard. GAURAV Blow me. KUNJA I did. GAURAV Do it again. KUNJA We don’t have to. GAURAV I need to. KUNJA Let me clean up. GAURAV Do you clean up in a slam orgy? KUNJA Can I top? GAURAV No. KUNJA You’re not getting hard. GAURAV Why can’t you blow me? KUNJA My back hurts. GAURAV My head hurts. I need to fuck. I’m begging you. KUNJA I’ll shower and I’ll make some food. We can eat. And then fuck. GAURAV You’re punishing me for getting in? KUNJA I have made peace with it. GAURAV I don’t care about your peace tonight. This is the greatest thing to happen to me and I’m not going to let you fuck this up. Even if you are unhappy, you will smile. Even if you feel like dying, you will act like you have never been more horny. You will give me the best orgasm of my life. KUNJA What should I do? GAURAV Tell me you’re afraid that I might fuck other boys in the academy. KUNJA It’s not porn. GAURAV A tall muscular guy blowing me in the night in the bathroom and drinking my cum. KUNJA I will be happy for you. GAURAV Will you also fuck while I am gone? KUNJA I don’t know. GAURAV How will I know? KUNJA What do you want me to do? GAURAV What if you fall in love with someone else? KUNJA tries to get up. GAURAV holds him down. GAURAV Will you cheat on me? KUNJA No! GAURAV What if you feel horny? KUNJA I will think about you. GAURAV What if I cheat on you? KUNJA Don’t tell me. GAURAV Don’t ask don’t tell. KUNJA Yes. GAURAV So is that your strategy? You won’t tell me? KUNJA (exhausted) Gaurav, I need to take a shit. GAURAV Shit here. Beat. KUNJA Fuck off. GAURAV I don’t care. GAURAV goes to finger KUNJA. KUNJA resists. GAURAV pulls his finger out. It has shit on it. He brings it close to KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV Smell it. KUNJA (voice cracks) I’ll hit you Gaurav. GAURAV I will make you eat your shit if you cheat on me. KUNJA I will cheat on you, you shithead. GAURAV I know. You can’t control it. It’s in your fucking DNA. Animals. . . . Scene 7 GAURAV is holding a big paintbrush in his hand. KUNJA is standing next to him. He is naked and has some paint on his arm. They are surrounded by tubs of paints. GAURAV I’m not a painter. KUNJA You are, my love. It’s amazing what you do when you paint. When my friend Faariz disappeared, I started making effigies of him with branches of the Panggong tree. I would paint those effigies in different colours imagining I was giving the effigy things to remember. Bring it to life. When other boys were playing sports outside, I would be in my room making effigies and painting. I painted a thousand effigies. I could only paint memories onto them, give them new thoughts, but I was never able to take away their pain. When you paint, you erase. It’s a gift you have. And there is so much I need to forget. Paint. GAURAV paints a stroke on KUNJA ’s other hand. GAURAV I don’t want to do this. KUNJA I give the memory of the khwairamband bazaar, running through its lanes as a kid, cruising through its alleys as a teenager eying men. GAURAV Tell me about cruising in that bazaar? KUNJA I don’t remember. Shoulder. KUNJA I give the memory of our school trip to the Kangla fort, and the one of walking through its corridors hand in hand when no one is watching with a boy I first barebacked. Back. KUNJA I give the memory of the first time I heard someone say I love you, and the memory of wanting to say the words but not being able to. Ass. KUNJA I give the memory of being beaten up by an Assam Rifles officer for breaking curfew. I give the memory of being beaten up by an AR officer for being drunk. The memory of my uncle being slapped by an officer for answering back. I give. GAURAV backs off. GAURAV I can’t do this. KUNJA Please let me. Feet. KUNJA I give the smell of Morok Mepta. GAURAV You can remember that at least. KUNJA No. KUNJA I give the sound of the Pung. I give my body memory that remembers thang-ta moves. Ankles. KUNJA I give up all that I have seen to have a new vision. Chest. KUNJA I give the trees. I will not remember their names anymore. Stomach. KUNJA The folklores, poubi lai, saroi ngaroi, the songs, I forget the lyrics to the lai haraoba ishei. Can I keep the tune? KUNJA tenses up. Beat. GAURAV Just let it go. Crotch. KUNJA I give the names of the deities. The rituals of sanamahism. GAURAV We have plenty. I’ll teach you. Thighs. KUNJA I give my father’s dreams. My mother’s voice that calls me home. GAURAV Don’t do this for me. KUNJA I am doing this for myself. GAURAV starts to paint faster. KUNJA The games we play. I give the names we call the army. GAURAV That’s good. KUNJA I give the views of the valley. The taste of our water. GAURAV Your water? KUNJA I give up. Waist. KUNJA I give up memories of driving on the highway that is still under repair after 5 years. I give up motorbike rides with friends, lovers, friends who became lovers, lovers who never became friends. GAURAV Slut. KUNJA I give up words from our language. I give up the cuss words we call Indians. GAURAV pauses, then starts to paint KUNJA faster, violently. KUNJA The dreams of freedom. I give up. KUNJA Wait—But can I keep the memory of Irom’s fast? I was a kid when she started fasting. I grew up with the fast. GAURAV Let it go. GAURAV goes to paint KUNJA ’s neck but KUNJA dodges GAURAV. KUNJA (quietly, desperately) No, please. Just that. It was a movement I felt I was a part of. I helped paint the banner for meira paibi. I was the only boy who knew about the protest. They chose me. GAURAV You can’t. KUNJA Stop. GAURAV grabs KUNJA by the neck and he paints it. KUNJA struggles to set himself free. GAURAV You have to forget. KUNJA Wait... No. GAURAV paints over KUNJA ’s neck. GAURAV Do you remember now? KUNJA Remember? GAURAV starts painting all over KUNJA. GAURAV Now forget about everything you saw while growing up. KUNJA Please— GAURAV Forget the skies. KUNJA Why? GAURAV The relationships you have to give up. KUNJA No— GAURAV The smells. KUNJA Stop. Stop . GAURAV Your history. You can’t have a history. Give up the festivals. Forget about the movies you saw. The songs you danced to. KUNJA breaks down in tears. KUNJA Why are you doing this? GAURAV You were never there. Give up the sounds. The touch you cannot remember. That disgusting food you have to give up. KUNJA I can't. GAURAV You have to now! Do you remember the birds you see there? KUNJA Nongin. Thembi marikpi. Langmeidong. GAURAV You can’t. GAURAV paints on KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV Give up the language, give up the bodies, give up the dreams. I fucking need you to give up the dreams. You cannot dream like a Manipuri anymore. You will not dream. I am taking away those mornings. From now on you must only remember the nights from here. The seasons here. You will only remember this rain. GAURAV finishes painting all of KUNJA. GAURAV stands up and takes a few steps back admiring his creation. GAURAV You are one of us now. Beat. KUNJA stands up. He looks at his hands and body. He opens his right palm which was clenched in a fist. KUNJA Wait— You forgot— KUNJA This part. GAURAV picks up the paintbrush. He dips it in black paint. He gently paints a stroke onto KUNJA ’s palm. KUNJA Thank you. GAURAV steps away. Lights dim slowly on GAURAV. Slowly, he disappears. Lights dim slowly on the bed. KUNJA turns and looks around the room. His eyes fall on the paintbrush that is lying on the floor. He picks it up. He looks up at the Panggong tree. Beat. KUNJA leaves the room. Blackout. ∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. One-Act Play Manipur Indian Army Panggong Tree Effigy Queerness Love Story People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak PREPAK Painting Addiction Sex Playwriting Drama AFSPA Assam Rifles Northeast India Meitei Peoples Sanamahism UG Groups Insurgency Resistance Meira Paibi Sister States Meitei Mizoram Assam Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 2nd Apr 2021 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

· COMMUNITY Interview · Theater Movements in Pakistani Theatre Feminist Theorist and English Professor Fawzia Afzal-Khan, in conversation with Drama Editor Neilesh Bose. Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV The work I started doing, like Sheherzade Goes West could be considered avant-garde in a certain way it did not conform to representational theatre even though I gave it a very self-ironizing subtitle—speaking out as a “Pakistani/American/wo/man, because I wanted the title itself to question certain ideas of self-representation. RECOMMENDED: A Critical State: The Role of Secular Alternative Theatre in Pakistan (Seagull Press, 2005) by Fawzia Afzal-Khan SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Interview Theater Performance Art South Asian Theater Internationalist Solidarity Parallel Theatre Movement Realism Non-Realist Plays Sufism Ajoka Theatre Women Singers of Pakistan Madeeha Gauhar Women Democratic Front Shahid Nadeem Authenticity Avant-Garde Form Native Formats Nationalism Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 24th Sep 2020 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

· THE VERTICAL Profile · Lahore To Posterity Facing a crushing electoral loss and the suffocating grip of Pakistan’s military state, the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party remains committed to Chungi—reclaiming revolutionary traditions, rebuilding popular power, and planting the seeds of a socialist alternative in the country’s most forsaken neighborhoods. Noormah Jamal I will never leave you (2022) Acrylic on linen In moments of quiet, comrade Sikander sang. The melody—a touch above a whisper—meandered softly, as if probing for an answer to an unasked question. Our faces were lit only by the faint fire we had made in the ceramic bowl, using styrofoam boxes as kindling. The heavy rains of the previous week had cleared the smog, and the Big Dipper now crept up over the water tank on the bare concrete rooftop. The phone signal was down. The internet was choked off. The military had imposed a total blackout. So we lit a fire—and we talked. We talked about Gilgit-Baltistan’s bustling border with Xinjiang. We talked about Fidel Castro , who had sent a medical brigade to Pakistan and, on a call before dawn, instructed his lead doctor on the strain of basmati to be fed to the cadres. We talked about the feudal lords’ grip on the people. We talked, and we reflected. In moments of quiet, comrade Sikander sang his soft, piercing song. News of the election trickled in with each teary-eyed arrival from the polling stations. Sixty-five votes at the City District High School. Seventy-four at the Government Boys High School. Twelve at the Qazi Grammar School. Seven at the Modern Public High School. By the end of the day, the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (HKP) gathered only 2,174 votes. The two candidates were contesting for seats in the National Assembly and the Provincial Assembly from Chungi, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Lahore. Dejection swept through the Chiragh Ghar community center, transformed in recent weeks into a bustling campaign headquarters. The night before, hopes were high and predictions were jubilant. 10,000 votes. 15,000. 30,000. On the campaign trail, where passersby met Ammar Ali Jan , the lead candidate, with song and wreath after wreath of roses, a breakthrough seemed inexorable. Now, the dim hallways and winding staircases filled with whispers of disbelief and consolation. What did we do wrong? What if our critics were right? A few of us gathered on the roof. There, by the open flame, in thickening cigarette smoke, we talked late into the night about the military state and the dizzying structures of patronage that, time and again, condemn Pakistan’s people to the deathly embrace of the past. The Poverty of Chungi Few buildings in Lahore are taller than two or three stories, so the streets and neighborhoods stretch out in all directions across the flat landscape. In Lahore’s vast Defence Housing Authority (DHA) districts, the rows of homes—or, more accurately, walled compounds, often fronted by lush tropical gardens—feel endless. The DHA is the military-run real-estate developer that operates “defense” neighborhoods across the country. Pakistan’s aspiring professional class calls them home, as does the military and political top brass. Each DHA district is bookended by armed checkpoints. How many people who live in DHA cross the stark threshold into Chungi? In this peri-urban settlement that was once a village, paved streets make way for muddied and torn-up roads. The serene, airy alleys of DHA transition to a stifling cacophony of images, smells, and sounds. Cows, goats, and stray dogs mingle with the traffic, where cars and rickshaws buzz past each other from all sides at dizzying speeds. An open canal clogged with sewage and refuse from the food markets bubbles alongside one of the neighborhood’s main roads. The water is so filthy that some seventy percent of children in Chungi suffer from dysentery. These are the material imprints of a political system in which working people have had no meaningful shot at contending power for the better part of half a century. If the Pakistani left of the 1960s had put forward ambitious proposals for pulling the country towards greater equality, by the 1980s, “the socialist alternative which once seemed imminent had become a distant memory,” the politician and intellectual Aasim Sajjad Akhtar wrote . In its place, a series of increasingly entrenched regimes adopted, he wrote, “complex and sophisticated strategies of cooptation,” removing the workers and peasants from the equations of popular power and constructing a vast “patronage machine” to take their place. Then, the Soviet Union collapsed and the left entered a long era of retreat. The Pakistani state came to reflect a complex web of competing class interests—the capitalist, the feudal, the neo-colonial—that existed in permanent contradiction. Officeholders changed often. Little changed for the Pakistani people. At the top, a powerful military bureaucratic state apparatus—an inheritance of the colonial order—operated as kingmaker. This political structure seeped into every aspect of Pakistani society, threading its way through class and ethnic divides. At the scale of their lives, the people of Chungi, too, became beholden to the same contradictions that gripped the nation: above the sewage-filled canal that runs through the district, an opulent residence houses the local kingmaker. His loyalty buys the consent of the salesmen and the elders. The salesmen will secure the consent of their markets, and the elders of their neighbors. Allegedly, ten dollars buys a vote. Here, an electoral campaign resembles a suitcase of cash. What is the strategy for building popular power in Pakistan at this juncture? “None of the mainstream parties are interested in making the working class a subject of its politics,” Ammar Ali Jan told me after the election. “None of them are willing to speak of land reforms or ending subsidies for the elites. None of them are willing to confront the IMF. None of them are willing to give genuine and consistent solidarity to oppressed nationalities against state repression.” As a student, Ali Jan went to Chungi and found it to be a microcosm of the condition of millions of people around the country. Chungi revealed the futility of mere humanitarianism—a fixed road, new water filter, or food handouts—amid the tragedy that is produced and reproduced daily by the very architecture of the state. It revealed the inability of the existing order, so mired in its class interests, to bring dignity to the deprived. The situation of the people of Chungi pointed to a singular, piercing conclusion: the need to resurrect the revolutionary socialist alternative. Chungi Stirs At the start of 2023, Ammar Ali Jan and three activists of the Haqooq-e-Khalq Movement (HKM)—as it was then known—began their daily walk through the streets of Chungi . They talked with the butchers, stationery salesmen, and tailors at the bazaar. They talked with the textile weavers in the workshops and factories. They talked with the unionists whose struggles traced back decades—memories that they would soon seek to resurrect through public commemorations of forgotten martyrs. They talked with the mothers who cleaned the houses of Lahore’s middle and upper classes in a nearby DHA neighborhood. The HKM had organized in the community for some time before it embarked on the path of party-building. Pakistan’s complex structures of power were on their minds. How do you dislodge a system that dominates all the political offices, all centers of decision-making power, all structures within the judiciary? How do you politicize a dormant student body, and bring it into dialogue with the peasantry and the country’s disenfranchised women? How do you activate the workers in a neighborhood like Chungi? But they also thought about Pakistan’s old left, which had become fragmented and defeated, much of it confined to a series of old comrades’ clubs. How do you bring vitality back into a movement that has lost it? “The revolutions in Cuba and China—these were the most important things that we kept in our mind when we were writing our manifesto,” Dr. Alia Haider, an organizer with the HKP, told me. In Cuba, as in China, mass movements brought together coalitions of peasants, intellectuals, women, workers, and youth, establishing political bases that could overturn the feudal, colonial, and imperialist structures that gripped both nations. It was there, among the most oppressed, that revolutionary energies stirred. “We had read Marx, we had read Mao, we had read Fidel,” Dr. Haider said. “But when we arrived in Chungi, we saw that people who had never heard these names knew Marx. They lived Marx.” For the people of Chungi, the contradictions of class were blinding. They were visible in the sewage flowing through their streets; in the oil that the street food vendors could only afford to change monthly; in summary, uncompensated dismissals from the factories. But, like the broader left, they remained disorganized, disempowered, and dejected. “The Pakistani working class does not exist as an independent political subject,” Ammar told me. It exists in a “state of non-being, unable to assert its interests.” Its subordination has become entrenched. The politics of patronage that have seeped into every crevice and pore of Pakistan’s governing order have denied political agency to those most affected by it. It became clear that simply being voted into office by them would be insufficient. External representation on its own cannot awaken working class subjectivity—it cannot reassert its protagonism in the movement of history. What is needed, Ammar told me, is the reconstruction “of the subjective factor of the revolution—the party—with all the patience, consistency and courage that this requires.” The revolutionary party occupies a central space in the socialist tradition. Karl Marx showed that class analysis provides the fundamental starting point in understanding political parties, whose configuration reflects the stages of development and respective power of different classes. The ability of working people to represent themselves depends on the existence of a party created in their image, and carrying their subjectivity. Without such a vehicle, the working class is forced to align politically with the subjectivity of its oppressors. It becomes divided. Its political horizon becomes truncated. The revolutionary party is necessary to contain, develop, and advance the aspirations of the working masses. Years ago, the HKM first mobilized the community to sweep the streets and clean the canals, seeking to address the sanitation crisis. In 2022 , the movement organized weekly health camps around Chungi, an initiative led by Dr. Alia. With time, the imperative to institutionalize became clear. “As we began to organize the first of our free medical camps, we saw that the devastation facing the working classes was beyond our capacity to help them as a movement,” Dr. Alia told me. “So we had to not only develop the infrastructure to support these people, but also cultivate a politics of solidarity.” By August 2023, the HKP opened the Khalq Clinic , a permanent site providing free testing, consultations, and medicines to people in Chungi. The Cuban Ambassador attended the opening, recalling Cuba’s own missions of medical internationalism to Pakistan. By the end of the year, the Party had five vocational schools with courses on English, computer literacy, and financial management. Students from universities came to volunteer in droves. At first, Dr. Alia told me, they struggled to connect the problems of others with their own. But the people of Chungi transformed them and opened in them a much more expansive vision of political possibility. “Until we know what the water in the sea is like, we could not know how to navigate the waves,” Dr. Alia said. By the time the election arrived in February 2024, the HKP had mobilized seven hundred people to work on its campaign. Among them were two seventeen-year-old alumni of the vocational schools, who now managed a complex voter registration process at HKP’s campaign headquarters. They checked the voter lists against records from the polling stations. They identified and corrected missing data in the voter lists. For each entry on the lists, they prepared a folder with three sheets of paper, two pens, a ruler, and two pieces of candy to help voters navigate the labyrinthine process on the day of the election. They checked the folders against numbered spreadsheets for each of the polling stations. Within months after the election, further breakthroughs arrived. When, early in 2024 , workers from the Chawla factory learned of planned closures—and proposed dismissals with minimal compensation—they organized. Led by factory worker and HKP member Maulana Shahbaz, they won what Ammar described as the “largest golden handshake since the 1970s.” The workers’ severance package increased from roughly eighty US dollars to as much as three thousand. In October, HKP members traveled to the lush countryside of Jhang, a city on the east bank of the Chenab River, to bring together thousands of peasants for a Kissan Conference. The farmers sang, chanted, and vowed to take on the state that has long subjugated them. All along, the HKP worked to ground its local organizing in an internationalist vision, protesting regularly in solidarity with Palestine and Lebanon as they faced a merciless bombardment by Western-backed Zionist forces, and mobilizing in friendship with Cuba, itself suffocated by economic warfare. If building the revolution means preparing the masses for the task of governance, then the HKP’s small first steps hold immense significance. Carried toward their logical conclusion, their political strategy aims at activating a powerful dormant force that holds singular capacity to resolve the dilemmas of Pakistan’s oppressed—substituting the landlords, capitalists, and compradors for the masses in the equations of political power. In this context, the campaign in the February election had achieved its goals, even if it failed to secure electoral gains. Many described the vote as a referendum on Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf—a rejection of foreign meddling and the brazen denial of even the most basic democratic rights. As a local party, the HKP was not part of the national calculus. As is their wont, the other parties that had come to Chungi on the day of the election—never opening the tinted windows of their jeeps—soon left. They will return for the next election, whenever it may come: in two years, or three, or five. But the HKP has established a permanent presence in Chungi. Its organizational capacities were magnified by the electoral campaign. Now, it is aiming to move further afield: to open branches in other cities across the country, building clinics, building schools, cleaning the water, and everywhere reasserting the idea that working people are the subject of history and not the object of their oppressors. In the days after the February election, the HKP put out a statement. It began with a passage from the poem To Posterity by the German communist Bertold Brecht. The poem says everything there is to say about the permanent task that lies ahead: To the cities I came in a time of disorder That was ruled by hunger. I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar And then I joined in their rebellion. That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Eart h. ∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Profile Lahore Haqooq-e-Khalq Party Elections Chungi Revolution Socialism Military Crackdown Community Discourse Discourses of War Storytelling News National Assembly Chiragh Ghar Campaign Ammar Ali Jan Pakistan Poverty Defence Housing Authority DHA districts Real Estate Militarism Armed Checkpoints Peri-urban settlements Village History Memory Dysentery Healthcare Inequality Aasim Sajjad Akhtar Working Class Capitalism Feudal Neo-Colonial Ethnic Division Popular Power Land Reform Subsidies Elitist Humanitarianism IMF International Monetary Fund Nationalism Repression Activism Cuba China Revolutionary Karl Marx Dehumanization Disempowerment Khalq Clinic Medical Internationalism Vocational Training Isolation Mobilization Chawla Factory Chenab River Kissan Conference Farming Farmers Agricultural Labor Solidarity Palestine Lebanon Zionism Economic Security Imran Khan Tehreek-e-Insaf Bertold Brecht Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 30th Apr 2025 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

· THE VERTICAL Dispatch · Sindh Dispatch from a Village Near Hamal Lake, Sindh, in August In the wake of the devastating effects of the monsoon season in 2022, villagers in Sindh contend with the loss of their livelihoods and the ecological disaster that’s become increasingly familiar. Sabu Khan Buriro was initially submerged, but the nearby Hamal Lake continued to overflow. Villagers, distrustful of the indifferent and lethargic Pakistani state, took it upon themselves to maintain and strengthen flood protection bunds. Photograph courtesy of Rahmat Tunio (2022). The weather in northwest Sindh remained hot and humid a month after the torrential monsoon spell that wreaked havoc in the region. Among the ceaseless deluge, the struggle to save major cities in northwest Sindh, such as Dadu, Sehwan, Johi, Mehar, and Warah, continued. In the aftermath, people themselves have taken charge of strengthening and monitoring flood protection bunds, reflecting mistrust of the state and its elected officials. As per the official statistics, which are still believed to be under-reported, rainwater and floods have impacted 33 million people, displaced nearly 10 million, and killed more than 1500. 1.5 million houses and a million livestock have also been lost, and hundreds of thousands of acres of crop fields—15% of the country’s rice crop and 40% of its cotton—have been ruined. The full picture of the destruction will only emerge once the water level recedes and surveying becomes possible. On the morning of 24th August, our village, Sabu Khan Buriro, was flooded due to intense water pressure from the overflowing Hamal Lake. The rising water soon breached the flood protection bund, and as water gushed into our village, our priority was to bring our valuables and belongings to dry patches of land. Wading through waist-deep water and in some areas chest deep water, people couldn’t take anything other than bed sheets, charpoys and some rice and wheat grains. They were forced to retreat to elevated surfaces like the flood protection bunds, which were soon packed with people and their belongings. Official rescue efforts are rare in these areas, but surprisingly, the district administration sent 5 mini trucks to evacuate the village. In a state of panic and shock as the water submerged the village, the people were evacuated and most of us ended up on the road. But this is not a story about my village alone. It’s the story of an entire region dispossessed by the floods and unprecedented rains, and the specter of poor governance, unchecked capitalism, and climate disregard that has enabled ecological collapse. Mass migration has begun. Families on the roads are forced to stay on charpoys without shelter, food is scarce, and people are struggling with basic necessities. Many people left for cities unwillingly to save their lives, but still there are hundreds who stayed back in dry areas near villages to look after their livestock or moved to safer places with the help of local boats as flood water levels increased. Thanks to the timely help of comrades from the Women Democratic Front, a Pakistan-based socialist-feminist organization, in our village, my family and I succeeded in rescuing essential goods before the village was delinked from mainland Sindh. This is the story of an entire region dispossessed by the floods and unprecedented rains, and the specter of poor governance, unchecked capitalism, and climate disregard that has enabled ecological collapse. One of the biggest challenges we are facing after rescuing our families is making contact with people who decided to stay behind. When the flooding began, the elected MPA’s family, a major feudal family in the area, instructed people to leave, but many refused in order to look after their livestock and save what little grain they could. It's impossible for 'elected' MPAs and feudal families to understand the logic of village residents. Our livestock and the rice and wheat saved from last year’s harvest are all we own. It is difficult for villagers to leave the only assets they rely upon at the mercy of the government, because we’ve learned over our lifetimes that the government isn't serious about helping people in the long term, indulging instead in corruption around flood relief goods without any long-term planning. Many of the villagers migrating have brought cattle and other livestock with them, fearing the animals would suffer from deadly ailments. Caring for the livestock and arranging for their fodder has become an additional responsibility on top of people’s own survival, but to neglect them would further threaten people’s livelihoods. The livestock and the products they offer—wool, eggs, milk, and more—are not only a source of essential nutrients, but social wealth as well. With their crops destroyed and livestock impacted, people are left with no source of earning or income for the year ahead. As villages and crop fields have turned into lakes and wetlands, cities, water sieged from all sides and acting as makeshift refugee shelters for flood-impacted people, have become a breeding ground for different diseases. Diarrhea, malaria, fever, skin diseases, and respiratory illnesses are spreading, and one of the major priorities for flood-displaced people has been the provision of medical care along with food. But in addition to physical ailments, for displaced persons, the traumatic experience of losing their homes and becoming refugees has led to psychological issues that largely go untreated and ignored. In the medical camp that we organized through the Awami Workers Party and Women Democratic Front's help, many patients, unable to sleep at night or during the day, asked about sleeping pills. This trauma has been repeating, and worsening, for those living in the floodplains of the Indus. My grandfather's brother, Hakim Ali, who is visually impaired, has spent 60 years in the fields and villages of our region. He learned to herd with his brothers in childhood and then passed that knowledge onto his sons, and now grandsons and granddaughters. He has brilliantly memorized how to navigate around the village and the grasslands around Hamal Lake, and in the mountains and fields of Kachu. He says he has never before witnessed such a long monsoon. This is the first time in his life that he has had to take refuge in a city. Signs of despair and restlessness are visible in his body language, as limited space in the city has snatched his freedom to move about in familiar open spaces. The unique experiences of each impacted person tell a tale about people's relationships with their surroundings, land, and ecology. In addition to physical ailments, for displaced persons, the traumatic experience of losing their homes and becoming refugees has led to psychological issues that largely go untreated and ignored. I first experienced displacement when I was in the 8th grade due to the floods in 2007. We lost our wooden and mud huts and were forced to take refuge in Kamber city, 30 kilometers to the east towards the Indus River. Again in 2010 floods destroyed our houses, crops, livestock, and everything on which we had established our livelihoods. My parents spent the next couple of years selling assets like crops and livestock, saving up bit by bit to slowly build a solid house for us. One summer it was a mud-made room, the next, it would be a wooden part of the house. Enduring in this way, our parents made a house out of their labor, patience, care, and most of all, love. Now, a decade later, we’ve once again lost our homes and entire livelihoods. Located along the edge of Hamal Lake in Kamber Shahdadkot District, Sindh, we and hundreds of our fellow villagers have been facing an ongoing water crisis for several years now. Due to water scarcity in the Indus River and little rainfall, Hamal Lake has been completely parched for the past couple of years. Last summer many pastoral families from our village and nearby villages who completely rely on the lake migrated nearer to the Indus for grasslands and herding. When this monsoon started, the long awaited rainfall bore happiness and hope—the hope of rebuilding the lake, of rebuilding the livelihoods entirely dependent on wetlands, of food for our livestock in the arid zones of Kachu where rain creates the possibility for grasslands to emerge. In the last couple of decades, however, rain has either become scarce or bursts forth and the dry soil is unable to soak it in, leading to floods and bringing misery and destruction in another form. The rain continued for a month. At one point it rained for 72 hours without a break. As monsoon spells came to an end in the second half of August, my family, village, and nearby villagers lost everything they had invested in the land: rice crop seeds, rice paddies, fertilizers, and their labor. People here depend on crops, livestock, and Hamal Lake’s wood and fish. In these desperate times, it’s a harsh reminder of how working people and farmers suffer doubly in an extremely unequal and unjust state and society. The government has not learned anything from the floods that have marked the second half of the twentieth century. During the floods of the 1990s, 2007, and 2010, cities had remained safe, but this time, what many are comparing to a doomsday, continuous rain has hardly left any home undamaged. Other than its capital city Karachi, every sphere of public life in Sindh has been disrupted. As village life is uprooted and completely devastated, semi-urban or urban areas aren't safe as well. Food crises have worsened, and inflation is skyrocketing as wheat flour mill owners and small shopkeepers to big dealers hike up prices to cash in on the miseries of the flood-displaced population. The rain continued for a month. At one point it rained for 72 hours without a break. As monsoon spells came to an end in the second half of August, my family, village, and nearby villagers lost everything they had invested in the land: rice crop seeds, rice paddies, fertilizers, and their labor. Climate change is intensifying the monsoon spells. When Hamal Lake dried up last year, it destroyed livestock and wildlife, the livelihoods of millions of people who depend entirely on the lake to make their ends meet. The story of Pakistan's largest lake, Lake Manchar, is no different. In recent years, it has been either completely parched or filled with contaminated water. When rain is scarce, the Indus River water is diverted to upper stream areas or dammed. But this year it’s threatening to inundate two districts in Sindh. These dual problems of drying and overfilling are directly connected to monsoon cycles becoming increasingly unpredictable in nature. According to environmental scientists, Pakistan is the sixth most vulnerable country to climate-related changes. From dried lakes to heavy monsoons, scorching heat waves and extreme winters, this is already our reality. Local, provincial, and federal governments lack preparation for climate emergencies, and their inefficiency in addressing these crises has furthered people's suffering. We can't let governments hide behind words like ‘unprecedented,’ 'natural disaster,’ or ‘punishment due to our sins.’ These are man-made disasters and a crisis of governance at the regional and international level. Economic priorities of profiteering at the cost of ecological disruption have resulted in mass miseries for the working classes. In the epoch of the Anthropocene, worsening air quality, water scarcity, extreme heatwaves and unprecedented rains are becoming a regular feature, not just devastating entire livelihoods but disrupting entire populations. Rain and floods in Sindh are not natural disasters but manifestations of inadequate infrastructure planning as well as consequences of inappropriate efforts to mold and control nature. Rivers, lakes, and natural water streams pave their own ways through the land, and disturbing their natural routes is only causing disasters. If we are to save ourselves from these devastating monster monsoons—as they are being called this year—or deadly heat waves, we need to radically rethink our relationship with nature. We collectively need to reassess our misplaced and delusional drive to alter nature according to our unbridled desires. We need to call out the elephant in the room: Capitalism. And we need to put reins on the unprecedented commodification of everything. If we do not do this and organize against this life-threatening crisis, we will be left with nothing to take protection or refuge in. Each season of the year in South Asia will bring with it a hitherto unknown face of devastation. ∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Dispatch Sindh Climate Change Floods in Pakistan Capitalism Women Democratic Front Awami Workers Party Sabu Khan Buriro Hamal Lake Livestock Crops Trauma Displacement Anthropocene Environment Sehwan Warah Dadu Environmental Disaster Disaster Capitalism Flood Protection Corruption Pakistan Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 12th Mar 2023 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

· COMMUNITY Interview · Kerala Between Form & Solidarity Poet Chandramohan S in conversation with Advisory Editor Sarah Thankam Mathews Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. "One’s privilege cataracts one’s vision. Aspects of that privilege create a form of blindness, a cataracting of one’s advantage. My modus operandi is to illuminate as many blind spots as each of us have. It is not my fault that I may be born into a privilege, but it will become my fault if I do not make myself aware of it." RECOMMENDED: Love After Babel and other poems by Chandramohan S (Daraja Press, 2020) SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Interview Kerala Language Vernacular Literature Internationalist Solidarity Dalit-Black Solidarities OV Vijayan Dalit Literature Ajay Navaria Avant-Garde Form Poetic Form Deepak Unnikrishnan Resistance Poetry Love After Babel Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 31st Aug 2020 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

Towards the end of FLUX, a key organizer with Muslims For Just Futures, Muslims for Abolitionist Futures, among others, performed a DJ set with Bhangra and urban music beats, featuring Major Lazer, Meesha Shafi & more, bringing a wide-ranging event about many intellectual and material shifts to an end. INTERACTIVE FLUX · A Celebratory Set by DJ Kiran Towards the end of FLUX, a key organizer with Muslims For Just Futures, Muslims for Abolitionist Futures, among others, performed a DJ set with Bhangra and urban music beats, featuring Major Lazer, Meesha Shafi & more, bringing a wide-ranging event about many intellectual and material shifts to an end. VOL. 1 EVENT AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the event in full on IGTV. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the event in full on IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Event Global 5th Dec 2020 Event Global Virtual Live FLUX Bhangra Music DJ Urban Desi Music Muslims For Just Futures North American Diaspora Muslim Abolitionist Futures Anti-Racism Islamophobia Major Lazer Meesha Shafi The Halluci Nation Boogey the Beat Northern Voice Jay Hun Sultaan Kisaan Bands Experimental Electronica Experimental Music Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. FLUX: An Evening in Dissent An uplifting set by DJ Kiran to dance to at the end of a weighty virtual event. Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Kshama Sawant & Nikil Saval: A panel on US left electoralism, COVID-19, recent victories, & lasting problems. Natasha Noorani's Live Performance of "Choro" Bhavik Lathia & Jaya Sundaresh: A panel on the US Left & its relationship with media in the wake of Bernie Sanders' loss. Tarfia Faizullah: Poetry Reading Rajiv Mohabir: Poetry Reading SAAG, So Far: A Panel with the Editors More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

ARTIST Nur Danya Shamun NUR DANYA SHAMUN is a Maldivian abstract artist and interior designer. She is passionate about designing to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change through assimilation and the creation of climate-responsive spaces. Her art uses mixed media and unconventional techniques such as impasto, sgraffito, and block printing. ARTIST WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE