An interview from The Quarantine Tapes

I had forgotten to post this when it first appeared but during the pandemic, in 2021, I did this wide-ranging conversation with Naveen Kishore for The Quarantine Tapes. One of the things we talked about was call-out cutlure and here is a brief extract from the interview:

The thing with calling-out culture is that it does not affect people who are, in any case, not wanting to respond to your critiques. For example, if you critique a patriarchal film, the makers of the patriarchal film are unlikely to be affected because they know why they’ve made it. If you critique a person for their transphobia, for instance, if they are genuinely transphobic, the chances of your critique influencing them in some way are very small. Not that anybody is not influenced or affected by other people, but the chances are small. The people who are most likely to be affected are people who do, in some sense, remain receptive to critics, want to change as much as you do in society.
So I think sometimes the way in which debates and criticism is framed is often quite hostile. And I find that when I frame my critiques, I like to just think a little bit about what is the nature of my critique and what is the other person actually like, or what impression do I have of the other person? Is this person essentially hostile to me?

I think that when we, especially in an anonymous framework, especially on the internet—and because we consume so much internet news, views, opinions—I have begun to feel a little bit like that it does have some kind of freezing impact on authentically open debate and critiques. So that is one part of my fear for sure.

Apart from that, of course, there are all other kinds. If you are in a highly patriarchal environment, as I am—in fact, India is quite a patriarchal country—there are other fears around that, too. I really do have to gather up my courage to say things, because it’s not just about how a fringe group might react. It is actually about how your neighbors will react, how your relatives might react, how your colleagues might react, whether your opinions will make them respect you less. All these things.


You can listen to the whole interview here: 

https://lithub.com/annie-zaidi-on-the-fears-of-writing-inside-a-patriarchal-and-call-out-culture/ 

Essay: White sheets and white lies

Imagine then, my perplexity when I found myself trudging from hotel to hotel, baggage in tow, and my friend refusing to check in anywhere. The rooms looked fine to me, the hotels reasonably secure. What could be the matter? At the third hotel, my friend finally explained: she refused to stay at any hotel that didn’t have white sheets.

White bed linen. White towels. White robes. Code for luxury. All five-star hotels have them, and most four-star and three-starred hotels too, since they model themselves on the five-starred ones. But oh! The quiet boredom of five-star décor! Over the years, I have also written a few stories for travel magazines, which involved staying at five-star hotels with the implicit understanding between the editors and the hotels (who were also advertisers for the magazines) that the article should subtly nudge the reader towards the joys that were on offer. For a writer like me, this is a hard ask. Part of the problem is that I don’t like to do as I’m told, but even when I am willing, there’s the additional problem of not having much to write about. Every fancy hotel is more or less like another fancy hotel. They celebrate this monotony by putting out advertising jargon that describes the experience of staying at such hotels as ‘home’.

Now, my home is nothing like a fancy hotel. For starters, my sheets aren’t white...

Read the full essay in Frontline: https://frontline.thehindu.com/other/travel/luxury-hotels-white-sheets-class-illusion/article70486103.ece

Surma eyes and how we're taught to see

Extract from a new essay on representation of Muslims (Muslim men in particular) in Hindi movies:

 
In and of itself, the Muslim-as-terrorist trope would be less damaging were it not for a quiet lie surrounding these narratives. The lie is that only Muslims are responsible for terrorism, that Muslim trauma is dangerous only because it leads to radicalisation. In real life, this falsehood is generated by politicians who have a monopoly over the terror discourse: who experiences it, who gets tainted by it, who gets off scot-free?...

In a country like India, complexity of representation is a big ask at the best of times. Most communities have been stereotyped in Hindi movies, including people from Hindi-speaking regions – the paanwala, the gun-toting gangster, the dacoit, the princeling or nawab, the jolly Sikh, and so on. In fact, most communities have not been represented at all. There are over 3,000 castes, more than 700 tribes, and each religion also has distinct sects, each with their own culture. A Bohra Muslim woman, for instances, looks nothing like an Ismaili, and a Kashmiri Muslim is different even from a Ladakhi Muslim. Their problems, like those of any film protagonist, are simultaneously unique and universal, and they deserve to be treated as such, for we cannot separate the invisibilisation of a community from their sociopolitical marginalisation.

Read the full essay in Frontline magazine: 

https://frontline.thehindu.com/arts-and-culture/cinema/bollywood-muslims-terror-tropes-islamophobia-cinema/article70432997.ece

A prize for short fiction

One of the good things that happened over the last year: my short story, ‘Zinnias in the Graveyard’, won third prize (shared with Brecht De Poortere) at the Hudson Review Short Story competition 2024-25. It took a while but the story has finally been published in the Summer 2025 issue of the Hudson Review. Here's a brief excerpt: 


The last gardener Shafiqa had hired asked for three months’ advance on his pay and disappeared. Just as well. He didn’t do much without supervision, and her every waking minute was consumed by a sick man who could barely chew or swallow without gagging. Mashing his rice and daal, putting fruit and spinach into the blender. A whole hour would pass between bringing a tray to his bed and coaxing a few spoonfuls of goop into his mouth. Scolding him for not sitting up, yanking at his wrist, prodding with increasing degrees of impatience until he uttered a soft oath and allowed her to shovel the spoon into his mouth.

She had scolded him with every spoonful. Eat! Eat! Eat a bit more, for God’s sake! Will you kill me with trying to keep you alive?

She hadn’t been able to keep him, of course. Five months of turning him this side and that side and, yet, bedsores all over his back. Between the feeding, there was the cleaning, the bandaging, the laundry. Wiping the corners of his mouth. Shaving his chin. She barely had time to bathe herself. At the end of the day, she would simply lie prostrate beside him and whisper her prayers, underlining each Arabic phrase with just one thought: Let him stay alive.

He slipped away, complaining about the lack of salt in his porridge. By the time she returned from the kitchen with the salt shaker, he was gone.

He could have asked for a bit of sugar instead, she thought later. He hadn’t tasted sugar in years. She often left out a bowl of temptation, disappearing into the garden for a bit so he could sneak a spoonful. If he asked, she was duty bound to refuse. No, the doctor said, no. Sugar is poison for you. Still, she would leave a bowl of kheer to cool on the dining table. One spoon wouldn’t kill him, but he never touched it. She always knew when her kids stole a few spoons of kheer or halwa. She’d know if the surface of the dessert bowl had been disturbed, no matter that they made clumsy attempts to level it flat again. But her husband?

He had wanted to live. But five months ago, he had begun to murmur in the dark. Enough. Enough. Enough what? she wondered. Pain? Being turned, his sores suppurating, smelling his own shit? He never said anything more than that word, enough...


You can read the fully story here:

https://hudsonreview.com/2025/08/zinnias-in-the-graveyard/

Interview in Helter Skelter magazine

From an interview in Helter Skelter magazine:

The first thing that struck me when reading The Comeback is that it feels like it takes place at a distance from where the quote unquote “action” is. I found that such an interesting choice, where we’re hearing about things from a distance, and we’re not on the stage itself. What made you want to set it at that distance? 

That’s interesting you pick up on that. It was not done consciously, but I think one of the reasons I wrote the book at all was that I felt like I was at a distance from everything. I was missing theatre. I wasn’t writing theatre anymore, I wasn’t even watching too much professional theatre. It came out of my own sense of feeling like I was missing out on something and wanting to be at the centre of things, but at the same time, being in a smaller place and recognising that being at the centre of things doesn’t necessarily mean being in a big city. Sometimes you can be in a big city and still have serious F.O.M.O. because all the cool things are happening somewhere else, you know? 

Also, a little bit consciously, I was thinking about our commitments to big cities in the arts. I think it’s unconscious and we can’t always control it, because we go where the money is, and we go where the big industries are. Writers tend to congregate around places where the publishing hub is, [actors] to where the film scene is. But at the same time, I think that we also are then controlled by the big scene. It’s a trade-off, and we trade our own sensibility. The other possibility that is traded in is of actually having control over what you want to do, setting up your own thing in your own social context. So I think it comes a little bit from there, the sense of wanting and not wanting to be in the thick of things.

Link to the full interview: https://helterskelter.in/2025/03/interview-annie-zaidi-the-comeback/

An extract from my newest novel

An extract from the first chapter of my newest novel, The Comeback. Read, and if you find yourself enjoying it, do pick up a copy.

There were five missed calls. By the time I got around to calling Asghar back, it was past midnight but he wouldn’t mind, I was certain. We often talked into the wee hours even on weekdays. He never said a word about having to be up at six in the morning and dropping the kids off at school at a quarter to eight. My own brother might say something like, some of us have real jobs, you know? Not Asghar.

I used to get drunk a few times a year and call him, raving and ranting about how I was passed over yet again, the injustice of it, and how I was sick of everyone, mostly myself. Asghar would get me through the night and into the pale dawn of a new day. Me pouring myself cheap gins, him rooting about in the fridge for a midnight snack. He didn’t get fat, no matter how many kebabs and cream rolls he ate, and his eyes never failed to crinkle when I called him a good-looking bastard with his head of curls, hazel eyes, and lanky frame. If he spent any time at all in the gym, he’d have the kind of torso that sells business suits. He could sing and I bet he could dance, too, if he took lessons. I, on the other hand, with my short legs, big nose, and square jaw, would never turn any heads. Yet, I had ended up the actor and Asghar, the bank manager.
It could so easily have been the other way around. Asghar had a better grip on literature and stagecraft. I had a better head for math. But then, I cleared high school with less than 80 per cent marks and all hopes of getting into engineering college died. Not that I especially minded. I didn’t particularly want to be an engineer, or, for that matter, a banker. Because my own father was a banker, I had signed up for a Bachelor’s in commerce but my first week on campus, I ran into Asghar and I never attended a lecture again. Asghar and his group of friends had founded an undergraduate theatre club in Baansa and I had started acting only because he picked me to play the lead in the club’s first production. That’s all I had been trying to say in the Buzz interview that set off a storm and blew all our boats off course.

For over fifteen years, I had hung about on the fringes of Bollywood. While I waited for my big break, I did whatever jobs came to hand. Plays, theatre lighting, bit parts on television, radio jingles, audiobooks. Fifteen long years of auditioning for meaty roles but, zilch. Then a film producer happened to listen to a Hindi novel that I had narrated. He didn’t just buy the adaptation rights, he insisted I play the narrator’s role in the film. This character was supposed to be an unattractive guy, fortyish, and with a mean streak, and the producer thought that I looked and sounded the part. The film was shot on a low budget. I was paid peanuts but the day I was invited to see the rough cut, I knew, from now on, things were going to be different for me. And they were.

The week the film released in theatres, Buzz called about doing a profile. Now, a profile is already different from merely being interviewed. First, the magazine sent a photographer who shot my face with some love, bringing light to its creases, gouging the hollows under my eyes even deeper. There I sat, holding a book under a lamp, cast into shadows that made me look like a man of obscure and dangerous origins. There I was again, leaning against a balcony railing in a rumpled night suit. Unwashed, unbrushed, almost sexy.

Then a journalist came over to interview me. She insisted on visiting me at home because, she said, she was looking for texture. So I made her a cup of tea and talked about growing up in a small town called Baansa, north of Lucknow but south of Bareilly. How I’d cut classes to meet girls, how swirls of dust rose up in the first week of June and how they filled your nostrils and throat until you felt as if you’d choke to death, and how December brought a sort of rolling fog that blinded you and made you jump at the sound of footsteps so that you started to believe in ghosts. That sort of thing.

This chapter was published here: https://scroll.in/article/1078778/by-annie-zaidi-devastated-by-betrayal-asghar-retreats-to-his-hometown-and-rediscovers-theatre

Some more reviews of Prelude to a Riot

Was very pleasantly surprised to find some new(er?) reviews of my novel Prelude to a Riot. 

One in Countercurrents says: 'Zaidi’s withholding of subterranean dark forces which “it” can unleash with lightning speed and unassailable strength is a narrative masterstroke.'

Link to review: https://countercurrents.org/2021/07/prelude-to-a-riot/

Another in Writersmelon: https://writersmelon.com/book-review-prelude-to-a-riot/

And one more in DURA (the Dundee University Review of the Arts). Glad to see it (although it is mistaken in one thing; it is not the Hindu girl but the Muslim girl, Fareeda, who is tricked/forced into eating pork). Link to review: https://dura-dundee.org.uk/2021/01/15/prelude-to-a-riot/

Link to buy: https://www.thedogearsbookshop.com/shop/books/fiction/historical-fiction/prelude-to-a-riot-hb/

Or, if you must, buy off Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prelude-Riot-Annie-Zaidi/dp/9388292812

Kedarnath Singh's 'Mukti'

Making an attempt to translate one of my favourite Hindi poets, Kedarnath Singh's 'Mukti'.


When I found no other path to liberation
I have sat down to write

I want to write 'tree'
Though I know that to write is to become tree
I want to write 'water'

'Man' 'Man' - I want to write
A child's hand
A woman's face
With all my strength
I want to hurl words at man
Though I know nothing will come of it
On a bustling street, I want to hear the explosion
Of word colliding with man

Though I know nothing comes of writing
I want to write.

-

Original poem in Hindi


मुक्ति का जब कोई रास्ता नहीं मिला
मैं लिखने बैठ गया हूँ

मैं लिखना चाहता हूँ 'पेड़'
यह जानते हुए कि लिखना पेड़ हो जाना है
मैं लिखना चाहता हूँ 'पानी'

'आदमी' 'आदमी' - मैं लिखना चाहता हूँ
एक बच्चे का हाथ
एक स्त्री का चेहरा
मैं पूरी ताकत के साथ
शब्दों को फेंकना चाहता हूँ आदमी की तरफ
यह जानते हुए कि आदमी का कुछ नहीं होगा
मैं भरी सड़क पर सुनना चाहता हूँ वह धमाका
जो शब्द और आदमी की टक्कर से पैदा होता है

यह जानते हुए कि लिखने से कुछ नहीं होगा
मैं लिखना चाहता हूँ।

- Kedarnath Singh

[Translation: Annie Zaidi]

Of love as fodder for fiction and a self-concious formal experiment

Is a novel a beautiful thing? What of a novel that is presented as an “outline” for the first draft of a novel that the narrator intends to write? Should the reader approach it as a finished aesthetic product or should it be taken for what it claims to be: a loose skein of ideas and character notes? Rahman Abbas’ On the Other Side is a tricky novel to read partly because it poses these questions even as it sidesteps genre conventions through the device of a narrator who claims to be working on a “bulky novel” based on the diaries of his deceased protagonist, the novelist-teacher Abdus-Salam.

Abdus-Salam is not necessarily a likeable or an admirable character, and the unnamed narrator does not tell us why he (or she) cares about him or his legacy. In many respects, Abdus-Salam is a fairly ordinary man. He chews a spiced-up tobacco mix and teaches at a suburban school while harbouring creative ambitions. While he has complex and conflicting thoughts about religion, in this, too, he is not very different from most people. He veers between opting in occasionally (going to the mosque once in a while, if only out of long-standing habit), to claiming that “God is everyone’s shield”, to doubting god privately even as he fears divine retribution in moments of crisis, such as illness. His amorous adventures, however, do make him an exceptional protagonist, if only because of how long the list of his paramours is, and how he uses them as fodder for fiction.

Read the full review in Frontline magazine: https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/rahman-abbas-on-the-other-side-indian-translated-fiction-experimental-writing-review/article68553415.ece

Against the Death of Dream (in Wasafiri, 40th anniversary issue, Autumn 2024)

I've written my first essay for the lastest issue of Wasafiri, themed Futurisms. Here's a very short extract from my essay, Against the Death of Dream: 

One of the most dangerous things, Pash warned, is the clock that moves on your wrist but not in your eyes. For years I wondered at this image of a stopped clock in the reader’s eye, and the way the poet juxtaposes frozen time against water frozen inside eyes. (Sabse khatarnaak vo aankh hoti hai/jo sab dekhti hui bhi jami barf hoti hai). If to dream is to have a vision for the future, then the death of dream is to accept that the present moment is all of time, and that we must lose all hope for a safer, more loving, more leisurely time. Read in this light, I would argue that the danger is not restricted only to the loss of hopeful dreams; it is just as dangerous to lose our nightmares.

In Radical Hope, philosopher-psychoanalyst Jonathan Lear writes that anxiety can be a realistic response to the world, which suggests that anxiety-induced dreams serve to alert us to individual and collective threats. If we know how to ‘read’ our nightmares, we may find that they serve as timely warnings. In my own experience, I find nightmares to be a useful aid in reconnecting with my instinctive ‘self’. Last year, I had woken up from a miserable dream...

Please read the rest of the essay in the lastest issue of Wasafiri (119, 40th anniversary issue, Autumn 2024).

Annie Zaidi

Ye na samjho matwalo

One of Ali Jawad Zaidi's Urdu ghazals, likely written soon after India won independence:

Ye na samjho matwalo! Kaun ab sataayega?
Haar maan li dukh ne, sukh to aazmaayega

Bekasi ke mele mein jo bhi gaahak aayega
Jholoyaa.n to bhar lega, khud bhi lut ke jayega

Dhoop mein naha legi jab asaadh ki dharti
Zarre-zarre mein saawan phir se kunmunaayega

Har guzarte lamhe par muhar lag chuki lekin
Laakh bhool jayega, phir bhi yaad aayega

Humne kitne afsaane likh ke chaak chaak kar daale
Waqt apna afsaana, hum ko kya sunaayega!

Baar-baar mud-mud kar yoon na dekh, deewane
Kaun raah dekhega, kaun phir bulaayega

Aankh kyun ladaate ho, dopahar ke sooraj se
Shaam ke dhundhalke mein, khud ye milne aayega

Za'm khud-parasti mein aaj ka naya insaa.n
Zindagi ki mayyat se butkada sajaayega

Fard-fard tanha hai, kul samaaj tanha hai
Main jo chup rahoon Zaidi, kaun gungunaayega?

[From the collection, Nazeem-e-dasht-e-Arzoo]

'Mohabbat karti aurat'

I took the liberty of doing an Urdu translation of Manglesh Dabral's Hindi poem 'Prem karti stree'. It didn't take much translation to be honest. The basic grammer and syntax is the same in Hindi/Urdu and Dabral's poetic idiom is rooted in the sort of everyday Hindi that is quite similar to everyday Urdu. This poem in particular had very few words that needed translation. I have only changed a few words, substituting everyday Urdu words that are also common to Hindi.

محبت  کرتی عورت دیکھتی ہے

ایک خواب  روز 

جاگنے پر سوچتی ہے کیا تھا وہ 

نکالنے بیٹھتی ہے معنی  

دکھتی ہیں اسکو عام فہم چیزیں 

کوئی ریتیلی جگہ 

لگاتار بہتا نل 

اسکا گھر بکھرا ہوا 

دیکھتی ہے کچھ ہے جو نظر نہیں آتا  

کئی بار دیکھنے کے بعد 

محبت  کرتی عورت  

یقین نہیں کرتی کسی کا 

کنگھا گرا دیتی ہے 

آئنے میں نہیں دیکھتی خود کو 

سوچتی ہے میں ایسے ہی ہوں ٹھیک 

اس کی سہیلیاں ایک ایک کر

اسے چھوڑ کر چلی جاتی ہیں 

دھوپ اسکے پاس آیے بنا نکل جاتی ہے 

   ہوا اسکے بال پریشان کیے بنا بہتی ہے 

اسکے کھاتے  بنا ہو جاتا ہے کھانا ختم 

محبت کرتی عورت 

ٹھگی جاتی ہے روز 

اسکو پتا نہیں چلتا باہر کیا ہو رہا ہے 

کون ٹھگ رہا ہے کون ہے بدکار  

پتا نہیں چلتا کہاں سے شروع ہوئی کہانی 

دنیا کو سمجھتی ہے وہ  

گود میں بیٹھا ہوا بچہ 

نکل جاتی ہے اکیلی سڑک پر 

دیکھتی ہے کتنا بڑا پھیلا شہر 

سوچتی ہے میں رہ لون گی یہیں کہیں 

- منگلیش ڈبرال  

In Roman font:

Mohabbat karti aurat dekhti hai

ek khwaab roz

Jaagne par sochti hai kya tha vo?

Nikaalne baith'ti hai maa'ni 

Dikhti hain use aam-fahm cheezain 

Koi reyteeli jagah

Lagataar behta nal

Uska ghar bikhra hua 

Dekhti hai kuch hai jo nazar nahin aata

kayi baar dekhne ke baad 

Mohabbat karti aurat

yaqeen nahin karti kisi ka 

Kangha gira deti hai

Aaine mein nahin dekhti khud ko

Sochti hai main aise hi hoon theek

Uski saheliyaan ek-ek kar

usey chhod kar chali jaati hain

Dhoop uske paas aaye bina nikal jaati hai

Hava uske baal bikhraaye bina behti hai

Uske khaaye bina ho jaata hai khana khatm

Mohabbat karti aurat

tthagi jaati hai roz

Usko pata nahin chalta baahar kya ho raha hai

kaun thag raha hai kaun hai badkaar

Pata nahin chalta kahaan se shuru hui kahaani

Duniya ko samajhti hai vo

go'd mein baitha hua bachcha

Nikal jaati hai akeli sadak par

Dekhti hai kitna bada phaila shehr

Sochti hai main reh loongi yahin kahin. 

- Manglesh Dabral 

(Urdu rendition of his Hindi poem 'Prem Karti Stree'. The original can be found here: https://www.hindwi.org/kavita/prem-karti-istri-manglesh-dabral-kavita)

An Ordinary Woman and Twelve Ordinary Men

CAN A WOMAN tell the unvarnished truth about what happened to her? This is the central question at the heart of Anand Ekarshi’s Aattam (The Play), the 2023 Malayalam film that was recently adjudged the best film at the 47th edition of the Kerala Film Critics Awards.

The film takes its structure from the iconic Twelve Angry Men (1954), a teleplay that has inspired multiple films since, including the Hindi film Ek Ruka Hua Faisla (1986). A bunch of men weigh in on what appears at first to be a matter of outright criminality, and must decide the fate of the accused.

However, what makes the creative twist in Aattam particularly successful is that it has freed the “judgement” from legal institutional frameworks and moved it into a creative workplace. The “case” in question is sexual harassment. Anjali (Zarin Shihab), the lone female member of a small drama company, has been molested and the other members must decide whether or not her alleged abuser should continue working with them.

I wrote this short essay about Aattam, Indian movies and representation of sexual harassment, especially at  the workplace. My own headline for it was: 'An Ordinary Woman and Twelve Ordinary Men'. 

Read it the rest of it here: https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/aattam-frames-woman-loneliness-sexual-harassment-9343881/lite/ 

Look out for 'Two Way Street'

Very pleased to hear that 'Two Way Street,' a short film I wrote has been named by Platform magazine as one of the shorts to look out for in 2024. Do look out for it at festivals, screenings or wherever it might be available to watch. 

Here's what they say about the film: 

As a versatile artist encompassing roles as a screenwriter, filmmaker, actor, and stage lighting designer, Asmit has made a significant mark in the film industry. His films have been featured at prestigious festivals such as MAMI, IFFLA, IDSFFK, SASFF, and many others. His recent short film, Two Way Street, garnered acclaim by winning the V Shantaram Golden Award for Direction at the South Asian Short Film Fest. Following its success as a winner at the Best of India Short Film Festival, the film qualified for the Academy Awards 2024. In this compelling narrative, an ordinary taxi ride transforms into a battleground when the Taxi Driver refuses to enter a particular lane. The passenger, in response, decides not to disembark until reaching his destination. The story unfolds as a poignant projection of the taxi driver's inherent bias against a specific community and the passenger's determination not to become a victim of discrimination.

Here's a link to the article: https://www.platform-mag.com/film/short-films-to-watch-in-2024.html

Review: Stories about being Muslim in contemporary India

My review of Tabish Khair's latest collection, Namaste Trump and Other Stories: 

The book’s structure is imaginative, if also unusual. While its contents can be described as split into two broad sections–the novella Night of Happiness, which was published as a standalone in India in 2018, and a set of short stories–it would not be wise to read the novella as distinct from the stories. In fact, it is impossible to read each story as a self-contained whole to the extent that the same characters re-appear in more than one story; the narrative appears to pick up where it had been left off, with a different story inserted in between. 

Why has the author chosen this unusual approach instead of simply writing two or three novellas, and what should we read into the placement of the pieces? To me, it appears that Khair is nudging the reader to look beyond the events of individual stories, to seek out patterns, and to pay attention to the movements of time and shifts of location that the characters undergo. Some characters are semi-rural while others are firmly urban but all are strung together on the twin threads of Phansa, a small town in Bihar, and the experience of being Muslim in contemporary India, be it as protagonist, victim or observer... The horror of violence – past, present or future – repeatedly manifests in these stories in the shape of a paranormal experience. The sympathetic narrator of Night of Happiness must contend with an invisible halwa that leads him to feel “a bony hand” clutching at his heart. 

The titular story, “Namaste Trump” reveals the banal cruelty of a cynical upper-class executive who turns out a domestic worker during the COVID-19 pandemic, an act that has spiritual consequences. “Shadow of a Story” is a proper ghost story where Khair is in his element as a writer of fiction working in academia. Its narrator is a man who takes literature seriously and is able to reconsider positions taken in the context of literary criticism, and reassess his own valourisation of a particular postcolonial aesthetic after an encounter with brute violence in Phansa. Truth appears as a frightening presence in “The Thing with Feathers.” A personal favourite, this is a story about the unravelling of a teacher, Rakesh Sir, who “did things properly, always within limits” but who loses control of his tongue, and thus inadvertently becomes dangerous. The author once again drives us to a junction of reason where the evidence provided by one’s physical senses and simple common sense collides with an intangible, unbelievable world where the rules of our world no longer hold good. 

Through these Phansa-connected stories and their chaotic or uncanny outcomes, Khair reveals to us a landscape where petty cruelty is interlaced with looming threats of violence or destitution, and also with a quiet courage that approaches madness. It is a landscape filled with memorable characters that the reader can carry into, or far beyond, the towns and villages of their own origin. 

Read the full review in Frontline magazine: https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/book-review-namaste-trump-and-other-stories-tabish-khair-confronts-experience-of-being-muslim-in-contemporary-india/article67729914.ece

Eaten by a look

In Western fairy tales, a witch is a scary woman who might ‘eat’ you, cooked or uncooked. In South Asian fairy tales and folklore, she might eat you simply through gazing at you. Worse, she might marry you and then eat you at leisure. I have been researching witches in contemporary South Asian fiction for my doctoral thesis (a work in progress) but in the meantime, I've published this blog post for the Durham University Edible Histories project. It looks at witch appetites in folklore, mainly from India. Do read if you're interested in the subject. Link below: https://staffblog.webspace.durham.ac.uk/eaten-by-a-gaze-witches-in-south-asian-folklore/

A brief meditation on selfies and resilience

Once upon a time, I was judgmental about selfies. From film stars to your third cousin, everyone was pouting, clicking, and uploading selfies on social media, and I was disapproving. A photograph taken by others captures more of the physical environment, a more uncertain expression, a likeness that you cannot fully control. Selfies, on the other hand, give their subjects too much control. The selfie-taker is intent on being seen as they see themselves rather than on capturing memories. And how much memory could a selfie possibly contain?

I bit down on my disapproval though, and read scholarly commentary on the sociocultural implications of relentless self-portraiture: what does it say about our generation? What does it say about societies where women are unsafe when they become visible, or where self-fashioning comes with a side of grievous harm? Perhaps selfies were good for something after all, if they could help us understand ourselves?

I cringe now to think of that former self—so blinkered, she didn’t even know how to look at herself squarely in the eye. How, then, did I get to a point where I have a folder full of goofy selfies and where my own self-portraiture is unapologetic?

The answer lies buried in an analogue photo album.

Read the full essay here: https://frontline.thehindu.com/society/white-space-annie-zaidi-i-click-therefore-i-breathe-the-journey-of-a-former-selfie-sceptic/article67437578.ece

A first attempt at translating prose

Shakeela Akhtar was one of the earliest women writers of Urdu fiction in the twentieth century. Born and buried in Bihar, she was obviously deeply rooted in the local landscape, local dialects and, if we are to use this story as any indication, in the texture of its social relations.

I do not claim to know the body of her work, and I am but a fledgling translator. However, I chanced upon ‘Dain’ in the course of my current research on representations of witch bodies in South Asian literature. Since it wasn’t yet available in English translation, I decided to undertake the task myself.

Shakeela Akhtar was born into a zamindar family in Ardal, near the river Son in Bihar. The river features prominently in this short story and the author was evidently well-acquainted with the vicissitudes in the lives of fishing communities in the region. While I have not read Akhtar’s own memoir, I have read Balmiki Ram’s Shakeela Akhtar Bahaisiyat Fiction-nigaar (Kitabi Duniya, Dehli, 2014). Ram was a Junior Research Fellow at Patna University when he wrote this analysis of Akhtar’s fiction, and it includes basic biographic details about the author.

Akhtar’s date of birth is uncertain. Ram’s book suggests that different scholars have mentioned the years 1912, 1914, 1919 and 1921 while 1916 has been mentioned on the website Rekhta.org. Her first story ‘Rehmat’ was published in 1939 in the journal Adab Latif, Lahore. Elsewhere, Ram mentions that her first story ‘Mothers’ was published in Adab Latif. There are disputes too over the claim that her first collection was first published by Maktaba Urdu, Lahore, when she was just eighteen. However, it is known that she was married to Dr Akhtar Urainvi in 1933 and that her literary life began soon thereafter. According to Ram, her first published book was Darpan (likely published in 1940), the second was Aankh Micholi (1948), third collection was Dain aur Doosre Afsane (1952); fourth was Aag aur Paththar (1962); the fifth book was a set of three novelettes, published as Tinke ka Sahara (1975) and the sixth was Lahu ke Mol (1978) for which she received an Urdu Akademi award. Her last book was Aakhri Salaam (1982). Shakeela Akhtar died on 10th February, 1994.

Read 'dain' in English translation here: https://www.outofprintmagazine.co.in/shakeela-akhtar_dain.html

A brief note on the translation: This story, 'Dain' was hard to translate partly because it made significant use of local dialects, spoken in the region around the river Son in Bihar. It is set in a time when zamindars or landlords were treated as local kings or rulers. The workers, agricultural or otherwise, were ‘rayyat,’ which literally means people and, in this story, is used in the sense of subjects or workers. However, in order to avoid confusion for readers in English, I have used the word tenant since it is a more accurate description of their status. In Urdu, the fisher-women address the landlord and his family as ‘maalik,’ which literally means ‘master’ and I have translated it as such. The relationship is essentially feudal but it is not that of owner and slave as ‘master’ might suggest in the western (especially American) context.

The original text had very erratic punctuation with quotation marks often missing or placed incorrectly. I have added these where required, but have stuck to the original tenses and first/third person speech as in the original.

I must profusely thank Musharraf Farooqi who was instrumental not only in my learning to read and write the Urdu script but who has also offered valuable feedback on this, my first attempt at translating Urdu prose. I must also thank Prof Abdur Rehman for helping with a sentence in Bhojpuri or Magahi that I was struggling with.

Some sad news

Terrible news. Desraj Kali is gone. Other people have written detailed obits, and friends like Shekhar have written personal accounts that show the sort of man he was, the instant acceptance, warmth and affection he offered even to strangers. I feel a bit numb and don't know where to begin. 

I have written about Kali (he referred to himself as Kali, and so I did too) in Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales. He was one of the doorways through which I encountered Punjab outside of the loud, Bollywood stereotype. And yet, paradoxically, he also inhabited and enlivened that stereotype. He was warm and generous and welcoming. When I first met him, it was through Ajay Bharadwaj whose film Kitte Mil Ve Mahi I had watched. I wanted to do a deeper dive into Sufism and the dera culture in Punjab and Ajay said there was no better guide than Kali. His family had attached itself to a dera but who himself was a writer and journalist and therefore understood the political and caste context in which faith is enacted. 

Kali introduced me to other professors and writers and traveled with me to many deras. He also insisted that I come home and introduced me to his own family, referring to his wife as 'your Bhabhi'. We met again, in Chandigarh a few times, while I was curating the Chandigarh Literature Festival. His Punjabi novel Shanti Parav had not yet been translated into English and I pestered him to get it published in the Hindi script at least, so I could read it. Eventually it was translated and published in English and he called me to say,  "There! Now you've no excuse not to read it!"

In recent years, he set up his own YouTube channel, BarqtanWebTv, where he discussed politics and culture in Punjabi. He also made appearances at various festivals and at online talks such as this one about the history of Jalandhar, where his personality and warmth are evident.  

I know one is supposed to say things like 'Go Well' and 'Rest in Peace' but I feel like saying, 'Don't go yet, Kali' even though he's already gone. Whenever he called, he asked me to come visit again, to eat the food 'your bhabhi' would cook. I always said that the taste of her cooking was still fresh on my tongue. He was unabashed in his expression of affection and sometimes when he called, he would admit that he was drunk and that he was ringing up all the people he loved. I kept saying I would visit next year, but there was always work and deadlines and new projects. I can't say how much I will miss someone like Desraj Kali. There are few people like him and the loss of his voice and his large heart will be felt by many. 

Book alert!

Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales (Aleph 2023) is just out. This is a new edition of Known Turf (2010), with a fresh Introduction chapter and a lot of footnotes that update the book's information with newer data, which lend it fresh context. 

This book of essays was nominated for the Crossword book prize in the non-fiction category when it first came out, and had a bunch of mostly good reviews when it first came out. It attempts to tell the story of our country in our times, with brief dips and detours into banditry, caste crimes, gender violence, displacement, hunger and malnourishment, faith and identity. All of these are, as I have learnt over the years, interlinked processes. I urge you to buy and read the book. 

Review links from 2010: 

"Annie Zaidi’s collection of essays, Known Turf, is arresting and unforgettable; about realities we prefer didn’t exist. Starvation deaths, female infanticide and communal intolerance step out of the anonymity of statistics to become people like us. They remind us of our defence mechanisms in the face of horror and sorrow; our efforts to stay sane and functional" - Karthika Nair in Tehelka

"Known Turf is a wonderfully engaging example of a puzzling trend in contemporary Indian writing in English. Despite the hype surrounding the novels-with-large-advances, the best writing today is happening in non-fiction." Alok Rai in Outlook

"Tragic and tender and brutal and funny." Known Turf covers a lot of turf.

"At its best, the book combines a reporter’s on-the-spot perception and a writer’s reflection and language to etch interesting, nuanced portraits of that half-mythical being in the throes of constant change: contemporary India. Known Turf is definitely worth reading, and not just for the sake of Gabbar Singh." Tabish Khair in Mint

"...anyone who has braved the railways without a confirmed reservation will get cathartic pleasure reading Zaidi’s graphic account of sitting on the corner of a seat, at a 45 degrees angle, with an RAC (Reservation against cancellation) ticket in a train to Lucknow" Alpana Chowdhury in DNA

"A book like this, written by someone who may once have been just as sheltered as they were, will resonate with Generation iPad in a way that a more world-weary account would bypass entirely." Manjula Padmanabhan in Outlook Traveller

"It’s a rare look into the lives of dacoits minus caricature.  Zaidi’s writing attempts to evoke an understanding of their reality." The Reporter and her Beat in Civil Society

"Among all the issues that Zaidi touches on, I find molestation to be the most moving. Though she puts in a lot of information on the other subjects she chooses, the whole force of her personality comes into play only when she starts speaking of molestation and eve teasing." From here

More reviews here, here, here, here, here, and here.