Hello.
Thank you for being here and for being interested.
I wanted to keep these notes as I start work on the next book because I do not want to forget how it took shape. With the first book I had such a steep learning curve that on most days I was just trying to keep my head above water. I took copious notes, screenshots, I stuck reminders above my desk (one I remember was a bit from an NYT interview where a producer talked about how Jay-Z’s oeuvre changed and I tore it out and stuck it up…) and on the walls of my study, I had a big whiteboard organising my thoughts and the different stories in the book, I had specific music I wrote to, TV shows and movies I watched that helped me along the way or unknotted a story when I least expected.
All of this is nowhere now.
I started the book in mid-2016, and then spent the next four years talking about it, and by the end I sloughed it all off. Of course the lessons remain - they are too precious, too hard-won - but that process is a blur. I’m trying to do things a bit differently this time around and I want to be able to look back on it. I like how I work. It gives me such pleasure when my mind surprises me. Plus this idea is different, its amorphous right now, and while I have a sense of the core, its still taking shape. So I’m curious about how I’ll get to the end.
I don’t expect to be posting regularly. There is no schedule. If you learn anything, I’m glad, but I’m learning as I make my way through and I don’t know how much I have to offer while I’m so close to the work. When I’m working, I’m constantly imbibing and making notes on my phone.
Expect screenshots, excerpts from anything I’m reading, links to articles, clips if I can find them, podcasts, music (I listened to this a lot when writing the Mufti Qavi chapter in the last book and it takes me right back, and whenever I’m stuck right now, I hear this … it just works, man, IDK, I’ve spent a fair amount of time driving with this on repeat. Very unlike the Swiftie that I am), and a lot of questions and considerations. I’m going to be honest about the days it all falls apart (or feels like it*) and I have a pity party and the “fuck yes” days.
For now, as I finalise my proposal and start work on the first chapter, I won’t be sharing details of the idea - sorry. I won’t be sharing who I’m interviewing or specifics of themes unless you could help me out with sources. I don’t want to scare off anyone I might want to interview, and with the first chapter especially I have had to respect people’s privacy in a way that I’ve never been asked to before. So if you’re here because you spoke to me, please know that I don’t intend to share anything from our interview(s). None of this works if I lose trust. It starts as always with a bismillah, but I also had a prayer this time for this project: if I’m supposed to work on this, if I can work honestly and well and take care of the people who speak to me, then may the path ahead open itself to me.
This book’s idea is maybe two years old. It took me a long time to work up the guts to commit to it. Guts and heartbreak. (I said I’d be honest.) Personal heartbreak, yes, but also the consuming sadness and exhaustion of being a young woman in this country, this culture, this society. On both fronts I needed the help of work-Sanam. Work-Sanam is how I make sense of it all. She is more sure, braver, she takes better care of herself, she is more comfortable with the grey areas, she trusts a gut-feel. She is who I turn to when this place does not make sense to me, when I have little else besides feelings - angry, overwhelmed, frustrated - and I’m told there is no room for those feelings. Why do I write about women and (often) the worst days of their lives? Sometimes I think its partly because we live in a place where we experience on a bone-deep level, an anxiety, a fear, a sadness. When I can root out the story, the specifics, I can say, “That feeling? It is in response to something very real, a hatred in this culture for women. You are not imagining it. Here is proof. You’re not wrong to be scared, anxious, sad or fearful. Your feeling is true, perhaps the truest thing here.” Work-Sanam is a good guide; she has showed up on days when I sat at my desk and wept because I felt lost.
I always start from a place of curiosity. I have a feeling about something that is brewing, some change I’m perceiving. Or I simply don’t know something and that irks me. I’m not reading what I want to or I feel there’s more. This book is very rooted in all of the above, more than anything I’ve worked on before. That’s scary but also generative. This one isn’t just about the sad, difficult stuff, there’s also joy. Fun. Pleasure and desire. Because how else would we survive, right?
Still here? Thank you.
I’ve just wrapped up the first leg of field reporting for the sample chapter. I’m back in Karachi and interviewing. I learned so much, it really surprised me. Not just about the case but about how I need to be nimble. I waited two years to report on this story and I thought I knew how I was going to cover it: by day 2 I had to throw it all out. On that note - if the words “abc jelly gang” mean anything to you, come find me please.
In transit, I listened to this podcast that follows Mansi Choksi’s excellent book The Newlyweds: Rearranging Marriage in Modern India.
I read Mark O’Connell’s A Thread of Violence for non-fic and Colin Walsh’s Kala for fiction (accidental Irish theme).
More from me soon.