Features

It is 7:18, and I am eating iftar

in a blue kurti(1 )over black H&M jeans,

eating a bastardized instant-cup version of

my grandmother’s favorite traditional dish,

watching the Indian version of The Office. 

I’m not even Indian! I’m Pakistani! That –

That means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of

twenty-first-century world systems theory. The entire subcontinent was mined,

and then divided, and then destabilized,

for the sake of foreign interests and white greed. 

Decolonisation is a funny thing to talk

about, because talk is all we seem to do. Why am I watching an 

Indian version of the American version of the British Office?

We have our own television networks – our own TV shows! I can cook

my mother’s recipes! And yet – 

And yet. I came all this way!

To study at an American institution, to break into

American art industries, to curry (HA) favor 

with American audiences, to hawk my culture off 

like a jangly set of keys in front of millennials with 

self-diagnosed ADHD. 

I’m doing it RIGHT NOW. I’m writing this 

“poem” about my experiences in YOUR language. 

Do you even KNOW what a poem is?

My dad can recite lines from the works of Allama Iqbal 

from memory. That’s poetry.

Sometimes I despise speaking English. Even curses don’t sound as good. 

How is motherfucker supposed to compare to 

KUTTAY KI AULAAD! (2)There is no verve! No 

joie de vivre! I can speak four languages

and two of them came from the lands of people who pillaged my ancestral home!

This instant-cup-version of daal dhokri(3) is never going to be

as good as my grandma’s. This version of the The Office

makes me cringe so hard because none of the dialogue 

translates quite right. I guess the only reason I keep watching

is because 

what else can I do?

NOTES

1. South Asian word for a shirt.
2. SON OF A DOG!
3. A typical Gujarati dish.

Zuha Tariq's poem won first prize in the Annual Humanities & Sciences Undergraduate Writing Contest. Her personal essay "The Sun is Shining, and I am in a Louis Sachar Book Again" also won first prize. Zuha is a BFA Comics Junior at SVA. She is passionate about feminism, a specific shade of purple, and the earnestness of the human experience. Find her at @underthestarlitsky on Instagram, where she spends most of her time drawing superheroes and sunsets.