as a result, for many years, ramadan was a month not of heightened religious reflection, but of professional crunch. i don’t regret doing those months, i don’t even feel odd about the phrase “ramadan content.” sometimes, we do what we have to in order to survive and try new things.

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Asad Chishti, visual and social editor: One thing that helps me in recent years is thinking of the month as a planet. 🌍

I try to decelerate leading up to it as a spaceship might. Just adjusting the physics of my life as best as I can.

So this year, I’ve been really good about Fajr for weeks. I’ve also been articulating that I’m shifting into Ramadan mode which means being more careful about how cluttered my attention is.

Hajar Ouahbi, editor: To be honest, for a long time I just suffered through Ramadan, because I didn’t realize that it was calling for preparation. I think for a long time I didn’t realize that Ramadan wasn’t just “not eating and drinking for a whole day,” but it was also recentering myself and taking this time as an opportunity to re-learn how to slow down. I know it sounds cliché, but I really came to understand how much religion is resistance in a fast-paced society. And I don’t consider myself much of a resistor, unfortunately… I’m always running from one thing to another, always rushing things. But Ramadan can’t be rushed. It can only be endured.

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Welcome back! This is the second of a three part reported series on khadi, a handlooming textile tradition from the Indian subcontinent. This piece (and future journalistic works) is available for free. Paid subscribers, however, fund my ability to report, document, and pay contributors for features (in addition to access to paywalled newsletters, guides, and updates).

So if you’re reading this for free, please consider becoming a paid subscriber so I can continue working as an independent journalist. I’m looking for 25 new paid subscribers to make my next story possible.

Note: you don’t have to read part 1 (“The many contradictions of the khadi suit”) to understand part 2, but it will give better context to the political history of handlooming. This piece is focused on how it’s reaching a certain American market. Subscribe below to make sure you get part 3 in your inbox when it arrives.

Khaki, cummerbund, seersucker, madras, bandana, cashmere, pajamas.

The vocabulary of Western dress is littered with loanwords and fabrics from the Indian subcontinent. In the case of madras and seersucker, the Polo Ralph Laurens and Brooks Brothers that popularized them for preps educated their customers on the history of the fabrics, even as they reshaped the connotation, social use, and related industry of the textile.

On the streets, on the grid, and on online forums, the same might be happening with khadi, the handloomed fabric with anti-colonial history.

From the stories passed down to me by my Pakistani family, khadi (also called khaddar) in that country had connotations of being a cotton fabric that’s rough, handmade, and indigenously Asian. While I knew that modern women’s designers in India and Pakistan had taken handloomed clothing to incredible creative heights, I still imagined starchy kurtas, beige shawls, and billowy shalwars for men’s clothing. Even if khadi had been updated in the Indian subcontinent, I did not have easy access to it until the last few years, when American designers began working with Indian weavers.

Like its American cousin denim, khaddar has historically been used by politicians and activists alike to project working-class bonafides and hardy self-sufficiency. And just like American denim met Japanese craft in the raw selvedge movement, the American khadi movement is allowing both sides to dig deeper into a wide variety of indigenous hand-crafts and creative design space.

This summer, I walked three blocks through Manhattan and visited nearly half a dozen men’s clothing stores offering khadi fabrics or Indian handcrafts, including 3Sixteen, 18 East, and Kartik Research. My stated reason was to see if any of them had made a Western, tailored suit of khadi, like I had seen from The Post-Romantic Company (in short, not really), but I saw how a burgeoning movement has taken khadi beyond its anti-colonial connotations into an intriguing space known only to a small niche.

Other brands that utilize handlooming include 11:11, Story mfg, Kardo and more.

“I wouldn’t call (khadi) a trendy fabric, but there’s more awareness of it and there’s more use of it today than there was 20 years ago,” said Derek “@dieworkwear” Guy, the internet’s most well-known writer on men’s fashion. In his view (as well as mine and many others I spoke to), 18 East was the brand that had introduced many “menswear guys” to khadi. The fabric is spun by hand into yarns, loomed by hand into fabric, and then often stitched by hand as well. It’s a breathable, textural and deeply human fabric.

“I think it’s a beautiful tradition the way Harris tweed is a beautiful tradition,” said Guy of khadi’s expansion to new audiences. “The story is beautiful and the money should go to the people who have a connection to that story. That to me is the important part; that you’re then creating jobs for (those) people...”

Die, Workwear! had been the blog that introduce me to Post-Romantic Co.’s work, but even said he was unaware that khadi was made in Pakistan as well as India. As with any new product, educating customers is key. Most Asian countries are associated with outsourcing, cost-cutting, and low quality in the fashion industry, but Guy and many of the makers in this space push back on that notion.

“For a long time, India was not considered a place of particularly quality tailoring,” said Guy. He told me an anecdote about how some top British tailors were able to travel to India and work with tailors there to make suits that were up to snuff with what had been perfected in London. This echoed what I learned talking to Post-Romantic Co.; the tailors in Pakistan have decades of skill and inherited knowledge, but need training to make clothes suitable for a Western audience.

“Make no mistake, they’re doing it because London wages are too high, but it is possible to make high quality clothes in this region,” said Guy.

A decade ago, that neighborhood between SoHo and Chinatown was full of stores touting U.S. or European-made heritage clothing. Some of them remain, but after the pandemic, the clothing industry found itself in a completely destabilized supply chain and Asian factories stepped in to bridge the gap. Broadly speaking, after 2020, many more Indian and American partnerships emerged to produce menswear.

Some, like 3Sixteen, began integrating Indian work into their lines. Founded in 2004 by Andrew Chen and Johan Lam, the brand has, in my view, been long associated with American manufacturing and Japanese denim. But then I saw their Loop Collar shirt deeply on sale and learned it was made in India. I picked it up - it evoked block printing without feeling like a costume.

On their blog, describing the process of making a different block-printed shirt, they credit the “immense skill” of the artisans.

“When conceptualizing this shirt, we weren’t even sure if our factory would be willing to attempt a process this labor-intensive - but like so many previous occasions for us, they stepped up to the plate and exceeded every expectation. We are incredibly proud of this shirt as it incorporates both our artistic influences, which shine through in many of the garments we produce, along with our newfound potential for handmade artisanship through our partner factory in India. Our relationship with this factory has been pivotal to our growth these past few years, as it has allowed us to embark on ideas that weren’t possible with our production capacities at the time. From meticulous block printing, to hand screening, to intricate dyeing techniques and hand-loomed textiles, this partnership has opened up a new realm of production techniques which has in turn broadened our horizons.

From 3Sixteen’s blog on the Studio Floral Vacation Shirt

Indian factories do provide companies with lower costs, but it has become clear that it also provides new opportunities. Specifically, it’s introducing American customers to hand-made pieces at a competitive price. Including myself.

Sitting on the couch at the brand’s design studio in Chinatown, Antonio Ciongoli, founder and director of 18 East was telling me about his first trip to see Indian textile work with Stòffa designer, Agyesh Madan.

“I was just kind of shocked by what was possible to do by hand,” said Ciongoli. Online and in person, Ciongoli has strong opinions on fashion and his work, but still shares much of the credit with the Indian partners who have helped make 18 East a success since he launched it in 2018. Previously, Ciongoli headed up Eidos, a sub-brand of Isaia, and was focused on Neopolitan tailoring style.

“I’m not interested in fighting with Italians anymore,” he said, laughing. As many of the Indian factories are just beginning to engage with the Western market, they are, according to Ciongoli, more rapidly able to adapt to new ideas than the Italians he once worked with. For the Indian makers, there’s no sacrilege in experimenting with Gandhi’s fabric and selling it for a premium.

“When we started working with our primary manufacturer in Jaipur, they had only really made kurtas and woven shirts and lightweight dresses,” Ciongoli said. It wasn’t a question of their capability or openness, but of their access. Even though the brand always champions khadi, 18 East introduced items that aren’t handloomed, made in the same factory. “Now they’re making 3L shells, Goretex… The technical outerwear that we’re making is in the same facility.”

“We’re holding hands both ways and everybody’s making an effort.”

Ciongoli is a fabric junkie, so we walk through all the possibilities of khadi as a fabric. Essentially, he tells me, anything cotton can do, khadi can do.

“Ripstop can be khadi,” he said, referring to the tough, hatched fabric often made of nylon. So can corduroy, denim twills, and more complex patterns like the one seen below; the brand has a collection of “knitwear” that feature no knitting at all. They’re loomed by homeweavers who specialize in khaddar blankets; as sweaters, they give the effect of an Aran sweater.

Without having direct access to a loom or weaver, this didn’t make sense to me, no matter how many times Ciongoli or Moeen Lashari of Post-Romantic Co. explained it to me. I started thinking of it like a floppy disk you’d insert into the loom that would load a program that allowed the person to simply run the loom by hand and foot and produce a complex pattern. It might require some experimentation and testing before it turns out right.

Handlooming, as I’ve previously discussed, provides many interesting properties when applied to cotton — it’s more loosely woven, irregular, and dense.1 In a word, it breathes. But there can be challenges trying to emulate fabrics that are by definition machine loomed. Canvas pants, known well via the duck canvas double knee pants sold by Carhartt, is something 18 East has paid tribute to in a few seasons. In an earlier iteration, Ciongoli and his team found that their khadi canvas fabric was prone to snagging and pulling given the loose nature of the weave.

“You want the look of something, but you also want it to perform,” said Ciongoli. “I would love to use all handlooms but sometimes it doesn’t work.” In those cases, they may use handspun yarn that is then power-loomed. This is the technical, iterative aspect they’re collaborating on with their team in India as they grow. He showed me the current iteration of the canvas pants, which he hopes will solve some of the issues.

18 East releases their items in drops; the written copy for each of their products demonstrates a myriad heritage influences from East and West: dabu mud-dye and Vermont wool, kantha stitch and PNW hiking jackets, raw Indian denim and Western dress shirts with kurta pockets.

It’s East Coast hiker in the Himalayas, skater punk in the streets of New Delhi, and yes, Indian colonial attire in the streets of Manhattan. Cultural appropriation might come to mind, but it’s perhaps more accurately an intercultural alchemy. In dialogue with multiple design traditions, new ways of wearing clothes emerged for me, someone for whom khadi has had deep meaning. Even knowing the history, it doesn’t necessarily read as Indian clothing when I wear brands like 3Sixteen, Post Romantic Co., 18 East, or some of the others I’ve eyed.

The Western designers acknowledge khadi’s important political history and try to educate their customers where possible; but also, they say, it’s simply a fascinating and challenging garment to work with.

Prasan Shah’s family has been witness to Indian fabrics influence on the West for nearly 50 years, importing Madras fabric and woven goods directly from Chennai (formerly the city of Madras) to New York. In 2020, the youngest Shah put his mark on the company and introduced an in-house brand, Original Madras Trading Company. Unlike what his father and grandfather provided for the Western market in their white-labelled goods, this line was exclusively handloomed.

“Madras was traditionally handwoven in this old wooden, pit loom,” said Shah. “All of the madras you see today with big brands is, more likely than not, not even made in Madras anymore. If it is, it’s machine-loomed madras.” This is despite the fact that the original tradition of madras was hand-loomed, bled copious natural dye, and was sourced from Chennai/Madras.

In addition to reviving handlooming in madras production, Shah also talks about the importance of “design intervention.” The talent of the hand-weavers in India guides their collections.

“It’s the role design plays in keeping a craft alive,” said Shah. “That is something that is important to us and we don’t take lightly.” This means, while they do offer traditionally preppy madras shirts, they’ve experimented with patchwork striped shirts, reversibles, and thick overshirts with what to the eye looks like multiple overlapping weaves.

Even as khadi is unfamiliar to many, its influence has seeped into the streets.

“There’s something very satisfying seeing people in Brooklyn and Silver Lake looking like clerks in 1970 Mumbai,” said Rajiv Menon, director of Los Angeles art gallery Rajiv Menon Contemporary (Menon is a friend who has rocketed to success featuring contemporary South Asian art since his gallery opened in 2023). Last year, he told me he’s increasingly featuring textile crafts for display and he makes an intentional effort in all of his press events to wear South Asian textiles and designers.

“(Khaddar) flies in the face of what we value in textiles,” he said. Things that industrialization introduced: color-fast dyes, smooth textures, and tight stitching. Some now crave imperfections after all the edge has been shorn off. Menon calls Khadi “inherently subversive” in a Western context.

Browse conversations about these items and you might find new customers complaining about inconsistencies in patterns, color, or stitching. The reply? That’s what happens when things are done naturally and by hand. That’s the whole point.

When Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as the new Mayor of New York City, his attire mostly evoked urban formal politics — black overcoat, black suit, black tie, armor against the metropolitan cold dyed monochrome in mayoral masculinity. But his black tie featured floral gold silk handwork from India — it was custom-made by Kartik Research. South Asian aesthetics have had a long history in New York, but now, it’s an in-the-know, subcultural symbol of the creative class, which Mamdani looks poised to continue cultivating.

Khadi is just one of the many techniques Indian craftspeople have brought to the market. Colorful hand-embroidered kantha stitches, mud dyes, and and block printing clearly evoke India for customers. In many regards, khadi is the least flashy and the least obvious of these traditions, but perhaps also the most fundamental. Some brands, like Kartik Research, use khadi as a canvas on which to express many eclectic techniques in a single garment.

There’s a range of ways one can wear khadi and as a result, there’s a range of customers. I found this out the old fashioned way: on a niche, subcultural forum.

“at heart khadi just amps me up when i encounter, it’s a fabric with an energy. -drape, topology/texture…” said Styleforum user sartoria vacua to me in a text. Vacua is 57-years old and a kind of free-jazz, artist improviser-type, which you can tell from their texting style. “I’ve moved away from kit that can’t escape the luxury game, to fabrics that are more honest to the modest way I want to present in the universe… i’ll take less electricity around my life as i can get.”

Speaking casually to khadi customers of all sorts, I asked them about what they knew of the manufacturing and the history. Sometimes as we talked, it became clear we might not know for sure if something was khadi simply by touching it. Sometimes, I had to clarify to the sources that just because something has handmade elements does not mean it’s khadi. Mamdani’s silk tie with embroidery by Kartik? It certainly has hand stitching, but if it wasn’t both spun and loomed by hand, it’s wouldn’t be khadi (K.R., let me know!).

One other customer I spoke to was the musician Amir el Khalifa Mohamed, also known as Oddissee. The MC and rapper has previously been sponsored by brands like Carhartt WIP for his interest in heritage workwear. How does it feel to wear khadi for someone who professionally gets paid to wear clothes?

“To quote Larry June: I feel so organic,” said Oddisee. “I feel the most effortlessly comfortable and functional when I wear those pieces.…. all within (one) fabric.” I asked if Sudan had any tradition of handlooming. He confirmed, telling me stories of going to the market to get Eid jalabiyas that are all done by hand.

It opened up the question: if khadi is defined by handspun and handloomed fabrics, could other countries that have different styles of spinning and looming by hand call their clothes khadi?

Derek Guy, for one, doesn’t think so.

“I think of khadi like the way I think of champagne — it’s not champagne unless its from Champagne, France,” said Guy. In India, at least, there is a certification system for khadi, though from my research it’s unclear how reputable that is. “You have collectives in the US making completely handmade fabric and it’s beautiful. I would not call it khadi.”

Given its lo-fi, small-batch, inherently indigenous nature, khadi may never be found in big box stores. But also, don’t be surprised if J.Crew one day does a collaboration or drop of hand-loomed pieces in hopes of capturing some of this momentum.

There is one place where I can see it making an impact. In the niche of classic menswear suiting, a khadi suit is a slam-dunk. Cotton has always been an interesting suiting fabric, but it can be stiff. Khadi could solve that. But the khadi suit needs champions. For now, that may just be me.

For part 3, we’ll return to Pakistani khadi, which was overall unknown to any of the consumers or producers I spoke to here. I’ll be reviewing an innovative oddity: a hand-loomed suit made by Post-Romantic Company. It’ll be a bit of a personal essay that gets at the root of Rad Brown Dads with my own Abu.

we’re still reaching for our january goal of 25 new paid subscribers. consider turning your free membership into a paid subscription to help me reach our goal and fund my eclectic, independent journalistic essays. i’m very grateful to those of you who did subscribe last month

i. practicing sobriety

practicing and retired journalists will tell you they receive some truly absurd pr emails. dabbling in food writing, i get the latest news about weekend menu specials, new cookbooks, restaurant openings, and of course, product launches.

i rarely write articles inspired by pr emails. i barely read any of them and increasingly i block them when they’re especially irrelevant. but for some reason, i intentionally respond to pitches about wine, beer, or other alcohol products. i usually write “i don’t drink and no longer cover local food, so please take me off your mailing list.”

internally, i’m screaming something like “i’m muslim and cover culture, so why is my name on your list?” but suggesting muslims don’t drink is an inaccurate and ahistorical and i don’t want to replicate such simplistic renderings. it would be heavy handed to say “i dont drink due to my religious and cultural beliefs, so please take me off of your list.”

today, for whatever reason, i tried a new line and it felt good: “i practice sobriety,” rather than “i don’t drink.”

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Everyone is a gamer.

Listen close to the twinkling, curious sounds of Wordscapes on your parents’ phone. Ask your aunt about how long she’s been playing Candy Crush. Or check how often your friends post their Wordle or Duolingo streak. Our lives have been irrevocably gamified.

But what makes someone a competitive gamer? I spent many teenage hours playing Super Smash Brothers Melee or Street Fighter, jockeying for the title of the best in a room of friends, family, and even strangers. Those moments in arcades and basements were formative for me, full of joy, annoyance, and determination. But while many of my friends stopped, I’ve been entering, spectating, or practicing to play fighting games at tournaments consistently since I was 14 years old.

Competition can be uncomfortable depending on how it manifests, but for me, it’s an important form of communication. I learn deeper insights about a person’s psychology. Last year, I joined my family’s New York Times Connections and Mini-crossword chat. For now, I still hold the family record of 9 seconds on the Mini, but I know my cousin Maha is hungry to defeat me while others think that I’m cheating by doing it on a keyboard. Other family members are absolute monsters in games like Urdle or Worlde and there, I am hopelessly outclassed.

The essence of competitive gaming is all around, if you look for it.

In my own main competitive game of Project+1, I still have a lot of growing to do. I’ve never been a top competitor. My mentality is mostly about self-improvement; it’s not about beating the other person as much as it is about performing at the highest possible level with the least possible effort. I did get ranked 13th in the state of Illinois earlier this year. I’m pleased with many of my accomplishments, but I resist the practice needed to improve as others have. I balance my ambitions there with others, including writing.

I have a romantic view of competitive fighting games, where two individuals meet on the field of battle and through gameplay, telling their narrative to an opponent and the gathered crowd. But beyond competition, there’s another story I’ve witnessed: of grassroots organizing and strategizing to avoid the attention of Nintendo, a rare video game company that has had no qualms aggressively using copyright law to threaten action against their own fans.

Earlier this month, I was standing outside the ballroom of the Waltham Westin Hotel in Massachusetts for a Smash Brothers tournament called Blacklisted 9. I had pulled aside Malachi “RBD Malachi” Covington, a friend whose player psychology has been an object of deep interest for me over the years.

In 2019, Malachi was ranked #1 in the world. Now working as a property manager from Harlem, he has been retired from competition for a few years, but decided to return for Blacklisted. We had both came to compete, but also to witness the final entry in a tournament series that defined a scene.

During our interview, Jonas “Yuko” Harrison interrupted with a shout and a light tap on the shoulder.

“Oh no,” Malachi said, just quietly enough so only I could hear. He had beaten Yuko solidly the day before, but disqualified himself afterwards due to an onset of hand pain induced by years of competing.

“Bro, I’m pissed!” yelled Yuko, clad in an impossibly fresh pair of bright-red overalls emblazoned with Super Mario. “We could’ve had the Black Meta Knight ditto!” gesturing from Malachi to Jabriil “Krumpberry” Abdulkadir Ibrahim. Read: we know you’d probably beat me, so if you were going to quit after, you should’ve let me keep playing! It’s not the first time an interaction like this has happened between the aloof New Yorker and the energetic Detroiter.

When Yuko realized he had interrupted us, he apologized. But I told him: keep going, this is what it’s all about.

Competitive gaming thrives on rivalry, on passion, and on trash talk. And yet, it also builds bonds and understanding that extend beyond the game.

Fighting games like Smash Brothers and Street Fighter still utilize the in-person, head-to-head format that first began in 90s arcades. In many major cities, tournaments are held at bars and LAN cafes weekly for all sorts of games — the Blacklisted series arose out of a weekly tournament called Smashing Grounds, which my first cousin, Nyle “RBD The NZA” Usmani co-founded.2

When the first Blacklisted was held in 2015, it was an innovative idea — to host a national-level tournament exclusively for Project M, a fan modification of Super Smash Brothers Brawl. The NZA was one of the lead organizers for the first Blacklisted and I was in charge of organizing livestreamed commentary.

“It’s a miracle that any tournament ever happens,” said The NZA. “I would say organizing tournaments for video games, especially these types of games that aren’t money makers, it’s completely out of the love of the game.”

Still, Project M deserved better.

Project M began development in 2010 and the first full release, 3.02, released in 2014. Developed entirely for free, a group of programmers, designers, artists, and more modified the game to play faster and more like Super Smash Brothers Melee on the Gamecube. The competitive scene of the modification continues to host more tournaments with more entrants than the original game, Brawl, and has cemented itself as arguably the most popular console mod of all time with millions of downloads and hundreds of tournaments.

Typically, when gamers organize tournaments or develop fan projects, publishers and developers offer some level of support or tolerance. That never came for Project M, unlike other mods such as Counter-Strike, which went on to become one of the most important esports of all time.

In 2014, The NZA and I (“Apollo Ali”) travelled to Apex 2014, the first major tournament for 3.02. It had nearly 400 entrants, beating every other official Nintendo release besides Smash Brothers Melee.

“[Project M] was built by the fans,” said The NZA. “It was essentially part of that DIY, remix culture of people who are fans of video games….building new games and new mechanics out of existing games” In that same vein, he was inspired to build a community locally, where he suspected there was a huge appetite for even more Smash.

In February of 2014, The NZA and his co-founders hosted the first Smashing Grounds weekly tournament. Within four months, there were over 100 entrants stuffed every Thursday into Game Underground, a small video gaming store in Framingham. Now, it’s hard to remember how absurdly popular this was. Tournaments would sometimes go long after midnight. Thousands of people sometimes watched our livestream on Twitch.

“Everybody was a dreamer [at Smashing Grounds],” said The NZA. People from all over New England drove sometimes an hour or more to compete. “(My job at the time) was a boring hellscape. I needed to find something to make my heart beat.”

The momentum felt tangible. It seemed possible that esports, Twitch viewership, and the expanding tournament circuit could build a real institution.

Despite this massive success, Project M was slowly, mysteriously being blacklisted, often without explanation, from influential events like Apex and Xanadu Weekly. They’d continue to hold tournaments for official games, but would drop or stop streaming Project M.

At the time, The NZA was an active poster on the online forum Smashboards and summarized the situation in an announcement post for Blacklisted.

“Many sponsors were under pressure from legal realities and a changing landscape guided by Nintendo’s example. One by one, they pushed for Project M to be peeled apart from this vibrant community.”

In that light, when their peers didn’t step in to help an embattled community, Project M tournament organizing came into its own . Blacklisted was likely the first Project M exclusive major tournament, but there were more. Over the years, many organizers picked up the torch, hosting tournaments like The Balcony in SoCal or the invitational, Project M Theater.

“We need to construct our own thing that can stand on its own,” The NZA remembers thinking. “As long as we’re reliant on others, corporate interests are going to ice us out. They’re going to scatter us into the shadows and we’re going to just die.”

In December 2015, the community faced another setback when the Project M Development Team announced it was ceasing development, for what has widely been speculated to be fear of legal reprisal. Eventually, a community-driven patch named “Project+” started releasing and continues providing updates to the base Project M experience.

The community did not die, even as the broader fighting game community treated it as an inconvenience or moved to protect themselves from corporate reprisal.

In 2021, Paul “Motobug” Canavan was working as a tournament organizer for Riptide, a Super Smash Brothers tournament held at the Kalahari Resort & Convention Center in Sandusky, Ohio. Riptide was going to have 384 entrants competing in Project+. That would’ve made it one of the top 5 biggest tournaments in the history of the game, nearly ten years after the mod’s release.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be.

“Two weeks beforehand, right before my birthday, a Nintendo email came,” said Motobug.

It was a cease & desist notice, specifically against Moto’s event, rather than the tournament as a whole.

Riptide’s official Twitter account announced they were contacted by a Nintendo of America rep and had to cancel the Project+ tournament and could not provide the game for players to casually enjoy at the venue.

The community had pieced together why they had been targeted. Nintendo didn’t want a modification to be played next to an official game like Melee or Ultimate. Motobug and others ended up hosting a “shadow” tournament during Riptide, called Undertow, close enough that people could still attend both events while hopefully.

This year, Motobug announced that, after hosting Blacklisted since 2018, the 9th edition would be the final event in the series and Moto’s retirement from the work of organizing. The reasons were complex, but at least one factor was how often tournaments would have to face complications from their conflict with Nintendo.

“Obviously, having a community under attack all the time, even if it’s not constant, it’s a little stressful,” said Motobug.

Blacklisted 9 was also technically a “shadow major,” held in parallel to Sunset Melee’s official event. Motobug speculated that the community invented the term “shadow major,” since the Project M community is likely the largest gaming community that must actively hide their tournaments from the developer.

Blacklisted Forever

In the back of the hotel ballroom, competitors sat with Gamecube controllers in front of pairs of chunky, cathode ray tube televisions. In the front, there were two elevated stage areas, where a featured duo of players competed in front of a crowd and to a livestreamed audience. Things have come far from the Blacklisted 1, which was run out of a hot and crowded videogame store in Natick Mall.

Towards the end of the tournament, Motobug took the microphone to speak to the gathered tournament crowd.

“You guys aren’t just my friends,” Motobug said. “You’re a family to me.” Tears welled in their eyes as the crowd cheered “Moto! Moto!”

Motobug, in a real sense, grew up in the scene, attending Massachusetts tournaments at the age of 14. Their background in a school band gave an early understanding of disciplined practice. They approached Smash the same way, through repetition and routine. Over time, Moto continued to grow as a player, earning multiple top-50 rankings. Eventually, they joined the development team for Project+. As their skills improved, that structure carried back into music, creating a feedback loop between the two disciplines. What began as practice and process gradually became something more personal.

“You get to express yourself,” said Moto. “It’s my own form of art.”

Leo “Comb” Curran also grew up in the scene. In 2015, he was twenty and had been regularly attending local events in Massachusetts. Blacklisted 1 was his first national level event.

“I was too shy to talk to these strangers even though we’re all here to play the same game,” he said, reminiscing about the first Blacklisted.

At the time, Comb was not known as a top competitor. In 2024, he was ranked 13th in the world.

“As much as it was intimidating, it really was kind of beautiful,” Comb said. “There’s really nothing like that feeling walking into that venue on day 1, seeing all the talent and knowing some crazy results are about to happen.”

He’s no longer the shy player; on stage at Blacklisted 9, he’d turn to the crowd and make gestures or yell back at his fans. At BL9, he ended up being the highest placing player to come from the scene that The NZA and Smashing Grounds started, placing 2nd.

“This game has always been about expressing myself and you’ve gotta be your own biggest fan,” Comb said. “When I was sitting down for Grand Finals of Blacklisted 9, my entire motivation was self fulfillment.

“At the end of the day, I was only playing for me.”

For Malachi, Blacklisted was an East Coast tradition.

“I consider Blacklisted to be my tournament,” he said. He’s travelled to Massachusetts for every single one since the second in 2016 and has won three, the most of any player.

I’ve played Malachi many times over the years and his complete precision and decision-making is terrifyingly cold and punishing. I wondered why he retired from competing when I still had the fire.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really been a competitor,” Malachi said. “I happened to be good at a game and liked getting better.” And when his hands prevented him from playing and attending tournaments became a struggle, he removed competitive gaming from his life. But the impact it made on his life stays.

“I haven’t been to a tournament in two, three years, and it made me kind of sad,” Malachi said to me. Most of his closest friends, he said, are people he met through Smash Bros in New York and New Jersey. That’s his community. But the relationships he built with people from Michigan, California, Boston, and everywhere in between feel more fragile, tied to the game itself, and to the events that brought them together. With his hand pain, his retirement, and with Blacklisted coming to an end, he knows some of those connections could quietly fade.

“We’re here for a game,” he said, “but I’ve grown to know these people through this tournament.”

After the tournament, I called up The NZA for this story and we reminisced about old times and the community he had helped build. He joked that the winner of Blacklisted, Rap Monster, was likely in elementary school when we started out. To his surprise, several old faces showed up for BL9, even if they had long since retired from competition.

“Looking at those pictures, it felt to me like everyone was coming back to sign their name on the credits of a movie that had been in production in 10 years,” said The NZA. “Everyone was in solidarity together but also identifying their place in the annals of history of this thing.”

———

One year ago, I wrote an essay about the Marvel vs. Capcom 2 tournament at Frosty Faustings, a Chicago-area tournament. That too, was a story of resilience. This year, I again plan to attend the tournament and enter MVC2, but there isn’t a Project+ event.

Why have I continued to enter these tournaments as my peers lose interest? Perhaps it’s because I’ve never achieved my goals. Perhaps it’s because of the community. But most of all, it’s the language of competition and what I learn about myself and others from the act of play.

Perhaps forever, we will be blacklisted. But we still fight for our name.

More about Rad Brown Dads here. Click here for more images by Joey Hogan from the tournament.

I’m proud to debut the first of a three part reported series on khadi, a natural fabric with roots in the Indian subcontinent. This piece, as well as most future journalistic works, is available for free. Paid subscribers, however, fund my ability to report, document, and pay contributors for features (in addition to access to paywalled newsletters, guides, and updates). So if you’re reading this for free, please consider becoming a paid subscriber so I can continue working as an independent journalist. In January, I’m looking for 25 new paid subscribers to make my next story possible.

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As I sit with a cup of tea in his kitchen, Moeen Lashari hands me piles of sample shirts, pants and Western-style suits from Pakistan. It’s a demonstration of the expanded tailoring offerings his company, the Post-Romantic Co., launched in 2025. With his thick glasses and flowy salt-and-pepper hair, he rattles off details with scholarly ease. The construction: done by careful hands of single craftsmen. The fabrics: evergreen wools, seasonal classics like corduroys and linen, and an eclectic range of cottons, all produced by well-regarded, "small family-owned mills” in Europe and Asia. The style: two-buttoned, natural suits, in a style Lashari dubs “Lahori-British.”

“It’s basically what the tailors did in Naples,” Lashari said. “They took the English suit and then they started taking out the padding to make it easier for the wearers in the hot climate of Punjab.”

It is, undeniably, fabric heaven. But I didn’t drive to upstate New York for a collection of classic suits. I came looking for a garment made from a fabric historically positioned against industrial uniformity.

A tailored suit made of irregular khadi.

“It’s the most ancient type of fabric done in Punjab,” Lashari said as we ran our hands over the bumps, specks, and twirls of irregularity dotting the fabric. Post-Romantic has for a few seasons offered khadi in oxford-style button-downs, trousers, and popovers, but I’d never seen it in a suit before. It’s woven in a plain weave that varies in density, texture, and pacing. Up close, it’s like gazing at rows of hand-planted bushes or rolling hills from an airplane window.

The political and cultural contradictions of the garment loom large. The business suit is a symbol of Western colonialism and the colonized elite who adopted Western mores. Khadi, on the other hand, became an anti-colonial symbol as the centerpiece of a 1918 campaign by Gandhi to promote self-reliance against British industrialization.

In the United States, the suit is a uniform of a bygone era of the corporate workplace and in many South Asian countries, handloomed fabrics are a symbol of the laboring class. Tailoring emphasizes clean lines and smooth fabrics, while handlooming, which defines khadi, is irregular and inconsistent (sometimes described as “slubby”) in a way a machine can’t duplicate. On the Post-Romantic suit, the fabric is so raw that whorls of plant matter puff out from the garment and the color varies between batches depending on the cotton’s natural hue.

Derek Guy, also known as the internet’s “menswear guy,” often argues that dress is a form of social language. Natural, small-batch, minimally processed fabric and clothes have had a history long before our current microplastic hellscape.

In particular, khadi has a complex social and political role in the Indian subcontinent. In Clothing Gandhi’s Nation: Homespun and Modern India, Lisa Trivedi writes that though spice may have brought traders to the Indian subcontinent, “it was her cloth, and eventually, her cotton which figured so significantly in India’s colonization.” Indians, known for their handmade textiles, were soon dependent on British industrialized fabrics, which was why the 1918 khadi movement was characterized as an anti-imperial movement of indigenous self-reliance. Gandhi may have popularized handloomed cotton’s political significance, but he didn’t monopolize its meaning. Trivedi explains that, in the 1920s, khadi already began to become a broader, enduring symbol.

The khaddar items I’ve purchased from Post-Romantic previously to this story were easy to wear and incredibly affordable. I picture them adding a subtle, texture-forward desi insouciance to my closet. Specifically, I bought popover shirts, which echo Pakistani kurtas while still reading easily as American casual clothes. The fit was good enough that I’ve ordered more since the initial purchase. This particular khadi cotton was a lighter weight with a beautiful texture.

Suit fit and fabrics are a whole different, more challenging beast. The particular makeups Post-Romantic debuted for tailoring bring to mind certain images of social life. For fall, a structured brown corduroy from the U.K.’s Brisbane Moss is professorial and dapper. For the summer, a blue linen suit from Italy’s Solbiati conjures strolls on the Mediterranean.

What then, are the referents and cultural meaning of khadi, this deeply anti-colonial fabric, in a Western suit? In what contexts does one wear an undyed, natural cotton suit? What does it signify about the wearer? And will it find a place in men’s style?

Khadi, also called khaddar, is closer to a process, though it has come to be associated with a particularly roughspun cotton fabric used for kurtas. Technically, wool and silk can be khadi and so can chambray, corduroy, and other fabrics.

To understand what makes khadi unique, it may help to compare it to khaki, a term that comes to English from the Hindustani word for the color of soil or dust. In the parlance of men’s clothing, a “khaki” is a beige trouser woven in a tight, diagonal twill. The associated fabric is defined by its British, military uniformity. To achieve that finish, the cotton must be ginned, mechanically spun into yarn, dyed, woven by industrialized machines, and made into fabric rolls before it’s cut and sewn into a piece of clothing.

You could, theoretically, make a handloomed khaki pant, but the khadi-khakis would have flecks of black and white from the unprocessed seeds on the surface, the usually rigid diagonal twill would be broken into uneven lines of varying thickness, and the weave itself would be looser. That’s because, when all of the processing of the fibers is done by hand, it’s impossible to maintain precise tension, torque, and force like a machine could.

As an aside, I have not personally witnessed the steps of handlooming, but I’ve reviewed videos from Post-Romantic, 18 East (see below), and other clothing manufacturers from their partners in Pakistan and India. Jamil, one of Post-Romantic’s tailors in Pakistan, told me over WhatsApp video that they purchase their khaddar from the city of Kamalia, which is one of the most famed sources in Pakistan for handloomed fabrics.

In the States, Indian khaddar has become well-known amongst a certain strain of heritage-obsessed menswear enthusiasts. The kind of people that a decade ago pined for the obsolete era of American-manufactured raw selvedge denim are now digging into a parallel heritage workwear fabric. In 2022, GQ declared, “Old World Indian Fabrics Are Going Global.” In part 2 of this series, I’ll be exploring how brands like 3Sixteen, Karthik Research, 11:11 and 18 East have aligned khadi with values of slow fashion, natural fabrics, and transparency in manufacturing.

For the most part, these brands do not offer the kind of khaddar suit that Lashari offers and none of them work with Pakistani fabrics or artisans.

Post-Romantic’s khaddar suits currently cost $450, and heavier suits from other mills cost about $750. Structurally, the suits are constructed with a few details that are usually only available elsewhere at a premium, including canvassing options, side tabs, and functional buttonholes on the sleeve. One of Lashari’s broader aims is to shift negative perceptions of Pakistani quality by training a team of independent tailors to make suits for Western clients and providing them with high quality fabric. The process, he said, has been difficult, and consistency remains a work in progress. But the skills are there.

“This is exactly what Kiton does,” Lashari said, showing the canvassing and layers of a lined suit. “Most people just fuse it with glue.” Not all suits are canvassed, but when they are, layers of horsehair and goat hair (especially in the lapel) give structure and help the suit mold to the wearer. It’s the traditional method, largely abandoned decades ago as factories replaced artisans.

The standard option at influential men’s shops like J. Crew, Suit Supply, and Spier & Mackay is half-canvassing. In a half-canvas suit, fabric is still layered in the lapel area, but the other parts of the suit are still fused. You might be able to order full canvassing for an upcharge, but even then, the suit will be done with less hand-work and the fabric may also be a synthetic blend.

So if Lashari’s tailors can execute, they’re providing a level of craft that is exceedingly difficult to find in America at an incredible price point. And because a single tailor is making the garment, there’s significantly less waste. Personally, I’ve been looking for a way to work with tailors in Pakistan on Western clothing for nearly my entire life; now, finally, I have the means to do so, even if it’s all done by the internet.

Lashari didn’t come from a family of tailors. The idea of Post-Romantic came to him when he was working in Manhattan. Lashari himself would often receive packages of clothes from his family in Pakistan — his non-desi friends and colleagues would marvel at the quality. When he worked at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), he saw poverty alleviation programs that tried to teach agri-business in Pakistan. Rather than training new skills, Lashari thought there was an untapped market of using tailors for a Western market.

The tradition of tailoring has survived in Pakistan because families pass down skills to their children. While urbanization and UNDP programs might take family members out of the house and into the city, Lashari believes growing the tailoring market while increasing pay and volume of sales would allow some Pakistanis to build economic stability from the comfort of their home. All while preserving a centuries old craft.

Over the past two-and-a-half years, Lashari has cultivated a network of tailors. Often trained in a lineage of a master tailor, they sometimes bring to him underutilized family techniques, including blockprinting. He claims the level of expertise is so high, that even if someone like Jamil had never made a Western-style suit before, he could pick it up on the first try. Lashari simply had to provide the pattern and guide them towards a certain style. In at least one case, a tailor added an unasked-for splash of flash: paisley cuffs intended to flip up, Amitabh Bachchan-style.

“It’s a slight redirection of what they’re doing,” said Lashari. Before the new suits debuted, he took the time to train them in a group so that any item of clothing from one tailor or another would be the same. He is stepping into an existing work flow of people who are making clothes for local Pakistanis while still expecting some consistency.

Because Pakistan is roughly 10 hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast, Lashari often takes business calls after 9 p.m. Eastern, as tailors in Punjab begin their workday. There, full-service tailoring remains common, especially around holidays like Eid, when customers collaborate directly on custom designs... often leading to delays for Post-Romantic, since Lashari does not have exclusive access to tailors. As ready-to-wear clothing has expanded its share of the market, many skilled craftspeople are now seeking additional work.

While there’s a practical idea of employing tailors in Pakistan, Lashari also has visions of “meaningful sustainability” and accessible taste. He describes the village he grew up in as a place with a system of communality, where clothes are indispensable, made one at a time, and always passed down.

“That sophistication goes to a very deep level,” said Lashari. “All these people dressed really well.” There, even those who can’t afford the best fabrics have an eye for texture and fabric quality, because of the textile culture.

In addition, Lashari is a proponent of fit above all. While you could order stock S-XL sizes from Post-Romantic, the default is to send your measurements over and hope for the best. My own experience has been solid — I’ve paid for all my clothing and only one pair of pants required a remake. The main issue for me has been delays — you’re working with individual craftspeople, after all.

That night at Moeen’s, I had only a precious few moments holding the khadi suit. I decided to order the same one to get more hands-on time.

I paid a local tailor $10 to take my measurements, ordered my item on the website, and waited.

In the meantime, I had more khadi to see in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Part 2, The American Khadi Movement, will be published on January 22nd. Part 3, on the khadi suit I purchased for my father, will be out in February.

Credits

Edited by: Hajar Ouahbi and Sal Tamarkin

Photos and Visuals: Asad Chishti

Additional reporting: Waheed Akbar

when i was a teenager on forums and aol instant messenger, i had the habit of writing in all caps. THAT MEANS YOU’RE SHOUTING, they’d say, but i enjoyed the kind of deadened, bluntness of having full discussions in block.

on twitter and other socials, i came around to the other side: a chillposting absence of caps.

in general, both methods led to more words on the digital page. in fact, i nearly always sit down to write my edited, properly capitalized pieces on a laptop.

so the other day, i went into my phone settings and did something i should’ve done long ago: i turned off autocapitalization and started writing the newsletter without caps in my notes app.

rather than having to hem and haw and say oh, this is lightly edited, that’s the newsletter format. it’s just uncapped. thank you for letting me figure this out. it’s like every time i write, i have to invent the process from scratch. thankfully, i can now announce:

THE FIRST OF A THREE PART SERIES ON KHADI WILL DROP ON JANUARY 8TH

paid subscriptions made that piece possible. like all my other pieces, it’s late but hopefully good.

i’m looking to gain another 25 paid subscribers so i can work on my next reported piece without worry.

ii. nightcap — the ebay chronicles

in 2018, i was invited by oberlin college’s muslim students association and between jumah and my talk, i wandered into a vintage store on campus where i found a thick, chunky wool cardigan made in ecuador. i balked at the price ($40) but it had three things in it’s favor: 1.) it hit perfectly at the hip, 2.) loose for comfort while not being sloppy, 3.) unique pattern that still was easy to style

i have no idea how old it is. it had fraying on the cuff and some tiny holes by the time i got it, yet it’s stayed distinctly wearable. if anything, it adds to it’s slouchy comfort. the dude abides and all.

you can’t feel it’s comfort over the internet. so three more things worth noting: the long hairy white strands of wool dotting the surface, the rich, chestnut-colored buttons, and the unusual implementation of handwarmer pockets

on one of my nightly jaunts into the depths of ebay, i recognized a distinctive face and name on a very unusual looking cardigan

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I. the notes app on the r train

I am in New York for work. I expect I won’t feel at home when I return but I feel something here I don’t feel in my other homes, Michigan and Chicago. I don’t romanticize it as the greatest city in the world. In fact, I was deeply shut-in for those grindy first three years in Brooklyn.

It’s as if I load a different spiritual processing system. My gait and speed shift. I’m pleasantly exhausted by the end of the day. I’m aware of blocks ahead of me and behind. Contrary to stereotype, I find New York to be one of the friendliest places in America, provided you know how to speak its social code, to process its signals, and to embrace immanence in the city.

Acacia Magazine, the literary and cultural mag I’ve edited since its inception in 2023, held a launch party for issue 04 this past Tuesday. Our peers - Lux, Hammer and Hope, Jewish Currents - also launched alongside us. The event, at Public Records, sold out.

According to a group of select peers in New York, there’s a bit of a Scene at these events. I can’t say if this is true, but if it is, then I find it deeply funny. I do most of this work on Zoom and I can testify that the editors are beautiful, bookish nerds with giant hearts.

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Note: “A Pair of Photos” was originally published in the 2014 anthology, Salaam, Love: American Muslim Men on Love, Sex, and Intimacy It is being re-published here for the first time online. Endless thanks to Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi for supporting my debut and to my father and mother for their story.

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I. A Love Story, 1975

The day before they fly to America, Chacha and Raani marry in the living room of Raani’s childhood home. The party is small by Pakistani standards—perhaps twenty-five people. Of fiery, brave Raani’s family, the core is in attendance. The two junior sisters hover in plain shalwar kameez, colored dupattas thrown hastily over their shoulders. The two boys lumber in the corner, hands in trousers. It is a sober affair.

Raani’s father had threatened to cancel the wedding. Like many Pakistani men of his generation, he left centuries of tradition post-Partition. Prior to 1947, the majority of his clan had lived near a Sufi shrine in East Punjab. Violent sectarianism scattered that history throughout West Punjab. Given all he had lost, he hoped that his children would marry within the family as he had done. It was improper, he insisted, for Raani, a fine, Urdu-speaking descendent of sheikhs and the clan’s first child of Pakistan, to marry a country Punjabi like Chacha. Somehow he acquiesced, perhaps seeing the fire mirrored in his eldest daughter’s eyes.

Quiet, loyal Chacha was not so lucky. His family had also left their land and livelihood in East Punjab. But unlike Raani’s scholarly, urban ancestors, they were wealthy rural landowners who married others of their own caste. His sister and each of his five older brothers had married Rajputs of the family’s choosing. Chacha did not believe that Islam contained anything like “caste.” As the youngest, perhaps he thought he could get his way, but the discussion was short and uncomplicated.

“We do not approve and will not attend.”

Chacha did not attempt to convince them. It was the first time he had disobeyed his mother and elder brothers. In a version later told by Raani, Chacha was locked in a bathroom the morning of his wedding, broke out through the window, and took a bus to the ceremony. Chacha laughs and calls it a total fabrication—except for the bus part.

His family boycotts the marriage, including his beloved, widowed mother. Representing the groom’s side are three classmates and one of their fathers. All of them will later follow Raani and Chacha to America and become their surrogate family.

It sounds depressing, but Chacha smiles and laughs in every photo.

Raani, unusual for her, looks demure as a bride. She hadn’t had time to find an outfit for the wedding and wears a red lehnga from a recent Eid, adorned with her mother’s finest gold jewelry.

In Pakistan, a distinction is made between love marriages and arranged ones. Chacha and Raani did not have an arranged marriage but when asked why they married, their answer does not mention love. Instead:

“We were partners.”

They met during medical school in Lahore. Chacha’s older brothers were of different professions—engineer, politician, diplomat, army man and businessman. Chacha would be his family’s first doctor. Raani was following in the footsteps of her mother, an obstetrician. Her sisters and a brother would soon join her in the medical profession. For both, cosmopolitan Lahore represents an unparalleled adventure.

Chacha hangs with a crew of pranksters, the moral compass of the group. There are ten girls in their class of one hundred. Though Raani spends much of her time with those ten, she is the undisputed leader of boys and girls alike. For a long time before their meeting, Raani hears of a person named Chacha, and she is confused by this name. It means, basically, ‘uncle.’ She wonders who this Chacha is who could inspire such respect from the male medical students.

When she finally meets him, she is underwhelmed. He is a year her junior. She notices his well-pressed clothes, in contrast to his friends, who lounge around, wearing tank tops and lungis and smoking cigarettes. He notices her simple khaddar clothing and asks, “Why are you wearing that clothing?”

“It’s for workers’ rights. I don’t need anything finer than what they spin and wear,” she replies. “Here’s a better question, bhai. Why are you called Chacha?”

He laughs. “You’d have to ask the boys.”

“Surely you should know why you have such a strange nickname, Chacha.”

“You can just call me Waheed.”

“I’m Raani.”

Chacha’s friends become Raani’s friends, and Raani’s become Chacha’s. As a group, they scribble and share notes, hike in the Himalayan foothills, drink chai and eat pakoras at truck stops, mock their professors’ English and discuss the unmatchable poetic genius of Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Soon, the boys send food from their mess hall to the girls’ dormitory—the girls’ rotis were stale and their daal watery —along with flowers and sweets.

Raani scoffs at the flowers from Chacha, but she is softened by the fact that every time he sends them, he sends a bouquet to her younger sister too. She also finds it strangely endearing that during finals Chacha grows a beard and proceeds to pull hairs from it until a dime-sized hole appears on his chin.

In Chacha, Raani sees someone with competence and a work ethic that can support her revolutionary, feminist ambitions. The two are enamored with the struggle of communist revolutionaries in Latin America and the Muslim world. They debate among their friends the role of Islam in such struggles. Chacha shares the bonds he made with Muslims in Africa and the Middle East, making a convincing argument for Islam’s capability to unite.

By the time they graduate, the friends have decided to go to America. The opportunities are better, and anyway, they plan to return—someday. After she graduates from medical school, Raani announces to her father that she is going to America and that she and Chacha want to get married. After a year trying to convince her father, she succeeds. They arrive in snowy New York the day after their marriage.

Initially, there are issues.

Raani is the epitome of her family’s analytical, emotional, and lighthearted characteristics. Chacha’s family is hardy and upright, leaving painful emotions unspoken. In many senses, Chacha is the exception to his patriarchal family. His home was intergenerational, with his brothers’ families living in the same compound. Chacha respected his brothers’ wives for their quiet forbearance, and his mother for her capabilities as a single mother.

But still they both have difficulty adjusting to married life. Chacha struggles with his role as man of the house with a wife who was raised in a household where the woman was the breadwinner. Raani always wants to discuss relationship issues; Chacha would rather let them lie. America is demanding and lonely and it takes them time to reestablish their partnership.

When she finally meets Chacha’s family in Pakistan a few years later, she swallows her anger at their rejection. They treat Chacha normally, but Raani does her best to charm them and fit in, especially by spinning stories for the children. Slowly, Raani grows to become an essential part of Chacha’s family. By their middle age, Chacha and Raani have become specialists in surgery and immunology, respectively, and leaders in the Muslim, Pakistani American, and medical communities. They have three overanalytical children—two girls early on, and then, after a period of eight years, a boy. Chacha and Raani do not teach their children to expect arranged marriage. There is an expectation that their children will marry Muslims, though not necessarily Pakistanis. Raani’s allergy practice allows her to come home early. She prepares the delicacies of her childhood—rice cooked in lamb broth, delicate kabobs, and eggplant in yogurt—as well as Chacha’s favorite, daal and rice. The children yearn to spend more time with Chacha, who leaves for surgery before they wake up and comes home exhausted, sometimes spending entire Saturdays catching up on sleep. The children pursue careers in service, human rights, and academics. Raani and Chacha are disappointed, but have a hard time arguing against their passions. Finally, the children leave for work or school. Chacha and Raani argue a little less and talk a little more. Their time is spent working toward a lifetime goal—building a masjid for their once-small midwestern Muslim community. Things are good.

They have two years of this.

Then, Raani is diagnosed with cancer. Her body reacts poorly to her treatment. She battles with illness over two grueling years, and dies in her home in the presence of Chacha, two of his siblings, four of her siblings, all three of her children, and a few cousins. It is the day of their wedding anniversary, and loyal Chacha left work before noon to bring home flowers, as he has done every year for over a quarter-century. I, her youngest, was twenty-two years old.

II. A Set of Photos

I know Raani and Chacha’s story because Ammi told me herself. As the oldest of six and a voracious reader, she found that telling stories was the best form of entertainment for the young ones. They gathered around her, listening to Api’s grand tales with rapt attention. She later gave my sisters and me a romantic, detailed account of her life. I have always struggled to understand what my father was like before he married Ammi. Like many men of his generation, Abu categorically refuses to speak about himself. My mother, ever the storyteller, provided much of the perspective we had on our father.

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I: The Brown Rapper Policy

As an audio journalist and host, I’ve had a simple policy.

Do not reply to brown rappers DMing me to cover their mixtape.

Is it likely that a music website like Stereogum had the same policy? No. But they ghosted now New York city mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani all the same.

After his win, I feel comfortable writing about the most famous brown rapper/politician in American History. It’s easy to joke about the rapping or focus on his political skill. I wanted to take a different tack, focusing instead on the media culture of this eraand how Mamdani represents a particular admixture of Muslim, South Asian, leftist, and online values that isn’t immediately obvious to a general audience, but is clear to me. (This will likely take two posts, by the way.)

But first, the rapper policy.

A rejection to a DM should be easy: I’d congratulate the rapper and decline to interview since I don’t cover music releases. This continues to work as a strategy for the messages I’ve received from self-promoting Muslim CEOs, comedians, or activists looking for press. But not for the rappers; they’d double down on their offense and persistence. As if their SoundCloud was a generational event that would change everything. Just give it a listen, they’d plead.

To my mild shame, I have listened to quite a few brown rappers. Some of them are my closest friends; I am, perhaps, the only member in my generation of male-identified cousins who hasn’t recorded a hip-hop song or dabbled in freestyling. But personally, having seen one too many become, let’s say, a little comfortable, I have a generalized discomfort with the genre.

I sensed that that I was a mirror for these brown rappers. They could, and sometimes were, my brothers and sister. On their end, seeing a platform like mine that was dedicated to American Muslims, they probably felt I was obligated support their art. Rather than delve into the muck, I started leaving them on read.

They still kept messaging me.

Later on, I started to also think I should stop come up with a policy of how to cover Muslim or brown politicians. This came to mind when Mamdani was running and I constantly had people asking me to cover him.

One of my earliest stories on American Muslim politicans was in 2017, during the midterms. Reporters Talal Ansari and Hannah Allam did a great story about how American Muslims were getting more civically engaged and running for office. This was a good basis for a story. But ultimately, I’m a culture reporter. I didn’t want to report on politicians because they were Muslim, just like I didn’t want to report on rappers because they were desi.

There’s no shortage of things to analyze with Mamdani on a culture level, from his usage of food to his support of taxi drivers. Politically, as a Democratic Socialist, he’s been remarkably focused on his core policies. While he engages deeply and effectively with the Muslim community, he also has a cosmopolitan, cross-cultural focus that makes him difficult to put in a box. And still, he does come out of a certain milieu that is parsable to me.

In 2025, I met Mamdani for the first time, completely on accident. I was returning to New York and happened to attend a Ramadan event my elder sister hosted. She told me Zohran was expected to attend briefly. He was, at this point, very much a long shot to be Mayor, but there was plenty of excitement amongst my peers.

Around the time Zohran arrived, I was sitting with a friend I hadn’t seen in years, catching up and putting my foot in my mouth with details I’d forgotten about their life. Overall, typical, lovely iftar. My sister waves me over, mouthing “come meet Zohran.”

I really did not want to work the night as a journalist; I wanted to simply be a literal uncle that evening, enjoying the spirituality and connection iftars bring.

I brought my half-eaten plate, head low as if being introduced to a distant relative, and sat on the floor. Zohran had his own plate, atop a plastic tarp, the exact setup used in my own mosque in Michigan. I introduced myself. He introduced himself. There was a pause. I realized, this is a campaign stop and in his eyes, I am a potential constituent.

“Oh, I’m a journalist. I used to live in New York until I moved to Chicago for my wife’s work.” A beat. I wasn’t sure what to say. “We’re very excited about your campaign.”

He lit up a little. Pauses. Asks me to say my full name again.

In the texts I sent after that night, I quoted him as saying, “No way. I’m a huge fan of your work! You should’ve said Rad Brown Dads!”

The interaction was fast and disarming, he lit up with his warm smile.

I thought, damn, this is a good politician. And I laughed a little.

I went home, kept tabs on his campaign.

Then, from Twitter, I realized, he was the rapper, Mr. Cardamom, and my world tilted.

In this time period, there were a lot of brown rappers out there and only a few broke through. Anik Khan. Big Baby Gandhi. Nav.

But I distinctly remember Mamdani’s “Nani” video. from 2019 It stars my own personal cooking icon, my Tony Bourdain or Julia Child, Madhur Jaffrey. Before she was the most influential Indian cookbook author in the West, she was an actress. Mamdani utilized that little known fact to great affect, subverting the box Jaffrey had been put in. Dare I say, it had a bit of Rad Brown Dads in it?

When I saw the video, I had no idea who Mr. Cardamom was, but I was curious what his next video would be like. It never happened.

So I go to DM Zohran to tell him that I actually was a fan of his too, I just didn’t know it at the time.

And I found this: a DM from Zohran asking to cover his proverbial mixtape from 2017.

I even remember the name Zohran; it’s pretty uncommon for a Muslim. The message was nice, thoughtful. But! I don’t respond to brown rappers. Silence on my end.. You’ll notice Stereogum got the message after I received it.

He also mentions my podcast's house band, The Kominas. One of their songs, “Disco Uncle,” might as well be a distant relative to “Nani.”

I didn’t share the message much, except in one notable instance: Meg Cramer of the Pod-Squad, my favorite team of audio producers to ever exist, messaged me.

Now that the initial hype is come down, the DM is remarkable for a variety of reasons.

First, it’s incredibly funny. Second, it shows a remarkably consistency from Zohran. He could’ve easily name-dropped that he was the son of Mira Nair and Mahmood Mamdani and he would’ve known that would pique my interest. His mother directed Riz Ahmed in The Reluctant Fundamentalist! Not to mention, broadly speaking, Mississippi Masala and “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim” were frequent touch points in the 2010s amongst desi, Muslim, and culture writers.

But no, Zohran wanted to be known as a “rapper here in NYC.” I have to respect that, even if I’ve been less than respectful of brown rappers.

The majority of analysis has been about Mamdani’s politics, the Islamophobia he faced, the hope he brings, his food choices, and the repudiation of ineffective Democratic strategy. He always redirects towards his policies: free transit, rent stabilization, transparency, and deep love for the working class of the city.

But for me, it’s clear from his parents that he was given the tools to complicate typical narratives of South Asian or Muslim immigration. In a later piece, I’ll explore their work. But for now, it’s worth saying that Zohran Mamdani comes out of this kind of proverbial soup of alternative desi, Muslim media that formed people like myself and others. His type was known to us, even if it’s still being exposed to the world now years later.

II. A mini-review, Lilo & Stitch

Lilo & Stitch was not a movie I watched when I was a kid, but I’m stunned by how odd it is in the Disney Renaissance films. Frankenstein. The Ugly Duckling. Elvis. Hawaii. Family separation. Queer aliens. Found family. It’s all in here. It’s a bit of a mess but I do appreciate it. My daughter loves it so I have to watch it so many more times. She unfortunately likes the considerably uglier sequel even more, which she has dubbed “Cousins.”

III. RBDining, preview

It occurs to me that I should write a bit about food, given that’s frequently been a career of mine. Next time, I’ll come more prepared.

Two restaurant restaurants Mamdani has name-dropped on his campaign are important to me personally. Abuqir, an Iskenderi Egyptian seafood in Queens, is actually my favorite food experience in the city. No menu, just a wall of ice and raw fish. I pull up to the counter and have my buddy Ahmed Hozain order in Arabic if I can. If he’s not there, I ask for tips on what to order, usually ending up with a whole fish, garlic-y shrimp, fried calamari, and salad with tahini.

The other restaurant Zohran has really talked up is Kebab King. I’ve got intense food memories of Dera, nearby, so I haven’t eaten it much.

But Kebab King is notable for having the most iconic jingle ever. I pitched a story about this jingle many times. No one has taken me up on it. Editors, I’m here. King King Kebab King.

IV. Lastly, Menswear

I believe in finding a few aesthetic spaces you enjoy and experimenting in them.

For me, this is taking inspiration from Midwestern and Pakistani historical fashion and specifically playing with tailoring, workwear, color, patterns, and denim. Carhartt, as I’ve mentioned, speaks specifically to my story of Michigander-in-the-East-Coast. Where Levis runs Cali/NY and Wrangler is Texas, Carhartt is the Midwest. It’s stolen valor sure, but jeans were workwear first.

Unfortunately, Carhartt is very popular now and has become expensive. For me, there’s no replacement. But recently, I realized, if you’re looking for vintage items, there are always alternatives. Every American region had local clothing manufacturing and many had shuttered. But, for instance, a vintage Carhartt jacket might be priced over $200, but the equivalent item in a vintage Dickie’s or LC King might not have that.

All this to say I’ve been on the hunt for a short, warm wool jacket this winter. Generally speaking, this would mean the Filson Mackinaw Cruiser, made of an absurdly heavy and durable wool. The company claims they patented it in 1914.

It’s outside of my aesthetic space and kind of hiking, PNW, lumberjack aesthetic I’ve never been able to pull off. The fit on modern Filson’s is atrocious. And it’s become absurdly expensive.

So I never really seriously considered it. MAYBE in olive green.

So imagine my surprise when I walk into my favorite local vintage shop and find a perfectly fitted buffalo plaid jacket that I actually like.

It’s not Filson, but Bemidji Woolen Mills, which has been operational in Bemidji, Minnesota, since 1920!

I went on eBay to find other colors, since buffalo plaid wasn’t my thing. I found the perfect one, in orange (!), and sent a low bid. It was so offensive to the seller that they banned me from purchasing it. I ended up going back and picking up the Bemidji cruiser.

Since to me it’s a bit Western-y, I decided to try the “Ralph Tuck,” popularized by Polo designer Ralph Lauren. I’ve never liked the Ralph Tuck, since it feels like taking someone’s personal style move and smushing it into yours. While it kind of works, I decided I’m never doing it again.

Til next time.

You can read more about Road Brown Dads here.

I’ve just returned from seeing in conversation with at the Atheneum in Chicago. She spoke about the various challenges of writing her first book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and what they taught her when writing her second, Good Things. She said that the “horribleness” of the process is the point of all this writing.

In a twist that makes sense to anyone who knows me, I am writing more than ever now that I’ve got free, unstructured time and I am not publishing. Mostly, I spend time agonizing over drafts and wondering what’s wrong with me.

As a rule, I grow bored by repeating the same things. In the case of writing, I attempt new genres and styles and two things happen: it take a very long time to publish or I am dissatisfied with the result and stall. Full drafts sit around, waiting for me to remember them. I have a draft of criticism on The Phoenician Scheme. I have city guides for Detroit, New York, and Chicago. I’ve done a ton of reporting on khadi. Despite all the mental space it’s taking up, I’m cycling through them without finishing them. (I will though, I promise)

The issue, I believe, is mentally scaling up too fast and holding experiments to a bar of expertise.

My solution? The obvious one. A weekly newsletter. Draft-y and less edited. Featuring all sorts of Things. While the “horribleness” churns in the background.

Let’s begin.

Samin and the whole food-writing thing

I’m not alone in having been heavily influenced by Samin Nosrat. In my case, however, I believe she was the first Food Person I ever met professionally. I interviewed her in 2018 for See Something Say Something, the podcast I originally hosted at BuzzFeed. She gave the most wonderful hug (seen below). Later, I became her source for a recipe on Chapli Burgers as well as an accompanied story.

I believe, subconsciously, she modeled what could be possible for me. My understanding is that restaurant cooking was unsustainably stressful for her and writing and teaching became an outlet that channelled that energy. For me, covering American Muslims was too heavy a burden and other kinds of “genre” writing — like food writing — became a way to work on my craft. It also made me more marketable; Islamophilia was only reactionary and temporary, after all. Food is forever.

Anyhow, I thought of Salt Fat Acid Heat as I’ve honed my skills narrative writing. Samin has been an advocate for improvisation and I’m taking the idea that, even without Arguments, I have enough components to make a decent enough dish. I work with components - characters, scenes, growth, and more. In the mix, a story emerges.

The worst part is, this requires writing and re-writing and re-writing - “recipe testing.” Every piece you’ve seen of mine has had it’s spine broken and rearranged and brought back from the brink of incoherence.

tyyy — at the moment of writing this, my daughter is insisting I put her to sleep. We shifted to her bed and as I wrote, she requested: “I press y?” I have allowed her, and “tyyy” is what came about.

All of this is to say, I’m trying a new skill, which is posting the drafts without breaking them. Raw in the CMS. I thought my first step was finding an editor to get to the level of writing quality I’m comfortable with publishing. I’m doing that, sure, and I’m very excited to share some more traditional reporting. But also, I have to re-teach myself how to be a Certified Internet Poster, who can simply produce.

As a journalist, I find food to be a fascinating subject of inquiry when compared to other beats like politics or entertainment — mostly, at all the tropes that people rely on. Food is community. Food brings people together. Food is love. I mean, that is all true. But it’s also true that we dislike foods. Food can be punishment. And food can sometimes be curiously devoid of meaning. Like most mediums, it can encompass a wide variety of things.

I came to food not as a way to promote restaurants, but for a way to tell stories about the characters, ethics, histories, and conflicts of communities I’m in connection with. Don’t get me wrong, I plan to write more about food, of course. But other culture writing is top of mind again.

Ok, I am letting my daughter press y again. yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy0yyyyyo

I swear to god she pressed every single one of those. Now, I hope she will sleep. A new kind of screentime. Blog time. Rad Brown Dads time.

Things finished: Silksong

One generative thought from my time as a food reporter I’ve been sitting with— fine dining, as a medium, has not embraced an equivalent of Roland Barthes’ “death of the author.” Imagine a preview of a book where the editor begins with, “Jhumpa Lahiri intended this book to be read in it’s original Italian, as it demonstrates the dual possibilities of language.” (I haven’t read any of Jhumpa’s Italian stuff, but I have read a lot of articles about it.) Barthes argues against authorial intent as a empirical way of interpreting writing. But at a fine dining restaurant, you are frequently told how to consume the dish in front of you, the context in which it was conceived, and the order it is best enjoyed.

At my only dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant in the last few years, I slumped through the waiters monologues about the ambition of a certain dish and the many iterations and drafts that led to this particular version. I could barely hear over the din — now, I don’t recall much if anything of those statements of authorial intent. Instead, I recall bits and pieces of the shared story at the dinner table. The food was, to my surprise, incredibly good (partially because, I’m sure, I personally didn’t pay for it). And I couldn’t help but think it’d have been more enjoyable if I hadn’t been guided in interpretation.

I’m not sure where to go with that idea. Perhaps there’s a story. Usually I’d save the idea in my head for years and discuss it with friends. Eventually, I’d find the right characters, news peg, or cultural moment to do a fully considered story. Now, it’s in a newsletter.

In this little valley of writer block, I know that one of the best ways to sharpen your creative instinct is to indulge in acts of artistic merit. Of fine dining, I know quite little. So right now, my indulgence has mostly been in the form of gaming. I’m unemployed, after all. Time to kill the backlog.

But first, a new game. Team Cherry’s Silksong. A game about unusually philosphoical bugs that took almost a decade to make.

I finished the game last night, getting nearly 100% completion, and defeating the Act 3 boss in more than a dozen tries. I consider it to be a peak experience in its genre, Metroidvanias. For a general audience, I’d describe the genre as a digging or climbing, hunting and gathering, exploration and action genre. You journey through a world with nothing in your pack or your map and by the end, you’ve filled both to the best of your ability. In the case of Silksong, I found it to be more satisfying to summit than it’s predecessor, Hollow Knight. Both are near perfect games to me, but Silksong, as I’ll argue later, is a more coherent package.

Silksong has one fan-response that has dogged it: it’s fucking hard. People quit over it. There’s a particular emphasis on difficult jumps and difficult bosses. In contradiction to fine dining, gaming (or at least traditional console and PC gaming) is a medium where the tyranny of the interpreter has extended horrible tendrils beyond any reasonable measure.

There is a lot of fair criticism, but gamers, literal as they are, tend to veer into hyperbole or binaries: “the designers hate the players.” “Having to repeat an obstacle course to challenge a boss again isn’t good game design.” “It’s frustrating to the level of being insulting.”

Yet, all these arguments ignore something fundamental about gaming, and indeed, any medium. Discomfort, difficulty, and manipulating expectations for the reader are all tools in an expert craftsman’s toolbox. If you’re feeling alienated, it might be worth considering why.

In Silksong, your character, Hornet, is pulled into a religious pilgrimage she neither believes in nor respects. The bugs of this world, armed mostly with only their shells, masks, and adorable voices, are ill-equipped for the journey and religiously opposed to violence. Natural hazards and predators lead to many deaths on the way. Masses of increasingly bizarre corpses build the deeper you go to the world.

At the end of the pilgrimage is the Citadel, where the pure of heart are accepted. Right away, it’s clear the pilgrimage is more of a descent into hell than a climb to heaven. Is that an experience meant for Hornet, the player, or the gestalt of both?

I had several moments where I repeated boss fights over and over and over and over, learning their patterns and shaving off my bad habits in the hopes of eking out a win. I would groan in frustration when I jumped into position that the Savage Beastfly had killed me a dozen or so times before. I’d try to get stronger, rather than get angry. The limitation, I said, was my own. I walked away and returned hours later, beating it in perhaps three tries.

The pilgrimage Hornet is tasked with requires extreme perseverance in the face of irrationality. Our experience of it as gamers is shaped by schema, skills, and self-regulation. As a Muslim and a divinity student, I found a kind of tenderness towards spirituality in the game; despite the obvious corruption of the Citadel in the world of Pharloom, the humble faith of a round bug is dignified, not dismissed as mere opiate. In one missable sequence, a villager may die due to your actions. If you didn’t take the time to speak frequently with them them, you can’t speak up as the body is laid to rest and the crowd is asked for the deceased's name. If you do learn the name, your character speaks up. I did not see the sequence, since I spoke to them enough that they gained the bravery to go on the pilgrimage; they ended up likely dying on the pilgrimage.

The frustration and difficulty of Silksong creates a form of “closure” between myself and Hornet. Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics introduced me to this idea — that “closure” is what happens between the panels of a comic book to create narrative. Art, dialogue, narration, and empty space combine in your subconcious. In video game criticism, there is a related concept, referred to as the “ludonarrative” — the intersection between gameplay elements and narrative elements. But what I find useful about “closure” is that there’s an element of the psyche filling in the gaps to create meaning.

Some pilgrims must, inevitably, fail. Others, like myself, have the delusion that the pain is worth it.

Lastly, a piece of clothing I’m mad I don’t own: the Carhartt Chore Coat from TCB

I know, this is a pivot. But I spend so much time thinking about clothing I might as well write about it.

As a Michigander, I love Carhartt’s history. I found out, recently, so does the Japanese denim company, TCB Jeans & Co. This piece is inspired by 1920s Carhartt Jackets. I’ve mostly dug as far as the 1980s, looking for American union-made items.

Many of TCBs peers make recreations of old Levis; what I find so interesting about this piece is they’ve adapted a pure Railroad-Core item into something with significant character, moving beyond cosplay. Heart buttons. Wabash stripes that I believe are in the shape of cat paws. The odd collar. I’m not sure I’d be able to even wear it effectively, but I find it opened up a new area in the zone of my preferred aesthetics. It’s also sold out, but messages with TCB indicate it is coming back in forth.

Unfortunately, ending on menswear is going to be a feature of this newsletter, which I plan to release every Thursday. Reported works will also be coming shortly.

-Ahmed

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(For a more in-depth look at how Rad Brown Dads went from in-joke to my (ugh) brand, keep tuned for part 2, an audio interview with Nyle Usmani.)

At the time, a blog on a platform like Tumblr could get book deals for a well-considered gimmick, so I harbored delusions of escape in writing fame and success. On an image-focused platform, I turned to photos of my parents and their friends in the 70s, which had become very important to me in my grief.

For each post, I wrote a little fashion commentary on a photo, a bit of cultural context, and a sprinkle of snark. I gave it a mission (“fostering self-love and introspection”), like this little blog was redeeming dads that had been embattled by the stereotypes of Model Minority, Silent But Strong, Unsexy and Uncool.

But really, it was a break from grad school essays and an excuse to interact with readers; if it changed minds, that was a nice little bonus. Soon, I started getting submissions from all over the world. The nascent desi online media ecosystem brought me on for interviews. My jaw dropped when I saw that “The Man, The Legend: Ahmed Ali Akbar” was the title of my interview with Brown Girl Magazine. And in 2019, I found out Hasan Minhaj was apparently a reader, describing a tender moment with his own dad as a “real radbrowndads.tumblr.com moment.”

After I finished my graduate degree (and published my first print essay), I decided to take a jump into digital media, which in 2014 was expanding, iterating, and most importantly, hiring. When I finally found the fellowship that got my foot in the door, my mentor told me, paraphrased, “your published writing was actually pretty boring. But it was what you did with the blog that got you an interview.”

That fellowship helped me shed my academic style, leaning on the bouncing energy of being an annoying little brother, a student of Islam, and a lover of fiction, games, and comics. Within two years, I was a journalist, a career I had never planned on being in.

Even as my work became professionalized, I kept the handle @radbrowndads on all of my social accounts. It started as this in-joke, but it ended up becoming the internet alter-ego that stuck. I wasn’t even a dad at the time; “NOT A DAD” was in my social bio for years and the Editor-in-Chief at my first media company kept asking me, “how are your kids?”

Yet, readers recognized me at airports, at weddings, on the streets of New York, and elsewhere not as Ahmed Ali Akbar, but as Rad Brown Dads.

The original blog never made me any money. It never became my career, like I dreamed. I stopped posting regularly within two years of starting it. But here and now, coming back to writing for the internet, I kept the original moniker, even if it doesn’t make sense anymore, even as I’ve grown distant from the term “brown.” Full-time writing has been immensely gratifying but tough, so it’s time to try to actually make Rad Brown Dads a career. Which begs the question, what will I write here?

Since the original blog, I’ve been a food writer, a podcast and video host, a student of American Islam and Islamic thought, a competitive fighting-game player, a cultural critic of TV and movies, an editor and more. Yet, I think of every single piece of work I’ve done to be of the same genre. A search for how communities create shared meaning. Even that little online community of Rad Brown Readers — the fact that they seemed to understand what I was doing in my grad dorm was always a miracle to me.

Over ten years, I’ve had this nagging guilt that I don’t write enough. After leaving the most traditional media of my career, my number one realization is I need a consistent, qualified editor (shoutouts to Kayla Samoy). I still struggle with deadlines, with overthinking, and with volume. But when I meet my readers and see how they engage with my work, that helps with my guilt. As of this past week (and after a few weeks of the flu), I have begun working with an editor with a deep understanding of my work. We have several reported pieces, guides, and essays in the work. The cadence of posting will evolve as time goes on, but for now, I’m hoping at least one essay or feature a month.

Stay tuned for part 2, a podcast interview for paid subscribers, exploring more of that period in 2013 when I began the blog and why I chose the name for this platform.

Acacia Magazine, a literary and culture print magazine for the Muslim Left, is currently taking essay and feature pitches for its fifth issue. The theme is “Intelligence,” with a focus on how tech is shaping Muslim communities. Read more about the theme here, but even if you have an off-theme pitch, please write to me or to submissions@acaciamag.com.

“Issue 05: intelligence: We want your stories about how Muslim communities are being shaped by tech. We’re interested in the concept of Muslim Futurity. What role are technology, AI, and surveillance playing in the evolution of our society? How are labor, democracy, and creative industries implicated? How do these factors shape the possibilities for Muslim communities? What are the reasons our readers should pay heed to an emerging technology, trend or even app? These questions are meant to inform your thinking, but you don’t need to answer them all in your pitch. What we do want you to answer: why this story, why now, and why you? Note we’re not currently taking personal essay submissions, poetry submissions, or short fiction submissions. And as always, if you have a tip unrelated to the theme, please email us with “scoop” in the subject line. We can’t wait to hear from you”

I’ve been an editor for the magazine since the very first issue and it’s been my great honor and pride to collaborate, commission, and edit with a range of new and experienced writers. I’ve been covering American Muslims for nearly a decade now; Acacia is the project that currently best reflects my values and interests. I tend to edit the culture pieces and reporting on American Muslim communities, but I’ve learned so much from all of our editors.

For my part, I use it as a way to stay behind-the-scenes and help mentor, develop, and advance the rigor of journalism covering American Muslims. We’ve featured writers like Fariha Roisin, Mona Chalabi, Shamira Ahmed, myself, and many more. The best way to familiarize yourself with our writing is to read the magazine. Pieces can be found online here.

Issue 04, which was focused on local reporting, is releasing this month. I know, you’re already being asked to subscribe to this platform. BUT: If you have appreciated my writing, please consider subscribing to Acacia as well. For $45 dollars a year, you will get an annual membership which includes “two (2) print issues sent directly to you, priority access to digital content, and free access to events.”

The print issues are absolutely gorgeous. I wrote a seriously indulgent piece for Issue 1 about the Marvel’s X-Men, separatism, and Muslims as a metaphor for difference. Afterwards, I hung up some of the gorgeous commissioned art by Zak Tebbal in my living room.

Finally, I’m always open to be connected to writers of all skill levels. Please consider pitching issue 05 or sending me recommendations of thoughtful people who are interested in exploring American Muslims, tech, and culture. I am happy to take any and all calls or questions to help potential writers decide whether it’s a good fit.

Beforehand, I suggest checking out the submissions guide first. Pitches due by November 21st; payment rates can be found on the website.

In a near-empty gas station on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I’m eating halal goat curry cooked by Sikhs as devotionals to Christ play along on the radio.

🎙“Jesus, all I want to do is be like you.”🎸

Behind me, the few other customers are gambling on two-top machines. Outside, a dozen or so Tesla charging stations stand empty. 18-wheelers and their drivers rest in the shadows. In the parking lot at Sardarji Da Dhaba, where I purchased this meal and concluded a 12-hour road trip from Michigan, there’s considerably more activity. Blinding lights illuminate the yellow food truck, advertising veg and non-veg options. Men scroll on their phones as they wait for food orders.

And here I am, a newly unemployed food and culture writer with a story in front of me and nowhere to publish it.

I’ve known for some time that Punjabi truck drivers have been transforming the highways of America (to say little of the longer history of Punjabi Americans1). An oft cited stat from 2019 estimates about 150,000 Punjabi Sikh truckers working in the United States.

Raman Dhillon, the CEO of the North American Punjabi Trucking Association, said that he frequently gets asked to put a number on his community, but it isn’t easy to document.

“There’s no set number on it - (150,000) is just an estimate,” said Dhillon. “There’s probably a lot more than that. After COVID, a lot more people came into industry.”2 Dhillon himself has worked in the trucking industry since 1996, though he gave up driving in 2013. Dhillon and NAPTA are based in California, a major site for Punjabi Truckers, and boasts about 2600 members, according to Dhillon. Their Instagram, Punjabi Trucking USA, described as a magazine and featuring a podcast, has over 12,000 followers, though on a short look, engagement seems low.

For Punjabis, the “dhaba” is a romantic kind of thing, sort of like the 24-hour diner. They’re street-side eateries that are full of character, affordable and delicious. I’ve had my fair share of dhaba experiences in my travels through India and Pakistan. In the 90s, weaving through the Himalayan mountains, my family would have some of the most unique culinary experiences on benches sitting steps away from a sheer drop off of a mountain.

Interestingly, in recent years in Pakistan, significant infrastructure expansions have happened as a result of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Once, where travelling from Lahore to Islamabad might have had bathroom stops, now there exists well-maintained, consistent rest areas with a wide variety of options. In my limited experience, the dhaba element is almost nestled in as an afterthought.

Here in Milton, Pennsylvania, was my first experience in a real life roadside dhaba in my home country. I picked Sardarji da Dhaba because of it’s clear Sikh identity and usage of Punjabi language. “Sardarji” is an honorific used for turbaned Sikh men (which, it’s important to note, can also be used in a derogatory manner). However, it became clear immediately that part of the social function of this dhaba was to provide dietary variety to truck drivers of all different backgrounds, including Hindus and Muslims.

All I was able to eke out was “whoa, goat curry?” before the be-pagri-ed young man taking my order informed me it was halal. It was refreshing to see the competing, also-classically Indian value of inclusion against communalism. Of course, it was; Sikh’s are well-known for their egalitarian, free kitchens known as langars.

There are some unique challenges reporting on South Asian food as a South Asian. Food given in charity is such a core value and frequently that I have to aggressively refuse free food. One family member told me of a free paratha at another dhaba. But thankfully, they let me pay.

Despite the dhaba name, I was expecting something within the gas station, the way you might find a Subway or Dunkin. Instead, when I pulled in, I found a secondary ecosystem in the parking lot.

I was on this trip to New York in order to meet with my peers at Acacia Magazine. Since the first issue, I’ve been an editor at Acacia working on stories of culture, history and reporting from the perspective of the Muslim Left. I had been struggling and struggling to launch this damn newsletter. With that plate in front of me, I began taking notes and decided, it’s time.

For me, writing is like getting blood from a stone. Reporting, on the other hand, is seamless. I am an extrovert reporter, one who loves thrusting myself into new situations. But pitching has always been the biggest stop gap; I know from conversations with others what makes a story. And I’ve always sold my writing, never finishing it for anyone but an editor. I don’t always know what my piece will be until I sit down to write and rewrite and rewrite. I know it’ll be good.

But things have to change. As lay-offs, the economy and government intimidation ravage journalism, I know that this industry can’t always sustain me. My pace is a liability. But, I’ve learned, people still want to read what I write.

And so I’m trying to be a reporter on the road. Someone who takes the long routes and the shortcuts.

This Punjabi dhaba felt like a perfect encapsulation of the new kind of writing possible by sending it to my readers directly.

This isn’t a newsletter. This isn’t a food blog. This is a place to work on craft, in conversation with sources and readers. I don’t know what’ll come of it, but I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber so I can spend an hour at a roadside stall and order extra food.

Back to the dhaba.

Needless to say, this was the first time I had goat at a gas station in the U.S. For me, the classic dishes one wants to eat off a stall are the heat-kissed pakoras and buttered parathas, things that demand to be eaten immediately. Goat, meanwhile, needs time and energy.

This goat had been given what it needed. It gave way with ease and tenderness, even as I used plastic forks. On a sensory level, it hit all the marks of spice and heat. The roti and rice were functional, effective compliments to the meal. Onions and green peppers mingled in a plastic bag; together, they brought down their respective intensity.

I went back out to speak to the chefs and to order a chai. The shy man taking my order said he thought the truck had been operating for about two years.

They were too busy to talk then. In my usual reporting, I’d follow up with a call. I almost considered skipping the step, but right before publishing, I cold-called and got to speak with Gurmel Singh, the owner. When he picked up the phone, there was a storm of background noise, of clanging metal and Punjabi.

“We specially opened for people who drive the trucks, but now we get local traffic a lot,” said Singh. He himself drove a truck for a few months in 2022.

The dhaba name was intentional, he told me. To advertise that it was Punjabi food of a certain genre that appealed to truckers.

“It’s not like restaurant kind of food - it’s like homemade food,” said Singh. “…People who are trucking, they don’t want too much spices or masala. They want regular homemade kind of food. For the digestion.”

It’s clear that he’s well attuned to the diets of his customers. Most of them are Punjabi truckers, but occasionally cars pull up of customers from states like Gujurat.

“Many people from India, they are vegetarian,” said Singh. “I have more items in the vegetarian menu than non-veg.” He started listing out the classics. Saag. Shahi paneer. Mattar paneer. Punjabi chole. Daal tarka. Daal Makhni.

South Indians, he mentioned, might have some restrictions on onions, ginger and garlic, but by advertising himself as Punjabi, he can let them know that the food might have some of those ingredients they avoid.

These dhabas are stories in each community, growing and changing in their context.

Speaking of a dhaba in Vega, Texas, reporter Meena Venkataramanan describes how the only Indian residents of that town are the business people who offer food and board, amongst the 1,000 residents.

Initially, Arjot Sandhu and his family started a typical truck stop with American snacks. But, Venkataramanan writes, they discovered the Indian trucking demographic.

“As they began to see more Indian customers come in, they started asking them what they’d like to see in the store.”

This story is replicated across highways in the United States. This story for me began when I remembered Venkataramanan’s stories3 and on a whim simply googled Indian food on my route. Good reporting can do that.

Venkataramanan has herself made an unffocial Google map to Punjabi roadside dhabas across the U.S. Sardarji da Dhaba is not yet there, but I’ve made contact with her to discuss.

Take a look at the map here.

I had an embarrassment of choices, each with stories of their own.

After I left, I arrived in New York, where I decided I'd continue my practice of reporting in movement, grabbing stories as they come. Substack had been waiting for me to write some time. I’d drafted guides and intros and house-keeping posts. But rather than hemming and hawing, I just started doing what has become the bread and butter of organizing. Going out and talking.

I’ll start this by making these little stops. This will not only be a food blog, but over the next few weeks you can expect stories on the following:

• Nyonya in Manhattan Chinatown (alongside a guide to Rad Brown DadsNew York City Eats)

• the Pakistani chopped cheese from Nishaan and a crossover moment for young American-Pakistani chefs in New York City

• the Yemeni restaurant, Sheeba, in Michigan and the odd story of their Trump endorsement, alongside a guide to Michigan eats

I also plan to do long-form reporting as I did in my most recent job. Here’s a hint of what I’m working on.

It feels good to be on the road now. Both: in a writerly fashion and, you know, literally.

I’m sure many of you have questions about this platform, what’s next for me, and food recommendations. Feel free to leave questions by using the chat function here, DMing me on Instagram or Twitter (@radbrowndads everywhere) or leaving them in a comment below. I’ll choose a few to answer in a future Q&A post.

And as someone who writes too much, I’m experimenting with footnotes here to include sections I cut. Who knows if that’s a thing I’ll keep doing.