On Being Late to the Party, by Kamil Ahsan

So naturally, when I sat down to read the works of writers and artists I wanted to solicit, I realized how I had unconsciously been using the word “desi” to exclude too: no, I hadn’t really thought to include Sri Lanka—how profoundly awful of me!

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: The Artist’s Roundtable

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Senna Ahmad, Hafsa Ashfaq, Anum Awan, Nazish Chunara, Nahal Hashir, Mariam Jajja, and Seyhr Qayum talked about their artwork, collaborations, process, and inspirations on WhatsApp over a period of multiple days.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: Feroz & Aditya

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Feroz Rather and Aditya Desai talked about “Raid on Madras” via email.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: Tara & Chaya

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Tara Isabel Zambrano and Chaya Bhuvaneswar talked about “Gast Station” over email.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: Abeer & Nur

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Abeer Hoque and Nur Nasreen Ibrahim talked about “The Death of a Glacier” over the phone.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: Hasanthika & Ahsan

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

asanthika Sirisena talked to Ahsan Butt about “The Installation” over WhatsApp.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: Ahsan & Aatif

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Ahsan Butt and Aatif Rashid spoke about “ Grand Tour” and Aatif’s debut novel Portrait of Sebastian Khan in person.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: Palvashay & Feroz

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Palvashay Sethi and Feroz Rather discussed “A Strange Call From the Mountain” on Google Hangouts, in two parts.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: Chaya & Hasanthika

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Chaya Bhuvaneswar talked to Hasanthika Sirisena about “Escape to Buzzkill Falls” over email.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: Aatif and Devi

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Aatif Rashid and Devi S. Laskar talked about Devi’s excerpt “Second Midnight” from her debut novel The Atlas of Reds and Blues over WhatsApp.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: Devi and Tara

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Devi S. Laskar and Tara Isabel Zambrano talked about “Alligators” over WhatsApp.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: Sarah and Palvashay

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Sarah Thankam Mathews and Palvashay Sethi talked about “Barri Ammi” over WhatsApp.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: Nur and Abeer

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Nur Nasreen Ibrahim and Abeer Hoque spoke about Abeer’s story “Fuck All Gall” over the phone.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Conversations: Aditya and Sarah

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Aditya Desai and Sarah Thankam Mathews spoke about “The Storms” over WhatsApp.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

“Raid on Madras,” by Aditya Desai

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

Kalpana had been struck by that Indian butler character, since that late night when the movie was on television, and she’d already seen the Star Trek re-run on the other channel.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

Gas Station, by Chaya Bhuvaneswar

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

Waiting for his assignment, Wally was pulled to the newsfeed. A teenager in Jackson Heights went to a roof, jumped to her death.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

The Death of a Glacier, by Nur Nasreen Ibrahim

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

She has pockmarks blooming across her surface. Blotches of grey, brown and black interrupt the creamy white. She has melted at an astonishing rate.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

The Installation, by Ahsan Butt

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

She can see only as far as her headlights, not that there’s much to see. At some point, the road becomes unmarked and lane-less, liable to end without warning. Zayna rolls slowly. Not out of care, just no longer mindful of her speed or time. The radio—on since she left Jeffeh—strains for a signal. It seems lost in static for good, but so it had countless times—always returning to a late-night call-in show that went on and on.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

Grand Tour, by Aatif Rashid

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

Masood stood under the monument to Christopher Columbus in the sweltering heat of a Barcelona summer evening, staring down La Rambla and waiting for Lauren, the tall column rising above him into the darkening sky, the conqueror pointing out across the glittering water, when he remembered why he never liked visiting cities twice.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

A Strange Call from the Mountain, by Feroz Rather

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

For several days, he steers his battered lorry through the Ganga’s plains. Without delivering the load of 300 apple crates he ferried over the shoulders of the Himalayas to Hindustan, he decides to return home.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

Hasanthika+Sirisena_Escape+to+Buzzkill+Falls.jpg

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Escape to Buzzkill Falls, by Hasanthika Sirisena

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Escape to Buzzkill Falls

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

Second Midnight, by Devi S. Laskar

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

Perhaps it is the spectacle of Mother Nature. The special science field trip in the eleventh grade, on the very day her sister misses school because of food poisoning (someone had laced the brownies with Ex-Lax at the neighborhood picnic the afternoon before). A moment of unparalleled beauty.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

Alligators, by Tara Isabel Zambrano

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

The stare of the gypsy girl, taut as a cable. She sits opposite to me, next to an older woman, probably her mother, in an open truck.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

Barri Ammi, by Palvashay Sethi

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

You know her. Have heard of her through cautionary tales with the caution being

dispensed dubious at best and unnecessary at worst.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

Fuck All Gall, by Abeer Hoque

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

She first saw Sure at a pub in town. The place was like a cellar with wooden pillars in awkward places which made it hard to dance but easy to look all angles. Galway was thronged per its Saturday usual, pubs packed, the cobblestone streets streaming with people. The weather was warm, and there was a sheen on people’s faces, more than just the drink.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

The Storms, by Sarah Thankam Mathews

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

The week before I turn thirty-four, the rising waters flood my stupid, spiteful Red Hook rental for the second time.

Road Trips: The Desi Issue, Fiction

Road Trips: The Desi Issue

From 2019: Road Trips: The Desi Issue, guest edited by Kamil Ahsan

Secrets

The Something Issue