Meet Kamil Ahsan, an alumnus of LUMS, from the batch of 2012, and ex-President of PLUMS. He graduated with a PhD in Biology from the University of Chicago, and is currently pursuing another in History at Yale. He is also an independent journalist, writer, and assistant editor at Barrelhouse. His writing has appeared in Dissent, Jacobin, The Nation, L.A. Review of Books, A.V Club, Tanqeed, Salon, Aeon, and others. You can find him at kamilahsan.com, or on Twitter @kamuleosaurus.
Hi Kamil, It’s good to hear from our ex-President, the whole PLUMS team is delighted to hear about your project.
Hi Saif. That’s so delightful to hear! Yeah, it’s a little strange to think about how it’s actually been 7 years since I graduated, because on some level I remember it like it was yesterday, but also, I feel very old, hah! PLUMS was so foundational for me as a writer and editor. I’m so excited to reconnect with the people in it right now.
Could you tell us something about your experience as the President of PLUMS?
Oh man. It was nuts, in so many ways. I think PLUMS is a really good experience in some pretty key ways. I was in the first SSE batch so I was over the moon to be President but it’s a steep learning curve, organizationally. I remember my senior year was when we launched The Box Move which was huge, and I stepped away from being a writer and was just editing a lot, liaising between people, sending lots of emails, and learning InDesign! Which was all incredibly helpful later on to be honest so I’m very happy that I learned all that. But at the same time, I do think the way LUMS under-budgets its publications society is…disillusioning. I felt a little defeated, as a writer specifically. That took a bit to come back from.
Let’s talk about Barrelhouse. Could you walk us through what it is and what it plans on achieving?
Ah. Well, Barrelhouse is an institution. I think the US literary scene is so vibrant and exciting, there’s so many literary magazines, both print and online, that it can be daunting and also hard to see from outside the US, apart from the big-wigs, say the Paris Review or the New Yorker. Barrelhouse is very much a healthy institution, it’s both in print and online and I’d been in awe of their pop culture-adjacent work for quite some time before I joined the team! I think it has incredibly ambitious plans. Apart from the magazine, we have conferences, workshops and even a Barrelhouse Books division, so it’s very much a community too. The wonderful thing about Barrelhouse is that in the US, starting out as a writer is very hard. Despite that, in just over the past year, we’ve had a print issue devoted to people who had never published before! We had a special issue for Latinx contributors. And now we have the desi issue!
I’m very proud that we’re really trying to fold people in, instead of keeping them out. And the work we receive (and we get so much) is just incredible. I have a question for you though before you ask another, hah. How daunting is it for you and other writers to be at LUMS and see the writing landscape that you hope to contribute to? I know the scene in Lahore has improved massively since I was there, with The Aleph Review and others. But I’m curious about your perspective.
I feel the opportunities are limited to start off with. By that I mean two things. First there has been a commercialization of writing. Most writing is not for the sake of evoking a sense of learning in the reader but for the sheer desire of earning. My reference is towards freelance content writing etc. Second, I feel there aren’t many institutions in Pakistan (like Barrelhouse) that would encourage writers to exhibit their creativity. Lastly, I feel Urdu creative writing has largely remain otherized from the realm of literature (particularly among our generation).
Yeah, 100% Bohat mushkil hai. I think this is true of everywhere but in Pakistan especially, newspapers rule the roost, nai? So LUMS students, if they’re prepared at all, are much more prepared to write non-fiction, or become journalists. Which is great! Even in the US, I got my start as a journalist. Laikin that lack of options, it’s sad. And non-English languages tou door ki baat hai! That’s even sadder. By the way, as a quick recommendation, if anyone hasn’t heard of or read Qurratulain Hyder’s Aag Ka Durya (or the English translation River of Fire) you must. I wish that was part of my education, but sadly it wasn’t.
Thank you. I will look into that and ask others to do the same. Having said that could you explain to us a little about the collaboration? What’s the purpose of the project? What exactly is Barrelhouse looking for?
So the reality is that Barrelhouse is a US-based magazine. Even people like me are based in the US. One day hopefully we can start crossing state lines better, but given that even India and Pakistan often don’t receive each others’ works, US is a whole other story. At the same time, this issue is the first collection of both native and diasporic South Asians. Shockingly, it hasn’t been done before! So yes, plenty of our contributors live in South Asia currently. I think with this issue we’re looking to show people that there’s a lot more to desi literature than the barray naam, Mohsin Hamid, Kamila Shamsie, Arundhati Roy etc. And God love their political views, I am a ride-or-die Arundhati Roy and Mohammad Hanif fan. So really it’s about desi writers kar kya rahein hain? And hopefully, with this issue where we have so many different genres and styles and aesthetics, some young desi writers will recognize themselves in it and feel a little less alone?
For example, one of our writers, Ahsan Butt, a Canadian-American writer wrote a really beautiful story called “The Installation”, sort of a noir essentially about a woman’s journey into a space where she experiences…death, perhaps? And I remember throughout the editing process I understood what he was doing only partially. And it’s only recently that I told him: “Ahsan, this is…philosophical fiction! And it’s keenly Muslim philosophy, perhaps a bit Sufi.” But it doesn’t immediately come off that way, it’s not on-the-nose, there’s nothing obvious about it. Aur hum “secular” log, we’ve become very used to “secular” fiction from our big-name authors, no? Or if not secular, they explore Islamophobia and other major political issues, but without really digging into issues of faith because let’s be honest, they’re all as secular as secular writers can be. I’m not much of a believer myself, but Ahsan’s story really did shock me. It made me think of all the religious people in my life and it made me understand and empathize with them. And koi terrorism sherrorism ki baat nai hai, you know?
Well, tell us about the literary usage of the word “Desi?” Do you think the issue is still a contentious one to date? By that I mean can you talk about negative connotation we have with the word when we have to refer to South Asian Brown writers.
That’s a great question. It’s, I think, the central question for this issue, for all our contributors. See, now, I don’t know if this is true for you, but it’s definitely true for me and all the people I grew up with and the Indian friends I made in Chicago who had just moved from India, that we had never really questioned the word “desi.” I’ve always loved it, it seems like it includes all of us, all these people who are separated by borders and wars and violence and occupation, whether they’re in South Asia or abroad.
But that’s just not the experience of a lot of South Asians who grew up here! I remember being very surprised that “desi” was contentious actually, because in the US, the Kashmiri writer Feroz Rather told me, it’s sort of used to describe mostly North Indians and Pakistanis. So it’s used in very exclusionary ways and it’s become contentious. That said, can we reclaim that word? Itna barra sawaal hai, so all we can do is publish the conversations our contributors are having and leave it to readers to decide! We have completely different backgrounds and experiences, might as well show it!
What do you think, was desi ever contentious for you?
To be completely honest I have never heard South Asian writers being referred to as Desi. You know them mostly by their names, or their work is categorized as Brown (non white) literature. I think this has more to do with the image the word evokes? What is the first thing that comes to my mind? A Pakistani writer (perhaps writing in Urdu) for an audience based in the native country. A cohesive example in that regard: Manto or Patras Bukhari. It’s difficult to associate the terminology Desi with say Mohan Hamid or Kamila Shamsie.
That’s interesting. I feel like I always unconsciously heard it used as anyone who was born in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, though I do think people excluded Sri Lanka and Nepal, and unfortunately, for obvious reasons, Kashmir. Or even anyone whose parents were born here but immigrated. Like hummaray cousins jo England gaye the, wo desi nai hain?
Half desi. Even Lumunites aren’t pure desis. I dont know who qualifies as desi anymore. Perhaps we should wait for the barrelhouse edition to tell us that!
Ah, so you mean privilege is a way to think about someone who is desi.
Upper middle class and rich people are less desi than everybody else. Like I said there is a negative connotation so yes desi is someone I would envisage as less privileged. But at the same time for me what it takes to be desi also constitutes your likes and dislikes. Listening to Bollywood songs makes you desi. On the contrary, listening to Tame Impala or sasta Edm doesn’t.
Ah, acha acha. Matlab, the opposite of burger. That’s interesting. I don’t think I ever grew up with that idea, but these things shift a lot! In this issue, some of the older writers have completely different perspectives to the others. For me, it’s a political imperative. Vijay Prashad has talked about this, but I don’t want to buy into nationalisms and country names and bureaucratic terms. Let’s open it all up. After all, we don’t deny Barack Obama’s “Blackness” because he’s wealthy.
I think privilege is very important, just not so much in the term desi for me. I hate words like paindu where they’re pejorative but a lot of my friends who are leftists like me just proudly call themselves paindu if they do come from lower income background. So…you know it’s tricky, but interesting. I can tell you, I feel like the creators of LOST: the issue will show conversations like this one. But it would be hard to find answers.
Do you think writers working for (or contributing to) Barrelhouse face some sort of backlash from the society at large. Considering from the documents you sent, some of the short stories revolve around controversial themes like homosexuality, human trafficking.
Well, yes. Of course! I talked about a story that’s very Muslim and it’s sitting right beside horror stories, queer narratives, we even have a really wonderful erotica story in the issue. I think that privilege plays a part in the fact that many if not all of the writers are somewhat insulated from backlash, either because they’re wealthy or live abroad. But it’s also something we shouldn’t necessarily be thinking about. After all, somehow, Mohammad Hanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes, which had very risque gay sex scenes, did very well critically!
I think when the day comes for a writer to face backlash on things like this, we need to reckon with state censorship. That’s our job making art. And art that isn’t provocative in some way or form isn’t pushing the needle forward.
Though, it’s fun to note that it’s not the first time desi writers are doing this. Ismat Chughtai, Manto, Faiz, Qurratulain Hyder were all extremely bold and provocative.
I’m so proud of our artists and the way they collaborated with the writers. Just all very radical artists doing great things with such intellect.
Acknowledging the fact that English literary work in Pakistan reaches just a small proportion of the total Pakistani population, do you think the creative work will be less impactful?
So, that’s an interesting question for two reasons. First, there actually are queer traditions in Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, what have you. They’ve often been shoved under the rug but our lack of awareness about them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I know people doing PhDs on exactly this. It does exist, and this idea that South Asian society is this homogenous monolith is obviously wrong.
Doosri baat yeh hai that interestingly in this issue we have writers who are very interested in having their work translated, and though it’s an English-language issue, there is actually some interplay with Urdu. “Barri Ammi” by Palvashay Sethi is one of those. It is an incredible story that I’m formatting right now that has Urdu script in it.I love that we’re not translating it. We’re not pandering to people who don’t read that language. If they want they can copy-paste it into Google Translate.
Impact tou mushkil sawaal hai. There are so many things that don’t have impact. Journalism from Indian-occupied Kashmir is so sparse, for example, for the most part we have no idea what it’s like for people in essentially the world’s biggest open-air prison. Feroz Rather who I mentioned earlier has a story that he’s really keen on writing for Kashmiri readers. So, it’s tricky, because scale is always tricky! But having the sort of institutional backing at Barrelhouse that we do helps us reach a lot of people. But even if it didn’t, I’d do it for the worth of even one person reading it and thinking “yaar, that feels like me/my family/my life!” Interestingly, Palvashay is a writer who is very keen on having all her work translated. Which is true for many of our contributors who’ve published books too.
Interesting. So my last question for you is: What are your expectations from the project? Are you keeping your hopes high *fingers crossed*?
Hah! I don’t know what my expectations are to be honest. I’ve been pouring myself into this for so long, and this is really a lifelong dream for me. I’ve wanted to do it ever since I can remember so right now, I just want to deliver. And then sleep!!! I do want to mention just in closing that I’m really excited to reconnect with PLUMS people for many reasons. And one of those reasons is very simply this sort of defeatist attitude that I think, when we are writers in LUMS, it’s such a natural thing to feel! Get a few likes on a post we’ve spent ages writing and it feels like no one’s reading and no one cares! That kind of environment is really stifling, so it’s not that I want to “give back” to be honest, it’s more that I wish writers who are coming into their own realize…it’s not hopeless! Haan, it’s hard work, crazy hard work.
I remember one time I was in Lahore right after the Youhanabad attacks and I was writing a story on it for Tanqeed. I remember feeling like the whole air around me changed when I brought it up with people. They just…didn’t want to talk about it! Or if they did, the Uncles we all have hahaha, they would be very nationalistic. The best conversation I had was actually with the maid who worked in our house at the time, who was Christian, and I just remember having this lovely conversation about how deeply the word “choora” hit as a pejorative, you know?
I think LUMS main we’re so used to self-criticizing ourselves as being in a bubble that we also…forget to leave it. Like, go to Youhanabad! Report on it! Talk to people. In Chicago some of the most life-changing experiences I’ve had was just me taking the subway all the way down south to the Black segregated neighborhoods and talking to them!
Now whether it’s journalism or fiction that comes out of it, does it matter? We can make art that matters. We probably have to get better at listening first. But it’s definitely not hopeless. The minute we buy into that, that’s when we’ve been censored. And especially with the Aurat March recently, we know what that censorship does over the long run! I’m so happy to see all of that, and disgusted by the response, but it’s a movement! Fiction has movements too! One of our artists quite literally was one of the most prominent activists in the Aurat March. And you can tell in her art!