Brown Boy Syndrome
See Something Say Something
Ahmed Ali Akbar
4.8 • 550 Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2019
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ramadan Mubarak! We're happily loopy from our first week of fasting. In this episode, Ahmed talks to New York Times best-selling novelist, Fatima Farheen Mirza. Her novel, "A Place For Us," explores the relationships between the children and parents of a Hyderbadi Muslim family and what happens when a brown boy doesn't meet family and community expectations. It's kind of like that Warsan Shire tweet — "my dj name is dj eldest immigrant daughter." Plus: Salimah, Fatima, and Ahmed share their favorite suhoor memories.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, I'm Amadela Yuckper, and this is He Something Say Something. |
| 0:13.9 | It is our first Ramadan episode, and I recorded something after Sehor with Salima. |
| 0:21.6 | So I'm gonna sound a little bit loopy after this. |
| 0:24.6 | And then we're gonna talk to Fatima Farhain Mirza, the novelist. |
| 0:28.6 | If you see something, you better, you better say something. |
| 0:36.6 | Nothing at all, Nothing at all. |
| 0:38.4 | Nothing at all. |
| 0:42.5 | Good morning, Zalima. |
| 0:44.1 | Morning, Ahmed. |
| 0:45.4 | It's 4.30 a.m. or 5, I think. |
| 0:48.4 | I think it's still 4.30. |
| 0:49.8 | It's the second fast of Ramadan. |
| 0:55.5 | How are you feeling? |
| 0:57.3 | Well, I was just singing little Nazex. |
| 1:01.6 | Narrating all my actions earlier about what I was doing in the kitchen, you know. |
| 1:07.1 | That's the sound that I woke up to this morning. |
| 1:10.2 | Somebody making an omelet and then also, Cabo hair from Gucci over and over and over again. Yeah, yeah. So I'm a bit loopy, which is kind of the fun thing about Sehor. You and I have rarely done Sehor together because when I try to wake you up for Sohur, I'm like, I'm going to wake you up for Sohor tomorrow. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the next morning I'm like, Salima, it's time for Sohor. And you're like, surprised Pikachu. With your mouth, though. Yeah. I just gave up. This year you committed to doing it. Yeah. Because I, yeah, I have committed to doing it loosely. |
| 1:45.8 | We'll see what happens. |
| 1:48.2 | I mean, I'm leaving probably for most of Ramadan. |
| 1:49.8 | I'm probably not going to be around very much. |
| 1:51.4 | So we're not going to have that many of the horse together. But this week for our Ramadan series, I am interviewing a novelist of a book that I had been seeing around for a while, a place for us by Fatima Farhain Mirza. |
| 2:03.7 | It was published by Sarah Jessica Parker. |
... |
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