Zehra Crossing

Zehra Rizvi

I love popular culture. I love politics. Both in theory which is why I write about them. I've been called a cultural productionist for lack of a better word and this is what my writing focuses on. From looking at partition and the India/Pakistan relationship through Bolly and Lollywood, the Sri Lankan quagmire through music, Iran through novels, Bosnia, Palestine, Afghanistan through art and film and American imperialism through...their media, I get a part of my world view. The other parts are from people I surround myself with. People watching (not Anthropology) should be offered as a major in colleges as far as I'm concerned. As a living breathing active member of the South Asian 'diaspora' in America, I write about what I see and what I live.

Column Articles

The Alternative Muslim Identity Jun 19, 2005

We are not planning on going back home someday. We are home!

The first time I quit May 19, 2005

Three of my smoking neighbors pass by outside my window. They are sweet and I have been collected by them already. A collection amounts to a wave and a smile.

Parents and the Pill Apr 29, 2005

Which desi girl goes around asking her father, when she is unmarried, or even when she is married, to call in a birth control prescription?

Hi, I’m Zehra, Your DJ for the Evening Apr 8, 2005

I am told this is how desi DJ’s start. A rites of passage of sorts. Just make sure it is a passage and not the end of the hall. You play at a desi wedding. You watch the drunk uncles swing around the aunties and come and ask you for the 7th time

Asoka Mar 23, 2005

I’m sitting and rubbing my back, smiling.
I want it to hurt.

Some Weekends Mar 14, 2005

We all revert to our younger selves at homes. When my world was theirs and theirs was mine. I am still their world. Mine has changed but inside these walls, I try to stop time.

THEMES

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