Mehreen's Version: Talk Talk

“Mother tongue” is an apt phrase, with the quirk of idiom revealing an underlying truth, or at least a widely-felt sentiment - the languages of our cultures, our homes, offer a comfort not found elsewhere.

In the conversation that follow, one of our intrepid Fohr team members explores this idea with a creator who shares the language they grew up with.  At the heart of their conversation is a recurring question in the digital age: what does “community” mean when the Internet brings us both closer and further apart than ever before, and how do those of us with more than one cultural identity find a sense of belonging and respite in everyday life?

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ESCAPING INTO URDU

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In a country dominated by English, being multilingual shapes not only how you communicate, but also how you view the world. I grew up speaking Urdu at home and English at school, work, and in public, and that divide shaped my sense of identity and belonging. When I speak English, my thoughts flow differently and my interactions take on a different tone. It’s the language used in the “real world.” But in Urdu spaces, I can feel more authentically myself; it’s an escape into a different world, a shift in mindset and perspective.

The majority of the media I consume, from social media and streaming content to subway ads, is in English – a constant intake of information about my daily reality. When I retreat into Urdu and Hindi media, it's like stepping into a sanctuary that feels both familiar and new, comforting and exciting. Media in Urdu and Hindi is rich and diverse, encompassing everything from literature and poetry to music and film. Whether I'm watching a classic Bollywood film or listening to the beautiful melodies of a ghazal (a poem set to music, similar to a ballad), I feel transported. But perhaps the most significant aspect of using my mother tongue in public is the sense of privacy it affords me, a bubble in which I can express myself freely.

My experience of being multilingual is deeply personal, but it speaks to a broader truth about the power of language to shape our experiences. By embracing our linguistic identities, we open ourselves up to new perspectives, cultures, and possibilities. We discover that language is not just a tool for communication, but a gateway to different worlds and ways of being.

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In conversation with creator Dr. Nabila Ismail (@doseoftravel)

Dr. Nabila is a pharmacist turned full-time content creator and entrepreneur. Through her business, @DoseofTravelClub, she puts together worldwide travel experiences for South Asian globetrotters. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.

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MEHREEN AHMED: How did you get into content creation and start your travel club?

DR. NABILA ISMAIL: I started creating content a long time ago, before 2012, but my first solo trip was the summer of my freshman year in college, when I was an au pair in Spain. That was when I really started to document my story, mainly for my friends and my parents, on Instagram; it wasn't for anything. Later, I became a pharmacist. I worked for a couple of years and then I promised myself after three years in the workforce, I would take a year off to go travel. So in 2022, I started traveling, and that was when I built up my platform and got to highlight more of my travel stories because I had more time and was constantly inspired. That’s really when it started, and has turned into a business since then.

AHMED: And now you have a travel club where you host trips specifically for South Asian groups. How did that come about?

ISMAIL: I feel like I’ve always been on the platform for community… I didn’t see it as being an influencer. It was more like I was sharing things we all struggle with wanting to do, like highlighting my journey as a pharmacy student and traveling. I started to see people organically follow me. They were like - ‘Who’s this South Asian girl traveling by herself?’ And they’d tell me, like, ‘Oh, wow, I’ve never seen a Desi or Muslim girl doing this.’ So the inspiration [for my company] came from the community and me seeing the problem that so many people want to travel but don’t have friends who would go with them. I decided to put it to the test and put the first group trip together. I have no problem hanging out with strangers because I travel alone all the time. When the first Bali trip sold out, I said, ‘Ok, maybe I’ll try this again.’ And it’s kind of been trial and error, but filling a gap that clearly exists - one that I experienced myself.

AHMED: That's amazing. You saw that gap and saw that South Asians didn’t feel like they had that representation - does that also have any influence on the content you create? Do you feel like your being South Asian is embedded in there too?

ISMAIL: Yeah, I think so. At first, I didn't highlight that because I didn't know if it was just a personal experience that I was going through, and I feel like a lot of the things that we go through may be taboo or vulnerable or topics that we try to avoid or suppress a little bit. So I started to talk about it because people started to ask about it. And I was like, ‘oh, finally, okay, maybe I'm not alone.’ I also realized when traveling that I didn’t see a lot of people who looked like me, probably for the same reasons that I went through, but not everyone would have the courage, finances, or ability to go on their own or have that independence. So I feel like it is very much rooted in my content now because I'm also navigating it now that I've made this my career… I try to take people with me on the journey, and not just the ones to another country.

AHMED: Do the group trips - with South Asian people who have similar goals and interests - feel like you’re in your little South Asian bubble, or do you feel like you're able to really immerse yourself in wherever you're traveling to?

ISMAIL: When I first started this, I didn’t mean for it to be exclusively South Asian, but because that resonated so much, it kind of turned into that. We try to strike a good balance. We’re there to travel, learn, and immerse ourselves in a different culture. But there are definitely advantages for people of color to travel together in terms of safety and understanding. For example, everyone understands that parents might call a lot or people who say their parents only let them go on the trip because it was a bunch of South Asians. There's way more that goes into it that you don't have to explain to another South Asian person. There’s a comfort level, and I think we bond on a different level from the very beginning.

AHMED: When you're on these trips, or just in general, do you speak other languages? Do you speak other languages in your content?

ISMAIL: I love language learning. I did launch a Pakistan trip for people to connect with their heritage a little bit more and to be empowered to want to speak Urdu or practice it or brush up on your skills. I don't make content in any foreign languages yet. I tried to will myself to when I was in Pakistan because it would be a great message for other South Asian diaspora people who are trying to change their culture. I also think there's so much value in creating content in different languages, especially since the Indian subcontinent, like Pakistan and India, have the largest populations in the world. There's probably a whole market that I'm missing out on that my content could resonate with, but I see a huge opportunity there and maybe I'll get the courage to speak Urdu on a public platform.

AHMED: You have a very multilingual, multicultural life in general.

ISMAIL: Yes… and I will say, traveling has helped me appreciate my own culture and language more.

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In conversation with creator and entrepreneur Trisha Sakhuja-Walia (@tsakhuja_walia)

Trisha is the leader behind @browngirlmag, a community-driven platform for South Asians in the diaspora. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.

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MEHREEN AHMED: Could you share a little bit about how you got to where you are today?

TRISHA SAKHUJA-WALIA: You know, it's funny… In life, you always plan for something, and you think that you're going to achieve it, but then something else ends up happening. That’s what happened to me with Brown Girl [Mag]. At the outset, I wanted to go to law school and I was very intentional in wanting to be a media attorney, so I guess it worked out in some weird way.

I never ended up going to law school, but thankfully I did minor in journalism and earned my master’s in public policy. Then I started writing for a local newspaper, and I am so grateful for the local newspaper. I was able to cover a bunch of news and politics - Bill de Blasio’s mayoral campaign, local stories here in Queens. It got me really pumped; putting pen to paper is the most exhilarating feeling. Telling a story, then putting it out in the world and having people react to it. There’s a really cool sense of fulfillment when you put a story out in the world. I realize now that subconsciously I’ve always been intrigued by telling stories, and that was the breeding ground for me and how I got to Brown Girl.

To take a step back: in high school, I started my first ever Desi club. I used to go to the Greek Club to find a sense of community, but then I was like, okay, I really gotta start promoting samosa instead of promoting baklava. I reached out to the school and asked for a budget for Desi Club, but this is back in the day when people didn’t know what “Desi” was! I got a decent amount of pushback before getting the first $3,000 budget. BUT —I think it's just like those small moments that you don't realize when you're younger, when you're bringing people together and you're bringing community together.  I didn't know that’s what I was doing. I didn't know I was community building; I was just getting my friends to put on a dance show and I was just having fun with it. But yeah, who would have thought that that subconscious training that I essentially had would lead me to Brown Girl.

And so many moons later, I found Brown Girl on Facebook and I was in awe that there was a platform online that quite literally was a safe space for brown women to talk about themselves. I submitted a piece on my hairy arms and my unibrow and, you know, and Brown Girl accepted it. From there, I became really cool with the original founder almost immediately… and began pursuing Brown Girl as a side hustle/passion project.

A few years into it, the original founders needed to shut down because Brown Girl was too difficult to run as a passion project, because there was no money in it, and they needed to generate revenue in order to keep it running. That's kind of when I swooped in on a whim.  I told them that I would buy them out, which is such a big risk, and probably the biggest risk that I've taken in my life so far.

I think it was worth it. It took me two years to buy them out…and around those two years is when I really figured out, okay, Brown Girl does mean something, and it can actually have a revenue model. I started hosting a lot of events. And of course, I started doing paid content.

And a lot of that happened because I was just desperate to figure out revenue. And I'm grateful that I was desperate, because I think when you're desperate to figure something out is when you, when you do it, you just don't have a choice. You just have to do it.

And that's what happened to me. Now, four or five years after running Brown Girl full time, I totally understand that Brown Girl does have a business model, and we can be a content platform that is very much community driven.

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AHMED: How do you navigate that - a business model that is community driven?

SAKHUJA-WALIA: I run it on three very important pillars, the “Three Cs” that are my north star: Content, Community, and Commerce.

First is the content that we have generated for years and years from the community. I’m grateful almost every piece of content is truly user generated. People from around the country and around the world have submitted content because they genuinely want to, and it's a safe space for them

The second C, Community, is all the events that we've done. Last year alone, I hosted 30 events across the country, everything from pop ups, to book readings, to networking events, to album release parties.  It's all about bringing people together, which brings another level of joy to my life.

The third C is Commerce. I’m really proud of our clothing line, which we’ve had on and off for years, and we’ve released different drops and collections. We also have a book we published at the height of the pandemic called Untold. It’s a collection of stories by 32 South Asian authors from around the country, and it is so beautifully written. It covers so many important topics — from mental health, deportation, casteism, colorism, you name it.

And the big goal in all of this, in everything that we're doing at Brown Girl, is to really create a footprint that truly is intergenerational.

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AHMED: Do you see brands that are doing really well in terms of representation and have tapped into working with South Asian influencers? Do you feel like brands should be doing more? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

SAKHUJA-WALIA: At this moment, we truly need more power players in the community that are actually going to lift us up. If you have the ability, means, and funds — please lift up minority-driven communities with actual money. Don't just ask us to be on a panel during AAPI month.

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AHMED: You have this other language that takes you to a completely different world. Can you speak a little bit about that? What other languages do you speak?

SAKHUJA-WALIA: I am Indian, Hindu, Punjabi; I don't know Hindi as well and I don't know Punjabi as well. I immigrated here with my family when I was five years old. It was the early 90s, and multiculturalism wasn’t what it is today, and it became clear that I had to give up my mother tongue early on in order to assimilate and “become American,” per se.

So by the time I got to high school, I had to relearn so much of my language, and now, finally, when I am 30 something, I am understanding the power of my language a hundred times more than ever.

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AHMED: I am in a completely other world when I'm talking to my family, when I'm speaking with my grandparents or when I go abroad and Urdu or Hindi is the common language. It feels like a completely separate world from here in the US, where everything is English first. Do you have similar experiences, or do you feel like it's very normal at whichever world you're living in?

SAKHUJA-WALIA: It does feel like an escape. It feels like our own little world… It's going to take me many years to get there, but I'm feeling more “one” with it now than I have in a very long time, probably since I was a kid. This is the first time in my life where I genuinely want to talk to my friends and family in Hindi, even though it comes with a little bit of embarrassment because it’s not perfect.