I’m Leaving — and What’s Next for Areo
This is the short letter I published when I announced that I would move away from Areo, a digital magazine that I founded. I’ve reprinted it on my website for the sake of record.
Essays & Criticism
Growing Up Online
In my first few weeks of high school in Australia, I remember a classmate messaging me something inflammatory on MSN Messenger (the equivalent of AOL for Americans). Though I don’t recall the exact phrasing of it, I know it was akin to: “Go read the Koran you….” The message was particularly strange because it came […]
Truth and Power in a New Age of Publishing
Power is often ill-defined when it relates to the truth. Some strains of philosophy and their intellectual offspring huddle together to claim that power controls the production of our discourse. That is, those in power have a monopoly on what a society considers true.
The Moral Contamination of Free Speech
We find ourselves living in an age where free speech is considered by many as a concept that only right-wingers care about. “You think free speech is important?” I’m asked. When I respond, “Yes,” eyebrows are raised, shoulders tilt away, and through the forehead of my interlocutors I envision some panicked calculations in their minds: Is […]
A Cartoon to Ease Your Existential Dread
I first realized how good we are at pushing away the insignificance of our existence while creating a PowerPoint at 2:30 a.m. in a second-floor office in New York City with my colleague. I paused and mentioned to her then: “Is this what you want to be doing?” hinting, vaguely, at some grand philosophical questions. In a delirium of […]
My Stealthy Freedom: The Hijab in Iran and in the West
In 1979, after the Islamic Revolution of Iran, more than a hundred thousand woman took to the streets to protest the compulsory veiling that was to be enforced under the new Khomeini regime. Mothers, nurses, and students — women from all walks of life — gathered to voice their displeasure at the new policy. But the protests were marred by violence.
I Am a Minority and I Prohibit You
I am a minority and I prohibit you from culturally appropriating my native culture. I was born in India, thus, I prohibit you from stealing my culture, eating any foods that are representative of that region and engaging in my practices. But wait I have a reason. I have several: Since the British colonized, destroyed, and […]