05/09/2025
Tension between India & Pakistan has been a constant to so many of our lives growing up. 🇵🇰 🇮🇳
I never grasped its weight until I tried to get married. My wife is an Indian Muslim from Hyderabad, my family is Pakistani Muslim from Punjab, but both of us raised in the U.S.
Still, it turned into a four-year battle just to get married and that journey left lasting effects on both of our families and our psyches.
It took me years to understand that beneath all the layers is real generational trauma. Our parents, and their parents, lived through a crazy partition period which shaped how they see the world.
What’s tougher is also the subtle racism and bias that still exists between Pakistanis and Indians, even within friend groups in the USA
Visiting India last year opened my eyes - from the 6-month struggle to get a visa, to the INCREDIBLE people I met across the country, to being advised not to mention being Pakistani, to DJing in some AMAZING places - it was humbling, beautiful and hard to understand all at once. But I CANNOT WAIT to go back one day! ❤️
We’re more connected than we are divided by arbitrary lines.
My hope, through music, has always been to bridge the GENERATIONAL divide between English & Desi music + the cultural divide between the beautiful layers of Pakistani & Indian music.
I pray for peace in the region, now and forever. 🇵🇰 🇮🇳
