VintageCinnamonBall

Haramacy is a “love letter to the diaspora”(Sultan, 2022) containing stories and essays from the Middle Eastern and South Asian diaspora. Curated by Zahed Sultan, British Kuwaiti-Indian multimedia artist who advocates for connection and representation. Sultan is most well known for his live stage music productions and his same titled project “Haramacy” which aims to create a community for those voices that have not been represented in the media. 

One of the chapters I liked the most is “Gary is not my Name” by Dhruva Balram. In this chapter, Balram narrates his experiences of moving to Canada from India at a young age and the struggles of not feeling like he belongs in the respective countries. The title of the chapter is named after a circumstance where his English teacher could not be bothered to learn his name so he designated him a typical English name. 

In order to feel accepted by his peers he woul exaggerate stories of India. Balram created a hyperreality (Baudrillard,1981), where he couldn’t separate fiction from real events to comfort himself from feeling othered. The feelings of hopelessness and loneliness started to disappear as he discovered artists who represented what life was like being torn between two cultures, like HateCopy. 

Balram emphasises in this chapter that individuals should reclaim their heritage and be proud. Diasporic identities are “forced to remedy curiosity before remediating their own” (Chew-Bose, 2017) when they are asked questions about their identity. The feeling of restlessness for the next generation can be soothed by the creative industry producing authentic work about their heritage and diaspora. 

Baudrillard, J, 1981, Simulacra and Simulation, Semiotext

Sultan, Z, 2022 Haramacy, Unbound