hiya :-)
thanks for being here.
what is off-grid baby?
off-grid baby is a place i share stuff about the things that get me going. think madness, music, kink, ecology, radical civil engineering, apocalypse, hair, community, post-gender, faux fur, friendship & whatever’s going on in my life. i’ll also be considering the grid, what it means to be off it as a brown trans person & why. this is inspired by living part-time on a house boat in london. subscribers will get all the juice first.
why baby? why not.
what should i expect?
expect treats from me in your inbox! (paid subscribers will get treats in their letterbox too(!) i live with chronic depression & value rest, so sometimes these offerings will be more regular than others but you know it’s always worth the wait.
why should i pay?
this newsletter, like most of my work, is available for free. i want it to be accessible to everyone coz that’s the dream isn’t it. my energy & time is valuable though, so please do pay if you can. i’m also open to trades in the form of art, tattoos, clothes, guest posts… try me!
who are you?
i am an artist, writer, musician, dj, crisis counsellor & community worker living between a boat in east london & an apartment in brooklyn, new york. i am pakistani & egyptian, born on an estate in north london, somewhat estranged from my north african heritage but always finding my way back there through music & my thighs. i love water, naps & dancehall. i don’t love clutter, religious dogma (least favourite dogma), or watching people cook. i’m always trying to learn stuff. right now: watercolour painting, farsi & the basics of plumbing. i might give you a tattoo if you ask nicely.
writing
i have been writing publicly since 2008, usually about mental health, pop culture, social justice, race, gender, sexuality, technology & body hair. i have been published in the guardian, new york times, vice, them., buzzfeed, autostraddle, cosmopolitan & some books. since 2020 i’ve written a queer monthly advice column for galdem magazine. in 2017 my essay, white women drive me crazy went viral & i started taking writing a little more seriously.
mental health
in 2019 i created misery, a mental health collective & sober club night devoted to healing for queer & transgender people of the global majority based in london, but with a global reach. mental health is at the center of my work as i have a bunch of experience being really fucking sad & also i remain devoted to the otherworldliness of madness, & to imagining a society that could hold, honour & learn from it - a place where it could grow, become something else completely if it wanted to. i have worked in the emergency room of new york’s bellevue hospital as a sexual assault & domestic violence crisis counsellor. i have also worked as a social worker for a radical mental health housing provider in nyc. radical mental health care is life.
music
music is my first love & the dance floor is my happy place. genres i listen to & play out most include dancehall, baile funk, afrobeat, north african percussion, bollywood melodies, french trap, qawwali & pretty much all other devotional music, trance, women with guitars. but also what is a genre. i am blessed to have performed live music & djed across the uk, europe & new york. i wanna play my guitar more.
