Aisha, Part 4. Pakistani American: Eid, Mehndi & Motherhood

In Part 4 of Aisha’s story, we follow her into adulthood as she marries her husband and begins a new chapter back in Pakistan. She shares the culture shock of adjusting to a different city, trying to break glass ceilings, and the challenges of navigating career and motherhood. Aisha also reflects on her identity as a Muslim feminist, how she celebrates Eid, and what it means to find home across cultures and geographies. This episode explores themes of marriage, motherhood, gender roles, Pakistani culture, feminism, and the evolving search for belonging.

Full episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/LkI_GqB_Ci4

Follow Aisha:

On Instagram @aishafsarwari and @heart_tantrums
On X @AishaFSarwari
On Youtube @aishasarwari2134 

Her memoir is called Heart Tantrums and Brain Tumours and can be ordered on from Hurst Publishers at https://www.hurstpublishers.com/profile/aisha-sarwari/ 

Transcript

Transcript generated by AI and may contain errors

Aisha: [00:00:00] I remember my older child, you know, being on my hip while I was cooking. And, uh, you know, she wasn't a very expressive child, but she looked at me and I, she was looking at me while I was cooking and it was really hot. So I look at her, you know, and then she kind of is staring at me like. Hmm. And then she, she takes her tiny little two arms and she puts it around my neck, you know, as if like, you are my person, you know,

Jess: Mm-hmm.

Aisha: and everything just dropped at that moment and I was like, oh my God, I'm a mom.

Jess: You are listening to Cultureful. I'm your host, Jess Lin. This is the fourth and final part of my conversation with Aisha Sarwari. In part three, Aisha shared about losing her father and childhood migrating to Kenya and going to college and meeting her husband in the U.S. In this episode, we [00:01:00] follow her and her husband as the relationship develops and they decide to marry, we also hear about her move back to Pakistan, the culture shock she experienced, the challenges she faced in her career and motherhood.

We close with her reflections on being a Muslim feminist, celebrating Eid and finding home. 

 This journey with Aisha moved me in ways I'm still processing. Her struggles are deeply relatable and her observations humble, yet profound.

As always, you can find the video versions on YouTube. I hope you enjoy.

. Welcome back from the break.

Aisha: Thank you.

Jess: Uh, okay. So before the break, left off right after you and your husband meet The cutest fricking meet cute that I've heard in a long time. 

Aisha: Oh. 

Jess: Super, super cute. basically just to recap, like [00:02:00] you met, um, over the internet in, a forum where you're both writing very passionately and then you, just happened to both be going to Pakistan from your, his East coast school, your west coast school.

You were both going to Pakistan at the same time. You meet there for the first time then you mentioned Subway in the article that you wrote. Was Subway the first time that you met

Aisha: Alone.

Jess: a, that was the first alone meeting. Okay. 

Aisha: so second base was for him to meet your brother 

 were in California.

Jess: Both brothers were in California at the time.

Aisha: Uh, no, one of them was so it's just one brother. But, you know, uh, assuming that they both had a joint council on the matter.

Jess: Okay.

Aisha: yeah,

Jess: So they, okay, so, so he came to California to meet

Aisha: my brother.

Jess: your brother, but at this time you also said it was kind of like an intellectual meeting of the minds. So what motivated [00:03:00] him? So was he also just like, oh, but he wants more too?

Aisha: Yeah. Yeah. I think it, that's quite clear. And by that, by this time, his friends are sort of like, being like, that's interesting. What does this girl want? So when I, when I met him in Lahore, his friends brigade, IE Tony Asino, who's passed away, unfortunately recently, Preme, um, Tony was Italian American PRI was Indian American, and Mario, these three people came to check me out being like, who's this girl?

What does she want? You know, is she good enough? Um, and so when he came to California, obviously like the understanding was that he's now gonna go, you know, into my people and get that sort of sorted. And before that, of course we are just pretending that it's meeting of the minds, but it's also actually is meeting of the minds, but it's also not, you know, so there's always this gray area in, um, in eastern tradition mostly, which is like, you know, just keep it flow with it, see where it goes, because [00:04:00] if you wanna then exit, you can, 'cause it'll be just, oh, he just came to say hi to the family.

Jess: Uh, like, go with it without saying that it's a romantic thing. So then if it doesn't become anything, it's not a big deal

Aisha: And ideally you don't want to make it romantic thing until your elders sort of give you a nod. In his case, his friends,

Jess: because 

those were his 

counsel that he had. Right.

Aisha: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jess: Wow. Interesting. Okay. So he came and met your brother before he took you, like you both 

went to 

Subway. 

Aisha: into Subway. Yeah.

Jess: Okay. Tell, tell me. Tell us about that day.

Aisha: I think, first of all, I don't remember remember it too well, except the fact that he got a sty in his eye.

They got like some kind of like weird little pop pimple or whatever in his eye, and he showed up with a bandaid on his eye,

Jess: Huh? 

That's not as cute for his eyelashes. [00:05:00] 

Aisha: not at all. And uh, and also I was like, oh no, you know, but also like, you know, like it's just he takes you down a few notches. But he, but he did well. He, you know, kept like, you know, impressing everyone and having very strong opinions. And my brother kind of was like, okay. I mean, remember my brothers are not parents. Like they, they, they've been thrust into this being parents of teenage teenage sister and they're parenting her.

And poor they, they don't know what they're doing and they're going, you know, they're feeding as they go. So they're like, okay. You know, like, okay, this guy, whatever, um, let's see where it goes. Um, so then he and I, after my classes in San Jose State, we meet at Subway. He waits for me to finish my classes. He meets me at Subway and that's where, you know, I remember the shirt he was wearing.

I remember what he was saying. We had our subway. 

Jess: and. So, so we have that meeting and of course by this time we are still not breaking it as [00:06:00] Okay, we are a thing now. You know, 

No one's making the first move into romantic territory.

Aisha: yeah. Except that when he goes back, uh, and then we start chatting on this thing called IMCR.

I dunno, for those who were, in the eighties, like eighties kids, IMCR was the sort of like WhatsApp of today, but it had to be like, I don't know, it's kind of like a Discord server where you create a room

and then you go in and meet in that room. So you hashtag something and then that person knows that they go be in that room at a particular time.

So then you go into that online room and then you chat except that anyone can join it if they have that name. So we had this name called Kharbooza, which is, uh, a melon. In Urdu there's a, idiom or a proverb that says. You know, (in Urdu) which means that a melon next to another melon gets colored by the same color. So it's basically like transference, you know? [00:07:00] So he called me Kharbooza 'cause he was like, what? Whenever I say secular stuff, you become secular. You know? Like, he's like, well, you know, so, so it was this joke. So our, our IMCR room was Kharbooza. For some reason. This other guy was also in that room,

Jess: Awkward.

Aisha: is so random and awkward.

And so yesterday would spend a lot of time trying to chase him away, but he wouldn't go. And he would just listen to our conversations. And so 

Jess: A chaperone. 

Aisha: there was no end to it. There really wasn't. It was just no alone. And so I think then he would just listen to our conversations and at that point I was like, you know, um. You wanna take this? I've, I've always been very sort of direct. I also don't do well with anticipation anxiety, so I just like to like say it. I'm like, what's your plan? You know, what do you want? Like, I want this, what do you want? And I think I made the first sort of move being like, I really like you. I remember I had an agenda as well, right? So I had to get, get down to it and I was like, you know, and then we started emailing and [00:08:00] that's when things, so we mostly sort of like connected on email. And then the second trip that he made, you know, was a bit more, defined, uh, for my brothers and the family and me as well being like, okay, this is getting to third base, which is then him introducing my brother to his mom back home in 

Jess: Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Third base was, everyone was back in Lahore at the same time.

Aisha: Uh, no. My brother actually, and my, and my sister-in-law made a trip, especially to go check out his mom

Jess: Okay. 'cause they're like, okay, this is getting serious.

Aisha: Yeah.

So they came back with a, with a nod because his mom was a working mom, a very hard working woman. So my brother said, you can't go wrong with that,

Jess: Oh, 

Aisha: Yeah. So, and then the wedding happened soon after, I think a year after. 

Jess: you're after.

Aisha: Graduation? 

After my graduation. Yeah. So he, he graduated a year before me and was in Pakistan for a year. And then I graduated and as soon [00:09:00] as I graduated, I got married. I graduated in May and I got married in 

Jess: so you guys were at long distance 

Aisha: Hmm. yeah, yeah. 

yeah. I forgot that. Mostly over email,

all of it over email mostly,

Jess: not on the phone.

Aisha: And on the phone. And, one most important timeline, which I must not forget, is that nine 11 happened. During our long distance thing. So when he graduated, he couldn't find a job, so he could have stayed one extra year for on his work permit, but he, you know, after nine 11 there was just whatever, so he left a year earlier.

Jess: Hmm. 

Aisha: and then yeah, there was this push to get married sooner because of course, you know, staying apart was kind of hard and I was, there was race against time because if it wasn't him, then they would marry me often to some cousin who was Indian Muslim or Kni Muslim or, and that was, um,

Jess: Hmm.

Aisha: scary, you know, because it would, it would mean going back to a culture [00:10:00] that I found like I didn't belong to.

Jess: okay, so you got married in Pakistan.

Aisha: Mm-hmm.

Jess: I guess when, so, so you, you spent like maybe about six months spending time in person together before you got married. 'cause I was just thinking like, well, you're coast to coast and the in-person time is actually very little.

Aisha: very little because he's doing his grad, like he's graduating. I'm studying. I know. Um, yeah, it was very, very little. But we did, we did manage to speak a lot on the phone. Get into that IMCR chat room with the

third person watching our every move.

Jess: Mm-hmm.

Aisha: and he would chime in, be like, nice, you know? I like how you said that

Jess: Mm-hmm.

Aisha: he was, he was, uh, so weird and creepy. Um, we, we, we learned to ignore him after a while and then obviously Yasser would, would visit once in a while to, you know, he would miss me.

And at that point it got severely emotional because he was away from home. I became his home. [00:11:00] He was, um, I didn't know that at the time, but he was obviously going through a major depressive bout, that's perhaps when the brain tumor started going.

It was a slow growing tumor.

And according to his doctors had been, in him for a very long time, about 20 years. So I'm guessing his brain chemistry started changing around then. 

But those years in San Jose were what you call like, uh, the best years of both of our lives, you know, because it was innocent and sweet.

There was nothing complicated it complicating it. You just wanted someone who wanted you back and wanted to make a life with you. And it was as simple as that. You know,

Jess: as a newly married couple, what were you and your husband's aspirations for your lives together?

Aisha: So we thought we sorted it out before we got married, which is that, you know, we are gonna change the world, uh, go back to our country and um, just be. Contributing members of society at the top echelons. I mean maybe be the prime Minister or the president, you

know, like it was really [00:12:00] dumb. But forgive us 'cause we were 19 and 20. We would send each other these two helicopters, these black hawks, you know, which is a very political, um, machine. And then just say, you know, flying together and be like, oh, you're the president and I'm the prime minister. We are gonna go, um, you know, fight the enemy or something dumb like that. and uh, we didn't think much about how that would pan out or what it meant, or, you know, that their bills and taxes

Jess: Mm-hmm.

Aisha: and, and you can get pregnant.

And of course, like we were just kids, you know,

Jess: So it just big, big dreams. 

Aisha: big dreams, none of the small stuff. And then you realize it's all about the small stuff. So we met, yeah, it was a bit of a miscalculation.

Jess: So did you at all think about how many kids you wanted when you wanted kids? Like you know how you might. Split tasks at home that I think those all are kind of sound like they were the quote [00:13:00] unquote small stuff to you 

Aisha: Yeah, because, because if you're fixing the world, the rest of the stuff is going to work itself out.

You know, 

Jess: gonna fall into place.

Aisha: it's gonna fall into place.

Um, there is this one time, although we were at Johnny Rockets, we loved Johnny Rockets, he was in California. And, um, there were these very rowdy white young boys, like jumping over the, and then he's like, our kids are going to be so disciplined. And I said, I concur. You know, and I'm laughing because it's,

Jess: You know, wonderful parenting completed.

Aisha: check.

Jess: Yeah. Uh.

Aisha: so yeah, we, we did want, uh, kids at some point I was thinking of, delaying that, you know, until we figured things out. But, that's not how it worked out.

Jess: Your kids came soon, right?

Aisha: Almost nine, 10 months after the marriage. Yeah.

Jess: were you living just the two of you somewhere or were you living with other relatives and family.

Aisha: Yeah. I was li you know, so [00:14:00] you marry into a joint family. So I was living with his family or his dad and mom. Yeah.

Jess: your two kids arrived 

Aisha: back to 

back.

Back to back. Yeah.

Jess: at that point when you had the two young kids, were you working, were you navigating career, motherhood, family dynamics, all at the same time?

Aisha: So when I, I think, landed in Lahore, in 2003, I didn't know what I was getting into. All I knew was I was being guided by this hand of God, you know, and everything would be okay. But when I landed, um, I think I was just really, uh, fish out of water because I thought Pakistan was Karachi and Karachi is where my family came from, and

that's a different culture.

And Lahore was very different. Uh, Karachi is more metropolitan. Um, very progressive,

Jess: it's much huger too, population wise, 

right? It's on the coast. I did, I did do some homework.

Aisha: Good job. Good job. And, and also the way you say Pakistan, it's [00:15:00] exactly like Pakistan is how it's supposed to be said. Thank you for that research too.

Jess: Wait, no, I didn't research that. I just hear how you say it and then I just, how do other people say it? No, I don't have, I don't have a clip on my nose, so I don't need that much nasal sound.

Aisha: So

yeah, total like different culture. And then I realized note to self, Pakistan is not Karachi, 

you 

know, um, a lot of learning curve there because it was, Lahore was a more feudal, more insular place where class, divides were very pronounced in Karachi. They're not, I didn't even know my family was poor or rich and I didn't grow up understanding poverty or, or, you know, or wealth, uh, in the sense.

But that's the first thing you kind of need to know. If you're in Lahore, where do you fall on that scale of, class? So where you live is very important in Lahore. So one of the things I realized was that my, in-laws were educated, [00:16:00] um, but they were not rich. Now that's not a problem for me, but it was a problem for upward mobility because it's an, it's a society that only values a certain kind of privilege. it's very gated, it's very colonial, even though it's not colonial anymore. The wealthy have just taken on a very British esque perspective on the rest of the peasants who don't, who are not rich. So, if you're rich in Lahore, you're gonna go to golf in the morning, you're gonna do polo at some point on the weekend. Your wives who don't work, uh, will take a couple of trips to Singapore. Um, you know, you're gonna be educated in one of the Ivy Leagues and you're gonna be part of the ruling class, either as a minister or as a CEO of one of the major organizations. And then you have most of your wealth abroad. Now we were, uh, my in-laws and us were people wedded to the land.

They were, they, they his mom's side of the family was feudal. His dad's side of the family were like in the car [00:17:00] business. So they were Lahore Lahore, you know, like

they, my mother-in-law was, um, the first person to be educated in her family as a woman and her sisters. you know, she went in a burka to the King Edward Medical College. she became a doctor that was unheard of, you know, went from a village to the, to the city. So this is like major groundbreaking stuff, right? So, so Lahore was everything for them, and they had made it from zero to one, but, uh, the city in which they were living in was extremely like. Uh, I didn't, I realized this when people would ask me, where am I living?

And I would tell them where I'm living, and they're like, they would consider that to be on the other side of the river, you know, as, uh, colloquially speaking.

Jess: or like on the other side of the tracks. 

Aisha: Mm-hmm.

So I found that really strange to, rise above. First of all, I didn't believe in it myself. I thought you would just work hard and make your way up.

And I realized that that's, you know, whatever, I would keep hitting these glass ceilings because of people you would interact with. [00:18:00] And I ended up really not liking Lahore, hating it. In fact, unfortunately, part of it is the heat. It's, it gets really hot in Lahore, and if you're not wealthy and you're not gonna like, you know, crunch up those ac um, bills, then it gets very uncomfortable, especially as a young mom or as somebody who's working after work and going to work in a rickshaw and coming back and all of that. Although I would get, you know, my, my father-in-law had the best car, so the day he would drop me, I'd go in a 

SUV, um, or a Merck or, or, you know, A BMW, and then the next day it would be a rickshaw.

You know? So I was okay and comfortable navigating between ups and downs, but I really loathed the way people saw me, because that would keep me from moving up or being seen.

Uh, and being seen in a, in that part of the world is very important. I really didn't like it. I didn't make many deep friendships. I was too, knee deep and, and motherhood, and it was very, very isolating. It was just me and my mother-in-law raising the kids. [00:19:00] There was no sense of community, no parks to go to with the girls. 

Lahar is very urban, but still very gentrified. If I may like, you know, um, you. Areas that are for rich people. There areas that for middle class people in the areas are for poor people. We were very much on the upper middle class all throughout and eventually made it to the intellectual elite.

So by the time Yasser and I were done with Pakistan, I would say we, you know, people heard us when we spoke, and we managed to break all those barriers, maybe mostly because of our writing and our thoughts, but it wasn't fun to get there

'cause it really burned us out. You know, he was a lawyer and he wanted to be a lawyer, but he would find that, you know, anybody in the, in the field that had their own dads or their uncles preexisting and it would have an added advantage, you know? Um, so those things were not fun. I mean, going back from America to Pakistan thinking, we are just going to, uh, take your egalitarian values on merit and then just make [00:20:00] it happen there. It's not how it worked out. We realized why people move the other direction.

Jess: Mm-hmm.

Aisha: Um, and that we were idealistic, but we were still, it was, um, Musharraf's era.

Musharraf, president Musharraf was a general before he became the president. Of course, our country is known for its military coups. Um, and we, we bought into his whole enlightened moderation and Pakistan's going to be the next, you know, next 11 economies of the world and we will rise with it and, you know, that kind of stuff. So there was, it's not that we were, were not accurate in our assessment. It could have gone that way. But I think what we learned was, uh, culture, um, and economic conditions are very, like they pull you like gravity down. There's very little

you can do on your own, you know, 

Jess: Wow. What a metaphor. 

Aisha: someone had 

to clean the toilets, someone had to bear the heat, someone had to go to work. And between all of that, there was very little time to change the world,

Jess: Mm-hmm.

Aisha: [00:21:00] you know? Yeah.

Jess: Wait, so you were going, so you were doing childcare with your mother-in-law, and you were also going to work in a rickshaw, or sometimes your father-in-law would take you. What work were you up to?

Aisha: I started off, um, in a startup company, uh, recruiting, uh, sort of like the new, the Pakistan monster.com equivalent. and then I worked for the government of Punjab. So I, I worked for the, who is now the current president, uh, the current Prime Minister of Pakistan, uh, Shehbaz Sharif. So he was sort of my boss. I was the director general for marketing and, communication at the investment arm of the government. So, so I slowly started feeling my way into the city, mostly because of who I am and the fact that I, I'm an extrovert. But I wanted to get out very quickly. So eventually I moved to Islamabad for work. And Islamabad is neither Karachi nor, uh, Lahore. It's its own vibe, you know, it's a diplomatic city. [00:22:00] It's lush, it's green. heat is bearable. Easier place to raise the girls. So yeah, I sort of like took more charge later in my life and started making a life of the one I wanted in Pakistan, similar to probably what my parents did in Uganda, you know, became, created an ecosystem that they wanted. So chose my friends, you know, chose the life I wanted, raised my girls how I wanted. So 

Jess: you moved with your daughters, did your husband 

Aisha: Yeah. My husband and my mother-in-law as well. Yeah.

Jess: and your father-in-law? my father-in-law unfortunately passed. Um. About, I think six, seven years into the marriage. Yeah. He

Aisha: had a heart attack. It was, that was also very sad for me.

'cause he became sort of my father figure.

And unlike my dad who had a motorbike, he had the coolest cars. So, you know, and he had an affinity to me. He always protected me and took care of me like, like a dad, you know? So his passing [00:23:00] did do a number on me, although I didn't have time to grieve him because Yasser and my mother-in-law were, were very broken after his passing.

Jess: You 

had to be strong for them. So you wanted to move to Islamabad and then the whole family moved for, was it like a job or was it like you just wanted to move to a different town and start over and then 

you went and found a job there?

Aisha: so what I found is that It was very hard for me to keep a job, you know? So I would get there, but then I think I would intimidate a lot of people, you know? Um, because I had this very American ethic and, and this is where I feel like my American side was underplayed. I was very American, you know, and how I think and how I approach things and how I, you know, that foundational college education was not just a passing through. It, it made an impact on me. Similarly, Nairobi was not me passing through. It made an impact on me. Koch, Muslims are not just anyone. They are my family now, you know?

So what you realize as you [00:24:00] get older is whatever you think you are done with, it is not done with you. You know? so 

Jess: And even when you pass through somewhere, it's all, we're affected by the sum of all of our experiences. Right.

Aisha: Absolutely. And so that was a realization where I was like, okay, you know, everyone here in Pakistan thinks I'm too American. Um, and, uh, tho those were values I wanted to keep. Such, such as how do you talk to staff? You know, were feudal, uh, and, and colonial cultures. So they really talked down to people, like very insulting. Um, and it was normalized and I just could not be okay with that normalization of that behavior. Um, mostly because my parents were not like that, even though they were in Africa. There was, there was, like I said, there was a sense of equality with everyone that you assimilated with. So I didn't understand how someone can work in your house or in your office and then just get got bossed around, like, you know, like a field slave or a home

slave that was so retro aggressive and backwards. [00:25:00] Uh, and also outlawed, 

you know, but the culture, uh, allowed for it and encouraged it. In fact. till the last year of the 20 years, I kept fighting that tooth and nail. And then I think a lot of, um, the conflicts within the household were based on that as well.

Jess: Aisha shares her take on motherhood being a Muslim feminist, how she celebrates Eid and more after the break.

 what was your approach to motherhood?

Aisha: You know, you have so much to say about how your parents parented you, so much to say about that. And then you become a parent and you are, you make their mistakes and your own combined.

Jess: You think that's how the math works,

Aisha: Oh, [00:26:00] I think, you know, I always knew it was hard. Like, don't get me wrong, I didn't go in thinking, okay, this is gonna be easy. but the mindset with which I approached parenting, I think I, I really messed up because I was like, okay, you know what, uh, kids should be raised by a community. It takes a village.

I don't know why that was in my head.

I think Hillary was saying 

I think somebody was saying it over and over again in the airwaves

those days. So I was like, oh, it takes a village, so let's get the village to raise my kids. 

Jess: The saying it takes a village to raise a child is an African proverb. Hillary Clinton popularized it in the US with her 1996 book called, it Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us. But the wisdom behind the saying is much older. The idea that raising children is the shared work of a community.

Aisha: So my mother-in-law, the maids. Um, and, and by the way, that's not very uncommon. [00:27:00] Uh, you know, there's enough literature, um, in, in, in the Indian, Pakistani cultures, which is like people who, uh, need labor, uh, need, need to be paid for their labor. You know, you help them and then you also help raise your children, especially for working women. And so with my mother-in-law's supervision and, you know, we, we had hired help. The kids were in the house. They got, they, they raised, but then you look back and you're like, that was not good, uh, for them or for me. There was a lot of separation anxiety. There was a lot of messes. I think there was abuse as well from the maids towards my kids, 

Jess: uh,

so the maids were also the nannies,

Aisha: Yeah. Yeah, 

Jess: mm-hmm.

Aisha: yeah. So, so they do everything. Yeah. They, they live in your house. They like live-in ma, live-in

nannies. So you just assume that someone you trust wouldn't harm the kids, but they did. Um, but also I think I was going through postpartum, which now we have vocabulary for, back then we didn't, I think the shock of moving to Lahore and things not working out my way and me feeling like [00:28:00] I made a mistake and I disappointed my dad. And also this confusion about, uh, what were you on to like, sort of being like, why did you bring me here, dad? 

You know, because I'm talking to no one. But I think that there's someone there. So I'm just, just confusion about what did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? Why isn't it working? Why am I not being liked?

And a lot of rejection. So similar to Nairobi just being like, I just did not fit in a culture where, and I should have known this, where women, um, you know, on the gender index, we are second worst country in the world for women's

empowerment. So I should have known that someone like me would struggle somehow. I thought with a liberal husband and a working mother-in-law, uh, and Pakistan on an upward mobility track that, that would not be a problem. But of course it was, it was. I, I hit a wall every single time I went to work. I took public transport. I interacted with any family outside of ours.

and that was, that also came across [00:29:00] in parenting. So I think that postpartum depression came from there. I wasn't a very involved mom. I wasn't even connected, unfortunately, to my first child as much as I was to the second one. It took a while for me to figure out, I'm a mom, you know, I remember my older child, you know, being on my hip while I was cooking. And, uh, you know, she wasn't a very expressive child, but she looked at me and I, she was looking at me while I was cooking and it was really hot. So I look at her, you know, and then she kind of is staring at me like. Hmm. And then she, she takes her tiny little two arms and she puts it around my neck, you know, as if like, you are my person, you know,

Jess: Mm-hmm.

Aisha: and everything just dropped at that moment and I was like, oh my God, I'm a mom.

I'm, I'm her dad. I'm her mom. Like, you know, like

what I felt towards my dad. Um, and so that moment helped me come back to embodying motherhood a bit [00:30:00] better. I kept failing along the way. 

Jess: What do you mean by failing? what was, I guess like your standard for yourself that you weren't meeting, or like why did you feel like you were failing?

Aisha: because I, I think, uh, there's a lot of literature on this and psychology that tells you that you will raise children like you were raised. You know, so I think there was a lot of Nairobi in me. I think there was a lot of rejection, parenting in me, disciplinary parenting in me. As much as I hated it for myself as a child, I just passed it on unknowingly because I was like, okay, if they're disciplined, then they're good. Uh, you know, corporal punishment, as much as I hated it, you know, there was a sense of, okay, you know, you can't let a child be not afraid of you, otherwise they'll do something wrong.

Very fear-based parenting. And by the way, superbly normalized. So it wasn't like I was doing something so unusual, it was just how everyone did it. But now I know, [00:31:00] the standard is that you should not hurt your child deliberately, and your one job is to love them.

Jess: And make them feel safe.

Aisha: yeah. And just, just not even safety, like beyond safety until their creativity users, until they, they, they go running about on top of trees and, you know, swings and mountains. I, I, I got for that initially, but what I realized was that I embodied, fear is, easier to embody than love, you know? So, um, the only thing I've done right by them, I think is self-awareness.

Jess: Mm-hmm. 

Aisha: thankfully they've turned out to be extraordinary children, despite me, you know? Um, and I say me because of course parenting is not mothering. I also had a husband who was supposed to be a

parent to them, but because he was sick, I think I just took on both roles. So therefore, the responsibility do good by them should have happened. But I think that in the end I [00:32:00] kind of did, you know, and they did this to me. They, they created accountability for me, being like, you sucked mom. You know? And I think I had enough humility to say, yeah, I did. I'm sorry. Especially after I wrote the book. Because it gave me an opportunity to give myself some grace, uh, about the fact that what I did in Pakistan and what I was dealing with in Pakistan was very difficult.

So I then forgive myself a little bit, and so therefore I could take their wrath, take their anger, take their accountability, and it's terrible because it's not like they're going to be healed just because I'm accountable.

Now they're still gonna deal with, you know, a parent who was angry or removed or emotionally unavailable. but ever since those realization moments, I've tried to make it up as much as I can.

Jess: I wanna wrap up with a few reflection questions. 

 listener, you will see in the description links to the article that I have been referencing as [00:33:00] well as to the book, Aisha wrote. Called heart tantrums, a feminist memoir on misogyny and marriage, and it kind of digs more into this chapter of marriage, right? Marriage and, and your husband, um, battling brain tumors that, basically in 2017 he got diagnosed with a golf ball size, brain tumor.

Had to get that surgically removed. It came back a few years later, had to get it removed again. Anyway, listener, this is all in the book, Um, so check the book out. I want to wrap up with a few reflection questions about, um, how you identify as a Muslim feminist. How would you describe your brand of Muslim feminism? And now that we've heard your bio, I feel like there's so many points in time where I feel like it was developing. How do you think of how it developed [00:34:00] throughout your life?

Aisha: Hmm. Thank you. That's a wonderful question. Again, not one I've been asked before. So, Muslim feminist, I got described this because the publishers at Hearst and Penguin thought that it would sell better with a white audience, 

you know, and, and, and an Indian audience as opposed to feminist, you know, they're like, put

in there, it'll sell. but I do feel that there is some truth to that because, um, Fatema Mernissi is a Muslim feminist, and, um, Amina Wadud, these are people who are Muslim feminists. They've, they've sort of paved the way, and what they believe is that you don't have to completely throw away your cultural identity to embody another, uh, idea, which is that, you know, women should not be a rug mat, which is what feminism is, you know? so I do agree that I am a Muslim feminist. I think my life has integrated in that direction. I would not really. start with Muslim simply because, you know, of course there a theologians and there are people [00:35:00] who've really practiced the religion well, and I don't, as much as, I should or I'm supposed to, what I do do is, uh, you know, practice the Islam that my mom and dad taught me, which is, you know, that god's in, in your heart and people's heart, and so don't break it, 

you know?

And so to be a good Muslim, you just, you know, take care of other people. Try not to hurt them, do good by them. And I think that the reason I needed feminism was because I needed to also do good by myself. 

You know, women are constantly caregivers. They're constantly giving, and they're valued for their giving, for their cleaning, for their service, for their labor. A lot of it is unseen. And the reason I needed to put feminism in front of that Muslim is because, needs a balance. And there's a war on women, women our lifetime. There's no doubt about a United Nations, you know, talks about how it's a health epidemic, uh, these gender wars where, you know, the women are actually really suffering by at the hands of [00:36:00] men's anger. anger and insecurity? So how do we create more equal opportunities? You know, how do we make sure that not just in households, in our mosques and our temples and our universities and governments, that women are on the decision making table. You know, not just passing on and decreeing laws that men want them to do. excuse me for saying this. Like my aunts for instance, they were not doing things to me or telling me to do things because they thought it was a cool idea. They thought for men, this is a great idea to keep women in check, to keep women subdued, to keep women you know, subservient. And so I just feel that their lives would've been better. had they just, someone had asked them things like, you are asking me, how were you as a child? Who are you? What, what do you wanna do? What are your dreams? Um, instead of them just being conduits to what makes men comfortable, being so afraid of men's anger, oh, your uncle's gonna get angry if you do this. Would you get angry if I do this? [00:37:00] What do you think? You know, that they're completely erased. And so I, that's why I feel I needed feminism for my being Muslim, and I needed Muslim for my being feminism because that's who I am. And, and there is no discord between the two, at least as I'm getting older.

You know, when

you're younger, you're like, you're so rigid about, oh, this definition or that definition. When you're older, you're like, Muslim. Sure. Feminist, sure. Muslim feminist. Sure. You know, it's like, bring it on, because I'll probably be someone else in the next five years, or maybe I won't, I don't know.

Like so much changes so much beats you down and, and you become a different person. So, um, right now as things stand, I, I feel like both these traditions have so much to offer the world. Um, and, and and just the brand of Islam that my, my parents practiced, which is, you know, giving community, don't break people's hearts

don't be mean, you know.

Jess: In wrapping [00:38:00] up, The other thing that I wanted to ask you also from your article, see I really enjoyed that article and I read it closely. you mentioned that. Even though you've been through a lot of hard times, you also had some really beautiful times that were consistently beautiful. And one of those things that you mentioned that was a consistently positive thing was EID

Aisha: Mm-hmm.

Jess: and celebrating Eid.

And so, how did your celebration of Eid change as you grew up and migrated between all these different cultures countries?

Aisha: And you gather, you know, uh, we wouldn't have, uh, too much eastern wear or what you call Salwar Kameez. Right. Um, so they would be hand me downs from cousins. Right. But on Eid day, you got to buy your own clothes,

Jess: Hmm.

Aisha: you know. Wow. Um, so your own sandals, your own, you know, salwar kameez um, my [00:39:00] mom did mehendi on my hand, you know? 

Jess: The salwar kameez is a traditional outfit from South Asia with roots in Persian and Mughal clothing. It pairs loose trousers called salwar with a long tunic, the kameez originally designed for comfort and ease of movement.

It became popular across North India, Pakistan, and beyond. today. It is commonly worn in South Asia, especially in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and of Afghanistan, 

and by diaspora communities worldwide, both in daily life and styled elaborately for celebrations 

 and the terms mehendi and henna are sometimes used interchangeably, but mehndi refers to the art of applying temporary designs using a dye made from the henna plant. 

Its history dates back thousands of years originating in ancient Egypt [00:40:00] and later spreading to South Asia where it became central to weddings, festivals, and rites of passage. 

 Today it is common across South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, with designs varying regionally, all symbolizing beauty, joy, and blessing.

 She was very artistic, but for some reason the mehendi or the, in the, you know, I think most people know what mehendi is. She used to really like cut corners. She used to do this one round circle and like just put like, you know, Mandy on my toe of fingertips, which I hated because most other moms did very intricate patterns, you know.

Aisha: Um, so, uh, yeah, cutting corners on mehendi, taking photographs. I love those. You know, just posing at the, you know, behind a concrete wall for e being, like e was about photographs. And I think that that's where my love for photos comes from because

I am just like, you know, moments are so fleeting, but on e you got to sit [00:41:00] and take, take the pictures, which means you have to dress up, you have to look good and you know, do girly things.

And most of my life I've been. Not doing girly things right. But e was when I actually enjoyed it. So I love the smell of mehendi to a point where I sometimes suspect I got married just to put mehendi on my hands, you know, it smells so good and it's so beautiful and intricate. So that's when I become very, you know, feminine.

Um, and, and I think our also is like really flamboyant with the colors and, you know, the laces and the dupattas and so you get to do that. 

Um, 

Jess: Mm-hmm.

Aisha: so that was Uganda and Kenya. Similarly, um, America this time around, because I've just migrated here 

 I didn't know when Eid was accepted at night before because it's moon sighting and although they know whether the moon is there or not, but somebody has to look at it and find it from the clouds.

Which leaves a lot to, you know, chance. So maybe there's Eid, maybe someone cite it, And so it was just like, it happened [00:42:00] the night before. Tomorrow's Eid and my daughters were insisting that we go and get them clothes. And I was so not in the mood. I was feeling like, you know, um, dispossessed if, if you will, like a bit lost in Atlanta. Um, but they forced me anyway. They're like, we are gonna go get clothes,

and then we had a photo shoot. Um, so yeah, I think there's certain things and traditions that make me happy. and when my girls dress up, they look so beautiful. It's so gorgeous, you know, and they have such a great fashion sense and there like, you know, the whole makeup and thing. and mehendi, so I, I put mehendi on my own hands and they, they put it on each other's. Theirs was much better. So there is something. To be said about the little things, and that's the one if I, if I can summarize my thesis of life, it's like you can change the world sure, but it has to start by scrubbing the floor and washing the dishes in the sink and being nice [00:43:00] to children and putting mehendi on your hands.

Jess: now in 2025, you've super recently moved to Atlanta, I think like two, three months ago

or something.

and in our pre-meeting you were talking about how finding home, and it was coming up also in this conversation, right? So it was coming up about like the sense of wanting to find home 

as a big thing 

in your life. you know, in 2025 now, what does home mean to you? Do you think you found home? How do you think of home?

Aisha: Um, my idea of home has shifted 'cause I realized that you can move away from so many things, but you take so many things with you. So I brought my anxiety with me. I brought my past with me. I brought my baggage with me. I also brought my free spiritedness with me. So I've so realized that geography has nothing to do with it, you know? But yeah, of course it context matters. So now what I [00:44:00] think of home is poetry, good friendships like yours,

groups like Badass Asian women, which we both are. Um, trees, mountains, the moon, you know, things that are a bit immovable. Your friendship or your moments with me, they're a bit like eternity esque, you know, because they have already happened.

They're meaningful, no one can take them away. And so I, I pin a pin home to less movable things, you know, which is why I think my dad's passing is such a big lesson in my life. And my husband's illness is such a big lesson in my life because people can be alive, but they cannot necessarily be there. Versus people can go, but they are there. So therefore it's what you want to keep alive that makes home. Does that make sense?

Jess: It's just so beautiful. It's so beautiful. Yes, it makes sense and it's very beautiful.[00:45:00] 

Aisha: Yeah. 

Jess: Um. Thank you. So thank you so, so, so much.

Aisha: Thank you, Jess. This is amazing. This is just absolutely amazing and, um, I'm so glad that we did this and I'm so glad to be part of, um, you know, all the people that you've interviewed are elite women because they haven't hybridized identity and it's hard to do that. They're so courageous. They're so amazing.

As are you. You're amazing.

So, I'm, I am honored. I don't know what I did to deserve this. Maybe I was nice to a cat,

but this is a 

gift. Yeah. That my mother smell. Yeah. This is a huge gift. I'm very, very grateful. 'cause stories are what, yeah, I forgot to say that, but stories are home.

Jess: I really appreciate your time. I appreciate your friendship. I appreciate that you showed up very authentically and like with a lot of vulnerability and you opened up on a lot of things, and. [00:46:00] Thanks for letting us get to know you.

Aisha: Thank you.

For letting me get to know me.

Jess: Oh,

Aisha: Yeah. Yeah. No, really, really, I, I've never been asked these questions. Yeah. Now 

Jess: things to end on. Thanks so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode and the full four-part series with Aisha.

 You'll find links to connect with Aisha and her book in the description.

 in honor of Latinx Heritage Month in the us, which is September 15th until October 15th.

 My next guest is Taryn, a third generation Mexican-American from California. It was such a treat to interview her. Taryn is a close friend I served with in the Peace Corps in Zambia, and her family is one of the most vibrant and active in the community that I know.

We trace the migration stories of both sides of her [00:47:00] family, Learn about her parents growing up in a farm town and how they met and explore family celebrations and traditions.

It's a story of rebuilding a life in a new place, navigating assimilation, seeing how culture and identity evolve across generations, and how she and her siblings are now reconnecting with their roots 

 Be sure to subscribe or follow and turn on notifications so you don't miss it. If you enjoyed this episode, there are a few ways to support this homegrown indie podcast. Share the episode with a friend.

Word of mouth really helps us grow.

 Donate via the link in the description to help keep these stories of representation coming and leave a review. I love hearing from you. 

A big thanks to Rachel c Reiki for commenting. Enjoying listening to these episodes.

 Also, a special thank you to BADASS Asian women, a [00:48:00] Metro Atlanta Club of Asian American women who build collective strength and organize events like the one where Aisha and I connected. This episode was produced and edited by me. 

with advising and executive production support from Ruben Gnanaruban. I'm Jess Lin. See you soon.