It’s 12:43 a.m., and I’m lying here in my bed, somewhere between stillness and electricity. The kind of quiet where your thoughts get louder, clearer. Where everything you’ve been building starts to hum.
Three years ago, I stood on stage and told my coming-out story in Besharam [Shame: The Final Frontier]. That show was a supernova. Full of queer joy, chaos, and a kind of freedom I didn’t even know I was allowed to feel. It was big. It took up space. Physically, emotionally, spiritually.
And I learned a lot.
I learned how to make theatre that feels epic, but also what it means to shape that epicness. To hold it. To eventually make it accessible. Besharam is still there, waiting, refining, ready for its next life on tour. But right now, this moment belongs to something new.
Khandan: Family — The Shame Generation.
Premiering at Bradford Arts Centre on 11th June at 7:30pm, with more venues to come.
This isn’t just a sequel. It’s a continuation. A deepening. A warp-speed jump into the question that’s been quietly following me my whole life: where do I belong?
The show follows me navigating family across time, literally. I’m jumping through different moments, memories, and imagined futures, trying to understand what family really means as a queer British Pakistani person.
It’s funny. It’s messy. It’s a bit sci-fi and camp.
But underneath all that, it’s about love, expectation, and the question of whether you can ever truly be yourself and still belong.
Because that question… it’s lived in me for a long time.
Growing up queer, Pakistani, Muslim, in a conservative household, my voice didn’t feel like mine. It felt monitored. Managed. Sometimes completely shut down. I was the youngest. Seen, not heard. Curious, creative, emotional… but with nowhere for that energy to go.
I think about my childhood bedroom a lot. Small. Tucked away. Surrounded by boxes and storage and things that didn’t belong to me. It felt like being hidden in plain sight. Like Rapunzel, but without the fairytale ending. Just waiting. Quietly.
And now?
Now I’m here. About to go into rehearsals. About to make another show.
That still feels wild to say out loud.
I never thought I’d be in a position where my voice not only exists, but matters. Where I get to create work that reflects not just me, but people like me. Brown. Queer. Neurodivergent. People who have been told, in a thousand different ways, to shrink.
Khandan is about family. Biological and chosen. The ones we’re born into, and the ones we build. The ones that hold us, and the ones we have to unlearn. It’s about belonging, but also about questioning whether belonging should ever come at the cost of yourself.
And somewhere in all of that… it’s about reclaiming my voice.
Not just using it. Reclaiming it.
Because Besharam was the first time I broke through.
That was me cracking open the silence. Releasing years of pain. Airing out wounds that had been sealed tight with shame. On that stage, I spoke with vigour. Loud. Unapologetic. Not from anger, but from clarity. From truth. It was about breaking the forcefield that had kept me contained for so long.
Khandan is something different.
This time, I’m not just breaking through. I’m shaping what comes after.
I’m refining my voice. Strengthening it. Sharpening it. Letting it be witty, smooth, intentional. Letting it carry weight and value, because I know now that it has both.
I didn’t have that voice as a child.
But I have it now.
And I’m learning how to hold space with it. Not just for me, but for others. For young and older QTIPOC who have been silenced, overlooked, or made to feel like they don’t belong.
This is me saying: you do.
We do.
We belong.
Not just in the families we choose, but in the complexity of the ones we come from too. Even when it’s hard. Even when it’s messy. Even when it takes time.
Right now, it feels like we’re at space dock.
Prepping.
Fuel loading. Systems checking. Crew assembling.
I’m in my ready room, sitting with it all. The excitement. The gratitude. The quiet before the jump.
And in a moment, I’ll step back onto the bridge.
Captain Sid. Captain Akbar.
Ready to go further. Deeper into queer space. Into truth. Into story. Into belonging.
And this time, I know exactly what I’m carrying with me.
My voice.
And I’m not letting it go.
Dhamaka Arts 