PERFORMANCE ON BBC RADIO 3

September 2023

Hafsa's performance at the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival 2023 showcased the intersectionality of her identity as a queer, Indian Muslim woman. Her verses, featured on BBC Radio 3 The Verb sparked conversations about love, longing, and language.

Listen on Spotify

UNSCHOOL

Jan 2022 - Present

UnSchool began as an afterschool Saturday art class in Goa, connecting local artists with children from public schools. We are committed to fostering social-emotional skills in children. This program seeks to instil self-regulation, empathy, collaboration, and conflict resolution through a dynamic blend of artistic expressions.

In 2022, UnSchool received the Goa Open Arts Engage Community Grant - and the artwork of our students was showcased at Sunaparanta, Panjim.

LANGUAGE IS A QUEER THING

July - September 2023

This unique initiative paired three Indian poets, including Hafsa Bukhary, with three UK-based poets. The collaboration unfolded in an online exchange followed by residencies, with one hosted in Leeds, UK, leading into the prestigious BBC Contains Strong Language Festival in 2023.

The project was in collaboration with The Queer Muslim Project, Te Verve Publishing House and The British Council.

Explore

EDUCATOR

2016 - Present

Hafsa's journey as an educator began in 2016 with Teach for India. She dedicated two impactful years to teaching history and political science in a low-income government school in Sangam Vihar, Delhi. Recognized for her exceptional contributions, she was honoured with the Transformational Impact Journey Award.

Since then, Hafsa has extended her educational footprint across various regions, including Maharashtra, Hyderabad, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Bihar, and Jharkhand. Her work spans diverse interventions, focusing on teacher training, curriculum design, promoting gender inclusivity, and cultivating 21st-century skills among students.

Teaching Video

I’ve said more goodbyes in the past 4 years than any human heart could possibly take without breaking open… and I guess I just have to keep going.

[Inspired by @malady_band’s London, I love you but you’re bringing me down.]

📸: 1: @bansarichawada / 2: @tarangmohnot / 5: @pseudokuu

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#travelpoetry #spilledink #writersofinstagram #poetrycommunity

The joy of watching your friends just being - in nature, soaking up the sun.

#35mmfilm #35mmphotography #filmphotography #pentax

I had the best time performing for the wonderful people @artworksfest x @kommuneity. Sharing my stories always feels amazing, but the real magic happens when someone comes up after the performance to tell me what resonated with them. That connection? Nothing beats that. Lots of love to everyone I met that day & I’ll see the rest of you soon, at a stage near you 🎈

📸: @photography_guy__

Photos from our poetry picnic at Cubbon Park; it was a leisurely evening and a real treat to take a pause.

A Pot of Red Lentils
simmers on the kitchen stove.
All afternoon dense kernels
surrender to the fertile
juices, their tender bellies
swelling with delight.

In the yard we plant
rhubarb, cauliflower, and artichokes,
cupping wet earth over tubers,
our labor the germ
of later sustenance and renewal.

Across the field the sound of a baby crying
as we carry in the last carrots,
whorls of butter lettuce,
a basket of red potatoes.

I want to remember us this way—
late September sun streaming through
the window, bread loaves and golden
bunches of grapes on the table,
spoonfuls of hot soup rising
to our lips, filling us
with what endures.

— by Peter Pereira

Humble reminders from a 13th century Sufi - retold by your neighbourhood poet.

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#hafiz #hafez #hafez_shirazi

Are you looking for an inspiring writers’ community? Look no further - I’m hosting a writer’s circle with @artworksfest & @kommuneity this Saturday - 19th October. We’ll read poems, respond to writing prompts and share our feelings. Call all your writer friends, and meet me with a book and a pen. (DM to RSVP)

I’m celebrating four years in Goa today; and what better way than to share these photos from São João that I captured on film. Isn’t this festival the perfect metaphor for everything I love about this land and her people. The larger than life celebration, the coming of monsoon, how everyone takes to the streets with their flower crowns, the giddy excitement to jump into wells and streams and ponds.

But, I’d be lying to you if I said this was a guilt-free joy. Each year we lose so much of our natural history. Just minutes from where these photos were taken, an ancient tree was cut down to build a road. That area now floods during the rain. More people means more cement. And maybe this won’t stop until there is an anti-social and summer house and airport in each village. And maybe I am a part of the problem too. Is this the cost of migration?

I still see dreams of our communities mobilising in the face of gentrification. Is there a future where we don’t clear paddy fields to build restaurants but instead restore heritage homes for them?

Until then, I’ll cherish each change of season, savour this stillness and romanticise mama Goa with you. 🌼

📸: on 35mm by me.

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#pentax #35mmfilm #filmphotography #analogphotography #filmphotographers

Yeah, I went to Bangalore to meet my friends 👀

I’ve seen too many damn election speeches this year…

Is anyone else craving a September esque picnic in the park? A leisurely evening of eating fruits and reading poetry?

Calling all lovers of nature & words in Bangalore - for a poetry circle this Saturday. An intimate gathering to read, reflect and write together.

DM to rsvp 🦋🍇

Thinking about this April afternoon with @tarangmohnot when we spent hours laughing, eating fruits, marvelling at - music, old furniture and all that glorious nature. (Swipe till the end to read something I wrote on this trip 🌚🌝 and something we found written).

Attention queer poets from India & the UK! 🏳️‍🌈 Head to @thequeermuslimproject and apply for the Language is a Queer Thing program (you don’t need to be Muslim to apply; just a queer poet).

A residency, like this, is fuel for the soul - it’s the reassurance you need as an artist to keep going.

Throwback to the most wholesome time from autumn last year; being surrounded by the people who gently hold space for you is the stuff of dreams.

📸: on 35mm

“To be alive: not just the carcass
But the spark.
That’s crudely put, but…
If we’re not supposed to dance,
Why all this music?”
by Gregory Orr

#hopecore

When in Türkiye, read some Rumi.

#hopecore

So many people in my generation have decided not to vote this year / have never voted in the past, and I get it. I’m not here to shame you because it does seem so hopeless.

But have you ever been in love? When does it ever work out? And what is a life lived with no chances taken?

Are we really the generation that lost this country to hateful saffron men?

I’m preparing myself for heartbreak. This is the last time I’ll care, I tell myself. When people show you who they are, you must believe them, they say. But I was always naive, hopeful. Soon it will be June 4th and this time I hope my spirit finally breaks, so I never dream of this love again.

[Words by me, @lifafa, Faiz Ahmed Faiz & Allen Ginsberg.]

Some wounds never vanish.

Yet little by little
I learned to love my life.

Though sometimes I had to run hard—
Especially from melancholy—
not to be held back.

Words by Mary Oliver 📸 on #35mm by me!

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#filmphotography #analogpoets #35mmfilm #writerscommunity #analogart

Life these days.

“I dream too much and I don’t write enough,
and I’m trying to find God everywhere.
I’m trying to figure this thing he made called a man.” - words by @thepianofarm

📸 on #35mm by me!

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#filmphotography #35mmfilm #pentax

And this one is for all the people who keep me going - friends, lovers, cheerleaders, momagers, groupies, stylists, siblings from another lifetime, stars in my constellation. Everyone pictured here and those who aren’t, whose support I carry in my heart. You made me feel seen & heard long before I ever got on stage & held a mic… for that I am grateful.

Because love like that changes you. (3/3)

I hope you find me sitting in circles with fellow humans, writing poetry until I’m old and gray.

Meet me with a few hours to spare, a paper, and a pen. You’ll read me some poems, and I’ll read you some too. Leave your inner critic at the door; here, we have space for your messy, incomplete thoughts, bad grammar, first drafts, and poems with no endings yet.
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So much pyaar for everyone at the @spokenfest who joined us in dreaming up new poems, thank you for trusting our process. Facilitated the quickest 45-minute poetry circle with my jigar-ka-tukdas @mukahang_limbu 🫶🏽 @thequeermuslimproject (2/3)

There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in. ✨ Still processing the week that was the @spokenfest

For as long as I can remember, the Muslim part of me felt the least loved and most unwelcome. Someone once told me that being on stage is not the same as going for therapy 🤪 But what comfort it brings me, to let my cracks see the light of the day. To know that all the hurt I have accumulated in society, will heal within community. Thank you for holding space for my pain, my questions, my sexy, my rage, my joy - I have so many more stories to tell. (1/3)

Reminiscing the last day of our residency when we huddled into cars, and Stuart drove us to a sculpture park. We frolicked in the fields, and Ghayatri led us into coir. For the first time in a long while, I felt joy - the queer, familial kind that I was praying for.

My beautiful misfits on 35mm - September 2023 🎞️

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#filmphotography #35mm #filmisnotdead #35mmfilm #pentax #35mmphotography

Good day to share that you can now listen to the Language is a Queer Thing performance for BBC Radio 3 on Spotify! Catch me translating some Urdu words and reading my poem Wait For Me As I Learn To Love You with @punkofcolour

🫶🏽 Link in bio 🫶🏽

Photos by: @triciayourkevichphotos

For lovers of January days & the poetry of everyone 🌿 [Like You / Como Tú by Roque Dalton]

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#poetry #poetrycommunity #poet #poetsofinstagram

2023 Wrapped IRL ⏮️ When my (nonexistent) future children ask about their inheritance, I’m going to show them this post:

1. @poloandpan in Turkey with @saashakhanna (I have danced to their music through some serious lows - and this serves as a reminder that music will heal you, if you let it.)

2. @frenchkiwijuice invited us to his living room - in Mumbai with @saashakhanna (and we ran into half of the Goa crew after).

3. @merak.music.official launching their new EP Manic Mode @barefootgoa 💛

4. These cool cats at a blue’s bar in London for my birthday with @hehlolatyou, @kirtivirmani8 & @zuimansata

5. @niminomusic’s Light It Up has saved me many times, so when I managed to watch him live… I cried

6. @jyoty for @mixmag with @nick_dc3000 on his home-turf in London and met some of the nicest people that night 🍉

7. idk probably the devil with @_zoefrancis and 10k people at a warehouse in Manchester

8. That’s me an my lil poster for @keraladust with the gang in Goa - any comments I make will be NSFW so I’ll just leave it here 🥵

9. @colyn_music with @mamypokopants (who I met after 10 years!?), @jimmydeluxe & @maxc20

10. Abraham at the @vortexgoa - with @bansarichawada & @upsidaizy ✨

Everyday is beach day 📸 by @sanathampi on 35mm

#35mmphotography #filmphotography #analogfeatures #35mmFilm #analogphotography #filmcommunity

My beautiful friends around town on 35mm from October ‘23 🎞️

Not to be dramatic, but isn’t it strange that you can sit on a plane, go through hours of immigration and arrive on the other side of the planet - to a colder land, without ceiling fans and jet sprays? In the toilet, you are left with only paper and your prayers.

What’s even stranger, is that you will find your old friends here. The ones you went to school and college with, and some from Goa of course. They take you to parks and you have picnics with strawberry-lime cider that you have grown to love, and bhakardwadi that you got from Bombay. You go to blues bars, art exhibitions and libraries inside boats floating on man-made canals. Somewhere between laughing at how small the world can be and worrying about visas because that is the life of an immigrant - you find yourself feeling so proud of your friends. So young to be building a slice of home so far away. You feel silly for sometimes feeling envious.

Strangely, you’re lucky enough to make new friends and you go to open mics together. They take you out for dinner to eat biryani at Bricklane, because they can tell you’re homesick even though you won’t admit it. You’re starting to realize your feelings about your home might not be your own after all, at a distance, they seem like learned behaviour.

As you walk to the metro which is the tube here, you try to keep your own pace so as to not be absorbed by the speed of life here. You marvel at culture, the hangover of colonization and collective artistic expression. As you stand by the curb trying to figure out how to get back home to Archway, two people whizz past you on skateboards with speakers playing a Kings of Leon song that you love. You take the time to waste a moment and you’re so grateful for the familiarity in the strangeness.

#35mmphotography #filmphotography #analogfeatures #35mmFilm #analogphotography #filmcommunity #pentax #pentaxphotography

A friend told me she’s turning 30 next year and I said what do you mean, aren’t we the same age…

Some #Rumi for your Monday existentialism:

All day I think about it,
Then at night I say it.
Where did I come from,
And what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere,
I’m sure of that,
And I intend to return there.

just some words on the wall or signs from the universe ✨

#thisisasign #photography #streetsigns #streetart

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PERFORMANCE ON BBC RADIO 3

UNSCHOOL

LANGUAGE IS A QUEER THING

EDUCATOR

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