In episode 2 of What Your Seek Is Seeking You with Nadia Niaz on Writing Home, we continue exploring language, kinship, representation, and culture. 

I’ve been reflecting a lot about language since I last saw Nadia, language that sometimes feels inadequate to give a description to the sensory, to memory, of the mundane, and also things that are extraordinary. Someone like me who speaks 4 and reads and writes three languages still feels inadequacy of vocabulary when it comes to English. I want to find words that are perfect, words that telepathically speak to people. I sift through dictionaries and my little journal of new words so my sentences don’t lose their flow and words don’t sound insufficient. But then again languages also merely sound, the umms and uffs and cchmmm something I’ve inherited from the aunties around me that gossiped. An expression of agreement. Language is also wealth. Languages are also stolen or erased. Languages are mediums, a way to connect but never should be a performance of power or a tool to oppress. 

Some words by Audre Lorde from her essay The Transformation Of Silence Into Language And Action strengthen me and are at the core of my understanding of language and silence for the session. 

“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal, and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.” 

Music by 

Tu Jhoom- Abida Parveen x Naseebo Lal from Coke Studio 

Dheemi Dheemi by Naughty Boy, Soundtrack Four Weddings And A Funeral

Nadia's works 

https://australianmultilingualwriting.org/

https://www.insanityworks.org/nadia-creative

https://www.kingsartistrun.org.au/program/these-words/

Instagram- nadianiaz