Gham, Private Spheres, and Informal Support Systems: A Conversation with Hangama Amiri
Muheb Esmat: It feels strangely appropriate to begin this conversation by asking if you have heard the song “Gham Daram Gham” by Taher Shubab? It came to mind immediately after I began thinking about “grief,” which is echoed in the song by the Urdu word gham (غم).
Hangama Amiri: When this song was popular in 2008/2009, I lived in Halifax with my family. It was also when my father was reunited with our family. He was able to join us in Canada after spending almost eight years in refugee camps in Europe, so the song really takes me back to those memories. But besides the good memories, it also resonates deeply with feelings of displacement that were painful.
ME: It’s incredible how such personal memories could be attached to a song, even years later.
Even though the music video would attribute Shubab’s grief to his separation from the woman he loves, clearly his lamentation deeply resonates with other losses too. How has the recent turmoil—end of American occupation, fall of the republic, return of the Taliban, humanitarian crisis currently unfolding in Afghanistan—affected you and your work?
HA: I have lived away from Afghanistan
