Since summer 2024, I have been meeting a group of women in the west end of Newcastle. Most of them moved to the city in the sixties and seventies, they know this city across time unlike myself.
Each week, we gathered with cups of chai, and sometimes daal-chawal. We spoke about friendships, about memory and language, about home and … about ourselves. We started writing creatively. Little bits of writing.
In English
In Urdu
We told stories. Well, they told me stories and I listened, almost like I listened to my own daadi tell me stories when I visited her in the winters back home.
In a city that doesn’t always reflect our histories back to us, this project was a gentle refusal. It wasn’t only chit-chat, this was archiving. They told me of the snow of ’69, whispered a family recipe for chicken karahi into my ears, some secrets down the Westgate Road.
This work reminded me that community history is a living, breathing entity. It’s about showing up, it’s about speaking up and creating spaces where women’s voices can be heard.
They suggested we call the film اپنی آواز [Our Voice].
Their stories have now been made into a film. The project, led by the wonderful New Writing North (producer Jo Hislop) alongside a filmmaker (Julie Ballands), was showcased on 8 May 2025, and will be part of a special exhibition from 21 July – 10 November at the Discovery Museum in newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Find out more here.
Malya b 