BEYOND THE BORDER

A life-changing trip to Pakistan helped this London-based culture creator connect with his heritage

- BARRY RODGERS

Answering the question “Where are you from?” has always been a tricky one for me. If, like me, you are a citizen of mixed Indian and, through the paternal line, European ancestry and have grown up in Kolkata, there is no simple answer. It’s often difficult to explain your origins to people who have never been in a similar situation. Unless your answer is a straightforward home address, you’ll likely have to end up explaining your life story to someone who only wanted to place you in a geographical box to find common interests. The same holds for Nadir Nahdi, a 30-year-old Londoner of Yemeni-Indonesian-Kenyan-Pakistani descent. He tells me he has never quite felt like he belonged. “I wasn’t enough of anything to feel anything,” Nahdi says. This is why he created BENI, a cultural space and YouTube channel that celebrates people just like him.

Nahdi informs me that he creates cultural products and experiences for a generation growing up in the West with multiple identities – one culture at home, a different one outside. “I explore how they navigate this space, and I create experiences for these people through products and content, primarily video. I intend to show we don’t have to decide to be one culture or the other. We can be all of them and create something new.”

FINDING HOME