College students who graduated in the height of the pandemic in spring 2020 faced a nonexistent job market with everyone sheltering at home. So upon graduation, NYU Abu Dhabi grad Vamika Sinha launched a freelance journalism career and continued writing for her own online magazine, Postscript. A literature and creative writing grad, she now has a portfolio full of journalistic and creative pieces on arts and culture, poetry, and photography. She has also freelanced with various publications in the UAE, such as Canvas Magazine and The National.
Originally from India, the 24-year-old grew up in Botswana and moved to the UAE for university,
In August 2022, Sinha left to pursue a master’s in Comparative Literature at SOAS University of London. Her goal is not only to deepen her literature background but also to broaden her journalistic possibilities. We talked via Zoom about her experiences, perspectives and advice on being a journalist in the Emirates.
Growing up in Botswana as an only child, how did that experience shape you?
It felt quite boring and constrictive to me. It wasn’t my home, I was an immigrant, and people don’t talk about the experience of being South Asian in a Southern African country. But I spent a lot of time reading and watching films — sort of giving myself this creative education on my own. It made me feel like I could be somebody else and be in other people’s stories, which obviously was the foundation of what I eventually ended up doing in my career and my studies.
What enticed you to come to the UAE for college?
What attracted me to NYU Abu Dhabi was a full scholarship and travel opportunities. Before college, I’ve only been to Botswana, South Africa, India and the UAE. I was desperate to travel. I wanted to explore the big cities like Paris and New York and live the stories I was reading about. And after I came, I traveled a lot, so all those dreams did materialize.
How did your travel experiences impact you?
I loved New York, I feel like it’s very conducive for a literary person. Paris is also amazing for that. It’s a more challenging place, but I’ve been learning French for so long, and I love French culture. So being in that environment, seeing Paris for what it is instead of how I romanticized it — it was a really interesting experience.
What made you decide to be a journalist? Did you always want to work in the creative field?
I was always into literature, and I was really good at it too. However, I didn’t want to make a career out of it until near the end of high school when encouraged to start writing poetry. I explored it as a new form of expression, and it gave me a lot of solace. It made me want to explore what else can language do for me when I use it and not just when I read it.
And then eventually, with my career, which is very specifically art journalism, I think that happened by accident because I graduated in 2020. When I couldn’t find a job, I did cold email every publication, and at the beginning of 2021, I started working at an art magazine, which was the place that responded to me. That’s how I began a career as an art journalist.
How did Postscript Magazine come to be, and what was your vision for it?
It happened while I was studying away in Paris. I was with two peers who were also in the literature program, and we ended up spontaneously starting an online magazine. This came out of frustrations of wanting to write about the stuff we want to write. I want to learn how to apply stuff like postcolonial literature. I want to talk about it. I want to write and express this through the framework of my life.
I think that there is a ceiling that you can reach with how much you can grow as a journalist in the UAE. Obviously, a huge aspect of that is censorship, especially when you’re political. I think that I have strong political leanings in the way I write, and so I feel that I don’t want to water down my journalism.
What was your experience as a journalist in Abu Dhabi?
We were prodding at the taboos, at the borderlines of what people are silent about but want to hear about, and that was immensely rewarding and helps foster community.
It was interesting because in navigating censorship, if we wanted to write a piece that would basically be illegal, we would edit it to couch it in a sort of fiction or magical realism. That was very interesting and fun but also creatively challenging to do that.
How difficult was it running a grassroots publication on a very tight budget in a wealthy state?
I’ll be very honest, my career as a journalist was on paper doing so well. You could track it and be like, wow, that’s amazing, but I was earning so little money. There was not a single time in my life where I was not the lowest-paid person in my community of friends, and that was a lot psychologically. Life in the UAE is hard. It’s hard if you’re not earning money, and that’s what I was dealing with. It takes up so much brain space that you can’t actually do the creative work you want to do with that ease.
What advice do you have for others wanting to cover and write about Abu Dhabi?
I think it’s very important to always be aware that everyone has a different narrative of a place like Abu Dhabi. That is going to mean something different to my white American friend who works in finance. To the security guard who works in your building.
To sum it up, write with honesty, write with empathy, write with care and be aware of the positionality you hold in the UAE. To think about this place with a critical lens, to think about it through the eyes of bodies that are not like yours, is extremely important.
What would you say success means to you?
I think for me, it’s evolved. It’s just that I’m comfortable, like I can have a home and I can pay its bills without feeling like I’m freaking out all the time. I’m surrounded by people I love and I have community. I’m doing work that fulfills me. That doesn’t take up too much of my life, but that I feel I’m growing in. That is all I seek in life. I mean anything else is just a bonus.