Sahil Desai grew up in the Boston area, studied computer science, and worked in tech. Alongside that legible path ran another current. As a child, in a predominantly white high school where he was one of only a handful of South Asian students, he learned tabla and performed publicly. After being mocked for his “strange” hand movements, he quietly stopped playing soon after. That early refusal stayed in the body longer than it stayed in language.

 

With a Sindhi grandmother born Hindu in Karachi before Partition—shaped by a world where Hindu, Sikh, and Sufi practices coexisted—Sahil inherited a layered understanding of identity and belonging. Years later, music reopened these questions through travel.

 

He is now riding a motorbike across the African continent, tracing South Asian diasporic sound through vinyl records, radio stations, flash drives, and collaborations with African musicians—forms of cultural life that often sit outside official histories. As he rides, he writes not to resolve what he encounters, but to stay with it.

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Contents

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1. Aterere 

Nairobi, Kenya — August 26th, 2025

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