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Writing
Screenwriting and short fiction.
Second Place Winner: WeScreenplay Television Pilot 2018 Screenwriting Contest
H8
When minority children start going missing in a small Southern town, two exceptional FBI agents—one Black, one Pakistani-American—with colliding worldviews are called in to investigate. What they uncover reveals the heart of hatred in America and a vast, sinister conspiracy.
H8 captures the zeitgeist and brings something completely fresh to TV: New heroes and an unflinching examination of polarizing realities—from race and religion to the psychology of hate. Ostensibly a mystery, the larger subject of the show is the intolerance and bigotry simmering beneath the surface in America, a veritable powder-keg on the verge of exploding in the age of Trump. At a time when partisan social media debates, fake news and the mainstreaming of extremism threaten to tear us apart, H8 will give us something bigger than another cop show or crime to solve. It is an exploration of the human condition at this complicated historical moment, when the national culture at large is in the throes of an existential crisis.
Finalist Apu Screenwriting Contest: Crowdsourcing a Cure for The Simpsons 2018
The Passion of the Apu
A stranger comes to Springfield looking for Apu, who has just become a KrustyKoin millionaire.
Our spec script addresses the Apu controversy by elevating and evolving his character, keeping him as part of the show rather than writing him off. It also introduces a new, “next generation” desi character who will give the show opportunities to explore contemporary South Asian identity in fresh ways. Finally, we’ve written in a cameo for Hari Kondabolu to diffuse the tension between Hari and the show with humor and provide a diplomatic solution, one that honors the issues Hari has raised while staying true to both the essence of Apu’s character and the world of the show.
Semifinalist: 2018 ScreenCraft Short Story Contest
The Mirror
Part mystery, part hallucinatory dream, Faisal’s first work of fiction tells the surreal tale of a middle-aged doctor coming to terms with his mortality. Haunted by unusual occurrences, a threatening figure, as well as his own past, the doctor is challenged to put the pieces of his life back together and deal with an act of possible malpractice he doesn’t remember committing—before the boundaries between his dreams and reality break down completely.
Talk Show Host
Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, but what about his many doubles? Where are they now? What if one had become a famous talk show host?
Written through the eyes of a female Esquire journalist who lands the interview of a lifetime with a former double of Saddam who’s now a major celebrity, this imaginative satire skewers the media, pop culture, and Western misadventures in the Middle East.
The Arrival
In this rumination on death and the afterlife, Tariq Zaman, a jaded ad man who appears to have it all, awakens in the middle of the night to find a very unexpected visitor has come to call: a friend who died ten years ago. Is Tariq’s number up—or is this a chance to make peace with the ghosts of his former life?
