💭🌟Southasia-sized dreams for 2026

Hi Reader,If you’ve been watching what’s going on in the world, you’ll know that 2026 has gotten off to anything but a slow start. At Himal too, we’ve started the year off with a series of bangs (good ones, thankfully!). And we’ve got many more of those in store. If we pull off everything we have planned by the end of 2026, our small team will have taken Himal several steps closer to the big dreams we have for the magazine – big enough to be worthy of this giant thing we call Southasia. And I’m inviting you to come along for the ride..Here are just a few of the things we’re up to. We started the year as we mean to keep going through it. A few days into 2026, we hit our target of 100 new Patrons to close out our year-end support campaign. We’ll need more and more of our readers to step forward in support of independent journalism this year, and I hope you’ll be one of them. Then we hit another century too: the 100th edition of the Southasia Weekly newsletter, which has become the place for engaged Southasians to get their view on everything happening in the region..We’ve already published landmark pieces this year, and we’re working on many more – including investigations that no other outlet in Southasia would invest in and publish. We’re covering the ongoing election in Myanmar, and lining up numerous pieces to help you make sense of the elections due in Bangladesh and Nepal in the coming months, with the fate of both countries’ recent revolutions on the line. And we’re giving you a window into the stories behind our stories with Himal Footnotes, a new video series where our editors speak to some of the great Southasian writers and thinkers publishing in Himal..We’re hard at work on a revamp of our State of Southasia podcast, making it video-first and expanding the format to bring you even more key conversations and perspectives on all of Southasia. Watch out for the relaunch in the next months.We’re working on the most comprehensive upgrade yet of our website, newsletter distribution and associated systems, taking the feedback we’ve had from our readers and Patrons to build a better, more tailored Himal experience for you..All of these are big steps forward for our little magazine – the latest of the many big steps you’ve seen us taking year after year. Every one of these steps requires financial resources, and the reason we’re doing everything we’re doing is because more of our readers are becoming paying supporters to help fund Himal’s survival and development. Last year we fought for every bit of extra budget possible to bring in key new hires – a managing editor, and an expanded audience and engagement team – to make possible the next steps forward. This year, we need your help to let us keep going, growing and dreaming big..Support Himal for only $49 / year.It takes just a few minutes to become a Himal Patron and join us as a fellow traveller on the magazine’s journey. Click the button above and help us keep building the magazine Southasia deserves and needs. I can promise you this: when we look back on the year together at the end of 2026, you’ll see that every bit of your support was money well spent.All bestRoman.Southasia Mixtape 📻🎶.The universe gave me a gift to celebrate the end of 2025: I discovered, extremely belatedly, Aki Nawaz..Nawaz, of Pakistani origin and raised in a working-class community in the UK, is the powerhouse behind Fun-Da-Mental. I was hooked by ‘Ja Sha Taan’ as soon as I heard its combination of qawwali and punk (two of my great loves). And that’s even before I dove deeper into the band’s music and politics, which take in a huge spectrum of musical influences (hip-hop, bhangra and more) and strident critiques of racism, Islamophobia and the injustices inflicted on Palestine.Fun-Da-Mental had its peak in the 1990s and 2000s, and is now seeing a spurt of new interest. There’s a new documentary out on Nawaz that I’m dying to see, titled More Punk Than Punk after a quote from its hero: “Islam for me was more punk than punk.” Now there’s a hot line of argument to mull over and unpack! I’m passing this on as my New Year gift to you in hopes that you might find the music and the story as fascinating as I do. Happy 2026!