Sheherazaad – Pakeezah
What happens when someone who has always believed herself pure finally sees what’s underneath? Sheherazaad hummed the melody of “Pakeezah” walking through old Mughal ruins in Lucknow, staying up late in the faded grandeur of the Clarks Avadh hotel, chasing the song’s ghost: a woman convinced of her own purity until she meets the monster inside. It’s about her relationship to purity culture, growing up on the oppressor side of caste. Sung in Urdu, the lyric follows a shadow in a quiet alley off the city’s noise, held up as blameless, wanting to be real but knowing she only exists in other people’s imagining. The refrain tells her she never existed at all, then pushes her to wipe everyone else off the page and paint herself in. Around her, an ailing firefly escapes a city that celebrates being spotless, a parrot weeps in a corner, an old woman stiffens into a doll, and the walls fill with questions: which way she’ll turn, faith or spirit, and who halted fate.
The song is on Khudgarzi, her self-produced debut album, out November 20 on Erased Tapes.
Tour dates
Asia (December 2026)
- December 3-7: Pattaya, TH, Wonderfruit Festival
United Kingdom (January 2027)
- January 20: Liverpool, Royal Philharmonic
- January 22: Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete’s
- January 23: Glasgow, Glad Cafe (Celtic Connections)
- January 25: Bristol, The Lantern
- January 27: London, Cafe Oto
- January 28: Margate, Arc
Europe (January 2027)
- January 30: Fribourg, CH, Fri-Son
Europe (February 2027)
- February 1: Amsterdam, NL, Paradiso
- February 2: Antwerp, BE, De Roma
- February 3: Utrecht, NL, Tivoli
- February 6: Berlin, DE, Supermolly
- February 7: Jena, DE, Trafo
- February 8: Prague, CZ, Palac Akropolis
- February 11: Porto, PT, RCA
- February 12: Braga, PT, TBA
- February 13: Lisbon, PT, ZBD
