CARVELL WALLACE: It’s not that he doesn’t get animated. He does. Talking with Ahmed can be a little like sparring, a little like co-writing a constitution, a little like saving the world in an 11th-hour meeting. He interrupts, then apologizes for interrupting, then interrupts again. He can deliver entirely publishable essays off the top of his head. He pounds the table when talking about global injustices, goes back to edit his sentences minutes after they were spoken, challenges the premises of your sentences before you’re halfway through speaking. This is what happens when you cut your teeth on both prep-school debate teams and late-night freestyle rap battles, as Ahmed has. He is like someone who wants to speak truth to power but now is power — famous enough, at least, to have people listen to his ideas. He is like someone very smart who also cares a lot. He is like someone who doesn’t want to be misunderstood.
He arrived a few minutes late, speed-walking toward me in apologetic haste and grabbing my hand with enthusiasm. He was dressed in a gray kurta-inspired top, black slacks and a perfectly disheveled royal blue jacket with the sleeves rolled to midforearm — an ensemble that, along with the suede baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, gave him the look of a very well-read semiretired pro skateboarder. Onscreen his presence can be almost comically malleable — he can come across as pliant or stalwart, frank or cagey — but in person there is a distinct and direct energy to him, a keenness bubbling under the surface. More here.