June 2004

The Archives

• homistan

  Ring Ring

  06.20.04 | Permalink | 4 Comments

  India, Pakistan Establishing Nuke Hotline
  ————
  “Hello”
  [silence]
  “Hello..Ji? Who is it, please? Koon Bol Raha Hai?”
  [click]
  ————-
  “Hello”
  [chatting in the backround]
  “Hello, kon? Jamali? I told you this number was secret.”
  [click]
  ————-
  “Hello, bhai”
  “Namaskar. This is Priyanka. Is Ayla Baji around?”
  “No. She is not home. How are you, baiti?”
  “Oh. I am good. Just wanted to say hi to Baji.”
  “I will tell her. No [...]

• imperial watch

  MessOpotamia

  06.19.04 | Permalink | Comment?

  Once the dust is settled in Iraq, The Daily Show, should release a compilation DVD of their Iraqi coverage[.mov link]. Besides Jon Stewart, very few journalists have been on my must-read list when it comes to Iraq but Anthony Shadid and Rajiv Chandrasekaran of WaPo are tops of that list. Today, there is the first [...]

• univerCity

  Islamic History

  06.18.04 | Permalink | 8 Comments

  I have to submit book orders for the Introduction to Islamic History course I will be teaching in the Fall. So far, I have:

  Michael Cook’s The Koran: A Very Short Introduction.
  Jonathan Berkey’s The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800.
  Malise Ruthven’s Historical Atlas of Islam.

  Here are my thoughts on the course [...]

• univerCity

  The Great Khan

  06.17.04 | Permalink | 1 Comment

  Jokingly, I said during a workshop paper that my dissertation is part of the new, emerging genre of General Studies (as opposed to Subaltern Studies. get it?). No one really laughed. Bah Humbug! to them - the armies a-marching, folks.
  The General I study, Muhammad b. Qasim, plays a particular role in the psyche and imagined [...]

• not baseball

  Axing Miandad

  06.17.04 | Permalink | 3 Comments

  Pakistan sacked Javed Miandad yesterday. I have to say that not only was this needed but way overdue. Miandad was a great cricketer but he sucked as a coach. Just in the last four years, the man has been fired, he resigned, he got left behind in New Zealand with the luggage.
  And of course, India [...]

• univerCity

  Fox

  06.16.04 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  Mexico’s President Fox came to UChicago and all I got was these lousy pictures. I guess there was no media allowed so these pictures are worth money…uh, maybe not. They are from Nancy’s office - which is the office opposite mine. I missed the Mariachi band, ’cause I was at lunch. Sad about that, really. [...]

• homistan

  Art of Pehlwani

  06.16.04 | Permalink | 11 Comments

  Naim Sahib forwarded a BBC story, I had missed, about tall, brown, brave, greased-up and ready to fight pehlwans. A persian word, pehlwan, means warrior or champion. It used to denote those who excelled on the battleground, besting their opponents. The greatest pehlwan was the Persian warrior-king Rustum [don't be scared of the persian, just [...]

• univerCity

  Hersh

  06.15.04 | Permalink | 5 Comments

  Seymour Hersh stopped by the University last week. I meant to write about it earlier but one thing or another delayed it. The talk was brilliant. He was smart, funny, engaging with the audience, full of vitriol and condemnation. He grew up right near the University (on 47th & Drexel) and said some kind words [...]

• homistan

  Softcore Love

  06.14.04 | Permalink | 3 Comments

  Looks like I picked the wrong movie to write about. While Dev is getting ho-hum reviews, another movie released on the same day is getting stone-pelted and the cinema-halls are getting burned. The culprit is Razdan’s Girlfriend which is a love triangle featuring two girls. And no, the boy is NOT the most desired one. [...]

• optical character recognition, univerCity

  The Joyce of History

  06.14.04 | Permalink | 3 Comments

  Once in a while you come across a piece of writing that knocks your socks off. Sean O’Hagan’s Banger and Machinations is one such article which appeared in Sunday’s Guardian. Let me be honset that it probably will not do for you what it did for me. See, it hit my three sweet academic spots: [...]