Our mutual friend, Paul K., had the good sense to go on a trip to Poland with Franz Kočka and document the experience. Franz is an excellent tour guide to Eastern Europe who had me in stitches. Please go see the pictravelogue here. My favorite entry is this: “He will strive all his life without [...]
{ 0 comments }
One more notch in my procrastination belt, I finished the syllabus last night. The first class is tomorrow. What a sad man I am. I have to admit to some serious nervous activity but I pulled through in the end. Once, I had the class structure up, assigning the readings was a lot easier. It [...]
{ 2 comments }
Shaukat Aziz is now PM of Pakistan. He was elected to the post at a National Assembly session with 191 votes and no opposition. Which is funny, because, for once in Pakistani history there was the most unified opposition candidate, Javed Hashmi, a man incarcerated by the General for “sedition”. However, Hashmi was not allowed [...]
{ 9 comments }
Is it wrong of me to think that Arundhati Roy is super cute? I think it is. Anyways, she is visiting US (I guess they forgot to cancel her visa) and gave a speech entitled Public Power in the Age of Empire. The speech, in line with her recent public discourse, is largely a challenge [...]
{ 9 comments }
As long as we are talking about censorship, I wanted to quickly comment on the Tariq Ramadan case. You may or may not be aware of him – a European intellectual whose work negotiates the twin worlds of European secularism and Islamic philosophy. For all necessary information about him and the charges of anti-Semitism against [...]
{ 0 comments }
My theory about the upcoming elections has been that the country cannot remain in such close contestation for too long – that something will happen that will prove to be the tipping point and, well, Kerry will win in a landslide. I believe that (barring any “revelations”), the presidential debates will be that point. Think [...]
{ 6 comments }
My most popular post seems to be this one which got posted on some desi chat rooms and now I get 50 hits a day from people looking to find pictures of some net cafe action. Not here, people. Nothing to see. I want to give an update that, according to today’s Daily Jang editorial, [...]
{ 13 comments }
Britney was seeking to cast her new video and, apparently, she asked for a Pakistani. She should have called me. Unlike sven, I am not a fan of Ms. Spears talents but I do want Pakistan getting proper respect in soft-core music videos. I would have asked one of my retired elders to lend some [...]
{ 2 comments }
Good to be back. I have said, in public, that Kerry will win in a landslide; that the country cannot teeter on pinpoint for that long; that the debates (or some new tell-all revelation about Bush) will be the catalyst; that this race is most akin to 1980 with a sitting President bungling up a [...]
{ 5 comments }
A friend send me a link to a review of a new English translation of the Qur’an by Prof. Abdel Haleem of SOAS. The translation is getting some good press and my friend thought that I should use that for my upcoming class. I wish I had know about it sooner because I surely would. [...]
{ 9 comments }
David O. Russell is one of my favorite directors. I was watching Flirting with Disasters on cable this weekend and laughing my ass off. That guy knows how to film farce. Which made his 1999 film Three Kings that much greater. I remember reading a small interview in NYT before Gulf War II, where they [...]
{ 1 comment }
Happy Birthday, homistans. I was born missing some crucial nationalist bone. Somehow, the nation-state fails to provoke into me any emotion besides disdain. In contradiction, I do love Lahore and I remember many, many conversations with aamir where we imagined fighting the evil invaders to protect our home. But, home was lahore. My immediate family [...]
{ 9 comments }
A leading Bangladeshi writer and academic Professor Humayun Azad was found dead in his hotel room in Munich, Germany. Prof. Azad was the recent survivor of a brutal assassination attempt in March. Remarkably, he recovered and was well on his way. He was in Munich to participate in a Bangla writer conference. While the german [...]
{ 15 comments }
What can I say about Muhammad Iqbal (1876-1938)? I went to school at the height of Islamization policies of General Zia. Khol Ankh Zamin Dekh, indeed. In Zia’s Pakistan, and to this day, Iqbal is the ideologue of Pakistan, the imagineer of the Castle of Islam. We read the meagre selections in our textbooks, wrote [...]
{ 5 comments }
There is perhaps no more a quixotic movement in Indian nationalist history than the Khilafat Movement. It started as a campaign to protect the Khilafat and it ended with an attempt to mass-migrate Muslims of India to Afghanistan. Its most prominent leaders were Shaukat Ali (1873-1938), a young UP journalist, his younger brother Mohammad Ali [...]
{ 6 comments }
In a few days, Pakistanis (and Indians) will celebrate Independence. At midnight, August 14 1947 the twin states of India and Pakistan were released from British dominion. To get up to that day, I thought it worthwhile to post some signposts from the journey that culminated in 1947. In the next few days, I will [...]
{ 5 comments }
One of “things-to-do” for this academic year is to “go on the job market”. I quoteunquote them because that is how they appear in my visual cortex. I am ready and prepared for it. I compiled a portfolio with my course syllabi, some choice student ratings (“best teacher I’ve ever had” and “can’t get enough [...]
{ 6 comments }
Busy today. I saw Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle last night. I was hoping to catch it with my peeps but ended up going late and on a whim. After watching the movie – hilarious – we decided to go get some take-out from Chinatown. We then proceeded to drive in a circle [...]
{ 5 comments }
59 years ago, today, the nuclear age of destruction was ushered in by Col. Tibbets and his crew aboard Enola Gay. Little Boy exploded nearly 2,000 feet above the city of Hiroshima. The crew knew at the moment of blast that human future was now tied inextricably to its own means of destruction. More [...]
{ 0 comments }
