It seems as if the Almighty had spread before this nation charts of imperial destinies, dazzling as the sun, yet with many a deep intestine difficulty, and human aggregate of cankerous imperfection, — saying, lo! the roads, the only plans of development, long and varied with all terrible balks and ebullitions. You said in your [...]
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We, who privilege chronological time over all else, are maddeningly a-chronos or poly-chronos in our personal memories. Often we imbue a specific space with time, and when we leave it, we arrest the passage of time, there, to our last memory. We do this more often with persons – especially loved ones. Other timelines, which [...]
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I drank a lot of tea. I drank more coffee. Yesterday, I think I had a caffeine-withdrawal headache-from-hell. Cairo, you did me wrong. If there is one complaint I could humbly launch against the Cairian food gods, it would be “masala” (ok, the kebabs were genuinely dry, everywhere, also) {Lahore food snob alert!}. But this [...]
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Khizr haunted me during my fieldwork. The legend is that he is a lost Prophet – rather a Prophet for lost souls, lost travelers, seekers. He appears when you least expect and guides you. He is immortal. He is dressed in green. When I was walking around lower Sindh, I would encounter his memory everywhere [...]
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In December, it is the custom of taste-makers everywhere to create lists of the ten best things of the year. Taste-makers, aware that they will be called upon to perform this task, work hard throughout the year winnowing through possible entries into this category so they will be prepared by December to do their duty [...]
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We were there for the sake of words. Words written by some in Europe about others in Asia. There was power embedded in those words – power to change Europe, power to arrange Asia. Ours was often a contentious gathering. Some believed, perhaps rightfully, that those days were long gone when locating words into histories [...]
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Back from Cairo bearing some deep ridges in the psyche, and in the soul. There is so much to say about Cairo and I find myself unable to articulate any of it. It cannot be enough to claim, blithely, that I fell in love with Cairo. That sounds unright. Love has too many spikes on [...]
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I have a review of Robert D. Kaplan’s new tome Monsoon up at The National UAE: Recall America’s imperial past, understand its present. The policy readers of this book will find it sober reading. The empire, which does listen to Robert Kaplan, will surely invite him to speak to groups with shiny brass and shinier [...]
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My new December column is up on Bookslut. There’s so much more to say about this book, and I will have write more in the coming days, but for now, here is an excerpt: I read War and Peace a number of years ago in Allahabad, India, in March or April, when the temperatures begin [...]
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It was startling to recognize my life these many years, codified Also, this bit of Ad-copy from that same issue is too precious to miss.
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Gentle Readers, I am sorry, but I have been drowning in writing deadlines, some of which will trickle into consciousness here over the next year or so and I will delightfully point to this period of non-activity (seeming). In the meantime, some announcements: A. I AM GOING TO CAIRO!!!. I will be there from Dec [...]
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