what is the vertiginous chapati saying to me?
From the category archives:
I have a new piece up at The Review, Pakistan’s new paranoia, on Zaid Hamid.
A man named Zaid Hamid, who has perhaps done more than anyone else to promote the new narrative of national victimhood, says that he has a clear answer. We are, he argues, living in the apocalyptic end-times – and Pakistan [...]
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Javed Akhtar on M. F. Hussain’s Rights, Sunday, Mar 07, 2010:
Javed Akhtar: You know, please allow me to digress a little. Till now we are talking about the Hindu fanatics and the Hindu fundamentalists. Now, we are talking about the Muslim fundamentalists. And their resemblance and similarities is uncanny. It reminds me, you know, some [...]
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A long while ago, I was a Physics major. This was a default setting. My father, an electrical engineer, expected something similar; as did I. In college, we had some inspirational teachers. Bashir Tahir, our Math teacher for example, was particularly somnambulant to all appearances but had a wicked sharp sprint. I know this because [...]
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Some may recall that I had pointed out Atiya Khan’s critique of my piece in the Nation some while ago. I had wanted to not turn it into some silly blog tiff, and sent in a letter to the editor, who graciously published it in Platypus Review, issue # 20. You can read it on-line [...]
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Very Promising new collection of essays on Pakistan. It will make a fine addition to this.
Beyond Crisis: Re-evaluating Pakistan
Edited by Naveeda Khan
Published by: Routledge India
Publication Date: 23/02/2010
Pages: 544
About the Book
Through the essays in this volume, we see how the failure of the state becomes a moment to ruminate on the artificiality of this most modern [...]
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Last week I gave a small talk to a group of Model UN students at Hildesheim U. Thought I’d archive the presentation – and share it here. Not much going on. My main concern was to show the difference between internal and external public/policy debates*. And maybe also to step away from (inter)national narratives. I [...]
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Doing some research, I came across an official Pakistan government publication celebrating the 5 year anniversary of its existence. I scanned a few of the adverts in the issue. The paper I am writing concerns the “long history” of Pakistan such that allowed Mortimer Wheeler’s Five Thousand Years of Pakistan: An Archaeological Outline (1950) to [...]
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With thanks to Francesca Orsini, Alok Rai and his family, and Fran Pritchett, we have a scan of the only photo portrait of Mirza Asadullah Ghalib. Incredible.
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“Yet the Army leadership is refusing to strike at the heart of the Taliban command in Baluchistan Province.” declares another editorial from NYT today. If only these Pakistanis would realize – why won’t they just realize – that this is their wars, not ours.
Think back to March 2009. Then, the Taliban were on a [...]
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So, I turn to you, my collective hive brain. Who is this “Dr.” “Prof.” Zaid Hamid? He has, from most accounts, secured a niche similar to Glenn Beck in Pakistani media – combining ultra-nationalism with a taste for finding Zionist or Hindu involvement in the Pakistani sphere. Here he explains, for example, what truths lie [...]
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I really must.
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In a (somewhat cringe-inducing*) video report at NYT, Adam B. Ellick takes aim at some of the very popular Pakistani pop stars and their lack of attention to the Taliban.
Not that we could tell much about US campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq and Af-Pak since 2001 (“Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” anyone?) from [...]
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I have a new piece up at The Review, Start A War. We expected something, something better than before. We expected something more.
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I saw/ate a version of this (often called ‘paasti’) in Mianwali but here is how it plays in Bannu (next to Waziristan). The retail version is usually sold as “Afghan bread” – at least in Chicago. [via Nosheen]
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Another blast in Rawalpindi.
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I guess the burning Obama effigy adds some to the context but enquiring minds do want to know … [h/t jason]
Afghans shout slogans during a protest in front of the parliament building in Kabul October 25, 2009. Afghan police used fire to disrupt the protest by thousands of people in the capital Kabul on Sunday [...]
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Riazat Butt,Welcome to Slackistan: Pakistan’s first ever slacker movie, The Guardian, Saturday 24 October 2009:
That would be, according to Khan, with a one–man crew, no script, no budget, no permission and, at one point, when the Taliban were just 60 miles away from Islamabad.
Mumblecore has finally reached Islamabad, and just in time!
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Some reminders:
1. Remembering Afghanistan’s Golden Age by Elizabeth Bumiller. Includes a multimedia essay.
2. Kabul – City Number One by Adam Curtis – documentarian and researcher. (thanks to Arno)
3. Life Before Death by Michael Yon.
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Continuing in the “catching up” mode …
I really should have more to say about this [via biryanilady] but, I am just happy that Muhammad Boota exists. That aside, let us turn, briefly, to this report: Pakistan’s reform experiment. Co-authored by some luminaries, the study takes stock of one of the two singing canaries of the [...]
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K. K. Aziz, one of the finest historians of Pakistan, is no more.
It is a great loss.
I had planned on writing a fuller obit but Adil Najam has done a splendid job.
Also see K. K. Aziz on Lahore
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