Amitav Ghosh, “The Ghat of the Only World”: Agha Shahid Ali in Brooklyn“, 15 December, 2001. [pdf] He had a special passion for the food of his region, one variant of it in particular: “Kashmiri food in the Pandit style.” I asked him once why this was so important to him and he explained that [...]
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An essay by Daisy Rockwell. Har qatl di e jar zan zamin zar Three things for which we kill– Land, women and gold. Punjabi proverb (quoted at the beginning of Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders) I. Gold They have not the foggiest idea that they cannot tame him. Such a man belongs to [...]
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The World Cup, whenever it comes, becomes such a part of my everyday that I feel like I have always been watching it, that there is no time when I don’t have another contest to look towards or examine after. I walked down the street, and in a shop window, they had a tv. A [...]
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From a press-release by Asia House, UK, for Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco: For decades, the Filipino community has watched the UK media perpetuate the negative stereotypes of the Philippines. After the latest PR beating, from BBC2’s documentary ‘Explore’, many from the Filipino community in the U.K yearn for the ‘other truths’ of the Philippines to [...]
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Díaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007. I. Comix For the record, that summer our girl caught a cuerpazo so berserk that only a pornographer or a comic-book artist could have designed it with a clear conscience. Every neighborhood has its tetúa, but Beli could have put them [...]
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Gentle readers, I am very pleased to present, below the fold, some exciting new fiction from Pakistan. The author ILM DOST wishes to maintain his anonymity. He is an ex-officer from the Pakistan Air Force, possesses a Phd, and currently teaches undergraduates at an institute of learning in Pakistan.
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C.M Naim sends along a world exclusive to the CM audience about a copy ad written by none other than the Muhammad Iqbal. This is big, folks. If Walt Whitman had endorsed a New England Clam Chowder company, it wouldn’t be as big: While looking around in a forgotten public library at Shimla I came [...]
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I think my favorite part of Fatima Bhutto’s Songs of Blood and Sword is the conversation she has with the octogenarian Samuel Huntington at Harvard about her father who took a class with him. It is a brilliant little scene full of awkwardness and confusion. I don’t have the book here, else I would just [...]
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Abroo H. Khan. “An Interview with Dr. Muhammad Umar Memon“. Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies Vol. 1, No. 2 (2009): 180-199 [pdf link] What prompted me to translate? I used to translate even back in Pakistan. But then, in the same way as my creative writing, my translation work was not a matter of [...]
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I’ve never really written anything outside of this house. I wrote a very thick Ph.D. thesis for Allahabad University, but I couldn’t have actually written it there. I would collect everything and come back home to write. Suppose I have a story to write and I’ve gone out of town for a couple of days: [...]
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I really want this book. CM readers in Lahore/Karachi, with access to a post office and a paypal account, I am looking at you. From Huma Yusuf’s review in Dawn.com: Readers will enjoy flipping through old advertisements as well as gathering tidbits about brands that they’ve always consumed, but perhaps never really known. That said, [...]
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Update: Deadline is one week from today– Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 12 noon EST Dear Readers, I am working on a post about book buying, browsing, searching in South Asia. I would like to solicit from you anecdotes and stories about looking for books in any language other than English while in South Asia. [...]
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The commercial would begin with a shot of a blue-green planet afloat in dark space. Then, with instant thousand-fold magnification, the camera would digitally zoom into the part of the landmass in the northern hemisphere that lies above the Indian Ocean, the subcontinent flecked closer to the top of the screen by the white crest [...]
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“When you walk you are freed from the worries of ordinary life” – Kanai Das Baul. “I know it is not exactly like every family, but in this burning ground, in this place of sorrow, we have found new hope.” – Manisha Ma. There are nine lives but eleven stories. Prasannamati Mataji and Prayogamati, Jain [...]
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Most of my usual conversation (passing/commenting on links) has moved to twitter, so doing a sunday link post seems almost, well, retro. Still, things I do for you, gentle readers, will always be en vogue. Because that is how awesome you are. Each and every single one of you. Drake Bennett’s Changing History, Boston Globe, [...]
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I been sending the usual links I would hoard for this occasional post over to twitter. But, it has been too long, yes? Some links to tide over the long Sunday:[play Cohen's Avalanche, Famous Blue Raincoat as you read] Jacqueline Rose, A Piece of White Silk, LRB is absolutely must-read – for such careful examination [...]
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Re: Patrick French. “Touting Religion, Grabbing Land.” New York Times, March 17, 2009. It has been a while since CM had a rant post. I have matured, you know. Elevated discourse and all that. But, fuck it. This Patrick French “opinion piece” just fills me with that oft-familiar feeling. First off, does Patrick French meet [...]
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update: “It’s a very Masala film”. Those kids are too damn cute, btw. Just in time for Oscars, we saw the “controversial” crowd-pleaser last night. I loved it. Boyle & Tandan tip their hats to Company, Maqbool and Salaam Bombay in visual and thematic cues but I thought Trainspotting may have been the biggest influence. [...]
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Bahār-i Dānish (Garden of Wisdom) by Munshi Ināyat Allah Kanbuh in the mid-seventeenth century. These are hikayāt (tales) of a romance between a prince Jahandar Sultan and a maiden Bahrawar Banu, translated by the narrator into Persian. Think Sheherzade, but with a Munshi. I was delighted to find this on Google Books – though, it [...]
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Dennis Perrin, whether he knows it or not, is in contention with Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi in a contest of nuclear indignance–which of the two will assume the mantle of America’s clear-thinking, hyper-independent conscience, left unshouldered since Hunter S. Thompson’s slide into obscurity, and lamentable demise? Taibbi has the lead. He occupies a chair close [...]
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