It sure is hot up in here. How are all of you doing? Today seems like the perfect summer afternoon to hide in an air-conditioned movie theater with Charlie. That is so the plan. The reading list for today is a tad haphazard - as they always are:
- In the LRB, Maya Jasanoff reviews Gautam Chakravarty’s The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination. A subject dear to my heart - though far from my area of research. The book has mysteries, chapatis and homi bhabha. Trifecta! The monograph is a study of novels about the mutiny up to the 1916 or so. Sounds promising, no?
- Not to be outdone, Aamir Khan has rushed a movie into theaters to provide the view of the Indian Mutiny in the Indian Imagination. I kid. Mangal Pandey: The Rising has been 4 years in the making. Aamir Khan thinks that it has lessons for the young generation and others about freedom fighters because, “whether it be Afganistan or Iraq, we see foreign powers trying to impose their administration on local people”. Indian Express runs a selection about the sepoy, Mangal Pandey.
- Empires, resistances and imaginations being what they are, I liked Jim Hoagland’s piece in WaPo, Lessons of Mideast Empire.
- Afghanistan is seeing the return of Taliban. I am sure this guy will find a job now in Peshawer.
- This piece by Aamer Ahmed Khan made me laugh. Tea and cakes, indeed.
Wedding Crashers was a ton of fun. Slows down at the end, but, well, what are you going to do.