Chapati Mystery

The Reluctant Feudalist

by lapata July 23, 2010

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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Riddle Me This

by sepoy July 19, 2010

Life is rather hectic, gentle readers, and I cannot promise anything here for another ten days or so. However, I promise that once life is returned to me, I will return to you with reports, opinions, excitement of various sorts. I lead you on, because I know you still have feelings for me. In the [...]

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State of Social Sciences

by sepoy July 5, 2010

This is too important to ignore so y’all should go read UNESCO’s World Social Science Report 2010. The whole thing. Still a quote for the peanut gallery, from Venni V. Krishna and Usha Krishna, “Social sciences in South Asia”, pp. 77-81. There seems to be consensus among social scientists that, with a few exceptions, the [...]

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A Delhi Digital Project

by sepoy July 4, 2010

Gentle readers, a state of perpetual bizzzie-ness is about to descend on me.1 I will, however, post – on twitter or here – thoughts, words, links, expressions relating to a project that I am lucky enough to start with some excellent people. Details and participants are available here and, below the fold, some description and [...]

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noted

Bilayat

by sepoy June 30, 2010

I shall be in London next two days. Come say hi.

Fatwa No More

by sepoy June 30, 2010

An essay by Professor Emeritus C.M. Naim, University of Chicago. A messenger brought me some news. It began: Darul Uloom Deoband, the self-appointed guardian for Indian Muslims, in a Talibanesque fatwa that reeked of tribal patriarchy, has decreed that it is “haram” and illegal according to the Sharia for a family to accept a woman’s [...]

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talkies

Around the Khyber Pass

by sepoy June 28, 2010

David Bordwell, John Ford, silent man One headliner is the early Ford series: all his surviving silents, plus a selection of rarely-seen talkies. The first one screened, The Black Watch (1929), concentrates on the Khyber Pass incident of 1914. Captain King is assigned to India while the rest of his Scots regiment is sent to [...]

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The Daughter of Islam

by sepoy June 24, 2010

Pakistan’s originary myth is tied to a spectacular episode – I have written about this here and here but, let me quote from a Social Studies Textbook for the sixth grade, used nationally in Pakistan: Before the dawn of Islam, the trade relations had been setup between India and the Arabs. The Muslims invaded the [...]

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optical character recognition

We Are All Ahmadi XI: Petition

by sepoy June 21, 2010

I urge every reader to sign your name, begin at the beginning. To: Government of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani Senate Chairman Farooq Hamid Naek Speaker Fehmida Mirza Ambassador Hussain Haqqani Your Excellencies, The May 28th massacre of Ahmadis in Lahore is a tragic reminder of the state of siege [...]

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Sunday Reading for Weltmeisterschaft Zuschauer

by sepoy June 20, 2010

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 [...]

portraits

Rasgulla

by sepoy June 18, 2010

When: Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 5:00pm Where: 5 Holden St., North Adams, MA 01247-2423 What: A LAPATA SHOW! Three Generations of Rockwell Creators: For the first time ever, the artwork of three generations of Rockwells will be displayed in the Berkshires, as the work of Jarvis and Daisy Rockwell is exhibited in North Adams [...]

We Are All Ahmadi X: Desunnification

by sepoy June 15, 2010

My piece, House on the Hill, June 13, 2010 in The Express Tribune about the illusion of safety which envelops the Sunni upper-middle-class. There is the majority, the people who live in this house. They are always Sunni Muslim — though they are quite capable of throwing this or that “Sunni” faction out in a [...]

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optical character recognition

This is the Cow

by sepoy June 14, 2010

The most satisfying exposition I have seen of the average Hindu’s feeling about this exalted beast is a little essay composed by a candidate for a post in one of the public services, entitled simply “The Cow.” The fact that it was submitted in order to show the aspirants mastery of the English language, while [...]

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The Meta-Fictions of Miguel Syjuco

by sepoy June 11, 2010

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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I am one of them

by sepoy June 9, 2010

Jacqueline Rose. “‘J’accuse’: Dreyfus in Our Times” London Review of Books, Vol. 32 No. 11 · 10 June 2010. And yet, what is crucial about Lazare – and the reason he brings my journey to its end – is that he demonstrates so clearly that to fight for justice as a Jew, against a pseudo-universalism [...]

We Are All Ahmadi IX: Two Poems

by sepoy June 6, 2010

I want to share these two poems with you. One comes from a place far from the site of the massacre and the other from its very neighborhood; one comes from within and the other from without. They are the voices everyone in Pakistan should hear. I. Salma A writes: A Poem by Saqyb Zirvi1 [...]

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We Are All Ahmadi VIII: For Rana Tanveer

by sepoy June 5, 2010

Letters to the Editor, The Daily Times, Saturday, June 05, 2010: Sir, Last January, a retired schoolteacher was killed in Ferozewala only because he was an Ahmedi. A reporter for your paper filed several brave reports, and stopped only when the four accused men were allowed by the authorities to simply walk away. I saved [...]

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noted

Murgha Ban Ja

by sepoy June 5, 2010

*The punishment is called “Murgha bana na” (to make one into a rooster). One is to grab the ears from behind the legs (not like this). Uncomfortable! And quite popular in schools across South Asia as well as in other settings. The gentleman above, holding the Murgha pose, was washing his rickshaw in the surf [...]

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