Today was the first proper day of the Lahore biennale and also Imran Khan’s birthday, so much of the city was in lockdown against a birthday dharna. In the morning (or, correctly, around noon, which is morning in Lahore) I went to one of the galleries which I thought was likely to be accessible but […]
Changing times
Went out this afternoon, first to a couple of shops – including a new local athleisure brand which had some nice things and even manufactures locally. I will probably get an exercise top or two, and perhaps a light cotton top to wear under my rain jacket. Then to a cafe which had ok coffee […]
Change of career
Amidst a whirl of social engagements (of which I dropped the final one of exhaustion), one was a rather ceremonial visit from a relative to thank me for helping his son with his application essays. There is a roaring business in education consultancies these days, people taking lakhs to get children into universities abroad by […]
Old school
Went for a haircut this morning, and it was a step right back into the Lahore I grew up in, complete with a photo of the hairdresser having tea with Princess Diana from the days of Imran Khan’s first wedding, by now probably a stamp of authentication for a certain Lahori pedigree. She’s an old […]
Horrific
A bit of very sad, even horrific, news this morning. The personal trainer came this morning and when I asked after his family, he told me that his daughter, born in February, and whose delivery I helped with, died in late August. She had a fever and they took her to a doctor who injected […]
Old, new
We went to old Dubai today, not the part with the sky scrapers and the athleisure, but the older bit, with rows of restaurants, jewellers, sari shops etc, from all over the subcontinent, the restaurants with a Salt n Pepper aesthetic and filled with families from all over Asia. This time it was to a […]
Social contract
Went to what is supposed to be the best coffee place in Dubai. A bit soul-deadening, like the rest of the city, and everything is breathtakingly expensive. The taxis feel especially pricy after Central Asia – my journey to the airport in Almaty was the same length as the taxi from the airport to where […]
Dolphins
We went for a stroll today, looping around the historic penninsula along a newly opened walkway. To reach the walkway one had to go through the most congested and unpleasant bits at Eminonu, shuffle through one underground chokepoint where an elderly woman used her very large belly like a bludgeon, knocking me out of her […]
An accident
Of a sort where I don’t quite know what happened. This morning I warmed up, more thoroughly than usual, feeling pretty solid, and then when I began my stretching, did the first squat and felt something seize in my back and since then it’s been going from discomfort to agony. Quite miserable. It’s happened before […]
Hand work
We’re going to London in a month or so. Last time I took some time to go off to Devon by myself, this time I’ve booked myself weekly lessons on making Japanese style woodblocks. I wanted to do something physical, so not writing or learning something, and also creative. The other option of this sort […]