I’ve just read Elif Batuman’s two novels, one after the other. They are very good I must say, or so I think. For all the mannered-ness and the somewhat terrifying literariness of the protagonist. I found it hard at first to tell if the first one was good because I started reading it without knowing […]
Death of the general
General Musharraf has died. How upset I was that day in 1999 when he seized power. I was in university, just a few weeks in. I remember walking through Harvard Square with one of my roommates, trying to speak the mixture of anger and fear I felt, and her lack of understanding. Then, weeks or […]
Breezy morning
A very pleasant breezy morning today. It is very clear, the sky blue. I’m sitting outside in the shade and the air is carrying a scent of flowers. I am also reading a book and thoroughly enjoying it: Gurnah’s By the Sea. He is rapidly turning into one of my favourite writers. I think I […]
Work/life
Came to decision yesterday, let’s see how long it lasts. Basically: the work I do will never make me rich and, frankly, is not very important in the greater scheme of things. I’m closer to a telephone hygienist than to, say, sanitation engineer. So doing a lot of work will not actually make me much […]
One week in
I’ve been in Lahore for a week now, and am definitely feeling it. Every time I come it feels clearer that this isn’t my home – it’s moved on, I’ve moved on, there is a feeling of mutual incomprehension. Oh well, I suppose it’s inevitable and there will, in the coming years, be a time […]
Rat race
The rats are diving off the sides of the Boris barge like lemmings. What a happy sight. It has been a shameful few years, and while I daresay the shame is far from over, any more than Trump’s election loss made a real difference in the US or Imran’s deposition did in Pakistan, it’s still […]
Another shit Eid
Technically Eid here was yesterday, and there were the usual dressed-up families, all taking advantage of a rare Eid falling on a UK bank holiday. As usual I decided to keep it for the day it’s celebrated in Pakistan so had it today. Got a gift from the GF’s mother who was very sweet, but […]
A well-rounded education
I would not have thought I would ever know to recognise the sound of a hippo eating, but I do.
Information firehose
It’s stating the obvious, and hardly unprecedented, but the information firehose around the invasion of Ukraine makes it profoundly difficult to find what is significant and what is not, at least on news websites like that of the Guardian. Aside from the never-ending op-eds (‘The cold war terrors are back and generation X finally has […]
Fresh water
Just finished Binyavanga Wainaina’s memoir, and it was like a draught of fresh water for the mind, so clever and thoughtful and funny. A particular relief after the last great Kenyan novel I read. I had worried rather than I was losing the ability to concentrate and enjoy anything other than the most straightforward prose, […]