Partition was ever present in my childhood. Is it still so? An article in Dawn republished some of the great poetry of the time: Faiz: ye daagh daagh ujala ye shab-gazida sahar vo intizar tha jis ka ye vo sahar to nahin Shiv Kumar Batalvi: Mainu te yaad hai ajj vi, te tenu yaad hove […]
Bad writing
I have just finished a biography of the Prophet by Juan Cole. Little in it was new to me, and much of it seemed a little off, a little to eager to excuse or justify to hostile Christian readers. It was interesting, though, to read the biography of the Prophet as a historical text rather […]
Silly mid
I am reading a really entertaining book. It’s called Chinaman, is by Shehan Karunatilaka, and is a sort of cricket novel. I say sort of, because it’s also about Sri Lanka and is full of people and place. It’s also really funny, quite similar to one of my favourite Pakistani novels, A case of exploding […]
Underwater
I was underwater for a few days. I had a big deadline last night and was plugging away at it (after having taken Monday off to visit the pyramid) but, more to the point, it was that sort time so I was very weak and occasionally wracked with pain. Plus two days of headachey-ness – […]
An old fashioned tale
Not that old fashioned, actually; the book was published in 1961 and given publishing patterns for this sort of trash I doubt it was written much before. How the world changes.
Infuriated
I have given up on Brexit, though I was amused by one of the Guardian’s semi-regular vox populi features on the weirdos who voted leave: The 73-year-old former builder and engineer said he had been lied to by the leave campaign. “They didn’t tell us the true facts. They kept us in the dark like […]
Cold feet
I am in Beijing airport. I stupidly lost the will to leave the airport at the last minute, having had a terrible flight from Karachi, feeling nauseous and uncomfortable, and assigned to an emergency row seat. I know most people prefer these, and certainly it is nice to have space rather than a close row, […]
Cosh to the head
We left our flat to catch a 9.30 flight, forgetting a delicious croissant on the counter so had to buy breakfast at the airport. I was impressed by how well arranged the security and immigration was. Immigration was entirely through electronic gates, I had to place my passport on the reader and go, that was […]
Day of the dog
Yesterday was the day of the dog here in Nepal, the second day of Diwali (Tihar). On the first day, crows are worshipped as the harbingers of death. On the second, dogs are worshipped as the companions of humanity. When I stepped out briefly to buy some milk for tea I found that even the […]
Light reading
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. I have always had mixed feelings about Kowal’s work. She’s a decent writer and her contributions to the Writing Excuses podcast are usually quite insightful. But I find her books and stories middle-of-the-road, and she has a Middle America sensibility that rivals Bujold’s (many of whose books I […]