The GF and I stepped out for an early spring stroll, on a pleasantly warm day, and stopped at the flat where they were busy plastering over the electrical wiring and the plumbing. It is really coming together beautifully and now, for the first time, I can imagine living in it. While I was there […]
Heartbreaking
A heartbreaking article, and full of controlled fury, in the New York Times. It is about the 2019 outbreak of HIV in a rural part of Sindh, where hundreds of children were (and continue to be) diagnosed. One of the better piece I’ve read in a while of this sort, as it links together societal […]
Close to home
The coronavirus is running rampant in Pakistan, thank heavens my father and grandmother should have their second vaccinations next week, assuming they don’t run out of doses. A pair of relatives by marriage are quite unwell and have only just been diagnosed, so it is many days before they will be safely on the road […]
What I noticed
1. A ship is stuck in the Suez canal. 2. Imran Khan has COVID, keeps chairing in-person meetings. 3. Lira and stockmarker jitters 4. Delhi nationalised. 5. The SNP vs Alba. 6. COVID in Pakistan, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico 7. Deaths in Myanmar. 8. Taiwan buzzed. 9. A mine in Balochistan. 10. A man, a plan, […]
Shopping experiences
This morning, the GF and I went to Levent to meet the young Pakistani worker who promised us a warehouse of excellent quality lights and other housewares. He met us at the metro stop and we stopped for a glass of tea, at which I pressed him a little about his background. I did not […]
Unwanted help
The Pakistani labourer who works for our contractor is very eager indeed to show me his friend’s warehouse of second-hand housewares, especially the lights. I must say, I’m sceptical, both that the lights will be any good and that the GF will approve, but I might go take a look. Not sure if there is […]
Novax
It has turned out to be very fortunate that my siblings took our family’s elders to be vaccinated on Saturday. Apparently it was the first day and there was almost no one there. On Sunday thousands showed up and there was chaos. Today, I hear that the health minister has said that it is all […]
Angry women
Both the countries for whom I have passports and some sense of allegiance continue to show where a woman’s place is. Pakistan, of course, remains the most hurtful and the most deadly. The Aurat March with its frankly anodyne slogan of ‘mera jism meri marzi’ – my body, my choice – in Pakistan ‘please don’t […]
Long walk home
This afternoon we went to visit the carpenter who is making our doors. It was a very long journey there as our contractor and architect decided to drive and there was a great deal of traffic on the first sunny weekend afternoon after the lifting of lockdown. The carpenter seemed good – he showed us […]
End of Buddhism
I read an interesting article today, an academic history about the fading away of Buddhism in South Asia. It was a bit of a surprise to me, as it was about how the claims that Buddhism was eradicated by the coming of Islam – whether by outright temple destruction or simply by conversion from an […]