The weather here has been strange. The first week of June was unseasonably cool, in the low twenties, and in the teens in Multan, which the sun approaches closer than anywhere on earth because of the saint who invited it down to cook his fish. But now it’s as hot as June should be with […]
Classic car
Last night a gardener in the neighbourhood was held up at gunpoint outside our house and relieved of whatever he carried. There is a classic car parked in the driveway, belonging to an uncle in the US who dreams of taking it with him, has already spent millions of rupees on it, and will need […]
Visitor from afar
A visitor from afar arrived last night. I went to the airport to collect her. The airport and the way to the airport have evolved greatly over the years, such that they are virtually unrecognisable every time I pass through, at least the outside of the airport, but the inside is the same miserable beige […]
Climate changing
We went to the somewhat-ancestral village today, up on the Potohar Plateau. Too long a drive for a 1-day trip, but my companions don’t like staying the night there. Along the way it poured with rain on the motorway while passing through the Salt Range, and there was lightning. At the farm itself, it was […]
Poopmanteaux
Unreasonably enraged this morning by unwieldy portmanteaux, the object of my ire being ‘miltablishment’. Such nonsense.
Experiments yield fruit
My first encounter with the bizarre side of Chat GPT, in requesting a song about duck farming in the style of Bruce Springsteen. This came after a few questions about duck in Pakistani cuisine for which the answers were the usual plausible + suspect. But this song is just weird. I mean, terrible – an […]
Past the barricades
A neighbour is a senior politician and though one notorious for cutting his sail to the wind, is wanted by the authorities in the current situation. All the streets around our house are barricaded and full of very miserable policemen (one told me, plaintively, that he wished it would all end as he was sick […]
Top shops
There is the old classic of Butt Sweets and all its variations, like Butt Lights etc, always good for a giggle. But I was especially keen on one sighting from today, on a road which has lots of tile and sanitary ware (ie sinks and toilets) shops: Quixotic Tiles. Mystifying but delightful. I can’t work […]
Lungis
Went down a rabbit hole of sorts, thinking about lungis, the sarongs worn in Pakistan, now largely by ancient farmworkers, at least in the urban imagination. There must have once been a whole spectrum of them, as they were handwoven. Each region with its own patterns? In Jhang I hear the weave could you tell […]
Dining with the neoliberals
Invited to dinner by a relative I’m fond of and reached to find that she’d also invited a couple of other aunts and uncles. It was an uninteresting evening, though enlivened by a couple of neoliberal uncles of a kind whom I, in my global woke bubble, rarely encounter, so it was refreshing to see […]