Unrelated to anything specific in the past few days, but thinking over the years, just how lacking in compassion the English upper middle classes can be. I am thinking, particularly of things like the huffing and puffing when someone kills themselves by throwing themselves in front of a train. I find it really distasteful how this is invariably described, with an air of righteous trangressiveness, as an anti-social act. Similarly, when talking of people who behave badly or thoughtlessly when it often seems to me so clear that there are fractures within that underlie behaviour that may be inexcusable but not so as to dismiss the person utterly as a fool, nasty, anti-social, etc etc. I have seen such lack of compassion so many times, from so many people and in fact once drew a comic about it, which I shall put up once it’s properly inked.
I wonder how badly I will hate being back in Pakistan. Given the air quality (approaching 500 AQI in Lahore) and the political environment, quite a lot, I imagine. I would like to run away again.