Author: X.T.M

Questions for Professor Foltz

I live blogged yesterday’s lecture and the speaker, Professor Foltz, has very kindly agreed to a written question and answer session. I’ll collate 10-15 questions.

His speciality is in Iranic studies though ironically his talk happened in the “Indian Room” at the Ancient India & Iran Trust.

Please post your questions in the comments below- it would be worth beforehand scouring his impressive profile. I imagine we can focus more on the early Aryans as that would be more interesting to this blog.

I’m hoping to attend another very interesting lecture on Wednesday-

I’ll be sure to live blog this one. Incidentally it will conflict with another lecture I had been looking forward to.

However I have a distinct feeling that living blogging a Cambridge lecture on Brahmins will be orders of magnitude of more interest to our readers than Portraiture in Safavid Iran!

 

 

The Indian Muslim question

I can see BP Open Thread has exploded into a flame war about Pakistani Hindus vs Indian Muslims.

I thought I would share my experience. The moment I go to India; I subconsciously de-Muslimfy. Indians & Hindus are just not comfortable and since I’m the non-confrontational type (only Kabir can role me up) I adapt accordingly.

When I’m with Pakistanis I tend to change colours accordingly however I have increasingly made my personal (and increasing) distaste of Islam known.

Pakistan is very riven with a class dynamic so it doesn’t matter what religion you are so as you belong to the right class. There are issues with Ahmadis.

Both societies have so much to do in improving minority rights but I do feel they mirror their ideological priors. Indians look at Muslims almost as a caste and Pakistanis internalise accordingly to class divisions (certain minorities belong to certain stratas).

Continue reading The Indian Muslim question

Short Note on “outsiders”

I’ll write a short note since my name has been taken in vain repeatedly in the past few days.

Our resident hero, Kabir, writes:

 The demand for Persianization/Arabization is not coming from Pakistanis but mainly from outsiders on this blog. I fail to understand the logic of trying to change a country’s national identity when there is no grassroots demand for it.

Addendum: What have Pakistanis accomplished or achieved in the English language? I can only think of Kamila Shamsie, who won an award for Home Fire. Decolonisation must begin with the gradual displacement of English from prestige to merely technical.

Continue reading Short Note on “outsiders”

British Asians getting (much) taller?

Whenever I’m with a group of Asians I’m usually among the taller bracket (5’9). In Britain I’m tall for an Asian, tallish for a Persian and decent in comparison for white height.

However at last night’s Bollywood dance (I was a bit rusty but I managed to keep up – we did the routine for Kar Gayi chull) virtually everyone was an undergrad (I imagined it would be the Desi postgrads).

What immediately struck me was that I was shorter than a fair few of them. I’m imagining that this generation of British Asians (born in the 90’s) are far more Westernised in their diet and upbringing, than their parents and grandparents. Continue reading British Asians getting (much) taller?

Should the Pakistani elite revive Sab-ki-Hindi (the Farsi of India).

I was overlooking Vidhi’s screen at the gym and saw the dance. Initially I thought Bharatanatyam (it didn’t have a title) is so elegant and mesmerising and I asked Vidhi, what it was.

She replied that it was a Kathak and I made a mini-rant about how India ignores Islamicate culture etc. Incidentally I only just learnt Vidhi had studied Katak and, surprisingly for someone from Chennai, not Bharatanatyam. Her mother (a Sindhi from the North) made the choice and chose accordingly. I’m trying to convince her to pick up Kathak again to offset the intensity of her research.

My point being is that while Kathak has distinctly Hindu/Indian origins; it is ultimately (like Hindustani music) a culmination of the Indo-Islamic culture (apparently Wajid Ali Shah was its finest patron).

My post is about another suggestion that I’ve been dwelling upon this am. I’m convinced that the noblest thing that Pakistani elites could do is resurrect the medieval Persian dialect of India. Continue reading Should the Pakistani elite revive Sab-ki-Hindi (the Farsi of India).

What’s wrong with fetishisizing white men?

IndThings writes an interesting comment:

I would be careful of trying to ride this tiger however, lest Desis/Muslims end up like East-Asian men. Completely forced out of the sexual market-place by white-men basically, as what may have once been an earnest attempt at disenfranchising misogynistic Asian-male attitudes, has turned into a shameless fetish for white-men for no other reason than they are white.

Continue reading What’s wrong with fetishisizing white men?

Brown Pundits