Blog – Brown Pundits

Reflections: Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’- An Epic Portrait of 1950s India

June 21, 2025July 10, 2025KabirBook Reviews, Brown Pundits, Culture, History, India, ReligionA Suitable Boy, arranged marriage, Blog, book reviews, Chatterji family, Civilisation, communal riots, courtesan culture, cultural portrait, Culture, fiction and history, Hindu-Muslim relations, Hindustani Classical Music, history, India, Indian English Literature, Indian independence, Indian literature, Indian novels, Indian politics, Indian upper class, land reform, Lata Mehra, love and reason, Maan Kapoor, novel analysis, Partition-era India, postcolonial India, Religion, Saeeda Bai, secularism, Urdu poetry, Vikram Seth, zamindari abolition5 Comments

I am cross-posting an essay I wrote about my favorite novel: A Suitable Boy. This essay was originally published in 2012

There are some works of literature that are like comfort food–ready for one to dip into whenever one is in need of a pick-me-up. For me, Vikram Seth’s 1993 magnum opus, A Suitable Boy, is one such work. The characters–ranging from the anxious and melodramatic Mrs. Rupa Mehra to the crazy Chatterjee family to the beautiful Muslim courtesan Saaeda Bai Firozabadi– are like old friends whom one has missed after a long absence. Every time I read the novel (and I have read it several times) I find new things to delight and ponder.

The novel begins with what in my opinion is one of the best openings in modern literature, one that immediately alludes to Jane Austen. Just as Pride and Prejudice begins with the narrator stating “It is a truth universally acknowledged ,that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”, A Suitable Boy opens with the sentence: ” ‘You too will marry a boy I choose,’ said Mrs. Rupa Mehra firmly to her younger daughter.” With this sentence, Seth immediately lets the reader know what the book will be about: Mrs. Rupa Mehra’s search to find a suitable match for her daughter Lata. The novel opens at the wedding of Lata’s elder sister Savita. It will conclude with another wedding, that of Lata herself. Continue reading Reflections: Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’- An Epic Portrait of 1950s India

Review: Siren Song

June 15, 2025July 10, 2025KabirBook Reviews, Brown Pundits, Culture, Iran, Islam & the Middle East, Pakistan, ReligionBlog, book reviews, Civilisation, courtesan culture, cultural studies, Culture, devadasi, Ethnomusicology, Farida Khanum, Fawzia Afzal-Khan, female agency, feminism in Pakistan, gender, gender and music, Ghazal, Hindustani Classical Music, Hindustani Music, Iqbal Bano, Islam, Islam and music, Malka Pukhraj, music and nationalism, Muslim women artists, Noor Jehan, Pakistan, Pakistani music, Pakistani society, performance theory, postcolonial feminism, Religion, respectability politics, Roshan Ara Begum, Siren Song, Thumri, women singers14 Comments

Understanding Pakistan Through its Women Singers by Fawzia Afzal-Khan

This review was originally published in SAMAJ on July 19, 2022

As a student of ethnomusicology trained in Hindustani classical music, I was intrigued by Fawzia Afzal-Khan’s latest book Siren Song: Understanding Pakistan Through Its Women Singers. Afzal-Khan – a professor of English and Gender Studies in the United States as well as a vocalist trained in the Hindustani tradition – uses case studies of selected female singers to explore some of the contradictions of Pakistani society. On the one hand, Pakistan is a conservative Muslim-majority state where many people believe that the performing arts in general are contrary to religious injunctions and that women singers are not “respectable” women. Yet, divas such as “Madam” Noor Jehan (1926-2000) are widely celebrated and have legions of fans. Afzal-Khan thus wanted to provide a more nuanced depiction of Pakistani society at a time when many people in the West have a very stereotypical image of Muslims and particularly of Muslim women, whom they believe lack all personal agency and are completely covered by the burqa. Clearly, the truth is not that simple. In this book, Afzal-Khan explores the ways in which great singers like Malka Pukhraj (1912-2004), Roshan Ara Begum (1917-1982), and Noor Jehan employed their personal agency within the constraints of a conservative Islamic society to fulfill their ambitions to become performing artists. Continue reading Review: Siren Song

Rest in Peace

June 13, 2025July 10, 2025X.T.MBrown Pundits, India, X.T.MAhmedabad, Air India crash, aviation tragedy, Blog, Diaspora, diaspora journeys, family loss, Gatwick-bound flight, grief, India, Indian diaspora, Indian doctors abroad, Komi Vyas, migration, new beginnings, plane crash victims, Prateek Joshi, Religion, remembrance, South Asian diaspora, Tragedy, Udaipur1 Comment

This is so incredibly heartbreaking; this beautiful family excited about a new life in the United Kingdom.

The picture was taken to celebrate ‘new beginnings’ as Komi Vyas, a doctor who worked in Udaipur, had quit her job and was moving to join her husband, Dr Prateek Joshi, in London, with their three children.

But, tragically, the family are among the at least 241 dead after the Gatwick-bound aircraft crashed moments after take-off from Ahmedabad Airport in the northwestern Indian state of Gujarat yesterday.

May they and the rest of the victims of the Air India crash rest in the Highest Heaven.

Everyone Western Becomes White Eventually

June 11, 2025July 10, 2025X.T.MBrown Pundits, Culture, Politics, Race, United States, X.T.MAfrican-American resistance, America, Assimilation, Bhutan Lhotshampa, Blog, Civilisation, Cultural integration, Culture, diaspora dynamics, Ethnic enclaves, Global migration, Immigration, Indian diaspora, Individualism, Intergenerational change, Jewish assimilation, Politics, Race, Racial identity, Second-generation immigrants, Western civilisation, Whiteness18 Comments

brown: if the fresh inputs from india is reduced ( because of immigration laws and raising prosperity back home), how long can ‘indians in u s a’ remain an effective group? i feel that they will dissolve in next 20 years.

Nivedita: That is such an interesting take! I agree actually. Indians are pretty much white adjacent and are intermarrying with whites, so in all probability what you predict might actually happen.

That’s a sharp observation, and worth expanding. The truth is, in the West, all immigrants eventually become “white”—not in phenotype, but in assimilation, in aesthetic, in aspiration. Continue reading Everyone Western Becomes White Eventually

🕯️ Saving Adam

June 11, 2025July 10, 2025X.T.MBrown Pundits, Geopolitics, Politics, Religion, X.T.MAdam al-Najjar, Alaa al-Najjar, Blog, civilian casualties, Genocide, Geopolitics Gaza, humanitarian crisis, Israel-Palestine, Israeli airstrike, Italy evacuation, Khan Younis, Middle East crisis, moral clarity, Najjar children, names of the victims, pediatrician, Politics, refugee trauma, Religion, Saving Private Ryan, war and children9 Comments

I don’t often comment on the Israel–Palestine conflict, and I try not to be reactive. But there comes a point where neutrality becomes its own kind of indulgence.

Alaa al-Najjar, a pediatrician, lost nine of her ten children, and her husband, in an airstrike on their home in Khan Younis. Her surviving son, Adam, 11, had his hand amputated and was flown out of Gaza to Italy, where he says he hopes to live in “a beautiful place… where houses are not broken and nobody dies.”

The children killed were: Sidar (7 months), Luqman (2), Sadeen (3), Rifan (5), Raslan (7), Jubran (8), Eve (9), Rakan (10), and Yahya (12). May they rest in the Highest Heaven. Continue reading 🕯️ Saving Adam

🧵Quick Moderation Note

June 11, 2025July 10, 2025X.T.MBrown Pundits, Politics, X.T.MBlog, Brown Pundits comments, Comment Policy, Community guidelines, Discourse norms, free speech, India-Pakistan, moderation, Moderation policy, Online discussion, Open Thread, Open threads, Podcast, Politics, Thread management

Just a heads-up for everyone:

India–Pakistan threads are totally fine when the post is about India–Pakistan, or if it’s an Open Thread. Let the sparks fly there.
But on other posts—please avoid steering every conversation back to India–Pakistan. It’s not always relevant and derails useful discussion.

I won’t be actively moderating every thread. If something is genuinely offensive or disruptive, feel free to flag it—I’ll step in only if needed. Continue reading 🧵Quick Moderation Note

Southasia Is One Word

May 21, 2025May 22, 2025X.T.MGeopolitics, India, Pakistan, X.T.MAsia, Beena Sarwar, Blog, Cross-border Dialogue, Culture, Diaspora Politics, East India Company, India, India–Pakistan Relations, Indo-Gangetic Plain, jihad, Kashmir, Kashmir Conflict, Nationalism, Nuclear Doctrine, Pakistan, Pakistan army, Partition, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Politics, Postcolonial Legacies, Religion, Sapan Network, Southasia, Two Nation Theory104 Comments

Reflections on Pervez Hoodbhoy at MIT

Zachary L. Zavidé | Brown Pundits | May 2025

Pervez Hoodbhoy needs no introduction. As one of Pakistan’s leading physicists and public intellectuals, he has long stood at the uneasy crossroads of science, nationalism, and conscience. He spoke this week at MIT’s Graduate Tower — the final stop on a grueling five-city U.S. tour, a new city every two days — in support of The Black Hole Initiative, a cultural and intellectual space he’s building in Pakistan. Despite its ominous name, the initiative is a wormhole, not a void: a cross-disciplinary bridge connecting physics, literature, art, and civic life.

What followed was less a lecture, more an exposition — sober, lucid, and grounded in decades of hard-won clarity.

The Logic of Annihilation

Dr. Hoodbhoy walked us through Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine: under long-standing military assumptions, if the north–south arterial route is severed, a tactical nuclear strike becomes viable. But the calculus is disturbingly abstract. Hiroshima’s 20-kiloton bomb killed 200,000. India and Pakistan each possess an estimated 200 warheads. One general once told him that, by crude arithmetic — obscene as it sounds — “only” 80 million would die in the event of a full exchange. Continue reading Southasia Is One Word

Brown Pundits Podcast with teacher Michelle Kerr

April 10, 2021July 10, 2025AnAnBrown Pundits, Culture, Economics, Podcast, United StatesBlog

https://brownpundits.libsyn.com/teaching-in-the-time-of-covid-19

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/teaching-in-the-time-of-covid-19/id1439007022?i=1000512866865

https://www.stitcher.com/show/brown-pundits-podcast/episode/teaching-in-the-time-of-covid-19-82364378

COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on the lives of young children, students, and youth. The disruption of societies and economies caused by the pandemic is aggravating the pre-existing global education crisis and is impacting education in unprecedented ways.

Brown Pundits- Shahada, a UK College Lecturer, discusses COVID-19 with Michelle Kerr, a Maths Teacher from California. They compare their experiences, concerns and impact.

Covid-19 has impacted on Education on so many levels and there are many parallels with society in general:

COVID-19 is having a negative impact on young people’s mental health. We are concerned that, with most young people not currently attending school and many young people not having access to resources and materials with which to learn, there will be a subsequent detrimental effect on both academic attainment and wellbeing. Exams have been cancelled in many states and here in the UK. This is having a negative impact on attendance and motivation.

The COVID-19 crisis is likely to have a long-lasting impact on young people’s mental health and the services that support them, including schools and children’s services. The Government must consider this throughout its emergency response and policies to recover from the crisis. Has COVID-19 highlighted pre-existing decline in mental health?

The impact, particularly on groups who are already disadvantaged, is likely to widen existing inequalities and to contribute to a rise in young people looking for mental health support. Is this a reflection and consequence of inequality in education?

Discussions touched upon the existence of hierarchy in education and its parallels in greater society? For instance, will deprived students disproportionately be disadvantaged? Ultimately is this a reflection of class privilege?

A controversial point discussed was weather Teachers have a professional responsibility to physically go into the classroom. Both expressed very different perspectives!

Its been argued that Standardised tests are not an accurate representation of a student’s abilities and they lack reliability. We touched upon the controversial issue of removing standardised testing in education. Weather standardised testing should be formally put to an end. Has the removal of standardised testing been accelerated as a consequence of COVID-19? Will this result in a lowering of standards and skills? And again which group will be disadvantaged and advantaged?

Time will tell, the true long term impact of COVID-19 on Education…….

Intra-subcontinental insults are…

January 2, 2020July 10, 2025Razib KhanBrown PunditsBlog103 Comments

One of the weirdest emails I’ve ever received.

The insults directed to me by people who are Pakistani or by people who are Hindus are peculiar, because they presuppose a sense of communal identity which I mostly lack. Insults toward Bengalis and Muslims just leave me scratching my head. Also, now that I am no longer 15 I don’t think that the measure of a man is how much “pussy” they bag….

BP ascension graphic

November 3, 2019July 10, 2025Razib KhanBrown PunditsBlog10 Comments

Last month BP received more traffic from India than the United States for the first time. Above you can see a three-year trendline of BP user growth. In a little over one year “Brown Pundits” in some form will have been around for 10 years…