And The City of Dreams Burns...

I'm angry. Very angry.

Tonight is the third night in a row that various parts of London are beseiged by rioters; groups of youth vandalising shops, burning cars, attacking bus drivers and generally terrorising their neighbourhoods. I've spent much of the evening texting friends, trying to ensure that they are safe & haven't been stranded or affected (too much) by the violence spilling out into the streets.

And the anger inside me keeps building.

Why am I angry? Because it is happening to a city that I love and care very deeply about. London is one of my favourite places in the whole world. As the city that I have lived in & call home (despite the efforts of its public transport system, its government or general miserable weather) I find it a comfortable, welcoming, dynamic, international and utterly fabulous place. I am very proud to identify myself as a Londoner, as one of the millions who has been a part of this city & its fabric for the past six years. I was a Londoner the day that the IOC announced London trouncing Paris in its bid for the 2012 Olympics. I was a Londoner the following day when bombs ripped through the London tube, and I had to walk for three hours along the river to make it home. I was a Londoner that day in September 2008 when the markets opened the weekend after Lehman Brothers collapsed (in fact, at that time, I was one of the bankers that worked night & day to get through the mayhem of September 2008).

And I was a Londoner that day in August 2009 when I returned to the city after several months away backpacking. I had been to 3 continents, 14 countries, some amazing historical sites, some poignant memorials to human achievement and human depravity. And despite all that, I felt nothing but a sense of coming home that day that I landed in Heathrow. I was back in London.

I was home.

And so, when I watch the news, when I see the streets and suburbs devastated and damaged, I feel nothing but utter rage against the criminals who feel it acceptable to vandalise the city that is home to so many people like me. People who may not be from the UK, people who would not be missed probably by millions of people across the UK if we left, but people who by virtue of who we are and by virtue of making this amazing city our home make London the place that it is.

People who are Londoners, through & through.

The Infamous Kamasutra..

The movie, which shares names with an ancient Indian book that's basically all about how to have good sex, was released in 1996 and made by director Mira Nair (probably best known for her later - and much better - film, Monsoon Wedding) When released, though, Kamasutra created quite a lot of interest, primarily because humans around the world are basically obsessed with sex and are keen to see anything "intellectual" that will satisfy their prurient urges. Suffice to say, I never quite got around to watching it, primarily because it was low on my list of priorities, but more importantly, because people I know and whose opinion I respect had seen it and told me it was utter and complete bilge.

Cue many years later on a quiet weekday evening in a rainy London, and the movie was being screened on Film 4. While I cannot bother to waste any more of my life on the movie to write a review, I thought a good summary of what I thought of it would be summarised by a collection of tweets I posted during the movie. These are reproduced below. I should apologise for a lack of screen shots, but frankly, I can't even be bothered to waste more of my time on this than I already have. So if you want to see pics, google "Kamasutra". Just try not to do that from a work computer.

Content warning: I swear. A lot. And talk about sex. A lot. But then that's why you're reading a post with the word, "Kamasutra" in the heading, aren't you?

Pervert.

Oh look. Kamasutra's coming up on TV. BRING ON THE NEO ORIENTALIST BILGE. *does pejorative Indian head wiggle*

WARNING: there will be some Kamasutra tweets following. These relate to the movie, not to my usual agony aunt & sex advice column<

How to be more Indian: make sure Shubha Mudgal sings alaaps as you go about your life. Makes you more authentic

Can someone please ask Shubha Mudgal to sing an alaap please? I'm sipping wine on a couch & need to be more authentically Indian

Why the FUCK are they doing Bharatnatyam in Rajasthan? South Indian dance forms in the home of Kathak?

Life in medieval India must have required a LOT of starch. How else to keep all those linens crisp & fresh?

"That's her. There she is. My lotus woman." BECAUSE INDIANS JUST SAY SHIT LIKE THAT

Little known fact: Indian palaces came equipped with fans at strategic locations. To ensure our well-starched fabrics draped aesthetically against our bodies

Ok. I've just realised why a gold kardhani (waistband) can be so sexy

What kind of princess has her wedding farewell with her face fully showing? She's not swaddled enough!

"It's our destiny." Ah, that classically Hindu Indian fatalism. Resolves so many dilemmas in our authentically Indian lives

Every Rajput family needs a slightly deranged uncle who can utter menacing warnings from the ramparts

Our Rajput family has not one, but several, deranged uncles. They add a lot of colour to our ramparts

"Put this beneath you at the time of the pain." Because you're GONNA GET SOME LOVIN' TONIGHT

Ah yes. Sex between unmarried Indians is great. Sex within Indian marriages must be TERRIBLE

*Camera cuts to Khajuraho* *And then Varanasi* BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING NEXT DOOR TO EACH OTHER

"I'm a sculptor. I want to sculpt you." AND OH LOOK WE'RE NOW IN SOUTH INDIA

That's it. I'm growing my hair. I seem to be inadequate as an Indian upper caste male without long flowing locks

"This position, we call the Twining of the Creeper." I.e. the meeting of the white wine & the red wine drinkers

To make love as an Indian sculptor, you need: (1) long hair (2) an artistic temperament (3) a hibiscus flower

Ah yes. What would life be without the irate upper caste men on horse back? Because all evil arrives on horse back

This movie is reminding me of a distinct lack of incense, elephants, mysticism and diaphanous silks in my clearly un-Indian life

BRING ME MORE DIAPHANOUS SILKS. I NEED MORE DIAPHANOUS SILKS

"Sorry Mrs. Nair. We're out of diaphanous. Will gold brocade silks do? The finest that Mubarakpur has to offer"

I think I'm getting silk rage

*Insert breathy wise comment from older courtesan* *add Rekha charm & mystique* *try to save movie* *fail to do so*

Ok I'm sorry to say this, but Maya has UGLY nipples. And the sculptor has an ugly ass

Sex scene! Cue female feet, daubed in alta, with silver anklets, writhing in pleasure

Oh WOW. This is a first. A sex scene involving wheat. THRESH THAT GRAIN, FARMER! HARDER! HARDER!!

"Jai. I made some co-co-nut rice for you." BECAUSE COCONUT RICE IS SO FRICKING TYPICAL OF MADHYA PRADESH

"Sometimes, things don't make sense immediately." NO FUCKING WAY, REKHA

Note to self: make sure Shubha Mudgal NEVER sings in a brothel in one of your own movies

"Jupiter, the sign of good fortune, is in your house of love." Bring on the Indian astrological superstition

"Of course, before I forget, YOU CANNOT BE IN A MOVIE ABOUT MEDIEVAL INDIA WITHOUT A STUPID HAIRDO

"What kind of fuckwit uses "The glory of God is within you" as a pickup line? Except for a Catholic missionary?

Men in loincloths. Homoerotic medieval India moment alert. AND ONE OF THEM HAS A PEARL NECKLACE

And now they have fucking ODISSI dancers? IN KHAJURAHO?

This movie will give me a heart attack. I'm going to need a bier. WITH FUCKING MANIPURI DANCERS & Bengali Baul singers.

"I wish we were free like when we were children." Trite Dialogue Alert

*Contemplates committing seppuku by medieval Rajput blade on display in living room*

Litle known fact: medieval Indian couples competed sexually by measuring the thickness & length of their hair

If all Indians have as much sex as the ones in this movie, our population numbers suddenly make COMPLETE sense

This movie has too many shots of Naveen Andrews' nipples

More homoerotic wrestling. This time fuelled by opium. Drug-fucked male skin contact. Might as well be a gay club

This movie is making me lose my will to live. I GUESS IT'S JUST MY DESTINY AS A FATALISTIC INDIAN

Hang on. My bath water doesn't have rose petals in it. Am I being un-Indian in my bathing?

AHA. Yet another RIDICULOUS hairdo. I thought we were losing the plot here

Must ask Mother to send me a sitar player & a tabla player. I'll keep them locked in cages in my flat to provide a soundtrack to my life

Some ritualised hair cutting. Hmmm

Ah yes. The ritualised crushing of the prisoner by elephant. Followed by another Shubha Mudgal alaap

And for the execution, the courtesan pulls out a Bengali puja sari. Because that makes fucking sense

And it's over? What, no rebirth? No slums of Bombay? WHERE THE FUCK IS THE HAPPY DANCE? Oh wait. Wrong movie

Lost the will to live. Off to bed. Good night

The Maps of Our Lives

This story begins on a cold winter's day in the North West of England.

A young man walks through long corridors lined with books. It is quiet in this part of the library - most students tend to lurk around the sciences and management sections. This is the literature section, and there aren't that many takers for world literature. The department for literary studies is small, and other students save their lending tickets for course books; weighty tomes about critical theories and comparative studies.

All except the young man, of course.

Of all his precious library tickets, he saves one to use for bed time reading. When tiring of books dealing with advanced statistics, financial analysis and econometrics, he retires to a narrow single postgraduate student accommodation room bed, his dinky student laptop streaming the latest Napster download, to try to fall asleep whilst reading his latest fiction lending library selection. Over the past three months, he has read many books this way. Writers from all around the world have kept him company in this cold winter in the North West of England. He has made friends with Ariel Dorfman, Doris Lessing, John Ruskin, Amitav Ghosh, Ian McEwan.

Except tonight, he has a book by a writer he's not read before. 

The book is good enough. What foreign student wouldn't relate to a novel about a non-EU student who is trying to reconcile a childhood spent in heat and dust with time spent in a small rural community in a cold, dark corner of Lancashire? A narrative of reconciling different facets of one life, one human being split across different continents?

That was how I made friends with an Egyptian writer called Ahdaf Soueif. I started out reading In the Eye of the Sun. Discovering her to be an alumna of my university, I set out  to make the most of my enjoyment of her writing and my loyalty towards my alumni by trying to track down everything she'd written to read. Over the coming years, I was to read The Map of Love, her Booker-nominee novel, various short stories, and eventually her many articles in the Guardian. (Yes, even her writing for that rag did not diminish my appreciation for her). 

Eventually I was to discover her work in translating the amazing Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti's work describing his return to an exiled West Bank. Shortly followed by a read of her short stories, I Dream of You. By then, I had been to Egypt. I had walked through the dusty, smelly, magical streets of Cairo, fallen in love with the ageing, crumbling beauty of the city, drunk cocktails at the rooftop bar at the Ramses Hilton, had lunched by a slow Nile in the early April heat. 

I fell in love with Soueif's Cairo, her Al-Qahirah, a city whose mystique was matched only by Istanbul and my own precious Delhi. An ageing, crumbling city that felt as if it was, to quote Urdu poet Gulzar, in the pieces of its past life. A city that, unlike Delhi, had fallen into hard, sad times, overrun with the stench of tyranny. But a city that was eternally beautiful, despite its ugly architecture, its suppressed populace. Cairo revealed itself to me as a city that would not be broken. Damaged, yes, but not broken.

And then, in early 2011, the Egyptian revolution came to our doorsteps. As I sat in the UK, captivated by the visions brought to my screen via Twitter, Facebook and BBC News, I was overwhelmed with visions of the Arab Spring. These street battles in Midan el Tahrir were taking place through places in Cairo that I had visited and driven through. These were people I had seen in the cafes and restaurants in Zamalek, students I might have interacted with whilst they were studying in the UK, professionals I had worked with when we both were working in the banking institutions based in the City of London. And now they were changing their destiny. 

I was riveted.

So when the opportunity to mix these two experiences, by going to an English Pen event in Farringdon tonight, to listen to Ahdaf speak, as a revolutionary, a journalist, a troubadour and a raconteur, to hear her describe what she had seen on the streets of Cairo as an observer and a participant, was presented to me, there was really only one choice. Of course I was going to go.

I was slightly concerned, of course. So many times have I met people that I'd read and liked, but who had ended up having feet of clay in person, that I admit to maintaining a sense of trepidation. I was pleased, however, to be presented with a diminutive firebrand of a woman; smart, articulate, witty, and not without an ironic sense of self-depracation. But also someone who I heard speak, whom I asked a question of, who sounded in person exactly like she sounds in her writing. 

And so it was not without a sense of karmic completeness that I am pleased to report that I managed to connect with - in person - that lonely foreign student who wrote about being a lonely foreign student and whose work gave succour to another lonely foreign student. Because perhaps at some point, some place, in some instant, all the maps of our lives coincide. For a small, infinitesimal instant, but nevertheless connect us to our fellow humans.

And all we have to do is live that moment. As I hope I did tonight.

Counting the Years

It's either very late, or it's very, very early.


My living room lights are set to a low setting. There is an odd combination of Hemant Kumar and Joan Baez playing softly on my laptop. And while I sip a glass of red wine, I write this post.


Because today, it is my 31st birthday.


I've never been much of a birthday guy. Growing up, birthdays were mostly small, private family affairs. We never did big public celebrations. As the son of parents with a hectic social life due to my father's professional responsibilities, family celebrations were characteristically personal. There would be a cake (quite frequently Black Forest) with candles. There would be presents, but never elaborate ones. Small, discreet, tasteful. There would be fine china laid out on the dining table (always impeccably dressed up itself in my mother's finest linen) and there would be your favourite food as part of the meal. But I can look back at all my birthdays growing up as being incredibly private affairs.


Things have changed recently though.


For the past few years, my birthdays have become a bit of a "thing" on my friends' social calendars. Coming as it does in January, there has been increasing pressure over the years to make it count, and to make sure that it is spectacular enough to overcome the January blues. And so they've become bigger, bolder, more fabulous each year. 


There was the year when I took a massive group of friends out to a Vauxhall nightclub for that uniquely British thing - roller disco. Oh, how they all mocked, groaned and scoffed when the invitation was sent out. Only to be recorded in every photo taken that night grinning like a child as they careened across a wooden floor, vodka & tonic in one hand, other arm outstretched as they clung desperately to a balance that could escape at any second. (There might have been some bruises the next day)


There was that other year too, when the only way to bring in my flirty thirties was to organise a Bollywood-style fancy dress party. There was the friend who came and DJ'ed the whole night. There was the coordinated dance routine. There was a Santa Claus. There was even a Ukrainian belly dancer. All in the name of Bollywood.


And even I, the eternal melancholic, has to admit that things could be worse. 


So here I sit. Hands on my laptop. Sipping some wine, and drinking to my own health. It is a night I ring in another year, a night I look back at the year past, and celebrate, amongst many things, the fact that I've survived another year on this planet. Which, given how horrible this planet can be to people, is not a bad thing. 


But it is a year that brings with it much promise. The promise of change. The promise of hope. The promise of despondency. And the promise of... life. 


Which is not something to be taken lightly.


Perhaps it is a consequence of old age, but I have become even more introspective with age. And so, oddly enough, the first thing that came into my head as the clock struck midnight was how I've lived my life. 


And again, I cannot complain.


There are things I've done that I'm incredibly proud of. There are things I've done that I cannot decipher, but that I am very glad I've done. And then there are things I've done without quite figuring out to this day why I did them.


So here, in no particular order of importance, are ten things I am proud I've done. 


1. I went backpacking. On the cheap. If ever there was a stereotype, it's that the best way to see a place is to do it on the rough. And boy, can I tell you, doing Asia on the rough is... ROUGH. I think that at certain angles, my butt will still feel the impact of a bad seat in a ramshackle van and the worst of Java's roads. But also of the fun that came with it.


2. I've skinny dipped. Not being someone who lives in either a C-grade porn flick or a bad Hollywood horror movie, this is not something I ever thought I'd do. But it's amazing what the combination of a wedding by a lake in upstate New York, poisonous amounts of alcohol and a warm July night can do.


3. I've had random, hot, sweaty, anonymous sex. Not once, not twice, not from a relationship perspective, but the ultimate in rough & tumble slap & tickle.


4. I've had dull, boring, it's-a-Sunday-morning-and-you're-here-in-bed-well-why-not sex. Which, though not really exciting, can be incredibly satisfying. Especially when you're hungover.


5. I've been to a movie premiere. In London. With real celebrities. Sadly, my own celebrity status was not appreciated.


6. I've got street credit in some awesome cities. I can get into high demand places in Barcelona, New York, Hong Kong and Berlin. Just because. 


7. I've had my heart broken. Badly.


8. I've cried in public in an unhappy place. It was in Auschwitz. It was horrible. It was important to see.


9. I've cried in public in a happy place. It was in Angkor Wat. It was beautiful. It was one of the best moments of my life.


10. I've broken into song & dance in a street. Because every so often, it's important to do that. Even if you don't live in a Bollywood movie.


None of which is spectacular, or exceptionally awesome, but is actually pretty fucking cool when taking collectively. Or so I'd like to think.


And so, I think it's fair to say that it's not been a life I can regret. Or resent. 


So I guess I can say this now: Happy Birthday to Me.

The Importance of Using a Voice

These past few weeks, I have been increasingly getting more vocal regarding politics and economics online. Whether on Facebook or Twitter, I have started putting up more commentary around either economic or socio-political issues currently being faced across the world. Not unrelatedly, I've been posting a fair bit about my views on the current rounds of fiscal consolidation underway across Europe, the welfare state (and often its unsustainable structure) and these past two weeks, quite extensively about the current round of banker bashing underway in the UK, especially in relation to the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The past 24 hours, however, have been perplexing, to say the least. Most intriguingly, I have been stunned by reactions to updates on both websites. But what I have to say is that these past few hours have made me revisit my opinion of both networks.

Background: I posted updates relating to my views on (1) the welfare state, (2) the inherent hypocrisy of free tertiary education, and (3) the fact that I disagreed with the NHS fundamentally. And let's just say that both sites got a LOT of attention.

On Twitter, I was immediately attacked by various people that I've interacted with quite socially over a few months; perhaps the most memorable comments included being called "a fascist" as according to the commenter there is no difference between capitalism and fascism. Other terms used included "filthy posh Tory" and other such pleasantry. As a foreign national working in Finance in London, I also received a couple of typical "fuck off and go home, you evil banker" comments, which I politely blocked without dignifying with a response.

The reaction on Facebook was, however, quite different. My update precipitated a massive debate, with people weighing in on either side. There was some unpleasant sniping between some, but what I was most struck by was the otherwise generally mature and coherent level of debate. (One that is still currently underway, as the responses continue to pour in).

I don't mean to indicate that all Facebook interactions were positive, and all Twitter interactions negative. I received several supportive comments on Twitter, and not all Facebook responses were as positive as described above. My favourite Facebook-related point was being messaged privately by a friend with the eloquently phrased, "the shit you post is offensive".

Aside from the merits or demerits of my views, though, what I have to say these past few days have taught me is that I should remember that fundamental differences between Facebook & Twitter. As a lover of social media, and someone who has a fairly sophisticated online identity, I have over the past months been privileging Twitter over Facebook. I have met many people in real life that I first interacted with over Twitter, and some of them have become friends. Facebook, on the other hand, seemed to have begun to be reduced to inane updates from friends playing surreal online games like Farmville, and a simple way to share holiday photographs. 

But I have to say my views have shifted. Perhaps as a result of its' 140 character limit for each tweet, Twitter has shown itself to be a much shallower medium in many ways. The scope for opprobrium is incredible, and it is hard to make a point as eloquently as one would like; being succinct is not always enough. As sometimes it is difficult to say something without context. 

Compare that to Facebook, where I've seen incredibly articulate arguments presented both for and against my original update. There have been tangents, distractions and the odd bit of mudslinging, but in general I've been impressed by how generally well reasoned the responses have been. And has reminded me why I choose to be friends with the people on my Facebook.

So what is it that I have learnt from all this?

First: I will have to revisit my opinion of Facebook and not write it off as a has-been. Especially in the week that it announced its IPO, I have been reminded of why it is such a powerful tool, and why providing a forum to interact virtually with your friends is so valuable (especially in a global world where people live far away from each other). And clearly able to command a financial value for it.

Second: I will have to revisit my opinion of Twitter. Ultimately it is difficult to gauge, despite multiple interactions with someone, how they will react to something you say. And when they will descend into name calling and refusal to engage in debate.

Third: Some people are made very uncomfortable by political discussions. It can be challenging to see a full-on, intellectually rigorous but animated/heated discussion on something that is quite polarising, politics especially, where it is easy to inflame passions, and not stay on the sidelines.

Fourth: I cannot censor myself. When I was getting flamed online last night for stating my views, I could have shut up. But that would have meant suppressing my thoughts, my views and being silenced by those who use shrill hate rather than reasoned argument to win the debate.

Some people sent me private messages last night, saying that I was getting grief for stating a political opinion, and that it was best to not discuss politics online. But that to me was something I cannot fathom. What is the point of sharing waffly, inane, utterly idiotic updates on a permanent basis? Why not share an opinion, a thought, an argument? Why not use the brains we've got? Why not argue, debate, discuss, disagree? Even if the ultimate outcome is agreeing to disagree, why not just engage? Maybe I'm just the stereotypical "argumentative Indian" but if I am, why hide from it?

One final point. I am a strong (possibly die-hard believer) in the freedom of speech. That does not mean that I believe that freedom of speech means I believe in the right of someone to not be offended. People will find different things offensive. But if we try to avoid offending people, then we might as well stifle all debate. And then where would be? North Korea?

So here's to many more evenings of political updates, tweets, and opinions. Because it is my right - nay, my duty - to say what I think.


UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that this post seems to justify my recognisably aggressive tweets regarding the NHS (amongst other topics). In the interests of full disclosure and transparency, here's a quick background check. I am not, I should stress, out to apologise for my behaviour. I am merely hoping to contextualise what might have been perceived as offensive.


Firstly, I should point out that I am a standard bearer of capitalism. That means that I wholeheartedly believe that free markets are the only way to spread wealth in a manner that is fair globally. Because true fairness implies people getting what they deserve, not a system based on entitlement & privilege dictated by the accidents of birth and global geopolitics. 


This support of a capitalist structure has over the years earned me much venom. I have been ruthlessly attacked in public and online by people who assume that because I believe in capitalism I've somehow sold my soul to the devil. When they'd rather have me sell it to Marx.


As a result, many people I interact with on Twitter only saw me go somewhat ballistic on Thursday night. I should clarify (as I've done in my comments below) that much of that was the culmination of a week of Twitter flaming. My tweets earlier in the week about the Stephen Hester bonus fiasco, the Fred Goodwin witch hunt, and the ongoing car crash that is the Eurozone had earned me a lot of venom, much of which I blocked. But by Thursday evening, when a fairly innocuous tweet got me two particularly unpleasant responses, the gloves were off.


Were my tweets well thought out, articulate, and reasoned? No. I recognise that. I also know that those were tweets of someone who was lashing out after being cornered and harangued for days. Which is why I will recognise that they were incendiary, provocative and potentially perceivable as quite abusive. But I will also not apologise for them. Because even though I know that it is the sign of being a better man to turn the other cheek, eventually even my patience snaps and then - to quote one of my own tweets - I dance the tandav. The dance that destroys the universe. 


So. If you're here reading this because you were witness or party to Thursday, I hope this provides you context. As I said, I will not apologise for my tweets. Because I did not start the fire. But I hope that this will help contextualise what happened. 


A final point. Freedom of speech is something I am very wedded to as a concept. I however completely recognise that there is no such right as the freedom to not be offended. Therefore I know that my right to say what I would like will offend several people. Does that mean I will stop saying what I believe? No (the only exception being if what I said was particularly bigoted, prejudiced or outright illegal). But I appreciate that if I am purposefully provocative, I may alienate many people. That is a risk I run, but I should stress it is one I run fully conscious of its presence.

Run, Buddha, Run

This is yet another explanatory post.

A post to explain my life. My choices. My decisions, and those weird things that make up that tiny part of your life that I inhabit and make that life of yours a little bit, well, odd. And for which, I should add, I apologise unconditionally.

If you're someone who's in my life as a friend or acquaintance, you might have recently have had to deal with my continual chatter about running. About how amazing, fascinating, empowering, etc etc etc it all was. About why I feel the need to enter all these marathons, half-marathons, 10k races, charitable events, etc etc. About my desire - no, my need - to keep running.

I owe you an explanation of this choice. This choice to keep running.

Ah yes. Running.

No matter how I articulate this, there are not enough words to explain why running is so important to me. But by virtue of this post, I hope to communicate why it's so critical a part of who I am today, even though it had a very minor (if barely noticeable) part to play in my life this time last year. 

Maybe I should start at the very end of a long run. For example, about two weeks back I ran a little over the length of a half marathon, which is over 21 km. Not an insignificant distance, but which I cannot say is either terrifying or even weirdly challenging anymore. But, the very first time I ran that distance, every single footstep, every time my foot hit the ground, I was motivating myself to keep going, telling myself that I couldn't quit, that it would be worth it when I finished. I had no way to know I'd be able to last the course; nothing except the sheer stubbornness of my head telling my legs to keep moving.

Maybe that's the first part of why I run. Because I know that it is a straightforward way to keep pushing myself. To identify a personal hurdle (a distance, a time, a personal best) and to to challenge it. For someone as utterly competitive as I am, running allows me to compete with the only worthy and evenly matched opponent I know: myself. Every time I start a run, I have only my own track record to contend with - my own personal previous best, my history, my legacy. 

And that is a legacy worth breaking.

But there is another element to my becoming a runner, which I can only explain by going back into my past. And I have to go back to the time that I was a young teenager, living in Namibia, the only slightly effete Indian guy in a class full of Afrikaaner boys and girls. A time that I can now turn around and admit was terribly painful and oppressive in the way that only teenage years can be; a time when being an outsider, of being different, of being unconventional (all those qualities desirable as an adult to differentiate yourself from the crowd) were qualities you abhorred in your teenage years, when being different, unusual, non-conforming even, marked you out, at best, as an outsider, or, at worst, as the one who deigned not to blend in or participate. Or worse still, marked you out as the week's target to be bullied during lunch breaks.

In my case, these were not attributes that I could step away from, and which only served to emphasise my difference from my peers. Add to that my innate introversion at that age, and I was your stereotypically emo teenager. The one who stayed indoors, read a lot, played music, and was pretty studious in class. In another time, another space, I might have become a Goth.

I didn't. I just survived. (Mostly because Indian kids don't make good Goths.) I made do, I did well academically, I somehow managed to get through what I today recognise as one of the most isolated periods of my life. But it was a time when I was the chubby emotional outsider who didn't play sport, who didn't fit in, who didn't actually do anything that all the other boys my age did. And by virtue of the bullying, became someone who was embarrassed of my weight, of being chubby, of being, well, fat. And my inability to do anything athletic reinforced that sense of worthlessness, no matter what I might have achieved in other aspects of my life; who cared if I had a near-perfect academic grade if I was still a fat kid? 

But, as an adult, things have changed. I've lost weight. I've grown comfortable in my skin (well, mostly.) I've learnt to accept myself. And I found pleasure in sports. Mostly because I've realised that the sports that I do best at are the ones where I don't have to be part of a team, a forced commune that encourages bonds and relies on others. I work best when I am on my own, pushing myself, and ultimately, against myself. Other people just.. get in the way. They complicate matters, force you to rely on them, make your performance dependent on their performance. When it comes to sport, I am not a team player. And running has allowed me that avenue of an activity that does not rely on much more than a good pair of shoes, the use of my own legs, and the ground beneath my feet. And I can leave the house, hit the road, and be free.

Perhaps the oddest sensation is now revelling in the sheer physicality of my body. Realising that I can run, I can keep going for distances that previously I thought impossible, that my body will not let me down, that it will work with my will and my mind and together we can do things that are so simple, so natural, and yet unbelievable. I can think back to a particular moment during my half marathon two weeks back, around the time that I had covered three quarters of the distance, when my legs were starting to feel the strain of the long uphill course, when I suddenly got my second wind. Suddenly the leaden feeling was gone from my calves, my feet didn't hurt anymore and I had that characteristic shiver down my spine as the endorphins rushed down from my brain. I could see people lining the course cheering, their faces a mixture of wonder and enthusiasm at the effort that I and so many other runners were making - and there was a sense that I was, for once, invincible.

It was magic. 

And that sense of freedom, of liberation, of knowing that my body is no longer the weak, ineffectual one that I recalled from my teenage years, makes me keep wanting to run. To keep pushing it, to keep finding new challenges, new hurdles, new adventures for us to explore together. After so many years of an uneasy acquaintance between us, I have come to love my body. 

So now, when I run as an adult, when I mark my time down the Embankment in London, when I jog past crowds of tourists surrounding the base of the London Eye, I can see many people look at me with bemusement. There I am, in my running gear (which, no matter what anyone might tell you, is never flattering, but utterly critical for longer distances). There are people who might chuckle at seeing me in running tights, folks who might mock my sweatband-decked forehead, my waterproofs. The oddest looks are the ones I get when I run past Vauxhall and see the dregs of last night's clubbing emerging from the shadowy corridors under the railway arches, while I pound the pavements past them, my weekend mornings now characterised by rising early rather than sleeping in late, hungover and bleary eyed.

But every so often, I catch the eye of a random passersby, who clocks me, sees my solitary state of bliss, and who I know, from the glimmer in their eye, understands.

I of course run past them, imagining myself growing fainter as the distance between us opens up. And if I run past a big building of steel and glass and happen to catch my reflection, I can see the slightest smile playing around my lips.

Because I am, of course, running.

My First Book

Perhaps it’s apropos for a week in which the London Book Fair kicks off to write this blog post.

This is a post about reading. And about the very first book that I ever read, by myself, to myself. 

This happened many, many years ago. It was an oddly iridescent autumnal afternoon in New York City. I was in the library of a school on the Upper East Side, surrounded by classmates as we made our way through our readers. I remember looking at a hardbound book, the cover an odd aquamarine green, with a large brown/white chick on it, purportedly frolicking in a treetop nest.

It was a book I knew well; I had been introduced to it some weeks back by a South Korean classmate who could already read. She had read it out to me, the story a tragic one of a bird that hatched while its mother was away and who then went on a long, arduous quest that covered several pages encountering strange and wonderful animals and machines, to which it always posed the same, distraught question.

Shawn had read the story out to me, one to one. We had already decided that we were dating. So what if we were only six? This was life in the Big Apple, and one moved quickly, before a Puerto Rican called Carlos or a New England WASP called Douglas moved in. Her name was Shawn, and she was a child model for magazines and catalogues. Yes, it was that kind of school. (To be fair, we were both the best looking ones in that class, and it was inevitable we’d have ended up together. Not to mention the fact that her mother, on having met me on a number of parent-student occasions, was in love with me too)

Anyway, I digress. Shawn had read out the contents of this book to me, and I was stricken. Madly in love with the idea of being able to pick up a book, any book, and being able to read, to decipher it, to understand what mysteries it held within, held a strange and wonderful allure.

Several weeks after that first instance, I found myself standing in the same library, my eyes looking for that green hardbound cover in a sea of books that lined the bookshelves. I had applied myself to understanding the power of the written word with great diligence, keen to impress upon Shawn that I was not a laggard, but merely that I had spent the past several months travelling the South Asian continent whilst she had been learning how to read during a hot New York summer month (yes, Asian children are overachievers.)

I still recall my eye catching that cover, seeing the distinctive (almost feathered) lettering and pulling out the book. I can still close my eyes and remember the feel of that book, its cover having absorbed the dust of several years of grubby schoolchildren fingers into its paper, holding out a slightly grainy feel. I can see myself opening the book, my chubby six-year old finger tracing the letters of the title as I mouthed out the words that I had learnt together made a sentence.

“Are You My Mother?”

And so was born the greatest love affair of my life. The love of reading; the love of the written word, the love of finding a book to read all by myself, no matter where I was, how lonely or scared or unhappy or bored or tired or unwell or happy or content or just there.

A love to last a lifetime. 

Diplomacy - Even Unto Its Innermost Parts

Even as I write this, media sources are rife with speculation that the United Kingdom, keen to lay its hands on Julian Assange, who is currently hiding at the Embassy of Ecuador in Central London, where he formally made a claim for political asylum, will revoke the diplomatic status of the embassy, which in turn will allow it to enter the building and arrest Assange.

I've been monitoring the commentary in mainstream media, and have not surprisingly found most UK commentators missing the wood for the trees in this issue. So let me try to spell out why, if the UK government was to carry through with this purported plan, we'd be going down a very dangerous route in international relations.

(Caveat lector: I am neither a government nor public service official myself, nor do I represent any governmental entity. Having said that, I grew up in a diplomatic atmosphere, as my father served in multiple embassies around the world in a diplomatic capacity. The issues of diplomatic immunity, therefore, have very personal resonance for me, especially as there were a few postings that my father undertook which were in incredibly hostile countries, both for himself and his immediate family)

To put it very mildly, Assange is a non-issue in this entire palaver. Regardless of the merits or demerits of the case against him, he is a bit player in a wider political game. Conspiracy theorists, anti-govern-mentalists and supporters of his cause may (rather, will) claim that the rape charges that have been filed against him in Sweden are politically motivated and intended to silence a man who has become a political liability for major Western governments around the world through his Wiki leaks campaign. 

This is not to absolve him of the rape charges. But, by walking into the Ecuadorian embassy in June 2012, Assange was relying on an internationally established protocol - that the embassy of a foreign, sovereign nation is deemed inviolate, and is also deemed to be above the laws of the host country. 

This protocol is clearly spelt out in the Vienna Convention of 1961, which establishes international norms for consular and diplomatic relations between countries. Without going too much into the intricacies of legality, as a UN document that has been ratified by over 185 signatory nations (including the United Kingdom) the document has significant weight. 

One of the key provisions of the Convention is highlighted in Article 22, which states that "The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission". In the current context, therefore, the only way that UK personnel could enter the embassy would be with the express consent of the Ambassador of Ecuador.

The UK Foreign Office indicated yesterday that provisions exist for it under UK law to suspend the diplomatic immunity granted to the Embassy by virtue of a national law. Again, without going into the specifics of national law superceding international convention, this could possibly stand muster, though I wouldn't bet on an international arbitrator accepting this argument. This is specifically because the UK has itself in the past relied on and taken advantage of the immunity granted to its personnel in embassies overseas. In addition, the UK has, like all other nations that are party to the convention, relied on the privileges granted to its diplomatic staff by virtue of the convention, and taken great umbrage if these have not been met. For example, in 2011, the UK took strong exception to the failure of the Iranian government to provide adequate protection to the UK Embassy in Tehran and not prevent it from being stormed by protesters. To then turn around less than a year later and revoke the diplomatic immunity granted to another country's embassy raises significant concerns of UK exceptional ism.

Furthermore, the UK government could not possibly expect that its exceptional ism, were it to proceed as feared, would go unchallenged, either in international courts, in diplomatic fora, or worse still, through a more pernicious loss of standing in the global arena. That is the problem with adopting an exceptional policy - one needs the might and international clout to carry through, and the UK has been in a state of gentle international decline, not just militarily, but also economically. As such, its actions, whilst arguably carried out against a country of "little significance", would be of great significance for its relations with other countries. While I doubt that any third state would raise explicit concerns, you can be pretty sure that most embassies would not waste time in sending circulars back to their capitals with a clear risk and threat analysis for themselves in light of unilateral action by the UK against an embassy it was hosting.

The question, then, to ask is why exactly the UK is willing to act in contravention to all established international norms to chase down one man. Even if Assange were to be granted asylum by Ecuador, he would eventually have to leave the embassy in order to leave the country, thereby leaving him open to arrest and extradition (the only exception to this is if Ecuador, in a political masterstroke, were to appoint Assange as UN Ambassador, which would grant him diplomatic immunity globally, and not require the assent of the UK government.)

That, of course, is a question that only the UK Foreign Office can answer.

In Which I Write About Those Posters...

Some of you might have heard about those ads that have appeared recently across the New York subway system. After originally declining to post the ads, the MTA was forced by a court order to accept the ads and display them across the subway network earlier this week. Almost immediately the same ads were countered with stickers that marked them as “racist”. Egyptian-American activist Mona Eltahawy was subsequently arrested after an altercation with a pro-poster activist that involved a camera and spray paint.

I’m not blogging, though, about the poster, its contents, Islam, Islamophobia, or the Israel / Palestine question. I’m not even going to talk about the strategies employed by the poster posters, or the anti-poster protesters. This post, though, is about something much simpler: the language used by the protesters to counter the messages of the ads. I despise the language of the ads as much as they do – by speaking in terms of “civilised” vs. “savage” humans, the poster lobby displayed  their appallingly essentialist view that the conflicts in question can be painted very clearly in terms of a (clearly identified as Western Judeo-Christian) cultural entity as being superior to that of its more “savage” (also clearly identified as Eastern Islamic) opponents.

Notwithstanding the sheer arrogance and hubris that such cultural imperialism demonstrates, which I would hope are clearly apparent to most intelligent, rational and critical adults not living in the 18th or 19th centuries, the response to the ads are just as problematic. Posters were defaced with stickers carrying the words, “Hate Speech” and “Racism”. On Twitter, anti-poster protesters are using the hashtag ‘#ProudSavage’ to tag their tweets and register their opposition to the messaging.

But these words themselves are inadequate to address the posters, and for a number of reasons. I have no issues with the phrase, “Hate Speech” – while most provisions for the freedom of speech do not carry the guarantee that audiences of said speech have a right to not be offended, they also do not guarantee that speech that is incendiary, reactionary or designed to promote and promulgate hatred, bigotry and exclusion will not be called out.

However, tagging such hate speech as “racism” is not so straightforward, because by doing so, it makes the simple mistake of conflating religion with race, and this is a fundamental error when referring to globally prevalent faith systems like Islam that are truly multi-racial and multi-ethnic. Implying that Muslims are savages is one thing; to call it discrimination based on race is not accurate. Call it out as “anti-Muslim”, “anti-Islam”, or simply “bigotry”. But racism it is not.

There is an argument that some make – that in modern discourse, “Muslim” is often shorthand for Arab/Middle Eastern/South Asian people who are discriminated against on the basis of their colour. As a single South Asian male born in Pakistan, I have been equally subjected to the “random security checks” at US airports, and also spent a few years on a “special database” that required me to go through secondary screening every time I flew to the US, so I am sympathetic to this argument (thankfully, that changed a couple of years ago, so it’s far less traumatic to fly to New York for work these days.) However, if the point to be made is that the posters misinterpret the concept of “jihad” in Islam and reduce it to the narrow and misguided espousal of violence that terrorist groups advocate, then conflating Islam with “Arab/Middle Eastern” etc only ensures that similar errors of analysis and understanding are being made by the protesters.

Which then brings me to the hashtag, ‘#ProudSavage’, which can easily be understood as a way of appropriating the vocabulary and labels of the pro-poster lobby as a way to subvert it. Twitter is particularly good at this (only last week a similar exercise took place with the hashtag ‘#MuslimRage’, in reaction to a more than slightly ridiculous Newsweek magazine tweet.)

There is a difference, however, between the two. In the latter case, Newsweek made a sweeping generalisation, that was countered with satire (an excellent collection of which can be found here.) In the former, to refer to oneself as a ‘Proud Savage’ is akin to the appropriation of the pejorative “nigger” by the African American community and worn as a badge of pride, rather than one held with irony or sarcasm.

My problem, here, is that appropriation of the language of the “oppressor” only makes sense when the oppressed have limited resources or cultural space to develop, formulate or embrace their own. So if we were in a different century, when both sides of the poster debate did not have similar levels of access to education, media space or other communication tools, to co-opt labels would be a rational (and often only available) strategy. In today’s day, however, to do so is limiting on the part of the anti-poster lobby, because it allows the pro-poster crowd to set the parameters and framework of the debate. A far more powerful and independent response to being called “savage”, in my mind, would be to create an opposing narrative, without letting the perpetrator establish the narrative, language or tone of engagement.

So, to conclude what is probably a fairly rambling post, protest, by all means. Just be sensitive to language, vocabulary and labels. Because even though, unlike sticks and stones that will break your bones, words can enslave your mind.

A New Visa Form

For those of you who follow this blog, my Twitter feed, or generally interact with me, you will probably know that I am about as anti-imperialist, post-colonial and post-modern as they come. As such, it may not surprise you that I often (and vocally) take umbrage at writers and commentators from the "West" who may choose to express an opinion about the lives and experiences of men and women in a way that either misrepresents those experiences, privileges their own backgrounds, experiences and narratives as a meta-narrative normative that is homogenous and one to aspire to, and/or elides relevant voices or experiences if they do not fit into their own perceptions of the matter under discussion.

So it was not without some disgust that I read this article that appeared on the Huffington Post, in which a white western woman has a conversation with a cab driver in Luxor, Egypt, that - somewhat incredulously - extends to discussions of sex and how the protagonist, a poor, "enlightened" Eygptian taxi driver, having been made aware of the pleasures of sexual intercourse with "sexually liberated" European women, was dissatisfied in Egypt, given the "widespread" prevalence of female genital mutilation. Hailing from the Nick Kristof / Thomas Friedman school of neo-imperialist writing, the writer as liberal investigator is basically nothing more than a misery tourist who, on the basis of limited interactions with the "natives", returns home triumphant and full of insight that we are to accept as absolute, factually accurate, and effectively the last word. 

My disgust with the article, not to mention the high visibility it was receiving by virtue of being on a site like the Huffington Post, was matched by Sara Salem, a blogger that I have recently started interacting with online. Our shared opprobrium was quickly turned into a satirical discussion around the need for a new style of visa questionnaire to weed out such visitors to the non-Western world. (Ironically, most Western commentators, travelling on first world passports, do not require visas - at least short-term ones - to visit many of the countries they formulate ill-informed opinions about. This asymmetry of access, obviously, only works in favour of Western "tourists", unlike most intellectuals from the third world, whose global movements are closely curtailed and systemically restricted by international visa regimes.)

So here, in no particular order, is a list of questions that both of us felt would be appropriate to ask anyone looking to visit Egypt (or indeed any other country of interest to white Western commentators) to screen out ill-informed and poorly thought out articles of the sort that triggered our initial disgust.

1. Are you, or have you ever been, an utter idiot?
2. Do you enjoy saving people?
3. Are you aware that Egypt is no longer a British colony?
4. Please list, along with weight, any imperialist burden that you carry. Use additional paper if necessary.
5. What are your thoughts on Thomas Friedman and Nick Kristof?
6. Are you completely dismissive of your own privilege?
7. Do you have fantasies of wearing a burqa while in Egypt 'to see what it feels like'?
8. Do you like appropriating voices in your professional life?
9. Are you aware that harems are a fiction of your collective white imagination?
10. Are you, or have you ever been, an advocate for Ayaan Hirsi Ali?
11. Are you aware that the term 'Mohamedan' is no longer in use?
12. Do you believe that Islam is incompatible with Western values?
13. Will you be asking locals why they hate you and why they personally carried out 9/11?
14. Will you seek out meaningful human interactions, on the basis of which to extrapolate sweeping generalisations?
15. Will you keep asking about 'Sharia' in a terrified yet knowing tone?

Feel free to send in more that you think might be worth including on our questionnaire!