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Had been looking for the exact quote since last summer. Finally found it in Dalrymple’s The Last Mughal. Sadly it’s an English translation - oh well, guess i’ll have to do some more digging.

"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death."

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten - Robert Fulghum

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and it’s snowing already.

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searching for a ‘sexy’ phd proposal topic. opium production in the golden crescent, first world consumption, and drug trade policies under colonial rule? 

"The British East India Company was, for all intents and purposes, the world’s first drug cartel."

gems from a South Asian history class. 

Iqbal on Nietzsche

Iqbal noted that his friends often asked him if he believed in the existence of God. But he was ‘entitled to know the meaning’ of these terms ‘believe’, ‘existence’ and ‘God’, and especially of the last two, before he could proffer an answer. His critique of Nietzsche’s aristocratic and atheistic philosophy stemmed from this confusion of terminology. What did it mean to say that God was dead or that man had killed him?

- Ayesha Jalal, Iqbal on Nietzsche: A Transcultural DIalogue

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freshly baked banana bread, chai, readings on ‘cosmopolitan thought zones’, and endless skype. the makings of a perfect storm?

Subject: of Downton and beyond

Got B hooked on to Downton Abbey, and of course he managed to finish Season 1 in two days. Woke up this morning to an email written in a very downton-esque/WWI British tone. Excerpt? ‘….and for that I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the British empire’.

awww, and a hundred times over. nothing will ever beat early morning e-mails. 

Hum Guneghar Auratein (We Sinful Women)

Some classic Kishwar Naheed really helps in lifting spirits up in such times. Not surprisingly, it sounds much more powerful in urdu.

It is we sinful women 

who are not awed by the grandeur of those who wear gowns

who don’t sell our lives
who don’t bow our heads 
who don’t fold our hands together.

It is we sinful women
while those who sell the harvests of our bodies
become exalted
become distinguished 
become the just princes of the material world.

It is we sinful women 
who come out raising the banner of truth
up against barricades of lies on the highways
who find stories of persecution piled on each threshold
who find that tongues which could speak have been severed.

It is we sinful women.
Now, even if the night gives chase
these eyes shall not be put out.
For the wall which has been razed
don’t insist now on raising it again.

It is we sinful women
who are not awed by the grandeur of those who wear gowns

who don’t sell our bodies
who don’t bow our heads
who don’t fold our hands together.

(Translated by Rukhsana Ahmed)

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trinkets from lahore airport. constant companions from lahore to connecticut, islamabad, and boston. 

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Woke up today to a thank you/goodbye note. What made it even sweeter? Chocolate. 

"and sometimes, all you need is one."

OTH Wisdom. heh.

Transatlantic-Domestic-Homesick Facebook Conversations

Me:	I made chicken corn soup today
Mom:	Oh that's great
Mom:	Maggi has introduced two new flavors.
Me:	No way! Which ones?
Mom:	Biryani and Masaladar.
Mom:	They give very good recipes in a small booklet with it.

"I defend not my voice, but my silence."

Anna Akhmatova

"I don’t like nostalgia unless it’s mine."