THE LUNCHBOX at the berkeley rep was a delight! a new musical based on the movie of the same name (which i’ve never seen!). lots of great melodies, dancing and a beautiful set of a street in Mumbai www.berkeleyrep.org/shows/the-lu...

Folks in the Netherlands, if you are keen to catch it, Main Vaapas Aaunga is running for a few more days in Rotterdam and The Hague.

Absolute delight to revisit old Tom Alter interviews. An incredible command over Urdu unrivalled by many of his contemporaries. Watching him grow livid at reporters asking him in 2017 how he could speak Hindi well, and for making a borderline islamophobic comment, remains a top moment. RIP Tom ji.

Several widely-read people that I know, happen to draw the worst conclusions that enable conservatives. Because the key is not how much you read, but *how* you read. And this is where good teachers are important. They help one learn to critically examine text, reflect, and argue in good faith.

Oh to be one of the world’s most beautiful people and to have the privilege of being in the same scene as the Taj a bazillion times. 😍

I’d like to think I’ve engaged with a fair share of Partition research, lectures, media for a South Indian whose sociopolitical frames of reference are different. Yet, something about O Yaara‘s visuals and vocals broke the dam. I felt the pain viscerally. #BlueSky youtu.be/953e76Bv0EY?...

Good morning welcome to Tippetty tap tap Thursday May your coffee be hot, your troubles be small, and may you approach today’s challenges with the confidence of a cat heading towards an unattended chicken roast dinner

Boy oh boy, only Rahman can fuse Swing, Jazz, Punjabi folk, and popular Hindi music together without a thing going amiss. 😍 #MusicSky youtu.be/w-uBtXpgEGI?...

So AR Rahman performed at the Wagah-Attari Border on the 6th of Jun for Imtiaz Ali's Main Waapis Aaunga promotions. I don't know how they pulled off permissions but for a few hours, Punjab on either side felt whole again according to people who were there. I hope many more such concerts take place.

Remembered this little sapphire of a song by the second winners of Coke V Popstars India, in the wake of VIVA re-releasing their album on streaming services after two decades! #MusicSky www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxz5...

Went down a Gharana rabbit hole, and began wondering that if colonialism had never occurred, and if the partition of the subcontinent hadn't happened, so many towns and villages of the region that lie crumbling in apathy today would have had rich lives intact.

An angel out there needs to upload a lossless audio of Nazakat Ali and Salamat Ali Khan singing Tu Na Disda. I fell in love with it when a Pakistani Classical music enthusiast uploaded a clip he found on his stories. Sharing this in lieu, but dreaming of that. #MusicSky youtu.be/BAFqxEXYR4I?...

Initiated myself into the Boterham culture with a slice of bread topped with fig chutney and goat cheese. But my spouse was all, "That is no boterham. You need two slices of bread, one slice of cheese. A slice of ham *if* you feel extra festive." He will be proven wrong yet. *grits teeth*

Sanjith Hegde's Kareyole is up there with Gulaabo for me. His team always gets picturisation right. Love that this song has a body positive approach with its choice of female lead considering how size zero obsessed Indian cinema has become across the board. #MusicSky www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSzJ...

Chuffed, I saw a Peregrine flying overhead! A bird that I’m completely enchanted by but never have managed to see properly except in flight on one other occasion. Hoping the third time’s a charm and I get a clear sighting of one perched! Can only hope for fledglings along. 🤩

#peoplewalkingvideo #MusicChallenge Pierre De Maere Je Pense À Vous

Time line cleanser: A year ago I bought the dogs a massive bed:

the way we use language in india is crazy people switch between like five different languages in a single conversation

I’m feeling a bit bleh. Needs’t add some cheer into the world and back into my life too. Would someone like a nice postcard (with a poem on the back) mailed to them? :) I have a budget for up to 5-6 recipients. Delivery subject to the whims of postal gods! :)

I have visited Glasgow. I have loved it. I loved the people, I loved how kind everyone is, I loved how much radical history they have and how they centre it. No one around me is allowed to criticise Glasgow (except Glaswegians). :D Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

The enchanted forests of Finland-based artist Ulla Thynell

Introduced to this little sapphire of a composition (by Shri Shirshendu Mukherjee who runs Riyaz Institute in CAN), thanks to a classical music enthusiast who goes by the handle Minah Sabri on the gram. :) #MusicSky www.youtube.com/watch?v=9unD...

So grateful I watched Aki Kaurismaki's The Tavernman, followed by Le Havre! :)

Kazdoura “Khayal خيال” (From Syria & Lebanon, based in Toronto) - One more artist I would like to highlight. Levant (Western Middle East) Indie Pop.

"One elderly woman, struggled at first to recollect a song she had inherited from her mother, only to gradually recover its lines. Such moments reveal how oral tradition works. It lives in bodies, in memory, in practice. Once that chain is broken, recovery is difficult. rsaa.org.uk/blog/when-so...

Will be speaking on Pious Labor at Harvard Islamic Studies later this month! Would love to see Boston-area friends there. islamicstudies.harvard.edu/event/semina...

A lot may change if, in the exceedingly rare chance, most American citizens acknowledge that their state by foundation is a fascist one. One that has employed terror liberally to establish itself. And, if they internally begin to decolonise, and move towards handing stewardship to the indigenous.

I want to dream of Beirut and Havana; of Tehran, Baghdad, Khartoum and Kabul. I want to dream of life. I do not want to consider London or NYC or Berlin. I do not want us, the global majority to face away from ourselves, crushing each other to seek the weak light of the death star that is the West.

This Conan O' Brien Ad set in Rajasthan is marvellous. How did I ever miss this! It's genuinely respectful of ordinary Indians and does not caricaturise, mock, or stereotype. Refreshing. :) youtu.be/chvvWZW6NOw?...

The spring song of the Wren #BirdOfTheDay #OpenBeak #Wren @robcrank68.bsky.social

Advertising game in India remains remarkable for a reason. :) This advert for Prime Video starring Gini, Akash Thapa, sung by Aditya Rikhari, remixed by Mikey McCleary, and directed by Dar Gai is nostalgic yet fresh, and hits the right spot. :) www.youtube.com/watch?v=naDy...

"Petro argues, ‘The West will defend its excessive consumption, a lifestyle based on destroying the atmosphere and the climate, and to defend it… it is ready to respond with death.’" newint.org/climate/2024...

The near complete radicalisation of Israel where practically everyone is on board with dangerous ideology is also probably India’s future if our regime continues. The top 40% are casually bigoted as it is. But even various marginalised groups getting on board with hindutva is a grim sign.

It's now clear that Iran with its strategic military defense is rewriting conflict, pushing back against Total War that the west normalised for decades to annihilate the majority of the world. They are shattering public conditioning of civilians as acceptable targets.

Throughout 2025, a lot of liberals online were critical of pregnant women in Gaza, calling couples irresponsible. Thankfully many people shut the former down saying people will always try to live and move on with their lives under all conditions. For that is, human.

One of my singular stealth triumphs early last decade was inveigling my brother‑in‑law, Tahir, into standing under the Nilgiri’s store sign below our apartment, then posting the photo to wildlife forums.

The Adoration of the Wieners (Carnitas, Denied), iPhone and unexpectedly good lighting, 2026

All the peacekeeping troops in Lebanon right now also under fire from US and Israel. Some ex armed forces individuals say the Indian number is not updated, and stands at over 1000 individuals. unifil.unmissions.org/en/unifil-tr...

Donated today to the Phoenix Library. Omar Hamad and Ibrahim Massri are rebuilding a reading space from scratch. Paper and books are expensive to get hold of under occupation, but volunteers are salvaging knowledge to their best ability. Do donate if you can. :) chuffed.org/project/firs...

Nowrooz Mubarak! May the new year bring Iranians everywhere peace and stability (and a new world order).

friends, please pre-order my first novel. if you do, you'll be supporting a woman of colour from a third world country, also known as the bumper bonanza of literary fashion. angryrobotbooks.my.canva.site/compendium-o...

When someone's culture is consumption, they feel intimidated by people who have lived riches spanning ages. So, they flatten it, to announce that sand castles like Notre Dame are "valuable" but the depth of human history in Tyre or Gaza, or the heights of human imagination in Golestan are cheap.

Iran’s entire leadership stuffed with poet-scholar-scientist-warrior-PhDs is literally what should be normal for governance roles, instead of the half-wit reality TV contestant career politicians+tech/finbro friends we get today globally, replete with a rap sheet longer than their own lives.

I feel that when the west finally bears the consequences of its brutality to the world, the rest of the world won't gloat because they have an ethical compass. They will however simply turn off the tele, get off screens, close papers, take a breath and go out to step into life. Finally.

"Asli Ana Falasteeni" (My Origin is Palestine). Performed by Palestinian-Jordanian singer, Zeyne. #MusicSky www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhH6...

There was a point when most Indians knew which minister held what portfolio in the cabinet. That knowledge went to smithereens when everything became about *one* man. However, I can now confidently name the ministers and portfolios of the cabinet of Iran. :D

"I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I will never see."

Movement 3, 'Preparation for War' from the Epic of Khorramshahr, composed and conducted by Majid Entezami. Performed by the Tehran Symphonic (2008). #MusicSky www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Zr...

Ya Zahrat al-Mada'in translates to Oh Flower Among Cities. While it begins as a lament, in utter grief at everything that passed, it ends on a rousing note, with a resolve that Al Quds (Jerusalem) will be a home to Palestinians again. #MusicSky youtu.be/hsrTUDS6El4?...

Every sentence an Iranian politician or spokesperson utters is calm, measured, mature, inspiring, and even poetic. Every word an Indian, American, or European politician or spokesperson utters is vapid garbage. Not a single adult amidst the latter. Just spoiled conscience free louts.