This Punjabi diasporic space was a space time compression with Punjabi tilted Hindi and Bollywood tracks from the early 90s to the nearly millennium; from Aashiqui to Mohabatein which took the feel to a different decade.

As a person who writes on food spaces in the Indian Diaspora, the connection of Indian restaurants to the desi imagination is palpable.

The new reading list being gathered in Kuala Lumpur-

• An oral history of Brickfields
• HBR on Risk
• Building Scrappy Organisations
• A biography of famous Malaysian CEO

Met Mr. Eddin Khoo, the founder of the Malaysian Cultural Organisation, Pusaka at their enlightening Cultural Festival this weekend at the Godown Arts Centre in Kuala Lumpur today. Have been following the organisation’s work since 2015 and it’s such a delight to hear about a generation long initiative to support cultural initiatives across Malaysia, beyond the UN nomenclature of heritage and dying. His talk on the politics of heritage conservation and the power of ideology and ideas was a master class. As a person who is at best at the periphery of academia and is an intellectual flaneur such talks are an insight into subversive and inventive institution building.

The secular angle of the Kelantan Ramayana was a disruptive insight into the role of the transitional epic in SE Asia. The discussion on the evolution of the Malay Language was fascinating with words such as Puja being a part of the Malay vocabulary, albeit in an older iteration.

The beautiful festival has book stalls, a cafe, a Syrian woman selling Shwarma in a stall where her Husband is the chef was heart warming.

The takeaway from his talk was doing something authentic without thinking of the audience. The power of the work itself will speak in the long run.

Brilliant talk by Prof Loong on the many histories of Burma, and the role of conflict and war as shaping society. Wonderful perspective to look at a fragile state.

My suave friend Anders @theqw90 and the Spring University team do a wonderful job in this discussion series, this being the third one.

The home resides in the diaspora when the home is unsettled.

Kopitiam’s in SE Asia are phenomenal ‘contact zones’ citing Louise Mary Pratt’s work for creolisation where it is a racial blender in a wok, and food is the LCM for exchange and quotidian celebration.

Many cups of teh or Karak are gulped by migrants across the Indian Ocean to power them through the heat and humidity of the day, often in plastic bags or in cups.

Chai is an index for Indian Ocean edible circulations, something which needs theorist attention from the elite ivory tower.

Teh Tarik in Malaysia