A master class on writing in the form of an hour long conversation between the legendary English Author Geoff Dyer and Mr. Eddin Khoo, the Founder of Pusaka (and a huge inspiration). The discursive dialogue on the ‘un process’ of the craft of writing resonated with me, the lack of structure, the spontaneous character, the role of non work time in the creative process.

Now I need to read his works with a new perspective especially the essay on Photographer Dayanita Singh in Varanasi. His readings were funny and gloriously English.

As primarily a writer, I appreciate these spaces of learning as doing a MFA in creative non fiction at East Anglia or Iowa for my generation was out of the question.

Food that heals. I grew up next to a Saravana Bhavan in Al Khuwair, Muscat in the beautiful country of Oman and Saravana Bhavan here in KL to CP in Delhi is what good food looks like. The Sapaad meal and the filter kaapi was legendary.

The Saravana Bhavan index of globalisation is a neat way to determine where the Indian NRI populations are concentrated.

Gates are important

Entrance to the Temple which is run by the Hainanese Association

Glorious

On a weekend evening, the Chinese Temple cum Community centre was space time travel to the Hong Kong movies I grew up on Star Movies while growing up, the imaginary of a China which survives in the diaspora. This was a remarkable experience after I watched the Teochew Opera a few weeks back at Dataran Merdeka.

This temple in the Bangsar area up on a hill such as the Mount Mary Church in Bandra in Mumbai was brimming with western tourists as well as the faithful. The young kids playing in the courtyard of the shrine was a remainder that faith and culture is a medium across generations, and that identities in the Nusantara for the Chinese community is a serious matter.

The community space serves as a marriage registration centre, and has a Kopitiam as well as a gift store. There is a complete Chinese Zodiac Garden where the author is smiling with the Tiger, having been born in the tiger year.

The notion of the Nanyang lives in these cultural places well in the current Nusantara.

Tiger 3 is a delicious franchise movie of the YRF spy universe after Tiger and Tiger Zinda Hai which takes forward Bollywood-esque peace making process which borrows from previous peace making efforts such as Agra post Kargil. The Geopolitics of the film is on spot on with the Pakistan-China-Turkey alignment, and the dominant role of the military in policy making, with the movie opening with the Musharraf coup.

The SRK cameo was brilliant with the Pathan avatar and the banter with Tiger. Hrithik snippet after credits was a pleasant surprise as Fighter is due for release. The film was a tad too long. Emraan Hashmi was the real Hero of the movie, loved his acting which came across with such ease. Katrina Kaif is a competent action star and clearly the hard work shows. Revathy steps in to the shoes of the Late Girish Karnad as the new ‘Q’.

Salman Bhai carries the film on his muscular shoulders, ably with swag almost in a Ramboesque demeanour. The nationalist jingoism aside it has politically conscious dialogue writing, especially the quip made by a supposed general, that peace is like bangles, it breaks under stress.

Watching Tiger in the diaspora hits in a different manner as distance allows context blur also tears in the corner of the eye when the national anthem is played.

On a day where a dear loved parent is back in hospital, I am blessed to meet a mentor- Mohsin Bhai in KL who has meant so much to me, taught me how migration really works over the past 9 years, as the founder and editor of the only Bengali Language Monthly Paper for the Labour Migrant Community in SE Asia, Banglar Kantha and runs a vibrant cultural space for migrant workers on Desker Road in the Little India District in Singapore.

As the pioneer of the migrant movement in Singapore, he has brought out issues way before migration work was considered mainstream in Singapore. As a contributor to the initiative I have learnt more about migration and it’s inner workings especially the civil society dynamics in Singapore more than any human geographer can write about in the Geoforum or Progress in Human Geography Journals.

Sustainability at its heart is about delivering better standards of livability. Human Rights in the business context as a block within the ESG Lego structure is fundamentally about operationalizing dignity within our communities of affect. ESG gives sustainability to its legs; the indicators, the frameworks, the risk roster expressed through publicly facing ratings which drive trust and transparency.

But are we measuring impact through ESG within the Corporate Human Rights Indicators? We are trying to establish a ‘humanity hygiene’ baseline, the complaints, incident statistics, resolution numbers, access infrastructure etc. It gives a reliable performance snapshot to the investor class regarding social risk, the subliminal cues of reading between the data lines, the grid of numbers flashing in front of our screens. ESG data, as I have written earlier in a LinkedIn post, is an early warning detector of an impending crisis.

The global progressive values paradigm often colloquially labelled as woke, which is often carried over to the ESG meta framework, reflective of the culture wars in US Politics ahead of the presidential polls.

In the era of acute geopolitical crisis with the Gaza humanitarian debacle, the Ukraine War which has been moved to the backburner despite the European Winter coming up, Human Rights and its applicable iterations will gain salience, as a human tragedy is pinging on our news alerts and saturating our Instagram feeds every few hours.

‘Being Human’ is good for business and society as live in a hyper ‘risk society’ in an Ulrich Beck vain.

There are three needs which precarious migrants or temporary guest workers have:

• affordable health care including post injury care
• salary on time
• an emergency flight ticket home

Civil society can easily build solutions by borrowing corporate playbooks but band aid is all they can offer. Time to do more? Think platforms and coalitions.

Karma is everything. I knew how to do ethnography and write and still do. High end theory building needs ground level knowledge, access and trust with the communities which one is writing about. A pittance of a interview token does not cut it.

Transnational Edible Notes from Jessore.

Ilish made by @abusayed2408 for dinner with bata mach.

A plate of food is a cultural cartilage of migrant belonging.

With @liberationx for exemplary company.

Barber Shops as spaces of transnational belonging, as the barber from Gujranwala in Pakistani Punjab started speaking in Urdu but then narrated his migration journey across Oman, Dubai and Malaysia where he has run barber shops.

His knowledge of Oman really impressed me as he ran a shop in Buraimi under an Omani Balochi Arbab and worked in Deira in Dubai for three years.

He has been in Malaysia for fourteen years and is a repository of information in many languages including fluent Arabic. He spoke about Honda Road in Ruwi, where I spent many Fridays in my teens getting a haircut.

As with all migration journeys it has not been linear, with segments in Pakistan such as during the pandemic.

I got an Arabic style beard done at Habibi Salon at Bukit Bintang adjoining Berjaya Plaza, where I entered at a whiff.