This screenshot speaks of the deep civilisational ties between Masqat and New Delhi, via Mandvi. Sheikh Pankaj Khimji, the influential Bania businessman greets the Indian President on His Majesty’s state visit to India.

Mr. Khimji is an Advisor to the Sultan of Oman and a top honcho of the Asian Cricket Council. I was there four years back in Muscat when Modiji visited Muscat and spoke to the diaspora at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Stadium in Bousher, next to my then office next to the Royal Hospital. I was the only analyst who had blogged on his visit.

I had presented on this connection in my Middle East Institute NUS talk in 2018 and had co written a paper too.

Oman is India’s maritime neighbor with an influential merchant diaspora from Kutch, who are Hindus and are custodians of the temples in Muscat. Oman was an invitee to India’s G20 Presidency as well.

Yallah!

As an ESG consultant, policy think tank researcher and writer from a hard engineering background, we have to think with methods all the time- sources, analysis, writing styles in presenting our deliverables.

This is the third methods class in the social sciences at the graduate level I am studying across three top universities in ASEAN, and each class refreshes the lens.

Most consultants who are from engineering and MBA epistemic background have not read any qualitative methods class or writing courses prior to entering consulting, where they are expected to research and write. And this is an uphill battle, and impacts productivity.

The purpose of good art is to suspend time in the midst of performance. The Grammy Winning Sahrawi Desert Blues Band, Tinariwen took KL to a tour of the Sahara Desert through the exhilarating music. I grew up on Rai Music in Muscat, and the melodic vocabulary was familiar this evening.

KL is a major cultural hub of the Nusantara, and the Palestinian flag shash around the lead singers neck, showed solidarity in with the humanitarian crisis.

Excellent work by the @senipusaka team to bring KL back on the cultural map of the region.

The energy on the floor was infectious.

@ek.isatsea @pauline.pusaka

The hidden transcript of the transition should be considered on a day which was historically significant in terms of calling for a move away from fossil fuels.

There is a brazen tendency to sweep the problematic resource politics feeding the transition, the lithium and the copper that goes into solar panels, transmission wires and the long storage batteries.

Recently, I had the honour to speak at the International Conference on South East Asian Studies at the University of Malaya on a session on food! I presented my research from my long term research project on Subaltern Migrant Infrastructures. My paper was based my work in SE Asia and Mumbai over the past year.

A traditional mess, with the best Ghee Thosai ever. A space time compression which transports one to a mess in Kumbakonam or Viruthanagar.

Tamizh Transnational Food Scapes in the Nusantara.

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.