Festivals are occasions which are a rupture in our everyday modernity to remind ourselves of tradition and it’s various iterations and ramifications. The fervour with the thumping music, the women lining up for henna and the sweet stalls buzzing with customers packing for Deepawali/Diwali in the Brickfields area of Kuala Lumpur was stunning as normally for a person on the move such as me, the festival event is usually a clutch of photos on the digital. As cultural event, Deepawali has great significance for me, growing up in a liberal Hindu family. As I walked around temples in the Brickfields area, the posters in Malay announcing celebrations for Diwali with Tamizh was a sense of an anchor in a past moving world, where dopamine hit exhaustion is the normal. The cracker stalls was a trip down childhood with the loud crackers going off around me was a necessary note, that not all innocence is lost in the woke era.

Wishing all friends a blessed festival of lights. Binge on the mithai and the murukku.

Diwali Ki hardik subhkamnaye.

Deepawali Valthukkal Makkal.

Nasi Liwet at Menara Standard Chartered

Channelling Jakarta, a book by AbdouMaliq Simone

To walk a city is to know one sensorially, and to eat through it gives a snapshot of the place. A lot of times on Jalan Sudirman with the dedicated bus lanes and the traffic, it felt like Pune and places such as Chakala in Andheri in Mumbai. A true mega city of the Global South, Jakarta is a treat for the senses as most mega urban conglomerations of thirty million plus populations. My engagement with Indonesia is old, my boss at NTU in 2011 was from Makassar and wrote his book on the New Order Technological Politics of BJ Habibie. He introduced me to Indonesian fare at Orchard Road and I have been to Jakarta and Bandung in 2012. I worked on a research project with Airport workers in Jakarta during my first PhD stint at NUS. Indonesian diasporas are seen everywhere from Dubai to Singapore to KL.

The Warungs by the streets were tapri’s from my hometown of Mumbai, the energy at every corner is evident. The posh malls have great local and global fare often at a fraction of the price in Singapore, albeit at the same outlet. Food as a lens connects, to create connections of the heart through the stomach.

Good to be quoted in Malaysia’s leading weekly- The Edge in their special issue on ESG.

Thank you North South Initiative and Adrian Sir for the kind opportunity. North South Initiative is a leading CSO in Malaysia on BHR issues.

ESG ratings or disclosure data is the symptom of the phenomenon rather than the actual drive towards net zero or climate adaptation. Disclosure frameworks shape ESG culture as it is a compliance risk as it veers towards legal risk. Anything legal drives change on the ground. Is it the change which the climate intellectual class want, the answer is a like negative as businesses will treat ESG as compliance, and that will be its material implication as businesses are here to serve their customers and draw a return on investment.

ESG disclosure frameworks if considered for what they are that is as a trust building method by fostering transparency will serve the ecosystem better. ESG data are weak signals for a black swan event, anyone who has read the Bhopal Gas Tragedy case study will understand the reasons for disclosure as an early warning system.

Disclosures have their own in built set of risks, in particular green washing which can be remedied by robust reasonable assurance. A few sectors such as power and energy are under the transition heat, and will encounter the a large pivot from BAU. The treat of climate litigation to their boards will increase the magnitude of risk. The quality of data or the lack of it, including tick box yes or no answers add to the ESG risk.

The shift towards ESG disclosure itself is a big shift from voluntary CSR which is still corporate philanthropy without major systemic ripples. We have learnt from the digital wave that data is the new oil (but for whom?) and that data is culture. The convergences between digital and ESG are significant.

The Fridge of Bangladeshi Mishti in a migrant ethnic supermarket that feels like a space of belonging.

The Edible Turn in Migration Infrastructure needs to be tasted oops written about ☺️

As an academic outsider at best into Gulf Studies but a cultural insider from Al Khuwair, growing up with Swahili Speaking Al Rawahy’s and Al Barwani’s in Muscat/ I thoroughly appreciate the talk by Dr Nathaniel at the UVa History Department Webinar Series, which has been a leading learning resource.

Love the methods slide!

Chicken Rice

Kopitiams or Coffee Shops in Hokkien are an index of convergence in the Nusantara. In the various ‘ethnoscapes’ , food and its cooks often from around the region, have their own language in its everyday. The ability to think and create the unique vocabulary on one’s own terms is the key to thinking from below, plurality of thinking is the key to decolonizing migration studies which is a thoroughly colonial enterprise.

With the legendary Debbie S and the Altsean Burma team for a chat in KL. So much learning about transnational movement building in SE Asia.

Eddin Khoo Sir shares on cultural heritage, documentation and the institutional journey of Pusaka today evening at the Ahlam Gallery.

The sharp edge of cultural politics is only seen couple of generations later.

Looking forward to learn more in the next talk. The aspects of rituals is so powerful or puja in Bahasa Melayu is a fascinating aspect.

Stories of migration within Tamilakam are encountered each day in KL and the wider Nusantara as today the only person who speaks fluent Hindi in a Hindu Tamizh Saapadu space, lived in Dharavi in Mumbai for a decade and is from Tirunelveli which is a region known for outward migration to Mumbai, especially Dharavi, Matunga and Bhandup areas. Mr. Murthy, now works in a Thambi eatery in KL which could well be a spatial extension of Ramashreya in Matunga or Prata Planet next to Clementi MRT.