Dear Victor

I know it is an insufficient greeting to ask you, how are you doing as in a crisis- as the only good news would be to resolve your issue. However, I would ask you how you are, as it is the sincerest greeting to begin this conversation (and I hope one of your friends at the burger joint or the duty-free store can read this letter out to you). If you are wondering, why am I writing to you in the first place being a stranger, let me introduce myself- I am Moni and I study airport work. I am writing in to understand what ways I can help you, by asking my friends. I hope you can have a conversation via this letter.

As you have been stuck in an ‘non place’, where the only purpose of the airport terminal is to facilitate movement, I would like to ask you about your routine? And your friends who make your life bearable (at least that is what I would guess). What has been the best burger you have had so far. The quarter pounder must be sumptuous.

What is the hardest aspect of living in a terminal building where the rhythm of movement is a constant? As a trolley handler, where have you found the most trolleys stacked up. What are the kinds of people who leave the trolleys vagabond, for you to collect?

I hope you find the toilets clean and have found a place to shower. And that you find joy in the brief moments of banter with your airline attendant friend. I wonder who the people are who find a connection with you. How is the conversation with the friend at the cashier at the burger place?

Finally, is the airport, truly a non-place? In what ways can this airport terminal be made more humanitarian and supportive. I know these are too many questions, however I hope you get to answer them, or read them. There was another case of a Syrian refugee being stuck in Kuala Lumpur airport for months, while awaiting rehabilitation in a third country as Syria has been in tatters after the so-called Arab Spring. The human cost of civil war as you encounter suddenly is shared by the Rohingya to the Afghan. There needs to be present avenues of redressal for people who did not plan to be stuck in airport terminals.

I was wondering in reply if you could write to me in the ways I could assist in getting you out of the conundrum that you find yourself.

It is hard being stuck, where your destination is here, but not here yet. I hope you find more than a burger when you finally manage to get out of here.

Hope to hear from you soon

Take care

Moni

This blog is thanks to the efforts of Vanshika Singh, the catalyst behind a writing initiative for Graduate Students at the National University of Singapore, Department of Geography

The past two years have been a generative space of writing on the cities of the Gulf from Showpiece City to Graveyard of Clerics to Archive Wars to Temporary City to Building Sharjah. Such scholarship in addition to ‘Temporary People’ by Deepak Unnikrishnan has been a sudden wave toward a renewed understanding of the Gulf. These are not merely urban histories but more layered than it meets the eye. Farah Al Nakib’s Kuwait Transformed is a game changer regarding the literature on Kuwait. Sinews of War and Trade by Laleh Khalili is an eye opener on the labor and maritime histories of the region in particular, Dubai infrastructural politics.

These books acknowledge the presence of migrants and minorities and differentiated lens on the Tarikh of the region. There are still narratives of Muscat, Sohar and Salalah to be written along with Abha and NEOM, may be a history in the making (a behind the scenes account).

Writing from the region is an attempt to produce knowledge from the region and with the region. Dubai gets the attention, that is a starting point on writing on other cities in the region too.

Few days can be so emotional as today. I am overwhelmed to get my hands on the absolutely gorgeous book (contributors copy) by @swalif_co aramexed to me from Abu Dhabi to Singapore where i am PhD-ing. It is an honour to contribute my two baizas on defining ‘Desi-Khaleeji’ as a conceptual category to articulate South Asian belonging in the Gulf

What a star cast with Gaith AbdullaNadeen Dakkak among others writing their thoughts and experiences in this amazing creative-critical intervention into understanding a Khaleej that we do not imagine in the news cycle.

Salem AlSuwaidi and team, Shukran Jazeelan!

Please order the book from :

Encapsulated Volume 1: Photoessays on Khaleejiness

#swalif#gulf#desikhaleeji#writing

Chatting with a veteran ex-cop of UP decent in the kopitiam in Hindi after six months and he quotes Mohd Rafi song in a jiffy, ‘log naheen par haalat bure hootein hain’

His presence lends a sense of continuity to my life in Singapore since 2009, albeit of an intermittent character.

#kopitiamkonversations

Two points not stated in the headline below:

1. Major Indian investment in Ad Duqm, on the Indian Ocean- one hour by flight from Mumbai

2. Hydrogen is the bed rock of the energy transition in the Gulf as existing infrastructure for Oil can be repurposed.

https://www.omanobserver.om/article/1105864/business/black-veatch-in-talks-for-role-in-omans-35bn-green-hydrogen-project

In an article for The Tilak Chronicle last year, i had written about the expansion of the Hindu Nationalist Political Space beyond the BJP, as the Sangh has a larger societal vision. AAP with the ‘Hindu-turn’ with Delhi and Uttarkhand is no surprise.
Shiv Sena is now with the opposition and very Hindu as well.

Climate Change as Automation will create Islands of Affluence, that essentially means those exclusive spaces will be an oasis of normalcy. The sub text is privilege.

PhD Anthropology wallahs don’t necessarily make good political leaders and technocrats, Dr Ghani can write more ‘theory’. He was anyway called by the New Yorker as the ‘Theorist in Chief’

Bovanto from Madurai, a local Tamil Nadu soft drink is popular in the diaspora from Dubai to Singapore in particular Chettinadu restaurant chains. Counter culture is needed for region centred brands which in the global era, is challenging as economies of scale play a role. Tamil Nadu has a strong regional culture, cash and a global diaspora which catapult’s them beyond the limitations of a local clientele. Transnational is often hyper local.

One of the reasons, green washing is prevalent is due to the number of marketing chaps leading sustainability functions of companies, rather than ecologists and engineers who know the science. Climate Change will be addressed by science not by #ESG hash tags. #greenwashing