In search of the Maya on February 24, 2018Until I saw Mel Gibson’s historical-fictional film, ‘Apocalypto’, I knew next to nothing about the lost civilisation of the Maya. The movie, which features a chase from beginning to end, and which kept me at the edge of the seat the whole time, provided some keen insights into the Maya culture. But the human sacrifice […]
‘Muslim Zion’ — a different perspective on the origin of Pakistan on February 22, 2018While many scholars have noted parenthetically that Pakistan and Israel are the only two countries that were created on the basis of religion, they have not devoted an entire book to expounding that thesis. That challenge has been taken up by Faisal Devji. His book, Muslim Zion, published by the Harvard University Press, has garnered […]
Exploring Turkey on February 20, 2018As the 21-year old Sultan Mehmed II strode on his horse among the ruins of the 1,000 year old castle of the Byzantines, which had fallen to him after a long and hard fought battle in which Emperor Constantine XI had lost his life, he recited a Persian verse of Saadi’s: The spider weaves the […]
From Malacca to Putrajaya in Malaysia on February 11, 2018We were in a taxi heading from the modern part of Kuala Lumpur, where our hotel was located, to a traditional part of town. The goal was to savor street food. Suddenly, a thunderstorm descended on us. It came without warning. There were flashes of lightening and a downpour that left nothing dry. The rain […]
Fussing over Padmavat on February 9, 2018The movie broke box office records in New Zealand. It was banned in Malaysia, reviewed in England and panned in the New York Times. Some Pakistanis gave it a failing grade, since it portrays a Muslim king as a brutal and despicable tyrant. It evoked violent protests in India, since it seemed to glorify the […]
The dubious value of nuclear weapons on February 5, 2018The 20th anniversary of the nuclear tests in the subcontinent comes up in May. The case for nuclear weapons is predicated on two assumptions. First, that they will deter war and yield a peace dividend. Second, that they will be accompanied by a reduction in spending on conventional weapons, and yield an economic dividend. Both […]
Carthage: a lost civilisation on February 5, 2018Most people have never heard of it. Some don’t know where it is. Few know how long it lasted. And even fewer understand its contributions to the world, such as the invention of glass and the use of stars to navigate ships. Most Carthagians were Phoenicians who came from Tyre in Lebanon. They predated the […]
Touring Singapore, the ‘Lion City’ on January 28, 2018Singapore had long been on my list of places to visit. Even its name was enchanting, meaning the “Lion City” in the Malay language. It had originated in Sanskrit, and it made me wonder if lions had once roamed there, something that I was to find out was not true. The modern city-state epitomised economic […]
Churchill’s finest hour on January 24, 2018It was England’s darkest hour. The enemy stood on the doorstep. After invading Poland on the 1st of September, 1939, Hitler’s armies had conquered much of Europe including most of France. The only thing that stood in the way of their hoisting the Swastika on Buckingham Palace was the English Channel. King George VI appointed […]
Our journey to the ancient city, Ayutthaya on January 21, 2018AsI did not even know such a place existed. The person filling an important gap in my knowledge of Thailand’s history was a guide that we had hired in Bangkok. She told me that Ayutthaya had been the ancient capital of Thailand until 1767, when it was sacked by the Burmese. Until then, I had […]