what is the vertiginous chapati saying to me?
The XQs (Ten Questions) series is a conversation with the authors of new and exciting works in South Asian Studies, whose aim is not to “review” but to contextualize, historicize, and promote new scholarship. We thank Mahdi Chowdhury for conducting this interview. Please see the archive of previous thirty-two XQs.
Recently, I managed to visit Spasial Program by Khajistan installation at the SculptureCenter in LIC. Khajistan is directed (and founded) by Saad Khan and the exhibition was directed by Joey Chriqui. The opening walls feature some of what Khajistan’s manifesto affirms as its collection practices: “Leaflets that fell from the sky. Mujra posters. Madrassa books. Digests sold in silence. Photos.…
In light of current manifestations, it is best to create a new mystical language within which the scribal self is safely ensconsed.
The journey is over, gentle readers. Today is the publishing birthday for Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore from The New Press . This book answers (to my satisfaction, if no one elses) the question that I posed in my graduate school application in 1998. Why did the memory of a early eighth century Syrian teenager become my history in my mid 1980s Lahore? My path…
Remembering Rahul: A tribute by Rohit Chopra
The XQs (Ten Questions) series is a conversation with the authors of new and exciting works in South Asian Studies, whose aim is not to “review” but to contextualize, historicize, and promote new scholarship. We thank Suvaid Yaseen for conducting this interview. Please see the archive of previous thirty-one XQs.
The XQs (Ten Questions) series is a conversation with the authors of new and exciting works in South Asian Studies, whose aim is not to “review” but to contextualize, historicize, and promote new scholarship. We thank Sangeeta Banerji for conducting this interview. Please see the archive of previous thirty XQs.
My twitter journey started in May 2007 and it ends today, July 23, 2023, with 32.6K tweets. I cannot sustain Elon Musk’s nonsense. Sorry. I have archived my twitter on github (will update this link when it is searchable). You can find me on Bluesky (sepoy.bsky.social), and on Mastodon (sepoy@mastodon.social) or just here on www.chapatimystery.com. I have a book coming out in early 2024 (fingers…
I wish to mark the passing of Ranajit Guha (1923-2023). It is important for historians and for critical thinkers of the subcontinent to recognize his impact on our thinking and our field.
Much earlier, as in 2012, I wrote a series of small things that were meant for a book that I was then planning and researching. My intention was to write a cult(ur)o-geography of Lahore, a riff on the psychogeographies of Guy Debord and friends. For a few years, then, I had been doing ethnographies and collecting ephemera around Lahore–print and visual materials, tapes, some objects. I had planned…