There must be some optimal temperature range in which the human body feels just at ease. Lahore, right now and possibly for the next two weeks has hit that zone. The air is warm and mellow, the light is gentle, clear and bright but not without its own sadness.
You sit outside in the sun on a bench and read some Macintyre. Questions, all the questions are as of dust. Answers, too, of no import. You are cast back to the 12 th century momentarily. You look at the brown earth on this wonderful day and nothing tugs at your heart, nothing teases your mind. This patch of earth, the grand sweep of time, time returning with different people in it, the birds, the trees-all nameless-the ancient sun and I, myself, part of this picture..
In the early evening the light catches a large tree, concentrates there, so that it glows brown and red with some mysterious inner fire meeting the intermingling of the breeze and the old day's light. Every leaf is caught in motion. The tree is there, and maybe there for years and years after I am gone but right now it is flowing, flowing..
~
It is also the season for fresh turmeric (which looks like ginger) and fresh, raw garlic (which looks like spring onions). One of the great advantages of living in an 'undeveloped' country is that there is less processed food and people generally eat fruit and veg. that is local and in season (though that is, unfortunately, changing with improved cold storage facilities). It also means that finance is less developed and, given the shenanigans and corruption associated with it (LIBOR, FX, etc.), that too is a blessing.
Since there is a lot of mediocrity I manage to survive. And the universities haven't-as of yet-been worked over by capitalism and the audit culture so there is a lot of lazing around (which suits me just fine). There is no sense of urgency, and so I continue to float at my own speed (rather than drift aimlessly, as I probably would had I been elsewhere).
And yet, and yet, I'm too Jewish by far to think this (or anything) is it.
'May I run, run, and never find.'
--Shah Latif.
You sit outside in the sun on a bench and read some Macintyre. Questions, all the questions are as of dust. Answers, too, of no import. You are cast back to the 12 th century momentarily. You look at the brown earth on this wonderful day and nothing tugs at your heart, nothing teases your mind. This patch of earth, the grand sweep of time, time returning with different people in it, the birds, the trees-all nameless-the ancient sun and I, myself, part of this picture..
In the early evening the light catches a large tree, concentrates there, so that it glows brown and red with some mysterious inner fire meeting the intermingling of the breeze and the old day's light. Every leaf is caught in motion. The tree is there, and maybe there for years and years after I am gone but right now it is flowing, flowing..
~
It is also the season for fresh turmeric (which looks like ginger) and fresh, raw garlic (which looks like spring onions). One of the great advantages of living in an 'undeveloped' country is that there is less processed food and people generally eat fruit and veg. that is local and in season (though that is, unfortunately, changing with improved cold storage facilities). It also means that finance is less developed and, given the shenanigans and corruption associated with it (LIBOR, FX, etc.), that too is a blessing.
Since there is a lot of mediocrity I manage to survive. And the universities haven't-as of yet-been worked over by capitalism and the audit culture so there is a lot of lazing around (which suits me just fine). There is no sense of urgency, and so I continue to float at my own speed (rather than drift aimlessly, as I probably would had I been elsewhere).
And yet, and yet, I'm too Jewish by far to think this (or anything) is it.
'May I run, run, and never find.'
--Shah Latif.
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