I often pass for Pakistani. In my zipcode, 11218, once supposedly the most ethnically diverse in the US, it isn’t too hard. I speak Urdu, but perhaps more importantly, given Pakistan’s linguistic and ethnic demography, Punjabi; I am brown-skinned (but not all brown folk are alike for I, given my linguistic capacities, cannot pass forContinue reading “Passing For Pakistani And The Two-Nation Theory”
Monthly Archives: June 2015
Thank God, Caitlyn Jenner ‘Looks Great’
The first transgender public figure whom I ‘encountered’ was Renée Richards–thanks to her landmark legal victory in the New York Supreme Court over the United States Tennis Association, which had denied her entry into the 1976 US Open, on the grounds of their supposed ‘women-born-women’ policy. (Richards–formerly Richard Raskind–had undergone sex reassignment surgery in 1975.) Shortly afterContinue reading “Thank God, Caitlyn Jenner ‘Looks Great’”
Kundera On Virtuous and ‘Timid’ Centers
In Immortality, (HarperCollins, New York, 1992, pp. 75) Milan Kundera writes: Goethe: the great center. Not the center in the sense of a timid point that carefully avoids extremes, no, a firm center that holds both extremes in a remarkable balance… There is something Nietzschean about the kind of center that Kundera has in mind.Continue reading “Kundera On Virtuous and ‘Timid’ Centers”
Jed Perl On The Supposed Necessity Of Doubt For Art
In the course of a ‘The Emperor Has No Clothes’ style review of a retrospective of Jeff Koons‘ work–staged at the Whitney Museum last year–Jed Perl writes: Dada—whatever its deficiencies, and the fact is that it produced relatively little enduring art—was part of a tradition of doubt about the possibilities of art that is woven deepContinue reading “Jed Perl On The Supposed Necessity Of Doubt For Art”
Crying For Anna Karenina
I’ve become a better, not worse, crier over the years. Growing up hasn’t made me cry less, now that I’m all ‘grown-up’ and a really big boy. Au contraire, I cry–roughly defined as ‘tears in the eyes’ or ‘lumps in the throat which leave me incapable of speech’ even if not ‘sobbing’–more. There is moreContinue reading “Crying For Anna Karenina”
‘Don’t Be Like Me’: A Parent’s Plea
Parents want their children to be like them; parents want their children to be better than them; and parents do not want their children to be like them. Despite Hobbes‘ shrewd remark that most humans are content with their congenital endowments of intelligence and talent, we are often quite aware of our shortcomings, intellectual andContinue reading “‘Don’t Be Like Me’: A Parent’s Plea”
A Persistent Reminder Of A Hardened Heart
A few weeks ago, as I approached the entrance to the subway station I use on my way back home after a trip to the gym, I noticed a familiar figure standing by its stairs: a man of indeterminate age who stands at the top step, next to the door for a deli, asking forContinue reading “A Persistent Reminder Of A Hardened Heart”
Samir Chopra 