*knock knock*
Who’s there?
Kanta.
Kanta-who?
Kanta wait to tell you imm all up in your grill again!
Gird your loins, thicken your skins and prepare to rejoice in splendor for I am back with your weekly dose of, well, me.
Oh how I’ve missed you, I really have. And I’m just going to go out on a limb here and assume that, given how I was replaced with rancid book reviews and curt commentaries on Bollywood, you’ve missed me too.
*hugs*
I’ve had a rather eventful sabbatical actually. I got some work done, applied for stuff, cleaned up my house. For once it was really nice to not wake up at the beginning of every week with the paralyzing fear that a deadline is likely to induce. It’s the same fear as in those dreams when you show up for an O-Level exam unprepared and somehow in the nude.
I’ve been busy with other things too, some of which I shall disclose in a few weeks. But one of them has been the ongoing and thus far escalating Battle of Wits that I am engaged in with my new neighbors. Recap: after my previous nemesis Mrs. Marzi kicked her voluminous bucket, her house was sold to a family that had moved here from elsewhere in Punjab (which to a Lahori is usually anywhere after the motorway begins). They spent six months renovating the place into a fairly modern-looking house with a kitchen that had recessed lights, so I had high hopes for our relationship. Things were OK at first; I would smile at the dad whenever we made eye contact while driving past each other and he would smile back. The wife sent me a card on Eid a few months ago and I even sent over a welcome cake (I had just seen The Help on the telly again, which brought out all the kindness in me, despite its pie-related plotline).
Then I began to notice small agressions, East India Company-style. They built a drain so large it felt like an aqueduct, its sole purpose apparently being to flood my driveway; they constructed an elaborate and ugly flowerbed outside my house that looks like the exoskeleton of an alien autopsy gone wrong and is painted in various shades of Vomit; they raised their side of our shared wall (at which I was tempted to go over and say, “You don’t want me to be your Israel, cause I’ll resettle all over you”). But perhaps most hurtful of all, they cut down my internet wires because — wait for it — the wires went past one of their trees.
Cut my trees and cement my drains, I will still love you. But if you are cruel enough to cut my Internet wires — which are literally my sole ties to the civilized world — I will find what you love and kill it in front of you. Thus began Project Korea. Which is to say: I am currently in the process of trying to find and disconnect their water supply.
The neighbors’ son saw me trying to do this the other day and started asking probing questions, like “why are you wet” and “what are you doing with that wrench”. He was wearing the uniform of the same school I went to, a place that is still rather affectionately (and snobbishly) called Chiefs College, and I began asking how things were going at school. He took this to heart and relayed all sorts of gossip about the place, even bringing up a Guardian article on his smartphone that ratted on the school and its messy internal politics. Why the Guardian should care what is happening to an all-boys school in Lahore I don’t know (much like why a seventh grader from that school has an iPhone 6S and I don’t). But apparently it was newsworthy. I have a complicated relationship with my high school. It was a nasty place, and in later life some have tried to credit it with my modest success, which always struck me like crediting jail for building Nelson Mandela’s characters. I mean, sure, they tried to kill you and you didn’t die, but apart from that there ain’t much to it.
Personally I would much rather have seen news of the upcoming Lahore Biannual in the Guardian. Have you heard about it? It’s on my mind because after I extricated myself from the neighbors’ son, I went to a dinner party to mark the closing of Rashid Rana’s seminal installation in Lahore’s Liberty Market. In essence, it’s a large, fanciful cube, which has recreated a room in the Venice Biennale and in essence creates a giant Skype screen, where you stand in front of a projection of people in the Venice room and they can see you too. I went to see it when it opened and again a few days ago, before it closed. Funnily enough, there were lots of people also trying to see it (I suspect to being able to say they had before the dinner) and there was much air-kissing and “Howvyoubeeens”. I saw some people staring at us from Venice and thought, “Well, you wanted to see Lahore.”
The dinner was hosted at Tollington Market, which had been made to look rather lovely with warm lighting, white sofas and air-conditioning. There was a brief mingling period followed by a presentation on what the Lahore Biannual will be. I confess, I’m still not on the details but from what I gather the aim is to have public installations all over Lahore, sort of like the Rana one, which is a wonderful idea.
I really hope it works out. Considering how globally aware Pakistani artists are, I have long hoped that the art scene here should have its own internationally-minded event, like we do for literature with the Lahore Literary Festival. Biannuals, when done properly, can do magnificent things for a country’s place in global art. This promises to fulfill that role. I urge any artists reading this to apply ASAP; and I pray that this event will be inclusive and universal, as the best art always is.
On that hopeful note, please excuse me so I can poison my neighbors’ septic tank.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com and follow @fkantawala on twitter
Who’s there?
Kanta.
Kanta-who?
Kanta wait to tell you imm all up in your grill again!
Gird your loins, thicken your skins and prepare to rejoice in splendor for I am back with your weekly dose of, well, me.
Oh how I’ve missed you, I really have. And I’m just going to go out on a limb here and assume that, given how I was replaced with rancid book reviews and curt commentaries on Bollywood, you’ve missed me too.
*hugs*
I’ve had a rather eventful sabbatical actually. I got some work done, applied for stuff, cleaned up my house. For once it was really nice to not wake up at the beginning of every week with the paralyzing fear that a deadline is likely to induce. It’s the same fear as in those dreams when you show up for an O-Level exam unprepared and somehow in the nude.
My internet wires are literally my sole ties to the civilized world
I’ve been busy with other things too, some of which I shall disclose in a few weeks. But one of them has been the ongoing and thus far escalating Battle of Wits that I am engaged in with my new neighbors. Recap: after my previous nemesis Mrs. Marzi kicked her voluminous bucket, her house was sold to a family that had moved here from elsewhere in Punjab (which to a Lahori is usually anywhere after the motorway begins). They spent six months renovating the place into a fairly modern-looking house with a kitchen that had recessed lights, so I had high hopes for our relationship. Things were OK at first; I would smile at the dad whenever we made eye contact while driving past each other and he would smile back. The wife sent me a card on Eid a few months ago and I even sent over a welcome cake (I had just seen The Help on the telly again, which brought out all the kindness in me, despite its pie-related plotline).
Then I began to notice small agressions, East India Company-style. They built a drain so large it felt like an aqueduct, its sole purpose apparently being to flood my driveway; they constructed an elaborate and ugly flowerbed outside my house that looks like the exoskeleton of an alien autopsy gone wrong and is painted in various shades of Vomit; they raised their side of our shared wall (at which I was tempted to go over and say, “You don’t want me to be your Israel, cause I’ll resettle all over you”). But perhaps most hurtful of all, they cut down my internet wires because — wait for it — the wires went past one of their trees.
Cut my trees and cement my drains, I will still love you. But if you are cruel enough to cut my Internet wires — which are literally my sole ties to the civilized world — I will find what you love and kill it in front of you. Thus began Project Korea. Which is to say: I am currently in the process of trying to find and disconnect their water supply.
The neighbors’ son saw me trying to do this the other day and started asking probing questions, like “why are you wet” and “what are you doing with that wrench”. He was wearing the uniform of the same school I went to, a place that is still rather affectionately (and snobbishly) called Chiefs College, and I began asking how things were going at school. He took this to heart and relayed all sorts of gossip about the place, even bringing up a Guardian article on his smartphone that ratted on the school and its messy internal politics. Why the Guardian should care what is happening to an all-boys school in Lahore I don’t know (much like why a seventh grader from that school has an iPhone 6S and I don’t). But apparently it was newsworthy. I have a complicated relationship with my high school. It was a nasty place, and in later life some have tried to credit it with my modest success, which always struck me like crediting jail for building Nelson Mandela’s characters. I mean, sure, they tried to kill you and you didn’t die, but apart from that there ain’t much to it.
Personally I would much rather have seen news of the upcoming Lahore Biannual in the Guardian. Have you heard about it? It’s on my mind because after I extricated myself from the neighbors’ son, I went to a dinner party to mark the closing of Rashid Rana’s seminal installation in Lahore’s Liberty Market. In essence, it’s a large, fanciful cube, which has recreated a room in the Venice Biennale and in essence creates a giant Skype screen, where you stand in front of a projection of people in the Venice room and they can see you too. I went to see it when it opened and again a few days ago, before it closed. Funnily enough, there were lots of people also trying to see it (I suspect to being able to say they had before the dinner) and there was much air-kissing and “Howvyoubeeens”. I saw some people staring at us from Venice and thought, “Well, you wanted to see Lahore.”
The dinner was hosted at Tollington Market, which had been made to look rather lovely with warm lighting, white sofas and air-conditioning. There was a brief mingling period followed by a presentation on what the Lahore Biannual will be. I confess, I’m still not on the details but from what I gather the aim is to have public installations all over Lahore, sort of like the Rana one, which is a wonderful idea.
I really hope it works out. Considering how globally aware Pakistani artists are, I have long hoped that the art scene here should have its own internationally-minded event, like we do for literature with the Lahore Literary Festival. Biannuals, when done properly, can do magnificent things for a country’s place in global art. This promises to fulfill that role. I urge any artists reading this to apply ASAP; and I pray that this event will be inclusive and universal, as the best art always is.
On that hopeful note, please excuse me so I can poison my neighbors’ septic tank.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com and follow @fkantawala on twitter