an itinerant observer

1.       The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all And in the darkness bind them. In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie.” [The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien] And thus started, during my teens, a lifelong love affair with this epic trilogy – probably, the most popular work of all time from within the fantasy genre. That there can be reality in fantasy accompanied the realization that Tolkien’s Middle Earth is no different from the world that I inhabit. As happens in Middle Earth, there are hobbits, elves, dwarves, mythical and magical figures or creatures around me and in me – yet the beauty and evil, light and dark, of that human entity is paramount. I would like to call upon the  Tolkienian  in you to recall the conversation between Gandalf the wizard and Frodo Baggins a hobbit, and the presumably inconsequential ring bearer, in the 1st part, ‘...

Today marked week three of relocation to Karachi from Houston.  My family comprising my wife and two young children, aged eleven and six, respectively, had finally taken the plunge. We had moved back irrespective of the predominantly discouraging comments of well wishers in both cities – their basic contention being that it was not the ‘right time’ to move to Karachi given the volatility, insecurity and unpredictability inherent in that city. Initially, my rambly writings had helped me tremendously in settling down, or at least that’s how it felt. Each week I had attempted to write on something related to Karachi that could be compared and contrasted with Houston. As I had mentioned in a previous entry of the Karachi-Houston diaries, finding something to write about was not always easy. I would scratch my head aplenty and if that didn’t help then I would beseech the muses, more in my heart now, to reveal to me my next writing mission. That morning, I had walked out on to the...

On Observing Itinerantly “What does itinerant mean?” someone asked after obtaining my book. The question was a source of annoyance primarily because I expected the presumptive reader to seek out the meaning of itinerant prior to delving into the observations of one. But then I thought about the question from a broader perspective - the ethos of being an itinerant observer: what does it really mean to observe during one’s journey? An itinerant observer is really a time traveler. He observes life - human, animal, or plant – and then documents what he sees irrespective of perceived space or time aberrations or limitations. What does that mean you might ask. Well…if you consider time to be cyclical then the past, present and future don’t align themselves on a linear continuum…and then observing itinerantly becomes second nature. But what does that mean you might ask. If so, I will refer you to the preface of my book in which I tried explaining all of the above ‘phenomena’ to ...