| Art: Bilash Rai |
In 1981, Barack Obama visited his mother and sister in Indonesia. On his return to the US, he stopped for three weeks in Karachi, from where he travelled a bit with two friends from Occidental College, Muhammed Hasan Chandoo and Wahid Hamid. This was a Pakistan in the throes of Zia ul-Haq, and Obama got to see it through the eyes of non-official but still well-heeled Pakistanis. (Based in New York, Chandoo is now a financier, while Hamid is a vice-president with Pepsico.) When asked about his inexperience on matters foreign, Obama today talks about his extensive 'from below' interactions with the peoples and cultures of the planet – thanks in part to his mother, an American who lived in Indonesia, but also to his own curiosity.