I have learned the words of bloodstained courts in order to break the rules.
I have learned and dismantled all the words to construct a singe one:
Home
-Mahmoud Darwish, "I am from There"
Last week, a peculiar, if not weird, event took place. The city was Patan, a centre of urban civilisation for over two millennia. The setting was an oblong hall remodeled from a garage of horse-drawn carriages—a baggikhana—that was built over half a century ago for a prince. People attending the ceremony formed an eclectic mix—an academic, three editors, three teachers, a few journalists, couple of students, some activists, and a human-rights activist turned international bureaucrat. People of diverse background, with practically nothing in common except a surfeit of enthusiasm for nothing in particular, congregating to discuss something that very few of them knew well; such an intellectual adventure is possible only in Kathmandu. Mountains do something to the spirit that makes you believe that anything is possible.
The purpose of the meeting was no less strange. The group had gathered there for a reading in honour of Edward Said, the iconic figure of post-colonialism. Said had practically established the creed with his book Orientalism, first published in 1978. A group of amateurs analysing the icon of post-colonialism in the capital city of a country that was never colonised—this too could happen only in Kathmandu. Amateurs, as Said himself had observed in a different context, are free of fragile egos. Recklessness of the ignorant is emminently suitable for all adventures, including intellectual explorations.
The stage looked set for some arcane ritual with a khada-draped picture of the Arab-American professor solemnly placed on a pedestal. Idol worship is taboo in Arab culture, but then in addition to being born a Christian, Said was more of an American than an Arab. Therefore, the idolatry perhaps did not matter. The late professor would have approved of the mazma-like atmosphere of the majlis too. After all, he had been a prominent non-conformist himself. Once he even penned a moving paean in memory of an Egyptian belly dancer.