Colours of Independence

A Time Patrol Movie: Pakistan in the ’50’s Hop on Equinoxio’s Time-Space shuttle to Pakistan in the early 50’s. See the visit of India’s Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru to Pakistan. His first visit was in 1953. After Independence in 1947 and the Partition of Hindu India and Moslem Pakistan, 15 million people were displaced, and…

Time Patrol, Karachi, Pakistan, 1949

A Time Patrol movie “Salaam, Memsahib Renée, Salaam. Is that your little dog? What’s its name?” “Salaam Shah. Her name is Yashmak.” “A pretty name Memsahib. Come! Come! Let’s go to the Boree Bazaar. Jaldi, jaldi.” “Maybe we take the Bara Sahib Cyril’s car? A new French car. Very different from the English cars. Mohamed…

The fisherman

My name is Shah. I am a Sindhi. My people have lived on these shores for centuries, thousands of years maybe. Caravans have come from Baluchistan to the Sindh, to Punjab, to Rajasthan, to Gujarat and back since the beginning of Time. Me? I’m just a fisherman. My father taught me my trade when I…

March 20th 1918. A century.

March 20th 1918, a century ago, my father Cyril was born in Saint-Malo, Brittany, a city of sailors and privateers. His mother, Julie Onraët, was born in India, of an Anglo-French family of indigo planters, and Indian Civil Service. God save the King and all that. His father, Pierre Martin, was the son of a…

Pot-seven-pourri-forty

Colours , Mexico city. 2016 Grey. Bogotá, Colombia, 1940. “Cough syrup Escovar. Cough. Flu. Colds.” Musée de l’Homme, Paris. 1916. Contemporary African art. Breton knight ready for tournament. c. mid 1300’s. Bibliothèque Nationale. (c)ourtesy Honorine Tellier. Visit her great blog for horse lovers here: (Honorine je ne t’ai pas demandé la permission… Pas de souci?) https://artequestre.wordpress.com/author/pouruncentaure/…

Snowball

I was born at 3:44 AM on Mohammad Ali Jinnah Street, at the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital in Karachi, Province of Sindh. Why the Seventh Day Adventist? Not a clue. Most likely our dear Doctor friend Max Meyer had selected the place as being the best for my arrival. Mohammad Ali Jinnah was the founder…

Pot-pourri six-and-twenty

Somerset Maugham used to write his numbers “backwards”, German-style: six-and-twenty, sex und zwanzig. I don’t know if that was the rule in “oulde” english. Maugham had his heyday around the thirties. I’ve never read english numbers written so by anyone else. Regardless, here is Pot-pourri six-and-twenty. Fasten your seat belts. The above: “Global warNing”. Paris,…