Incendiary Circumstances (42 page)

[>]
 "and I, one festival": "Lenox Hill," in
Rooms Are Never Finished,
p. 17.
"Nothing will remain": "The Country Without a Post Office," in
The Country Without a Post Office,
p. 50.
"I will die, in autumn": "The Last Saffron," in
The Country Without a Post Office
p. 27.

[>]
 "Yes, I remember it": Ibid., p. 29.

[>]
 "Mother, they asked me": "Lenox Hill," in
Rooms Are Never Finished,
pp. 18, 19.

 

COUNTDOWN

[>]
 In the course of writing this piece I talked to many hundreds of people in India, Pakistan, and Nepal. The impossibility of severally listing these debts serves only to deepen my gratitude to those who took the time to meet me. The book would be incomplete, however, if I were not to acknowledge my gratitude to the following: Smt. Krishna Bose, M.P., Madiha Gauhur, Shahid Nadeem, Najam Sethi, Dr. Dursameem Ahmed, Eman Ahmed, Dr. Zia Miyan, Dr. M. V. Ramanna, Kunda Dixit, Kanak Dixit, Pritam and Meena Mansukhani, Radhika and Hari Sen, and my infinitely forbearing publisher, Ravi Dayal. Dr. Sunil Mukhi, Dr. Sumit Ranjan Das, Dr. Sourendu Gupta, and other scientists at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay were generous in giving of their time to discuss various aspects of the nuclear issue, from many different points of view: I owe them many thanks. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the
Ananda Bazaar Patrika, Himal,
and
The New Yorker.
I am particularly indebted to Nandi Rodrigo, who did an astonishingly thorough job of fact-checking my
New Yorker
piece, and to Bill Buford, who saw it to press. Madhumita Mazumdar contributed greatly to the background research and provided invaluable logistical support: I am deeply grateful to her.

"Countdown" owes its greatest debt to my wife, Deborah Baker. But for her urging, I would never have committed myself to the many months of labor that went into the writing of this piece; nor would I be in a position to publish it today, in this form, if it were not for her editing. I owe her many, many thanks.

 

THE MARCH OF THE NOVEL THROUGH HISTORY

[>]
 "It has to be pointed out": Nirad Chaudhuri,
Thy Hand, Great Anarch!
(New York: Addison-Wesley 1987), p. 155.

[>]
 "To be up to date": Ibid., p. 156.

[>]
 These stories left their mark: C. E. Dimock, in
The Literature of India, an Introduction,
ed. C. E. Dimock et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974).

[>]
 "Those who are familiar": Bankim Chandra Chatterjee,
Essays and Letters,
in
Bankim Rachanavali
(Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, n.d.).

[>]
 "Notwithstanding all that has been written": Ibid., pp. 192–93.
"obtain some knowledge": Ibid.

[>]
 "The house of Mathur Ghose":
Rajmohun's Wife,
in
Bankim Rachanavali,
ed. Jogesh Chandra Bagal (Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, n.d.), pp. 52–53.
"Madhav therefore immediately hurried": Ibid., p. 17.

 

THE FUNDAMENTALIST CHALLENGE

[>]
 "As far as the Vietnamese": This quotation is from an anonymously authored UNTAC document entitled "Interview with Khat Sali, Sihanoukville (9–10/1/1992)."

[>]
 "at present several dozen people": Amnesty International, "Pakistan: Use and Abuse of Blasphemy Laws," July 24, 1994.
"In a number of cases": Ibid.

[>]
 "In a refugee camp": Internet report, n.d.

 

THE GHOSTS OF MRS. GANDHI

[>]
 "began with the arrival": People's Union for Democratic Rights and People's Union for Civil Liberties, "Who Are the Guilty?: Report of a Joint Inquiry into the Causes and Impact of the Riots in Delhi from 31 October to 10 November 1984," New Delhi, 1984, p. 2.
"Some people, the neighbors": Veena Das, "Our Work to Cry, Your Work
to Listen," in
Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots and Survivors in South East Asia,
ed. Veena Das (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990).

[>]
 "The decision to perceive": Dzevad Karahasan, "Literature and War," In
Sarajevo, Exodus of a City
(New York: Kodansha, 1994).

 

DANCING IN CAMBODIA

[>]
 The account of the royal dance troupe's visit to France with King Sisowath is based on reports in
Le Petit Provençal, Le Petit Marseillais,
and
Le Figaro;
on the
Rapport-Général, Exposition Coloniale National de Marseille, 15 Avril–18 Novembre 1906
(1907), and its accompanying volume,
La Chambre de Commerce de Marseille et l'Exposition Coloniale de 1906
(1908), published by the Chamber of Commerce, Marseille; and on the following letters and documents in the Archives d'Outre-Mer at Aix-en-Provence: Résident-Supérieur in Phnom Penh to Hanoi, May 30, 1905 (re. princes' scholarships to study in France) (GGI 2576); Governor-General to the Minister of Colonies in Paris, April 5, 1906 (GGI 5822); report, F. Gautret, July 1906 (GGI 6643); Minister of Colonies to F. Gautret, Paris, July 18, 1906 (GGI 6643);
Fête du 5 Juillet, 1906, en l'honneur de SM le Roi du Cambodge
...(Ministry of Colonies, 1906); F. Gautret, to the Governor-General, Hanoi, August 20, 1906, Saigon (GGI 6643); itinerary,
Sejour de Sa Majesté Sisowath, Roi du Cambodge en France
(GGI 6643); Résident-Supérieur to Governor-General, January 18, 1907, containing a French translation of the royal proclamation on the king's voyage, issued under the signatures of King Sisowath and five ministers (GGI 5822); Minister Thiounn to Résident-Supérieur, July 9, 1907 (GGI 2576); correspondence between the Cour des Comptes, Paris, Saigon, and Phnom Penh on expenses of the royal entourage (1901–11), including Minister Thiounn's response (August 13, 1910) (GGI 15606). The quotations in section 8 are from
Rodin et l'Extrême Orient
(Musée Rodin, Paris, 1979), and from Frederic V. Grunefeld's
Rodin; A Biography
(New York: Holt, 1987). Biographical and other details on Cambodian politics and history are mainly from Milton E. Osborne's
The French Presence in Cochinchina and Cambodia: Rule and Response (1859–1950)
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969); David Chandler's
Brother Number One; A Political Biography of Pol Pot
(Westview, Conn.: Oxford University Press, 1992); Ben Kiernan's
How Pol Pot Came to Power: A History of Communism in Kampuchea, 1930–1975
(London: Verso, 1985), and Elizabeth Becker's
When the War Was Over: The Voices of Cambodia's Revolution and Its People
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986).
The author gratefully acknowledges the help of the staff of the
Archives d'Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence and of the following individuals: Christian Oppetit, conservator of the archives of the Département des Bouches-du-Rhône; Annie Terrier, Christianne Besse, Eva Mysliwiec, Chanthou Boua, Tan Sotho, Choup Sros, Kim Rath, Bill Lobban, Mr. T. P. Seetharam, Col. Suresh Nair, and Mrs. Pushpa Nair.

The following pieces have appeared previously in print, sometimes in a slightly different form, as noted. An excerpt from "The Town by the Sea" was published in the
New York Times
on January 14, 2005. Parts of "Imperial Temptations" were published in
The Nation
on May 9, 2002, and
The New Yorker
on April 7, 2003 (as "The Anglophone Empire"). "September 11," "Countdown," "At Large in Burma," and "The Ghosts of Mrs. Gandhi" were published in
The New Yorker
(September 24, 2001; October 26, 1998; August 12, 1996; and July 17, 1995, respectively). Excerpts from "'The Ghat of the Only World'" were published in
The Nation
on February 11, 2002. "The March of the Novel Through History" was published in
Kunapipi: A Journal of Post-Colonial Writing
(vol. 19) and in the
Kenyon Review
(vol. 20, no. 2, 1998). "The Fundamentalist Challenge" was published in the
Wilson Quarterly
in 1995. "Petrofiction" and "The Human Comedy in Cairo" were published in the
New Republic
(March 2, 1992, and May 7, 1990, respectively). "Dancing in Cambodia" (in shorter form), "An Egyptian in Baghdad," and "Four Corners" were published in
Granta
(no. 44, 1993; no. 34, 1990; no. 26, 1989, respectively). "Tibetan Dinner" was published in
Granta
(no. 25, 1988) and reprinted in the
Utne Reader
(March 1, 1992). "The Imam and the Indian" was published in
Granta
(no. 20, 1986) and reprinted in
The Best of Granta Travel
(London: Granta Books, 1991) and in
Displacements: Cultural Identities in Question,
ed. Angelika Bammer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).

The author is grateful for permission to print excerpts from the following works:

Agha Shahid Ali, "A Lost Memory of Delhi," from
The Half-Inch Himalayas,
copyright © 1987 by Agha Shahid Ali. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.

Agha Shahid Ali, "The Country Without a Post Office" and "Farewell," from
The Country Without a Post Office,
by Agha Shahid Ali. Copyright © 1997 by Agha Shahid Ali. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Agha Shahid Ali, "Lenox Hill," "The Last Saffron," "Summers of Translation," and "I Dream I Am at the Ghat of the Only World," from
Rooms Are Never Finished,
by Agha Shahid Ali. Copyright © 2002 by Agha Shahid Ali. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Michael Ondaatje, "Wells" and "The Story," from
Handwriting,
by Michael Ondaatje. Copyright © 1998 by Michael Ondaatje. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.