Lovely event yesterday moderating a panel at the South Asia Institute, for the Dipika Mukherjee: Dialect of Distant Harbors | Book Launch.
We could’ve talked for hours more, but Dipika, Faisal Mohyuddin and I had a pretty robust and interesting conversation; I think the Institute recorded video, so I’ll post that if it becomes available.
I’m mostly posting, of course, because of the Malaysian food, which was delicious. 
*****
This is the opening poem to the book:
Wanderlust Ghazal
My language is a Bedouin thief, delighting in foreign sands;
it understands the erasure of monks, the ritual of palimpsests.
English has no word for Hemanta. no, not Autumn, nor Winter.
No Harvest Goddess, in a veil of mists, opaquely drawn.
The evening lamp in her hand gleams lambent through the fog;
Her voice merges into the howling wind. With abundance, desolation.
Every year, Mount Kinabalu is still wreathed in monsoon clouds.
Cloud messengers may be different, but some still speak of love.
Malay lascars sang of narrow boats, with pineapples stacked too high;
A grievous vastness to this world, beyond human experience.
Wanderlust is a disease. Incurable. Deep from within, it chortles,
The light of the moon cannot be rooted, Dipika, do not even try!
*****
Learn more about the book here: https://press.uchicago.edu/…/distrib…/D/bo185843927.html
My eyes are, of course, closed in the photo. Alas!
