I'd Rather Create A Miniature Painting Than

The World Seems Concerned With Pakistan Primarily As An Actor In Global Attempts To Combat Terrorism.

I Take Six Or Seven Years To Write Really Small Books. There Is A Kind Of Aesthetic Of Leanness, Of Brevity.

Some Of My Relatives Held On To Imagined Memories The Way Homeless People Hold Onto Lottery Tickets. Nostalgia Was Their Crack Cocaine, If You Will, And My Childhood Was Littered With The Consequences Of Their Addiction : Unserviceable Debts, Squabbles Over Inheritances, The Odd Alcoholic Or Suicide.

What Did I Think Of Princeton? Well, The Answer To That Question Requires A Story. When I First Arrived, I Looked Around Me At The Gothic Buildings - Younger, I Later Learned, Than Many Of The Mosques Of This City, But Made Through Acid Treatment And Ingenious Stone-masonry To Look Older.

In A World Of Intrusive Technology, We Must Engage In A Kind Of Struggle If We Wish To Sustain Moments Of Solitude. E-reading Opens The Door To Distraction. It Invites Connectivity And Clicking And Purchasing. The Closed Network Of A Printed Book, On The Other Hand, Seems To Offer Greater Serenity. It Harks Back To A Pre-jacked-in Age. Cloth, Paper, Ink: For These Read Helmet, Cuirass, Shield. They Afford A Degree Of Protection And Make Possible A Less Intermediated, Less Fractured Experience. They Guard Our Aloneness. That Is Why I Love Them, And Why I Read Printed Books Still.