The Thing About This Is...

pfffght! I think I might just go round conversing in Hindi to annoy people. After all I am a deshi expat who lives in London and so must be confused about my identity because it's all mish mash of Bollywood and English here so makes us cultureless by definition(!) Actually think I might do the cliché thing and quote a bit of the Quran: 049.013 YUSUFALI: O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).

OK, so I didn't write this article (below). But it would be super cool to be a science jounalist I think. Imperial actually offers science jounalism now and I am thinking maybe... Medieval Islamic tiling reveals mathematical savvy 19:00 22 February 2007 NewScientist.com Jeff Hecht Medieval Islamic designers used elaborate geometrical tiling patterns at least 500 years before Western mathematicians developed the concept. The geometric design, called "girih", was widely used to decorate Islamic buildings but the advanced mathematical concept within the patterns was not recognised, until now. Physicist Peter Lu at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, realised the 15th-century tiles formed so-called Penrose geometric patterns, when he spotted them on a visit to Uzbekistan. Scholars had thought the girih were created by drawing a zigzag network of lines with a straight edge and compass. But when Lu looked at them, he recognised the regular but non-repetitive pa...

First discovered Dr. Rupa Huq here . From Desh , a lecturer in Sociology from Kingston with an impressive publication list - a well established individual indeed. I got to meet Dr. Rupa Huq earlier this evening amongst a panellist discussion on the Bangladeshi Diaspora Identity . This was a broad topic, so people were shooting off at all different angles. Rupa impressed me a bit. She probably would have impressed me a whole lot more if I could have spoken to her one-to-one without the rude interruptions from others, who felt the need to voice their opinions over mine, etiquette people! Anyway... I liked the way she touched on the glorified portrayal of the Bengali identity which you got from the sasa -generations . Something along the lines of; we owe our heritage to Rabrindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray - the clean, upper class, artistic types - the "good" ones that came out of Bengal. Also not forgetting, Ekushey February ( ami ki buliteh pari ...? ) Of course...

Emerged out of a panel discussion yesterday at LSE. (ok, my tabloid beginning is done, the rest could sound a little boring...) Panellists included: Omar Faruk, Barrister, Chair of Southwark Muslim Forum Niaz Alam, Solicitor, Director of The Ethical Trading Initiative Dr Kamrun Hassan, something to do with Education Asif Saleh, Founder of Drishtiphat, a Human Rights NGO from Bangladesh Chair: a moody PhD student from King's College London. It was a Question Time sort of an affair on the future of Bangladesh but none of the panellists were actually a resident of Bangladesh (bar one maybe). It didn't stick to one agenda, Democracy and Theocracy were hardly the crux of the discussion, or maybe I missed it when I was dozing.. . Sharia The only main point I could find interesting to mention is the need to understand the Sharia. Most of us are ignorant of religious doctrines (myself included) and well a lot of us don't favour Islamic Law given the examples that exist, ie. Saudi, ...

attempt #7.