I think everyone should read more, but from the standpoint of intellectual history, the ironic thing about reading becoming female coded is that education was set up explicitly to prevent women from reading for most of human history.

When i was little, id stare at the photos of these heavenly bodies inside an Encloypedia my parents got me, especially during summer vacations. Hours would pass by and i wouldn't notice. Seeing phobos again made me remember that era, there was something so magical about it.

Will Miss 'Harris in the Streets, Modi in the Sheets' please enlighten us about how a confederal arrangement with no borders etc. and Hindu-Muslim power sharing at the centre would 'ruin everyone's life' as opposed to hard borders and ethnic cleansing?

Jinnah, like Aurangzeb, has become more of a symbol than a man. Both those that hate him and those that love him do it for what they think he represents. The flesh and blood man is buried beneath the pages of history.

Azad claimed that he still remembered word for word all the mutun he memorized during his Dars-e-Nizami days. When a 12 yr old Azad was mocked for his age and questioned if he knew basic grammar by his older classmates, he dragged them into debating logical prepositions with him

Kayi dinon ki kadwi dhoop ke baad khuda ki thandi rehmat baras rahi hai

For Urdu: Kitabdaar (Mumbai), Khuda Bakhsh Library (Patna), Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu Hind & Dilli Kitab Ghar For Hindi: Setu Prakashan, Sahitya Akademi For English: Primus, Fitzcarraldo, NYRB, Seagull I've discovered that they've all been publishing very good books.

The bile directed at her by both Indians and Pakistanis is a great case study on how the average South Asian just doesn't understand what a historian does. Their job isn't to validate your priors. But even non Sanghi uncles got salty at her for not saying India should get it.

You often read of extreme sycophants in history and be surprised at how someone can be so indignant and live with himself. Until you see how faithfully a third world regime bootlicker comes to defend his masters who don't give two shits about his well being