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Amit Schandillia

@Schandillia

Nov 27

In case you didn’t notice, something amusing is going down in our northern neighborhood.

Turns out, COVID is making a comeback in China. But that isn’t the amusing part. The amusing bit is what China’s doing to contain this rerun…or in its pretext, depending on how you see it.

So there’s an all-under-one-roof app called WeChat. Remember, you used it too once upon a time?

So just like all else in that country, WeChat is a directly or indirectly a Communist Party asset.

And it’s indispensable.

I say all under one roof because you use it for not just messaging but for everything else—shopping, train tickets, flights, utility bills, you name it.

And it has a QR code.

A bloody important QR code, that literally governs your life and your movements.

How?

Read 13 tweets

Amit Schandillia

@Schandillia

Nov 26

[🧵: KOBOR]
1/35
This is no history thread. Just sharing one of my favorite pieces of poetry that happens to be so long, it has to be a thread.

The title of the poem is কবর (Kobor), Bengali for grave. Yes, it’s a Bengali poem and what I’m sharing is an English translation.

2/35
It was composed by a man from what’s today Bangladesh. His name is Jasimuddin. A University of Calcutta alumnus, Jasimuddin started writing poems at a very young age and would go on to write thousands over the years becoming one of the most celebrated in all of Bengal.

3/35
Jasimuddin’s magic lay in his depiction of rural life through his exceptionally long ballads. Kobor is one such example. It’s a poem, but in a way, it’s also a painting. For this remarkable quality, they called him Palli Kabi, Bengali for ‘pastoral poet.’

Read 35 tweets

Amit Schandillia

@Schandillia

Nov 12

When Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (Latinized, Rhazes) was tasked by Caliph al-Muktafī to scout for a location for an upcoming hospital in Baghdad, he placed meat at various spots all over the city. Then picked the one where the rot was the least. The air there must be good, he reasoned.

Al-Rāzī would go on to produce more than 200 books, including the posthumously compiled Al-Hawi fi al-Tibb, known in Europe as Liber Continens, a seminal encyclopedic work in medicine considered most influential in Europe for centuries after his death.

He remained a generous physician and often treated poor patients without a fee. With age, cataract blinded him in both eyes and he eventually had to give up practice.

By then, however, he’d already established himself as a central figure in medieval medicine.

Read 9 tweets

Amit Schandillia

@Schandillia

Nov 11

[🧵: A PERSONAL STORY]
1/33
Do you believe in miracles?

Okay, lemme rephrase the question: Are miracles a thing?

Let’s put a pin on that question as we begin this story. A story that begins on Facebook. More than ten years ago. In a very different world than today’s.

2/33
So I joined the platform like anyone else, with the simple objective of staying in touch with old friends and making new ones. Things stayed as mundane as you’d expect of anyone on Facebook in 2011 for several years.

Until 2014.

3/33
You see, until that point, I was, in every sense of the word, apolitical. Didn’t bother me one bit who governed the country, they were all crooked anyway.

Then came Modi.

Now, I had known the name since 2002 for obvious reasons. But never bothered to care beyond knowing.

Read 33 tweets

Amit Schandillia

@Schandillia

Nov 5

[OLDEST ARABIC TEXT]

This is the famous trilingual Zabad inscription from Aleppo, Syria. Dating back to 512 AD, it’s the world’s oldest extant writing in Arabic. The other two scripts are Greek and Syriac (a script long extinct).

The inscription sits atop the doorway of a shrine that serves as the martyrion of St. Sergius, a Roman soldier who was beheaded for his Christian faith and later beatified as the patron saint of Arab Christians.

If you notice, the Arabic of this inscription looks very different from the one seen today. And that’s reflective of the epigraphic evolution the script has undergone over the centuries.

Read 4 tweets

Amit Schandillia

@Schandillia

Oct 23

[🧵: MOONLIGHTING, A DIWALI LEGEND]
1/24
Once upon a time, there was a king. But he wasn’t always one. The man, originally from Multan, started off as a horse attendant in the employ of a wealthy merchant, then climbed up the ladder to eventually become a king.

2/24
Now, goes without saying, the ascent must have been spectacular, but we won’t get into that here. What matters to the story is that the man was also eccentric. And eccentricity isn’t very conducive to a king’s shelf life.

This one only reigned for five years.

3/24
But boy, were those five years eventful! Not only did he float a dynasty that lasted no fewer than nine kings over nearly a century, but he also built himself a new capital in Delhi.

By the way, we’re talking early 14th century here. Delhi was not a city but a region.

Read 24 tweets

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