in memoriam
There were all these other things I wanted write about, but right now there's only this: my friend Michael was killed yesterday in Afghanistan.
I hadn't seen him for a couple of years; we'd fallen out of touch after leaving Oxford. For as long as I'd known him, he'd been working on Afghanistan--conducting research for a remarkable interview-based study of the Afghan mujahideen, and consulting for various NGOs. His love for the country is transparent in this photo essay he published summer. Last I'd heard, he was back at Brown, his alma mater, serving as a visiting fellow in international relations. I didn't know that he'd recently started working as a 'field social scientist' with NATO forces.
Oxford was full of overachievers, but Michael stood out even among that crowd; I was equal parts impressed and intimidated when he had his first book published while still only a grad student. But he was also one of those people who, while intimidating on paper (one look at his achievements tells you why) somehow managed to be not the least bit so in person--just smart, generous, dedicated, and funny. It's hard to watch these short clips of him speaking, but his intellect and warmth come through clearly.
And yet, they only show one side: I also remember a story about a champagne-fueled punting trip down the Isis, with a smoking hookah carefully balanced on board. (I think it was the same green hookah I later inherited; it still sits in a friend's house in Oxford.) Or a lively goodbye party, before another trip to Afghanistan, at the top of the founder's building, and days on the river--he was an avid rower, and it was that as much as political or academic interests that we had in common. When I got home, I went looking for pictures of him, and found some from the Boat Race in 2004--when several of us went to London to watch Oxford chase Cambridge down the Thames, and later left the tables of a dosa restaurant in Hammersmith stained with dark-blue face-paint. My thoughts are with his family and friends and all the others remembering him today.
I hadn't seen him for a couple of years; we'd fallen out of touch after leaving Oxford. For as long as I'd known him, he'd been working on Afghanistan--conducting research for a remarkable interview-based study of the Afghan mujahideen, and consulting for various NGOs. His love for the country is transparent in this photo essay he published summer. Last I'd heard, he was back at Brown, his alma mater, serving as a visiting fellow in international relations. I didn't know that he'd recently started working as a 'field social scientist' with NATO forces.
Oxford was full of overachievers, but Michael stood out even among that crowd; I was equal parts impressed and intimidated when he had his first book published while still only a grad student. But he was also one of those people who, while intimidating on paper (one look at his achievements tells you why) somehow managed to be not the least bit so in person--just smart, generous, dedicated, and funny. It's hard to watch these short clips of him speaking, but his intellect and warmth come through clearly.
And yet, they only show one side: I also remember a story about a champagne-fueled punting trip down the Isis, with a smoking hookah carefully balanced on board. (I think it was the same green hookah I later inherited; it still sits in a friend's house in Oxford.) Or a lively goodbye party, before another trip to Afghanistan, at the top of the founder's building, and days on the river--he was an avid rower, and it was that as much as political or academic interests that we had in common. When I got home, I went looking for pictures of him, and found some from the Boat Race in 2004--when several of us went to London to watch Oxford chase Cambridge down the Thames, and later left the tables of a dosa restaurant in Hammersmith stained with dark-blue face-paint. My thoughts are with his family and friends and all the others remembering him today.
Michael Bhatia, 7 May 2008.
posted by kitabet at 6:49 PM
3 Comments:
A great loss - not only for his family and friends but also for the community of scholars around the world. RIP.
manan
Hi Elizabeth - I was very sorry about Michael and hope his death hasn't contributed to your silence here. In other words, I hope you're OK.
thank you, m. and thank you, Beth. I've been quiet for a number of reasons, but I'm back, now.
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