There are times where I feel that I don’t completely fill up to my “Bosnia-to-Bengal” promise and I kind of voiced that apprehension from the beginning of this blog. As much as I try, most of the material is about the ex-Ottoman sphere that my family come from. INDIA, one of my great intellectual and aesthetic and emotional fascinations, kinna gets short shrift from me unless it’s Bollywood or nasty shit like what’s going on now, and IRAN itself, the font and origin of all Indo-Aryan civilization, gets even less attention.
Ironically, though, India is always second place in readers on every post I put up. Ok, India is huge, but this is an out-of-proportion percentage of readership that can’t just be about numbers. Some folks there are interested it seems in most things I write. Like Greeks — both classical and modern — curiosity seems to have deep intellectual roots for Indians — both classical and modern. And I get repeated hits about any Agha Shahid Ali post I put up.
So, I’m setting up a weird little “shukriya” lottery for you guys. The SEVENTH (7th) and TWELFTH (12th) reader (that’s right, just like the imams) from Iran, India, Pakistan, Kashmir, Bangladesh, Afghanistan or Sri Lanka, who is not worried about sending me his address, and writes in asking for the prize, will get as a present from us one of the two following books:
OR
Please specify which you would like — we can’t afford to send you both, as much as we would want to.
Send your entry to: nikobakos@gmail.com. All we need is your name and address. Please don’t be scared. Your info will not go beyond our keyboard.
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Heading west to more familiar Jadde territory, any eastern Christian: Slav or Albanian or Greek Orthodox, or Armenian or Egyptian Copt, or any of the dizzying plethora of Christian groups of the Levant or Mesopotamia, will receive, as Lent begins this Monday, the following beautiful book of Alexander Schmemann, the Russian theologian:
Again, you just need to be either the SEVENTH (7th) or TWELFTH (12th) reader to send us your name and address and your prize will be at your door or p.o. box as fast as we can arrange it.
Finally, if you can drop us a short blurb about why you like the “Jadde” or why you hate it or what you would like to see more of, it would be greatly appreciated.
Haydi.
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Comment: nikobakos@gmail.com
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Jadde: from Bosnia to Bengal 
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