Remembering Michael
I and many others associated with the Watson Institute at Brown University were very saddened to learn yesterday of Michael Bhatia’s death in Afghanistan. The circumstances of his death are not yet known, but we do know that Michael was a young promising scholar and, more importantly, an affable, warm and engaging person. I got to know Michael when we were both at Waston in 2006 and 2007. Some of our interaction was in the context of our work on the project “Cultural Awareness in the Military”, but more often our exchanges took place in the hallways of Watson, at the doors of our offices, and over lunches on Thayer Street. I’m not exactly sure how to describe Michael. Whatever I have to say will surely fall short. Michael’s warmth and enthusiasm filled any room. He was extremely sharp and yet unassuming. No conversation with Michael was vacuous or uninteresting, whether it was about Afghanistan, International Relations, photography or women, and although he had significantly more academic and real-world experience than me he never took what I had to say lightly. We spent many hours talking about my dissertation and on more than one occasion he dropped by my office just to give me a book or relay thoughts that he had about my dissertation. This sort of engagement was incredibly giving. Whether it’s the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. soldiers and marines, or social scientists and global civil servants like Michael, these conflicts have been acutely felt among us. It’s particularly unfortunate that Michael died in a place where he sought to highlight the complexity and richness of daily life and the struggles and joys that occur alongside and within the context of conflict. My thoughts go out to Michael’s family and friends. We mourn and remember Michael. His influence in the form of his writing, his work abroad, and our memories of him will endure. I encourage you to take a look at Michael’s very well written article in The Globalist entitled “Shooting Afghanistan: Beyond the Conflict”. There is also an article on the Watson website in memory of Michael.
