#magical colonisation

See, I don’t understand what the British wizarding world’s problem is with flying carpets. The Ministry of Magic over there banned them because they were a ‘Muggle object’ - because brooms don’t exist in the Muggle world at all, nooooooo. And they’re expecting the rest of the world to follow suit because they’re Brits and therefore know better?

Hell the sort of brooms you see in England - whether as transport or as cleaning tool - aren’t even that common elsewhere. This, for example, is a more common type of 'broom’ in Asia, particularly where my parents are from:

Yes, a bundle of sticks. Sure, you could magically reinforce them so that they don’t break, but the idea of sitting on a bunch of splinters doesn’t appeal to me.

I did try out flying during my brief time at Hogwarts. It’s…okay, but probably overrated. The broomsticks aren’t particularly comfortable, it takes an incredible amount of balance, and you’re basically trying to keep yourself stable on a tiny tiny amount of space. And you can’t really carry anything that you’re not wearing (though I have been told of broomsticks that come with luggage baskets charmed to carry any amount of items).

Flying carpets though? They’re wide, they’re soft, they’re gentle. You can bring multiple people and a whole host of objects. Many of them do double duty too - that one in the picture? You put it over any surface and it gives you instant access to hidden levels and rooms - if there’s nothing there, or if you’re a Muggle or jadunai, all you see is a pretty design. Sometimes you just don’t have time to hunt for trapdoors.

One of my uncles designs flying carpets. A lot of the ones his company makes are pretty standard, like how there are regular family cars. But they’re also doing a lot of groundbreaking work with carpets, openly borrowing from the jadunai, knowing that a lot of technological innovation on the jadunai side was inspired by us anyway so why restrict ourselves? It’s just symbiosis, says he. I was kind of young when I met him and his carpet company for the first time, visiting family back in Bidesh, and the carpets were the main thing I remember about that entire trip.

He had all sorts of fun stuff: carpets with built-in compasses (some of those have compasses that point to the Kaabah so they can double as Muslim prayer mats), this prototype where the carpet itself was a GPS system, ones with voice command, I think they were working on one that purifies the air or does something to reduce carbon footprints. All very imaginative innovative stuff.

And what do the Brits, the Bilatis do? BAN THEM. Probably because they feel threatened that some backwards region of the world can be more magically advanced than they are. 'Muggle objects’, pah.

There’s a lot about Bideshi magic that I’m still struggling to wrap my head around, so much that I don’t even know. But flying carpets? Here is where we win.

[[not sure where the original carpet picture is from. picture source for the lidi broom.]]