Art by Thomas Cole (1801 – 1848). From Public Domain
MY CAT IN HIS GARDEN
As my young cat seeks new experiences, he’s obsessed with a beetle, whose interesting pincers are defiantly bared, but my cat is undismayed. He’s far too young to think of being afraid, until he gets stung. Once I was like him, finding intrigue in anything new. I never gave a thought to growing old, until I got there. It’s true, death itself has no sting, but journeying there is often an unpleasant thing.
CEREMONY IN ABSENTIA
The girls leave the factory, joking and laughing making plans for the night. I wish I could join them, but I had my day. I danced and drank with the best, but when I married my wife, I forgot all the rest. As I pour a glass of wine, I fall into a melancholy mood. I stare at distant mountains, So far away, and yet they appear to be so near. Today would be your birthday, wife, if you were still here.
A MOMENT IN NATURE
A breeze rustles the leaves at the edge of the bay, The stars make night almost as clear as day. On the lake, from far away, a loon cries. Is it a greeting or a warning? The lake is now a quiet desert, but tonight strong winds will blow, and waves will beat like furious fists against an impenetrable shore. This rage is also nature. Some say we should search for the good in a benevolent nature. Forgive me, as I observe a harmless worm, struggle through the grass, eyed by a hungry bird, until the worm arrives, at its predestined end. That bird’s stomach is not his friend.
George Freek’s poetry has recently appeared in The Ottawa Arts Review, Acumen, The Lake, The Whimsical Poet, Triggerfish and Torrid Literature.
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Title: Odisha — 500 Years of Turmoil, Mayhem, and Subjugation
Author: Bhaskar Parichha
Publisher: Pen In Books
Bhaskar Parichha, a veteran journalist and chronicler of Odisha’s socio-political life, brings his characteristic blend of reportage and reflective commentary into his new book, Odisha — 500 Years of Turmoil, Mayhem and Subjugation. The book aspires to narrate a long and complex history, tracing Odisha’s journey from the sixteenth century, marked by the fall of indigenous rule to the emergence of a modern regional identity.
Yet, beneath this ambitious sweep lies a narrative that is as interpretative as it is descriptive, raising important questions about how history itself is framed and understood. The work begins with the defeat of Mukunda Deva in 1568 and the subsequent Afghan, Mughal, and British domination. Parichha presents this prolonged period as one of continuous ‘turmoil’, treating history not as a sequence of isolated events but as a sustained condition shaping both political structures and collective consciousness. This approach is compelling in that it foregrounds Odisha’s endurance amid repeated disruptions and external pressures, offering a unifying thread across centuries of change.
However, the emphasis on ‘turmoil’ also tends to compress the complexity of the past into a single unifying metaphor. Odisha’s history is not solely a chronicle of suffering and subjugation; it is equally a story of resilience, adaptation, and cultural vitality. Movements such as the Bhakti tradition, the inclusive ethos of the Jagannath cult, and the flourishing of Odia literature from Sarala Das to Fakir Mohan Senapati offer strong countercurrents of continuity and renewal. By privileging a single interpretative perspective, the book tends to underplay these parallel trajectories that sustained the region’s cultural and social life.
One of the book’s notable strengths lies in its accessibility. He writes with clarity and ease, avoiding dense academic terminology while presenting a broad historical panorama. His narrative remains engaging without being overloaded with excessive detail, making the work approachable for general readers. In this respect, the book successfully bridges the gap between scholarship and public discourse, a hallmark of the author’s journalistic sensibility.
Yet, this accessibility also introduces certain limitations. The narrative relies more on synthesis and interpretation than on original archival research, and at times reads more like reflective commentary than rigorous historiography. Some crucial areas, particularly colonial economic policies and their long-term effects on agrarian structures and livelihoods, would have benefited from deeper engagement with primary sources and established historical scholarship. A more balanced analysis of these aspects could have strengthened the analytical depth of the work.
The question of identity forms a central concern throughout the book. Parichha underscores the importance of cultural consciousness in shaping regional development and portrays centuries of political domination as persistent threats to Odisha’s selfhood. While this argument is persuasive in its broad outline, it occasionally leans toward a somewhat essentialist view of identity. Odisha’s internal diversity, regional, linguistic, and social, receives limited attention, and the narrative at times presents the region as a unified entity rather than a complex and evolving mosaic.
The book is most engaging when it attempts to connect past and present. It suggests that contemporary challenges, such as underdevelopment and governance issues, are rooted in historical patterns of marginalisation and neglect. While this linkage is insightful, it can appear somewhat deterministic, underestimating the role of present-day current capacity for action, policy interventions, and recent progress in reshaping Odisha’s trajectory.
Odisha — 500 Years of Turmoil, Mayhem and Subjugation is best read as a reflective interpretation rather than a definitive historical account. Its value lies in its readability and its capacity to provoke critical reflection on questions of identity, continuity, and historical memory. Despite its limitations, the book succeeds in opening a meaningful conversation about how Odisha’s past is narrated, remembered, and reimagined in the present.
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Rabindra Kumar Nayak is a former Reader in English. He has translated The Maharani’s Son, which is the English version of the original Odia novel, Maharani Putra, authored by the esteemed Odia writer Pratibha Ray. This work has been published by Sahitya Akademi.
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A desert flower Blooms alone A desert soul Amidst thorns and stone
The desert flower Dried to the bone Seeks its water on its own
the deserted lover bitter grown still thrives and blooms among the windblown
begs not for love from those unknown but seeks it all within cause trust has flown
Hurt has flamed to anger The ashes turn to hate The lover drinks deep of the self The soul needs to satiate
A freedom to be so untouched The lover is not alone The desert flower stands tall Seeks its water on its own
A. Jessie Michael is a retired Associate Professor of English from Malaysia. She has written short stories for online journals, local magazines and newspapers. She has published an anthology of short stories Snapshots, with two other writers and most recently her own anthology The Madman and Other Stories (2016).
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If one wants to understand the ‘chaos theory’, one has to place oneself at the centre of ‘around about’ — the way the traffic weaves around, observing the traffic go by as everyone swerves to get to their destinations. The one from 9 o’clock reaches 3 o’clock; 6 o’clock reaches 12 o’clock. It does not matter whether the vehicle is following or counter to the traffic flow; it gets through.
Adding to the pandemonium is the incessant honking from all right, left and centre.
Despite knowing all these, after our stint from Kashmir to Leh, India still managed to lure us back. This time around, we signed up for a tour across Rajasthan, from Jaipur to Udaipur.
Day 0: Delhi to Jaipur
After landing in Delhi from Kuala Lumpur late at night, we left for Jaipur the next morning. We had our first lesson in chaos theory that morning. The confusion about transport arrangements, running to get a taxi in a hurry, rushing to an unmarked site designated as Jaipur bus station, waiting for a bus we thought had left, and finally getting on the correct bus were all proof that the churning of the Universe is indeed impossible to comprehend.
Despite all the traffic jams, the packed vehicles and our increasing anxiety not to miss the bus, all the taxi driver could tell us was “aram sey!” (equivalent to saying, take a chill pill).
Jaipur, the Pink City, had its rare February showers the day before. As if to usher in our visit, the large part of the city around the lake, Jal Mahal, was in full gear, preparing for an air show. We managed to catch a glimpse of what the Indian Air Force had in store.
Jaipur showcases a history that built alliances with the Mughals and managed to preserve its buildings and heritage. Their allegiance with the invaders could have been viewed as betrayal by their contemporaries, the Sikhs and Marathas, who were fighting tooth and nail against the Mughals. Ajmer Fort is a massive fort with brilliant engineering.
To top that, there is a stepwell, Phanna Meena Ka Kund, with its intricate geometrical design that has stood the test of time. Jaipur is known as the Pink City, not without good reason. The roads leading to town are paved, lined with multiple red buildings and architectural marvels. The intricacies of Hawa Mahal make it look like a 3-D movie cutout propped against a building. It was too beautiful to be true.
Phanna Meena Ka KundHawa Mahal
Adjacent to the Hawa Mahal is Jantar Mantar, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that houses the world’s largest stone sundial clocks. One cannot help but wonder: with so much scientific knowledge in their ancient past, how did they just fall like swatted flies when the Western imperial powers walked over them in the 18th century through to the 20th?
Day 1: Jaipur to Sambhar
We started early at 6 am to avoid the morning traffic. Surprisingly, Rajasthanis must be early risers, as even at that early hour, the streets were already bustling with activity.
The itinerary for each day was straightforward. We would cycle daily around 70-90km, with a water break every 20-30km, and reach our predetermined accommodations around noon. There were 12 cyclists; the youngest was 33, but most were over 60.
The route on the first day was mainly flat, traversing small towns and villages, and sometimes haggling with motorcycles, lorries, and buses for space to pass. The trouble is that the vehicle sometimes appears unannounced (with loud honks, of course) and goes against the traffic!
The terrain was mostly flat. It was funny cycling in desert-like conditions, with scorching sun and a cool 20 C wind. The early morning temperatures would start around 15C and reach 23C at noon.
After reaching the hotels prepared by the organisers, evenings would be spent in tête-à-têtes, awaiting dinner, or being shown around town.
Flamingos at Lake Sambar
Day 2: Sambhar to Pushkar
Starting before the break of dawn, at 6, we began cycling into the dark under the guidance of the bicycle headlight and the road lines. When dawn broke, we finally realised that our view was acres of fields as far as the eye could see. About an hour into our journey, we reached a village, one of the many villages yet to come. The villagers would look at us funnily, not knowing what to make of us, a bunch of fellows cycling at an unearthly hour. All we had to do was hail, “Jaya Sri Ram“! Their look would change, a smile would emerge, and they would raise their hands in unison, in solidarity, knowing quite well that we were harmless and one of them.
Along the journey, we saw many animals that we, Malaysians, would not see in mainstream. We saw peacocks perched on trees and houses. Lining the roads were innumerable cows, donkeys, goats and even pigs.
As the day got hotter, the temperature built up to about 25 °C. Riding in desert-like conditions with no shade from trees or clouds. The interesting thing is that we did not see a single person carrying an umbrella. They were pretty much comfortable, just under the sun, with the ladies in their veils and the men in their turbans.
Lake at Brahma Temple
The main attraction of Pushkar is the rare Brahma temple. Legend has it that Lord Brahma was cursed that He should not be worshipped. The irony of this place is the presence of a large lake amid arid terrain with desert vegetation. It remains an enigma waiting to be answered, just like the mystery of creation and why the Creator Himself does not have a temple of worship.
Day 3: Pushkar to Beawar
Again, the trip started early at 6 in the morning, in complete darkness, along what turned out to be acres and acres of fields. The generic appearance of a village would have concrete roads, a row of shops with large advertisement boards in big Hindi fonts, and a strikingly gaudy combination of hues: yellow, green, and red. This same psychedelic colour combination is mirrored in Rajasthani clothes. The ladies’ sarees and dupattas are so contrasting that they cannot be missed. The same goes for the men’s unique bright coloured turbans.
Cows would seem to roam freely, with their droppings spread liberally on and by the roads. The row of buildings would mostly end with a temple or a school.
Around Beawar
The terrain today was mostly flat, with the sun shining at its fullest by 9.30 at 23C. After about 6 hours, we reached Beawar.
For a small town, Beawar has so many mid-range hotels, probably to cater to the numerous businesspeople who come here. Beawar, due to its central location, serves as an important hub for the cement, textile, and wool industries. There is no special iconic monument.
Day 4. Beawar to Kamlighat
Rise and shine, and we hit the roads again. Today’s menu is a gruelling one, cutting through the Aravalli hills.
“What is all this for?” asked a curious onlooker when told that we were cycling from Jaipur to Udaipur. I thought that was a profound question that questions the core of our existence. What is the purpose of anything in life?
This ride turned out quite hilly, mostly along the national highway. Missing today were the tractors with loudspeakers blasting Bhangra beats. For the past few days, we had seen tractors plying the countryside carrying workers and produce, setting the beat for the whole vicinity to get into the dancing mood. Err, but the lyrics were neither inspiring nor devotional. They were suggestive and laced with profanity.
Growing up in Malaysia, we were taught that travelling on a highway was sacrosanct, with traffic rules to be followed and vehicles in tip-top condition. Not in Rajasthan, they are not. One could actually see a whole five-tonne lorry travelling on the wrong side of the highway and honking violently at oncoming traffic as if the lorry’s right to drive on the wrong side was being infringed!
The terrain was monotonous, with rolling hills and a steep 6.5% incline, and the sun was hot from 9.30 am. Being a highway, there was nothing much to see here. About 6 hours later, we reached Kamlighat, some 88km away.
Kamlighat
Kamlighat is a small town with nothing spectacular to show. A row of shops, many stalls selling fruits and vegetables, and our accommodation was the biggest building around. A stroll pretty much covers the whole town.
Kumbhalgarh Fort
Day 5. Kamlighat to Kumbhalgarh
This proved to be the toughest ride yet. Riding through the Aravalli hills was no walk in the park. It was a slow burn with multiple gradual inclines. The 70km journey ended at the Kumbhalgarh Fort. The fort is labelled the Great Wall of India, the second-longest wall in the world after the Great Wall of China.
There was a light-and-sound show that essentially narrated the glory (and sometimes turbulent) days of Maha Rana Kumbha. He was a descendant of Emperor Asoka and later Rana Rathap, who fought valiantly against the invaders.
Day 6. Kumbalbagh to Udaipur
This proved to be a fun ride. Starting late at 7 am, it turned out to be a short ride, after much heckling and joking. A large proportion of the journey was along national highways; the later detour through the smaller villages proved interesting. A few observations I made as a curious Malaysian passing through the everyday people in the midst of their day-to-day lives are these.
Villages in Rajasthan are no different from those in Malaysia. If in Malaysia, azan and religious sermons are broadcast over the speakers, here in almost every village, it is the sound of ‘Om Jaya Jagadisha Hare[1]‘ and sermons on their speakers. The bottomline is that the majority dictates what is kosher for the masses.
We, the cyclists, were kind of local celebrities among the people, especially among the younger kids, who would wave at us. Some would even come so far as to bump fists with us. Interestingly, even some young ladies who walked along the roads would wave to us. If one were to observe, the ladies would not do the same when accompanied by a male companion. Instead of waving, they would pull down their shawls to cover their gaze.
Addendum
The cyclists shared many pleasant moments on and off the saddle. During one of those tête-à-têtes, the talk about each other’s countries’ politics came up. There was a lot of Modi-bashing among the Indian cyclists — that he had outlived his usefulness and that his every move appeared like propaganda. So I asked them one question, “If there were a snap national election today, who would you vote for?” Without a pause, they all replied in unison, “Modi!” That’s the trouble everywhere. Nobody has a perfect government. Everyone has to decide between the devil they know and the one they do not.
Last day in Udaipur, running around
The cyclists utilised this day to unwind after six days of cycling. The few touristy spots were the target.
City Palace, Udaipur
First, we visited the picturesque City Palace and scenic Lake Paricha. There was a boat ride around the lake, quite reminiscent of that in Budapest, only that Udaipur had much more to offer. The City Palaces had many sections and a museum attached to them. Pichola Lake is situated in the centre. A boat takes tourists around and makes a stop at a luxurious hotel to give them a taste of opulence. The property opens onto another section of town called Hathipole, which features rows of shops showcasing Rajasthani art, crafts, produce, and souvenirs. Hathipole is another proof of order within chaos. The auto-trishaws and motorcycles weave through the tiny lanes while shoppers still manage to jump from shop to shop, getting their best bargains.
To absorb the Rajasthani experience, one has indulge in their culinary traditions. Two dishes specific to this region are batti, a tennis-ball-sized hard bread made from unleavened wheat flour. It is eaten with dal or yoghurt. Next is lal maas, a fiery mutton dish, packed with chilli and Rajasthani spices.
The day ended with lazing around town and walking the streets of Udaipur. Fateh Sagar Lake offered an excellent view of the various hues of the setting sun on the horizon. It houses a solar observatory station.
Extra day
While we were still in recovery mode, most Indian cyclists returned home. We had one more day to kill, so we went out to explore more of Udaipur, the Lake City.
Still centred around the lakes, we took a cable car trip up to Neemach Maa Mandhir, perched 900 metres up on a hill overlooking Fateh Sagar Lake. It is said to be a powerful protective guardian of a particular dacoit clan.
Fateh Sagar Lake, Udaipur.
Next stop was at the Maruthar Folk Dance to sample a traditional Rajasthani Cultural show. Besides witnessing some folk dances, we watched puppet shows and an experienced dancer performing a balancing act with multi-tiered pots on her head whilst grooving to metal petals, bowls, and shredded glass.
To end our visit on that hot day was the mausoleum erected for Rajasthan’s most revered hero, Maharana Pratap and his heroes who defended the region from foreign invaders. The enclosure also includes a museum that relives the glory days when the kingdom of Rajasthan was a force to be reckoned with.
Take-home message
An international expedition like this is quite life-affirming. It is priceless to realise that our mental illness is shared by many around the world. With this healthy obsession, we can explore places worldwide at a quite close and personal level. One is not merely taken to touristy spots, but can see the country as it is, warts and all.
While walking around the Kumbalbagh fort, we encountered a group of 60- and 70-year-old American cyclists, not quite by accident but by what was screaming on their T-shirts. After the usual cursory greetings, we discovered that they were more eccentric than we. These people in the geriatric age group were on a month-long cycling tour around Rajasthan, Kashmir, and Ladakh!
[1] “Om, Victory to the Lord of the Universe (Vishnu), the Remover of Miseries”. A devotional prayer in Hindi.
Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog, Rifle Range Boy.
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Studio flat. Mattress, futon, floor. Could we have stayed there forever, content? No reply. It measured roughly the size of a kennel. She barked -- “Woof.” But she giggled when she said it.
Now we sleep in a proper bed, sprung coils, fitted sheets, a home with walls that favour silence over the fights and lovemaking of next-door neighbours.
And the refrigerator fits more than beer and pizza slices. We’ve enough stove to cook an entire meal. But sometimes, she stirs honey into tea, and the spoon’s clink is a memory of rain on that single-pane window.
We don’t speak of that old apartment. But sometimes, lying back and thinking of nothing, I can hear the echo of her bark -- not grief, not joy –- just the sound of a life small enough for two.
THE BOY WHO FELL THROUGH THE ICE
What does it mean to stagger from the old pond, mouth smudged, blue eyes cratered, nostrils red?
The hometown has traded soul for shingles. A strip mall fronts our watery playground now. The wire that fences it is a trellis for weeds.
And you who once were too late for saving, now clutch soil in ever-defiant handfuls.
Winter holds you still. You rise -- a revenant carved from frost and a memory of your flailing body as seen from far above.
This is no repeat of our childhood. Then, you didn’t return. Now, you crawl past the despair.
I marvel at your instinct -- how you chase the moment beyond meaning to what breathes on the other side. I want that too. To know death as merely vessel-- something we sail in when the ice thins.
THE GIANT
He was at the birthday party, a shadow of immense proportions. Streams trembled. Balloons lost their moorings. The cake sank. Giggles stuck in many a craw.
He stood apart as the children shrieked and scattered. In the swimming pool’s blue eye he was a reflection, not a swimmer.
He waited. Not for flat cake, not for games, but for the slow growth of girls into something more dangerous.
He would guard her, then become the thing she’d need guarding from.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, Trampoline and Flights. His latest books — Bittersweet, Subject Matters and Between Two Fires — are available through Amazon. He has work upcoming in Levitate, White Wall Review and Willow Review.
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The other day I had a tough time explaining mobile telephony and its advancements to my dad who’s around 85 years old. Both of us are highly educated. Neither of us knew modern technology well. Nevertheless, me being a self-taught-geek-or-engineer-or-technologist-of-sorts keep explaining the advancements in technology at regular intervals to my father.
My father, 85, is still actively practicing in a nearby trust hospital. He retired from government service almost two decades ago. Ever since he has been actively consulting patients in local private hospitals. He always says that keeping oneself active (physically or professionally) is more than sufficient to keep ourselves healthy.
“No exercises needed”, he would say whenever someone asked him, and would add, “there isn’t any beach or a lake resort in the arid Hyderabad to sit back and relax. So, the patients give me some avocation to pass my time”.
I must also confess that my father has been using hearing aids in both the ears since he was 50 years old, and amnesia slowly started getting the better of him four years ago…
*
Six years ago, another problem cropped up…
In December 2019, as you all know this planet was plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst this hullabaloo, China made a small significant technological advancement – China silently unrolled 5G mobile telephony[1] in Wuhan.
As March 2020 neared, Indian government announced harsh restrictions, prominent amongst them are the lockdowns. To complicate the matters, my dad’s patients desperately needed to consult him for whatever…
… So, literally imprisoned at home my father embarked on video consultations to patients through WhatsApp. That represented the flashpoint between my dad and me.
Dad started complaining that his video conferences were not working properly.
The self-taught engineer in me explained that for proper video streaming and conferencing the mobile handset needs to have certain amount of memory in its RAM and storage all of which must be compatible with the ‘xG’ mobile telephony the government or service provider is offering (where ‘x’ represents a whole number like 2, 3, 4 or 5 and in near future can be 6 also). Like a true technocrat, I explained all the technology I knew with appropriate diagrams and flow-charts.
“What’s this RAM and storage?” asked my dad
“Well, I think RAM means Random Access Memory…”, I quipped peering through the edge of my glasses.
“What’s with the storage?”
“Well, everything your mobile handset receives, be it SMS or any other notifications or photographs you click with your mobile camera, it needs to keep somewhere. It needs a filing cabinet. That is called storage. If your handset has something called an SD card, it is external storage while every handset is sold initially with some storage called ‘internal storage’…”
“So … how much area does this storage take”
I casually replied, “Usually it is measured in GBs (giga bytes) … Your handset, I guess is some 16 GB or so… Mine’s about 32 GB…”
It’s been six years since we have had this discussion. The then government complicated the situation in our house by announcing that in another six months it will roll out 5G services in India to compete with Chinese …
“Ok! That’s alright but why are my phone calls not up to the mark. What does it have to do with storage? I understand if it is missing SMS, photos, storing and retrieving videos, etc… But why is the voice of the caller invariably broken or videos not clear?”
“Well, you might be using a 3G handset. Presently, the service providers are offering 4G+ services. Maybe you need to change your handset”
“Do I look like a fool? On one hand you are saying my phone is 16 G and on the other hand you are saying that government is offering only 4G services. Are you trying to ridicule me?”
Dumbstruck I tried to convince my dad. “Daddy, telephony G is different from storage GB … G of telephony means Generation and GB is giga bytes… 4G is different from 16 GB”.
“I know… I know… If government is offering only 4G and I have a 16 G handset, and there are two SIM cards in my handset 4G multiplied 4G is 16 G… then why is my handset not working properly?”, dad said angrily.
As an adolescent, I always felt that my father was very poor in mathematics and that’s perhaps why he asked me to opt for Biology stream in college. Had I known then that he knew how to square 4, I would’ve opted for mathematics stream giving many-a-CEOs a good run for their money…
“No!” I yelled, “theG in xG is different from GB”
“Now… Now… Now… My hearing aids are working properly… no need to shout… unnecessarily you’ll be disturbing the neighbours… Tell me, if my handset is 16 G why is it not working in 4G technology?”
I tried to pacify myself, “guess he has a hearing problem with letter ‘B’…”
“This G is not the same as that GB… Both are different…,” I said at the top of my voice
“Ok… But how to solve the problem?”
“Change your handset to something that can support 4G services…”
“But it is lockdown now… So… what’s the alternative?”
“The only alternative is to wait till they relax the lockdown and buy a new one until then endure the faulty video and audio calls… No other way out…”
*
Twenty years ago, in 2002, I bought my first mobile handset – a Nokia 3100 for about Rs3000. I was in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh then. There was a delayed roll-out of mobile telephony in North-western India and Kashmir regions of India for obvious reasons of them being very next to enemy nations, China and Pakistan. It was 2G technology then. Subsequently, a number of cheap Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese and Korean mobile handsets invaded India.
Back in 1991 CE, when India liberalised its economy, India was invaded by a number of international products in all spheres of life. Many Chinese and other Asian national companies also released their wares. This gave the average Indian at least four options.
The first option of buying highly priced superior quality original products from the Western Countries. The second option is that of the cheap lookalikes mostly from oriental countries like China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea. These were commonly referred to as duplicates. A third reasonable and genuine option was also offered by the liberalised Indian market – the Japanese products. These Japanese products, particularly the watches and calculators, were diametrically different from either the Western or the Oriental country products. They were priced somewhere in between and offered technology products with graceful designs. No matter what happens, these Japanese goods exceed your expectations. The fourth option was the local Indian products. These were rather crude in their design, usually low in quality and may or may not work testing your luck.
Chinese products, the duplicates, looked more American than the American products themselves but with Mandarin notations. From a distance it is difficult to say which is which. The most popular example in this direction was the copy of popular Batteries. Street vendors used to dispense American lookalike batteries for Rs5 while the original western would cost Rs95. Among the Indian products that stood the test of time were mostly food and dairy items and some watches/clocks.
This period of 90s in India paralleled the European Union’s efforts to revive the defunct industries that were bombed out in World War II. Also, around this time domestic airlines pampered the passengers by giving cheap watches as gifts and souvenirs. Net result: both my father and me developed a passion for collecting watches. My father’s patients would gift him cheap Chinese or so-called duplicates of the popular European watches. While he still collects these cheap watches, I, in due course, fizzled out. Of course, as of today, the pace at which the companies release newer designs outran our passion.
Mobile handsets, particularly the cheap ones that flooded the Indian market, fuelled our passion to collect handsets. So, now both of us have an additional avocation of changing mobile handsets as frequently as possible. Since in 2002 I was in Shimla and my dad was in Hyderabad, it became an unwritten rule between both of us that we appear with a different mobile handset every time we met. This passion continued for about a decade till 2012. By this time, I covered two cities – Shimla and Guwahati in Northeastern state of Assam. My father having retired from active government service lived (and continues to live in, touch wood) in Hyderabad which is in the south Indian state of Telangana.
A neighbourhood mobile vendor used to supply my father with cheap mobile handsets. For some unknown reason he used to call my father ‘Uncle’ and me as ‘Sir’. So, my mother and me used to pull my dad’s legs by calling the mobile vendor as his nephew.
As per our passion, we regularly changed our mobile phones. This continued till sometime… literally till 2018… when the 4G services were launched. Around this time the mobile ‘nephew’ of my father stopped supplying newer versions of handsets to my father.
But when he supplied mobile handsets to my father, he also used to do an additional service to my father: every time my father changed his handset, the mobile ‘nephew’ would somehow do a data transfer from the older handset to the new one. This I call an additional service because my father, as I mentioned earlier, uses hearing aids. So, the mobile handset must also be connected to the hearing aid through Bluetooth or other reliable technology. This is followed by a calibration of the hearing aid with the audiologist. All this took at least 2 – 3 days and multiple visits to both the mobile vendor and the audiologist. The mobile ‘nephew’ was very enthusiastic and never complained about any inconvenience. Other mobile shop owners would bluntly ask my father to get the calibration done elsewhere or with the service centre present at the other end of the city.
In one of the exchanges of mobiles, the data could not be properly transferred.
*
In June 2020, I guess, the government relaxed the lockdowns for the first time. Promptly, my father headed to a neighbourhood mobile phone shop and bought a 4G handset as per my recommendation. To my surprise, my father did not go to his mobile ‘nephew’. He went to a high-end mobile shop. My father this time bought an advanced model of a popular company’s handset.
After a day or two, and more video conferences later, my father expressed happiness and thanked me saying that for the first time in his life I gave a correct advice.
But now he needed something from the earlier unfinished data transfer. He wanted the data in the older mobile handset into the new handset. I took both the handsets to the new vendor and requested him to do the transfer. He gave a polished glib talk giving me the impression that the earlier handset is a cheap model from which it is better not to transfer the data. Crestfallen, I dragged myself to my-father’s-mobile-nephew and asked him to do the needful. The nephew told me that he failed to get permission for 4G and 5G so he’s at a loss as to help me.
“…that”, the nephew told me then, “is also the reason why your father no longer procures his mobiles from me”.
*
Two years of COVID restrictions rolled on somehow. For more than a year and a half every Indian was literally imprisoned in their respective homes due to the on-going pandemic.
The technology argument resurfaced between me and my father once again.
Dad said, “…again the problem of poor-quality video and audio…”
“Ah! Our service provider has now upgraded to 5G+ …Your handset is 4G… Change your handset…”
“Hmm… you mean there’s no problem with the handset?”
“Yeah! There’s no problem with the handset. It is just outdated. It is no longer compatible with the existing technology“, I quipped.
“What do you mean?“
I played the cards differently this time.
“We are three people in this house now. How comfortable will it be if suddenly there are 15 people in this house now?”
“If you talk like that, a greater number of people can be made to adjust in the house…”
“But what if everyday 15 people keep coming into the house without vacating?”
“Ah! Then that will be a problem…”
“Ditto for your handset… It is receiving more information from the network than it can handle…”
“The Apps are also freezing occasionally…”
“Same logic… they are receiving more information and upgrading themselves to the new technology… time to change your handset…”
“How much will a basic handset that works will cost me?”
“The one that is compatible will cost you around Rs15,000. The one that is also compatible with your hearing aids will be at the least Rs20,000.”
Well, since my childhood, I always kept myself updated on the prices of the latest in market whether I need those items or not. Wishful thinking, I guess.
“If this is the case then, every year or two even if there is no malfunction, I am forced to change my handset. This is very bad…”
“That’s the flip side of the technological advancement… Whether you like it or not… Whether there’s a malfunction or not, we are forced to change our products leading to huge amounts of pollution…”
“Very bad state of affairs. Think about the laptops then. Unnecessarily we are shelling out truckloads of money just to keep us abreast of the technology…”
“Very bad state of affairs… the technology developers think everybody is a billionaire and everybody’s a computer geek…”
*
Thanks to our passions, every year, me and my dad each spend at least Rs8000 just for the batteries so that our watches are in working condition. The other day, I took an Indian watch of mine for servicing which I bought in 2001 with the first salary I received after my PhD. I bought it for Rs400 then.
The servicing personnel cooed, “Is this watch still working?”
Nostalgically, I asked, “What’s the price of this model now?”
“This model is no longer produced Sir…”
If this episode makes me misty-eyed, my Japanese watch always gives me goosepimples.
In 2010, I found a display board in a watch shop in the Fancy Bazaar of Guwahati that read, “Japanese – EcoFriendly watches”. I walked into the shop and bought the watch for about two thousand bucks. The manual said, “10-year Battery Life”. Believe it or not, it lasted 15 years and this is the only watch which did not give me an opportunity to change its battery.
Good and Honest things in life must be appreciated at the first opportunity.
[1]Telephony is the technology involving telephones for communication (audio or video), and data exchange between distant parties
He cradled the Sun on his back, ripe with lost songs, nestled to attack. It was an old tune he kept harkening, an old anthem he kept murmuring.
It was a poem burning him inside, yet it was the one thing keeping him alive.
“Why must you carry this weight, this burden, this light?” they asked. It’s the only thing binding me, he said. Was it a song, a boulder, a passion or a tune he had to keep dragging upright? Was it a pen bleeding out his insides?
Wasn’t he the only one who could hear, sing about the Sun’s symphony? Wasn’t he the only one who could speak her name and yet, he could never see the red blisters on his hands, knuckles and ribs?
He would tell you the Sun gives him light when all he could feel was burning.
Mahnoor Shaheen is a poet and academic based in Lahore, Pakistan. Her work explores the artist’s relationship with poetry, mythology and memory.
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He smiled, ruffling his son’s capped head. He knew that the lenses children were born with eventually writhed and crumbled to dust with age. That had been the fate of his pair. Though when and how, he didn’t remember anymore. If only Moji[1] was still around, he thought, she would have spread out the detailed list in front of him.
Instead, he replied, “Ghosts and the living do not stay together.”
“Like dirty and clean laundry?”
He nodded.
“But I think you had not seen the ghosts growing up. They didn’t want you to see them.”
“I don’t think I ever told you a bedtime story about growing up with ghosts around me.”
He chuckled. He reminded himself of his son’s skill in repeating stories that he had heard a few nights ago, refracted through his lenses. But wasn’t that common for kids?
He had learnt the art of storytelling from Moji, who each night would cradle his tiny head on her lap and tell him stories she had grown up hearing while embroidering shawls by the lamp. He narrated the same stories to Fabienne, Kashyap’s mother, years later during their freezing nights in Fairbanks. Perhaps Kashyap had picked up the trait then, for when he grew a little older, he not only insisted on completing the stories his father began but also firmly believed that his parents continued telling stories with changed climaxes, in their bedroom. In those nights of exchanging stories, little by little, Fabienne was shrinking her plot points until, after one such invigorating session, she was nowhere to be seen.
“It’s just that you don’t remember anymore, Daddy,” complained Kashyap, tightening his clasp around his father’s gloved hand.
“You and your stories,” he scoffed, lifting his five-year-old son into his arms.
Their white breaths – his deep and his son’s short – swirled into each other’s before disappearing in the crystal air. He gripped the rotting capping rail of the fence with the other hand.
As a child, the fence had scared him with its enormity. Sometimes he crouched behind it, fixing an eye to a hole in the wood, when he returned home late from fishing rainbow trout in the river or playing cricket in the chinar groves. Now its height reached only an inch above his waist.
“Are we going to get inside, Daddy?” Kashyap’s exasperation reddened his ears, like Moji twisting them in the hideout behind the fence.
The cold stroked his ears. He did not lift a finger to scratch the inflammation. He simply stared at the home of his ancestors, what reminded of it further hidden under the snow. Moss on the walls. Grimy. Rickety. Unwashed soot. Unfixed windows. Battered porch. Clogged chimney. The skeleton of a juniper at the back.
Something tugged at the little hairs in his nose. Something burnt his eyes. Maybe a fly ash of yesteryears.
“Daddy?” Kashyap lightly kicked his ribs.
He clicked his tongue and continued staring at the ensemble of wood and brick through the strings of delicate snowflakes showering on the house, showering on them.
“Daddy,” he said with the softness of the snowflakes.
“Yes, Kay.”
“Do you want to hear a story?”
“Go on,” his voice, frozen in a trance, answered.
“The story starts with a family heading to the house of the fairies. A boy of my age. A father of your age. A mother…no, not a mother.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know any story with a mother in it.”
He added after some time, hesitantly, “Do you know stories of mother, Daddy?”
“Umm hmm.”
“Do you know stories of your mother?”
Even with the eddying of meditation in his blood, he curled his lips in a smile—before his neurons could conjure the scene of Fabienne’s terror-stricken face, begging him to keep his history, his story, from their son.
“What story do you want to hear?”
“Her story.”
“My mother, my Moji, came many years ago to this house as a young bride. This was the house where my Mole[2] was born. He had lived his entire life in the valley. Moji was from the Silver Mountains – up there. She had never seen the valley until the wedding. He had never been to the mountains before.”
“And then?”
“That’s the end of the story.” He lied. His promise to Fabienne lurked at the end of his tongue.
“You’re a terrible storyteller, Daddy.”
He laughed. “How would you have told the story, then?”
“I would not have kept my audience in the dark. What does Moji look like? Does she have my hazel eyes? Or your red cheeks? Does she have wrinkles now? Is her nose really tiny?”
His moji’s humming—a soft rustle—of ‘door ballaai tsajiyo[3]’ streaming in from the susurrating faraway wind dispersed his son’s shrill words haywire in the current. Before his eyes, on the thickening snow, feeble, disconcerted images pulsed. Moji’s green irises. The raisin mole on her lips. Her ears chained to pairs of elongated dejhoor[4]. The emerald on her nose. The scarlet scarf fastened around her head.
When his son’s swollen fingers, behind fleece gloves, tucked at his beard, he blinked his eyes, but the water-painted figments remained. He was unaware for how long he had been gaping at the glowing and dimming on the unruly, stark white snow.
“Are there any photographs of her inside?” his son’s voice reached him as if from across the mountains.
He paused. He plucked his reddening eyes from the snow to the dark porch. Was still moji, red and peeling from the burns, crouching? The orange flames rising from somewhere in the house were deafening her mute cries and devouring the bricks and wood. The embers and their smoke had already charred the chords in her throat. He had stopped right at the fence. The black orbit, where her mouth had been, was still muttering, asking him to flee.
He shouldn’t have left to run her errands, he cursed. Either he and moji would have burrowed their way out under the fire or, hand in hand, said their last prayers amidst the flames licking their cheeks. But moji had been under the weather for a few weeks, and mole had disappeared into thin air the previous full moon. His coworkers at the post office or the baton-wielding patrolling policemen across the streets and the lakes were equally clueless about the whereabouts of his shoestring after he had left for home, sliding the pen into his pocket.
He closed his eyes and opened them again. Only moji-shaped soot remained at the porch. The blackened sepulchre blended in with the twilight setting.
He gasped. His spine shuddered. His son in his tightened grip shuddered too.
“Can we go back, daddy?”
“What?” He had not heard him.
Kashyap repeated.
“Sure. Fifteen steps and we shall be indoors.”
“Let’s go home, daddy.”
He turned to his son’s crumpled face in his arms. He whispered, “Open doors remind me of mommy.”
Apology handheld dread in his son’s eyes. He had so far mirrored his father’s whine about visiting the home of his childhood as they sat in an aircraft from the other side of the globe and drove through the sea of paperwork and up the mountains. But the open door shattered him. It vividly brought back the evenings he relentlessly tired himself with the stories mommy had told him and invented newer ones when they exhausted in boring him enough. The same words, the same scenes flowed. Had mommy’s letters ever arrived by mail, as in a chapter taught at school, his stories would have charted new ground too. They would have been of a different composition. He believed daddy would understand.
His eyes didn’t utter a word. He tucked Kashyap closer to his warm chest and wrapped him in his arms. As he trod away, Kashyap dug his chin into his daddy’s square shoulder. Somewhere around the backyard of the house, red-smeared white petals of a tulip were unfurling under the snow. Had the ghosts from daddy’s childhood planted the seeds?
[3] A lullaby sung by Kashmiri mothers to ward off evil: Literally, “let evils stay far…”
[4] Long chained earrings worn by married Kashmiri women
Oindrila Ghosal is an emerging author and also a doctoral student at Tata Memorial Centre – Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer, Navi Mumbai. So far, her short stories, “The Harlot’s Veena”, “The Asylum” and “The Jungle Within Me” have been published in Kitaab.
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How brilliant is the light tonight how brilliant is it
Flashes like meteors boom and bang A festival of fireworks Heading here and there
How brilliant is the sky tonight how brilliant is it
But some won’t see it Others will A child points at a flashing light And then they are in it
How deadly is the night tonight How chilling is it
David Mellor has been published and performed widely from the BBC, The Tate, galleries and pubs and everything in between. Now, resident in Turkey he has continued his literary career with his work appearing in journals including a weekly column in Canakkale Gündem about his observations of Turkish life. His poems and writings are autobiographical, others topical and several his take on life.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
Title: Journey to the End of the Empire: In China Along the Edge of Tibet
Author: Scott Ezell
Publisher: Speaking TigerBooks
A young Tibetan woman in a gold tunic came riding down the street on a horse. Her body was straight and her chin lifted high, her cheeks flushed red, and she smiled like she was the center of the world despite being dwarfed by the towers. Up ahead I saw snipers on roofs behind sandbags, wearing mirrored shades. Silver bracelets jangled on the woman’s wrists and her hair was braided with turquoise. Her horse trotted up and over a pile of rocks and earth heaped in front of an army bunker — this was an anti-insurgency tactic, so there could not be a quick rush of crowds in an uprising.
I followed her down the street, walking around the mounds of rubble. As we approached the old town, with its buildings of ancient blackened wood, she blew kisses to the snipers and to the soldiers in roadside bunkers. Aside from the army trucks, the street was half-full with oxcarts, motorcycles, pedestrians in fur-lined robes, pilgrims on their way to the central temple, and a few beggars mumbling mantras and ringing bells for alms. At a crossroad the woman pulled the reins so her horse reared up and turned circles beneath her, then set off at a trot toward the outskirts of town and the open horizon beyond. I headed the other way, to the center of town, where the market and temple square converged.
Zhongdian was an administrative outpost at the edge of the wilderness, an interface between the engulfing yawn of the Tibetan Plateau and the authority of the empire. From here, there was nothing north and west for a thousand miles but the earth tilting higher and higher, human culture becoming funkier and more rarified as the landscape lifted its bones up toward the sky. Zhongdian is a transliteration of the Tibetan place-name Gyalthang, but the local government had secured a regional trademark to call it Shangri-la. This place may have been the inspiration for the original Shangri-la in the novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton. If so, the mythic valley of paradise was located in the Meilixue Mountains to the west, at the base of Kawaboge peak, a twenty-two-thousand-foot pyramid of ice and snow. Additional inspiration would have come from farther west, on the other side of the range, in a valley along the upper Mekong, where in the nineteenth century a French priest built a Catholic church. Tibetan families still brewed wine from the grapes the priest planted there over a hundred years ago. The vineyards lined the valley wall above the upper Mekong where it ran bronze and copper between walls of talus and dust on its long descent from the Tibetan Plateau to the plains of Southeast Asia, finally reaching the South China Sea.
The ministry towers were gridded and mirrored, and drew my vision to the sky like tracer bullets. They sucked in and concentrated the light of this landscape where everything was infused with light, even the barley fields beyond the edge of town seemed composed of light lifting up from earth in golden germs and stalks and leaves, light reaching up to light. Sections of the towers were still under construction and covered with scaffolding, revealing girder structures. I had to look straight up to read the titles in formal script high on the façades, as if they were declaring, not to the people on the ground but to the far mountains and horizons, that they were the Regional Authority of Financial Interests in Tibet, the Ministry of Civilizing Minorities, the Ministry of Mineral Extraction, the Ministry of Love — each one was a glittering obelisk, a cosmococcic, cosmodemonic eye turning and revolving, a panopticon of surveillance.
The wind beat me like a club, the sun flashed and blinded me. A few dented taxis drove around aimlessly. Along the street, huge cuts of yak meat hung from steel hooks in butcher shops, and a yak skull with broad arcing horns was propped by the doorway of a restaurant. A tattered, greasy beggar who looked about sixteen came walking down the middle of the street. He was shirtless despite the cold, his skin nearly black from filth. The boy had scabs on his face; he was half-starved and half-mad and mumbled gibberish interspersed with om mani padme hum, as he cackled and stared hungrily at the sides of yak and goat hung from steel hooks for sale, the ribs curved like rows of triggers beneath their curtains of meat. When he saw me he shouted out, “Oh ho, oh no!” He aimed his finger at me with a squinted eye, then swivelled and turned it up, up, up to the tower above us and the calligraphy sign that labeled it the Ministry of Sanity and Sanitation, reflecting the sun from a thousand mirrored panels. He staggered down the street calling out, “Cock-towers, scratching up the sky … om mani padme hum…. They weren’t here first, but those cock-towers tell you you’re not first no more. Claim the land, they’re going to stake a claim with their cock towers, claim the land … om mani padme hum….”
A cluster of wrinkled Tibetan women shuffled toward me wearing sky-blue tunics fringed with silk. They had baskets of gnarled radishes and potatoes on their backs and tump lines around their foreheads. They called out to me, laughing and pointing like I was a painted clown, but with such good humor that I laughed right along. When I greeted them in Mandarin they just laughed louder and placed their palms together in benediction and greeting, Tashi delek.
Along the row of market stalls, announcements crackled over loudspeakers, and Hong Kong soap operas blared weeping and imprecations from TVs.
ABOUT THE BOOK
On foot, by rattling truck and local bus, by jeep and motorcycle, American poet and musician Scott Ezell explores the Tibetan borderlands in the twenty-first-century Chinese empire. The journey starts in Dali, in the foothills of the Himalaya in southwestern China, and extends north a thousand miles through towns and villages along the edge of Tibet, finally arriving at Kekexili, the highest plateau in the world, and crossing the Kunlun Mountains. Ezell takes us through landscapes of blond and gold barley fields, alpine meadows ablaze with wildflowers, silver-blue rivers beneath “clouds like burning aluminium,” and snow peaks “cracking and shattering into jagged resplendence against the sky.”
Balancing the epic is the intimate. Fluent in Mandarin, Ezell chats with farmers, shopkeepers, lamas, nomads, and police along way. There is also outrage in Ezell’s account, as, over the course of many years and numerous trips, he witnesses the rise of militarization, surveillance, destructive resource extraction and the killing of entire river ecosystems by massive dams.
The work of an exceptionally talented writer at the height of his craft, Journey to the End of the Empire is both a love song for the earth, and a cry of dissent against environmental destruction, centralized national narratives, and the marginalization of minority peoples.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Scott Ezell is an American musician and poet with a background in Asia and Indigenous peoples. He was based in Taiwan from 1992 to 2004, and travelled widely in China, India and Japan. Since 2009 he has worked on a project documenting the effects of centralized state power, civil conflict and destructive resource extraction on marginalized communities in the China– Southeast Asia border zone. He is the author of A Far Corner, an account of three years he lived and worked with an Indigenous artist community in Taiwan.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Borderless 