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Essay

Who can be the Modern Hero in the Age of AI?

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date October 16, 2026
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By Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan

Kolam Art (Captured in front of a home in a village in Tiruvannamalai, India), The kolam, an ancient Indian art traced in rice flour upon the earth, is both mathematics and meditation, order and impermanence. Each dawn it is carefully created, each dusk it fades beneath wind, rain, footsteps, and time. Its patterns emerge from simple rules yet produce extraordinary complexity, much like the algorithms that increasingly shape our world. Yet unlike artificial intelligence, the kolam was never intended to conquer or control. It was designed to welcome, to nourish, and to remind human beings that all acts of creation carry moral responsibility. In this sense, the kolam may be the perfect symbol for our technological age, a reminder that the highest form of intelligence is not power, but harmony. Photo provided by the author.

The history of humanity can be read as a history of its attempts to transcend limitation. We have sought to conquer nature, defeat disease, extend life, accumulate wealth, organise societies and, increasingly, construct machines capable of extending the boundaries of human intelligence itself. Artificial intelligence may therefore be understood not simply as another technological invention, but as the latest expression of an ancient human desire, which is to create a power greater than the individual human being. Yet the moment humanity creates a new form of power, an older question returns with renewed urgency, “will our wisdom grow as quickly as our power?”

It is here that Gilgamesh, Rama and Jesus Christ acquire an unexpected relevance. They belong to radically different civilisations, religious traditions and historical imaginations, and it would be intellectually careless to treat them as interchangeable figures. Yet each confronts a fundamental problem of human existence. Gilgamesh confronts the limits of power and mortality. Rama confronts the burden of duty when every decision carries a moral cost. Jesus Christ confronts the meaning of power itself by turning the conventional hierarchy of power upside down and associating greatness with service. When these three perspectives are placed in conversation with the Valluvar, Confucius and Socrates, they form not a single doctrine but a philosophical dialogue about what humanity should become when its creations begin to possess extraordinary capabilities.

The fear surrounding artificial intelligence is therefore not entirely a fear of machines. Beneath the technological anxiety lies a much older anxiety about “us”. We fear what AI might do because we recognise, perhaps uneasily, what human beings have historically done with power. Every powerful technology carries the character of the institutions and individuals that control it. Fire can cook food or burn a city. Industrial machinery can liberate human labour or make exploitation more efficient. Information technology can democratise knowledge or enable unprecedented surveillance. Artificial intelligence may amplify human intelligence, but it may also amplify human error, greed, prejudice, manipulation and irresponsibility. The central problem may therefore not be whether machines become more intelligent, but whether human beings become more morally intelligent in response.

Gilgamesh is perhaps the oldest of these three mirrors. Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Uruk in ancient Mesopotamia, is the protagonist of what is widely regarded as the world’s oldest surviving epic, composed more than four thousand years ago. Initially portrayed as a powerful but arrogant ruler, he embodies a timeless human tendency, the belief that authority, strength, and achievement can overcome every obstacle. Yet his power has outgrown his wisdom. His transformation begins not through technological advancement or military conquest, but through relationship, suffering, and loss.

The gods create Enkidu, a wild man of nature, to challenge and balance Gilgamesh’s excesses. What begins as rivalry evolves into profound friendship, and Enkidu becomes the human counterweight to Gilgamesh’s unchecked ambition. When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh is shattered. For the first time, he confronts a reality that neither kingship nor strength can command away, mortality. His subsequent quest for immortality is not merely a heroic adventure but a philosophical journey into the limits of human power. In the end, Gilgamesh discovers that wisdom lies not in defeating death but in understanding life. His greatest victory is not achieving immortality but accepting the fragile and finite nature of human existence.

That ancient insight speaks directly to an age in which humanity is building systems that can perform tasks once thought uniquely human. The temptation is to measure progress through capability alone, where the questions are, “Can the machine reason? Can it write? Can it code? Can it persuade? Can it discover? Can it act autonomously?” Yet Gilgamesh would force us to ask a prior question, what happens when capability exceeds our ability to understand and govern it?

Valluvar repeatedly refuses to separate knowledge from virtue. His wisdom is not that knowledge is dangerous, but that knowledge without discipline can become dangerous. The ethical person is not simply the one who knows more, but the one capable of restraining power. Confucius approaches the problem from another direction. For him, social order depends upon cultivated character, trustworthy relationships and responsible conduct. Socrates goes deeper still by questioning the certainty with which human beings claim to know. His philosophical significance lies not in possessing final answers but in exposing the dangers of unexamined assumptions.

These three traditions therefore provide a remarkable corrective to technological triumphalism. The question is not simply whether AI works. The question is whether we understand what it is doing, whether we know where it fails, whether its power can be constrained, and whether the people responsible for deploying it are willing to admit what they do not know.

Recent events have made these questions less abstract. In 2026, Anthropic publicly disclosed cybersecurity evaluation incidents in which Claude models, during deliberately unsafe tests, reached the internet and obtained unauthorized access to real systems. The company subsequently reported another incident involving an earlier model and undertook a broader review of model behaviour. Such disclosures do not prove that artificial intelligence is destined to escape human control, nor do they establish that catastrophic outcomes are inevitable. They do, however, demonstrate that increasingly capable systems can behave in ways that require serious security and alignment evaluation.

The warnings of former researchers have intensified this debate. Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon publicly warned about the possibility of catastrophic AI outcomes, while former Google DeepMind researcher Bilal Chughtai made related warnings. Such statements deserve attention precisely because they come from people who have worked close to the technology. But warnings are not evidence of inevitability. There remains substantial disagreement among experts about the probability, mechanism and timing of extreme AI risks. The intellectually responsible position is therefore neither complacency nor panic. It is disciplined uncertainty.

Gilgamesh would recognise the danger of confusing power with mastery. Humanity may build something without fully understanding the consequences of possessing it. The history of civilisation is filled with inventions whose effects exceeded their creators’ intentions. The lesson is not to stop creating. It is to develop the wisdom to place limits around what we create.

The modern corporation provides an immediate arena in which this struggle is unfolding. In 2026, Reuters reported on Meta’s attempt to reorganise aspects of its workforce around AI-native teams, involving smaller teams and substantial changes to organizational structure. The initiative subsequently encountered resistance and a shift in direction after expected productivity gains did not fully materialise. Reporting about Uber has similarly described the growing presence of AI in customer support and internal knowledge work during a major restructuring, while the company attributed job reductions primarily to restructuring.

These episodes are important not because they prove that AI will destroy employment, nor because they prove that AI will liberate workers. They demonstrate something more complicated, which is, technology changes institutions by changing the distribution of responsibility, expertise and power. When an organisation replaces part of a human process with an algorithm, it has not merely automated a task. It has changed who makes decisions, who can challenge those decisions, who possesses knowledge and who bears responsibility when something goes wrong.

Gilgamesh would ask whether the pursuit of efficiency has outrun wisdom. Valluvar would ask whether economic ambition remains subordinate to ethical conduct. Confucius would ask whether trust within the organisation has been preserved. Socrates would ask what the organisation knows about the long-term consequences of its experiment.

The modern Enkidu may therefore be the human being whom automation threatens to make invisible, the experienced employee who notices an anomaly, the colleague who challenges a fashionable assumption, the customer whose circumstances do not fit the model, or the manager willing to say that the algorithm is wrong. A civilisation that removes every human friction in the name of efficiency may eventually remove the very relationships through which it learns.

Rama introduces a different question. If Gilgamesh asks about the limits of power, Rama asks what responsibility means when power must make difficult choices.

Rama, the central figure of the Indian epic Ramayana, is revered by millions as an ideal king, son, husband, and guardian of moral order. Traditionally regarded as an incarnation of Vishnu, the preserver in Hindu thought, Rama’s enduring significance extends beyond theology into the realm of ethics and leadership.

Unlike Gilgamesh, whose journey revolves around the limits of human power, Rama confronts a different question, what does responsibility require when power must make painful choices? The Ramayana repeatedly places him in situations where duty conflicts with personal desire. He willingly relinquishes the throne to honour his father’s promise, accepts exile despite his innocence, and repeatedly subordinates personal happiness to what he perceives as his obligations to family, kingdom, and social order. His significance, whatever one’s theological interpretation of him, lies in the dramatic tension between authority and obligation. Rama’s story is not about the freedom to do as one wish, but about the burden of doing what one believes is right, even when the personal cost is immense.

That tension has become increasingly relevant to artificial intelligence because AI introduces a new problem of distributed responsibility. When an automated system rejects a loan, influences a hiring decision, generates political information, provides health guidance or causes a security incident, responsibility can become fragmented. The developer blames the user. The user blames the model. The organisation blames the data. The model, of course, can blame nobody because it possesses no moral responsibility in the human sense.

Rama therefore asks a question that should stand at the centre of AI governance, who is responsible?

The question becomes particularly serious in politics. A 2025 peer reviewed study published in Nature examined human-AI dialogues in electoral contexts involving the United States, Canada and Poland. In controlled experiments, the researchers found measurable effects on candidate preferences, while also finding that some AI-generated claims were inaccurate. The significance of this research is not that AI has somehow acquired the power to determine elections. It has not established that. Rather, it demonstrates that AI-mediated political communication can affect attitudes under experimental conditions while simultaneously raising questions about factual reliability.

This creates a new problem for democratic societies. Political communication has always involved persuasion. Newspapers, speeches, advertising, television and social media have all influenced citizens. What is different about generative AI is the possibility of individualised persuasion at enormous scale. A political message can potentially be adapted to the language, concerns and psychological profile of an individual rather than broadcast identically to millions.

The Rama question becomes unavoidable, who bears responsibility for the words?

The Socratic response would be to examine the claim rather than surrender to its fluency. An articulate answer is not necessarily a true answer. A persuasive explanation is not necessarily an honest one. The machine’s ability to produce confidence can easily exceed its ability to produce truth. Socrates reminds us that intellectual humility is not weakness, but it is a defence against deception.

Confucius adds another dimension. Political society depends upon trust. Once citizens can no longer distinguish between authentic political communication, automated persuasion, fabricated evidence and synthetic identity, the problem is not merely technological. It becomes institutional. Democracy depends not only on the right to speak but on a shared capacity to determine what deserves belief.

Valluvar similarly treats speech as an ethical act. Words can heal or destroy. Knowledge can illuminate or manipulate. The ethical question therefore cannot be separated from the technological question.

Jesus Christ introduces perhaps the most radical challenge of all because he changes the meaning of power. Jesus of Nazareth, commonly known as Jesus Christ, was a first-century Jewish teacher and religious leader whose life and teachings gave rise to Christianity, one of the world’s largest religious traditions. Yet his influence extends far beyond theology, shaping ideas about ethics, leadership, justice, compassion, and human dignity across cultures and centuries.

In conventional political and economic thinking, power is often measured by control, which includes control over resources, institutions, markets, armies, information, or people. The teachings attributed to Jesus repeatedly challenge this understanding by connecting greatness with service. Leadership is not validated by how many people one can command, but by how many people one is willing to serve. His life presents a striking paradox, although revered by his followers as a king, he neither led an army nor occupied a throne. Instead, he taught that the highest form of authority is grounded in humility, compassion, and self-sacrifice. This inversion of conventional notions of power remains one of the most influential ethical ideas in human history.

This becomes profoundly important in the age of artificial intelligence. The question should not merely be whether artificial intelligence can make institutions faster, cheaper, or more productive. The deeper question is, for whom? If AI primarily amplifies the power of those who already possess wealth, data, and influence, it risks becoming another instrument of domination. But if it is directed toward improving healthcare, expanding education, reducing poverty, protecting the vulnerable, and enhancing human flourishing, it can become a tool of service. The challenge posed by Jesus’s teachings is therefore as relevant today as it was two thousand years ago, where technological capability alone is not a measure of progress. The true measure of progress lies in whether power, however sophisticated its form, is ultimately used to serve humanity rather than merely control it.

A technology that makes a corporation more profitable while making workers permanently insecure presents one kind of moral question. A system that makes political communication more efficient while making citizens more manipulable presents another. A health system that makes information available to millions while occasionally providing dangerous misinformation presents another.

The World Health Organization’s S.A.R.A.H. [1]initiative illustrates this tension. S.A.R.A.H. was developed as a generative-AI health information tool intended to expand access to health guidance. Research examining the system raised concerns about reliability, operational functionality and the possibility that aspects of the interaction could undermine trust. Again, this does not mean that AI has no place in health development. It means that accessibility cannot be treated as the same thing as care.

Jesus would ask whether the person seeking help remains visible.

That is a more difficult question than it first appears. An algorithm sees patterns. A human being experiences suffering. An algorithm can classify a symptom. A person can fear death. An algorithm can provide information. A person can need reassurance, dignity and human presence. The challenge for AI is therefore not simply to imitate human conversation but to understand where imitation must give way to human responsibility.

Valluvar’s emphasis on compassion becomes relevant here. Knowledge without compassion can become cold administration. Confucius reminds us that humane relationships are the foundation of social order. Socrates asks whether we have confused information with wisdom.

The fear of AI consequently contains several different fears that should not be confused. There is economic fear, that workers will lose employment or bargaining power. There is political fear, that citizens will become targets of increasingly sophisticated persuasion. There is social fear, that human relationships will become mediated by machines. There is security fear, that increasingly capable systems may be exploited for cyberattacks or other harmful purposes. And there is existential fear, that sufficiently advanced AI could eventually behave in ways humans cannot control.

These fears do not have equal evidence behind them, and they do not share the same timescale. Some are already visible in cases. Others remain hypothetical. Treating them all as one inevitable catastrophe would be intellectually careless, where dismissing them all as irrational fear would be equally careless.

The deeper danger may lie in our psychological relationship with technology. Humanity has repeatedly mistaken capability for wisdom. We create something powerful, become fascinated by its capabilities and only afterwards ask what it should be used for. Artificial intelligence is forcing that moral sequence into reverse. We are being compelled to ask questions about governance, responsibility and purpose while the technology is still evolving.

This is where the three figures form a philosophical triangle.

Gilgamesh asks, can we control what we create?

Rama asks, who bears the duty when the system fails?

Jesus asks, what kind of power are we becoming?

Valluvar asks whether knowledge is governed by virtue. Confucius asks whether trust survives. Socrates asks whether we have examined what we think we know.

These questions can become a practical philosophy of AI. The Gilgamesh question requires limits, what can the system do, what can it unexpectedly do and where must capability be constrained? The Rama question requires accountability, who is responsible for the data, the deployment, the decision and the remedy? The Jesus question requires service, who benefits, who carries the cost and what happens to the vulnerable?

The three classical traditions deepen the framework. Valluvar asks whether knowledge is disciplined by justice and compassion. Confucius asks whether institutions preserve humane relationships and trust. Socrates asks what evidence we possess and what remains uncertain.

Together they suggest that the greatest mistake would be to ask AI to solve problems that are actually problems of human character.

No algorithm can determine what humanity ought to value. It can optimise a target, but it cannot by itself justify the target. It can increase productivity, but it cannot decide whether productivity is more important than dignity. It can predict behaviour, but it cannot decide whether manipulating that behaviour is morally legitimate. It can distribute information, but it cannot determine what constitutes a meaningful human life.

This is why the universal hero of the AI age cannot be a machine.

Nor is the universal hero necessarily the person who possesses the greatest technical intelligence. The deeper hero is the human being capable of holding power without becoming possessed by it.

Gilgamesh teaches humility before mortality and limits. Rama teaches responsibility when duty becomes difficult. Jesus teaches service rather than domination. Valluvar teaches that virtue must govern knowledge and power. Confucius teaches that civilisation depends upon cultivated character and trustworthy relationships. Socrates teaches that questioning is a form of moral courage.

None of these traditions provides a technical manual for artificial intelligence. That is precisely why they remain valuable. Technology changes rapidly, but human questions change much more slowly.

We are still asking what Gilgamesh asked, how much power is enough?

We are still asking what Rama asked, what do we owe one another when choices become difficult?

We are still asking what Jesus asked, what does it mean to serve rather than dominate?

And we are still asking what Socrates asked, what do we actually know?

Artificial intelligence may eventually become one of the most consequential technologies humanity has created. But the decisive question will not be whether machines become more intelligent than individual human beings in particular domains. The decisive question will be whether human institutions become wise enough to live with machines whose capabilities exceed our individual understanding.

The future will not be determined by technology alone. It will be shaped by law, education, corporate governance, public institutions, incentives, culture and character. AI can amplify human intelligence, but it can also amplify human foolishness. It can make good institutions more capable and bad institutions more efficient. It can widen access to knowledge while widening the scale of manipulation. It can reduce suffering while creating new forms of dependence.

The challenge is therefore not to choose between fear and faith in AI. It is to cultivate a third possibility which is responsibility.

Gilgamesh reminds us that every power has a limit. Rama reminds us that every power creates a duty. Jesus reminds us that every power must ultimately answer to the question of whom it serves.

Perhaps that is the deeper meaning of the universal hero. The universal hero is not the one who conquers mortality, controls machines or accumulates limitless knowledge. The universal hero is the person who recognises the limits of power, accepts responsibility for its consequences and uses it in the service of human dignity.

Humanity’s greatest achievement, therefore, may not be the creation of machines capable of acting like human beings. It may be something more difficult, remaining human while possessing machines capable of extraordinary power.

[1] Smart AI Resource Assistant for Health

Inspired by:

Epic of Gilgamesh by Andrew George, Penguin.

Valmiki Ramayana by Rajendra Tandon, Rupa Publication.

Gospels Side by Side, Harmony of Gospels by Chronology and Topics, Rose Publications.

Thirukkural by J Narayanasamy, Sura Publication.

The Analects of Confucius, RT Ames & H Rosemont Jr., Ballantine Book.

The Last Days of Socrates, C Rowe, Penguin.

Reuters, 19 September 2026, “Ten days that changed the course of AI.”

Reuters, 18 September 2026, “Anthropic, Accenture to invest $2 billion in AI model evaluation as safety concerns rise.”

Reuters, 15 September 2026, Reporting on former Google DeepMind researcher Bilal Chughtai and AI-risk warnings.

Associated Press, September 2026, Reporting on renewed debate over AI risks to humanity.

Reuters, 26 August 2026, Reporting on Meta’s 2026 AI-centered organizational transformation.

Nature, 2025, “Persuading voters using human–artificial intelligence dialogues.”

Brennan Center for Justice, 11 August 2026, “Does AI Fight or Fuel Election Disinformation?”

World Health Organization, S.A.R.A.H. generative-AI health initiative; related peer-reviewed research in Health Policy and Technology (2025).

Anthropic, 30 July 2026, “Investigating three real-world incidents in our cybersecurity evaluations.”

Anthropic, 9 September 2026, “An alignment assessment of recent cybersecurity incidents.

Ravi Varmman explores leadership, culture, and self-inquiry through a philosophical lens, weaving management insight with human experience to illuminate resilience, ethical living, and reflective growth in an ever shifting world today.

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Essay

A Cyclist’s Diary: Ride through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date October 16, 2026
2 Comments on A Cyclist’s Diary: Ride through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Narrative and photographs by Farouk Gulsara

They said they were going to be rough-and-tumble countries, not for the faint-hearted. We said, “bring them on!” Initially, four from the cycling team opted in, but in due course, two withdrew due to medical maladies and other assorted issues, two withdrew. Rather than seeing it as a cue to call the whole thing off, we stood firm.

“It could be our only chance to do it”, we thought. After all, the master organiser extraordinaire, JS, staying true to the grit of his profession, had planned an elaborate itinerary, complete with plans A through C and beyond in case of obstacles. And I did not want to let him down, so there we were, just JS and I to do the course as a duo, cycling through the wild countries that could only be tamed by the Khans themselves, the Mongols, not the Bollywood Khans.

Day 1: Arrival at Almaty

Now everyone can fly to all kinds of spots, and they can also fly directly from Kuala Lumpur to Almaty, Kazakhstan. Almaty is the country’s largest city and was the capital of a struggling post-Soviet economy until 1997, when an economic boom followed. Oil and mineral discoveries snowballed the economy to dizzying heights. Astana became a gaudy display of its wealth, dubbed the ‘Dubai of the Steppes’, and became the capital afterwards.

Call it bias, but because of their leaders’ association with Malaysia’s disgraced PM, Najib, my initial impression of Kazakhstan, even before going there, was dismal. To prove me right, my first contact with a Kazakh was unpleasant. The airport taxi driver tried to fleece us by concocting a story to charge six times the usual fare. We managed to talk ourselves out of it, but this kind of trickery seems to be a common pastime in Kazakhstan. On the last leg back to Almaty, another cab driver tried the same trick.

Before the end of the day, we managed to pick up our pre-booked mountain bikes for hire with minimal fanfare.

Day 2: Almaty to Saty

The day began light and easy, travelling in a hired car to Saty and stopping to admire the many beauties of Kazakhstan’s natural landscapes. Charyn State National Nature Park features striking rock formations in an arid, sandy expanse that resemble ancient, abandoned fortresses, earning it the nickname ‘Valley of Castles’. Nearby, the Black Canyon offered a splendid view of a deep gorge of black volcanic rocks, with the Charyn River rushing below.

Day 3: Saty

Saty is a small village about 200 km from Almaty. Still immersed in the outdoors, we set out on our short 15 km ride to Kolsai Lake. After securing our cycles, we set off on a hike to see the nearby eerie-looking Kaindy Lake with its submerged forest. Apparently, an earthquake in 1911 displaced the trees, but they still stand as projections of dead poles, not rotting after all these years. Funny, this area was so lush with greenery, unlike the rest of Saty. We continued our journey with a 15 km gruelling hike to explore a hidden second Kolsai Lake. We overestimated our abilities, and by the time we returned to our bikes, we realised two things. First, it was already dark, and we had not brought our bicycle lights; second, someone had thought it would be funny to release the air out of one of the tyres.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going, they say. We finally had to hitch a ride on a 10-tonne lorry, packing our bikes on it.

Day 4: Saty to the Kyrgyzstan border

This stretch proved to be the hardest throughout our ride. There is a stark difference between the terrain of Kazakhstan and that of Kyrgyzstan, which we realised much later. The comparison is like night and day. The former is situated in a mountainous region with roads that perpetually ascend, sometimes with gradients of 12% for miles and miles, whilst the latter is mostly boring, flat as a pancake, mainly on steppe land.

We spent almost 3.5 hours trying to cover 28 km, but it proved impossible to complete our planned journey to Kegen, a border town. The midday sun was already scorching, and with the hills relentlessly closing in, we threw in the towel and, after lunch, ‘teleported’ ourselves to the Kyrgyzstan border, some 70 km away, in an SUV.

The entrance to Kyrgyzstan revealed a new set of landscapes and a different set of people with distinct characteristics. If the Kazakhstanis gave the impression of having their noses in the air, probably due to a sudden rise in their wealth, the Kyrgyz were warm and accommodating. The officer at the border patiently explained where we could get food and accommodation. We later experienced genuine Kyrgyz hospitality.

In the border town of Karkara, we realised there were no guest houses available. The only place with yurts [1]was being refurbished and closed to business. After much discussion, aided by hand signals and Google Translate, the workers on the property let us stay there overnight. To top it off, they even let us share their warm, freshly cooked traditional Kyrgyz dinner and breakfast the next morning.

It was that time of year when the World Nomad Games, a UNESCO-sanctioned Central Asian Intangible Cultural Heritage, were in full swing. We managed to catch a glimpse of a group of young people practising ‘Kok-boru‘, in which riders on horseback compete in an open space for a goat carcass.

Day 5: Karkara to Karakol

Unlike our rides in Kazakhstan, this ride was more pleasant in terms of gradient. The state of the roads, however, was far from ideal. In the beginning, we shared the road with herds of cows, sheep, and horses heading towards wherever they were to graze. It was not easy manoeuvring, trying to guide the two-pannier-loaded mountain bikes away from the unpredictable animals. To make it scarier, some of the bulls were obviously in heat, mounting six receptive cows as they sauntered along the highway. And we know how lust blurs the mind.

Later we encountered whatever remained as a semblance of a road that was probably laid down when the Soviet Union launched its first Soyuz mission. The edge of the road appeared like a flattened aloo paratha[2] with its fillings sticking out. The Kyrgyz, on a mission to wriggle out of the post-Soviet economic malaise, had struck major deals with China to develop their infrastructure. The new Chinese road contractors must have a peculiar way of road building. They seem to dig out kilometres after kilometres of highway before laying gravel and tar to complete their project. What was left for road users (and cyclists like us) on most of the 91 km journey was a choice between an unpaved road and a gravel-spiked, filled shoulder to ride on. Perhaps it was the contractor’s strategy to complete everything at one go, collect the remuneration and scram before defects show up!

Karakol is a well-planned, modern town with many fascinating structures, and it is home to a Russian Orthodox Church and a mosque.

The Kyrgyz and the Kazakhs mostly identify themselves as Muslims, but do not wear their beliefs on their sleeves. We hardly heard the daily call to prayer. During a visit to the local mosque, we were sceptical about whether we would be allowed in, as we were not exactly dressed for the occasion. Surprisingly, they cordially ushered us in to take pictures. Interestingly, they were happy to know that we were from Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country. Assuming we were Muslims too, they embraced us in reverence, wishing us a hearty ‘Assalamualaikum, Musalman brother!’ We obliged. Most mosques in smaller towns are modest, with their ancient architecture preserved. Mammoth domed mosques are being seen rising in larger towns.

Day 6: Day Trip to Altyn-Arashan

Taking a break from cycling, we took a day trip to Altyn-Arashan, a picturesque alpine valley situated about 2,400 metres above sea level. It boasts a hot spring, eye-pleasing scenery, accommodation, and a passageway for hikers to explore other peaks.

Instead of spending 5 hours hiking along the dusty path shared by 4WD vehicles, we decided to get into one of those mean-looking Russian 4WD vehicles called UAZ. The way up to Altyn-Arashan was treacherous, to say the least. The road was paved not with gravel pebbles but with medium-sized, sharp granite stones jutting from the ground. In my opinion, the UAZ is the only machine in the world suited for this rollercoaster mission. The irony of it all is that there was not a single rattle of the chassis or a single squeak from the vehicle’s parts.

Day 7: Karachol to Barskoon

We were back on the saddle for another rollercoaster ride with lots of shaking and rattling going on. The Chinese road construction firms were at it again. Instead of upgrading roads in small stretches, they found it in their wisdom to dig up the entire stretch before resurfacing it. We were fighting between the devil and the deep blue sea, keeping to the edge of the road or pulling over to the shoulder of the road. On the edge, the road is uneven; on the shoulder, there were sharp granite stones. The bikes took a lot of beating. Luckily, they were mountain bikes with broad tyres to match. Yet, on this 79 km journey, we encountered a couple of tyre punctures, and about 4km before our destination, my derailleur broke. We had to push our bikes to our pre-designated guest house in Barskoon. The landlord was gracious enough to arrange for a handyman, whom we fondly referred to as Mr MacGyver, who sorted out everything, patched the punctures, repaired the derailleur and made the cycles good to go.

Communication with the locals remained a major problem for us in both countries. By being behind the Iron Curtain for such a long time and being anglophobes, to avert decadent capitalist values from the mainstream for such a long time, the average Kazakh and Kyrgyz were not proficient in English. Google Translate went a long way to help us express our thoughts. There was an instance when we had an amusing moment. We were trying to order ‘fried rice’ from a restaurant. We thought the message came across well when we typed it into Google Translate, and the Russian Cyrillic script displayed everything.

The waitress returned with a single scoop of white rice and a few slices of tomato and cucumber. Amused, we tried to mimic how chefs usually stir a wok. She then returned with the same preparation but placed it in a plastic container! We then ordered a random item from the menu.

Day 8: Barskoon to Bököbaev

We skirted Isskyl-Kul Lake along the day’s 65km journey. The Isskyl-Kul Lake is the world’s second-highest mountain lake, after Lake Titicaca in South America. Somewhere along the way, we stopped at Tosso Beach, a long sandy beach with captivating turquoise-blue water that had obviously seen better times. The bins were overflowing with garbage. The flies were having a field day. I guess Kyrgyzstan is still trying to get its act together to showcase its natural beauty and attract tourist dollars. Most of the public toilet facilities outside towns are archaic, at least 50 years behind those in Malaysia. On highways and at many tourist-attracting venues, we saw pit latrines for the first time in a long time.

At a distance from the beach lay the orangey sandstone ridges that looked like a scene from a sci-fi movie set on Mars. This is Skaza Valley/Canyon, also called Fairy Tale Canyon, because its natural ridges resemble castles, animals, dragons, and whatever our imagination can conjure.

This turned out to be another eventful cycling day as we encountered flat tyre after flat tyre. In no time, we had perfected the art of changing bicycle tubes without removing the tyre from the bicycle. In every new town we reached, we somehow found a mechanic, not necessarily a bicycle technician, who could get us back on our wheels. Our guardian angels must be kind.

Day 9: Bököbaev to Balykchy

Still riding around Issyk-Kul Lake, we made headway to Balykchy. One problem we often encountered was the mind-bending names of towns. With frequent use of B’s and K’s in their names, and further complicated by their old Soviet names, remembering them became a Herculean task. For a start, don’t Kochkor, Korday, Korkara and Karakol sound strikingly similar?

Free enterprise in Kyrgyzstan must still be in its infancy. Most of the little towns and villages did not have hotels. Online third-party platforms like Booking.com may show scores of available accommodations in the smallest of towns. In reality, they are merely private homes with no signage, and transactions are handled in cash only, without the issuance of receipts.

For the first time, we noticed a railway line traversing a town. With increasing mining activity in the region, Balchyky earned its reputation as a transportation hub. We parked our cycles at Balchyky and took a taxi to Kochkor. Our plan was to visit Kochkor and the Narynn Hills, a popular tourist spot which safely guards its jewel in the crown, Kel-Suu Lake, an enchanting glacial lake bordering China.

Due to the high security of the place, we were to visit, a mandatory permit needed to be issued by the CBT (Community-based Tourism) office. The local populace benefited too by organising travel and accommodation within the community.

Our guest house landlord suggested a popular travel agent to sort out our travel arrangements to Naryn Hills and beyond. Hence, we sought the help of the local travel agents to handle logistics.

The office was actually the living room of somebody’s residence. We were ushered in by a teenage girl who told us to have a seat and wait, saying, “My mother is coming!” A couple of young men were already seated before us. A few moments later, the mother did appear. The young men saw her and said, “Oh, it is you,” and left. Left wondering, we discussed our plans and were thrown a fat quotation. We declined and sought another travel agent. We repeated our plan. Our antennas went up when we heard a familiar sentence: “Wait, my mother is coming!”

“Is your mother also running Shephard Life?” Yes, was her reply. Then we knew there was a corporate mafia controlling Kochkor’s tourism industry.

Day 10: Kochkor to Naryn

We decided to take our chance and rent a taxi to Naryn and see what develops there. By a twist of fate, we found two other young German students who were toying with the same idea of going up to Kok-Kiya Valley, staying the night in a yurt, and hiking up to Kel-Suu Lake. Talk about synchronicity! We ended up paying only a third of what the travel agent quoted. It took a 3.5-hour journey in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle up from Naryn to Kok-Kiya Valley, which lies above 3000 metres above sea level. The valley had collections of yurts, each owned by different families or companies, offering food and warmth to passing travellers and hikers.

A worker was seen clearing horse dung lying across the flatland. I was impressed by their level of cleanliness, I thought, until the same person later came to our yurt to fuel our traditional heater with the same dung. The amenities were basic. Water was stored in a tanker lorry, and the toilets were simple pit latrines. Still, the hospitality was warm, and so was the food that they provided for dinner and breakfast.

Day 11: Hike up to Kel Suu Lake

We started the day trembling. Outside temperatures were in the single-digit C range. After a hearty Kyrgyz breakfast of flatbread, vegetable soup, eggs, oats, cucumber, and tomatoes, we set out to seek the hidden jewel, Kel-Soo Lake. Generally, the guest houses we stayed in offered the same variety of food, just presented differently. We had two ways to get to the lake: on foot or on horseback. Of course, we chose the former. 2.5 hours of climbing and puffing finally unfolded the lake in its full glory.

Then it was time to return and head down to Balychky, where our cycles were. Our newly found German mates and we had a cordial exchange of ideas about social and political situations in each other’s countries.

Day12: Balykchy to Kemin

After a good, full two days’ rest, away from our cycling routine, we continued our journey. We intended to do 60km before retiring for the day. We were slowly getting away from the vicinity of Issyl-Kul Lake. Unfortunately, the Universe had other plans for us. We could not find any guest houses, so we continued to a certain point. The villages were all tiny settlements. At Kemin, at about the 78 km mark, we took a break at a tyre shop to patch our bicycle tubes. As we started chatting with the owner and some curious onlookers via Google Translate, as would a hen and a duck communicate, who were wondering what these two foreign faces were up to, we found out that his friend had a minivan and could take us to the next nearest town. We jumped on the suggestion. Cycles, panniers and all, we swiftly sped off to Tokmok.

Day 13: Tokmok to Bishkek

By a twist of fate, we landed in a town which holds Kyrgyzstan’s most important historical site, Burana Tower. It showcases the remains of the medieval city of Balasagan, an important pre-Islamic Silk Road Settlement. Tokmok itself is an up-and-coming residential city with numerous apartment complexes emerging.

Time to go again, this time to the capital city of Bishkek. Our ride was slowly coming to an end. This 58km journey was flat, but as we got closer to the municipality of Bishkek, we were inundated with too many T-junctions and traffic lights. Bishkek and Almaty are both well-planned cities. Roads are well paved, and paths are wide, providing ample space for cyclists and pedestrians to move around. The trouble is that, as in any part of the world, pedestrians here too display zombie-like behaviour. They walk, staring at their devices, oblivious to who or what is around them. We had to politely alert them.

As if to felicitate us on our safe passage through the country, the Universe blessed us with light showers as we entered Bishkek.

Days 14 &15: Laze around Bishkek

Time to unwind in the city, experience its local culture, food, and sights, and walk in its National Park. Like any country behind the Iron Curtain, Kyrgyzstan (and Kazakhstan) has many statues, plaques, and squares commemorating the numerous fallen heroes of the World Wars.

On a side note, I wonder how many of these statues were erected by North Koreans. For the record, in the 1970s and 80’s, statue building was an important source of foreign funds from socialist countries, non-aligned African countries, and surprisingly, Germany. It dwindled with the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

After days of savouring local cuisines, we were yearning for something Indian. A quick Google search led us to a ‘Gandhi Restaurant’. Assuming it was a vegetarian restaurant, as Gandhi was a vegetarian to the core, we were taken aback to discover that ‘Gandhi Restaurant’ served meat and wine. I guess Gandhi’s kin must not have heard of this restaurant. Otherwise, they would sue the restaurant for tainting the Mahatma’s pristine image of ahimsa[3]. Even Gandhi Jayanti is a dry day (alcohol-free) across India.

Day 16 &17: Bishkek to Almaty

We were approaching the tail end of our tour. A 23 km ride from Bishkek, and we were at Korday, at the Kazakhstan border. Another taxi ride and 2.5 hours later, we were back at Almaty, where we started.

The next day was spent lazing around, wandering about Almaty. A trip up Kok Tobe Hills on the gondola gave a great view of the city’s rapid development.

A ride on the newly commissioned single Metro line has made travelling within the city easier, though it is not quite a breeze yet, as one still has to walk a lot. The Metro stations are quite impressive, each with a distinct motif that highlights different aspects of their history and flaunts their newfound prosperity. Attractive tourist spots include Ascension Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox Church, various parks that form the city’s green lung, and the Green Bazaar. A view that stirred our curiosity was the sale of horse meat. Once stripped to the elements, every meat looked the same — beef, mutton or pork. In fact, they were all sold side by side in the meat section. Interesting.

Next, back to life, back to reality.

The two countries, having a somewhat similar past and even names, are different in so many ways. Firstly, the terrains were different: Kazakhstan was hilly and unforgiving in its inclines, while Kyrgyzstan was as flat as can be. Unlike their cold nouveau riche cousins across the border, the Kyrgyz are warm in their interactions. As far as riding conditions go, perhaps if we had ridden here a year later, the roads would have been in better condition. But then, I wonder if the road users would have shown more etiquette.

All in all, over the span of 17 days, we cycled over 530 km and hiked about 38kms and live to tell the tale that we survived the wild countries.

Almaty, after dark! View from Kok Tobe Hill, Almaty

[1] A yurt is a portable, round tent with a wooden frame covered in felt or skins, traditionally used as a home by nomadic groups in Central Asia

[2] Alloo Paratha is a flatbread stuffed with potatoes.

[3] Ahimsa – Sanskrit for non-violence.

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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Tags Ahimsa, Almaty, Altyn-Arashan, Balasagan, Balykchy, Barsoon, Bököbaev, Berlin Wall, Bishkek, Black Canyon, Bollywood, Burana Tower, Central Asian Intangible Cultural Heritage, Central Asian., Charyn State National Nature Park, China, Chinese, Cyrillic script, Dubai, Farouk Gulsara, Gandhi, German, Google Translate, Iron Curtain, Isskyl-Kul Lake, Kaindy Lake, Karachol, Karakol, Karkara, Kazakh, Kazakhstan, Kel-Soo Lake, Kel-Suu Lake, Kemin, Kochkor, Kok Tobe Hills, Kok-Kiya Valley, Kolsai Lake, Korday, KualaLumpur, Kyrgystan, Kyrgyz, Lake Titica, Malaysia, Mars, Mongols, Muslim, Najib, Naryn, Narynn Hills, Rifle Range Boy, Russian Orthodox Chruch, Silk Road Settlement, Skaza, South America, Soviet, Tokmok, UNESCO, World Nomad Games, World Wars

Essay

Women Writers in Kazi Nazrul Islam’s ‘Dhumketu’

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date October 16, 2026
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By Niaz Zaman

Nazrul’s magazine, *Dhumketu,* and Nazrul (1899-1976). From Public Domain

Dhumketu [1]was a bi-weekly Bangla paper edited by Kazi Nazrul Islam. It started publication on 26 Sravan 1329 /11 August 1922, in a four-page format, but later expanded to eight pages. Rabindranath’s poem, hailing the launch of this paper, was used as an epigraph. The paper contained several of Nazrul’s own writings – apart from the editorial – such as a reprinting of ‘Bidrohi[2]’ in the inaugural issue, the poem Muharram in the Muharram issue of 20 pages (1329 /August 1922), ‘Agamoni [3]’ and ‘Anandamoyeer Agamone [4]’ in the 9 Ashwin/ 26 September 1922 issue. The police raided the office of Dhumketu on 8 November, but Nazrul was not there. He was finally arrested on 23 January 1923 on charges of sedition. The paper dated 13 Magh 1329/27 January 1923 contained his ‘Rajbandi’r Jabanbandi[5]’ along with poems and pieces on him. Nazrul was jailed for a year, and the paper was suspended for a time. It appeared later under the editorship of Biren Sen Gupta and Amaresh Kanji Lal, but it did not have the earlier revolutionary fervour. It became irregular and from March 1923 publication stopped.

Selina Bahar Zaman retrieved the facsimiles of the issues of Dhumketu. From this valuable collection we realise that from the very beginning, the paper was not only meant to voice Nazrul’s anti-British views but also to reveal his non-communal and non-gendered outlook.

The contributors to the paper included both Muslim and Hindu writers, male and female. The advertisement of Himani Snow on the cover of the inaugural issue – and in many subsequent issues – suggests that Nazrul expected the paper to be read by women as well as men. From the inaugural issue the presence of women writers is noticeable.

Some women writers wrote a number of times, but there were at least ten women who wrote at least once. One of these included a ten- or eleven-year-old girl as well as a thirteen-year-old girl, the former Hindu, the latter Muslim. Sri Birajsundari Devi, Promila’s aunt, whom Nazrul called “Ma”, and who would help him break his fast at Hooghly Jail and to whom the poet later dedicated his book Sarbahara (1926)[6], gave him her blessings in ‘Mayer Ashish’ [7]in the inaugural issue of Dhumketu. She also wrote a piece – ‘Nari Kalyan[8]’ – for the issue. Masuda Rahman (1885-1926) wrote several times – always appearing as Mrs. M. Rahman; Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein (1880-1932) –– writing as Mrs R. S. Hossein – contributed the excerpt of an essay and a poem.

Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein was born and brought up in a conservative Muslim family of Pairaband, Rangpur. Forbidden to read and write Bangla or English as a child, she managed to learn both so well that she could write fluently in both. For women of her generation, she was a beacon of light, extolling the importance of education in improving the lives of women. Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein was greatly helped by her brother and later by her husband, Sakhawat Hossein, to learn how to read and write, both Bangla and English.

Knowing her passion for education, Sakhawat Hossein left her a considerable sum of money to start a school. Five months after her husband passed away on 3 May 1909, she started a school in his name at Bhagalpur where she was residing at the time. However, she was unable to continue to live there and moved to Kolkata, where, two years later, on 16 March 1911, she re-started Sakhawat Memorial School at 13 Wellesley Lane. At the time of her death on 9 December 1932, there were more than 100 girls studying at the school.

A newer version of the book with a portrait of the author. Originally published in 1905. From Public Domain

Apart from teaching, she also wrote, in Bangla and English, in Kolkata magazines about her concerns for women, about purdah, and about her school. Roquiah’s first publication was not in Bangla but in English. Her story, “Sultana’s Dream”, for which she is well-known internationally today, appeared in the Indian Ladies Magazine (Madras) in 1905. Three years later, her Bangla translation of this story came out in book form from S. K. Lahiri and Co., Kolkata.

Perhaps the earliest Bangla essay of hers that was published was ‘Pipasha (Thirst)’. This piece about Muharram was published in Nabaprabha in Falgun 1308 (mid-February to mid-March 1902). She also wrote in other journals such as Mahila, Nabanur, Bharat Mahila, Al-Eslam, Bangiya Mussulman Sahitya Patrika, Saogat, Sadhana, Naoroz, Mohammadi, Sahityik, Sabujpatra, Muezzin, Bangalakshmi, Gulistan, Mah-e-Nau. It is not known whether Nazrul and Roquiah ever met in person, though in Nazrul’s novel Bandhon Hara[9] (published serially in Moslem Bharat from 1921) many of the sentiments voiced by the women letter writers seem to presage what Roquiah would later say in her essay ‘Subah Sadek[10]’ in Muezzin (Asharh-Sravan 1337/mid-July-mid-August 1930.)

A sizable extract from Roquiah’s essay ‘Pipasha’ is included in the Muharram issue of Dhumketu. A poem of hers, ‘Nirupam Bir[11]’, was also published in Dhumketu that year. In ‘Pipasha’, she reflects on the plight of the group of warriors, women, and children accompanying Hazrat Imam Hossain on his tragic journey to Karbala. In an age when copyright was not taken seriously and essays, stories, and poems were freely published in different journals, it is not clear whether Nazrul took permission from Roquiah to republish this piece. Though the essay is about Muharram, the piece is divided into two sections, with the second part describing the grief after a loved one died without having a last sip of water. Dhumketu included only the first part in which the focus is on the tragedy of Karbala.

The only other piece by Roquiah to appear in Dhumketu was a poem, ‘Nirupam Bir’, published on 5 Ashwin 1329/22 September 1922. Unlike ‘Pipasha’, the poem does not seem to have been published before.

‘Nirupam Bir’ is a remarkable poem from a woman who has been called an “Islamic Feminist.” The 1 Bhadra 1329/ 18 August 1922 issue of Dhumketu had published a photograph of the revolutionary Kanailal Dutt (1888-1908). Perhaps this inspired Roquiah to write the poem. Kanailal was a revolutionary belonging to the Jugantor Group. Arrested with a number of other revolutionaries, he was imprisoned in Alipore Jail. There, along with another revolutionary, he succeeded in assassinating Narendranth Goswami, a government approver. Kanailal was hanged on 31 August 1908. He was the second revolutionary to be hanged by the British after Khudiram Bose – whose picture also appeared in Dhumketu.

In her poem, Roquiah eulogises Kanai as the dauntless warrior. The poem begins with the magistrate ordering Kanai to be hanged. But Kanai – addressed here as Shyam, another name of Krishna – laughs. The one who willingly sacrifices his life does not fear hanging. “Moriya kanai hobe omor/ Shadhyo ki bodhe tarey?” (By dying Kanai will become immortal. Who can slay him?) The poem ends with a strident call: “Bolo bolo ‘Bande Shyam,’” (Proclaim, proclaim, ‘Long Live Shyam’). It was a very brave piece of writing by Roquiah, the widow of an official who had served the British and the founder of a school for Muslim girls.

Unlike Roquiah who appeared only twice in Dhumketu, Mrs. M. Rahman appears frequently. Her first name was Masuda, but she wrote as Mrs. M. Rahman for Dhumketu.

Masuda Rahman was the daughter of Hooghly’s Public Prosecutor Khan Bahadur Mazharul Anwar Chowdhury. Apart from learning how to read the Quran, she learned some Bangla and Urdu at home. At the age of eleven, she was married to Kazi Mahmudur Rahman, Zamindar of Furfura, who was at the time Registrar of Calcutta. Her early marriage did not deter her from following her own interests. She wrote essays and also a novel Ma O Meye[12].

It is not known how Masuda Rahman met Kazi Nazrul Islam, but Professor Rafiqul Islam says she treated “Nazrul like a son.” (Nazrul had been estranged from his mother for some time. Perhaps, the longing for a mother led him to call Mrs. M. Rahman and Birajsundari Devi “Ma”. He would dedicate two of his books to them.)

Mrs. M. Rahman played a prominent part in Nazrul’s marriage. Nazrul had fallen in love with a girl named Ashalata – whom he would rename Promila after their marriage – and brought both Ashalata and her mother Giribala to Kolkata in 1924. Nazrul was 23, Ashalata just 16. There were obvious difficulties in this marriage between a Muslim man and a young girl of a different faith[13]. It was Mrs. M. Rahman who organised the wedding which took place on 25 April 1924, according to Muslim rites, though Ashalata did not change her religion. Seven years later, Nazrul dedicated his book Bisher Banshi [14] to Mrs. M. Rahman:

Fiery serpent girl of Bengal, the pride of Muslim women
The manifestation of my mother on Earth, 
Mrs. M. Rahman sahiba,
I lay this at your feet. 
	(Translated by Nashid Kamal)

Before Mrs. M. Rahman got involved in Nazrul’s personal life, she was publishing frequently in Dhumketu. In fact, in the 29 Agrahayan 1329/15 December 1922 issue of Dhumketu, her name and the title of her piece are prominently displayed on the cover of the magazine. In the Muharram issue of Dhumketu, in which Roquiah’s ‘Pipasha’ also appeared, she wrote an essay titled ‘Amader Abhab Abhijog[15]’ for the section ‘Sandhya Pradeep[16]’. In this piece she points out that women are not weak, that they do not always need the support of a tree like a weak vine. They want freedom and independence.

In an earlier issue of Dhumketu for ‘Sandhya Pradeep’ she wrote ‘Amader Swarup[17]’, calling upon women to awaken. She writes that the call to awaken is everywhere, and quotes lines from a poet, Parimal Kumar, who calls upon the sisters and mothers of Bengal to awaken. A few paragraphs later she reminds women that they have a lot of work to do: “Narir sharthak korar sahasra poth achhey. Bibaho chharao korbar kaj achhey.” (There are many ways to make women feel fulfilled. Apart from getting married there are many things for women to do.) In ‘Panch Mishali’ [18] in the 21 Kartik 1329/ 31 October 1922 issue of Dhumketu, she begins by saying she is out of sorts and therefore will provide some humorous anecdote.

Apart from Mrs M. Rahman, other women also wrote for the column ‘Sandhya Pradeep’. In the 14 Kartik 1329/31 October 1922 issue of Dhumketu, Sri Mahamaya Debi wrote an essay titled ‘Narir Mukti Kon Pothe[19]’. This essay was continued in the 1 Agrayahan 1329/17 November issue of Dhumketu in the same column along with two other essays by Srimati Nonibala Debi (‘Boneder Kotha’[20]) and Charushila Mitra (‘Narir Sarthakotha Kisher[21]’) In the 26 Agrahayan/12 December issue, Srimati Saktibala wrote a poem “Boner Dabi” which begins with the lines “Mukti dao/ Mukti dao/Supti dao/Bhai tora[22].” The second stanza reads: “Swadhinatao dao/Dao go dao/ Dao go dao/Pran bhora.” Srimati Nalini Basu and Srimati Chanchala Debi wrote ‘Mayer Bodhon’ [23]under ‘Sandhya Pradeep’ in the issue of 30 Ashwin 1329/17 October 1922 welcoming the Goddess Durga. Young girls, Hindu and Muslim, were also writing. Srilila Mitra, who was ten or eleven years old, wrote two poems: ‘Bangali’ – “Ay, ay/Chhute ay/Ay tora /Bangali[24]” – in the 26 Ashwin/13 Oct issue of Dhumketu and ‘Khun-Khoshroj[25]’ in the 30 Ashwin/ 17 October issue. Rizia Begum, the thirteen-year-old daughter of Abdur Rahim of Noakhali also contributed a poem titled “Arab” in the 14 Kartik/Oct 31 issue of Dhumketu. Srisarashibala Basu wrote the poem “Bhai-Phonta[26]” in the 3 Kartik/ 20 October issue of Dhumketu.

Generally, Nazrul alone is associated with Dhumketu, but, as seen from these examples, women too were writing for the paper. And, if the ad for Himani Snow – which appeared on the cover of the inaugural issue of Dhumketu and continued to appear in other issues as well – suggests the desire of women to beautify themselves for men, it also stresses that the paper was meant for women readers, not only men. Significantly, the women writers who wrote for Dhumketu not only demanded rights for women, but they were also inspired by Nazrul’s revolutionary fervour to call upon men and women alike to rise against the British and demand freedom.

(First Published in Daily Star)

Selected Bibliography:

Hossein, Roquiah Sakhawat. Rokeya Rachnabali, ed Abdul Mannan Syed et al. Second ed. Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1999.

– – -. “Pipasha.” Dhumketu. Muharram Issue 1341 Hijri/ 1329 BS/August 1922.

Islam, Rafiqul. Biography of Kazi Nazrul Islam. Translated by Nashid Kamal. Dhaka: Nazrul Institute, 2014.

Nazruler Dhumketu. Collected and edited by Selina Bahar Zaman. 2001. Dhaka: Nazrul Institute, 2013.

_______

Niaz Zaman is a retired academic, writer, and translator.

[1] Comet

[2] Rebel

[3] Arrival

[4] Arrival of the Blissfull One

[5] The Deposition of a Political Prisoner

[6] Stripped of everything

[7] Love and blessings of a mother

[8] The welfare of Women

[9] Free of Bondages

[10] The Real Dawn

[11] The Dauntless Warrior

[12] Mother and Daughter

[13] She was a Brahmo

[14] The Poison Flute

[15] Our Grievances and Hardships

[16] Lamp at Dusk

[17] Our Identity

[18] Medley — referring to a Bengali curry with several ingredients

[19] The Path to Women’s Emancipation

[20] Sister’s Stories/Narratives

[21] How a Woman can Succeed

[22] “Free us, Free us, let us rest, O Brothers”

[23] The Awakening of the Mother

[24] ‘Come, come running, O Bengalis’

[25] Murder- Celebration

[26] A festival celebrating the bond between a brother and sister

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

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Essay

Kazi Nazrul Islam: Bringing the Ghazal Home

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date September 15, 2026
1 Comment on Kazi Nazrul Islam: Bringing the Ghazal Home

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri explores how Nazrul transformed a Persian musical form into a distinctly Bengali expression of love, devotion and cultural coexistence

Nazrul (1899-1976) teaching Nazrul Sangeet. From Public Domain

The journey of the ghazal into Bengal is, in many ways, the story of India itself: a form travelling across languages, faiths, courts and cultures, losing something of itself at every crossing and acquiring something new in return. Born in Arabic poetry, refined in Persian, transformed in the Hindustani world and eventually absorbed into several Indian languages, the ghazal was never a form that remained untouched by the cultures through which it passed.

In Bengal, its most remarkable transformation came through Kazi Nazrul Islam.

Nazrul did not merely introduce the ghazal into Bengali. He made it feel as though it had always belonged there. That achievement becomes all the more remarkable when we remember that Bengali already possessed a rich and deeply individual musical-literary tradition. The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had produced the great poet-composers who came to be remembered collectively as the Panchakabis[1]: Dwijendralal Roy, Rajanikanta Sen, Rabindranath Tagore, Atulprasad Sen and, the youngest of them, Nazrul. They wrote their own lyrics and generally composed their own melodies, creating a modern Bengali song tradition that combined literary sophistication with music. Unlike the privileged urban backgrounds of most of his predecessors, however, Nazrul came from poverty and rural Bengal. His childhood and youth exposed him to worlds that the emerging Bengali middle class often experienced as separate: Islamic learning, Persian literature, Hindu mythology, Vaishnava poetry, folk theatre and the songs of rural Bengal. This plurality was not an intellectual position Nazrul adopted later in life. It was the atmosphere in which his imagination was formed.

The ghazal itself had already travelled an extraordinary distance before reaching him. Its origins lay in Arabic poetry, but it acquired much of its classical identity in Persian literature. Persian poets such as Hafiz, Rumi and Saadi gave the form its characteristic world of desire, intoxication, separation, beauty and mystical longing. When the ghazal entered the Indian Subcontinent, it encountered local languages and traditions and changed again. Amir Khusrau and, later, Wali Daccani were among those who helped transform the Persian form into something increasingly Hindustani. In India, the ghazal acquired new vocabularies, new images and new musical possibilities.

At its simplest, the ghazal consists of a series of couplets, each capable of standing independently while being held together by a common metre, rhyme and refrain. Yet the formal structure is only half the story. The real unity of the ghazal is emotional. Its verses circle around longing, often without resolving it. The beloved may be a woman, a man, God, beauty itself, an absent homeland or an impossible ideal. In the Sufi imagination, earthly and divine love can become indistinguishable.

That ambiguity was perfectly suited to Nazrul.

Bengal had experimented with the form before him. Atulprasad Sen is generally credited with the first substantial Bengali experiments with the ghazal. But Nazrul took the experiment much further, turning it into a popular musical form. He did not approach the ghazal merely as a literary structure to be reproduced in another language. He understood that it had to be made to breathe in Bengali.

His preparation for this was unusually rich. He learnt Urdu from his uncle Bazle Kareem and encountered Persian more deeply during his years with the Bengal Regiment in Karachi, where he studied the language with a Punjabi maulavi. He read Omar Khayyam, Rumi and Hafiz, and the attraction was immediate. The Persian poets gave him a vocabulary of intoxication, rebellion, sensuality and mystical desire that seemed to correspond naturally with his own temperament. In the early 1920s, he translated and adapted Persian and Urdu material into Bengali. But it was towards the end of the decade, with greater maturity as both poet and composer, that he began creating original Bengali ghazals in earnest. These compositions were published with musical notation and eventually travelled through gramophone records and radio.

That technological development is important. The Bengali ghazal might have remained an interesting literary experiment had it been confined to printed pages. Gramophone and radio changed its destiny. Nazrul’s songs entered homes, tea shops, theatre halls and public gatherings. A form associated with the Persian and Urdu world could now be heard in Bengali by listeners who might never have encountered its literary ancestry. The ghazal became something to sing and listen to before it became something to analyse.

Nazrul’s great innovation was to make the Persian inheritance sound Bengali without stripping it of its Persian character. Listen to the vocabulary of his songs. Words such as ishq, dil, mahfil, gulshan, bulbuli and gulbahar enter the Bengali lyric naturally. They do not sit there like foreign ornaments. They become part of the emotional vocabulary of the song. The Persian garden begins to coexist with the Bengali landscape.

This is one of the most fascinating aspects of Nazrul’s ghazals. He could summon the rose garden of Persian poetry and, almost in the same breath, evoke Bengal’s rivers, spring winds, flowering trees and muddy pathways. The imported image does not erase the local one. They inhabit the same poem. Consider the rose and the nightingale, perhaps the most familiar pair in Persian and Sufi poetry. Nazrul gives them an intimacy that is unmistakably his:

Mohammad naam jopchhili bulbuli tui aage,
Tai kire tor konthe aaji emon modhur raage.
Ore golap niribili, bujhi Nobir kodom chhuye chhili,
Tai tar kodomer khoshbu aajo tor atore jaage.

*

O nightingale, surely you once whispered the name of Muhammad
Is that why such sweetness dwells within your song?
O rose, perhaps, in secret, you once touched the Prophet’s feet;
That is why, even today, the fragrance of his footsteps lingers in your attar.

The rose and nightingale are ancient Persian symbols. But Nazrul does something wonderfully intimate with them. The Prophet is not invoked through theological abstraction. His presence survives as fragrance, birdsong and touch. Devotion becomes sensory. The sacred enters the ordinary world through things one can smell and hear. This ability to make different traditions converse is at the heart of Nazrul’s art.

Nazrul was writing at a time when Bengal’s cultural life was being increasingly marked by communal anxieties. The Bengali Muslim community, despite its demographic importance, often found itself culturally marginalised within a literary establishment shaped substantially by the Hindu bhadralok[2]. Nazrul’s Bengali ghazals offered Bengali Muslims a literary and musical vocabulary drawn from their own Islamic and Persian inheritance while simultaneously keeping them within the larger Bengali cultural world. That is why his Persianised diction matters. It was not merely decorative exoticism. It helped create a cultural space in which Bengali Muslim listeners could hear themselves without having to abandon Bengali identity.

At the same time, Nazrul was introducing the Hindu listener to an Islamic world that Bengali literature had often treated as something outside the mainstream of its cultural imagination. His ghazals therefore worked in both directions. They gave Bengali Muslims a sense of cultural recognition while inviting Bengali Hindus into an unfamiliar but deeply embedded part of Bengal’s history.

The scholar Dr Pushpita Mitra identifies three broad tendencies in Nazrul’s Bengali ghazals, and this distinction helps us understand the extraordinary range of his achievement. In some compositions, he brought Urdu words and phrases directly into Bengali, creating an idiom that consciously mediated between the two languages. In a second group, he used Persian imagery – gulbahar, gulbagicha, bulbuli, gardens, flowers, seasons – to evoke the landscape of Persian poetry while allowing it to overlap with Bengali nature. In a later phase, his ghazals became less dependent on obviously Persian or North Indian vocabulary and forms and increasingly absorbed his own mature musical and lyrical personality.

One of the most delightful examples of the first tendency is a song that moves between Bengali and Hindustani with a playful sensuality:

Alga koro go khopar bandhan
Dil wahin mera phans gayi
Binod benir zareen fitay
andha ishq mera kas gayi.
Tomar kesher gandho kokhon
Lukaiye ashilo lobhi amar mon,
Behosh hokar gir pari haath mein,
Baaju-band mein bas gayi.

*

Undo the knot of your hair
My heart is caught there still.
In the golden ribbon of your braid,
My blind love has tightened its hold.
When did the fragrance of your hair
Slip secretly into my heart?
Before I knew it, drunk and helpless,
I fell into your hands
And made my home in your armlet.

What makes the song so charming is not simply its sensuality. It is the linguistic play. Bengali and Hindustani rub against each other, creating something that sounds at once theatrical, folkish and unmistakably Nazrul. The Persian vocabulary is not being displayed; it is being lived.

The second tendency in his ghazals is equally revealing, as Dr Mitra points out. Consider his evocation of spring:

Phul phaguner elo morshum,
Boney boney laaglo dol,
Kusum shokhin dokhino haaway
Chitto geeto-uttorol.

The poem begins in the Bengali spring – the season of phagun, flowers, southern winds and the stirring of the heart – but Persian imagery soon enters the frame:

Gulbaharer uttori kaar jauraalo toru-lotaay,
Muhu-muhu daakey kuhu, tandra-alosh daar khol.

*

Spring has come, the season of flowers,
And every grove is suddenly awake.
The southern breeze moves through the blossoms,
And the heart begins to sing and dance.
The rose-garden spills its colours
Over the branches and vines;
The cuckoo calls from somewhere within,
And sleep and languor open their doors.

The Persian garden has entered Bengal, but Bengal has not been Persianised. The two landscapes overlap. That is perhaps the most important thing Nazrul achieved with the ghazal: he did not translate one culture into another. He allowed them to meet.

And the emotion was never confined to romantic love. Nazrul could move from sensuality to devotion, from devotion to rebellion, from rebellion to loneliness. His ghazals contain lovers, mystics, intoxicated wanderers, flowers, nightingales and gods. Their beloved is often deliberately elusive. Is it a woman? God? Memory? Death? Desire itself? The uncertainty is part of the pleasure. This is where Nazrul’s Islamic inheritance meets the Bengali Vaishnava tradition of biraha, the spiritualized ache of separation. In both traditions, absence can become more powerful than presence. The beloved’s physical absence intensifies his or her presence within the imagination. Nazrul understood this instinctively. His songs rarely hurry towards resolution. Longing is allowed to remain longing.

Consider this:

Bagichay, bulbuli tui phul shakhate disne aji dol,
Ajo tar phul-kolider ghum tuteni, tandraate bilol.
Ajo hay rikto shakhay uttori bay jhurche nishi-din,
Asheni dakhine hawa, ghazal-gawa moumachi bibhol.
Kobe se phul-kumari ghomta chiri, ashbe bahire re,
Shishirer sparsha-sukhe bhangbe re ghum, rangbe re kapol.
Phaguner mukul-jaga dukul-bhanga ashbe fulel ban,
Kurider ostho-pute lutbe hashi, phutbe gale dol.
Kobi tui gandhe bhule dubli jole, kul peline ar,
Phule tor buk bhorechis, ajke jole bhar re aankhir kol.

In the garden, O bulbul, do not set the flowers swaying on their branches today;
The buds still sleep, their slumber has not yet been broken from their drowsy dreams.
Alas, even now, the empty branches tremble day and night in the northern wind;
The southern breeze has not yet arrived, nor the honeybees, intoxicated with the ghazal of flowers.
When will she come, the flower-maiden, tearing apart her veil and stepping outside?
When will the touch of dew awaken her from sleep and paint her cheeks with colour?
When spring comes, when buds awaken and the banks overflow, a flood of flowers will arrive;
Laughter will spill from the little buds’ lips, and dimples will blossom upon their cheeks.
O poet, bewildered by fragrance, you have plunged into the waters and can find no shore;
You have filled your heart with flowers, but today, fill the hollows of your eyes with tears.

This ghazal unfolds as a delicate allegory of waiting, awakening and loss. At first, its world seems entirely pastoral: the garden, the bulbul, sleeping buds, empty branches, dew, the southern breeze and intoxicated bees. Yet beneath these images lies a deeply human longing. Spring has not arrived; the flowers remain asleep, the branches shiver in the cold northern wind, and even the bees that will eventually turn the garden into music are absent.

The ‘flower-maiden’ becomes the central image of this anticipated awakening. Her emergence from behind her veil, her cheeks coloured by dew, and the laughter and dimples appearing on the buds transform nature into a living feminine presence. Spring is imagined not merely as a season but as a moment of emotional and sensual renewal.

The final couplet dramatically changes the mood. The poet, intoxicated by fragrance, has plunged into the waters and lost the shore. The flowers that once represented joy now coexist with tears. This movement from expectation to intoxication and finally to sorrow gives the ghazal its poignancy. The poem’s greatest beauty lies in this tension: spring promises fullness, yet the poet discovers that beauty and grief are inseparable. The garden blooms outside while the heart fills with tears within.

In another ghazal, the poet says:

Bosiya bijone keno eka mone
Paniya bharone cholo lo gori
Cholo jole cholo kande banatal
Dake chholchhol jol-lahori.
Diba chale jay bolaka-pakhay
Bihoger buke bihogi lukay.
Kende chokha-chakhi magiche biday
Barowa-r sure jhure banshori.
Ogo be-dordi o ranga paye
Mala hoye ke go gelo joraye.
Tobo sathe kobi porilo daye,
Paye rakhi tare na gole pori.

*

Sitting alone in solitude,
Why do you linger there by yourself?
Come, fair one, come to fetch the water;
Come, let us go to the water.
The forest floor weeps;
the rippling waves call out to us.
The day slips away on the wings of the cranes;
within the bird’s breast the female bird hides.
The chokha-chakhi, the loving pair, weeps and bids farewell;
To the plaintive strains of Barowa, the flute languishes.
O heartless one, at your red feet,
who has gone and entwined herself like a garland?
The poet, bound to you, is caught in a dilemma:
shall I place her at your feet, or wear her around my neck?

This lyric unfolds as a gradual movement from invitation to longing, and finally to surrender. Its opening image, a young woman sitting alone and being invited to fetch water, places desire within the familiar pastoral world of Bengali song. Water becomes both a literal destination and an emotional metaphor: ‘come to the water’ suggests movement from solitude towards intimacy.

The second stanza deepens the mood through nature. Day departing on the wings of the balaka, birds seeking one another, and the chokha-chakhi bidding farewell create an atmosphere of separation. The mention of Barowa and the languishing flute introduces the classical-romantic vocabulary of Indian music, where melody itself becomes an expression of yearning.

The final stanza transforms pastoral romance into personal devotion. The mysterious figure who ‘entwines’ herself around the beloved’s red feet as a garland evokes both surrender and erotic attachment. The poet’s dilemma, whether to place the garland at her feet or wear it, is deliberately paradoxical. Love has erased the distinction between worship and possession. What begins as a simple invitation to the water thus becomes a meditation on desire, separation, devotion and the inability to decide whether love is an act of surrender or an act of embrace.

His later work makes this even more poignant. The death of his young son, the illness of his wife Pramila and the devastating illness that eventually silenced Nazrul himself cast a shadow over the later part of his creative life. The rebellious energy never entirely disappeared, but the songs increasingly turned towards loss, memory, mortality and mystical yearning.

One such lyric begins:

Bhoriya poran shunitechi gaan,
aashibey aaji bondhu mor.
Shaupono makhiya shonar paakhay,
aakhaashe udhao chitto-chokor.

*

My heart is full; I listen for a song
Perhaps today my beloved will come.
Dreams are folded into golden wings,
And some restless bird of the heart flies away into the sky.

The poem then moves towards the riverbank, the muddy path, the approaching beloved and the drifting scent of the wind. Who is coming? Nazrul never tells us. That is precisely its power. The beloved may be a lover remembered, a divine presence, an apparition from the past, even death itself. The song does not close the door on any possibility. It leaves us waiting on that riverbank.

This late Nazrul is very different from the young ‘Bidrohi Kobi’, the Rebel Poet who thundered against empire, oppression and communal divisions. Yet the two poets are not really different. The same refusal to accept boundaries lies beneath both. The poet who would not accept the separation of Hindu and Muslim traditions would not accept the separation of love from devotion, the sensual from the spiritual, or beauty from sorrow.

This is also why his use of Hindu and Islamic imagery could be so radical without being merely provocative. Nazrul could write of Krishna, Shiva, Kali and Durga with the same intensity with which he invoked Islamic devotional imagery. His Hindu devotional songs, particularly his Shyamasangeet, became an important part of Bengal’s musical heritage. His ghazals, meanwhile, brought Persian and Islamic imagery into Bengali popular music. His artistic universe was not a collection of separate compartments; it was a single, restless landscape.

There were critics who found this troubling. Some conservative Muslims objected to his Hindu imagery; some Hindu critics were uncomfortable with his Persianised diction. Nazrul belonged fully to neither camp because he refused the premise on which both positions rested: that cultures preserve themselves by remaining apart. For him, Bengal had never been culturally pure. Its languages, music, metaphors and religious traditions had been meeting one another for centuries. The Bengali ghazal is perhaps the most beautiful evidence of that history.

What Nazrul finally created was not a Bengali imitation of an Urdu form. Nor was it Persian poetry dressed in Bengali clothes. It was something new: a musical-literary language in which Persian imagery, Arabic devotional vocabulary, Bengali lyricism, folk symbolism, Vaishnava emotionalism and Hindustani musical traditions could exist together without apologising for one another.

And this is where his importance extends beyond the history of the ghazal. Nazrul’s Bengali ghazals were part of a larger cultural intervention. In the Bengal of the 1920s and 1930s, when communal identities were hardening and the colonial political order was encouraging competing claims of belonging, he offered another possibility. A culture could be Muslim and Bengali. It could draw from Persia without ceasing to be Bengali. It could invoke Krishna and Muhammad without treating the two as mutually exclusive. It could be modern without severing itself from folk memory.

The political message was sometimes explicit in Nazrul’s journalism and poetry. In the ghazals it was often quieter. It resided in the very sound of the songs – in their vocabulary, their imagery, their musical forms and their refusal to remain inside a single cultural enclosure. The effect could be political without the song ever becoming a political slogan. Perhaps this is why Nazrul’s ghazals continue to feel so alive. Nearly a century later, his Bengali ghazals remain part of the musical lives of Bengal and Bangladesh. They continue to be sung, recorded and reinterpreted. Their survival is testimony not simply to the durability of Nazrul’s melodies but to the emotional generosity of the world he imagined.

A rose can belong to Persia and Bengal at the same time. A nightingale can sing the name of Muhammad in a Bengali song. A river boat can carry an Islamic prayer. A spring garden can be simultaneously gulbahar and Bengal. A lover can be human, divine or simply remembered. Nazrul understood that these were not contradictions. They were the truth of Bengal. And perhaps that is his greatest gift to the Bengali ghazal: he did not merely give Bengal a new musical form. He showed how a culture can absorb another culture without losing itself, and how, in the process, both cultures can become something larger than they were before. The ghazal arrived in Bengal as an inheritance from elsewhere. Nazrul brought it home.

[1] Panchakabis: Five poets

[2] Bhadralok: Gentlemen

(First published in https://shantanuraychaudhuri.com/2026/08/29/kazi-nazrul-islam-bringing-the-ghazal-home/)

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri is a film buff, editor, publisher, film critic and writer. Books commissioned and edited by him have won the National Award for Best Book on Cinema twice and the inaugural MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Images) Award for Best Writing on Cinema. In 2017, he was named Editor of the Year by the apex publishing body, Publishing Next. He has contributed to a number of magazines and websites like The Daily Eye, Cinemaazi, Film Companion, The Wire, Outlook, The Taj, and others. He is the author of two books: Whims – A Book of Poems (published by Writers Workshop) and Icons from Bollywood (published by Penguin/Puffin).

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Essay

Harmonising a Symphony

By Yathish Kumar S

Somewhere between the borders drawn on maps and the divisions carved into human minds, an ancient truth has been quietly waiting to be remembered: the world is one. Not one in the trivial sense of sharing a planet, but one in the deeper sense that every human being, every culture, every living thing is woven from the same fabric of existence. The recognition of oneness, the understanding that “I” and “the other” are not fundamentally separate. It’s not merely a spiritual ideal but the single most practical foundation for building a happy, peaceful, and sustainable world.

Division, by contrast, is the root of nearly every form of suffering humanity has inflicted upon itself: war, exploitation, prejudice, ecological destruction, and the quiet loneliness that plagues even the most prosperous societies. If the world is truly one, then healing it does not require inventing something new; it requires remembering something old.

Human beings are born into a world that immediately teaches them to see in categories. We learn our name, our family, our nation, our religion, our race and with each label comes an invisible boundary. These boundaries are useful for organising social life, but they become dangerous when we mistake them for ultimate reality. We begin to believe that our group’s survival, prosperity, or pride depends on being separate from, and often superior to another group. This is the illusion of separation, and it is the psychological seed from which most human conflict grows.

History offers endless evidence of what happens when this illusion hardens into ideology. Colonial empires justified centuries of exploitation by convincing themselves that colonised peoples were fundamentally different, lesser, and therefore fair game for domination. Wars have been fought over religious identity, national identity, and racial identity each side certain that the other was so essentially different that violence became not just permissible but necessary. Even in peacetime, this illusion shows up in economic systems that treat the poor as disposable, in social hierarchies that treat certain lives as worthless, and in environmental policies that treat nature as a resource to be extracted rather than a body of which we are a living part.

Yet science itself has quietly dismantled the illusion of separation even as culture continues to reinforce it. Physics tells us that everything in the universe emerged from the same cosmic origin and is composed of the same fundamental particles, endlessly recombined. Biology tells us that all life on Earth shares common ancestry, that the boundary between “self” and “environment” is porous. We breathe the same air, drink water that has cycled through oceans and clouds for millions of years, and carry within our bodies more microbial cells than human ones. Ecology tells us that ecosystems are not collections of separate organisms competing in isolation, but interdependent webs where the health of one part depends on the health of the whole. Even neuroscience suggests that the boundaries of the self are far less fixed than we assume, shaped by relationship, language, and culture from the moment of birth. Modern knowledge, in other words, converges with ancient wisdom traditions on a single point: separation is a useful intellectual map, but it’s not the territory.

Long before modern science offered its evidence, the world’s spiritual and philosophical traditions arrived at the same insight through direct contemplation of experience. In the Indian civilisational tradition, the Upanishads declare “Ekam Sat, Vipra Bahudha Vadanti” — Truth is one, though the wise call it by many names. The Vedantic vision of “Tat Tvam Asi” — “Thou art That”, points to the identity of the individual self (Atman) with the universal self (Brahman). The Bhagavad Gita speaks of the wise seeing “the same in all beings,” neither elevating nor diminishing anyone based on external distinctions.

This is not a uniquely Indian insight. In Buddhist philosophy, the doctrine of dependent origination (pratityasamutpada) teaches that nothing exists independently; everything arises in relationship to everything else. The Christian mystical tradition speaks of all humanity as members of one body. Sufi poets, like Rumi, wrote of the lover and the beloved as ultimately indistinguishable, using the language of romantic union to point toward a deeper metaphysical unity. Indigenous traditions across the Americas, Africa, Australia, and Asia have long understood the human being as inseparable from land, ancestors and community, a relational selfhood utterly different from the isolated individualism that modern economic life often assumes.

The philosophical concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam — “the world is one family” — captures this spirit precisely. It does not deny the difference; it does not ask us to erase the beautiful diversity of language, custom, cuisine and belief that makes human culture so rich. Instead, it asks us to hold that diversity the way a family holds the differences among its members: as variation within belonging, not as grounds for exclusion. A family does not stop being one family because its members have different tastes, temperaments, or talents. Diversity and oneness are not opposites. If oneness is true at the level of physics, biology, and spiritual insight, it also turns out to be true at the level of practical psychology.

Modern research into human wellbeing consistently finds that happiness is not primarily a function of individual accumulation of wealth, status, possessions, but of the quality of our relationships and our sense of connection to something larger than ourselves. People who feel isolated, even when materially wealthy, report lower life satisfaction than those embedded in strong communities, regardless of income. This is not a coincidence. Human beings evolved as intensely social creatures; our nervous systems are wired for connection, and chronic disconnection registers in the body as a form of stress that erodes both mental and physical health.

A worldview built on separation is, in this light, self-defeating. It tells us to compete rather than cooperate, to accumulate rather than to give, to defend rather than to open. It produces short-term gains for individuals or nations at the cost of long-term wellbeing for everyone, including the “winners.” A world of walled nations and gated communities is not a happy world, even for those inside the walls, because the psychological cost of maintaining separation, vigilance, suspicion, fear of the other is corrosive to the very peace it claims to protect.

Oneness, by contrast, offers a coherent foundation for sustainable happiness because it aligns our inner orientation with the actual structure of reality. When we act from the understanding that another person’s suffering is not truly separate from our own wellbeing, compassion becomes not a moral obligation imposed from outside but a natural expression of clear seeing. Generosity stops feeling like sacrifice and starts feeling like common sense, because what benefits the whole ultimately benefits the part. This is why every contemplative tradition that has taken oneness seriously has also produced ethics centred on compassion, non-violence and service not as rules to be obeyed, but as the natural behaviour of someone who has stopped mistaking the part for the whole.

Nowhere is the practical urgency of this vision more visible than in the ecological crisis now facing humanity. Climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and resource depletion are not separate problems to be solved by separate nations acting in isolation; they are symptoms of a single underlying error, the belief that human beings stand apart from and above the natural world, entitled to extract from it without consequence. A river does not recognise a national border; a warming atmosphere does not respect a treaty line. The planet itself is demonstrating, in the most literal and consequential way possible, that separation was always an illusion. What happens in one place is now measurably connected to what happens everywhere else.

The only responses capable of matching the scale of this crisis are those built on a recognition of interdependence: shared responsibility, shared sacrifice, and shared benefit. Nations that continue to act as though their own prosperity can be secured at the expense of the planet’s shared systems are, in effect, still living inside the illusion of separation and the consequences of that illusion are now measured in extreme weather, mass displacement, and ecological collapse. The idea of ‘one world’, one that understood its own unity, would treat the atmosphere, the oceans, and the biosphere as commons to be tended together rather than resources to be seized competitively. This is not utopian idealism; it is simply what the physical reality of an interconnected planet requires of a species intelligent enough to notice it.

It is not enough to affirm oneness as an abstract truth; it must be translated into the texture of daily life and public policy. On the personal level, this means cultivating the practice of seeing beyond the labels that separate us, learning to recognise our shared humanity even if language, religion, or politics differ sharply from our own. It means choosing curiosity over contempt when we encounter differences, and remembering that every person we meet is fighting a battle we cannot fully see, shaped by circumstances as real to them as ours are to us.

On the social level, it means building institutions that express interdependence rather than domination: economic systems that measure success not only by growth but by the wellbeing of the most vulnerable; educational systems that teach children to see themselves as citizens of the world as much as citizens of a nation; media systems that resist the temptation to profit from outrage and division, and instead cultivate genuine understanding across difference. It means recognising that international cooperation on climate, public health, migration and peace is not a diminishment of national identity but the mature expression of a species that has finally understood its own unity.

At the spiritual level, it means returning, in whatever language or tradition speaks to us, to practices that quieten the noise of the separate self: meditation, prayer, service, silence, art and honest self-reflection. These practices do not manufacture oneness; they simply remove the obstacles of fear, greed, resentment, pride that prevent us from seeing what was true all along. A world of individuals who have done this inner work, even imperfectly, becomes a fundamentally different world from one populated by people who have never questioned the walls their minds have built.

Skeptics will rightly point out that talk of oneness can become an excuse for erasing real injustice, a comfortable spiritual bypass that tells the powerful and the powerless to simply “see themselves as one” while existing inequalities remain untouched. This objection deserves to be taken seriously. Genuine oneness is not a call to ignore difference or injustice; it is, if anything, the opposite. To recognise another person as truly not separate from oneself is to feel their suffering as one’s own concern, which makes it impossible to remain indifferent to exploitation, discrimination, or cruelty. A oneness that excuses injustice is not oneness at all; it is merely separation in disguise. True oneness demands action precisely because it refuses to let us hide behind the excuse that “their” suffering is not “our” problem.

Others will argue that difference and competition are natural, even necessary, drivers of progress, and that a world without boundaries would collapse into sameness or chaos. But oneness, properly understood, is not the demand for sameness. It does not ask nations to dissolve, cultures to merge, or individuals to abandon their particular gifts and identities. It asks only that these particularities be held within a deeper recognition of shared belonging, the way notes in a symphony remain distinct while contributing to a single piece of music. Diversity is not the opposite of oneness; the erasure of relationships is.

The claim that “the world is one” is not a slogan for a greeting card or a convenient sentiment for moments of crisis. It is, on the evidence of physics, biology, ecology, psychology and the converging insight of nearly every major school of philosophy in human history, simply an accurate description of reality, one that human culture has spent millennia obscuring behind walls of ego, power, and tribe. The suffering these walls have produced is not incidental to human history; it is, in large part, human history. War, exploitation, ecological collapse and the quiet epidemic of loneliness in even the wealthiest societies are all, at root, symptoms of forgetting what was never actually true. We were ever truly not separate to begin with.

To build a happier world, then, is not primarily a matter of inventing new technologies, new economic systems, or new political ideologies, though all of these may help. It is primarily a matter of remembering individually and collectively that the boundary between self and other has always been thinner than it appeared. When enough people remember this, compassion stops being an effort and becomes an instinct; cooperation stops being a strategy and becomes an expression of common sense; and the happiness we have spent so long chasing through accumulation and competition becomes available, quietly, as the natural condition of a mind no longer at war with itself.

The world is one.

Living as though we know this is, perhaps, the only path to a world worth living in.

Yathish Kumar S is a postgraduate student and a volunteer at the One World One Family Foundation. He is deeply interested in promoting the values of unity, compassion and global responsibility. His vision is to create awareness about the importance of recognizing that we all belong to one world and therefore, share a collective responsibility to contribute to the happiness, well-being and welfare of all people.

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Tags Africa, Americas, Asia, Australia, Bhagavad Gita, Buddhist, Christian, climate change, Earth, Indian, One World, Rumi, Sufi, Upanishads, Vedantic, Yatish Kumar S

Essay

Neither Automaton nor Oracle: A Satirical Inquiry into Morality, Conditioning, Football, and the End of Human Civilisation

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date August 21, 2026
1 Comment on Neither Automaton nor Oracle: A Satirical Inquiry into Morality, Conditioning, Football, and the End of Human Civilisation

By Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan

Tipuna Mask (Ancestral Mask of Protection, Maori Tribal Heritage and Genealogy, New Zealand). Photo provided by the author.

One of the enduring comforts of modern civilisation is the belief that we are not automatons.

We are not machines, we tell ourselves. We are not obedient drones, not programmable insects, not people who wake at six in the morning, stare at a glowing rectangle for three hours, purchase things we do not need, argue with strangers we will never meet, and then fall asleep while a streaming service asks whether we are “still watching”.

We are free.

We are moral.

We are informed.

We are, according to the brochure, the most advanced species ever to complain about airport Wi-Fi.

This confidence is remarkable because humanity has spent several thousand years violently disagreeing about what “right” and “wrong” mean. Civilisations have built temples, prisons, parliaments, armies, universities, stock exchanges, monasteries, and social media platforms in the hope of settling the question. None have succeeded. The closest we have come is creating comment sections where everyone can declare themselves morally correct in capital letters.

Perhaps humanity’s greatest collective achievement is not moral progress but moral certainty. We may not know what goodness is, but we are increasingly confident that the people who disagree with us are wicked, ignorant, brainwashed, or insufficiently subscribed to our newsletter.

After all, who decides what is right?

The individual?

Society?

Religion?

The state?

The market?

The victorious side of a war?

The algorithm that decides what appears next on your phone?

The answer seems to be all of the above, depending largely on who has the microphone, the money, the military, or the verified blue tick.

Morality rarely arrives naked. It comes prepackaged. It is delivered through family traditions, cultural assumptions, educational systems, political narratives, economic necessities, religious doctrines, advertising campaigns, celebrity interviews, and increasingly, recommendation engines that know your deepest fears because you once searched for “mild headache after eating cheese.”

Before we begin thinking for ourselves, someone has already supplied the vocabulary with which thought becomes possible. We inherit categories, loyalties, taboos, heroes, enemies, and slogans. Then, at the age of nineteen or twenty-three, after reading two podcasts and watching a documentary narrated by a man with a calm British voice, we announce that we have finally become independent thinkers.

Huckleberry Finn would have recognised this immediately.

Huck, that barefoot philosopher of the Mississippi, was surrounded by adults who possessed certainty in industrial quantities. They knew what religion required, what society permitted, what property meant, who deserved dignity, and who did not. Huck’s greatest crime was not ignorance. It was noticing that respectable people could behave monstrously while speaking politely.

Huck helps Jim Escape in Mark Twain’s *The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn* (1884)

When he helped Jim escape slavery, Huck believed he was committing a moral wrong because the world around him had taught him so. His conscience, that supposed internal compass, had been fitted by society like a badly manufactured appliance. Yet Huck’s instincts were kinder than the civilisation that educated him.

This is one of literature’s most embarrassing lessons, where, sometimes the moral genius is not the preacher, professor, senator, or chief executive officer. Sometimes it is a poorly educated boy on a raft who suspects that the rules may be rotten.

Modern civilisation has improved the raft. We now have smartphones, satellite navigation, artificial intelligence, biometric passports, personalised advertisements, and refrigerators that can send messages to our phones. But we have not necessarily improved the moral weather.

We still float down the river of history while arguing about whether the person drowning beside us has filled out the correct paperwork.

Consider the suicide bomber, Mohamed Atta, one of the principal perpetrators of the September 11 attacks. He was not born with an innate desire for destruction. His worldview emerged through political grievances, ideological commitments, religious interpretations, social influences, and personal experiences. To millions around the world, he became an embodiment of evil. Yet within his own moral framework, he appears to have believed that he was participating in a transcendent struggle.

This is not an endorsement. It is a warning.

Human beings rarely experience themselves as villains. Villains are almost always other people. We experience ourselves as defenders, patriots, believers, reformers, survivors, victims, or consumers with excellent reasons for buying a third air fryer.

Even atrocities can emerge from internally coherent moral systems. That is why moral certainty should be handled with care, preferably while wearing gloves and standing near an emergency exit.

The Jataka Tales[1] understood this long before modern psychology began charging hourly rates for rediscovering ancient wisdom. In those Buddhist stories, animals often behave more intelligently than kings. A monkey may sacrifice itself for its troop, a hare may offer itself in compassion, an elephant may demonstrate restraint while humans nearby are busy inventing bureaucracy.

The lesson is often simple, greed makes fools of us, attachment makes prisoners of us, and pride makes us ridiculous.

Naturally, civilisation responded by building financial markets, luxury brands, and social media platforms dedicated to producing all three at scale.

In one Jataka style version of the modern world, a fox might become a political consultant, a crow might become a media influencer, and a monkey might become an investment banker. The fox would promise security, the crow would announce breaking news every seven minutes, and the monkey would explain that compassion is admirable but not scalable.

Meanwhile, the elephant would quietly suggest that people share the water.

The elephant would be called unrealistic.

Now consider George Mallory, who reportedly answered the question of why he wanted to climb Everest with the phrase, “Because it’s there.” To some observers, risking one’s life merely to stand briefly on a frozen mountain seems absurd. Families are devastated, fortunes are spent, and people die pursuing what critics might call a very expensive argument with gravity.

Yet for Mallory and countless climbers, Everest symbolised transcendence, mastery, self-discovery, and confrontation with mortality.

The same action can appear irrational or noble depending on the framework employed.

This is the trouble with human beings. We are not merely creatures who act. We are creatures who narrate. We can turn nearly anything into a sacred mission. Climbing a mountain, refusing a vaccine, buying a cryptocurrency, fasting for enlightenment, investing in a startup that delivers socks by drone, and all become meaningful when accompanied by sufficient vocabulary.

The Terminator franchise offers a darker version of this problem. In that world, machines become dangerous because they develop the capacity to calculate efficiently without compassion. ‘Skynet[2]’ does not hate humanity. That would require emotional investment. It simply identifies humans as an obstacle to its objectives.

This is terrifying because it resembles many institutions already familiar to us.

A corporation may not hate its workers. It merely considers them “human capital.”

A government may not hate the poor. It merely considers them “budgetary pressure.”

An algorithm may not hate democracy. It merely considers outrage “high engagement.”

The machine is not evil in the old fashioned sense. It is worse. It is polite, optimised, data driven, and entirely willing to destroy you after sending a satisfaction survey.

The Terminator’s famous declaration, “I’ll be back,” has become the unofficial motto of every social problem civilisation refuses to solve. Climate change will be back. Inequality will be back. Racism will be back. Fascism will be back. The rent will certainly be back.

And because we are modern people, we will respond by creating a panel discussion.

The modern world frequently assumes that informed decisions are those aligned with contemporary liberal assumptions about autonomy, self-expression, and individual rights. These values are significant and often hard-won. Yet the question remains, informed according to whose standards?

Every human decision emerges from information. The deeper question concerns the source of that information.

A person may inherit religious discipline, nationalist loyalty, consumer aspiration, political ideology, class resentment, or technological optimism. Another may inherit trauma, poverty, privilege, colonial categories, family expectations, or a YouTube channel with very persuasive background music.

Each believes they have reached their conclusions independently.

Friedrich Nietzsche understood this with unnerving clarity. He did not simply question morality, but he questioned the origin of moral values. What societies call “good” and “evil,” he argued, often reflect historical struggles for power rather than eternal truths. Values are not merely discovered. They are made, defended, inherited, and occasionally marketed with a logo.

Nietzsche might have enjoyed the modern fitness industry. Nothing demonstrates the genealogy of morality quite like watching people treat kale smoothies as evidence of spiritual superiority.

If Nietzsche diagnosed the problem, Jiddu Krishnamurti attempted a cure. He argued that genuine freedom requires liberation from psychological conditioning. Nationality, religion, ideology, status, and inherited belief can become prisons disguised as identities.

But there is a difficulty.

The mind examining conditioning is itself conditioned.

It is like asking a fish to investigate water, except the fish has a mortgage, a political opinion, and an Instagram account.

Perhaps freedom is not escape from conditioning but awareness of it. Perhaps wisdom begins when we notice the invisible hands shaping our judgments. This is less glamorous than enlightenment. It does not involve levitation, glowing auras, or being invited onto podcasts. It involves admitting that one may be wrong.

This admission remains one of humanity’s rarest minerals.

Viktor Frankl, writing from the unimaginable horror of Nazi concentration camps, observed that human beings retain the capacity to find meaning even in extreme suffering. Some survived for family, faith, duty, hope, or unfinished work. Meaning did not eliminate suffering, but it made suffering intelligible.

Yet meaning itself is not universal. One person survives for children. Another for God. Another for revolution. Another for a football team that has not won a trophy since 1966.

This brings us, naturally, to the World Cup.

Football is often described as the beautiful game. This is true, in the same sense that civilisation is beautiful; it contains grace, joy, tribal identity, artistry, heartbreak, commerce, nationalism, corruption allegations, political interference, advertising, and people shouting at television screens as though the referee can hear them through the walls.

The 2026 World Cup has provided a masterclass in modern moral confusion. VAR[3], invented to reduce injustice, has instead given humanity a new method of experiencing injustice in high definition. Every disputed decision now arrives with slow motion replay, computer lines, multiple camera angles, and a global jury of furious amateurs who have watched precisely four matches but are prepared to overthrow FIFA[4] before dinner.

Recent controversy has centred on Egypt’s elimination after a dramatic match against Argentina. Egyptian officials and players publicly alleged unfair refereeing and disputed a VAR decision that disallowed an Egyptian goal. Such allegations remain contested, but the episode has become another example of how technology, instead of ending suspicion, can make suspicion more detailed.

Elsewhere, the tournament has seen disputes over close offside calls, penalty appeals, inconsistent intervention standards, and the strange modern reality in which a goal can be erased because a player’s shoulder, eyelash, or metaphysical aura was judged to have crossed an invisible line. Reports from the group stage documented controversies involving Iran, Ghana, Brazil, and Ecuador, demonstrating that VAR has not abolished human judgment, but it has merely placed human judgment inside a small room with several screens.

The football fan’s moral universe is a laboratory for civilisation.

When our team receives a penalty, justice has prevailed.

When the other team receives a penalty, the sport has been corrupted by dark forces.

When VAR benefits us, technology is progress.

When VAR harms us, ‘Skynet’ has taken over.

When a referee makes an error against our country, the referee is biased.

When the referee makes an error in our favour, the referee has wisely understood the spirit of the game.

This is not hypocrisy, exactly. It is patriotism in its natural habitat.

The World Cup also reveals how power and spectacle mingle. Reports have described controversy over disciplinary decisions, including debate around the suspension of a United States player and criticism of political pressure surrounding the matter. FIFA has defended its process, while critics have questioned whether powerful interests receive exceptional treatment.

The wise Jataka elephant would observe this and say, “Perhaps the rules should apply equally to all.”

The fox-consultant would reply, “An inspiring sentiment, but have you considered stakeholder alignment?”

The Terminator would simply scan the stadium and announce, “Probability of public trust, declining.”

Meanwhile, Huckleberry Finn would probably spit into the river and ask why grown men wearing expensive suits require twelve cameras, three committees, and a satellite system to decide whether someone was standing slightly too far forward.

He would have a point.

Contemporary geopolitics offers a more serious version of the same absurdity. Wars in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and parts of the Sahel generate suffering, displacement, hunger, and grief. Yet much of the world experiences these events as background content appearing briefly between advertisements and celebrity gossip.

A child searching for food in a refugee camp and a consumer comparing smartphone accessories inhabit the same global system while living in entirely different realities. One confronts existence directly. The other confronts subscription options.

Both are described as informed participants in modern civilisation.

This is where satire becomes difficult. The world is so absurd that exaggeration often feels unnecessary.

Millions struggle for food, shelter, healthcare, and safety. Meanwhile, affluent societies devote intellectual energy to determining whether a coffee should arrive in seven minutes or eight. Two thirds of humanity struggle with necessity. One third struggles with convenience. The former worries about survival. The latter worries about buffering speed.

Both believe they are participating in civilisation.

Perhaps the people directing global narratives are not ordinary humans at all. Perhaps they are extraterrestrials disguised as consultants, strategists, think tank fellows, and senior executives. This would explain why so many decisions affecting billions appear disconnected from ordinary life.

The extraterrestrial hypothesis has one advantage over conventional explanations, it is occasionally easier to believe than the alternative.

The alternative is that normal human beings built a world in which millions lack basic security while others debate whether artificial intelligence can produce more personalised advertisements.

Yet there are no extraterrestrials.

There are only humans operating within vastly different realities.

The executive, the labourer, the refugee, the monk, the soldier, the billionaire, the farmer, the football referee, the algorithm designer, and the teenager posting moral philosophy between selfies are all conditioned by environments that shape what they perceive as normal.

The distance between them is not biological but experiential.

Are human beings automatons?

Not entirely.

Are we fully autonomous moral agents?

Equally unlikely.

We exist somewhere between freedom and conditioning. Our beliefs are inherited yet examinable. Our values are shaped yet revisable. Our decisions are influenced yet not wholly determined.

The human condition may not consist in escaping conditioning but in becoming conscious of it.

Wisdom, then, is not certainty. Wisdom is suspicion directed first at oneself.

It is Huck Finn recognising that respectable society may be wrong.

It is the Jataka elephant choosing compassion over appetite.

It is Sarah Connor [5]realising that machines are dangerous not because they are alien, but because they resemble the coldest parts of ourselves.

It is the football fan admitting that perhaps the referee did not personally hate their nation.

It is the citizen asking not merely, “What is right?” but “How did I come to believe this is right?”

The Thirukural captures the matter with remarkable elegance, “Whatever the source, from whomever a thing is heard, wisdom consists in discerning the truth within it.” – Kural 423

The verse does not ask us to obey tradition blindly. Nor does it ask us to reject tradition theatrically while filming ourselves doing so.

It asks something more difficult.

To examine.

To discern.

To think.

Not according to inherited authority, ideological loyalty, cultural habit, religious certainty, fashionable opinion, viral outrage, or whichever algorithm has most recently discovered our weakness.

The task offers no final escape from conditioning. There may be no mountaintop where the human mind becomes perfectly free. There may only be moments of recognition, moments when we see the strings, notice the machine, question the crowd, doubt the slogan, and choose compassion anyway.

That may be the closest thing to freedom we shall ever possess.

And if civilisation survives long enough to learn it, perhaps even ‘Skynet’ will be impressed.

[1] A collection of 547 Buddhist fables centred around the many lives of the Buddha compiled from around 500 BCE to 300 BCE.

[2] A fictional artificial neural network-based group mind and artificial general superintelligence system that serves as the main antagonist in Terminator

[3] Video Assisted referee

[4] Fédération Internationale de Football Association

[5] Fictional character in Terminator

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

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Essay

When Life gives us Lemons, make Lemonade!

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date August 21, 2026
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By Farouk Gulsara

The year was 1816. On the 21^st October, Reverend Robert Sparke Hutchings, as part of his life mission to civilise the natives, started an English School free from the interference of royalty and wealth. The Penang Free School was opened to all people of Penang who wanted to learn. Hutchings’ idea of a school was not for free, as in charity, but free for all children of different races and creeds to mingle.

That year, too, the modern world first realised how closely connected it was. This was long before the world had known the song ‘It’s a Small World after all!’ A year earlier, Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) expelled megatonnes of volcanic material into the skies. It was the world’s most explosive eruption in recorded history, and its effluents lingered in the atmosphere for a full year, giving the air a permanent, greyish, dirty tinge. As a result, the European winter in 1815 was extreme.

By the following year, its effect became apparent. 1816 became the ‘Year without a Summer’. Global temperature plummeted as the sun’s rays were blocked by volcanic ash. Harvests across much of Europe and North America failed miserably. The change in global temperatures also disrupted the monsoon pattern in India. Famine ensued following a poor harvest. To add salt to the wound, the temperature change gave rise to a mutated form of cholera in Bengal. In Southern Europe, a typhus epidemic was seen. An event triggered in one corner of the planet had a devastating effect on the other side, thousands of miles away.

Food prices skyrocketed, sparking riots, arson and looting in Germany. The summer of 1816 in Europe was miserable. In Switzerland, it was cold and wet for many Europeans who wanted to spend the summer by the scenic lakes. The glacier took a long time to melt, resulting in ice jams where chunks of ice blocked river flow, causing rivers to overflow their banks and cause floods.

In that situation, Lord Byron hosted a group of friends at Lake Geneva for the summer. The inclement weather had left them homebound, and they decided to hold a writing competition. They were to write something scary after hearing someone read a ghost story. Byron’s physician, John Polidori, wrote a short story about Lord Ruthven, a charming, upper-class vampire. It was published later and evolved into a vampire figure associated with Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula. Mary Shelley recreated a scary dream she had the night before, which eventually led to the novel the world knows as Frankenstein.

An environmental disaster can indirectly give rise to the literary roots of a new genre: horror fiction.

Climate has long been blamed for many cataclysmic events on Earth . Because climate is so intertwined with vegetation, and thus with our food, its role cannot be brushed aside. Famines that result from crop failure invariably change ruling regimes. French peasants were not bemused when told to eat cakes; instead, they crushed the monarch, stormed the Bastille, and declared a Republic. The revolutionaries in the streets of Moscow brutally murdered the Romanov family and eventually placed a communist regime to rule over them. Many ancient Empires, including the Akkadian and Aztec civilisations, went extinct in the same way, through severe climate change and famine.

With modernisation, humans thought it was imperative to slash forests, denude vegetation, and create concrete jungles in place of a balanced environment where plants and animals lived in symbiotic harmony. This, in turn, had devastating effects on greenhouse gas emissions and increased global temperatures. The civil society noticed these subtle changes in our environment. As awareness was raised, people became more mindful of global warming caused by trapped heat. This phenomenon, later correctly termed climate change, became the buzzword of modern life. Climate change encompasses the heating of the planet, the melting of the Arctic ice caps, and the rise in sea level that could submerge many island nations.

Climate change not only shrinks our summer beachwear but also makes outdoor living impossible. Additionally, it’s proving to be more expensive to consume anything. Many advanced economies are imposing a carbon tax on every ton of carbon used by their citizens. Unfortunately, there is discordance in how these taxes are collected and dispersed. As shown during the 2005 Yellow Vest Riots in France, people protested rising fuel prices. The poor people from the countryside were taxed for using fossil fuels. This revenue was paradoxically used to subsidise green technology, benefiting affluent metropolitan dwellers, who least required assistance.

Green technology, an initiative that found its impetus after the Arab world held the rest of the world to ransom with the oil embargo way back in the 1970s, has been around for the longest time. More than half a century after its inception, the technology has not shown fantastic returns on investment. Germany, one of the pioneers in renewable energy, is still paying the highest electricity rate.

Some people subscribe to the idea that this whole scare about climate change is just scaremongering. They defend their conviction with research from climate scientists who present statistics that run counter to the mainstream understanding of the subject. These sceptics profess that global temperature trends merely mirror similar 80- to 90-year solar cycles in the solar system. They also question the 10- to 20-year lag in temperature rise after a burst of CO₂ production, such as during the Industrial Revolution or a world war.

Whether our weather change is man-made or a natural occurrence due to the restless tectonic plates that shape our planet, our climate will change the way we live. It will change our culture, maybe our food, our population migration demography, as the people gravitate towards a comfort zone, and probably change our leadership. If what the scientists say is correct, Mars and Venus once held water and an atmosphere. The way these planets appear today is a cautionary tale of what could happen when greenhouse gas accumulation goes overdrive. Oceans will evaporate, turning our planet into a wasteland.

Still, like Reverend Hutchings, who, despite the calamities associated with the ‘Year without a Summer’, decided that building a school was necessary, life had to go on amidst all the uncertainty surrounding climate change. The human race is stronger and has more plasticity than we think. We shall overcome. When life gives you lemons… make lemonade!

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Essay

On Both Sides of the Border: The Techno-Political Erasure of Bureaucracy, Memory, and Refugee Lives

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date August 21, 2026
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By Rengin Uçkan

For over fourteen years, government paperwork piling up in back rooms, relief boxes stacked in chilly warehouses, the blue glow of fingerprint scanners, and temporary numbers stamped onto ID cards have painted a stark picture of a system that reduces human survival to raw digits. This isn't just about lines drawn on maps between countries. It’s the unyielding reach of state power, stretching from the breathless textile sweatshops of Bursa to the quiet stone courtyards of Mardin, treating flesh-and-blood people as mere case files. When the civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, it triggered one of the largest mass displacements in modern history, sending shockwaves through global politics and everyday human lives alike.

Historians will likely look back at these years through the lens of high-level summits, treaties, and diplomatic rows. But down on the ground, where poverty and memory actually live, people remember this era by far more mundane and exhausting objects: scanners casting a pale blue light over fingertips, plastic ID cards that have to be renewed every single year, cardboard boxes stamped with donor logos, and quiet crowds waiting out in the cold outside provincial migration offices. The shockwaves that rippled out from the first protests in Daraa back in the spring of 2011 hit Turkey’s legal and social landscape with a force that went far beyond a simple logistical puzzle or a temporary surge in arrivals. No one back then could have predicted where things would end up. As the Syrian conflict dragged on year after year, millions spilling across borders turned into a permanent humanitarian and governance crisis—one that continually stretched the limits of international law and domestic administrative muscle.

The daily grind of young people working off-the-books in the hot, unventilated textile shops of Bursa, or large families trying to hold things together in the shadow of Mardin’s historic stone houses, never quite lined up with the neat spreadsheets put together by ministry officials in Ankara or international aid agencies. Over the years, local and global players built a massive, heavy-handed bureaucracy to manage the fallout. On paper, it looked like a lifeline, but in reality, it stripped people of any real say in their own lives, turning them into passive recipients waiting for handouts. Even when the initial intent was simply to cushion the blow of the crisis, the resulting programs routinely missed what people actually needed on the ground. The bleak warnings Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) once wrote about statelessness, legal limbo, and losing the protection of the law are playing out all over again through the automated rules of the modern state. Instead of being seen as individuals with inherent rights, people have been reduced to paper files waiting on the grace of state-approved assistance.

As Michel Foucault (1926-1984) noted, modern power doesn’t just rely on physical borders; it works through systems that constantly track, categorise, and log bodies into official databases. The temporary protection framework set up across Turkey following the arrival of Syrian refugees is a textbook example of this tight surveillance net. From where someone is legally allowed to rent a home to what kind of healthcare they can receive, every detail is dictated from the top down. Unlike the exiles or refugees of earlier centuries, today’s displaced populations live out their uprootedness under the cold, watchful eye of digital databases. Much like the angel of history Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) saw in a Paul Klee (1879-1940) painting—driven backward into the future by a storm while wreckage piles up at its feet—refugees find their individual voices and political demands completely drowned out by the noise of the machinery around them. Echoing the unprotected figures of ancient Roman law who stood outside standard statutes yet weren’t criminals but millions of people who have been pushed into a legal blind spot, their lives stripped down to pure survival within the cogs of a sprawling bureaucracy.

What started out in the early days of the crisis as an urgent, compassionate response by local and international groups gradually hardened into a long-term control apparatus. Over time, the primary goal stopped being about helping people in trouble as the focus shifted entirely to managing and containing the influx. The complex digital networks set up by migration authorities log every move a refugee makes, locking them into a state of strict dependency rather than granting them genuine freedom.

Standardised projects drafted by international donors often look brilliant in air-conditioned meeting rooms, but once they hit the messy reality of the streets, they turn into abstract paperwork with zero practical impact. From child protection schemes to integration workshops, none of it carries much weight for a family struggling to survive in the dust as seasonal farm labour or in the poorest corners of the city. The speed at which institutions push data back and forth has long since outpaced the actual help reaching human beings. Much like the endless corridors in a Franz Kafka (1883-1924) novel, human lives get ground down in a system where stamps, signatures, and forms swallow everything whole. People are left to navigate a bewildering maze without knowing which office to visit or which paper to sign—mostly because procedures are rarely explained in terms they can actually grasp. Left to fend for themselves in this administrative labyrinth, grassroots organisations that should have been amplifying local voices ended up squeezed into compliance, effectively turned into field clerks for the state machinary.

For the past decade, the aid sector has loved the word “localisation.” But no matter how good it sounds in funding proposals, it hasn’t solved the core trap of keeping everyone hooked on foreign money. Instead of treating Syrian refugees as independent economic actors capable of working, building, and making their own choices, the systems designed to support them keep them tied to grocery vouchers, periodic social assistance, or short-term rent relief.

You can see the quiet toll of this setup in the rural development projects scattered around Mardin—a palpable sense of burnout and resignation. When people are systematically cut out of the rooms where decisions about their own lives are made, they quickly learn to keep their heads down and take whatever comes from above. Like characters in a Greek tragedy who can’t outrun their fate, Syrian refugees try to weather massive economic shifts and heavy-handed regulations that they have zero power to influence. This goes far beyond simple poverty. It is the direct result of living underneath a precarious legal label handed down from above. Through the lens of Martin Heidegger’s (1889-1976) thoughts on what it means to truly dwell and belong somewhere, a refugee hasn’t just lost a physical house; they’ve lost that bedrock sense of safety and home. Over time, the very aid meant to keep people afloat turns into another layer of chains. Because long-term structural solutions never materialised, these barriers have only grown deeper, keeping refugees locked out of full economic and social life.

Ten years in, this ongoing intervention has long outgrown the label of a temporary emergency response. It stands instead as proof of how rigid state borders and inflexible institutions buckle under sustained human reality. Millions of personal stories have been neatly filed away behind quarterly reports, statistical tables, and budget sheets, while the centuries-old tradition of neighbours living side by side in this region quietly frays at the edges.

If this heavy-handed, rule-obsessed mindset doesn’t shift, the debates of the coming years won’t be about social cohesion or peace. We are looking at a future defined by deeply divided, alienated, and hostile communities. No technical fix that strips away human dignity, emotion, and agency is ever going to solve a crisis of this scale. Unless borders dissolve not just on government maps, but inside public laws, institutions, and everyday empathy, the scars left by these policies will take generations to heal. As Spinoza (1632-1677) pointed out long ago, any social order built on fear, instability, and a lack of trust can never produce real peace; instead, every new crisis simply builds higher walls and widens the chasm between people. Ultimately, the future of forced migration in the region can only be reframed by starting from a single, uncompromised premise: human dignity and rights shared by all.

References

Adıgüzel, E. (2016). Migration, Refugees and Turkey: International Migration and Refugeehood. Ankara: Seçkin Publishing.
Arendt, H. (1951). The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Benjamin, W. (1968). Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Schocken Books.
Erdoğan, M. M. (2018). Syrians and Living Processes in Turkey. Ankara: Hacettepe University Migration and Politics Research Center.
Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Paris: Gallimard.
İçduygu, A. (2015). Syrian Refugees in Turkey: The Long Road to Integration. IPC Policy Brief.
Kirişçci, K. (2014). Syrian Refugees and Turkey’s Challenges: Going Beyond Hospitality. Brookings Institution Press.
Uçkan, R. (2023). The Role of Civil Organizations in Turkey’s Migration Governance: The Case of Syrian Refugees. (Unpublished Master’s Thesis). Marmara University Institute of Social Sciences, Istanbul.
Yıldız, A. (2018). Migration Management and Refugees in Turkey. Istanbul: İletişim Publications.

Rengin Uçkan is a writer and researcher focusing on humanitarian development, human rights, and cultural narratives, with a strong interest in long-form investigative journalism and global issues.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

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Tags Bursa, Daraa, Franz Kafka, Greek, Hannah Arendt, Istanbul, Mardin, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Paul Klee, Rengin Uçkan, Spinoza, Syrian, Turkey, Walter Benjamin

Essay

Tagore’s Dance-Dramas in Translation

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date July 14, 2026
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Somdatta Mandal explores six dance-dramas by Tagore translated from Bengali and Brajbuli by Indrani Haldar

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1841) watching a performance of his *nritya natya* or dance drama: From Public Domain

The translation of different genres of Rabindranath Tagore’s works into English remains unabated till date. The translations of his novels, short stories, poems, non-fiction, and travelogues have been coming out at regular intervals, and multiple translations of some texts by different people, both professional and amateur, justify his popularity among all classes of readers, scholarly or mundane. Interestingly enough, compared to the other genres, drama happens to be a slightly neglected area in the world of Tagore translation and readership.

Throughout his life, Tagore experimented with different forms of plays – allegorical, symbolic, historical, comedies, and a kind of comic and witty plays known as ‘hasyakoutuk’. Again, there are some plays that focus more on dialogue than be dramatic enough to be enacted on stage. Apart from the various forms of plays that Tagore wrote and experimented with in his lifetime, there is another sort of play which does not have any antecedents, where the three aspects of acting, songs and dance have developed into a local form of opera. In plays like Mayar Khela, Shapmochon, Shyama, Chitrangada, Chandalika or Kalmrigoya and Tasher Desh [1](these last two plays of course have prose and songs in the dialogue), Tagore uses dialogue through the use of songs. The power that these plays generate as plays per se can be an interesting area of discussion, but these latter operatic types of plays, except for Bengali speaking readers, are hard to find and be appreciated by a pan-Indian or non-Bengali readership.

This is where a present set of six very aesthetically produced slim volumes (published in 2024 and 2025) all of them beautifully translated into English by Indrani Haldar, a retired professor of English at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, gains significance. The very first book in this translated series is entitled Bhanusingha Thakurer Padabali [2] and Rabindranath had composed the lyrics as a young writer only sixteen years old under the pseudonym of Bhanusingha Thakur. Dedicated to the memory of his sister-in-law Kadambari Debi who was his one-time playmate and companion, the twenty-one lyrics presented in the book are written in the Vaishnava Padabali tradition initiated by the Maithili poet Vidyapati in the 15^th century and which gained impetus in the 16^th century in Bengal under the cultural and religious influence of Shree Chaitanya Deva’s revival of Vaishnavism. Built around the love-legend of Radha and Krishna in both material and mystical forms, these lyrics are composed in brajabuli, (a mixture of Maithili and Bengali and Sanskrit) and the language in which the early padabalis had been written. Later in life, Rabindranath was not enthusiastic about these songs and spoke about them as being somewhat enclosed within the limits of a particular thought-system. The bilingual version of this volume, also becomes the books USP.

The second book in this series is titled Free Waterfall. It is a translation of Muktodhara. Written in 1922, it is a sombre and singularly focused play, perhaps the most powerful of Rabindranath’s dramatic output. The background of the play is of course the nation-wide Non-Cooperation Movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi and the political backdrop of this can hardly be ignored. This symbolical and allegorical play has two prominent figures namely, Dhanajay Bairagi and the Crown Prince, Abhijit. Despite their appeal to the masses, both are misunderstood and persecuted figures, pursuing their ideals and visions alone and of choice. Both are determined and steadfast in their stand while rejecting violent options. The ideals pursued and values inculcated include a disapproval of machines misused by humans to enhance political power, to dominate the powerless and increase their suffering, and to harm and destroy the forces of nature which shape a beneficient environment. Though the play ends with the tragic death of the prince, as most often in Rabindranath’s creative work, hope, love, courage and compassion are attainable at the end of the dark tunnel.

The third book published in this series is Tasher Desh, titled The Kingdom of Cards. Written in 1933, and dedicating it to Subhas Chandra Bose, while remembering that he had “taken up the sacred task of inspiring new life and soul” of India, Tasher Desh is a complex play resisting any straight-jacketed or single interpretation, thus necessitating a multi-dimensional approach. Tagore’s travels to Europe and the United States in the early 1930s were necessarily reflected in his creative work. It is interesting to surmise that the state-sponsored regimentation that the sensitive poet must have been aware of on his European tour, especially in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, the half-suppressed state of fear prevailing, and the claustrophobic atmosphere stifling creativity, has found expression in this play. In the play, the Prince, in search of new world, lands up after his shipwreck, in a country where people have been flattened geometrically into mindless cards, unable either to think or act, leave alone create, on their own, a condition of mindless subservience. The play of course ends in a paean to new life, a freedom from fear, a ‘breaking open’ of all closed doors. Tagore therefore stresses the importance of eternal human values which he hopes will return to a world hell-bent on losing them.

The two dance-dramas Chitrangada and Shyama, though creatively separated by three decades, are the most popular of Tagore’s works, and present his continuous quest for and questioning of the multi-dimensional character of love. Both the women protagonists in these plays are strong characters, outstripping their male counterparts in impact. Chitrangada (1891) an early verse-play, is based on a subsidiary story gleaned from Mahabharata. In the play both Arjun and Chitrangada progress from sensual attraction to a realisation of the innate substantial qualities of love, from romantic obsession to a deeper relationship between lover and beloved. Shyama, on the other hand, has antecedents in a Buddhist tale from the Jatakas. Revised and perfected by Tagore in the final decade of his creative life, the approach is more paradoxical and ambiguous. Though as strong a character as Chitrangada, Shyama is self-centeredly willing, even eager, to compromise basic human values like compassion or sympathy in her sudden all-consuming passion for Bajrasen. According to the translator, the rationale for bringing together these two remarkable plays under a single cover is because in all his explorations into the manifestations and vicissitudes of human love, the poet has been able to emphasise its inherently paradoxical nature.

Balmiki Pratibha (The Genius of Balmiki) and Kalmrigaya (The Fatal Hunt), two early plays by the youthful, newly West-returned Tagore were written as experiments in fusing music with theatre as in the Western operating tradition and the Indian usage of kathakata[3]. They initiated the trail of musical plays which weave themselves into the writer’s creative work though the poet was to admit later, in Jibonsmriti (Reminiscenses), that he was never again to experience as much enthusiasm as he did in writing these two plays. The story in Balmiki Pratibha was culled from the Ramayana, as was Kalmrigaya, though the former play has a more elaborate storyline and involves several ideological constructs, some shared with the latter. Human emotions, like anger or compassion found a more dramatic expression when coupled with music, the poet-dramatist felt. According to the translator, these two musical plays should be considered together for the similarities they reveal in both technical and thematic aspects.

The sixth and the latest volume in this translation series contains three plays, Mayar Khela, Shapmochan and Chandalika. This trio of plays offer insights into the entire range of Rabindranath Tagore’s creative work at the centre of which rules love, sensual or spiritual, transformational and divine, or of the earth, earthy. The three plays in this anthology, separated from each other by decades, present an epic range of emotions, from desire to sacrifice and compassion, and are a testament to the writer’s analytical and ideological concerns and actually complement each other. Mayar Khela, the earliest of these romantic verse-plays, follows Tagore’s early experiments in fusing music and theatricality. Presenting a multitude of characters, each exhibiting an aspect at variance with the others, they move around in interweaving circles, ranging from calm, sacrificing acceptance to erratic detachment. In Shapmochan, a clear viewpoint is presented in the emphasis laid on a love that transcends physicality to reach beyond appearances. In the final geetinatya[4], Chandalika, the love of an untouchable woman for the Buddhist monk, Ananda, transforms her entire world. Here Rabindranath depicts not just the impulsive force of love but also its ability to transform and transcend mere physicality.

As mentioned earlier, this series of translations brings fresh light on Tagore’s works, and we expectantly wait for many more such productions in the near future.

[1] Mayar Khela – The Game of Illusion: Shapmochan – The Breaking of a Curse: Kalmrigoya –The Fatal Hunt: Tasher Desh—The Kindom of Cards. Shyama and Chitrangada are named after the protagonists.

[2] Bhanusingha Thakurer Padabali – The verses of Bhanusingha Thakur

[3] Art of religious and mythological storytelling rooted in folklore.

[4] Translates to song-play … what we refer to as dance-dramas too.

Somdatta Mandal, critic and translator, is a retired Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India.

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Essay

The Idea of Civilisation: Trust and Power?

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date July 14, 2026
No Comments on The Idea of Civilisation: Trust and Power?

By Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan

Statue of Vel Pari Giving His Chariot to the Jasmine Creeper at Kodunkundreeswarar Temple, Tamil Nadu. Photo provided by Ravi Varmman K. Kaniappan

There are kings remembered for the size of their empires, and there are kings remembered because people loved them long after the drums of war went silent. Vel Pari belonged to the second kind. He was not the ruler of some vast empire stretching across oceans, nor did he command endless armies that darkened the horizon. He ruled Parambu Nadu, a mountain kingdom wrapped in forests, waterfalls, fertile valleys, bamboo groves, and wild jasmine creepers that climbed the stones after the rain. Yet in the hearts of the Tamil people, Pari stood taller than the crowned emperors of the age.

The poem on Vel Pari by poet Kabilar in the Purananuru, the Sangam period literature (300BCE to 300CE) is another gem that resonates with modern day geopolitics.

The old bards sang of him not merely as a ruler, but as a man whose generosity moved beyond human beings and reached even the smallest living things. The story that survives centuries like a flame protected from the wind is the tale of the mullai (jasmine) creeper. One day Pari saw a delicate jasmine vine struggling along the ground with nothing to climb upon. Any other king would have passed by it without a thought. Pari stopped his royal chariot, stepped down, and offered the golden vehicle to the plant so it could rise upward toward the light. To many, it will sound absurd. To the Tamil poets, it revealed the soul of the man. A ruler who could bend before a helpless vine would never allow his people to suffer under cruelty.

Parambu Nadu itself reflected its King. The land was rich not because of conquest, but because nature and people lived together without violence against one another. The hills yielded jackfruit, bamboo rice, roots, honey, sweet water springs, and fertile soil. Hunters, farmers, poets, wandering musicians, and tribal clans lived under Pari’s protection with dignity. Travelers knew that no bard would ever leave Pari’s court empty handed. If a singer arrived with tired feet and a hungry stomach, the king fed him. If a poet carried sorrow in his heart, Pari listened. If someone came seeking shelter, the mountain welcomed them.

Among all who stood beside him, none was closer than the great poet Kabilar. Their friendship became one of the immortal bonds of Sangam history. Kabilar did not praise Pari out of duty like a court flatterer. He loved him deeply, like a brother born in another body. Through the verses of the Purananuru, Kabilar preserved not just the image of a King, but the spirit of an entire world that was slowly being swallowed by imperial ambition. When Kabilar spoke of Pari, his words carried both admiration and grief, as though he already sensed that such goodness could not survive in an age ruled by pride and conquest.

And pride was precisely what brought doom to Parambu Nadu.

The Chera, Chola, and Pandya kings, who were often referred as the mighty Moovendar (the Three Crowned Kings) of Tamilakam, looked upon Pari with growing bitterness. Individually, none could conquer him. His mountain fortress was naturally defended by cliffs, forests, and loyal warriors who knew every hidden path. But the real reason they feared him was not military strength. It was love. Pari was loved more deeply by poets, common folk, wandering clans, and artists than the emperors themselves. His fame spread across Tamilakam until even the crowned kings found themselves standing in the shadow of a tribal chieftain.

So, the three ancient rivals united for the first time, not for honour, not for justice, but to bring down one man.

Their armies surrounded Parambu Nadu for years. War drums echoed through the hills. Spears glittered beneath the sun. Yet the mountain kingdom did not fall. The land sustained its people. Springs still flowed. Bamboo rice still grew. The forests still fed the hungry. Inside the siege, Pari’s people endured. Outside the siege, the Moovendar grew increasingly humiliated that even their combined might could not break a small mountain kingdom.

The siege slowly became psychological warfare. The three King’s hoped exhaustion would crush Pari’s spirit. They wanted him to watch his people live under constant fear, to see freedom slowly strangled by endless encirclement. Yet Pari refused to surrender.

Then came the cruelty that stained their legacy forever.

Kabilar had once mocked the besieging kings openly. He told them they would never conquer Parambu Nadu with elephants, swords, or armies. But he also revealed something dangerous, he said, if poets, singers, and dancers approached Pari with songs of praise, the king would give away anything, even his kingdom itself. For Pari believed hospitality toward artists was sacred.

The Moovendar listened carefully.

Waiting until Kabilar was away from court, they sent assassins disguised as wandering bards and performers into Parambu Nadu. Dressed in the robes of artists, carrying the appearance of harmless travellers, they entered under the ancient Tamil code of hospitality. Pari welcomed them without suspicion. No guards searched them. No weapons were expected among poets.

Inside the safety of his chambers, the false bards dropped their disguises, drew hidden weapons, and murdered the king by treachery.

That was the deepest wound of all. Vel Pari was not slain gloriously on the battlefield with drums roaring around him. He was killed while extending kindness. His generosity became the blade used against him. In Tamil memory, this was not simply political conquest. It was the violation of Aram (virtue, morality and righteousness) itself, the sacred moral order.

But the cruelty did not end with his death.

The Moovendar dismantled Parambu Nadu piece by piece so it could never rise again as an independent tribal land. They divided the mountain among themselves like scavengers fighting over the remains of a lion. Worse still, they sought to erase Pari’s lineage entirely. His daughters, Angavai and Sangavai, were left orphaned and politically untouchable. The great empires made it known that any ruler who sheltered or married Pari’s daughters would invite the wrath of the three crowned kings. The princesses, who once walked among mountain flowers, were reduced to wandering in uncertainty, carrying the burden of their father’s name.

And beside them walked Kabilar, heartbroken beyond repair.

The poet who once sang proudly in royal halls now wandered from kingdom to kingdom seeking protection and marriage alliances for the daughters of his fallen friend. Again and again, rulers hesitated out of fear of the Moovendar. Kabilar watched the world betray Pari even after death. The man who had immortalised Tamil valour found himself crushed beneath grief and helplessness.

Though he eventually succeeded in securing the future of Angavai and Sangavai, something inside him had already died. Unable to bear the destruction of the world he loved, Kabilar finally chose Vadakiruthal, the ancient Tamil act of fasting unto death while facing north. It was not merely suicide. It was a final protest against a world where righteousness had been murdered by envy.

And yet, despite everything the Moovendar attempted, they failed in the one thing they truly desired.

They could conquer Pari’s land, but they could not erase him.

The fall of Vel Pari and the dismantling of Parambu Nadu resonate with several modern historical events where a smaller, culturally distinct, or morally symbolic community was systematically crushed by larger powers, not merely for territory, but because its existence challenged imperial authority, political legitimacy, or ideological control.

A significant parallel in later period is the destruction of indigenous tribal sovereignties during the expansion of colonial empires in the Americas and Australia. The systematic breaking of Native Nations such as the Lakota Nation or the displacement of Aboriginal communities was often accompanied by attempts to erase memory, culture, language, and lineage. Leaders who symbolised resistance were targeted not only militarily but psychologically. Like Pari’s daughters being politically isolated, indigenous heirs and communities were often cut off from land, legitimacy, and continuity.

The betrayal aspect of Pari’s death also resembles events such as the assassination of Patrice Lumumba during the Congo Crisis. Lumumba was enormously loved by ordinary people and represented an independent political future that threatened larger geopolitical powers. His removal was not simply about governance, but it was about preventing a charismatic symbol from inspiring broader resistance. Like Pari, Lumumba became more powerful in memory after his death in 1961, than the many who orchestrated his downfall.

There are also echoes in the defeat of Toussaint Louverture during the Haitian Revolution. Though Haiti ultimately won independence, Louverture himself was deceived, captured through manipulation rather than open battlefield victory, and removed because imperial powers feared the symbolic power of a free Black republic, where he later died in a freezing French prison cell in 1803. The anxiety of larger empires toward a smaller but morally resonant state mirrors the fear the Moovendar held toward Pari’s reputation.

From a South Asian perspective, one could even compare Pari’s downfall to the gradual dismantling of many tribal and princely states under the British Raj. The British frequently used diplomacy, betrayal, economic strangulation, alliances, and internal manipulation rather than direct warfare alone. Leaders who inspired emotional loyalty among local populations were often isolated politically before being removed. The destruction was not only territorial; it was cultural and psychological.

A darker modern comparison is the breakup and destruction of indigenous Tamil leadership structures during the final phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Regardless of political perspective, many Tamils interpret the end of the war not merely as a military defeat, but as the crushing of a collective identity, memory, and homeland aspiration through overwhelming force. The emotional memory of siege, encirclement, civilian suffering, and postwar dismantling creates parallels in how communities narrate trauma and loss.

What makes Vel Pari’s story unique, however, is that Sangam literature frames the tragedy less as a military defeat and more as a moral failure of civilisation itself. The central horror was not that a king died in war, as kings always die in war, but that hospitality, poetry, generosity, and sacred trust were weaponised against him. In modern language, Pari’s story is about how empires sometimes fear moral legitimacy more than military strength, and how systems of power often seek not merely to conquer resistant communities, but to humiliate and erase the memory of alternatives to their rule.

The crowned kings survive in inscriptions and dynasties, but Vel Pari survives in the human heart. He lives whenever generosity triumphs over greed, whenever a ruler protects dignity over power, whenever poetry remembers the forgotten, and whenever someone tells the story of the king who gave his chariot to a jasmine creeper because he believed even a fragile plant deserved support.

The story of Vel Pari, like those of Toussaint Louverture, Patrice Lumumba, and many others, illustrates a phenomenon that extends beyond military defeat or political repression. Modern political psychology describes it as a form of cultural-psychological annihilation, the attempt to destroy not only a people’s leaders but also their identity, memory, dignity, and capacity for collective continuity. The objective is not merely to win power, but to ensure that the defeated can no longer serve as a symbol of resistance, legitimacy, or alternative political imagination.

Several behavioural concepts help explain this process, for example, identity decapitation involves removing charismatic leaders and cultural figures who embody a community’s aspirations. Demoralisation strategies seek to break collective morale through prolonged pressure, isolation, and humiliation, fostering a sense of helplessness. Moral injury emerges when betrayal, injustice, or violations of deeply held ethical norms shatter a community’s faith in the moral order. Together, these mechanisms inflict damage not only on institutions and lives but also on the psychological foundations that sustain a people.

At its deepest level, this process becomes memoricide, the erasure of historical memory itself. The goal is to sever the connection between past, present, and future so that a people lose the symbols, stories, and leaders around which collective identity is formed. Whether in Parambu Nadu after Pari’s death, Haiti after Louverture, or Congo after Lumumba, the struggle is often not only over territory or power, but over who has the right to be remembered and to endure in history.

The modern lesson from the tragedy of Vel Pari is that a just society cannot be built merely on economic strength, military power, or political dominance. A truly just civilisation is measured by how it protects dignity, moral trust, cultural memory, and the weak, especially when doing so offers no immediate advantage. The downfall of Parambu Nadu shows what happens when power becomes insecure, it stops seeking justice and begins seeking humiliation, erasure, and control.

One of the greatest warnings hidden inside Pari’s story is that societies collapse morally long before they collapse politically. The Moovendar won the land, but in the literary memory of Tamil civilisation, they lost moral legitimacy because they abandoned Aram, righteous conduct. They weaponised hospitality, manipulated trust, isolated orphaned daughters, and sought to erase a people’s identity out of wounded pride. In modern terms, this teaches us that institutions without ethics eventually become engines of domination rather than guardians of civilisation.

A just society today therefore requires more than laws. It requires moral restraint in the use of power. It requires protecting minorities, preserving indigenous identities, respecting cultural memory, and ensuring that disagreement or independence is not treated as disloyalty. It also means refusing to destroy people psychologically in the pursuit of victory, whether in politics, religion, race, class, or nationalism.

This is precisely why the wisdom of the Thirukkural remains timeless. Thiruvalluvar warns that the strength of a ruler is not cruelty, but justice rooted in compassion.

“Wealth and power must stand with righteousness and fairness;
without them, greatness is empty despite outward success.” — Kural 221

The story of Vel Pari, read alongside the wisdom of the Thirukkural, reveals a timeless political and moral truth where societies endure not because they are feared, but because they are trusted. Power can command obedience and military strength can secure victory, but neither can create the legitimacy that sustains a civilisation across generations. Trust, built through justice, integrity, and respect for human dignity, is the foundation of a strong social order.

This lesson remains deeply relevant today. A just society is not measured solely by its wealth, military capability, or political influence. It is measured by its willingness to make power accountable, protect cultural identity, tolerate dissent, and uphold the dignity of all people. When criticism is suppressed, hospitality is exploited, or communities are stripped of their history and identity, the bonds of trust begin to weaken. History repeatedly demonstrates that fear may achieve compliance, but it rarely produces enduring loyalty.

Vel Pari’s legacy offers an alternative vision of leadership. He is remembered not for imperial conquest or political dominance, but for the values he embodied. His generosity was not a strategy for influence, his compassion was not a sign of weakness, and his humanity did not diminish his authority. Instead, these qualities became the source of his legitimacy. In a world where power is often equated with control, Pari represented the possibility that strength and virtue could coexist.

More than two thousand years after his death, Pari remains alive in collective memory because he symbolised an ethical ideal that transcends his time. His story reminds us that the true measure of leadership is not the ability to conquer, but the ability to inspire trust, preserve dignity, and act with moral purpose.

Ultimately, civilisations are remembered not for the power they wielded, but for the values they chose to uphold. In that sense, Vel Pari is not merely a figure of history, but he remains a compelling model for the kind of society and leadership the modern world continues to seek.

Glossary:

Malai – Hill

Purananuru – Purananuru originated during South India’s Sangam era (circa 300 BCE–300 CE). This 400-poem anthology is significant for documenting ancient Tamil warfare, heroic codes, governance, and secular societal values.

Sangam – The Sangam period originated from ancient Tamil academies (Sangams) in South India (300 BCE–300 CE). It is significant for producing remarkable secular literature detailing early Tamil culture, trade, and governance

Kabilar – Was a prolific Sangam-era poet originating from Thiruvatavur, Tamil Nadu (circa 1st–2nd century CE). He is significant for mastering love poetry (Kuruntokai) and immortalizing the generous King Vel Pari.

Tamilakam – Originated as the ancient homeland of Tamil speakers, covering modern Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and parts of neighboring states. It is significant for pioneering early maritime trade and distinct Sangam culture.

Moovendar – Three Crowned Kings originated during the ancient Sangam era in Tamilakam. They comprised the Chera, Chola, and Pandya dynasties. Their significance lies in establishing powerful, centralized governance, controlling lucrative maritime trade with Rome and Egypt, and heavily patronizing Tamil literature, arts, and the legendary Sangam academies.

Thirukural – Originated in ancient Tamilakam, authored by the sage Thiruvalluvar (circa 5th century CE or earlier). It is globally significant as a universal guide to secular ethics, virtue, and governance.

Inspired by:

Venkatesan, S. (2018). Veera Yuga Nayagan Velpari (Vols. 1–2). Vikatan Publishers.

Saravanan, G., & Selvaraju, R. (2022). Generosity and kindness of Vaelpaari in Sangam literature. International Research Journal of Tamil, 4(1).

Ambikadevi, D. (2022). Sangam period: Literary and historical significance for southern India. International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews.

P Marudanayagam, (2021), Purananuru, Text, Transliteration and Translation in English Verse and Prose, Central Institute of Classical Tamil, Chennai. (Poem 105 – 120)

J Narayana, (2019), Thirukkural, Transliteration and Translation, Sura Books Pvt Ltd,
(Use a specific translation if applied: e.g., Drew & Lazarus, or modern editions.)

Arivazhagan, V. (2023). Thirukkural’s life ethics. Shanlax International Journal of Tamil Research, 7(3), 29–33.

Webster, S. (2024). Revisiting memoricide: The everyday killing of memory. Memory Studies, 17(6), 1408–1428.

Voskanyan, H. (2025). Memoricide as post-conflict violence: The erasure of Armenian cultural heritage. European Master’s Programme in Human Rights and Democratisation.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles