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Essay

From Srinagar to Ladakh: A Cyclist’s Diary

Farouk Gulsara on a cycling adventure through battleworn Kashmir

They say to go forth and explore, to go to the planet’s edge to increase the depth of your knowledge. Learning about a country is best done doing the things the local populace does, travelling with them, amongst them, not in a touristy way, in a manicured fashion in a tourist’s van but on leg-powered machines called bicycles. Itching to go somewhere after our memorable escapade in South Korea, cycling from Seoul to Busan, as the borders opened up after the pandemic, somebody threw in the idea of cycling from Kashmir to Ladakh. Long story short, there we were, living our dream. The plan was to cycle the 473km journey, climbing 7378m ascent in 8 days, between 6th July 2024 and 12th July 2024. 

Our expedition started with us landing in Amritsar after a 5.5-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur. From there, it was another flight to Srinagar, where the crunch began.

Day 1. Amritsar

Amritsar Golden Temple. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

After a good night’s sleep, everyone was game for a quick, well-spread breakfast and a leisurely stroll to the Harmandir, the Sikh Golden Temple. Much later, I realised the offering was 100% vegetarian and did not miss any non-vegetarian food. As a mark of respect, the vicinity around the temple complex served only vegetarian food, including a McDonald’s there. Imagine a McDonald’s without the good old quarter pounder! Hey, image is essential.

The usual showing of gratitude to the Almighty was marred by the unruly behaviour of the Little Napoleons, the Royal Guards. New orders were out, it seems, according to one guard with a chrome-plated spear and a steely sheathed dagger at his hip—no photography allowed. Then, on the other end of the Golden Pool, it was okay to photograph but only with a salutary (namaste) posture, with hands clasped on the chest. On the other side, it was alright. One can pose as he pleases. The guards were more relaxed there. 

That is the problem when rules are intertwined with religion. People make their own goal post and shift it as they please. When little men are given power to enforce God’s decree on Earth, they go overboard. They feel it is their God-given raison d’etre and the purpose of existence. Since nothing is cast in stone and everyone in mankind is on a learning curve, what is appropriate today may be blasphemous tomorrow and vice versa. We distinctly remember snapping loads of pictures of the full glory of Harmandir day and night during our last visit, preCovid. 

We all know what happened in the Stanford experiment when students were given powers to enforce order. It becomes ugly very quickly. Next, the flight to Srinagar. 

Boat House Dal Lake, Srinagar

Srinagar. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

My impression differed from when Raj Kapoor and Vyajanthimala were seen spending their honeymoon boating around the lake in the 1964 mega-blockbuster Hindi movie Sangam. Then, it had appeared insanely cold, with mists enveloping the lake’s surface. Serenity was the order of the day. What I saw in the height of summer with a temperature hovering around 30C, was anything but peaceful. Even across the lake, the constant blaring of car horns was enough to make anyone go slightly mad. 

The lake is a godsend for dwellers around it. Many depend on the lake to transport tourists and sell memorabilia and other merchandise on their boats. The rows of boat houses are also popular sites for honeymooners and tourists to hire. Privacy may be an issue here. Imagine small-time Kashmiri silk vendors just landing at the boat house and showing produce to the occupants. They may want you to sample their kahwa, a traditional spiced-up, invigorating, aromatic, exotic green tea.

Day 2. Boat House, Dal Lake, Srinagar

Kashmiri Kahwa, a spiced tea. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

Early morning starts with peaceful silence until the honking and murmur of the crowd start slowly creeping in. It was a leisurely morning meant to acclimatise ourselves to the high altitude (~1500m) before we began to climb daily till we hit the highest point of ~5400m. This would — aided by prophylactic acetazolamide –hopefully do the trick to keep altitude sickness at bay. 

The morning tête á tête amongst the generally older crowd was basically about justifying our trip ahead. The frequent question encountered by these older cyclists was, ‘Why were they doing it?’ The standard answer was similar to what George Mallory told his detractors when he expressed his desire to climb the peak that became Everest.

“Why? Because it is there!” Mallory had said. 

The cyclists told their concerned naysayers, “Because we can!”

Yeah, the general consensus was sobering. Time was running out, and so many things needed to be done before the big eye shut. There were so many places and so little time!

Lal Chowk. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

Continuing the easy-peasy stance before the crunch, a trip to town was due. Backed with the symphony of the blaring of honks, we made a trip to the town square, Lal Chawk. After checking out how regular people got along with life, we realised the heavy presence of armed army personnel at almost every nook and corner of the town. Perhaps it was because it was Friday and prayers were in progress.

The return trip to our boat house was a trip down memory lane. After spending most of our adult lives in air-conditioned cars, the trip back on a cramped Srinagar town bus brought us back to our childhood, when rushing to get a place in the bus and squeezing through shoulder to shoulder in a sardine-packed bus was a daily challenge. That, too, was in the tropical heat minus the air conditioning. 

By noon, temperatures had soared to a roasting 30C. So much for cool Kashmir!

Our trip coincided with the Amarnath Yatra, an annual pilgrimage for Shiva worshippers who pay obeisance to Holy Ice Lingam. 

Dal Lake. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

The evening was the time to familiarise ourselves with our machines, which involved a ride around the city. It was a nightmare of an experience where we had to simultaneously see our fronts, back, and sides. It was jungle fare. Nobody knew from which direction vehicles were going to barge at us. We survived somehow, if ever we were born in India, our most probable cause of death would be death by road traffic accident. 

The ride brought us to the affluent part of Srinagar, which changed our perception of Kashmir as a war-torn zone. What we saw were nicely manicured lawns and neatly painted buildings. The only hint of disturbances is the apparent presence of armed army personnel nearby. It is said that the one single sign of peace is to see people hanging around lakes and esplanades. We did see this on this ride. Young families were strolling along the promenade to a string of shops selling potpourri of delicacies. Kashmir appeared peaceful. 


Day 3. Srinagar…move it, move it…

Sunset at Dal Lake. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

It was 4am in Kashmir, and all through the night, it had been raining with occasional threats of thunder in the distance. The plan was to start riding as soon as the day broke with the first ray of the sun. That could be 5am or later. And it has probably nothing to do with Indian timing. Today’s ride would be a 90km challenging ride with an ascent of 4.5%. 

All the cyclists survived the ordeal. Starting around 6am, after checking the machines and last-minute briefings, we were good to go.

We did not know that Lake Dal was so huge. The first 20km was all about going around the lake. The first stop was at Mani Gam, a picturesque countryside with a massive tributary of the Sindh River, for an early breakfast of hot milk coffee. 

As expected, the traffic was heavy because of the Amarnath Yatra. But one would expect attendees of a divine voyage like this to want to exhibit tolerance, patience, and softness. Unfortunately, the ugly side of drivers was in full glory. If the rest of the world would blare their honk with all their might just before a head-on collision, here, the same action is synonymous with informing another fellow road user that he is around. 

To be fair, many pilgrims were in chartered vans, and the drivers were quite aggressive, overtaking in blind corners and swerving to the edge of the roads. All in the name of making more trips and making money for the family. 

Sind River at Ganderbal. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

They say with greater powers comes great responsibility. Apparently, the lorry drivers here missed the memo. Locally, they are known as the King of the Road, with multi-octaved ear drums rupturing high-decibel honks, sometimes to the tune of Bollywood numbers. 

The cyclists continued grinding despite side disturbances that can push any person raving mad; the steady climb was unforgiving. Just when they thought that was the end of the climb, they were fooled for another just after the bend. The most gruelling part was the end of the day’s trip. We rode more than 85 km, climbed a total elevation of 2692 m, and still lived to tell. 

Hotel Thajwass Glacier, Sonamarg 

Along Srinagar…Ladakh Highway. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

Dinner was entirely vegetarian as a mark of respect to the hotel’s occupants who were there to fulfil their pilgrimage at Amarnath temple. The brouhaha that struck a chord amongst many occupants was the cancellation of helicopter services to the pilgrimage site. The pilgrims were given the choice of either walking a 15 or 22-km track to fulfil their vows or they could pre-book a helicopter ticket to go there. The trouble with the helicopter services is that their feasibility depended on the weather. Weather is controlled by God, the logical explanation would be that God was not too keen to give audience to the so-and-so who were scheduled on flight.

After the light chat with fellow hotel dwellers and answering their curious questions about why able bodies would want to torture themselves, it was time to hit the sack. We could have asked them why fly when they could walk, but we did not.

Day 4. Sonamarg

Sonamarg. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

We decided to make it a day of light and easy. Everyone was left to their own devices after the spirit-sapping grind the day before. Most took a rain check on the initial hike but went for a long walk instead. 

So, we took a stroll in the Kashmiri Valley, admiring the result of Nature’s choice of colours in His palette: the symphony of rushing cool mountain water and the refreshing cool breeze. 

We met a couple from Chennai at the breakfast table with a sad tale. They had recently lost their only child who was born with cerebral palsy. They had to part from her after caring for their child for many years. They suddenly found plenty of free time on their hands. They decided to spend the rest of their remaining post-retirement lives doing short gigs, earning enough money to tour around and help out other families undergoing the same predicament as they did with their special child. 

When we think we do not have nice shoes, we should not forget about those with no feet. No matter how big our problems seemed, others could have had it worse. 

Sonamarg can be classified as a tourist town with rows of hotels on either side of the road, occasionally laced with souvenir shops and restaurants. The township appears to have been newly built, with freshly tarred roads, loose pebbles on the road shoulder, and unfinished touch-ups. 

Day 5. Off to Drass

On the way… Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

We were off to Drass, the coldest inhabited place in India in winter. A quick read and one might read it as Dr-Ass, rather fitting of a name as one could use an examination of one’s derrière after a climb that was upon us. We will see you in hell. But wait, hell is supposed to be hot, is it not? Or hath hell frozen over?

At one point in the 1947-48, Drass was invaded and captured by Pakistan. Soon later, India recaptured Drass. We were only 12km from the line of control (LOC).

Hotel D’Meadow Drass

As expected, it was a gruelling ride. The first 21km were excruciatingly torturous, with narrow roads that had to be shared with the notorious motorists who thought that without the honk, one could not drive. We had to test our trail biking skills later as quite a bit of the stretch was undone or probably collapsed as a result of downpours. We were left with a sand tract and later fabricated stone tracks, which gave good knocking on our posterior ends. Remember our appointment with Dr Ass?

Zojila Pass. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

After the 21 km mark, it was generally downhill, but our guide told us to unlock the mountain bike suspension for more comfort due to the violent bumping. The road improved as we entered Ladakh but was interspersed with occasional potholes that shook the machine.

After a short lunch break at a remote restaurant (referred to as a hotel), we were good to go and finally reached Drass at about 3 pm.


We had gone through the gruelling Zojila Pass. A tunnel is currently being built to connect Sonamarg and Drass. It would cut down travel from 4h to 1.5h. 

Point to note: this Pass lives up to its name. When Japan was attacked by many post-nuclear attack monsters, the biggest one was referred to as Gojira. Hollywood decided to christian Gojira as Godzilla, giving rise to the meaning of gigantic as in Mozilla and Godzilla’s appetite. Zojila Gojira, what’s the difference? Both were scary.

Day 6. Drass to Kargil 

Leaving the ‘Gateway to Ladakh’ and the ‘Coldest place in India’, we headed toward Kargil, which had been immortalised in annal of history when Pakistan and India fought a war in 1999. 

Today’s cycling routine was less enduring compared to our previous rides. Most of the route was a downhill trend lined by dry, stony mountains on one side and the gushing blue waters of a tributary of the Indus on the other. The road condition was pretty good, with recently tarred roads, barring some stretches being tarred and resurfaced in various states. 

After completing the close 60km trip to Kargil, we were told we were the fastest group the organiser had ridden with. Eh, not bad for a bunch of sixty-something madmen! Maybe they were just words of encouragement.

I was surprised to see Kargil as a bustling town with many business activities. Construction is happening here and there. Vendors were spreading their produce. Touters were busy looking for clientele. Hyundais, Marutis, and motorcycles thronged the streets, which were obviously not built to handle such tremendous volumes. Everyone was in a hurry. That is a sign of development. 

We were housed in the tallest building around here. It was a four-story, four-star hotel with a restaurant and 24-hour hot water services. In most places we stayed, hot water was only supplied at short, predetermined intervals. 

Day 7. Kargil to Budkharbu

The day started at about 6:45 am, with temperatures around 9C. This leg was expected to be tough. Two-thirds of our journey would be climbs, and there’d be more. It is expected to be sunny throughout, so we could expect a lot of huffing and puffing. 

Today’s ride was easily the toughest one. Straddling on our saddles for 7.5 hours was no easy feat by any means. The climbs went on and on. The steepest and most prolonged ascent came after 39 km. It was a sustained climb for the next 10 km, hovering between 4% and 12% ascent. 

Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

Nevertheless, we were feasted with some of the most mesmerising views of barren, arid landscapes, as though someone had painted them with hues in the brown range, occasionally speckled with malachite green and a top of sky blue. It was a feeling as if we were at the edge of heaven. 

We pass through a small town called Malbech, which appears to be a Buddhist town with many temples and chanting over its public address system. I guess no one wants to keep their sacred words of God to themselves. They had a compelling desire to broadcast it to the world. 

Many Shiva temples and mosques lined the road of our ride, all showing their presence with specific flags, colours and banners claiming those areas. 

We finally reached Budhkharbu at 2 pm in the heat of summer Ladakh. The temperature was about 22C. The total biking time was 5h 43m. Everyone was shrivelled, depleted of glycogen and energy.  

Budhkharbu is so far from civilisation that the occupants do not feel the need for digital connectivity. Only we, the town folks, were having withdrawal symptoms for not being able to upload our Strava data to earn instant gratification. Foreigners were not allowed to purchase SIM cards, so we were essentially crippled for a day.

Day 8. Padma Numbu Guest House, Budhkhorbu to Nurla

Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

Rise and shine. Rinse and repeat. Breakfast at the Guest House to a vegetarian, sorry, no eggs too, accompanied by the aroma of incense and the tune of ‘Om Jaya Jagatheeswara Hare1‘, we were good to go. I suspect the owners of this guest house were ardent BJP supporters. The keyholder to our rooms carried a lotus symbol. And the BJP mission office was their neighbour. 

We were up on the saddle and ready to move by 7:15 am. The sun was already bright and shiny by then, and we were all enticed by the 26kms steep decline.

After 9 kms, we did not mind the initial steep climb traversing the unforgiving Fotula Pass. At one point, we almost reached 4,200m above sea level. Other than the occasional passerby and military barracks, there wasn’t a single inkling of life there. It was just barren, arid land for miles and miles. 

64 km later, we arrived at our destination, Nurla. Nurla is a no man’s land and is not featured for first-time visitors to Ladakh. Nearby is a self-forming statue of the Sleeping Buddha and a giant statue of Maitreya Buddha. Here, the seed of the Namgyal Dynasty started. It is famous for Tibetan paintings. As temporary sojourners, we just learned and moved along. 

By now, we had learnt how the honking system worked. Even the brotherly advice from BRO (Border Road Organisation) advises using vehicle horns, especially at blind corners and overtaking another vehicle. At a telepathic level, the driver seems to converse with the other, ‘I can take charge of my vehicle as I overtake you. Now, don’t you make any sudden moves, can you?’ The melodious tone of honks, especially of lorries and buses, is just to liven up the monotonous journey, as do music (and movies).

Day 9. Travellers’ Lodge, Nurla to Leh

We were told today’s leg would be challenging, with 85 km to cover and a steep one. Hence, we had to be up on our saddles by 5 am. 

In essence, today’s outing was the toughest by far. We climbed two hills, and just when we thought everything was done and dusted, another climb to our hotel came. Overall, we covered 85km and 1672m elevation in 7h 2m. 

We saw two essential tourist attractions as we approached Leh: Magnetic Hill and gurudwara. Magnetic Hill is believed to create an optical illusion of a hill in the area and surrounding slopes. The cars may be going uphill when they are, in fact, going downhill. 

Sourced by Farouk Gulsara

The Guru Pathan Gurudwara is another curious worship site in the middle of nowhere. Legend has it that Guru Nanak stopped at this place, coming from Tibet and towards Kashmir. It was a Buddhist enclave. While meditating, an evil demon tried to crush him by rolling down a boulder. Hold behold, the stone turned waxy soft and did not injure the Guru. 

An indestructible piece of rock was encountered while constructing this stretch of the highway. The Buddhist monks told the authorities of the legend, and the Gurudwara was erected. The Buddhists revered Guru Nanak and treated him as a great teacher. 

The journey ended with a brutal, unrelenting climb to our final destination, Hotel Panorama in Leh. 

The next journey the following day to Khardungla was optional. Only the young at heart opted for it. A 37 km journey with an inclination of 8% constantly with possible extreme subzero temperatures was too much to ask from my gentle heart. I opted out.  

Thus ended our little cycling escapade from Srinagar to Leh, Ladakh. Few will attempt this journey with SUVs or superbikes; only madmen will do it with mountain bikes. 

P.S. I want to thank Sheen, Adnan, Basil, and Samir of MTB Kashmir for their immaculate planning and supervision of the rides. 

  1. A holy chant extolling the lord of the Universe ↩︎

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 blogRifle Range Boy.

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Essay

 Bottled Memories, Inherited Stories

By Ranu Bhattacharyya

I hear the scents whisper. Familiar fragrances of clove and cinnamon, imbued with spicy notes of pepper and eucalyptus beckon and tease. Elusive murmurs of mysterious oils and herbs tinge the air as I walk along a narrow-paved lane in Old Dhaka, overshadowed by looming walls on either side. I ignore the press of prying eyes and inquisitive bodies that accompany my passage. The call of the scents is irresistible, and I feel strangely unafraid of what lies before the next turn in the path ahead. These were the scents of my childhood — of summer afternoons spent secretly exploring the forbidden depths of my grandmother’s closet, the kaancher almarih[1] where her medicines were stored in shiny glass bottles with peeling labels.

The narrow lane spills into a small courtyard hemmed by buildings on three sides. Everything is closed because it is Friday, the day of prayer in Bangladesh. Peering through grimy windows, I see gigantic iron cauldrons, cavernous kansa kadhais[2], their gold gleaming in glimpses amidst sooty splatters, huge ladles and enormous tongs. Some vessels perch on hand-crafted mud stoves, their sides smoothened and baked by fires. Wooden logs are stacked in the corner along with bulging sacks of coal. Nearby, some large pieces of cloth, perhaps used for straining, are hung out to dry. In the shadowy recesses, shelves stacked with glass bottles glisten with reflected light. It seems almost staged, like a theatrical representation of a medieval kitchen and yet the evidence of daily use is undeniable.

The fourth side of the courtyard has an open doorway. A sudden urge, an inexplicable pull, lures me towards it. I feel I know what lies beyond its brink. Yet how could that be? In this alien city, situated in a land scarred by a brutal Partition, from where does this knowing come? Concentrating on lifting the edge of my saree as I step across the threshold, it takes me a moment to lift my eyes to see what lies ahead. A painting of a pot-bellied man seated cross legged on an asana[3], a sacred thread adorning the vast expanse of his chest, looks solemnly back at me. Before me was the same face I’d seen on countless bottles in that medicine cupboard of my childhood — the same glossy hair, oiled and parted with precision, the same curled moustache, the same narrow bordered white dhoti[4].

The author with her great grandfather’s portrait in Dhaka. Photo Courtesy: Ranu Bhattacharyya

I find myself before a life-size portrait of my great grandfather, Mathura Mohan Chakraborty, founder of Shakti Aushadhalaya, the Ayurvedic pharmacy famed in the streets of Dhaka, Calcutta, Patna, Benaras and Rangoon at the turn of the 19th century. The kitchen behind me was the pharmacy’s karkhana[5] to prepare medicines of his formulations. His portrait hung before the inner sanctum of the temple he had dedicated to the revered Bengali saint, Lokenath Baba. Legend claimed that the mystic had whispered the recipe of the first medicinal formulation to his most faithful disciple — my great grandfather.

Ever since I arrived in Dhaka as an expat, I had been searching for the Shakti Aushadhalaya premises. Everyone knew of the company; yet nobody seemed to know where it was located. I was introduced everywhere as a young scion of the family. And though whispers followed me at gatherings and smiles broadened on hearing I was the great granddaughter of Mathurababu, my questions regarding the whereabouts of the company drew blank stares and confused responses. In horticulture, the word scion, refers to the detached living part of a plant that is cut to be grafted onto another plant. The sundering of this particular scion had been so complete, over so many generations, through such a series of violent events that it seemed my search for the original plant would remain elusive.

It was only through persistent enquiry that I found myself in Swamibagh Road in Old Dhaka where the manufacturing unit of Shakti Aushadhalaya was located. Mathurababu had founded the company in Patuatuli, Dhaka, in 1901. Family lore suggests Lokenath Baba inspired him to venture far from his origins as a schoolteacher in Bikrampur. The ascetic recognised his potential, unusual in those times, as a graduate versed in three languages — Bengali, Sanskrit and English. Starting from humble beginnings in the family kitchen, peddling hair oil and tooth powder in his neighbourhood, Mathurababu’s prescient business acumen saw his enterprise flourish. The company produced and supplied quality Ayurvedic medicines at low prices. Mathurababu also established an Ayurvedic institute, attached to his manufacturing unit to popularise Ayurvedic knowledge. The institute taught Ayurveda and philosophy in Sanskrit. Students were offered free tuition, boarding, and lodging.

Ayurveda, considered the oldest existing health science in the world, is believed to have originated in India 5000 years ago. The journey of Ayurveda from ancient times to its present incarnation is a fascinating story that follows several simultaneous trajectories, embracing geopolitics and history, trade and commerce, science and industry, technology and travel.

It is with a sense of wonder that I encounter my great grandfather’s name in journals and books that describe the history of Ayurveda in India. He was among the earliest entrepreneurs to transition towards production of Ayurvedic drugs for the market. Directly involved in all aspects of his company, Mathurbabu immersed himself in the study of Ayurveda and had an extensive library of rare treatises on ancient Indian medical traditions, including a prized copy of Susruta Sanhita[6].

He noticed that Western medicines advertised their products in newspapers and journals. Following this model, he embraced a similar practice for his own company. An advertisement published in Muhammadi in February 1940 included endorsements from freedom fighter Chittaranjan Das, Lord Lytton, the Viceroy of India, and Lord Ronaldshay, the Governor General of Bengal. In the vintage advertisement, Lord Lytton wrote: “I was very interested to see this remarkable factory which owes its success to the energy and enthusiasm of its proprietor Babu Mathura Mohan Chakravarty B.A. The preparation of indigenous drugs on so large a scale is a very great achievement. The factory appeared to me to be exceedingly well managed and well equipped &c. &c.” In the same advertisement, in Bengali, Chittaranjan Das endorsed that nothing could surpass the production processes for medicines at Shakti Aushadhalaya.

Since the mid-19th century, several eminent leaders of the Indian freedom struggle visited Mathurbabu’s factory in Dhaka. On June 6, 1939, in the company’s visitor’s book, Subhash Chandra Bose wrote, “I visited the Sakti Oushadhalaya[7], Dacca, today and was very kindly shown around the premises. Indigenous medicines are prepared here on a large scale and in accordance with Ayurvedic principles. The institution reflects great credit on Babu Mathura Mohan Chakravarty, whose enterprise has brought Ayurvedic medicines within the reach of the poor. I wish him all success to the institution which he has built up after so much enterprise and hard labour for a long period. The success of Sakti Oushadhalaya, Dacca, means the popularity of Ayurveda throughout the country and this in its turn means the relief of suffering humanity.”

When my parents visited us in Dhaka a year after our arrival, we went back to Swamibagh Road. Our visit included a trip to the shop where the medicines of Shakti Aushadhalaya were sold.

Despite being taken over by the Pakistan government in 1971 and subsequently acquired by a private entrepreneur, the company remains operational in Bangladesh to this day with 37 branches nationwide. Though Mathurababu’s portrait is no longer on the medicine bottles in the shop, the names of the formulations inscribed, are still recognised by my mother.  As we browse through the offerings, a crowd begins to form around her, hailed and welcomed as Mathurababu’s direct descendant. Much to my mother’s delight, the crowd guided her to his house, a now derelict mansion hidden in the by-lanes of Old Dhaka.

We entered the property through an ornamented gatehouse that opened to a large courtyard. On one side was the Baithakghar, the public receiving room with the Nat Mandir, the family temple in front of us. On the other side was the majestic mansion with tall columns, topped with ornate capitals. Next to the Nat Mandir was a small doorway that led to a shaded courtyard with a well, meant for the family’s private use. Beyond was yet another courtyard, enclosed with buildings on three sides.

Parts of the ancestral home. Photo Courtesy: Ranu Bhattacharyya

As I climbed the stairs leading to the second floor, I had a feeling of déjà vu. I felt I had been here before through my grandmother’s stories. Her small feet must have climbed these stairs. There was the arched windows she had said she gazed out of, and the vast veranda with colonnades, where she played with her eight siblings. Wandering through the rooms, I hear her voice narrating tales of her childhood — kite races on the terrace, indolent boat rides on the Padma, and the indulgence of choosing sarees from the weavers who came all the way from Benaras.

The house is now home to several families who regard our arrival with wary welcome. “Where are the Italian painted tiles?” I ask eagerly. The story of the tiles imported by her father from Italy were amongst the kaleidoscope of stories that my grandmother had shared with me. Whisperings and murmurings ensue amidst the crowd and then a hefty cupboard was pushed aside to reveal the tiles in all their faded glory.

Slowly it dawns upon me that the silent bottle in my grandmother’s cupboard had encoded stories that belied its seemingly mundane materiality. To uncover these lost stories, I embark on a renewed search for those old medicine bottles of my childhood. Their fragrance lingers at the edges of my memory, offering tantalising glimpses to fragments of knowledge. The sense of smell is our oldest sense. My memories of stories narrated by my grandmother were inextricably connected to the scents locked in that bottle. Would holding the bottle in my hand peel back the layers of my memory, answer some unanswered questions about my grandmother’s roots, help me map the route of our family’s journey? But alas! Those bottles are lost to time. My grandmother’s generation is gone and I search among Mathurababu’s scattered grandchildren and great grandchildren to no avail.

My grandmother left Dhaka in 1936, never to return. Mathurbabu’s house on Calcutta’s Central Street was completed that year, and it is there he moved with his wife and three youngest unwed daughters, including my grandmother. His older son remained in Dhaka to oversee the factory and drug production, while Mathurbabu focused on controlling the distribution from a central office in Calcutta. Till his death in 1942, despite his ailing health and flagging energy, he visited the company’s distribution centres spread across Calcutta everyday, accompanied by his faithful retainer Nathu. Probing for reasons for this abrupt migration, my uncle gave me a solitary clue. He recalled that my great grandfather had felt his family was unsafe in Dhaka. With this obscure clue in hand, I delved into history books for elaboration. I read about the rise of communal tensions in Bengal from the mid-1920’s. The Dhaka riots of 1930 targeted several well-established businessmen and involved loot and arson of their business and personal properties.

In 1947, there was yet another wave of migrations far more existential and grimmer. After the borders were drawn between the newly formed nations of India and Pakistan, the remaining family fled Dhaka overnight, leaving behind the factory, the mansion, in fact, all their material possessions in a land suddenly hostile to their continued habitation. Unable to exercise control over their properties in East Pakistan, there was an initial attempt by Mathurbabu’s heirs to establish a factory in Chandernagore. Without my great grandfather at the helm, this nascent enterprise floundered and ultimately sank. Cut from its moorings in Dhaka, Mathurbabu’s inheritors could not keep the business afloat in India. Slowly his legacy dissipated. The Shakti Aushadhalaya head office in Calcutta’s Beadon Street closed and the shops in Calcutta, Karachi, Kabul, and Colombo lowered their shutters.

Through generations of migration and resettlement, we are left with only scattered memories and fragmented stories. These intangible remains are my inheritance today. These intangibles are bound neither by form, nor by time. Instead, they offer limitless possibilities for exploration, crafting and archiving. Memory, nourished by the repeated telling of stories, provides continuity. These intangible wisps of legacy — a remembered glimpse of a peeling label, the stories heard from my grandmother, the whispered whiff of a familiar fragrance, open a door to the past and invite me to connect it to the present. “Listen to us,” the scents call. “Let us tell you our story.”

[1] Glass cupboard

[2] Bronze woks

[3] A rug for prayers

[4] A cloth wrap for the lower half of the body

[5] Workshop

[6] Ancient Sanskrit text on medicine, dated to 12th-13th century

[7] Pharmacy

Ranu Bhattacharyya, author of The Castle in the Classroom: Story as a Springboard for Early Literacy, Stenhouse, 2010, is an educator and writer who has lived and worked across the world, exploring and archiving narratives that connect people and cultures.

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Essay

The Myriad Hues of Tagore by Aruna Chakravarti

As the author of Jorasanko and Daughters of Jorasanko, which map the life of the greatest visionaries of the world, Aruna Chakravarti gives us a brief summation of the genius of Rabindranath Tagore.

Young Tagore in 1870s
Tagore in 1886
Photos from Public Domain

Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1861 in the throes of the Bengal Renaissance. A unique movement which took place during the latter half of the nineteenth century, it saw the germination and the slow stirring into life of a social and religious consciousness and the emergence of a middle class that idealised British rule and used its support to usher in considerable social change. The revolutionising of values and the social, political and literary awakening that followed gradually came to encompass the whole of India.

The Bengal Renaissance, like its European counterpart, swung precariously for a while, between two worlds. One old, decrepit and dying by degrees — the other struggling to be born. A host of great personalities emerged during this time; household names to this day.

All were protagonists engaged in battle. Some to keep alive and perpetuate the old; some to hasten its death and bring about the birth of the new. Needless to say, it was the latter who prevailed. Bengal saw an upsurge of activity, the like of which had never been seen before, in fields as diverse from each other as politics and religion to literature and the performing arts. In this, Bengal’s close contact with the British served as a catalyst.

Yet the same movement, in its latter years, saw the first stirrings of resentment against British domination. India’s acceptance of English education and her faith in the scientific discoveries of the West was countered by a new revivalism. An assertion of political independence and the growth of a nationalist consciousness. A need for introspection became the call of the hour. Rabindranath was among the first to articulate this need. In an essay, entitled Byadhi-o-pratikar[1]written in the early years of the twentieth century Rabindranath expressed his doubts regarding the changed Indian psyche wrought by the West. Reflecting on the French Revolution, the efforts to abolish slavery and the upsurge of literary activity in Europe he wrote: “Western civilisation seemed to proclaim an inclusiveness for all humanity irrespective of race and colour. We were spell bound by Europe. We contrasted the generosity of that civilisation with the narrow mindedness of our own and applauded the West.” He goes on to say, however, that the scales had fallen from the nation’s eyes. The supposedly Western ideal had failed Indians. European education and adoption of its values hadn’t helped them to achieve equality with the white race.

Thus, the movement came full circle. Rabindranath had not been part of it from its inception. Yet, if one were to look for and identify a single persona in whom the entire Bengal Renaissance may be said to be epitomised, it would, without doubt, be the persona of Rabindranath Tagore.

Poet, playwright, novelist, painter, composer, educationist, nationalist and internationalist, Rabindranath was not only a myriad minded genius but a Renaissance Man in the truest sense of the word. In fact, the dawn or awakening of Rabindranath’s creative inspiration is synonymous with the awakening of a whole nation.

The cultural identity of India and the place in it of religion, caste, class and gender which much of Rabindranath’s prose and poetry explores, continue to retain their relevance even today, a hundred years later, in a post-colonial time frame. His novels offer masterly insights and analyses of the complexities of Indian life with its teeming contradictions; its rootedness in tradition as well its ability to assimilate and accommodate change.

Rabindranath Tagore and Pratibha Devi (his neice) performing in his dance-drama, Valmiki-Pratibha (The Genius of Valmiki) 1881. Photo from Public Domain

Rabindranath, however, is best known as a poet. His poetry, drawn from ancient cultural memory as well as the immediate present, is in a class of its own. For there is a third dimension to it. He not only wrote of what he saw and remembered but what he saw only in his mind — a world that lay a vast space away from reality. ” There are two kinds of reality in the world,” Rabindranath said[2] of his paintings. “One of them is true; the other truer.” He could have said this of his poetry too. The real and surreal quality of his images in the vast span of his poems and lyrics; their indefinable nuances and evocative power are comparable to the works of the great Impressionists.

Interestingly, Rabindranath arrived at the canvas through his poetry. The calligraphic erasures and corrections with which he embellished many of his poems became sketches of a special kind. “I try to make my corrections dance,” he said[3] once, “connect them in a rhythmic relationship and transform accumulation into adornment.”

Later, in the last thirteen years of his life he threw himself into frenzied bouts of painting leaving behind more than two thousand and five hundred art works. Strange, haunting faces with eyes that look deep into one’s soul; surreal landscapes the like of which were never seen this side of the horizon; trees and flowers painted in violent colours that erupt from the artist’s palette in volcanic bursts — his paintings, as an artist once said, reflect “emotions recollected more in turmoil than in tranquillity.”

Art of Rabindranath Tagore. Photos from Public Domain

Yet, though famed the world over for his poetry and painting, it is as a music maker that Rabindranath has stayed entrenched in the hearts of his own people. His songs, loved and sung by generations of Bengalis, range in theme from celebrations of nature and yearning for freedom to love of God and Man. They convey the poet’s profound philosophy of life, his deep faith in humanity and his sensitive exploration of the Universe, often touching on the quest of the unattainable. Rabindranath once said that, though he could not predict how future generations would receive the rest of his work, he was confident that his songs would live. The increasing popularity of Rabindra Sangeet, both in India and abroad, bears ample testimony to the fact that his prophecy was based on a certainty born out of self-knowledge. Vast and varied though his genius was — music was its mainspring. He wrote of his songs: “I feel as if music wells up from within some unconscious depth of my mind; that is why it has a certain completeness.”

Photo from Public Domain

[1] The Disease and its Cure, 190

[2] Quoted from Tagore’s Galpa Salpa (Conversations) by Soumendranath Bandopadhyay in Expressionism and Rabindranath

[3] Quoted in An Artist in Life by Niharranjan Ray

Aruna Chakravarti has been the principal of a prestigious women’s college of Delhi University for ten years. She is also a well-known academic, creative writer and translator with fourteen published books on record. Her novels Jorasanko, Daughters of Jorasanko, The Inheritors, Suralakshmi Villa have sold widely and received rave reviews. The Mendicant Prince and her short story collection, Through a Looking Glass, are her most recent books. She has also received awards such as the Vaitalik Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and Sarat Puraskar for her translations.

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Picked Clean

By Snigdha Agrawal

Bangalore 1991
Bangalore 2024

Right now, we are on the cusp between pre-monsoon and full-blown monsoon.  The commencement of cool windy breezes and the partially cloudy skies comes as a welcome relief after the asphalt-melting summer heat, experienced this year.  Just what is needed to uplift melting spirits. The mind has started recalibrating, the body readjusting, to the sudden dip in temperatures in the ‘Garden City’ of Bangalore, known for its salubrious climate right around the year.  Defined by a short, short summer with the temperature barometer rarely rising above 34°C.  December, January, and February, temperatures usually hover around 16°C to 18°C, a trend that has barely changed over the last thirty-plus years of my stay in the city.  However, over these thirty-odd years, there have been several departures concomitant to the growth and evolution of the city. 

The nomenclature “Pensioner’s Paradise”, has lost its significance with the progressive encroachment into virgin lands and lung spaces in the city getting systematically squeezed. A ‘Paradise lost’ and no hopes of it ever being regained.  Road rollers, cranes, and crawlers are seen in every neighbourhood, slowly but surely picking the city clean of all its flora, fauna and water bodies. Justifiably nothing different from the growth path in other metros across the world but its impact on the environment, has become more and more evident.  I can unequivocally say, that some of these major shifts have had a huge impact on both climate and the environment. The causative effect of overpowering greed hinged on profitability.  The then Bangalore, a far cry from the now Bangalore. I will come to that later.  


When I first relocated to Bangalore from Kolkata, a coastal city with a hot and humid climate, the sobriquet ‘air-conditioned’ City was not its only USP.  It had earned the epithet ‘Silicon Valley’ that came about with IT companies/industries shifting their operations, lock stock and barrel to this much sought-after location, ergo necessitating a shift of manpower.  The city thus, witnessed a massive exodus of techies/white-collar workers, moving in from various parts of the country to take up residence in the city.  Dominique Lapierre’s City of Joy[1] saw the greatest pullout.  Discarding the old for the new as some would think, was not so out of choice but for compelling reasons, following the shutdown of establishments, an antiquated work culture, and the government’s short-sighted policies; some of the contributing factors attributed to this attrition.

In June 1991, we moved into the city which surprised us pleasantly.  First, there was no need to run ceiling fans.  Strikingly different from Kolkata, where fans and air-conditioners did little to relieve the heat and humidity. Bangalore’s room air-conditioner vents remained tightly closed permanently, and by extension, contributed to a reduction in noise pollution.  The susurration of the breeze, floating in through the windows was like being permanently plugged into music channels on YouTube.  Therefore, it was unsurprising to that the figure for the first month’s electricity bill was a record low since the previous decade. 

Natural lighting was more than abundant without anything to block it, eliminating the need to switch on the lights till well after sunset. The view from the 6th-floor apartment balcony on Richmond Road opened into an orchard of tall palm trees, beyond which stood the Good Shepherd Convent.  Nuns walking in the coconut orchards while fingering the moving rosary beads had this effect of transporting one to a seaside setting, sans the sand and sea.  Sublime.  Often, I wondered if we had moved to a city at all! The ambience was so contrary to what one would conjure about big cities. 

By the time, we moved out of the apartment, after a stay of twelve years, the view was curtained off.  Gone were the tall trees. Felled indiscriminately.  Spidery earth movers had taken over, raising noise pollution, and piercing through the ear drums.  The heavily laden polluted air inhaled gave rise to frequent allergies. From the perspective of the locals, who resented the invasion of their paradise, parthenium was not alone to blame.  Rightly so. 

Funnily with the commencement of the academic year, my girls then twelve and eight were taken aback by the need to wear sweaters to school. “Woollens are for winter months, right Mamma?”  True that. A strange phenomenon for the newly arrived Kolkata migrants precipitated the need to unbox the woollens, with naphthalene balls inserted between folds.  Duvets and blankets intended to be unpacked during November and December got a premature release from their taped cardboard cartons.  That was Bangalore weather then. 

In a couple of years, as the girls moved from school to college, they were no longer layering during these monsoon months of June/July.  The only conclusion drawn is either they had acclimatised to the Deccan plateau weather conditions or had become self-conscious during the growing up process, or was it a clear pointer to climate change? The latter seems more plausible.  Supported by the fact that initially during the first few years, the bathroom geysers stayed plugged in for the entire day, to the subsequently reduced hours (one/two hours before shower time) stay highlighted with a bright marker on memory panels. 

With the wiping out of tree-lined avenues and vintage colonial bungalows dotting the landscape, giving way to multi-storeyed offices and high-rise apartment complexes, the city soon acquired a garish makeover plastering the natural tone of the city’s face.  Twelve years on Richmond Road, saw all this and more.  Decentralisation was on its way.  Moving out from the central district to the outlying areas, becoming inevitable.  In 2003, we moved to our new apartment in Domlur Layout, still relatively pristine, with virgin forest cover.  But not for very long.  The tentacles of greed reached out grabbing all this, in justification of better civic amenities.  In a couple of years, the inner ring road snaked its way connecting Indiranagar to Koramangala thus reducing travel time.  Hailed as the best thing for commuters, at what cost?  Filling up ponds, deforestation, levelling whole villages, and gobbling up military land as well — approvers of the city’s expansion worked tirelessly.    

Water shortage was evident here with most residential complexes having to rely on tankers for water supply.  A cost added to the already steep monthly maintenance fee paid by apartment dwellers as well as stand-alone homes. Unbudgeted.  Dipping into pockets, water shortage was rearing its ugly head in the City of Thousand Lakes, conceived and built by Kempe Gowda.  The bane of urbanisation, reportedly, of the eighty-one existing ‘live’ lakes Kempambudhi and Ulsoor dating back to the 16th century, have since shrunk in acreage. Many others have just disappeared from the landscape.

In our pursuit of green spaces and low noise pollution, we once again moved further to Whitefield, named the Electronic City, a neighbourhood in Bangalore developed explicitly for housing the electronics industry in 2017.  Greens visible.  Aha! This would be our paradise in a city turned inside out with ugly stitches showing up in the inner seams.  Alas! A short-lived dream.  The beautiful Vathur Lake, a huge water body, soon was seen foaming and frothing, spilling over to the adjacent lands as a consequence of chemical effluents pouring into the lake.  Resulting in the discolouration of water and an unbearable stench, it became imperative for lake-side dwellers to shift residence. The lavender hyacinth blooms floating on the lake surface were permanently coffined and nailed down by concrete slabs.  Roads ran over these.  Voices were raised in protest.  But who’s listening?  Construction activities continued, all in the name of development, providing job opportunities, and housing for the increased growth in population.  A city bursting at the seams.

This year summer took the worst toll, with temperatures peaking at 38.1°C on 2nd May, the hottest day in forty years.  From no air conditioners being run in 1991 to sitting whole day in air-conditioned surroundings is riling for all.  Faced with acute shortages, the city authorities clamped down on water usage, making it mandatory for apartment dwellers to install aerators on taps, to reduce the water flow. Failure to comply would invite heavy penalties, uniformly across the city.  And they were deadly serious, warning of inspectors making surprise visits to homes to ensure compliance.

Now, in a two-member household, that to retirees, that made no sense.  I confess to non-compliance and got away with it.  Resorting to ‘bucket baths’ in place of standing under the shower, was a contribution in the right direction. With the rains, this mandate has been lifted. And that brought on chuckles rewinding to childhood memories of those bitterly cold winter months and Ma’s famous line ‘no kager chaan[2]’ before our baths and, most often, being sent back to repeat baths.  Ma put up with no excuses for short-cut baths.  But the writing on the wall is loud and clear.  Heading to the apocalypse?  

For the time being, I feel privileged that the green field outside my third-floor living room balcony, a disputed property, remains untouched.  A treat for the old eyes.  For how long is anybody’s guess?  

The green field outside the window. Photograph by Snigdha Agrawal

[1] Kolkata. The City of Joy by Dominique La Pierre gave Kolkata that sobriquet

[2] Crow’s bath

Snigdha Agrawal (nee Banerjee) is a published author of four books and a regular contributor to anthologies published in India and overseas.  A septuagenarian, she writes in all genres of poetry, prose, short stories and travelogues.

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My Love Affair with (Printed) Books

By Ravi Shankar

The last two years have been especially sad ones for printed books and magazines. Toward the end of 2023, the iconic magazine, National Geographic stopped selling its print issues. And in April 2024, Reader’s Digest stopped publishing. Many other print magazines have also downed their shutters though the online version continues.

I grew up with the Reader’s Digest. My father subscribed to the magazine and each month a copy wrapped in a brown envelope arrived at our door. The envelope partially covered the magazine inside, and you could see the top and bottom of the magazine. The size was small, and this made for easy handling. Reader’s Digest was a magazine you could read comfortably in bed. During the festival of Diwali, there was a special wrapping for the magazine. We had several magazines in our house when I was growing up. My mother used to read many magazines in Malayalam (our mother tongue).

Reader’s Digest provided shortened versions of stories and articles that had been published elsewhere. Their skill was in condensing the material while still retaining the interest. There was a rich collection of reading material. There were also advertisements for other books published by Reader’s Digest. Unfortunately, these were beyond our family budget. I wanted to purchase these when I grew up and became financially stronger. My neighbour who was a scientist had some of these books that I occasionally borrowed.

Another favourite of mine was the National Geographic. My father was a faculty member at a banker’s training college in Mumbai and their library subscribed to National Geographic. He often brought the magazine home. I was mesmerised by the articles and the photos in the magazine. The artistic quality of the photos was superb. The magazine had only three or four articles in an issue but addressed these at great depth. I travelled to faraway places, to the bottom of the ocean, to within the human body and to outer space with the magazine. Later, National Geographic started a television channel, and I would watch the documentaries in the nineties.

We also subscribed to the Illustrated Weekly of India. This was in a large format and again had very good photographs. I still remember the column by the journalist Khushwant Singh titled ‘With malice towards one and all’. I was also a fan of the comics section of the magazine. I had a huge collection of comics and my father purchased both Amar Chitra Katha and Indrajal Comics. Amar Chitra Katha introduced me to the rich history of India. Indrajal comics had superheroes like Phantom, Mandrake, and Flash Gordon. I used to eagerly await new issues. Most of my comics were lost when we shifted houses.   

When the news magazine, India today, made an appearance, we subscribed to it and to Outlook and The week (Indian news magazines). During my school days in May, I used to eagerly await the new textbooks and notebooks for the next class following the results. I used to go with my mother to purchase these from a stationery store near the railway station. The smell of the new paper and the fresh ink was mesmerising. I loved to read some of the easier chapters in these books. Covering the notebooks with brown paper was another major activity. Our school year started with the rains in June.  

My good friend, Sanjay Mhatre had a good library and loved to collect books. I loved to borrow from his vast collection. His collection on physics and cosmology were extensive. In those days, the erstwhile Soviet Union used to have cheap books of high quality for Indian readers. I remember the publishers Mir and Progress and I had several of their collections on science. The Soviet publishers used to hold exhibitions in our college. For twenty or thirty rupees, you could purchase high quality hard bound books. My introduction to quantum mechanics and to chemistry was through one such book.

At Thrissur in Kerala most of our medical textbooks were western and predominantly from the United Kingdom. There used to be an English Language Book Society (ELBS) that published cheaper versions of textbooks for developing countries. With our limited resources purchasing textbooks was a challenge. The two major textbooks published from the United States were those of Anatomy and Pathology. Those days we did not have online textbooks and online sources and were limited to the printed word.   

I used to write for our medical college magazine and eagerly waited for the annual issue to be published. During my residency days at PGI, Chandigarh I was the literary secretary and was very involved in bringing out the annual magazine, The Resident. We also introduced a newsletter, ARDent Voice, with ARD standing for the Association of Resident Doctors.

At Pokhara, Nepal the college library had a good collection of general books and novels in addition to medical books. I used to read a lot of novels and the author, Frederick Forsyth was one of my favourites. His meticulous research blurred the lines between fact and fiction. Sidney Sheldon was another bestselling author. Novels enabled me to travel vicariously to different places and through varied situations.

Today reading has become less common among the younger generation. Reading strengthens creativity and the imagination as you must imagine in your mind’s eye the situation the author is creating. Is it not magical that the author can communicate with you, the reader through squiggles on a page across the boundaries of space and time?

I started writing during my MBBS days. I still remember the versification competition I took part in and won the first prize. I used to participate in different literary events at my college. In Nepal, I combined my triple loves of writing, photography and hiking with articles for the newly started newspaper, The Himalayan Times. I met my writing guru, Don through the magazine, ECS Nepal. Don was the editor of the magazine and a powerful writer with a deep knowledge of Nepal. I learned a lot from his comments and suggestions and the workshops he conducted. I also used to write a medical column for ECS Nepal. ECS Nepal was a beautifully produced magazine with great photographs. Unfortunately, it stopped publishing around the beginning of the pandemic.

Other travel and lifestyle magazines were also published from Nepal but could not sustain themselves. In the Caribbean Island of Aruba, I used to write off and on for a daily newspaper published in English. Again, the newspaper ceased publishing. During the last two decades several print magazines have ceased to exist. I feel it is a great loss.

I do not read much on paper these days. Most of my reading is done online on computers, laptops and tablets. I also have a Kindle reader. Kindle screen mimics the appearance of paper closely, but it is not the same as reading a printed page. You can no longer feel the smoothness of glazed paper, the smell of fresh ink and the vivid colours of photographs. With the closure of the print version of Reader’s Digest, an era in print publishing has ended. The demise was sadly expected. Without printed books, our (my) world may never be the same again!

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Dr. P Ravi Shankar is a faculty member at the IMU Centre for Education (ICE), International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He enjoys traveling and is a creative writer and photographer.

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From Place to Place

By Renee Melchert Thorpe

Formative years can imply simply a growing body or the development of a complex outlook on life.   My mother, born Mary Ann Hostetler in Pontiac, Illinois, lived her formative years in colonial India.   Here is what I know about two formative migrations that made her who she was.  She was a quick study, a keen photographer, and resourceful traveler, but she also had an uncanny sensitivity to the need of people to feel welcome anyplace.

She had a deeply fond memory of arriving with her family in West Bengal when she was a mere 2 years old.  On the dock of Calcutta, waiting to greet the Hostetlers, was another Mennonite missionary, a man who would escort the family to the mission compound.  Dispatched aloft by her mother, little Mary Ann absolutely “sailed into his arms”, feeling sincere love and comfort from this steady and attentive new man.  He would sometimes take her for walks in the farms and villages, letting her reach out safely.  There was nothing to fear in this new place, and she was allowed to build her confidence.

Crates and luggage would have been handled by porters, a first lesson in India’s system of echelons, privileges and defenses, which even Anabaptists would adopt. India would embrace Mary Ann with her cacophony and vibrancy.  There was always the conservative life at home and in the classroom, but she could escape into the chowrasta[1], eat street food, and read the discarded letters such food was wrapped in.

From the age of 5, she boarded at a dreary school in the extraordinary altitude of Darjeeling, wintered in the rural outskirts of Calcutta, spoke street dialect like an urchin, and learned to draw from memory a Mercator map of the world showing the borders of all the British colonies.  During school break back in her parents’ mission compound, she and her brother might pass time picking fat ticks from the tender hide of a little bullock her parents kept, but her favourite activity in those warm days was to climb an old mango tree which stood just out of range of her mother’s call and read a book.  Any book.  She was never without one.

She and her family made two returns to the US, the first in 1936 for a Mission Board furlough, and again in 1944, when she had graduated from high school and the war, closing in first on the Straits Settlements, and soon after striking the Calcutta docks, was too close for comfort. 

For that 1936 furlough, the family stayed a few days in Calcutta’s Salvation Army hotel while her mother shopped for items to bring back with them to the States.  Her list would have included a tablecloth and sheeting, cotton yardage, British wool, perhaps a few sandalwood items. These things would not have been exotic souvenirs but rather, practical items for their year ahead enduring America’s Great Depression.  They were, after all, the family of a pastor, disinclined to appear exceptional or proud.

Through their Salvation Army hotel window, my mother gazed down at the Fairlawn Hotel next door, where well-heeled families relaxed with tea service on white rattan furniture, children scattered gleefully on the vast greensward, late afternoon birdsong above, and a distant Victrola warbling from inside the forbidden edifice.  She longed to experience such pleasures, and decades later, she did finally stay a few nights at the Fairlawn in 1992, with me, as I had chosen the hotel without knowing its gnawing maneuvers deep in my mother’s soul.

Checking in, we met the flamboyant and zaftig British redhead in charge of the place, my mother’s very age, daughter of the owner from those last days of the Raj.  That woman could scream gutter Bengali at the top of her lungs, and the next moment turn to my mother and politely ask about some little thing important only to little girls from a faraway garden city.  I watched as these two disparate women embraced and laughed together.    

The day she and her own mother arrived in the Los Angeles port of San Pedro, she was astonished to disembark and hear sweaty stevedores yelling and chattering in English.  This told her more about America and what was purportedly its classless society, than any adult’s own description could have.  She thrilled at this discovery.  She was unconcerned about fitting in with new school mates, got along well with them, even though they whispered amongst themselves about “her brogue.”

She never told me anything about her trip back to India, a year later.  But she would have sailed again, stuffed into Second Class.  I imagine her trying to lose her parents, availing herself of the ship’s library.  But I don’t know.

She graduated from Mount Hermon School as the “Best Girl,” although if you visit there, you can discover that the clueless new headmaster from her graduation year neglected to have the big silver trophy emblazoned with her name for the class of 1944.  Her brother’s is there with the year 1943 on the school’s “Best Boy” cup.  But he simply forgot to put in the engraving order when it was Mary Ann Hostetler’s honor.  My mother harbored few resentments, but this was a sore point, as she had worked very hard at academics.

I have never seen Bombay Harbour, where she finally left India as a young woman, but this is what she has told me.  It was wartime, 1944, but she was full of hope and thrilled to be out of that grim and cold school in the clouds.   

Mary Ann and her family boarded a passenger liner repurposed to carry a large number of troops.  A little sister had been born in India, making the family five, now billeted in what was once a First Class cabin, as were other American families leaving India.  Of course, no monogrammed towels or French milled soaps awaited them, but she relished the luxury of portholes and her own bunk.

The ship left Victoria Dock in April of 1944, mere days before the catastrophic accident of the munitions-laden SS Fort Stikine accidental fire and explosion, which destroyed every vessel in the harbor.  Wartime secrecy held successfully for decades, and my mother never learned of the near miss until many years after the war was over. 

All kinds of security measures were taken, even though the atmosphere on the crowded ship was convivial and relaxed. No flags flew.  And they sailed a zigzag course as a precaution against torpedoes.  They were in a convoy with two other soldier and civilian transports, but never saw the other ships except when in harbour.  One of those harbours was Melbourne, where boarded dozens of Australian war brides, and every last one of those young women, my mother said, had a screaming infant.  Those women shared second class cabins.  Two mother/baby pairs had bunks and one pair slept on their cabin floor.

Everyone aboard seemed to be flirting with the soldiers and welcoming distraction.  My mother and her new girlfriends, and even a few of the young Australian mothers, were nurturing chaste romances and enjoying their youth.  It was so much fun, and so stress-free, that my mother looked down at her wrist one day, where there had flourished for many months a large filiform wart, resembling some sort of fleshy agave plant; it had vanished. 

They went through the Panama Canal, a surprise for everyone aboard as well as for their stateside families.  All had been told by the war department that the convoy would land in San Francisco.  Instead, they went to Boston.  Plans were upset, lives were disrupted, and thousands of families who had made their way to California were now faced with crossing the wide country to meet their loved ones.  Typical instance, my mother said, of the war and the US government inflicting the population with whimsy, wasted efforts, or red tape in the name of national security.

To glimpse at last the American flag flying in Boston harbour gave my mother an indescribable feeling of safety and delight.  Worries carefully buried were truly gone.  The war would end in a little over a year’s time.  She had the rest of her life ahead of her.  

The USA was a safe harbour for a few years of university before she was off again, this time to Japan.  Decades later, with an empty nest, she and my father chose Italy.   Migrations were just part of living, and wherever she went, if she met another person displaced by whatever reason, she had a new best friend.  I knew them, too.  The Finnish dry cleaner, the Salvadorian woman who answered the phone at the Honda repair shop, or the Japanese lady who ran an art supply store: these people came from away, and so had she.

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[1] An intersection of four roads.

Renee Melchert Thorpe has fiction and nonfiction work has appeared in several Asian journals and magazines.

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Essay

A Story Carved in Wood, Snow and Stone  

Narrative and photographs by Urmi Chakravorty

As a traveller, I always try to zero in on destinations that are less frequented and hence, more likely to retain their pristine touch. We applied the same thumb rule during our recent ten-day visit to Himachal Pradesh.  Leaving the more popular venues to backpackers and robust tourists, my husband and I reached Sangla Valley to savour three days of undiluted peace and unsullied natural beauty at Batseri.

Situated at a height of 2700 metres (8530 feet) above sea level, Batseri is a postcard-pretty village in Sangla, in the Kinnaur district of Himachal. Our hotel was located right in the middle of an apple orchard – an embodiment of luxury and modern engineering juxtaposed against a backdrop of idyllic charm, antiquated structures and time-worn practices. As we stepped into our spacious room and attached balcony, the sight that greeted us was nothing short of amazing!

Apple orchard

Just outside the hotel boundary lay an enormous stretch of ivory, grey and beige – rocks, pebbles and shingles, accumulated through centuries of weathering and deposition – through which, gently meandered the Baspa with its wealth of shimmering emerald waters. This breath-taking layout was hemmed in by the giant deodar, fir and spruce trees on one hand, and the glistening snow-capped peaks of the gigantic Kinnar Kailash range on the other. The picture was enhanced by a common sit-out area in the patio, where one could plonk down on the quaint, low seats crafted out of timber and have a leisurely breakfast, while the whispering conifers hummed a ditty. Or simply, choose a vantage log-seat at a shadowy spot and catch up on some reading over caffein. The possibilities were endless and we were already rueing the prospect of our departure after a fleeting three days.

At Batseri, our bedside morning alarm was replaced by the natural birdsong. Relaxing in the balcony with a piping hot cuppa and waiting for the sun to peek from behind the peaks was an experience to cherish. We watched in awe as the sky metamorphosed into a fast-changing palette of peach, pink and gold, steeping the entire valley in a warm glow. Men and women, flora and fauna, welcomed yet another chance at renewal and opportunity.

One morning, we set off for a village walkthrough, after polishing off a hearty breakfast. The hotel exit was located about half a kilometre away from the building. The connecting pathway was smooth though quite steep, and was flanked by apple orchards on both sides.

Summer is the time when the trees bear white-and-pink papery flowers, which are eventually blown off by the winds, leaving behind the core, which, subsequently bears fruit. The flower-laden trees, against a backdrop of green grass and snow-capped mountains, were a splendid vision in white. The women working in the orchards seemed a cheerful, gregarious lot who either tended to the apple trees, or prepared the soil for a crop of green peas, red beans and buck wheat – cash crops which can withstand the extremities of nature in these parts. During their break, I found them sitting, sharing tea and chatting animatedly with the owner of the property. Class barriers and alienation of the non-privileged had clearly not tainted this picturesque hamlet, I mused happily.

The same camaraderie and co-existence marked even the simple, day-to-day interactions of the villagers, as we observed later. The highlight of the village was the hallowed temple of Badri Narayan Ji[1], an intricately carved wooden temple which sported a very neat, well-maintained premise. The original temple was destroyed in a fire in 1998 and it was rebuilt with the collective effort of the villagers. The young priest shared a familial bond with the local residents, who, in turn, helped uphold the sanctity and cleanliness of the temple and the shrine. No visitor is allowed to climb up the three steps leading to the sanctum sanctorum – the offerings are collected by the priest and offered to the deity. Nobody — young or old, rich or ordinary — challenges or questions. We had earlier observed a similar austerity in other temples of Kinnaur, as well. In fact, some mandate the wearing of the colourful, traditional Himachali cap for men inside the premise. Women usually have stoles, scarves and dupattas[2] to cover their heads with.

Baspa River
Quaint village

From the temple, a single path led us forward to the village. We met and spoke to the local store-keepers, animal herders, agriculturists, home-makers – everyone greeted us affably and spoke about their lifestyle and community. Their pride in their village and its traditions, along with their warmth and hospitality, left an imprint on my heart. We observed the houses which were a complete and welcome departure from the glass-and-metal structures that we usually see. They were all built of sturdy wood collected from the nearby deodar forests and burnished well to display a sheen. Each house had ample open area where they stowed away firewood and other essentials. There were no fences or barbed wires to demarcate properties. Piles of stones collected from the Baspa riverbank were stashed neatly to make a low boundary between two houses. I remembered noticing a similar demarcation among the orchards outside our hotel, too. Here was a community where people thrived on an innate sense of trust and fraternity; scaling of boundaries, literal or otherwise, was something unheard of.

Motor vehicles were not allowed inside the village, barring a rare two-wheeler, though we did see a couple of cars parked at the entrance. Fluffy, pampered street dogs dotted the paths and slept on the stairways of homes – they formed the extended family of the entire village. Just like the adorable Sheroo, a Bhutiya furry who ruled over our hotel like a boss!

The entire Sangla Valley is on the path to accelerated development with multiple road and hydel power projects being executed at regular intervals. The strong currents of the voluminous Baspa are harnessed for this purpose. These projects form an important source of livelihood for the local residents who cannot engage in extensive cultivation because of the inclement weather and soil conditions.

Enroute to Chitkul

The next to-do on our itinerary was a visit to Chitkul, the last village on the Indo-Tibet border. Perched at an elevation of 3450 metres (11,320 feet), this charming village with its panoramic view of the majestic Kinnar Kailash range and the verdant vistas, is often considered the ‘Jewel of the Baspa Valley’. Our cab took us to the last motorable spot beyond which were located the Army and the ITBP camps. As we stepped out of the vehicle and looked around, we were left agape by the ethereal splendour of the place! The snow-kissed peaks alternated with rugged mountain faces and together, they stood like silent sentinels towering over the sprawling alpine meadows, pockets of dense green woods, and the gurgling, meandering Baspa. The Baspa is fed by the perennial Himalayan glaciers and shares a common catchment basin with the Ganga. Fifty shades of green, all in one canvas, I thought to myself!

Scenic Chitkul

Far away, we spied the Chitkul village, conspicuous by its symmetrical hutments and their colourful roofs.  We walked around the undulating meadows with cautious steps – a reminder for us to embrace the various ups and downs of life with grace and equanimity. The place abounded in rocks, boulders and pebbles of all sizes and shapes which prompted me to make a humble cairn of my own – a modest attempt at preserving my footfall on this slice of heaven!

At a distance, we saw defence personnel going about their duty in a brisk, professional manner, unfazed by the grandeur of their surroundings. As the clock ticked by and the shadows lengthened, we knew it was time to turn back. We drove into the small hub of activity in the village which housed the last Post Office of India and also, its last dhaba[3]. Rows of colourful prayer flags strung alongside the road seemed to whisper prayers for our well-being and safety. Multiple pictures and a hearty meal of rajma-chawal [4]later, we headed back to our hotel in Batseri.

As we approached the premises, our driver pulled up on the side and switched off the engine. There was a pile-up of men and machine, and all vehicular movement was halted. We alighted and ambled forward to probe the matter. The sharp slope leading up to our property had been completely blocked by the sudden uprooting of an ancient tree around noon, its gnarled branches reaching up ominously towards the twilight sky. The administration had swung into action, aided generously by the villagers. The monotonous whirr of the giant chainsaw cutter axing down the tree into large chunks, and the occasional thud of the felled logs, reminded us, yet again, of the unpredictability and difficulty of life in the remote mountains. We strolled around the nearby areas for about half-an-hour before a narrow tract was created on one side for us to walk through. The stranded people — visitors and villagers alike — trundled out.

After spending three memorable days at Sangla, we headed out to our next destination. I spent the last few minutes on our balcony, listening to the gentle susurration that seemed to whisper ancient secrets of the mountains. I admired the patterns created by the play of sunlight through the leaves –- that gave me life lessons in gratitude for these fleeting, beauteous moments of life. As we drove away, I cast one last lingering look at beautiful Batseri –- a fascinating story of life carved in wood, snow, and stone.

[1]Badri Narayan is another name for Vishnu

[2] Stole

[3] Roadside eatery

[4] Red bean curry and rice

Urmi Chakravorty is a former educator and presently, a freelance writer and editor. She has been published by The Hindu, The Times of India, TMYS Reviews, Indian Review, Mean Pepper Vine, eShe, The Chakkar, Kitaab International and The Wise Owl, among others.

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Categories
Essay

When the Feminist and the Revolutionary Met

By Niaz Zaman

Nazrul (1899-1976)

Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein was born in 1880, Kazi Nazrul Islam in 1899. Apart from their difference in gender, there could not have been more differences in the circumstances of their class and upbringing. Roquiah was born and brought up in an affluent Muslim family of Pairaband. Her brothers went to elite schools in Kolkata. Though she was forbidden to read and write Bangla or English as a child, her brother Ibrahim Saber helped her to learn both languages so that she could write fluently in both. Later, her husband, Sakhawat Hossein, encouraged her to read and write, both Bangla and English.

Kazi Nazrul Islam was born in an impoverished family in the village of Churulia in the district of Bardhaman in West Bengal. Nazrul’s father was the khadim or caretaker of a mosque next to his small mud hut. The death of several earlier children led to Nazrul’s being given the nickname “Dukhu Miah,” the sorrowful one, perhaps also to cast off the evil eye. Initially, Nazrul studied in a maktab, an Islamic elementary school. When Nazrul was about nine, his father passed away, and the young boy was obliged to support his family. This might have meant teaching the children at the maktab, cleaning the mosque, and participating in religious rituals which entailed reciting the Quran. 

Sometime in 1915, Nazrul got admitted to Searsole Raj High School, and studied there till 1917. This was the longest time he had spent in one place and in one school. However, he did not sit for the matriculation examination, but went off to join the British Indian Army which had started recruiting Bengalis.  Posted to Karachi, Nazrul started subscribing to Kolkata papers and also writing for them.

Begum Roquiah (1880-1932) with her husband, Sakhawat Hossein, in 1898

In 1898 – a year before Nazrul was born – Roqiuah Khatun was married to Sakhawat Hossein, an Urdu-speaking widower from Bhagalpur. A civil servant under the British Raj, Sakhawat Hossein, not only encouraged his wife to read and write but was so amazed at her piece of English writing that he showed it to Mr. Macpherson, Commissioner, Bhagalpur.  Mr. Macpherson commended the quality and content of the writing.  We do not know whether Roquiah sent the story herself to Indian Ladies Magazine (Madras) or whether her husband did so. Nevertheless, Roquiah’s first published writing appeared in the magazine in 1905. Three years later, her Bangla translation of the story – with some changes – was published as a small book by S. K. Lahiri and Co, Kolkata.

Sakhawat Hossein passed away on May 3, 1909, leaving a large sum to his widow to start a school. Roquiah initially started the school in Bhagalpur but was unable to continue there and moved to Kolkata. It was there that, onMarch 16, 1911, she re-started Sakhawat Memorial School at 13 Wellesley Lane. Besides persuading Muslim parents to let their daughters enrol in her school and running it, she also had to write letters explaining why certain things were being done or not being done in her school. In addition to these activities, she started writing for local Kolkata newspapers and journals.

Perhaps the earliest Bangla essay of hers that was published was “Pipasha.” This piece about Muharram was published in Nabaprabha in Falgun 1308 [1](Bangla) corresponding to mid-February to mid-March 1912.  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, and Mah-e-Nau. News about her school was published in The Mussulman under her initials, Mrs. R. S. Hossein.

During his deployment in Karachi, Nazrul subscribed to Bangla journals from Kolkata and also sent them some of his writings. His first publication was a short story “Baundeler Atmakahini” [The Autobiography of a Vagabond], which was published in Saogat in May 1919. The short stories “Hena” and “Byathar Dan” [The Gift of Sorrow] were published in Bangiya Mussalman Sahitya Patrika in November 1919 and January 1920 respectively. Roquiah’s writings too were being published in Saogat and Bangiya Mussulman Sahitya Patrika.  Though it is not known whether Nazrul and Roquiah actually met, it is impossible that they did not know about each other’s writings.

A few years ago, I asked Majeda Saber, Roquiah’s grandniece who has written considerably on her grandaunt, whether Nazrul and Roquiah had ever met. Majeda Saber did not know. However, even if they did not meet, it is quite evident that Nazrul and Roquiah did meet in print and that they shared some common ideas. Nazrul reveals a deep empathy for women in both his poetry and his fiction. The short story “Rakshushi[2],” about a woman who has killed her husband and gone to jail for her crime, is a sympathetic portrayal of a murderess in her own voice. Nazrul’s poem “Nari[3]” demands equality for women.

I sing of equality. 
In my eyes, there is no difference 
Between a man and a woman. 
Whatever is great and blessed in this world, 
Has come equally from both, man and woman. 

		(Translated by Selina Hasib)

His song, “Jaago Nari Jaago” [Rise Up, Women], gives a clarion call to all women to rise.

Rise up women – rise up like the flaming fire! 
Rise up, O wife of the Sun god, 
with the mark of blood on your forehead!! 
...
	
Like the fire blazing out of a smouldering heap, 
rise up – all you mothers, daughters, wives, sisters! 
              (Translated by Sajed Kamal)

In his epistolary novel, Bandhon Hara [4]– which began to be serialized in Moslem Bharat from mid-April 1920 and was published as a book in 1927 – the feelings of the women letter writers reflect Roquiah’s ideas.

The narrative of Bandhon Hara seems to focus on the soldier-protagonist Nuru. However, the letters of the women not only contribute to the narrative of the triangular love story but also reflect on the condition of Muslim women in seclusion. For example, Mahbuba writes to Sophie – her friend, who, like her, is also in love with Nuru – about the claustrophobic nature of the inner quarters where women reside. It is a place where even the sun may not enter. But women are not criminals, Mahbuba says. “We are entitled to some freedom, for are we not human beings? Are we not made of flesh and blood, don’t we have feelings? Do we not possess a soul?”

After Mahbuba gets married, she writes to Shahoshika, a Brahmo teacher and a family friend,  that women are supposed to be self-sacrificing. She tells Shahoshika that she has no wish to be renowned for self-sacrifice. She would like to die but refuses to die locked up in the inner quarters. “If I have to die, I would wish to have all the doors and windows around me open wide . . .  I want to die looking straight at Mother Earth”.

In her essay “Subeh Sadek” [Dawn], published in Muezzin between mid-July-mid-August 1930, Roquiah asked women to proclaim aloud that they were human beings, not possessions. “Buk thukiya bolo ma! Amra poshu noi. Bolo bhogini! Amra asbab noi. Bolo konye! Amra jarau olonkar rupe lohar sinduke aboddha thakibar bostu noi. Sokole somoswore bolo, Amra manush. Mother, proclaim aloud, we are not animals. Proclaim, sister, we are not inanimate objects. Proclaim daughter, we are not ornaments set with precious gems to be locked up in iron trunks. Proclaim together, we are human beings.” In Aborodhbashini [The Secluded Ones], published in 1931, several years after Bandhon Hara, she described the claustrophobic, unhealthy, and often fatal conditions of extreme purdah.

Dhumketu edited by Nazrul

These similarities might simply be coincidences. However, it is clear that Nazrul thought highly of Roquiah and that she too reciprocated that feeling.  Roquiah had been contributing to several Kolkata journals.  In 1922, she contributed two pieces to the newly founded bi-weekly paper, Dhumketu[5], edited by Nazrul. The paper started publication from 26 Sravan 1329 BS/11 August 1922. A month later, a large extract from Roquiah’s essay “Pipasha”[Thirst] was published in the Muharram issue of 16 Bhadra 1329/ September 2, 1922.

Thanks to Selina Bahar Zaman[6], we have facsimiles of Dhumketu. From this valuable collection we realise that, from the very beginning, the paper not only voiced Nazrul’s anti-British views but also displayed his non-communal and non-gendered outlook. Many of the contributors to the paper included Hindu writers as well as women. 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.  Mrs. M. Rahman, to whom Nazrul dedicated his book Bisher Banshi[7], wrote several times. Roquiah – as Mrs R. S. Hossein – was published twice in Dhumketu.

We do not know whether Roquiah sent the extract from “Pipasha” herself or whether Nazrul asked her for the piece for the special issue of twenty pages. The extract published in Dhumketu reflects on the plight of Hazrat Imam Hossain and the group of warriors, women and children, who accompanied him on his tragic journey to Karbala. 

The only other piece by Roquiah to appear in Dhumketu was a poem, “Nirupam Bir” [The Dauntless Warrior], published on 5 Ashwin 1329 BS / September 22, 1922. Unlike “Pipasha”, the poem does not seem to have been published before. This time, Roquiah might herself have sent the poem to Dhumketu. She would not have had to go in person to the office of Dhumketu. With a good postal service, contributions were mailed to journals.

 “Nirupam Bir” is a remarkable poem from a woman who has been called an “Islamic Feminist.”   The 18 August issue of Dhumketu had published a photograph of Kanailal Dutt (1888-1908). Did this inspire Roquiah to write the poem?  Kanailal was a revolutionary belonging to the Jugantor Group[8]. 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 the poem, Roquiah eulogises Kanai as the dauntless warrior. The poem begins with the magistrate telling Kanai that he will 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 hailing Kanailal: “Bolo bolo ‘Bande Shyam[9].’” It is a brave poem by a woman who was the widow of a government servant, a woman who ran a school for Muslim girls and promised their parents that purdah would be observed.

There were no Muslim revolutionaries at the time – though Nazrul’s friend Muzaffar Ahmad was a communist – and in Mrityukshudha Nazrul would describe a Muslim Bolshevik and in Kuhelika[10] he would portray a Muslim revolutionary. In his two poems on Durga, “Agamoni[11]” and “Anandamoyeer Agamone”, published in the Puja issue of Dhumketu on 9 Ashwin 1329 BS /September 26, 1922, Nazrul used the legend of the goddess to call for the overthrow of the British. In his editorial in the thirteenth issue of Dhumketu, 26 Ashwin 1329 BS / October 13,1922, Nazrul called for complete independence from the British: “‘Dhumketu’ bharater purno swadhinata chay.[Dhumketu wants India’s complete independence]” He quoted a line from his poem “Bidrohi”: “Ami aponare chhara kori na kahare kurnish [I bow to no one but myself].” Unlike Khudiram and Kanai, Nazrul did not resort to bombs or pistols, but to soul-stirring words. Just as in some of his writings, Nazrul revealed the feminist perspectives of Roquiah; in “Nirupam Bir”, Roquiah approached the revolutionary spirit of Nazrul.

Selected Bibliography

Hossein, Roquiah Sakhawat, “Subeh Sadek.” Rokeya Rachanabali ed. Abdul Mannan Syed et al,   revised edition. Bangla Academy: 1999.

Islam, Kazi Nazrul. Unfettered (translation of Bandhon Hara).Translated by The Reading Circle Nymphea Publication: 2015.

Zaman, Selina Bahar, ed. Nazruler Dhumketu, Nazrul Institute: 2013.

[1] 1902 February

[2] Demoness

[3] Woman

[4] Without Bondage

[5] Comet

[6] Selina Bahar Zaman (1940 – 2004) Bangladeshi academician and writer

[7] The Poisoned Flute

[8] A revolutionary group started in 1906

[9] Translates to — I bow to thee, Shyam/Hail to thee, Shyam

[10] Enigma, first published as a serial in 1927

[11] Advent

Niaz Zaman is an academic, writer and translator from Bangladesh. She has published a selection of Kazi Nazrul Islam’s work in the two-volume Kazi Nazrul Islam: Selections. In 2016, she received the Bangla Academy Award for Translation. This essay was first published in In Focus, the Daily Star,  December 12, 2022.

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Categories
Essay

Metaphorical Maladies

By Satyarth Pandita

In her seminal work, Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag delves into the intricate realm of disease metaphors and presents evidence from the literary field that has employed metaphors for human illness, especially tuberculosis and cancer. Sontag draws on a rich literary history, referencing the works of Stendhal, Karl Menninger, Thomas Mann, Charles Dickens, Thomas Wolfe, Franz Kafka and others, to illustrate how metaphors for diseases have been ingrained in our cultural psyche. The two diseases, TB and cancer, discussed at length in the essay, are viewed from innumerable literary points of view. Fictional and real-life views of people surrounding these diseases have been put forward, which betray a cacophony of contrasting and similar ideas.

Sontag astutely dissects the contrasting metaphors associated with tuberculosis and cancer. Tuberculosis, she argues, has been romanticised and considered more socially acceptable and often viewed as a glamorous affliction. “Having TB was imagined to be an aphrodisiac and to confer extraordinary power of seduction. Cancer is considered to be de-sexualizing.” Sontag describes the tumour as “a foetus with its own will”. She further states that TB is a disease of poverty and deprivation, whereas cancer is a disease of middle-class life. She adds that cancer is associated with affluence, with excess. The metaphors associated with the diseases, she contends, not only affect the body but also shape societal perceptions and cultural narratives. The metaphorical attributions of TB and cancer in literature and society echo broader societal perceptions of class and status.

Published in 1978
Susan Sontag (1933-2004)

There is an aphorism by Heraclitus that men have devised gods in their own images, and as Sontag states, the nomenclature of ‘cancer’ is derived from the Greek- karkinos and the Latin- cancer, both of which mean crab. She clarifies by quoting Galen that since the external tumour’s swollen veins resembled a crab’s legs, that is how it got its name. This tendency to associate unfamiliar things with familiar ones is common; people often perceive shapes in clouds, drawing comparisons to known objects. Similarly, diseases are often viewed through familiar frameworks. Since diseases afflict and weaken us, they are often seen as adversaries. Thus, labelling the experience of battling cancer as a fight imbues individuals with a sense of hope, suggesting the possibility of victory amidst adversity.

Sontag, betraying the nature of cancer as a slowly progressing disease that suddenly manifests without any warning, presents the earliest evidence where it was first used metaphorically by Wyclif in 1382. “The word of hem crepith as a kankir”.She assembles the different metaphors associated with Cancer, which are as diverse as the number of human illnesses. For her, Cancer is a source for topological metaphors: “spreads”, “proliferates”, “diffused”, and “excised”.

The essay examines the mythologies and superstitions associated with these diseases and how metaphors sometimes wear the cloak of superstition, too. But metaphors make the understanding of the disease more manageable. Metaphors are a means of understanding the meaning of things. That which cannot be explained as such can be explained by metaphors. In his books, The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, Aldous Huxley states: “It is difficult, it is all but impossible, to speak of mental events except in similes drawn from the more familiar universe of material things. If I have made use of geographical and zoological metaphors, it is not wantonly out of a mere addiction to picturesque language. It is because such metaphors express very forcibly the essential otherness of the mind’s far continents, the complete autonomy and self-sufficiency of their inhabitants.” The metaphors will exist, and educating the masses is the only way to stop them from becoming a stigma or superstition against that disease.

Published in 1954
Published in 1956

Quite possibly, the doctors refraining from revealing the true nature of disease inherently to the patient might reflect the notion of fear of death. The diseased person might perhaps think that death will come to everyone but him. Revealing his cancer to him might imply the idea of the inevitable approaching death. Thus, employing the metaphor of ‘battling’ with cancer provides a sense of relief to the patient of emerging victorious in the battle. A diseased man on the bed is akin to a newborn baby, with the only difference being that in one, the river of life has begun to flow, whereas, in the other, it is on the verge of drying. An afflicted man is as helpless as a baby. He craves for care. In this vulnerable state, directly discussing the illness may be too distressing, necessitating the use of metaphors to convey the situation. The patient’s understanding is limited. The only truth he has made a pact with is the slipping of time and the approach of death.

Regardless of how one has lived, everyone desires a death with dignity. Yet, why is it that some illnesses seem to afford this dignity while others do not? What criteria determine whether an illness is seen as favourable? Is it pain or time? The dilemma is akin to choosing between jumping into a well or off a cliff―Death awaits at both ends. As Susan Sontag herself ‘battled’ breast cancer, one cannot help but wonder whether the book would have been different had her affliction been tuberculosis instead. The essay appears biased, elevating tuberculosis and its sufferers while diminishing the dignity of cancer patients. It only examines these diseases from a personal perspective. TB has been presented as a glorified disease, whereas cancer is something that rots the body. Only briefly does the essay touch on the societal perceptions that label tuberculosis as a disease of poverty and cancer as a disease of affluence.

It is not only cancer and TB that have attracted metaphors or have been known to be identified with them. In fact, every other disease and illness is accompanied by metaphors, like an object and its shadow. And it must be noted that some diseases, apart from being associated with metaphors, are linked with gods and deities.

I recall a passage from the book The Monkey Grammarian in which the author, Octavio Paz, describes a scene inside the ‘Temple of Galta’ which is also known as ‘The Monkey Temple’ in Rajasthan: “The children leap about and point to the stone, shouting ‘Hanuman, Hanuman!’ On hearing them shouting, a beggar suddenly emerges from the rocks to show me his hands eaten away by leprosy. The next moment, another mendicant appears, and then another and another.”

The Mark of the Beast was written in 1890

When I first read this passage, I was immediately reminded of the story ‘The Mark of The Beast’ by Rudyard Kipling and a paper that I had read related to the story titled ‘Recognizing the Leper: Hindu Myth, British Medicine, and the Crisis of Realism in Rudyard Kipling’s The Mark of the Beast’. The author of the paper had woven the interconnectedness and drawn parallels between the story, the leprosy affected character and Hanuman-lila. In ‘The Mark of The Beast’, an Englishman named Fleete, in the company of his two friends, desecrates a statue of Hanuman inside a temple with his cigar and declares it as ‘the mark of the beast’ but is soon embraced by a “mewing” leper who emerges from behind the statue following which, Fleete begins to develop skin discolourations and starts exhibiting animal-like behaviour. In the paper, the author establishes a connection between Hanuman and leprosy to justify why the Hindu monkey god is often called ‘sankat-mochan’ or ‘liberator from distress’. Drawing reference from the study of Hanuman lore by Philip Lutgendorf, the author argues how Kipling’s story resonates with a specific Hanuman-lila that relates his manifestation as a leper before the 16th-century saint Tulsidas.

“Instead, he [the tree ghost] told Tulsidas to seek the grace of Hanuman and revealed that the latter came every evening to a certain ghat in the form of an old leper to listen to the narration of Rama's story; he sat at the back of the crowd and was always the last to leave. That night, Tulsidas surreptitiously followed the leper, who led him deep into the forest before the poet finally fell at his feet, hailing him as the Son of the Wind. As the ghost had predicted, the leper "denied a thousand times" that he was anything other than a sick old man, but Tulsidas persisted in his entreaties. Eventually, Hanuman manifested his glorious form. Raising one hand over his shoulder to point southwest, he said, "Go to Chitrakut," and placing the other hand over his heart, added, "I promise you will see Rama.”

 Illness as Metaphor should not be considered a caution about metaphors in their relation to illness but rather a critique of their misapplication, where these metaphors can morph into stigmas that persist in people’s consciousness. “Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later, each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place,” Sontag states in the opening lines of her book-length essay. But, unless one is born in the mythical Shangri-La, and as long as humanity exists, illnesses and their accompanying metaphors will persist, evolving with each new malady that emerges. Today, it is cancer, just as yesterday, it was tuberculosis and COVID-19. Tomorrow will inevitably bring new illnesses, accompanied by a fresh set of metaphors that shape our collective understanding of the ever-present shadow of illness in the human experience.

Satyarth Pandita is a Junior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru. He completed his dual degree of Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Biological Sciences (major) and Humanities and Social Sciences (minor) from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal (IISERB).

Links to Satyarth’s published works, email address and social media handles can be found here.

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Essay

Akbar Barakzai: A Timeless Poet

By Hazaran Rahim Dad

Akbar Barakzai (1939-2022) was born in Shikarpur Sindh, Pakistan. He received his early Education from Karachi and later he graduated from University of Karachi. Barakzai  is considered as one of the most defiant progressive voices in modern Balochi literature. His poetry reflects the objective realities of life and ambitions of his people. Boundless love for masses, profound desire for peace and prosperity, and unwavering resolve to resist and defy the tyranny are some of the commonplace themes of his poetry.

 “Akbar Barakzai belongs to the generation of the poets that witnessed the political and literary activism of Muhammad Hussain Unqa, Sher Mohammad Mari, Mir Gul Khan Naseer and Azat Jamaldini”, writes Fazal Baloch, a renowned translator who most recently brought out the anthology of Barakzai’s translated poems under the title Adam’s Remorse and Other Poems, published by Balochi Academy Quetta in 2023.

In his literary career, which spans over a half century, Barakzai has managed to bring out only two of his anthologies. Some selected poems by Barakzai have been translated from Balochi to English by Fazal Baloch, a college professor in Turbat, and a prominent literary translator.

Akbar Barakzai was an honest and dedicated political and social activist whose aim was progress of Baloch people. He as poet could not only express the human sentiments but could also express their aspirations for their life of Freedom and Dignity. “He served … his people admirably and deserves our respect and love,” says Meer Mohammad Ali Talpur, a Baloch intellectual.

Barakzai’s poems are rich in linguistic and literary expressions. His language is both simple and philosophical. In his poetry, he celebrates resistance, challenges oppression, and expresses a belief in a better future without losing hope. He emphasises resilience to overcome suffering. He writes:

I am the tree of immortality,
O, you tyrant brute!
The more you hew me down,
the more I sprout

The imagery of the tree symbolises the strength and the life cycle of a tree which remains steadfast midst harsh weathers.

In another poem, titled ‘Not Forever’, Barakzai continues to convey themes of resistance and defiance. As he says:

The rule of chains and fetters
Will last only for today, not forever.
The age of tyranny and oppression
Will last only for today, not forever.

He inscribes that the current state of being oppressed or controlled (“rule of chains and fetters,” “tyranny and oppression”) is temporary. Barakzai implies hope for a future where such oppression will end, indicating a belief in the eventual triumph of freedom and justice.

Barakzai sought to reshape the prevailing socio-political views and wrote for freedom and liberty, peace and prosperity and dignity of mankind. His love for human dignity transcends all geographical and cultural frontiers and becomes universal, added Fazal Baloch.

Indeed, Barakzai’s poetry transcends borders and speaks to universal themes. In his poem ‘Who Can Snuff Out the Sun?’ written in response to Che Guevara’s execution, he celebrates Che Guevara’s heroism and the universal struggle for justice and freedom. By acknowledging Che Guevara’s courage and sacrifice, Barakzai connects with a broader global struggle for human rights and liberation.

"Who can snuff out the sun? 
Who can suppress the light?"

And in the last lines of the poem, he notes,

I'm Ernesto Che Guevara
I'm Immortal
Everywhere in the world

“This is not only Barakzai’s most quoted poem, but it is also one of the most remarkable Balochi poems touching the theme of resistance and defiance,” contends Fazal Baloch.

Similarly, in his another poem like ‘I’m Viet Cong’, he expresses solidarity with the people of Vietnam, few lines are written as such:

I'm the spirit of freedom and liberty 
Who can enslave me?
Who can kill me?
After all
I'm Viet Cong I'm Viet Cong.

He might have shown solidarity with Afghanistan in his poem ‘April 1978’. His lines read:

Let's sing for the Saur
Let’s extol the groom
A garden in our heart has bloomed 
Doves chant and herald the news 
Revolution has arrived
Arrived what we desired

One of the ways in which Barakzai weaves the West and the East into his poetry. He has a poem called ‘Waiting for Godot’. Samuel Beckett’s Godot is emblematic of an ideal that we keep waiting for. Barakzai has captured the essence of the whole play in his poem with his refrain —

Arise! O friends from this deep slumber 
Godot will not, will never show up

In one of his most powerful poems, ‘Word’, Barakzai conveys the power of speaking up for one’s rights and the importance of not remaining silent in the face of oppression. He believes that by voicing one’s grievances and advocating for justice, freedom, and salvation can be achieved, ultimately leading to the end of oppression as these lines indicate:

Don’t ever bury the word
In the depth of your chest 
Rather express the word
Yes, speak it out.
The word brings forth
Freedom and providence
Of course, freedom and providence.

In ‘How Long’, Barakzai starts by portraying a bleak situation where life is filled with distress and young people are dying tragically. He inscribes,

For how long
Life will remain in utter distress 
Handsome youths keep falling to bullets 
And mirror like hearts
Continue to shatter into shards?

Then, he shifts the tone to one of hope and optimism, and writes,

Light-- the very essence of freedom 
Will not forever remain in prison
Life will not suffer distress
The serpent of tyranny
Will vanish evermore
The sapling of envy and hatred
Will wither away.

He suggests that despite the current darkness, better days are ahead. He expresses confidence that “light”, symbolic of freedom, will not remain imprisoned forever. He predicts an end to the suffering and the disappearance of tyranny. The imagery of the “serpent of tyranny” vanishing and the “sapling of envy and hatred” withering away conveys the idea of a brighter future where oppression and negativity are eradicated.

Barakzai’s poetry is a ray of hope in the midst of suffering from atrocities and hatred and envy. His poetry reflects his love for humanity resonating with the voices of the oppressed and for them.

Hazaran Rahim Dad is a poet and writer. She writes on sociopolitical issues focusing on the right of fishermen. Currently she is pursuing her MPhil degree in English literature from Karachi.

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