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A Walking History of the Himalayan Landscape

Title: Human Nature: A Walking History of the Himalayan Landscape

Author: Thomas Bell

Publisher: Penguin Random House

On the plane from Kathmandu I could see the thunderheads building over the eastern hills, after a month of drought. At the bus park, when I claimed my place in the front of the jeep, the soldier who’d already taken his said, ‘This is going to be awkward.’ He spent the first part of the journey asleep on my shoulder.

The road climbed through the clouds and tea gardens of Ilam. The neat little tea hedges were whorled around the round hills like the ridges on a fingerprint. The air was opaque with condensation, like every time I’ve been there. I was once told that this continually cloudy weather—‘the sun never shines, it’s so depressing!’—accounts for the fact that Ilam has the highest suicide rate in the country. But a woman from here, whom I met in Kathmandu, said, ‘No, it’s because the kids’ parents won’t let them be with whom they want to be; they’re lovesick, then their exams come, they come under even greater pressure, feeling their whole lives are at stake, and they drink poison or jump in a river.’

The music in the jeep was loud, and there wasn’t much conversation until we began descending into Phidim in declining light. Beyond the steamed-up glass we saw a blur of rain, cloud and forest, the lights of the town below, and white flashes of lightning. ‘Mother!’ squealed the young woman in the back, and the passengers began talking about deaths by lightning. In his home district they’re quite common, Rajendra said. ‘The victims are burnt black-black!’ The jeep dropped people off at various places, lastly me and Rajendra at a hotel. He carried most of the bags and fishing rods upstairs.

That evening in the hotel restaurant I was joined by an engineer, who was living there while he worked on a hydropower project. It was stormy outside. We drank whisky and talked about fishing, which he was interested in, and about walking routes. After we’d been talking for a while, and it seemed I knew enough to get around, he asked why I needed a guide, referring to Rajendra, who he’d seen carrying the rods upstairs.

‘I need someone to help me with my stuff,’ I said.

I was planning to walk down the Tamar River, do some fishing, and make our way back through the hills to Kathmandu in two or three weeks. ‘Start your walk from the village of Majhitar,’ the engineer said. ‘It’s on your way, and the fishing will be good where a stream flows into the Tamar.’

—

In the morning a car from the engineer’s project took me and Rajendra and dropped us a few kilometres away, which was as far as the road stretched then. The map I had was only ten years old, but very out of date, because in a short time the hills have filled with roads. The footpath leading from Phidim towards the Tamar was in the process of becoming the Mid-Hill Highway, a major project that will coil over ridge after ridge across the whole country. We began tramping along the unfinished surface towards Majhitar.

Except for last night’s squalls, the weather had been dry throughout the hills. Forest fires were in the news. Here, the villagers were ploughing in preparation for more rain, whereupon they’d plant maize. Where the immense red slopes were too steep to farm they were thinly forested with sal trees, which had shed their leaves to endure the arid spring. The braided streams of the Tamar came into view beneath us. After last night the water was a dirty, concrete grey. The road descended to Majhitar.

The name of this village means that members of the fishermen’s caste—Majhi—are living on a flat piece of alluvial land called a tar. The first people we reached were rethatching their house ahead of the monsoon. Their nets were hanging in the rafters. Rajendra stopped to talk, and they fried some minnows for us. ‘There are fish in this river as big as ourselves,’ the Majhis said, ‘but there’s no chance of catching them in this black water.’ They showed us the thick lines and 2-inch hooks they use, baited with minnows, to catch the big ones. ‘Fish eat fish?’ Rajendra asked.

For the rest of the day we crossed the slopes high above the black waters of the Tamar. We climbed steeply through a burnt forest, the path levelled out among fragrant pines, then we walked all afternoon in grinding sunshine, through leafless jungle with little to drink. The brightness, heat and thirst, last night’s whisky, the weight of my bag, and the awkward load of fishing rods swinging around my body made the world contract. By the end of the day I’d withdrawn into determination only to reach the village where we’d stay. When we got there the villagers asked us, for some reason, ‘Are you from the land registry department?’ They were also Majhis.

Archaeologists have speculated that fishing villages were the first permanent settlements, because even before agriculture they had a source of food in one place. It seems plausible that a similar principle is relevant here. This village, which only consisted of half a dozen stone huts, was built on a naturally formed terrace about 20 yards above the river. Each hut was a single windowless room, with a wall-less sleeping platform above it under a pitched thatch roof. Drunks were asleep on steps and benches at the end of the afternoon. We put our stuff down and were shown which house would take us. Rajendra and I asked them to prepare daal and rice for us, but they said they had no daal.

‘Vegetables then?’ They had no vegetables.

‘Can I have a cup of tea?’ There was no tea.

‘Then give me a cigarette.’ There were no cigarettes. They rolled the tobacco they grew in strips of fibre from their maize cobs.

About the Book

n Human Nature, Thomas Bell embarks on four walks through the Himalaya, each in a different season, to explore the interplay between the land and the people who call it home. This evocative history entwines travelogue with folklore, literature, art and anthropology, offering a nuanced portrait of life over the centuries in one of the world’s most enigmatic regions.

Bell’s decades of living in Nepal give him an unusual perspective that bridges the gap between insider and outsider. The stories told to him touch on themes from religion to ecology and political economy, and from pre-history to the present day. He also deftly examines the impact of British imperialism and the growing external pressures on the environment.

Accompanied by striking photographs, Human Nature is a magnificently written account that spans big ideas and real lives. Erudite, intimate and evocative, this is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the relationship between communities and their environment.

About the Author

Thomas Bell was born in the north of England. After university, he moved to Nepal to cover the civil war there for the Daily Telegraph, The Economist and other publications. He was the Southeast Asia correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, before returning to Kathmandu where he was a political officer for the United Nations during the peace process. His earlier book, Kathmandu, is a history of Nepal’s capital.

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The Naipauls of Nepaul Street 

Title: The Naipauls of Nepaul Street 

Author: Savi Naipaul Akal

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

CHAPTER ONE

Cunupia, Chaguanas, Chandernagore, Caroni . . .

My father seemed destined to be surrounded by women. At first there were four aunts, a sister and four female cousins. There was a mother too, but no father he could or would recall.

Seepersad Naipaul was born on 14th April 1906 in the settlement of Cunupia in rural Trinidad. On his birth certificate, his name is ‘Supersad’. The name and occupation of the ‘informant’ (normally the husband or father) is given as Nyepal. He is identified as a labourer. His mother’s name is Poolkareah, with no occupation cited for her. Most likely she was wife as well as mother – occupations daunting enough.

Nyepal, our Pa’s father, was not intended to be a labourer. An only child, he had come from India with his devoted mother, an indentured servant. In other words, she came under an agreement that would oblige her to work on the land, mainly in the sugar-cane fields. Why did she and so many others leave India in this way? Perhaps she had committed some indiscretion, or was running away from a bad marriage. After her term of indenture expired, she had the choice of going back to India or staying in Trinidad. She decided to stay, along with her son. Devoted to him, and a proud Brahmin, she sought to have him trained as a pundit. (In Hinduism, only Brahmins can perform the most sacred rites.) To that end, he travelled to Diego Martin, the large valley immediately west of our capital, Port of Spain, to sit at the feet of a venerable pundit. Being a pundit meant having knowledge and understanding of the sacred texts and rituals, and thus the ability to read and write Sanskrit and Hindi. Whether Nyepal ever practised as a pundit we never knew, but he apparently sold goods and supplies used in pujas, or sacred rites.

His mother also found him a wife. On the ship coming from India there were two brothers from Patna. They, too, were Brahmins. One of them had six daughters and one son. Pa’s mother chose one of the girls, Poolkareah, as her son’s bride. The wedding took place, and Nyepal and Poolkareah went on to have three children of their own: Prasad, Prabaran and Seepersad (or Supersad).

When Seepersad was two, his father Nyepal died. Did he drown? There is a vague story of a diver who drowned. Nyepal’s mother was distraught after the death of her one and only precious son, whom she had nurtured and cared for during those challenging and difficult years. Inconsolable, she drifted into her own world and became something of a recluse and an eccentric. She appears never to have remarried or formed a new alliance with another man. Curiously, my own mother Droapatie remembered this woman well. Tiny in size and very fair of complexion, she wore nothing but white clothing after her son’s death (white being the Hindu colour of mourning). She lived in or around Chaguanas, where young Droapatie would have seen her, and sometimes came into the town. Other children would sometimes jeer at her as she walked about waving a wand in front of her to protect her from unclean shadows, from people of lower caste. She spoke to no one, did her business, and then disappeared until her next visit. Droapatie would never have imagined that one day she would marry this strange woman’s grandson, Seepersad. But the caste was always right.

Death was not a subject my father liked to dwell on. Several years after his father’s passing, his mother died of an unspecified illness. Unlike his father’s death, Seepersad was evidently old enough to feel this second loss keenly. In the early nineteen-forties he wrote a five-page letter in an old ledger book to the doctor who had not saved his mother. The doctor was late in responding to their call for help, my father wrote in anger; he had not seemed to care about Poolkareah’s crisis; evidently, in his selfishness and arrogance, he was not suited to his profession. The gist of the letter was that his mother had died because she was a poor woman and therefore unimportant to the self-important Dr. Ramesar.

Perhaps the letter was never transcribed, never posted. The written word may have expiated Pa’s anger and supplanted his sense of primal loss. Could my grandmother have been saved? Her five sisters, his aunts, lived on and on despite their emphysema and other medical issues. They took a long time to ‘pop off’, he would say.

Soon after his father’s death, a half-brother was born. He was called Hari, or Hari Chacha to us children. Pa’s mother, Poolkareah, a widow with three children, would have been a burden on the closest relatives. Another liaison would have been encouraged. In my own family, all these details were rather vague. For example, it took us many years to learn that Hari Chacha was Pa’s half-brother.

The older Indian people were tight-lipped about the family’s history. They never spoke about my paternal grandfather, Nyepal, and Hari’s father never had a name. Hari’s son George carried the title or surname Persad. This seemed to fit, as Pa’s elder brother, Prasad, carried the surname Rampersad. Pa, however, eventually called himself Naipaul. He was the only one in his family who carried that name. Even the name Naipaul seems irregular. In its exact form, it does not appear to be previously used in India, or among Indians in Trinidad. In all of his early purchased books, he wrote his name as Naipal: Seepersad Naipal. The change to Naipaul took place, apparently, in the early forties, after he began work at the Trinidad Guardian, our leading newspaper. On Pa’s first driver’s licence, dated 22nd August 1928, his name is given as Bholah Supersad (not Seepersad), and his residence as Tunapuna. However, on its renewal on 24th January 1944, his name is Seepersad Naipaul (of Luis Street, Port of Spain).

About the Book

This is a moving story of a Trinidadian-Indian family’s beginnings, growth and its inevitable dispersal. Savi Naipaul Akal’s memoir pays tribute to extraordinary parents: Her father Seepersad Naipaul, virtual orphan in a dirtpoor rural Indian family, one generation away from indentured migration, who through self-education became a remarkable journalist and writer. And her mother Dropatie, who displayed remarkable diplomatic skills in sustaining a relationship with the large, prosperous and inward-looking Capildeo clan, of which she was the seventh daughter, whilst loyally supporting her husband’s insistence on independence and engagement with Trinidadian life. After Seepersad’s tragically early death, Dropatie held the family together, so that all seven children achieved university education.

It is an account of family loyalty, sacrifice, and sometimes tensions; pride in the writing achievements of her brothers Vidia and Shiva, and sorrow over estrangements and Shiva’s premature death. The memoir also gives a sharply observed picture of cultural change in Trinidad from colony to independent nation, of being Indian in a Creole society, and of the role of education in migrant families.

Elegant and lucid, written with a distinctively personal voice, the book is further enhanced by the generous quantity of family photographs that say so much about these people and the times they lived through.

About the Author

Savitri (Savi) Naipaul Akal, the fifth child of Seepersad and Dropatie Naipaul, sister of V.S. and Shiva Naipaul, was educated in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Edinburgh, Scotland. She was a school teacher, teaching geography and sociology, and retired as vice-principal in 1980. After retirement, she ran a boutique for several years. She lives with her husband in Trinidad.

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Growl at the Moon by Rhys Hughes

Title: Growl at the Moon, a Weird Western

Author: Rhys Hughes

Publisher: Telos Publishing Ltd

1.

She rode to the crest of the hillock and looked down. The other rider was a pale shadow on the trail below and in the moonlight his shadow was even paler than he was. That was because of the mica in the rocks which gleamed, glittered and shone and turned the landscape into something ethereal and strange. With a low snarl, she spurred her horse forwards.

She zigzagged down the slope and still the other rider didn’t hear her. Was he engrossed in his private thoughts? That must be the answer. Her Winchester was cradled in her arms and her low snarl turned into a stealthy laugh. Her prey seemed oddly incautious, but this was to her advantage. At the base of the slope, she spurred her mount to a fast canter.

The other rider finally became aware that something was behind him. As he turned in his saddle, she raised the rifle and aimed at his face. She slowed in order to be sure of hitting him square.

“Hey, what’s this?” he cried in astonishment.

His head, which was that of a giant rabbit, bobbed up and down, his nose twitched and his long ears undulated.

“Howdy, pard,” she said, and then she added, “I guess you think I’m just a bandit, some unwashed desperado who wants your money. But that’s not true at all. My name is Jalamity Kane and I’m hunting all the men who are part animal. I know what it means that you’re a man-rabbit, it means that you studied with a shaman, one of the Mojave wizards.”

“Well, yes I did,” answered the other rider.

“I make the same speech every time I find one of you people. When I was younger and full of hope and desire, I also sought out a shaman to study with. I found one. Seven years in a subterranean cavern, putting myself through horrid exercises, expanding my mind! But it didn’t work, I didn’t acquire the power. I failed and my soul became bitter. It’s not nice to be bitter and that’s especially true when I look upon your sweet little visage. Gonna blow a hole right through it. Say your final prayers, bunny boy!”

The other rider raised a paw to remonstrate with her but it was too late. Her finger squeezed the trigger and the canyon echoed with the shot. He slumped in the saddle and his horse bolted. He didn’t fall off but remained in place, his feet held by the stirrups. Jalamity watched him vanish into the crystalline darkness. She said to herself, “I’ll destroy all of you. I have no interest in money. I have no interest in anything, only in slaying every cat-man, owl-man, worm-man and cougar-man in the land. You’ll see!”

It was her mission in life. A cruel and futile mission, but a mission all the same, and a gal’s gotta have a mission.

2.

Jalamity was in position to ambush her next victim. She squatted in the shallow pit she had dug. The dry plain extended all around here, as flat as a tune played on a badly-maintained piano in a rotten old saloon somewhere in the worst kind of decayed ghost town where the railroad was supposed to come but didn’t. She had constructed her own cover because there was no natural cover available in the geography of the bland landscape.

The rider was a puff of dust at the limits of her vision. It was early evening and he was evidently trying to cover as many miles as possible before night fell and she chuckled at the malevolent thought that he was hurrying to his doom, a circumstance he would soon be aware of. The Winchester was firm in his grasp and she chewed a stick of licorice root.

This wasn’t European licorice or Glycyrrhiza glabra which also grew in a few places in a few states, having been brought over by settlers, but the harsher Glycyrrhiza lepidota that the Zuni people had liked to chomp as a medicine. Not that Jalamity needed a cure for anything. She just liked to chew on something at the end of a day and she hated tobacco.

She waited patiently as the cloud of beige dust that was the rider expanded in size and took on more of a familiar shape. His horse was tiring a little and his pace was slowing. As he approached, she saw that he wore a hood. All of these fools liked to cover their telltale faces!

She stood up straight, rising out of the pit like a snake about to strike, and strike she would, by which we mean attack and not cease working because of dissatisfaction with pay. She cared nothing for wealth. No ordinary bandit, this Jalamity, half woman and half man, the product of seven years’ meditation that hadn’t worked out the way she’d wanted.

“Hey, what’s this?” he cried in astonishment.

His head, which was that of a giant squirrel, bobbed up and down, his nose twitched and his jaws chattered.

“Howdy, pard,” she said, and then she added, “I guess you think I’m just a bandit, some unwashed desperado who wants your money. But that’s not true at all. My name is Jalamity Kane and I’m hunting all the men who are part animal. I know what it means that you’re a man-squirrel, it means that you studied with a shaman, one of the Mojave wizards.”

It was the same speech, or nearly the same speech as before. It was a short speech but one she had made dozens of times. Very few people ever got to hear it more than once, apart from herself.

An occasional victim escaped her, but it was such a rare event that in terms of statistics it counted for nothing at all.

Jalamity was now reaching the end of the speech. “Gonna blow a hole right through ya. Say goodbye, squirrel boy!”

The other rider raised a paw to remonstrate with her but it was too late. Her finger squeezed the trigger and the plains absorbed the sound of the shot. First he slumped in the saddle and then he fell off. His horse didn’t bolt but remained where it was, looking confused. One day, Jalamity knew, she would meet a man who was half horse. What would the horse he rode on do then? Would he regard Jamality as an enemy of all horses and try to kick her? She had no idea. It was a riddle that only the future could solve.

Most horses didn’t care about their riders but that one might be different. It was better to wait to find out the answer for sure. Speculation was a waste of her time. She climbed out of the pit, moved to the side, leaned over and reached out with her hands and jerked her wrists.

An unseen blanket came up in her fingers. Her horse was beneath it, lying on its side, and now it got clumsily to its hooves. She had covered it with a sheet and covered the sheet with sand and gravel and grit so that it resembled only the smallest of humps in the almost featureless plain. There had been nowhere else to hide it. She could have dug a pit, as she had for herself, but that would have been very hard work. Alternatively, she could have covered herself with a sheet too, but that would have restricted her visibility. Everything had worked out for the best. The squirrel-man was dead.

And now she had his horse as well. She could maybe use his horse as some part of a trap for her next victim. Killing these beasts was her mission in life. A cruel and futile mission, as we already have been told, but yes, a mission all the same, and a gal’s gotta have a mission.

About the Book

Bill Bones was a normal human being until he studied under a Mojave Shaman and was transformed into a man-dog called The Growl. Now, driven by a keen sense of justice, The Growl is on the hunt for the villains who killed his boss, newspaperman Ridley Smart … and he’ll stop at nothing!

Crossing the deserts and forests of the American continent, The Growl searches for the men he must kill. Along the way he meets more beast-men, more magicians, the avenger Jalamity Kane who is seeking to rid the world of the beast menace, and other dangerous characters, from the artificial to the wild, from the robotic to the demonic.

In the deft hands of Rhys Hughes, this inventive tale becomes a masterpiece of twists and turns … exploring and questioning our definitions of humanity, discovering the very meaning of what life and reality might be.

About the Author

Rhys Hughes is a writer of Fantastika and Speculative Fiction.

His earliest surviving short story dates from 1989, and since that time he has embarked on an ambitious project of writing a story cycle consisting of exactly 1000 linked tales. Recently, he decided to give this cycle the overall name of PANDORA’S BLUFF. The reference is to the box of troubles in the old myth. Each tale is a trouble, but hope can be found within them all.

His favourite fiction writers are Italo Calvino, Stanislaw Lem, Boris Vian, Flann O’Brien, Alasdair Gray and Donald Barthelme, all of whom have a well-developed sense of irony and a powerful imagination. He particularly enjoys literature that combines humour with seriousness, and that fuses the emotional with the intellectual, the profound with the light-hearted, the spontaneous with the precise.

His first book was published in 1995 and sold slowly but it seemed to strike a chord with some people. His subsequent books sold more strongly as my reputation gradually increased. He is regarded as a “cult author” by some and though pleased with that description, he obviously wants to reach out to a wider audience!

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Bandits and a Cursed River in Chambal Valley

Title: Did I Really Do All This: Memoirs of a Gentleman Cop Who Dared to be Different

Author: Vijay Raman

Publisher: Rupa Publications

Bandits and a Cursed River

When I began my career in the dacoit-infested region of the Chambal Valley in Madhya Pradesh (MP), I faced different kinds of issues.

I was first posted in Dabra where there are dacoits. In such places certain people come to you offering information that will be useful to us. These are our mukhbir, informers. Some come for the pittance of money that is sanctioned to us as anti-dacoity funds for meeting emergency expenses. But most come with an ulterior motive: they want a kill. ‘We will give you information that you need and will find very hard to get without me. But you have to kill the man,’ they would say.

As ASP Dabra I had 10 police stations under me. One was at Pandokhar, a village between Jhansi and Gwalior, on the (Uttar Pradesh) UP–MP border. A very pleasant-looking chap from there would come to me, always smiling, always making conversation, inquiring about my health, telling me whatever was happening in the village. When I asked for information, he would say, ‘Saheb, sab theek hai, it’s all good, Saheb!’

I would ask if there was any news of the dacoits, and he’d say ‘No Saheb, there is no movement.’

One day he said, ‘Aaj shaam ko jayenge Saheb. We’ll go this evening.’

It was December 1978. I distinctly remember the day: India was playing Pakistan in the Asian Games hockey finals in Bangkok.

One of the problems in that area, particularly for a young newcomer, is this: Whom do you trust? Is the informer trustworthy? Is the subordinate you share the information with trustworthy? I realized that ultimately it had to be your call, based on some homework, your own observations, and your intuition.

One dictum I always followed was to stick to the informer’s plan as much as possible. Anything else would make him suspicious. So I asked him what we should do. He said that this was Devi Singh’s gang, of seven or eight people. They were going from MP to UP to conduct a burglary since it was a full moon night. They would go on bicycles—yes, the dacoits those days went around on bicycles!—and he would be with them. When we arrived at the ambush area, he would ring his bicycle bell and that would be the signal for us to spring into action. All we had to do was surround them, fire two shots into the air, and they would be ours: an easily doable plan which otherwise might be most difficult to execute!

Bidding a mildly regretful goodbye to the hockey commentary on the radio I got into my vehicle and left for Pandokhar, about 60 km from Dabra. I shared my information with the sub-inspectors and inspector in the police station there. Soon the word spread, and from their reaction I could see that this was a very dangerous gang of dacoits. There was consensus that these fellows deserved the ultimate punishment.

We walked to the location, a distance of about 10 km, and took our positions before dark. There was no way I would find out the results of the hockey match there! Sure enough, a group of cyclists arrived. Someone rang a bell. That was our signal, and we surrounded them. And that’s when some of the constables recognized him. ‘Arre! Yeh toh Devi Singh hai! And there’s a big price on his head!’

Dying Declaration

Now the drama begins for a young police officer fresh out of the academy that trains to say no third degree, no this, no that. And with just one year of service, I was still carrying the commitment to uphold the law, protect human rights, behave as the Constitution expects me to. But was it possible when facing a rebellious group of subordinates who want a kill? Before my eyes, some of them were getting ready for violence. When some senior constables and sub-inspectors pacified them they protested, ‘Why should we let them go? They are crooks, they deserve to be killed.’ We tried to convince them that we must arrest them, take them back to the police station, and let the matter be resolved in a courtroom. But that would never work, they argued, because they would bribe the authorities and get away. So they must be killed now!

After a lot of persuasion they relented. They requisitioned a bullock cart from the village, put me in it, tied the hands of the dacoits together, and tied the rope to the bullock cart so that they could not escape. And all along the way they expressed their rage by thrashing Devi Singh, a bald-headed fellow, on the head with his own chappals!

*

My mind was in turmoil. Was I doing the right thing? And why was there so much anger against him from the lower constabulary? I was on the verge of being manhandled by my constables for my stand. Luckily there were sub-inspectors who could restrain them. Was this the sense of discipline we had in the police?

Back in the police station, I phoned my senior officer, a very fine Superintendent of Police (SP) from whom I learnt many practical aspects of policing. It was nearly midnight, so I started by excusing myself for calling at that hour, but I was speaking from Pandokhar and had just returned from an encounter. He must have wondered whether this kid from the south even knew the meaning of ‘encounter’. He disconnected with instructions to see him in the morning.

I had done exactly what my informer had asked me to do—and I had arrested seven members of a gang. We had fired only two rounds of ammunition.

We sent out the required messages to all the police stations in the district, informing them that Devi Singh was in our custody, giving information about the location, number of people arrested, and other details of the encounter. And we were astonished at the large number of requests from all around asking for them to be handed over for trial.

*

The next morning I reported to my headquarters in Gwalior, met my SP, and discussed with him my thoughts and feelings about the encounter. When I told him that we must control the level of indiscipline we have in the force, the seasoned officer counselled me, ‘These are things we have to take in our stride. In the course of time you will also learn how to go about it!’

I was feeling quite pleased with myself for the excellent work done but my SP was more than a little amused. ‘Raman, you fired only two rounds! How can you have an encounter with a dacoit when the police fire only two rounds? I’m sure even the dacoits would have fired more than that. You were just very lucky that you did not get massacred. Firing two rounds is not an encounter Raman! Go and take his dying declaration, and let’s close this matter.’

I was familiar with the belief that a person on the verge of death will not lie. Therefore greater credibility is given to such a statement. Little did I know that soon this episode would come back to haunt me.

The Price of Being Idealistic

Every day we would receive the daily situation report (DSR). It mandates that events such as blind murder, unidentified dead bodies, and other serious offences must be supervised by either the SP or the ASP.

One day I received a report of the discovery of an unidentified dead body. Somehow the name of the place, which fell under the police station of Pandokhar, rang a bell, and I found myself rushing towards it with a growing sense of dread. It was about 100 km from Gwalior and by the time I got there the body, though badly mauled and with limbs dismembered, had been identified. Beside it sat a woman clutching two children tightly to herself and wailing loudly.

It was a terrible feeling to know that this was my fault. I was responsible for the death of this informer. I was the person responsible for all those who were killed by Devi Singh after his release, until he was terminated by my junior, SP Asha Gopal. It always remained on my conscience that my actions, though purely to uphold human rights and protect human life, had led to so much violence and misery.

These thoughts often disturb sensitive police officers, making them face a dilemma that nobody else can help them solve. For myself, I had resolved that following the law was not just my duty but also my dharma, righteousness. However, even in my life there would occur situations when, in the heat of the moment, it might become necessary to take decisions not in keeping with strictly legal procedures. But this would NEVER be for personal gain, and only, ONLY for the greater good.

*

People of my generation who grew up in India would have read about the dacoits and what they did. Some might have a sense of the terrain in which the Chambal dacoits lived. But today’s youngsters, especially those unfamiliar with the place and time, would not understand what it was like, or the obstacles and dangers that were involved, in policing back then.

Chambal is a large area with a peculiar topography of dunes and ravines not seen anywhere else in India. These were formed by the force of water cutting through the land. For an outsider, the area was difficult to navigate. There are settlements and villages even in the midst of the ravines, and it was impossible to know whether they were already there when the ravine formed or whether the ravine grew around them. To get from one place to another was extremely difficult for anyone unfamiliar with the area. You could get hopelessly lost, as in a maze. However, once you began to understand the geometrical pattern of the ravines, it became easier to know where to enter. Over time, the surroundings became familiar.

Other than the terrain, the people of this region were also unique. Their culture developed almost in isolation, and while they had a lot in common with people of the neighbouring areas, some of their attributes were distinctive.

They had a strong sense of justice. One that was different from what we were used to. When I studied Law, what fascinated me was understanding the causes that had given rise to a law. One of the sources of a law is the customs of the people. When a custom is predominant, the wisdom of the legislature will formulate the custom into a law that can be implemented. And some of the customs in this region are what have shaped the indigenous laws here.

Thus, people here were deeply conscious of caste; not just in terms of untouchability but also as a pecking order. While Brahmins were at the top, there were various subgroups—Sharmas and Mishras, among others—and these had their own hierarchy. This applied to how they spoke and were spoken to, or where they stood or sat in a public gathering. Indeed every social interaction was strictly dictated by caste, marriage being the most carefully monitored.

Lower castes were also kept firmly in their place. Any breach of these age-old rules was taken extremely seriously and was bound to have consequences, sometimes fatal. If a person felt aggrieved or insulted, they would hit back. But there were exceptions and unexpected alliances emerged. Notorious dacoit Maan Singh, a legend in his lifetime with a temple to his name, was from a higher caste but his gang had many dacoits from lower castes.

Secondly, women were held in the highest esteem and no misbehaviour against a woman was condoned. It may seem strange to hear that a region famous for its law-breaking dacoits could have been so particular about the safety of and respect for women, but it was so. The women were, of course, expected to behave with all propriety in order to deserve this veneration.

Next, the people in this region were very, very possessive about their land. This may well be true of everybody everywhere. But the intensity of this feeling, and the response to any infringement in this, was extreme. Any transgression would immediately be punished, and not with a simple imprisonment, because this was not a minor offence but a serious one that deserved death. And it was the same when the modesty of a woman was outraged.

Linked to all this was the prestige derived from the ownership of a licensed weapon. Whether a 12-bore gun or a weapon of any calibre, displaying it was as much a source of prestige as a row of ribbons and medals might have been to someone from the forces, or a car brand for a city dweller of today.

With this uncompromising, cast-iron value system, life was sometimes quite difficult. Let me tell you about a case that took place during my time in that area. One evening, two brothers returned home after working all day in their fields. They sat in front of their home, smoking hookahs, relaxing, waiting to be served dinner.

One brother said, ‘I’ve been wondering whether I should also buy an animal, maybe a cow or a buffalo.’

‘Oh really?’ the other replied. “And where do you plan to tie it?’

‘Right here,’ said the first brother.

‘Really?’ the second responded. ‘But this is my land! You can’t tie your cow here!’

The first brother jumped up and walked indignantly into the house. He brought out a short wooden post and a hammer, with which he hammered the post into the ground. This was the kind of post used to wind rope around and tie cattle to. With this, the first brother had established his right to tie his cow right there.

Furious, the second brother too jumped up and strode into the house. He went in, brought out his weapon, and simply shot his brother down. Such was the value of land.

In short, legality and morality have their own geographical boundaries!

*

Another incident took place some years later. By then I had some credibility with the local people.

A Dalit boy from Umri village got married. The marriage party had gone to the bride’s village and, after the wedding rituals, were bringing her home in a procession with musicians playing and people dancing. On the way they passed some Thakur homes. Some young men who sat smoking on the veranda watched with contempt and passed snide remarks. As the boy ceremoniously walked with his new bride into the house, a lewd comment was heard by all: ‘These chamars sure know how to pick their beauties!’

Loud, mocking guffaws rang out.

I should mention here that the use of the caste name ‘chamar’, with the intent to insult or humiliate is an offence today, punishable under the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

The ceremony of welcoming the bride into her new home continued with all its formality. But as soon as it was over, the groom picked up his gun, loaded it, and walked to the house where the spoilt Thakur brats still sat smoking. Taking aim, he shot and killed the boy who had made the mocking remark. In cold blood, in broad daylight. And in doing this, he was simply following the law dictated by the customs followed in this place.

For us it was a different situation altogether. The Thakurs were up in arms, the Dalit boy was absconding, and the entire chamar community had lined up, ready for a bloodbath. We had to prevent it! I spent a very tense 34 days searching for the boy in the maze-like ravines and meeting the leaders of both the communities to placate them. I was unable to sleep, constantly alert, constantly watching for any sudden movement on either side. Ultimately the boy surrendered and was sentenced.

This was the consequence of a ‘simple’ insulting comment. There is an entire framework that prescribes what the punishment should be, and in a case like this, it is different from our existing laws. Who can we blame? The people with a tradition of a certain law, or the police and the judiciary, with their own fixed sense of justice and punishment?

*

People ascribe the nature of the people and their customs to the water of the Chambal River. And having lived there I can speak for the water. It was so pure and wholesome that food got digested easily. The pulses and grains grown in the region were of the best quality. The soil was very productive, and I believe the per-acre yield was comparable to Punjab. This milieu formed the background of our police system.

Now, don’t forget that our police system was also manned mostly by people of the same area, with the same mentality and the same sense of revenge. It was a caste-based way of life. Such incidents were absolutely ‘normal’. Yet, as I soon found out, there was a great respect for authority. I was a South Indian officer without much knowledge of the place, hardly even able to speak their language. There was a lot of curiosity on both sides, but there was also respect.

Revenge on the Dead

A month or two later we received information about an encounter by a local DSP, about 30 km away from Bhind, on the bank of Sindh River. Seven dacoits were killed; no names were given; it was not one of the regular gangs.

I went to the site. As the SP, whenever I travelled I had a driver, a gunman, and sometimes also my PA. In case I remembered, or noticed, something my PA would record it. We arrived at the spot. The police were standing there. There were dead bodies on the ground. We stood a little away from them, discussing how it had happened, who did what, and had the dacoits been recognized.

Suddenly there was a burst of fire from an automatic weapon. All of us took position in a reflex action arising from our training. We looked up, to see someone standing with his rifle over the dead body of one of the dacoits. He had emptied all the bullets in his gun into the corpse!

The DSP and inspector chorused, ‘Sir! He is your gunman.’

I realized that this was my replacement gunman; my regular gunman was on leave.

Now this was my responsibility to go and disarm him!

I walked up to him. He was standing there, stunned at what he had done. As I came closer, he dropped his weapon and fell at my feet, sobbing. Lifting him up I asked, ‘What happened? Why did you do that?’

‘Sir, it is this fellow…’ he said, and a frenzy of abusive words started pouring out of him. Words that my men would never ordinarily use in front of me. ‘This is the guy who raped my sister!’

The point is, even after the man was dead, the atrocity he committed was not forgotten. Revenge must be taken, even on a dead body.

(Sourced and edited by Ratnottama Sengupta with permission from the family of the late author.)

 About the Book

When he heard Mr Patel say, ‘These medals are to be earned, not to be purchased,’ Vijay was secretly filled with the determination to earn his own medal.

In the course of time, Vijay Raman not only earned the President’s Police Medal for Gallantry, but also went on to create history in each of his postings all over India. 

He was a simple and straightforward cop, one who was extraordinarily courageous. His untimely demise in 2023 was preceded by many near-death situations—described in this book—which he was miraculously lucky to survive. 

This is a real-life hero’s first-hand account of Paan Singh Tomar and his dacoit gang being decimated in a 14-hour dusk-to-dawn encounter; the surrenders of Daku Malkan Singh and Phoolan Devi; leading from the front and putting an end to the notorious terrorist Ghazi Baba; investigating the infamous Vyapam scam; dealing with the horror of the gas tragedy in Bhopal; guarding the life of four Indian prime ministers as one of the handpicked officers of the Special Protection Group; and beating the Guinness World Record for circumnavigating the globe. 

The chronicles of Vijay Raman form a book of adventure, of remarkable events—giving readers precious insights into the making of a legend. As he reviewed the book’s final chapters, he asked his wife Veena incredulously, ‘Did I Really Do All This?’

About the Author

Vijay Raman, an IPS1 officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre, was a legendary figure in Indian policing, celebrated for spearheading the elimination of dacoit Paan Singh Tomar and his gang in Chambal, and later leading the operations that liquidated the dreaded terrorist Ghazi Baba.

Growing up in Kerala and later a gold medallist in law at M.S. University Vadodara, his career achievements were spread across India. He also broke the Guinness World Record for circumnavigating the globe! 

Vijay Raman’s bravery, intellect and striving for adventure were always secondary to his integrity; he was committed to upholding the law in even the most complex situations. He passed away in 2023.

Click here to read more about the book and the writer.

  1. Indian Police Service ↩︎

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

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Excerpt

Let’s Be Best Friends Forever

Title: Let’s Be Best Friends Forever: Beautiful Stories of Friendship

Publisher: Talking Cub, Speaking Tiger Books

From ‘The Tunnel of Friendship’ by Ruskin Bond

I had already started writing my first book. It was called Nine Months, but had nothing to do with a pregnancy; it referred merely to the length of the school term, the beginning of March to the end of November, and it detailed my friendships and escapades at school and lampooned a few of our teachers. I had filled three slim exercise books with this premature literary project, and I allowed Azhar to go through them. He was my first reader and critic. ‘They’re very interesting. But you’ll get into trouble if someone finds them,’ was his verdict.

We returned to Shimla, having won our matches against Sanawar, and were school heroes for a couple of days. And then my housemaster discovered my literary opus and took it away and read it. I was given six of the best with a Malacca cane, and my manuscript was torn up. Azhar knew better than to say ‘I told you so’ when I showed him the purple welts on my bottom. Instead, he repeated the more outrageous bits he remembered from the notebooks and laughed, till I began to laugh too.

‘Will you go away when the British leave India?’ Azhar asked me one day.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘My stepfather is Indian. My mother’s family have lived here for generations.’

‘Everyone is saying they’re going to divide the country. I think I’ll have to go away.’

‘Oh, it won’t happen,’ I said glibly. ‘How can they cut up such a big country?’

‘Gandhi will stop them,’ he said.

But even as we dismissed the possibility, Jinnah, Nehru and Mountbatten and all those who mattered were preparing their instruments for major surgery.

Before their decision had any effect on our life, we found a little freedom of our own—in an underground tunnel that we discovered in a corner of the school grounds. It was really part of an old, disused drainage system, and when Azhar and I began exploring it, we had no idea just how far it extended. After crawling along on our bellies for some twenty feet, we found ourselves in complete darkness. It was a bit frightening, but moving backwards would have been quite impossible, so we continued writhing forward, until we saw a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Dusty, a little bruised and very scruffy, we emerged at last on to a grassy knoll, a little way outside the school boundary. We’d found a way to escape school!

The tunnel became our beautiful secret. We would sit and chat in it, or crawl through it just for the thrill of stealing out of the school to walk in the wilderness. Or to lie on the grass, our heads touching, reading comics or watching the kites and eagles wheeling in the sky. In those quiet moments, I became aware of the beauty and solace of nature more keenly than I had been till then: the scent of pine needles, the soothing calls of the Himalayan bulbuls, the feel of grass on bare feet, and the low music of the cicadas.

World War II had just come to an end, the United Nations held out the promise of a world living in peace and harmony, and India, an equal partner with Britain, would be among the great nations…

But soon we learnt that Bengal and Punjab provinces, with their large Muslim populations, were to be bisected. Everyone was in a hurry: Jinnah and company were in a hurry to get a country of their own; Nehru, Patel and others were in a hurry to run a free, if truncated, India; and Britain was in a hurry to get out. Riots flared up across northern India.

At school, the common room radio and the occasional newspaper kept us abreast of events. But in our tunnel Azhar and I felt immune from all that was happening, worlds away from all the pillage, murder and revenge. Outside the tunnel, there was fresh untrodden grass, sprinkled with clover and daisies, the only sounds the hammering of a woodpecker, and the distant insistent call of the Himalayan barbet. Who could touch us there?

‘And when all wars are done,’ I said, ‘a butterfly will still be beautiful.’

‘Did you read that somewhere?’ Azhar asked.

‘No, it just came into my head.’

‘It’s good. Already you’re a writer.’

Though it felt good to hear him say that, I made light of it. ‘No, I want to play hockey for India or football for Arsenal. Only winning teams!’

‘You’ll lose sometimes, you know, even if you get into those teams,’ said wise old Azhar. ‘You can’t win forever. Better to be a writer.’

One morning after chapel, the headmaster announced that the Muslim boys—those who had their homes in what was now Pakistan—would have to be evacuated. They would be sent to their homes across the border with an armed convoy.

It was time for Azhar to leave, along with some fifty other boys from Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar. The rest of us—Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs and Parsis—helped them load their luggage into the waiting British Army trucks that would take them to Lahore. A couple of boys broke down and wept, including our departing school captain, a Pathan who had been known for his unemotional demeanour. Azhar waved to me and I waved back. We had vowed to meet again some day. We both kept our composure.

The headmaster announced a couple of days later that all the boys had reached Pakistan and were safe. On the morning of 15 August 1947, we were marched up to town to witness the Indian flag being raised for the first time. Shimla was still the summer capital of India, so it was quite an event. It was raining that morning. We were in our raincoats and gumboots, while a sea of umbrellas covered the Mall.

(Extracted from Let’s Be Best Friends Forever: Beautiful Stories of Friendship, with an introduction by Jerry Pinto. Published by Talking Cub, the children’s imprint of Speaking Tiger Books.)

ABOUT THE BOOK

 An Afghan trader and a young Bengali girl form a touching connection that transcends cultural barriers in Rabindranath Tagore’s classic story ‘The Kabuliwala’. Jo March and Laurie from Little Women meet at a dull party and become companions for life. L. Frank Baum’s timeless characters Dorothy and Toto adventure around Oz forging magical bonds of friendship.

The brave queen of Jhansi and her ally Jhalkaribai come together to fight for freedom and dignity; Jesse Owens narrates an inspiring tale of sportsmanship and solidarity from his Olympic days; and twelve-year-old Kamala and her friends, Edward, Amir and Amma, endure the Partition riots together in Bulbul Sharma’s heart-warming story.

In these pages you will also meet Nimmi and her best pal, Kabir, whose school misadventures include spirited debates; Sunny, whose love for books leads to a new friendship on a trip to Darjeeling; Cyril and Neil, who face life’s challenges with inventive word games, and Siya, who discovers that true friends can come in the most unexpected forms—even as a cherished doll.

Animal lovers will delight in the escapades of Gillu, the charming squirrel, Harold, the handsome hornbill, Rikki-tikki-tavi, the loyal mongoose, Hira and Moti, the powerful oxen, and Bagheera, the brave panther who looks after the young boy Mowgli.

With stories from beloved and popular authors—Ruskin Bond, Rudyard Kipling, Mahadevi Varma, Jerry Pinto, Shabnam Minwalla, and many more—Let’s Be Best Friends Forever is an enchanting collection that celebrates the universal power and beauty of friendship.

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Excerpt

From Ukraine to America: A Refugee’s Narrative

Title: Camel from Kyzylkum

Author: Lara Gelya

Publisher: Life Journeys Books

In Italy – Now and Then

The first time I visited Rome was in early 1990. I was on a mission to find a better life after escaping the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union. As punishment for my escape, my USSR citizenship was revoked, leaving me stateless, with the status of ‘Refugee of the World.’ I traveled light across continents, with just two suitcases filled with family photos, a few books, spoons, and small pots. I had almost no money in my pocket, but Rome and Italy were still a wonderful discovery and a source of immense cultural enrichment for me in 1990.

During that time, I visited Rome and its historical landmarks such as Vatican City, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Trevi Fountain, to name a few. I also had the most important interview of my life in Rome, at the American Embassy, where I received the green light to go to the USA!

In May of 2024, during our Mediterranean odyssey, we spent some time in Rome. It was a deeply nostalgic and memorable experience for me! Revisiting Rome after so many years brought back a flood of memories and allowed me to see familiar places with new eyes.

I would like to share with you a chapter about my life in Italy in 1990, from my memoir Camel from Kyzylkum:

Italy

My first impression of Italy was that it was quite dirty and noisy. After I got used to the spotless cleanliness of streets and places in Austria, it disappointed me to see trash on the streets and in public places, along with graffiti. For the first time, I saw homeless people sleeping on rags on the marble floor of the subway in Rome. I also noticed how Italians get pretty animated when they talk, compared to very restrained Austrian people. But with time, my opinion about Italy changed—I fell in love with the country, and I grew to love the warmth of Italian people. I came to love Italian bread. The Italian language was like music to my ears, and I even learned how to speak some basics.

For the first two weeks in Italy, we were stationed at the bungalow summer camp south of Rome. It was January, and even during the day it was pleasantly warm outside, but at night it was cold. These bungalow houses did not have heat and were not equipped for the wintertime. I remember I was sleeping in my warmest clothes and even covered myself with a mattress from a spare bed in my bungalow. Nevertheless, I got very sick with a cold, so sick that I thought I would not survive it. During the day I walked to the seafront and sat there for long hours—the warm Mediterranean sun and fresh, salty sea air helped me to slowly recover.

After two weeks in the bungalow summer camp, we were told that we needed to rent apartments for ourselves in the nearby city of Torvaianica, a city south of Rome that was founded in the 1940s and is best known for its beaches. It has a population of about 12,700 inhabitants and extends for about eight kilometers along central Lazio’s coast. The refugee organization, HIAS, gave us money to cover rent and food. I do not remember the exact amount it was per person, but it was just enough for us not to be on the street dying from hunger. Later on, when I was already in the United States and working, I was required to reimburse HIAS for what they’d spent on me. I paid it back gradually, a small amount each month.

There were plenty of apartments available for rent in January. Many of them were at the seaside. Refugees from the Soviet Union usually shared one apartment—a two-room apartment for two families, a three-room apartment for three families. I was alone and in no way could I afford to pay for a room on my own. Someone from the group introduced me to a young fellow who was traveling alone, too. His actual name completely escapes my memory at present, but I’ll call him “Misha.”

Misha was in his early twenties. He was very smart and even knew English. For the first time in his life, he was separated from his parents whom he had left behind in the Soviet Union. Misha and I rented a room in the two-room apartment on the first floor of a building at the seaside. We could sit on the balcony and look at the beach and the Mediterranean Sea in front of us. The enormous wardrobe that was in the room divided our room into two halves to give each of us some privacy. Misha was absolutely unprepared for everyday life. He did not know how to manage the little money we had, how to do grocery shopping, or how to cook food. I felt sorry for him and suggested that he contribute some amount of money for food and I would shop and cook for both of us. Misha was happy to do that.

When I went for an interview for the first time at the American Embassy in Rome, I was asked a lot about places I had worked in the Kyzylkum Desert. They had a detailed map of Uzbekistan on the table and asked me about Zarafshan, Navoi, Uchkuduk. I was surprised; I thought they already knew more than I did.

After the first interview, I had to wait for the second one, a very important interview, after which a decision would be made on whether to allow my entrance to the United States. Many families were denied the entrance visa to the United States without being given any specific reason or explanation. These people had stayed in Italy for six months, for a year, or even longer. They found some jobs to support themselves and their families. Some of them decided to stay in Italy for good. It was an unsettling time.

Every day at 6:00 p.m., all Soviet refugees who stayed in Torvaianica gathered together at the central square of the city. There were a lot of us, and while I do not know the exact number, I remember how the square was filled with a Russian-speaking crowd, to the amazement of the local population of Italians. We were waiting for the messenger, usually a man who would stand in the middle of the crowd and read the list of people who had gotten permission to go to America. Even though I had not yet had a second interview in the American Embassy, these daily meetings were the biggest entertainment of the day and a learning experience—people mingled together, told stories, shared news, and made friends.

Misha always found me in the crowd after the announcing part was over and asked, “What’s for dinner tonight?” It seemed that he was always hungry. Even though I did not want to go home yet, I felt an obligation to serve him dinner. I thought he was acting like a little baby and since I was not his mother, it was bothering me. There was only one time when I sent Misha to the store to get something for me while I was cooking. He returned with an ice cream cake, our money for two weeks of our food ration gone. We divided the cake among all of the people who lived in both rooms of the apartment. This was the last straw for me. I canceled our contract and let Misha be on his own. Our living arrangements in the apartment remained the same, but I did not cook for him anymore. Meanwhile, we got a new tenant in our room. Another woman, approximately my age, joined us. Three of us shared the room up to the time of my departure.

The distance between Torvaianica and Rome was about 40 kilometers (25 miles), and there was bus transportation. I used the bus a few times. The ride was about 50 to 60 minutes. I did not go often, because the bus was usually packed with people and reminded me very much of the buses in the Soviet Union. Also, traveling by bus costs money I could not spare. Very soon I learned I could get to Rome by hitchhiking—every car driven by an Italian man would stop when they saw a young, pretty woman hitchhiking on the road. Several times I even hitchhiked with Misha. When the car stopped, I told the driver that he was my brother. I must say that most of the time Italians were very reckless drivers, and I felt uncomfortable in the car quite often.

I loved my outings to Rome. I enjoyed exploring the beautiful city where every stone has a history. Once or twice a month, all museums in Rome were free and I took advantage of this. Visiting the Colosseum, St. Peter’s Basilica, the museums of the Vatican, including the Sistine Chapel and the Trevi Fountain, to name a few, all became unforgettable experiences and cultural enrichment for me.

On the days when I was not traveling to Rome, I was discovering Torvaianica. Some items and events from my time there will be engraved in my memory forever.

For instance, there was a shoe and leather accessories store across from our apartment. In the Soviet Union, Italian shoes and leather accessories always were part of every woman’s desirable outfit, but they were difficult to get. In the store across the street was everything I could only dream about: elegant leather shoes, hand purses, belts. I visited the store quite often—not to buy, just to look. The store seemed to me big and exceptional. Years later, in 2001, Sparky and I traveled to Italy and visited Torvaianica. We found the beachfront apartment where I lived at the beginning of 1990 and a shoe store across the road. To my amusement, all at once, I saw an ordinary little store where I calmly browsed —it did not give me the excitement that it had in 1990. Perception is everything, and I was a very different person by 2001.

The main drag of Torvaianica with its famous Italian bakeries, restaurants, and shopping sprawled along the Mediterranean coast. On the snuggly, warm Italian evenings of January and February, I liked to stroll the street, window shopping and people watching. Italian people did not like to hold back their emotions—they laughed, they talked loudly, helping themselves with gestures, and I loved the music of the Italian language. I always stopped at the window of one particular bakery to examine all of the wonderful baked goods on display, though I could not afford to buy any. One of these baked goods was filled with a mix of rich semolina and ricotta cheese, and was a shell-shaped pastry called Sfogliatelle; Zeppole was another pastry consisting of a deep-fried dough ball dusted with powdered sugar and sometimes filled with various sweets; there was also biscotti, Venetian cookies, and hot chocolate cake—I could not take my eyes off of these beautiful culinary arts. One evening, the owner of the store, a middle-aged Italian man wearing a white chef’s coat and hat, with a lush body, dark mustache, and kind, laughing eyes, came out carrying a plate with a few biscotti and Venetian cookies and offered it to me to taste. Bewildered by his offer and the fact that he, probably, had been watching me evening after evening in front of his window, I did not have the strength to refuse his marvelous-looking, tasty Italian pastries.

Finally, the day came when I received a letter from the American Embassy in Rome with the invitation for the second and most important interview of my life. As I struggled with the English language then, I clearly understood the date and time of my interview, but I completely missed the location. Besides, I was pretty sure that there was only one location for the American Embassy in Rome and I knew where it was. But I was wrong.

The interview was scheduled for 12:00 p.m. I wanted to be collected and prepared. To eliminate any possibility of being late, I arrived at the American Embassy in Rome at 11:00 a.m. It was a sunny, beautiful, spring-like day; I lost myself for a short time (while waiting) on the fascinating streets of Rome. The sidewalk cafes were full of business people enjoying their lunch hours. I was thinking, “Is there going to be a time in my life when I, like them, can sit leisurely at a sidewalk cafe and have lunch? And feel myself as confident, relaxed, and happy as these people?” I wanted to believe that this time would eventually come in my life.

At about 11:45 a.m., I returned to the American Embassy expecting to soon be called by the guard. There was a good crowd of people waiting, like me, to be called. One by one they went inside until only I was left waiting. It was after 12:00 p.m. I got anxious—I began to wonder why I was not being called. I showed my paper to the guard. He explained to me (mostly by gestures and with some Italian phrases) that my interview was in a completely different location on the other side of the city. I was shocked. First, I had no money to get a taxi. Second, I thought my life was doomed. With this realization, I stood on the curb of the street in the center of Rome and sobbed bitterly. Tears rolled down my face.

Well, the Italian people did not easily tolerate this scene. Soon enough, a taxi stopped by me. The driver got out of the cab and asked me what had happened. Continuing to cry, I showed him my paper invitation for the interview and tried to explain to him that I had come to the wrong location. He looked at the paper and then at me and started vigorously gesticulating, pushing me inside his cab. Even inside the taxi, I could not stop crying. The driver turned around to me shouting some equivalent of “Shut up” in Italian. I became quiet. I realized he was going to drive me to the address where I needed to be. While he was driving, I feverishly thought about how I would pay for my ride as I had very little money in my pocket. But I was wearing a gorgeous silver ring with a gemstone on the ring finger of my left hand. The ring was handmade with an intricate Gothic design and a big, beautiful, pink, tourmaline stone—it was my favorite ring! I bought it during my vacation in Latvia, a country on the Baltic Sea—Latvia was a part of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991. I immediately decided to pay for my ride with the ring.

We arrived at the address of the second location of the American Embassy. I paid for the ride with the ring. The grounds of the Embassy were surrounded by a high fence and the gates were closed. I was not sure how I could get inside. However, the gates opened for an incoming cab and I just sneaked through the gates and ran towards the main building. I entered a room full of people waiting to be called for their interviews. My face was red, mascara smeared across my face, and my hair was messed up. Immediately, I heard my name being called. I walked into a smaller room where two men asked me questions. Then one man with reddish hair said to me how he had grown up in Buffalo, New York. He asked me if I knew how severe the winter could be in Buffalo. I said, “Probably not worse than in Siberia.” They both laughed. With this, my interview was over. From that point, I would have to wait for the Messenger at the Torvaianica square to call my name and give me an official paper with “Yes” or “No” written on it.

After two weeks or so, the Messenger at the 6:00 p.m. gathering at the Torvaianica square called my name. I was not nervous; for some reason, I was sure that it would be “Yes”. I calmly opened the envelope—there were dates for my flight from Rome to New York City. It was exciting news for me, and in anticipation of big changes in my life, I started to prepare myself for the trip.

About the Book

Camel from Kyzylkum is an award-winning memoir that chronicles the remarkable journey of immigrating from the Soviet Union during the late twentieth century. It delves into themes of hope, struggle, family, and loss, offering a profound exploration of the human spirit’s yearning for freedom and self-determination. Through the author’s compelling narrative, readers gain a deep insight into life within the Soviet Union and the immense sacrifices and risks individuals undertake in pursuit of a better life.

The memoir traces a gripping path from Ukraine to the Kyzylkum Desert in Uzbekistan, and onward through Austria, Italy, and finally America. Along this journey, the author navigates personal truths and aspirations, illustrating the resilience and determination required to forge a new path in unfamiliar lands.

Camel from Kyzylkum is not just a memoir; it’s a transformative narrative that opens doors to unfamiliar worlds, encouraging readers to broaden their perspectives and empathize with the challenges and triumphs of others. It stands as a testament to the enduring human spirit and the universal quest for identity and belonging.

About the Author

Born and schooled in Ukraine, Lara Gelya spent the next two decades in the Kyzylkum Desert of the Republic of Uzbekistan, working at geological sites and expeditions of the Mining Industry. At that time Ukraine and Uzbekistan were parts of one country — the Soviet Union.

In 1989 Lara left the Soviet Union, lived in Austria and Italy before she, at last, found her way to the United States in 1990. Starting her life from ground zero again, and trying on so many hats, she was able to make a lengthy professional career that led to her eventual retirement on the shores of sunny Florida.

Now, enjoying her retirement, Lara fills her days with enriching activities like writing, creating videos and pictures, reading, gardening, cooking, traveling, and immersing herself in nature or entertainment. Her diverse interests and active lifestyle after retirement show a deep appreciation for life’s pleasures and a continuing curiosity about the world around her.

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Lovingly Together until the End

Title: Widows: A Global History

Author: Mineke Schipper

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

Lovingly together until the end

Long, long ago, Zeus descended to the place where two trees are wrapped in a loving embrace: an oak and a linden tree amid an undulating landscape, their entwined branches a testimony to undying love. ‘I have seen them with my very eyes’ is how the narrator begins the story about how the gods can decide our fate, which was recorded by Ovid in his Metamorphoses.

The story goes as follows: one day Zeus, king of the gods, disguised himself as a mortal and descended to Earth, accompanied by his son, Hermes. They knocked at every door they found in search of a place to rest, but none of the homes they visited welcomed them in. They finally reached the tumble-down cottage belonging to Baucis and Philemon, an old couple who, in spite of their poverty, were perfectly content with their lot, and welcomed the pair with open arms, generously providing them with all the fruit, nuts, figs and dates they had to hand. They were even prepared to kill their goose, but the bird escaped its fate and found safety between the two gods. Hermes and Zeus explained to the couple who they were and why they were going to destroy this godless part of the world: ‘Only the two of you will be allowed to escape this disaster’.

Leaning on their staffs, the old couple followed the gods to the top of a hill, from which they looked back to see all the land in the valley flooded and sinking into a muddy bog, apart from their own cottage, which had been turned into a glistening temple with marble floors and columns. Zeus granted the couple a wish, and they did not need too long to think about their reply: they wished to become priest and priestess of the new temple and, most beautifully of all, they both wanted to die at the same time at the end of their lives. Both wishes were granted.

One day, after a long and fortunate life, the pair stood at the bottom of the marble steps leading up to the temple. All of a sudden bark began to cover their bodies and legs and their arms began to sprout leaves. They shared one final word of farewell as the leafy canopy started to engulf their faces. In an act of tenderness, they stretched out their branches longingly towards one another, and to this day continue to whisper to each other through the rustle of the leaves.

Living on together in human form after death is another comforting solution in stories the world over. No surprise therefore that storytellers have always wondered how Adam and Eve, the first humans according to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, met their end. The holy books of these three religious traditions all begin with the pair living in Paradise, with the Bible even stating that Adam was 930 years old when he died, but the details of their deaths are conspicuous by their absence.

Eve’s widowhood is not dealt with at all in the Bible, yet oral traditions do discuss it, as storytellers tend to have free rein. In one early Christian story, on his deathbed Adam confronts Eve with the most wicked accusation; during that emotional moment, he forces her to once again explain to their children and grandchildren (and all of his progeny) that it is through her that death came into the world. No surprise therefore that, after Adam’s death, Eve wallows in the mud, grief-stricken and despondent, imploring God’s mercy for her unending guilt, until she dares to gaze upwards, where the most incredible spectacle unfolds before her eyes: angels float in the sky, obscuring the vaults of heaven with their swinging incense burners, as the body of Adam is brought to Heaven on a chariot of light drawn by four shining eagles.

Further details about the now widowed Eve are absent, but in one optimistic Islamic story from Yemen, upon their deaths the angel Gabriel comes to Earth to collect both Adam and Eve to take them back to the Garden of Eden. As they arrive, the gates of Heaven swing open, and they are greeted with ‘Peace be with you and welcome back’. These words are spoken by Ridwan, the same gatekeeper who at the start of their earthly lives had slammed the gates of heaven behind the pair as they left. Upon their return they must undergo a ritual purification: first they are handed a golden cup with water from the well of purity, followed by another golden cup filled with water from the fountain of eternal youth.3 Together till the end, from their expulsion from Paradise to their return.

One goes, the other remains

In the harsh reality of life, this narrative works slightly differently, the question being ‘which of the two of us will be the first to go?’ This pressing question inevitably arises among people who are in love and happy with one another. In fairy tales, couples live long and happy lives, and at weddings you will often hear a variant of the adage ‘may you live long and well’. At weddings in India’s eastern state of Assam, you will hear the words ‘may the kinowari (bindi) never disappear from your forehead’. This symbol of marital bliss is used to wish brides a marriage that lasts a lifetime, with those who become widows no longer being permitted to wear it.

‘May a God-blessed wife go with her husband to his grave’ is a popular Arabic wish for women, as what could be more beautiful than dying together on the same day?

(Extracted from Widows: A Global History by Mineke Schipper. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2024)

About the Book

Widows have always far outnumbered widowers (who quickly remarry, usually younger women). War, hunting and the uncertainties of long travel ensured that most husbands died before their wives did. Mineke Schipper’s cultural history of widows examines how these husband-less women have, throughout history and mythology, been portrayed as helpless damsels, easy pickings for men outside the family or clan, or as cunning witches who are suspected of murder. In every case, the motive has been to exclude them and control them. Schipper traverses the world, travelling across time, to collect and analyse stories about widows and their treatment—the loss of status they face after their husband’s death; the harsh rituals of mourning they are forced to perform; the often brutal controls on attire, mobility and sexuality that they must submit to. It is a global legacy of cruelty and shame—as also, occasionally, of resilience and defiance—that has rarely been studied as deeply and thoroughly as in this extraordinary work. Widows draws upon sources from Ancient Egypt and Greece, medieval India and modern-day Europe, Africa and the Americas—examining folk and real-life stories of communities in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, China, France, and several other countries and regions, as also stories and images from comics and fashion magazines.

Impressively researched and entertainingly narrated, this book—its information made distinctive by Schipper’s sharp insight and her humour—is an important document that helps us understand our past and, through it, our present.

About the Author

Mineke Schipper is Emeritus Professor of Intercultural Literary Studies at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, with visiting professorships in Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso and China. She is the author of Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet (Eureka Prize for Non-fiction), Naked or Covered and Hills of Paradise.

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

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Excerpt

Aunties of Vasant Kunj

Title: Aunties of Vasant Kunj

Author: Anuradha Marwah

Publisher: Rupa Publications, India

Shailaja woke up reluctantly with the phone alarm at six in the morning and switched on the pump. The first day of the odd semester! She hadn’t got much sleep, but she was still looking forward to meeting the students. She had worked quite hard in the vacation: reading Gone with the Wind, word by word, and photocopying and collating secondary material. Preparing for the new course on popular fiction had given her an insight into romance; teaching it would be therapeutic, she told herself firmly.

The morning passed too quickly with the ever-voluble Rajni ki Ma[1]. She laid out Shailaja’s green chiffon sari on the bed. A gift from Ranjan in a previous life! Or had it been just last year?

‘Didi, wear this today,’ she commanded.

‘I have to go to college. This sari is thin and transparent. It is for the evening.’

Rajni ki Ma started off another tirade about single women dressing like widows and driving away men from their doorsteps.

‘One should not fight all the time. It can’t be his fault totally. Can one clap with one hand? After all, he came and gave the car, didn’t he? Who gives away something so expensive! You could have talked to him, offered him something to eat. There was enough food and I could have made more. As it is, you people eat so little…’ She went on. Shailaja thought she had a point but she still hung the sari back in the wardrobe and took out a yellow salwar and a grey kurta instead.

Rajni ki Ma made a face. ‘Uh, not even matching. Other madams have everything matching, even sandals. Buy some new clothes, no!’

Shailaja emerged from her new home. She felt young—about five years old. The poha[2] Rajni ki Ma had prepared for her—the Maharashtrian way, with peanuts, curry leaves and a dash of sugar—had been piquant with green chilies. She really enjoyed breakfast in spite of the heartache. Her class began at ten-thirty. It was a good forty-minute drive from Vasant Kunj to college. Shailaja shot out of the parking; it was ten already.

But then she had to brake rather precipitately. A huge water tanker was squatting right outside the parking in the middle of the narrow road to the colony gate. What was she to do? As usual, there were cars parked on both sides of the lane all the way till the gate. The parking areas inside the colony were woefully inadequate to contain the Indian automobile revolution that had resulted in two-three cars per flat. With the tanker standing where it was, it was a complete roadblock. In fact, the sides of the tanker were brushing the parked cars on both sides. Shailaja honked. A woman resplendent in a parrot-green dressing gown appeared from the thicket at the side of the road. ‘Two minutes, Madam,’ she said.

Shailaja noted that the huge pipe that emerged from the underbelly of the tanker and vanished into the hedgerow was vibrating. It was dispensing water into one of the monstrous black storage water tanks behind the hedgerow. The tanker was, no doubt, from the state water department and had been sent to pacify the irate residents. Water was supplied for only half an hour that morning.

Another woman in a frilly pink nightgown arrived on the scene and said to parrot-green, ‘I called the tanker. How is it that you are taking water before me?’

It was Mrs Gandhi underneath the pink frills. But she did not even look at Shailaja. She was busy holding her own with parrot-green.

‘If you keep sitting inside having tea, the whole world is not going to wait for you,’ parrot-green attacked.

‘I had called the tanker,’ repeated Mrs Gandhi.

‘So what, I had called him yesterday and the day before, and you took water before me both days.’

Shailaja stuck her head out of the window. ‘Nilima-ji, it’s me.’

‘There is not a drop in my home, and Mr Gandhi has to leave for work,’ she said turning to Shailaja at last.

Mr Gandhi? Husband… Wow! ‘So do I, Nilima-ji. I have work too. My class begins in twenty minutes,’ said Shailaja poking her head out further. ‘Please move the tanker and let me pass.’

Both the women looked askance. ‘Not a drop of water,’ repeated parrot-green.

‘This is emergency, Shailaja. One day the children can wait for five minutes,’ said the betraying Mrs Gandhi.

‘You know I teach in a college. And can’t the water wait five minutes?’  Shailaja persisted.

‘No, it can’t. Why should we ask the tanker to move? He got here first,’ replied parrot-green querulously.

‘I will lose my job,’ Shailaja pleaded.

‘Teachers in Delhi University are always late,’ said the treacherous Mrs Gandhi as her partner-in-crime nodded her agreement. ‘Nobody ever loses job. You only said!’

‘That’s not true. Like in every other job, there are some who are conscientious and others who aren’t,’ replied Shailaja, cursing herself for bitching about her colleagues to all and sundry.

‘It is a good job for women,’ conceded parrot-green. ‘You’re a woman. You must understand the kind of problems one can have without water,’ she continued in a sisterly way.

‘I’m not telling you to not take water; I’m only requesting you to let me pass. Where is the driver?’ said Shailaja, feeling a little desperate now.

‘How do I know? He must be around,’ replied parrot-green.

‘Don’t get so impatient, Shailaja. Try and see it from Mrs Malhotra’s point of view,’ said Mrs Gandhi brokering Buddhist peace. She had been nattering about her ‘new way of worship’ all through summer.

By then, there were three cars honking behind Shailaja. Somebody yelled, ‘Which so and so is blocking the road today?’

Mrs Gandhi and parrot-green looked at each other and, in unspoken agreement, disappeared behind the hedgerow like exotic birds startled by rude tourists in a bird sanctuary.

‘Nilima-ji, I will get very late,’ whined Shailaja but she was talking to thin air.

A man strode out of the car, ‘Inconveniencing everybody!’ he hollered. ‘Blocking traffic at ten in the morning! Driver!’ he called.

Nothing happened.

‘Whose tanker is this?’ The man demanded.

‘There were a couple of ladies here a minute ago,’ said Shailaja, trying to help.

The man gave her a scornful look. ‘Mrs Gandhi!’ he growled. ‘She seems to have a swimming pool in her flat. Water came for an hour in the morning; still this truck from Jal Board has to be called!’

‘I think the water came for just half an hour this side. There was also this other woman, Mrs Malhotra… In fact, she was taking water,’ the ever fair and loyal Shailaja tried to explain.

The man paid no attention to her. He walked to the tanker and turned off the water supply; the fat tube stopped vibrating. Shailaja wondered about him, obviously a man of consequence. His tummy protruded so confidently, like that of her college principal. A thin boy emerged from the thicket. He looked about fifteen.

‘Move the tanker, you…. Next time I’ll get you arrested,’ the man commanded.

The boy jumped into the driver’s seat and the tanker began to roll back.

Law of inertia: roadblocks in Vasant Kunj don’t move without the use of rude force.

I should have got out of the home earlier, rued Shailaja. She would be very late.

Law of inertia: Rajni ki Ma won’t stop unless there is an equal force against her.

She was trapped between the home and the world, powerless, helpless! Panic had her stomach in knots, the road seemed to rise to block her way, the trees on either side gesticulated menacingly. The big tanker was challenging her to pass from the narrow alley that it had created by rolling back just a couple of feet. The car behind her was honking. She breathed deeply, released the clutch and wove her way around the monster. The car nipping at her heels seemed to snort derisively at her lack of expertise.

She had learnt driving just a couple of years ago; Ranjan’s driver had taught her. They had bought a second-hand car for her commute to college. She hadn’t used her skill much because the driver was usually free to drop her to college in Ranjan’s brand new sedan. But at least she could drive and had a car, Shailaja told herself, in an unconscious echo of Mrs Gandhi’s Buddhism.

[1] Rajni’s mother

[2] A dish with flattened rice

[3] biscuit

About the Book

Three women try Buddhist chanting, activism, and fermented drinks of various kinds to make sense of their fast-changing worlds.

Shailaja, abandoned but lovelorn, wistfully teaching romance in a Delhi University college; Mrs Gandhi, plump and garrulous, dedicated to providing endless cups of tea and plates of biskut[3] to all and sundry; and firebrand Dini, ensconced in her idyllic female world, simply cannot see eye to eye. 

But suddenly, their lives take unexpected turns. A lecherous boss, a cheating husband and a completely unsuitable but irresistible lover make them seek out each other. Will Vasant Kunj, with its tight shared spaces, encroached pathways and perennial water and electricity crises provide intersections for unlikely friendships? Or will they continue to collide at Aunty Point, where they’ve all been cast ashore? 

Written mainly in the form of witty dialogue, the novel is like a play about warring world views. The three women act out Buddhism, feminist activism, and love and longing but in doing so they improvise their acts and their roles merge into a shared femaleness. Indian society is sometimes described in terms of conflict between the pre-modern and the post-modern. In this novel such confusion is located within individuals and the conflict is always psychosocial. So while it details the bizarre dailiness of middle class Vasant Kunj — the illegal water pumps and power breakdowns — the novel also touches lightly on universal dilemmas about identity and conflicting social roles that women face all over the world. It is an accessibly written book intended to make the reader chuckle and think.

About the Author

Anuradha Marwah is the author of four novels The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta, Idol Love, Dirty Picture, and Aunties of Vasant Kunj and five plays. She has co-authored the textbooks for Creative Writing prescribed by Delhi University for undergraduate students and by the NCERT for class nine.  She is recipient of the Charles Wallace Writer’s Residency (2001) to three universities in the UK and Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence (FNAPE) fellowship to the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (2017). She is Professor of English at Zakir Husain Delhi College, Delhi University and lives in Vasant Kunj with her partner.

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

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Shabnam: A Novel by Syed Mujtaba Ali

Title: Shabnam

Author: Syed Mujtaba Ali

Translated from Bengali by Nazes Afroz

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

Badshah Amanullah was surely off his rocker. Or else why would he hold a ball-dance in an ultra-conservative country like Afghanistan? On the occasion of Independence Day, Afghanistan’s first ball-dance would be held.

We, the foreigners, were not that bothered. But there was a buzz of restlessness among the mullahs and their followers—the water carriers, tailors, grocers, and the servants. My servant, Abdur Rahman, while serving the morning tea, muttered, ‘Nothing is left of religious decency.’

I did not pay much heed to Abdur Rahman. I was no messiah like Krishna. The task of saving ‘religious decency’ had not been bestowed upon me.

‘Those hulking men will prance around the dance floor holding on to shameless women.’

I asked, ‘Where? In films?’

After that there was no stopping Abdur Rahman. The ancient Roman wild orgies would have sounded like child’s play compared to the juicy imageries of the upcoming dance event that he described. Finally, he concluded, ‘Then they switch off the lights at midnight. I don’t know what happens after that.’

I said, ‘What’s that to you, you mindless babbler?’

Abdur Rahman went mum. Whenever I called him a blathering prattler, he understood that his master was in a bad mood. I would use the Bengali slang word for it and being a seasoned man, though Abdur Rahman did not know the language, he would be able to read my mood.

I was out in the mild evening. Electric lamps lit up the bushes of Pagman. The tarmacked road was spotlessly clean. I was meandering absentmindedly, thinking it was the month of Bhadra and Sri Krishna’s birthday had been celebrated the previous day. My birthday too, according to Ma. It must be raining heavily in Sylhet, my home. Ma was possibly sitting in the north veranda. Her adoptive daughter Champa was massaging her feet and asking her, ‘When will young brother come home?’

The monsoon season is the most difficult one for me in this foreign land. There is no monsoon in Kabul, Kandahar, Jerusalem or Berlin. Meanwhile in Sylhet, Ma is flustered with the nonstop rain. Her wet sari refuses to dry; she is in a tizzy from the smoke of the wet wood of the oven. Even from here I can see the sudden pouring of rain and the sun that comes out after a while. There are glitters of happiness on the rose plants in the courtyard, the night jasmine at the corner of the kitchen, and on the leaves of the palm tree in the backyard.

There was no such verdant beauty here.

Look at that! I had lost my way. Nine at night. Not a soul on the street. Who could I ask for directions?

A band was playing dance numbers in the big mansion to the right.

Oh! This was the dance-hall as described by Abdur Rahman. The waiters and bearers of the building would surely be able to direct me to my hotel. I needed to go to the service doors at the back of the building.

I approached.

Right at that moment, a young woman marched out.

I first saw her forehead. It was like the three-day-old young moon. The only difference was the moon would be off-white—cream coloured—but her forehead was as white as the snow peaks of the Pagman mountains. You have not seen it? Then I would say it was like undiluted milk. You have not seen that either. Then I can say it was like the petals of the wild jasmine. No adulteration of it is possible as yet.

Her nose was like a tiny flute. How was it possible to have two holes in such a small flute? The tip of the nose was quivering. Her cheeks were as red as the ripe apples of Kabul; yet they were of a shade that made it abundantly clear it was not the work of any rouge. I could not figure out if her eyes were blue or green. She was adorned in a well-tailored gown and was wearing high-heeled shoes.

Like a princess she ordered, ‘Call Sardar Aurangzeb Khan’s motor.’

Attempting to say something, I fumbled.

She, by then, looked properly at me and figured out that I was not a servant of the hotel. She also understood that I was a foreigner. First, she spoke in French, ‘Je veux demand pardon, monsieur—forgive me—’ Then she said it in Farsi.

In my broken Farsi I said, ‘Let me look for the driver.’

She said, ‘Let’s go.’

Smart girl. She would be hardly eighteen or nineteen.

Before reaching the parking lot, she said, ‘No, our car isn’t here.’

‘Let me see if I can arrange another one,’ I said.

Raising her nose an inch or so, in rustic Farsi she said, ‘Everyone is peeping to see what debauchery is taking place inside. Where will you find a driver?’

I involuntarily exclaimed, ‘What debauchery?’

Turning around in a flash, the girl faced me and took my measure from head to toe. Then she said, ‘If you’re not in a hurry, walk me to my house.’

‘Sure, sure,’ I joined her.

The girl was sharp.

Soon she asked, ‘For how long have you been living in this country? Pardon—my French teacher has said one shouldn’t put such questions to a stranger.’

‘Mine too, but I don’t listen.’

Whirling around she faced me again and said, ‘Exactment—rightly said. If anyone asks, say I’m going with you, or say Daddy introduced me to you. And don’t you ask me any question like I’m a nobody. And I will not ask anything as if you have no country or no home. In our land not asking prying questions is akin to the height of rudeness.’

I replied, ‘Same in my land too.’

She quipped, ‘Which country?’

I said, ‘Isn’t it apparent that I’m an Indian?’

‘How come? Indians can’t speak French.’

I said, ‘As if the Kabulis can!’

She burst out laughing. It seemed in the fit of laughter she suddenly twisted her ankle. ‘Can’t walk any longer. I’m not used to walking in such high heels. Let’s go to the tennis court; there are benches there.’

Dense darkness. The electric lamps were glowing far away. We needed to reach the tennis court through a narrow path. I said, ‘Pardon,’ as I touched her arm inadvertently.

Her laughter had no limits. She said, ‘Your French is strange, so is your Farsi.’

My young ego was hurt. ‘Mademoiselle!’

‘My name is Shabnam.’

(Extracted from Shabnam by Syed Mujtaba Ali, translated by Nazes Afroz. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2024)

About the Book

Afghanistan in the 1920s. A country on the cusp of change. And somewhere in it, a young man and woman meet and fall in love.

Shabnam is an Afghan woman, as beautiful as she is intelligent. Majnun is an Indian man, working in the country as a teacher. Theirs is an unlikely love story, but it flowers nonetheless. Breaking the barriers of culture and language, the two souls meet. Shabnam is poetry personified—she knows the literary works of Farsi poets of different eras. Majnun is steeped in the language and thoughts of Bengal. Together, they find love in immortal words and in the wisdom of the ages.

As the country hurtles towards yet another cataclysmic change, and the ruling king flees into exile, Shabnam is in danger from those who covet her for her famous beauty. Can she save herself and her Indian lover and husband from them?

Shabnam has been hailed as one of the most beautiful love stories written in Bengali. Lyrical and tragic, this pathbreaking novel appears in English for the first time in an elegant translation by the translator of Syed Mujtaba Ali’s famous travelogue Deshe Bideshe (In a Land Far from Home).

About the Author

Born in 1904, Syed Mujtaba Ali was a prominent literary figure in Bengali literature. A polyglot, a scholar of Islamic studies and a traveller, Mujtaba Ali taught in Baroda and at Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan. Deshe Bideshe was his first published book (1948). By the time he died in 1974, he had more than two dozen books—fiction and non-fiction—to his credit.

About the Translator

A journalist for over four decades, Nazes Afroz has worked in both print and broadcasting in Kolkata and in London. He joined the BBC in London in 1998 and spent close to fifteen years with the organization. He has visited Afghanistan, Central Asia and West Asia regularly for over a decade. He currently writes in English and Bengali for various newspapers and magazines and is working on a number of photography projects.

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From Pashas To Pokemon

Title: From Pashas To Pokemon

Author: Maaria Sayed

Publisher: Vishwakarma Publications

    Both the doors were locked. We knew Ammi must have locked the main door on her way out, but the emergency door wasn’t opening either. Yusuf and I jumped into our flat through our exceptionally large windows. We were accustomed to swiveling our fingers until we reached the latch hidden on the inside of the window. We’d pivot the hook and squeeze our pinky fingers through the tiny hole between the plastic orifices in the windowpane. Ammi had gone over to Nani Jaan’s house, and we were not expected back for another few hours. Rashid, my brother’s friend was reprimanded by his mother and grounded in his house to study. There was a limit to how much time Yusuf and I could spend at Rashid’s house eating sev puris with his mother. We sighted an excuse to get away and return home. But as Abbu says, fate has its way of creeping into the unlikeliest of places, so it did. The sunset remained hidden behind the mass of clouds, just like the rest of the month of November, and brought with it its own woes. Yusuf and I had expected to be jumping into an empty house, but were taken aback to see our living room filled with a score of giant men dressed in white kurtas. Abbu sat at the centre looking disheveled in his unkempt hair and crumpled lungi. It was an oddly monstrous sight. We had never seen so many men gathering at home when it wasn’t an Eid celebration. We were also not accustomed to seeing men with beards as long as these men had.

     Nani Jaan had a personal assessment about the length of men’s beards that we had internalized over the years. ‘When it is longer than your fist, you know the intention is intimidation,’ she’d say in a spinechillingly confident tone. ‘We don’t live amidst Jalaaluddin Rumis and Nostradamuses anymore. The only inspiration the men could possibly be hiding under their beards would be a horde of lice.’ Thus, I had developed a quaint habit of mentally calculating the length of the beards I saw as I walked. Within the split second when I glanced around our living-room, I knew all their beards were much longer than their fists. I wondered how Abbu fit in with this forest of mens’ hair, because Abbu always remained clean-shaven, save the Sunday stubble Ammi would pester him to get off. On that particular day too, Abbu’s facial skin remained exposed.

   The visual was threatening far beyond the beards when we saw what the men were concealing below their cloth bags and our pillow covers —— big black and brown guns. On our news channels, such guns were called AK 47s —— Yusuf identified the type almost instantly. We looked at Abbu helplessly, rummaging up a response, a conjecture, a remark, hint, and something —— anything. My single most gigantic fear was that Abbu was in deep trouble. Yusuf looked at me from the corner of his eye, gesturing to me to be tight-lipped and non-reactive. Abbu stared at us pale-faced, without uttering a word. He introduced us in a point-blank manner as his children.

    ‘Here, Yusuf is the naughty one I’d told you about. And his elder sister, my first born, Aisha.’ Abbu pointed at me and his index finger poked me like the razor-sharp edge of the blade Ammi used to carefully slice the dead skin off her feet.

    Both Yusuf and I hated being introduced to the strangers we clearly despised. We took a seat in the corner of the room as Abbu directed us to. The next few minutes were a blur as my mind wandered into nothingness, like the blurry images of a super eight camera unable to focus on any particular sight. It just moved from beard, to table, to Abbu, to slippers, to window, to teacup, and back again to the beard. The next few moments were nauseating, like the time I tried my first mushroom drug. It was in an open field, a few hours away from Mumbai, on top of a blue car bonnet. I felt my shivers as I cascaded back and forth, breaking the continuum of time and space. I was sick for the next few days, but all Abbu and Ammi ever knew was that I had terrible food poisoning. Whenever Yusuf uttered the word mushroom in front of our parents to provoke me, I simply smiled, knowing that Ammi had decided never to cook mushrooms at home ever again. Abbu had subjected me to a sly smile as if he were fully cognizant of what was happening to me. Like various other things in my family, this was another one we buried under our carpets so I could sleep peacefully.

   The bearded men bid their salaams to Abbu, smiled at us coldly, and hid their guns inside their oversized black kurtas before they left our home.

     I was sixteen, Yusuf was thirteen, and we had seen what most people never get to see in a lifetime. Abbu forbade us from asking questions, demanding answers, or telling anyone what we had seen, ever. When we asked Abbu if Ammi knew what he was up to, he asked us to abide by our oath of complete silence regarding what we had witnessed. As anxious, hormone-charged teenagers, we naturally argued our way through the conversation with Abbu. He sat on the edge of the sofa, staring at the floor like a victim with nothing to back up his conscience. When Yusuf saw a discreet tear trickle down Abbu’s cheek, we stormed out of the room with an uneasy feeling eating away our guts. We loved to drive our parents up the wall, so long as we knew it was our doing. But the moment we sensed the involvement of another hand, it made us lament uncontrollably. Abbu and Ammi’s story about their engagement period was folklore for us. In our heads, they weren’t three-dimensional beings like the rest of our family. I clearly recall the morning Abbu, Ammi, Yusuf and I tried making pancakes for the very first time after Abdul Chachu, Abbu’s cousin, had written to us saying it was their daily breakfast ever since they relocated to Detroit. Of course, Abbu had responded saying he didn’t fancy pancakes, but nudged Ammi to hunt for the recipe since he desperately wanted to taste what his cousin had substituted scrambled egg with. Pancakes, in Abbu’s mind, became the recipe to success; he envied how his cousin had started from scratch and managed to make a respectable living in a foreign land. That morning, when we ate pancakes for the very first time, we looked at each other, trying to gauge if the one seated opposite us really liked them. Ammi sat opposite me and I remember seeing her gulp hers down with long sips of sherbet. We all disliked them, but we never admitted this to each other. Probably the one who disliked them the least was Yusuf, but I could tell that he would never substitute our scrambled eggs for what seemed like a cross between South Indian dosa and Maharashtrian pooran poli with a whole lot of Nutella.

ABOUT THE BOOK

At 25, Aisha has seen more than many people do in a lifetime and has understood one thing: no matter who you are and where you are from, there are things that you can study and others that you can actually learn from and grow.

Lively tales from family history and everyday life in a Mahammad Ali Road colony in Mumbai form the background of Aisha’s internal journey. Childhood memories mingle with her experiences while studying in London, and are woven into a sharp commentary on the transformations in India over 20 years as she ponders her place in this ever-changing world. The novel narrates the story of many journeys. It is a journey of growing up: the journey from childhood to adolescence, youth to old age, from one culture to another, and a glimpse of past to present times.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maaria Sayed is an Indian filmmaker and writer whose work focuses on the sexual and spiritual liberation of women, evolving Muslim identities, and South Asian life. She has been supported by Cineteca di Bologna, Sharjah Art Foundation, and Busan Film Commission, among others, and was a delegate and jury for the UN-backed Asia Peace Film Festival in Pakistan. She regularly holds workshops on cinema for students and teaches intercultural communication to executives of multinational companies. She is a graduate of literature and cinema, and obtained her fellowship on Asian media production and collaboration in South Korea. She is passionate about Sufi poetry, folk music, Indian theatre and cats- big and small. This is her debut novel.

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