Mohul Bhowmick takes us Hyderabad on Eid in March 2026[1]
Charminar and adjoining streets. From Public Domain
Nayaab was closed, and Shadab peeked past its closed arches. The doors that proclaimed ‘Madina Hotel – Best Biryani in Hyderabad Since 1947’ were promiscuously shut in the presence of foreigners who had no business being awake at that hour, and the road leading up to the Charminar from Naya Pul — Hyderabad’s high street — was littered with polythene covers that had seen better days. Gulzar Houz was empty save the loitering youth who had faltered on their way home from Chand Raat[2]; Eid was here, the namaaz was slated for 10 AM at Mecca Masjid, and the scent of sheer khurma[3]wafted in the air. The Charminar was erected in 1591, the year in which Hyderabad was founded by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah (1565-1612), and the minarets of this emblem stretched out in an embrace, welcoming everyone with its all-forgiving, benevolent gaze.
Laad Bazaar — with the door of every store shut — stretched to its west, the Bhagyalakshmi temple to its east, and the wide expanse leading up to Lal Darwaza to its south. Café Nimrah – which was in high demand on Eid — did not even bat an eyelid when its shutters were hammered at with a ferocity unbecoming of pious young men, while Café Farasha next door, seizing the opportunity with both hands, did brisk business. An acne-wrecked student with a pockmarked face who had paid twice his pocket money as bus fare to arrive from the northern peripheries of town complained about the steep hike in the price of a cup of tea; a Turkish couple were seen encouraging their five-year-old daughter to sip the frothy liquid. Farasha, chambermaid to Nimrah all year, sparkled brighter than Cinderella had on her anointed night.
The loveliness of the morning was marred by policemen on horses, patrolling in as swift a manner as was last seen during Operation Polo. Arabs, Afghans, Emiratis, Bangladeshis and Biharis traded wishes but gave each other a wide berth when looking up at the beseeching image of the deceased Ayatollah. The aroma of the air grew manifold when a few shifty-eyed young men, berated by the mounted police with their lacquered batons to not practice their pickpocketing on this holy day, hugged each other with a gay abandon one had not known them to possess. The atmosphere grew thick with rumour that today might be the last day that Pista House still have their haleem[4] — if they did at all — and one hurried towards Shah Ali Banda as one would after the final boarding call at an airport gate.
The azaan[5] for the Eid prayers from Mecca Masjid could be heard bellowing its message an hour before time. Milan Juice Centre, Matwale Doodh Ghar and Tajalli Milkshakes and More had firmly decided to abandon the festivities in favour of religiosity — economic and otherwise. One walked past the mosque, berated by one-eyed cripples hanging on to their faith for support; beggars — unequivocally of a secular nature — paraded their naked pride to a group of Sikhs who found the entire spectacle amusing. The rising of the sun was foreshadowed by the empty streets — unlike what one must have seen the previous night — and a foreboding could be felt when one turned towards Mir Chowk and peeped at Machli Kaman. The temple dedicated to Siva had chosen this to be the day on which its new loudspeakers would be tested.
Mohul Bhowmick is a national-level cricketer, sports journalist, poet, essayist and travel writer from Hyderabad, India. He has published five collections of poems and one travelogue so far. His latest book, The Past Is Another Country, came out in 2025. More of his work can be discovered on his website: www.mohulbhowmick.com.
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Narrative by Meredith Stephens: Photographs by Alan Noble
Boat which took the author and her husband to Mekong Delta
We alighted from the ferry and disembarked at a small island in the Mekong Delta. Our Vietnamese guide had promised us that we could witness how local people lived. After walking along a trail, we were ushered into a small boat with a local lady at the rear who would row us down the river. We stepped into the back of the boat and another couple stepped into the front.
“Would you mind taking a photo of us?” asked a woman with a bright smile and an energetic voice. I could hear she was English. Then the four of us started bantering and I detected that her partner was English too.
Next, we hopped off the boat and were treated to the chance to hold a cobra, sample local delicacies, and listen to the villagers’ musical performance. The next day we were taken to a restaurant where you could make your own seafood pancakes. Just before lunch, we were given the opportunity to cycle along a nearby path. Those of our group who wished to cycle selected a bicycle. I chose one and headed to the path. Then I looked ahead of me and realised that the English woman’s bike was the wrong size for her.
Cycling tour of the village
“Would you like to swap bicycles? Mine is too large and yours seems to be too small.”
She nodded. We swapped bicycles and seemed to find the perfect match. Our tour guide gave the signal and off we went. After a few kilometres, he signaled to stop so the group would stay together. I found myself at the front of the group and turned around to see the English woman immediately behind.
“I commuted to work by bike for twenty years,” I explained, surprised to be the one who had to stop so the others could catch up.
“I was in Japan. Japan is much friendlier to cyclists. The traffic is slower, and the roads narrower. It’s easier than driving, at least for short distances.”
She nodded. “They cycle a lot in Amsterdam. Also in Cambridge, where I lived for three years.”
I didn’t want to ask too many personal questions of this woman I had only just met, but I was curious. I wondered if she had studied at Cambridge University. Instead of being nosy, I added a few comments about Cambridge.
“We visited there recently. We stayed on the outskirts, and walked in. We had to walk through a park where there were cows grazing with bells around their necks. I much prefer Cambridge to Oxford.”
“Yes, it’s smaller. But Oxford is pretty good too!” she added.
By then the other cyclists had caught up. We continued along the path and then returned for lunch. We resumed the tour and were dropped off back in Ho Chi Minh City.
“Where can we store our luggage?” Alex asked her.
“Here at the tourist agency. We’ll leave ours there while we pop into the markets to get Ian a new backpack. His is broken.”
“Thanks for the tip. By the way, do you have an email address so we can exchange photos?”
“Sure. Where are you heading next?” she asked.
“Hoi An,” she replied.
“Oh! We are going there too. We are doing a cooking class. Would you like to join us?” offered Alex.
“Sure! Send us the link.”
We parted ways.
“See you in Hoi An,” I said, hoping that we could meet again.
The English woman was so easy to talk to, so quick to respond, and pick up on any nuance. I’d already decided that she must be a therapist. I had been trained since early adulthood not to ask people what they did for a living. It wasn’t fair to allow your knowledge of their career success to determine your assessment of them. But I admit to being curious. If she had studied at Cambridge, what career had followed?
Alex and I caught a sleeper train to Hoi An. There we found generously proportioned historic buildings. However, there were too many tourists in Hoi An, people like us. We walked around the town and felt overwhelmed. We could barely move down the street without bumping into other tourists.
Night trainTrain station
The next day Alex texted the English woman. He must have been just as eager to meet the couple again as I was.
“Sorry, your cooking class was full. We booked another one. How about drinks this evening?” she replied.
Alex accepted. That evening we made our way to the bar she had suggested. They stood up and hugged us.
“I’m Jill* by the way. And this is Ian*.”
“I’m Alex, and this is Merri.”
We ordered a gin and tonic. They were drinking beer.
“Since we were meeting you today, we thought we’d better order a gin and tonic,” I explained. This drink brought back memories of England.
After we had sipped our drinks, Alex broached the question that was on my mind.
“So, what do you do when you’re not touring in Vietnam?” he asked.
“I write historical fiction. Ian has retired. When the children were younger, he supported me, but now it’s my turn to support him.”
I was beside myself with excitement. If you asked me which profession intrigued me most, I would have said a writer. I have little inclination to meet actors, politicians, astronauts, rocket scientists, or billionaires, but I certainly would like to meet writers (not to mention musicians). For the next couple of hours, Jill shared her experience of writing, and Alex and I shared our experiences of sailing. I was so excited that I lost my appetite and only nibbled a few snacks at the end of the evening. They told us that they lived in a nearly three-hundred-year-old house in Somerset*, one of my favourite places in the UK.
“Just a warning. We will visit,” Alex added.
“Certainly!” replied Jill.
“And please come sailing with us when our boat is ready!” I urged.
We parted company, and I floated all the way back to the hotel. I looked up her many books online and resolved to read her latest one as soon as I could.
A day later, Alex and I caught another sleeper to Hanoi. It was so pleasant rolling along the tracks that I was lulled to sleep as soon as I lay down. I informed Alex that when we returned to Adelaide, I needed a sleep machine that mimicked the motion of rolling along the tracks and provided the accompanying background noise.
When we exited the station a throng of taxi drivers approached us to offer us rides. We had been advised that it is more secure and economical to use the local ride called Grab[1]. I shielded Alex from one driver that persisted in following him around too closely. I positioned myself between Alex and the driver with my back to the driver. Then we looked over and saw a couple laden with suitcases and eyes glued to their phones. The husband made eye contact with me and gave an exaggerated Gallic shrug and I immediately knew they were French. They looked desperate, and I knew I had to put my rusty French to practice. Years of study at the Alliance Francaise did not equip me to use my French in context. French speakers tended to switch to English as soon as I made my opening gambit in French. This was either because my English accent was too strong, or the French speakers wanted to practice their English. However, this time, the urgency of the situation prompted me to use my French.
“Have you tried to use Grab? It’s less expensive,” I informed them.
“We couldn’t install it. We’re trying to contact the hotel. They were meant to pick us up.”
Her husband was persevering on the phone.
“We’re meant to be going home tomorrow,” the wife informed me. “But our flight has been cancelled.”
“Because of the…,” I offered, unable to quickly find the words for ‘Middle East conflict’.
“Because of the…,” she confirmed. She knew what I meant.
“We were here for our anniversaire,” she explained.
I knew that ‘birthday’ is ‘anniversaire’ in French, but as I was scrambling to communicate, I temporarily assumed that it meant its false friend, anniversary.
“How many years?” I asked.
“69 and 64,” she explained.
Whoops! She must have meant birthday. I pointed to Alex. “He’s ten weeks older than me,” I added.
She laughed and then switched to English.
‘Where are you from?” she asked.
She must have known we were anglophones, but not which anglophone country we came from.
“Australia,” I replied.
She was very surprised to hear this. I continued to scramble to make meaningful conversation, sacrificing precision for getting the words out quickly.
“We come from a town that no-one has heard of,” I added in exaggeration, reverting to French. “Our city Adelaide often gets left out when visiting performers and VIPs come to Australia.”
She laughed again. Then Alex saw on his phone that our Grab ride had arrived. We picked up our bags and exited the station.
Alex decided to join in in French.
“Bonne chance,” he said, hoping they would soon find their transport.
“Bon voyage,” she replied.
“Bon voyage,” I echoed.
I felt sorry and guilty as we boarded our Grab outside the station.
The third serendipitous encounter was on our boat tour in Lan Ha Bay. After spending the night on a small cruise ship, we boarded a dinghy to take us to the rowing boats which were to take us to the caves.
Our tour consisted of two Indian couples, two Danish girls, three Russian couples, and a young Australian family of four from the east coast. Each rowing boat seated eight. As Alex and I were lining up to board we were directed to the boat with the three glamorous young Russian couples. I was a bit concerned about how we would converse in the boat. Sitting in silence would be awkward. The only Russian I knew were those words from the media in the ‘80s, perestroika and glasnost. They wouldn’t get us far because these Russians would be too young to remember the times when these words were used. Alex and I averted our gaze, and the tour guide gave up trying to persuade us to board the boat. We turned around and saw the young Australian family lining up behind us. We smiled at them.
“Aussies!” I exclaimed. We had been deprived of conversation with our compatriots for quite a few days.
The six of us hopped in the rowing boat and were taken inside the stunning Lan Ha Bay. I am not sure that our conversation with our compatriots amounted to much, but it was animated and fun, and I hardly had the time to take in the wonderful bay.
Lan Ha Bay
Seeing the sights in other countries is both a privilege and an enormous treat. What is just as exciting is meeting locals, and the random, sometimes fleeting, and yet meaningful encounters with fellow tourists. We may meet Jill and Ian again. We will never meet the French couple again and don’t even know their names. We just hope they made it to their hotel and then safely back to France. We probably won’t meet the young Australian family again either. The east coast is just too far away. Nonetheless, we have been enriched by the knowledge shared by our kind, enthusiastic and energetic Vietnamese tour guides, and the unexpected encounters with fellow tourists trying to navigate this unique culture together.
* Some names have been changed.
[1] A Singaporean company that caters all over Southeast Asia
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Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.
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The other day I had a tough time explaining mobile telephony and its advancements to my dad who’s around 85 years old. Both of us are highly educated. Neither of us knew modern technology well. Nevertheless, me being a self-taught-geek-or-engineer-or-technologist-of-sorts keep explaining the advancements in technology at regular intervals to my father.
My father, 85, is still actively practicing in a nearby trust hospital. He retired from government service almost two decades ago. Ever since he has been actively consulting patients in local private hospitals. He always says that keeping oneself active (physically or professionally) is more than sufficient to keep ourselves healthy.
“No exercises needed”, he would say whenever someone asked him, and would add, “there isn’t any beach or a lake resort in the arid Hyderabad to sit back and relax. So, the patients give me some avocation to pass my time”.
I must also confess that my father has been using hearing aids in both the ears since he was 50 years old, and amnesia slowly started getting the better of him four years ago…
*
Six years ago, another problem cropped up…
In December 2019, as you all know this planet was plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst this hullabaloo, China made a small significant technological advancement – China silently unrolled 5G mobile telephony[1] in Wuhan.
As March 2020 neared, Indian government announced harsh restrictions, prominent amongst them are the lockdowns. To complicate the matters, my dad’s patients desperately needed to consult him for whatever…
… So, literally imprisoned at home my father embarked on video consultations to patients through WhatsApp. That represented the flashpoint between my dad and me.
Dad started complaining that his video conferences were not working properly.
The self-taught engineer in me explained that for proper video streaming and conferencing the mobile handset needs to have certain amount of memory in its RAM and storage all of which must be compatible with the ‘xG’ mobile telephony the government or service provider is offering (where ‘x’ represents a whole number like 2, 3, 4 or 5 and in near future can be 6 also). Like a true technocrat, I explained all the technology I knew with appropriate diagrams and flow-charts.
“What’s this RAM and storage?” asked my dad
“Well, I think RAM means Random Access Memory…”, I quipped peering through the edge of my glasses.
“What’s with the storage?”
“Well, everything your mobile handset receives, be it SMS or any other notifications or photographs you click with your mobile camera, it needs to keep somewhere. It needs a filing cabinet. That is called storage. If your handset has something called an SD card, it is external storage while every handset is sold initially with some storage called ‘internal storage’…”
“So … how much area does this storage take”
I casually replied, “Usually it is measured in GBs (giga bytes) … Your handset, I guess is some 16 GB or so… Mine’s about 32 GB…”
It’s been six years since we have had this discussion. The then government complicated the situation in our house by announcing that in another six months it will roll out 5G services in India to compete with Chinese …
“Ok! That’s alright but why are my phone calls not up to the mark. What does it have to do with storage? I understand if it is missing SMS, photos, storing and retrieving videos, etc… But why is the voice of the caller invariably broken or videos not clear?”
“Well, you might be using a 3G handset. Presently, the service providers are offering 4G+ services. Maybe you need to change your handset”
“Do I look like a fool? On one hand you are saying my phone is 16 G and on the other hand you are saying that government is offering only 4G services. Are you trying to ridicule me?”
Dumbstruck I tried to convince my dad. “Daddy, telephony G is different from storage GB … G of telephony means Generation and GB is giga bytes… 4G is different from 16 GB”.
“I know… I know… If government is offering only 4G and I have a 16 G handset, and there are two SIM cards in my handset 4G multiplied 4G is 16 G… then why is my handset not working properly?”, dad said angrily.
As an adolescent, I always felt that my father was very poor in mathematics and that’s perhaps why he asked me to opt for Biology stream in college. Had I known then that he knew how to square 4, I would’ve opted for mathematics stream giving many-a-CEOs a good run for their money…
“No!” I yelled, “theG in xG is different from GB”
“Now… Now… Now… My hearing aids are working properly… no need to shout… unnecessarily you’ll be disturbing the neighbours… Tell me, if my handset is 16 G why is it not working in 4G technology?”
I tried to pacify myself, “guess he has a hearing problem with letter ‘B’…”
“This G is not the same as that GB… Both are different…,” I said at the top of my voice
“Ok… But how to solve the problem?”
“Change your handset to something that can support 4G services…”
“But it is lockdown now… So… what’s the alternative?”
“The only alternative is to wait till they relax the lockdown and buy a new one until then endure the faulty video and audio calls… No other way out…”
*
Twenty years ago, in 2002, I bought my first mobile handset – a Nokia 3100 for about Rs3000. I was in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh then. There was a delayed roll-out of mobile telephony in North-western India and Kashmir regions of India for obvious reasons of them being very next to enemy nations, China and Pakistan. It was 2G technology then. Subsequently, a number of cheap Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese and Korean mobile handsets invaded India.
Back in 1991 CE, when India liberalised its economy, India was invaded by a number of international products in all spheres of life. Many Chinese and other Asian national companies also released their wares. This gave the average Indian at least four options.
The first option of buying highly priced superior quality original products from the Western Countries. The second option is that of the cheap lookalikes mostly from oriental countries like China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea. These were commonly referred to as duplicates. A third reasonable and genuine option was also offered by the liberalised Indian market – the Japanese products. These Japanese products, particularly the watches and calculators, were diametrically different from either the Western or the Oriental country products. They were priced somewhere in between and offered technology products with graceful designs. No matter what happens, these Japanese goods exceed your expectations. The fourth option was the local Indian products. These were rather crude in their design, usually low in quality and may or may not work testing your luck.
Chinese products, the duplicates, looked more American than the American products themselves but with Mandarin notations. From a distance it is difficult to say which is which. The most popular example in this direction was the copy of popular Batteries. Street vendors used to dispense American lookalike batteries for Rs5 while the original western would cost Rs95. Among the Indian products that stood the test of time were mostly food and dairy items and some watches/clocks.
This period of 90s in India paralleled the European Union’s efforts to revive the defunct industries that were bombed out in World War II. Also, around this time domestic airlines pampered the passengers by giving cheap watches as gifts and souvenirs. Net result: both my father and me developed a passion for collecting watches. My father’s patients would gift him cheap Chinese or so-called duplicates of the popular European watches. While he still collects these cheap watches, I, in due course, fizzled out. Of course, as of today, the pace at which the companies release newer designs outran our passion.
Mobile handsets, particularly the cheap ones that flooded the Indian market, fuelled our passion to collect handsets. So, now both of us have an additional avocation of changing mobile handsets as frequently as possible. Since in 2002 I was in Shimla and my dad was in Hyderabad, it became an unwritten rule between both of us that we appear with a different mobile handset every time we met. This passion continued for about a decade till 2012. By this time, I covered two cities – Shimla and Guwahati in Northeastern state of Assam. My father having retired from active government service lived (and continues to live in, touch wood) in Hyderabad which is in the south Indian state of Telangana.
A neighbourhood mobile vendor used to supply my father with cheap mobile handsets. For some unknown reason he used to call my father ‘Uncle’ and me as ‘Sir’. So, my mother and me used to pull my dad’s legs by calling the mobile vendor as his nephew.
As per our passion, we regularly changed our mobile phones. This continued till sometime… literally till 2018… when the 4G services were launched. Around this time the mobile ‘nephew’ of my father stopped supplying newer versions of handsets to my father.
But when he supplied mobile handsets to my father, he also used to do an additional service to my father: every time my father changed his handset, the mobile ‘nephew’ would somehow do a data transfer from the older handset to the new one. This I call an additional service because my father, as I mentioned earlier, uses hearing aids. So, the mobile handset must also be connected to the hearing aid through Bluetooth or other reliable technology. This is followed by a calibration of the hearing aid with the audiologist. All this took at least 2 – 3 days and multiple visits to both the mobile vendor and the audiologist. The mobile ‘nephew’ was very enthusiastic and never complained about any inconvenience. Other mobile shop owners would bluntly ask my father to get the calibration done elsewhere or with the service centre present at the other end of the city.
In one of the exchanges of mobiles, the data could not be properly transferred.
*
In June 2020, I guess, the government relaxed the lockdowns for the first time. Promptly, my father headed to a neighbourhood mobile phone shop and bought a 4G handset as per my recommendation. To my surprise, my father did not go to his mobile ‘nephew’. He went to a high-end mobile shop. My father this time bought an advanced model of a popular company’s handset.
After a day or two, and more video conferences later, my father expressed happiness and thanked me saying that for the first time in his life I gave a correct advice.
But now he needed something from the earlier unfinished data transfer. He wanted the data in the older mobile handset into the new handset. I took both the handsets to the new vendor and requested him to do the transfer. He gave a polished glib talk giving me the impression that the earlier handset is a cheap model from which it is better not to transfer the data. Crestfallen, I dragged myself to my-father’s-mobile-nephew and asked him to do the needful. The nephew told me that he failed to get permission for 4G and 5G so he’s at a loss as to help me.
“…that”, the nephew told me then, “is also the reason why your father no longer procures his mobiles from me”.
*
Two years of COVID restrictions rolled on somehow. For more than a year and a half every Indian was literally imprisoned in their respective homes due to the on-going pandemic.
The technology argument resurfaced between me and my father once again.
Dad said, “…again the problem of poor-quality video and audio…”
“Ah! Our service provider has now upgraded to 5G+ …Your handset is 4G… Change your handset…”
“Hmm… you mean there’s no problem with the handset?”
“Yeah! There’s no problem with the handset. It is just outdated. It is no longer compatible with the existing technology“, I quipped.
“What do you mean?“
I played the cards differently this time.
“We are three people in this house now. How comfortable will it be if suddenly there are 15 people in this house now?”
“If you talk like that, a greater number of people can be made to adjust in the house…”
“But what if everyday 15 people keep coming into the house without vacating?”
“Ah! Then that will be a problem…”
“Ditto for your handset… It is receiving more information from the network than it can handle…”
“The Apps are also freezing occasionally…”
“Same logic… they are receiving more information and upgrading themselves to the new technology… time to change your handset…”
“How much will a basic handset that works will cost me?”
“The one that is compatible will cost you around Rs15,000. The one that is also compatible with your hearing aids will be at the least Rs20,000.”
Well, since my childhood, I always kept myself updated on the prices of the latest in market whether I need those items or not. Wishful thinking, I guess.
“If this is the case then, every year or two even if there is no malfunction, I am forced to change my handset. This is very bad…”
“That’s the flip side of the technological advancement… Whether you like it or not… Whether there’s a malfunction or not, we are forced to change our products leading to huge amounts of pollution…”
“Very bad state of affairs. Think about the laptops then. Unnecessarily we are shelling out truckloads of money just to keep us abreast of the technology…”
“Very bad state of affairs… the technology developers think everybody is a billionaire and everybody’s a computer geek…”
*
Thanks to our passions, every year, me and my dad each spend at least Rs8000 just for the batteries so that our watches are in working condition. The other day, I took an Indian watch of mine for servicing which I bought in 2001 with the first salary I received after my PhD. I bought it for Rs400 then.
The servicing personnel cooed, “Is this watch still working?”
Nostalgically, I asked, “What’s the price of this model now?”
“This model is no longer produced Sir…”
If this episode makes me misty-eyed, my Japanese watch always gives me goosepimples.
In 2010, I found a display board in a watch shop in the Fancy Bazaar of Guwahati that read, “Japanese – EcoFriendly watches”. I walked into the shop and bought the watch for about two thousand bucks. The manual said, “10-year Battery Life”. Believe it or not, it lasted 15 years and this is the only watch which did not give me an opportunity to change its battery.
Good and Honest things in life must be appreciated at the first opportunity.
[1]Telephony is the technology involving telephones for communication (audio or video), and data exchange between distant parties
I grew up surrounded by fish. My mom’s hobby was fishing with her relatives in our coastal hometown. The districts near our town’s fishport had small wet markets filled with a variety of fish common in our area. My mom enjoyed fishing early in the morning or near sundown, bringing home the catch for our meals. Some fish ended up on our breakfast or lunch table. While I never learned how to fish, I love eating all types of fish, except for the bony ones.
I no longer live in my hometown because our family has decided to sell our ancestral home due to perennial flooding. Since I now live in the foothills, I miss the kinds of fish I grew up with, as fish are scarce where I currently reside.
Our mother had to learn how to prepare delectable fish dishes for us, since we were carnivorous as children. She also had to devise unique ways to present the food in a manner that was both attractive and nutritious, without overpowering its traditional flavor.
The types of fish common in my hometown include talimusak (needlefish), biya (gizzard shad), sapsap (silverbelly), bisugo (threadfin bream), bangus (milkfish), and bidbid (ladyfish). I clearly remember them because they were cooked in different dishes using basic ingredients such as vinegar, soy sauce, tomatoes, ginger, coconut milk, chili leaves, Chinese cabbage, regular cabbage, bitter gourd, eggplants, potatoes, guavas, sweet potato leaves, and eggs. Nothing fancy.
I have never learned how to cook any fish dishes, although I tried once when I was on my own many years ago after my siblings resettled in a southern province and abroad. I think the preparation is relatively tedious. However, I can usually tell if the fish used in a dish is fresh, even if it has been frozen.
One of my favourite dishes is ladyfish balls in sweet-and-sour sauce, or simply fried in a wheat-flour batter, served with noodle soup and sprinkled with fried garlic and leeks—a hearty soup, typically enjoyed in rainy weather.
Another dish I enjoy is bisugo (threadfin bream) simply prepared in vinegar, water, ginger, eggplant, and bottle gourd. While a few Filipino traditional fish dishes have recently become fusion, I still prefer the basic dish with which I am familiar.
Talimusak (needlefish) is usually dried in the sun for a few hours, then fried and placed on small barbecue sticks, and served with a vinegar dip of chopped chilies and red onions for a healthy snack.
One common dish is milkfish steak in lemon juice, soy sauce, and onion rings. Boneless milkfish was uncommon in my growing-up years.
The fish are not raised on farms, but they grow naturally upstream in rivers and bays. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for their diminishing size and numbers. I never knew of other types of fish farms besides milkfish when I was younger. Technological advances and community encroachment may be crucial factors in each fish story.
In my province, there is a lake called Laguna de Bay, famous for ayungin (silver perch), which is flavorful in a tamarind-based soup. Two years ago, when my youngest brother and his family returned on holiday, he asked me to buy dried silver perch for him to carry with him to his home in North America. Unfortunately, overfishing is a major concern.
Laguna De Bay. From Public Domain
Another issue facing Laguna de Bay is the proliferation of water hyacinth, which adversely affects aquatic life and navigation. Although some community-based NGOs collect the plants and convert them into slippers, this commendable effort is insufficient, given that Laguna de Bay is the Philippines’ largest lake, spanning roughly 911–949 square kilometers (km²).
With the passage of time and the advancement of exploration, we may discover new species of fish that have not been a part of our traditional food sources. The continuous quest to identify new fish that can be consumed is a means of ensuring that there is a sufficient supply to satisfy the nutritional requirements of our population.
Laguna de Bay. From Public Domain
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Manuel A. Alindogan, Jr. or Jun A. Alindogan is the Academic Director of the Expanded Alternative Learning Program of Empowered East, a Rizal-province based NGO in the Philippines and is also the founder of Speechsmart Online that specializes in English test preparation courses. He is a freelance writer and a member of the Freelance Writers’ Guild of the Philippines (FWGP).
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Alex pointed the flare towards the ocean and released it. The flare was originally from the boat, but had passed its use-by date so we had decided to release it to celebrate the New Year. But instead of heading into the ocean the flare changed trajectory, turning at right angles into the wind and headed into the hills. In the distance we saw a flame erupt, but it didn’t die down as expected.
“Oh no! A fire? Let’s go and put it out,” shouted Alex.
The six of us piled back into the ute[1] and drove to the site of the fire. A trail of light extended down the gully towards the ocean. Surely, it wouldn’t last long on this cold summer night? I shivered in my coat and walked down the hill to the house to change into a heavier coat. When I returned the fire burned ever more brightly.
“Let’s go and get the water tank so we can extinguish it,” suggested Alex.
We drove back down the hill towards the orchard to retrieve the water trailer.
“Alex pulled and pulled on the starter cord. Damn! It’s refusing to start!” exclaimed Alex.
Then, Aaron joined us to help us pull the cord several more times, to no avail. Eventually, after trying about fifty times, we gave up. Instead, we ferried twenty-litre jerry cans of water to the fire front, but the miserly amount of water was no match for the ever-growing fire. Aaron’s mother, Rochelle, emptied a wheelie bin of recyclables, pulled it towards the water tank, and filled it with water. She and Aaron pulled it towards the fire to douse the flames. At that point Alex realised that we couldn’t contain the fire ourselves and called the fire department. I wasn’t sure what to do, so returned to the house to fill a bucket with water. Rochelle rushed into the house.
“Can we have some towels to douse the embers?”
I reached the top cupboard in the laundry and grabbed the freshly laundered guest towels. I handed them to Rochelle.
“Thanks,” she said, and ran out of the house.
Rochelle and Aaron, upon the advice of a concerned neighbour who had observed the fire and come over, whacked the embers with a wet towel that they had dipped in the wheelie bins. Rochelle protected the water tanks by treating the nearby embers with the heavy wet cotton towels. Her actions saved the water tanks from melting, as the fire edged close but stopped just before making contact with the equipment. Aaron protected the hot tub in the same way with the wet towels.
The hot tub is saved. Photo Courtesy: Meredith Stephens
The casuarinas were at risk of being burnt and would have added fuel to the fire. Aaron smothered one of the casuarinas with the towel and averted a further spread of the fire to the cedar hot tub. That is how Rochelle saved the water tanks and Aaron the hot tub.
The fire trucks arrived. The fire-fighters did not know the lie of the land, and this was compounded by the darkness. Rochelle’s husband, Brian, had anticipated this, and directed them where to go. It was dark. The unsealed road to the house was unlit. The fire-fighters directed their giant hoses to the fire. Now the fire had turned and extended to the front of the house. I found another towel and drenched it with tap water. I saw a man in uniform outside the front door, and assuming he was a fire-fighter, directed a question to him.
“Which area would be best to douse flames with this towel?”
“I don’t think that’s really necessary now. The fire-fighters are here.”
I looked at him more carefully and noticed that ‘police’ was written on his uniform.
“Are you staying here?” he asked.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“Who called the fire-fighters first?” he asked me.
“Alex,” I answered.
“The house is safe,” he advised. “You don’t need to do anything.”
Alex saving the house. Photo Courtesy: Meredith StephensThe author not knowing…. Photo Courtesy: Ruby Riessen
Once we knew the house was safe, we looked at our phone and discovered it was 12.18 in the morning. 2026 had arrived without us noticing. Rochelle’s jeans were blackened all over, and she had smudges of soot on her hands and face. Alex had blackened ankles, and a large patch of soot on this face. I wish I could claim I was covered in soot too, but in typical fashion the crisis had left me in a state of paralysis. Despite our fatigue it was impossible to simply go to bed as usual. We needed to process the events of the evening. Inexplicably, we suddenly felt hungry. Alex, Brian, Rochelle, Aaron and I sat around the coffee table and consumed large quantities of cheese, crackers and dips. Suddenly, at 2 am, our tiredness caught up with us. We felt guilty going to bed when there were still firefighters dousing the last of the flames in the distance, but we gave in to the overwhelming urge to sleep.
The next morning, a fierce sunshine pierced into my room but I resisted the urge to get up. Surely yesterday would have been a dream, and I would be greeted by the usual vegetation when I looked out of the window. I remembered the blackened treeless landscape on the highway leading from Fresno to Huntingdon in California a couple of years earlier and dreaded being greeted by a similar scene. I braced myself to look outside. The grasses had burnt over many hectares and extended close to the infrastructure but not burnt any of it. The aforementioned water tanks and cedar hot tub were unscathed, as was the house and the ancient coastal forest. Alex had lost some of his revegetation, consisting of a few pines and immature casuarinas. The other damage was that the police advised Alex that he would receive a fine for letting off a flare when there was no emergency. There would be no further action because the fire was confined to his property and had not extended to the neighbours’ properties. This was thanks to our wonderful house guests and the dedicated fire-fighting volunteers who worked through the night.
The next day, a helicopter repeatedly flew in front of the house, along the coast, dumping one thousand litre buckets of water at particular points on the sand. There was a risk that in hot conditions the sandy patches could erupt into flames again.
Next new year we will content ourselves with sitting in front of the television to watch the official fireworks, if we can be bothered staying up that late. We have had a first-hand and first-time experience of a bushfire, which has given us a new respect for the speed and ferocity of a bushfire, and a fresh awareness of the necessity of being prepared.
[1] An Australian term for a vehicle with a passenger cabin and an open cargo space at the back
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Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.
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Samridh had always dreamt of standing atop the mound of Moosa Bagh for the last four years. His good friend Kabir had so animatedly filled his head with its haunting, almost transcendent images that Sam was engrossed by its structure, its history and the sheer fact that it was located in the most “silent parts of the city’s outer realm”. This made the place seem unattainable but also something to hold close to memory.
Kabir filled Samridh with the essence of Lucknow’s quintessential wonders and took him to a few of these “outposts”, sturdy sentinels who had seen decay and ruin and could even possibly be forgotten by the city’s dazzling archive that only focused on the centre. Sam now wanted to visit Moosa Bagh at any cost. He even expressed the desire to explore it all alone. Something about a mostly ruined but still beautiful archeological anamoly was deeply attractive to him.
It was the first week of August. It was an inclement day. Kabir was accompanying Sam. As soon as they took the left turn from Hussainabad ahead of the Bara Imambara and Rumi Darwaza, the sea of classically constructed mansions as old as Time’s curves and twitches, shops spanning the panorama of generations, mosques, temples and commotion that could be intercepted from the flanks of the new flyover made him giddy. If this was a quiet expanse, it wouldn’t be the same. The mass of humanity was the bloodline of the old city and nobody could truly fall prey to anodyne loneliness within these streets and lanes, not one angle bereft of sound and sights. No other place could make him inhale the aroma of sheermaals, kababs and biryani from the sea of eateries. No foreword could prepare him for the colours and shapes of the vegetables being hauled and taken out of the Dubagga Sabzi Mandi[1]— not one crackle of feet and wheels on the road or the cacophony of voices seemed to bother him. He was looking at it all for the first time, taking in the splendour of an area he had never set foot in before. Most impressive was the electrical tower which was almost shaped like an ubiquitous monument in Paris.
But soon the commotion cleared and the roads became more accommodative. They breathed in fragrance of the fresh air. The disappearing outline of buildings suggested that Moosa Bagh was near. Sam saw the open land in front of him as the car slowly made its way towards the mound. There was no human presence here except a young man on a bicycle. The land was mostly barren but little growths of plants and grass were still everywhere. It was the monsoon that kept its promise of verdure. Sam took a deep breath because as soon as he shifted his gaze to his left, he saw a dark red, earthy brown texture. Moosa Bagh was a beauty, a theatre of visuals that truly unveiled itself under the hazy sky so that the black stilts on its remaining mossy walls with overgrowth narrated its own saga, not of pain or destruction but something enduring, like Dali’s melting clocks or the moors in Wuthering Heights, or the solitary hills in Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain.
Sam gasped, beholding its outer ramparts that had holes like eyes; they could look into a visitor’s soul and read the signs of storm that had been delayed. It was just Samridh and Kabir looking over an ancient well in the compound, feeling the strength in the bricks that had seen glorious times when this was a haven. A spiritual poem seemed to grow out of the structure.
This was exactly how Kabir had come to accept it as the unheralded silent sentinel that perhaps allowed true believers to visit the place, finding in the process that it was not a ghost of the past or an architectural aberration. It was once a palace disseminating pleasure and leisurely journeys. On that day, two men deeply in love with Lucknow touched the tangle of leaves and the heft of twains, their appearance like an elderly person’s head full of grey river currents.
Kabir nodded. Samridh looked at the field of freedom that surrounded this mound, a place up there under inclement skies and reaching the upper realms of open reality with the shapes and contours of an unusual reprieve.
We discard secrets at the end of the line. We keep grinding on whetstones of popular appeal. But there are places and the feelings they evoke that don’t surrender to overestimated beauty or courting excitable crowds. In our world, a city can be oblivious to one sight and can still have the maganimity to send two introverts to its most treasured corners so that they salvage the essence of its history anew. Moosa Bagh is a beneficiary of these second chances. It is a place of charm and exquisite freedom to sensitive young men like Kabir and Samridh. Visits at the end of every month here have solidified their friendship into something greater than the sum of their parts.
At nights, Sam comes to his senses and initiates the same wondrous raptures that came to him on a gusty August afternoon. He is thankful for a storyteller like Lucknow. He feels it in his bones how Moosa Bagh is a symbol of the depths that he had never charted within his little lifetime, so far finding places close to his feet and repeating the same cycle of familiarity. But now going to an outer realm is no longer about being a traveller out of breath or time. He still dreams of Moosa Bagh almost every night, asleep on its mound, kissed by the moon and keeping its eyes in its walls open, telepathically conveying its deepest mysteries to him. Moosa Bagh is a sentinel taking him towards the perpetual road to his beloved city’s inner soul.
Then…Now…Moosa or Musa Bagh is an eighteenth century garden and monument also known as Monsieur Bagh. From Public Domain
*Note: Sam and Kabir are persona taken on by the author and his friend.
Prithvijeet Sinha is an MPhil from the University of Lucknow, having launched his prolific writing career by self-publishing on the worldwide community Wattpad since 2015 and on his WordPress blog An Awadh Boy’s Panorama. Besides that, his works have been published in several journals and anthologies.
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“Which part of India did your people come from?” asked the Tamil tour guide during our last trip to Chennai.
“I know my forefathers came from Tamil Nadu, but, sorry can’t tell you which part of Tamil Nadu or village they came from,” I told him in Tamil. “I am a third generation Malaysian Indian. We lost touch with all the relatives back home.”
“Your Tamil is very good for someone out of this country. Judging from way you speak, you could pass off for someone from Thanjavur!” he went on.
“People from Malaysia have mostly left their original accent and have developed new ones with Malay and Chinese words in theirs, so you cannot pigeonhole them to any region in India anymore.” I replied.
In a philosophical tone, he paused, then said, “I am here in Chennai, and you are there in Malaysia, and the only thing that connects us is the Tamil language.”
Of course, there is the DNA that unites us, but the bond that draws us to India is independent of the language spoken or written.
Our little conversation reminded me of the 1980s music video ‘Down Under’ by the Australian rock band, Men at Work. In that scene, the singer goes around the world, and everyone recognises him with his characteristic Aussie mannerisms. “Do you come from a land Down Under?” is their first response.
My grandparents and parents believed that, despite moving away from their homeland due to increasingly hostile living conditions, it was necessary to pass down their culture and language. Perhaps it was the only language they knew. They did not turn their backs on Tamil Nadu, nor let their offspring immerse themselves solely in the local culture. They had no anger towards their country. They did not turn their backs on her. They understood their motherland was going through difficult times and that tides would eventually change. Maybe they thought that one day their descendants would return and boast about how their princes of the soil had succeeded in a distant land, even while still holding onto their ancestral roots – the mother tongue.
It looks like the sun has risen, and the country has awakened from her long slumber, continuing to pursue what she stopped in her glorious past. Even her children, who have spread across all corners of the Earth, have made her proud.
For the rest of my trip, I conversed in Tamil, checked into a four-star hotel, and even conducted transactions at a bank counter. At first glance, I am sure they could tell I was not local, with liberal use of the word ‘lah’[1] in my sentences and the distinctive sing-song manner Malaysians use when speaking Tamil, it seems. The Malaysians are also described as extremely courteous, unlike the locals there.
[1]Lah is a phrase used by Malaysians and Singaporeans in local parlance
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Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog, Rifle Range Boy.
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Narrative by Meredith Stephens: Photographs by Alan Noble
Sydney Skyline
We are not champagne sailors. The only time Alex and I drink champagne aboard a boat is to celebrate the end of a voyage of hundreds of nautical miles. Our sailing expeditions are characterised by breakages, deprivations and isolation. Sometimes the seas are so rough that I cannot move around the boat, let alone change clothes. I can only bathe once a week, and that consists of a dip in the ocean at anchor.
Our meals often consist of fish we have caught and cooked, unless we consume them immediately as sashimi. A single fish might last us days, served in various guises. Other meals are prepared from lentils or canned foods. In contrast to land trips, I usually lose a kilogram or two when at sea. I prefer not to use the term ‘yacht’, because people imagine us sunning ourselves on the deck while sipping champagne. Instead, I use the term ‘sailboat’. I do confess to a tad of reverse snobbery in the deprivations I endure and look down on those I describe as ‘champagne sailors’. But was that about to change?
We had been invited aboard the luxury observer vessel known as The Jackson to watch the start of the annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race on Boxing Day. After Christmas lunch, we headed to Adelaide Airport to catch our ninety-minute flight to Sydney. Upon arrival at our hotel, we caught the lift to our room. The lift doors opened on the third floor to let two brothers in, aged around 10 and 12. They met our gaze.
“Would you like us to sing you a Christmas carol?” the younger one asked.
The older one looked a bit embarrassed, but I thought asking strangers to join in singing a carol in a lift on Christmas Day was a nice, if not brave gesture, so I nodded enthusiastically. The younger one started singing ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’, and facing us, moved his hands in the manner of a choir conductor. I joined in. Then the boys noticed that they had arrived at their floor and stopped singing.
“See ya!” said the older one, as they exited.
We continued to the seventh floor and deposited our bags. The light was fading, so we decided to head back outside to take a stroll around the harbour. We returned to the lift. Once we reached the fifth floor the doors opened and the two boys entered again. Three other guests were standing behind us.
“More carols?” asked Alex.
They nodded and smiled. “Yes!”
They launched into another familiar carol, and again I joined in. The tall guest behind me gave a kindly chuckle. Then they reached the third floor, bade us farewell, and exited. We continued to the ground floor and made a tour of Darling Harbour in the remaining light. It had been a wonderful Christmas Day, and what better way to end it than the act of goodwill in being serenaded by children in a hotel lift.
The next day was the yacht race, which has been held annually since 1945 and is one of the world’s great ocean races. The sailors would be competing in a gruelling and treacherous race of 128 boats covering 628 nautical miles (1,200 km), south down the Tasman Sea, across Bass Strait, to Hobart in the south of Tasmania. This race is one of the highlights of Boxing Day and a television staple.
Start of Sydney to Hobart race
We walked to the appointed wharf and noticed a long queue waiting to board. Upon being noticed by our hosts, we were directed to a shorter queue and were ushered up the stairs to the top deck, limited to fewer than sixty people. A ribbon with ‘The Jackson’ written on it was affixed to our wrists. We were greeted by a waiter holding a tray proffering a range of drinks. Alex picked up two glasses of champagne and handed one to me. Was this the beginning of my new career as a champagne sailor?
The Jackson soon departed and we headed out to the deck to view the boats lining up for the race. Even though it was summer the cold penetrated my body and my hands shook. I was determined to brave the cold in order to hold my place to view the start of the race. The lady next to me made some commentary.
“That’s the start line,” she said, pointing to two yellow buoys. The start lines are staggered depending on the the size of the boats to help prevent collisions. It’s a southerly, so that should help.”
I nodded, feigning comprehension. I was not yet a competent enough sailor to pick up the wind direction so quickly. The cannon sounded on the deck below, and a plume of smoke rose. The yachts set off. Soon they had overtaken our observation vessel and most of the guests moved back inside the boat to watch the race on a large screen. Alex and I and a few other hardy souls remained on the outside deck to savour the unique setting of Sydney Harbour. Waiters braved the cold regularly to top up our champagne and offer us canapes. We accepted each time, although I eventually slowed down and shared a glass of champagne with Alex. Had we become the dreaded champagne sailors?
The yachts sailed through the heads until most of them disappeared from view. The Jackson turned around and headed back to King Street Wharf. We remained outside on the deck in the cold, making the most of every minute because Sydney Harbour is so far from home, and we may never have this opportunity again.
I stubbornly refuse to accept the title of champagne sailor though. We are temporarily boatless (which is another story) but once we resume sailing again later this year, we hope to return to the days of self-reliance on the boat and sourcing our meals from the ocean. Maybe not too much deprivation though, because we will continue to uncork a bottle of champagne, as is our tradition, after completing a major ocean passage of several hundred nautical miles.
Sydney to Hobart race
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Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.
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Ubud: Where Dean and Keith Stayed. Photo by Keith Lyons
So many questions remain about Dean. Many remain unanswered. Top of that list would have to be “Is Dean still alive?”, followed by “How and when did Dean die?”
But underlying all those questions about a gentleman I met in Indonesia in the late 2010s is the fact that I, along with many others who encountered him on the island of Bali, regard him as a ‘good man’ and miss his presence.
“Have you ever wondered if he is still alive but just can’t communicate?” suggested an associate; a possible scenario, given Dean was in his seventh decade on this Earth. “What would happen if he just turns up again? Wouldn’t that be funny?” another pondered.
I first met Dean a couple of years after I moved to the cultural heart of Bali, Ubud, a small town a couple of hundred metres above sea level, a place sometimes with its head in the clouds. When I moved into a room overlooking the rice paddies, just 10 minutes’ walk from the centre of town, I heard about Dean before I first met him in person. Staff mentioned the other ‘permanent’ residing in the neighbouring bungalow. Later that day, in the turquoise waters of the infinity pool that overlooked the gully cloaked in jungle, I saw a figure glide underwater from one end to the other, dive flippers giving the impression the creature was both extraordinarily tall and also well-suited to amphibious life.
Dean, as I was later to learn, was both frugal and generous. I never quite worked out if he was living off savings or a veteran’s benefit. Or if he served in the military or actively tried to avoid it. When I first met him on the pathway that connects our respective residences to the main path that straddles the accommodation and the rice fields, he told me how he would eat lunch at a local food stall, known as a warung, with it being as little as 10,000 rupiah — less than US$1 — for a simple rice-based meal.
He cared less for the plethora of cute Instagram cafes and foodie-recommended ‘must-try’ restaurants that catered to the tourists who thronged the central market and motorcycle-packed streets of Jalan Raya Ubud. Though, there was one exception. Every so often, sometimes to mark his arrival back from a visa-run to Malaysia (most foreigners living in Bali usually have to exit every three or six months depending on their visas), or at the end of his long stay, when he was about to travel elsewhere in south east Asia, as the end of year rainy season ramped up — then Dean displayed his munificence. He would treat the staff — and a few hangers on — to a calzone from a long-established pizza joint that prided itself on its secret sauce. Being a folded-over pizza, the fillings remain hot during its journey in the box on the back of a Honda Vario scooter.
I got invited to join in one of those calzone feasts. We sat under a long pagoda looking out across beyond the pool and jungle to the terraces and the ridge where silhouettes were just visible in the twilight. Dean was very much a global citizen, well-travelled, and scuba diving in almost as many countries as he had visited. He had worked as a dive instructor at schools and resorts. He still had with him equipment for aqua-living, along with other items stored in other places where he had lived and worked.
Just as scuba diving requires adherence to safe practices and procedures, Dean’s life on terra firma also followed routines and habits, which he hoped would ensure his longevity. One day he asked me to check an unusual skin condition with white patchiness on his upper arm, which he had convinced himself by Googling might be pre-cancerous. He was going to have it checked out, but on closer inspection, I thought it might just be a local fungal infection. Fortunately, it cleared up a week or so later, so he didn’t have to visit a clinic.
Because Dean seemed to live such an active life and appeared fitter and healthier than most of the visitors to Bali, it seemed like he was in a sweet spot: retired but active, living a simple life of contentment, sharing good vibes with all and sundry.
So, it was a surprise, after the COVID pandemic with its travel restrictions, that I didn’t hear from Dean, and later, concluded he must have left us. It was only a few months ago when I returned to Bali that the reality of his absence became more evident. When I visited, instead of my usual room at the end of the block overlooking the jungle, I was given the next upstairs bungalow, the one Dean usually stayed in.
Staff, as well as the former ‘manager’ and one of his closest friends, told me they hadn’t heard from him for more than a year. He’d moved to a coastal settlement, closer to the sea, and there were rumours he’d met someone. “Perhaps she was a gold-digger,” suggested his local friend, who I’ll call No. 4. “But I don’t think Dean had much gold for her to mine.”
As we sat under the gazebo, gazing out at the perfect postcard scene of harmony between humans and nature, No. 4 confided that if Dean had already died, he had a rather onerous duty. Dean had asked him to dispose of his body. I thought perhaps that the American might have requested a cremation ritual, common on the island, which has evolved a blend of Hinduism, animism, and Buddhism into a rich mix of ceremony and devotion. But no, instead, he had requested that No.4 deal with his bodily form in another way. “See those coconut trees,” No.4 pointed towards the tall palm trees in the gully, which rose high up to their crown canopy of green fronds sheltering its fruit orbs. “Dean wanted to be strung up in one of those.”
We talked about the practicality of somehow hauling his body up 25 metres or more, and then about what processes and creatures might consume his corpse. It was quite a natural way to go, we concluded, though we did wonder about the sight, smell and impact on other guests staying in the bungalows.
“Dean also had another option, he mentioned to me a few times,” said No. 4, who seemed troubled by the responsibility. Plan B involved Dean’s body being fed to the lions at Bali Zoo. Dean had obviously given this some thought, and it weighed heavily on No.4, not just his role as Dean’s body caretaker, but what the duty might entail.
The following evening, my last before heading back home, I invited No.4 and some of others who knew Dean to get together. Amid the chat and speculation, the cool drinks and spicy snacks, as the breeze picked up and swayed the coconut trees gently this way and that, we had an informal farewell to Dean. Another of his friends — let’s call him Guitar Man — nominated one coconut tree and reckoned with some rope it would be possible to string up a body. No one wanted to try calling Dean’s phone, so I did again, just to confirm it was true. The number was out of service.
Another who knew Dean, let’s call him TaxiMan, talked through what Plan B might involve: chopping up with a machete Dean’s corpse, putting it into bags, visiting the zoo during its 9am to 5pm opening hours, and either throwing the parts over into the lion’s enclosure, or joining the special ‘Lion Feeding’ session (US$5). “I can find out what times they feed the lions and tigers,” he said, having worked out the practicality of this option. No. 4 looked nervous. There was more risk attached with this option, not just from a lion’s fangs, but from the law. How would you explain bags of body parts?
Then, just in time, I heard the strain of the motor-scooter coming up the rise of the terrace towards our place. It was the pizza delivery guy bearing two boxes with calzones I’d ordered.
As for Dean, we still don’t know for sure if he has died. We don’t know the circumstances of his death, or what remains of his body. What we do know is that he is still cherished and remembered. And that there can be few better legacies than to have friends fondly recall a person with a blend of missing, gratitude, and humour.
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Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer and creative writing mentor originally from New Zealand who has spent a quarter of his existence living and working in Asia including southwest China, Myanmar and Bali. His Venn diagram of happiness features the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee, the negative ions of the natural world including moving water, and connecting with others in meaningful ways. A Contributing Editor on Borderless journal’s Editorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.
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“Please show me your international driver’s licence.”
“Certainly!”
Alex produced the licence.
“This is out of date! I’m sorry but we can’t hand over the car.”
“No! It’s current! It’s valid for five years.”
We scrutinized the licence. The start date was prominently displayed, but not the expiration date. As we squinted to decipher the fine print on page three, we discovered that it had expired three years ago. Alex had thought it would be valid for five years, but it was only valid for one. We attributed it to his light-heartedly referred to “OCD Deficit Disorder”. And that is how a one-week road trip suddenly became a public transport and taxi trip.
This was my first visit back to Japan after having left at the beginning of the pandemic. Alex and I had been deliberating where to spend our honeymoon, and we agreed that the island of Shikoku in western Japan where I had spent over twenty years would be our first choice.
Onigiri. Photo courtesy: Mariko Hisamatsu
There were so many things to look forward to. The first thing I did, before even leaving Kansai Airport, was rush into the convenience store and buy an onigiri flavoured with an umeboshi pickled plum. An onigiri is a triangle of rice, with a choice of flavours in the centre such as fish, seaweed, or the aforementioned umeboshi. It is wrapped in a crisp sheet of seaweed. Before eating it you gently pull away a thin layer of wrapping which protects the outer seaweed from absorbing the moisture of the rice. As you bite into it you can enjoy the three distinct textures and flavours – the piquant centre, the contrasting bland rice, and the crisp outer layer of seaweed. Next, I purchased a mugwort daifuku. This is a Japanese sweet, consisting of a layer of pounded mugwort-flavoured rice around a centre of sweet azuki bean paste. All of this was washed down with a bottle of green tea.
From the above account, it might sound like I was returning to Japan to indulge in simple culinary delights from a convenience store, and maybe this is a possibility I am unwilling to admit to myself. Of course, the main purpose was to reconnect with old friends, the second to reconnect with old pleasures, such as the aforementioned onigiri and daifuku, and the third, to stay in a traditional Japanese house.
After having been refused permission to drive our hire car, we headed back towards the terminal and searched for the railway station. We caught trains out to the UNESCO heritage listed site of Koyasan to enjoy the autumn leaves, and then seven trains and two buses later, to Wakayama station. Finally, we caught a taxi to our accommodation, which turned out to be a house that was over two hundred years ago, dating from the end of the Edo Period.
Jiomaru-an Edo period house. Photo Courrtesy: Alan Noble Inside the house. Photo Courtesy: The Host
The door slid open to reveal an earthen floor. We walked down the hall to the kitchen, left our shoes in the sunken area, and donned the provided slippers. The kitchen opened onto two traditional tatami rooms, with fusuma sliding cupboards, and latticed paper shoji screens leading onto the garden. Beyond the shoji was a narrow hall known as an engawa, with a small wooden table and chair where you could enjoy sipping a drink while looking out over the garden. This was the kind of room I had been longing for during my five years away from Japan.
But we hadn’t had dinner yet and I was longing to ride to a local supermarket to purchase a ready meal.
‘“Do you have any bicycles?” I asked the host.
“Certainly. We have mountain bikes too!”
“You don’t want to go cycling in the dark?” queried Alex. “Not after a long-distance flight, seven trains, two buses, and a taxi ride? Surely not!”
I insisted, and Alex gave up persuading me otherwise. Rather than a mountain bike I chose the mamachari, a vintage bike replete with a shopping basket attached to the front handlebars.
We cycled to the supermarket, as I had done almost daily during my twenty years of living in Shikoku. There we bought sushi and sashimi ready meals, and cycled home, scanning to avoid roadside ditches with sheer drops and no guard rails. Once safely home, we indulged in the much longed for sushi and sashimi, enjoyed the traditional deep Japanese bath, spread out the futons on the tatami, and luxuriated in a deep sleep.
The next morning, we woke to a gentle light streaming through the latticed paper shoji screens. We cycled to Wakayama castle, Alex on the mountain bike and me on the mamachari. We strolled around the traditional garden before entering the castle and then completed it with a visit to the adjacent tearoom, where we enjoyed green tea and a sweet bean paste confectionery.
The following day, we bid farewell to our Edo Period home, and our kind host drove us to the ferry terminal. As soon as I saw the sign in Japanese for Tokushima, I could feel the colour rising to my cheeks. This had been my home in Japan for fifteen of my twenty years in Shikoku, until the day I departed for a routine visit to Australia, just before the international borders were closed due to COVID. Little did I know that the pandemic would prevent me from returning to Japan. I boarded the ferry as I had so many other times after returning from various work trips, but this time I was visiting on my honeymoon. The two-hour crossing readied me for the arrival in my old stomping ground and was heralded by the sentimental music played to signal a homecoming. Alex and I exited the ferry to be met by my old friend and writing mentor, Suzanne. Overcome with emotion, I covered my face with my hands to spare her the sight of my crumpled features and then gave her a hug. Then I went back to covering my swollen eyes and gave her another hug.
Platter of Sushi at Sally’s home. Photo courtesy: Alan Noble
Suzanne drove us to the home of the son of another old friend, Sally, who had kindly offered us a couple of nights’ accommodation. That evening a subset of old friends dropped in to see us and eat sushi. I braced myself for the entry of each friend into the house, trying to compose my features, after an unanticipated five-year interval. My eyes, however, betrayed me. I caught the expressions of those who returned by gaze, and they could sense my relief and excitement of meeting them again. Over five years people’s appearances were a little different. Those who had long hair now wore it shorter. Those with shorter hair had grown it. Those who were curvaceous were now svelte, and those who were svelte were now curvaceous. A child had now become a lanky teenager. I’m sure I must have looked different to them too. What had not changed was people’s smiles, conversation and sense of humour. People who I would normally see a few times over a month were now all present in the same room in the space of a few hours.
A few days later, we took the bus across Shikoku to Matsuyama, where another happy reunion took place of eight friends from six different countries. I was freshly aware of the joys of the expat life, where you can make friends from a greater range of countries, and a greater range of ages, than you would at home.
Ranma Carvings in a traditional room. Photo Courtesy: Alan Noble
I had been craving another stay in a traditional house, and we savoured a room with ranma carvings suspended from the ceiling, letting in light and air flow from the adjacent room. We sat at the kotatsu low heated table on the tatami, and slept on futon, in a room featuring shoji paper screens facing outside and fusuma cupboards where futons were stored. Features which had once seemed so ordinary were now infused with nostalgia.
Family obligations called us back to Australia after only one week of our Japanese honeymoon. A taxi was followed by a bus which took us on the long trek back across Shikoku, driving through impossibly long tunnels, crossing elegant bridges, with views of the sea and mountains. Once we crossed the final bridge onto the largest main island of Honshu, the landscape was transformed into high rise apartments, and dense traffic. We alighted from the bus at Kobe’s Sannomiya Station.
There we asked directions to the airport limousine bus and made a final purchase of onigiri. My favourite umeboshi pickled plum one was not on sale, so I had to make do with a tuna mayonnaise one and a pickled seaweed one. We ran to the bus stop, purchased tickets, and skipped into the bus holding our luggage. There was no time to store the luggage in the hold. Once the bus pulled into the traffic, we knew we could relax after our long and complicated journey. I gently pulled away the wrapping separating the layers of the tuna mayonnaise onigiri and savoured the contrasting flavours and textures. Our fleeting trip to Japan was punctuated by savouring onigiri on both arrival and departure. We bade farewell to this land of delectable tastes, exquisite arts, historic houses, hair-raising bicycle rides, and precious friends.
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Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.
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