Category: Slices from Life

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Slices from Life

To Bid or Not to Bid… the Final Goodbye?

That is the question Ratnottama Sengupta is asking with so many grey heads since London’s Westminster voted in favour of Assisted Dying

From Public Domain

“She was in so much pain these last four months that we are not mourning her final exit. We are celebrating her liberation.”

Speaking with Bhabhi’s[1] nephew last week forced me to readjust my emotions regarding the final goodbye. Condolences are in order, worldwide, when a dear one departs the mortal world. But of late I have been noticing that people “celebrate the life’ of the departed soul rather than mourn the death. Yes, every departure is a loss, taking an emotional toll of those left behind. And still I am not shocked nor angry that on June 20, a day after Bhabhi breathed her last in Singapore, the British Parliament voted in favour of a bill to legalise Assisted Dying for terminally ill people.

This has paved the way for a long debated social change that has, for as long as I can remember, been held in abeyance. Because? It has always been argued that, since we cannot bring the dead to life, we do not have the right to take away life. Indeed, the UK parliamentarians voted on the subject 10 years after it was first proposed, I learn from the news reports. And even as the Wise Men of London debated the issue, demonstrators outside were crying out, “Kill the Bill, Not the Ill.”

Once the Bill is passed by the House of Lords, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Law will give “mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales with six months or less life to live, the right to choose to end their life with medical assistance. Those who would want the procedure would have to gain the compassionate “Aye!” of two doctors and a panel of experts.

While the scrutiny by the Upper House might take months, it is unlikely to be blocked now that it has gone past the Commons and secured a nod from the PM.

*

My first acquaintance with the concept was garbed in the words, ‘Mercy Killing’. I was a school-going teenager when I read a Bengali courtroom drama, Parashuramer Kuthar (1989, Parashuram’s Axe) where the son was in the dock, fighting the charge of murdering his mother with morphine. “Night after night she would cry out of acute pain. Night after night I sat by her bed, watching her inch towards death. The doctor had prescribed the morphine that let her sleep at night. But when that failed, I gave her a repeat dose so she could go to sleep…”

Half a century ago that sounded ominous. Now, having seen — and digested — the ‘Assisted Suicide’ of celluloid icon Jean Luc Godard [2] in the autumn of 2022, I have been weighing my responses to the concept. 

Godard, born on July 7, 1930, had lived in France from where he had revolutionised cinema across the globe. At the age of 91, with “multiple disabling pathologies” — to quote his doctors — he went to Switzerland because that was the only country to have legalised euthanasia as long back as 1941. Albeit they have specifications, the overriding one being this: the person assisting the suicide must not have any selfish — read, monetary — motive to provide the seeker the means to exit. 

*

“Euthanasia is death with dignity,” my Jyotish Pishamoshai had said three decades ago. At 90 something, the man who went around all his life in trams and buses, to look up his younger cousins, simply hated to be bed bound. Besides, he had seen his youngest brother Dinesh “hang till death” at age 20, without a trace of remorse for having bombed the Writers Building in the Capital of the Raj. So why would the elder brother, his memory intact, want to “be a burden” to even his only son? Mercifully, Sudhir Da did not have to go the way of Parashuram. The almighty in heaven voted for the nonagerian’s exit.

*

My response to the issue peaked when I read this poem, ‘Antim Akanksha’ (The Last Wish) , by Purnendu Ghosh of Jaipur. This IIT-ian from Kanpur, a diehard cinema aficionado, has penned the same thoughts in Bengali and English too. But I had already translated his anguish in Hindi before I spoke with him. “I had written these lines when I was sitting by my mother-in-law, then languishing in the hospital. When I had first seen her, she was 46. Over the next 46 years, I was witness to the transformation age had forced upon her  I could only watch, helpless, because the final exit is in the hands of only the Almighty.”

I am still weighing my responses. Yes, I believe in the Existence of a Superior Force. Still, when a person has to lie waiting to bid goodbye to pain, would he or she wait for His mercy, or that of the medics?

[1] Sister-in-law

[2] https://www.onmanorama.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/2022/09/16/filmmaker-film-critic-jean-luc-godard-suicide-debates-switzerland.html

Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of  The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and writes books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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Slices from Life

From Cape Canaveral to Carnarvon

Narrative by Meredith Stephens & photographs by Alan Noble

The Prime Meridian Line.

Whenever we visit another city, Alex and I always head straight for a science or maritime museum. When we spent a day in London several years ago, Alex insisted that we visit the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and then the Royal Observatory. The highlight of the latter was John Harrison’s marine timekeepers, which made the calculation of longitude at sea possible, therefore making navigation safer. A fun part of visiting the Observatory was standing on either side of the Prime Meridian Line, which defines zero longitude and divides the eastern and western hemispheres of the earth. If you are facing north, the person on the left is in the western hemisphere, and the person to the right is in the eastern hemisphere. We had to queue behind other couples to stand either side of the line. The couple in front of us were taking an inordinate amount of time to have their photo taken here, from which global time is calculated.

“Time’s up!” quipped someone behind us.

“What’s time?” came a philosophical comment from someone else.

The quick banter between strangers is one of the many reasons why I love visiting London.

During our short stay we devoted hardly any time to visiting any other tourist sites. The changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace held little allure. After visiting the Royal Observatory, we strolled past the historic British clipper ship “Cutty Sark” and then caught a ferry back from Greenwich to Central London. We briefly hopped off to see the Houses of Parliament, but after having visited the Royal Observatory Alex’s curiosity was sated.

Fast forward to March 2025 and we found ourselves in a remote town in Western Australia called Carnarvon. The first attraction Alex wanted to visit was the Carnarvon Space and Technology Museum. Carnarvon has a little-known relationship to Cape Canaveral in Florida. Many people have heard of Cape Canaveral and its rocket launching site, but who has heard of the not dissimilar-sounding town of Carnarvon?

Unlike the grand public museums in Western Australia, this one is self-funded and run by volunteers. NASA established a tracking station at Carnarvon in 1964, which played a critical role for both the Gemini and Apollo programs. Carnarvon was strategically located as the most distantly located site on the earth diametrically opposite from Cape Canaveral, providing the ability to track spacecraft over the Indian Ocean that were out of range from Cape Canaveral. The most famous launch was Apollo 11 in July 1969, which achieved humanity’s dream of landing humans on the Moon and safely returning them to Earth.

Radio Astronomy Dish
Apollo 11 Lunar Lander Module (replica)
Exhibits at Carnarvon Space and Technology Museum

This museum was different from public museums in that when we visited it was managed by a grey nomad couple from the east coast. (“grey nomad” is an Aussie term for retirees who embark on an extended period of travel around the country, usually in a caravan.) A resident cat curled himself into a ball proudly on the reception desk. It was the only museum we visited in Western Australia that required a fee to enter. The first experience we sought was to hop in the replica of the Apollo capsule to get a feel for the astronauts during the July 1969 launch. I was worried about a panic attack coming on in a confined space but the manager assured me that he would open the door to let me out at any time if I felt uncomfortable. We lay down with the lower half of our bodies propped up on a platform in what we hoped was an astronaut launching posture, while footage from the 1969 launch played out on the screen in front of us. Countdown on the screen was followed by lift-off. Not only did I not have a panic attack, it felt exhilarating to be transported to Cape Canaveral in 1969. Having watched this on black and white television when we were in primary school, it was all the more meaningful to watch it as adults. After touring the rest of the museum, we returned to the Apollo capsule to experience it a second time, like the space nerds we were.

We braced ourselves to face the oppressive heat as we headed outside to view the original satellite dish. Rather than languishing as ancient technology the dish has been leased to an overseas company who were upgrading it to track satellites orbiting Earth.

After viewing numerous 1960s space memorabilia, such as a replica of a Gemini capsule, which had preceded the Apollo series of capsules, and a life-sized replica of the lunar lander module, we bought some tourist T-shirts, chatted with the manager couple, and bade farewell to the resident cat. This was the most thrilling of the magnificent museums we visited in Western Australia. Thanks to Alex, we had a bias to visit maritime museums, including The WA Maritime Museum in Fremantle, The Museum of Geraldton, and The WA Shipwrecks Museum. They provided rich accounts of the many arrivals from distant lands to the west Australian shores since Dutchman Dirk Hartog’s nearby landing at Shark Bay in 1616. All visits were immensely educational and informative, but somehow the less glamorous Carnarvon Space and Technology Museum stood out. Unlike the public museums, it was somewhat ramshackle, but this was more than made up for in terms of authenticity and charm. Who would have thought that this outpost in regional Western Australia that even many Australians have not heard of, could have played such a pivotal role in the tracking of Apollo 11? This museum enjoys none of the fame of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, but the role it played in history is just as moving.

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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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Slices from Life

Where Should We Go After the Last Frontiers?

By Ahmad Rayees

It was late evening in the Valley—the kind of dusky calm that usually tucks our village into a blanket of silence before nightfall. But that night, the situation wasn’t peaceful. It was tense, suffocating. A silence not of rest, but of retreat. A silence that echoed with the footsteps of the displaced, the sobs of children, and the distant rumble of a war edging ever closer.

Nestled along the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad Highway, my village (Sheeri) had never imagined becoming a place of refuge. But over the past few days, it had slowly transformed into a shelter—not by design, but out of sheer necessity. It wasn’t a government-built camp or an official safe zone. It was a modest private school—its classrooms stripped of desks, Its walls were painted green, and its floors were covered with modest mats. The blackboard still bore lessons from a world that now felt impossibly far away.

They came by the dozens—families from the frontier town of Uri and other nearby hamlets, fleeing the deadly storm that had erupted along the Line of Control. The shells and gunfire hadn’t spared anyone. Mothers clutching newborns, elderly men barely able to walk, children with dust in their hair and tears in their eyes—each carried with them a fear that couldn’t be packed away. Their homes? Gone or abandoned. Their cattle? Lost. Their belongings? Scattered to the wind. All they had brought with them was survival.

We did what little we could, each small act stitched together into a fragile lifeline—volunteers arriving with rations and essential supplies, neighbours wrapping strangers in donated blankets, and someone rigging a single battery-powered generator in the school courtyard to pierce the darkness—just enough light to charge phones and confirm what we already feared through shaky mobile updates: India and Pakistan were at war again.

Just as we began preparing food that night, the sky above us erupted into unnatural color—bursts of red and orange, glowing like fireworks. For a breathless second, we hoped it was a celebration somewhere far away. But the thunderous roar that followed shattered that hope. These were no celebrations. They were drones. Missiles. Rockets. Tools of destruction lighting up the sky like angry constellations.

Photographs from the shelter camp: Provided by Rayees Ahmad

Panic was instant. Some people ran instinctively, nowhere in particular. Others froze. Mothers clutched children closer. Prayers spilled into the night air like smoke. The school—our fragile sanctuary—quaked with fear. And so did we.

I had heard stories of war. I had seen its images in books and on screens. But that night, war had a smell. A taste. A sound. That night, war breathed down our necks.

We stayed awake through the dark hours, huddled close under a full moon that bore witness to everything. The distant mountains glowed—not from moonlight, but from mortar fire.

The explosions echoed back and forth across the valley like angry giants arguing. Sleep was impossible. For many, so was hope.

For four harrowing days, the shelling continued. Relentless. Unforgiving. As India and Pakistan traded fire, villages on both sides were emptied. The front-lines moved like ghosts—never visible, always fatal. Each explosion wasn’t just an act of violence; it was a theft. It stole security, trust, homes, futures.

The ones who suffered weren’t the architects of war. They weren’t the men in polished suits or behind mahogany desks. They were farmers, schoolteachers, shopkeepers, daily wage earners. The ones who raised goats and crops, not guns. The ones who wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

And yet, here they were—broken by a war they didn’t start, begging for a peace that never came.

The soldiers too—barely out of their teens—were casualties in a different way. Sent to defend lines drawn generations ago, they carried weapons they barely understood, defending ideologies they didn’t create. On both sides, the blood spilled looked the same. The mothers’ grief sounded the same.

And as the bombs fell, something else collapsed quietly: Faith. Faith in leaders who promise peace and deliver bullets. Faith in ceasefires that last only until the next provocation. Faith that tomorrow would be better.

When the ceasefire was finally announced, there was no celebration. There were no cheers. Just silence—and not the comforting kind. It was the silence of disbelief, of loss too deep for words. People walked back not to homes, but to ruins. Entire communities had been reduced to ash and rubble. Crops were destroyed, livestock gone, schools turned into shelters or craters.

How do you rebuild a life when all that remains is dust?

These are the questions that haunt the air like the smoke refusing to clear —

Where should the birds fly after the last sky?
Where should we go after the last frontiers? 
Where should the plants sleep after the last breathe of air? – Mahmoud Darwish

Ahmad Rayees is a freelance journalist and a fellow at Al-Sharq Youth fellow program. 

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Undertourism in the Outback

Narrative by Meredith Stephens & Photographs by Alan Noble

I have read about overtourism in Spain and Greece. Locals have been overwhelmed with the visitors, and some even displayed signs for tourists to go home. According to Fortune magazine (17 July 2024), some locals in Barcelona turned on tourists with water pistols, and others in the Canary Islands embarked on a hunger strike in response to the numbers of tourists. Images of overtourism in Santorini, Greece prompted me to search for an unpopulated area, and I didn’t have to look much further than our own state of South Australia. We hoped to visit deserted towns, dotted with ruins, where there are more sheep than people.

Alex, Verity and I headed out of Adelaide on a bleak wintery day, caravan in tow, to the outback. First stop was Burra, a former mining town where copper was mined from 1845 until 1877. Copper brought prosperity to the state of South Australia saving it from bankruptcy. The small town centre featured a proudly-standing rotunda. Businesses were open, and there were grand buildings and churches which overwhelmed this small town, standing testament to a thriving past.

The caravan was too big for a parking spot, so we parked it parallel to the kerb straddling several spots. We entered the tourist bureau, and as there was no-one in line, headed straight to the desk. We were greeted warmly by the assistant, who handed us a map and explained the various places where we could stay overnight in a caravan. There were free sites, a caravan park, and if you bought a meal at the pub you could camp in their grounds.

Then she pointed out the many historic sites on the map, fixing her eyes on me with a wide smile. I could sense Alex pulling away ever so slightly, as he was anxious to secure a caravan site and do some sightseeing before nightfall, but I was captivated by the enthusiasm of the guide and tried to remember as much as I could of what she was telling us. We headed to one of the recommended sites for the night and investigated the former mining sites with original equipment that had been shipped out from Cornwall, England, in the1800s. We were the only tourists at the site.

The next day we drove through Peterborough and Orroroo. We entered the cafe in Orroroo for lunch and asked the assistant what there was to see there. She gave us a map and explained that we absolutely had to see a spectacularly large 500-year-old tree on the outskirts of town.

Tree outside Orroroo

Next, we headed to the very small town of Hallet. There at the general store we asked for a key which would open the door to the now deserted birthplace of the polar explorer and aviator, Sir Hubert Wilkins. It was the first time we had been given a key to let ourselves into a tourist attraction, and we felt very privileged. We drove twenty kilometres to the home along dirt roads. Again, we were the only visitors. We made our way to the front door and unlocked it. This home, formerly rubble, had been lovingly restored by the Australian Geographic Society as a tribute to the explorer.

Ruins in the Outback
Restored home

We continued to the Parachilna Gorge in the Flinders Ranges where we spent the night. Alex made a campfire, and we dined outside. Again, we were surrounded by ancient trees with generous girths in a dry riverbed. In the morning Alex woke to spot families of emus passing by, camouflaged by the foliage.

Emu family in Parchina Gorge

We continued onto the deserted nineteenth-century town of Farina that day. People started to abandon the town in the late 1800s, and the last of the inhabitants had left by the 1960s. Fortunately volunteers are keen to preserve the history and the ruins and manage the town during the school holidays. We were given a hearty welcome by a volunteer at the entrance to the bakery and received a map of the town.

Finally, on the 700kilometre drive back to Adelaide, we were low on diesel and made a brief detour to a small town off the highway. After putting the diesel in the car, I went inside to pay.

“Thanks, darling!” the cashier gushed.

“I like your dog! Is he a kelpie?” I asked.

Then I was given an enthusiastic account of how the kelpie had been rescued from a shelter. I think the owners may have been deprived of human company and were glad to see a new face. Alex came in because he was wondering what had become of me, engrossed in conversation. We had the impression that we were their only clients for the day. Eventually, I managed to extricate myself.

On this trip we had no experience of overtourism. Rather we visited sites where few tourists could be seen. Guides were so enthusiastic that they fawned over us. One reason that there were so few tourists is that it was the middle of winter and there was intermittent rain. Another was the geographical isolation of the outback. Australia is distant from countries with large populations. South Australia is distant from the large Australian cities on the east and west coasts and the outback further still—although closer to Adelaide than any other Australian capital city.

The landscape of the outback feels as different as another country. Our city, Adelaide, has a multitude of houses and new freeways, but the outback has few houses and many ruins. These ruins attest to a time of optimism when settlers believed the rains would be consistent. We enjoy hitching up the caravan and driving to the outback, where there are so few tourists that the sight of another human being results in an effusive welcome.

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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 Boy at the Albany Bus Stop

By Meredith Stephens

Ruby Seadragon, Albany Silo Art by Yok & Sheryo. Photo Courtesy: Alan Noble

“Will the passenger who borrowed my mobile phone please return it?” came the announcement in an American accent from the bus driver. I had never heard a bus driver with an American accent before, which was all the more surprising on a bus in regional Western Australia. The woman next to me rose from her seat and walked up the aisle to the driver to return his phone.

I was catching the bus from Albany to Perth at the conclusion of my Indian Ocean sailing adventure with Alex. I had enjoyed sailing in the Indian Ocean despite the sensation of being inside a washing machine on the odd occasion. However, I couldn’t face a succession of nights at sea on the next leg in the lonely and capricious Southern Ocean. Nor did I have the confidence to perform adequately as crew if I had to rescue a man overboard. Instead, Alex enlisted a qualified sailor to join him for the eastward crossing of the Great Australian Bight, and I decided to return to South Australia by bus and plane. 

The woman passenger turned to me.

“I had to leave my twelve-year-old son alone at the bus stop,” she  explained. “His father had not yet arrived to pick him up and I had to catch this bus. It only runs once a day so I couldn’t wait. I tried to call my son to see if his Dad had arrived, but his battery had run out. I couldn’t call his father either because he has blocked me. That’s why I borrowed the phone from the driver. When I reached my ex on the bus driver’s phone, he reassured me that he had picked up our son.”

I could sense she felt embarrassed at being called up to return the phone to the bus driver. I also sensed that she needed to share her anguish with someone, and that person happened to be me because I was sitting next to her.

“I understand the feeling of feeling worried about your children,” I confided in her. “My children have grown up now, but I still worry about them every day.”

It was true. Sailing for months along the coast of Western Australia, exploring uninhabited islands, and heading ashore on the paddleboard to visit coastal towns had been an unparalleled adventure, but this didn’t stop me from worrying about my daughters back in Adelaide. I would ring them daily from the boat. If they were busy, I would tell them that I just needed to hear their voice and then I would let them go. I could understand this mother’s anguish at having left her young son at the bus stop not knowing when his father would arrive to pick him up.

“Worrying about your children is lifelong,” I continued. “But if we don’t worry about them no-one else will as much as we do. There’s a reason for it.”

She murmured agreement.

I stared ahead of me rather than returning to my book, not knowing whether she wanted to continue with the conversation. It felt rude to turn away from her in her distress, nor did I want to distract her with details of my own life story. I glanced outside and the sun pierced into my eyes. After a period of companionable silence, I returned to my book.

Several hours later we arrived at the town of Popanyinning. She rose from her seat and turned to fix her eyes on me.

“Have a wonderful Easter! All the best to you!”

I had forgotten Easter was coming up but knew that her farewell had nothing to do with Easter. It was an appreciation for our conversation in her moments of distress.

“Take care. I hope it all works out,” was all I could manage in the short time we had as she moved up the aisle of the bus. Our paths will never cross again, but her story lingers in my mind.

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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Social Media Repitition

By Jun A. Alindogan

I remember feeling tense when I opened my very first email account with the help of the friendly staff at a British registered charity office where I was a member of the learning resource centre in Manila. I thought that it would open a floodgate of privacy issues, including surveillance and compromise. The world’s technological landscape was changing, and I had to adapt. I have always held onto the belief that while technology has immense benefits, it also has a lot of unbridled consequences, including insecurities, pride, selfishness, egoism, shame, and individual and religious superiority. A number of digital platforms have continuously increased and evolved in various iterations, from its email function to TikTok, Facebook, Messenger, Viber, vlogs, WhatsApp, YouTube channels, Pinterest, Blogspot, WordPress, LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, and Threads. The list seems endless.

I have a personal and professional Facebook account, as well as Messenger and Viber, because I find these platforms to be the most helpful to me. I have limited comprehension when it comes to understanding why young people feel the need to be on every digital platform. In my opinion, less is more. Being overexposed can be toxic in terms of seeking external validation and interaction. Not every thought needs to be published on social media. Why do you have to drag your friends and family and even strangers into your rollercoaster of emotions and shifting ideas about life’s journey all the time? While it is true that social media is a tool for self-expression, it is also equally true that it is a medium for self-destruction, as transparency can be both good and evil.

Take, for instance, the case of a woman in her mid-20s who is active on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogspot, WordPress, TikTok and X (Twitter). She lost her parents at a young age and had to work as a household helper in the city. Eventually, she received a government scholarship and was able to continue her college studies. She shared on one of her social media accounts that it has become a sort of diary for her, in addition to her voice notes and physical journal. What is the reason for this repetition? Perhaps it is an issue of validation. When an individual delves into an onslaught of social media accounts, it implies proving one’s identity and self-esteem to the world. This can become a form of spiritual superiority, indicating that the person is self-absorbed. We are not the world.

The same holds true for partners who must keep up with their significant others’ social media accounts. The rat race is not just physical, but also digital. For instance, decisions about getting married early are often swayed by image quotes or social media discussions that push boyfriends to give in to these pressures, even if it’s not the right time for those who have only been working for less than two years and have not established a stable and relevant career. Saving for one’s wedding becomes the priority when it should be the other way around – saving for one’s personal and professional growth and development first. Why is there a need for comparison? As a result, emotional manipulation and threats are common. Career concerns are also plagued by the pressure to amass wealth by a certain age. The repetition of social media posts may be a way for individuals to acknowledge their own shortcomings.

In the context of a close friend, I have often wondered why, in most of his photos with me and our other friends, he rarely smiles. Yet, in his photos with his girlfriend, he has a big smile all the time. Is this a result of social media pressure, causing him to appear serious with friends while showcasing happiness in his relationship? On the contrary, I believe that his consistent seriousness may be a reflection of both his and his partner’s insecurities and jealousy.

For years, I have developed a close bond with a friend who was orphaned at a young age. Our main forms of communication are face-to-face and online. However, a year ago, he unexpectedly unfriended me on Facebook. I suspect that this decision may be related to the social media pressure he faces regarding his relationship. Despite this, we still communicate and share stories on Viber and meet face to face, although not as frequently as before. I understand that his job at a global fast food chain keeps him busy, but the pressure from social media can be overwhelming as it becomes a cycle of repetition.

In a way, social media serves as an escape, so repetition is necessary to cope with both material and non-material stressors. To some extent, this coping mechanism may be healthy, but most of the time, it becomes detrimental to a person’s well-being. Being overly repetitive on social media always comes at a cost.


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 specialises 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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Shanghai in Jakarta

By Eshana Sarah Singh

The moment the calendar flips to January, Jakarta undergoes a transformation, almost as if it’s washed anew, like one’s gazing at the city through rose-coloured glasses. Although Chinese New Year normally falls in February, the city wastes no time in dressing itself at its festive best, akin to a newly wed bride right from the beginnings of the year itself. The streets glow with the soft, warm hues of red lanterns swaying gently in the tropical breeze, intricate golden motifs adorning shop windows shaped in Chinese characters signifying good health and luck, ah! and of course the unmistakable notes of celebratory music drifting through the air. For a few short weeks, Jakarta doesn’t just celebrate Chinese New Year—it embodies it.

Growing up in Jakarta, yet hailing from Indian descent, I was always fascinated by how this festival seemed to take over the city, outshining even the likes of Christmas in its grandeur. To an outsider, Jakarta in February might feel more like Shanghai at its prime than the capital of the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, however the fabric of Chinese New Year is woven into the hearts of people across the country.

Photos provided by Eshana Sarah Singh

Jakarta’s shopping malls—already known for their extravagance and avant-garde ambiance —take it up a notch during this season, pull the notch all the way up really. Grand Indonesia, Pacific Place, and Central Park become galleries down the streets of metropolitan Beijing, displays of Chinese artistry adorn the walls, with colossal dragon sculptures wrapping around pillars, cherry blossom trees dotting atriums, and enormous red envelopes symbolising prosperity displayed in elaborate installations. At Pantai Indah Kapuk, a neighbourhood known for its Chinese-Indonesian roots, the neighbourhood where I grew up, restaurants overflow with families indulging in yu sheng (a prosperity toss salad) and steaming platters of shumai (dumplings) wafting their aromas into the air.

Photo provided by Eshana Sarah Singh

In Jakarta’s very own Chinatown, Glodok, the roads are chock-filled with movement, cacophonous and chaotic but so vibrant. Red flags with auspicious messages printed in gold are hawked by vendors, temple incense wafts by getting ever-stronger with murmurs of chanted prayers for prosperity and riches along the roads.

The sound of drums boom so loud that the ribs vibrate, that the very ground trembles beneath one’s feet, proclaiming the onset of the Barong Sai—an ancient lion dance with movements so fluid and gracious that they can’t help but draw eyes passing by. Their beauty, yet further enhanced by the resonant clashing of cymbals, is in theory supposed to ward off evil spirits and usher in prosperity; this tradition infact predates the existence of most civilizations.

Lion Dance. Photo provided by Eshana Sarah Singh

Amidst all this festivity, I am reminded of the countless Chinese New Year’s I’ve spent in school growing up and lessons from my Mandarin teacher, whom we affectionately called Laoshi or teacher.

Tha author and her Chinese teacher. Photo provided by Eshana Sarah Singh

“Laoshi, I remember you used to tell us about all the dos and don’ts of Chinese New Year,” I chuckled, eager to hear her insights once again.

She chuckled. “Ah, yes! There are many, and each family follows different ones, some only specific to them. But some are universal. For example, never sweep the floor on the first day!”

I laughed, “Why is that again?”

“Because you will sweep away all the good luck for the year of course! The same goes for washing your hair—avoid it, or you will wash away your fortune. And of course, you should wear red. It brings happiness and wards off the Nian monster.” It seemed a lot of the superstitions absurdly revolved around washing, but then again they’re superstitions so perhaps logical reasoning wasn’t the best path forward.

“What about food? Are there any specific dishes that must be eaten?” I asked.

“There are actually, eating fish is a must because the word for fish in Mandarin sounds like ‘surplus,’ which is meant to bring in abundance for the coming year. And you can’t forget about tangerines as well, have you ever noticed how they’re only ever sold during the Chinese New Year? Their name sounds like ‘luck’ in Mandarin, so people always exchange them with family and friends. I think by now you can guess why,” Laoshi chuckled.

She paused slightly, her voice wavering and tone turning nostalgic. “You know, in Indonesia, many Chinese-Indonesian families have developed their own unique traditions, which are understandable; traditions are never truly the same in a place that’s not their own.   But this way at least there’s something for everyone. For example, we still hand out angpao, the red envelopes filled with money, but nowadays, some people send them digitally! Would you believe it?”

Wading through the bustling streets of Jakarta in the days leading up to the New Year, the tension, the excitement, the wait was palpable in the air. I noticed how the celebration was not confined to Chinese-Indonesian families alone, it was a time for all of us. Malls showcased extravagant public performances, offices hosted small celebrations, every building was decked out in red from head to toe and even my non-Chinese friends, including me of course, joined in by donning red and sharing greetings of “Xin Nian Kuai Le1.”

Indonesia’s long history with its Chinese diaspora has not always been smooth or friendly for that matter, but in these moments of collective celebration, one realised how some moments were made better when shared with everyone. Chinese New Year in Jakarta is not just a cultural event—it is a national one really.

As traditions evolve, so does the way Jakarta celebrates. Some things remain timeless, temple visits, family reunions, and Barong Sai performances, however that does not mean new customs are not emerging. Metropolitan city dwellers now send digital angpao via apps, families opt for lavish dinners at high-end restaurants instead of a table chock full of home-cooked feasts, and social media becomes a hub for sharing well-wishes and festive experiences, because the wishes of luck and prosperity transcend the miles that separate us. Taking in the sea of red around me, the rhythmic drumbeats, and the air filled with the scent of incense and festive feasts, the very grandeur of Chinese New Year in Jakarta, I know that no matter where life takes me, this festival in this city will always feel like home.

  1. Happy New Year
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Eshana Sarah Singh is a media and journalism student with a passion for storytelling, blending authentic personal experiences with rose coloured lenses to ultimately explore diverse and untold narratives that chart off the beaten path. 

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

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Slices from Life

The Day the Earth Quaked

Amy Sawitta Lefevre from Bangkok writes an eyewitness account of the March 28, 2025, earthquake with it’s epicentre in Myanmar.

I had just finished an errand and was about to head home from downtown Bangkok. At the last minute, I decided that I needed lunch. I had barely sat down at a restaurant on the ground floor of a skyscraper when suddenly I felt dizzy, and almost about to black out. It felt as though a magnet were pulling down my head and my body.

Just then someone in the restaurant shouted: “Earthquake!”

Next thing, we were all running out of the building which was swaying. It felt like an apocalypse. The stuff out of Hollywood movies. People were pouring outside, and many started pointing upward at something with horrified eyes. As I turned my eyes in that direction, I was stunned at what I saw: the rooftop pool of the hotel in the skyscraper near us was splashing down like a mountain cataract.

Water spilling out of the pool. From Public Domain

A chill passed through me as I thought: “This building is about to collapse on us!”

Luckily for us, it did not. But we soon learnt that many others had not been so fortunate, as a 7.7 magnitude earthquake had just ripped through Mandalay in Myanmar, with shock waves in parts of Bangkok.

I tried to stand steady but felt as if I was on the deck of a ship on a stormy sea. I thought in a daze about the ferocious power of natural disasters. Incredible how something seemingly so far away could wreak havoc here. I’ve lived in Bangkok for more than a decade and nothing like this had ever happened.

My first thought was for my children. I tried calling the school, but everyone was using their phones, and I couldn’t get through. Eventually I saw a message pop up from the school saying the children had been evacuated. My next thought was to rush home and embrace my children.

I’m a former journalist and now a humanitarian, and I’ve been through many crises in my professional career, but nothing quite prepares you for having to live through a disaster, which for the first time, you realise could impact your own children. And it was a disaster in the sense that Thailand and Myanmar both declared states of emergency. 

That day it took me 4-5 hours to walk from downtown Bangkok to my home in the north of Bangkok. The sky train was not working. The traffic on the downtown street was chaotic. My legs just kept moving because all I wanted to do was to get home to my children.

Along the way I met many people whose faces bore the same expression: kind Thai faces, or kind tourist faces, but all of them shell-shocked. Yet, despite everything, people tried to collect themselves in an orderly fashion and helped each other.

I met many angels: one man offered to buy me a cold sugarcane juice seeing the pallor of my blood drained face; a woman gave me her shopping bag to carry my bag as it’s  handle had broken when I rushed out of the building.

As I kept walking down streets where the soundtrack was of wailing sirens, the rubber soles of the flimsy leopard print ballet shoes I had slipped on that morning were almost worn out. At one point, I couldn’t continue walking. I was dizzy and nauseated, and flopped onto the sidewalk to catch my breath beside a couple on holiday from Peru. We crouched on the floor together, trying to rest before continuing our journey. All around us people were spilling out of buildings, hugging each other, trying to phone loved ones, and in endearingly typical Thai fashion, smelling herbal inhalers! 

Around 6 pm, I finally staggered home and embraced with relief and gratitude my two children and our nanny. We stood at the threshold just holding each other in a warm group hug. My husband was away from Thailand on work, and he called frantically, as did my mother from the suburbs of Bangkok, both relieved to hear our voices. Family and friends messaged with concern and prayers.

The weekend was a blur. We soon learned that the damage and death toll in Myanmar was significant. I spent Saturday in my role as a humanitarian media manager writing a press release, taking media interviews and coordinating interviews for others, while still processing what had just happened the day before.

Collapsed building in Bangkok. From Public Domain

On the Sunday, the children and I were on a highway when we drove past the rubble of a building under construction, near the well-known Chatuchak Market. It had collapsed, trapping dozens of unfortunate workers under it. All I could think of was how massive the pile of rubble was, and how eerily quiet it was. Now I can’t bear to look at the photos or videos of anxious relatives of those construction workers who are waiting to hear news of their loved ones. 

In Myanmar more than 3,000 people have died and more than 3,000 are injured but that figure will likely go up as rescue operations continue. In the light of such a massive emergency, my natural instinct was to sideline my own needs and to first respond to the call of duty. But by the fifth day after the earthquake, I had to see a specialist at the hospital because my balance felt completely off since that day. 

Even though the doctor gave me the all-clear with some medicines and has advised me to rest, to practice focusing my eyes on still images, and to take walks and deep breaths, I feel as though my entire body has shifted to one side or is cracked, just like some of those buildings in central Bangkok. My city and I, both shaken to the core, trying to recover.

We’re told that another earthquake could happen in the next 30 days again and it fills me with dread. My children, six and eight, ask me what we would do if another one hits. They are scared and want answers. As do we adults. The earth is our home, and the health and well-being of its environment influences our own. If seismic activities are linked to climate change, maybe, by treating our planet with more kindness and respect we might mitigate future eruptions.

In the meantime, my children have me and my husband to talk to them and reassure them. But I’m also thinking of all the children in Myanmar who are sleeping in the open, who lost loved ones, who are feeling scared and alone, with no one to reassure them. Let us be there for them and other victims of natural disasters, in whatever ways we can, in solidarity with our common and vulnerable humanity.

My prayers for those for whom the ground shifted not just for a day, but whose entire lives may have turned upside down.

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Amy Sawitta Lefevre is a former journalist and currently works at an international NGO. She has been based in Thailand for over a decade.

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

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

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Slices from Life

From a Bucking Bronco to an Ageing Clydesdale

Meredith Stephens sails the rough, dark seas

Night sailing. Photo Courtesy: Meredith Stephens

“Alex, I’m scared.”

I looked out at the waters beyond the stern. The black waves danced in the moonlight. The swell pushed the boat in all directions, slapping against the water. I was unable to move around the boat without planning every movement. Thankfully, all the edges were rounded so even if I bumped into something I would not get hurt. I had remained in my pyjamas all day because I was unable to stay still enough to open drawers, retrieve clothing, and get dressed. I was unable to comb my hair because walking to the cupboard and retrieving my comb was too hard given all the bumps. Our bags had all fallen to the floor.

“I’m not scared,” replied Alex.

He looked at me straight in the eye. Suddenly I knew that it was not dangerous. If not dangerous, it was uncomfortable, but as far as Alex was concerned, we were not in danger.

We had left False Entrance off the mid-west coast of Western Australia at 4 am. There was an easterly wind predicted at this time. At 3 am, the anchor alarm had sounded. Alex rose and confirmed that this was because of the wind change. He spent thirty minutes trying to raise the anchor because the windless was malfunctioning. I could hear the anchor chain churning above the cabin where I was lying. Alex had to raise it by hand.

“At least I’ve done my morning workout!” he quipped.

Then I heard the motor turn on, and before long we left the safety of False Entrance for the swell of the Indian Ocean. The easterly blew for several hours pushing us south but then changed direction. This required us to head away from shore towards the Abrolhos Islands. Once the wind shifted Alex had to turn the motor on, and we thumped across the swell. Because of the high cliffs lining the mainland coast there would be no bay to shelter in for twenty-four hours. This wild stretch of coastline had claimed dozens of ships since Dutch vessels first arrived in the 1600s.

“What’s our latest estimated time of arrival?” I asked.

“The forecast was off, so we won’t be at Port Gregory until 3 am.”

We continued riding across the slapping swell. All I could complain about was the discomfort. I knew from Alex’s tone that we were not in danger, and we need not worry. He remained at the helm until we were safely at Port Gregory, while I rested in the cabin and braced myself for every slap against a wave. I put two pillows under my head to cushion myself.

I heard the familiar dropping of the anchor and realised we must be in Port Gregory. Alex spent the next ten minutes making everything ship-shape before going to bed. I looked at my phone. It was 2.57 am. Our voyage had taken almost 23 hours.

“It was tedious,” was his only complaint the next morning. Not scary, uncomfortable, or exhausting. Just tedious, in his typical understated way.

We gratefully slept until the sun forced its way through the cabin hatches at 8 am, and then, we roused ourselves for a comfortable breakfast at anchor. The skies were blue, and the waters calm.

“The wind is in the right direction. We’ll get to Geraldon in five or six hours. We should be able to sail the whole way, without motoring.”

How could the wind change so suddenly? How was it possible to have capricious winds one day and friendly ones the next? Alex raised the sails, and for the next six hours the wind ushered us on our way.  Instead of erratic slapping, the keels produced a regular whooshing sound. The bucking bronco[1] had turned into a docile, ageing Clydesdale[2]. The first sign of the approaching Port of Geraldton was bulk carriers anchored out at sea, waiting their turn to load grains for export. As we entered the bay we had to make our way through the massive channel markers and dodge the lobster pot buoys. Once in the bay, we were greeted by live music from the amphitheatre on the shorefront lawns. We heard the sound of children playing in the water, on the beach, and on the playgrounds.

Alex anchored and by this time the windless had stopped malfunctioning. We then lowered the paddleboard. Alex knelt at the rear and I at the front, relieved to dismount our steed of the seas. I held myself steady as he paddled firmly behind me to the shore. We alighted at the sand, pulled the paddleboard to a safe height, and washed the sand off our flip-flops under a tap. A wall of hot air from the land accosted us, and the ground continued to gently canter beneath us as our bodies recalibrated to being on terra firma. Our discreet entry on the paddleboard had attracted no attention. We walked past children playing in the foreshore fountain, found a place to sit on the lawn alongside other family groups, and tuned in to savour the comforting 1970s pop music being performed by the live band.

Geraldton Beach. Photo Courtesy: Meredith Stephens

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[1] A partially or untrained horse used in rodeos

[2] A Scottish breed of heavy draft horse

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.

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

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

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Categories
Slices from Life

Beachcombing on the Abrolhos Islands

By Meredith Stephens

Abrolhos Islands. From Public Domain

We sail into Turtle Bay on East Wallabi Island. I make my way barefoot to the bow. Then I hold the boat hook and crouch at the edge, extending it towards the buoy. I loop the hook under the thick slimy rope covered in algae and yank it upwards.

“It’s too heavy!” I yell, my voice disappearing into the wind.

Alex must have heard because he abandons the helm and races to the bow. He grabs the boat hook from my hands and pulls up the rope, securing the buoy to the cleat.

Turtle Bay is a wide horseshoe. The waters are glistening turquoise and are surrounded by white sands. It’s uninhabited but small planes of tourists regularly fly in and out to walk and dive. Night is descending and it’s too late to disembark, so we look longingly at the shore and wait for the morning.

Once day breaks, we head ashore on the stand-up paddleboard. Alex places his phone in a waterproof bag. He alights from the stern and kneels on the back of the paddleboard. I kneel at the stern and carefully slide over to kneel at the front of the paddleboard. Alex paddles to shore behind me and I try to remain as still as I can, unresponsive to the moving water beneath me, retrieving the muscle memory of riding wayward horses in my youth. Once we arrive, we alight as quickly as we can and drag the paddleboard away from the water’s edge.

A shaft of light catches my eye, and I reach down to pick up the object. It’s a small purple shell lined with brown flecks. As the sun is blinding, I am forced to continue casting my eyes downward. Never have I seen such an array of shells on a beach. Alex, on the other hand, finds his attention caught by even brighter hues than the shells. A blue plastic wrapping. A broken glass bottle. An aluminium-insert from boxed water. He retrieves these items unflinchingly. We continue to walk around this uninhabited island and find yet more rubbish washed up ashore. Most of it is plastic bottles and brightly coloured bottle tops. Then we spot a large blue plastic tub. Alex picks it up and places the rubble within. I respond with strong disgust, so am ashamed to say that I do not help him. Alex does not chide me for this, and I am grateful that he withholds judgement. I continue to admire the multi-coloured shells washed up by the tide.

We beat our way back through the fierce heat to the section of beach where the paddleboard is waiting. Alex affixes the bucket of rubbish to the stretchy cords at the front of the paddleboard. Spray surges as each wave hits the shore. He waits for a lull between the swell. After several more waves hit the shore there is a momentary calm, and he pushes the board forward. I climb on and crouch behind the rubbish. Alex mounts the board behind me and paddles towards the boat. I’m no longer a retiree, but a teenager at the beach with her boyfriend. I close my eyes and now I am keeping balance on my lively horse. Suddenly, when we have nearly reached the boat, I sense Alex is worried. The tide is pushing us away from the boat and he paddles harder. Will the wind push us into the vast empty seas out of the range of mobile devices? Just as we reach the stern Alex thrusts his paddle into the water to do a U-turn. I find myself parallel with the boat, grab the steel handle, and slide onto the boat without tipping Alex and the rubbish into the depths.

All is secure, and now it’s time to sail back to the mainland. We head north-east to the tiny township of Port Gregory, with its population of eighty, renowned for a submarine shelling in 1943, and a vast pink salt lake. After anchoring in the bay, we again secure the rubbish to the front of the paddleboard and kneel behind it. Once on the shore, we are reassured by the sight of multiple rubbish bins. Port Gregory is too remote for recycle bins, so we reluctantly place the island rubbish into one of the general bins, and trudge through the heat to explore the town.

Port Gregory. From Public Domain

Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, MickingOwl 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.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International