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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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.
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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Amy Sawitta Lefevrefrom 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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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.
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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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.
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Lokenath Roy gives us a vignette of Juhu Beach, Mumbai[1]
Sunrise at Juhu: From Public Domain
You wake up to the wet, slimy plywood stuck to your long back brushed hair on the deck. It is morning already. The faint disc of the comforting winter sun bristles by your narrow eyes. Aditya guns his hoarse voice towards the sparse crew of the boat.
Another day on the Arabian Sea.
Bone-thin legs scramble to the colour-faded slippers as they flaccidly make their way down the pier. You trod the lukewarm Juhu surface sands. The legs dip deep at certain spots. It is still morgue cold underneath.
The shadows of posh skyscrapers do little to mask the scaly smell of fresh fish sold on rows of marble slabs. The dhaba[2] owner honks his hacked voice at the trickle of daily commuters. Scratching the rashes on your forearm you drag a pockmarked plastic chair from across the narrow alley. The smoking omelet with half-cooked onion bounces down your throat. This is breakfast every day.
The plastics pile up at this end. The ocean stays buried under trash cans, cardboard, and polythene. Ponds of rotting sabzi[3] stay entangle in decaying fishing nets. The gnawing boat treads this wasteland. Sahil adjusts the balloon bag as it fills up at the front. Your eyes scrape the collections on the deck for valuables. The stink gets to your nostrils, even under the thick-lined dirty handkerchief. This is livelihood.
You’re fourteen. The letters of the English alphabet only graze your eyes on the benches of dhabas, amongst folded newspapers left behind by morning office goers. You try to read them. An article on trash-clearing boats at the Juhu beach grabs your attention. Not the writing, but rather the image, the image of your boat. You bend forward, looking narrow-eyed into the pixels over the paper, trying to find any speck on the deck that resembles you.
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[1] The persons mentioned are fictitious but typical of people he has noticed
Lokenath Roy, a writer from Kolkata who explores themes of society, memory, and the human experience, has published in several literary journals and online magazines like The Cawnpore Magazine, The Monograph Magazine, The Aeos Magazine and the Borderless Journal.
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Based on an interview with the Amitabh Prashar, the maker of a BBC documentary on female infanticide, Aparna Vats shares a spine-chilling narrative about crimes that were accepted in the past but are now under reform.
Aparna Vats
The Female Infanticide Protection Act was enacted in India 1870, 154 years ago. However, female infanticides continued to haunt some areas of Bihar well into 1990s. The number given out by a government of India report for 2019 is 36 in the whole year, with none reported in Bihar. A journalist called Amitabh Prashar came out with a new BBC documentary on this issue in 2024 after investigations carried out over thirty years in Bihar, called The Midwife’s Confession. Prashar, wrote in a BBC article of a 1995 report: “If the report’s estimates are accurate, more than 1,000 baby girls were being murdered every year in one district, by just 35 midwives. According to the report, Bihar at the time had more than half a million midwives. And infanticide was not limited to Bihar.”
Basing his coverage on the confession by dais or midwives, this film unveils the terrifying practise of female infanticide in Bihar. The documentary begins by screening the confession video of Dharmi Devi who stoically confesses to how many children she and her accomplice had killed and buried in the forest.
Prashar started his investigations when he read of a case of female infanticide near his village in Purnia, Kathiaar district. In the documentary, he explained how a news clip that came out in the Hindustan Times of Purnia, a village in Bihar, motivated him. It was a report of a father choking his infant daughter to death and was recorded as the first case of infanticide in the area. He had visited Bihar for the sake of the story as the father had been arrested and the mother was under societal pressure to withdraw the case. Through his interactions with a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) working in the area and the midwives in 1995-96, he realised that the occurrence was not an isolated case. Unmarried and a novice in this field, Parashar said he took the risk to return to Delhi and rent a camera at Rs 4500 per day to start his exploration.
He admitted getting the midwives them confess was a major struggle but an understanding of the interviewee’s personal lives helped him understand their society and circumstances better. Certain key findings were that the infants were killed by the midwives, as the families considered the girl-child a financial liability, especially for arranging dowries. The midwives were themselves struggling to arrange dowries for their own daughters.
In the documentary, Hakiya, a midwife, was the first to confess how post birth, the men of the family used to threaten the midwives with sticks and offer money to them to kill the child as the cost of care, that was primarily dowry (‘Tilak-Pratha’) for them, weighed heavier than the barbarism of this sin. Filing a police report was out of the question. The repetition of this crime had forced these women to accept this carnage. Siro Devi, a midwive who Prashar had been in touch with from 1996, confessed: “Dekhiye sir, aurat ke haath mein marna, aurat ke haath mein jeewan dena (Sir, it is in the hands of women to kill or to give birth).”
Prashar set out to uncover more. He interviewed Anila Kumari, the owner of an NGO who worked with these midwives. Bihar suffered a state of economic crisis in the 1990s when the per capita income was growing at a mere 0.12%. The sheer state of economic desolation and social oppression coerced these women to kill more than 1000 girls in a year in Kathiaar alone, claimed Prashar.
Prashar explained this story is not exhaustive in its list of injustices. Often the sole earners post-marriage, these midwives were recruited sometimes at the young age of ten. It was a customary practice passed on from generation to generation. Their remuneration was conditional to the happiness felt by the families when the child was born which was estimated as per the sex. Unsurprisingly, a girl-child rendered lesser payment.
Kumari started working with the midwives to stop the practice of female infanticide. Families trusted midwives more than doctors. The rescued children were brought to the NGO in life-threatening states and were either registered for adoption or raised by them. One of the adopted girls called Monica was put in focus in the documentary.
Prashar said in the interview that the midwives were from the backward castes and extremely poor. A deeper analysis of the inter-community relations reveal that they were themselves victimised. They also felt guilty for their actions. Rani, a midwife, who was not featured in the documentary due to time related constraints, was such a person. She was herself struggling to get her daughters married while languishing in the guilt of having killed other’s daughters. Some of the midwives were arrested. Parashar said he visited Bihar a few days prior to the release of the arrested midwives to ensure that they did not get into legal hurdles or come under societal pressure.
Mr. Parashar confessed he was but a commoner for the people and visited Purnia at least twice a year for reasons that were unrelated to the documentary. After some initial interactions, the villagers lost interest in his activities and for a documentarian, that was the best scenario. “When characters start to ignore, that is the best thing a director can think of,” he said. He self-funded his project in which shots stretched 200 hours.
The documentary starts with joggers rescuing an abandoned girl child. And then, it plunges exploring darker aspects of this attitude that sees the girl child as a burden leading not only to abandonments but also to female infanticides brought to light by the midwives. The film concludes with a heartwarming interview with the adoptive parents of the girl child rescued by the joggers and their happy eight-month-old ward.
Reference:
Aparna Vats is a student from Bangalore.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are solely that of the author and not of Borderless Journal.
We were told to be ready for dinner by 6 p.m., so we had one and a half hours to kill before gathering at the lobby. My varsity mates and I, fourteen of us, on our regular bromance outing, had decided to embark on a six-day tour around Sri Lanka. Colombo was our last stop.
I told myself there was time for a shower. I thought I heard the yell of two men. They must be at the heights of merry-making, I reckoned. Nothing wrong. After all, many were holidaying in Colombo, like us, in what was hailed as paradise on Earth. Maybe they took the celebrations too far. It was then that the lights went off. Then I thought I heard a barrage of a loud bang. Did somebody drop something heavy? Then came the indistinctive smell of burning rubber.
Then it clicked. Everything fell into place. Damn. There must be a fire somewhere! I open my room door. I could see a hint of smoke whirling at the ceiling.
What happened to the fire alarm and emergency light or water sprinklers? This is not a rundown half-grade hotel. This is a reputable hotel with its rich Scottish tradition plastered all over its walls, tartans, Scots family insignia and all. Even though we think the British ruled India, the Scottish served in the East Indian Company in big numbers as well. They, too, joined the bandwagon to usurp wealth from unsuspecting natives through their mercantile activities.
As a matter of reflex, I got into the drill. The passive learning from watching all those disaster movies had to be put to good use. Like a child regurgitating what he learnt from rote learning, I fell in line.
“Relax, said the night man!” The first thing that came to mind was, “Don’t panic!” Earlier there had been a blackout. I was too relaxed to think of sitting through the outage and letting the electricians sort it out. That was the wrong move.
Learned experience from flight stewardesses was “in case of emergency, leave behind your belongings and head to the exit”. I realised that it may only work sometimes. Stuck in a third-world country, running around to the fancy of their bureaucracy is not my idea of a holiday. I stuffed my passport, wallet and mobile phone into my jeans and headed out of the room without my luggage. Again, another mistake, I thought.
I remember reading, “Do not use the elevator in case of emergency,” during those long hours spent waiting for lifts. Keeping that in mind, I headed to the stairs. Wow, so far, so good. I began wondering how everything was working like clockwork. Are people so desensitised after watching so many reels on YouTube that they just know what to do? The hotel staff must have been bombarded with so much footage of disasters elsewhere that they could perform the next course of action half asleep.
To be fair, the hotel staff were on their toes, guiding guests down to the exit with the light of their phones. Without their help, the stairs would have been pitch dark. Now, what happened to the emergency lights along the stairway?
Going down was easy, but there was mayhem once I reached the ground floor. Visibility was almost zero, and the lobby was filled with thick smoke. For the first time, panic was palpable. People were coughing and shouting. My first instinct was to pull up my T-shirt to cover my mouth and crouch down as low as possible to minimise smoke inhalation. I switched my mobile phone light on to guide my way forward. My foot hit upon what was the Christmas tree. Huh! I remember observing a giant Christmas tree in the lobby very near the entrance while checking into the hotel. The only differences were it was then brightly lit and covered with fake snow. Now it is dull and grey. I knew the exit was nearby. I followed the steady traffic of the crowd herding out.
Still, the thick smoke was overwhelming, and the pungent smoke slowly irritated my throat. I continued the rest of the journey in anaerobic mode, trying not to inhale more smoke than I had already ingested. Luckily, the way out was short.
It was hard to stay relaxed when everybody else was not. Somehow, I made it out, patting myself for staying calm. What greeted me outside was a crowd surrounding the perimeter of the hotel, directing me to an area nearby. They were pointing up at the building that was supposed to be my two-night stay. There was thick smoke bellowing from its 7th floor.
News spreads like wildfire in this digital world. People were engrossed in getting the best angle for the personal shot with their devices. Soon, the footage would grace their social media and, perhaps, be potentially ‘viralled’. Photographers with zoom lenses were already there as if they had purposely ignited a fire to film it. Curious onlookers with work clothes were locked in their gaze, in awe, as if it were the second coming. I followed.
I could see one elderly gentleman out at the window. Yes, I had seen that man before when checking in. He was then struggling to move. He must have opened his window to let the smoke out of his room. But luck had different plans. The smoke had grown in intensity and was blowing directly at his window. Desperate, he climbed out of his window and wanted to jump out against the pleading and yells of onlookers, including me. Maybe it was the confusion of inhaling carbon monoxide; he must have thought the fast out of his misery was to jump down without a safety harness.
A modern fire engine moved in just then, much to everyone’s relief. In a jiffy, an aerial ladder was summoned to whisk the victim from the window. Applause ensued, and the victim was quickly stretchered to a nearby ambulance.
Firemen at work. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara
The bellowing smoke quickly settled down, and my friends and I sighed in relief. Though one of my friends went on a tirade of cough. Even before the start of the holiday, he had been recovering from a nasty dry cough. The smoke must have made it worse. The paramedics checked on him, too, and took him in for overnight observation.
The hotel was cordoned off with yellow tape and classified as a crime zone. The police had to investigate to rule out arson. Until then, our luggage was the property of the Sri Lankan Police Department, and no one could go in or out.
We were left out like refugees with only our pants and clothes on our backs.
“… but we have our luggage stuck upstairs. We need them!” we told the hotel staff.
As expected, the reply was, “Sorry, Sir. Nobody can enter the building. But don’t worry, Sir. We will take care of your things.”
We were later given rooms in a nearby hotel, which was better and newer than the drab one we had been given earlier.
We soon left to bury our sorrows in some Ceylonese comfort food: apom[1] and coconut milk-rich crab curry. We had enough action for the day.
In retrospect, leaving the luggage behind was a wise move. Chugging the bags along the dark stairs and smoke-filled foyer is quite daunting. Sleeping with the clothes on our backs without toiletries must have been a trade-off for smoke inhalation and hospital admissions.
Overnight, we had become stars of sorts. Everywhere we went, it became the ice breaker. We became the talk of the town as the ‘guys who cheated the hotel fire”. Of course, we did nothing like that. Still, it spiced up our holiday and gave us friends of more than forty years something to reminisce about in our twilight years.
We only had access to our bags the following morning, which also meant we could not personally enter the premises to collect our belongings. Only designated hotel staff could do that. The hotel was still a crime investigation zone, which must mean we were considered potential arsonists who could tamper with evidence. The police personnel were still busy taking samples and photographs of the crime scene.
Luckily, the fire was localised, and the firefighters did not need to hose the whole building down. Hence, our baggage was dry. My room was on the second floor, while my other friends were on different floors. The fire had been on the seventh. Even though most of our rooms were far from where the fire allegedly started, the retrieved luggage came with a grimy layer of soot, compliments of the furious, fiery invader. Even the garments and bags gave a whiff of smoke for days afterwards, even after sunning it in the open.
Imagine how it would have been if I had waited a little longer. What is damage to property when, above all, health and life matter most? Going back without the luggage is better than returning in a body bag.
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[1] apom – soft, sweet and fluffy traditional pancake from Southern India and Sri Lanka.
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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“So relieved that we will make good time today,” I declare. “I’ve had enough of arriving in the dark.”
“We have to stop to get diesel on the way but that won’t make too much of a difference,” Alex reminds me.
We head south of Adelaide to the most fertile part of the state. The coast is lined with stately Norfolk pines, and further south there are rolling green hills lined with heritage gums. There are more cattle than you could count, mobs of kangaroos, and horses wearing coats to protect them from the winter chills. We arrive in Yankalilla, the last town before our departure point, and fill the jerry cans with diesel. There is no fuel at Wirrina Cove, as the marina went out of business a few years ago, so we have to haul diesel to the boat.
We leave Yankalilla and head past yet more horses. After the turn-off for Wirrina I catch a glimpse of my favourites, two Clydesdales, one of whom has a forelock that reaches down past his nostrils. At the marina, we park in front of a tree to protect the car from the harsh marine environment. It’s mid-morning so there should be plenty of time to arrive in Kangaroo Island before darkness. My border collie, Haru, springs from the car, and happily trots down the finger wharf behind me as I carry my luggage to the boat. It’s hard for me to make the leap onto the boat from the finger wharf but Haru skips in while I am still worrying about how not to fall in the water.
“There is less wind than forecast. We’ll have to motor-sail,” bemoans Alex.
I move to the trampoline at the bow to savour the view of boats in their berths opening out in front of me as we exit. Haru sits next to me and whinges every time I stop patting her. Once we are in open water the boat starts rocking, and I walk back along the side of the boat, all the while gripping the side with my right hand, until I am safely inside. Haru trots lightly alongside me.
The waves become increasingly bouncy and Haru frowns. She eyes her crate which is sitting just inside the doorway. I open the flap, and she heads in and curls herself on the old silk cushions and Alex’s old woollen jumper lining the bottom of the crate. She prefers the safety of the crate to sitting outside with the possibility of being splashed.
I abdicate the task of sailing to Alex and watch him at the helm, while I settle myself on the couch, placing cushions behind my head and covering myself with a blanket. I can’t confidently move around on the boat when it is rocking this much, so I stretch my headphones over my head and listen to music, while watching Alex raise the sails and maneuver the boat towards Kangaroo Island. I feel a twinge of guilt at lying down in warm comfort while Alex busies himself with sailing, but he doesn’t seem to mind, so I close my eyes and revel in the music.
After several hours, we reach the middle of Investigator Strait. I glance outside and can see dorsal fins rising from the waters. As much as I like lying down with a blanket and listening to music, I cannot ignore pods of dolphins. I rise and brace myself for the cold and wind outside the boat. I head towards the bow, but the rocking motion and the cold winds defeat me. From the stern I can see dolphins swimming alongside the boat, and as I gaze into the distance yet more dolphins are breaching as they head towards us. Of our many crossings of Investigator Strait there has never been a time when I have not witnessed pods of dolphins, but the sense of wonder never diminishes.
Despite my determination not to arrive in darkness, by late afternoon the sun begins to slip into the horizon and Point Marsden is still well in the distance. The sky erupts in bright orange, and I hope the light will hold out till we reach our mooring. Heading for Point Marsden is like trying to reach the summit of a mountain. Finally, we pass the point and head into the bay, but darkness has already fallen. Alex locates the mooring buoy in the distance. I grab the boat hook and head to the bow. I crouch on the trampoline and stretch the hook out in front of me over the dark water. Haru crouches at my side and brushes herself against me, willing me to hook the buoy on the first attempt. I stretch forward, hook the buoy, and drag it up to the bow. I call Alex, and he leaves the helm to secure it.
Alex lowers the dinghy, and we prepare to alight. We lift our bags in, and I carefully place one leg into the centre and ease myself in. Meanwhile, Haru has delicately skipped into the dinghy behind me. Finally, Alex enters, unties the ropes, turns the outboard motor on and takes us to the shore. We shine the torch in front of the boat and locate the cove. It’s high tide. Alex hops out into chest-high cold dark waters. He pulls the dinghy towards the rocks and secures it. I clamber out and perch myself on a rock. Alex hands me the bags. I place them on a higher rock just behind me. Then he hands me his backpack containing our laptops. I hold on to them tightly, afraid to place them on the rock in case water rushes over them. Alex picks up Haru and holds her above the water, before placing her on the shore. Then he takes the backpack from me, picks up the bags, and returns to the shore. I pick my way in the dark over slippery rocks, not moving one leg until the other has been firmly anchored. We reach the sand and walk up the switchbacks. Haru delights in running along the switchbacks after having been confined to the boat.
I tread carefully in the dark up the hill, Haru brushing her side against my calf. The holiday house is in sight, and just as I am about to reach the road leading to the house I fall over a boulder and gasp. How did I manage to navigate the submerged rocks in darkness and yet stumble on land?
‘“Oh sorry!” exclaims Alex. “That’s because I wasn’t holding your hand.”
He grabs my hand, and we walk up the last part of the track to the house. We enter and I make a doggie dinner for Haru. Then I collapse on the sofa and Alex makes a fire. After the adventure of arriving by boat and walking up the steep hill in the dark, the pleasure of lounging on a sofa and warming to a fire is multiplied. I am looking forward to spending the next day curling up on the sofa, reading a book in the sunshine, and taking Haru for walks.
A few minutes later the phone rings.
“Auntie May is not doing well. You have to come home as soon as you can!” urges my sister Jemima.
Great Auntie May, aged 103, is my oldest living relative. She was in the nursing home for two decades, even outliving her sons, before moving to the palliative care ward of the hospital. I remember the card from the Queen which she posted on her dressing table three years earlier. She once said that she had lived too long, because her sons and friends had passed. Because her grandchildren are interstate, it is up to her grand-nieces and grand-nephews to visit her.
“OK. We’ll be there as soon as we can!” I reassure Jemima.
“Alex, Auntie May is doing poorly. We have to get back to the mainland as soon as we can.”
“I’ll just check the weather,” he replies. “The wind is in the wrong direction. It’s a north-northeasterly. It may be too rough.”
His brow furrows as he scrutinizes the forecast.
“Can we fly home instead of sailing?” I ask.
“The weather will be getting worse over the week, so it won’t even be safe to let the boat stay on its mooring. Perhaps we can sail to the marina in Penneshaw and leave the boat there. Then we can catch the bus home from there.”
We decide to leave the next morning, but it is noon by the time we lock the front door. I dress Haru in her lifejacket, and don mine as well. We head back down the hill, and down the switchbacks to the shore. Alex picks up Haru and places her in the dinghy. She stands tall, ears pricked, the wispy hairs on her forelegs blowing in the wind, trusting that we will join her.
Alex places the bags in the dinghy. It’s too far away for me to board. If I walk to the dinghy in freezing water, I won’t be able to hop in from water at chest height. Alex pushes the dinghy to the rock I am standing on, and I leap in. He switches on the outboard motor, and we bump over the waves to the boat. Haru is at the front, and she winces as sprays splash onto her face. I pull her back against me to protect her from the sea-sprays. The boat is bobbing in the water. Alex grabs the rope to secure us. I stretch my left leg onto the boat, but the dinghy moves away, and my legs are thrown apart. I don’t want to fall victim to the cold water below. I move my left leg back into the dinghy. The waves are thrusting the dinghy towards the stern.
“Move back. It’s safer to alight from further back,” advises Alex.
Meanwhile Haru jumps effortlessly onto the boat, undeterred by the rough conditions.
“Now!” urges Alex, during a lull in the waves.
This time I extend my left leg onto the boat and somehow the rest of my body follows. Haru is standing expectantly at the bow wondering what all the fuss has been about. Alex raises the dinghy, then the sails, and we head towards Investigator Strait. Once we are in the boat the sea conditions are not as difficult as we had anticipated.
“I think we can sail across to the mainland in these conditions. We don’t need to leave the boat at Penneshaw after all,” Alex informs me.
The sea is bumpy but not enough to make me seasick. I bring Haru inside, and swaddle myself in blankets and locate my headphones, leaving Alex to manage the sailing. Six hours later we arrive at Wirrina Cove and drive back towards Adelaide in darkness.
“Let’s head straight to the hospital!” I urge Alex. “We can’t afford to waste any time.”
Alex floors the accelerator on the freeway, weaving past slow coaches who are blocking our way. Haru curls herself up on the back seat, oblivious to the drama around her.
We arrive at the palliative care ward and enter through the back door where visitors are allowed to enter with their dogs. Will Auntie May have waited for us? We make a beeline for her room. Auntie May is propped up on pillows and beams when she sees us. Haru jumps onto her bed and lies down facing her waiting for a pat.
“I had a bad turn, but I am feeling better today. Did you sail all the way back from Kangaroo Island to see me?”
“Yes, we did.”
“I’m sorry to have put you out. I’m feeling much better now.”
Alex and I glance at each other, and I catch the relief in his eyes. Even though she is 103, we aren’t ready to say goodbye. We hope she will make at least 110.
A few days later the phone rings. It’s the nurse from the palliative care ward.
“Would you come and pick up your Great Aunt May please? She is doing much better than expected and we need to move her out of the palliative care ward. The social worker has found a room with an ocean view for her in the Star of the Sea Nursing Home.”
Later we celebrate Auntie May’s 104th birthday at the nursing home, and next year we look forward to celebrating her 105th birthday. We continue to sail back and forth to Kangaroo Island, choosing our weather to only sail in favourable seas, never hurrying back. Haru continues to sail with us and enjoys visiting Auntie May just as much as we do.
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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, 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.
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Birth Of Krishna: Madhubani Art. From Public Domain
Throwback to the early 60s. Janmashtami[1] was a highly anticipated event for us kids, back then. In our community of expats, the Sharma household outdid others in celebrating the festival with great fanfare. Aunty Sharma would start the preparations days ahead of the festival, instructing the gardener to collect loose soft soil from the periphery of her kitchen garden. Plying the soft soil between her fingers, a miniature model village scene was crafted, closely resembling Mathura, where Lord Krishna was born. Single gauge railway track winding through the plains, midway a station master’s cabin, cows grazing in the green fields at the foot of the grassy sloped conical hills, built into the scene. Village belles dressed in colourful clothes poised to fill their urns from the lake, (formerly an empty biscuit tin overlaid with mud), made it more picturesque. Thatched roofed huts, and a post office with a red-letter box, made it complete. Picture perfect in every respect identical to villages depicted in Bollywood movies with heroines dancing around trees. Placed right in the centre was the crib with the bronze idol of Baby Krishna, looking indolently at worshippers. The entire scene rested against the living room wall, covered with Auntie’s gold brocaded wedding saree, the two edges tied to the door hinges on either side.
The highlight of the evening was not in the rituals but in the eating of the prasad and the special ‘shudh shakahari’[2] dinner that followed. It was a once-in-a-year dinner that we relished and hogged till our tummies could take no more. Apart from the binge-eating of homemade besan[3] and coconut laddoos[4], soaked in ghee, offered to the idol, it was the ‘panjiri[5]’ prasad[6], our eyes were fixed on for reasons, other than holy. Made of roasted wheat flour, dry fruits, powdered sugar, spices and a generous helping of ghee added to give it a unique taste and texture, this offering had special significance for us. Of powdery consistency that could go in any direction; swallowed or blown in faces for the heck of it. The latter was always on our minds, the fun part of the festivities. Never begrudged by the seniors, who were tickled pink seeing our ‘panjiri’ covered ghostly faces, with pieces of dried fruit stuck in the hair, hanging from eyelashes, stuck at the corners of the mouth. And always ended in a contest of who could blow the most. Who looked the weirdest? Thus, acquiring the name ‘phoo phaa’. The ‘phoo’ sound from the funnel-shaped mouth in the act of blowing, followed by the ‘phaa’ from the mouth muscles stretched sideways. Those amongst us with missing frontal teeth struggled to get it right as the powdery ‘panjiri’ got moistened by saliva a bit too soon, the ‘phoo’ producing zero results.
One year, the contest was struck off. For no fault of anyone. Nor any shortcomings in the puja[7] arrangement. The scene was up like every year, with a little modification here and there. Bronze plates were laid out with homemade laddoos, whole fruits, the steel dekchi filled with ‘panchamrit[8]’, a sweet drink made by mixing five ingredients — milk, yoghurt, crushed basil leaves, honey and Ganga Jal[9]to which sugar, ghee, chironji[10] and makhana[11] are added for the crunch part and flavouring. A drink commonly had to break the day-long fast. This fast was observed by Uncle and Aunty Sharma only. A cupful of the delicious drink had us craving for more. It was rationed to pass around to all the attendees. No one left without partaking of this prasad spooned out on open palms. We were treated to a second helping of the leftovers, if any.
The puja rituals progressed as usual with the offering of flowers, prasad, and singing of hymns, to be followed by the aarti. Aunty was about to light the ghee lamp for the aarti[12] when our attention was diverted to the sound of a splash in the biscuit tin lake.
An unexpected visitor had landed from outer space! Uninvited, it dropped from the ceiling above. We jumped in fright and disgust at the sight of an ugly lizard amid the holy scenery. The creepy-looking reptile stared at us, unblinking, flicked its tongue, cocked its head to one side, then to the other and slithered up to the railway track, making clear its intention of lingering.
That was not to happen. Baxter the two-year-old Alsatian, otherwise a well-disciplined pet, sitting on his haunches, guarding the inmates and watching the puja with full devotion, bounded across the room barking at the invader, ready to crush the creature under his paws. After all, it was his job to protect the family. In his view, this intruder certainly did not qualify as a worshipper.
Uncle and Aunty tried to calm him. That was out of the question. He went straight into the village scene, bringing it down, chasing the half-tailed lizard, looking at him tauntingly as if to say ‘Catch me if you can’. The laddoos went flying into the air, the fruit platter upturned, and the ‘panjiri’ mixture floated up like a cloud over the village. ‘Baxter stop…stop’ from Uncle and Aunty went unheeded. Baxter was not in a mood to give up the chase. Just as he was about to paw swipe, the lizard darted between the folds of the brocaded saree and vanished in the blink of an eye. Baxter barking furiously spun around, nose to the ground, desperately searching for the invader. Chintu the cook, busy in the kitchen preparing dinner, heard the commotion and came running, grabbed Baxter by his collar, deftly clipped on the chain, tying him to the balcony railing. Peace was restored.
Wasn’t this a bad omen, Aunty questioned with concern. “No…no…Lord Krishna had visited in the avatar of the lizard and blessed us all” comforted Uncle. Baby Krishna was lifted out of the crib and placed in the alcove on the wall, which served as the mandir for all Gods and Goddesses. Aarti was resumed, to the ringing of the heavy brass bell and singing of “Om Jai Jagdish Hare[13]”, a hymn sung when concluding the puja.
Baxter sat in the balcony corner with his ears drooped, tail tucked between his legs, a soulful look in his eyes, fixed on Uncle, seeking forgiveness for his misdemeanor. “It’s okay, Baxter,” Uncle whispered, patting him on the head, and unchaining him. He lifted his head slightly, his tail beginning to wag again slowly. The reprimand was over and forgiveness had arrived. He joined us at the dining table, crouching underneath and parking himself near Auntie’s feet. The grand ‘shudh shakahari’ dinner commenced with deep-fried kachoris[14], an assortment of cooked vegetables, both dry and with gravy, lachha — ginger juliennes soaked in lemon juice, ending with the thick and creamy kheer[15]. With the arrival of the last, the missed ‘phoo phaa’ contest that year, receded into the far corners of our minds.
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[1] A festival celebrating the birth of Krishna held in mid-August in India
Snigdha Agrawal (nee Banerjee) is a spontaneous writer, writing in all genres, covering poetry, prose, short stories and travelogues. A non-conformist septuagenarian, she took up writing as a hobby post-retirement and continues to learn and experiment with the out-of-the-box style.
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