My partner, Alex, has always been enthralled with the natural beauty of the west of the United States, having spent sixteen years studying and working there in his youth. He wanted to share his love of this part of the world with me, so took me on a seven-day road trip from his base in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Fort Collins in Colorado and back.
“You must see Arches National Park in Utah!” urged Alex’ long-time friend Ryan. “Bryce National Park is worth visiting too.”
Two days later we arrived at Bryce National Park. At first, the scenery was pleasant but unremarkable. I wondered why there were so many tourists and so many cars in the carpark. We donned our raincoats and walked towards the trail to follow the other tourists. It started hailing and I pulled my hood around my face. Thunder and lightning resounded. A tall thin park ranger approached us from the other direction and looked directly at me.
“We advise you to turn around immediately and seek shelter. We have lost ten people in twenty-five years in these weather conditions.”
We looked at the brochure to confirm this and read that there had been four fatalities and six injuries. I would have been happy to follow the park ranger’s advice, but we had driven for eleven hours to get there and were too curious to turn back. We started walking towards the Navajo Loop trailhead at Sunset Point. Tourists were posing for photographs at the rim. I wondered what the attraction was and peered over the rim myself. Suddenly, I understood why the site was so crowded.
Navajo Loop
I gingerly placed one foot after another to carefully descend the steep muddy trail. Each time I planted my foot down I held it steadily to ensure I would not slide. A couple approached us from the opposite direction as they ascended the trail.
“We strongly recommend you turn around immediately!” they warned. “It’s treacherous in these muddy conditions.”
Muddy trail
We thanked them, but I continued to gingerly traipse through the mud along the downward trail for a few metres.
“You go ahead,” I urged Alex. “I can’t go any further.”
It continued to hail, and we could hear thunder. I turned around and slowly plodded back up the muddy trail back to the edge of the rim, closely followed by Alex. We contented ourselves with the less slippery 2 km walk along the rim to Sunrise Point and back. Back at the car, we scraped the mud off our shoes, fairly unsuccessfully, and continued our drive to Arches National Park.
The Arches National Park is so popular that visitors have to book through a timed entry system. At 6 pm, when the booking system opened, Alex opened the booking site and secured one of the few remaining availabilities for a 7am entry the next day. He hoped we could also enter just before sunset that day, after 6pm when entry was not timed.
Four-and-a half-hours later we arrived at Arches National Park. The drive had been uneventful along straight desert roads and it had been difficult to force myself to stay awake, as I sat in the passenger seat.
“If we are too tired, we can go straight to our accommodation,” suggested Alex.
I hoped we would do so. I needed to escape from the enclosed space of the passenger seat. Suddenly huge rock formations loomed just beyond the park gates, and we decided to enter. I was lulled from my stupor into a sense of shock from the grandeur of the giant ochre rocks emerging from the plains. I could sense the onset of palpitations.
“I think I’m going to faint, Alex,” I warned him.
“I think you’re experiencing ‘geophilia’,” he responded.
Suddenly, I realised why people found the study of geology so fascinating. Strata upon strata of ochre rocks rose before us. Their layers indicated the movement of the earth’s surface over eons of time,
Entrance to the Arches
The sunset light flattered the rock formations. Cars lined the road heading to the distant formation of Delicate Arch thirteen miles into the park, and tourists parked their vehicles at the many carparks along the wayside to walk amongst the various giant rock formations.
The next morning, we rose to meet our 7am booking to enter the park. The light portrayed the rock formations in a slightly different way from the light of the evening before. We headed to the trail leading to the Delicate Arch. Even at that early hour, the carpark was almost full, and we secured a space before following the throng of tourists walking the trail heading to the arch. We scrambled across rocks and boulders in the piercing sunshine. I glanced at the climbers ahead of me and thought it would be impossible to reach where they were climbing, but with Alex’s encouragement found myself joining them. After a series of false summits, we found ourselves within sight of the arch. I looked at the abyss below and suddenly decided I would content myself with watching others pose for photographs in the arch rather than entering myself. A photographer was set facing a couple posing in the arches perilously close to the drop-off. Couples and children walked across the rocks in front of me towards the arches.
“I feel sick, Alex! I can’t go any further.”
I wondered why the others were walking so freely along the rocks in front of me, in full view of the yawning abyss.
“I promise I’ll hold your hand.”
“I don’t want to drag you down!”
“You won’t!”
I continued to worry I would drag Alex down with me in the abyss, but as usual, succumbed to his confidence. I gripped his hand and refused to gaze below me, carefully placing one foot in front of the other. Fellow tourists were taking turns to pose under the arch. A couple noticed us heading towards the arches.
“Shall we take your photo for you?” they offered.
Alex accepted and handed them his phone.
We continued to inch towards the arch. Finally we reached it and posed beneath it. I tried to assume a confident stance that I did not feel, all the while steeling myself away from glancing down at the abyss. I was naturally inclined to hold myself steady in a tense position, but instead decided to stretch my free arm outwards and pretend to exert confidence.
Arches
After standing there for long enough for the couple to take turns photographing us, we returned to the smooth large boulders ready for our trail down the mountain. As we walked down, I started reflecting on the contrast between how brave others seemed to feel as they freely walked over the boulders facing the abyss, and how timid I had felt.
“I think I have a fear of heights!” I announced to Alex. “I don’t know how I made it to retirement age without noticing this.”
There was one more trail we wanted to pursue, namely, the Devil’s Garden. As before, there were few empty places in the carpark. We finally edged into a free space, and then headed to the trail on our way to the Landscape Arch. This time I decided to read the information posted on the sign at the entrance. It read “Drop-offs on both sides challenge those with fear of heights”. I realised that there must be at least some people who shared my fear.
Arches National Park remains the most impressive national park I have ever visited. The force of nature had never felt so overwhelming. I felt small in this vast ancient landscape but privileged to be able to witness it.
Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her work has appeared in Transnational Literature, The Muse, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, The Journal of Literature in Language Teaching, The Writers’ and Readers’ Magazine, Reading in a Foreign Language, and in chapters in anthologies published by Demeter Press, Canada.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
“It is 5.23 am,” I told myself as I glanced at my watch. “I guess I got up early. Anyway, SK should be here right about now, right on the dot at 5.30am, as he has always been. Today is not going to be any different.”
I plugged on my earphones to hear the continuation of a podcast that I had been listening to from the previous week. It was a day before the full moon, but the cloudy skies and the lack of streetlights made the road look pretty dark. I sat on the raised stone fence as the auto-gate slowly closed from the inside.
Far behind a parked car, I could see a moving shadow. It looked like the silhouette of two stocky legs pacing haphazardly as if they were swaying. At once, I thought that it must be my neighbour’s son struggling to get back to his home after a long Saturday night out with the guys.
“Wow!” I was thinking as I symbolically patted myself on the back for keeping up with the routine all these years despite raging inner demons and concerned naysayers who keep advising me to slow down on account of being a half-centurion! “Only madmen would be running on a Sunday morning when the sane recovers from a stuporous night out!” they say.
Just as I was drowning in the nectar of my self-praise, I realised that the shadow cast under the car was not that of a man. The contour of two legs soon became four, and a greyish, horrendously ugly-looking face with a tinge of what appeared like thick whiskers soon manifested. I was 10 feet away, locking eyes with Vishnu’s third avatar, the Varaha, a wild boar!
Here I was, I thought, in the comfort of city living, enjoying the fruit of my lifelong struggle to benefit from the support of privacy and security of the gated community, I felt I had had it all. Within the luxury of economic independence and intellectual reasoning, the brutal combat of our ancient ancestors and the street smartness of the lesser beings have taken a back seat. Even in my wildest dream, I never envisaged a moment when I would have to face a wild beast!
It was the stare between two worlds; one of the modern domesticated kind who had a fight-or-flight response limited to his autonomic nervous system versus one who had to fight to stay alive and keep his place in the hierarchy of the pecking order of the jungle.
The stare looked like it lasted for an eternity. The boar, of course, hungry and desperate for food, did not want a competitor. As if he knew that I was not interested in his food, thank you very much. Negotiation naturally was out of the question, and so were all civil niceties.
I turned around to ring the bell to my house as I did not have the gate key. The sudden movement must have startled the beast. It gave a low-pitched snorting grunt as if it was showing its displeasure. Interesting, it was my neighbourhood, and the visitor or rather an intruder was displeased! Well, that is the law of the jungle. Might is right, and there is no place for logic. This is the ‘id’ that Freud asks us to put under check by societal pressures. It could manifest in a mob situation when enforcement crumbles.
Just when I thought that nay was near, me being gored by a wild beast, a beacon of hope came in the form of a beam of light from an SUV. My ride arrived right on the dot, just in time to turn the table on the aggressor. Awed by the approach – perhaps it thought the vehicle was a giant animal with a louder roar — its ‘fight’ mode downgraded to ‘flight’ as it turned its back to return to its own home. It retreated.
As we drove along, we saw a humbled pig strutting with its tail between its legs heading towards the secondary jungle. Probably my friend must have been reminded of the carefree days of his childhood when sauteed and spiced wild boar meat with toddy was a delicacy among friends.
That is why we are repeatedly advised by wise men to get back to nature. Nature gives a purpose to our existence. Its massive structures, like the trees, the mountains and elements of nature, awe us to the ground. It impresses upon us our deficiencies and our feebleness. It drills unto us that we are nothing, just a passer-by who makes a cursory appearance, while Mother Nature and the Universe continue into eternity. We are not even a single fragment of a tiny dot in the Milky Way, and even lesser in the ever-expanding dimensions of the Universe.
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Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, ‘Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy’ and ‘Real Lessons from Reel Life’, he writes regularly in his blog ‘Rifle Range Boy’.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
River Indus en route to Alchi, near Village Saspol.
I pulled my cap a little lower as I started for Alchi, after getting a full can of petrol from the Leh petrol pump. It was a very new thing for me — I marvelled at how a city could have just one petrol pump, and that too for miles around. Moreover, it served the neighbouring villages as well.
To reach Alchi, I had chosen the Delhi-Srinagar route. The distance would be approximately 66 kilometres from Leh, and would perhaps normally have taken two hours, but because of my propensity to stop and admire the rivers, trees and clouds, I knew it would be more than that.
The ageing two-wheeler I had rented was the last one available, but I was just grateful just to go, even though it was with prayers in my heart for a safe journey. The interesting part was, if I wanted to go straight, I had to aim the scooter a little to the right, which in itself was a scary thing, because if I lost myself in admiring the natural beauty too much, I could end up veering to one side, risking an unwanted encounter with the huge army trucks that passed through the remote roads from time to time.
As I started, I noticed the Himalayas in the distance, the white peaks were getting covered in the fresh falling snow, right before my eyes. It seemed propitious, and I started with a smile. Passing through the straight road, repeating the simple directions in my head — follow the road, reach the village Nimmoo, then just keep going on the same road — I felt at peace somehow. It was just me, the long, straight road, the puffy white clouds and the endlessly stretch of brown mountains. And of course, the blue sky that seemed to travel with me everywhere I went.
The journey to Nimmoo was smooth, with just the sound of the wind in my ears and no network on my cell phone. At Nimmoo, I stopped for a cup of tea and some biscuits. I saw the confluence of the Indus and Zanskar rivers on the way, near Nimmoo. I paused to take in the scene — the mixing of the greenish Indus and the bright teal-coloured Zanskar creating a mesmerising palette against the browns of the mountains. Some trees created a layer of green too – I think they are poplars and willows.
As I turned around to restart the drive, across the way, I saw a lady bent over by the side of the road. She was sweeping the road free of small stones that fell from the mountains onto the path. She stopped for a drink from a metal bottle from a backpack that she was carrying. I took the opportunity to talk to her about her motivation for this hard work. She said, “I am a government servant. It’s my job to clear the roads of small stones so that travelers can drive safely. For larger stones, I call other workers who work with shovels and machines.”
I asked, “No one is watching you here; why don’t you rest for a while?” She replied with an open smile, “But I know what I’m doing; I’m watching myself. I have already taken my lunch break. I will stop before it is dark and go back to my village.” Saying this, she pointed to a place not visible from where we stood. I’m reminded that I too, should reach Alchi before dark. Bidding her a respectful and heartfelt “Julley[1]”, I again started on my way.
I passed under mountains extending over the road. I was so hypnotised by the sights and the river and the song of the wind in my ears that I did not notice the huge army truck until it passed to my right. Another foot or so and I would have been history. A little shaken, I anchored myself more firmly to the task at hand and took the final left turn towards the village. I passed a beautiful small bridge made of metal, on both sides of which were poplars turning their leaves yellow and orange. A little further, I reached a huge prayer bell mounted by the side of a road, beyond which were mountains standing like sentinels, and yaks grazing the fields.
It was idyllic and pristine. After a quick drink of water and some photos, I was on to the last leg of the journey. Finally, just as evening was about to fall, I reached the village. Entering it, I could see hay bales, shingled houses and the boundaries of houses made of grey and brown stones stacked together, and rosy-cheeked children playing under trees. With a sigh of relief, I stopped my vehicle some distance from the monastery, taking it as close as I could get. The monastery was the main reason for my visit here. It was supposed to be one of the oldest in Ladakh; made around the year 1024 by hand. Somewhere in my mind, I was also worried about the fact that the seat of the vehicle would not lock, so I could not leave anything in it. By this time, I was famished that I decided to eat first and ask at the restaurant for a homestay nearby, trusting the goodness of the human heart and leaving some of my basic stuff inside the seat of the vehicle.
The restaurant was called ‘Alchi Kitchen’ and appeared to be the only one there. As I climbed the stairs with my backpack and my camera bag, I could see the mountains, the village stretched out below and the monastery. It was surprisingly comfortable, with low seating and gleaming brass and copper cookware in the open-plan kitchen inside. I ordered a plate of Manchurian and rice and watched them make it. The owner and her two young assistants were laughing and chatting as they cooked, their actions precise and practised.
Nearby was a group of youngsters, who appeared to be done with their meal. While waiting, I walked out to the balcony, in front of which was a mountain with the setting sun glinting off it, and prayer flags on its summit waving in the wind. After a few pictures, I just stood and gazed, absorbing the peace radiating from the mountains. Nature is always a balm for the soul. The mountain seemed like an old friend somehow, familiar, whom I was meeting after a long time.
Suddenly called back from my reverie by the owner’s call, I returned inside. The meal was simple but had layers of flavours. I devoured it feeling grateful towards the people who prepared it. Once I had eaten, refusing the offer of dessert, for I truly was stuffed, I thanked the owner and her friendly assistants and asked about a homestay. They guided me to a house just to the left of the monastery complex, saying that I should tell them that Padma had sent me.
I went to the house as directed. It was a beautiful old wooden three-storied house, with a big courtyard and trees all around. All the evidence of the busy and full household could be seen in the yard – a child’s bicycle, many pairs of shoes, sandals and rubber slippers, flowers planted in pots, random jars and even cut-off plastic bottles, clothes drying on a clothesline and some puppies and chickens playing in the lawn. Such a scene of blissful domesticity!
I asked the homeowner who was just coming out of the house if it was indeed Tsering Dolma’s house. He confirmed and asked if I needed a room. I affirmed that but added a request to see the room before I finally decided. He led me inside, up two flights of stairs, and showed me to a room which had windows from top to bottom, along two walls. These opened out into the backyard, that had a view of the monastery, the river Indus flowing behind it and the mountains beyond it.
I immediately said “Yes!” In all my 30 years of age, I had never once travelled or stayed alone anywhere, let alone at such a remote location, where even the mobile reception was sketchy! However, there was something about this place that seemed so comforting and welcoming, with a feeling of déjà vu.
Smiling, the friendly Tsering asked if I would like some butter tea. Although it was slightly late to be having tea, I could not resist his sweet smile and graceful manner and agreed. He asked his grandson to request his mother for two cups of tea for us. Having kept my stuff in the room, I washed my hands and face and came out. Tsering was sitting in the upstairs sitting room, which had beautiful low seating in front of hand-carved windows. The windows looked out over their lawn studded with apple and apricot trees.
Somehow, it was very easy to talk to Tsering, regardless of his age – he was a grandfather, and we were from such different backgrounds and our life experiences were diverse, yet there was a common thread of humanity and communion that linked us. I had found that people in Ladakh were open-hearted, warm and welcoming if we were friendly. I had never been very outgoing myself, but faced with such spontaneous acceptance, it was hard not to be receptive and equally responsive. Tsering told me about his family and his children’s studies, and we were discussing Ladakhi culture and life at Alchi when his daughter-in-law brought our tea. Smiling shyly, she placed the teacups on the hand-carved table. Tsering asked her to join us, but she said that since dinner was almost ready, she had better take care of that. She did stay, however, to tell me proudly about the children, aged five and two. The older boy I had already met; the younger — a daughter — was playing with her grandmother. After chatting with them both, I asked them if I it was safe to stroll outside for a while. He said that it was perfectly safe and that I could walk around, but to be sure to take a flashlight, or my mobile, as there were no streetlights there.
I took my phone and went outside. The street had small houses on both sides. In one, some women were lighting a clay lamp in a small alcove in front of their house, while chanting something which seems extremely melodious. The scene seemed out of this world, so removed from my usual life. I slipped into this new reality, which seemed far more real than from what I had left behind.
I looked around. The sky was full of stars. The chill breeze was interrupted with the scent of food being cooked in kitchens all around. I took a deep breath and rooted myself deeper into the present moment.
From somewhere came the smell of incense. I walked slowly through the short lane, looking up at the endless sky from time to time. After a slow walk around the monastery walls, I was back at the homestay. Skipping dinner in favour of a light soup served in their kitchen, I chatted a little with the family and then slept early, for I planned to catch the morning light for my photographs.
In the morning, I am woken up by birds outside my window. There were only three sounds I heard – the birdsong, the sound of chanting, and the sound of bells from the monastery. I got up and after freshening up, went out to find Tsering waiting outside in the hall. He said that breakfast could be ready soon and that if I went to the monastery early, I might catch the morning prayers there.
After a sumptuous breakfast of homemade khambir[2] and homemade apricot jam (made by Tsering’s family and even supplied to many shops and emporiums at Leh), along with piping hot butter tea, I went down to the lawn. I found Tsering’s grandchildren playing there with their friends. Enchanted by their animated play, I sat there for a while, clicking them after taking Tsering’s permission. Then I went to the monastery.
The street en route was being readied for the day’s market — people were setting up tables and taking out handmade wares — jewelry, masks, bronze statues, shells and more. As I entered the grounds of the monastery, a deep silence seemed to calm my being. Walking straight down to the main temple, I could feel the history of the place, soaked in the meditation and prayers of so many people.
I went inside, where there was a tall painting of the Buddha, decorated with gold leaves. I looked up at the wooden rafters. I thought how long ago, the common people would have crafted this by hand. I went around with my hand on the prayer wheels placed along one wall of one of the smaller buildings there.
Afterwards, as I stood there looking at a small boy praying with his mother, I tried to feel the stillness inside me. It was something new; a total contrast to the constant activity that was my norm. After sitting there to my heart’s content, I started to circumambulate. A local woman’s two-year-old was doing the same. The child was imitating her mother, who I noticed was not forcing the child to do anything. Little Amo, for that was her name, smiled at me shyly from behind her mother’s legs. I photographer too. When I said that I admired that she was not pushing her child to do anything, she replied that she was proud of her culture and religion and would just like to present them to her daughter and let her make her own choices. It was okay if she chose a different life, but at least she would do so knowing the alternative.
Amazed and humbled by the generosity of spirit of a young mother in such a remote place, I followed her as she finished her circumambulations. On my third round around one of the corners of the monastery complex, I felt this sudden urge to go down to the river Indus flowing behind the building. After I was done at the monastery, saying bye to Amo and her mother, I asked for directions and people guided me to a tiny lane going down the hill, behind some houses, right down to the riverbed.
I was thankful I was wearing my sports shoes and not the pair of sandals I had also brought. Walking down was a little harder than I had thought, and I was slightly out of breath by the time I reached the grey, stony bed of the mighty Indus. Taking off my shoes, I descended to the edge of the river. It turned out to be a wise choice, for the stones were a little slippery, being rounded and shaped over centuries by the river. I scooped up some handfuls of the river water and drank, excited about being in aa place I had only imagined in my wildest dreams. The water, as I brought up my hand to my mouth, sparkled, giving off rays of reflected light from the morning sun. It cooled my hand. I took a few pictures. Then keeping aside my camera, felt like sitting and meditating beside the slowly flowing river.
The flow rushed and slowed down in certain spots as the river wound around big grey rocks on its path. I sat to listen to the gentle gurgle and sounds of the ebbs and flow and lost track of time. After some time, I sensed another presence and opened my eyes. I saw a stranger a little distance away, setting up his tripod and making slow changes by trying to balance it on the rocks. He was wearing an orange sweater with a loose black jacket over it, jeans and a pair of those sandals that serious trekkers wear. He had extremely curly black hair and appeared to be lost in what he was doing. However, as if he sensed my gaze, he turned my way and smiled. As I rose, I could sense my heart decide that I would trust this person; I felt as if we had already met, or rather known each other for ages. Something in his eyes spoke to my soul in a way that was both soothing and familiar. I knew I could trust this person; he was no stranger — my soul recognised him.
He simply said, “Nice to meet you. I am Kabir.”
“I am Shivani. Same here.”
“Sorry to disturb your meditation.”
“No, you did not disturb me; I just felt your presence.” I responded.
He smiled and asked if I could help him position the tripod and focus his camera for a few pictures and videos. I agreed to help, and sitting as he directed, let him set the focusing timer on this camera, so he could take my place and shoot himself sitting in meditation along the riverbank.
He asked me to arrange some flat stones that are symbolic of a prayer to the elements. I was a little hesitant but when he said that the video would only show the stones and my hands, not my face, I relaxed and let him take his shots. After he finished, we sat there for a long while, sometimes speaking, most often just sharing the silence.
I did not want the meeting to end somehow. I sensed that he was feeling the same; he asked me where I was staying. I told him; he said that he had just put his stuff there too, that very morning, and came directly to the riverside. He must have arrived after I had already left for the monastery.
This meeting had a sense of déjà vu, a synchronicity to it. As we got up to go back to the homestay for lunch, our eyes met. For some seconds, the sound of the rushing river, the insistent wind and the distant bird calls all faded away and it seemed as if I was in a vacuum stretching across time, with just the two of us. I knew that this was a new beginning of an old connection. He felt something too, and we started walking in companionable silence, comforted by the shared upswing of so many emotions. The sense of having done this before created a bridge between our souls, across time and beyond. I felt I was finally home.
Shivani Shrivastav is a a UK CGI Chartered Secretary and a Governance Professional/CS. She loves meditation, photography, writing, French and creating.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Grief was something I thought I could run away from. If I created as much physical distance as I could from my place of loss, surely I could find healing. I had just lost my beautiful sister Stephanie after more than five decades of sisterhood and hoped that I could find healing in travelling to distant climes. There couldn’t be anywhere more distant than the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. The time zone is sixteen hours behind Adelaide, and the season is contrasting. Surely by distancing myself in time and space I could recover from my grief.
My partner Alex’s chief pleasures are planting trees, sailing, and hiking. In the Sierra Nevada, he could indulge his passion for hiking. We arrived in the Sierra in early June and stayed in a cedar house surrounded by ponderosa pines, Douglas firs and junipers, yawning into the sky. Every day we planned a hike along the numerous trails winding through the mountains. Even in June, it was pleasantly cool. Alex lit a fire in the fireplace every evening, and I donned a thick jumper. On our third day, our chosen hike followed a trail alongside the northern shoreline of Shaver Lake.
“If a bear approaches, the worst thing you can do is run away. Hold your ground and shout at them. Otherwise, they will think you are prey,” warned Alex.
Till then, I had been enjoying my stroll through the mountains at an elevation of almost 1800 metres, and it never occurred to me that we could cross paths with a bear. In Australia we often crossed paths with kangaroos, who would hold our gaze for a few seconds before gracefully hopping away. I had never considered that wild animals could be predators. Then, on second thoughts, I thought it would be nice to see a bear, and with Alex alongside me, felt less vulnerable.
“You have encountered wild bears before in California, haven’t you?” I quizzed Alex.
“Oh yes, several times,” he confirmed.
“Wasn’t there one time when you were alarmed?”
“Yes. That was when I was hiking alone in Montana. They couldn’t hear me. If a bear can hear you, they are more likely to stay out of your way. Some people use whistles.”
I started scanning the hillside for signs of large moving creatures, but instead my attention was drawn to the abundant wildflowers that I had never seen in Australia. I noticed bright red flowers protruding beneath the huge pine trees, known as Snow plants.
Snow plant (Sarcodes sanguinea)
I kept longing to spot a bear, but instead continued to notice wildflowers. The most common wildflowers were sensed by smell before I sighted them, small creamy flowers with a heady fragrance of rich honey. I wished I could photograph the smell.
Buck brush (Ceanothus cuneatus)
The nearby town of Shaver Lake had been saved by the firefighters in the 2020 wildfire known as the Creek Fire, the largest fire in California’s history. You could see the line where the fire had been stopped. On one side were scarred mountains which had lost their vegetation, and on the other remained majestic pine and fir trees.
Fire Devastation
On the side that had been spared, some pink flowers, known as mountain pride, asserted themselves through a crack in a boulder.
Mountain pride (Penstemon newberry)
I had been looking for bears, but instead found myself in the midst of a North American spring. Splashes of colour of ever more exotic wildflowers emerged along the roadsides and the trails.
Path through the forest
My hope to overcome grief through travel to a distant land had been in vain. Moving from a southern hemispheric autumn to a northern spring, and moving back sixteen hours in time to yesterday, was not enough to relieve me of my mourning. I missed phone calls and text messages from my sister Stephanie, and especially the opportunity to recount the tales of my travels when I returned home. Stephanie was my most avid listener, and never expressed any envy when I regaled my travel tales. Her concentration propelled me to provide ever more details of my travels. Now, I honour her memory by continuing to pursue the kinds of activities that she took delight in and writing the kinds of stories that she enjoyed.
In Loving Memory of Stephanie, Entrusted to God’s Care
Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her work has appeared in Transnational Literature, The Muse, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, The Journal of Literature in Language Teaching, The Writers’ and Readers’ Magazine, Reading in a Foreign Language, and in chapters in anthologies published by Demeter Press, Canada.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Not being a fan of spices and sourness, the only pickle I liked while growing up was my maternal grandmother’s oil-free lemon pickle. It used to be a staple at her house. I took special pleasure in fishing out entire globes of fleshy, marinated lemons out of the glass jar. Others would use the steel spoon to cut out smaller pieces, while I struggled to bite into the whole lemons, fearing such an attempt would ruin the appeal of the perfectly pickled, fading yellow lemon globules. One could have it with any meal. It would liven up the simplest dal-bhaat[1]as easily as it would ensure the swift return of lost appetite. The jar would sit on my grandparents’ dining table by the window, from which the afternoon sun would regularly macerate the tangy mix. It was probably the most faithful witness to all our conversations. Looking back, I feel the pickle jar was never not full. Did didun[2] stash away secret batches to quickly replace the empty jars?
It was not until I was in university, having gone back to my grandparents’ house in my hometown to do fieldwork for my master’s dissertation, that I fully acknowledged the existence of the pickle that I so loved and had come to associate with my grandmother, as something that required making! This visit was my only solo stay with my grandparents and I felt the need to ask my grandmother for the pickle recipe. I had little experience with cooking back then, but even so the recipe sounded fairly easy.
She asked me to pick out blemish-free lemons, preferably thin-skinned ones, and make an x incision from the crown to the bottom, but not all the way. A bit of skin and flesh would hold the sliced-open lemon together. The gashes needed to be stuffed with salt. Then, the lemons had to be crammed into a dry glass jar – however many together as tightly as possible. Then one needed to sprinkle more salt on top and generously shower the lemons with lemon juice till they would be fully immersed in the solution. Then the jar needed to be placed in a sunny spot for a week or so, by which time the lemon rind should have taken on a paler, translucent complexion. The salt would have dissolved entirely, leaving a sticky, viscous marinade in its place. You could keep this for years, my grandmother told me. And that made sense; no wonder she always had some at home. I promised myself that I would make it as soon as I got back home.
I didn’t make the pickle for years. Didun passed away only three months later. Life took over and I forgot about the pickle. When I visited my grandfather after didun‘s passing, he still had the pickle jar sitting on the dining table. It was oddly shocking to see this. I felt like I had transgressed into an unspoken private understanding that my grandfather shared with his late wife. In retaining a jar of pickles prepared by her, he had in a small way kept a part of her with him. She would have had sterilised this very jar with scalding water, wiped it with a dry cloth and kept it in the sun to dry it completely. She must have picked out the lemons that would make for the perfect pickle – thin-skinned or else it could become bitter. Before stuffing them into the jar, she would have pushed back her gold bangles further into her arms, and held her breathe to keep any moisture from getting into the ingredients. Once done with the stuffing and juicing, she would have wiped the outside of the jar and placed it on the choicest spot meant to get the most sun. That afternoon when dadubhai and I sat for lunch, he gestured me to take out some pickle for him. It felt wrong to ingest something that had been prepared by someone who didn’t exist anymore. And so, I came to associate the pickle with loss, not of my grandmother but loss in general – of childhood mates, cousins I couldn’t speak to anymore, relatives that had passed on, and worst of all, the knowledge of impending, eventual, inevitable loss.
The years went on and I didn’t find myself wanting to taste the pickle. The jar, too, had disappeared from its usual place of prominence on the dining table. It was replaced by my ailing grandfather’s many medical supplements. Then he too passed on and the difficult task of sifting through his belongings fell on my mother and me. As we tackled one room after another, we found many curious items: books from her childhood which had clearly been the cause of fights between her and her elder sister; an old camera with which I had clicked photos of my new-born brother; animal hide from a time when it wasn’t illegal to possess one. Then came the most sparsely stocked room of all, the puja room, which had come to be used as a small larder of sorts, apart from its designated purpose of worship. I found sitting on a shelf here, a pickle jar, still containing some bit of the pickle prepared by didun. The mixture had turned a dark brown colour and was probably inedible. At least ten years had passed since it had been made. Maa pointed out that it was indeed the same jar, I nodded in acknowledgement. I didn’t know what to make of any of it. As if it wasn’t difficult enough to rifle through the mundane intimacy that is a couple’s possessions – shongshar[3], a universe unto itself – and deciding on what to retain for sentimental value, what to give away, and what to deem apt for the municipal garbage bin. Now this! I knew what I had to do with a jar of spoilt pickle. There was no point in pondering when we had each taken a designated number of days off from our jobs to be here to declutter the house.
For the rest of the stay our emotions plateaued and peaked, but we went ahead with what had to be done. Dadubhai had been gone for one year at this point and I could feel the final severing of my ties with what felt like the first act of my life.
I returned back to Delhi. The rhythm of my routine took over for good. A month later, while completely immersed in writing up chapters for my research project, I found myself on a hunt for the perfect glass jar to make pickles in. Unlike what I had imagined, it was no great coming to when I decided to make my grandmother’s famous lemon pickle at what it now my temporary home away from every person that feels like home. I couldn’t manage to find a jar I liked. The lemons I had ordered online had already been delivered and was sitting in my refrigerator. Sensing I was going to pass on the plan yet again, I started going through my cupboard in search of a suitable substitute. I had a small glass jar with a red plastic lid, which had been the receptacle of some delicious chutney from my husband’s colleague at work. I decided that would have to do. The lemons that were delivered to me were neither thin-skinned, nor uniformly sized, and worst of all they weren’t even chosen by me! But they would have to do. I processed the lemons, filled the gashes with salt, stuffed them into the small container, and filled it to the brim with salt and lemon juice.
It’s been a week since I made the mix and I tasted it with a bit of simple khichdi[4]and aloo bhaja[5]. The rinds were a bit bitter and not quite translucent yet, but this would have to do. Next month, when I meet my mother in my hometown for the housewarming of our new home, I want her to taste it. Does it make her remember things she could have sworn she had forgotten?
We are regular visitors to Kangaroo Island, a nature-lovers’ delight that lies 14 kilometres off the South Australian coast. Much of our time there is spent trying to atone for the environmental damage caused by our European forebears. Swathes of the vegetation have been cleared due to almost two centuries of European farming. Thousands of sheep have grazed on this cleared land for much of that time, and European crops have replaced much of the original flora. The crops have been fertilized for years, and now that we allow the land to remain fallow, noxious weeds take over, fueled by the remnant fertilizer in the soil. Our mission is revegetation, trying to reverse some of the damage from farming.
On our most recent visit, one of my jobs was to uproot the weeds. The task was impossible given that they sprawled across the land as far as the horizon, so we focused on a small fenced-off area. We dared not poison the weeds because they could be consumed by endangered bird species, such as the white-bellied sea eagles that nest nearby. For the same reason we never use rodent poison, but instead trap mice in buckets of water.
White-bellied sea eagle soaring above us
I donned my gardening gloves and grabbed the weeds by their roots, pitted my body weight against the plants, and uprooted them and before discarding them onto the weed pile.
Meanwhile my partner Alex was busying himself planting yet more trees. He was somewhat disgruntled because his boat was being repaired in Yaringa, near Melbourne, after being dismasted in Bass Strait. He gazed longingly out to sea, but seemed to regain a sense of contentment when he was planting trees. For him, planting trees was not a chore, but rather a consuming passion. He made deep holes in the rocky ground with his fencing crowbar, delicately coaxed the seedlings out of their containers, pushed the roots into the hole, pressed the soil back around the seedling, and made a berm around each plant to trap water. Then he drove stakes into the ground around each plant, and encircled them with either a corflute tree guard, or a wire cage, or both. These measures were necessary to protect them from marauding possums and kangaroos, which would otherwise devour the plants overnight.
The fenced-off orchard where we weeded, flanked by Investigator Strait.
There is only so much revegetation you can do without hankering for some relief. Alex was content to plant trees from dawn to dusk but I pressed him to take me on a day excursion. Besides, coming to Kangaroo Island was not just about our earnest efforts at revegetation; it was also meant to be a romantic getaway. Our first outing was to Seal Bay, where the attraction was not in fact seals but rather Australian sea lions. We drove there, now an official tourist destination, and entered through the park office. We walked along the boardwalk with the other tourists, many being international visitors, and gazed down at the sea lions enjoying lying in the sand in the sunshine.
Sea lions under the boardwalk at Seal Bay, Kangaroo Island
Back at the revegetation site, we resumed our routine of weed-whacking and planting for the next few days, by which time we felt we deserved another outing. This time we chose to visit American River (named after visiting American sealers in 1803) known for its picturesque harbour and fresh seafood. But for me, American River was less about the view and the seafood than spotting sea lions. I had spied one on a previous visit and was hoping to see some again. I walked onto the boat ramp near the shed where the reconstruction of the Independence schooner was taking place. (The Independence was the first ship constructed in South Australia, in 1803, commissioned by a visiting American shipmaster and sealer, Isaac Pendleton.) I walked past the door to the boat shed, because as much as I would like to claim interest in the history of local shipbuilding, my real interest was in finding a sea lion.
I was not disappointed. Behind a ‘Resting Seal’ sign explaining that you were required to keep a thirty metre distance from the sea lion, we found what we were looking for.
Sea lion in American River, Kangaroo Island
I glanced into the lagoon, and spied the sea lion’s mate, proudly flipping his body around in the water, before he scrambled onto the shore to demonstrate his supremacy in this territory.
An American tourist next to us asked Alex, “How far is thirty meters?”
He replied, “About one hundred feet, which is twice the distance we are now!”
We all walked backwards trying to preserve the thirty-metre distance between the sea lion and ourselves.
It was mid-afternoon and there were still hours of daylight left, so we decided to visit the nearby eucalyptus distillery. Before entering the building our attention was arrested by young kangaroos, known as joeys, hopping freely around the outside of the building. We entered the premises and purchased some eucalyptus products, and as we left, approached one of the joeys.
Kangaroo Island, like many parts of Australia, has dead wallabies and kangaroos alongside its roads, victims of road-kill. Because kangaroos are marsupials, some of their young may be found alive inside their pouch, even after the mother has been killed. Those finding the road-kill may drag it safely away from the road, after ensuring that no approaching cars are in sight, and then remove the joey from its mother’s pouch. The joeys we came across had been rescued in this way, and hand reared. Unlike most kangaroos, they had no fear of humans. I knelt to pat one of the joeys, and then he gently raised his pointy face to my ear and whispered in it. Then he raised his lips to mine and brushed them against me.
“Don’t let him!” urged Alex. “You’ll get germs from a wild animal.”
I let the joey tickle my lips for a few more seconds, before heeding his urgings. I had been kissed by a kangaroo!
Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her work has appeared in Transnational Literature, The Muse, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, The Journal of Literature in Language Teaching, The Writers’ and Readers’ Magazine, Reading in a Foreign Language, and in chapters in anthologies published by Demeter Press, Canada.
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Ratnottama Sengupta time travels fifty years back as famed actress Jaya Bachchan recounts her first day on the sets of Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar
In this event, Jaya Bachchan recounts her days while acting in Satyajit Ray’s award-winning film Mahanagar or The Big City. Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
When Shanti Di, my eldest aunt’s eldest daughter, had got married in 1964, she was already working. So she did not have to face the resistance Arati, the pivotal character of Mahanagar had to face from her in-laws and son. But prejudices and cryptic comments she did face — from her male colleagues. “Women in workplace? They only deprive deserving men of a livelihood,” they would say. “Because, men have to run entire households on their earnings while women work only for the ‘sauce’ — jewellery and saris!”
Mahanagar poster designed by Satyajit Ray. Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
I remembered this at the screening of a restored print of Mahanagar (The Big City, 1963) at Nandan, the West Bengal Film Centre, to mark the 102nd birth anniversary of Satyajit Ray. Based on Narendra Mitra[1]‘s novel, Abataranika (Staircase), the film followed the trials and triumph of Arati, a housewife who steps out of the narrow domestic walls when she finds her husband Subrato bending under the weight of fending for a superannuated father, an aged mother, a school going sister, and their little boy along with themselves.
But once she starts working, she enjoys her new role of conversing with and convincing women with deep pockets to buy her products — and soon her confidence in her work grows along with her empathy with other women who are yet to be empowered like her sister-in-law, Bani, her mother-in-law, Sarojini, her Anglo Indian colleague, Edith Simmons… When her husband loses his job, Arati firmly negotiates a raise. And when Edith is fired for absence due to ill health she takes up cudgel for the ‘insult’.
The remarkable sensitivity and the eye for details with which Satyajit Ray etched the ordinary lives of a middle class family earned him the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival 1964. The director’s son, Sandip Ray, remembers attending the ceremony with his parents. “Why were you not there?” a voice from the audience asked Jaya Bachchan, who was in conversation with the maestro’s son, now a renowned director in his own right. “Why would they invite me, who was just a ‘cameo artiste’ as someone mentioned this evening?”
Jaya Bachchan and Sandipt Ray conversing at the event on May 1, 2023.
Jaya Di[2] — as I am privileged to address her, much like Sandip ‘Babu’ Ray — was much more than a cameo artiste in Mahanagar. Her ‘Bani’ was a flesh and blood character as she brought to life a marriageable sister who, in my childhood and not just in Bengal, was a part and parcel of any Indian household. Bubbly, sincere, attached to her Boudi as much as to her little nephew whom she mothers when the housewife is earning the family its bread, she is pampered by her brother even as she is being trained by her mother to pick up the haata-khunti…spatula-spoon…in the kitchen!
“I distinctly remember the first day of shooting in Indrapuri Studios. It marked my debut in films. Madhabi Di and Anil Kaku were in that shot which is reproduced whenever something is written about Mahanagar. I am at the study table, trying to write something. Those days I used to wear specs when I was reading. Manik[3] Kaku must have made a mental note of that, he said, ‘Don’t take off your specs, keep them on for the shot.’ I didn’t have any dialogue for the scene. So, although I had not even been on stage before this, I didn’t feel that I was acting. The camera in front of me with Subrata Mitra behind it was not daunting. I was comfortable, just my usual self…”
Little did Jaya Bhaduri know, then, that this ‘girl-next-door’ identity would become her calling card in the years to come, storming even the glamorous boulevards of tinsel town Bollywood.
*
How did Jaya reach the sets of Mahanagar? She didn’t: Ray had sent for the girl in her teens. In all probability, she was recommended by Robi Ghosh and Sharmila Tagore. “They were shooting for Tapan Sinha’s Nirjan Saikatey (1963) when I had gone to Puri with my father, Tarun Bhaduri,” Jaya Di recounts. “We met them and on their return to Kolkata both Robi Kaku[4] and Rinku[5] Di told Manik Kaku that ‘the girl for that role (of sister) has been found at last!'”
The first time she met Ray he did not ask her anything special. Nor did he ask her to do anything particular on the set. Young Jaya was told to read her lessons aloud, which she did, just as any school going child in Bengal did half a century ago. “I remember that Baba told Jaya Di to continue reading after the camera had moved on because he wanted an audio track of her reading in the background,” Sandip recalled in the course of the conversation. “She continued to read, but suddenly there was a sound of coughing. What happened?? In reply to everyone’s anxious query she coolly replied, ‘Why? Can’t a fly wing its way into my mouth while I’m reading?'”
Jaya Di herself has no recollection of this prank, but she vividly remembers that she would pester people on the set, incessantly asking questions. She especially questioned Subrato Mitra for taking time to light up! “It was as if we were out on a picnic,” she smiles. “The entire unit indulged me like a little girl. I was very comfortable because I had no burden to carry. In the presence of major actors I was required to do very little!”
*
Jaya Bhaduri was not given any express direction — neither about how to speak her lines nor about action or emotion. She had full freedom to interpret the scene and react to the other characters. “Manik Kaku used to call all the artistes and read out all the dialogues to us. His intonation would give us an idea of what he wanted from us. We interpreted the scene according to our capacity and gave our best shot. He went about canning it, he never had any problem with my delivery.”
But lessons in acting she did learn on the sets of Mahanagar — by observing how the director groomed the lead actress. “I have seen Manik Kaku directing Madhabi Di to grow into the role of Arati. He literally groomed her in acting. ‘Look this way, through the corner of your eyes. Turn your head like this. Say it like this. Wear the sari in this manner…’ The fact is that Satyajit Ray had a strong visual sense. He envisaged how the character would look and behave at the outset, how she would change, how she would resolve her dilemmas.”
In other words, his actors were not puppets: he allowed the spontaneity of some, like Jaya; he moulded the emotive action of some, like Madhabi Mukherjee who would soon storm the silver screen as Charulata (1964).
*
“Mahanagar was a very modern film, and not just at the time it was made,” Jaya Bachchan observes. Her critique of Ray’s first urban development film gains greater weight from the fact that, in the intervening years, she has ‘grown up’. From a school girl to a trained actor. From the heartthrob of every Indian family in 1970s to the heartthrob of her ‘Lambuji[6]‘ — Amitabh Bachchan — whose charisma straddles two centuries, three generations, five continents. From a reclusive personal life to a vibrant political presence in the upper house of India’s Parliament.
Young Jaya Bhaduri (now Jaya Bachchan) in between lead actress Madhabi Mukherjee and Anil Chatterjee. Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
So let me elaborate on her observation, taking off from a scene between her and Subroto, her elder brother in Mahanagar, enacted by Anil Chatterjee.
Subrato has come home from work and his sister asks him for his pen as hers has run out of ink. He enquires when her exams are to commence, then he comments, “What use is this reading and writing? Sei toh henshel thelte hobey, you’ll end up dealing with only pots and pans!”
“Sekhaay toh,” Bani is quick to revert. “They teach us that too – it’s Domestic Science.”
That statement portrayed Ray’s attitude towards housewife. It was and still is a commentary on the identity — role — of a contemporary wife. It is in fact every woman’s attitude in contemporary India,
Jaya Di has observed: “Today every woman also has to and does work. Not only for economic reasons but for identity, purpose in life. Those who have had higher education, certainly do. Those who have not studied much, who help with housework also have such dignity. I see their confidence in the way they carry themselves. They know their mind and they don’t hesitate to say up front what work they will do and what they won’t; how much time they will apportion to a household and when they will leave. And like urban working women, they too save a little from their earnings, use some of it and keep some for emergencies.”
*
Ray’s masterstroke is seen in the way he sketched the nuances of the bank clerk husband, complete with his angst and jealousy. He is proud of his wife’s charming appearance, he is confident she can steer herself through the career of a salesgirl, he is happy when the second income flows in. Yet — and especially when he loses his job — he suffers from insecurity, jealousy, suspicion. To the extent that the man who wrote her application letters, goads her to write a resignation letter. He is redeemed by the stand he takes at the very end when she gives up her much-needed job to protest a wrong against a colleague.
Critics have found Ray to be more kind to the protagonist than Narendra Nath Mitra, the Bengali author who also penned Ras[7] (made into the Hindi film Saudagar (Trader, 1973) which again builds upon how economic realities can make or mar a marriage. About a decade later Jaya Bachchan co-starred with husband Amitabh Bachchan in Abhimaan[8](1973). In it Hrishikesh Mukherjee takes to an extreme the consequences of a husband’s ego trip when his wife fares better than him, professionally and financially.
*
Earlier Hrishikesh Mukherjee had, in Guddi (1971), given the young sister of Mahanagar a full canvas to come into her own as an actor. The same bubbly girl matures into a woman who can differentiate between love and infatuation. “After Mahanagar I was very selective. I chose to work only with directors who had a ‘Bengali’ sensibility,” Jaya Di says without a hint of hesitation.
And the rapport she struck with Ray? It lasted a lifetime. When she joined the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) she asked her Manik Kaku for a letter of commendation to go with her biodata. He wrote back saying that she doesn’t need an institute but join it, “it is the place for you”.
She went thinking she would not last beyond a few months but with batchmates like Anil Dhawan, her co-star in Piya Ka Ghar (1972), and Danny Denzongpa, she stayed the full course. “And when Manik Kaku came with the print of Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1969), I felt so proud! I went to the airport to pick him up!”
That bonding would show every time they were in each other’s vicinity, Sandip Ray reiterates. “Once we were in Bombay and Baba stepped out of the Taj Mahal Hotel to leaf through books in the stall just outside. Suddenly a shrill voice screamed, ‘Manik Kakuuu!’ Jaya Di was passing by in her car and had spotted him!” “And I hugged him!” Jaya Di adds, “I took liberties others would hesitate to.”
So why was she was not seen in his films again? “There were talks of casting me in Pratidwandi (1970) opposite Dhritiman Chatterjee,” Jaya recalls, “but I was in FTII then. Later I accosted him for not giving me a thought (for the role) – ‘You could have at least called me!’ His reply? ‘It was not necessary.’ That’s all!
“As if to add insult to injury, Manik Kaku got Amitji to do the voice over for Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players, 1977) but a role for me? No! I was so angry I went and met him in Rajkamal Studio. His reply? ‘ Ha ha ha…’ Not a word more.”
Amitabh Bachchan doing the voice over for Satyajit Ray in Shatranj Ke Khilari. Picture from Bachchan’s FB, provided by Ratnottama Sengupta.
That did not stop Jaya Bachchan from going to Bishop Lefroy Road every time she happened to be in Kolkata. She had, after all, seen the films the ‘Towering Inferno’ made even before Mahanagar. “Every time I watched a film by Ray I felt this is his best. Until the next one came along…” So, when Charulata came, Mahanagar paled. But wait, to this day Debi (The Goddess, 1960) continues to haunt Jaya Bachchan.
And to think that, when Ray had sent for her, the young girl growing up in Bhopal was beset with doubt and hesitation. “I was studying in a convent school, and I feared that the nuns would disapprove of my acting in a film. But my father said, ‘It’s the opportunity of a lifetime — don’t let go of it.'”
Cut to the convent when she went back after Mahanagar. The same austere nuns came and said, ” ‘You have acted in a Satyajit Ray film?! You are so lucky!!’ That is when I first realised, even before he was crowned in Berlin, what a major director my Manik Kaku was!”
Jaya Bachchan on 1/5/2023. Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
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 write 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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Ratnottama Sengupta shows the impact of Gandhi and his call for non-violence on her father, Nabendu Ghosh as she continues to emote over his message of Ahimsa and call for peace amidst rioting
Eka Naukar Jatri (Journey of a Lonesome Boat)Gandhi. Courtesy: CReative Commons
The ferocity and senselessness of riots — Nabendu Ghosh had personal experience of both. In his autobiography, Eka Naukar Jatri (Dey’s Publication, 2008, Journey of a Lonesome Boat), he writes at length about grappling with the riots that had rocked Calcutta, Bengal — nay, the entire Subcontinent on 16th August 1946.
The Direct Action Day call was given out by Mohammad Ali Jinnah to press the demand for a separate Muslim State, Pakistan. The epicentre was Calcutta, a flourishing centre of business and education, that had Suhrawardy of Muslim League as its chief minister. On that black Friday, they unleashed unprecedented bloodletting along communal lines. At least 4000 deaths were reported on the very first day of the ‘Great Calcutta Killing’ that continued for more than four days. Many women were raped, many were kidnapped, many killed and hung naked in public areas… Dismemberment, forced conversion, bustees set on fire… Violence spread to Khulna in East Bengal, and Bihar. Within a year the hatred ignited on religious grounds culminated in the Partition of India.
The savagery of the mindless bloodbath had left such a deep dent on the yet-to-be-thirty writer, that he wrote a number of stories and novels on the theme: Phears Lane, Dweep, Trankarta, Ulukhar, ‘Chaaka’(Full Circle), and ‘Gandhiji’.
Gandhiji builds majorly on the author’s own memories of a darshan[1]of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi while he was passing through Patna, sometime in early 1931. This is how he records his ‘encounter’ with the Saint of Sabarmati who worked magic on the masses with the mantra of Ahimsa, non-violence.
“By 1930 all of India and its British rulers too were uttering one name with awe: Gandhi. One evening it came to my ears that the Mahatma would reach Patna at 7 am the next morning, spend the day in the city and leave by the Punjab Mail at night.
“I did not sleep well that night. I was up at the crack of dawn and left home at 5 am on the pretext of getting a book from a friend. But I could not get anywhere near the Patna railway station, which was teeming with people who had arrived before sunrise. It was no different along the path he would be driven down. I hung around at one end of the platform, eyes glued to the exit gate.
“Policemen on horseback trotted past me. A police van was parked close by. Those patrolling the platform carried bayonets and batons. Because of my green years and my small built, I was allowed to inch ahead. From time to time the sky was rent with the cry of ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai! Long live the Mahatma!’
“All of a sudden, perhaps to steel myself, I started to whisper: ‘Vande Mataram! I salute you, my Motherland!’ As if on a cue, the man next to me cried out aloud: ‘Vande Mataram!’ The crowd roared in an echo: ‘Vande Mataram! Vande Mataram!!’
“Suddenly a train rolled in with a long whistle. And people all around me broke into the cries of ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!’ ‘Bharat Mata ki jai!’ ‘Vande Mataram!’ I found myself matching their voice…
“Soon people started saying, ‘There he goes…’ Some cars came forward with Gandhi-topi clad volunteers. And then, there was the face so familiar from the newspapers, peering out of a hood-open Ford. Mahatma Gandhi, clad in a knee-length khadi dhoti, a chadar draped over his bare torso, a volunteer on either side, was greeting everyone with folded hands. What an inspiring image!
“I also broke into the cry of ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!’‘ The crowd had started running behind the moving car. I joined them, without a pause in the slogan. A few paces later, I bumped into someone and fell down by the wayside. As an elderly gentleman lifted me up and soothingly dusted me off. I felt a resolve surface in my thoughts: ‘Freedom must be won!'”
*
Nabendu Ghosh may or may not have had another prototype for the protagonist Ratan in Gandhiji. But it is said there actually lived close to College Street — where Nabendu lived at the time — a person named Gopal Mukherjee who owned a meat shop. He was a devotee of Subhash Chandra Bose and a critique of Gandhi. Reportedly this ‘paatha‘ — butcher — was funded by some Marwari businessmen and he led his team to retaliate from the fourth day of riots. After Independence, when he was urged to surrender his guns, knives and sword to Gandhiji, he apparently refused, saying, “I would willingly lay down my arms for Netaji, but not for Gandhiji. Why didn’t he stop the killings in Noakhali?”
The author may have woven in some traits of Gopal Paatha but, like a mirror image that is identical yet opposite, his protagonist Ratan is transformed by the iconic personality so that he surrenders his weapons — expressed symbol of violence — at the feet of the Mahatma.
*
As I watched Kamal Hasan’s Hey! Ram (2000), I was reminded of this story, ‘Gandhiji’ that was published in the collection Raater Gaadi (The Night Train) in 1964. Perhaps unknowingly the character played in the film by Om Puri reflects the protagonist Ratan.
In Hey! Ram, A rioteer who has snuffed out scores of lives walks up to the fasting Gandhi in Beliaghata, throws a roti towards him and says, “I have bloodied my hands with many lives but I will not have your death on my conscience.” He resonates Ratan, the butcher who finds his biggest high in draining out human blood but once he rests his eyes on the frail sage, something happens deep inside him. He who wondered why his taking a life should matter to ‘Gendo’, stakes his own life to protect a Muslim.
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Nabendu Ghosh experienced the magic of the Mahatma at age fourteen, long years before he became my father.
I felt the magic of the man whom Rabindranath Tagore gave the name of Mahatma when I was well into my forties, and was doing a Fellowship in Oxford, on a Charles Wallace award, on John Ruskin and his Influence on Gandhi and Tagore.
Then, almost 20 years later, we were at the critical juncture in time when we were completing 70 years of Gandhi’s passing and approaching his Sesquicentennial Birth Anniversary. That is when I started wondering: “What does Mohandas Karamchand mean to those acquiring voting rights in India now? Is he only the face on every Indian currency note? Is he only ‘M G Road’ — the high street of every city in India? Is he a boring memory who forces every one of his countrymen to shun drinking on his birthday?”
Or, is there any valid reason to recall what he said — in Natal and Transvaal and Pietermaritzburg; in Kolkata and Noakhali, Chowri Chowra and Dandi, Bombay and Delhi? Is there anything in his actions that can change the lives of not only Indians but everywhere in the world where people are tired of terror strikes and gunshots and discrimination in the name of caste or creed or colour?
For, influence he certainly did, the lives of so many personalities… Not for nothing was Mohandas of Porbandar to become Gandhiji, Mahatma, Bapu, Father of the Nation.
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 write 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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Friendship is a perennial river of comfort where we can dive and swim throughout our life. Growing up, I was a silent student at school with not many friends and definitely no close companions. I was neither amicable nor bright and made little effort to change this attitude. I spent my teenage years trying to be inconspicuous to my classmates like they were some predatory animals. I didn’t own a personal phone until my undergrad years hence even if I made friends I couldn’t keep in touch with them, which I rarely did even after acquiring a phone. Communication technology especially mobile phones and social media plays a vital role in connecting people and maintaining friendships. At some point in one’s life, everyone finds someone who knows them better than the rest of the world, with whom they share a bit of everything from their life.
I remember the first time I met her; she was sitting across from me — two seats ahead in the institutional shuttle. I could only see a part of her little face, but I could make out the charming smile she wore. It was the second day at my first job. I was still intimidated by the new place and faces. Later that day, she came into our lab, a short affable girl and had the same charming smile. Apparently, she was also working on the same project as me but in a different team. She spoke to my colleague in English. However, I noticed the Malayalamaccent lingering in her words. I wondered why they spoke in English when they were both Malayalis; given that Malayalis have an inherent tendency to communicate with each other in Malayalam wherever they go. I observed her a little longer; definitely bold and smart, I concluded. Who knew then that this smart young woman was to be my north star?
With few joint project meetings, our acquaintance grew from colleagueship to friendship. She often visited our lab. Whenever she came, the gloomy chemical mood of our lab would transform into a jovial garden of fragrant flowers. She would laugh at almost anything and believe me her laughter was very contagious. The silent lab except for the perfunctorily grumbling instruments would suddenly mimic a rackety town hall. Her laughter made me wonder if it was hidden for a long time and finally finding its freedom made up for the lost time. I could see my stoic and altruistic friend find solace in the smile and laughter of others. After a few field trips together, I found a close companion in her. I didn’t know all of her. One can never know the whole of a person however close they are but I felt proud that I knew more of her each day. She was a popular smart friendly face at our institution and now, my friend. There was a sense of happiness and pride in finally finding someone who could bring warmth to your heart and to whom you were more than just a random person.
We had our differences and similarities, arguments and opinions, mischief and complaint — all as the part and parcel of our friendship. We never shared our deep secrets or fears, yet we knew the existence of such buried inside us. Importantly, we knew, if need be, we had each other’s shoulders to lean on and could confide in each other. She made a continuous effort to make me smile by sharing pictures of beautiful flowers, landscapes, hilarious memes, cute animal videos and such. She had inspired the scared timid mind inside me to come into the light. She encouraged me to discover the unmolded writer in me, inspired me to write and share my silly poems. Moreover, she educated me on certain domains of knowledge I lacked and she continued to inspire me every day. She encouraged me to fly with her into the unfathomable spread of the sky. I owe it to her for all my accomplishments in the past three years while all I could be was a listener. She was and is my laotong, the sister of my heart.
We are not perfect people in the perfect world and yet sometimes, our shortcomings drew us closer together. We are two overthinkers with our disconcerting opinions, who can never put a firm foot on the ground. Sometimes when she consults me for my opinion on certain matter,s all I provide her is obscure suggestions making the matter more ambiguous. But my dear friend is always pleased and content with whatever outlook I provide. Even with the continents separating us now we are still the ‘old sames’ close within our hearts.
I have only countable friends, of which there are very few that I still maintain communication. A strange sense of detachment grows in me when the common grounds of friendship alter and are separated by large physical distance. The connection through electronic devices usually wouldn’t suffice to regain my earlier attachment. Hence, I avoid any communication at all. However, I hold them, dear, within my heart even if I constantly fail to express this in person. Strangely with her, I have been able to communicate freely with no detachment as if no distance separated us, mostly due to her persistent efforts rather than mine. And still, she continues to inspire me, spread joy and bring laughter to my face. Like the two birds that return to the same tree branch to share the stories of their daily adventure, we share our daily bits through the electronic branch connecting us. I hope our friendship grows and travels beyond the grasp of time.
Anjali V Raj is a natural science researcher from Kerala, India. She currently works as a researcher at Azim Premji University. Her poems and short essays based on thoughts cultivated from observation of surrounding, lifestyle and society. She has published few of her works in the Down to Earth, The Wire, Café Dissensus Everyday, Borderless Journal and Times of India Reader’s Blog.
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We had safely completed our voyage back across the Coral Sea from New Caledonia to Australia. The next leg was south, from Shellharbour to Eden, hugging the New South Wales coast. Unlike our outbound voyage, the whales were no longer in sight. They must have returned to Antarctica after having come north for calving. I was encouraged by the sight of dolphins accompanying us for spurts of the voyage.
We had hoped to reach Eden by midnight but somehow the trip dragged on until 3.30 am. I wanted to pull my weight during the night sail but was overwhelmed by fatigue and fell into a deep sleep on the sofa. Meanwhile, Alex directed the vessel to a safe point in the bay and dropped anchor.
The next morning in the security of daylight we moved the boat closer to shore, and spied a cruise ship at the docks. It was such a surprise to see a vessel with a capacity of thousands at the wharf of a township of only around three thousand two hundred people.
We made our way to shore in the dinghy, then climbed the steep hills into Eden to provision our boat for the next few days. We noticed tandem cyclists in bright lycra outfits making their way up the hill from the wharf into the town. We greeted them and their accents told us that most of them were from America. Each cyclist had a place name emblazoned on the back of their shirt. Some read California, others the Netherlands. We walked up the main street towards the supermarket, making way for passing cyclists on the footpath.
After we emerged from the supermarket laden with shopping bags, the last of the tandem cyclists, an older couple, were struggling up the hill. Curious, we couldn’t help asking that tedious question that tourists are asked worldwide.
“Where are you from?”
“Colorado.”
“Wow!” I exclaimed. I had never met anyone from Colorado in Australia. Now that the borders were open after pandemic closures tourists must be eager to resume roaming the globe.
A workman in an orange, fluorescent jacket approached the tourists from Colorado.
“Are you with the cruise ship?” he enquired.
I assumed it was an innocent question, or at least a polite enquiry.
“Yes,” they confirmed.
“Can you please tell the cruise ship company to tell these cyclists how to mind their manners? Some of them are cycling on the wrong side of the road. Others are cycling through bitumen that we have just laid,” complained the workman.
“What did he say?” enquired the Colorado tourist of his wife,
She was better able to understand his accent than her husband, so she interpreted it for him.
“We are the last off the boat so there won’t be any more problems,” she reassured the workman, as they resumed their cycle.
“Enjoy the rest of your trip!” I urged them, trying to counter the rudeness of the workman.
“Thank you!” she replied, turning back and beaming at me.
I was surprised that the workman had chosen to berate the tourists. Perhaps he could have contacted the cruise ship managers. I hope the tourists received more civility at their next port of call. When you are a tourist and have no friends in the country you are visiting, it’s those unanticipated encounters with locals that form the lasting impressions.
Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her work has appeared in Transnational Literature, The Muse, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, The Journal of Literature in Language Teaching, The Writers’ and Readers’ Magazine, Reading in a Foreign Language, and in chapters in anthologies published by Demeter Press, Canada.
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