Earth jasmine, sky jasmine String of jasmine encircles the heart Jasmine poured with water from the hills Jasmine sprinkled by a pinch of compost Seven rivers, seven clouds Rain pelts onto forlorn petals Beauty is to the form, beauty to the eyes Beauty is the hand that tends to the soil Beauty is the fingers that caress the leaves Beauty is the cut on the arms of the gardener The scorching sun, the shade from the foliage Bountiful is the soul of the tree that delivers Witness to a life devoted to hard work With laws of nature as the axis Strong roots clench the earth Shoots look up high to the sky Feet stand firmly, the soul sings Blossoms waft fragrant dreams Earth jasmine, sky jasmine Jasmine blooms in the early morning Say your prayers, introduce yourself
“Can you relate your brother’s childhood?”
“What do you want to know, doctor?”
“Everything. Just tell me earnestly.”
I looked at the doctor’s face cynically. I knew his intentions. He was trying to trace my brother’s past to detect the crucial point at which he changed to what he has become at present.
The doctor smiled. Perhaps he can read what is in my heart. He nodded gently, his eyes were clear. He held my arm gently:
We lived in a barrack. There were ten doors at the front and ten more at the back. Each house had a living room and bedroom. The walls were of wooden planks. At the top of the wall a wire mesh was affixed to enable air to flow between the houses. It was not only air that was exchanged. All gossips and secrets of each family were also heard by neighbours. The ceiling was of asbestos sheets nailed to a wooden frame. The roof sheets were also of corrugated asbestos.
Just imagine there were eight of us living in a house that was only about thirty-five metres square. He was the fifth child of six children.
A row of small kitchens was located at the side of the barrack, with the common bath-house next to it. The common latrine was located near the municipal drain behind a grove of succulent banana shrubs. There were several poultry coops at the fringe of the barrack.
I still remembered the days when Mother took him and my other siblings to a plant nursery at Malcolm Road. I did not follow them as I was in the morning session at school. The plot of land was leased by the government to a Chinese towkay[1]. They went there very early in the morning to earn some money by picking jasmine blossoms. For each plastic packet of jasmine blossoms, they would receive ten cents. These packets were sold by the towkay to hawkers at Tekka Market for the consumption by mainly Indians, who seemed to have a penchant for it.
At about ten in the morning they walked home for about one kilometre. Altogether they would earn about two dollars. They would go there almost every day except over the weekends or when it rained heavilu. They feared lightning strikes. My siblings would then go to school in the afternoon. I know they were rather bored with the routine. I felt they were disappointed because they could not play with their kampong[2] friends in the morning.
But I knew that it was one of the many ways that Mother employed to earn additional income to support the family. Upon returning home, Mother would prepare meals for her children. From the money earned picking jasmine blossoms, all of us had some pocket money for school.
Father worked as a gardener in a condominium at Pandan Gardens. He cycled to work and returned home after dusk. It was only at night that we gathered as a family. Most of us were rather exhausted by then.
But everything changed when our family moved to a flat at Ang Mo Kio. From his own savings Father paid seventeen thousand dollars in cash for the flat. We were delightfully surprised. All along he had been very frugal and saved money for the well-being of the family. We moved to a more comfortable home. However, it posed challenges which were just as grave and testing to our souls.
(An earlier version was published in 2021 by Kitaab International)
About the Novel: The Throne is an unflinching exploration of schizophrenia set against the backdrop of modern Singapore. At once realistic and allegorical, it charts a man’s descent into alienation from his turbulent youth to his fractured adulthood. Blurring the boundaries between poetry and prose, the narrative becomes both intimate confession and universal parable.
More than a story of illness, The Throne meditates on the fragile yet fertile nexus of madness, creativity, and spirituality. Within this tension lies the possibility of healing—a reconciliation born of suffering, sacrifice, and an enduring search for meaning.
Isa Kamari has written 12 novels, 3 collections of poetry, a collection of short stories, a book of essays on Singapore Malay poetry, a collection of theatre scripts and lyrics of 3 music albums, all in Malay. His novels have been translated into English, Turkish, Urdu, Arabic, Indonesian, Jawi, Russian, French, Spanish, Korean, Azerbaijan and Mandarin. Several of his essays and selected poems have been translated into English. Isa was conferred the S.E.A Write Award from Thailand (2006), the Singapore Cultural Medallion (2007), the Anugerah Tun Seri Lanang (2009) from the Singapore Malay Language Council, and the Mastera Literary Award (2018) from Brunei Darussalam.
He obtained a BArch (Hons) from the National University of Singapore in 1989, an MPhil (Malay Letters) from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in 2008 and is currently pursuing a PhD programme at the Academy of Islamic Studies, Univeristi Malaya. His area of research is on the problem of alienation and the practice of firasat (spiritual intuition) in selected Singapore Malay novels.
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The title of Romila Thapar’s memoirs is deceptive and deceptively simple. It is not ‘just being’ but that being Romila Thapar is also a story of becoming, of mapping out borders and boundaries of what a woman from a liberal, progressive and well to do family could achieve in newly independent India. Her achievements are many and varied and her persona redoubtable. There is tremendous breadth of scholarship and Thapar’s is undoubtedly a remarkable journey which details the trajectory of her growing up years-family, background, physical and social location.
As a historian, Thapar is acutely aware and interested in the way memory works and it is this abiding interest which is perhaps reflected in her use of the following lines: “Times present and time past/Are both perhaps present in time future/And time future contained in time past”, lines from “Four Quartets” by TS Eliot.
This encapsulation of time reminds us of a common feature of autobiography — memoirs and autobiographies measure the gap between two temporal loci — the time of a past event and the time of its narration. In this case, the beginning of the story goes back nine decades. Prof Thapar regales us with stories of growing up in pre-Independence India. Born in Lucknow, she grew up in the North Western Frontier Provinces, moving from place to place as her father was a doctor in the Army.
In a way, the seeds of autonomy and independent thinking were sown very early in her life in myriad ways. She was influenced by her maternal grandmother and her mother. The latter was a graduate in the India of the 1920s, creditable for a woman since it was at a time when women’s education received mixed responses. She was competent in reading and writing three languages — Hindi, Urdu and English. Thapar narrates that “my maternal grandmother had insisted on two conditions before the marriage: that my mother never be asked to observe purdah– take the veil — when there were men around: and that she never be asked to cook meals for the family. These conditions were met.”
One finds it surprising even from the vantage point of the present time where entrenched patriarchal attitudes completely normalise the double burden carried by women and mythify cooking not only as part of women’s household duties and responsibilities, but as an act of maternal care and a labour of love. Many such instances stand out which provide a glimpse of a progressive, educated and liberal family, among whom are to be found many intellectuals who played their role in public life.
Underlying this memoir is a certain imagination of India. Thapar stands in the vanguard of those invoking, protecting and saving the idea of an India which is secular, multilingual, diverse and heterogenous. Thapar’s narrative warns us time and again of the dangers of a single narrative , a single story. Thus, she calls out the crises of democracy both during the Emergency[1] and in the present time. Is the failure of democracy attributable to the pervasive atmosphere of fear where citizens were/are cowed into silence? Or is it the failure of the education system within capitalism which has oriented individuals to fulfilling privatised desires rather than their duties as citizens? Or is it a comment on our civilisational failure that we have been reduced to acting as echo chambers for ruling elites?
In Just Being, historian par excellence Romila Thapar reflects on a rich, variegated, path-breaking life ― along with the people, relationships, ideas and journeys that made her who she is. In this compelling memoir, she invites us into her illustrious world ― a rich, testimony from a scholar who has profoundly shaped and moulded our understanding of India’s past and present. From her childhood growing up in British India, through her years of education in London, her extensive travels to archaeological sites across Asia and beyond, and her trailblazing role in shaping the Centre for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Thapar reflects on a life lived in the service of education and research. Written over the past few years, Just Being is ample proof of Thapar’s ability to view herself within the larger flow of history, and to give a splendid account of it with a scholar’s depth, a storyteller’s sensitivity and an artist’s luminosity. It reveals not only an extraordinary, boundary-defying life but courage, integrity and a profound conviction that understanding our past in the light of undeniable evidence is essential to understanding the present and shaping a more thoughtful future.
She completed her doctorate in 1958 and was offered a temporary job at School of Oriental and African Studies to teach a course in ancient history in London. Thapar’s father had set aside funds – it could be used for either marriage or education. She chose the latter and proceeded to educate herself in myriad ways. From attending the lectures of Eric Hobsbawm on European political thought, reading Ismat Chughtai, Simone de Beauvoir, enrolling herself in evening courses on Chinese art (she did Chinese landscape painting) and archaeology, learning italic calligraphy, playing table tennis with monks, holding the stepladder for friends in libraries while the other reached for books in upper shelves, her discovery of Africa, to making posters and going for marches at Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park, hers is a rich and variegated life.
One is enthralled by her narratives of the people she met, the places she visited, illumined by the rays of her razor-sharp wit and comprehensive intelligence. What also dazzles is her knowledge of jazz, her cosmopolitanism and her capacity to engage with politics and culture, art and music. She narrates about her experiences in both white and coloured jazz bars, among musicians across the racial divide, in the immediate aftermath of Martin Luther King’s assassination in January 1968. She writes about her meeting with the writer Nelson Algren, who had previously shared an intense relationship with Simone Beauvoir and featured in her work, both fictional and non-fictional. Undoubtedly and confidently cosmopolitan, she is able to make a place for herself and earn respect in widely varying contexts, including many international fora and platforms.
Professor Thapar’s feistiness is evident throughout this absorbing memoir. So is her impeccable scholarship. In the chapters on “History Rocks” and “Textbooks in the Fray,” she calls out the ideologically motivated peddlers of popular histories prevalent on Whatsapp groups and contrasts them with professional historians and historiographers. She is a stickler for honing the historian’s craft through the discipline of method and process and sharply critiques the ideologically motivated peddling of history at the cost of professionalism. Two points are made very clearly by her: first that history is and should be based on scientific evidence and there should be no mixing up or conflation of mythology and history. “Mythology is the other kind of literature that is often quoted in public discussion and confused with history.’’ Another distinction is made with equal precision: following a Weberian or Marxist methodology is not necessarily a sign of ideological persuasion as much as a methodological preference for a certain rational process of historical analysis.
Thapar is one of the world’s foremost authorities on ancient Indian history, celebrated for transforming how ancient Indian history is studied. Rather than treating history as a sequence of kings and battles, her structural, sociological, and text-critical approach shifts focus on social formations, economic shifts, and the evolution of cultural identities. Her definitive research has fundamentally challenged both nineteenth-century colonial stereotypes and reductive nationalist narratives.
Her contribution to Indian history is immeasurable.She meticulously dismantled the Eurocentric colonial claim that ancient Indians lacked a “sense of history”. In works like The Past Before Us, she showed how early Indian society embedded its historical memory through distinct traditions — such as the Itihasa-Purana literature, Buddhist/Jain monastic chronicles, and royal biographies (charitas).
Her chapter “Textbooks in the Fray” traces the ideological warfare being waged over school textbooks, some of which she had written along with other well-known historians. Her interrogation and contestation of monolithic and singular identities pave the way for a layered reading of history.
Thapar argues that modern conceptions of a singular, monolithic “Hindu” or “Muslim” community are modern constructs. Her study of the historical narratives surrounding the Somnath Temple in Dwarka illustrated how a single historical event was interpreted in profoundly different, multifaceted ways by varying social groups over centuries. Similarly, her study of Sakuntala’s contrasting depictions in the famous Indian epic Mahabharata (around 4th century BC) and Kalidas’s play “Abhijnanashakuntalam” (4th-5th century AD) point out different conceptualisations and representation of women from a chronological perspective.
Prof Romila Thapar’s skills as a memoirist are perhaps comparable to her skill as a historian. Her endeavours have both decolonised history as well as given the discipline the status of a social science. The book gives an insight into her life, her beliefs and reflects on our times with an unbiased perspective of an adroit historian. It is a prized and rare read.
[1] 1975-77: Period of curtailment of civil liberties in India due to internal unrest.
Meenakshi Malhotra is Professor of English Literature at Hansraj College, University of Delhi, and has been involved in teaching and curriculum development in several universities. She has edited two books on Women and Lifewriting, Representing the Self and Claiming the I, in addition to numerous published articles on gender, literature and feminist theory. Her most recent publication is The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle.
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Title: The Climate Crossroads: Literature’s Encounter with a Planet on Fire
Author: Rajat Chaudhuri
Publisher: Bloomsbury
The climate crisis has produced an unprecedented body of scientific research, policy documents, and environmental journalism. Yet facts alone have often failed to generate the emotional engagement necessary to confront a planetary emergency. How, then, can literature bridge the gap between knowledge and action? In The Climate Crossroads: Literature’s Encounter with a Planet on Fire, Rajat Chaudhuri argues that stories are indispensable to understanding climate change—not merely as an environmental phenomenon but as a profound cultural, ethical and imaginative challenge.
This is neither a conventional work of literary criticism nor a handbook on climate science. Instead, it is an ambitious interdisciplinary exploration that moves effortlessly across literature, philosophy, history, politics, art, and environmental activism. Drawing upon his own experiences as a climate novelist, researcher and environmental communicator, Chaudhuri creates a work that is as intellectually stimulating as it is deeply personal.
The book opens with intriguing questions that immediately unsettle familiar assumptions. Why do climate activists throw soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers? What connects a venomous spider with a centuries-old myth from the Sundarbans? How does an ancient Chinese calligrapher recording snowfall resonate with Indian farmers marching in protest?
These seemingly unrelated images become entry points into a larger conversation about the relationship between culture and ecological crisis. Rather than offering simplistic explanations, Chaudhuri demonstrates how literature reveals hidden connections between the human imagination and the changing planet.
Organised into three sections—Maps, Routes and Discoveries—the book unfolds like an intellectual journey. The first section introduces readers to the conceptual landscape of climate storytelling. Chapters such as A Rainy Night in the North and Poets, Volcanoes and a Chinese Calligrapher explore how literary traditions preserve ecological memory and help us read environmental change through cultural narratives.
Chaudhuri argues convincingly that climate stories did not begin with twenty-first-century climate fiction; they have existed in myths, travel writing, poetry, and historical narratives for centuries.
One important feature of the book is its refusal to isolate literature from other disciplines. Michelangelo appears alongside recipes and agriculture; philosophy intersects with environmental history; artistic imagination coexists with political activism. These unexpected juxtapositions enrich the discussion, illustrating that climate change cannot be understood through scientific data alone. Instead, it demands an engagement with aesthetics, ethics and memory.
The middle section, Routes, represents the intellectual heart of the book. Here Chaudhuri explores the relationship between climate and aesthetics, asking whether beauty and artistic representation remain meaningful in an age of ecological catastrophe. Drawing upon philosophical traditions that include Kantian ethics and the Freudian concept of the uncanny, he examines how literature helps readers experience realities that often seem unimaginable. His readings of significant climate novels demonstrate how fiction transforms abstract scientific projections into lived human experience.
Equally compelling is the chapter Heart of Darkness: Climate and Justice. Chaudhuri insists that climate change is inseparable from questions of inequality, colonial history and political responsibility. The climate crisis is shown not simply as an environmental emergency but as a crisis of justice, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities while exposing the moral contradictions of modern development. His discussion avoids ideological simplification, instead encouraging readers to appreciate the complex intersections of ecology, economics and power.
The concluding section, Discoveries, offers a cautiously hopeful vision. Rather than ending with despair, Chaudhuri argues that stories possess the power to cultivate empathy, resilience and new forms of planetary consciousness. Literature becomes not merely a record of ecological collapse but an imaginative space where alternative futures can be conceived. This emphasis on possibility distinguishes The Climate Crossroads from many climate books that remain trapped within narratives of inevitable catastrophe.
Chaudhuri’s prose reflects his dual identity as novelist and literary critic. It is elegant without being ornamental and scholarly without becoming inaccessible. Although the book engages sophisticated theoretical frameworks, including environmental humanities, philosophy and literary criticism, its language remains lucid enough for general readers willing to engage with complex ideas. The inclusion of visual material further enhances accessibility, making abstract concepts easier to grasp, as does the extensive footnote.
The author’s own credentials significantly enrich the work. As the acclaimed author of The Butterfly Effect, editor of pioneering Solarpunk anthologies, translator, and climate communicator, Chaudhuri occupies a unique position at the intersection of creative writing and environmental thought. His international engagements, including literary fellowships and participation in global sustainability forums, provide the book with a perspective that is both rooted in South Asia and attentive to global conversations on climate change.
The book is unquestionably an important contribution to the growing field of climate humanities. It reminds us that the climate crisis is not solely a scientific or political problem but also a crisis of imagination. Rajat Chaudhuri demonstrates with remarkable insight that stories are among humanity’s most powerful tools for understanding uncertainty, confronting ecological loss, and envisioning more just futures.
Richly researched, beautifully written and intellectually adventurous, The Climate Crossroads deserves to be read by scholars, students, writers, environmentalists and anyone interested in how literature can illuminate one of the defining challenges of our time. It is both a map of climate storytelling and an invitation to imagine new pathways through an increasingly uncertain world.
Bhaskar Parichha is a journalist and author of Cyclones in Odisha: Landfall, Wreckage and Resilience, Unbiased, No Strings Attached: Writings on Odisha and Biju Patnaik – A Political Biography. He lives in Bhubaneswar and writes bilingually. Besides writing for newspapers, he also reviews books on various media platforms.
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A few years ago, upon the insistence of an old friend, my wife and I decided to visit her new home. She and her husband had designed and built a house on a vacant piece of land that they had bought.
They showed us around their labour of love. We were later taken aback when we were told that their live-in helper was occupying the master bedroom while they occupied her quarters. This strange arrangement came about when my friend had called in another friend, a vastu[1] specialist, for a casual visit. The visitor went beyond his call of duty to give his two cents’ worth of opinion. He asserted that the location of the master bedroom is wrong in a vashtu sense and would lead to marital disharmony. So, there went the hundred man-hours of planning to reward their marital union.
Just about that time, too, I was waiting for Malaysia’s number Uno feng shui master, who was about to share his outlook[2] for the year 2020, the year of the Metal Rat in the Chinese zodiac. It was an unremarkable report with the usual plus points in some areas and caution in others. Nowhere in his or other masters’ reports was there a tiny inkling of what Malaysians were heading into. It was the years when citizens were barbed-wired, quarantined, QR-coded, children missing the funerals of their parents who were afflicted with the Covid-19 virus and had their people flying white flags pleading for food and mercy.
That is the thing that has integrated humans from time immemorial. The desire to be in charge of their destiny and to understand this rudderless journey of life has got people believing all kinds of snake oil salesmen and fake gurus while losing their life savings doing that. And we are still struggling through this, clutching at straws.
It is intriguing that after major events, be it the 2001 tsunami, 2011 9/11 or Covid-19, some smart Alec would tell us that we had everything written in the past. They would refer to the Book of Prophecies and Nostradamus’s predictions, published in 1555. Again, all these become clear after the fact, as these predictions are in cryptic poems, subject to interpretation. Why is it that no experts decipher and decode all that is written there for the betterment of mankind?
So do the Vastu practitioners and Feng Shui sifu[3] who would tell us the obvious, like one should not buy a house at a T-junction. Of course not. The owners would risk being hit by stray cars driven by incompetent drivers or having difficulty exiting their compound. After a landslide, the know-it-all will state the obvious that it is bad Feng Shui to have a house facing a very steep hill.
Another thing that caught my mind recently is the animated TV series, The Simpsons, which has aired 37 seasons and over 800 episodes since 1989. In its half-hour cartoon, it managed to cover innumerable topics that affect the average middle-class American family: politics, pop culture and science. The interesting thing is that many of its outlandish stories appear to have ‘materialised’ from real life. Conspiracy theorists insist that those who witnessed the 2021 US Capitol Riot experienced a sense of deja vu, swearing they had seen a similar[4] situation in a 1996 episode of The Simpsons. Then the iconic photograph of President Trump, Saudi King Salman and President El-Sisi of Egypt holding a glowing orb in Riyadh in 2017. Again, this was a mirror image[5] of another 2002 episode of The Simpsons.
Do the scriptwriters have some kind of crystal ball that they can foresee future events? Of course not. Some researchers (whom others call conspiracy theorists) assert that it is part of predictive planning[6]. This psychological tool is to soften the societal changes in a pre-programmed future as decided by the powers-that-be. This psychological blueprint is also seen in movies like The Truman Show, The Matrix, Black Mirror and Westworld, which all depict dystopian futures.
Devices used by characters in the famous sci-fi TV series of the late 60s, Star Trek, have slowly been making their presence in the real world since the late 20th century. Handheld communicators (Video conferencing) and translation devices (Google Translate) are no longer alien tools. Next in line would be a teleportation kit. Were the storytellers here visionary, or did this series merely spur the younger generation to work toward this end?
Jules Verne, the French ‘prophet’ of science fiction, is credited for making many valid scientific predictions. He has been credited for being the second most translated writer in the world, after Agatha Christie. At a time when submarines were dangerous contraptions, he imagined Nautilus, an electric-powered submarine in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869), which resembles present-day diesel- or nuclear-powered ones. Not to forget Captain Nemo’s underwater breathing suit, which was the nidus[7] for SCUBA (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus).
In TheMoon-Voyage (1858), Verne correctly predicted Florida as the best launchpad for a Moon Mission, a conical space capsule and even the usage of a solar sail.
Maybe it is not all hocus pocus. Even 14 years before the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic sank on its maiden voyage, in 1898, Morgan Robertson wrote about a British liner named ‘Titan’ which went down after hitting an iceberg in his book Futility. Did the shipowners mastermind the disaster and copy the storyline to seek financial gain, as conspiracy theorists claim? Is this what they mean when they say that truth is stranger than fiction?
Other authors predicted the future [8] too. George Orwell in 1984 (1949) wrote about a world under constant government surveillance. Aldous Huxley, in the Brave New World (1931), showcased a time when antidepressants were widespread. John Brunner predicted school shootings, electric cars and hookup culture in his book, Stand on Zanzibar (1969).
These people were not magicians. They merely paid attention to their surroundings, read widely and believed in valid scientific evolution.
In the meantime, the rest of the population is stuck in their comfort zone. Still struggling with their bearings, running around like headless chickens, most stare in awe of all the things around them, confused. Like an ant perched on a leaf that is floating along a river aimlessly to the whims of the wind, these futuristic writers are trying to understand the head and tails of things.
Meanwhile, the simple man finds solace in knowing what lies ahead through palmistry, numerology, and reading olai palm leaves (Olai Chuvadi), believing that his path into the future will be smooth.
[1]Vastu shastra or feng shui is the science of making the best of the home by placing objects in the right place.
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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These days, our cyclists’ group yearns for long weekends. On Sunday, 31st May 2026, Malaysians honoured Lord Buddha on his birthday. 1st June was marked as the King’s official birthday. In their honour, Malaysians enjoyed four days away from office. It would have been seven if one had mysteriously fallen ill on the preceding Thursday and Friday, as Wednesday, 27th May 2026, was Hari Raya Haji, commemorating Prophet Ibrahim’s sacrifice to God. With the holiday mood set, the cyclists were not inclined to stay idle.
With the holiday mood set, the cyclists were not inclined to stay idle during the festivities. Instead, they wanted to be in sync with nature, hear the birds chirp, and immerse themselves in the wild’s greenery.
Titiwangsa is marked in brown. Cameron Highlands and Fraser Hill are part of this range. From Public Domain
This was the first time we were trying this route and conquering these highlands that are part of the Titiwangsa, a mountain range that forms the spine of the Malay Peninsula. A few years ago, I did participate in a competition from Simpang Pulai in Perak, a western state, to the Cameron Highlands. Now, it is a different ballgame, approaching the beast from the east to kill it. The day started early with a drive up to Kuala Kubu Bahru, and after gearing up, the journey began. Before the climb, a brief historical detour made KKB feel like the right starting point.
For some historical perspective, KKB is an old town with a rich historical heritage. It had already become a tin-mining town by the 1870s. Legend has it the locals had built a dam above the original town, Kubu. Kubu (fort) was built by the warring factions in the 1870s Selangor Civil War[1]. The British moved in to set law and order.
The district officer, a Briton, had apparently hunted and killed an albino crocodile that the local folks believed was a guardian of the dam. Once the crocodile was gone, the balance was upset, and the dam broke its banks. Without its guardian, Kubu was almost destroyed, save a Chinese temple and a mosque. The destroyed area was named Ampang Pecah (broken dam). The town was rebuilt on higher ground and renamed Kuala Kubu Bahru[2].
Because the British officers thought KKB was too hot and humid for their comfort, they sent their workers to search for a place with a more pleasant climate. Hence, Fraser’s Hill came to the fore.
The roads leading to the Hill are unceremoniously remembered as the place where Malaya’s Highways Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney, was gunned down by communist insurgents in 1951. According to the Malaysian Communist Party, it was a ‘routine’ ambush and that ‘big catch’ was quite unexpected[3].
The climb up to Fraser’s Hill was quite gruelling. The inclination was around 5%, sometimes peaking at 10% and 12%. The Hill was about 1330 metres above sea level. After a short stopover at the resort station, it was a cool ride down the hill. From the ascent, the contrast made the descent feel especially rewarding.
From there, the long stretch down to Raub was pleasant, with mostly continuous slow decline, just enough to recover from the earlier climb up to Fraser’s. We also noticed a funny thing on Fraser’s Hill. Even though Fraser’s Hill is technically located in the State of Pahang, the administrative council is the Hulu Selangor Town Council in Selangor. After a short stopover, it was time to move on.
After cycling 86km over 5h51m and gaining about 1400m of elevation, we reached Raub, having completed the day’s ride.
I had imagined Raub to be a ghost town, much like the Wild West towns in America that became deserted after the gold ran dry[4]. I remembered from my geography lessons that Raub was the ‘gold capital of Malaya’. Bau in Sarawak was the other place with gold deposits. In the late 19th century, Raub was already famous amongst the locals for its gold. Raub, in the local lingo, meant a fistful. That was how much one could scoop of gold from the riverbed with a dulang (a flat tray used for mining). That drew in multinational companies, including an Australian firm that modernised mining to achieve higher yields. That, too, ignited related activities and the mushrooming of colonial Tudor-style buildings, which are neatly maintained to this day. Hence, modern Raub turned out to be a busy town, serving as a stopover for those travelling along the spine of the Peninsula to Gua Musang and Kota Bahru.
Raub hit the headlines again recently for being the centre of the ‘Hermès’ of king of fruits, the Musang King durian [5]. Disused pieces of state land belonging to the State Royalty were used by enterprising durian planters to churn out, via budgrafting, a particular breed of durian that had durian lovers from China yearning for more and more. Seeing its great potential, the Royalty decided to claim their land[6]. There is also talk of a different kind of mining in the pipeline in Raub for rare earth elements (REE). It is said being discussed between the State-level and Chinese investors[7].
After settling down at Raub Hotel, a convenient 3-star hotel right in town, we took a stroll around town. The imposing shop that caught our attention was Restoran Ratha Raub[8], a red-painted building with its name in bold, striking, contrasting fonts. At first glance, it seemed just like a generic Indian makan[9] shop. Only upon entering did it dawn upon us that the owners were going places. Plastered on its walls were numerous pictures of important luminaries enjoying themselves in the shop. There were even newspaper cuttings in the national dailies describing its curry as deliciously ‘foxy’! I wonder why. Is that a hint of the restaurant serving exotic meat? The one that took the cake was the photo the owner took with the Sultan of Brunei. Apparently, the restaurant also marketed its halal curry powder at a trade festival in Brunei that His Highness attended. We later learned that Restoran Ratha Raub also had a branch in the Klang Valley.
Day 2: Raub to Sg Koyan; Betau post
After a quick breakfast of bread and peanut butter by 0630am, we hit the road. The second day was going to be a recovery ride of sorts, and we were supposed to hit the Cameron Highlands on the last day. So, the plan was to ride to Sg Koyan, a small township in the middle of Pahang amidst the Felda land development programme.
The first small town we traversed was Cheroh, a Chinese New Village with a row of coffee shops, small- and medium-sized industries, half-plank, half-brick houses, and temples. Rows of palm oil trees soothed our eyes as we rode uninterrupted, except for a herd of cows criss-crossing the road, grazing their morning chow.
One of the fascinating things we usually see as we drive along the roads is how quirky some businesses’ names are. On this road, we noticed a regular coffee shop named ‘Double Three Kopitiam[10]‘, a direct reference to Hilton’s Double Tree. Perhaps the owner was aware of another restaurateur in Bangsar who got into a legal tussle with HSBC for naming his shop HSBC, too. The Bangsar owner thought ‘Hot Spicy Bangsar Cuisine’ aptly described what he was offering. An Indian family offering Chinese cuisine already had people turning their heads; what’s more, with a catchy name. The multinational conglomerate, Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation, which sprang from the tears of the family of a person with an opium addiction in China around the Opium War, thought otherwise. They sued, but it led nowhere. Along the way, too, I saw way too many schools, disproportionate to the area’s population. There were huge Chinese schools, Tamil schools and even residential ones. Perhaps people in this region understood the value of education or that politicians in cahoots with building contractors used school buildings as part of their moneymaking schemes.
In 3.5hrs, we had already completed the day’s intended 73km journey. We had reached Sg Koyan, our stop for the day. Since we had time on our hands and the ride was relatively easy, we decided to add an extra 15km, meant to reduce our burden on the last day. So, we ended the day after riding 88km in about 4h20m.
Sg Koyan is literally in the middle of nowhere. It is a collection area for jungle produce, a centre for Felda settlers, served by a row of shops, petrol stations and a farmers’ market. The only decent rest house, frequented by the rich and famous around here, as we later discovered, was Jelai Inn. This inn is clean, fairly well maintained and spacious. The restaurant, with an in-house chef, prepared various Malay dishes that we can bravely say changed our perception of how tasty traditional Malay cuisine can be—highly recommended.
After going the extra mile on the second leg of the journey, we reached Betau post. Betau is inhabited mainly by the orang asli (the original dwellers of Malaysia). The whole area had been gentrified, with nice roads and a rest-and-recreation area where people could sell their products. The area had received the royal seal as a weaving centre to showcase orang asli handicrafts. From there, we headed into the final stretch.
Day 3: Betau post to Ringlet to Tanah Rata
Selangor River Reservoir enroute to Fraser Hill
From there, the last stretch proved to be the most gruelling one yet. Starting with a slight climb, it increased to 5%, sometimes to 9-12%. The only saving grace was the occasional punctuation of climbs with descents, giving a brief respite to the sore muscles.
Even though this stretch spanned 60 km, it took us 5h15m and featured 1550m of elevation gain.
The roads all along the stretch were very well maintained and wide. They grew narrower, and the traffic grew heavier as we approached Ringlet and Tanah Rata. Nevertheless, we received adequate encouragement from passersby as we drew nearer and nearer to the elusive finishing line, set at the iconic clock tower in Tanah Rata. Thus ended the legendary ride over 229km, with an elevation gain of over 3,520 m and a moving time of 13 hr 53 m.
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.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Grace refers to unmerited favour, a universal concept associated with both psychology and philosophy. It signifies the ability to function and thrive amid vulnerabilities and denotes unconditional love, serving as a guiding and healing influence that connects humanity, irrespective of merit or effort. Individuals and even places can act as conduits of grace. There is no such thing as a gracious coincidence; many individuals are often unaware of their own experiences of grace. Reflection is integral to developing this sensitivity.
I was barely out of my teens when my father lay comatose for more than a month in the hospital where I was born. He eventually passed away at 62, leaving my younger siblings and me as minors, and my mother widowed at a young age.
My father wanted my eldest brother to become a certified public accountant, as he was a bookkeeper himself. This dream was realised when my brother passed the exam on his first attempt. I vividly recall the celebration at a Chinese restaurant in the city, where my mother’s co-teachers and supervisors were also present. My father beamed with pride as he engaged in conversation with my mother’s colleagues about my brother’s success. The food was exceptionally delicious, and everyone enjoyed it. In time, my brother secured a position at an established accounting firm, which my father, unfortunately, did not live to see.
On the other hand, my mother lived a full life but passed away two months shy of her 80th birthday due to undocumented dementia. I am uncertain if this condition is genetic. Our family’s request focused on ensuring that my mother would not suffer significantly before her departure. She peacefully passed away almost two decades ago. It was also a most trying time for our family, as my youngest sibling underwent surgery for a benign brain tumour in North America around the time of our mother’s passing. Two months ago, this brother celebrated his 60th birthday.
During the onslaught of Typhoon Ondoy (Typhoon Ketsana), I was away from my coastal suburban home on a weekend while teaching my weekly Academic Writing class at a seminary. It was understandable that my cousin’s family, who were temporarily staying with me, chose to leave our residence as the water level rose to chest height. Regrettably, my clothes, desktop computer, photographs, and both personal and work documents were completely swept away by the flood, and nothing was salvaged in the aftermath.
Impact of Typhoon Ondoy(Ketsana) which occured in 2009 From Public Domain
Two seminary students supported me after this ordeal, without informing them of this tragic episode. One organised clothes from their family closet, providing me with quality clothing and some cash to help me. The other invited me for coffee and pastries at a mall shop, where she also gave me some good clothes and cash in an envelope. We exchanged stories about the ordeal, which made the loss somewhat more bearable.
Years prior to my seminary teaching, I was accepted into an advanced leadership training program at an international institute based in Singapore. However, I needed to raise US $300 as part of my counterpart fee for the month-long training. As a freelance teacher and writer, my funds were limited; however, after corresponding with an elderly lady whom I have never met in person, based in the U.S. and headed a mission-related NGO, kindly sent me a check to cover my training expenses. This experience was particularly memorable, as it marked my first overseas trip.
As part of my routine, I often schedule a massage with a blind masseur at a mall near my residence. After a recent seated massage, I fainted, likely due to the air conditioning’s inability to counteract the heat. The masseur and manager fanned me and provided water once I regained consciousness a few minutes later. These episodes are rare; however, as always, there is someone looking after me.
In terms of my freelance writing, every time I felt discouraged and considered giving it up entirely, opportunities for publication would appear. More importantly, feedback from readers indicates they were able to relate to my stories, as they resonated with their personal experiences. My experiences attest to the enduring quality of grace in various seasons of life, which I continually rediscover, relearn, and rewrite. While the operation of grace is always invisible, its manifestations become clear when an individual recognises that its timeline is not necessarily linear. Last year, an essay on diminishing memory was included in an anthology. While grace is difficult to define, one’s openness is key to understanding how it relates to our everyday encounters. Grace always matters as it continues to abound in all aspects of our lives.
Manuel A. Alindogan, Jr. or Jun A. Alindogan is the Academic Director of the Expanded Alternative Learning Program of Empowered East, a Rizal-province based NGO in the Philippines and is also the founder of Speechsmart Online that specializes in English test preparation courses. He is a freelance writer and a member of the Freelance Writers’ Guild of the Philippines (FWGP).
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Mud caves in the author’s village: Photo Courtesy: Larry SuChicago: From Public Domain
I left China in 1997 with little more than youthful ambition and the resilience my parents had instilled in me. Since then, the United States has become my second home, first as an international student and later as a naturalised citizen. In nearly three decades, I have returned to my hometown five times, each visit less a simple trip than a pilgrimage, rich with memory, loss, and renewal. Of these, three homecomings stand out most vividly, moments when the presence of my parents, siblings, and villagers reminded me of who I am and where I come from. In their sacrifice, hard work, and quiet endurance, I found lessons in resilience and gratitude that reach beyond my own life and speak to something universal.
Home Visit in 1999
My hometown lies in Heyang County, Shaanxi Province, about fifteen miles from the county seat and five miles from the nearest town. In my memory, a winding dirt road served as the village’s lifeline, linking it with surrounding towns and villages. Though not entirely cut off, the village remained relatively remote, as public transportation was non-existent at the time. To the east and west stretched deep gorges and ravine carved by centuries of rain and snow. Three miles to the north rose Mount Liang, the county’s highest peak, towering yet desolate.
Approximately thirty families, around one hundred and twenty residents, called this village home. The village unfolded along two streets which were riddled with potholes throughout the year. In dry weather, stirred up by the robust northwest wind, a pervasive layer of dust enveloped the streets and the villagers in swirling dances. Conversely, during the rainy season, the thoroughfare turned into a muddy quagmire, making passage difficult. The villagers had to throw in discarded bricks, stones, or fragments of decaying planks to make a makeshift path. Dump sites, replete with smoldering wood, fallen branches, and both animal and human waste, cluttered the sides of the streets. There were very few trees, making the village barren and dreary.
The dwellings varied between mud or brick caves, with a few select families having brick and wood houses when they first settled here. Whatever they were, they had lost their usual shape and colour due to the relentless beating from rain and wind.
Mud caves. Photo Courtesy: Larry Su
We lived in two cave dwellings dug into a high cliff, about three hundred feet from the village street. In front of them lay a small dirt yard, where sheds housed our pigs, ox, chickens, and rabbits. The yard also held the latrine, a simple pit enclosed by dirt walls, whose stench, especially on warm or hot days, often drifted into our living spaces.
This is my hometown, where I was born and lived for eighteen years before leaving for college in Xi’an, the provincial capital, in 1983. I studied English literature at Xi’an International Studies University, earning both my BA and MA degrees, and later joined the faculty of its English Department. I remained there until 1997 when I left for the United States.
Inundated by academic work in graduate school and lack of financial constraints, I did not plan any home visit during my two years of studies in the United States. However, the sudden death of a drunkard in the rooming house I shared with a few American students hastened my decision to make a visit to China.
As a newcomer to the culture, I never linked the drunkard’s brown bags or bulky coat to the heavy drinking that would claim his life. His body was discovered days later, only after the foul smell crept through the air ducts and into our rooms. It happened three weeks before the semester’s end. Fearing I would soon be alone in that eerie house and weighed down by eighteen months of separation from my wife, son, and parents, I hastily bought a plane ticket back to China.
My three-week visit to China was brief, quiet, and deeply comforting. I was overjoyed to see my loved ones and longed to linger in those carefree days, away from foreign foods, stacked books, and unfinished papers. My wife, also a faculty member of Xi’an International Studies University, went to Xianyang International Airport to welcome me back. We traveled by a slow train and a rattling farm tractor to reach my village home. Though I had gone only a short time, I noticed the brick caves, built fifteen years earlier to replace the old loess ones, were already losing mortar. A thin film of black grease from years of cooking stained the walls. Cold air seeped through the cracks in the doors and windows. The animal sheds, with broken doors and missing bricks, made the courtyard even colder and more desolate.
At meals, I noticed my father’s gnarled hands and heavy knuckles rubbed by decades of toil. The gray cotton padded coat was worn out on his shoulders and elbows. Around his waist was a thick hemp rope, the kind used to bundle corn stalks in the fields. Cinched tightly around his coat, it kept the biting wind from slipping in through the gaps, but it looked rough, even absurd. The cotton-padded shoes hand made by my mother were also tattered with cotton exposed. The towel he used to wear over his head in winter had totally lost its whiteness. No doubt life was very hard for them.
During my year and a half in the United States, I spent most of my time in the library and rarely ventured beyond the college campus to see how Americans lived. Still, I caught glimpses of their lives. From visits to my professors’ homes, I saw spacious houses surrounded by trees, lawns, and flowers, with garages large enough for two or three cars. They wore casual yet high-quality clothes, and at parties served sandwiches, barbecued meats, salads, and red wine. Such abundance and variety were things I had never experienced before. Years later, when I owned my own house, I came to understand that Americans had achieved this standard of living after World War II, so I could not help but ask myself: Both Americans and Chinese are human beings, how could their lives be so different, with Americans enjoying plenty, modernity, and comfort, while the Chinese peasants endured poverty, primitiveness, and hardship?
The morning of our departure for Xi’an, my father carried my suitcase on his shoulder, his steps steady on the familiar dirt road, while my wife and I followed behind. The path, worn by years of passing feet and baked dry by windless days, had turned into a powdery film that rose with every footfall, stinging our eyes and filtering into our nostrils. He glanced back and quietly suggested we move to the edges, where the earth was less trampled and the dust less suffocating. As we walked, the frosty wind whistled through the withered corn stalks, their hollow rustle echoing memories I could not keep down.
I was pulled back to those early mornings two decades ago when my father and I walked this same road with a cart of potatoes. Nothing had changed in the region since then. Now with each step, a heavy sadness settled over me. I looked around at the land that my parents lived on for most of their lives; its parched, colourless soil gave little and demanded much.
A few questions throbbed quietly inside me: How lucky I was to escape this poor land! If I had not made it to college, would I be living the same kind of life as my parents? What would be the future for my parents and siblings? When would they finally see a day of plenty, not like the Americans, but be able to eat wheat flour at every meal, not as a holiday luxury, but as an everyday certainty? The silence around us offered no answer, only the sound of the wind scraping through brittle stalks and the soft crunch of dust beneath our shoes.
In less than half an hour, we reached the bus stop. The sun had yet to rise, and the morning air still clung to its chill, though the brisk walk had warmed our bodies. We stood by the roadside, the sky slowly paling, waiting for the van to appear over the horizon. I turned to my father and told him to head back home. He shook his head gently. “I’m not busy,” he said. “Waiting a few more minutes won’t hurt.” He stood beside us, his hands folded deep within his sleeves.
He stood there quietly, patient as ever, perhaps a little awkward too, never at ease in public spaces. Six feet tall and striking in his younger years, he had never learned to take pride in his height or in any part of himself. Life had worn it out of him. Decades of bowing to weather and labour had stripped away any sense of vanity, replacing it with a humility so deep it bordered on invisibility. He saw himself as nothing more than a poor peasant, a man whose only worth came from the work his hands could do in the fields or on the mountain slopes. In his eyes, he was always falling short, always inadequate, someone who never quite belonged unless tethered to a plow, a hoe, or a load on his back.
We waited nearly twenty minutes before the van finally appeared, its headlights slicing through the pale morning mist. When the door creaked open, he stepped forward, lifted our suitcase in, greeted the driver with quiet courtesy, and said, “They are my son and daughter-in-law. They’re heading back to Xi’an.” Then he stepped back, just a pace or two, and stood off to the side, his tall frame silhouetted against the dim sky, waiting without a word. I leaned out and told him he could head home now. “It’s all right,” he replied softly, not moving.
As the van lurched forward, he began to wave slowly at first, then with greater insistence, as if trying to hold on for a moment longer. We waved back, again and again, until the village road curved and he vanished from view. That farewell, quiet and unceremonious, was the last time I would ever see him.
Home Visit in 2009
In August 2009, a year and half after my father’s death, my wife, son and I took a flight from Chicago to Shanghai to visit home. From 1999, when I last saw my father to this homecoming, ten years had passed, yet due to our tight financial situation, we were not able to visit my father and mother. Neither could I attend his funeral in 2007 due to the cost and the hassle of reapplying for a visa after the visit. So this home visit was long overdue. It was a 14-hour flight, and I could not wait for the plane to touch down.
The Shanghai Pudong International Airport was modern, spectacular and state-of-the-art. We waited for two hours to transfer to Xi’an, the nearest city to my wife’s hometown and mine. We first stayed in my wife’s parents’ home for a few days, enjoying the comfort and hospitality my parents-in-law extended to us, but I was counting the days to be with my mother and siblings.
As the car was racing through the newly built highway, my heart was flying home faster than the wheels. When it hit the county seat where my father and I sold potatoes thirty years ago, my heart was pounding faster. I was gripped with a longing and anxiety that I was unable to describe in words. As the car got on the road from the town to the village, memories of the roadside landmarks came back to me: the scattered villages, the apple orchards, and the sudden curves of the road. Now, the surface of the old road had been removed, and a new layer of asphalt had been laid on it. It was also lined with trees. With the summer air and greenness all around, the surroundings were mellow and pleasant.
When the car got to the edge of the big valley before it raced down the slope, I could see vaguely my village. In five minutes, I would get home. My heart tightened and it kept tightening until I felt out of breath. In no time the car arrived at the west end of the village. We almost missed it because the stone lion that was always stationed there had disappeared. As I grew up, the lion was the landmark of the village, and the villagers would always stand there chatting and seeing traffic pass.
Now my feet touched the street I had long missed over the past decade. In my absence, both the houses and the streets had changed beyond recognition. The streets had been widened and cleared of debris. The old dirt houses had given way to brick and cement structures. The gateposts, once made of mud bricks with rough wooden planks for doors, had been replaced by sturdy gleaming metal gates.
The car parked outside the courtyard. My mother and the siblings ran excitedly outside. My mother was older and thinner but in good spirits, as she always was even though she suffered from poor health her entire life. She stooped quite a bit and walked more slowly. Her once abundant hair had also become thin and silvery. My younger brother, my two sisters and their husbands had all changed their clothes for the welcome, but their brown faces, greying hair, and callous hands all gave them away, showing the crushing impact of years of hard labour on their bodies. It was especially heart-breaking to see my two sisters, slightly fairer than their husbands, but still wore rough skin and tired expressions, looking older before their time. They all helped to unpack the car and carried our big suitcases to the sitting room.
In the courtyard, my younger brother had built a new brick flat of three bedrooms. The two on the sides were installed with doors and livable, but not the bigger one in the middle that would require a bigger, specially made door. With the added bedrooms, the living space had been expanded.
I felt its spaciousness, but I also felt its emptiness and loss because of the absence of my father. When he was living and I was in college and graduate school for seven years, his presence in the courtyard filled it with warmth and love. I never failed to see him on the roadside waiting for me when I got off the vehicle. He guessed the dates and would always stand on the roadside to try his luck. Some days he was disappointed when I failed to show up, but when he did see me, his face was all smiles. He walked fast to carry whatever luggage I had. He excitedly exclaimed that he thought it was about time I should return home. He repeated this sentence for years. He put the luggage on the floor of the kitchen, sat in silent contentment at the edge of the Kang[1], and quietly smoked his water pipe while mom was preparing food. I could see that among his life-long laborious hustle and bustle this was the most relaxing and enjoyable moment for him.
For all my years in school from the first grade to graduate school, he never asked what I was learning and how I did it — not that he was not interested or did not care. Given his taciturn nature and lack of education, he felt he was not equipped to inquire about my progress. He knew he could count on me to do well in school. His lack of words conveyed more of his love and expectation than any language could express.
Now he was gone. It must have been very hard for my mother to face the days and nights without him. For more than forty years of marriage, my father bore the burden of most of the fieldwork so that my mother, always in fragile health, could remain at home, focusing on making clothes and preparing meals for us children. Their life together, though often marked by conflicts born of poverty, was sustained by a shared sense of duty to raise five children and to hold on to hope for the future. With her partner gone, the strong shoulder she had leaned on for forty-six years was no longer there. The loneliness must have been overwhelming.
I looked forward to being by her side in this difficult time, but I was also weary of the return. After all these hard years, I finally made it, becoming a professor in an American university. The status of a well-educated intellectual teaching in a Chinese college was enough to call for admiration, let alone a professor teaching in America. Even today, the mention of America would create in listeners associations with wealth, money, status, and superiority, yet could I have delayed my father’s death? Could I have done more for him and the family? What could I have done differently? At the bottom of my heart, I felt embarrassment, regret and guilt.
We were led into the sitting room of the new house which my younger brother had built. Right on the wall of the sitting room, I saw a big canvas portrait of my father’s bust my close friend asked made for his funeral. I stared at that picture. All the emotions that had been pent up within me seemed to explode. I sobbed with tears pouring down my face. The picture was probably taken shortly before his death. His hair was receding, short and mostly white. His stubble also grew white and had not been trimmed for a few days. His skin, due to long years of exposure to the sun, rain, snow and wind, had lost its hue and become dark brown. Wrinkles were engraved on his forehead and around his shrunk and mournful eyes. The hard life had reduced a tall and handsome young man into a visage too painful to see.
My younger brother helped me to our father’s memorial tablet in another room. On the table was another picture of him and some tributes like incense, dry fruits and paper that we burnt for him. I lighted a few incense sticks and knelt on the floor. I said I was sorry to come home late, and I asked for his forgiveness. For all these years, all my father did was work. He never stopped working till his last breath. He gave all he had to his poor family. He started his life’s journey early, walked on the frozen road of hardship for years, and his life was cut short because of too much exertion and exhaustion. He died too early. He did not deserve any of these.
I wished that my stable financial and overall status change in America had come earlier, so that I could do something for my father and family. It took me seven years to obtain my master’s and PhD degrees before I found my current job. It was difficult for me and my family. Both my wife and I depended on assistantships in the States to finish our doctoral degrees and raise our son, but it was harder for my Chinese family left behind. How did he and the family survive all the hardships all these years? From time to time, I called and asked how the family was doing, my father, as reticent as he was always, would say, “The same as usual. Now we had enough to eat.” He never shared details. He did not want me to worry.
Now he was dead. For his short sixty-nine years he lived a hard life, supporting his wife and five children. Never did a day go by without him thinking how he would put food on the table and, when we were young, how to save to send us to school.
One scene remains vivid in my memory. When I was in elementary school, my father, elder brother, and I hauled a cart of potatoes to the county market sixteen miles away. We stood beside the cart the entire day until every sack was sold. By the time we started home, night had fallen, and the air was dark and cold. Near the outskirts of town, we stopped at a nearly deserted food stand. My father bought my brother and me a bowl of noodles to ease our hunger and warm our stomachs. For himself, he asked only for a bowl of hot noodle broth, free of charge, into which he soaked the cornbread we had brought from home. That was his dinner. After a whole day in the cold—calling to passersby, weighing potatoes, helping customers pack their goods—he longed for a bowl of noodles that cost barely three American cents, but he would not spend that money, choosing instead to save every coin for daily necessities and for his children’s tuition and supplies.
This was who my father was, a hard-working yet destitute Chinese peasant living at the bottom of society, always lacking food, money, and the basic necessities, dying so untimely without enjoying a day of hearty meal and relaxed mind, leaving nothing behind for people to remember him by: no money, no property, no words, except the good memories people had of him. Is this what life is? What kind of world is this? Who should be held responsible for him and people like him?
It had never occurred to my father to complain against any individual, institution or society. Like millions of Chinese peasants living from the 1960s to the end of the 1970s, he was a victim of his time marked by the Great Leap Forward, the People’s Commune Movement, the Great Famine, and most devastating of all, the ten-year long Proletariat Cultural Revolution. It was estimated that over forty million Chinese starved to death just from the Great Famine from 1958-1961.
During my short stay at home, I ventured to the villages nearby. I saw peasants as old as in their 70s and 80s, stooped and frail, still toil day in and day out in the poor soil, to contribute to their sons’ building a new house or paying their daughters’ dowry. I read about millions of migrant workers, leaving their aging parents and small children behind, selling their labour to factories and workshops in big cities earning $600 a month. They work fourteen hours a day with only one or two days off in a month.
My 45-year-old sister recently worked in a factory in Guangdong. She told me she worked more than fourteen hours a day, with only two short meal breaks of about twenty-five minutes each. The rest of the time she stood in front of a machine, collecting washing machine parts that poured out nonstop. She could not step away, even briefly, without parts piling up and crashing to the floor. To prevent this, she avoided drinking water so she would not need to use the restroom as often.
I often wonder what our father would think, knowing from the grave that his grown children, though no longer hungry or ragged, still must toil so hard to make a living. They still depend on crops and apple orchards for survival. They still lack savings for family emergencies, vacations, or helping their children marry.
Home Visit in 2019
I visited China in May 2019, during which I delivered a lecture entitled “William Faulkner and His Works” at my alma mater. Before the talk, a formal ceremony was held, and I was awarded an honorary professorship. I had invited my mother to attend, but she declined. For a woman in possession of a lifelong interest in meeting people and seeing new places, her refusal seemed unusual.
Later I learned that her health had declined sharply over the past two years, making long trips difficult. This became painfully clear during my walks with her in the village. I held her weakened arm, little more than thin flesh over bone, as we moved slowly along the path. Every few minutes she had to stop and sit, murmuring that her legs were too weak to carry her farther.
As I walked with her through the village, I noticed many changes. The streets had been paved with cement, streetlights now stood on every post, and running water had been installed in every household, yet the village also felt emptier. Wealthier families had moved to the county seat, and younger men and women had left for jobs in larger cities. What remained were mostly the elderly and children, giving the village a quiet and desolate air.
My younger brother had upgraded his home. In September, I learned from my younger brother that our mother was seriously ill. It started with a few swollen teeth, then a big ball grew on one side of her face, so big that it squeezed her eye. My brother and sisters thought it might be some infection that would heal in a week or two, but when it became more than two weeks, they decided to take her to the county hospital, only to be told that they could not treat her, that she needed to be transferred to a hospital in Xi’an. She was taken to the emergencies of two big hospitals, only to be told that they could not treat her.
They then took her to the third hospital affiliated with the Fourth Military Medical University, one of the best ones in Xi’an. I happened to have a friend working there, and I called him repeatedly, asking if he could help arrange for my mother to see a doctor. Through his connection, she was admitted to the emergency department. A team of specialists were assembled, and they diagnosed her case as advanced oral cancer, with very slim chances of recovery. If we insisted on treatment, two hospitals would need to be involved. Part of her face would have to be cut, and her chest opened to drain the fluid. Given her age, the likelihood of surviving such a surgery was minimal.
After careful discussion, my brother, sisters, and I decided to forego the attempt and brought her home, leaving her final days in God’s hands. It was indeed a hard decision for us. We felt extremely guilty for our mother did not deserve to die this way, yet she accepted it with resignation and sigh. She said, “How did the Lord allow this weird illness to happen to me?” For two weeks she lay on bed, becoming weaker day by day, withering away until she lost her last breath.
Since she was diagnosed, I had been preparing to fly back to China for the funeral. Because of my absence from my father’s funeral, I was determined to attend my mother’s funeral, to make sure she had a decent burial. I told my siblings that I would be glad to pay for all the expenses. That was the least I could do to show a little appreciation for what she did for the family and me. I spent fourteen hours flying from Chicago to Beijing, then two hours from Beijing to Xi’an, then four hours of drive home. By the time I arrived home, more than twenty-four hours had passed.
The moment I knelt before my mother’s dead body in a coffin, my eyes were filled with tears. I told her how sorry I was not to be with her for the last weeks now that she was forever gone. With a heavy heart and hasty breath, my words were repeatedly interrupted by my sobbing. My brother and sisters, kneeling beside me, tried to calm me down and asked me not to be carried away by my grief.
The second day was filled with preparations for the funeral. A few large tents, complete with tables and chairs, were rented and set up by a group of young men. The caterers arrived in their big truck, bringing utensils, meats, and vegetables. They busily set up the stove, chopped the meat, and cleaned the vegetables. In the nearby field, the grave diggers worked diligently, laying bricks to line the walls of the grave. My brother and I carried home-prepared food to the gravesite, along with light refreshments, cigarettes, and liquor, as tokens of our appreciation for everyone’s efforts.
The funeral ceremony was held the next day. Relatives, villagers and the people nearby packed the small square in front of the courtyard. My mother’s coffin was carried by a few strong men from the house outside and placed on a frame for people to pay their last respect. Our sisters and the women relatives knelt around the coffin, cried and chanted the hard life my mother had lived, while my elder brother, younger one, and I knelt in front of the coffin. The band started to play music of mournful nature.
I then stood up and gave a short eulogy outlining mother’s sacrifice and her impact on us. As I started to utter those words, they invoked images of the past years when my mother, always in poor health, did her best to make clothes and food for us. I especially mentioned how she insisted on us siblings going to school to get an education during a financially challenged times. Without her push, encouragement and resourcefulness, our lives now would be different.
When the ceremony ended, the coffin was placed on a motorized vehicle for transport to the graveyard. As it moved slowly toward the site, we siblings, along with relatives and villagers, followed behind, carrying the funeral decorations. When the coffin was about to be lowered into the grave, everyone gathered along the sides. I offered a prayer for my mother, thanking the Lord for bringing her into our lives and for all she had done for our family. I asked Him to remember her sacrifices and contributions and to welcome her into heaven. I recited a verse from Revelation 21:4: “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” After my prayer, the villagers helped cover the grave with cement boards and dirt.
On the journey back home, and later on the flight to the United States, my thoughts were consumed by the many sacrifices my mother had made. She did not come from this region. She was born into a prosperous doctor’s family in Gansu Province, but during the national famine, she was forced to leave Gansu and migrate to Shaanxi, where she married my father. Within four years, she had given birth to three sons, placing an immense burden on our already poor family, and later she bore two daughters. Years of poor health, inadequate nutrition, and endless labour to provide food and clothing for the family left her frail. I remembered how she often lay on her side, wracked with pain from stomach ulcers caused by malnutrition, yet the family could not afford medicine.
My mother was a very ordinary peasant woman. She had only three years of schooling, yet she understood the value of education and how it could shape the future of her children. One memory remains carved in my mind. Every time I returned home from four years of boarding school, she made sure I had a bowl of noodles to give me some nourishment. Our family was extremely poor and survived mostly on corn and sweet potatoes, yet she used the small amount of wheat flour she had saved to make me that simple meal. Watching me enjoy a hearty bowl after days of dry corn bread and hot water brought her more joy than when she ate the food herself. She would sit beside me, relaxed and smiling, asking about school as I devoured the noodles.
I recalled more… One winter during high school, I was short just one dollar of my tuition. My homeroom teacher, stern and unyielding, made me walk five miles home and warned me not to return without the full amount. My parents, especially my mother, went from house to house in the village, humbly pleading for a small loan for a week or two. Most turned them away, citing their own hardships, but a few, out of pity, offered a yuan or two. By late afternoon, the small contributions had added up. I returned to school at dusk.
Now that both of my parents are gone, I probably will not return as often as I once did, yet home will always hold a permanent place in my life, its significance untouched by time. It has become a wellspring that nourishes me, as it has for many years. Whenever I think of home, I remember my parents, siblings, and the villagers. Their hope, hard work, and resilience have inspired me throughout my studies, career, and life. I have always thought: if my parents could endure those grueling years, far harsher than anything I have faced, I could persevere as well.
Struggling with a difficult reading, drafting a paper, or completing a PhD dissertation feels like a minor challenge compared to the battles they fought for food, clothing, tuition, farming tools, seeds, and fertilizers. For my challenges, I could seek more time or consult a professor. For my parents, failing to buy seeds or fertilizers in time could mean missing a season, leaving the family without a harvest, a matter of life and death. It is almost unimaginable how they survived those years. Their stories of sacrifice and resilience must be remembered and passed down through generations.
I have benefited most from their hard work and sacrifice. I owe a profound debt of gratitude first to my parents, and then to my siblings. My father spent his life labouring in the fields, always placing his faith in the land; my mother devoted herself to cooking and sewing, always ensuring we were clean and presentable. My siblings, who left school early, worked alongside our parents, giving all they had to support the family. I, the one who stayed in school the longest, completing graduate studies, reaped the rewards of their toil and perseverance. Without their sacrifices, I might be living the same life as my siblings today, repeating the same exhausting work my parents endured. For my entire life, I can never fully repay what they gave to our family.
Beyond feelings of indebtedness, these homecoming visits also prompt me to reflect on deeper issues. The contrast between my life and that of my siblings in China could not be more striking. It is almost as if I live in a king’s palace, eating what I want, buying what I desire, and traveling to places that interest me, without concern for cost, while they worry daily about whether there will be enough rain for the crops, whether they can save enough for their children’s education, or whether they have enough to face unexpected emergencies. Yes, they do not go hungry, but their lives remain far from secure or comfortable. Witnessing their struggles, I often feel guilty that I cannot do more for them. I cannot help but wonder why some people are able to change their lives through hard work, while others, despite equal or greater effort, cannot. Is there such a thing as fate? What lies behind it, and can it be changed?
I cannot answer these and the frustrations that are hard to quell, I remain hopeful and calm. My parents often told us when we were children that even though we could not control the weather or the harvest, we must give our best effort and never let drought, storm, or hail prevent us from planting the next season’s crops.
I realise homecoming is no longer simply about returning to a physical place; it is about returning to the essence of who I am. My parents’ fields, the worn paths of our village, and the laughter and burdens shared with my siblings shaped the foundation upon which my entire life was built. Though I may not walk those village roads as often as before, they live within me, and every achievement of mine carries their unseen footprints. My parents’ sacrifices and my siblings’ endurance gave me the privilege of education and the chance to live a life far removed from the toil of farming. Their lives remind me that fate is both mysterious and humble. We cannot fully explain why one child remains tied to the land while another journeys across oceans into universities and cities; nor can we fully reconcile the injustices of unequal rewards for equally hard labor. Still in this tension between destiny and effort lies the lesson my parents embodied: We must keep planting seeds, even when the harvest is uncertain. Their resilience teaches me that while we may not command the outcomes of life, we can command the spirit with which we endure it.
Thus, homecoming becomes more than nostalgia. It is a renewal of faith, gratitude, and responsibility. It compels me to remember not only what I received but also what I must pass on: the stories of hardship, the virtues of perseverance, and the wisdom of contentment. Just as my parents left behind a legacy of strength and dignity, I too must carry forward their spirit, telling and retelling their stories so that the future generations may know the price paid for their opportunities.
Even as life pulls me farther from the village, home will remain my wellspring, reminding me of the values that no distance can erase. In remembering, I find balance between guilt and gratitude, between abundance and humility, and between fate and choice. And in this balance, I carry with me the most enduring inheritance my parents left behind: the courage to live with resilience and the grace to be content in every circumstance.
[1] A heatable clay bed, a traditional Chinese sleeping platform made of earth or brick. It has hollow interior channels connected to a stove or external fire source, circulating warm air to heat the clay mass and provide energy-efficient warmth during cold winters
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Larry S. Su has been a professor of literature and writing for the past thirty years. He has also been a passionate reader and ardent writer since college. He writes both in Chinese and English, and his writings have appeared extensively in the Chinese and English publications, mostly in the form of articles and essays.
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When the word ‘Partition’ is mentioned, it is always assumed to refer to the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan. In fact, the Partition of the British Raj occurred five times.
Not so long ago, as recently as 1928, a vast expanse of land from Aden in the West to Rangoon in the east was united as the Indian Empire, all under British rule. It was the zenith of the British Empire, and it seemed the sun would never set on the Empire. A quarter of the world’s population lived here, from the Red Sea to Southeast Asia, and they all used the Indian rupee. One would travel across the span with an Indian passport. By 1971, in just 40 years, this Empire had been shattered five times, resulting in 12 nation-states.
We should learn to tell stories by listening to how housewives gossip. They narrate intimate personal stories about their neighbours, with vivid detail, as if they were there in the target’s bedroom. It becomes more believable when real characters are added. The same advice applies to telling history, his-story. Sam Dalrymple’s Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia does exactly that. A dry subject like history is turned into an unputdownable book by giving human faces to the people making difficult decisions at the administrative level and to those who have to bear the brunt of those decisions. Perhaps the author’s filmmaking background pushed him towards this style. That makes it very engaging.
The author, Samuel Hew Tantallon Darymple, is a scholar of Sanskrit and Persian, as well as a historian, author, activist, and social media influencer. He co-founded Project Dastaan[1], a peace-building initiative that uses digital technology to reconnect people displaced by the 1947 Partition of India with their childhood communities and villages.
The five Partitions mentioned in this book are: the separation of Burma from India in 1937; the reclassification of Aden as a British protectorate; the formation of Pakistan; the dissolution of the 550-odd princely states; and, finally, a bloody civil war that led to the formation of Bangladesh.
The Indian idea of ‘Bharat’ is traditionally shaped by the ancient Hindu geography of Bharatvarsha, a triangular landmass stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south. Notably, Afghanistan, mentioned in the Mahabharata, and Burma, known as Brahmadesh (Land of Brahma), do not fall within this framework. The city of Kandahar in Afghanistan is apparently named after Gandhari, the blindfolded matriarch of the Kaurava clan.
After the 1905 Partition of Bengal and the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, calls for self-governance grew louder. To pacify the Indian public, the Crown sent a group of seven, known as the Simon Commission[2], in 1928 to implement constitutional reforms. It did nothing to advance Indian independence but demarcated Burma as a territory quite separate from British India, and its inclusion in India was an error.
Coincidentally, this was the aftermath of the 1928 Depression. Before this, Burma was a melting pot of cultures. Its capital, Rangoon, one of the busiest commercial cities in Asia, was labelled the ‘Paris of the East’. It is said that in 1920, there were more traders in Burma than in New York. Rangoon port was an important harbour for the export of rice, teak and petroleum. Its banking services drew people from many regions. It was a multilingual and multicultural city, shaped by large-scale migration. People were heard speaking Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Marwari, Urdu, Chinese, English, and other languages.
The turn of the economic tide and the disparity in economic status between the ethnic Burmese and the sojourners sparked a series of unrest. The Chettiars and Bengali houses and shops were targeted. Indians were systematically excluded from Burma, forcing rich traders to become refugees and make a beeline for India. This long march over the Patkai hills to India became a feature again as Japanese soldiers (and the Indian National Army under Bose) advanced during World War 2. The experiences of Mariappan, a Tamil shopkeeper who fled to Tamil Nadu to start anew in Burma because of his lowly caste, and had to run again because of Burmese nationalism, are heart-wrenching. Then there is Uttam Singh, who had to endure a treacherous long march home to Punjab across the hills. Losing everything, it was a miracle that he and his family made it in one piece. Little snippets like these are the real reasons this book grows on readers.
Caught in the middle are the Naga people, whose land lies precariously between Burma and India. Although its leaders rallied for an independent Naga state, a fifth of the region fell under Burmese control. For decades to come, insurgency remained an issue. On April 1st 1937, Burma was carved out of British India, leaving many unanswered questions and triggering years of attempts to usurp power within Burma, followed by years of military rule and turmoil.
After its capture by the British East India Company, Aden was governed as part of the Bombay Presidency. It was an important coal station for ships. The administrators regarded Arabs as fundamentally different from Indians. To increase efficiency, the British decided in 1937 to rule the port of Aden as a British colony and its hinterland as a protectorate, much to the dismay of many in the Indian community there. The rise of Arab nationalism that followed, with the emergence of dynamic leaders such as Gamal Nasser of Egypt, who promoted Arab patriotism, meant the former Arabian Raj kingdom would no longer be associated with Indians. Indians, once regarded as cultured and civilised, were soon viewed as competitors. By the late 1950s, a reverse exodus began. Indians with deep roots in these Arab lands, including property, businesses, and connections, had to flee helter-skelter back to India and the UK. The Ambanis were one such family affected by this.
Although Jinnah initially joined the Indian National Congress, his affiliation with the Muslim League grew stronger as he felt that Gandhi was leading the party and the nation towards a more Hindu-centric direction. The way the Congress conducted its meetings was as if they were at a religious ceremony, with chanting of mantras and singing of religious hymns. Muslims began to question how they would be treated in an independent India with Congress at the helm of power. Even though Jinnah appeared as an icon of Hindu-Muslim unity, later events propelled him and other Muslims to push for a two-state solution for post-independent India.
In a way, as Gandhi promoted his Hindu agenda, the Burmese, with their Buddhist practice, also increasingly felt more detached from India, further fuelling Burmese nationalism.
The post-WW2 era saw many changes in India. Britain was in debt, and the push for independence and a separate nation for Muslims was in full force. The third Partition was about to take place, but it was preceded by mindless killings and violence in the areas destined to be part of Pakistan. The Bengal region witnessed brutality on Direct Action Day, led by Suhrawardy and his acolyte, Mujibur Rahman, who would later be instrumental in the formation of Bangladesh. Things were no better in Punjab. The confusion created by Radcliffe’s arbitrary carving of the country left people unsure which country they belonged to, even one month after the ‘tryst with destiny’ speech.
There was then a scramble to recruit the 550-plus princely states to join Pakistan or India, or to stand alone. This was the 4th Partition. Recruitment reached feverish heights in states such as Junagadh, Kashmir, and Hyderabad. Junagadh housed two sacred Hindu sites, Dwarka and Somnath, but was ruled by a Muslim Nawab. Kashmir had a Hindu king, but his subjects were predominantly Muslims. The situation was reversed in Hyderabad.
The shattered subcontinent of India has been in constant flux even after attaining self-rule. It has to deal with internal squabbles and hostile neighbours. The situation becomes complicated as the world divides itself into the blue corner of capitalism and the red corner of communism. Marxism and Maoist ideology spread across its states, creating skirmishes here and there.
Pakistan, too, had its own problems. The insistence on using Urdu as the national language was not taken lightly by the Bengali-speaking East Pakistanis. The discord reached a tipping point in 1971, when the Bengali Awami League won the Pakistani elections. Civil war broke out when West Pakistani leaders refused to accept the election results. India sent in its troops to squash West Pakistan’s army and effectively completed the Fifth Partition, the creation of the country of Bangladesh.
The recurring theme throughout the book is that people continue to help one another, regardless of the day’s political climate. Despite ideological differences, people help people. The book highlights numerous heart-stirring accounts of the extraordinary resilience and compassion of everyday people. These ‘unity in diversity’ stories emerge from small acts of kindness that transcend religious, social, and economic boundaries.
It remains to be debated by future historians whether the colonial masters can be blamed for shattering the land that spanned the Arabian Gulf to Southeast Asia. Given the insatiable appetite of human greed for land, wealth and power, are these sequelae inevitable anyway?
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.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The other day I had a tough time explaining mobile telephony and its advancements to my dad who’s around 85 years old. Both of us are highly educated. Neither of us knew modern technology well. Nevertheless, me being a self-taught-geek-or-engineer-or-technologist-of-sorts keep explaining the advancements in technology at regular intervals to my father.
My father, 85, is still actively practicing in a nearby trust hospital. He retired from government service almost two decades ago. Ever since he has been actively consulting patients in local private hospitals. He always says that keeping oneself active (physically or professionally) is more than sufficient to keep ourselves healthy.
“No exercises needed”, he would say whenever someone asked him, and would add, “there isn’t any beach or a lake resort in the arid Hyderabad to sit back and relax. So, the patients give me some avocation to pass my time”.
I must also confess that my father has been using hearing aids in both the ears since he was 50 years old, and amnesia slowly started getting the better of him four years ago…
*
Six years ago, another problem cropped up…
In December 2019, as you all know this planet was plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst this hullabaloo, China made a small significant technological advancement – China silently unrolled 5G mobile telephony[1] in Wuhan.
As March 2020 neared, Indian government announced harsh restrictions, prominent amongst them are the lockdowns. To complicate the matters, my dad’s patients desperately needed to consult him for whatever…
… So, literally imprisoned at home my father embarked on video consultations to patients through WhatsApp. That represented the flashpoint between my dad and me.
Dad started complaining that his video conferences were not working properly.
The self-taught engineer in me explained that for proper video streaming and conferencing the mobile handset needs to have certain amount of memory in its RAM and storage all of which must be compatible with the ‘xG’ mobile telephony the government or service provider is offering (where ‘x’ represents a whole number like 2, 3, 4 or 5 and in near future can be 6 also). Like a true technocrat, I explained all the technology I knew with appropriate diagrams and flow-charts.
“What’s this RAM and storage?” asked my dad
“Well, I think RAM means Random Access Memory…”, I quipped peering through the edge of my glasses.
“What’s with the storage?”
“Well, everything your mobile handset receives, be it SMS or any other notifications or photographs you click with your mobile camera, it needs to keep somewhere. It needs a filing cabinet. That is called storage. If your handset has something called an SD card, it is external storage while every handset is sold initially with some storage called ‘internal storage’…”
“So … how much area does this storage take”
I casually replied, “Usually it is measured in GBs (giga bytes) … Your handset, I guess is some 16 GB or so… Mine’s about 32 GB…”
It’s been six years since we have had this discussion. The then government complicated the situation in our house by announcing that in another six months it will roll out 5G services in India to compete with Chinese …
“Ok! That’s alright but why are my phone calls not up to the mark. What does it have to do with storage? I understand if it is missing SMS, photos, storing and retrieving videos, etc… But why is the voice of the caller invariably broken or videos not clear?”
“Well, you might be using a 3G handset. Presently, the service providers are offering 4G+ services. Maybe you need to change your handset”
“Do I look like a fool? On one hand you are saying my phone is 16 G and on the other hand you are saying that government is offering only 4G services. Are you trying to ridicule me?”
Dumbstruck I tried to convince my dad. “Daddy, telephony G is different from storage GB … G of telephony means Generation and GB is giga bytes… 4G is different from 16 GB”.
“I know… I know… If government is offering only 4G and I have a 16 G handset, and there are two SIM cards in my handset 4G multiplied 4G is 16 G… then why is my handset not working properly?”, dad said angrily.
As an adolescent, I always felt that my father was very poor in mathematics and that’s perhaps why he asked me to opt for Biology stream in college. Had I known then that he knew how to square 4, I would’ve opted for mathematics stream giving many-a-CEOs a good run for their money…
“No!” I yelled, “theG in xG is different from GB”
“Now… Now… Now… My hearing aids are working properly… no need to shout… unnecessarily you’ll be disturbing the neighbours… Tell me, if my handset is 16 G why is it not working in 4G technology?”
I tried to pacify myself, “guess he has a hearing problem with letter ‘B’…”
“This G is not the same as that GB… Both are different…,” I said at the top of my voice
“Ok… But how to solve the problem?”
“Change your handset to something that can support 4G services…”
“But it is lockdown now… So… what’s the alternative?”
“The only alternative is to wait till they relax the lockdown and buy a new one until then endure the faulty video and audio calls… No other way out…”
*
Twenty years ago, in 2002, I bought my first mobile handset – a Nokia 3100 for about Rs3000. I was in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh then. There was a delayed roll-out of mobile telephony in North-western India and Kashmir regions of India for obvious reasons of them being very next to enemy nations, China and Pakistan. It was 2G technology then. Subsequently, a number of cheap Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese and Korean mobile handsets invaded India.
Back in 1991 CE, when India liberalised its economy, India was invaded by a number of international products in all spheres of life. Many Chinese and other Asian national companies also released their wares. This gave the average Indian at least four options.
The first option of buying highly priced superior quality original products from the Western Countries. The second option is that of the cheap lookalikes mostly from oriental countries like China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea. These were commonly referred to as duplicates. A third reasonable and genuine option was also offered by the liberalised Indian market – the Japanese products. These Japanese products, particularly the watches and calculators, were diametrically different from either the Western or the Oriental country products. They were priced somewhere in between and offered technology products with graceful designs. No matter what happens, these Japanese goods exceed your expectations. The fourth option was the local Indian products. These were rather crude in their design, usually low in quality and may or may not work testing your luck.
Chinese products, the duplicates, looked more American than the American products themselves but with Mandarin notations. From a distance it is difficult to say which is which. The most popular example in this direction was the copy of popular Batteries. Street vendors used to dispense American lookalike batteries for Rs5 while the original western would cost Rs95. Among the Indian products that stood the test of time were mostly food and dairy items and some watches/clocks.
This period of 90s in India paralleled the European Union’s efforts to revive the defunct industries that were bombed out in World War II. Also, around this time domestic airlines pampered the passengers by giving cheap watches as gifts and souvenirs. Net result: both my father and me developed a passion for collecting watches. My father’s patients would gift him cheap Chinese or so-called duplicates of the popular European watches. While he still collects these cheap watches, I, in due course, fizzled out. Of course, as of today, the pace at which the companies release newer designs outran our passion.
Mobile handsets, particularly the cheap ones that flooded the Indian market, fuelled our passion to collect handsets. So, now both of us have an additional avocation of changing mobile handsets as frequently as possible. Since in 2002 I was in Shimla and my dad was in Hyderabad, it became an unwritten rule between both of us that we appear with a different mobile handset every time we met. This passion continued for about a decade till 2012. By this time, I covered two cities – Shimla and Guwahati in Northeastern state of Assam. My father having retired from active government service lived (and continues to live in, touch wood) in Hyderabad which is in the south Indian state of Telangana.
A neighbourhood mobile vendor used to supply my father with cheap mobile handsets. For some unknown reason he used to call my father ‘Uncle’ and me as ‘Sir’. So, my mother and me used to pull my dad’s legs by calling the mobile vendor as his nephew.
As per our passion, we regularly changed our mobile phones. This continued till sometime… literally till 2018… when the 4G services were launched. Around this time the mobile ‘nephew’ of my father stopped supplying newer versions of handsets to my father.
But when he supplied mobile handsets to my father, he also used to do an additional service to my father: every time my father changed his handset, the mobile ‘nephew’ would somehow do a data transfer from the older handset to the new one. This I call an additional service because my father, as I mentioned earlier, uses hearing aids. So, the mobile handset must also be connected to the hearing aid through Bluetooth or other reliable technology. This is followed by a calibration of the hearing aid with the audiologist. All this took at least 2 – 3 days and multiple visits to both the mobile vendor and the audiologist. The mobile ‘nephew’ was very enthusiastic and never complained about any inconvenience. Other mobile shop owners would bluntly ask my father to get the calibration done elsewhere or with the service centre present at the other end of the city.
In one of the exchanges of mobiles, the data could not be properly transferred.
*
In June 2020, I guess, the government relaxed the lockdowns for the first time. Promptly, my father headed to a neighbourhood mobile phone shop and bought a 4G handset as per my recommendation. To my surprise, my father did not go to his mobile ‘nephew’. He went to a high-end mobile shop. My father this time bought an advanced model of a popular company’s handset.
After a day or two, and more video conferences later, my father expressed happiness and thanked me saying that for the first time in his life I gave a correct advice.
But now he needed something from the earlier unfinished data transfer. He wanted the data in the older mobile handset into the new handset. I took both the handsets to the new vendor and requested him to do the transfer. He gave a polished glib talk giving me the impression that the earlier handset is a cheap model from which it is better not to transfer the data. Crestfallen, I dragged myself to my-father’s-mobile-nephew and asked him to do the needful. The nephew told me that he failed to get permission for 4G and 5G so he’s at a loss as to help me.
“…that”, the nephew told me then, “is also the reason why your father no longer procures his mobiles from me”.
*
Two years of COVID restrictions rolled on somehow. For more than a year and a half every Indian was literally imprisoned in their respective homes due to the on-going pandemic.
The technology argument resurfaced between me and my father once again.
Dad said, “…again the problem of poor-quality video and audio…”
“Ah! Our service provider has now upgraded to 5G+ …Your handset is 4G… Change your handset…”
“Hmm… you mean there’s no problem with the handset?”
“Yeah! There’s no problem with the handset. It is just outdated. It is no longer compatible with the existing technology“, I quipped.
“What do you mean?“
I played the cards differently this time.
“We are three people in this house now. How comfortable will it be if suddenly there are 15 people in this house now?”
“If you talk like that, a greater number of people can be made to adjust in the house…”
“But what if everyday 15 people keep coming into the house without vacating?”
“Ah! Then that will be a problem…”
“Ditto for your handset… It is receiving more information from the network than it can handle…”
“The Apps are also freezing occasionally…”
“Same logic… they are receiving more information and upgrading themselves to the new technology… time to change your handset…”
“How much will a basic handset that works will cost me?”
“The one that is compatible will cost you around Rs15,000. The one that is also compatible with your hearing aids will be at the least Rs20,000.”
Well, since my childhood, I always kept myself updated on the prices of the latest in market whether I need those items or not. Wishful thinking, I guess.
“If this is the case then, every year or two even if there is no malfunction, I am forced to change my handset. This is very bad…”
“That’s the flip side of the technological advancement… Whether you like it or not… Whether there’s a malfunction or not, we are forced to change our products leading to huge amounts of pollution…”
“Very bad state of affairs. Think about the laptops then. Unnecessarily we are shelling out truckloads of money just to keep us abreast of the technology…”
“Very bad state of affairs… the technology developers think everybody is a billionaire and everybody’s a computer geek…”
*
Thanks to our passions, every year, me and my dad each spend at least Rs8000 just for the batteries so that our watches are in working condition. The other day, I took an Indian watch of mine for servicing which I bought in 2001 with the first salary I received after my PhD. I bought it for Rs400 then.
The servicing personnel cooed, “Is this watch still working?”
Nostalgically, I asked, “What’s the price of this model now?”
“This model is no longer produced Sir…”
If this episode makes me misty-eyed, my Japanese watch always gives me goosepimples.
In 2010, I found a display board in a watch shop in the Fancy Bazaar of Guwahati that read, “Japanese – EcoFriendly watches”. I walked into the shop and bought the watch for about two thousand bucks. The manual said, “10-year Battery Life”. Believe it or not, it lasted 15 years and this is the only watch which did not give me an opportunity to change its battery.
Good and Honest things in life must be appreciated at the first opportunity.
[1]Telephony is the technology involving telephones for communication (audio or video), and data exchange between distant parties
I grew up surrounded by fish. My mom’s hobby was fishing with her relatives in our coastal hometown. The districts near our town’s fishport had small wet markets filled with a variety of fish common in our area. My mom enjoyed fishing early in the morning or near sundown, bringing home the catch for our meals. Some fish ended up on our breakfast or lunch table. While I never learned how to fish, I love eating all types of fish, except for the bony ones.
I no longer live in my hometown because our family has decided to sell our ancestral home due to perennial flooding. Since I now live in the foothills, I miss the kinds of fish I grew up with, as fish are scarce where I currently reside.
Our mother had to learn how to prepare delectable fish dishes for us, since we were carnivorous as children. She also had to devise unique ways to present the food in a manner that was both attractive and nutritious, without overpowering its traditional flavor.
The types of fish common in my hometown include talimusak (needlefish), biya (gizzard shad), sapsap (silverbelly), bisugo (threadfin bream), bangus (milkfish), and bidbid (ladyfish). I clearly remember them because they were cooked in different dishes using basic ingredients such as vinegar, soy sauce, tomatoes, ginger, coconut milk, chili leaves, Chinese cabbage, regular cabbage, bitter gourd, eggplants, potatoes, guavas, sweet potato leaves, and eggs. Nothing fancy.
I have never learned how to cook any fish dishes, although I tried once when I was on my own many years ago after my siblings resettled in a southern province and abroad. I think the preparation is relatively tedious. However, I can usually tell if the fish used in a dish is fresh, even if it has been frozen.
One of my favourite dishes is ladyfish balls in sweet-and-sour sauce, or simply fried in a wheat-flour batter, served with noodle soup and sprinkled with fried garlic and leeks—a hearty soup, typically enjoyed in rainy weather.
Another dish I enjoy is bisugo (threadfin bream) simply prepared in vinegar, water, ginger, eggplant, and bottle gourd. While a few Filipino traditional fish dishes have recently become fusion, I still prefer the basic dish with which I am familiar.
Talimusak (needlefish) is usually dried in the sun for a few hours, then fried and placed on small barbecue sticks, and served with a vinegar dip of chopped chilies and red onions for a healthy snack.
One common dish is milkfish steak in lemon juice, soy sauce, and onion rings. Boneless milkfish was uncommon in my growing-up years.
The fish are not raised on farms, but they grow naturally upstream in rivers and bays. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for their diminishing size and numbers. I never knew of other types of fish farms besides milkfish when I was younger. Technological advances and community encroachment may be crucial factors in each fish story.
In my province, there is a lake called Laguna de Bay, famous for ayungin (silver perch), which is flavorful in a tamarind-based soup. Two years ago, when my youngest brother and his family returned on holiday, he asked me to buy dried silver perch for him to carry with him to his home in North America. Unfortunately, overfishing is a major concern.
Laguna De Bay. From Public Domain
Another issue facing Laguna de Bay is the proliferation of water hyacinth, which adversely affects aquatic life and navigation. Although some community-based NGOs collect the plants and convert them into slippers, this commendable effort is insufficient, given that Laguna de Bay is the Philippines’ largest lake, spanning roughly 911–949 square kilometers (km²).
With the passage of time and the advancement of exploration, we may discover new species of fish that have not been a part of our traditional food sources. The continuous quest to identify new fish that can be consumed is a means of ensuring that there is a sufficient supply to satisfy the nutritional requirements of our population.
Laguna de Bay. From Public Domain
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Manuel A. Alindogan, Jr. or Jun A. Alindogan is the Academic Director of the Expanded Alternative Learning Program of Empowered East, a Rizal-province based NGO in the Philippines and is also the founder of Speechsmart Online that specializes in English test preparation courses. He is a freelance writer and a member of the Freelance Writers’ Guild of the Philippines (FWGP).
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