Five poems by Pravasini Mahakudahave been translated to English from Odia by Snehaprava Das. Click here to read.
A Poet in Exileby Dmitry Blizniuk has been translated from Ukranian by Sergey Gerasimov. Click hereto read.
Kalponik or Imaginedby Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click hereto read.
Pandies Corner
Songs of Freedom: The Seven Mysteries of Sumona’s Life is an autobiographical narrative by Sumona (pseudonym), translated from Hindustani by Grace M Sukanya. These stories highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and Pandies. Click here to read.
A brief discusion of Whereabouts of the Anonymous: Exploration of the Invisible by Rajorshi Patrnabis, Hawakal Publishers, with an exclusive interview with the author on his supernatural leanings
Whereabouts of the Anonymous: Exploration of the Invisible by Rajorshi Patrnabis could have been a regular book of intense ghost stories, with the oldest ‘presences’ dating back to the regime of Sher Shah Suri (1472 – 1545). ‘Presences’ are basically spirits — visible or barely visible — that cause disturbances in the energy field surrounding us, as per the book.
One of the most coherent of these ‘spirits’ was from 1920, confiding her story on Christmas eve — reminds one of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and Uncle Scrooge — only this spirit was a British woman from the Raj era, a spirit that lost her beloved who was from a Bengali royal family. Her strict father stepped in and stopped the marriage. No one knew what happened to the groom. And she continued to weep and wait while haunting the premises of the popular and populous Park Street where she was supposed to meet her beloved more than a hundred years ago… Then there’s a ghost that takes you back to his funeral pyre… drawing back the curtain between the two dimensions — one in which we exist and one in which they hover…
These, however, are not your regular ghost stories. There is a difference for Patranabis claims to have met these sad spirits in real life.
A Wiccan by choice, Patranabis has tried to draw back the curtains to reveal a dimension whose existence is elusive and avoidable for most of us at best and rejected by many. He claims to have a spiritual bent of mind which helps him experience these out-of-the-box scenarios, meet the dearly departed. He has done a number of books of poetry around his beliefs. He has even photographed these spirits!
Photographs of spirits by Rajorshi Patranabis
Though the images are blurry at the first viewing, you have to focus hard to see the ethereal outlines of shadows beyond the realm of the living, I guess.
Whereabouts of the Anonymous is a memoir that spans his interactions with, as the title says — ‘the anonymous’ — or the blurry ‘presences’ and explores the invisible for majority of the spirits are merely depicted as shadowy in his narrative as in his photographs except for a few whose images have not been taken.
Occasionally, the spirits can be malevolent as in the Bhangarh Fort, where a foul-smelling female spirit and some lost souls in the ancient jails wounded Patranabis physically and chased him out. Set in the Aravalli hills of Rajasthan. Bhangarh is the most haunted place in India. There is a story of a princess and her spurned lover associated with it. Evidently, a sage fell in love with the princess and made a special concoction which would make her fall in love with him. When she went to buy a perfume, the smitten lover tried to replace it with his love potion. The princess threw away the bottle of love potion. It fell on a rock, dislodging it. The rock rolled down to kill her admirer, who cursed her with his dying breath!
There is also the narrative about a whole village that accepts and lives in peace with the spirits of their dearly departed, even giving them rickshaw rides and offering them chairs!
Patrnanabis has brought his Wiccan outlook into the discourse. His language flows. The narrative is simple and easy to understand. The descriptions are so graphic that one can almost visualise the disembodied spirits and their interactions. The 150-page book is an enjoyable and easy read and a perfect companion for travel or an evening or two. But the author’s experiences and his interests stretch beyond what the pages can hold. In this interview, we discuss his beliefs and his experiences…and maybe, another book?
How old were you when you had your first supernatural sighting? Were you scared the first time?
When I look back, the first time that I had a feel of the ‘other dimension’ was perhaps at the age of 7 or 8. I remember going to my paternal home at Digboi during our winter vacations. I remember going to my parent’s bedroom at the first floor and my mother used had to send me to her room to fetch something. The room was across a terrace, and I remember running through the terrace from the staircase to the room. But every time, I could feel someone running with me through the terrace. But as and when I would enter the room, it was all perfect. I would run back again again to the stairs. When I would blurt this out to my parents, they would simply ignore me, but somehow, I was never completely convinced. It was much later, sometime around the year 2000 that my father confided with me of a real ‘presence’ there. He told me that there had been many an experience where people had felt the presence of something eerie there. But by then I had had some very deep experience of the supernatural existence.
Rajorshi Patranabis in Wiccan wear
When did you become a Wiccan and why?
The answer to this ‘why’ is a wee bit dicey. I am myself not sure of this. It was just a flow that I couldn’t control. Mind you, I had already gone through some extremely remarkable experiences and my stint at the hill top temple and my encounter with that 97 year old person who taught me numerology was way before I joined Wicca. I would call myself pretty insane in those phases of my life. By the time Wicca happened, I had calmed down considerably and joining my teacher was nothing less than an accident. It so happened that my friend, Subhodip, and I were walking down the Southern Avenue in Kolkata when we spotted another school friend ( a senior Wiccan) standing at the door of an otherwise inconsequential book store. He waved at us and asked us to join in, as it was an open session by my teacher. We joined. Subhodip was skeptical, while I followed it up with an email and I was called for an interview with Ma’am. The journey started. I had mentioned about my experience in ‘Whereabouts…’ This was early 2013.
Did becoming a Wiccan help you align to the supernatural better?
Infact, my Wiccan knowledge taught me the nuances of alignment with the forces of nature. Why just the supernatural? The vibrations that the earth emanates, the animal kingdom throws out, to feel and spot across dimensions etc. The most important thing is perhaps the use of sound like the chatter of a rainfall, the melodies of a singing bowl or even drum beats (like in Voodoo) as means of invocation, that, was passed on to me. More than anything, the pleasures of immersing oneself in ancient knowledges can be very ‘intoxicating’. Our school concentrates most on the Egyptian origins. If you ask me now, I worship Goddess Isis as my altar Goddess along with the 64 yoginis. Yes, Wicca has helped align myself to me, if I say this philosophically.
You have called yourself ‘spiritual’ and also spoken of ‘seers’? Can you explain these two terms?
I wouldn’t get into the linguistic trap of English. But a Wiccan would say spiritual comes from ‘spirit’. A very basic tenet of Wicca is to align your body, mind, soul and spirit. As and when the becomes one with nature does your mind uplift itself to being a soul. A soul that gets through the rigours of lust becomes a spirit. We are in the habit of using the word spirituality very lightly, but a true Wiccan would say that a pure spirit sits on the pinnacle of the pyramid. There are many references in our Sanatan scriptures too about such spirits and the recourse they take to leave the body, as and when they cross over.
A seer is a saint who has won over the realms of the physical nuances. He/she is automatically clairvoyant as all their faculties have attained the higher plains in the atmosphere. Please don’t mistake a seer for only a saint. A scientist or a litterateur who had immersed themselves in the claustrophobic depths of knowledge can be a seer too. Many such examples can be sighted to prove this.
How did/does your family respond to your being a Wiccan or interacting with spirits?
My family doesn’t always subscribe to what I do, but in all honesty they had never been a hindrance to my learnings. There are Wiccan ceremonies that I celebrate or spells that I do from time to time for the well being of people, they had all along been very supportive. They stand as a pillar beside me.
When and why did you turn to writing?
I started writing at a very young age. My first poem, if I can recall was at the age of 13. But as time went on, everything slowed down. My next phase was from 2015 and my first published book was in 2018. By this phase I was well and truly into Wicca.
You have used Japanese techniques in poetry to describe your journey as a Wiccan and to interact with spirits. Why? Do these align better to help you describe your experiences?
Well, I wouldn’t say I use Japanese poetry forms to interact with any spirit. Though I must accept that I’ve had communications with the other dimension which were very poetic at times. In my book, Gossips of our Surrogate story, I had used quite a bit from my Wiccan Book of Shadows and even you had accepted that they were poems alright, good or bad, notwithstanding. But I would also like to harp on the inherent pertinence of this question. Gogyokha or Gogyoshi are short form poetry in just 5 lines and my forays into the other dimension had just had similar experiences — short, crisp and at most times life altering. In my Gogyoshi collection, Checklist Anomaly, all the poems are either true happenings or near life occurings. My writing (poetry) as a whole, until now, had been with deep metaphysical love. Perhaps my thought process is challenged. But Japanese forms had been a huge compliment to this particularly weird handicap of mine.
What made you think of doing this book — your memoir of supernatural interactions so to speak?
To be very honest, all these experiences that I had shared in Whereabouts of the Anonymous would have stayed with me through out this physical life had it not been for a dear brother and publisher, Bitan Chakraborty. It was on his persistent insistence that I decided to put my ‘stories’ on paper. But that was again a very difficult thing. I really had to scoop things from the nook and crannies of my memory to make for a reasonably good compilation. Even Bitan had certain experiences with me or otherwise ( like his camera giving up on a particular shot etc.) and was most interested on such a memoir seeing the light of the day. I have dedicated this book to Bitan. I had to, it was his brainchild and as a Wiccan would say, the Universe made me write it.
You seem to seek out departed spirits or ghosts. Why? Are you not scared?
I find this word ‘ghosts’ very disrespectful. Departed spirits, well, if you ask me no spirits depart. Remember, the law of conservation of energy — the total energy remains constant, it can neither be created nor be destroyed. The energies ( whether spirits or not) have this affinity to get in touch with other souls who can feel them and with a little effort can hear them. The ectoplasmatic fusions that happen inside the cosmos are mostly not registered by ‘so called science minded sceptics’. There are gadgets to measure such vibes. And afraid? No. You would only be afraid if you stay in denial of the other dimension. If I say that the other dimension is omnipresent, no matter what, you won’t be afraid of it. Remember you are afraid of darkness because you don’t see through it, but as soon as you put on a light, it becomes a part of you. Precisely the unknown is magic or mysticism and the known is science.
Do you only sight spirits or auras around people? Are you into Noetics as a subject?
Auras form the atmosphere, it really doesn’t matter whether you have a body or not. There are ascetics who would ask you not to touch anyone’s feet while paying obeisance. The say, the aura or the protonic energy of a person is as long as that person’s height. They say you put your head on the ground, possibly, to absorb a concoction of the Earth’ s magnetism coupled with the aura of that person. By the bliss of this Universe, I do feel a few energies that are devoid of a body. Noetics or the consciousness levels automatically become part of these. But I am personally not into Noetic sciences or research. But ancient knowledges under the umbrella of Wicca does take you through the subconscious to superconscious levels of the mind with twinings of the nature, supernature and the supernatural. There are very thin lines segregating them.
In you memoir, you keep asking people to leave a glass of water to satiate the spirit. Do you see yourself as a person who appeases ghosts? Do you help people – how do they reach out to you if they feel a ‘presence’?
What does a glass of water do? Think of a situation where you stand in front of everyone, yet you’re being ignored by everyone. You would not realise that you’re actually not visible to them. Just think of the insecurity that you would have to realise that persons whom love so dearly are slowly getting ahead with life and that you have become a fading memory. That glass of water just reinstates the faith that he/she still matters to you.As time goes, like all energies, they would also dissipate. But with pleasantness in them.
I don’t appease anyone. As my teacher says, it’s all about alignment. If I may say so, the Universe makes me do certain things that a psychiatric practitioner would do to people with mental illness. These are very small techniques that I had learnt over the years to put a restless soul to a restful state. As far as the last part of your question is concerned, I don’t do anything for any consideration. I have a promise to keep. If the cosmos so wills that I would be of help to someone, I would definitely land up from nowhere.
Do you plan to do something with this ‘gift’ you have? Can you see spirits where others cannot? Will you be doing more books about your supernatural experiences?
Well, after the book went for print, I realised that I could have included many more of the experiences that I had gone through. So, another book is very much in the offing. And as far as doing something with this ‘gift’ is concerned, I am completely in sync with you that this is a ‘gift’ that the cosmos had bestowed upon me and when you have such an invaluable gift, you keep them. You generally don’t use them. Seeing spirits? I feel them and I see them only when the spirit wants to show them off (like the school Master of Bhanjerpukur – one of my most remarkable experiences).
(This review and online interview by email is by Mitali Chakravarty)
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Charles Dickens was flying high by 1842. His books, Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, and periodicals were selling like hot cakes on both sides of the Atlantic. With so many fans over in America, he decided to pay them a visit. What he saw in the second-largest fan base upset him for two reasons. Firstly, there was the issue of royalty. Publishers in America were printing his work left, right and centre. He received none of the returns due to him. Secondly, he was upset with the level of racism and their cavalier attitude towards slavery, even amongst the northern states.
Dickens could not stomach the dehumanisation of the black Americans. The vocal and expressive writer, who drew his readers to his craft in the first place, wrote in one of his later articles about his trip to America. He did not twist his words when he wrote verbatim in his American travelogues of slaveowners’ advertisements about their runaway slaves. In one of these advertisements, it read, “Ran away, a negro woman and two children; a few days before she went off, I burnt her with a hot iron, on the left side of her face. I tried to make the letter M.”
A few years earlier, Britain had outlawed slavery, so the British felt a bit of moral superiority over the Americans.
The Americans did not take to this kindly. Dickens’ following few publications fared poorly.
Meanwhile, Britain was also changing.
It was industrialising as its Empire ventured far and wide to exotic lands. With that came the increasing gap between the poor and the rich. The poor remained short of money and short of education opportunities. With the development of science, religious belief took a back seat. Catholicism lost its favour. The Puritans were disillusioned with the material world.
The idea of Christmas and family togetherness was losing out. Work took up most of the time. There were no documented Christmas holidays. The ancient midwinter culture of Europeans had lost its lustre. Many of the Christmas iconographies were viewed as pagan in the UK and the US. The Puritans viewed life as hard, and having joy and fun was scorned. A small proportion of people still wanted to revive the spirit of Christmas.
Against this background, Dickens returned home. His following two books received a poor reception from readers. He resumed his social work, helping the marginalised. At that time, the prevailing view in the UK was that poverty was self-inflicted. The society felt that providing aid to the poor was counterproductive; it made them lazy. People deserved to go hungry for producing so many children, and the Malthusian theory that food demand would outstrip supply seemed to be coming true. The 1840s were known as the “hungry 40s.” Famine was looming.
Yet another layer of population, the reformists, took it upon themselves to help the downtrodden. Dickens was one of those souls. In Manchester, after giving an emotional lecture at a fundraiser to feed and educate poor children, he went for one of his famous long walks.
As he walked the streets, an idea struck him. He visualised a man who had lost all his compassion and had to be jolted back into a complete sense of his humanity. The story helped rebuild Christmas and the compassion that had been lost over the years. The rest, as they say, is history. A Christmas Carol reformed Victorian Britain.
Photo provided by Farouk Gulsara
Reference:
From Journey Through Time: 59. A Christmas Carol: The Book That Brought Back Christmas (Ep 1), 25 Dec 2025. Podcast
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
Mr. Foley’s sister, Gin Thompson, was somewhat taken aback when the mail person arrived on the Wednesday after New Year’s with a suspicious looking package; suspicious because it was both heavy and oblong; a dimension heretofore not observed by her, at least not pertaining to a package.
“Mercy!” she yelled upon twisting the last bit of brown paper away from its contents.
Mr. Thompson stood beside his wife as she read the note addressed to her from St. Paul, Minnesota. They lived in Sioux City, Iowa.
“This is obviously from your brother Jack,” Harold Thompson said, grinning due to the curiosity aroused because Jack had been out of touch for years.
His wife didn’t find her husband’s big grin amusing. She usually knew what he was thinking. Yet, he was right. Jack hadn’t contacted Gin, his only sibling, in coming on fifteen years.
“It’s not FROM Jack!” Gin screamed. “It IS Jack!”
“What the hell?” was all Harold could find to say. To ask. Whatever.
Gin plopped down in Harold’s usual chair holding the ominous quart jar in both hands. “Gee whiz,” was all she could muster, and then a quieter, “Damn.”
“I had so many things I wanted to ask him,” she said.
“I wanted to pick his brain a little too,” Harold said, trying not to smile. “I guess that opens up a can of worms now,” he continued, still pretending a serious demeanor.
“Shut up, Harold!” Gin insisted.
Still, the couple agreed that what Jack Foley did, sending himself to his sister in such an unadulterated, absurd and impossible form with only a brief note was, in itself, unthinkable, untenable, and even morose.
They didn’t use those exact words, but that’s what they thought and Gin did say: “He’s made a mockery of my life.”
After all, Jack Foley had known that ever since his older sister turned sixteen, she’d adored canning. He was present in the Foley home attending grade school when Gin enthusiastically learned to can and pickle cucumbers, beets, zucchini, radishes, and okra. There were also jars of tomatoes and a host of other vegetables.
This very day in the Thompson basement assorted canned veggies were lined up with care on grease papered shelves.
But what should I do with this jar of mortal remains? Gin wondered.
She suffered, perhaps more than was necessary, over the prospect of Jack’s ashes getting mixed up with the onions which were the same color, though of a coarser texture, of course; dear nostalgic memories mixing with fatigued, cooked vegetables in a pickled sauce.
“What do you make of it?” Harold asked with a ruddy faced naivete that deserved scolding, but she didn’t have the stamina for it at that moment.
His question seemed as rottenly absurd as the jar full of what had been her brother for over 59 years. She pondered over how she was to remember him now. The phrase: Jack the vagabond’s last stop occurred to her but was quickly abandoned.
Jack was once an itinerant deli worker. A pill popper of barbiturates; yet he’d probably saved the life of a little girl named Betsy Sears by taking her to Hobby ’N Crafts every Friday so she could buy supplies and paint her way past the abuse she was dealing with at home until she was old enough to go out on her own. Ten years of going to the craft market, reading the ads while Betsy shopped.
He’d desperately wanted to donate one of his corneas to the Eye Bank but they’d insisted on a pair; something he couldn’t bring himself to sacrifice. Still, it was a sweet thought, their mother always said.
“And what would Mama think of Jack passing this way?” Gin asked, conjuring a gnawing question that Harold certainly couldn’t answer.
“What way?” Harold asked. “We know nothing of how the fellow actually died; if he were ill for a long time or hit by a bus. We just don’t know.”
“I guess I mean, what would she think of him passing himself to me like this?”
Gin confessed that she should have called her brother more often, not understanding the true nature of her failure; yet, realising deep down that there must have been a time when she dropped the ball, when she might have kept it surging in the air until Jack could have caught it, might have returned it, and kept the momentum going. She’d never been one to send birthday cards, or even Christmas cards. She thought of that too.
“You did all you could,” Harold soothed.
Everyone who says that phase knows it’s a lie. Still, as Harold saw it, soothing was a husband’s duty in such a situation, and he was merely doing his duty. He certainly felt no guilt in regard to the strange demise of his brother-in-law — no guilt or remorse whatsoever.
His only hidden concern was that Gin would somehow grow less fond of canning. This might affect his daily menu as it was presently full of pickled relish and mango chutney, condiments he favored almost as much as he loved a good cut of beef.
And Harold was right to worry, for it did take Gin a few weeks to bounce back, but canning was in her nature. Her mother had always told her that, and it was true.
She would store Jack on the bottom shelf, far to the left of the vegetables, and that would be that.
.
Mary Ellen Campagna taught Creative Writing and Essay at Virginia Western Community College after receiving her Master’s in Liberal Arts from Hollins University in Virginia. She now writes full-time from Upstate New York. She was recently published in Wild Sound Festival/Experimental Stories, Half and One Literary Magazine, and the Hudson Valley Writers’ Guild.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Gower Bhat discusses the advent of coaching schools in Kashmir for competitive exams for University exams, which seem to be replacing real schools. Clickhere to read.
In winters, birds migrate. They face no barriers. The sun also shines across fences without any hindrance. Long ago, the late Nirendranath Chakraborty (1924-2018) wrote about a boy, Amalkanti, who wanted to be sunshine. The real world held him back and he became a worker in a dark printing press. Dreams sometimes can come to nought for humanity has enough walls to keep out those who they feel do not ‘belong’ to their way of life or thought. Some even war, kill and violate to secure an exclusive existence. Despite the perpetuation of these fences, people are now forced to emigrate not only to find shelter from the violences of wars but also to find a refuge from climate disasters. These people — the refuge seekers— are referred to as refugees[1]. And yet, there are a few who find it in themselves to waft to new worlds, create with their ideas and redefine norms… for no reason except that they feel a sense of belonging to a culture to which they were not born. These people are often referred to as migrants.
At the close of this year, Keith Lyons brings us one such persona who has found a firm footing in New Zealand. Setting new trends and inspiring others is a writer called Harry Ricketts[2]. He has even shared a poem from his latest collection, Bonfires on the Ice. Ricketts’ poem moves from the personal to the universal as does the poetry of another migrant, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, aspiring to a new, more accepting world. While Tulip Chowdhury — who also moved across oceans — prays for peace in a war torn, weather-worn world:
I plant new seeds of dreams for a peaceful world of tomorrow.
Fiction in this issue reverberates across the world with Marc Rosenberg bringing us a poignant telling centred around childhood, innocence and abuse. Sayan Sarkar gives a witty, captivating, climate-friendly narrative centred around trees. Naramsetti Umamaheswararao weaves a fable set in Southern India.
A story by Nasir Rahim Sohrabi from the dusty landscapes of Balochistan has found its way into our translations too with Fazal Baloch rendering it into English from Balochi. Isa Kamari translates his own Malay poems which echo themes of his powerful novels, A Song of the Wind (2007) and Tweet(2017), both centred around the making of Singapore. Snehaprava Das introduces Odia poems by Satrughna Pandab in English. While Professor Fakrul Alam renders one of Nazrul’s best-loved songs from Bengali to English, Tagore’s translated poem Jatri (Passenger) welcomes prospectives onboard a boat —almost an anti-thesis of his earlier poem ‘Sonar Tori’ (The Golden Boat) where the ferry woman rows off robbing her client.
We have plenty of non-fiction this time starting with a tribute to Jane Austen (1775-1817) by Meenakshi Malhotra. Austen turns 250 this year and continues relevant with remakes in not only films but also reimagined with books around her novels — especially Pride and Prejudice (which has even a zombie version). Bhaskar Parichha pays a tribute to writer Bibhuti Patnaik. Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan explores ancient Sangam Literature from Tamil Nadu and Ratnottama Sengupta revisits an art exhibition that draws bridges across time… an exploration she herself curated.
Farouk Gulsara — with his dry humour — critiques the growing dependence on artificial intelligence (or the lack of it). Devraj Singh Kalsi again shares a spooky adventure in a funny vein.
We have a spray of colours from across almost all the continents in our pages this time. A bumper issue again — for which all of the contributors have our heartfelt thanks. Huge thanks to our fabulous team who pitch in to make a vibrant issue for all of us. A special thanks to Sohana Manzoor for the fabulous artwork. And as our readers continue to grow in numbers by leap and bounds, I would want to thank you all for visiting our content! Introduce your friends too if you like what you find and do remember to pause by this issue’s contents page.
Wish all of you happy reading through the holiday season!
“Everyone should believe in ghosts at Christmas. It’s a tradition. Just think of A Christmas Carol, for instance.”
“I don’t care. I still don’t believe in them.”
“So you don’t believe in yourself?”
“Don’t be silly,” said the phantom, “a spook isn’t the same thing as a ghost. Not the same thing at all…”
“I was a ghost once,” sighed the vampire.
“What happened?” cried the ghoul.
“Well, it was like this…” began the vampire, and he proceeded to tell a garbled account of how he was once a poor traveller in an earlier century who was attacked by bandits in the forest, then his spirit rose out of his body and proceeded to haunt the bandit chieftain, making the rogue’s life a misery by possessing him and forcing him to act against his will.
The skeleton rapidly tapped an impatient foot.
“Shh!” hissed the ghoul, “you sound like a xylophone, and I am trying to listen to the vampire’s narrative.”
“Yes, but he’s drawing it out a bit, isn’t he?”
“That’s his privilege, of course.”
“How come he gets your respect and I don’t?”
“He’s a Count, but what are you? Without a shred of flesh on you, I’d say you were merely a subtraction.”
“That’s a really bad play on words,” sniffed the skeleton.
“So what? It’s a good insult…”
“Stop bickering!” growled the werewolf.
The vampire was oblivious to all this fuss. He was explaining how his ghost possessed the bandit chieftain by entering into his brain through his nose, then he would force the miscreant to dance and sing in a very silly manner and do all sorts of humiliating things. The other bandits soon abandoned their leader in dismay and went elsewhere.
“Unfortunately,” continued the vampire, his fangs gleaming in the pale moonlight, “I got trapped inside his brain. I lost my way among the tangle of synapses and couldn’t get back out!”
“That sounds scary!” remarked the phantom.
The vampire nodded and his cape swished in the night breeze. “It was absolutely terrifying, I can assure you. I rushed hither and thither, trying to escape my prison, but I was stuck for good. So, I decided to accept my fate and things got easier. I settled in and was gradually absorbed by the host body, until I became the bandit. Once this happened, I ventured forth and returned to my old ways, robbing travellers in the forest. I was satisfied. But one dark night I chanced on the wrong victim.”
“Who was it?” asked the spook.
“A werewolf! And he attacked and bit me!”
The werewolf looked sheepish. “Don’t swivel your heads at me, I had nothing to do with it, honestly.”
“No, it wasn’t you,” said the vampire.
“Maybe one of my cousins?”
“I have no idea who it was, but I only just managed to escape his teeth and claws before he devoured me, yet I was now infected, and so I turned into a werewolf myself every full moon. I guess it was fun, in a way, but finally I was tracked down by a monster hunter.”
“Did he shoot you with a silver bullet?”
The vampire nodded. “Yes, he did. But when a werewolf dies it turns into a vampire, a fact that humans keep forgetting, and I soon got revenge on him! And that’s who you see before you now: a vampire who was once a werewolf who was once a bandit chief who was once a ghost who was once a poor traveller…”
There was a long pause. The spook cleared his throat.
“So, you believe in ghosts then?”
The vampire clucked his tongue. “Of course!”
“I still don’t,” said the spook.
“You don’t believe what happens to be true?”
“No, I don’t. Why should I?”
The spook and vampire glared at each other. Before they started to bicker seriously, the phantom laughed to lighten the mood and said, “I knew a man who was the opposite of that.”
“The opposite of what?” prompted the ghoul.
The phantom adjusted his ectoplasm.
“Opposite in attitude, I mean. He had no evidence about the existence of ghosts, but he was a firm believer in them. His friends were sceptics and mocked him and so he needed to obtain proof to silence them. But in fact, he required that proof for himself even more. His name was Mr Gaston Gullible, and he did everything possible to meet a ghost. He slept in old churchyards, went for midnight walks in lonely forests, used Ouija boards in the hope of contacting the departed.”
“All without success?” asked the werewolf.
The phantom rolled his insubstantial eyes in his wispy sockets, nodded and sighed. “Nothing ever worked.”
“That’s a shame,” remarked the skeleton.
“One night, it was Christmas Eve in fact, he was sleeping in his bed when the curtains began swishing. The window wasn’t open, there was no breath of wind in his room. The rustling woke him and he sat up and blinked in the gloom and when his eyes had adjusted he saw that the curtains had bunched themselves into the shape of a person, the shape of a woman, and she raised a fabric arm and pointed directly at him.”
“What did he do?” cried the werewolf.
“He died of fright and slumped back onto the bed. Then the ghostly woman approached him and said, ‘I have waited centuries to meet the right man. You will be my husband in the next world,’ and his ghost rose from his body. She was ready to embrace him, but he shook his head and brushed past her. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but I have stopped believing in ghosts. I believed in them all my life without evidence and I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I was wasting my time. I am now a sceptic, and I don’t believe in you,’ and he passed through the wall and was never seen again.”
“That story had a twist ending,” said the ghoul.
“Yes, it did,” agreed the phantom.
The spook said, “I’ve got a twist ending too.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Would you all like to see it?”
The vampire, werewolf, ghoul, phantom and skeleton exchanged glances. Then they said together, “Why not? Go ahead.”
The spook took a deep breath, extended his thin multi-jointed arms and started spinning. He spun faster and faster, became a blur, a spiral of force, a miniature tornado. Then he whirled away through the trees, laughing and crackling with blue thunderbolts.
“Merry Christmas!” he cried as he vanished.
The others shook their heads. The skeleton shook his head so vigorously that it fell off and he had to bend down to pick it up.
“I didn’t anticipate that,” admitted the phantom.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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“And suddenly, among all those people I didn’t know, I had this strange feeling, this implausible realisation that I was seeing him for the first time. Handsome, confident, articulate in a language I still cannot follow with grace. And I felt this pang inside, you know, as if a naughty elf inside me were swaying my heart with a rope. How can I see my husband for the first time after having been married to him for almost eight years?”
Rosalia remained silent, observing for some speculating seconds the little square of tablet that Rita had brought for their tea.
“Your husband is exactly like this sweet, darling, which, by the way, is delicious. I need the recipe before you leave.”
“Like tablet?” Rita inclined her head to the right in the exact same way her daughter did when she heard anything worth clarification. “My grandmother Cochrane would be very honoured to know you like her Scottish tablet so much. I cannot make anybody eat it at home. Henry says it’s too sweet and Maggie too sticky.”
“Well…,” Rosalia sighed, “for me it’s perfect, and I am sure nobody in this office will say no to this morsel of Heaven. It reminds me of a dulce de leche candy my detestable mother-in-law used to make in Buenos Aires for Christmas. As you can see, even her perfect evilness was imperfect.”
Rita smiled again and rejoiced at the fact that she could come to visit her older friend at the Castelo de San Jorge with the express purpose of selfishly collecting smiles like Maggie used to collect peacock feathers in the garden before she started going to kindergarten. Rosalia’s office was a new environment for their meetings now. A step up on the podium of a friendship that had begun outside the Castelo box office under a narrow eave on a humid stone bench. Rita loved to breathe in the peace of the office, with its austere decor and dark wooden cabinets that had once cherished the delicate porcelain of Portuguese queens and now held Rosalia’s dictionaries alongside maps, brochures, and tourist forms for all those who came to witness the royal luxury of ancient times.
“So, do you mean that this feeling of seeing Henry again for the first time at the bank’s banquet is sweet like my grandmother’s tablet?”
“Not exactly. When I saw those brownish cubes on the plate, I was convinced that it would be difficult for me to bite into them. You know, my weak teeth and all that. But then I bit into one of them, and it melted on my tongue. And I felt this torrent of pleasure bursting in my mouth. I think what happened to you on Saturday is that you saw Henry like random people usually see him. You heard a far echo of the vision you had of him when you fell in love.”
Rita’s inner elf jumped from her heart to her face to make her frown and purse her lips at the same time.
“But sadly,” Rosalia continued, “you already know that what you saw is an act. The source of your confusion and your loneliness. You love a vision in a dream, a beautiful piece of candy in a perfect window shop that gets further and further away as you get closer.”
A soft knock at the door interrupted the old woman’s thought and let Rita take a sip of tea to conceal her disillusionment. Rosalia took the documents that Victor brought, turned to her side desk, and placed one of the pages in her sturdy IBM Selectric. She adjusted the corners of the paper as if she were folding a handkerchief for the ghost of one of the queens that had inhabited the Castelo centuries ago. Rosalia’s eyes were fixed on the rectangular screen of her typewriter as she turned toward Rita and pronounced in perfect French, “Trompe-l’oil…. trompe-l’oil[1] people I call them. What you see is never what you get. The man I married and later divorced, so many decades ago, was like that. Sometimes, out of the blue, I remember how elegant and self-confident he seemed to be, and still, after all this time, that elf you mentioned still plays tricks with my heart and its cords. Do you know the legend of the two Greek painters of ancient times?”
Rita looked up from her cup and raised her left red-haired eyebrow as an invitation.
“There was a competition to declare the most realistic painter in the land. Zeuxis and Parrhasius presented their art. The grapes that Zeuxis had painted were so impossibly real that birds flew into them and crushed their beaks and heads on the purple spheres. They died a cruel death, believing they were tasting the sweetest pulps and the bitterest seeds. Zeuxis, sure of his triumph, asked his opponent where his painting was. Parrhasius walked him in front of the curtain that hid his work. ‘Draw this cloth and you will see it,’ he said humbly. But Zeuxis’ eager hand trampled on the folds of a fake, perfect drapery made of shades, hues, and light. Parrhasius won not only the prize but the admiration of his enemy.”
Rita inclined her head to the left. “I’m sorry for the birds.”
“That’s why I don’t tell this story much. My granddaughter has a phobia of birds that decide to fly stubbornly in the wrong direction. I’m afraid I instilled that in her with this tale.”
Rita picked up a brown crumb from her saucer. “If only I could draw aside the curtain Henry places between himself, Maggie, and me. I’m a good wife. I don’t know what else to do.” Rita dropped the crumb and killed an imminent sob with the tip of her finger.
“You are like the candid birds, my child. You are hurt but strong. Cannot you see? You’re making sweets with the salt of tears, pure visions of love with the threads of deceit.”
Fabiana Elisa Martínez authored the collections 12 Random Words and Conquered by Fog. Other works of hers have been published in literary publications on five continents.
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It is always refreshing when trust can be established online without any face-to-face interaction. Social media is filled with scammers, making it challenging to trust individuals based solely on their stories. This becomes even more complicated when the relationship starts at a time when the internet was not easily accessible. In these situations, you have to rely only on the person’s words. Sincerity is difficult to gauge, even with the use of emotive and abstract language in any physical correspondence.
Many years ago, I found myself in a situation where I met a woman through physical correspondence, as encouraged by a friend. He advised me to introduce myself to the lady and share about my work teaching at the seminary, providing English tutorials for Koreans, and assisting a church in a suburban foothill. As it turned out, she was part of a Christian NGO based in the US, along with a few other senior citizens. The organisation’s mission was to provide funds for seminary scholarships, livelihood support, books, conference fees, further studies, and toys.
Our relationship was purely based on trust as we did not know each other personally and yet for a number of years, she supported me financially as she learned of my journey. She preferred to write her letters on an electric typewriter and on blue-coloured stationery with a lovingly short note of affirmation. She took my every word at face-value although at times, I sent her photos of myself and church activities to support my stories that she sometimes quoted in her monthly newsletter.
When a missionary friend detoured to the US prior to her Colombian street kids’ programme, she visited the organisation’s garage cum office and brought my gift of a passenger jeep replica made from the ashes of a previous volcanic eruption, which she greatly appreciated. The organisation’s resources were donated to a graduate-level seminary in the US, that included her book, Pilgrims and Strangers Seek The City Not Made with Hands, upon her demise and all her colleagues.
Words only have meaning when they are used in a relational context; otherwise, they are simply meaningless.
Years before the internet became readily accessible, I used to write letters to two friends who worked as domestic helpers in Singapore. Despite having college degrees, they were unable to find relevant jobs in our country due to its political turmoil. I myself was jobless for two years, and like many new college graduates, I succumbed to depression and questioned my faith and self-worth. The struggles were compounded by stress from family and friends. I found a way to vent my issues to these Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), who also had their fair share of misery and homesickness. My letters were selfish. Over time, the correspondence gradually faded, along with the photos that sometimes accompanied their stories. One migrated to Canada and the other one is retired and lives with her sibling who has a physical disability in a suburban locality. All my letters from my benefactors and friends were washed away in an unexpected catastrophic flood that swept my residence. Up to this day, the loss is still palpable.
I lost two aunts during the pandemic, who were the last of my father’s siblings. The younger one passed away in her late 70s, while the older one died in her early 90s. Both were based in the US and worked as medical professionals. Every Christmas, I make sure to send them individual greeting cards through the mail, along with a few personal thoughts. They lived separately in the same village in the US, and I believe they appreciated these physical cards for their nostalgic value. They didn’t usually respond to emails or cards, as technology can be bothersome for the elderly.
My older aunt once told my eldest brother, who also lives in the US, that my emails were too long and tended to put her to sleep. I also send them thank you cards for the occasional holiday cash they send. My relationship with my aunts is mainly through written correspondence, with only a few rare occasions of meeting in Manila. Despite this, they never fail to remember me and my younger sibling, sending us thoughtful notes. My dad passed away at 60, and my aunts fondly told me that I look like my father. Perhaps this resemblance was one of the catalysts that kept our correspondence going, even in its irregularity. Stories, however trivial, matter to them.
Letter writing can be tedious, especially when done by hand. However, it is also tiring to write letters on computers and share both trivial and significant stories to send by post, as we are not certain if our experiences matter to our recipients. Nevertheless, physical personal correspondence brings about a certain degree of warmth that is often lacking online. It takes more effort to scribble than to type. It is also more spontaneous compared to digital writing, where you can effortlessly edit and revise through AI tools. Sometimes, the physical paper used says a lot about the sender and receiver. I am particularly fond of lined stationery with religious quotes and maxims on recycled paper. The envelope is of equal value as well because it must similarly match its properties.
At times, I also use plain paper to write letters. I remember writing letters of regards and sharing personal news with a college classmate and friend who was stationed on one of the most remote islands in the country for a kids’ mission. She replied to me, but her letters took a long time to reach me through the mail. Both her letters and mine were written in longhand. We were able to reconnect through letters because there were no mobile phones or internet at that time. The distance and physical absence made our words more meaningful and profound.
They say that the post office is in its dying stage, but time and again, it has proven itself to still be relevant in the internet age. Not everyone is connected, especially in areas where there is no access to electricity.
In one of the upland villages in my municipality, which is just about a two-hour drive from the city, they have not had electricity for years. This is because streetlights have to be paid for by the consumer. If the area has rugged terrain, it will require a good number of posts to be erected to bring electricity. This is a common scenario in agricultural and upland villages. While solar power is an option, procuring panels can be quite expensive as the government has not taken any measures yet to bring the cost down. To connect, villagers go to stores that offer WiFi for a minimal fee. Mobile signals are not available in many remote locations, so the gap is still widespread despite technological tools. We must accept the fact that technology is limited. Physical correspondence is here to stay.
From Public Domain
Manuel A. Alindogan, Jr., also known as Jun A. Alindogan, is the Academic Director of the Expanded Alternative Learning Program of Empowered East, a Rizal-province based NGO in the Philippines and is also the founder of Speechsmart Online that specialises in English test preparation courses. He is a freelance writer and a member of the Freelance Writers’ Guild of the Philippines (FWGP).
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The moment the calendar flips to January, Jakarta undergoes a transformation, almost as if it’s washed anew, like one’s gazing at the city through rose-coloured glasses. Although Chinese New Year normally falls in February, the city wastes no time in dressing itself at its festive best, akin to a newly wed bride right from the beginnings of the year itself. The streets glow with the soft, warm hues of red lanterns swaying gently in the tropical breeze, intricate golden motifs adorning shop windows shaped in Chinese characters signifying good health and luck, ah! and of course the unmistakable notes of celebratory music drifting through the air. For a few short weeks, Jakarta doesn’t just celebrate Chinese New Year—it embodies it.
Growing up in Jakarta, yet hailing from Indian descent, I was always fascinated by how this festival seemed to take over the city, outshining even the likes of Christmas in its grandeur. To an outsider, Jakarta in February might feel more like Shanghai at its prime than the capital of the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, however the fabric of Chinese New Year is woven into the hearts of people across the country.
Photos provided by Eshana Sarah Singh
Jakarta’s shopping malls—already known for their extravagance and avant-garde ambiance —take it up a notch during this season, pull the notch all the way up really. Grand Indonesia, Pacific Place, and Central Park become galleries down the streets of metropolitan Beijing, displays of Chinese artistry adorn the walls, with colossal dragon sculptures wrapping around pillars, cherry blossom trees dotting atriums, and enormous red envelopes symbolising prosperity displayed in elaborate installations. At Pantai Indah Kapuk, a neighbourhood known for its Chinese-Indonesian roots, the neighbourhood where I grew up, restaurants overflow with families indulging in yu sheng (a prosperity toss salad) and steaming platters of shumai (dumplings) wafting their aromas into the air.
Photo provided by Eshana Sarah Singh
In Jakarta’s very own Chinatown, Glodok, the roads are chock-filled with movement, cacophonous and chaotic but so vibrant. Red flags with auspicious messages printed in gold are hawked by vendors, temple incense wafts by getting ever-stronger with murmurs of chanted prayers for prosperity and riches along the roads.
The sound of drums boom so loud that the ribs vibrate, that the very ground trembles beneath one’s feet, proclaiming the onset of the Barong Sai—an ancient lion dance with movements so fluid and gracious that they can’t help but draw eyes passing by. Their beauty, yet further enhanced by the resonant clashing of cymbals, is in theory supposed to ward off evil spirits and usher in prosperity; this tradition infact predates the existence of most civilizations.
Lion Dance. Photo provided by Eshana Sarah Singh
Amidst all this festivity, I am reminded of the countless Chinese New Year’s I’ve spent in school growing up and lessons from my Mandarin teacher, whom we affectionately called Laoshi or teacher.
Tha author and her Chinese teacher. Photo provided by Eshana Sarah Singh
“Laoshi, I remember you used to tell us about all the dos and don’ts of Chinese New Year,” I chuckled, eager to hear her insights once again.
She chuckled. “Ah, yes! There are many, and each family follows different ones, some only specific to them. But some are universal. For example, never sweep the floor on the first day!”
I laughed, “Why is that again?”
“Because you will sweep away all the good luck for the year of course! The same goes for washing your hair—avoid it, or you will wash away your fortune. And of course, you should wear red. It brings happiness and wards off the Nian monster.” It seemed a lot of the superstitions absurdly revolved around washing, but then again they’re superstitions so perhaps logical reasoning wasn’t the best path forward.
“What about food? Are there any specific dishes that must be eaten?” I asked.
“There are actually, eating fish is a must because the word for fish in Mandarin sounds like ‘surplus,’ which is meant to bring in abundance for the coming year. And you can’t forget about tangerines as well, have you ever noticed how they’re only ever sold during the Chinese New Year? Their name sounds like ‘luck’ in Mandarin, so people always exchange them with family and friends. I think by now you can guess why,” Laoshi chuckled.
She paused slightly, her voice wavering and tone turning nostalgic. “You know, in Indonesia, many Chinese-Indonesian families have developed their own unique traditions, which are understandable; traditions are never truly the same in a place that’s not their own. But this way at least there’s something for everyone. For example, we still hand out angpao, the red envelopes filled with money, but nowadays, some people send them digitally! Would you believe it?”
Wading through the bustling streets of Jakarta in the days leading up to the New Year, the tension, the excitement, the wait was palpable in the air. I noticed how the celebration was not confined to Chinese-Indonesian families alone, it was a time for all of us. Malls showcased extravagant public performances, offices hosted small celebrations, every building was decked out in red from head to toe and even my non-Chinese friends, including me of course, joined in by donning red and sharing greetings of “Xin Nian Kuai Le1.”
Indonesia’s long history with its Chinese diaspora has not always been smooth or friendly for that matter, but in these moments of collective celebration, one realised how some moments were made better when shared with everyone. Chinese New Year in Jakarta is not just a cultural event—it is a national one really.
As traditions evolve, so does the way Jakarta celebrates. Some things remain timeless, temple visits, family reunions, and Barong Sai performances, however that does not mean new customs are not emerging. Metropolitan city dwellers now send digital angpao via apps, families opt for lavish dinners at high-end restaurants instead of a table chock full of home-cooked feasts, and social media becomes a hub for sharing well-wishes and festive experiences, because the wishes of luck and prosperity transcend the miles that separate us. Taking in the sea of red around me, the rhythmic drumbeats, and the air filled with the scent of incense and festive feasts, the very grandeur of Chinese New Year in Jakarta, I know that no matter where life takes me, this festival in this city will always feel like home.
Eshana Sarah Singh is a media and journalism student with a passion for storytelling, blending authentic personal experiences with rose coloured lenses to ultimately explore diverse and untold narratives that chart off the beaten path.
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