Celebrating poetry around the world, our focus this year is on refugees, immigrants or poetry by migrants… In a way, we are all migrants on this Earth and yet immigration for both climate and war has created dissatisfaction in the hearts of many. Can mankind unify under the single blue dome which covers all our home?
“The Journey” by Alwy Fadhel, an asylum seeker to Australia. The piece is included in the Exile collection of the Refugee Art Project. Art from Public Domain.
We start by welcoming migrants from Jupiter but how do we react to human migrants within Earth… ?
All the Way from Jupiter
By Rhys Hughes
All the way from Jupiter came the refugees, their heads made of hydrogen, and helium, their knees. No one cried: depravity! for we were pleased to help them relocate to Earth: we offered them homes inside plastic domes uncrowded but full of swirling clouds blown by the music of fierce trombones to mimic the crushing gravity.
All the way from one of our homegrown war zones came refugees on their knees and we said: no, no, no, and no again! Go back home right now, be killed, assaulted, it’s all your own fault for being born here on Earth. The newcomers from Jupiter are tubular like cucumbers, but men, women and children like yourselves aren’t welcome.
And what do refugees from war-torn zones on Earth have to add?These are poems by those who had to escape to safety or move homes for the sake of conflict.
I am Ukraine brought to us by Lesya Bakun, while she was on the run from her home to a place of refuge outside her homeland. Click here to read.
Immigrant’s dream brought to us by Ahmad Al-Khatat, who migrated from Iraq to the West to find sustenance. Click here to read.
In some cases, the wounds lingered and the progeny of those who escaped earlier conflicts give voice to past injuries as well as some immigrants who wandered to find a better life share their experiences.
In 1947, Masha Hassan writes of her grandmother’s plight during the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent. Click here to read.
Birth of an Ally reflects Tamoha Siddiqui’s wonder with new flavours she experiences away from her original homeland. Click here to read.
Two Languages by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozabal explores linguistic diversity in immigrants. Click here to read.
These could be listed as turns of history that made people relocate.
Red Shirt Hung from a Pine Treeby Ryan Quinn Flanagan takes two issues into account — violence against humanity and colonial displacement of indigenous people — is that migration? Click here to read.
Products of War by Mini Babu talks of the displacement of humanity for war. Click here to read.
Some empathise with those who had to move and write of the trauma faced by refugees.
Migrant Poems by Malachi Edwin Vethamani reflect on migrants and how accepted they feel. Click here to read.
Birds in Flight by A Jessie Michael empathises with the plight of refugees. Click here to read.
The Ceramicist by Jee Leong Koh records the story of a migrant. Click here to read.
And some wonder about the spiritual quest for a homeland… Is it a universal need to be associated with a homeland or can we find a home anywhere on Earth? If we stretch the definition of homeland to all the planet, do we remain refugees or migrants?
Anywhere Particular by Wendy Jean MacLean reflects on the universality of homes — perhaps to an extent on nomadism. Click here to read.
Where is Home? by Shivani Shrivastav meditates on the concept of home. Click here to read.
Sparrows, a poem translated from Korean by the poet — Ihlwha Choi — questions the borders drawn by human laws. Click here to read.
Journey of Hope by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. It explores the spiritual quest for a home. Click here to read the poem in English and listen to Tagore’s voice recite his poem in Bengali.
Some look forward to a future — perhaps in another galaxy — post apocalypse.
In Another Galaxy by Masud Khan translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam wonders at the future of mankind. Click here to read.
And yet others believe in the future of humankind.
We are all Human by Akabar Barakzai, translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch, is a paean to humanity. Click here to read.
We are all Human
By Akbar Barakzai...
Russia, China and India, Arabs and the New World*, Africa and Europe, The land of the Baloch and Kurds -- Indeed, the whole world is ours. We are all human. We are all human...
In conversation with Radha Chakravarty about her debut poetry collection, Subliminal, published by Hawakal Publishers
Radha Chakravarty
Words cross porous walls In the house of translation— Leaf cells breathe new air.
We all know of her as a translator par excellence. But did you know that Radha Chakravarty has another aspect to her creative self? She writes poetry. Chakravarty’s poetry delves into the minute, the small objects of life and integrates them into a larger whole for she writes introspectively. She writes of the kantha — a coverlet made for a baby out of soft old sarees, of her grandmother’s saree, a box to store betel leaves… Her poetry translates the culture with which she grew up to weave in the smaller things into the larger framework of life:
Fleet fingers, fashioning silent fables, designed to swaddle innocent infant dreams, shielding silk-soft folds of newborn skin from reality’s needle-pricks, abrasive touch of life in the raw.
--'Designs in Kantha’
She has poignant poems about what she observes her in daily life:
At the traffic light she appears holding jasmine garlands selling at your car window for the price of bare survival, the promise of a love she never had, her eyes emptied of the fragrance of a spring that, for her, never came.
--‘Flower Seller’
Some of her strongest poems focus on women from Indian mythology. She invokes the persona of Sita and Ahalya — and even the ancient legendary Bengali woman astrologer and poet, Khona. It is a collection which while exploring the poet’s own inner being, the subliminal mind, takes us into a traditional Bengali household to create a feeling of Bengaliness in English. At no point should one assume this Bengaliness is provincial — it is the same flavour that explores Bosphorus and Mount Everest from a universal perspective and comments independently on the riots that reft Delhi in 2020… where she concludes on the aftermath— “after love left us and hate filled the air.”
The poems talk to each other to create a loose structure that gives a glimpse into the mind of the poetic persona — all the thoughts that populate the unseen crevices of her being.
In Subliminal, her debut poetry book, Radha Chakravarty has brought to us glimpses of her times and travels from her own perspective where the deep set tones of heritage weave a nostalgic beam of poetic cadences. Chakravarty’s poems also appear in numerous journals and anthologies. She has published over 20 books, including translations of major Bengali writers such as Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Mahasweta Devi and Kazi Nazrul Islam, anthologies of South Asian writing, and several critical monographs. She has co-edited The Essential Tagore (Harvard and Visva-Bharati), named ‘Book of the Year’ 2011 by Martha Nussbaum.
In this conversation, Radha Chakravarty delves deeper into her poetry and her debut poetry book, Subliminal.
Your titular poem ‘Subliminal’ is around advertisements on TV. Tell us why you opted to name your collection after this poem.
Most of the poems in Subliminal are independent compositions, not planned for a pre-conceived anthology. But when I drew them together for this book, the title of the poem about TV advertisements appeared just right for the whole collection, because my poetry actually delves beneath surfaces to tease out the hidden stories and submerged realities that drive our lives. And very often, those concealed truths are startlingly different from outward appearances. I think much of my poetry derives its energy from the tensions between our illusory outer lives and the realities that lurk within. In ‘Memories of Loss’, for example, I speak of beautiful things that conceal painful stories:
In a seashell held to the ear the murmur of a distant ocean
In the veins of a fallen leaf the hint of a lost green spring
In the hiss of logs in the fire, the sighing of wind in vanished trees
In the butterfly’s bold, bright wings, The trace of silken cocoon dreams
So, when and why did you start writing poetry?
I can’t remember when I started. I think I was always scribbling lines and fragments of verse, without taking them seriously. Poetry for me was the mode for saying the unsayable, expressing what one was not officially expected to put down in words. In a way, I was talking to myself, or to an invisible audience. Years later, going public with my poems demanded an act of courage. The confidence to actually publish my poems came at the urging of friends who were poets. Somehow, they assumed, or seemed to know from reading my published work in other forms, that I wrote poetry too.
Did being a translator of great writers have an impact on your poetry? How?
Yes, definitely. In particular, translating Tagore’s Shesher Kabita(as Farewell Song), his verses for children, the lush, lyrical prose of Bankimchandra Chatterjee (Kapalkundala) and the stylistic experiments of contemporary Bengali writers from India and Bangladesh (in my books Crossings: Stories from India and Bangladesh, Writing Feminism: South Asian Voices, Writing Freedom: South Asian Voices and Vermillion Clouds) sensitised me to the way poetic language works, and how the idiom, rhythm and resonances change when you translate from one language to another. Translating poetry has its challenges, but it also refined my own work as a poet. Let me share a few lines of poetry from Farewell Song, my translation of Tagore’s novel Shesher Kabita:
Sometime, when you are at ease, When from the shores of the past, The night-wind sighs, in the spring breeze, The sky steeped in tears of fallen bakul flowers, Seek me then, in the corners of your heart, For traces left behind. In the twilight of forgetting, Perhaps a glimmer of light will be seen, The nameless image of a dream. And yet it is no dream, For my love, to me, is the truest thing …
What writers, artists or musicians have impacted your poetry?
For me, writing is closely associated with the love for reading. Intimacy with beloved texts, and interactions with poets from diverse cultures during my extensive travels, has proved inspirational.
Poetry is also about the art of listening. As a child I loved the sound, rhythm and vivacity of Bengali children’s rhymes in the voice of my great-grandmother Renuka Chakrabarti. She has always been a figure of inspiration for me, a literary foremother who dared to aspire to the world of words at a time when women of her circle were not allowed to read and write. A child bride married into a family of erudite men, and consumed by curiosity about the forbidden act of reading, she took to hiding under her father-in-law’s four-poster bed and trying to decipher the alphabet from newspapers. One day he caught her in the act. Terrified, she crept out from her hiding place, and confessed to the ‘crime’ of trying to read. Things could have gone badly for her, but her father-in-law was an enlightened individual. He understood her craving to learn, and promised that he would teach her to read and write. Under his tutelage, and through her own passion for learning, she became an erudite woman, equally proficient in English and Bengali, an accomplished but unpublished poet whose legacy I feel I have inherited. Subliminal is dedicated to her.
As a child I absorbed both Bengali and English poetry through my pores because in our home, poetry, and music were all around me. I was inspired by Tagore and Nazrul, but also by modern Bengali poets such as Jibanananda Das, Sankho Ghosh and Shamsur Rahman. In my college days, as a student of English Literature, I loved the poetry of Shakespeare, Donne, Yeats, T. S. Eliot and the Romantics.
Later, I discovered the power of women’s poetry: Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich, to name a few. I am fascinated by the figure of Chandrabati, the medieval Bengali woman poet who composed her own powerful version of the Ramayana. Art and music provide a wellspring of inspiration too, for poetry can have strong visual and aural dimensions.
You translate from Bengali into English. How is the process of writing poetry different from the process of translation, especially as some of your poetry is steeped in Bengaliness, almost as if you are translating your experiences for all of us?
Translation involves interpreting and communicating another author’s words for readers in another language. Writing poetry is about communicating my own thoughts, emotions and intuitions in my own words. Translation requires adherence to a pre-existing source text. When writing poetry, there is no prior text to respond to, only the text that emerges from one’s own act of imagination. That brings greater freedom, but also a different kind of challenge. Both literary translation and the composition of poetry are creative processes, though. Mere linguistic proficiency is not enough to bring a literary work or a translated text to life.
English is not our mother tongue. And yet you write in it. Can you explain why?
Having grown up outside Bengal, I have no formal training in Bengali. I was taught advanced Bengali at home by my grandfather and acquired my deep love for the language through my wide exposure to books, music, and performances in Bengali, from a very early age. I was educated in an English medium school. At University too, I studied English Literature. Hence, like many others who have grown up in Indian cities, I am habituated to writing in English. I translate from Bengali, but write and publish in English, the language of my education and professional experience. Bengali belongs more to my personal, more intimate domain, less to my field of public interactions.
Both Bengali and English are integral to my consciousness, and I guess this bilingual sensibility often surfaces in my poetry. In many poems, such as ‘The Casket of Secret Stories,’ ‘The Homecoming’ or ‘In Search of Shantiniketan’, Bengali words come in naturally because of the cultural matrix in which such poems are embedded. ‘The Casket of Secret Stories’ is inspired by vivid childhood memories of my great-grandmother’s daily ritual of rolling paan, betel leaves stuffed with fragrant spices, and arranging them in the metal box, her paaner bata[1]. When she took her afternoon nap, my cousins and I would steal and eat the forbidden paan from the box, and pretend innocence when she woke up and found all her paan gone. Of course, from our red-stained teeth and lips, she understood very well who the culprits were. But she never let on that she knew. It was only later, after I grew up, that I realised what the paan ritual signified for the housebound women of her time:
In the delicious telling, bright red juice trickling from the mouth, staining tongue and teeth, savouring the covert knowledge of what life felt like in dark corners of the home’s secluded inner quarters, what the world on the outside looked like from behind veils, screens, barred windows and closed courtyards where women’s days began and ended, leaving for posterity this precious closed kaansha* casket, redolent with the aroma of lost stories
*Bronze
But I don’t agree that all my poetry is steeped in Bengali. In fact, in most of my poems, Bengali expressions don’t feature at all, because the subjects have a much wider range of reference. As a globe trotter, I have written about different places and journeys between places.
Take ‘Still’, which is about Mount Everest seen from Nagarkot in Nepal. Or ‘Continental Drift’, about the Bosphorus ferry that connects Asia with Europe. Such poems reflect a global sensibility. My poems on the Pandemic are not coloured by specific Bengali experiences. They have a universal resonance. I contributed to Pandemic: A Worldwide Community Poem (Muse Pie Press, USA), a collaborative effort to which poets from many different countries contributed their lines. It was a unique composition that connected my personal experience of the Pandemic with the diverse experiences of poets from other parts of the world. The poem was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. I guess my poems explore the tensions between rootedness and a global consciousness.
What are the themes and issues that move you?
I tend to write about things that carry a strong personal charge, but also connect with general human experience. My poems are driven by basic human emotions, memory, desire, associations, relationships, and also by social themes and issues. Specific events, private or public, often trigger poems that widen out to ask bigger questions arising from the immediate situation.
Sometimes, poetry can also become for me what T. S. Eliot calls an “escape from personality,” where one adopts a voice that is not one’s own and assume a different identity. ‘The Wishing Tree’ and the sequence titled ‘Seductions’ work as “mask” poems, using voices other than my own. This offers immense creative potential, similar to creating imaginary characters in works of fiction.
There are a lot of women-centred poems in Subliminal. Consider, for example, ‘Designs in Kantha’, ‘Alien’, ‘River/Woman’, ‘That Girl’, ‘The Severed Tongue’ and ‘Walking Through the Flames’. These poems deal with questions of voice and freedom, the body and desire, and the legacy of our foremothers. Some of them are drawn from myth and legend, highlighting the way women tend to be represented in patriarchal discourses.
The natural world and our endangered planet form another thematic strand. I am fascinated by the hidden layers of the psyche, and the unexpected things we discover when we probe beneath the surface veneer of our exterior selves. My poems are also driven by a longing for greater connectivity across the borders that separate us, distress at the growing hatred and violence in our world, and an awareness of the powerful role that words can play in the way we relate to the universe. ‘Peace Process’, ‘After the Riot’ and ‘Borderlines’ express this angst.
How do you use the craft of poetry to address these themes?
Poetry is the art of compression, of saying a lot in very few words. Central to poetry is the image. A single image can carry a welter of associations and resonances, creating layers of meaning that would require many words of explanation in prose. Poems are not about elaborations and explanations. They compel the reader to participate actively in the process of constructing meaning. Reading poetry can become a creative activity too. Poems are also about sound, rhythm and form. I often write “in form” because the challenge of working within the contours of a poetic genre or form actually stretches one’s creative resources. In Subliminal, I have experimented with some difficult short forms, such as the Fibonacci poem, the Skinny, and the sonnet. Take, for instance, the Skinny poem called ‘Jasmine’:
Remember the scent of jasmine in the breeze? Awakening tender memories bittersweet, awakening buried dormant desires, awakening, in the breeze, the forgotten promise of first love. Remember?
The last two lines of the poem use the same words as the beginning, but to tell a different story. The form demands great economy.
I pay attention to the sound, and even when writing free verse, I care about the rhythm. Endings are important. Many of my poems carry a twist in the final lines. I mix languages. Bengali words keep cropping up in my English poems.
Are your poems spontaneous or pre-meditated?
The first attempt is usually spontaneous, but then comes the process of rewriting and polishing, which can be very demanding. Some poems come fully formed and require no revision, but generally, I tend to let the first draft hibernate for some time, before looking at it afresh with a critical eye. Often, the final product is unrecognisable.
Which is your favourite poem in this collection and why? Tell us the story around it.
It is hard to choose just one poem. But let us consider ‘Designs in Kantha’, one of my favourites. Maybe the poem is important to me because of the old, old associations of the embroidered kantha with childhood memories of the affection of all the motherly women who enveloped us with their loving care and tenderness. Then came the gradual realisation, as I grew into a woman, of all the intense emotions, the hidden lives that lay concealed between those seemingly innocent layers of fabric. The kantha is a traditional cultural object, but it can also be considered a fabrication, a product of the creative imagination, a story that hides the real, untold story of women’s lives in those times. Behind the dainty stitches lie the secret tales of these women from a bygone era. My poem tries to bring those buried emotions to life.
As a critic, how would you rate your own work?
I think I must be my own harshest critic. Given my academic training, it is very hard to silence that little voice in your head that is constantly analysing your creative work even as you write. To publish one’s poetry is an act of courage. For once your words enter the public domain, they are out of your hands. The final verdict rests with the readers.
Are you planning to bring out more books of poems/ translations? What can we expect from you next?
More poems, I guess. And more translations. Perhaps some poems in translation. My journey has taken so many unpredictable twists and turns, I can never be quite sure of what lies ahead. That is the fascinating thing about writing.
Ratnottama Sengupta has known Ruchira Gupta for more than 40 years. But reading I Kick and I Fly has made her see in a new light the young journalist who has become a force of change in the global fight against human trafficking.
Ruchira Gupta
Kiddy. Ruchi. Journalist. Documentary filmmaker. Emmy Award winner. Founder President, Apne Aap[1]Women Worldwide. Social activist. Agent of changes to international laws. Sera Bangali[2]. Ekta[3]Award winner. Professor, NYU. Cancer survivor. Essayist. Exhibited artist. Published novelist…
“What next?” I could have asked Ruchira Gupta. And without waiting for her to reply I could add, “Member of Rajya Sabha? The first step to even higher offices on the world stage.” Because? This kid born to Rajni and Vidya Sagar Gupta has dedicated her life-breath to ensure that not a single child is either sold or bought for sexual gratification in exchange of a few rupees.
Hardly surprising that when she picked up her pen while recovering from Covid in her family home in Forbesganj, she penned a novel like I Kick and I Fly. “A book that is a MUST READ for one and all who are interested in fighting, tackling, and – not or – ending sex trafficking,” as Anjani Kumar Singh, Director, Bihar Museum said at the launch in Patna. Because? It is a story of optimism as Heera the protagonist, overcomes unimaginable obstacles to emerge a path breaker in the Nat community who believed it was the fate of its girls to sell their body at puberty, or even earlier, for the welfare of their family.
Inspirational. And in the most absorbing way. Read this excerpt from the novel to understand how a message becomes engrossing read.
"My name is Heera. I am from a town named Forbesganj, in a state called Bihar, in northern India, very close to Nepal,” I begin. My voice is shaking along with the rest of me. But I go on. “My brother and I are the first people in our family to ever go to school, and I have grown up believing that being sold for prostitution is my Destiny. That there are few doors open to me as a child of an oppressed-caste family. Our people used to be wrestlers and performers. But overnight we were told we could not do those things anymore, that our entire way of life was illegal.”
My voice is shaking less now and I manage to look at people in front of me. “How do people survive when they are not allowed to do the work they know and love? For my family of nomads, it meant asking people for a place to live, and then doing just about any job they told us we could do. One of these jobs was having sex with people for money.
“These children and women had no choice but to sell their bodies in exchange for a place to live. For food to eat. And for their husbands to be given work. And though people say that times have changed, they must not have changed everywhere, because I have been told since I was a little girl that selling my body was what I had to do to support myself and my family. And I believed it. Many in my family believed it too.
“Finally early this year it was my turn to be put up for sale. My family was in a tight spot, in debt to the wrong man. I grew up in a red-light area, so I knew what it involved. There are no secrets kept from kids where I come from. So, I said No, and we tried to get around it.
“My mother paid back our loan, but the traffickers came for me anyhow. The first time I got away. The second time they got me, but I was rescued by my brother and teacher.
“When I was stuck in a tiny room with my traffickers outside the door, I asked myself why had they kept coming for me even when they had no claim, no right? And that’s when I fully realized that they believed my body belonged to them, and I knew for certain it did not. It was kung fu that helped me understand this. Because it is through kung fu that I learnt, my body would do what I told it to. That my body listened to me – and only me.”
I take a breath. “There is power in my body. My body connects me to my cousin, my aunt, my grandmother who were all sold for prostitution. But kung fu also connects my body to my ancestors, who were champion wrestlers. If both these things lived within me, could I choose which course I wanted to take?”
I look up now, realizing that I have memorized the final words on the page. “For most of my life, the answer to that was NO. But suddenly I felt that maybe there was another possibility. I didn't do it on my own: I needed my family to stand with me, and most importantly, a cheerleader who made me believe that safety could be mine. Rini Di taught me kung fu and opened the doors of the world to me. And that is how I have come to stand before you now.”
Heera stands before her teachers and her friends, other survivors of trafficking as an example who not only fights, successfully, the might of traffickers but who actually saves another trafficked girl. Who, even more importantly, instils faith, and courage, and dream… In her brother, her mother, and her father. Her brother Salman who always stood by her even as he studied for a better future. Her Mai who broke stones for a livelihood and gathered enough courage to take a loan to put in place a roof over their head. Her Baba who stands as a loser but accepts change and even starts to nurse a dream — for his daughter as much as for his son.
And so, when the Martial Arts Foundation awards Heera and her co-fighter friend, Connie, a scholarship to train for one full year in New York, along with admission to a local school, Heera too starts dreaming. Of a future, perhaps only twelve months down, when her family would be dwelling in a pink-bricked three roomed house. When Salman would study in a residential school in Siliguri. When Mai would have a betel shop. When Baba would be a porter at the railway platform. When her cousin Mira Di would be a seamstress with a tailoring shop of her own in the very backroom where she was forced to service men. When the corrupt policeman, Suraj Sharma, and the trafficker, Ravi Lala, would be in jail, no longer on the prowl in Girls Bazaar.
“It’s not a dream,” says Ruchira , reiterating the clinching line of I Kick and I Fly. “I have seen this transformation actually take place in Forbesganj. “There were 72 home-based brothels in the lane when Apne Aap started. Today there are two. Girls no longer sit outside waiting for customers. The two sisters who were locked up in the hut have finished school. One is a chef, the other is a teacher. The girl who was kidnapped is a karate trainer. Someone like Mai really has a betel paan leaf shop and someone like Mira Di is a seamstress. The cattle fair is no longer allowed to bring dance or orchestra groups.”
This was the perfect time to strike a conversation with Ruchira Gupta, I reckoned. And so I decided to shoot…
Me:How – rather, why – did you start writing I Kick and I Fly?
Ruchi: I started writing this story when a fourteen-year-old girl just like Heera won a gold medal in a karate championship in Forbesganj. She was being groomed for prostitution with other girls in her lane. A lane just like Girls Bazaar.
Her journey was not easy, it was heroic. I saw how she and her friends overcame hunger, fought off their fear and stood up to traffickers with grace and gusto. An annual cattle fair used to claim girls from that lane every year. When my NGO, Apne Aap, opened a community centre and a hostel there, we were constantly attacked by men like Gainul and Ravi Lala. They would stalk the mothers, the daughters, and me. They hurled abuses, threw stones, stole from our office and even kidnapped girls. We built higher walls around the hostel to prevent traffickers from jumping over. I posted guards outside my home, hired lawyers, filed police complaints and cases in court. Just like Mai, some mothers in the lane disobeyed their husbands even though they were beaten up. Their daughters were the first batch of girls in our hostel.
Me:Are all the characters real? Is the hope real? Do people in real life change the way Baba does?
Ruchi: Most of the events in the book are inspired by real people, places, events. To give you one example: A trafficking survivor from Indonesia told me how she was locked up and how she escaped from a brothel in Queens, New York, by disguising herself in a burqa. She is now a global leader in the struggle against trafficking. In my novel, Heera uses the same device to rescue Rosy.
Baba, Heera’s father, is also based on real-life fathers in the Nat community of Forbesganj. They would actually auction off their daughters to the highest bidder when the mela came to town! But as I began working in the red-light area I saw that they were not black and white criminals but human beings desensitised through decades and generations of oppression. Of course, there was no excuse that they did not try to fight back. I did see some fathers change when they saw their daughters succeed. Until then the possibility of a different future had not even occurred to them.
When hope unfurls in a downtrodden human being, it is like a tendril. I saw it in the eyes and actions of some fathers in the red-light area of Forbesganj when their daughters won gold medals in karate.
Me:You have not learnt kung fu. Why did you project Rini Di – clearly your alter ego – as a kung fu teacher? It is a physical art of self-defence. How precisely does that connect with, or help, girls who are in the river of flesh?
Ruchi: I still remember, it was early morning when a boy came to my home with his mother to seek help. His sister and cousin were locked up by traffickers to stop them from coming to the hostel. We had to mobilise the police to get them out. I noticed then that the girls were badly bruised while the traffickers were unscathed. I wished that the girls were able to fight back.
Our Apne Aap women’s group met that afternoon at the centre. Everyone was afraid that we would be beaten in retaliation for the police raid. That’s when I suggested martial arts classes. The women loved the idea. I used to see a couple teach karate teacher near the rice fields to boys in a private school. We hired them and the classes began. Soon the bullying in schools stopped.
As the girls started to win competitions, something changed. The very townspeople who had agitated to urge the principal to expel our red light children began to respect them. And the fathers in the community began to see value in their daughters. The biggest change was in the girls themselves. They began to own their bodies and value themselves. As they gained self-esteem, they began to do better in class. Soon more mothers began to stand up to the traffickers and even to their husbands in the lane, saying they would send their daughters to school.
Me: How did Apne Aap help change the picture at the ground level?
Ruchi: Today Apne Aap has educated more than 3,000 girls from red-light areas through school and college and is still continuing to do so. They are in jobs as animation artists, teachers, doctors, lawyers, chefs, managers of pizza parlours and of gas stations too.
Our NGO’s community has become a safe space to hold meetings, share stories, get food, do homework, and plot against traffickers. Women, very much like Mai and Mira Di, meet regularly in the centre to solve their problems. They fill out forms with the help of Apne Aap workers to access government entitlements like low cost housing, ration and loans. They go collectively to talk to the authorities when there are delays.
The Apne Aap legal team helps victims to file police complaints, testify in court and get traffickers convicted. The real Gainul and the real Ravi Lala are in jail. In 2013, Apne Aap survivor leaders and I testified in Parliament for the passage of section 370 IPC, a law that punishes traffickers and allocates budgets for services to the prostituted and the vulnerable.
Before these could happen, I had shown my documentary and testified to the UN and to the US senate for laws that would decriminalise the victims; increase choices for vulnerable and trafficked girls and women; and punish the traffickers and sex buyers. I can proudly say that my testimony and inputs contributed in the passage of the UN Protocol to end Trafficking in Persons and the UN Trafficking Fund for survivors as well as the passage of US Trafficking Victim Protection Act.
Me: Ruchi you come from an established, politically aware, well connected and much respected family. You grew up in the metros and now live an international life, mostly abroad. You won a coveted award for The Selling of Innocents. You helped in the making of Love, Sonia. Why did you not continue to make films? In short, what compelled you to start Apne Aap Women Worldwide?
Ruchi: As you know, I started as a journalist right after graduation. I learnt to ask questions, and I listened. The question that changed my life was: Where are the girls?
I was researching a story in the hills of Nepal when I came across rows of villages with missing girls. I had asked this to the men playing cards in the villages in Nepal. I followed the trail and found that a smooth supply chain existed from these remote hamlets to the brothels of India. Little girls, perhaps only twelve, were locked up in cages in Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai for years and sold for a few cents night after night.
All the girls were from poor farming families. Many, like Heera, were from nomadic indigenous communities or marginalised castes. Like her, they were either not sent to school, or bullied until they dropped out, or pulled out by their fathers and sold into prostitution.
I was sad, then angry, and finally determined to do something about it. That’s how I ended up exposing the horror in my documentary. When I was on the stage in Broadway receiving the Emmy in 2013, all I could see beyond the glittering lights were the eyes of the mothers who had broken their silence to save their daughters. I decided in that instant to use my Emmy not to build a career in journalism but to make a difference.
I did two things. I dubbed it in six languages and I travelled across the world with it. I screened it in villages to show parents what the brothels were like. I showed it to the UN and the US Senate when I testified against the crime that is human trafficking. It contributed to a global push by activists that led to a new UN protocol to end trafficking and the first US anti-trafficking law, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA).
Me: What was your magic wand?
Ruchi: I had no magic wand. I didn’t even have experience to stop the kidnapping of girls, or knowledge about how to put traffickers in jail. I was an English literature student from Kolkata’s Loreto College who joined The Telegraph while pursuing my honours degree graduation. But as a journalist, I saw the reality and invented ways to move forward.
Something had happened while I was filming the documentary. A pimp had stuck a knife to my throat. I was in a small room. There was nowhere to run. Suddenly, I was encircled by the 22 women I was interviewing. They told the pimp that he would have to kill them first. He knew it would be too much trouble to kill so many women, so he slunk away. I was saved. That moment changed my life.
The Emmy award money helped me start Apne Aap Women Worldwide with the women who had bravely spoken up in my film. I listened to the women who said they had four dreams: Education for their children; a room of their own; an office job; and punishment for those who bought and sold them. That became my NGO’s business plan.
I learnt that the best solutions came from those who experience the problem. The idea of the hostel, the idea of food in the community centre, and even the idea of karate came when we sat in a circle in the mud hut that is our community centre. It evolved into a grassroots approach which we call asset-based community development – ABCD or the 10 Asset model. Every woman or girl who becomes an Apne Aap member gains ten assets – both tangible and intangible. These are: a safe space, education, self-confidence, the ability to speak to authorities, government IDs and documents, low-cost food and housing, savings and loans, livelihood linkages, legal knowledge and support, and a circle of at least nine friends.
Each of these assets is a building block in an unfolding story of personal and community change. I wrote this novel to share with you that change is possible.
Me:Ruchi you had come up with the art-documentation, The Place Where I Live is Called Red Light Area. You got the girls to make a series of videos about different aspects of their life. You supported a documentary on the scheduled tribes. What inspired you to shun Art For Art’s Sake and pursue Art as Activism?
Ruchi: I learned in a very practical way the power of women’s collective action and the importance of sticking by one another. I promised myself I would never give up on those women’s dream. As a result, today thousands of girls have exited the prostitution systems from brothels across the country. There is more awareness about sex trafficking globally. And there are better laws and services for victims like Mira Di in over 160 countries.
Me:But we still have miles to go before we sleep…?
Ruchi: Yes, because the truth is that there isn’t one but many, many more Heeras. Girls Bazaar still exists in many parts of the world, including the USA. The brothel in Queens is real. The International Labour Organisation estimates there are more than 40 million victims of human trafficking globally with hundreds of thousands of victims in the US alone. Human trafficking is the second largest organised crime in the world, involving billions of dollars, according to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Me:So, what more actions would you suggest to tackle the issue? Through IKAIF, an upbeat tale of an underdog’s rise to victory, you have shown that ‘lost girls’ earmarked for ‘the oldest profession’ can erase their ‘destiny’ through education, and reliance on their own inner strength. What other positive actions would you suggest?
Ruchi: Heera’s is a story of hope in spite of great odds. It’s about our bodies — who they belong to, the command they can give us. It is about friends who make changes you want in your life. It is about a community that resolves to make change contagious, and succeeds.
You too can ‘Join The Movement’ to create a world in which no child is bought or sold. You can do that in so many ways. You can 1) Sign the freedom pledge on my website Ruchiragupta.com.
2) Learn more about the issue by reading I Kick and I Fly, and by watching The Selling of Innocents on my website.
3) Create further awareness by sharing the book, the movie and the pledge on your social media handles.
4) Volunteer and intern with Apne Aap or a local NGO in your town.
And you can Sponsor a girl like Heera on apneaap.org!
[2] The Best Bengali – An award given by the Ananda Bazaar Patrika group
[3] Unity: The Ekta Award is a National Award from India
Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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By Jyoti[1], translated from Hindustani by Lourdes M Supriya
Songs of Freedom bring stories from women — certainly not victims, not even survivors but fighters against the patriarchal status quo with support from the organisation Shaktishalini[2].
–Sanjay Kumar, founder, pandies‘
Painting by Amrita Shergil (1913-1941)
What are the Options?
“So then what happened?”
Nothing. My father came and took me back to his house. My nana-nani[3] didn’t stop him. He put me in a good school though, so this time I didn’t mind going back there. Last time he took me, I hated it.
“Why did you hate it?”
He wasn’t a nice man. I think that’s why my grandparents took me in. They knew what kind of a man he was. I loved being at my grandparents’. My mama, mother’s brother, he would take me shopping during holidays. I could pick anything in the entire shop, he’d never say no. Whenever I wanted new clothes, my masi, mother’s sister, took me to the markets\. She was like my mother. I was so loved there. But then my father took me away…
He had too many restrictions. My mother and I weren’t allowed to leave the house. I couldn’t leave after I came back from school. He kept an eye on us from his shop, it was down the street. Then the drinking got too much, the yelling, the swearing. I was afraid of his footsteps. I could tell from the sound of them what the night was going to be like. My mother was very scared of him, she couldn’t protect me from him. She felt helpless, I felt really bad for her. Then I was sent away again to my grandparents. I liked it there. I was studying in a government school. I did well in studies. I liked it. But then he came and took me back to the village. I had to repeat my third standard[4] there. I cried a lot at first, but it was a private school, better than the government one in Delhi.
“So this was the second time you were going there?”
Yes. I’ve lived at my father’s a couple of times. Sometimes I ran away and came back to my grandparents’, sometimes my mother brought me with her and stayed. But she always went back pretty soon. The first time he took me, I used to cry to my grandparents every night to take me back. I had to repeat classes so many times, I’m really behind on my studies. This has ruined my education. That’s why I hate it.
“What about the last time you were there? What happened then?”
Nothing. The same. But worse. He was more violent. My mother herself asked me to go with her to my grandparent’s. But I had exams in a month. I was a good student. I’d worked so hard. That year was especially bad at home; I’d put all my energy into school. I didn’t want to just drop it all and repeat the class again. I begged my mother to stay till the end of the term. He would beat her over everything. So I had to beg her. I promised her I would support her if she’d just let me give those exams. I was 14. I was old enough to start working.
“So did she stay?”
Yes. And then I came back to my grandparents’. But she went back the second day. Then she stopped taking my calls. Finally, I called her from someone else’s phone. She recognised my voice. I could tell. She didn’t say anything for a long time. I kept asking her to come. Then she said, “Aaj se tera mera rishta khatam; you’re not my daughter anymore. Don’t call again.”
I felt very alone. Things at my grandparents’ were also changing. My aunt was getting married. Everyone was busy with the preparations.
Nana[5] used to drive the auto 15 hours a day to save up for it. But he first had to pay back the loan he took out for the auto before he could save for the wedding. It was his last installment and they were really breathing down on him. One day he came home and told us he was short of 1000 bucks and it was time to make the payment. He asked my uncle, who was married by then, but his wife said they couldn’t spare it since they were also paying for the wedding and saving for the baby they planned to have next year. My uncle didn’t even have the balls to refuse his father himself. His wife had to do it. My grandfather turned to my mother, but she said, she couldn’t spare it either, she’d spent it all on me.
“Wait, your mother was there?”
Yes. She’d come eventually, some two months after me. She was working as a cook. It was really nice. For the first time, it felt like she was there. But that day she had used me as an excuse. I didn’t see any of that money. She wasn’t even paying for my school fees. I took tuitions and paid for it. I was starting to resent her too, I could see why the rest of them hated her.
“Wait, who hated her? Why did you resent her, you just said she was there for you.”
She was. When she came. She got a job. She got offs on Sunday and she would spend those with me. On Sundays, I didn’t have to cook for the family, she did. She even gave me money for school supplies, like new copies or pens, whenever I asked for it. She got me a small phone too. But this didn’t last long. She met someone. She used to take the same rickshaw to work everyday. He’d take her from one place to the next, they used to talk, then she’d talk to him at night too. She kept to herself. She started spending her Sundays with him. He wasn’t a good man. One day, he went to the village.
I thought it would end but her late-night conversations continued. They hated her, my grandparents and my uncle, his wife, even my mother’s sister. She knew her sister was to get married soon but she was roaming around with a man. All the neighborhood knew about it. What would they think? And then she stopped contributing to the house. How much could my grandfather do? She didn’t even give me any money anymore. Not even for notebooks. I had to work. And it was so difficult. I had to make breakfast for everyone in the house in the mornings, pack my lunch, rush back and do all the cleaning of the house, make lunch for everyone, then clean up the kitchen and wash the vessels. Then my kids would come. But everyone was selfish then. They were angry with my mother, and then with me. I gave my grandmother a part of my earnings, and I paid for my school. I did everything. She’d stopped staying home on Sundays too, so I had to do the work. That day, when my grandfather asked for money, she said she didn’t have any. He got so angry with her, he called her a slut, a leach, a parasite, draining him, killing him slowly, he slapped her. She ran away. I noticed that he didn’t react the same way when his daughter-in-law had refused to give him the money. But he was just so upset, he started crying. I couldn’t bear it. So I took one thousand from the money I’d saved for all those months and gave it to him. My grandmother took me aside and told me I shouldn’t have done it, that she could have dipped into the money I gave her. I told her that was for her. She didn’t have any money at all. And she’d been so kind to me. She was the only one who didn’t resent me. But she respected my grandfather too much to contradict him when he called me names.
“I thought your grandparents were supportive, that you’d felt safe in their house?”
I did. But my aunt was getting married, that changed everything. And I understand why they were angry with my mother. She brought us so much shame. One day, that man that she’d been having an affair with, he went to her workplace and started beating her up. He forced her onto his rickshaw, holding her hair throughout, and then brought her to our neighborhood and dragged her through the streets by her hair to his friend’s house. She’d started an affair with his friend when he’d gone to his village, and he found out about it. All the people heard him that day. She was so scratched up when he finally let her go. I took her to the police station but they didn’t file a complaint. My grandparents also encouraged her to file a complaint. But she didn’t. The new man she was seeing told her he was going to help her. So she listened to him, trusted that he would get her justice. I’ve never seen him, none of us had. But she really trusted him.
One day my aunt was really anxious. She came into the room when I was taking a class, and she asked me to go to the terrace because she needed the room. I had to move all the kids upstairs, take all the chairs. When I came back after the class, she started yelling at me, telling me I’m a burden, then she started beating me, abusing my mother too. I didn’t say anything to her when she was beating me; she left me in the room. I waited for my mother to come and comfort me. But she didn’t come. So I went looking for her, thinking this could bring us together. But I found her on the terrace, talking to her new boyfriend, telling him about all this. I felt really abandoned. She couldn’t even bother to check on me but she wanted his sympathy. Then they got into a fight. At one point, I overheard her begging him not to leave her or she’d kill herself. It made me so angry, I felt like I could break something. I didn’t like this man at all. One day, she just got up left. I asked my grandparents to file a missing person’s report but they didn’t want to do it because it would bring shame to the family and my aunt was getting married. So they waited till it was over and then filed it, three years later. But I haven’t seen her since. I think she’s missing, we need to find her.
“How long ago was this?”
I don’t know. I can’t tell.
“What happened after your mother left?”
They all blamed me, they said I drove her to do it, that I hated her, that I was like her. They asked me to start contributing to the house, to stop living like a freeloader. I started giving all my tuition money home. I couldn’t continue school anymore. But they were so angry. One day, after my aunty’s marriage, the police came to our house in response to the missing person’s complaint I’d made them file. They wanted to ask questions about my mother and her boyfriend. I think she planned her escape. She’d been staying overnight at his house 2-3 times a week, and slowly taking her clothes there. The police pointed this out, how she couldn’t have taken a big bag when she escaped, or we’d have seen her packing. I think they’re right. She abandoned me.
“Do your grandparents believe she’s okay, living somewhere else?”
Yes. It makes sense. She didn’t like it at home. They felt so ashamed by the police visit. They were angry that I’d made them file the complaint only to find out that their daughter had run away willingly. My grandfather was livid that day. He beat me up, then tried to drag me down the stairs. But I fell down at the 3rd floor landing so he started kicking me. Then he left me lying there. My grandmother didn’t come to help me. I was so distraught. I couldn’t even go to school, everyone hated me. What future did I have? No one wanted to help me, I didn’t know anyone who could help me or even who to turn to. I jumped off the landing there. I tried to commit suicide. That’s why I’m here now. Now I go to school.
[1] Note: Loosely based on the writer’s lived experiences
[2] “Establishing itself as a premier women’s organisation in India from 1987, Shaktishalini has spread out and deals with all kinds of gender based violence. A shelter home, a helpline and more than that a stunning activist passion are the hallmarks of this organisation.
“pandies and Shaktishalini – different in terms of the work they do but firmly aligned in terms of ideological beliefs and where they stand and speak from. It goes back to 1996 when members of the theatre group went to the Shaktishalini office to research on (Dayan Hatya) witch burning for a production and got the chance to learn from the iconic leaders of Shaktishalini, Apa Shahjahan and Satya Rani Chadha. And collaborative theatre and theatre therapy goes back there. It is a mutual learning space that has survived over 25 years. Collaborative and interactive, this space creates anti-patriarchal and anti-communal street and proscenium performances and provides engaging workshop theatre with survivors of domestic and societal patriarchal violence. Many times we have sat together till late night, in small or large groups debating what constitutes violence? Or what would be gender equality in practical, real terms? These and many such questions will be raised in the stories that follow.” — Sanjay Kumar
India’s independence in 1947 came with its own set of political as well as social uncertainties and challenges. For the people displaced from their native places, it was a struggle to find a home in unknown places amidst strangers, a firm footing to hold. The stories in this collection by Ajeet Cour, a profound and powerful voice in Punjabi Literature, offer observation of everyday lives of common people in the wake of Partition and during the early years of settling of migrants in Delhi and Punjab. But more than accounts of struggle for their livelihoods, these are stories of interpersonal relationships, of pain, anguish, betrayal and heartbreaks.
Ajeet Cour was born in 1934 in Lahore and migrated to Delhi in 1947 after the Partition. She began writing short stories as a teenager and today is the author of twenty-two books which include novels, novellas, short stories, biographical sketches and translations. In 1986, she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for her autobiography. In 2006, she was awarded the Padma Shri for her writing and her contributions in the field of social upliftment. She is the Founder President of the Indian Council for Poverty Alleviation, and has been President, Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature. In 1977, Ajeet Cour also founded the Academy of Fine Arts and Literature, a non-commercial institution in New Delhi for the promotion of the arts, literature, theatre, music and dance.
This book is a collection of fourteen short stories translated from Punjabi to English by Ajeet Cour and Minoo Minocha. In her note at the beginning of this collection, the author says:
“I write because I am a witness to the horrors of daily life, day-to-day existence of people living next door, or in Punjab or Kashmir or Assam, or in Bosnia or Chechnya or Rawanda, or anywhere else in the world, feeling my destiny entwined with theirs, living in fear, dying like flies. And I can’t look the other way. I write because I believe that those who remain silent become a part of the dark conspiracy.”
The stories comprising this collection are accounts of everyday horrors faced by common people, of the brunt of estranged and conflicted relationships bore by people even as they grappled to find and hold onto a ground in life after the suffering endured during partition. Most of these stories are women centered and carry a first person narrator. The story ‘Walking a Tightrope’ is that of a woman torn between her husband and an irresponsible son disowned by his father. The author offers a nuanced glimpse into before/after the partition in a big household. She employs the image of kitchen to demonstrate a married woman’s domain as well as her confines in a patriarchal household. ‘Death Among Strangers’ is a story of a grief stricken daughter who could not take care well for her father post Partition due to the apathy of her husband. Both stories use death as the pivot which jostles the main women characters out of their pre-determined roles of mother and wife respectively.
In some of the stories, characters navigate through the ‘babudom’ of Indian Bureaucracy. Trying to find ways to get their problems addressed, they often surrender to the system which becomes increasingly inaccessible to them. Often, the characters are irritated by the system which makes them invisible and works only at the behest of those in power. The title of such a story ‘Clerk Maharaja’, otherwise an oxymoron, denotes the high esteem accorded to a regular class government employee who carries enormous power when it comes to the movement of files from one desk to the other.
In the titular story ‘Life Was Here Somewhere’, a helpless and disgruntled narrator declares the whole country as a heap of garbage no one is interested in cleaning, and those running the country as visceral creatures feasting on the stinking pile.
The story ‘The Kettle is Whispering’ explores kinship between a single and a widowed woman whereas the story ‘Unsought Passion’ explores the ugliness of unwarranted attention. Both stories take us to the corridors of working women hostels in the early years of Delhi post independence, presenting a window to the dynamics of interactions and disagreements.
In a couple of stories the horror of terrorism is explored where the loved ones are either targeted by extremists or by the forces fighting extremism. These stories focus upon the suffering families, their anxieties and pain as they try to make sense of their loss. In ‘Dead-End’ a young woman tries to save a young wounded extremist even though she is apprehensive that he might have killed her brother.
Ajeet Cour poignantly portrays the internal and interpersonal conflicts as faced by ordinary people in the course of their everyday lives in the stories of this collection. Her writing resonates with their pain, her words capture their mindscapes bearing witness to horrifying bestiality humans are capable of and continue to exhibit in their dealings with their fellow human beings.
Rakhi Dalal is an educator by profession. When not working, she can usually be found reading books or writing about reading them. She writes at https://rakhidalal.blogspot.com/ .
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How can anybody comprehend Beijing, one of the largest and most ancient cities on Earth? Its origins date back three millennia, but Keith Lyons tries to get a sense of the real Beijing in just full three days.
Photos provided by Keith Lyons
Day Three*
After a series of false starts on the previous day, when I’d thought I would be ticking off Beijing’s main iconic sights, for my third and final day in the city I took a different approach. Instead of heading into the heart of the capital, I sought out enclaves that were more on the periphery of the megacity, both literally and figuratively.
I’d been reading the accounts of Colin Thubron’s visits to China, including his 1987 book Behind the Wall which started in Beijing. Feeling displaced in the impersonal capital, his impression of Beijing was more of a building site than a city. “I tramped its streets in disorientation, looking for a core which was not there.” He found Tiananmen Square arid and couldn’t wait to get out of the city. “The fission of solitary travel — travel in a boyish euphoria of self-sufficiency — tingles in my stomach as I march across Beijing’s railway station,” he writes as he sets off on his travels around the Middle Kingdom as it emerged from decades of Mao and Cultural Revolution oppression.
Looking back on the previous day’s ‘failures’, I tried to reframe the disappointing experiences as learning, rather than ruminating on the rejection I felt after not getting inside the Forbidden City.
One turning point in my journey was coming across a quote from Robin Sharma while thumbing through a bilingual personal growth book that sat among the artsy and anime library at my new accommodation, the hipster co-working space and ‘serviced apartment boutique hotel, ’ Stey 798. Initially when I saw the pull quote in English and Mandarin, I thought to myself, “What a douchebag; it’s fine for the business guru to say, having made millions spouting his stuff to the likes of Microsoft, IBM, General Motors and FedEx.” But then I reflected on the words and realised the truth in them: “There are no mistakes in life, only lessons. There is no such thing as a negative experience, only opportunities to grow, learn and advance along the road of self-mastery.”
I wasn’t exactly on the road to self-mastery when I found myself lost, tired, bothered and despondent on an unnamed minor road on the outskirts of Beijing. However, I realised that some of my preconceptions had been limiting.
For example, the fixed idea that because Beijing was big and busy that it would be dangerous to hire a bike and cycle around. There were rows and rows of identical-looking bicycles for hire at every street corner, wide separate cycle lanes, and lots of visitors navigating successfully around Beijing by bike. If I’d been on a bike the previous day, I could have cycled right through Tiananmen Square rather than circle wide around the massive open space (though security personnel will still make sure you don’t stop to take photos at the best spots).
So, note to self (and to others), try exploring Beijing on bike rather than just using the subway, taxis, or buses. To make bike hire possible, get a Chinese SIM card, install Mobike, and set up payments via WeChat and Alipay, so you can use the lockless sharing bikes provided by Meituan (yellow bikes), Didi Bike (green) and Hello Bike (blue) simply by scanning QR codes, or unlocking bikes with Bluetooth.
I’ve since learnt some bike hire operators can loan high-quality bikes, with English-speaking staff who deliver bikes to your hotel. So even without a smartphone connected with a local SIM and data, you could arrange to discover the city formerly known as Peking by bike.
Beijing was once capital of the ‘kingdom of bicycles’, with the uptake of bikes trebling in the 1980s across China, as the rationing was cut for locally made bikes such as the prestigious Flying Pigeon brand. Cycle lanes were first incorporated into main roads throughout much of Beijing when car ownership was limited to government officials, with more than 3/4 of Beijing’s road space taken by cyclists in 1988. According to one study, some busy intersections saw 20,000 bicycles an hour, and 8 out of 10 Beijing’s used a bike as their primary transport.
While China is the leading exporter of bicycles, bikes dropped from 62% of vehicles on the road in the late 1980s Beijing to just 16% by 2010. However, in the last decade, there has been a boom in bike use, not so much by the proletariat but by middle-class Chinese with an environmental and health consciousness embracing a post-materialist sharing society. Bike schemes featuring special locks, non-deflating tyres, rust-resistant bodies and GPS tracking have proliferated across Beijing and in most cities and towns, though following the boom there was also a bust for some players unable to cope with aggressive competition practices copied from the Uber monopoly playbook.
In tandem with the return of the bike have been some other initiatives to address the problem Beijing was once synonymous with: air pollution. Much has been made of just how bad air pollution is in China, with 16 of the 20 worst air quality cities up to recently located in China. For the nation’s capital, vehicle emissions and burning coal to produce electricity have been the main causes of smog, but a wide range of measures have seen air pollution in Beijing decline by 50%. The air pollution in Beijing is still three times as bad as that in the US’s most polluted city Los Angeles, and some daily measures still exceed the World Health Organisation’s guidelines, but the initiatives which include better urban planning, switching away from coal, extensive public transport, and Low Emission Zones where only e-vehicles are allowed seem to be working.
As an aside, a recent comparison of air pollution readings found Delhi was five times as polluted as Beijing, though the sources, composition and frequency of air pollutants are different for the two cities, with Delhi’s woes from biomass burning, road dust and the burning of agricultural waste. Delhi has been judged the world’s most polluted capital for four years in a row, according to IQAir.
There’s another thing too. Much has been made about how polluted the air is in Beijing, but on the three full days I visited, only one day seemed to be overly hazy with smoggy, dirty air. Admittedly, particles in the air don’t have to be visible to be harmful, as the world is learning with more research into fine particles, but from a check of several air monitoring sites, including the US Embassy’s real-time monitoring which started in 2008, the readings were not too high. Probably no worse than smoking half a packet of cigarettes. Maybe that’s why many people in China wear face masks, not just because of illness or to stop the spread of germs.
So next time — if there is one — I will definitely brave it on a bike. But that’s for next time.
If Colin Thubron’s stomach was tingling with excitement in anticipation of travel, my stomach that morning was rumbling with anticipation of food to enable me to experience different parts of Beijing. Eating local is one of the best ways to experience a new place.
I retraced my steps to the window-in-the-wall vendor I’d got a snack from the previous night, who made one of the specialties of Beijing, a thin savoury crisp-friend crepe stuffed with a selection of fillings. The man recognised me from the previous day, and we went through the process of assembling the ingredients to my liking to go on and in the pancake, which is eventually folded and wrapped like an American breakfast burrito. Unlike other jianbing I’d seen being made by small eateries, roaming food carts, or on the back of tricycles, my man’s crepes were made with buckwheat rather than wheat or mung bean flour, giving them a speckled purple appearance which I said to myself was like choosing a healthy option at McDonalds.
To keep things fresh, jianbing are always made-to-order and cooked under the watchful attention of the mouth-drawling customer. Once the batter has formed small bubbles on the large round hotplate, a series of interventions are enacted, from cracking eggs over the pancake, to flipping it with long chopsticks. With brushes, the chef would smear on spicy and sweet fermented bean pastes (like miso), hoisin and chilli sauces, sprinkle on chopped coriander leaf, scallions and tangy pickled vegetables, and then add crunchy crispy-friend wonton dough strips and lettuce before cutting it in half and folding it into a rectangle.
The pancake is Beijing’s favourite breakfast, but the staple food is little known outside China compared to steamed buns, dumplings and Yum cha dim sum.
Also not well known outside China is the fact that Beijing has a sizeable Muslim population. At least a quarter of a million people who identify as Muslim reside in the capital, with a Muslim presence in the city dating back to the 8th century. As you may know from following the news, China has some issues in its north-western province of Xinjiang where Turkic-speaking Uyghur Muslims account for 12 million of its inhabitants, along with some ethnic Kazakhs. Less well-known and visible are the Hui Muslims, classified as an ethnic group and religious affiliation, who are found all across China. The Huis have adapted to the dominant Han Chinese culture, while maintaining their beliefs and customs.
There’s one feature of Muslim life that is at odds with Chinese living, and that’s the eating of pork. Pork is China’s favourite and default meat, accounting for up to 70% of all meat eaten. With Muslims not eating pork, deemed unclean, impure and forbidden, instead the preferred Islamic meat is beef, with lamb/goat also featuring. This food divide meant that Muslims often lived together in neighbourhoods with not only a mosque, but also Muslim food processing and services. Across China, Muslim beef noodle restaurants are ubiquitous, and considered cheap and cheerful as well as clean, a godsend in a land of food hygiene concerns and stomach upsets.
In Beijing Niujie and Madian are the two main Muslim enclaves, though the latter in the north has declined. Niujie, south of the centre, even has its nearby subway station, and while there is still a mosque (with Chinese-style architectural characteristics) the main attraction for most visitors is the distinctly Muslim food available, with snacks and delicacies on offer.
Of the quarter of a million Muslims who officially reside in Beijing, perhaps half live in the neighbourhood of Niujie. There are halal supermarkets, butchers selling mutton and beef, a Hui hospital and a kindergarten.
For a block, on both sides of the wide street, are stalls and restaurants, and queues. The smoke from sizzling charcoal grills serving fatty lamb skewer kebabs and the aromatic cumin-scented air probably push Niujie’s air pollution readings beyond acceptable World Health Organisation levels, but no one is complaining. Uyghur vendors, wearing round white hats, call out over the grill to whip up even more business, or shout out to younger men to fetch more of the freshly-baked sesame-studded flatbreads that are stacked high beside tandoor ovens, like round naan, but with a thick edge, like a deep dish Pizza Hut crust.
Steam rises from the large bowls of beef noodle soups slurped by families sitting on low stools around a square table, and visitors line up to order from a selection of fruit pastries. The largest amount of tripe you may ever see is cooked in a huge pot, while a rich cake made with dried fruit, nuts, seeds and sugar is sold by weight.
One of the quests for the self-labelled traveller, as opposed to the unaware tourist, is to be less an outsider and a consumer of tourism products. But underlying all this is the enigma of travel. That we go to experience things that are different from back home. And occasionally we wish to be less visible as an outsider, and more like an insider.
I think you can do this to a certain degree, depending on where you are and the acceptance of diversity of that place. But for me, as a visitor of European heritage, to the reasonably homogeneous and definitely differentness of China, I stand out. Not just because of my height at 6 feet. Or that my hair isn’t the standard black.
So what I seek is more of an authentic experience. Which for me often involves shopping local, eating local, random exploration of neighbourhoods rather than ticking off sights, preferring places without tickets or queues.
It is travel with some risks, not mentioned in the insurance fine print. It is travel which is self-deprecating, acutely aware of my ‘otherness’ and awkwardness, and of how I might connect with others. Some of that is transactional. I buy fruit from an old lady at a local market. I hop on a bus. I go to a place, but it is not the place recommended by the receptionist or concierge.
In Niujie, I am both an outsider and the ‘other’. Yet I have more empathy for and connection with the Muslim street vendors than I do with the Han Chinese who have come that afternoon to eat delicious food that is different to their normal diet.
After rubbing shoulders with fellow diners at a cramped eatery in Niujie, having finally located the area that doesn’t feature in most Beijing guidebooks, I still had one mission to complete.
Photo provided by Keith Lyons
So, as you are probably aware, Beijing hosted the Olympics back in 2008, with much fanfare and pomp. It was China showing off to the world just how modern and developed it was. It awed us not just with its impressive pageantry but also its buildings and facilities, many created just for the International sporting event. The Olympics provided the impetus for numerous infrastructure projects, particularly transport networks which were state-of-the-art.
Some facilities remain, and the Bird’s Nest is still an attraction in itself, despite its lack of use following the 16 years. You probably remember the Water Cube, the swimming pool.
Bird’s Nest: Photo provided by Keith Lyons
Often when I travel, I check to see if there are swimming pools near my accommodation, or even inside my hotel (if someone else is picking up the tab). So when I found out that Water Cube is open for casual swimming, I set my sights on swimming a lap or two in the famous pool.
It turns out the pool for public use isn’t the actual one for Olympic races — that’s reserved for competition — but the training pool where swimmers warmed up and down has been open to anyone for more than a decade. But there’s a catch.
First, you have to know that you can swim there. And there’s another level of safeguard. Because the pool is several metres deep, and there’s the danger of non-swimmers drowning, the pool is partitioned into two halves. The accessible half has a raised floor so it is only around a metre deep. You can stand up in it. Kids can stand up.
But the other half, where the depth darkens the water to deep blue, is strictly controlled entry. You need a swipe card to access it. And to get that, as an American working in Beijing described to me, involved a medical test as well as completing various swimming feats, which included swimming two lengths without pausing.
Without the time in the city to complete the rigorous entry requirements, I had to contend myself with the learner’s side, where parents walked alongside their children like chaperons, adults swam on both sides of the lanes, and there were frequent close calls or collisions.
Inside the Water Cube: Photo provided by Keith Lyons
I’m a reasonably tolerant person, and having lived in China for more than a dozen years had got used to behaviours I initially found, to my mind and upbringing, a little disgusting. But when I swam my first length, only having to stop a couple of times to negotiate around erratic swimmers, the first sound I heard was from a fellow swimmer rising up from his lane to loudly clear his throat and spit onto the floor edge. I made a mental note not to rest my goggles up there.
While I had the passive-aggressive stance towards those spitters, during rests at the end of the lane other swimmers struck up conversations. A middle-aged women confided how she had lessons to swim in her 40s, and now tried to swim at the Water Cube a few days each week, even if she could not go a few metres without gasping for air. “Can you give me any tips to improve my swimming,” she asked as she returned to my end. I replied in Chinese the word my blind masseur used to give me when he hit a sore point on my feet. “Fang song” — relax. It was probably the worst word to say, like shouting ‘keep calm’ out repeatedly when something has gone disastrously wrong.
I probably should have taken on board my own words, as I swam into a father shepherding his daughter along. He was blocking my way. I saw him do the same to others. Deliberately blocking the way of oncoming swimmers. You are the symbol of modern China, I thought. Selfish, entitled, arrogant. Because I am a man of peace and goodwill to all, when he next blocked my way, I just carried on swimming, exaggerating my kicking to churn up the water and splash his rotund belly and smug grin.
I switched to another lane, and after a few more lengths, as I waited for a slow swimmer to get a head start, a boy of 12 years decided to strike up a conversation with me. “My mother says I should practice my English, so that’s why I like to come here,” he said, pointing up to the viewing window where a dragon mom waved and then proceeded to turn her phone camera towards us. After exchanging the usual questions about himself and me, he then abruptly turned the conversation around to China and the world. “China is the biggest country in the world. We are the leader.”
Unable to find the right words to express himself, he asked another swimmer, a man who had just moved to Beijing from the north, to articulate.
I wanted to ask him if China was such a great country, why did so many of its people want to escape to a better life in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But conscious that swimming at the Water Cube gives just two hours in the facility I escaped myself and tried to complete a length unimpeded or uninterrupted.
When I got back, the boy, who was rather overweight, was still there, waiting with another claim about China’s might.
Maybe I’m being nostalgic, about the good old days, but in the 1990s and 2000s, being a foreigner in China meant automatic adulation and attention from Chinese. Foreigners were feted and admired regardless of their behaviour and personality.
Now, in the mid-2020s, things have changed. They started changing a decade ago, when China realised that foreigners were not so great after all. When stories from the government claimed that most of the foreigners were economic spies. When Chinese TV had footage of young Americans drunk and predatory on the Shanghai subway. When my friends said how they’d heard that many foreigners teaching in China were losers in their own country. The tide had turned. The golden days were over. China has regained its swagger. The sleeping giant was waking up. The dragon was turning. And I was getting tired.
Before my number got called and I got requested to leave the pool, I got out, and used my token in the shower, wishing I’d brought my flip-flops to protect my feet from contact with the floor.
Not just being in the water, but being underground, it always takes a little to adjust to being back above ground and at maximum gravity, weightless. One of the things I like about swimming is that afterwards, some of that fluidity, ease of movement, body perception and gentle feeling remains, like a reminder of how you could be in the world. My senses feel renewed, my mind a little lighter, my awareness more centred.
Near the Bird’s Nest, they were having a skateboard class, with over 50 participants, many of them young women. And as I strode along the wide boulevard, groups of newly initiated skaters wove in and out of the family groups and sightseers, a sign to the world of new ways of being, new freedoms, and new leisure. Was this a victory for American culture? Or was China taking this recreation and adding Chinese characteristics to it?
My last swim was both a relaxation exercise at the end of the day, and a future — proofing myself for a long-haul flight home.
The faint linger of chlorine on the webbing of my hands and fingers. The sensation of lying face down and being held by the water. The realisation that the more I know the less I understand about China. These are the things I took with me as I sat in the aisle seat, stretched out my legs, and reminded myself, that I was 30,000 feet above the earth, going from the ancient capital to one of the youngest nations on earth (New Zealand). Much is lost, falling away, lost in time, the memories not so much fade as slip away imperceptibly. I scroll through the photos on my iPhone. So long Beijing.
Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer and creative writing mentor originally from New Zealand who has spent a quarter of his existence living and working in Asia including southwest China, Myanmar and Bali. His Venn diagram of happiness features the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee, the negative ions of the natural world including moving water, and connecting with others in meaningful ways. A Contributing Editor on Borderless journal’sEditorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.
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A writer, a painter, an actor too? Which of these have I known in my friend, Bulbul Sharma? Ratnottama Sengupta ponders as she reverses the gear in the time machine
Bulbul Sharma
I have never formally ‘interviewed’ Bulbul Sharma. That’s because I was editing her writings even before I met her, became friends with her, with her brother Dr Ashok Mukherjee, her sister-in-law, Mandira, whose brother-in-law, Amulya Ganguli, was a much-respected political commentator including with The Statesman and The Times of India which I joined after I shifted to Delhi.
There were many journalists in her family. Bulbul herself was a columnist with The Telegraph when I joined the ‘handsome’ newspaper. Her columns on ‘Indian Birds’ would always come with her own illustrations. These later combined to become The Book of Indian Birds for Children – and now she’s penning stories for neo-literates. So I have never been able to separate the two souls of Bulbul – a writer whose books have been translated into French, German, Italian, Finnish, and an artist in the collection of National Gallery of Modern Art, Lalit Kala Akademi, UNICEF, Chandigarh Museum, Nehru Centre, London, National Institute of Health, Washington.
Bulbul, born in Delhi and raised in Bhilai, studied Russian and literature at Jawaharlal Nehru University before going to Moscow for further studies, in 1972. When she returned a year later, she decided to pursue her other love and made a career in art. So, in mid 1980s, once I shifted to Delhi, I got to know the artist Bulbul at close quarters. By then she was an active graphic artist who worked in the Garhi Artists’ Studio.
She would do papier mache items – sculptures, or of day-to-day usage. Then, she was teaching art to children of construction site workers left in the care of the Mobile Creche. Soon she was handholding me in creating monoprints in printmaking workshops, while my son started taking serious interest in art even as he keenly participated in her storytelling sessions.
Paper mache sculpture: BowlAubergines & Onions: Etching from Ratnottama Sengupta’s collectionArtwork by Bulbul Sharma: Photos provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
And then one day Bulbul invited me to join her and Dolly Narang of The Village Gallery in Hauz Khas, to do a workshop with the inmates of Tihar Central Jail, one of the toughest in Asia, which had started off on its reformation trail under the no-nonsense IPS officer, Kiran Bedi, who dreamt of giving convicts “the hope for a better future once they stepped out as free people.”
The other avtar of Bulbul is the one you are most likely to encounter online. A gifted narrator who depicts people and places she has known and seen in person, styled with little complication, to bring out the beauty in everyday life. Her first collection of short stories, My Sainted Aunts (1992) had bewitched me as much as my son, then in his pre-teen years. For, it etched with endearing affection the reality in a Bengali household that abounded — especially in my childhood — with pishimas[1]and mashimas[2] who were eccentric yet lovable. These aunts are easily identifiable and not easily forgettable though few aunts today are widows in white, eating out of stoneware, shunning onions, or an ‘outsider’: caste, creed, chicken and dog — all were barred.
A few years down, Bulbul, a naturalist who grows herbs in her orchard in the folds of Himalaya and often etches carrots and onions, came out with The Anger of Aubergines (1997) which had cuisine and recipes layering the text. It is a collection of stories about women for whom food is passion, or obsession. “For some it is a gift, for some a means of revenge, and for some it is a source of power,” as Bulbul herself might summarise. Once again, my gourmet family loved it.
Food is the most elementary aspect of human society and culture. And Bulbul has repeatedly capitalized on this multi-contextual significance of food. Not surprising, when I was editing an Encyclopedia of Culture, for the publishing house Ratna Sagar, I directly went to Bulbul for the chapter on ‘Cuisine’. In quite the same way, when a literature festival in Amritsar’s Majha House got Bulbul and me together on a panel, it was to talk about food as an expression of culture. “Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can. There will always come a time when you will be grateful you did…” Bulbul once told a classful of students what she herself has practiced through life.
But with all this, I had virtually forgotten that Bulbul had acted in a film by Mrinal Sen[3]. Bulbul herself reminded me of this after reading my interview with Suhasini Mulay[4] occasioned by the ongoing birth centenary of the director of watersheds in Indian cinema like Bhuvan Shome[5]. I promptly wrote to her asking her to remember the salient ‘truths’ she had learnt by acting in the first of Sen’s Calcutta Trilogy[6].
Interview (1971) was a slim tale – a uni-linear storyline that unfolds on screen as a non-linear narrative. Stylistically it was the opposite of Calcutta 71 (1972), the second of Sen’s Calcutta trilogy, which built on stories by eminent authors like Manik Bandopadhyay, Prabodh Sanyal, and Samaresh Bose. Interview was about Ranjit, whose love interest Bulbul, was enacted by Bulbul Sharma.
The story went thus: A personable, smart but unemployed Ranjit is assured, in Calcutta of the post-Naxal years, of a lucrative job in a foreign firm by a family friend – if he shows up in a suit. It can’t be such a big ‘IF’, right? Wrong. He can’t get his suit back from the laundry because of a strike by the labour union. His father’s hand-me-down doesn’t fit him. He borrows from a friend but, on his way home, a fracas ensues in the bus and the net result is Ranjit is without a suit to appear in for the critical Interview. Will he, must he, go dressed in the hardcore Bengali attire of dhuti-panjabi?
Just the year before, Pratidwandi (1970) had been released, and it too had an interview at the core of the script. The first of Satyajit Ray’sCalcutta trilogy[7], it had cast newcomer Dhritiman Chatterjee, who would play the pivotal role in Padatik (1973), the clinching film in Sen’s trilogy. But Interview had cast another newcomer who was crowned the Best Actor at Karlovy Vary for playing Ranjit. In subsequent years, he became a megastar of the Bengali screen whom Ray too cast in his penultimate film, Shakha Prosakha (1990). And even as he was scoring a century in films, Ranjit Mallick’s daughter, Koel, was scaling heights as a lead actress.
Bulbul Sharma and Ranjit Mallick in Interview: Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
Contrast this with Bulbul: She did not pursue a career in acting. So how had she come to play the Bulbul of Interview? Let’s hear the story in her own voice.
Bulbul Sharma: I was visiting my cousin sister Sunanda Devi — Banerjee who was a very renowned Bengali actress in the 1950s. She had featured in New Theatre’s Drishtidan[8] (1948), directed by Nitin Bose; Anjangarh[9](1948), directed by Bimal Roy; opposite Uttam Kumar in Ajay Kar’s Shuno Baranari[10](1960) and Chitta Basu’s Maya Mriga[11](1960).
Sunanda Didi and her husband[12], who was a film distributor, had produced Mrinal Sen’s first film, Raat Bhore[13](1957). Mrinalda had come to her house to discuss something with her husband and he saw me. He asked my cousin if I would like to act in a Bengali film. I was 18 years old and a student at JNU then. I was thrilled but my parents were not keen at all. However, though reluctantly, they agreed since it was Mrinal Sen. By this time he had won national and international awards with Bhuvan Shome.
Me:How did you prepare for the character? Did Mrinalda brief you? I don’t think he had a script in hand…
Bulbul: I did not do anything to prepare. My name in Interview is ‘Bulbul’, and Ranjit Mallick is ‘Ranjit’. Mrinalda said, “Be your natural self. Don’t try to act.” In fact I am an art student in the film. The only problem was that since I had lived all my life in Delhi, my Bengali accent was not very good. He often teased me about it. “Keep that smile for my camera,” he would say to me.
Me:Tell me about your co-actors Bulbul. Do you recall any incident that stays on in memory?
Bulbul: I remember my co-actor, Ranjit Mallick, was a serious, very quiet person. I think he got fed up of my constant chatter. He asked me once if everyone in Delhi talked so much. I was not surprised that he became one of the biggest stars in Bengali cinema but we did not keep in touch, alas.
Me:Why did you not think of pursuing acting as a career?
Bulbul: Acting was not something I had ever thought of doing. This film just happened by chance. Painting and creative writing was my passion and still is. But don’t lose hope! Recently I was offered a role of a grandmother. I might just do it!
Me:How did you respond to Interview when it released more than 50 years ago? And how do you respond to it now?
Bulbul: When I saw the film almost fifty years ago I don’t think I really understood what a brilliant film it was. I was 18 and just happy to see myself on the big screen.
Now when I saw Interview again, I really admired the way the everyday situations in a middle class Bengali home are played out. The scene when Ranjit’s mother, the great actress Karuna Banerjee – who had played Apu’s mother in Pather Panchali – searches for the dry cleaner’s receipt is just heart breaking.
The interview scene itself is so sensitively done. You want Ranjit to get the job but you know it will not happen. There is such understated humour, anger and sadness in that scene. I wish I could tell Mrinalda all that today!
Me:Interview, the first of Mrinalda’s Calcutta Trilogy, is considered a milestone in his oeuvre because of its socio-political content as well as its naturalistic form. How does it compare with the other two films of the Trilogy – Calcutta 71 and Padatik?
Bulbul: Unfortunately I have not seen these two films.
Me:Would you compare it with Ray’s Pratidwandi which also centred on a job interview?
Bulbul: Yes, Ray’s Pratidwandi also deals with the theme of unemployment during that turbulent period – 1969 to 1971 – in Kolkata. Yet they are not at all similar.
I think Mrinalda’s slightly impish, dark humour is lacking in the other film. Both are amazing films by our most brilliant directors. Films you very rarely get to see now.
Silk Painting with Kantha stitch by Bulbul Sharma Photos provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
Okay Bulbul, now my son and I will both wait to meet your onscreen Grandma avtar!
[6] Three films by Mrinal Sen: Interview (1971), Calcutta 71 (1972), Padatik (The Guerilla Fighter, 1973)
[7] Known collectively as the Calcutta trilogy, The Adversary (1970), Company Limited (1971) and The Middleman (1975) documented the radical changes Calcutta.
Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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UNTITLED
(i)
the bird keeps coming back
to the tree that is dying
why is it so hard
to leave what you once called home?
(ii)
how many ghazals died
trying to teach you to love?
quite a few—
some were from kashmir
some were from gaza
some were from karachi
some were from delhi
yet you chose to repeat
the words dipped in hatred
again and again
every night
Sutputra Radheyeis a young poet from India. He has published two poetry collections — Worshipping Bodies(Notion Press) and Inqalaab on the Walls (Delhi Poetry Slam). His works are reflective of the society he lives in and tries to capture the marginalised side of the story.
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The world ball dance was held on 25th December. It was the last time that Jay and Poulomi had agreed to meet each other with the tag of being lovers. The ballroom was majestic with a long winding staircase – the magnificent staircase was adorned with Christmas Mistletoe plants. Jay could not help but stare at Poulomi in her maroon ballroom dress and with her maroon lipstick making her lips seem more protruded than ever.
The song ‘Maroon’ by Taylor Swift was playing in the background.
The ballroom ceiling was full of sparkling chandeliers which glimmered with golden light. The golden rays of the daytime sunshine lit up the ballroom with a soft glow, as they passed through the crystal clear huge glass windows. Each of the windows had maroon curtains which were shifted to the side to let the daylight in.
As the day approached late evening, the curtains were closed and the ballroom still had the soft golden glow – this time it was because of candlelight lamps.
In this glorious ballroom, Agatha was playing the instrumental version of the song ‘Maroon’ on piano with the grandeur of royalty, for the piano was gifted by the Princess of England, Agatha could not feel more proud of her musical skills.
For a while, Agatha kept looking at Poulomi and Jay now and then. Poulomi’s maroon dress had golden belt and golden buttons, and Poulomi was wearing a necklace studded with golden star shaped diamond-like stones. She was carrying a golden purse with her and as she walked down the staircase, she seemed like the very Queen of England.
In the middle of the dance with Jay, Poulomi excused herself and went to Agatha. She exchanged a few words with Agatha and when she returned to the dance floor, Jay was nowhere to be found. Jay had disappeared.
Agatha came running and said, “Poulomi, you must confront Jay. This act of disappearance is no way justified”.
“Agatha, is Jay a real person? Or is he a hallucination of mine?” asked Poulomi, being well aware of her own mental health condition. And Poulomi ran towards the veranda and gazed at the maroon night sky glittering with silver stars.
Agatha followed her and said, “Well, at least, the sky and the stars are for real.”
About the Book:
The novella, titled The Ocean is Her Title, is an exploration of a fractured existence of the central character Poulomi “struggling through a welter of feelings, incapacities, and anxieties to shore up her beleaguered existential coherence”. In the words of Mark P Lynn, noted journalist at Doordarshan, “the novella is rich in self discovery monologue and dialogue and moves from literature to the philosophical realm and back. The internal monologue takes the form of a conversation with real characters who are fictionalized from the author’s love for Harry Potter, Taylor Swift, Wonder Woman, and the heartfelt support structure provided by a father who tends to a child with bipolar disorder.” In the words of renowned journalist and author Jitendra Dixit, “The Ocean Is Her Title, the readers are invited to embark on an emotionally charged novella that weaves together the dreams and struggles of a young Delhi girl, Poulomi, whose life takes an unexpected turn when she is abducted and transported to a place she could never have imagined – the Ocean Hospital. This novella, authored by Manjima Misra, is a poignant exploration of identity, resilience, and the complexities of modern womanhood.”
About the Author:
Manjima Misra is a writer based in Delhi. She has written three published books previously which are titled Indian Feminine Fury, Unapologetically Mad, and The Ocean is Her Title. Her opinion articles have been published in The Indian Express, The Quint, Outlook India, Deccan Herald, Newslaundry, and Firstpost. She has previously worked as a writer with the Education Desk at The Indian Express and as an educator with Teach For India.
She has a Master’s degree in English literature from the University of Delhi and a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from the University of St Andrews, Scotland.
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Humans are in a perpetual state of motion — be it intercity, interstate, or inter-country — and the relentless quest to assimilate commences. Embracing a new culture, blending seamlessly with the locals, and adopting regional slangs and accents become daily endeavours. In this race without a finish line, a persistent anxiety takes hold. “What if I don’t quite fit in?” “Will people forever perceive me as an outsider?” “Could I lose touch with my roots?” Trust me, this apprehension intensifies when one immigrates to a foreign land.
The inner conflict of belonging experienced in transcultural migrations casts light on the concept of cultural dysphoria. When I first encountered this term, it piqued my interest in how individuals navigate their daily lives while carrying this weight. Cultural dysphoria, a recent term, is an extension of the concept of dysphoria. EverydayFeminism defines cultural dysphoria as: “…the dissonance between the societal expectations for an individual’s broad cultural performance or identity and their desired embodiment of that culture, or uncertainty about where they fit into cultural categories.”
In simpler terms, someone experiencing cultural dysphoria feels like an alien in a new culture. They grapple with the space between two distinct cultures. While their mind urges them to embrace the tenets of the new cultural paradigm, their heart insists on preserving their native cultural heritage.
It was only recently that I comprehended how the concept of cultural dysphoria applied to both me and my family. This understanding took nearly two decades to crystallise, but as the adage goes, “better late than never.” Such realisation would not have dawned upon me without the pursuit of my Ph.D. thesis. Over time, I delved into novels penned by first-generation South Asian American writers such as Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Amulya Malladi, Naomi Munaveera, and Bapsi Sidhwa. These authors were born in South Asian countries and subsequently migrated to America. Their literary works often delve into the challenges faced by immigrant families in a foreign land. Reading allows us to explore the world, but essays and books also furnish a window through which we can empathise with someone’s narrative. Nevertheless, one’s own story offers a distinct and nuanced perspective. Indeed, first-hand experiences yield unique vantage points.
I was a mere eight-years-old when my father obtained Canada’s Permanent Residency Card, and our journey towards establishing roots in a foreign land began. As a second grader, comprehending that you’re about to traverse over 7,000 miles is no small feat. At times, the gravity of such a situation eluded me. On other occasions, I found excitement in the impending turbulence. It was exhilarating, even though questions like ‘why are we relocating?’ and ‘why must I leave my school?’ continually lingered in my mind, spanning the distance from Delhi to our future home in Calgary.
This is the nature of belongingness – it doesn’t instantaneously manifest if you’ve have never before contemplated the possibility of residing in a country far removed from your homeland. The initial step in transcultural migration involves recognition, transcendence, and integration. One must acknowledge the reality of transcending boundaries, leaving behind their original cultural heritage, and stepping foot in a foreign land with its own distinct cultural tapestry. I refer to this stage as ‘Acceptance’, as it encompasses a multitude of thoughts regarding one’s capacity to accept and be accepted within this new environment.
For my family, the journey of assimilation began the moment we exited YYC Calgary International Airport in November 2006. A friend of my maternal uncle’s son welcomed us—a network woven through connections—a common phenomenon in Indian culture. Connecting with familiar faces, who then introduce you to others, and this chain keeps expanding, is deeply ingrained in our cultural fabric. From being surrounded by individuals of a different ethnicity to grappling with the nuances of time zones, my family sought to adapt to our new Canadian milieu. Isn’t it peculiar how one day you’re in the tranquility of your home, and the very next day, you soaring through the skies, crossing international borders?
Recalling the sequence of events surrounding our immigration, nearly two decades later, is no simple task. Much has evolved, particularly my perspective on life. What once seemed normal has shifted, no longer aligning with my current perceptions. This is the natural progression of personal growth – forgetting, reminiscing, comprehending, and de-constructing. Each emotion makes sense in hindsight, guided by wisdom acquired over time.
At times, we relegate certain emotions to the shadows of our heart. We normalise the experience of residing in the in-between and the accompanying sense of non-belongingness, presuming it to be an idiosyncrasy. However, South Asian diaspora members share these particular sentiments of the in-between. We accept our role as outsiders among the locals, convinced that this is the way it should be, right?
Navigating the new environment while endeavouring to retain a strong connection to one’s roots becomes paramount when relocating to a foreign country. A part of me yearned to return to India to celebrate the Festival of Lights with those left behind, while another part was eager to explore innovative ways of preserving our culture and traditions amidst the bustling streets of a land predominantly inhabited by individuals of a different ethnicity.
During those years, Canada had not yet become the Mecca for Indian students pursuing higher education, as it is today. The immigrant community consisted mainly of those who had relocated in the ’70s or ’80s in pursuit of a brighter future for their children. Consequently, the Indian community was relatively smaller.
The question of belongingness emerged from as early as my first day at school. Where does one truly belong in a classroom of over twenty students with varied ethnicity? Among these students, four were of Indian descent, two hailed from Pakistan, one each from Australia and France, while the remainder were Canadian natives. Yet none of these students were unequivocally ‘Indian.’
The logical assumption might be that I belonged with the group of four Indian-origin students. However, this was not the case because, fundamentally, I was Indian. A subtle distinction lies between being Indian and being of Indian origin. It wasn’t a matter of passports; it ran deeper. I was too Indian to seamlessly integrate with non-Indians and just slightly more Indian than those of Indian origin. I existed as an ‘other’ amidst the ‘others,’ with the four Indian-origin students occasionally amused by my Indian accent. Emerging from a decent background, having received education in a convent school, initiating casual conversations with a simple ‘hey, what’s up?’ was effortless. Yet, adopting a foreign accent was not within my purview. My peers of the same age knew precisely when and how to employ phrases like ‘screw it,’ ‘for God’s sake’, I’m not interested,’ and ‘nahhhh…’ The only phrase that came to mind whenever I wished to express my lack of interest was ‘it doesn’t matter’. As a non-native English speaker, it was the most apt phrase I could muster. Apparently, seamless alignment in terms of accent, language, and communication is pivotal to establishing friendships in a foreign land. Failure to do so results in being cast aside as an outsider.
The nagging thought that permeated my family’s collective consciousness during those early days in Canada was this: Do we belong here among people who do not perceive us as one of themselves? We had successfully traversed the initial stage of transcultural migration. Consequently, the second stage — which I’ve labelled ‘Non-belongingness’ — became a pivotal moment, shedding light on our lack of alignment with both people of Indian origin and non-Indians. Our cultural identity remained a poignant question mark, casting a shadow over our Canadian experience.
For my father, commuting to work entailed a daily two-hour journey to and from his workplace. Occasional weekend outings, mostly for groceries, marked the extent of our excursions. Indian suits were my mother’s customary attire, but how long would that persist? After a few months, she transitioned to wearing jeans and long shirts. While Indian suits exude grace and elegance, she lamented the difficulty of blending in. “Passing by a row of foreigners while wearing a salwar kameez is a daunting task; one becomes the subject of unwarranted stares,” she confided. Her eyes betrayed a longing for the life she left behind in India, where she could choose her favourite salwar kameez and embellish it with the most exquisite dupatta in her wardrobe without attracting undue attention. I sensed her yearning for India, particularly when my maternal grandfather — whom I affectionately called Nanu — phoned. Each call filled her with joy, and her countenance radiated even more than usual. Perhaps Nanu sensed her yearning to return, which manifested as glistening tears on my mother’s cheeks.
Life in Canada was a far cry from what it used to be in India. As Diwali approached, I eagerly anticipated the deluge of sweets and gifts that would typically inundate our home in India. However, that year, those customary tokens of celebration were conspicuously absent, a stark reminder that we had yet to establish a substantial social network in Canada. Everything had changed. People in Canada appeared disinterested in the Festival of Lights. It was just another day for them. Some were engrossed in preparations for Christmas, while others seemed oblivious to the existence of Diwali, India’s most eagerly awaited festival. With no candles adorning our home, no gifts to fuel our excitement, and nothing resembling the grandeur of an Indian Diwali, our spirits plummeted upon realising that we had yet to sever our emotional ties to our culture. It was a perplexing sensation. While I yearned to embrace the festivities of Christmas, the absence of enthusiasm for Diwali contrasted starkly with my Canadian expectations. I believe my parents experienced a similar sentiment because on that day, an uncharacteristic sombreness shrouded our smiles. We smiled for each other, but the glint in our eyes bespoke our longing for our true home, India.
In this narrative, where did we truly belong? Some may argue that we belonged where we resided at that moment, while others might reflect on their immigrant experiences and ponder their sense of belonging. This is where the bitter realisation of cultural dysphoria takes root. The inability to fully integrate into a foreign land, the feeling of being an outsider, and the disconnect between cultural expectations and reality culminate in a dysphoric sensation, marking the onset of the third stage in an individual’s transcultural migration journey. At this juncture, it becomes imperative to recognise that while certain aspects of one’s former culture must be relinquished, others must be preserved. I refer to this third stage as the ‘In-Between.’
The third stage of the transcultural migration experience delineates the unique space an individual occupies, betwixt and between two cultures. As immigrants, we embraced certain facets of the new culture while shedding some of our own, and vice versa, to carve out a niche that could accommodate and harmonise both cultures. Within this ‘In-Between,’ a new persona emerged. We remained too Indian for the world outside, yet our hearts affirmed it was for the best.
That year in Canada unfolded with a plethora of surprises. And then, we returned to India. But that’s a story for another essay!
The feeling of cultural dysphoria is far from uncommon. A majority of migrants grapple with the turmoil of cultural conflicts when transitioning to a new country. While this narrative offers a glimpse into how transcultural migrations can affect an individual, there exist countless other stories waiting to be shared with the world. In the area of transcultural migration, each thread tells a unique story, and my narrative is but one strand in this rich fabric of human experience. As my family and I navigated the in-between of two cultures, I am reminded that our journey is a testament to resilience, adaptability, and the enduring power of cultural identity. While the road may be fraught with challenges, the experience has imbued us with a profound appreciation for new cultures. Cultural dysphoria may cast its shadow, but it also offers a canvas for personal growth and understanding. It is my hope that by sharing our story, we illuminate the path for others embarking on similar journeys and foster a deeper understanding of the intricate web of the transcultural in-between.
Disha Dahiya is a PhD Research Scholar in English Literature. She has a keen interest in exploring the South Asian narrative across borders and boundaries while focusing on the cultural aspect of transcultural migrations.
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