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pandies' corner

Songs of Freedom: What are the Options?

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

[3] Maternal grandparents

[4] Grade. Third grade

[5] Maternal grandfather

Jyoti Kaur is a 19-year-old from Delhi, currently pursuing her 10th grade studies. She likes to dance, read books and loves to travel at night.

Lourdes M Supriya is a Delhi based filmmaker, editor, and theatre practitioner who has been associated with pandies’ theatre since 2015.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Review

How Suffering Unites across Borders

Book review by Rakhi Dalal

Title: Life Was Here Somewhere

Author: Ajeet Cour

Translators: Ajeet Cour and Minoo Minocha

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

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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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Essay

Peeking at Beijing: Fringe-dwellers and Getting Centred

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.

*Read the Day two of Keith Lyon’s China trip by clicking here

Read the Day One of Keith Lyon’s China trip by clicking here

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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Categories
Feature

Interviewing Bulbul: Remembering Mrinal Sen…

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: Bowl
Aubergines & Onions: Etching from Ratnottama Sengupta’s collection
Artwork 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’s Calcutta 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!

[1] Paternal aunts

[2] Maternal aunts

[3] Indian filmmaker,

[4] Actress, had her break in films when she was picked by Mrinal Sen for Bhuvan Shome

[5] 1969 film directed by Mrinal Sen (1923-2018)

[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.

[8]  Translates to ‘Donating eyes’

[9] Translates to ‘Unknown Fort’

[10] Translates to ‘Listen, Wealthy Woman’

[11] Translates to ‘Illusory Fort’

[12] S. B. Productions

[13] Translates to ‘Night and Dawn’

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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Categories
Poetry

Poems by Sutputra Radheye

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 Radheye is 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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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

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Categories
Excerpt

The Ocean is Her Title

Book Title: The Ocean is Her Title

Author: Manjima Misra

Publisher: Book Street Publications

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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Categories
Slices from Life

Belongingness and the Space In-Between

By Disha Dahiya

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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Categories
Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

Tintin in India

Tintin in Tibet
Courtesy: Creative Commons

An Indian newspaper published an article about adults who still read Tintin and I realised that although I would have liked to be interviewed for that article, my qualifications were inadequate, for there is no ‘still’ in my particular case. I only began reading the comic when I was grown up. In fact, I only read it properly in the past few years, and I am more than half a century old. True, I did read one or two of his adventures when I was young, but I read them half-heartedly, I don’t know why, instead of with unalloyed delight, as they ought to be read. Possibly they were too elaborate for me back then.

Yes, Tintin is elaborate, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t simple. Yet it has the kind of simplicity that seems complex to the very young reader. There are plots and subplots, conspiracies and clues, and all of this is perhaps a bit much for the mind of a child more familiar with the primitive antics of Dennis the Menace or The Bash Street Kids from The Beano. Each of Tintin’s exploits seemed beyond reasonable length to me, too adult and requiring a heavy investment of my time and intelligence. I speak, naturally enough, only from a personal perspective. In some households, Tintin was read by minds younger than mine, understood and enjoyed too. I was clearly a late developer.

Thanks to a remarkable bookshop in Bangalore, I have been able to obtain the comic books in omnibus editions and catch up with what I missed out on. It intrigued me to learn that the elements I had regarded as impossibly modern in my youth are now quaintly dated. Tintin’s adventures are not hugely dissimilar in tone and setting to the adventure stories of John Buchan1 and they even put me in mind of Somerset Maugham2 at his most sensational, with their heavy reliance on seaplanes and tramp steamers and open-topped automobiles. The pacing is as fast as The Thirty-Nine Steps or Greenmantle, the atmosphere as exotic-colonial as The Moon and Sixpence or The Narrow Corner. There are differences too, of course, but the differences are less surprising.

The pacing is incredibly fast and Tintin blunders his way into scrapes and pickles almost as if destiny has chosen him for the role of spanner in the cogs of the workings of villains, which in a way it has (if we regard Hergé as Fate). He is highly competent most of the time, but can also be inefficient and even inept, often hampered as well as helped by his dog, Snowy. But no quantity or quality of hampering can keep him down for long, he is deft at seizing the opportunities of coincidence that extreme contrivance throws his way. He is fully the equal of any ancient hero from legend or mythology.

And he is mentally strong: no amount of trauma, no near-death incidents or hair-breadth escapes affect him psychologically. He falls out of an aeroplane, an assassination attempt by a dastardly pilot, and his parachute malfunctions. A flat character on a flat page is about to be flattened on the flat ground, but no, he has the singular good fortune to land in a hayrick being transported on a cart. There are no broken bones and no gasping for breath. He picks himself up, dusts off a few straws, resumes his mission with perfect aplomb. One might even say he is inhuman in his attitude to danger. A touch of psychopathy, perhaps? But he is a friend of goodness, an enemy of criminality.

He is also weirdly tolerant of the pompous ineffectiveness of all the sundry supporting characters who populate his existence. Thomson and Thompson, the detectives who never get it right but always take credit for cases solved in their vicinity, provide comic relief, which justifies itself, but even a cursory analysis of their deeds raises a few awkward questions. How on earth are they entrusted continually with missions requiring the utmost delicacy, tact and cunning? They are negative factors in the field of detection, hindrances rather than boons, a pair of slim buffoons (we normally regard buffoons as portly) with a strange sartorial taste and peculiar speech patterns, dramatically underperforming sleuths who are prone to take what they are told at face value. They are worse than useless; they are beneficial to the continuance of evil.

It was a long time before I was able to tell them apart but now, I know they are doubles rather than twins, and that the one with the drooping moustache is Thompson and the one with the flaring moustache is Thomson. In the original French, they were Dupont and Dupond, which is a little less confusing but not much. Tintin ought to have nothing to do with them, but he is always delighted to see them and treats them as highly competent and valuable colleagues. This is a symptom of his own occasional incompetence. But this has nothing to do with India and so we must regretfully forget them.

Tintin travels to India on several occasions. In Egypt, he daringly escapes a firing squad, requisitions an aeroplane, a 1929 de Hallivand DH-80 Puss Moth, one of the highest performing aircraft of its time, with a 130 hp (97 kW) Gipsy Major engine (this aircraft is also notable for being the first to cross the Atlantic from east to west, in 1932) and he courageously, some might say foolishly, sets off for India. Unlike the pilot Nevill Vintcent3, who flew the exact same aircraft from Britain to Sri Lanka (Ceylon, as it once was) without crashing, Tintin runs out of fuel and comes down in the jungle.

Although extremely absurd, the idea of piloting such a plane so far isn’t as implausible as it might appear. We should remember Maurice Wilson4, that very noble but eccentric mystic who planned to climb Mount Everest solo in 1934, forty-six years before Reinhold Messner5 managed the feat, and of course it was inevitable that he would fail, for all the odds were against him. Despite his lack of flying experience, he purchased a de Havilland DH.60 Moth, a more rickety aircraft than the one Tintin used, and flew it from Britain to India in a series of hops. It was a lunatic thing to attempt and yet he succeeded. His failure was on the mountainside, not in the air. Therefore, we have established that Tintin really could have flown to India from Egypt.

Tintin, after his crash landing, meets elephants in the jungle and he wishes to solicit their aid but he doesn’t know their language. He decides to learn it and improvises a trumpet in order to do so, carving the instrument from a block of wood with a penknife, an amazing feat of carpentry (but in Land of the Soviets he creates a new propeller in a similar manner). Now he can fluently talk to all elephants in their own tongue, for elephants apparently speak in a kind of jazz. It is good to have such magnificent animals on your side. One elephant is worth a dozen human friends when it comes to strength and endurance. And they will never forget a service rendered. That, as far as I’m aware, was Tintin’s first visit to India, but he had another a little later.

Tintin in Tibet, often regarded as his finest adventure, finds Tintin visiting Delhi in the company of Captain Haddock, that boisterous, drunken, bumbling, loquacious master mariner who frequently makes matters worse rather than better. They admire the Qutab Minar, as I did, awestruck, when I was in Delhi. I have since learned that the Qutab Minar was based on a tower in Afghanistan, the Minaret of Jam, which must be the most marvellous name ever devised for a tower. I imagine it is made from apricots and strawberries and I lick my lips as I contemplate it. But this has nothing to do with Tintin, who after leaving Delhi travels to Kathmandu and then overland into the mountains. He meets a Yeti and scares it off with the flash of his camera.

The Tintin comics always had a very substantial fanbase in India and letters from Indian readers often were mailed to Hergé. It is therefore unfortunate that a Tintin adventure set entirely in India doesn’t exist. Personally, I would be happy to see one set in Goa. In the 1990s, a nameless artist designed a series of t-shirts bearing images that are parodies of the Tintin book covers with the title “Tintin in Goa” on them. They show the intrepid reporter doing nothing intrepid at all, simply lounging about the beach or going for a joy ride on a motorcycle. Even a comic character as psychologically resolute as Tintin needs a holiday once in a while. What better place for a relaxing stay?

  1. John Buchan ((1875–1940), Scottish peer, writer and editor ↩︎
  2. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), British writer ↩︎
  3. Neville Vintcent (!902-1942), South African aviator ↩︎
  4. Maurice Wilson (1898-1934), British soldier, mystic and aviator, who died trying to climb Mt Everest solo ↩︎
  5. First mountaineer to ascend Mt Everest solo, without oxygen in 1970 ↩︎

Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.

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Categories
Essay

Chandigarh: A City with Spaces

By Ravi Shankar

Pinjore Garden
Musical Fountain
In Chandigarh. Courtesy: Creative Commons

I was apprehensive. I had spent time in New Delhi when I was very young. But after that, I had never travelled to the north of India. I was traveling by chair car on the Rajdhani Express to Delhi and from there, by bus to Chandigarh. Sleeping on a chair is difficult though the coach offers enough legroom, and the seats are wide. The time was December, and the weather would be cold. The bus journey to Chandigarh from New Delhi took a long time. I was moving through the flat plains of Haryana with fields on both sides of the road. The sun set early during winter in the north. By 5 pm, it was beginning to get dark. The sun had truly set by the time I reached Chandigarh.

The cold was a de novo experience. Using a quilt was something new though later I began the appreciate the gentle warmth provided using the body’s own heat. Coming from the claustrophobic confines of Mumbai, the wide-open spaces of Chandigarh were a welcome change. Some of the traffic circled the roundabouts that were larger in this city than apartment complexes in Mumbai. Space, space, and plenty of space was my first impression of the city.

Chandigarh is believed to have been named after the Goddess Chandi whose temple is located near the city. Garh means a fort. This was India’s first planned city. Various teams of architects had been commissioned and the Swiss-French artist, Le Corbusier was the last in the series. Le Corbusier designed several buildings in Chandigarh including the secretariat, the high court, and the Palace of Assembly. He created an open-hand sculpture like he had done in the other cities designed by him. He designed many structures at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) where I was a resident doctor. His influence was also seen in Panjab University across the road in Sector 14. One of the challenges with a sprawling low-density design was services were located far away and you required a vehicle to access services and go to different areas. In high-density areas like Mumbai, you can just step down to access shops and services. This was in the days before online ordering and e-commerce platforms.

The city is divided into sectors. I settled in the Old Doctor’s Hostel or ODH in Sector 12, where the institute was located. I eventually shifted to the D block of ODH, the newest to be constructed. This had the benefit of a wash basin within the room reducing your trips to the shared restrooms. The research blocks and the college canteens had the trademarks of Le Corbusier’s design. He was fond of using primary colours like blue, yellow, and red as evidenced in the bright hues of the doors and windows of the hostel. The original structure was good but was constructed in the 1960s. By the late 1990s, living standards had improved and the rooms began to feel inadequate. He was also fond of using curves in his buildings and each room had a curve and there was a specially made wooden table to fit into the curve. Most of these had been destroyed over the years. The hostel rooms were single occupancy. This was especially important for the residents in clinical departments as it allowed them to rest after long hours of duty.

Sector 17 was the main commercial hub of the town and had several high-end restaurants and shops. People were fashionably dressed though the cold weather during winter required a lot of clothing. Winter mornings could get very foggy. In those days air pollution levels were still low and winters were generally pleasant. The food was good — ranging from aloo parathas (Indian flatbread stuffed with a spicy potato mix), gobi parathas (made with a stuffing of cauliflower), mooli parathas (Indian flatbread stuffed with a spicy radish mix), tandoori chicken (chicken grilled in a clay oven called the tandoor), tikkis (a small cutlet made of potatoes, chickpeas and different spices), chole bhature (a type of chana masala and puris) and samosas (triangular fried pastry with a savoury filling). Punjabis love their food. The food is wholesome but may be high in saturated fats. There were several tandoori chicken restaurants and chicken was a perennial favourite. The tandoor is a great invention though it may be difficult for the person making rotis in the heat of peak summer. But tandoori rotis eaten piping hot dipped in a spicy gravy on a cold night are a pure delight.

The sector 11 market was the nearest to PGI and there were two or three dhabas (roadside eateries) serving Punjabi delicacies. There was also a more upscale restaurant serving variations of the dosa. These had been modified to north Indian tastes and this was my first introduction to chicken dosa. The taste was good, but the stuffing was very unconventional. The buses were old and had seen better days. I usually took the bus to Sector 17 and to The Tribune colony in Sector 29. Started in 1881, The Tribune is one of the oldest newspapers in North India and one of my father’s acquaintances worked at the newspaper.                 

The Panjab University had a sprawling campus just across the road at Sector 14. I loved to roam through the beautiful campus. The market at the university had shops selling delightful Punjabi samosas. These were large, the covering was crisp, and the stuffing of potatoes and chickpeas was spicy and tasty. Those days a samosa cost around one rupee and fifty paisa — light on the pocket though wages were lower those days.

The northern sectors of the city including 12 where PGI was located were the older ones and more prosperous. The Zakir Hussain Rose Garden in sector 16 was named after India’s former president and had over 1600 species of roses. I used to visit occasionally, especially during the winters when the roses were in bloom. Summers in Chandigarh are hot but less than in many other places in the plains due to the closeness to the hills.

Zakir Hussain Rose Garden
The Rock Garden
Courtesy: Creative Commons

The Rock Garden is a major attraction. The garden was begun to be built by Nek Chand in 1957. The garden was built illegally but later became world famous. It is built entirely from discarded household and industrial waste. There is also a doll’s museum inside the garden. One of my fellow residents knew Nek Chand very well and he used to play with his son when he was young. Models of rock gardens have since been built in several Indian cities.

Summers in Chandigarh are difficult. The sun is relentless. The institution timings change. Before the onset of summer, one visits the desert cooler shops to buy new grass screens for the coolers. The cooler is a great invention with a water pump and screens moistened by water through which air is drawn to cool the room. They work well but when there were power outages in summer, they stopped functioning. The onset of the monsoon in late July makes things difficult. The humidity is high, and the temperature is still above 35 degrees celsius. October to December and March to April are usually pleasant. Late December, January, and February are cold and there is a threat of western disturbances that bring rain and cold damp weather. The city has two satellite townships, one in Punjab (Mohali) and the other in Haryana (Panchkula).

Chandigarh has one of the highest human development indicators in India. I enjoyed my three years in this planned city at the foothills of the Himalayas and I look forward to a visit in the future!  

Dr. P Ravi Shankar is a faculty member at the IMU Centre for Education (ICE), International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He enjoys traveling and is a creative writer and photographer.

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Categories
Slices from Life

Apples & Apricots in Alchi

Narrative and photographs by Shivani Shrivastav


River Indus en route to Alchi, near Village Saspol.

I pulled my cap a little lower as I started for Alchi, after getting a full can of petrol from the Leh petrol pump. It was a very new thing for me — I marvelled at how a city could have just one petrol pump, and that too for miles around. Moreover, it served the neighbouring villages as well.

To reach Alchi, I had chosen the Delhi-Srinagar route. The distance would be approximately 66 kilometres from Leh, and would perhaps normally have taken two hours, but because of my propensity to stop and admire the rivers, trees and clouds, I knew it would be more than that.

The ageing two-wheeler I had rented was the last one available, but I was just grateful just to go, even though it was with prayers in my heart for a safe journey. The interesting part was, if I wanted to go straight, I had to aim the scooter a little to the right, which in itself was a scary thing, because if I lost myself in admiring the natural beauty too much, I could end up veering to one side, risking an unwanted encounter with the huge army trucks that passed through the remote roads from time to time.

As I started, I noticed the Himalayas in the distance, the white peaks were getting covered in the fresh falling snow, right before my eyes. It seemed propitious, and I started with a smile. Passing through the straight road, repeating the simple directions in my head — follow the road, reach the village Nimmoo, then just keep going on the same road — I felt at peace somehow. It was just me, the long, straight road, the puffy white clouds and the endlessly stretch of brown mountains. And of course, the blue sky that seemed to travel with me everywhere I went.

The journey to Nimmoo was smooth, with just the sound of the wind in my ears and no network on my cell phone. At Nimmoo, I stopped for a cup of tea and some biscuits. I saw the confluence of the Indus and Zanskar rivers on the way, near Nimmoo. I paused to take in the scene — the mixing of the greenish Indus and the bright teal-coloured Zanskar creating a mesmerising palette against the browns of the mountains. Some trees created a layer of green too – I think they are poplars and willows.

As I turned around to restart the drive, across the way, I saw a lady bent over by the side of the road. She was sweeping the road free of small stones that fell from the mountains onto the path. She stopped for a drink from a metal bottle from a backpack that she was carrying. I took the opportunity to talk to her about her motivation for this hard work. She said, “I am a government servant. It’s my job to clear the roads of small stones so that travelers can drive safely. For larger stones, I call other workers who work with shovels and machines.”

I asked, “No one is watching you here; why don’t you rest for a while?” She replied with an open smile, “But I know what I’m doing; I’m watching myself. I have already taken my lunch break. I will stop before it is dark and go back to my village.” Saying this, she pointed to a place not visible from where we stood. I’m reminded that I too, should reach Alchi before dark. Bidding her a respectful and heartfelt “Julley[1]”, I again started on my way.

I passed under mountains extending over the road. I was so hypnotised by the sights and the river and the song of the wind in my ears that I did not notice the huge army truck until it passed to my right. Another foot or so and I would have been history. A little shaken, I anchored myself more firmly to the task at hand and took the final left turn towards the village. I passed a beautiful small bridge made of metal, on both sides of which were poplars turning their leaves yellow and orange. A little further, I reached a huge prayer bell mounted by the side of a road, beyond which were mountains standing like sentinels, and yaks grazing the fields.

It was idyllic and pristine. After a quick drink of water and some photos, I was on to the last leg of the journey. Finally, just as evening was about to fall, I reached the village. Entering it, I could see hay bales, shingled houses and the boundaries of houses made of grey and brown stones stacked together, and rosy-cheeked children playing under trees. With a sigh of relief, I stopped my vehicle some distance from the monastery, taking it as close as I could get. The monastery was the main reason for my visit here. It was supposed to be one of the oldest in Ladakh; made around the year 1024 by hand. Somewhere in my mind, I was also worried about the fact that the seat of the vehicle would not lock, so I could not leave anything in it. By this time, I was famished that I decided to eat first and ask at the restaurant for a homestay nearby, trusting the goodness of the human heart and leaving some of my basic stuff inside the seat of the vehicle.

The restaurant was called ‘Alchi Kitchen’ and appeared to be the only one there. As I climbed the stairs with my backpack and my camera bag, I could see the mountains, the village stretched out below and the monastery. It was surprisingly comfortable, with low seating and gleaming brass and copper cookware in the open-plan kitchen inside. I ordered a plate of Manchurian and rice and watched them make it. The owner and her two young assistants were laughing and chatting as they cooked, their actions precise and practised.

Nearby was a group of youngsters, who appeared to be done with their meal. While waiting, I walked out to the balcony, in front of which was a mountain with the setting sun glinting off it, and prayer flags on its summit waving in the wind. After a few pictures, I just stood and gazed, absorbing the peace radiating from the mountains. Nature is always a balm for the soul. The mountain seemed like an old friend somehow, familiar, whom I was meeting after a long time.

Suddenly called back from my reverie by the owner’s call, I returned inside.  The meal was simple but had layers of flavours. I devoured it feeling grateful towards the people who prepared it. Once I had eaten, refusing the offer of dessert, for I truly was stuffed, I thanked the owner and her friendly assistants and asked about a homestay. They guided me to a house just to the left of the monastery complex, saying that I should tell them that Padma had sent me.

I went to the house as directed. It was a beautiful old wooden three-storied house, with a big courtyard and trees all around. All the evidence of the busy and full household could be seen in the yard – a child’s bicycle, many pairs of shoes, sandals and rubber slippers, flowers planted in pots, random jars and even cut-off plastic bottles, clothes drying on a clothesline and some puppies and chickens playing in the lawn. Such a scene of blissful domesticity!

I asked the homeowner who was just coming out of the house if it was indeed Tsering Dolma’s house. He confirmed and asked if I needed a room. I affirmed that but added a request to see the room before I finally decided. He led me inside, up two flights of stairs, and showed me to a room which had windows from top to bottom, along two walls. These opened out into the backyard, that had a view of the monastery, the river Indus flowing behind it and the mountains beyond it.

I immediately said “Yes!” In all my 30 years of age, I had never once travelled or stayed alone anywhere, let alone at such a remote location, where even the mobile reception was sketchy! However, there was something about this place that seemed so comforting and welcoming, with a feeling of déjà vu.

Smiling, the friendly Tsering asked if I would like some butter tea. Although it was slightly late to be having tea, I could not resist his sweet smile and graceful manner and agreed. He asked his grandson to request his mother for two cups of tea for us. Having kept my stuff in the room, I washed my hands and face and came out. Tsering was sitting in the upstairs sitting room, which had beautiful low seating in front of hand-carved windows. The windows looked out over their lawn studded with apple and apricot trees.

Somehow, it was very easy to talk to Tsering, regardless of his age – he was a grandfather, and we were from such different backgrounds and our life experiences were diverse, yet there was a common thread of humanity and communion that linked us. I had found that people in Ladakh were open-hearted, warm and welcoming if we were friendly. I had never been very outgoing myself, but faced with such spontaneous acceptance, it was hard not to be receptive and equally responsive. Tsering told me about his family and his children’s studies, and we were discussing Ladakhi culture and life at Alchi when his daughter-in-law brought our tea. Smiling shyly, she placed the teacups on the hand-carved table. Tsering asked her to join us, but she said that since dinner was almost ready, she had better take care of that. She did stay, however, to tell me proudly about the children, aged five and two. The older boy I had already met; the younger — a daughter — was playing with her grandmother. After chatting with them both, I asked them if I it was safe to stroll outside for a while. He said that it was perfectly safe and that I could walk around, but to be sure to take a flashlight, or my mobile, as there were no streetlights there.

I took my phone and went outside. The street had small houses on both sides. In one, some women were lighting a clay lamp in a small alcove in front of their house, while chanting something which seems extremely melodious. The scene seemed out of this world, so removed from my usual life. I slipped into this new reality, which seemed far more real than from what I had left behind.

I looked around. The sky was full of stars. The chill breeze was interrupted with the scent of food being cooked in kitchens all around. I took a deep breath and rooted myself deeper into the present moment.

From somewhere came the smell of incense. I walked slowly through the short lane, looking up at the endless sky from time to time. After a slow walk around the monastery walls, I was back at the homestay. Skipping dinner in favour of a light soup served in their kitchen, I chatted a little with the family and then slept early, for I planned to catch the morning light for my photographs.

In the morning, I am woken up by birds outside my window. There were only three sounds I heard – the birdsong, the sound of chanting, and the sound of bells from the monastery. I got up and after freshening up, went out to find Tsering waiting outside in the hall. He said that breakfast could be ready soon and that if I went to the monastery early, I might catch the morning prayers there.

After a sumptuous breakfast of homemade khambir [2] and homemade apricot jam (made by Tsering’s family and even supplied to many shops and emporiums at Leh), along with piping hot butter tea, I went down to the lawn. I found Tsering’s grandchildren playing there with their friends. Enchanted by their animated play, I sat there for a while, clicking them after taking Tsering’s permission. Then I went to the monastery.

The street en route was being readied for the day’s market — people were setting up tables and taking out handmade wares — jewelry, masks, bronze statues, shells and more. As I entered the grounds of the monastery, a deep silence seemed to calm my being. Walking straight down to the main temple, I could feel the history of the place, soaked in the meditation and prayers of so many people.

I went inside, where there was a tall painting of the Buddha, decorated with gold leaves. I looked up at the wooden rafters. I thought how long ago, the common people would have crafted this by hand. I went around with my hand on the prayer wheels placed along one wall of one of the smaller buildings there.

Afterwards, as I stood there looking at a small boy praying with his mother, I tried to feel the stillness inside me. It was something new; a total contrast to the constant activity that was my norm. After sitting there to my heart’s content, I started to circumambulate. A local woman’s two-year-old was doing the same. The child was imitating her mother, who I noticed was not forcing the child to do anything.  Little Amo, for that was her name, smiled at me shyly from behind her mother’s legs. I photographer too. When I said that I admired that she was not pushing her child to do anything, she replied that she was proud of her culture and religion and would just like to present them to her daughter and let her make her own choices. It was okay if she chose a different life, but at least she would do so knowing the alternative.

Amazed and humbled by the generosity of spirit of a young mother in such a remote place, I followed her as she finished her circumambulations. On my third round around one of the corners of the monastery complex, I felt this sudden urge to go down to the river Indus flowing behind the building. After I was done at the monastery, saying bye to Amo and her mother, I asked for directions and people guided me to a tiny lane going down the hill, behind some houses, right down to the riverbed.

I was thankful I was wearing my sports shoes and not the pair of sandals I had also brought. Walking down was a little harder than I had thought, and I was slightly out of breath by the time I reached the grey, stony bed of the mighty Indus. Taking off my shoes, I descended to the edge of the river. It turned out to be a wise choice, for the stones were a little slippery, being rounded and shaped over centuries by the river. I scooped up some handfuls of the river water and drank, excited about being in aa place I had only imagined in my wildest dreams. The water, as I brought up my hand to my mouth, sparkled, giving off rays of reflected light from the morning sun. It cooled my hand. I took a few pictures. Then keeping aside my camera, felt like sitting and meditating beside the slowly flowing river.

The flow rushed and slowed down in certain spots as the river wound around big grey rocks on its path. I sat to listen to the gentle gurgle and sounds of the ebbs and flow and lost track of time. After some time, I sensed another presence and opened my eyes. I saw a stranger a little distance away, setting up his tripod and making slow changes by trying to balance it on the rocks. He was wearing an orange sweater with a loose black jacket over it, jeans and a pair of those sandals that serious trekkers wear. He had extremely curly black hair and appeared to be lost in what he was doing. However, as if he sensed my gaze, he turned my way and smiled. As I rose, I could sense my heart decide that I would trust this person; I felt as if we had already met, or rather known each other for ages. Something in his eyes spoke to my soul in a way that was both soothing and familiar. I knew I could trust this person; he was no stranger — my soul recognised him.

He simply said, “Nice to meet you. I am Kabir.”

“I am Shivani. Same here.”

“Sorry to disturb your meditation.”

“No, you did not disturb me; I just felt your presence.” I responded.

He smiled and asked if I could help him position the tripod and focus his camera for a few pictures and videos. I agreed to help, and sitting as he directed, let him set the focusing timer on this camera, so he could take my place and shoot himself sitting in meditation along the riverbank.

He asked me to arrange some flat stones that are symbolic of a prayer to the elements. I was a little hesitant but when he said that the video would only show the stones and my hands, not my face, I relaxed and let him take his shots. After he finished, we sat there for a long while, sometimes speaking, most often just sharing the silence.

I did not want the meeting to end somehow. I sensed that he was feeling the same; he asked me where I was staying. I told him; he said that he had just put his stuff there too, that very morning, and came directly to the riverside. He must have arrived after I had already left for the monastery.

This meeting had a sense of déjà vu, a synchronicity to it. As we got up to go back to the homestay for lunch, our eyes met. For some seconds, the sound of the rushing river, the insistent wind and the distant bird calls all faded away and it seemed as if I was in a vacuum stretching across time, with just the two of us. I knew that this was a new beginning of an old connection. He felt something too, and we started walking in companionable silence, comforted by the shared upswing of so many emotions. The sense of having done this before created a bridge between our souls, across time and beyond. I felt I was finally home.

[1] Greeting in Ladakhi (Hello/Thank you/Goodbye)

[2] Khambir – Ladakhi bread, ref. Khambir and Butter Tea | Butter Tea | Ladakh Cuisine | About Ladakh (ladakhdekho.com)

Shivani Shrivastav is a a UK CGI Chartered Secretary and a Governance Professional/CS. She loves meditation, photography, writing, French and creating.

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