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Essay

A Cyclist’s Diary: Ride through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date October 16, 2026
2 Comments on A Cyclist’s Diary: Ride through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Narrative and photographs by Farouk Gulsara

They said they were going to be rough-and-tumble countries, not for the faint-hearted. We said, “bring them on!” Initially, four from the cycling team opted in, but in due course, two withdrew due to medical maladies and other assorted issues, two withdrew. Rather than seeing it as a cue to call the whole thing off, we stood firm.

“It could be our only chance to do it”, we thought. After all, the master organiser extraordinaire, JS, staying true to the grit of his profession, had planned an elaborate itinerary, complete with plans A through C and beyond in case of obstacles. And I did not want to let him down, so there we were, just JS and I to do the course as a duo, cycling through the wild countries that could only be tamed by the Khans themselves, the Mongols, not the Bollywood Khans.

Day 1: Arrival at Almaty

Now everyone can fly to all kinds of spots, and they can also fly directly from Kuala Lumpur to Almaty, Kazakhstan. Almaty is the country’s largest city and was the capital of a struggling post-Soviet economy until 1997, when an economic boom followed. Oil and mineral discoveries snowballed the economy to dizzying heights. Astana became a gaudy display of its wealth, dubbed the ‘Dubai of the Steppes’, and became the capital afterwards.

Call it bias, but because of their leaders’ association with Malaysia’s disgraced PM, Najib, my initial impression of Kazakhstan, even before going there, was dismal. To prove me right, my first contact with a Kazakh was unpleasant. The airport taxi driver tried to fleece us by concocting a story to charge six times the usual fare. We managed to talk ourselves out of it, but this kind of trickery seems to be a common pastime in Kazakhstan. On the last leg back to Almaty, another cab driver tried the same trick.

Before the end of the day, we managed to pick up our pre-booked mountain bikes for hire with minimal fanfare.

Day 2: Almaty to Saty

The day began light and easy, travelling in a hired car to Saty and stopping to admire the many beauties of Kazakhstan’s natural landscapes. Charyn State National Nature Park features striking rock formations in an arid, sandy expanse that resemble ancient, abandoned fortresses, earning it the nickname ‘Valley of Castles’. Nearby, the Black Canyon offered a splendid view of a deep gorge of black volcanic rocks, with the Charyn River rushing below.

Day 3: Saty

Saty is a small village about 200 km from Almaty. Still immersed in the outdoors, we set out on our short 15 km ride to Kolsai Lake. After securing our cycles, we set off on a hike to see the nearby eerie-looking Kaindy Lake with its submerged forest. Apparently, an earthquake in 1911 displaced the trees, but they still stand as projections of dead poles, not rotting after all these years. Funny, this area was so lush with greenery, unlike the rest of Saty. We continued our journey with a 15 km gruelling hike to explore a hidden second Kolsai Lake. We overestimated our abilities, and by the time we returned to our bikes, we realised two things. First, it was already dark, and we had not brought our bicycle lights; second, someone had thought it would be funny to release the air out of one of the tyres.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going, they say. We finally had to hitch a ride on a 10-tonne lorry, packing our bikes on it.

Day 4: Saty to the Kyrgyzstan border

This stretch proved to be the hardest throughout our ride. There is a stark difference between the terrain of Kazakhstan and that of Kyrgyzstan, which we realised much later. The comparison is like night and day. The former is situated in a mountainous region with roads that perpetually ascend, sometimes with gradients of 12% for miles and miles, whilst the latter is mostly boring, flat as a pancake, mainly on steppe land.

We spent almost 3.5 hours trying to cover 28 km, but it proved impossible to complete our planned journey to Kegen, a border town. The midday sun was already scorching, and with the hills relentlessly closing in, we threw in the towel and, after lunch, ‘teleported’ ourselves to the Kyrgyzstan border, some 70 km away, in an SUV.

The entrance to Kyrgyzstan revealed a new set of landscapes and a different set of people with distinct characteristics. If the Kazakhstanis gave the impression of having their noses in the air, probably due to a sudden rise in their wealth, the Kyrgyz were warm and accommodating. The officer at the border patiently explained where we could get food and accommodation. We later experienced genuine Kyrgyz hospitality.

In the border town of Karkara, we realised there were no guest houses available. The only place with yurts [1]was being refurbished and closed to business. After much discussion, aided by hand signals and Google Translate, the workers on the property let us stay there overnight. To top it off, they even let us share their warm, freshly cooked traditional Kyrgyz dinner and breakfast the next morning.

It was that time of year when the World Nomad Games, a UNESCO-sanctioned Central Asian Intangible Cultural Heritage, were in full swing. We managed to catch a glimpse of a group of young people practising ‘Kok-boru‘, in which riders on horseback compete in an open space for a goat carcass.

Day 5: Karkara to Karakol

Unlike our rides in Kazakhstan, this ride was more pleasant in terms of gradient. The state of the roads, however, was far from ideal. In the beginning, we shared the road with herds of cows, sheep, and horses heading towards wherever they were to graze. It was not easy manoeuvring, trying to guide the two-pannier-loaded mountain bikes away from the unpredictable animals. To make it scarier, some of the bulls were obviously in heat, mounting six receptive cows as they sauntered along the highway. And we know how lust blurs the mind.

Later we encountered whatever remained as a semblance of a road that was probably laid down when the Soviet Union launched its first Soyuz mission. The edge of the road appeared like a flattened aloo paratha[2] with its fillings sticking out. The Kyrgyz, on a mission to wriggle out of the post-Soviet economic malaise, had struck major deals with China to develop their infrastructure. The new Chinese road contractors must have a peculiar way of road building. They seem to dig out kilometres after kilometres of highway before laying gravel and tar to complete their project. What was left for road users (and cyclists like us) on most of the 91 km journey was a choice between an unpaved road and a gravel-spiked, filled shoulder to ride on. Perhaps it was the contractor’s strategy to complete everything at one go, collect the remuneration and scram before defects show up!

Karakol is a well-planned, modern town with many fascinating structures, and it is home to a Russian Orthodox Church and a mosque.

The Kyrgyz and the Kazakhs mostly identify themselves as Muslims, but do not wear their beliefs on their sleeves. We hardly heard the daily call to prayer. During a visit to the local mosque, we were sceptical about whether we would be allowed in, as we were not exactly dressed for the occasion. Surprisingly, they cordially ushered us in to take pictures. Interestingly, they were happy to know that we were from Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country. Assuming we were Muslims too, they embraced us in reverence, wishing us a hearty ‘Assalamualaikum, Musalman brother!’ We obliged. Most mosques in smaller towns are modest, with their ancient architecture preserved. Mammoth domed mosques are being seen rising in larger towns.

Day 6: Day Trip to Altyn-Arashan

Taking a break from cycling, we took a day trip to Altyn-Arashan, a picturesque alpine valley situated about 2,400 metres above sea level. It boasts a hot spring, eye-pleasing scenery, accommodation, and a passageway for hikers to explore other peaks.

Instead of spending 5 hours hiking along the dusty path shared by 4WD vehicles, we decided to get into one of those mean-looking Russian 4WD vehicles called UAZ. The way up to Altyn-Arashan was treacherous, to say the least. The road was paved not with gravel pebbles but with medium-sized, sharp granite stones jutting from the ground. In my opinion, the UAZ is the only machine in the world suited for this rollercoaster mission. The irony of it all is that there was not a single rattle of the chassis or a single squeak from the vehicle’s parts.

Day 7: Karachol to Barskoon

We were back on the saddle for another rollercoaster ride with lots of shaking and rattling going on. The Chinese road construction firms were at it again. Instead of upgrading roads in small stretches, they found it in their wisdom to dig up the entire stretch before resurfacing it. We were fighting between the devil and the deep blue sea, keeping to the edge of the road or pulling over to the shoulder of the road. On the edge, the road is uneven; on the shoulder, there were sharp granite stones. The bikes took a lot of beating. Luckily, they were mountain bikes with broad tyres to match. Yet, on this 79 km journey, we encountered a couple of tyre punctures, and about 4km before our destination, my derailleur broke. We had to push our bikes to our pre-designated guest house in Barskoon. The landlord was gracious enough to arrange for a handyman, whom we fondly referred to as Mr MacGyver, who sorted out everything, patched the punctures, repaired the derailleur and made the cycles good to go.

Communication with the locals remained a major problem for us in both countries. By being behind the Iron Curtain for such a long time and being anglophobes, to avert decadent capitalist values from the mainstream for such a long time, the average Kazakh and Kyrgyz were not proficient in English. Google Translate went a long way to help us express our thoughts. There was an instance when we had an amusing moment. We were trying to order ‘fried rice’ from a restaurant. We thought the message came across well when we typed it into Google Translate, and the Russian Cyrillic script displayed everything.

The waitress returned with a single scoop of white rice and a few slices of tomato and cucumber. Amused, we tried to mimic how chefs usually stir a wok. She then returned with the same preparation but placed it in a plastic container! We then ordered a random item from the menu.

Day 8: Barskoon to Bököbaev

We skirted Isskyl-Kul Lake along the day’s 65km journey. The Isskyl-Kul Lake is the world’s second-highest mountain lake, after Lake Titicaca in South America. Somewhere along the way, we stopped at Tosso Beach, a long sandy beach with captivating turquoise-blue water that had obviously seen better times. The bins were overflowing with garbage. The flies were having a field day. I guess Kyrgyzstan is still trying to get its act together to showcase its natural beauty and attract tourist dollars. Most of the public toilet facilities outside towns are archaic, at least 50 years behind those in Malaysia. On highways and at many tourist-attracting venues, we saw pit latrines for the first time in a long time.

At a distance from the beach lay the orangey sandstone ridges that looked like a scene from a sci-fi movie set on Mars. This is Skaza Valley/Canyon, also called Fairy Tale Canyon, because its natural ridges resemble castles, animals, dragons, and whatever our imagination can conjure.

This turned out to be another eventful cycling day as we encountered flat tyre after flat tyre. In no time, we had perfected the art of changing bicycle tubes without removing the tyre from the bicycle. In every new town we reached, we somehow found a mechanic, not necessarily a bicycle technician, who could get us back on our wheels. Our guardian angels must be kind.

Day 9: Bököbaev to Balykchy

Still riding around Issyk-Kul Lake, we made headway to Balykchy. One problem we often encountered was the mind-bending names of towns. With frequent use of B’s and K’s in their names, and further complicated by their old Soviet names, remembering them became a Herculean task. For a start, don’t Kochkor, Korday, Korkara and Karakol sound strikingly similar?

Free enterprise in Kyrgyzstan must still be in its infancy. Most of the little towns and villages did not have hotels. Online third-party platforms like Booking.com may show scores of available accommodations in the smallest of towns. In reality, they are merely private homes with no signage, and transactions are handled in cash only, without the issuance of receipts.

For the first time, we noticed a railway line traversing a town. With increasing mining activity in the region, Balchyky earned its reputation as a transportation hub. We parked our cycles at Balchyky and took a taxi to Kochkor. Our plan was to visit Kochkor and the Narynn Hills, a popular tourist spot which safely guards its jewel in the crown, Kel-Suu Lake, an enchanting glacial lake bordering China.

Due to the high security of the place, we were to visit, a mandatory permit needed to be issued by the CBT (Community-based Tourism) office. The local populace benefited too by organising travel and accommodation within the community.

Our guest house landlord suggested a popular travel agent to sort out our travel arrangements to Naryn Hills and beyond. Hence, we sought the help of the local travel agents to handle logistics.

The office was actually the living room of somebody’s residence. We were ushered in by a teenage girl who told us to have a seat and wait, saying, “My mother is coming!” A couple of young men were already seated before us. A few moments later, the mother did appear. The young men saw her and said, “Oh, it is you,” and left. Left wondering, we discussed our plans and were thrown a fat quotation. We declined and sought another travel agent. We repeated our plan. Our antennas went up when we heard a familiar sentence: “Wait, my mother is coming!”

“Is your mother also running Shephard Life?” Yes, was her reply. Then we knew there was a corporate mafia controlling Kochkor’s tourism industry.

Day 10: Kochkor to Naryn

We decided to take our chance and rent a taxi to Naryn and see what develops there. By a twist of fate, we found two other young German students who were toying with the same idea of going up to Kok-Kiya Valley, staying the night in a yurt, and hiking up to Kel-Suu Lake. Talk about synchronicity! We ended up paying only a third of what the travel agent quoted. It took a 3.5-hour journey in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle up from Naryn to Kok-Kiya Valley, which lies above 3000 metres above sea level. The valley had collections of yurts, each owned by different families or companies, offering food and warmth to passing travellers and hikers.

A worker was seen clearing horse dung lying across the flatland. I was impressed by their level of cleanliness, I thought, until the same person later came to our yurt to fuel our traditional heater with the same dung. The amenities were basic. Water was stored in a tanker lorry, and the toilets were simple pit latrines. Still, the hospitality was warm, and so was the food that they provided for dinner and breakfast.

Day 11: Hike up to Kel Suu Lake

We started the day trembling. Outside temperatures were in the single-digit C range. After a hearty Kyrgyz breakfast of flatbread, vegetable soup, eggs, oats, cucumber, and tomatoes, we set out to seek the hidden jewel, Kel-Soo Lake. Generally, the guest houses we stayed in offered the same variety of food, just presented differently. We had two ways to get to the lake: on foot or on horseback. Of course, we chose the former. 2.5 hours of climbing and puffing finally unfolded the lake in its full glory.

Then it was time to return and head down to Balychky, where our cycles were. Our newly found German mates and we had a cordial exchange of ideas about social and political situations in each other’s countries.

Day12: Balykchy to Kemin

After a good, full two days’ rest, away from our cycling routine, we continued our journey. We intended to do 60km before retiring for the day. We were slowly getting away from the vicinity of Issyl-Kul Lake. Unfortunately, the Universe had other plans for us. We could not find any guest houses, so we continued to a certain point. The villages were all tiny settlements. At Kemin, at about the 78 km mark, we took a break at a tyre shop to patch our bicycle tubes. As we started chatting with the owner and some curious onlookers via Google Translate, as would a hen and a duck communicate, who were wondering what these two foreign faces were up to, we found out that his friend had a minivan and could take us to the next nearest town. We jumped on the suggestion. Cycles, panniers and all, we swiftly sped off to Tokmok.

Day 13: Tokmok to Bishkek

By a twist of fate, we landed in a town which holds Kyrgyzstan’s most important historical site, Burana Tower. It showcases the remains of the medieval city of Balasagan, an important pre-Islamic Silk Road Settlement. Tokmok itself is an up-and-coming residential city with numerous apartment complexes emerging.

Time to go again, this time to the capital city of Bishkek. Our ride was slowly coming to an end. This 58km journey was flat, but as we got closer to the municipality of Bishkek, we were inundated with too many T-junctions and traffic lights. Bishkek and Almaty are both well-planned cities. Roads are well paved, and paths are wide, providing ample space for cyclists and pedestrians to move around. The trouble is that, as in any part of the world, pedestrians here too display zombie-like behaviour. They walk, staring at their devices, oblivious to who or what is around them. We had to politely alert them.

As if to felicitate us on our safe passage through the country, the Universe blessed us with light showers as we entered Bishkek.

Days 14 &15: Laze around Bishkek

Time to unwind in the city, experience its local culture, food, and sights, and walk in its National Park. Like any country behind the Iron Curtain, Kyrgyzstan (and Kazakhstan) has many statues, plaques, and squares commemorating the numerous fallen heroes of the World Wars.

On a side note, I wonder how many of these statues were erected by North Koreans. For the record, in the 1970s and 80’s, statue building was an important source of foreign funds from socialist countries, non-aligned African countries, and surprisingly, Germany. It dwindled with the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

After days of savouring local cuisines, we were yearning for something Indian. A quick Google search led us to a ‘Gandhi Restaurant’. Assuming it was a vegetarian restaurant, as Gandhi was a vegetarian to the core, we were taken aback to discover that ‘Gandhi Restaurant’ served meat and wine. I guess Gandhi’s kin must not have heard of this restaurant. Otherwise, they would sue the restaurant for tainting the Mahatma’s pristine image of ahimsa[3]. Even Gandhi Jayanti is a dry day (alcohol-free) across India.

Day 16 &17: Bishkek to Almaty

We were approaching the tail end of our tour. A 23 km ride from Bishkek, and we were at Korday, at the Kazakhstan border. Another taxi ride and 2.5 hours later, we were back at Almaty, where we started.

The next day was spent lazing around, wandering about Almaty. A trip up Kok Tobe Hills on the gondola gave a great view of the city’s rapid development.

A ride on the newly commissioned single Metro line has made travelling within the city easier, though it is not quite a breeze yet, as one still has to walk a lot. The Metro stations are quite impressive, each with a distinct motif that highlights different aspects of their history and flaunts their newfound prosperity. Attractive tourist spots include Ascension Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox Church, various parks that form the city’s green lung, and the Green Bazaar. A view that stirred our curiosity was the sale of horse meat. Once stripped to the elements, every meat looked the same — beef, mutton or pork. In fact, they were all sold side by side in the meat section. Interesting.

Next, back to life, back to reality.

The two countries, having a somewhat similar past and even names, are different in so many ways. Firstly, the terrains were different: Kazakhstan was hilly and unforgiving in its inclines, while Kyrgyzstan was as flat as can be. Unlike their cold nouveau riche cousins across the border, the Kyrgyz are warm in their interactions. As far as riding conditions go, perhaps if we had ridden here a year later, the roads would have been in better condition. But then, I wonder if the road users would have shown more etiquette.

All in all, over the span of 17 days, we cycled over 530 km and hiked about 38kms and live to tell the tale that we survived the wild countries.

Almaty, after dark! View from Kok Tobe Hill, Almaty

[1] A yurt is a portable, round tent with a wooden frame covered in felt or skins, traditionally used as a home by nomadic groups in Central Asia

[2] Alloo Paratha is a flatbread stuffed with potatoes.

[3] Ahimsa – Sanskrit for non-violence.

Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog, Rifle Range Boy.

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

Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

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

Tags Ahimsa, Almaty, Altyn-Arashan, Balasagan, Balykchy, Barsoon, Bököbaev, Berlin Wall, Bishkek, Black Canyon, Bollywood, Burana Tower, Central Asian Intangible Cultural Heritage, Central Asian., Charyn State National Nature Park, China, Chinese, Cyrillic script, Dubai, Farouk Gulsara, Gandhi, German, Google Translate, Iron Curtain, Isskyl-Kul Lake, Kaindy Lake, Karachol, Karakol, Karkara, Kazakh, Kazakhstan, Kel-Soo Lake, Kel-Suu Lake, Kemin, Kochkor, Kok Tobe Hills, Kok-Kiya Valley, Kolsai Lake, Korday, KualaLumpur, Kyrgystan, Kyrgyz, Lake Titica, Malaysia, Mars, Mongols, Muslim, Najib, Naryn, Narynn Hills, Rifle Range Boy, Russian Orthodox Chruch, Silk Road Settlement, Skaza, South America, Soviet, Tokmok, UNESCO, World Nomad Games, World Wars

Review

My Shackled Life by Sushila Takbhaure: A Story of Reslience

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date May 14, 2026
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Book Review by Somdatta Mandal

Title: My Shackled Life

Author: Sushila Takbhaure

Translators: Deeba Zafir and Preeti Dewan

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

Ever since Dalit writing has caught the fancy of academics, researchers and social scientists in a big way, we are coming across several new titles almost every other day and are getting to read them in translation, often published by established and reputed publishing houses. The present volume under review falls exactly into this category. First published in Hindi in 2011 as Shikanje ka Dard, this is an autobiography of a Dalit woman called Sushila Takbhaure who belongs to a poor Dalit Valmiki family in Seoni in Madhya Pradesh. Divided into three sections, it tells us the story of how the author rose through determination and her mother’s support to pursue higher education, teach in school and college, build a wide-ranging literary career and become part of the Babasaheb Ambedkar movement to bring social awareness and changes in the lives of the Dalits and the downtrodden in society.

Writing from childhood, she went on to publish poems, stories, novels, plays, criticism and her books are now even taught in university courses. In the pan-Indian surge of feminist consciousness and assertion of Dalit women in the 1990, Sushila Takbhaure is a name to reckon with.

Coming to this autobiography we find how the narrative chronicles the extremely protracted and tortuous process by which a timid and vulnerable Dalit girl fashions herself into an assertive and empowered woman by exercising her agency and single-minded pursuit of education. But the path was definitely not easy. The first section of the narrative entitled ‘Early Years’ gives us details of a society that is dominated by the savarnas or upper caste Hindus, and lays bare the truthful accounts of the disgraceful practices of this casteist order. Like many other Dalit families of the time, Sushila’s story is no different. Discrimination based on caste was widespread, and untouchability was deeply entrenched everywhere. The thatched mud huts of the untouchable Bhangi-Harijans stood outside the village, far from the landowner’s houses.

Raised like the child of any poor untouchable family with a life full of deprivation, Sushila was nurtured by her Ma (mother) and Nani (grandmother) and grew up eating, crying and playing. In spite of working as a scavenger and midwife, Nani protected her daughter from hardship and Ma too sheltered and nurtured her children by giving them an education. With society placing many restrictions on girls, however hard they worked, they enjoyed neither equal rights nor independence. Women lacked awareness and confidence, and the lack of education, knowledge, and foresight crushed the potential of many who had the ability to rise as all unethical behaviour was seen as natural and commonplace.

Sushila fought all odds and continued her studies till she managed to appear for her BA final exams. In a patriarchal society, women are always considered inferior to men though there were some women who through their talent, initiative, intelligence and courage managed to surpass men in every field. But society had conditioned them in such a manner that they could not come out of the shackles imposed by rigid casteist norms. The first section of the narrative ends with Sushila’s Ma continuing to look for a good match for her and she too often dreamt of a loving, caring husband meant just for her.

The second section of the autobiography ‘Marriage and After’ is the most distressing part of the entire narrative. Married to a man much older than her, Sushila finds that things are worse in all respects in her in-law’s place. As it is the atmosphere in the city of Nagpur was different from her village life, but her husband, who is always reverentially mentioned as ‘Takbhaureji’, acts as the typical patriarchal figure, often physically abusing her. The practice didn’t stop even after several children were born to her. He made his wife work at home and like all male chauvinists took away all the salary she earned as a teacher. One often wonders why Sushila went on enduring all the humiliation and never retaliated.

Maybe if she had received love, care, and companionship instead of constant torment, she might have developed the strength to assert herself in public life, but that never happened. The atmosphere at home only deepened her sense of powerlessness and since she lived in constant fear, wrongs were committed against her without hesitation. It is amazing to learn that despite conflict and physical abuse becoming a regular part of her life and filling her with humiliation and pain, she managed to complete her PhD and start teaching in a college. Her married life, as she states, went with all its ups and downs.

The final section ‘Writer Activist’ narrates her rise to become the voice of resistance for her people. Her fury started finding its voice in poetry. She wanted to write about being a Dalit and that became the central theme of her writing. Enduring social humiliation and fighting against the deprivations and oppression born of caste prejudice, she moved forward, slowly but steadily.

Once the various Dalit organizations in Maharashtra involved in the movement to address the problems faced by Dalit women in their homes and society came to know her, they began inviting her to travel with them to distance places to participate in their programmes. Even then her husband went on taking sadistic pleasure in hurting her. His real motive was clear: to prevent her from pursuing writing and publishing, and to keep her confined to the simple life of a working woman who managed both her job and household. But after living in Nagpur, Maharashtra gradually became an empowering experience for her. As a Dalit activist fighting for the ideals of Babasaheb Ambedkar across the country, she began travelling alone to far-off places within India and places abroad like Sri Lanka, Britain, and Dubai.

She could do all this because she had finally begun to feel confident of herself. At times, she received support from people within her community, while at other times, she faced opposition. Her goal was to carry Ambedkar’s ideology and knowledge of Dalit literature to others, and she succeeded in doing so. Although her travels abroad brought her immense joy, they unfortunately did not change her social condition. She remained what she had always been – an untouchable outcast.

This searing autobiography of Sushila Takbhaure, a Dalit woman whose life story reveals not only the brutal machinery of caste but also the intimate cruelty of patriarchy, is a must read for everyone irrespective of class and gender. Though the narrative drags a bit towards the end, one sees its importance too. Having embraced Phule-Ambedkarite ideology and taken part in the movement for social change, Sushila Takbhaure’s writing has gained a clear direction and is vital not only for herself but for her community too. As she states towards the end of her narrative, writing had given her the strength, and it was both a source of joy and a way to give back to society what it had meted out to her. After reading the autobiography, one must sincerely offer kudos to a deprived woman who succeeded in life in spite of all unsurmountable odds.

Somdatta Mandal, critic and translator, is a retired Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India.

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

Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

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

Tags Babasaheb Ambedkar, Britain, Deeba Zafir, Dubai, India, Madhya Pradesh, Mahrashtra, My Shackled LIfe, Nagpur, Preeti Dewan, Santiniketan, Shikanje Ka Dard, Somdatta Mandal, Speaking Tiger Books, Sri Lanka, Sushila Takbhaure, Valmiki, Visva-Bharati

Editorial

Storms that Rage

Storm in purple by Arina Tcherem. From Public Domain

If we take a look at our civilisation, there are multiple kinds of storms that threaten to annihilate our way of life and our own existence as we know it. The Earth and the human world face twin threats presented by climate change and wars. While on screen, we watch Gaza and Ukraine being sharded out of life by human-made conflicts over constructs made by our own ‘civilisations’, we also see many of the cities and humankind ravaged by floods, fires, rising sea levels and global warming. Along with that come divides created by economics and technology. Many of these themes reverberate in this month’s issue.

From South Australia, Meredith Stephens writes of marine life dying due to algal growth caused by rising water temperatures in the oceans — impact of global warming. She has even seen a dead dolphin and a variety of fishes swept up on the beach, victims of the toxins that make the ocean unfriendly for current marine life. One wonders how much we will be impacted by such changes! And then there is technology and the chatbot taking over normal human interactions as described by Farouk Gulsara. Is that good for us? If we perhaps stop letting technology take over lives as Gulsara and Jun A. Alindogan have contended, it might help us interact to find indigenous solutions, which could impact the larger framework of our planet. Alindogan has also pointed out the technological divide in Philippines, where some areas get intermittent or no electricity. And that is a truth worldwide — lack of basic resources and this technological divide.

On the affluent side of such divides are moving to a new planet, discussions on immortality — Amortals[1] by Harari’s definition, life and death by euthanasia. Ratnottama Sengupta brings to us a discussion on death by choice — a privilege of the wealthy who pay to die painlessly. The discussion on whether people can afford to live or die by choice lies on the side of the divide where basic needs are not an issue, where homes have not been destroyed by bombs and where starvation is a myth, where climate change is not wrecking villages with cloudbursts. In Kashmir, we can find a world where many issues exist and violences are a way of life. In the midst of such darkness, a bit of kindness and more human interactions as described by Gower Bhat in ‘The Man from Pulwama’ goes some way in alleviating suffering. Perhaps, we can take a page of the life of such a man. In the middle of all the raging storms, Devraj Singh Kalsi brings in a bit of humour or rather irony with his strange piece on his penchant for syrups, a little island removed from conflicts which seem to rage through this edition though it does raise concerns that affect our well-being.

The focus of our essays pause on women writers too. Meenakshi Malhotra ponders on Manottama (1868), the first woman-authored novel in Bengali translated by Somdatta Mandal whereas Bhaskar Parichha writes on the first feminist Odia poet, Bidyut Prabha Devi.

Parichha has also reviewed a book by another contemporary Odia woman author, Snehaprava Das. The collection of short stories is called Keep it Secret. Madhuri Kankipati has discussed O Jungio’s The Kite of Farewells: Stories from Nagaland and Somdatta Mandal has written about Chhimi Tenduf-La’s A Hiding to Nothing, a novel by a global Tibetan living in Sri Lanka with the narrative between various countries. We have an interview with a global nomad too, Neeman Sobhan, who finds words help her override borders. In her musing on Ostia Antica, a historic seaside outside Rome, Sobhan mentions how the town was abandoned because of the onset of anopheles mosquitos. Will our cities also get impacted in similar ways because of the onset of global ravages induced by climate change? This musing can be found as a book excerpt from Abiding City: Ruminations from Rome, her book on her life as a global nomad. The other book excerpt is by a well-known writer who has also lived far from where he was born, MA Aldrich. His book, From Rasa to Lhasa: The Sacred Center of the Mandala is said to be “A sweeping, magnificent biography—which combines historical research, travel-writing and discussion of religion and everyday culture—Old Lhasa is the most comprehensive account of the fabled city ever written in English.”

With that, we come to our fiction section. This time we truly have stories from around the globe with Suzanne Kamata sending a story set in the Bon festival that’s being celebrated in Japan this week for her column. From there, we move to Taiwan with C. J. Anderson-Wu’s narrative reflecting disappearances during the White Terror (1947-1987), a frightening period for people stretched across almost four decades. Gigi Gosnell writes of the horrific abuse faced by a young Filipino girl as the mother works as a domestic helper in Dubai. Paul Mirabile gives us a cross-cultural narrative about a British who opts to become a dervish. While Hema R touches on women’s issues from within India, Sahitya Akademi Award Winner, Naramsetti Umamaheshwararao, writes a story about children.

We have a powerful Punjabi story by Ajit Cour translated by C.Christine Fair. Our translations host two contemporary poets who have rendered their own poems to English: Angshuman Kar, from Bengali and Ihlwha Choi, from Korean. Snehaprava Das has brought to us poetry from Odia by Aparna Mohanty. Fazal Baloch has translated ‘The Scarecrow’, a powerful Balochi poem by Anwar Sahib Khan. While Tagore’s Shaishabshandha (Childhood’s Dusk) has been rendered to English, Nazrul’s song questing for hope across ages has been brought to us by Professor Fakrul Alam.

Professor Alam has surprised us with his own poem too this time. In August’s poetry selection, Ron Pickett again addresses issues around climate change as does Meetu Mishra about rising temperatures. We have variety and colour brought in by George Freek, Heath Brougher, Laila Brahmbhatt, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Snigdha Agrawal, William Miller, Ashok Suri, Scott Thomas Outlar, Dustin P Brown, and Ryan Quinn Flanagan. Rajorshi Patranabis weaves Wiccan lore of light and dark, death and life into his delicately poised poetry. Rhys Hughes has also dwelt on life and death in this issue. He has shared poems on Wales, where he grew up— beautiful gentle lines.

 In spring warm rain will crack
the seeds of life: tangled
roots will grow free again. 

('Tinkinswood Burial Chamber' by Rhys Hughes)

With such hope growing out of a neolithic burial chamber, maybe there is hope for life to survive despite all the bleakness we see around us. Maybe, with a touch of magic and a sprinkle of realism – our sense of hope, faith and our ability to adapt to changes, we will survive for yet another millennia.

We wind up our content for the August issue with the eternal bait for our species — hope. Huge thanks to the fantastic team at Borderless and to all our wonderful writers. Truly grateful to Sohana Manzoor for her artwork and many thanks to all our wonderful readers for their time…

We wish you all a wonderful reading experience!

Gratefully,

Mitali Chakravarty.

borderlessjournal.com

[1] Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2015) by Yuval Noah Harari

Click here to access the contents for the August 2025 Issue

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Tags A Hiding to Nothing, Ajit Cour, Amortal, An Abiding City: Ruminations from Rome, Angshuman Kar, Anwar Sahib Khan, Aparna Mohanty, Arina Tcherm, Ashok Suri, August, Balochi, Bengali, Bhaskar Parichha, Bidyut Prabha Devi, Bon Festival, British, C.Christine Fair, C.J. Anderson-Wu, Chhimi Tenduf-La, Devraj Singh Kalsi, Dubai, Dustin P Brown, Earth, English, Farouk Gulsara, Fazal Baloch, Filipino, From Rasa to Lhasa: The Sacred Center of the Mandala, Gaza, George Freek, Gigi Gosnell, Global Warming, Gower Bhat, Harari, Heath Brougher, Hema R, Homo Deus, India, Japan, Jun A. Alindogan, Kashmir, Keep It Secret, Korean, Laila Brahmbhatt, Lhasa, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, MA Aldrich, Madhuri Kankipati, Manottama, Meenakshi Malhotra, Meetu Mishra, Meredith Stephens, Mitali Chakravarty, Neeman Sobhan, O Jungio, Odia, Ostia Antica, Paul Mirabile, Phillipines, Pulwama, Punjabi, Rajorshi Patranabis, Ratnottama Sengupta, Rhys Hughes, Ron Pickett, Sahitya Akademi, Scott Thomas Outlar, Shaishabshandha, Snehaprava Das, Snigdha Agrawal, Sohana Manzoor, Somdatta Mandal, South Australia, Sri Lanka, Suzanne Kamata, Taiwan, The Kite of Farewells: Stories from Nagaland, Tibetan, Ukraine, White Terror, William Miller

Stories

I Am Not My Mother

By Gigi Gosnell

My name is Amina Salvador, 13 years old. I was born in the rural community of Santa Maria, Philippines. I want to share with you the events that prompted me to give testimony to the police. That day was the hardest day in my life. After it was done, two long months went by until my mother received the decision of the Prosecutor’s office, stating:

“A person here left unnamed raped me, while I was still a virgin. The charges against the perpetrator were two counts of rape of a minor by sexual assault and three counts of lascivious conduct.”

The course of my life changed abruptly when my mother Selina decided to leave for Dubai in search of work as a domestic worker. Before she left, she spoke to me with tears in her eyes, promising to give me a good future and proper home where I could have access to all the comforts of life, good internet access, and would be able to pursue my studies. She would also buy me new clothes and provide for adequate food so I would not starve.

My mother left me under the care of my father. He was 43 years old, a muscular and strong man. He worked as a painter for newly built church buildings. Initially, he started pampering me with fancy items, like trendy watches and expensive clothes. This might seem like he was an ideal father.

My mother is an attractive woman, rather plump, with a pleasant face. She had a difficult life. Her parents were poor and not able to give her an education. Now, she is 40 years old.

It was by accident that I found out that my mother ran away from my “father”, the man she had married. After daily beatings in the hands of her alcoholic and abusive husband, she had no choice than to go south where her parents lived.

With a small bag of clothes and photographs of the five young children she had left behind with her abusive husband, she returned to her hometown to start afresh. At the time when all this drama was unfolding, I was still not born.

I heard that I was conceived when my mother fell in love again with another man who promised her to love and protect her. I suppose that I came into life as the sweet fruit of that promise. It didn’t take long, however, for her to discover the true character of this man whom she saw as a savior from her former abusive husband. It turned out that her boyfriend was a womaniser and a very jealous person. He too was another wife-beater.

As a result, my mother ran away a second time, with a three-month-old baby growing inside her. Feeling she had nobody to turn to, she returned to the cruel husband she had left some months ago. In this way, my mother continued her old subservient life.

I was born in a dilapidated clinic in our town, and three months later I was baptized as Amina Salvador. I took my mother’s husband family name. Anselmo Salvador was the father I got to know while growing up, until my mother, black and blue from physical abuse and humiliation, fled once more. Sad to say she ran away once more to her previous lover boy, the jealous and cheater one. Are you confused by now?

I am too young to understand what was going on inside my mother’s head. All this time I just kept quiet and did not ask questions about adult matters. As a young girl, I just wanted to play with my friends, go to school, and be myself. I still considered myself a normal kid.

Dark clouds started to form a few days after my mother flew out to Dubai. As I told you before, my mother entrusted me to her live-in partner. As you remember, previously my mother had left her lover already pregnant with me. It turns out that Solomon, yes him, is my real father. That is what my mother thinks and I have no right to refute her own truth. I was only 7 years old when she and I took a long bus ride back to her old lover boy. She held my left hand tight when we reached Solomon’s house.

The fights between her and Anselmo, and her and Solomon left a lasting impression in my young mind, yet I could not understand the causes of all of this. I suppose I was just caught in the middle of some nasty adult fights, whether I liked it or not.

I remember exactly after I said goodbye to my mom at the airport, my papa started abusing me. I woke up once in the middle of the night feeling his hands sitting on me. I was crying almost every night. I didn’t tell anyone what was going on. I was too ashamed to talk to anyone. I felt dirty. I lost weight and became more reserved.

I tried to reach out to my mother, but my monster papa was controlling my cellphone and my Facebook account he had created himself. He interfered with the messages I tried to send out. I have no idea how on earth he did this.

My harrowing experience went on and on for several months until I finally got a chance to message my mother. I did not know what to say. I simply wrote, “Is it right for may papa to kiss me on my lips?”

Instinctively, my mother felt there was something completely wrong happening to me. She asked her sister, my aunt Lenny, to take me away from my papa’s house. Aunt Lenny took me to her house and stayed with me until my mother’s immediate return from Dubai.

I am in safe hands now, under the protection of my mom and aunty. My dad was arrested and is now in prison, currently applying for bail. Prior to his arrest, he posted sexually explicit materials about me and my mom on social media, exposing me and my mom to shame in front of our extended families and friends. He also tried to kidnap me at school before my mother could return from Dubai. He orchestrated a smear campaign against me to make me appear as a flirt and a lose girl. It was terrible.

I am relieved that he is in prison right now, although he is begging my mother to withdraw the charges against him in exchange for money, and all kinds of tricks to make us back down and settle out of court.

While I am happy to see the monster in prison, my mother has a different idea. She wants to protect me from the prying incursions of the court. She knows that my case may take a year or more to conclude. She keeps telling me that she just wants to me to move on with my life. She also plans to go back to Dubai to make some money so she can support me and the rest of my siblings from my other father. I tell her, “It’s up to you, mama.”

You see, I am traumatised like my mother, but I am trying to convince myself that what happened to me should not define who I am. I can’t be in a similar situation like my mother is. It is sad to say that while we are still busy with my legal case, she has met another man. At first, he appeared gentle and kind, but lately, I overheard him cursing my mother over money squabbles. So, what can I say. It’s her life.

I choose not to be broken by my story. I will fight the demons in my head. I know it won’t be easy. I will show my mother that there is another way to live, and it is to love myself.

Gigi Baldovino Gosnell has degrees in Psychology and Education. She lectures in Psychology, worked in various NGOs, and the public service in the fields of women empowerment, land reform, social development and local government.

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Tags Dubai, Facebook, Gigi Baldovino Gosnell, Philippines

Interview Review

Women, Taliban & More: In Conversation with Andrew Quilty

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date February 15, 2023
No Comments on Women, Taliban & More: In Conversation with Andrew Quilty

August in Kabul: America’s Last Days in Afghanistan and the Return of the Taliban is a real-life account of a journalist who returned to Kabul from Dubai to be with his “friends”, to let them know that their well-wishers had not abandoned them, even while the American forces withdrew and the Taliban took over. Most, including President Ghani, were flying out of Kabul while acclaimed photojournalist who had spent eight years there, Andrew Quilty, flew back from Dubai on 14th August, 2021.

His account traces the history of the takeover, the inception of the Taliban, the reactions of the people to their earlier regime dating from 1996 to 2001: “The Taliban were initially welcomed there, and many young, uneducated male residents, enamoured by the group’s piety, joined their ranks. But to Soviet-era communist officials, senior Hezb-i Islami figures and those with tertiary educations or financial means, the Taliban’s devoutness foretold merciless intolerance, and they left the country, travelling to the West through costly smuggling networks or to neighbouring Pakistan or Iran, joining the millions who had moved there during the Soviet war, as refugees.”

He is vocal about the Doha Agreement made by the Trump regime and executed by Biden, where the handing over left gaps which caused suffering not only among foreigners but also the local population of Afghanistan. Citizens died trying to find safety for themselves and their loved ones. Chaos prevailed and both Taliban forces and American soldiers killed innocents. With more than hundred interviews, Quilty brings the plight of these people to light. What touches the heart in this narrative is the human suffering caused by political games and beliefs. This has been captured well in the account.

That the current acknowledged rulers of Afghanistan, the Talibans, have reverted in certain senses to their past stance, especially pertaining to a major issue, the freedom of women has been acknowledged. But is this an issue that is related essentially to Taliban only or does it run deeper within the culture? Through the narrative of a young girl, Nadia, the author relates the equation for Afghani women: “Preserving the safety of women is a common sleight of hand used by Afghan men to keep those within their family under control. Neglecting such a duty and allowing a young woman the freedom to walk when they wish in the streets, to socialise with unrelated men, and to develop their understanding of the world outside the home and their ideas about their place therein, is deduced by many outside the immediate family to imply the woman is what Nadia refers to euphemistically as a ‘bad girl’. Boiled down, a ‘bad girl’ is one who cavorts and sleeps with men out of wedlock—a prostitute in Afghan terms, a great stain on a family’s honour. To avert such a possibility, rather than confront those who deliberately misinterpret the young woman’s ways and use it to undermine her family, instead, her brothers, father and male members of the extended family more often elect to restrain her behaviour.”

Women are not the only victims of a society that balks at liberal or out of the box thinking. The book is an eye-opener and reveals how the events of that August unfolded in 2021. It was an amazing coincidence that the takeover was completed on a date that coincided with the Independence Day celebrations of its neighbours, India (15th August) and Pakistan (14th August).

This account varies from an earlier account of Afghanistan written almost a century ago in its tone – that was humorous essays, a memoir by Syed Mujtaba Ali translated by Nazes Afroz from Bengali, called In a Land Far from Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan. This is a journalistic account. But one thing that runs through both the narratives is the bonding both these writers experienced with the locals, perhaps a bond born of friendship with people who have lived in oppressed communities and the need to get the world to hear their voices. The social norms still sound the same with wild gun shots marking celebrations. But what was not mentioned in the earlier were the scars left by Soviets and American weapons – because Mujtaba Ali’s account ended at the start of the civil war (1928-29), long before the superpowers intervened in a major way, even though the then-ruler Amanullah Khan (1892-1960) had abdicated and escaped to British India.

Andrew Quilty in Kabul. Photo provided by Quilty

Andrew Quilty who gives a splendid coverage of the current scenario, had been in Afghanistan since 2013. He is the recipient of nine Walkley Awards, including the Gold Walkley, for his work on Afghanistan. He has also received the George Polk Award, the World Press Photo Award and the Overseas Press Club of America award for his investigation into massacres committed by a CIA-backed Afghan militia. In this conversation, Quilty tells us more about the writing of the book and his own responses to the change in regime and the takeover, and most of all what made him return to a conflict zone.

What made you return to Kabul, when others were fleeing from a Taliban takeover?

There were two things: as a journalist and photographer, the days ahead of when I decided to return to Afghanistan were going to be the country’s most pivotal since the US invasion in 2001. Having covered the country for eight years at that point, despite the risk, I really wanted to be present to cover the period that was to follow. But more than that, at the time I really just wanted to be with my friends, both foreign and Afghan, with whom I had experienced so much with in the country over the years leading up to August 2021. While many of my Afghan friends felt the international community was abandoning them, I didn’t want them to feel their friends had as well.

In your ‘Epilogue’, you tell us that the book turned out to be different from what you had thought it would be at the start. What was it that you had wanted to start with and how has it departed from the way you had visualised it earlier?

I had envisaged writing a book about the way international military special forces had, through their tactics of night raids and air strikes, turned much of the rural Afghan population against the central government and the US-led military coalition.

You are a well-known photo-journalist and yet your book is written only in words. Why did you opt to use words instead of photographs this time?

I am currently working on a photo book that will cover the entire time I spent in Afghanistan (2013 – 2022). But my photos of the events of 2021 alone wouldn’t have been sufficient to tell the story of what happened in the detail the way words can.

In the twentieth century, a book had been written by Syed Mujtaba Ali in Bengali and translated by a journalist who was in Afghanistan, Nazes Afroz, talks of the dislodging of Amanullah by Bacha-ye-Saqao (Habibullah Kalakani) during the civil war. Can Bachai-ye-Saquao be seen as some kind of a precursor to the making of Taliban? Please elaborate.

Not really. He was of Tajik descent and so didn’t have the support of the majority Pashtuns. Also, his rule didn’t even last a year. The Taliban that took control of Afghanistan in 1996 are a closer replica of the Taliban that took control of the country in 2021 than Kalakani.

Afghanistan seems to be a country torn by the politics induced by Cold War, which of course is said to have concluded now. How would you compare the Soviet intrusion from 1979 to 1989 with the recent American intrusion which concluded with the Taliban takeover? You have mentioned how bio warfare by Soviets ruined the countryside. Please elaborate.

There are a lot of comparisons that could be made. Both the Soviets and the US-led coalition had superior technology, equipment and training. The Mujahedin and the Taliban (whose fighters call themselves Mujahedin) had poor quality weapons, funding and training, but they had a motive to fight that invading nations could never match. The nature of the style of warfare they used also made them very hard to defeat — ie. an insurgency that lives among the population, whose fighters are very difficult to distinguish from the local non-combatants.

Reading some of the case stories that you have taken up in your non-fiction, the oppression of women seems to be an accepted social norm in Afghanistan and persisted before the current invasion of the Taliban. Can you please comment on this?

While there were improvements for women in Afghanistan after the Taliban were ousted in 2001 — education was once again permitted, they were allowed to work in all sectors of the workforce and allowed to own property etc. — across much of the country, especially in rural areas, many women’s lives were still highly restricted by conservative cultural norms. Despite the constitution giving women many more rights than they had previously, culture often overrode the law. That said, the Taliban have now enshrined the most conservative interpretation of cultural norms in law, and so for those families who had permitted women to live under the more permissive post-2001 laws, the choice is no longer theirs to make.

One of the major issues one gathers from various narratives as well as yours in Afghanistan is not only the lack of freedom to women but also extends to freethinkers. Is this a cultural issue, religious issue or Taliban induced?

I think this is more about stamping out dissent as well as ideas that don’t conform to the Taliban’s worldview, like communism or democracy for example. So, it’s both religious as well as a means for the Taliban to enforce those under their control to follow their very strict worldview.

The Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddha. Have they changed since then to become more accepting of diverse thought?

I had hope that they might be. Most Afghans cautioned my optimism, and they seem to have been proven vindicated. While the Taliban haven’t yet destroyed any cultural heritage like the Buddhas, it took them five years in control to do that in 2001. The way they have rolled back rights in the 18 months they have been in control, it doesn’t bode well for what the next few years will bring. So far, however, they don’t seem to have been targeting ethnic minorities specifically or systematically.

The Taliban had taken control once earlier to be driven out by Americans in 2001. Can you tell us a bit about the origin of Talibans? Are they the same as Mujahedins?

The Taliban emerged from several groups that, combined, were known internationally as the Mujahedin. Once the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, the seven Mujahedin factions fought for control of the country. The Taliban, whose fighters were mostly drawn from religious madrasas, and known to be better-disciplined than the other lawless factions, promised to bring order to the country. Initially they were welcomed.

You had moved to Afghanistan in 2013. Would you think of returning there now? Why?

I hadn’t planned to live in Afghanistan. Initially I went for two weeks to photograph the Afghan cricket team for an Australian magazine. I only planned to stay two weeks but quickly fell in love with the country and my work there and stayed nearly a decade. I have no plans to return as yet, but it will always be close to my heart, and I would love to return one day when it feels right.

Are you planning more books in the future? On Afghanistan?

Yes. As I mentioned, I will publish a photo book on Afghanistan later this year with Melbourne University Press. After that, let’s see.

Thank you for your time.

(This review and the online interview conducted through emails are by Mitali Chakravarty)

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Poetry

Cogitations on Time

By Ashok Manikoth

Time

Time is a strange entity, you can't see it, 
But it shows you a lot, you can't sense it, 
But it teaches you a lot.
Time heals many wounds, 
Frustrates some beyond healing.
The best time to act is now,
For yesterday is writing on water,
Tomorrow written on clouds, 
Only today is written on solid walls.

Ashok Manikoth was born in 1956 in the coastal city of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, India.Ashok is now residing with his family in Dubai, UAE.

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Tags Ashok Manikoth, Dubai, Vishakapatnam

Stories

Dawn in Calicut

By Krishna Sruthi Srivalsan

The call for fajr from the local mosque
Pierces the stillness of early morning,
The sruthi box in the puja room stirs awake.

It is dawn in Calicut. The house is quiet, except for the muffled sound of water from the washroom, where my aunt does her ablutions before prayer. She shuffles her way into the puja room and hurriedly shuts the door, careful not to let even a slice of light escape the room and disturb the rest of us. For the next hour, she will be in deep meditation.

Across my bed, I see Amaama. Wisps of white hair framing her toothless mouth, she seems peaceful. Sleep didn’t come to me easy the previous night. A long journey back home and the sudden shock of seeing my grandma succumb to inevitable illness, leaving both her mind and body fragile, have rattled me. I watch her, drifting away in the land of nod.

As the sun peeks out reluctantly from the rain clouds, she wakes up. She looks at me, a question mark on her face. “Do you remember me, Amaama?” I ask. She nods, but when I ask her to tell me my name, she mumbles. I realise that I have become unrecognisable to her. Even after watching her struggle with her memory for the past two years, this upsets me.

My aunt makes idlies for breakfast. I offer to feed Amaama idlies and sugar. It is the food of infants, but it seems like she is a helpless child all over again. After an hour, she quips in a plaintive tone, “I haven’t eaten anything.” We make her a cup of Horlicks and she smacks her lips appreciatively while sipping on the sweetness of the malt.

I spend the day sitting near her bed, reading, in an effort to forget the maze of memories that cloud my mind. I also feel vaguely guilty, though I can’t really tell why. Should I have called her more often when I was away? Should I have been more affectionate to her when she could remember? Could I have been a better grandchild? The regrets pile on, one after the other, and then I understand that the root cause of my guilt is the startling realisation that I never got to know Amaama as a person. All my life, she has been Amaama. What was she like as a child? What was she like as a young woman? What made her happy? Did she have any regrets? I will be in Calicut for the next two weeks and I determine to make use of that time to understand more. I speak to my aunts, pore through old photographs, try talking to Amaama herself.

A little girl in pigtails and pinafore
Finds the greatest joy
In knitting needles and yarn.

My grandmother, Saraswathi Menon, was born in 1932. Her ancestral house is in a village called Kalapatti, in the district of Palakkad, in the foothills of the Western Ghats of southern India. Sarasu, as she is known to her family, was the fifth of seven children. Her father was an inspector in the public works department of the Indian Railways. The family moved between Tuticorin and Sucheendram, two towns on the tip of the Bay of Bengal, and Sarasu grew up in relative affluence. The first brush with hardship must have come at the age of eight, when she lost her mother, who at that time was hardly thirty-three.

Sarasu’s paternal aunt helped raise her, and she moved back to her hometown in Kerala with her younger siblings. As a teenager, she developed a lifelong interest in embroidery and knitting, spending all her time with her knitting needles and balls of yarn. She did not pursue studies after her high school matriculation exams; she did not pass the English examination and did not want to place a burden on the family’s dwindling finances by making another effort.

A memory of Amaama urging me to study flashes across my mind. At that point, she had self-deprecatingly joked that she had no buddhi and that’s why she didn’t study further. I think back and often marvel at how Amaama still aced the many challenges that life presented her, despite this lack of formal higher education. To think of the person she could have become with the right opportunities…

Barely out of her teens, Sarasu returned to Tamil Nadu, as a newly married bride. This time, she found herself in Trichy. I look at Amaama sitting in her bed, propped up by pillows, listening to a version of the Ramayana rendered by Kavalam Sreekumar. I try to jog her memory, and surprisingly, she offers a story of her Trichy days. Her eyes well up as she mentions hopping onto rickety buses that took her to the Rockfort temple and the Sriranganathan temple on an island in river Cauvery. She smiles as she remembers an old lady who taught her how to make murukku and other delectable goodies that she treated her daughters to after a long day at school. She remembers getting married to my Thatha, and accompanying him to the various towns that his job as a sales engineer demanded.

I try to ask more questions, but Sarasu’s spark has disappeared now, and Amaama cannot remember anything else. She can remember events that occurred more than thirty years ago, but she cannot remember what she ate this morning — how treacherous is this mind!

As Kavalam Sreekumar sings in the background, my aunt quietly tells me of Sarasu’s first born child — it was not my aunt, as I had always thought. Sarasu’s first born was a boy; they named him Ravi but they lost him to smallpox at the age of two. This news startles me again — how had Amaama coped with the loss of her only son all those years ago? He would have been the brother my mother never had. How little do we really know of those close to us!

Life blessed Amaama and Thatha with four other children, all of them girls. My aunt talks about the ridicule and pity heaped on her parents, Amaama in particular – “Four girls! No sons! How will you raise four girls?” They raised them with love, making numerous sacrifices, instilling in them courage, confidence, compassion, and a sense of fierce dignity, a determinedness to be independent. It is a testament to Amaama’s sacrifices that all her daughters, and by extension, us — my cousins and I — have reached so far.

Coffee stains on the table
A jumbled-up algebra problem
Anger turns into a ghost of regret.

The day has come to an end. I have learnt new things about Amaama’s life, and I can now see a glimpse of Sarasu, behind the shadow of Amaama. My mother lights the lamp and takes it to the entrance of the house, chanting “Deepam, Deepam!” It is auspicious to keep a lit lamp at the door front at twilight. The air is alive with the buzz of mosquitoes. Amaama is awake. I venture to sing an old bhajan which she used to love. She smiles, she seems to recognise the song, but she still cannot recognise me. Memories spring up from the cobwebs of my mind.

It is supposed to be a holiday for Amaama. Two months in Dubai with her youngest daughter, my mother. I am in grade 10, at the peak of schoolgirl rebellion. A few weeks before the all-important board examinations begin, we have study leave. With my parents away at work, I find myself alone with Amaama.

One morning, I am working on algebra, timing myself to see how quickly I could finish a sum. I hear a cup of coffee being knocked over in the kitchen, but I pretend not to hear. Amaama calls out for me, but I ignore her. When she calls me a third time, I can no longer ignore her, so I stomp into the kitchen, sulking. Not saying a word, I mop up the coffee stains, and slam the microwave to warm another cup of coffee from the flask.

Amaama has not spoken a word about my unreasonable behaviour. I know I have reacted badly, behaving like a spoilt child, but a false sense of pride keeps me from apologising. I hand her a second cup of coffee and try to study for the rest of the day. It is a completely useless day; my anger has now turned to regret and guilt.

When my parents return from work, I observe Amaama speak with them. Will she snitch on me, complain about the brat they raised? She remains quiet, does not say a word about me; instead, she asks them about their day and tells them about gifts she wants to take back from Dubai. I feel uncomfortable. I would have felt better if she had reprimanded me instead.

That night, I toss and turn in bed. Amaama and I share a room, and I hear her sob quietly into her pillow. Guilt engulfs me. I reach out to hug her and I begin to cry too. Amaama turns over and asks what is upsetting me. Exams, I mumble, not wanting to apologise. She hugs me tight and says “What is there to worry? You’re such a midukki kutty. God is always with you!” I sob into the softness of her sari and she says, “I was wondering why my midukki kutty doesn’t like me anymore!” I reply in my garbled Malayalam that I would always love her, but I still did not apologise.

Forgiveness has always been Amaama’s best friend.

Barefoot pilgrims walk to Pandharpur
Saffron flags fluttering in the wind
“Vitthal! Vitthal!” The palkhi bearers chant.

It is pilgrimage season in Maharashtra. Visiting my aunts in Mumbai after ages, we arrange for a trip to Shirdi. A road trip will take us at least six hours. Amaama cannot sit in a car for that long. We decide that the Shirdi trip can wait, but Amaama insists that we do not cancel on account of her. “I’ll stay alone. Will keep myself busy with TV and my books. And anyway, Padma will come for a few hours in the afternoon, so I won’t be lonely”, she says. I wonder what sort of conversation our Marathi speaking helper will have with Amaama whose vocabulary in Hindi (leave alone Marathi) does not extend beyond Kaise Ho! I tell my parents and aunts to go ahead, and I offer to stay with Amaama. “Nothing doing, you have to go see the Baba at Shirdi!” Amaama insists. I slowly understand where my mother gets her stubbornness from.

We set out at dawn the next day and reach Shirdi a little ahead of noon. We spend the next few hours in the temple town, offering our prayers, and soaking in the meditative stillness of the masjid where Baba lived — it is a salve to a weary heart. Before dusk sets, we leave Shirdi. We whizz past fields of sugarcane and cotton, growing in abundance, on the rich black soil of these lands, stopping for a quick cup of tea at Igatpuri. There is a thick shroud of mist, and my mind keeps wandering back to Amaama. What could she be doing, all alone in that flat?

We reach home an hour before midnight. The Matunga neighbourhood is quiet. Amaama is in her chair by the puja room, reading Narayaneeyam. “Did you get scared, Amaama?”, I ask. She shrugs away the question and asks me back, “What is there to get scared of when I have God by my side?” Faith has always been Amaama’s best friend.

The Nilambur river quietly chugs along
Through hills and fields and forests
And merges into nothingness at Beypore.

It has now been three years since Amaama finally succumbed. Watching her struggle through ill health, losing control of her mind and memory, has been an excruciating journey for all of us. Ironically, death seemed to free her, release her from the terrible pain she endured for a few years. When I miss her a little too much, I turn to my phone which had faithfully captured a Boomerang video of her making a dosa when she was in better health. It reminds me of better days in the past when she would make bite sized unniappams, as dainty as the dimples on a toddler’s fist. Sometimes the grief of losing her is too much to bear. I think of a story I read as a child — something about a magic pot which kept cooking porridge for a hungry family. The family gobbled up the porridge, but the pot simply would not stop. It kept cooking porridge, till the porridge overflowed and flooded the entire city! Sometimes, my grief is like that. But then, I look at the photo of Amaama by my bookshelf. A sparkle in her eyes, and a half smile on her lips, she looks the picture of equanimity.

Many dawns have now passed by in that house in Calicut. Sometimes, during the monsoon season, I gaze at the grove of coconut trees outside. The wind rustles the coconut palms and the foliage sways, like dervishes drunk on divine nectar. Sometimes, a bubble of calm quietens an intense battle in my head. Sometimes, instead of holding onto an angry thought, I just let go, like the Nilambur river. In those times, I feel as if Amaama is watching me, from somewhere, where she is reunited with her beloved Krishna, where she can forever listen to the lilting melody from his flute, where she can watch him play by the Yamuna river. In those times, I feel as if her prayers and love have formed a protective shield, an invisible amulet protecting me from all perils. Love has always been Amaama’s best friend.

Glossary

Fajr – The first of five Islamic prayers, also known as the dawn prayer

Sruthi box – An instrument used in Indian classical singing to help tune the voice

Puja room – A shrine room for worship, religious rituals, prayers, and meditation in a Hindu household

Amaama – Malayalam word for grandmother

Idlies – Steamed rice dumplings, traditionally eaten as a breakfast dish in south India

Buddhi – Malayalam word for intelligence

Murukku – Savoury crunchy snack made from rice flour and lentils

Thatha – Tamil word for grandfather

Deeepam, deepam – The word “deepam” means lamp in Malayalam. In Kerala, at dusk, women carry lit lamps to the entrance of the house, chanting “deepam, deepam” in order to invite light and auspiciousness into their homes.

Midukki kutty – Malayalam term for smart girl

Vitthal – Form of the Hindu god Vishnu or Krishna, as he is known in the state of Maharashtra

Palkhi – Marathi word for palanquin. In this context, the verse refers to a yearly pilgrimage where devotees carry the sandals or padukas of the saint Dnyaneshwar from his shrine at Aalandi to the famous Vitthal temple at Pandharpur. The barefoot pilgrims carry the padukas in a wooden palkhi and the journey takes around 21 days by foot.

Shirdi – A town in Maharashtra, which is the home of Shirdi Sai Baba, a revered fakir or saint

Kaise ho! – Hindi phrase for “How are you?”

Narayaneeyam – An epic poem, comprising of 1,035 verses, narrating the life of Lord Krishna. The poem was composed in the 16th century by Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri, a renowned Sanskrit poet hailing from Kerala.

Unniappam – Sweet dumplings made with rice, banana, jaggery and coconut

Krishna Sruthi Srivalsan is a chartered accountant by profession and is passionate about books, writing, travel, and celebrating diversities, not in any particular order. She firmly believes that human beings should not strive to “fit in” when they are designed to “stand out”. She reads on a variety of subjects and genres and hopes to publish a novel someday.

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

Tags Bay of Bengal, Calicut, Dubai, Kerala, Krishna Sruthi Srivalsan, Tamil Nadu

Stories

Ketchup

By Rakhi Pande

The month of May in 1984. Schools closed, scorching summer heat and best of all, the trip to Lucknow, where the family of five went every summer vacation, without question. Riha, all of seven years old, was ecstatic to have reached her grandparents’ house after the two-day long train journey. The house appeared to be as large as a palace to her. Much bigger than their two-bedroom house in Bombay.

That, however, paled in comparison to this –- the most perfect of all homes to Riha’s young eyes. The aangan* in the centre –- bigger than their private terrace –- with rooms all around, a green garden patch with the open water tank, dank, green water whose depth could not be fathomed by her and which, through an unerring child’s instinct, she kept at a safe distance. The steep, curving staircase with treacherous and oddly angled steps leading up to the roof which secretly scared her; which she was vaguely aware she took much longer to ascend than her cousins who lived here. But once conquered, you were on a long roof with a view of the neighbourhood – and the room on the roof. (This was the best of all houses!) Surely haunted, but only after dark as per her childish logic.

Many years later, when she visited the same house in her mid-twenties, in what was to be her last visit to it – she saw the house just as it was – crumbling and old, destined to be pulled down and replaced by a taller, sleeker rectangular block, having permanently divided the family over its sale proceeds. The staircase which had intimidated her as a child was just ordinary. Mixed feelings and some regret – perhaps she would have preferred those childhood memories to the reality of this crumbling, derelict version.

But this story is about one of the magical days from all the summers spent in that city and of only one of those many mornings. A morning from a riotous summer for Riha along with her two siblings, and five cousins that lived here in the hauntingly enchanted city of Lucknow of the eighties as viewed from the vinyl covered cycle rickshaw seat. The driver laboured over the pedals in a mesmeric rhythm, navigating impossibly narrow streets, cows, street dogs, people, the occasional cars, tempos and handcarts and the noise that was always a part of the city – the shouts, honking, bleating of goats, mingling with the call of the azaan*.

Riha was a happy, confident and an attractive child and though she would vehemently deny it later; citing ‘middle child’ as her defence; perhaps a little pampered by her aunts and uncles here. She woke early with anticipation for the promised outing – utterly excited that they were having an Enid Blyton style morning ‘picnic’, complete with a wicker basket full of buttered buns, the sweet milk bread which she loved and a rajai* and a bedsheet to spread on the grass. They had to go very early, to avoid the dreaded loo* and the heat, which didn’t bother her, but which was just a convenient excuse for her elder cousins and aunts to not play catch or hide and seek with her during the afternoon.

That morning they were approaching the gates of ‘The Residency’, in quite a grand procession of two cycle rickshaws hired in addition to the spotlessly clean and sparkling white Ambassador belonging to her ‘Advocate’ grandfather. Riha was sure they would be the very first visitors here as she had awoken at an impossibly early hour, so she was surprised to see a few people already there –- walking about with dogs on leashes.

They walked quite far from the entrance, on wide green rolling lawns, way past the museum and dungeon, quite close to another set of ruins –- just walls with no roofs bordering unkempt taller grasses. The bedsheet was rolled out, basket deployed and after a while as it got sunnier and sunnier, without quite knowing how, Riha had soon wandered into the semi-walled ruins to explore the ground for unusual stones and wild flowers, her younger brother Aahan trailing behind her as usual.

She smiled at the other girl she saw there, enchanted by her blonde hair – “Hi! Are you here for a picnic too?” she asked, arrested by the lovely crisp white lacy and ruffled “birthday dress” the other girl wore. Only birthday dresses were so beautiful! Riha looked down at her own blue cotton dress, which she had worn a lot many times.

“You’re so lucky your mother let you wear your party dress!” Riha said. The other girl looked down at her dress and that’s when Riha noticed the ketchup patch all down the front of the lovely white dress. Exactly where she had once stained her dress while eating pakodas* with ketchup when her impish younger brother had jolted her arm. She felt immediately concerned and sorry for her –- she knew her mother would be upset and if her mother was anything like hers, there would have been good chances of receiving a stinging slap for messing up her party dress like this.

“Is that your brother?” the girl asked.

Riha nodded. “My brother is here too.” Riha moved closer but could not spot the other boy –- hoping he could be a playmate for her brother. He must’ve wandered off.

“Who’re you talking to?” said Aahan. Riha rolled her eyes knowing her brother was annoying her as usual.

“How rude, Aahan!” She looked at the girl, sharing the – ‘younger brothers!’ look. “Sorry about him… I’m Riha, what’s your name and why don’t you come and play with us?” she invited, frowning at Aahan.

“I’m Mary. Look,” she pointed across the greens, “My mother is calling us –- I have to go.”

Riha could not quite spot which of the women in the far distance Mary was indicating, but she was not happy at the thought of losing a newfound playmate.

“I’ll walk with you till you find your mother and we could ask her permission to play with us – we are a big group here,” she confidently proclaimed.

“Okay, I’ll ask her, maybe we can meet near the museum after some time,” smiled Mary.

“Okay, bye!” shouted Riha, happily.

Riha looked around for Aahan but he must have run off earlier. As she left the ruins, she saw her aunt halfway there, calling her to come quickly away from the dangerous ruins.

“They’re not dangerous at all!” scoffed Riha.

“Who were you talking to?” her mother asked. “Aahan said you were trying to scare him by pretending to talk to someone.”

Riha plonked herself down on the sun-soaked sheet and glared at Aahan. Why were younger brothers such pests? Describing the encounter, she couldn’t resist remarking how the other girl had been allowed to wear such a nice dress to a park. “But didn’t you say she’d spilled ketchup on it?” retorted her mom.

With the elders finding it too hot, it was time to leave but Riha insisted on stopping by the museum to say goodbye to Mary and dragged the whole family there. After waiting for a while it was clear no one was coming there and Riha was reluctantly made to leave, with promises of one more picnic there for sure.

Now, years later, sitting on the sagging charpai*, under the bright stars that evening in that old house, the moment triggered a memory of the picnic to the Residency. In her teens she had been quite intrigued by the history of the place and read about the slaughter of the British families including women, children and babies there during the siege of 1857. She remembered quite vividly that evening years ago, cuddling on her grandmother’s roomy lap on the same charpai.

Naniji* had surprised her by asking for a detailed account of the girl she had met. In Riha’s world, that morning was already firmly in the past. Her grandmother was quite interested in the ketchup stain too. Later, she had noticed the elders having a discussion in whispers and looking at her.

Annoyingly, Aahan was allowed to hover around them or perhaps they hadn’t noticed. He had then galloped up to her and shouted in glee, “See, I told you, you met a ghost! That was not ketchup, it was blood!”

Glossary:

*Aangan = an inner open courtyard

*Aazan = Islamic call to prayer

*Rajai = block printed comforter/ duvet

*Loo = hot and dry summer wind

*Charpai = traditional Indian woven bed

*Nani – Maternal grandmother, ‘ji’ a respectful suffix

Rakhi Pande heads the English department at a British curriculum school in Dubai, UAE. She segued into this profession after quitting her erstwhile post as General Manager in the field of brand management in India. Having spent her formative years in Mumbai she has spent a decade in each profession before exploring greener pastures abroad. An avid reader and award-winning educator, while dabbling with blogging and other creative pursuits, she tries to write whenever time permits. Hopefully, there’s a book in her.

www.linkedin.com/in/rakhi-pande-362a387

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

Tags Dubai, Lucknow Residency, Rakhi Pande

Musings

Hope never dies; not even during the times of Corona

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date April 6, 2020
2 Comments on Hope never dies; not even during the times of Corona

By Rituparna Mahapatra

This feels so dystopian. The world today. The television streaming clippings of people, suddenly thrown out of work and asked to leave, to go back to wherever; just leave. Isolation is the keyword, it seems. Lock yourself in your homes, if you don’t have a home somewhere; in a drain pipe, a hole, a box anywhere. Just leave they have been told. They have been let down by the cities of their dreams, the people they worked for, the world collectively. Can we do anything about it? Nothing! And we hang our heads in shame, in our living rooms.

Panic grips as I learn, in Italy the death toll has crossed ten thousand. I don’t want to know, but the WhatsApp forwards, don’t let me be. I have heard great leaders speak that they have everything under control, the fear on their faces, still visible. I don’t believe them. I look for the latest data on a live update on the virus, my finger going touching the names of the places, I had dreams of visiting.

I live in one of the most affluent cities in the world, we have been blessed with abundance. Food, water, electricity, shelter. our city is being sanitized I hear, and I feel protected. But then fear is not far behind, every time I get to know someone, who is not supposed to have stepped out of the home; is irresponsible.

The truth is, none of us is safe anymore, anywhere. Dubai, New Delhi, New York, Madrid, Rome, Paris; all of them vulnerable, and heartachingly weak in the face of this Pandemic. I try and think of something cheerful and look at a picture of our friends on my phone at the last house party. So, we decide to meet online, the familiar faces smiling back to me from a computer screen. We laugh, chat and raise a toast. It feels like ‘almost normal’. It will be a while till we get to hug them touch them, till then these smiling faces are good enough. I am thankful for them. This will be over soon. This surreal life that we are living in.

Our kids are attending school from their bedrooms, sometimes huddled in their beds; their identities shrunk to initials. Their beloved teachers are just faces attempting to cheer them up while teaching. They struggle to focus on solving that equation, while the pet dog lying at their feet is vying for attention. Dogs and cats are immune to the virus, I am told. You can hug them as much as you can. That for me seems to be the only silver lining.

I share pictures of my cooking with my friends, a beautiful watermelon and feta cheese salad, tossed with balsamic vinegar. I have stocked up well to cook exotic meals so that my family is not bored. I have planned our meals for days in advance, every meal promises to be a surprise, to bring a twinkle in the eye. While I bask and revel in my culinary and ‘disaster management skills’; a friend shares a picture of an old lady walking alone towards home thousands of miles away, since transport has been shut for the Pandemic. More pictures come in of people swarming, towards a place. A place that will be safe for them. Does such a place exist? What do these people know of social distancing? Social distancing is a privilege, for them. I cringe, my stomach churns and I feel terribly uneasy. The privileges I have are the reason, I am devasted by them.

This — I am told is grief. Oh, is it? If this is grief, then it’s good. I am relieved. My greatest fear was that one day I will be sanitized to all these happenings around me. The face of that old woman is going to haunt me. I feel guilty of being blessed with an abundance of food, of shelter, of feeling happy, after chatting with my friends. Since, when has this crept into our lives? Since when has ‘feeling happy’ become loaded with so much of heaviness and helplessness. This is becoming too much, these ramblings in my mind. These are calamities I can do nothing about. I still have to cook, sing, paint, write; do things that make me happy and keep me sane.

Suffering has always been there in this world; even before I was. Every time someone laughed, there has been at least one person somewhere in utter sadness. I grieve for all things lost, for everything that shouldn’t have happened. I have tremendous respect for the health workers, the cleaners, the researchers looking for an antidote. Each one of them, who have risked their lives for mine. And I am not going to just clap, I will do more, I promise. While most of the things look grim; I have hope. Hope for humanity to bounce back. This is a time for great learning, at every moment. We will do our bit in our way when we are ready.

The world has shrunk, we all have come together. There is no superior nation, no superior power anymore. We all have been battered equally; we stand broken. And we will come out of it collectively, till then we have to hold on to each other. Cherish every happy occasion and shed a tear for every death, in every corner of the earth. Because that is the balance, the fulcrum on which this world will keep going. My family back home, are making bread at home to distribute to the stray dogs. They are making sure that the wages are paid to the employees. These small things; are hope personified. I am sure there are many like this amongst us. We just have to find ways. There is a way. There always is. I smile; this time without feeling guilty. I sigh and cup my face with my hands. Someone shrieks, “no don’t touch your face”. I dash towards the rest room, wash my hands, reach out for the sanitizer bottle, and say a prayer!

Rituparna Mahapatra, is writer based in Dubai. She taught English literature at Sambalpur University, Orissa and Delhi University. She worked briefly with Britannica India, and has contributed to many leading newspapers both regional and national. Currently she is editor-at-large UAE, of Kitaab.org; and teaches creative writing in English.

Tags Delhi University, Dubai, Kitaab, Rituparna Mahapatra

Poetry

Saturday Morning Musings

By Sheldon John Dias

Gazing into a mirror on a Saturday morning…

As I gaze into the crystal flattened and stretched

I search for meanings – of life and of memories etched.

Who am I?

Where am I?

Why am I?

Here?

I ask myself these questions till I faintly hear :

You are chaos

You are the cosmos

You are light and darkness

Shining brightly through prisms of uncut gems.

Alive in a spectrum of life and death and then life again.

You are the elaichi in kadak chai

The icing on macaroons and

Pani in the hands of the puchkawala.

You are the dal in the khichdi and

every grain of atta in your paratha.

You are the pandal blocking the road on Durga Puja.

You are the magician at the end of his Act saying, “ Ta da”.

You are a drop of rain. You are the ocean.

You are the sun and moon and stars altogether.

You are the highways and by-ways

And dead ends of a one- way street to bedlam.

You are the question and the answer.

You are the lie and the truth.

You are no one and everyone.

You are a mystery of this universe

but not a mystery to you!

Sheldon John Dias is an Educational Supervisor and a teacher of English and Drama at GEMS Modern Academy, Dubai. He has also served on several examination boards and panels. He is passionate about theatre and elocution and is currently working on his first book

Tags Dubai, GEMS, John Sheldon Dias, theatre