Not Ptolemy’s Kasperia, nay, not Kashyap Mar – Kasheer is the abode of irrevocable loss. Homes razed to ground by centuries of betrayal: we stand as mute specters – the ruins and I.
Kalhana, your word is lost! Spiritual defeat has finally come to pass. The era of pit dwellers and sun worshippers is gone, And now the faithless grave worshippers abound.
“In time past, we were; in time future, we shall be; Throughout the ages, we have been,” quoth Laila Arifa. I shove back the diggers, frantic to cover the long-lost city buried in my mind.
Kasheer might have forgotten the monster Jalodbhava, Were it not for the wine bottles dangling from barbed wires. I had happily lost my memory of you, until It was revived by the fish bones on mountain tops.
The mythical, the legendary -- that Kasheer is non-existent. The snow endures longer than the memory of the dead. It’s getting way too dark. Tell me a new story– of Kasheer – the land reclaimed from the sea of sighs.
From Public Domain
Glossary
Kasperiais the ancient Greek name of Kashmir as mentioned by Ptolemy
Kashyap Mar is he abode of Kashyap, Kashmir, in Kashmiri
Kasheer is Kashmir in Kashmiri
Kalhan wrote Ratnagiri, an account of the history of Kashmir
Laila Arifa is a 14th century poetess who wrote in Kashmiri
Jalodbhava or Waterborn was a mythical demon who tormented the inhabitants of Lake Satisar in Kashmir. He was destroyed by the joint efforts of the sage Kashyap, Parvati and Vishnu. His destruction destroyed the lake and led to the formation of Srinagar, the current capital of Kashmir.
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Saba Zahoor, an engineer from Kashmir and self-styled peasant poet, views poetry as a portal to alternate realities and has been published in several literary outlets.
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A river bridge in Minneapolis, the ragged sky all cloaked in river mist.
The only man to make the Furies weep plaintively sings; he can no longer sleep.
In verdant meadows high above Rhodope, shades cling to cypresses with little hope.
A backward glance in Avernus’s valley left us these songs and ruined Eurydice.
Twice dead is dead; though hyacinths still bloom, the rooks will leave their shadows on the moon.
EARLY AUTUMN
A northern flicker kicking up small clouds
of dust and needle duff beneath the blue spruce
in the yard. Some sparrows flit away from the lone
land-foraging woodpecker. I’ve seen the bird before,
I’d like to say, but it’s probably not the one
that drummed the soffit of our roof so many
mornings in a row a couple springs ago.
ANOTHER AUTUMN
That saw-whet owl in the boxwood along the banks of Ecorse Creek.
Woodland sunflowers yellow above the mud, their green leaves glistening
with water. October rain has turned to October sun.
A culvert sings with run-off. I wonder if the built world will reclaim me.
Greek Mythology: Haemus and Rhodope turning into Mountains as they were punished by Zeus for calling themselves Zeus and Hera. Greek Mythology: Eurydice dies of snakebite as she was about to be wed to her beloved Orpheus. From Public Domain
Cal Freeman is the author of the books Fight Songs, Poolside at the Dearborn Inn, and The Weather of Our Names. He lives in Dearborn, MI, and teaches at Oakland University.
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Ogden Nash is the finest. The snobs who dismiss his work are knobs and jerks whose heads should be examined and given an F minus. Of his talent they have not a tenth. I mean, flipping heck! Lacking depth is his strength.
And now for some HAIRY QUESTIONS… Werewolf? Whywolf? Howwolf? Whenwolf? Whatwolf? Whowolf?
Questions like those never can be answered because the facts are tactless and the fangs will leave you gutless on nights of a full moon. The lycanthropic topic is one best avoided and thus I will always avoid it.
I made myself a sandwich. I made it for my health. I am a self-made man despite my lack of wealth.
I made myself a promise I would be a bitter gourd cut into fancy segments by an even fancier sword.
Unlike okra I’m not slimy. If you ever dare to try me I’m a vegetable Cockney, I must say, “gourd blimey.”
Is that all? No, it certainly isn’t.
Lady Rickshaw claims we are all ghost ships on the streets of cities, drifting here and there.
That’s modern civilisation for you: please join the queue for the time machine.
But in more barbaric times in chillier climes…
Our cavemen noses glow in the cold. They never grow when we are old but snowmen’s noses linger for longer and their nostrils resemble craters.
The comet made from ice, interstellar, vast, oblivious, very fast, will strike that fellah dead when it hits his head.
And now let’s take a trip to ANCIENT GREECE
A gorgon’s internal organs must be clever forgeries. She turns heroes to stone, in pairs or if they’re alone, and when destiny calls and Greece finally falls those statues will be taken to Rome, their new home.
But the gorgon’s heart will never beat a rhythm you can dance to. It won’t thump like a man-bull’s hoof-shaped shoes, that’s true. No swirling sonic brews amuse our motley crews.
I’ve had better days lost in this maze: one time I almost found my way out, said the Minotaur…
Fenugreek Mythology featuring Hercules and Coriander leaves, Turmeric and Ulysses, Centaurs and Bottle Gourds on a bed of saffron rice is nicer to devour than plain old Greek mythology.
Tell me honestly: have you ever seen A GHOST?
Death’s anniversary, is a ghost’s birthday: blowing out cake candles with supernatural breezes he teases the ectoplasm, a professional phantasm.
Are spooks international?
I am turning Japanese after a sneeze because some wasabi went up my nose. Kimonos are my clothes.
Also, I play shogi with my toes. (Shogi is a kind of chess: I’m glad to get this off my chest).
Now let’s have a SELF-REFERENTIAL HAIKU
Counting syllables when confronted with haiku ruins the effect.
That’s done. Where else can we find our fun?
Do you know the tale of Patriarchy and Mehitabel? Do you know the tail that twitches on the windowsill?
The proof is in the pudding, or so they say, but I think I know a better way: the waterproof is in the puddling duck.
A vestige of a visage? My face is the place where my luck never runs out. It may lack grace, a waste of features belonging to other creatures, but each to their own.
The philosopher doesn’t like my tone: he tells me to ponder harder but not to think about swamp imps named Marsha. Easily done: I don’t know anyone with that name.
Harsher, he calls me timid, says I am a coward. Coward? But how? I don’t know the meaning of that word but I can work it out and applied to me it’s quite absurd. It means to move in the direction of a cow, or many cows, a herd.
Have mercy if you’re thirsty. Be ruthless if you’re toothless.
Do farm girls grow on you over time, seasonally?
A question I can’t answer because I am a scarecrow. No one planted me, I do not grow. I do not know a single thing.
But I can take a guess about the mess made by guests at dinnertime. Billabong Monkeys dunk their feet in the soup in groups much larger than gorillas are long.
Is that a SONG? Somehow, I don’t think so.
And now let’s have some Soliloquies for Stringless Guitars.
Kiss her through the mask. Miss her through the cask.
Foxglove Alley. Weasel Stockings. Garter Snakes, real and fake. Rotten Shed and Rusty Rake. I venture down the Cul-de-Sac of Frogs. I lost my way in the fogs.
That isn’t fog: it’s sand. That’s no frog: it’s a panda. Are you an understander? There is no great demand for sand disguised as mist and so we insist you redo the list of things you wish to purchase in the sopping shops that underwater lie.
Swinging on a garden gate, it’s far too late to palpitate at sunset but the day’s still too early to fly away and so you may barbaric be, barbaric bee, barbaric beer.
Beer comes in at the mouth. Jokes come in at the ear. Foam comes out of the nose. POOR ATTILA lost his clothes during a drunken stupor. It’s not ideal but he is super.
Attila was very short. Only one metre tall and nocked with battle scars at one centimetre intervals. No wonder he was such an effective ruler!
He wanted his wife to call him ‘Darling’ in the marriage bed but she insisted on calling him ‘Hun’ instead.
Oh dear! Have no fear: King Lear has shed a tear that splashes on the lashes of the whip that thickens cream in dreams.
When I was younger I had a narrow mind and only thought of narrow things: tight corridors, blocked canals, mountain ledges, malnourished gulls, ladders designed for stick insects, crevices into which no man could fall.
But now I am older and think only of wide things like canyons and gulfs, the open mouths that shout bravo at gigs, the taste in literature of well-read people, the square bases of the mighty steeples perched on churches in historical towns, the flapping gowns of aristocratic vamps, the pipe bowl of my eccentric gramps and the prehistoric snouts of pigs snuffling for unripe but fallen figs.
Listen closely, my dear…
My love for you might sound hyperbolic to hyperactive alcoholics. But it will sound perfectly fine to good romantic folks.
Now here’s a thing: sea roofs on the inside are called sea lings.
Freshwater otters in Goa. Salty authors in the shower. Both are so clean but only the latter dare dream of rivers of cash. The former dream only of fish.
FOR A FLUTE?
Love for a flute is holy love because a flute without holes is a stick and love for sticks makes me sick but flutes have holes thus my stomach will settle at the base of the kettle and I will laugh: tea-hee cough-hee.
The frozen lion thaws before he roars.
A thaw in the old ball bearings and the machinery of his desire began working again.
The machine marks time like a strict examiner puffing out his metal cheeks in the weeks before the summer holidays.
Do machines really play the drums?
As a rule of thumb, yes! Keeping the beat with steel feet. How neat. What a treat. The soul of the dance is deep in the soles. The heels heal the heart.
We have our whole lifetimes A HEAD of us in which to try out new hairstyles, she said. She knew what she was talking about. The barber’s wife.
The gentle love drizzle puzzles the riddler. The lion is sizzling in the meri jaan frying pan over the fire of our heartfelt desire.
And that’s the end of the line for the wandering rhymes and the Nomads of the Bone will soon end up back home.
*meri jaan is an endearment in Hindi meaning my life
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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“And suddenly, among all those people I didn’t know, I had this strange feeling, this implausible realisation that I was seeing him for the first time. Handsome, confident, articulate in a language I still cannot follow with grace. And I felt this pang inside, you know, as if a naughty elf inside me were swaying my heart with a rope. How can I see my husband for the first time after having been married to him for almost eight years?”
Rosalia remained silent, observing for some speculating seconds the little square of tablet that Rita had brought for their tea.
“Your husband is exactly like this sweet, darling, which, by the way, is delicious. I need the recipe before you leave.”
“Like tablet?” Rita inclined her head to the right in the exact same way her daughter did when she heard anything worth clarification. “My grandmother Cochrane would be very honoured to know you like her Scottish tablet so much. I cannot make anybody eat it at home. Henry says it’s too sweet and Maggie too sticky.”
“Well…,” Rosalia sighed, “for me it’s perfect, and I am sure nobody in this office will say no to this morsel of Heaven. It reminds me of a dulce de leche candy my detestable mother-in-law used to make in Buenos Aires for Christmas. As you can see, even her perfect evilness was imperfect.”
Rita smiled again and rejoiced at the fact that she could come to visit her older friend at the Castelo de San Jorge with the express purpose of selfishly collecting smiles like Maggie used to collect peacock feathers in the garden before she started going to kindergarten. Rosalia’s office was a new environment for their meetings now. A step up on the podium of a friendship that had begun outside the Castelo box office under a narrow eave on a humid stone bench. Rita loved to breathe in the peace of the office, with its austere decor and dark wooden cabinets that had once cherished the delicate porcelain of Portuguese queens and now held Rosalia’s dictionaries alongside maps, brochures, and tourist forms for all those who came to witness the royal luxury of ancient times.
“So, do you mean that this feeling of seeing Henry again for the first time at the bank’s banquet is sweet like my grandmother’s tablet?”
“Not exactly. When I saw those brownish cubes on the plate, I was convinced that it would be difficult for me to bite into them. You know, my weak teeth and all that. But then I bit into one of them, and it melted on my tongue. And I felt this torrent of pleasure bursting in my mouth. I think what happened to you on Saturday is that you saw Henry like random people usually see him. You heard a far echo of the vision you had of him when you fell in love.”
Rita’s inner elf jumped from her heart to her face to make her frown and purse her lips at the same time.
“But sadly,” Rosalia continued, “you already know that what you saw is an act. The source of your confusion and your loneliness. You love a vision in a dream, a beautiful piece of candy in a perfect window shop that gets further and further away as you get closer.”
A soft knock at the door interrupted the old woman’s thought and let Rita take a sip of tea to conceal her disillusionment. Rosalia took the documents that Victor brought, turned to her side desk, and placed one of the pages in her sturdy IBM Selectric. She adjusted the corners of the paper as if she were folding a handkerchief for the ghost of one of the queens that had inhabited the Castelo centuries ago. Rosalia’s eyes were fixed on the rectangular screen of her typewriter as she turned toward Rita and pronounced in perfect French, “Trompe-l’oil…. trompe-l’oil[1] people I call them. What you see is never what you get. The man I married and later divorced, so many decades ago, was like that. Sometimes, out of the blue, I remember how elegant and self-confident he seemed to be, and still, after all this time, that elf you mentioned still plays tricks with my heart and its cords. Do you know the legend of the two Greek painters of ancient times?”
Rita looked up from her cup and raised her left red-haired eyebrow as an invitation.
“There was a competition to declare the most realistic painter in the land. Zeuxis and Parrhasius presented their art. The grapes that Zeuxis had painted were so impossibly real that birds flew into them and crushed their beaks and heads on the purple spheres. They died a cruel death, believing they were tasting the sweetest pulps and the bitterest seeds. Zeuxis, sure of his triumph, asked his opponent where his painting was. Parrhasius walked him in front of the curtain that hid his work. ‘Draw this cloth and you will see it,’ he said humbly. But Zeuxis’ eager hand trampled on the folds of a fake, perfect drapery made of shades, hues, and light. Parrhasius won not only the prize but the admiration of his enemy.”
Rita inclined her head to the left. “I’m sorry for the birds.”
“That’s why I don’t tell this story much. My granddaughter has a phobia of birds that decide to fly stubbornly in the wrong direction. I’m afraid I instilled that in her with this tale.”
Rita picked up a brown crumb from her saucer. “If only I could draw aside the curtain Henry places between himself, Maggie, and me. I’m a good wife. I don’t know what else to do.” Rita dropped the crumb and killed an imminent sob with the tip of her finger.
“You are like the candid birds, my child. You are hurt but strong. Cannot you see? You’re making sweets with the salt of tears, pure visions of love with the threads of deceit.”
Fabiana Elisa Martínez authored the collections 12 Random Words and Conquered by Fog. Other works of hers have been published in literary publications on five continents.
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Writing about Lucknow’s fabled monuments has set me free to regurgitate images and feelings (‘ehsaas‘ as the Urdu equivalent goes) that call for effusive recollections. When the praxis of location and travel stand side by side, words flow out of the material foundations of structures that court our instant awe. Another fabled monument that rewrites the architectural-historical continuum of Awadh in that admirable vein is Bibiapur Kothi (Mansion); there’s just something sturdy about its presence in one of the most beautifully quiet corners of the cityscape.
Blessed by the legendary aesthetic choices of Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula, one of the most prominent architects of Lucknow, and built by architect Antoine Polier and his dedicated team in the latter part of the 18th Century, Bibiapur Kothi is a vision of grandeur. Legend has it that it was a favourite country retreat for the Nawabs as well as a centre for another arcane ritual from the past — hunting.
Like it always happens, visiting this site is like opening a door and entering the mystifying corridors of a past that can never be replicated. The neo-classical architectural style itself is easy on the eyes as spacious arches, halls, high roofs and round pillars — hypnotic ballasts of extreme strength – mesmerize the visitor. An enchanting spiral staircase divides this space into two storeys while the halls and Greek columns, beautifying its iconic exteriors, make us hark back to the glory days of interracial socialization that prevailed here. Lakhauri[1]betweenbricks and majestic stones’ sturdy network further arrests our undivided attention.
Imagine the masked balls, coronations (such as that of Saadat Ali Khan as the legend goes) and exquisite mehfils (musical/ poetic congregations) marked this mansion and its prominence for both for the native and colonial understanding of Awadh’s sensibilities, particularly Lucknow as the harbinger of urban sophistication.
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Even for a modern traveller who can visualise yesteryears’ customs and etiquettes, the place is like a replica for the way the people lived and loved the essence of Lucknow. One can hear the hooves of equestrian sentinels guiding elaborate carriages, imagine a nawab reminiscing of a beloved while beholding the moon from the second floor and guests spread out under these roofs and occupying the hall, deep in conversations that could make or break the cultural sphere of influence tied intimately to regional politics. So, it’s natural that the more credulous storytellers still believe in this space holding fort for ghostly travellers who, it seems, just can’t escape the thrilling sensibilities of this particular realm.
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Bibiapur Mansion is a visual delight. Its current locational axis generates awe for discerning visitors. Today, one has to take a straight drive from the Dilkusha corridor and nestled within the cantonment area beyond an old railway line is this architectural wonder. An army sentry guides us further as we enter the gateway and a world of trees, vegetation, cricket’s unified whispers, quarters and a granary beholden to the cantonment board fall in the pathway. Everything has old-world charm. The passage invites to the visitor like a transcendent experience. Surrounded by ancient trees, some with beautiful forms and thickets relaying the permanence of this area’s timelessness, is this fabled monument.
Sunlight lights up its walls and every now and then a langur(monkey) sprawling his long tail stands guard over the gates. The staircases, spacious compound, arched entryway and the glory of the Greek columns touched by the inimitable mix of lakhauri and current-day refurbishments awe us.
Here at Bibiapur Mansion, everything has a presence. Everything is accessible and iconic. In the absence of noise and marked by surfeits of wonder, we travel to the past while celebrating the immediate moments that brought us to this place.
Here, History and Wonder never sleep for long. Rather they awaken a new sentience.
Prithvijeet Sinha is an MPhil from the University of Lucknow, having launched his prolific writing career by self-publishing on the worldwide community Wattpad since 2015 and on his WordPress blog An Awadh Boy’s Panorama. Besides that, his works have been published in several journals and anthologies.
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“This is just like Midsomer Murders without the murders!” I quipped to Alex.
Midsomer Murders was one of my favourite British crime shows. In particular, I loved the depiction of English village life, where villagers gossiped on the village green. The only problem was when the happy village life was interrupted by a gruesome and unexpected murder. Then I had to place my hands before my eyes to block out the scene of the murder in case the camera lingered there too long.
Alex, Verity and I were visiting the Mypunga Markets in the South Australian countryside. The first vendor was selling a wide selection of eye-wateringly delectable Greek cakes. To our right was an Italian wine-grower selling his wines, such as Pinot Grigio, from a nearby vineyard. A Korean stall holder was selling kimchi[1]. Perhaps the offerings were a tad more multicultural that those depicted on the village green in Midsomer Murders. Farmers sold organic vegetables and local dairies sold cheeses. We stopped to soak in the sounds of a group of elderly ukulele players. Shoppers were wearing home-spun hand-knitted jumpers, scarves and beanies, carrying shopping bags made of cheesecloth. I revelled at being on the set of the South Australian equivalent of the village green in Midsomer.
Our purpose for driving into the countryside was twofold. After the market, we went to the shed at Alex’s hobby farm to collect some firewood. Alex unlocked the gates at the roadside entrance, and we drove through the spotted eucalypts, wound up and down the hill through the gorge to eventually arrive at the shed. The roller door was wide open. This was the first time we had been greeted by an open roller door. We parked and peeked inside.
“Don’t go in, Dad!” screamed Verity.
Plastic tubs had their lids off. Children’s toys were scattered. Furniture was tipped over. The new off-grid battery modules, in the process of being installed, had been ripped out and strewn on the floor. We could not turn on the lights because they were powered by the batteries.
We carefully continued our entry into the huge dark shed lest we surprise the burglars and become a victim ourselves. No-one was there. I looked in the ancient sideboard I had inherited from my grandmother and opened the top drawers. My forty-year-old flutes were missing. Were the burglars flautists?
We righted the upturned furniture, returned the toys to the plastic tubs, affixed the lids and stacked them neatly. Then Alex got on the phone to his young employee, Troy.
“Would you mind getting hold of a battery-powered camera and placing it up high in the gum tree facing the shed door?” he asked. “We need surveillance.”
It was Saturday and Troy’s day off, but he was willing to assist Alex, and by 9 pm that evening he had purchased a camera and placed it where requested. He used the drop-down menu to ensure that notifications of camera images would come to his phone.
We returned home with the firewood. At least the burglars hadn’t stolen that. We lit a fire in the fireplace and luxuriated in front of it, savouring the delights we had purchased at the Mypunga markets. Now we had a camera installed, surely, we would be safe.
At 5 am the next morning the telephone rang. It was Troy. Alex’ phone had been on bedtime mode, and he could not have received calls any earlier.
“They’ve broken in again,” said Troy. “At 2.38 am. This time with a car. The footage came to my phone.”
“Are you there now?” asked Alex.
“Yes. I came straight here when I got the notification.”
“OK. We’ll head over there this morning. Have you called the police?”
“Yes. They’re coming shortly.”
Usually, I savour sleeping in on the weekend, or in fact on any day, but suddenly I had no desire to continue nestling between the brushed cotton sheets. I had been jolted awake.
“Are we going now?” I asked Alex.
“Soon. I have to wait for the hardware store to open. I want to buy some metal reinforcements to secure the shed door. Because we have no power, I’ll have to buy an inverter to power my tools.”
We drove towards Mypunga, first stopping at the hardware store en route to buy the bolts and then at an electronic’s store to buy the inverter. When we arrived at the farm we stopped at the gates to check the locks. The chain had been cut with bolt cutters. Then came a phone call from Troy.
“Are the police here?” asked Alex.
“Yes. They have collected fingerprints and DNA samples. They are coming out now to talk to you.”
Soon we were joined at the gates by four detectives and Troy. It was 11 am. Troy had been on the site for at least six hours, not to mention having been there at 9 pm the night before to install the cameras. He excused himself and the detectives explained to Alex the evidence they had found. The visit from the previous day had been a stake-out on foot. Once they had discovered the batteries, they had resolved to return with a car. The batteries were too heavy to have been carried out on foot. But not the flutes. They were much lighter than the batteries.
The police promised to examine the footage carefully. It captured the arrival of the car, and three men with torches circling the shed. One of the men had spied the camera, seized it, and thrown it down the hill. After that the images from the camera were of the surrounding grass. The detectives left and Alex and I drove up and down the winding track to the shed. The roller door was wide open. We entered, and the carefully stacked boxes again were opened and the lids strewn around the shed. Toys and hats were scattered. The drawer from which my flutes had been removed was now firmly wedged against the sideboard. They had clearly opened and shut it again, even after having removed the flutes the day before.
Unlike in Midsomer, no-one had been murdered, but there was a strong sense of violation. Burglars had staked out Alex’s shed, upturned the contents, and left with the roller door still open. Returning the very next day after having staked out the property was brazen. There was a dark underside in this countryside location despite the peaceful scene we had observed the previous day in Mypunga, with shoppers in their home-spun hand-knitted jumpers carrying their organic produce in cheesecloth bags. Most likely the thieves were from elsewhere and had followed the battery installer’s vehicle emblazoned “Remote Power Australia”.
A few days later Alex received a call from the detectives requesting a DNA sample, in order to rule him out. Some tools in the shed had been used to remove the batteries, and they had produced a DNA sample from these. Alex agreed, and a constable arrived at the house the next day to take a swab.
“Have you made any progress on the case?” asked Alex.
“We’ve identified the car the burglars used from the footage. It’s a Ford Maverick. That narrows it down quite a bit.”
Meanwhile Alex and Troy restored the camera to the eucalyptus tree, and bought another one which they affixed it to another tree one hundred and fifty feet away. At the detective’s suggestion, the second camera was aimed at the first one. If a burglar took down the first camera they would be filmed by the second camera. Since the batteries had been stolen and there was no power in the shed, the cameras were operated by solar panels. Alex could regularly check for notifications on his phone.
Two months later Alex received a phone call from a constable with a strong northern English accent that transported you to a distant time and place. It was the kind of English you would hear on a British detective show, although not the southeastern English accent of the fictional Midsomer.
“This is Senior Constable Jane Michaels. We have found two flutes. They may be yours. Can you identify them from the photo? I took it with my bodycam.”
Alex showed me his phone. I couldn’t identify them from the photo. However, they had to be mine. Flute theft must be a much rarer crime than battery theft. More people are in need of batteries than a flute.
“If you prefer to identify them in person, I can make myself available next week,” explained the Senior Constable. “The burglars were not what you would call a musical family,” she quipped.
“I’ll give you my partner’s number so that you can contact her directly,” offered Alex.
The next Wednesday a call came from an unknown number. I let it ring out because I never answer unless I know who is calling. Then I listened to the recorded message the caller had left behind.
“It’s Senior Constable Jane Michaels from the Camden Police Station. I’m hoping you can identify those flutes. Please call me back.”
Hearing this English accent made me feel like I was on the set of Midsomer Murders. A frisson of excitement tingled up my spine. It was a warm, old-world and unpretentious accent that I associated with the north of England. (When you hear an English accent by a worker in South Australia, you may feel like you are on the set of a detective show like me, or you may assume they are in the health or policing professions because of the recruitment drives in Britain in these professions.)
“Can you come to Camden Station to identify them? We’ll be there in half an hour.”
I drove to the address she provided, entered through the imposing gates, and parked outside a giant warehouse. I entered the building and pressed a button marked ‘Property recovery’. A constable greeted me from behind a glass partition.
“What have you come to collect?” he asked.
“Two flutes.”
He looked at me quizzically. Flute theft is probably an uncommon crime.
“What?” he asked again.
“Flutes,” I repeated.
He disappeared to the room behind, and Senior Constable Jane Michaels appeared bearing the flutes in their cases. Despite her old-world accent on the phone, she was surprisingly young.
“Are these in fact yours?”
I looked at the cover of the box for the brand, and sure enough, ‘Armstrong’ was written in faded silver letters. This was the flute I had owned since my teenage years.
“How about the batteries? Are you likely to find them?” I asked hopefully.
“We didn’t find them at the property, but it’s an ongoing investigation,” she explained. I could tell from her apologetic tone that she thought we would be unlikely to retrieve them.
I thanked her and left. I returned to my car, the sole one in the enormous car park. As I drove off two constables headed to close the enormous gates behind me, smiling and waving, happy that I had been reunited with my stolen flutes.
I have to hope for Alex’ sake that the batteries will be found. Meanwhile, I haven’t played my Armstrong flute in over forty years, but now that it has been stolen and recovered in a raid, I feel compelled to take it up again. What’s more, who knows whether the recovered flutes will be instrumental in solving the crime of the stolen batteries?
Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.
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Nico hurried off the steamer at Burgaz Island, oblivious of the swarming passengers disembarking and embarking. How long had it been since he had stepped foot on the island of his grandfather’s birth: twelve … thirteen years ? He made a bee-line for the central plaza. There he still stood, Saït Faïk, ever so thoughtful, leaning against that eternal tree. Nico approached the Turkish poet –Grandpa would have been so delighted to be here with us again. I’m sure he would have asked you about the talking seaweed and weeping mussels, Nico mused.
Vasiliki had passed away six years ago, a natural death, probably in his sleep. The old fisherman had asked Nico to have him buried between his wife, Nefeli, and daughter, Myrto, which he dutifully accomplished. Since the adolescent was the sole inheritor, he sold his grandfather’s little house for a good price, which permitted him to live comfortably in Athens while completing his university studies. Indeed, because he was parentless, and because his grades in grammar school were excellent, Nico had qualified for a scholarship. The ambitious student, thus, enjoyed financial ease to continue studying several more years for his doctorate. He excelled in Greek language and literature, French and English philology, in European History. At nights he read and spoke Turkish with several Turkish friends, for the vision of returning to Burgaz stole upon him like those perfumed nights on Burgaz with his grandfather as they contemplated the star-studded sky. That seemed so long ago …
Once his doctoral thesis defended, Nico left Greece and set off for Burgaz, off on an adventure. Poetry had been a major part of his thesis, and he had written quite a few poems, contributing to the university Literary Club’s weekly journal. Some of his poems and short stories caught the eye of an editor in Athens who had them published in a widespread monthly magazine. Soon he was invited to poetry readings and story-telling jousts, and because of these eventful evenings his circle of readers widened like concentric ripples in a pool of water after a rock had been thrown in …
The young poet left Athens not knowing exactly what Destiny held for him … nor what drove him so powerfully to return to the island. Was it because of his love for his grandfather ? His fascination for Saït Faïk? Or both? Saïk’s provided him with inexhaustible inspiration. Perhaps, too, it was the mystery of Burgaz of which his grandfather had so oftentimes spoke. Yes. It might have been that.
The horse-drawn carriage pulled up in front of the long flight of stairs to Zorba’s ‘humble’ home. Nico paid and began to ascend the worn-out mossy steps. Nothing had changed as the fretted gable slowly loomed in front of him. The perfumed scent of azaleas, roses, honeysuckles and pomegranate stirred distant memories. He had written to Zorba about his project to spend some time on Burgaz, and the good merchant, although away for several months in the United States on business, insisted that the young poet stay as long as he wished in his ‘humble’ home. He would be greeted and well-fed by his trusty maid, Zelda.
On hearing carriage bells Zelda rushed out, waiting for the ascending Nico arms akimbo. He dropped his knapsack, shoulder-bag and hugged the good woman. Speaking Greek had been her wont when Nico accompanied his grandfather years ago, but now, since the young man had decided to sojourn in Burgaz, she spoke to him in Turkish. Zelda was pleasantly surprised to hear him reply quite readily in Turkish. In fact, Zelda would prove an excellent tutor for Nico. Her grammar was excellent and her accent easy to understand.
So, after a solid diner, exhausted after a long day of travelling, Nico once again trudged up the steps of the floating stairway, the tinkling sound of the fountain below tickling his ears, opened the door to the room he knew so well with its frescoed ceiling of Greek heroes and large bay window looking out upon the darkened forests and the Marmara Sea. He washed and before drifting off to sleep, read a few chapters from Homer’s Odeyssus, which he always carried with him when ‘on the road’, and several paragraphs from Saït Faïk’s Son Kuşlar (Last Birds), underlining the words he couldn’t understand.
Up early the next morning, Zelda had prepared a breakfast of black olives, goat’s cheese, hard-boiled eggs, bread, butter, rose jam and black tea. She had gone to the local market (it was Tuesday) and would not be back before eleven.
Dressed lightly — the weather was very warm, Nico sauntered down the same long and winding path through the wooded slope that led to the stony beach, hoping Abi Din Bey would still be serving grilled-cheese sandwiches, and spouting poetry for his customers. How the brisk island breeze of the sea swept away the cobs of lingering doubt in Nico’s mind as he descended — doubts that had tortured him because his grandfather would no longer be at his side, physically. Yet, when he stepped upon the beach these doubts evaporated. Vasiliki was there and would always be there. He spotted several fishing boats out at sea. Had Nico built a new boat with the help of his grandfather? Indeed he had. It was the biggest and most beautiful of all his boats! Much bigger than the Nefeli which was still in route towards China. But this wonderful boat would not be launched into the leaden seas: it lay housed in a small museum in Hydra where it can be admired by both the young and the old. In fact, Nico even won an award for that marvellous construction. He had named her Myrto in memory of his grandfather’s daughter. The tombstone engraver, on Nico’s behest, carved the silhouette of his boat on Vasiliki’s gravestone.
Abi Din Bey’s welcoming gate had been sealed! The homely front gardens lay desolate, the trees devoid of fruit, clusters of weed and couch grass grew wild. The poet’s house, albeit perfectly intact, exhaled an odour of negligence. Nico stared at this bleak scene, his heart growing heavy. It had never occurred to him that Abi Din Bey would not come rushing out to greet him. That this solitary man was mortal like all other human beings … like his grandfather. He felt like a child who believes his or her parents immortal out of love for them.
From behind a middle-aged man walked up to him: “Abi Din died about ten or eleven years ago,” he began in a soft voice in broken Turkish. “He has no inheritors, so his house stands derelict and abandoned.”
Nico, snapped out of his despondency, eyed the stranger with mixed emotions. “What of his poetry?”
“Abi Din’s life of a poet held absolutely no interest for most who prefer to live in a cloud of unknowing. Abi Din Bey wrote some excellent poems, but alas no one had ears to listen to them.”
“We listened to them,” remonstrated Nico, though rather lamely.
“I know you did, you and your grandfather, Vasiliki.”
Nico reeled back as if struck by a blow. “How do you know … Who are you?”
“Oh, who I am makes no difference to anyone. But if you insist. I am the pilgrim of the heart, I voyage throughout the world admiring its marvels, an idler preaching the blessings of uselessness. Abi Din was one of those marvels, one of those brilliantly elevated idlers.” With those words, the stranger turned to leave.
Nico caught him by an arm: “Sir, where is the old man who piled up stones on the beach ? I haven’t seen him.”
“Nor will you ever see him again. Gone too, and some say that he recited several passages from Saït Faïk’s Son Kuşlar on his dying breath. Have you read Saït Faïk?”
Overcome by all these converging threads of some hidden or latent fabric beyond his grasp or comprehension, Nico could only stutter: “Well … yes … in fact…”
The other interrupted: “Listen, if you want to pay respects towards Abi Din and Saït, you should buy his house. It’s not very expensive.”
“But you …” The unnamed pilgrim put up a hand.
“I have no possessions. That is my first life principle. I idle my way through countries, people and books like a phantom. You buy it, my friend. Buy it before either Time brings about its ruin or the Burgaz municipality its demolition. For now, there are no plans to do either. It’s a mystery why that quaint house has not caught the eye of some eager artist.” And he gave Nico a wink.
“Mystery?” A sudden bout of remorse paralysed Nico. Had his grandfather not spoken of a mystery on Burgaz?
“Yes, mystery! Isn’t that why you’ve returned?” With that last question left unanswered by a flummoxed Nico, the pilgrim strolled away along the beach, chanting some sea-faring tune.
When Nico came to his senses he literally jumped for joy. he would buy Abi Din’s house, settle on Burgaz and pursue his artistic life simply, wholeheartedly. He could become a resident of Turkey merely by depositing enough money in the Osmanlı Bankası[1]. The anonymous figure of the pilgrim had since vanished into a haze of blue. Nico ran up the winding path to Zorba’s home, where Zelda had been preparing lunch. Excitedly he explained his project. She thought it a smashing idea, and promised to help him with the paper work. They ate, had their coffee, and at two o’clock walked to the crossroads, hailed a carriage and rode to the Town Hall, a majestic, white-washed villa near the centre of town.
On the way, Nico asked Zelda whether or not she knew of a middle-aged man who walked about the island, idling his way here and there. Zelda giggled: “Oh yes, him. The Turks call him Mister başı boş[2]and the Greeks tempelis[3].”
“But he’s far from empty-headed,” remonstrated Nico.
“I’m sure he isn’t, that’s why I call him ‘aylak‘.”
“I don’t know the word.”
“Someone who idles about without any definite destination.” Nico nodded, puzzled none the less at these attributes of a person who seemed quite ‘full-headed’ to him …
The irksome formalities to purchase Abi Din’s house would fill a book. Suffice it to report that in two weeks the house belonged to Nico, once he had deposited enough money in the bank, and of course, bought the house in cash …
Although Nico now spent most of his time in his acquired house, he always ate lunch with Zelda at Zorba’s house, and sometimes dinner. It must be recorded here that Nico was better versed in writing stories than in culinary skills.
Every morning after breakfasting, Nico would roam the hilltops of Burgaz sauntering cheerfully along the dirt paths, jotting down in his little notebook details that caught his eye or thoughts that scudded across his mind. The island air intoxicated him as he conjured up characters and events for future stories or poems.
On Sundays, Nico would attend services at St John’s Greek cathedral, there mingling with the small community members who had taken a liking to this young man, calling him their ‘island writer’! He became a novelty for the islanders, who invited him dine or to read his creations. Meanwhile, several of Nico’s short stories and poems were being published in Athens by his editor and were read by the Greek community in Burgaz. Nico even attempted to write poems and stories in Turkish which Zelda not only corrected, but suggested a more fitting word or subtle syntax structure.
Once a month, Nico took the steamer to Heybeliada, or in Greek, Chalki[4], the third of the four Princess Islands where he was fortunate enough to consult the books at the library of the massive Greek Theological Centre, opened in 1844 for seminarists but closed by the Turkish authorities in 1971. Although prohibited, Nico’s reputation, which had spread to all the islands, allowed him to study at the library, the second largest religious library in the western world, several million tomes behind the Vatican’s. The young artist even managed to work two days a week there. How he managed that remains a mystery.
Once or twice a month, accompanied by Zelda, Nico would go to Büyükada (Big Island) called ‘Prinkipo’ in Greek because it is the largest island of the four, and stroll along a tarred road to contemplate the largest wooden building in Europe, a former Greek orphanage, built by the French in 1898. The Greeks bought it and children who had lost their parents were lodged here until its forced closing in 1964. This eerie-looking structure remained intact. Surrounded by high barb-wire fencing and guarded by savage dogs, no one could enter it. Every time Nico stood before this ominous edifice, he thought of his grandfather who had salvaged him from such a parentless fate. Perhaps, the children here were well taken care of…
One day as Nico sauntered along one of the myriad paths in the wooded hills of Burgaz he came face to face with the idling pilgrim. So delighted was Nico to meet this eccentric character that he began to pour out all the good news that had occurred to him since their last encounter many months ago. The other smiled kindly: “No need to repeat what many have already told me,” he stated indifferently. “Nothing on Burgaz goes unnoticed, especially novelties such as yourself. I wouldn’t want to puff up your pride, but some have considered you as a new Saït Faïk.”
Nico stared at the pilgrim disconcertedly. “I can assure you, my dear friend, that you have made quite a reputation for yourself on Burgaz. And who knows, you may be able to solve the mystery of which your grandfather so often spoke.” Baffled, Nico remained speechless. The other took his arm and they strolled together downwards into the sinking sun.
Nico could not contain his surprise: “How could you know about …”
“About Vasiliki’s mystery? Ah, that would entail hours of explanation, Nico. For now let us discuss your writings, for the intention behind those writings may have given you the key to unlock the mystery.”
The pilgrim paused sniffing the pine- and spruce-scented air. “You know, many writers have lost touch with reality, or have been completely overwhelmed by it. They seem incapable of telling a story, transmitting the joys and sorrows of their characters whose traits lie deep in their own hearts, imprisoned like birds in a cage, fluttering frantically, unable to express the Truth of what lies beneath the masks and costumes. Saït Faïk, Edgar Poe, Dino Buzzati[5], Guy de Maupassant[6], Somerset Maugham, Katherine Mansfield all drew their inspiration from fragments of a separate reality, the glints of a deflected flood of light, the shards of a broken vase to disclose the experiences of their characters, to bestow upon their readers the amalgamated emotions that flew freely from their hearts. Their stories and poems are not talk-of-the-day productions. They were derived from the unlocking of the cage, the flight outwards into the battlefield between joy and sorrow. You would think that their eyes were turned both inwards and outwards at the same time. There is something powerful, even sacred, if I may use that word, in their narrated experiences, which does not necessarily entail the use of I, nor does it insinuate a ‘message’ to be harnassed or brought into line by the opinionated or bigoted. The syntax rhythms and word combinations expose the élan or the coming and going between the inward and the outward regard … I discern in your regard that inward and outward alternating vision, the aura that enhaloes your stories and poems. But mind you, this is only an idler’s perception.”
“What do you mean by aura?” Nico, crimsoning under the weight of so many complex compliments, managed to ask, almost out of breath.
“The halo of tradition that all sincere writing bears,” came the succinct reply. “A poem or a short-story, as in your case, bears an aura familiar to the reader, yet whose tale and expression of this tale transports him or her to strange, unfamiliar places. This is especially noticeable in your Turkish writings, an uncanny concoction of familiarity and eeriness. Perhaps it’s due to Zelda’s mixed origins.”
Nico stopped in his tracks, a blank look on his face. “Yes, Zelda, who, when we cross paths, addresses me as the ‘aylak‘. Her father was a remarkable writer and professor of philosophy in Greece and in Turkey. She inherited much of his wisdom as well as her mother’s strong character.” Nico stood stunned by this revelation.
“Zelda is only …”
“Only what, my friend ? Zorba’s maid or servant ? Ah ! I see you haven’t delved deep enough into the hearts of those who are very close to you. I’ve noted, too, that you have never written one line or verse about your deceased grandfather.”
Nico, stung to the quick by the very truth of that remark, bowed his head. He felt a surging wave of shame, and on this billowing wave rode an undulating image of a squealing seal that he and his grandfather had admired on their fishing adventure — an image gradually over-shadowed by another, more fuzzy, the stiffening body of a seagull on a pebbly shore near the mouth of a cavern.
The mild voice of his companion brought back these troubling scenes: “When all is said and done you will surely open wider the cage and let fly the encaged birds towards brighter poetic heights. Heights that perhaps you have yet to imagine.” With those comforting but enigmatic words the pilgrim turned to leave. He halted and asked: “Tell me, have you been to Granada?”
“Granada, Spain? No I haven’t, why?”
“You look like someone I met there.” The idler disappeared downwards into the crimson glint of sunset.
Nico ran back to Zorba’s house, undecided whether to speak to Zelda about her family. He never dreamed of broaching the subject to her as she herself had never bought up.
When the young writer had lumbered up those mossy steps he found Zelda seated on an armchair in the corner of the dining room, a shadow of gloom etched on her face. Her eyes were red. Wordlessly, she handed him a letter. It was written in faulty Greek, addressed to Zelda from an associate of Zorba’s in New York. A moment later Nico looked at Zelda with deep compassion. Zorba had died of a heart attack. His body would be sent to Burgaz for burial, accompanied by several of his associates who intended to buy his house.
“What will happen to me?” were Zelda’s first strained words. “I refuse to live in the same house with strangers even if they are Zorba’s associates.”
“Have you any family, Zelda? Anywhere to go? Anyone to help you financially?” She nodded in the negative to all these questions.
Nico sat down beside her: “Listen Zelda, come live with me, it’s a bit cramped, but at least you will have a roof over your head, food on the table, and a good friend who will always be at your side.”
Zelda dried her eyes and stared at Nico in embarrassment.
“I’m old enough to be your mother,” she said faintly.
“Exactly!” responded Nico excitedly. “You shall be the mother I hardly ever knew, in the same way that the presence of Abi Din in his house has been the father I hardly ever knew. How my grandfather would rejoice at that family reunion, however surreal, if I may say so.” Zelda smiled.
And with that acquiescing smile the two orphaned destinies appeared to converge into one …
[1] The biggest bank of Turkey at the time of Nico’s arrival specializing in international transactions. (Ottoman Bank).
Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
I learnt early that life is never fair. They say time and tide wait for no man, moving along their own trajectory.
I heard money solves all problems or at least eases the pain of tough times. There was a time I ventured into saving mode. I started my own piggy bank, dropping in a coin almost daily into a plastic-mould chick figurine. I patted myself on the back as the clink of coins became louder and louder. It was not much, but every jingle reminded me of the value of money and the comfort it would provide me one day. The trouble was that my sisters were equally pleased that my coffers were filling to the brim. They began needling out coin after coin to finance their addiction of buying little treats. I felt frustrated. I knew saving was hard, but I never expected reaching my goal to be so difficult. My sisters’ malfeasance came to light one day when I noticed that the piggy bank had been displaced away from its usual place, tucked behind my nice shirts. That was when I confronted my sisters.
In my eyes, I did nothing wrong. Instead of admonishing my sisters and compensating for my loss, Amma claimed it was my fault. She taught me the harsh truths of life. It was my responsibility to safeguard my property, not anyone else’s. After that realisation, I sought out other ways to save money.
Then, I had a new group of friends. I joined a competitive group of classmates who wanted to excel academically. I thought that would be easy. I devoted all my time to studying and paying attention in class. It seemed easy, but it was a different story when the examination results were released. It was the class jester, for whom everything was a joke, who came out on top. Another valuable lesson I learnt was not just to study hard, but to study smart.
As I grew older and the screaming radio became a constant background to my daily life, I realised that the world was not a peaceful place. On one hand, songs promised a tranquil world of apple trees and honeybees[1]; from the same country, they sent tanks and bombs to annihilate each other. It seemed that the Vietnam War would never end. Peace in the Middle East was merely a pipe dream.
Amidst all that, a hippie song emerged, envisioning a world without boundaries, an airspace free from control, and a peaceful existence [2]. It instilled a sense of hope that life might indeed have something to look forward to after all. The image of two figures dressed entirely in white playing a white grand piano remains permanently etched in my mind as the beacon of hope that one day everything will be all right. And life went on.
After many years of burning the midnight oil and reaping bitter seeds, its sweet fruit finally emerged. Yet, all my classmates who were partying and living life to the full had already gained a head start in their careers. They had ascended the ladders of their professions and were cruising around in flashy cars, while I was starting as an intern with little to show except a few letters behind my name. The competitive streak within me, however, reassured me that academic excellence is superior to the acquisition of wealth.
I continued my healing work, convincing myself that what I was doing would be returned in kind and that I would receive blessings of a different kind. As time passed, I realised that those were merely comforters to soothe a colicky baby. The old adage ‘health is wealth’ was a fallacy. In the real world, wealth buys health, just as one gets justice with all the money one can afford to pay for legal services. The youthful cry of ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ [3] was another lie. Money buys everything, and it feels better to cry in a BMW than by the footpath of the street.
So, there I was, thinking that if I were to follow the ways prescribed by the elders, I would be all right. “Tell no lies.” They said. “Speak only the truth!” Then there were people who made lying— or they would call it ‘bending the truth’— the pillar of their profession. “Don’t be materialistic, look at humanity!” Tell that to the stockholders who do not take it kindly when the conglomerate shows high praises and blessings but announces no monetary returns in dividends. For one thing, even big countries help each other not for altruistic reasons but for geopolitical and economic interests. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything comes with its encumbrances.
I was advised not to fight back but to turn the other cheek. Yet, behind my back, the world has regarded me as a fall guy, and I was merely a useful idiot—someone they could blame for all their wrongdoings because I was naïve enough to admit my mistakes. Now my friends urge me to strike before the other party draws first blood and to never admit to any wrongdoings.
As human beings, we yearn for a world without conflict. We all desire peace of mind—a world where everyone follows a single prescribed path, where everything falls into place, a utopia in which one person sees another not by the colour of their skin or the tunic they wear, but by the strength of their character. Most prayers we offer to a higher being invariably end with ‘Peace on Earth’ or ‘Happiness for All’. Prayers like ‘Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinaha‘ [4] and ‘Om Shanti‘ [5] assume that everyone can have things their way at one given time, creating a win-win situation. Such a situation can only exist in our imagination. Regardless of what everyone else says, life is a zero-sum game. For someone to win, another must lose, somewhere, somehow. For the lion colony to be happy, a goat must be sacrificed. Contentment is achieved when we acknowledge our limitations and accept that sometimes things do not go in our favour. Outcomes may improve if we recognise that we can only do so much.
An Earth without conflict is a pipe dream. The natural course of events is entropy interspersed with instances of chaos and order. One can choose to adopt a nihilistic view of our existence and do nothing, or be like Sisyphus [6] — resigned to the fact that we are in a hopeless situation — but strive to find joy in setting small targets and achieving modest successes, filling our hearts with laughter and happiness during the lull before the storm, and endeavour to leave a better future for the next generation.
When everyone found it impossible to carry a big load, the human mind devised the wheel. When the greener pastures across the lake obsessively stirred the curious, it took one brave young man with the imagination to make a raft of fallen tree trunks. Hope springs eternal in the human breast[7]. The change we want the world to embody starts with the man in the mirror. Numerous social experiments have repeatedly shown that doing a kind gesture is contagious. One good turn deserves another. No good deed remains unreturned. We can try.
Sisyphus: From Public Domain
[1] A verse from The New Seekers’ “’I’d Like To Teach the World to Sing” became a jingle for Coca-Cola later.
[2] John Lennon’s most successful solo single, ‘Imagine’, envisions a world of peace without materialism, without borders separating nations, and without religion.
[3] The Beatles’ 1964 hit ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ is a McCartney composition that naively preaches that true love cannot be bought. In the later stages of his life, McCartney discovered the hard way that divorce, without a pre-nuptial agreement for someone of his stature, could be financially draining. Money can’t buy love, but falling out of it can be costly.
[6] In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a shrewd king. The gods condemned him to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, only to see it roll down again after reaching the summit. Albert Camus, in his book ‘The Myth of Sisyphus,’ implies that Sisyphus was happy. He found performing and completing the act itself meaningful. He gave meaning to the meaningless.
[7] “Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” an excerpt from Alexander Pope’s poem “An Essay on Man.”
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Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog, Rifle Range Boy.
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Title: The Cave of Echoes: Stories about Gods, Animals and Other Strangers
Author: Wendy Doniger
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
It is impossible to define a myth, but it is cowardly not to try. For me, the best way to not-define a myth is to look at it in action, which is what have tried to do throughout this book: to see what myth does, rather than what myth is. It seems to me that by the time you’ve defined your terms in an argument, you’ve lost interest in the problem. But at this point, as we begin to reexamine our own assumptions about myths, it might be useful to list some things that I think myths are not: myths are not lies, or false statements to be contrasted with truth or reality. 1bis usage is, perhaps, the most common meaning of myth in casual parlance today. Indeed, other cultures, too, call myths lies. The Malagasy end the recitation of any myth with a traditional tag-line: “It is not I that lie; this lie comes from olden times.” In our culture, in particular, myths are often given the shadowy status of what has been called an “inoperative truth,” when in fact they might better be characterized as operative fictions. Picasso called art a lie that tells the truth, and the same might be said of myths.
What a Myth Is and Is Not
The desecration of the word “myth” to mean “lie” began with Plato, who contrasted the fabricated myth with the true history. It is, I think, an irony that our word for myth in most European languages, together with our basic attitude to myths, comes from ancient Greece, one of the very few cultures in the world from which we have almost no example of real, live myths, of myths as a part of a vital tradition; by the time most of the Greek myths reach us, they have been so thoroughly reworked in artistic and philosophical forms that they are mythological zombies, the walking dead. Plato was, as Eliade pointed out long ago, the first great demythologizer; he “deconstructed” the myths of Homer and Hesiod. It was Plato who challenged, successfully, the status of the poetic myth-carvers and myth collectors and banished them from his Republic. We can see in Plato a spectrum of mythmakers: at one end are anonymous wet nurses, who transmit the old myths to helpless infants; at the other end are the poets, like Hesiod and Homer, the “mimetic clan” who cannot imitate the true forms since no one has ever seen the forms and the poets can only imitate what they have seen.
Plato warns us that we must not tell these poetic myths about the gods even if they are true; in this, I think, he affirms the power of myths to influence human life; for he fears that a bad myth will make a bad life. (We shall see, in chapter 6, other Greek arguments against the evil effects of the myths in Greek tragedies.) Moreover, it is hard to escape from this image of the bad life; the stories that we learn in childhood have a marvelous hold on our memory.
Yet it is necessary for people to believe in good myths, even if they are false; this is the argument that Plato advances for the “noble lie” (gennaion pseudos) in the Republic, the statement that distorts an outside surface in order to convey an inner truth. Some of these good myths come from the old days; Plato distrusts this sort of “mythologizing,” the stories about centaurs and Chimaeras and Pegasus and so forth, but he distrusts even more the people who analyze them away as metaphors for the North Wind and so forth ( anticipating Friedrich Max Miller by some twenty-four hundred years); such analyses are altogether too clever and waste an awful lot of time. 13 People do have to have myths, Plato concedes; if they don’t believe in the old ones, we must construct new ones for them, logically, and this is very difficult to do, for we must convince them, in the cold light of reason, of the truth of the myths in order to make them accept the laws that we wish to give them:
“How can one assert in cold blood that the gods exist? Because we must hate and find unbearable those who, today as in the past, due to having refused to allow themselves to be convinced by the myths related to them since earliest childhood by a mother or a nurse giving them the breast, have obliged us, and still do so, to develop the arguments which take up our time now.”
For this reason, despite his opposition to myths and mythmakers, Plato himself was also a great “remythologizer” who invented the drama of the philosophical soul and made it a new kind of myth, a reasonable, logical, “likely” myth, to challenge the old myths of centaurs and so forth. In this way, when it came to myth, Plato managed to hunt with the hounds and to run with the hare. As Marcel Detienne has put it: “Plato’s work marks the time when philosophy, while censuring tales of the ancients as scandalous fictions, sets about telling its own myths in a discourse on the soul, on the origin of the world, and on life in the hereafter.” It was Plato who transformed ancient mythic themes to make the myth of Er, the myth of Eros, and the myth of the creation of the universe. Though Plato’s “likely or resembling story” can be a myth in the sense of a narrative ( and in that sense is interchangeable with logos meaning “narrative”), it is not a myth in the negative sense of a bad copy, like the myths of Homer ( which are negatively contrasted with logos meaning “reason”).
Yet Plato does apply the word “myth” ( mutbos) to the story of the world that he creates in the Pbaedo, a myth that he says is “worth hearing,” though it is merely another “likely story”:
“Now, to assert vehemently that things like this are really so as I’ve narrated them, doesn’t befit any man of sense. But that this is so, or something pretty much like it, about our souls and their dwelling place, since it is clear that the soul is immortal-it is quite fitting that we say that. “
The likely story is not the truth; but it resembles the truth, and is as close as we can ever get to the truth about certain subjects. Plato confesses that he resorts to telling myths, despite the fact that such stories are not literally true, because there is no other way of using words to produce even the effect of truth.
Plato regards the myth that he constructs in the Pbaedo as an essential vehicle for salvation, a kind of religious or magic charm:
“It is well worth running the risk that these things are so for anybody who thinks them so. (For it’s a fair risk.) And he must recite these things over and over to himself like a magic charm, even as I at this moment and for a long time past have been drawing out this myth.”
Plato ends the Republic with his own myth, the myth of Er, which he certainly does not regard as a lie: “And so the myth was saved and was not lost, and it will save us, if we believe it, and we shall safely cross the river of Lethe and we will not sully the soul. “
For Plato admits that a myth says something that cannot be said in any other way, that cannot be translated into a logical or even a metaphysical statement. A myth says something that can only be said in a story.
Which brings me to what I think a myth is. Let me begin with a rather cumbersome and rather functional definition: A myth is a story that is sacred to and shared by a group of people who find their most important meanings in it; it is a story believed to have been composed in the past about an event in the past, or, more rarely, in the future, an event that continues to have meaning in the present because it is remembered; it is a story that is part of a larger group of stories.
The assertion that a myth is a story is basic to my argument; for I think that the myth is persuasive to us because the action itself is persuasive. Even when what happens in the myth is not physically possible in this world ( as when, for instance, a man turns into a fish), when the event is described in detail, as something that happened, we can see it happening, and so it enlarges our sense of what might be possible. Only a story can do this.
About the Book
The Cave of Echoes celebrates the universal art of storytelling, and the rich diversity of the stories—especially myths—that people live by. Drawing on Hindu and Greek mythology, Biblical parables, and the modern mythologies of Woody Allen and soap operas, Wendy Doniger—renowned scholar of the history of religions—encourages us to feel anew the force of myth and tradition in our lives, and in the lives of other cultures. She shows how the stories of mythology—whether of gods, sages, demons or humans—enable cultures to define themselves. She raises critical questions about how myths are interpreted and adapted, and the ways in which different cultures make use of central texts and traditions. Drawing connections across time and place, she proposes that myths are not static beliefs but evolving narratives, and that by entering into other cultures’ stories, we may unexpectedly rediscover our own.
Written with scholarly depth and characteristic wit, this is a landmark work in the comparative study of mythology. It’s essential reading for anyone interested in how we understand others—and ourselves—through the stories we tell.
About the Author
Wendy Doniger is the author of several acclaimed and bestselling works, among them, The Hindus: An Alternative History; Hindu Myths; The Ring of Truth; Women, Androgynes and Other Mythical Beasts; Dreams, Illusion and Other Realities; Winged Stallions and Wicked Mares; An American Girl in India; and translations of the Rig Veda and the Kamasutra (with Sudhir Kakar). She is Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of the History of Religions at theUniversity of Chicago, and has also taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and the University of California, Berkeley.
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Mount Parnassus in Greece, where the muses were said to gather, was regarded as the home of poetry: From Public Domain
For the longest time, women were uncomfortable occupants of the house of poesy[1], particularly where there were existing canons of poetry established by the institutional gate-keepers and male custodians of literature. At best, they were viewed as Jane-come-latelies who sought to transgress the hitherto hallowed domains of high verse, interlopers to the hallowed heights of Parnassus who dared not “drink the milk of paradise”.
This ‘absence’ of women from the terrain of poetry is in spite of the fact that women have always written poetry, from ancient times to now. Sappho in the western tradition, was a Grecian poet from 5th-6th century BCE who was the pioneer of lyric poetry, a genre which apart from being set to music, also inaugurated the poetic ‘I’. In India, Buddhist nuns in the Mahayana and Theravadas who wrote poems known as the therigathas were early precursors of female poets. These early women poets engaged in the sometimes forbidden, sometimes lascivious charms of verse and versification. Down the ages, there were many others who joined them and kept the lamp of women’s versification lit. However, if women have always been versifiers, why has there been a resistance and grudging admission for women to the poetic domain, which becomes a sort of “No (Wo)man’s land”? Why do women poets have only a token presence in traditional poetic anthologies?
Some reasons have been offered, not least among them being the preponderance of male poets who have often also been self-proclaimed and self-appointed guardians, legatees and arbiters of poetic tradition. Canonical poetic traditions, many claim, require a knowledge and understanding of Latin and Greek in the West while a knowledge of Sanskrit/Persian in the Asian context was deemed necessary. Thus women, who, for the most part, lacked formal education and had but small Latin and less Greek, could only hover around the margins and fringes of poetry. The situation with Sanskrit and Persian was similar and women remained mostly absent from or shadowy denizens of poetic terrains. Even if and when women were writing, they were doing so in colloquial registers and in the languages of the common people and not in formal or decorative language, deemed essential for poetry, for the most part. Almost the first group of women writing poetry in India were Buddhist nuns who wrote in Pali, one of the many ancient languages in the ancient Indian subcontinent, which enshrined its own scholarly tradition. Sappho wrote in the Greek Aeolic dialect, which was difficult for Latin writers to translate.
Between 12th and 17th century, there was an advent of devotional mystic poetry called “Bhakti” and “Sufi” poetry. While the poems were uttered/written in a devotional idiom, the poems and songs were often rebellious and iconoclastic, rejecting institutional religions and social norms. This poetry was rooted in personal and unmediated devotion and rejected formal languages and established societal norms. Some of this poetry was in an informal register, colloquial language and performative with a strong dramatic quality. Thus we have lines in Kannada from Akka Mahadevi (1130-1160) who rejects her earthly husband:
I love the handsome one: He has no death decay nor form… no end no clan, no land. Take these husbands who die, decay, and feed them to your kitchen fires.(Vachanas)
Women poets for the longest time had a crisis of identity, identification and non-belonging. They laboured under the anxiety of authorship where they felt the absence of precursors and fore-mothers and the lack of a poetic tradition to which they could belong. They were often made to feel as if they lacked genuine poetic talent or that they were transgressors against womanhood and femininity.
In Aurora Leigh (1855) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the eponymous title character, considers the diverse fields of literature where women can exercise their talent and claim a space. The field of dramatic writing poses a challenge because the former demands that the woman writer be in the public eye in order to promote her plays. Further, to achieve or even aspire to the rank of Poet, Aurora must become capable of “widening a large lap of life to hold the world-full woe”. Over the course of the long epic poem, she tries to reconcile her femininity with her artistic aspirations. In both cases, she is denied emotional fulfilment. She refuses to accept the role of an obedient wife, since it would mean foregoing the intellectual independence needed to develop as an artist, but then she must also refuse the love of a husband. In Book Five, she mentions three poets, none of whom she admires for their “popular applause”. Yet she admits that she envies them for the time they can devote to their chosen vocation and the adoring women that surround them and provide emotional support and fill their days with glory.
Another issue with women’s writing and poetry is the uncomfortable positioning of women in relation to patriarchal language or male centred language. If as Dale Spender declares in “Man-made Language”, the masculine is asserted as the norm, where do we position women’s voices? While language is a universal medium of communication, man-made language is full of sexism and chauvinism and expresses reality from a predominantly masculine and patriarchal perspective. If language is a social system which women are persuaded or co-opted to use, how do they work within its confines to express their poetic aspirations? How do they stretch, bend, subvert language to express their own realities? Can we read techniques of irony, satire and other figurative and metaphoric strategies of defiance and subversion and an attempt to undermine from within?
Juliet Mitchell in her essay on ‘Femininity, Narrative and Psychoanalysis’ states that the woman writer/novelist must of necessity be a hysteric, straddling two opposed worlds. One world is that of male definitions and conceptions of femininity and the other, a resistance and defiance of such conceptualising, accompanied by an attempt to undermine from within. Her defiance and resistance makes her character that of a hysteric, one who defies accepted notions and standards of femininity and is therefore considered transgressive. She troubles fixed gender categories, roles and definitions. She also disrupts and challenges the symbolic order of language, one which insists on rules of grammar and linguistic structures through the semiotic order which uses word play, repetitions and childish rhymes, in order to express inner desires and drives. The symbolic order deals with the denotative aspects of language and the semiotic order with the affective aspect.
Women’s poetry often houses and accommodates the semiotic, seeming psychobabble that plays with and disturbs fixed notions of femininity and binary gender identities.
What are the popular themes that inform women’s poetry? Some themes are to with women’s search for authentic self-hood and identity, their search for roots and a space of their own. As we see in Aurora Leigh, much of women’s poetry is self-conscious and self-reflexive, about the act of writing itself, the “awful daring of a moment’s surrender which an age of prudence could never retract.”(T.S.Eliot)
Many contemporary women poets, across continents, have evinced a substantial interest in exploring their poetic self through their poems. On the one hand is the confessional poetry of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, on the other the brief gnomic utterances of Emily Dickinson. Before the advent of the twentieth century, one hears of Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti, among many others. Names like Aphra Behn and Anne Bradstreet have been included in many syllabi, often as a token inclusion in an otherwise male centric course.
Women poets have talked about the horrors of war including rape, pillage and destruction. In their critique of war and violence, we find the forging of transnational solidarities, whether it is women’s poetry from Sri Lanka or Birangona (War heroines).
In India the many names that come to mind are that of Kamala Das, Eunice D’Souza, Meena Alexander, Sujata Bhatt and Sunuti Namjoshi. Women poets have employed effective means to explore the entire gamut of experience.The private and the public domain, their process of self-analysis; the process of poetic creativity and a probe into poetic identities are all significant fields of exploration. For these women writers, analysing the creative process becomes much more than just a poetic theme. As they unravel the mystery of their poetic psyche in their writings, it becomes an epiphanic journey for the poets and their readers.
Dr Meenakshi Malhotra is an Associate Professor of English Literature at Hansraj College, University of Delhi, and has been involved in teaching and curriculum development in several universities. She has edited two books on Women and Lifewriting, Representing the Self and Claiming the I, in addition to numerous published articles on gender, literature and feminist theory. Her most recent publication is The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle.
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