Tag: Guwahati

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Feature

 Teresa Rehman: A Chronicler of Less Known Stories

In Conversation with Teresa Rehman about Bulletproof : A Journalist’s Notebook on Reporting Conflict (Penguin Random House) and a bit about the book…

Teresa Rehman

Bulletproof: A Journalist’s Notebook on Reporting Conflict by Teresa Rehman is not a new book but it’s a unique one. It is an evergreen narrative of a woman’s journey to empower herself given a wholistic family set up. Set in the northeast of India, it’s a chronicle of people who were willing to die for their beliefs. Many were young men, university students and yet they picked up guns. They just seemed to be on the wrong side of events. It makes you wonder what made them into who they were?

Rehman covers stories of women and children impacted by the conflict, the border politics with neighbouring countries, the lack of sanitation in these regions and the lack of safety and security. And perhaps, given the times, we need to read her story to figure out how history treats those that do not comply with governance for her book largely covers the ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom) separatist movement that started in 1979. It had been dubbed an insurgent organisation in the 1990s, and then the ULFA softened its stance in the 2000s. In a way their suffering humanises militants as people who just happen to be on the wrong side of governance. She also covers stories of poachers and environmental issues. The pathos of their condition and stories are heart wrenching. What does come across is that the northeast was and continues a neglected region that cries out for funds and development, while retaining the colours of its own culture and values.

Bulletproof continues relevant raising not just issues in the northeast regions of India but also asks you to rethink many concepts … including media reporting, what can lead to PTSD and what is acceptable. It reverberates with questions that were raised later by Afsar Mohammed’s Remaking History:1948 Police Action and the Muslims of Hyderabad. Can one person’s dream be another’s nightmare? It has ideas that echo concerns thrown up in Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. Did all of the people living within the borders drawn by the colonials want to integrate under a single government? Was that their dream? Is the idea of a single polity inclusive and tolerant of diversities and differences? And much more… So, who is this Teresa Rehman who wrote this evergreen classic?

Teresa Rehman is an award-winning journalist based in North-east India, known for her quiet grit and matter-of-fact approach to stories. She has worked for years toward bringing the different facets of the region, its diversity and distinct ethos to mainstream media. Teresa’s work in journalism spans through India Today, Telegraph and Tehelka before she decided to put in all her resources into launching The Thumb Print e-magazine that she edits currently. She has managed to bring in the gender perspective to her stories. A recipient of the WASH Media Awards 2009-2010, Teresa also won the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for two consecutive years – 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 for the category: Reporting on J&K and the North-east. Her keen eye for the gender angle showed through stories. And she bagged honours such as Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity 2011, Sanskriti Award 2009 for Excellence in Journalism and the Seventh Sarojini Naidu Prize 2007 for Best Reporting on Panchayati Raj by Hunger Project. She is known for her unassuming persistence on getting the details, and sensitivity. She was featured in the Power List of Femina magazine in 2012. She has written a clutch of books, The Mothers of Manipur (Zubaan Books) and Bulletproof (Penguin Random House India) are among them. She is the Treasurer of the Editors Guild of India.

These are Rehman’s achievements, but who is she really? What made her turn to reporting insurgency, an unusual choice for a woman journalist in the 1990 and early 2000s? Rehman has stepped beyond the pages of the book to share a bit about herself in this exclusive online interview.

Why did you opt to become a journalist? Tell us a bit about Teresa, the young girl. 

I often tell people that I did not choose journalism but journalism chose me. With infectious enthusiasm, my mother carefully collected an array of books, magazines, coins, stamps – neatly packed and stored in old tin boxes of chocolates and cookies. As a child, my aunt recalls that I was quiet, courteous and a well-behaved girl. I used to immerse myself in my mother’s erratic accumulation of books, journals and magazines. I used to sit in a corner and browse through them though I couldn’t wrap my head around most of it. It was the pre-internet era in the 1980s and my parents encouraged us to read and write. I am a first-generation journalist and that makes me the only black sheep of the family. I did not have too many friends and was rather awkward in social gatherings. I would rather sit in a quiet corner and simply browse through old issues of the Illustrated Weekly of India, Reader’s Digest, Femina, Women’s Era, Savvy, Target (a magazine for young adults), Wisdom etc. My mother used to subscribe to these magazines. This curiosity and the childhood fantasy of imagining myself in those bylines gradually made me write for the children’s pages in the local newspapers. I remember writing in longhand, going to the post-office, and posting my articles to the editors of the local newspapers. And I used to be elated when they were published. It had almost turned me into a child celebrity. And this recognition thrilled me. 

And this childhood zeal unknowingly turned into a passion for journalism. After my graduation in English Literature from Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, it almost seemed natural for me to enrol for a course in journalism. And I picked up the basics of journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC)in Delhi. Thereafter, there was no looking back. Starting my career as a trainee journalist with the India Today magazine in Delhi, I got an opportunity to work with some of the best editors of the country . However, I found that desk job was too tedious. I longed to be on the field and report from the ground. Thereafter, I had to shift base from Delhi to Guwahati due to my mother’s ill-health. Back in Guwahati, I joined the northeast bureau of The Telegraph newspaper and handled the Features desk. Thereafter, I joined as the Principal Correspondent for Tehelka magazine where I got an opportunity to travel to nook and corner of the region and report hardcore conflict. 

You were in the middle of gunfights in Bulletproof. Why did you call your book as such when it shared much about gun violence? 

The title of the book, ‘Bulletproof’ has an interesting story. At a conference of women journalists from South Asia, I was at a session on reporting conflict. As the discussion flowed, the moderator asked me, ‘Do you wear a bulletproof jacket when you go reporting?’ This simple question rattled me. I had been reporting hardcore conflict from one of the most insurgency ravaged regions of the world. It was a region that had witnessed several decades of violence and bloodshed. Reporting from such a region has a fear factor that is real. There were occasions when I was nearly ambushed while I was on the ground reporting. I was unaware that bulletproof jackets existed for journalists reporting from a conflict zone. I got to know about a drill called the Hostile Environment and First Aid Training (HEFAT), a training programme for journalists working for international media outlets. So, when I had decided to write a memoir about my reporting experiences, I decided to call it ‘Bulletproof’ in the sense that we journalists reporting from northeast India are bulletproof. We go to the field with just a pen, notebook, mobile phone (now) and our intuition to guide us. We go unprepared for all the physical as well as psychological hazards that journalists have to face while reporting conflict. As I was one of the few women journalists reporting hardcore conflict and a low-intensity war, Bulletproof is a first-of-its-kind account and a story of a female combat journalist and her encounters with insurgency from northeast India.

What pushed you into reporting about communities living in the margins, even militants? 

Most people who live in mainland India know very little about the northeast, beyond maybe a handful of facts, stereotypes or broad generalisations.The region is often ghettoised as a monolith. When you report from a conflict zone like Northeast India, it is imperative that you report on conflict and its various implications. Reporting from the periphery has its pitfalls. It was not a choice but a compulsion. An editor of a national media outlet had, in fact, even told me that conflict sells though northeast India does not sell. Once I got into reporting hardcore conflict and could meet several militant leaders, I got an opportunity to understand the nuances of conflict from close quarters. I tried to comprehend what made a boy barely out of his teens to grab the AK 47. I could drift into the lives of women and children who are the collateral victims in any kind of conflict situation. Going beyond mere statistics, of deaths and arms recovered, and other documentary evidence, it shows us how conflict impacts women, children, health, environment, sanitation, wildlife and society. This book is a collection of rare human stories from one of the most under-reported regions in the world.

Your book demystified militants. Did you feel scared meeting them? What was your reaction? Why did they never attack you?  

A chapter in my book is titled ‘Militants turned Mediapersons’. The publicity wing of any militant group is one of the most important wings. Therefore, they would welcome journalists visiting them. They understood the power of the media therefore they were willing to provide any kind of information and guidance to a journalist eager to report on them. Though most of them were awkward while meeting a female journalist like me. Conflict reporting seems very masculine – full of stories of artillery, statistics, guns, weapons, soldiers, militants, peace talks, and often dry press releases. The sub-plots, the stories of the common people, especially of women and children, are often unaccounted for. More so, a woman consistently reporting hardcore conflict from the region is unheard of. I was young and restless to get my story. Therefore, I persisted.

What makes militants different from the mainstream? How and why did such people resort to violence? 

The people who took up arms for a ‘cause’ did it for various reasons – ideological, social, cultural. They are also termed as non-state actors who sometimes run a parallel administration along with the state government. Some people may resent their presence but for many of their own community, they are also local heroes. It’s just a matter of what lens you use to look at them.

You sometimes took your children along for the interviews. Were you not apprehensive of how they would impact your children? Did they ever harm you, your children or your family? Elaborate on why. 

My children were part of my life. I remember my elder daughter accompanying me when I had gone to meet the poachers. She quietly sat with me. On one occasion she was engrossed playing with the children of the village. In fact, after I had reported on the fake encounter in Manipur, I was grilled by various investigating agencies including the CBI, SIT and the Judicial Commission. I was expecting my second child then. I had difficulty walking up the stairs when I had gone to the CBI office in Guwahati. I had sought recuse from being called to Imphal, the capital of Manipur because I was getting veiled threats from various quarters. My girls grew up seeing their absent-minded mother who had at times forgotten to change their diapers as she was busy filing a story from her laptop.

How are people living in the margins different from mainstream? 

People are the same everywhere. It’s just the difference in resources and basic amenities, roads, communication etc that makes it difficult for them. For instance, many parts of the northeast are still inaccessible because of the difficult geographical terrain. Most parts are still pristine, untouched by the ugly face of development. However, the prolonged conflict and the low-intensity war has taken a toll in the minds and hearts of the people. 

Can the marginalised be integrated into the mainstream? Explain your stance. 

It depends on what you perceive as the mainstream and what is the margin. And is integration even needed? Connectivity and linkages are important in terms of basic amenities and resources, while preserving diversity. But I would prefer inclusive development over forced integration. Unity in diversity is an ideal situation.

Were you scared or apprehensive while reporting on them? 

Reporting from a conflict zone has a fear factor that is real. I would be lying if I said that I did not get scared while I was on the field. I was aware of the risks I was taking on. But I never went prepared. I was armed only with my pen, notebook and my intuition. I simply assumed that I would be safe and if anything went wrong, I might have to think of ways to wriggle my way out. A safety gear or bulletproof jacket did not exist for me. It’s not that I was oblivious to the fact that all over the world female journalists are killed, assaulted, threatened and defamed. In fact, it was much later that I learnt that, in order to help women journalists stay safe in unsafe regions, International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) provides the much-needed Hostile Environment and First-Aid Training (HEFAT).  In HEFAT courses, journalists participate in both classroom-based learning and real-life scenarios that simulate situations that journalists may encounter in the field. I had personally encountered some of these situations like emergency first-aid, digital security, personal security, civil unrest, emotional care, and checkpoint navigation. But I went without any training or briefing. And I was oblivious of my own safety — both physical and mental. I was young and passionate. And getting the story right was all that mattered.

What was your most memorable experience? 

In a positive sense, I have had the opportunity to travel to remote parts of Northeast India and report on the lives of common men, women and children. I was pained by how the long-pronged conflict impacted lives. However, the stories of conflict that I had tried to report with empathy and a deeper understanding that, in turn, showed me the humane side of hostility.  

Did this reporting have an impact on you? On your family? How did you tackle it? 

Yes, as every other human being,I was affected by the trauma caused by reporting conflict. In fact, I had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after all that I had to go through after my reportage on the fake encounter in Manipur. I had become irritable and angry on witnessing the aftermath that led to a civil uprising in the state. It was a lonely battle for me. This is why I have been advocating for the physical and mental safety of journalists.

Did your being a woman make a difference? 

I often tell people that you can either be a good journalist or a bad journalist. But, in reality your gender does come into play, especially when you are reporting from the margins, a conflict zone and a difficult geographical terrain. Being a woman in a conflict zone is fraught with dangers and that includes sexual assault. I often carried pepper spray (which I never had to use), in my grab bag. Moreover, there are practical problems like lack of toilets for women on the field and even in the workplace. Most media houses that survive on contractual workers do not have provisions of maternity leave for their female employees. There are many women who have to drop-out midway at the peak of their career as they have to engage themselves in childbearing and rearing. There is a need for a support system like a creche, for instance for working journalists, both men and women.

What would be your advice for young journalists? 

I believe that journalists will come and journalists will go. More so, the mediums of delivering news are changing with the fast-evolving technology. The newsrooms have evolved from being confined to a structured building to the knapsack of a journalist who is now equipped with a mobile phone, popularly known as a mojo. With the rise of digital tools, almost everyone is transformed into a content communicator or a publisher now. This has blurred the lines between personal interaction and public content creation.

However, the cardinal principles of truth and objectivity of an upright shoe-leather journalist will stand the test of time.  The fundamental values and ethics of storytelling remain timeless, acting as a crucial, enduring, and non-negotiable tool for human connection, empathy, and truth-telling, even as mediums adapt to the digital age.

Teresa Rehman

 (This review and online interview by email is by Mitali Chakravarty)

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

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

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

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In Memoriam

The Verandah, The Voice Note, and You, Abba

By Mubida Rohman

Dear Abba[1],

Weeks have passed since you left us, and today I write to you with the quiet certainty that love does not vanish when a life ends. Somewhere beyond time and space, words spoken with affection still find their way.

I do not know how such messages travel. Through memory, perhaps. Through silence. Through the small things you left behind, which now seem to carry more meaning than they once did.

Still, I write, trusting that words offered with love are never truly lost.

I had known of you long before I truly knew you.

We had spoken briefly on the phone before my wedding, while planning it and in the days just after. If one were to count the actual days we spent in each other’s presence, they would seem very few. Yet what remains in my heart is not the brevity of those days, but the curious feeling that I had known you for much longer than time would allow.

The heart, perhaps, keeps a different calendar.

Growing up, we are taught to fear our sasurbari (in-laws’ house). And not without reason. Women grow up hearing stories, witnessing them, and carrying the inherited caution of those who came before us — our grandmothers, our mothers, our sisters, and the countless unnamed women whose griefs have travelled silently through generations.

Apprehension becomes a companion. It settles somewhere inside the body, as though the bones themselves remember old warnings.

Be careful.
Do not trust too soon.
Do not expect too much.

And so when I crossed the threshold of your home in Guwahati, I carried that same silent apprehension with me.

When my family left me there, my uncle said softly,

“Amar suwali apunalukok gotalu.”
(We entrust our daughter to your family.)

And you replied, with a certainty that asked for no ceremony,

“Sinta nokoribo, taai etiya amar suwali.”
(Do not worry, she is our daughter now.)

At that moment I did not yet know how deeply you meant those words, or how faithfully you would live by them.

The days after the wedding passed quickly. Guests filled the house and laughter moved from room to room. Conversations, rituals, food, and movement seemed to blur together until everything felt as though it was happening at once.

In the middle of it all, you would appear from time to time. Sometimes to offer a witty remark. Sometimes simply to observe the proceedings with soft amusement. Sometimes to express mild annoyance that I had not yet eaten dinner at the proper hour.

You had apparently told Amma[2] that I must be given dinner before seven in the evening, because that was the time I had always eaten. I had never told you this myself. Zubair had mentioned it in passing. Yet you had taken note of it and remembered it with that careful tenderness that says more than elaborate affection ever can.

Two days after the wedding we sat together on the verandah, soaking in the winter sun before another day of guests began.

I remember saying casually that someday, during long holidays, I would like to return and sit there with you and Amma and listen to all your stories.

You smiled and said,“Aitu tu birat bhal kotha.” (That is a very wonderful idea.)

Something about that moment stayed with me.

Zubair and I then came back to my mother’s place for our reception. We sent you updates on WhatsApp, and you replied promptly. Your replies were never long or dramatic, but they carried a steady warmth. You were always thinking of us and making sure everything was going well.

After the reception, Zubair had to leave. Duty called, as it always does. I stayed back with my mother for a few more days, planning to return soon to my sasurbari and spend some time with you and Amma.

Somewhere in my heart, the urgency to rush back to Germany had softened. Something within me felt that I needed more time there, on that verandah with you, beneath the shade of the pink and white bougainvillea, where light fell in warm golden strips through the leaves and unruly branches. The bottle gourd creeper climbed along with a strong resolve. A few stubborn tendrils seemed determined to encroach our sitting space.

And then there was your small but ingenious arrangement: a bowl tied to a string, which you would lower and pull back up to send money to the beggars who passed by so often. Climbing the stairs had become difficult, but kindness, as always, found its way.

Then came 27 January 2026, the day I landed at Guwahati airport. You insisted on coming to receive me despite your poor health and ailing heart.

The WhatsApp messages we exchanged that day, and the voice note you sent on your way to pick me up, have now become precious fragments of memory.

I listen to that voice note almost every day.

When I was young, I envied children whose fathers arrived on scooters or motorbikes, got down, looked at themselves in the rear-view mirror, combed their hair, and then walked in to attend the parent-teacher meeting. Even when I grew older, and though my mother and uncles often came to receive me at airports and stations with warmth and smiles, my eyes would often drift toward girls who ran to their fathers, shouting Papa or Baba.

There was always some unfulfilled corner in me that looked toward that scene, for I was far too young when my father left us for his heavenly abode.

That day you messaged,“We will reach in 15 minutes, Inshallah. I will ring you when to come out.”

Just as I picked up my luggage and stepped outside, you called.

And there you were, waiting with your walking stick in hand, your clothes neatly ironed, wearing that warm smile on your face. You laughed and said what a lucky coincidence it was that you had arrived at the airport just as I stepped out, so neither of us had to wait long. Perhaps, you added with a smile, we might even escape the parking fee.

That image of you standing there, smiling, will remain in my heart forever.

Without even knowing it, you fulfilled one of the deepest wishes I had carried since childhood.

On the drive home, we talked without a pause. We talked about Satyajit Ray’s work, the Assamese literature you said I must read someday, and about Zubair’s childhood in that affectionate way only a father can.

The days that followed passed quietly.

Every morning after tea we sat together on the verandah. You recited the Quran and then turned to the newspapers. I sat beside you, struggling to pronounce the long words in the Assamese paper, until you gently took it from my hands and passed me The Hindu instead.

We peeled oranges and pomegranates together. We ate your favourite jujubes while butterflies drifted slowly through the winter air.

Those days felt brief while they were happening. Now they feel immeasurably large.

You shared stories of exam anxieties and enduring friendships, of staying out past midnight to shop for a friend’s son’s wedding, and of the night you ran for your life, and of the family during an attack in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid riots.

I learned about the difficulties of your engineering days and your years in the Water Resources Department — supervising drilling sites across Assam and travelling through landscapes where rivers could nourish a village one season and destroy it the next.

Perhaps that is why water held such meaning in your life.

At home you conserved it with almost scientific care.

The water used for washing vegetables watered the plants. The water from the handwashing basin became water for flushing. I became cautious at home, often worrying that I might be wasting water. You would gently reassure me that the water that could be saved would find its way to be saved.

Only after your passing did we begin to understand the full shape of your life, and the extent of all that you had set in motion.

People began arriving at our home from distant towns and villages. Many of them were strangers to us, but not to you.

With them came stories. Stories of Md. Ziaul Islam, of a life we had only seen in parts.

We learnt how you once took a bus after work and stayed with a friend through the night, helping him prepare for a bank examination. The next morning, you boarded another bus and went straight to your office, reporting for duty as though the night had asked nothing of you.

Someone spoke of the vegetable seller you would take to the cancer hospital. Amma fed him liquid food when his body could no longer accept anything else. After he passed away, you travelled to his village and helped build a house for his wife and children, ensuring that his family would not be left without shelter.

The security guard remembered his persistent cough, and how you took him repeatedly to the doctor until his treatment was complete and he recovered from tuberculosis.

We heard from the ones you taught and from their families. We heard from the orphanages you had quietly supported. Slowly we began to understand how many futures you had helped set in motion.

We met your former students who remembered the lessons you gave them after returning home from work. Others spoke of the classes you continued to take even after retirement, long after your body had begun to grow frail.

You expected nothing in return — only one hope that education might help them grow and rescue them, even if slowly, from the economic conditions into which they had been born. You never spoke about these things.

You often said that charity should be given in such a way that the left hand does not know what the right hand has spent. In that belief there was dignity, restraint, and a deep understanding of human pride, of how help must be given without diminishing the person who receives it.

In a world where charity is often displayed and recorded, your way feels rare. We wonder now whether we will ever be able to walk the path you lived. We know we may fall short.

Be our guiding star, so that even in our smaller and imperfect ways, we may follow where your life pointed.

Even while living in the same house, we continued exchanging WhatsApp messages whenever I stepped out. Those messages came to a halt on 4th February 2026, the day we admitted you to the hospital for your surgery.

In the hospital, I saw another side of you: the steadfast fighter determined to recover, someone who, even in pain and exhaustion, worried about the well-being of the people around him. I also saw the child within you, your vulnerability, your stubbornness. your sweetness.

It made me feel as though I was the guardian of that child, not only on hospital documents, but also in my heart.

You let me comb your hair the way I liked. You laughed at my silly jokes even though you were in pain. You drank the tasteless tea I made without complaint.

Sometimes you had to be coaxed to eat. Your stomach resisted, and at the sight of the daliya khichdi [3] and oats your expression would change instantly. Even now, I can still hear your tired voice saying, “Aru nuwarim niki khabo ma.” (I don’t think I can eat anymore, dear.)

You wanted nothing more than to return home. To the verandah, to your chair, to the familiar light.

I think often of how little time we had together. How I wish I had not given in when you kept asking me to book my tickets quickly after your discharge. So many times I wish I could stretch the small timeline we shared and make room for all that could not happen.

Perhaps somewhere in another universe, that version still exists. In that version you sit beneath the bougainvillea on the verandah, surrounded by your family. You recite lines of Ghalib and Gulzar from memory, smiling with the gentle pleasure of remembering something beloved. Beside you lies a small pile of books you had hoped to read after discharge. The Prophet rests in your hands as you continue from where you left off, pausing now and then to marvel at Gibran’s words.

In that other stretch of time, the days are fuller and longer. Mosquitoes circle lazily while I chase them with the electric racket, each spark sounding like a tiny firecracker. You watch, amused, and say again with a smile,

“Waah, iman futise.”

(Wow, such crackings!)

Abba, thank you for letting me into your heart, even if, measured by human calendars, it was only for a few days.

Thank you for answering when I called you Abba, and for replying so often, “O ma…[4]”

Thank you for the smiles, for the concern hidden in your messages, for coming to the airport to receive me.

You did not speak of love often. But you practiced it in enduring ways: on duty, by being attentive, remembering small things, living simply and giving quietly.

Love does not always arrive in grand declarations. Sometimes it lives quietly inside habits, inside responsibility, inside the steady rhythm of a life lived with integrity.

Sometimes it lives in the smallest gestures, where the deepest reservoirs are held.

And so your story does not end with your passing.

In many ways, it begins here, in the slow unfolding of all that you were.

The boy who grew up in the shadows of Partition, his childhood shaped by a divided homeland and families torn apart by a line drawn on a map over a lunch break: the boy whose mother wrote down the names of books she longed to read and sent him searching for them through the town of Shillong. And the man he became, a civil engineer who measured rivers, listened to birds, loved books, carried a Yashica camera, and believed that life’s gifts must be shared.

This pause here does not mean an end. One day, all of us return to where we came from — to the interiors of collapsing stars from which we are made.

Until that day, Abba, we will keep finding you in small places — in the sunlight falling across our verandah, in the rustle of the pink and white bougainvillea, in the sweetness of oranges, pomegranate seeds, and jujubes, in the trees and plants you tended for generations beyond your own, in the pages of the books you held.

And sometimes, unexpectedly, in the sharp crackle of a mosquito racket.

For a moment it sounds like a tiny firework, and it almost feels as though you are still sitting nearby, smiling softly and saying,

“Waah, iman futise.”

And if love can survive in voices, gestures, verandahs, books left half-read, and in the habits of those who remain, then perhaps you have not gone very far at all.

Perhaps you are still here, just beyond the reach of our hands, but never beyond the reach of the heart, where winter light falls gently, where butterflies drift slowly, where the conversation has not ended, only moved, perhaps, to a quieter room where we have yet to learn how to listen.

Lovingly yours,


Your newly added daughter,

Mubida

Photo provided by the author

[1] Father

[2] Mother

[3] A porridge made with broken wheat, pulses and vegetables

[4] My dear

Mubida Rohman is a writer, photographer, and intercultural coach from Assam, currently based in Berlin. Her work explores memory, culture, and the intimate textures of everyday life, often weaving personal narratives with a deep sense of place. She writes on her blog Cultureyogi.in

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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

Categories
Slices from Life

Technology War in the House

By Chetan Datta Poduri

From Public Domain

The other day I had a tough time explaining mobile telephony and its advancements to my dad who’s around 85 years old. Both of us are highly educated. Neither of us knew modern technology well. Nevertheless, me being a self-taught-geek-or-engineer-or-technologist-of-sorts keep explaining the advancements in technology at regular intervals to my father.

My father, 85, is still actively practicing in a nearby trust hospital. He retired from government service almost two decades ago. Ever since he has been actively consulting patients in local private hospitals. He always says that keeping oneself active (physically or professionally) is more than sufficient to keep ourselves healthy.

“No exercises needed”, he would say whenever someone asked him, and would add, “there isn’t any beach or a lake resort in the arid Hyderabad to sit back and relax. So, the patients give me some avocation to pass my time”.

I must also confess that my father has been using hearing aids in both the ears since he was 50 years old, and amnesia slowly started getting the better of him four years ago…

*

Six years ago, another problem cropped up…

In December 2019, as you all know this planet was plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst this hullabaloo, China made a small significant technological advancement – China silently unrolled 5G mobile telephony[1] in Wuhan.

As March 2020 neared, Indian government announced harsh restrictions, prominent amongst them are the lockdowns. To complicate the matters, my dad’s patients desperately needed to consult him for whatever…

… So, literally imprisoned at home my father embarked on video consultations to patients through WhatsApp. That represented the flashpoint between my dad and me.

Dad started complaining that his video conferences were not working properly.

The self-taught engineer in me explained that for proper video streaming and conferencing the mobile handset needs to have certain amount of memory in its RAM and storage all of which must be compatible with the ‘xG’ mobile telephony the government or service provider is offering (where ‘x’ represents a whole number like 2, 3, 4 or 5 and in near future can be 6 also). Like a true technocrat, I explained all the technology I knew with appropriate diagrams and flow-charts.

“What’s this RAM and storage?” asked my dad

“Well, I think RAM means Random Access Memory…”, I quipped peering through the edge of my glasses.

“What’s with the storage?”

“Well, everything your mobile handset receives, be it SMS or any other notifications or photographs you click with your mobile camera, it needs to keep somewhere. It needs a filing cabinet. That is called storage. If your handset has something called an SD card, it is external storage while every handset is sold initially with some storage called ‘internal storage’…”

“So … how much area does this storage take”

I casually replied, “Usually it is measured in GBs (giga bytes) … Your handset, I guess is some 16 GB or so… Mine’s about 32 GB…”

It’s been six years since we have had this discussion. The then government complicated the situation in our house by announcing that in another six months it will roll out 5G services in India to compete with Chinese …

“Ok! That’s alright but why are my phone calls not up to the mark. What does it have to do with storage? I understand if it is missing SMS, photos, storing and retrieving videos, etc… But why is the voice of the caller invariably broken or videos not clear?”

“Well, you might be using a 3G handset. Presently, the service providers are offering 4G+ services. Maybe you need to change your handset”

“Do I look like a fool? On one hand you are saying my phone is 16 G and on the other hand you are saying that government is offering only 4G services. Are you trying to ridicule me?”

Dumbstruck I tried to convince my dad. “Daddy, telephony G is different from storage GB … G of telephony means Generation and GB is giga bytes… 4G is different from 16 GB”.

“I know… I know… If government is offering only 4G and I have a 16 G handset, and there are two SIM cards in my handset 4G multiplied 4G is 16 G… then why is my handset not working properly?”, dad said angrily.

As an adolescent, I always felt that my father was very poor in mathematics and that’s perhaps why he asked me to opt for Biology stream in college. Had I known then that he knew how to square 4, I would’ve opted for mathematics stream giving many-a-CEOs a good run for their money…

“No!” I yelled, “the G in xG is different from GB”

“Now… Now… Now… My hearing aids are working properly… no need to shout… unnecessarily you’ll be disturbing the neighbours… Tell me, if my handset is 16 G why is it not working in 4G technology?”

I tried to pacify myself, “guess he has a hearing problem with letter ‘B’…”

“This G is not the same as that GB… Both are different…,” I said at the top of my voice

“Ok… But how to solve the problem?”

“Change your handset to something that can support 4G services…”

“But it is lockdown now… So… what’s the alternative?”

“The only alternative is to wait till they relax the lockdown and buy a new one until then endure the faulty video and audio calls… No other way out…”

*

Twenty years ago, in 2002, I bought my first mobile handset – a Nokia 3100 for about Rs3000. I was in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh then. There was a delayed roll-out of mobile telephony in North-western India and Kashmir regions of India for obvious reasons of them being very next to enemy nations, China and Pakistan. It was 2G technology then. Subsequently, a number of cheap Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese and Korean mobile handsets invaded India.

Back in 1991 CE, when India liberalised its economy, India was invaded by a number of international products in all spheres of life. Many Chinese and other Asian national companies also released their wares. This gave the average Indian at least four options.

The first option of buying highly priced superior quality original products from the Western Countries. The second option is that of the cheap lookalikes mostly from oriental countries like China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea. These were commonly referred to as duplicates. A third reasonable and genuine option was also offered by the liberalised Indian market – the Japanese products. These Japanese products, particularly the watches and calculators, were diametrically different from either the Western or the Oriental country products. They were priced somewhere in between and offered technology products with graceful designs. No matter what happens, these Japanese goods exceed your expectations. The fourth option was the local Indian products. These were rather crude in their design, usually low in quality and may or may not work testing your luck.

Chinese products, the duplicates, looked more American than the American products themselves but with Mandarin notations. From a distance it is difficult to say which is which. The most popular example in this direction was the copy of popular Batteries. Street vendors used to dispense American lookalike batteries for Rs5 while the original western would cost Rs95. Among the Indian products that stood the test of time were mostly food and dairy items and some watches/clocks.

This period of 90s in India paralleled the European Union’s efforts to revive the defunct industries that were bombed out in World War II. Also, around this time domestic airlines pampered the passengers by giving cheap watches as gifts and souvenirs. Net result: both my father and me developed a passion for collecting watches. My father’s patients would gift him cheap Chinese or so-called duplicates of the popular European watches. While he still collects these cheap watches, I, in due course, fizzled out. Of course, as of today, the pace at which the companies release newer designs outran our passion.

Mobile handsets, particularly the cheap ones that flooded the Indian market, fuelled our passion to collect handsets. So, now both of us have an additional avocation of changing mobile handsets as frequently as possible. Since in 2002 I was in Shimla and my dad was in Hyderabad, it became an unwritten rule between both of us that we appear with a different mobile handset every time we met. This passion continued for about a decade till 2012. By this time, I covered two cities – Shimla and Guwahati in Northeastern state of Assam. My father having retired from active government service lived (and continues to live in, touch wood) in Hyderabad which is in the south Indian state of Telangana.

A neighbourhood mobile vendor used to supply my father with cheap mobile handsets. For some unknown reason he used to call my father ‘Uncle’ and me as ‘Sir’. So, my mother and me used to pull my dad’s legs by calling the mobile vendor as his nephew.

As per our passion, we regularly changed our mobile phones. This continued till sometime… literally till 2018… when the 4G services were launched. Around this time the mobile ‘nephew’ of my father stopped supplying newer versions of handsets to my father.

But when he supplied mobile handsets to my father, he also used to do an additional service to my father: every time my father changed his handset, the mobile ‘nephew’ would somehow do a data transfer from the older handset to the new one. This I call an additional service because my father, as I mentioned earlier, uses hearing aids. So, the mobile handset must also be connected to the hearing aid through Bluetooth or other reliable technology. This is followed by a calibration of the hearing aid with the audiologist. All this took at least 2 – 3 days and multiple visits to both the mobile vendor and the audiologist. The mobile ‘nephew’ was very enthusiastic and never complained about any inconvenience. Other mobile shop owners would bluntly ask my father to get the calibration done elsewhere or with the service centre present at the other end of the city.

In one of the exchanges of mobiles, the data could not be properly transferred.

*

In June 2020, I guess, the government relaxed the lockdowns for the first time. Promptly, my father headed to a neighbourhood mobile phone shop and bought a 4G handset as per my recommendation. To my surprise, my father did not go to his mobile ‘nephew’. He went to a high-end mobile shop. My father this time bought an advanced model of a popular company’s handset.

After a day or two, and more video conferences later, my father expressed happiness and thanked me saying that for the first time in his life I gave a correct advice.

But now he needed something from the earlier unfinished data transfer. He wanted the data in the older mobile handset into the new handset. I took both the handsets to the new vendor and requested him to do the transfer. He gave a polished glib talk giving me the impression that the earlier handset is a cheap model from which it is better not to transfer the data. Crestfallen, I dragged myself to my-father’s-mobile-nephew and asked him to do the needful. The nephew told me that he failed to get permission for 4G and 5G so he’s at a loss as to help me.

“…that”, the nephew told me then, “is also the reason why your father no longer procures his mobiles from me”.

*

Two years of COVID restrictions rolled on somehow. For more than a year and a half every Indian was literally imprisoned in their respective homes due to the on-going pandemic.

The technology argument resurfaced between me and my father once again.

Dad said, “…again the problem of poor-quality video and audio…”

“Ah! Our service provider has now upgraded to 5G+ …Your handset is 4G… Change your handset…”

“Hmm… you mean there’s no problem with the handset?”

“Yeah! There’s no problem with the handset. It is just outdated. It is no longer compatible with the existing technology“, I quipped.

“What do you mean?“

I played the cards differently this time.

“We are three people in this house now. How comfortable will it be if suddenly there are 15 people in this house now?”

“If you talk like that, a greater number of people can be made to adjust in the house…”

“But what if everyday 15 people keep coming into the house without vacating?”

“Ah! Then that will be a problem…”

“Ditto for your handset… It is receiving more information from the network than it can handle…”

“The Apps are also freezing occasionally…”

“Same logic… they are receiving more information and upgrading themselves to the new technology… time to change your handset…”

“How much will a basic handset that works will cost me?”

“The one that is compatible will cost you around Rs15,000. The one that is also compatible with your hearing aids will be at the least Rs 20,000.”

Well, since my childhood, I always kept myself updated on the prices of the latest in market whether I need those items or not. Wishful thinking, I guess.

“If this is the case then, every year or two even if there is no malfunction, I am forced to change my handset. This is very bad…”

“That’s the flip side of the technological advancement… Whether you like it or not… Whether there’s a malfunction or not, we are forced to change our products leading to huge amounts of pollution…”

“Very bad state of affairs. Think about the laptops then. Unnecessarily we are shelling out truckloads of money just to keep us abreast of the technology…”

“Very bad state of affairs… the technology developers think everybody is a billionaire and everybody’s a computer geek…”

*

Thanks to our passions, every year, me and my dad each spend at least Rs8000 just for the batteries so that our watches are in working condition. The other day, I took an Indian watch of mine for servicing which I bought in 2001 with the first salary I received after my PhD. I bought it for Rs400 then.

The servicing personnel cooed, “Is this watch still working?”

Nostalgically, I asked, “What’s the price of this model now?”

“This model is no longer produced Sir…”

If this episode makes me misty-eyed, my Japanese watch always gives me goosepimples.

In 2010, I found a display board in a watch shop in the Fancy Bazaar of Guwahati that read, “Japanese – EcoFriendly watches”. I walked into the shop and bought the watch for about two thousand bucks. The manual said, “10-year Battery Life”. Believe it or not, it lasted 15 years and this is the only watch which did not give me an opportunity to change its battery.

Good and Honest things in life must be appreciated at the first opportunity.

[1] Telephony is the technology involving telephones for communication (audio or video), and data exchange between distant parties

Categories
Stories

The Storm

By Anandita Dey

The storm outside the room and one inside me were not different. Both were creating havoc. The one outside was wrecking, breaking trees and thatched huts. The other was breaking me into pieces, and I knew, I would never be able to return to my original state.

I lay on an unknown bed, with an unknown person. His left hand held my waist tightly. I could feel his heavy breath on my neck. I could barely move. I wanted to get up and run away from this, into the storm outside, to silence the storm inside me. I looked at the wall clock on the wall in front of me. It was half past five in the morning. I freed myself from the strong grasp of his hand and got up from the bed. I felt dizzy from lack of sleep. I opened the windows, and the heavy rain drenched me in a few minutes. The strong breeze made me shiver.

It’s been a few months now since I’ve been with him. He seems to be a nice person. Sometimes when I pretend to be asleep in the morning, he prepares breakfast for me and leaves it on the bedside table. Sometimes when I don’t prepare dinner, he orders food from outside. He never complains of anything. One day I had high fever. He skipped his work and stayed all day with me, feeding me with food and medicines.

We first met a year ago. My parents arranged a meeting with his family, and they came to our house. He’s the only child of his parents. His father’s a retired police officer and his mother a high school teacher. He’s an entrepreneur. We met a few times after that, all of which were vague meetings. I don’t remember where we met, what were the things we discussed. And after a few months, I was sent to his home. He doesn’t stay with his parents. We live in a small apartment, few kilometers away from my parents’ home. I am now officially his wife and he, my husband. He’s the kind of man every girl desires. He’s good looking, intelligent, caring and everything. But I already had my perfect man in my life.

My perfect man may not be very intelligent, but he knows how to make me smile. He is the most handsome man I have ever seen in my life. He is so charming that anyone would fall for him, but he chose me. He loves me as if I’m the most precious thing he has. And when he touches me, caresses me, kisses me and holds me in his arms, I feel like I’m the most precious thing in this world. He says I’m his muse. He writes poems about me. Some nights, when we lie down together, he recites those poems to me in his enchanting voice.

My train of thoughts stopped when my husband tapped me on my back. He closed the windows and asked me to get ready. He said we were going somewhere. I obediently got ready and prepared breakfast for us. We had our breakfast in silence and left for the ‘somewhere’. As we reach there, the place seemed to be familiar to me. I had been here before, but I could hardly recall. Few moments later we met a lady. She called herself Dr. Sunitha Swamy. She was beautiful with an appealing personality. She asked me a few questions about myself and my hallucinations. I didn’t know what she was talking about. And then she spoke to my husband. She said I had created an imaginary person in my mind who I thought was real and that’s why I was not able to accept my marriage or my husband. She said few medications and therapies could help me get rid of this.

Three months passed since we first visited the hospital. Dr. Sunitha said I was fine after taking medications and therapies. My husband’s no longer an unknown person to me. I never skip preparing breakfasts or dinners for him. His hands no longer feel like a tight grasp. And we make love too. But on days when no one is around, I go back to my man — the man whom I have loved ever since and whose embrace still makes me feel that I’m the most precious thing in the world.

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Anandita Dey is a research scholar from Guwahati who enjoys experimenting with words as much as science. A lifelong book lover, she expresses her thoughts through poetry and fiction. Her writings have appeared in newspapers and online platforms, and she dreams of publishing her book someday.

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