A difficult hiking trail up into the mountains combined with bouts of inner doubt makes for an interesting big day out, as Keith Lyons discovers on an alpine route in New Zealand.
Photo Courtesy: Keith Lyons
The coroner’s reports make sobering reading. Two people had died on the same track within a couple of years – both deaths partly attributed to insufficient signage warning hikers heading down to cross the river at that point rather than continue to where cliffs, waterfalls and slippery rocks could be fatal. Both fatalities were preventable, the reports concluded. The one day, up and down rocky alpine route is recommended to only be attempted by experienced hikers, and in good weather, but when my friend and I set off recently on the Gertrude Saddle hike, in New Zealand’s Fiordland, it seemed ‘experienced’ was not a word I would describe the fellow walkers.
Inspired by photos on Instagram, guidebook recommendations in English, French and German, blogposts with photos, and travellers’ recommendations, the hike is popular and easily accessible. It is only 7km return, but 7km involving some risk and quite a lot of altitude gain and fall – 600m climb to be precise. Already nearly 30 cars, vans and motorhomes were parked in the carpark, close to the divide on the Te Anau-Milford Sound Scenic Highway. If you can’t find the marker signs, just look for the people hiking, one website had quipped.
Peering into the distance, we could make out hikers in waterproof jackets and wind blocking fabrics. In the carpark, I reiterated my expectation that if the trail proved slippery, crumbling or covered in snow or ice, then I wouldn’t want to continue. The start of the trail was picture-perfect, and the weather was fine – something of a rarity for a region that gets 200 days of rainfall in an average year. The first part of the 6-hour hike is along the flats of a valley with a meandering river, giving a chance to admire the alpine grasses and flowers, and look up to the amphitheatre of rugged mountains capped in the previous night’s snow.
Photo Courtesy: Keith Lyons
It was early autumn, but colder than normal, and we wore extra layers of clothing. I counted five layers, plus my gloves. It felt good to be on the move, to be enjoying the day, and the prospect of crowning our week’s trip with a route that neither of us had attempted before. From a previous trip to Fiordland I’d spied the valley, with a hundred waterfalls flowing thanks to the torrential rain, and having heard from friends that this was a great day out, remembered to add it to the possible hike list, when the weather was more favourable.
The first people we encountered were coming down. Maybe they’d started early and were the first back, I thought. As the trio approached, I inquired onto the track conditions. They hadn’t been to the saddle, instead turning around when the going got tough. There were rocks falling down from climbers above, and they didn’t feel safe. It was not the news we were hoping for, but at least I thought this gave us an opt-out.
Photo Courtesy: Keith Lyons
The trail veered left, out of the valley, and up. I felt my breathing become more laboured, and my calves straining. My companion had earlier talked about meeting Edmund Hillary, the first to climb Mt Everest, and being impressed with the size of his strong calves. When I met the New Zealand climber I didn’t get a chance to admire his gastrocnemius and soleus muscles, but when I shook his hand I realised that his hands were also strong, large and powerful.
We reached the river crossing below a waterfall, which was easily crossed with a hop, skip and jump, and then looked again at the route and markers, to ensure imprinted on our memory was the turn off for the river crossing, against the natural inclination to go down, down to where bluffs had claimed weary hikers too keen to get down to the valley below.
Photo Courtesy: Keith Lyons
There were warning signs along the way, as if to reinforce the gravity of the situation. The track from the river crossing on is steep, and not suited to those with limited experience or a dislike for heights, the signs warn. “The track goes up steep rock slabs and is treacherous when wet or frosty — there are steel cables to assist you.” A young woman passed us with just a purse and mobile phone, wearing a spaghetti top. We saw another 20-something walking uphill texting with both thumbs – a feat I was curious about, given that I had no phone reception for my network. Millennials. Seemingly unprepared should the weather turn or they need extra energy for the hike.
We stopped beside Black Lake, and saw a smaller blue lake below, perched above the river crossing waterfall. Other hikers stopped to have snacks or lunch, but we had already tucked into our sandwiches by the river, and I was anxious to keep moving in case the snows ahead melted into slush as the sun finally reached the boulder field. The clamber up with steel cables wasn’t too bad, it was more a case of avoiding damp areas where boots and shoes would slide and attack any confidence.
Photo Courtesy: Keith Lyons
The ridge by the Black Lake has proved to be a false summit, and there was still more climbing to do, on zig-zag tracks which displaced rocks and pebbles with every footfall, along uneven trails covered in pockets of snow, and over granite rocks worn smooth by the elements. Those rocks, where dry, proved to be the most satisfying to walk on, once it was established that the tread of shoes was sufficient to grip the surface.
Looking up, we could make out the silhouette of climbers who had made it to the ridge, which we presumed was the actual saddle. But it was hard to calculate just how far it was up. As more hikers started to come down, we asked, but assessments of the distance and time varied. When someone said ‘probably half an hour’ I realised that rather than turn back, we were probably going to make it to the top for the literally ‘breathtaking’ views. I was feeling good, and my companion was enjoying the rock scrambling.
Photo Courtesy: Keith Lyons
Picking our way among the rocks and boulder, we kept going, the prospect of views, a rest and a second lunch ahead. Eventually the steepness gave way to a more gentle terrain, and a few more steps and we were looking out to different mountains and valleys. We joined the other walkers admiring the view into the Milford Sound and savouring packed lunches. There were folk from the USA, France, Germany, India, China and Belgium, some of them on working visas in New Zealand, or enjoying ‘van life’. People asked others to take their photos, some standing on large boulders very close to drop offs of 700m. We looked around for the spaghetti-top woman. Maybe she had made it, or turned back.
At the top, some 1400m high, ice sat on top of small hollows, with snow melting to make the tracks muddy. My friend found a shelter build with rocks and had his nap, while I climbed a little higher for views both sides of the saddle. The saddle got its name some 140 years ago when the surveyor for the road hiked up with his wife Gertrude Holmes. She was likely wearing a dress, but most probably not a spaghetti top.
As Edmund Hillary once said, to climb a mountain successfully you not only have to hike up it, you have to hike back down too – and survive to tell the tale. With this message taken to heart, we carefully descended to the valley floor, and eventually back to the carpark.
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Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer and creative writing mentor originally from New Zealand who has spent a quarter of his existence living and working in Asia including southwest China, Myanmar and Bali. His Venn diagram of happiness features the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee, the negative ions of the natural world including moving water, and connecting with others in meaningful ways. A Contributing Editor on Borderless journal’sEditorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.
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Title: Camel Karma: Twenty Years Among India’s Camel Nomads
Author: Ilse Kohler-Rollefson
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
Whenever we read about travel narratives by foreigners in India, especially Westerners, we assume it to be primarily superficial, skin-deep, and without much contact with ground reality. This non-fiction book, that can also be read as a sort of travelogue, busts that myth. It begins with a German veterinarian, Ilse Kohler-Rollefson’s arrival in Rajasthan in 1991 and almost twenty-five years of association with the same. On a field trip to Jordan in 1979, she first became fascinated by the relationship between pastoral peoples and the camels they shared their lives with. After a brief stint of camel field research in Sudan’s eastern desert, her choice to continue her research on camel husbandry led her naturally to India, the country with the third-largest camel population in the world, and she arrived at the National Research Centre on Camel (NRCC) in Bikaner, Rajasthan. Wanting to know more about the practical aspects of camel-keeping or its cultural foundation, she encountered the Rebaris, also called Raikas in Marwar, who are proper breeders of camels and whose whole lifestyle centred around it. She writes, “To me it seemed that the Raikas’ relationship with their animals was equally worthy of conservation as a uniquely human heritage.”
Historically, the Raika of Rajasthan have had a unique and enduring relationship with camels. They offer a compassionate alternative by keeping farm animals as part of nature, allowing them to move and do so in herds. Farm animals can thus extend their potential as humanity’s greatest asset. Their entire existence revolves around looking after the needs of these animals which, in turn, provide them with sustenance, wealth and companionship. Ilse is immediately enthralled by Raika’s intimate relationship with their animals, but she is also confronted with their existential problems.
For her, her research among them gave her not just a glimpse of the history and culture of Rajasthan, but also a way forward in her personal journey. Denying all kinds of creature comforts, the hope of saving both the camel and the Raika way of life took her and her spirited ally, Hanwant Singh Rathore, from vet labs in the city, to Raika settlements in the remotest corners of the Thar Desert, and everywhere in between. The intractable dilemmas— both bureaucratic and cultural—they were often confronted with required creative solutions. As they adapted to their circumstances, they found their orthodox Raika friends adapting with them. Kohler-Rollefson’s is a journey that is often exasperating, sometimes funny, but keeps revealing unexpected layers of rural Rajasthani mores and diverse cultures that make it such a fascinating place.
Spending her own research grants on a shoe-string budget, Kohler-Rollefson set up a base office in Sadri, close to the Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary at the foothills of the Aravalli mountains, where she employs several Indians as research assistants (none of whom stay for long), veterinarians who help in administering the teeka, the vaccines to eradicate common camel diseases. With her trusted driver cum translator, her ally, she interacts with several nomadic tribes who rear camels, but whose caste and culture are radically different from one another as chalk and cheese. The narrative also gives details about her interactions with the local people — some of whom had earlier eyed her with suspicion of being an outsider, but later accepted her whole-heartedly.
She describes the sign-language with which she interacts with the womenfolk in the Raika households, her regular visits to the annual animal fair at Puskar, where she even bought a young female camel and named her Mira, leaving her to grow up and breed with the other camels of the Raika. Kohler-Rollefson learned that the Raika did not sell camel milk or eat camel meat. They used other camel by-products, but clearly the economic returns from a camel did not seem optimal. Mostly, they bred female camels to give birth to male camels that could be sold to other caste for work. She was surprised to find that “these camels resembled family members and were treated almost as intimately; nobody was afraid of them.”
Despite repeated setbacks, both from government apathy as well as social taboos, Kohler-Rollefson’s dedication to the cause was so sincere that she was able to found many organisations like the Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPPS), including the Camel Husbandry Improvement Project (CHIP), promote the study and documentation of ethno-veterinarian practices (the melding of traditional and modern approaches to treating camel diseases), highlighting the Raika’s grazing needs at the World Parks Conference (2003), and along with Rathore and a Raika team, even embarking on an arduous 800 km long yatra on camelback throughout Rajasthan to raise awareness and draw attention to the dwindling camel numbers.
She successfully organised a meeting where apart from the traditional Raika constituency, she could include members from a range of castes spanning the whole social spectrum of Rajasthan – Rajputs from Jaisalmer, Bishnois from Barmer, Jats from Bikaner, Gujjars from Nagaur and Sindhi Muslims from deep in the Thar. She even escorted a group of Raika, including a colourful Bhopa (a wandering minstrel who sings and narrates the story of various episodes of the mythical Pabuji’s life through unfolding of cloth scrolls) to Germany and then to Interlaken, Switzerland for an FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations) conference. She set up the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogeneous Livestock Development (LPP) in Germany. In other words, Kohler-Rollefson has been successful in drawing attention to the problems of camels rearing at an international level.
The first edition of this book came out in 2014. Since then, they have had a daunting roller-coaster ride, shuttling back and forth between the depths of despair where they thought all was lost to exhilarating heights from which they fleetingly espied camel nirvana: a scenario where camels, people, and the environment live together in harmony and mutually support each other. Interestingly, the second revised edition of Camel Karma was published in 2023 and the other good news is that 2024 has been declared the International Year of Camelids by the United Nations General Assembly, with the stated goal of raising awareness of the contribution of camelids to livelihoods, food security and nutrition. It also aims at encouraging all stakeholders, including national governments, to work towards recognising and valuing the economic, social, and cultural importance of camelids in the lives of communities, especially those that are highly vulnerable to extreme poverty.
In combination with the India government’s recent discovery and appreciation of the country’s pastoralist cultures, this may be just the constellation that successfully revives India’s camel sector. In a scenario where companies and countries are competing for shares in the globalised market, the unique selling point of Rajasthan’s camel milk is the Raika’s heritage of producing milk humanely and with compassion. The biodiverse diet of the state’s camels is composed of ayurvedic plants that add another unique quality.
Thus, it seems appropriate that we all read Camel Karma now and let the world know about the unique Raika heritage and to serve as a baseline to look back on ten or twenty years from now. Despite the rapid technological development in all spheres of life, the author sees a future, and even an urgent need, for both the camel and for the Raika and other nomadic livestock keepers. She is optimistic for several reasons as everything in India is cyclical. The camel is a versatile and multipurpose animal that can fulfil many basic needs of humans. Its role as transport and farm animal is certainly on the retreat, so long as oil is available and affordable. Yet its potential as a dairy animal remains huge. Apart from that, there is a range of other eco-friendly products that can be made from happy living camels and that may just satisfy that budding urge of urbanites – in India and abroad – to re-connect with nature.
Apart from wholeheartedly praising the endeavour of Kohler-Rollefson in spending twenty years of her life among India’s camel nomads, in sacrificing her personal and family life for the welfare of the camels, and in drawing the attention to their problems in various fora in the international context, Camel Karma is a must read for everyone who is interested in learning about the socio-economic lifestyle of several castes and tribes of rural people in Rajasthan. We are looking forward to reading the sequel to this book which the author is planning to write, and which she tentatively calls “Camel Dharma” – a book about finding the right way of living with camels!
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Somdatta Mandal, critic, and translator, is former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India
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The Kuala Terengganu Skyline. Photo courtesy: Ravi Shankar
The lighting was subtle but magnificent. The transparent minarets glowed red, green, pink, and blue in turn. We were at the Masjid Kristal on the island of Wan Man at Kuala Terengganu in the state of the same name in northern Malaysia.
Majid Kristal
The mosque is among the most photographed monuments in the Islamic Heritage Park, and we could easily guess why. This is the first intelligent mosque in the country with an IT infrastructure and wi-fi connection. We were glad we came. The reflection of the mosque lights on water was enchanting. Getting around KT — as Kuala Terengganu is lovingly called by the locals — could sometimes be tricky without your own vehicle. Ride hailing services may not work optimally in the peak hours of the evening. We were informed by one of the cab drivers that Maxim is the most popular e-hailing app in the city.
The population in KT loves to eat out and in the evenings the restaurants are usually crowded. We were staying at the Intan Beach Resort at Pantai Batu Burok and the eating places by the beach were always crowded. The beach is popular with locals with several attractions and rides during the evenings. There is a three-kilometre walking path by the side of the beach. As we stayed right by the beach, we could enjoy early morning strolls on the soft sand.
Panti Batu Burok: Photo Courtesy: Ravi Shankar
The Kuala Terengganu state museum was huge and is located on over 23 acres of land. The museum was officially opened in 1996 and was designed by a well-known Malaysian architect, YM Raja Dato’ Kamarul Bahrin Shah, who also happens to be related to the royal family of Terengganu. The building is designed in traditionally Malay style and the outer façade was left undecorated. There are nine different galleries, and these include the Royal gallery, the historical gallery, the textiles gallery, the Islamic gallery, the handicrafts, the natural resources, the shipping and trading and the marine resources galleries.
Tha Batu Bersurat. Photo Courtesy: Ravi Shankar
The ‘Batu Bersurat’ (lettered stone) is the museum centrepiece and of great significance to the state. The stone is estimated to be 700 years old and mentions the position of Islam and the application of Islamic laws in the state. The stone is written in the Jawi script using Arabic characters. Jawi script is still used in Terengganu though in many areas Malay is written mostly in the Roman script. In the museum grounds, there is a good collection of different old cars and other vehicles used by the King and Chief Ministers of the state.
The Islamic Heritage Park is a major attraction located on the island of Wan Man. The park has small scale replicas of famous global Islamic monuments. Among the monuments represented are the mosques at Medina and Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Dome of the rock in Jerusalem, the Taj Mahal in India, and a mosque in Aleppo, Syria. The national mosque of Malaysia and mosques in Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, China, Tatarstan, Uzbekistan, and Iraq are also on display. Replicas of these famous monuments were displayed in the vast gardens of the monument. I liked this concept, and the monuments were well maintained except one or two that may require more attention.
The Floating Mosque. Courtesy: Creative CommonsDetails of the Floating Mosque. Courtesy: Ravi Shankar
The sun was hot, and I had to drink copious amounts of water. In the evening, my friend, Binaya, and I went to the floating mosque situated in Kuala Ibai Lagoon near the estuary of Kuala Ibai River, 4 km from Kuala Terengganu Town. The mosque combines modern and Moorish architecture, and is a white structure situated in five acres of land. There is also a floating mosque in Penang.
The next morning, we went to the Science and Creativity Centre. The centre is housed in a huge, modern building. There are multiple galleries to explore. I was fascinated by the stainless-steel exhibit showing the structure of DNA, the blueprint of life. The encounter with the dinosaurs was the highlight of the trip. The dinosaurs were colour coded in red (dangerous), yellow (exercise caution) and green (safe). Tyrannosaurus Rex was the highlight. Raptors, allosaurus and other dinos filled the hall with their cries and screams. The Stegosaurus had scales on the back. When I was young, I was a big fan of Phantom comics created by Lee Falk and Phantom had a stegosaurus as a pet. The inflatable dome on the top floor had a delightful cosmic show and you can see the universe projected above your head. The museum had plenty of things to see and do and is a big hit with children.
Photo Courtesy: Ravi Shankar
The Masjid Sultan Ismail Chendering has delicate artwork and is built entirely in white. The simple design and the beautiful artwork had me mesmerised. The mosque has a long history. The small Lebai Zainal Mosque which could accomodate150 people was first built near the current location of the mosque before being replaced by the Raja Chendering Mosque and then replaced again by a new mosque which is the Sultan Ismail Mosque.
Photo Courtesy: Ravi Shankar
Soon it was time for lunch. There are plenty of food options near our hotel. I enjoyed nasi kerabu, a Malaysian rice dish, in which blue-coloured rice is eaten with dried fish or fried chicken, crackers, pickles and other salads. The blue colour of the rice comes from the petals of Clitoria ternatea flowers, which are used as a natural food colouring.
In the evening, we went to see the Abidin Mosque which is Terengganu’s old state royal mosque built by Sultan Zainal Abidin II between 1793 and 1808. The Royal mausoleum is located next to the mosque. Istana Maziah, the official palace of the Sultan of Terengganu is located close to the mosque at the foot of the mountain, Bukit Puteri. The palace is the official venue for important functions such as royal birthdays, weddings, conferment of titles and receptions for local and foreign dignitaries. We wanted to climb Bukit Puteri, but the place was under renovation and closed.
We continued along the waterfront to the Shah Bandar jetty. A cool breeze was blowing, and many people were strolling along the promenade. We were moving toward the Kuala Terengganu drawbridge constructed in 2019 inspired by the London drawbridge. We waited for the sky to darken so that we could see the lights on the bridge.
Photo Courtesy: Ravi Shankar
Buses from KL take the highway to Kuantan and then bypass the town. The journey continues to the town of Paka and then takes the coastal highway through Dungun. Some parts of this state reminded me of my home state of Kerala in South India. Plenty of coconut trees were seen. Coconut trees grow so well in Kerala and in many areas along the west coast of India.
The expressways in Malaysia are well-designed and maintained. Traveling on these are usually a smooth experience though they get very crowded during major holidays when people leave Kuala Lumpur for their hometowns and villages. KT is about 400 km from KL and takes around eight hours by bus. Malaysia’s northern state on the East Coast can be a good getaway. The town and the state has culture, history, natural beauty, delicious food, and serene beaches. The islands off the coast were still closed. Redang island was mentioned to be one of the most beautiful islands in the world. Hopefully, we will visit these during our next trip. God willing, we shall!
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Dr. P Ravi Shankar is a faculty member at the IMU Centre for Education (ICE), International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He enjoys traveling and is a creative writer and photographer.
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Tahira Naqvi, the Pakistani American writer, has extensively translated the works of Saadat Hasan Manto, Khadija Mastur, Hajra Masroor, and the majority of works by Ismat Chughtai from Urdu into English. As a teacher/professor of Urdu language and literature at New York University, she has regaled us with several short stories that speak of cross-cultural encounters of immigrant Pakistanis in America, especially about how women experience acculturation in the New World. The History Teacher of Lahore is her first novel where she recollects the sights, sounds, and ambience of growing up in Lahore in intimate details. The setting of this novel is the nineteen eighties, which was particularly a time of unrest in Lahore. In this debut political novel, Naqvi eloquently portrays the struggle between a besieged democracy and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism on the one hand, and the thriving cultural traditions of Urdu poetry on the other.
The story begins with the young protagonist Arif Ali who moves from his hometown of Sialkot to Lahore with a dream of being a history teacher and a poet. A ‘tall, slight man in his late twenties,’ we find him relaxing on a bench in Jinnah Park — a place that has become haven for him to spend his time reading, far away from the ferocity of traffic and street crowds. In the days that followed, Arif realised that in the Government Model School for Boys where he taught, he was forced to teach the boys another kind of history for his sake as much as theirs. But that required deep thought, time, and enthusiasm. He befriended Salman Shah, another teacher in his school, and his rapport with him grew stronger by the day. But once again, Arif found the atmosphere in the school was becoming increasingly confining. He would often engage in animated chatter with the high school Islamiyat teacher Samiullah Sheikh, whom he found disagreeable. Not only dressed in Shariyah compliant clothes, but this man was also waiting for his opportunity to teach at a madrassah[1]. This was the period when bans were being imposed on popular music of the kind Nazia Hasan and her brother sang for the younger generation, and even though ‘Disco Deewane’ and ‘Dreamer Deewane’ were sung loud, fear had become an elixir for rebellion. Arif was forced to resign from the school and along with his friend Salman. he ultimately got another position as a history teacher in another private school, Lahore Grammar Institute, where there was more freedom to teach than in the earlier one. The free socializing among the sexes here was new and noteworthy for Arif.
As Arif’s impotent rage towards the increasing religious intolerance grew, he joined his friend’s uncle Kamal and his partner Nadira to secretly help them rescue underprivileged children in clandestine ways. In the meantime, his poetic creations found great impetus when he found a secret admirer in Roohi, Salman’s sister, and started sending her his poems regularly. Though they never met, Roohi would write letters to him every week, and gradually, the more letters Arif received from her, the more his feelings for her grew. The secrecy of their epistolary courtship continued for quite some time till things were disclosed and after a lot of twists and turns in the story, they were finally engaged to get married.
In the meantime, his friend Salman got engaged to a colleague Zehra Raza, and despite the Shia-Sunni clashes that prevailed in society all around, they were unaffected by such ideology. The three of them developed a close camaraderie among themselves, but soon after, the General’s death brought in a lot of political turmoil in the city. The mentality of the public also changed, people went en-masse to watch public flogging, and trouble loomed ahead when Sunni Shia, Ahmadi non-Ahmadi, Punjabi Urdu-speaking, Protestant-Catholic, divisions and sub-divisions, inter-faith, inter-class and inter-religion issues became more and more marked in all spheres of society. The warp and weft of faith produced such tangled intricacies as could only be imagined in nightmares.
As the nation was caught in the vortex of religious extremism, Arif’s position also underwent a great change in the school when he wanted to teach ‘true’ history to his students. He was caught in a dilemma when he found he was forced to teach false historical information in the doctored textbook that Aurangzeb with his hatred of other religions was adored whereas Akbar with more religious tolerance was totally sidelined. He tried to rectify the errors by providing supplementary notes to his students, but that landed him in more trouble. Apart from differences of opinion with the other teachers in school, Arif’s was gripped with a kind of fear and frustration when some unidentified goons threatened him to stay away from issues that did not concern him. Things got worse when a Christian student in his class was falsely accused of blasphemy and Arif decided to save him from being arrested. He embarked on a dangerous mission to resolve this Christian-Muslim conflict that landed him in the middle of sectarian clashes and without giving out all the details, one just mentions that the novel ends at a tragic moment.
In the acknowledgement section Naqvi states that she is grateful to her father for many things but especially for his Urdu poetry which she has used freely in translation. These poems, ghazals and nazms, help to explain the different moods of the protagonist and his mental situation very clearly. One interesting aspect of the novel is that each of the twenty-two chapters is prefaced by a small quote that in a way summarizes the mood and content of that chapter. Most of these quotes are from Jean-Paul Sartre, while others are from Spinoza, Ghalib, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, H.W. Longfellow, Jacques Derrida, Tertullian, Thomas Mann, and four entries particularly from The Lahore Observer dated 15 September 1990, December 1990, January 1997, and January 1998 respectively. These wide-ranging quotes not only increase the story-telling impact, but also endorse the erudition of the novelist herself.
To conclude we can say that Bapsi Sidhwa’s The Ice-Candy Man gave us the sights, sounds and details of Lahore during the Partition in 1947, and the same city becomes wonderfully alive again through the pen of another woman writer from Pakistan who had spent her growing years there, and who gives us details about it from the 1980’s onwards when the political situation of the country was once again very murky. The novel wonderfully portrays the radical Islamisation of the country that included murder, mayhem, and public flogging and more that was visible in Lahore, as this process resulted in terrible uncertainty in the lives of the city’s residents from all walks of life. Strongly recommended for all readers, we eagerly wait for more novels by Tahira Naqvi in the future. The insider-outsider’s point of view offered by her is remarkable and this debut novel can be counted as a collector’s item.
Hayao Miyazaki and the poster of The Boy and the Heron in Japanese
In January 2024, The Boy and the Heron became the first Japanese movie to win the Golden Globe Award for the Best Animated Feature Film. However, when the original movie was released by Studio Ghibli in the summer of 2023 in Japan, it was marketed with ‘no marketing at all’-without any trailers, TV commercials or newspaper advertisements. A minimalist movie poster carrying the sketch of a heron and the Japanese title Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka, was all it took the movie to record the biggest box office opening in Studio Ghibli’s history.
Hayao Miyazaki, the godfather of Japanese animation who celebrated his 83rd birthday in January, 2024, broke a decade long hiatus to give his directorial swansong to the world. The movie is inspired by Miyazaki’s favourite book Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka, written by Genzaburo Yoshino in 1937. This coming-of-age Japanese classic had been tenderly translated into English under the title How Do You Live? by Bruno Navasky and brought out by Penguin in 2021 with a foreword by a writer no less than Neil Gaiman.
Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka byGenzaburo Yoshino
The protagonist of the story is Honda Junichi, a fifteen-year-old boy nicknamed ‘Copper’ after Copernicus, by his uncle. He has a diminutive frame, but his intelligence, bright personality and athletic skills, make him a popular kid at school. As Copper has been raised by a single mother, his uncle, who is a fresh law graduate, is the only male guardian around him. Their bond is an interesting one: not only do they share a warm friendship, but also discuss about the world at large, its history, philosophy, human relationships, so on and so forth.
The book chronicles Copper’s world, his thoughts and day-to-day incidents, in a format that alternates between a third person narrative and notes from the diary Copper’s uncle. Copper’s everyday experiences are similar to those of any other school going child — peers bullying, fighting, discovering class differences, bonding over games, pranking one another, and so on. The book delves into the mind of the adolescent boy, trying to make sense of the world to understand how he’d transition to an adult. He approaches the world with an innocent curiosity, musing how people are ‘a little like water molecules’ in the vast ocean of human society.
His uncle deeply moved by these observations and expressions, begins to pen down about these interesting episodes in his notebook. He also adds facts and references associated with them, that encompass wide range of topics including art, science, economics, history, politics, philosophy and language. He probably thinks that when Copper reads the notebook later on, it would help him see the world better alongside his personal mental and moral evolution. These notebook entries bear sagacious titles like- ‘on ways of looking at things’, ‘on human troubles, mistakes and greatness’, ‘on human relationships’, ‘on poverty and humanity’, etc. However, the words do not intend to preach. They brim with warmth of empathy, and capture the strengths and vulnerabilities of being human: “If it means anything at all to live in this world, it’s that you must live your life like a true human being and feel just what you feel. This is not something that anyone can teach from the sidelines, no matter how great a person becomes.”
Yoshino wrote the book as a part of the “Nihon Shoukokumin Bunko” (Library of books for the Younger Generation) that aimed at disseminating progressive knowledge and ideas to Japanese young adults. The work is a precious one – a classic example of how thoughtful adults can help young children to have a healthy mind and human heart.
Published in 1937, this masterpiece itself is an act of resistance against all regressive beliefs and authoritarianism, as Navasky pens in his Translator’s note, the book is “…particularly valuable to us now, when violence against citizens is on the rise, and independent thinkers are being attacked by their governments”. The book itself was censured several times, before it could be printed in its originally intended form. It’s important to mention here that from 1911 to 1945, Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu (or Tokko), the Special Higher Police, heavily monitored political groups and ideologies that posed a threat to the Empire of Japan. The Peace Preservation Law passed in 1925, expanded the powers of Tokko to suppress all socialist and communist idea in Japan. The heavy-handed ‘thought policing, only ended in 1945 with Japan’s surrender in World War II.
How we live, invariably depends on how we think. The universality of the book lies in how it links thought processes across borders — individual and collective — will have decisive roles in the ideals we follow and the society we construct. Our journey from the primitive caves to modern skyscrapers has been a long and tumultuous one. The prowess of human mind and the resilience of human spirit has brought of this far, but a peaceful society demands empathy and honesty of the human heart. Copper is sensitive enough to realise this, when he jots down–
“I think there has to come a time when everyone-one in the world treats each other as if they were good friends. Since humanity has come so far, I think now we will definitely be able to make it to such a place.
So, I think I want to become a person who can help that happen.”
Charting the ups and downs in the life of young Copper, the book closes on a sunny fulfilling note where our protagonist sees the world with an open heart as his extended family. And so, this timeless classic that touches the heart ends with a deep question for all of us – “How will you live?”
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Aditi Yadav is a public servant from India. As and when time permits she engages in creative pursuits and catches up her never-ending to-read list. Her works appear in Rain Taxi Review of books, EKL review, Usawa Literary Review, Gulmohur Quarterly, Narrow Road Journal and the Remnant Archive.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
By Jyoti[1], translated from Hindustani by Lourdes M Supriya
Songs of Freedom bring stories from women — certainly not victims, not even survivors but fighters against the patriarchal status quo with support from the organisation Shaktishalini[2].
–Sanjay Kumar, founder, pandies‘
Painting by Amrita Shergil (1913-1941)
What are the Options?
“So then what happened?”
Nothing. My father came and took me back to his house. My nana-nani[3] didn’t stop him. He put me in a good school though, so this time I didn’t mind going back there. Last time he took me, I hated it.
“Why did you hate it?”
He wasn’t a nice man. I think that’s why my grandparents took me in. They knew what kind of a man he was. I loved being at my grandparents’. My mama, mother’s brother, he would take me shopping during holidays. I could pick anything in the entire shop, he’d never say no. Whenever I wanted new clothes, my masi, mother’s sister, took me to the markets\. She was like my mother. I was so loved there. But then my father took me away…
He had too many restrictions. My mother and I weren’t allowed to leave the house. I couldn’t leave after I came back from school. He kept an eye on us from his shop, it was down the street. Then the drinking got too much, the yelling, the swearing. I was afraid of his footsteps. I could tell from the sound of them what the night was going to be like. My mother was very scared of him, she couldn’t protect me from him. She felt helpless, I felt really bad for her. Then I was sent away again to my grandparents. I liked it there. I was studying in a government school. I did well in studies. I liked it. But then he came and took me back to the village. I had to repeat my third standard[4] there. I cried a lot at first, but it was a private school, better than the government one in Delhi.
“So this was the second time you were going there?”
Yes. I’ve lived at my father’s a couple of times. Sometimes I ran away and came back to my grandparents’, sometimes my mother brought me with her and stayed. But she always went back pretty soon. The first time he took me, I used to cry to my grandparents every night to take me back. I had to repeat classes so many times, I’m really behind on my studies. This has ruined my education. That’s why I hate it.
“What about the last time you were there? What happened then?”
Nothing. The same. But worse. He was more violent. My mother herself asked me to go with her to my grandparent’s. But I had exams in a month. I was a good student. I’d worked so hard. That year was especially bad at home; I’d put all my energy into school. I didn’t want to just drop it all and repeat the class again. I begged my mother to stay till the end of the term. He would beat her over everything. So I had to beg her. I promised her I would support her if she’d just let me give those exams. I was 14. I was old enough to start working.
“So did she stay?”
Yes. And then I came back to my grandparents’. But she went back the second day. Then she stopped taking my calls. Finally, I called her from someone else’s phone. She recognised my voice. I could tell. She didn’t say anything for a long time. I kept asking her to come. Then she said, “Aaj se tera mera rishta khatam; you’re not my daughter anymore. Don’t call again.”
I felt very alone. Things at my grandparents’ were also changing. My aunt was getting married. Everyone was busy with the preparations.
Nana[5] used to drive the auto 15 hours a day to save up for it. But he first had to pay back the loan he took out for the auto before he could save for the wedding. It was his last installment and they were really breathing down on him. One day he came home and told us he was short of 1000 bucks and it was time to make the payment. He asked my uncle, who was married by then, but his wife said they couldn’t spare it since they were also paying for the wedding and saving for the baby they planned to have next year. My uncle didn’t even have the balls to refuse his father himself. His wife had to do it. My grandfather turned to my mother, but she said, she couldn’t spare it either, she’d spent it all on me.
“Wait, your mother was there?”
Yes. She’d come eventually, some two months after me. She was working as a cook. It was really nice. For the first time, it felt like she was there. But that day she had used me as an excuse. I didn’t see any of that money. She wasn’t even paying for my school fees. I took tuitions and paid for it. I was starting to resent her too, I could see why the rest of them hated her.
“Wait, who hated her? Why did you resent her, you just said she was there for you.”
She was. When she came. She got a job. She got offs on Sunday and she would spend those with me. On Sundays, I didn’t have to cook for the family, she did. She even gave me money for school supplies, like new copies or pens, whenever I asked for it. She got me a small phone too. But this didn’t last long. She met someone. She used to take the same rickshaw to work everyday. He’d take her from one place to the next, they used to talk, then she’d talk to him at night too. She kept to herself. She started spending her Sundays with him. He wasn’t a good man. One day, he went to the village.
I thought it would end but her late-night conversations continued. They hated her, my grandparents and my uncle, his wife, even my mother’s sister. She knew her sister was to get married soon but she was roaming around with a man. All the neighborhood knew about it. What would they think? And then she stopped contributing to the house. How much could my grandfather do? She didn’t even give me any money anymore. Not even for notebooks. I had to work. And it was so difficult. I had to make breakfast for everyone in the house in the mornings, pack my lunch, rush back and do all the cleaning of the house, make lunch for everyone, then clean up the kitchen and wash the vessels. Then my kids would come. But everyone was selfish then. They were angry with my mother, and then with me. I gave my grandmother a part of my earnings, and I paid for my school. I did everything. She’d stopped staying home on Sundays too, so I had to do the work. That day, when my grandfather asked for money, she said she didn’t have any. He got so angry with her, he called her a slut, a leach, a parasite, draining him, killing him slowly, he slapped her. She ran away. I noticed that he didn’t react the same way when his daughter-in-law had refused to give him the money. But he was just so upset, he started crying. I couldn’t bear it. So I took one thousand from the money I’d saved for all those months and gave it to him. My grandmother took me aside and told me I shouldn’t have done it, that she could have dipped into the money I gave her. I told her that was for her. She didn’t have any money at all. And she’d been so kind to me. She was the only one who didn’t resent me. But she respected my grandfather too much to contradict him when he called me names.
“I thought your grandparents were supportive, that you’d felt safe in their house?”
I did. But my aunt was getting married, that changed everything. And I understand why they were angry with my mother. She brought us so much shame. One day, that man that she’d been having an affair with, he went to her workplace and started beating her up. He forced her onto his rickshaw, holding her hair throughout, and then brought her to our neighborhood and dragged her through the streets by her hair to his friend’s house. She’d started an affair with his friend when he’d gone to his village, and he found out about it. All the people heard him that day. She was so scratched up when he finally let her go. I took her to the police station but they didn’t file a complaint. My grandparents also encouraged her to file a complaint. But she didn’t. The new man she was seeing told her he was going to help her. So she listened to him, trusted that he would get her justice. I’ve never seen him, none of us had. But she really trusted him.
One day my aunt was really anxious. She came into the room when I was taking a class, and she asked me to go to the terrace because she needed the room. I had to move all the kids upstairs, take all the chairs. When I came back after the class, she started yelling at me, telling me I’m a burden, then she started beating me, abusing my mother too. I didn’t say anything to her when she was beating me; she left me in the room. I waited for my mother to come and comfort me. But she didn’t come. So I went looking for her, thinking this could bring us together. But I found her on the terrace, talking to her new boyfriend, telling him about all this. I felt really abandoned. She couldn’t even bother to check on me but she wanted his sympathy. Then they got into a fight. At one point, I overheard her begging him not to leave her or she’d kill herself. It made me so angry, I felt like I could break something. I didn’t like this man at all. One day, she just got up left. I asked my grandparents to file a missing person’s report but they didn’t want to do it because it would bring shame to the family and my aunt was getting married. So they waited till it was over and then filed it, three years later. But I haven’t seen her since. I think she’s missing, we need to find her.
“How long ago was this?”
I don’t know. I can’t tell.
“What happened after your mother left?”
They all blamed me, they said I drove her to do it, that I hated her, that I was like her. They asked me to start contributing to the house, to stop living like a freeloader. I started giving all my tuition money home. I couldn’t continue school anymore. But they were so angry. One day, after my aunty’s marriage, the police came to our house in response to the missing person’s complaint I’d made them file. They wanted to ask questions about my mother and her boyfriend. I think she planned her escape. She’d been staying overnight at his house 2-3 times a week, and slowly taking her clothes there. The police pointed this out, how she couldn’t have taken a big bag when she escaped, or we’d have seen her packing. I think they’re right. She abandoned me.
“Do your grandparents believe she’s okay, living somewhere else?”
Yes. It makes sense. She didn’t like it at home. They felt so ashamed by the police visit. They were angry that I’d made them file the complaint only to find out that their daughter had run away willingly. My grandfather was livid that day. He beat me up, then tried to drag me down the stairs. But I fell down at the 3rd floor landing so he started kicking me. Then he left me lying there. My grandmother didn’t come to help me. I was so distraught. I couldn’t even go to school, everyone hated me. What future did I have? No one wanted to help me, I didn’t know anyone who could help me or even who to turn to. I jumped off the landing there. I tried to commit suicide. That’s why I’m here now. Now I go to school.
[1] Note: Loosely based on the writer’s lived experiences
[2] “Establishing itself as a premier women’s organisation in India from 1987, Shaktishalini has spread out and deals with all kinds of gender based violence. A shelter home, a helpline and more than that a stunning activist passion are the hallmarks of this organisation.
“pandies and Shaktishalini – different in terms of the work they do but firmly aligned in terms of ideological beliefs and where they stand and speak from. It goes back to 1996 when members of the theatre group went to the Shaktishalini office to research on (Dayan Hatya) witch burning for a production and got the chance to learn from the iconic leaders of Shaktishalini, Apa Shahjahan and Satya Rani Chadha. And collaborative theatre and theatre therapy goes back there. It is a mutual learning space that has survived over 25 years. Collaborative and interactive, this space creates anti-patriarchal and anti-communal street and proscenium performances and provides engaging workshop theatre with survivors of domestic and societal patriarchal violence. Many times we have sat together till late night, in small or large groups debating what constitutes violence? Or what would be gender equality in practical, real terms? These and many such questions will be raised in the stories that follow.” — Sanjay Kumar
In the heart of a bustling metropolis, where neon signs battled the stars for supremacy, stood a high-rise that pierced the sky. On the 42nd floor, amidst the hum of advanced technology and the glow of omnipresent screens, lived Michael and Apollonia. Their apartment, a futuristic enclave, was filled with gadgets and gizmos that spoke of an age where technology reigned supreme.
Michael and Apollonia, once a couple whose love story could have inspired poets, now found their bond fraying in the unrelenting embrace of the digital world. Their home was an altar to the modern age, with walls adorned with the latest ultra-thin screens, surfaces cluttered with virtual reality gear, and AI assistants that responded to their every whim.
Michael, a software engineer with a passion for gaming, spent his days and nights in alternate realities. His VR headset was more a part of him than his own limbs. In these digital realms, he was a hero, a conqueror, a legend. Apollonia, a digital marketing strategist, found her solace in the lives of others through her social media feeds. Her world was one of perfectly curated images, witty captions, and vicarious living through the adventures of influencers.
Their apartment, high above the city’s ceaseless rhythm, had become a silent bubble. Conversations, once filled with laughter and shared dreams, were now a series of emotionless texts and emojis, even when they lounged on the same sofa. Dinners were silent, save for the soft tapping of their devices; their eyes rarely met, each lost in a personal digital labyrinth.
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Michael’s world was one of fantastical landscapes and impossible quests. His laughter, once a melody that Apollonia adored, was now a rare sound, often drowned out by the synthetic scores of his games. Apollonia, whose zest for life and storytelling had captivated Michael, now channeled her creativity into crafting an enviable online persona, her real emotions hidden behind a filter of digital perfection.
Their home was a stark reminder of a past filled with genuine connection. Framed photographs of their early adventures — hiking trips, impromptu road trips, and lazy Sundays in the park — were now just relics of a bygone era. Michael’s guitar, once a source of serenity, lay in a forgotten corner, its strings still. Apollonia’s collection of travel books, which had fueled her wanderlust, now served as mere decorative trivia, untouched and gathering dust.
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It was on a stormy evening, as the city beneath them was a spectacle of rain-drenched lights, that their worlds momentarily collided again. Michael, his VR adventure paused due to a rare glitch, noticed Apollonia. She sat curled on the couch, her face illuminated by the soft light of her tablet, scrolling endlessly. For a fleeting moment, he saw not the Apollonia lost in the digital world, but the woman he had fallen in love with.
Moved by a surge of nostalgia, Michael reached out and gently touched her shoulder. Apollonia looked up, her eyes wide with surprise, as if seeing Michael for the first time in ages. Their eyes locked, and for a brief moment, the digital fog lifted, revealing the raw, vulnerable humans beneath. A torrent of memories flooded back — their first date, the late-night talks, the tender moments.
But the magic of the moment was fleeting. Apollonia’s gaze shifted back to her screen, the ghost of a smile fading as she immersed herself once again in the digital stream. Michael, a wistful sigh escaping his lips, re-entered his virtual world. The screens that had grown between them were too strong, their digital habits too ingrained.
Their night did not end in a dramatic confrontation or a tearful goodbye. Rather, it faded, like the last bars of a forgotten melody. They continued to share their high-rise haven, yet their worlds were galaxies apart. Their love, once vibrant and tangible, had dissolved into the ether of cyberspace. Around them, the city throbbed with life, but in their high-rise sanctuary, they existed in a state of digital solitude, side by side yet worlds apart. As the city lights flickered and danced below, they sat together in their digital cocoon, a testament to a world where hearts beat in sync with bytes, and love stories are written in the code of a bygone era.
Apurba Biswas is a Ph.D. scholar at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Science Education and Research Bhubaneswar (An Autonomous institute under the Department of Atomic Energy, Govt. of India), and an OCC of Homi Bhabha National Institute, Mumbai. Apurba Biswas specialises in bridging gaps between science and humanities.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
An introduction to Ratna Magotra’sWhispers of the Heart: Not Just a Surgeon (Konark Publishers) and a conversation with the doctor who took cardiac care to the underprivileged.
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy?”— Tagore, Whispers of the Heart: Not Just a Surgeonby Ratna Magotra
“There are at least five estimates of the number of poor people in India, which put the number of poor in India between 34 million (equivalent to the population to Kerala) to 373 million (more than four times the population of West Bengal). This puts the number of the poor between 2.5% of the population to 29.5%, based on different estimates between 2014 and 2022.”
How are the healthcare needs of the poverty stricken met in a country with a vast number who are unable to foot their daily food, housing, and potable water needs? This has been a question that confronts every doctor in cities where labourers who build housing for the middle class are themselves homeless just like the street side immigrants who beg. Even dwellers of shanties that spring up around colonies of the well-to-do to provide informal labour to the affluent are hardly any better off. Few in the medical profession move towards finding solutions to bridge this gap.
Dr Ratna Magotra, who moved from Jammu to find a career in healthcare in Mumbai, is one such person. Recently, she wrote an autobiography which has consolidated the work being done by cardiologists to bridge this gap. In her book, Whispers of the Heart: Not Just a Surgeon, while identifying this divide, she writes: “Poverty, inequality, deficient primary healthcare, unequal access, and the escalating commercialisation of medical care were causing an angst that I found difficult to make peace with. As medical practitioners, our expertise lies in providing treatment, but we often overlook the broader social factors underlying ill health. It might escape the attention of a surgeon performing intricate heart surgery that a child who survived a complex heart surgery could succumb to diarrhoea due to the lack of access to clean drinking water. Issues like malnutrition, skin infections, superstitious beliefs, and poverty may be the harsh realities in the patient’s actual living conditions beyond the confines of sanitised medical environment. /Medical training, regrettably, seldom includes the connection between poverty and disease.”
The land reforms laws that followed post-Partition[1] led to her family losing their wealth. But Magotra bears no ill-will or scars that have crippled her ability to contribute to a world that needs to heal — of taking healthcare to those who can’t afford it. She starts her biography with vignettes from her childhood: “I recall that the agricultural land we owned in our village in Jammu was considered very fertile with the best Basmati rice grown there. Though I was very young, I have faint memories of the house amidst lush paddy fields and a small stream that we had to cross to enter the village. It was very close to the international border between India and Pakistan. The way my mother was respected reflected the high esteem that villagers had for my father. Though their tenant status had changed to that of being landowners, the villagers visited the house as they did before and received generous gifts from her. /They would indulge us children with home-made sweets made of peanuts, jaggery and spices. Rolling in heaps of post-harvest grains piled up in open fields was great fun.”
She lost all that and her father. But with supportive family and friends, drawn to healthcare, she became a doctor in times when women doctors were rare. If they at all specialised, it was mainly in gynaecology. She chose cardiac surgery trained in UK and US. She made friends where she went and with a singular dedication, found solutions to access the underprivileged. She elaborates: “The quantum leap in India’s healthcare sector occurred during the 1990s following the economic reforms and the liberalisation of the economy. The end of the licence raj system facilitated the imports of advanced technology and medical equipment. Specialists, who had long settled abroad, began contemplating a return to India.”
While she attended an International Course in Cardiac Surgery at Sicily to update her skills, she tells us: “During our interactions, some German surgeons raised questions about the rationale behind a developing country like India engaging in an expensive speciality like cardiac surgery. I realised how biased opinions can be formed and spread, though rooted in ignorance. /By this point, however, I had grown accustomed to explaining the paradox — why it was essential for India to advance in specialised care alongside its priorities in basic healthcare and poverty alleviation.”
She cites multiple instances of cases that she dealt with from the needy rural population, for who to pay prohibitive costs would mean an end to their family’s meals. Magotra writes, “I had seen numerous poor heart patients who suffered not only from the ailment itself but also from financial burden of the treatment. The medical expenses incurred for a single family member affected the well-being of entire household, depleting their limited resources and savings. Unfortunately, medical education does not include health economics as a subject. As a result, doctors, especially specialists, trained in a reductionist approach to diseases tend to move away from a holistic perspective. They readily embrace new technological advances, often neglecting proven and cost-effective treatment options. This, in turn, drives up healthcare costs and makes it unaffordable for the common man.”
Living through a series of historical upheavals, she brings to light some interesting observations. She came in contact with Jinnah’s personal physician while looking for a placement in Mumbai. There she mentions that many wondered if the Partition of India could have been averted if this doctor had shared the information that Jinnah had limited life expectancy as he had advanced tuberculosis. She has lived through floods in Mumbai and riots and wondered: “I was staring at the blood on my clothes, which had come from multiple patients. In that quiet moment, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a ‘test’ to distinguish between a Hindu blood and a Muslim blood.” She joined the anti-corruption movement started by Anna Hazare and fasted! She has travelled and watched and collected her stories and she jotted these down during the pandemic to share her world and her concerns with all of us. In the process, recording changes in health care systems over the years… the historic passing of an era that documents the undocumented people’s needs.
Dr Ratna Magotra
An award-winning doctor for the efforts she has made to connect with people across all borders and use her experience, she talks to us in this interview about her journey and beliefs.
What made you write this book? Who were the readers you wanted to reach out to?
I had asked myself the same questions before I started and even while I was writing: Why and for whom?
Some younger friends and family members would find the anecdotes and stories, I would relate to them from time to time, interesting. They would often prod me to write about these. People, situations, my travels to places — not the usual popular tourist destinations, invoked further curiosity in them to know more about my life. As such I like to write my thoughts (usually for myself) and have been contributing small articles to newspapers, magazines, and Bhavan’s Journal for their special Issues. The pandemic provided me an opportunity to contemplate further when I seriously considered about writing an autobiographical narrative.
As I progressed with my account, I envisaged a wider readership outside the medical community as multiple facets emerged about places, people and events of varying interests.
What were the hurdles you faced while training as a doctor — in terms of gender and attitudes of others?
Fortunately, I can’t recall any specific hurdle or adverse experience because of my being a woman. Studying for MBBS degree at Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC), made it a normal affair as LHMC was an all-women medical college.
The struggle that I faced in getting PG admission in Bombay also had nothing to do with gender. The problem was being an outsider in Bombay when number of seats were limited. Students from local medical colleges and rest of Maharashtra had first preference for selection to PG courses. Anyone in my place would have had to go through a similar grind as I did.
Once PG admission was secured, it was smooth sailing through training and working alongside male colleagues! I asked for no concessions being a woman and worked as hard as they did or may be little more. We had a very close and harmonious working relationship with healthy mutual respect leading to lasting friendships.
What made you choose cardiac surgery over other areas of specialisation?
The decision to become a doctor and a surgeon was firmed very early in life. Interest in Cardiac surgery was acquired much later when I started working with Dr Dastur in Bombay. Seeing and touching a beating heart was fascinating and at the same time very challenging at that time. I was tempted to take it up for further specialisation. And yes, it was a very glamorous specialty at that time with names like Denton Cooley[2] and Christiaan Barnard [3]making waves in mainstream conversations!
Cardiac surgery was perceived by some as the forte of the rich, but you have shown how many villagers also had the need for the same specialised care. So, what was it that made you realise that? What could be seen as the incident that made you move towards closing social gaps in your horizon?
Heart disease affects the rich as also the poor. In fact, in earlier times when lifestyle diseases were not as common, it was the poor who suffered more from many afflictions including heart disease. Rheumatic heart disease was the bane of the underprivileged, living in overcrowded spaces with repeated streptococcal throat infections that eventually ravaged their heart valves. Congenital heart disease was common though not diagnosed as often. While the rich and affluent could afford to travel abroad to get treatment, in turn costing precious foreign exchange to the nation, others had to make do with whatever was available. Indian surgeons stretched their resources, skills and imagination to fill the gaps in the infrastructure.
Working in teaching hospitals, I saw the suffering and helplessness of the poor from very close. Inadequacies in healthcare stared at us every day. Moreover, those days cardiac surgery was being performed only in 4-5 teaching hospitals in the country.
I tried looking beyond the patient, connecting their illness with the social and economic environment they came from. Their personal courage, resilience and faith in overcoming difficult moments of life stirred something inside me. One such incidence involved a patient, Ahir Rao, from interiors of Maharashtra. His surgery at KEM and my subsequent visit to his home opens the chapter on ‘Reaching the Unreached’ in my book.
Ironically flip side of development and changing economic status, is that lifestyle diseases like hypertension, diabetes and heart disease are affecting less affluent even more. Lack of awareness about diet, and rapidly adopting urban fads have changed the rural-urban spectrum of heart disease.
The prejudices and biases of the developed countries influenced many in the country also to question a developing country like India from investing in super-specialty like cardiac surgery instead of focussing on providing basic amenities to the people.
It was amusing to see the BBC presenters asking the chronic questions as recently as the landing of Chandrayaan on moon in August 2023 — whether India should have space missions? Persistence of same mind set exposed their ignorance about the benefits the technology and the science bring to common man as also reluctance to accept the progress India has made!
How did your travels to other countries impact your own work and perspectives?
Traveling is a great education to broaden one’s horizon. My travels in India and to different countries contributed towards my personal growth by helping me connect to the geography, nature as also the people belonging to different cultures and sensibilities. Different foods, attires or attitudes but with one common underlying bond of humanity with similar aspirations.
Professionally, going to advanced centres exposed me to a work culture that was very different from ‘chalta hai’[4] attitude back home. Staying ahead with the best research, better working conditions, new technology were just the stimulants I needed in doing better for our patients.
There were many people you have mentioned who impacted you and your work. Who would you see as the persons/organisations who most inspired and led you to realise your goals?
I owe so much to so many people, whom I met at different stages of my life and who influenced my thinking, values and my work. It is difficult to pick one or two, however, if asked to narrow down to three or four most important individuals, these would be my mother and Prof Rameshwar in early years, and Dr K. N Dastur in my professional choice and career. However, biggest influence in my later life has been my Guru, Swami Ranganathananda — who imparted the wisdom of practical vedanta giving ultimate message of oneness and freedom of thought and action for universal good as propagated by Swami Vivekananda.
Why did you join Anna Hazare and his organisation? How did it impact you? What were your conclusions about such trysts?
I had heard of Anna Hazare as an anti-corruption crusader and had met him once at his village while accompanying Dr Antia. It was very admirable the way he had motivated the village people to participate voluntarily in the economic and social development making Ralegaon Siddhi a model village. This simple rustic person could stand up to the high and mighty and often made news in local newspapers; the politicians took his protests seriously at least in Maharashtra. When India Against Corruption (IAC) came into existence in 2011, I didn’t think twice before joining the unique coming together of civil society to fight corruption in the highest corridors of power. I was personally convinced that corruption had eroded and marred the dream of India keeping the common people poor and backward even as the corrupt flourished. As an individual, one could not do much beyond complaining and paying a price for a principled life. It required the civil society to stand up collectively to oppose the corrupt who were (are) actually very powerful!
There was nothing personal to gain by joining the protest but only lend my voice to the common objective of checking, if not eradicating, the menace of corruption.
The experience, highs and lows of the movement form a chapter in my book. The movement becoming political and losing the momentum of a countrywide movement was a big disappointment.
What would be the best way of closing the divides in healthcare?
There has been some forward movement in healthcare at grass root levels in last two decades or so. These gains need to be streamlined as at present we have islands of excellence with vast areas of dismal healthcare — the imbalance needs correction.
Increased spending by the State for healthcare, forward looking national health policy keeping in mind the diverse needs of such a vast country, rural urban realities are the way forward. Investment in medical and nursing education, primary health care, paramedics, rational use of appropriate technologies — all these need to be considered in totality and not in isolation.
Lot of the healthcare work is bridged by NGOS as per your book. Do you think a governmental intervention is necessary to bring healthcare to all its citizens?
My narrative belongs to the eighties and nineties when NGOs were vital in taking basic medical services to remote places where none existed. These organisations did a herculean task and several continue to be a significant provider even as the governments, both at the Centre and State level, have initiated many schemes that include healthcare besides general rural development. I personally think that the NGOs too need to retune their earlier approach of being stand-alone providers seeking funding from government and foreign donors to remain relevant. NGOs, though a vital link between the governments and the communities, have traditionally taken adversarial position to the governments. While keeping their independence of work, maybe they should strive to avoid duplication of services; provide authentic data, and create awareness. These along with constructive criticism and cooperation would benefit the communities and the stakeholders alike. Health education, women empowerment, strengthening the delivery of healthcare integrated with holistic rural development are best done by NGOs working at ground level.
What reform from the government would most help bridge these gaps and can these reforms be made a reality?
The question has been partially answered as above. Increase in budgetary allocation and intent are the prime requirement with focus on nutrition, clean drinking water, sanitation (end of open defecation, provision of toilets, is a major reform) and clean cooking fuel impact public health at grassroots substantially, especially that of women and children. These alone should reduce the load of common diseases and prevent 70 to 80 percent of maladies in a community. This is similar to what Dr Antia used to advocate — “People’s health in People’s hands”. No medical specialists are required, and community health workers would be fully capable of taking care of routine illness. The gains would need to be evaluated periodically to see the impact by way of reduced infant mortality, maternal health, reduction in school dropouts and increase in rural household incomes. Use of technology is an important tool to connect the masses with healthcare centres for more advanced care.
More thought is necessary for specialist oriented medical care. I am aware that we have some very wise and thinking people at the top deciding on national medical policy that should actually map the number of specialised centres and the doctors in each specialty and super specialities (SS) required over say next 10 years. The number of training programmes should be tailored accordingly. It is saddening to know that so many seats for post-doctoral training continue to remain vacant. It is specially so in surgical SS like cardiovascular, pediatric, and neurosurgery that are seeing less demand with interventional treatment making roads in treatment.
The change in the attitudes of administration as also the medical community is important. The benefits should be harvested with honest appraisals for course correction where needed for better planning in consultations with doctors, civil society, and the NGOs working in the rural areas.
Another idea close to my heart has been to motivate or even incentivise the senior medical practitioners to serve the rural areas for 2-3 years prior to their retirement from active service. They would carry experience and wisdom to manage medical needs even with limited resources as compared to enforced bonds for fresh graduates who are short of practical experience, anxious about their future and that of the families. Seniors on the other hand have fulfilled their responsibilities and may be really looking forward to satisfaction of giving back to the society. Having secured their future and relatively in good health, can be very useful human resource for the governments and the communities. This should be entirely out of volition and not under any pressure from the authorities.
Now that you have retired, what are your future plans?
Life is unpredictable at my age. I would, however, wish to remain in reasonable health to be able to be a useful citizen. I have no firm plans and will go where the life takes me like I have done so far.
I am aware that the age would no longer allow me to continue with specialised and highly technical profession I am trained for. Modern communication has narrowed the distances and made it possible to stay connected. I should be satisfied if I can provide any meaningful inputs, retain the attitude of service and remain contended in my personal being.
Interviewing Bulbul: Remembering Mrinal Sen… Ratnottama Sengupta introduces Bulbul Sharma to converse with her on Mrinal Sen, the legendary filmmaker, reflecting on Bulbul Sharma’s experience as an actress in his film, Interview. Click here to read.
In conversation with Gajra Kottary, eminent screenplay writer, and a brief introduction to her recent book of short stories, Autumn Blossoms. Click hereto read.
Translations
Nazrul’s poem, Samya or Equality, has been translated from Bengali by Niaz Zaman. Click here to read.
Masud Khan’s Fire Engine has been translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Let’s look forward to things getting better this New Year with wars tapering off to peace— a peace where weapons and violence are only to be found in history. Can that ever happen…?
Perhaps, all of us need to imagine it together. Feeling the need for peace, if we could dwell on the idea and come up with solutions, we could move towards making it a reality. To start with, every single human being has to believe firmly in the need for such a society instead of blaming wars on natural instincts. Human nature too needs to evolve. Right now, this kind of a world view may seem utopian. But from being hunter-gatherers, we did move towards complex civilisations that in times of peace, built structures and created art, things that would have seemed magical to a cave dweller in the Palaeolithic times. Will we destroy all that we built by warring – desecrating, decimating our own constructs and life to go on witch-hunts that lead to the destruction of our own species? Will human nature not evolve out of the darkness and chaos that leads to such large-scale annihilation?
Sometimes, darkness seems to rise in a crescendo only to be drowned by light emanating from an unknown source. This New Year — which started with an earthquake followed the next day by a deadly plane collision — was a test of human resilience from which we emerged as survivors, showing humanity can overcome hurdles if we do not decimate each other in wars. Bringing this to focus and wringing with the pain of loss, Suzanne Kamata, in her column tells us: “Earthquakes and other natural disasters are unavoidable, but I admire the effort that the Japanese people put into mitigating their effects. My hope is that more and more people here will begin to understand that it is okay to cry, to mourn, to grieve, and to talk about our suffering. My wish for the Japanese people in the new year is happiness and the achievement of dreams.”
And may this ring true for all humanity.
Often it is our creative urges that help bring to focus darker aspects of our nature. Laughter could help heal this darkness within us. Making light of our foibles, critiquing our own tendencies with a sense of humour could help us identify, creating a cathartic outcome which will ultimately lead to healing. An expert at doing that was a man who was as much a master of nonsense verses in Bengal as Edward Lear was in the West. Ratnottama Sengupta has brought into focus one such book by the legendary Sukumar Ray, Abol Tabol (or mumbo jumbo), a book that remains read, loved and relevant even hundred years later. We have more non-fiction from Keith Lyons who reflects on humanity as he loses himself in China. Antara Mukherjee talks of evolving and accepting a past woven with rituals that might seem effete nowadays and yet, these festivities did evoke a sense of joie de vivre and built bridges that stretch beyond the hectic pace of the current world. Devraj Singh Kalsi weaves in humour and variety with his funny take on stocks and shares. Rhys Hughes does much the same with his fun-filled recount on the differences between Sri Lanka and India, with crispy dosas leaning in favour of the latter.
Our stories take us around the world with Paul Mirabile from France, Ravi Shankar from Malaysia, Srinivasan R from India and Rebecca Klassen from England, weaving in the flavours of their own cultures yet touching hearts with the commonality of emotions.
In conversations, Ratnottama Sengupta introduces us to the multifaceted Bulbul Sharma and discusses with her the celebrated filmmaker Mrinal Sen, in one of whose films Sharma ( known for her art and writing) had acted. We also have a discussion with eminent screenplay writer Gajra Kottary on her latest book, Autumn Blossoms and an introduction to it.
Somdatta Mandal has reviewed Sudha Murty’s Common Yet Uncommon: 14 Memorable Stories from Daily Life, which she says, “speaks a universal language of what it means to be human”. Bhaskar Parichha takes us to Scott Ezell’s Journey to the End of the Empire: In China Along the Edge of Tibet. Parichha opines: “The book evokes the majesty of Tibetan landscapes, the unique dignity of the Tibetan people, and the sensory extremity of navigating nearly pre-industrial communities at the edge of the map, while also encompassing the erosion of cultures and ecosystems. Journey to the End of the Empire is both a love song and a protest against environmental destruction, centralised national narratives and marginalised minorities.” Meenakshi Malhotra provides a respite from the serious and emotional by giving us a lively review of Rhys Hughes’ The Coffee Rubaiyat, putting it in context of literature on coffee, weaving in poetry by Alexander Pope and TS Eliot. Rakhi Dalal has reviewed a translation from Punjabi by Ajeet Cour and Minoo Minocha of Cour’s Life Was Here Somewhere. Our book excerpts from Anuradha Kumar’s The Kidnapping of Mark Twain: A Bombay Mysteryintroduces a lighter note as opposed to the intense prose of Srijato’s AHouse of Rain and Snow, translated from Bengali by Maharghya Chakraborty.
Translations this time take us to the realm of poetry again with Fazal Baloch introducing us to a classical poet from Balochistan, the late Mulla Fazul. Ihlwha Choi has self-translated his poetry from Korean. Niaz Zaman brings us Nazrul’s Samya or Equality – a visionary poem for the chaotic times we live in — and Fakrul Alam transcribes Masud Khan’s Bengali verses for Anglophone readers. Our translations are wound up with Tagore’s Prarthonaor Prayer, a poem in which the poet talks of keeping his integrity and concludes saying ‘May the wellbeing of others fill my heart/ With contentment”.
May we all like Tagore find contentment in others’ wellbeing and move towards a world impacted by love and peace! The grand polymath always has had the last say…
I would like to thank our contributors, the Borderless team for this vibrant beginning of the year issue, Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous art, and all our readers for continuing to patronise us.
With hope of moving towards a utopian future, I invite you to savour our fare, some of which is not covered by this note. Do pause by our contents page to check out all our fare.
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