The author at her stall in the Zine Fest. Photo provided by the author.
As an American writer in Japan, who writes and publishes in English, I tend to meet a lot of fellow expatriate writers. I know a few Japanese writers and poets who write in English, and of course, I am familiar with many Japanese authors through their works which have been translated into English. However, although I had read about the burgeoning Japanese zine scene, I had never actually witnessed it. As a professor of Japanese students who seem to hate reading and writing (at least in English), I could hardly imagine a hall full of self-published writers marketing their wares.
When an ad for a Zine Fest in Kobe popped up in my Instagram feed, I decided to sign up. The invitation was for creators and vendors of all kinds, including handicrafts, books, clothing, and yes, zines. I invited my artistic daughter to join me, thinking that she could sell postcards of some of her illustrations, but she had already made plans for that weekend.
I boarded a bus in Tokushima with a small suitcase full of books taken from the stash in a futon closet in my house. The bus went across Awaji Island, then onto the bridge that led into Kobe. I got off on the bridge and took an elevator down to ground level and found my way to the nearest train station. Although it was hot and humid, navigating my way to the venue, an old-style community center with dark wooden floors, gave me a sense of satisfaction.
I paid the modest participation fee and made my way to my designated spot in a room down the hall, a small table right at the entrance, with just enough space for all of the books that I had brought to display. My boothmate was a student from a college in Kyoto, majoring in political science, who was selling a chapbook about her job-hunting experiences. I bought a copy for my son, who was about to finish his graduate degree in history, and would soon have to start job-hunting himself.
The Zine Fest was happening on three floors of the building. We were on the first floor. I looked around the room and saw a wide range of handmade goods on display – jewelry, postcards, board games, and even food. As far as I could tell, I was the only foreign vendor and the only person selling materials in English. (I would later discover that this was not true.)
My boothmate had decorated her half of the table with small stuffed animals – characters from the Bam and Kero picture book series. She had come up with this idea after her first zine festival experience. It was a good conversation starter. Every now and then, she got up to reposition the figures.
In the first hour, a few foreigners sauntered through. Most pointedly ignored me, but I managed to sell one book to a cheerful young American woman in a dress appliqued with lesser pandas. I had known from the beginning that it would be difficult to sell English-language books at a Japanese event. It was almost impossible for me to convince the English majors at our university to read books in English. Nevertheless, I tried. I chatted up my books in Japanese to a few other people, to no avail: “This one is easy!” “This one has pictures!”
I saw that a vendor at another table was nodding off. One was crocheting. I thought it would be okay to eat the rice balls my husband had made for me while sitting at the table. After my lunch, I took a break and looked around. I went upstairs to what appeared to be the main room. I bought a graphic novel from a Polish publisher, and a fantasy story featuring a dragon from a Japanese creator, both in English. I was tempted by the quirky travel journals on interesting places, like Yemen, of another. For the time being, I picked up her business card so that I could follow her on social media. In another booth, a guy was selling fresh vegetables. The attendees were eclectic as well: a woman with pink hair and tattoos, men in skirts.
I perused some sample zines that had been set out on a table, then I went back to my booth. My boothmate told me that a few people had stopped by and looked at my books while I was gone. I found this heartening.
One guy picked up my book Waiting, which is a story in poems. He flipped through it, paused on certain pages, and asked a lot of questions. It seemed as if we talked for about five minutes, and I was sure that he would buy a copy. But then he asked, “What does RIP mean?” and after I explained, he said, “Dark!” He put the book down and made his escape. Maybe I wasn’t so good at hyping my books in Japanese.
Even so, I managed to sell a few more copies, and so did my boothmate. We clapped for each other every time one of us sold a book. At the end of the session, I packed up my remaining stock and went to meet my son for dinner. I gave him the chapbook, which he later read and said was depressing. Job-hunting is hard, and my boothmate suffered many setbacks. But spoiler-alert: she eventually found a job, and now I am following her on social media.
At the Zine Fest: Photos provided by the author
Suzanne Kamatawas born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Lily West in front of Mount FujiPhotographs provided by Suzanne Kamata
In Lily West’s travel memoir West goes East she recounts venturing from her native England overland toward India in the early 1970s with an impulsive American named Ed, a pro-Palestine fellow hippie whom she meets en route, on a shoestring budget. With the brazenness that comes with youth, they become entwined with all sorts of shady characters, finding themselves the guest of a charming conman in Amman, and being mistakenly deposited in a brothel in Cairo. Among other adventures, they rescue a polar bear from heat stroke in a zoo in Khartoum, are arrested twice in Egypt (and not for climbing to the top of a pyramid, which they do), and find themselves spectators at a public hanging in Iraq.
Many of the places they visited, such as the West Bank, Sudan and Afghanistan, are even less accessible now. West, by the way, is one of the few people who have traveled to every country on earth recognised by the UN. Although she made these travels as a man, she now lives in Japan as a woman. This award-winning book is a wild ride into the treacherous terrain of a bygone era. Lily generously agreed to answer a few questions.
Suzanne Kamata: First of all, congratulations on launching this book into the world! It has had a very positive reception, including an award for NomadMania Best Travel Book 2024. In the introduction you write that you hadn’t intended to write a book about traveling with your friend Ed, and that the idea came to you decades later. Can you tell us about the writing process? Also, how did you manage to recreate the scenes so vividly?
Lily West: I had often been urged to write a book, but never found the time or energy to do so. Then a friend introduced me to a publishing agent from English Agency Japan, who on hearing some of my travel stories, begged me to write a sample chapter which I eventually did. Then he demanded another and another until somehow after a year the book was finished. I guess the scenes in “West goes East” had remained vivid in my memory, because I had had some fifty years to remember them.
SK: Could you tell us a bit about the road to publication?
LW: The road to actual publication was a long one. My agent took six years only to come up with two concrete offers from publishers. Lots of offers that turned out to be pie in the sky though! I rejected both, the one because they wanted to edit the book down to half its size, the other because they wanted the chapter about Israel and all mention of Palestine removed. No! So, the manuscript continued to sit in my computer. Then Harry Mitsidis, the founder of the NomadMania extreme travel group, and arguably the world’s most travelled man, came over to Japan to verify that I really had been to the 193 UN member countries and thus was qualified to join the group. He was amazed that I was so easy to verify. Luckily, I had sent a postcard to my parents from every country I had been to. And my parents had kept them all! So, we became friends; I mentioned to him that I had written a book, and he asked me to send him a couple of chapters. He was so impressed that he said he would write a foreword and get the book published on Amazon. (This was technically beyond my ability!)
But he made it a condition that I include an epilogue about Lily’s much harder and longer journey, the journey to be accepted as the woman I knew I was. To be honest, I wasn’t very keen on this, because nowhere in the travel book do I mention or hint that I am a “transgender” woman. In fact, in 1972, the year the events in the book happened, it was still my Big Secret, something which could never be divulged to anyone, so I can understand its absence. However, as requested, I wrote the epilogue, which I have heard has caused some readers to cry. Naturally, Harry also wanted Lily West to be credited on the cover as the author, which was fair, because Lily had written the book!
SK:What was the first foreign country you ever visited? What activated your wanderlust?
LW: Well, I was brought up in England, but my mother was German, so we went there most summers. But I think you mean the first country visited by myself. I’ll give you two. I HATED the cruelty of school so much that at 17, I ran away and hitchhiked to Madrid which improved my Spanish enormously. Then that summer the local Education Committee paid for me to spend three months in the Soviet Union studying Russian. My German grandfather collected stamps, interesting enough, but what fascinated me were the names of the countries. Not just looking at the exotic names, I knew I wanted to go and actually see them! So, after I graduated, I said goodbye to England and set off on my second overland trip to India, as described in West goes East, but this time with no intention of returning.
SK:Early on in the book it becomes clear that Ed has the potential to get into trouble. You write that you were unlikely traveling companions, with very different personalities, and yet you stuck together. Was there any point in your travels that you at least considered going your own way?
LW: Yes, in Baghdad over the Donkey Boy incident! I was so angry with him! But we had gone through so much together that it would have been difficult to split up. Of course, I knew we would part in Delhi, and I would be going off on my own, which eventually landed me in Japan. (After I had been there just under a year, Ed arrived with his wife and son.)
SK: What does it mean to you to be a UN master (one who has visited all 193 countries recognised by the United Nations)?
LW: The end of one lifelong journey! This April, I took part in the largest gathering of UN Masters ever. 64 of us in Azerbaijan! Some had taken considerably less time than the 49 years I had taken, but Harry Mitsidis explained that many more people had been in space or climbed Everest than had visited every country in the world, so we had achieved something very special. Now I do appreciate meeting people from every country and know I can chat about their homeland. 2016 was a significant year for me, as that was when I finally visited No.193, Equatorial Guinea. I was very happy that I had managed this, but to put things into context, something more meaningful for me happened two months later when I was invited to join a 500-strong group of foreign women in Japan. Actually, that was more important for me!
SK:You’ve visited every country in the world recognised by the United Nations, but some have changed greatly since you first visited them. Are there any such countries that you would like to return to? And why/why not?
LW: There are some countries I don’t want to return to, because war has changed them almost irreparably. It would be too sad to see Syria, Iraq, Palestine, or Afghanistan. Or for that matter my two visits to Israel sufficed for me to see what this country was like. Whereas others such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Uzbekistan or Peru have become too touristed and I would rather remember them as they were. I visited Africa 30 times, but on my final visit in 2017, I survived a bad car accident in the Comoro Islands, in which my head broke the windscreen. Surely the Gods were telling me that’s enough!
SK:What is Ed up to now? Has he read the book? If so, what was his response?
LW: Sorry to say that Ed passed away suddenly in 2022. Yes, he had read the book at the insistence of my agent. I knew he would not be happy, even though his full name and where he came from are never mentioned. He wanted all reference and memories of his hippie past erased. For instance, he destroyed all the photos he had taken as well as his diaries. He never told his wife about my book; in fact, she only learned of it from me after his death. She bought the book, read it and then paid me the biggest compliment anyone ever has regarding West goes East: “Thank you so much, Lily. You brought Ed back to life!”
SK: You mention in your epilogue that female Japanese students responded to you differently as a woman; “less daunting,” you wrote. Have you noticed any difference in how you are treated when traveling as a woman versus traveling as a man?
LW: Yes and no. Generally, I find people, especially women, are kinder and more friendly to Lily. Of course, it’s always easier to talk to someone of your own gender. Also, I’m more outgoing and confident in myself as a fellow woman in the company of other women.
But like any other woman, I find myself much more on my guard, while not being paranoid about men, just more watchful in their presence. Luckily, Japan is safer for women than let’s say the UK or the US, but as a woman, I can’t take that personal safety for granted as I would if I were a man.
SK:I realise that this is a book about your travels with Ed, but you drop tantalizing hints about other episodes in your travels. For example, in the epilogue, you write that you and your Japanese partner were taken hostage on a trip to the Central African Republic. What???? Could you share a bit about that?
LW: Very long story from 1996. Fifteen of us were on an overland truck going from East Africa to West Africa. We had budgeted 10 days to go through Congo, but the “roads” were that awful, little but bog holes and mud, that it took us 56 days. During which time three passengers died: snakebite, malaria and cut to pieces by our own tyre chains. However, we felt lucky it had not been more!
Within two weeks, there were no more shops and as cook, I had to go into the villages and exchange stuff for food. Luckily, I found they wanted empty bottles in which to store the poison they used for hunting. I was the cook, but I wouldn’t use meat because I am a vegetarian. One evening, the two Australians who did most of the digging came back from a village with some meat, which they barbecued. A couple of days later, we ran into the first Westerner we had seen, a Belgian in the lumber business. He invited us to eat with him. One of the Australians started to tell him about the meat they had had. The Belgian asked where the village was, then he raised his and asked “Did it have fur?” No. “Did it have a hoof?” No. “I think you ate a baby!” One Australian just vomited, but the other said: “Tasted OK!”
And so, in such a dilapidated state, we finally reached the ferry over the Congo River to Bangui in the Central African Republic. By this time, we were down to 9 or 10 functioning members, for this didn’t really include a French Canadian, our only native French speaker. But he had lost his mind, and would never speak to anyone again during the rest of the trip. So that left me as the only actual French speaker. Anyway, we were at last on the ferry, chattering away about which hotel in Bangui we were going to stay in and really excited about having a shower as opposed to bathing in rivers with crocodiles and snakes.
We parked our truck on some waste ground by the river and I went exploring. The town of Bangui seemed eerily quiet as I found my way to the Novotel. Entering the hotel, I knew all was far from well when I saw a cloud of flies buzzing around the dead man at the check-in desk. Back at the truck, I told the others about the hotel and that we had better leave Bangui first thing in the morning. Everyone agreed, but at about 4 o’clock in the morning, soldiers arrived and started to knock down our tents and force us on to our truck. Those who argued or were too slow were jabbed with their rifles.
So off we went with two armed soldiers on the truck to guard us, but where were they taking us? Back to Congo or somewhere to shoot us?
We hastily formed an escape plan. At a given signal, the two hefty Australian diggers knocked the soldiers to the floor and stood on their guns, while the driver drove like mad overtaking the accompanying jeeps. I had found where the US Embassy was and it was there we headed. All other embassies were closed. We had one American in our group, so we figured that was our best chance. At five o’clock in the morning, our English driver smashed into the gates of the US Embassy at full speed. But the gates were so sturdily made that they did not give way!
In the shock, the soldiers recovered their guns and were screaming “Tirez-le!”, (Shoot him!). The driver got out of his cab window, flung himself into the embassy grounds and hid behind a wall. The soldiers opened fire and lights came on the embassy. They forced the co-driver to turn round and we were taken to a large building where we were all herded into an underground cell at gunpoint. To make matters worse, we could hear the screams of someone being tortured.
At noon, our driver arrived accompanied by personnel from the US Embassy and the Central African Republic Army as well as government officials. Slowly I pieced things together.
The soldiers who had captured us had taken part in a failed coup d’etat and now needed us as human shields to get past the checkpoints and out of Bangui. A deal was struck. They would take us 700km to the Cameroon border where they would set us free. Everyone shook hands and we set off. It took several days to drive, for we had to stop along the way many times as the soldiers constantly tried to intimidate us. Once they lined us up firing-squad style, but shot over our heads. Their idea of a joke, I guess.
However, after 500km, we reached the town of Bouar, which was rebel-held territory, so they felt safe and saw no reason to release us. They kept us in the camp, under guard with no indication as to what might be our fate. After ten days or so, I determined to try to find a way to get out of this camp. Most of the others seemed to sunk into despondency or were just too sick to move.
There were 30 soldiers holding us and I tried reaching out to those who seemed a bit more friendly. I persuaded two of them that we were running out of food, so they took me into the market. The next day, I asked them to take me in again, this time with Takako, my partner. Then while they were drinking beer in a bar, she and I ran for it to another bar which I had spotted the day before.
Were there any foreigners in Bouar, I asked. Yes, there were two and someone offered to take us to their house. The two foreigners turned out to be French Jehovah’s Witness missionaries! By this time, I would have joined! And as I hoped, they had a radio. It was hidden under the floorboards and they let me use it to contact the US Embassy. “You still there”, was the surprised response. “We’ll get you out in the morning,” they promised.
Very early in the morning, a helicopter landed and after more bargaining, the rebels finally let us drive to the Cameroon border. We crossed the border and those of us who could still walk were in the very first bar on the Cameroon side celebrating. Suddenly, in walked the rebel soldiers still with their guns! Oh, no, surely not, I almost exclaimed! Then, the two I had befriended came up to me and asked me to translate. “Don’t worry! We’re so glad we didn’t have to shoot you and would like to buy a beer for you all.” I answered: “We’re also very glad you didn’t shoot us!” To general laughter, everyone raised their beer bottles: “Salut!”
Three days later we arrived in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon. With our driver, I went to the British Embassy to report the three deaths, all Commonwealth citizens. The Ambassador listened as we told our story.
Then he stood up and shook our hands: “Jolly good show, chaps! Let me get you a drink!” The brandy was welcome.
Takako and I were able to contact our families for the first time and reassure them that we were not dead as they feared. We flew to Europe from Cameroon and then on to Japan, arriving three months late. Astonishingly, I was able to keep my job. While I know I went to Africa for adventure, sometimes you can get more adventure than you bargained for!
SK:Wow! What a harrowing experience! Thanks for sharing that! Are there any other travel memoirs or travel writers that you admire and would recommend?
LW:The Roads To Sata by Alan Booth, In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin, An African in Greenland by Tete-Michel Kpomassie.
SK:What’s next? Will there be another book?
LW: I could write another book, yes, but I doubt that I am able to write another book that would be as good as this one. I feel that this is my masterpiece. Every time I look through it, I think, wow, I wrote this! Many travel books nowadays have the author writing about doing many different trips over the years, one chapter per country. I certainly could do one of those too, but I, and others, think that a major strength of West goes East is that it is a story of one continuous journey rather than many short ones. It describes eight months of travelling overland from Syria to India via Afghanistan in 1972, in a world that no sadly longer exists and the people we met along the way, both locals from those countries and other Westerners.
SK:Thank you so much! I, for one, am glad you got this book out into the world.
Lily West and her Japanese students. Photo provided by Suzanne Kamata.
Suzanne Kamatawas born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Nazrul’slyrics ofMor Ghumogore Elo Monohor (In my Sleep, Came the Enchanting One) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Four of his ownMalay poems have been translated by Isa Kamari. Click here to read.
The Heartless, a Balochi story by AbdulQayum Sarbazi, has been translated by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Dragonfly 2 has been composed and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.
Tagore’s poem, Amra Choli Somukhpane(We Look Forward and March), has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Clickhere to read.
Pandies Corner
Songs of Freedom: Pink Dreams is an autobiographical narrative by Priyanka, written and compiled by Deeksha Vats. These stories highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and Pandies. Clickhere to read.
Larry S Su, who migrated from a mud cave in Shaanxi province to America, shares his story of the changes he sees during three visits to his home and muses on the gaps he has observed between these two places. Clickhere to read.
Some Japanese customs are pretty much common sense (no shoes in the house, no soap in the bath). Some, I have learned from my Japanese mother-in-law (do not store the broom in the entryway!). And others, I have learned from observation. For example, I’ve figured out that it’s best not to leave my wet umbrella unfurled when I poke it into a public umbrella stand, that I should back into a parking space, and that whenever I hand something over, it should be wrapped or in a bag.
Back in the day, department stores wrapped each purchased item individually and put them in a bag, so that once you got home, it was like a birthday or Christmas. In these ecologically-minded days, shop clerks don’t wrap things in paper, and I am more likely to carry my own cloth shopping bag. Naked gifts, however, are still a no-no.
Most souvenir shops in Japan give out multiple bags, so that if you buy five boxes of sweets for five different neighbors, each one can be presented in its own bag. This is a bit problematic when it comes to gifts purchased abroad. However, I now have a supply of sturdy, attractive paper bags with handles that I can use in a pinch. One of my friends said that she sometimes gets excited when she receives something in a bag from a big city boutique, thinking that they’ve opened a local branch. But typically, the bag’s origins don’t really matter, and the bag doesn’t have to match the gift.
I used to think that only new things were put into bags, but when I loaned a book or a dish or a piece of clothing to a Japanese friend, it was inevitably returned in a bag – like a present! I finally figured out that I should do the same. When I returned that yukata I borrowed for my daughter’s school festival, I tucked it into a paper bag emblazoned with the name of a Parisian shop. When I gave back a plastic container that had held food leftover from a party, I put it in a shiny bag from a popular local bakery. I brought a loaf of carrot cake to my neighbour in a sack from an upscale clothing store.
Yukata, a kimono for summer. From Public domain
Just the other day, I loaned a book to an Australian friend who has lived in Japan for many years. Because we are both foreigners in Japan, this one time I didn’t package up the book, but handed it over without cover, as I might have in the United States. I should have known better. When the book came back to me, it was in a crinkly paper bag decorated with strawberries, and tucked into another bag, from a pastry shop, printed with ribbons – a reminder that presentation counts.
From Public Domain
Suzanne Kamatawas born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
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, “theG 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 Rs20,000.”
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
When my research partner Yoko proposed that the two of us attend a conference in Cambodia, I said “Yes, but I want to stay in a nice hotel.” Knowing her, she’d book us into a youth hostel, where we’d bunk with strangers, or the cheapest Air BNB available. In Japan, due to the massive influx of foreign tourists and the weak yen, hotel prices had been jacked up significantly. I could barely afford to stay in a capsule hotel on a trip to Tokyo. In Cambodia, I figured we would be able to pay for a decent room.
We flew from Osaka to Ho Chi Minh City to Krong Ta Khmau, landing in Cambodia’s newest airport. Modern, cavernous, and clean, it had opened only a few months before. We picked up our luggage from the carousel in baggage claim and proceeded to the exit.
“I’ll let you handle this part,” I told Yoko, as we emerged into fresh air and a phalanx of taxi drivers vying for our services.
This was Yoko’s third or fourth trip to Cambodia, and she had assured me that she knew how to arrange transportation. She’d already figured out how much we could expect to pay. She wasn’t about to get ripped off.
“Thirty dollars to Phnom Penh,” one guy offered.
“That’s too much,” Yoko said. “I’ll give you twenty.”
A deal was made, and we were ushered to a white Alphard Toyota, and introduced to the driver, a young guy, maybe around thirty, in sunglasses. He spoke English.
“To the Harmony Phnom Penh Hotel, please.” I showed him the address on my phone app.
On the hour-long drive, I gazed out the window, eager to soak up new sights. Various construction projects were underway. I spotted a Lexus dealer, and an Aeon Mall. Although much of the signage was in curlicue Khmer, some businesses were labeled in Chinese, Japanese, and English. Shiny new transnational banks rose above structures with traditional architecture. As we entered the city, the traffic became worse. Motorbikes, tuk-tuks, trucks, and cars jostled for space. Many of the cars were apparently Chinese imports. I’d never heard of the brands.
I tried not to distract our driver, whose name was Paekdy, from the business of driving, but we managed to have a conversation. He asked how long we’d be staying and offered his services for our journey back to the airport three days later. I added him to my What’s App contacts. He seemed nice.
“Can you pick me up tomorrow?” I asked.
I would be going on a tour to visit a teacher’s college and a language school. Yoko was planning on spending the day in and around the hotel’s infinity pool. The university where she worked, which was run by elderly nuns, was on the verge of shutting down. Yoko was under a bit of stress.
“What time?” Paekdy asked.
“Early.” I was supposed to be at the university where the conference would be held by 8:30. I asked him to be at the hotel an hour before that.
Yoko helpfully negotiated the fare.
The next morning, I got up, readied myself, and went out in front of the hotel to wait. A man out front was sweeping the pavement. Across the street, vendors were setting up piles of fruit. One woman was hacking at raw chickens. Further down, several tuk-tuks were lined up, awaiting passengers.
My driver was late. I had allowed extra time, so I would probably not be late for the tour, but I was a bit irritated. If I were him, I would have arrived early. After all, he’d had plenty of advance notice, and I had promised him a decent fare. I checked my What’s App messages. Nothing. I texted Paekdy: “Are you coming?” He responded with a voice message. Due to traffic, he was running late.
He finally arrived, and we set off for the university. I asked him questions about his life, and his family. He told me that he had gone to university and studied marketing. He said that it was hard to find a good job in Cambodia if one couldn’t speak a foreign language. In addition to English, he knew some Chinese. He told me that his daughter was learning English.
After our pleasant conversation, my irritation evaporated. When he dropped me off, I asked him to pick me up at 2:30 in the afternoon to take me back to the hotel. He agreed.
I registered for the conference at one of the long tables set up on the verandah, and picked up the sack containing my breakfast, which consisted of sandwiches and bananas. When it was time for the tour, I got on the bus with the other participants. Over the next few hours, we visited Phnom Penh Teacher Education College, and a private English school. Afterwards, we had a sumptuous lunch at a nearby restaurant. Back at our starting point, I looked for my driver. He was nowhere to be found. Late, again.
This time he sent a message: I am sorry maybe I am late. (prayer emoji) Can you wait for me please?
I sighed, considered hopping onto a tuk-tuk, and then texted, “Okay.” The devil you know, right? I would have a seat in one of the wicker chairs on the university’s verandah and enjoy the slight breeze.
He finally arrived and apologized profusely. The traffic was so bad, he said. Wasn’t it always? I wondered. Wouldn’t he have prepared for that?
“Did you have a lot of fares today?” I asked, in a bid to make conversation.
“Just one,” he said.
Me.
Back at the hotel, Yoko and I discovered that we could get use the Tada app, which was similar to Uber or Grab, to get to and from the conference venue for about $5. My driver was ripping me off, Yoko said, and he was always late. If I called him again, I would only be rewarding his bad behavior, I reasoned aloud. He didn’t deserve my business. If he wanted repeat customers, he would have to learn to come on time.
We went to the rooftop where Yoko had spent most of the day and indulged in coconut milk and slices of fresh mango while gazing at boats floating along the Tonle Sap River. European tourists splashed in the pool nearby.
That evening, we called a car via the Tada app and went to the university where the conference began with a ceremony. Cambodian dancing was followed by a display of martial arts, several speeches by invited dignitaries, and a symposium on AI in language teaching. Afterwards, we filled up paper plates at the buffet and mingled with the other conference participants. When it was time to leave, Yoko called for another driver – not Paekdy – with the app.
On the way back to our hotel, it was dark and the traffic was severely congested, as usual. The car crawled along amidst a crush of vehicles of various kinds when…Bam! Suddenly we were side-swiped by a truck. My first thought was, I should have gotten travel insurance! My second was, now we will pull over and everyone will exchange insurance information and call the police. Except we didn’t. The truck surged ahead. The driver did not respond.
“Are you okay?” Yoko asked him.
He laughed it off. “Okay, okay.” His English was limited.
We could still see the truck’s license plate. We could write it down and report it. But maybe things didn’t work that way in this country.
“It’s a good thing that we are in a Toyota,” Yoko said.
Yes, there was something to be said for a sturdy, well-made car. I was happy that we hadn’t taken a tuk-tuk, or that we weren’t on the back of a motorbike.
Still a bit shaken, Yoko overtipped the driver when he dropped us off, hoping he would be able to use the extra funds to fix his car.
After the conference, Yoko and I debated how we would spend our last day in Cambodia. Before my trip, many people had said that I should to Angkor Wat, but Siam Reap was too far away. I felt that I should pay my respects to the victims of Pol Pot by visiting one of the genocide memorials. Since Yoko had already been to the country a few times before, she had been to the Killing Fields and the torture museum. She didn’t really want to go again, and I didn’t blame her. I decided that I would go by myself and meet up with her at the airport.
I wasn’t going to call Paekdy, but he sent me a message the night before, asking if I needed a ride to the airport. Oh, why not? I could ask him to take me to the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center on the way. Maybe he would wait for an hour or so while I toured the site. That way I could leave my suitcase in the car with him. Okay, so he was a little late sometimes, but I trusted him. I sent a text: Please pick me up at 2:00 PM.
The next afternoon, he was on time.
On the way to the memorial, we talked some more. He told me that his grandparents had perished while fleeing Pol Pot. Many people had died of starvation while in hiding. I remarked upon the many construction sites along the way. Paekdy mused that if not for the 1975-79 genocide under the Khmer Rouge, his country would have been further along. Indeed, had it not been for the vicious slaughter of an estimated 1.2-2.8 million people, comprising a quarter of the population, Cambodia might be right up there with Singapore or Thailand. I thought it was just a matter of time before the country caught up. I thought of the new airport I’d be flying out of, which was undoubtedly destined to become a hub.
Before we parted, my driver suggested that we take a selfie together. We both put on our sunglasses and smiled for the camera. He sent me the photo the next day, when I was back home in Japan. I realised that although I had enjoyed visiting schools, wandering the palace grounds, and snacking on fresh mangoes by the pool, the most interesting part of my trip had been meeting this taxi driver from Phnom Penh. I still have his contact information on my phone.
Paekdy & Suzanne Kamata
.
Suzanne Kamatawas born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
A brief discusion of Whereabouts of the Anonymous: Exploration of the Invisible by Rajorshi Patrnabis, Hawakal Publishers, with an exclusive interview with the author on his supernatural leanings
Whereabouts of the Anonymous: Exploration of the Invisible by Rajorshi Patrnabis could have been a regular book of intense ghost stories, with the oldest ‘presences’ dating back to the regime of Sher Shah Suri (1472 – 1545). ‘Presences’ are basically spirits — visible or barely visible — that cause disturbances in the energy field surrounding us, as per the book.
One of the most coherent of these ‘spirits’ was from 1920, confiding her story on Christmas eve — reminds one of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and Uncle Scrooge — only this spirit was a British woman from the Raj era, a spirit that lost her beloved who was from a Bengali royal family. Her strict father stepped in and stopped the marriage. No one knew what happened to the groom. And she continued to weep and wait while haunting the premises of the popular and populous Park Street where she was supposed to meet her beloved more than a hundred years ago… Then there’s a ghost that takes you back to his funeral pyre… drawing back the curtain between the two dimensions — one in which we exist and one in which they hover…
These, however, are not your regular ghost stories. There is a difference for Patranabis claims to have met these sad spirits in real life.
A Wiccan by choice, Patranabis has tried to draw back the curtains to reveal a dimension whose existence is elusive and avoidable for most of us at best and rejected by many. He claims to have a spiritual bent of mind which helps him experience these out-of-the-box scenarios, meet the dearly departed. He has done a number of books of poetry around his beliefs. He has even photographed these spirits!
Photographs of spirits by Rajorshi Patranabis
Though the images are blurry at the first viewing, you have to focus hard to see the ethereal outlines of shadows beyond the realm of the living, I guess.
Whereabouts of the Anonymous is a memoir that spans his interactions with, as the title says — ‘the anonymous’ — or the blurry ‘presences’ and explores the invisible for majority of the spirits are merely depicted as shadowy in his narrative as in his photographs except for a few whose images have not been taken.
Occasionally, the spirits can be malevolent as in the Bhangarh Fort, where a foul-smelling female spirit and some lost souls in the ancient jails wounded Patranabis physically and chased him out. Set in the Aravalli hills of Rajasthan. Bhangarh is the most haunted place in India. There is a story of a princess and her spurned lover associated with it. Evidently, a sage fell in love with the princess and made a special concoction which would make her fall in love with him. When she went to buy a perfume, the smitten lover tried to replace it with his love potion. The princess threw away the bottle of love potion. It fell on a rock, dislodging it. The rock rolled down to kill her admirer, who cursed her with his dying breath!
There is also the narrative about a whole village that accepts and lives in peace with the spirits of their dearly departed, even giving them rickshaw rides and offering them chairs!
Patrnanabis has brought his Wiccan outlook into the discourse. His language flows. The narrative is simple and easy to understand. The descriptions are so graphic that one can almost visualise the disembodied spirits and their interactions. The 150-page book is an enjoyable and easy read and a perfect companion for travel or an evening or two. But the author’s experiences and his interests stretch beyond what the pages can hold. In this interview, we discuss his beliefs and his experiences…and maybe, another book?
How old were you when you had your first supernatural sighting? Were you scared the first time?
When I look back, the first time that I had a feel of the ‘other dimension’ was perhaps at the age of 7 or 8. I remember going to my paternal home at Digboi during our winter vacations. I remember going to my parent’s bedroom at the first floor and my mother used had to send me to her room to fetch something. The room was across a terrace, and I remember running through the terrace from the staircase to the room. But every time, I could feel someone running with me through the terrace. But as and when I would enter the room, it was all perfect. I would run back again again to the stairs. When I would blurt this out to my parents, they would simply ignore me, but somehow, I was never completely convinced. It was much later, sometime around the year 2000 that my father confided with me of a real ‘presence’ there. He told me that there had been many an experience where people had felt the presence of something eerie there. But by then I had had some very deep experience of the supernatural existence.
Rajorshi Patranabis in Wiccan wear
When did you become a Wiccan and why?
The answer to this ‘why’ is a wee bit dicey. I am myself not sure of this. It was just a flow that I couldn’t control. Mind you, I had already gone through some extremely remarkable experiences and my stint at the hill top temple and my encounter with that 97 year old person who taught me numerology was way before I joined Wicca. I would call myself pretty insane in those phases of my life. By the time Wicca happened, I had calmed down considerably and joining my teacher was nothing less than an accident. It so happened that my friend, Subhodip, and I were walking down the Southern Avenue in Kolkata when we spotted another school friend ( a senior Wiccan) standing at the door of an otherwise inconsequential book store. He waved at us and asked us to join in, as it was an open session by my teacher. We joined. Subhodip was skeptical, while I followed it up with an email and I was called for an interview with Ma’am. The journey started. I had mentioned about my experience in ‘Whereabouts…’ This was early 2013.
Did becoming a Wiccan help you align to the supernatural better?
Infact, my Wiccan knowledge taught me the nuances of alignment with the forces of nature. Why just the supernatural? The vibrations that the earth emanates, the animal kingdom throws out, to feel and spot across dimensions etc. The most important thing is perhaps the use of sound like the chatter of a rainfall, the melodies of a singing bowl or even drum beats (like in Voodoo) as means of invocation, that, was passed on to me. More than anything, the pleasures of immersing oneself in ancient knowledges can be very ‘intoxicating’. Our school concentrates most on the Egyptian origins. If you ask me now, I worship Goddess Isis as my altar Goddess along with the 64 yoginis. Yes, Wicca has helped align myself to me, if I say this philosophically.
You have called yourself ‘spiritual’ and also spoken of ‘seers’? Can you explain these two terms?
I wouldn’t get into the linguistic trap of English. But a Wiccan would say spiritual comes from ‘spirit’. A very basic tenet of Wicca is to align your body, mind, soul and spirit. As and when the becomes one with nature does your mind uplift itself to being a soul. A soul that gets through the rigours of lust becomes a spirit. We are in the habit of using the word spirituality very lightly, but a true Wiccan would say that a pure spirit sits on the pinnacle of the pyramid. There are many references in our Sanatan scriptures too about such spirits and the recourse they take to leave the body, as and when they cross over.
A seer is a saint who has won over the realms of the physical nuances. He/she is automatically clairvoyant as all their faculties have attained the higher plains in the atmosphere. Please don’t mistake a seer for only a saint. A scientist or a litterateur who had immersed themselves in the claustrophobic depths of knowledge can be a seer too. Many such examples can be sighted to prove this.
How did/does your family respond to your being a Wiccan or interacting with spirits?
My family doesn’t always subscribe to what I do, but in all honesty they had never been a hindrance to my learnings. There are Wiccan ceremonies that I celebrate or spells that I do from time to time for the well being of people, they had all along been very supportive. They stand as a pillar beside me.
When and why did you turn to writing?
I started writing at a very young age. My first poem, if I can recall was at the age of 13. But as time went on, everything slowed down. My next phase was from 2015 and my first published book was in 2018. By this phase I was well and truly into Wicca.
You have used Japanese techniques in poetry to describe your journey as a Wiccan and to interact with spirits. Why? Do these align better to help you describe your experiences?
Well, I wouldn’t say I use Japanese poetry forms to interact with any spirit. Though I must accept that I’ve had communications with the other dimension which were very poetic at times. In my book, Gossips of our Surrogate story, I had used quite a bit from my Wiccan Book of Shadows and even you had accepted that they were poems alright, good or bad, notwithstanding. But I would also like to harp on the inherent pertinence of this question. Gogyokha or Gogyoshi are short form poetry in just 5 lines and my forays into the other dimension had just had similar experiences — short, crisp and at most times life altering. In my Gogyoshi collection, Checklist Anomaly, all the poems are either true happenings or near life occurings. My writing (poetry) as a whole, until now, had been with deep metaphysical love. Perhaps my thought process is challenged. But Japanese forms had been a huge compliment to this particularly weird handicap of mine.
What made you think of doing this book — your memoir of supernatural interactions so to speak?
To be very honest, all these experiences that I had shared in Whereabouts of the Anonymous would have stayed with me through out this physical life had it not been for a dear brother and publisher, Bitan Chakraborty. It was on his persistent insistence that I decided to put my ‘stories’ on paper. But that was again a very difficult thing. I really had to scoop things from the nook and crannies of my memory to make for a reasonably good compilation. Even Bitan had certain experiences with me or otherwise ( like his camera giving up on a particular shot etc.) and was most interested on such a memoir seeing the light of the day. I have dedicated this book to Bitan. I had to, it was his brainchild and as a Wiccan would say, the Universe made me write it.
You seem to seek out departed spirits or ghosts. Why? Are you not scared?
I find this word ‘ghosts’ very disrespectful. Departed spirits, well, if you ask me no spirits depart. Remember, the law of conservation of energy — the total energy remains constant, it can neither be created nor be destroyed. The energies ( whether spirits or not) have this affinity to get in touch with other souls who can feel them and with a little effort can hear them. The ectoplasmatic fusions that happen inside the cosmos are mostly not registered by ‘so called science minded sceptics’. There are gadgets to measure such vibes. And afraid? No. You would only be afraid if you stay in denial of the other dimension. If I say that the other dimension is omnipresent, no matter what, you won’t be afraid of it. Remember you are afraid of darkness because you don’t see through it, but as soon as you put on a light, it becomes a part of you. Precisely the unknown is magic or mysticism and the known is science.
Do you only sight spirits or auras around people? Are you into Noetics as a subject?
Auras form the atmosphere, it really doesn’t matter whether you have a body or not. There are ascetics who would ask you not to touch anyone’s feet while paying obeisance. The say, the aura or the protonic energy of a person is as long as that person’s height. They say you put your head on the ground, possibly, to absorb a concoction of the Earth’ s magnetism coupled with the aura of that person. By the bliss of this Universe, I do feel a few energies that are devoid of a body. Noetics or the consciousness levels automatically become part of these. But I am personally not into Noetic sciences or research. But ancient knowledges under the umbrella of Wicca does take you through the subconscious to superconscious levels of the mind with twinings of the nature, supernature and the supernatural. There are very thin lines segregating them.
In you memoir, you keep asking people to leave a glass of water to satiate the spirit. Do you see yourself as a person who appeases ghosts? Do you help people – how do they reach out to you if they feel a ‘presence’?
What does a glass of water do? Think of a situation where you stand in front of everyone, yet you’re being ignored by everyone. You would not realise that you’re actually not visible to them. Just think of the insecurity that you would have to realise that persons whom love so dearly are slowly getting ahead with life and that you have become a fading memory. That glass of water just reinstates the faith that he/she still matters to you.As time goes, like all energies, they would also dissipate. But with pleasantness in them.
I don’t appease anyone. As my teacher says, it’s all about alignment. If I may say so, the Universe makes me do certain things that a psychiatric practitioner would do to people with mental illness. These are very small techniques that I had learnt over the years to put a restless soul to a restful state. As far as the last part of your question is concerned, I don’t do anything for any consideration. I have a promise to keep. If the cosmos so wills that I would be of help to someone, I would definitely land up from nowhere.
Do you plan to do something with this ‘gift’ you have? Can you see spirits where others cannot? Will you be doing more books about your supernatural experiences?
Well, after the book went for print, I realised that I could have included many more of the experiences that I had gone through. So, another book is very much in the offing. And as far as doing something with this ‘gift’ is concerned, I am completely in sync with you that this is a ‘gift’ that the cosmos had bestowed upon me and when you have such an invaluable gift, you keep them. You generally don’t use them. Seeing spirits? I feel them and I see them only when the spirit wants to show them off (like the school Master of Bhanjerpukur – one of my most remarkable experiences).
(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
My daughter Lilia and I were in Wakayama Station, on our way to see the cat station master in the small town of Kishi. Because Lilia uses a wheelchair, we had to ask for assistance getting on and off the train.
“What time are you coming back?” a Japan Railways employee asked. They would have to prepare for our return later in the day.
“We want to come back on the Tamaden,” I said, referring to a train with a cat theme. I had taken a photo of the train schedule, and I opened my phone to check the time. It was now about twelve-thirty. Although there were trains every thirty minutes – the Animal Train, the Plum Train, the Cha Train – the Tama Train (aka Tamaden) only ran from Kishi twice a day. The next would be at 2:38, which wouldn’t give us much time to see everything. We didn’t want to rush. The final one would be at five fifteen.
“Five fifteen,” I said.
The man gave me a dubious look. “There isn’t very much to do in Kishi,” he said. “There’s nothing there. Are you sure you want to stay that long?”
What about the café? The museum? The shrine? The cat? We had come all this way, and we would only be there for a couple of hours. If we ran out of things to do, we could go for a walk. It was a lovely day, after all.
“You want to ride on the Tama Train, don’t you?” I asked Lilia.
“Yes,” she replied.
“What if we change our minds and want to come back early?” I asked the JR attendant.
He told me that would be difficult.
“Okay, then. Five fifteen.”
After showing our tickets, we were given Wakayama Electric Railway Kishigawa Line postcards. On the platform, there was a rubber stamp featuring a cartoonish Tama, with Wakayama Castle, and citrus fruits in the background. Little blank books meant for collecting stamps from various places were sold in gift shops. We didn’t have such books, so we stamped our postcards. A clock with cat ears – one black, one brown, like a calico – hung overhead.
I deduced that the train on the tracks, decorated with colored hearts, illustrations of dogs and cats, and the letters JSPCA, was the Animal Train. Other than the banners featuring cats clutching flowers and a white dog holding a bone, the inside of the car was ordinary. Like most Japanese trains, it was clean, with plush benches along each side, and an orange ticket dispenser at the entrance and exit.
Lilia marveled at how empty the train was. Now that she lived in Osaka, she had become a city girl, used to being squished between passengers on her morning and evening commutes. I was pretty sure that most of the people getting on board were tourists on their way to see Tama.
During the thirty-minute ride, the train swayed on the tracks, past rice paddies, and orange orchards.
“Maybe in the future they will make it easier for people in wheelchairs to visit,” I said.
Lilia frowned and made the sign for money. Yes, it might cost a lot to add an elevator in the station, but was it really too much to ask?
At the end of our journey, which was also the end of the line, a young man wearing white gloves laid out the ramp. Again, we conferred about what time we would go back. He gave me a paper schedule, folded into the size of a credit card, and showed me the phone number at the bottom.
“If you change your mind about what time you want to go back, just call this number,” he said.
“Thank you.” I looked around. We were indeed in the middle of nowhere. Yes, there were many houses, but I could already tell that the station itself was quite small, and, as the attendants in Wakayama had said, there weren’t any shops and restaurants around. But there were quite a few people, many from abroad. I saw a young woman in a pink hijab, and a group of Chinese tourists.
We paused before the shrine to the original cat station master, Tama, on the platform, then went down a ramp, and to the front of the station. By now, we were hungry. But first, the cat.
On this day, Yontama, a calico like her predecessor, was in a little room behind glass at the side of the station. She was napping on the wooden floor, next to a soft, plush mat. Many people were taking photos of her, but no one was bothering her. She wasn’t wearing the hat or suit of a stationmaster or doing anything special. She looked – and I say this with love – like an ordinary cat.
To the left of the window stood a fortune dispenser. Lilia dropped a hundred-yen coin into the box and extracted a rolled-up piece of paper. She unfurled it and showed it to me: “Very happy!”
“Great!” I gestured to the café behind us. “Now let’s go eat.”
We entered the Tama Café, which also seemed to function as the museum. The original cat station master’s hat, decorated with a strawberry emblem, a lace-trimmed blue velvet cloak worn by Tama, and various framed documents were displayed in a glass-fronted cabinet.
I ordered two Hot Cat Sets for us — fish sausages on hot dog buns, strawberry sodas, and cookie wafers printed with Tama’s image. We topped that off with green tea floats, with a scoop of green tea ice cream with almond ears and chocolate chip eyes.
After we had finished our meal, we visited the gift shop next door. From there, we could see Yontama from a different angle. She was awake but still lolling about. I bought little Yontama towels, which are always used in Japan for blotting your hands dry after washing them in public places. Then I paid for a fortune of my own. “Very happy,” it said. I wondered if all of the fortunes in the box were exactly the same.
Across the street was a tourist information center. Despite the JR employees’ skepticism, the people of Kinokawa City had taken the time to consider ways to occupy and engage the many visitors who would come to see the cats. Brochures in many languages were arranged in a rack. I plucked a few and discovered that a beautiful park dating back to the medieval period was within walking distance. The region also produced a lot of fruit, such as strawberries, figs, and oranges.
“Shall we go for a walk?” I asked Lilia.
She nodded. Using a map app on my phone, we set out for Hiraike Park Land. Part of the walk was uphill. Although Lilia’s wheelchair was electric-assisted, she still had to turn the wheels. Her arms started to get tired, so I helped her out for some of the way. We passed fields of cabbages, rice paddies, and groves of lemons, oranges, and figs. Unattended farm stands offered clear plastic bags of freshly picked persimmons and citrus fruits at bargain prices, much cheaper that those sold at the supermarket back home.
We finally arrived at the park. We stopped to observe the ducks and herons, the placid blue pond. According to the map, some ancient burial mounds, made distinctive by their key-holed shape, were nearby. I thought that we might be in danger of exhausting the wheelchair’s battery, however, so we didn’t go in search of them.
On the way back to the station, I stopped at one of the farm stands, put a couple of coins in the money box, and bought a bag of oranges. I would take it back as a souvenir for my husband and me to enjoy.
At one point, Lilia stopped, threw back her head and looked at the sky. “Ao,” she said in Japanese, drawing her fingers across her cheek in the sign for “blue.” She signed that there were no clouds. Indeed, it was a perfect autumn day.
When we were almost to the station, Lilia spotted a general store. She wanted to go inside, so we did. The lone woman behind the counter did not greet us, as is customary in Japan. I wondered if she was put off at the sight of a couple of foreigners. Of course, my daughter is half-Japanese, and has spent her entire life in Japan, but when she is with me, people assume that she is from abroad.
At the front of the store, school uniforms were displayed on mannequins Further inside, various goods were haphazardly arranged – a rack of flannel shirts, a shelf of liquor bottles, snacks for kids dropping in after school. It looked like the aftermath of a rummage sale. When Lilia started down a narrow aisle in her wheelchair, the woman drew in her breath. I could sense her fretting behind us, but she didn’t say anything. What must it be like for these country people to deal with the many foreigners traipsing through their small town? I was reminded of how people in Tokushima, where I live now, used to literally tremble when they saw my foreign face and thought that they might have to speak English.
Lilia decided to buy a packet of shrimp chips. The woman took her money, thanked her, and we got out of her hair.
Back at the station, we returned to the gift shop. Although Yontama was on the clock until four, and it was past four thirty, she was still relaxing in her little room. She probably didn’t mind. No one was tapping on the glass or otherwise harassing her. She had a good view of tourists buying cat themed T-shirts, cookies, and keychains. Lilia bought an ema, a small wooden plaque on which she would write a wish, and appeal to the cat deity, Tama Daimyojin.
We went onto the platform, and I tied Lilia’s ema onto a wooden board, along with wooden plaques inscribed by people from all over the world: “Wishing happiness and peace to animals all around the world.” “May all the strays and rescues get a good and loving home.” “May Pomelo, Walnut, and I live a long healthy life together.”
Dusk was already falling. The platform began to fill with other visitors, who apparently had the same desire to ride the Tama Train as we did. A young Chinese woman with flowing bleached-blonde hair in Lolita-meets-Little-Bo-Peep fashion – bonnet, and a tiered plaid dress with frills, eyelet, and ribbons — posed while her friends took photos. I wanted to take her picture, too, and post it on my Instagram account. She probably wouldn’t have minded, because she seemed to be some kind of influencer, but my daughter frowned and shook her head when I indicated my intentions.
As the train finally approached, everyone tried to get the best spot on the platform for the best shot. The front of the train was painted with a cat’s face. The windows served as eyes, and just below were a nose and whiskers. Cat’s ears were affixed to the top of the car. Pawprints and a cartoon version of Tama in various poses illustrated the sides. Inside, passengers could sit on colorful Tama-themed sofas.
Our friend from earlier showed up with a ramp, and helped us get onto the car with a space for wheelchair users. Lilia was delighted to find a bookshelf stocked with cat-related manga in the car. I handed her a stack of them to read over the duration of the train ride.
Although many of those onboard were obviously tourists, like the young Chinese women continuing their photo shoot, I realised that this train was also used by the residents of the towns on the Kitagawa Line. Observing a man in a business suit who appeared to be among them, I wondered what it was like for him to share his commute with eccentric travelers. I suppose it would be entertaining. At any rate, I couldn’t help but be impressed by this small town’s ability to create a new identity for itself and capitalize on it.
We returned to Wakayama Station tired but satisfied at having completed our mission. When I reached home, my cats were there to meet me, yowling and needy.
.
Suzanne Kamatawas born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
I was in Oxford on a Charles Wallace fellowship to study John Ruskin’s influence on M K Gandhi and R N Tagore. Like any other student I lived in a hostel, walked up to the Ruskin School of Art and Ashmolean Museum, to the High Street and the flea market, to the Bodleian Library, and – of course – the book stores that continue to make that ancient city of academic excellence such a delight for a person like me who started crawling in the midst of books.
What caught my fancy on the book-lined shelves in the hometown of a ‘legal deposit’ library? The screenplays of Quentin Tarantino. Countless books on Elizabeth 1 – perhaps because Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth had just released worldwide. And the volumes on art. The gorgeous reproductions halved the tedium of walking miles of museums and galleries. And the history of art rekindled my love for paintings from our collective past.
But what I didn’t take kindly to was the neglect of – if not bias against — art from my homeland. There were books on Greek, Chinese, Japanese , African, Egyptian, Mayan, Roman art, on Russian Icons and Stained Glass windows, on French Impressionists and German Expressionists, Cubists and Moderns… But Indian art? For crying out loud, where was Ajanta-Ellora? The glass paintings and Miniatures? Pichwai and Patachitra, Nathdwara and Kalighat Pat, Warli and Madhubani, Santiniketan and Baroda?
That’s when I told myself, “Put the journey of Indian paintings between covers.” For, which other country has a continuity that I can boast, of a tradition that has continued unchequered for three thousand years and more?
Once I was back home, my friend Reeta Dutta Gupta approached me to edit an Encyclopedia of Culture for the India Series she was nursing. And Dr Jain of Ratna Sagar entrusted me to author a Notebook that would recount for school-going children the story of Indian art from Bhimbetka to the present millennia. What luck!
*
Be it the hunters and the hunted of Bhimbetka, the rock art now on the UNESCO list of World Heritage, or Kolam and Alpana and Rangoli, the decorative designs of Kerala and Bengal and Maharashtra. Be it the Buddha of Ajanta Frescoes or the ploughmen and blacksmith of the Haripura Congress panels painted by the Bengal master Nandalal Bose, be it the illuminations in the Jain manuscripts or the Mughal manners immortalised by the kalams: art in India has grown out of everyday life. These art expressions have been an integral part of the people’s existence, regardless of the style or the period in which they were painted. Yes, down centuries Indian art has withstood change of regiments, religions, philosophy, social content, historical setbacks. And, aesthetic excellence has found an outlet in forms and lines, strokes and colours, whether these were obtained by crushing gems or pounded rice.
This has helped India enjoy a continuity that is rare even in the developed societies. From the sketches of Bhimbetka to those of the tribal artists of Warli, from the murals of ancient India to the art of contemporary masters, from the miniaturised figures to the Tantric patterns – art in India has reinvented itself again and again. And each time it has emerged with renewed vigour and vitality. Because, every age has related to art in an intimate way. By painting on the wall. Decorating the floor. Placing it on the altar. Or simply by keeping an account of the times.
Bhimbetka Cave paintings from prehistoryA fresco from the Ajanta caves, 2nd century BCE to 6th century CEArt from Indian past. From Public Domain
As A Ramachandran – then professor of art at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi – had said to me, “Even when our ancient language that was deemed the language of the gods, fell into oblivion, art transcended centuries because it was communicating through a universal language – the visual language of colours and hues.” The lines defined the form, and also created a unitary area for the use of colour, he had further explained. “No matter what the subject, comprehension was never a problem for the Indian – until he was confronted by the art that was imposed by the colonialists.”
The Western overemphasis on realism played havoc, with the native sensibility that allowed for imagination and stylization, Nair Sir had pointed out. That sensibility had no problem accepting a ten-armed goddess, Dasabhuja Durga, or Dasanan, the ten-headed Ravan. “Lifestyle changes too have led to the dilution of Indian aesthetics that once enveloped our workaday lives. The only living art today is the visual art traditions in the villages, but that too might not last as villagers now want to ‘rise’ to the level of the urbans!” he had lamented.
In such a situation, art becomes doubly significant in the life of a child. When she or he is exposed to it, the child can not only access the history and the continuity of a culture but also nurture it with love that can ensure it lives in the days to come… With this in mind, I will write to focus on the high points of Indian art.
Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and writes books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
I’d wanted to go on the Shikoku Mannaka Sennen Monogatari (One Thousand Year Story in the Middle of Shikoku) train trip ever since I saw it advertised on a poster in the window of Tokushima Station. When I investigated, however, I discovered one couldn’t begin the journey in Tokushima, where I live. Although it starts (or ends, depending on which way you’re coming from; it’s a one-way trip) deep in the mountains of Tokushima, I would have to change trains a few times before boarding the special sightseeing train. It would take hours to get there. A better way would be to board in Tadotsu, which is in the neighboring prefecture Kagawa. I could drive there in a little over an hour, take the fancy train to Oboke, and return by express train.
I decided to take a ride on the spur of the moment. The train was pretty much booked for the rest of the season, at least on the days when I didn’t have other plans, like my job. I did find one last seat on a train in mid-November. It might have been more fun to go with someone else, but I didn’t have time to coordinate with friends. I immediately booked the seat, reserving my lunch as well.
The morning of my train trip was chilly, but sunny. I donned a thin tunic and a long cardigan, wondering if it would be cold in the mountains. Maybe I should bring my down jacket? I rolled up a windbreaker and stuffed it into my backpack. I entered my destination – Tadotsu Station – into my phone’s navigation app, selected a podcast for the drive, and set off.
Tadotsu turned out to be a sleepy little town, which makes sense. These are the kinds of places that need something special to attract visitors and their money. If the whole purpose of these sightseeing trains is to rejuvenate dying towns, then Tadotsu seemed like a good choice. I could see that some construction was in progress, perhaps to accommodate the hordes of new visitors brought by the train. Porta potties temporarily served as bathrooms.
In front of the station, an intriguing sculpture attracted my attention. To me, it looked like a tall armless man wearing a hat, backed by a sickle. There was an emblem like a coat of arms where the neck of the man would be. At the base of the sculpture was a plaque with the words: “Thankful for my own life. Thankful for having you in it.”
Later, I discovered that it was meant to commemorate Doshin So, nee Michiomi Nakano, a former military intelligence agent who spent many years in China. After returning to Japan, he was stationed in Tadotsu, where he established a cram school to teach Buddhist philosophy and martial arts.
In 1947, he founded Shorinji Kenpo, a Japanese martial art with a holistic system. The training methods are divided into self-defense training, mental training, and health training. According to his philosophy, spirit and body are as one, and they must be trained together as such. His teachings emanated from this small town of about 20,000 people to the rest of the world. The emblem, as it turned out, was the symbol for Shorinji Kenpo.
I took a photo of the monument and proceeded to the train platform, where I was met with heavy equipment surrounded by a chain link fence. A sign apologised for this inconvenience, and explained that construction was underway to make the station barrier-free.
I was twenty minutes early, but my fellow passengers – Japanese, as far as I could tell – were already milling about, taking selfies and photos of each other in advance of their train trip. The group was mostly female, middle-aged, and older. Many people were wearing masks.
A cinematic melody heralded the approach of the train, accompanied by another rush for selfies and photos. The three cars, all different colors, were named after spring, summer, and fall. What happened to winter? A small doormat with the train’s motif, which resembled a stylized tree, was positioned on the platform at the entrance to the train. I boarded the green “spring” car, Haru Akari, and found my seat, a fuzzy green upholstered chair at a table against the wall, facing the window. The two seats next to me were unoccupied.
Most people wore casual clothes. I rarely saw folks from Tokushima get dressed up, unless it was for a wedding, say, or a graduation ceremony. One woman at the four-top on the other side of me was striking in a sumptuous Chinese-style jacket and gold barrettes. I wondered for a moment if she might be some kind of celebrity. I tried not to stare.
I examined the orange cloth placemat, again with the tree motif. Already my mouth was watering. Disposable chopsticks and a wet napkin were aligned at the bottom, while a spoon rested on a rectangle of granite. Paper napkins, toothpicks, and creamers were tucked into a small basket made of vines. Brochures detailing the train’s route, souvenirs for purchase, and additional menu items were laid out.
You could use your phone to scan a QR code and order keychains, sweet potato cakes, or a yusan-bako, a traditional lunch box which originated in Tokushima. This one was made of Japanese cypress adorned with Kagawa lacquerware. It had three drawers for various delicacies, which fit into a box with a handle, perfect for toting to a picnic in a meadow somewhere. You could also buy a CD with the train’s theme song.
I had already ordered my lunch, but I glanced at the menu anyway. Fish cutlets, another specialty of Tokushima were available, along with bamboo shoots, and ice cream made with sake lees. The sweet potato crumble, with a dollop of whipped cream, was also tempting, but I summoned my willpower.
One of the uniformed attendants pointed out the wooden box under my car for storing my backpack and purse. I got those items out of the way. She also handed me a coupon for soup and water to be redeemed at our first stop. And then finally, the train began to move. A whistle blew. Japan Railway employees and others lined up with flags and round paper fans and began waving at us. We all waved back.
After that enthusiastic send-off, the train began to trundle along the tracks, picking up speed as we zipped past backyards of houses, apartment buildings with laundry hanging on balconies, convenience stores, crows alighting on power lines, an empty playground. We passed rice paddies, some surrounding family gravestones; a construction site with bright blue, green, and yellow earth moving machines.
As we neared Kotohira Station, our first stop, a young woman chirped that Kotohira’s brass band had been declared second best in the country. She reminded us to redeem our coupons in the welcome center. After the train had stopped, I followed everyone into a small room adjacent to the station where we lined up at a counter. I handed over my little piece of paper and received a bottle of water and a small China cup of kabocha1potage. I perched on the padded bench to drink it, while gazing around at the proud display of photos of the award-winning high school band. A white-gloved attendant came around with a tray to collect my empty cup, and I got back on the train.
A young Chinese family – a couple and their plump baby – were now occupying the seats beside me. The train moved on. The view outside my window was now more expansive – terraced fields, occasional houses with tiled roofs and walled gardens, tufts of pampas grass, a patch of pink and magenta cosmos.
The voice announced that we were nearing Sanuki Saida Station, which boasts a 700-year-old tabunoki tree, said to be a “power spot.” Apparently if you stand under the tree, you can absorb some of its spirit and energy. The tree has also been designated a Kagawa Prefectural Protected Tree. The train came to a stop again, but this time we didn’t get off. Instead, we all whipped out our smartphones to take photos of the person dressed in a polar bear costume shooting soap bubbles from a bubble gun. The baby was delighted.
Once we were again underway, the attendant distributed large square bento boxes with gold-rimmed lids. I opened mine to find an array of chilled meat dishes – the first course. I unsheathed my disposable chopsticks and broke them apart. “Itadakimasu!2”
Out the window, farmland had given way to gnarly brush. `Although the foliage wasn’t quite at its peak, swatches of scarlet and gold popped against the greenery. I wondered about the wildlife in the mountains. I knew that there were monkeys, boars, and deer. The latter two appeared on menus deep in the interior of Shikoku. You could get a burger made with game meat, or “peony hot pot,” in which thin slices of pink boar meat curled up like flower petals after being cooked in miso broth.
Next to me, the young parents passed their good-natured baby back and forth. When I caught his eye, I smiled at him, and he showed his dimples, smiling back. I remembered how, when I had first come to Japan, whenever I had tried to engage with a stranger’s baby on the train, the baby’s face had crumpled up in terror. Apparently, big-nosed foreigners were scary even for infants. At least back then. It was nice to be able to engage with a small child without causing tears.
We made a brief stop at Tsubojiri Station, a small, unmanned station accessible only by switchback, surrounded by trees. “You can get off the train and smoke,” the voice announced. We all scampered off the train, but I didn’t see anyone light up a cigarette. Instead, passengers posed in front of the station’s sign and the weathered wooden building.
Back on the train, the next course was served – buttered rice and pork, arranged on a gold-rimmed China plate. The narration continued. “Please look to the right. You will be able to see Mount Hashikura. You can take a ropeway to Hashikura Temple, which was established by the famous Buddhist monk Kukai, also known as Kobo Daishi.”
Kobo Daishi is known as the father of Shikoku’s 88-Temple Pilgrimage. Hashikura Temple is not one of the 88, but is considered to be an associated temple. According to the Tourism Shikoku website, the name “Hashikuraji” contains the character for “hashi,” or chopsticks, “an everyday unifying ubiquitous tool of daily life for all Japanese. In 828 [CE], Konpira Daigongen revealed himself to the priest Kukai and promised to save all who use chopsticks, a pledge of salvation for all.”
According to an announcement, we would soon have a good view of the Yoshino River, the majestic “wild” river which runs west to east across Shikoku. Its rushing waters carved out the Oboke Gorge over millennia. This river flows 121 miles, past Tokushima City, and the house where I live, and into the Kii Channel. At one time, it flooded repeatedly. The “Tora-no-Mizu” (“Tiger’s Water”) flood of 1886 (Year of the Tiger), one of the worst floods in Japanese history, led to the deaths of an estimated 30,000 people. Now, however, strong levees keep the waters in check, though heavy rains can still shut down the roads nearest the river. These days, the Yoshino River is more known as a place where visitors can enjoy various forms of recreation including swimming, fishing, and white-water rafting.
As I gazed out at the glassy emerald waters, which reflected the rocky banks, the voice announced that we were approaching Awa-Ikeda. High school baseball, I thought. Sure enough, the voice told us that we would soon have a view of baseball players practicing at Ikeda High School’s diamond, and that they had once won the National High School Baseball Tournament at Koshien.
The train chugged on. We passed another station, Awa Kawaguchi, where another person in a polar bear suit filled the air with soap bubbles. A sign on the platform declared that this was a town where tanuki (an indigenous animal that is often called raccoon-dog, and is a notorious trickster in Japanese folklore) and people live together.
A polar bear suit filled the air with soap bubblesA man wearing a woven peaked hat
After traversing another tunnel, coffee was served with a petite madeleine. Outside the window, I could see the water rushing through the gorge, frothing over rocks. We were almost at the end of our thousand-year journey. It had lasted a little over two hours.
The train pulled into Oboke Station, in the town of Miyoshi, and we got off. We were greeted by a man wearing a woven peaked hat and happi coat, banging on a drum affixed with characters from the animated series Anpanman. Although my fellow travelers had been mostly Japanese, quite a few European and American tourists were milling around the station, perhaps waiting for transportation.
At the time I first visited, over thirty years ago, I recall no restaurants or hotels, but now there was a large roadside station with souvenir shops, food vendors, and a Yokai House. There was even yokai3-themed food. Some traditional houses have been refurbished as high-end inns.
I took a short walk around the area and then attempted to buy a return ticket on an express train. Although the station was now geared for tourists with English signage and souvenir shops, it was still old-fashioned in many ways. I realised it wasn’t equipped to deal with phone apps or credit cards. I hadn’t brought a lot of cash, but I had just enough to buy a ticket back to my starting point.
Suzanne Kamatawas born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
