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Review

Bhang Journeys: Stories, Histories, Trips and Travels

Book Review by Bhaskar Parichha

Title: Bhang Journeys: Stories, Histories, Trips and Travels

Author: Akshaya Bahibala

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

Akshaya Bahibala is a poet, bookseller, publisher, and library advocate. He is the co-founder of Walking Book Fairs, an independent bookstore and publishing company, as well as one of the most beloved bookmobiles in India, having journeyed over 35,000 kilometres through 20 states to promote a love of literature. Bahibala has authored four books in Odia. This book marks his debut in English. This captivating book is full of unexpected twists and turns, offering a unique blend of memories, adventures, and intriguing facts about a well-known substance. It serves both as an exploration and a cautionary tale.

Bhang Journeys: Stories, Histories, Trips and Travels by Akshaya Bahibala is an eye-witness account of the cannabis in one part of India – Odisha. Quite a bit of research and ideation seems to have gone into the book. This book is truly captivating due to its exploration of a controversial subject — bhang or cannabis..

Reads the blurb: “For ten years, from 1998 to 2008, Akshaya Bahibala was in the grip of bhang, of ganja—drinking it, smoking it, experiencing the highs and lows of an addict on Puri’s beaches with hippies, backpackers and drop-outs from France and Japan, Italy and Norway. Then he drew back from the edge and tried to make a life, working as a waiter, a salesman, a bookseller. He starts this journal-cum-travel book with startling, fragmented memories of his lost decade. From these, he moves to stories about people across Odisha whose lives revolve around ganja-bhang-opium.”

Bahibala commences the book by recounting his experiences of indulging in bhang and ganja on the shores of Puri. He also spends time with a considerable number of foreigners — Caucasian men and women who appear to visit Puri for the purpose of getting high. The author mingles with Japanese, German, French, Italian, and Israeli tourists, sharing meals, borrowing money, exchanging bhang-infused biscuits, occasionally engaging in fights, all while listening to Bob Marley’s soulful rendition of “No Woman, No Cry” in a state of intoxication.

The book has some interesting details like how the owner of a government-approved bhang shop prides himself on selling the purest bhang available, claiming it can make people as forgiving and non-violent as Jesus. Another story is about how an opium cutter, learnt how to massage a lump of opium with mustard oil and carve it into tablets as a boy. There is a heart wrenching narrative of a girl who survived cholera by licking opium and became a lifelong addict. Yet another, is about the yearnings of a goldsmith with an opium de-addiction card for 20 grams a month, but he longs for more — atleast 25 grams. There is also the story of the ganja farmer who flies to Puri from Punjab in a helicopter.

The hallucinations induced by the drug are reflected in the case study of a young man, suffering from ganja-and-bhang-fuelled paranoia, convinced that Indian and American spies are after him makes for an interesting yet concerning read. Descriptions are given of angry villagers indulging in violence against excise department officials who try to destroy ganja plantations.

Alongside these narratives, are official data on opium production, seizures, and destruction; UN reports on the medicinal benefits of cannabis and a veteran’s recipes for bhang laddoos and sherbets. The author delves into the process of creating bhang, highlighting its complete legality in India (unlike charas and ganja, which are prohibited under the country’s 1985 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act). Additionally, there is a subtly humorous account of a Brahmin bhang shop owner who offers intriguing insights into the procurement and sale of bhang. Bahibala also discusses opium (referred to as afeem locally) cutters and government-operated facilities where opium is manufactured. He sheds light on opium addicts, for whom the government provides a de-addiction program.

The author concludes the book on a rather melancholic tone, discussing the current state of affairs in Puri and the significant changes that have occurred over the past two decades. The absence of foreign tourists on Beach Road, the police cracking down on public marijuana use, the proliferation of hotels and restaurants, and the eagerness of owners to expand and construct more establishments are all highlighted. Additionally, the author reflects on the individuals he once knew during his youth, noting that some have relocated to other countries while others remain in the area.

This book offers a comprehensive perspective on the bhang/charas/ganja culture in India, covering aspects such as production, sale, purchase, and consumption under peer pressure. The author’s personal experiences and lessons learnt add depth to the narrative, making it a captivating read. It is a liberating and unfiltered account, unconcerned with conforming to political correctness and yet, there is his own story, where he feels he ‘lost’ a decade of his life to addiction.

Bhaskar Parichha is a journalist and author of Unbiased, No Strings Attached: Writings on Odisha and Biju Patnaik – A Political Biography. He lives in Bhubaneswar and writes bilingually. Besides writing for newspapers, he also reviews books on various media platforms.

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Slices from Life

No Film? No Problem

By Ravi Shankar

The studio room was ill ventilated. The bright lights were making things hotter! We were at a photo studio in Bhandup, Mumbai, trying to take a family photograph. The photographer was trying his best to arrange us in a pleasing and photogenic composition. The process was however, taking longer than expected and my youngest brother was getting scared. He was beginning to cry and soon was bawling his head off. My mother has a knack of soothing and calming crying children, but this time even her efforts were not successful.

I was reminiscing on this episode recently and was thinking on how easy it has now become to capture photographs and video. For a long time, you had to use film to capture photographs. Photography was an expensive proposition then. Initially, you only had black and white films. Later colour films became widely available. The cost of films, of processing and printing photographs all added up.

Films were also only invented in only 1889, but they were highly flammable. ‘Safety films’ were introduces only in the last century in 1908. Before 1889, photographers had to lug around heavy glass photographic plates. The process of capturing images on film also took a long time. When taking portraits people had to stay still for minutes at a time. The older generation of cameras were bulky and heavy and difficult to carry around. Photography was a significant advance in human history. Before 1802, we had to depend on painters and portraitures to depict everyday scenes and special occasions.

The Eastman Kodak company invented flexible film to capture photographs and for several decades the company was a world leader in photography. Unfortunately, they were not able to fully adapt to the change to a digital format and after filing for bankruptcy the company is now back with commercial printing, film stills and movie production. The Japanese were the world leaders in cameras for several decades. Yashica, Minolta, Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Olympus are legendary names. For a long time during my student days and early medical career photography was an expensive hobby to indulge in. My first purchase was an Olympus. A small and compact camera that captured great images. The camera came with a remote and a timer. Olympus made great cameras and usually the lens was integrated into the body and could not be removed and changed.

My good friend, Sanjay Mhatre in Mumbai, is an architect with wide-ranging interests. He was the one who informed me about large format cameras and the Hasselblad series. Large format is especially important in architecture. Another major German brand was Leica. These were very expensive. Dr Unnikrishnan PS was my batch mate and hostel mate during the MBBS course. He had a keen interest in painting and has now switched to photography. Recently he has opened a museum dedicated to photography, Photomuse (https://photomuse.in/) in Thrissur district in Kerala. This is India’s first museum dedicated to photography.

My first single lens reflex (SLR) camera was a Pentax. I had purchased this from New Road in Kathmandu in 2000. A SLR is a camera that has a mirror in front of the film and when the shutter is clicked the mirror moves up and the film is exposed. The mirror otherwise helps photographers see what they are about to click through the view finder. The view finder was very important as you did not have screens that showed you what you were about to click. These came much later. With the advent of screens showing the scene in front of you, view finders began becoming less common.  

Himalayas — shot using the Pentax, Photo courtesy: Ravi Shankar

Kathmandu is a very photogenic city with ancient monuments and temples, and I tested out my new buy under a variety of conditions. I had to wait to get the film developed before I could see how my photos turned out. One had to be creative and resourceful as immediate feedback was lacking. I also invested in a polarizing filter, and this was very useful in highlighting the contrast between the snow-clad mountains and the deep blue sky.   

The camera was heavy and weighed around 1.2 kg but came with its own bag making it easier to carry. The camera accompanied me on most of my treks in Nepal. I was able to capture great images of the spectacular country. While hiking the hills, you had to stop, take the camera out of the bag, focus it, adjust the polarizer, compose the scene, and then click. Someone said that photography provided the sahibs with an excuse to rest and catch their breath during steep hikes. Karna Shakya is a famous Nepalese traveller and photographer who later he founded the Kathmandu Guest House in Thamel, Kathmandu. He has written about photography during his treks (in his books and articles) and the difficulty he faced while looking for colour films and developing the same in the 1970s in Kathmandu.

The cameras on mobile phones started becoming better from 2010 onwards. I had a Samsung mobile phone with me in Aruba that took good pictures. Aruba is a picturesque place with nice beaches and turquoise blue waters.

Aruba Coastline — shot using a Samsung Mobile. Photo courtesy: Ravi Shankar

I eventually graduated to an Oppo smart phone with a better camera. This smart phone accompanied me on my travels in Peru. In late 2019, Realme introduced a new smart phone with a 64 Megapixel sensor.  

Cusco Peru – Shot using an Oppo. Photo courtesy: Ravi Shankar

Mobile phone manufacturers are constantly upgrading their cameras. The mobile camera war is hotting up. The image sensors started getting larger and cheaper. Samsung and Sony started investing in sensor research and development. Some mobile manufacturers collaborated with camera makers like Hasselblad and Leica to bring these cameras to mobiles. Around late 2023, I was looking to upgrade my smart phone and wanted a more powerful camera. There was a wide choice available. 200 MP sensors were available on some phones while others had 120 and 100 MP cameras. I did some research and found that most phones only shoot images of around 32 MP at the maximum. Usual photos are taken at a much lower resolution.

I eventually purchased an Honor phone with a 100 MP camera. I have used this widely during my travels and gives excellent results especially in good lighting conditions. Mobile phones are lighter and less obtrusive compared to a SLR. Most SLRs have also now shifted to digital sensors rather than film. With a mobile phone it may be easier to capture people in their natural situations. The trend today is to have one device that can do it all. Play videos, check emails, make online bookings, call, chat, capture images and video.

Capturing video has also become easier and many phones have image stabilisation and allow you to shoot in HD and 4K formats. There are a variety of software that integrate images from different sources and can edit and polish a video. Taking a photograph is no longer regarded as something special. Taking a video and posting it on social media is also very common. Many people earn their livelihoods through creating and posting videos on platforms like YouTube and TikTok. We have come a long way from dressing up in our best formals and going to a studio to get our photographs taken to capturing images, selfies and videos using our mobile phones. Only a very brave person can predict what the next hundred years will bring!

Dr. P Ravi Shankar is a faculty member at the IMU Centre for Education (ICE), International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He enjoys traveling and is a creative writer and photographer.

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Editorial

‘If Winter Comes, Can Spring be Far Behind…’

Where the mind is without fear
…
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
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Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
…
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action…

— ‘Where the Mind is without Fear’ (1910), by Rabindranath Tagore

As we complete the fourth year of our virtual existence in the clouds and across borders, the world has undergone many changes around us, and it’s not only climate change (which is a huge challenge) but much more. We started around the time of the pandemic — in March 2020 — as human interactions moved from face-to-face non-virtual interactions to virtual communication. When the pandemic ended, we had thought humanity would enter a new age where new etiquettes redefining our social norms would make human existence as pandemic proof as possible. But before we could define new norms in the global context, takeovers and conflicts seem to have reft countries, regions and communities apart. Perhaps, this is a time when Borderless Journal can give a voice to all those who want to continue living as part of a single species in this world — where we can rise above our differences to find commonalities that make us human and part of the larger stream of humanity, that has been visualised by visionaries like Tagore or John Lennon — widely different cultural milieus but looking for the same things — humankind living together in harmony and moving towards a world without violence, without hate, without rancour and steeped in goodwill and love.  

Talking of positive values does not make sense in a world that seems to be veering towards darkness… Many say that humankind is intrinsically given to feelings of anger, hate, division, lust, shame and violence. But then we are just as much inclined towards happiness, fun, love, being respectful and peaceful. Otherwise, would we be writing about these? These are inherited values that have also come down to us from our forefathers and some have been evolving towards embalming or healing with resilience, with kindness and with an open mind.  

If you wake up before sunrise, you will notice the sky is really an unredeemable dark. Then, it turns a soft grey till the vibrant colours of the sun paint the horizon and beyond, dousing with not just lively shades but also with a variety of sounds announcing the start of a new day. The darkest hours give way to light. Light is as much a truth as darkness. Both exist. They come in phases in the natural world, and we cannot choose but live with the choices that have been pre-made for us. But there are things we can choose — we can choose to love or hate. We can choose resilience or weakness. We can choose our friends. We can choose our thoughts, our ideas. In Borderless, we have a forum which invites you to choose to be part of a world that has the courage to dream, to imagine. We hope to ignite the torch to carry on this conversation which is probably as old as humanity. We look forward to finding new voices that are willing to move in quest of an impractical world, a utopia, a vision — from which perhaps will emerge systems that will give way to a better future for our progeny.

In the last four years, we are happy to say we have hosted writers from more than forty different nationalities and our readers stretch across almost the whole map of the world. We had our first anthology published less than one and a half years ago, focussing more on writing from established pens. Discussions are afoot to bring out more anthologies in hardcopy with more variety of writers.

In our fourth anniversary issue, we not only host translations by Professor Fakrul Alam of Nazrul, by Somdatta Mandal of Tagore’s father, Debendranath Tagore, but also our first Mandarin translation of a twelfth century Southern Song Dynasty poet, Ye Shao-weng, by Rex Tan, a journalist and writer from Malaysia. From other parts of Asia, Dr Haneef Sharif’s Balochi writing has been rendered into English by Fazal Baloch and Ihlwha Choi has transcreated his own poetry from Korean to English. Tagore’s Phalgun or Spring, describing the current season in Bengal, adds to the variety in our translated oeuvre.

An eminent translator who has brought out her debut poetry book, Radha Chakravarty, has conversed about her poetry and told us among other things, how translating to English varies from writing for oneself. A brief overview of her book, Subliminal, has been provided. Our other interviewee, Rajorshi Patranabis — interviewed by Jagari Mukherjee — has written poetry from a Wiccan perspective — poetry on love — for he is a Wiccan. We have poetry by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Jim Murdoch, Alpana, Baisali Chatterjee Dutt, John Grey, Shahalam Tariq, Saranyan BV, Rex Tan, Ron Pickett with poetry on the season and many more. Humour is brought into poetry with verses woven around a funny sign by Rhys Hughes . His column this month hosts a series of shorter poems — typically in Hughes’ own unique style.

Devraj Singh Kalsi has explored darker shades of humour in his conversation with God while Suzanne Kamata has ushered in the Japanese spring ritual of gazing at cherry blossoms in her column with photographs and narrative. Keith Lyons takes us to the beautiful Fiordlands of New Zealand, Ravi Shankar to Malaysia and Mohul Bhowmick trapezes from place to place in Sri Lanka. Farouk Gulsara has discussed the elusiveness of utopia — an interesting perspective given that we look upto ideals like these in Borderless. I would urge more of you to join this conversation and tell us what you think. We did have Wendy Jones Nakashini start a discussion along these lines in an earlier issue.

We have stories from around the world: C.J.Anderson-Wu from Taiwan, Paul Mirabile from France, Rakhi Pande, Kalsi and K.S. Subramaniam from India. Our book excerpts are from Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala and English Poetry from Sri Lanka and its Diasporas edited by Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne and Shash Trevett and a Cli-fi book that is making waves, Rajat Chaudhauri’s Spellcasters. Mandal has also reviewed for us Ilse Kohler-Rollefson’s Camel Karma: Twenty Years Among India’s Camel Nomads. Bhaskar Parichha has discussed Mafia Raj: The Rule of Bosses in South Asia by Lucia Michelutti, Ashraf Hoque, Nicolas Martin, David Picherit, Paul Rollier, Clarinda Still — a book written jointly by multiple academics. Rakhi Dalal in her review of Anuradha Kumar’s The Kidnapping of Mark Twain: A Bombay Mystery has compared the novel to an Agatha Christie mystery!

I would want to thank our dedicated team from the bottom of my heart. Without them, we could not have brought out two issues within three weeks for we were late with our February issue. A huge thanks to them for their writing and to Sohana Manzoor for her art too. Thanks to our wonderful reviewers who have been with us for a number of years, to all our mentors and contributors without who this journal could not exist. Huge thanks to all our fabulous loyal readers. Devoid of their patronage these words would dangle meaninglessly and unread. Thank you all.

Wish you a wonderful spring as Borderless Journal starts out on the fifth year of its virtual existence! We hope you will be part of our journey throughout…

Enjoy the reads in this special anniversary issue with more content than highlighted here, and each piece is a wonderful addition to our oeuvre!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the content page for the March 2024 Issue.

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Contents

Borderless, February 2024

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Finding Godot?… Click here to read.

Conversations

Ratnottama Sengupta talks to Ruchira Gupta, activist for global fight against human trafficking, about her work and introduces her novel, I Kick and I Fly. Click here to read.

A conversation with Ratna Magotra, a doctor who took cardiac care to the underprivileged and an introduction to her autobiography, Whispers of the Heart: Not Just a Surgeon. Click here to read.

Translations

Two poems by Nazrul have been translated from Bengali by Niaz Zaman. Click here to read.

Masud Khan’s poetry has been translated by Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

The White Lady by Atta Shad has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Sparrows by Ihlwha Choi has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Tagore’s Dhoola Mandir or Temple of Dust has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Pandies Corner

Songs of Freedom: What are the Options? is an autobiographical narrative by Jyoti Kaur, translated from Hindustani by Lourdes M Supriya. These narrations highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and pandies’. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Rhys Hughes, Maithreyi Karnoor, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Sivakami Velliangiri, Wendy Jean MacLean, Pramod Rastogi, Stuart McFarlean, Afrida Lubaba Khan, George Freek, Saranyan BV, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Sanjay C Kuttan, Peter Magliocco, Sushant Thapa, Michael R Burch

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In City Life: Samples, Rhys Hughes takes on the voice of cities. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Ratnottama Sengupta Reminisces on Filmmaker Mrinal Sen

Ratnottama Sengupta travels back to her childhood wonderland where she witnessed what we regard as Indian film history being created. Click here to read.

Suga Didi

Snigdha Agrawal gives us a slice of nostalgia. Click here to read.

Healing Intellectual Disabilities

Meenakshi Pawha browses on a book that deals with lived experiences of dealing with intellectual disabilities. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Hobbies of Choice, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores a variety of extra curriculums. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Becoming a Swiftie in my Fifties, Suzanne Kamata takes us to a Taylor Swift concert in Tokyo. Click here to read.

Essays

Walking about London Town

Sohana Manzoor takes us around the historic town. Click here to read.

How Do You Live?

Aditi Yadav explores the universal appeal of the translation of a 1937 Japanese novel that recently came to limelight as it’s rendition on the screen won the Golden Globe Best Animated Feature Film award (2024). Click here to read.

The Magic Dragon: Cycling for Peace

Keith Lyons writes of a man who cycled for peace in a conflict ridden world. Click here to read.

Stories

A Night at the Circus

Paul Mirabile tells a strange tale set in Montana. Click here to read.

Echoes in the Digital Expanse

Apurba Biswas explores a futuristic scenario. Click here to read.

Two Countries

Ravi Shankar gives a story about immigrants. Click here to read.

Chadar

Ravi Prakash writes about life in an Indo-Nepal border village. Click here to read.

Just Another Day

Neeman Sobhan gives a story exploring the impact of the politics of national language on common people. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Nabendu Ghosh’s Journey of a Lonesome Boat( Eka Naukar Jatri), translated from Bengali by Ratnottama Sengupta. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Upamanyu Chatterjee’s Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews The History Teacher of Lahore: A Novel by Tahira Naqvi. Click here to review.

Basudhara Roy reviews Srijato’s A House of Rain and Snow, translated from Bengali by Maharghya Chakraborty. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Toby Walsh’s Faking It : Artificial Intelligence In a Human World. Click here to read.

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

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Essay

How Do You Live?

By Aditi Yadav

Hayao Miyazaki and the poster of The Boy and the Heron in Japanese

In January 2024, The Boy and the Heron became the first Japanese movie to win the Golden Globe Award for the Best Animated Feature Film. However, when the original movie was released by Studio Ghibli in the summer of 2023 in Japan, it was marketed with ‘no marketing at all’-without any trailers, TV commercials or newspaper advertisements. A minimalist movie poster carrying the sketch of a heron and the Japanese title Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka, was all it took the movie to record the biggest box office opening in Studio Ghibli’s history.

Hayao Miyazaki, the godfather of Japanese animation who celebrated his 83rd birthday in January, 2024, broke a decade long hiatus to give his directorial swansong to the world. The movie is inspired by Miyazaki’s favourite book Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka, written by Genzaburo Yoshino in 1937. This coming-of-age Japanese classic had been tenderly translated into English under the title How Do You Live? by Bruno Navasky and brought out by Penguin in 2021 with a foreword by a writer no less than Neil Gaiman.   

Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka byGenzaburo Yoshino

The protagonist of the story is Honda Junichi, a fifteen-year-old boy nicknamed ‘Copper’ after Copernicus, by his uncle.  He has a diminutive frame, but his intelligence, bright personality and athletic skills, make him a popular kid at school. As Copper has been raised by a single mother, his uncle, who is a fresh law graduate, is the only male guardian around him. Their bond is an interesting one: not only do they share a warm friendship, but also discuss about the world at large, its history, philosophy, human relationships, so on and so forth. 

 The book chronicles Copper’s world, his thoughts and day-to-day incidents, in a format that alternates between a third person narrative and notes from the diary Copper’s uncle. Copper’s everyday experiences are similar to those of any other school going child — peers bullying, fighting, discovering class differences, bonding over games, pranking one another, and so on. The book delves into the mind of the adolescent boy, trying to make sense of the world to understand how he’d transition to an adult. He approaches the world with an innocent curiosity, musing how people are ‘a little like water molecules’ in the vast ocean of human society.

His uncle deeply moved by these observations and expressions, begins to pen down about these interesting episodes in his notebook. He also adds facts and references associated with them, that encompass wide range of topics including art, science, economics, history, politics, philosophy and language. He probably thinks that when Copper reads the notebook later on, it would help him see the world better alongside his personal mental and moral evolution. These notebook entries bear sagacious titles like- ‘on ways of looking at things’, ‘on human troubles, mistakes and greatness’, ‘on human relationships’, ‘on poverty and humanity’, etc. However, the words do not intend to preach. They brim with warmth of empathy, and capture the strengths and vulnerabilities of being human: “If it means anything at all to live in this world, it’s that you must live your life like a true human being and feel just what you feel. This is not something that anyone can teach from the sidelines, no matter how great a person becomes.”

Yoshino wrote the book as a part of the “Nihon Shoukokumin Bunko” (Library of books for the Younger Generation) that aimed at disseminating progressive knowledge and ideas to Japanese young adults. The work is a precious one – a classic example of how thoughtful adults can help young children to have a healthy mind and human heart.

Published in 1937, this masterpiece itself is an act of resistance against all regressive beliefs and authoritarianism, as Navasky pens in his Translator’s note, the book is “…particularly valuable to us now, when violence against citizens is on the rise, and independent thinkers are being attacked by their governments”. The book itself was censured several times, before it could be printed in its originally intended form. It’s important to mention here that from 1911 to 1945, Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu (or Tokko), the Special Higher Police, heavily monitored political groups and ideologies that posed a threat to the Empire of Japan.  The Peace Preservation Law passed in 1925, expanded the powers of Tokko to suppress all socialist and communist idea in Japan. The heavy-handed ‘thought policing, only ended in 1945 with Japan’s surrender in World War II.

How we live, invariably depends on how we think. The universality of the book lies in how it links thought processes across borders — individual and collective — will have decisive roles in the ideals we follow and the society we construct. Our journey from the primitive caves to modern skyscrapers has been a long and tumultuous one. The prowess of human mind and the resilience of human spirit has brought of this far, but a peaceful society demands empathy and honesty of the human heart. Copper is sensitive enough to realise this, when he jots down–

“I think there has to come a time when everyone-one in the world treats each other as if they were good friends. Since humanity has come so far, I think now we will definitely be able to make it to such a place.

So, I think I want to become a person who can help that happen.”

Charting the ups and downs in the life of young Copper, the book closes on a sunny fulfilling note where our protagonist sees the world with an open heart as his extended family. And so, this timeless classic that touches the heart ends with a deep question for all of us – “How will you live?”

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Aditi Yadav is a public servant from India. As and when time permits she engages in creative pursuits and catches up her never-ending to-read list. Her works appear in Rain Taxi Review of books, EKL review, Usawa Literary Review, Gulmohur Quarterly, Narrow Road Journal and the Remnant Archive.

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

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

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Categories
Essay

Cinema, Cinema, Cinema!

By Gayatri Devi

Is it appropriate to speak of transnational glee as a legitimate audience response to a film? If so, that might be a fitting label for the global spectator reaction to the blockbuster Indian film, Jailer, released worldwide on August 10, 2023.  The film whose OTT rights were purchased by Amazon Prime is streaming online while simultaneously playing to packed theatres in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, China, the Middle East, Australia, Canada, the US, the UK, France, and other countries. In its first month of theatrical release, Jailer brought in an impressive 300 crores in India alone with over 600 crores and counting (just shy of 22 million US dollars) as its worldwide earnings. Many Indian blockbuster films have had a worldwide high-performance index recently with the likes of Ponniyin Selvan, Pathaan, Bahubali etc. thriving on an exoticised glamour of an India of kings and queens and palaces and freedom fighters and medieval breakdance routines, a sort of mystified enchanting India of the travel brochure version for viewers both inside and outside India. Even a mediocre film like RRR had a localised transnational success in the United States during the academy award season as well.

Unlike these historical and revisionist costume dramas, Jailer is a full-on pop culture phenomenon, a movie of the moment, a tale of its time; it is as au courant as cellphones and police corruption. It is full of attitude, and packed chockful of allusions and homages to both Indian and western movies in what is essentially a fun romp. Shot mostly in sumptuous wide shots and rhythmic cuts, it establishes an onscreen India, dry and dusty, with industrial warehouses running forgery, guns and knives, roadside ice cream vendors, fly-by beheadings, and struggling gardens along with elementary school YouTube influencers.  Its real distinction is that people all over the world get it. But it is as Indian, specifically, it is as Tamil as a Tamil can be, and it puts a smile on the face of anyone anywhere who watches it. The international blockbuster with no pretensions to anything other than cinematic entertainment is back, thanks to Jailer and its vibrant young director Nelson Dilipkumar.

Jailer tells the story of two men, a hero and a villain, a retired police officer Tiger Muthuvel Pandian, the eponymous jailer, and a criminal mastermind Varman who runs an art forgery ring. They make counterfeit Indian statuary and sells them in the international market. Their encounter becomes complicated when the jailor’s son, a corrupt police officer, starts working for the villain, the male melodrama of father-son conflict being a favorite trope in Tamil cinema from older films like Thangappathakkam (The Golden Badge, 1974) that starred an earlier era’s superstar Shivaji Ganesan. Jailer belongs to the same pedigree of male melodramatic films. The hero is played by the Tamil superstar Rajnikanth and the villain, the psychopathic leader of the forgers by Vinayakan from the nearby Malayalam film industry in Kerala.

Both Rajnikanth and Vinayakan belong to the highly successful world of mainstream, commercial Indian cinema with strong populist reception while also maintaining a certain level of middle-class entertainment sophistication. When compared to Rajnikanth, Vinayakan is relatively a newcomer, but one who has very quickly claimed his own space in Mollywood, Kerala’s film industry that produces Malayalam language-based films.

Vinayakan’s breakout performance as an underworld operative, an executioner and strongman, a complex character who is right, wrong and everything in between in Kammatti Padam[1] (2016) earned him a Kerala State Film Award for Best Actor.  Jailer sees him as a criminal psychopath with unpredictable ticks like instructing his lackeys to dance for him, drowning his enemies in big vats of sulphuric acid, delivering his Tamil-Malayalam pidgin with menacing comic timing etc.  The overall excesses of his character have the potential to turn him into a stereotypical villain, especially since the sulphuric acid dunking trope has a colourful cinematic legacy in Indian popular culture. (The “sulphuric acid joke” is an instantly recognisable film joke in Indian pop culture attributed to the persona of an outlandish villain played by the erstwhile Bollywood star Ajit who is credited with asking his henchman Raabert (Hindi pronunciation of Robert) the following purely apocryphal lines: “Raabert, is haraami ko liquid oxygen mein dal do; liquid ise jeene nahin dega, oxygen ise marna nahin dega”  (Robert, drown him in Liquid Oxygen; the Liquid won’t let him live, and the Oxygen won’t let him die!”). Jailer abounds in many such recognisable “quotation marks” throughout the film, including an ear-slicing scene, an evident homage to Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs(1992), and “Stuck in the Middle with You”. These artfully placed allusions create an enjoyable self-reflexive layer in the film where Jailer talks to film materials that have provided evident inspiration. The self-conscious scripting and direction, and the sheer enjoyment and abandonment with which Vinayakan embraces the deranged psyche of Varman makes him a bonafide villain and not a caricature.

Rajnikanth who plays the title role of the jailer is the 72-year-old veteran superstar of Tamil cinema known to his massive adoring fan base as thalaivar (“Leader/Chief” in Tamil). Rajanikanth started his film career with the 1975 romantic drama Apoorva Ragangal (Rare Melodies), a far cry from the action crime thriller genre which would soon become synonymous with his name in the industry. With his trademark moustache, lopsided pursed lips, thick mop of straight black hair swiped across the forehead, lean frame, and long lanky legs, Rajnikanth from the 80s onwards played the righteous underdog on both sides of the law who took on the snobbish elite as well as the violent underworld players and won. He played orphans, rickshaw drivers, underworld consigliere, police officer, milkman, engineer, writer, grandfather, father, son, brother, husband, lover – he played the full spectrum of masculine roles in mainstream Indian cinema.

There is an underacknowledged colour line in Indian films where the relatively whiter-complexioned actors and actresses are considered stardom material. Rajnikanth with his dark-complexion and Midas touch at the box office demolished this industry practice and became the mirror for the ordinary darker Dravidian face on the Indian silver screen.  Jailer sees him aged but fuller and lighter than his earlier years, though what has not changed are his instantly recognisable dance moves; underworld or the penthouse, underdog or the aggressor, Rajnikanth’s dance moves set the tone in his films. The standing jogs, the high kicks, the hip shake, the robotic arm movements and hand props like dark glasses and hand towels showed a new definition of “cool” to his fans.  His tentative dance performance in Jailer is reminiscent of another accomplished dancer who exhibits a pretend stage fright; John Travolta in Pulp Fiction dancing with Uma Thurman to Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.”

Other significant performances include Vasanth Ravi as the jailor’s corrupt and clueless son, Ramya Krishnan as the jailer’s visibly irritated wife, along with hilarious cameos by Malayalam superstar, Mohanlal, Bollywood star, Jackie Shroff, and Kannada star, Shiva Rajkumar — all of them act as outlaws who help the jailer in his fight against Varman. An equally hilarious subplot involves a love triangle between the dancing beauty Kamna, her lecherous costar “Blast” Mohan, and her lover, the timid film director.

The film clocks an impressive two hours and fifty minutes on the strength of these men and their vivacious performances, smart, sharp, and funny dialogue, over-the-top violence, and a sizzling cameo dance sequence, popularly known in Indian film lingo as an “item number” by the alluring Bollywood actress Tamannah. The single “Kaavaala[2]” composed by the music director, Anirudh, is a proper earworm turned worldwide viral hit with the young and the old alike shaking their hips to its mood altering percussive rhythm, the latest being a Japanese version of the song. Perhaps as a testament to the song’s instant infectious popularity, the original dance features dancers of multiple ethnicities, a global potpourri as it were, with a set reminiscent of the production design of Raiders of the Lost Ark[3] (1981) as well as a flute intro that calls out to Andean musicians. If any song can bring the world together, “Kaavaala” can.

Indeed, the multiple references to Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are unavoidable while watching Jailer. As with Tarantino, director Nelson (as he is popularly known) too operates inside a similar vision of cinematic storytelling.

The proper subject of Jailer is cinema, cinemas of India, cinemas of the world. Tamil melodramas of the 1970s, the middle class Tamil comedies of the eighties and the nineties, Bollywood action flicks, Hollywood adventure films, the black  crime comedies of Quentin Tarantino, the epic blood splatter of Robert Rodriguez, the bumbling and menacing sociopathic capers of Guy Ritchie films  – Jailer tips its hat to all of these crime-as-entertainment influences through its multilayered dense scripting, the large cast of characters, and the no holds barred display of gory violence. It is a refreshingly confident film without any false notes though some of the repeated explosion scenes could be tightened.

Jailer tells an old story familiar to the Tamil audience, a story as old as Shivaji Ganesan in Thangappathakkam(1974)—the upright police officer father and the fallen corrupt son. The film chugs through its dense thicket of plot and counterplot towards an inevitable moral resolution to this impasse. This is where the power of the star system in Indian cinema, a status equal to that of gods, plays its trump card. With Rajnikanth playing the jailer father there can be only one moral resolution, son, or no son. It is a formula that never fails, and speaks of a justice perhaps unique to cinema.

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[1]  Kammatti Paadam — is the name of a slum in Kochi, Kerala. It is a place name. Kammatti is a proper noun without any traceable etymology.  Paadam means “field” in Malayalam. “The Slum Fields” of “The Slum” could be an appropriate translation.

[2] Kaavaalaya — A Telugu phrase, “I Want You, Man”

[3] Set in 1936

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Gayatri Devi is a teacher, translator and writer living and working in Savannah, Georgia.

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Essay

Coffee, Lima and Legends…

Narratives and photographs by Ravi Shankar

The Pacific coast

The city of Lima, Peru was founded by the Spanish conquistador, Francisco Pizzaro in 1535. Spanish scouts sent out by him reported the place had ample water, fertile lands, sea access, and fair weather influencing the decision to settle there. Now, the city is in the agricultural region known by the locals as Limaq. It was once the most important city in the Viceroyalty of Peru that ruled over a large part of South America. Today over one-third of Peru’s population resides in the greater Lima area. The moisture-laden winds from the ocean result in fog throughout most of the year. The cold Humboldt current keeps the Pacific Ocean temperatures low. The coastal region of Peru known as the Costa is a dry desert and rainfall is scarce. The combination of very little rain with a thick fog fascinates both residents and visitors. Most mornings were foggy during my stay in Lima.   

Lima serves as the entry point to Peru and during your trips around the country, you can enter and leave Lima multiple times like I did. During one of my visits, I stayed with Cesar, a pharmacist with the Ministry of Health, on the 15th floor of a modern apartment complex overlooking the Pacific Ocean, in Magdalena del Mar, with a beautiful view of the Pacific.

Magdalena del Mar is fast becoming a trendy neighbourhood has an immaculate Heart of Mary Church, an ornate beautifully designed church in pink stone. Roman Catholicism with its emphasis on ceremonies, ornamentation, and ostentatious displays shares many similarities with the religions of the East. One afternoon after lunch, I visited the long stretch of beach which I admired from the fifteenth-floor window. I had to cross the Circuito de Playas, the six-lane highway that links several spots along the coast in Lima.

Heart of Mary Church
Art Museum

The city of Lima is famous for its museums. The Museum of Art in Lima is wonderful. Located in downtown Peru at the Parque de la Exposicion (Park of the Exposition), the museum houses one of the best collections of Peruvian art from pre-Columbian times to the modern day. The artworks are mostly grouped according to the period of their creation. Different cultures like the Moche, Nazca, Chimu, Chancay, Ica, and the Incas are represented. After the Spanish conquest, local artists and artisans concentrated on religious Catholic art. Modern Peruvian secular art began in the nineteenth century. I read with great interest the struggle between two schools/visions on how this art should grow and develop. One school wanted a cosmopolitan art like that developing in Europe while the other school wanted Peruvian artists to concentrate on traditional Peruvian topics like Inca buildings, town planning, Peruvian plateaus and mountains, and the Peruvian Indian.

Holiday makers in Plaza de Armas.

The Plaza de San Martin is one of the most representative public spaces in the capital. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988 and is connected to the Plaza de Armas by the Jiron de la Union. The plaza pays homage to the liberator of Peru, Jose San Martin (1778-1850). The plaza was built in 1921 in honor of the 100th anniversary of Peruvian independence. The buildings lining the plaza date from 1910 to the 1940s.

Exhibits of Gold

In the 1960s, Miguel Mujica Gallo used his private collection, gathered throughout his life, to open the “Gold Museum of Peru and Weapons of the World”. The museum has over 7000 gold, silver, and copper objects. Gold and silver had a religious importance in pre-Columbian Peru. Gold represented the Sun while silver represented the Moon. The collection is valued at over 10 million US dollars. The other major section represents the weapons of the world. I found it ironic that humanity expended so much effort and resources on devising better and better ways of killing each other. There is a Japanese room at the museum highlighting the close ties between Japan and Peru. Many Peruvians of Japanese and Chinese descent are still able to read in their native languages while at the same time being fluent in Spanish.

On my last day in Peru, I decided to use the public bus to visit the ruins of Pachacamac which is located outside the capital in the city of Lurin. Pachacamac was a major religious site for the different cultures of Peru. As new cultures became dominant, they added their constructions to the holy site. The site was first settled in 200 AD and is named after the earth-maker God, Pacha Kamac. some museums in Peru there are concessions for teachers which I feel is a very good idea. School children visit museums accompanied by their teachers and museum guides to develop a good understanding of their culture.

Pachacamac Museum
Quipu, recording devices made from Camelid hair

Unfortunately, Pachacamac was too near the capital Lima to escape the attention of the rapacious Spaniards. The conquistadores were mainly driven by their limitless appetite for gold and a narrow bigoted religious view which regarded Roman Catholicism as the only true religion and other religions as heretic practices to be destroyed. They caused much damage to Pachacamac.

Pachacamac

The wind started blowing and a flurry of dust pervaded the air. The Sun Temple is the major building. There were separate locations for religious buildings, administrative buildings, and residential buildings and there were also granaries.

View from the Sun Temple

The Incas and the pre-Inca cultures practiced human sacrifice. Enemies were ritually sacrificed but young virgin girls were also sacrificed. These mamacuna (Virgins for the Sun), had important status. They wove textiles for priests, and brewed corn beer which was used in Inca festivals. The women were sacrificed in the highest ritual; they were strangled with cotton garrote. They were wrapped in fine cloth and buried in stone tombs. Each was surrounded by offerings from the highlands of Peru, such as coca, quinoa, and cayenne peppers.

Peruvian coffee like Peruvian food turned out to be a hidden treasure. Smooth without bitterness or harshness, the coffee can be drunk black without milk. Peru is also home to ‘poop coffee’. Dung coffee is made by having an animal (usually a civet) eat coffee cherries. The natural digestion process reduces bitterness. When they poop out the beans, they’re gathered, thoroughly washed, and typically take on flavors of the animal’s diet. Peruvians use the uber-adorable coatis, which are like tiny raccoons. They are fed the best-of-the-best Arabica beans and nature takes over from there!

Twined with the flavour of Peru is a beautiful legend which needs to be told to highlight their colours. In the good old days, a widowed mother, Pacha, worked day and night to feed her three sons. The sons were lazy and survived on the food provided by their mother. One evening while returning home the mother tripped on a stone and was injured. She was bedridden and became dependent on her sons. The sons were too lazy to work their farm and stole from the villagers and eventually started selling their farm part by part. They lied to their mother about their plentiful harvests. One day, the mother went to the farm to see the harvest but was beaten by the villagers who mistook her for a thief. Learning about this, the sons got angry and turned themselves into hail, frost, and furious wind devastating the villagers’ farms and houses. Since that day when the elders gather at night to tell stories, they talk about the hail, the frost, the wind, and how they ruin the fields from time to time, and they continue to blame the men of the village for having mistreated the mother (mother earth / Pachamama)!

I enjoyed my days in the city of kings. The weather was good, the accommodation was great, the food was excellent, great architecture and art greeted one everywhere, getting around was not too difficult and the cost was reasonable. What more can a man want? I plan to return one day in the near future.  

Peruvian camelids

Dr. P Ravi Shankar is a faculty member at the IMU Centre for Education (ICE), International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He enjoys traveling and is a creative writer and photographer.

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Contents

Borderless, October 2023

Artwork by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

We had Joy, We had Fun … Click here to read

Conversations

A conversation with Nazes Afroz, former BBC editor, along with a brief introduction to his new translations of Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Tales of a Voyager (Jolay Dangay). Click here to read.

Keith Lyons converses with globe trotter Tomaž Serafi, who lives in Ljubljana. Click here to read.

Translations

Barnes and Nobles by Quazi Johirul Islam has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Cast Away the Gun by Mubarak Qazi has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

One Jujube has been written and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.

A Hymn to an Autumnal Goddess by Rabindranath Tagore,  Amra Beddhechhi Kaasher Guchho ( We have Tied Bunches of Kaash), has been translated by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Michael Burch, Gopal Lahiri, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Hawla Riza, Reeti Jamil, Rex Tan, Santosh Bakaya, Tohm Bakelas, Pramod Rastogi, George Freek, Avantika Vijay Singh, John Zedolik, Debanga Das, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry, and Rhys Hughes

In Do It Yourself Nonsense Poem, Rhys Hughes lays some ground rules for indulging in this comedic genre. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Onsen and Hot Springs

Meredith Stephens explores Japanese and Californian hot springs with her camera and narrative. Click here to read.

Kardang Monastery: A Traveller’s High in Lahaul

Sayani De travels up the Himalayas to a Tibetan monastery. Click here to read.

Ghosts, Witches and My New Homeland

Tulip Chowdhury muses on ghosts and spooks in Bangladesh and US. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Red Carpet Welcome, Devraj Singh Kalsi re-examines social norms with a scoop of humour. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Baseball and Robots, Suzanne Kamata shares how both these have shaped life in modern Japan. Click here to read.

Stories

The Wave of Exile

Paul Mirabile tells a strange tale started off by a arrant Tsunami. Click here to read.

Glimpses of Light

Neera Kashyap gives a poignant story around mental health. Click here to read.

The Woman Next Door

Jahanavi Bandaru writes a strange, haunting tale. Click here to read.

The Call

Nirmala Pillai explores different worlds in Mumbai. Click here to read.

Essays

The Oral Traditions of Bengal: Story and Song

Aruna Chakravarti describes the syncretic culture of Bengal through its folk music and oral traditions. Click here to read.

Belongingness and the Space In-Between

Disha Dahiya draws from a slice of her life to discuss migrant issues. Click here to read.

A City for Kings

Ravi Shankar takes us to Lima, Peru with his narrative and camera. Click here to read.

The Saga of a Dictionary: Japanese-Malayalam Affinities

Dr. KPP Nambiar takes us through his journey of making a Japanese-Malyalam dictionary, which started nearly fifty years ago, while linking ties between the cultures dating back to the sixteenth century. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Kailash Satyarthi’s Why Didn’t You Come Sooner?: Compassion In Action—Stories of Children Rescued From Slavery. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Rhys Hughes’ The Coffee Rubaiyat. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Usha Priyamvada’s Won’t You Stay, Radhika?, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell. Click here to read.

Aditi Yadav reviews Makoto Shinkai’s and Naruki Nagakawa’s She and Her Cat, translated from Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori. Click here to read.

Gemini Wahaaj reviews South to South: Writing South Asia in the American South edited by Khem K. Aryal. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews One Among You: The Autobiography of M.K. Stalin, translated from Tamil by A S Panneerselvan. Click here to read.

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Categories
Essay

A City for Kings

Narratives and photographs by P Ravi Shankar*1

Lima. Courtesy: Creative Commons

The rich golden-brown skin peeled off easily to expose the pink flesh underneath. The ‘frita’ was a perfect symphony of flavours with every note being in the right place. I enjoyed the entire fish including the bones and the head. I was having a ‘trucha frita’ (fried trout) at a restaurant in Magdalena del Mar, Lima, Peru. The fish was large and had been fried without much oil. Peru is known for its food, and I enjoyed my lunch (almuerzo) throughout my visit. Lunch is the major Peruvian meal. There were special lunch menus and for around 8 nuevo soles (around 2 US dollars and fifty cents). I got an entrada (usually a soup or a salad) and a segundo (seconds with a big variety of dishes) with a drink and often a dessert.

I landed at Lima’s Jorge Chavez International Airport late at night late in September. The airport is not very large by international standards but functions quite well. Taxi fares from the airport are on the higher side. I had taxi-hailing apps on my phone, but they did not seem to work at the airport. Lima is a city of around 11 to 12 million people. About a third of Peru’s population lives in the capital. There has been a recent influx of Venezuelan refugees to the city. The city is crowded but most of it is well-planned with squares, roundabouts, parks, and sidewalks.

I liked Lima. For a large city, it is not very polluted though some areas are dusty. The city is usually covered by haze or fog till late in the morning. The weather is usually cloudy though it rarely rains. About 40% of Peru’s population lives in the arid coastal region (la Costa). You see a lot of cambios or shops where you can change money. You also see a lot of restaurants. Lima is the third largest city in Latin America and recently has gained a reputation for its food. Peru has a lot of Japanese and Chinese immigrants (most of whom arrived at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century) and may be the most ‘Asian’ country in Latin America. Many Chinese run Peruvian Chinese restaurants called ‘chifas’.

Lima gained in importance during the Spanish rule and was the capital of the viceroyalty of Peru which included parts of modern-day Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. The city became very wealthy. During my different visits, I stayed in three different parts of the city — Pueblo Libre (Free town), Magdalena del Mar, and Jesus Maria. Lima is divided into several municipalities.

In Pueblo Libre, I stayed near the Plaza de la Bandera (Plaza of the Flag), a huge roundabout. The archeological ruins of Mateo Salado were nearby. Peruvians take great pride in their rich heritage. Following the Spanish conquest, the pre-Hispanic religions and cultures were violently suppressed by the Spaniards. They do continue to influence modern Peru in several ways but there is a stark discontinuity.

In the museum…

The Larco Museum is one of the many fine museums in the city. The museum has a rich collection of pre-Columbian art, is well-maintained, and is very appealing to the senses. Many civilisations took root on the arid coast. The Paracas and Nazca civilisations were prominent. The population had to learn to harness and use water from underground sources. The Anthropology Museum was under renovation, and I could only see the section commemorating the life of the liberator, Simon Bolivar. Bolivar is very popular in South America with several streets and buildings named after him. There is even a detergent named after him.

The Parque de la Leyendas (Park of Legends) is the zoo. The zoo is huge and is structured according to the three regions of Peru, the coast (costa), the mountains (sierra), and the jungle (selva). The Amazon rainforest constitutes the largest part of the country by land area. The largest city, Iquitos, can be reached only by boat or by air. The zoo also has a huge garden with plants from all over the world and a huge archeological site.

Plaza de Armas

Plaza de Armas de Lima (Plaza Mayor lof Lima) is the main square of the city surrounded by fine Spanish colonial buildings. Every town in Peru has a Plaza de Armas. Town planning is mostly good with numbered sectors and streets within the city. I was fortunate to see the changing of the guard at the Presidential palace which takes place around noon. What a show of pomp, colour, and pageantry on horseback! The synchronisation was perfect. The cathedral of Lima, the municipal palace, and the palace of the Union are major historical buildings.

Changing of Guards

I had heard and read a lot about one of the more recent attractions of Lima – the magical water fountain. The Circuito Magico de Agua creates magic with water. I reached the place mainly known for the spectacular fountains around 5 p.m. You can walk underneath a tunnel of water. As the sun began to set the lights were turned on. The lights at the main fountain could reproduce an extravagant palette of colors and different scenes were created in tune with the music. There was a light show at 7.15 pm. Crowds began to gather around the main fountain. The light and sound show using lasers and lights was spectacular and provided a brief introduction to the rich tapestry of Peru.     

Magical Fountains

Chicha morada is a drink from the Andes region and is made from purple corn. Rich in antioxidants, the drink is refreshing and healthy. Chicha morada is smooth and beautifully complements various Peruvian dishes. The alcoholic variety plays an important role in different religious and other ceremonies from ancient times to the present day. There is a legend about the corn (mama jora, mother corn) plant from which these drinks are derived.

The legend about the chicha[1] is especially popular in Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Inca empire, and also in other cities in Peru. In ancient times the God Viracocha (the creator) saw people working hard. He wanted to help them, so he came down from Hanaq Pacha (the world above) to place in a single plant the powers he wanted to give humans.  He chose a weak plant that struggled to grow amidst spiny weeds. To give his power to this plant, Viracocha took from his bag a sliver of huaranguay wood, a puma hair, a condor feather, and the fox’s brain.  He put them together and placed them on the small plant.

The city that treats visitors like kings with its sumptuous meals and friendliness, creates mystery with magical legends, like the one about Viracocha. Perhaps, that is why a sense of lingering longing and gratitude fills my being as I think of the colourful capital of that distant country on the other side of the globe.

Acknowledgment: Senor Fernando needs to be thanked for his hospitality and help during my visit — Dr P Ravi Shankar

[1] The legend is mentioned in a blog article by WC Morveli titled ‘Drink chicha to become wiser than a fox’ (https://cuzcoeats.com/drink-chicha-wiser-fox/)

  1. Unless otherwise stated ↩︎

Dr. P Ravi Shankar is a faculty member at the IMU Centre for Education (ICE), International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He enjoys traveling and is a creative writer and photographer.

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

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Slices from Life

Onsen and Hot Springs

Meredith Stephens explores Japanese and Californian hot springs with her camera and narrative.

One of the pleasures of living in Japan is taking a dip in the hot springs, otherwise known as onsen. Although I lived in Japan for more than twenty years, it was ten years before I could bring myself to regularly visit an onsen. This is because I could not bring myself to accept the notion of communal (albeit segregated) nude bathing, which would be taboo in the West. My long-term expat English friend in Japan continued to entreat me to visit the onsen, and so I eventually capitulated. Would everyone in the onsen be slim, and would they look down on a curvy westerner? Would I attract glances because of my physical difference? I visited one of the many onsen in Matsuyama with my two daughters. Nobody appeared to look at me. The onsen was not full of young slim women. There were many elderly and infirm in the onsen. Maybe the young were already healthy, and they did not need to visit an onsen.

There was a wide range of pools at the onsen. One had a walking pool, in which you walked anti-clockwise. Another had pools with jets that could be turned on to massage your back, a carbonated pool, and stone beds to lie on while watching a television screen placed on the wall which faced you. Another had an outdoor area, with separate bathtubs, a communal pool, a communal cold pool, and a pool inside a cave. There was also a sauna. Inside was a bucket of salt. You could scoop some salt out of the bucket and throw it over your shoulders. There was a clock in the sauna. I could not bear to stay in as long as the other patrons and would sometimes let myself in the door and then walk straight back out again.

I made up for the ten years of not visiting the onsen by becoming a regular patron, usually visiting at least once a week. I returned to Australia at the beginning of the pandemic, and one of the many things I missed about Japan was visits to the onsen. The next time I was able to visit an onsen was over three years later, on a visit to California.

My companion Alex and I drove from Shaver Lake to Mono Hot Springs Resort, both in the Sierra Nevada. We wound up the mountains through the site of the Big Creek Fire. On each side of the road were charred tree trunks.

Huntingdon Lake, California

As we drew closer to the resort, we turned onto a narrow road with large granite boulders on each side. Dump trucks charged towards us, and we took shelter in the many turn-outs.

After this hair-raising drive we arrived at our destination at 4 pm. We collected the key to our hut from the office and made our way there. I remembered an experience from an onsen resort in Japan, where patrons boasted how many times they had bathed in the various pools, and decided I would do the same at this Californian hot spring. We consulted the map and decided to visit the bath house. We had purchased swimsuits for this purpose. In Japan being clothed in an onsen is taboo, but in America it is quite the contrary. The first thing I noticed outside the bath house was the sign saying, ‘No Dogs Allowed’.

Why would you bring a dog into a bath house? In Japan, I had seen a sign saying, ‘No-one with tatoos can enter’, but never — ‘No dogs’.

I entered the bath house expecting to see large communal pools as in Japan, but instead discovered individual showers and baths in separate rooms with doors that could be locked. Apparently, the water was piped into the bath house from the source across the valley. Next, we decided to cross the valley to take a dip in one of the outdoor springs. In order to cross, you had to wade through a river gripping on to a rope, and tread across river rocks.

Alex went ahead of me, and I slipped into the icy cold water onto the river rocks. I tried to grasp the rope, but it eluded me. After several attempts, I managed to grasp it.

“Alex! Help!” I shouted.

I was aware of the glance of onlookers on the rocks witnessing my panic. Alex climbed onto the rock on the other side, extended a hand, and pulled me to the other side. The onlookers offered words of encouragement. We walked across the granite rocks and up the grassy hill, to find El Padro baths. Other bathers kindly and unnecessarily stepped out of the bath to offer us a place. Unlike Japanese baths it was muddy underfoot. We bathed there for twenty minutes, then continued up the grassy hill to the Iodine Bath.

This was similar to El Padro. We bathed here for another twenty minutes and chatted to a fellow bather. Then we headed back to our hut, this time walking a considerable distance out of our way in order to cross the bridge rather than wade through the river again.

The next morning, we decided to return to the baths before breakfast, in the hope of having them to ourselves. We went back across the bridge and headed up the grassy hill to the mud bath. The mud bath was shallow, just deep enough to sit in. The base of the pool at one end felt like grains of granite, and at the other end soft slimy mud. We could feel the heat pulsing from the edge of the pool. We spread mud over our neck, shoulders and legs, soiling our new swimsuits. We lay in the pool for twenty minutes enjoying the sensation of the warm mud on our bodies. Then we stepped out and washed the mud off in a metal bath.

We returned to our hut to wash off the rest of the mud, and rest, before visiting another pool called Li’l Eden. We trudged up the road in the sunshine for about thirty minutes, before spotting a downhill path leading to the pool. The path turned into a steep granite decline. A rope had been placed there to assist in ab-sailing. I had never ab-sailed before, but I followed Alex’ example, placing the rope in between my legs, clutching it, while carefully placing my feet in suitable footholds. I descended safely, albeit with muddy sleeves and sodden shoes. We spotted Li’l Eden and entered. It was a large muddy pool. If I sat on the mud at the bottom of the pool, I could feel the heat pulsating through the mud. After luxuriating in the mud, we hopped out and decided to return to the hut via the path and cross the river, rather than the bridge. We trod through the long muddy grass back down the hill. This time, instead of wading through the river across the river rocks to get to the other side, we decided to walk along a log which had been placed there for this purpose. What if I fell into the cold waters below? At least the log was a shorter distance than wading through the river holding the rope, so I decided to try. I quickly placed one foot in front of the other and a few seconds later I was safely on the other side.

We had two lengthy conversations with fellow visitors, and what struck me was that both of them said that this was their favourite place in the world. One said he had come here over one hundred times and preferred it to more famous destinations such as Yosemite and Kings Canyon. The other said she loved it so much that she spent her entire summers here. (In winter the road is closed because of the snow.)

I’m glad I had the chance to visit Californian hot springs after having spent so many years visiting Japanese ones. The latter are much more manicured. Each bath has a unique quality, and clothed attendants come in regularly to test the water quality. The Californian hot springs were more rustic. Other than the bath house, they required physical effort to get to each one, and the floor of each springwas unsealed. Many bathers had tattoos, but this was unremarkable. Both the Japanese onsen and the Californian hot springs are charming in their own ways. Yet, it was only because I had succumbed to the encouragement of my friends in Japan to indulge in frequenting onsen that I had braved the almost inaccessible roads to reach Mono Hot Springs in California.

Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her work has appeared in Transnational Literature, The Muse, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, The Journal of Literature in Language Teaching, The Writers’ and Readers’ Magazine, Reading in a Foreign Language, and in chapters in anthologies published by Demeter Press, Canada.

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