Tag: Kangaroo Island

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Slices from Life

Menaced by a Marine Heatwave

By Meredith Stephens

In an ideal world I would sleep in every morning and enjoy a leisurely breakfast, but I can indulge in no such luxury because I have a border collie. Her name is Haru. She has an elongated body, a pointy white snout scattered with black dots, one black ear and one black and white spotted ear, all-knowing brown eyes, feathered forelegs, and a bushy tail with a white tip. She looks more like a cross between a fox and a border collie than a pure border collie. As soon as she hears my voice when I wake up, she starts whining from the courtyard below, nagging me to take her for a walk. I much more looking forward to my breakfast than the walk, but Haru is the opposite.

Haru. Photograph by Meredith Stephens

One Tuesday, as usual, I affixed her leash and walked her towards the esplanade. Haru has memorised the route. She strained in front of me to the point where we crossed the road and then continued to drag me towards the pedestrian crossing. Then she made a beeline for the stairs leading down to the beach. I released the leash and threw the ball down to the sand. She raced down the stairway ahead of me and ran to catch the ball. In the winter months along this coastline, dogs are allowed to run off the leash as long as they are under the owner’s control. I was joined by a throng of other dog lovers and their canines, running to catch balls. Haru is interested neither in other dogs nor other people. All she cares about is the ball. Other dogs approached her and chased her, but she’s indifferent, solely focused on the ball in my hand.

This is good for me because I get exercise when I otherwise would not, and experience vicarious pleasure in her excitement at retrieving the ball. Maybe this is more fun than breakfast after all. However, my walk last Tuesday was unlike those of previous weeks. I spotted an entire fish washed up on the shore amongst the seaweed. I had never seen this before on my daily beach walks over the last five years. Then I looked up and saw a rounded shape of a mammal a few hundred metres in the distance. I walked towards it, and once up close I realised that it was the head of a dolphin. “Sorry,” I said, feeling complicit in the damage wreaked by climate change. Haru was normally quick to sniff out a carcass and chew it, but she showed no interest.

The next day I chatted to a neighbour who told me that on her beach walk she had seen a range of species washed up on the beach that she didn’t know existed. We were witnessing the aftermath of an algae bloom, known as Karenia Mikomotoi, from September 2024. This had arisen in response to a rise in the sea surface temperatures of 2.5 degrees. The recent storms in June 2025 had washed the bodies of these sea creatures ashore. On my next beach walk I came across a small stingray, completely intact, directly in my path. I had seen stingrays before swimming in the shallows but never washed up on the beach. It was so beautifully formed that I could tell it had met an untimely death. Something untoward and unusual had happened. Again, Haru showed no interest in the stingray, despite usually being interested in decaying fish or animals.

Dead Stingray
Fish washed up on the beach
Photographs by Alan Noble

Weeks later I continued to spot fish washed up on the shore that I have never seen before. I came across much smaller fish a couple of centimetres long, some slightly larger fish, and another small stingray. These were the kind of colourful fish that I would see when snorkelling in pristine waters, not washed up on a suburban beach. Haru continued to ignore these dead creatures and skipped along the beach anticipating my ball-throwing. Or perhaps she somehow sensed they contained toxins. At least she was unlikely to be poisoned by eating them.

Small fish washed upon the beach
Blue fish dead on the beach
Photographs by Alan Noble

She delights in catching not only one ball that I throw her, but sometimes two. She doesn’t like to relinquish a ball, so I have another one on hand to throw her so that she can chase all the while holding the first one in her mouth. After chewing the ball down to a smaller size and squashing it, she can sometimes fit two into her mouth. Once she has managed this, she runs away from me into the wintry waters, oblivious to the cold, triumphant that she has two balls and trying to get as far away from me as she can in case, I try to take one away from her. Sometimes she skips through patches of the dirty foam left by the algal bloom.

I wish I could provide a happy ending to this story, but the algal bloom is not predicted to end soon, so my idyllic morning and evening beach walks with the oblivious Haru are likely to be punctuated with sightings of innocent marine creatures being washed ashore, victims of climate change and warming temperatures.

One consolation occurred the day my fiancé, Alex, and I left the mainland to sail across Investigator Strait to Kangaroo Island. Over the years there has never been a crossing during which we have not seen dolphins. In the back of my mind, I feared that this would be the first time. An hour into our crossing, Alex heard the familiar splash of breaking water and sighted a pod of dolphins. Not only that, once in the bay at Kangaroo Island, we spotted a sea lion. Thankfully, the marine life that can escape the algae is still undisturbed. I hope the scientists will find a way to address the marine heatwave so that life in our oceans can again thrive, and beachgoers can be spared the sight of these innocent creatures being washed up on local beaches. We can’t simply delegate to the scientists, though. Witnessing this marine carnage is a strong impetus for ordinary citizens to live more sustainably.

Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

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Slices from Life

Straight Back Across the Strait

By Meredith Stephen

From Public Domain

“So relieved that we will make good time today,” I declare. “I’ve had enough of arriving in the dark.”

“We have to stop to get diesel on the way but that won’t make too much of a difference,” Alex reminds me.

We head south of Adelaide to the most fertile part of the state. The coast is lined with stately Norfolk pines, and further south there are rolling green hills lined with heritage gums. There are more cattle than you could count, mobs of kangaroos, and horses wearing coats to protect them from the winter chills. We arrive in Yankalilla, the last town before our departure point, and fill the jerry cans with diesel. There is no fuel at Wirrina Cove, as the marina went out of business a few years ago, so we have to haul diesel to the boat.

We leave Yankalilla and head past yet more horses. After the turn-off for Wirrina I catch a glimpse of my favourites, two Clydesdales, one of whom has a forelock that reaches down past his nostrils. At the marina, we park in front of a tree to protect the car from the harsh marine environment. It’s mid-morning so there should be plenty of time to arrive in Kangaroo Island before darkness. My border collie, Haru, springs from the car, and happily trots down the finger wharf behind me as I carry my luggage to the boat. It’s hard for me to make the leap onto the boat from the finger wharf but Haru skips in while I am still worrying about how not to fall in the water.

“There is less wind than forecast. We’ll have to motor-sail,” bemoans Alex.

I move to the trampoline at the bow to savour the view of boats in their berths opening out in front of me as we exit. Haru sits next to me and whinges every time I stop patting her. Once we are in open water the boat starts rocking, and I walk back along the side of the boat, all the while gripping the side with my right hand, until I am safely inside. Haru trots lightly alongside me.

The waves become increasingly bouncy and Haru frowns. She eyes her crate which is sitting just inside the doorway. I open the flap, and she heads in and curls herself on the old silk cushions and Alex’s old woollen jumper lining the bottom of the crate. She prefers the safety of the crate to sitting outside with the possibility of being splashed.

I abdicate the task of sailing to Alex and watch him at the helm, while I settle myself on the couch, placing cushions behind my head and covering myself with a blanket. I can’t confidently move around on the boat when it is rocking this much, so I stretch my headphones over my head and listen to music, while watching Alex raise the sails and maneuver the boat towards Kangaroo Island. I feel a twinge of guilt at lying down in warm comfort while Alex busies himself with sailing, but he doesn’t seem to mind, so I close my eyes and revel in the music.

After several hours, we reach the middle of Investigator Strait. I glance outside and can see dorsal fins rising from the waters. As much as I like lying down with a blanket and listening to music, I cannot ignore pods of dolphins. I rise and brace myself for the cold and wind outside the boat. I head towards the bow, but the rocking motion and the cold winds defeat me. From the stern I can see dolphins swimming alongside the boat, and as I gaze into the distance yet more dolphins are breaching as they head towards us. Of our many crossings of Investigator Strait there has never been a time when I have not witnessed pods of dolphins, but the sense of wonder never diminishes.

Despite my determination not to arrive in darkness, by late afternoon the sun begins to slip into the horizon and Point Marsden is still well in the distance. The sky erupts in bright orange, and I hope the light will hold out till we reach our mooring. Heading for Point Marsden is like trying to reach the summit of a mountain. Finally, we pass the point and head into the bay, but darkness has already fallen. Alex locates the mooring buoy in the distance. I grab the boat hook and head to the bow. I crouch on the trampoline and stretch the hook out in front of me over the dark water. Haru crouches at my side and brushes herself against me, willing me to hook the buoy on the first attempt. I stretch forward, hook the buoy, and drag it up to the bow. I call Alex, and he leaves the helm to secure it.

Alex lowers the dinghy, and we prepare to alight. We lift our bags in, and I carefully place one leg into the centre and ease myself in. Meanwhile, Haru has delicately skipped into the dinghy behind me. Finally, Alex enters, unties the ropes, turns the outboard motor on and takes us to the shore. We shine the torch in front of the boat and locate the cove. It’s high tide. Alex hops out into chest-high cold dark waters. He pulls the dinghy towards the rocks and secures it. I clamber out and perch myself on a rock. Alex hands me the bags. I place them on a higher rock just behind me. Then he hands me his backpack containing our laptops. I hold on to them tightly, afraid to place them on the rock in case water rushes over them. Alex picks up Haru and holds her above the water, before placing her on the shore. Then he takes the backpack from me, picks up the bags, and returns to the shore. I pick my way in the dark over slippery rocks, not moving one leg until the other has been firmly anchored. We reach the sand and walk up the switchbacks. Haru delights in running along the switchbacks after having been confined to the boat.

I tread carefully in the dark up the hill, Haru brushing her side against my calf. The holiday house is in sight, and just as I am about to reach the road leading to the house I fall over a boulder and gasp. How did I manage to navigate the submerged rocks in darkness and yet stumble on land?

‘“Oh sorry!” exclaims Alex. “That’s because I wasn’t holding your hand.”

He grabs my hand, and we walk up the last part of the track to the house. We enter and I make a doggie dinner for Haru. Then I collapse on the sofa and Alex makes a fire. After the adventure of arriving by boat and walking up the steep hill in the dark, the pleasure of lounging on a sofa and warming to a fire is multiplied. I am looking forward to spending the next day curling up on the sofa, reading a book in the sunshine, and taking Haru for walks.

A few minutes later the phone rings.

“Auntie May is not doing well. You have to come home as soon as you can!” urges my sister Jemima.

Great Auntie May, aged 103, is my oldest living relative. She was in the nursing home for two decades, even outliving her sons, before moving to the palliative care ward of the hospital. I remember the card from the Queen which she posted on her dressing table three years earlier. She once said that she had lived too long, because her sons and friends had passed. Because her grandchildren are interstate, it is up to her grand-nieces and grand-nephews to visit her.

“OK. We’ll be there as soon as we can!” I reassure Jemima.

“Alex, Auntie May is doing poorly. We have to get back to the mainland as soon as we can.”

“I’ll just check the weather,” he replies. “The wind is in the wrong direction. It’s a north-northeasterly. It may be too rough.”

His brow furrows as he scrutinizes the forecast.

“Can we fly home instead of sailing?” I ask.

“The weather will be getting worse over the week, so it won’t even be safe to let the boat stay on its mooring. Perhaps we can sail to the marina in Penneshaw and leave the boat there. Then we can catch the bus home from there.”

We decide to leave the next morning, but it is noon by the time we lock the front door. I dress Haru in her lifejacket, and don mine as well. We head back down the hill, and down the switchbacks to the shore. Alex picks up Haru and places her in the dinghy. She stands tall, ears pricked, the wispy hairs on her forelegs blowing in the wind, trusting that we will join her.

Alex places the bags in the dinghy. It’s too far away for me to board. If I walk to the dinghy in freezing water, I won’t be able to hop in from water at chest height. Alex pushes the dinghy to the rock I am standing on, and I leap in. He switches on the outboard motor, and we bump over the waves to the boat. Haru is at the front, and she winces as sprays splash onto her face. I pull her back against me to protect her from the sea-sprays. The boat is bobbing in the water. Alex grabs the rope to secure us. I stretch my left leg onto the boat, but the dinghy moves away, and my legs are thrown apart. I don’t want to fall victim to the cold water below. I move my left leg back into the dinghy. The waves are thrusting the dinghy towards the stern.

“Move back. It’s safer to alight from further back,” advises Alex.

Meanwhile Haru jumps effortlessly onto the boat, undeterred by the rough conditions.

“Now!” urges Alex, during a lull in the waves.

This time I extend my left leg onto the boat and somehow the rest of my body follows. Haru is standing expectantly at the bow wondering what all the fuss has been about. Alex raises the dinghy, then the sails, and we head towards Investigator Strait. Once we are in the boat the sea conditions are not as difficult as we had anticipated.

“I think we can sail across to the mainland in these conditions. We don’t need to leave the boat at Penneshaw after all,” Alex informs me.

The sea is bumpy but not enough to make me seasick. I bring Haru inside, and swaddle myself in blankets and locate my headphones, leaving Alex to manage the sailing. Six hours later we arrive at Wirrina Cove and drive back towards Adelaide in darkness.

“Let’s head straight to the hospital!” I urge Alex. “We can’t afford to waste any time.”

Alex floors the accelerator on the freeway, weaving past slow coaches who are blocking our way. Haru curls herself up on the back seat, oblivious to the drama around her.

We arrive at the palliative care ward and enter through the back door where visitors are allowed to enter with their dogs. Will Auntie May have waited for us? We make a beeline for her room. Auntie May is propped up on pillows and beams when she sees us. Haru jumps onto her bed and lies down facing her waiting for a pat.

“I had a bad turn, but I am feeling better today. Did you sail all the way back from Kangaroo Island to see me?”

“Yes, we did.”

“I’m sorry to have put you out. I’m feeling much better now.”

Alex and I glance at each other, and I catch the relief in his eyes. Even though she is 103, we aren’t ready to say goodbye. We hope she will make at least 110.

A few days later the phone rings. It’s the nurse from the palliative care ward.

“Would you come and pick up your Great Aunt May please? She is doing much better than expected and we need to move her out of the palliative care ward. The social worker has found a room with an ocean view for her in the Star of the Sea Nursing Home.”

Later we celebrate Auntie May’s 104th birthday at the nursing home, and next year we look forward to celebrating her 105th birthday. We continue to sail back and forth to Kangaroo Island, choosing our weather to only sail in favourable seas, never hurrying back. Haru continues to sail with us and enjoys visiting Auntie May just as much as we do.

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Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, MickingOwl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024 her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

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Contents

Borderless September 2023

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

What do They Whisper?… Click here to read.

Conversations

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri in conversation with M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan ( grand daughter of President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan) on their new book, Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World and Other Garden Adventures. Click here to read.

In conversation with Isa Kamari, a celebrated writer from Singapore, with focus on his latest book, Maladies of the Soul. Click here to read.

Translations

A Hunger for Stories, a poem by Quazi Johirul Islam, has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

A Hand Mill, a story by Ammina Srinivasaraju, has been translated from Telugu by Johny Takkedasila. Click here to read.

Kiyya and Sadu, a part of this long ballad on the legendary lovers from Balochistan, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

The Time for the Janitor to Pass by, poetry written in Korean and translated by Ilhwah Choi. Click here to read.

Sharat or Autumn, a poem by Tagore, has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Jared Carter, Rhys Hughes, Santosh Bakaya, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Sagar Mal Gupta, Nirmala Pillai, George Freek, Pramod Rastogi, Peter Devonald, Afshan Aqil, Hela Tekali, Swarnendu Ghosh, Alpana, Michael Burch

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Tintin in India, Rhys Hughes traces the allusions to India in these iconic creations of Hergé while commenting on Tintin’s popularity in the subcontinent. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Black Pines and Red Trucks

Meredith Stephens shares the response of some of the Californian community to healing after the 2020 forest fires with a narrative and photographs. Click here to read.

Remembering Jayanta Mahapatra

KV Raghupathi travels down nostalgia with his memories of interactions with the recently deceased poet and his works. Click here to read.

The Toughness of Kangaroo Island 

Vela Noble draws solace and lessons from nature around her with her art and narrative. Click here to read.

Where is Your Home?

Madhulika Vajjhala explores her concept of home. Click here to read.

A Homecoming like No Other

Saumya Dwivedi gives a heartwarming anecdote from life. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Hair or There: Party on My Head, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores political leanings and hair art. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Against Invisibility, Suzanne Kamata challenges traditions that render a woman invisible with a ‘sparkling’ outcome. Click here to read.

Essays

Jayanta Mahapatra: A Tribute to a Poetic Luminary

Dikshya Samantrai pays tribute to a poet who touched hearts across the world with his poetry. Click here to read.

Celebrating the novel… Where have all the Women Writers Gone?

G Venkatesh writes about a book from 1946. Click here to read.

Chandigarh: A City with Spaces

Ravi Shankar travels back to Chandigarh of 1990s. Click here to read.

The Observant Immigrant

In Climate Change: Are You for Real?, Candice Louisa Daquin explores the issue. Click here to read.

Stories

The Infamous Art Dealer

Paul Mirabile travels through Europe with an art scammer. Click here to read.

Getting Old is like Climbing a Mountain

Saranyan BV explores aging and re-inventing homes. Click here to read.

The Airport

Prakriti Bandhan shares a short, whimsical narrative. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Tales of a Voyager (Joley Dangay), translated by Nazes Afroz. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Sanket Mhatre’s A City Full of Sirens. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Begum Hazrat Mahal: Warrior Queen of Awadh by Malathi Ramachandran. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy reviews Sanket Mhatre’s A City Full of Sirens. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Samragngi Roy’s The Wizard of Festival Lighting: The Incredible Story of Srid. Click here to read.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

What do they Whisper?

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

‘Moment’ by Margaret Atwood

With an unmanned mission reaching the moon — that moon that was chipped off the Earth’s surface when Theia bashed into the newly evolving planet — many feel mankind is en route to finding alternate biomes and perhaps, a solution to its housing needs. Will we also call moon our ‘Homeland’ and plant flags on it as we do on Earth?  Does the Earth — or the moon — really belong to our species. Do we have proprietary rights on these because of lines drawn by powerbrokers who say that the land belongs to them?

These are questions Margaret Atwood addresses in her writings which often fall into a genre called cli-fi. This is gaining in popularity as climate has become uncertain now with changes that are wringing fear in our hearts. Not all fear it. Some refuse to acknowledge it. While this is not a phenomenon that is fully understood by all of us, it’s impact is being experienced by majority of the world — harsh stormy weather, typhoons, warmer temperatures which scorch life and rising water levels that will eventually swallow lands that some regard as their homeland. Despite all these prognostications, wars continue to pollute the air as much as do human practices, including conflicts using weapons. Did ‘climbing a hill’ and ‘planting the flag’ as Atwood suggests, ever give us the rights over land, nature or climate? Do we have a right to pollute it with our lifestyle, trade or wars — all three being human constructs?

In a recent essay,   Tom Engelhardt, a writer and an editor, contended, “Vladimir Putin’s greatest crime wasn’t simply against the Ukrainians, but against humanity. It was another way to ensure that the global war of terror would grow fiercer and that the Lahainas of the future would burn more intensely.” And that is true of any war… Chemical and biological weapons impacted the environment in Europe and parts of Afghanistan. Atom bombs polluted not only the cities they were dropped in, but they also wreaked such havoc so that the second generation’s well-being continues impacted by events that took place more than seven decades ago. Yet another nuclear war would destroy the Earth, our planet that is already reeling under the impact of human-induced climate change. Flooding, forest fires and global warming are just the first indications that tell us not only do we need to adapt to living in changed times but also, we need to change our lifestyles, perhaps even turn pacifist to survive in a world evolving into an altered one.

This month some of our content showcase how to survive despite changes in norms. Suggesting how to retain our flora in a warming world is a book, Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World and Other Garden Adventures, by M.S. Viraraghavanand Girija Viraraghavan, the grandson-in-law and granddaughter of the second President of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975). They have been in conversation with Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri to explain how they have adapted plants to create hybrids that survive changing climes. Would it be wishful to think that we can find solutions for our own survival as was done for the flora?

Critiquing the darker trends in our species which leads to disasters is a book by an eminent Singaporean writer, Isa Kamari, called Maladies of the Soul. He too looks for panacea in a world where the basic needs of humans have been satiated and they have moved on towards overindulgence that can lead to redundancy. In a conversation, he tells us how he hopes his writings can help towards making a more hopeful future.

This hope is echoed in the palliative poems of Sanket Mhatre from his book, A City full of Sirens, excerpted and reviewed by Basudhara Roy. Bhaskar Parichha’s review of Samragngi Roy’s The Wizard of Festival Lighting: The Incredible Story of Srid, is a tribute also from a granddaughter to her grandfather celebrating human achievements. Somdatta Mandal’s discussion of fiction based on history, Begum Hazrat Mahal: Warrior Queen of Awadh by Malathi Ramachandran not only reflects the tenacity of a woman’s courage but also explores the historicity of the events. Exploring bits of history and the past with a soupcon of humour is our book excerpt from Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Tales of a Voyager (Joley Dangay[1]), translated from Bengali by Nazes Afroz. Though the narrative of the translation is set about ninety years ago, a little after the times of Hazrat Mahal (1820 –1879), the excerpt is an brilliant introduction to the persona of Tagore’s student, Syed Mujtaba Ali (1904-1974), by a translator who describes him almost with the maestro’s unique style. Perhaps, Afroz’s writing bears these traces as he had earlier translated a legendary work by the same writer, In a Land Far from Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan. Afroz starts with a startling question: “What will you call someone who puts down his profession as ‘quitting job regularly’ while applying for his passport?”

Other than a semi-humorous take on Mujtaba Ali, we have Rhys Hughes writing poetry in a funny vein and Santosh Bakaya giving us verses that makes us laugh. Michael Burch brings in strands of climate change with his poems as Jared Carter weaves in nature as we know it. George Freek reflects on autumn. We have more poetry by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Pramod Rastogi, Peter Devonald, Afshan Aqil, Hela Tekali and many more, adding to the variety of colours that enhance the vivacity of conversations that run through the journal. Adding more vibrancy to this assortment, we have fiction by Paul Mirabile, Saranyan BV and Prakriti Bandhan.

In non-fiction, we have Devraj Singh Kalsi’s funny retelling of his adventures with a barber while Hughes‘ essay on the hugely popular Tintin makes us smile. The patriarchal past is reflected in an essay by G Venkatesh, whereas Suzanne Kamata from Japan talks of women attempting to move out of invisibility. Meredith Stephens and Candice Louisa Daquin both carry on the conversation on climate change. Stephens explores the impact of Californian forest fires with photographs and first-hand narrative. Vela Noble draws solace and strength from nature in Kangaroo Island and shares a beautiful painting with us. Madhulika Vajjhala and Saumya Dwivedi discuss concepts of home.

Two touching tributes along with a poem to recently deceased poet, Jayanta Mahapatra, add to the richness of our oeuvre. Dikshya Samantrai, a researcher on the poet, has bid a touching adieu to him stating, “his legacy will continue to inspire and resonate and Jayanta Mahapatra’s name will forever remain etched in the annals of literature, a testament to the enduring power of the poet’s voice.”

Our translations this time reflect a diverse collection of mainly poetry with one short story by Telugu writer, Ammina Srinivasaraju, translated by Johny Takkedasila. Professor Fakrul Alam has introduced us to an upcoming voice in Bengali poetry, Quazi Johirul Islam. Ihlwha Choi has translated his own poetry from Korean and brought to us a fragment of his own culture. Fazal Baloch has familiarised us with a Balochi ballad based on a love story that is well known in his region, Kiyya and Sadu. Our Tagore translation has attempted to bring to you the poet’s description of early autumn or Sharat in Bengal, a season that starts in September. Sohana Manzoor has painted the scene depicted by Tagore for all of us to visualise. Huge thanks to her for her wonderful artwork, which invariably livens our journal.

Profound thanks to the whole team at Borderless for their support and especially to Hughes and Parichha for helping us source wonderful writings… some of which have not been mentioned here. Pause by our content’s page to savour all of it. And we remain forever beholden to our wonderful contributors without who the journal would not exist and our loyal readers who make our existence relevant. Thank you all.

Wish you all a wonderful month.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

[1] Translated literally, it means Water & Land

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Categories
Slices from Life

The Toughness of Kangaroo Island  

By Vela Noble

A lone house juts out of the cliffs on Kangaroo Island, like a villain’s lair in a James Bond movie. Its floor-to-ceiling windows are marred only by salt spray and swallow poo. The receding orange cliffs set against a fierce ocean makes for a view even the stonemason called, ‘the best on the island’. I slink down into the backseat of our car and admire the azure downhill view of Cape Jervis, where the ferry departs. Today my dad, his partner and I are driving to our holiday house for a short trip planting trees. On the North Cape of Kangaroo Island, the fields of matted grass pocked with weeds make for a melancholic landscape. Having been ravaged by decades of farming, helping revegetate is the least we can do.

My bedroom on the island has large eastern-facing windows. This gives me a view of Boxing Bay, a beach only visited by tourists willing to brave the potholed dirt road. Bleached book spines featuring nautical adventures or “101 Guide to Prepping” line the bookshelf. Dusty DVDs, mostly starring Ben Stiller, have also been faded by the elements. A box reveals an arsenal of art supplies my mum ordered online. I unearth my mum’s fancy French Sennelier watercolours. They come in a navy carry bag with crisp brushes begging to caress a canvas. Staring at these items hits a nerve, but I tenderly place it in my backpack.

That same afternoon we plant some trees. We have around sixty to get through this trip, mostly bristly casuarinas and muntrie berry bushes. I gently pat around each seedling and send a prayer into the earth. After I have done the bare minimum, I do what I usually do every trip; I wander off. I decided to make the trek from Boxing Bay up the hill to the solitary lighthouse. Passing a droopily arching tree, I tentatively open my sketchbook and bring pen to paper. The earth and sky don’t like me much. Juicy fat ants keep biting me and my pale arms are getting fried. The drawing comes out horribly, so I shove the sketchbook away. Life isn’t just tough for me, but for everything out here. We once caught a monitor lizard so thirsty that it was licking a leak in our hot tub. We offered it a drink, from which it drank like a dog from a bowl. On the North Cape, you can often glimpse the grand wingspan of a sea eagle surveying the hills in search of prey, such as mice. Echidnas are a bit rarer to spot. They must have it tough too, for they could get mistaken for a chubby mouse. Everywhere I look, there’s subject matter pleading to be painted. It’s in the flattened fields where settlers heaved limestone into neat little rows, or in the sheep skull perched on the wire fence. Around halfway to the lighthouse, I see some abandoned machinery in the corner of a field. I attempt to sketch. Yet again, something isn’t quite right. So, I tear an angry gash with the pen instead. The overcast weather rolling in urges me to slouch on home.

A storm hits tonight. The windows in my room shiver under every gale. The little sprouts we had just planted are getting a brutal welcome to their new home, but at least the earth gets a drink. Below the house on the cliffside, a grove of wizened casuarinas grow sideways as a result of with this abusive weather. Somehow, they still grow. I teeter to the toilet in the middle of the night.

My mum took charge of designing this home and her dedication is apparent even in the bathroom, where a nifty hidden wooden panel pops out to reveal storage for toothbrushes and toilet paper. She passed away in 2020 and didn’t get to enjoy that hidden toilet paper compartment. Both here and at home, there is no escaping the memory of my mum. In the morning, the sun beams straight into my slumbering retinas. I had hardly slept. Dad cranking up the coffee machine doesn’t help.

“What are you going to do today?”

“More terrible art, probably.”

“Go for a walk. Look for some sea eagles. There’s so much to do out here.”

I walk down to the grove of gnarly casuarinas. A solitary sheep that strayed from the feral herd appears in front of me. It startles, the dags on its butt dangling with every leap. I follow it and reach a sandy spot on the clifftop. These trees survived last night’s storm, why can’t I survive this?

I rummage through my bag and realise I have my mum’s watercolours. I admire the glossy hues snuggled in their metal tins. It’s as if her dreams are laid to rest in this little plastic case. After my mum passed away, I suffered a psychotic break which impaired my ability to do art. Art had been my passion. Professionals tell me it’s not damaged and I’ll get better but, I have yet to see any proof of that. Seeing the dirty sheep posing right in front of me, I can’t help but have hope. This time I don’t draw, I paint. I pop open the water filled jam jar and bring the brush to the ultramarine. The blue spills onto my page. Next is the sky that’s freckling my skin. I am not just painting, I am soaring on wings and scurrying through the undergrowth on tiny paws. Like the almighty creator, I lay down the stoic earth. Before I know it, I have a picture. Hey, it turned out alright! Above all else, I was happy making it. That evening I showed the picture to my dad.

“That’s fantastic Vela! Why do you keep saying you’ve lost your art?”

He puts it on the stonemason crafted mantelpiece, next to a bowl of seashells and under the happy gaze of my mum’s self-portrait.

It’s a pale purple dawn when we depart. The white drop cloths draped over the furniture to protect them from the sun makes the living room appear full of ghosts. We putter down the crushed limestone road, the rumbling white dust proclaiming our departure to all the thirsty lizards and echidnas shuffling in the bush. I take a final look at the wind-bent casuarinas on the cliffside. I too, feel beaten down by life, by relentless winds trying to rip me out by the roots. The trees get tougher and tougher, clinging into that poor soil. It may not be the best conditions, but when I think about the harshness of life on Kangaroo Island, I realise there’s something I can learn from it. Something in me can thrive too. The North Cape has made me just that little bit tougher.

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.Vela Noble is a South Australian artist who is currently developing her own indie games. She has many years of experience working in animation for Netflix and Dreamworks. 

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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
Editorial

Dancing in May?

Courtesy: Creative Commons
“May is pretty, May is mild,
Dances like a happy child…”

Annette Wynne (Early twentieth century)

Each month is expressed in a different form by nature in various parts of the world. In the tropics, May is sweltering and hot — peak summer. In the Southern hemisphere, it is cold. However, with climate change setting in, the patterns are changing, and the temperatures are swinging to extremes. Sometimes, one wonders if this is a reflection of human minds, which seem to swing like pendulums to create dissensions and conflicts in the current world. Nothing seems constant and the winds of change have taken on a menacing appearance. If we go by Nazrul’s outlook, destruction is a part of creating a new way of life as he contends in his poem, ‘Ring Bells of Victory’ — “Why fear destruction? It’s the gateway to creation!” Is this how we will move towards ‘dancing like a happy child’?

Mitra Phukan addresses this need for change in her novel, What Will People Say — not with intensity of Nazrul nor in poetry but with a light feathery wand, more in the tradition of Jane Austen. Her narrative reflects on change at various levels to explore the destruction of old customs giving way to new that are more accepting and kinder to inclusivity, addressing issues like widow remarriage in conservative Hindu frameworks, female fellowship and ageing as Phukan tells us in her interview. Upcoming voice, Prerna Gill, lauded by names like Arundhathi Subramaniam and Chitra Divakaruni, has also been in conversation with Shantanu Ray Choudhuri on her book of verses, Meanwhile. She has refreshing perspectives on life and literature.

Poetry in Borderless means variety and diaspora. Peter Cashorali’s poem addresses changes that quite literally upend the sky and the Earth! Michael Burch reflects on a change that continues to evolve – climate change. Ryan Quinn Flanagan explores societal irritants with irony. Seasons are explored by KV Raghupathi and Ashok Suri. Wilda Morris brings in humour with universal truths. William Miller explores crime and punishment. Lakshmi Kannan and Shahriyer Hossain Shetu weave words around mythical lore. We have passionate poetry from Md Mujib Ullah and Urmi Chakravorty. It is difficult to go into each poem with their diverse colours but Rhys Hughes has brought in wry humour with his long poem on eighteen goblins… or is the count nineteen? In his column, Hughes has dwelt on tall tales he heard about India during his childhood in a light tone, stories that sound truly fantastic…

Devraj Singh Kalsi has written a nostalgic piece that hovers between irony and perhaps, a reformatory urge… I am not quite sure, but it is as enjoyable and compelling as Meredith Stephen’s narrative on her conservation efforts in Kangaroo Island in the Southern hemisphere and fantastic animals she meets, livened further by her photography. Ravi Shankar talks of his night hikes in the Northern hemisphere, more accurately, in the Himalayas. While trekking at night seems a risky task, trying to recreate dishes from the past is no less daunting, as Suzanne Kamata tells us in her Notes from Japan.

May hosts the birthday of a number of greats, including Tagore and Satyajit Ray. Ratnottama Sengupta’s piece on Ray’s birth anniversary celebrations with actress Jaya Bachchan recounting her experience while working for Ray in Mahanagar (Big City), a film that has been restored and was part of celebrations for the filmmaker’s 102nd Birth anniversary captures the nostalgia of a famous actress on the greatest filmmakers of our times. She has also given us an essay on Tagore and cinema in memory of the great soul, who was just sixty years older to Ray and impacted the filmmaker too. Ray had a year-long sojourn in Santiniketan during his youth.

Eulogising Rabindrasangeet and its lyrics is an essay by Professor Fakrul Alam on Tagore. Professor Alam has translated number of his songs for the essay as he has, a powerful poem from Bengali by Masud Khan. A transcreation of Tagore’s first birthday poem , a wonderful translation of Balochi poetry by Fazal Baloch of Munir Momin’s verses, another one from Korean by Ihlwha Choi rounds up the translated poetry in this edition. Stories that reach out with their poignant telling include Nadir Ali’s narrative, translated from Punjabi by his daughter, Amna Ali, and Aruna Chakravarti’s translation of a short story by Tagore. We have more stories from around the world with Julian Gallo exploring addiction, Abdullah Rayhan with a poignant narrative from Bangladesh, Sreelekha Chatterjee with a short funny tale and Paul Mirabile exploring the supernatural and horror, a sequel to ‘The Book Hunter‘, published in the April issue.

All the genres we host seem to be topped with a sprinkling of pieces on Tagore as this is his birth month. A book excerpt from Chakravarti’s Daughters of Jorasanko narrates her well-researched version of Tagore’s last birthday celebration and carries her translation of the last birthday song by the giant of Bengali literature. The other book excerpt is from Bhubaneswar@75 – Perspectives, edited by Bhaskar Parichha/ Charudutta Panigrahi. Parichha has also reviewed Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canada by Ujjal Dosanjh, a book that starts in pre-independent India and travels with the writer to Canada via UK. Again to commemorate the maestro’s birth anniversary, Meenakshi Malhotra has revisited Radha Chakravarty’s translation of Tagore’s Farewell Song. Somdatta Mandal has critiqued KR Meera’s Jezebel, translated from Malayalam by Abhirami Girija Sriram and K. S. Bijukuma. Lakshmi Kannan has introduced to us Jaydeep Sarangi’s collection of poems, letters in lower case.

There are pieces that still reach out to be mentioned. Do visit our content page for May. I would like to thank Sohana Manzoor for her fantastic artwork and continued editorial support for the Tagore translations and the whole team for helping me put together this issue. Thank you. A huge thanks to our loyal readers and contributors who continue to bring in vibrant content, photography and artwork. Without you all, we would not be where we are today.

Wish you a lovely month.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Categories
Slices from Life

Kissed on Kangaroo Island

Narrative and photographs by Meredith Stephens

We are regular visitors to Kangaroo Island, a nature-lovers’ delight that lies 14 kilometres off the South Australian coast. Much of our time there is spent trying to atone for the environmental damage caused by our European forebears. Swathes of the vegetation have been cleared due to almost two centuries of European farming. Thousands of sheep have grazed on this cleared land for much of that time, and European crops have replaced much of the original flora. The crops have been fertilized for years, and now that we allow the land to remain fallow, noxious weeds take over, fueled by the remnant fertilizer in the soil. Our mission is revegetation, trying to reverse some of the damage from farming.

On our most recent visit, one of my jobs was to uproot the weeds. The task was impossible given that they sprawled across the land as far as the horizon, so we focused on a small fenced-off area. We dared not poison the weeds because they could be consumed by endangered bird species, such as the white-bellied sea eagles that nest nearby. For the same reason we never use rodent poison, but instead trap mice in buckets of water.

White-bellied sea eagle soaring above us

I donned my gardening gloves and grabbed the weeds by their roots, pitted my body weight against the plants, and uprooted them and before discarding them onto the weed pile.

Meanwhile my partner Alex was busying himself planting yet more trees. He was somewhat disgruntled because his boat was being repaired in Yaringa, near Melbourne, after being dismasted in Bass Strait. He gazed longingly out to sea, but seemed to regain a sense of contentment when he was planting trees. For him, planting trees was not a chore, but rather a consuming passion. He made deep holes in the rocky ground with his fencing crowbar, delicately coaxed the seedlings out of their containers, pushed the roots into the hole, pressed the soil back around the seedling, and made a berm around each plant to trap water. Then he drove stakes into the ground around each plant, and encircled them with either a corflute tree guard, or a wire cage, or both. These measures were necessary to protect them from marauding possums and kangaroos, which would otherwise devour the plants overnight.

The fenced-off orchard where we weeded, flanked by Investigator Strait.

There is only so much revegetation you can do without hankering for some relief. Alex was content to plant trees from dawn to dusk but I pressed him to take me on a day excursion. Besides, coming to Kangaroo Island was not just about our earnest efforts at revegetation; it was also meant to be a romantic getaway. Our first outing was to Seal Bay, where the attraction was not in fact seals but rather Australian sea lions. We drove there, now an official tourist destination, and entered through the park office. We walked along the boardwalk with the other tourists, many being international visitors, and gazed down at the sea lions enjoying lying in the sand in the sunshine.

Sea lions under the boardwalk at Seal Bay, Kangaroo Island

Back at the revegetation site, we resumed our routine of weed-whacking and planting for the next few days, by which time we felt we deserved another outing. This time we chose to visit American River (named after visiting American sealers in 1803) known for its picturesque harbour and fresh seafood. But for me, American River was less about the view and the seafood than spotting sea lions. I had spied one on a previous visit and was hoping to see some again. I walked onto the boat ramp near the shed where the reconstruction of the Independence schooner was taking place. (The Independence was the first ship constructed in South Australia, in 1803, commissioned by a visiting American shipmaster and sealer, Isaac Pendleton.) I walked past the door to the boat shed, because as much as I would like to claim interest in the history of local shipbuilding, my real interest was in finding a sea lion.

I was not disappointed. Behind a ‘Resting Seal’ sign explaining that you were required to keep a thirty metre distance from the sea lion, we found what we were looking for.

Sea lion in American River, Kangaroo Island

I glanced into the lagoon, and spied the sea lion’s mate, proudly flipping his body around in the water, before he scrambled onto the shore to demonstrate his supremacy in this territory.

An American tourist next to us asked Alex, “How far is thirty meters?”

He replied, “About one hundred feet, which is twice the distance we are now!”

We all walked backwards trying to preserve the thirty-metre distance between the sea lion and ourselves.

It was mid-afternoon and there were still hours of daylight left, so we decided to visit the nearby eucalyptus distillery. Before entering the building our attention was arrested by young kangaroos, known as joeys, hopping freely around the outside of the building. We entered the premises and purchased some eucalyptus products, and as we left, approached one of the joeys.

Kangaroo Island, like many parts of Australia, has dead wallabies and kangaroos alongside its roads, victims of road-kill. Because kangaroos are marsupials, some of their young may be found alive inside their pouch, even after the mother has been killed. Those finding the road-kill may drag it safely away from the road, after ensuring that no approaching cars are in sight, and then remove the joey from its mother’s pouch. The joeys we came across had been rescued in this way, and hand reared. Unlike most kangaroos, they had no fear of humans. I knelt to pat one of the joeys, and then he gently raised his pointy face to my ear and whispered in it. Then he raised his lips to mine and brushed them against me.

“Don’t let him!” urged Alex. “You’ll get germs from a wild animal.”

I let the joey tickle my lips for a few more seconds, before heeding his urgings. I had been kissed by a kangaroo!

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.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

And Wilderness is Paradise Enow…

Hope in Winter(2020) by Srijani Dutta
“Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse -- and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness --
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.”

― Omar Khayyám (1048-1131); translation from Persian by Edward Fitzgerald (Rubaiyat, 1859)

I wonder why Khayyam wrote these lines — was it to redefine paradise or just to woo his beloved? I like to imagine it was a bit of both. The need not to look for a paradise after death but to create one on Earth might well make an impact on humankind. Maybe, they would stop warring over an invisible force that they call God or by some other given name, some ‘ism’. Other than tens of thousands dying in natural disasters like the recent earthquake at the border of Turkiye and Syria, many have been killed by wars that continue to perpetrate divides created by human constructs. This month houses the second anniversary of the military junta rule in Myanmar and the first anniversary of the Ukrainian-Russian war that continues to decimate people, towns, natural reserves, humanity, economics relentlessly, polluting the environment with weapons of mass destruction, be it bombs or missiles. The more weapons we use, the more we destroy the environment of our own home planet. 

Sometimes, the world cries for a change. It asks to be upended.

We rethink, reinvent to move forward as a species or a single race. We relook at concepts like life and death and the way we run our lives. Redefining paradise or finding paradise on Earth, redefining ‘isms’ we have been living with for the past few hundred years — ‘isms’ that are being used to hurt others of our own species, to create exclusivity and divisions where none should exist — might well be a requisite for the continuance of our race.

Voices of change-pleaders rang out in the last century with visionaries like Tagore, Gandhi, Nazrul, Satyajit Ray urging for a more accepting and less war-bound world. This month, Ratnottama Sengupta has written on Ray’s legendary 1969 film, Goopy Gyne, Bagha Byne: “The message he sent out loud and with laughter: ‘When people have palatable food to fill their belly and music to fill their soul, the world will bid goodbye to wars.’” Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri has given an essay on one of the greatest pacifists, Gandhi, and his attitudes to films as well as his depiction in movies. What was amazing is Gandhi condemned films and never saw their worth as a mass media influencer! The other interesting thing is his repeated depiction as an ethereal spirit in recent movies which ask for changes in modern day perceptions and reforms. In fact, both these essays deal with ghosts who come back from the past to urge for changes towards a better future.

Delving deeper into the supernatural is our interviewee, Abhirup Dhar, an upcoming writer whose ghost stories are being adapted by Bollywood. While he does investigative stories linked to supernatural lore, our other interviewee, Andrew Quilty, a renowned journalist who has won encomiums for his coverage on Afghanistan where he spent eight years, shows in his book, August in Kabul: America’s Last Days in Afghanistan and the Return of the Taliban, what clinging to past lores can do to a people, especially women. Where does one strike the balance? We also have an excerpt from his book to give a flavour of his exclusive journalistic coverage on the plight of Afghans as an eyewitness who flew back to the country not only to report but to be with his friends — Afghans and foreigners — as others fled out of Kabul on August 14 th 2021. While culturally, Afghans should have been closer to Khayyam, does their repressive outlook really embrace the past, especially with the Taliban dating back to about only three decades?

The books in our review section have a focus on the past and history too. Meenakshi Malhotra’s review of Priyadarshini Thakur Khayal’s Padmini of Malwa: The Autobiography of Rani Rupmati, again focusses on how the author resurrects a medieval queen through visitations in a dream (could it be her spirit that visited him?). Somdatta Mandal writes of a book of history too — but this time the past and the people are resurrected through objects in Sudeshna Guha’s A history of India through 75 Objects. Bhaskar Parichha has also reviewed a history book by culinary writer-turned-historian Colleen Taylor Sen, Ashoka and The Maurya Dynasty: The History and Legacy of Ancient India’s Greatest Empire.

This intermingling of life and death and the past is brought to life in our fiction section by Sreelekha Chatterjee and Anjana Krishnan. Aditi Yadav creates a link between the past and our need to travel in her musing, which is reminiscent of Anthony Sattin’s description of asabiyya, a concept of brotherhood that thrived in medieval times. In consonance with wanderlust expressed in Yadav’s essay, we have a number of stories that explore travel highlighting various issues. Meredith Stephens travels to explore the need to have nature undisturbed by external interferences in pockets like Kangaroo Island in a semi-humorous undertone. While Ravi Shankar travels to the land’s end of India to voice candid concerns on conditions within Kerala, a place that both Keith Lyons and Rhys Hughes had written on with love and a sense of fun. It is interesting to see the contrasting perspectives on Southern India.

Hughes of course brings in dollops of humour with his travel to Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka as does Devraj Singh Kalsi who writes about camel rides in Chandigarh, a place I known for its gardens, town planning and verdure. Suzanne Kamata colours Japan with humour as she writes of how candies can save the day there! Sengupta continues to travel to the past delving into the history of the last century.

Poetry that evokes laughter is rare but none the less the forte of Hughes as pensive but beautiful heartfelt poetry is that of Asad Latif. This February, the edition features poetry by Ryan Quinn Flanagan that borders on wry humour and on poignancy by George Freek. More poems by Pragya Bajpai, Sanjukta Dasgupta, Chad Norman, John Grey, Amit Parmessur, Sister Lou Ella Hickman, Saranyan BV and many more bring in varied emotions collected and honed to convey varieties that flavour our world.

Professor Fakrul Alam has also translated poetry where a contemporary Bengali writer, Masud Khan, cogitates on history while Ihlwha Choi has translated his own poem from Korean. A translation of Tagore’s poem on the ocean tries to capture the vastness and the eternal restlessness that can be interpreted as whispers carried through eons of history. Fazal Baloch has also shared a poem by one of the most revered modern Balochi voices, that of Atta Shad. Our pièce de resistance is a translation of Premchand’s Balak or the Child by Anurag Sharma.

This vibrant edition would not have been possible without all the wonderful translators, writers, photographers and artists who trust us with their work. My heartfelt thanks to all of you, especially, Srijani Dutta for her beautiful painting, ‘Hope in Winter’, and Sohana for her amazing artwork. My heartfelt thanks to the team at Borderless Journal, to our loyal readers some of whom have evolved into fabulous contributors. Thank you.

Do write in telling us what you think of the journal. We look forward to feedback from all of you as we head for the completion of our third year this March.

Best wishes,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

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

Categories
Slices from Life

From Gatwick to Kangaroo Island

Phtographs & Narrative by Meredith Stephens

When I recently flew from Australia into Gatwick Airport, London, I was struck by the ease of passing through customs and immigration. Once I exited the plane, I was ushered to an empty lane and directed to a machine to present my passport. As I had nothing to declare I walked through the green lane. A group of four customs officers were engaged in conversation and did not notice me. I had entered the UK seamlessly in about five minutes without making eye contact with a single person.

Not so when travelling within my home state of South Australia. Alex, Verity and I were on our way from Adelaide to Kangaroo Island, situated across Investigator Strait off the southern coast of South Australia. We would have preferred to sail there, but Alex’s boat was high and dry, awaiting repairs to the mast and windows in Yaringa, eight hundred kilometres away in the state of Victoria. We had made a booking for the three o’clock ferry from Cape Jervis to Penneshaw, on Kangaroo Island. We left Adelaide at 1 pm, allowing ninety minutes for the drive and thirty minutes to board, as we always do.

Half an hour into our trip, we were stuck in a traffic jam along the arterial roadway heading south. We had never been trapped in a traffic jam in this direction before, because it was leading away from Adelaide towards sparsely populated farmland.

“Oh no! It’s the Tour Down Under! The road is closed for the cycling race,” lamented Alex.

He did a U-turn and headed west to the side streets in the hope of finding an alternative route along the Esplanade. After winding through the coastal suburbs, we arrived at a T junction facing the Esplanade, and were greeted by a woman in a bright orange vest holding a prominent sign saying ‘Stop!’

Onlookers lined the streets holding their cameras ready to snap the cyclists. We waited, all the while nervously checking the time on our phones, wondering whether we would miss our ferry. A few minutes later we heard an excited murmur run through the crowd, and sure enough, a group of cyclists whizzed past.

We glanced at the woman in the orange vest, hoping she would let us pass. She was on her walkie talkie and shook her head at us. Soon another group of cyclists raced past. Then the woman let us on to the Esplanade and we headed south. Soon after we were stopped by a police officer on a bicycle, who directed us away from the Esplanade. We turned east to weave our way back to our original route.

“We won’t make it to the ferry on time!” complained Alex, pressing heavily on the accelerator.

We arrived back on the highway that we had originally departed from and tried to turn right so that we could head south to Cape Jervis. A line of cars from the north were trying to turn right into our street.

“We’ll be here for hours. Best turn left and then do a U-turn,” announced Alex.

Alex turned left, accelerated, and braked when he found a gap in the oncoming traffic. He quickly did a U-turn and then headed south, passing the line of cars waiting to turn right onto the road where we had been waiting.

Would all of this be in vain? Would we get to Cape Jervis just after 3 pm to watch the ferry departing, on its way to Penneshaw? I held my phone to check the distance to Cape Jervis and noted that the estimated time of arrival was 2.54 pm. Alex tried to make up time by driving to the speed limit. A truck was labouring up the hill in front of us. Alex waited until we reached a passing lane, and then floored the accelerator. The estimated time of arrival was now 2.52 pm. Sitting next to Alex as he sped along the highway was more exciting than rides on a fairground had been when I was a child. I trusted his judgment and felt safe all the while enjoying the exhilarating speed. Next, there was a red car dawdling in front of us. Again, Alex waited until we reached a passing lane, and overtook them. The estimated time of arrival was still 2.52 pm. At least we had not been losing time as we were delayed by the slow coaches ahead of us. We entered the township of Cape Jervis, rounded the hill, and then descended to the ferry port, arriving as predicted at 2.52 pm. We expected boarding to be well underway. Instead, four lanes of cars were waiting in the line-up to board the empty ferry, which was running late. We slid into the shortest lane and turned off the engine. A biosecurity officer approached Alex’ window, his curly auburn ponytail blowing in the wind. Alex wound down the car window.

“Do you live on Kangaroo Island or are you just visiting?” he asked.

“We’re just visiting.”

“Oh, lovely! Do you have any honey?”

“No honey.”

“Do you have any bee-keeping equipment?”

“No, definitely not.”

“How about fruit?”

“We have some apples.”

“Are they from the supermarket?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you buy them?”

“In Adelaide.”

“How about potatoes?”

“No.”

“Do you have any plants?”

“We have some caper plants in the back.”

He looked at the back of our vehicle in acknowledgement.

“Oh capers! They look nice. Where did you get them?”

“From a business in Port Adelaide.”

The biosecurity officer seemed satisfied and waved us on.

“Have a lovely trip!”

Shortly after we boarded the 45-minute ferry for Penneshaw. We had been asked more biosecurity questions than at any other place on our travels, and we hadn’t even left our home state. I yearned for the ease of passing through immigration at Gatwick Airport. I had felt perversely miffed at Gatwick for having been ignored by immigration and customs officials.

No sooner had we arrived at our destination though, did we spot a marvellous mob of kangaroos bounding across the property.

Then the following day we had a charming encounter with a Rosenberg’s Monitor looking for a drink of water – a species that is endangered on the mainland.

Rosenberg’s monitor lizard

Verity later came across an elusive short-beaked echidna.

Short-beaked echidna

At last I could appreciate that protecting the fauna and flora of Kangaroo Island was important and necessary, and well worth the interrogations of a biosecurity officer.

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.

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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Essay

The Good, the Bad, and the Benign: Back across Bass Strait

Photography and Narrative by Meredith Stephens

“What! A text message at this hour,” exclaimed Alex, reluctantly looking at his phone.

Then his expression turned to concern.

“Gregory, our boat neighbour in George Town, says the boat hatch is open.”

George Town, Tasmania, was a two-hour flight and a one-hour bus ride away from Adelaide. Who could have entered the boat from the hatch? They would have to be both slim and lithe. What could they have taken? Could they have taken the chartplotter – used to navigate, the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) – used to aid search and rescue or the Automatic Identification System (AIS) – used to track other vessels? We couldn’t sail without them.

“I can’t really bring our flight to Hobart forward because all the seats are gone during the Easter break. We’ll just have to hope for the best.”

Meanwhile, Alex decided to text Gregory back and ask him to take a look through the hatch to determine what might have been stolen. Gregory kindly obliged, and sent Alex a photo of the interior of the boat. The equipment appeared to be in place.

Alex checked the location of the boat on the AIS. It should have been updated daily, but it had been inactive for a few days. That did not bode well.

We spent the next day packing our bags as carefully as possible to avoid excess charges. On Friday Alex, Verity, Katie and I caught the plane from Adelaide to Hobart, and then picked up our rental car. We drove north through the centre of the island to the lush agricultural lands of the Tamar River, passing through towns lined with Georgian buildings constructed with convict labour.

Sculpture at Evandale

We were particularly looking forward to partaking of the best vanilla slices in the world, located in the township of Ross, and I confess that this distracted us from our concern for the safety of the boat equipment.

We sat outside the bakery savouring the vanilla slices as slowly as possible. Who knew whether we would ever be able to come back to Ross?

Then we continued our drive northward to George Town, Australia’s third-oldest settlement, meandering through other towns lined with Georgian buildings. As night fell, we arrived at George Town to our boat home. My fellow crew members were able to climb on the boat from the wharf unaided but I wasn’t tall enough to do this. Alex positioned an upside-down bucket on the wharf so that I could clamber on board. With trepidation we opened the door, now unlocked, and ventured inside. The equipment was still there but it had been unplugged. The lid of the clear plastic box under the monitor was open.

“They’ve taken the spare keys. The gold coins have gone too!” Alex observed.

Alex had prepared a collection of one and two dollar coins in a plastic bag in the clear box to be used for laundromats on shore. So this is what the thieves had been after!

Next Alex checked his wine collection in one of the bilges, “the boat cellar”. This was untouched. The thieves must have entered through the hatch and left through the door. Other than the keys, the only goods that had been stolen were the gold coins for the laundromat – or so we thought. Perhaps they were planning to return, next time through the door.

The theft of gold coins reminded me of advice I had received at the beginning of my teaching career in the 1980s in the city of Whyalla in South Australia. I had been assigned teacher housing by the education department. I was advised by a colleague that when I was away from home, I should leave gold coins in obvious places for youngsters who might break in.

Alex was relieved that they had not taken any navigational or safety equipment, and I was relieved that they had not taken my boat slippers. We were well into autumn and it was cold underfoot.

Despite the break-in we were very fond of George Town, not least due to the camaraderie of our boat neighbours.

On the day of departure, as always, Alex got up before the rest of us to commence the day’s sailing. We were due to head north across Bass Strait towards the mainland. The harbour was generously lit up by the lights in the supermarket carpark on the other side, facilitating the safe exit to the Tamar River.

One of our favourite boat meals was freshly caught fish. Only when looking for a rod one evening did we discover yet another item had been stolen — a heavy-duty tuna fishing rod. This time, rather than using the rod we trolled with a hand reel, and had no trouble catching smaller fish.

Meanwhile someone in George Town was enjoying spending our gold coins and fishing with Alex’s special rod. At least we had our technology to guide our decisions as we crossed Bass Strait, where identifying marine traffic and the right weather conditions was critical. We followed the course Alex had plotted, stopping at the offshore island of Badger Island overnight, East Kangaroo Island and Whitemark for a few hours the following day, then anchoring at Settlement Point for our second night. Based on the Predict Wind forecast, we decided to tuck in for shelter at Outer Sister Island for two nights to wait out a front bringing strong winds. The shore looked tantalisingly close. I asked Alex if we could take the dinghy ashore but, pointing to the shore break, he told me that if we did we would likely capsize. We stayed indoors for the day, reading, writing and longingly looking at the forbidden shore. My preferred pastime is writing, but every now and then I had to force myself to stop and fix my eyes on the horizon as the boat danced over the anchor, to recover from bouts of seasickness.

The forecast was for calmer conditions the following morning. We were ready for the long stint to the mainland, during which there would be no more coves in which to shelter. Alex got up first and departed Outer Sister Island at 6.38 am. We persevered sailing through both day and night. During the day we were rewarded by dolphin sightings as they played alongside and in front of us for about ten minutes a time, before suddenly veering away. During the night Alex and I roused ourselves at midnight to take our turn on the three hour shift until 3 am. Well, to be fair, Alex did the night watch while I forced myself to keep my eyes open.

We arrived at Eden, New South Wales, at 4.20 pm, and secured the boat on a public mooring. Too tired to venture ashore that evening, we relaxed on the boat, ready to explore Eden the following morning.

We had crossed Bass Strait availing ourselves of the technological support of the chartplotter and the AIS. Although the equipment did not spare us the trials of the night watch, it did help us avoid commercial trawlers and container ships in the shipping lanes. If it weren’t for our boat neighbour Gregory back in George Town, the thieves may have returned to steal the crucial equipment which made our crossing of Bass Strait safer. No less importantly, the notorious Bass Strait had been kind to us.

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.

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