Nazrul’slyrics ofMor Ghumogore Elo Monohor (In my Sleep, Came the Enchanting One) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Four of his ownMalay poems have been translated by Isa Kamari. Click here to read.
The Heartless, a Balochi story by AbdulQayum Sarbazi, has been translated by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Dragonfly 2 has been composed and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.
Tagore’s poem, Amra Choli Somukhpane(We Look Forward and March), has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Clickhere to read.
Pandies Corner
Songs of Freedom: Pink Dreams is an autobiographical narrative by Priyanka, written and compiled by Deeksha Vats. These stories highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and Pandies. Clickhere to read.
Larry S Su, who migrated from a mud cave in Shaanxi province to America, shares his story of the changes he sees during three visits to his home and muses on the gaps he has observed between these two places. Clickhere to read.
These days, our cyclists’ group yearns for long weekends. On Sunday, 31st May 2026, Malaysians honoured Lord Buddha on his birthday. 1st June was marked as the King’s official birthday. In their honour, Malaysians enjoyed four days away from office. It would have been seven if one had mysteriously fallen ill on the preceding Thursday and Friday, as Wednesday, 27th May 2026, was Hari Raya Haji, commemorating Prophet Ibrahim’s sacrifice to God. With the holiday mood set, the cyclists were not inclined to stay idle.
With the holiday mood set, the cyclists were not inclined to stay idle during the festivities. Instead, they wanted to be in sync with nature, hear the birds chirp, and immerse themselves in the wild’s greenery.
Titiwangsa is marked in brown. Cameron Highlands and Fraser Hill are part of this range. From Public Domain
This the first time we were trying this route and conquering these highlands that are part of the Titiwangsa, a mountain range that forms the spine of the Malay Peninsula. A few years ago, I did participate in a competition from Simpang Pulai in Perak, a western state, to the Cameron Highlands. Now, it is a different ballgame, approaching the beast from the east to kill it. The day started early with a drive up to Kuala Kubu Bahru, and after gearing up, the journey began. Before the climb, a brief historical detour made KKB feel like the right starting point.
For some historical perspective, KKB is an old town with a rich historical heritage. It had already become a tin-mining town by the 1870s. Legend has it the locals had built a dam above the original town, Kubu. Kubu (fort) was built by the warring factions in the 1870s Selangor Civil War[1]. The British moved in to set law and order.
The district officer, a Briton, had apparently hunted and killed an albino crocodile that the local folks believed was a guardian of the dam. Once the crocodile was gone, the balance was upset, and the dam broke its banks. Without its guardian, Kubu was almost destroyed, save a Chinese temple and a mosque. The destroyed area was named Ampang Pecah (broken dam). The town was rebuilt on higher ground and renamed Kuala Kubu Bahru[2].
Because the British officers thought KKB was too hot and humid for their comfort, they sent their workers to search for a place with a more pleasant climate. Hence, Fraser’s Hill came to the fore.
The roads leading to the Hill are unceremoniously remembered as the place where Malaya’s Highways Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney, was gunned down by communist insurgents in 1951. According to the Malaysian Communist Party, it was a ‘routine’ ambush and that ‘big catch’ was quite unexpected[3].
The climb up to Fraser’s Hill was quite gruelling. The inclination was around 5%, sometimes peaking at 10% and 12%. The Hill was about 1330 metres above sea level. After a short stopover at the resort station, it was a cool ride down the hill. From the ascent, the contrast made the descent feel especially rewarding.
From there, the long stretch down to Raub was pleasant, with mostly continuous slow decline, just enough to recover from the earlier climb up to Fraser’s. We also noticed a funny thing on Fraser’s Hill. Even though Fraser’s Hill is technically located in the State of Pahang, the administrative council is the Hulu Selangor Town Council in Selangor. After a short stopover, it was time to move on.
After cycling 86km over 5h51m and gaining about 1400m of elevation, we reached Raub, having completed the day’s ride.
I had imagined Raub to be a ghost town, much like the Wild West towns in America that became deserted after the gold ran dry[4]. I remembered from my geography lessons that Raub was the ‘gold capital of Malaya’. Bau in Sarawak was the other place with gold deposits. In the late 19th century, Raub was already famous amongst the locals for its gold. Raub, in the local lingo, meant a fistful. That was how much one could scoop of gold from the riverbed with a dulang (a flat tray used for mining). That drew in multinational companies, including an Australian firm that modernised mining to achieve higher yields. That, too, ignited related activities and the mushrooming of colonial Tudor-style buildings, which are neatly maintained to this day. Hence, modern Raub turned out to be a busy town, serving as a stopover for those travelling along the spine of the Peninsula to Gua Musang and Kota Bahru.
Raub hit the headlines again recently for being the centre of the ‘Hermès’ of king of fruits, the Musang King durian [5]. Disused pieces of state land belonging to the State Royalty were used by enterprising durian planters to churn out, via budgrafting, a particular breed of durian that had durian lovers from China yearning for more and more. Seeing its great potential, the Royalty decided to claim their land[6]. There is also talk of a different kind of mining in the pipeline in Raub for rare earth elements (REE). It is said being discussed between the State-level and Chinese investors[7].
After settling down at Raub Hotel, a convenient 3-star hotel right in town, we took a stroll around town. The imposing shop that caught our attention was Restoran Ratha Raub[8], a red-painted building with its name in bold, striking, contrasting fonts. At first glance, it seemed just like a generic Indian makan[9] shop. Only upon entering did it dawn upon us that the owners were going places. Plastered on its walls were numerous pictures of important luminaries enjoying themselves in the shop. There were even newspaper cuttings in the national dailies describing its curry as deliciously ‘foxy’! I wonder why. Is that a hint of the restaurant serving exotic meat? The one that took the cake was the photo the owner took with the Sultan of Brunei. Apparently, the restaurant also marketed its halal curry powder at a trade festival in Brunei that His Highness attended. We later learned that Restoran Ratha Raub also had a branch in the Klang Valley.
Day 2: Raub to Sg Koyan; Betau post
After a quick breakfast of bread and peanut butter by 0630am, we hit the road. The second day was going to be a recovery ride of sorts, and we were supposed to hit the Cameron Highlands on the last day. So, the plan was to ride to Sg Koyan, a small township in the middle of Pahang amidst the Felda land development programme.
The first small town we traversed was Cheroh, a Chinese New Village with a row of coffee shops, small- and medium-sized industries, half-plank, half-brick houses, and temples. Rows of palm oil trees soothed our eyes as we rode uninterrupted, except for a herd of cows criss-crossing the road, grazing their morning chow.
One of the fascinating things we usually see as we drive along the roads is how quirky some businesses’ names are. On this road, we noticed a regular coffee shop named ‘Double Three Kopitiam[10]‘, a direct reference to Hilton’s Double Tree. Perhaps the owner was aware of another restaurateur in Bangsar who got into a legal tussle with HSBC for naming his shop HSBC, too. The Bangsar owner thought ‘Hot Spicy Bangsar Cuisine’ aptly described what he was offering. An Indian family offering Chinese cuisine already had people turning their heads; what’s more, with a catchy name. The multinational conglomerate, Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation, which sprang from the tears of the family of a person with an opium addiction in China around the Opium War, thought otherwise. They sued, but it led nowhere. Along the way, too, I saw way too many schools, disproportionate to the area’s population. There were huge Chinese schools, Tamil schools and even residential ones. Perhaps people in this region understood the value of education or that politicians in cahoots with building contractors used school buildings as part of their moneymaking schemes.
In 3.5hrs, we had already completed the day’s intended 73km journey. We had reached Sg Koyan, our stop for the day. Since we had time on our hands and the ride was relatively easy, we decided to add an extra 15km, meant to reduce our burden on the last day. So, we ended the day after riding 88km in about 4h20m.
Sg Koyan is literally in the middle of nowhere. It is a collection area for jungle produce, a centre for Felda settlers, served by a row of shops, petrol stations and a farmers’ market. The only decent rest house, frequented by the rich and famous around here, as we later discovered, was Jelai Inn. This inn is clean, fairly well maintained and spacious. The restaurant, with an in-house chef, prepared various Malay dishes that we can bravely say changed our perception of how tasty traditional Malay cuisine can be—highly recommended.
After going the extra mile on the second leg of the journey, we reached Betau post. Betau is inhabited mainly by the orang asli (the original dwellers of Malaysia). The whole area had been gentrified, with nice roads and a rest-and-recreation area where people could sell their products. The area had received the royal seal as a weaving centre to showcase orang asli handicrafts. From there, we headed into the final stretch.
Day 3: Betau post to Ringlet to Tanah Rata
Selangor River Reservoir enroute to Fraser Hill
From there, the last stretch proved to be the most gruelling one yet. Starting with a slight climb, it increased to 5%, sometimes to 9-12%. The only saving grace was the occasional punctuation of climbs with descents, giving a brief respite to the sore muscles.
Even though this stretch spanned 60 km, it took us 5h15m and featured 1550m of elevation gain.
The roads all along the stretch were very well maintained and wide. They grew narrower, and the traffic grew heavier as we approached Ringlet and Tanah Rata. Nevertheless, we received adequate encouragement from passersby as we drew nearer and nearer to the elusive finishing line, set at the iconic clock tower in Tanah Rata. Thus ended the legendary ride over 229km, with an elevation gain of over 3,520 m and a moving time of 13 hr 53 m.
Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog, Rifle Range Boy.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
A desert flower Blooms alone A desert soul Amidst thorns and stone
The desert flower Dried to the bone Seeks its water on its own
the deserted lover bitter grown still thrives and blooms among the windblown
begs not for love from those unknown but seeks it all within cause trust has flown
Hurt has flamed to anger The ashes turn to hate The lover drinks deep of the self The soul needs to satiate
A freedom to be so untouched The lover is not alone The desert flower stands tall Seeks its water on its own
A. Jessie Michael is a retired Associate Professor of English from Malaysia. She has written short stories for online journals, local magazines and newspapers. She has published an anthology of short stories Snapshots, with two other writers and most recently her own anthology The Madman and Other Stories (2016).
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
If one wants to understand the ‘chaos theory’, one has to place oneself at the centre of ‘around about’ — the way the traffic weaves around, observing the traffic go by as everyone swerves to get to their destinations. The one from 9 o’clock reaches 3 o’clock; 6 o’clock reaches 12 o’clock. It does not matter whether the vehicle is following or counter to the traffic flow; it gets through.
Adding to the pandemonium is the incessant honking from all right, left and centre.
Despite knowing all these, after our stint from Kashmir to Leh, India still managed to lure us back. This time around, we signed up for a tour across Rajasthan, from Jaipur to Udaipur.
Day 0: Delhi to Jaipur
After landing in Delhi from Kuala Lumpur late at night, we left for Jaipur the next morning. We had our first lesson in chaos theory that morning. The confusion about transport arrangements, running to get a taxi in a hurry, rushing to an unmarked site designated as Jaipur bus station, waiting for a bus we thought had left, and finally getting on the correct bus were all proof that the churning of the Universe is indeed impossible to comprehend.
Despite all the traffic jams, the packed vehicles and our increasing anxiety not to miss the bus, all the taxi driver could tell us was “aram sey!” (equivalent to saying, take a chill pill).
Jaipur, the Pink City, had its rare February showers the day before. As if to usher in our visit, the large part of the city around the lake, Jal Mahal, was in full gear, preparing for an air show. We managed to catch a glimpse of what the Indian Air Force had in store.
Jaipur showcases a history that built alliances with the Mughals and managed to preserve its buildings and heritage. Their allegiance with the invaders could have been viewed as betrayal by their contemporaries, the Sikhs and Marathas, who were fighting tooth and nail against the Mughals. Ajmer Fort is a massive fort with brilliant engineering.
To top that, there is a stepwell, Phanna Meena Ka Kund, with its intricate geometrical design that has stood the test of time. Jaipur is known as the Pink City, not without good reason. The roads leading to town are paved, lined with multiple red buildings and architectural marvels. The intricacies of Hawa Mahal make it look like a 3-D movie cutout propped against a building. It was too beautiful to be true.
Phanna Meena Ka KundHawa Mahal
Adjacent to the Hawa Mahal is Jantar Mantar, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that houses the world’s largest stone sundial clocks. One cannot help but wonder: with so much scientific knowledge in their ancient past, how did they just fall like swatted flies when the Western imperial powers walked over them in the 18th century through to the 20th?
Day 1: Jaipur to Sambhar
We started early at 6 am to avoid the morning traffic. Surprisingly, Rajasthanis must be early risers, as even at that early hour, the streets were already bustling with activity.
The itinerary for each day was straightforward. We would cycle daily around 70-90km, with a water break every 20-30km, and reach our predetermined accommodations around noon. There were 12 cyclists; the youngest was 33, but most were over 60.
The route on the first day was mainly flat, traversing small towns and villages, and sometimes haggling with motorcycles, lorries, and buses for space to pass. The trouble is that the vehicle sometimes appears unannounced (with loud honks, of course) and goes against the traffic!
The terrain was mostly flat. It was funny cycling in desert-like conditions, with scorching sun and a cool 20 C wind. The early morning temperatures would start around 15C and reach 23C at noon.
After reaching the hotels prepared by the organisers, evenings would be spent in tête-à-têtes, awaiting dinner, or being shown around town.
Flamingos at Lake Sambar
Day 2: Sambhar to Pushkar
Starting before the break of dawn, at 6, we began cycling into the dark under the guidance of the bicycle headlight and the road lines. When dawn broke, we finally realised that our view was acres of fields as far as the eye could see. About an hour into our journey, we reached a village, one of the many villages yet to come. The villagers would look at us funnily, not knowing what to make of us, a bunch of fellows cycling at an unearthly hour. All we had to do was hail, “Jaya Sri Ram“! Their look would change, a smile would emerge, and they would raise their hands in unison, in solidarity, knowing quite well that we were harmless and one of them.
Along the journey, we saw many animals that we, Malaysians, would not see in mainstream. We saw peacocks perched on trees and houses. Lining the roads were innumerable cows, donkeys, goats and even pigs.
As the day got hotter, the temperature built up to about 25 °C. Riding in desert-like conditions with no shade from trees or clouds. The interesting thing is that we did not see a single person carrying an umbrella. They were pretty much comfortable, just under the sun, with the ladies in their veils and the men in their turbans.
Lake at Brahma Temple
The main attraction of Pushkar is the rare Brahma temple. Legend has it that Lord Brahma was cursed that He should not be worshipped. The irony of this place is the presence of a large lake amid arid terrain with desert vegetation. It remains an enigma waiting to be answered, just like the mystery of creation and why the Creator Himself does not have a temple of worship.
Day 3: Pushkar to Beawar
Again, the trip started early at 6 in the morning, in complete darkness, along what turned out to be acres and acres of fields. The generic appearance of a village would have concrete roads, a row of shops with large advertisement boards in big Hindi fonts, and a strikingly gaudy combination of hues: yellow, green, and red. This same psychedelic colour combination is mirrored in Rajasthani clothes. The ladies’ sarees and dupattas are so contrasting that they cannot be missed. The same goes for the men’s unique bright coloured turbans.
Cows would seem to roam freely, with their droppings spread liberally on and by the roads. The row of buildings would mostly end with a temple or a school.
Around Beawar
The terrain today was mostly flat, with the sun shining at its fullest by 9.30 at 23C. After about 6 hours, we reached Beawar.
For a small town, Beawar has so many mid-range hotels, probably to cater to the numerous businesspeople who come here. Beawar, due to its central location, serves as an important hub for the cement, textile, and wool industries. There is no special iconic monument.
Day 4. Beawar to Kamlighat
Rise and shine, and we hit the roads again. Today’s menu is a gruelling one, cutting through the Aravalli hills.
“What is all this for?” asked a curious onlooker when told that we were cycling from Jaipur to Udaipur. I thought that was a profound question that questions the core of our existence. What is the purpose of anything in life?
This ride turned out quite hilly, mostly along the national highway. Missing today were the tractors with loudspeakers blasting Bhangra beats. For the past few days, we had seen tractors plying the countryside carrying workers and produce, setting the beat for the whole vicinity to get into the dancing mood. Err, but the lyrics were neither inspiring nor devotional. They were suggestive and laced with profanity.
Growing up in Malaysia, we were taught that travelling on a highway was sacrosanct, with traffic rules to be followed and vehicles in tip-top condition. Not in Rajasthan, they are not. One could actually see a whole five-tonne lorry travelling on the wrong side of the highway and honking violently at oncoming traffic as if the lorry’s right to drive on the wrong side was being infringed!
The terrain was monotonous, with rolling hills and a steep 6.5% incline, and the sun was hot from 9.30 am. Being a highway, there was nothing much to see here. About 6 hours later, we reached Kamlighat, some 88km away.
Kamlighat
Kamlighat is a small town with nothing spectacular to show. A row of shops, many stalls selling fruits and vegetables, and our accommodation was the biggest building around. A stroll pretty much covers the whole town.
Kumbhalgarh Fort
Day 5. Kamlighat to Kumbhalgarh
This proved to be the toughest ride yet. Riding through the Aravalli hills was no walk in the park. It was a slow burn with multiple gradual inclines. The 70km journey ended at the Kumbhalgarh Fort. The fort is labelled the Great Wall of India, the second-longest wall in the world after the Great Wall of China.
There was a light-and-sound show that essentially narrated the glory (and sometimes turbulent) days of Maha Rana Kumbha. He was a descendant of Emperor Asoka and later Rana Rathap, who fought valiantly against the invaders.
Day 6. Kumbalbagh to Udaipur
This proved to be a fun ride. Starting late at 7 am, it turned out to be a short ride, after much heckling and joking. A large proportion of the journey was along national highways; the later detour through the smaller villages proved interesting. A few observations I made as a curious Malaysian passing through the everyday people in the midst of their day-to-day lives are these.
Villages in Rajasthan are no different from those in Malaysia. If in Malaysia, azan and religious sermons are broadcast over the speakers, here in almost every village, it is the sound of ‘Om Jaya Jagadisha Hare[1]‘ and sermons on their speakers. The bottomline is that the majority dictates what is kosher for the masses.
We, the cyclists, were kind of local celebrities among the people, especially among the younger kids, who would wave at us. Some would even come so far as to bump fists with us. Interestingly, even some young ladies who walked along the roads would wave to us. If one were to observe, the ladies would not do the same when accompanied by a male companion. Instead of waving, they would pull down their shawls to cover their gaze.
Addendum
The cyclists shared many pleasant moments on and off the saddle. During one of those tête-à-têtes, the talk about each other’s countries’ politics came up. There was a lot of Modi-bashing among the Indian cyclists — that he had outlived his usefulness and that his every move appeared like propaganda. So I asked them one question, “If there were a snap national election today, who would you vote for?” Without a pause, they all replied in unison, “Modi!” That’s the trouble everywhere. Nobody has a perfect government. Everyone has to decide between the devil they know and the one they do not.
Last day in Udaipur, running around
The cyclists utilised this day to unwind after six days of cycling. The few touristy spots were the target.
City Palace, Udaipur
First, we visited the picturesque City Palace and scenic Lake Paricha. There was a boat ride around the lake, quite reminiscent of that in Budapest, only that Udaipur had much more to offer. The City Palaces had many sections and a museum attached to them. Pichola Lake is situated in the centre. A boat takes tourists around and makes a stop at a luxurious hotel to give them a taste of opulence. The property opens onto another section of town called Hathipole, which features rows of shops showcasing Rajasthani art, crafts, produce, and souvenirs. Hathipole is another proof of order within chaos. The auto-trishaws and motorcycles weave through the tiny lanes while shoppers still manage to jump from shop to shop, getting their best bargains.
To absorb the Rajasthani experience, one has indulge in their culinary traditions. Two dishes specific to this region are batti, a tennis-ball-sized hard bread made from unleavened wheat flour. It is eaten with dal or yoghurt. Next is lal maas, a fiery mutton dish, packed with chilli and Rajasthani spices.
The day ended with lazing around town and walking the streets of Udaipur. Fateh Sagar Lake offered an excellent view of the various hues of the setting sun on the horizon. It houses a solar observatory station.
Extra day
While we were still in recovery mode, most Indian cyclists returned home. We had one more day to kill, so we went out to explore more of Udaipur, the Lake City.
Still centred around the lakes, we took a cable car trip up to Neemach Maa Mandhir, perched 900 metres up on a hill overlooking Fateh Sagar Lake. It is said to be a powerful protective guardian of a particular dacoit clan.
Fateh Sagar Lake, Udaipur.
Next stop was at the Maruthar Folk Dance to sample a traditional Rajasthani Cultural show. Besides witnessing some folk dances, we watched puppet shows and an experienced dancer performing a balancing act with multi-tiered pots on her head whilst grooving to metal petals, bowls, and shredded glass.
To end our visit on that hot day was the mausoleum erected for Rajasthan’s most revered hero, Maharana Pratap and his heroes who defended the region from foreign invaders. The enclosure also includes a museum that relives the glory days when the kingdom of Rajasthan was a force to be reckoned with.
Take-home message
An international expedition like this is quite life-affirming. It is priceless to realise that our mental illness is shared by many around the world. With this healthy obsession, we can explore places worldwide at a quite close and personal level. One is not merely taken to touristy spots, but can see the country as it is, warts and all.
While walking around the Kumbalbagh fort, we encountered a group of 60- and 70-year-old American cyclists, not quite by accident but by what was screaming on their T-shirts. After the usual cursory greetings, we discovered that they were more eccentric than we. These people in the geriatric age group were on a month-long cycling tour around Rajasthan, Kashmir, and Ladakh!
[1] “Om, Victory to the Lord of the Universe (Vishnu), the Remover of Miseries”. A devotional prayer in Hindi.
Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog, Rifle Range Boy.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
It was a sombre occasion. The only sounds audible were the occasional sniffles and a quiet hum of a mantra in the background. The crowd arrived in an orderly manner, circled the casket, paused at her feet, touched them, and raised their hands in reverence. They stopped near the son; some offered a consolatory handshake while others embraced. Afterwards, they found a safe corner to watch the world go on, lost in thought. They wonder if they should slow down, take a step back, and smell the roses. They understand that every passing day brings them closer to the day when they will be the main focus at such an event.
Many who knew her well will remember her 87 years of life and the challenges she faced. Coming to Malaysia as a young, match-made bride from India, she must have encountered difficulties adapting to her new country. Widowed for more than half her life, her children were her constant companions. The recent sudden death of her eldest son took a heavy toll on this octogenarian. It said that the biggest burden that a parent carries is to bury their own child.
The mourners who were there at the funeral were there to pay respect to the soul that had endured all the challenges that life threw at her. Amid those hurdles, she managed to bring forth offspring who helped make the world a better place. The kids, in their own ways, contributed to society and the nation. It is like a 21-gun salute to a fallen hero, minus the military regalia. That is all.
It was an act of gratitude. The rituals symbolised the completion of a book; an immersive one. The covers were closed, but the memory of its contents would linger in readers’ minds for a long time, especially if it was well written. What is a good book in the story of life? That would start the debate about the purpose of life. Why are we here? Is it a reward to be born into a species with higher senses, after enduring millions of births before which were not so glamorous? Is it a test bed for other births to come?
Are we here just to engage in the dizzyingly indulgent experience of being alive? Are we sent here to make some indelible change or leave a legacy?
These questions popped up again after his funeral as I was watching a reel sent to me on social media.
It was one of those rare, civilised discourses on Tamil Nadu TV about the younger generation and their outlook on marriage and having kids. On one side of the auditorium, Baby Boomers and Gen-X’ers[1] were complaining that Gen-Zs were delaying their marriages and even postponing the time they embarked on having children. Their bone of contention was that this was bad for society at large. Society’s in a constant flux, needing new innovations and people with unabashed energy to stay afloat. Only young minds can do this. Delaying this process could be a disservice to mankind, they say.
In defence, the Gen-Zs asserted that we are given just one life. Within that span of a lifetime, we are expected to learn, save, serve, experience and enjoy. There isn’t much time. Bringing a child into the world is a big commitment and a strain on their time and finances. There is no guarantee that they would do as good a job as the generation before them. They went on to say that the world is a dangerous place with predators and with global degradation on the rise, every living day draws earthlings a day closer to annihilation. The fear of passing on harmful genes was also mentioned.
In rebuttal, they were told that no one comes with a cookbook for surviving. Everyone tends to learn on the job, savouring every moment of it, the ups and downs, and leaves the world with nothing but memories. If that is our purpose in life in the first place, this was it.
Then again, the same thought came into my conscience around the time when Renée Good was shot dead by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officers in Minnesota. If Renée were not shot, the world would probably not be reading her award-winning poem, ‘On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs‘. As if by a stroke of serendipitous and synergistic coincidence, her poem also explores the interplay of faith and scientific reason in our day-to-day lives. The logical mind tells us something is either white or black. Further exploration may reveal various shades of white, off-white, beige, ivory, and more. There is a confusing line that separates the analytical mind, which complicates understanding, from the spiritual awe that prompts one into submission. In that poem, Renée probably conceives of life as a chance meeting of an ovum and a sperm. Is there a higher meaning for this chance meeting?
To quote George Orwell, “The trouble is every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.” In the late 18th century, economist Thomas Malthus postulated that population would outstrip food production, leading the world to starve into oblivion. Subsequent generations, through science, proved him utterly wrong, and we are now afflicted with malnutrition of abundance.
We should not underestimate the next generation to find answers to questions we cannot answer.
Every generation is still searching for the ultimate secret of life. What we are given instead are the red pill of the sciences and the blue pill of unquestionable social traditions[2].
Propagating the race with our progeny may not be the only reason for existence. If such is the case, the world would not remember literary doyens like Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf. Neither would spiritual figures, like Swami Vivekananda and Adi Shankara, who left without children, remain in people’s minds. They left us with chests full of wisdom to help us think.
A perfect life need not be complemented with children. Legacies may be handed down by other means, through passing of wisdom, art or impact.
[2] The Red Pill / Blue Pill concept was introduced in the 1999 movie, ‘The Matrix’. The Red Pill reveals the harsh truth about the world, and the Blue Pill lets him stay in comfortable ignorance.
Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog, Rifle Range Boy.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Pongal Pot. Photo Courtesy: Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan
On the 15th of January 2026, while much of the modern world was busy checking notifications, updating calendars, and worrying about quarterly outcomes, traditional Tamil households across the globe were doing something far more radical, watching milk boil. “Pongal”, the harvest festival, is one of those ancient cultural practices that stubbornly refuses to modernise. It does not arrive as an app update, cannot be streamed, and has no subscription model.
Milk is poured into a pot, heated patiently, and allowed, indeed encouraged, to overflow. This overflow is not considered inefficiency or waste, but it is the very point. It signifies abundance, wellbeing, and prosperity not merely for humans but for the entire ecosystem that made the meal possible, the sun, the rain, the soil, the cow, and the quiet, unseen labour of nature itself. Rice, lentils, jaggery, nuts, legumes, and raisins follow, and the resulting sweet dish is shared freely among family and friends, because prosperity that is not shared is considered incomplete.
This is an economy based not on accumulation but on circulation, not on profit but on participation. Something I believe is deeply unsettling to modern sensibilities.
Into this defiantly non-consumerist ritual wandered a chickpea with an extraordinarily well travelled past. This was no humble backyard legume, nor had it been picked up at the nearest market. It had sprouted in Mexico, been packed in Lebanon, purchased in Sierra Leone, and generously gifted by my wife Greeja’s friend, Saras, and her husband Pieter, a Belgian whose kindness, like the chickpea itself, clearly knows no borders. The chickpea’s journey to Malaysia, where, after crossing more continents than most humans manage in a lifetime, it finally fulfilled its destiny, being cooked into a traditional Tamil Pongal.
By then this chickpea had crossed more borders than most people ever will, navigated more currencies than a multinational executive, and yet arrived without a single stamp of self-importance. If globalization were ever to seek a spokesperson, it would do well to choose this chickpea, which achieved in silence what conferences and treaties have struggled to explain. The chickpea does not attend Davos, does not publish white papers, does not tweet about resilience or sustainability, and yet it embodies globalisation with a calm confidence that makes economists look unnecessarily stressed.
We often speak of globalisation as though it were invented sometime in the late twentieth century by economists with impressive haircuts and Power Point skills. But the chickpea, unimpressed by timelines, has been global for at least nine thousand years. Its origins lie in the “Fertile Crescent”, that much abused cradle of early civilisations covering modern day Turkey and Syria, where early cultivation was recorded between 7500 and 6800 BCE. The wild ancestor, “cicer reticulatum”, still grows in southeastern Turkey, quietly ignoring the fact that humans have spent millennia fighting over the land around it. From this region, chickpeas spread naturally to the Middle East, the Mediterranean basin, and India by around 3000 to 2000 BCE, becoming a staple across cultures, religions, and cuisines. This was globalisation without shipping containers, trade sanctions, or consultants, just humans carrying seeds because hunger is wonderfully non-ideological.
India, once it encountered the chickpea, embraced it with characteristic enthusiasm and then proceeded to dominate its production. Today, India accounts for more than 70 percent of global chickpea output, a statistic that has made the chickpea an unlikely participant in modern trade wars. Protectionist policies, tariffs, reciprocal duties, and import bans imposed by major players such as India, the United States, and Mexico have transformed this humble legume into a politically sensitive commodity. It turns out that even the simplest food becomes controversial once spreadsheets get involved.
Thiruvalluvar (an ancient philosopher), writing two thousand years ago, anticipated this uncomfortable truth with brutal clarity:
“Only those who live by agriculture truly live; all others merely follow and feed upon them.” - Kural 1033
The verse throws stylish shade at modern life, while we sip lattes under perfect air conditioning and call it “work”, farmers are out there negotiating with the sun, rain, and stubborn soil to keep humanity fed. Our sleek jobs, fancy titles, and glowing screens? Well, they are merely luxury addons. Strip away agriculture and civilisation collapses into a very well-dressed famine. Turns out, all our progress still runs on dirt, with attitude.
The chickpea’s journey to South America, especially Mexico, is a reminder that globalisation has often travelled under less noble banners. Portuguese and Spanish explorers introduced chickpeas to the New World in the sixteenth century, carrying them across oceans as reliable, non-perishable protein sources. From these initial points of contact, chickpeas spread across Central and South America, embedding themselves into local agriculture and diets. In modern times, Mexico has emerged as a significant exporter, specialising in the Kabuli variety prized for its size and quality, with major production zones in Sonora and Sinaloa. Argentina and Chile also joined the club. Thus, a crop born in ancient Anatolia, nurtured in India, and sanctified by ritual, found itself repackaged for global markets, complete with branding, logistics, and regulatory oversight. The chickpea, once again, remained silent.
Silence, however, does not mean insignificance. Homer knew this. In TheIliad (Book 13) he famously compares arrows ricocheting off Menelaus’s armour to chickpeas and dark-fleshed beans flying off a threshing floor in the wind. The metaphor works only because the audience knew exactly how dried chickpeas behave, hard, resilient, and oddly bouncy. By likening lethal weapons to pulses, Homer not only emphasises the strength of the armour but also performs a subtle act of cultural grounding. The epic world of gods and heroes is momentarily tethered to the everyday agricultural reality of farmers winnowing grain. War, Homer seems to say, may be glorious, but it is ultimately sustained by food. Chickpeas, by 800 BCE, were so deeply embedded in Greek life that their sound and movement were universally recognisable. Even epic poetry depended on legumes.
Indian tradition offers an equally revealing, if more logistical, narrative. In South Indian tale associated with the Mahabharata, an Udupi King is said to have managed catering for the massive armies at Kurukshetra. Legend holds that he could predict daily casualties by observing leftover food. In some versions, the king visits Krishna at night, who eats a handful of roasted chickpeas, the number consumed corresponding mysteriously to the thousands who would fall the next day. This allowed precise meal planning and zero waste on an industrial scale of destruction. These divine data analytics allowed the king to cook exactly the right amount of food, avoiding waste on a genocidal scale. It is perhaps the earliest example of just-in-time inventory management, achieved without software, powered entirely by chickpeas and divine omniscience.
If you have ever wondered why Udupi cuisine is famous for efficiency and planning, this story offers a clue. Here, chickpeas function not just as food but as instruments of cosmic accounting.
Interestingly, while early Vedic texts sometimes viewed certain pulses as unsuitable for sacrifice, the Mahabharata period saw chickpeas elevated into sraddha rites (funeral rituals) and daily offerings. They transitioned from questionable to sacred, a promotion many humans would envy.
Thiruvalluvar’s ethical framework accommodates this evolution effortlessly:
“Sharing food and caring for all life is the highest of virtues.”-- Kural 322
A noble idea, until chickpeas quietly steal the spotlight. Modest, beige, and absurdly cooperative, they divide endlessly without complaint and nourish everyone from monks to gym bros. While humans argue ethics in panels and podcasts, chickpeas get on with the job, feeding the masses without ego. In the moral economy of virtue, they don’t preach but they simply multiply and sustain, humbling us one hummus bowl at a time.
Across civilisations, chickpeas became the dependable fuel of endurance. Roman soldiers consumed them as part of their standard rations, boiling them into thick porridge known as “puls” when meat was scarce. Gladiators relied on pulses for strength, earning nicknames that emphasised grain and legume consumption rather than heroism. Spanish and Portuguese sailors trusted chickpeas on long sea voyages because they did not rot, sulk, or demand refrigeration. During World War II, Allied researchers turned again to pulses to address vitamin deficiencies among troops, while the modern Indian Army continues to include chickpea flour and whole chickpeas in field rations due to their high caloric density and reliability. Empires rise and fall, but soldiers keep eating chickpeas.
Modern science, arriving fashionably late as usual, now confirms what ancient armies, monks, and farmers already knew. Chickpeas are celebrated as “brain food,” dense with nutrients that support cognitive function, mood regulation, and neurological health. Nutritional psychiatry highlights their role in reducing inflammation and stabilising the gut brain axis, making them valuable in alleviating anxiety and depression. Unlike the sugar-fuelled spikes and crashes of contemporary diets, chickpeas offer slow-release energy, the kind required for sustained thought, emotional regulation, empathy, and decision making. In a world addicted to instant gratification, caffeine dependence, and burnout worn as a badge of honour, the chickpea is almost offensively patient. That patience makes it profoundly incompatible with modern lifestyles, and incompatibility, in our times, is the surest mark of subversion.
If this sounds like ancient wisdom romanticised through hindsight, it is worth noting that modern civilisation has recently spent billions of dollars rediscovering precisely the same conclusion, often during lunch breaks. Sometime in the post-Covid era, somewhere between a glass walled co-working space and an overbranded café serving ethically sourced air, a young startup founder sat staring at his laptop, attempting to optimise a problem modern life seems uniquely skilled at inventing, how to eat “mindfully” without actually having time to eat. His company was building an AI-driven wellness platform designed to “personalise nutrition using real time biometric feedback.” Investors liked it. The pitch deck had the correct fonts. The valuation was impressive for something that had not yet solved hunger, distraction, or exhaustion.
Lunch arrived in recyclable packaging engineered to survive a nuclear winter. Inside was a bowl labelled Ancient Protein Medley. It contained quinoa flown in from the Andes, kale grown in a vertical farm two kilometres away, avocado sourced from somewhere geopolitically awkward, and, almost as an afterthought, roasted chickpeas. The chickpeas were rebranded as “plant-based protein spheres,” presumably because “chickpea” did not sound sufficiently disruptive, scalable, or fundable.
As the founder ate mechanically between Slack notifications, his smartwatch vibrated with updates. Blood sugar stable. Cortisol marginally elevated. Cognitive focus acceptable. The AI recommended breathing exercises and fewer screens. The founder ignored both and continued eating. The irony was complete. A system powered by cloud computing, global capital, and predictive algorithms had concluded, after millions in funding, that roasted chickpeas were ideal for sustained energy and mental clarity.
This was not new knowledge. Roman soldiers had marched on it. Tamil farmers had lived on it. Sailors had crossed oceans with it. But now it had a dashboard, a graph, and a subscription model.
Later that evening, the same founder attended a panel discussion on sustainability. Someone in the audience asked about regenerative agriculture. The panellists responded confidently, invoking carbon credits, blockchain traceability, lab-grown proteins, and the future of food. No one mentioned legumes fixing nitrogen. No one mentioned soil. No one mentioned that the chickpeas quietly sitting in the founder’s lunch bowl had already done more for planetary health than the entire panel combined. The chickpeas, true to form, offered no comment, no keynote, and no thought leadership, only nourishment.
The chickpea’s journey eastward is no less intriguing. It reached China via the Silk Road, settling primarily in Xinjiang, where evidence of cultivation dates back around two thousand years. There, it became part of Uighur medicinal traditions, prescribed for ailments ranging from hypertension to itchy skin. During the Tang and Yuan dynasties, chickpeas gained prominence as a “cosmopolitan” food, sometimes referred to as the “Muslim bean”. Yet in central China, the chickpea struggled for a distinct identity, often conflated with the common pea even by Li Shizhen[1], the famed Ming dynasty herbalist. Not all travellers are recognised for who they are, some spend centuries being mistaken for someone else.
And yet, through all this travel, confusion, commodification, and conflict, the chickpea remained quietly regenerative. Unlike extractive crops, it forms a symbiotic relationship with Rhizobium bacteria in its roots, fixing nitrogen from the air and enriching the soil. It takes and gives simultaneously, leaving the land better than it found it. This is perhaps the most radical aspect of the chickpea’s philosophy, one that stands in stark contrast to modern economic models based on extraction and exhaustion.
Thiruvalluvar warns us gently but firmly:
“Harm done to others inevitably returns to oneself.” – Kural 319
A warning humans hear, nod at, and immediately ignore. The chickpea takes a cooler approach. It survives by being outrageously generous, throwing itself into curries, salads, and hummus without a trace of resentment. No revenge arc, no ego. Just pure edible goodwill. While we stress over karma and consequences, the chickpea lives its truth, give everything away, become indispensable, and achieve immortality in every lunch bowl.
Humanity today resembles the ancient chickpea, hard, resilient, perpetually defensive. We pride ourselves on toughness, bouncing off crises with admirable persistence, yet rarely ask what we leave behind. Climate change, trade wars, and political upheavals are the shrill winds of Homer’s winnowing floor, tossing us about. The question is not whether we survive the tossing, but whether we enrich the soil when we land. Progress, the chickpea suggests, is not about becoming larger, louder, or more profitable. It is about being regenerative, ordinary, and useful.
In an age obsessed with luxury, consumption, and curated lifestyles, the chickpea offers a quietly subversive model. It is not elite food, but it is the food of soldiers, monks, labourers, and families. It does not advertise, rebrand, or reinvent itself. It simply nourishes.
Thiruvalluvar captures this understated wisdom perfectly:
“From seeds come harvests, and from giving comes abundance.” -- Kural 1030
A line politicians quote solemnly before approving tax breaks for themselves. The chickpea, deeply unimpressed, just does the math. One seed becomes many, then redistributes itself aggressively into every cuisine on earth. No gatekeeping, no merit tests, no ‘personal responsibility’ lecture. While humans weaponise scarcity and call it policy, the chickpea runs a ruthless experiment in abundance and wins, by being cheap, shared, and impossible to cancel. The chickpea has lived this truth for millennia.
So perhaps the real lesson of globalisation does not lie in trade agreements or consumer choices but in a small legume that has travelled from ancient Turkey to modern Mexico, survived Roman marches and mythic wars, endured misnaming and trade barriers, and still ends up quietly nourishing someone’s meal.
Even now, after dashboards have glowed, algorithms have pontificated, and every opinion has been optimised into a performance, the answer remains stubbornly ancient, from Roman roads to Tamil fields. The chickpea does not care about your ideology, your portfolio, or your meticulously curated identity. It will grow, fix nitrogen, feed someone, and move on without a press release.
In a world addicted to spectacle, branding, and moral pontification, this calm, beige indifference feels almost obscene. Quiet competence and unfashionable, the chick pea, turns out to be the rarest, and most outrageously extravagant, luxury left.
The travelled chickpea. Photo Courtesy: Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan
[1] Li Shizen(1518-1593), Ming acupuncturist, herbalist, naturalist, pharmacologist, physician.
Ravi Varmman explores leadership, culture, and self-inquiry through a philosophical lens, weaving management insight with human experience to illuminate resilience, ethical living, and reflective growth in an ever shifting world today.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
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Keith Lyons in conversation with Natalie Turner, author of The Red Silk Dress
Natalie Turner in Lisbon
Tell us about your background and life. If you had to give a relatable elevator pitch to readers, what would you say?
I was born in 1968, a year of social upheaval, into a life shaped early by movement, belief, and questioning. My parents were Christian missionaries, so I grew up immersed in faith, travel, and a strong inner world. From a young age, I wanted to be a writer. I was also restless, resistant to fixed paths, and fiercely independent, which meant that desire took many shapes before it found its way home.
As a young adult, I travelled and worked across Asia and Latin America, experiences that expanded my worldview and quietly dismantled many of the belief systems I had inherited. I later studied politics, economics, and social psychology, worked in Parliament, and then moved into business and innovation, where I continue to help organisations navigate change. Writing stayed alive throughout, mostly through journals and ideas, even when it wasn’t centre stage.
The red thread running through my life has always been transformation. A willingness to question what no longer fits, and the courage to follow what is asking to emerge. Writing fiction felt like the most honest way to bring that thread home.
What first inspired The Red Silk Dress?
The inspiration came from living inside a world that looked complete from the outside but felt fractured beneath the surface. In Southeast Asia, I was surrounded by what’s often called the expat life, glamorous settings, elegant events, and success on display. Yet in quieter moments, especially in conversations with women, a very different story would surface.
Many were intelligent, capable, outwardly fulfilled, yet privately wrestling with a sense of loss. They had raised families and built impressive lives, yet somewhere along the way they felt they had misplaced themselves. The contrast between the polished exterior and the unspoken interior stayed with me.
At the same time, I recognised a parallel in myself. From the outside, my life also looked full and successful. Inside, I sensed something unfinished, something buried. The novel grew from that convergence. From the tension between what we show the world and what quietly asks for attention. Cambodia, and a writing retreat in Siem Reap, became the place where that question could no longer be ignored.
Why did you choose Claudette, a French woman living overseas, as the heart of this story?
I didn’t choose Claudette in a deliberate way. I wasn’t designing a character or thinking about nationality or backstory. She arrived. On the outskirts of Angkor Wat, during a writing retreat, surrounded by experienced writers and acutely aware of my own inexperience, this woman appeared fully formed in my imagination.
She was elegant and guarded, wearing a wide-brimmed white hat and dark glasses. She introduced herself as Claudette, from Paris, and asked me to write her story. When she removed her glasses, what struck me was the sadness in her eyes. That moment carried a quiet insistence. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was unmistakable.
I wrote the opening paragraph that day, and it remains the opening paragraph of the novel. Claudette wasn’t invented to make a point. She was the right vessel for the story that wanted to be told.
The novel explores longing, desire, and reinvention. What drew you to these themes?
Reinvention has always fascinated me because I’ve lived it. I’ve moved countries, changed careers, and rebuilt my life more than once. That capacity for agency, for choosing to become something new, has been a quiet through-line in my work and my thinking.
Longing and desire entered the novel more subtly. At the time, I was living in Penang, Malaysia, immersed in colour, texture, heat, and beauty. I began to experience desire not as something reckless or romanticised, but as a form of intelligence. A way back into memory, creativity, and the parts of us that go dormant when life becomes crowded with too much to do.
Longing, for me, is a signal. If we ignore it, we stay as we are. If we listen, it draws us inward, into an interior journey that can quietly change the course of our lives.
Is The Red Silk Dress a love story, or is it really about something deeper?
It’s about something deeper than a conventional love story. The love affair in The Red Silk Dress isn’t a romance in the usual sense, and it isn’t about escape or transgression for its own sake. It functions as a catalyst. Love, in Claudette’s case, is what wakes her up to herself.
What interested me was eros in its older meaning. A sensual awakening of the body and the senses, of attention and aliveness. A pause that draws us back into ourselves and allows us to inhabit moments more fully.
In that sense, eros doesn’t just awaken desire. It awakens attention. And sustained attention inevitably sharpens conscience. When we feel more alive, more present, more attuned, we become more aware of misalignment. Of what we are complicit in. Of what no longer feels bearable. That awareness naturally turns outward into questions of responsibility.
Places feel very alive in the book. Why were Cambodia, Malaysia, and Paris important settings?
The places are alive in the novel, as much a character as the people who inhabit it. Geography isn’t a backdrop for Claudette’s journey; it actively shapes it.
Cambodia is where the story begins because it is where her inner life is first disturbed and opened. I was deeply affected by Cambodia’s layers of history, from the ancient Angkor civilisation to the energy of contemporary artists, designers, and entrepreneurs rebuilding culture with pride and imagination. There is a sensuality and generosity in the country that opens Claudette.
Malaysia is her lived world. It is where I spent many years, moving between lush, gated communities, international enclaves, and the daily crossings into Singapore. That environment, with its contrasts between order and improvisation, privilege, and dislocation, shaped how Claudette learned to belong and not belong at the same time.
Paris represents origin and memory. It carries sensuality, identity, and an earlier version of herself. It is where Claudette must reckon with who she has been and who she is becoming, not nostalgically, but honestly.
And then there is Portugal, which sits quietly behind the book rather than inside the story. It is where the novel was edited, refined, and completed. After the intensity of Asia, it offered a different rhythm. More space. More listening. It was here that what had been awakened elsewhere could be integrated and shaped with patience.
For me, the locale is never decorative. Each country asks something different of Claudette. Cambodia opens her. Malaysia tests her sense of belonging. Paris calls her to reckon with her past.
What’s your connection with Malaysia, Cambodia, and Singapore, and what was your experience living and working there?
I moved to Singapore in 2010, initially for work. It was still a time when the traditional expat package existed, and the city was dazzling, ordered, and highly curated. I was fascinated by it, not because it was my life, but because of what it revealed about status, success, and performance.
We moved to Malaysia largely for practical reasons. In Johor Bahru, we became part of a more entrepreneurial, improvised community, shaped by people building lives across borders. I crossed into Singapore several times a week, so the contrast between those two societies became part of my daily rhythm.
Penang was where something settled. It was slower, textured, steeped in history. It was also where I returned fully to writing and committed to the novel. After years of living between worlds, Penang became the place where the book could finally be written.
You’ve lived and worked across many countries. How has that shaped the way you write about identity and belonging?
Living across countries has made identity feel less fixed and more relational. Belonging isn’t something you arrive at once and for all. It shifts depending on place, people, and season of life.
Being immersed in different cultures sharpened my sensitivity to belief systems, values, and the ways we construct meaning. Living now in Portugal has added another layer. After years of movement, it has offered a sense of feeling grounded without confinement. A rhythm where I can listen differently.
I now find myself writing more reflective cultural pieces that explore place, memory, and creativity. Belonging, I’ve learned, is not about fitting in neatly. It’s about learning how to be changed by place while remaining true to yourself.
You often write about moments when life quietly asks us to change. Where does that fascination come from?
From my own life. I’ve reinvented not just what I do, but how I think. What interests me most are the subtle moments when something no longer fits and begins to ask different questions.
Real change rarely arrives loudly. It comes as a discomfort, a quiet misalignment. Innovation, like personal change, requires the courage to step beyond conformity and tolerate uncertainty. I’ve always been drawn to that edge because it is where life becomes most alive.
Your professional work focuses on creativity and transformation. Did those ideas find their way into this story?
Yes, though not in a literal way. My work has always been about how change unfolds as lived experience. Claudette’s journey follows that inner arc. Awareness, awakening, investigation, and consequence.
Creativity also enters the novel through the senses. Fabric, silk, touch, style. I wanted creativity to live in the body, not just the mind. In that sense, the story becomes a meeting place between beauty and transformation.
Did writing The Red Silk Dress change how you see yourself or your work?
The act of writing, and the way the book moved me emotionally and sensorially, awakened a level of creative energy I hadn’t experienced before. When I finished the novel, I realised I had opened a door into a new phase of my life.
It also reoriented my work. I no longer separate creativity, leadership, and transformation into neat categories. They belong together. Writing the novel didn’t replace my previous work. It gave it a deeper centre.
In parallel, I continue my work with women in leadership, creating spaces where they can step back from performance and certainty and listen more deeply to themselves. In many ways, those spaces and the novel are in a subtle, mutually reinforcing conversation. Both are about reconnecting with agency, voice, and purpose, not as theory but as lived experience.
Who do you think this book is for?
It will likely resonate most strongly with women who are curious, reflective, and drawn to immersive stories. Readers who want to be transported into another world and enjoy discovering history, culture, and meaning through story.
That said, men have responded deeply too. Several have shared how meaningful it was to inhabit a woman’s inner world so intimately. While it is a woman’s journey, the relationships and portrayals of masculinity are layered and intentional.
At heart, it’s for readers standing at a threshold. Those who sense a quiet unease and are open to being moved by a story that stays with them.
If a reader recognises themselves in Claudette’s struggle, what would you want them to take from her story?
I would want them to pause first. To take a breath and turn inward. Claudette’s story isn’t a prescription or a manifesto. It’s an invitation to reflect.
If there is one thing I hope readers take from her journey, it’s the understanding that feeling trapped does not mean being powerless. Agency often begins quietly, with hope, courage, and a willingness to trust what is asking to emerge.
And that emergence isn’t just personal. It shapes how we show up in our families, our work, our communities. Change, in this story, is not about abandoning life, but about stepping back into it with greater responsibility for the world we are helping to shape.
What do you hope readers feel or reflect on after turning the final page?
Above all, I hope the book creates a pause. A moment of deeper listening. Not a rush to act or decide, but an invitation to sit with what is emerging.
What’s your advice to aspiring writers?
I think writing begins with attention. Being open to life, to what keeps circling at the edges of consciousness, to the story that wants to be told. Craft matters enormously, of course. Writing a novel asks for depth, endurance, and commitment well beyond beautiful prose. Technique only comes alive when it is in the service of something true, something rooted in vulnerability. Finding your story is about learning how to listen, and then having the courage and patience to give it form.
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Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer and creative writing mentor originally from New Zealand who has spent a quarter of his existence living and working in Asia including southwest China, Myanmar and Bali. His Venn diagram of happiness features the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee, the negative ions of the natural world including moving water, and connecting with others in meaningful ways. A Contributing Editor on Borderless journal’s Editorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.
She stepped out of the limousine. The brim of her white Panama hat brushed the car door, and dust from the spinning wheels of a departing silver Mercedes hung in the air like a shroud. She shot an irritated glance at the receding car. Why did everything have to feel so rushed? She exhaled slowly, a familiar weight pressing against her chest. She looked down at her Jimmy Choos, now dusted with sand—a small detail, yet enough to deepen her annoyance. Determined to regain a sense of control, she pulled a tissue from her bag and stooped to wipe them clean. Shielding her eyes with oversized black sunglasses, she lifted her gaze to the sun.
Surrounded by meticulously manicured gardens, the Grand Hotel d’Angkor, an elegant cream mansion with a red slate roof and white veranda, stood before her. Its old-world charm softened her irritation. Finally, a touch of class. Claudette hadn’t realised just how much she had missed it.
Beside the limousine stood Andrew, her husband, his tall frame casting a long shadow. Wiping sweat from his freckled forehead, the lines on his face betrayed stress and fatigue. She knew it was the toll of his work, and she couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness.
“I’ll check in,” he said, frowning. Pulling a handful of US dollars from the pocket of his sun-bleached khaki shorts, Claudette watched as he paid the driver, a knot of emotion tightening in her chest. There had been a time when he was light-hearted—playful even—but those days were long gone. Now his frown served only as a reminder of how distant they had become. His efforts to avoid meaningful conversation only deepened her frustration, and their relationship rarely stretched beyond the children’s schedules and his business travel plans.
“Monique, Pierre, wait!” she called to their ten-year-old twins. Overcome with excitement, they ignored her and sprinted up the hotel steps. Waving to catch their attention, she dropped her mobile. “Mon Dieu. Can you tell the children to stop for a moment?” Andrew turned his back and waved dismissively. Why does the burden of responsibility always fall on me? It was a familiar pattern. She was tired of feeling unheard and unimportant. Picking up her phone, she tucked a strand of long dark hair behind her ear and lowered her hat to shield her face from the sun. Following the twins up the steps, she entered the hotel.
“Ma’am.” A butler bowed as he offered a cold-pressed towel. Grateful for his attentiveness, she thanked him and pressed it to her face. Its cardamom-infused aroma lingered on her lips, and her fingers tingled from its cool, damp texture. Wiping her hands, she smiled and placed the towel on a small bronze plate. Determined to shake off her discomfort, she followed him into the cool, air-conditioned lobby and stepped into the lounge. Notes of Duke Ellington’s ‘Sophisticated Lady’ drifted through the air, accompanying her inside. It was one of her favourite songs. A wave of nostalgia, stirred by Sarah Vaughan’s mellow voice, carried her back to her days as a fashion student in a Parisian jazz bar. How she missed those days—when everything felt simple, possibilities stretching ahead like an open road. Days before she met Andrew, when her dreams were bright and believable. For a moment, the memories wrapped around her like a warm embrace. For a moment, she forgot where she was. She wanted more than the façade of a glamorous life; she longed to feel alive again. She sat down on a muted gold velvet sofa, hoping this weekend she might rediscover the Claudette she once was.
ABOUT THE BOOK
From the mystical temples of Angkor Wat to the glittering expat communities of Malaysia and the elegance of Paris, the novel is a story of longing, courage and transformation. Claudette, a French expat trapped in a loveless marriage, is captivated by Som, a charismatic Cambodian whose passion for his homeland awakens desires she thought were lost. Torn between duty and an awakening that promises freedom, but at a cost, Claudette must choose or risk losing the life calling her name. An intimate journey through the beauty and ache of second chances, the risks we take for love, and the secrets we keep, even from ourselves. For everyone longing to reclaim identity, this story will linger long after the final page.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Natalie Turner is a British author based in Lisbon. Her debut novel, The Red Silk Dress, is an upmarket literary exploration of longing, courage, and awakening, set across Cambodia, Malaysia, and Paris. Alongside her fiction, she writes a reflective cultural column exploring creativity, imagination, and the human dimensions of change. She is also the author of the award-winning non-fiction book Yes, You Can Innovate. Drawing on years living across Southeast Asia and Europe, she writes about women at thresholds, the landscapes that shape us, and the quiet moments where life begins to change.
Five poems by Pravasini Mahakudahave been translated to English from Odia by Snehaprava Das. Click here to read.
A Poet in Exileby Dmitry Blizniuk has been translated from Ukranian by Sergey Gerasimov. Click hereto read.
Kalponik or Imaginedby Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click hereto read.
Pandies Corner
Songs of Freedom: The Seven Mysteries of Sumona’s Life is an autobiographical narrative by Sumona (pseudonym), translated from Hindustani by Grace M Sukanya. These stories 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.
With the amount of information I am bombarded with daily, I often wonder, as one usually does, how all these changes will change society. Are we all going to be empowered, aware, and demanding what is due to us? Will our minds be so open that we can accept that there is more than one way to skin a cat? On the contrary, will we become more aware of the many ways we can be taken for a ride, and so paranoid that we cannot even breathe a breath of fresh air? What if it is contaminated with toxic effluents?
Three recent video clips steered my mind towards this end.
In the first instance, a group of spectators in a stadium in Kolkata went amok. They were seen tearing fences and wrecking stadium chairs and equipment. They had come to see their favourite world-famous footballer, Lionel Messi, interact with fans. Perhaps the organisers had noble intentions that by having these types of exhibitions, more youngsters in India would take up the sport.
Unfortunately, the events of that day were quite different. It became a façade, with Messi surrounded by multiple VIPs and their entourages, all eager to take selfies from every angle.
The crowd was furious that the star was interacting only with VIPs, their children, politicians, and their kin. Messi was seen being passed around like a soccer ball to capture that perfect picture that would one day adorn their study. The ordinary spectators were left drooling, unable to get close enough to see Messi’s scoring actions. Messi was then seen joking around with the exclusive group of kids, kicking a few balls before departing.
The spectators paid good money not to see their hero paraded as a selfie model. They came expecting some action. A show promised to last two hours, but it ended after just half-an-hour when politicians and officials hijacked the event. One trigger, and chaos erupted.
What happened? Were the people in the stadium offended because they felt duped after paying a lot of money to catch glimpses of the hero posing with others and their children, not with them? They believed his appearance was too brief to matter. They thought the wealthy had used the ticket sales for their own pleasures.
Has Messi’s overexposure in the media led ordinary people to claim ownership of Messi? They believe they have a legitimate right to him. Watching others possess their hero while he is kept outside was too much for them to bear. Meanwhile, they overlook that their own football hero, Sunil Chhetri, reportedly the world’s third-highest goal scorer after Ronaldo and Messi, is ignored. Some Indians do not even know who Chhetri is.
Another reel that reached me showed stranded Indigo passengers having a field day berating the frontliners verbally as thousands of flights were cancelled because the airline could not comply with the new aviation regulations. The reel commentator scolded the passengers for their unruly behaviour. People of a certain stature, well-travelled and well-informed, should not be behaving as they did—loud, abusive, threatening, and insulting the ground staff. The recipients were merely lowly-paid messengers who had no control over operations, yet they bore the brunt of every customer’s insult.
The message further criticises the stranded passengers for losing their composure. They should have behaved with more dignity. In their view, flying is a privilege enjoyed by the educated; hence the need to act ‘cultured’ rather than resort to theatrics. The demonstration exemplified the deep-rooted middle-class mentality that seemed to prevail amongst the nouveau riche.
It is too simplistic to assume this. The rot runs deeper. On one hand, there is a feeling that passengers are being taken for fools. Airlines have recently been cutting corners due to the sharp increase in air travel. With so many new destinations, more flights, and affordability, the airline industry has never been more profitable. Making hay while the sun shines is the airlines’ motto. By squeezing pilots, crew members, and ground staff, the owners have had a field day. Recognising this, those in power tightened regulations to ensure air safety. Sufficient time was given to industry players to make amends. Indigo, holding the lion’s share of India’s air travel market, believed it was above the law. They procrastinated defiantly. That, in short, led to this fiasco.
So, were the passengers justified in their behaviour? Some were attending job interviews, some were about to get married, while others were taking part in equally important, life-changing events. All of it was for nothing because profiteers turned into vultures. There must surely be some etiquette in the business. They should have a minimum level of responsibility to follow the law and ensure safety. Instead, they failed. They killed the golden goose.
The failure of public relations to provide practical solutions, leaving customers in limbo about how events would unfold, is a recipe for disaster. And it happened.
In Malaysia, nearly every time after a fatal motor vehicle accident, the public is informed that the driver involved in causing death was driving without a valid driving licence, road tax, or had 30 or 40 unpaid summonses. Each time a suspect sustains fatal wounds during car chases, interrogations, or while in custody, the Malaysian public raises concerns. In defence, the police often mention possession of machetes and criminal records related to the deceased, as if their demise is justified and question why the public should mourn a hardened criminal.
This time, it was different. Police allegedly engaged in a highway car chase and shot three suspects. They soon announced their list of criminal records and provided a summary of the weapons found and the sequence of events. What the police did not know was that the spouse of one of the deceased had recorded her conversation with her partner, and the phone recording continued until after the trigger was pulled.
A day after the incident, the recording surfaced. The gunshot did not resemble a typical shootout but rather an execution. The postmortem report complicated matters further. The bullet entered the nose and pierced the heart, execution style.
For so long, the Malaysian public had been told to believe the various narratives about these kinds of deaths. For the first time, telecommunications tools may reveal what actually happens during police chases in the dead of night. Amnesty International has been warning us that our police custodial death rates are alarmingly high. The police have been dragging their feet on the public appeal to set up an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission and to equip their officers with body cameras.
Is the damning evidence produced by modern devices a turning point in how policing is done in Malaysia?
Modern life has changed many of our priorities. If, a century ago, the average man was content with decent square meals, enough garments to keep himself and cover the essentials, had a roof over his head and was able to provide for his family, the modern man needs more than that. The world’s modern economy, on the one hand, makes him quite aware of his surroundings. He is cognisant of different ways in which others live their life. On the downside, he has become a little self-centred and hedonistic. Travel to a foreign land has become an essential pastime. His obsession with famous media icons makes him mindlessly parrot his hero. He dresses like them, mimics their mannerisms and worships the Earth they stand on. Not all this work is for the betterment of society.
The fence that separates the elite and the plebeians is crumbling. Certain privileged information was kept from the general public, deemed necessary to ensure peace. Disinformation and uncertainty worked very well to maintain law and order. As information became more widely accessible, we found it helpful to curb abuses of the system. That, however, did not assure peace of mind. As in all things in life, there are two sides to the coin. Even though they may present opposing views, they are actually part of the same coin. The analogy is the same. Humans must learn to accept that everything is a work in progress. Not a single item that Man created has stood the test of time; it has needed constant twirling and re-modelling.
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Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog, Rifle Range Boy.
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