Time flows at an indolent pace. The mind floats in an empty space. Into that vast void, images drift. Over many eons, many have flit To the distant past. Arrogant conquerors sped fast. Pathans rode to satiate their greed. Then, Mughals wheeled Victories, whipping dust-storms, Flying flags for their throngs. These empires have left no trace On the vast void at which I gaze. Through ages, the serene sky Is with sunset and sunrise dyed. Now the might of Britons holds sway Penetrating new pathways With the power of steam And vehicles of fiery steel. With vigour, they spread Their dominions across the land’s breadth. I know their regime will also pass. Their empire will crumble at last. On the astral plane, despite their strength, Their army will not leave a single indent.
When I look around the Earth, An ocean ripples along its girth Heaving huge waves of humanity Through myriad paths, in myriad coveys, Over centuries as their daily needs are met In life and in death. Forever, they row, With their rudders tow, Work in fields, plant seeds, Their harvests reap. They work all the time, In towns or in wilds. Empires decline silencing bugles of war. People forget histories of battles fought. Stories of glory, angst and gore, Stay concealed in children’s lore. They struggle to work hard, In Punjab, Bombay and Gujarat, In Bengal, in Kalinga, all over the land, By the coastline and the riverbank. These stories of daily life hum Reverberating like drums; Joys, sorrows, day and night Resonate as hymns to our lives. Empires are ruined to ashes. Over eons, they toil as masses.
This poem has been translated by Mitali Chakravarty with editorial input by Sohana Manzoor
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Rabindranath Tagore (May 7th 1861-August 7 1941). From Public Domain.
One of the greatest minds of centuries, Tagore wondered about life and death… about posterity. He lost his wife, some of his children and many more loved ones in his lifetime. He took a philosophical stance on death. On his death anniversary, we bring to you his ideas on death and life too…
As a salute to his pen, we start with his poems and stories, mostly in translation, and move on to tributes by Nazrul (translated by Professor Fakrul Alam), by Aruna Chakravarti , by the late Sunil Gangopadhyay and more…
Tagore’s Poetry
The Child, a poem by Tagore originally written in English. Click here to read.
Tagore in Translation
Tagore’sAchhe Dukhu, Achhe Mrityu, (Sorrow Exists, Death Exists): These lyrics were composed by the poet when on the death of his wife. It has been translated by Fakrul Alam. Click hereto read.
Mrityu or Death,a poemby Tagore has been translated by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.
One Small Ancient Tale: Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Ekti Khudro Puraton Golpo (One Small Ancient Tale)’ from his collection Golpo Guchcho ( literally, a bunch of stories) has been translated by Nishat Atiya. Click here to read.
Tributes
Nazrul’sGhumaite Dao Shranto Robi Re(Let Robi Sleep in Peace) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Rabindranath Tagore: A Universal Bard :This conversation between Aruna Chakravarti and Sunil Gangopadhyay that took place at a Tagore Conference organised by the Sahitya Akademi in Kochy in 2011. Click here to read.
The description in ‘Hot Dry Summers’ is not of hell but what is perceived as happening on certain parts of Earth due to global warming or climate change. Forest fires. Nearer the equator, the storms have become harsher with lightning strikes that seem to connect the Earth to the sky. Trees get uprooted as the soil is softened from excessive rain. Sometimes, they fall on passers-by killing or injuring them. There is no rain in some places, forest fires or flooding in others… The highest temperatures touched 55 degrees Celsius this year. Instead of worrying about losing our homes lodged on land masses to the oceans that continue to rise, becoming dark heat absorbers due to loss of white ice cover, we persistently fight wars, egged on by differences highlighting divisive constructs. It feels strange that we are witness to these changes which seem to be apocalyptic to doomsday sayers. Are they right? Our flora, fauna and food will also be impacted by global climate change. How will we survive these? Will we outlive these as a species?
Poetry in our translations’ section travels to Balochistan, from where a Hafeez Rauf translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch, talks of burning tyres, again conflicts. It takes on a deeper hue as Ihlwha Choi translates his poignant poem from Korean, reflecting on the death of his mother. We have a translation of Tagore’s less popular poem, Mrityu[1], reflecting on the same theme. His reflections on his wife’s death too have been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam who has also shared a song of Nazrul, written and composed on the death of Tagore. Another lesser-known poet but brilliant nonetheless, Nirendranath Chakraborty, has been translated for us by Debali Mookerjea-Leonard. And what a tremendous poem it is when the person called Amalkanti wanted to be sunshine! We have a story too — ‘Speech Matters’ by Naramsetti Umamaheswararao translated by Johny Takkedasila.
Our stories as usual travel around the world — from Holland (by Paul Mirabile) to Hyderabad (by Mohul Bhowmick) and with a quick pause at Bangalore (by Anagha Narasimha). Travels in the real world are part of our non-fiction. Sai Abhinay Penna takes to a the second largest mangrove forest in the world and Ravi Shankar to Colombo. Madhuri Bhattachrya gives us a glimpse of an Indian summer and Snigdha Aggrawal explores the impact of climate change in her part of the world. Farouk Gulsara actually writes his reflections at a traffic junction. And it reads droll…
We have an in memoriam by Keith Lyons on Morgan Spurlock, the documentary maker who ate McDonald fare for a month and then made a film on it. We have two tributes to two legends across time. Wayne F Burke has given a brief piece on the iconic illustrator, Norman Rockwell. And Aruna Chakravarti, the queen of historic fiction who brought the Tagore family alive for us in her two very well researched novels, Jorasanko and Daughters of Jorasanko, has given us a fabulous tribute to Tagore on the not-so common aspects of him.
Suzanne Kamata, the novelist who does a column from Japan for us normally, has spoken to us about her new novel, Cinnamon Beach, which overrides multiple manmade constructs. It’s an interesting read from someone who lives her life across multiple cultures and transcends many boundaries.
This is a bumper issue, and it is difficult to convey the vibrant hues of words that colour this edition. Please do pause by our contents page for a more comprehensive look.
This issue would not have been possible without all our fabulous contributors and a wonderful, dedicated team. We are delighted that Rakhi Dalal — who has done many reviews and shares her poetry with us in this issue — has agreed to be a writer-in-residence with us. A huge thanks to all of you, and especially Sohana Manzoor for her artwork. I am truly grateful to our readers for popularising our efforts to put together an online space with free and vibrant reads.
I would like to end with a few lines that gives me hope despite climate change, wars and doomsday predictions.
There’s more to life, he says to me, than what you choose to see.
Written and published in 1901, Mrityu (Death)was a part of RabindranathTagore’s collection called Naibedya (Offering).
Death Scene painted by Tagore (1861-1941). From Public Domain
DEATH
Death is a stranger to me. Today, I shiver in apprehension. I cling to this life with all my might, With tears in my eyes, I wait to bid This world goodbye. O ignorant, why did you grow So attached to this life when The cycle of life and death was Known to you? The dawn of death Is like reacquainting with a stranger. I love this life so much that I am Convinced I will love death equally. A child torn from one breast wails but is comforted Within moments of being held at the other breast.
This poem has been translated by Mitali Chakravarty with editorial input by Sohana Manzoor
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
There was a time when humans walked the Earth crossing unnamed landmasses to find homes in newer terrains. They migrated without restrictions. Over a period of time, kingdoms evolved, and travellers like Marco Polo talked of needing permissions to cross borders in certain parts of the world. The need for a permit to travel was first mentioned in the Bible, around 450BCE. A safe conduct permit appeared in England in 1414CE. Around the twentieth century, passports and visas came into full force. And yet, humanity had existed hundreds of thousand years ago… Some put the date at 300,000!
While climate contingencies, wars and violence are geared to add to migrants called ‘refugees’, there is always that bit of humanity which regards them as a burden. They forget that at some point, their ancestors too would have migrated from where they evolved. In South Africa, close to Johannesburg is Maropeng with its ‘Cradle of Humanity’, an intense network of caves where our ancestors paved the way to our evolution. The guide welcomes visitors by saying — “Welcome home!” It fills one’s heart to see the acceptance that drips through the whole experience. Does this mean our ancestors all stepped out of Africa many eons ago and that we all belonged originally to the same land?
And yet there are many restrictions that have come upon us creating boxes which do not allow intermingling easily, even if we travel. Overriding these barriers is a discussion with Jessica Mudditt about Once Around the Sun: From Cambodia to Tibet, her book about her backpacking through Asia. Documenting a migration more than a hundred years ago from Jullundur to Malaya, when borders were different and more mobile, we have a conversation with eminent scholar and writer from Singapore, Kirpal Singh. Telling the story of another eminent migrant, a Persian who became a queen in the Mughal Court is a lyric by Nazrul, Nur Jahan, translated by Professor Fakrul Alam from Bangla. Ihlwha Choi has self-translated his own poem from Korean, a poem bridging divides with love. Fazal Baloch has brought to us some exquisite Balochi poems by Munir Momin. Tagore’s poem, Okale or Out of Sync, has been translated from Bengali to reflect the strange uniqueness of each human action which despite departing from the norm, continue to be part of the flow.
We have a tongue in cheek piece from Devraj Singh Kalsi on traveling in a train with a politician. Uday Deshwal writes with a soupçon of humour as he talks of applying for jobs. Snigdha Agrawal brings to us flavours of Bengal from her past while Ratnottama Sengupta muses on the ongoing wars and violence as acts of terror in the same region and looks back at such an incident in the past which resulted in a powerful Bengali poem by Tarik Sujat. Kiriti Sengupta has written of a well-known artist, Jatin Das, a strange encounter where the artist asks them to empty fully even a glass of water! Ravi Shankar weaves in his love for books into our non-fiction section. Recounting her mother’s migration story which leads us to perceive the whole world as home is a narrative by Renee Melchert Thorpe. Urmi Chakravorty takes us to the last Indian village on the borders of Tibet. Taking us to a Dinosaur Museum in Japan is our migrant columnist, Suzanne Kamata. Her latest multicultural novel, Cinnamon Beach, has found its way to our book excerpts as has Flanagan’s poetry collection, These Many Cold Winters of the Heart.
In reviews, Somdatta Mandal has written about an anthology, Maya Nagari: Bombay-Mumbai A City in Storiesedited by Shanta Gokhale and Jerry Pinto. Rakhi Dalal has discussed a translation from Konkani by Jerry Pinto of award-winning writer Damodar Mauzo’sBoy, Unloved. Basudhara Roy has reviewed Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay’s Tales of Early Magic Realism in Bengali, translated by Sucheta Dasgupta. Bhaskar Parichha has introduced us toThe Dilemma of an Indian Liberal by Gurcharan Das, a book that is truly relevant in the current times in context of the whole world for what he states is a truth: “In the current polarised climate, the liberal perspective is often marginalised or dismissed as being indecisive or weak.” And it is the truth for the whole world now.
Our short stories reflect the colours of the world. A fantasy set in America but crossing borders of time and place byRonald V. Micci, a story critiquing social norms that hurt by Swatee Miittal and Paul Mirabile’s ghost story shuttling from the Irish potato famine (1845-52) to the present day – all address different themes across borders, reflecting the vibrancy of thoughts and cultures. That we all exist in the same place and have the commonality of ideas and felt emotions is reflected in each of these narratives.
We have more which adds to the lustre of the content. So, do pause by our content’s page and enjoy the reads!
I would like to thank all our team without who this journal would be incomplete, especially, Sohana Manzoor, for her fabulous artwork. Huge thanks to all our contributors who bring vibrancy to our pages and our wonderful readers, without who the journal would remain just part of an electronic cloud… We welcome you all to enjoy our June issue.
‘Okale‘ (translates as ‘out of sync with time’) is a part of Tagore’s poetry collection, Khanika (translates to ‘moments’) published in 1900.
Art by Sohana Manzoor
OUT OF SYNC
Who is it that runs burdened with Merchandise to the closed haat*? Dusk has set in. The day is past.
Carrying burdens on their heads, Vendors return to their homestead. A fragment of the new moon Has risen in the vale. Those from the other shore, Call out loudly to the boats. The riverside reverberates with Their echoes evermore.
With what hope have you come At this hour To the closed haat, breathlessly, With your load?
Sleep has caressed The woods to bed, The cawing of crows have halted In their nests.
In the shrubs near the pond, By the fence, crickets call. Stunned branches of bamboo, Sway softly in the breeze — Within the courtyard of their homes, The weary sleep in their abodes. The night-lamp brightens The flickers of shades.
When all are at rest, As the time to work is past, Who is it that runs burdened with Merchandise to the closed haat?
*Rural Bazaar
This poem has been translated by Mitali Chakravarty with editorial input by Sohana Manzoor
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
A brief overview of Once Around the Sun : From Cambodia to Tibet (Hembury Books) by Jessica Mudditt and a conversation with the author
Jessica Mudditt
Jessica Mudditt’s Once Around the Sun: From Cambodia to Tibet is not just a backpacker’s diary but also her need to relate to humanity, to find friendships and even love, as she does with Kris, a photographer named after Krishna, the Hindu god, because his parents while visiting India fell in love with the divinity!
The Burmese translation of Our Home in Myanmar was published recently.
Hurtling through Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Tibet, young Mudditt concludes her narrative just at the brink of exploring Nepal, India and Pakistan in her next book… leaving the reader looking forward to her next adventure. For this memoir is an adventure that explores humanity at different levels. Before this, Mudditt had authored Our Home in Myanmar – Four years in Yangon, a narrative that led up to the Myanmar attack on Rohingyas and takeover by the military junta. Once Around the Sun: From Cambodia to Tibet is the first part of a prequel to her earlier book, Our Home in Myanmar, both published by her own publishing firm, Hembury Books.
What makes her narrative unique is her candid descriptions of life on a daily basis — that could include drunken revelry or bouts of diarrhoea — while weaving in bits of history and her very humane responses. Her trip to Angkor Wat yields observations which brings into perspective the disparities that exist in our world:
“I was gazing out at an empire that was once the most powerful and sophisticated in the world. In 1400, when London had a middling population of 50,000, the kingdom of Angkor had more than a million inhabitants and a territory that stretched from Vietnam to Brunei. It had flourished for six hundred years, from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries.
“But somehow Cambodia had become one of the world’s poorest countries, and surely the most traumatised too, following a recent war and genocide. I knew that when we came back down to the ground, there would be a collection of ragtag street kids and downtrodden beggars desperately hoping for our spare change. It was difficult to reconcile the grandeur of Cambodia’s past with its heart-breaking present in the twenty-first century. How did a country’s fortunes change so dramatically? Could the situation ever be turned around?”
How indeed?
Then, she writes of Vientaine in Vietnam:
“I was struck by the fact that sex work seemed to be the consequence for countless young women living in poverty. It made me angry, but mostly sad.”
In these countries broken into fragments by intrusions from superpowers in the last century, judged by the standards of the “developed countries” and declared “underdeveloped”, an iron rice bowl becomes more important to survive than adventure, discovering other parts of the world or backpacking to self-discovery. Travel really is the privilege of that part of the world which draws sustenance from those who cannot afford to travel.
Jessica showcases mindsets from that part of the Western world and from the mini-expat world in Hong Kong, which continue alienated from the local cultures that they profess to have set out to explore or help develop. One of the things that never ceases to surprise is that while the ‘developed’ continue to judge the ‘third world’, these countries destroyed by imposed boundaries, foreign values, continue to justify themselves to those who oppress them and also judge themselves by the standards of the oppressors.
Some of these ‘developing’ countries continue to pander to needs of tourism and tourists for the wealth they bring in, as Jessica shows in her narrative. She brings out the sharp differences between the locals from Asia and the budgeted backpackers, who look for cheap alternatives to experience more of the cultures they don’t understand by indulging in explorations that can involve intoxicants and sex, their confidence backed by the assurance that they can return to an abled world.
Backpackers from affluent countries always have their families to fall back on — opulent, abled and reliable. Mudditt with her candid narrative explores that aspect too as she talks of her mother’s response to her being sick and budgeting herself. Her mother urges her to cut short her trip. But she continues, despite the ‘adversities’, with an open mind. That she has a home where she can return if she is in any kind of trouble begs a question — what kind of ‘civilisation’ do we as humans have that she from an abled background has a safe retreat where there are those for whom the reality of their existence is pegged to what she is urged to leave behind for her own well-being? And why — as part of the same species — do we accept this divide that creates ravines and borders too deep to fathom?
Mudditt with her narrative does create a bridge between those who have plenty and those who still look for and need an iron rice bowl. She mingles with people from all walks and writes about her experiences. Hers is a narrative about all of us –- common humanity. Her style is free flowing and easy to read — quite journalistic for she spent ten years working as one in London, Bangladesh and Myanmar, before returning to her home in Australia in 2016. Her articles have been published by Forbes, BBC, GQ and Marie Claire, among others. This conversation takes us to the stories around and beyond her book.
What led you to embark on your backpacking adventure? Was it just wanderlust or were you running away from something?
It was primarily from wanderlust, but I also didn’t know what I was going to do with the rest of my life. After six years at university, I was still yet to have any particular calling. However, I was also glad I didn’t know. It meant that I was free to go and explore the world, because I wasn’t putting my career on hold. I had no career.
I also had a broken heart when I set off for Cambodia – but the trip was planned before that relationship had even begun. But again, part of me was glad that my boyfriend had called it quits, because my plan was to be away for a very long time (and it ended being a decade away).
What made you think of putting down your adventures in writing? As you say, this is a prequel to your first book.
It was the pandemic that made me realise that backpacking was really special. There was a period in 2020 when it looked like travel may never be so unrestricted again, so it motivated me to document my year of complete freedom. It was also before social media was even a thing. When I was lost, I was really lost, and I had to use my problem-solving skills.
Prior to the pandemic, I sort of thought that backpacking itself was too fun to write about. I hadn’t actually lived in any of the countries I visited – I was just passing through. But that is also a valid experience, and one that many people can fondly relate to. There were also some really confronting and difficult moments.
You have written of people you met. How have they responded to your candid portrayals? Or did you change their names and descriptions to convey the essence but kept your characters incognito?
While I was writing the book, I got back in touch with the people I travelled with – I can thank Facebook for still being in touch with most people mentioned. They helped me to remember past anecdotes and I got some of the back story of their own trips. I have only used first names to protect their privacy, although there are some photos in the book too. Thankfully the world is so big that the odds are small that anyone would recognise, say, an Irish guy from Adam in Vietnam in 2006! Clem from Shanghai has just sent me a photo of her with my book, and Romi from Vietnam actually came to my book launch, which was awesome.
What was your favourite episode in this book — as a backpacker and as a writer? Tell us about it.
I think it was crossing into China and meeting ‘the man.’ I felt so alive with every step I took into China after crossing over on foot from Vietnam. To be chaperoned in the way I was – without being able to communicate a single word – was unusual. His kindness left me speechless, so the anecdote has a nice story arc.
In your travels through China, you faced a language handicap and yet found people kind and helpful. Can you tell us a bit about it?
I foolishly underestimated the language barrier. It was profound. In Southeast Asia, there was always at least a sprinkling of English, and I sort of just assumed that I’d be fine. I entered China from Vietnam, so my first port of call was Nanning, where there is not even really an expat population. I couldn’t do the most basic things, from finding the toilet or an internet cafe or something to eat! I used sign language and memorised the Chinese character for ‘female’ to make sure I went into the right toilet! In a restaurant, I just pointed at whatever someone else was eating in the hope that they would bring me a bowl of whatever it was. There were times when I was seriously lost and lonely, but I ended up staying in China for two months and saw the comedic side. I was bumbling around like Mr Bean (who is hugely popular in China).
I met a lot of people who were really kind to me, and I was just so grateful to them. I didn’t have Wi-Fi on my phone back then, so getting lost in a massive city in China was a bit scary. I met a student called Mei-Xing who ‘adopted’ me for a few days in Guilin. We had a really nice time together and it was so great to hang out with a local.
What is/are the biggest takeaway/s you had from your backpacking in this part of the world? Tell us about it.
I think it’s something quite simple: the world can be a very beautiful place, and a very polluted place. Tourism can do a great deal of damage when there are too many people clambering over one area. There is also an incredible level of disparity in a material sense on our planet. Some humans are travelling into space on rockets. Others are pulling rickshaws, as though they are draught horses. It is profoundly inequitable.
Having travelled to large tracts of Asia, what would you think would be the biggest challenge to creating a more equitable world, a more accepting world? Do you think an exposure to culture and history could resolve some of the issues?
I think that democracy is key. It slows us down and forces us to act in the interest of the majority, not the top-level cronies. That is definitely also something I witnessed in Myanmar. When a few people hold all the power, the population is deprived of things that ought to be a human right.
I think that travel definitely alters your perspective and broadens your mind, and it is something I’d recommend to anyone. Realising that the way that things are done in your home country is not the only way of doing things is a valuable thing to learn.
Mostly, you met people off the street. In which country did you find the warmest reception? Why and how?
In Pakistan. The hospitality and friendliness was unparalleled. I think it was in part due to not having many tourists there. Nothing felt transactional. I met some fascinating people in Pakistan who would have a profound impact on my own life. I am still in touch with several people I met there.
At a point you wondered if the poverty you saw could be reversed back to affluence in the context of the Angkor kingdom. Do you have any suggestions on actually restoring the lost glory?
I believe that it is beginning to be restored. Pundits have called this the “Asian Century.” I am convinced that the United States and the UK are in decline, and this process will only speed up. India, to me, holds the most promise as the next superpower, because it is a democracy (albeit flawed – like all of them), English- speaking, enormous, beautiful, fascinating and its soft power is unmatched. China is facing headwinds. I blame that on making people sad by removing their agency.
How long were you backpacking in this part of the world? Was it longer than you had intended? What made you extend your stay and why?
My trip was exactly 365 days long. I planned it that way from the beginning. I wanted to travel for no less than a year (more than a year and I might stay feeling guilty for being so indulgent!). That is also why the book is called Once Around the Sun – my time backpacking was the equivalent of one rotation of the Earth. I set off on 1 June 2006 – the first day of winter in Australia – and I arrived on 1 June 2007 in London, on the first day of the British summer. I love the sunshine.
After having travelled around the large tracts of Asia and in more parts of the world, could you call the whole world your home or is it still Australia? Is your sense of wellbeing defined by political boundaries or by something else?
Home for me is Sydney. I absolutely love it. I get to feel as though I am still travelling, because my home city is Melbourne. I go down a new road every other day and I love that feeling. The harbour is beautiful, and the sun is shining most days. It’s very multicultural too.
My kids are three and five, so I haven’t travelled overseas for years. My plan is to travel with them as much as possible when they are a bit older. I hope they love it as much as me. I cannot wait to return to Asia one day. I am also desperate to visit New York City.
What are your future plans for both your books and your publishing venture?
The second part of Once Around the Sun will come out in 2025. It’s called Kathmandu to the Khyber Pass, and it covers the seven months I spent Nepal, India and Pakistan.
My goal is to complete my fourth memoir by 2027. It will be called My Home in Bangladesh (it will be the prequel to Our Home in Myanmar!).
My fifth book will be about how to write a book. I am a book coach and in a few years I will have identified the most common challenges people face when writing a book, and finding their voice.
In the next twelve months, there will be at least 12 books coming out with Hembury Books, which is my hybrid publishing company. I love being a book coach and publisher and I hope to help as many people as possible to become authors.
Please visit the website and set up a discovery call with me if you plan on writing a nonfiction book, or have gotten stuck midway: https://hemburybooks.com.au/.
Photographs from Once Round the Sun, provided by Jessica Mudditt
(The online interview has been conducted through emails and the review written by Mitali Chakravarty.)
“Singapore is intimately linked with home and, yet for me, home has always been a process of lifelong search. Partly because of the early months of my birth. The record says I was born in March 1949, but the time was not certain as I do not have a birth certificate. My father forgot to register my birth,” reminisces Dr Kirpal Singh, an internationally recognised scholar. Born in the Straits Settlement of Singapore, before the island emerged as an independent entity, he has lived through much of history. He tells a story of multi-racial, multi-cultural growth that the island afforded him.
His father, he tells us, was “well known throughout Malaya — Jeswant Singh nicknamed as ‘Just One’ — a boxer who would knock people down with his left hook. In 1954, he left boxing when he killed someone during a match.” His mother, a Jewish Scot who he cannot recollect, he tells us, “ might have been David Marshall’s sister according to my stepsister but no one else has said that.” Marshall[1] was the first Chief Minister of Singapore from 1955 to 1956 and then Singapore’s Ambassador to France, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland 1978 to 1993. He is the founder of the Worker’s Party. His parents had emigrated from Baghdad to Singapore in 1908 according to current resources.
How did Singh’s parents come to be in Singapore? Were they immigrants or colonials?
He responds with what he knows: “My grandfather and grandmother came to Singapore on board a ship in 1900. They left Jullunder, Punjab, in 1899. By the time they reached Singapore, it was the end of 1900. They left to seek their fortune. They were from the farming community. My grandfather was only sixteen and my grandmother was about twelve. They were in transit in Penang for six months. They came to Singapore in 1901. Actually, it was all Malaya — Singapore was part of the Straits Settlement. They came to Singapore by train. Trains were just starting out. It was around August 1901.
Trains in Malaya
“My uncle was conceived during this journey. They halted in Singapore for only two or three weeks. My grandfather’s cousin was in Perak[2], in Malaya. So, he wanted to be with his cousin. His cousin had cattle. Most of the Sikhs were cattle farmers. They settled in Pahang[3], an area which eventually became a nuclear dump[4] for Australia. It is closed to public now. There was a stone that proclaimed the land was a nuclear dump when I went with my son a few years ago.
“My father moved to Singapore as his prospects were better here as a boxer. This is where he met my mother. I was born here. He actually met mum because my mother’s two brothers had invited her to come from Glasgow. My mother is Scottish, from an industrial background. Her brothers came to the Far East to make money. She finished her school leaving exams and came to visit her brothers during her vacation. She would go with her bothers to watch boxing, where she saw my father, the champ. She was only fifteen or sixteen. The next thing the brothers knew was she was pregnant with me.”
Jeswant Singh was popular with colonials. Kirpal Singh tells us: “Some Europeans saw him box and offered him a job then in the Base Ordinance Depot. This was the British Military camps in the Far East. There were three bases in Singapore: the naval base, Kranji and one in the South. He worked there for thirty years and retired after that. In 1972[5], after the final British withdrawal from Singapore, dad’s formal employment status ended. After that he just did odd jobs, ending up as a security guard, looking after the factories in Jurong, earning about two to three hundred dollars a month.”
Kirpal Singh spent his childhood with his grandmother and uncle. Before he started schooling, his father left him with his grandmother and divorced his mother in favour of a new bride. Dr Singh tells us the story of how he returned to Singapore: “I was basically in Perak with my grandmother. My uncle, who was the first Sikh to become a Christian in Southeast Asia, left home because his father gave him a beating for changing his religion. My uncle was an Anglican. His conversion saved him from the Great Depression as the clergy was very well looked after. From 1929 to 1933, the church looked after him because he was the priest in Seramban. My father was still young. My uncle was born in 1911 and my dad in 1923. My grandmother bore eighteen children. Five of the infants passed away before they were one month old. But thirteen survived. She passed away at 95… I knew when I left for my doctorate programme in Adelaide that that was the last time I would see her. I had a hunch and was crying on the plane. Six weeks later, I got a letter with the news of her death.”
He adds: “Dad was in not in a position to look after me. The responsibility fell on his brother William. His full name was William Massa Singh s/o Deva Singh. He had studied at the Ipoh Chinese school, topped the school, eventually worked as an insurance agent. He was very good in English. The principal of his school, a New Zealander, arranged for my uncle to move to Singapore. Then my father moved there too. Singapore was the metropolis even then. It was the centre of English education. Penang was the other one. In 1956, I was sent to Singapore from Perak on a train — a one-and-a-half-day journey to my uncle.”
His grandmother joined them within a few months as his uncle was, he says, “more interested in aiding Lee Kuan Yew get rid of the colonials. Lee Kuan Yew was a self-made man. He met Goh Keng Swee[6] and Rajaratnam[7] as students in England. They became buddies and wanted to move out of colonial rule and be independent.”
Then, how did a young child survive? Dr Singh tells us: “I used to earn my pocket money from age five six by watering gardens. I have had very interesting experiences. When I was in primary two, I used to give tuition to primary one students. With enough gumption, you can survive in this world.”
Kampongs in Singapore’s past
“I grew up with my uncle’s wards, who were brought home to be educated. There was even one who was a Chinese-Japanese mix. So, I grew up being familiar cross-cultural marriages and in a multicultural home. I grew up in the kampong with a Chinese boy and we became friends from the age of seven-and-a-half when we were in primary two. His name is Tan Jwee Song — I call him Jwee, ‘my good saint’. He told me after O-levels he would support me to study further and took to teaching. At that time, you could become a teacher after completing your O level. I joined Raffles late during my time in high school because it was too expensive for me. I taught in night classes started by Lee Kuan Yew and studied. I owed Jwee $80,000 dollars and I wanted to pay his widow back — but she would not accept it. When I graduated in 1973 with an honours’ degree, I was $44 thousand in debt. Then, I was given a scholarship.”
And slowly, Kirpal Singh came to his own. When television came into being, he tells us: “I was often on TV in 1970s — days of early television — debates and interviews as a guest.” Kirpal Singh grew into an intellectual of repute as he worked and studied with the support of the many races and many people who, often like him, were migrants to Singapore.
As time moves forward, these stories — that are almost as natural as the sand, the wind and the sea — ask to be caught in words and stored for posterity, stories from life that show how narrow borders drawn by human constructs cannot come in the way of those with ‘gumption’.
(Written by Mitali Chakravarty based on a face to face conversation with Kirpal Singh. Published with permission of Kirpal Singh)
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