Last month the Doomsday Clock had moved closer to midnight than at any point since it was created in 1947. Maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the clock is meant to signal how close humanity stands to destroying itself, whether through nuclear conflict, climate breakdown or new technologies. Its latest shift suggests that we are living through a particularly dangerous moment.
That is one way to look at the year ahead.
Another comes from a friend of mine who follows astrology. “2026 will be intense,” she told me after we had worked out the time difference to talk. “There are major planetary shifts happening. But that also means there is potential for growth.”
Between scientific warning and planetary symbolism sits a familiar question. Are we heading towards catastrophe, or simply moving through another period of change?
It is difficult to judge the scale of events while we are inside them. Perspective usually comes later. At the time, everything feels amplified. The media leans towards urgency. Our own thoughts do the same. The expectation of upheaval can sometimes be more overwhelming than the experience itself.
In recent weeks there have been many reminders of transition: the turning of the calendar year; the Lunar New Year observed across China, parts of Southeast Asia, Korea and the Himalayan region; the beginning of Ramadan for Muslims around the world. These moments draw people together in ritual and reflection. They offer continuity, even when the wider world feels unstable.
At the same time, global leaders speak in stark terms. The Secretary-General of the United Nations recently described a world marked by conflict, inequality and unpredictability. Climate scientists warn that we have entered uncharted territory. Heat records continue to fall. Rain arrives in sudden deluges. Winters in some places are no longer as cold as they once were.
For centuries, seasonal rhythms have provided reassurance. Spring follows winter. Festivals return at roughly the same time each year. Even the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582, was an attempt to bring order to time.
The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, wrote that no person steps into the same river twice. The water flows on, and so do we. It is a simple image, but it captures something steady and true about human life.
What feels different now is the speed. Changes that once unfolded across generations now seem compressed into years. Climate patterns shift within decades. Technology reshapes industries almost overnight. Artificial intelligence systems are altering the nature of work, leaving some people optimistic and others uncertain. I know people who are struggling to find employment, both those nearing the end of long careers and those only just starting out.
My friend attributes the turbulence to a conjunction of Saturn and Neptune. She links economic instability and political upheaval to movements in the sky. When she mentioned the recent increase in visible auroras, I thought of astronomers pointing out that the Sun is nearing the peak of its eleven-year solar cycle. Different explanations, same phenomena.
Whether we turn to science, philosophy or astrology, the underlying experience is similar. Things feel unsettled. Time feels faster. The future feels closer than it used to.
It is tempting either to tune out the warnings or to become consumed by them. Neither response changes what is happening. Ignoring risk does not reduce it. Constant alarm does not resolve it either.
We cannot return to a previous version of stability. The seasons will continue to shift, though perhaps less predictably. Technologies will continue to develop. Political arrangements will evolve. Some changes are small and gradual. Others are abrupt and disorienting.
The real question is how we live through them.
After our conversation, my friend sent a message: “Changes aren’t endings, but thresholds.” It is a hopeful way to think about uncertainty. Crossing a threshold suggests movement rather than collapse.
Perhaps this year calls for small, steady practices. Paying attention to what we consume, digitally and otherwise. Slowing down our thinking when everything pushes us to react. Staying connected to the people around us. These are modest responses, but they are within reach.
We step into the river again. The water is different. So are we.
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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’sEditorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
Title: River Traveller: Journeys on the TSANPO-BRAHMAPUTRA from Tibet to the Bay of Bengal
Author: Sanjoy Hazarika
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
Sanjoy Hazarika, a former reporter for the New York Times, dons many hats, combining roles as researcher, columnist, mentor and practitioner. Over decades this veteran journalist has travelled extensively across the Northeast and its neighbourhood. His interests include developments in Myanmar, Bhutan, Tibet (PRC), Bangladesh and Nepal and he has produced over a dozen documentaries including on the Brahmaputra, dolphins, governance, conflict, and rights.
River Traveller tells the story of a great river, as powerful as it is mysterious. The Brahmaputra rises in Tibet, travels through three countries and, after travelling over 2,900 kms, flows into the Bay of Bengal. But the most interesting part is that this river is known by many names: Yarlung Tsangpo and Po Tsangpo in Tibet, Siang in Arunachal Pradesh, Brahmaputra in Assam, the Jamuna in Bangladesh, merging with the Ganga at Arichar Ghat, to form the vast Padma on its unending flow to the Bay of Bengal and its quest for union with the sea.
This book has come together over decades of travels on this braided river (including on the boat clinics that he launched in 2005 in Assam) where Hazarika had seen its beauty and faced its wrath, been stuck on sandbanks and swept out to sea. He listened to those who plied the boats, the pilots, drivers, fishermen and their families, the sick and the ailing, women and children, Buddhist and Hindu monks, Sikh and Muslim priests, officials, politicians, students and scientists. He has listened to poets, singers, writers and artists, and to businessfolk and daily wage earners, boat builders, contractors, tea planters and workers. The writer amalgamated all their stories which were a mix of sadness, a determination to survive, an acceptance of fate and joy. Therefore, his traveller’s tales span not just his own journeys but the stories of those who had gone before him. Like the river, the region and its neighbourhood “never cease to delight, surprise, inspire, sadden and confound.”
Of course, the most ostentatious reason for Hazarika’s travels is the filming of documentaries on the river at different points of time. His first travel was for the film A River’s Story, the Quest for the Brahmaputra that he scripted and produced with Jahnu Barua as the director, Sudheer Palsane as cinematographer, Sanjoy Roy and Jugal Debta as audiographers as well as many others. The thrust area was to study the stories of the river and its people, from its beginnings in the Tibetan Plateau to the end in the Bay of Bengal. It wasn’t about science and theory, or politics and the environment, or climate change, but about the river and its moods, and especially its people and their relationship with each other, through history and changing geography, culture, faith, peace and poverty.
In the second venture, Gautam Bora was director and cinematographer of Brahmaputra, a six-part series for Doordarshan, shot in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. In his third venture, he was involved in the making of Children of the River, the Xihus of Assam, which was directed and filmed by Maulee Senapati and where he learned much about dolphins.
Divided into three parts, the book is as exhaustive a study on the river as can be imagined. The Brahmaputra is one of the world’s longest and widest rivers—sustaining entire civilizations and agrarian systems. It has fascinated cartographers, lured adventurers, attracted kings and dynasts, and has supported life and ways of living by its banks. Before beginning with the actual travel in Part One that includes his sojourns in Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh, Hazarika goes back to history of the thirteenth century when in about 1215 AD, the Tai-Ahom prince Siu-ka-pha left his native land now on the China-Myanmar border and undertook a long march before settling down in Charaideo, his capital, with its surrounding flat plains, rich red soil, streams and the vast Brahmaputra nearby. After that for centuries, traders, smugglers, fighters, fugitives, goods, cuisines, languages and ideas as well as religions and religious people have travelled in either direction on the Siu-ka-pha trail.
Hazarika begins his yatra in Tibet and narrates how the challenges relating to it were not new. He describes a Tibet that was trying to hold on to its cultural legacy in the face of Chinese rule and the land’s exploitation for its resources. He recounts stories of explorers, spymasters and mapmakers, especially a motley crowd of intrepid men in the service of the East India Company and the Survey of India, who discovered the route of the river especially when it’s source was hidden in the most inhospitable terrain on earth. They finally solved the puzzle of the vanishing river and established that the Brahmaputra and the Tsangpo were the same river.
In Arunachal Pradesh, Hazarika views the river from a helicopter and to him it resembled a great, brown meandering serpent, moving in huge loops, with many channels; at times, a stream or two which joined the flow backed down on themselves, creating elegant oxbow lakes. At Gelling, the first village on the Indian side, the turbulent Tsangpo churns its way through a narrow valley after a cascading drop from Tibet. Here for the first time the Tsangpo changes its name and is known as the Siang or Dibang for the next 200 kilometers before it enters Assam. At a place called Kobo, the Lohit meets the Dibang, Noa Dihing, Tengapani and Siang and develops the immense power that is mirrored in the Brahmaputra in full flow.
Part Two comprising of nine chapters focuses on Assam. After the earthquake of 1950, water ‘blockades’ happened not just on the Siang but also on several other rivers flowing into the Assam Valley and as a result the river changed its course, lifted the riverbed, flattened the banks and land, and braided it in many places far more than ever before. As a result, many towns like Rohmoria, Sadiya simply vanished after being embraced by flood waters, and places like Barpeta, Goalpara and Dhubri underwent demographic changes.
In separate chapters we learn about the tea gardens of Assam, the influence of Srimanta Sankaradeva and his satras[1], about the great river island Majuli, the singer Bhupen Hazarika, the presence of dolphins in the Brahmaputra, the thousands of islands known as the chars and saporis, which are permanent in their impermanence, where the Muslim residents are known as Miyas, the large number of migrants that inhabit the place, the sand bars and sandbanks that dot the riverscape from Upper Assam and how the collection of sand and its sale and distribution has changed the lives of many along the river to the point where it enters Bangladesh. He also gives us details about the ferry system, the boat clinics on the river that represent both a dream and a reality, as annually, nearly three lakh people are treated in these mobile structures.
The third part of the narrative obviously ends with four chapters on Bangladesh. We are told how to move from a slow riverine economy to a bustling one is quite challenging. This section includes fear of being hunted by pirates on an open sea, the faith in the navigators, ‘drivers’, pilots and other crew members who can read the mind of the river, the trip to the confluence of the Ganga and the Brahmaputra along with a Bangladeshi singer called Maqsoodul Haque or Mac. Both these rivers have different names in Bangladesh. The Ganga is the Padma while the Brahmaputra is the Jamuna. We are told about the story of the island known to Indians as New Moore Island and to the Bangladeshis as Sandwip island that appeared and disappeared, causing a diplomatic furore. The Brahmaputra’s role in shaping the destiny of low-lying Bangladesh is well-established and we are told of the connectedness of the people to the river, on either side of the human-made border. There are many places where the turbulent river refuses to accept human markers and controls and the border just remains an imaginary line snaking across shifting sands.
After reading about the multifarious experiences of Hazarika, it is needless to state that this book of non-fiction mesmerizes the readers to such a great extent that one hankers for more information. It is best to conclude the review by quoting from the poetic way Hazarika himself speaks at the end of the book about the interconnectedness that lies even in a grain of sand:
“I have traversed the river, shared my secrets with it and laid my fears and troubles to rest there. It too has spoken to me and has been kind and generous, in the midst of its vastness and power, to someone who could not swim.
“River Traveller is deeply personal and piloted by my life and learnings on the river, failings, shortcomings, understanding. It’s about shared stories, loves gained and lost, inspiration and sadness. Autobiographical in parts, it navigates history and crosses borders.
“Many travels beckon, for the river still calls.“
From extremism to environmental responsibility, politics to ethnography, River Traveller touches on a multitude of subjects, and is an enduring study of human life and natural history. It is a rich and memorable portrait of one of the mightiest rivers on our planet. The colour photographs that are included in the middle of the narrative add extra charm to the narration. A volume worth possessing and reading and rereading repeatedly.
[1] Specialised Vaishnavi monasteries in Assam serving as socio-religious, cultural and educational centres since the fifteenth century.
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Somdatta Mandal, critic and translator, is a former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
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.
Ubud: Where Dean and Keith Stayed. Photo by Keith Lyons
So many questions remain about Dean. Many remain unanswered. Top of that list would have to be “Is Dean still alive?”, followed by “How and when did Dean die?”
But underlying all those questions about a gentleman I met in Indonesia in the late 2010s is the fact that I, along with many others who encountered him on the island of Bali, regard him as a ‘good man’ and miss his presence.
“Have you ever wondered if he is still alive but just can’t communicate?” suggested an associate; a possible scenario, given Dean was in his seventh decade on this Earth. “What would happen if he just turns up again? Wouldn’t that be funny?” another pondered.
I first met Dean a couple of years after I moved to the cultural heart of Bali, Ubud, a small town a couple of hundred metres above sea level, a place sometimes with its head in the clouds. When I moved into a room overlooking the rice paddies, just 10 minutes’ walk from the centre of town, I heard about Dean before I first met him in person. Staff mentioned the other ‘permanent’ residing in the neighbouring bungalow. Later that day, in the turquoise waters of the infinity pool that overlooked the gully cloaked in jungle, I saw a figure glide underwater from one end to the other, dive flippers giving the impression the creature was both extraordinarily tall and also well-suited to amphibious life.
Dean, as I was later to learn, was both frugal and generous. I never quite worked out if he was living off savings or a veteran’s benefit. Or if he served in the military or actively tried to avoid it. When I first met him on the pathway that connects our respective residences to the main path that straddles the accommodation and the rice fields, he told me how he would eat lunch at a local food stall, known as a warung, with it being as little as 10,000 rupiah — less than US$1 — for a simple rice-based meal.
He cared less for the plethora of cute Instagram cafes and foodie-recommended ‘must-try’ restaurants that catered to the tourists who thronged the central market and motorcycle-packed streets of Jalan Raya Ubud. Though, there was one exception. Every so often, sometimes to mark his arrival back from a visa-run to Malaysia (most foreigners living in Bali usually have to exit every three or six months depending on their visas), or at the end of his long stay, when he was about to travel elsewhere in south east Asia, as the end of year rainy season ramped up — then Dean displayed his munificence. He would treat the staff — and a few hangers on — to a calzone from a long-established pizza joint that prided itself on its secret sauce. Being a folded-over pizza, the fillings remain hot during its journey in the box on the back of a Honda Vario scooter.
I got invited to join in one of those calzone feasts. We sat under a long pagoda looking out across beyond the pool and jungle to the terraces and the ridge where silhouettes were just visible in the twilight. Dean was very much a global citizen, well-travelled, and scuba diving in almost as many countries as he had visited. He had worked as a dive instructor at schools and resorts. He still had with him equipment for aqua-living, along with other items stored in other places where he had lived and worked.
Just as scuba diving requires adherence to safe practices and procedures, Dean’s life on terra firma also followed routines and habits, which he hoped would ensure his longevity. One day he asked me to check an unusual skin condition with white patchiness on his upper arm, which he had convinced himself by Googling might be pre-cancerous. He was going to have it checked out, but on closer inspection, I thought it might just be a local fungal infection. Fortunately, it cleared up a week or so later, so he didn’t have to visit a clinic.
Because Dean seemed to live such an active life and appeared fitter and healthier than most of the visitors to Bali, it seemed like he was in a sweet spot: retired but active, living a simple life of contentment, sharing good vibes with all and sundry.
So, it was a surprise, after the COVID pandemic with its travel restrictions, that I didn’t hear from Dean, and later, concluded he must have left us. It was only a few months ago when I returned to Bali that the reality of his absence became more evident. When I visited, instead of my usual room at the end of the block overlooking the jungle, I was given the next upstairs bungalow, the one Dean usually stayed in.
Staff, as well as the former ‘manager’ and one of his closest friends, told me they hadn’t heard from him for more than a year. He’d moved to a coastal settlement, closer to the sea, and there were rumours he’d met someone. “Perhaps she was a gold-digger,” suggested his local friend, who I’ll call No. 4. “But I don’t think Dean had much gold for her to mine.”
As we sat under the gazebo, gazing out at the perfect postcard scene of harmony between humans and nature, No. 4 confided that if Dean had already died, he had a rather onerous duty. Dean had asked him to dispose of his body. I thought perhaps that the American might have requested a cremation ritual, common on the island, which has evolved a blend of Hinduism, animism, and Buddhism into a rich mix of ceremony and devotion. But no, instead, he had requested that No.4 deal with his bodily form in another way. “See those coconut trees,” No.4 pointed towards the tall palm trees in the gully, which rose high up to their crown canopy of green fronds sheltering its fruit orbs. “Dean wanted to be strung up in one of those.”
We talked about the practicality of somehow hauling his body up 25 metres or more, and then about what processes and creatures might consume his corpse. It was quite a natural way to go, we concluded, though we did wonder about the sight, smell and impact on other guests staying in the bungalows.
“Dean also had another option, he mentioned to me a few times,” said No. 4, who seemed troubled by the responsibility. Plan B involved Dean’s body being fed to the lions at Bali Zoo. Dean had obviously given this some thought, and it weighed heavily on No.4, not just his role as Dean’s body caretaker, but what the duty might entail.
The following evening, my last before heading back home, I invited No.4 and some of others who knew Dean to get together. Amid the chat and speculation, the cool drinks and spicy snacks, as the breeze picked up and swayed the coconut trees gently this way and that, we had an informal farewell to Dean. Another of his friends — let’s call him Guitar Man — nominated one coconut tree and reckoned with some rope it would be possible to string up a body. No one wanted to try calling Dean’s phone, so I did again, just to confirm it was true. The number was out of service.
Another who knew Dean, let’s call him TaxiMan, talked through what Plan B might involve: chopping up with a machete Dean’s corpse, putting it into bags, visiting the zoo during its 9am to 5pm opening hours, and either throwing the parts over into the lion’s enclosure, or joining the special ‘Lion Feeding’ session (US$5). “I can find out what times they feed the lions and tigers,” he said, having worked out the practicality of this option. No. 4 looked nervous. There was more risk attached with this option, not just from a lion’s fangs, but from the law. How would you explain bags of body parts?
Then, just in time, I heard the strain of the motor-scooter coming up the rise of the terrace towards our place. It was the pizza delivery guy bearing two boxes with calzones I’d ordered.
As for Dean, we still don’t know for sure if he has died. We don’t know the circumstances of his death, or what remains of his body. What we do know is that he is still cherished and remembered. And that there can be few better legacies than to have friends fondly recall a person with a blend of missing, gratitude, and humour.
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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.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
Keith Lyons in conversation with Harry Ricketts, a writer and mentor who found himself across continents and oceans
Harry Ricketts has authored thirty books and mentored many writers, including Keith Lyons. Photo Courtesy: Robert Cross
Harry Ricketts is a New Zealand poet, essayist, and literary biographer whose work has gained recognition for its wit, lyricism, and insight into memory, identity, and everyday life. He has published widely across poetry, biography, and literary criticism, and his writing blends formal elegance with accessibility. After studying at Oxford University, he taught in the UK and Hong Kong before moving to New Zealand in the early 1980s. A respected teacher and mentor, Ricketts has shaped both the literary culture of New Zealand and the broader English-language literary world through his poetry, essays, and guidance to emerging writers. His works include a major biography of the British India-born journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer Rudyard Kipling, The Unforgiving Minute, Strange Meetings: The Poets of the Great War, and his most recent books, the memoir First Things, and the poetry collection Bonfires on the Ice. His How to Live Elsewhere (2004) is one of twelve titles in the Montana Estates essay series published by Four Winds Press. The press was established by Lloyd Jones to encourage and develop the essay genre in New Zealand. In his essay, Ricketts reflects on his move from England to New Zealand. In this interview, he brings to us not only on his writerly life but also his journey as a mentor for other writers.
KL: Tell us about your early life?
HR: My father was a British army officer, and we moved every two years till I was ten: England, Malaysia, two different parts of England, Hong Kong, England. My first words were probably Malay. From eight to eighteen, I went to boarding schools in England; apart from the cricket and one or two teachers, this was not a positive experience.
KL: How do you think moving around affected you, and your sense of self and being in the world? Does that transience shape your perspective and writing now?
HR: I think constantly moving around gave me a very equivocal sense of belonging anywhere and also a strong sense of needing to adapt (up to a point) to wherever I found myself. I was an only child, and friendship became and remains incredibly important to me. Perhaps this hard-wired sense of temporariness has contributed to my trying to produce as many different kinds of books as possible, but eventually you discover what you can and can’t do: I can’t write novels.
KL: How has your sense of ‘home’ evolved in your work over the years?
HR: As above, but I’ve lived in New Zealand for more than forty years, so that must count for something. My second wife, Belinda, was a Kiwi; for thirty years, she was a lovely person to share the world with. I’d say I like to live slightly at an angle to whatever community I’m in.
KL: How did books and poems come into your life, and what do you think have been influences on your later work?
HR: My mother was a great reader and read me Beatrix Potter, A.A. Milne etc as a child. When I was seven, I had measles and had to stay in bed for a fortnight. I read Arthur Ransome’s Peter Duck and then I couldn’t stop. Books were a protection and a passion at boarding school. As for poetry, at school we had to learn poems by heart which I enjoyed and later recited them in class which was nerve-wracking. When I was fifteen – like many others – I fell in love with Keats, then a few years later it was Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, C.P. Cavafy ….. I was also listening to a lot of music, particularly singer songwriters like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Richard Thompson, Joni Mitchell.
Everything you read and listen to is an influence. My mind is a lumber-room of things I’ve read and listened to, things other people have said, things that have happened to me and to others, places I’ve been, love and friendship – and all that crops up in my poems in one way or another. Plath and Hughes were a wrong trail. It took me a while to work that out. Well into my twenties, I couldn’t stand Philip Larkin, but not now. I like witty, melancholy poets.
KL: Your first book, People Like Us: Sketches of Hong Kong was published when you were 27. How did that come about.? What satisfaction did you get from seeing your name in print?
HR: People Like Us is a mixture of short stories and song lyrics. Hong Kong, as I experienced it in the 1970s, (still very much a British colony) was a heterogeneous mishmash of styles, and I tried to mimic that mishmash in the pieces I wrote. I was pleased when it got published but it wasn’t much good.
KL: Can you describe your writing space?
HR: I have a small study, but since Belinda died two years ago, I’ve shifted to the kitchen table. She wouldn’t have approved, but the kitchen is light and airy and the stove-top coffee-maker close by.
KL: What is your writing process from start to finish?
HR: I do a lot of drafts. First thoughts can almost always be improved. A friend likes to say, ‘It’s not the writing; it’s the rewriting’, and I agree. But some poems have come quite quickly. When I’m writing prose, I often play music, but not when I’m working on a poem.
KL: What usually sparks a new poem for you: an image, a phrase, or a rhythm?
HR: It can be anything really. I’m usually doing something else entirely – writing an email or some piece of prose or just walking around – and something will interrupt me. It’s often a phrase which for some reason acts like a magnet, attracting another phrase or an images or an idea. It might be something I’m reading; this has happened with English poets like Edward Thomas, Philip Larkin, James Fenton, Hugo Williams and Wendy Cope and New Zealand poets like Bill Manhire, Fleur Adcock and Nick Ascroft. Occasionally, I’ve written a commissioned poem: for a friend’s wedding, say.
KL: How do you balance experimentation with accessibility in your work?
HR: I don’t think like that, but I do try not to repeat myself if I can help it. However, several poems of mine have had successors; so I wrote a poem in the mid-1980s about my six-year-old daughter Jessie called ‘Your Secret Life’, imagining her as a teenager and me waiting up late for her to return home, and my latest collection contains a ‘Your Secret Life 5’, written when she was forty. I’ve found myself writing a few poem-sequences recently, including one about an imaginary New Zealand woman poet. That was quite new for me.
KL: How do your roles as poet, biographer, and critic feed into each other?
HR: Constructively, I hope. I think you can always get prose out of yourself if you sit there long enough (fiction writers might disagree), but not poems. Some initial reverberation/interruption has to happen, some ‘spark’, as you put it. It’s all writing, of course, and writing is a habit. You have to keep doing it, otherwise that part of you switches itself off or attends to other things.
KL: Looking back across more than thirty books, what evolution do you see in your writing life, and what themes do you keep on coming back to?
HR: I think lots of writers (except the very vain ones) suffer from versions of ‘imposter syndrome’ and have problems with their personal myth — that they are a writer. I’ve got a bit more confident that I am a writer and in particular that I can write poems. Getting published helps a lot with the personal myth: something you’ve done is now out in the world. Once you publish a book, though, you lose any control you had over it. People may love it, hate or, worst of all, ignore it. But that’s just the deal.
I prefer the term preoccupations to themes. I’m preoccupied with people, places, trying to make sense of the past, happiness, the role of luck, life’s oddities, incongruities and ambiguities….
KL: You often talk about ‘gaps’, doubt, and ambiguity as central to your work. How do these function in your poetry today?
HR: To measure gaps, to be in doubt, to see the ambiguity in things: that just seems to me to be human. Poems can be acts of discovery or at least partial clarification. They can also simply preserve something: an experience, a moment, a realisation, some sense of those we love.
KL: You describe teaching as a kind of midwifery: helping writers bring out what is already within them. How did you arrive at that approach?
HR: Decades of teaching suggest to me that encouragement is more likely to help someone tell the stories they have it in them to tell rather than giving them a hard time. Writing can be a bit like giving birth and, for some, having support and encouragement is more helpful than trying to do it all on your own. Of course, in the end you do have to do most of it on your own.
KL: What advice did you find yourself giving students most often, and does it still hold true for you?
HR: I have taught poetry courses, but over the last twenty-five years I’ve mostly taught creative non-fiction. I often quote Lytton Strachey’s comment that ‘Discretion is not the better part of biography’ and then add: ‘Nor the better part of autobiography.’ I also suggest that mixed feelings are more interesting to write out of and about than clearcut ones. If you’re writing about someone else, pure admiration tends to produce hagiography, pure dislike a vindictive portrait – all warts, rather than warts and all. Serious doesn’t mean earnest; you can be serious and funny at the same time.
KL: What is the best advice you’ve received as a writer?
HR: The best advice it would have been helpful to be given (but no one did) would have been: ‘Don’t eat your heart out trying to be a kind of writer you aren’t (say, a novelist). Try to find out what kind of writer you are and pursue that as hard as you can.’ Chaucer knew: ‘The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.’
KL: Which authors do you most often recommend to students or emerging poets?
HR: I mostly suggest they should read as widely as they can and that they should read as a writer.
KL: What writers are you returning to most these days?
HR: I often go back to Montaigne’s essays and Orwell’s and Virginia Woolf’s. Poets I often reread include: Derek Mahon, Hugo Williams, Thomas Gray, Wendy Cope, Fleur Adcock, Edward Thomas, Andrew Marvell, Seamus Heaney, Lauris Edmond, Anne French, Robert Browning, Thomas Hardy, Philip Larkin …
KL: What responsibilities do reviewers have to writers, and what responsibilities do they have to readers?
HR: Reviewers have an obligation to be fair-minded towards their subject and to write something as worth reading (ie well-written and enjoyable) as any other piece of prose.
KL: How can reviewers give criticism that is honest yet constructive?
HR: They should try to understand what the writer was aiming at (rather than the thing they think the writer should have been aiming at) and judge the work accordingly. This is easier said than done. Writers rarely remember the positives reviewers say, and rarely forget the negatives. Reviewing is hard, if you’re trying to do a good job. In a small country like New Zealand, there’s only one-and-a-half degrees of separation, which makes puffing and pulling your punches a tempting prospect.
KL: What kind of legacy do you hope to leave through your poetry and teaching?
HR: Whatever legacy you might leave (and few writers or teachers in the scale of things leave any) is not up to you. But of course writers hope people will positively remember something they’ve written and that their work will continue to be read after their death. When I think of the teachers who have matter to me, I think of them with immense gratitude and I hope some of my pupils might feel something of that, too.
KL: Is there a question about your work that you wish people asked more often?
HR: Interesting question, but I don’t really have an answer. Perhaps ‘Why, given that you also write plenty of poems in free verse, do you still think that there are possibilities in fixed poetic forms like the sonnet, villanelle and triolet?’ I could talk about that for a long time.
KL: If your life was a movie, what would the audience be screaming out to you now?
HR: Keep going! Well, I’d like to think they might.
KL: What’s next for you? What are you working on now?
HR: I’m threequarters of the way through a second volume of memoirs and about to write about a particularly difficult part of my life. I want to finish that and then a third volume, if I can. And write more poems.
*This interview has been conducted through emails.
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’sEditorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Title: Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942–1962
Author: Kalyani Ramnath
Publisher: Westland/Context
The legal frameworks established during the period from 1942 to 1962 in South and Southeast Asia played a crucial role in shaping migration patterns and influencing decolonisation processes. This era witnessed significant changes as countries in these regions sought to redefine their legal systems in the wake of colonial rule, which in turn affected the movement of people across borders.
Migration patterns were influenced by various factors, including the aftermath of World War II, the struggle for independence, and the establishment of new national identities. Additionally, the decolonisation processes during this time were marked by the emergence of new legal frameworks that aimed to address the complexities of post-colonial governance and the rights of migrants. Understanding the interplay between these legal frameworks, migration trends, and decolonisation efforts provides valuable insights into the socio-political landscape of South and Southeast Asia during this transformative period.
Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942–1962 authored by Kalyani Ramnath is a thoroughly researched work. This book is part of the series South Asia in Motion and was originally published by Stanford University. Ramnath serves as an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Georgia and has conducted extensive research on migration.
Says the blurb: “For more than a century before World War II, traders, merchants, financiers, and laborers steadily moved between places on the Indian Ocean, trading goods, supplying credit, and seeking work. This all changed with the war and as India, Burma, Ceylon, and Malaya wrested independence from the British empire.”
This captivating book is set against the backdrop of the tumultuous post-war period. It delves deeply into the legal struggles encountered by migrants who are determined to maintain their traditional ways of life and cultural practices. The narrative highlights their experiences with citizenship and the broader process of decolonisation. Even as new frameworks of citizenship emerged and the political landscapes of decolonisation created complexities that often obscured the migrations between South and Southeast Asia, these migrants consistently shared their cross-border histories during their engagements with the legal system.
These narratives, often obscured by both domestic and global political developments, contest the notion that stable national identities and loyalties emerged fully formed and free from the influences of migration histories after the fall of empires.
In her book, Kalyani Ramnath draws on archival materials from India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, London, and Singapore to illustrate how former migrants faced legal challenges in their efforts to reinstate the prewar movement of credit, capital, and labour. The book is set against the backdrop of a climate marked by rising ethno-nationalism, which scapegoated migrants for taking away jobs from citizens and monopolising land.
Ramnath fundamentally illustrates in the book that the process of decolonisation was marked not just by the remnants of collapsed empires and the establishment of nation-states emerging from the debris of imperial breakdown. It also encompasses the often-ignored stories of wartime displacements, the unexpected consequences that arose from these events, and the lasting impacts they have had on societies.
This perspective highlights the complex and multifaceted process of decolonisation, demonstrating how it was shaped not only by significant political transformations but also by the personal narratives and experiences of individuals who faced the challenges of conflict and displacement.
An excellent book to read! .
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Bhaskar Parichha is a journalist and author of Cyclones in Odisha: Landfall, Wreckage and Resilience, Unbiased, No Strings Attached: Writings on Odisha and Biju Patnaik – A Political Biography. He lives in Bhubaneswar and writes bilingually. Besides writing for newspapers, he also reviews books on various media platforms.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Offerings during Qing Ming Jie, a festival honouring ancestorsSongkran(Thai New Year) CelebrationsFestivals in April: From Public Domain
April is a month full of celebrations around the world. Asia hosts a spray of New Year festivities. Then there are festivals like Qing Ming Jie, Good Friday and Easter. All these are in a way reminders of our past. And yet, we critique things as old fashioned! So, where does tradition end and ‘outdated’ or ‘outmoded’ start? Meanwhile we continue to celebrate these festivals with joy but what happens to those who have lost their home, family and their living due to war or climate disasters? Can they too join in with the joie de vivre? Can we take our celebrations to them to give solace in some way?
In our April issue, we have stories from climate and conflict-ridden parts of the world. From Bangkok, Amy Sawitta Lefevre gives an eyewitness account of the March 28th Earthquake that originated in Myanmar. While in her city, the disaster was managed, she writes: “I’m also thinking of all the children in Myanmar who are sleeping in the open, who lost loved ones, who are feeling scared and alone, with no one to reassure them.” As news reels tell us, in Myanmar there have been thousands of casualties from the earthquake as well as shootings by the army.
From another troubled region, Pakistan, Zeeshan Nasir gives a heartrending narrative about climate change, which also dwells on the human suffering, including increase in underage marriages.
Human suffering can be generated by rituals and customs too. For instance, if festivals dwell on exclusivity, they can hurt those who are left out of the celebrations. Odbayar Dorje muses along those lines on Mongolian traditions and calls for inclusivity and the need to change norms. On the other hand, Devraj Singh Kalsi hums with humour as he reflects on social norms and niceties and hints at the need for change in a light-hearted manner. Farouk Gulsara makes us laugh with the antics of his spoilt pet cat. And Suzanne Kamata dwells on her animal sightings in Kruger National Park with her words and camera while Meredith Stephens takes us sailing on stormy seas… that too at night.
Art is brought into focus by Ratnottama Sengupta who introduces artist Haren Thakur with his adaptation of tribal styles that has been compared to that of Paul Klee (1879-1940). She also converses with filmmaker Leslie Carvalho, known for his film The Outhouse, and his new novel, Smoke on the Backwaters. Both of these have a focus on the Anglo-Indian community in India. Also writing on Indian film trends of the 1970s is Tamara Raza. Bhaskar Parichha pays tribute to the late Ramakanta Rath (1934-2025), whose powerful and touching poetry, translated from Odia by the poet himself, can be found in our translations section.
We have an excerpt from Professor Fakrul Alam’s unpublished translation of Tagore’sRed Oleanders. It’s a long play and truly relevant for our times. Somdatta Mandal shares with us her translation of Tagore’s essay called ‘The Classification in Society’, an essay where the writer dwells on the need for change in mindsets of individuals that make up a community to move forward. A transcreation of a poem by Tagore for his birthday in 1935 reflects the darkness he overcame in his own life. Two poems expressive of longings by Jibananada Das have been translated from Bengali by Professor Alam aswell. From Balochistan, we have an excerpt from the first Balochi novel, Nazuk, written by the late Syad Zahoor Shah Hashmi and rendered into English by Fazal Baloch. Among contemporaries, we have a short story by Bitan Chakraborty translated from Bengali by Kiriti Sengupta, a poignant story that reflects on gaps in our society. And a Korean poem by Ihlwha Choi rendered to English by the poet himself.
This issue has been made possible because of support from all of you. Huge thanks to the team, all our contributors and readers. Thanks to Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork. Do pause by our contents page as all the content could not be covered here.
Perhaps, world events leave a sense of pensiveness in all of us and an aura of insecurity. But, as Scarlett O’ Hara of Gone with the Wind[2] fame says, “After all, tomorrow is another day.”
Looking forward to a new day with hope, let’s dream of happier times filled with sunshine and change.
Amy Sawitta Lefevrefrom Bangkok writes an eyewitness account of the March 28, 2025, earthquake with it’s epicentre in Myanmar.
I had just finished an errand and was about to head home from downtown Bangkok. At the last minute, I decided that I needed lunch. I had barely sat down at a restaurant on the ground floor of a skyscraper when suddenly I felt dizzy, and almost about to black out. It felt as though a magnet were pulling down my head and my body.
Just then someone in the restaurant shouted: “Earthquake!”
Next thing, we were all running out of the building which was swaying. It felt like an apocalypse. The stuff out of Hollywood movies. People were pouring outside, and many started pointing upward at something with horrified eyes. As I turned my eyes in that direction, I was stunned at what I saw: the rooftop pool of the hotel in the skyscraper near us was splashing down like a mountain cataract.
Water spilling out of the pool. From Public Domain
A chill passed through me as I thought: “This building is about to collapse on us!”
Luckily for us, it did not. But we soon learnt that many others had not been so fortunate, as a 7.7 magnitude earthquake had just ripped through Mandalay in Myanmar, with shock waves in parts of Bangkok.
I tried to stand steady but felt as if I was on the deck of a ship on a stormy sea. I thought in a daze about the ferocious power of natural disasters. Incredible how something seemingly so far away could wreak havoc here. I’ve lived in Bangkok for more than a decade and nothing like this had ever happened.
My first thought was for my children. I tried calling the school, but everyone was using their phones, and I couldn’t get through. Eventually I saw a message pop up from the school saying the children had been evacuated. My next thought was to rush home and embrace my children.
I’m a former journalist and now a humanitarian, and I’ve been through many crises in my professional career, but nothing quite prepares you for having to live through a disaster, which for the first time, you realise could impact your own children. And it was a disaster in the sense that Thailand and Myanmar both declared states of emergency.
That day it took me 4-5 hours to walk from downtown Bangkok to my home in the north of Bangkok. The sky train was not working. The traffic on the downtown street was chaotic. My legs just kept moving because all I wanted to do was to get home to my children.
Along the way I met many people whose faces bore the same expression: kind Thai faces, or kind tourist faces, but all of them shell-shocked. Yet, despite everything, people tried to collect themselves in an orderly fashion and helped each other.
I met many angels: one man offered to buy me a cold sugarcane juice seeing the pallor of my blood drained face; a woman gave me her shopping bag to carry my bag as it’s handle had broken when I rushed out of the building.
As I kept walking down streets where the soundtrack was of wailing sirens, the rubber soles of the flimsy leopard print ballet shoes I had slipped on that morning were almost worn out. At one point, I couldn’t continue walking. I was dizzy and nauseated, and flopped onto the sidewalk to catch my breath beside a couple on holiday from Peru. We crouched on the floor together, trying to rest before continuing our journey. All around us people were spilling out of buildings, hugging each other, trying to phone loved ones, and in endearingly typical Thai fashion, smelling herbal inhalers!
Around 6 pm, I finally staggered home and embraced with relief and gratitude my two children and our nanny. We stood at the threshold just holding each other in a warm group hug. My husband was away from Thailand on work, and he called frantically, as did my mother from the suburbs of Bangkok, both relieved to hear our voices. Family and friends messaged with concern and prayers.
The weekend was a blur. We soon learned that the damage and death toll in Myanmar was significant. I spent Saturday in my role as a humanitarian media manager writing a press release, taking media interviews and coordinating interviews for others, while still processing what had just happened the day before.
Collapsed building in Bangkok. From Public Domain
On the Sunday, the children and I were on a highway when we drove past the rubble of a building under construction, near the well-known Chatuchak Market. It had collapsed, trapping dozens of unfortunate workers under it. All I could think of was how massive the pile of rubble was, and how eerily quiet it was. Now I can’t bear to look at the photos or videos of anxious relatives of those construction workers who are waiting to hear news of their loved ones.
In Myanmar more than 3,000 people have died and more than 3,000 are injured but that figure will likely go up as rescue operations continue. In the light of such a massive emergency, my natural instinct was to sideline my own needs and to first respond to the call of duty. But by the fifth day after the earthquake, I had to see a specialist at the hospital because my balance felt completely off since that day.
Even though the doctor gave me the all-clear with some medicines and has advised me to rest, to practice focusing my eyes on still images, and to take walks and deep breaths, I feel as though my entire body has shifted to one side or is cracked, just like some of those buildings in central Bangkok. My city and I, both shaken to the core, trying to recover.
We’re told that another earthquake could happen in the next 30 days again and it fills me with dread. My children, six and eight, ask me what we would do if another one hits. They are scared and want answers. As do we adults. The earth is our home, and the health and well-being of its environment influences our own. If seismic activities are linked to climate change, maybe, by treating our planet with more kindness and respect we might mitigate future eruptions.
In the meantime, my children have me and my husband to talk to them and reassure them. But I’m also thinking of all the children in Myanmar who are sleeping in the open, who lost loved ones, who are feeling scared and alone, with no one to reassure them. Let us be there for them and other victims of natural disasters, in whatever ways we can, in solidarity with our common and vulnerable humanity.
My prayers for those for whom the ground shifted not just for a day, but whose entire lives may have turned upside down.
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Amy Sawitta Lefevre is a former journalist and currently works at an international NGO. She has been based in Thailand for over a decade.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Storytelling is central to the life and work of Malaysian author, editor and teacher, Daphne Lee. Keith Lyons finds out what keeps her up at night.
When I1 first met Daphne Lee in person, in a Chinese Buddhist cafe in Christchurch, New Zealand, on a summery day. I was struck by her curiosity. And I came away impressed, not just by how she delights in hearing ghost stories, myths, supernatural tales, and folklore but how she makes connections to the universality of storytelling, and what lies beneath.
Daphne Lee
As well as being a collector and curator of stories, she’s a writer, a creative writing teacher, and an editor—since 2009 she’s been consulting editor at Scholastic Asia. She’s been active in supporting the work of writers and illustrators of children’s and young adult literature with Asian content. Daphne curated and edited Malaysian Tales: Retold & Remixed (ZI Publications) in 2011 and Remang: An Anthology of Ghostly Tales (Terrer Books) in 2018, while Bright Landscapes, Daphne’s first collection of short stories, was published in 2019. She’s working on a new short story collection, and her first novel, which she is currently revising while in New Zealand on a writing retreat, far from the streets of Kuala Lumpur and her Roman Catholic school upbringing.You can find out more about the multi-talented Daphne at her website https://daphnelee.org/.
Interview with Keith Lyons
What inspired you to create Remang: An Anthology of Ghostly Tales?
Malaysians love ghost stories. We would rather any misfortune or unusual occurrence be caused by a spirit or other supernatural phenomena than try to figure out a logical reason. Having said that, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do enjoy ghost stories. I thought it would be fun to edit a collection of these, but I was wrong …
How do you approach writing and curating ghost stories? What elements do you feel make a truly eerie and memorable tale?
I prefer a story to suggest a mood and to be atmospherically or suggestively spooky than to be full of gory and blood-curdling details. I like the sort of ghost stories that are frightening only if you read between the lines or that seem unremarkable at first, but months later, you suddenly realise what it all means.
Your work often draws from Asian folklore and supernatural beliefs. Are there any particular myths or legends that have influenced your storytelling?
Nothing in particular, but I have heard the same stories all my life and with surprisingly few variations and differences. I enjoy retelling the old tales or building on elements in them. Hopefully, I make a completely new story, but with recognisable features because I like reading stories in which there are some familiar details.
Do you have a personal ghost story or supernatural experience that shaped your interest in this genre?
My family lived in a haunted house in my hometown (Segamat in Johor, the peninsula’s southern-most state) and we experienced things like lights going on and off, footsteps, odd, unexplained sounds, and so on. I can’t remember much, but I don’t think any of us ever felt threatened during the eight years we lived there. If there were spirits, they were not malevolent. My interest in the supernatural was probably more shaped by the films I watched as a child, including The Exorcist and the Hammer House of Horror — Dracula films starring Christopher Lee.
As an editor, what do you look for in a compelling ghost story?
The problem with the ghost stories we tell one another is that they are usually just anecdotal fragments. I look for fully-formed stories with well-developed characters—the ghostly element might even seem merely incidental to the plot yet be significant enough to make an impression. It should haunt you a long time after you’ve stopped reading.
How do you balance creative freedom with maintaining a strong thematic or narrative structure in an anthology?
I’ve curated two anthologies—one of ghost stories and the other of retellings of folktales, myths and legends. For both the brief was quite open and I welcomed a variety of styles and voices.
What are some of the challenges you face when working with authors, particularly in speculative fiction and folklore-based stories?
I find that when it’s an open call, it can be challenging to gather enough suitable stories for an anthology. Once you’ve made the selection, the editing process is usually long and laborious, with more back and forth than the deadline allows. It’s a much more straightforward process when experienced authors are invited to contribute to an anthology. With the authors published by my day-job (at Scholastic Asia), the major challenge is when the author is too precious about what they’ve created and is adamant about retaining something that doesn’t work or refuses to/is unable to develop a half-formed idea. Fortunately, that has rarely been the case. It’s imperative that authors trust their editors and, thankfully, I’ve had a good relationship with most of the writers with whom I’ve worked.
You’ve been deeply involved in the Malaysian publishing scene. How has the landscape for local horror and supernatural fiction evolved over the years?
I’m not directly involved in the scene as most of my work as an editor is with an American publishing house, albeit its Asian imprint. However, I am a reader of locally published books and do read some supernatural fiction written in the Malay language. When I was a teenager, I was a fan of a series of books with the series title Bercakap Dengan Jin (Talking with a Jinn)—they were dark tales that featured a witch doctor, set in rural Malaysia, with lurid covers and badly designed interior pages. The production value of horror fiction has improved, but the stories that are most popular are still the ones we are familiar with, especially about the ghosts that haunt every school and hospital in the country. They are hastily written and barely edited, with high print runs—horror sells, second only to romance novels.
How important is it for Malaysian and Asian supernatural stories to be represented in the broader literary world?
The world needs to realise that there is more to Asia than just what the West is showing it. Right now, a handful of houses controls what most of us are exposed to and end up reading. Even if Asian fiction is getting on the shelves, it’s only what these publishing houses have decided is worthy. In Asia, especially those countries that were colonised, readers are still stuck with the idea that books out of the UK and the US are better than those published locally. In Malaysia, we have some authors who have ‘made it’ in the West—people like Tan Twan Eng, Tash Aw, Preeta Samarasan and Zen Cho. They are excellent writers, but I don’t know if many Malaysians would pay attention to their work if they were published by Malaysian houses. Unfortunately, we don’t appear to be very discerning readers. Penguin Random House SEA, which runs out of Singapore and is riding on the Penguin brand, fails to offer sufficient editorial support to its authors and seems to be prioritising marketability and quantity over quality. Readers buy the books because Penguin is supposed to equal quality. Writers sign contracts with the house because they recognise PRH as a popular brand with a great reputation. They complain about the poor editing but choose to stay with the company. This is a kind of horror story too!
Do you think traditional ghost stories still resonate with modern readers? How do you adapt them to contemporary audiences?
I think so. I think part of the attraction of ghost stories is that people like to be scared as long as they can also feel safe while feeling terrified. Traditional ghost stories are the perfect comfort reads. They are thrilling yet familiar. You know what’s coming—all the scary bits, but there’s usually a happy ending too, when the ghosts are put to rest and the humans go back to their boring lives.
Many Western readers are familiar with ghosts like the vengeful spirit or the haunted house trope. What uniquely Malaysian or Asian ghostly elements do you wish more people knew about?
The Asian ghosts most familiar to Western readers are probably the Japanese yokai. Once again, there is a degree of gatekeeping going on. A Malaysian author I know was looking for a lit agent and was told that although her writing was good, her stories were ‘too South-east Asian’. What does that even mean? Western publishers and agents underestimate the ability of readers to relate to subjects unfamiliar, especially when they originate in South-east Asia. Often you hear that a publisher or agent already has a South-east Asian on their list and does not have room for more. Yet, there are officially eleven countries that make up the region. They are not interchangeable, and do not share a common language, history or culture. Malaysia has many types of ghosts and they each reflect the various beliefs and attitudes Malaysians have towards life and all its big and petty questions. To know these spirits is to know the fears and anxieties of the common Malaysian.
You’re planning an online archive of Malaysian folktales. Could you share more about this project and why it’s important to preserve these stories?
I was recently on a panel about folktales with two other Malaysian authors who write books that draw on folktales for inspiration and one of them said that the folktales that stick around are the ones that mean something to the community. This may have been true in the past when folktales were shared orally. These days, the ones that survive are those that get included in collections or are retold and reimagined into films etc. The same ones get recycled time and time again, probably because they are the most dramatic or sentimental. Collecting as many folktales as possible and storing them online gives them all a fair chance of surviving. What may be insignificant to one generation, may resonate for another. The main thing is to let each generation decide, and for the stories to be available and accessible.
Bright Landscapes was your first personal collection of short stories. How did that experience differ from curating Remang?
For Bright Landscapes I had only myself with whom to argue and disagree. My editor and I were, fortunately, on the same wavelength, but she really helped me improve on the quality of the stories. I wouldn’t undertake another project like Remang unless more time and more resources were available.
Can you share any details about your upcoming novel? What themes or ideas are you exploring?
During the pandemic I completed a novel but on reading it, I realised how rubbish it was. It’s very close to my heart, but I think it’s not quite the right time for a rewrite. It needs to ‘cook’ more, in my subconscious. That novel is set in a world where gods and humans live side-by-side, during a time of religious reform. The protagonists are a priest and a deity, and the story deals with questions of friendship, integrity, religious belief, and faith. I have a second novel that I am currently working on—a coming-of-age story set in a convent school in a small Malaysian town in the 1980s. It also explores questions of friendship and faith. I attended two Convent schools from age five to seventeen, and I was raised Roman Catholic. I did think of becoming a nun when I was in my early teens, like the protagonist of my novel, but I have been an atheist since my early twenties, although I am now probably more agnostic than anything. Religious belief and faith are subjects fascinating to me.
As a creative writing teacher, what advice would you give to aspiring writers interested in supernatural fiction?
The same advice I would give any aspiring writer: Read widely and voraciously. And write every day, about anything and everything.
If you could collaborate with any author—living or deceased—on a ghost story, who would it be and why?
I don’t want to collaborate with anyone, but I would like to have a conversation with Elizabeth Bowen about the handful of ghost stories she published. They are my favourites—quiet, mysterious, melancholy, sardonic. I have questions about them that still keep me up at night, decades after I first read them.
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.
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The summit of the hill was crowned with a grove of lofty trees. They had stood thus for centuries, opposing their columned strength against wind and storms, against the onslaught of tropical rainfall, even in spite of earth tremors that made them shiver with apprehension. Their crowns were interlaced, so that they must stand or fall together; it was an effective alliance against the forces of nature, which no single tree could hope to withstand.
Within the grove, where the buttressed trunks rose suddenly from the soft earth, stood an ancient shrine, a hermit’s cell with rough stone walls, and a little temple in whose dim recesses might be seen vaguely some symbol of a demon or god, unknown perhaps to the outside world, but appealing to the hearts of the jungle folk, who, suffering patiently as the animals suffer, like them also blindly sought relief. That rugged track, which led from the hill-top into the depth of the forest below, had been marked out by the feet of the notaries of the shrine, who each, as he left after supplication, cast a stone on the slowly growing mounds at the entrance to the grove.
From the hill-top the forest spread on all sides as far as the eye could reach, and it lost itself in the distant horizon where the purple outline of the hills faded into the azure of the evening sky. There was wave upon wave of hills covered with trees, so that the earth lay hidden, and down in the valleys one saw nothing but the crowns of trees forming an impenetrable carpet of foliage; only along the ridges the light filtered in vertical streaks through the closed-up ranks of tree trunks. If there were villages they were hidden in masses of trees; the forest engulfed them and reigned supreme in this lonely corner of the earth.
The sun sank, and the brilliant light of day was followed by the soft illumination of the stars. The forest became dim and indefinite amid an intense and motionless silence. There was no sound of wind, or of animal life; the dew had not begun to drip from the foliage, and each leaf was still as if arrested in its task. Yet there was no sense of fear or oppression: rather the atmosphere was charged with the vitality of countless millions of plants rejoicing in their growth, struggling against the competition of their neighbours, and seizing every chance which offered to reach towards the life-giving light.
At such a time there came upon any human being dwelling in the forest, first, a conviction of nature’s absolute indifference to his proceedings, and next, the peace conferred by personal irresponsibility, to which, if a man succumbs, he joins the vast army of hermits, religious mendicants, and other parasites; while, if he resists, he is left to work out a strenuous existence in conflict with the wild beasts and against the pressure of overwhelming vegetation.
As night drew on, the cooler air became charged with moisture and wrapped itself in mist. The leaves of the forest trees were weighted with the dampness they exuded; it no longer passed away in invisible vapour, but trickled earthwards in heavy splashes, like the sullen sound of mindless rain. From hundreds of miles of forest came the sound of dripping water in a ceaseless murmur, which increased the weirdness of the scene, and even served to make any other sound more distinct. Thus it was that a movement became audible in the distance, at first so slight as to be indistinguishable; it was as if foliage was being quietly brushed aside, as if the dew-laden grass was being crushed by a gentle yet irresistible force. Standing on the summit pf the hill, one looked down on a pass between the mountains, a curved saddle that invited to an easier passage from valley to valley. Over this low pass the waves of mist eddied to and fro, just as if each valley in turn filled with cloud and overflowed into the next.
From the depths below a herd of elephants were ascending the pass in single file and in silence. The leader, an old female, first appeared in sight, walking quickly along the narrow trail. Her trunk hung limply from her broad forehead, touching the earth lightly alternately to right and to left, and with instant precision the fore-foot was placed on the spot which had been tested, and the oval print of the hind-foot immediately overlapped the rounder track. She passed through the eddies of fog, which at times seemed to swallow her up, at others allowed but the glistening outline of her back to become visible; or again hid all but the ponderous legs which moved with regularity through the dim air.
Following, came others who seemed careless of danger through confidence in their leader. Each set foot in the trail of its predecessor, so that soon there was but one track sunk deep in the soft earth, as if some old-time mammoth of enormous size had passed that way. Females, young calves, youthful tuskers, all passed in succession, each rising into sight and disappearing over the narrow pass, plunged into obscurity on the further side. There was silence in the ranks, for the animals were on the march, intent on changing their quarters ere dawn should break. They might have been so travelling for hours, and might continue their resistless way for many more ere they halted thirty or forty miles from their starting point.
Some hours later there was promise of daylight in the sky. The mist now lay thicker over the forest, it had sunk into impenetrable strata which rested heavily on the land. Above its sharp upper line the tops of hills stood out like islands in a sea of white; along the ridges the crowns of trees appeared as if floating in the waves, their stems were hidden in the fog. Again a movement was heard, and from below a single elephant approached, carelessly following in the trail of the herd.
About the Book
In the wild jungles of India, a tusker is born. Maula Bux—as he is later named—grows up loved and adored amongst his herd, learning all that a young calf must to become a majestic elephant. However, an unfortunate encounter with humans leads to his capture and he is sold. His mahout, Kareem, instantly takes a liking towards the tusker and considers him almost to be a brother. Maula Bux is courageous, agile and magnificent, and he and Kareem have many adventures together—from hauling timber deep in the forest to adrenaline-charged tiger chases. At his advancing age, Maula Bux is even appointed to carry an Indian Prince in procession!
Having spent much of his life in the jungles of India and Burma (now Myanmar) S. Eardley-Wilmot was a keen observer of wildlife and spoke out about the necessity to conserve India’s wild spaces and the mighty beings in them. The Life of an Elephant is a must-read for young and older readers alike—for it is not just an insightful story of one of nature’s noblest beings but also an important text about conservation, empathy, and the treatment of animals.
About the Author
S. Eardley-Wilmot (1852–1929) was a British civil servant, forestry officer and conservationist who worked primarily in India and Burma (now Myanmar) and served as Inspector-General of Forests. He joined the Indian Forest Service in 1873 and was appointed to the old North-West Provinces and Oudh region of colonial India. In recognition of his conservation-lead method and unorthodox approach to forestry in India and Burma, Eardley- Wilmot became a Knight Commander of Order of the Indian Empire in 1911.
Eardley-Wilmot’s published books include—Forest Life and Sports in India (1910), Leaves from Indian Forests (1930), and The Life of a Tiger and The Life of an Elephant (1933).
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
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