Keith Lyon converses with Jayanthi Sankar, a fiction writer who shares an excerpt from her story, Beyond Borders at the end of the interview.
Jayanthi Sankar is an author who explores history, identity and the human psyche through fiction shaped by her life across cultures. Her work reflects on writing, cultural difference, mentorship and the importance of creating space for emerging literary voices.
Keith Lyons (KL): Every writer has a unique starting point. When did you first realise that writing was more than just an interest for you, and how has that initial spark developed?
Jayanthi Sankar (JS): Years of passionate, continuous reading for pleasure led to an emerging voice of a critic deep within me, and I didn’t realise it. When I was debating with her over what I’d read, I ended up experimenting to experience how difficult it really is to write. They published the short fiction. And I didn’t know that would eventually give me the motivation to attempt a few more. It took me a few more years to write a dozen more before I started believing I should pursue writing.
KL: How do different cultural landscapes influence the themes you repeatedly explore in your work?
JS: I grew up in 15-16 places all over India owing to my father’s central government civil engineering job, until my mid-twenties when I migrated to Singapore. The exposure to diverse cultures during my formative years had organically shaped me to admire and adapt to cultural differences like a fish to water. Harmony lies more naturally on the edges of those differences, and I realised that only after I read seriously and began writing. Cultural landscapes weave naturally into my fictional world.
KL: What is your process for creating characters so they resonate with readers across different nationalities and backgrounds?
JS: I have noticed since my teens, I interacted with people not as me but as the other in front of me, and that perhaps innately equipped me with the ability to create credible characters. As I matured, I came to know that it has got to do not only with human psychology but also with empathy. While my characters unfold, those very close to me have observed I often think and talk like them because I live their lives.
KL: Your day job as an interpreter, how does that affect your ear for dialogue and understanding of how others view the world?
JS: The past three to four years of my current job have brought me the most profound understanding of migrant workers. Knowing their lives, challenges, and views often repeatedly makes me realise what a privileged life I have. Since listening is an integral part of my job, the dialogues become contextually crucial.
KL: How do you determine the ‘size of the canvas’ for a new idea, and do you find that different languages or cultures demand different narrative structures?
JS: The canvas mostly widens as the chapters unfold, and while rewriting, we could always chisel as required, as I did in my short fiction ‘Punkah Wallah’ in my collection Dangling Gandhi. The story’s seed sprouted within me when I was merely 13 or 14 years old.
I remember hearing one of my dad’s friends share, “a young lad born a deaf and dumb from our village in remote Punjab was taken to far away Malaya to be a fan man.” I showed no signs of becoming a writer in the future. It had stayed deep in me to surface nearly 30-odd years later. I set my character driven story in the colonial Singapore of the early twentieth century that had ample scope for depicting cultural, political climate. The time period of the setting brought about language variations in character building as well as the narrative structures that could bring in novelty and engagement.
KL: What insights have you gained about narrative structures from different cultures and traditions, and how can you use them to tell a story better?
JS: Several of my reader friends have said that by reading my fiction, they knew Singapore as if they’d already visited the place. When blended with the cultural nuances and slang of the land, any local issue becomes more convincingly relatable, and the stories reach readers better. As for readers from other lands, not only is the cultural flavour introduced to them, but it invites them to experience the land just as we, as readers, know Moscow from Russian literature, as if we’ve lived there.
KL: What was the primary motivation behind establishing the Jay Yes Foundation, and what specific gaps in the literary world were you hoping to fill?
JS: I have mentored, formally and informally, several aspiring young writers, including Liu Fang from Hong Kong, whose story travelled to the northeastern parts of India, and another, Sascha Wynn from Boston, who had a character of Indian ethnicity. And I experienced an incomparable sense of fulfilment. Helping them with their developmental editing and cultural checks also widened my perspectives, decades ago, and that was the beginning. I felt joyous watching their manuscripts evolve. And now the foundation has entered the next stage of giving a name and identity to the initiatives.
KL: Supporting unpublished writers is a core pillar of your work. In your experience, what are the biggest challenges these writers face today, and how does the foundation help them navigate those obstacles?
JS: As an emerging writer myself, decades ago, I stopped reading details as soon as I saw the submission guidelines mentioned. I’ve observed many of my mentees retreat when the call has fees to read. Not because they can’t afford but they naturally feel their stories are worth the read, and it feels discouraging to pay to be read. Any emerging writer would feel respected if a jury read their writing. So, the foundation continues to create opportunities like this year’s international contest.
KL: The foundation’s mission mentions building ‘sustainable literary communities’. What does a truly sustainable community look like to you in modern publishing?
JS: A writing community can sustain longer only with continuity in reading and writing at an individual level. Continuity is the key. Just one submission and the aspirant write only after two years for another doesn’t bring the needed traction. That’s why the Foundation does not stop at contests and podcasts; it continues to bring other opportunities as well without submission fees to the pool of writers it has already created.
KL: Many literary initiatives rely on entry fees for sustainability, but your foundation has chosen a different path. Can you share the philosophy behind this commitment to free entry for emerging writers?
JS: This year’s jurors have believed me when I said that the foundation aspires to set an example of how dedicated investment of time and expertise can encourage emerging writers. But for the support of Zero-Degree Publishing, such philosophies are bound to remain as dreams. Monetary investment might bring in transactional elements like charging an entry fee, or another fee for publishing the anthology that might reduce focus on the creative side of the initiative. There are so many out there calling to submit first without even telling the writer what’s coming next. I had my experience many years ago; one of my submissions was long-listed, they discussed payment to move the story forward.
KL: The International Jay Yes Short Story Contest 2026 is a significant undertaking. What led you to choose “Seeking Refuge: Stories of Displacement” as the central theme for the contest?
JS: Displacements have been part of my growing up, although I didn’t even know the impact it would have later on in my thoughts process and also writing. Forced or chosen, displacements have all the scope for exploring human lives, whether to seek refuge or to survive. After a brief discussion, the jury unanimously agreed on the theme. The theme also suited the contest, planned to go global.
KL: You’ve expressed a desire for stories that are bold and moving. When you are reviewing submissions, what is that elusive quality that makes a piece of writing truly stand out for you?
JS: If the ending leaves me pondering longer, stays long with me, I’d call it that. A loose ending does that better than a conclusive one. A genuine human voice in the AI era would touch my heart and most certainly the storytelling. Stories often begin fairly well, I’ve noticed, but aspirants get lost in the ending. Dramatic, cinematic, preachy endings are so common, and that’s where resting and rewriting might help. The jury assessed entries fabulously this time.
KL: From anthologies to podcasts, you use various platforms to share stories. How do you see the relationship between traditional publishing and these newer digital formats developing for emerging writers?
JS: E-Books and audiobooks are trending, and like physical books, they can be self-published or traditionally published. Creativity through natural intelligence deserves celebration and preservation regardless of the format it gets published. Using tools to display originality is better than using tools for the creative process itself. Digital or physical, as humans, let’s tell stories of humanity with relatable humaneness.
KL: How does the foundation’s work help create a world where literary voices reach audiences regardless of nationality or financial standing?
JS: Since my childhood, I’ve observed people of different cultures, cuisines, and languages across regions and countries, yet the values, ethics, hunger, anger, pain, and pleasure remain the same for every human. The success of this year’s contest has shown beautifully how creativity has no such restrictions, such borders. Nurturing natural intelligence has always been the core of the initiatives by the Jay Yes Foundation.
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.
An Excerpt from ‘Beyond Borders’ by Jayanthi Sankar
With moist, dismayed eyes a foreign worker in clothes mildly smeared with grease and paint stood first in the growing queue. Pusillanimously lost in thought he looked like a Bangladeshi, Anu guessed.
Just behind the Bangladeshi, a middle-aged rotund Chinese man was leaning on the side rails with two sizeable red plastic red shopping bags placed near his feet. Oblivious to the surrounding, he was busy talking on his mobile, thanking and laughing with exaggerated courtesy, “Háiméiyǒu, xièxiè.”
The moment Anu saw her son’s eyes sparkling brighter, she knew the reason, and she’d guessed it right. Crawling on one of the large plastic bags carried by a Chinese man was a huge fly that caught the keen attention of ten-year-old Kani. He couldn’t take his eyes off.
As always, Anu was fascinated by his interest displayed even before he’d turned one. From as early as seven months he used to look for tiny ants and insects in the corners of the marble floor and follow them crawling on fours. Though rare, they never failed to catch his attention. Flying insects thrilled him all the more. Long before he could say the word, “Amma,” to call her, he’d learned to say ‘Poochchi[1]’ in Tamil, which made history becoming the first word he learned to speak.
Eager to continue where they’d left their conversation just before leaving home, Anu asked her husband, “And Somu, what did that Pinoy colleague of yours exactly say to anger you that much? Somu, you didn’t tell me the details.”
Excited, wide-eyed Somu said, “He had the cheek to say right on my face without them our country will cease to function. Can you believe that, Anu?”
Although the haze due to the conflagration in the Sumatran forests seemed to have reduced to healthy levels, about six or seven out of the ten migrant faces wore the N9 masks.
“He means, without the Filipinos?”
“I am sure he must have meant all foreign workers in general. I couldn’t stand his temerity, you know. Seething through, I was intensely searing inside.” She just nodded looking at his face.
Somu’s cute chubby face was becoming more and more rounded with his receding hairline, she thought. His black curls highlighted his already fair complexion.
As if muttering to herself Anu looked around, “Humans seem to push the days of the week just for their weekend, when they live their lives.” The queues were suddenly getting longer, she observed.
The bus interchange was filling with an erratic mixture of children shrieking, loud laughter of young people in groups, buses maneuvering and halting, bus doors opening and closing.
Mandarin, Tamil, Malay, Tagalog, Hokkien, and Bangla heard here and there were certainly not mellifluous, but an intriguing babel. The aroma of the satay from the nearby hawker wafted along with the breeze.
The breeze bore the message of the approaching showers. The slowly gathering dark clouds not just dimmed the sunlight but suddenly increased the humidity.
Being the first few in the line waiting for route number 960, getting seats of their choice was not difficult.
The Bangladeshi worker walked straight to the back and took the left window seat of the long row of last seats.
Keeping his sight on the fly, Kani walked ahead but slowly.
“He went on saying things like they are a cheerful and contented bunch even with lower wages.”
“Lower?” Anu asked with an intrigued expression.
“Yeah lah! Their wages are somewhat lower than ours.”
“True,” she agreed.
The stout Chinese man placed the bags purposely on the adjacent seat so that the foreign workers boarding behind wouldn’t be able to occupy the seat near him.
Watching the fly, Kani stood there blocking the way for the other passengers. Anu hurriedly pulled him along. “Isn’t it just a common house fly, maybe just larger?” Somu hushed. They moved to the rear. Kani’s focus remained on the fly as he reluctantly walked turning his head backward. “No.”
As the bus exited at the Woodlands interchange, Somu continued, “You know Anu, I couldn’t help telling him, why don’t you go back since you get paid low here. But he left the place abruptly without saying much although he did tell I must learn to be happy.”
“You?”
“He meant us, Singaporeans,” Somu said lowering his voice. “I think.”
Near the exit, seated at the center of the bus the three domestic workers dressed in their weekend best, dolled up in all accessories, started watching videos happily, ready to enjoy their off day. One of them answered a call, “One angparaan, sanaymaging late,” assuring their punctuality to the friends on the other side.
Seated right behind his parents, next to the Bangladeshi worker, Kani kept getting up restlessly from his seat to look at the fly.
When a plump middle-aged Malay woman boarded at the Marsiling station, one of the foreign workers seated behind the driver spontaneously got up to give her the seat. The lady hesitated for a second and was about to lumber her way to the back when the other guy at the window seat followed suit. Happily, she sat on the aisle seat keeping all her bags and belonging on the window seat before she started looking out of the window.
Taking a look around within the bus, Anu said, “It’s fine, Somu. Not like you’d feared. I can even see a few empty seats.”
“You don’t know, darling. This bus really gets crowded on Sundays. We could have gone Diwali shopping next weekend after our car is back from servicing,” he sulked.
“Oh come on. Look at him! Kani seems to be enjoying the bus ride.”
“If not for the parking woes in Little India area, I wouldn’t choose to travel in this bus,” he sulked for the third time. “especially during the weekend.”
When the fly flew to the rear, it landed on the tab the domestic worker was holding. She jumped and shooed it off with a loud giggle. Her two friends joined in the amusement.
Kani got excited and shrieked, “Pa, look he is flying this way!” Suddenly feeling shy for having expressed loudly, he sat on his seat quietly observing.
The insect had comfortably settled on the glass window near the exit. Fixing his gaze on the fly, Kani sat calmly, glancing at other things once in a while. He shared his discovery, “Musca domestica,” tugging at his mother’s shoulder from the back of her seat. He pointed to the fly when Anu turned from the front seat to smile at him.
After the first few stops, at the Kranji station, foreign workers boarded in groups.
Somu gave her a, “I told you!” kind of a look.
“Kani needs to see some real world, at least, once in a while,” Anu smiled gathering the locks of hair and tugging them behind her ears with her right hand.
There was an empty seat after the exit. A tall and slender looking Chinese woman who’d boarded looked around, extended her hand with a pointed finger, “Go and sit there, lah.” The construction worker appeared to be a Tamil guy got up like an obedient student and moved to the back. With a haughty expression, “Thank you,” she said curtly, almost half-heartedly.
“What do you mean Anu?” Somu chided with a laugh. “Don’t tell me that only crowded bus rides are real life.”
“Not exactly,” Anu beamed. “But in a way yes.”
Many were startled when the Malay woman, in her attempt to alight at the Bukit Panjang CC advanced to the back saying, “Cannot taahan this anymore. Why are these people so smelly?” Right after getting off the bus, she threw an angry expression at the bus from where she stood.
“Ma, why is that old lady rankling for no apparent reason?”
“Hush, hush, no. Are you bored? Want my mobile?”
“No,” he said and went back to watch the big fly.
As the bus entered the BKE, most of them got busy texting. Most of them dozed off in their seats. The bus suddenly quietened.
The two high housing board blocks of flats followed by a few private condominiums beyond the green wilds, on the right disappeared within minutes.
The long terrain ride with the lush natural habitat on either side of the expressway, as always brought a serene feeling, Anu thought.
“Oh my God! I took the wrong set of shopping bags! I didn’t buy these live crabs,” the Chinese man suddenly jolted. He held up the tied bag with a large partially visible creepy crab within.
He stood up to go near the driver. “You have to get off at the Tanglin CC and cross the road via the overhead bridge and board a bus back to Bukit Panjang,” the driver said calmly, smartly kept his eyes on the road.
Kani was eager to have a look at the crab from near, but Somu said, “No need to go all the way there. We are speeding in the expressway, Kani. It’s enough to look from here. I thought you were scared of crabs,” he chuckled.
“Of course, I wouldn’t dare touch it, pa. Thought of talking a closer look. The crab looks unique,” Kani said but sat back in his seat.
The Bangladeshi worker was sincerely trying hard to look away from the young Anglo Chinese couple in secret and mild canoodle at the right end of the long back seat. He’d been talking seriously to someone for more than ten minutes. Sensing the network was bound to go erratic in the PIE, he winded up his conversation smartly, “Jaanish. Achchaa, thaarpor kotha bolbo, han?”
The road widening works near the exit to Eng Neo Avenue and Adams Road suddenly reminded the passengers of the city life.
“You look ravishing in this sari,” Somu whispered in Anu’s ear.
“And you’ve said that umpteen times, Somu. I still can’t forget the day you stood at the shop dead against me choosing this one.” Reminiscing, they laughed together and turned to look behind, at Kani.
Much familiar with the expressway, traffic, the downtown line works along the Bukit Timah Road, Kani was observed all that he could, mostly within the bus as if he might never a get another chance to travel by bus.
Once along Whitley Road, the louring urban face of the city showed. “This comes under the suborder Cyclorrhapha,” Kani bent down to whisper into Somu’s ears. The father forced a smile and looked at the fly.
The Chinese man holding the large shopping bags alighted, grumbling.
With not many passengers boarding or alighting, the bus streamlined through the Bukit Timah Road.
When the bus reached Little India bus stop, most of the commuters alighted. “Bus ride was damn interesting, Pa,” Kani mused as he got down. Though sunny, the roads glittered wet. The rains had just stopped.
Not losing sight of the Bangladeshi worker who’d also alighted, Kani told his parents to wait for a few minutes. When Anu pulled him, he said, “Ma, please wait just for a few minutes.”
“Can I have a few dollars, Pa?” he said hurriedly keeping an eye on the foreign worker.
Taking out his wallet from his pant pocket, Somu asked impatiently, “But what do you need money so urgently for?” Kani pulled out a ten dollar note.
He pointed at the Bangladeshi standing with a lost expression on his face. “He needs to top up his EZ link, Pa. I heard him cry over the phone. He is broke and in a dire state.”
“Don’t tell me you can understand his language.”
“Oh, I’ve been picking their language for more than a year,” he said. Always observing, he would smile and wave at the Bangladeshi workers who cleared the garbage chute and cleaned the common areas. But Anu never expected him to have learnt their language.
Kani swiftly went near the foreign worker and asked, “Where do you want to go?”
“Paya Lebar,” said the foreign worker, looking at Kani a little hesitantly.
With all kindness, Kani said softly and slowly, “You take the train to Bugis from here. And, from there you board the green line towards Pasir Ris, you understand?” The Bangladeshi just nodded shyly.
Gently, Kani thrust the ten dollar note into his hand and hopped back to join his parents. As if trying to prevent them from looking at the Bangladeshi, he pulled them both by his hands. Curiously, he turned to look and was titillated to see the housefly riding on the tattered backpack of the Bangladeshi worker. “Eureka! Single pair of wings! Comes under the higher classification of Diptera,” Kani squealed
[1]Poochchi – A generic term to refer to any kind of insect.
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