Charudutta Panigrahi introduces us to to the eighteenth century literary giant, Upendra Bhanja, who gave up his crown for the love of words. Click here to read.
Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan highlights the contemporariness of Sangam Literature with discussion about a narrative based on trust and power politics. Click hereto read.
Statue of Vel Pari Giving His Chariot to the Jasmine Creeper at Kodunkundreeswarar Temple, Tamil Nadu. Photo provided by Ravi Varmman K. Kaniappan
There are kings remembered for the size of their empires, and there are kings remembered because people loved them long after the drums of war went silent. Vel Pari belonged to the second kind. He was not the ruler of some vast empire stretching across oceans, nor did he command endless armies that darkened the horizon. He ruled Parambu Nadu, a mountain kingdom wrapped in forests, waterfalls, fertile valleys, bamboo groves, and wild jasmine creepers that climbed the stones after the rain. Yet in the hearts of the Tamil people, Pari stood taller than the crowned emperors of the age.
The poem on Vel Pari by poet Kabilar in the Purananuru, the Sangam period literature (300BCE to 300CE) is another gem that resonates with modern day geopolitics.
The old bards sang of him not merely as a ruler, but as a man whose generosity moved beyond human beings and reached even the smallest living things. The story that survives centuries like a flame protected from the wind is the tale of the mullai (jasmine) creeper. One day Pari saw a delicate jasmine vine struggling along the ground with nothing to climb upon. Any other king would have passed by it without a thought. Pari stopped his royal chariot, stepped down, and offered the golden vehicle to the plant so it could rise upward toward the light. To many, it will sound absurd. To the Tamil poets, it revealed the soul of the man. A ruler who could bend before a helpless vine would never allow his people to suffer under cruelty.
Parambu Nadu itself reflected its King. The land was rich not because of conquest, but because nature and people lived together without violence against one another. The hills yielded jackfruit, bamboo rice, roots, honey, sweet water springs, and fertile soil. Hunters, farmers, poets, wandering musicians, and tribal clans lived under Pari’s protection with dignity. Travelers knew that no bard would ever leave Pari’s court empty handed. If a singer arrived with tired feet and a hungry stomach, the king fed him. If a poet carried sorrow in his heart, Pari listened. If someone came seeking shelter, the mountain welcomed them.
Among all who stood beside him, none was closer than the great poet Kabilar. Their friendship became one of the immortal bonds of Sangam history. Kabilar did not praise Pari out of duty like a court flatterer. He loved him deeply, like a brother born in another body. Through the verses of the Purananuru, Kabilar preserved not just the image of a King, but the spirit of an entire world that was slowly being swallowed by imperial ambition. When Kabilar spoke of Pari, his words carried both admiration and grief, as though he already sensed that such goodness could not survive in an age ruled by pride and conquest.
And pride was precisely what brought doom to Parambu Nadu.
The Chera, Chola, and Pandya kings, who were often referred as the mighty Moovendar (the Three Crowned Kings) of Tamilakam, looked upon Pari with growing bitterness. Individually, none could conquer him. His mountain fortress was naturally defended by cliffs, forests, and loyal warriors who knew every hidden path. But the real reason they feared him was not military strength. It was love. Pari was loved more deeply by poets, common folk, wandering clans, and artists than the emperors themselves. His fame spread across Tamilakam until even the crowned kings found themselves standing in the shadow of a tribal chieftain.
So, the three ancient rivals united for the first time, not for honour, not for justice, but to bring down one man.
Their armies surrounded Parambu Nadu for years. War drums echoed through the hills. Spears glittered beneath the sun. Yet the mountain kingdom did not fall. The land sustained its people. Springs still flowed. Bamboo rice still grew. The forests still fed the hungry. Inside the siege, Pari’s people endured. Outside the siege, the Moovendar grew increasingly humiliated that even their combined might could not break a small mountain kingdom.
The siege slowly became psychological warfare. The three King’s hoped exhaustion would crush Pari’s spirit. They wanted him to watch his people live under constant fear, to see freedom slowly strangled by endless encirclement. Yet Pari refused to surrender.
Then came the cruelty that stained their legacy forever.
Kabilar had once mocked the besieging kings openly. He told them they would never conquer Parambu Nadu with elephants, swords, or armies. But he also revealed something dangerous, he said, if poets, singers, and dancers approached Pari with songs of praise, the king would give away anything, even his kingdom itself. For Pari believed hospitality toward artists was sacred.
The Moovendar listened carefully.
Waiting until Kabilar was away from court, they sent assassins disguised as wandering bards and performers into Parambu Nadu. Dressed in the robes of artists, carrying the appearance of harmless travellers, they entered under the ancient Tamil code of hospitality. Pari welcomed them without suspicion. No guards searched them. No weapons were expected among poets.
Inside the safety of his chambers, the false bards dropped their disguises, drew hidden weapons, and murdered the king by treachery.
That was the deepest wound of all. Vel Pari was not slain gloriously on the battlefield with drums roaring around him. He was killed while extending kindness. His generosity became the blade used against him. In Tamil memory, this was not simply political conquest. It was the violation of Aram (virtue, morality and righteousness) itself, the sacred moral order.
But the cruelty did not end with his death.
The Moovendar dismantled Parambu Nadu piece by piece so it could never rise again as an independent tribal land. They divided the mountain among themselves like scavengers fighting over the remains of a lion. Worse still, they sought to erase Pari’s lineage entirely. His daughters, Angavai and Sangavai, were left orphaned and politically untouchable. The great empires made it known that any ruler who sheltered or married Pari’s daughters would invite the wrath of the three crowned kings. The princesses, who once walked among mountain flowers, were reduced to wandering in uncertainty, carrying the burden of their father’s name.
And beside them walked Kabilar, heartbroken beyond repair.
The poet who once sang proudly in royal halls now wandered from kingdom to kingdom seeking protection and marriage alliances for the daughters of his fallen friend. Again and again, rulers hesitated out of fear of the Moovendar. Kabilar watched the world betray Pari even after death. The man who had immortalised Tamil valour found himself crushed beneath grief and helplessness.
Though he eventually succeeded in securing the future of Angavai and Sangavai, something inside him had already died. Unable to bear the destruction of the world he loved, Kabilar finally chose Vadakiruthal, the ancient Tamil act of fasting unto death while facing north. It was not merely suicide. It was a final protest against a world where righteousness had been murdered by envy.
And yet, despite everything the Moovendar attempted, they failed in the one thing they truly desired.
They could conquer Pari’s land, but they could not erase him.
The fall of Vel Pari and the dismantling of Parambu Nadu resonate with several modern historical events where a smaller, culturally distinct, or morally symbolic community was systematically crushed by larger powers, not merely for territory, but because its existence challenged imperial authority, political legitimacy, or ideological control.
A significant parallel in later period is the destruction of indigenous tribal sovereignties during the expansion of colonial empires in the Americas and Australia. The systematic breaking of Native Nations such as the Lakota Nation or the displacement of Aboriginal communities was often accompanied by attempts to erase memory, culture, language, and lineage. Leaders who symbolised resistance were targeted not only militarily but psychologically. Like Pari’s daughters being politically isolated, indigenous heirs and communities were often cut off from land, legitimacy, and continuity.
The betrayal aspect of Pari’s death also resembles events such as the assassination of Patrice Lumumba during the Congo Crisis. Lumumba was enormously loved by ordinary people and represented an independent political future that threatened larger geopolitical powers. His removal was not simply about governance, but it was about preventing a charismatic symbol from inspiring broader resistance. Like Pari, Lumumba became more powerful in memory after his death in 1961, than the many who orchestrated his downfall.
There are also echoes in the defeat of Toussaint Louverture during the Haitian Revolution. Though Haiti ultimately won independence, Louverture himself was deceived, captured through manipulation rather than open battlefield victory, and removed because imperial powers feared the symbolic power of a free Black republic, where he later died in a freezing French prison cell in 1803. The anxiety of larger empires toward a smaller but morally resonant state mirrors the fear the Moovendar held toward Pari’s reputation.
From a South Asian perspective, one could even compare Pari’s downfall to the gradual dismantling of many tribal and princely states under the British Raj. The British frequently used diplomacy, betrayal, economic strangulation, alliances, and internal manipulation rather than direct warfare alone. Leaders who inspired emotional loyalty among local populations were often isolated politically before being removed. The destruction was not only territorial; it was cultural and psychological.
A darker modern comparison is the breakup and destruction of indigenous Tamil leadership structures during the final phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Regardless of political perspective, many Tamils interpret the end of the war not merely as a military defeat, but as the crushing of a collective identity, memory, and homeland aspiration through overwhelming force. The emotional memory of siege, encirclement, civilian suffering, and postwar dismantling creates parallels in how communities narrate trauma and loss.
What makes Vel Pari’s story unique, however, is that Sangam literature frames the tragedy less as a military defeat and more as a moral failure of civilisation itself. The central horror was not that a king died in war, as kings always die in war, but that hospitality, poetry, generosity, and sacred trust were weaponised against him. In modern language, Pari’s story is about how empires sometimes fear moral legitimacy more than military strength, and how systems of power often seek not merely to conquer resistant communities, but to humiliate and erase the memory of alternatives to their rule.
The crowned kings survive in inscriptions and dynasties, but Vel Pari survives in the human heart. He lives whenever generosity triumphs over greed, whenever a ruler protects dignity over power, whenever poetry remembers the forgotten, and whenever someone tells the story of the king who gave his chariot to a jasmine creeper because he believed even a fragile plant deserved support.
The story of Vel Pari, like those of Toussaint Louverture, Patrice Lumumba, and many others, illustrates a phenomenon that extends beyond military defeat or political repression. Modern political psychology describes it as a form of cultural-psychological annihilation, the attempt to destroy not only a people’s leaders but also their identity, memory, dignity, and capacity for collective continuity. The objective is not merely to win power, but to ensure that the defeated can no longer serve as a symbol of resistance, legitimacy, or alternative political imagination.
Several behavioural concepts help explain this process, for example, identity decapitation involves removing charismatic leaders and cultural figures who embody a community’s aspirations. Demoralisation strategies seek to break collective morale through prolonged pressure, isolation, and humiliation, fostering a sense of helplessness. Moral injury emerges when betrayal, injustice, or violations of deeply held ethical norms shatter a community’s faith in the moral order. Together, these mechanisms inflict damage not only on institutions and lives but also on the psychological foundations that sustain a people.
At its deepest level, this process becomes memoricide, the erasure of historical memory itself. The goal is to sever the connection between past, present, and future so that a people lose the symbols, stories, and leaders around which collective identity is formed. Whether in Parambu Nadu after Pari’s death, Haiti after Louverture, or Congo after Lumumba, the struggle is often not only over territory or power, but over who has the right to be remembered and to endure in history.
The modern lesson from the tragedy of Vel Pari is that a just society cannot be built merely on economic strength, military power, or political dominance. A truly just civilisation is measured by how it protects dignity, moral trust, cultural memory, and the weak, especially when doing so offers no immediate advantage. The downfall of Parambu Nadu shows what happens when power becomes insecure, it stops seeking justice and begins seeking humiliation, erasure, and control.
One of the greatest warnings hidden inside Pari’s story is that societies collapse morally long before they collapse politically. The Moovendar won the land, but in the literary memory of Tamil civilisation, they lost moral legitimacy because they abandoned Aram, righteous conduct. They weaponised hospitality, manipulated trust, isolated orphaned daughters, and sought to erase a people’s identity out of wounded pride. In modern terms, this teaches us that institutions without ethics eventually become engines of domination rather than guardians of civilisation.
A just society today therefore requires more than laws. It requires moral restraint in the use of power. It requires protecting minorities, preserving indigenous identities, respecting cultural memory, and ensuring that disagreement or independence is not treated as disloyalty. It also means refusing to destroy people psychologically in the pursuit of victory, whether in politics, religion, race, class, or nationalism.
This is precisely why the wisdom of the Thirukkural remains timeless. Thiruvalluvar warns that the strength of a ruler is not cruelty, but justice rooted in compassion.
“Wealth and power must stand with righteousness and fairness; without them, greatness is empty despite outward success.” — Kural 221
The story of Vel Pari, read alongside the wisdom of the Thirukkural, reveals a timeless political and moral truth where societies endure not because they are feared, but because they are trusted. Power can command obedience and military strength can secure victory, but neither can create the legitimacy that sustains a civilisation across generations. Trust, built through justice, integrity, and respect for human dignity, is the foundation of a strong social order.
This lesson remains deeply relevant today. A just society is not measured solely by its wealth, military capability, or political influence. It is measured by its willingness to make power accountable, protect cultural identity, tolerate dissent, and uphold the dignity of all people. When criticism is suppressed, hospitality is exploited, or communities are stripped of their history and identity, the bonds of trust begin to weaken. History repeatedly demonstrates that fear may achieve compliance, but it rarely produces enduring loyalty.
Vel Pari’s legacy offers an alternative vision of leadership. He is remembered not for imperial conquest or political dominance, but for the values he embodied. His generosity was not a strategy for influence, his compassion was not a sign of weakness, and his humanity did not diminish his authority. Instead, these qualities became the source of his legitimacy. In a world where power is often equated with control, Pari represented the possibility that strength and virtue could coexist.
More than two thousand years after his death, Pari remains alive in collective memory because he symbolised an ethical ideal that transcends his time. His story reminds us that the true measure of leadership is not the ability to conquer, but the ability to inspire trust, preserve dignity, and act with moral purpose.
Ultimately, civilisations are remembered not for the power they wielded, but for the values they chose to uphold. In that sense, Vel Pari is not merely a figure of history, but he remains a compelling model for the kind of society and leadership the modern world continues to seek.
Glossary:
Malai – Hill
Purananuru – Purananuru originated during South India’s Sangam era (circa 300 BCE–300 CE). This 400-poem anthology is significant for documenting ancient Tamil warfare, heroic codes, governance, and secular societal values.
Sangam – The Sangam period originated from ancient Tamil academies (Sangams) in South India (300 BCE–300 CE). It is significant for producing remarkable secular literature detailing early Tamil culture, trade, and governance
Kabilar – Was a prolific Sangam-era poet originating from Thiruvatavur, Tamil Nadu (circa 1st–2nd century CE). He is significant for mastering love poetry (Kuruntokai) and immortalizing the generous King Vel Pari.
Tamilakam – Originated as the ancient homeland of Tamil speakers, covering modern Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and parts of neighboring states. It is significant for pioneering early maritime trade and distinct Sangam culture.
Moovendar – Three Crowned Kings originated during the ancient Sangam era in Tamilakam. They comprised the Chera, Chola, and Pandya dynasties. Their significance lies in establishing powerful, centralized governance, controlling lucrative maritime trade with Rome and Egypt, and heavily patronizing Tamil literature, arts, and the legendary Sangam academies.
Thirukural – Originated in ancient Tamilakam, authored by the sage Thiruvalluvar (circa 5th century CE or earlier). It is globally significant as a universal guide to secular ethics, virtue, and governance.
Saravanan, G., & Selvaraju, R. (2022). Generosity and kindness of Vaelpaari in Sangam literature. International Research Journal of Tamil, 4(1).
Ambikadevi, D. (2022). Sangam period: Literary and historical significance for southern India. International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews.
P Marudanayagam, (2021), Purananuru, Text, Transliteration and Translation in English Verse and Prose, Central Institute of Classical Tamil, Chennai. (Poem 105 – 120)
J Narayana, (2019), Thirukkural, Transliteration and Translation, Sura Books Pvt Ltd, (Use a specific translation if applied: e.g., Drew & Lazarus, or modern editions.)
Arivazhagan, V. (2023). Thirukkural’s life ethics. Shanlax International Journal of Tamil Research, 7(3), 29–33.
Webster, S. (2024). Revisiting memoricide: The everyday killing of memory. Memory Studies, 17(6), 1408–1428.
Voskanyan, H. (2025). Memoricide as post-conflict violence: The erasure of Armenian cultural heritage. European Master’s Programme in Human Rights and Democratisation.
Ravi Varmman explores leadership, culture, and self-inquiry through a philosophical lens, weaving management insight with human experience to illuminate resilience, ethical living, and reflective growth in an ever shifting world today.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
In conversation with Teresa Rehmanwith focus on her non-fiction, Bulletproof: A Journalist’s Notebook on Reporting Conflict and a brief introduction to her book. Click here to read.
Translations
Robihara(Sunless)by Kazi Nazrul Islam has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam from Bengali. Clickhere to read.
Four of his ownMalay poems have been translated by Isa Kamari. Click here to read.
In a world torn by conflict, why would one mention hope or compassion? In an age of dystopian scenarios, why would we dream of utopias?
Perhaps it’s wishful musings, but at some level what people need to survive is probably something to look forward to — a speck of light — a wishful idea called hope. Hope builds resilience. Utopias are built on hope, on love and compassion. Dystopias are built on desperation and despair. They take fear or horror to the extreme and play on people’s vulnerabilities. They might induce a cathartic effect and one might say— we are better off as we are in the present or we must act so that this never happens. Is that something we can really say in a world where wars are disrupting peace and lives of all humanity, where violence against civilians is becoming an accepted norm, where shortages could also be a reality for most of us? Utopias, on the other hand, build on the element of an ideal, a dream towards which we can move on the bleakest day of our existence. They could be used to stir hope and envision a reality devoid of violence. And perhaps, some of it would congeal into a real-world scenario with smaller doses of the bad and ugly. In a conflict-ridden world, which almost feels like a reenactment of George Orwell’s 1984 (only about four and a half decades after his predicted date) what would touch your heart, give you a sense of relief— hope for a better future or dwelling on doomsday predictions? What would you want for your progeny?
Just before the pandemic changed our lives, a book was published where while questing for their own utopia, a group of young people became part of a dystopian reality. They were known as the ULFA rebels[1] and their story was told in Bulletproof:A Journalist’s Notebook on Reporting Conflict by Teresa Rehman. The current relevance of this book cannot be undermined because not only does it humanise the insurgents perspective, but it also shows how a centrist set up can neglect the needs of particular fringe communities. In addition, Rehman’s heartrending stories of poachers and people who live unaccepted in the margins only strengthen the need for an unboxed world where tolerance and compassion would transcend these artificially created fences that divide and lead to violence. This issue features Rehman’s book and an online discussion with her which stretches beyond the confines of pages.
We have more poetry in our translations, some sombre and some funny. A Bengali poem written as a tribute by Nazrul on the death of his older friend, Rabindranath Tagore, has been rendered into English by Professor Fakrul Alam. To add a lighter touch, we have translated a fun-filled poem by Tagore. Isa Kamari continues to translate his own Malay poems to bring in flavours of the culture. This time his poems seem to urge a need to transcend age-old stratifications. We also have a Balochi human-interest story by Younus Hussain brought to us in English by Fazal Baloch.
Hughes’ column too has fiction. His humorous and absurdist fables continue to urge re-evaluation of the world as well as genres. We also have a poignant narrative built around a Vietnamese migrant family by Mario Fenech. Sayan Sarkar shares a tale upending norms set in Kolkata while Naramsetti Umamaheswararao narrates a story about a young boy overcoming his fears. Abhik Ganguly gives us a strange fiction set in the future in a different galaxy, where Earth is seen as the original planet of human evolution.
C Christine Fair, who is an established translator, has surprised us — like Lyons — this time with a personal memoir which dwells on the deeply annihilating impact of norms that define gender roles. Upending the idea of an immutable ruler who can overpower us, is an essay by Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan with its roots in the ruins Rameses II — known as Ozymandias too — and Shelley’s poem of the same name.
We have had an overflow of writing about the unusual and redefining norms in our non-fiction section. Odbayar Dorj weaves an unusual narrative and shares photographs from a village of scarecrows in Japan that has a population of 27 humans and 370 scarecrows. She tells us: “In a place where people and scarecrows live side by side, I began to understand something simple but profound: sometimes, when human presence fades, we find our own ways to fill the silence with memories, imagination, and love.” Humanity never ceases to hope. Filling in silences are narratives by Arathi Devandran and Mubida Rohman on how they deal with the quietness left by departed loved ones.
We have more from Meredith Stephens with photographs by Alan Noble on their trip to Vietnam — as they travel to places that are less touristy while Gowher Bhat explores the Sunday Book Bazaar at Old Delhi. Farouk Gulsara travels back to Penang where he spent his childhood and reflects on changes. Are they always for the best?
Suzanne Kamata takes up changes with a soupçon of humour as she writes of how the AI finally conceded to her husband, “Your wife is not wrong…” while Jun A. Alindogan writes of how social media can create mayhem if misused to spread fake news. Devraj Singh Kalsi resorts to sardonic humour of a darker hue as he explores ways to make a living.
Gulsara has also explored Sam Dalrymple’s Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asiawhich starts with the extent of the British Empire with its western-most point at Aden and stretching in the east to Burma. There was a period from 1839 to 1867, when it stretched from Aden to Singapore[2], which was a part of Malaya, leaving out Siam or Thailand which never succumbed to colonial rule. The book starts at a later date — 1928 — and talks of the piecing of the British Empire, with questionable stances taken by historically heroic figures, thus urging a critical relook at our own past — just over the last hundred years.
Our reviews include Rakhi Dalal’s take on Maithreyi Karnoor’s rather unusual stories fromGooday Nagar.Bhaskar Parichhahas wandered back to non-fiction with the late Kaukub Talat Quder Sajjad Ali Meerza’s Wajid Ali Shah: A Cultural and Literary Legacy, translated from Urdu by Talat Fatima, a history that makes us reassess views on the last of the Awadhi nawabs. Somdatta Mandal has also shares a discussion on Sushila Takbhaure’s My Shackled Life, translated from Hindi by Deeba Zafir and Preeti Dewan, a narrative that showcases the resilience of the author.
This issue could not have been put together without all our wonderful contributors. Heartfelt thanks for sharing your gems with us. Huge thanks to the Borderless team too who continue to support bringing in variety, colour and reinforcing our values. Much thanks to Sohana Manzoor for the fabulous cover art and to all those who share vibrant visuals with their writing. Many thanks to our readers too who make our efforts worthwhile. Do write in with your comments.
Look forward to greeting you all again next month!
I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said, “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
By Percy Shelley, 'Ozymandias', 1819 edition
The real world spark for Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” wasn’t purely poetic imagination but it was archaeological gossip with excellent comedic timing. In 1816, news reached England that a colossal granite bust of Ramesses II, often referred to as the Younger Memnon, (aka Ozymandias by the Greeks) had been unearthed in Egypt and was on its way to London. The statue was enormous, ancient, and very much not intact. Broken, battered, and missing key pieces, it arrived less like a triumphant relic and more like history’s version of a “before” photo gone permanently unanswered. Shelley, never one to miss an opportunity for philosophical irony, saw exactly where this was going.
Ramesses II, after all, was not a man known for moderation. His titles alone read like a LinkedIn profile written without character limits. One of them, “King of Kings”, was inscribed on the pedestal of the very statue now showing up in London looking like it had lost an argument with time itself. Shelley translated that title straight into the poem, ensuring that Ozymandias’s voice would echo loudly, right before being undercut completely.
At its core, “Ozymandias” is what happens when an ancient ruler commissions the Bronze Age equivalent of a massive Instagram flex, and time responds by absolutely ratioing it.
The poem opens with a traveller recounting what sounds suspiciously like the least glamorous vacation slideshow imaginable. Instead of sunsets or souvenirs, we’re given ruins in a desert. Not even dignified ruins, either, just two giant legs standing awkwardly in the sand and a shattered face lying nearby. This is not the kind of monument that inspires awe so much as mild concern. If this were a modern tourist site, it would come with a plaque reading: “Formerly Impressive. Please Use Imagination.”
And then comes the inscription, which is where the satire really starts to stretch its legs. Ozymandias doesn’t simply claim power, but he declares himself the King of Kings and commands all who pass to look upon his works and despair. It’s bold. It’s confident. It is, as history clearly demonstrates, wildly optimistic.
Because immediately after this declaration of unmatched greatness, the poem delivers its deadpan punchline, “Nothing beside remains.” That’s it. No empire. No cities. No loyal subjects live tweeting his victories. Just sand. Vast, flat, indifferent sand. It’s as if time paused, reread the inscription, raised an eyebrow, and quietly erased everything else.
The statue’s physical condition doesn’t help his case. The face, half buried, cracked, and broken, still carries what Shelley calls a “sneer of cold command.” This suggests that even in ruin, Ozymandias managed to retain the personality of someone who would have been exhausting to follow online. You can practically imagine him posting daily declarations of greatness with comments disabled. His empire didn’t last, but his bad attitude, preserved in granite, somehow did. It’s the archaeological equivalent of a fossilized ego.
What makes the whole thing even more amazing is the sheer effort that went into creating this monument. This wasn’t a casual side project. Designers planned it. Sculptors carved it. Workers hauled it across landscapes to place it somewhere appropriately dramatic. Years of labour went into capturing Ozymandias in his full “behold my glory” aesthetic. And now, centuries later, it’s a broken art installation in the world’s largest sandbox. If monuments received annual evaluations, this one would read, “Strong initial impact. Failed long-term objectives.”
Shelley’s point isn’t just that power fades, it’s that Ozymandias genuinely believed he’d outsmarted mortality. Death might come, sure, but his legacy would remain forever, intimidating future generations into awe. Instead, his message survives only because it’s so spectacularly wrong. Readers don’t despair when they see his works, they experience second hand embarrassment on his behalf. His warning to rivals has become a warning to himself.
The setting seals the joke. The “lone and level sands” contain nothing else, no ruins of cities, no remnants of civilisation. Nature has gone full minimalist, stripping the scene down to its most brutal contrast. Against that emptiness, Ozymandias’s claims look less commanding and more delusional. The silence delivers the verdict more effectively than any narrator could.
Of course, Shelley isn’t just mocking one long dead Pharaoh. Ozymandias stands in for every leader who confused dominance with permanence. History is full of people who built monuments, declared themselves irreplaceable, and assumed the future would be impressed. The future, as it turns out, is rarely in the mood.
Even Ramesses II himself, arguably one of Egypt’s most powerful and accomplished Pharaohs, could not escape this irony. His statues were propaganda tools, meant to scream greatness across centuries. When one finally arrived in London, broken and incomplete, it did exactly that but not in the way he intended.
‘Ozymandias’ in that sense, isn’t just a warning about fading power, it’s a satire about how absurd unchecked confidence looks once time has had a say. The king who demanded despair now inspires reflection, humour, and a gentle reminder that the louder the boast, the quieter its echo tends to be.
Time doesn’t argue. It waits. And then it lets the ruins speak.
In the 19th century, Benito Mussolini fancied himself less a man and more a monument, preferably one carved in marble, chest thrust forward, chin angled eternally toward destiny (or at least a flattering light source). In his own imagination, he was the sequel to Rome, not a mere politician, but a reboot of empire, complete with dramatic speeches, synchronised salutes, and an alarming number of uniforms for someone who never quite won a war.
He spoke often of glory, of legions, of history bending obligingly in his direction. If Julius Caesar had crossed the Rubicon River, Mussolini would cross the street, provided there were cameras. His Italy would be disciplined, resplendent, and feared. Trains would run on time, crowds would roar on cue, and maps would gradually recolour themselves in reassuring shades of “Italian ambition.”
But there is something endearingly fragile about men who compare themselves to eternity. They tend to forget that eternity has a long memory and a sharp sense of irony.
Like the boastful Ozymandias in the poem with the shattered statue in the desert, Mussolini constructed not just a regime, but a self-image meant to outlast sand, wind, and inconvenient facts. He posed, proclaimed, and postured his way into history, convinced that future generations would gaze upon his legacy and tremble appropriately.
Instead, history did what it does best, it waited.
The Round Colosseum originally built in 80CESquare Colosseum built by Mussolini in 1942From Public Domain
Because while Mussolini was busy reenacting Rome, the world had moved on to more modern catastrophes. His empire turned out to be less of a Colosseum, more cardboard set, impressive from a distance, but distressingly flimsy up close. Military campaigns faltered, alliances shifted, and the grand narrative began to fray like a cheap banner left out in the rain.
And then came the collapse, swift, humiliating, and utterly indifferent to his carefully rehearsed grandeur. The man who styled himself as Il Duce (The Leader), the infallible leader, found that infallibility has a very short shelf life when reality intervenes. Statues, literal and metaphorical, do not crumble all at once. First, a crack. Then another. Then, suddenly, the whole thing looks less like a monument and more like debris.
In the end, Mussolini’s legacy resembles that broken colossus in the sand, a once imposing figure reduced to fragments, surrounded not by awe, but by a kind of puzzled silence. The grand declarations echo faintly, like lines from a play no one remembers attending. “Look on my works,” he might have said, but history, squinting into the distance, struggles to find anything intact enough to admire.
What remains is not the empire he promised, but the cautionary tale he became. A reminder that self-mythology is a risky business, especially when you start believing your own press releases. The louder the proclamation of greatness, the more satisfying the eventual deflation.
And so, Mussolini endures, not as the architect of a new Rome, but as a rather theatrical footnote to its long shadow. A man who aimed for immortality and achieved, instead, a kind of poetic symmetry, the bigger the statue, the more dramatic the ruin.
Then in 21st century, Trump arrived, as not so much as a politician but as a brand, capital letters implied, gilded edges included. His name was already stamped across towers, steaks, ties, and the general concept of self-confidence. When he entered politics, it seemed less like a campaign and more like a licensing deal with history.
Here, at last, was a figure who understood that power, in the modern age, is as much about spectacle as substance. Why simply govern when you can perform governance? Why speak when you can proclaim? Why build policy when you can build a persona so large it requires its own skyline?
Like the monarch in that well-worn desert poem, he projected an image of immovability. His words carried that same tone of “cold command”, a conviction that reality itself ought to rearrange in response to his declarations. Critics were dismissed, facts negotiated with, and complexities flattened into slogans sturdy enough to fit on a hat.
He cultivated loyalty not just as support, but as devotion. Crowds gathered, slogans echoed, and the line between leader and legend blurred in the heat of repetition. There were rallies that felt less like civic exercises and more like episodes in an ongoing series, complete with catchphrases and recurring villains. The message was clear, this was not merely a presidency, it was an era, a brand extension into the realm of destiny.
And then there were the monuments. Not carved in desert stone, perhaps, but etched into skylines, social media feeds, and the collective consciousness. Towers bearing his almost spoken name stood as vertical declarations of success. Each structure seemed to say, “Look on these works,” though one suspects the subtext was “preferably from a flattering angle.”
But the thing about monuments, whether sandstone colossi or glass and steel high rises, is that they depend heavily on perspective. From up close, they can appear overwhelming, permanent, inevitable. From a distance, or with time, they shrink into context. The desert, metaphorical or otherwise, has a way of reclaiming narrative.
History, as always, proved to be an uncooperative audience. The seemingly untouchable aura began to flicker, then waver, then, most inconveniently, invite scrutiny. The voice that once filled arenas began to echo differently, as though the acoustics had changed. What once sounded like certainty started to resemble insistence.
And here the comparison to that shattered statue becomes irresistible. Not because everything vanishes, far from it, but because what remains is oddly disjointed. Fragments endure, phrases, images, impressions. A pedestal without its full figure. A face remembered more for its expression than its achievements.
The lesson, if there is one (and satire insists there must be), is that power built on projection is particularly susceptible to erosion. The louder the declaration of permanence, the more history seems to take it as a challenge. “Observe my greatness,” says the ruler. “Give it a moment,” replies time.
In the end, the figure who once seemed larger than the system becomes part of it, filed, debated, reinterpreted. The monuments still stand, of course, but their meaning shifts. What was once awe inspiring becomes, with enough distance, a curiosity. A relic of a moment when personality tried to outpace permanence, and, like that ancient king in the sand, discovered that time is the harsher critic. Perhaps his current antic in the Middle East could be his “Waterloo”.
If Ozymandias had taken a brief detour eastward say, a spiritual exchange programme before commissioning that ill-fated statue, he might have found in the Mahabharata a rather comprehensive warning label, “Caution, ego may appear permanent but is, in fact, highly perishable”.
Because if there is one text that understands the fine art of watching powerful men dramatically overestimate their shelf life, it is this sprawling epic of dynasties, destinies, and deeply committed bad decisions.
Take Duryodhana, for instance. Here was a man who didn’t just believe the kingdom was his, he believed the universe had personally notarized the claim. If Ozymandias carved “King of Kings” into stone, Duryodhana essentially carved “Mine” into an entire map and dared anyone to bring an eraser.
Like our desert bound statue enthusiast (and certain more modern figures with a fondness for branding), Duryodhana cultivated loyalty that blurred into devotion. Courts were filled with nodding allies, affirming uncles, and the occasional voice of reason that was quickly ignored for disrupting the aesthetic. After all, nothing ruins a good narrative of invincibility like someone pointing out reality.
Enter Krishna, who might best be described as the epic’s version of a calm, cosmic fact-checker. While others delivered speeches, Krishna delivered perspective, the kind that gently suggests, “Perhaps don’t build your identity entirely on winning at all costs.” This advice, naturally, was received with all the enthusiasm of a terms and conditions agreement.
And so, like a man commissioning a statue taller than his own foresight, Duryodhana doubled down. The result? The Kurukshetra War, an event so catastrophic it makes Ozymandias’s lonely desert look like a minimalist art choice rather than the aftermath of total collapse.
What’s particularly Ozymandian about the whole affair is not just the fall, but the confidence before the fall. Duryodhana walked into the war convinced of his permanence. His power was vast, his allies numerous, his rhetoric polished to a fine sheen of inevitability. If he had a pedestal, it would absolutely have read, “Look on my armies, ye Mighty, and reconsider.”
History (or epic poetry, which is history with better dialogue) responded in its usual way, by waiting.
Because just as the sands eventually reclaim the boastful statue, the battlefield of Kurukshetra quietly dismantled every assumption of permanence. One by one, the pillars of Duryodhana’s certainty collapsed. Not all at once, never all at once but enough to turn confidence into something far less photogenic.
By the end, what remains is strikingly familiar, not the empire he imagined, but the lesson he unintentionally authored. Much like Ozymandias, Duryodhana’s greatest legacy is not his power, but the spectacular mismatch between his expectations and reality.
Meanwhile, characters like Yudhishthira, hardly perfect, occasionally indecisive, and significantly less interested in self-branding, endure in a different way. Not as towering monuments, but as complicated, human figures who understood (sometimes too late) that power without humility is just a very elaborate countdown.
The Mahabharata, then, reads like a long form satire of the Ozymandias Syndrome, the irresistible urge to declare oneself permanent in a universe that specialises in editing such claims down to footnotes.
So, if there is a lesson worth carrying forward, it is not about avoiding ambition, monuments, or even great struggles. It is about perspective. Before we carve our names into stone, raise towers toward the sky, or wager everything on a certainty, it is worth pausing to ask, how will this endure when seen from far away, at a distance measured not in kilometres, but in time?
Because time does not rush to correct us. Like Krishna, it does not need to raise its voice. It allows events to unfold, lets pride exhaust itself, and waits patiently for meaning to reveal itself. When the noise has faded and the dust has settled, what remains is not the spectacle of victory, but the quiet truth of what was built with wisdom, humility, and awareness. And that, more than triumph, is what lasts.
Ravi Varmman explores leadership, culture, and self-inquiry through a philosophical lens, weaving management insight with human experience to illuminate resilience, ethical living, and reflective growth in an ever shifting world today.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The Norton Anthology of English Literature Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. D: The Romantic Period. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.
Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.
Younger Memnon British Museum. “Colossal Bust of Ramesses II (Younger Memnon).” London: British Museum Collection Online, accessed 2026.
Benito Mussolini Bosworth, R. J. B. Mussolini. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2002.
Farrell, Nicholas. Mussolini: A New Life. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003.
Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1951.
Donald Trump Setoodeh, Ramin. Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass. New York: HarperCollins, 2024.
Mahabharata Debroy, Bibek, trans. The Mahabharata (10 vols.). New Delhi: Penguin Random House India, 2010–2014.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are solely that of the author and not of Borderless Journal.
Six years ago, a few of us got together to bring out the first issue of Borderless Journal. We started as a daily blog and then congealed into a monthly journal offering content that transcends artificial borders to meet with the commonality of felt emotions, celebrating humanity and the Universe. Today as we complete six years of our existence in the clouds, we would like to celebrate with all writers and readers who made our existence a reality. We invite you to savour writings collected over the years that reflect and revel in transcending borders, touching hearts and some even make us laugh while exploring norms.
In this special issue. we can only offer a small sample of writings but you can access many more like these ones at our site…Without further ado, let us harmonise with words. We invite you to lose yourselves in a borderless world in these trying times.
Rebel or ‘Bidrohi’, Nazrul’s signature poem, ‘Bidrohi‘, translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Manish Ghatak’s Aagun taader Praan (Fire is their Life) has been translated from Bengali by Indrayudh Sinha. Click here to read.
Tagore’s poem, Tomar Shonkho Dhulay Porey (your conch lies in the dust), has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty as ‘The Conch Calls’. Click here to read.
Ihlwha Choi spent some time in Santiniketan and here are poems he wrote in reaction to his observations near the ‘home of R.Tagore’, as he names Santiniketan and the Kobiguru. Click here to read Nandini.
Rituals in the Garden: Marcelo Medone discusses motherhood, aging and loss in this poignant flash fiction from Argentina. Click here to read.
Navigational Error: Luke P.G. Draper explores the impact of pollution with a short compelling narrative. Click here to read.
Henrik’s Journey: Farah Ghuznavi follows a conglomerate of people on board a flight to address issues ranging from Rohingyas to race bias. Click hereto read.
The Magic Staff , a poignant short story about a Rohingya child by Shaheen Akhtar, translated from Bengali by Arifa Ghani Rahman. Click here to read.
A Cat Story : Sohana Manzoor leaves one wondering if the story is about felines or… Clickhere to read.
When West Meets East & Greatness Blooms: Debraj Mookerjee reflects on how syncretism impacts greats like Tagore,Tolstoy, Emerson, Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi and many more. Click here to read.
The Day Michael Jackson Died: A tribute by Julian Matthews to the great talented star who died amidst ignominy and controversy. Click here to read.
Potable Water Crisis & the Sunderbans: Camellia Biswas, a visitor to Sunderbans during the cyclone Alia, turns environmentalist and writes about the potable water issue faced by locals. Click here to read.
My Love for RK Narayan, Rhys Hughes discusses the novels by ths legendary writer from India. Click here to read.
Travels ofDebendranath Tagore: These are travel narratives by Debendranath Tagore, father of Rabindranath Tagore, translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.
Baraf Pora (Snowfall): This narrative gives a glimpse of Tagore’s first experience of snowfall in Brighton and published in the Tagore family journal, Balak (Children), has been translated by Somdatta Mandal . Clickhere to read.
The Day of Annihilation: An essay on climate change by Kazi Nazrul Islam has been translated from Bengali by Radha Chakravarty. Clickhereto read.
Reminiscences from a Gallery: The Other Ray: Dolly Narang muses on Satyajit Ray’s world beyond films and shares a note by the maestro and an essay on his art by the eminent artist, Paritosh Sen. Click here to read.
The Bauls of Bengal: Aruna Chakravarti writes of wandering minstrels called bauls and the impact they had on Tagore. Click here to read.
Most people like you and me connect with the commonality of felt emotions and needs. We feel hungry, happy, sad, loved or unloved and express a larger plethora of feelings through art, theatre, music, painting, photography and words… With these, we tend to connect. And yet, larger structures created over time to offer security and governance to the masses—of which you and I are a part — have grown divisive, and, by the looks of it, the fences nurtured over time seem insurmountable. To retain these structures that were meant to keep us safe, wars are being fought and many are getting killed, losing homes and going hungry. We showcase such stories, poems and non-fiction to create an awareness among those who are lucky enough to remain untouched. But is there a way out, so that all of us can live peacefully, without war, without hunger and with love and a vision towards surviving climate change which (like it or not) is upon us?
Creating an awareness of hunger and destruction wreaked by war is a heartrending story set in Gaza by JK Miller. While Snigdha Agrawal’s narrative gives a sense of hope, recounting a small kindness by a common person, Sayan Sarkar shares a more personal saga of friendship and disillusionment — where people have choice. But does war leave us a choice as it annihilates friendships, cities, homes and families? Naramsetti Umamaheswararao’s story reiterates the belief in the family – peace being an accepted unit. Vela Noble’s fantastical fiction and art comes like a respite– though there is a darker side to it — with a touch of fun. Perhaps, a bit of fantasy and humour opens the mind to deal with the more sombre notes of existence.
The translation section hosts a story by Hamiruddin Middya, who grew up as a farmer’s son in Bengal. Steeped in local colours, it has been rendered into English by V Ramaswamy. Nazrul’s song revelling in the colours of spring has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Atta Shad’s pensive Balochi lines have been brought to us in English by Fazal Baloch. Isa Kamari continues to bring the flavours of an older, more laid-back Singapore with translations of his own Malay poems. A couple of Persian verses have been rendered into English by the poet, Akram Yazdani, herself. Questing for harmony, Tagore’s translated poem while reflecting on a child’s life, urges us to have the courage to be like a child — open, innocent and willing to imagine a world laced with trust and hope. If we were all to do that, do you think we’d still have wars, violence and walls built on hate and intolerance?
Mario Fenech takes a look at the idea of time. Amir Zadnemat writes of how memory is impacted by both science and humanities while Andriy Nivchuk brings to us snippets from Herodotus’s and Pericles’s lives that still read relevant. Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan gives the journey of chickpeas across space and time, asserting: “The chickpea does not care about your ideology, your portfolio, or your meticulously curated identity. It will grow, fix nitrogen, feed someone, and move on without a press release.” It has survived over aeons in a borderless state!
In book excerpts, we have a book that transcends borders as it’s a translation from Assamese by Ranjita Biswas of Arupa Kalita Patangia’s Moonlight Saga. Any translation is an attempt to integrate the margins into the mainstream of literature, and this is no less. The other excerpt is from Natalie Turner’s The Red Silk Dress. Keith Lyons has interviewed Turner about her novel which crosses multiple cultures too while on a personal quest.
Holding on to that idea, we invite you to savour the contents of our February issue.
Huge thanks to all our contributors and readers for making this issue possible. Heartfelt thanks to our wonderful team, especially Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork.
Enjoy the reads!
Let’s look forward to the spring… May it bring new ideas to help us all move towards more amicable times.
Pongal Pot. Photo Courtesy: Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan
On the 15th of January 2026, while much of the modern world was busy checking notifications, updating calendars, and worrying about quarterly outcomes, traditional Tamil households across the globe were doing something far more radical, watching milk boil. “Pongal”, the harvest festival, is one of those ancient cultural practices that stubbornly refuses to modernise. It does not arrive as an app update, cannot be streamed, and has no subscription model.
Milk is poured into a pot, heated patiently, and allowed, indeed encouraged, to overflow. This overflow is not considered inefficiency or waste, but it is the very point. It signifies abundance, wellbeing, and prosperity not merely for humans but for the entire ecosystem that made the meal possible, the sun, the rain, the soil, the cow, and the quiet, unseen labour of nature itself. Rice, lentils, jaggery, nuts, legumes, and raisins follow, and the resulting sweet dish is shared freely among family and friends, because prosperity that is not shared is considered incomplete.
This is an economy based not on accumulation but on circulation, not on profit but on participation. Something I believe is deeply unsettling to modern sensibilities.
Into this defiantly non-consumerist ritual wandered a chickpea with an extraordinarily well travelled past. This was no humble backyard legume, nor had it been picked up at the nearest market. It had sprouted in Mexico, been packed in Lebanon, purchased in Sierra Leone, and generously gifted by my wife Greeja’s friend, Saras, and her husband Pieter, a Belgian whose kindness, like the chickpea itself, clearly knows no borders. The chickpea’s journey to Malaysia, where, after crossing more continents than most humans manage in a lifetime, it finally fulfilled its destiny, being cooked into a traditional Tamil Pongal.
By then this chickpea had crossed more borders than most people ever will, navigated more currencies than a multinational executive, and yet arrived without a single stamp of self-importance. If globalization were ever to seek a spokesperson, it would do well to choose this chickpea, which achieved in silence what conferences and treaties have struggled to explain. The chickpea does not attend Davos, does not publish white papers, does not tweet about resilience or sustainability, and yet it embodies globalisation with a calm confidence that makes economists look unnecessarily stressed.
We often speak of globalisation as though it were invented sometime in the late twentieth century by economists with impressive haircuts and Power Point skills. But the chickpea, unimpressed by timelines, has been global for at least nine thousand years. Its origins lie in the “Fertile Crescent”, that much abused cradle of early civilisations covering modern day Turkey and Syria, where early cultivation was recorded between 7500 and 6800 BCE. The wild ancestor, “cicer reticulatum”, still grows in southeastern Turkey, quietly ignoring the fact that humans have spent millennia fighting over the land around it. From this region, chickpeas spread naturally to the Middle East, the Mediterranean basin, and India by around 3000 to 2000 BCE, becoming a staple across cultures, religions, and cuisines. This was globalisation without shipping containers, trade sanctions, or consultants, just humans carrying seeds because hunger is wonderfully non-ideological.
India, once it encountered the chickpea, embraced it with characteristic enthusiasm and then proceeded to dominate its production. Today, India accounts for more than 70 percent of global chickpea output, a statistic that has made the chickpea an unlikely participant in modern trade wars. Protectionist policies, tariffs, reciprocal duties, and import bans imposed by major players such as India, the United States, and Mexico have transformed this humble legume into a politically sensitive commodity. It turns out that even the simplest food becomes controversial once spreadsheets get involved.
Thiruvalluvar (an ancient philosopher), writing two thousand years ago, anticipated this uncomfortable truth with brutal clarity:
“Only those who live by agriculture truly live; all others merely follow and feed upon them.” - Kural 1033
The verse throws stylish shade at modern life, while we sip lattes under perfect air conditioning and call it “work”, farmers are out there negotiating with the sun, rain, and stubborn soil to keep humanity fed. Our sleek jobs, fancy titles, and glowing screens? Well, they are merely luxury addons. Strip away agriculture and civilisation collapses into a very well-dressed famine. Turns out, all our progress still runs on dirt, with attitude.
The chickpea’s journey to South America, especially Mexico, is a reminder that globalisation has often travelled under less noble banners. Portuguese and Spanish explorers introduced chickpeas to the New World in the sixteenth century, carrying them across oceans as reliable, non-perishable protein sources. From these initial points of contact, chickpeas spread across Central and South America, embedding themselves into local agriculture and diets. In modern times, Mexico has emerged as a significant exporter, specialising in the Kabuli variety prized for its size and quality, with major production zones in Sonora and Sinaloa. Argentina and Chile also joined the club. Thus, a crop born in ancient Anatolia, nurtured in India, and sanctified by ritual, found itself repackaged for global markets, complete with branding, logistics, and regulatory oversight. The chickpea, once again, remained silent.
Silence, however, does not mean insignificance. Homer knew this. In TheIliad (Book 13) he famously compares arrows ricocheting off Menelaus’s armour to chickpeas and dark-fleshed beans flying off a threshing floor in the wind. The metaphor works only because the audience knew exactly how dried chickpeas behave, hard, resilient, and oddly bouncy. By likening lethal weapons to pulses, Homer not only emphasises the strength of the armour but also performs a subtle act of cultural grounding. The epic world of gods and heroes is momentarily tethered to the everyday agricultural reality of farmers winnowing grain. War, Homer seems to say, may be glorious, but it is ultimately sustained by food. Chickpeas, by 800 BCE, were so deeply embedded in Greek life that their sound and movement were universally recognisable. Even epic poetry depended on legumes.
Indian tradition offers an equally revealing, if more logistical, narrative. In South Indian tale associated with the Mahabharata, an Udupi King is said to have managed catering for the massive armies at Kurukshetra. Legend holds that he could predict daily casualties by observing leftover food. In some versions, the king visits Krishna at night, who eats a handful of roasted chickpeas, the number consumed corresponding mysteriously to the thousands who would fall the next day. This allowed precise meal planning and zero waste on an industrial scale of destruction. These divine data analytics allowed the king to cook exactly the right amount of food, avoiding waste on a genocidal scale. It is perhaps the earliest example of just-in-time inventory management, achieved without software, powered entirely by chickpeas and divine omniscience.
If you have ever wondered why Udupi cuisine is famous for efficiency and planning, this story offers a clue. Here, chickpeas function not just as food but as instruments of cosmic accounting.
Interestingly, while early Vedic texts sometimes viewed certain pulses as unsuitable for sacrifice, the Mahabharata period saw chickpeas elevated into sraddha rites (funeral rituals) and daily offerings. They transitioned from questionable to sacred, a promotion many humans would envy.
Thiruvalluvar’s ethical framework accommodates this evolution effortlessly:
“Sharing food and caring for all life is the highest of virtues.”-- Kural 322
A noble idea, until chickpeas quietly steal the spotlight. Modest, beige, and absurdly cooperative, they divide endlessly without complaint and nourish everyone from monks to gym bros. While humans argue ethics in panels and podcasts, chickpeas get on with the job, feeding the masses without ego. In the moral economy of virtue, they don’t preach but they simply multiply and sustain, humbling us one hummus bowl at a time.
Across civilisations, chickpeas became the dependable fuel of endurance. Roman soldiers consumed them as part of their standard rations, boiling them into thick porridge known as “puls” when meat was scarce. Gladiators relied on pulses for strength, earning nicknames that emphasised grain and legume consumption rather than heroism. Spanish and Portuguese sailors trusted chickpeas on long sea voyages because they did not rot, sulk, or demand refrigeration. During World War II, Allied researchers turned again to pulses to address vitamin deficiencies among troops, while the modern Indian Army continues to include chickpea flour and whole chickpeas in field rations due to their high caloric density and reliability. Empires rise and fall, but soldiers keep eating chickpeas.
Modern science, arriving fashionably late as usual, now confirms what ancient armies, monks, and farmers already knew. Chickpeas are celebrated as “brain food,” dense with nutrients that support cognitive function, mood regulation, and neurological health. Nutritional psychiatry highlights their role in reducing inflammation and stabilising the gut brain axis, making them valuable in alleviating anxiety and depression. Unlike the sugar-fuelled spikes and crashes of contemporary diets, chickpeas offer slow-release energy, the kind required for sustained thought, emotional regulation, empathy, and decision making. In a world addicted to instant gratification, caffeine dependence, and burnout worn as a badge of honour, the chickpea is almost offensively patient. That patience makes it profoundly incompatible with modern lifestyles, and incompatibility, in our times, is the surest mark of subversion.
If this sounds like ancient wisdom romanticised through hindsight, it is worth noting that modern civilisation has recently spent billions of dollars rediscovering precisely the same conclusion, often during lunch breaks. Sometime in the post-Covid era, somewhere between a glass walled co-working space and an overbranded café serving ethically sourced air, a young startup founder sat staring at his laptop, attempting to optimise a problem modern life seems uniquely skilled at inventing, how to eat “mindfully” without actually having time to eat. His company was building an AI-driven wellness platform designed to “personalise nutrition using real time biometric feedback.” Investors liked it. The pitch deck had the correct fonts. The valuation was impressive for something that had not yet solved hunger, distraction, or exhaustion.
Lunch arrived in recyclable packaging engineered to survive a nuclear winter. Inside was a bowl labelled Ancient Protein Medley. It contained quinoa flown in from the Andes, kale grown in a vertical farm two kilometres away, avocado sourced from somewhere geopolitically awkward, and, almost as an afterthought, roasted chickpeas. The chickpeas were rebranded as “plant-based protein spheres,” presumably because “chickpea” did not sound sufficiently disruptive, scalable, or fundable.
As the founder ate mechanically between Slack notifications, his smartwatch vibrated with updates. Blood sugar stable. Cortisol marginally elevated. Cognitive focus acceptable. The AI recommended breathing exercises and fewer screens. The founder ignored both and continued eating. The irony was complete. A system powered by cloud computing, global capital, and predictive algorithms had concluded, after millions in funding, that roasted chickpeas were ideal for sustained energy and mental clarity.
This was not new knowledge. Roman soldiers had marched on it. Tamil farmers had lived on it. Sailors had crossed oceans with it. But now it had a dashboard, a graph, and a subscription model.
Later that evening, the same founder attended a panel discussion on sustainability. Someone in the audience asked about regenerative agriculture. The panellists responded confidently, invoking carbon credits, blockchain traceability, lab-grown proteins, and the future of food. No one mentioned legumes fixing nitrogen. No one mentioned soil. No one mentioned that the chickpeas quietly sitting in the founder’s lunch bowl had already done more for planetary health than the entire panel combined. The chickpeas, true to form, offered no comment, no keynote, and no thought leadership, only nourishment.
The chickpea’s journey eastward is no less intriguing. It reached China via the Silk Road, settling primarily in Xinjiang, where evidence of cultivation dates back around two thousand years. There, it became part of Uighur medicinal traditions, prescribed for ailments ranging from hypertension to itchy skin. During the Tang and Yuan dynasties, chickpeas gained prominence as a “cosmopolitan” food, sometimes referred to as the “Muslim bean”. Yet in central China, the chickpea struggled for a distinct identity, often conflated with the common pea even by Li Shizhen[1], the famed Ming dynasty herbalist. Not all travellers are recognised for who they are, some spend centuries being mistaken for someone else.
And yet, through all this travel, confusion, commodification, and conflict, the chickpea remained quietly regenerative. Unlike extractive crops, it forms a symbiotic relationship with Rhizobium bacteria in its roots, fixing nitrogen from the air and enriching the soil. It takes and gives simultaneously, leaving the land better than it found it. This is perhaps the most radical aspect of the chickpea’s philosophy, one that stands in stark contrast to modern economic models based on extraction and exhaustion.
Thiruvalluvar warns us gently but firmly:
“Harm done to others inevitably returns to oneself.” – Kural 319
A warning humans hear, nod at, and immediately ignore. The chickpea takes a cooler approach. It survives by being outrageously generous, throwing itself into curries, salads, and hummus without a trace of resentment. No revenge arc, no ego. Just pure edible goodwill. While we stress over karma and consequences, the chickpea lives its truth, give everything away, become indispensable, and achieve immortality in every lunch bowl.
Humanity today resembles the ancient chickpea, hard, resilient, perpetually defensive. We pride ourselves on toughness, bouncing off crises with admirable persistence, yet rarely ask what we leave behind. Climate change, trade wars, and political upheavals are the shrill winds of Homer’s winnowing floor, tossing us about. The question is not whether we survive the tossing, but whether we enrich the soil when we land. Progress, the chickpea suggests, is not about becoming larger, louder, or more profitable. It is about being regenerative, ordinary, and useful.
In an age obsessed with luxury, consumption, and curated lifestyles, the chickpea offers a quietly subversive model. It is not elite food, but it is the food of soldiers, monks, labourers, and families. It does not advertise, rebrand, or reinvent itself. It simply nourishes.
Thiruvalluvar captures this understated wisdom perfectly:
“From seeds come harvests, and from giving comes abundance.” -- Kural 1030
A line politicians quote solemnly before approving tax breaks for themselves. The chickpea, deeply unimpressed, just does the math. One seed becomes many, then redistributes itself aggressively into every cuisine on earth. No gatekeeping, no merit tests, no ‘personal responsibility’ lecture. While humans weaponise scarcity and call it policy, the chickpea runs a ruthless experiment in abundance and wins, by being cheap, shared, and impossible to cancel. The chickpea has lived this truth for millennia.
So perhaps the real lesson of globalisation does not lie in trade agreements or consumer choices but in a small legume that has travelled from ancient Turkey to modern Mexico, survived Roman marches and mythic wars, endured misnaming and trade barriers, and still ends up quietly nourishing someone’s meal.
Even now, after dashboards have glowed, algorithms have pontificated, and every opinion has been optimised into a performance, the answer remains stubbornly ancient, from Roman roads to Tamil fields. The chickpea does not care about your ideology, your portfolio, or your meticulously curated identity. It will grow, fix nitrogen, feed someone, and move on without a press release.
In a world addicted to spectacle, branding, and moral pontification, this calm, beige indifference feels almost obscene. Quiet competence and unfashionable, the chick pea, turns out to be the rarest, and most outrageously extravagant, luxury left.
The travelled chickpea. Photo Courtesy: Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan
[1] Li Shizen(1518-1593), Ming acupuncturist, herbalist, naturalist, pharmacologist, physician.
Ravi Varmman explores leadership, culture, and self-inquiry through a philosophical lens, weaving management insight with human experience to illuminate resilience, ethical living, and reflective growth in an ever shifting world today.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Bibliography
Pongal festival, milk boiling ritual, symbolism of abundance and ecology
Ramaswamy, N. (2004). Festivals of Tamil Nadu. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers.
Origins of chickpea domestication in the Fertile Crescent; dates (7500–6800 BCE); wild ancestor Cicer reticulatum
Zohary, D., Hopf, M., & Weiss, E. (2012). Domestication of Plants in the Old World (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Spread of chickpeas to India by 3000–2000 BCE
Fuller, D. Q. (2006). Agricultural origins and frontiers in South Asia. Journal of World Prehistory, 20(1), 1–86.
India producing ~70% of global chickpeas; modern trade disputes
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Thiruvalluvar quotations, dating (~2nd century BCE–2nd century CE), agrarian ethics
Pope, G. U. (1886). The Tirukkural. London: Oxford University Press.
Introduction of chickpeas to the Americas by Spanish and Portuguese explorers
Smith, B. D. (2011). General patterns of niche construction and the management of ‘wild’ plant and animal resources. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 366(1566), 836–848.
Modern chickpea cultivation in Mexico (Sonora, Sinaloa), Kabuli variety exports
Gaur, P. M., et al. (2012). Chickpea breeding and production. Plant Breeding Reviews, 36, 1–87.
Homer’s Iliad Book 13 chickpea/threshing-floor simile
Homer. (c. 8th century BCE). The Iliad, Book XIII. Trans. E. V. Rieu. London: Penguin Classics.
Udupi King / Mahabharata legends involving chickpeas and casualty prediction
Hiltebeitel, A. (2001). Rethinking the Mahābhārata: A Reader’s Guide to the Education of the Dharma King. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chickpeas in sraddha rites and post-Vedic ritual elevation
Olivelle, P. (1993). The Āśrama System: The History and Hermeneutics of a Religious Institution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roman soldiers, gladiators, and chickpea-based diets (“puls”)
Garnsey, P. (1999). Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chickpeas in maritime rations and early modern naval diets
Braudel, F. (1981). The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization and Capitalism, Vol. 1. New York: Harper & Row.
Use of pulses in World War II nutrition and modern military rations
Nestle, M. (2002). Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Nutritional psychiatry: chickpeas, gut–brain axis, slow-release energy
Jacka, F. N. et al. (2017). Nutritional psychiatry: The present state of the evidence. The Lancet Psychiatry, 4(3), 271–282.
Modern “wellness tech,” quantified nutrition, and startup food culture
Lupton, D. (2016). The Quantified Self. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Nitrogen fixation via Rhizobium in chickpeas; regenerative agriculture
Peoples, M. B., et al. (2009). The contributions of legumes to reducing the environmental risk of agricultural production. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 133(3–4), 223–234.
Chickpeas in China via Silk Road; Xinjiang cultivation; “Muslim bean”
Hansen, V. (2012). The Silk Road: A New History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Li Shizhen and historical misclassification of chickpeas
Unschuld, P. U. (1986). Medicine in China: A History of Ideas. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gower Bhat discusses the advent of coaching schools in Kashmir for competitive exams for University exams, which seem to be replacing real schools. Clickhere to read.
