Tag: U.K.

Categories
Slices from Life

To Bid or Not to Bid… the Final Goodbye?

That is the question Ratnottama Sengupta is asking with so many grey heads since London’s Westminster voted in favour of Assisted Dying

From Public Domain

“She was in so much pain these last four months that we are not mourning her final exit. We are celebrating her liberation.”

Speaking with Bhabhi’s[1] nephew last week forced me to readjust my emotions regarding the final goodbye. Condolences are in order, worldwide, when a dear one departs the mortal world. But of late I have been noticing that people “celebrate the life’ of the departed soul rather than mourn the death. Yes, every departure is a loss, taking an emotional toll of those left behind. And still I am not shocked nor angry that on June 20, a day after Bhabhi breathed her last in Singapore, the British Parliament voted in favour of a bill to legalise Assisted Dying for terminally ill people.

This has paved the way for a long debated social change that has, for as long as I can remember, been held in abeyance. Because? It has always been argued that, since we cannot bring the dead to life, we do not have the right to take away life. Indeed, the UK parliamentarians voted on the subject 10 years after it was first proposed, I learn from the news reports. And even as the Wise Men of London debated the issue, demonstrators outside were crying out, “Kill the Bill, Not the Ill.”

Once the Bill is passed by the House of Lords, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Law will give “mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales with six months or less life to live, the right to choose to end their life with medical assistance. Those who would want the procedure would have to gain the compassionate “Aye!” of two doctors and a panel of experts.

While the scrutiny by the Upper House might take months, it is unlikely to be blocked now that it has gone past the Commons and secured a nod from the PM.

*

My first acquaintance with the concept was garbed in the words, ‘Mercy Killing’. I was a school-going teenager when I read a Bengali courtroom drama, Parashuramer Kuthar (1989, Parashuram’s Axe) where the son was in the dock, fighting the charge of murdering his mother with morphine. “Night after night she would cry out of acute pain. Night after night I sat by her bed, watching her inch towards death. The doctor had prescribed the morphine that let her sleep at night. But when that failed, I gave her a repeat dose so she could go to sleep…”

Half a century ago that sounded ominous. Now, having seen — and digested — the ‘Assisted Suicide’ of celluloid icon Jean Luc Godard [2] in the autumn of 2022, I have been weighing my responses to the concept. 

Godard, born on July 7, 1930, had lived in France from where he had revolutionised cinema across the globe. At the age of 91, with “multiple disabling pathologies” — to quote his doctors — he went to Switzerland because that was the only country to have legalised euthanasia as long back as 1941. Albeit they have specifications, the overriding one being this: the person assisting the suicide must not have any selfish — read, monetary — motive to provide the seeker the means to exit. 

*

“Euthanasia is death with dignity,” my Jyotish Pishamoshai had said three decades ago. At 90 something, the man who went around all his life in trams and buses, to look up his younger cousins, simply hated to be bed bound. Besides, he had seen his youngest brother Dinesh “hang till death” at age 20, without a trace of remorse for having bombed the Writers Building in the Capital of the Raj. So why would the elder brother, his memory intact, want to “be a burden” to even his only son? Mercifully, Sudhir Da did not have to go the way of Parashuram. The almighty in heaven voted for the nonagerian’s exit.

*

My response to the issue peaked when I read this poem, ‘Antim Akanksha’ (The Last Wish) , by Purnendu Ghosh of Jaipur. This IIT-ian from Kanpur, a diehard cinema aficionado, has penned the same thoughts in Bengali and English too. But I had already translated his anguish in Hindi before I spoke with him. “I had written these lines when I was sitting by my mother-in-law, then languishing in the hospital. When I had first seen her, she was 46. Over the next 46 years, I was witness to the transformation age had forced upon her  I could only watch, helpless, because the final exit is in the hands of only the Almighty.”

I am still weighing my responses. Yes, I believe in the Existence of a Superior Force. Still, when a person has to lie waiting to bid goodbye to pain, would he or she wait for His mercy, or that of the medics?

[1] Sister-in-law

[2] https://www.onmanorama.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/2022/09/16/filmmaker-film-critic-jean-luc-godard-suicide-debates-switzerland.html

Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of  The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and writes books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
Poetry

You’ve Already Made It

By Stephen Philip Druce

YOU'VE ALREADY MADE IT

Don't you strive for the fame
or pursue its fortune --
play a roulette game 
like a business tycoon,
climb a high status ladder? 
don't even start,

you've already made it,
you've got a good heart,

don't boast your conquests -
your qualifications,
the talent contests --
the expectations,
don't conquer the mountains 
or top the charts --

you've already made it,
you've got a good heart,

don't be frightened to lose,
or to take a rejection,
wear an ego bruise 
for your imperfection,
your legacy is sleeping -
you've got a head start,

you've already made it,
you've got a good heart,

don't stack on your power,
don't you mass on appeal,
build the tallest tower 
or sign a record deal,
bin your trophies -
certificates - 
rip them apart,

you've already made it,
you've got a good heart.

Stephen Philip Druce is based in Shrewsbury UK. He is published in the USA, India, the UK and Canada. He’s written for theatre plays in London and BBC 4 Extra. 

Contact: Instagram – @StephenPhilipDruce

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Musings

Trojan Island

By Nitya Amalean

It was the year 2020. When most of the world was lacking connection and normalcy, I had the privilege of being in Sri Lanka, an island that I had referred to as ‘home’ but hadn’t truly been my home since I left at the age of eighteen. Being here gave me connection with a sugary coat of ‘normalcy’. I had my affectionate family, who made lockdowns entertaining with the purchase of a ping pong table, the nightly binge of true crime documentaries and the occasional games night, including a terrible decision to play ‘Cards Against Humanity’. I had a relationship with my boyfriend in all the physical sense of the word after two years of long-distance phone calls. I had my friends who were all a 15-minute drive away. I had a flexible job where I could interact with smart and passionate coworkers, something I ignorantly thought I wouldn’t find in Sri Lanka. Add to that, countless long weekends and public holidays, mostly spent in the beach towns down south, a region brimming with excellent food options, tasty cocktail bars and magnificent sea swims – truly this was an island that brought comfort, safety and security.

But I wanted more.

This romanticised version of the pandemic years spent in Sri Lanka, while all true, evoked such strong feelings of being lost, purposeless, and devoid of self-worth. This most comfortable of comfort zones made me feel completely out of sorts and yearning for something different. Long, sleepless nights of overthinking, questioning and wondering, “What on earth am I doing here?” Did I spend four years in an exceedingly difficult academic environment and four years working in the most ambitious, individualistic, enlightening city to land up here? Did my parents really spend thousands of dollars on American college tuition for me to end up back home feeling like a failure?

The initial move back home in May 2020 was going to be temporary. I was placed on furlough from my job in London and I believed it was best to wait it out back home. I thought that once the pandemic was all well and done, which would obviously be in a few months, I’d return to London, like nothing had changed.

As I fell in deeper with the aesthetically pleasing confines of beautiful beaches in Trincomalee, the delicious home-cooked meals, the hugs from my parents, the kisses from my boyfriend, the cuddles with my little nieces and nephews, and the long weekend trips with friends, it would be an outright lie to say I wasn’t relieved when the furlough continued and ultimately, ended with the expiration of my work visa. That seemed to seal the decision. I had no way back to the United Kingdom. Sri Lanka was to be my home now.

Looking back at that time, it was like being given this Trojan horse of a cozy, tender, warm embrace, disguising claws that pierced slowly, leaking poison and disillusionment. The surrounding Indian Ocean was as confining as it was endless, as isolating as it was welcoming, as suffocating as it was refreshing.

*

Scrolling through social media, I compared myself to others. And no, it wasn’t the mindless glazing-of-the-eyes watching Tik Tok or Reels but the reading-every-post-with-anxiety on LinkedIn. I compared myself to my friends in New York City, progressively moving up the ladder with impressive promotions and new six figure salaries. I compared myself to my best friends, living their lives independently, powering through their work passionately. I compared myself to peers in my graduating class who seemed to be smashing it in whatever life path they were on. And I felt thoroughly sorry for myself.

While pleased to be working with smart individuals at my WFH startup job in Sri Lanka, the lack of growth and opportunity for professional development made me itch. There were too many moments in the middle of workdays, where I laid sprawled across my bed, staring up at the fan and berating myself down a black hole. I switched between two toxic mindsets, one telling myself that I was no longer worthy of doing exciting, cutting-edge, fulfilling work and the other questioning why I couldn’t be content with all the positives that I had around me? Why did I always want more? Why did I always have this “grass will be greener” frame of mind? Why couldn’t I just ‘be’? This second mindset would set in when I heard my mum’s call to come for her home-cooked lunch of rice and curry. Wasn’t I begging for all these luxuries when I was living abroad?

While work was a huge factor contributing to my discontent, lifestyle was a secondary, significant reason. Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer that everyone has different priorities and are in different stages of life and I spent a lot of time (over)thinking about my priorities. I wanted new experiences. I wanted to be pushed outside my comfort zone to do things that terrified my introverted self. I wanted to work remotely from a Greek island. I wanted to pick up Spanish again and stay in Barcelona for the summer. I wanted to take a creative writing course in Paris. I wanted to hop on a flight and visit my best friend in Munich, where she was living on a farm. I wanted the luxury of having a multiple-year multiple-entry Schengen visa which would be stamped every few months. I wanted a different passport. I wanted to go for an innumerable amount of plays, whether they were in small, 30-seater spaces with no set design or in beautiful, historic theatres where the lead actor is naked almost the entire run time (for artistic purposes apparently). I wanted to watch Jodie Comer in Prima Facie. I wanted to laugh hysterically at a live interview with the legendary Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I wanted to listen to the beautiful minds of Konkona Sen Sharma, Nandita Das and Aparna Sen discussing the perils of censorship in their films in India; watch a match at Wimbledon; find a way to go to the Berlinnale Film Festival. Enjoy the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

I wanted to do so many things.

Could I find these things while living in Sri Lanka? I convinced myself that I couldn’t.

*

Recently, at my one-year work anniversary in my current job, my manager thoughtfully said, “Thank you for always striving for excellence.” While very kind words, they made me understand something I perhaps always knew about myself, without ever being explicitly told. Always striving for excellence even as a type-A young person, pushing for excellent grades, in order to go to an excellent college in the United States, and ultimately, secure an excellent job. (I’m exhausted just typing out this sentence.) And after being extremely fortunate to work with intelligent and supportive people and have challenging, exciting projects, my own benchmark for excellence kept rising.

I wanted to really enjoy my work but also be challenged by it. I wanted to learn from diverse, brilliant colleagues. I wanted to learn new technical skills. I wanted to have workshops with Product teams on developing new AI functionalities and how best to position them in the marketplace. I wanted to brainstorm with the Content team on how to best partner with a certain Tamil British-Indian actress and not feel like the token voice of diversity. I wanted the promotion and the salary bump and the senior title and the recognition and the reputation. And if not now, then it was in the five-year plan. I can say that this is what New York City does to you, but that would be a lie. It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.

All this ambition drove me straight into a brick wall, dissolving my confidence in my own capabilities. I blamed Sri Lanka. I blamed a whole country for making me feel like this.

Soon, the island was facing its worst economic crisis since independence and to watch the destruction of possibility, willpower and any minute form of political stability in real time was heartbreaking. I won’t even attempt to put into words the plight of Sri Lankans who lost almost everything, unable to access the most basic essentials of fuel, electricity, cooking oil, milk powder and medicines. By early 2022, ‘home’, an island that had nurtured me, that gave me the most special roots, that offered me safety and security, was broken. In my siloed social bubble of international school kids, foreign-educated graduates and Colombo’s upper-middle class families, I desperately wanted to get out. And so did thousands of others who did not want to waste their potential in a nation that was falling apart at the seams.

After years of only regarding Sri Lanka with fondness, I found that bitterness, resentment, and animosity towards my island nation magnified to a point where I couldn’t even hold a conversation with friends who could leave but were choosing to stay. Give me a work permit, give me a Western passport, give me a student visa, give me anything that will allow me to leave this place.

A family meeting was called when my black mood permeated through the home, along with wine, cheese, and a whiteboard to discuss my future plans — the pleasures of coming from a business family — efficient but with alcohol. My family, the ever-loving, supportive, encouraging guiding lights in my life, told me point-black, “You need to leave.” In an atypical South Asian, fashion, they said, “Do what makes you happy. Get a job or do your Masters. Travel everywhere.” My sweet parents, knowing that they would once again be empty nesters with my brother and me elsewhere, knowing that they fully enjoyed having the house full again, also recognised that their kids would be their happiest selves outside of Sri Lanka. 

To have diametrically opposing emotions about the right path forward is confusing to say the very least. If I chose to remain in Sri Lanka, it would have been because three people lived there. My parents were not getting any younger and more substantially, we treasured each other. My partner and I were finally living in the same city after years of distance and savouring every moment of togetherness. And to have all three people only having words of encouragement further deepened the guilt.

But I wanted to be selfish. I didn’t want to stay because I’m a patriotic citizen contributing to the brain drain. I didn’t want to stay because I’m a good daughter or girlfriend. I wanted to leverage my resources, my experiences and most importantly, my LinkedIn, to do the impossible. A broken island meant I had to put together the pieces. For myself.   

To leave or not to leave? And to which part of the world? To return back to the country where I have the privilege of residency but do I want to live in the land of mass shootings and a work-till-you-die mentality? Or to pursue an entry into the U.K. through a student visa by doing an unwanted MBA? Or to strive for the most idealistic, unrealistic scenario — a job in London?

But in that snug, tightly wrapped, a-little-too-hot Anokhi[1] blanket of a comfort zone, the decision was always clear. Maybe one day, I’ll make my peace with my ‘home’. Maybe one day, my blood won’t boil with frustration when I’m on Sri Lankan soil for more than a fortnight. Maybe one day, I will feel the affection again. Maybe one day.

Fast forward two years to the present day, sitting in my cozy flat in London, having just spent a few electrifying weeks in Greece, riding on a high from a successful partnership with a certain tech juggernaut, and preparing for next week’s launch of a new AI product, I appreciate my new ‘home’. It might not be the island I once thought I would spend the rest of my life in, and it’s a little colder and gloomier than the tropics. But the possibilities are endless once again, my dreams are daring once again, and life is feeling full once again

[1] Anokhi Quilt

Nitya Amalean is an emerging writer and storyteller. She was born and nurtured in Sri Lanka, college-educated in the United States and currently, lives in London where she works for an audio media company.

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL. 

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International