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Interview Review

The Subliminal World of Radha Chakravarty’s Poetry

In conversation with Radha Chakravarty about her debut poetry collection, Subliminal, published by Hawakal Publishers

Radha Chakravarty

Words cross porous walls
In the house of translation—
Leaf cells breathe new air.

We all know of her as a translator par excellence. But did you know that Radha Chakravarty has another aspect to her creative self? She writes poetry. Chakravarty’s poetry delves into the minute, the small objects of life and integrates them into a larger whole for she writes introspectively. She writes of the kantha — a coverlet made for a baby out of soft old sarees, of her grandmother’s saree, a box to store betel leaves… Her poetry translates the culture with which she grew up to weave in the smaller things into the larger framework of life:

Fleet fingers, fashioning
silent fables, designed to swaddle 
innocent infant dreams, shielding
silk-soft folds of newborn skin
from reality’s needle-pricks, 
abrasive touch of life in the raw.

--'Designs in Kantha’

She has poignant poems about what she observes her in daily life:

At the traffic light she appears 
holding jasmine garlands
selling at your car window for the price 
of bare survival, the promise 
of a love she never had, her eyes 
emptied of the fragrance
of a spring that, for her, never came.

--‘Flower Seller’

Some of her strongest poems focus on women from Indian mythology. She invokes the persona of Sita and Ahalya — and even the ancient legendary Bengali woman astrologer and poet, Khona. It is a collection which while exploring the poet’s own inner being, the subliminal mind, takes us into a traditional Bengali household to create a feeling of Bengaliness in English. At no point should one assume this Bengaliness is provincial — it is the same flavour that explores Bosphorus and Mount Everest from a universal perspective and comments independently on the riots that reft Delhi in 2020… where she concludes on the aftermath— “after love left us    and hate filled the air.”

The poems talk to each other to create a loose structure that gives a glimpse into the mind of the poetic persona — all the thoughts that populate the unseen crevices of her being.

In Subliminal, her debut poetry book, Radha Chakravarty has brought to us glimpses of her times and travels from her own perspective where the deep set tones of heritage weave a nostalgic beam of poetic cadences. Chakravarty’s poems also appear in numerous journals and anthologies. She has published over 20 books, including translations of major Bengali writers such as Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Mahasweta Devi and Kazi Nazrul Islam, anthologies of South Asian writing, and several critical monographs. She has co-edited The Essential Tagore (Harvard and Visva-Bharati), named ‘Book of the Year’ 2011 by Martha Nussbaum.

In this conversation, Radha Chakravarty delves deeper into her poetry and her debut poetry book, Subliminal.

Your titular poem ‘Subliminal’ is around advertisements on TV. Tell us why you opted to name your collection after this poem.

Most of the poems in Subliminal are independent compositions, not planned for a pre-conceived anthology. But when I drew them together for this book, the title of the poem about TV advertisements appeared just right for the whole collection, because my poetry actually delves beneath surfaces to tease out the hidden stories and submerged realities that drive our lives. And very often, those concealed truths are startlingly different from outward appearances. I think much of my poetry derives its energy from the tensions between our illusory outer lives and the realities that lurk within. In ‘Memories of Loss’, for example, I speak of beautiful things that conceal painful stories:

In a seashell held to the ear
the murmur of a distant ocean

In the veins of a fallen leaf
the hint of a lost green spring

In the hiss of logs in the fire,
the sighing of wind in vanished trees

In the butterfly’s bold, bright wings,
The trace of silken cocoon dreams

So, when and why did you start writing poetry?

I can’t remember when I started. I think I was always scribbling lines and fragments of verse, without taking them seriously. Poetry for me was the mode for saying the unsayable, expressing what one was not officially expected to put down in words. In a way, I was talking to myself, or to an invisible audience. Years later, going public with my poems demanded an act of courage. The confidence to actually publish my poems came at the urging of friends who were poets. Somehow, they assumed, or seemed to know from reading my published work in other forms, that I wrote poetry too.

Did being a translator of great writers have an impact on your poetry? How?

Yes, definitely. In particular, translating Tagore’s Shesher Kabita (as Farewell Song), his verses for children, the lush, lyrical prose of Bankimchandra Chatterjee (Kapalkundala) and the stylistic experiments of contemporary Bengali writers from India and Bangladesh (in my books Crossings: Stories from India and Bangladesh, Writing Feminism: South Asian Voices, Writing Freedom: South Asian Voices and Vermillion Clouds) sensitised me to the way poetic language works, and how the idiom, rhythm and resonances change when you translate from one language to another. Translating poetry has its challenges, but it also refined my own work as a poet. Let me share a few lines of poetry from Farewell Song, my translation of Tagore’s novel Shesher Kabita:

Sometime, when you are at ease, 
When from the shores of the past, 
      The night-wind sighs, in the spring breeze, 
	The sky steeped in tears of fallen bakul flowers,
Seek me then, in the corners of your heart, 
    For traces left behind. In the twilight of forgetting,
	Perhaps a glimmer of light will be seen,
The nameless image of a dream.
	And yet it is no dream,
For my love, to me, is the truest thing …

What writers, artists or musicians have impacted your poetry?

For me, writing is closely associated with the love for reading. Intimacy with beloved texts, and interactions with poets from diverse cultures during my extensive travels, has proved inspirational.

Poetry is also about the art of listening. As a child I loved the sound, rhythm and vivacity of Bengali children’s rhymes in the voice of my great-grandmother Renuka Chakrabarti. She has always been a figure of inspiration for me, a literary foremother who dared to aspire to the world of words at a time when women of her circle were not allowed to read and write. A child bride married into a family of erudite men, and consumed by curiosity about the forbidden act of reading, she took to hiding under her father-in-law’s four-poster bed and trying to decipher the alphabet from newspapers. One day he caught her in the act. Terrified, she crept out from her hiding place, and confessed to the ‘crime’ of trying to read. Things could have gone badly for her, but her father-in-law was an enlightened individual. He understood her craving to learn, and promised that he would teach her to read and write. Under his tutelage, and through her own passion for learning, she became an erudite woman, equally proficient in English and Bengali, an accomplished but unpublished poet whose legacy I feel I have inherited. Subliminal is dedicated to her.

As a child I absorbed both Bengali and English poetry through my pores because in our home, poetry, and music were all around me. I was inspired by Tagore and Nazrul, but also by modern Bengali poets such as Jibanananda Das, Sankho Ghosh and Shamsur Rahman. In my college days, as a student of English Literature, I loved the poetry of Shakespeare, Donne, Yeats, T. S. Eliot and the Romantics.

Later, I discovered the power of women’s poetry: Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich, to name a few. I am fascinated by the figure of Chandrabati, the medieval Bengali woman poet who composed her own powerful version of the Ramayana. Art and music provide a wellspring of inspiration too, for poetry can have strong visual and aural dimensions.

You translate from Bengali into English. How is the process of writing poetry different from the process of translation, especially as some of your poetry is steeped in Bengaliness, almost as if you are translating your experiences for all of us?

Translation involves interpreting and communicating another author’s words for readers in another language. Writing poetry is about communicating my own thoughts, emotions and intuitions in my own words. Translation requires adherence to a pre-existing source text. When writing poetry, there is no prior text to respond to, only the text that emerges from one’s own act of imagination. That brings greater freedom, but also a different kind of challenge. Both literary translation and the composition of poetry are creative processes, though. Mere linguistic proficiency is not enough to bring a literary work or a translated text to life.

English is not our mother tongue. And yet you write in it. Can you explain why?

Having grown up outside Bengal, I have no formal training in Bengali. I was taught advanced Bengali at home by my grandfather and acquired my deep love for the language through my wide exposure to books, music, and performances in Bengali, from a very early age. I was educated in an English medium school. At University too, I studied English Literature. Hence, like many others who have grown up in Indian cities, I am habituated to writing in English. I translate from Bengali, but write and publish in English, the language of my education and professional experience. Bengali belongs more to my personal, more intimate domain, less to my field of public interactions.

Both Bengali and English are integral to my consciousness, and I guess this bilingual sensibility often surfaces in my poetry. In many poems, such as ‘The Casket of Secret Stories,’ ‘The Homecoming’ or ‘In Search of Shantiniketan’, Bengali words come in naturally because of the cultural matrix in which such poems are embedded. ‘The Casket of Secret Stories’ is inspired by vivid childhood memories of my great-grandmother’s  daily ritual of rolling paan, betel leaves stuffed with fragrant spices, and arranging them in the metal box, her paaner bata[1]. When she took her afternoon nap, my cousins and I would steal and eat the forbidden paan from the box, and pretend innocence when she woke up and found all her paan gone. Of course, from our red-stained teeth and lips, she understood very well who the culprits were. But she never let on that she knew. It was only later, after I grew up, that I realised what the paan ritual signified for the housebound women of her time:

In the delicious telling,
bright red juice trickling
from the mouth, staining
tongue and teeth, savouring
the covert knowledge
of what life felt like in dark corners 
of the home’s secluded inner quarters, 
what the world on the outside looked like 
from behind veils, screens, 
barred windows and closed courtyards
where women’s days began and ended,
leaving for posterity
this precious closed kaansha* casket,
redolent with the aroma of lost stories

*Bronze

But I don’t agree that all my poetry is steeped in Bengali. In fact, in most of my poems, Bengali expressions don’t feature at all, because the subjects have a much wider range of reference. As a globe trotter, I have written about different places and journeys between places.

Take ‘Still’, which is about Mount Everest seen from Nagarkot in Nepal. Or ‘Continental Drift’, about the Bosphorus ferry that connects Asia with Europe. Such poems reflect a global sensibility. My poems on the Pandemic are not coloured by specific Bengali experiences. They have a universal resonance. I contributed to Pandemic: A Worldwide Community Poem (Muse Pie Press, USA), a collaborative effort to which poets from many different countries contributed their lines. It was a unique composition that connected my personal experience of the Pandemic with the diverse experiences of poets from other parts of the world. The poem was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. I guess my poems explore the tensions between rootedness and a global consciousness.

What are the themes and issues that move you?

I tend to write about things that carry a strong personal charge, but also connect with general human experience. My poems are driven by basic human emotions, memory, desire, associations, relationships, and also by social themes and issues. Specific events, private or public, often trigger poems that widen out to ask bigger questions arising from the immediate situation.

Sometimes, poetry can also become for me what T. S. Eliot calls an “escape from personality,” where one adopts a voice that is not one’s own and assume a different identity. ‘The Wishing Tree’ and the sequence titled ‘Seductions’ work as “mask” poems, using voices other than my own. This offers immense creative potential, similar to creating imaginary characters in works of fiction.

There are a lot of women-centred poems in Subliminal. Consider, for example, ‘Designs in Kantha’, ‘Alien’, ‘River/Woman’, ‘That Girl’, ‘The Severed Tongue’ and ‘Walking Through the Flames’. These poems deal with questions of voice and freedom, the body and desire, and the legacy of our foremothers. Some of them are drawn from myth and legend, highlighting the way women tend to be represented in patriarchal discourses.

The natural world and our endangered planet form another thematic strand. I am fascinated by the hidden layers of the psyche, and the unexpected things we discover when we probe beneath the surface veneer of our exterior selves. My poems are also driven by a longing for greater connectivity across the borders that separate us, distress at the growing hatred and violence in our world, and an awareness of the powerful role that words can play in the way we relate to the universe. ‘Peace Process’, ‘After the Riot’ and ‘Borderlines’ express this angst.

How do you use the craft of poetry to address these themes?

Poetry is the art of compression, of saying a lot in very few words. Central to poetry is the image. A single image can carry a welter of associations and resonances, creating layers of meaning that would require many words of explanation in prose. Poems are not about elaborations and explanations. They compel the reader to participate actively in the process of constructing meaning. Reading poetry can become a creative activity too. Poems are also about sound, rhythm and form. I often write “in form” because the challenge of working within the contours of a poetic genre or form actually stretches one’s creative resources. In Subliminal, I have experimented with some difficult short forms, such as the Fibonacci poem, the Skinny, and the sonnet. Take, for instance, the Skinny poem called ‘Jasmine’:

Remember the scent of jasmine in the breeze?
                   Awakening
                    tender
                   memories
                  bittersweet,
                   awakening
                    buried
                    dormant 
                    desires,
                   awakening,
in the breeze, the forgotten promise of first love. Remember?

The last two lines of the poem use the same words as the beginning, but to tell a different story. The form demands great economy.

I pay attention to the sound, and even when writing free verse, I care about the rhythm.  Endings are important. Many of my poems carry a twist in the final lines. I mix languages. Bengali words keep cropping up in my English poems.

Are your poems spontaneous or pre-meditated?

The first attempt is usually spontaneous, but then comes the process of rewriting and polishing, which can be very demanding. Some poems come fully formed and require no revision, but generally, I tend to let the first draft hibernate for some time, before looking at it afresh with a critical eye. Often, the final product is unrecognisable.

Which is your favourite poem in this collection and why? Tell us the story around it.

It is hard to choose just one poem. But let us consider ‘Designs in Kantha’, one of my favourites. Maybe the poem is important to me because of the old, old associations of the embroidered kantha with childhood memories of the affection of all the motherly women who enveloped us with their loving care and tenderness. Then came the gradual realisation, as I grew into a woman, of all the intense emotions, the hidden lives that lay concealed between those seemingly innocent layers of fabric. The kantha is a traditional cultural object, but it can also be considered a fabrication, a product of the creative imagination, a story that hides the real, untold story of women’s lives in those times. Behind the dainty stitches lie the secret tales of these women from a bygone era. My poem tries to bring those buried emotions to life.

As a critic, how would you rate your own work?

I think I must be my own harshest critic. Given my academic training, it is very hard to silence that little voice in your head that is constantly analysing your creative work even as you write. To publish one’s poetry is an act of courage. For once your words enter the public domain, they are out of your hands. The final verdict rests with the readers.

Are you planning to bring out more books of poems/ translations? What can we expect from you next?

More poems, I guess. And more translations. Perhaps some poems in translation. My journey has taken so many unpredictable twists and turns, I can never be quite sure of what lies ahead. That is the fascinating thing about writing.

Thank you for giving us your time.

[1] Container for holding Betel leaves or paan

(The online interview has been conducted through emails and the review written by Mitali Chakravarty.)

Click here to read poems from Subliminal.

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

Categories
Essay

Conquering Fears: Bowing to the Mountains 

A difficult hiking trail up into the mountains combined with bouts of inner doubt makes for an interesting big day out, as Keith Lyons discovers on an alpine route in New Zealand.

Photo Courtesy: Keith Lyons

The coroner’s reports make sobering reading. Two people had died on the same track within a couple of years – both deaths partly attributed to insufficient signage warning hikers heading down to cross the river at that point rather than continue to where cliffs, waterfalls and slippery rocks could be fatal. Both fatalities were preventable, the reports concluded. The one day, up and down rocky alpine route is recommended to only be attempted by experienced hikers, and in good weather, but when my friend and I set off recently on the Gertrude Saddle hike, in New Zealand’s Fiordland, it seemed ‘experienced’ was not a word I would describe the fellow walkers.

Inspired by photos on Instagram, guidebook recommendations in English, French and German, blogposts with photos, and travellers’ recommendations, the hike is popular and easily accessible. It is only 7km return, but 7km involving some risk and quite a lot of altitude gain and fall – 600m climb to be precise. Already nearly 30 cars, vans and motorhomes were parked in the carpark, close to the divide on the Te Anau-Milford Sound Scenic Highway. If you can’t find the marker signs, just look for the people hiking, one website had quipped.

Peering into the distance, we could make out hikers in waterproof jackets and wind blocking fabrics. In the carpark, I reiterated my expectation that if the trail proved slippery, crumbling or covered in snow or ice, then I wouldn’t want to continue. The start of the trail was picture-perfect, and the weather was fine – something of a rarity for a region that gets 200 days of rainfall in an average year. The first part of the 6-hour hike is along the flats of a valley with a meandering river, giving a chance to admire the alpine grasses and flowers, and look up to the amphitheatre of rugged mountains capped in the previous night’s snow.

Photo Courtesy: Keith Lyons

It was early autumn, but colder than normal, and we wore extra layers of clothing. I counted five layers, plus my gloves. It felt good to be on the move, to be enjoying the day, and the prospect of crowning our week’s trip with a route that neither of us had attempted before. From a previous trip to Fiordland I’d spied the valley, with a hundred waterfalls flowing thanks to the torrential rain, and having heard from friends that this was a great day out, remembered to add it to the possible hike list, when the weather was more favourable.

The first people we encountered were coming down. Maybe they’d started early and were the first back, I thought. As the trio approached, I inquired onto the track conditions. They hadn’t been to the saddle, instead turning around when the going got tough. There were rocks falling down from climbers above, and they didn’t feel safe. It was not the news we were hoping for, but at least I thought this gave us an opt-out.

Photo Courtesy: Keith Lyons

The trail veered left, out of the valley, and up. I felt my breathing become more laboured, and my calves straining. My companion had earlier talked about meeting Edmund Hillary, the first to climb Mt Everest, and being impressed with the size of his strong calves. When I met the New Zealand climber I didn’t get a chance to admire his gastrocnemius and soleus muscles, but when I shook his hand I realised that his hands were also strong, large and powerful.

We reached the river crossing below a waterfall, which was easily crossed with a hop, skip and jump, and then looked again at the route and markers, to ensure imprinted on our memory was the turn off for the river crossing, against the natural inclination to go down, down to where bluffs had claimed weary hikers too keen to get down to the valley below.

Photo Courtesy: Keith Lyons

There were warning signs along the way, as if to reinforce the gravity of the situation. The track from the river crossing on is steep, and not suited to those with limited experience or a dislike for heights, the signs warn. “The track goes up steep rock slabs and is treacherous when wet or frosty — there are steel cables to assist you.” A young woman passed us with just a purse and mobile phone, wearing a spaghetti top. We saw another 20-something walking uphill texting with both thumbs – a feat I was curious about, given that I had no phone reception for my network. Millennials. Seemingly unprepared should the weather turn or they need extra energy for the hike.

We stopped beside Black Lake, and saw a smaller blue lake below, perched above the river crossing waterfall. Other hikers stopped to have snacks or lunch, but we had already tucked into our sandwiches by the river, and I was anxious to keep moving in case the snows ahead melted into slush as the sun finally reached the boulder field. The clamber up with steel cables wasn’t too bad, it was more a case of avoiding damp areas where boots and shoes would slide and attack any confidence.

Photo Courtesy: Keith Lyons

The ridge by the Black Lake has proved to be a false summit, and there was still more climbing to do, on zig-zag tracks which displaced rocks and pebbles with every footfall, along uneven trails covered in pockets of snow, and over granite rocks worn smooth by the elements. Those rocks, where dry, proved to be the most satisfying to walk on, once it was established that the tread of shoes was sufficient to grip the surface.

Looking up, we could make out the silhouette of climbers who had made it to the ridge, which we presumed was the actual saddle. But it was hard to calculate just how far it was up. As more hikers started to come down, we asked, but assessments of the distance and time varied. When someone said ‘probably half an hour’ I realised that rather than turn back, we were probably going to make it to the top for the literally ‘breathtaking’ views. I was feeling good, and my companion was enjoying the rock scrambling.

Photo Courtesy: Keith Lyons

Picking our way among the rocks and boulder, we kept going, the prospect of views, a rest and a second lunch ahead. Eventually the steepness gave way to a more gentle terrain, and a few more steps and we were looking out to different mountains and valleys. We joined the other walkers admiring the view into the Milford Sound and savouring packed lunches. There were folk from the USA, France, Germany, India, China and Belgium, some of them on working visas in New Zealand, or enjoying ‘van life’. People asked others to take their photos, some standing on large boulders very close to drop offs of 700m. We looked around for the spaghetti-top woman. Maybe she had made it, or turned back.

At the top, some 1400m high, ice sat on top of small hollows, with snow melting to make the tracks muddy. My friend found a shelter build with rocks and had his nap, while I climbed a little higher for views both sides of the saddle. The saddle got its name some 140 years ago when the surveyor for the road hiked up with his wife Gertrude Holmes. She was likely wearing a dress, but most probably not a spaghetti top.

As Edmund Hillary once said, to climb a mountain successfully you not only have to hike up it, you have to hike back down too – and survive to tell the tale. With this message taken to heart, we carefully descended to the valley floor, and eventually back to the carpark.

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Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer and creative writing mentor originally from New Zealand who has spent a quarter of his existence living and working in Asia including southwest China, Myanmar and Bali. His Venn diagram of happiness features the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee, the negative ions of the natural world including moving water, and connecting with others in meaningful ways. A Contributing Editor on Borderless journal’sEditorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.

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

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

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

Categories
Essay

The Magic Dragon: Cycling for Peace

It’s been five years since the American cyclist ‘Hutch’ died, yet his message of peace remains, as Keith Lyons remembers the global citizen who challenges us all to live life to its fullest

In early 2019, having not heard from an old friend ‘Hutch’ for a few weeks, I learnt that the American I’d first met in China has died of natural causes at his new humble home in the mountains of Greece. He was almost 80 years old.

There’s nothing extraordinary about living until your late 70s. Or relocating to live the last years of your life in a warmer place. But Hutch was not your ordinary septuagenarian retiree. Nor was he a typical American. Though when I first heard about him in 2009, it was when a German friend staying with me in southwest China had come across a sign on the wall of an Italian restaurant in Lijiang, Yunnan, seeking fellow cyclists for day trips around the area. The deal was, go on a ride with Hutch and other cyclists, and he would pay for lunch or dinner. “So how was he?” I asked my friend about the organiser, who had a website promoting world peace. “American, very American,” she replied. I was intrigued by this.

But it wasn’t till another month or so that our paths crossed, and I met him in a café with a gaggle of others: locals, Chinese youngsters who had moved to Yunnan province, and some foreigners.

Hutch was treating them all to drinks and pizza. I found out later, he bought bikes for some ride participants who became his friends. That’s the kind of person he was. 

Hutch was not a tall man in stature, and the cycling obviously kept him very fit, I noted on first meeting him. He wore lycra cycling gear, a neck scarf and bandana, and had a gentle face, with a bright eyes and a benign smile. He was polite, and entertaining, and clearly enjoyed the carbo-loading pizza as much as the entourage, made up of English-speaking Chinese who ranged from their 20s to 40s.

He invited me to join them, as after pizza, there was going to be cake and dessert. He got up to shake my hand, and I noticed he was wearing cycling shorts, with spindly yet muscle-toned legs.

Having set up his new China base in the mountain town where I’d been living since the mid-200s, I got to know him over drinks, meals, outings and adventures. Mr F. A. Hutchinson (I never knew what those initials stood for) acquired names in each country where he stayed – Haqi in China, Nima (meaning ‘sun’) in Tibet, Hache in Bolivia. At one stage he was signing off his emails with ’The Magic Dragon’, his serpent name. ‘Or just call me a bum on a bike’, was tagged to the end of his signature. I just knew him as Hutch. 

Generous and giving, sometimes overly generous, he also adopted adult children, accumulating a family of daughters and sons in China during his half decade living in Xining and Lijiang. While his trusted bike, Ms.Fetes, was loaded with pannier bags front and back, he didn’t carry much baggage from his past, which had seen him serve in Vietnam, work for decades in TV sports production in the US, and establish a talent development agency in China in 2007. 

Over the couple of years I knew him in Lijiang I can only recall a few occasions when he was not sporting padded cycling shorts. More often than not he turned up to cafe, meeting and events on his bicycle, sometimes not bothering to take off his cycling helmet indoors. 

That cycle helmet proved its value one day when we were out cycling in the hills to an alpine lake around 2,600 m above sea level not far from LIjiang. Hutch was a cyclist with remarkable stamina, and his slow and steady approach could burn off others 40 years his junior on hill climbs. While Hutch had cycled all over China for a number of years, without major incident or accident — a fact which impressed all who inquired about the safety and sanity of cycling in The Middle Kingdom — while out with me he broke that 100% safety record. Coming down a winding hill late one afternoon the wheels of his bike skidded on icy gravel and he ended up falling off his bike, a large truck behind him putting on its brakes just in time to avoid running him over. Worried he was requiring an ambulance or hospital treatment, I rushed over to Hutch to find him un-fazed by it all. He cycled back to where he was living, and tried to tend to his battered and bloody knees, elbows and hands himself, a wry smile over his beard-stubbled face. 

One of Hutch’s most impressive achievements in China was to cycle from Lijiang across Tibet to Lhasa and onto Mt Kailas, a feat made more incredible by the challenges and dynamics of a group ride (participants from several countries included Elvis), and then the breakaway split by some cyclists which jeopardized the whole mission. I helped with some of the logistics during the year-long adventure, but am still in awe of anyone who can cycle for weeks at altitudes over 4,000 metres across the Tibetan plateau. The tale of the 70-year-old American who cycled across China to Tibet made newspaper headlines, and he featured on the front cover of cycling and outdoor magazines. We gave him a hero’s welcome when he returned to Lijiang, his story still told by expats and locals living in north-west Yunnan. 

As well as his cycling pilgrimage to the holy mountain of Tibet, we worked on a housing project for small Tibetan-style eco-houses with wind and solar energy made for US$10,000. In Lijiang, he helped his friend Irlin set up a small eatery (possibly to ensure he had a reliable supply of Western food), and he was a regular visitor to my café, ‘Lijiang Millionaire’s Club’, and the crosstown cafe (and tango dance studio), ‘Over the Bridge’, run by fellow New Zealander, Stephen Dalley. 

After Hutch’s years in China, he was ready for a change. Increasingly worried about the Chinese government’s clampdowns on freedom of speech, his frustrations spilled over from the anonymous government to the Chinese people. He often carried a green canvas shoulder bag with the words in Mandarin of Chairman Mao ‘Serve the People’ — and found occasion to show that to shopkeepers, bank clerks, ticket sellers or government officers — anyone who was stonewalling him or telling him ‘mei you’ (don’t have). 

Perhaps inspired by the practical and easy-going nature of Kiwis, Hutch was looking forward to heading to New Zealand, where he already had a number of contacts. After Lijiang, he went to Australia, New Zealand, and then to South America, before moving to Europe a few years ago to live in Spain, Germany and Greece. 

He was on a personal crusade, to promote peace and understanding, and wanted to get more people on bicycles, by holding inclusive, inexpensive cycle tours. “One of our slogans, Burn Fat, Not Oil,” he wrote.

One of Hutch’s key talents was to enlist others to join, and get them working together, even though he admitted he didn’t like groups. However, the laziness or greediness of others sometimes meant that his efforts floundered into anarchy and stagnation.

While often on the move, Hutch wasn’t a ‘rolling stone gathering no moss’ kind of person. Instead, he acquired more friends everywhere he went. I never saw him play the age card, but enjoyed hearing his wisdom acquired from a long and interesting life. He had some strong opinions on various subjects. Once you met Hutch and he got your contact details, it was like being on an email subscription list you could not get off. A few times I got fed up with the email exchanges, not so much from Hutch, but from some of his old American friends, and despite requests to opt out, found myself back on the list a few months later.

Taoist Hutch believed we needed to change the world, and to change ourselves. He quoted Mahatma Gandhi on his site: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

He rallied against capitalism, materialism, money and greed. He complained about how money was god, the world was going mad, and against the failures of democracy with widespread corruption of its leaders. One year his favourite slogan was, “We have met the enemy, and he/she is us.”

Hutch urged ‘women of the world to unite’. He was impressed by former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, often sending me links to news articles about her, but he was not so favourable about Myanmar’s leader Aung Sun Suu Kyi and her lack of response to ethnic cleansing, telling me, “I am starting to really dislike this woman.”

He called for urgent measures to address what he saw as the biggest and most unrecognised problem facing the human race: over-population. Each day he posted comments with news articles under the title ‘Pathology in America’, or with his take on issues, written in upper case: SLEAZE-BAG TRUMP’S AMERICA. He cursed wrongdoers, and hoped they would face the consequences. ‘WOE BE UNTO TRUMP FO ALL THIS! MAY ALL THE 7 DEPREDATIONS, FULL UPON HIM AND HIS CHILDREN’S CHILDREN, FOR 7 GENERATIONS’1, he penned recently after a second child died in government custody at the US border. 

Sometimes his missives were written as poems or as cryptic riddles. Likewise, he was prepared to consider other views, new information or the different opinions of those better informed, and he would figuratively smoke the peace pipe.

Hutch did occasionally like to smoke a pipe, not with tobacco but with the ‘happy baccy’. (Indeed, today there’s an article in Scientific American suggesting THC in marijuana may boost rather than dull the elderly brain).

“As I get older, I seek peace and tranquillity,” he wrote in one of his emails to me. “What has been important to me is a different life, one seeking answers to the riddle of life.” In another he sent last year, he said he was getting closer. “Closer to what? The peace of mind of having overcome materialism.” In another email he wrote “at this age, we take life one day at a time”.

He wrote latterly that he had wanted to live in Meteora in Greece, having fantasised about it while in Germany, visiting his long-time friend and patron, Rucha. The rock formation in central Greece has a stunning hillside Eastern Orthodox monastery, second in importance only to Mount Athos. Almost prophetically, he said recently, “We never know when our time has come, so better to act Now!”

On Christmas Eve last year, after a good day out cycling around Meteora, the 78-year-old wrote a poem which started:

What a cycling day this has been,
What a rare mood I’m in
Being the Light
Screaming Delight. . . .

It was in the small town of Kalampaka near Meteora where Hutch died, around 2 January 2019 — according to his close friend Xu Tan — after coming down with a bad cold a few days before. He was cremated at the base of the Meteora rocks. 

“I’m not much big on ‘goodbyes’,” Hutch posted as he left Australia in late 2011 on his way to New Zealand. “I usually slip out the back, Jack . . . get a new plan, Stan — and basically get myself down the road.”

“There is no reason to be sad when someone dies and sheds their body,” he said. “In fact, we should celebrate such a transition.” 

After learning of his death, many candles were lit in memory of Hutch, in China, Australia, New Zealand, South America, in Europe, in the USA — all around the world, a remembrance and celebration of that cranky, freewheeling legend, as he cycled over the hill into the sunset, and into a brand new dawn.

And five years later, we still remember the man and his message.

Photo provided by Keith Lyons
  1. These are authorial comments retained for colour but do not reflect the stand of Borderless Journal ↩︎

Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer and creative writing mentor originally from New Zealand who has spent a quarter of his existence living and working in Asia including southwest China, Myanmar and Bali. His Venn diagram of happiness features the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee, the negative ions of the natural world including moving water, and connecting with others in meaningful ways. A Contributing Editor on Borderless journal’sEditorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.

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

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Categories
Stories

A Night at the Circus

By Paul Mirabile

The good folk of Black Rock, Montana, USA, were not overly enthusiastic that a small, travelling circus would be coming to their peaceful town to make a one-night performance. They had heard disturbing stories about this circus from people out of state who had seen it or pretended to have seen it. Rip Branco, the mayor of Black Rock, felt a bit reluctant about authorising the performance, but the owners’ arguments won him over, half-heartedly. Besides, the children of Black Rock had never had the pleasure of seeing a circus, nor their parents for that matter.

So, many posters of the coming circus were nailed or pasted on the outer walls of the townhall, the school and at the farmers’ and factory workers’ cooperatives.

Strange tales circulated throughout the region: the performers originated from the Old World speaking alien tongues. Hearsay spread that many of the performers were abnormal individuals, freaks of nature, they said; and that the whole show was a razzle-dazzle of shamelessness, cynicism. What if this hearsay was the truth! The majority of the folks of Black Rock were convinced of its veracity.

In spite of all this hullabaloo the circus rumbled into town. Through the narrow, main avenue of Black Rock, lined with shops, banks, the townhall, the police-station and the Wednesday open-air market, crawled ten or eleven caravans painted in colourful figures of clowns, mountebanks, lions and elephants, and odd looking creatures whose appearances the townspeople, gaped at wide-eyed. They watched this slow-moving spectacle as they stood on each side of the avenue like rows of sentinels or pine-trees. The rear-guard of the caravan was composed of a cage with two dozing lions, behind whom plodded two baby elephants, lethargically swaying their trunks, every now and then emitting a trumpeting cry as if they were announcing the arrival of the courtly cortege …

No one uttered a word as the caravan disappeared into the weedy fields outside the town, designated by the mayor for their one-night performance.

Before the astonished eyes of the townsfolk, many of whom had rushed out to the field leaving their shops unoccupied, men, women and other ‘odd’ individuals scrambled to and thro, pitching, erecting, raising, until the top-tent loomed large and welcoming before them. Admission was a mere two dollars, a comfortable fee for the good people of Black Rock, a fee, too, considered a largesse on the part of the owners given the fact that the performers had no peer on earth … Or so they said.

At eight o’clock sharp the flaps of the big-top were flung open to the mistrustful but curious folks of Black Rock. Mayor Rip Branco, with his wife and two young boys, was the first to be admitted, then the town’s children, all to be seated in the first six or seven rows of the grandstand. Next to shuffle in were the farmers, factory workers, bankers and shopkeepers with or without their wives, conducted to the stalls flanking the grandstand. No animals were permitted. Many of the men grumbled protestations or sardonic remarks, but the ticket seller, a smiling dwarf sporting a torero costume, took no heed.

When the spectators had settled in comfortably the lights went out. A blast of music boomed out of the pitch black. Trombones, trumpets, hand-drums and tambourines filling the big-top with rhythms and melodies very foreign to the ears of the spectators. A huge spotlight fell on five or six colourfully-dressed individuals in the ring masquerading as some sort of rag-time band, blowing or banging their instruments as they danced about in happy-go-lucky abandon. The ring-master stepped out of this motley crew, pushing and shoving them aside, lashing out with his whip towards the more recalcitrant ones, who, in defiance of the snapping whip, blew out scales of disobedience. He bowed to the spectators in the most obsequious manner, doffing his black top hat. One of the musicians handed him a huge megaphone and he bellowed :

“Ladies and gents … and children too, tonight is the night of all nights, one you will never forget. All of you will witness the most rollicking merry-makers that have stalked our good earth; the most incorrigible buffoons who have ever lived. Your eyes will feast upon a jamboree of dancing, jestering and cavorting oddities whose dazzling shenanigans have always made children shriek, women scream, men doubt their senses. But I can assure you every stunt, every act, every gesture, however burlesque, is of the utmost authenticity.” Whether all the spectators were able to decipherthe ring-master’s opening tirade is difficult toassess. In any case, he went on: “ Now, let me present the strongest man on Earth, the nameless giant of Central Asia.” And as he cracked his whip the musicians fled into the darkness behind him. Out of that mysterious dark, the nameless giant charged into the middle of the arena like a raging bull. The master of ceremonies fled as if for his life. Snorting and grunting, the colossus, clad only in a tiger-skin loin-cloth, flexed his biceps, threw out his mighty chest, tightened his thigh muscles. He was indeed a mountain of muscle. Meanwhile popcorn and cotton candy were being distributed to the children, free of charge. Mayor Branco and his family also benefitted from this boon …

The strongman made horrible grimaces at the children who shrank back in their seats, squealing. He stomped about snarling and growling, flaunting his muscle-laden body until out rushed seven little dwarves dressed as toreros, all of them brandishing a bullfighter’s cape. They swarmed about the now enraged strongman, waving their capes and taunting him with obscene gestures and cuss words. The strongman charged into them head down like a bull, snorting and panting, swinging his bull-like neck from left to right, knocking a few dwarves to the sandy soil of the arena. Just as the crowd began to display overt displeasure at this unseemly spectacle with hoots and hollers (except the children who were cheering on both), two dwarves jumped up on to the strongman’s massive shoulders, followed promptly by all the rest, where gradually they formed a little pyramid atop this mountain of a man, who presently much appeased, pranced about in the spotlight with his ‘captured’ dwarves’, singing a song in some alien tongue. The dwarves hectored the dwarf-bearer, chaffing him with the crudest of names, smacking his massive face or slapping the top of his bald head with pudgy hands. With one mighty shake of the head, the strongman shook them all off into the air like so many swarms of flies, they, tumbling and rolling away, far enough from him where they continued to gesture indecorously.

Many spectators began to boo and hoot. Others laughed and cheered, especially the children, who munched happily on their cotton-candy and popcorn. “Shame! Shame!” cried out several women from the stalls. But their rebukes were drowned out by two or three applauding groups of farmers who apparently had been drinking before the performance. In fact many men were drunk, and the majority were taking much delight in this unusual spectacle …

Just then, at the crack of the ring-master’s whip, the dwarves rolled out of the arena and the strongman stomped away, bowing to the crowd. Into the ring now appeared five very weird-looking creatures, and behind them, as if by magic, a long, high tightrope that had been erected, held up by two very high wooden ladders. The spectators were baffled: humans or animals? Three, perhaps women, had faces of lions, whose ‘manes’ grew out of their cheeks, rolling in thick strands down to their feet. It was a horrible sight! But more horrible still were the two-headed and the mule-faced women, dark faces drooping down to their necks. Gasps rose from the crowd. Cries of indignation followed.

“Freaks ! Monsters!” they rasped and raged at the smiling ring-master who introduced his acrobats and trapeze performers, one by one, as the finest in the land whilst they speedily climbed up the ladders, three to the left, two to the right. At the top, they tip-toed out on to the thin wire where in burlesque abandon they danced and pranced and sang, the wire swaying to and fro. One or two juggled little red balls, tossing them over the heads of the others who attempted to catch them. Far below, the master of ceremonies whipped his whip and the merry acrobats danced and pranced all the more ardently, one or two on one foot, as the wire rocked, rolled and pitched like a boat. Terrified shrieks rose from the now standing crowd. Farmers and factory workers showed their fists. Women shouted abuse. As to the children and Mayor Branco, they clapped in rhythm to the singing quintet rocking and rolling on that tightrope.

At that point Mayor Branco turned towards the displeased crowd behind him, confused about what attitude to adopt. There was no doubt that the acrobats and trapeze performers were genuine artists ; their antics on that high wire brooked no belief of beguilement. And however ‘freakish’ they appeared to be, this awful birth-born deformity should welcome a hearty appraisal. Which the good mayor did from the bottom of his heart when the five performers had slid down the ladders, taken their bows in the middle of the ring and disappeared behind the rear flaps of the top-tent.

Much of the crowd were on its feet, red-faced (due to their drinking ?), shouting down to the ring-master as he cracked his whip violently: once … twice … thrice, signal which brought out two ferocious, roaring lions[1] shaking their manes. The spotlights followed their proud steps as they neared the front rows of the grandstands. There they sniffed the cotton candy of the now terrified children who recoiled in their seats. Their parents rushed to their rescue, but this was unnecessary, for another crack of the whip — and the accompanying spotlight — brought out a three-legged man and a pin-headed man. They strolled towards the sniffing lions, calling them by their names. One of the lions began lapping the popcorn out of the outstretched hands of several children who squealed in wary delight. Then the lion licked those charitable hands in grunting gratitude.

The pin-headed man whistled. The huge beast turned and trotted to him. He waved to the crowd then opened the lion’s mouth, pushing his pin head into it. As to the three-legged man, he had hopped on to the other lion’s back, two legs at its flanks and one lying over its fluffy mane. With a deafening yelp and roar, they galloped around the ring as if they were at a rodeo show, rushing around the pin-headed man whose whole tiny body had by now completely disappeared in that lion’s open mouth. The crowd held their breaths uncertain of the stance they should take on this stunt. Could a man possibly crawl into a lion’s massive maw ? The drunken farmers laughed grossly. Their wives sneered in contempt. The children sat in excited expectation.

Meanwhile another spotlight had fallen on a beautiful milky-white woman clad in a silken gown, standing upright against a large board placed behind her. Another spotlight swung to the left where a legless man, using his arms like a pair of crutches, had positioned himself ten or fifteen feet from the upright woman, a huge leather belt girding his chest from which hung dozens of kitchen knives. Between this scene and the lion-tamers’ antics, the spectators remained nonplussed, no longer hooting or hectoring.

The legless man swiftly took a knife and threw it at the lovely girl; it drove into the back board a quarter of an inch from the crown of her head. Here the crowd puffed in awe. Many women covered their eyes whilst the children were all eyes! He threw another and another. After each knife thrown, the crowd gasped a huge gasp! The legless man continued his act, each knife working rapidly downwards from the woman’s head, around her exquisite shoulders, along her slim, graceful hips, lengthwise her bare, slender legs until reaching those minute feet of hers. When he had finished his knife-throwing performance, the beaming, long-haired woman stepped out from the contour of the knives, the spotlight proudly exhibiting her ravishing silhouette configured on the board. With a gesture of triumph, she pointed to that silhouette, then glided over to the legless man, took him by the arm and both bowed reverently to the crowd. The men jumped up cheering wildly, either out of respect for the knife-throwing performer or for the ravishing beauty of the woman. As to their wives, they remained seated, smugly looking towards the ring, disregarding their drunken husbands’ sonorous applause. Mayor Branco was on his feet applauding along with his two boys, his wife tugging at his sleeve to sit so as not to make a spectacle of himself.

All of a sudden two spotlights swept over the galloping lion and the one that, it would seem, had all but swallowed the pin-headed man. But no ! Look … there … The lion yawned a wide yawn and out of that yawn the pin-headed man leapt, running about the ring crying out: “I’ve lost me head ! I’ve lost me head!” The crowd, stunned by these uncouth shenanigans, again began yelling insults. As to the galloping lion and its whooping cavalier, they darted to the right, where in front of them a huge hoop had been magically placed; a fiery hoop whose leaping flames hissed and sizzled. Through the hoop they jumped followed by the other lion, tailed by the waddling pin-headed man who dived through the hoop, tumbled over on the other side, got up, dusted himself off, then bowed to the hypnotised spectators. The children at once howled with joy. The adults, hesitant as to the ‘quality’ of this extravagant act, remained stoic, frowning.

The band struck up a local tune, horns and drums ushering in a motley gaggle of clowns rushing about the ring like escaped madmen from an asylum. In their frantic scuffle, two or three of them were tossing about a strange object, flinging it about like a football. A sudden shiver of horror swept through the crowd: those merry-making buffoons were passing a living torso to one another! A man without arms or legs! He had a huge smile on his face as he sailed in the air from one pair of arms to another. Then the clowns broke into a song: “ Zozo the clown and his funny hat, patches on his pants and he’s big and fat, long flappy shoes and a round, red nose, makes people laugh wherever he may go!” These lyrics were repeated without respite as they played football with the torso, who, and it must be stated here, was crying out for joy!

Enough was enough! “ Monsters! Monsters!” cried out groups of red-faced, infuriated men from the back of the stalls, screwing up their eyes. Rotten tomatoes were thrown at the shameless buffoons by the farmers who had brought them along for the occasion. Ladies screamed. The children sat in dazed awe, following each pass of the laughing torso as if they were following a football match. The frolicking clowns, undismayed by the tomatoes, performed cartwheels and somersaults from one end of the ring to the other.

But it was the following scene that left the crowd dumbfounded. As the laughing torso was thrown from clown to clown, spurts of orange flames spouted from his mouth! Long fiery flames that carved out tunnels of blazing light as he arched high in the air. This surreal scene rendered the crowd, momentarily, mute with puzzled, ambiguous emotions. They soon, however, regained their initial, infuriated state. 

In the last rows of the stalls, rowdies were making a tremendous row, brawling with the bankers and notaries who had shown, up till then, an impassioned interest in these performances. Fisticuffs broke out. Faces were slapped or punched. Hair and beards were pulled. Clothes torn. Ladies knocked over. Things were indeed getting out of hand. Whistles blew. The local security guards rushed into the upper stalls roughly handling the more pugnacious men, untangling the tangles of rioters one by one, unknotting the knots of brawlers that rocked the stalls.

At that stormy moment, trumpets, trombones, drums and cymbals sounded below, silencing the brawlers for a brief moment. Then from out the side flaps two baby elephants charged, trunks held high, trumpeting louder than the fanfare! Atop them, seated in howdahs apparelled in the most royal regalia were yelping mahouts fitted out in cowboy costumes, waving their huge cowboy hats at the now stupefied spectators. The elephants chased the clowns around the ring, grabbing a few with their trunks, rolling them up then flinging them into the air. The elephants had gone amok, lifting their trunks for all to see their huge flabby smiles. The living torso was passed high over the mahouts’ reach, mouthing furious flames galore, landing with a thud in the arms of a receiving clown on the other side. The children in the front rows were on their feet howling with merriment, laughing along with the clowns and elephants as the chase continued on its merry-go-round way. And here the band struck up a favourite tune to which all the clowns sang: “Zozo the clown and his funny hat, patches on his pants and he’s big and fat, long flappy shoes and a round, red nose, makes people laugh wherever he may go.”

This boisterous chorus was joined by children, some of whom had internalised the tune. Their voices rose in unison, rising far above the brawling, bickering and rioting behind them in the upper stalls. To tell the truth, some of the farmers, factory workers and bankers had also joined in the singing. How they enjoyed those yelping ‘cowboys’ whooping it up atop the baby elephants.

Mayor Branco sized up the maddening bedlam, reluctant to decide who were the madder: the performers or the crowds! Yet, deep down, oh how he was enjoying himself that evening. For him, it would be the most memorable night of his life. And I will add here, for most of the other good folk of Black Rock, be they the howling children, the appalled women or the obdurate men …The madness grew even madder when from out of the side flaps the seven little dwarves scrambled, dashing up to the elephants, waving their capes. One or two of these mischievous acrobats had been on stilts and were trying to distract the rampaging mahouts with their capes. The mahout-cowboys riposted by letting fly their lassoes, the nooses catching one or two of the rascally dwarves who were toppled from the stilts and dragged mercilessly in the wake of the plodding elephants. The ring had become a veritable pandemonium of lunacy and delirium …

Suddenly all the spotlights went out. A sudden lull crept over the ring, creeping stealthily up into the stands. A deep lull during which time not one drunken cry from the adults, not one choking laughter from the children, not one trumpet from the elephants nor yelp from either the cowboy-mahouts or  clowns or dwarves were heard. The lull must have lasted a minute or two …

The lights suddenly flooded the ring where all the performers and animals had mustered in humble expectancy. Silently they stood (or were held!) searching out the crowd for compassion, understanding, appraisal. The master of ceremonies stepped out from amongst them. He doffed his top hat :

“Ladies, gents and children. The performances that you have experienced tonight will not go unnoted in the chronicles of Black Rock.” (Whether this opening remark meant to be ironic is not for your narrator to say. In any case, it provoked a few snickers from the upper stalls.) “Yes, many of you have exhibited displeasure and resentment. Monsters you cry out? Freaks you bellow in bitter tones! Well, yes, if by monsters you mean these humble unfortunates who have had the courage to show themselves, to exhibit themselves to the public as true artists, and not sulk in self-pity or hide out like criminals or unwanted wretches out of the righteous eye of the public. But why display such ill-feelings towards them, may I ask? Because many of my performers suffer from birth deformities? Because they are physically unlike normal people? No! Their terrible deformities do not, and will never deprive the public the goodness and nobleness of their hearts of gold … their feelings of sincerity when performing for you. But this sincerity must be reciprocal. If not, their disfigurement will be interpreted as a ticket to the streets, a paid fare for lethal medical experiments in clinics, tearful departures for the zoos where they will be put into cages like savage animals … We are a grand and hard-working family whose every member holds equal status. But their livelihood, ladies and gents, depends on your good will, your protection against dangerous individuals whose illicit, murderous intentions would have killed them off long ago or maimed them even more. Here, within the sanctuary of this vast tent, look not at those deplorable disfigurements, but consider fairly and honourably their long, long hours of labour, their unquestionable talent, their dauntless courage and human dignity.”

The fanfare struck up one of rag-time tunes to whose familiar melodies all the children stamped and clapped. Their mothers and fathers also clapped. Farmers, shop-keepers, bankers and factory workers alike imitated the gaiety of the children. Even the security guards joined in the revelry. As to those adamant hooters and rioters, they stalked out of the top-tent, raising their fists, spitting out drunken obscenities … Which were drowned out by the general mirth and merriment.

All the performers bowed. The baby elephants held their trunks high, the lions shook their proud, bushy manes.  With the crack of the whip the lights went out.

The good folk of Black Rock Montana filed out of the top-tent singing the Zozo tune. Mayor Rip Branco was the last to leave, a bright, beaming smile on his round face.

And as Shakespeare once had occasion to record: All’s well that ends well.

[1] The story is set in indeterminate times (the author claims around 1970s) before animals were banned from performing in circuses.

https://www.fourpawsusa.org/campaigns-topics/topics/wild-animals/worldwide-circus-bans

https://www.four-paws.org/our-stories/press-releases/october-2021/one-million-signatures-supporting-the-end-of-the-use-of-circus-animals

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Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

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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

Sparrows

Poetry and translation from Korean by Ihlwha Choi

The sparrow I saw under the roof of a border checkpoint

crossing from the USA to Canada,

heading to the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial in New Delhi, 

coming out with a bottle of drink from an alleyway

encountered a sparrow in front of a small shop.



Both the sparrows – the one seen at the border checkpoint

and the other in front of the small shop,

belong to the same species as those

that live under the eaves of my hometown houses.

Next to the KBS* New York correspondent’s mike,

the sparrow hopping on the street, nibbling on crumbs,

and the sparrow living in a salt warehouse in Sorae*, Incheon,

are both sparrows from the same species.



Like a quiet Korean restaurant sign by the road on the way to Las Vegas,

or like the little six-year-old Korean-American kid I met

at a small snack bar in an LA alleyway,

lonely yet welcoming fellow countrymen sparrows from afar.



*KBS: Korea Broadcasting System

*Sorae: small creek in Incheon City, Korea

Ihlwha Choi is a South Korean poet. He has published multiple poetry collections, such as Until the Time When Our Love will Flourish, The Color of Time, His Song and The Last Rehearsal.

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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

Poetry by Patricia Walsh

Patricia Walsh
PAINT STRIPPER

This corrosion, for better bearing, ended,
stench of solvent above the flower box
flavours distended, unwatered, to demise.

I once feared being pounced on,.
people doing other than eating. 
Minding their business, chatting to content.

Esoteric art hangs on the wall.
Selling for an orchestra, singing well,
enjoying the radio mumbling overhead.

Looking out on the cycle path, saying prayers
against the river's deluge, a fractured coursing
still only in one direction, catching fire.

The sun dances on various monuments,
sinking drinks al fresco, eating ad nauseum,
memoirs of the stony dead staying regardless.

Sweet wild flowers inhabit the tables,
scent bred out for better bearing
allergens eaten to hold for dear life.

A portmanteau life, an ersatz existence,
eat and somehow leave, bereft of information
imparted, sightseeing for dear life.

Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland.  To date, she has published one novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014, and has published one collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors, with Lapwing Publications in 2010. She has since been published in a variety of print and online journals across Ireland, The UK, USA, and Canada.  She has also published another novel, In The Days of Ford Cortina, in August 2021.

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
Excerpt

Whispers of the Heart

Title: Whispers of the Heart – Not Just A Surgeon: An Autobiography

Author: Dr Ratna Magotra

Publisher: Konark Publishers

A noteworthy incident occurred at Northcote Nursing Home that garnered attention in my favour. Dr L.H. Hiranandani (widely known as LH), was an acclaimed head and neck surgeon. He was known internationally for his expertise in performing radical neck resections and for the remarkable speed with which he conducted surgeries. He wielded significant influence in both medical and social circles, and routinely performed surgeries on his private patients at Northcote.

One day, a highly distinguished lawyer from Madras (Chennai) underwent a neck cancer operation at Northcote, with me assisting LH during the procedure. As was his practice, LH completed the surgery swiftly and left for his clinic. Meanwhile, the patient had been transferred to his private room, while I was tending to my remaining duties on the floor. As part of my routine, I made rounds to check on the patients who had undergone surgery.

Upon entering the lawyer’s room, I was taken aback by the sight of him struggling to breathe. His hand felt cold and clammy, and his pulse was feeble. Although he remained conscious, he appeared extremely restless even as I tried to reassure him. It became evident that he was choking, and I realised that unless something was done, his life would slip away. Unfortunately, I was uncertain about the specific course of action needed to save him. While the nurse had attempted suction and increased the oxygen supply through a face mask, these measures appeared ineffective. The patient’s breathing grew shallower, and his lips and nails began to turn blue. It became increasingly obvious to me that blood clots were obstructing his airway, and simply increasing oxygen flow would not suffice. Private patients received distinct treatment compared to those in public hospitals. In this setting, resident doctors were not authorised to make decisions independently and were required to follow the consultant’s instructions.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford the delay involved in contacting the consultant, as the process would have entailed routing the call through the telephone exchange, involving operators at both ends and resulting in a significant loss of valuable time.

I recalled reading about tracheostomy (creating an opening in the windpipe) during my undergraduate studies, though I had never witnessed the procedure being done (ENT surgeons usually performed tracheostomies). Acting on instinct and without hesitation, I reached for a scalpel from the emergency tray and made a decisive incision in the middle of the patient’s neck. There were substantial blood clots surrounding and compressing the trachea. As soon as this pressure was released, there was a dramatic transformation in the patient’s condition, and his breathing improved considerably. I carefully removed the blood clots both from within and around the trachea using suction before inserting a tracheostomy tube. To my immense relief, there was significant improvement, and the patient’s lips and nails regained their natural colour. He was soon breathing comfortably, and so was I. Assured of his well-being, I promptly requested blood from the blood bank and decided it was time to inform LH, the operating surgeon.

The patient had stabilised, narrowly escaping from the clutches of death. Now, I had to confront the repercussions of my actions because I had essentially performed a minor operation without obtaining permission from the consultant. Additionally, I had neither informed the patient’s family about the procedure, nor had I obtained their written consent. The list of mistakes was growing longer, and LH’s reputation in the city was significant enough to potentially impact my future prospects in Bombay.

In the midst of this emotional turmoil, I made a call to LH. His clinic was situated near the Regal Theatre, in close proximity to Northcote. He arrived swiftly at the hospital. LH was known for his predilection for taking the stairs rather than the elevator, and I could distinctly hear his brisk footsteps and booming voice as he inquired, ‘What happened? Who did this?’ I, as the sole resident doctor and with no alibi, not that any was necessary, stood there, anxious and unsure of what would transpire next.

When LH entered the room, the lawyer, now fully conscious and aware of the ordeal he had gone through, managed a weak smile. I expected LH to explode, and I stood there with a numb mind, waiting for the inevitable. To my astonishment, LH rushed towards me and, to my surprise and that of others, nurses and hospital personnel gathered there, embraced me in his characteristic, effusive manner. He repeatedly and profusely thanked me for displaying presence of mind during the crisis, which could have cost the lawyer his life. He appreciated that his patient had been saved. Overwhelmed with relief, I could have collapsed, but there was still work to be done.

The patient was swiftly transported to the OR, where we located and ligated the bleeding vessel responsible for the incident. We also revised and secured the tracheostomy, this time by a qualified ENT surgeon, LH himself. Subsequently, the patient was shifted to his room. As he was leaving, LH discreetly handed me an envelope in my hands containing crisp currency notes. Sentimental as I was, I left the envelope and its contents untouched for several years. I knew that two lives had been saved that day!

Word of the incident spread quickly to Nair Hospital, where LH held an honorary professorship in ENT surgery. Several consultants from Nair Hospital, who regularly operated at Northcote, inundated me with congratulations. I had every reason to be pleased. The incident had generated immense goodwill.

(This excerpt from Dr Ratna Magotra’s ‘Whispers of the Heart – Not Just A Surgeon: An Autobiography’ has been published with permission from Konark Publishers, New Delhi)

About the Book

This book provides a captivating glimpse into the journey of a cardiac surgeon, illuminating the story of a small-town girl who, as an outsider, struggled to get a foothold in an intensely competitive field. Her eventual triumph serves as a poignant representation of an earlier generation of Indians post-Independence, showcasing their resilience through both triumphs and tribulations.

Throughout the narrative, the author shares her personal philosophy on the practice of medicine and addresses the evolving landscape of societal norms, encouraging readers to pause and reflect. While she doesn’t make exceptions for being a female cardiac surgeon in a predominantly male speciality, her narrative serves as a powerful source of motivation for women aspiring to break barriers in any field.

This book also sheds light on the transformation of healthcare in contemporary India, with the author playing a significant role in its development. Additionally, it delves into facets of her life beyond the medical realm, including her enriching travels and impactful social activism.

About the Author

After completing her MBBS at Lady Hardinge Medical College in New Delhi, Dr Ratna Magotra pursued Master’s degrees in general surgery and cardiothoracic surgery from Bombay University (now known as University of Mumbai) while working at BYL Nair Hospital in the city. She further honed her skills through training at Guy’s Hospital in the UK and the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, USA.

Dr Magotra’s illustrious career led her to become a professor and head of the Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Department at the prestigious GS Medical College and King Edward Memorial Hospital in Mumbai. Despite her demanding role, she remained committed to issues beyond medicine, both as a department head and as a practising paediatric cardiac surgeon. Her outstanding contributions to the field have earned her numerous accolades, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Indian Association of Cardiovascular-Thoracic Surgeons in 2017, a testament to her exceptional expertise.

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Categories
Essay

Where Eagles Soar

Narratives and photographs by Ravi Shankar

Langkawi

Most passengers got down from the bus at Alor Setar, Kedah, north Malaysia. Binaya, my travel companion, shifted to the front seat of the double decker and later I followed him. It was after eight thirty in the evening and the road had become narrower. After driving on the six lane E1 expressway for most of the day, the narrower road looked confining. Traffic had also reduced. We got an excellent driver’s eye view of the road. One of the benefits of a double decker is the opportunity that you can pretend to be the driver. Malaysia’s northern most state of Perlis seemed different from the larger ones to the South. It was around nine-thirty at night when we reached the Kuala Perlis bus terminal. It was a short walk to our hotel near the jetty.

The Deepavali holidays had just begun and the exodus from Kuala Lumpur to various hometowns was in full swing. The expressway was packed with cars and our drive north was a slow crawl. The InterCity bus service (a private bus operator) used a double decker for this trip though the lower deck had been stripped of seats and used only for luggage and cargo. The seats were comfortable and the drive smooth though extremely slow due to the traffic.

Next morning, we had a traditional Malay breakfast of nasi lemak (rice cooked in coconut milk), fried anchovies and kueh (traditional cakes) along with teh tarikh (boiled and frothed tea). Pouring tea from a great height from one mug to another is a traditional South Indian way of cooling the drink and generating a thick head of foam. Tea shops do this with an extravagant flourish. We walked around the jetty and waited for our midday ferry to Langkawi.

The process of boarding the ferry was smooth and organised. We were seated right at the front. Roro ferries that could carry cars were approaching Kuala Perlis from Langkawi. The sea was calm, and the islands of Langkawi appeared after half an hour. The ferry went round the island and eventually approached the town of Kuah. Kuah is the district headquarters of Langkawi. There is the iconic Langkwai eagle statue near the jetty. The jetty was modern, and we took a taxi to our hotel located near Cenang Beach (Pantai Cenang in Malay).

Cenang Beach

The main island of Langkawi is surprisingly large, and taxis are the main means of transport. Cenang beach is popular with travellers. We were staying at the Cenang Langkwai House near Cenang beach. The room was spacious and well-equipped. Considerable thought had gone into the arrangements, and we had a pleasant stay. The first day I had noodles with prawns for lunch, and I was pleasantly surprised by their freshness and taste. Sea food was plentiful and enjoyable. Binaya was not comfortable with sea fish and preferred freshwater delicacies. I could understand his perspective as I always preferred sea fish and found freshwater fishes not very much to my liking. We dined in a large restaurant that was a few minutes’ walk from our hotel. One evening I tried mussels (delicious) while on another occasion I had laksa (Laksa is a spicy noodle dish popular in Southeast Asia. Laksa consists of various types of noodles, most commonly thick rice noodles, with toppings such as chicken, prawn, or fish).

My good friends, Naveen and Sunil, had recommended that we take the island-hopping tour. We booked the tour for the next morning. Langkawi is also famous for duty-free shopping and Binaya wanted to purchase a suitcase. The prices, however, were not lower than those in KL. Eventually I ended up purchasing some excellent chocolates at the Cenang Mall. Our stay was made sweeter!

Early next morning we walked down to the main thoroughfare to have roti canai is a South Indian flatbread dish popular in Malaysia). We waited on the white sands of Cenang Beach for our transportation to the tour jetty. Each boat had about 24 passengers and was well organised. Everyone had to wear life jackets while on the boat. We had our photos taken and this was our introduction to this Langkawi custom. The tour lasts for around four hours and covers three main islands south of the main island. Our first stop was the Pulau Dayang Bunting, where we entered a geopark to hike up the hills to a lake. The trail was well maintained. Humidity was the main problem. After the mandatory photo, we continued to the lake. The tiles on the water, like elsewhere in Langkawi, were made of a floating material stays afloat on lakes and seas but depresses slightly under your weight. Both of us were quiet and we were missing the energy and dash of Sunil, our friend from Monash University, Malaysia.    

Island Hopping

We continued to Pulau Singa Besar to watch eagles feed from boats. Pulau means island in Malay though it brought images of the fragrant rice dish to our minds. We continued to Pulau Beras Basah and the sandy beaches and the turquoise waters took me back in time to one happy island, Aruba. There were colourful beach huts and paragliding was available for more adventurous souls. The ride back to the main island was short and we could see a docked cruise ship in the distance. Our photo had been converted into a souvenir (a small plate on which the photo was printed). We had lunch at our morning restaurant. Binaya had nasi goreng (fried rice) while I had the all-day breakfast. This was a good deal and consisted of two pieces of toast with butter, two fried eggs, a chicken sausage, and baked beans. Binaya tried out different geographical varieties of nasi goreng from Pattaya to Cina to USA.

After lunch we went to the Underwater World. The aquarium has themed sections like tropical rain forest, subantarctic climate, and marine life sections among others. The main attractions were the seal show and the penguins. The seal performed a variety of tasks and received a treat after completing each successful task. This is mentioned as the largest aquarium in Malaysia. The one at KL has a spectacular underwater tunnel and you can watch marine life swim by all around you.

Langkawi means reddish brown eagle in the Malay language and is believed to be the place of Garuda. The islands have been a part of the Kedah sultanate for over two millennia. The islands have a geological history going back to over 550 million years. Langkawi is thought to have been cursed for seven generations in the early 18th century by Mahsuri, a woman who was falsely accused of adultery and executed unjustly. Langkawi was occupied by the Kingdom of Siam and became a part of Malaysia after the Anglo-Siam treaty. The islands were a sleepy backwater and were developed into a major tourist destination by Dr Mahathir Mohamed.

The next morning, we travelled to the cable car toward the north of the island. The Deepavali holidays brought many to the island. The tourist infrastructure’s good, and we did not experience crowds and long waiting times. The Langkawi sky cab provides an aerial link from the Oriental Village at Teluk Burau to the peak of Gunung Machinchang, which is the location of the Langkawi Sky Bridge. The total length is 2.2 km, with a journey time from the base to the top of around 15 minutes. It was officially opened in 2003. We were comparing this to the Manakamana cable car in Nepal. This one is longer and steeper. The elevation between the base and the middle station is said to be the steepest in the world. There were delightful views of the bay and the surrounding islands as we moved slowly toward the top. The Skybridge is a major attraction and is among the longest free span and curved bridge in the world. There are a few glass sections that allow you to look down into the valley. The views were majestic, and the bridge is around 660m above sea level. There is also a sky glide option with a comfortable cabin style vehicle that carries visitors from the top station to the sky bridge.

We took a taxi to the Langkawi Wildlife Park. Malaysia has some delightful animal parks and the one at Langkawi offers close encounters with animals. The animals are used to visitors and there are plenty of opportunities to touch, pet and feed them. Trained handlers were at hand. I was reminded of ‘Farm in the City’ at KL constructed around a similar theme. The covered walking path meanders through animal enclosures and the peafowls reminded me of the KL Bird Park. Feeding the small birds, the tortoises, deer, and the rabbits is a highlight of the visit. Like at other attractions there is a mandatory photo, and the exit is always through a duty-free shopping complex. That evening we had a spectacular thunderstorm. Being to the north the rains may be more seasonal at this tropical paradise.

The next morning, we had to depart back to routine life. We reached very early for our flight back to KL. We watched passengers boarding Air Asia, Malaysian Airlines and Scoot flights to Penang, KL and Singapore. Air Asia is a dominant player in the Southeast Asian market. The flights are cheap and usually fly on time. The aircrafts, however, may be older and the leg space is limited.

We had a pleasant break at one of Malaysia’s major tourist destinations. There are many attractions here that we are yet to experience. Time was limited and we did not want to rush ourselves from attraction to attraction during a leisurely break. We plan to return one day to the oldest land in Malaysia, 550 million years in the making as proudly proclaimed by the site Naturally Langkawi!

Dr. P Ravi Shankar is a faculty member at the IMU Centre for Education (ICE), International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He enjoys traveling and is a creative writer and photographer.

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Categories
Musings

Ghosts, Witches and My New Homeland

By Tulip Chowdhury

Bengali Spooks. Courtesy: Creative Commons

Around the early ’70s, in my village home in Bangladesh, we kept ourselves far away from anything spelled “ghost or jinn.” I grew up hearing my Grandma saying, “Shh. Don’t even utter the word ‘bhut (ghosts) or jinn’ because words have power, and they might feel the vibe as an invite.” However, every Halloween is a culture shock for me after coming to Massachusetts, USA, when the celebrations of haunted houses, witches, ghosts, and spirits occur. My late Grandma might turn in her final resting place if I could message her, “Ghosts and witches are subjects of colorful celebrations, Grandma.”

Thoughts rewind to life with the villagers in Bongaon, when the fan-palm trees — taal gach — were supposed to be favourite places for ghosts and jinn. Myths held that ghosts and spirits lived as invisible souls among visible humans but liked to live on the trees. The trees they wanted to inhabit were trees standing beautiful and tall. Yet the beautiful sight was pregnant with danger. The long fonds looked like fingers beckoning passersby. The fan palm had delicious fruits called taal. The trees sent alarming vibes to the villagers. But getting the fruits from the tree was challenging and had to be done during broad daylight when ghosts were supposed to be non-active. The fan palm was not the only tree that welcomed them. The tamarind tree was also avoided, especially after sunset. Not just the trees, but their shadows spelled trouble too, and people avoided stepping in the shadows. The advice to weary souls was, “Don’t let the bhut get on your shoulders.” It seemed that the chosen place was the shoulder. It was different for the ghosts; they didn’t get into the victim’s head like other spooks.

Whenever I passed near our tamarind tree, I imagined a possessive spirit jumping down from the tree and landing on my shoulder. I would run for life faster than a deer when I passed one of them. Ghosts were known to haunt their victims for the rest of their lives if they got a chance to get on the shoulder. I ran home; I did not want to be possessed for the rest of my life.

According to the people in Bongaon, nighttime was the favourite time for ghosts and evil spirits. Starting from the late evening to the descent of darkness, no one walked without a flaming torch made from kerosene-drenched cloth on a thick stick. Much as darkness spelled fear and mystery, fire was the force to power the evil over to burn and destroy—similar to fantasy stories of modern times. In life, it seems we are connected like a spider’s web. A person suspected to be possessed by a spirit sought help from special prayers and charms. Some of the healers had harsh methods and had the victims smell burning dried chilli — supposed to clear the mind. And others sprinkled holy water around the person and the house.

Theories on haunting spilled beyond the trees and dipped below the waters surrounding my village. The water lilies in the rainy season bloomed in abundance in the swamps — haor, ponds, and the water-clogged areas around the town. The seeds and stems of the water were gastronomical delicacies for us. The stems cooked as curries and the grains got toasted over the fire. However, evil spirits and jinns were said to roam around swamps at night, and no one tried to pick these up in the dark. Growing up, I wondered if the whole thing around the evil supernatural was to keep people safe because plenty of water snakes coiled around the lily stems, and people were likely to get bitten. Often, people invented ghost stories when logical explanations failed or, perhaps, to safeguard without having to give lengthy answers.

The sweet shops and their connections to supernatural beings baffled me then and to this day. Few charming shops sold traditional deserts, like rosogolla, cholchom and kalojam; the display trays were usually well stocked. It was well known among people that if you entered the shops after the Muslim evening prayer, the Maghrib, the sweets would be gone from the trays. The good jinn were supposed to like the sweets and, on their way back from the mosque, feasted on them. Our village did not have electricity, and there was no refrigerators to preserve these. So, when fresh sweets were replaced on trays the next day, there was no explanation given for the disappearing trayful until the maghrib prayer. No customers came because they wanted to avoid jinn altogether since they could change from good to bad ones. The disappearance of the sweets at a particular time remains a mystery added to many others in my lifetime.

The people in Bongaon believed there were two kinds of jinn: good and evil. Good jinn were with the steady and truthful people who prayed regularly. If the good people, especially women, happened to walk with loose hair in the evening or night, they were exposed to danger of being possessed by the evil jinn. There were dos and don’ts, right and left, for women to keep themselves safe from evil jinn and ghosts. As far as I remember, men were almost excluded from the “wanted list” of the feared beings. How was that possible? The male-dominated society of the early 70s seemed to set boundaries for the ghosts and jinns. In the modern digital world, men and women have found some common ground, and even spirits no longer come only for female humans. Now that we have electricity, in the village scenario, women are smarter with computer skills; in reality, male dominance gets veiled. I am pretty sure the tamarind or the fan palm trees have their versions of the surreal world. However, the deep-rooted world of the spirit world still chains many, especially around the nighttime.

Nighttime and darkness seem to hold endless mysteries, and most are shrouded with danger in many cultures as they did in Bangladesh society. But was the dark so scary? Sleep at night came with dreams and nightmares. To be fair to the darkness, I would often sit on the porch and take in the night sky with its unique, moving life. The sky was never the same, moonlit or with the new moon. Clouds played hide and seek over the moon on rainy days. And the stars, their endless games of winking at me made me as happy as a child every time I looked up at them.Some nights, an owl would greet me with the “Twoo, twoo,” and I would whisper my hello back. I was sure the night bird heard me loud and clear; if it could see at night, why not hear at night, too? Whenever the owl called, thoughts winded to village childhood days, days when village myths held beliefs captive. Whenever we listened to owls’ hoot, we were urged to say, “good”, because if there were something ominous, the power of our words would take that away.

Halloween in Massachusetts digs into memories of my childhood’s haunted and ghost-ridden world in a Bangladeshi village. I was scared then, but now it’s more about exploring life. Life balances fears and hopes, sorrow and joy; between it all, ghosts, jinns, fairies, and angels hold me spellbound in real life. I relish every magical moment of it. I am not scared of witches, black cats, or ghosts that roam around my hometown during Halloween. The ghosts on the tamarind tree and the fan palm were kind to me, and I guess the evil spirits here will also be.

 In my present, the black cat on the shop window, the witch on the broom, or the masked stranger are said to spell danger. There are clubs and social groups that share experiences and do not avoid them like we did back home in Bangladesh. I stand in between cultures, wondering at the reality that connects the spooks I grew up with and the ones I grew into in my adopted world.

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Tulip Chowdhury is a long-time educator and writer. She has authored multiple books, including Visible, Invisible and Beyond, Soul Inside Out, and a collection of poetries titled Red, Blue, and Purple. The books are available on Amazon, Kindle, and Barnes and Noble. Tulip currently resides in Massachusetts, USA.

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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
The Observant Immigrant

Climate Change: Are You for Real? 

By Candice Louisa Daquin

Courtesy: Creative Commons

In childhood I recall getting my coveted membership to Save Our Seas. I loved the sea and marine animals, and this seemed a meaningful way of helping from a child’s perspective. I recall reading Rachael Carsons famous books Silent Spring and The Sea Around Us at the same age and wondering how a book written in the sixties could be so prescient and why the subject was still under debate? If a ten-year-old can understand the message Carson had, of indiscriminate application of agricultural chemicals, pesticides, and other modern chemicals polluting waterways, damaging wildlife populations and causing health problems for humans, then why not adults?

It’s easy for a child’s mind to think those simple questions, not understanding the intricacies of what’s at play. Not least; politics, big business and money. These more than anything has dictated international policy, and it’s not science that sways policy, it’s influence. Vandana Shiva, an Indian environmentalist, is another such example of a prescient activist whose truth has been stifled in the march toward profit. Shiva, both physicist and social activist, founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Natural Resource Policy devoted to developing sustainable methods of agriculture. Shiva is contended; “Justice and sustainability both demand that we do not use more resources than we need. Uniformity is not nature’s way; diversity is nature’s way. We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a human future at all.”

Sadly, Shiva’s work is less known than companies like Monsanto  who are responsible for mass destruction due to putting profits before conscience in the selling of GMO[1] seeds that caused widespread bankruptcy, suicides and irreversible environmental damage. In 1995, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, listed Monsanto among the top 5 lethal corporations dumping toxic waste, as it was recorded dumping nearly 37 million tons of toxic waste, through air, water, and land. . It is unfathomable why such blatant atrocities should be permitted but our global history is littered with them.

Scientists have warned since the 1800s, where experiments suggesting that human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases were able to collect in the atmosphere and insulate Earth (or its reverse) were met with more curiosity than concern. By the late 1950s, CO2 readings would offer some of the first data to corroborate the global warming theory. That it’s not if, but when, climate change will alter the way humans experience life on this planet, let alone wildlife and nature.

At one extreme we have the eco warrior who has valiantly tried to campaign and actively fight against human encroachment; in the middle, we have the skeptic who points to fluctuating weather patterns going back millennia and at the other extreme, there are the climate deniers who despite having children seem not to be concerned about the earth those children will inherit. There is proof that “Dating back to the ancient Greeks, many people had proposed that humans could change temperatures and influence rainfall by chopping down trees, plowing fields or irrigating a desert.”

If I sound biased it is because it’s a generally accepted fact that the earth isn’t just heating up, it is changing. The only issue under debate now is who or what is responsible, if anyone is, and how long do we have before things get really bad. Twenty years ago, people still mulled over whether climate change was happening, many believing it was just cyclical and sometimes it was, but there have been enough giant seismic changes in the last 40 years to put that doubt to rest. “Scientists have pieced together a record of the earth’s climate by analysing a number of indirect measures of climate, such as ice cores, tree rings, glacier lengths, pollen remains, and ocean sediments, and by studying changes in the earth’s orbit around the sun. This record shows that the climate varies naturally over a wide range of time scales, but this variability does not explain the observed warming since the 1950s. Rather, it is extremely likely (> 95%) that human activities have been the dominant cause of that warming.”  

Now if you turn on the TV, the nightly news is as much about weather as it is other things. Weather dominates our lives more than ever. Perhaps it’s ironic that ancient man would live or die by weather and we are now doing the same. The heyday of calm weather may have been slightly exaggerated but most people over 50 can attest that things weren’t quite as dramatic all the time, every year, as they appear to be now.

The harbinger of our behaviour in terms of polluting the environment has speeded up, something that may have been inevitable but could possibly have been avoided. The hardest part being that ‘developed’ countries such as America and Europe asked ‘developing’ countries to reduce their carbon and other emissions without really reflecting that they were as if not more guilty, relatively speaking, before they ‘saw the light’. To ask developing countries to leapfrog ahead in their development for the sake of the environment is coming from a position of privilege, having already polluted the world themselves first.

On the other hand, developing countries may struggle to reduce emissions because they are gaining traction in terms of improving quality of life for most of their population but are not there yet in terms of having the luxury to reduce emissions. It takes a lot of money, effort, commitment and determination to do this and for a country that is trying to improve its lot for its citizens this isn’t always their first priority, not to mention the patronising tone of developed countries demanding this be done. It is important to see this relationally which means understanding the difference in countries development and that some of those countries were abused and depleted of resources and kept ‘poor’ by conquering overlords who reaped the benefits and left them poor as a result. Those counties will struggle to climb out of the post-colonial model and that should be considered when judging them.

But we don’t have time. Despite know this beforehand, we did not do enough. In the late 1800’s, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius [1859-1927] wondered if decreasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere might cool Earth. To explain earth’s ice ages, he considered if decreased volcanic activity could lower CO2 levels globally. Those calculations evidenced that if CO2 levels were halved, global temperatures may decrease by about 9 degrees Fahrenheit. From this, Arrhenius investigated if the reverse were also true; investigating what would occur if CO2 levels doubled. His results suggested global temperatures would increase by the same amount.  

By the 1980s global temperatures were going rapidly higher. So, climate-based experts use 1988 as a critical turning point when events placed global warming in the spotlight with extreme weather and increased public interest. Scientists, the UN and many others warned we were heading to a point of no return.

Turn on the news today and we seem to be there.

Even if we did everything right as a planet from now on, it would still be too late to repair the biggest climate change consequences. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try but it’s alarming to imagine we’ve let it become too late, though not surprising when you consider the apathy of world leaders to come together and make this happen.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the General Assembly in March 2022 illustrates this: “Just last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued an alarming report that showed climate impacts are already devastating every region of the world, but particularly developing countries and small island States.  The session considered the irreversible impacts of the climate crisis, which could render some parts of the earth uninhabitable.”  What does it mean for us? For the future generations if there are to be any? It means things we took for granted will change. Just as more animals are going extinct than ever before we also must look to history to give us an idea of what we might face in the near future.

Look how many times there have been huge seismic shifts in the earth? One example in particular is quite interesting. The Storegga Slide happened in approximately (600-BCE) and was the largest Paleo tsunami to hit Europe in the (Paleo) era. It altered the geography of Europe massively, causing England to break off from continental Europe from where Scotland was attached to Scandinavia. This was lost beneath the sea as a huge part of Scandinavia broke off and caused giant waves that poured over this fertile land and swallowed it whole.  

Climate deniers use these types of stories to explain away climate change as being a natural phenomenon but that’s inaccurate. Whilst significant and damaging things have occurred throughout history and will continue to, as scientists warned, it’s the number of disasters and changes occurring that count, not that they happen but that they happen with such regularity and severity. It’s been this hot before, but has it been this hot consistently and throughout the world for as long before? I was born in a year where there was freak heatwave but that’s just it, it was a freak heatwave.

Such things are natural in nature but not if its progressive or things keep happening one after the other. People assume if there is a cold winter then climate change can’t be real but that’s the funny thing, it’s the extremes of weather as much as heat, that are indicative of climate change. For every extraordinarily hot summer and burning Hawaii, there are extreme weather events in winter too as the planet falls out of a healthy cycle and is slowly losing its ability to nurture life like it used to.  

Does it mean we will become extinct? Or just that life will become harder and less places habitable? And hasn’t that happened before? Well, it has, in so much as once Africa was a grassland without drought and Europe was covered in ice. But when a planet first forms it’s likely to have extreme weather. As long as humans have been churning out chemicals that pollute the seas and mining the earth for its ore, we’ve accelerated and exacerbated those disasters. And just as it is believed a meteor killed off the dinosaurs and a virus might have killed off the Neanderthals it’s possible our actions will hasten our demise and at very least make life more unbearable.  

How? Along with viruses being more omnipresent than previously and antibiotic resistance, UV exposure and higher radiation have increased. The average human has more chemicals and formaldehyde and plastics in their body than at any other point in history. It affects our health, our reproduction and our longevity. Cancers hit the young more than ever before. We’re either over medicated or not able to afford medication. If global temperatures rose by 11 or 12 degrees, more than half the world’s population, as distributed today, would die of direct heat. The disparity between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ have exaggerated like in the feudal past. The idea we’re all middle class is a myth borne on ownership for technology rather than quality of life, which for many working two or three jobs to sustain their lifestyle, is hardly enviable.

The world is heading for a collision, and we are propagating this by a lifestyle we don’t seem capable of changing. If we label those who care about the environment as eco terrorists and pay football players millions whilst leaving nurses and teachers underfunded? Our priorities must be reflected in these things to have a trickledown effect in the future. If we can’t educate our children to understand that saving the planet isn’t just a day every year or a whim but must be a full-time effort, then what hope does the future possess?

ActNow is the United Nations campaign to inspire people to act for the Sustainable Development Goals and many other organisations like it fight against misinformation and seek to actuate these goals, but they’re often drowned out by lobbyists for special interests, such as the car industry, gas industry, fossil fuel industry, nuclear industry etc.

Just like in the fight against cancer, we need science to lead the way, that science which is not the influenced by special interest groups, like in the case of cancer, big-pharma and big-business. We need to take profit out of research and make it objective rather than tied to business, so it can be unimpeded to do what’s necessary. With cancer research, profit has stymied progress and stalled any meaningful change, instead people believe cancer is being cured by pharmaceutical promises, whilst more people than ever are getting cancer. Contrast this to climate change and if we don’t do the research into sustainable alternatives and ways to live into the future, there may be no future worth living for.

All hope is not completely lost of course. We always find ways, maybe one of them will be to go off world whilst another would be to live in Antarctica when it melts, provided the sea doesn’t swallow it. But what of the towns and cities by the coasts? What will that look like in 50 years? Maybe less. I think in my life time it is predicted that many of these places will be unliveable, beneath water, and whilst this has happened before it hasn’t happened to this degree. Yes, Venice has always been sinking and maybe NYC wasn’t built on the best land but everywhere else? And what will the displaced do? And how is space travel possible without a healthy earth?  

Those old enough can attest that the world seems to be burning and statistically with more people than ever on an already burgeoning planet in terms of resources. We seem to be wasting more food, yet more people are hungry in certain pockets of the world. We are growing hotter in some parts, colder in others, heatwaves represent an increasing threat to cities in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. And it’s shifting agricultural production. Heatwaves are affecting colder countries too. A study states: “As illustrated by the example of Quebec, rising temperatures and heatwaves are an increasing hazard in countries of comparably cold climate as well as in warmer climates. According to a report published by UN Climate Change, higher temperatures due to climate change cause heatwaves which affect human health. For example, in Germany alone, the heatwave of 2003 resulted in nearly 7,000 deaths and many heat-related illnesses due to heat stroke, dehydration, and cardiovascular disease.”

Realistically many places in the planet are harder to live in, firstly because prices are pushed artificially high by unrelenting inflation but slower wage increases, people are often underemployed or expected to work longer hours for less pay if you consider the cost of living 50 years ago to now and relate that to increase in wages. On another level, people’s standards of living seem to improve in some areas, but again this is hard to gauge when you consider the divide between the very wealthy elite and the rest.

In America at least, displaced people’s flood through the borders and are hopefully given shelter and housing and opportunities but are they really better off than from the places they have fled? In some circumstances invariably, but for others, they may earn more but that money is swallowed by the higher cost of living; so, they’re not really better off. It’s an illusion to consider America as the land of the free or the American Dream, with so many living below the poverty line or just above it, which is negligible when you consider you may have slightly more money but you are thus not eligible for social assistance so you end up being as poor or poorer than those who do qualify for social assistance. This all relates to climate change because what incentive do people who are struggling to survive have, to help save the environment? Can you blame them? Shouldn’t we blame if we are to allocate blame, those who perpetuate poverty and turn a blind eye to its outcomes? Like former colonial countries who once having raped the land, decry its poverty, even as it’s the direct result of such pillage? Haiti being a great example of that.

Meanwhile the war machine grinds on and we pour money into that, to the detriment of climate change. Climate change is left for summits about but little changes. Countries make pledges but few are actuated and that’s without considering the lies that abound, or the cover ups of environmental disasters that are hushed up but have caused immeasurable harm. In 2017, the US Air Force used USD$4.9 billion worth of fuel; also, that year, the US military was responsible for 59 million tons of CO2 which is the same as total emissions of some industrialised countries like Switzerland or Sweden.

If we don’t even get the actual truth, how can we know the true extent of damage and our real part in it? Think of the nuclear disasters? That said, it’s understandable countries seeking to free themselves from fossil fuels would consider nuclear power, but how tenable is that when it depends upon people to function, what if those people were lost? Would the sites go critical and kill all survivors? Where do we safely store radioactive nuclear waste when it takes thousands of years to degrade even slightly? Just like those toxic super-dumping sites dotted throughout the planet, filling the seas with plastic and debris, we don’t think about the consequence of such dumping, only the immediacy of needing air conditioners.

Eventually fossil fuels will run out, but we haven’t found a tangible replacement. Electric car batteries don’t do well in heat, they also aren’t as durable in distance driving, cost a lot in using electricity which is still using resources, are prohibitively expensive and likewise with solar energy and wind energy. It seems there are downsides to all we’ve come up with so far, and whilst some progress is made with desalination of water to ensure clean drinking water and terraforming of previously uninhabitable land, is it enough to ward off the inevitable or does it mean those who already are rich, will be somewhat protected from the first consequences of planet earths deteriorating climate, whilst those without, will be the first to pay the price?

We’ve had so many canaries in the coal mine warnings from long before now, that none of this is news but people still en mass prefer not to think of it. When polled, voters in America usually do not put climate change in the top five concerns they have. The last few years this has changed, and that might signal a positive shift to taking climate change seriously, but it’s a bit late. Things can be done to shore up some of the fragile resources, but it will take a sustained commitment. How can that happen if majority of politicians’ are more focused on power and money than true change, renewable energy that works and a consensus that if we do nothing, we only have ourselves to blame? We have to change politics, policies and education if we hope to have a meaningful impact long term.

If we replace jobs with AI and technology as we are doing, how will people afford to improve their lives and make significant change? Everything is interconnected, it all matters, but we have to care, and being distracted by technology and super stars isn’t the answer. Why can’t an eco-warrior be a hero as much as a basketball player? We must keep trying. As Dr. Vandana Shiva is quoted as saying; “I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness, no matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that itself creates new potential.”

[1] Genetically Modified Organism

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Candice Louisa Daquin is a Psychotherapist and Editor, having worked in Europe, Canada and the USA. Daquins own work is also published widely, she has written five books of poetry, the last published by Finishing Line Press called Pinch the Lock. Her website is www thefeatheredsleep.com

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