Not quite a towering inferno...

We were told to be ready for dinner by 6 p.m., so we had one and a half hours to kill before gathering at the lobby. My varsity mates and I, fourteen of us, on our regular bromance outing, had decided to embark on a six-day tour around Sri Lanka. Colombo was our last stop.

                                     

https://borderlessjournal.com/2025/01/14/not-quite-a-towering-inferno/

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In the land of make believe!

Spirited Away (2001)

Written and Directed: Hayao Miyazaki

All through our childhood, my sisters and I had been watching manga without manga was referred to as so. It was then just Japanese cartoon, with characters having big round eyes, cute demeanour and screechy loud voices.

Later, Japanese cartoons developed into separate entities grew wings and started telling more mature stories and themes. The written graphic form became known as manga, and animated forms that appear in games and films are known as anime.

I was recently introduced to Japan's eminent cult figure in the field of animation and direction, Hayao Miyazaki. His film ‘Spirited Away’ has been hailed as Japan's highest-grossing movie for 29 years. It also won the Oscar at the 2022 Best Animated Feature Film. BBC listed it in its 100 greatest films of the 21st century.

Partnered with Disney, this film infiltrated the four corners of the globe. Thanks to the vibrant colours, creative storytelling, and interesting characters, it looks like Alice in Wonderland on steroids. A lost girl, Chihiro, is in a weird world, only to be helped by many characters with Shinto-Buddhist backgrounds around her. She ends up saving the day and learning many valuable life lessons.

One of the reasons to live is to immerse yourself in a land of make-believe.

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Saturday Night with Pa

FICTION 

Saturday Night with Pa 

Farouk Gulsara

Saturday is usually a busy day for Pa. After finishing his work at the printing press about 6 in the evening, he hurries home for his routine of fashioning up for his night out with his bosom buddies. Come what may, the appointment must be upheld at all costs, and his grooming and styling must be completed like a religious ritual. After a vigorous shower to scrub the stains of printers’ ink off his skin, he inspects himself in front of a three-sided, half-length mirror, which gives the illusion of a 360-degree view of oneself. 

Pa would powder himself with Himalaya on Ice talcum powder and dab his newly shaved chin with the stinging but aromatic Old Spice aftershave. Hair is next. It must be immaculate, and nothing is better than Tancho nourishing pomade. He dons a crisply ironed shirt and matching pants, creases like knife blades, and the drill is complete. This is no quick endeavour. Pa takes as long to get ready as Ma takes to tie her six-metre-long sari, as well as plaiting her long hair.

...cont.

https://menmattersonlinejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Issue-7-014-Farouk-Gulsara.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2itCdvoezXQW3Vs53A20WylOKalK79AqIfptlH1-neSaL1IneD4POzXDM

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Wrath of the Goddess?

Wrath of the Goddess?

By Farouk Gulsara

The big day will be here soon, tomorrow, to be exact. School life had been going on, dragging its feet. They say time flies when you are having fun. I do not remember having any fun, but it flew by anyway. 

Whenever I start thinking of the future, time seems to be ticking like a time bomb. There is so much uncertainty, and so much can happen. So, I tell myself to tread one day at a time. The best thing to do is not to think too far ahead. But then, that would make me no different from my father, would it not? Enjoy today of what is uncertain tomorrow.

Continue here... Wrath of the Goddess?

https://borderlessjournal.com/2023/12/14/wrath-of-the-goddess/?fbclid=IwAR3LdG0QeviVmyFdY9LBzWnCu071NTO16Hz21HIhRiXaesMy_xn1dp3bLSc

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Ideas transcend borders!

Monalisa No Longer Smiles (2022)

An Anthology of Writings from Across the World

Editor: Mitali Chakravarty

My father had an uncanny ability to read faces. No, he does not identify people's medical risks, personality traits or even the prediction of their future. He could tell a person's origin, caste and creed. He was proud of his achievement and held steadfast to the idea that caste division is a necessary tool for society to progress. 

He would choose where he ate and sometimes refuse invitations to people's homes or even functions of people with questionable status in the caste hierarchy. 

My mother tried to knock some sense into him that the whole world had moved on and things had changed. But he was having none of it. She even reminded him about Periyar EV Ramasamy's speech when he visited Malaya, to leave all the bad discriminatory habits they acquired in India and move forward. But no! He was unmoved and reasonably contended with his way of pigeon-holing people. 

I convinced myself that things would change when I grew up. People would become more learned and open-minded. I assumed that religion would take a back seat as science was slowly answering all the loose ends of knowledge then. 

How wrong I was. 

In the 21st century, the present turned out to be a far cry from what I perceived the future to be. People are congregated in factions. They found ingenious ways to divide and subdivide tribes so that one would dominate the other. Religion has made a comeback in a big way. Fundamentalism has taken root. Putting aside the science and symbolism behind worship and beliefs, believers are more focused on the ritual and blind following of the herd. 

The space between the haves and the have-nots is ever-widening. Materialism has crept into all crevices of our lives, and the future does not look bright. 

Against this gloomy background, this anthology tries to make its readers that there may be hope if we try. 

Borderless Journal, Editor Mitali Chakravarty's brainchild, is hopeful that the world will indeed be one whose borders will be torn down and where everyone will live as one. There would be no discrimination against people by caste, politics, or creed. There would be no wars to show the dominance of one over the other. 

Trying to recreate past glory and relive past grandiosities is no use. In God's creation, everyone is supposedly created equal, so why is there a clan of oppressors and oppressed, the powerful and the weak. Through art, literature and storytelling, this anthology, from its interviews with famous moviemakers, thinkers, poets and writers, from its fiction, 'Monalisa No Longer Smiles' and 'Borderless Journal', through its editor, Mitali Chakravarty, tries to create a possible world where borders do not matter. Ideas transcend borders. 

https://borderlessjournal.com/our-anthology/

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Indian Fables

Vetalam dan Vikramaditya (2020)
Author: Uthaya Sankar SB 

I remember a time when a newly married couple rented a room in our house. My sister and I, 4 and 6 years old, respectively, were dying to hear the wife's stories that she did tell without fail every evening, with our persuasion, of course. She had a peculiar way of making us glued to her stories. We affectionately addressed her as ‘Atteh’ (Auntie, father’s sister or maternal uncle’s wife). 

Every evening, after she had her shower as she returned from work, it was storytime. Her stories usually carried a message, and many of them were Indian folk tales, including ‘Vetalam and Vikramaditya’. 

‘Vetalam and Vikramaditya’ stories always carry a moral dilemma that needs critical thinking. We were often disappointed as she never told us the answers to the questions she put forward. She would ask us to think carefully.

That is the thing about these stories. Legend has it (it is probably a historical statement now) that King Vikramaditya was a King based in Ujjain. A fun fact is that Ujiian in Madhya Pradesh is sometimes referred to as the navel of Earth or Greenwich of India. Before 1884, as per a 4th-century treatise, Ujjian was considered the prime meridian. Even today, the panchangayam (Hindu almanack) is based on Ujjian time (29 minutes behind IST).

Vikramaditya in Ujjian

Many kings took the honorary title of Vikramaditya. Hence, there was confusion about who the real Vikramaditya was. It is agreed that he probably ruled around the first century BC under the Vikrama Samrat era.

In the 'Vetalam and Vikramaditya' stories, King Vikramaditya is summoned by priests to capture a playful and sly demon from a cemetery by daybreak. The King manages to trap the demon, Vetalam. The trouble was that the talkative imp had a penchant to escape from the clutches of the King. The King was relentless, however. The demon made a deal with Vikramaditya. It would narrate stories that would need answers, to which the King had to answer. The King's head would explode if he gave the wrong, but Vethalam would escape if the answer is right.

The night goes on with Vedalam telling stories, expecting answers, the King giving the correct answer, Vethalam escaping, King capturing him again, and Vethalam starting a new story. Thus it went on the whole night. By the way, the King was not allowed to speak. It was done telepathically. Towards early morning, they had built a rapport and joined forces to crack the priests' ulterior motives.

One of the stories is similar to the story of P Ramlee's 'Keluarga 69' and K Balachander's ' Apoorva Ragam', where no answer is expected. One cannot put a name to a relationship when a King marries the daughter of a mother who marries the Prince. The offspring of the King, if it is a son, is also a stepbrother of the Prince and grandchild to the King's daughter-in-law; very confusing! 

P.S. A Tamil proverb describes a person who is unsuccessfully trying to reform as 'Vethalam recoiling into a marunga tree'.

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Another time, another life time.

It was an informal meeting planned in haste. A varsity mate, now residing overseas, after his ‘tanah air’ had turned her back on him, had made a lightning trip back. In a jiffy, a few friends on each other’s speed dial decided to flock together at an upmarket Chinese restaurant. Some of them have not met each other for more than 40 years. 

TS walked in into the restaurant with a sense of awe. He was amazed to see what he saw through the ceiling-level glass window that overlooked the skyline of Damansara. 

“Wow, just look at that,” he said. “40 years ago, I worked as a construction worker during my semester breaks there. This whole area was just lush greenery then. Look at it now!”

“My boss then kept telling me the developer’s mega plan to have multi-tied buildings, shopping complex, underground parking, hotels, and more.”

“It had materialised right before our eyes. They are pure visionaries. Imagine 40 years ago, they knew how the country would look now.”

That soon opened the floodgates of everybody with their life journeys, the aches, pains, heartbreaks and family life. 

Generally, all could hold their thrones, praising themselves for a well-lived life. Reminiscing the pathetic state and very humble beginnings that they had started their lives, they can pat themselves on the back for work well done. 

If we think our parents have suffered much for our futures, others are obviously coming from more hole trodden boats of life. Our achievements appear a pale comparison to theirs. 
Fast forward to the future; these people are in the twilight of their lives. They want to leave a legacy behind for the generation next to follow. They tell them of their struggles, endeavours and achievements. Gen-Xs and millennials are not interested. To them, these are all just bedtime stories that grannies tell their grandchildren to bore them to sleep. They cannot fathom their parents being someone so bold. They have only heard their parents talk each other down and denigrate each other in their day-to-day dealings. 

“Oh, how absentminded your father is!” or “Oh! How extravagant your mother is” are all they have heard. Nothing positive as they run the other down. How can they be who they claim to be? Unbelievable!

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Life can be overwhelming!

All the troubles of the world 
Short Story: Issac Asimov (1958)

Thanks, MS, for the introduction to this prolific writer. All this while I have been watching many films based on the writings, sadly without my knowledge. The movies 'I-Robot' and 'Bicentennial Man' are two such examples.

'All the troubles of the world' first appeared as a short story in a 1958 pulp magazine named 'Super Science Fiction'. Since then, it has come out in a Children's Book and even a 20-minute short film. 

Within a span of 18 pages, Asimov brought us into a dystopian future where the desire of Man to keep the running of the world squeaky clean crime-wise has brought them a supercomputer that can prevent crimes before it is done. In this world, all kinds of information and thinking processes are recorded by Multivac. Multivac, in essence, is a God-like giant computer that helps in Earth's economy, sciences and most of all, security. By constantly updating Earthlings' train of thought data, the machine can predict Man's every following thought process.

After 50 years of serving mankind, dealing with much of their problems, Multivac finally decides to call it quits. In an elaborately penned plan, Multivac devises a scheme to self-destruct itself. It wants to die.

This is a conundrum that constantly plagues mankind. By developing more and more complex programmes like artificial intelligence (AI) learn and design algorithms, is it not just a matter of time that they build emotions and consciousness? Unlike automatons that are pure work-horses designed to serve, AI of the future may dictate terms with us. 

Just look at the transformation of Man. How a simpleton is satisfied with life when his primal needs, i.e. food, sleep and mate, are met. Slowly as his situation improves, as affluence and comfortable seeps in, his wants become progressively become insatiable. Despite having all the comforts at his feet, he is still a hollow man.

If Vishnu's avatars can be looked upon as the evolution of life on Earth, one can notice that the avatars have to deal with increasingly more complicated issues. That is the curse of intelligence. We become increasingly aware of possible risks in executing every task that living becomes progressively more complex and challenging. We are simply bogged with too many 'what if's and 'why not's. Sometimes it is just too overwhelming that we want to end it all.

Life is easy for the simpleton.

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