Namaste Readers,

It is needless to say that at heart I am a spokesperson for my country’s myriad beauty. I have confide in you, my love for its rustic old-world charm, every time I write here — the winding roads climbing the steep hills held in the eternal gaze of the majestic Himalayas in the north; the dusty roads narrowing through crowded little hamlets with coconut palms and banana groves, and the endless shores huddled between the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean along the southern peninsula; the stories of legendary battles to wade off intruders, and the folklores of Rajput castles still drifting over the great sand dunes of the Aravalli in the west; and my beloved Eastern Ghats — paddy fields and wetlands inhabited by hundreds of living species, mangroves of Sundarbans haunted by the ghostly presence of the Bengal tigers, and cascading tea gardens reminiscent of the colonial era in the Dooars — my home overlooking the mighty Bay of Bengal in the east. I love this country.

Many ancestors have willed this land into existence. From farmers to artisans, from bards to revolutionaries, from Himalayan yogis to every single mother who birthed them — they stitched this wonder of a civilisation together with every deliberate action. At our core, we are a collective of simple and generous beings who preached the value of non-materialism, spirituality, community-centric living, love for all beings, and finding our place within the family of things in this animistic world — before the Beat poets, Beatles and the counterculture made it fashionable. I am the proud progeny of that ancestry.

But I am also concerned — about corruption and pollution, about sustainability and growth, about equity and poverty, about separatist politics and propaganda, about access and power, about healthcare and safety, about womanhood and gender hate. It is a big, wild, and beautiful country, but it is not perfect. There is still work that needs to be done, policies and laws that need to be functional, friction and class movements that need to evolve, perspectives that need to change.

Today marks India’s 79th year of freedom from our former colonialist. Our fast-evolving relationship with the world is proof of our willingness to coexist in peace with the world’s evolving geopolitics. Our profound inclination towards eco-centricism and conservation efforts, especially in the North-East region, is reflective of our emphasis on Nature as a mother with her own agency and volition. Our entrenched patriarchal paradigm is slowly shifting towards an inclusive and non-binary worldview.

A folk artist playing a traditional string instrument Ravanahatha with proficiency and grace, early on a winter morning in front of the Udaipur Lake

The new generation of Indians are waking up to the importance of ownership — working around traditions while maintaining a pulse with the modern world. We are waking up to a sense of independence from our collective thinking while also acknowledging the sacrifices our ancestors made and the pain they endured, for us to stand beyond the chains — not only to enjoy our liberty but to straighten our spine and fight for everyone who is still bound.

So today, on this occasion of almost eight decades of spinning around the sun since the day of India’s Independence, I stand in power, freedom, and reclamation of the same sky my ancestors once prayed to, and send my prayer to this hurting world—

May Palestine be free again,
and Ukraine regain sovereignty.
May children stop starving in war,
and may their parents stop dying before their time.

May the African continent rise again
to the peace and greatness it once knew.
May the Middle East loosen the chains of oil oligarchy,
and the western bloc lay down its hate towards immigrants.

May the spirit serpent of Amazon unfell her trees,
and the Arctic ice unmelt its grief,
May the oceans breathe free of plastic and poison.
May wild species not vanish into the pages of history,
and the coral reefs bloom in colours the world has not yet seen.

May hunger leave the bellies of all beings,
and the fires in forests fall silent.
May fertile lands not turn to dust,
and may clean water run to every mouth and root.
May nuclear weapons are laid to waste,
and racism wash away from every heart.

May women and girls walk this earth in safety and dignity,
and truth be stronger than propaganda.
May the climate crisis meet a just and united human will,
and may greed lose its grip
on our politics, on our planet,
and on us.

Even from within the shadows of the yesteryears’ glory of my nation, I invite you with an open embrace into our wisdom traditions of solidarity, peace, love, and belonging.

Vande Mātaram! Happy Independence Day to India!

Berkana is a non-stripe based reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming my patron through Paypal.

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I received an overwhelming number of responses to the first part of this series, a beckoning of belonging, pouring in from all over the world. I am deeply grateful to you for showing me that I am not alone in seeking an alternate way to exist in harmony with the wild feminine energy that thrives within the untamed beauty of the earth's wilderness.

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We carry witchcraft in our bones
whilst magic still sings
inside our heads.

When the witch hunters
imprisoned our ancestors
when they tried to burn the magic away.

Someone should have
warned them
that magic cannot be tamed.

Because you cannot burn away
what has always
been aflame.

― Nikita Gill

Namaste Friends,

Across the world, a quiet storm is brewing, one that carries with it the weight of history and the echoes of age-old fear. Women's rights, hard-won through centuries of struggle, are shrinking back into the shadows. From the violent erasure of reproductive autonomy in many parts of the United States to the suffocating silence imposed on girls barred from education in Afghanistan, the patterns of control and suppression are becoming disturbingly clear. In Iran, women who dare to raise their voices for freedom are met with unrelenting brutality. In the Global South, traditions wrapped in violence—child marriage, genital mutilation—persist like ghosts of another time, refusing to let go of th…

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The following is the UN's response to the current events unfolding in the Gaza Strip

The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the Gaza Strip, which is a war crime.

Israeli officials have made public statements expressing their aim to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water, and fuel – statements reflected in Israeli forces’ military operations.

The Israeli government should not attack objects necessary for the survival of the civilian population, lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, and restore electricity and water.

As I've insisted before, unless we fully acknowledge the crimes and complacency of which we are capable, nothing will ever change. The world will spiral into its prevailing madness and separatist narratives, leaving us as nothing more than powerless spectators of such history. Unless we reclaim the narrative, rewrite the stories, and confront the ghosts of the past, we will remain entrenched in our disgraceful descent into accepting the same evil that has forever threatened humanity.

I am reposting this essay (edited for crispness) to recognize and condemn starvation as a crime against humanity, and the deprivation of individuals from the basic sustenance of food and water as an assault on life itself.

Also, visit this extraordinary piece by on the trial of his ancestors, analyzing induced famine as a tool of colonial suppression and other facets related to land and colonial conquest.

From today’s perspective, we can see the Highland Clearances as an act of colonization. The land grabs and suppression of indigenous culture has clear parallels to what has happened in Australia, Canada, the United States.

- John Lovie

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They say we are shaped by our history, the reality once lived by our ancestors. If that's true, then I am a dormant repository of the past cruelties endured by my forebears. My genetic memory is haunted by the specters of skeletal figures, peeking through the curtains of time. Just a few generations ago, my ancestors bore witness to an unforgiving famine that claimed over 3 million lives in Bengal over the span of a year. It's difficult for me to fathom that the beloved boulevards of prosperous Kolkata were once overflowing with countless starving, homeless souls. Their protruding ribs resembled daggers threatening to pierce through their skin, rendering them barely recognizable as human. Some clung desperately to whatever shred of humanity remained within them, while others succumbed to exhaustion. I believe exhaustion is the primary sensation the body comprehends when one is on the brink of death.

It feels imperative for me to recount this tale, lest the aimless spirits of these ancient boulevards haunt me indefinitely. This story serves to exorcise the past of its agonizing suffering, to unearth the dead from the dreaded pits of history, and to unburden them from the weight of their untold tales.

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Indifference 

Shankar Ghosh recollects from his years of reporting in his remarkable memoir Scent of a Story

One of my greatest regrets while reporting in the war years was the studied indifference of our entire journalistic community to the famine in Bengal. Between 1942 and 1943, over three million people died of starvation in Bengal with hardly any mention in the media. Battles, skirmishes, they give, and take of a few square yards of real estate in unpronounceable locales made it to the front pages, but the death by starvation of Indians, almost equal to two-thirds the population of Scotland, was something to be wished away.

The consensus among European media, including British media, during this particular humanitarian crisis was one of indifference. A small, relatively impoverished colony held little significance in the power dynamics of world leaders. While documenting the case, various potential causes were cited for the famine, including natural disasters, crop infections, and the Japanese occupation of Burma (a major rice importer to British India). However, the reality of policy failure emerged as a major contributing factor as investigations progressed.

In her recent studies, journalist Madhushree Mukerjee has asserted that the widespread suffering and deaths due to starvation could have been prevented if Winston Churchill and his cabinet had taken heed of the severity of the crisis when alerted. Mukerjee has presented evidence that the cabinet was repeatedly warned that excessive spending of Indian resources on the war effort might lead to a severe famine in India. However, such concerns were met with indifference. The British government continued to export rice to other parts of the empire, perhaps believing that the machinery of war had to operate smoothly, and the lives of a few hundred impoverished colonial subjects were merely collateral damage.

However, when the death toll escalated from an estimated few hundred to three million, the initial indifference turned into denial. Rice stocks continued to be exported from India to the empire's reserves, causing prices to skyrocket in Bengal's markets. London persisted in denying any order to the Viceroy of India to supply one million tonnes of emergency grain supplies in 1942-43.

The escalating inflation wreaked havoc on numerous impoverished Bengali families. People could no longer afford to purchase food and eventually depleted all reserves. A chronic shortage of grains, pulses, vegetables, and fish—the essential dietary staples of the region—persisted. To exacerbate matters, Britain implemented a Denial Policy in response to concerns about Subhash Chandra Bose, the defiant Bengali militant leader of the All India Forward Bloc, a radical offshoot of the Indian National Congress. Bose's association with Japanese imperialists posed a threat to British interests.

Bose's political stance further compounded the suffering of the people of Bengal. Large quantities of rice and thousands of boats were confiscated from coastal regions in a paranoid rush to deny resources to the Japanese army in anticipation of a potential invasion. This serves as a stark example of civilians becoming victims in the power struggles of influential and privileged men.

When Churchill was questioned about this apparent policy failure, he attributed it to Indians “breeding like rabbits”, and snidely remarked that if the shortages were that bad how come Mahatma Gandhi was still alive. 

I wonder why Britain was not held accountable by the allied powers for their policy failures, which resulted in the loss of 3 million Indian lives. Is it because they were perceived as heroes by those whose lives were impacted by the broader war? Or is it because colonialism is considered a lesser evil when compared to Germany's violation of 'state sovereignty'? Or perhaps it's because racism is viewed as less abhorrent than anti-Semitism?

Amidst the war, both countries operated in manners that led millions of people to their graves—a genocide by definition. This brings to mind a quote by Andrzej Sapkowski from The Witcher series, 

Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary. The definition is blurred. If I am to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all.

Survival

A Bengali writer Sailen Sarkar documented the life of a Bengal famine survivor named Chand Ali Khamaru in his work, Durbbhikkher Sakkhi (Witness of the Famine). Khamaru’s memories of his early life amidst the famine in the Medinipur district bring back vivid recollections of scavenging ponds for fiber and begging landowners for fain (the starchy water left over after boiling rice, usually given to cattle) to feed his family. Yet, his experiences were somewhat less harrowing compared to the scenes witnessed in Kolkata (then Calcutta).

Millions of people migrated to the city in search of food, leading to a mass exodus from the countryside. People walked hundreds of miles, hoping to find even a hint of sustenance. Tragically, thousands perished from dehydration and fatal diarrhea along the way. Some managed to reach Kolkata, only to find that the tunnel they had crossed in hopes of seeing light awaited them with death in surplus. The food stocks in the city rapidly dwindled. Despite its vast size, Kolkata was ill-prepared to accommodate a million hungry people from the countryside.

People were seen clutching cups, mugs, glasses, and various containers near the drains of red-bricked British offices, hoping to salvage rice starch or vegetable stock that might trickle out through the kitchen drains. Every street was brimming with skeletal figures with hollow eyes, begging for food, and eventually succumbing to starvation.

There are no scientific parameters to measure the human suffering caused by the food crisis in Bengal in 1943. Even if such parameters existed, it would still be impossible to fully comprehend the collective trauma that food insecurity on such a scale could inflict. In our technologically advanced world, characterized by efficiency, abundance, resourcefulness, and connectivity, famines have largely become tales of the past for most of us. However, let us not forget that prolonged wars can disrupt local trade relationships, and militant uprisings could render targeted damage to the reserves, which can lead to famines if a country is not strategically prepared to mitigate shortages.

Wars should be obsolete

In general, wars propel humans to normalize apathy and racial discrimination. In dire circumstances, humans awaken their animalistic instincts to survive, often losing touch with their human virtues. It's not so much a folly as it is a survival mechanism. Apathy creates significant rifts in the collective consciousness. Those on the receiving end of apathy often lose their ability to connect meaningfully or to practice compassion. Wars create broken humans, who in turn break society, perpetuating more wars. This transpires into a vicious cycle of social metamorphosis, taking on increasingly gruesome forms with each advancing stage.

I believe that only a radical transformation of our democratic and social frameworks can lead us to our desired goal of making wars obsolete. We live in a reality where everything we hold dear could burn down to ashes as soon as tomorrow, due to the inflated egos of mercurial men. If we deny this reality, we will inevitably create worlds too brittle to inhabit.

To lift the world out of its pitiful mess, we, as a collective, must find a framework for evolution that keeps us constantly in touch with our empathy. We must create a system incapable of harm, hate, prejudice, or inflicting pain. Unless we achieve this goal collectively, we will remain unsuspecting wild beasts caught in our apathetic slumber of greed, ultimately shattering our beautiful abundant world into pieces.

As for me, I am aware that some part of my ancestors' indelible suffering is still etched in me. Thus, I actively seek healing from this collective trauma to move past the shadows of yesteryears. And I admit, on the days when I see lush green farms with crops ready to harvest, I feel immensely grateful for having all that I need—love, abundance, and an immediate reality devoid of wars, while also being painfully aware of the ephemeral nature of it all.

Welcome to Berkana! I have lately been meditating on the importance to arrive at my roots with as much conviction as I do in my present. I feel at home in my present self, although the impermanence of identity has haunted me as long as I have developed self-awareness. We all are made of layers both conscious and unconscious, weaved into our existence for generations. There are certainties about us, the visible part of familial and cultural conditioning, that we recognize within us. But then there are other parts that are buried beneath a million peels of the subconscious, becoming inherently a part of our experience, and hence shape our character. Therefore some of what we are can be explained with plain logic, like checking a list of labels that society has created to categorize a human, but some of our inclinations remain unexplained. For instance, I fail to understand my obsessive fascination with colonial architecture and artifacts, or my love for neo-classical music …

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Welcome to Berkana! I feel elated to be back with a new story to add to the Berkana archive. As the storm passed, I was lifted over by a strange kind of lightness and clarity that arises only after going through a cathartic experience. I am quite offset from my half-yearly publishing schedule, yet I am grateful that I got an opportunity to meditate on some of the most inevitable experiences associated with human life. We are born in this realm to create, but we are also here to experience. Art is only complete in its various manifestations when an artist creates from their experience of the world. I am immensely grateful that you held on to Berkana in my absence. Prayers are the most tangible form of magic, and all of your prayers have given me the steadfast mast of hope and support that I desperately needed. I want to admit that much of what I do would not make any sense if you did not relate or respond to the musings of my mindscape. Now, let’s get started with today’s …

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Welcome to Berkana! Today I present to you an evocative essay that comments on the interconnection between old kitchen objects, gender roles, food, and culture. Feel free to leave your opinion in the comment section!

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Welcome to Berkana, a place to find diverse cultural investigative essays. In our last issue, we discussed who were Devadasis and why it is important to learn more about them. Today we are deep diving into their mythological origin, socio-political status both pre-, and post-colonialism, intentional deletion from history, and the current day status. Let’s jump right in!

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Welcome to the beginning of Berkana’s 2022 journey. I planned to kick-start the year with some incredible stories of the badass femme archetypes. From an obscure corner of India’s culturescape I bring to you the stories of the mysterious Devadasis and Nauch girls from 7th century India. We will do a deep dive into their origin, social status, impact, and rudimentary present-day existence. So without delaying any further, let’s get started.

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I thank you for being with me on this journey of Berkana so far. I am deeply grateful for your valuable readership. I hope so far I have been able to thrill you, inspire you, and help you reflect on the brokenness of our world, which is often joined together by a mosaic of brave and beautiful humans and their myriad cultures. In this bitter-sweet journey of discovering what is starkly different than our own, I hope you have found a reflection of your values in certain people from different cultures or at least have felt empathy towards them. Berkana is here to remind you that our uniqueness and diversity are necessary so that we can learn from each other and progress in harmony. It is to remind you that even if we are so different, we still share similar hopes and aspirations for freedom, acceptance, respect, joy, and love.

If you are enjoying Berkana so far share our adventures with your friends.

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Now without further delay let’s get started with today’s story

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Thank you for being here. Today without much ado we will quickly jump into chapter-2. If you missed the first chapter, find it here

Chapter-1

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Welcome back to Berkana - your weekend binoculars to find some of the most interesting, obscure, and magical cultural anecdotes from around the world. If you have not read much of my content yet, then let me introduce you to my style - I am a stream-of-consciousness writer. I believe in the lyrical power of prose and hence tire myself to the bone to attain perfection. I love to unearth myriad truths about the human condition, and hence always try to offer the stories as I find it rather than the distorted version served to us cold by mainstream media. Post fact-bombing my readers, I often follow up with commentary on the hidden nuances of culture. Finally, I conclude by exemplifying how the culture in the discussion uses motifs, symbols, art, music, languages, etc as devices to dismantle conditioning. Berkana was created with the vision to awaken our inner courage to change. Berkana is a place for all of us who feel united in our humanity without denying our differences.

I…

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Welcome to the second part of our journey inside Te Ao Māori (Māori world). Today we will look closer into the marks that the Polynesian women proudly wear. Also, we will meet their Melanesian cousins who are starting a fresh wave of the revival of their ancestral marks. Let's resume our journey from where we left it off and slowly move forward into the cultural revolution and its significance. 

To remain aligned to the context of the story, you can read the previous chapter here. 

Read Chapter-1

Or start at the introduction here.

Read Introduction

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To understand the context of today’s essay, you can read the detailed introductory post here.

Introduction Post

Also, since the nature of the post is intense, I have split the article into a two-chapter mini-series. The last thing I want is for you to be fatigued while reading Berkana. 

Let us sway together in and out of stories, myths, history, and socio-political constructs to understand the power and pain of our sisters from Oceania.

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I am so happy to be writing to you again. I went on an unplanned trip which stretched for a while. As I am a keen observer my learnings never stopped. I am excited to share many insights with you about some more obscure stories. But before that, as promised, this week we shall embark on a journey inside the heart of the Māori culture. Since the topic is broad and complex, I intend to set some context for the upcoming weekend edition.

If you enjoy reading Berkana, why not share it with a few of your friends?

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Before we dive into today’s topic, here is the list of three posts from previous weeks that you might have missed

1. The lesser-known lives of the women who orbit around the Yakuza and how their exclusion from power will dismantle the Yakuza

2. Some handpicked sordid tales of our collective atrocities on tigers and the consequences that await us.

3. Manipuri women in the Olympics and the indelible legacy that guides them

Let’s jump in!

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Without further ado let’s get started

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Imagine a world - a world without maroon, violet, navy, marigold, turquoise, lavender, without beautiful complex colors. Now, imagine a world without yellow lemon, green and black striped watermelon, red globe grapes, or blueberries. Forms and colors have been central to identification and categorization, which in turn has helped our minds get trained in meticulous recognition of the benefits and dangers of our environment. Colors invoke emotions because they bridge the gap between the abstract and the material, the sense and the object. A study reveals, that our mental peace is hugely decided by the calming colors of the walls surrounding us. The perfect juxtaposition of an admirable art piece against a contrasting wall creates a warm environment where inspiration flow untethered. Have you ever wondered who made those art pieces? Have you ever met someone who sold it to you directly or through a dealer? Were any o…

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