Bricolage Magazine | Issue 3 | Sept - Nov 2013

ISSUE 03 SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2013

Team

Founder and Editor-in-Chief

Senior Editor

Art Editor

Associate Editor

Associate Editor

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Cover Photograph

KRITI BAJAJ

SONAL JhA

MEDhA KULKARNI

AARUShI UBOwEJA

VARUN wARRIER

AKShAy RAM

KRITI BAJAJ

“Just Joking” by AgNES hARTMANVenice Carnival 2009

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Editorial

Dear Readers,

Another issue of Bricolage Magazine now lies before you, waiting for its slick virtual pages to be turned. The response in the last three months has been phenomenal, with submissions pouring in from writers and artists all over the world. This wonderful diversity is what we aimed for when we set sail with this project, and it is an exciting, gratifying and humbling experience to see it come to pass in such a manner. Thank you all for contributing your work, spreading the word, and taking the time to read what others want to share.

with our third issue complete, we are taking a much needed break through the month of December. We invite you to connect with us on Facebook or Twitter to receive news and updates about submission deadlines and future issues.

This issue is our largest and most vibrant yet, featuring 20 pieces in various genres. Submissions included in this issue came from India, Canada, USA, El Salvador, hungary, Singapore, Taiwan, Scotland and China. I hope you enjoy the journey.

See you in 2014!

Kriti BajajEditor-in-Chief

[email protected] guidelines - www.bricolagemagazine.com/p/submissions.html

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All rights remain with respective authors/artists.Terms of service - www.bricolagemagazine.com/p/terms-of-service.html

Contents

FICTION

8 The Big Day - Shweta ganesh Kumar

11 The Stolen Caviar - Desiree Jung

13 Luna, it was not your Fault - Martin Bemberg

16 One glass of Tea - Shraddha Kinger

CRITIQUE

20 Albert Camus’ The Outsider: A Novel of our Time - Neil Leadbeater

POETRY

26 Three Poems - Peter Cantelon

29 Four Poems - Phillip Larrea

32 Barefoot - Gale Acuff

34 Two Poems - Jessica Tyner

36 Three Poems - Adreyo Sen

38 Four Poems - Linda hegland

41 Two Poems - Rini Barman

ART

46 Finger Paintings - Tammy Ruggles

52 Music & Blues - Brian Forrest

FEATURES

60 A Taste of Taiwan: have you Eaten? - Kelly Chapeskie

DIARY

66 I had a Name for haute Couture - Lakshmi Bharadwaj

68 Rafting Down the Kaituna: A Tryst with Danger - Sneha gururaj

INTERVIEWS

72 Leona Rodrigues: hula hooping in Mumbai - Medha Kulkarni

PHOTOGRAPHY

78 Walk - Kriti Bajaj

90 Snapshots from the Venice Carnival - Agnes hartman

Fiction

“Little Girl Lost” by Swati Daftuar

8

Mother is wearing the sari she bought for the harvest festival last month. She looks so beautiful, with that red bindi and green bangles, her springy curls tightly disciplined into a bun with fragrant jasmine flowers encircling it.

It is not just my mother who is decked up. The whole of hingalkere has followed suit. It’s not every day that a TV news channel comes along to our tiny dot of a village to interview someone. It is a big day.

The wizened old Ajji who lives in the temple croaks that the only other time something like this happened was when a foreigner with a camera turned up many years ago. he had come to take pictures of goddess yellamma’s feast.

Yes, the same fiery goddess that holds sway over so many of those dusty hamlets across northern Karnataka. It is her feast that those who are debt-ridden and broken in spirit troop to, holding on to dear ones to be given away. Dedicated to the goddess, is how they put it.

That’s how my mother came to hingalkere as well. Only that she was just six years old and had no idea what a devadasi was. She cried her eyes out as the older devadasis tried to soothe her. how could her father have kept her when he had four other children to look after? The Goddess owned her now. She would take care of her, they crooned.

My mother soon learnt the ways of the cult. Baths at dawn, sweeping the temple grounds clean and learning dance from the snarling and beady-eyed dance teacher. And when she turned thirteen, the nights grew longer: now there was a man who owned her as well. No, not her husband. A devadasi could not get married. But now she had money to buy bangles and sweetmeats at the local fairs.

I do not know if it was this man who was my father, or who it was amongst the other men who have owned my mother in part, and for periods since then.

It doesn’t really matter now, for few of them are alive and some are just barely breathing.

*

It was the day I came home crying from school, humiliated in front of my sniggering classmates, that my mother raged against the Goddess for the first time.

Sniffling, I asked her what AIDS was and why they called her a sex worker and why no one wanted to sit with me and why the teacher told me to never come back. her eyes blazed, and that was when she told me her story.

The Big Dayby Shweta Ganesh Kumar

9 ISSUE 03

I would have been happy to stay at home and never go back to school again. But I had not counted on what mother would do next.

There she was, constantly calling on madams in the government. There she was, telling her devadasi sisters that enough was enough.

There was a lot of tut-tutting and head shaking at first. And only my mother went to the classes the government started to hold. But then, curiosity got the better of my mother’s friends. Inquisitive kohl-lined eyes followed her progress and then learned to read along with her.

Bangles clinked energetically as brick by brick, my mother and her friends built what they had dreamt of for us. Their smiles were wide as they painted it the same red as their bindis. No one could ever ban any child from these vibrantly coloured rooms.

Today, the school my mother built completes its tenth year. Today is a big day.

Today is her day.

Shweta Ganesh Kumar is the bestselling author of Coming Up On The Show and Between The Headlines, two novels on the Indian broadcast news industry. her latest book, A Newlywed’s Adventures in Married Land, is now available worldwide via Toronto-based publishers, Indireads.her travel columns have been featured in The New Indian Express, One Philippines, Geo and Venture (Indonesia), and she currently writes a monthly travel column for Travel and Flavours Magazine. Her non-fiction pieces have appeared in multiple Indian editions of the Chicken Soup series, and her short fiction has been published in anthologies and online literary magazines in over four continents. Shweta currently lives in El Salvador with her husband and one-year-old daughter.

www.shwetaganeshkumar.com

10BRICOLAgE MAgAZINE

She enters her house in the middle of the night and turns on the living room lights. her black high heels bring back an ancient memory.

Her fingers tremble as she pictures the stolen caviar.

She is in her childhood room and has just escaped the kitchen with the forbidden delicacy. Her mother chases her in black high heels.

The memory persists.

She sits on the bed and eats the fish eggs on little toasts, like the adults do. There are always leftovers on her fingers. The black caviar explodes, leaving traces on her hand. Inside her salty mouth, the fear of punishment. She doesn’t like the taste of the caviar, but the pleasure is in stealing.

She enters the bathroom, sensing the smell of fish on her fingers. She knows she is hallucinating. She turns on the light and the lamps around the mirror warm her face. It is cold outside; her skin is frozen from contact with the air.

She closes her eyes, tired, feeling the heat enter her body. She notices the fold of a wrinkle on the corner of her eye; she follows the trajectory of a grey hair. She takes a deep breath.

Her husband’s shirt is still hanging behind the door. She doesn’t know how to live by herself, but she is learning. She sits on the toilet bowl and begins to wipe her make-up, a dirty cotton pad in

The Stolen Caviar

by Desirée Jung

11 ISSUE 03

her hand and a black smudge on her eyelid. Scratching her eyes, she takes off her black high heels, blacker under the bathroom light. At dawn, sounds are rare.

She thinks about her childhood. She doesn’t know what’s happened to the child in her that says, that’s it, that’s what I want.

Desirée Jung is a writer and translator. Her background is in film and literature. She holds an M.F.A in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. She has published translations and poetry in Exile, The Dirty Goat, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Antagonish Review, Gravel Magazine, The Literary Yard, and TreeHouse, among others. She lives in Vancouver.

Photograph:“Face in the Mirror”by Rashmi Swamy

blog.rashmiswamy.com

Luna, it was not your fault


Luna, it was not your faultby Martin Bemberg

He hurries home for the speed alone. It is orange and waiting for him. It is waiting like the more-or-ange prescription bottle in his sock drawer and the one of Malbec lying open in the shower. Neither bottle carries any warning, and good thing too, or else he might just keep his head this time. But the green glass is empty save some shower dregs, and the pill bottle empty too but for the half pill he did not chew this time. Wish it were the sugary kind. Keep my shit together on that kind, he’s thinking.

This was last hump day* night. It was the sort of night he thought he’d never forget. At the very least it was not to be forgotten but would be slowly. It had to it a secret comfort hidden somewhere among the mundane, or what ought to be mundane. But nothing about it felt routine to James.

Before this James hardly left the house. His favorite local band had been the same since he gave up performing -- Egyptr -- and they would go on in an hour. he began as a teetotaler. But as the night strolled along, he passed the hat, having found the drunken merrier in donating than the stingy so-ber.

Put one on my tab, she said, and he put two then three. He accepted first straight whiskey from the well, sipped at it at shorter intervals, confidence a tenant in him as the shot glass emptied. He talked away two or three novels before he asked that she donate. Put it on my tab, she said, and he had feigned no expectation of it. The answer to will you donate to my buzz did not matter, not tonight. Nothing could rain on the evening’s lanky gait. The coming storm was to be ice, and all the better, he thought. So long as the wine is red, so long as red-faced Prater sticks around and he’s the one I’m stuck with. So long, caution - this wind’s blowing something awful. And what a habit, to be blown and carried away at each reunion with him. Tonight was about Owen Prater, and the brief chance to be reminded that he was still young.

The pale ale brewed just south of there tasted like last decade. Nostalgia as a false remembering.

Photograph by Sidharth Das

* Wednesday is often referred to as “hump day” in North America, the middle of the workday week.

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he had not been more carefree as he cruised into drinking age. he had not worried less. In fact he worried more about worrying, and for far longer than his most recent bout of depression. The battles lasted longer back then, but were harder to recall than even the cloudiest of clinical opiate fogs, the upper-downer I-feel-greats, the roller coaster is a plateau bits, and hey-yo-I-feel-goods of that golden summer of 2009. It was to be one of, which he and red-faced Owen Prater portrayed later as they gabbed back and forth. The two stood shivering breaths visible and cigarette smoke out of their iced faces. It was to be a hot potato, ping-pong dialogue for the ages. It happened in the moonlight of an after-tavern early morning. The spectacle of spoken ricochet would be known thereafter as The gab On Frozen Tundra Lawn At MLK & Church Streets.

“I would realize,” Owen said, “that the Arkansas Ozarks get cold as balls, bro, cold as them and I see the news nearing every gesture, tree, and lamplight even. And what would James do?” And it began.

“I would realize when the decade came a closing that every season would be gilded in some shade or other,” James served.

“Some with the hue,” returned Owen, “that Midas saw in all he touched, some with the sheen of paralysis, which only a regent could provoke.”

“And some purest like ancient currency,” James said in decrescendo.

And Owen: “gold earned by odes and ballads, spent to stoke the muses.”

“Seen returned,” said James, “And two-fold when the next papyrus hit the presses. Parchment maybe.”

“Or lyre.”

“Just so long as it came from a beast so fortunate as to die to feed the discerning gut as much as to fill the brutish belly.”

“One is nourished just so much as the next,” said Owen, “and the viscera so much as the grumbling pouch.”

And James: “And what a fortunate beast, to be sacrificed for both.”

“And then the pyre,” said Owen. “Of an iron house.”

Owen Prater gazed upward at the full moon. James gazed downward at his ruddy, rugged companion and sketched the star-struck profile with his eyes.

“when is the eclipse, Owen?”

“I surely don’t know, James, but reckon I might rather find out by spending all my nights and early mornings out here waiting for it.”

And that’s just what he did until the day he died.


Luna, it was not your fault. Owen Prater died by the light of you. he had done it in the yard each frigid night since the second ice storm - he had stared back at you. The night he died, he rode his bicycle below you, hands freed. head bent back to see you he was riding. he collided head-on with the drunk oncoming. The fall flattened his skull on the asphalt.

Owen Prater died by the light of you. James would mourn this death by manuscript.

Martin Bemberg was born and lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and has previously lived in Berlin and Austin, Texas. He is a poet, translator, novelist, journalist and composer/lead singer and bassist in the band high Lonesome Ark. he also co-hosts a local arts podcast called Speakerside Chats. his work has appeared in Art Amiss Literary Magazine and The Idle Class Magazine. He studied Spanish at the University of Arkansas and lives in a tiny apartment in the Student Ghetto with his wife Kristin.

15 ISSUE 03

One Glass

of Tea

by Shraddha Kinger

The advent of the monsoon showers marked the beginning of celebrations in the small garden down the road. The garden had no gate, offering itself to anybody who fancied entering. That Sunday evening, passers-by who were interested enough saw a group of boys emerge from the garden. Despite muddy bodies and scraped knees, the boys wore smiles. with dripping shorts and no umbrellas, they crossed the road and made their way to a battered tea stall. They laughed as they sipped their tea, their chatter barely audible over the din of the heavy rain.

Having no umbrellas during the rains meant drenched clothes and, at times, unwelcome fevers. Across the road, a thirteen-year-old boy sat silently in a one room clinic. his mother was to his right, and a neglected video game lay between them. The boy looked up frequently towards the laughing group outside, and fleetingly wondered what the tea would taste like. His mother seemed engrossed in her phone, which came alive with beeping sounds at regular intervals.

She motioned quietly to the boy to pull his jacket closer over his shoulders. He did so without a word, and looked over to the tea stall again, wondering how much one glass of tea would cost.

The boys outside seemed to have come to the general consensus of returning to the garden. As they crossed the road, the rain more forgiving now, the mother looked at them disapprovingly (why must boys their age wander lanes the way they did? In the rain, without inspection; teenage boys not aware of the perils of mingling together the way they did). She had never been an ardent supporter of the slums near her house. She sighed, and picked up a magazine from the table.

Her son, on the other hand, stared fixedly at the football nestled against the waist of one of the


boys re-entering the garden. he looked longingly at the group, and at the liberty their bodies exuded. he’d give up anything to join them in their race for the ball, right at that moment.

Expressing this wish to his mother must have been absurd, because she threw her head back and laughed. But her son’s ardent, confused stare told her that he had not intended it as a joke. She smiled stiffly – of course he could not go play with the other boys, he was not one of them.

her son didn’t probe further. he didn’t know why his mother wanted him to stay away, but he knew he had to obey. Many years later, he would not explain to his son the reasons for the answers he gave.

The drizzle continued as they stepped out into the golden evening. The warm light shone faintly on mother and son as they walked along the garden. It shone faintly on the boys in the ground. The drizzle graced everyone the same, the breeze ruffled their hair the same.

Yet, everyone was different.

Shraddha Kinger has worked as a teacher for two years in a low-income school as a Teach for India fellow, and believes that one is taught more as a teacher. Her brain vacations a lot, and she loves long, aimless walks.

Photograph “Kulhar Chai in Jaipur”

by Nanya Sudhirindependentrandomvariables.blogspot.nl

17 ISSUE 03

Critique

Albert Camus, 1957Image by New york world-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection (public domain) via wikimedia Commons


Albert Camus’ The OutsiderA novel of our time

by Neil Leadbeater

writer and philosopher Albert Camus was born in Algeria in 1913 of Breton and Spanish parentage, and brought up in North Africa, before coming to France and taking up journalism. He was active in the resistance during the German occupation and became editor of the clandestine paper Combat. Later, he left journalism and devoted himself full-time to writing plays and novels producing international classics like L’Etranger (The Outsider); La Peste (The Plague); L’Homme Révolté (The Rebel) and La Chute (The Fall). he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957. In January, 1960 he was killed in a road accident.

This year marks the centenary of Camus’ birth. It seems an appropriate time to pay tribute to his writing by revisiting his classic, The Outsider.

A brief overview

The protagonist, Mersault, is a young Algerian who works for a shipping company. Upon receiveing news of his mother’s death, he asks his employer for two days leave to attend her funeral. At the vigil, he displays no grief or even a hint of emotion.

Back in Algiers, he meets a young girl, Marie, whom he vaguely remembers from the past. gradually, a relationship develops, but it is quite one-sided. When Marie asks Mersault to marry her, he accepts, but his acceptance is voiced with an air of indifference.

In the meantime, he also develops a casual friendship with an unsavoury person called Raymond, who happens to live in the same apartment block in Algiers. Raymond is a violent individual who takes it upon himself to beat women. He seeks Mersault’s help in exacting revenge on a particular girl who he has taken a dislike to. Mersault acquiesces and, as a result of this action, sets in motion a whole sequence of random events that eventually lead to a confrontation with the girl’s brother, an Arab, who Mersault murders in cold blood.

The second half of the book concentrates on Mersault’s trial and the time that he spends in prison awaiting execution.

Emotion and apathy

The principal protagonist, Mersault, is emotionally detached from the world. He displays indifference at his mother’s death and merely goes through the motions of attending her vigil and funeral. He is not ambitious and shows no real interest in gaining promotion at work, and is not bothered one way or the other about marrying his girlfriend. he lets himself be drawn into helping Raymond seek revenge without considering the consequences, and shows no remorse upon killing the girl’s brother. At his trial, he is not particularly interested in mounting a defence, and at the end of the novel, he refuses to accept the promise of forgiveness or indeed the existence of god.

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It is interesting to note that at his trial, the fact that he did not grieve his mother’s death counts more against him than the fact that he killed a man. His indifference antagonises society because he does not conform to their standards and expectations. Mersault is the outsider. The French title, L’Etranger, may even go further than this because in addition to meaning “a stranger” or “outsider”, the word also conveys the meaning of something that is entirely foreign, even alien.

L’Etranger, image by Jean Louis(Creative Commons 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Raymond acts as the catalyst that develops the plot; he initiates the action. He tries to compensate for his insecurity by putting on a tough image and acts violently when he is at his weakest point. He draws Mersault into a conflict which eventually culminates in murder. Unlike Mersault, Raymond is a man of strong feeling – his need to get even with his girl verges on the hysterical. he also evinces some degree of feeling in acknowledging an awareness of Mersault’s predicament by asserting his innocence at the trial, attributing the murder to “chance”.

Oddly enough, the most difficult character to come to terms with in the novel is not Mersault, but his girlfriend Marie. She is only momentarily disturbed when she learns that Mersault wants to take her to a comedy the day after his mother has died. She never asks any of the big philosophical questions that occupy Mersault’s thoughts; she is just content to be. Even more surprisingly, she does not seem to be put off by Mersault’s complacent reaction to her proposal of marriage. After Mersault’s arrest and imprisonment, she fades into the background. She does not seem to be a real person with feelings and emotions – perhaps Camus wanted the reader to see Marie through the eyes of Mersault himself.

Life is but a game

Another perspective to explore the novel would be that of life as a game with its own set of rules. It is well known that Camus enjoyed playing football. he was a goalkeeper for his team in Algiers. A series of Camus football shirts have been marketed carrying quotes from his works, one of which is: “All that I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football.”

The referee, god, is the chief determiner. he is the keeper of the rules and the players have to abide by them. If anyone steps out of line, he is the purveyor of justice and fair play. Camus, as goalkeeper, would have had his work cut out to defend his team by stopping the opposition from scoring a goal. Suppose he decided to be indifferent to all of this, to let through every ball without even bothering to put up a defence? Such a situation would be unprecedented; it would be met by howls of derision, not to mention a change of goalkeeper.


In short, it would be absurd – but the absurd is what fascinates Camus.

By his own admission, he is an absurdist. It is the currency in which he deals. It goes without saying that the goalkeeper is always expected to defend his team. Suppose we remove this obligation and – to push the idea of the absurd even further – suppose we also dismantle the notion of the team itself and go for the individual as opposed to the collective approach? What would happen then? Perhaps, beyond the game of football and the anarchy that would ensue, there would be a re-thinking of rules, of the need to change some of them; to challenge the accepted face of authority.

This is what Camus does with this novel. he celebrates the cult of the individual and, in so doing, raises questions about the accepted norms of society, questions that are still relevant today as much as they were at the time when the novel was written.

Against conformity

Mersault is a man who lives in the present moment. Aside from the fact that he works for a shipping company in Algiers, we know very little about his past. We do not know his full name, we are not told very much about his mother. One reason why Mersault cannot find it within him to mourn his mother’s passing is because, to him, there is no past to mourn. In a similar vein, there is no future either: in helping Raymond, he does not give a thought to the consequences. He does not look ahead.

This notion is supremely realised in the final section of the book where any idea about an afterlife is anathema to him. There is no tidy ending. We are not given the details of Mersault’s execution; to Camus, this was immaterial. The real question of the story is whether or not a man has a soul. When the prosecutor considers what he calls Mersault’s “soul”, he says that, after studying it closely, he had found a blank, “literally nothing, gentlemen of the jury.”

he does not condemn Mersault for this; “we cannot blame a man for lacking what it was never in his power to acquire.” The problem faced by the prosecutor, however, is that the higher ideal of Justice has been compromised and, due to the lack of a decent instinct, Mersault is described as a menace to society. The fact that he paused after the first shot and then shot again a further four times is of significance to the jury. It represents the difference between what could have been construed as a possible accident and a deliberate killing. His greatest crime, however, still appears to be the indifference that he showed towards his mother at her funeral, as this goes against the grain of accepted behaviour.

As far as Mersault is concerned, there is a sense in which he gains peace at the end because his “victory” is that he has rebelled against conformity, and that is all that matters to him.

Imagery and symbolism

The imagery in the book is telling. Mersault is so detached from his surroundings that his actions seem to stem from nothing more significant than the weather. The sun affects his mood and behaviour. The searing heat of Algiers is felt at various stages throughout the novel: Mersault feels it at his mother’s funeral, he feels it most acutely when he commits the murder. we are told that the whole beach at this point was throbbing in the sun and pressing on his back. he feels it again in the courtroom where his trial is being conducted amid the whirr of cooling fans.

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Another recurring image is that of evening. Some of the most tender passages in the book describe the onset of evening; it is the time of day that Mersault enjoys the most. To him, it signifies rest and relaxation; a landscape that is less defined, and when things are not so polarised. The evening is the time when he becomes most attentive to the smallest details. It is also the last hold that he has on the implacable grandeur of the day because the word “tomorrow” is not in his vocabulary; it leans too far into the future.

The crucifix also plays a central role in the story, standing for everything that Mersault refuses to believe in. he rejects it twice, once from the magistrate judge and then from the prison chaplain.

The novel opens and closes with a vigil. The atmosphere of both scenes is suffocating; in the first, Mersault sits with the nurse in the Home for Aged Persons in Marengo, going through the motions of mourning. At the end of the book, he sits with the chaplain in a prison cell awaiting his own death. At the Home for the Aged, he is quiet and detached but in the prison cell he is animated as he rages against the chaplain’s attempts to make him understand the meaning of salvation. The murder, which is the main axis on which the whole book turns, occurs at the halfway point, a watershed that divides the book into its two halves.

The novel was ground-breaking in its day. It overturned set beliefs and raised questions about what governs instinct, conscience and guilt on one hand, and the notion of conforming to accepted modes of behaviour on the other.

Its appeal is just as great today.

Neil Leadbeater is an editor, author, essayist, poet and critic living in Edinburgh, Scotland. His short stories, essays, articles and poems have been published widely in anthologies and journals both at home and abroad. his most recent books are Librettos for the Black Madonna published by white Adder Press, Scotland (2011) and The Worcester Fragments published by Original Plus, England (2013). his work has been translated into Spanish and Romanian.


Poetry

Three Poems

by Peter Cantelon

“New year’s Eve” by Ashwati Vipinwww.flickr.com/photos/ashwati

26

Dying Monsterswhat cruel and capricious naturedeigns to spin these spectacles, to weave the warp and weft‘til I and you and we are left small bits of enchanted starssewn together through the unending, to a point of barely comprehendingthat we are, and cause, the scarsthat keep us up at night in fearful wonder;are we spirited God-given gifts, or crying, dying monstersborn of loveless lightning ‘midst the thunder?

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Aria

From the hard chord-ed,amid the dark-rootedtectonic booming bass-ment, whereshe weaves, she weaves through tangled knotwork, ‘round crashing note-work, ‘tilshe rises, breaches, lifts pastthe pounding, churning morass, flying unbound above it all. An airy expressive melodybreathing high-noted light, singing our everlasting delight.

Starving

Silence is the voice of the spreading darkbecause there is no wound to stitch, there is no bent or broken bone to mend; only the maddened, starving soulthat gnaws from the inside out, seeking to be unborn.

Peter Cantelon is a Canadian poet who has been writing for nearly 30 years. His influences have been many and diverse, including - but not limited to - Margaret Atwood, Irving Layton, Sappho, Charles Bukowski, Edgar Allan Poe, John Donne, and more recently, international poets such as Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa and Persian poet Forough Farrokhzad.

his poems have been published in a number of magazines and reputable e-zines, including Alliance Life magazine, Poetry Scotland, and the award-winning Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts. Find more of his work on his blog (cantelon.wordpress.com).


Four Poems

by Phillip Larrea

Bytes

There I sat in my customary shady spot.Savoring beef on freshly-baked bread,when this ragged fellow shambled up to me,but stopped short maybe ten feet away.

I pointed my chin, raised my eyes(my mouth unseemly full at the time),as if to say, “yes, can I help you friend?”Rags, by way of reply, lowered his hair at me,began to type furiously with opposable thumbson some smart device more eloquent than he.

Abruptly, his mop jerked up, eyes bulging.“Don’t you get it?” everything about him begged.well I didn’t, so I just shook my head.Again the gesticulation, more urgent now.A click, tweet, link, like, tap, tap, blurp tune,like some starving street impresario.

I dutifully pretended to be entertained,oh so grateful my lunch nearly consumed,when, suddenly, his panicky jaw started to work itself,as if rusty from disuse, or in some disrepair.his jaw cogs began to grind, Adam’s apple spit bob.

Until something akin to language emerged.I popped the last of my sandwich, leaned forward,intent I should help this poor distressed soul.At length, this word, like a gum bubble burst --

“hungry.”

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Old Lady Wars

Crooked little old lady goeswobbling down thin sidewalks.

Try to pass her left or right.Do you think she doesn’t know?

how she thwarts when she hobbles.The angle of her shopping cart.

Prosecuting her private campaignto claim her rightful place and space.

Squatting, desiring nothing morethan dictating, personally, the world’s pace.

That’s what she has left to live for.She’ll cut you bad for a car-length.

This is, in fact, how wars start.Little old ladies - bless their heart,fighting battles huge though puny.

Blocking sidewalks with shopping carts.

(this poem has previously appeared in Brooklyn Voices)

Spanish Town

In a little corner of Spanish Townthey all walk with their heads hung down.

Mustaches drooping, hands clasped,praying to god for what their hands never grasped.

Bright little Billy Boy, blonde with blue eyes beaming,walks into the church, grabs the toy

all copper and silver gleaming.

That precocious child in Spanish Town,out of the gloom and into the shining,

as by the door they all stand pining,for the cross in Spanish Town --

in the mud, face down.

(this poem has previously appeared in the Silver Bow Anthology)


How to be Houseless

Take care of your teeth - that’s the first thing to know.Everything else is fungible.Second, own a good pair of medium-sized scissors;large enough for your head, small enough for your nose.Third, a sixteen-ounce water bottle is best.More is too heavy, less not enough for hot days.Fourth - talent. A guitar or violin, if you play. If not, learn.You have time, and nobody likes someone who just flat begs.

Personally, I prefer to set up near a Starbucks.They have electricity, and bathroom doors that lock.On a good day, I can wash up and recharge mycell phone and laptop. Don’t be surprised.I never said I don’t work for a living. I got family, too.which reminds me - good to set up a Paypal account.Oh…find yourself a really big towel. It can double as a pillow.

Now, some of my well-to-do friends have bicycles. Nice.Libraries are not always in easy walking distance these days.As for me, I’m rich. got a bike, backpack and a bedroll.But, you know, I’ve worked hard, saved my money.Even used to check into a hotel now and again.For a treat. Can’t do that anymore. They don’t take cash.

No worries though. I’ll be down in sunny San Diego by November.Back up here, cooling my jets in half Moon Bay by mid-June -- god willing and the cops don’t lock me up, that is.Look, I’m just saying - not a bad life, but let me tell you what -you got to take care of your teeth - that’s the most important thing.

Phillip Larrea is a poet who has been widely published in the U.S., Canada, Ireland and Europe. his chapbook, Our Patch (Writing Knights Press), was released in January 2013, and his full-length poetry collection, We the People (Cold River Press), was released in April 2013. his poems are currently published, or will soon appear, in The Tower Journal (U.S.), Blue Max Review (Ireland), Inspired Heart (Canada) and Metric Conversions (Turkey).These poems have been published in Larrea’s chapbook, Our Patch (2013, Writing Knights Press).

Photograph: “Feed Me” from Sidewalk Stories

by Sukaran Thakur www.flickr.com/photos/ice_studios

www.facebook.com/outlandish

31 ISSUE 03

Barefootby Gale Acuff

One day I’ll go to heaven, Miss hookersays so, or hell if I sin too much andforget to ask god to forgive me orrefuse to. But wherever I go I diefirst, there’s no afterlife without it. Iwish I could go to heaven and just skipdeath altogether, dying I mean, sincethere’s probably some pain involved and I’mnot good with pain, I sunburn easilyand sometimes chew my nails so far down thatthey bleed and pick my nose and blood flows, too,or fall down the twelve stairs from my atticbedroom or get stung by a bee or antsbite me on my toes when I go barefoot,right between my toes I mean and I scratchand it actually feels pretty goodexcept when I stop. I should be gratefulto them for giving me some pleasure andit’s pleasure after pain and maybe that’sthe best kind. If I ever make it toHeaven I guess I’ll find out. Miss Hookersays that there’s no pain up there at all, justgood feelings all the time although she saysthat there’s no time, either, which is goodbecause I can’t wear a watch because itchafes my wrist and I get the hives. One dayMiss hooker will die, it’s hard to believe,and will go there herself and she’ll be mostwelcome, I’m sure. I love her and want tomarry her down here on earth but I’m just10 and she’s 25 and I believein miracles but I don’t lose my head,we’re just not close enough in years so ifI try not to sin and say my prayersand read my Bible, both Testaments, andgo to church and Sunday School for the restof my life then I’ll have a shot at herup in heaven, not that she’ll marry mebecause, she says, no one’s married there, butat least I can tell her how I feel, orhow I felt when I was alive because

up there I’ll be dead, at least for a whileanyway, at least ‘til I’m settled - howmuch loving her down here gave me such painthat I wanted to die and how my ageand hers being so far apart made ithurt even better. I’d tell her so nowbut I’m too shy - she’s a full-blown womanwho wears a dress and stockings and does herhair and reeks perfume and paints her toenails,I’ve seen them when she’s slipped out of one shoewhile she’s telling Bible stories andcarries a pocketbook, I mean one meantfor business. After Sunday School she packsaway her Bible and church programand pencil and pad in it. Mother caught megoing through hers once - it’s better thana Boy Scout backpack, lipstick and mirrorand Tareytons and matches and moneyand aspirins and balloons and tissuesand Certs and a Zagnut and Spearmint gumand god knows what else. I got licked for thatso I know better now. I wonder ifFather gets to look through it. In my caseit’s a sin. I asked god to forgive me- I’m not sure if he has. If I’m standingbefore Him after I die and waitingfor his judgment I sure hope Miss hookerisn’t nearby if He brings that matterup. I think I’d die all over again.I wonder if that’s possible. what thatwould be is a miracle, too. I’d pay tosee that happen, but to somebody else- maybe it’s a sin to say so. One dayI’ll know that, too. So anyway I’ll tellMiss hooker how I felt about her. Oh,she’ll say, I had no idea - you hid it so well. I’ll say, Yes ma’am, but not from God. She’ll agree. Now that’s what I call living.


Gale Acuff has had poetry published in Ascent, Ohio Journal, Descant, Adirondack Review, Ottawa Arts Review, Worcester Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Arkansas Review, Carolina Quarterly, Poem, South Dakota Review, Santa Barbara Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, and many other journals.

he is the author of three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (Brickhouse Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (Brickhouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (Brickhouse, 2008).

He has taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank.

Photograph: “All you need is love”

by Vishnupriya Bhandaramwww.flickr.com/photos/vishnupriya89

33 ISSUE 03

Two Poems

by Jessica Tyner

ProduceSome people have penchantsfor winning radio contests, others for numbersof the choice prizes at the bars -- the artists or doctorsinstead of the waiters or students -- but me,I get the grocery clerks and confused check stand menat the corner store who give me fruits for free,tucking them fast as a secretwrinkled and splitting into paper bags,but really,it has nothing to do with luck.

I’ve always loved the over-ripened fruits.Not the ones which are just slightly sweeter,but the bananas with no yellow left to give way to brown,the plums with skins as finely crinkledas a grandmother’s décolletage, and kiwisso fragile and soft that even the lightest touchleaves permanent sloping impressions.And it’s not because I’m cheap,at least not this time,it’s because I remember the taste of the treasures foragedfrom my parent’s backyard, the ones beyond the horse pastureand growing from the neighbor’s side,the ones nobody would eat, baking warm in the Oregon sun.

how can something be too sweet?Like all those people who told us our love was too much,it must be delayed infatuation, the kind reservedfor teenagers and drunks, like that time you told memy words were too big to bear their weight,they’d surely implode one day,or the time I missed my cycleand neither of us cried,not when I called to tell you from California


or when it crept in shamefully two weeks latelike a dog with his tail slipped between his legsand we never talked much about it, just satside by side shell-shockedand amazed at the almost.

I was twelve before I realized my father wasn’t white,until then I thought nothingof his clay-colored skin, eyes drippinglike honey or ropes of black licorice hairsnaking alive and furious down his back.My breasts sprung early, hips splayedwide as an overeager invitationwith bones pushing unforgivingagainst my own skin, pale and quietas the illness. you took me to Radio Shack,your syrupy southern drawl wrapping like a shy giftaround the simple words,My wife put something on hold, and the young clerk, not a decade older than me,looked at both of us with blatant disgust,loathing and a shot of envyeven I could sniff out, like a dogor a wild thing.

Is this your wife? he asked, and my chestwas in a painful awakening of an instantfreakishly large, my hipsunable to slam shut, and youtoo stunned to be ashamed or angered just whispered,That’s my daughter, before walking out, the snakes gone still,but for the years I’m too sorry to take back,the years until the cancer sucked you dry,I felt it for both of us,felt it in my thighs built like a horseand my lips too ripe for a child,in every year after labor heavy yearI refused to be seen with you, I’m so sorrythat I saw you gut punched and ugly as a man.

Jessica Tyner is a Pushcart Prize nominated writer from the US and a member of the Cherokee Nation. She has recently published short fiction in India’s Out of Print Magazine, and poetry in Penumbra, Straylight Magazine, Solo Press, and Glint Literary Journal.

Photograph: by Nidhi Srivastavanidhis.tumblr.com

Passing

35 ISSUE 03

Living in the train station,he journeyed in his ragsto other people’s destinations,the forlorn ingratiating cadavertucked in between theirbusiness suits.

he had his three meals to eat.his place was inthe station manager’s seat.he had been homelessin his youth.

Three Poems

by Adreyo Sen

The Wraith

“In the Shadow of a Day” by Talha Masood Siddiquiwww.facebook.com/talha.photojournal

36

This land seems to have a receding hairline.Perhaps it’s because the seadoes not want to visit,just keeps crawling awaylike a bruised lover not believing the torture’sfinally over and that she can awake.

The land is salty with the indictingstench of her pain.

Imagine a smileas a stained glass painting.

Now imagine it disappearin dwindling redsuntil it becomes a flat marshlandof compressed grey.

It’s almost as if to saythings as beautiful as paintingsshould never existin the first place.

Receding Hairline

Smile

Adreyo Sen, based in Kolkata, hopes to become a full-time writer. His undergraduate degree is in English and he has studied English and Sociology at the postgraduate level. he has been published in Danse Macabre and Kritya.

Four Poemsby Linda Hegland

Photograph by Linda hegland

Rooted in Surrender

I find the fine, white scaron my hand;

the result of a frightening question.It sits in the webbed roots of

bones and veins and the wear of time.when did my hands turn to oak?when did my skin turn to paper?

I place my hand on the soil,also cracked and lined and webbed.

Commonality, coincidence,a universal sigh.


Ode to a Strawberry

Bees drink the sky off the surface of the water

Little hole in youJuice weeping

Something has experiencedyou before

I taste the tear, the tearBite

Your tears stain my fingersMy lips

I hold you by your green tootSee your white heart pulse

you are all-giving

The stain of you indelible.

Murmur, murmur.I sit with the bees.It is a meditation

and I feel the hive mind surround me,hold me,

and expand my body – cellular – spiritual.Am I healer – like them?Am I dancer – like them?

Am I artist and builder of universes – like them?Small, exquisite lives.

Bee-murmur, loud quietjoin murmur of blood through

my veins.

I dance with the bees in my heart.

39 ISSUE 03

But you are not like river stones

We are all star stuff,and what is a pebble if not made of stars?

Every pebble a story, a quest.with a single pebble, the pebble

I choose to pick up andplace in my pocket,

I am carried into the abyssal depths of time, across the complexity of the universe.

It may speak of the molten purgingof an erupting volcano,

of the lives and deaths of ancient animals,giant plants,

long ago oceans and colliding earthen hearts.It may be small and ordinary,

not even pretty.But it carries, like me,

stardust at its core.Its single pebble oratory is a storyof all times, and all ways of being.

Linda Hegland lives and writes in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada. She is, among other things, a wonderer, wanderer, storyteller, and artist. She practices blending, blurring, and braiding of experience and thought, is a writer of memories and stories, and a seeker of place and her relation to it. Her poetic utterances are her keepsakes, her touchstones. She’s been known to be impossible.

Linda has previously published in the Smarter than Jack book series in New Zealand, in Sassafras Literary Magazine, and has upcoming work in the Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature.


Two Poems by Rini Barman

Bondhu

The last winter petals,oscillating between banks and branches,wave a friend floating alongsidepapers dipped in black inkwinter after winter,I refill my Chelpark pen.Such pens do not sink.

was this the inundated riverwe set our muddy feet on,bondhu,the sun was suffering from vermillion cataract,or maybe it was our myopic sight.

Anybody could touch the wind dancing,full throttle;a little away from the boat,the only boat that stood alive. Maybe you sat beside me, bondhu.

Last winter had petals,from submerged bedrocks,I hear a choked, marshy voice,

like an orchestra of swiftly churning waters. Were you waiting with a swampy mouth,bondhu?

This is the best red-yellow silt of all:the silt smells of hilly dregs;

Elephant-like pebbles beneathsunken coasts left these few sediments:

“where did you leave for, bondhu,winter after winter,my fountain pen swallows the bottle,nocturnal shadowstoo can overcastmirages tallthen, why dream small...why dream small?”

1. “Bondhu” is the Assamese/ Bengali word for a companion, a dear friend. 2. The river here is a tributary of the Brahmaputra, the nostalgia for which led to an attempt to portray Hatisila, a site near Guwahati, Assam.

41 ISSUE 03

Afamiliaramberwicksoaksfive

litresof

mustardoil

whenthe

hypnoticrainschase

sleepwalkingmonsters

insunlight;

theydream

ofdoorswhichonceopen

torust,leavethe

conjurernaked

andthe

occultblemished.

At5.00 a.m.

alit

ash-trayburnstwo little

wordsfrom

Of long butt-ends

BRICOLAgE MAgAZINE

apoemfaggedaround

thesametime

faraway

ahouseflysquats

inbetween

thefingers

ofa

strangerwho

carriesa

handfulof

cerealsandthegripofa

friend’slost

cigarette.

Rini Barman is currently pursuing her Masters in English literature from Jamia Milia Islamia and has graduated from Lady Shri Ram College in the same field. Her work has been pub-lished in Muse India, The Four Quarters Magazine, Seven Sisters’ Post, The Spark Magazine online, the Eclectic and several other dailies of Northeast India. her poems also appeared in the anthology Fancy Realm which was launched during the international poetry festival held at guntur, India in 2011.

Photograph Hatisila

by Gautam Sarmawww.facebook.com/pages/gautam-Sarma-Lenswork

43 ISSUE 03

Art

FingerPaintings

by Tammy Ruggles

Yellow Landscape, 20138.5” x 11” • acrylic on paper

Finger painting is as much a surprise to me as it is to other people. having RP, a blinding disease that robs your vision over time, I thought I would have to give art up forever, because I couldn’t see well enough to draw or sketch details anymore - like the celebrity portraits I always loved doing. But in April 2013, a Facebook friend suggested I give finger painting a try, because I could do it intuitively.

I use my imagination and memory to create images from my childhood growing up in rural Kentucky. I would like the world to know that the blind and visually impaired can create fine art.

Potted Plant, 201311” x 8.5” • acrylic on paper

48

Red House in the Country, 201311” x 8.5” • acrylic on paper

Two Red Shacks in the Fall, 20138.5” x 11” • acrylic on paper

Waves, 20138.5” x 11” • acrylic on paper

Tammy Ruggles is a legally blind finger painter and photographer based in Kentucky. Some of her paintings have appeared in Art Times Journal, Sasee, Revolution Art, Wisdom Crieth Without, Tru Entertainment, Neutronsprotons, The Artist’s Network and Contraposition. Her art education amounts to nearly seven years at high school and college. In addition, she is a freelance writer and retired social worker in the areas of child/adult protection, hospice, and mental health.

tammyruggles.contently.comtammyruggles.deviantart.com/gallery

Light Blue Flower in Pitcher, 201311” x 8.5” • acrylic on paper

Music & Bluesby Brian Forrest

Parker’s Mood, 201124” x 24” • oil on canvas

Brian Forrest was born in Canada and grew up in the U.S. He works in many mediums: oil painting, computer graphics, theatre, digital music, film, and video. He studied acting at Columbia Pictures in Los Angeles, and digital media in art and design at Bellevue College (receiving degrees in Web Multimedia Authoring and Digital Video Production.) He lives and works in the Vancouver, B.C. area. Forrest is a modern expressionist artist, whose work is influenced by past and current colorism in art; his expressive drawing and painting style creates emotion on canvas. For more of his work, visit his website at brianforrest-art.blogspot.com.


Cafe Society Singer, 201030” x 20” • oil on canvas

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Abbey, 201122” x 28” • oil on canvas panel


55 ISSUE 03

Piano, 2009 22” x 28” • oil on canvas panel

Bluesman, 200918” x 24” • oil on canvas

Bluesman, 200918” x 24” • oil on canvas

Eric and John, 201128” x 22” • oil on canvas panel

57 ISSUE 03

Features

When I first arrived in Taiwan, I knew I had stumbled across a really special place. It’s a place that values two main things: working hard, and eating well. If that is the motto, I’m adapting quite well. I work like a maniac, and I have a constant appetite for the amazing flavours that surround me here.

In Taiwan, when you greet a good friend, instead of simply saying ni hao (hello), or asking ni hao ma? (how are you?), you ask, ni che le ma? (have you eaten?). you can input the words for breakfast, lunch or dinner at the appropriate time as well. For example, ni che oo chan le ma? (have you eaten lunch?). The response is either, hei me (not

yet) or che le (I eat – indicating, yes, I have eaten). To ask simply “how are you?” without inquiring as to whether your friend has eaten would seem strange and probably even rude.

This common greeting shows how important eating is in Taiwanese culture. Obviously, food is important as a biological necessity for any living being, and I tend to think it is absolutely the main ingredient for life and enjoyment in any culture. In my experience of Taiwan, the cultural significance of food is taken to another level as it is recognized by the everyday person, through a great appreciation of good food all over the country.

Snacks at Bagua Shan (Buddha Mountain), Changhua

by Kelly Chapeskie

A Taste of TaiwanHave you Eaten?


My main impression about Taiwan is that they’re far ahead of the curve when it comes to consuming and celebrating local foods in season. You can eat the most gorgeous, fleshy, big and juicy mangos during the hot summer, but once the season is over, it’s over. you move on to enjoying other flavorful fruits like starfruit and fresh, local strawberries. During the ‘winter’, you may mourn the loss of mangos desperately, but there are so many other new foods to sample, you can keep yourself happily satisfied. And when the season returns, you celebrate it with a proper dousing of mango-everything. This is how good eating should be. No tasteless imports that have been so genetically modified to survive transportation around the globe that you can’t even remember what a real fruit or vegetable tastes like.

This is not to say that Taiwan has been immune to the industrialized institution of a harmful food system. I think the three McDonalds in an eight-block radius and the incredibly heavy use of plastic bags and packaging for everything here would indicate otherwise. Big box grocery stores do exist here, and you can toss a stone and hit a Starbucks on almost any corner in Taipei. There are numerous outrageous novelty restaurants, like a Barbie Café, and even a toilet bowl restaurant. The culture of commercialization is very evident, but yet my everyday experience in my city of Changhua does tell me that they’re less inclined to put environmentally and nutritionally harmful foods down their throats than we are in other places in the world.

The local and fresh alternatives are astounding.

Food is available here at all hours of the day, and can be purchased on any street in innumerable forms. On just my walk to school, I pass many

street vendors selling different treats. Some of these include meat and rice sausages, onion pancakes, quail eggs, sponge cake, sweet cakes stuffed with taro, chocolate or cream, and fried chicken and sweet potatoes. Just up a block from there is a road devoted to many different

outdoor eateries, including barbequing a whole assortment of meats, vegetables, and different types of tofu. There is also the specialty Changhua ba-wan (meatballs) found at stalls nearby – this is a ball of meat and vegetable stuffing covered in gelatinous dough that serves as a source of pride for this region. These are just the food stalls I encounter in a few short minutes walk. And the city is riddled with them.

The little stalls are nestled on streets that are also jam packed with restaurants of all styles, from outdoor seating on plastic chairs where you watch your food cooking, to air-conditioned restaurants equipped with modern and traditional décor. Restaurants that serve either Japanese food or varieties of hot-pot tend to dominate my city, but

Enjoying pao cai ha dan at Cijin Island Market, Kaohsiung

61 ISSUE 03

there are also those that serve homemade pasta, dumplings, and a seemingly limitless variety of noodles and soups.

One of my favorite places is a restaurant owned by two Taiwanese brothers just up the street from me. One brother runs a Vietnamese portion of the restaurant serving pho (a Vietnamese soup) and other delicious dishes – the beef noodle there is to die for, in addition to the fresh shrimp spring rolls. The other brother runs the part of the restaurant that sells Oden, a Japanese specialty, where you pick out your meats, vegetables, eggs, and/or tofu and these are cooked in front of you in a delicious broth, to be served with homemade spicy sauce and soya paste.

Buying from a restaurant is often cheaper here than cooking at home. however, if you aren’t in the mood for one of the infinite restaurants or

food stalls, you can go to a nearby local market. Cooking and eating at home with friends and family is also a huge part of Taiwanese culture.

If you think I’m finished explaining where to get food here, I have barely grazed the surface. I haven’t even yet mentioned the many amazing bread shops (the bread here is the most wonderful bread I’ve ever eaten in my life). And then there are the ubiquitous tea shops, selling different kinds of hot and cold teas, and fresh fruit juices that you would think are from out of this world, but are actually made from fruits grown here locally. There is almost nothing better than a fresh mango smoothie complete with chunks of mango on a hot day.

There is also the pièce de résistance: the night markets. Stepping into the vicinity of a night market, is (for me) stepping into my Mecca.

They’re a literal smorgasbord of food cooked freshly before your eyes. The senses are on high alert as you walk along the winding alleys and rows of food stalls, bombarded with an intensity of exciting flavors, smells, sights and sounds that seem to go on into infinity.

A lot of the influence on foods in Taiwan can be traced to cuisines in Fujian, Fuzhou, Chaozhou and guangdong in China. Styles of cooking and tastes were also introduced from Japan during its 50 years of colonial rule in the early 1900s. I have yet to venture into the mountains to explore Taiwanese aboriginal culture and cuisines. A friend explained that some people here will also claim that the food is very specifically only Taiwanese, and has no influence from elsewhere, as political allegiance is profoundly bound to how food is understood and consumed.


however you may look at it, one thing is very clear: there is a lot of diversity to be found on any street providing an endless supply of food experiences for a hungry traveler. Taiwan has produced an excellent website that explores the diversity of Taiwanese food culture, and sums up the constantly changing and amazing food experience in Taiwan here quite eloquently: “The Taiwanese cuisine of today is the fruit of a long, continuous process of evolution and innovation.”

I’m grateful to be living in a place that celebrates

good food so openly and enjoyably. Everyday food encounters are how I hone my (poor but growing) language skills, and reveling in the food here has been the best way for me to learn about an incredibly friendly, interesting, and diverse place.

So I ask myself, wo che le ma? (have I eaten?)My answer is: Che le (I eat). How che (good food). And hun bow (very full).

Until the next time I eat, which will be shortly.

Kelly Chapeskie is currently living and teaching in Taiwan. She comes from an anthropology and religious studies background, and completed her Masters in the Anthropology of Food. She is a Canadian wanderer who has traveled and lived in many different countries, and is now attempting to forge a life of travel and food writing. Her blog, The Appetite Odysseys, (appetiteodysseys.wordpress.com) is about an appetite for travel, an appetite for learning, an appetite for adventure, and most especially, an appetite for food.

All photographs courtesy the author.

Delicious lu wei at Changhua Night Market

63 ISSUE 03

Diary

My grandmother doesn’t know what “couture” means.

On festival days, my aunts gift me dress pieces and ask me to go the tailor. On occasion, when I wander the busy streets of my exhausted city, Bangalore, I see mannequins dressed in designer wear. They’re glitzy, gaudy and stare you in the face, and I am engulfed by a sense of loss. Before this grimy ‘Mega Fashion Bazaar with 20% Discount!’ existed, there used to be respectable tailors. They had established practices in my city before the “fashion stores” encroached with fancy phrases like ‘Ready-Made Imports, high Class’. And gradually, I saw the tailoring shops being reduced to fading expressions of contemporary taste in clothing. The fragility of the traditional Indian tailor’s position in today’s market is deplorable. They are outnumbered, outweighed, outgrown.

My favorite tailor frowns into his creases, as old as the trade that has defined him. He has nowhere else to go. his presence overwhelms me with a sense of nostalgia, and I end up feeling like I belong in a different time.

I’m not sure what it is that I miss, but I suppose it is that small room with cement walls painted sky blue, and that old table that blocks the entrance, and names like ‘Aishwarya Ladies Tailors’ in slanted cursive writing, hand painted. These are places where you don’t have to be measured by

by Lakshmi Bharadwaj

I Had a Name for Haute Couture


your talking, but by tape. These are places where you can discuss the smaller tragedies of life. These are places where you can’t hide your stature; they are places of unusual truth. here, you don’t have to apologize for your talkativeness, because on these brown-black bruised streets that pattern the inky city, heaving with mighty exhalations and vehicle exhausts, nobody will make it a point to question you. But if you are the tailor, housewives will memorize you; they will know you by your promptness and the lying posters that you hang on your walls. They will like that you are religious and that you have at least one god printed out and pasted there with cellophane tape over that steel rod where you hang all the tailored blouse pieces. They will ask you how you are and why you don’t give discounts; they will bring you all the blouse pieces after festival season.

I long to hear the words “this was tailored” as an irrevocably familiar part of life. Because there is so much to a tailoring shop that is compelling, like the way that the tailor handles those rust-prone scissors to cut cloth with a merciless urgency that is almost poetic. There is grace in the bits of patterned cloth raining down on his floor, and the artistic way in which this cloth-laden mosaic of a floor paints itself.

I’m not sure what I miss, but it might be that long, tireless wait for that “dress-material” to come home with hems and alterations, transformed in ways you desire. The wait. The feel of cloth that has been crafted to fit you, the thrill of your own inexpensive version of haute couture, so that you can do your own little amble by a mirror. The tailor’s book with little pieces of cloth stapled onto his log, like repeated obsessions, teaching you how to say parrot-green, copper-sulphate-blue, vermilion-turmeric over teal, cerulean and sherbet-orange.

I tell my tailor some of these things. he frowns again and closes his log book. There haven’t been many customers today.

Lakshmi Bharadwaj is a fourth year engineering student. She enjoys writing, photography and storytelling. She attempts, through her stories, to document the constant changes faced by her hometown, Bangalore. She blogs at Quite So (rustedbicycle.tumblr.com).

Photograph: “Shaded”

by Kriti Bajaj kritilbajaj.carbonmade.com

www.facebook.com/KritiBajajPhotography

67 ISSUE 03

by Sneha Gururaj

On a wintry July afternoon last year, I stood by the banks of the Kaituna river, staring at the swirling white foam in the water. Nestled in the little town of Rotorua in North Island, New Zealand, the river is famous for its rafting adventures. In fact, it boasts the world’s highest commercially rafted waterfall - the Tutea Falls.

At the shore, the rafting instructor looked at us grimly as we clutched our oars and got ready to enter the raft. He told us that people had died in these waters, being washed away by the current of the Kaituna, their bodies smashed into the treacherous rocks that lay downstream. The cold wind whistled dramatically as he spoke about the perils of our impending adventure. Anything could happen out there, we were told. we had to be careful.

Rafting down the KaitunaA Tryst with Danger

We spent the first fifteen minutes practicing in relatively calm waters. As soon as the raft started to move, we realised that controlling it needed strength, skill and most importantly, coordination. The instructor was now encouraging and friendly, and we quickly learnt the basics of white water rafting. A mother-daughter duo on our raft requested to leave in the middle of the training session, alarmed at the increasing speed of the river, the young teenager in tears despite repeated reassurances. we dropped them off at the nearest point.


As we went further down the river, we heard the sound of thrashing water grow more and more audible. We were getting much closer to the waterfall. The instructor’s voice was louder now, his orders more urgent and stern – when you’re rafting at that speed, even a small mistake can cause the raft to be dragged down the river.

The Kaituna was unpredictable, the raft even more so.

We knew we had to be focused, or risk capsizing the raft, and getting back on it would be a nightmare. It was all quite surreal. Strangely, in the thick of all the adventure, I tasted liberation. When only an inflatable raft separates you from nature’s wrath, you almost feel like you’re toying with danger, playing with death. I had left everything behind, and nothing mattered more than emerging from the waterfall unscathed. That ephemeral moment put things in perspective in a way nothing else had.

I gasped. Up ahead, the river literally disappeared. Lifting the oars out of the water, we gripped the sides of the raft, no longer in control of its speed or direction. I will never forget the feeling when the raft tipped downwards, facing the abyss of the thrashing, white water. And then, the free fall. A soundless shout escaped my throat as we plunged down.

For a few seconds, we were one with the waterfall.

Reaching the end of the waterfall, we were completely submerged in the water as we went into the river at frightening speed. The shock of the cold water gave way to raw fear as I felt and saw only inky, icy blackness. Being at the crossroads of such panic and resignation, I felt powerless and, for a split second, I was sure I was drowning.

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But the raft hadn’t capsized. The instructor told us that it almost had, and we’d been really lucky. As we caught our breath, trying to come to terms with what had happened, we realised that we were already moving again. Most of us looked dazed; but then a young Australian couple on the raft started to laugh in relief. The instructor told us to turn around as the raft continued to move swiftly downstream. we looked back at the waterfall.

Tutea Falls was aggressive, passionate, and beautiful.

Cold, wet and with our hearts still pounding, we looked at each other. We had done it.

Sneha Gururaj arrived in Singapore eighteen years ago from India, and has called it home ever since. She is a final year communications student at Nanyang Technological University. Usually found ruminating about life and its mysteries, she has an inclination towards traveling, reading and good chocolate. As an avid debater, she has travelled extensively in recent years, representing her university in debating championships across the world. She plans to build a beautiful reading room in her house one day, filled with all her favourite books.

All photographs courtesy the author.


Interviews

Leona RodriguesHula Hooping in Mumbai

by Medha Kulkarni


Leona Rodrigues is on a mission to get as many people as she can to start hula hooping. Beginning with her city, Mumbai, where she conducts workshops and meets to spread the hooping culture. She also works as a freelance editor.

Leona, tell our readers more about yourself.

I’ve been a student of science all my life, and I still am. I tend to look at everything, including hula hooping, from a very scientific perspective. I have a biochemistry/life sciences degree from St. Xavier’s College, and I’m a board-certified (BELS) language and content editor in the life sciences. I split my time between two jobs that some would say are at both ends of the spectrum – I’m into my hula hoop practice, workshops and promotions for half the day and take up science editing assignments to fill up the rest of my “working hours”.

When I’m not hooping (or editing), you’ll catch me watching hundreds of hooping videos and listening to all types of music, usually keeping my ears out for “hoopable” tunes. I also practise Ashtanga yoga at least thrice a week – I’ve always felt that there is a connection between hooping and yoga. Both of them can get you into a state of flow in no time, and both involve rhythmic movement and a good amount of coordination. I also do normal things like hanging out with my friends, eating, drinking, shopping (for quirky hooping clothes mostly…)

When were you introduced to hooping?

In late 2010. My sister started exercising with the hoop and I started practising along with her. But I got bored of waist hooping quite soon, so I looked up YouTube, and lo and behold, I found out that there are so many things that you can do with the hoop! I saw a famous Lisa Lottie video and promised myself I’d get there some day. And that was the start of my hoop journey.

Would you call hula hooping an exercise, an art or a sport?

Flow art, exercise, dance form, meditative exercise, circus act…it can be many things, but I would refrain from calling it a sport. A “sport” typically involves some amount of competitiveness and/or team work, both of which I feel are against the nature of hooping. Unless you’re trying to put up a sort of a synchronized hooping performance (which, trust me, is very difficult), the hoop is the only partner or object for most hoopers, and “competing” is hardly a word hoopers understand because hooping at any level, in any form, and by anyone, is so beautiful and unique to watch.

What goes on in your head while you hoop?

Nothing. Even though, initially, I get a little distracted and feel a little conscious about my body and how it’s moving, within a couple of minutes I forget about everything else but the hoop and its movement and me inside the hoop…I reach a state of flow, as they say.

Is there a hula hooper collective or community in India or Mumbai?

Yes! I have gathered up a “hoop army” over the last few years. Most of them you will find on the Facebook page hoopgaga, Mumbai, and the others you will catch hooping all over Mumbai. I organize a hoop jam every once in a while so that everyone can meet and hoop and share new things! Dates and timings of these can be found on our Facebook and Twitter. Also, there are other active hoopers in Delhi and a few in Pune, from what I know.

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But I feel like this is just the beginning in Mumbai and India. Although hoop culture has seen a revival in normal (non-hippie/non-circus) society in the western world over the last decade or so, it hasn’t picked up so much in India…slowly, but surely.

How do you plan to spread hoop culture?

workshops, hula hoop jams, performances, videos and other visual media…in every way possible! Recently, I have also started blogging about this and putting up pictures, videos and event details on my website.

What advice would you give to an aspiring hooper?

Make the hoop your friend. Don’t treat it like you would a treadmill or Pilates ball. you need to practice, but really, there’s no pressure! Ease yourself into a daily practice or routine slowly, and remember that it’s okay if you start out of whack and look awkward. Your movements will definitely get smoother with time and practice.

How many hoops do you have?

Let’s just say I’m fighting for space with my hoops at home and they seem to be winning! But, in my defence, most of them are in transit and need to be delivered to aspiring hoopers.

have you ever had a hoop-related injury?

Plenty. No gain without pain, right? Bruising on the waist is in fact considered a rite of passage. you


are getting hit again and again at a point on your body (waist, wrist, knee, thigh etc.) that was not used to such treatment before, so it’s expected. And you when get really experimental and start tossing and flipping and throwing the hoop around, you’ll have to forgive some of the nose bleeds and contusions.

What have you done professionally with hooping?

My professional experiences have mostly been in the form of workshops, which I’ve done all over Mumbai over the last couple of years. I currently have a regular monthly workshop going on at Bandra.

I have put up LED hoop performances at some closed events and parties, and hooped for a couple of live music gigs. I even hula hooped for a Titan Raga ad (the hooping bits didn’t make the final cut, sadly). I’m still growing into my role as a performer, and I’m currently working on making some professional demo videos with the help of a friend. I hope it works its magic!

www.hoopgaga.comfacebook.com/hoopgaga

twitter.com/Hoopgaga

Medha Kulkarni is passionate about all things art, and holds an M.A. in history of Art from SOAS, University of London. She currently works at the G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture in Mumbai, and is a freelance art writer. She is the Arts Editor at Bricolage Magazine.

Images courtesy Leona Rodrigues.

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Photography

by Kriti Bajaj

WALK

Sometimes, the photographer places everyone and everything in the frame exactly the way she wants them. But sometimes, the photographer is a flâneuse, walking around a city with a third eye around her neck. These are photographs where neither the photographer, nor those in the frame are still for long. Everything is moving, coming together only for a moment before it disperses.


Cambridge, UK guy Fawkes Night 2011

BrusselsSummer 2012

BerlinSummer 2012

herne Bay, Kent, UK January 2012

New DelhiSpring 2011

There is a certain spontaneity that brings us all together in that place and time...


New DelhiSpring 2011

LondonFebruary 2012

...while buildings, walls, trees, landscapes seem like constants, presiding over the ever-changing.

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ParisSummer 2012

PragueSummer 2012


It is those moments that enchant the magical millisecond between the pressing of the button and the closing of the shutter, where people and their paths are entangled

there one moment, gone the next.

LondonSpring 2012

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And your own two feet are the best way to discover the nooks, crannies and mysteries of any place.

ParisSummer 2012


And your own two feet are the best way to discover the nooks, crannies and mysteries of any place.

BudapestSummer 2012

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Kriti Bajaj is a blogger, learner and wanderer. She gets lost a lot, usually with a camera in her hand. She holds an M.A. in Social Anthropology (with a focus on media and visual culture) from SOAS, University of London. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of Bricolage Magazine, and currently writes about visual art and culture for Art Radar Asia.

Portfolio: kritilbajaj.carbonmade.comBlog: framedandfocused.blogspot.in

LondonOctober 2012

Snapshots from the Venice Carnival


Snapshots from the Venice Carnivalby Agnes Hartman

The Carnival of Venice (Carnevale di Venezia) is an annual festival, held in Venice, Italy. The two-week Carnival ends with Lent, forty days before Easter on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash wednesday. Masks and elaborate costumes are one of the main features of the Carnival, which attracts nearly three million visitors each year.

These photographs were taken at the Venice Carnival in February 2009. we had wonderful weather, warm and sunny.

Agnes Hartman is a hobbyist photographer from hungary. She also likes to draw, and writes fantasy books. View more of her photographs at www.facebook.com/AgiVegaVilaga.

From Academy Bridge

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Rialto and gondolas

www.bricolagemagazine.com

Documents

Bricolage Magazine | Issue 3 | Sept - Nov 2013