Bahama Saga Written by Peter Barratt

 

The author is a British trained architect with a degree in urban planning from Harvard University. He first visited Bahamas Islands in 1960 as a town planner of FreePort city of the Bahamas. He is also an archaeologist and founder of the Lucayan National Park and author of many articles and research papers about the islands. His love for the Bahamas led him to write about the advent of humanity into these islands right from the beginning to its development in the present days.

 Story Line:

It all starts with few hundreds of a nomadic tribe belonging to the Mongolian race somewhere in Gobi desert of Central Asia decide to move out in search of better lands. They start their long journey with their captive animals like Bactrian camels, yaks, goats, bighorn sheep etc. They pass through the Sayan mountains, Orchon River, Lake Baikal, Lena River and reach the sea of Orkotsk in eastern Siberia. Since the two continents of Asia and America were joined at that time in winters due to low sea levels, the tribe trekked across the now Bering Strait and made the first landfall on the western most part of America, also called as the First Crossing. This main migration of the Asians to the Americas down south, some fifty thousand years ago led to the creation of empires of the Maya, Aztecs and Inca across the new American continents. Several tribes gave their names to the lands they occupied but soon perished after the arrival of European explorers.

The islands of the inland sea between the two Americas were first inhabited by the jungle tribe called Casimiroids. The first of these islands to be colonised by them was Cuba then Hispaniola, Jamaica and Puerto Rico somewhere in 4190 BC. When the population of these Stone Age people (now called as Antilleans) swelled, they further moved North to find the magnificent Bahamian Archipelago. This archipelago extends for about 550 miles from its southernmost island of Inagua to the northernmost island of Abacos, near Florida of USA, consisting of around 700 islands and cays (roughly the size of Italy) out of which only a maximum of 30 namely Abacos, Eleuthera, Cat Island, Exumas, Long Island, Andros and Inagua to name a few that are inhabited. The Bahamas islands are known for its vast coral reefs which actually protect them from ocean swells. The word ‘barbeque’ has come from these islands where cooking over open fire was called by the Antilleans ‘barbecu’. Even the words like tabacu (tobacco), batata (potato), hurricane (uruka), hammock (hamaka), cannibal (caniba), canoe (canoa) seem to have originated from the tribes of Bahamas.

In around 200 BC, the Arawak tribes from northern part of Amazon rain forest migrated to Venezuela and from there to the Caribbean basin and then colonised the Bahamas. By around 400 AD, these Arawaks assimilated the native Antilleans and have adopted a new language Taino and were called as Ciboneys or rock dwellers. By 600AD, Bahamas was fully occupied by the Ciboneys and formed the rootstock of Lucayan Indians. The Lucayans were described by Columbus as handsome people with graceful bodies, broad foreheads, coarse hair, yellowish skin tone, erect spines and without bellies. Women were equally beautiful and sexually very attractive and active. The tribe was healthy, athletic, immune to many diseases, almost naked, sexually active, fun loving and practiced “Sati” (an act of burning down of the woman in the same funeral pyre of husband). Their priests presided over a religion that had several male and female gods. They believed in life after death and worshipped sun, bats, tortoises, conch and other zoomorphic beings, trees and mountains too. Their worship included garlands made with flowers and leaves and a universal chant “ommmmm”.

The Lucayan Indians later developed their own language and culture. It was Columbus from Spain, over 500 years ago, in his quest for gold, who first landed on an island called San Salvador of Bahamas and found that the islands were already inhabited by some local tribes who spoke a strange language believed to be from India. The Treaty of Tordesillas signed in 1494, granted Spain the exclusive right to colonise lands found 2000 km west of Cape Verde Islands of Europe and the same distance east to Portugal. Hence, Bahamas unwillingly fell into great new Spanish empire. The Lucayans had no immunity to diseases brought by the Europeans and soon one half of the population perished due to fierce epidemics. Those who have survived have been carried away as slaves to Europe and other distant lands in America.

The Spanish lost interest in the Bahamas after the discovery of more fertile lands like Peru, Mexico and other western parts of North America which led to the entry of the British into the islands. The British after colonising Bermuda, deeply penetrated Bahamas with their Christian religious impositions on the locals, by banning idol worship and their local customs. In 1670, the British Crown granted exclusive rights to some eight ‘Lords Proprietors’ to own and enjoy Bahamas Islands in perpetuity and established an administrative centre at an island called New Providence, with Nassau (earlier Charles Town) as its capital port city, comprising of a total of 913 inhabitants out of which 413 were slaves. Later, in 1718, the greatest Governor of Bahamas, Woodes Rogers, was appointed. The brutal charter of the Lords Proprietors granted the owners autocratic and militaristic rights for penalty, imprisonment or death upon the people in case of rebellion or anarchy.

Woodes was the man who suppressed the most troublesome problem of the colonial Bahamas, and that was the Pirates. Famous pirates like blood thirsty Edward Teach (BlackBeard), Hornigold, Jennings, Burgess, White and Vane apart from female pirates like Anne Bonne and Mary Read operated from the capital city of Nassau. As early as 1505, slaves were transported from Western Africa to Bahamas, auctioned and sold away to wealthy settlers in America later to be brutally put to inhuman living conditions. Even the smallest offences by these slaves would attract most cruel punishments like being burnt alive and tortured till death. This cruelty finally ended with the Emancipation Act of 1834 when slavery was finally abolished. At a later stage, the local British settlers of America, who were not given ample recognition by the Crown in England, participated in a secret alliance with the French to rebel under the leadership of George Washington and later declare independence. Bahamas thus became part of the American Revolutionary War.

In the nineteenth century, Bahamas grew as a vibrant economy due to its export of cotton, arms and ammunition with Nassau as its epi-centre. Tourism picked up in the twentieth century with Bahamas offering its long turquoise beaches, exquisite sea food, alcoholic beverages, and warm weather to international tourists. The lifestyle of the Africans in the Bahamas has changed drastically along with its economy and Christianity is the major religion by the beginning of the twentieth century, supplemented with emotional sermons, rousing music, lively singing and clapping hands. The African soul of Bahamas is represented by its grand parade on New Year’s Day called “Junkanoo” (probably the name of John Canoe, an African chief from Ghana). Bahama islands have been one of the several countries of the former British Empire which 1973 onwards catapulted from the status of a colony to that of a sovereign and independent nation with its tricolour flag comprising of black (strong people), turquoise (sea) and gold (sun) and stood on its own feet under the new name of Commonwealth of the Bahamas with its own political party called The Bahamas National Party (BNP).

Pros: A beautiful saga of man’s inhabitation of distant unknown islands narrated with some fictionalised characters, starting at Gobi Desert of Asia to present day Bahamas Islands between the Americas. The discovery of Bahamas Islands by man and the origin of its culture, traditions, customs, politics, economy and lifestyle is so well narrated that the reader will be tempted to visit the place at least once in a life time. This book can be a treated as treasure for knowledge hunters who have the thirst to learn about history of European colonisation of the Americas and how Africans have originated there. The Indian connection is also cited in-between with the infamous “Sati” practice finding a common ground between the two distant lands. Wish, some day, it turns into a Hollywood romanticised historical fiction movie!

Cons: The reader might have to consider many fictional names and characters in the book as real. History students must be careful on this fact. Though the author highlights the disclaimer about this fiction mixed in the saga, the reader is carried away by clever blend of such characters into the real history.

My rating : 4 out of 5

O'Blivions Written by Brandon Wells

O’Blivions Written by Brandon Wells

The author worked as a ghostwriter and now publishes literary fiction under his own name, drawing inspiration from realist and surrealist traditions. He studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before entering the world of ghostwriting. He was raised primarily in the United States and has travelled across the world, including Mexico, South America, and Asia. His work is characterized by a blend of realism and surrealistic symbolism, often exploring themes of dark content.

STORY LINE:

The short story is about a young lad, Nick, who dropped out of a famous college in pursuit of a free life which gives him name and fame in short period. He joins a night club called O’Blivions, where he works as a bartender to earn his living but soon gets addicted to alcohol, drugs and girls. Though he is blessed with dedicated workmanship, he, without much direction in life, constantly gets engaged in heavy drinking, random sex, drug abuse and frequent scuffles. He falls in love with co-bartender Olivia, but she is hooked on to another guy with better lifestyle. One day he loses his well-paid job due to random abusive phone messages, sent by one of his room mates to his boss, under intoxicated state. Finally, Nick ends up in suicidal mission after a prolonged dysfunctional, incestuous lifestyle.

Pros: One gets to know how today’s youth is ending up in self-destructive tendencies expressed through promiscuity, recreational drug abuse, and uncontrolled exposure to dark social media content.

Cons: There is not much of a plot or point that would engage a reader but for some American slang used, which I think was unnecessary at some junctures. Absolutely uninteresting and boring.

My favorite quote in this book :

“Drinking alone is one of the first signs of alcoholism.”

My rating: 1 out 5

 

The Black Hill Written by Mamang Dai

Author of this book, Mamang Dai (born 23 February 1957) is an Indian poet, novelist and journalist based in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh. She received Sahitya Akademi Award in 2017 for her novel The Black Hill. She was selected for the IAS in 1979, but later she left the post to pursue her career in journalism. She is the first woman from her state to be selected for IAS. She received Padma Shri in 2011 from the Government of India. She occupied many high positions in government as well as private media institutions and is well-known as a writer who focusses on close knit communities of remote villages of North East India.

Story Line:
This book is a novelized version of Western means of propagation of Christianity into Tibet, the untouched land of Buddhism, in the nineteenth century and finding ways and means to enter Tibet through Arunachal Pradesh of India. The story starts with the introduction of a Mishmee tribal leader called Kajinsha who falls in love with a woman called Gimur, who is from another tribe, the Abors. Gimur elopes with Kajinsha and they start a family in a remote place, in a small hut, on top of a black hill. All goes well until one day a foreigner arrives on a mission from France, in those dense forests in search of a way to enter Tibet. This white man who is called Father Krick, calls himself a priest and a preacher of a new God and religion. He starts curing the ailments of local tribals with his simple medicines, gaining their confidence and expecting them to guide him to Tibet. Though once he enters a border Tibetan village Sommeau, he is driven back to India by the local Chinese authorities, under the restriction of foreigner entry into Tibet. But Krick doesn’t lose hope and tries to re-enter Tibet through the Mishmee hills, which falls under the guardianship of Kajinsha. This is disliked by Kajinsha and goes to warn Krick to return back but in that circumstance, Krick gets killed by Kajinsha’s rivals. This murder of a white man in tribal land infuriates the British rulers of India and they order arrest of the culprit. But here the twist is that Kajinsha gets arrested, his home, villages and tribe annihilated, instead of the actual culprits, due to their false testimonies to the British. Kajinsha pleads innocence, but in vain. He is sentenced to death after severe torture in prison, as a punishment for the murder of an innocent priest. This event finally results in the mass revolt of many tribes of Arunachal Pradesh against British, as a revenge, leading to heavy casualties and suffering on both sides. Overall, I consider this book as one of the most interesting pleasure reads.

Pros: The exquisite English language used by the author in detailing the beauty of Arunachal Pradesh landscape is worth reading. The reader gets immense pleasure in imbibing the grandiose of expressions of love, hatred, anger, sympathy, innocence, independence and respect amongst the tribal cultures of the State. One also gets to learn the dilapidated conditions of tribal lives in these dense forests in those times. The splendor of English used by the author is mesmerizing and makes the reader flip through the pages undisturbed. Hats off to the knowledge and research of the author in writing this book, which has earned her a Sahitya Academy Award.

Cons: Though this appears to be a true story to a reader with factual information, the author leaves a benefit of doubt to the reader in the end, due to absence of any records of such characters or incidents that have been cited in the book, anywhere in Government vaults, except for some details of Father Krick’s book “An account of an Expedition among the Abors in 1853, (published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1913).”

My favorite quotes in this book:
‘What is this land? Men spoke of land as a possession. ‘From this stream to the limits of the jungle and up to that hill with the white rock is my land,’ they said. Every piece of earth was claimed. The big trees, the high mountains, the rivers rushing down crevasses, the steep cliffs and jagged rocks. Waterways changed course and dried up. Men fought and killed each other. Blood flowed. Brothers became enemies. How could the mere features of a landscape ignite such love and ferocity’

‘The time we have is what we call our life. It is how I stand, hunt, sleep, breathe. Who knows when life will end, and how death will come— by fire, water, a falling tree, illness, or from the hand of an enemy? But whether one will live a long life, a successful life, these are not considerations. The desire is to live!’

‘These are texts that are thousands of years old, written and passed down from generation to generation but it will not interest you because you do not know what religion is, what a script is. It is what makes us strong and invincible. It is what keeps us safe from strangers’.

My rating : 4.5 out 5

Camera Palaestina: Photography and Displaced Histories of Palestine Written by Issam Nissar, Stephen Sheehi, Salim Tamari

This is an exclusive book that has taken shape out of organizing, researching and writing about the Photography and Displaced History of Palestine in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, by the three authors.

STORYLINE
Palestine, also called as Holy Land, has been one of the few countries in the world which has been photographed and archived by many Armenian and Arab photographers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Wasif Jawhariyyeh, a local musician, photographer, collector cum petty officer in the British administration of Jerusalem. He collected over 900 rare photographs from both European and local photographers in seven albums and archived them under the title Tariq Filastin Al-Musawwar or “The Illustrated History of Palestine”. The entire collection is divided into seven volumes which depicts the history of Palestine centred around its capital city Jerusalem (Al-Quds). Its Volume One opens with a photograph of the social networks of Jerusalem and their relationship with Palestinian elites, other provincial capitals, and Istanbul. Volume Two has photographs of the arrival of the British, Palestine’s new rulers, World War 1, Arab delegations, Faisal, Abdullah, negotiations, and the breakdown to the riots of Nabi Musa. Volume Three documents the violent occupation of Palestine, the Revolt of 1929, the rise of Zionist militarism and British oppression, and the internationalization of the Palestine. Volume Four is dominated by Zionist settlement, colonial occupation, and violent resistance. Volume Five comprises of large portraits of Palestinian social life around personalities and elites, social hierarchies and social networks. Volume Six rely on Orientalist images, postcards, expatriate, and static images: happy peasants, building projects, processions and religious ceremonies. The final Volume Seven continues a photographic tour of Jerusalem, building a visual tour from inside the city outward to its surroundings, linking it to Palestine and its geography.
These photographs are not just mere evidences of a particular time space but an exploration of Palestinian political, cultural and social lives. Wasif’s collection had started in 1924 comprising of many photographs of Palestine’s landscapes, buildings, people, customs, annual celebrations and historic events from famous local photographers of that time namely Khalil Raad, Garabed Krikorian, Issa Sawabini, and Daoud Saboungi. The photographs clearly capture the unjustified coloniality of the Ottomans to start with, followed by the British and then finally the Zionists. On the visual level, the photographs narrate a story of Jerusalem in which the ruling and elite classes of the Ottoman empire play a central role.
Photographs like the famous Jaffa port in 1868, Khalidi library in Jerusalem, hanging of a prisoner of war near Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem, arrival of first Ottoman war plane in Palestine, surrender of Jerusalem to the British by Mayor Husseini, destruction of Jewish homes in Jerusalem by Palestinian Arabs etc, speak about the transformation of a peaceful Palestine into a war-torn place with the advent of British colonials and Zionist immigrants from Europe. Also, numerous photographs of famous personalities of the ruling class of Ottomans, the British and Zionist stalwarts of the region add more to the story of Palestinian aristocracy. The famous photograph of Sunduq al-‘ajab (the Magic Box), by Khalil Raad, the ancestor of the magic lantern, also known as the Persian Box is one of my favourite photograph in the collection. For poorer children, and some adults, this was the cinema of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Wasif Jawhariyyeh’s seven albums function as bearers of memory, as well as testimonials for a time. They document almost five decades, during which Jerusalem and Palestine changed hands from a large Ottoman Empire to a much smaller entity ruled by the even larger British colonial empire. This time witnessed the start of Jewish Zionist immigration to the country and ended with the complete disappearance of Palestine from the map of the region. Wasif himself was a musician who played an instrument called ‘oud’. He was a singer and instrumentalist too. He participated in many musical performances staged by travelling theatrical groups from Egypt. Wasif’s albums are not just historical memories but testimonials of rejection and partition, displacement of their Holy Land right from Ottoman’s Orientalism to the British Colonialism. Jawhariyyeh’s arrangement of photographs represent the social relations and political history of Jerusalem and to a larger extent, Palestine. In doing this, the albums undertake, by default, a process of undoing, reworking the Orientalist and colonial visual narratives that erase Palestinians from their Holy Land and creation of the state now known as Israel.

My favourite quote in this book: It has been a mistake to see photographs as artifacts of the past and as documents of history alone. Rather, they survive as material objects that bind the past and present as they bind the present and future. A surviving image, in Didi-Huberman’s words, “is an image that, having lost its original use, value and meaning, nonetheless comes back, like a ghost, at a particular historical moment: a moment of ‘crisis,’ a moment when it demonstrates latency, its tenacity, its vivacity, and its ‘anthropological adhesion.’

Pros: The reader is taken through a visual journey right from the Palestine’s originality to its occupation and erasure from World Geography by the Zionist immigrants cum settlers. Some of the rare photographs can be found in this book which might not be available elsewhere for ready reference to a Palestinian studies student. Kudos to the authors for their efforts to compile such a transition of Palestine.

Cons: The book speaks about only Wasif Jawharriyeh’s collection of Palestinian photographs starting in 19th century but should have also carried a brief history of the Holy Land pre-nineteenth century when it was the land of the original Jews and used to be the land where Jesus walked until 33AD and was a Christian/Jewish state until the advent of Islam sometime in the 7th Century.

My rating: 3.5 out 5
 

Laburnum For My Head : Short Stories by Temsula Ao

Laburnum For My Head : Short Stories by Temsula Ao

Born in Jorhat, Assam, the author is a member of Sahithya Academy, a Padma Shri award winner, Professor of English and also a Dean at School of Humanities and Education, North Eastern Hill University of Shillong. She breathed her last in 2022. She has many writings to her credit some of which highly recognized are These Hills Called Home : Stories from a War Zone and Laburnum for my Head, a collection of local short stories. She uses simple English and all her stories are quite native and nature-blended with sentiments and culture of the people of North Eastern States of India.

STORYLINE

Laburnum for My Head: A short story based upon a widow called Lentina, highly obsessed with splendour and beauty of a bright yellow flowering tree called Laburnum. She is so attracted towards the glory of this Laburnum’s full bloom that she decides to plant it near the head of her grave after she dies. For this she buys a small plot of land adjacent to a graveyard from her relative and entrusts the job to her driver cum confidant, named Babu. After years of efforts by Babu, who understood her mistress’s final wish, he successfully grows a beautiful flowering Laburnum plant in one corner of the  plot earmarked for Lentina’s final resting place. In the meantime, Lentina’s health deteriorates and finally passes away the night after hearing the long awaited news of her favourite Laburnum bloom at her favourite eternal resting place, from Babu.  

Death of a Hunter: This is a short story about a highly talented village hunter called Imchanok, who is constantly troubled by a wild boar that feeds on his and his neighbours’ paddy fields every time the crop is ripe for harvesting, causing him huge financial losses. Though Imchanok has saved the village earlier by hunting down a wild elephant and monkey destroying the same paddy fields and crop, he somehow gets into a depression seeing them die a slow painful death, with his bullet. But when finally he shoots down the monster boar with the help of his villagers, he gets so saddened and guilty that he finally quits his hunting profession forever after giving the animal’s tooth, a proper rituals laden burial.

The Boy Who Sold an Airfield: A short story about a boy called Pokenmong, who ran away from his home and settled down as a house help in a far-off village of Assam. The story narrates as to how this clever lad dupes an entire village and makes a fortune out of a small hand written paper given to him by the American soldier whom he was working for, at the time when they were evacuating an airfield after the Indo-Burma war. The adjacent village headman being illiterate, mistakes the paper for ownership deed of the airfield and buys it from Pokenmong, only to be surprised later when government officials inform him that it was only a piece of paper containing ownership of some used  furniture, shoes and an old jeep of the American soldiers. 

The Letter: One of the most poignant short stories I ever read. Its about a small village somewhere in Assam which is troubled by extortionists belonging to a group posing themselves as underground government (anti-Government). Amongst the villagers lives a poor laborer, whose hard-earned wages, are taken away forcibly by these crooks which he saved for his son’s education purpose. This dejected angry laborer now tries the same method of extortion with the villagers, one day, in a disguised attire of the underground government. But to his surprise, he will be confronted by the local youth and beaten up to death. The story ends with the local youth discovering the letters of his son begging to send money for his exam fee in the pocket of dead man.  

Three Women: An emotional story of three women in the same family. Lipoktula (grandmother) is raped when she was young by a local politician when her husband was out at farm. She gives birth to Medemla, due to the pregnancy caused by that secret rape, who later falls in love with the politician’s son. Knowing this Lipoktula disallows the marriage of Medemla, as the boy is none other than his brother. Medemla, under ignorance of this secret, remains spinster for the rest of her life. Later she adopts Martha, who is orphaned at the hospital Medemla is working to enjoy the void created in her life. The story ends with Martha giving birth to a child after getting pregnant through her lover, even before marriage. The sexual and spiritual emotions of a woman towards a man’s physical touch, law of attraction, intimacy and absurd power of sex are so well narrated by the author through the hearts of Lipoktula, Medemla and Martha.

A Simple Question: A Short story about an illiterate, smart daughter of a village headman, in a remote village of North Eastern India, living with her family under constant fear of extortion, sandwiched between Indian Government and Nagas fighting for independence. Being from the family of village headman, their husbands are constant victims of atrocities from both sides on the grounds of suspicions of allegiance to either side. Her simple and brave question to the Deputy Commissioner once, when she denied to leave the place of arrest of her husband and his subsequent release elicits the stupendous bravery of this simple illiterate village woman in challenging the basic military confidence of the officer in the land that doesn’t belong to him.

Sonny: A beautiful tragic love story of a woman journalist, abandoned by her lover Sonny, on the pretext of his larger motive to fight for independence of his land from Indian occupation. The fathomless depth of a woman’s love towards the man she loves is wonderfully chronicled in this story. The journo, on her visit back to her hometown after several years of separation is suddenly encountered with assassination of her ex-lover by his peers. She is forced to leave the place immediately instead of attending his funeral with the final love letter and secret floppy disk to be aired on her television channel, but, only to permanently store it in her locker without checking the content of that disk. With that action, she closes the chapter and memories of Sonny in her future life and from the world, forever.

Flight: A very short story narrated from within an ugly caterpillar picked up by an ailing little boy called Johnny, as a pet, after his father agreed to his request, maybe as a last wish. The caterpillar’s woes of being locked in a small box by Johnny only to be checked once in a while and its emotional detachment from the sick boy while flying off into its own universe from Johnny’s room, after being metamorphosed into a beautiful butterfly, are absolutely tear-shedding towards the end.

Pros: Each and every story in the book has a marvelous emotion and sentiment attached. The reader is taken deep into abyss of personal attachment to his life somewhere, in every story. The author seems to have dived deep into every emotion of a woman in her life. Else, such feelings are impossible to put on paper and pen.

Cons: Most of her stories are women-centric. There should have been an ear to the man’s side also.

My favorite quote from this book : ‘If you want to gain from investments in land, go for inconspicuous plots, but ones which have future prospects. That way no one will pay attention when you buy it, and when the town expands, your holdings will appreciate in value many times over.’

My rating: 3.5 out of 5