"Go back to sleep Ms. Chowdhury, the American situation is strange" | · FICTION & POETRY Poetry · Dallas Alien of Extraordinary Ability "Go back to sleep Ms. Chowdhury, the American situation is strange" "Error" by Saniya Kamal, for SAAG. Mixed media, 2020. Editors' note: The following is an excerpt from a longer work-in-progress called “A lien of Extraordinary Ability. ” The artworks at the beginning and end of the poem are a result of a collaboration between the author and the artist. Alien of extraordinary ability is an alien classification by United States Citizenship and ______________ Services. The United States may grant a priority visa to an alien who is able to demonstrate “ extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics” or through some other extraordinary career achievements. The ________________ version of the classification (EB-1A), which grants permanent residency, additionally requires the alien to demonstrate "sustained national or international acclaim”, “achievements recognized by others in the field of expertise,” and "a level of expertise indicating that the individual is one of that small percentage who have risen to the very top of the field of endeavor.” When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. —Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali “Why do you want this visa?” a home. is it here? is it here? is it here? “Why in this country?” everyone likes sweet stuff sometimes. “What are your plans?” To build a spaceship out of the years named Solace. so it is to be born a particular particle to no particular address on no particular day of a less-than particular week. so it is to be star-seer, sin-shelter, flower named nayantara, a rearview. so it is that the name∞ You were given is not the same. nonetheless You are chosen. so it is to sense in an other an otherworldly sweetness. Have we met? You ask. No— for I am talking to myself. Before You, Idea. so it is to walk towards a frame hoping for image vs error . . . for don’t You want to see Your own particles pictured in the museum mirrors? No? Ok. then forget continuum. be disruption ∞ go back to sleep Ms. Chowdhury, the American situation is strange but we have not met yet. this is a museum. i am making a list∞ Personal ornaments Collared disks Scepters & early imagery Neolithic axes of the _______________ culture Blades Dagger-axes arrowheads & knives Serrated disks Ceremonial blades Serrated and ________________ axes Handles Animal heads and masks Dragons Fish Birds Naturalistic animals Insects Surface decoration Dish with coiled bird & dragon interlacery Plaque Shroud∞ ∞this is a list to keep thoughts of you at bay ∞so it is to imagine your death. to hold a conversation with your absence: so good, this gallery, You say— yes, it is quite the door to a thousand years ago! cries the Past. sshhh, begs the Future. let’s watch the wall open . . . see, we’ll have time for the fields! see, we’ll consult the sun re the moon! see, now we’ll “see” other families. our own. is this a museum or a border? where there is a border, does there need to be patrol? “no touching the heart! i mean art!” security cries. okay, i say, okay. and part the regions of my torso that is how i learn the guard is blind to my mockingbird inside. “now walk towards flowering cherry and autumn maples,” Mockingbird commands. “do it. alone” ∞idea-You disappears. I leave the museum or linger. i become or engage in: an etching window shopping allusions to the sea light palette ewer & basin I once was and will never again be: virgin & child the rape of ____________ by _____________ Are you also trying to understand what it is to be: a master “Alien (Reflection)” by Saniya Kamal for SAAG. Mixed media, 2020. SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Poetry Dallas Bangladesh Diaspora Immigration Cultural Narratives of Immigration Borders Visa Alien of Extraordinary Ability Alienation Work Authorization Poetic Form Particularity Temporality Ornamentation North American Diaspora Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 13th Oct 2020 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

During the general election, prominent Indian political parties vied for villagers' affection in the Sundarbans, albeit turning a blind eye to the ongoing climate catastrophe. As demands for climate-conscious infrastructure and humanitarian relief go unappraised, people in the region are reckoning with the logical consequences of that apathy. THE VERTICAL Sinking the Body Politic AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR During the general election, prominent Indian political parties vied for villagers' affection in the Sundarbans, albeit turning a blind eye to the ongoing climate catastrophe. As demands for climate-conscious infrastructure and humanitarian relief go unappraised, people in the region are reckoning with the logical consequences of that apathy. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Dispatch Sundarbans Climate Change Satjelia Calcutta Cyclone Remal Cyclone Alia Elections 2024 Indian General Election West Bengal Refugee Crisis Refugees Climate Migrants Trinamul Congress I.N.D.I.A alliance Dams Embankments Rural Farmers Sundarban Delta Mangrove Forest Cyclone Yaas Tropical Cyclones Cyclone Amphan Agriculture Wage Labor Migration Kerala Tamil Nadu Contract Workers Bay of Bengal Bankimnagar Climate Refugees BJP Disaster Management Congress Riverbanks Erosion Manifesto Campaign Promises Electioneering Mitigation Sagar Island Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Dispatch Sundarbans 24th Aug 2024 In Satjelia village, nearly a hundred kilometres from Kolkata, the largest city of eastern India, every family lives with memories of disaster. In the last week of May, they were again in panic with the announcement of Cyclone Remal hitting the eastern part of India. They spent sleepless nights at the makeshift relief centre fearing that their homes will again be lost, their crops will again be destroyed, and their land will turn unfit for agriculture for a long time with saline water flooding fields. “I still haven’t been able to recover fully from the losses I suffered from Cyclone Alia in 2009,” says Srimanti Sinha, who lives in a small hutment about a kilometre away from the river. Her home was swept away in the cyclone. Every time there is a storm, she is reminded of that time. “We keep praying that the water levels do not rise up enough to breach the embankment again.” This time, though, just before Cyclone Remal hit eastern India, candidates for the 2024 general elections paid the village a visit ahead of voting on 1st June. Every major party had fielded a candidate for the region with the main contestants being from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Trinamul Congress, and the I.N.D.I.A alliance. The candidates spoke about violence, religious issues, development, ending corruption, and building a strong nation. Somehow, they managed to skip over far more immediate concerns . In Satjelia, the demand is for stronger dams and embankments to protect the land from floods. The people also want support for farmers to reduce migration for work to faraway states like Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. “What [politicians] have spoken about is important for us too,” Sinha says. “But I wish they also spoke about what we need here the most.” Satjelia is situated in the middle of a ring of islands in the Sundarban delta: home to the largest mangrove forest in the world and over four million people. Like Sinha and others in Satjelia, people in several parts of the delta have suffered losses from cyclones and steadily rising water levels. In the past two decades, the sea level in the Sundarbans has risen by three centimeters a year, according to satellite imagery and media reports , which is among the fastest coastal erosion rates globally. In 2021, Cyclone Yaas destroyed over three lakh homes as seawater breached embankments in many parts of the state. Before that, tropical cyclones—whether Fani (May 2019), Bulbul (November 2019), or Amphan (May 2020)—battered this region. Each time, embankments were breached, and saline water entered agricultural land, causing immense loss of earnings and subsequent distress migration. Among these, Amphan was the most severe, killing over 100 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. After repeated losses to their land and belongings, most young people from islands like Sagar and Mousuni have migrated to the country’s southernmost states, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, over a thousand kilometers away, in search of new livelihoods. They now work as daily wage labourers and contract workers at construction sites, in factories, and on large fishing vessels. Those still living close to the water in Sundarban are desperate to move away, but they receive little to no assistance from the government. After big storms, there are announcements of relocation for victims. According to people in the villages, however, not much of that is seen happening. Bapi Bor, who lives in Bankimnagar, a village on the island near the Bay of Bengal, says homes are flooded even during high tides in parts of the delta, including Sagar Island. Sagar Island is a hub of climate refugees, being one of the largest islands in the delta. People have shifted here from small neighbouring islands like Lohachora and Ghoramara, which have been sinking in the past two decades. Now, as the water levels continue rising and Sagar Island keeps sinking, these refugees are again on the verge of losing their homes. The Sundarban delta, despite being one of the most ravaged areas by climate change globally, has been met with staggering apathy from the Indian political class. Meanwhile, a tussle between the central and state government in West Bengal has further exacerbated the poor quality of life in the Sundarbans. Many small dams throughout the islands were maintained by local construction labourers, whose work was compensated with money from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005. This national program for employment security ensured 100 days of work for people in rural India. “That money has stopped coming from the central government as they have accused the state government [of West Bengal] of corruption,” says Tanmay Mandal, a member of the village council in Rangabelia village near Satjelia. He explains that this is a serious problem for the islands since much work was done under that scheme, from maintaining earthen embankments to planting mangroves. On paper, the major political parties acknowledge the climate crisis—to varying degrees, as would be expected. BJP’s manifesto mentions it briefly, focusing more on “nature-friendly, climate-resilient, remunerative agriculture” and “coastal resilience against climate change.” The manifesto of the Indian National Congress has more detailed plans with a 13-point program under the heading “Environment, Climate Change and Disaster Management.” Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress manifesto is more specific to Bengal and includes the crisis of the Sundarban delta. They mention specifically that “TMC will implement strategies to protect the rivers of Bengal, including all the vulnerable riverbanks of the state, from erosion and to safeguard communities from floods.” And yet, as the campaigns in West Bengal became more fervent, climate change remained a curio of the manifestos. In the speeches and rallies, it was lost amidst loud rhetoric about religion and rising prices. To be sure, this indifference is not limited to the delta. As the general elections rolled on from 19th April to 1st June, several parts of India were hit by a heat wave that claimed over 56 lives, of which 33 were polling officers. That tragedy, too, had little impact on the campaigns. According to Samir Kumar Das, a professor of political science at Calcutta University, the unfortunate reality of climate change is that it is only discussed when there is controversy. In other words: when the display of apathy becomes untenable, and crises become political liabilities. “The media is usually after the spectacular stories,” says Das. “But rising water levels or distress migration happens slowly. So while we see a lot of coverage after a storm, we have no idea how many people had to migrate eventually.” Across the board, political attention remains woefully inadequate as floods, heat waves, and droughts increase with the impact of climate change. In the face of such a fragmented and superficial political response, Das proposes a larger comprehensive approach, such as a central policy for distress migration. At the same time, Das notes that the climate crisis is being discussed more as it is increasingly affecting the cities in the form of a water crisis and unbearable heat waves. “The media cannot ignore it now,” he says. Das sees a shift in people's response to the crisis in the Sundarbans. “People are more vocal about what they need,” he observes. “Alms after a storm are not enough to satisfy them.” Instead, people are asking more difficult questions about the dams and infrastructure that are indicative of the broader scope of the problem. Some, of course, are intervening themselves. “It could be the beginning,” Das suggests, “of a new kind of pressure the political organisations can feel.” Then again, who can say how long it will take for apathy to become untenable? ∎ Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

Notes on the new SAAG design system: appropriating the predator-drone, aesthetic intimacy, international motifs, and other stories. BOOKS & ARTS Experiments in Radical Design & Typography AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Notes on the new SAAG design system: appropriating the predator-drone, aesthetic intimacy, international motifs, and other stories. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Presently The Editors Design Disaster Aesthetics Drone Warfare Surveillance Regimes Iconography Textiles Benedict Anderson South Asia as a Term Cartography Colophon Rabindranath Tagore Affect Web Design Design Process Typography Indian Type Foundry TypeType Dinamo Head Study Commercial Type Caslon Ionic Ionic No. 2 Akzidenz Grotesk Neue Haas Grotesk Antique No. 6 Monotype Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Presently The Editors 12th Mar 2023 How does a magazine like SAAG understand space & geography? How does it grapple with the many South Asian communities—those acknowledged as such, and those that aren't—to begin to identify the wrongs we must right from a long legacy of media that construed and continue to construe "South Asia" so narrowly? When I set out to design a whole new SAAG, these questions were on my mind. Unconsciously, material things—street signs we passed by, patterns we'd been looking at for years but noticed again for the first time—gave me some answers that buttress our current design system, allowing for a conversation within the team from many countries. These ideas came from my own subjective personal experiences, yes, but that intimacy I felt led all of us as a team to wonder: what might everyone else find intimate? How do we bring it all together? The design system is an expression of solidarity—finding commonality in what we all see or read; wear or draw—while admitting exception and difference, and also that this is, of course, an ongoing process. Disaster Timeline: Cover Artwork Our first issue allowed us to think about space on a broader level too. More specifically we asked: How does networked space see? Through the eyes of capital and the modern surveillance state—much like the seeker-head of a predator drone—the human subject has reached the zenith of abstraction. Humanity is now a set of data points, and collective struggles, in turn, simply distant blips on a radar. Visibility doesn't come easy. In an attention economy with content tethered to the whims of capital, only the profitable survive. Large-scale disasters cannibalize attention, obscuring the slow devastation occurring across regional, social, bodily, and psychic scales on a continuous loop. It’s a circular timeline. In a sense, the apparatus of surveillance defines the contour of strife: what better way to capture that present state of invisibility than to mimic how the predator drone sees the regions discussed in the issue? Thus, Mukul Chakravarthi's cover art for Issue 1 attempts to capture the cold cartographies of collective strife through the aesthetics of the modern surveillance state. The appropriation affirms our editorial commitment to deeply human narratives that emerge in the form of rigorous local reporting but also critically in the aesthetic responses of struggle and dissent, many of which you will find in the issue. The custom display face was derived from a grid system mapping the eight main cities—from Islamabad in the west to Naypyidaw in the east—that feature in the first issue. It was an exercise conceived to be just as spatial as it was typographic. The intention was to construct a display face that gave form to regions that otherwise figured in the margins of the globalist imagination. Iconography The iconography is the foundation of Volume 2. I truly hope you come to remember these icons and the content and forms of creative work they represent. The process began with my own archival, oral history and mixed-media research, which led to a great deal of conversation and more findings from the whole design team. The iconography is inspired by textiles across many South Asian countries and communities. It is a visual representation that interweaves recurring patterns across geographies and peoples. Each icon is a recurring motif in textiles from seven or more contemporary South Asian nations, and countless communities within them. SAAG's general approach to "South Asia" is pertinent here. We deliberately do not construe "South Asia" specifically in terms of geography. As our archives indicate, this is because we recognize that: 1. Diasporic communities originating in the subcontinent exist in countries as far east and as far west as any map will show. 2. "South Asia" is generally conceived of as countries within the subcontinent, but the history of its terminology is often nationalist, divisive, and problematic for many people, even within the region's most populous country. As Benedict Anderson has argued, it is also a construction to some degree of the rise of area studies; its arbitrariness can be seen in its inconveniences: some countries in what is academically considered "Southeast Asia" share more historical, cultural, and linguistic similarities with those considered "South Asian," and vice versa.* For the purposes of our iconography, we researched motifs stretching from Laos to Iran, as well as the Caribbean. Typography & Colophon Our web typography was also selected carefully. Our primary typeface, Neue Haas Grotesk by Monotype type foundry, reflects our association with the radical origins of sans typefaces like Akzidenz Grotesk . It's a remarkably sturdy sans that allows us to be flexible: based on the theme of each issue, we want to use a new display font entirely. We hope it keeps you on your toes. The body text for the work we publish was previously set in Erode by Nikhil Ranganathan and Indian Type Foundry (ITF), a startlingly original, idiosyncratic, and yet almost unobtrusive typeface that we greatly admire. Currently, we use Caslon Ionic by Paul Barnes and Greg Gazdowicz at Commercial Type, based on the influential Ionic No. 2 that has been pivotal to newspaper typesetting for over a century. We pair it with Antique No. 6 , also at Commercial Type, designed initially as a bold version of Caslon Ionic . Meanwhile, each issue of Volume 2 will use a different display typeface. For Issue 1, we chose the spiky and precise TT Ricks by TypeType. For Issue 2, we chose Marist by Dinamo. Our colophon—conceived by Prithi Khalique and designed in many iterations and styles by Hafsa Ashfaq—is a nod to our print future, inspired by one of the works first cited when SAAG began: Rabindranath Tagore's painting Head Study , a work of dazzling ingenuity that provides the metaphorical architecture for our identity. Of all the decisions we made, this one came the easiest to us. A design system that coheres around our collective past feels best to embody our aspirations for the future: we cannot predict the future, but we can take stock of the conceptual frameworks our many contributors provide to us. Moving forward, the design system will move much like the issue artwork itself: fluidly adapting to best represent the radical potential of the present in its aesthetic form. Website Our new website is a complete overhaul and a sharp contrast to the original SAAG website as well. We think fondly of what we made for Volume 1: its maximalist, wild, and mysteriously glitchy exterior paired with very serious work and dialogue. But if the eternal doom scroll has taught us anything, we are inundated with maximalist content. What we wanted was care, intentionality, attention, and flexibility: an ease to the user experience that reflects the care we took to make every choice inspired by South Asian custom, movement, or labor. We hope that our new website—designed and developed by myself and Ammar Hassan Uppal, with help and feedback from editors and designers on the team alike—flows much more organically, whilst feeling both tactile and geometric. We felt that the digital space shouldn't distract from the ideas and concepts of the difficult material discussed in Issue 1 of Volume 2 as well as in the archives. It should enhance it. What you see is also a website intended to take on the spirit of the issue currently featured, adapting at each turn. At the same time, we wanted to inject a little whimsy into the experience: easter eggs sprinkled throughout the website, which we hope you'll find. We hope to evoke a more orderly and idea-focused experience of SAAG’s content and challenge the dominant sense that the "avant-garde" need be synonymous with disorderly maximalism; instead, we eschewed both maximalism and minimalism—as well as the neo-brutalist response to minimalist design—with a warmer color palette and approachable typography. In Volume 2 of SAAG, we hope to demonstrate that we take the intellectual and conceptual happenings and developments in the worlds of design, typography, web development, etc., just as seriously as anything else. Stay tuned for forthcoming content and events on the many political-aesthetic challenges contemporary designers face, as well as how they understand, learn, teach, and reckon with the histories and legacies of design. Top of mind for us throughout this process was affect and emotion: how one might feel when one logs onto the website or reads one of our pieces? We do hope you feel welcome . ∎ * Benedict Anderson, A Life Without Boundaries ( Verso , 2018) Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

WRITER Bhoomika Ghaghada BHOOMIKA GHAGHADA is a writer, strategist, facilitator, and independent researcher, based in Dubai. She co-founded the non-profit initiative Gulf Creative Collective. Her work has appeared in Jadaliyya and Postscript Magazine . WRITER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

PENNSYLVANIA STATE SENATOR Nikil Saval SENATOR NIKIL SAVAL is a father, husband, writer, and organizer. Saval’s organizing is deeply rooted in the labor movement. From 2009 to 2013, he was a volunteer labor organizer with UNITE HERE. In 2016, he was a leader in U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. He went on to co-found Reclaim Philadelphia, in 2018, he was elected as Leader of Philadelphia’s Democratic Second Ward. Saval was the first Asian American to hold the position of Ward Leader in Philadelphia. He previously served as co-editor of the literary journal n+1 and still serves on its board of directors. He has been a frequent contributor to the New York Times and a contributing writer for The New Yorker , covering architecture, design, and housing. His is the author of Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace (2014). PENNSYLVANIA STATE SENATOR WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

The Aahvaan Project was founded in 2016 based on the nirgun philosophy of love and the works of sufi saints such as kabir, lal ded and lalon fakir. A folk and storytelling collective, founded by Vedi Sinha in 2016, their music is avowedly political and inclusive. INTERACTIVE The Aahvaan Project · Performance AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR The Aahvaan Project was founded in 2016 based on the nirgun philosophy of love and the works of sufi saints such as kabir, lal ded and lalon fakir. A folk and storytelling collective, founded by Vedi Sinha in 2016, their music is avowedly political and inclusive. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Live Delhi Music Performance Folk Storytelling Narratives Nirgun Sufism Sufi Saints Kabir Lal Ded Lalon Fakir Community Building Contemporary Music Love Prahlad Tipaniya Compassion Pyaar National Institute of Design Ahmedabad Folk Music Rajasthan Kabir Yatra In Grief In Solidarity Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Live Delhi 5th Jun 2021 The Aahvaan Project was founded by Vedi Sinha in 2016 as a collective “ journey and an experience, an attempt to understand Nirgun—the mystic idea of love spoken about in various time periods by philosophers through the lived experience of saints and sufis. ” They perform across communities, educational institutions, and art spaces. For our event In Grief, In Solidarity in 2021, Vedi Sinha, who founded the folk music & storytelling collective and does not often perform alone, joined us for a beautiful performance of new songs. Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

Sajid Hussain WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

Since Manto's time, screenwriters have been battling studios that prioritise commercial interests, political imperatives, and profits over original, meaningful storytelling. SWA, the trade union for screenwriters, is at the frontlines of screenwriters chafing against the inequalities and wage theft that stifle artistic expression in Bombay's film industry. | · THE VERTICAL Essay · Bombay The Cost of Risk in Bombay’s Film Industry Since Manto's time, screenwriters have been battling studios that prioritise commercial interests, political imperatives, and profits over original, meaningful storytelling. SWA, the trade union for screenwriters, is at the frontlines of screenwriters chafing against the inequalities and wage theft that stifle artistic expression in Bombay's film industry. Courtesy of Tara Anand (2021) Saadat Hassan Manto, a luminary of Urdu literature, once embarked on a hunger strike. It was the early 1940s, and the writer was working for one hundred rupees a month under the Bombay-based film director and producer Nanubhai Desai . Manto asked Desai for pending wages and additional money to rent out a flat for his new bride and himself. Desai refused, and Manto resigned. In an essay on the film critic Baburao Patel, Manto wrote about the beginning of his hunger strike on the steps of Desai’s production studio. Later, with Patel’s help, he recovered a little more than half of his pending dues. The pay seemed too meagre for too little in return, with many of Manto’s scripts never even making it to production because of their radical nature. This isn’t just a story from a time when critics had enough muscle in the industry to wrestle producers into paying writers. It is also a story of precarity. It depicts the tenuous relationship between screenwriters and the screens they write for, neither of which are unique to Manto’s career nor an artefact of the past. This disempowerment is the reason why contemporary films feel ill-equipped to respond to urgent questions. Current industry conditions resemble that of the 1940s: financial backing for subversive cinematic concepts is hard to come by, especially without a major star. In a decidedly censorial political climate and hostile communal environment, writers increasingly face complicated legal and social backlash. Creativity is not incentivised. It’s a liability. The lack of creativity present in Bombay talkies during Manto’s tenure did not go unnoticed. Around the time of his hunger strike, the leading film magazine FilmIndia published a hit piece on the standardised format of Bombay cinema. It denounced “Indian screenwriters” as carrying “little originality” and producers as lacking “imagination completely.” An article edited by Baburao Patel declared that producers “imitate others too often.” For example, the “sensational success” of Pukar (1939) gave way to period dramas and historical fiction, and the popularity of Leila Majnu (1945) enabled the “rise of an epidemic of new love themes.” If a particular genre worked, the industry would churn out movies of the same cut until the fad petered out and a new concept supplanted it. Creative risks were scarce and, at best, sporadic. One could say the same of Bollywood today. With Dabangg (2010), a blockbuster peddling nationalist police propaganda, came a flurry of others like Singham (2011) and Simmba (2018). Hit sports biographical films like Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013) encouraged movies like Mary Kom (2014) and Dangal (2016). But what FilmIndia failed to highlight, like many other critics at the time, was the seeming inability of screenwriters to write meaningful scripts. Critics failed to connect Manto’s hunger strike to writers’ limitations in exploring their creativity. Production pressures, the absence of collective bargaining, and precarious working conditions kept writing stagnant. One organisation is gradually rebuilding collective strength despite entrenched resistance from the film industry’s top brass. The Screenwriters Association (SWA) , a formally registered trade union since 1960, represents more than 57,000 Indian screenwriters who work throughout the film industry. The union handles copyright protection, legal disputes about fair compensation, and more. Though it may not have been a vehicle for collective bargaining in the past, SWA may finally become a force to be reckoned with. Apart from its ongoing struggle for labour protections, the union has strived to become a space for mentorship. Public script labs, for instance, nurture new relationships that address inadequate diversity—especially caste—when it comes to who is allowed to write the films that make it to the floor. Anjum Rajabali, SWA’s Executive Committee Member and the renowned screenwriter of The Legend of Shaheed Bhagat Singh (2002) and Raajneeti (2010), is a major driving force for the union’s efforts. According to screenwriter Darab Farooqui, screenwriters “are all following his lead.” Rajabali is generous with his time, accepting interview requests from airports amidst ongoing health issues. His commitment to building the union is clear. The intensifying struggle for screenwriters’ protections resulted in the Minimum Basic Contract, which raised questions about whether screenwriters can be recognized as workers and the rights that should be afforded to them. Though film industries are subject to intense content regulation, they lag far behind in enforcing labour mandates. SWA’s proposed contract highlights the asymmetric dynamic between writers and production studios and pushes for major changes. In 1951, India’s first Film Enquiry Committee published a searing investigation into the conditions of cinema industries across the country. The report largely agreed with FilmIndia that “the creative activity of production” is too dependent on commercial requirements and lamented that writers end up “unknown even if they are competent.” An unnamed producer admitted to the committee that “we are trying to sell to the public something in a package.” The committee proposed separating financial investments from innovation but it was never implemented. Bombay studios continued to prioritise profit and loss, a calculation in which screenwriters had little to gain. The industry remains dominated by those who want to sell movies and those who can mobilise significant funds for its package deals. Bollywood’s highest-grossing productions released last year shored up combined investments of nearly 2,000 crore Indian rupees. Yet, a new survey has brought to light the intensity of wage depression felt by screenwriters. The 2,000 crore cake cuts only the thinnest sliver for the storytellers who bring in its base ingredients. Saiwyn Quadras, an SWA member and the writer who helmed films like the Priyanka Chopra-starring Mary Kom , shares that “non-payment of dues is a big thing. It happens to me even now.” Seasoned screenwriter and director Hitesh Kewalya says: “When you come to a city like Bombay as a young writer, you have to earn a livelihood. So, you take up two to three projects at the same time. Out of those, only one might actually happen. Even then, you might not get paid fully. It becomes a vicious cycle, and you end up exhausted.” Kewalya, with more than 25 years of industry experience and two hits to his name, including Shubh Mangal Savdhaan— one of the first explicitly queer Bollywood rom-coms—says the industry doesn’t encourage creativity. “It's like running on a treadmill, and if you're lucky enough, you might manage to pay your bills.” One key tactic deployed by studios is the percentage model. Scripts are evaluated on a per-draft basis, with pending dues for works in progress. This means huge portions of a writer’s income are dependent on producers’ approval of unfinished screenplays. As with film industries elsewhere but arguably at a larger scale, producers gauge scripts based on their perception of the content’s potential popularity and arbitrary predictions on the return on investment it would generate. It does not, however, provide any guarantee for writers’ wages. “You won’t know if a story works until you write it, and many times you don’t get to write the whole story,” Rajabali shares. How can a writer take risks with a script if their dues are tied up in its incomplete versions? If a script is rejected before completion, the writer may receive up to a third of their owed wages regardless of their efforts—which are not always translated onto the page. The work of writers is treated as disposable. Far more scripts get shelved than made. As a result, the union has demanded a minimum compensation of 12 lakh rupees for the delivery of the story, screenplay, and dialogue, along with mandatory credits for any screenwriter who has written at least a third of a script. These problems exist even in contracts with multinational corporations like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, which together constitute a 35% audience share amongst OTT platforms active in the subcontinent. Quadras says that international entities, much like their domestic counterparts, view Indian writers as a “source for cheap labour.” Thus, the SWA’s call for work stoppage on American projects during the WGA strike was more than a show of solidarity. It signalled a pressing need to transform screenwriters’ relations with Indian subsidiaries of global streaming services and production studios like Lionsgate India and Disney+ Hotstar. According to Rajabali, contracts with foreign and domestic studios often come with a clause prohibiting screenwriters from consulting with or approaching the union. These clear attempts at union-busting mirror those of Hollywood’s Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The material connections between working conditions and labour resistance internationally, and the possibilities both engender for domestic cinema workers, are rife. There is little information on how WGA’s win could impact foreign subsidiaries held by AMPTP-associated companies. But the SWA believes at least a precedent has been set, and its proposed Minimum Basic Contract is geared towards leveraging this historic moment. Even the wrong colour can mean the death of a film in the current Indian context. Where some film workers believed streaming studios to be a window of freedom, recent Central regulations have pulled the blinds on that. Netflix’s cancellation of Dev Patel’s Monkey Man (2024) and the film’s removal of saffron, a colour popularly associated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Narendra Modi, has not improved the film’s chances of being released in the country. The Tamil film Annapoorni (2023) elicited legal cases from two right-wing outfits based in Bombay for “hurting religious sentiments of Hindus” and led to its removal from Netflix’s India catalogue. The list of films officially and unofficially banned from being shown in cinema halls in different Indian states at the behest of right-wing political and vigilante outfits is even longer. There is justified fear, then, that government regulation could come to be a double-edged sword. It could work towards alleviating unfair labour practices, but it could also expand the broader pattern of state-sponsored Hindutva agendas. SWA is drawing contingency plans through the Minimum Basic Contract for these overtly political acts. Their proposal demands the removal of contract clauses that shift the responsibility away from producers and onto writers. Currently, producers are guarded against legal, political, and religious backlash, while writers are provided little to no protection from their employers. “Let’s say there’s a scene that shows a fight outside a temple. The studio’s lawyers will tell you to change it. Contractually, the writer is either obliged to change it or risk bearing the consequences on their own head. This is a clause we have to fight,” says Quadras. “And for that, we need collective negotiating power.” But most mainstream Hindi films today happily toe the government line, much as they did in another era of censorship: the Emergency. In June 1975, as a response to increasing worker agitations, internal problems in the Congress party, and legal challenges against her election, India’s two-time Prime Minister Indira Gandhi enacted a state of Emergency. State and national elections were suspended, dissidents were arrested, and trade union actions were brutally repressed. People trapped in poverty were forcibly sterilised. Hundreds of thousands were displaced. Bombay cinema, amongst other industries, was unabashedly censored. Scholar Ashish Rajadhyaksha notes that conditional investments made by the Film Finance Corporation (now known as National Film Development Corporation ) during the early ‘70s petered out immediately after the Emergency. The state deepened its interests in media apparatuses and pursued a policy of highly restrictive censorship, impeding new-wave efforts like Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome . In Bombay, creative risk fell to the wayside and narratives critical of the public and private nexus vanished. The angry, young man, especially as personified by Indian actor Amitabh Bachhan, represented a specific kind of radical, working-class man, was retired from films. Instead, characters like the fantasy shape-shifting woman-cobra in Naagin (1976) and mythological warriors like those in Dharam Veer (1977) appeared in its place. Gandhi’s government bureaucratically chopped political satires or outrightly banned certain movies . Half a century later, the pattern repeats, albeit this time with a distinctly communal spin. The bulk of Hindi films released today consist primarily of majoritarian propaganda , safe’ biographical , mythological, or period movies . Creative and political risk has been rendered almost non-existent, but making choices that could be seen as either adhering to or being silent on the Hindutva narratives have not protected Bollywood from conservative calls for boycotts. Adipurush (2023), a film on the epic Ramayana , created by the self-proclaimed Hindu nationalist screenwriter Manoj Muntashir, elicited right-wing criticism and flopped upon release. Similarly, actress turned BJP politician Kangana Ranaut’s Hindi language film, Tejas, and Tamil language film, Chandramukhi 2 , did not muster enough to balance their budgets. Hindutva’s poster boy Akshay Kumar was also unable to bring supremacists to purchase tickets for Ram Setu (2022), an archaeological action film seeking to prove the existence of Ramayana , which prolific film critic Namrata Joshi has labelled as “a show of Hindu victimhood.” The race to appease Hindutva groups seems to be an unwinnable one. Still, some in the industry refuse to abandon the race. Despite the overwhelming web of financial and political struggles, screenwriters like Rajabali, Kewalya, and Quadras march on, and younger aspirants continue to join their ranks. “I am a storyteller. I don’t know how to do anything else,” says Kewalya. What can a screenwriter do? Where can their stories go? If such forces continue to helm decision-making, what becomes of creative integrity and freedom? Is the Hindi film industry doomed to creating “products” or “packages”? Can it transcend its confines? Can it deliver necessary stories—ones with substance, original voices, and honesty? The SWA might be slow-paced, but it is determined. It does not shy away from challenging the power dynamics that currently exist—on and off-screen—and it might just be the most hopeful response to the industry’s continued prioritisation of profit over people. Manto’s creative descendants have come a long way from striking at the steps of a studio. But they have an even longer way ahead of them. ∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Essay Bombay Screenwriters Association SWA Films Film-Making Labor Rights Trade Unions Directors Film Studios Radical Writers Saadat Hassan Manto Hindutva Minimum Wage Minimum Basic Contract The Legend of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Working Conditions Baburao Patel Nanubhai Desai FilmIndia Creative Labor Pukar Leila Majnu Genre Dabangg Singham Simmba Mary Kom Dangal Fair Compensation Copyright Protection Raajneeti Anjum Rajabali Film Enquiry Committee Bollywood Wage Depression Wage Theft Hitesh Kewalya Shubh Mangal Savdhaan Rom-Coms Police Films Action Films Sports Biographies Amazon Prime Netflix Lionsgate OTT Disney+ Saiwyn Quadras AMPTP Writers Strike WGA Monkey Man BJP Annapoorni Saffron 1975 Emergency Censorship Kangana Ranaut Tejas Ram Setu Namrata Joshi Labor Labor Movement Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 5th Aug 2024 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

Over the past decade, Maldivian families, drawn by a distorted vision of religious idealism, have burrowed anew in ISIS-held territories across the Middle East. Widowed mothers and orphaned children have quickly become victims of the abuse and deprivation rampant in IDP camps like Roj in Northeast Syria. As religious extremism continues to unravel the Maldives’ social fabric, the nation must reckon with the Maldivian women and children left to suffer under appalling conditions abroad. Over the past decade, Maldivian families, drawn by a distorted vision of religious idealism, have burrowed anew in ISIS-held territories across the Middle East. Widowed mothers and orphaned children have quickly become victims of the abuse and deprivation rampant in IDP camps like Roj in Northeast Syria. As religious extremism continues to unravel the Maldives’ social fabric, the nation must reckon with the Maldivian women and children left to suffer under appalling conditions abroad. "Anyhow" (2025), oil on canvas. Artist · FEATURES REPORTAGE · LOCATION Voices of Roj LOCATION AUTHOR . AUTHOR . AUTHOR . 8 Sep 2025 th . Letter from our columnist . “Nothing is nurturing about this camp,” Hajer said. “It does not educate us. It does not rehabilitate us. It breaks us, and it is breaking our children.” Hajer and her daughter are among roughly a hundred Maldivian detainees in Syria’s Roj camp, where they have lived for years under conditions that grow more degrading with each passing season. The al-Hol and Roj camps, run by the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES)—the civilian authority linked to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—hold about 42,500 people, mostly wives, female relatives, and children of ISIS suspects. The urgent humanitarian and moral crisis faced by Maldivian women and children, along with others detained in camps like Roj, remains largely ignored, dismissed, or buried beneath layers of political hesitation and bureaucratic neglect. Recent global developments have only worsened the outlook. The re-election of Donald Trump in the US has accelerated aid cuts and diplomatic disengagement , contributing to a chillingly uncertain environment for repatriation efforts. The Maldivian government, like many others, has struggled to articulate a coherent policy for the return and reintegration of its citizens, leaving families in a state of indefinite limbo. Detainees remain voiceless, with little to no support from their countries of origin, caught in the legal web of global counterterrorism frameworks and domestic laws that need to balance humanitarian needs and national security risks. Hajer married Abdel in 2015, not knowing she would soon become a widow in a war zone. Immediately after their wedding, the couple left for Turkey and crossed into Syria without informing their families of their ‘exact’ plan. A year in, Abdel, Hajer’s husband, was killed in a safe house. Hajer was reluctant to discuss her circumstances in detail, an understandable decision given the gravity of her current situation and the threat to her mental and physical well-being. Now, she describes camp Roj as an “ open-air extortion prison ,” where detainees are forced to rely on remittances from relatives abroad to survive. Scorching 50 degree summers, sandstorms, and strong winds create constant health threats, especially for women and children. Water is often unavailable for days at a time, and electricity, when it comes, must be paid for and rarely lasts more than eight hours a day. Medical care is unaffordable and inadequate, even for the most basic needs. For the children born in war zones, this is all they know, but they are not immune to its psychological effects. Nights bring added danger. With no lighting, children are afraid to use distant toilets, resulting in bedwetting and other behaviours brought on by emotional trauma. Children are, too, being sexually abused and harassed. Hajer said children are “anxious, afraid, and broken.” They live under the constant shadow of fear, with their lives persistently at risk. In 2022, two Egyptian girls aged 12 and 15 were brutally killed in the annex of Al-Hol camp, their throats slit and their bodies discarded in an open septic tank. In another case, armed men shot dogs in front of children as an intimidation tactic. In a separate incident, women were dragged from their tents, beaten with iron rods, and soaked with freezing water. Rape and sexual violence are widely documented in these camps, used not only as a method of domination but as a weapon of war to instil fear, punish, and exert control. Victims include both women and adolescent girls, most of whom remain silent out of fear of stigma or retaliation. Their children returned from the ordeal sobbing and shaken, with no degree of normalcy to their expressions, no language to articulate the fear drawn into their young faces. Mothers like Hajer, along with other women in the camp, try to impose structure where none exists, often instinctively adopting young children who have been orphaned. They attempt to teach the children to read, ration food and water, and invent games from scraps of plastic and cloth. However, these efforts are frequently undermined by the suspicion of camp authorities, where even the slightest semblance of self-organisation is viewed as evidence of radicalism. UN Women revealed in May 2025 that nearly half of women’s organisations providing frontline support in crisis zones may shut down within six months due to funding shortfalls. The devastating conditions in the camps are only one part of a broader and more entrenched problem. To understand the barriers to repatriation and reintegration, it is necessary to examine not only policy failures and diplomatic stances but also the supposedly ‘measured’ political calculations that have driven prolonged inaction. Religious idealism The Maldives is better known for its year-round tropical allure and luxury tourism, but beneath the surface, rising religious extremism is destabilising social cohesion locally and its image internationally. Since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2011, a concerning number of Maldivian men, women, and children have left the country to join conflicts in Syria, raising alarm about the growing influence of extremist ideologies. To some extent, it is a microcosm of the political extremities the world is experiencing. This trend not only threatens domestic stability but also carries broader implications for national security, tourism, and the visa-free international mobility enjoyed by Maldivian passport holders to 93 countries and territories . While many, like Hajer, embark on what they perceive as a spiritual journey to atone or reconnect with their faith, the motivations behind such departures are rarely straightforward. In the Maldivian context, daily life for many is marked by economic hardship, generational overcrowding, and limited opportunity, conditions that can push individuals toward radical paths in search of purpose. For some, it’s less about religious doctrine and more about dignity: a desperate bid to reclaim identity, agency, and purity in a world that seems to have left them behind. Faith, in this light, becomes more than a spiritual pursuit; it becomes a lifeline in the face of stagnation, social pressure, and the slow erosion of hope. Not everyone who left, however, can be considered a victim. Some left disillusioned with the government’s narrow or politicised interpretation of Islamic identity. In contrast, others were drawn by the promise of raising children in a more devout Islamic environment, one that, for many Maldivians, differs significantly from their own more moderate and diverse religious practices. Many were also misled by promises of employment, stability, and community, rather than out of allegiance to extremist ideologies like ISIS. Countless Maldivian men were radicalised by recruiters who preyed on legitimate grievances. Children, by contrast, had no choice at all, making their right of return particularly urgent. To take children away from their homes and communities and into a war zone under the banner of an extreme and violent version of Islam is a profound and tragic distortion of the core values most Maldivians hold dear. As highlighted by the UN’s experts on children and armed conflict and on counterterrorism and human rights, children associated with armed groups are victims first and foremost—entitled to protection, rehabilitation, and reintegration, not punishment or indefinite detention. This search for ‘nirvana’ can be understood through a theoretical lens that synthesises Victor Turner’s concept of liminality and Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic capital. Turner’s notion of liminality, being in an in-between state, detached from the structures of ordinary social life, offers a framework for understanding how religious journeys serve as rites of passage. For individuals like Hajer who hail from ethno-religious nations like the Maldives, this spiritual mobility represents a space where old identities are suspended, and new, sacred selves are potentially formed. These movements are not merely about faith. It is about negotiating one’s place in a rapidly shifting social order. At the same time, Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital—the recognition, honour, and legitimacy one accrues through cultural or religious alignment—helps explain how religious idealism in the Maldives becomes a strategy of social navigation. When economic capital is scarce, and social mobility is limited, adherence to visible forms of piety can serve as a form of distinction. Religious idealism thus functions both as a means of personal salvation and as a public signal. In a context where modernity collides with tradition and where the state has a contested relationship with Islamic identity, personal piety can become a performative yet significant attempt to assert agency and reclaim moral clarity. In the Maldives, religious transformations are not only personal decisions but are situated within broader geopolitical anxieties, state governance, and the moral economies of globalisation. In this light, Hajer’s journey is not an anomaly but part of a patterned response to the contradictions of postcolonial modernity, where religious idealism emerges as both an escape and an embrace, a refusal of the present and a reimagining of what life could mean. A disturbing example of this rising extremism occurred in 2022, when Islamic fundamentalists stormed a government-organised Yoga Day event in Malé, attended by public officials and foreign diplomats. The attackers shouted religious slogans, destroyed property, and attempted to assault participants, claiming yoga contradicted Islamic beliefs. Investigations revealed the protesters had obtained flags from the office of an opposition political party. Incidents like this reflect a broader pattern of growing intolerance, politically fuelled extremism, and the weakening of moderate voices. This climate of hostility has also had deadly consequences for those who dare to speak out against it. Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla, a reporter for the independent media outlet Minivan News (later the Maldives Independent), was abducted and forcibly disappeared after receiving repeated death threats from Islamic extremist groups linked to al-Qaeda. His journalism, personal blog, and social media accounts criticised religious fundamentalism and violent extremism. Despite a decade of advocacy and demands for justice for “Moyameeha”, no perpetrators have been held accountable, leaving Rilwan’s family without closure and sending a chilling message to others seeking to challenge extremist views. Political context Following the dismantling of ISIS in 2019, Kurdish authorities assumed control of former ISIS-held territories, imprisoning male fighters and confining women and children to detention camps. Maldivian nationals initially held in Al-Hol were subsequently transferred to Roj camp, where 11 women and 33 children, along with six other individuals and their uncounted children, remain, according to direct reports from detainees. The conditions in Roj emphasise the ongoing diplomatic and humanitarian challenges faced by inhabitants, especially in the context of the Maldives’ ambiguous stance on repatriation, despite Turkey asserting administrative authority over Kurdish-controlled zones and expressing willingness to repatriate foreign nationals. The current Maldivian government has not made contact in months to verify the health or legal status of its citizens or to initiate repatriation procedures. This inaction contrasts with earlier efforts under former President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, whose administration approved an open budget through the People’s Majlis (parliament), trained personnel, and authorised the return of several individuals, including six adults and their children. Of these, five were released from the National Reintegration Centre (NRC), and children were sent to live with extended families within six to eight months. Under the current administration of President Dr Mohamed Muizzu, despite campaign promises and meetings with returnee families, no concrete updates have followed. This has raised suspicions of deliberate obfuscation, possibly to avoid exposing domestic recruiters or politically sensitive ties. The Maldives also lacks a comprehensive and systematic reintegration policy. Current efforts fall short of addressing the complexity and depth of religious fundamentalism. Existing initiatives focus narrowly on apprehended violent extremists, while broader patterns of extremism, often embedded in spiritual discourse, online spaces, and social networks, remain largely unaddressed. There is no consistent, nationwide framework; instead, the issue is treated selectively and reactively. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism driven by foreign influence, internal vulnerabilities, and successive government’s failure to curb the spread of extremist ideologies has allowed fundamentalist Islam to dominate and fuel growing support for Salafi-Jihadism , further complicating efforts to counter extremism. The effects of the one-sided limit to freedom of expression in the country are elephantinely apparent: extremists are free to spread hate as long as it is laced with religion, shunning those promoting equal rights in an open, inclusive and just society. Civil society, which could play a vital role in prevention and rehabilitation, is constrained by limited protections and lacks the operational space to act meaningfully. NGOs and civil society actors are cautious of speaking out, often only doing so under conditions of confidentiality due to fear of reprisal and lack of state protection. Targeted attacks in the past, such as MP Dr Afrasheem Ali’s assassination, the enforced disappearance of journalist Ahmed Rilwan , and the brutal killing of Yameen Rasheed, have created a climate of fear and silenced people who dared to speak out. Moreover, the unlawful de-registration of the Maldivian Democracy Network in 2019 has set a dangerous precedent for local human rights groups. State institutions such as the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) provide only rudimentary public messaging that does not align with contemporary radicalisation dynamics. Donor-funded programs, including those under USAID, are frequently framed in a way that often oversimplifies the issue with superficial messaging, such as ‘be good to your neighbour,’ failing to address the deeper ideological and structural drivers of extremism. The approach taken tends not to see the forest for the trees. In reality, state-led programming on countering violent extremism is not functional at a meaningful level. Both the government and society appear to be in denial about the scale of the problem, further complicating efforts to reintegrate returnees especially amid widespread public hostility and fear. The legal framework governing these issues was clearly defined in 2018, where under the Maldives’ Anti-Terror Law (2018) , travel to designated war zones without prior government approval is criminalised and punishable by five to seven years of imprisonment. Syria, by presidential decree, is officially recognised as a war zone. Before this legislation, however, it was relatively easy for Maldivians to travel abroad to join ISIS or affiliated groups. The state’s delayed or selective approach to repatriation emphasises the tension between legal obligations, political considerations, and international diplomatic responsibility. Personal stories, such as that of Hajer, bring the human cost of these political and legal entanglements into sharp view. Quiet recruitment and blind spots Efforts branded as ‘whole-of-society’ initiatives in the Maldives are poorly conceptualised and often superficial, lacking the depth and nuance required to counter extremism meaningfully. Public education campaigns have failed to equip families and communities with the tools to identify early warning signs. In many cases, families mistook increased religiosity for spiritual growth, unaware that it could signal a more profound ideological shift toward extremism. Compounding this is the government’s failure to build public trust or support for reintegration initiatives. Without a national dialogue or sustained public outreach, returnees are often placed back into hostile or unsafe environments, such as victims of domestic abuse being returned to the same communities, resulting in re-traumatisation and failed reintegration. The state has provided no clear communication regarding where returnees are held, under what conditions, and for how long which has instigated suspicion and public resentment. These shortcomings are accelerated by the state’s inability to address extremism within its own institutions, particularly prisons and mosques. A 2019 report by Transparency Maldives revealed widespread and well-organised recruitment networks operating within the prison system, often more effective than community-based recruiters. One-on-one interviews with inmates exposed the extent to which recruiters wield control and influence behind bars, using religious narratives and psychological manipulation invoking guilt to indoctrinate others. Mosques have also become spaces of quiet recruitment, especially among disaffected youth, including those awaiting GCSE results. Tactics employed include offering communal meals, job promises, and a sense of belonging through social events. Academically inclined individuals are groomed for technical roles, while others are positioned as ideological foot soldiers. Despite the seriousness of these dynamics, civil society engagement has been inconsistent and largely ineffective. For example, after a brief focus on prison recruitment into extremism during the 2022 National Human Rights Day, there has been no meaningful follow-up or public reporting. The lack of a coordinated, transparent, and informed approach across both community and institutional spaces continues to leave critical vulnerabilities unaddressed, undermining any sustainable counter-extremism strategy. Return and reintegration While Maldives has an ambiguous stance on the repatriation of the victims, its silence is louder. The absence of consistent public communication, the lack of a formal repatriation policy, and the visible deterioration of previously initiated reintegration mechanisms all indicate a system that is either unwilling or unable to confront the realities of return. The NRC, once a promising facility has now become emblematic of institutional neglect. Initially designed to provide trauma-informed, phased rehabilitation for returnees, starting with psychological assessments and skill-building programmes, the NRC saw moderate success with the first batch of returnees. Children were able to access safe spaces and basic routines, and families received some level of structured support. However, this fragile system quickly crumbled under the weight of poor planning, untrained staff, inadequate community sensitisation, and shifting political priorities. The location of the centre next to Maafushi jail also stigmatises it and options for an all-round holistic space are few. The second group of returnees, which included over 20 individuals, arrived to find a drastically underprepared NRC. Staff shortages, a dearth of leadership, and inadequate infrastructure resulted in inconsistent care and oversight. While the first group benefited from relatively humane conditions and structured support, the second group faced bureaucratic delays, limited communication with the outside world, and deteriorating mental health among detainees. These discrepancies have led to deep resentment and perceptions of injustice among returnee families who had consistently fought for their return. Worse still, the blurring of lines between victims and potential perpetrators, particularly during the early police evaluations, led to significant safety concerns. Vulnerable women and children were placed in close proximity to individuals not yet cleared of extremist affiliations. This created an environment ripe for intimidation, blackmail, and re-traumatisation, undermining the very premise of reintegration as a protective and rehabilitative process. It is not easy for the NRC to employ capable personnel, as the role involves working with vulnerable individuals and carries significant risk and responsibility. Civil society groups, which could have provided supplementary support, were kept at arm’s length due to state mistrust and opacity. Reintegration in the Maldives is not a coordinated, strategic process; it is an afterthought shaped by a legal and institutional system that often operates with duplicity and discrimination. Without clear policy guidelines, adequate staffing, or genuine community preparation, the state is setting returnees up for failure. The uneven application of laws and the classist biases embedded within the Maldivian legal system further undermine efforts as reintegration becomes another arena where privilege dictates outcomes. Reintegration cannot be reduced to short-term containment, bureaucratic box-ticking, or campaign promises. It must be a long-term, holistic approach with sustained community sensitisation that confronts inequalities rather than enables them. Abandoned by the state? Nowhere is the failure of reintegration more visible or more tragic than in the lives of the children affected by this crisis. For those who have been brought back to the Maldives, the conditions they return to are often far from restorative. For those left behind in conflict zones like Roj Camp, still clinging to hopes of repatriation from their country of origin, the situation is even more dire. The NRC, while initially framed as a place of rehabilitation, unfortunately functions more like a detention facility. This reality has drawn sharp criticism from the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) and mental health professionals, particularly regarding the presence of children within such a setting. These concerns are not merely symbolic. Detaining children, even for reintegration, violates their rights and places them in an environment that accelerates existing trauma rather than alleviating it. Children require environments that are safe, caring, and psychologically secure. The NRC, with its history of surveillance, limited freedom, and uncertain status for its occupants, does not offer such conditions. Mental health practitioners have warned that exposure to these institutional settings, especially without proper safeguards or child-focused services, risks deepening emotional distress and delaying recovery. The long-term psychological effects on children subjected to such environments are significant, including increased risk of anxiety, attachment disorders, and chronic trauma. For those still stranded in conflict zones, particularly in camps like Roj, the cost of inaction is even higher. These children, some born in Syria, others taken there as infants, have lived through war, witnessed violence, and endured years of neglect. They are not stateless in a legal sense, but are emotionally unanchored and existentially adrift. Their developmental years unfold in conditions marked by fear, deprivation, and the constant threat of violence. Hajer, like many others, is not a product of ideology alone but was shaped by the very society that now hesitates to bring her home. Her fate was as much a response to her environment as it was a consequence of her circumstances. In an increasingly religiously conservative state, where both fundamentalists and liberals find themselves alienated, the space for belonging is shrinking. Both ends of the political spectrum feel excluded—one for not conforming, the other for questioning. The inequality and alienation that drove them to leave is the same one that prevents them from returning. The economic hardship and political instability that drove families to the margins remain unaddressed. The longer the Maldives delay their return, the greater the risk that these children will interpret their abandonment as deliberate. This sense of betrayal, of being forgotten or judged for choices they never made can become a powerful source of grievance. Left unaddressed, it could fuel a new cycle of political violence. The very young people the state claims to be protecting may, in time, come to see that state as the reason for their suffering. This is not a hypothetical risk. Extremist ideologies often root themselves in personal trauma, as well as a perceived loss of identity or dignity. For children growing up in camps with little to no education, healthcare, or hope for reintegration, the appeal of groups that offer purpose, belonging, or revenge can be dangerously persuasive. The moral argument is clear: no child should bear the consequences of their parents’ decision. The legal argument is equally compelling: as a signatory to multiple international conventions, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Maldives must ensure that these children are protected, repatriated, and rehabilitated in a child-sensitive and rights-based manner. Continuing to delay their return is not just a policy failure; it is a human rights violation and a reflection of our lack of shared humanity as a nation. More dangerously, it is the planting of seeds for future instability. “I hope this helps us,” Hajer reiterated, echoing her hopes for repatriation that extended far beyond the confines of Roj Camp as she chose to lay bare their current status, risking her life. It is a question that demands an answer not just from policymakers, but from the entire nation. The new governing administration in Syria does little to clarify the fate of those stranded in camps like Roj, offering no substantial legal framework or accountability for the displaced, leaving them in a dangerous limbo, neither protected nor prosecuted. The cost of waiting is not merely diplomatic or logistical. It is deeply moral. Each day that passes without action compounds the trauma of those stranded abroad and deepens the wounds of those returned without proper support. It signals to children that their suffering is invisible, and to families that they are disposable. It risks turning victims into future threats, not by nature, but by neglect. The Maldives must confront the uncomfortable truth: silence is not neutrality, it is complicity. The time to act is not when conditions are perfect but when humanity calls. And its calls are reverberating. ∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Essay Maldives Syria Extremism Women and Children Gender Violence Civil Society detention Internally Displaced Persons Roj Camp Northeast Syria Vulnerable Populations children's rights open-air prison symbolic capital religious transformation prison abuse Salafi-Jihadism Counterterrorism Department extremist recruitment government betrayal geopolitics Anonymity anonymous Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

FOUNDER, FORMER CHIEF EDITOR Kamil Ahsan KAMIL AHSAN is an environmental historian at Yale, a Franke Fellow in Science and the Humanities, as well as the founder and former Chief Editor of SAAG. He is an essayist and critic currently based in Toronto, Lahore, and New York. FOUNDER, FORMER CHIEF EDITOR WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

A live performance for the launch of SAAG's Volume 2, also celebrating the release of Rajna Swaminathan's new record “Apertures” at the Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn. Swaminathan (mrudangam/vocals) performed as part of the Vagabonds trio with Ganavya (vocals) and Utsav Lal (piano). | · COMMUNITY Live · Brooklyn “Apertures” with the Vagabonds Trio A live performance for the launch of SAAG's Volume 2, also celebrating the release of Rajna Swaminathan's new record “Apertures” at the Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn. Swaminathan (mrudangam/vocals) performed as part of the Vagabonds trio with Ganavya (vocals) and Utsav Lal (piano). A live performance by experimental Rajna Swaminathan, Ganavya & Utsav Lal. On May 12th, 2023, SAAG hosted a launch event for Vol. 2 at the Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn, for which we were delighted to present the experimental and deeply moving musical compositions of the Vagabonds Trio: Rajna Swaminathan (mrudangam/voice), Ganavya (voice), and Utsav Lal (piano) who we had the pleasure of collaborating with a second time after his opening performance for In Grief, In Solidarity . They were joined partway by Miles Okazaki (guitar). To showcase musicians with such incredible musical range, a commitment to radicalism and social justice as expressed in the lyricism and melodies, and a deep rigor and discipline with their craft, was a true honor. We hope you enjoy the recording of the live event and the improvisational way it shifted from the respective discographies of each member of the trio, shifting seamlessly from several languages, including Tamil, English, Urdu, and more. Most of all, the performance celebrates the release of Rajna Swaminathan's new album Apertures (Ropeadope, Apr 28th), available to buy or stream now . SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Live Brooklyn Experimental Music Jazz mrudangam Rajna Swaminathan Apertures Ganavya Utsav Lal Launch Event Contemporary Music Ropeadope Miles Okazaki Event Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 19th May 2023 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

In 'Daha Rupaychi Note', Hamid Dalwai tells the story of Kareem, a poor clerk journeying from Mumbai to his Konkan village for Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi. Amidst nostalgia and hardship, Kareem witnesses his village’s stark poverty, confronting the harsh realities of his people’s suffering. Through his act of charity and the symbolism of the titular ten-rupee note, Dalwai blends personal, literary, and political ideologies, exploring themes of communal harmony, economic reform, and the complex interplay of religion and identity within the socio-political landscape of post-independence India. In 'Daha Rupaychi Note', Hamid Dalwai tells the story of Kareem, a poor clerk journeying from Mumbai to his Konkan village for Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi. Amidst nostalgia and hardship, Kareem witnesses his village’s stark poverty, confronting the harsh realities of his people’s suffering. Through his act of charity and the symbolism of the titular ten-rupee note, Dalwai blends personal, literary, and political ideologies, exploring themes of communal harmony, economic reform, and the complex interplay of religion and identity within the socio-political landscape of post-independence India. Vinay Ghodgeri, The Two Pontificators (2022). Ink, digital painting. Artist · FICTION & POETRY REPORTAGE · LOCATION Ten Rupee Note LOCATION Ria Modak . 17 Feb 2025 th . Letter from our columnist . The story begins and ends with a bus ride. Kareem, an impoverished clerk living in Mumbai, decides to visit his village in the Konkan to celebrate both Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi. While his journey there is filled with both nostalgia and anticipation, his return is marked by a different set of emotions. As his aunt remarks, “everything is upside down in the village,” where everyone is impoverished and unemployed, and the starving can do nothing “except sit and wait hopefully for next year’s harvest.” Confronted with this catastrophic state of affairs, he gives away his scant savings in a “pathetic charity session” until he is left only with the titular ten rupee note. “Daha Rupaychi Note” was my first encounter with the Marathi Muslim journalist, writer, and reformer Hamid Dalwai . Written when Dalwai was just twenty years old and printed in the Marathi-language “Dhanurdhara” magazine on November 8, 1952, the story was his first published work. In a recent documentary directed by Jyoti Subhash and featuring Naseeruddin Shah, Husain Dalwai—Hamid’s brother and Congress politician—reminisced on its publication, recalling that the entire family had gathered under the dim light of a streetlamp to read it together. Despite his young age, his earliest work rings with the earnest idealism, unambiguous moral clarity, and straightforward, laconic prose that would characterize much of his later writing, fiction and non-fiction alike. Brusque and unambiguous in its endorsement of communal harmony, economic reform, and village uplift, “Daha Rupaychi Note” reads propagandistically at times, blurring the borders between literature, praxis, and even autobiography. Through this hybrid form, the interplay between Dalwai’s personal life, creative instinct, and political commitments is laid bare. Like his protagonist, Dalwai was born and raised in a working-class Ratnagiri family before moving to Mumbai in search of work. This migration story is a familiar one: my grandfather, also a Kokani Muslim, came to Mumbai in the 1940s as an officer in the merchant navy. Like Dalwai, he was of a literary bent, writing and translating between Marathi, Urdu, and English. He, too, was charming and mercurial, his disarmingly light eyes quick to anger and quicker to laughter and brandished his acerbic wit with a typical Konkan sting. If they ever met, I imagine Dalwai would have quickly adapted my grandfather’s sardonic catchphrase, “ naseebach gandu tar konashi bhandu. ” But whereas my grandfather spent those heady decades of independence hopping between port cities in Japan, Thailand, and the Soviet Union, Dalwai hopped between political organizations, from the Rashtra Seva Dal to the Samyukta Socialist Party. Frustrated by their timid stances on communalism, he eventually carved out his own political spaces by establishing the Indian Secular Society (1968) and the Muslim Satyashodak Samaj (1970); the latter modeled after Jyotirao Phule’s anti-caste reform society. Through his organizing and writing, his ultimate goal was to modernize Indian Muslim society by, in his own words, “creating a small class…of liberal and secular Muslims.” Dalwai is difficult to categorize and perhaps for that reason, he has been largely forgotten by historians, literary critics, and the public. On the one hand, he was, indisputably, a Marathi thinker. The landscape and rituals of the Konkan coast—its “distant green hillocks” and its “auspicious sounds of cymbals and mridanga”—were firmly imprinted in his literary and political consciousness. Influenced by his Marathi-medium education in Chiplun, he wrote exclusively in Marathi and encouraged Indian Muslims to embrace their regional languages rather than chasing after Urdu, Persian, or Arabic; when interrogated about his linguistic preferences, he quipped that his own Marathi-inflected Urdu, adulterated by Mumbai slang, would cause a “proper” Urdu speaker from Lucknow to collapse on the spot. His Maharashtrian contemporaries, from the humorist and performer P.L. Deshpande to the playwright Vijay Tendulkar, praised his tenacity and courage, with the former naming Dalwai as “one of the greatest enlighteners in that series from Jyotirao Phule to B.R. Ambedkar,” and, with characteristic fulsomeness, remarking that “when I say that Hamid was my friend, I feel it might come across as self-promotion: that was the extent of his greatness.” Yet, Dalwai is near impossible to locate in contemporary histories of Maharashtra, which, depending on their ideological predilections, have long sought to portray the state as the great bastion of resistance to Islamic rule, the progenitor of polemical politicians from Tilak to Ambedkar, or the financial center of independent India. In a historiography dominated by analyses of Marathas, Hindutva, and, increasingly, at long last, anti-caste mobilization, the history of Maharashtra's Muslims remains peripheral. On the other hand, Dalwai both identified with and critiqued a different lineage: that of Muslim reformers from Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to Muhammad Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. In Muslim Politics in Secular India , a collection of his essays translated by Dilip Chitre in 1968, Dalwai compared the trajectory of Hinduism and Islam. Whereas the trajectory of Hindu modernism, he argued, progressed from Raja Rammohan Roy to Jawaharlal Nehru, the “process of Muslim modernization was arrested” when Iqbal and Jinnah’s embrace of “Islamism ultimately led to anti-Hinduism.” For Dalwai, these reformers fell short on several counts: they promoted an “obsession with [the Muslim community’s] minority status,” encouraged a “tribal…collectivist loyalty,” and ignored the unique plight of Muslim women. Indeed, Dalwai is perhaps most well-known for his attempts to remedy this third issue; on April 18, 1966, he led a group of seven women in India’s first march against triple talaq and polygamy, and in favor of a uniform civil code (UCC). Here, we may note that nearly sixty years after his march, from the controversial Shah Bano case to the BJP’s inclusion of a UCC in its 2024 manifesto, many of these issues remain deeply contested. Yet, unlike Sir Syed, Iqbal, or Jinnah, Dalwai’s idea of modernization demanded militant and uncompromising secularization. Clean-shaven on principle—at a speech in Solapur, he joked, “if I were in power, I would compel all Muslims to shave off their beards”—and adamant that he be cremated rather than buried, Dalwai was branded a kafir by his orthodox contemporaries. His dedication to Muslim reform was borne more from an accident of birth rather than any deep religious commitment: “I don’t pray, neither do I fast. I believe the Quran was not made by God, but rather by Muhammad,” he declared in an interview. “I am a Muslim by birth and a Hindu by tradition.” In “Daha Rupaychi Note,” we catch an early glimpse of this iconoclastic brand of Islamic secularism. The twin celebrations of Ganesh Chaturthi and Eid dictate the story’s pacing: they precipitate Kareem’s arrival in the village; they prompt his existential reckoning, and they frame the central tension of the narrative. Dalwai’s reclamation of Hindu tradition is also, perhaps, revealed through Kareem’s references to the Ramayana. By drawing parallels between Sriram, his closest friend who “embodied Gandhi’s call to ‘go to the village’,” and the Rama of legend, Dalwai intimates familiarity with Hindu mythology and suggests at least some amount of faith in its teachings. Here, we must underscore the complex, multivalent nature of Dalwai’s religious and regional identities: as a Marathi Muslim, his perspectives on secularism, socialism, and language politics were shaped by his negotiation of the two strands of thought I have traced above. His marginalization, then, constitutes multiple, overlapping disappearances: of Muslim thought from Maharashtrian history, of Marathi thought from Indian Muslim history, and of the Islamic secular from discourses of religion, nationalism, and modernity. As Kareem sets off from Chiplun, he is overwhelmed by emotions, his heart “darkened with despair.” Caught between the financial allure of Mumbai and the moral imperative to remain in the village, negotiating between the festivals of his birth and his tradition, he chooses to remain hopeful for the future of the Konkan. How many times did Dalwai make this same journey, his thoughts consumed by these same anxieties? How many times did my grandfather? I’ve never set foot on the red soil of his native land, never peered out into the Arabian Sea from that lush coastline dotted with jackfruit and cashew trees and since his passing more than two decades ago, any tether binding me to the region has unraveled. In any case, the Konkan of his—and Dalwai’s—time is long gone. Perhaps it is a fitting tribute to both men that his son, in the spirit of “Daha Rupaychi Note,” would go on to marry a Hindu woman and raise a family where, like Kareem and Sriram, we celebrate both Ganesh Chaturthi and Eid. Ten Rupee Note by Hamid Dalwai Translated by Ria Modak After spending a year in the noisy chaos of Mumbai, my mind drifts to my village in the Konkan. I remember the uninhibited, idyllic days of my childhood, and feel the temptation to meet old friends and relatives. Every summer, I take a week or two off to visit the village, setting foot on the boat from Ferry Wharf to Dabhol. This year, however, I was too consumed by work to make the journey. A few months later, though, I managed to negotiate a vacation; my aunt had sent a message telling me to come home for Eid. Besides, it had been many years since I’d been back to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi. I decided that I would go, and booked an S.T. bus. At the Chiplun motor stand, a couple hours from Ratnagiri, some friends came to greet me. We traveled the rest of the way together, cracking jokes and chatting about nothing in particular to pass the time. Once we arrived at the village, they drank their tea and dispersed, promising to come see me again. I made my way to my aunt’s house. She lived alone, and we were very close. Since I was a child, my visits would incite a flurry of overexcitement: what shall I cook? What shall we do? Where shall we go? Even now, nothing has changed: how long will you stay? What shall we plan for Eid? Eventually, tired of her chattering, I interrupted: “Chachi, why haven’t I seen Sriram anywhere? He didn’t even come to meet me at Chiplun.” “Arrey ho! Did I forget to tell you? He’s lost everything. The farm, the land, everything has been auctioned off. But what’s to be done?” she said. “But why doesn’t he come to Mumbai then? Why is he wasting his time in this village? ‘Social work… social work…’” Kareem scoffed. “We might die of starvation, but we must still commit ourselves to social work. I don’t understand.” She let out a sigh. “I’ve told him so many times, but he always repeats the same thing: ‘we shouldn’t only look out for ourselves, kaki.’” Tears shone in her eyes. I was taken aback. I’d run into so many acquaintances from the village in Mumbai, but none of them had told me about Sriram’s condition. It’s true that we’d stopped writing letters to each other as the months passed. As I became increasingly caught up with work, I suppose I’d taken Sriram’s situation for granted. “Look, this is everyone’s story in the village. Everything is upside down. You lot who’ve gone and built a life in Mumbai, why will you remember your home in the village? You don’t even know who’s alive and who’s dead here. You haven’t sent a penny in four months. At least you haven’t settled down yet—there are some people who haven’t returned in five or ten years. Who will take care of their houses?” the old lady went on. Staying in Mumbai, my mind had become an emotionless machine. How could it be that I’d never once thought about the economic state of my village? Today my aunt had opened my eyes, and I turned inwards. The thick fog shrouding my mind evaporated. I let go of the day-to-day tedium of my clerical life, and the formality of my city sensibilities melted away. But what good could come from thinking? I’d renounced any golden dreams of idealism and ambition and was wandering in the lonely desert of pragmatism. For 120 rupees a month, I scribbled nonsense and passed it off as clerical work. I lived with a friend and ate my meals at a cheap mess. I couldn’t imagine ever having enough money to get married. The next day, I was awakened by a pair of raucous voices. At first, I didn’t pay attention, but once I heard my name, I perked up. An old woman said, “He hasn’t remembered me once in so many days. Has he returned from Africa with bags of cash or what?” Quickly, I got up and left. I didn’t see who had come. Only after my aunt explained did I begin to understand that the woman was having money problems for Eid. I felt terrible, but then my aunt prodded me: “Why are you feeling bad? This is everyone’s reality. How many people can you possibly help?” Then she took 100 rupees from me, buying what she needed for the house and paying back her debts with the rest. I felt as though she was getting even with me for not having sent money these past few months. From that day onwards, there was a line out the door. At any given moment, someone or the other came complaining of financial distress, expecting money. My tongue sat heavy and numb in my mouth. They came reluctantly, nursing their shame and hesitation, losing their courage as they asked favors. I’d only come with 200 rupees: of that, 100 had gone to my aunt. Of the rest, 90 were given here and there. Finally, I put an end to this pathetic charity session. I wanted to return to Mumbai, after all, and needed to set aside money for the return fare. Everyone I’d given money to had done me a favor at some point or the other. I was satisfied that, at the very least, those debts were paid. But my satisfaction didn’t last long. Ganesh Chaturthi came at last. In the old days, the village would ring with the auspicious sounds of cymbals and mridanga. But today, I heard nothing. Confused, I asked my aunt, who replied: “Arrey baba, how can people celebrate with nothing in their belly? The old days are gone. Two days before the Gauri Visarjan, there’ll be some dancing and that’s it, the festival will be over.” I felt like I’d been stabbed in the stomach with a sharp knife. Poverty hadn’t just made our daily life miserable: it had cast a dark shadow on our celebrations, our happiness, and our enthusiasm. I had no doubt that Eid, too, would be similarly dark. Eight days passed, but Sriram, my closest friend, still hadn’t come to see me. If anyone embodied Gandhi’s call to ‘go to the village,’ it was Sriram. Though he’d once settled in Mumbai, he had kicked aside his lucrative job in the city and instead devoted himself to uplifting the village. Finally, I went to see him the day before Gauri Visarjan. Standing in the corridor, his face lit up with joy when he saw me. At once, he enveloped me in a tight hug and cried out to his wife, “Hey, look who has come!” Coming out with a handful of ash from cleaning up, she said, “O Chakarmani! When did you come? Yesterday or what? Made it a point to come see us as early as you could manage, hm?” Ignoring the sarcasm dripping from her voice, I said, sagely: “If the mountain doesn’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain.” “Enough is enough! Please don’t bore us with the same old phrases. I’ve been telling him, ‘that friend of yours has come, go and see him,’ but he always repeats the same thing…” Catching a glimpse of her husband, she fell silent. I couldn’t wrap my head around the situation, but Sriram explained. “Don’t be flustered, my friend. I told her that Kareem has come from Mumbai. His pockets are overflowing, everyone must want a piece of him. The poor must be going to see him again and again. How could I go at such a time? He’d think that I’m just after his money, too.” Sriram laughed loudly. His laughter pierced my heart. The poverty of the village, the sheer decline of the Kokan was all revealed to me through that laugh. I said, casually: “Listen, if you’d come to ask, would it really have been so terrible?” “That’s what I told him,” his wife jumped in excitedly. “There’s always some problem in the house. I told Sriram, ‘go to Kareem bhai and bring back 10 rupees.’ At least let the kids enjoy the festival. But he refuses. ‘Forget the money,’ he says. ‘I won’t go see him until Eid is over.’” “Kay re, when I came last year the situation didn’t seem so bad,” I said. “True, for two reasons. Firstly, you used to come in the summer. Even though the harvest wasn’t so bountiful, at least people had some grain in their hands. Besides, farm work was in full swing. There might not have been much money, but people could at least find some seasonal work. Now there’s no grain and no labor, either. What else can the starving do except sit and wait hopefully for next year’s harvest? And the other reason is that this poverty has been slowly getting worse over time. Today, you’re witnessing it, all at once, in its barest form. Planting his eyes on a distant green hillock, he said in a subdued and determined voice, “All this must change Kareem. It must be changed . We must give up our narrow, selfish attitudes. Capitalism is the culmination of our social structure and the naked form of our reality; it is our legacy. This situation isn’t any one person’s fault, but at the same time, it’s not any one person’s responsibility. We must reject this futile idea that we alone can enact meaningful change. We must work for everyone, for society at large. Last year I’d said, ‘let’s store some grain from the harvest for communal use.’ Nobody listened to me. Someone would’ve benefitted by now, wouldn’t they? But nobody has any sense of community wellbeing!” And he stopped for a while. I too was eager to give him an earful. Taking his silence as my cue, I said, “Really, Sriram. Why do you insist on working in this village? Haven’t you seen what kind of people live here? Why bother struggling for them in vain?” “Nahi re!” Placing his hand on my shoulder, he continued. “This work will bear fruit one day. I have faith in it. And consider for a moment if I decided to leave everything behind. What would happen to the work I’ve started, to the hope that’s been built up? I can’t turn back now.” Then, squeezing both my hands lovingly, he asked me, “Is everything okay with you? When are you going to get married?” I replied with a wry smile, “I’m okay. I’ve been eating at a mess and sleeping at a friend’s place, but he just got married, so I’ve had to move out. An acquaintance of mine knows someone who owns a building, so with his permission I’ve been sleeping in a room under the staircase. Where could I possibly fit a wife?” Then I asked him gently, “Do you really need money?” “If you put it like that, well then yes. But why should I make your life difficult?” Taking out the last ten rupee note from my pocket, I forced it into his hands. I drank my tea, bade farewell to his wife and child, and returned home. Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi came and went, and the day of my return to Mumbai drew closer. Both festivals had fallen short of my expectations. There was no warmth in people’s celebrations. They were just going through the motions, performing rituals with an emotionless formality. I couldn’t bear to see any more, and decided to return to Mumbai as soon as possible. Suddenly, I remembered I had no money. I needed ten rupees to return to the city, but couldn’t understand how to get them. Finally, I brought up the subject with my aunt. Angered by my ill-timed munificence and diminishing funds, she said, coldly: “Where will the money come from now? You’ll have to borrow from someone and just pay them back when you return to Mumbai.” The idea didn’t sit well with me, and I gave no answer. The next morning, while I mulled over the situation, confused, Sriram came and, to my surprise, placed a ten rupee note in my hand. Without letting me say anything, he explained, “If you were in trouble, why didn’t you just tell me, baba? Yesterday, kaki came to me and everything became clear. Aren’t you leaving tomorrow?” I took the note from his hand and looked closer. It was the very note that I’d given him! There was an unmistakable stain near the watermark where I’d spilled some ink earlier. “But this money was for your celebrations! Isn’t it the same note that I’d given you?” “That’s true enough. But on the very evening you’d come to see me, I got the money I needed from someone who owed me, and I was set. What business is it of yours?” The next day when the S.T. bus to Mumbai set off from the Chiplun motor stand, my heart was darkened with despair. I couldn’t stop thinking about the grim future of my village. I thought to myself, “won’t this situation ever change?” But then again, why not? Against the depressing backdrop of poverty, hunger, and unemployment emerged Sriram’s strength, patience, and courage. Why not, indeed! Just as Sri Ram released Ahalya from her curse, transforming her from hexed stone back into a beautiful woman with a brush of his foot, this Sriram too will surely rescue our Konkan. My mind filled with happiness and hope, I landed in Mumbai that evening.∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 RIA MODAK is a musician, translator, and PhD student at Brown University studying music, nationalism, and borders in modern South Asia. VINAY GHODGERI is a visual artist based in Goa, India, who works across painting, photography, and film mediums. His artwork has been shown at group exhibitions in Auroville, Pune, and Goa, and his illustrations have been published in Kyoorius Design Magazine ’11. He is currently working on his directorial debut, a Marathi language feature film, A Shadow Rising . Translation Maharashtra Hamid Dalwai Muslim Marathi India Fiction Journalism Writer Reform Economy Borders Community Literature Working Class Migration Family Urdu English Political Will Anti-Caste Organizing Liberalism Secularism History Literary Criticism Regional Languages Linguistic Marathas Hindutva Maharashtra Muslim Modernization Civil Society Militant Disappearance Religion Nationalism Ten Rupee Note Mumbai Konkon Village Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note: