Border to border: the year that was
A personal ode to 2022.
First things first. Wish you all a very happy, meaningful and empowering new year! I hope 2022 was kind to you, and if that’s the case, I pray that 2023 is even kinder. If 2022 was harsh, I hope this year brings better times.
Second, I apologise for the long radio silence from my end. I don’t know if you missed my Substack emails. If you did, then I promise a steadier stream of writings this year. If you didn’t, then well, no love is lost, I guess.
I value transparency and accountability. If you are still with me, you deserve to know why my Substack dried up last year, particularly in the second half. I am not sure, but perhaps, you find some value in my experiences.
For me, 2022 was a particularly remarkable year. I am not going to hide that or gloss over it. Just as I brood and cry over the bad years, which my 2021 year-ender piece clearly shows, I gloat and laugh at the good ones too. I think that is precisely what makes us human – the many different, often polarising, ways in which we respond to the tides of time.
2022 saw the world reopen in a big way after the devastating COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, in ways that perhaps many of us didn’t even anticipate. I took full advantage of that. 2022 was the year when I wrote less, but travelled more. And I don’t regret any of it.
2022 was the year when I met and spoke to many of the people I often write about. I heard from them about their anxieties, sorrows, fears, hopes, aspirations and the little things in life that bring them joy. I travelled, laughed, sang, ate, drank and sometimes just sat with them. All in person.
In fact, 2022 reminded me about the extraordinary affective power of physical presence and in-person human conversations. This is something that I, along with many of you I’m sure, missed dearly through the stifling pandemic years. But, only when I resumed physical meetings did I truly realise the inexplicable power of human presence more profoundly than ever before.
Because I travelled more last year, I wrote less. And no, one does not necessarily follow from the other. But, in my case, it did. I deliberately focused my energy and resources into listening, rather than opining. And now, I am only more convinced that at times, it is better to spend all our time listening, even at the cost of writing.
My travels last year took me to some fascinating places where I met some fascinating people. Many of these folks defied the standard sociocultural templates of identity and belongingness. I struggled to define them. Others inhabited fluid, shapeshifting lifeworlds sitting between two nations and many cultures.
For example, in a small, somewhat rundown, border town in western Thailand right next to Myanmar, I met one old lady who was so many things at once. The commanding matriarch of a trading family, she spoke fluent Thai and some Burmese. Except, she was called “Bilkis” and had roots in both Myanmar and Agra. Occasionally, she broke into Hindi/Hindustani that was so tightly wrapped in a Thai accent that it was almost hard to discern.
We asked her what she thought about the situation in Burma after the coup. She refused to comment, engrossed in watching the Thai soap playing on a massive LED TV. But then, she fished out her smartphone and pulled up a certain video after frantically scrolling for a good ten minutes. It showed a group of masked men violently knifing a jewellery shopowner in Yangon and robbing him.
In the same town, I met an Icelander, a chatty man likely in his fifties, who moved to Thailand in the early 2000s and had recently set up a fishing bait-manufacturing unit for export to the US and Europe. Assisting him was a young, and unforgettably warm, Burmese-origin guy who spoke five languages fluently. He drove me to the Thai-Myanmar border in his tinted pick-up truck and showed me around the farmlands along the Moeing river that separates the two countries. He also told me about his hopes and dreams in an endearing, honey-dewed voice. I made him promise that he would visit India.
The thin Moeing that delicately flows between Thailand and Myanmar instantly reminded me of the Tiau, very similar in girth and pace, that flows broodingly between India and Myanmar. In September, I had walked along this river in Mizoram.
Unlike the Thai-Myanmar border in southwestern Thailand that mostly runs along vast swathes of flatlands and can be accessed through smooth concrete roads, the Indo-Burmese frontier is far more remote. At places, there are simply no roads, only jagged dirt trails flanked by impenetrable forests on one side and steep gorges on the other.
As we drive along, our Mizo driver points towards a misty blue hill in the distant horizon. He tells me the village on top of it houses the bones of their ancestors. I stare long and hard at it before it vanishes from sight, like a fleeting dream.
Sitting beside me in our Bolero is my interpreter, now a dear friend. A Chin refugee who mostly writes songs, but also sometimes sings them, he tells me with great pride about his latest masterpiece. Titled “Moonlight of the Aizawl”, it is a dazzling ode to the hilltop city that has been his home since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar. There’s a childlike joy in his voice as he talks about his music. But, it is unmistakably shaded by melancholy.
As someone who has more than one houses to call “home”, who has never had to pack up and move to a foreign land because things were too rough to bear any longer, I was humbled, sometimes even embarrassed, to meet migrants and refugees. But, I am glad I did.
In Chiang Mai (northern Thailand), I bumped into a long-time migrant from Shan State (northeastern Myanmar) waiting tables at the lobby of the Le Meridien hotel. A bright young man with sparkling eyes and a sunshine smile, he was studying finance at Chiang Mai University. We ended up speaking for about fifteen minutes. He told me he was desperate to get a Thai passport so that he could move to another country. He was particularly taken by the idea of living in Scandinavia.
“I like how there’s so much equality there,” he told me with a strange mix of sadness, frustration, and regret in his eyes. We both knew the implication of what he said, that his present home hadn’t treated him very fairly because of his migrant origins. But, his parents didn’t want him to leave. If he chased his dreams and left Thailand, he would have to break his parents’ hearts. I could see that he was torn by this impossible dilemma.
His candour touched me so much that I made it a point to meet him when I returned to the city two months later. By then, he had graduated. He told me that he was very close to getting a Thai passport, and would soon be leaving the hotel job. There was an infectious sort of restlessness in him, an overwhelming urge to break free.
“Do you ever want to return to Myanmar?” I asked him.
“No, I don’t think so,” he replied with conviction. He made it sound like that was never going to happen.
So yes, that was a year that lifted me up, all the while sobering me down. I hope to write more about my travels and learnings in the months to come (and of course, share them with you).
I also hope to write more about Myanmar this year. As the junta prepares to organise a sham election, revolutionary groups around the country get ready to double down on their resistance to the brutal military rule. Simultaneously, the coup regime will try its best to rebuild bridges with the rest of the world with the hope of legitimising itself, even as the ASEAN dithers on how to engage with the obstinate Generals. India, on the other hand, remains insistent on the idea of working with the coup regime for its own interests, at the cost of alienating the pro-democracy blocs. Yet, for Myanmar, 2023 might just be the most decisive year in a very long time. I hope to keep a close watch, and help you make sense of it all.
I also hope to write more about India, as we rapidly approach the general election. And I hope to write not just about how India conducts itself at the grand theatre of geopolitics, but also how the home front shapes up as the BJP, led by Modi-Shah, buckles up to complete ten years in power with a thumping majority next year. The opposition remains fractured and unsure, despite all the recent countrywide marches. The mainstream media continues to slide down the abyss of servility and at times, utter madness. Meanwhile, the “silent majority” – which hasn’t been very silent since 2014 – remains very much swayed by the ethno-sectarian cultural project of the ruling party.
And I also hope to travel more this year. Take more pictures, speak to more people, read more books, eat more food, drive more, run more, and spend many more moments doing nothing. I also hope to constantly remind myself that I am able to do many of these things because I carry immense intergenerational privilege as an upper caste man in a country where a great deal of one’s past, present and future are shaped by the families they are born into.
Stay healthy, happy and aware! And if you like what I write, hit the subscribe button below to receive all my pieces directly in your inbox for free.