The Blue Lotus magazine issue 53 by martin bradley

Lotus The Blue

Hannah Yata Mohan Samant Rebecca Haque Murali Nagapuzha Monalisa Sarkar Mitra HỒ HỮU THỦ Nayanaa Kanodia Marisa R Ng Bharti Kher Shafiq x Najib Eric Quah Prof Pilar Viviente Bee Lee Tan

Lotus The Blue

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A quick word

Editor’s comment

Hannah Yata

Contemporary Surrealisms

Mohan Samant

Indian avant-garde artist

Rebecca Haque

Short story from Bangladesh, Grandma’s garland

Murali Nagapuzha Vivid Indian paintings

Monalisa Sarkar Mitra

Paintings from West Bengal

Dokra

Metal casting workshop, India

HỒ HỮU THỦ

Fine art from Vietnam

Nayanaa Kanodia

Mumbai L’Art Naïf painter

Cover art: Stories around the table, Marisa R Ng 2021

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Marisa R Ng

Table Talk Malaysian paintings

Bharti Kher

Delhi Contemporary artist

Shafiq x Najib

A Malaysian art interaction

Eric Quah

Malaysia’s love paintings

Prof Pilar Viviente

The Manila Galleon - maritime Silk Routes

Great Action non-profit Refugee cuisines

Bee Lee Tan

Penang Nyonya Cuisine With Elegance

Lotus The Blue

a quick word Spring is on the way, rejoice! The last two years have been a turbulent time for most of us. Some have lost partners, loved ones, jobs etc. Yet here we are, still welcoming the new year, a new spring, new life being born. It is time to take a fresh look at life and its living. Spring is always a season of hope. Rejoice with The Blue Lotus magazine as we slip into our 11th year of publication with some of the finest creatives Asia has to offer. Submissions are encouraged to be sent to martinabradley@gmail.com Take care and stay safe for Covid 19 and its variants are still with us.

Martin (Martin A Bradley, Founding Editor) ISSN 2754-9151 • NO. 53 • SPRING ISSUE • 2022 • THE BLUE LOTUS is published quarterly by The Blue Lotus Publishing (M.A.Bradley), Colchester, Essex, England, UK. © 2022 M.A.Bradley. All rights reserved. FIND MORE ONLINE: ……

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Hannah Yata Hannah Faith Yata is half Japanese and was born and raised in a small town in Georgia. She grew up with a deep love of nature and animals passed down by the beautiful surroundings in the country and her mother. As a young adult, she studied feminism, psychology, and art in college. Graduating with a BFA in painting from the University of Georgia in 2012 she moved up to New York to focus on her work and how to put her ideas into paintings. In 2015, she was commissioned to do several works of art for musician B.o.B, which are now featured on his latest albums “Psycadelik Thoughtz” and the his "Elements" series. Now married to fellow artist, Jean Pierre Arboleda, the two painters work passionately to call attention to the darker themes of nature and industry. In her paintings, Yata seeks to interweave the parallels of the unconscious with the struggle of the natural environment and how it relates to views regarding the body of the woman and that of nature. Her use of masks express different types of emotion and characters while incorporating her fascination with other cultures and tribes. Body paint and designs play with a romantic idea of becoming more in touch with the earth and the life forces that dwell within, while also celebrating the feeling of energy and wildness. The surreal and psychedelic landscapes of her work erupt with tension and beauty, the grotesque and the wild to form exhilarating and mind altering dreamscapes. Text from Saatchi.com

https://hannahyata.com/

Weepy

The egg hunter

Opulent

Genesis 14

Mayday 17

Crybaby

mohan samant

Fertility goddess

ohan Samant (born Manmohan Balkrishna Samant; 1924 in Mumbai [then Bombay] – 2004 in New York City) was an early Indian modernist painter and member of the Progressive Artists Group. He was also a lifelong player of the sarangi, an Indian bowed string instrument. Samant was born Manmohan Balkrishna Samant into a middle-class Brahmin family in Goregaon, a suburb of Mumbai (then Bombay), India, in 1924. The fourth child of eight, he grew up in a cultured environment. Samant's father, Balkrishna Ramchandra Samant, was a headmaster and his mother a home-maker. His younger sister, Vasudha Patil, an accomplished novelist, has written that their parents encouraged the family's interest in music, art, theater, movies, travel, and writing, and Samant displayed an early proficiency in and dedication to both music and the visual arts. Samant received his diploma from the Sir J.J. School of Art in 1952, where he studied under S.B. (Shankar Balwant) Palsikar. In 1954 he was awarded the Governor's Prize and the silver medal for water colours at the Bombay Art Society Annual Exhibition. In 1952, Samant joined the Progressive Artists' Group and exhibited with them in several shows, including the 1953 exhibition, Progressive Artists' Group: Gaitonde, Raiba, Ara, Hazarnis, Khanna, Husain, Samant, Gade, at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai. He also participated in the Bombay Group, a successor to the Bombay PAG. According to artist Baburao Sadwelkar, the Bombay Group, which included Samant as well as Hebbar, Ara, Chavda, Kulkarni, Laxman Pai, Har Krishnan Lall, and Sadwelkar, had "six big exhibitions [between 1957 and 1964], which were received extremely well." Samant did not mention the Bombay Group in interviews or recorded conversations, but a review from The Times of India confirms that he had works in their November 1956 exhibition. In 1956, Samant was awarded the Gold Medal at the Bombay Art Society's group exhibition, another at the Calcutta Art Society show, and the Lalit Kala Akademi All India Award. That same year, he took part in the seminal exhibition, Eight Painters: Bendre, Gaitonde, Gujral, Husain, Khanna, Kulkarni, Kumar, Samant, curated by Thomas Keehn, and in the Venice Biennale. Samant spent 195758 in Rome on a scholarship awarded by the Italian government. In February 1959, a Rockefeller Fellowship took him to New York City, where he would remain until 1964. Exhibitions during Samant's first New York period included what is considered the first showing of

Unknown

the Progressive Artists' Group in America, Trends in Contemporary Painting from India: Gaitonde, Husain, Khanna, Kumar, Padamsee, Raza, Samant, Souza, curated by Thomas Keehn and held at the Graham Gallery, New York, as well as A Collection of Contemporary Art, Art in Embassies Committee, Museum of Modern Art, New York (1961), Recent Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art, New York (1963), and Dunn International: 102 Best Painters of the World, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada and the Tate Gallery, London (1963). The organizers of the legendary Dunn exhibition in 1963—whose international selection committee included Alfred Barr of The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Sir Anthony Blunt, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures—chose works by Edward Hopper, Robert Rauschenberg and Willem de Kooning, among other giants of contemporary art. Samant was one of only two newcomers included in the exhibition, and was singled out for special recognition in the Time article on the show. He was

Midnight fishing party

profiled again in the magazine a year later. Samant spent 1965–68 in Mumbai. In 1968, like S.H. Raza and F.N. Souza before him, he left India permanently. He settled in New York, where he continued to work and exhibit internationally. In 2000, Samant received the Asian American Heritage Award for lifetime achievement in the arts. In January 2004, not long after a retrospective in India, Samant died in New York. Samant participated in the seminal international exhibitions of twentieth-century Indian modernism. Ranjit Hoskote, internationally renowned Indian poet and art critic, wrote in 2008 that Mohan Samant was "the missing link in the evolutionary narrative of contemporary art in India." As observed by Jeffrey Wechsler in his essay on Mohan Samant and his place in twentieth-century modernism, "Samant's practice was the antithesis of a signature style. Throughout his career, he 24

delved into divergent materials and techniques and constantly shifted imagery. While some of his processes and forms can be perceived on a regular basis over long periods of time, there was no hewing to a given image, endlessly repeated." He stated that "I find that stagnation in style and the search for the same forms cause an artist to suffer an immense amount of laboriousness in his work. Samant's art is, instead, determinedly far-reaching and inquisitive, and is inspired by the whole history of human visual creativity. Samant stated straightforwardly that his sources derived from five thousand years of art from varied civilisations. These included the cave paintings of Lascaux, Egyptian wall paintings and hieroglyphs, Indian miniatures and murals, Pre-Columbian ceramics, African sculpture, and the modernism of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Paul Klee." source Wikipedia

Untitled

Medusa on the moon

https://mohansamant.com/

Untitled (sculpture in a box)

Pandit Madhusagar family

In the Beginning there was a man, a woman, and a benevolent ghost

Grandma’s Garland Rebecca Haque

rom year to year, nature and seasons are cyclical. The human drama also unfolds in a recurrent circular universal pattern, with the revolution of the wheel of fortune. Life's circles are whirls and eddy in the ocean's currents. An individual's life-circles are measured by the totality of birthdays celebrated whilst alive upon this earth, symbolically by counting the increasing number of flaming candles. Pondering this quasi-metaphysical strain of associative wisdom, grandma sits at her desk in her bedroom, with her fingertips playing memory's tune on the laptop keyboard in the quiet early hours of the ninth day of December. Grandma feels the pulse of time flow in slow circadian rhythms. She happily remembers that three nights earlier, on the sixth night of the last month of 2012, her fifty-eighth birthday, she had received gifts of flowers and food from her aged mother. A song of praise, of grace, of gratitude – a hymn of life – emanates from her innermost being as she composes her thoughts this night, her voice audibly in simultaneous synchrony with the soulful voice of Ani Choying Drolma chanting serene Buddhist verses on the CD, “Inner Peace 2”: “If there is intense will, one can transform suffering into bliss. Instead of cursing the darkness, you can simply light a candle.” It is nearly dawn, and from the south, the rising melody of the fajr azaan vibrates into the room. It does not seem at all incongruous to her, this merging of female and male voices, of Buddha and Allah. Is it not all celebration of life, of creation, of the gift of light? Tonight, she has not grown old. Memories take her back to the blushing days as a young bride and a new mother. She thinks of the growing circle of the womb, and then of the two who were taken from her before their time. Now, tonight, a quarter-of-a-century later, flashes of dry days of insanity are distant and quiescent in the palpable spiritualism of Ani Choying Drolma: “In the pollen heart of the lotus, Marvellous in the perfection of your attainment You are known as the lotus born And are surrounded by your circle of many dakinis. I pray that you will come and confer your blessings.” This year, the miracle of new life born of her daughter's womb, works its own miracle of closure, of suturing the jagged edges of the deep gash of the heart's wound. With new life in Melbourne, settlers beginning a new journey in a new country, the first footprints of another special circle within her own family circle, grandma offers a silent prayer to ward off the evil eye. Invigorated by a belief that the algorithm of providence and chance disallows the probability of destiny's drone to target the same circle one more time, she weaves a garland of variegated memories into a wreath of images to celebrate life. First light of the morning sun pours into the long rectangular veranda, open to the sky on the east and south sides. She savours the green corner of her home, her mother's jack-fruit and mango trees canopying the sky on the south, with the large Neem tree, and the guava and jujube- berry trees providing privacy on the east. Skyping allows grandma to bring Melbourne into her home in

Dhaka, and often times the frail great-grandparents are able to have endearing moments with the scampering baby. In four days, he will be nine months old and can already crawl like a determined commando. His small pudgy fingers can now hold and throw the soft daffodil-yellow and deepblue six-inch football grandma had bought at the Flinders St. Station Concourse three months ago. He had loved it instantly, but could not then mould his fingers around the shape of the ball. He could just hold on tightly with two fists and delightedly drool on the rubbery fabric. Grandma's full-throated laughter intermittently rippled through the quiet nearby suburban homes when the ball would suddenly slip the baby's grip, leaving him momentarily beatifically stunned by this perplexing existential phenomenon. Grandma remembers how she herself had always loved to trace round and around the shape of a circle. Her own pudgy fingers would hold thick waxy bright crayons before she could spell words, and she would sit for hours creating circles within ever smaller circles in myriad colours of winding unbroken lines. Tempting tinkling sounds would at other times make her step outdoors where she would stalk the group of slightly older players and ambush their games to steal and lovingly gaze at the large handmade speckled glass marbles and wonder at the mystery of their kaleidoscopic fluid cocooned designs. And to this day, she remembers in England at the age of

thirteen, a museum-room collection of thousands of the most spectacular hand-crafted large and small round glass paper-weights, some with flowers, or butterflies and birds and animals, or silver and gold and copper filigree figures. Later that year, when she was reading Longfellow and Blake in Grammar School, the rhythms of lyric and hymn and prayer and adoration all coalesced in one poetic, symbolic line. It became for her, forever, the maxim of her life's pursuits, and the ideal nexus of the circle of life: See Heaven in a Grain of Sand. She knows there is weirdness, strangeness in her sentient response to the world around her. Perhaps, it is the fault of the Sagittarian Archer's arrow tipped atmospherically with the smoky night vapours, possibly hallucinogenic in its composition and effect on creative creatures. However, she glories in being such a creature; a child of the night, born in the dewy sheen of a cold December Monday pre-dawn, in the silvery light of the eerie witching-hour when Venus is just sharply declining below the ascending rim of the red sun . To this day, her psyche comes alive and alert when Luna reigns supreme in the celestial sphere; her six senses are heightened and the moods altered by the quarter- moon, the half-moon, the crescent-moon, and the full-moon. She gravitates magnetically to the waxing and waning moon as the ebb and flow of the tides surge through her flesh. A solitary lover of the night sky from her childhood, she is shepherded by the trajectories of the stars and the planets. Her breath is kissed by falling stars; her mind is radiated by meteor showers. She waits for the time to come when her grandson will walk tall and strong through fields of fresh wild flowers blooming in the white light of a night of full-moon. She will not be there by his side as he discovers the earth, as he takes his rightful portion of the enchantment in the cosmos, as he grows with the vows of true love and betrothal. There will be others with him in the family circle. She looks at the lush spreading branches of the Neem tree on the east, grown from a sapling transplanted from her mother-in-law's garden, and she whispers a prayer to zephyr to carry across the waves and over the clouds : be with him to find Heaven in a grain of sand, to draw a circle upon the sands of time, to weave a garland for his grandma's bones. Rebecca Haque is Adjunct Professor, Notre Dame University, Dhaka Bangladesh.

Murali Nagapuzha Lush greenery, little butterflies dancing on greenishyellow leaves, bees sucking on a blooming lotus, the haunting quiescence of an ancestral home ... artist Muraly Nagapuzha's paintings seek to touch and awaken long forgotten childhood memories and tempt you with the bewitching beauty of nature. For all of us caught in the web of city life, where young ones are more at ease fiddling with gadgets than spotting a caterpillar, the collection on display at the Kasthuri Sreenivasan Trust Culture Centre on Avanashi Road will make you pause, re-wind and recollect those summer holidays at your grandmother's house spent chasing an unruly calf or wading through slush to pluck out that half-open lotus. "Nature is a predominant theme in my paintings. I come from a village in Kerala where life is about small things, the butterfly and the cows, of children playing hide and seek and going fishing. It is the simplicity of village life which I have tried to capture here," says the artist about his eighth solo show. An idealistic vision where man, beast and birds exist in harmony is splashed in colours by Nagapuzha. 35

`Colours of Joy' besides traversing the charms of the country, also portrays struggles, like Nagapuzha's Tirunelli series. The virgin beauty of Tirunelli and the identity of the adivasis, which cannot be severed from their land, is poignantly captured in some of his paintings. Another subject close to the artist is children, who are his inspiration as well as theme. "Children fascinate me and these paintings are, to a certain extent, aimed at them. They need to be initiated to the minute facets of nature," says Nagapuzha, whose childhood and dream series takes us into the world of winged angels, colourful flowers and fancy flights. The artist, who is inspired by the legendary Bhupen Kakkar, also makes a flight into fantasy with his sleep and myth series. Nagapuzha has tried to weave legends and tales into his paintings on fantasy. Also on display is the floral series as well as portraits of tribal women. "In this age of universalisation, I wish to highlight ethnicity, our specific identity and our culture," he says. ANIMA BALAKRISHNAN (edited)

https://www.saatchiart.com/nagapuzha

It's August

of 1931 in Singapore,

Sixteen-year-old Lim Mei Mei (Ah Mei) arrives at the home of Eminent Mister Lee on the eve of the Hungry Ghost Month. She has been sold to the family as a mui tsai, an indentured servant girl. At the Lee household, Lim Mei Mei's life education begins. There she encounters the spirit of Ah Lian, a mui tsai, who paid the ultimate price for her mistake. Through Ah Lian, Ah Mei discovers the plight of mui tsai, who are both helpless and powerful, and uncovers a shameful secret lurking in the shadows in the Lee house. Ah Mei also meets and falls in love with Hassan Mohamed, an IndianMuslim and an aspiring poet, breaking every clause in the rule book of love in 1930s British Malaya. She becomes Hassan's Polar Star, and the young lovers must find a way to stay together. Through a twist of fate, Ah Mei finds a solution that will keep her and Hassan together, at the same time gaining agency that will secure her own future as an uneducated servant girl in British Malaya.

Eva Wong Nava was born on a tropical island where a merlion spurts water. Her ancestors braved monsoon winds sailing from the Middle Kingdom to British Malaya to plant roots in Southeast Asia. When the winds changed, her relatives sailed again and found another home somewhere in the western hemisphere, braving snow storms and hail. She combines degrees in English Literature and Art History, and writes stories that explore identity, culture, and belonging by adding a dash of magic. Eva has done many things in life, like banking and teaching, but writing remains her most favourite thing to do. She has written an award-winning middle-grade novel (Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards, 2018) and several fiction and non-fiction picture books. Eva has been a speaker at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content on writing diverse books and representing marginalised voices. She has performed and spoken to parents and children in the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and Singapore.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Little-Sisters-Wong-Nava/

Monalisa Sarkar Mitra “Since my childhood I am attached with arts. At first my parents were not aware of my passion so I used to draw with stick on soil. Later I started learning painting from Jamshedpur School of Arts. Thus time goes on. I completed "ankan ratna" I love my creations to make specially with Charcoal and Acrylics. My wish is to draw "Colours of Dreams" on canvas.” https://www.crafttatva.com/artistmonalisa-sarkar-mitra/

Intimate Love (Vol 2 )

Nidhivan

Intimate love

Bonding (Vol 2)

Nostalgia (Vol 1)

Dok Metal Castin

Khwaabgaon (Lalb

An initiative by Ch in collaboration with E January Khwaabgaon (Participants from Lalbaazar, 56

kra ng Workshop

bazaar, Jhargram)

halchitra Academy Emami Art Foundation y 2022 ,Uranshol & Kheorashuli), Jhargram, India 57

Dokra/Dhokra comes from the Gadwa tribal word ‘Dokna’ which mean casting. An ancient cire-purdue technique which was initially used by the Gadwas and Gond people settled around Central India, has found its way to different regions over the period of time. The changing dynamics of forest economy has led to the outmigration of these people and caused the dissemination of their unique knowledge. In Bengal, the artisans initially migrated around 19th century from Bihar’s Hazaribag Area, and eventually settled in Bankura, where the local kings provided them with agricultural land and habitat. Later on some families migrated to Dariapur-Guskara Area of Burdwan: the other important Dokra craft cluster in West Bengal. Although many anthropologists conclude that their ethnic ancestry lies with the Malhar metal casters but presently the artisans identify themselves as Karmakars in West Bengal. They produced brilliant metal icons, jewellery, utensils for their own sustenance but their art was initially neglected by the upper castes. During postindependence India, with interventions of craft revivalists, the Dokra art in India got some urban recognition, especially through the interventions of sculptors like Meera Mukherjee. Dokra practitioners in Bengal eventually found their place through different fairs but economically they still remain on the threshold.

In this workshop, Chalchitra Academy brought four master artists from Bikna to Khwaabgaon (adopted villages in Jhargram), where Lodha-Sabar and Bhil communities reside. The communities in Khwaabgaon have been marginalized due to their ethnic identities, which has snatched their opportunities of social and economic growth at many levels. Chalchitra Academy has been trying to introduce several capacity building programmes for the last three years, in order to make them more financially selfdependent. The workshop helped the natives of Khwaabgaon to learn the art of Dokra. Three studio practitioners, Amit Debnath (Assistant Professor of Govt. College of Art and Craft Calcutta), Prosenjit Das (Sculptor from Labhpur, Birbhum) and Rishin Ketan Shaw (Sculptor from Jhargram) attended the workshop. Two student observers – Sachchidananda Ghosh (MFA Final Year student of Sculpture from Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan) & Niladri Majumdar (BFA Final year Student of Sculpture Department, GCAC Calcutta) also attended the workshop. This activity fostered certain cultural exchange between the communities and helped disseminate the knowledge further. It was an attempt of conservation through community participation. All Dokra objects become part of an archive, as the making itself preserves the unique cultural and technical memory. Senior Artists Sri Amar Karmakar and Sri Mahadev Karmakar along with junior artists Sri Radheshyam Karmakar and Sri Bamdeb Karmakar participated in the workshop. Sri Bhanu Singha also accompanied them as helper. Sri Amar Karmakar and Sri Mahadev Karmakar has received many accolades at National and State level. Sri Amar Karmakar have worked at Indira Gandhi Manav Sanghrahalaya Bhopal and Crafts Museum Delhi amongst many other prestigious institutions. These people are probably the last generation of Dokra Artists from Bengal who are safeguarding the unadulterated technique. Due to the urban commercial demands their art has also suffered aesthetically over time. In this workshop we tried to revive their lost traditional forms and also bring out new forms without compromising the unique character of Dokra Art. The entire workshop was possible for the generous funding by Emami Art Foundation. Mrinal Mandal

“Dokra/Dhokra comes from the Gadwa tribal word ‘Dokna’ which mean casting. An ancient cire-purdue technique which was initially used by the Gadwas and Gond people settled around Central India, has found its way to different regions over the period of time.”

Woman

HỒ HỮU THỦ Ho Huu Thu was born in Vietnam, 1942. His home town is Nghe An. He has been painting since he was fifteen, then attended art school at the age of seventeen. He has been influenced by the art of Gauguin, Picasso and especially Chagall. As well as Nguyen Gia Tri,Vietnam’s best known lacquer master (1906-1993), who inspired the artist. He graduated from the National Fine Art College of Saigon in 1963, and He is one of Southeast Asia’s most important and respected artists and was one of the founders of the Young Artists’ Association in 1966 and is a former professor of the National Fine Art College of Saigon as well as a Member of Vietnam’s Plastic Artists’ Association and of the Fine Arts Association of Ho Chi Minh City. Thu is one of the most influential and respected artists in Vietnam today, with his works regularly featured at international auctions. He stands apart as a master, establishing trends in Vietnamese painting and leading the younger generation of artists.

Watching the moon

Lady and lotuses

Sisters

Two women

Lady

The Missing Tile and Other Stories is a collection of short

stories and Saeed Ibrahim’s second book after the widely acclaimed family saga, Twin Tales from Kutcch. The fifteen stories in this collection are slice-of-life, character-based portraits reflecting on various aspects of human behaviour. Drawing us into the lives of ordinary people, their cares and concerns and their very human foibles and failings, these people-centric stories are sure to resonate with a large spectrum of readers, both young and old alike. Although the stories are set in India, the underlying themes are universal in their relevance. Some are light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek pieces on the quirks and idiosyncrasies in people’s behaviour, whilst others offer surprising insights into human nature’s compassionate and humane side. The tenor in the funny stories is entertaining and in the more serious ones connected with socially relevant issues; inspiring and thought-provoking. A notable feature is that the various stories in the collection celebrate India’s diversity, pluralism, and composite culture, which regrettably have been threatened in recent times. Danesh Bharucha’s imaginative sketches bring to life the characters in the stories and are skilfully adapted to suit the ambience and mood of these evocative tales.

https://saeedibrahim.com/books/themissingtile/about

nayanaa kanodia A brilliant colourist, Nayanaa Kanodia, an economist turned painter, is considered to be the pioneer of l'Art Naïf in India, a genre until then unseen and unheard of in a contemporary context. She has since established a rare niche for herself in this very particular mode. Having had a French leave of absenteeism from formal training in art,enabled Nayanaa Kanodia to bring patterns of strong individualism into her work long before it was considered the sought-after approach for unique and contemporary artists of today. Having won the National Scholarship of the Government of India, she completed her graduation from Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi with an Honours Degree in Economics. In 1998 she was chosen from among artists of all The Commonwealth Countries by The Commonwealth Institute to have a solo show to inaugurate their newly renovated Complex in London. Based on the contribution she had made to L’Art Naïf she was invited by the world renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, UK in 2001 to demonstrate her painting techniques and exhibit her paintings in the gallery. She is the first Indian whose paintings are part of Paintings in Hospitals collection in the UK. Her works are permanently 80

My dropdead gorgeous look

Urgent delivery

displayed at Musee d'Art Naïf Max Fourny Halle Saint Pierre in Montmartre in Paris,France. Impressed by the social messages being conveyed in her paintings, a consortium of schools in Los Altos, USA, is using her work as a medium of instruction to their students. Nayanaa’s paintings feature in a recently published international book ‘Women in Art’ by Reinhard Fuchs. She was also honoured with an award by Megh Mandal Sansthan, Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India in 2016. She has recently been appointed as a juror for PrismaArt Prize in their Rome Dividere in Europe. She is the first Indian on their panel which is a great honour not only for her but also for our country. She has conducted numerous Art Camps in India and abroad. She has a teaching experience of two decades and was on the faculty of Spic Macay International. She gives talks and presentations on art in prestigious organizations and universities. In addition, she has been a judge in many art events, art fairs and art competitions. Nayanaa closely works with many charities and NGOs. Nayanaa’s paintings are in public and private collections all over the world. “My paintings intend to make you feel that you are watching a snapshot of life at maximum preposterousness, exuberant and bursting with energy, idiosyncrasy and absurdity. The conversation I hope to create in my work is a certain truth of life and, on a deeper level, a well thought-out philosophy. Individuals may

interpret my paintings in vastly disparate ways and each view will be equally logical and plausible, thought provoking and intriguing” - Nayanaa Kanodia “In Nayanaa’s paintings, waking life and the life of dream flow together. Her paintings originate in an unalloyed pleasure, a viewerly enjoyment of visual surface, narrative depth , and the games that artists play with their audiences. Nayanaa handles her materials with a lively and confident lightness of touch,with a sense of fun that is sometimes picaresque that verges hesitantly on the erotic, but excels in the shrewd tongue- in – cheek observation of individual psychology and the customs and manners of groups.” - Ranjit Hoskote, Art Critic “Having initially studied under me for a couple of years, Nayanaa went on to establish her own signature and carve out an important career for herself. India’s chief practitioner of Naïve Art, Nayanaa’s work delights the viewer with its whimsy, yet contains the most important social messages of our lives” - Padmashree Anjolie Ela Menon, Artist

https://www.nayanaakanodia.com/

The silent spectator

Moving house

The selfie moment

Our honeymoon journey

marisa r ng Table Talk

The invitation

he “Table Talk” series of paintings aims to open up dialogues on our heritage, race, culture and its traditions. It's about how we live and how the future generations will too. My father is Chinese. My mother is Malay. I was raised by the Chinese side in a Malay community. My neighbours are predominantly Malay. I am proud to say that I grew up in Malaysia, a multi-cultural country. Coming from a huge family, my childhood experiences were going to Chinese restaurants for dinners with our extended family and dining at round tables. We always had family dinners at the round table at home. A family that eats together stays together, and because we only have 1 round dining table, the family gathers there. There, we share food, stories and create wonderful memories that will last a lifetime. This is called tradition. The Chinese have always emphasized unity in their culture. The word “unity” has similar pronunciations with the words “round” or “circle”. The circle also represents fulfilment, oneness and perfection. A big family has always been a symbol of strength, wealth and power in ancient China and this ideology is still prevalent today. So fundamentally, in order to fit everyone at a table so they can talk to each other simultaneously, a round table is a must. The Chinese love having lots of dishes on the table and in the partaking of meals together. This means that round tables are the best for large presentations of dishes and everything is within reach of everyone. Dining tables in Chinese communities are usually in round shapes instead of long tables. There are two reasons for this. First of all, round tables keeps people closer. People can talk face to face easily around the table without yelling at each other. Second, “round” in Chinese is ‘yuán’ and the Chinese word for “reunion” is ‘tuányuán’. Therefore, the round shape symbolizes “the gathering of family” in Chinese communities.

We all have a table like this in our homes. It is a symbol of our union with our families, representing our sentiments and attachments to our families. In less than 2 weeks an annual epic migration will take place in all Chinese communities. Millions of people, men and women, young and old, the rich and the poor will find a way to return home to the round table reuniting them with their families. The Chinese New Year reunion dinner is an annual feast where family members reaffirm the love and respect that binds them together as a unit. This event is of a sociological and traditional significance as it ensures the solidarity of the family and its cohesiveness. The round table is relevant, practical and symbolic in cultures worldwide. Almost everything can be solved at the round table. The round table is where celebrations takes place. Where marriage vows are announced between loving couples. The mourning of the deceased. The negotiations between business partners and state banquets to welcome a president from other country; can all happen on the same round table. It is a place where millions of unique stories have been shared. I live in a predominantly Malay neighbourhood where Malay weddings are held. Rows upon rows of round tables will be lined up in front of their houses, spilling on to the streets where the “kenduri kahwin” feasts take place. Similarly, Malaysian weddings (Chinese, Indian and Malay) that are held at local municipal halls can consist of up to 100 round tables. These unions are big events in Malaysia. While the food on the table may change, the people at the table may come and go. The reasons why we come together varies but the significance behind it remains the same. In appreciating my multi-cultural heritage, sharing a meal together regardless of race and stature at the round table remains a true symbol of tolerance,

The union of hearts

Stories around the table

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care, love and respect not only for our families, but also for our community, our nations and the world. It’s where the magic happens. This is both how and where we connect lets do our part to promote unity!

https://www.facebook.com/marisarng.fineart/

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thor of several Kunalincluding Basu is the author of several novels, critically acclaimed novels, including Kalkatta. The and Kalkatta. The The Miniaturist Japanese Wife, from his collection of his collection of stories by the same name, has been made into an award-winning film. He name, has been has also written novels in Bengali, and winning film. for cinema. BornHe in Kolkata, he was educated in India and the United States. els inHe Bengali, lives in Oxfordand and Kolkata. Kolkata, he was You can reach him at d thewww.kunalbasu.com United States. nd Kolkata. Fiction

MRP `599 (incl. of all taxes)

Author photograph by Ajlai Basu Cover illustration and design by Pinaki De

For sale in the Indian Subcontinent only

asu by Pinaki De 102

Fiction

In an Ideal World Spread FINApenguin.indd 1

MRP `599 (incl. of all taxes) For sale in the Indian Subcontinent only

Brilliantly absorbing NOVEL ravish kumar Brilliantly absorbing NOVEL ravish kumar A SEARING ACCOUNT pratap bhanu mehta GRIPPING Shobhaa DE engrossing Shashi tharoor

Altaf Hussein, a young Muslim student, has been abducted from his college hostel. The authorities have washed their hands off the matter and the police are accused of a cover up. Rumours claim he has gone to fight the jihad in Iraq. More sinister rumours have him tortured and murdered for opposing the Nationalist students who are on a rampage to create a Hindu homeland in India, driving out Liberal supporters like Altaf and their decadent ideals. The divide between Liberals and Nationalists invades the Sengupta household in Kolkata when Joy, a bank manager, and Rohini, his schoolteacher wife—both compassionate humanists— learn the shocking news that their only son Bobby has become a leader of the Nationalist students and is implicated in Altaf’s disappearance. Disbelief turns to anguish when they encounter his belligerent ideology and his not-tooconvincing denial of his role in the Altaf affair.

engrossing Shashi tharoor

Out to solve the mystery of Altaf, Joy and Rohini discover conspiracy and hate, forbidden love and exceptional courage, come face to face with a world caught between the real and the ideal. But will they succeed in absolving their son of the heinous crime? Will Altaf be found after all? Or will they, and this fractured land, pay the ultimate price for harbouring a fractured heart?

22/11/21 1:22 PM

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thor of several novels, including Kalkatta. The his collection of name, has been winning film. He els in Bengali, and Kolkata, he was d the United States. nd Kolkata.

asu by Pinaki De 104

Fiction

MRP `599 (incl. of all taxes) For sale in the Indian Subcontinent only

In an Ideal World

Brilliantly absorbing NOVEL ravish kumar

by Kunal Basu Quotes

“After a long time, I finished a novel in between two flights. I was choked by the end. So relevant and real, it sent shivers up my spine. So truthfully foreshadowing our future. A must read for all – rightists, leftists and centrists.” Vishal Bharadwaj Award-winning film director

“Evocative, engrossing and shot through with the tension of a dangerous new era, Kunal Basu’s In an Ideal World explores the challenging dynamics of family Ties and political turmoil. Through the portrait of the Sengupta family and the kidnapping of a Muslim student, Basu paints a disturbing picture of a country where the ties that bind us have come under intolerable strain.”

engrossing Shashi Tharoor Shashi tharoor Indian parliamentarian, author and former UN Under-Secretary-General

“A gripping novel in which the political meets the personal in a ‘fractured land’”. Shobhaa De Author and columnist

“In an Ideal World is a searing account of a world shattered by commonplace prejudices and complicity. It is a powerful meditation on communalism and its irrevocable hold on our lives. Kunal Basu’s narrative gifts shed light on the deepest divisions of our times.” Pratap Bhanu Mehta Professor, Princeton University"

https://penguin.co.in/book/in-an-ideal-world/

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Bharti Kher BY KANU AGRAWAL Bharti Kher creates fantastic fables populated by animals awash in a great primal wave of semen-shaped bindis, pantheons of female human-ape hybrids, and spectral hosts in dainty domestic settings gone awry. With the wit and irreverence of a prankster and a mad scientist, she brings a camp sensibility to her fables which unfold against the backdrop of a technological and ecological dystopia where machines, humans, animals, and nature are out of joint. Kher’s hybrid creatures are fabricated from such a dystopian repository which architect Rem Koolhaas defines as “junkspace, a domain of feigned, simulated order, a kingdom of morphing.” Junkspace is a playful and residual spatial disorder that results from the unregulated growth of cities. Through her morphed objects and animals, Kher revels in the discomfort and comedy that result from her encounters with metropolitan and small-town India. Artists engaged with new paradigms of global and national space typically choose one of two paths. They may often reflexively mirror tropes from public culture or retreat into reflective 106

self-inquiries seeking respite from the chaos of the outside world. Kher chooses to reside in-between. Firstly, she draws on her own dual identity as an Indian with a British background. Secondly, she locates her work in-between a society, entrenched in class divisions and prescribed gender roles, that retains a strong desire to be, but has never been, ‘truly modern’ which for sociologist Bruno Latour is also ‘truly hybrid,’ a condition where distinctions between humans and nature, ecology and politics are blurred. Seeking such a blurring herself, Kher finds herself in-between the exterior, a society maladjusted to the vagaries of a global market, and the interior, a world of rituals and repressed desires. For Kher, morphing is a survival technique. It is a unique system of camouflage and deception engaged to resist old patriarchal regimes and to invent new hybrid worlds and hybrid creations. Kher’s creations poke fun at their own trajectory: rootless, as they traverse their in-between worlds.

https://bhartikher.com/

Cloudwalker

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The hunter and the prophet

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Mother and child;Amar, Akbar, Anthony

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The intermediary

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Yes/no

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Ship of fools

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Lady with ermine1

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The fallow

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Intermediaries 4.2

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G13 Gallery is excited to present Shafiq x Najib, an art collaboration by Shafiq Nordin and Najib Bamadhaj. They will present twelve pieces of artwork that each emphasise their unique interaction whilst applying their characterised art styles and techniques. Famed for their artistic sensibility and styles, Shafiq and Najib have both been active in the arts for more than 12 years. They have participated in numerous art fairs, international and local shows, as well as solo and group exhibitions. On this special occasion, these two artists whose friendship has lasted for nearly ten years will collaborate together, create their miracles and explode the art scene of Malaysia. This is not only a collaboration between pop culture and pop surrealism but also more a cultural conversation between local and the West. Shafiq x Najib runs from 19 February to 5 March 2022 at G13 Gallery.

https://g13gallery.com/exhibitions/shafiq-x-najib/

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Collaboration: Cultural conversation by Law Weng Yan

ow could surreal inter-flowing pop art style animals and local cultural figurative elements merge in the same artwork? I couldn’t even imagine, but Shafiq Nordin and Najib Ahmad Bamadhaj did it, incredibly. It is a physical conversation happening in paint instead of words. After having many discussions and multiple sketchings, Shafiq and Najib emphasized their diversity in artistic style and their unique interaction on the same painting, taking turns to create a series of works containing both of their creative signatures. It is a witness to their artistic sensitivity and mutual trust that these works fuse so brilliantly. What is interesting is that, as every artwork was painted by both artists whilst each was experiencing different mental states, audiences might discover different things whilst observing the same painting from various perspectives. Despite differences in their artistic styles, the two artists have unmistakable chemistry which is shown in the aesthetic cohesiveness of their collaborations in the paintings present. For an artist, the most important and delicate relationship they can have with another artist is one in which they are constantly challenged and intimidated. The greatest pleasure is to be provoked to the point of inspiration.

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The Beginning of a New Chapter X

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This puts me in mind of an essay by Boris Oicherman, the curator for creative collaboration at Weisman Art Museum: “...Initiating and establishing a working relationship involves sustained effort over a significant period of time, and here is where the wonderful intention of creative collaboration becomes exceedingly complex to implement.” Collaboration is a joint effort: it always starts with a discussion about ideas, concepts and messages. However, culture clash might occur during the collaboration process as the diverging attitudes, morals, opinions or customs of two dissimilar cultures are revealed. It takes me back to the Silk Road in the Tang Dynasty of ancient China. Culture clash stimulates deep communication between cultures, hence we can now see how the ancient Orient culture and Western culture communicate through documentary evidence and artefacts, and how the cultural fusion developed over thousands of years. Consequently, kaleidoscopic cultures and societies have appeared. People collaborate, making connections to enable different elements to touch. It might be a sort of pollination of culture or a cultural map-making that creates new routes for people and the world to recognise and know more about the existence of different cultures on our earth. Beyond all artistic collaborations in history, the one between pop artist Andy Warhol and graffiti prodigy Jean-Michel Basquiat is one of the most oft-quoted collaborative exhibitions. Their collaborative work

The Beginning of a New Chapter VI

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‘Olympic Rings’ is evidence of the fusion and intersection of the same theme in different art styles, as does SHAFIQ X NAJIB. This collaborative exhibition can be regarded as a wide-ranging conversation on arts and cultures between the local and the West. Najib Bamadhaj and Shafiq Nordin paved the way for the combination of both these art styles by erasing the differences and gaps between pop art and the local traditional cultural art style, reminding us of the unlimited potential that exists in creative collaboration. These two old friends have come to embody a profoundly symbiotic and mutually beneficial creative relationship. Seeing their works side by side, we encounter a playful selection of quotidian symbolic icons which sparks riveting semantic games. Representing the climactic moment of this extraordinary creative relationship, the quality of these works mirrors the depth of friendship between these two iconic contemporary artists. The mechanics of a mutually beneficial creative rapport are laid bare as stylistic differences blend in a harmonious synthesis, giving birth to an entirely new aesthetic language.

The Beginning of a New Chapter VIII

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eric quah LOVE Eric Quah is a Malaysian born artist who comes from Taiping Perak. Born in 1946, he uses art as a representation of his life journey where he states to make him feel like a gypsy. This is because he has lived in many countries throughout his life that include his home in Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and China while travelling to other continents across Asia and to Europe. In doing so, he has been able to see life from various perspectives, a privilege not enjoyed by many. Eric Quah’s Exhibitions Eric’s earlier works were known to be more romantic in many ways and one could see the gradual change in his works as he travelled more throughout his life. He now continues his art in Penang where he draws out his memories and injects them into his paintings and artwork. His past works and records see him travelling to many parts of the world where he has previously been the an art teacher in Malaysia. He also studied under the old Malaysian greats namely Lee Cheng Yong, Chuah Thean Teng and Chia Hui Kiam while he also studied and practiced art in Australia. He is the founding president of the Asia Pacific Art Organization and had previously visited Istanbul, New Delhi, Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand, among many other countries.

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https://www.facebook.com/artistericquah/about

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The voyages of the feat of Magellan-Elcano, the Manila galleon and the Silk Road

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The Manila Galleon and the Maritime Silk Road

A travelling exhibition in Alicante, Castellon and Valencia by the Silk Spain Institute.

Prof. Pilar Viviente Ah, blues of the sea! Paint me blue Of your confines I am prisoner Ah, blues of the seas! Paint me of eternity

Of your unexplored vastness I am prisoner A prisoner of freedom In the routes of peace A traveller An explorer Of oceans

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he Manila Galleon, also called the Galleon of Acapulco and Nao of China, was the name by which ships that crossed the Pacific Ocean once or twice a year between Manila (Philippines) and the ports of New Spain in America, mainly Acapulco, were known. The Exhibition: "The Manila Galleon and the Maritime Silk Road in the wake of the Nao Victoria" (El Galeón de Manila y la Ruta Marítima de la Seda en la estela de la Nao Victoria) was opened on December 16 2021 with the sponsorship of the National Commission of the V Centenary of the Magellan and Elcano' First Trip Around the World.

Levante" in the centre of the city that has made its facilities available to all Alicante and visitors completing with all its flavour of authenticity and its collaboration this naval, historical, playful and enriching exhibition. Silk Spain Institute held a Round table/ Conference once 2022 began, commemorating in that year the completion of the first circumnavigation of the world, entitled "The Manila Galleon and the Maritime Silk Road in the wake of the Nao Victoria” History, Present and Future, where in addition to the historical theme, the Silk Spain Institute presented and looked forward to an initiative on the Public Network of Bio-Ports and Coastal Municipalities, which has the Galleon as a symbol of cleaning ports, beaches, seas and oceans. A good way to keep the spirit of the Galleon and its values alive.

On December 10, 1520, an expedition led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano crossed what is now the Straits of Magellan, bringing it to the brink of the unexplored vastness of the For 250 years the route opened by Spanish Pacific Ocean. explorers between America and the Philippines was crossed by hundreds of galleons that, loaded The Silk Spain Institute (Instituto Seda España) with products and passengers, definitively presents this exhibition within the project turned the Pacific Ocean into a communication selected by the Commission of the V Centenary, route between two continents. one of the five chosen among those who opted from all over Spain to celebrate the fifth centenary The Manila Galleon crosses the Pacific Ocean of what was the first journey around the world. annually loaded with the greatest treasures of two continents and turns the ports of Manila The project consists of holding three conferences and Acapulco into distribution centres of an or round tables in each of the provinces of the international trade that ends up affecting the Valencian Community and the Exhibition "The entire world. While the piece of eight Hispanic Manila Galleon and the Maritime Silk Road in Americans (the Spanish dollar, also known as the wake of the Nao Victoria" that itinerantly the piece of eight. Spanish: Real de a ocho, Dólar began its tour by opening the exhibition at the or Peso) become a bargaining chip throughout Naval Command in Alicante on December 16 the Asian continent, silks and oriental luxury 2021, it will continue at the Moruno Building in items are scattered from Acapulco throughout the Grau of Castellon from February 1st 2022, America, reach Europe through Seville and and it will end at the Museum of the Higher Silk condition the fashions and tastes of the elites of Art College in Valencia from March 24th. half the world. The framework where the Exhibition is held for The first circumnavigation or round-the-world the first time, could not be more appropriate, the tour began in 1519 and ended in 1522. We Naval Command of Alicante in the "Muelle de are celebrating the V Centenary of this feat.

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According to the Silk Spain Institute, this event can be considered as the beginning of the direct connection with the Maritime Silk Road and the completion of the "Tornaviaje", origin of the Manila Galleon Route. What in fact meant the first mercantile, economic

and cultural globalization. It is the intention of this exhibition "The Maritime Silk Route and the Manila Galleon in the wake of the Nao Victoria" to highlight the fundamental participation of Spain in

Still taken from the video ‘Inauguración en la casa dels caragols en Castellón de la Exposición: ”El Galeón de Manila y la Ruta Marítima de la Seda en la estela de la Nao Victoria’ by Silk Spain Instutute.

the development of the Maritime Silk Route. As the Silk Spain Institute points out: We reflect this from the Silk Spain Institute responsible for the exhibition with the collaboration of UNESCO Silk Road Platform, and the support 138

and sponsorship of the National Commission for the V Centenary of the First Around the World (National Commission for the commemoration of the First Round the World of Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián

Elcano, “Comisión Nacional para la conmemoración de la Primera Vuelta al Mundo de Fernando de Magallanes y Juan Sebastián Elcano”).

in the new continent – what he believed the Indies looking for the land of spices, that is, the Maritime Silk Road always sailing west convinced of the roundness of the earth, gave rise to the The Exhibition therefore tries to reflect First Circumnavigation of the Globe that the adventure of Columbus' arrival started by Magellan and completed by

Juan Sebastián Elcano. Managing to find a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and reaching the Moluccas Islands, the Philippines (in honour of King Felipe) and the so-called Spice Route and

the Maritime Silk Road, returning to Spain through the Indian Ocean, doubling Cape of 'Buena Esperanza' (Good Hope) and going up the African Continent to arrive in Spain. Achieving the first circumnavigation of the world demonstrating the sphericity of the 139

earth.

charts, drawings of the time, models of caravels, galleons, xebecs (jabeques), ships of those This gave rise years after the hand of Andrés glorious and hard-working years. In addition, de Urdaneta and López de Legazpi to the spices, porcelain, clothing, silks, chasubles, and "Tornaviaje", that is, the return from the objects that were traded in the past are exhibited, Philippines to New Spain (both at that time as well as letters and charts from merchants, Spanish possessions). a facsimile of the diary of the explorer and Launching the geographer Antonio Manila Galleon Pigaffeta and a portulan Route was map of Juan Vespucci. considered the Moreover, we must highlight first global route a cardboard tapestry from in history since it the Royal Tapestry Factory linked Asia with for this exhibition, which America and is exhibited to the public Europe. Linking for the first time. Is this an the Maritime Silk honour that gives more Road from Manila value to the exhibition. with Acapulco and by land Acapulco The Cardboard for Tapestry with Veracruz and ceded by the Royal Tapestry from here with the Factory stands out in this Fleet of the Indies exhibition. The cardboard to reach Cádiz and is part of the "Triptych of Seville. Route that the Discovery of America", where Christopher lasted 250 years. Columbus appears in different scenes with the It was the trade and the tenacity Catholic Monarchs. This of the navigators, fragment corresponds to the e x p l o r e r s , left side of the triptych, in missionaries and which Christopher the interest of the Cardboard for Tapestry, corresponds to the left side of the triptych, in which Christopher Columbus appears kneeling before Queen Isabella the Catholic, with a chest full of jewels in his hands (Source: Royal Tapestry Factory).

Spanish Crown, who managed to pursue new routes within the reach of Europeans. These feats were achieved by Columbus, Vasco de Gama, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Magellan, Elcano, Urdaneta, López de Legázpi and many other fellow travellers.

Columbus appears kneeling before Queen Isabella the Catholic, with a chest in his hands full of jewels.

The beginning of the route between SpainAmerica-Asia was a consequence of Columbus' voyages across the Atlantic to reach the Indies; The show exhibits historical maps, navigation the discovery of the South Sea (Pacific Ocean) 140

by Vasco Núñez de Balboa; of the first return to the Earth carried out by the Magallanes-Elcano expedition and of the conquest of Mexico -New Spain- by Hernán Cortés, as the Naval Museum points out in a previous exhibition (The Manila Galleon. The Spanish route that linked three continents, 2016). The beginning, development and disappearance of the commercial route that for 250 years (15651815) united three continents requires more space. Just highlight that once the return route was found (1565), the Manila Galleon became the first commercial line that linked Asia, America and Europe with its base ports in Manila, Acapulco and Seville or Cádiz. The ship was due to leave at the end of June, the first week of July – the monsoon season – from the port of Cavite, in Manila Bay, and to reach its destination port in the last week of December. On the return trip, it sailed from Acapulco in March or April and docked at the Philippine anchorage around June or July.

an approximation to the world of XVI to XIX centuries, from points of view that will allow us to know a little more where we come from and who we are.” That extraordinary epic of multiculturalism and exchange that our ancestors put before history deserves to be known: the extraordinary reality of discoveries, interculturality and globalization that the Spanish Empire and what were then known as "the Spains" supposed. It is time to put an end to the widespread lack of knowledge, along with the over-abundance of misinformation and prejudice that exists about this topic. Actually, globalization began when the Old World connected directly to the Americas through Manila.

Despite in Mexico are used to considering Acapulco as the start of the route, in reality, the galleons departed from Manila, as pointed out the Mexican José Antonio Cervera Jiménez (2020) in his article "The Manila Galleon: Commodities, People and Ideas traveling across the Pacific The galleon shipping line brought prosperity (1565-1815)". to the markets of Manila and Acapulco. Asian products from the Moluccas, China, Japan, According to Cervera Jiménez, the route of Formosa, Siam and Indica arrived at the port of China's Nao cannot be explained without Manila. Arriving from the Pacific at the Acapulco reference to Manila's large Chinese community. pier in New Spain, they unloaded silks, tea, toys, The Philippine capital became the meeting place screens and Japanese lacquer ware, porcelain, or bridge between New Spain and the Empire jade, ivory, furniture, spices (cloves, cinnamon, of the Ming Dynasty. Legazpi, on his way to pepper), textiles from the province of Ilocos... Manila, found several captive Chinese and freed Subsequently, this merchandise was transferred them. Several of these captives returned to their by land to the port of Veracruz, on the Atlantic land and subsequently went to Manila to sell coast, where it was loaded again on the ships of their products. Trade between Spaniards and the Fleet of the Indies with final destination in Chinese grew in the last decades of the sixteenth the docks of Seville and Cádiz. century and the first decades of the seventeenth to expected limits. Thus, the route of the ManilaIn words of Enrique Gaspar Rodríguez, curator Acapulco Galleon or China's Nao was born. of this exhibition: "I trust that you will enjoy this modest exhibition and help to know For two and a half centuries European ideas something more about how the events were, crossed the Pacific, shaped the reality of countries what merchandise was transported, what spices like the Philippines and influenced others like were sought, what ships were used, that is, China and Japan. But this transfer of ideas, of 141

culture, of science, did not take place only in the direction of Asia. The hundreds who crossed the ocean from Manila to Acapulco influenced both the New Spanish vice-royalty and Europe. Religious and secular chronicles, letters and relations, made China and other Asian countries known to authorities, men of the Church and intellectuals of the countries of Spanish America and also European, developing a profoundly positive vision of countries such as China. Beyond the religious controversies, the Asian reality in America and Europe became known, which made this route one of the first that gave rise to a "global" intellectual and religious environment, in the broadest sense of the word. During the second half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth, the central period of operation of the trans-Pacific route, there was great regularity in the departures and arrivals of ships to ports. From the end of the seventeenth century, many European merchants - mainly English and Dutch, but also French, Portuguese, Swedish and Danish, came to Manila to benefit from the trade of Asian goods. While in the first decades, most of the products came from China, at the end of the period, already in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, goods from India were transported with a value similar to those from China. With the Bourbon reforms of Charles III, the monopoly of Manila was consolidated with the creation of the Royal Company of the Philippines in 1795, which made it possible for ships to arrive from Spain directly to the Philippine archipelago, along the route of the Cape of 'Buena Esperanza' (Good Hope). In March 1815 the last galleon, with the symbolic name of Magallanes, left Acapulco for Manila. No one can deny today the importance of this sixteenth-century trans-Pacific route, to establish a commercial and cultural relationship with Asia. Since the seventies of the last century, the work 142

of several economists revealed the complexity of the commercial financial mechanism of the Galleon Route. It has been said that the founding of Manila was the trigger for the first globalization of the world economy. Among the products that crossed the Pacific, there were fabrics of all kinds, especially silk. Amid the silk testimonies in this show of the first continuous and determined approach of populations from three continents, Europe, America and Asia, is the Manila Shawl. They were also luxury goods exported via the Manila galleons to Nueva España and Europe, sometimes as gifts to royalty. Silk, though attempted numerous times, never became an established industry in the Philippines. Silk fabrics remained a Chinese monopoly. Capitalizing on this new demand, Chinese factories in Canton (modern Guangzhou) and Macau started producing large quantities of painted or embroidered silk in the 18th century, for the sole purpose of exporting them to the Philippines and from there to further Spanish colonies and to Europe. Silk in domestic Chinese markets were usually reserved for clothing, and the designs had symbolic significance based on social status. But these silk exports by China during the 17th to 19th centuries were non-traditional items tailored to the tastes of the European market. In particular, they mass-produced religious vestments for the Catholic clergy, tapestries, and pañuelo-style shawls. Although these early Chinese-made shawls typically featured Chinese motifs in the embroidery, like dragons, birds, butterflies, toads, lotus, flowers, and Chinese people and scenes, they also adapted non-Chinese conventions like the fringes that the Chinese observed from the Philippines.

https://socialistfactor.com/

the April Fair in Seville, most of the women in Gypsy dress (flamenco dress) use the shawl as an accessory. The Manila shawl is also used by female flamenco dancers during their dance, as it is a great dance enhancer and adds drama when the flamenco dancer twirls it around her body and in the air. The Manila shawl is an integral part of Spanish culture today. My mother wore the one given to her by my father's mother. I remember my grandmother often singing the famous habanera "¿Dónde vas con mantón de manila? (Where are Manila Shawl exhibited in Castellón. Courtesy of the Silk Spain you going with manila shawl?), from "La verbena Institute. de la Paloma" (The verbena of the Dove), 1894. I have also heard my father singing this habanera These silk shawls became immensely popular in at home. the Philippines and were quickly adopted into the local fashions of upper class Luzon women The zarzuela or operetta of Tomás Bretón, in the 18th and 19th centuries. Similarly, they "La Verbena de la Paloma" or "El boticario, became highly sought-after luxury exports las chulapas y celos mal reprimidos" (The shortly after arriving in the Americas. They are apothecary, the chulapas and jealousy badly believed to have influenced later designs of the repressed) (1894), is considered as the queen of rebozo of Latin America. zarzuelas, the genre chico (of short duration). My paternal grandfather played it with the violin Their popularity in Spain increased after in the orchestra of the Zarzuela de Madrid, in Mexico's independence in 1815. The trade ships which she joined as a teenager and of which she from Manila, which previously had to stop over was a member for several years. in Acapulco, now had direct routes to Seville. During part of the 19th century, romanticism To end, let's remember how this habanera begins: took over and Parisian fashions dictated that the shoulders of women should be left uncovered. ¿Dónde vas con mantón de manila? Spanish women copied the fashion and they ¿Dónde vas con vestido chinés? found that the Manila shawl was a very good thing to wear with these dresses. Besides dresses, Where do you go with a manila shawl? it was also used to decorate pianos and sofas in Where do you go in a Chinese dress? elegant houses. Many Spanish houses today still use the Manila shawls to decorate pianos and At that time, everything that came from Asia sofas. was called Chinese, from objects to people. It is important to note that this designation was Today, the Manila shawls are still very popular not derogatory and even some genres were so in Andalusia for festive occasions. Women use appreciated, such as silk and porcelain, that the shawls for dressing up and going to parties. it was a source of pride to say that you had a During the Festival of the Crosses of May in product from China. Cordoba, balconies are dressed up with the shawl that add a bright look to the plazas. During 143

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Greater Action

Greater Action is a young non-profit social organization based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and helps to improve the lives of 250 vulnerable refugee families from Afghanistan and Myanmar, via specific programs and partnerships. With over 180,000 refugees seeking asylum in Malaysia, most of these refugees end up working long hours at large factories, at below-minimum wages just so their families don’t go hungry. Now there’s light at the end of the tunnel as Greater Action is breaking this cycle by providing sustainable businesses that empower these refugees.

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Kashke Bademjan

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Food, Art, Handicrafts, and some Greater Action

ar, persecution, death and suffering. Oppressive conditions such as these have forced many to flee their countries with their families in tow, for a chance at a better life in a foreign land. Sadly, once there, many find they cannot obtain decent jobs, get access to healthcare or even send their kids to school. This is the heart-breaking reality of the countless refugees from Afghanistan and Myanmar who Julie Das, 49, works with at ‘Greater Action’, a non-profit she co-founded with Dr Shazwan Sahabudeen, a healthcare advisor. Das and her team of volunteers watch over 250 refugee families, providing them with basic necessities, medical assistance as well as education for their kids, all through Greater Action. Asides from these initiatives, Greater Action is also equipping these refugees with the necessary skills they need so they can earn a living independently. It’s really important to Greater Action that they build something sustainable, so it’s not just them feeding the refugee families so that the system not only helps those in need, but gives back to the community as well. The vision is to create a dynamic community of self-reliant and skilled refugees that are self-sustainable, thanks to their skills training and education programs. Self-help is the ultimate aim. The refugee community that Greater Action works with is based in the Bandar Baru Ampang neighbourhood. Greater Action opened its first Greater Action Centre (GAC), also, located in Bandar Baru Ampang at the end of 2021. The aim of the centre is twofold 1) To foster Inclusion and Compassion by bridging the gap between the refugees and the ex-pats and locals in Malaysia 2) To foster Empowerment and Sustainability for the refugees over 16 years of age via activities around

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- Skills Training - Computer literacy - English language skills for practical use Inclusion and Compassion The ex-pats and locals can participate in various ways at the centre via the following projects: Greater Action Culinary The Culinary project started with a chef who fled Afghanistan with her parents and now uses her earnings from the project to support her bedridden father. Both parents were very old and her mother passed away in Malaysia due to negligence and lack of funds to bring her to a doctor and the girl’s father is now bedridden. Now all the money she earns through her cooking goes towards settling her father’s monthly medical bills. Currently, the project supports 4 women chefs and bakers and Greater Action hopes to include more if the orders increase. a) Order for home delivery: Currently, 4 refugee women have been empowered via skills training to cook Authentic Afghan Food, French Goodies, Brownies, Cookies, Jams, Chutneys, Afghan Tea and more. The menu has a choice of Vegan, Vegetarian and Meat based dish Each order is made fresh and since they only start prep once an order comes in, requires 24 hours advance notice. b) Authentic Afghan Luncheon Experience You can take a journey to Afghanistan via authentic food made by the refugee women and laid out and plated on beautiful Afghan rugs at the Greater Action Centre. This is open via pre-booking for a group of 5-12 individuals. c) High Tea Plan with friends & family to experience an array of delectable French and other baked goodies served with a hot cuppa. d) Afghan Food and French Baking Classes They have a monthly schedule of classes on their social media and can also arrange classes for a group on a date as desired by them. Greater Action Tailoring: Highly skilled and experienced tailors from the refugee community create an array of unique hand-crafted gift items, accessories, home

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Bolani

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linen and home decor with premium recycled fabric donated by supported of Greater Action. These products are available to view and shop at the Centre and will soon be available online as well via their upcoming online store. It started with a refugee couple, that took up tailoring as a means to earn a living when they came to Malaysia. She says the husband was an IT engineer back home while his wife worked as a mathematics and physics teacher. However, the harsh reality of life as a refugee sank in once they got here. “When I met the wife, she was very depressed. She told me she wanted to work but could hardly speak English. “We found her a machine, to keep her from over-thinking so she could keep herself busy with sewing,” Das says, explaining that the former

Chicken biryani

Lentil dip

teacher used to sew as a hobby before. “Today she’s my head tailor and her husband is even better than her,” Das says, stating the couple often tease each other about their sewing skills. Greater Action’s tailoring team can sew anything your heart desires from beautiful bags to soft quilts, colourful cushion covers and even wedding dresses. “We once worked with a hospital to make PPE masks which was great,” Das says, explaining that they would love to handle more “big orders.” “We also did a hamper for a company which was a lot of work but it’s really nice when companies want to order meaningful hampers,” she 152

says with a smile adding that it’s way better than receiving a hamper with the label ‘Made in China’ on it. Greater Action Art We support 9 young self-taught artists via this project. We help them via sponsorships and guidance. Some of their art work is on display at the centre and many of our visitors buy them or even request a meeting with the artists for custom commissioned pieces. Our next step is going to be art themed workshops conducted by these artists that the ex-pats and locals can participate in. In September 2021 we held a successful exhibition at the KLGCC East Residence Clubhouse in Bukit Kiara. Colours of Hope showcased artwork on the themes of hope, bravery and strength, successfully

Lemon and coriander hummus

opening doors for their future projects. Empowerment and Sustainability Apart from these activities which revolve around the ex-pats and locals participation in the welfare of these families, we have the following activities that are aimed to create a larger community of trained and self-empowered refugees. Vocational Courses (Tailoring, Culinary, Baking and Teacher Training) Teaching from new, or helping to fine-tune, enhance and finish to a higher standard, tailored items, Afghan cooked food including French baked goods too. And lower primary school teacher training. 153

Falafel (Vegan)

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Youth Coaching Counselling youths aged 16 and above, needing a positive sense of direction, support and purpose. Well-being Therapy and Counselling Emotional and spiritual support from our 20 certified and accredited holistic therapists, we partner with the London College of Clinical Hypnosis. Family Healthcare Partnering with the Family Reproductive Health Association (SWP FREHA), the first family planning clinic association to be founded in Malaysia, the sexual and reproductive health and rights of the refugees may be protected. Artist Development Sponsoring, supporting and guiding our self-taught young artists and other budding ones in the community. With a new government firmly in control in Afghanistan, Das notes that many Afghan refugees had become deeply anxious about the well-being of their loved ones back home. “Many of them don’t have news from their loved ones, be it parents, grandparents and friends,” Das says. “When they fled their country, not everyone fled and some of them came alone leaving their parents behind so it’s terrible when they hear that their village has been taken over,” she says, adding that many have lost family members due to bombings. Now while seeking refuge in Malaysia, Greater Action is helping them find a purpose in life and earn a living for themselves amid the anguish they carry in their hearts for those they left behind. To support a refugee through donations, or by purchasing a meal or handicraft, contact Julie Das at greateraction@gmail.com or visit Greater Action’s Instagram or Facebook pages. About Julie Das As a French-native who has spent a cumulative 20 years in Malaysia, Julie has been able to answer the humanitarian call in various nations. With a background in Education, it was fitting that Julie began this journey in 2009 with ‘Balo’, an educationfocused organisation in Kolkata, India. After relocating to Yangon,

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Myanmar following a return to Malaysia, Julie was able to develop ‘Linkage’, a vocational training project in F&B that targeted atrisk teenagers. As Julie moved back to Kuala Lumpur in 2017, she was able to form close relations with the refugee communities in her area, in particular with Afghan women, through consistent food distribution drives. Noticing a lack of local support for these vulnerable communities, Julie established ‘Greater Action’ in March 2020 to provide day-to-day solutions to all refugee or in-need communities in and around Kuala Lumpur. Today, Greater Action is proud to support 250 families with education, livelihood, health/ mental care, and women empowerment programs. Recent Greater Action Media Coverage * Please listen to my recent interview with local radio station, BFM. https://www.bfm.my/podcast/the-bigger-picture/good-things/ greater-action-for-refugees https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/culture/2021/11/09/ young-refugee-art-exhibit-spotlights-themes-of-hope-bravery-andstrength https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/toplifestyle/2021/09/19/greater-actionneeded-to-help-refugees-inmalaysia/

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Copie de raspberry financier

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with elegance

by Bee Lee Tan

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Long before Marco Polo, there were already many Chinese traders visiting Southeast Asia. Some eventually settled.

hilst many came by sea, others travelled overland to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma and Thailand. They blended their cultures with those of the Thai and Burmese etc. Most of the men were single and took local wives though many of them considered it as prestigious and fashionable to marry Chinese maidens from well brought up families. They adapted to local ways of life, and its cultural elements were incorporated into the mainstream ethnic Chinese culture. This evolved into what is known as the Baba/Nyonya culture in which the men came to be known as Babas and the women were called Nyonyas. Captain Francis Light first came to Penang in 1786, and under the British administration of Straits Settlement (Penang, Dindings, Malacca and Singapore), there was a great influx of migrants to Penang, for almost 40 years. For the next 80 years, Penang became a British Crown Colony, making Penang a strong magnet for trade, investment, and industry - more migrants came. The migrants inevitably brought with them the highly varied influences of their homeland's cuisines and taste expectations, into Penang. This helps explain the richness in variety of Penang Nyonya cuisine, and the languages ‘Penangites’ speak today. Most ethnic Chinese Penangites, including the Baba Nyonya community, can speak a uniquely sing-song Hokkien dialect. Of course, modernisation in communication (and opportunity to travel) have enabled comparisons to be made with similar communities around this region, and some interesting observations have emerged. In Baba Nyonya culture one can find many love stories, folklore, and poems known as pantuns written about the Baba Nyonya way of life in the good old days. Many poems were sung as love songs in Dondang Sayang during Nyonya and Baba festivals. From this Penang Nyonya cuisine, by some strange destiny, has successfully evolved to become one the cultural star attractions Penang has to offer the world, but at the same time, many also feel that if left 160

Tau eu bah

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Moon cake

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unattended or uncultivated, Penang Nyonya cuisine could be assigned to oblivion faster than they ever dare imagine. The art of Penang Nyonya cooking used to be compulsory learning for young girls. They were taught to practise cooking to a state of perfection before marriage, failing which they would be regarded by their in-laws as not being properly brought up and therefore be considered as a disgrace to her family. Intense training started in early childhood. Young girls were taught basic preparations, such as cutting pieces of onion and garlic, scraping coconut with the scraper, cleaning fish, peeling prawns, pounding chillies with pestle and mortar, and using a grinding slab to make curry paste. The second step would be cutting vegetables into floral designs, cutting meat and a gradual introduction to cooking. The beginner was always under strict supervision of the elderly members of the kitchen. Nyonyas are known to be meticulous in their cooking With the use of modern appliances, Nyonyas now admit that the work in the kitchen is less tedious and time consuming than before. However, traditional Nyonyas believe that their old methods of grinding, pounding and cooking their food are the best methods in producing the full flavours from the ingredients - something that cannot be done by modern appliances. The basic ingredients in Nyonya cooking are lemon grass, pink bulb flower, galangal, coconut milk, chillies and spices as well as palm sugar, rice flour and screw pine leaves - the list goes on inexhaustibly. Marriage 'worthiness' or potential of a Nyonya girl was judged by good cooking skills, good looks and a sweet disposition. Privileges such as longer stays in the maternal family were extended for young Nyonyas who cooked well, and got along well with their husbands' household members.

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Penang laksa and Thai laksa

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Fried bean curd spring roll

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See sar goon

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Chinese wooden moulds

Penang Nyonya Cuisine With Elegance This new book has nearly 280 pages of festive, achar, kerabu, vegetarian, comfort, replenishing, hawker of the Penang Nyonya Cuisine that anyone would love to cook and enjoy. The soft cover is 180 Ringgit Malaysia (approx USD 44) the hard cover is 230 Ringgit Malaysia (approx USD 55). A set of 2 is on promotion for 390 Ringgit Malaysia (approx USD 94). Postage extra

beeleetanpenangnyonya@gmail.com 170

https://arecabooks.com

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In Buddhism the lotus plant is symbolic of the struggle of the individual gaining an ‘awakening’. Each stage of the lotus’s growth represents a different stage towards ‘Nirvana’ (Nibbana in Pali) which means the end of desire and therefore the end of suffering (awakening). First the lotus seed, fallen from the dried pod and grown in mud, represents humans born in ‘Samsara’ (the everyday world) a world where there is ‘Dukkha’ (translated as suffering, unhappiness, pain, unsatisfactoriness or stress), which is part of the human experience.

Martin Bradley’s latest chapbook concerns the growth of the lotus flower and quotes from the Buddhist Dharma (Dhamma). It is a combination of photos he has taken of the lotus taken in, India, Sri Lanka and Cambodia, over a period of 18 years.

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authentic Dharma quotes....

https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/lotus

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....original photographs

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Martin Bradley Martin Bradley is the author of a collection of poetry Remembering Whiteness and Other Poems (2012) Bougainvillea Press; a charity travelogue - A Story of Colors of Cambodia, which he also designed (2012) EverDay and Educare; a collection of his writings for various magazines called Buffalo and Breadfruit (2012) Monsoon Books; an art book for the Philippine artist Toro, called Uniquely Toro (2013), which he also designed, also has written a history of pharmacy for Malaysia, The Journey and Beyond (2014). Martin wrote a book about Modern Chinese Art with Chinese artist Luo Qi, Luo Qi and Calligraphyism from the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China, and has had his book about Bangladesh artist Farida Zaman For the Love of Country published in Dhaka in December 2019.

Singapore 2012

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Malaysia 2012

Bangladesh 2019

hilippines 2013

China 2017

Malaysia 2014

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THE BLUE LOTU

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US CHAP BOOKS

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THE BLUE LOTU

The Blue Lotus magazine is published by Martin A Bradley (

by Martin Br

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US BACK ISSUES

(The Blue Lotus Publishing), in Colchester, England, UK, 2021

radley

...a selection 181

Lotus Lotus

The Blue The Blue

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ISSN 2754-9151 • NO. 53 • SPRING ISSUE • 2022 • THE BLUE LOTUS is published quarterly by The Blue Lotus Publishing (M.A.Bradley), Colchester, Essex, England, UK. © 2022 M.A.Bradley. All rights reserved.

The Blue Lotus magazine issue 53

Articles inside

Bee Lee Tan

Rebecca Haque

Nayanaa Kanodia

Murali Nagapuzha

Shafiq x Najib

Marisa R Ng

Mohan Samant

Great Action non-profit

Prof Pilar Viviente