WESTWIND MIGRATION ZINE
Payesh On August 14, 1947, Lili turned nine years old. But Ma and Baba told her she couldn’t have her birthday favorite this year - rice pudding mixed in with traces of cardamom, saffron and vermicelli. Instead, she had to flee from her hometown, Dhaka, that night. The state of Bengal was getting divided into two – East Bengal would contain all the Muslims in Pakistan while West Bengal remained a part of India and would house all Hindus. So, Lili’s family was taking the overnight bus to travel all the way from their home in Dhaka to Calcutta, which was 150 miles away. All this just to remain in India - the country they called home. Lili didn’t really pay attention to the rest of the conversation which took place between her parents over breakfast. She didn’t know she was a Hindu. She didn’t know her best friend Faiza was a Muslim. And she certainly didn’t know that life didn’t always turn out the way she wanted it to like in the Aesop’s Fables, the dog-eared book on the bedside table she would read diligently every single day. All Lili could think about right now was Ma stirring the pot of rice, milk and cream in her past birthdays and the aroma of warm payesh wafted into her mind, reminding her of the fox hungering for the luscious grapes in the fox and the grapes story. “Ma, where’s my birthday payesh?” she said. “Go play with Faiza, shona,” Ma said, trying hard to fit all their clothes and life’s belongings into an antique leather trunk. Ma said Faiza wasn’t coming with them to Calcutta. Lili wondered why. Her family deserved to go for a vacation too.
Faiza’s mother, Kaki, let Lili have dinner with them - chicken curry and rice every single day. Although it tasted delicious, Ma would then force Lili to come home and eat dal and boiled veggies too. Lili hoped Faiza would let her eat dinner today so she could avoid the vegetables at home. Lili skipped down the street and bumped into Kaki walking out of her front door. “Lili, be careful,” she said. “Today isn’t a day you should be running on the streets.” “It’s my birthday, Kaki,” Lili said, fiddling with the two braids that Ma had tied her long black hair into. “Ma said I could play with Faiza for a bit.” “It’s a shame your birthday is on the day of the partition,” Kaki said. “Faiza has been crying ever since I told her about it yesterday” “Don’t worry, we’ll come back to visit after a year. Ma told me.” Kaki ruffled Lili’s hair, kissed her on her cheek and left, leaving the door open. “Faiza, where are you?” Lili peeked into all the rooms of their tiny house. “Finishing up some homework,” Faiza’s voice resounded from the bedroom at the back which she and her two sisters shared. Lili ran into her room and jumped onto her bed, imitating the fox in the fox and the grapes story. Ma didn’t understand why the fox cared about the grapes so much that he would keep leaping towards the juicy grapes. But Lili did. She wanted
payesh with the same fervor. “Faiza, I’m nine, I’m nine!” she said, bouncing up and down on the springy mattress. “Who cares,” she said, sitting on the floor with her mathematics notebook and a pencil in her hand. “Ma said you’re leaving us.” “I’ll be back in a year,” Lili climbed down from the bed and hugged her hard. Faiza pulled Lili’s arms off her, “You can’t come back to Dhaka. Ever. You’re a Hindu, I’m a Muslim.” Faiza was three years older than Lili and slightly smarter. Still, she couldn’t possibly know the future. After all, how hard could it be to go from one country to another? In Lili’s book, the crow was able to satisfy his thirst by dropping pebble after pebble into the water pitcher. Traveling was probably just as easy once you had all your documents. She had asked her teacher, Mrs. Thomas about it last week. Mrs. Thomas said all you needed was a passport, a visa and a place to live in. Lili could get the first two if she asked Ma and Baba to give them to her as birthday gifts. And Faiza’s bari was always open to her. “You’re wrong, Faizu. With a passport, I can visit you every year.” “But Baba said only sahebs get passports and visas. We don’t.” Lili started twirling her braids with her fingers. Things would change. Faiza would see she was wrong. The crow drank his fill after some hard work, why couldn’t she? “Can I eat dinner with you today, Faizu?” “Ma said no one should be out on the streets after the sun
sets today. You should go home soon.” “Fine, I’ll go,” Lili told Faiza and ran out of the house, tears blurring her eyes. Lili trudged down the street, dreading the taste of yellow soupy dal that she’d have to eat when she got home. So, she started walking the opposite way, towards the sweet shop instead. Maybe Abdul Kaku would give her some payesh for free if she told him it was her birthday today. He always gave her an extra sandesh and called Lili a mishti mei every time she went to his shop with Ma. “Kaku, it’s my birthday today,” she said, banging open the door to the sweet shop. “I’m closing the store in a few minutes,” the old, grey-haired man said, while sweeping the store’s dusty floor. “Kaku, please give me some payesh, then I’ll leave.” “Foolish child,” he said, fiercely sweeping the lint and dust towards Lili, making her cough. “Go to your own bari. It’s because of people like you that my bari is getting rioted.” “But I didn’t do anything, Kaku. Ma and Baba are making me go to a new bari tomorrow.” Abdul Kaku was a 65-year-old Muslim man who had lost his wife and two kids to tuberculosis when he was 30. He no longer had any illusions about the world being good and fair. Although Lili’s innocent optimism tore at his heart, he knew he couldn’t help her without attracting the suspicion of his fellow neighbors. He was never the hero for his family and never would be, so why try? “Ja. Stay on your side of the country,” Kaku said, throwing a
lone sandesh out of the window. Lili left the shop with the mixed aroma of fresh sandesh and ancient dust in her nostrils but her heart felt heavy, just like the time she had witnessed Ma burn herself with the heavy coal iron accidentally. Ma didn’t scream, just shrouded her face with her hands and counted to ten till the pain subsided. Lili did the same right now. Then, she picked up the white sandesh lying on the pavement and scrunched it up in her palm, the minuscule pieces of sugar and cream falling onto the road, gone forever. Now, Lili truly knew how the dog felt when he dropped the only piece of meat he had in the running brook in the dog and the shadow story. As she walked the four blocks home, the sun’s reddishorange rays disappeared beneath the horizon and Lili heard the distant shouts and uproar of the religious riot starting in the market square. Ma and Baba had warned her that there would be fighting between the Hindus and Muslims in the evening because of the partition. In the morning, she had listened to their lectures and decided they were wrong. Why would people fight against other people, ones they knew and loved? But after listening to Abdul Kaku’s rebuke, she wasn’t so sure. She walked ahead brusquely, lacking her usual smile. A part of her realized there must be more people like Abdul Kaku who wanted her to leave this city. But she couldn’t help wishing for a miracle anyway. The stories peppered in her book filled the expanse of her mind, overshadowing reality. She had given up all hope of payesh until she approached the house and saw Ma stirring milk and rice in a large saucepan,
through the glass window. “Just in time for some payesh, shona.” “Ma, Faiza told me we’ll never be able to come back to Dhaka. Why did you lie to me?” Ma cupped Lili’s cheek in her hand, “You’re so young, I don’t want you to face reality just yet. Faiza is your friend now but someday she might hate you for the religion you belong to.” “But in my book, the lion and the mouse save each other even though they’re not friends. Maybe we can too. Maybe we can come back here someday and Faiza will still love me and Abdul Kaku will give us mishti and everything will go back to normal.” “Maybe,” Ma said, spooning warm payesh into Lili’s mouth.
Yimakh Shemo*, or the Liberation of Theresienstadt An egg cracks and spills opulence outside Regina’s window: a poor girl’s first memory. Blood and soil turns up mud, unearths an underground railroad, and exhumes fresh corpses. Regina and her sons, Emrick and Walter, are shoveled into the cell between seas of seared shoes, and ceasefire. The crown of Regina confesorum, fake Lutheran, is bejeweled by German, French, and Slovak as she processes at the funeral of her captor – can’t help he was a Schweinehund. Meanwhile, Emrick descends the last bites of of food by string to the bony wisps of spirit who moan below. Theresienstadt ends when the Soviets come, and the chimeras raise their soiled, blood-stained hooves! And Rose blooms Rick and Walt in America. *Hebrew for “May his name be obliterated.”
untitled the mynahs were the arbiters of your fate— one for sorrow, two for joy, ten for death. every time you saw one mynah, you promised yourself there was another just lurking in the closest bush. once, in bangalore, you saw fourteen mynahs in a field. you decided, i will feel happiness twice, and then, i will die. once, in bangalore, six years later, you listened to a train hum over your head and watched a clock tick towards midnight, each tick grating you until your ashes were scattered on the street. four mynahs came to pick you up, your two moments of joy. ~ the crows were your teachers. they taught you to usurp the duties of god, turn black to experience the night that has been held from you, but still make enough noise to ripple darkness that cannot pretend to be empty. hollywood fears both crows and bloody women, so to be either— or both—is admirable. ~ you wrote once: i want to cling to the tails of migrating pelicans to see where they go, to see what strange fish they carry in their beaks. in winter they came in hundreds and settled on the lake, a froth
of white feathers and water, sometimes erupting from within you, beaks tearing their way through your own insufficient mouth. you watched as the winter pelicans left you, leaving you with a shredded oesophagus incapable of swallowing food; they were replaced by inert marsh plants that sometimes flowered, but of which there were too many. concrete had devoured the wetness from which you had all emerged. ~ the koels were gentle. they fed you when the hunger was crippling, soothed you to sleep after. they followed you to lucknow and delhi, reassuring among too-fast dialects of hindi, red-eyed from maternal tiredness. but when you flew to america, they would only fly with you till the immigration line—then they joined the pigeons in the airport rafters. birds do not belong in america, they said. in that place, birds are hunted and sold, wrapped in plastic, to celebrate a genocide. ~ the crows nodded. they said, do not be afraid of thresholds. shit on people’s heads frequently: if you do it with enough
confidence, they will convince themselves it’s good luck. ~ you told your mother, i am tired of learning from the crows, travelling with the pelicans, i want a beak of my own. your mother, an expert seamstress, made you a skin that fit better than your own, settling well into the space between your fingers. with this, you could fly as close to the sun as you wanted. ~ after months in america, you asked the sun: birds are real, right? birds are real? all you got was the smell of melting plastic. you were turning the charcoal black of a crow. on land, you do not perch with both feet on separate wires; you fear quick electrocution, but not the slow fire.
The Bohan Blessing My grandparents met at Manzanar. They fell in love behind the relocation center’s barbed wire barrier, their first words whispered beneath the glare of the guard tower. It was a quiet love, a love that blossomed out of polite conversation and shared disbelief at the world, how one’s universe could possibly become so foreign so fast. It was a wartime love, an imprisoned love. Somehow amidst the other 10,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated at this internment camp, one of ten, settled just at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, somehow they had found each other. They had found each other, and in each other they had managed to fashion some semblance of home. The night before my grandfather left for the war, my mother was conceived on a straw mattress on the dirt floor. Outside the wind rattled, beating against the wooden walls and causing the dust to rise as the frigid night air seeped through the thin tar-papered barrack. Nine months later the night my mother was born, my grandfather was on the other side of the world fighting for America, willingly risking his life, the last thing that was still his own, for the same people that had already taken everything else from him. When my mother was born, she was blessed with a bohan, which stretched along her right arm. The birthmark was large, the dark brown pigment blooming across her pale forearm, staining her marble skin like ink. Each night my baachan, my grandmother, would kiss the bohan, praying for good fortune, that the war would soon end and my grandfather would return home safe. Two years passed. The war ended. Baachan and my mother Yuko returned alone. For my mother, my grandfather’s death is inescapable. Her family’s loss, the loss of their house, her
father, our freedom forever stained on her right arm. We are all still stained with sorrow. ~ My parents met when they were children and quickly became friends. They spent their summers picking boysenberries in the fields together in Lone Pine, painting their bodies with the dark purple juice of the bulging berries as the fragrance of August clung to their clothes with sweat. For many years before the war, my parent’s families had been neighbors, but they had also been friends. When Baachan returned from Manzanar, my father’s family was the only white family that even attempted to keep alive the strained vein of friendship that had become so withered by the war. The two families were no longer close, but my father’s parents were polite, civil, a hint of old loyalty shining through as they let their son John continue to play with my mother on occasion, despite the disapproving talk of the town. “They were kind people,” Baachan once said. “They weren’t saints, or rights activists or anything special. But when we passed by them in the street they smiled, they stopped to say hello. It wasn’t anything special, but it was something.” ~ My parents’ love was not a quiet love, and it did not blossom out of polite conversation. It seared, white burning embers sparking from heated arguments about what the town would say, what the town would do, if they knew, if anyone knew, it would be the end. “Marry me,” my father said. They were leaning against a
wrinkled tree trunk in an open field peppered with naked bushes, the last of the boysenberries having already been plucked and eaten. My mother was nineteen, working in town as a journalist for the Lone Pine Breeze. She could no longer count on her thorn-pricked fingers the number of times my father had asked her to marry him. He repeated those two words, slipping them into nearly every conversation, in the kitchen as she baked piecrust, on the weekends as they danced together in my father’s living room, in the boysenberry field as she lay with her head in his lap. “I’m not having this conversation again,” she said not looking at him. “Marry me,” he repeated simply. My mother sighed, sitting up. “For Christ’s sake Yuko,” he groaned, “why do you have to care so much about what other people think?” “This isn’t about what other people think John,” my mother said with growing anger in her voice. “This is about what other people will do, what they already have done. You saw Mr. Nakamoto’s store last Saturday. This isn’t about feelings anymore. It’s bigger than that.” A week earlier a couple of drunken men had vandalized Mr. Nakamoto’s market. He had arrived the next morning to find the front windows had been shattered, glass littering the floor like sparkling daggers dripping wet with moonlight. Spray-painted in dark red letters, the words “Fucking Jap” bled across the front door. “I’m not letting drunk bastards and town gossips dictate my life,” my father said. “I’d risk everything before I’d risk losing you.” My mother’s brows furrowed in frustration as her eyes
stared off in the distance. Without thinking, she covered her bohan with her left hand, kneading the skin like dough in anxiety, tensing her fingers until her knuckles turned white. ~ “I won’t marry him,” my mother said. “You love him,” Baachan replied plainly. “I’m tired of worrying about what could happen to him, to us. I’m tired of fighting. Besides even if I did marry him, I think, deep down, a part of me would always resent him.” “For being white,” Baachan said. “For dad,” my mother added. “For everything.” The two women stared at each other in silence. “Yuko-chan, do you know why your father chose to fight in the war?” Baachan asked. “I thought he had to. I didn’t know he had a choice.” “They all had a choice,” Baachan said, shaking her head. “To stay at camp, or to fight. Your father chose to fight.” “He chose to fight for the same government that imprisoned him? How could anyone choose that?” My mother asked in disbelief. “Hokori,” Baachan said. “Pride. Your father was proud to be an American citizen. He was proud to fight for his country. He was born on this land. Everyone he loved, everything he knew was here, and he was proud to fight for it.” “But after everything they did, after everything they took from him, from both of you?” my mother asked. “Everything they did, they said was because he was not an American. But your father knew in his heart that, in part, he
was. Not fully, never fully, but a small part significant enough that it could not be forgotten. When we pick and choose our battles, what we choose to fight for is important, but sometimes it’s in the things we let go where our real victory lies.” ~ I was seven years old when Baachan died. I sat in the pew of the front row next to my parents, the shine of my black patent Mary Jane shoes glinting, inches above the floor. I listened as speaker after speaker stood and presented before the podium, each one sharing different memories and moments, snippets of my grandmother’s life. Growing up, Baachan had told me hundreds of stories. Sitting at the kitchen table nibbling moon pies together, she had told me of Momotaro, the boy who emerged from a peach found by an old lady in a river. She had told me the story of Shitakiri Suzume, the tongue-cut sparrow. I listened with wide eyes and marshmallow crumbs trickling down my chin as she told me tale after tale, not one of them hers. We never spoke of her past. We always spoke of tradition and of bravery, but never her own. But the men at the funeral did. They all told stories of Baachan’s struggles, but also of her spirit, of the courage it took to keep brightness alive even in the darkest of times. They told stories of camp, Baachan going to school at camp, Baachan meeting my grandfather at camp, the day she finally left camp. When I asked my mother what camp was, she paused. “It’s where Baachan went to live for a little while,” she replied. “It’s where she met Jiichan, it’s where they fell in love.”
“But why go to camp if it means she had to leave home?” I asked. “Baachan didn’t leave home,” my mother said. “She brought it with her, and when she met Jiichan, she brought him into our family. We make our own homes, Fumi-chan, remember that. We make our own homes, and we can make a home anywhere.” ~ There are days when my mother’s body stings with pain. The loss of both of her parents gnaws at her bones. Her chest heaves, choking on a sudden flood of emotion, the cracking motion of her tired heart aching to beat all the darkness away. The mark on her right arm finds its way into her familiar grip. She grasps the skin and cries. There is a world in her memories that I have not yet known. For me, my Japanese heritage is just one of the many things that I am, a second thought, a lesser half tempered by the American culture that consumes me. But for my mother, it is the blood that courses through her veins, the pigment that leaves her skin stained. I know there will be a day when I will face the same loss, the loss of a parent, and perhaps the loss of an equality that I have come to take for granted. For now there is nothing we can do but remember, and when I hear her heart breaking there is nothing I can do but hold her. It is on these days, when we are shattered, that we plant seeds in the cracks and pray for rain to wash our stains away.
WINTER 2018 Content “Payesh” by Kuhelika Ghosh “Yimakh Shemo, or the Liberation of Theresienstadt” by Eric Fram “untitled” by Tulika Varma “The Bohan Blessing” by Kalena Tamura Editing Emily Parson Eunice Shin Design Dylan Karlsson