With Venetian explorer Marco Polo writing interesting notes about the southern parts of India (and Italian Christopher Columbus reading them on his historic journey across the Atlantic), the tradition of Europeans writing travel narratives about India is long. But it perhaps had a more formal start with the diaries of Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, the first European to discover a sea route to India.
This tradition grew stronger through colonial times and continues to grow even today. Western travellers, anthropologists, linguists, historians, fiction writers and even politicians and diplomats have written extensively about the Indian Subcontinent. While some of the narratives are systematic and very convincing, even for the natives, others contribute to what Edward Said theorised as “Orientalism” a representation of the Orient as it is not.
Raegan Bradbury (Misawa, Aomori Prefecture)
The 11-year-old haikuist at Sollars Elementary sketched a peaceful scene of sea turtles returning on the tide to lay eggs on the beach where they were born. His classmate, Aaron Royston, discovered a remarkable stone.
Small ravine
of a stone goddess
Arvinder Kaur alluded to the words of Peggy Willis Lyles (1939-2010), which appeared in a 1980 issue of “Cicada” in Canada: summer night we turn out all the lights to hear the rain.
quarantine
to hear the rain
Noisy Brood X periodical cicadas that remained underground for 17 years are emerging by the trillions now that ground temperatures are soaring over 17 degrees Celsius in North America. Haikuists have to clamor quickly to mark this generation in 17 syllables. Soil warms earlier because of climate change. Before 1950, cicadas used to emerge at the end of May; now they’re already singing. Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) experienced both rain and insect songs in Yamagata Prefecture.
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