A Little Box

About the author

Debbie Lim

Debbie Lim’s poems have appeared regularly in the Best Australian Poems series (Black Inc.) and Contemporary Asian Australian Poets (Puncher & Wattmann), among numerous other anthologies and...

More from this edition

Sad stories you are old enough to hear

Non-fictionThis year, a ‘news anchor’ raised a question about why Muslims participate in the garba when they don’t believe in idol worship. It’s a bit like saying people should not be allowed to put up a Christmas tree if they haven’t been baptised or taken the sacrament. Thousands of non-Catholics attend the feast of Mount Mary in Bandra. People of all faiths attend the Urs of the Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer and the Sufi saint Waris Ali Shah at Dewa Sharif. Hindu devotees going to the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala also visit the Vavar mosque en route. That news anchor’s question poisons the breath of our country.

Let there be light

IntroductionWhether they’re personal, cultural or religious, these are the stories that offer us ways of orienting ourselves amid the sheer chaos and confusion of being alive – particularly today, as humanity’s existential and environmental crises continue to mount.

The age of discovery

In ConversationPrior to Homo sapiens, populations might have just moved on or gone extinct in the face of environmental risks, whereas with Homo sapiens we were able to disperse widely across the world despite great ecological challenges. The underlying reason for that may be rooted in our social relations, our high level of co-operation – we don’t necessarily see that with earlier human species.