Flinders Academic Commons

Rodopoulos, Loula S.

Two poems: 1. Cameo bracelet; 2. Nostos

Boey, Kim Cheng

The Year of the Horse

Tribute to Dr Rick Hosking at his retirement party: transcript of Address by PhD Candidate Adrian Thurnwal

Thurnwald, Adrian

  
Adrian Thurnwald. ‘Farewell to Associate Professor Richard Hosking’. 
Transnational Literature Vol. 4 no. 2, May 2012. 
http://fhrc.flinders.edu.au/transnational/home.html 
 
 
Farewell to Associate Professor Richard Hosking, 27 April 2012:  
Transcript of Address by PhD Candidate  
Adrian Thurnwald 
  
When I met Rick I was sitting, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-
Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher – the Wonder House, as 
the natives call the Lahore Museum. ‘Little friend of all the World’ they called me, 
back then, and I’m one hundred per cent certain they weren’t being ironic. 
 So I jumped down from the great gun – they say whoever holds that gun holds 
the Punjab – because, though I thought I knew all castes, I spied a man the likes of 
whom I had never seen before: nearly six feet high, lush and snowy hair, full white 
moustache like that of Fook Shing, the Chinese bootmaker in the bazaar. I learned 
shortly that his name in the tongue of his own people was Rick. 
 ‘Ah,’ I thought then and there. ‘This man must be my Lama.’ 
 My Lama spoke at length about journeys to unimagined places and of wisdom 
I had never known. Myself, being a rough boy of the bazaar, could not fathom this 
existence of his. My Lama seemed to lead a life almost completely detached from the 
Wheel of Things, the life of materialism and suffering I saw around me, and he was 
on a quest to find the River of the Arrow, where he said his own spiritual journey 
would be complete. 
 I accompanied this Lama for a time, becoming his Chela, and we travelled 
together down the Grand Undergraduate Road. 
 But the spiritual life was not the only one for me. When, journeying with my 
Lama, I also agreed to carry messages back and forth for a British officer, I became 
swept up in what is known as ‘The Great Game’. I was trained in spying and political 
intrigue for the British Empire, and in undertaking further missions I became 
separated from my Lama. I remember one of my early tasks. I was sent to Austria-
Hungary, because I believe the men of the Tsar had interests there. To tell the story of 
my first mission I shall refer to correspondence I kept at the time, as I believe those 
letters lend a greater sense of immediacy. 
 
3 May  
Dear Mina, 
Since I was sent to conclude that business in Transylvania I have had a most terrible 
time. The land seems truly bewitched. Thankfully at least the train deposited me on 
schedule at the Transylvania train station at 8:35 PM. But I tell you; my host the count 
is a most unsettling man. He towers before me, clad in black from head to foot, 
without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. I am sure he is watching me as I 
creep about his mouldering house. Has he locked me within this castle of his? I cannot 
be sure. I swear I looked out the window last night to see him crawling vertically up a 
wall. 
 
5 May, 
Dear Mina, 
It is with trembling hands I write an account of the horror I endured today, and I begin 
to doubt my own senses. That selfsame count of whom I spoke before caught me 
 Adrian Thurnwald. ‘Farewell to Associate Professor Richard Hosking’. 
Transnational Literature Vol. 4 no. 2, May 2012. 
http://fhrc.flinders.edu.au/transnational/home.html 
 
 
2 
trying the door, hoping to get out. He had his gypsies catch and bind me, and while I 
was unable to move he touched me on the cheek once with a hand more dead than 
living. As I lay tied in his study he knelt down beside me, and whispered into my ear 
the most bone-chilling words I have ever had the misfortune to hear: 
 
Our Andy's gone to battle now 
'Gainst Drought, the red marauder; 
Our Andy's gone with cattle now 
Across the Queensland border. 
 
He's left us in dejection now, 
Our thoughts with him are roving; 
It's dull on this selection now, 
Since Andy went a-droving. 
 
I was paralysed with terror, and for a time the conviction of my helplessness 
overpowered all other feelings, but then I conjectured to the count that Banjo 
Paterson’s ‘In Defence of the Bush’ was a far superior poem to Lawson’s ‘The City 
Bushman’, and, while the count was driven mad by his own passionate proselytising, I 
slipped from my bonds and escaped. I ran, not daring to even glance back, and I was 
so swift my colourful scarf came loose from my neck and wafted behind me onto the 
branch of a pine, blowing gently in the breeze in that lonely forest, until a small bird 
plucked at the woollen threads and made a nest for its hatchlings — no, that didn’t 
really happen; I just put that in because I know that errors in point of view are one of 
Rick’s pet peeves. 
Fleeing from the count I also stopped for a spot of fishing to help me 
overcome my vampire trauma.  
The weight of my pack was heavy on my shoulders. It was a good weight. I 
opened my pack and found my jar of grasshoppers. They were good grasshoppers. 
They were black. They were good black grasshoppers. I felt manly. I felt good and 
manly. I put one grasshopper on my hook. The hook felt good between my fingers. I 
felt manly with the hook between my fingers. With these grasshoppers I hoped to 
catch a fish. I hoped to catch a good, manly – no, never mind; that fishing story is 
simply too boring to tell. I’ll move on. 
Anyway, I spent several years playing the Great Game, and then, 
unexpectedly, I crossed paths with my Lama again, in the mountains of Tibet. The 
river he sought, the river of enlightenment that would finally free him from the bonds 
of the earth, was, he said, on the plains, but he had become distracted. People always 
called upon him, and drawn back by the ties of the world, he had found himself 
wandering a little, for the last time, amongst the stones. 
 My Lama greeted me by calling out ‘Sahib’.  
‘I am not a Sahib,’ I said. ‘I am thy chela.’ 
 I marvelled to see my Lama again. He was a man with knowledge as wide and 
varied as the Punjab, his understanding of the holy texts as broad as all the world. He 
was a man who could teach without seeming to teach. Where again would we see his 
like, once he had freed himself from his earthly bonds? 
 And what of me? Was I to follow my Lama towards enlightenment, or was I to 
 Adrian Thurnwald. ‘Farewell to Associate Professor Richard Hosking’. 
Transnational Literature Vol. 4 no. 2, May 2012. 
http://fhrc.flinders.edu.au/transnational/home.html 
 
 
3 
return to the Great Game? The decision was mine. I watched my Lama growing 
smaller as he walked down the mountainside to the plains, where his river lay.  
Not knowing my own fate, trapped halfway between the heavens and the 
earth, I sat, cross-legged and, under my breath, I wished my Lama the best of luck. 
‘The best of luck,’ I repeated. ‘I wish you the best of luck in finding your river.’ 
 
 
Special thanks to Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Henry Lawson, Banjo 
Patterson and Bram Stoker. 
 
 
 


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Two poems: 1. Cameo bracelet; 2. Nostos

The Year of the Horse

Farewell to Associate Professor Richard Hosking, 27 April 2012.

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