Bakara Kisses (working title) is a fictional town in Java, Indonesia, that is the 1997 setting for a story of a ‘rite of passage’ - involving youths from three contrasting social realities - in the final year of President Suharto’s ‘New Order’ presidency. As a social commentary, the scenario envisions a confluence of East-West cultures, where the corrosive socio-economic realities of the time throw together and then intrude in the lives and dreams of three culturally distinctive ‘innocents’ who become entrained in the turmoil of the ‘global village’.

The fictionalisation of this confluence becomes relevant given today’s socio-cultural and religious divides in the ‘global community’. Bakara Kisses explores issues of cultural antipathies, many of which are due to ignorance and intolerance, in ways these gaps in understanding may be approached as fundamental but not beyond reconciliation.