“…home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to, in strongest conjuration…” – Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44)
In Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped our World, the author, Anthony Sattin, professed that his narrative “traces the shifting relationships between people who move and those who were settled”. He showed how the ‘nomads’ — perhaps people we could now see as migrants or immigrants — shaped world history. With the advent of climate change, more frequent natural disasters and displacement due to political interference, other interventions and war, people have willingly moved or, at times, been forced to find new homes, even change countries. Have these seekers of refuge been accepted fully as part of the new community they called home? Often, when they are left without the option of returning to their birth land, they are referred to as refugees. Will such people ever find a home? Or even those who moved willingly? Our November issue has several narratives on migrants and exploring the idea of a home.
We have featured Suzanne Kamata, a modern-day migrant who shuttles between two very different cultures and her memoir, Owls in Ginza and other Stories from Life in Japan. Perhaps, she can be called a global nomad. Though in the interview, she professes she wants to split her time in equal portions between her birth land and adopted country, she starts her book with an incident in her home in Japan (where she has lived for the last thirty seven years) that highlights a dilemma that is not unheard of among migrants:
“The other day, a door-to-door salesman rang my bell. When I opened the door, he peered around me and said, ‘Isn’t there anyone at home?’ As if I were invisible, or temporary. As if I didn’t belong.
“‘I’m here,’ I said. I might have added, ‘I am one of you, and I’m not going anywhere.’”
In our non-fiction section, we have Ian Smith recounting his family’s move from England to Australia post the Second World War. Snigdha Agrawal writes of a second-generation Polish immigrant who has opted to live in Canada. The question such moves throw up — is do they have a home in the country they adopt, especially the pioneering generation that initiates the move? Farouk Gulsara nostalgically glances at the home he left behind, though he just moved cities within Malaysia. Keith Lyons returned home after scouring some of the world and yet, he muses on the idea of a home, quoting Charles Dickens, that “home is a name, a word … stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to, in strongest conjuration.”
Odbayar Dorj on the other hand opts to redefine the idea of a home, talking of her own spiritual oneness with her chosen city. We have also more to offer in non-fiction — travels in Australia from Meredith Stephens with photographs by Alan Noble. Jun A. Alindogan writes of calamities and resilience in Philippines.
Devraj Singh Kalsi takes us on a spin about words and their usages in a humorous vein while Quazi Johirul Islam discusses words, imagination, ornamentation and emotions performing a balancing act in prosody. Charudutta Panigrahi pays a tribute to a man who was known mainly as an actor, Nana Patekar, but he tells us when he met the famed artiste, “He [Patekar] spoke of programmes and people, of what works in a village and what only works on paper, of the farmer and the land. He spoke of ‘his work’ in agriculture, and there was not a grain of boast in the phrase.” So, here was a man who saw himself as of the farming community and the money from his awards often went to fund farming projects.
Patekar’s stance is reminiscent of Tagore’s own stance towards developmental work, as showcased by Uma Das Gupta in A History of Sriniketan: Rabindranath Tagore’s Pioneering work in Rural Reconstruction. He used his Nobel Prize money to fund Sriniketan, his rural reconstruction project. Tagore wrote in a letter sent to Elmhirst (who helped him set up Sriniketan) in 1939: “My path, as you know, lies in the domain of quiet integral action and thought, my units must be few and small, and I can but face human problems in relation to some basic village or cultural area. So, in the midst of worldwide anguish, and with the problems of over three hundred millions staring us in the face, I stick to my work in Santiniketan and Sriniketan hoping that my efforts will touch the heart of our village neighbours and help them in reasserting themselves in a new social order. If we can give a start to a few villages, they would perhaps be an inspiration to some others—and my life work will have been done.”
Our book excerpts host Ruslan Mavliashev’s The Political Unmanifest: Or How to Break Out of the Vicious Circle in which he looks for a change in our current polities. He tells us, “This is not a manifesto for the left or the right. It is an attempt to look beneath both—and ask what kind of human and institutional architecture a more mature politics would require.” The other is an extract from the late well-known Bengali humourist Shibram Chakraborty’s Those Boyhood Years, translated from Bengali by Niladri R. Chatterjee. Reading the translation, one realises how much a translator’s interpretation can impact the narrative. We have a review from Meenakshi Malhotra of Nayantara Roy’s debut novel, The Magnificent Ruins. And Bhaskar Parichha discusses Meena Arora Nayak’s The Blue Lotus: Myths and Folk Tales of India, dwelling on the commonality that exists despite the differences among the varied cultures of India. He writes: “There is something timeless about myths and folk tales. They survive generations, cross geographical boundaries and transcend religious affiliations, carrying within them the collective memory, imagination and wisdom of communities.”
And perhaps, the fables by Naramsetti Umamaheswararao do exactly that — rely on the wisdom of communities to highlight the resilience of humanity in a world of doddering values. In fiction, we have such a story based in Southern India by Umamaheswararao and a narrative set in Kashmir by Gowher Bhatt showcasing a woman who finds resilience. Jay Samanta plays with migration, home and resilience as he dwells on a nightmare while Umair Khan writes a poignant tale about an old rickshaw driver in Karachi, highlighting the need for compassion.
Highlighting the need for compassion is a Bengali poem by Masud Khan that has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. The same need for kindness and consideration has been echoed by Ihlwha Choi in his self-translated Korean poem on a beggar child. Isa Kamari’s narrative from Malay this time highlights the end result of a highly mechanised society where drugs can break families. In contrast to the bleakness portrayed in the aforesaid pieces, we have a translation of Tagore’s fun poem on a mobile Calcutta. More humour has been translated from Bangla by Rajib Mahmud with Kizzy Tahnin’s narrative about an ostrich and an old lady! A form of Balochi folk poetry, rendered often by women, has been translated and introduced by Fazal Baloch.
Our poetry section homes variety as usual with poems from Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, John Swain, Prithvijeet Sinha, Ian Fitzgerald, Md Mujib Ullah, Jim Bellamy, Jeena R Papaadi, Ron Pickett, Pramod Rastogi, William Miller and Saranyan BV. Ryan Quinn Flangan’s poem highlights Pablo Neruda’s attempt to help Spanish refugees in 1939 while Shamim Akhtar imagines the start of time or is it the universe… Jim Murdoch sprinkles wry humour into his lines while Rhys Hughes has managed to make us laugh in his poems on a future post global ice melts (and more) in a style that only poetry can muster… and perhaps, Hughes himself.
Do pause by our contents page to savour the whole issue.
Huge thanks to all our fabulous contributors and our readers. That the journal would not exist except for the love shown by all of you is a reality which we truly appreciate. Huge thanks to our wonderful team for their input.
Enjoy the reads and hope you look forward to our early bird edition this December.
Cheers,
Mitali Chakravarty
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