Author: borderlesssg1

Categories
Essay

‘Wormholes to other Worlds’

Ravi Shankar writes about museums in Kuala Lumpur

Perdana Botanical Gardens. Courtesy: Creative Commons

I had a feeling of quiet satisfaction. I was finally able to locate the passage. I had spent a few weeks trying to do so without success. At ten in the morning, the iron gates of the passage/tunnel under the busy road were open as mentioned in the video on YouTube.  I could see the lakes of the Perdana Gardens ahead. The Perdana Botanical Gardens is one of the major attractions of Kuala Lumpur.

There are also several attractions located around the garden. Among these are the KL Bird Park, the Butterfly Park, the National Planetarium, the Islamic art museum, the Royal Police Museum, and the Tun Razak Memorial. I visited these museums over several weekends. Walking to and from and within these museums keeps me active. Many are located around the Perdana Botanical Garden. Two are around the Dataran Merdeka, the Merdeka Square. The Royal Museum is separate but not very far from these two locations. KL has several other museums that we will examine in a later article.

The pandemic had created a sense of fear within me. In late 2000, COVID was still under control in Malaysia and the national museum was open with pandemic protocols. I was apprehensive but my entry to the museum was smooth. The National Museum of Malaysia (Muzium Negara in Malay) is an impressive structure inaugurated in 1963. The museum was designed in the style of a Malay palace and UNESCO had provided consultants from different countries. The museum is impressive and modern.

The ground floor details the history of Malaysia from ancient times to the Sultanate of Melaka. Kedah in the north was a major historical centre. Excavations have revealed old civilisations. Melaka was a major trading post. Various European colonial powers had fought over the state.  The second-floor deals with the colonial and modern history of the country. I was fascinated by images of the Japanese occupation and the civil war. There are various exhibits located outside on the museum grounds. As the pandemic has slowly declined, the museum has come to life again attracting crowds, especially on weekends. There are local crafts and food items on display and sale.

There is a museum café on the premises that serves good Malay food. I often have lunched there while visiting the botanical garden and surrounding attractions. The textile museum or Muzium Tekstil is in a beautiful old heritage building near Merdeka Square, the country’s historical heart. The building started as the headquarter of the Federated Malay states railways and served later as the main office for different government entities.

Inside the textile museum. Photo Courtesy: Ravi Shankar

The textile museum was opened in 2010. There are four galleries over two floors. The Pohon Budi Gallery deals with the tools, materials, and techniques of textile making over the ages. The Pelangi Gallery deals with batik. I visited the museum with a friend who hailed from Gujarat, and he was fascinated by how batik had been adopted here . The Teluk Berantai gallery concentrates on the teluk berantai (interlocking bays), a harmonious motif made up of individual flower designs stitched together into geometric patterns. The Ratna Sari gallery is also located upstairs. The British had brought in artists and artisans mainly from India to construct several colonial-era buildings in the Mughal style. The museum is within walking distance from the Masjid Jamek station on the Sri Petaling line.

The KL City Gallery tells the story of the city from its founding as a tin mining town to eventually becoming the capital of British Malaya and modern Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur comes from two Malay words meaning the muddy confluence of two rivers. The town at the confluence of the Gombak and the Klang rivers grew rapidly into a modern metropolis. The gallery is operated by ARCH, a Malaysian brand making hand-assembled collectibles and gifts. The story of the city is told through old prints, miniatures, and photos. The centrepiece is the hand-assembled KL City model with over 5000 miniature buildings. The gallery has a café, and the city’s love of food is well showcased. At the entrance there is an I love KL sign popular with tourists and locals as a backdrop for photos.

The National art gallery (Balai Seni Negara) is within walking distance from the KL Hospital station on the newly opened Putrajaya line. The gallery is designed as spaces flanking the circular ramp to serve as exhibition areas for more intimate and contemplative viewing. The spiral ramp in the middle provides a dynamic visual experience to visitors showcasing the building from different angles at every level.  There are galleries located on three levels. There is a mixture of different media like paintings, a few miniature paintings, sculptures, installations, and projected images among others. I love the space and feel of the building. There is a good collection of paintings and other works by Malaysian artists. British colonial artists and their impressions of life in colonial Malaysia are also featured. The gallery makes for an interesting and contemplative outing. 

 

Dataran Merdeka Model
A model at Minniature Gallery
Photo Courtesy: Ravi Shanka

Minnature Gallery advertises itself not as a museum as the pieces on display were all created specifically and are not of historical value. There are thousands of miniature pieces, and the buildings were 3D printed. The location is within the Sungai Wang Plaza, near the Merdeka Square. The recreation of the Dataran Merdeka or the Independence Square and the light show at this historic location (in miniature) is impressive. are miniature models of several locations in the country. While the pandemic protocols lasted, these served as a good introduction for me to the attractions of other states in the country. They have a small store selling merchandise. Most museums in Malaysia have a gift shop and a dining area. The models of different foods from Malaysia in the Minnature gallery are impressive though I am not sure if there is a restaurant on the premises. The amount of detail is huge and the proportions of the structure correspond to the real world.

An artifact from the Islamic Museum. Photo Courtesy: Ravi Shankar

The Islamic Arts Museum (Muzium Kesenian Islam Malaysia) is located around the perimeter of the Perdana Garden. The museum claims to be the largest one on Islamic art in Southeast Asia. The Nusantara region including Malaysia and Indonesia claims to have the largest Muslim population in the world. There are more than 7000 artefacts. The building is spacious with large glass frames letting in plenty of light. The museum is spread over two levels. Level one contains galleries devoted to architecture, the Quran, and other manuscripts, and a gallery each for the art of India, China, and the Malay Peninsula. The second level is dedicated to Arms and Armours, Textiles, Jewelry, and Coins, and three galleries consisting of artworks categorised by their materials – Metal, Wood, and Ceramics. The craftsmanship of some of the pieces is sublime. The dedication of the craftsmen and the time they devoted to their tasks has to be admired. The highlight of the gallery to me was the delightful and elaborate roofs. Each is a masterpiece of design! There is also a fine dining restaurant on the premises.

The original Royal Malaysia police museum (Muzium Polis di Raja Malaysia) was built in 1958. The new building located on the outskirts of Perdana Garden was inaugurated in 1998. There are three galleries: one deals with policing during the early days of the Malay sultanate, the other, with the Colonial Era and the last with the period called Emergency, the Anti–British National Liberation War (1948-1980) which involved guerrilla warfare. There are a variety of materials used by the police force over the ages in the collection. There is a good collection of motorcycles and other vehicles. The police persons on duty at the museum are very friendly. There is a large collection of armoured vehicles and cars and a plane model on the grounds of the museum.

The Royal Museum (Muzium di Raja) was inaugurated in 2013 and was the residence of the King of Malaysia till the royal family moved to a new residence. The huge two-story property was built in 1928 by a Chinese mining tycoon for his huge family and was one of the biggest residences in Kuala Lumpur (KL). The museum provides a glimpse into the life of the royal family though most rooms can only be seen from the walkway. There is a good view of the KL skyline, including the iconic Petronas Tower.

All these museums are visitor friendly and provide a unique glimpse into the history of the city, the state of Selangor, and Malaysia. Tourists might need around three or four days to do justice to the richness on offer. Museums take you to other worlds and times. The American art critic, Jerry Saltz says, “Don’t go to a museum with a destination. Museums are wormholes to other worlds. They are ecstasy machines. Follow your eyes to wherever they lead you…and the world should begin to change for you.”  

A restored museum room in the Islamic Arts Museum. Photo Courtesy: Ravi Shankar

Dr. P Ravi Shankar is a faculty member at the IMU Centre for Education (ICE), International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He enjoys traveling and is a creative writer and photographer.

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Categories
Poetry

South Pacific in the Palace Cinema

 By Robert Nisbet

We were all romantic heroes, back in 1958.
We’d line the good guys up, go with them scrapping,
outwitting villains, wooing and winning the girls,
the final clinch, the fade-away, the ever-after.

South Pacific was tricky, from the very start.  
De Becque the hero was the same age as our Dads,
and his little boy and girl too much to cope with,
even with Mitzi Gaynor as the prize.

But then the sub-plot came and we found our hero,
Lieutenant Cable, and after mystery journeys
and boat trips through exotic seas, he found the girl,
a pearl of South Sea Island beauty. 

We were settling to the film’s rhythms now,
De Becque and Cable off to war, a matter of time,
surely, before they foiled the enemy, went back
for the final clinches, fade-away, the ever-after. 

And Cable died. Uneasily, some half-hour later, 
we stumbled home, with a lot to assimilate.
A native girl? Were they saying it was all for the best?
Was that the idea? It was bloody sad, all the same.

Robert Nisbet is a Welsh poet widely-published in Britain, where he won the Prole Pamphlet Competition in 2017, and in the USA, where he is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee.

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Categories
Review

The Many Dimensions of India’s Covid Tragedy

Book Review by Bhaskar Parichha

Title: Burning Pyres, Mass Graves and A State That Failed Its People : India’s Covid Tragedy 

Author: Harsh Mander

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

Many parts of India were in a state of frenzy as a result of the pandemic. The official figures of sickness and mortality have been widely disputed, and most agree that they have been significantly underestimated.

Burning Pyres, Mass Graves and A State That Failed Its People: India’s Covid Tragedy by Harsh Mander is a comprehensive account of the humanitarian crisis and the appalling state response. Human rights campaigner Harsh Mander is one of India’s most trusted and courageous activists. He is also the author of several acclaimed books on contemporary India, among them, Looking Away: Inequality, Prejudice and Indifference in New India; Ash in the Belly: India’s Unfinished Battle Against Hunger; Fatal Accidents of Birth: Stories of Suffering, Oppression and Resistance; and This Land Is Mine, I Am Not of This Land: CAA–NRC and the Manufacture of Statelessness.

The book examines the events around the year 2020, that led to food shortages for the urban poor and pushed them to the brink of starvation due to food scarcity. There is a compelling argument to be made that the timing of the lockdown was directly related to public policy choices, specifically the decision to impose the lockdown with only four hours’ notice to the media. As Mander recounts in his book, things got even worse in the following year, as everything from hospital beds to medical oxygen to essential medicines ran short of supplies to function properly. Mander chronicles the disaster in an in-depth manner by combining ground reports with hard data from the scene. 

According to the book’s blurb: “The summer of 2021 saw a massive rise in the number of infections and deaths from Covid-19 in India. Even by conservative estimates, at least 1.5 million people had lost their lives by June; several times the official figure. As in the first wave of the pandemic, this time, too, the chaos and suffering was in large measure, as Harsh Mander shows, due to mismanagement by an uncaring and cynical state.”

This book contains two parts. The first part, titled ‘Locking Down the Poor’, describes how the urban poor were being driven to the brink of starvation due to the severe humanitarian crisis that was sweeping across the globe in 2020. According to the study, this was a direct consequence of the policy decisions that the government made. It led to the imposition of the world’s longest and most stringent lockdown, along with the smallest relief packages, as a direct result of the government’s public policy choices.

 As the story unfolds, we hear the voices of out-of-work daily-wage and informal workers, the homeless and the destitute, all of whom overwhelmed by hunger, humiliation, and a sense of dread. There are over 3 crore migrant workers in India whose livelihoods have been destroyed and they had been forced to walk hundreds of kilometres back to their villages as they had no means of surviving in the cities and no way to get home other than by foot. He brings us stories of those migrant workers from the highways and overcrowded quarantine centres.

The second part of the book, entitled ‘Burning Pyres, Mass Graves,’ is the account of what took place the following year, when everything from hospital beds to oxygen and essential medicines were still in short supply. The underlying cause of these shortages, according to Mander, is the criminal neglect of public health care in India, a situation which worsened under the Narendra Modi government, resulting in the extortion of a beleaguered population by everyone from oxygen suppliers to pharmaceutical billionaires. The author holds the state culpable for indulging in pageantry – with the PM advertising himself as a messiah – when the country needed to brace for the impact of the second wave of terrorism.

Using an invaluable combination of ground reports, hard data, and firsthand experiences to describe the worst humanitarian catastrophe India has experienced in a century, and which will have a lasting impact on the country for decades to come, Mander provides a detailed account of this cataclysmic phase. It is a powerful book and sometimes it is even shattering. In a way, the narrative is a live remembrance of a national tragedy that too many of us wish to forget when we should, instead, etch it in our minds so that we can prevent another national tragedy like this one from recurring in the future.

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Bhaskar Parichha is a journalist and author of Unbiased, No Strings Attached: Writings on Odisha and Biju Patnaik – A Political Biography. He lives in Bhubaneswar and writes bilingually. Besides writing for newspapers, he also reviews books on various media platforms.

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Categories
Poetry

The Wind and the Door

Poetry & translation from Korean by Ihlwha Choi

Courtesy: Creative Commons
The door slammed shut with a thud.
And then, with another thud, it swung open again.
The door that should have remained closed,
Opened, allowing the unwanted noises and the wind
To fill the room.
The wind outside and the clamour assail me,
So, I gather myself and politely shut the door once more.
The door becomes calm again.
The wind finds its own path among the alleys of wind,
And the room becomes tranquil,
Filled with the stillness of the room, the air of the room,
And the thoughts of the room.

Ihlwha Choi is a South Korean poet. He has published multiple poetry collections, such as Until the Time When Our Love will Flourish, The Color of Time, His Song and The Last Rehearsal.

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Categories
Stories

A Troubled Soul

By Mahim Hussain

“Amma[1], it . . . it feels like fire is running through my veins!”

These were the words Abir uttered sitting on the rear seat of their car. His mother, a fifty-five-year-old woman, was sitting right beside him. She was trying to help her son any way she could to relieve him of his suffering. With moist eyes, she kept massaging Abir’s hands and neck constantly.

“Everything is going to be all right, abba[2]. Try to relax,” she said to her son.

Leaving other cars behind, the white Toyota sped through the street – piercing the thickness of the night. Their deft driver devoted all his attention to dodging and overtaking other cars on the road. The car had headed to the Labaid Hospital, situated in the Dhanmondi area of the bustling city of Dhaka.

Abir’s older brother, Rafique, was sitting in the front seat next to the driver. He kept turning back frequently to see how his younger brother was doing.

“Amma . . . I can’t breathe . . . I can’t breathe amma!” Abir cried out to his mother.

Abir’s mother pleaded with Rafique to lower the wind shield on his side. Without being asked, the driver flicked a switch swiftly, and the windshield came down with a whirring sound. Abir, with the help of his mother, managed to get his head out of the window to breathe fresh air. With his head sticking outside the car, he could see the taillights of the passing cars growing faint in the distance. To the boy, it seemed like red and yellow fairies were flying in the darkness. Soon, Abir slid back on his mom’s lap, as he could no longer bear the weight of his head.

“Don’t worry, amma. We will get their soon,” Rafique tried to console his anxious mother.   

About forty minutes later, the car entered through the lofty gate of the hospital – battling an abysmal traffic jam. They were lucky it was a weekend. On any other night of the week, it would have taken them at least an hour and a half to get there from the Mirpur area. By the time they arrived at the emergency entrance, Abir had already lost his consciousness. He could not move any of his limbs or open his eyes.

A door man and two female nurses came out of the emergency department running. They carefully hauled Abir out of the car. Then, putting him on a stretcher, they hastily took the boy inside the emergency department. Rafique and his mother ran after them, frantically.

Passing a long corridor, they entered a ward. The nurses again lifted Abir gently off the stretcher and laid him on one of the empty beds. At ten-thirty of the night, the whole ward was empty and quiet. The nurses started to commence their usual protocol. One nurse put a clip of a pulse meter on the boy’s index finger of his right hand. It was attached to a screen above the bed with a cord. Another nurse tied the strap of a blood pressure machine, connected to the same screen. While Abir’s family was worried to see him unconscious, one of the nurses tried to calm them down. She told Rafique to accompany her to the information desk and fill out some forms. The other nurse kept her eyes on the screen, monitoring the patient’s vitals.

After observing the patient for about ten minutes, the nurse blurted out: “His pulse is too weak. I am calling the duty doctor.”

“Ha! What happened nurse? What’s wrong with my son?” cried out the mother.

Without responding to her, the nurse ran out of the ward in a hurry. Abir’s mother was in tears. She started rubbing Abir’s chest incessantly, overwhelmed by apprehension.

Before long, the nurse came running with the duty doctor. After glancing at the monitor for a moment, the doctor turned around and said to the nurse: “The pulse and pressure rates are too low. We can’t treat him here.”

By this time, Rafique was back. The female doctor told him that they didn’t have all the equipments in the emergency ward to treat a critical patient like his brother.

While the doctor and Rafique were engaged in a discussion, suddenly, Abir started having convulsion.

“Nurse, call the ICU upstairs. Tell them that we are bringing a patient, quickly!” the doctor passed the order.

As the hospital staff pushed the movable bed and took the boy inside an elevator, Abir’s mother started to lament.

“What’s happened to my little boy, Rafique? Bring my Abir back to me . . .  bring him back!”                     

Rafique took his mother in his arms and held her tightly. He too was on the verge of falling apart. But he bit his lips and managed to keep his poise. Rafique was the eldest son. If he had broken down, who was going to take care of his family? With glistening eyes, Rafique recalled the fateful day when it all started.

Rafique entered their apartment of a three-storied building with a heavy, black briefcase in his hand. Their family doctor walked behind him with brisk steps. Going past the dining room, they walked straight inside Abir’s bedroom.

As soon as they entered, Rafique felt a piece of glass getting crushed under his left shoe. Raising his head, he saw broken pieces of a plate and some food were strewn all over the floor. His mother was cleaning up the mess with a sweep and a scraper. His father, seated on Abir’s bed, stood up seeing the doctor.

“Look, doctor, what he has done to himself this time,” said Abir’s father, pointing at his son in the bed.

The doctor looked at the boy over his reading glasses.

Sixteen-year-old Abir was lying in the bed quietly. But his chest was rising and falling in quick succession. He had his face covered with his forearms. A white bandage was wrapped around his left wrist. On one side of the bandage, blood had seeped through and had left a big stain.

“Some time last night, he tried to cut the veins of his wrist with a blade,” Abir’s father related with a distressed tone. “This morning we found him in the bed with blood all over the bed sheet.”

The doctor kept his gaze fixed on the boy and listened to Abir’s father intently.

 “Moreover, he has not eaten anything in two days. A few minutes ago, his mother brought some food for him. But as soon as she got close to him, he took the plate off her hand and smashed it on the floor. He has been having angry outbursts quite frequently these last few days,” added the father.

The doctor slowly walked to the bed and sat beside the boy warily.

“Well, dear boy. Let uncle see your hand,” saying this, he gently picked up Abir’s wounded hand. The doctor examined his wrist from different angles and tried checking his pulse.

Only a few moments had passed, when suddenly, Abir sat up and pulled his arm out of the doctor’s hand with a savage jerk.

“Let go of my hand, you devil!” screamed the boy.

The doctor jumped off the bed, and Abir’s parents lunged to restrain the boy. Rafique kept the doctor from losing balance, and quickly took him in the dining room.

He sat the doctor at the table and poured him a glass of water.

Glug, glug, glug, ahh . . .

“Rafique, I don’t think Abir was able to cut any of his major veins. If he did, he would have bled out over the night and have been unconscious by now. The bandage on his wrist was done nicely and the bleeding has stopped.” confirmed the doctor. “However, as you have shared with me earlier, Abir has been showing such erratic behavior for several months now. So, his problem is actually psychiatric rather than physical.”

“Yes, doctor. We have taken him to a psychiatrist named Samsul Huq, twice. But during the last session, he suddenly got violent and hurled a glass of water at the doctor. Thankfully no one got hurt. But after that, we could not take him to the doctor again,” shared Rafique.  

“Humn . . . At this moment, he is not in the condition to be taken anywhere. So, I suggest you go back to the psychiatrist and tell him about Abir’s present condition,” concluded the doctor.                                                                     

*

Doctor Huq’s chamber was in a mental health rehabilitation center in the affluent neighbourhood of Gulshan. Rafique had been sitting outside his chamber with other visitors. It was a big lobby under a wooden shed. There were about thirty people outside the chamber, waiting for their turn. A middle-aged man was sitting behind a small table facing the visitors. As patients were coming out of the room, the assistant was calling the next person in serial. Rafique had been waiting there for about two hours now. Feeling bored and exhausted, he was snoozing sitting on his cozy little chair.

“Mr. Rafique Ahmed . . . who is Rafique Ahmed?” inquired the assistant sternly.

When his name was called loudly a second time, Rafique woke with a shudder. In frenetic motion, he got off the chair and almost dashed inside the chamber.

It was a spacious, soundproof room with a gigantic air-cooler hanging above the door. On the far end of the room, there was a big mahogany desk. In the middle of the desk, there was a plastic dummy head with an open brain coming out of it. Beside it, there was a pile of big, thick medical books and journals on one side of the desk. On the other side were two pen holders containing pens of different colors and design. In the front of the desk, there were two cane-made chairs for the visitors to sit on. A few feet from them lay a big, comfortable couch on which a patient could easily lie down. The doctor was sitting on the other side of the desk on a reclining chair the size of a throne.

Professor Huq was an elderly man with long, cotton-like beard and hair. He always wore a fatua[3] and loose pajamas and a big smile on his face. As soon as Rafique entered, the doctor recognised him. It was Rafique who had accompanied Abir to his clinic a week ago. The doctor nodded and made a gestured with his hand, telling him to take a sit.

“How are you doing? Didn’t you bring your brother today?” asked the doctor.

“No, doctor, Abir is not doing too well. He is having mood swings again. Two days ago, he tried to kill himself by slashing his wrist. We don’t understand what is going on with him. Why is he acting like this, doctor?” exclaimed Rafique in a tensed voice.

“Well, Mr. Rafique, I’ve told you on the first day that Abir is showing symptoms of bi-polar disorder. A typical bi-polar person has periods of energetic activities followed by bouts of severe depression. But some of these symptoms may vary from person to person. In your brother’s case, he has moments of angry outbursts followed by long periods of depression. And it’s not uncommon for bi-polars to have suicidal thoughts,” informed the doctor.

“But, doctor, how are we supposed to thwart him from harming himself?” inquired Rafique.

“The condition he is in right now, he needs to take some medications. Here, I am writing down the name of a medicine called Lithosun SR, which contains the chemical lithium. Across the world, lithium has been proven to prevent suicidal thoughts. But there is a catch. Too much of lithium can cause toxicity in the blood, which could be fatal. Therefore, he should take exactly 400 mg per day, and not more than that. In addition, Abir needs to have his blood tested every fortnight to check the level of lithium in his body,” enlightened the doctor.

After that, he tore a page from his pad and handed it to Rafique.

*

                                                         

At six in the evening on the Friday night, Abir was sitting on his study table. It was a medium sized table with a bookshelf attached on one side. The shelf was laden with books, copies and note papers. A history book was open in front of him. Because of his illness, the boy had not been able to attend his school for two months. His final term exam was in two weeks. After taking the prescribed medication for a month, his thoughts of self-harm started to subside.

It had been an hour. The boy was struggling to focus on the book. But so far, he had not been able to read a single line. He was having difficulty concentrating. All kinds of negative thoughts were churning inside his fragile mind. Soon, fat tears started trickling down his cheeks. Abir could not fathom, why was he unable to control his emotions? Why did he feel so gloomy and miserable all the time?

Unable to bear the frustration anymore, suddenly he stood up with a grunt and tore the book into small pieces. Then, he picked up other books from the bookshelf and started throwing them in the air. This rampage lasted a few minutes. Then, he dashed away from the table, crashed on his bed and started to sob burying his face in the pillow.

After lying there motionless for a while, the boy raised his head for a moment. Incidentally, his eyes fell on the side table attached to his bed. He saw the container of his medication lying on the table, beside his bottle of water.

If I took some extra pills, it should help me get rid of the melancholic thoughts.

Slowly, he clambered on the side of the bed and picked up the container. Popping it open in a fit of impulse, her started pushing several pills down his throat at once and drank a lot of water. Afterward, he lay in the bed, still struggling to harness his emotions.

Around 08:00 p.m., Abir’s mother knocked on his door.

“Baba[4] Abir? Come out, son. Dinner has been served.”

Not getting any response for a while, she opened the door which was unlocked from inside. Walking in, she was flabbergasted to find torn books and papers scattered on the floor. Facing the other way, her son was lying in the bed and seemed to be asleep.

The mother walked to the bed and sat next to him.

“Abir? What’s wrong, abba?”                        

There was no response. His mother got little concerned. She held his shoulder and turned his torso toward her.

“Wake up, sweetheart. The dinner is getting cold.”

After calling him several times, the boy lifted his heavy eyelids gradually.

“Amma . . . I am not feeling so well. My . . . my head is throbbing in pain.”

Saying these words, the boy closed his eyes again. His mother nudged his shoulder several times, trying to keep him awake. But the boy slowly succumbed deeper and deeper to the side effect of the medicine.

“Mr. Rafque . . . Mr. Rafique!”

The voice of the duty doctor brought the man back to present time.

“What’s going on, doctor? How is my little brother doing,” asked Rafique agitatedly.

“Your brother has been shifted to the ICU. The overdose of the medicine has rendered him unconscious. We are trying to separate the toxic substance in his blood with some medicines and saline. But his pulse rate is still low. Nothing can be said until few hours pass,” reported the doctor and walked away.

Hearing this news, Abir’s mother started wailing and was at the brink of losing her senses. Rafique laid his mother on a bed and tried to pacify her.

Meanwhile, Abir lay in one corner of the ICU with all kinds of tubes and electric wires attached to his body – battling with death.

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[1] Mother

[2] Father

[3] A short, kameez-like collarless shirt worn by people of South Asia

[4] Father

Mahim Hussain is a 38-year-old man and lives in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He couldn’t finish high school diploma. However, that did not deter him from reading and learning on his own.

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Categories
Poetry

The Precious Cargo

By Dr Kanwalpreet

THE PRECIOUS CARGO

As the mean machine rises,
Its blades whirring,
Its wings cutting,
Through the air,
A silent prayer
Escapes the lips,
From many who
Stand and stare.

Parched lips,
Beating hearts,
Controlled tears,
From eyes
That avoid looking
Into the other.
Forced smiles,
Shaky hands,
Does the mean machine know,
That it carries precious cargo?

Men and women in uniform.
The story repeats,
Across countries,
And continents,
Uniforms that define soldiers --
Olive, green, blue, black,
Soldiers who move on orders,
Leaving behind parents,
Spouses, siblings, children.
Men and women who are soldiers
Lug their heavy hearts,
Putting up a façade of bravery,
Stoic and composed.
Men and women who as human beings,
Are allowed to carry only memories,
Precious as treasures from the deep.
Men and women who cannot tarry,
As they have sworn their loyalty,
To their respective countries.
Men and women who as soldiers,
Move as one.
Men and women who shudder,
For any loss here or there,
As each relationship
Is very dear.

As the plane lifts,
Human hearts beat
In the heart of the machine.
Does the mean machine know
It carries precious cargo?
A  father’s companion,
For his twilight years,
A mother’s heart,
The loving mentor,
Of their children,
The prankster sibling,
The loving husband,
Whose hugs would be missed,
Does the mean machine know
It carries human hearts?

The question looms --
Why these wars?

Dr. Kanwalpreet teaches Political Science to undergraduate students in a college affiliated to Panjab University, Chandigarh, India. She has written 12 books that include books for children as well as biographies. Writing is a passion and she delves into it frequently. Living in a male dominated society Kanwalpreet, usually, writes about the pain that women go through. Her book, Rings of Life a collection of 13 short stories tries to show the struggles of women.

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Categories
Slices from Life

Awesome Arches and Acrophobia

Narrative and photographs by Meredith Stephens

My partner, Alex, has always been enthralled with the natural beauty of the west of the United States, having spent sixteen years studying and working there in his youth. He wanted to share his love of this part of the world with me, so took me on a seven-day road trip from his base in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Fort Collins in Colorado and back.

“You must see Arches National Park in Utah!” urged Alex’ long-time friend Ryan. “Bryce National Park is worth visiting too.”

Two days later we arrived at Bryce National Park. At first, the scenery was pleasant but unremarkable. I wondered why there were so many tourists and so many cars in the carpark. We donned our raincoats and walked towards the trail to follow the other tourists. It started hailing and I pulled my hood around my face. Thunder and lightning resounded. A tall thin park ranger approached us from the other direction and looked directly at me.

“We advise you to turn around immediately and seek shelter. We have lost ten people in twenty-five years in these weather conditions.”

We looked at the brochure to confirm this and read that there had been four fatalities and six injuries. I would have been happy to follow the park ranger’s advice, but we had driven for eleven hours to get there and were too curious to turn back. We started walking towards the Navajo Loop trailhead at Sunset Point. Tourists were posing for photographs at the rim. I wondered what the attraction was and peered over the rim myself. Suddenly, I understood why the site was so crowded.

Navajo Loop

I gingerly placed one foot after another to carefully descend the steep muddy trail. Each time I planted my foot down I held it steadily to ensure I would not slide. A couple approached us from the opposite direction as they ascended the trail.

“We strongly recommend you turn around immediately!” they warned. “It’s treacherous in these muddy conditions.”

Muddy trail

We thanked them, but I continued to gingerly traipse through the mud along the downward trail for a few metres.

“You go ahead,” I urged Alex. “I can’t go any further.”

It continued to hail, and we could hear thunder. I turned around and slowly plodded back up the muddy trail back to the edge of the rim, closely followed by Alex. We contented ourselves with the less slippery 2 km walk along the rim to Sunrise Point and back. Back at the car, we scraped the mud off our shoes, fairly unsuccessfully, and continued our drive to Arches National Park.

The Arches National Park is so popular that visitors have to book through a timed entry system. At 6 pm, when the booking system opened, Alex opened the booking site and secured one of the few remaining availabilities for a 7am entry the next day. He hoped we could also enter just before sunset that day, after 6pm when entry was not timed.

Four-and-a half-hours later we arrived at Arches National Park. The drive had been uneventful along straight desert roads and it had been difficult to force myself to stay awake, as I sat in the passenger seat.

“If we are too tired, we can go straight to our accommodation,” suggested Alex.

I hoped we would do so. I needed to escape from the enclosed space of the passenger seat. Suddenly huge rock formations loomed just beyond the park gates, and we decided to enter. I was lulled from my stupor into a sense of shock from the grandeur of the giant ochre rocks emerging from the plains. I could sense the onset of palpitations.

“I think I’m going to faint, Alex,” I warned him.

“I think you’re experiencing ‘geophilia’,” he responded.

Suddenly, I realised why people found the study of geology so fascinating. Strata upon strata of ochre rocks rose before us. Their layers indicated the movement of the earth’s surface over eons of time,

Entrance to the Arches

The sunset light flattered the rock formations. Cars lined the road heading to the distant formation of Delicate Arch thirteen miles into the park, and tourists parked their vehicles at the many carparks along the wayside to walk amongst the various giant rock formations.

The next morning, we rose to meet our 7am booking to enter the park. The light portrayed the rock formations in a slightly different way from the light of the evening before. We headed to the trail leading to the Delicate Arch. Even at that early hour, the carpark was almost full, and we secured a space before following the throng of tourists walking the trail heading to the arch. We scrambled across rocks and boulders in the piercing sunshine. I glanced at the climbers ahead of me and thought it would be impossible to reach where they were climbing, but with Alex’s encouragement found myself joining them. After a series of false summits, we found ourselves within sight of the arch. I looked at the abyss below and suddenly decided I would content myself with watching others pose for photographs in the arch rather than entering myself. A photographer was set facing a couple posing in the arches perilously close to the drop-off. Couples and children walked across the rocks in front of me towards the arches.

“I feel sick, Alex! I can’t go any further.”

I wondered why the others were walking so freely along the rocks in front of me, in full view of the yawning abyss.

“I promise I’ll hold your hand.”

“I don’t want to drag you down!”

“You won’t!”

I continued to worry I would drag Alex down with me in the abyss, but as usual, succumbed to his confidence. I gripped his hand and refused to gaze below me, carefully placing one foot in front of the other. Fellow tourists were taking turns to pose under the arch. A couple noticed us heading towards the arches.

“Shall we take your photo for you?” they offered.

Alex accepted and handed them his phone.

We continued to inch towards the arch. Finally we reached it and posed beneath it. I tried to assume a confident stance that I did not feel, all the while steeling myself away from glancing down at the abyss. I was naturally inclined to hold myself steady in a tense position, but instead decided to stretch my free arm outwards and pretend to exert confidence.

Arches

After standing there for long enough for the couple to take turns photographing us, we returned to the smooth large boulders ready for our trail down the mountain. As we walked down, I started reflecting on the contrast between how brave others seemed to feel as they freely walked over the boulders facing the abyss, and how timid I had felt.

“I think I have a fear of heights!” I announced to Alex. “I don’t know how I made it to retirement age without noticing this.”

There was one more trail we wanted to pursue, namely, the Devil’s Garden. As before, there were few empty places in the carpark. We finally edged into a free space, and then headed to the trail on our way to the Landscape Arch. This time I decided to read the information posted on the sign at the entrance. It read “Drop-offs on both sides challenge those with fear of heights”. I realised that there must be at least some people who shared my fear.

Arches National Park remains the most impressive national park I have ever visited. The force of nature had never felt so overwhelming.  I felt small in this vast ancient landscape but privileged to be able to witness it.

Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her work has appeared in Transnational Literature, The Muse, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, The Journal of Literature in Language Teaching, The Writers’ and Readers’ Magazine, Reading in a Foreign Language, and in chapters in anthologies published by Demeter Press, Canada.

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Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Samantha Underhill

Samantha Underhill
BREATH OF TREES
 
In ages past, when Earth was young,
Beneath a golden, blazing sun,
Amidst this world, a sacred birth,
There grew the trees, a force of worth.
 
From ancient groves to verdant glades,
They stretched their arms, offered shades,
A symphony of life unfurled,
Where trees shaped the wondrous world.
 
In forests vast, their secrets dwell,
They whispered tales, in leafy spell,
Their roots deep plunged in fertile ground,
Trees held the secrets yet unbound.
 
From towering pines to gentle birch,
Each tree a guardian, where birds perch,
They breathed the air, with lungs of green,
And gifted life, a glorious scene.
 
With branches reaching to the skies,
They caught the winds, as nature's prize,
And in their leaves, the sunlight danced,
The symphony of nature enhanced.
 
The woodlands thrived, in harmony,
A living web, for all to see,
From mighty oaks to willows weep,
Their grace and roots ran rivers deep.
 
They sheltered creatures, great and small,
Provided homes for one and all,
From feathered songbirds to furry kin,
The trees embraced them deep within.
 
Their branches carry the songs of birds,
Whose melodies speak more than words,
And in tree bark, the songs they dwelled,
With tales of ancient days they held.
 
Oh, trees of Earth, forever reign,
Your worth immeasurable, not in vain,
A living force, a gift untold,
In every leaf, new stories unfold.

Teach us peace and love and laughter.
Live forever more hereafter,
Until the day no humans dwell,
On earth, just remnants of magic spells.

THE WORLD THAT NEVER KNEW WAR 

In the world that never knew war's woe,
Where compassion's rivers eternally flow
A symphony of care for fellow man,
A dance of love, Earth's greatest fans.

In idyllic realm of boundless grace,
Every soul finds solace and their place,
Hands interlaced, hearts open wide,
A tapestry of unity, love as our guide.

In streets adorned with vibrant hue,
Kindness blossoms a daily brew.
Strangers greet with warm embrace,
A gentle smile on each lovely face.

No hungry child, no sorrow's tear,
For compassion's feast is shared, sincere.
Communities thrive, support entwined,
No soul forgotten, no one left behind.

The Earth, revered as sacred ground,
Her forests lush, her waters resound.
Through whispered vows, humanity cares,
Guardians of nature, love everywhere.

Animals roam with freedom's grace,
No cages confine, no fear they face,
A world where creatures find their worth,
A harmonious dance upon this Earth.

Technology's gifts, harnessed for good,
Advancing progress, as we know we should,
Renewable dreams power the land,
Green energy pulses, hand in hand.

No borders divide, no walls stand tall,
As love's embrace encompasses all,
Embracing differences, voices are heard,
A symphony of cultures, harmony interred.

In this world, poets and dreamers rise,
Their words ignite, paint love in the skies,
Each verse a testament to human might,
Weaving dreams of peace, an eternal light.

Oh, to witness such a world, so fair,
Where empathy reigns, banishing despair,
Let's strive, let's believe, let's make it true,
For this world can be ours, for me and you.

In the world that never knew war's dread,
Compassion thrives, with love widespread,
May we weave this vision, hand in hand,
And create a world where peace will expand.

TEARDROP 

Long in sorrow’s cruel realm I dwell,
Where memories cast a melancholy spell,
My heart, once hopeful, now an empty well,
As I endure the pains that life does tell.
 
A single teardrop as it falls from grace,
Betrays the timelessness of its embrace,
Through sad-stained eyes, I glimpse its measured pace,
In heartbreak's throes, a languid, ever slow trace.
 
How could it be those moments so profound,
Are stretched and drawn, as silence seems to resound?
Each second lengthened, sorrow's clock unbound,
When love is lost, slow-motion universe unwound.
 
The laws of time, in grief, are but a wisp,
A feeble grasp, a phantom's icy kiss,
Yet as that teardrop descends, my heart insists,
That in its fall, hopeless eternity exists.
 
Oh, wretched soul, stumbling through the night,
While sorrow's burden keeps you from the light,
But see, the drop, its fall slow but finite,
In its descent, it tells of love's respite.
 
Though heartbreak's weight tears spirits down,
And in the depths, the wearied soul may drown,
This drop of water, falling, ever down,
Reveals a truth wound into the sorrow's crown.
 
For in its languor, solace does reside,
A fleeting solace that periodically subsides,
A moment's breath, a pause, a world implied,
Wherein I find new paths, undenied.
 
So let me dwell, within this steady fall,
And find in sorrow a tender call,
For in its pace, I find my spirit renewing,
To heal the wounds, heartbreak’s undoing.

Samantha Underhill is a poet, voice artist, and professor. Her vivid emotional works can be found in publications such as Sadness of the Siren; Weird Tales; Weird House; Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, and more.

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Categories
Musings

Bangal-Ghoti-Bati-Paati or What Anglophilia did to my Palate

By Ramona Sen

I grew up on the periphery of the widely divisive Ghoti-Bangal[1] debate. I gathered, from snide remarks made by friends, that the east and the west of Bengal’s Radcliffe Line ate very differently. One disapproved of the other’s propensity to add sugar into savouries, the other complained that chillis should be garnishing and not the mainstay. Some friends were Bati — half Bangal, half Ghoti — who claimed to ­have the best (or worst) of both worlds. When questioning eyes turned to me, I mostly shrugged; I wasn’t sure. Inquiry changed to incredulity with “what ki­nd of food do you e­at at home?”

“Umm… just food.”

As a child, I didn’t think much of the food that was put on the table. For my mother, food was entirely functional. Everything was cooked just enough to be edible. The more items that could be served steamed or grilled, the better. Gravies were light, dals[2] were boiled, vegetables were lightly stir-fried. Bengalis typically have elaborate recipes for everything – even dhyarosh[3] can be cooked in a mustard-and-poppy-seed paste — but my mother wasn’t having (or giving) any of that. She disliked cooking and she simply wasn’t a “foodie”.

The effects of the Raj linger, even 76 years later, in the way many of us eat, speak, dress. It’s evident in our childhood reading lists and the movies we want to watch on loop when we miss home. But no matter how many variations of Egg Benedicts we’re ordering at newly opened cafes around town, food at home tends to remain dependably authentic to an era which predates invasion by the shepherd’s pie. In kitchens across Bengal, the choto maach or boro maach[4]sizzling in the pan can tell you a lot about which side of the border the antecedents of the residents lie, even if their speech patterns don’t immediately give it away.

The kitchen I grew up with refused to pick a side. Bland aloo sheddho[5], which was neither a buttery mash nor a spicy bhorta[6], sauteed borboti[7] which your average agent of the Raj would likely pass, and oven-roasted chicken (honed to perfection over the years) kept me supple and appreciative of the contents of other girls’ tiffin boxes. Our daily fish was nearly always a basic rui[8] which neither the Ghotis nor the Bangals could be moved to wage war over. Occasionally a dollop of mustard oil and a crunch of chilli to liven up the boiled dal might make my friends scream “Bangal!”, but the subtle flavours of the kosha mangsho[9] from my grandmother’s recipe book waved the Ghoti banner. Every now and then my mother used the oven to bake a light sponge cake which I doused with warm custard, negating both sides in favour of the Union Jack.

What makes people Ghoti or Bangal, I once asked a friend who was shaking her head at my inability to identify with either. I was the opposite of a Bati… what did that make me? Paati[10]? My friend’s classification was simplistic — those with ancestors who hailed from East Bengal before the 1947 Partition were Bangal, those who hailed from West Bengal were Ghoti, and the two camps were violent supporters of rival football teams. I wasn’t so sure that that was all there was to it. What I was looking for, was a feeling of belonging and cultural heritage that trickled down the generations — a feeling which made younger people resonate with the traditions of either side, even in an age where an acquired love for sushi (with perhaps an extra dollop of wasabi for the Bangals, perhaps) was beginning to bind us.

My mother’s family was in Chittagong before Partition but my father’s family was mostly from Calcutta. I was told the move from Chittagong was harrowing, as it was for everyone who was uprooted from their homes. I remember my grandfather as a scowling, angry man — he might have been 17 when they fled home and managed to reach Calcutta, relatively unscathed. His father, my great grandfather, had had the foresight to arrange accommodation, exchanging his house with another which lay on the right side of the new border. The family who had vacated this house were The Khans, and we referred to them as reverentially as the rest of the country referred to Bollywood’s leading families — who had vacated their house. I envision my ancestors, terrified and exhausted from the journey, staring up at the black gates of the sparkling white house I used to visit in my childhood — three red steps leading from the small front garden into a wide verandah beyond. I didn’t know then that the tall wooden doors with stained glass panes were a hallmark of Islamic architecture, I just thought it was cool. My grandfather’s eldest brother remained a silent man throughout his life, shaken by being uprooted from his plush life in Chittagong. The second eldest brother died soon enough, of heartbreak they said, not for the loss of a woman but for the loss of land. My great grandmother spent her last days painting the scenes she remembered of rivers and lush green farmlands. No doubt the busy market road in front of the too-small-but-actually-large house in Calcutta was not inspiring enough.

What did they eat? Just food?

My mother remembers her grandmother dressing for dinner — pinning on a brooch, clasping a string of pearls around her neck — seated at the head of the table, frail with cancer. Her trembling hands would pick up the knife and fork to slowly carve the fillet of fish before her. I have memories of my grandfather doing the same in the last year of his life, struggling to arrange a bib on his shirt, snapping at the nurse if she forgot to provide him with adequate cutlery for his bowl of Pish-pash — an Anglo-Indian one-pot chicken-and-rice dish. Through my mother’s childhood, the neighbourhood, dominated by Anglo Indians and Muslims, dished out biryani for Eid and plum pie for Christmas, making both biryani and pudding-with-brandy-sauce the highlights of my youthful eating.

My great grandmother’s memories of Chittagong dinners included chicken roast and mulligatawny soup. I was eating the same every Sunday inside dining rooms which demanded that the men, like my grandfather’s mother, dress for dinner. Here, I developed a palate for butter-oozing Chicken a la Kiev and Roast Mutton with Mint Sauce where I mixed the spicy green with the onion-brown on my plate, fascinated by the contrasting flavours. I was taught to tell the fish knife from the vegetable knife (and that eating with only a fork was an abhorrence), so I didn’t drive my cutlery-obsessed grandfather, Little Lord Fauntleroy, into a fury. This weekly enacting of colonial times made “just food” at home entirely worth it for the rest of the week.

If I couldn’t stand any more of pepe diye paatla maacher jhol [11] which even a Ghoti would balk at, I’d call my father on his office landline to ask, in whispers, if he wanted to bring something home for dinner. He’d make a noncommittal sound over the phone which nearly always meant alright. Those were days I couldn’t wait to dig into dal-bhaat[12] cheered up by burrah kebabs [13] or plain old omelette served with a side of fish and chips. The additions didn’t make my mother happy; she wanted her children to be reared on roasts and grills, not softened around the middle with too many fries and Tartar sauce.

My father, who had none of the baggage of displacement, had decided early on that only a bland “Continental” diet (a cuisine reminiscent of the Raj, which still prevails in Calcutta) could keep at bay the many digestive disorders the Bengalis are prone to. Grilled fish with varying condiments was the most ordered dish of my childhood, which I watched him cheerfully douse with lemon butter sauce, convinced it was better for his cholesterol levels than deemer devil[14]. If I was lucky to have him fetch me on report-collection day, he’d take me to a restaurant near school where they served grilled fish with a creamy spinach puree, which made me see why Popeye the Sailor Man could be hooked to green leafy vegetables. Years later, unable to digest hospital food, it was his turn to whisper if I could bring something for dinner. I knew the “something” would have to be fillet of fish, grilled and served with beurre blanc[15].

Despite my mother’s efforts to the contrary, I turned out to be quite the “foodie”. I have a deep interest in eating, more so than many people who grew up with distinctive flavours at their dining table. Conversations about food will keep me riveted. Feeling flavours come together in my mouth like art will always brighten up a bleak day. My mother, who continues to eat boiled pumpkin for lunch, is bemused by this turn of events. When I left home, my functional eating habits followed me to different cities. With no patience for cooking a meal, I stocked the fridge with cartons of milk, crates of eggs and loaves of bread. My friends, on the other hand, attempted to recreate the recipes they’d grown up with, spending their weekends trying to recreate aloo posto[16] or a malaikari[17]. Since food was functional for me, I took the path of least resistance before the stove — a sunny side up served me well, because what I really wanted was a fish supreme[18].

Friends who grew up eating elaborate home-cooked meals do in fact, have less polarised attitudes to food, rarely oscillating between a craving for steamed cabbage or salmon-cream-cheese sandwich. Some days I might land up uninvited for lunch where I know the regular fare won’t be disappointing and a friend’s mother will serve an aloo jeere[19]from her Bangal repertoire, which makes the jacket potato of my youth pale, like the coloniser, in comparison.

My palate, free of both pride for my own boring larder and prejudice against a particular tradition, is perennially ready to accept the offerings from other people’s kitchens. I’ll eat anything my friends cook; I watch in wonder as they spruce up a boring boiled dal with crackling spices and I appreciate the cauliflower in the rich gravy of the kalia. Of course, when I can, I still order a chicken Forriester [20]or a tipsy pudding (it wobbles). I’m Paati in that!

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[1] Ghoti is a colloquialism that refers to people from West Bengal and Bangal are people from Bangladesh.

[2] Lentils

[3] Okra

[4] Small fish, big fish

[5] Boiled potato

[6] Mashed

[7] Beans

[8] Rohu or ruhi fish found commonly in rivers of South Asia

[9] A dry preparation of mutton

[10] Typical

[11] Papaya with watery fish curry

[12] Lentils and rice

[13] Indian lamb chops dating back to the Mughals

[14] Devilled eggs

[15] Butter based emulsified sauce, a French recipe.

[16] Potato with poppy seeds

[17] Coconut cream gravy with prawn

[18] Fish roll wrapped in egg and stuffed with bacon

[19]  Potato with cumin

[20] Evolved from the French a la Forestière, which conjures up mushroom and pork strips

Ramona Sen has authored a novel, Crème Brûlée (Rupa Publications) and a novella, Potluck, (Juggernaut Books). Calcutta is the city of her soul, the backdrop of all that she writes.

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Categories
Contents

Borderless June 2023

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Where have All the People Gone? … Click here to read.

Translations

Hena, a short story by Nazrul, has been translated from Bengali by Sohana Manzoor. Click here to read.

Mohammad Ali’s Signature, a short story by S Ramakrishnan, has been translated from Tamil by Dr B Chandramouli. Click here to read.

Three poems by Masud Khan have been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Shadows, a poem in Korean, has been translated by the poet himself, Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.

Pran or Life by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Conversations

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri converses with Vinta Nanda about the Shout, a documentary by Vinta Nanda that documents the position of women in Indian society against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement and centuries of oppression and injustice. Click here to read.

In Conversation with Advait Kottary about his debut historic fiction, Siddhartha: The Boy Who Became the Buddha. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Michael Burch, Ananya Sarkar, George Freek, Smitha Sehgal, Rachel Jayan, Michael Lee Johnson, Sayantan Sur, Ron Pickett, Saranyan BV, Jason Ryberg, Priya Narayanan, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Evangeline Zarpas, Ramesh Karthik Nayak, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Ghee-Wizz, Rhys Hughes talks of the benefits of Indian sweets while wooing Yetis. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Humbled by a Pig

Farouk Gulsara meets a wild pig while out one early morning and muses on the ‘meeting’. Click here to read.

Spring Surprise in the Sierra

Meredith Stephens takes us hiking in Sierra Nevada. Click here to read.

Lemon Pickle without Oil

Raka Banerjee indulges in nostalgia as she tries her hand at her grandmother’s recipe. Click here to read.

Apples & Apricots in Alchi

Shivani Shrivastav bikes down to Alchi Ladakh to find serenity and natural beauty. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Trees from my Childhood, Devraj Singh Kalsi muses on his symbiotic responses to trees that grew in their home. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Superhero Sunday in Osaka, Suzanne Kamata writes of her experience at the Osaka Comic Convention with her daughter. Click here to read.

Stories

The Trial of Veg Biryani

Anagha Narasimha gives us a social satire. Click here to read.

Am I enough?

Sarpreet Kaur explores social issues in an unusual format. Click here to read.

Arthur’s Subterranean Adventure

Paul Mirabile journeys towards the centre of the Earth with his protagonist. Click here to read.

Essays

No Bucket Lists, No Regrets

Keith Lyons muses on choices we make while living. Click here to read.

In Search of the Perfect Dosa

Ravi Shankar trots around the world in quest of the perfect dosa — from South India to Aruba and West Indies. Click here to read.

“Bookshops don’t fail. Bookshops run by lazy booksellers fail.”

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri takes us for a tour of the Kunzum bookstore in New Delhi. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Greening the Earth: A Global Anthology of Poetry, edited by K. Sachitanandan and Nishi Chawla. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Advait Kottary’s Siddhartha: The Boy Who Became the Buddha. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Behind Latticed Marble: Inner Worlds of Women by Jyotirmoyee Devi Sen, translated from Bengali by Apala G. Egan. Click here to read.

Rakhi Dalal reviews Rhys Hughes’ The Wistful Wanderings of Perceval Pitthelm. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy reviews Prerna Gill’s Meanwhile. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Zac O’Yeah’s Digesting India: A Travel Writer’s Sub-Continental Adventures With The Tummy (A Memoir À La Carte). Click here to read.

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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