Nothing could have prepared me for the weight of holding someone so completely mine.
I first held Sundus at 3 a.m., in a room lit only by the soft glow of a bedside lamp. Her tiny chest rose and fell with a fragile, steady rhythm. I whispered to her, almost to myself, “How am I supposed to love someone so small so completely?”
For months before her arrival, I had imagined this moment endlessly: quiet nights, gentle rocking, tiny hands curling around mine, the first tentative smiles, her eyes meeting mine for the very first time. And somewhere under all the hope was a quiet worry, what if I can’t do this?
Late one evening, while sitting in the nursery with my wife, I found myself speaking aloud the fears I had carried for weeks. “I keep imagining all the ways I might mess up,” I said softly.
My wife reached for my hand, resting hers on mine. “You don’t have to be perfect,” she said gently. “All you need to do is be there. That’s enough. You’ll see.”
Her words stayed with me. I realised then that fatherhood wasn’t about knowing all the answers. It was about presence, patience, and the willingness to feel everything fully. And we were in this together, learning step by step, moment by moment.
When Sundus finally arrived, the world became a delicate rhythm of small, luminous acts. Nights blurred into mornings filled with feeding, rocking, wiping tiny faces, humming songs we barely remembered. I watched my wife navigate these first days with patience and care, and together we learned to notice the subtle changes in Sundus’s breathing, the way her little body stiffened when curious, or relaxed when comforted. Each gesture became a promise, I am here, we see you, we will stay with you.
But the early months were not without fear. The first time Sundus was hospitalised, I felt a pain I could never have imagined. My wife tried to feed her, letting her suck as hard as she could, but the milk wasn’t coming through enough. Sundus’s tiny lips were raw from all the effort, and still, she struggled. When her sodium levels rose dangerously high, I felt my heart split in two, as if a hot, sharp knife had cut right through it. Watching her in the ICU, so small and fragile, my chest ached with every tiny cry she made. We whispered encouragements that felt almost powerless, holding her little hands, willing her to be safe. After six long days, once she was stable, Sundus was gently put on formula milk. I had never realised before how terrifying it could be to love someone so completely, and how fiercely protective a father’s heart can ache.
There was a small scare when Sundus had a minor health issue and seeing her so tiny under the gaze of doctors made our hearts ache. Every cry she let out cut deeper than I could have imagined. I held her hand and whispered, “We are right here with you,” while my wife stroked her hair softly, murmuring, “It’s going to be okay, baby.” In that moment, I understood how our own parents must have felt, fear, helplessness, and a love so intense it can almost hurt.
One particularly long night, after another restless evening, I slumped in the chair and whispered, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
My wife leaned over, brushing my hair from my forehead. “Look at you,” she said softly. “You’re doing this. You’re here. You’re enough. I see you. Sundus sees you.”
In that moment, I understood that fatherhood was less about courage or perfection and more about vulnerability. And in that vulnerability, I found a kind of strength I hadn’t known existed, the strength to be fully awake, fully present, fully human, alongside the person who shared this journey with me.
Now, at eight months, fatherhood reveals itself in small miracles that arrive unannounced. Sundus’s first laugh that lights up the room, the way she reaches for a toy with tiny fingers, the tilt of her head when my voice calls her name, they are moments too precious to be planned. Each one feels eternal, luminous, and grounding all at once.
Even though Sundus doesn’t speak yet, her smile and her eyes say everything. Each look, each tiny gesture carries a language all her own, telling us joy, curiosity, comfort, and trust without a single word. In those moments, it feels as though she is having long conversations with us, and we understand her perfectly.
I watch Sundus explore the world with wide-eyed curiosity, and I am reminded that love is both ordinary and extraordinary. It is in quiet sighs of contentment, in the trust of falling asleep in my arms, in the small discoveries she makes each day. Every moment is a thread weaving us together, a connection invisible to anyone but us. My wife and I share those moments, sometimes in laughter, sometimes in whispered awe, sometimes in the silent gratitude of being a little family.
I talk to Sundus constantly, narrating the world as she notices it, “Look at this leaf turning golden,” I say, or “See how the sunlight falls across the floor?”. My wife does the same, her voice soft and steady, full of warmth. Even though Sundus cannot respond in words yet, I know she hears us, I know she feels it.
She reaches for our hands often, tiny fingers curling around our thumbs, and every time she does, the world narrows to this circle of warmth and trust. Every cry, every sigh, every tiny movement speaks to me in ways I cannot fully name. I whisper, “I love you, Sundus,” and my wife echoes it softly, almost as if the walls of the room themselves could carry the weight of our love.
Fatherhood is not about routines or perfection. It is about noticing, feeling, responding. It is about showing up every day for someone who depends on you completely. Even in quiet, uncelebrated moments, it is extraordinary.
The mornings when Sundus wakes with a new curiosity in her eyes, the afternoons when she naps across my chest, the evenings when my wife and I share a quiet tea while watching her drift to sleep, all of these moments accumulate into a kind of living memory that feels sacred and ordinary at the same time. The hospital scares, the sleepless nights, all of it has carved space in my heart deeper than I ever thought possible, a space I now carry with love and awareness.
Sometimes, I catch my wife looking at Sundus and whispering, “She is ours, isn’t she?” Her eyes glisten, and I nod, realising that every joy and every fear belongs to both of us equally. Even the silent, unnoticed moments, like watching her eyelids flutter during a nap, or feeling her tiny sighs against my chest, carry meaning that words cannot hold.
Looking back on the months before Sundus’s birth, I understand that imagining fatherhood was not rehearsal for perfection. It was preparation for presence. Anticipation taught me patience, empathy, and the courage to love fully, imperfectly, and unreservedly. Sharing this journey with my wife has made every moment richer, every fear lighter, every joy deeper.
The first time Sundus rolled over on her own, I felt a surge of pride and awe. My wife and I celebrated quietly, as though the world beyond our room did not exist. The small milestones, the tiny gestures, the new sounds she makes, all carry weight far beyond their size. Each moment is a new discovery, a lesson in patience, in wonder, in presence.
Eight months into this journey, I am still learning. Every smile, every gesture, every fleeting glance teaches me something new about love, presence, and wonder. Fatherhood is beyond imagination, yet it begins in imagination. It is ordinary and extraordinary, quiet and luminous, intimate and universal.
Every night, when I hold Sundus close and see her nestled against her mother, I know this truth with absolute certainty. To love and be loved in this way is the most profound gift life can offer. Perhaps in these quiet months, we also come to understand something deeper about life itself, the fragile, luminous weight of love, patience, and presence that threads generations together, unseen but unbreakable.
And in the moments between laughter and tears, between cries that feel like knives through the heart and sighs of contentment, we feel the invisible, enduring pulse of family, of trust, of presence, of love that makes all the sleepless nights, the hospital fears, and the quiet anxieties worthwhile. Sundus, you are my world.
Gowher Bhat is a columnist, freelance journalist, beta reader, book reviewer, avid reader, and educator from Kashmir, and a published author of both fiction and nonfiction. He serves as a senior columnist for several local newspapers across the Kashmir.
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Pink Angels by Willem de Kooning (1904-1997). Photo provided by Ryan Quinn Flanagan
PINK ANGELS BURSTING
I wonder what de Kooning was thinking when he demolished his pink angels, a failure of the writer most surely when he needs to know the mind before the paint, like watching the smoke rings of a treasured tobacconist dissolved in a vat of acid: in mangled appetites, a splintered swan failing to escape the bottom of the painting, is that an eye by graceless clubfoot? A bedroom eye in fitful spasms. Those yellow whirling knives that cleave and so abruptly bother these angels of a most personal heaven.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
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Title: No. 1 Akashganga Lane: The First Novel about the Gig Workers of Kolkata
Author: Ashoke Mukhopadhyay
Translation from Bengali by Zenith Roy
Publisher: Niyogi Books
No. 1 Akashganga Lane: The First Novel about the Gig Workers of Kolkata by Ashoke Mukhopadhyay, translated with sensitivity and nuance by Zenith Roy, is a strikingly contemporary novel that brings into sharp focus the precarious lives of urban gig workers. Set against the pulsating yet indifferent backdrop of Kolkata, the novel explores a world that is at once hyper-connected and profoundly isolating.
At the heart of the narrative is Sriman, a food delivery worker whose life is defined by anonymity and transience. He delivers meals to strangers, navigating the city’s labyrinthine streets, yet remains invisible within the very system he sustains. Mukhopadhyay captures this paradox with quiet precision: Sriman’s labour is essential, but his existence is expendable. The gig economy, as portrayed in the novel, demands efficiency, obedience, and silence—qualities that gradually erode individuality and agency.
Equally compelling is the character of Mrittika Sen, a bike taxi driver whose experiences foreground the gendered dimensions of gig work. Through her, the novel examines the additional vulnerabilities faced by women in an already unstable ecosystem. The constant threat of being “logged out”—a chillingly impersonal metaphor for economic erasure—hangs over her life. Mukhopadhyay does not sensationalise her struggles; instead, he presents them with restraint, allowing their quiet intensity to resonate.
What elevates No. 1 Akashganga Lane beyond a social-realist narrative is its imaginative and philosophical layer. The titular word, Akashganga, is a century-old house and serves as a refuge, both literal and symbolic. Within its walls resides Bishan Basu, a figure who introduces Sriman, Mrittika, and others to the stars. This shift from the immediacy of urban struggle to the vastness of the cosmos is one of the novel’s most poignant devices. It offers a counterpoint to the claustrophobia of gig work, suggesting that even in the most constrained lives, there exists a yearning for transcendence.
The recurring motif of the stars and the speculative question—whether these workers might one day need another planet to call home—imbues the narrative with a subtle dystopian edge. It reflects not only ecological anxieties but also a deeper sense of displacement. The idea that gig workers might carry their labour into another world is both darkly humorous and profoundly unsettling, underscoring the inescapability of systemic exploitation.
Mukhopadhyay’s Bengali prose, as rendered in English by Roy, is measured and evocative. The translation deserves particular commendation for retaining the cultural texture of the original while ensuring readability for a wider audience. Kolkata itself emerges as a character—its rhythms, inequalities, and fleeting solidarities shaping the lives of those who inhabit it. The author’s background in documenting the city’s social history is evident in the authenticity of detail and atmosphere.
The novel also succeeds in capturing the fragile solidarities that emerge among gig workers. Friendships, though often transient, provide moments of warmth and resistance. The shared experiences of precarity create a sense of community, however fleeting. Akashganga becomes a space where these fragmented lives intersect, offering not solutions but solace.
No. 1 Akashganga Lane is a timely and thought-provoking novel that captures the human cost of the gig economy with empathy and insight. Through its blend of social realism and philosophical reflection, it offers a nuanced portrait of contemporary urban life.
Ashoke Mukhopadhyay has crafted a narrative that is both rooted in the specifics of Kolkata and resonant with global relevance, while Zenith Roy ensures that its voice travels beyond linguistic boundaries. The result is a work that lingers, prompting readers to look more closely at the invisible lives that sustain modern cities.
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Bhaskar Parichha is a journalist and author of Cyclones in Odisha: Landfall, Wreckage and Resilience, 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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Mohul Bhowmick takes us Hyderabad on Eid in March 2026[1]
Charminar and adjoining streets. From Public Domain
Nayaab was closed, and Shadab peeked past its closed arches. The doors that proclaimed ‘Madina Hotel – Best Biryani in Hyderabad Since 1947’ were promiscuously shut in the presence of foreigners who had no business being awake at that hour, and the road leading up to the Charminar from Naya Pul — Hyderabad’s high street — was littered with polythene covers that had seen better days. Gulzar Houz was empty save the loitering youth who had faltered on their way home from Chand Raat[2]; Eid was here, the namaaz was slated for 10 AM at Mecca Masjid, and the scent of sheer khurma[3]wafted in the air. The Charminar was erected in 1591, the year in which Hyderabad was founded by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah (1565-1612), and the minarets of this emblem stretched out in an embrace, welcoming everyone with its all-forgiving, benevolent gaze.
Laad Bazaar — with the door of every store shut — stretched to its west, the Bhagyalakshmi temple to its east, and the wide expanse leading up to Lal Darwaza to its south. Café Nimrah – which was in high demand on Eid — did not even bat an eyelid when its shutters were hammered at with a ferocity unbecoming of pious young men, while Café Farasha next door, seizing the opportunity with both hands, did brisk business. An acne-wrecked student with a pockmarked face who had paid twice his pocket money as bus fare to arrive from the northern peripheries of town complained about the steep hike in the price of a cup of tea; a Turkish couple were seen encouraging their five-year-old daughter to sip the frothy liquid. Farasha, chambermaid to Nimrah all year, sparkled brighter than Cinderella had on her anointed night.
The loveliness of the morning was marred by policemen on horses, patrolling in as swift a manner as was last seen during Operation Polo. Arabs, Afghans, Emiratis, Bangladeshis and Biharis traded wishes but gave each other a wide berth when looking up at the beseeching image of the deceased Ayatollah. The aroma of the air grew manifold when a few shifty-eyed young men, berated by the mounted police with their lacquered batons to not practice their pickpocketing on this holy day, hugged each other with a gay abandon one had not known them to possess. The atmosphere grew thick with rumour that today might be the last day that Pista House still have their haleem[4] — if they did at all — and one hurried towards Shah Ali Banda as one would after the final boarding call at an airport gate.
The azaan[5] for the Eid prayers from Mecca Masjid could be heard bellowing its message an hour before time. Milan Juice Centre, Matwale Doodh Ghar and Tajalli Milkshakes and More had firmly decided to abandon the festivities in favour of religiosity — economic and otherwise. One walked past the mosque, berated by one-eyed cripples hanging on to their faith for support; beggars — unequivocally of a secular nature — paraded their naked pride to a group of Sikhs who found the entire spectacle amusing. The rising of the sun was foreshadowed by the empty streets — unlike what one must have seen the previous night — and a foreboding could be felt when one turned towards Mir Chowk and peeped at Machli Kaman. The temple dedicated to Siva had chosen this to be the day on which its new loudspeakers would be tested.
Mohul Bhowmick is a national-level cricketer, sports journalist, poet, essayist and travel writer from Hyderabad, India. He has published five collections of poems and one travelogue so far. His latest book, The Past Is Another Country, came out in 2025. More of his work can be discovered on his website: www.mohulbhowmick.com.
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Victor grew up inside a trailer park with dilapidated trailers packed together like tuna in a rusty old can. His grandmother’s trailer smelled of cleaning supplies; the scent she brought home from cleaning offices overnight. She raised Victor alone after his mother abandoned him for a life as a hippie drifting from commune to commune.
She knew he was different: not able to speak, withdrawn, unable to tie his shoes, write his name, never learning personal hygiene and unable to feed himself. Schools labeled him “retarded” and wouldn’t enroll him.
In the corner of the trailer sat a dying black-and-white television with bent rabbit ears. Victor sat cross-legged inches from the television screen, mesmerized by flickering images while the picture rolled and the sound hissed. His grandmother couldn’t afford a sitter to supervise him while she worked. Victor didn’t require supervision because the television and a transistor radio kept him engaged inside a world, he felt safe.
The components of a broken transistor radio were Victor’s playmates: a ferrite rod antenna wrapped in copper; a small oval loudspeaker; and the tuning capacitor. Other friends included the compact circuit board, cylindrical transistors, and striped resistors.
He spread the radio components across the floor. His grandmother gave him a wooden puzzle set of familiar geometric patterns. Victor preferred triangles because they had a base and stood upright like he was signaling the need for steadiness.
Victor built faces with the components of the radio; two round capacitors became eyes; a curved wire became a mouth sometimes bent upward, flat, or dipped into a quiet sadness; the loudspeaker formed the body; the ferrite rod antenna became a spine; and copper coils became hair. He placed a small transistor perched on top like a hat, tilted just enough to suggest the figure was attempting to say “hello” with a tip of its hat. Victor used components the way other children handled crayons.
His grandmother described his component constructions to his pediatrician, “He always places a mouth on the triangles.”
The pediatrician suggested,“I believe these triangles are Victor’s only way of communicating his feelings. Children like Victor require around the clock care and will never amount to anything more than grown toddlers. As he grows into manhood and you become frail, there is no alternative but to have Victor committed to a state hospital where retarded children are cared for and live out their lives.”
*
The intake office at the Junction State Hospital smelled of antiseptic and urine. The intake social worker, Joanie Greenstreet, watched Victor closely as he rocked in his chair, eyes drifting toward the ceiling.
“This is the worst part of my job. It’s best you slip out of the room with no goodbye, so Victor isn’t aware.”
Victor’s grandmother left her grandson forever.
*
Junction State Hospital was built in 1940 on state land inside the countryside, out of sight, and out of mind where the paved road with sidewalks and streetlights gave way to a narrow dirt road leading past the locked rusting gates of the hospital resembling a haunted mansion.
The hospital was for children who did not speak; rocked incessantly; banged their heads against walls; screamed at sounds no one else could hear; and couldn’t feed or bathe themselves. They were children with autism before autism had a proper name; Down Syndrome; Cerebral Palsy; learning disabilities, and genetic conditions doctors didn’t understand.
Their care required around the clock attention, which was beyond the financial resources for most families. The parents were convinced by medical providers “long-term placement”; “specialized supervision”; and “they’ll be safer” were the only alternative.
Fathers hurriedly carried suitcases inside and left quickly while mothers cried openly and others didn’t cry, having lost the ability. Many parents never came inside choosing to hand their child off to an attendant from the car like dropping a package marked “No Return Address” into a mailbox.
As the children matured inside Junction, they roamed the narrow hallways, heard keys, and came accustomed to the smell of disinfectants, faeces, and urine. They quickly learned which staff were gentle and which were not.
When they died without family, there was nowhere for them to go except for an undignified cemetery on the hospital grounds.
*
Victor was placed in a ward with boys suffering from mild to severe disabilities. Some were cunning and feigned friendship, sitting next to Victor on the edge of his bed only to touch the portable television he brought with him which he hid under the bed. His radio components were confiscated, thrown away as “choking hazards” which eliminated the safe and kind world which might shield Victor from for the horrors of the ward. He erupted into violent fits requiring sedation and restraints at times. Victor refused group activities and meals if it meant leaving the TV behind.
*
Joanie Greenstreet was a young post-doc psychologist who tried to help Victor adjust but couldn’t reach him. She offered to keep the television safe inside her office, but Victor wouldn’t allow it to be taken from him.
The hospital’s chief psychiatrist was determined to permanently medicate Victor and subdue him into submission, but Joanie pleaded for more time to reach Victor explaining,
“I see something special inside Victor, Doctor Spencer. I need more time to reach him.”
“You supervise a large ward of boys demanding your attention and making Victor a ‘pet project’ isn’t fair to the others, but I’ll give you a limited amount of time.”
*
Doctor Spencer’s words dusted up Joanie’s memories of a failed marriage to a man whose family tree spawned several babies with “Down Syndrome” and, when she became pregnant with his baby as an undergraduate, he demanded she receive Amniocentesis testing.
The results came back showing the genetic markers for a baby with Down Syndrome. “You’ll have an abortion, dear, and we’ll try again.”
“I’ve been reading babies born with Down Syndrome can lead productive lives, dear.”
“I won’t stand for you delivering a freak of nature. Choose an immediate abortion or a divorce!”
Joanie’s decision to acquiesce to the abortion created a fracture in the marriage which led to divorce. She finished college earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in social work determined to assist families and those afflicted with developmental disabilities.
*
Joanie motivated Victor to attend group meals by permitting him to bring along his TV. She collected broken transistor radios from sympathetic staff members which permitted Victor to return to a familiar, safe place within his mind, inside the privacy of her office. Victor trusted Joanie.
*
After months of their meal routine, Joanie was optimistic Victor could avoid permanent sedation when he agreed to leave behind the television underneath his bed when going to meals. One evening after dinner, Joanie escorted Victor to his ward. The television was on top of his bed and the knobs and rabbit ears were broken off accompanied by a perverse chorus of laughter and giggling from the boys inside the ward.
Victor screamed while rocking back and forth managing to break free from Joanies embrace. Three staff members subdued him with plans to administer a mind-numbing sedative. Joanie wrestled the syringe from the attendant. She held Victor tightly until he settled down.
Joanie tucked Victor into bed and sat beside him all evening. She recalled a small shop inside town, “Nakamura’s TV & Radio Repair”
*
Joanie obtained a day pass to have Victor accompany her to the repair shop. They carried the broken television inside the shop smelling of dust and warm metal cluttered with old TV sets and radios.
Kenji Nakamura was an old man with a pocket protector loaded with pens, pencils, and tiny screwdrivers. He flipped the television around, removed the back, and stared inside.
“It’s all vacuum tubes. Even if I could find the parts, the cost of repair is more than buying a refurbished set. For ten dollars, I’ll sell you a reconditioned set including a remote control.”
Kenji held Victor’s hand, guiding his forefinger to the blue button pressing the remote. The television jumped to life with a crystal-clear screen. Victor was mesmerized by the ability to command the television.
“You’re holding a magic wand.”
Kenji leaned into Joanie and whispered, “Why don’t you buy it for the kid and take it with you?”
“I have a plan in mind which might be breakthrough therapy for Victor.”
*
Victor collected pop bottles from every trash can and sometimes absconding with half-filled soda pop bottles he found on desks. Staff members collected bottles from home and placed them inside a collection drum within Joanie’s office. Victor’s daily collection showed a work ethic with a goal in mind which impressed Joanie and Doctor Spencer.
*
After months of collecting bottles, Victor placed a soda pop bottle inside the collection drum. He pointed to a ten-dollar bill Joanie taped to the bottle collection drum reminding him of the monetary goal.
“You’ve collected five hundred bottles according to my tally. Let me hold your forefinger to the calculator. Let’s press five, zero, zero. What is the price paid for each bottle, Victor?”
Victor practiced tracing the number two and cent sign for weeks and traced the number and cent symbol with his finger in the air.
“Let’s press the letter ‘X’ which will multiply ‘500’ by two cents.”
Joanie held Victor’s forefinger to the calculator’s equal sign. “10.00” glowed in red. He ran to the ten-dollar bill taped to the collection drum, tore it off, and proudly handed it to Joanie. Victor tugged on Mrs. Greenstreet’s arm as a non-verbal signal to immediately leave for Kenji’s shop to purchase the television set.
*
Kenji proudly handed Victor the television.
“Why are packing boxes strewn about?”
“I’m retiring because transistors have put me out of business.”
He handed Victor a tattered and faded blue three-ring binder.
“These are my notes including everything I learned in the Army Signal Corps and repairing TV’s and radios for twenty years. I want you to have it.”
Victor opened it carefully as if understanding it contained magic. The pages were filled with precise pencil drawings including circuits, pathways, and transistors including handwritten notes. Victor studied the first diagram, and his breathing changed, catching Kenji’s attention.
Victor’s finger lifted and hovered above the paper before touching, following and tracing the circuits pathway. His finger shifted slightly and to a different point and found a shorter path and tapped it once. Victor looked towards Kenji as if speaking in a non-verbal communique only the two would understand. Kenji felt something stir in his gut.
Victor placed his finger in the air sketching an invisible correction knowing he mastered an improvement to the diagram. Kenji wrote on the page what Victor was inscribing in the air with his finger pencil.
“Is this what you see?”
Victor traced the path with his finger on Kenji’s diagram. He tapped it once. Kenji understood Victor was not reading the circuits like a map but inventing shortcuts for the pathways allowing the signal to flow quickly and flawlessly.
“Victor knows the signal’s destination and devised a better way for it to arrive. I hit a wall with my intellect, but Victor doesn’t see a wall. He intuitively devises pathways over, under, and around my wall. Permit him to study the binder, Joanie.”
“You believe he understands it?”
“I believe he understands what it wants to become.”
Joanie carefully turned the pages finding detailed handwritten drawings of electronic circuitry including images of tiny boxes with legs resembling metal insects.
“What are these images, Kenji?”
“Tiny transistors replacing vacuum tubes and the future of electronics.”
“Are you certain you want to part with your life’s study?”
“I’m not parting but handing the baton off to a new generation who will usher electronics into the future.”
*
Joanie set up a desk, lamp, and chair inside her office for Victor to study. Joanie watched as Victor sketched transistors and circuits. Kenji’s binder began to fill with pages of original study intuitively devised as if constructing the triangular figures he adorned with radio components. Kenji organised his study as if he were providing Victor with a light to follow discovering new pathways Victor would provide to the signal.
Victor watched television with the binder open on his lap. The screen glowed, and so did the pages of the tattered blue binder. Nobody except Victor knew there were two signals inside; a signal guiding him through the world as it was, and the other signal showing him what the future of the world could become.
Joanie invited Doctor Spencer to review the blue binder with her. He turned each page with fascination.
“A TV repairman and Victor put this together?”
“The original work was a gift from Kenji Nakamura to Victor, but the newest pages are Victor’s original scholarship.”
“I developed a rudimentary knowledge of electronics by reading Popular Electronics as a young man. The original scholarship resembles a ‘paint by numbers’ directional guide for Victor to follow. Victor owns this?”
“Yes.”
“Small computer companies are sprouting up which will change the world. They’ll want a peek at this work but, before they do, I want to consult with a patent attorney.”
*
Victor and Joanie sat as the attorney explained the importance of protecting the blue binder with patent applications. Victor was distracted mimicking the finger gestures of a secretary striking the keys of a typewriter.
“I’ve prepared a retainer agreement but given Victor’s diminished mental acuity, he’ll require a guardian’s signature.”
“Doctor Spencer will sign.”
“I’m also preparing a trust for the benefit of Victor.”
“Why is that necessary?”
“Stand by and find out, Joanie.”
*
Vigorous attempts to locate Kenji led to an obituary about his burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
Negotiations for purchasing the blue binder followed quickly after filing the patent applications with the potential sale price reaching into the millions of dollars.
“If Victor will agree to sell the blue binder, he can build a home suitable for his special needs with round the clock care and retain a sizable estate for himself.”
“You must make Victor understand the value of his intellectual property or in time, others may improve upon Victor’s innovations, and the blue binder will become worthless.
*
Money meant nothing to Victor because his world didn’t comprehend what it could buy, control, or influence. Victor refused to look at renditions of new homes because the small bed inside the ward with his black and white remote-controlled television was home.
Joanie never attempted to influence Victor to sell the blue binder. She made gentle suggestions as though placing electronic components on a workbench and trusting his hands to assemble them. She hit a nerve when she mentioned,
“…kindness is its own reward like a gift from Kenji to you of the blue binder allowing you to carry on his study.”
Victor understood Joanie that meant the signal’s pathway design was finally completed. Kenji provided him with a compass to follow along transistor trail, and Victor understood currents moving through copper also move through people. He knew currents went where it was guided, and money was a current. Victor found the inspiration to provide others with the happiness he found inside a smiling electronic triangle built with components.
*
Doctor Spencer retired from Junction State Hospital and devoted his retirement years to pioneering the burgeoning field of neuroscience. Doctor Spencer made a visit to Victor before leaving the hospital forever. He came upon Victor sitting with Joanie as he designed improved pathways inside the blue binder.
“I’ve spent my medical career learning how signals move through the brain and become interrupted requiring people to live inside Junction State Hospital. Big electronic boxes called ‘computers’ are helping us to understand why pathways become distorted and the signals are lost inside the brain. Your blue binder can help us build smarter computers and show us how to repair twisted pathways and confused signals.”
Victor turned his attention back into the pages of the binder not noticing Doctor Spencer and Joanie had left the ward. Doctor Spencer left behind a framed photograph of himself, Victor, and Joanie, taken not long after Victor arrived at the hospital. The photo was a reminder of the first day he didn’t feel alone but happy like the smiling triangle wearing a hat.
*
Joanie returned to her office from morning rounds to find the blue binder on her chair with a smiling component triangle inscribed with a letter, “I”. Doctor Spencer explained the notation was an engineering abbreviation for the term “sustained current”.
*
Joanie retired but Victor remained enjoying quiet happiness watching his television illuminating darkness. The framed photograph of Joanie, Dr. Spencer, and himself was hung near his bed. On his nightstand, a vacuum tube gifted to him by Kenji remained reminding Victor that it once provided the glow behind a television screen creating light, but now, he felt like he gifted the same glow creating light to others made possible by the advances within neuroscience leaping from the pages of the blue binder.
*
Institutions like Junction State Hospital were replaced with group homes providing home-like environments and patients transferred elsewhere. Victor didn’t moan the loss of familiar people because he lived within the circuitry of his mind where the signals resembling Joanie’s quiet voice and Kenji’s patient hands remained.
Victor was the last to be buried within the hospital cemetery. Junction State Hospital was replaced by a new state college. The neuroscience institute created a scholarship for underprivileged students studying electrical engineering named, The Blue Binder Scholarship.
Although the hospital was forgotten, Victor remained broadcasting a signal comprised of memories including love passing like currents between human beings.
Victor Kline 1958–2014 He could not live in the world as it was, so he quietly helped build the one that came next.
Jonathan Ferrini is the author of nearly one hundred short stories and poems. He is the host and writer of the weekly “The Razor’s Ink Podcast” where he discusses movies, television, and music. A partial collection of Jonathan’s short stories has been published within Hearts Without Sleeves Twenty-Three Stories (available at Amazon). Jonathan received his MFA in motion picture and television at UCLA. He resides in San Diego, California.
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Be careful what you wish for. The winters have been so warm. Snow is a romantic dream. Wish fulfillment may be more than you bargained for.
The winters have been so warm. Insects appear inside in February. Wish fulfillment may be more than you bargained for. At least the heating bill is low.
Insects appear inside in February. That bag of snow melt neglected in the basement. At least the heating bill is low. Sometimes you consider wearing shorts.
That bag of snow melt neglected in the basement. Snow shovels gather dust in the shadows. Sometimes you consider wearing shorts. Would a trip to Florida feel wrong?
The shovels gather dust in the shadows. Snow is such a romantic dream. Would a trip to Florida feel wrong? Be careful what you wish for.
Casablanca Crime
We’d passed up Rick’s Café at Place du jardin, named for the Bogart film. Maybe it wasn’t even open. This was Ramadan, after all. We wound up at Café La Cadence. I was starving for lunch.
We’d barely taken our seats when the police stormed in. They arrested fifty of us for having something to eat! A crime to eat during the day? A blatant violation of freedom of belief.
The worst part? The crêpe fromage I’d ordered was drowned in cheese like a tasteless sludge of glue. Adil’d recommended the place for its coffee and bubble tea. This was not worth going to prison for!
The Best Thing on TV Since Ruby Shot Oswald
What's the best thing I’ve seen on TV? I think of that line from Andy Warhol’s Diaries, apparently something a fan said to Truman Capote. It’s got to be a sports show, a Wimbledon final, a Super Bowl touchdown, a game seven World Series home run.
But I did see that live killing, Ruby muscling in with a snub-nosed pistol, the sheriff – was his name Garrison? – rearing back as if from an offensive odor, Oswald crumpling in on himself like a sheet of crushed cellophane.
As if the assassination weren’t dramatic enough – and I can’t remember when I saw the 26-second 8-mm Zapruder film, but it must have been years later – the “reality TV” killing blew my ten-year-old mind, sitting in front of the family black and white Motorola in Potawatomi Falls, Michigan, November, 1963.
The moon landing? The January 6 Capitol riot?
Brutal Honesty
When I complimented Ellen, the lady in the cubicle next to mine, on her lovely smile, her even white teeth, she told me her first husband knocked her teeth out. These were implants.
It made me remember Freshman year registration – how many decades ago – college students snaking around the gymnasium, table to table, filling out forms. In line in front of me, another freshman, Dan, who fancied himself suave, telling Pam, the girl beside him, she had the most dazzling blue eyes, in his most Sean Connery voice, she saying to him, “They’re tinted contacts.”
Did Ellen think I was attempting debonair?
An Off-and-On-Again Praying Person
Sometimes for health. Sometimes for love. Sometimes for the home team. Sometimes for the health and safety of pets. Sometimes for respect, recognition, esteem.
Sometimes because things seem hopeless. Sometimes because I know it’s impossible. Sometimes because of the inevitable. Sometimes because Fate seems so unchangeable. Sometimes because why not, can’t hurt.
Then there’s democracy, hazy concept, but you know when it’s being subverted. Pareidolia may just be faces in the clouds, hidden drama in the motion of trees or water. Prayers and their partner, thoughts, about as effective.
Pareidolia is the psychological phenomenon of seeing patterns, especially faces, induced by random stimuli. From: Public Domain
Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore. His collection, The Tao According to Calvin Coolidge, was recently published by Kelsay Books.
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Title: The Tree Within: The Mexican Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz’s Years in India
Author: Indranil Chakravarty
Publisher: Penguin Random House India
‘For me, India was an accident.’ – Octavio Paz
The Mexican Nobel laureate poet and essayist Octavio Paz (1914-1998) was a writer of lightening insights and electric intelligence. His impassioned poetry is meditative, with a precision of language that is imbued with a strangely sensuous quality. In fact, language and poetry per se were some of his key thematic concerns. The announcement on the cover of this book states that The Tree Within is the enchanting story of Octavio Paz’s passionate love-affair with India where he served as Mexico’s ambassador in the 1960s but reading through this very detailed 518 pages well-researched biography of the Nobel Laureate poet one realises that it is a lot more.
Immersing himself in India’s rich cultural life and contemplative traditions, Paz travelled widely, forged deep friendships with some of India’s finest minds, and produced several of his most inspired poetry and essays. It was here that he met the love of his life and until the day he died, he continued to refer to India as the place where he experienced what he called his ‘second birth’. It is difficult to find similar cases in our history when a major creative figure from abroad drew inspiration from India’s culture for one’s own works over such an extended period. His writings became a bridge between continents, blending Eastern and Western sensibilities in ways that enriched the literary landscapes of both. In India, where the erotic and the sacred blend in ecstatic union – unlike in the West, where the two are scrupulously kept apart – he saw the possibility of a new synthesis through the dissolution of dualities. Interestingly, Mexico belongs to the western hemisphere but is generally considered non-West, like India. Blending biography, cultural history, and literary criticism, The Tree Within is a luminous testament to the enduring alchemy between India and the world through one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.
The book is divided into ten stand-alone chapters, and one can move to the topic of one’s choice. The first two chapters entitled ‘Family and Nation’ (1914-36) and ‘Paz Before India’ (1936-1951) serve as the background of Paz’s lineage, his growing up, and his passionate engagement with India can be understood in terms of the seeds planted early in his life through his family as well as the national cultural ambience where the idea of India was inscribed. All of them played a role in reinforcing his attraction towards the country. Unlike T.S.Eliot, Paz became politically active from an early age, with an initial inclination towards anarchism and Marxism and a subsequent rejection of Communism. He witnessed the Spanish Civil War firsthand, and he also had a close relationship with the surrealists in France.
It is only in the third chapter, ‘The First Sojourn’ (1951-52), that India is physically present when in 1951 Paz, then 37-years old, was assigned the task of opening a new embassy in New Delhi. It recounts his long sea-journey to India and his experiences and poetic output during that brief period of six months. To some extent, he externalised his inner unhappiness on India during his first trip. India of that time had little to offer him by way of intellectual excitement or fulfilling companionship. Things were in disarray when under Nehru as the new nation-state had just been born a few years ago. In New Delhi, Paz stayed at the Imperial Hotel, which became his residence during his entire stay. He also carried a lot of baggage in terms of Western cultural prejudices towards India. India not only smothered his senses; the grinding poverty and rigid mores of life left him disgusted.
In Chapter Four, ‘Paz and Satish Gujral: In Light of Mexico’ describes the personal friendship between Paz and Satish Gujral, one of India’s leading painters and how Paz shaped his development as an artist by inserting Gujral among the maestros of the Mexican mural movement. In fact, the influence of the Mexican mural movement on modern Indian art through Gujral would not have been possible without Octavio Paz’s decision to send him to Mexico. The meeting with Nehru and Indira Gandhi through Satish’s brother I.K. Gujral also offers interesting information. The following chapter, ‘Coming Home, Going Away’ (1953 -62) traces Paz’s life and creative evolution from the time he left India to the time he was sent to India as Mexico’s ambassador in 1962. This ten-year period between his first sojourn in India in 1952 and his return as the Mexican ambassador in 1962 involved many defining moments in his personal and professional life which shaped his creative evolution as a writer. The extent to which he had already immersed himself in Indian philosophy is evident from the ways he assimilated his experiences and insights of his first stay in the writings of the next decade even when their themes had little to do with India.
‘Making Poetry, Making Love’ (1962 -68) is an account of Paz’s travels through the Indian subcontinent (he was given additional charge of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Ceylon), his relationship with Bona Tibertelli with whom he spent an idyllic vacation across the Indian subcontinent, his unhappy marriage with Elena Garro, his meeting and eventual marriage with his second wife, Marie-Jose Tramini, and the poetry that grew out of that amorous experience – all find ample space in this chapter. The way in which their love affair unfolded is wrapped in secrecy. It is also said that he developed some unsavoury practices for a man of his position. Nevertheless, it was the most bountiful period of an unimaginably productive life.
Chapter Seven named, ‘The Poet as Diplomat (962-68), recounts his role as a diplomat and his pioneering bridge-building efforts. His life stands as a shining example of how the advantages of diplomatic life can be used for maximizing literary output. The title of the next chapter ‘Paz’s Indian Friends: Surrounded by Infinity’ is self-explanatory. It recounts Paz’s close personal friendships with major Indian painters, musicians, writers and thinkers. We are given details of the close relationship with Indira Gandhi, and Paz throws interesting light on Indira by contrasting her with Nehru: “Indira was concrete and sober. She never forgot the old maxim that politics was the art of the possible…”
Among the literary figures, mention is made of Santha Rama Rau, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, Satchidananda H. Vatsyayan, and many others. The story of Paz’s dramatic resignation in October 1968 over his own government’s massacre of students at the Plaza de Tlateloco is explained by the author through studying archival documents. The next chapter ‘Under Western Eyes: Visiting Writers and Artists’ tells the story of famous international writers, musicians and painters who met Paz in India and forged lifelong bonds and collaborations based on their common love for India.
The final chapter ‘Paz After India’ (1968 -98), traces the continued presence of India-related themes in Paz’s body of work, particularly his prose, ever since his departure from the country. Leaving India was not easy for Paz and Marie-Jose. Over the next three years, he would drift around the world, accepting fellowships, residencies and lecture assignments. Though Indian themes gradually faded out of his poetry, in prose it continued to engage him till his last days, thirty years after leaving India. Even in old age, Paz continued to maintain epistolary contact with his Indian friends and welcomed distinguished Indian visitors to Mexico with his characteristic Latin American warmth. ‘Cantata’ tells the knotty story of Paz’s legacy in Mexico and how India has periodically remembered him, one as late as February 2023, at a large international conference held in IIC[1], New Delhi, on the cultural links between India and Latin America. There was unanimity in the acknowledgement that the Mexican poet had created a permanent, direct bridge between India and Latin America that no state-led enterprise could have done.
Before concluding, a few words need to be said about the author of this book. An academic and a filmmaker by profession, Indranil Chakravarty’s interest in Hispanic literature and culture comes out clearly through the translations he made of Paz’s poems. His enormous labour to bring out this volume comes out in the manner he reconstructs the inner journey of the poet by delving into multilingual archives, declassified diplomatic files, personal letters, and intimate interviews. The labour that has gone into selecting the innumerable photographs that don almost every page of the book, many borrowed from the website zonaoctaviopaz.com (an ongoing repository of photographic and news material on Paz put together by a group of Mexican scholars) clearly exemplifies the author’s emphasis on visual imagery too. In Acknowledgements, he clearly mentions that he has merely tried to fill up the missing information on the poet’s India-years. He entirely agrees with Ramchandra Guha’s contention that an autobiography or memoir must be understood as a pre-emptive strike against a future biographer. The poet’s memoir of India elides most of the aspects that are interesting to us today.
Narrative by Meredith Stephens: Photographs by Alan Noble
Boat which took the author and her husband to Mekong Delta
We alighted from the ferry and disembarked at a small island in the Mekong Delta. Our Vietnamese guide had promised us that we could witness how local people lived. After walking along a trail, we were ushered into a small boat with a local lady at the rear who would row us down the river. We stepped into the back of the boat and another couple stepped into the front.
“Would you mind taking a photo of us?” asked a woman with a bright smile and an energetic voice. I could hear she was English. Then the four of us started bantering and I detected that her partner was English too.
Next, we hopped off the boat and were treated to the chance to hold a cobra, sample local delicacies, and listen to the villagers’ musical performance. The next day we were taken to a restaurant where you could make your own seafood pancakes. Just before lunch, we were given the opportunity to cycle along a nearby path. Those of our group who wished to cycle selected a bicycle. I chose one and headed to the path. Then I looked ahead of me and realised that the English woman’s bike was the wrong size for her.
Cycling tour of the village
“Would you like to swap bicycles? Mine is too large and yours seems to be too small.”
She nodded. We swapped bicycles and seemed to find the perfect match. Our tour guide gave the signal and off we went. After a few kilometres, he signaled to stop so the group would stay together. I found myself at the front of the group and turned around to see the English woman immediately behind.
“I commuted to work by bike for twenty years,” I explained, surprised to be the one who had to stop so the others could catch up.
“I was in Japan. Japan is much friendlier to cyclists. The traffic is slower, and the roads narrower. It’s easier than driving, at least for short distances.”
She nodded. “They cycle a lot in Amsterdam. Also in Cambridge, where I lived for three years.”
I didn’t want to ask too many personal questions of this woman I had only just met, but I was curious. I wondered if she had studied at Cambridge University. Instead of being nosy, I added a few comments about Cambridge.
“We visited there recently. We stayed on the outskirts, and walked in. We had to walk through a park where there were cows grazing with bells around their necks. I much prefer Cambridge to Oxford.”
“Yes, it’s smaller. But Oxford is pretty good too!” she added.
By then the other cyclists had caught up. We continued along the path and then returned for lunch. We resumed the tour and were dropped off back in Ho Chi Minh City.
“Where can we store our luggage?” Alex asked her.
“Here at the tourist agency. We’ll leave ours there while we pop into the markets to get Ian a new backpack. His is broken.”
“Thanks for the tip. By the way, do you have an email address so we can exchange photos?”
“Sure. Where are you heading next?” she asked.
“Hoi An,” she replied.
“Oh! We are going there too. We are doing a cooking class. Would you like to join us?” offered Alex.
“Sure! Send us the link.”
We parted ways.
“See you in Hoi An,” I said, hoping that we could meet again.
The English woman was so easy to talk to, so quick to respond, and pick up on any nuance. I’d already decided that she must be a therapist. I had been trained since early adulthood not to ask people what they did for a living. It wasn’t fair to allow your knowledge of their career success to determine your assessment of them. But I admit to being curious. If she had studied at Cambridge, what career had followed?
Alex and I caught a sleeper train to Hoi An. There we found generously proportioned historic buildings. However, there were too many tourists in Hoi An, people like us. We walked around the town and felt overwhelmed. We could barely move down the street without bumping into other tourists.
Night trainTrain station
The next day Alex texted the English woman. He must have been just as eager to meet the couple again as I was.
“Sorry, your cooking class was full. We booked another one. How about drinks this evening?” she replied.
Alex accepted. That evening we made our way to the bar she had suggested. They stood up and hugged us.
“I’m Jill* by the way. And this is Ian*.”
“I’m Alex, and this is Merri.”
We ordered a gin and tonic. They were drinking beer.
“Since we were meeting you today, we thought we’d better order a gin and tonic,” I explained. This drink brought back memories of England.
After we had sipped our drinks, Alex broached the question that was on my mind.
“So, what do you do when you’re not touring in Vietnam?” he asked.
“I write historical fiction. Ian has retired. When the children were younger, he supported me, but now it’s my turn to support him.”
I was beside myself with excitement. If you asked me which profession intrigued me most, I would have said a writer. I have little inclination to meet actors, politicians, astronauts, rocket scientists, or billionaires, but I certainly would like to meet writers (not to mention musicians). For the next couple of hours, Jill shared her experience of writing, and Alex and I shared our experiences of sailing. I was so excited that I lost my appetite and only nibbled a few snacks at the end of the evening. They told us that they lived in a nearly three-hundred-year-old house in Somerset*, one of my favourite places in the UK.
“Just a warning. We will visit,” Alex added.
“Certainly!” replied Jill.
“And please come sailing with us when our boat is ready!” I urged.
We parted company, and I floated all the way back to the hotel. I looked up her many books online and resolved to read her latest one as soon as I could.
A day later, Alex and I caught another sleeper to Hanoi. It was so pleasant rolling along the tracks that I was lulled to sleep as soon as I lay down. I informed Alex that when we returned to Adelaide, I needed a sleep machine that mimicked the motion of rolling along the tracks and provided the accompanying background noise.
When we exited the station a throng of taxi drivers approached us to offer us rides. We had been advised that it is more secure and economical to use the local ride called Grab[1]. I shielded Alex from one driver that persisted in following him around too closely. I positioned myself between Alex and the driver with my back to the driver. Then we looked over and saw a couple laden with suitcases and eyes glued to their phones. The husband made eye contact with me and gave an exaggerated Gallic shrug and I immediately knew they were French. They looked desperate, and I knew I had to put my rusty French to practice. Years of study at the Alliance Francaise did not equip me to use my French in context. French speakers tended to switch to English as soon as I made my opening gambit in French. This was either because my English accent was too strong, or the French speakers wanted to practice their English. However, this time, the urgency of the situation prompted me to use my French.
“Have you tried to use Grab? It’s less expensive,” I informed them.
“We couldn’t install it. We’re trying to contact the hotel. They were meant to pick us up.”
Her husband was persevering on the phone.
“We’re meant to be going home tomorrow,” the wife informed me. “But our flight has been cancelled.”
“Because of the…,” I offered, unable to quickly find the words for ‘Middle East conflict’.
“Because of the…,” she confirmed. She knew what I meant.
“We were here for our anniversaire,” she explained.
I knew that ‘birthday’ is ‘anniversaire’ in French, but as I was scrambling to communicate, I temporarily assumed that it meant its false friend, anniversary.
“How many years?” I asked.
“69 and 64,” she explained.
Whoops! She must have meant birthday. I pointed to Alex. “He’s ten weeks older than me,” I added.
She laughed and then switched to English.
‘Where are you from?” she asked.
She must have known we were anglophones, but not which anglophone country we came from.
“Australia,” I replied.
She was very surprised to hear this. I continued to scramble to make meaningful conversation, sacrificing precision for getting the words out quickly.
“We come from a town that no-one has heard of,” I added in exaggeration, reverting to French. “Our city Adelaide often gets left out when visiting performers and VIPs come to Australia.”
She laughed again. Then Alex saw on his phone that our Grab ride had arrived. We picked up our bags and exited the station.
Alex decided to join in in French.
“Bonne chance,” he said, hoping they would soon find their transport.
“Bon voyage,” she replied.
“Bon voyage,” I echoed.
I felt sorry and guilty as we boarded our Grab outside the station.
The third serendipitous encounter was on our boat tour in Lan Ha Bay. After spending the night on a small cruise ship, we boarded a dinghy to take us to the rowing boats which were to take us to the caves.
Our tour consisted of two Indian couples, two Danish girls, three Russian couples, and a young Australian family of four from the east coast. Each rowing boat seated eight. As Alex and I were lining up to board we were directed to the boat with the three glamorous young Russian couples. I was a bit concerned about how we would converse in the boat. Sitting in silence would be awkward. The only Russian I knew were those words from the media in the ‘80s, perestroika and glasnost. They wouldn’t get us far because these Russians would be too young to remember the times when these words were used. Alex and I averted our gaze, and the tour guide gave up trying to persuade us to board the boat. We turned around and saw the young Australian family lining up behind us. We smiled at them.
“Aussies!” I exclaimed. We had been deprived of conversation with our compatriots for quite a few days.
The six of us hopped in the rowing boat and were taken inside the stunning Lan Ha Bay. I am not sure that our conversation with our compatriots amounted to much, but it was animated and fun, and I hardly had the time to take in the wonderful bay.
Lan Ha Bay
Seeing the sights in other countries is both a privilege and an enormous treat. What is just as exciting is meeting locals, and the random, sometimes fleeting, and yet meaningful encounters with fellow tourists. We may meet Jill and Ian again. We will never meet the French couple again and don’t even know their names. We just hope they made it to their hotel and then safely back to France. We probably won’t meet the young Australian family again either. The east coast is just too far away. Nonetheless, we have been enriched by the knowledge shared by our kind, enthusiastic and energetic Vietnamese tour guides, and the unexpected encounters with fellow tourists trying to navigate this unique culture together.
* Some names have been changed.
[1] A Singaporean company that caters all over Southeast Asia
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Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Story by Kallol Lahiri: Translation from Bengali by V. Ramaswamy
Kallol Lahiri
Kallol Lahiri teaches cinema, makes documentary films, writes screenplays for films, television and OTT series, and writes blogs of various flavours in between. He is the author of four novels, Gora Naxal (2017), Indubala Bhater Hotel (2020), 1990, A Love Story (2022) and Ghumiye Porar Aage (2024), and a memoir, Babar Yashica Camera (2021). He was awarded the Sadhana Sen Memorial prize in 2021 for the novels Gora Naxal and Indubala Bhater Hotel by the magazine Bhumodhyosagor.
In memory of all the forgotten nameless actors and actresses of the world
If one woke up very early in the morning, the city looked different through this window. It seemed as if the city was encircled by three whole mountains. But actually, that wasn’t the case. Pray tell me, where would three mountains appear from in the middle of this city? Is this Darjeeling or Kalimpong! After all, these are all mountains of garbage. The garbage of the entire city has been brought here to create mountains. It has been given a mouthful of a name too, “Dhapa”. Sarala smiled inwardly. What did the word dhapa mean? Was it dhappa (meaning, bluff)? Perhaps Notu Babu would have said that had he been around.
“Can’t you see the torn clouds at the crest of the mountain?”
“O Notu Babu, that’s garbage.”
“So what if it’s garbage! Doesn’t it take on the appearance of a mountain and bluff us! Hey … play a tune in Behag on the flute … let me hear that.”
The flute would have sounded, together with the harmonium and tabla. Sarla would have advanced with small steps towards the middle of the stage. The light from the spotlight would have fallen on her. Afar, concealed by the wings, was Bani Babu, the prompter notebook in hand. And in that enchanting atmosphere, Sarla Debi gazes at the audience and begins singing.
Just that much. If she remembered any more, her mind would go awry. She would feel like just sitting and remembering all the tales from way back when. The morning would then be ruined. Wasn’t there a lot of work to be done! She had soaked two saris last night. And a bedsheet. The mosquito net was dirty too. All those had to be washed when it was time for water at the standpipe. She had to clean the house and then bathe. After that, all she had to do was boil a bit of rice and dal on the stove, and then she was done.
There had been plenty of days when Sarala had eaten only muri[1]both times. In this old age, she no longer felt like cooking just for herself. Nonetheless, if Notu Babu had been around, he would have gone to the market. He would surely have brought back tender pui spinach, pumpkin, fresh potatoes and the head of a carp fish. And said, “Here you are, why don’t you make some chyanchra[2] today, Sarala …” Or he would have gone to the market close to noon and brought back whatever fatty viscera of fish he got, and said, “Cook this, make a fish oil chochchori[3]with ground chillies.”
Sarala used to apply attar[4] on her body after her bath. Nizamuddin, the attarwala[5], used to bring it for her. All those days were of a different kind. Coloured in the hues of a rainbow. As spectacular as the backdrop in a theatre. No one would believe it if they heard about it now. There were so many nights when Notu Babu did not return home. He read out page after page of a new play to Sarala. He did rehearsals. He was really keen that Sarala had a baby boy on her lap. He would carry on with this theatre. The intoxication. The madness. But what would his paternity be? Would society accept a dancing woman’s son? O Notu Babu, will your wife accept the child? Your family? The theatre world of the babus and bhadraloks[6]? You yourself would accept him, won’t you, O Notu Babu? Notu Babu had emptied the bottle of whisky and returned home before dawn without answering Sarala’s query. He needed to sleep till noon. Or else he wouldn’t get any play ideas in his head. It couldn’t be taken to the stage quickly. The audience wouldn’t cram the hall.
There was a routine of offering puja in Dakshineshwar on the day a new play was being staged. Sarala used to go to Sri Ramakrishna’s room and seek his blessing, “Let it go well, thakur[7], I’ll give you an offering of hot jilipis[8].” And so, all those plays did well very quickly. There wasn’t even space for a sesame seed in the packed hall. There was repeated applause. People used to scream out, “Encore! Encore!” And then one had to act out a scene once again. Or sing a song. Sarala enjoyed it. People learnt from theatre. Notu Babu believed that. He reminded people of Sri Ramakrishna at every moment. Everyone held their folded hands at their foreheads in obeisance. On the day of the New Year, and on the day of Rathayatra[9], there was always a puja[10]in the drama group’s premises. It was a small group, but so what? All the etiquette and civility of a large group were always in place. Notu Babu saw to that. Sarala used to visit Kashipur on the day of the Kalpataru festival. She prayed inwardly that Sri Ramakrishna came alive and stood before her. That he placed his hand on her head, blessed her, and said, “May you attain enlightenment.”
But where did that happen? Had she been able to shed the veil of illusion? Or this body? She was still standing somehow on her weak legs, a lump of flesh and blood. So then was everything not finished as yet? Did that mean something else was left? What exactly was that? Sarala had not been able to figure that out. When she was about to carry the bucket with the soaked linen to the standpipe on her wobbly legs, she stopped with a start. The morning sunlight that had fallen on the dilapidated wall with exposed bricks beside the main door looked exactly as if someone had cast a theatre light there. Sarala took small steps and went and stood in that light. She shut her eyes. The sound of the third and final bell came wafting from somewhere.
The play, Binodini, the Dancing Girl, was being performed one time. That role had been a longtime dream of Sarala! Binod Babu, the emperor of theatre, had overwhelmed everyone in the role of Sri Ramakrishna. He had been brought after having been paid a hefty advance. The drama group had to pay him a huge fee. Sarala herself had given up the twenty-gram gold necklace that she had received as a prize from the mistress of the Dutta household of Syankrapara. But that play went down really well. The crowd that had come simply to see the play had overflowed beyond the hall and the road and gone all the way to the five-point intersection. Notu Babu used to say in jest, “You seem to have surpassed even the matinee idol, Sarala, my dear!” After rehearsing all night long, when she went to the ghat[11] at dawn and dunked her head in Ma Ganga, she felt refreshed in mind and body. Her wavy hair went down to her waist then. The skin on her body was the colour of gold. Everywhere men ogled at her, as if they were about to pounce on and devour her. After all, they had devoured Binodini. Hadn’t they? Men devoured her. The theatre devoured her. And what about Sarala?
*
A huge crowd at the water-tap today. Apparently, there had been no water at night. And so, the children, the pots and pans, and men and women all seemed to have flung modesty to the winds and exposed themselvesin front of the water-tap. Sarala did not want to go there. There had been none of all this trouble when she lived on a platform on the ghat by the Ganga. There was an open, gaping sky there. And Ma Ganga was with her. Yes, it was a bit difficult during the rainy season and in winter, but what could one do about that?
Sarala had enlisted herself in the ranks of all those folks in this city who did not have a roof over their heads, who lacked a permanent address, who had no one to call their own, let alone a son! It occurred to the actress who had once stood in front of the footlights on stage that the arrangements were complete for the antarjali (the ritualistic act on the bank of the Ganga of immersing the lower part of a dying person’s body)! She spread out her old copy of Kashiram Das’s Mahabharata everyday and recited the verses. After all, that too was an acquirement from way back when Notu Babu himself had schooled her. He has said, “Hey you, what on earth have you learnt of acting if you haven’t read the Mahabharata?” His finger moved from one word to the next. Sarala would sway from side to side to the auspicious cadence –
Offer puja to the Lord of the Universe With the lotus from the grove where the maiden was born Her name was formerly Lakshmi Haripriya She took birth and arrived after a sage’s curse Because of which the Sindhu was churned But it can be reversed if Lakshmi finds Narayan.
But Sarala had never attained Narayan, ever. She had never ever been able to hold on to the one she desired. Meanwhile, a dark shadow seemed to fall on the visage of the professional theatre halls and they began to close down. The Five Pandavas could not be staged after the opening show. People slandered it saying the female body had been exposed. They vandalised the theatre. The government declared that it was a perversion of culture.
Notu Babu seemed to have been battered and crushed. The scion of such a distinguished family was humiliated. Evil was spewed against him. He contracted a deadly disease. But could he give up theater even after all that? Not at all. His final wish had been to play the monk Nimai. He had promptly written the script too. At the very centre was Vishnupriya. Could Nimai have become a renunciant without her? This magnificent woman had given up the lotus of the age, something she had been urged to hold on to firmly by everyone. Hadn’t she lamented? Suppressed tears? You have to cast all these aspects like pearls on the stage, Sarala! Only then will your Vishnupriya come alive. Notu Babu had called her close and said to her. “Will you make me a paan[12] with that rose water of yours? Put some wet supari[13] in it. And some Surabhi zarda[14].”
Sarala used to lay out the paans, folded into small quids. Notu Babu would fill up a silver box with them to eat later. He used to stuff a paan in his mouth and then sit with his eyes shut on an easy-chair. His colourful Kashmiri shawl used to droop down on the floor. It was as if Sarala could see it all hazily even today. That’s why she kept talking covertly, behind the scenes, inwardly, all her life, with that man alone. She badly wanted Notu Babu to at least see this play about the one whom society had deliberately abused. Made dishonourable. Let that same society come and sit in front of the monk Nimai now. Let them realise what theatre was. But that was not to be. Notu Babu suddenly fell off the rickshaw one day on his way to the rehearsal. He never rose again after suffering that fall. How the big and hefty man seemed to have shrunk and become one with the bed!
The rehearsals came to an end. As did the theatre. What a tug of war there was regarding money. The house rent was due. Money was owed at the grocer’s shop. Keshto Chatterjee ran a theatre in the commercial district in Dalhousie Square. He came often to their troupe. He had told Sarala quite a few times in the past to come and act there. She had beauty, glamour, and fame. They would pay her well. ‘What’s the harm in being intimate with educated babus?’ Sarala paid no heed.
When she stood on stage, the entire hall broke into applause. When the audience liked the dialogue, they screamed, “Encore! Encore!” Some people placed bouquets of flowers near her feet at the end of the show. They threw paper planes of love letters at her. Those who dared, came up to her and said they would give her the life of a queen. But Sarala shut the door on all their faces and loved the theatre alone — the theatre in which Notu Babu alone was the presiding deity. How on earth could that very same Sarala go to Dalhousie Square and rent herself out!
But she had to go, much later. When she was completely broken in body and mind. She had applied make-up and acted in a theatre which was a hobby of some babus. She had wanted to share her innermost thoughts with Notu Babu. But the people of his household did not let Sarala enter. She had to return from the main door that bore a lion motif. She had rushed to the cremation ground as soon as she heard about his death. All she saw there was the pyre burning afar.
*
There came a time when the dramas in Dalhousie Square too vanished. Her youth vanished. Her beauty too. Nor were there any more people who wanted to have fun with her body of flesh and blood. When the house she lived in was going to be demolished for redevelopment, Sarala had gone to the ghat on the bank of the Ganga one night. She stood there clutching the Kashiram Das’s Mahabharata to her bosom. She had wondered, had anyone else ever rendered Draupadi more naked than this? “Did you ever get such a large stage anywhere, Notu Babu!” This platform beside the Ganga. Under an ancient banyan. Next to such a big crematorium, with an electric furnace. If Sarala died that night, who would care a whit?
But Sarala didn’t die. She wanted to act again one final time. After dunking herself in Ma Ganga, she had sat on the platform in the ghat and spread Kashiram Das’s Mahabharata in front of her. Those who had come to bathe in the river in the morning saw an ancient lady opening a tattered book and reciting something tunefully. None of them were competent to say whether that was the Mahabharata, or the Ramayana. Some of them were hurrying to work. Some others had come to earn merit by immersing themselves in the river.
As noon approached and her throat grew parched, Sarala had noticed that there was a collection of loose change in front of her. Considering it to be the grace of Ma Ganga, she had knocked her knuckle to her forehead in obeisance and tied the coins in a corner of her anchal[15]. She had bought an earthen basin with the money. Rice. Some fuelwood from the shop in the crematorium that sold the items for the purificatory rites. A bit of ghee. Sarala had fetched and laid two bricks on the bank of the Ganga and prepared the sacred hobishyi,[16] or rice semi-cooked with ghee. She had rolled the rice into large spherical lumps and she had inwardly declared to Ma Ganga, “I performed the funerary rites of my earlier life, Ma. Grant me a new life.”
Her eyes had glistened. She had then gobbled the lumps of rice to feed her belly that had starved for several days. In truth, she was born anew that day. With a new identity too.
So many people used to come to hear Kashiram Das’s Mahabharata! They sat around Sarala in the light of dawn. It was as if she was seated on a large stage, sometimes enacting the Sage Vyasa, sometimes Arjuna, sometimes Bheema, sometimes Draupadi, or sometimes the truthful king Yudhishtra. What an assemblage of simultaneous roles! “If only you saw your matinee idol, Notu Babu, wouldn’t you have been inwardly happy?” Sarala muttered to herself. Yet, it seemed she could not have such happiness for very long. That was the destiny that the Almighty had written on her brow when she was a tiny infant in the delivery chamber.
*
The number of people at the riverbank suddenly waned. Apparently, an epidemic had spread all over the world. And everyone was dying of that disease. The government had prohibited anyone from leaving their house. Don’t go to work. So, then what would people eat! So many hundreds of corpses wrapped in plastic sheets had arrived at the crematorium. The furnaces had burst into flame. But Sarala had cheated death even after all that! It seemed that Yama, the Lord of Death, had developed a distaste for her!
And then something happened during this time. Phuleshwari, the woman who swept the riverbank with her broom, who Sarala used to call to drink tea, and whose tales of joy and woe she listened to, the one whose husband Dumureshwar drove a hearse – one day Phuleshwari simply refused to listen to Sarala’s protests and took her along to a basti[17] beside Dhapa. To their neighbourhood. “Stay here, Ma. There’s an epidemic outside.” Sarala had remained there ever since. But she was not one to be a burden on anyone. After all, she had worked to feed herself from an early age!
Every time she wanted to return to the bank of the Ganga, Phuleshwari, Dumureshwar, their child Bundi, and quite a few city street sweepers had blocked her way. After all, it was they who were her family now. A son-in-law of one of them was a driver for film shooting crews. He took along groups of people from the basti. Apparently, all of them acted. They got a meal and two-hundred rupees in return. One day Sarala too got into the crowded vehicle. Hoping to get work. To feed her belly. And out of the love of acting from way back when.
*
An old woman was frequently spotted in the film studios locality, either behind some major artist, or in a crowd, or sometimes in a procession. Her hair was the colour of jute yarn. A kindly face. Of slender build. Her sun-scorched skin had a copper hue. This old lady didn’t seem to get annoyed at anything at all.
The fussiness over particulars that was prevalent among those who came to swell crowds was completely lacking in the old woman. She could beautifully execute whatever she was told. Most astonishing of all, she could memorise and rattle off any bit of dialogue. She was completely unfazed by the camera. Gradually her circle of acquaintances in the film studios locality began to grow. She got more and more work. And Sarala Debi, who had stood on stage in front of the footlights way back when, kept on performing. Although she never spoke to anyone about her memories of the past. Because she herself had performed her funerary rites, hadn’t she!
“What can I tell you, Notu Babu, you’ll laugh if you hear it. These people do a scene so many times, and the camera is placed in so many angles. And each time, one has to do exactly what one did before. Look back, smile, speak, everything has to be exactly the same. Like our encores. I really like it, you know. So many people, so many lights, so many stories. And do you know what I like most of all, Notu Babu? When all the lights in the set come on, one after another. The Director Babu shouts out, ‘Action!’ We rush and stand in front of the camera. At once, I can clearly see a stage. The black heads of the audience. And far away, very far away, you are sitting in the last row. Watching me act. Do you know what they call me, Notu Babu? No, no, not your Sarala. She died a long time back, didn’t she! I am now “Shooting Dida[18]” in the film studios locality!”
.
V. Ramaswamy is a literary and nonfiction translator of voices from the margins. His translation of the novel, The Struggle, by Showkat Ali, was published in 2025.
Art by Thomas Cole (1801 – 1848). From Public Domain
MY CAT IN HIS GARDEN
As my young cat seeks new experiences, he’s obsessed with a beetle, whose interesting pincers are defiantly bared, but my cat is undismayed. He’s far too young to think of being afraid, until he gets stung. Once I was like him, finding intrigue in anything new. I never gave a thought to growing old, until I got there. It’s true, death itself has no sting, but journeying there is often an unpleasant thing.
CEREMONY IN ABSENTIA
The girls leave the factory, joking and laughing making plans for the night. I wish I could join them, but I had my day. I danced and drank with the best, but when I married my wife, I forgot all the rest. As I pour a glass of wine, I fall into a melancholy mood. I stare at distant mountains, So far away, and yet they appear to be so near. Today would be your birthday, wife, if you were still here.
A MOMENT IN NATURE
A breeze rustles the leaves at the edge of the bay, The stars make night almost as clear as day. On the lake, from far away, a loon cries. Is it a greeting or a warning? The lake is now a quiet desert, but tonight strong winds will blow, and waves will beat like furious fists against an impenetrable shore. This rage is also nature. Some say we should search for the good in a benevolent nature. Forgive me, as I observe a harmless worm, struggle through the grass, eyed by a hungry bird, until the worm arrives, at its predestined end. That bird’s stomach is not his friend.
George Freek’s poetry has recently appeared in The Ottawa Arts Review, Acumen, The Lake, The Whimsical Poet, Triggerfish and Torrid Literature.
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