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Review

‘Women are Born Free, But Everywhere they are in Chains’

Book Review by Rakhi Dalal

Title: Beyond the Fields

Author: Aysha Baqir

Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International, 2019

Recently, an instagram handle questioned women: “No Men for One day — What if there were no men for 24 hours?” Majority of the women replied that they would go for a walk alone. And this is the year 2020. We are living in a so called modern world where women are now freer than ever to pursue their ambitions and make a life of their own. But what does this fear of going out alone, for such a small task as an evening walk alone, tells us about our social system. If educated, independent women feel uneasy venturing out of their houses alone in advanced societies, then it isn’t difficult to imagine what women in socially and politically repressive systems go through.  

In her debut novel, Aysha Baqir steers the reader’s gaze to a small village in 1980’s Pakistan, chronicling the lives of rural women whose existence was sanctified by the written and unwritten rules of the society. It was the time of Zia-ul-Haq’s reign and much controversial Hudood Ordinances.

Baqir grew up in Pakistan. After graduation, she won a scholarship to Mount Holyoke College where she studied International Relations. In 1998, she founded a pioneering not for profit economic development organization, Kaarvan Crafts Foundation, focused on poverty alleviation through the provision of business development and market-focused trainings for girls and women of rural Pakistan. Perhaps meeting those women and hearing their stories prompted Baqir to recount such stories of courage and defiance, even in the face of repression, which may become beacons of light for generations to come.

The narrative follows the life of a young Zara and her twin Tara. Poles apart in nature, they are bound by a sisterly affection for each other. Tara is the beautiful, fairer and obedient one from the duo who resigns herself readily to her mother’s desires and ideas. She is ready to get married as and when it pleases her parents. Zara, on the other hand is the rebel, who insists on studying though girls are not given education in their village. She is born in a society where more education for women is a matter of shame. If a woman reads or writes, would she be a good obedient housewife, good mother to her children? Would she be any good for the community?

Zara wishes to live her live abundantly, run amok in fields, eat Kairis from the trees, play outside, and study like her brother. It infuriates her, when more restrictions are imposed on her and Tara with the coming of age. That meant no going out alone and no playing and veiling themselves with burka even when stepping out with parents. Zara believes that she and her brother are equal, but for a life changing incident which brings her life to a halt.

It brings forth to her the reality of being a woman in her community — the brutal rape of her sister, the conduct of her parents in hiding it because it would bring shame to the family, their unwillingness to file a case because of Hudood ordinance in practice and then her subsequent marriage to someone in haste to veil the shame. When they lose contact with Tara and fear an unfortunate happening, it becomes too much for Zara, but she decides to find her sister.

This novel is the story of Zara’s grit and determination, her belief in the power of women in an unbalanced society, her conviction that she is not merely the body she inhabits but also the mind she possesses. She follows her sister to city, after convincing her parents, and plunges into the dangerous world of prostitution to bring back her sister.

Through this novel, the author attempts to bring forth the tribulations of women in such an oppressive system where it is not only the men but also women who play the agents of repression, to keep the system intact by inducing fear and shame in those who go wayward or rebel. In such systems, women are made subservient to imposed rules so much so that they accept them as code of honour even if adhering to them means hurting loved ones and acting against them.

Perhaps nothing could be more startling than the shaming of a rape victim or vilifying a woman who dares to fall in love. It is a system where the birth of a woman, in itself is a burden to family and a mother’s most important role is to suitably prepare them for marriage, to collect their dowry and start looking for prospective grooms when they come of age. Their propensity to literally dispose the girls as soon as possible, even takes over the maternal love which they only express by trying to put restrictions on their beloved daughters.

Baqir writes in a discreet manner and her narrative bears testimony to the amount of research and hard work which has gone into writing the book. For a reader from a neighbouring country, this book brings familiar sounds and smells which makes it more relatable. Local flavours are induced with the usage of Punjabi words. Word pairs are used to evoke the sense of belonging to familiar lands – playing on the concept of twins separated at birth. The ideas of women’s honour, shame and their bearing on family are comparable to that in India.  

Though changes are questioning patriarchal mindsets, women’s emancipation continues still to be a tough battle. Beyond the Fields is an effort to highlight the struggle of women and an entreaty to be on the side of humanity, to break the shackles which stifle women who are born equal to men but are made to feel inferior by the rules of society.

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Rakhi Dalal is an educator by profession. When not working, she can usually be found reading books or writing about reading them. She writes at https://rakhidalal.blogspot.com/ . She lives with her husband and a teenage son, who being sports lovers themselves are yet, after all these years, left surprised each time a book finds its way to their home.

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

Categories
Essay

What Use is It?

Dustin Pickering argues that Joyce is what we need during this pandemic

James Joyce’s oeuvre is an extravagant literary experiment in stretching the bounds of language. Ulysses, for instance, is colourful and surreal in its use of stream-of-consciousness as we walk with the central characters through an actual Ireland Joyce recreated from memory. Finnegans Wake is linguistically complex yet satisfying to read only for enjoyment. These works are often criticised as being too obscure for readers, but I will argue that such obscurity is an essential force of the novels which resonate in today’s reality as much as in the times they were written. Ambiguity grants flexible interpretations, so in the spirit of Joyce, I will define how his work could relate to contemporary conflicts. This essay will present critical ideas that balance opposing approaches. Joyce’s literature is in dialogue with works of the past which present similar conundrums.

Structuring his novel Ulysses against The Odyssey creates a full loop culturally from the ancient western literature to modernist fixtures such as T S Eliot and Samuel Beckett. The novel was put on trial in the United States in a famous case that helped liberate literature from rigid legal definitions. Ulysses also challenges old fashioned perceptions that define a human being and suggests pivotal questions that flood the reader with exciting emotion. In and of itself, the use of image, myth, and form make the novel a tricky read but challenging as well. Any reader who decides the novel is worth exploring may find that he or she is Odysseus himself in the Protean sea of literary accomplishment. 

Chapter three, the Proteus chapter, can be construed as Dedaleus’ philosophical confrontation with identity. However, identity is interrogated philosophically, not politically, and the young Stephen presents the adolescent’s crisis of personal growth. He is sharp and inquisitive but not afraid of the tough questions. His perceptions suggest androgyny and continuous flux to identity as the narrative courses between thought and material reality. His interrogations are not just philosophical refutations. The use of stream-of-consciousness stylistically may serve an alternate purpose. 

Nicolas Berdyaev writes in The Destiny of Man, “It is with the greatest difficulty man learns to discriminate between personal and collective responsibility.” The question of the measuring rod of reality is brought to trial—was George Berkeley correct in asserting the primacy of the ideal world thus negating the material world? Does external prodding of self-image from peers and strangers construct identity socially? In a time that has turned this question upside down, the 21st century can benefit from this healthy skepticism. 

Sartre writes in the essay Existentialism, “We definitely wish to establish the human realm as an ensemble distinct from the material realm.” As moral creatures, humans establish value systems on principles of free will. Kant writes in Critique of Practical Reason, “For the moral law in fact transfers us ideally into a system in which pure reason, if it were accompanied with adequate physical power, would produce the summum bonum, and it determines our will to give the sensible world the form of a system of rational beings.” Perhaps Stephen’s own deliberations lead us to accept the premise that moral law is ultimately social. Human ability to reason and develop complicated societies is mimetic, but the final question is where do we derive our freedom—in the absence, or in the presence, of divine omnipotence? Meaning itself seems derived from moral foundation. 

Kant further suggests that material principles cannot lead to the moral law, and thus places moral foundations with a transcendental order that also creates freedom. Through these constructions we are granted the “categorical imperative.” Kant recognises the division of our nature into personal and social responsibility, but also that individual choice is founded through free choice. 

Stephen Dedaleus is plagued with guilt and restless yearning for truth, but that yearning is his own. The social world shapes it to a degree. However, Marx would offer that the individual is free only through the foundation of social relations, centrally the means of production. These questions are disputed fervently throughout western history. The previous century is rife with argumentation on this subject. In the world today we come in confrontation with this abstract freedom of will and are closer to renouncing it in favour of collective moral purpose. Ulysses provides a imaginative perspective for thought. Joyce’s life work is centred on language and its social reality.

In Finnegans Wake he explores the construction of language, but in Ulysses literary device does not offer conclusive formulations. The progress of the novel is embedded with this conflict. Even in Bloom’s moral crisis with his cheating wife, he appears to be alone with his emotions, yet we recognise that humanity’s struggle for freedom and happiness are universal especially when we don’t recognise the collective existence.

My own reading of Ulysses was without assistance from annotated guides. I enjoyed the language and the depth of imagination. Its impact is emotional and leads to intriguing self-discourse. In and of itself the book is worth examining for its carefully wrought structural dynamics. The Protean chapter plays interesting logical games with the reader. Perhaps the purpose of confounding so many questions into one literary space is to demonstrate their futility. The sea is described by Buck as Stephen’s “mother” although Proteus is male. Perhaps this skilful tactic of ambiguous symbolism anticipates many of the same questions asked today concerning sexuality.  Gender is conceived as “fluid” rather than fixed by a growing swath of intellectuals. 

Stephen Dedaleus lost his mother in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and is probably burdened by guilt for his defiance on his mother’s deathbed. “I will not serve” is Dedaleus’s rejection of orthodoxy; however, clearly his emotions are hither and thither. In the opening chapter, Stephen is in Martello Tower with two boarding mates. In the characterisations of these young men we observe differing understandings of time. Mulligan is insensitive and only recognises the near future while Stephen is more reflective and seemingly harmless in his introversion. We learn that Stephen is a deeply conflicted man, apparently searching for a kind of surrogate masculinity. In today’s world we are also questioning what masculinity means and how it affects men’s interpersonal behaviour. 

We see that Ulysses is almost a herald of today’s confused and hostile world in transformation. Today’s sociopolitical reality is lost within violent flux. Ulysses portrays a mock-heroic venture to define one’s reality in spite of turbulence. The novel also characterises Irish history and culture. By uniting the particulars of Ireland within the general presentation of complex reality, this literature challenges the reader in philosophical, not just literary, terms.

Joyce also employs stream-of-consciousness in his most difficult work Finnegans Wake. World languages are synthesised into brilliant puns as Joyce explores Irish history with mythical grandeur.  The title comes from an Irish ballad about a drunk named Finnegan who falls from a ladder and is assumed to be dead. He comes back to life when whiskey is accidentally spilled on his “corpse” at his own funeral. The cyclical structure of the book indicates a surreal resurrection. The central dreamer, HCE (Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker), is buried by sleep only to wake into the world of the damned again. A strange variety of theological, philosophical, and scientific explorations are developed within 12 years of writing. In essence the novel demonstrates the baptism of languages in their own fire. Finnegans Wake is Menippean satire and parodies much of the frailty of human incompetence or hubris. Several extenuating allusions to war and political fratricide coexist within the pages. The complexities of language are apparent as the reader experiences HCE’s dreamworld. 

In Teaching and Researching Listening, Michael Rost writes, “Whenever multiple sources, or streams, of information are present, selective attention must be used. Selective attention involves a decision, a commitment of our limited capacity process to one stream of information or one bundled set of features.” Perhaps the name of the protagonist (Earwicker) signifies the nature of the unconscious as an ambiguous language, a system of thought unavailable to the conscious mind. In itself, the inner ear practices selective attention as the reader by nature also selects particulars of the created dreamworld. 

William James wrote, “Everyone knows what attention is. It is taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration of consciousness are of its essence. It implies a withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.” Consciousness in itself is perhaps selective hearing of the mind. The modern world is assailed with continuous information and data, most of which is useless. In reading this masterpiece of Western literature, we see our unconscious realm as thick and convoluted. This potentially admonishes the reader into carefully considering valid input from the external world. Again, we see how much of ourselves is left in the dark, yet we recognise the importance of the individual mind, and reflect on our massive blindness to how much we don’t know of what we don’t know. The conundrum is bare before our eyes through the Finnegans Wake text.

Joyce’s wife once pointed out that his writing is too obscure even for her reading. However, the obscurity is its carnal delight in facing reality and truth. Obscurity should not deter us from our own experience in reading these two masterpieces. Today’s world is more in need of obscurity in literature. Mystery encapsulates the world and literature is a powerful force to help define and interrogate it. 

Joyce’s literature is certainly not the exception but rather the proof of this rule. His literature abounds in ambiguous logic and allusion, thus making it fruitful for our ripening contemporary minds. Using complex but intriguing language concealed in moral and philosophical contemplation serves as powerful incarnation of truth. For the truth itself is dialogic. As he defines the distinct characteristics of the novel, Bakhtin writes, “A crucial tension develops between the external and the internal man, and as a result the subjectivity of the individual becomes an object of experimentation and representation.” Bakhtin also elaborates on humour’s ability to bring its object closer to us so we are able to laugh and mock. In this act, we liberate ourselves from the things that we least understand and wish to confront. 

These imaginative and complex novels of James Joyce present the noblest truths of human existence in a light that is not cruel or pretentious. For these reasons, they are fascinating books to read and enjoy even in the confused and hostile contemporary atmosphere. In fact, such perilous times are the greatest of times to appreciate literature.

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Dustin Pickering is the founder of Transcendent Zero Press and editor-in-chief of Harbinger Asylum. He has authored several poetry collections, a short story collection, and a novella. He is a Pushcart nominee and was a finalist in Adelaide Literary Journal’s short story contest in 2018. He is a former contributor to Huffington Post. 

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

Categories
Review

The Myriad Hues of Love

Book Review by Meenakshi Malhotra

Title: Love is not a word: The Culture and Politics of Desire

Editor:  Debotri Dhar

Publisher: Speaking Tiger, 2020

Love is not a word: The Culture and Politics of Desire edited by Debotri Dhar is a timely and illuminating book. It asks the right questions, sets up the debate on issues which need to be debated in order to bring the many hues of love and desire out of stranglehood of monolithic constructions. Dhar has brought together some interesting essays  by noted academics, art historians and curators, cultural and literary  historians  and writers  musing on the theme of love, its histories and its manifestations in religious mythography.

In the first essay in the anthology, ‘Swayamvara, Arranged Marriage, Desi Romance’, Professor Malashri Lal brings her considerable acumen and expertise to offer “some fascinating perspectives on Indian love, mapping both continuity and change, possibility and paradox.” She draws upon a spectrum of sources to unsettle some of the binaries and clichés about love and marriage in India. She points out the very heterogeneous nature of Indian realities and the simultaneous existence of designer weddings along with the prevalence of child marriage, the latter motivated by  stark poverty and custom. In this heterogeneous context, where contradictions exist and jostle with one another, it is difficult to formulate one overarching reality which collapses every aspect of Indian reality into one single, overwhelming truth.  Drawing upon a diverse set of sources from the Indian epics like Ramayan and Mahabharata to the writings of diasporic women writers in the US, to Bollywood films, Lal problematises the question of women’s choice in love and marriage, even when it is arranged. In her essay, she highlights the exercise of agency enabled by the ancient practice of  swayamvara, where the  bride reviews a number of suitors and selects one as her husband to the popular Hindi film, Queen (2014), where the ‘bride’, jilted by her suitor at the eleventh hour when practically at the altar, sets off alone on a ‘honeymoon’ to Paris and Amsterdam. All these vignettes, according to Lal, point to a long history of critiques of compelled marriages for women. Decoding the history of marriage and the space both accorded to and  negotiated by women within it, the author traces both continuities as well as complicating questions of love versus arranged marriage, choice, desire and agency.

Some of the themes and issues initiated by the first essay are questions that come up elsewhere, albeit in varying registers. Professor Makarand Paranjape’s essay focuses on immortal love and on the lover-God Krishna and his consort Radha, who is “a milkmaid elevated to the status of the erotic and holy beloved of the Supreme Godhead”. Paranjape reads the figure of Radha in the context of Indian history, art, culture and metaphysics, traces the genealogy and argues that the increasing importance of Radha acted as a corrective to the male-dominated theology which lacked a strong Goddess prior to the emergence of Radha. According to the author, she is largely absent in the classical sources and in the scriptures, her origins shrouded in obscurity, but assumes importance later as Krishna’s chosen paramour in Jayadev’s Gitagovinda, which is how medieval poets like Chandidas, Vidyapati and Surdas write of her.

A common theme which is indicated in the previous essay is developed by Paranjape and then later, by Alka Pande in the subsequent essay on ‘Love, Longing and Desire: A Nayika’s tale’. The flattening out of desire in keeping with the imperial puritanical norms of social control dwell on how desirous voices create discomfort. The messiness of love and desire is sought to be controlled and circumscribed into the heteronormative frame of marriage. Both imperial control and nationalistic schemes of reform collude to silence and erase traces of lascivious female desire and the erotic is therefore subdued and subsumed into the discourse of female purity, with which it sits uncomfortably. Thus, Prof Paranjape discusses how, “with the beginnings  of colonial modernity in India, Radha the Goddess underwent another drastic modification, now coming to often represent illegitimate sexual desire. In the new Puritanism fostered during the so-called Indian renaissance(18th to 19th century), Radha and her dalliance with Krishna proved an embarrassment to the agenda of social reform that the proponents of Hindu respectability espoused.”

By the 20th century, Radha was represented as “a victim of patriarchy” — as a symbol of the degraded and exploited woman, a fallen or abandoned woman. This is a far cry from the tantric version of Radha , which exalts her, sometimes over Krishna. In other traditions, she is often domesticated and shown to be a “chaste and jealous wife”, very possessive of Krishna, given to fits of rage. The theme of romantic love  is played out in varying registers and the sacred and profane so intermingled and intertwined that it is difficult to separate the two.

Alka  Pande’s essay on ‘Love, Longing and Desire: A Nayika’s Tale’ is deliciously erotic in its texture as it  narrates the tale of Amrapali, the “nagarvadhu”(bride of the city) of Patliputra, who lives life and fulfils her desire on her own terms. It shows the courtesan as an empowered figure, who exercises considerable agency in her choice of partner after the demise of her royal consort. As a reader and an editor of Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra, she claims to have transformed the book “from a compendium of living a deeply enriched and sexually fulfilled life to much more: strategies of romance, love, longing, desire, seduction and an unabashed valorization of carnal love.” (Pande,44) The essay also sets the record straight about the popular reception in the public imagination which sees the book as a manual of sex; rather it conforms to the Indian philosophy of “Purusharthas” which includes the goals of “dharma”, “artha”, “kama” and “moksha”, roughly translatable as virtuous living, material prosperity, aesthetics and pleasure and salvation, respectively. Kamasutra, in this narrative, emerges  as  a document which explores the art of living life to the fullest. Love and its many facets are explored along a spectrum of aestheticism, in a way that elevates it to a level beyond hedonism.

Christina Dhanaraj’s essay on ‘Swipe me Left, I’m Dalit’ explores the world of possibilities of romantic love for Dalit women, and finds the odds heavily weighted against them on account of caste prejudice. She therefore finds the optimistic and celebratory accounts on social media and /or dating apps like tinder which declare ‘caste’ as a thing of the past to be false and facile. Dalit women, according to the author, “carry the double burden of gender and caste, and are one of the most socially undervalued in India, are therefore under constant pressure to project an acceptable version that mimics the ‘savarna’ (upper caste) ideal.”

From the problems besetting inter-faith Hindu-Muslims relationships because of a persistent polarisation intensified by right-wing ideologies to the variegated spectrum of love’s vows and woes in Urdu poetry, are some of the themes explored in some of the subsequent essays.

 Rakhshanda Jalil, the eminent literary historian , points out interesting aspects of the “Barahmasa”( Twelve Months)which are songs of love, separation and yearning, both mystic and secular, in a woman’s voice. However, while the form concerned itself with the “women’s world, adopted a woman’s voice and spoke of a woman’s needs , none were actually written by women poets.’’(Jalil,125)Further, a study of the “barahmasas show how the word was lost to text, and orality to textuality, but also how pluralism was replaced by Unitarianism, multi-culturalism by puritanism, the feminine-gendered narration by the masculine, and inclusion by exclusion.”(Jalil,112)

Debotri Dhar’s thought-provoking musings on the profoundly gendered nature of love and waiting is a delightful read, punctuated with valuable insights into women’s writing and experiences. So are the other essays by Sumana Roy, Parvati Sharma and Didier Coste.

In its exploration of the variegated hues and discourses of love and its analysis of its many histories, the essays in the book demonstrate that love — as text, as play, pain and pleasure, in somewhat unequal measure —  is truly a many-splendoured thing and makes the world go around. These essays also illustrate the peculiarly gendered nature of love, where we are tempted to echo Byron’s  lines from Don Juan

Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart,

‘Tis woman’s whole existence

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Dr Meenakshi Malhotra is Associate Professor in English at Hansraj College, University of Delhi. She  has edited two books on Women and Lifewriting, Representing the Self and Claiming the I, in addition  to numerous published articles on gender and/in literature and feminist theory. Some of her recent publications include articles on lifewriting as an archive for GWSS, Women and Gender Studies in  India: Crossings (Routledge,2019),on ‘’The Engendering of Hurt’’  in The State of Hurt, (Sage,2016) ,on Kali in Unveiling Desire,(Rutgers University Press,2018) and ‘Ecofeminism and its Discontents’ (Primus,2018). She has been a part of the curriculum framing team for masters programme in Women and gender Studies at Indira Gandhi National Open University(IGNOU) and in Ambedkar University, Delhi and has also been an editorial consultant for ICSE textbooks (Grades1-8) with Pearson publishers. She has recently taught a course as a visiting fellow in Grinnell College, Iowa. She has bylines in Kitaab and Book review.

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

Categories
Musings Nostalgia

Vignettes of Life: Unhurried at Haripur

Debraj Mookerjee journeys into the heart of rural Bengal

The perpetually potholed National Highway (NH) 35 going onto NH 34 en route to Assam from Kolkata mercifully trots off on its own as we veer left towards Shantipur in Nadia district after an exasperating three-hour drive from the metropolis. Passing through Phulia where Bengal handloom saris and a prominent ‘red light’ stretch are distinctive, we drive into Shantipur, just short of Krisnanagar. This is ‘klisht’ (difficult) Bangla territory, the area from which Queen’s Bangla, as it were, inherits its diction and tone.

From Shantipur, our sturdy SUV, a TATA Sumo, laden with as much family as it can accommodate, and followed by many other Sumos with much more of the same (family), makes the final left turn to snake the final five kilometres along a narrow lane (well-paved though) towards Haripur, where my ancestors from my maternal stock sunk their roots.

They also started a Kali Puja (a tantric variant of annual prayers to the goddess Kali) some 400 years ago. Kali is perhaps the most well-known of Indian goddesses, having made her way into poetry and song, most notably perhaps by Allen Ginsberg in his Planet News collection of poems, where he compares the destructive powers of the divinity to America’s cruelty towards the world, ironically embodied in the Statue of Liberty! The family may have preserved the tradition since, but the greater truth is that it is the tradition that has held the family together. Traditionalists, believers, non-believers, NRIs, apartment owners in Singapore, hutment dwellers in Haripur, pujari (priests), Bengali middle-class small towners, all somehow connected to the family, gather at the commodious, albeit somewhat ramshackle, house annually to partly pay obeisance to Ma Kali, and partly to charge their souls from the sap that flows up those ancestral roots.

I visit when I can. The visit under the description year marked my third. The show remains more or less the same. What changes is the nature of the attendance. Some are regulars, like those settled in Kolkata or other parts of Bengal. Also regular is the unlikely patriarch, my uncle from overseas, a much travelled, successful and sushi-loving internationalist. He is the star of Haripur. His half-German kids prefer to call the place ‘horrorpur’, but that’s a story we won’t get into. He pours his everything into Haripur, including trying to gather grants from his internationally renowned automobile casting company for the local school. The sight around the house on the morning of Kali Puja is enchanting, with about 200 kids falling over each other to collect one of those famous ‘Garman’ (German) balls. Let me explain this Haripur legend.

Some fifteen years ago, my uncle decided the tennis balls discarded at his tennis club could be useful in Haripur. Thus, began a year of collecting balls of the best make – Slazenger, Dunlop, you name it. Unfit to be used in matches, these were nevertheless better than anything these kids of Haripur had ever used for their game of cricket. These balls are the stuff of many a legend, their fame having spread far and wide. They last a year or more, they have great grip, the woolly fluff layer never really wears off, the bounce is consistent, and they never really pick up too much dirt when used on clay, and so on and so forth. It takes five able-bodied and very committed (I included when I’m there) volunteers to manage the crowd of intrepid cricketers in the making who storm Sovakar Bari (the Sovakar home) — my maternal side goes by the name Sovakar — for these legendary balls. The cousins coo about the lovely lessons their Nike-sporting kids learn from the humbling experience of having to watch these scrawny kids battle with each other for a mere used tennis ball.

I slip away one evening astride of a ‘thela’ rickshaw (fully pulled by the rickshaw driver — the only type available in rural Bengal) in the company of a locally acquired sidekick to watch a football match some two km from the village.

The game is good, save that all the action is on one side, the other having been turned into a veritable lake thanks to an unseasonal downpour. Tickets sell at Rs 3, and there is a 400 strong crowd. But for the rains it would be a 1000 strong. There are snack trolleys lined up just behind the touch line. ‘Ghugni’ (boiled green gram), ‘phuchka’ (puffed hollow patties stuffed with masala infused mashed potatoes) and something I’d never seen before completed the menu.

Bael tree with the fruit

The last mentioned is a unique chutney, made by cracking the tough shell of the bael fruit, also called Bengal quince, Indian quince, holy fruit, stone apple, etc, and mixing the green innards with salt, sugar and green chillies (number to be specified by buyer). This is one great chutney and very good for the belly. If village water gives you the runs, the bael fruit guarantees a healthy stop to overenthusiastic bowels.

Then there is the waterfront. Actually, there are many. The Hooghly itself is narrower than the Bheel lake, some 500 yards behind our house. There a little fishing community lives along the embankment, with the waters washing into their homes on stormy nights. Tanku Halder is a mahajan (moneylender or simply put, the one with cash to invest) among the fisher folk.  He has a 800-feet long fine net (for still waters), which on a good day can fetch 500 kg of fish from this very lake. And when you consider that a 4 kg carp sells at close to Rs 180 per kilo ($2.5 per kilogram) even to the wholesaler who drops in to lift the catch, you realise these people are pretty well off.

Of course, the one ubiquitous feature of the village is the household loom, the famous rigs where the well-known ‘Shantipuri’ sarees (Bengal handloom sarees have a unique history and celebrated provenance among buyers across India) are woven. Thread spinners make Rs 50 per day, weavers about two fifty (two saris per day at Rs 125 per sari). Of course, the mahajans make the big bucks and live in fancy homes. One wonders why the government has so far not stepped into the business of supplying thread at concessional rates, besides providing design support (controlled by the wealthy mahajans).

The two days surrounding the actual puja are spent in food, festivities and fraternising. The food is good, the festivities enlightening since local stage talent is a revelation, with the stage presence of some simply outstanding, and the fraternising, well, welcome after the hiatus of many years (for those who visit once say in five years, or friends of family dropping in for their first visit; like this year there was this lady who flew in from Dubai to be in Haripur, and a couple, related to some cousin, who, along with their daughter, dropped in from Mumbai).

Forty-eight hours in unhurried Haripur slows your clock down to an almost meditative tick. In these COVID-induced times, time itself is the subject of intense reflection. The torpor of quarantine does the work of a yoga mat. It stretches your mind out flat, receptive to anything happening to drop onto it. Into mine dropped those ‘bael’ fruit from Haripur. And these thoughts sprang out!

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Debraj Mookerjee has taught literature at the University of Delhi for close to thirty years. He claims he never gets bored. Ever. And that is his highest skill in life. No moment for him is not worth the while. He embraces life and allows life to embrace him.

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

Categories
Nostalgia Slices from Life

Lounging through Lucknow Lore

Nidhi Mishra takes us on a nostalgic journey through the syncretic elements of Lucknawi culture

“I know you are from Lucknow, but must our daughter lose marks in your mother tongue for some whimsical assertion of your Lucknawi roots?!” my (Kannadiga) husband asked incredulously. He was even more stunned to see the hesitation I had in giving the obvious answer categorically.

I had barred my daughter to use the (correct) word ‘main’ in Hindi, a perfect translation of ‘I’ in English and all its variations (mera, mujhe etc) and instead had raised my girl to refer to herself as ‘hum’ (literally translates to ‘we’ in English). Her Hindi teacher had rightfully pointed out that it was not the right usage. In my mind I agree, but in my Lucknawi heart I think, “Why not?”


My brother recently pointed out that it is not to do with the interweaving of Urdu, since Urdu ghazals liberally use the word ‘main’ and its variations. Like so many other things about the city, this is another ‘unreasonable’ characteristic of belonging to Lucknow.

It will be exactly  two decades since I left Lucknow now, but the immense assimilation of cultures, language and location has not dulled the city’s flame in me.  I recall these beautiful lines by the two-times Man Booker prize winner, Hilary Mantel: “We can’t excuse the past, just for being over and done. We can’t say, ‘all water under the bridge’…The past is always trickling under the soil, a slow leak you can’t trace.”

I find it hard to define Lucknow, as must be the case for any city, for that matter. Yes, you can always sum it up in its Ganga Jamuna tehzeeb and lehza (syncretic culture), but sometimes it is hard to keep things brief. I depend heavily on people, incidents and anecdotes to illustrate the spirit of the city, as I had known it. 

In Lucknow, boundaries were blurred.

I did all my schooling in Lucknow, at the famous now 148-year-old old Loreto Convent, fluent in every Christian hymn and lover of every Christmas carol. My brother, who went to St Francis, grew up in a similar ethos. My best friend in Junior School was Saba and my brother’s was Danish. We lived a stone’s throw away from the iconic Hazratganj area. But we were never raised to notice religion in our surroundings or friends. How I wish I could make my kids unaware of these distinctions as well.

My grandfather was a very respected person. Legend has it that the level of his anger could be measured by how deep his transition was from conversational Hindi to Urdu. So, when he opened the conversation with “Barkhurdaar, aap nihayti ahmek insaan hain (Sir, you are a scoundrel; spoken in Urdu),” it was a red alert for anyone planning an escape from a beautiful sounding reprimand.

When my father talks of poetry, there is a special flicker in his eyes. He is a prolific writer himself and listening to Begum Akhtar with him on his long-playing record player, has been one of the finest pleasures of my life. It is no wonder that my mother is a naturalised Lucknawi who joyfully watches Urdu poetry gatherings, mushairas, on You-tube. My father still displays extraordinary pride when he shares that the bungalow in which Begum Akhtar resided, was leased out by our family. I think he relishes the fact that in some distant, dreamy way, there is a piece of paper which houses both his and the Begum’s name. 

In Lucknow, everyone had a poetic tongue.  

“Muskuraiye, ki aap Lucknow mein hain (Smile, now that you are in Lucknow),” greets the billboard as you enter the city.

What happens when you end up brushing past another vehicle on the road? Freezing glares, verbal assault, even a fist fight?  In the Lucknow of my time, you would hear the other person say, “Gareeb aadmi hain sahib, gaadi chadha deejiyega? (I am but a poor man sir, run me over?)” You would have no option but to hand over your melted heart to that person and drive away.

Cycle rickshaws were ubiquitous in my time. The rickshaw pullers, who would physically pull our weight (though with the help of wheels on the vehicle) and had to put in so much manual labour, would always cheerfully ask, “Bataiye janaab, aaj kahan le jaaenge? (Please tell Sir, where will you be taking me today?)”

The Nawaabs of Lucknow 

We grew up with not just love for the good life, but also respect for it. ‘Shaukeen’ (aficionado) is a word which I find hard to translate but synonymous with Lucknow life.

My Dadi (grandmother) was the highlight of my growing up years and in my mind carried the charms of the city in her personality. Unlike most women from her time, she was extremely well-educated for her time (and even for today) with a master’s degree in literature and having joined my grandfather when he went for higher studies to England. It was not rare to hear her casually weave some Latin phrase, like Nil nisi bonum* into a conversation. She was responsible for my (rather early) transition from Nancy Drew and the likes to Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, opening up the gates of romantic literature. 

Many years later, on my grandfather’s Shraadh (annual death ceremony), while conforming to the traditional brahmin rituals and serving of traditional food for the supposed appeasement of my grandfather’s soul, Dadi would also make sure that the holy cow was also served his favourite burger. She brushed aside stereotypes with little pomp, much panache and a lot of understated elegance. And in all of this, she personified the spirit of Lucknow to me.

Another differentiating trait was about taking life easy. While my kids are often told, “Early to bed, early to rise…,” I remember hearing the saying, ‘Aaram badi cheez hai, munh dhak ke soiye, kis kis ko yaad keejiye, kis kis ko roiye (Comfort is a big thing, relax and sleep peacefully. is there any sense in remembering and crying over people)’. I would love to trade a little bit of my ‘fast forward’ with a little bit of that pause.

This love for ‘the good things of life’ was not restricted to a certain class or community.

I remember hearing that the vegetable vendors would sell their goods with very unique descriptors- ‘Laila ki ungliyan, Majnu ki pasliyan (Laila’s fingers, Majnu’s cartilage)’ uniquely referred to ladies’ fingers and gourds. There was a love for culture that transcended classes and income levels. Another vegetable vendor was famous for his claim ‘Begum (Akhtar) ke bag ki sabziyan(vegetables from Begum Akhtar’s garden)’. No wonder literature and music were literally fed to us!

Culture was not something which was curated by and for the elite. It was on the road, it was in the offices– it was everywhere.

Well before I read about Keynesian theory in B-school, the tourist guides at the marvelous Bhool Bhulaiya (meaning labyrinth) had regaled some wonderful lessons around unemployment, wages and labour. It is said that around 1780, the region was badly affected by famine. The fourth Nawab of the Awadh Province, Nawab Asaf-Ud-Daula Nawab thought of building this structure as a way to generate employment as well as provide food to people in return for their services. The people were too proud to receive compensation from the Nawab without earning it (equating it to alms). Hence a part of the monument would be constructed during the day by part of the labour, while the other part brought it down at night. This ensured that the Nawabi pride of the common man was intact, by earning his living. It took fourteen years for the monument to be completed.

Things change, places do too

I hear that now the rickshaw pullers of Lucknow (like in any other city), come straight to the point, “Itna paisa lagega. (It will cost you so much).” Not that there can be anything wrong with that statement — to the point, upfront and efficient. But poetry never cared about efficiency, nor did the Lucknawis of yore. 

Migration, politics and so much more has changed the fabric of the city a lot. William Dalrymple devotes a full chapter to what ‘Lucknawi’ used to mean, in his book Age of Kali. Notice the past tense in this whole piece. Sometimes I wonder if we are just romanticizing the idea of Lucknow. Did it really exist or was it just a dream!

Khwab tha shayad!

Maybe it was a dream

Khwab hi hoga! 

It must have been a dream

Sarhad par kal raat, suna hai, chali thi goli

Have heard that last night across the border, some shots were fired

Sarhad par kal raat, suna hai

Have heard that last night across the border

Kuchh khwaabon ka khoon hua hai

Some dreams have been murdered.

-Gulzaar Sa’ab

Disclaimer: I know no conversation on Lucknow is over without a special mention to its culinary delights. Unfortunately, I disappoint as a vegetarian there, with little meat to offer. Though I can swear, you would not get better kebabs in the world. Apologies for all the Hindustani in the piece for the English only readers. I found it difficult to talk of Lucknow without a splash of Hindi- Urdu.

* Latin for indicating that it is socially inappropriate to speak ill of the dead as they are unable to justify themselves.

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Nidhi Mishra is the founder & CEO of Bookosmia (smell of books)-a global movement for kids to be heard! An ex-banker, she pivoted from a 10 year banking career to her passion for reading and luring others to read to start Bookosmia. Nidhi is from Lucknow and we challenge you to have any conversation with her where she doesn’t bring it up. She went to Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University to pick up an Honours in Mathematics and a feminist flair on the side. An MBA from IIM Lucknow took her to a decade-long career in the financial sector, finally quitting as VP, HSBC as she suffers from a (misplaced) sense of satisfaction and a drive to do something meaningful with her time. Outside of Bookosmia, Nidhi spends much of her time complaining there is not enough time, overindulging her two beautiful daughters, organizing dastangoi/ghazals at her place and asking (unsuspecting) people to gift her all kinds of books-from Faiz to Kahneman to Tina Fey.
You can write to her at nidhi@bookosmia.com or visit www.bookosmia.com to know more.

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

Categories
Ghumi Stories

A Night too Long

By Nabanita Sengupta

As the train eased itself into the dimly lit station, Purnima peeped out of the door of her compartment. The only bulb tiredly glowing in front of the station office at Ghumi did not do much to dispel darkness. In fact, to Purnima the lonely electric light seemed to highlight the blanket of darkness ahead rather than erase it. Once the train jangled to a complete stop, she descended the three iron steps at the compartment door to get down to the platform. Her brother-in-law rolled the luggage towards her and she quickly pulled them down on the platform. The month old infant, her own flesh and blood and the reason for her being in Calcutta for so many months, was happily sleeping in her sister-in-law’s arms. She was grateful to this elderly couple who had accompanied her from the city to help her during this long journey.

She helped each of them descend before the train hissed and heaved itself into reluctant motion, puffing a lung full of smoke along with tiny specks of coal dust, onwards into the darkness lying ahead. The station was unusually quiet and Kishore was nowhere to be seen. Probably he was on his way, Purnima thought to herself, a little embarrassed by his lack of punctuality at such a time.

 This small township in the undivided Bihar, tucked away in a quiet corner of the Chhota Nagpur plateau was never a very busy place. Yet at any given time there would be some twenty to thirty people on the platform including passengers, idlers and beggars. But today, it was just themselves and a young man with his pretty wife they had met on train. All, except the blissfully sleeping baby, were quite disturbed by the unnatural and eerie silence that had enveloped the platform. Only the baby felt secured, comfortable in the arms of those who absolutely adored her. From where this small party of stranded travellers stood, even the station office at a distance gave a despondent look.

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Purnima felt uneasy. Already post pregnancy blues and the long journey by train had claimed a heavy toll on her body and mind. Added to it was the unusual calm at the platform and Kishore’s absence. It became a bit more than she could handle; yet she had no option. The tensed and bewildered looks on the other faces belied to her their state of mind and she realised that she had to think of something fast; only she could lead them to a safe place, the only safe place she could now think of — her home. It must have been the bundled infant that she was cradling near her bosom that gave her the required strength and clarity of mind.

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Mind has its own way of conjuring things and right at that time she found herself going back to those bloody images that were splashed all over newspapers and television in Calcutta during her stay with her parents there. Riot had exposed its ruthless claws all over the country and the city of her maidenhood too had fallen prey to the monster. Still Calcutta was comparatively less affected, being far away from the epicentre of all troubles.

The Prime Minister had been assassinated and the entire country was ablaze with hate crimes. One man’s action escalated into a prejudice against an entire race and suddenly no one knew who could be trusted. But Purnima had her faith in Ghumi. She was relieved that Kishore, her husband, had returned to the calm and peaceful township of Ghumi, where he worked. There at least nothing could disturb the peace. She could never associate violence with that beautiful township of krishnachuras* and palash*.

Her first journey to Ghumi as a newlywed was still vivid in her mind. It was the beginning of her love story with a place that only deepened with the passing months. In spite of being a thoroughly city bred girl, it did not take her long to succumb to the unique charm that this place had to offer.

Flanked by a river and a hill, Ghumi was as fresh and vibrant as a teenager living a life of bounty as well as discipline. The residents were tied together in a disciplinarian regime, strictly maintained by the regular factory shifts. Since each and everyone drew their livelihood from the factory and its corresponding offices, they had to follow the pattern of life set by it.

To a newcomer like her, such intrusion seemed annoying yet reassuring. Purnima was not much fond of the factory siren that signalled change of shifts for its employees and also decided her everyday routine; yet as a new wife, she felt a grudging gratitude towards those bellowing giants for maintaining regularity in their lives. In the first few months of her unsupervised domesticity, away from both sets of parents and in the land of her husband’s work, the factory siren took up the role of the mother-in-law, ensuring an order amidst the desired and novel anarchy of this new phase of their conjugality. Since then, in the past few years that she has been living in Ghumi, she township drew her into the radius of its unique aura.

It was her mini-India — within a radius of a kilometre from her house, Purnima had made friends with a Malayali aunty, a Punjabi family and another Gujarati one. Apart from that, there were a few families from Bengal and Uttar Pradesh too. All these were people who had relocated from their hometowns in the different states of the country to earn a living in Ghumi.

The women from these houses would often meet for afternoon sessions of tea and gossip. They would return to their houses only when the siren sounded the end of the evening shift — time for their husbands’ homecoming. They would gossip about the latest neighbourhood scandals or about home remedies, and even new recipes. Purnima learnt how to cook various snacks from these ladies. It was an idyllic life where even discords didnot survive for long. At times she wondered at the harmony that this life offered. Was it some fairy tale that she was living through? The happy princess in her abode before the witch struck!

Her years in Calcutta had not been too happy, punctuated by bitter family feuds regarding property ownership and a latent competition that marked every lifestyle change — be it a for new television set or a new vehicle or acquiring a telephone connection. All these acquisitions of consumer items were not just simple moments of joy but at times, of one-upmanship as well. The city droned on like a bumble bee in a monotony of its self-imposed rat race and Purnima never felt herself anything more than an inconsequential entity in a sea of other humans. In contrast, Ghumi in its simplicity became the home she had always wished for. Its peaceful air enticed her to its fold to the point that she completely fell for its utopian charm.

 But the vibes that emanated from the railway platform at that moment was very different from those feelings that she had long nurtured in her heart. She pulled herself back to the present. Asking the group to wait, she called the young man away from his pretty wife to accompany her to the station master’s office. But the futility of that feeble attempt was visible to them even before they reached there — the two roomed structure was not only abandoned but also brutally vandalised. She suddenly felt a chill down her spine.

Where was Kishore? The import of his absence from the station only now hit her fully and she had to lean against the nearest wall to steady herself. The young man accompanying her wanted to help, but the habitual shyness of an introvert male confronting a strange woman left him at a complete loss. He merely stood at one side and kept looking at his toe. It took a few minutes for Purnima to regain composure. After all, her precious little one was still wrapped in a bundle of clothes close to her bosom. She could not let go so easily, not without an earnest effort.

Her house was about fifteen minutes walk from the station and she had to take them all there in safety. Yes all, including the unknown couple whom they had known only for the duration of that journey and their familiarity was just a few stray conversations old. She realised that she could not leave this couple stranded in the middle of nowhere, with no one coming to pick them up. Perhaps, it is in such difficult times that we come to terms with the humanitarian soul lying within us. She had long realised that they were new to this place so now she finally asked the man — where will you go from here?

—      I have no idea. My uncle was supposed to pick us up but as you can see he too hasn’t arrived!

I think we should stay here and catch the next train home, he added after a thought.

Purnima returned to the rest of the party, the young man in tow, and asked all of them to follow her, completely disregarding the conversation she had a few moments ago. They walked through a narrow lane along the railway tracks, unsure about the dangers lurking along the main road. Worries regarding her absent husband made her stomach lurch vehemently. The lane was dark and full of stones, but as it was along the railway lines, every now and then, there were abandoned compartments left unattended. Purnima felt those might provide them with a shelter if the need arose. They moved quietly, making as less noise as possible, their eyes forced to take in the devastation and ruin all around.

The cloth shop near the station was fully torched, only rubbles lay scattered around — deceased witnesses of Mr. Balwinder Singh’s once thriving entrepreneurship. Purnima stood routed to the spot for some time. Tears of pain, fear and anger trickled down – just a few months ago, before visiting her parents, Balwinder bhaiya* had helped her select dress material for all her cousins. He was a nice man, a bit shortly built for an average Punjabi male. Perhaps, to compensate for that, he sported a huge turban, which Purnima always felt, was precariously balanced on his head. This could not have been a minor clash.

The road smelled of burnt clothes and plastics amidst the pervasive silence. Recollecting herself and mentally preparing for further bleak scenes ahead, she stubbornly prodded forward with the infant in her arms. The rest followed her, as if in a trance. But the rest of the journey did not present them with any more distressing sights except a few uprooted light posts and a couple of battered vehicles as a reminder of the simmering violence.

Purnima, in spite of all her worries about her husband and their own safety, could not help wondering about Jaspreet aunty, her next door neighbour. The fate of Balwinder’s shop had pointed out to her the vulnerability of Jaspreet aunty and her family. The two women of unequal age had spent so many carefree evenings together — Purnima listening to the elder one’s bawdy Punjabi folk songs and reeling with laughter — that Jaspreet had become an irreplaceable part of her life at Ghumi. What had become of them in this world where everything had suddenly turned so ghastly and unreal! All through her way home, Purnima  prayed hard. She prayed for her family; she prayed for Jaspreet aunty’s family and for all those she knew.

As this tired party reached her home, everything was dark inside. She could sense human presence within, so asking everyone to wait; she slowly tiptoed to the door and pushed it. It opened by itself but she could not see anybody. Just as she was about to switch on the lights near the door, a hand stopped her.

Even in the dark she knew it was Kishore. Assuring him of her silence and comprehension, she quietly went out to bring the rest of the party in. If Kishore was surprised to see the unknown couple, he kept quiet. In silence he escorted everyone to the bedroom and asked them to wait. Taking their baby from his wife he held both of them close, in a warm embrace of happiness and relief. As they hugged each other, they could feel chunks of weariness slowly melting away from their bodies, rejuvenating them. He did not want to let go, but quickly controlled his emotions and took her along with the baby to the next room, leaving the rest behind. The tired passengers had found a safe haven in his home but he needed his wife and child for something more important.

Unable to leave that night to escort his family home, Kishore had remained rooted to their front window as soon as he heard the train whistle carried into his house through the quiet of the night. After the longest half an hour of his life, he could spot his wife with their baby huddling cautiously along with his brother and sister-in-law. There was another couple too whom he could not identify.

He realised, his wife must have brought them home in absence of any other alternative. He did not mind. After all, in such times, providing a safe stay was all he could do. And God knows, he had been trying to do that since morning. As that tired party approached the gate, he moved away from the window and kept the front door opened. He wanted to keep noise at its minimum, not sure if any miscreants were still around. So he quietly stood by the door, waiting for Purnima to step in. Thankfully, Purnima too was cautious enough.

This morning’s events had rattled him completely. It was in broad daylight that a group of armed men attacked Jaspreet aunty’s house. By then he knew about the fate of Balwinder. So, he had forced the mother and her young son to shift into his house a little before those hooligans broke in. And what a sensible decision it proved to be! He knew his house won’t be spared the search too, so he quickly gave the boy a rough haircut and asked aunty to dress in Purnima’s clothes, complete with sindoor and bangles. Thankfully, the men did not look under the beds or they would have discovered chunks of hair hastily shoved under it. As the men approached his door, Kishore recognised Vimal, a nearby house help, among the hooligans; for a moment he dreaded that his little ruse will be discovered.

But then he saw recognition followed by understanding flicker quickly across Vimal’s eyes when the unruly group entered his house. Kishore at once realised they were safe. There was probably still some humanity left — Vimal did not reveal the identity of his employer. There had been times when Jaspreet aunty would send medicines for his mother or some goodies for his sister. She had even helped him with his father’s funeral. It was his turn to return those acts of kindness today. So Jaspreet aunty passed on as an elderly relative of Kishore, waiting for his wife and the baby – a little deceit of kindness that tied the two men from two diverse strata of society in a secret, unbreakable pact. The rest of the frustrated crowd smashed across his table and glass showcase before leaving to hunt for fresh targets, displeased at having to return empty handed.

Purnima could not believe what she saw when she followed Kishore to the other room! Lying huddled on her bed was Jaspreet aunty. The lady who would always be clad in bright hued loose kaftans or chiffon salwar kameez was lying on her bed wearing a simple beige coloured cotton sari!

Her teenage son was sitting by her side with his head hung low, shorn of its neatly tied turban; in its place stood a set of unevenly cropped hair as if the barber has left his job midway. He did not even look up at her, too embarrassed at his new condition. When Jaspreet aunty looked at her, the eyes were blank – the shock of the morning incident had drained all emotions out of them. Purnima stood looking at them aghast, tears involuntarily sliding down her cheeks. She needed no explanation to understand what had happened. She moved to the window and peeped out — the ravaged bungalow of the Singh’s stood still, waiting for its inmates’ return. Jaspreet aunty called her near and held on to her tightly: “Your uncle is safe, currently under the factory’s protection. Tomorrow the factory along with the paramilitary is going to mobilise a protection and anti-riot force. We shall be safe, but we shall never be the same again”.

Her last line kept echoing in Purnima’s ears. She thrust her baby into the old woman’s arms and watched her frail and furrowed face gradually light up. Tears of love welled up in the eyes which even a while ago were so blank and dry.

“You are my child’s Jassi nani* and my dearest aunt and that can never change. Ghumi can never fail us. Keep faith,” Purnima asserted wholeheartedly.

As the old woman and her son started playing with the infant, Purnima suddenly felt a huge weight lifted off her shoulders and tiredness take over as she slumped down in peaceful fatigue beside the bed. The siren announced the beginning of night shift and Purnima felt assured that her world would return to being the same again, irrespective of its scars.

*krishnachuras : brightly coloured flowering tree

*palash: red flowering tree

*bhaiya: brother, an affectionate and respectful term used in India

*Jassi nani: Jassi grandmother, Jassi being the short form of Jaspreet

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Dr. Nabanita Sengupta is an Assistant Professor in English at Sarsuna College Kolkata. She is a creative writer, a research scholar and a translator. Her areas of interest are Translation Studies, Women Studies, Nineteenth century Women’s writings, etc. She has been involved with translation projects of Sahitya Akademi and Viswa Bharati. Her creative writings, reviews and features have been variously published art Prachya Review, SETU, Muse India, Coldnoon, Café Dissensus, NewsMinute.in, News18.com and Different Truths. She has presented many research papers in India and abroad.

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

Categories
Excerpt Poetry

Poems from Notes of Silent Times

Poetry from Nepal by Mahesh Paudyal

Workers’ Poem

In a small gathering on the lawn

The poet was reciting his verses.

A little away, some masons and labours were busy

Hammering nails.

The poet stopped, looked at them, and yelled—

“Stop your pranks! Can’t you see I am reading a poem?”

The workers were silent. The poet recited his verses.

Much later, when everyone was gone

The workers resumed their life-song.

I don’t know if the poet heard it.

***

Emperor and the Kids

“Emperor, we are hungry!”

This sounded like a shooting lullaby;

The Emperor slept for one more century.

“Emperor, please lend us your crown for a while;

We will play the king-queen game and return.”

The Emperor ordered:

“Officer! Send these children out of the four passes!

They are here to spread measles.”

***

Firefly

Firefly,

Perhaps it’s time that writes our existence.

No matter how much you try

To glow in broad daylight

You need to wait for the night

To make yourself visible

***

Storm!

Blow on, storm!

Blow with all your might!

Unless there is wind

And unless a few homes and roofs are betumbled

No one writes

An epic on air, the puny thing!

***

The Sky

All smoke rising from the earth

Goes skyward

But the sky is never called the country of smoke

It is always called

The land of the stars and moons

***

These poems are excerpted from his latest collection, Notes of Silent Times

Mahesh Paudyal is a Nepali poet, storywriter, critic and translator. A lecturer of English at Tribhuvan University, Mr. Paudyal has written extensively for children and adult readers, and has translated more than 2 dozen books from Nepali into English. His major works include Tadi Kinarko Geet (novel), Tyaspachhi Phulena Godavari (stories), Of Walls and Pigeons (stories),  Sunya Praharko Sakshi (poems) and Notes of Silent Times (poems). Among his seminal translations are Dancing Soul of Mount Everest (representative modern Nepali poems), Radha (an award-winning novel by Krishna Dharabasi), Unfinished Memoirs and Prison Notes by Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman and Silver Cascades (representative Nepali short stories.) A recipient of Nepal Bidhyabhushan, Narendramani Dixit Gold Medal, Bimal Gurung Memorial Award, Sudish Niraula Memorial and Prasiddha Kandel Memorial Award, he has also represented Nepal in many international literary seminars.]

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

Categories
Humour Poetry

How to Kill a Poem

By Sambhu R.

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It takes much time to kill a tree,

Not a simple jab of the knife- On Killing a Tree, Gieve Patel

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It’s easy to kill a poem.

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If it’s the flying kind,

rip off its wings already slick

with the oil spill of words

and slit its throat

with the blade of your pen

run like a bow across the jugular.

The frantic flapping you hear

is the nerves straining for a final burst of music.

Plug your ears with indifference,

pluck the feathers, and clean up the blood.

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If the poem is Black in its epidermal garb,

you may choke it with your knee

pressed ruthlessly to the back of the neck*.

It takes some time for the oxygen

to be shut out of the door of the lungs.

Be patient. Wait for the last leap of breath,

roll the corpse onto a gurney,

and smile at the spectators sliding mobile phones

out of the scabbard of their pockets.

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If the poem talks too much,

incarcerate it behind thick bars of sense.

Try every trick from bastinado

to waterboarding and force a confession

of its all-the-perfumes-of-Arabia-will-not-sweeten guilt.

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And if the poem is too popular,

chances are that it is adulterous;

then it merits no ordinary death.

Stone it with words

stone it

stone it

stone it

till all its charms are ripped out of its flesh.

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To let a poem live, you need eyes

that can see the space between the lines

as the poem’s right to breathe,

and not as Nazi death trains

into which words are squeezed.

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Killing it is a lot easier, takes no particular skill.

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*Reference to George Floyd’s killing which took place in Minneapolis on 25 May 2020.

Sambhu R. is a bilingual poet from Kerala. He is Assistant Professor of English at N.S.S. College, Pandalam and is also a doctoral candidate. He has published an anthology of poems in Malayalam titled “Vavval Manushyanum Komaliyum.”

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

Categories
Stories

Flash Fiction: Nameless

                                                                                                                 –by Bhumika R.

Ira watered her tiny patch of kitchen garden for the third time that day. The tomatoes were clearly wilting and the cucumber had even given up trying. But Ira ensured that they were watered and checked on them, caressing their almost dead leaves and stem. Delhi’s summer was ruthless. It scorched everything that seemed alive, leaving behind a faint smell of smokiness in the air that her people breathed.

Ira’s relationship with this city had always been a little too complicated. She felt she belonged and unbelonged simultaneously. Loneliness was a constant, loyal companion. She had once laughingly told her colleague that loneliness was a certainty in an otherwise uncertain terrain of her life. It lived within her and to think of its absence caused her discomfort.  She moved with that certainty in her everyday life. The pendulum swung with an almost even rhythm between her teaching job, her home and her little daughter Charitra.  A decade ago, in Delhi’s harsh summer, something snapped within her, leaving behind a never to fade kind of burnt smell.

That year when Delhi’s summer had scorched her, everyone seemed suspicious and paranoid about some strange creature that they said had been loitering around in the city. Some claimed that they had sighted it here and there. The description of those who had sighted matched that of the terminator. Children playing with their toy guns and shrieking in joy on having killed the creature was a boringly regular sight in almost every colony and society complex.

The authorities went around on foot and on motor vehicles, announcing on a screeching microphone that residents must stay indoors until further instructions from the competent authority. It was so like a fairytale, thought Ira. Who or what was this creature and what did it even do, was a question that remained unanswered.

Everyone she met or spoke with, had a different description of this creature. She smiled inwardly at the different narratives that piled up around the creature. Perhaps, she could turn these heaped up narratives on the creature to bedtime stories for Charitra when she was little older. Ira felt a strange relief thinking that perhaps Charitra could draw the creature with crayons and colour pastels when she would be old enough to understand the narratives.

Ira gazed at Charitra, sleeping in her cradle, unperturbed by the screeching sounds emerging from the microphone. Caressing her daughter’s forehead, Ira stood in her balcony, gazing at the spider, weaving its web beneath the cane chair. The spider seemed unperturbed by her presence and continued busy. Ira felt uneasy. She had a strange discomfort about believing anything about the creature. Any thought of believing it, made Ira uneasy.

It all happened a week after that announcement from the shrieking microphone. A news channel flashed a news about the sudden ‘disappearance’ of some people in the city. News anchors argued and screamed, banging their fists about the connections of the ‘disappeared’ people with the strange creature which had turned life upside down in the capital city. Narratives about the creature got funnier and weird with each passing day. Her student had messaged to say that the old rickshaw wallah had been lynched by the residents’ welfare association committee members of a colony, near her college. They alleged the poor man had connections with the strange creature

Two months later, a lot of people were taken away by the authorities for their connections to the mysterious creature. Her old classmates, Aman, Riya and Shweta had also been taken away for investigation.  

Ira never heard from any of them after they had been taken away for further investigation. A decade later, the authorities still claimed that the creature was still lurking around somewhere. All invitations to neighbourhood tea and snacks parties, children’s birthday parties had stopped. Everyone in the city only wanted to eat, talk and party with their families. Outsiders were strictly prohibited from being a part of any kind of party that each family almost routinely hosted for themselves.

Ten-year-old Charitra disliked crayons and drawing. For Ira, the creature remains an abstract, strange and unbelievable thing.

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Bhumika R completed her Ph.D from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 2019. She has taught English in Surana College, Bangalore and in IIT Jammu and plans to resume teaching soon. Besides her academic publications, she has also contributed articles to Cafe Dissensus Everyday, The Hindu and Deccan Herald. She also writes poetry and short fiction in English and some of her poems have been published in the Visual Verse. She is currently translating Mizo author Malswami Jacob’s novel Zorami into Kannada. She lives with her husband in Jammu. She may be contacted at patrika.bhumika@gmail.com.

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

Categories
Essay

Cozies and Me: Adventures during the Pandemic

Soma Das explores comfort reading during the pandemic

I have always enjoyed curling up with a mystery novel, especially on days when nothing seems to go right. But over the last few years, I started experiencing a vague sense of guilt every time I would read a non-academic book.            

All that changed thanks to Covid-19. In Mumbai, the lockdown (in place since March) has meant limited mobility and life coming to a standstill. Exams have been postponed or cancelled, work is now largely done from home, and there is little incentive or safety in stepping out or travelling.

Reading is the best antidote to unpalatable things in life, including uncertain times. So, I started browsing through my bookshelf and tentatively selected a few dusty titles. The books, however, didn’t speak to me. I would keep reading the same passage over and over again, without being able to decipher the meaning hidden in the text.

So, I turned to the only thing that didn’t tax my brain: a cozy mystery. Also referred to as the cozies, this is a type of crime fiction where an amateur sleuth (usually a girl/woman) investigates a particular incident — it can range from arson to blackmail, a haunting, or a murder.

The plot is set in an idyllic location, such as a small village in England/France, or at a seaside resort. The stories are often humorous and tend to feature pets (mostly cats). There can be a culinary angle to the story, as the sleuth may be working/frequenting a cafe, or a crime may take place there. While some of the novels stand-alone, others are part of a series.

The titles of cozy mysteries tend to be strangely alluring, and hunger-inducing: Chocolate Cream Pie Murder, Mystery at Apple Tree Cottage, Murder over Cocktails, Profiteroles and Poison, Cookies, Spells and the Tolling Bells, Feral Attraction, More Cats, Cupcakes and Killers, A Sprinkling of Murder…  

Unlike regular crime thrillers or mystery novels (where the goriness of the crime takes centre-stage), in cozies, the actual criminal act is not graphically described. And there is rarely any use of profanity. In other words, these are the non-PG (parental guidance) versions of sordid mystery novels.

The usual plot for a cozy mystery involves an idyllic locale where most people know (and trust) each other. The sleuth (usually someone resourceful and quick-witted, but not a trained detective) makes an entry. Just in time, a crime occurs. The amateur sleuth is somehow connected to the incident and must investigate. There may be a romantic angle as well. Several characters appear suspicious, but eventually, the sleuth eliminates the false leads and points out the real culprit. Interestingly, in these stories, most of the culprits are victims of circumstances and not serial killers.

Most of us have read cozy novels, but we perhaps never identified them as such. Some good examples are MC Beaton’s Agatha Raisin series, Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series, and Alexander McCall Smith’s The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.   

For me, an additional incentive to read these stories came from a simple fact: Kindle has a large number of cozy mysteries available for free. The pricing changes over a period of time (and what’s free today may not be free tomorrow), but there are always a few cozies available at any point of time.

Cozy novels are one of the most popular forms of crime writing. Novice authors along with seasoned ones often take a stab at it (pun intended), which accounts for the extensive range. It is safe to say we will never run out of cozies.  

In terms of quality, some of the books can be boring and average, as the authors come up with improbable storylines or lose their hold on the plot during the denouement. But there are some works that are able to build suspense and keep you hooked till the very end. To save precious time, I would advise you to read the reader reviews and steer clear of the terrible ones.

Writing in Psychology Today, author David Evans described murder mysteries as “fairy tales for adults”. And therein lies their charm. While the stories talk of all kinds of evil things and people, it also offers a template on how to deal with your fears, as well as a reassurance that things will some day return to normal. More importantly, it tells you to trust your intuition and bravely face the challenges that life may throw at you. That is priceless advice in times like these. And all included within the price of a cozy!

Soma Das is an independent journalist and lecturer at the Department of Mass Media, Kishinchand Chellaram College, Mumbai.

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