There is a new word we learnt— ‘quarantine’— and the television news now begins to alarm,
But I have stumbled upon your ‘presence’ somehow,
Now it’s a newer world within a changing time.
Scene III
The possibilities of an end finally liberate me from my fears
And I dare to embrace you in my thoughts,
For I know we would never step out of our houses and ever meet.
Scene IV
Your voice is enough to calm my nerves,
Your smile is enough to take me to mine,
Your presence within my smartphone suffices my quarantine.
Epilogue
With no promises of future,
Escaping the dreads of the present time,
The most beautiful of its kind was perhaps,
An encounter with love in the times of quarantine.
.
Amrita Sharma is a Lucknow based writer currently pursuing her Ph.D. in English from the University of Lucknow. Her works have previously been published in Café Dissensus Everyday, Muse India,New Academia,GNOSIS,Dialogue,The Criterion, Episteme and Ashvamegh. Her area of research includes avant-garde poetics and innovative writings in the cyber space.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
As cyclone Amphan fireballed and ripped through Kolkata, Nishi Pulugurtha gives a first hand account of how she survived the fear and the terror of the situation
Forecasts and news did not prepare us for the actuality of it all till it actually happened. We had taken all necessary precautions but what happened on the evening of the 20th of May 2020 rattled and disturbed a lot. Cyclone Amphan was moving slowly over the Bay of Bengal and was expected to make a landfall in the southern parts of Bengal and lash the city of Kolkata as well.
News of this nature is troubling and more so in times of the pandemic. As it is we are all at a loss, stuck at home, worried about how things would turn out. As news kept pouring in about the cyclone which turned in to a super cyclone, the common refrain was why now. Things seem to be getting worse. At a time when we needed to maintain social distancing, people were being evacuated into cyclone shelters. This had to be done, the cyclone would wreak havoc and arrangements had to be made for lives to be saved.
At home, I heard my mother’s carer, Kajal, talking constantly about it over the telephone. She was calling up home and talking to her family members about it. Her home is in Namkhana, South 24 Parganas which would bear the brunt of the cyclone very strongly. Her sister who lives in Bakkhali by the coast, had been evacuated well in advance before the cyclone made a landfall.
Kajal kept telling me that this was worse than the cyclone Alia as there had been announcements in Namkhana and Bakkhali about how high the waves of the Bay of Bengal would lash out as well. As it began to rain she spoke to her folks, they were all at home, and expecting the river waters to rise had moved everything at home to higher places. Her home is just beside a river. The last time she spoke to her family members was when it was lashing the place. The asbestos sheet that was their roof had been blown away and they were unable to move out of the house as three trees had fallen on the house and one was blocking the door. There were tears in her eyes as she said there was no way anyone could come to rescue her folks.
At about four o’clock I decided to venture out a bit just to have a look at what was happening outside and that is the first time I heard the sound of the wind. It was loud, real loud, of the kind I do not recall hearing in recent times.
It began raining heavily in Kolkata and at home we began securing the glass windows. The intensity of the wind began increasing and we readied candles and match boxes. I even made dinner early as I was sure the electricity supply would go off. I made arrangements for water, both for drinking and use too. Living with someone who is in an advanced state of Azheimer’s, I needed to be prepared with how to deal with things. Living in the moment is something that dementia instills into us.
Friends and cousins started enquiring about how we were holding on. Holding on is something that Amma and I have been doing since her diagnosis had come in. And it is something that every one of us is doing in times of Covid-19. As the storm raged on, the sound and intensity kept increasing.
The tumult of it all was frightening and scary. I opened a window to look out to see how things were outside and that is when I could hear even more loud noises. Many houses in the neighbourhood had fibre sheds on the terraces and as the wind raged, the tins intensified the roars. The sound was fiery and nightmarish. Within our compound was a two storied house that had such a shed on its terrace. As I looked out from the window, I saw a fibre sheet rip off and fly. It frightened me out of my wits.
What if it should hit someone outside. It would lash against electric poles and wires too. It was getting dark too. It was a scary scenario. I closed the window and rushed to be with Amma. She does not speak at all now for some years, the ravages wrought by Alzheimer’s, but it was clear that she was very perturbed. We were enclosed in darkness. I started speaking to her and sat beside her, comforting her. We sat huddled up together not knowing what would happen.
At about 7.30 pm, it seemed that the noises were less. I opened a window again to look out. The wind was no longer raging though it was still raining. My neighbours were out in their verandahs, torches and mobile flashlights on, trying to make some sense of the damage that had been done.
It was too dark to make sense of how things were but we did see our whole compound was waterlogged. It was important be indoors, to try and be calm. I asked Kajal for news about her family and the state of her village. The last she heard of them was when they had been evacuated and were lodged in a neighbour’s house, all safe. That was at about six in the evening. She said she was unable to get in touch with anyone after that. She tried calling all those whose numbers she had, not just of her family members but also of local villagers, but to no avail.
We had dinner in silence, the electric supply was restored. Amma was taken to bed but she was awake for most part of the night, making noises once in a while. She usually sleeps till twelve, is awake for some time and then falls asleep again. She slept in the wee hours of the morning. I went out to have a look at things in the morning, water all around, my small garden in a mess, the plants mostly bent, fibre sheds strewn around in the compound, glass pieces on my car parked outside.
Thoughts of the pandemic were pushed back, all of us in Kolkata and all over Bengal and Orissa were more concerned about the cyclone and all the devastation it has brought.
I got a call from the local grocer at 6.30 in the morning, I had ordered a few things yesterday before it started. He called up to say that they were on the way. I told him that he could wait. He replied that things were all ready for delivery, moreover I might be in need. The young boy who delivered them told me that there was knee deep water in places.
I asked Kajal if she had any news of her family. She said she had been trying throughout the night but to no avail. There was no news at all. She was with Amma as she usually is. They were holding each other’s hands.
Dr. Nishi Pulugurtha is Associate Professor in the department of English, Brahmananda Keshab Chandra College and has taught postgraduate courses at West Bengal State University, Rabindra Bharati University and the University of Calcutta. She is the Secretary of the Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library, Kolkata (IPPL). She writes on travel, film, short stories, poetry and on Alzheimer’s Disease. Her work has been published in The Statesman, Kolkata, in Prosopisia, in the anthology Tranquil Muse and online – Kitaab, Café Dissensus, Coldnoon, Queen Mob’s Tea House, The World Literature Blog and Setu. She guest edited the June 2018 Issue of Café Dissensus on Travel. She has a monograph on Derozio (2010) and a collection of essays on travel, Out in the Open (2019). She is now working on her first volume of poems and is editing a collection of essays on travel.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
Globally, three million children a year die of hunger or malnourishment according to theworldcounts.com. The site also notes the number is dropping steadily. In a May 2019 editorial ,Voice of America reports, “Today, some 821 million people suffer chronically from hunger. And although this is significantly fewer people than the numbers we saw a decade ago, hunger still kills more people than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.”
Why then does the coronavirus, which has claimed more lives in the United States than other countries at 91,163 total deaths, offer cause for a global economic shutdown? Belgium hosts the highest rate of mortality in the world from the virus at 16.4 percent. In the United States, Cook County, Illinois records 61,212 cases of the virus as of May 17 according to John Hopkins University of Medicine’s Coronavirus Resource Center. There are 315,174 total global deaths attributed to COVID-19 so far, with the highest confirmed numbers in the United States. Transmission of the virus, says this Chinese study, is elevated by cooler and less humid climates. This possibly explains why areas such as New England and Chicago are heaviest affected, especially New York City.
This essay does not intend to question the lifestyle of American citizens or the policies of the global leadership. However, it may take that tone but I ask that you dig deeper. I propose a question to the reader: why does a mutation of the COVID bug command so much initiative from us whereas global hunger does not seem too much of a concern? How long before the equitable world we all wish to see appears before us?
Already the Coronavirus lockdown has an economic cost reported at BBC here. We are seeing oil prices in the negative in the USA, stock values declining, looming recessions worldwide, and massive unemployment due to the response. Industry is slowing in China where the virus is said to have originated. All in all, we are seeing global political conflicts ranging from who controls the narrative to what cure will work best while political leaders tell citizens “business as usual”, or in contrast turn to authoritarian measures. Richard Hoftstader writes of the paranoid leader in “The Paranoid Style of American Politics”, “He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated — if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.”
In this work on social psychology, Hoftstader further writes: “It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him.” Clearly the authoritarian and paranoid styles merge in conspiratorial logic. The Other must face blame, ostracisation, or anything to distract the populace. The paranoid leader in authoritarian style pins the fearful onto the opposition; it is that fear which he or she embodies in this action that makes the leader effective to others.
Authoritarians thrive on fear, hostility, and incomprehensibility so it is no wonder they are cropping up during these emotionally heated times. Regardless of whether or not coronavirus is indeed “a little flu” , Brazil’s president makes himself the central issue. He is the victim of a conspiracy. Even President Trump in the United States practices better diplomacy — he suggests that he has worked with governors in all the states, of both parties, and they are working together. He also notes in an April press conference that the pandemic shows why the United States must be an ‘independent nation’.
In spite of the media’s attempts at Paxicide and character assassination, the Global Happiness Report tells us that in 2020 more than half the world’s citizens are in urban areas and that “Cities are economic powerhouses: more than 80 percent of worldwide GDP is generated within their boundaries. They allow for an efficient division of labour, bringing with them agglomeration and productivity benefits, new ideas and innovations, and hence higher incomes and living standards.”
In the Communist Manifesto, Marx’s praise of the bourgeoisie speaks for itself: “The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.”
What is this pandemic and what is the panic around it? Returning to Hoftstader’s comments on the paranoid style, it seems the establishment has pruned and developed it. As the United States faces the worst unemployment rate in history since the Great Depression, and a study predicts a possible extra 75,000 deaths due to despair from the conditions imposed by the virus, there is no easy way to measure the economic costs of this pandemic.
Even now, Chinese officials say the virus may be changing as new cases show symptoms much later, and take longer to test negative. No one knows what the future harbors. The uncertainty itself is torturous as the Well Being Trust and The Robert Graham Center study relates its reasons for calculating higher numbers of deaths of despair, “unprecedented economic failure paired with massive unemployment, mandated social isolation for months and possible residual isolation for years, and uncertainty caused by the sudden emergence of a novel, previously unknown microbe.”
The human is a social animal. Imposing bizarre restrictions on our social lives seems unnatural, especially under conditions we cannot assess.
There are also socioeconomic factors that are emerging in this crisis. The chart shows that workers with less than high school education are suffering the highest rates of unemployment at 21.2 percent, and education level seems to even further reflect on one’s employment according to the chart. Perhaps it is time for a radical restructuring of the economy and tax policy, which may be possible suggests an article in MIT Technology Review. It’s not quite what you expect, however. For instance the article tells the reader that “The tax policy that the AI Economist came up with is a little unusual. Unlike most existing policies, which are either progressive (that is, higher earners are taxed more) or regressive (higher earners are taxed less), the AI’s policy cobbled together aspects of both, applying the highest tax rates to rich and poor and the lowest to middle-income workers. Like many solutions that AIs come up with—such as some of AlphaZero’s game-winning moves—the result appears counterintuitive and not something that a human might have devised. But its impact on the economy led to a smaller gap between rich and poor.”
Let’s not confuse this with flat rate or regressive tax rates that countries like Estonia or Russia used to build capitalist markets. We have capitalist markets in the United States, and do not need to build them. But will we have markets as rich and sturdy post-COVID? The uncertainty is mind-boggling, and the propaganda regarding the virus is frightening.
Janet Yellen of the Brookings Institute tells CNBC that GDP in the United States may be down 30 percent in the second quarter due to the virus. She said, “This is a huge, unprecedented, devastating hit, and my hope is that we will get back to business as quickly as possible.” This interview took place in April 2020. The first quarter already saw a drop of 4.8 percent according to the BEA.
According to a March 2020 Bloomberg article, China’s GDP is at -20 percent in Q1. The article quotes Michelle Lam, a greater China economist at Societe Generale SA in Hong Kong, “We expect infrastructure stimulus to be much stepped up to support aggregate demand and tax and fee cuts to cushion the COVID-19 shock, especially now external demand will be much dampened by the global pandemic.”
President Trump is also calling on infrastructure development, as reported in this CNBC article. When he first entered office, he wanted a two trillion dollar infrastructure package while interest rates were at zero but the Fed upped the rates.
Perhaps, the pandemic paxicide is also bringing some agreement.
The fact is we will not know what COVID-19’s inception into the world will bring until the future arrives. Have we seen any white horses yet? Or is the garbage mounting in sea? As government spending escalates, I think it is safe to assume we are running a course only our imaginations can dream. Meanwhile, migrant workers in India continue to suffer while people use their plight to further their reputations. In the USA, as mentioned we see a downward spiral in the future of blue-collar workers.
It is time we consider something new. While the entire system collapses, we must rebuild because if the future isn’t certain, one thing is: we must make the future. Possibilities are already emerging for us, such as this initiative in Portland.
“’Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” wrote Emily Dickinson who also wrote “Will there really be a ‘Morning’?” Perhaps there will be. A more equitable world stands before us if we wish to make it.
.
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.
.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are solely that of the author.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
In a body of demigod beast imperial shadows of chthonic forces douse
kingdoms united into the singularity of all beings
become golden ruins under steel-feathered wings
in an incense smoke sighs are clothed through which gods send answers
when you pass through tunnels of glass hope
virgin blood supplies your cells.
.
A griffin pierces far into the heavens in search for
a magnificent day for a perfect melancholy.
Everyone knows, few believe that the blank in each whiteness
holds the most colorful rainbow sewed up in a full stop
the well in which the souls drown
suggests an illusion of all destinies buried into a tunnel with one exit
where the celestial blueness reflects off the lonely trains’ glass.
Asian winds blow statues of flesh
before showing you the way to the only truth — downward
all the definitions of joy and wisdom are carrying explosive
waiting for its moment in front of faces yet to blush.
.
The rain is rage of myriad of mirrors and swords
they guard the innocence of the land pieces between us
and the magic of the air with taste of white birds
black hounds chase the moon at dusk
and, hiding behind the mountains,
bark with a lion’s roar
then the night sculpts new tunnels of hope from itself
hope undefiled as an intact wine bottle pointing the way.
.
A short history of а fireproof purity
.
Exhaustion is a time not passing,
be patient and leave, it could be that you’ll taste natural paradises again,
you extinguish by a prayer mortals, hasting to become rivers,
your eyes, never touched
are enough to the fields, with or without water
to hatch them and offer to the red-shining skies
O, flames, evaporating heretical thoughts painted into a body,
only you, you give birth to purity identical to that of a new flesh,
novum and spiritum novum tribuam in carnem potest,
every birth is a new path to Thinking,
ora pro nobis,
every craftsman, saint and sage, every bishop of exorcisms, every celestial clown and every mage
builds white pain in Snow White’s snow,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
and the truths shall remain One.
.
Stefan Markovski was born in Gevgelija, where he completed primary and secondary education. Graduated on both the Department of Comparative Literature and the Institute of Philosophy and obtained MA in Screenwriting at the state university in Skopje, Macedonia. He has won domestic and foreign literary awards for his novels, short stories and poetry and has been included in numerous anthologies of contemporary literature, he has participated at literary festivals, and his works have been published in over 20 languages.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
Non-believers have no God to thank when the virus dies. Believers have too many replicas to genuflect before once the pandemic gets over. This virus came with the huge potential to ensure the mass conversion of believers into non-believers across the world, across multiple faiths. But the virus is most unlikely to destroy the cells of faith. God has survived many such catastrophes and epidemics in the past. He is going to survive Covid as well.
After every pandemic, faith becomes stronger. Survivors do not know why they survived but they know God alone deserves gratitude for their survival. It is a big relief the virus did not attack them because God kept them safe. This strain of thought never mutates. Social distancing, wearing masks, and washing of hands are not considered stronger than the will of God.
Once the pandemic ends, expect people to donate wealth to the favourite places of worship. This time, God appears embarrassed to take undue credit. He knows doctors are the real gods who fought against death and saved lives.
God-fearing people spin a mastermind narrative: If the virus had nothing to do with God, then it should not have resulted in deaths. Believers attribute death to God — the Supreme power. God isn’t happy to hear this. Finally, He musters the courage to clarify that death is not in His hands alone. Parallel chambers of authority have emerged in recent times. He is not the ultimate authority to decide who dies when. Man can kill man. Nations can devastate nations. The powerful heads of states do not seek His consent before declaring wars and planning genocides, before developing nuclear bombs and bio-weapons. God has a valid argument in his defence.
Despite these dark, stark realities, all religions of the world dump death on His shoulders. He is made the scapegoat. Unwilling to shoulder further blame, God denies his alleged role and makes it clear that this virus is not his despatch to punish mankind. It is the remorse within that makes people think God is punishing them in this terrible manner for their mistakes, because the virus is mysterious and inscrutable like the ways of God.
People cannot imagine death without the consent of God. If there is another authority who can decide it, He does not remain supreme. One good reason why people are ready to consider the virus to be God’s representative. Else, the tiny virus cannot wield such power to take them to their graves. People are hell-bent to establish some kind of relationship or tacit understanding between the virus and God.
Many hold the view that the virus cannot be hailed as the New God because it kills and destroys. But it is also true that God has been doing the same thing in a brazen manner for centuries and people still repose absolute faith in Him. Isn’t that strange? There is a fundamental difference in their modus operandi.
God brings death at a much slower pace and targets specific areas at a time. But the virus is killing people everywhere without any discrimination, at a much rapid pace. The virus is sure to make us think we are all equal. Something God never managed to do.
The virus is unpredictable just like God. Do you know what He will do next? Who will get rewarded or thrashed? We pray to stay safe all the time, all our lives, in constant mortal danger. Our life is nothing but His will.
Why do we pray to Him when we have a new super power in our midst? Can He really save us if the pandemic returns again in a much deadlier form? We have already seen this storm and it does not inspire positive thinking about His special powers.
Do not question God or suspect His motives. Be blind in your faith. As the entire world fears for life and medical experts rush to get the vaccine, God alone can deliver a miracle and make the virus lose its potency. Get the drift now. Even if the virus goes away on its own, God gets the credit for its disappearance. This is surely going to make God survive Covid and win Him new believers by converting non-believers to the list.
.
Devraj Singh Kalsi works as a senior copywriter in Kolkata. His short fiction and essays have been published in Kitaab, The Bombay Review, Deccan Herald, The Assam Tribune, The Sunday Statesman, Earthen Lamp Journal, and Readomania. Pal Motors is his first novel.
.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are solely that of the author.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
“After a lifetime of buckling to the demands of her strict Indian parents, Anuradha Bhagwati abandons grad school in the Ivy League to join the Marines—the fiercest, most violent, most masculine branch of the military—determined to prove herself there in ways, she couldn’t before. Yet once training begins, Anuradha’s G.I. Jane fantasy is punctured. As a bisexual woman of color in the military, she faces underestimation at every stage, confronting misogyny, racism, sexual violence, and astonishing injustice perpetrated by those in power; “says the blurb.
“Pushing herself beyond her limits, she also wrestles with what drove her to pursue such punishment in the first place. Once her service concludes in 2004, Anuradha courageously vows to take to task the very leaders and traditions that cast such a dark cloud over her time in the Marines. Her efforts result in historic change, including the lifting of the ban on women from pursuing combat roles in the military,”marks the blurb.
Unbecoming – A Memoir of Disobedience by Anuradha Bhagwati is a rare and indefatigable memoir by a former US Marine Captain. She chronicles her journey — from a dutiful daughter of immigrants to a radical activist affecting historic policy reforms.
New York-based Writer, yoga and meditation teacher, founder of Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) — which brought national attention to sexual violence in the military and helped overturn the ban on women in combat — Anuradha is a regular media commentator too on issues related to national security, women’s rights, civil rights, and mental health, and is the recipient of numerous awards.
1975-born Anuradha’s parents, Jagdish Bhagwati and Padma Desai, are renowned economists. While her parents were trying to assimilate in a country where their intellect did not protect them from racism, she grew up in a predominantly white America.
Recounts Anuradha in this three-hundred -and -odd page memoir: “I had always been my parents’ little girl. Their only child, for some reason. I was shy in front of people and terrified of being in groups. I listened to Mom and Dad completely. Because they had a lot to say, I did a lot of listening. Mom met Dad in Boston when she was in graduate school at Harvard and he was teaching at MIT. They were both economists. This all meant nothing to me except that they were always going to the office or on their way to conferences.
“I remember flashes. Mom wore saris and a red powdered bindi on her forehead, and Dad made me a mug of hot chocolate with Hershey’s cocoa powder and milk for breakfast. Sometimes he and I sat together before sunrise in the quiet house while I sipped my cocoa through a plastic straw and he listened to the morning news on a tiny black-and-white television set.”
The memoir is objective: “My father was constantly being told he was brilliant, and he believed it. When we walked through airports on trips to India, random men would stop before him and bow. Dad loved these moments. Mom hated them. But for all of Dad’s fame, he never seemed settled.”
She side-splittingly writes about her father who never made it to the Nobel Prize: “It is a testament to my family’s strange narcissism that I knew what a Nobel Prize was when I was a toddler. My parents referred to it as ‘The Nobel’, and the consensus was that Dad had been robbed. Every September I witnessed my parents’ tortured theater as they tossed the names of potential winners around the dinner table. Each year when Dad was passed over for one of his colleagues, I would ask him gingerly how he was. He delivered the only line that ever made him feel better. ‘Oh, I’m fine. Even Gandhiji didn’t win a Nobel.’”
Anuradha’s voice as an émigré and her Indian experience makes for wonderful reading. It is audacious: she writes about her own flaws and that of her parents. It is about the inevitable love for one’s parents unlaced by hero worship.
Her mother was a pioneer in her field. Her father quit his job at MIT to support his wife when she got tenure in Columbia University. “My mother had been through so much,” she says. “She was really shamed when she was in India and was in an abusive marriage that was not her fault. So, she came to the US to start a new life. She had been keeping this traumatic incident from me and (trying to) reinvent herself.”
Years later, Anuradha encountered similar systemic sexism in the Marines. It was her mother’s experience that helped her find the courage to support others. “I was in command of 400 troops at one time. It was a lot of responsibility,” she says in the book. “When there was someone who was sexually harassing the women in my unit, it was my moment of reckoning. My mother gave me the courage to stick up for myself and these women.”
The narrator is a lot frank when she says, “Every Indian family seemed to have a story about a handsy Indian uncle or neighbor. Stories about sexual violence were told in whispers if they were told at all. Without any talks about birds and bees, I had no way of knowing the difference between sex, love, and violence. I had to find out on my own.”
Reminisces Anuradha in this enthralling auto-biography about her school days: “At thirteen, Bianca was one year older than me, and very thin, with budding curves around the hips. She wore shoes that adult women wore, with tapered toes and heels. Her jeans fit closely to her legs. I could spot Bianca in a crowd of kids by her bright-red lipstick. It drew out the green in her eyes and the dark brown in her hair. Bianca was some kind of Italian goddess, and I would never look like her.
“Bianca was crying this morning, and our teachers had surrounded her. Mascara was dripping down both of her cheeks. She had a complexion that was beyond white. It was the kind of porcelain I saw in museums, where security guards warned us not to touch anything. A face like Bianca’s inspired great art, and grave concern. The news reached us like the telephone game, from one child’s seat to the next. On her way to school, a strange man attacked Bianca, touched her in some harmful way. Bianca was still crying audibly, surrounded by a ring of adults.”
The memoir is gripping and powerful for precisely two reasons: first, about growing up in America as an Indian; and second, the relationship with her parents. In a deeply conservative household, when she discovered that she was bisexual, her mother threatened to kill herself if she did not end it then.
Unbecoming addresses the proverbial dilemma of confronting traditional expectations as a South Asian daughter. The book is an insightful story about a daughter of immigrants who tries to find her place in the country of immigrants while enduring racism, homophobia, and sexism. It tells the story of how she finally finds the courage to become an activist to “change the landscape of America to make it safer for women and children.”
The memoir is a veritable account of indomitable spirit “grappling with the timely question of what, exactly, America stands for.” It is about one woman who learned to believe in herself in spite of everything. It is the kind of story that will light a fire beneath you, and inspire the next generation of doughty female heroes.
.
Bhaskar Parichha is a Bhubaneswar-based journalist and author. He writes on a broad spectrum of subjects , but more focused on art ,culture and biographies.His recent book ‘No Strings Attached’ has been published by Dhauli Books.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
I close my eyes in isolation and wake up from an abrupt slumber. I wake up to brew my favourite cup of green tea flipping the pages of my diary. The unfinished stories now embrace me more, their dormant urge has suddenly caught pace, and now they crawl up to me looking for fulfillment. I set my floating brain up for a moment, concentrate on a point and dip my heart straight to the blank paper to pen down my stories one by one.
But these days are quite different. Every morning, a tune of ambiguous chants pester me. Now, I can clearly hear the transparent music of Gayatri Mantra. My maa, busy in doing household work, silently joins her hands for an unheard prayer to Lord Shiva. Her worries increase a little more every time she checks the headlines of death tolls and new cases. She always mentions that prayers clear all doubts, all sufferings, and all hurdles at once. I never cared to pay heed to such talk. I thought the mantras were merely an amalgamation of some Sanskrit scriptures.
I heave a long sigh now. My head unknowingly rises up and I can see my hands come together to share a prayer. Have I turned into a believer? Has Corona turned me into a theist?
I always curse myself for living in this reckless twenty-first century world that has no remote to pause. Everything in this world moves without any hint as to where we are headed but makes sure, we join the race. If I were born in the 60’s or 70’s where pausing was valued, where people patronised art, where old civilisations were valued, where cellphones did not interrupt one’s Muse, when the air was fresh and there was no COVID 19, how fantastic would that be!
Maa serves hot parathas on my plate and I start blabbering in front of her. I say, “Please go back to the 60’s, I can’t live in between the dust and darkness.” In between our cold silent gestures, Corona silently enters and giggles with its dusky intent.
My unfinished stories these days loiter in every nook and corner and refuse to let me pour all my heart into my art. They loiter from the streets of daily wagers, to the homes of starving poor, then the vacant paths where stray dogs cry out for hunger; then the hospitals of the assiduous health workers and bounce back touching the sinful desire of those who sneakily break quarantine rules. Everything creates a whirlwind of emotions inside my head and I stop my writing. What happened to me? Corona might have blessed us with the recess for art but this art cuts my heart!
I am not a web series person But the drastic change in atmosphere penetrates through my skin lighting up my heart. I am hypnotized by the mellow tone of arresting sunsets, chirping birds, clear azure skies, green leaves and letting them etch stories in my heart so that even after lockdown I can cherish them forever.
I pass nights with the thought that if everything settles down again, the world must return the pleasures of nirvana, the world must sing sufi songs and ghazals, the world must unfurl the doors of open minds, the world must stop comparing the weight of money. This world must turn into a lover — not an angry rebellious one but one that heals with love, tolerance and gentleness.
.
Suchismita Ghoshal is a professional writer, poet, published author and storyteller from Malda, West Bengal. She has co-authorized for more than 140 anthologies, journals and magazines both nationally and internationally. Her debit poetry book “Fields of Sonnet” has launched on last September.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
By Sayad Zahoor Shah Hashumi translated by Fazal Baloch
This is a chapter from Nazuk, the first novel written in Balochi language. It was first published in 1976 and has been translated into Urdu and Persian. It depicts everyday life and experiences of the people living around the coastal area of Makkuran especially Gwadar and its surroundings.
.
.
The old man fell ill and stayed in bed for around eight days. He recuperated later, but remained quite frail and weak for a few more days. Nazuk looked after him like her father. Whenever she did him a favour, she would recall her father. But she was surprised to notice that sometimes the old man would slide into deep thoughts, and tears stream down from his eyes.
When he finally regained his strength, he expressed his desire to leave for his home but Nazuk did not let him go. She said: “Look uncle! I am a woman and alone with my two children. I don’t have anybody to chat with to while away the night. Ever since you have arrived, I feel like my father has returned. I would rather be glad to see you here. We would live like father and daughter and share our grief and sorrows with each other. From today onward you are my father and I am your daughter”.
The old man’s eyes welled up. He held and kissed Nazuk’s hand and broke out crying madly. Nazuk was astonished. After having consoled and comforted him she said: “Father! I am going to ask you something but don’t mince your words.”
“Come on my daughter. If I wouldn’t tell you the truth, then who would you think I am going to?”
“It’s alright. Whenever I speak to you, all of a sudden, your eyes well up. Why?”
“Yes my daughter. It is a long tale. I had a daughter whose name too was Nazuk. But she was pitilessly forced to die.”
“How did it happen?”
“Ah! I don’t know how to begin the story, daughter. Whenever, I look at you, I recall my poor daughter and can’t hold back my tears. I had never been as poor as I am now. Once I owned three boats. One I rowed myself and for the remaining two I hired two sailors. I was in fine fettle then. One night I was asleep when the anguished cries of a woman joggled me awake. It was coming from my neighbor’s house. I knew her husband had gone to fishing at sea. I jumped over the wall and found someone trying to make advances at her. It was dark and I couldn’t see his face clearly.
“I grabbed him from his waist and lifted him up and slammed him on the ground. He held his breath right there and I assumed he was dead but a moment later he beguiled me and sprinted out of the door. Some receding footfalls followed him. I knew he was not alone. I lit the lamp. The woman’s shirt was in tatters. I asked her about the man but she feigned ignorance. She also pleaded with me not to mention this incident to her husband otherwise he would divorce her. I assumed she knew the man but was afraid to disclose his identity. Till this day I haven’t shared her story with anybody.
“Six month later, one night, one of my sailors woke me up. He told me that he had docked my boat somewhere on the shore but it had disappeared. We went there and exhaustively searched for it but all our efforts ended up in smoke. Someone had stolen it. Six month later, they repeated the cycle and stole my second boat. Each time I went to village’s elder, Shugrullah. He was at a loss himself that nothing had been stolen from anybody but only me. His son Gazabek, who was sitting there, said: “You might have wronged someone and now they are paying you back.”
“I didn’t say a word. Nor I was offended by his remarks. But I lamented that I had been robbed of my two boats without any reason.
“A few months later Shugrullah’s brother invited all the sailors at the launching ceremony of his boat. One by one all the fishermen, were turning up at the seashore. Shugrullah’s son was lashing everybody with a whip to move quickly. He walked over to me and without any warning whipped me. And I without any delay lifted him up in the air and hurled him on the ground. For a moment he held his breath right there on the ground and a while later he sprinted off. I assumed he was the very man who had broken into our neighbor’s house on that distant night. When I grabbed him I felt the same plump body in my arms. His follow through further convinced me that he was the very man who had stolen my boats. Though I never accused him in public, between the lines I tried to throw hunches at Shugrullah. But as poor’s truth is always taken as a lie, everybody castigated me instead. Thus I kept quiet. It was followed by another tragedy. May God let nobody witnesses such doom. I wonder if you know, Gazabek enticed my young and innocent daughter Nazuk.”
“Father! Should I ask you something?” “Yes daughter.” “Well, what is your relationship with Zaruk?” “Zaruk? Her aunt was my wife. But why are you asking this question?” “It means your daughter Nazuk was Zaruk’s cousin who died at childbirth. It all happened because of Gazabek.”
“Yes, my daughter,” the old man broke into tears.
“Now I know it is the tragedy with your daughter that often makes you cry. From today onward I am your Nazuk, your daughter and you are in place of my father. No doubt God is great. Gazabek and his family will have to pay for the wrongs they have done to you.”
For a whole year the old man stayed with Nazuk. She looked after him like her late daughter. When the old man fell ill, he would anxiously grumble, “O God how long will it take your millstones to grind? The revenge you extract after I am dead will not bring me any relief.”
As luck would have it, the next day news spread that last night a thief broke into Gazabek’s house and cleverly left without leaving any trace behind. Next night everybody was on the alert yet he hoodwinked them and broke in again. When the old man received the news, he desperately called out Nazuk.
“Nazuk! Come on Nazal! Come on my mother!”
Nazuk hurried towards the old man and asked him anxiously: “Yes Abba I am here. Tell me what’s the matter?”
“Nazuk my daughter! I wouldn’t lament at all if God takes my life at any moment now.”
“What are you talking of? What happened?” “Hey! Don’t you know what happened?” “No. Tell me what is the matter ?” “Daughter! Gazabek’s family has been dishonoured. A woman in his house is having a secret affair with a man.”
“That’s not fair father. The man who forced himself must have been only a thief.” “No my mother! He was not a thief but a shrewd man and Gazabek was well aware of everything but lacked the courage to reveal anything. Indeed your millstones grind late but they grind fine. Thank you, O Holy Lord!”
A few days later the old man was summoned by God’s glory.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.IT CANNOT BE REPRODUCED IN FULL ON FACEBOOK OR ANY OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA — PLEASE DO USE THE ONLINE LINK ON SOCIAL MEDIA.
.
Sayad Zahoor Shah Hashumi (1926-78) is known as the pioneer of modern Balochi literature. He was simultaneously a poet, fiction writer, critic, linguist and a lexicographer par excellence. Though he left undeniable marks on various genres of Balochi literature, poetry remained his mainstay. With his enormous imagination and profound insight he laid the foundation of a new school of Balochi poetry especially Balochi ghazal which mainly emphasises on the purity of language and simplicity of poetic thoughts. This school of poetry subsequently attracted a wide range of poets to its fold. He also authored the first ever Balochi novel ‘Nazuk’ and compiled the first comprehensive Balochi-to-Balochi dictionary containing over twenty thousand words and hundreds of pictorial illustrations.
Fazal Baloch is a Balochi writer and translator. He has translated several Balochi poems and short stories into English. His translations have been featured in Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters in 2017 and Silence Between the Notes — the first ever anthology of Partition Poetry published by Dhauli Books India in 2018. His upcoming works of translation include Why Does the Moon Look So Beautiful? (Selected Balochi Short Stories by Naguman) and God and the Blind Man (Selected Balochi Short Stories by Minir Ahmed Badini).
I sat listening to the tap tapping of the raindrops,
And the blissful sound of the wild mountain stream,
I smelled the pure and pristine air of the valley,
Laden with the sweet scent of orchids,
The ones blooming near the lush green fields.
.
The golden rays of the splendid sun in the skies,
Battled their way through the magnificent clouds,
Victoriously, they landed on the bosom of mother earth,
Illuminating the raindrops on the blades of green grass,
And transforming them into thousand twinkling stars.
.
A cuckoo was perched on a branch of the mango tree,
Crooning a soulful melodious tune with glee,
As the sound of the song reverberated in the skies,
And in the faraway mountains standing gloriously tall,
My heart skipped with a feeling of inexplicable joy.
.
Alas! These are the memories of the bygone days,
The once sapphire skies now wear a veil of gloom,
The breeze no longer brings tales of sheer bliss,
Only helpless cries from a distance,
Cries that send a shiver down the spine.
.
The gory violence swept away their homes,
And snatched away their loved ones,
They throng the camps in masses now,
And spend restless days and sleepless nights,
In anticipation of better days to arrive.
.
Their innocent faces wear a look of aghast,
They have doleful eyes and deeply scarred hearts,
They have little food to fill their famished stomachs,
They have little drug to cure their deep wounds,
All they have are prayers to soothe their tormented minds.
.
My heart bleeds for the helpless people,
And at the plight of my incredibly beautiful land,
Will there be peace and harmony again?
Will songs of love and unity echo in the mountains?
These few questions disturb me again and again.
.
Amrita Saika is a PhD student at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She is passionate about writing and pens down poems and short stories every now and then. Her writings are inspired by events that transpire around her. Her short story titled ‘The Unspoken Truth’ was published in New Asian Writing Online Asian Literary Community in 2014 (http://www.new-asian-writing.com/the-unspoken-truth-by-amrita-saikia/). In 2012, her first short story was selected for an anthology published by MSN and Random House.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
I have always wondered, when I am not at home, do the inhabitants of my bookshelf come alive like those children’s playthings in Toy Story? Apart from what their titles bind them to narrate, do my books have other stories to tell? Is my bookshelf some sort of a universe in itself with each compartment and the contents – an entity of its own? Are there dimensions to a bookshelf that we, humans, are not aware of – something that is beyond our realm?
For a while now (for me, a year since my last job as a journalist), Monday mornings do not come with blues attached. Moreover, since the lockdown, it hardly registers. However, this time I woke up to a message from a friend. She sent me a picture of her bookshelf. Pristine. Clean. I kept looking at the picture and zoomed in to see if I could read the titles of the books. The low-resolution nature of the photograph offered me a little chance to do so. Some I could read, some covers I was familiar with, and a lot many I could not figure out.
However, the shelf stood proud. The big brown square with sixteen shelves held its own against a lighter coloured background. The books despite not being arranged in perfect rows -‑ some standing, some lying flat — presented a scenic contrast and appeared orderly on the whole.
I shifted my gaze to my bookshelf and a quote, I had read a long time ago, came to my mind — “If you do not keep on sorting your books, your books unsort themselves”.
My bookshelf is chaotic. It’s like the city I live in — Mumbai. Each book jostling for space and complaining and, yet, wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
But I like it the way it is. I have heard that people who keep pets end up looking like each other after a while, and behave similarly too. Many dog owners have told me this. I don’t know much about it but I have seen it happen with one of my friends. But that is not the point. Drawing an analogy, there is a thought germinating and it asks, after a while, does a bookshelf reflect the mind of its owner? I look at my bookshelf and I seem to know the answer. I am just not sure if I should put it out here.
Going back to that quote — do the books really want to “… unsort themselves?” I’m thinking of a counter narrative here.
What if my books want to be sorted. Will they secretly, when I am not home, rearrange themselves in an order that would make a librarian proud? Or, will they rise in rebellion against me to drive home the point?
Will a book ‘accidentally’ fall on my head and ensure that it drills some sense into me and goad me to impart some sanity to my bookshelf as well. I am relieved that I have kept all the heavy hard cover books on the lowest shelves. Of course, back then I had no inkling of any rebellion by the books. I had done that just to add solidity to the shelf. It is supposed to be a strong foundation.
If the books were to sort themselves, then they must be interacting. I hope they are. For all the disorder that my shelf displays, it aptly houses James Gleick’s Chaos. Does this book try to make sense and explain to others the lack of planning and logic in the way I have maintained the bookshelf?
Does Michio Kaku’s Hyperspace talk to others about why I am oblivious of their realm? Does Milan Kundera’s Joker still sit sulking in a corner because I have only read about seventy to eighty pages and have kept it back with a bookmark sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb? And does Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations complain, “Why on earth have I been placed next to Charles Bukowski’s ThePleasures Of The Damned and what on earth am I supposed to do here?”
I’m quite sure my PG Wodehouse’s Carry On Jeeves treats its neighbour Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence like its own butler and comments on its sartorial sense or rather the lack of it. Despite the crowding, there is, however, one hollow space that makes me well up. The emptiness of the space where I had kept my copy of One Hundred Years Of Solitude. I gave away Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s masterpiece to a friend — a young writer and a book lover himself. I hope to buy another copy soon. I will.
There is no thought behind the way the books are arranged on my bookshelf. Bill Bryson’s The Road To Little Dribbling is shoulder-to shoulder with Peter Carey’s True History of The Kelly Gang. My Kannada books are strewn all over with a couple of them holding their own against Howard Jacobson and John Steinbeck on either side.
There is Rushdie with Hemmingway, Coetzee and Murakami are neighbours filled with warmth. There is my collection of National Geographic Magazine somewhere deep down there and on top of this stack is a potpourri of books including my sketch book.
That’s not all. There are layers I cannot reach. And I don’t know when I will unravel them. Behind the proud frontline are rows of books I bought but never read. It makes me shudder to even guess what they must be thinking. Would they consult J Krishnamurthy’s TheAwakening Of Intelligence to understand and counsel themselves as to why they are the neglected children?
And then there is a book Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. It knows it doesn’t belong here but has somehow been at home among my books for more than a decade. I had borrowed it from a colleague in 2008 and have not returned it so far. I promised him that I would, and I intend to keep that promise. So, this copy knows it is not permanent here. Must be a miserable feeling to be somewhere for that long and yet not belong.
I have often felt like that in between shifting residences in Mumbai. Most of my contracts have ended in eleven months and sometimes maybe twenty two months. But the current place has been my residence for six years now. Do I feel like this copy of Douglas Adams’s work here? Sometimes, I do.
It is a studio apartment. And it doesn’t offer me space for another bookshelf. In fact the top left square of my bookshelf is where I have kept all the photos of Gods and holy books, including Shrimad Bhagavad Gita. In the lower squares I have made space for my watches and bottles of cologne. And now in the lockdown, there are bottles of hand sanitisers too. The shelves are so stacked that there is no place for The Shadow Of The Wind, which interestingly (ironically?) is the part one of The Cemetery Of Forgotten Books series, and it finds itself on top of the bookshelf gupshupping with a straw hat.
It appears that my jostling for space in the apartment is a concurrent and a similar theme to the way my books are stacked. Whenever I am vexed with all this struggle, a walk by the sea rejuvenates me. But what about my books?
It maybe fantastical to think that whenever I step outside, they crib about me. But being privy to the way I live, it wouldn’t take too much imagination to believe that they do. There is an unread copy of Hilary Mantel’s A Place Of Greater Safety and a partially read The Second World War by Antony Beevor. And I wonder if these books would put the idea of a revolution and war in the minds of the other books. Maybe I should keep these books in good humour. A transparent polythene cover and proper dusting should do the trick.
I do not want to return to my flat one day and find my books in regimental rows and columns with their guns trained on me. It would break my heart to see my favourite A Farewell To Arms pick up a gun again.
Perhaps before the lockdown ends, I will dust all the books, the bookshelf and rearrange them in a way they might prefer. Perhaps Hemingway wants to be with Alistair McLean. Maybe all my Kannada books want to be together and even share some space with a few Hindi books. I should also make it a point to read all those books sulking behind the front rows.
All this was in my top five things-to-do-in-the-lockdown list and I haven’t come around to doing any of them so far. Despite my counter narrative to the quote, I believe in what Georges Perec wrote in his Thoughts Of Sorts.
Deep down at a subconscious level, I’m happy with the way my bookshelf is. I’m beginning to understand as I write this piece that the state of the bookshelf does indeed reflect my state of mind.
My bookshelf, along with its inhabitants, is a thriving ecosystem. A being of its own with its blood lines and nerve centres. Despite its constant state of ‘unsort’, I gravitate to it whenever I’m in need of a friend or solace. Sometimes I wonder if it owns me instead of the other way round. Perhaps in some dimension, of which I’m unaware, my bookshelf and I are a single entity. I sure do hope so.
.
K.R. Guruprasad has been associated with the sports pages of several newspapers over the last 16 years, as Sports Editor of DNA and previously the Indian Express and Hindustan Times. Guru has developed a finesse at zooming out of the myopic view of any sport, instead looking at sports as a coming together of the players’ lives and struggles, skills and technique and much more. His book ‘Going Places. India’s Small-Town Cricket Heroes’ by Penguin is a great testament to this approach. While his professional career has been focused on writing about sports, he is an avid reader and writer of varied subjects. An alumnus of Asian College of Journalism, was born in Bellary, Karnataka and later pursued his education in Mumbai.
Borderless 