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‘Words, still photos, moving images – they are all storytelling’

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Post date May 14, 2025
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Ratnottama Sengupta introduces and converses with a photographer who works at the intersection of art and social issues, Vijay S Jodha

Vijay S Jodha was yet to become one of India’s leading lens-based artists at the intersection of art and social issues. Back then, in the 1990s, he had no inkling that 30 years later he would be the chairperson of UGC-CEC[1] jury for selecting the best educational films made in India. Or that he would be the national selector and trainer in photography for the National Abilympics Association of India.

When I first met him, he was mounting a collaborative exhibition of his work with the elderly, their contribution to society and the care they deserve. Little did I know that the entire bent of this journalist-turned documentary filmmaker-turned photo artist would go on to focus on subjects ranging from mob violence, riot victims, farmers’ suicide, 75 years of Indian constitution to Joys of Christmas and the Bus Art of Tamil Nadu.

Not surprising that the International Confederation of NGOs has honoured Vijay with the Media Citizen Award for using media to drive social change. And it is only one among hundreds of honours he has received in two dozen countries. These include awards and grants, from Swiss Development Agency to Ford Foundation and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Screening of his films on 75 channels worldwide and in 250 festivals in 60 countries.

These seem tedious details? So, interestingly, two public showings of his work have been vandalised. And a false police case against him took eight years to be thrown out by India’s courts!

Conversation

Vijay how did you come into photography?

I’m a trained filmmaker – I mastered in film production – and have been making films for two decades. My films have shown on 75 stations including Discovery, CNN, BBC. But training in photography I have none. All my photography is non-fiction work. Actually my films are also non-fiction or reality based work. I just find still photography very relaxing because, unlike films where a director is responsible for so many things, here I’m on my own. But there’s no production deadline. No huge budget is needed. I can address any subject that catches my fancy and pursue it over several years, without any worry. Otherwise it’s the same: photos or films, you’re storytelling around substantial issues that interest you, in a manner that does justice to those issues, and — hopefully — engaging to the viewers.

So who was your inspiration?

In photography it is obviously the greats who defined the grammar of the medium itself such as Robert Frank[2] and Cartier Bresson[3]. They’ve inspired us all in some manner. I’m fortunate that, as a part time journalist in New York decades ago, I got to meet and interview top filmmakers and photographers like Gordon Parks and Richard Avedon.

I once did a course at New York’s School of Visual Arts where they honoured Mary Ellen Mark and she had come across. As a journalist, I covered Sebastião Salgado’s launch of his workers’ project that put him on the map (of photography). I met Raghubir Singh while doing a project on Ayodhya in India, and again in New York where we put up the same exhibition. He also photographed some of us – myself, Siddharth Varadarajan, the editor-publisher of The Wire who was then a student at Columbia University, and other Indian students — were protesting some human rights issue.

I’m also fortunate to have our finest photo-journalists and lens-based artists as friends. I can take across my work to get a feedback or pick their brains. This beats the best photo schools in the world. In fact years ago I did a book which had photos from all of them! This was the biggest photo project on the Tiranga[4] as listed in the Limca Book of Records. They have all done many books on their own but this is the only one where all these masters appear in a single volume, their works united thematically. Apart from Raghu Rai, Ram Rahman, Prashant Panjiar, Dayanita Singh, T Narayan, and the late TS Satyan, I’d also interviewed people across India, from the then Prime Minister Vajpayee to those selling flags at traffic lights for a few meagre rupees.

You did not go to any international school to train in the art or the technology aspect. So what prompted your PhD?

Three decades back when I decided to go into mass communication as a career there were few computers, no internet, no private TV channels, or mobile phones. Sorry if that makes me seem Jurassic but it was a world with very few media opportunities. Post college, I had got admissions into a trainee programme with a newspaper as well as in the MA programme in International Relations at India’s premier Jawaharlal Nehru University. My father felt that a masters and exposure at JNU would be a better investment for journalism – probably the single best advice I’ve got in my entire career — and I followed that.

Then for some time I worked in print media: I freelanced for newspapers, edited and published a journal for a business house, scripted for a film and worked on a book with one of my journalism heroes – late Kuldip Nayar. But in the pre-internet era newspaper articles had a very short life, so I felt the need to produce something that would last longer such as film. So I decided to get a degree in Film. It also encompassed all my interests, from writing to art to music, travel and photography.

You’ve not been a photo-journalist working for any journal or newspaper. Yet you felt inclined to do projects on environment, elder care, survivors of riots and mob violence, farmer suicide, art that travels. Was it inevitable, given your father’s background?

Actually I’ve done a bit of photo journalism too. During my film school days at NYU I was a writer-photographer for their student-run newspaper, Washington Square News. I’ve also been a stringer for mainstream dailies including The Economic Times where I shot images parallel to my writing. I did stills for Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding and of course stills for my own film projects. So I’ve a lot of published images in papers worldwide though my main gig has been films.

Frankly I don’t see much difference between these mediums. Be it words, stills or moving images; an academic paper, photo books, or films, short or long – all this is story telling. I’m a story teller.

And subjects? I’ve filmed every possible subject except wildlife: I just don’t have the patience for that. Otherwise everything, from artist biopics — on Paritosh Sen and Prokash Karmakar, whose inaugural screening you also attended in Calcutta years ago — to films on environment. My The Weeping Apple Tree (2005) was among the first ones on climate change in India. It won the UK Environment Film Fellowship Award 2005 and had multiple screenings on Discovery, with an introduction by Sir Mark Tully.

At that time, few knew about climate change. So Delhi govt organised a special screening for their MLAs and officers of water, electricity and sanitation departments. It was screened at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi and in various festivals. UNIDO and other grassroots level NGOs used it to create awareness. Some years back an IFS {Indian Forest Service} officer told me that Himachal government uses it to train their forest officers.

My film on gender, Pedalling to Freedom (2007) revisited an old initiative in one of the poorest parts of the world. It traced the life-changing impact of teaching 100,000 women to ride the bicycle. That film is in the US Library of Congress. It was also chosen for archiving at OSA Budapest, world’s premier repository of materials dealing with human rights.

Then there are films that get food on the table. Training films. Corporate films. I once did a ‘funeral film’ on a well-known personality whose passing received a lot of press coverage in India but the NRI son could not come for the funeral.

What motivates you Vijay — money, international honour, or the possibility of social change?

Well, all this is livelihood so the money part is important. But doing work that gets recognised far and wide, that is substantial, to hold good for a long time – that’s a huge motivator.

I have a slightly spiritual take towards this. I feel that regardless of our profession we are all bound by a dharmic or sacred duty. A teacher’s duty is to teach and a doctor’s is to heal. For those in the business of storytelling — including photographers — the sacred duty is to document, bear witness, push things forward. And believe you me, this has little connect with means or accessibility.

To give you an extreme example: After the Nazis lost the war and Berlin fell, soldiers from the victorious allies army raped virtually every woman in Berlin. Few rapists were taken to task and to top it, despite all the extensive coverage of the allies victory by forgotten photographers as well as superstars like Margaret Bourke-White (known to us through her famous Gandhiji with charkha portrait) or Robert Capa (regarded as the greatest war photographer of all time), there was no coverage of this mass outrage in Berlin by anyone be it in photo essays in Life Magazine, or World War photo books. It appears in no Hollywood film or TV series.

Likewise, fifty years ago, when India came under the draconian Emergency, our courts also endorsed the robbing of our Constitutional rights. Nobody documented, then or since, the forced sterilisation of 6,000,000 who were stripped of their reproductive rights. We, as photographers and filmmakers, failed on this front.

The First Witnesses is my project around farmer suicides. It is not an unheard issue nor something hard to get access. But how many have found it worth their while to document the issue? How many are documenting a disappearing art form or livelihood? Or our urban heritage being torn down? Our movie theatres once represented cinema as an inexpensive and readily accessible mass culture. Now they are being torn down even in smaller towns. Each had a unique character. Is anyone documenting that?

I documented Durga Puja in Kolkata 20 years ago when I was working with painters there. Durga astride a tiger, slaying the demonic Mahisasur emerging out of a buffalo: these elements get interpreted in hundreds of ways across the city each year. Each pandal has a different aesthetic interpretation, inside and outside. The religious aspect is no less important. But these are also like site-specific installation art works shaped by the imagination of so many talented people but designed for impermanence. How many books of photos exist around this work now recognised by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity?

How successful have you been in achieving this?

The merit of my work is for others to judge. I’m happy that, though India doesn’t have many foundations or support for non-commercial oriented art, I’ve been able to do at least a few things that are genuinely pathbreaking, substantial and have gone around the world. To be invited to UNESCO headquarters in Paris to screen a film and address delegates from 193 countries, or be honoured by our President for India’s best ever performed at Abilympics — these are certainly my career highlights.

Vijay S Jodha at UNESCO introducing his film. Photo provided by Vijay S Jodha

My work has received over a hundred honours across 24 countries, but what truly motivates me is when people I look up to, my heroes, appreciate what I do. That kind of recognition carries a different weight. For instance, Magsaysay awardee P Sainath, whose ground-breaking reportage has long inspired me, saw my farmers project when it was exhibited alongside his photographic work at the Chennai Photo Biennale 2019. We hadn’t met before, so when he praised my effort, it felt like receiving a medal.

Another moment that has stayed with me was post my time at NYU. My professor, George Stoney, referred to as the father of public access television and mentioned in history books on documentary cinema, mentored Oscar-winning directors like Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, and Ang Lee. When he watched The Weeping Apple Tree, he said, “Vijay, this is better than Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. That was a glorified PowerPoint by comparison.” That one comment meant more to me than most awards ever could.

As a photo artist what is the biggest moment of joy for you — technical hurray or the joy of the subjects?

As I just said, recognition and praise of my heroes gives the maximum joy. There are other honours. Two photo projects listed in Limca Book of Records for being the biggest and path breaking. The first was on ageing that I did over eight years with my brother Samar Jodha – he did the images while I did the concept research, writing and interviews. The other was the aforementioned Tiranga. My film Poop on Poverty (2012) won a Peabody award, the oldest honour for documentary films, and more international honours than any non-fiction film produced out of India.

After landmark exhibitions in Hong Kong and New York I donated two complete sets of The First Witnesses, my farming crisis project, to two farmer unions including our oldest and biggest All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS). They are using it for awareness raising across villages. That’s a real high as a photographer.

Then there’s high coming from those we pass down our expertise to. Among those I’ve taught or mentored is a highly talented though physically challenged youngster from Vijayawada with missing digits and motoring issues. His family runs a Kirana shop. When he started school, they sent him back saying he cannot even hold a pencil. He won a bronze medal in photography for India at the last Abilympics in France. Another student has himself become a photography teacher in a school for hearing impaired. This is the kind of stuff that gets me very excited.

Thirty years ago as a volunteer writer and researcher I helped Sanskriti Foundation set up India’s first international artist retreat. That novel venture raised crores in grants and set up three museums. Today it is being scaled back as its founder O P Jain is in his 90s. But that idea caught on and you have scores of artist retreats across India.

How has digital technology influenced photography as an art form? Has it done more harm? Or widened its spread?

Digital has been a mixed experience. It democratised the process of production and dissemination — be it still images or movies. This is a fantastic thing. But it killed a lot of the processes and livelihoods such as the printing labs, film production and processing facilities. It has also killed an art form like print making. It’s a specialised skill in itself, so a lot of artistry, understanding, appreciation and sustenance of it has got compromised.

The emergence of deep fake images and piracy of work is bad news too. But it has allowed more people to become story tellers. They now bear witness, as filmmakers and photographers, of issues and events that was earlier impossible.

I can cite examples from my work. I’m National Selector and Trainer in photography for National Abilympics Association of India (NAAI) and my students are in different parts of India. Two are hearing impaired, two others have motoring issues and physical challenges. Thanks to digital tools, we’re running long distance classes every week. NAAI provides me sign language interpreter but I can send and receive digital files, use zoom to conduct classes, use google translate to send instructions in Tamil, English and Marathi to my students. Now one student, despite hearing challenge, is running a photo studio. The student who has issues with his leg also works as wedding photographer. Workshops with institutions and festivals, within and outside India, are now easy and inexpensive thanks to these digital tools and communication modes.

Has selfies on mobile camera shortened the life of portraiture?

It has certainly democratised the process while the average person’s patience to study or appreciate any art work — portrait or landscape photo — is shrinking by the minute. Of course, good portraiture requires some skill to make as well as appreciate – that cultural literacy is a challenge everywhere, not just in photo medium. As a seasoned art critic you would have noticed that in the world of painting and sculpture too. Sadly we don’t have that education in our schools.

You have continued with still images even after doing many documentaries. What is the joy in either case?

I’m doing still photography and movies parallel to each other. Last month I had a book on public policy, as I mentioned. Also launched last month – by our defence minister –was my film on our Armed Forces Medical Corps – it’s one of the oldest divisions in the world, going back 260 years. I’m working on a project on the Indian Constitution and a biopic on Amitabh Sen Gupta, the artist whose retrospective exhibition this year is organised by Artworld Chennai. My still photography project on the farmers crisis is also going on for the past 7-8 years.

All projects are joyous and offer their own challenges. It’s like bringing children into the world. You do the best you can, hope they’ll do well and go far, but you don’t know which one will. Regardless of their line of work you feel happy with each of them and what they achieve.

What is the future of Arriflex, Mitchell, Kodak Brownie? And that of Yashica, Nikon, Canon, Leica, Olympus…?

Some old camera brands like Konica and Minolta have merged, or evolved into digital Avatars like Arriflex. Others, like Kodak, have faded into history. Interestingly, a small Indian company has licensed their name to market TVs under Kodak brand name now. For those of us from the analogue generation, it’s a bittersweet feeling. When a beloved brand disappears, it feels like saying goodbye to an old friend. But such is the nature of change.

My friend Aditya Arya, one of India’s eminent photographers and a passionate camera collector, has created a remarkable space to preserve this legacy. He established the Museo Camera in Gurgaon, a non-profit centre promoting photographic art, which has become not only a camera museum but also a leading art and culture hub in the Delhi national capital region. If you’re an old time photographer passing through Delhi, it’s a wonderful place to revisit these “old friends.”

(Website of Museo Camera https://www.museocamera.org)

[1] University Grants Commission-Consortium for Educational Communication

[2] Robert Frank (1924-2019) was a photographer and documentary filmmaker.

[3] Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) was a humanist photographer, a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. One of the founding members of Magnum Photos in 1947, he pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment.

[4] Three colours, published in 2005

Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and writes books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.

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

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Tags Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Berlin, Budapest, Chennai, climate change, Dayanita Singh, Delhi, Discover, Durga Puja, Gandhi, Gordon Parks, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Hollywood, India, Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Kolkata, Life Magazine, Limca Book of Records, Magsaysay, Mahisasur, Mary Ellen Mark, Mira Nair, Monsoon Wedding, National Abilympics Association of India, National Award, National Film Awards, Nazi, New York, NRI, NYU, Paris, Paritosh Sen, Pedalling to Freedom, Prashant Panjiar, Prokash Karmakar, Raghu Rai, Raghubir Singh, Ram Rahman, Ratnottama Sengupta, Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Sebastião Salgado, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sior Mark Tully, T Narayan, The Economic Times, The First Witnesses, The Times of India]CBFC, The Weeping Apple Tree, The Wire, Tiranga, TS Satyan, UGC-CEC, UK Environment Film Fellowship Award 2005, UNEP, UNESCO, UNIDO, US Library of Congress, Vijay S Jodha

Tribute

Celebrating Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) in the role of the blind singer in his play, Falguni (published in 1917). Art by Abanindranath Tagore. From Public Domain

On May 7th 1861, or Pochishe Boisakh of the Bengali year 1268, Rabindranth Tagore was born in Jorsanko, Calcutta. That time, there was one subcontinent. Borders were fluid though the concept of countries had already started making inroads with the onset of colonials more than a couple of centuries ago. Rabindranath Tagore — a man who rejected the academia and earned no degrees — set the world aflame with his words and ideals. Many of his works hope to inspire people out of miseries by getting them in touch with their own strength. He created Santiniketan and Sriniketan to train young minds, to close social and economic gaps, to override the stigma of walls that continue to box and divide humanity to this date. Subsequently, his works, especially his writings, have become subjects of much academic discourse as well as part of popular cultural lore.

Tagore celebrated his own birthdays with poetry on Pochishe Boishakh. Pochishe Boisakh falls between 7-9 May on the Gregorian calendar. We start our celebrations with translations of his birthday songs and poems. The song translated by Aruna Chakravarti was the last he wrote, and based on a long poem he had written in 1922, also featured here. We also have the first birthday song he composed in 1899. In prose, we bring to you works that showcase his call for change and reform. Fakrul Alam has translated a powerful play by him, Red Oleanders, which strongly seems to reflect the machinations of the current world and ends on a note of hope. We can only carry an excerpt from this long play but it will be a powerful read when published in full. Somdatta Mandal shares a translations of an essay in which Tagore airs his views on the need for change in social norms — the strange thing is it would still seem relevant today. And Himadri Lahiri rendered an essay from Bengali to English on his views about the British Raj. We also have a story about a woman who changed social norms and her religion, translated by Chakravarti.

Birthday Poems & Lyrics

Hey Nutan or Oh ever new has been translated by Aruna Chakravarti in Daughters of Jorasanko. This was the last birthday song he wrote in 1941, a few months before he died. It was based on the long birthday poem he had written in 1922. Click here to read.

Pochishe Boisakh Cholechhe (The twenty fifth of Boisakh draws close…), a birthday poem written in 1935, seems to be a sad reminder of mortality and dreams left unfinished. Click here to read.

Pochishe Boisakh (25th of Baisakh) is a birthday poem Tagore wrote in 1922 and the poem from which he derived the lyrics of his last birthday song written in 1941. Click here to read.

Jonmodiner Gaan or Birthday Song by Tagore was written in 1899 and later sung as Bhoye Hote Tobo Abhayemajhe ( Amidst Fears, May Fearlessness). Click here to read the translation.

Prose

An excerpt from Tagore’s long play, Roktokorobi or Red Oleanders, has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Tagore’s essay, Classifications in Society, has been translated by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.

Raja O Praja or The King and His Subjects, an essay by Tagore, has been translated by Himadri Lahiri. Click here to read.

Musalmanir Galpa (A Muslim Woman’s Story), a story by Tagore, has been translated by Aruna Chakravarti. Click here to read.

Bengal Landscape. Art by Sohana Manzoor.

Contents

Borderless, April 2025

Editorial

Seasons in the Sun?….Click here to read.

Translations

An excerpt from Tagore’s long play, Roktokorobi or Red Oleanders, has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Tagore’s essay, Classifications in Society, has been translated by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.

Poems of Longing by Jibananada Das homes two of his poems translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Four cantos from Ramakanta Rath’s Sri Radha, translated from Odiya by the late poet himself, have been excerpted from his full length translation. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Syad Zahoor Shah Hashmi’s Nazuk, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Disappearance by Bitan Chakraborty has been translated from Bengali by Kiriti Sengupta. Click here to read.

Roadside Ritual, a poem by Ihlwha Choi has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Tagore’s Pochishe Boisakh Cholechhe (The twenty fifth of Boisakh draws close…) from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Thompson Emate, Pramod Rastogi, George Freek, Vidya Hariharan, Stuart McFarlane, Meetu Mishra, Lizzie Packer, Saranyan BV, Paul Mirabile, Hema Ravi, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Three Gothic Poems, Rhys Hughes explores the world of horrific with a light touch. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

The Day the Earth Quaked

Amy Sawitta Lefevre gives an eyewitness account of the March 28th earthquake from Bangkok. Click here to read.

Felix, the Philosophical Cat

Farouk Gulsara shares lessons learnt from his spoilt pet with a touch of humour. Click here to read.

Not Everyone is Invited to a Child’s Haircut Ceremony

Odbayar Dorje muses on Mongolian traditions. Click here to read.

From a Bucking Bronco to an Ageing Clydesdale

Meredith Stephens writes of sailing on rough seas one dark night. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

Stay Blessed! by Devraj Singh Kalsi is a tongue-in-cheek musing on social norms and niceties. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

On Safari in South Africa by Suzanne Kamata takes us to a photographic and narrative treat of the Kruger National Park. Click here to read.

Essays

Songs of the Adivasi Earth

Ratnottama Sengupta introduces us to the art of Haren Thakur, rooted in tribal lores. Click here to read.

‘Rajnigandha’: A Celebration of the Middle-of-the-Road

Tamara Raza writes of a film that she loves. Click here to read.

‘Climate change matters to me, and it should matter to you too’

Zeeshan Nasir writes of the impact of the recent climate disasters in Pakistan, with special focus on Balochistan. Click here to read.

Bhaskar’s Corner

Ramakanta Rath: A Monument of Literature: Bhaskar Parichha pays a tribute to the late poet. Click here to read.

Stories

Jai Ho Chai

Snigdha Agrawal narrates a funny narrative about sadhus and AI. Click here to read.

The Mischief

Mitra Samal writes a sensitive story about childhood. Click here to read.

Lending a hand

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao takes us back to school. Click here to read.

Conversation

Ratnottama Sengupta talks to filmmaker and author Leslie Carvalho about his old film, The Outhouse, that will be screened this month and his new book, Smoke on the Backwaters. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Anuradha Kumar’s Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Snigdha Agrawal’s Fragments of Time (Memoirs). Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Sheela Rohekar’s Miss Samuel: A Jewish Indian Saga, translated by Madhu Singh. Click here to read.

Gracy Samjetsabam reviews Tony K Stewart’s Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Classic Bengali Tales from the Sundarbans. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Raisina Chronicles: India’s Global Public Square by S. Jaishankar & Samir Saran. Click here to read.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Tags AI, Americans, Amy Sawitta Lafevre, Anuradha Kumar, Balochistan, Bangkok, Classification of Society, climate change, Devraj Singh Kalsi, Earthquake, Fakrul Alam, Farouk Gulsara, Fazal Baloch, Fragments of Time (Memoirs), George Freek, Gothic, Gracy Samjetsabam, Haren Thakur, Ihlwha Choi, India, Japan, Jibanananda Das, Korean, Kruger National Park, Lizzie Packer, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozabal, Madhu Singh, Meetu Mishra, Meredith Stephens, Miss Samuel: A Jewish Indian Saga, Mitali Chakravarty, Mongolian, Nazuk, Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Classic Bengali Tales from the Sundarbans, Pakistan, Pochishe Boishak Cholechhe, Pramod Rastogi, Ramakanta Rath, Ratnottama Sengupta, Red Oleanders, Rhys Hughes, Roktokorobi, Ryan Quinn Falangan, S. Jaishankar, Samir Saran, Saranyan BV, Sheela Rohekar, Snigdha Agrawal, Somdatta Mandal, South Africa, Sri Radha, Stuart McFarlane, Syad Zahoor Shah Hashmi, Tagore, Tamara Raza, Thompson Emate, Title: Raisina Chronicles: India’s Global Public Square, Tony K. Stewart, Vidya Hariharan, Wanderers Adventurers Missionaries: Early Americans in India, Zeeshan Nasir

Editorial

Seasons in the Sun?

Offerings during Qing Ming Jie, a festival honouring ancestors

April is a month full of celebrations around the world. Asia hosts a spray of New Year festivities. Then there are festivals like Qing Ming Jie, Good Friday and Easter. All these are in a way reminders of our past. And yet, we critique things as old fashioned! So, where does tradition end and ‘outdated’ or ‘outmoded’ start? Meanwhile we continue to celebrate these festivals with joy but what happens to those who have lost their home, family and their living due to war or climate disasters? Can they too join in with the joie de vivre? Can we take our celebrations to them to give solace in some way?

In our April issue, we have stories from climate and conflict-ridden parts of the world. From Bangkok, Amy Sawitta Lefevre gives an eyewitness account of the March 28th Earthquake that originated in Myanmar. While in her city, the disaster was managed, she writes: “I’m also thinking of all the children in Myanmar who are sleeping in the open, who lost loved ones, who are feeling scared and alone, with no one to reassure them.” As news reels tell us, in Myanmar there have been thousands of casualties from the earthquake as well as shootings by the army.

From another troubled region, Pakistan, Zeeshan Nasir gives a heartrending narrative about climate change, which also dwells on the human suffering, including increase in underage marriages.

Human suffering can be generated by rituals and customs too. For instance, if festivals dwell on exclusivity, they can hurt those who are left out of the celebrations. Odbayar Dorje muses along those lines on Mongolian traditions and calls for inclusivity and the need to change norms. On the other hand, Devraj Singh Kalsi hums with humour as he reflects on social norms and niceties and hints at the need for change in a light-hearted manner. Farouk Gulsara makes us laugh with the antics of his spoilt pet cat. And Suzanne Kamata dwells on her animal sightings in Kruger National Park with her words and camera while Meredith Stephens takes us sailing on stormy seas… that too at night.

Art is brought into focus by Ratnottama Sengupta who introduces artist Haren Thakur with his adaptation of tribal styles that has been compared to that of Paul Klee (1879-1940). She also converses with filmmaker Leslie Carvalho, known for his film The Outhouse, and his new novel, Smoke on the Backwaters. Both of these have a focus on the Anglo-Indian community in India. Also writing on Indian film trends of the 1970s is Tamara Raza. Bhaskar Parichha pays tribute to the late Ramakanta Rath (1934-2025), whose powerful and touching poetry, translated from Odia by the poet himself, can be found in our translations section.

We have an excerpt from Professor Fakrul Alam’s unpublished translation of Tagore’s Red Oleanders. It’s a long play and truly relevant for our times. Somdatta Mandal shares with us her translation of Tagore’s essay called ‘The Classification in Society’, an essay where the writer dwells on the need for change in mindsets of individuals that make up a community to move forward. A transcreation of a poem by Tagore for his birthday in 1935 reflects the darkness he overcame in his own life. Two poems expressive of longings by Jibananada Das have been translated from Bengali by Professor Alam aswell. From Balochistan, we have an excerpt from the first Balochi novel, Nazuk, written by the late Syad Zahoor Shah Hashmi and rendered into English by Fazal Baloch. Among contemporaries, we have a short story by Bitan Chakraborty translated from Bengali by Kiriti Sengupta, a poignant story that reflects on gaps in our society. And a Korean poem by Ihlwha Choi rendered to English by the poet himself.

Our poetry section celebrates nature with poetry by Lizzie Packer. Many of the poems draw from nature like that of George Freek and Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal. Some talk of the relationship between man and nature as does Stuart McFarlane. We have a variety of themes addressed in poems by Thompson Emate, Meetu Mishra, Saranyan BV, Paul Mirabile, Pramod Rastogi, Ryan Quinn Flanagan and many more. Rhys Hughes brings in both humour and social commentary of sorts with his poem. And in his column, Hughes has shared three gothic poems which he claims are horrible but there is that twinge of fable and lightness similar to the ghosts of Ebenezer Scrooge’s world[1]— colourful and symbolic.

Stories sprinkle humour of different shades with Snigdha Agrawal’s narrative about mendicants and AI and Mitra Samal’s strange tale about childhood pranks. Naramsetti Umamaheswararao takes us back to schooldays with his narrative. We have a fun book excerpt from Agrawal’s Fragments of Time (Memoirs), almost in tone with some of her stories and musings.

An extract from Anuradha Kumar’s latest non-fiction making bridges across time and geographies. Called Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India, the book is an intriguing read. We have a review by Professor Mandal of Sheela Rohekar’s Miss Samuel: A Jewish Indian Saga, translated by Madhu Singh. Highlighting syncretic folk traditions, Gracy Samjetsabam has discussed the late Tony K Stewart’s translation of oral folklore in Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Classic Bengali Tales from the Sundarbans. Parichha has written about a high-profile book that also hopes to draw bridges across the world, Raisina Chronicles: India’s Global Public Square, by S. Jaishankar and Samir Saran.

This issue has been made possible because of support from all of you. Huge thanks to the team, all our contributors and readers. Thanks to Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork. Do pause by our contents page as all the content could not be covered here.

Perhaps, world events leave a sense of pensiveness in all of us and an aura of insecurity. But, as Scarlett O’ Hara of Gone with the Wind[2] fame says, “After all, tomorrow is another day.”

Looking forward to a new day with hope, let’s dream of happier times filled with sunshine and change.

Enjoy the reads!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

[1] A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, 1843

[2] Gone With the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, published in 1936

Click here to access the contents page for the April 2025 Issue

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Tags A Christmas Carol, AI, Amy Sawitta Lefevre, Ango-Indian, Anuradha Kumar, April, Balochi, Bangkok, Bengali, Bhaksar Parichha, Bitan Chakraborty, Charles Dickens, Devraj Singh Kalsi, Easter, Ebenezer Scrooge, English, Fakrul Alam, Farouk Gulsara, Fazal Baloch, Fragments of Time (Memoirs), George Freek, Gone with the Wind., Good Friday, Gracy Samjetsabam, Haren Thakur, Ihlwha Choi, India, Jibanananda Das, Kiriti Sengupta, Korean, Kruger National Park, Leslie Carvalho, Lizzie Packer, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozabal, Margaret Mitchell, Meetu Mishra, Meredith Stephens, Miss Samuel: A Jewish Indian Saga, Mitra Samal, Mongolian, Myanmar, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao, Nazuk, Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Classic Bengali Tales from the Sundarbans, Odbayar Dorje, Odia, Pakistan, Paul Klee, Paul Mirabile, Pramod Rastogi, Qing Ming Jie, Ramakanta Rath, Ratnottama Sengupta, Red Oleander, Rhys Hughes, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, S. Jaishankar, Samir Saran, Saranyan BV, Scarlett O Hara, Sheela Rohekar, Smoke on the Backwaters, Snigdha Agrawal, Sohana Manzoor, Somdatta Mandal, Songkran, Stuart McFarlane, Suzanne Kamata, Syad Zahoor Shah Hashmi, Tagore, Tamara Raza, Thompson Emate, Title: Raisina Chronicles: India’s Global Public Square, Wanderers Adventurers Missionaries: Early Americans in India, Zeeshan Nasir

Slices from Life

The Day the Earth Quaked

Amy Sawitta Lefevre from Bangkok writes an eyewitness account of the March 28, 2025, earthquake with it’s epicentre in Myanmar.

I had just finished an errand and was about to head home from downtown Bangkok. At the last minute, I decided that I needed lunch. I had barely sat down at a restaurant on the ground floor of a skyscraper when suddenly I felt dizzy, and almost about to black out. It felt as though a magnet were pulling down my head and my body.

Just then someone in the restaurant shouted: “Earthquake!”

Next thing, we were all running out of the building which was swaying. It felt like an apocalypse. The stuff out of Hollywood movies. People were pouring outside, and many started pointing upward at something with horrified eyes. As I turned my eyes in that direction, I was stunned at what I saw: the rooftop pool of the hotel in the skyscraper near us was splashing down like a mountain cataract.

Water spilling out of the pool. From Public Domain

A chill passed through me as I thought: “This building is about to collapse on us!”

Luckily for us, it did not. But we soon learnt that many others had not been so fortunate, as a 7.7 magnitude earthquake had just ripped through Mandalay in Myanmar, with shock waves in parts of Bangkok.

I tried to stand steady but felt as if I was on the deck of a ship on a stormy sea. I thought in a daze about the ferocious power of natural disasters. Incredible how something seemingly so far away could wreak havoc here. I’ve lived in Bangkok for more than a decade and nothing like this had ever happened.

My first thought was for my children. I tried calling the school, but everyone was using their phones, and I couldn’t get through. Eventually I saw a message pop up from the school saying the children had been evacuated. My next thought was to rush home and embrace my children.

I’m a former journalist and now a humanitarian, and I’ve been through many crises in my professional career, but nothing quite prepares you for having to live through a disaster, which for the first time, you realise could impact your own children. And it was a disaster in the sense that Thailand and Myanmar both declared states of emergency.

That day it took me 4-5 hours to walk from downtown Bangkok to my home in the north of Bangkok. The sky train was not working. The traffic on the downtown street was chaotic. My legs just kept moving because all I wanted to do was to get home to my children.

Along the way I met many people whose faces bore the same expression: kind Thai faces, or kind tourist faces, but all of them shell-shocked. Yet, despite everything, people tried to collect themselves in an orderly fashion and helped each other.

I met many angels: one man offered to buy me a cold sugarcane juice seeing the pallor of my blood drained face; a woman gave me her shopping bag to carry my bag as it’s handle had broken when I rushed out of the building.

As I kept walking down streets where the soundtrack was of wailing sirens, the rubber soles of the flimsy leopard print ballet shoes I had slipped on that morning were almost worn out. At one point, I couldn’t continue walking. I was dizzy and nauseated, and flopped onto the sidewalk to catch my breath beside a couple on holiday from Peru. We crouched on the floor together, trying to rest before continuing our journey. All around us people were spilling out of buildings, hugging each other, trying to phone loved ones, and in endearingly typical Thai fashion, smelling herbal inhalers!

Around 6 pm, I finally staggered home and embraced with relief and gratitude my two children and our nanny. We stood at the threshold just holding each other in a warm group hug. My husband was away from Thailand on work, and he called frantically, as did my mother from the suburbs of Bangkok, both relieved to hear our voices. Family and friends messaged with concern and prayers.

The weekend was a blur. We soon learned that the damage and death toll in Myanmar was significant. I spent Saturday in my role as a humanitarian media manager writing a press release, taking media interviews and coordinating interviews for others, while still processing what had just happened the day before.

Collapsed building in Bangkok. From Public Domain

On the Sunday, the children and I were on a highway when we drove past the rubble of a building under construction, near the well-known Chatuchak Market. It had collapsed, trapping dozens of unfortunate workers under it. All I could think of was how massive the pile of rubble was, and how eerily quiet it was. Now I can’t bear to look at the photos or videos of anxious relatives of those construction workers who are waiting to hear news of their loved ones.

In Myanmar more than 3,000 people have died and more than 3,000 are injured but that figure will likely go up as rescue operations continue. In the light of such a massive emergency, my natural instinct was to sideline my own needs and to first respond to the call of duty. But by the fifth day after the earthquake, I had to see a specialist at the hospital because my balance felt completely off since that day.

Even though the doctor gave me the all-clear with some medicines and has advised me to rest, to practice focusing my eyes on still images, and to take walks and deep breaths, I feel as though my entire body has shifted to one side or is cracked, just like some of those buildings in central Bangkok. My city and I, both shaken to the core, trying to recover.

We’re told that another earthquake could happen in the next 30 days again and it fills me with dread. My children, six and eight, ask me what we would do if another one hits. They are scared and want answers. As do we adults. The earth is our home, and the health and well-being of its environment influences our own. If seismic activities are linked to climate change, maybe, by treating our planet with more kindness and respect we might mitigate future eruptions.

In the meantime, my children have me and my husband to talk to them and reassure them. But I’m also thinking of all the children in Myanmar who are sleeping in the open, who lost loved ones, who are feeling scared and alone, with no one to reassure them. Let us be there for them and other victims of natural disasters, in whatever ways we can, in solidarity with our common and vulnerable humanity.

My prayers for those for whom the ground shifted not just for a day, but whose entire lives may have turned upside down.

Amy Sawitta Lefevre is a former journalist and currently works at an international NGO. She has been based in Thailand for over a decade.

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

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Tags Amy Sawitta Lafevre, Bangkok, Chatuchak Market, Earthquake, Hollywood, Mandalay, Myanmar, Peru, Thai, Thailand

Tagore Translations

‘Pochishe Boisakh Cholechhe…’ Rabindranath Tagore’s Birthday Poem

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date April 14, 2025
No Comments on ‘Pochishe Boisakh Cholechhe…’ Rabindranath Tagore’s Birthday Poem

Tagore’s Pochishe Boishak Cholechhe (The twenty fifth of Boisakh draws to a close…), was published in a collection called Shesh Shaptak (Final Week) in 1935. Pochishe Boisakh ( coinciding with 7-9 May on the Gregorian calendar) was his birthday.

             BIRTHDAY POEM

       The twenty fifth of Boisakh 
Draws my stream of birthdays 
       Closer to death. 
Sitting on that wafting mat, an artisan is making a garland
      With small statuettes of 
          Many mortal Rabindranaths. 

       Time travels on his chariot. 
The pedestrian lifts his bowl
      While walking, he gets a drink.
When he finishes, he recedes into the darkness.
     His bowl is crushed to dust under the wheels. 
         Behind him, 
Follows another with a new bowl. 
       He savours a fresh flavour. 
Eventhough he has the same name, 
      He is a different person. 

Once I was a child. 
     Within a few birthdays, 
         An entity was sculpted 
            Who no one recognised. 
The people who would have known him 
        Are not around. 
The being of that child is non-existent, 
    Nor does anyone remember him. 
He has disappeared with his little world.
    His past sorrows and joys 
Find no reverberations.  
    The pieces of his broken toys 
        Cannot be seen in the dust. 
He would sit and calf-like 
      Gaze outside, with longing. 
          His world was 
   Framed by the opening in the window. 
       His innocent glance 
            Would halt at the
                Coconut trees along the fence. 
  His evenings were steeped in fairytales.
        There was no insurmountable barrier 
              Between the real and unreal. 
His mind would skip between 
     The two effortlessly. 
In the gloaming of light and darkness, 
    The shadows wrapped around spring, 
        Drawing close with belonging. 
Those few birthdays,
    For some time, 
     Were like a brightly lit island. 
But the past has sunk into the darkness of the ocean. 
    Sometimes, during low tides, 
         We can see that mountain peak. 
             We can see a shoreline of blood-red corals. 

Over time, 
     The twenty fifth of Boishakh 
         Assumed 
            Vivid vernal hues. 
Youthfulness played a melody 
    Of yearning on the ektara, 
         Questing for intangible
  Invisible inspirations. 
Hearing that music over time, 
    The celestial Lakshmi’s throne swayed    
She sent over 
    Few of her ambassadors,
        To earth to spew colours 
            On the palash woods, 
                Enticing, alluring to forgetfulness. 
I have heard their voices speak softly. 
      I understood some. Some I didn’t. 
I have seen dark eyelashes damp with wetness.
   I have seen lips tremble with unspoken agony.
I have heard the tinkle of bracelets vacillate with eager surprise. 
      Unbeknown to me, 
  On the first conscious morning, 
       Of the twenty fifth of Boisakh,
         They left behind a 
             Garland of jasmines.
                My dream at dawn 
                    Was heady with their fragrance. 

 That birthday was youthful with
     Fairytales woven by communities and villages,
        Some we knew, some doubted. 
There, princesses with their hair undone 
       Were sometimes asleep, 
Sometimes, they awoke in surprise 
        Touched by magical golden wands. 
             Over time, 
The ramparts that walled the 
   Vernal pochishe Boishakh broke. 
The path laden with the sway of Bokul leaves
     Trembling shadows, 
          Murmuring breeze, 
    The lovelorn kokil’s pleading call
That turns the morning to afternoon,
     The bees buzzing their wings
Towards the invisible scent of nectar --
     That grassy path arrived 
   At the stone paved road of adulthood.
The ektara that played the haunting melody 
   In youth changed its old string for new. 
That twenty fifth of Boisakh, 
      Exposed me 
         To a rough road, 
Bore me like a wave to the ocean of humanity.
       Morning and night, 
   I have woven tunes and 
      Caste a net mid-river –
Some have been caught, 
Some have fled the fragile net. 

Sometimes, the day has been faint, 
   Motivation disappointed,
Sadness filled the mind. 
   Unexpectedly, in the midst 
Of such depression, I found 
    Inspiration in Amravati’s mortal idol. 
They beautify the world,
      Offering vessels of nectar 
          To the weary. 
They insult fear with billowing 
         Waves of laughter.
They fan flames of courage 
   From ash-smothered smouldering fires. 
They arouse celestial voices to ignite meditative words. 
    They have lighted the flame in my nearly suffused lamp. 
       They have given melody to the strings with their cool breeze. 
           They have garlanded me with honour 
                On the twenty fifth of Boishakh. 
    My songs, my words, 
        Still reverberate with their 
               Magical touch. 

    From then, in the battle of life,   
Conflicts raged like
    Thundering clouds. 
  I had to abandon the ektara. 
Sometimes, I had to pick up the trumpet. 
    Under the hot mid-day sun, 
         I had to take on 
              A battle. 
  My feet are injured with thorns, 
    My wounded heart bleeds. The
         Merciless harshness of waves 
Have beaten my boat, left and right, 
      Muddying with criticism, 
   Drowning with transactions. 
       Hatred and love, 
Envy and friendship, 
      Music and courage, 
My world has been 
               stirred 
By the mists of all these emotions. 

In the midst of this revolutionary-crisis, 
    As the twenty fifth of Boishakh grows older, 
       You have all come to me. 
           Do you know –
Despite my attempts, much is still left unexpressed, 
Much is in disarray, much is neglected?
 
From inside and outside, 
   Good and bad, clear and unclear, famed and unknown, 
A vain, complicated character, 
  You have created an idol 
    With your regard, your love, 
        Your forgiveness. 
Today you have brought this garland, 
     I accept this as a recognition of 
The aging twenty-fifth of Boishakh,
As an acknowledgment of my years. 
     Heartfelt blessings from me to you.
 As I prepare to take leave, my human idol 
     Remains in your heart.
As the future is unknown, I cannot be arrogant. 

Then give me your leave 
    In this lifetime from all relationships 
        Strung with black and white threads. 
Lonely, nameless, solitary –
     Let me look for a melody amidst 
        Many tunes, many instruments, 
            In the depth of all songs.


*Ektara-Bengal folk instrument

Tagore celebrated his birthdays by the Bengali Calendar on Pochishe Boisakh with poetry. This poem was dedicated to Amiya Chandra Chakravarty (1901-1986), a critic, academic and poet. He was a close associate of Tagore. The Pochishe Boisakh arrived in late spring as he mentions in this poem.

From Public Domain: The long stringed instrument is an *ektara* and the other another folk instrument called *dugdugi*

This poem has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty with editorial input from Sohana Manzoor.

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

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Tags Amiya Chandra Chakravarty, Mitali Chakravarty, Pochishe Boisakh, Pochishe Boishak Cholechhe, Rabindranath Tagore, Shesh Shaptak, Sohana Manzoor, Tagore, Tagore Translations

Tagore Translations

Red Oleanders

An excerpt from Professor Fakrul Alam’s unpublished translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Raktakarabi or Red Oleanders (1924) from Bengali: It was first published in Prabasi magazine. This play rebels against totalitarianism.

Introduction

This play is based on truth. However, any reader who turns only to historians to ascertain the authenticity of events is bound to be left unfulfilled by it. Let this suffice then as an explanation: as far as this poet is concerned, they are based fully on truth.

It is possible also that geographers will differ on the play’s actual setting. But everyone knows that the setting is informally known as Lucre Land. Scholars say that the mythical Lucre Land was the site of the gilded throne of Mammon, the God of Wealth. But it will not be right to see this play as one set entirely in a mythical period; it should not be classified as a fable either. The land that it deals with it has in its mines the most precious of minerals. Its discovery led to tunnel-digging. This is why people fondly calls it Lucre Land. We will get acquainted with some of the diggers involved in due course.

No one can expect historians to agree on the real name of the monarch of Lucre Land either. The one thing that I know is that the moniker used for him is “The Dreaded”. In due course it will be clear why this is the name by which he is called.

Outside the king’s palace walls are latticed windows. It is from a room with such windows that The Dreaded One chooses to meet any number of people he wants to talk to. Why he acts so bizarrely is something that we know nothing more about than what becomes apparent from the exchanges taking place between the main characters of this play.

The chieftains who run the kingdom on the king’s behalf are well-suited to carry out their work. They are also supposed to be far-seeing—all of them are members of the King’s inner council. Their carefully taken measures ensure that there are no lapses in the work being done by the diggers. And so this is how Lucre Land has developed steadily. The supervisors, once diggers themselves, have earned on their own merit the titles they now have. Indeed, in efficiency they often surpass the chieftains they once worked for. If the laws governing Lucre Land can be called euphemistically “The Full Moon’s Beams”, the responsibility of enforcing them are entrusted to the supervisors manning what can be called its Department of Disgrace.

In addition, there is the “Holy One”. He always swears by God but lives off what is allotted to him by the chieftains. He is believed to be responsible for a lot of the “good things” that are benefitting Lucre Land.

From time to time, inedible marine animals get stuck in the net of the fishermen casting their nets here. They are of no value though—either as edible creatures or as ones that can be traded for cash. On the contrary, every now and then they leave behind holes in the nets they get entangled in. In a net flung in the course of the plot of the play, however, a girl called Nandini shows up—a girl seemingly destined to tear apart the intricate net that separates the King of Lucre Land from the rest of the world.

As far as we can see at the start of the play, the events it dramatizes take place outside the room with the latticed windows where the king lives. We get to know very little of what is happening inside the palace though.

This play is set in the country called Lucre Land. The workers here are employed to dig gold. Its king remains hidden behind a thick screen. Only one scene of the play, however, is set behind the screen. The remaining scenes all take place outside.

Enter Nandini and Kishore—a young man employed in digging mines

Kishore: Nandini! Nandini! Nandini!

Nandini: Why keep calling my name again and again young man? Do you think I have a hearing problem?

Kishore: I know you have no hearing problem. I keep calling you by your name because I like doing so. Do you need more flowers? If you do, let me go and get some.

Nandini: Go, go back to work. Don’t waste any more time here.

Kishore: What I do all day long is dig for gold. Whenever I can steal some time away from such digging to search for flowers for you. That makes me feel alive.

Nandini: Young man—don’t you know they’ll punish you if they find you not at work?

Kishore: But didn’t you say you really, really want the red oleanders? What delights me is that you can’t find them easily anywhere nearby. I found only one red oleander tree behind the rubbish dumped all over the place and that too after searching hard for it.

Nandini: Show me the place and I’ll go pluck the flowers myself.

Kishore: Please don’t say such a thing again. Don’t be so cruel Nandini! Let the tree remain as my one secret. Bishu sings for you songs he composed himself. From now on, I’ll get you the flowers you want and flowers that I can call my own.

Nandini: But the beastly people of this place keep punishing you. My heart breaks whenever they do so.

Kishore: The pain I endure makes the flowers that blossom even more dearly mine. They are the harvests of my sorrow!

Nandini: But how will I endure the pain and the suffering you have to endure on my account?

Kishore: What pain? That there will come a day when I’ll sacrifice myself fully for you is the thought that comes to my mind again and again.

Nandini: You keep giving me so much. Tell me, what can I give you in return?

Kishore: Make this pledge to me—every morning you’ll take the flowers from me.

Nandini: Fine, I’ll do that. But careful….

Kishore: No way I’m going to restrain myself! No way! I’ll bring you flowers even if I have to face their lashes every day!

Exit Kishore

The Professor Enters

Professor: Nandini! Don’t go; look at me!

Nandini: What for Professor?

Professor: Why do you keep surprising me again and again only to disappear afterwards? Since you succeed in stirring my mind, why don’t you then stir it up fully? Just stay for a minute and let me say a few things to you.

Nandini: Why do you need to talk to me?

Professor: If I’m to talk about what is of importance, just take a look! Our diggers climb up to the top from the tunnel with what they have mined from the heart of the earth and then carry burdens on their head like termites do. All the wealth of Lucre Land comes from that dust-mixed source—gold is the outcome! But beautiful one, you are golden not because of such dust but because of the light you emit. How can only the need for wealth detain you?

Nandini: You keep saying the same thing again and again. What amazes you so whenever you look at me Professor?

Professor: There is nothing surprising about the light that brightens the flower gardens in the morning. The light that comes through cracks in the wall are something else though. In Lucre Land you are that kind of unexpected light! Tell me—what could you for be possibly thinking about as far as this place is concerned?

Nandini: I am amazed to see the whole city’s focus to explore what is underground and all the groping in the dark that goes on. They keep digging in these underground tunnels for treasures that have been fossilising there for ages. These are treasures earth buried there.

Professor: What we do is exhume the corpses of such resources devotedly. We want to tame the ghosts within them. If we can tie the golden lumps up and retain them so that they don’t seem strange, we’ll have the world in our grasp.

Nandini: What is more shocking is that you have your king covered up in a wall made up of weird nets. It is as if you wouldn’t like people to find out that he is human. I feel like either opening the cover of that dark tunnel or flooding it with light. I feel like tearing up such a weird net and rescuing the man trapped inside.

Professor: Just as the ghost of fossilised wealth can be scary, the king we have can terrify us because of the power he has to scare his subjects.

Nandini: Everything you keep saying is so concocted.

Professor: Yes, I’ve made them up for sure. A nude need not be identified; only his tailored clothes will mark him as a king or a beggar! Come to my house—I’ll be delighted to make you wise with words of wisdom.

Nandini: Just as your diggers bury themselves when digging the soil, you seem to be digging deeper and deeper into your books. Why would you waste time on someone like me?

Professor: We are dense, thick-headed creatures, submerged in opaque scholarly work. You are the evening star we see when we have nothing else to do; seeing you makes our wings restless. Come home with me; let me spoil myself for a change.

Nandini: No, not now—I’ve come to see your king seated in his chamber.

Professor: He stays within his latticed wall; he won’t let you in for sure.

Nandini: No wall can block me; I’m here to spend time with your king in his chamber.

Professor: You know what Nandini—I too live inside a wall. I’ve sacrificed a lot of my human side; only my scholarship stirs in me. Just as our king is awesome, I’m an awe-inspiring scholar.

Nandini: You must be joking! You don’t seem frightening at all. Let me ask you this question: If they could bring me here, why didn’t they bring Ranjan to this place as well?

Professor: Their strategy is to tear up everything. In any case, let me say this: why bring your precious soul to a place so full of lifeless treasures?

Nandini: If Ranjan is brought here, their dead hearts will stir again.

Professor: Nandini alone has been enough to strike the chiefs of Lucre Land dumb; imagine what will happen if Ranjan is brought here as well.

Nandini: They have no idea how strange they can be. If God could make them smile, the spell they are in would be broken. Ranjan’s smile is God’s smile!

Professor: The smile of God is like sunlight—it melts ice but doesn’t move boulders. If you want to stir our chieftains, you need to be forceful.

Nandini: Ranjan’s strength is like your Shankhini River. Just like that river, he’ll be all smiles at one moment and a destructive force in another. Professor, let me tell you what has been a secret till now. I’ll be meeting Ranjan later today!

Professor: How do you know this?

Nandini: We’ll meet, for sure we will. The news has come that we’ll be united soon.

Professor: How can such news travel without attracting the attention of the chiefs?

Nandini: They’ll come through the same route that ushers news about spring. It’s touched with the colour of the sky and the lilt of the wind.

Professor: In other words, the colours of the sky lilt the breeze that ushers in spring.

Nandini: When Ranjan comes, I’ll be able to show you how news that has been flying can land on earth.

Professor: Once the subject of conversation turns to Ranjan, there is no stopping Nandini from talking. Never mind! Since I’ve mastered real knowledge, let me enter its depths; I myself don’t dare do anything now.

He comes back after advancing a little.

Nandini, aren’t you frightened at the thought of being in Lucre Land?

Nandini: Why should I be?

Professor: Animals fear solar eclipses but not the round sun. Lucre Land is a place where an eclipse of sorts has taken place. The sun was bitten when it got into a gilded crater during an eclipse. Since it itself wasn’t full, it didn’t want anything else to be fully developed. Let me advise you—don’t hang around this place. When you leave these craters, they will be yawning before us—but I’ll keep insisting—flee! Be happy with Ranjan anywhere else where people don’t shred the borders of Mother Earth’s sari into bits!

He goes some distance and then returns

Professor: Nandini, won’t you give me one of the red oleander flowers you are carrying in your right hand?

Nandini: Why? What do you want to do with it?

Professor: On many occasions it occurred to me that the red oleanders you wear have some significance for you.

Nandini: I have no idea what they could possibly mean.

Professor: Perhaps the Divine Dispenser of your fate does. The red color emits mysterious negative vibes and not only ones that delight.

Nandini: Things that can frighten me?

Professor: God has in this case painted beauty with a brush dipped in blood! I have no clue to what you were scribbling in red as you came. There are malati, mallika, chameli flowers aplenty that you overlooked. What made you pluck flowers only from this particular flowering tree? Know that people only do unthinkingly what they are fated to do.

Nandini: Every now and then Ranjan will fondly call me “Red Oleander”. I don’t know why the thought occurs to me that my Ranjan’s love is of that colour. It’s the colour I wear on my neck, my bosom and my hand.

Professor: So why not offer me a flower only for a while so that I can figure out the essence of that flower?

Nandini: Here, take this one. Ranjan will be here today. I’m so happy that I’ve decided to gift you this red oleander.

The Professor departs.

Gokul, a Tunnel Digger, Enters

Gokul: Turn your face this way for once. I can’t seem to figure you out! Who could you be?

Nandini: I’m exactly what you see. Nothing else! Why do you need to know anything more?

Gokul: Not a good idea to not know. Has the King of this realm summoned you here for any reason?

Nandini: For no good reason!

Gokul: What a thing to say! He is trapping us all. You are the cause of the danger we all are in.

Anyone bewitched by your beautiful face is doomed. Let’s take a look—what is that swinging there where you hair is parting?

Nandini: Red Oleander flowers!

Gokul: What do they signify?

Nandini: Nothing!

Gokul: I don’t believe you at all. You must be up to something. There is bound to be trouble before the day is over. That is why you decked yourself so. What a dreadful trick!

Nandini: What makes you think I’m so terrifying just by looking at me?

Gokul: You remind me of a torch lighted up in many colors. Go and fool innocent ones by telling them— “Take care! Beware!”

Gokul Exits

Nandini is now outside a latticed window

Nandini (Striking the latticed window): Can you hear me?

Voice: I hear you Nanda! But don’t keep calling me again and again; I have no time left, not a bit.

Nandini: I feel very happy today! So happy that I’d like to enter your room.

Voice: No need to come in. If you have anything to say, do so from outside the room.

Nandini: I’ve brought you a garland made of jasmine flowers. It’s covered with lotus leaves.

Voice: Wear it yourself!

Nandini: It doesn’t suit me. I wear red oleander garlands

Voice: I am like a mountain peak. I look best unadorned.

Nandini: From such peaks waterfall stream. A garland will sway in your neck as well. Open the net—I’d like to go in.

Voice: I won’t let you in. Say what you want to now. I don’t have any time to lose.

Nandini: Can you hear any song from where you are?

Voice: What song?

Nandini: A song about the winter month of Poush[1]! A song calling all to harvesting!

Poush calls us all
Come, come away
Its tray is full this day
With harvested crops galore
Come, come away

Don’t you see how the harvested rice’s loveliness mingles with the wintry sky?

In the heady wind 
Goddesses work
Across rice fields 
All over the land
A golden hue spreads 
So good to see. Ah me!

Come outside King! Let me take you to the field.

The sky is happy to hear in fields flutes play.
 Who’d want to stay indoors any longer today?
 Open, open all doors

Voice: I go to work? What work am I good for?

Nandini: Harvesting is much easier than the kind of work you do for Lucre Land.

Voice: The work which seems easy to you is actually hard for me to do. Can a lake dance like the foams of a waterfall?

Nandini: Your strength is truly amazing. The day you let me enter your treasury, I wasn’t a bit startled by your gold piles. What truly fascinated me then is the way you managed to put things into an orderly heap effortlessly despite your immense strength. Nevertheless, I’ll have to say this: can lumped up golden balls respond to the amazing rhythms of your hands as well as a rice field? Tell me O King, aren’t you at all afraid to handle the fossilised resources of the world day after day?

Voice: Why, what is there to fear?

Nandini: The earth bestows on us joyfully things it holds dear. But when even dead bones are snatched away by those who value them merely as precious things what they really do is dig up from the dark depths things a blind giant had cursed. Don’t you see that everyone here is edgy? Either that or they are scared.

Voice: Scared of what?

Nandini: The fear that things will be snatched away and of the killings that might follow.

Voice: I don’t know of any curse involved. What I know is about the power we can evoke. Does my immense strength make you happy Nandini?

Nandini: Very happy indeed. That is why I’ll insist: come out into the light; put your feet on the soil; let earth rejoice.

The light joy brings
Daubs ears of corn with dew
Why not feel the joy of touch?
Nature’s joy knows no bounds
A sight so good to see
—ah me!

[1] Ninth month of the Bengali calendar coincides with December-January of the Gregorian calendar.

Fakrul Alam is an academic, translator and writer from Bangladesh. He has translated works of Jibanananda Das and Rabindranath Tagore into English and is the recipient of Bangla Academy Literary Award (2012) for translation and SAARC Literary Award (2012).

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Tags Bangla Academy Literary Award, Bangladesh, Fakrul Alam, Prabasi, Rabindranath Tagore, Red Oleander, Roktokorobi, SAARC Literary Award, Tagore Translations

Tagore Translations

Classifications in Society by Rabindranath Tagore

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date April 14, 2025
No Comments on Classifications in Society by Rabindranath Tagore

This essay was first published in Tattwabodhini Patrika, Ashwin issue, 1319 B.S.(September-October, 1912) and reprinted in Pather Sanchoy (Gleanings of the Road). It has been translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal.

Tagore at Paris, 1921. From Public Domain

When we travel to Vilayet[1], then it is not simply going from one country to another; for us it is like entering a new household. The external differences of lifestyle are not that important. It is expected that there will be a difference between us and the foreigners in our dress, ornaments, eating and pleasure habits and so that doesn’t bother us too much. But not only in lifestyle, there is a deeper dissimilarity in our evaluation of life and to find a sense of direction there suddenly becomes a very difficult task.

We start feeling this from the moment we board the ship. We understand that we will have to abide by the rules of another different household. This sudden change is not to the liking of man. This is why we do not try to understand it very clearly; we somehow try to follow it or feel disgusted and then utter to ourselves—their manner and behaviour is too artificial.

The truth is that what is important is the difference we have with them regarding our social position. Our society has come and stopped within the limits of our family and village. Within those limits we have evolved certain fixed rules about how to behave with one another. Keeping those limits in mind it has been decided what we should do and what we should not. Some of those rules are superficial whereas others are quite normal.

But the society which is the target of these rules being framed is not very big in size and it is a society of relatives. So, our habits are quite domesticated. You cannot smoke tobacco in front of your father, you are supposed to pay obeisance to the guru and pay him some money, the sister- in- law must cover up her face in the presence of the elder brother-in-law and close proximity to your uncle- in- law is totally prohibited. Those rules that are outside the family or village society are based on caste(varna) differences.

It can be said that the thread of caste difference has tied our village society and families like a chain or necklace. We have reached a conclusion. India has resolved its societal problems once and for all and she feels that if this system can be permanently retained then there is nothing to worry about. That is why modern India is trying to strengthen in all manner this family and social bonding laws woven through the thread of varnashram[2].

It has to be admitted that India had been able to find a solution to the problems it was facing at one point of time. She has somehow reconciled the differences between diverse castes, she has pacified the struggle between diverse classes; by classifying professions she has managed to contain competition and disputes and has staved off the vanity created by differences of wealth and capacity through the fence of caste differences. Though, on the one hand, India has maintained through all means the independence of Brahmins who are at the helm of society to the people belonging to other castes, at the same time, she has also spread out small and big processes through which all facilities and education could be disseminated among the others. This is why what the rich person enjoys in India is also partly distributed among the ordinary people on various pretexts and in this way, by giving shelter to the ordinary and appeasing them, the powerful retains his power. In our country, there is no reason to go into a major clash between the rich and the poor and the necessity has not arisen by which the incapable person has to be protected by legal means.

The Western society is not family oriented; it is an open and large society which is much more widespread than ours. It is more on the outside than on the inside. The concept of family that is there in our country is absent in Europe and that is why the people of Europe are spread everywhere.

The nature of this spread-out society is such that on the one hand it is loosely assimilated and on the other it is more diverse and stronger. It is like composing a prose piece. Poetry is restricted within its rhymes and that is why its binding is simpler. But the prose spreads out. That is why on the one hand it is independent and on the other its steps are bound through logic and reason, through diverse rules on ideas about the development of the mind in a greater way.

Because the English society is so spread out and because all its activities are externally motivated, it must be always prepared for different social rituals. It hardly has time to wear casual domestic clothes. It must remain dressed up because its social area is not that of relatives. Relatives pardon you, tolerate you, but you cannot expect such tolerance on the part of outsiders. Everyone must do each and every work in due time, otherwise one will encroach upon another. If the rail line is in my area or is under the control of a few of my friends and relatives, then we can run the train as we wish and can even halt each other’s train as and when we desire. But if we try to detain a train for five minutes in the ordinary train route where lots of trains move up and down, then there will be lots of problems and that will be difficult to tolerate. Because our society is extremely domesticated or maybe because we are habituated with domestic practices, we behave with each other very loosely—we spread ourselves as much as possible, waste time and criticise formal behaviour as lacking in fraternal feelings. This is the first thing that prevents us from feeling at home in English society—there one cannot act in a carefree manner and then expect that people will pardon us. They have created different rules that will on an average benefit the maximum number of people. They have set up fixed rules for meeting each other, for invitation formalities, for dressing up, for entertaining guests. If we try and impose the laxity that we display with relatives in a place that is not actually a society of relatives, then everything turns out to be horrible and life becomes impossible.

Till now this wide European society has not come up with any solutions. It has made an effort through certain rules and regulations in external rituals and behaviour to retain self-restraint and gracefulness but is unable to make arrangements by which the internal strife at a personal level can be resolved. Europe is only going through experimentation, change and revolution. There is a constant rivalry cropping up between men and women, between religious society and professional society, between the power of the ruler and the ruled, between businessmen and worker groups. It has not pacified itself like the halo round the moon. Even now it is ready like a volcano waiting to erupt.

But how can we say that we have solved all our problems, have finalised our social structure, and are resting as peacefully as dead bodies? Even though time has elapsed, we can retain the system for some time, but we cannot keep the situation in chains. We are facing the entire world, now we cannot do with our domesticated society; these people are not merely our fathers, grandfathers or uncles, they are outsiders. They belong to different countries and so we should be extremely alert while interacting with them. If we are absent-minded and behave in a loose manner, then one day we will be totally unfit to act.

We are proud of our tradition, but it is not at all true that the society of India has not evolved through history. In different situations even India had to go through newer revolutions—there is no doubt about that—and history is replete with instances. But I don’t want to even utter that it is the end of all treading for her and from now on till eternity she will just be there and hold on to her traditionality. Society gets fatigued after each large revolution; during that time, it shuts its doors, switches off all lights and prepares to go to sleep. After the Buddhist revolution India had gone off to sleep latching her doors and windows with the hook of strict laws. She was sleepy. But to boast about this as eternal sleep will become a laughable though pitiable thing. Sleep is good only during the night, when there are no crowds of people outside, and when all the big shops and markets are shut down. But in the morning when everyone is awake and there is activity all around, if you go on quietly lying down and close all the old doors and windows, then you will be the loser.

The rules of the night are very simple. Its arrangements are sparse, and its requirements are very little. That is why we can complete all our tasks and go to sleep in an unperturbed manner. Then things go on lying where they were kept because there is no one to move them. The arrangements during the day are not so simple and completing the job once and for all in the early morning does not mean that one can relax and smoke tobacco the rest of the day. Work keeps pouring down our necks. We must keep attempting new things and if we cannot adjust ourselves to the flow of the outside world, then everything else falls out of place.

For some time, India has spent her nights in a system of strict and fixed set of rules. That does not mean that that situation will permanently remain very comfortable. Getting a beating is most painful and difficult, especially when it falls upon a sleeping body. Daytime is the period to receive such blows. That is why it is most comfortable to remain awake during the daytime.

It is time for us to wake up whether we wish it or not, whether we are full of laziness or not. We are constantly being hurt both internally and externally in society and so we are sad. We are suffering from poverty and famine. The society is breaking down; the joint family system is being split into bits and pieces. And the role of the Brahmins in society has become so demeaning that with the aid of ‘Brahmin societies’ and such other things, they keep on shouting loudly to prove their existence and thus only attest to their weakness. The panchayat[3] system worn in the neck by the government’s chaprasi[4] has committed suicide and its ghost is dominating the village. The food in the country is incapable of satiating the small village schools. Due to famine, they are now relying on the charity of government dole. The rich people of the country have doused the light in their birthplaces and are roaming around in Calcutta in motor cars, and people of noble descent are ready to sacrifice their entire wealth and their daughters at the feet of a graduate groom. There is no point in blaming the Kaliyuga[5], or the foreign king or the native English-speaking people for this misfortune. The truth is that our lord has sent his assistant during the daytime, and he will not stop till such time he can drag us out of our traditional bedrooms. So, we cannot forcibly close our eyes and try to create the night at odd hours. The world that has come to our threshold has to be welcomed inside our house. If we don’t give it a cordial welcome, then it will break open our doors and gain entry. Hasn’t the door not yet been broken now?

So once again, we must think about resolving our problems. It cannot be done by imitating Europe, but we must learn from her. Learning and imitating are not the same thing. Actually, if we learn in the correct way, we will be relieved from the art of imitating. If we cannot know the other truly, then we cannot understand the truth ourselves.

But I was saying that we cannot adjust ourselves in the European society with our loose domestic habits. We can never prepare ourselves in any way. It seems that everyone is pushing us aside, no one is waiting for us for a moment. We are pampered human beings; we feel out of place without our relatives in society. After coming here, I have noticed that since our students are not used to entering other people’s houses, most of them come here and learn things by heart but they do not keep any contact with the society here. The society here is large and so it has more responsibilities. Only if we undertake those responsibilities, can we find a sort of connection with the people of this society. If we cannot connect then we shall be deprived of the greatest learning prevalent here. This is because society is the greatest truth here. The greatest strength, the greatest sublimity is in the society here and not in the battlefield. Sacrifice and self-respect suitable for a broad-minded society are being expressed at every step. They are nurtured here and are preparing themselves in different ways to sacrifice their lives for the welfare of man. In modern India, the educated class of people still consider school education to be the true education. They are deprived of the education of greater society. Even after coming here and entering the school factory, if they come out simply as mechanical things and do not enter the birthplace of humanity visible here then they will be deprived even after coming to a foreign country.

Art by Rabindranath Tagore. From Public Domain

[1] England or the Western world

[2] Casteism

[3] Villages in India are still administered by the panchayat, a council of five selected members from the community.

[4] Peon

[5] The current age in Hindu mythology which ends when the Kalki avatar comes to rescue humanity from darkness.

Somdatta Mandal is a critic and translator and a former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India. An earlier version of this essay was published in Gleanings of the Road (Niyogi Books, pg 20).

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Tags Calcutta, English, Europe, European, Gleanings of the Road, Hindu, India, Kaliyuga, Kalki, Panchayat, Paris, Pather Sanchoy, Santiniketan, Somdatta Mandal, Tagore Translations, Tattwabodhini Patrika, varnashram

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

Three Gothic Poems



THE CLOCK DEMON

The demon in the clock
haunted the early hours
of the heir
to an estate
so old that
all the hate
of countless generations
had faded
to a murmur in the walls.

The face behind the dial
was as melancholy, vile,
as the iron
crocodile
in the room
below the
passage where the gloom
had grown
much louder than a shout.

But this demon was silent
throughout the long nights
of winter
when the
freezing
mansion
reversed a grim expansion,
wheezing
in a manner not displeasing.

The clock: it is a guardian,
charged by aeons archean,
to chime
to death
the heir
bearing
ghoulish responsibilities
nowhere
without ceremonial fury.

They claim the creature
trapped there, not daring
to beware
will stare
at forever
resentfully
until those who truly care
decimate
the new legions of eternity.

And still the hours pass,
the demon tries a laugh,
cascading
the shades
of certain
odd hues
into a tone that you alone
will adore
if cosmic doors slam shut.

 
THE BEGGAR

The beggar
remembers a time
when he drank the rarest
wine from a goblet
and sprawled
on a couch, eyes hooded.

Then one day
an uninvited guest
arrived at his house, worn out,
a man in rags,
eyes ablaze, his tongue hanging
like a vast flatworm
from the lower lip of a blistered
mouth: or like a flag
drooping from a derelict ship
one evil afternoon.

The stars had shuddered
over him: the moon had juddered
high like the jawbone
of a slain man, crescent shattered
by a twisted club
and hurled into the sky.

The rich man spilled his wine
and demanded
without quite knowing why:
Are you me? A future vision
of what I will become?

And the stranger answered:
No, you are me. The future image
of what I will be
when I am no longer just a beggar
but the subject
of nostalgia: the figure in a memory.
When you become
a beggar yet again, the circular path
that pretends to be
a shady lane
may reveal itself to be a spiral chute
leading to the centre
of a brute tormentor’s awful domain.

This paradox is painful, the irony
stabs the beggar’s side
like the barbed tip of a javelin.
From rags to riches
and back to rags:
pain, bliss, and then more agony,
tragedy, comedy,
an inevitable turn of the axletree.

And so he sips his cheaper wine
philosophically,
hunched in the inadequate
shelter of the leaning tombstone
he now calls home.


 
THE ROTTEN DUNGEON

The dungeon rotted away:
stones crumbled,
iron rusted,
slime evaporated,
heavy keys in grim locks
melted: even
the sense of despair faded
until nothing
was left but stubborn bones.

And the archaeologists say:
there is nothing
here worth excavating.

But the screams
still radiate, propagate,
through the interstellar dust
between nebulae:
extinct at source, of course
they persist elsewhere,
swirling unknown particles
in waves of fear.

The dungeon,
a sullen impression, appears
to have done its work well:
degradation
broadcasting itself as a type
of Hell among
the brimstone constellations.

Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.

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Tags Gothic, Rhys Hughes

Musings

Felix, the Philosophical Cat

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date April 14, 2025
No Comments on Felix, the Philosophical Cat

By Farouk Gulsara

Just the other day, a visitor to my home made a remark. She observed that my cat, Felix, was staring into the horizon while sitting by the glass window. Felix seemed unfazed by the activities within the house, instead focusing his gaze on the neighbour’s gate. In front of the neighbour’s compound stood a few stray cats, returning his stare. It resembled a kind of staring competition.

The visitor remarked that Felix might be looking at all his stray friends on the other side of the fence, envying their lifestyles. They could roam freely whenever they wished, accompanied by their pack of friends. Wherever they rested their heads was their home. Moreover, they did not have to endure his fortnightly baths or grooming. Oh, how Felix loathed those cold showers and the bare feeling afterwards when there was not enough fur on his Persian body to lick, beautify, and flaunt. As for the food… throughout his life, the only sustenance he consumed was in pellet form. The occasional lizards and insects he hunted down with the remnants of what his dormant DNA offered were swiftly intercepted by his owners. This is why Felix the Cat was often seen engaged in forlorn glances, brooding over his seemingly helpless situation.

In response, I told the visitor that Felix’s feline friends on the other side of the fence would likely feel the same way. They would be gazing at him with eyes brimming with envy. If only they grasped a bit of philosophy, they would be yelling, “life is not fair!” Here sits Felix in the comfort of the house, in an aesthetically pleasing environment shielded from the harsh forces of weather and nature, with love overflowing all around, soothing tactile stimuli to caress and rub against him, protected from noxious ailments, and safeguarded against prancing predators and cruel individuals discontented with their presence or their annoying mating calls.

They would probably pray to swap places with a house cat in their next life. Felix, were he to believe in rebirth, would likely yearn to roam free without being tethered—symbolically, of course, as cats are not leashed, a privilege they possess over their fellow domesticated ‘friends’, the dogs!

That is life, is it not? No one is truly satisfied with their existence. Everyone believes the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. What they may fail to grasp is that it appears greener because the soil is fertilised with manure. One must endure the stench of excrement to appreciate the outcome. The poor man looks at his wealthy neighbour and assumes that once he secures that coveted high-paying job and some money, everything will be splendid. Meanwhile, the rich man gazes at the poor, reminiscing about his long-lost days of poverty when life was simple and sleep was undisturbed.

Poet Kannadasan[1], in one of his many wisdom-filled compositions, envisioned a situation: the snake, a natural prey of the eagle, residing upon Lord Shiva’s neck, haughtily sneering at Garuda[2] and inquiring if he was well. The snake, securely nestled in the protection of the Lord, knows that Garuda cannot harm him. Garuda responds that everyone would be just fine if they were in the place they are meant to be. Kannadasan then quotes the Tamil poet Avvaiyar[3],who asserted that the world respects you when you hold a prominent position. When you stumble, even your shadow will defy you. I believe the essence of the message is to accept and appreciate what one possesses in life. Unrealistic expectations lead only to disappointment, whilst acceptance fosters contentment.

[1] Kannadasan (1927-81), also known as Kaviarasu (King of Poets) is considered one of the greatest Tamil poets.

[2] A legendary divine eagle-like bird who is the mount of Vishnu.

[3] A Tamil woman poet (supposed to have lived in the first century BCE) from the Sangam period (300BCE – 300 CE).

Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog, Rifle Range Boy.

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Tags Avvaiyar, Farouk Gulsara, Garuda, Kannadasan, Persian, Rifle Range Boy, Shiva, Tamil, Vishnu