Nazrul’slyrics ofMor Ghumogore Elo Monohor (In my Sleep, Came the Enchanting One) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Four of his ownMalay poems have been translated by Isa Kamari. Click here to read.
The Heartless, a Balochi story by AbdulQayum Sarbazi, has been translated by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Dragonfly 2 has been composed and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.
Tagore’s poem, Amra Choli Somukhpane(We Look Forward and March), has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Clickhere to read.
Pandies Corner
Songs of Freedom: Pink Dreams is an autobiographical narrative by Priyanka, written and compiled by Deeksha Vats. These stories highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and Pandies. Clickhere to read.
Larry S Su, who migrated from a mud cave in Shaanxi province to America, shares his story of the changes he sees during three visits to his home and muses on the gaps he has observed between these two places. Clickhere to read.
Summer, Dune in Zeeland by Piet Mondrain (1872 – 1944)
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past.
‘Burnt Norton’, Four Quartets (1941) by TS Eliot
If we look back in time, we have a better life than that of our ancestors. Though conflicts rage and climate change is a reality that we all dread, it can safely be said, we have progressed beyond the imagination of those who lived a hundred years ago. The fact that some books from the past still reverberate with echoes of what the present holds says much for the outliers or authors who could think out of the box. Despite this complex intermingling of ideas and times, perhaps the world will change more now than before. We do not know anything for sure though experts are always predicting a future that for most of us remains unknown. What we can present is our own estimate of what can be and a definite assertion of what is. Truth as such is a matter of perception. That complicates it further. However, one of the changes that is definitely here to stay is climate change and our changing environment. Given that this is the month that homes World Environment Day, we have a smattering of writings that revolve around nature and also the human spirit that defies age.
We have featured a writer who revels in nature and is an ageless voice that bridges multiple cultures, Ruskin Bond. As he turned ninety-two last month, he published multiple new books. We have an excerpt from one of them, Scenes from the Magic Mountain: Five Seasons in the Mussoorie Hills and Beyond, a brilliant collection of snapshots of his interactions with nature over time — be it frogs, snakes or just trees. Some of the vignettes are humorous and some, as all classics are, thought provoking. Bond puts into words how he chose to work in Landour (a small town in Himalayas) and continued to write from there for sixty years. He talks of the spell the mountains cast on him, “I like to think that I have become a part of this Magic Mountain; that by living here for so long, I can claim a relationship with the trees, wild flowers, even the rocks that are an integral part of this landscape.” The other book excerpt is a contrast to Bond’s, a non-fiction called Burnout Highway by Anmol Diddan. It explores the collective suffering of stress at work where achievements distance humans from nature and a fulfilling life and urges readers to be open to changes.
In keeping with the theme of environment, Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Stephen Alter’s The Fragrance of Rain: A Brief History of the Monsoon. He tells us: “The Fragrance of Rain is much more than a history of weather. It is a meditation on nature, culture, memory, and belonging… Like the season it celebrates, the book is refreshing, nourishing, and lingering in its impact…” While Rakhi Dalal expresses her delight with Shyam Manohar’s The Cold War of Sadanand Borse, a novella translated from Marathi by Jerry Pinto, Meenakshi Malhotra revels in Giti Chandra’s debut book of poems, Setting Traps for Light.
In translations, Professor Fakrul Alam has captured the flavours of Nazrul’s Bengali lyrics, which also echo of the rainy season or monsoons. Isa Kamari brings to us more of his Malay poems in English and Ihlwha Choi shares a rendering of his Korean poem, ‘Dragonfly 2’, into English. One of Tagore’s poems from Balaka (Flight of the Cranes, 1916) has found its way into this issue after being translated. We also have a touching Balochi story around social gaps from the late Abdul Qayum Sarbazi, brought to us in English by Fazal Baloch.
Hughes has continued sharing his short fables, which are absurd but also, comical! A sensitive story about the natural world mingled with Maori concepts by Keiran Martin seems so much in sync with the oceans while Jeena R Papaadi has woven a strange narrative located in a land that only one man could visit. Plamen Vasilev shares a human-interest story set in Europe and Rabiya Rehman takes us to Lahore in quest of a missing destination! Naramsetti Umamaheswararao’s narrative takes us back to a village that opted for trees, thus enriching the environmental lore in this issue.
We have a real life heart rending story from a young girl in our Pandies Corner, written and related by Deeksha Vats, based on the story told by a victim of familial violations and violence.
Our non-fiction section homes Larry Su’s essay on how his life took him from a rural mud cave in Shaanxi province to the glamour of Chicago. Reflecting on the changes he has experienced on his rare visits to his original homeland, Su muses on the cultural and socio-economic gaps he has observed between the two places. Charudutta Panigrahi – as if in direct opposition — shares similarities between two diverse geographies.
Suzanne Kamata explores a custom which may not be that eco-friendly in her column from Japan. Jun A. Alindogan brings home the impact of climate disasters while dwelling on blessings with his narrative about a narrow escape from the Typhoon Ondoy (2009). While Meredith Stephen writes of sailing to Timor Sea with photographs by Alan Noble, Farouk Gulsara takes us on a cycling adventure around the mountains of Titiwangsa. In another musing, he also explores the idea of good and evil in a sardonic tone while Sai Abhinay Penna dwells on the grandeur and vastness of the universe over his morning jog. Gowher Bhat writes of a man for whom age seems to be just a number as he publishes his debut book at 93! One wonders at the frequency of such occurrences — we have writings about two authors above ninety in the June issue. In contrast, Devraj Singh Kalsi brings in mortal fears while writing of visiting doctors with a soupçon of humour – some of it directed at himself.
Perhaps, laughter is really the best medicine to keep well! Ruskin Bond makes us laugh and writes of nature in a way that touches hearts and makes us forget the contrasting glitzy world, where we suffer stress and burnout. Our environment makes a difference, doesn’t it?
With that we wrap up our June issue. Huge thanks to our fabulous team, especially Sohana Manzoor for her wonderful artwork. To all our contributors, heartfelt thanks — we are because you are. And gratitude to our readers who make it worth our while to write and publish here.
We will next meet you during the monsoon months of South Asia though, near the equator, it rains almost every day and, in the Southern Hemisphere, it will be peak winter!
Rabindranath Tagore’s Amra Choli Somukhpane(We Look Forward and March) was first published in 1916 as part of Balaka (Flight of Migratory Cranes).
Art by Sohana Manzoor
WE LOOK FORWARD AND MARCH
Who would dare bind us If we look forward and march! Those who look to the past, Weep regret to the last. With bloodied feet rip the chains. Walk ahead in sun and shade. They will trap themselves With their self-wrought webs, Weeping regret to the last.
A fiery storm sounds the bugle. The mid-day sun shines An awakening. The mind soars onwards Intoxicated with radiance. If they cross the threshold, They will be blinded By the brightness of the light, Weeping regret to the last.
We will conquer oceans and hills, We will transgress their will. I do not fear treading the path alone. Friends return together. They form coteries. They have defined boundaries. They will be trapped within The walls they have created, Weeping regret to the last.
This poem has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravartywith editorial input by Sohana Manzoor
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
It begins before the city wakes up. At 4:47 AM, and I’m already lacing my shoes in the dark corner of the room. From here, the kettles glow is the only warmth. The streets outside are in the colour of old photographs — amber and grey. When I push open the door, the hush silence greets me with the way truth always does, without ceremony, without apology.
The streets around the beach are empty except for stray dogs, and the occasional tea vendor preparing his first mix of tea for the day. The air carries a sense of salt, and the sky above the ocean looks like an extremely carefully unfinished painting.
I begin my run the way I always do, slowly.
To run at these hours every day has become more of a private ritual. The world has not yet started asking for anything. Messages have not arrived, notifications are empty, and no one expects you to be anyone yet.
It is on these runs that the strange things happen, not strange as in unusual, but strange as in true.
For a brief stretch of time, you are simply a human body moving through space in a physical form. On mornings like this, I often look up to the sky and sometimes, something stranger happens. The stars appear closer than usual. Not physically closer, but perpetually, like distant observers leaning slightly forward, curious about what a single human like me might be doing running along a shoreline of a small rotating planet.
I imagine them watching me, not judging but just observing. The way we observe ants building a colony on the edge of a pavement.
There are roughly eight billion humans alive on Earth today. Each of us, convinced secretly that our lives matter in ways the universe must somehow acknowledge. Yet our species is only one among roughly ten million species to exist on Earth. From the view of a galaxy, we can assume that our home is just a small planet orbiting an ordinary star inside the Milky Way, which could contain around a hundred billion planets. Our galaxy is only one among approximately two trillion galaxies scattered across the observable universe.
Sometimes while running, I try to hold all of this in my mind at once, and when I do something peculiar happens. My problems shrink so quickly that they almost disappear.
Deadlines lose their urgency, career anxieties dissolve into footprints on the wet sand. Even ambition, the most powerful and core engine of the growing human life, suddenly feels like a small flame flickering in an unimaginably large room. Through my own eyes, I am the protagonist of a vast and sophisticated story. When I run, it feels as though the city recreates itself around my movement. My life as I experience it from inside is the whole universe.
From the perspective of nature, the calculation is clear — we are insignificant. Each of our lifetimes is roughly eighty years, which is barely one-thousandth of the time humanity has existed. Humanity itself occupies only about one-twenty thousandth of Earth’s history. The universe did not design itself around our arrival. And despite all of this, we wake up each morning with the strongest conviction that we must do something extraordinary with our lives.
Perhaps, human significance works the same way, one life alone may barely record the size of a rich cosmic history. One person writes a poem, another discovers a mathematical principle, and another teaches a child how to ask better questions. And yet another simply shows the value of kindness in a moment when cruelty would have been easier.
Each act is small, yet individually they look like waves dissolving into the sand one after the other. Because, across generations these small acts compounded into something larger. Our very civilisation itself is nothing more than a tiny speck in the ocean of time.
From kings to democracies, cars, airplanes, bulb, technology, computer, mobile, and now, AI — none of these appeared suddenly. They emerged slowly, through billions of lives adding to their tiny additions to our human existence. When viewed from far away, our universe doesn’t seem indifferent to this process. It almost appears curious about it as we are.
Halfway through my runs the horizon on my right begins to glow, the sun starts to rise slowly. The thing about sunrise is that it doesn’t appear all at once. To me, I see the sun negotiating with the darkness. At first, the sun didn’t brighten all at once. It’s ages into light like a slow burning ember. Then, the ocean begins to reflect the light like a sheet of moving glass. The universe rarely moves in spectacle. It is built in the dark silence while the particles lean into one another, matter learning structures, atoms organising into life, life learning to think, and thoughts becoming curiosity.
And curiosity, quietly yet stubbornly, pushes the boundaries of what existence understands of itself.
By the time my run ends, the city begins to wake up. Motorbikes hum along the road. Fishermen return to the docks with their captures. Old men on the corner of the road sit on benches while turning the pages of their newspaper and sipping their morning coffee. It feels like the universe has resumed its rhythm. By the end of my run, I realise that no star has acknowledged, or no galaxy shift has taken place because of anything I did this morning. And yet oddly enough, this realisation felt comforting rather than depressing. Because if no single life is of cosmic importance, then the weight of greatness fades.
What remains is truly simpler: to remain your tiny self ; to write a thought that might travel further than our existence; to raise a child who will see the world more clearly than we do, and to ask questions that makes the universe slightly more aware of itself.
In the eyes of nature, we may be unimaginably small. But perhaps, evolution has always worked this way — not through grand singular gestures, but through the billions of tiny lives, each briefly conscious, adding to their quiet momentum to the long unfolding story of our universe. And somewhere far beyond today’s morning sky, the stars might still be watching us.
Not because any of us matters individually, but because all of us together just might.
Sai Abhinay Penna is a professional cricketeer, investment banker and writer based out of Chennai.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Because a strict bureaucratic state wanted to know how many mythological creatures still existed, wistful and wise, on a certain island in the sea in a state of nature raw, they sent an inspector named Hector to find out for sure.
He bypassed temples, skipped the shrines, rode the northern railway lines, determined to dispatch his duty upon the Isle of Tutti Frutti. He crossed the strait, hummed a tune, walked into the afternoon.
Past empty huts and dusty trees, defying heat with tropic breeze, and near a mysterious ruined fort, just tumbled stones, he sat to rest, as evening slipped into the west.
Then in the dark, a thrumming sound! One hundred hooves upon the ground or so he counted with his ear until the silver moon shone clear and he was able to see with startled eyes a truly Ancient Greek surprise.
Standing on the long-parched land were creatures wondrous and grand, a herd of centaurs, noble beasts, with coconut shells in every hand!
Clip-clop! clip-clop! clip-clop! Those hard halves were bashed as if hooves at high speed dashed over the packed sand of the shore.
One declared, “Don’t be scared, our intentions are mild enough. If centaur statistics start to drop, your government will never stop harassing the imaginary past and stripping the myths away.”
Hector listened with attention as the centaur eased the tension with kind and musical words, the sweetest he had ever heard:
“The paperwork demands a throng of healthy centaurs to make it wrong for developers to invade our island and spoil the pristine beauty of the fabled Tutti Frutti, and so we double what is real with melodramatic, sonic zeal. Fifty centaurs with coconut shells sound one hundred strong.”
Hector smiled to hear the plot, a simple multiplication of trots. “But why reveal to me the joke?” he asked, because he couldn’t see his value to the centaur folk.
The centaur smiled, calm and tame: “Because you are here. Write a report that will help us to defend our home, a paper in which the truth can hide. For unless you fiddle the figures the bureaucrats will push us aside.”
The herd dispersed into the night, a magnificent but deceptive sight, and hurrying back to his home, Hector planned to construct a spell of deception for this noble cause, forever charmed by moonlit swells, and centaurs playing coconut shells.
From Public Domain
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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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
I Like Rich People, but I Couldn’t Eat a Whole One Myself
Never tell yourself that the megarich aren’t like you and me. Billionaires are just ordinary people who throw away their electric toothbrushes every night.
Believe it or not, genetically speaking, you have more in common with an oligarch than with an aardvark or a sea turtle or a red-collared lorikeet.
I know this is bitter news, but that’s what news is— an acrid, tacky sap that sticks together the days. Whoever invented knowledge was on some sort of sick power trip.
The point is we all throb with worry about something. We all hum on common frequencies of dread and guilt and superficial decency.
It’s worth bearing this in mind next time you read about some cute little plutocrats who will be ensconced safely, post apocalypse, in a secret alpine bolthole:
remember the commandment to love them as you track down their bunkers and overrun them.
How a Year Ends
A year is a road that ends at the sea in an afterthought of a town, just a few weatherbeaten houses, some indifferent trees, a small picnic area, and a one-eyed cat wandering around proprietorially. You drove here because it is here.
The sky is orange and purple, like a burning vineyard. And you put your foot down and plunge off the road. You drive through the spinifex, down the shifting dune slope, across the tide line, and into the surf, gunning it into the waves.
The footwell fills up, the seawater pours in, the engine is flooding, the cabin is all foam and confusion, you’re losing consciousness, you’re losing consciousness, and you wake up parked at the kerb where you started last year, soaking wet.
(These poems have been excerpted from Sick Power Trip )
Erik Kennedy is a poet, critic, editor, and performer in Christchurch in Aotearoa New Zealand. His three books are There’s No Place Like the Internet in Springtime (2018), Another Beautiful Day Indoors (2022), and Sick Power Trip (2025), all with Te Herenga Waka University. His first and third books were shortlisted for best book of poetry in New Zealand’s national book awards, the Ockhams. He also co-edited an anthology of climate change poetry from Aotearoa and the Pacific called No Other Place to Stand (Auckland University Press, 2022).
What does it mean to write poetry in an age of climate crisis, internet overload, and late-stage capitalism? Few writers tackle those questions with as much intelligence, humour, and urgency as Erik Kennedy. The acclaimed contemporary poet talks about finding his voice, life in another hemisphere, the pleasures of performance, and why writing remains central to how he makes sense of the world.
For readers who may be discovering your work for the first time, could you tell us a little about yourself and the kinds of writing you write?
I’m Erik Kennedy, a poet, critic, editor, and performer in Ōtautahi Christchurch in Aotearoa New Zealand. I’m originally from New Jersey, but everything good I’ve ever written was produced here. My three books are There’s No Place Like the Internet in Springtime (2018), Another Beautiful Day Indoors (2022), and Sick Power Trip (2025), all with Te Herenga Waka University Press. My first and third books were shortlisted for best book of poetry in New Zealand’s national book awards, the Ockhams. I also co-edited an anthology of climate change poetry from Aotearoa and the Pacific called No Other Place to Stand (Auckland University Press, 2022).
How do you describe your poetry?
In a recent fellowship application, I wrote that with my style I am ‘intense, wry, and willing to seem unhinged if it makes the writing real’. That seems fair. The adjectives ‘political’ and ‘funny’ are often thrown around in discussions of my poems. I think I have taken a more solemn turn with my recent work, especially in Sick Power Trip and in the manuscript I’m working on now. Subjects I return to over and over include climate collapse, the internet, labour, illness, warfare, addiction, and dysfunctional late capitalism. I try to use every tool in the poet’s toolbox: free verse, rhyme, collage, prose and hybrid forms, personas, etc. As a poet you get to shapeshift; I try not to forget that.
I also enjoy writing criticism, and I think I’m good at it, but it’s not something I’m driven to do unless I’m asked by an editor. (Hit me up, editors.)
When did writing first become important to you, and do you remember the moment you thought, ‘I’d like to do this for a living’?
I have never thought that I can write for a living! I do various kinds of work, including as an editor in book publishing, but I don’t expect the kind of writing I do to buy me truffles and Audis.
When did I first realise that I wanted writing to be a central part of my life? I was about thirteen when I started to write really seriously, autodidact-ing myself into a position where I started to have a style and ambitions. I was the classic teen poet filling notebooks with poems that, mercifully, remain in what Thomas Gray would call ‘dark, unfathomed caves’. I have never really looked back. Writing is a vital part of how I live. Of how I process the world and the things that happen in it. I have always produced new writing, except in periods of personal turmoil, and in those circumstances I think the not-writing made things even worse.
What kind of work have you done in this space, and how has it shaped your writing?
In an earlier period of my life I was doing a PhD in English at Princeton, and while I didn’t complete it (by writing what surely would have been a tragically uninspired dissertation), the many years I spent at the coalface of literature and history at universities were not wasted. There is a part of me that still thinks that The Poet Who Knows Lots of Stuff is the ideal artist.
Being a copyeditor is an underrated literature-adjacent job. I know loads of writers who teach creative writing (it’s not for me), and that obviously makes you think constantly about how texts work, but there is something about the technical, competence-driven, problem-solving nature of copyediting that I have always found appealing. I like coming up with answers! Every book you work on upskills you in one way or another. That’s so valuable. I’d like to point out that AI is not coming for copyeditors any time soon. The sheer amount of random facts, hunches, preferences, and human judgements involved in copyediting a book definitely makes it a craft for flesh-and-blood knowledge workers.
Also, I have edited poetry for litmags for years. There is simply no better way of seeing what writers are actually doing than by reading hundreds or thousands of real-life examples of contemporary writing. Editing offers you examples of writing to emulate and to react against. It’s also a crucial part of a writer’s moral education; people are entrusting you with important parts of themselves, and as an editor you have a responsibility to treat their work with care and respect.
What readers/listeners do you most like writing for?
I feel really fortunate to have a thriving literary scene on my doorstep, quite a lot of it grounded in performance. I have gained so much by trying to make my work resonate with live audiences, who of course only get to experience the text once, via my voice and expressions. (Also, I was a theatre kid, and I just really like performing.) Page versus stage is a false dichotomy, but page plus stage is a great way of thinking about making work that draws people in. Publication is always my goal with my poems, but I also want to entertain, to commune with real people I can see and chat with. So in some ways the reader I have in my head when I write is a punter at a reading series. These people have been wonderful barometers for me over the years.
You grew up in the US and now live in New Zealand. How has this influenced your outlook?
I can imagine my answer to a question like this being shown to me by agents in some dismal room at Newark Airport. Let’s just say that I am glad that I am where I am. Also, I have published work that probably makes the points I wish to make better than I can make them here.
Where does your writing usually begin: with a character, a situation, a question, or something else entirely?
A line. I am a compulsive notes app user. I raid my poem ideas document all the time.
What does your writing routine look like, and what conditions help you do your best work?
‘Routine’, lol. As is the case with many poets, I would say that there are certain aspects of executive function that I don’t excel at. So my process can look a little chaotic. I try to set myself up for success with my note-making habits. And I work on things when the moment feels right. I am opportunistic, a jackal who doesn’t miss a trick if a corpse is nearby. I only occasionally sit down with the intent to write. (It does work sometimes, though, which feels like finding $50 on the ground.) Walking is a great imaginative stimulant for me; we could call that an important part of my routine. I’m like a moustached twenty-first-century Wordsworth.
Every writer faces difficult days. What helps you keep writing when inspiration is absent or a manuscript feels stuck?
If I haven’t produced anything vaguely satisfactory for a fortnight or so I start to feel so inadequate and despondent that not writing doesn’t even feel like an option. I suppose if, despite my best efforts, I ever get full-on writer’s block, I will dissolve into a dejected slime. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
What aspect of the writing craft took you the longest to master, and what did that journey teach you?
The dark art of ordering a poetry manuscript—of making disparate elements into a coherent whole—is something I will always want to get better at. It is hard. My most recent book, Sick Power Trip, feels of-a-piece in a way that neither of my first two books did, because I set out to make it that way and because I allowed my preoccupations to come through. Maybe what I’ve learned is that artists need preoccupations. I am thinking about artistic unity earlier in the process now. Is this good? Maybe. Do I feel I’ve cracked the case? No.
What role does reading play in your life as a writer, and are there particular authors or books you return to for inspiration?
I don’t like the name-your-influences game because 1) my influences change all the time and 2) I am terrified of offending someone by not mentioning them.
Anyway, it all starts with reading. Sure, living is useful too, but I’ve always found that an encounter with the right text at the right time is transformative, alarming (in a good way). It’s like a nineteenth-century galvanist is jolting me with electricity.
I do a lot of reading for professional purposes (keeping up with what’s coming out), so I sometimes must remind myself to let my fancy wander and read . . . whatever the hell I want. Another thing I need to remind myself to do is to read things on my TBR pile! You bought these books, you idiot, maybe you should look at them. A constant problem.
What has surprised you most about the experience of being a published author?
I’m always amazed that people take the time to write to me out of the blue. I can only imagine what it’s like if you’re, you know, actually a big deal writer.
How do you navigate self-doubt, rejection, or the inevitable setbacks that come with a creative career?
I am a world-class user of defence mechanisms.
What is the most valuable piece of writing advice you have ever received?
I find that the example set by other writers I admire, especially peers, is more motivating to me than maxims. It’s more valuable to me to observe the ups and downs of other people’s careers than to hear, like, ‘the brain is a muscle—exercise it’.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Make sure you like writing, not just having written. I think there are some truly terrible temptations available to writers who want to get to the end product too quickly. (Yes, I am talking about generative AI.) But if you really do like writing, then probably nothing will stop you. I believe in you. We are so lucky to work in an artform that requires very few material inputs. I don’t need a tuba or big canvases or a theatre to do what I do. Life presents obstacles—of course it does—but in theory literature can be such a democratic artform.
If you could go back and have a conversation with the writer you were before your first book was published, what would you tell them?
You were a ‘real writer’ then, even if you barely felt like one. Having books doesn’t make you a writer. Writing does.
You can read two poems from Sick Power Trip by clicking here.
Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer and creative writing mentor originally from New Zealand who has spent a quarter of his existence living and working in Asia including southwest China, Myanmar and Bali. His Venn diagram of happiness features the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee, the negative ions of the natural world including moving water, and connecting with others in meaningful ways. A Contributing Editor on Borderless Journal’sEditorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Noemi traced the rim of her wine glass, the condensation leaving damp circles on the worn wooden table. The bistro buzzed with Friday night energy – the clinking of glasses, bursts of laughter, the low hum of conversations – but to Noemi, it all sounded muffled, distant. Opposite her sat Liam, his hazel eyes, usually sparkling with mischief, clouded with a seriousness that mirrored her own.
They’d been coming to this exact table, in this exact corner, every Friday night for the last seven years. Seven years of shared secrets, whispered dreams, and unwavering support. Seven years of a friendship so profound it had become the cornerstone of their lives. But tonight, the familiar comfort felt brittle, fragile, threatening to shatter like cheap glass.
“So,” Liam began, his voice a low rumble, “you’re really going through with it.”
Noemi nodded, avoiding his gaze. “I am. I have to.”
“Even after everything?” He gestured vaguely, encompassing years of shared history with a single, sweeping motion.
“Especially after everything,” Noemi corrected softly. “Staying would be… unfair. To both of us.”
The ‘it’ Liam referred to was a job offer. A dream job, really, working as a curator’s assistant at a prestigious art gallery in Florence. Noemi, a struggling artist who supplemented her income by teaching art classes to unruly teenagers, had never dared to dream of such an opportunity. It was everything she had ever wished for, yet accepting it meant leaving Liam behind.
Their friendship had always been an intricate dance, a delicate balance of platonic affection and unspoken longing. They understood each other in a way no one else ever had, anticipating each other’s thoughts, finishing each other’s sentences.
There had been moments, particularly in their early twenties, where the lines blurred, where the possibility of something more hung heavy in the air.
But fear, or perhaps a deeper understanding of the potential for catastrophic heartbreak, had always held them back. They were afraid of ruining something so precious, of losing the unwavering support and unconditional love they found in each other’s friendship.
“Florence,” Liam sighed, running a hand through his perpetually messy brown hair. “It’s a long way to go for art.”
“It’s a long way to go for a chance,” Noemi countered, finally meeting his gaze. She saw a flicker of pain in his eyes, and a pang of guilt shot through her. “Liam, you know I’ve always wanted this. I can’t let fear hold me back anymore.”
“Fear?” He scoffed, a bitter edge creeping into his voice. “Is that really what you think this is about? Fear? What about us, Noemi? What about what we have?”
Noemi winced. This was the conversation she had been dreading. The one where they laid bare the unspoken truths that had hummed beneath the surface of their friendship for years.
“What dowe have, Liam?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “A carefully constructed comfort zone? A safety net woven from years of shared experiences? We’re so afraid of rocking the boat that we’re content to drift aimlessly in the same stagnant waters.”
Liam leaned back in his chair, his jaw tight. “That’s not fair. We have something real, something special. You can’t just throw that away for a… a pipe dream.”
“It’s not a pipe dream, Liam! It’s a chance to finally pursue my passion, to grow, to evolve. And,” she added, her voice softening, “it’s also a chance for you to do the same.”
He looked at her, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been stuck in that dead-end accounting job for five years, Liam. You hate it. You dream of opening your own brewery, but you’re too afraid to take the leap. You’re comfortable, Liam. Too comfortable.”
Liam opened his mouth to protest, but Noemi held up a hand, stopping him. “I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m terrified. But I also know that if I stay here, if we keep doing the same thing, week after week, year after year, we’ll both end up resenting each other. We’ll resent the missed opportunities, the unfulfilled dreams, the unspoken words.”
Silence descended upon the table, broken only by the clatter of cutlery and the muffled conversations around them. Liam stared at his hands, his expression unreadable. Noemi held her breath, waiting for him to say something, anything.
Finally, he looked up, his eyes filled with a mixture of sadness and understanding. “So, this is it then? This is goodbye?”
“No,” Noemi said firmly. “This isn’t goodbye. This is… a new beginning. For both of us. We’ll still be friends, Liam. Maybe even better friends. But we need to let go of this… this comfortable stagnation. We need to allow each other to grow, even if it means growing apart for a while.”
Liam managed a weak smile. “Easier said than done.”
“I know,” Noemi replied, reaching across the table to take his hand. His skin was warm and familiar beneath her fingertips. “But we’re strong, Liam. Stronger than we think. We’ve been through so much together. We can handle this.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, holding hands, absorbing the weight of their decision. The bustling energy of the bistro seemed to fade away, leaving them alone in their quiet corner, grappling with the bittersweet reality of change.
“So,” Liam said, finally breaking the silence, “Florence, huh? You’ll send me postcards, right?”
Noemi laughed, a genuine, heartfelt laugh that eased the tension in the air. “Of course, I will. And you’ll come visit. We can explore the Uffizi together, drink Chianti, and you can tell me all about your brewery.”
Liam grinned, a hint of his old mischief returning. “Deal. But only if you promise to try my experimental Grapefruit IPA[1].”
“Grapefruit IPA?” Noemi wrinkled her nose. “Sounds… interesting.”
“Trust me,” Liam said with a wink. “It’s an acquired taste. Just like our relationship.”
The weeks leading up to Noemi’s departure were a whirlwind of packing, goodbyes, and last-minute errands.
Liam was her rock, helping her navigate the logistical nightmare of moving to a new country, offering a steady presence amidst the chaos. He drove her to the airport, his face a mask of forced cheerfulness.
As she stood in the departure gate, tears welled up in her eyes. She turned to Liam and wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight.
“I’m going to miss you,” she whispered, her voice choked with emotion.
“I’m going to miss you too, El,” he replied, his voice equally thick. “But you’ve got this. Go make your dreams come true.”
Noemi pulled back, wiping away her tears. She looked at Liam, really looked at him, for what felt like the last time. She saw the years of friendship etched on his face, the unwavering support in his eyes, the love that had always been there, unspoken, yet undeniable.
“I will,” she said, her voice filled with newfound determination. “And you go open that brewery, Liam. Don’t let fear hold you back.”
He nodded, a genuine smile spreading across his face. “I won’t.”
Noemi turned and walked through the gate, her heart pounding in her chest. As she boarded the plane, she looked back one last time. Liam was still standing there, watching her, his hand raised in a silent farewell.
The first few months in Florence were challenging. Noemi struggled to adjust to the new culture, the language barrier, and the demanding workload at the gallery. She missed Liam terribly, their Friday night dinners, their easy banter, their unwavering support.
She sent him postcards, as promised, filled with descriptions of Renaissance art and quirky Italian customs. They Skyped regularly, sharing updates on their lives, their triumphs, and their struggles.
One evening, as Noemi sat in her tiny apartment, surrounded by art books and half-finished paintings, her phone rang. It was Liam.
“Hey,” she said, her heart leaping with joy at the sound of his voice. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” he replied, his voice sounding different, more confident. “I have some news.”
“What is it?” Noemi asked, her curiosity piqued.
“I quit my job,” Liam announced.
Noemi gasped. “You what? You quit your job? Are you crazy?”
“Maybe,” he chuckled. “But I couldn’t do it anymore, El. You were right. I was stuck. I was comfortable. And I was miserable.”
“So, what are you going to do?” Noemi asked, her voice filled with anticipation.
“I’m opening the brewery,” Liam said, his voice brimming with excitement. “I found a great space downtown. It needs a lot of work, but it has potential. I’m calling it ‘The Letting Go Brewery’.”
Noemi’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s amazing, Liam! I’m so proud of you.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you, El,” he said softly. “You inspired me. You showed me that it’s okay to take risks, to chase your dreams, even if it means leaving something comfortable behind.”
“We inspire each other, Liam,”Noemi replied, her voice choked with emotion. “That’s what friends are for.”
“Yeah,” Liam agreed. “That’s what friends are for. And maybe… maybe someday… more than friends.”
Noemi smiled, a slow, knowing smile. “Maybe,” she said. “But for now, let’s just focus on our dreams. Let’s focus on letting go.”
A year later, Eliza returned to her hometown for the grand opening of “The Letting Go Brewery.” The place was packed with people, friends, family, and curious locals, all eager to sample Liam’s experimental brews.
Noemi stood in the corner, watching Liam work the crowd, his face beaming with pride and happiness. He looked different, more confident, more alive. The dead-end accountant was gone, replaced by a passionate entrepreneur, a man who had finally found his purpose.
As Liam caught her eye, he excused himself from a conversation and walked over to her.
“So,” he said, his hazel eyes sparkling with mischief. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Noemi replied, taking a sip of his Grapefruit IPA, “that you’ve created something truly special. And I think… that it was worth letting go.”
Liam smiled, a genuine, heartfelt smile that reached his eyes. He took her hand, his fingers intertwining with hers.
“Me too, El,” he said softly. “Me too.”
And as they stood there, surrounded by the joyful noise of the brewery, Noemi knew that they had finally found their way back to each other, not as the comfortable, complacent friends they had once been, but as two individuals who had dared to chase their dreams, to let go of the familiar, and to embrace the possibility of a love that was stronger, deeper, and more rewarding than anything they had ever imagined.
They had learned the art of letting go, and in doing so, they had discovered the true meaning of friendship and love.
It is in danger, like a child playing beside a puddle.
“Hey! Hey! Watch out!” I cry out in alarm,
but the dragonfly pays no attention. Perhaps dragonflies have no ears.
hlwha Choi is a South Korean poet. He has published multiple poetry collections, such as Until the Time When Our Love will Flourish, The Color of Time, His Song and The Last Rehearsal.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Title: Scenes from the Magic Mountain: Five Seasons from the Mussoorie Hills and Beyond
Author: Ruskin Bond
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
Recently Ruskin Bond turned ninety-two and from the various interviews he has been giving, one finds a single word that recurs in different forms in his interaction with his interviewers and that is ‘solitude.’ The recently published non-fiction book titled Scenes from the Magic Mountain: Five Seasons in the Mussoorie Hills and Beyond, captures this solitude and his deep, lifelong love for the Himalayas. It is a gentle, meditative reflection on the changing seasons, nature, and the quiet rhythms of daily life in Landour and Mussoorie, a place that he himself states to be his home for the last sixty-one years. He had moved to Mussoorie in the early 1960s to write full time. In the ‘Introduction’ he tells us about how he moved into a cottage called Maplewood Lodge after renting a room from a lady called Ms. Bean and settled for good in these hills. The old and isolated cottage was tucked away in the shadow of a hill, but it brought him close to nature and helped him develop a rapport with it in all seasons. The open window of the small living room exposed him to the forest outside that seemed full of possibilities and the birdsong.
The book is not a novel or a continuous narrative; rather, it is a collection of vignettes, journal entries, and remembered moments. It allows readers to experience the mountains exactly as Bond does, observing the nuances of the landscape over the course of five distinct seasons. Most of the entries are very brief, the lengthier ones are hardly more than a page in length, but through them Bond manages to give his readers his very close observations of the place as he experiences it through the five different seasons of the year. He divides the book into six parts, and the last part is called ‘The Eternal Season’. Each section begins with a suitable prologue borrowed from the Australian traveller John Lang’s mid-nineteenth century travelogue Wanderings in India (1869), a book which Bond had retrieved from oblivion and edited for the benefit of future readers.
Bond organises his observations into a seasonal framework, detailing the subtle shifts in his environment. In the first section ‘Spring’ we get detailed description of how the first tender leaves appear, bringing a sense of tentative warmth and new beginnings. Through his very perceptive and minute observations, we get visual images of the small birds that arrive to bathe and drink in the little pool beneath the walnut tree, water beetles and tiny fish that lurk in the shallows of the pool. The different varieties of birds that he has observed include two delicate little willow warblers, the whistling thrush, the wild ducks, eagles that fly high on the mountain, the cheeky mynah birds meeting under the eaves of the roof, and sparrows that flutter in and out of the room at will. Spring comes with its varieties of flowers with splashes of colour and Bond rightly describes how “the infection of spring spread simultaneously through the world of nature, and made them one”. The honeybees and butterflies also add to the beauty of the place and as he rightfully states, they do not recognise any “man-made border”.
The vignettes of summer have details of long, insect-filled, sun-drenched days that invite slow walks and quiet afternoons. Summer for Bond “was never entirely solitary”. As he sat in the window seat in his cottage and spent his mornings turning out stories, poems, essays, children’s tales and anything that came to his mind, he looked out upon a sociable gathering of trees that provided a recreation ground for different kinds of birds too. Very evocative descriptions of the mangoes, lichis as the fruits of summer and also the ice cream are drawn from his memories. He writes how as a boy he was engulfed in loneliness, and as a man in solitude. On some mornings when he carried his small table, chair and typewriter outside on to the knoll below one of the oaks, the different birds helped him with his punctuation. For his reflective and descriptive writing, he looked into the distance, at the purple hills merging with the azure sky; or examined a fallen leaf as it spiralled down from the tree and settled on the typewriter keys. The summer sun bathes everything with clear, warm light and the camera-eye of the narrator records everything to the minutest detail. He tells us about other prolific writers who were busy writing their books during this period while he produced not so much as a paragraph.
The monsoon is a defining feature of the hills, bringing mist, heavy downpours, and the lush abundance of the forest. “The first monsoon rain always felt like a beginning,” writes Bond and how this season is one of the most beautiful times of the year in the Himalayas. As the forest dripped and it rang with birdsong, Bond found it always worthwhile tramping through the forest above the stream to feast his eyes on the foliage that sprang up in tropical profusion. He tells us how the rains also heralded some seasonal visitors like leopards and several thousand leeches, and snakes as well as insects like grasshoppers, crickets and cicadas who produced different kinds of music.
When autumn arrives, burnished light, ripening fruit, and a golden hue take over the landscape and according to Bond it is the best time of the year in the hills. Now more than any other time of the year, the wildflowers come into their own and it is the best time for taking long walks. An atmosphere of peace and harmony descends on the hillside, and Bond watches the spectacular sunset as its faint glow spreads across the whitewashed walls of the ageing cottage, as though a part of that spectacular sunset has been left behind only for them. This season also occasionally brings in bears who come to the village to eat pumpkins, flying foxes sweeping across the roads and leopards circling the houses along with dogs. The cool, uplifting autumn breeze always stirred him to the marrow and Bond thought it to be the best aphrodisiac in the world.
Winter brings with it old silences, snow-laden trees, and the beauty of the serene Himalayan peaks against a clear blue sky. During Christmas when it was bitterly cold outside, the blazing wood fire in an old-fashioned fireplace made him enjoy the experience. Again, one day, after being cooped up in his room for several days, he set out for an enjoyable tramp outside in the snow-covered countryside with hardly anyone on the way. He also reminiscences about his school days when he took the train ride from his boarding school in Shimla to come to Dehradun and find occasional snowfall there. He also remembered the first time it snowed in Maplewood. From the windows he could see, up at the top of the hill, the deodars clothed in a mantle of white. “It was a fairyland: everything still and silent.”
The eight selected entries for the last section titled ‘The Eternal Season’ describe the quiet renewal that begins where all endings meet. Here Bond reflects on renewal and the passage of time across sixty years of living in the mountains, examining how the landscape remains wondrous despite changing times. All through his life he says he had been plodding along, singing his song, telling his tales in his own unhurried way and it didn’t matter if he hadn’t managed to get to the top of the mountain. He had lived his life at his own gentle pace and his long walk had brought its own sweet rewards; buttercups and butterflies along the way. He had been observing the natural world—along forest paths, during walks, storms, solitary afternoons, and shared silences.
Thoughtful, attentive and reflective, he offers the seasons not as events to be marked, but as a way of living in time. In the penultimate entry he states: “In spite of all indications to the contrary, I have survived – as a writer, as an individual, as a breadwinner, as a lover of beauty. So many failure and setbacks along the way; but I suppose my inner stubbornness saw me through… And here I am, ninety-one, my own person, determined to live and love till my last breath.”
This aesthetically produced hard-bound book is not to be read chronologically from beginning to end but can be opened by the reader at leisure from whichever page or season he feels like, and he can go back to it again and again. It is a collector’s delight and also one to be gifted and recommended for anyone who loves to read about Ruskin Bond’s deep and lifelong love for the Himalayas. Bond’s poetic prose can hardly be imitated and some of the spontaneous poems that abound in the collection speak immensely of his ability to cross over genres of prose and poetry with utmost ease. The black and white interior illustrations that abound in the book also add extra charm and help the less-perceptive reader gain better understanding of the particular image or scenery that Bond talks about. One is also fascinated by his exquisite sense of subtle humour, that includes the ability to even laugh at oneself.
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Somdatta Mandal, critic and translator, is a retired Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India.
