BREATH OF TREES
In ages past, when Earth was young,
Beneath a golden, blazing sun,
Amidst this world, a sacred birth,
There grew the trees, a force of worth.
From ancient groves to verdant glades,
They stretched their arms, offered shades,
A symphony of life unfurled,
Where trees shaped the wondrous world.
In forests vast, their secrets dwell,
They whispered tales, in leafy spell,
Their roots deep plunged in fertile ground,
Trees held the secrets yet unbound.
From towering pines to gentle birch,
Each tree a guardian, where birds perch,
They breathed the air, with lungs of green,
And gifted life, a glorious scene.
With branches reaching to the skies,
They caught the winds, as nature's prize,
And in their leaves, the sunlight danced,
The symphony of nature enhanced.
The woodlands thrived, in harmony,
A living web, for all to see,
From mighty oaks to willows weep,
Their grace and roots ran rivers deep.
They sheltered creatures, great and small,
Provided homes for one and all,
From feathered songbirds to furry kin,
The trees embraced them deep within.
Their branches carry the songs of birds,
Whose melodies speak more than words,
And in tree bark, the songs they dwelled,
With tales of ancient days they held.
Oh, trees of Earth, forever reign,
Your worth immeasurable, not in vain,
A living force, a gift untold,
In every leaf, new stories unfold.
Teach us peace and love and laughter.
Live forever more hereafter,
Until the day no humans dwell,
On earth, just remnants of magic spells.
THE WORLD THAT NEVER KNEW WAR
In the world that never knew war's woe,
Where compassion's rivers eternally flow
A symphony of care for fellow man,
A dance of love, Earth's greatest fans.
In idyllic realm of boundless grace,
Every soul finds solace and their place,
Hands interlaced, hearts open wide,
A tapestry of unity, love as our guide.
In streets adorned with vibrant hue,
Kindness blossoms a daily brew.
Strangers greet with warm embrace,
A gentle smile on each lovely face.
No hungry child, no sorrow's tear,
For compassion's feast is shared, sincere.
Communities thrive, support entwined,
No soul forgotten, no one left behind.
The Earth, revered as sacred ground,
Her forests lush, her waters resound.
Through whispered vows, humanity cares,
Guardians of nature, love everywhere.
Animals roam with freedom's grace,
No cages confine, no fear they face,
A world where creatures find their worth,
A harmonious dance upon this Earth.
Technology's gifts, harnessed for good,
Advancing progress, as we know we should,
Renewable dreams power the land,
Green energy pulses, hand in hand.
No borders divide, no walls stand tall,
As love's embrace encompasses all,
Embracing differences, voices are heard,
A symphony of cultures, harmony interred.
In this world, poets and dreamers rise,
Their words ignite, paint love in the skies,
Each verse a testament to human might,
Weaving dreams of peace, an eternal light.
Oh, to witness such a world, so fair,
Where empathy reigns, banishing despair,
Let's strive, let's believe, let's make it true,
For this world can be ours, for me and you.
In the world that never knew war's dread,
Compassion thrives, with love widespread,
May we weave this vision, hand in hand,
And create a world where peace will expand.
TEARDROP
Long in sorrow’s cruel realm I dwell,
Where memories cast a melancholy spell,
My heart, once hopeful, now an empty well,
As I endure the pains that life does tell.
A single teardrop as it falls from grace,
Betrays the timelessness of its embrace,
Through sad-stained eyes, I glimpse its measured pace,
In heartbreak's throes, a languid, ever slow trace.
How could it be those moments so profound,
Are stretched and drawn, as silence seems to resound?
Each second lengthened, sorrow's clock unbound,
When love is lost, slow-motion universe unwound.
The laws of time, in grief, are but a wisp,
A feeble grasp, a phantom's icy kiss,
Yet as that teardrop descends, my heart insists,
That in its fall, hopeless eternity exists.
Oh, wretched soul, stumbling through the night,
While sorrow's burden keeps you from the light,
But see, the drop, its fall slow but finite,
In its descent, it tells of love's respite.
Though heartbreak's weight tears spirits down,
And in the depths, the wearied soul may drown,
This drop of water, falling, ever down,
Reveals a truth wound into the sorrow's crown.
For in its languor, solace does reside,
A fleeting solace that periodically subsides,
A moment's breath, a pause, a world implied,
Wherein I find new paths, undenied.
So let me dwell, within this steady fall,
And find in sorrow a tender call,
For in its pace, I find my spirit renewing,
To heal the wounds, heartbreak’s undoing.
Samantha Underhill is a poet, voice artist, and professor. Her vivid emotional works can be found in publications such as Sadness of the Siren; Weird Tales; Weird House; Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, and more.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
I grew up on the periphery of the widely divisive Ghoti-Bangal[1] debate. I gathered, from snide remarks made by friends, that the east and the west of Bengal’s Radcliffe Line ate very differently. One disapproved of the other’s propensity to add sugar into savouries, the other complained that chillis should be garnishing and not the mainstay. Some friends were Bati— half Bangal, half Ghoti — who claimed to have the best (or worst) of both worlds. When questioning eyes turned to me, I mostly shrugged; I wasn’t sure. Inquiry changed to incredulity with “what kind of food do you eat at home?”
“Umm… just food.”
As a child, I didn’t think much of the food that was put on the table. For my mother, food was entirely functional. Everything was cooked just enough to be edible. The more items that could be served steamed or grilled, the better. Gravies were light, dals[2] were boiled, vegetables were lightly stir-fried. Bengalis typically have elaborate recipes for everything – even dhyarosh[3]can be cooked in a mustard-and-poppy-seed paste — but my mother wasn’t having (or giving) any of that. She disliked cooking and she simply wasn’t a “foodie”.
The effects of the Raj linger, even 76 years later, in the way many of us eat, speak, dress. It’s evident in our childhood reading lists and the movies we want to watch on loop when we miss home. But no matter how many variations of Egg Benedicts we’re ordering at newly opened cafes around town, food at home tends to remain dependably authentic to an era which predates invasion by the shepherd’s pie. In kitchens across Bengal, the choto maach or boro maach[4]sizzling in the pan can tell you a lot about which side of the border the antecedents of the residents lie, even if their speech patterns don’t immediately give it away.
The kitchen I grew up with refused to pick a side. Bland aloo sheddho[5], which was neither a buttery mash nor a spicy bhorta[6], sauteed borboti[7]which your average agent of the Raj would likely pass, and oven-roasted chicken (honed to perfection over the years) kept me supple and appreciative of the contents of other girls’ tiffin boxes. Our daily fish was nearly always a basic rui[8] which neither the Ghotis nor the Bangals could be moved to wage war over. Occasionally a dollop of mustard oil and a crunch of chilli to liven up the boiled dal might make my friends scream “Bangal!”, but the subtle flavours of the koshamangsho[9] from my grandmother’s recipe book waved the Ghoti banner. Every now and then my mother used the oven to bake a light sponge cake which I doused with warm custard, negating both sides in favour of the Union Jack.
What makes people Ghoti or Bangal, I once asked a friend who was shaking her head at my inability to identify with either. I was the opposite of a Bati… what did that make me? Paati[10]? My friend’s classification was simplistic — those with ancestors who hailed from East Bengal before the 1947 Partition were Bangal, those who hailed from West Bengal were Ghoti, and the two camps were violent supporters of rival football teams. I wasn’t so sure that that was all there was to it. What I was looking for, was a feeling of belonging and cultural heritage that trickled down the generations — a feeling which made younger people resonate with the traditions of either side, even in an age where an acquired love for sushi (with perhaps an extra dollop of wasabi for the Bangals, perhaps) was beginning to bind us.
My mother’s family was in Chittagong before Partition but my father’s family was mostly from Calcutta. I was told the move from Chittagong was harrowing, as it was for everyone who was uprooted from their homes. I remember my grandfather as a scowling, angry man — he might have been 17 when they fled home and managed to reach Calcutta, relatively unscathed. His father, my great grandfather, had had the foresight to arrange accommodation, exchanging his house with another which lay on the right side of the new border. The family who had vacated this house were The Khans, and we referred to them as reverentially as the rest of the country referred to Bollywood’s leading families — who had vacated their house. I envision my ancestors, terrified and exhausted from the journey, staring up at the black gates of the sparkling white house I used to visit in my childhood — three red steps leading from the small front garden into a wide verandah beyond. I didn’t know then that the tall wooden doors with stained glass panes were a hallmark of Islamic architecture, I just thought it was cool. My grandfather’s eldest brother remained a silent man throughout his life, shaken by being uprooted from his plush life in Chittagong. The second eldest brother died soon enough, of heartbreak they said, not for the loss of a woman but for the loss of land. My great grandmother spent her last days painting the scenes she remembered of rivers and lush green farmlands. No doubt the busy market road in front of the too-small-but-actually-large house in Calcutta was not inspiring enough.
What did they eat? Just food?
My mother remembers her grandmother dressing for dinner — pinning on a brooch, clasping a string of pearls around her neck — seated at the head of the table, frail with cancer. Her trembling hands would pick up the knife and fork to slowly carve the fillet of fish before her. I have memories of my grandfather doing the same in the last year of his life, struggling to arrange a bib on his shirt, snapping at the nurse if she forgot to provide him with adequate cutlery for his bowl of Pish-pash — an Anglo-Indian one-pot chicken-and-rice dish. Through my mother’s childhood, the neighbourhood, dominated by Anglo Indians and Muslims, dished out biryani for Eid and plum pie for Christmas, making both biryani and pudding-with-brandy-sauce the highlights of my youthful eating.
My great grandmother’s memories of Chittagong dinners included chicken roast and mulligatawny soup. I was eating the same every Sunday inside dining rooms which demanded that the men, like my grandfather’s mother, dress for dinner. Here, I developed a palate for butter-oozing Chicken a la Kiev and Roast Mutton with Mint Sauce where I mixed the spicy green with the onion-brown on my plate, fascinated by the contrasting flavours. I was taught to tell the fish knife from the vegetable knife (and that eating with only a fork was an abhorrence), so I didn’t drive my cutlery-obsessed grandfather, Little Lord Fauntleroy, into a fury. This weekly enacting of colonial times made “just food” at home entirely worth it for the rest of the week.
If I couldn’t stand any more of pepe diye paatla maacher jhol[11] which even a Ghoti would balk at, I’d call my father on his office landline to ask, in whispers, if he wanted to bring something home for dinner. He’d make a noncommittal sound over the phone which nearly always meant alright. Those were days I couldn’t wait to dig into dal-bhaat[12] cheered up by burrah kebabs[13] or plain old omelette served with a side of fish and chips. The additions didn’t make my mother happy; she wanted her children to be reared on roasts and grills, not softened around the middle with too many fries and Tartar sauce.
My father, who had none of the baggage of displacement, had decided early on that only a bland “Continental” diet (a cuisine reminiscent of the Raj, which still prevails in Calcutta) could keep at bay the many digestive disorders the Bengalis are prone to. Grilled fish with varying condiments was the most ordered dish of my childhood, which I watched him cheerfully douse with lemon butter sauce, convinced it was better for his cholesterol levels than deemer devil[14]. If I was lucky to have him fetch me on report-collection day, he’d take me to a restaurant near school where they served grilled fish with a creamy spinach puree, which made me see why Popeye the Sailor Man could be hooked to green leafy vegetables. Years later, unable to digest hospital food, it was his turn to whisper if I could bring something for dinner. I knew the “something” would have to be fillet of fish, grilled and served with beurre blanc[15].
Despite my mother’s efforts to the contrary, I turned out to be quite the “foodie”. I have a deep interest in eating, more so than many people who grew up with distinctive flavours at their dining table. Conversations about food will keep me riveted. Feeling flavours come together in my mouth like art will always brighten up a bleak day. My mother, who continues to eat boiled pumpkin for lunch, is bemused by this turn of events. When I left home, my functional eating habits followed me to different cities. With no patience for cooking a meal, I stocked the fridge with cartons of milk, crates of eggs and loaves of bread. My friends, on the other hand, attempted to recreate the recipes they’d grown up with, spending their weekends trying to recreate aloo posto[16]or a malaikari[17]. Since food was functional for me, I took the path of least resistance before the stove — a sunny side up served me well, because what I really wanted was a fish supreme[18].
Friends who grew up eating elaborate home-cooked meals do in fact, have less polarised attitudes to food, rarely oscillating between a craving for steamed cabbage or salmon-cream-cheese sandwich. Some days I might land up uninvited for lunch where I know the regular fare won’t be disappointing and a friend’s mother will serve an aloo jeere[19]from her Bangal repertoire, which makes the jacket potato of my youth pale, like the coloniser, in comparison.
My palate, free of both pride for my own boring larder and prejudice against a particular tradition, is perennially ready to accept the offerings from other people’s kitchens. I’ll eat anything my friends cook; I watch in wonder as they spruce up a boring boiled dal with crackling spices and I appreciate the cauliflower in the rich gravy of the kalia. Of course, when I can, I still order a chicken Forriester [20]or a tipsy pudding (it wobbles). I’m Paati in that!
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[1] Ghoti is a colloquialism that refers to people from West Bengal and Bangal are people from Bangladesh.
[20] Evolved from the French a la Forestière, which conjures up mushroom and pork strips
Ramona Sen has authored a novel, Crème Brûlée (Rupa Publications) and a novella, Potluck, (Juggernaut Books). Calcutta is the city of her soul, the backdrop of all that she writes.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Shadows, a poem in Korean, has been translated by the poet himself, Ihlwha Choi. Click hereto read.
Pranor Lifeby Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click hereto read.
Conversations
Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri converses withVinta Nanda about the Shout, a documentary by Vinta Nanda that documents the position of women in Indian society against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement and centuries of oppression and injustice. Click here to read.
Perhaps, most sceptics will say it is against human nature to stop fighting and fanning differences. The first recorded war was fought more than 13,000 years ago in what is now a desert but was green long ago. Nature changed its face. Continents altered over time. And now again, we are faced with strange shifts in climate that could redefine not just the dimensions of the surface area available to humankind but also our very physical existence. Can we absorb these changes as a species when we cannot change our nature to self-destruct for concepts that with a little redefining could move towards a world without wars leading to famines, starvation, destruction of beautiful edifices of nature and those built by humankind? That we could feed all of humans — a theory that won economist Abhijit Banerjee his Nobel Prize in 2019 so coveted by all humanity — almost seems to have taken a backseat. This confuses — as lemmings self-destruct…do humans too? I would have thought that all humanity would have moved towards resolving hunger and facing the climate crises post-2019 and post-pandemic, instead of killing each other for retaining constructs created by powerbrokers.
In the timeless lyrics of ‘Imagine’, John Lennon found peace by suggesting we do away with manmade constructs which breed war, anger and divisions and share the world as one. Wilfred Owen and many writers involved in the World Wars wrote to showcase the desolation and the heartfelt darkness that is brought on by such acts. Nazrul also created a story based on his experience in the First World War, ‘Hena’, translated for us by Sohana Manzoor. Showcasing the downside of another kind of conflict, a struggle to survive, is a story with a distinctive and yet light touch from S Ramakrishnan translated from Tamil by B Chandramouli. And yet in a conflict-ridden world, humans still yearn to survive, as is evident from Tagore’s poem Pran or ‘Life’. Reflecting it is the conditioning that we go through from our birth that makes us act as we do are translations by Professor Fakrul Alam of Masud Khan’s poetry and from Korean by Ihlwha Choi.
A figure who questioned his own conditioning and founded a new path towards survival; propounded living by need, and not greed; renounced violence and founded a creed that has survived more than 2500 years, is the man who rose to be the Buddha. Born as Prince Siddhartha, he redefined the norms with messages of love and peace. Reiterating the story of this legendary human is debutante author, Advait Kottary with his compelling Siddhartha:The Boy Who Became the Buddha, a book that has been featured in our excerpts too. In an interview, Kottary tells us more of what went into the making of the book which perhaps is the best survivor’s guide for humanity — not that we need to all become Buddhas but more that we need to relook at our own beliefs, choices and ways of life.
Another thinker-cum-film maker interviewed in this edition is Vinta Nanda for her film Shout, which highlights and seeks resolutions for another kind of crisis faced by one half of the world population today. She has been interviewed and her documentary reviewed by Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri. Chaudhuri has also given us an essay on a bookshop called Kunzum which continues to expand and go against the belief we have of shrinking hardcopy markets.
Gastronomical adventures seem to be another concurrent theme in this edition. Rhys Hughes has written of the Indian sweets with gulab jamun as the ultimate life saver from Yetis while trekking in the Himalayas! A musing on lemon pickle by Raka Banerjee and Ravi Shankar’s quest for the ultimate dosaaround the world — from India, to Malaysia, to Aruba, Nepal and more… tickle our palate and make us wonder at the role of food in our lives as does the story about biryani battles by Anagaha Narasimha.
Talk of war, perhaps, conjures up gastronomic dreams as often scarcity of food and resources, even potable water and electricity is a reality of war or conflict. Michael Burch brings to us poignant poetry about war as Ramesh Karthik Nayak has a poem on a weapon used in wars. Ryan Quinn Flanagan has brought another kind of ongoing conflict to our focus with his poetry centring on the National Day (May 5th) in Canada for Vigils for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women by hanging red clothes from trees, an issue that perhaps has echoes of Vinta Nanda’s Shout and Suzanne Kamata’s poetry for her friend who went missing decades ago as opposed to Rachel Jayen’s defiant poetry where she asserts her womanhood. Ron Pickett, George Freek and Sayantan Sur have given us introspective perspectives in verse. We have more poetry asking for a relook at societal norms with tongue-in -cheek humour by Jason Ryberg and of course, Rhys Hughes with his heartfelt poem on raiders in deserts.
The piece that really brought a smile to the lips this time was Farouk Gulsara’s ‘Humbled by a Pig’, a humorous recount of man’s struggles with nature after he has disrupted it. Keith Lyons has taken a look at the concept of bucket lists, another strange construct, in a light vein. Devraj Singh Kalsi has given a poignant and empathetic piece about trees with a self-reflective and ironic twist. We have narratives from around the world with Suzanne Kamata taking us to Osaka Comic Convention, Meredith Stephens to Sierra Nevada and Shivani Shrivastav to Ladakh. Paul Mirabile has travelled to the subterranean world with his fiction, in the footsteps perhaps of Jules Verne but not quite.
We are grateful to all our wonderful contributors some of whom have not been mentioned here but their works were selected because they truly enriched our June edition. Do visit our contents page to meet and greet all our wonderful authors. I would like to thank the team at Borderless without whose efforts and encouragement our journal would not exist and Sohana Manzoor especially for her fantastic artwork as well. Thank you all.
Wish you another lovely month of interesting reads!
In Conversation with Advait Kottary about his debut historical fiction, Siddhartha: The Boy Who Became the Buddha, published by Hachette, May 2023.
At a time, when the world looks for compassion, acceptance, love, kindness, relief from wars, economic downturns, divides drawn by multiple human-made constructs, what kind of a book could provide entertainment, solace and also suggest solutions to human crises?
Perhaps, Advait Kottary’s Siddhartha: The Boy Who Became the Buddha, comes closest to the kind of book that would encompass all these demands. Many people have written about Buddha and Buddhism, but few have attempted to recreate vividly the life of a prince who rebelled against social norms to uncover a path that more than 2,500 years later continues to be seen as a refuge from violence and hatred. For those who misconstrue Buddhism in the modern political ambience, this book could well be a reminder of what Buddhism is all about.
The writer, Advait Kottary, is an engineer turned actor. Perhaps that is why the visual vividness of the narrative is almost cinematic. The story flows like a stream taking the reader back in time to a period we know very less about. What is amazing is the way in which the author has unfolded the story beginning with Siddhartha’s enlightenment and his journey back through his life in that state. This unique situation gives the Buddha the advantage of not just revisiting scenes but also to visit those aspects of his life and that of others which he could not possibly have witnessed in reality. The Enlightened One witnesses his own birth, his mother’s demise, many battles and courts that he had never ventured into. At a point in his journey, Buddha brings to readers Prince Siddhartha’s dejection despite winning a war. Kottary narrates: “Siddhartha burst into tears. The man was right and all his anger was for the war itself, not directed towards the soldier in front of him… They had won the war, but at what cost?” These are pertinent questions that perhaps, if world leaders asked themselves, we would not have had Bakhmut (Ukraine) or the World Wars.
As Siddhartha finds his peace leaving his palatial home, he realises that he is fortunate to have a family that gives him the freedom to complete his quest (though initially with reluctance). He reflects on why he needs to go on this journey, upending the lives of his family, traditions and even his kingdom. He tells his first teacher, Alara Kalama, “At the root of all the customs and the things we consider to be tradition, I could find no answers, other than the ones that said we live in one way, simply because that is what we are accustomed to; whether it is by virtue of following the habits of one’s parents, or the habits of those in the world around us.”
While raising pertinent issues that need to be brought to the fore in the present context through Buddha’s journey, the detailed research that Kottary has put in is evident. People get drunk on Tongba, a pre-historic recipe for an alcoholic brew of millet which is still in use. Authenticity is enhanced by an interplay of historic incidents, including acceptance of Buddha’s beliefs by one of the bloodiest kings of Indian history, Ajaatshatru, who killed his own father, Bimbisara, drove his mother to death, fell in love with his father’s concubine and razed a city down to find her. Reading of the change wrought by Buddhism in such a ruthless man, one can find hope in the darkest of times. Maybe, like Ajaatshatru, mindless, warmongering political overlords will have a change of heart at some point.
The book is racy despite the factual content. It reads like a well-written fiction. Perhaps it is a bit of that for after all, could we really know what Buddha said to his wife? But what we do know is his wife supported him and became a bhikshuni at the end. The narrative flows — sometimes, calm and reflective while Buddha talks, and sometimes, moving through turbulence, war, intrigue and violence providing a counterfoil to Buddha’s own quest. At the end of every episode, there is that moment of stillness induced by the enlightened one’s comment as he moves towards a new scene from his past.
Each scene brings us closer to the resolution of how the personal and the larger-than-life quest combine to create a sense of harmony at the end. The narrative has the ageless innocence, elegance and wisdom of Oscar Wilde’s stories like “The Happy Prince”. Kottary, a debuting author with the ability to create a compelling tale, explains what went into the making of this remarkable book in this interview.
Buddha is a subject much written about. And yet, you have given this book a unique twist. What made you select the life of Buddha as your debut venture into the arena of historical fiction?
I think I’ve always been fascinated with history and stories from the past, wondering how much of it happened the way we imagine it, and constantly imagining what life was like in any age of the past.
The story of Siddhartha, or the Buddha, came to me at a very interesting time in my life. I had just quit my engineering job, and though I vaguely knew I wanted to act and write, I had no real clue what lay ahead. It was at this time that I found a copy of Old Path, White Clouds by the revered Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hath, at home. At the time, Mom (Gajra Kottary) was reading it for research for a television show she was scripting, and I began to read it, often just opening up to a different random page every time and reading about a fascinating story from Siddhartha’s life. Over the years, I began to read more and more about the life of Siddhartha, beyond the basic facts I had learned in school, and found it so striking that a lot of questions that Siddhartha had from his life and his world, were the same questions that we have from life today. At a stage I was trying to find my feet in life, something resonated within me, and I found so many facets of his life that barely anyone knew about… I felt compelled to tell the story, and it seemed only natural to tell it through his eyes.
What kind of research went into your book? How many years did it take you to create the final product?
If I’m honest I can’t really quantify the amount of research that went into it, I can just sum it up and say, A LOT! Through each and every draft of the book, I’d read more and more about the subject, and there were so many beautiful tales that couldn’t make it to the final manuscript too! But it took more than five years of writing, rewriting, and rethinking. Several drafts were involved. Of course, there were other things I was doing, but putting the book aside for a few months, and revisiting it made me come back with a fresh perspective too, which really helped the process.
How much is fact and how much fiction? Tell us about the journey of the book.
History is certainly the greatest storyteller, and most of what you read in the book is fact. The places, the people, and most of the incidents are all part of recorded history. I had to imagine a lot of the interpersonal relationships involved in the story while weaving the narrative, especially since I was telling the tale from Siddhartha’s point of view. It was therefore critical to understand where he was in his spiritual journey at the time those things happened.
And to be honest that is what fascinated me the most, the lesser-known parts surrounding the known facts and bullet points of history. I couldn’t find Siddhartha’s angst really being dissected before, or his pain being talked about, because history often makes us think of him as a sea of calm, a stoic man. As I went through the drafts, I understood that in this layer of emotions lay something that perhaps we hadn’t thought of before. And of course, we know now that Siddhartha found the answers he was looking for, but back when he left the palace and renounced his life, he had no idea if he would ever find what he was looking for. Can you imagine the turmoil of someone who can surrender the rest of their time to finding an answer they may never actually find? There was a great human tale there, and I wanted to delve into the things in his life that built up to that journey, while learning more about it myself.
You have unfolded the Eightfold Path through Buddha’s personal journey, bringing in his own life experiences into play. Is that something you found in the course of your research or was it your own conclusion? Please elaborate.
A lot of it was down to research, and documented incidents in the life of Siddhartha, but I feel like especially when telling the story of Siddhartha’s life from his own point of view, it was essential to bring his own life experiences into play. Siddhartha’s learnings were often through practice and self-experimentation, a theme that is echoed throughout the book.
There are many personalised details which recreate a distant time period that is unknown to us. What went into giving authenticity to these unknown persons, their thoughts, conversations and tying them up to give us a picture of the times? How did you create characters from the past that could touch on contemporary issues and hearts?
I think it’s easy to think of characters of the past as unidimensional beings. Often that is how history is academically taught to us; good person – bad person, winner – loser etc. But when telling a story, it would be a huge injustice on my part if I did the same. As an actor, the biggest strength one can have is empathy, and every character I’ve played, I’ve always had to personalise the motivations, the desires, the fears and the joys of them all. I tried to think of all the characters in Siddhartha in the same manner. For example, it would have been easy for us to think about Siddhartha’s father, King Shuddhodana, as wrong for sheltering him from the realities of life, like pain, suffering and death. But that would be such a myopic view of what happened, and not taking into account the prophecies that had been told to him, and the fact that Siddhartha had been born after years and years of wanting a child; the stakes were incredibly high!
All it took was a little curiosity and deep thinking into why these characters did what they did; they were simply following their convictions in that moment… Most of it seemed logical, given we knew what each of these characters wanted at different points in time, but of course there was a fair bit of imagination when it came to their conversations. I was always fascinated by how each character would be at their most vulnerable, because that is a part of history that is never touched upon, and I’ve tried to do that in Siddhartha.
You have touched on many contemporary concerns in your book— war, the need to question traditions. You have even said something very deep when you had Buddha say: “Acceptance can only happen when there is no ego.” Was all this done intentionally, or did it just happen in the flow of events? Please elucidate.
When I first began to think about the story of Siddhartha, what struck me was always the contemporary relevance of the questions Siddhartha asked, more than 2500 years ago… Siddhartha always questioned everyone around him, but it was with a view to understand the universe and the world that he was born into. If he didn’t understand, he asked, and with every answer he got from people or the world around him, came new understanding and new questions too. A lot of it happened in the flow of events; but what was challenging was understanding the internal journey of Siddhartha through these events, his emotions and learnings as he grew up, and that had to be intentional in journey and design.
You have been living in London. Did you visit the parts of the Indian subcontinent you have written about?
Yes! It was a surreal experience for me, I had the good fortune of being able to visit Sarnath and Bodh Gaya from Varanasi. I can tell you that photos do not do the Dhamekh Stupa justice, it’s a beautiful and tranquil place, almost like you’ve stepped into a different world.
Did any films, writers or books impact your choices and the way you executed the book? What writers, artistes impact you as a writer?
Growing up as the son of a journalist and a scriptwriter, I’d be lying if I said my parents Sailesh and Gajra Kottary hadn’t strongly influenced my writing. I’ve also been inspired by Antione de Saint Exupery’s The Little Prince and the way it spoke of such beautiful thoughts in such a simple manner, a principle I tried to keep in mind while writing Siddhartha. Some of my favourite films are Dr. Strangelove, the Batman Trilogy, and the television series, Succession. I’m quite fond of storytelling in general as an actor and creator, and I have this weird habit of trying to piece together the narrative in everything I see, maybe even an advertisement in a magazine, deconstructing it and analysing the choices made by the creators.
Your novel is very cinematic. Are there plans afoot to make it into a film, considering the choices you have made, choosing acting over engineering and cars? Did your mother, Gajra Kottary, a major screenplay writer in India, have an impact on the choices you made and your journey as a writer?
Thank you! I’m a very visual thinker, so when I read or write about something, I watch it unfold like a movie in my mind, perhaps that is reflected to some extent in my writing. I have had interest expressed in the book from a couple of wonderful filmmakers, and hopefully I’ll have some amazing news to share soon!
My mother has been the greatest writing influence in my life, and I have to give her credit in that she has only guided and taught me and never tried to influence my decisions in the kind of work or projects that I take up.
So, what are your plans for the future? Any more books coming our way?
Yes, most certainly! I’ve got two drafts screaming at me for attention. One is about the life of another historical figure, closer to modern times, who lead an unbelievable life. The other one is pure fiction and more in the genre of dark humour; a dystopian take on modern civilisation, but again centred around a clear protagonist.
I’m living in London now and continue to act and perform in theatre as well, so there’s always something exciting happening on that front. I’ve also had some interest in Siddhartha from some wonderful film makers, so fingers crossed something visually beautiful can be born from this. So the hunt for great stories continues!
Thank you so much for your time and your lovely book.
(The review & online interview conducted through emails are by Mitali Chakravarty)
Ghee-laden, sugar-loaded, deep-fried, I have been warned that Indian sweets are naughty, even dangerous, and that I shouldn’t eat them at all, or if I do insist on eating them, then they must only be sampled in moderation, and even when I eat them in moderation I ought to visit a reliable doctor every week for a full health check, and even if I do that, I must bear in mind that men of my age die of heart attacks even when they don’t eat sweets of this nature. Indian sweets might look harmless on the plate but they are like cluster bombs, detonating inside the body and speeding a man into the next world.
But I climb mountains and mountaineering has been a huge part of my life, and when we climbed mountains back in Britain we took with us large amounts of a substance called Kendal Mint Cake. I need to talk about this food before I am able to make the point that I intend to make about Indian sweets. If you bear with me, I won’t be too long. Kendal Mint Cake is a sugar-based confection and is flavoured with peppermint oil. In fact, sugar, water and peppermint oil are the only ingredients, but they are prepared in a special way which remains a secret. I don’t think there’s much that’s very secretive about blending sugar, water and peppermint oil, but who am I to say that?
The ingredients are mixed together and boiled in copper pans while being continually stirred. If this stirring stops, the mixture becomes translucent and it will be ruined, because opacity is the desired feature of Kendal Mint Cake. How can a translucent sugar-rush product be taken seriously? We see the light after a lifetime of contemplation. We see a solid lump of minty sugar when we plan to ascend to the summit of some peak or other.
Kendal Mint Cake has a formidable and perhaps peerless reputation as the energy-providing snack of choice for the intrepid explorer. It played an essential role in the Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917, led by Ernest Shackleton, one of the fittest and toughest men who ever lived. It aided Hillary and Tenzing in the first successful attempt on Everest in 1953 and other members of the team wrote, “It was easily the most popular item on our high altitude ration” and “our only criticism was that we did not have enough of it”. High praise indeed, with an emphasis on the high. Bonington also climbed Everest in 1975 using Kendal Mint Cake, as well as ropes and crampons.
I think we can safely declare that Kendal Mint Cake is heroic. Therefore, it seems to be that Indian sweets can also be regarded as mighty, valiant, doughty, gallant, fearless and daring. And when we consider that India has mountains far higher than those in Britain, shouldn’t we tend to the conclusion that the sweets of India are themselves a bracing landscape when seen on the counter of a shop that sells them? We hear a lot of talk about sugar highs and lows, but viewed as a backdrop, rather than as the progress of a graph line through time, highs and lows form mountain ranges. Indian sweets recreate on the inside the geography of the northern icy reaches of the country.
It is high time (more wordplay) that mountaineers and other explorers start carrying Indian sweets on their expeditions. Kendal Mint Cake has proved itself in the lonely heights, and now gulab jamuns and ladoos, and boxes of sandesh, modak, barfi and bowls of payasam should be given a fair chance, to say nothing of kulfi, halwa, gujiya, and my favourite, Mysore pak. Need I list them all? It is not just a question of providing energy to the adventurer, energy that can be expended a very short time after eating the sweets, as opposed to eating healthy foods which provide energy slowly and in trickles. No, there are many other good reasons for adding a broad selection of sweets to the supplies that are to be taken up slopes of staggering steepness into the very clouds.
First of all, sweets are light. They are lighter than so-called healthy foods. I pity the mountaineer who hefts sacks of cabbages and carrots to the top of harsh and fearsome Annapurna or Dhaulagiri. Sweets are considerably more compact than vegetables, especially the unpleasant-tasting vegetables. Sweets can remain fresh for longer and that’s another advantage. You don’t have to eat them all in the foothills but can save some for the ascent.
Sweets are rewards too. The fellow who promises himself a ladoo or two when he finally attains a certain tricky ledge is more likely to be motivated to strive for that ledge than the man who tempts himself with a turnip or beetroot. Who would want to munch on a root vegetable during a blizzard? Not me. The taking of sweets on expeditions also provides work for sweet-makers. It is both economically wise and aesthetically sensible to carry sweets together with ropes and pitons and carabiners and all the other accoutrements of a sober climb if one happens to be a serious climber. Hunger pangs are one thing at sea level, but at altitude they tend to be much worse.
There is another consideration that hasn’t yet been touched on. There is the perennial risk for the mountaineer who attempts the Himalayas that he will meet and be abducted by Yetis. I won’t overstate the risk. Most of the climbers of that range have returned without being abducted. But is it really responsible to poke one’s nose into the eternal snows without something to mollify the beast? There is the question of simply organic respect. The explorer who suddenly encounters a Yeti and emits a shriek has insulted his potential host. The explorer who opens a box of sweets and offers one, or several, or many, to the hairy brute will surely make a good impression. I can almost see them now, in my mind’s eye, man and monster sitting on a crag, sharing gulab jamuns.
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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Pran or Life by Tagore was published in 1886 as part of his collection called, Kori O Komal (Sharp and Flat). The book featured 83 poems by him.
Art by Sohana Manzoor
LIFE
I do not desire death in this resplendent universe.
I want to live amidst the ocean of humanity.
In this radiant sunny garden of floral swirls,
I yearn for acceptance from hearts filled with vitality.
Life on Earth ebbs and flows in transient waves.
Partings and meetings are filled with tears and joys.
I want to bead these emotions into melodic strains,
To create songs that will be eternal and spirits buoy.
If I cannot achieve that, then as long as I live,
Let me find shelter in your midst.
Let me, every morning and evening, give
Lyrics that bloom like flowers waiting for a tryst.
Pluck the blossoms happily, and then, without a sigh,
Throw them away, alas, if they wilt or dry.
A recitation of the original poem in Bengali by Swati
(This poem has been translated by Mitali Chakravartywith editorial support from Sohana Manzoor)
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“It is 5.23 am,” I told myself as I glanced at my watch. “I guess I got up early. Anyway, SK should be here right about now, right on the dot at 5.30am, as he has always been. Today is not going to be any different.”
I plugged on my earphones to hear the continuation of a podcast that I had been listening to from the previous week. It was a day before the full moon, but the cloudy skies and the lack of streetlights made the road look pretty dark. I sat on the raised stone fence as the auto-gate slowly closed from the inside.
Far behind a parked car, I could see a moving shadow. It looked like the silhouette of two stocky legs pacing haphazardly as if they were swaying. At once, I thought that it must be my neighbour’s son struggling to get back to his home after a long Saturday night out with the guys.
“Wow!” I was thinking as I symbolically patted myself on the back for keeping up with the routine all these years despite raging inner demons and concerned naysayers who keep advising me to slow down on account of being a half-centurion! “Only madmen would be running on a Sunday morning when the sane recovers from a stuporous night out!” they say.
Just as I was drowning in the nectar of my self-praise, I realised that the shadow cast under the car was not that of a man. The contour of two legs soon became four, and a greyish, horrendously ugly-looking face with a tinge of what appeared like thick whiskers soon manifested. I was 10 feet away, locking eyes with Vishnu’s third avatar, the Varaha, a wild boar!
Here I was, I thought, in the comfort of city living, enjoying the fruit of my lifelong struggle to benefit from the support of privacy and security of the gated community, I felt I had had it all. Within the luxury of economic independence and intellectual reasoning, the brutal combat of our ancient ancestors and the street smartness of the lesser beings have taken a back seat. Even in my wildest dream, I never envisaged a moment when I would have to face a wild beast!
It was the stare between two worlds; one of the modern domesticated kind who had a fight-or-flight response limited to his autonomic nervous system versus one who had to fight to stay alive and keep his place in the hierarchy of the pecking order of the jungle.
The stare looked like it lasted for an eternity. The boar, of course, hungry and desperate for food, did not want a competitor. As if he knew that I was not interested in his food, thank you very much. Negotiation naturally was out of the question, and so were all civil niceties.
I turned around to ring the bell to my house as I did not have the gate key. The sudden movement must have startled the beast. It gave a low-pitched snorting grunt as if it was showing its displeasure. Interesting, it was my neighbourhood, and the visitor or rather an intruder was displeased! Well, that is the law of the jungle. Might is right, and there is no place for logic. This is the ‘id’ that Freud asks us to put under check by societal pressures. It could manifest in a mob situation when enforcement crumbles.
Just when I thought that nay was near, me being gored by a wild beast, a beacon of hope came in the form of a beam of light from an SUV. My ride arrived right on the dot, just in time to turn the table on the aggressor. Awed by the approach – perhaps it thought the vehicle was a giant animal with a louder roar — its ‘fight’ mode downgraded to ‘flight’ as it turned its back to return to its own home. It retreated.
As we drove along, we saw a humbled pig strutting with its tail between its legs heading towards the secondary jungle. Probably my friend must have been reminded of the carefree days of his childhood when sauteed and spiced wild boar meat with toddy was a delicacy among friends.
That is why we are repeatedly advised by wise men to get back to nature. Nature gives a purpose to our existence. Its massive structures, like the trees, the mountains and elements of nature, awe us to the ground. It impresses upon us our deficiencies and our feebleness. It drills unto us that we are nothing, just a passer-by who makes a cursory appearance, while Mother Nature and the Universe continue into eternity. We are not even a single fragment of a tiny dot in the Milky Way, and even lesser in the ever-expanding dimensions of the Universe.
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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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‘King Bimbisara is completely enamoured with Amrapali. He seems to be in love with her, and for that, Ajaatshatru seems to detest him. They are not on speaking terms anymore. Moreover, when I was there, Ajaatshatru did not speak a word even to me…’
‘Are you sure you did not do anything to upset him?’ asked Shuddhodana, concerned. Ajaatshatru giving Siddhartha the cold shoulder was worrying news indeed. He was only a few years younger than Siddhartha and was poised to take the throne from Bimbisara. If, in the future, the rulers of Kapilavastu and Magadha could not see eye to eye, then what would be the point of this trade route that they had so carefully worked on? What would be the point of the independence from the trade route through Kosala?
‘Father, how could I have upset him when he wouldn’t even speak to me? He chose to go hunting both on the day that I arrived as well as the day that I left.’
‘This is not good,’ said Shuddhodana. ‘This is the result of Bimbisara’s own foolishness. The only reason that Ajaatshatru dislikes you is because Bimbisara keeps comparing him to you. He was always very taken by your insight.’
‘But if that were the case, then we have no reason to worry! If I try to establish friendly relations with Ajaatshatru, then perhaps we will not have anything to fear!’
Shuddhodana was taken aback at how optimistic Siddhartha sounded. He wished he could share his optimism but was wary of saying anything to take away his son’s enthusiasm for affairs of the state.
‘But there was still something wrong with King Bimbisara; he seemed to not have any relations at all with Queen Kosala. Instead, he spent most of his time with the courtesan Amrapali. I believe Ajaatshatru took offence to that too, for he didn’t seem interested in spending any time with me.’
‘I wouldn’t give it too much thought, Siddhartha, there are things about that family that you do not know. Perhaps it is not right for us to ascertain from the outside, the merits of their dynamic, but they have shared a very troubled relationship, let us leave it at that…’
‘What do you mean, father?’
‘The stars are powerful, Siddhartha. Great things can be done and undone, depending on whether one has luck and destiny on his side or not. Parents may be invulnerable when it comes to anything else on earth, but they are powerless when it comes to their children. Once the idea that some misfortune might befall their children enters their heads, they will do anything to ensure that this does not happen.’
‘Including banishing every single crippled, injured or maimed person from their kingdom to live in misery?’
Shuddhodana gave Siddhartha a sharp look.
‘Who has told you of this?’ asked Shuddhodana.
‘I have seen Sukhibasti with my own eyes, Father.’
Shuddhodana felt like he had been hit square in the chest with a mace.
‘I did what I believe was right, Siddhartha,’ he said.
‘You could call it that, Father, but I am simply trying to understand how a man as great as you could love his family as much as you have, while showing no mercy to your subjects.’
Shuddhodana was insulted, more so because he was hearing these words from his own son. Siddhartha was crossing a line.
‘Siddartha, I am your Father but I am your king as well. Do not forget that.’
‘Do not threaten me, Father. I have seen what you created. How long did you plan to keep it a secret? How long did you plan to have it hidden from me? How many more lies are there to discover?’
‘Enough!’ bellowed Shuddhodana. ‘I did what I had to, to safeguard the kingdom and its heir from straying off the path that was chosen for him.’
‘Did you think that you needed to take the words of someone who hadn’t seen the future so seriously that it influenced the way you brought up your own child?’
‘He was my Guru, Siddhartha, just as Guru Kondanna was yours.’
‘Guru Kondanna is my guru!’ Siddhartha corrected an angry Shuddhodana.
‘You are overstepping your boundaries, Siddhartha. I have been very patient and understanding, but enough is enough. You cannot take the pain of others and make it your own all the time. At the end of the day, one’s duty must take precedence over everything else.’
Siddhartha calmed down and collected himself. He took off his armour and laid it on the floor of the courtroom at the foot of his father’s throne.
‘Forgive me, Father. I do not mean to disrespect you or my duty but what must one do when he is unable to see the reason behind one’s duty and dharma? When I left Kapilavastu, I encountered nothing but suffering and sadness. The farmers who grow the food we eat are exploited mercilessly by royal guards and collectors. I have been sleepless since I returned from Sukhibasti. Are you aware that our own injured and maimed soldiers are sent there? They fought for us and with us in the war. How can one call this duty?’
(Extracted from Siddhartha: The Boy Who Became the Buddha by Advait Kottary. Published by Hachette India, 2023.)
ABOUT THE BOOK
His family was happy to see him, but they had hoped to meet the Siddhartha they knew, not the Buddha he had become.
Long before Siddhartha became the enlightened leader [Buddha], he was a boy oblivious of the world. As the young prince navigates politics and relationships, he slowly begins to question his oppressively perfect life. Meanwhile his family struggles to maintain their deception in the hope that they can mould him into a dutiful king – from banishing the old and sick to hiding their own advancing age. In Advait Kottary’s intricately woven narrative, raw human emotion and conflict is tempered with the boundless compassion of the Buddha. Exciting and insightful in equal measure, Siddhartha is at once a riveting story and a profound meditation on our shared quest for truth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Advait Kottary is a writer and actor residing in London. Passionate about cars and engineering, he worked as an engine designer before quitting his job to pursue his love of writing and the performing arts. He went on to lead the world’s biggest Bollywood musical Jaan-E-Jigar, and act in international productions such as Beecham House. Advait has also co-conceptualised the award-winning television show Molkki and voiced several audiobooks with Swedish platform Storytel. Siddhartha is his first novel, which stemmed from his own quest to understand the Self and his encounter with the Buddha’s teachings.
Guernica by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Courtesy: Creative Commons
SURVIVORS
In truth, we do not feel the horror
of the survivors,
but what passes for horror:
a shiver of “empathy”.
We too are “survivors”,
if to survive is to snap back
from the sight of death
like a turtle retracting its neck.
VEILED
She has belief
without comprehension
and in her crutch work shack
she is
much like us ...
tamping the bread
into edible forms,
regarding her children
at play
with something akin to relief ...
ignoring the towers ablaze
in the distance
because they are not revelations
but things of glass,
easily shattered ...
and if you were to ask her,
she might say—
sometimes God visits his wrath
upon an impious nation
for its leaders’ sins,
and we might agree:
seeing her mutilations.
SALVE
The world is unsalvageable ...
but as we lie here
in bed
stricken to the heart by love
despite war’s
flickering images,
sometimes we still touch,
laughing, amazed,
that our flesh
does not despair
of love
as we do,
that our bodies are wise
in ways we refuse
to comprehend,
still insisting we eat,
drink ...
even multiply.
And so we touch ...
touch, and only imagine
ourselves immune:
two among billions
in this night of wished-on stars,
caresses,
kisses,
and condolences.
We are not lovers of irony,
we
who imagine ourselves
beyond the redemption
of tears
because we have salvaged
so few
for ourselves ...
and so we laugh
at our predicament,
fumbling for the ointment.
Michael R. Burch’s poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into fourteen languages, incorporated into three plays and two operas, and set to music by seventeen composers.
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Borderless 