Categories
Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

The Clock Tower of Sir Ticktock Bongg

Big Ben, London. Courtesy: Creative Commons
THE CLOCK TOWER OF SIR TICKTOCK BONGG


When Ticktock Bongg was knighted by the Queen
it should have been like a scene from a dream
but his heart was set on something rather different
and so he went away feeling indifferent.
What he truly craved was to possess the power
of transforming himself into a tall clock tower.
Yes, that’s what he wanted more than anything else,
to chime the passing hours high above the town
with bells located between his nose and his frown.

Who knows what possessed him in those mad days?
We all have our own peculiar little ways
but Sir Ticktock Bongg was surely in the wrong
to wish that his face would sound like a gong.
Alas! it’s too late now to worry about that
because one summer evening not long after supper
Sir Ticktock Bongg’s heart began to flutter
and he felt all his muscles and sinews stretch
as he muttered and mumbled and softened to butter.

His form became fluid and he started to grow
and for the reason that up was the best way to go
he was presently higher than the season required.
Soon his expression was ecstatic, full of bliss,
the features of a man elongated into an edifice.
Now the tallest structure in town glanced down
and saw two feet with ten toes standing on the street
but of hands on the ends of arms there was no sign
for they had relocated to his face to indicate the time.

Well, that was fine, Sir Ticktock Bongg concluded,
if it meant that no one would ever again be late.
About this prospect in fact he was most effusive
though his smile of gladness still proved elusive
because he now lacked a mouth, but what of that?
It is also quite futile to be troubled by the stray cat
that got stuck in his belfry after the change occurred.
To climb up there is absurd, but that’s what it did,
and was scared to come down again, poor little thing.

Much time has passed since that momentous evening
and the citizens regard him at last with affection,
considering him an emissary of perfect punctuality,
whether professional or apprentice they are grateful,
but there’s one objection to the way he fulfils his task,
for his clock head is so distant it can’t be easily read
and the people are forced with hoarse shouts to ask:
“What is the time please, Sir Ticktock Bongg?”
and he always replies with the same resonant song:

“Bing bong ding dong chime whine boom bong dong
bong dong boom whine chime dong ding bong bing.”

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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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Categories
Musings

Simon Says

By Ishita Shukla

‘Simon Says’ is a children’s game for three or more players. One player takes the role of Simon and issues instructions to the other players, which should be followed only when prefaced with the phrase — “Simon says”. It was a fun and vibrant game we played as children. Little did I know that as a girl, the game would be embedded into my own life.

“Simon says” girls shouldn’t be alone in the vicinity of males because apparently half of the world’s population is a threat to the other half. And mind you, this is the rule of well-educated Indian families as a large proportion of girls are not allowed to step out of the house at the onset of darkness. Superficially, more and more families are encouraging girls to be independent and strong but are oblivious to the fact that we are taught to be cautious and are raised to be preventive. On one hand, we are taught to be outspoken and on the other to shush to save our “izzat” (honour). Funny how one chromosome can establish a whole discriminatory community? Funny how women are also the ones blamed for this because of the premonition that women are responsible for the sex of a child, even though it is biologically impossible for us! I guess it’s just the inability of the smartest species on the planet to open their mind just a tad. 

“Simon says” that women should be ready to give up their hopes and ambitions for the sake of their families. After all, we were born to make sacrifices, weren’t we? Why do you ask? Because we don’t have enough muscles and can’t speak in an authoritative tone like men. Oh, and also because men are raised to be dominating and are free to control women’s lives.

Simon says that women should pass on their legacies to their daughters. The legacy is none other than to play ‘Simon Says’ with a fake smile plastered on their face. I respect the progress we have made, but the reality is pellucid and we have a long way to go. Not just for men to thoroughly understand the privileges they are assigned, but also for women on how to stand against these privileges. 

In conclusion, I would like to introduce you to our Simon in my India — they are the societal norms.

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 Ishita Shukla is an aspiring writer from India. Through her writing, Ishita likes to put the spotlight on the less discussed topics and pour her heart out on  paper.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are solely that of the author and not of Borderless Journal.

Categories
Poetry

The Beloved City

Poetry of Munir Momin, translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch

Munir Momin is a contemporary Balochi poet widely cherished for his sublime art of poetry. Meticulously crafted images, linguistic finesse and profound aesthetic sense have earned him a distinguished place in Balochi literature. His poetry speaks through images, more than words. Momin’s poetry flows far beyond the reach of any ideology or socio-political movement. Nevertheless, he is not ignorant of the stark realities of life. The immenseness of his imagination and his mastery over the language rescues his poetry from becoming the part of any mundane narrative. So far Munir has published seven collections of his poetry and an anthology of short stories. His poetry has been translated into Urdu, English and Persian.  He also edits a literary journal called Gidár.

The Beloved City

Bemoan not the silence.
You are still a new arrival here, 
Your colour' still brighter than this city’s trees 
No one will talk to you yet. 
Once the city’s poison 
Seeps into your veins and fades away, 
A relationship will blossom 
And then the city will converse with you. 

Look at me, 
I’ve travelled all my life 
Still my questions remain thirsty for an answer 
And dry are the eyes of these stagnant clouds. 
If you seek life here,
Look for a few graves on the city’s outskirts 
Which are not ruined yet.
On these graves, 
Some flowers have blossomed 
They often whisper to each other 
And there are a couple of pigeons 
Whose eyes well up at times, otherwise, 

The inhabitants of this city are the kind of people 
Who right at the time of their death
Drifted off to sleep.
When they woke up, 
The battler was over 
And the caravan’s dust had settled.

Fazal Baloch is a Balochi writer and translator. He has translated many Balochi poems and short stories into English. His translations have been featured in Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters and in the form of books and anthologies.

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Categories
Poetry

One Day in the Life of a Daydreamer

By Sujash Purna

One Day in the Life of a Daydreamer

The blue book with Whitman’s face
peers at me with the graphically
enhanced shadow of doubt.

I don’t learn to sing, but to dream
with my eyes open, no captain
for a borderline personality disorder.

My name is not on the list on the back
of the paperback because I am still
processing the pandemic, a fever dream:

A pentagram tattooed across her back,
a poet writes in couplets about men 
becoming monsters in kaiju defects,

but I continue teaching my class, masks
on, fortunately, or I would have Zoomed
in from a hospital bed if there’s any left.

I remember $3 reading fee and a gut-punch
knowing I don’t earn a living for five
months, living stimulus to stimulus.

Today I didn’t wince over my breakfast 
for the hunger to be an invisible name
trying so bad to be visible on the back-

a tattoo or a blue book with others- graphically
enhanced, perhaps shadowed by age,
pressed gently by the fingertips of a lover.

Sujash Purna, born in Bangladesh, is a graduate student at Missouri State University. His poetry appeared in South Carolina Review, Hawai`i Pacific Review, Kansas City Voices, Poetry Salzburg Review, English Journal, Stonecoast Review and others. He has a chapbook collection Epidemic of Nostalgia  from Finishing Line Press.

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Categories
Excerpt

What it Takes to be a Redwood Tree: Arundhathi Subramaniam

Title: Women Who Wear Only Themselves: Conversations with Four Travellers on Sacred Journeys

Author: Arundhathi Subramaniam

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books, 2021
                                                                           

What It Takes to Be a Redwood Tree

Lata Mani

When Lata Mani was driving to her office at the University of California, Davis, one morning in 1993, her life turned turtle. Quite literally. A stolen Pepsi Cola truck collided headlong with her on the freeway. As her car flew up into the air and spun several times before landing, much else plunged into a dizzying spin-cycle from which it would take years to emerge. Her career, her health, her worldview, her life as she knew it. 

It had to be one of the rudest and most catastrophic spiritual initiations in the book. A rebirth that turned things upside down, inside out. The most radical lesson in de-hierarchizing the world. The ground beneath her feet vanished, the mind was stunned into silence, the body shocked out of its illusion of solidity into a state of uncongealed pain and seismic uncertainty. And with that brain injury, everything changed. It has never quite been the same again.  

And so, sceptic turned spiritual apprentice. Marxist turned meditator. Scholar turned bhakta. 

I knew the old Lata Mani somewhat. She happens to be a second cousin. She also happened to live in Mumbai in her growing years. She was a remote figure, older by some years, inspiring as an articulate feminist of her generation, glamorous in the life of self-determination that she represented. She left for California to study, proceeding to author a major work of feminist scholarship on the debate around sati in colonial India. I lost touch with her after she left my city. 

But it is the new Lata Mani that I have got to know better. I had my first real conversation with her in 2010. Our connect was immediate, spontaneous, cutting through social natter and nicety with a directness and definitiveness that surprised me. I had known the ‘outer’ Lata somewhat sketchily. I now encountered what one might call the ‘inner’ Lata: contemplative writer, unabashed Devi devotee, a woman of clarity and unselfconscious poise. It was like meeting her for the very first time.  

And yet, there were connections with the Lata of old. The lucidity and incisiveness of mind was very much in evidence. The commitment to social justice remained, even if its textures were altered. And she was still blazing her own trail—interior, perhaps, but with no loss of self-reliance or intensity.  

‘“Falling upward” into the world of spirit is usually a metaphor. But in your case, it was absurdly literal!’ I tell her. 

‘I think some of us are hard nuts to crack, so it had to happen this way!’ Lata grins. 

My conversations with Lata have been largely telephonic, punctuated by fleeting meetings when I happen to be passing through her city. But I have a vivid recollection of a long evening I spent with her in her Bengaluru flat in 2011—an oasis of luminous quiet amidst the mayhem of metropolitan India. We talked a great deal that day, late into the evening, and again the next morning. We talked of family, books, the Goddess, love, as well as the spiritual ‘crash course’ that redefined her life. She had moved back to India in 2004—a major transition, but perhaps not as disruptive as the inner shift that had already occurred. 

I remember her saying her injury had dropped her into ‘a new neighbourhood’—a quietly laconic phrase with which she summed up this descent into horrifying and unrelenting pain. In her writing, she describes it even more vividly as a state of being ‘in pre-op for cosmic surgery’. The description reminded me of some calamitous rite of shamanic initiation. The experience compelled her to inhabit the body in a way she never had before. Was this a direct insight that happened as a consequence of the trauma, I ask her. 

‘Yes, it all changed when that desperate young man driving at hundred miles per hour sought to end his life by ploughing into my car. We both survived! But while I survived the collision, my brain was no longer intact. Gradually, I began to experience states of consciousness for which I had no language. I first began to sense the connectedness of everything. I had encountered the notion of a unifying substratum before, but only as an idea. Experiencing it was an altogether different matter.’  

The injury catapulted Lata into a land for which she had no name. When I think of the ways in which some saint poets have invoked it (Ravidas’ ‘Begumpura’, the utopian land without sorrows, taxes, travails and hierarchies, for instance, or Kabir’s ‘wondrous city’, the land where ‘fruit shines without a tree’), the descriptions are lyrical. They do not suggest the ordeal, the baptism by fire that can precede it. Lata’s term for the land in which she crash-landed is, by contrast, unsentimental. She describes it simply as abiding ‘isness’. She did not discover it as a lofty philosophical idea. There was no flight into the empyrean. No ‘top of the world looking down on creation’ brand of ecstatic high. No out-of-body experience. Instead, Lata Mani discovered isness in and through her body.  

‘As you know many spiritual experiences or insights are first experienced as spontaneous gifts for which we have no prior frame of reference,’ she says. ‘Isness was gradually revealed to me in the depths of a brain injury which had made thought and communication difficult. Everything was stripped to its bare essentials. And yet there was a certain vibrancy and richness that I was experiencing alongside the very real trauma of the injury. It was not a state in which I “transcended” my circumstances, but one in which I was breathed more deeply into it.’ 

And this is the most fascinating part about Lata’s journey: the upside-downness of it at every level. Her training thus far had prepared her to look at social structures ‘ground up’, but this was about a ‘ground up’ darshan of existence itself—orchestrated by a cellular intelligence rather than a cerebral one. The intellect was no longer in charge. As the reins were handed over to a more grassroots wisdom of marrow and viscera, the mind emerged, redefined—a democratic collaborator on the life journey, rather than dictator of it.  

I imagine this as the state of gob-smacked awe in which Yudhishtira might have found himself at the top of Mount Meru: a terrifying confrontation with reversal of every kind. But then other questions begin to surface. It is wonderful to think of some reversals, but not others. The Biblical image of lions eating with lambs, for instance, gives me consolation. But what of all our divisions of the world into good guys and bad, the forces of light and darkness, or even our political allegiances to left wing or right? What about our longing for poetic justice? How ready am I for a vision of utter and absolute equality, I ask myself? 

(Excerpted from Women Who Wear Only Themselves: Conversations with Four Travellers on Sacred Journeys by Arundhathi Subramaniam. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2021.)

ABOUT THE BOOK

 Sri Annapurani Amma left the safety of home and family to follow the summons of a long-dead saint. Like Akka Mahadevi and Lal Ded before her, she chooses to live naked, and sometimes delivers prophecies, but what shines through is her humour and crazily one-pointed devotion to her path.

Soon after her tenth birthday, Balarishi Vishwashirasini was predicting futures—in no time she was transformed into a guru. Now in her thirties, this gifted teacher of nada yoga admits to sometimes feeling she’s missed out on a real childhood.

Lata Mani, a respected academician in the US, was plunged into the path of tantra after a major accident left her with a brain injury. Today, she talks of how the spiritual life is deeply anchored in the wisdom of the body—not unlike the soaring yet rooted redwood trees of her adopted home.

Maa Karpoori, a feisty young woman, found her calling when she joined a local yoga class. Through a rollercoaster ride that catapulted her from marriage to monkhood, she retains her fierce independence and contagious joy of living.

In this extraordinary book, poet and seeker Arundhathi Subramaniam gives us a glimpse into the lives of four self-contained, unapologetic female spiritual travellers. Sensitive, insightful and spare, Women Who Wear Only Themselves is a revelation and a celebration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 Arundhathi Subramaniam is the award-winning author of twelve books of poetry and prose. As poet, her most recent book is Love Without a Story. As anthologist, her books include an anthology of bhakti poetry, Eating God, and a book of essays, Pilgrim’s India. As prose writer, her work includes The Book of Buddha and the bestselling biography of a contemporary mystic, Sadhguru: More Than a Life. She has worked over the years as poetry editor, curator and critic.

Her book, When God Is a Traveller, won the Sahitya Akademi Award 2020; was the Season Choice of the Poetry Book Society, UK; and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize in 2015. Her awards include the inaugural Khushwant Singh Poetry Prize, the Raza Award for Poetry, the Il Ceppo Prize in Italy, the Zee Indian Women’s Award for Literature, the Mystic Kalinga Award, among others.

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

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Categories
Stories

Khatme Yunus

By Jackie Kabir

One day Ridima’s husband came home with an injured boy with a bandage on his head. There was a small room just before the main entrance of their house, it was mainly used as a guest room, the boy was laid down there by the people who carried him to the second floor. A scream came out of Ridima’s mouth; her mother-in-law pulled her aside and hushed her and told her to be quiet. She stood at a corner of the family space and watched.

The boy looked very frail, he was around eighteen or nineteen years old. She recognised him now. He was an orphan, who was given shelter by Ridima’s father-in-law. He worked in the shop and had become like their family member. The shops were in a building in Old Dhaka, that housed hundreds of small concerns, the interior was designed in such a way that it had a scaffold with white sheets on it and the stacks of material were arranged on the shelves above the scaffold. Everyone took their shoes off while getting inside. The customers sat on small stools that were arranged all around the scaffold.

The boy stayed in the shop while his food was sent from home in a tiffin carrier. It was a family-owned shop selling materials for clothes. That day one of their regular customers came and took one hundred pieces of material for shirts on credit. He promised he would pay the money as soon as he could. When Ridima’s husband went into the shop and saw that a whole stack of material was gone, he felt very happy. He pulled the cash drawer open. He couldn’t see any money there. He asked the salesman about the cloths. As the boy narrated the incident he lost his  temper and he took the jock from his car which was parked nearby and hit the boy with it, at the back of his head.

The boy fell unconscious and bled profusely. The boy could have died. Sensing the danger, her husband quickly called the compounder from across the street to get him bandaged. People from all around the shops rushed and advised that the boy should be taken to hospital. Pretending that it was a mere accident Ridima’s husband asked some other boys to carry him to the car. The compounder also recommended that the boy should be taken to the hospital immediately. However, Ridima’s husband took him home knowing that there could be a police case if were taken to the hospital. A doctor was called home to treat the boy. When the doctor saw the boy’s condition, he refused to treat him saying that he had be taken to the hospital. Ridima’s husband first threatened him verbally. When that didn’t work, he went inside and got his licensed pistol and asked him to treat the boy. The doctor got scared and wrote down a list of things that he needed and waited patiently till the things were brought. Another boy was given the money and sent to the nearby dispensary.  The doctor gave twenty-one stitches and heavy doses of medicines. He told them to keep the room clean and he told them he needed to change the bandage and do the dressing every day and perhaps, then, the boy would recover, even though his cut was deep.

Immediately Ridima’s mother-in-law sat down on her prayer mat with her long prayer beads. It stayed coiled on her prayer bed at one corner of the long rectangular room. A prayer mat was always spread on the prayer bed. There were about ten thousand beads on the string, she would have to finish it for about twelve and half times in order to do a Khatme Yunus; La illaha illa anta subhanaka inni kuntu minas Zalimeen, which meant, “There is none worthy of worship besides you, glorified are you, surely I am from among the wrongdoers.” It was a one-line prayer which had to be recited one lac and twenty-five thousand times in order to get results. It is said that one of Islam’s earliest prophets was devoured by a whale, he was inside the body of the whale for two and a half days and he recited this prayer and finally the whale gave out everything in form of vomit and Prophet Yunus was saved.  Since then, it was called “Dua e Yunus” and Muslims all over the world used this prayer when faced with a big crisis.

 Since the doctor was paid a huge sum of money and requested by the family to keep it a secret, he came back every day for a week and treated the boy. Ridima was very scared the first few nights. She feared the boy might die, as he had high fever and was delirious most of the night. He slept and they locked the door with a padlock. They opened the door only to give him food, clean the room and when the boy needed to use the toilet. He had to be helped to go to the toilet. Ridima’s mother-in-law asked her to make chicken soup for him every day, he was given soft rice with fish curry, the types known to produce blood in the body.

After a month, the boy could walk properly but Rimida wasn’t sure if his head injury had fully healed. She tried talking to her husband about it, he said, “You keep quiet! Do not try to act smart and meddle into affairs you know nothing about!”                

Ridima’s heart shrank. Her eyes welled with water, and she tried to keep herself from weeping.

 A few later, the boy said he was going to take a stroll downstairs. Ridima was doing some household chores, the boy nodded at her and walked out.

After Magrib Azan, her mother-in-law declared the boy was missing.  Everyone asked Ridima if she was the one who let him go outside. She denied the fact in trepidation though her mother-in-law would not buy it. When her husband came home, her mother-in-law tried to tell him that it was Ridima’s fault that the boy escaped.

Her husband was taking his socks off and said, “Let him go! He was cured and cannot file any case anymore! Good riddance!”

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Jackie Kabir is a writer from Bangladesh. Her collection of short stories Silent Noise was published in 2016. The titular story is being taught in BA English course in colleges under Manomanium Sundaram University, Tirunelveli. Tamil Nadu.

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Categories
Poetry

The Mona Lisa is a Real Piece of Work by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

The Mona Lisa is a Real Piece of Work

Such a large hoopla for such a small rendering
which smacks of good marketing and questionable taste,
you come to me with religion and I ask about my Baudelaire;
any man who can hate the rest of humanity more than himself 
is an exporter in the truest sense of the word,
a shipper’s manifest mind with a shipping crate heart lost at sea
and that Mona Lisa is a real piece of work,
that curt fender bender smirk of lost knowing  
so that you just want to be in on the hustle with the insurance companies,
trade information and maybe land those digits   
even though you never call which drives women CRAZY –
not the one hanging in the Louvre, with that most masculine
of brows; stare all you like, she’s not betraying one iota 
of her mysteries to you or anyone else

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review. 

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Categories
Nazrul Translations

Rebel or ‘Bidrohi’

A translation of Nazrul’s Bidrohi (written in 1921, published in 1922) or ‘Rebel ‘ by Professor Fakrul Alam

Kazi Nazrul Islam in 1921. Courtesy: Creative Commons`

Born in united Bengal, long before the Partition, Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976) was known as the  Bidrohi Kobi, or “rebel poet”. Nazrul is now regarded as the national poet of Bangladesh though he continues a revered name in the Indian subcontinent. In addition to his prose and poetry, Nazrul wrote about 4000 songs.

                           The Rebel 

			Proclaim O hero
		Proclaim My head will be held high!
		My head will tower o’er the snow-capped Himalayas
		Proclaim O hero
	Proclaim piercing the infinite spaces of the sky
	Going beyond the sun, moon, planets, and stars
		Plunging through earth and the heavens
			Bursting through God’s very seat
		I’ve come—the wonder of the universe!
	On my forehead blazes God’s fiery mark—the regal sign of victory! 
			Proclaim O hero—
		My head will be held forever high!
	I’m forever indomitable, imperious, and remorseless,
	My dance is cataclysmic, I’m tempestuous, and I’m the destroyer,
	I’m terrifying; the curse of the earth
 				I’m irrepressible
		I smash everything to smithereens.
		I’m undisciplined, I’m wayward,
	I crush all bonds, trample on all bans, rules, and restrictions,
				I obey no laws,
     I sink heavily laden ships, I’m a torpedo, a deadly floating mine.
  I’m the destructive Dhurjati, the disheveled sudden storm of Baishakh.
	I’m the rebel, the rebellious son of the Creator of the Universe.
		
                        Proclaim O hero—
		Forever my head will be held high.  

 		 	I’m a cyclone, a whirlwind,
		I pommel all that lie in my path,
		I am a dance-driven swing,
	I dance to my own beat, I’m a free spirit, high on life.
I’m the musical modes Hambeer and Chayanot, the festive swing of raga Hindol,
		I’m all hustle and bustle, 
		On the road I’m all twist and turn,
		I sway back and forth,
		I’m an ever oscillating, lightning fast swing.
		I do whatever I please
		My enemies I embrace, with Death I grapple.
			I’m insane, I’m a hurricane.
		I’m the plague, the terror of the earth.
		I squash all tyrants, I rage restlessly.
				Proclaim O hero
			My head will be forever held high.
		I’m forever frenzied and intoxicated,
 I’m irrepressible, my soul’s beaker bubbles over with the liquor of life.
I’m the sacrificial fire, am Yamadagni, the keeper of the sacrificial fire   
		I’m the sacrifice, the priest, the flame too!
I’m Creation and Destruction, I’m human habitation, and the cremation ground.
		I’m the Conclusion, the end of night! 
I’m the son of Indra, the king of gods, moon in hand, the sun on my forehead,
On one hand I hold love’s slender flute, on the other the trumpet of war.
I’m Shiva, my throat blue, I drink poison churned by creation’s ocean of pain,
I’m Byomkesh, I hold the freely flowing Ganges in my ethereal locks.
				Proclaim O hero
			Forever will my head be held high.

		I’m a solitary Bedouin, I’m the capricious Chenghiz
		I defer only to myself and bow to none.	
		I’m a thunderclap, the OM resounding from Ishan’s horn
			I’m the blast of Israfil’s trumpet,
  I’m Shiva’s bow-shaped drum, the trident, and gong of the god of death.
	I’m Chakra’s ring, a strident conch, I am the primal scream!
	I’m a whirling dervish, a devotee of the sage Vishyamitra,
		I’m a raging fire, I’ll consume earth in my flames!

I’m carefree and full of glee-- the enemy of creation, the principle of destruction.
	I’m the demon eclipsing the sun and ushering in the day of doom.
  I’m sometimes placid--sometimes torrid, sometimes unbelievably wanton,
	I’m a hot-blooded youth, I’ll even humble God’s pride!
 I’m the exuberance of a gust of wind, I’m the mighty roar of the ocean.
		I’m resplendent, I am radiant,
I’m a rippling-bubbling brook—the splash of the wave—the sway of the swing! 

I’m the unbraided flowing hair of a maiden, her glowing ravishing eyes.
I’m the sixteen-year old’s love-stricken heart, wayward with passion, I’m bliss! 
	 I’m distracted, indifferent to the world,
I’m the grief-choked heart of the widow, I’m the despair of the depressed.
I’m the piled up pain of the wanderer, the forlornness of the homeless,
`	I’m the agony of the insulted, the tormented heart of the jilted!
I am the anguish of the heart-stricken, I feel the pain of unrequited passion,
I’m the tingling sensation of the maiden’s first caress, the thrill of a stolen kiss!
I’m the startled look of the secret lover, the glance forever stolen,
I’m the fluttering heart of the restless girl, the jingling of her bangles.
		I’m forever the child, forever the adolescent,
	I’m the cloth covering the budding youth of the village belle.
I’m the north wind, the breeze from Malabar, the wanton southern stream of air. 
I’m a minstrel’s soulful tunes, the songs played on his flute and lyre.
	I’m the parched throat of mid-day, the flaming, glowing sun.
I’m a softly flowing desert stream, I’m a shaded green sylvan scene!
	I rush forth in a frenzy, I’m frantic, I’m insane! 
I’ve discovered myself all of a sudden, I’ve burst through all bonds.

I’m the rise and the fall, I’m consciousness issuing out of the unconscious,
I’m the banner of victory at the rampart of the world, the flag of man’s triumph.
		I’m a storm reverberating through heaven and earth.
Lively like the horse Borwak, swift like Indra’s winged steed Uchaisrava,
			Spirited and neighing my way through!
I’m a volcano flaming in earth’s bosom, the mythical sea-horse spouting fire.
I’m a fire coursing through the netherworld, uproarious, tumultuous.
	I’m lightning, speeding past, skipping and leaping forth in joy.
	I’m an earthquake striking suddenly spreading panic everywhere.        
			Grabbing the hood of Vasuki, the snake-god,
	Grappling with the fiery wings of Gabriel, messenger of heaven,
			I’m the God-child, vivacious,
	I’m impudent, I bite into the borders of my earth-mother’s dress.

			I’m Orpheus’s flute,  
			Lulling the restless ocean to sleep,
With the caress of soothing sleep I bring calm to a fevered world,	
				My flute’s melodies enthral
				I’m the flute in Lord Krishna’s hands.
	When angry, I rouse myself and dart across the boundless sky.
Cowering, the fires of the seven hells flicker with fear and fade from my sight.
	I carry the message of rebellion all across earth and the sky.

			I’m the monsoon deluge of Shravan,
Sometimes making earth fertile, sometimes causing massive destruction--
	I snatch from God Vishnu’s bosom his two paramours.
	I’m injustice, an evil star, malevolent Saturn 
	I’m the blistering comet, the venom-filled fangs of a king cobra!
I’m the blood-thirsty goddess Kali, I’m the marauding warlord Ranada,
I sit in the midst of hellfire and smile with the innocence of a flower!

	I’m made of clay, I’m formed of the Supreme Being,
	I’m ageless, immortal, and imperishable, I’m indomitable!
	I’m what humans, demons, and even gods dread,
	I’m invincible in this world,
I’m Lord of the gods of the Universe, the Ultimate Truth of Being!
	I dance, frisk and gambol through heaven, hell and earth!
		I’m insane, I’m insane!!
I’ve discovered myself all of a sudden, this day I’ve burst through all bonds!



		I’m Parashuram’s hard-striking axe,
I’ll rid the world of warmongers and bring peace and harmony to the universe.
		I’m the plough on Balaram’s shoulders,
I’ll uproot earth to its foundations, delight in the joy of reconstruction. 
			A mighty rebel, weary of war,
                                   I’ll stop creating a stir, 
Only when the cries of the wretched of the earth will stop renting the skies,
Only when the oppressor’s bloody sword will cease smearing battlefields,
			A rebel, weary of war,
			Only then I won’t stir.

I’m the rebel sage Bhrigu, on God’s very bosom, I’ll stamp my footmarks,
I’ll slay the Creator, I’ll tear apart his indifferent whimsical callous chest.
I’m the determined rebel, on God’s very bosom I’ll stamp my footmarks,
			I’ll tear apart the Creator’s whimsical chest.

			I’m the ever-rebellious hero--
	Soaring over the world, all alone, head forever held high!

Recitation of Bidrohi by Nazrul’s son, Kazi Sabyasaachi.

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

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Categories
Slices from Life

To Daddy — with Love

By Gita Viswanath

Courtesy: Gita Viswanath

Bending over his sketch book with an array of art supplies spread around him, he drew with the concentration of a hawk stalking his prey. He stared at the object he was copying in the classic style of an art student doing his assignment. Whoever said art is therapeutic couldn’t have been more correct. From a sense of redundancy to finding a new joy at the ripe old age of 89, Daddy had bounced back from the day he felt a deep sense of despondency, when he woke up late because as he put it, ‘Wake up early and do what?’ Especially for a man of his era who cannot potter around the kitchen, cannot make grocery lists and cannot fold washed clothes. These are some activities that kept Mummy meaningfully occupied all day through but for Daddy, even television, books and newspapers proved inadequate.

This once smartly attired man went to work daily as a senior official in a public sector undertaking and took off on work to countries like the former USSR, Japan, England and Kenya with a complete sense of purpose and fulfilment. Struck by a paralytic attack almost twenty years ago that left him with a speech impairment and a disabled right hand, he taught himself to write with his left hand. Such was his tenacity and to think a person like this found no meaning in waking up was tragic to say the least. But that was some months ago. Rediscovering his passion for drawing, he has, of late, been engrossed in his new preoccupation, feeling like a child with a box of crayons.  

After all, he had graduated with a major in Zoology around the year 1955. As a child, I had learned to draw an elephant from him. He chose from the shelves, with great care, art pieces he had picked up on his travels – an ebony rhino, a brass coffee kettle, a wooden auto rickshaw and so on. With sketch pens and water colour pens, he began gingerly. Gradually, he became totally absorbed, almost meditative. Probably, each object he drew acted as a mnemonic device plunging him into the memory of another time. Filling time apart, the practice of art had surely enabled him to rediscover his own abilities and despite shaky hands, he found great joy in drawing.

His work with its wavy lines may be the consequence of shaky hands. However, what they evoke is certainly symbolic. The lines that resemble the waves of the sea could not have been more telling for one who worked for a shipping company! The lines, equally, indicate movement and like waves, the unstoppable passage of time. The colour palette is thoughtfully selected to reflect reality, like green and yellow for the autorickshaw, as well as a fine eye for the aesthetic. What’s interesting is also the fact that he drew on only a small part of the page. Of course, a large-sized drawing could be too daunting. Nevertheless, the blankness seemed to point towards a much larger universe that can only be imprinted in minimal ways.

But for now, he seemed to enjoy seeing the blank, white page come alive with colours that he filled into shapes that he was creating. Clearly, he was captivated by the magic of the creative process.

‘Wake up early and do what?’

Daddy draws again!

Courtesy: Gita Viswanath

Gita Viswanath is the author of a novel, Twice it Happened. Her second novel, A Journey Gone Wrong, is forthcoming. She has published short stories and poems in several journals.

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Categories
Tagore Translations

Morichika or Mirage by Tagore

Morichika or ‘Mirage’ is one on Tagore’s early poems. It was first published in 1886 in a collection called Kori O Komal (Sharp and Flat).

Kori O Komal(Sharp & flat) Bengali edition
‘Morichika or Mirage’ in Bengali
Mirage
Come, leave your bed of flowers, O friend —
Beat the hard ground with your foot. 
How long will you isolate yourself weaving 
Dreams of starry blooms in an unreal sky!
Look, a storm is brewing in the distance —
Your world will be washed away with tears.
Flames of God’s lightning jinx will ignite the 
Fires of purity to arouse you from stupor. 
Come let us both go and live with people,
Enlightened by their joys and sorrows —
Let us share their laughter and sadness
Holding hands, stay fearless when in doubt. 
Let us not dwell in this redolent mirage as
It terrorises with its transient evanescence.
Tagore’s translation on ‘Morichika’ in Poems. Source: Bichitra

Later Tagore translated this poem to English himself. That was published in 1942 by a collection entitled Poems edited by Krishna Kripalalni, Amiya Chakravarty, Nirmal Chandra Chattopadhyay and Pulinbehari Sen published after his death by Visva Bharati.

Here is an excerpt of what Tagore wrote about Kori O Komal in his Jibonsmriti (1912, autobiographical memoirs by the poet) which reflects his outlook and the mood of the poem.

Translation: Man falls into a stupor when due to his own reluctance to make an effort, he can neither understand himself nor face reality. I have always struggled to emerge out of this stupor. I cannot reconcile myself to the current situation where nameless intellectuals are inebriated with patriotism and are involved in spineless political rallies and news campaigns which exhibit both the lack of a national identity and concern for mass welfare. (Excerpted from a screenshot of Jibonsmriti sent by Anasuya Bhar)

(These translations for Borderless Journal are by Mitali Chakravarty, edited by Sohana Manzoor and Anasuya Bhar. Also, thanks to Anasuya Bhar for the images from Bichitra and Jibonsmriti and the extensive research on the poem.)

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