Category: Excerpt

Snowed Under

Title: Snowed Under

Author: Nirmala Thomas

Translated from Malyalam by Radhika P Menon

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

When the meeting finally got over, instead of staying back for small talk as was usual, Ashwini excused herself and returned to her office. Closing the door, she called her doctor. Her clinic opened at nine in the morning. It must be really crowded by now. The five minutes that Ashwini had to spend while on hold, listening to pharmaceutical advertisements on the phone, felt like a couple of hours. Eventually Melissa, the doctor’s secretary, came on the line.

‘Why do you need the appointment?’

Though she knew the question was not asked merely as a courtesy – the secretary needed to know the reason in order to decide when she might be accommodated in the doctor’s schedule – Ashwini felt a flicker of irritation.

‘Let the doctor take a look, Ashwini, and decide the rest after examining the lump,’ Melissa said. ‘We are closed on Wednesdays and Fridays. Can you be here on Thursday at 10 am? Otherwise, we can see you next week.’

The Swedish clients had come for a week. Ashwini had to go along with them to the site on Thursday. The city officials and the engineer from the electricity department too would be present. The electricity department had to assess the project’s feasibility and determine its requirements. Once that was cleared, the city would grant a permit for the construction of the building. The time of the site visit had been fixed in advance; the visit had to be made with the client present.

Ashwini glanced at the calendar on her phone and asked, ‘Can you give me an appointment for next Tuesday? In the afternoon?’

The secretary she could.

Ashwini was never flippant when it came to taking leave. She could not allow her leave to come in the way of meeting the requirements of clients from abroad. A lot of care had to be paid to the project in the initial stages. Both the clients’ demands and the company’s terms had to be firmed up without any ambiguity. Everything had to be recorded; all the documents prepared and sent to the lawyer’s office. Only after the sponsors of both sides and their lawyers signed the contract could the project be handed over to the workers. Once that was done, all it required was supervision, to ensure everything was done as per the signed agreements. The slightest mistake in the contract could cause her company a loss of millions of dollars. The bosses had no time to go through the fine print or to separate the wheat from the chaff. Ashwini had to be their eyes, ears and brain. That was where her victory lay.

‘Meticulous… Very detail-oriented.’

Ashwini knew this description in the performance review was both a forewarning and a precondition. The contracts that Ashwini drew up with utmost care had no room for mistakes. She reviewed every sentence and every word, scrutinized them from every conceivable angle and made copious notes. That was why whenever contracts for major projects had to be prepared, the Director and the Vice President called Ashwini. The managers could handle the execution of ordinary projects.

Ashwini had to review, analyse and explain many things to Octavian and Rick before they left on Friday. Compromises were best struck at face-to-face meetings. Only after every loophole had been identified and plugged could the work formally commence. There were tasks to be completed in summer. The business people from Sweden demanded that a grand inauguration be organized in October. For the key to be handed over at the scheduled time, everything had to be in place by then.

But the winter season was unpredictable. With no clear sense of how much snow would fall or how cold the air would grow, it was difficult to plan the exterior work. Work on interior could begin only when the walls were in place. And amid the blueprints of the building and the careful plans of the project, an unanticipated grain of rice had arisen to disturb her design.

Octavian spoke with a thick Swedish accent. His sentences were peppered with the ‘a’ sound.

‘You can…a…bring the draft…a…a…in the…a…’

The ladies at the office found it very amusing. They lisped romantically. When he said the word ‘confrontation’ with a rounded ‘o’ sound, they mimicked him. They were charmed by the blue eyes and twenty-four-carat golden hair.

‘We need details of the entrance area…’

Ashwini spoke at the next meeting of the day in order to show that she was not inattentive. All eyes were focused on her. Each and every brick, rebar and even dollar had to go strictly by her project plan. But the dead words remained suspended in the air.

Octavian stared into Ashwini’s eyes. The lady did not smile or show coyness or fall for his golden hair, blue eyes and peculiar English. Was it possible to see her hidden intelligence through her eyes? Could the Director have been wrong? Hard to think so! Does she have an ace up her sleeve or will she sink without a trace?

The ladies in the office were not very impressed by Rick who accompanied Octavian. With his black hair and brown eyes, he seemed American. There were no giggles, no chuckles, no ‘Tee-hee’ for a man with an ordinary name like ‘Rick’.

The rosewood table in the conference room stood on its four legs, enduring instructions, discussions, negotiations, sorting-out, firming-up, agreements and compromises. Without revealing any feelings, it suffered all that weight, and concealed all the secrets.

Ashwini tried to yell at and send away the cat that was rubbing against her legs under the table.

I’ve never liked cats.

Need a holiday, sir.

Granting my sorrows a holiday, I hired a room in heaven.

Not to hold converse with alcohol.

That’s not a bad idea though.

I have fixed an appointment. An appointment with my problems.

At exactly five in the evening, Ashwini left her office. Ever since Keerthana moved to her university residence, Ashwini had never felt compelled to be home at a regular hour.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ashwini Ram is a successful engineer in Canada. She has a good job, a loving husband and daughter, and a carefully planned life. Then, one snow-choked winter day, she discovers a tiny lump in her right breast.

What follows is a journey she never expected to take: doctor’s visits, tests, the shock of diagnosis, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation. Her body changes. Her moods change. Her husband retreats into a silence she cannot reach, her daughter grows distant in the demands of her medical studies, and even friends who once couldn’t do without her now appear to be keeping their distance. Ashwini’s thoughts spiral in directions she cannot always control as fear, anger, denial, loneliness, imaginary friends and dark humour take turns shaping her empty days.

Set against the cold landscapes of Canada and the quiet routines of immigrant life, Snowed Under captures the emotional reality of living with cancer—the waiting, the medical procedures, the stigma that surrounds the illness and the strain it places on the closest relationships.

First published as Manjil Oruval, this is not just a story about disease, but about the mind under pressure, the body under siege, and the complicated—sometimes fragile—will to live. Radhika P. Menon’s sensitive English translation brings this powerful and unusual Malayalam novel to a wider readership.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nirmala Thomas is the most widely read Malayalam writer based in Canada. In 2011, she received the ‘Best Short Story Collection’ award for writers living outside India from the Government of Kerala. She has been a member of the Toronto Film Festival, the Writers’ Union of Canada, GritLit Canada, the Hamilton Media Advisory Council and the Advisory Committee for Immigrants and Refugees.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Radhika P. Menon is an award-winning translator who has translated several works from Malayalam to English, including K. Madhavan’s On the Banks of the Tejaswini, Devaki Nilayangode’s Antharjanam, S.K. Pottekkatt’s Tales of Athiranippadam, and K.K. Kochu’s Dalithan.

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

Tags English, Malayalam, Niramala Thomas, Radhika P Menon, Snowed Under, Speaking Tiger Books, Translation

Excerpt

My Summer of Cricket

Title: My Summer of Cricket: Three Tests, One Fan and Decades of Stories

Author: Nikhil Kulkarni

Chapter 4

NEW YEAR’S TEST/PINK TEST, SYDNEY

Days 0 and 1

I’ve never been good at packing, or planning my time well when it comes to packing for trips. For someone who prides himself on colour-coded Google calendar entries and spreadsheet grocery lists, there’s something about stuffing a suitcase that makes me irrationally confident until it’s far too late. Which is how I found myself, on 2 January, standing in my living room with three open bags, a half-zipped duffel and no idea where my power bank was. My flight to India was on 8 January, which was just one day after the Sydney Test wrapped up, and it was starting in less than twenty-four hours. I had somehow left everything till now.

I don’t know if it was the festive lull after New Year’s, or the post-Melbourne daze still swirling in my head, but the realisation hit like a short ball I never saw coming. This wasn’t just a regular trip back home. This time, I was planning to stay for a while. A good month, in fact. Back to my hometown in Karnataka to see family, to catch up with people I’d kept meaning to visit. Which meant not just packing clothes, but packing with purpose – gifts, clothes, souvenirs I spent wayyy too much money on at the MCG, all the good stuff. I panicked a little. Then I panicked a lot. And then, in true form, I threw whatever I could find into the bags, convinced I’d sort it out somehow. Little did I know then that I’d have plenty of time to repack everything.

But, even as I was frantically shoving things into suitcases, my mind kept drifting to the match. This one felt different. Not because of the venue, though. The Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) wasn’t some unfamiliar pilgrimage. I’d been there more times than I could count. In fact, it’s kind of a family tradition at this point to take the kids to watch WBBL (Women’s Big Bash League) matches and at least one day of the Pink Test every year. So, I knew this ground. I knew where the good coffee was, where the shade started creeping by the second session, and which section’s crowd always went too hard too early. But somehow, this didn’t feel routine. It felt big.

Part of it was the stakes. After four gripping Tests, Australia was on the cusp of winning the series, leading at 2–1. If India won, the series tied and the Border–Gavaskar Trophy stayed with them, as it had for the last eight years. But if Australia won, or even managed to draw? They’d take the cup back. That possibility had everyone on edge. And despite the chaos around me, I couldn’t help but feel the buzz of it too.

And then, of course, there was the familiar question I never quite knew how to answer: who was I even supporting? Born in India, citizen of Australia. Proud of my Indian heritage and equally proud of the Australian values. I’d cheered for Kohli’s centuries and Cummins’s yorkers with equal joy. So I did what I always do – I leaned into the game. I wasn’t there to take sides. I just wanted to see how it all played out.

The next day, I woke up early. Though I always wake up around the same time, this morning felt less like discipline and more like pre-match electricity. It was the kind of early where you don’t even need an alarm because your brain has already sprinted ahead, mentally packing sunscreen, triple-checking ticket PDFs, and wondering whether the security staff will let you bring in homemade sandwiches (they do).

Luckily, one part of the plan had been sorted well in advance: parking. Now, this is where I must pause and offer a public service announcement to all future Sydney cricket enthusiasts, especially the ones who think it’s a good idea to just find a spot on the day of the match or brave the 40-kilometre public transport haul from the outer suburbs.

Don’t do that. Book your parking at the QVB with Wilson Parking.

Book it early. Like, four days early. You’ll lock in a spot right in the middle of the city for what is basically loose change compared to sameday rates. Plus, you’re walking distance from an actual toilet and decent coffee. Then, hop on the light rail and enjoy the glorious fifteen-minute tram ride to Moore Park with no transfers, no platform guessing and no train-station drama. It’s the Test match equivalent of finding a hundred-dollar note in your old jeans. Thank me later.

By the time I’d parked, trammed and emerged into the growing pink tide outside the SCG, I felt oddly calm. Everything had worked. My bag was light, my timing was perfect and I still had sunscreen in my hand. I pumped my chest and walked like a man with a plan. And this plan was a little more than just watching the match, I was attending a breakfast hosted by the Primary Club of Australia.

Now, I hadn’t heard of the Primary Club of Australia until I got the invite, and discovering them felt like one of those serendipitous gifts this summer kept offering. Their mission is beautifully simple: every time a professional cricketer gets out for a duck, members donate to support athletes with disabilities. That’s it. It’s the kind of idea that slips under the radar, but once you hear it, you can’t stop thinking about how right it feels. Humble, purposeful, and very cricket.

The breakfast itself was held on the morning of Day 1 of the Sydney Test, and it’s a bit of a tradition at the SCG. Irfan Malik, who we met earlier, had been hearing about my cricket travels and kindly offered me an invite. AIBC was one of the partners for the event. It was a wonderful New Year’s gift and I was very excited to attend the breakfast event.

Inside, it was a mix of nostalgia and networking. There were white tablecloths, polite applause and a menu that could have been lifted straight from a five-star hotel buffet. But the heart of the morning was a panel discussion titled State of the Game, featuring Mark Taylor, Ed Cowan and Cricinfo editor Andrew McGlashan. It wasn’t just small talk or highlight reels, they offered frank insights on where the game stood, what was working, and what needed fixing. Taylor brought his statesman-like calm, Cowan was thoughtful and reflective, and McGlashan added the sharp edge of someone who watches the sport with both love and scrutiny. While there was a certain heft and seriousness to the conversation, it was also very refreshing and natural. You could see that everyone on the panel and in the room in general was engaged and excited about the game ahead.

Somewhere between the eggs Benedict and the raffle for Pat Cummins’s signed bat, I found myself genuinely moved by what the Primary Club was doing. It was a reminder that cricket isn’t only about bat and ball. It’s about connection and causes that quietly build momentum in the background while the spotlight stays on the field. I signed up as a member right at the event thanks to the QR codes conveniently placed at every table. Who would’ve thought QR codes, a mechanism invented in Japan for labelling auto parts, would become such a ubiquitous part of our lives!

It turned out my neighbour at the table was Mohit Kumar, a local councillor I’d seen at other events. We had a brief chat about two things we had in common: cricket and Blacktown (our local council), and then I made my way to the book sales counter. There they were: signed copies of Pat Cummins’s autobiography. The book had been on my reading list for a while and these were of course signed copies! I asked how many they’d let one person buy because I didn’t want to be that guy sweeping the whole pile. They had a small limit per guest, which made sense. I picked up the maximum allowed. Some for me, some for a few people back in India who’d know exactly why this mattered. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that cricket books make excellent surprise gifts, especially when they’re signed. And even more so when you can hand one over with a casual, ‘Oh, it’s nothing. Just something I picked up at breakfast with Mark Taylor.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

From a village in North Karnataka in India to the bright lights of Sydney, Nikhil has lived and breathed the inevitable highs and lows that come with being a cricket fan.

From listening to early morning radio commentaries to witnessing Sachin Tendulkar’s final match, Nikhil insists that every hour he was engrossed in watching, listening to and thinking about cricket was time well spent. This dedication culminated in the summer of 2024-25, when he undertook a personal pilgrimage to Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, attending every single match day of the ‘2024–25 India vs. Australia Border- Gavaskar Trophy’ test series. The book traces Kulkarni’s devotion to the sport over the last three decades where he meets fascinating people, explores new cities and forges new, unforgettable memories. To read My Summer of Cricket is to understand that cricket is more than a game – it’s a connection between the peoples of different countries, a vehicle for supporting meaningful causes, and a way to bridge generations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nikhil Kulkarni is a Sydney-based tech leader, recognised community voice, and lifelong cricket tragic who has followed the game across India and Australia for more than three decades. An avid quizzer with a love for puns, he and his wife are raising two daughters in a home that celebrates both Indian heritage and Australian values.

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

Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

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

Tags Australia, Australian, Brisbane, Ed Cowan, Gavaskar, India, Indian, Irfan Malik, Karnataka, Kohli, Mark Taylor, Melbourne, My Summer of Cricket: Three Tests One Fan and Decades of Stories, Nikhil Kulkarni, Pat Cummins, Sachin Tendulkar, SCG, Sydney, WBBL

Excerpt

The Real Shangri-La

Title: Journey to the End of the Empire: In China Along the Edge of Tibet

Author: Scott Ezell

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

A young Tibetan woman in a gold tunic came riding down the street on a horse. Her body was straight and her chin lifted high, her cheeks flushed red, and she smiled like she was the center of the world despite being dwarfed by the towers. Up ahead I saw snipers on roofs behind sandbags, wearing mirrored shades. Silver bracelets jangled on the woman’s wrists and her hair was braided with turquoise. Her horse trotted up and over a pile of rocks and earth heaped in front of an army bunker — this was an anti-insurgency tactic, so there could not be a quick rush of crowds in an uprising.

I followed her down the street, walking around the mounds of rubble. As we approached the old town, with its buildings of ancient blackened wood, she blew kisses to the snipers and to the soldiers in roadside bunkers. Aside from the army trucks, the street was half-full with oxcarts, motorcycles, pedestrians in fur-lined robes, pilgrims on their way to the central temple, and a few beggars mumbling mantras and ringing bells for alms. At a crossroad the woman pulled the reins so her horse reared up and turned circles beneath her, then set off at a trot toward the outskirts of town and the open horizon beyond. I headed the other way, to the center of town, where the market and temple square converged.

Zhongdian was an administrative outpost at the edge of the wilderness, an interface between the engulfing yawn of the Tibetan Plateau and the authority of the empire. From here, there was nothing north and west for a thousand miles but the earth tilting higher and higher, human culture becoming funkier and more rarified as the landscape lifted its bones up toward the sky. Zhongdian is a transliteration of the Tibetan place-name Gyalthang, but the local government had secured a regional trademark to call it Shangri-la. This place may have been the inspiration for the original Shangri-la in the novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton. If so, the mythic valley of paradise was located in the Meilixue Mountains to the west, at the base of Kawaboge peak, a twenty-two-thousand-foot pyramid of ice and snow. Additional inspiration would have come from farther west, on the other side of the range, in a valley along the upper Mekong, where in the nineteenth century a French priest built a Catholic church. Tibetan families still brewed wine from the grapes the priest planted there over a hundred years ago. The vineyards lined the valley wall above the upper Mekong where it ran bronze and copper between walls of talus and dust on its long descent from the Tibetan Plateau to the plains of Southeast Asia, finally reaching the South China Sea.

The ministry towers were gridded and mirrored, and drew my vision to the sky like tracer bullets. They sucked in and concentrated the light of this landscape where everything was infused with light, even the barley fields beyond the edge of town seemed composed of light lifting up from earth in golden germs and stalks and leaves, light reaching up to light. Sections of the towers were still under construction and covered with scaffolding, revealing girder structures. I had to look straight up to read the titles in formal script high on the façades, as if they were declaring, not to the people on the ground but to the far mountains and horizons, that they were the Regional Authority of Financial Interests in Tibet, the Ministry of Civilizing Minorities, the Ministry of Mineral Extraction, the Ministry of Love — each one was a glittering obelisk, a cosmococcic, cosmodemonic eye turning and revolving, a panopticon of surveillance.

The wind beat me like a club, the sun flashed and blinded me. A few dented taxis drove around aimlessly. Along the street, huge cuts of yak meat hung from steel hooks in butcher shops, and a yak skull with broad arcing horns was propped by the doorway of a restaurant. A tattered, greasy beggar who looked about sixteen came walking down the middle of the street. He was shirtless despite the cold, his skin nearly black from filth. The boy had scabs on his face; he was half-starved and half-mad and mumbled gibberish interspersed with om mani padme hum, as he cackled and stared hungrily at the sides of yak and goat hung from steel hooks for sale, the ribs curved like rows of triggers beneath their curtains of meat. When he saw me he shouted out, “Oh ho, oh no!” He aimed his finger at me with a squinted eye, then swivelled and turned it up, up, up to the tower above us and the calligraphy sign that labeled it the Ministry of Sanity and Sanitation, reflecting the sun from a thousand mirrored panels. He staggered down the street calling out, “Cock-towers, scratching up the sky … om mani padme hum…. They weren’t here first, but those cock-towers tell you you’re not first no more. Claim the land, they’re going to stake a claim with their cock towers, claim the land … om mani padme hum….”

A cluster of wrinkled Tibetan women shuffled toward me wearing sky-blue tunics fringed with silk. They had baskets of gnarled radishes and potatoes on their backs and tump lines around their foreheads. They called out to me, laughing and pointing like I was a painted clown, but with such good humor that I laughed right along. When I greeted them in Mandarin they just laughed louder and placed their palms together in benediction and greeting, Tashi delek.

Along the row of market stalls, announcements crackled over loudspeakers, and Hong Kong soap operas blared weeping and imprecations from TVs.

ABOUT THE BOOK

On foot, by rattling truck and local bus, by jeep and motorcycle, American poet and musician Scott Ezell explores the Tibetan borderlands in the twenty-first-century Chinese empire. The journey starts in Dali, in the foothills of the Himalaya in southwestern China, and extends north a thousand miles through towns and villages along the edge of Tibet, finally arriving at Kekexili, the highest plateau in the world, and crossing the Kunlun Mountains. Ezell takes us through landscapes of blond and gold barley fields, alpine meadows ablaze with wildflowers, silver-blue rivers beneath “clouds like burning aluminium,” and snow peaks “cracking and shattering into jagged resplendence against the sky.”

Balancing the epic is the intimate. Fluent in Mandarin, Ezell chats with farmers, shopkeepers, lamas, nomads, and police along way. There is also outrage in Ezell’s account, as, over the course of many years and numerous trips, he witnesses the rise of militarization, surveillance, destructive resource extraction and the killing of entire river ecosystems by massive dams.

The work of an exceptionally talented writer at the height of his craft, Journey to the End of the Empire is both a love song for the earth, and a cry of dissent against environmental destruction, centralized national narratives, and the marginalization of minority peoples.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Scott Ezell is an American musician and poet with a background in Asia and Indigenous peoples. He was based in Taiwan from 1992 to 2004, and travelled widely in China, India and Japan. Since 2009 he has worked on a project documenting the effects of centralized state power, civil conflict and destructive resource extraction on marginalized communities in the China– Southeast Asia border zone. He is the author of A Far Corner, an account of three years he lived and worked with an Indigenous artist community in Taiwan.

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

Tags Hong Kong, James Hilton, Journey to the End of the Empire: In China Along the Edge of Tibet, Lost Horizons, Mekong, Scott Ezell, Shangri-La, South China Sea, Southeast Asia, Speaking Tiger Books, Tibetan Plateau

Excerpt

The Courtesan, Her Lover and I

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date April 14, 2026
No Comments on The Courtesan, Her Lover and I

Title: The Courtesan, Her Lover and I

Author: Dr Tarana Husain Khan

Publisher: Hachette India

Dagh’s presence in Calcutta was magnetic. The city, resplendent and cosmopolitan, embraced him. This was Dagh’s second visit to the city. He had come with Nawab Kalb e Ali Khan in 1866; he found the city even more grand than on his earlier visit. Dagh’s arrival had been announced in poetic circles and the nobility. Invitations to mushairas started pouring in. His baithak became the hub for poets, nobles and admirers as people flocked to meet him and spend time with him. He found the people of Calcutta cultured and affable and made hundreds of friends. Among his visitors was Abdul Ghafur ‘Nassakh’, the deputy collector of Midnapur, who had questioned Dagh’s lineage in his tazkira, somewhat insultingly referring to him as the ‘son of Chhoti Begum’, implying that Dagh, who proudly wrote his name as ‘Nawab Dagh Dehlvi’, was the offspring of a junior begum of Nawab Shams of Jhirka and not entitled to use the grand suffix. Nassakh was your tutor and a regular at your kotha. You had expected Dagh to snub him, but he surprised you by extending a warm hand of friendship. Nassakh, charmed by Dagh’s magnanimity, became a regular at all of Dagh’s mushairas, and his son became Dagh’s shagird. Dagh continued to write to Nassakh for years and often asked him to intervene in your frequent quarrels with Dagh. Nassakh was a typical British official, officious and correct. You privately accused him of being servile to the British. Dagh said Nassakh was redeemed by his love for Urdu poetry and his sensitive kalaam. He found Nassakh a man of old values, a wazeydaar—a reading that proved to be true. Dagh gave a lot of importance to lineage and family as a determiner of behaviour and attitude. He formed enduring bonds and kept in touch with friends and acquaintances all his life by writing numerous letters every day.

Dagh, you realized, was an open-hearted person. He harboured no grudges, even befriending known enemies and critics, and used to say mulaqat ko to safai se—cleanse your heart when you meet someone. You, on the other hand, were more guarded and suspicious of people, often judging them for their actions or reported words. Your outward geniality towards your clients was perfected over the years, but your unforgiving heart would never open to anyone you had once rejected. There were no two sides to Dagh’s personality—he projected what he felt inside and was nearly always affable and generous to a fault. You were astounded at Dagh’s innocent trust in people even after suffering reverses, mistreatment and insults throughout his life. Strangers who got to know him would feel loved, accepted and find comfort. Unlike his cousin, the great poet Ghalib, Dagh was never arrogant. You had heard that Ghalib’s sojourn to Calcutta in 1828 for reinstatement of his pension was marked by tussles and conflicts with old friends and he made new enemies. Dagh only brought harmony and affection wherever he went.

He would often ask you, ‘Why do you love me so? Dark and old as I am.’

You would laugh and reply, ‘Yes, no one would like your face; it’s you I love. I have never met a person like you.’

Monsoon rains swept through Calcutta, and Dagh enjoyed the salubrious winds, often going for moonlit drives along the Hooghly with you. He loved to watch the moon chasing the clouds on the bridge. The windows to his upstairs room were thrown open to the moisture-laden winds and the light spray of rain. Your life would forever turn back to look upon those days and nights as a time of contented happiness. You often sat receiving guests in Dagh’s salon, introducing him to the grandees, very much the mistress by his side. Every poet and connoisseur clamoured for his appearance at their mushairas. Dagh was kind and didn’t refuse even the humblest invitations.

You loved his quick humour, which matched your impetuous repartee. He could lighten everything with a witty remark; only you had the power to crumple his heart with a serrated sharp word. Ah, give me your prolificity you sighed; just that, and I can give you my life, my words, my soul. I shall be forever your slave and write at your command, you promised.

Dagh was at his most prolific at that time, reciting and penning ghazals every day from the wellspring of his lived happiness. He made you sit in the room as he wrote. You were his inspiration, and you felt words emanating from your pen almost as effortlessly as his. A touch, a look, a shared thought would pull you towards each other in the middle of a sher. You would float into his ghazal and he into yours. His nights after the mushairas were yours, and you had stopped hosting soirées at the kotha during his stay. This time was for the flowering of your love, unfettered by fear from Nawab Haider and mean-minded remarks by Dagh’s friends. The anxiety of the clandestine dissipated, and you relaxed in his arms, opening your heart to him. You observed his habits closely—his love for Indian attar, which he so generously sprayed on himself, and his abhorrence of drinks—you were his only vice, he said. Yes, I and all the other tawaifs you have loved—you couldn’t resist the barb, even when it found its mark in the hurt of his eyes.

On one such pleasant evening, on the insistence of Nassakh, you organized a mushaira at your kotha. It was to be a grand event, with the members of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah’s family arriving from Metiaburj along with his noblemen. You had helped to make all the arrangements, hoping that the mushaira would finally win you an invitation to one of the Metiaburj soirées, where you would sing under the benign eye of the corpulent Nawab Wajid Ali Shah. Metiaburj was the epitome of culture in all of Hindustan, and if Nawab Wajid Ali Shah invited you for a recital, it meant you had made your mark in the world of poetry, you told Dagh. He laughed, saying, ‘Your heart is the only mark my poetry seeks.’

The mushaira was a great success, a convergence of all the renowned poets and grandees of Calcutta. Phaetons and carriages choked the road as guests were ushered in by liveried guards. Dagh was not well off, and Nassakh and you had financed the expensive soirée. Your presence there underlined your association with Dagh as his muse and lady love. When finally the lamp was kept before Dagh, signalling that he would be reciting his new ghazal, his words were for you and Calcutta.

Roknā dil ko ke shauq zulf e dilbar le chalā

Thāmnā mujh ko ke saudā merā sar le chalā

Ye ḥasīñ ye mehjabīñ ye shahar aisī lehar ba lehar

Dāgh kalkattey se lākhoñ Dāg̣h dil pe le chalā

My heart is swept away with the tresses of my beloved

This transaction of passion has numbed my reason

This town with its waves of luminescent beauties

Dagh leaves Kalkatta with his heart bearing numerous marks (dagh)

Nawab Kalb e Ali Khan’s letter summoning Dagh back to Rampur came like a death sentence. It had been a little more than two weeks since he arrived—how could there be such little time for you? Dagh requested for a two-month extension of leave, which was refused. You tried to persuade him to stay back. Whatever I have, is yours, stay with me here, you reiterated. He was so popular in Calcutta that there were many who would happily sponsor him; together, you could make a good living. But Dagh was a faithful servant of the Nawab, indebted by the latter’s many favours—Rampur riyasat had supported Dagh when he lost his father and again when his mother was expelled from the Mughal court. Besides, Dagh was a married man, and that was also an article of faith. Once again, he invited you to accompany him back to Rampur, but you couldn’t leave your obligations towards your family and sever all relations. These were familiar arguments, fuelled by the pain of impending separation and the inevitable stalemate between you. Within a few days, Dagh left, feeling, he said, like a corpse leaving the city. He had to reach Rampur before Ramzan.

Is this how it will end, you asked yourself. For how long can this continue? As Ramzan fasts and sehri sounds buzzed around you and him in different parts of Hindustan, you heard of him writing a masnavi, Faryād e Dāgh, a plea from his grieving heart. Would it be an obituary to your love?

About the Book

In the royal courts of nineteenth-century Rampur, courtesan–poet Munni Bai Hijab captivates the legendary Urdu poet Dagh Dehlvi, who immortalizes her in his verses while inadvertently eclipsing her voice. More than a century later, Rukmini, an aspiring writer, stumbles upon Dagh’s letters in the archives of the Rampur Raza Library and finds herself drawn to the fierce, flickering presence of Munni Bai Hijab.

Torn between worlds—a Hindu woman in a Muslim household, a cosmopolitan spirit in a conservative town—Rukmini begins to trace the forgotten threads of Hijab’s story, even as her own life starts to unravel. Her husband chases yet another doomed business idea. Her daughter walks away from medical school. And when her friendship with Daniyal, the stoic guardian of Rampur’s past, deepens into desire, Rukmini must confront her greatest fear: becoming her mother, the woman who once walked away from their family. The Courtesan, Her Lover and I is a haunting novel of longing, ambition and women who dare to write themselves into history.

About the Author

Dr Tarana Husain Khan is a writer and food historian based in Rampur. She is the author of a bestselling historical fiction, The Begum and the Dastan (Hachette India), and Degh to Dastarkhwan: Qissas and Recipes from Rampur (Penguin Random House India). She has co-edited and contributed to the anthology of food writings, Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (Pan Macmillan India). Her writings on food, culture and gender have been published in Global Food History Journal, Gastronomica Journal and prominent media outlets. She was granted a Research Fellowship at the University of Sheffield for an AHRC-funded project. This is her fourth book. She lives between Rampur and Nainital with her husband.

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

Tags British, Calcutta, Dagh Dehlvi, Ghalib, Hachette India, Hindustan, Mughal, Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, Rampur, Rampur Raza Library, Ramzan, Tarana Husain Khan, The Courtesan Her Lover and I, Urdu

Excerpt

The House of Flowers by Aruna Chakravarti

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date March 16, 2026
No Comments on The House of Flowers by Aruna Chakravarti

Title: Creeping Shadows: 13 Ghost Stories

Author: Aruna Chakravarti

Publisher: Penguin India

The House of Flowers

Zihan stirred in his sleep. A chill breath passing over his limbs had awakened him. He strained his eyes, still heavy with wine fumes, and looked around. Where was he? This was not his room and this wasn’t his bed. He was lying in what seemed to be a small, confined space under an ornate gilded ceiling in a bed so soft, his limbs were sinking into its depths. The sky was paling with first light and long beams from a dying moon streamed in through the open window. The fragrance of an unknown flower, wild and sweet, filled the room.

He turned his head towards the window. Something, like an opalescent haze, was obscuring his vision. At first, he thought it was a sheet of mist. Then, before his amazed eyes, it started to take a shape and form. It became a woman. He could see her slender limbs, smooth as white satin, shimmering through the garment that swayed and billowed around her form. Diaphanous as a film of gossamer. So light, it seemed woven out of moonbeams. Her face was swathed in mist.

The figure moved from the window and came gliding towards him. He could see her face clearly now. A perfect oval with apricot shaped eyes, brows like strung bows and hair that fell down her back like a sheet of black silk. He stared at the vision of loveliness so long and hard …his eyes began to hurt. He had never seen such beauty in a woman before.

She stood by his bed for a while gazing into his eyes, then lay down, her body light as a feather against his. Taking his face in her hands, she caressed it with a tenderness that reminded him of his mother’s touch. She drew the silky strands of her floating hair all over his naked body. Across his chest and abdomen, over his genitals, thighs and legs, down to the insteps of his feet. The wildflower scent from her limbs filled his nostrils. Her kisses fluttered on his lips, soft and cold as drifting snow…

The wine, still running in his blood, quivered in his veins. His limbs, untouched by a woman before, heaved luxuriously and his eyes closed in ecstasy. He drifted away…

How long he lay in this state of bliss, he couldn’t tell. It could be minutes. It could be hours. Gradually, an uneasy feeling came over him. Something heavy was pressing against his body. It was squashing his chest and squeezing the breath out of his lungs. He moved aside but the pressure grew in intensity, driving him further and further towards the edge of the bed. And now his heart beat rapidly with an unknown dread. What was happening? Was he still asleep and this a fearful dream? Suddenly his eyes sprang open and what he saw sent currents of ice water rippling down his spine. He felt the hot blood pulsing and pounding in his ears. A muscle twitched and shuddered in his cheek…

The reed-slim body of the woman beside him had bloated to a colossal size. Her eyes, thin slits in the vast globe of her face, glittered with hate. Her mouth was a deep red gash through which yellow teeth, long and sharp as a panther’s fangs, hung to her chin.

The mountain of flesh was growing larger and larger every moment. It was filling the bed. He would fall over the edge any moment now. A scream gathered in his lungs but froze before it could reach his throat…

Suddenly she sprang on him; her nails sharp as claws ripping the skin off his chest and thighs. Digging her teeth into the soft flesh just below the right shoulder, she bit off a large hunk. Zihan’s eyes were glazed with pain and fear. He stared mesmerized as the monstrous creature rose from the bed and swayed and shuffled towards the opposite wall. She wore a garment of sheer white muslin that swelled and surged like waves about her form. Blood dripped from her slavering mouth and fell on the floor as her great body waddled, like a gorilla’s, from side to side. And now, for the first time, Zihan saw the coffin. It was open…

Zihan screamed. Shriek after shriek burst from the throat that had been frozen all this while, hit the walls, and sent fearful echoes all through the house. Then, exhausted and half dead from shock and loss of blood, he lay motionless, whimpering like a child.

Kueilan was a light sleeper and the first to hear the cries. They seemed to be coming from the dead girl’s room. Her heart thudded with fear as she rushed to it and flung the door open. She stood where she was for a while, her eyes glued to the coffin. It stood in the same place but the seal was broken and its open lid rested against the wall. A lily-white hand with long tapering fingers was dangling from the edge. And now the lid began to move downwards. Slowly, soundlessly, it was falling in place. In a few moments it would reach the hand and crush it. A tremor ran through Kueilan’s frame. Her mouth opened in a scream but before she could utter a sound, the hand glided over the edge and slipped into the hollow where the rest of the dead girl lay. Then, before Kueilan’s amazed eyes, the coffin closed, the seal came together and all was as it had been.

‘Published with permission from Penguin Random House India from Creeping Shadows (2026)’.

About the Book:

The stories in Creeping Shadows are spread over a vast canvas, both in terms of time span and locale. A teahouse in ancient China. A brothel in nineteenth-century Calcutta. A forest lodge in Bankura. An old mansion in Bangladesh. A university campus in today’s Delhi. Beginning as human-interest narratives, they end with sudden, unexpected twists that raise hair ends and send trickles of ice water down the spine. Here are tales of shadows, tingles and chills…

About the Author:

Aruna Chakravarti has been principal of a prestigious women’s college of Delhi University for ten years. She is also a well-known academic, creative writer and translator with eighteen published books on record. They comprise five novels, two books of short stories, two academic works and nine volumes of translation.
Her first novel, The Inheritors (published by Penguin Random House), was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and her second, Jorasanko, received critical acclaim and became a bestseller. Daughters of Jorasanko, a sequel to Jorasanko, has sold widely and received rave reviews. Her novel Suralakshmi Villa was adjudged ‘Novel of the year (India 2020)’ by Indian Bibliography published in The Journal of Commonwealth Literature U.K. Her other well-known works include The Mendicant Prince which has been shortlisted for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize, and Through a Looking Glass: Stories. Her translated works include an anthology of songs from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitabitaan, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay’s Srikanta and Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Those Days, First Light and Primal Woman: Stories. Her most recent work is titled Rising from the Dust.
Among the various awards she has received are Vaitalik Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and Sarat Puraskar. She is also a scriptwriter and producer of seven multi-media presentations based on her novels. Comprising dramatized readings, interspersed with songs and accompanied by a visual presentation by professional artists and singers, these programmes have been widely acclaimed and performed in many parts of India and abroad.

Click here to read her interview/review

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

Excerpt

The Power of Compassion by Kailash Satyarthi

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date March 16, 2026
No Comments on The Power of Compassion by Kailash Satyarthi

Title: Karuna: The Power of Compassion

Author: Kailash Satyarthi

Publisher: HarperCollins India

What Is Compassion?

Who are we? What are we doing here? What is the purpose of life? These complex existential questions are best left to thinkers and philosophers. We could instead begin with a more straightforward query: What do we want from life? Though our aspirations are countless and various, the desire for happiness, contentment and peace is familiar to all of us. None of us seek sadness, pain or trouble. But life invariably acquaints us with these negative feelings and experiences.

Our ability to feel the suffering of others as our own and our consequent efforts to alleviate it are integral to the human experience. This has led to the creation of families, communities and organisations. If we were all to look away from the pain of others, none of us would have a shot at happiness. The stories of Chirag and a group of teenagers from Sweden help illustrate the true meaning of compassion.

The word ‘chirag’ means ‘lamp’ and, true to his name, Chirag brought light to corners that were once shrouded in darkness. After being rescued from slavery, Chirag had been brought years ago to Bal Ashram in Rajasthan, our long-term rehabilitation centre for children rescued from child labour, trafficking and slavery.

In 2015, an eleven-year-old boy called Mithun was rescued by my organisation, Bachpan Bachao Andolan[1], and also brought to Bal Ashram. He had been trafficked from his village and taken to the city, where he was forced into begging. When we asked him where he was from, he could only say ‘Bengal’. A case was registered with the West Bengal police, but without adequate details they failed to find his home. So, Mithun continued living and pursuing his education at Bal Ashram.

In 2020, the children at Bal Ashram were celebrating Chhath, a Hindu festival native to the state of Bihar. Mithun remembered that people in his village would also celebrate this festival with great pomp and show. He also said there was a bus stand and market near his home that his elder brother would visit often. Since Chirag was from Bihar, he guessed that Mithun’s village might also be in his state. Chirag then began showing a keen interest in Mithun’s story and could often be seen jogging his friend’s memory for more information. Borrowing a teacher’s phone, Chirag scoured the internet and—after many months of Google searches—found Mithun’s village, a place called Borna in Bihar’s Khagaria district.

When Chirag learnt that Google Earth renders three-dimensional representations of places with satellite imagery, he began using the software to find the bus stand and market Mithun had described. Looking at one of the images Chirag showed him, Mithun’s face lit up. He was convinced this was the bus stand near his village. Mithun also identified a shop he’d often visited with his elder brother. Chirag zoomed in and found a phone number on a board above the shop. When he called that number, the shop owner confirmed that years ago he had heard of a child being kidnapped from a village some 20 km away. He promised to look for Mithun’s brother and bring him to his shop.

The next day, Mithun finally spoke to his elder brother after five years of separation. Bal Ashram burst into celebration. The children lifted Chirag onto their shoulders and showered him with praise. A few days later, Mithun went back to Borna with his brother, who had come to get him. When I asked Chirag why he had tried so hard to find Mithun’s family, he said, ‘If my younger brother or I were lost like this, would I not have done the same thing?’ Today, Chirag is pursuing a management degree in Chennai, while Mithun is studying at a school near his village.

The following story is of a group of students from Sweden. They, accompanied by their teacher Ula Asberg, had come to visit Mukti Ashram several years ago. Mukti Ashram in Delhi is our short stay rehabilitation home for boys who have been rescued from child slavery and child labour. After the students returned home, they discussed among themselves how it was unfair that there was no such home for girls. At the time, the number of boys being rescued was more than girls and we did not have the funds for homes for both. The Swedish students felt it was necessary that girls who faced exploitation should have access to the same kind of help and support the boys did. They shared their intentions with their teachers, and not only did they collect a large amount by pooling their own pocket money and savings, but they also mobilised the teachers to contribute.

A few months later, when I was on a trip to Sweden, the students invited me to their school. They shared with me their wonderful initiative, telling me that they wished the money they had collected could be used to set up a rehabilitation home for girls. When I asked them what had made them do such a thing, they said, ‘Of what value are these krona to us? A few extra treats? But for the girls who are stuck in exploitation, this sum of money means life and freedom.’

I was spellbound by their compassion. After I returned to India, their contribution was used to set up a large rehabilitation home—including dormitories, classrooms, medical care and other rehabilitative facilities—for girls.

The actions of Chirag and the students from Sweden show that compassion exists all around us and that it is not a mythical force to be found only in legends and folktales. The spark of compassion lies within us all.

Think of what connects you and others in a manner that is both pure and profound. Oftentimes, you find the connection is so deep that it not only makes you responsible for another person but also creates an irrepressible desire to alleviate their suffering. This connection can also transcend human boundaries and extend to nature—to the climate, mountains, rivers, oceans, trees and animals. That intuitive expression is compassion.

Compassion is the force borne from feeling the suffering of others as one’s own that drives mindful action to end that suffering.

(Excerpted from Chapter 1 of Karuna: The Power of Compassion by Kailash Satyarthi, Published by HarperCollins India)

About the Book:

I see a world where compassion is the only solution. Do you see what I see?

Never before has our world been so wealthy, well-informed and technologically advanced. Yet we are facing an unprecedented crisis: humanity is plagued by conflict, inequality and indifference. It is imperative, therefore, that we rethink our approach to life and society, and that we do so now. The answer lies in karuna, compassion.

Compassion is not a soft emotion but a powerful force for transformation. It transcends borders, ideologies, religions and politics. And it asks only this: Act mindfully, as if the world is all one family—because it is.

Nobel Peace Prize awardee Kailash Satyarthi has fought for the rights and dignity of millions of marginalized people across the globe for the past five decades. For him, compassion is a way of life. In this new book, he shows us how karuna is the answer to our individual, social and global problems, and the key to a better future.

The Author

Kailash Satyarthi, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, has dedicated more than five decades to defending the rights and dignity of marginalized children and communities around the world. He believes Karuna—compassion—is the most powerful force for building a just, equitable, peaceful and sustainable world, and one that must guide how individuals, institutions and societies think and act.

[1] Save Childhood Campaign

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

Tags Kailash Satyarthi, Karuna: The Power of Compassion, Nobel Peace Prize

Excerpt

The Moonlight Saga by Arupa Patangia Kalita

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date February 16, 2026
No Comments on The Moonlight Saga by Arupa Patangia Kalita

Title: Moonlight Saga

Author: Arupa Patangia Kalita

Translated from Assamese by Ranjita Biswas

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

Many, many years ago, even before time could be stamped with a number, our earth was absolutely empty. The utter silence depressed Singh Buga, the Adi devata—the First God. He could not live in peace in his heavenly abode. So Singh Buga decided to use his magical power to fill up the void with living things. But there was no soil on which they could be nurtured. Water, water, that’s all he saw everywhere. Yes, there was soil under the water, but who could bring it up from such depths? If only he could get some earth, even a small amount, he would fill it with trees and flowers, animals and other living beings. He thought and thought and then he created a leech, a crab and a tortoise. The leech was sent first to get some soil, but he failed in his mission. How could he go down to such great depths under the water? So, Singh Buga sent the crab. But for him too, the soil was too down below. At last, he sent the tortoise. The tortoise followed his Lord’s command and plunged in. He swam far into the depths, reached the bottom and touched the earth’s core. He smelled the earth, took a deep breath, rubbed some of the earth on his body, dug up some more that lay almost inert for eons under the cold water and carried it back for his Lord. Singh Buga was delighted and soon created all the things he desired. The earth that had lain lifeless underwater for thousands of years was touched by sunlight. Wind blew over it. It became full of life. The fertile land became green and spread to the horizon. Plants flowered, trees bowed down with the weight of ripe fruits. The earth was now full of colour. The God decided to create living beings. The calls of birds, animals and insects broke the silence. A pair of milk-white swans laid two eggs. From them Singh Buga created a pair of humans—a man and a woman. He was elated that men would now inhabit the earth. He let them live in a cave and waited with bated breath for news of a new arrival. But where was the news? He waited and waited, finally feeling crestfallen. The pair were very happy roaming around in the beautiful land, but they were ignorant about the mystery of creating life themselves. So, he made them drink laopaani—rice wine—to make their bodies throb with desire.

See that couple sitting morosely in a corner on the ferry? They are no older than the young couple Singh Buga had created out of two swan eggs. But this young couple exudes no sense of happiness. They belong to this burdensome earth; not for them the serenity of the pristine world that God Singh Buga had created. True, they worship him, but in their lives there is only pain and sorrow. Hunger and the torment of a painful existence has chased them every moment. Lack of peace and resentment towards their lot were their constant companions. Adi devata could intoxicate the young couple he had brought to life with liquor and generate in them a desire to create. But for this couple, even if God Singh Buga offered them the best drink, he would only lull them physically from the pain; he would be unable to awaken in them the ancient hunger of the body. Their minds were as dry as the drought-affected earth. On that famished land, only hot tears trickled down drop by drop. The hungry earth sucked in those tears instantly.

The girl, at the cusp of youth, looked utterly dejected. The long arduous journey had drained her energy. Her eyes shut, she rested her head on the shoulder of the equally exhausted young man sitting next to her. If she opened her eyes, the bright sunlight playing on the river’s surface dazzled her and made her head spin. She was too weak to move much.

Her name was Durgi. Durgi Bhumij. An expert sculptor seemed to have lovingly carved her figure. Her statuesque body had thinned down somewhat, but strangely, though wreaked by hunger and thirst, her light brown face had not lost its charm. She was, after all, Durgi—Durga mai, Goddess Durga. She was born during the autumn festival of Durga puja, when the throbbing madal drum was beating frenziedly outside their house. Her grandmother cut the umbilical cord, gave the baby a bath and placed her on her mother’s breast and said, ‘Durga mai has come to our house.’ The old woman named her Durgi in the likeness of the Shakti Goddess.

But now, her granny’s beloved Durga mai was facing terrible times. A devastating famine had crippled their land of red earth. Its canopy of forests of mahua, sal and teak were now filled with only heart-rending cries from hungry mouths, and death.

Durgi was at an age when she could digest even chips of stone. But there was nothing to eat. The fields lay dry. The white sahibs had taken away everything. There was no water in the river for them, no forests to pick fruits from. There was no work: no field to till, no forest to forage for potatoes and yams. Entering the forest for their age-old practice of hunting was banned. As was fishing in the river next to their village. All these now belonged to ‘others’. The only word that echoed through the land was: NOTHING…NOTHING. Nothing was left for them. Rice became as costly as gold.

There had been floods in the past, even droughts. But like a mother whose annoyance with a child does not last long, Mother Nature’s anger also did not carry on forever. The earth became indulgent again, green shoots showed up joyfully once more. But the kind of famine Durgi and her people were now facing was like coming up against a formidable hill they could not surmount…

(Extracted from Moonlight Saga by Arupa Kalita Patangia, translated from Assamese by Ranjita Biswas. Published by Speaking Tiger Books 2026.)

ABOUT THE BOOK

In the lush yet brutal landscape of colonial Assam unfolds a haunting chapter of history—the rise of the tea plantations and the human cost that sustained them. Drawn by promises of Assam desh—a land of dignity, abundance, and fair wages—Adivasi families from central India are packed onto overcrowded steamers and sent upriver, where hunger, disease and death shadow every step of their journey. Among them is Durgi, a young woman whose resilience endures even in despair. With her, she carries a small bundle of marigold seeds, a fragile memory of the land of red earth she has left behind. At her side is her husband, Dosaru, the rebellious archer, bound to her by love and the shared hope of building a life of their own. However, what awaits them at Atharighat Tea Estate is no promised land. Labourers are stripped, disinfected, confined to barracks, and driven into relentless work, while sickness, fear, and muted defiance simmer beneath the ordered rows of tea bushes.

Durgi’s life takes a complicated turn over the years—an intimate affair with Fraser, the white manager of the tea garden, results in the birth of three mixed race children. Their unequal relationship exposes another unspoken truth about plantation life—the generations of similar children, many of whom, abandoned by their white ancestors, still live in Assam’s tea gardens today.

Rooted in lived experience, Moonlight Saga gives voice to the forgotten men and women who built the empire’s ‘green gold’, bearing witness to their suffering, endurance, and fragile hopes—as the British Raj begins to crumble in the shadows of India’s Independence struggle.

Originally written in Assamese, the novel is a celebrated and much-discussed work in Assam, recognised for its unflinching portrayal of plantation life and its place in the region’s collective memory. Its translation into English opens up an essential regional story to a wider readership, ensuring that the sacrifices and struggles embedded in the tea gardens are not forgotten.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Arupa Kalita Patangia is one of the best-known Assamese writers of today. She has five novels, twelve short story collections, several novellas, books for children, and translations into Assamese to her credit. In 2014, she received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for her book of short stories, Mariam Austin Othoba Hira Barua.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Ranjita Biswas is an independent journalist, fiction and travel writer, and translator. Ranjita has won the KATHA translation awards several times. She has also to her credit eight published works in translation.

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

Tags Arupa Kalita Patangia, Assamese, British Raj, India, Mariam Austin Othoba Hira Barua, Moonlight Saga, Ranjita Biswas, Sahitya Akademi award, Speaking Tiger Books

Excerpt

The Red Silk Dress

Title: The Red Silk Dress

Author: Natalie Turner

Publisher: Spines

The opening scene of The Red Silk Dress

Siem Reap, Cambodia—2015

Chapter One

She stepped out of the limousine. The brim of her white Panama hat brushed the car door, and dust from the spinning wheels of a departing silver Mercedes hung in the air like a shroud. She shot an irritated glance at the receding car. Why did everything have to feel so rushed? She exhaled slowly, a familiar weight pressing against her chest. She looked down at her Jimmy Choos, now dusted with sand—a small detail, yet enough to deepen her annoyance. Determined to regain a sense of control, she pulled a tissue from her bag and stooped to wipe them clean. Shielding her eyes with oversized black sunglasses, she lifted her gaze to the sun.

Surrounded by meticulously manicured gardens, the Grand Hotel d’Angkor, an elegant cream mansion with a red slate roof and white veranda, stood before her. Its old-world charm softened her irritation. Finally, a touch of class. Claudette hadn’t realised just how much she had missed it.

Beside the limousine stood Andrew, her husband, his tall frame casting a long shadow. Wiping sweat from his freckled forehead, the lines on his face betrayed stress and fatigue. She knew it was the toll of his work, and she couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness.

“I’ll check in,” he said, frowning. Pulling a handful of US dollars from the pocket of his sun-bleached khaki shorts, Claudette watched as he paid the driver, a knot of emotion tightening in her chest. There had been a time when he was light-hearted—playful even—but those days were long gone. Now his frown served only as a reminder of how distant they had become. His efforts to avoid meaningful conversation only deepened her frustration, and their relationship rarely stretched beyond the children’s schedules and his business travel plans.

“Monique, Pierre, wait!” she called to their ten-year-old twins. Overcome with excitement, they ignored her and sprinted up the hotel steps. Waving to catch their attention, she dropped her mobile. “Mon Dieu. Can you tell the children to stop for a moment?” Andrew turned his back and waved dismissively. Why does the burden of responsibility always fall on me? It was a familiar pattern. She was tired of feeling unheard and unimportant. Picking up her phone, she tucked a strand of long dark hair behind her ear and lowered her hat to shield her face from the sun. Following the twins up the steps, she entered the hotel.

“Ma’am.” A butler bowed as he offered a cold-pressed towel. Grateful for his attentiveness, she thanked him and pressed it to her face. Its cardamom-infused aroma lingered on her lips, and her fingers tingled from its cool, damp texture. Wiping her hands, she smiled and placed the towel on a small bronze plate. Determined to shake off her discomfort, she followed him into the cool, air-conditioned lobby and stepped into the lounge. Notes of Duke Ellington’s ‘Sophisticated Lady’ drifted through the air, accompanying her inside. It was one of her favourite songs. A wave of nostalgia, stirred by Sarah Vaughan’s mellow voice, carried her back to her days as a fashion student in a Parisian jazz bar. How she missed those days—when everything felt simple, possibilities stretching ahead like an open road. Days before she met Andrew, when her dreams were bright and believable. For a moment, the memories wrapped around her like a warm embrace. For a moment, she forgot where she was. She wanted more than the façade of a glamorous life; she longed to feel alive again. She sat down on a muted gold velvet sofa, hoping this weekend she might rediscover the Claudette she once was.

ABOUT THE BOOK

From the mystical temples of Angkor Wat to the glittering expat communities of Malaysia and the elegance of Paris, the novel is a story of longing, courage and transformation. Claudette, a French expat trapped in a loveless marriage, is captivated by Som, a charismatic Cambodian whose passion for his homeland awakens desires she thought were lost. Torn between duty and an awakening that promises freedom, but at a cost, Claudette must choose or risk losing the life calling her name. An intimate journey through the beauty and ache of second chances, the risks we take for love, and the secrets we keep, even from ourselves. For everyone longing to reclaim identity, this story will linger long after the final page.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Natalie Turner is a British author based in Lisbon. Her debut novel, The Red Silk Dress, is an upmarket literary exploration of longing, courage, and awakening, set across Cambodia, Malaysia, and Paris. Alongside her fiction, she writes a reflective cultural column exploring creativity, imagination, and the human dimensions of change. She is also the author of the award-winning non-fiction book Yes, You Can Innovate. Drawing on years living across Southeast Asia and Europe, she writes about women at thresholds, the landscapes that shape us, and the quiet moments where life begins to change.

Click here to read the author interview

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Tags Angkor Wat, Asia, Cambodia, Cambodian, Lisbon, Malaysia, Natalie Turner, Paris, Siem Reap, The Red Silk Dress, US

Excerpt

The Struggle by Showkat Ali

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date January 14, 2026
No Comments on The Struggle by Showkat Ali

Title: The Struggle: A Novel

Author: Showkat Ali

Translators: V. Ramaswamy and Mohiuddin Jahangir

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

It was being said that the landlords were terribly angry, and that apparently they would not let the sharecroppers harvest the paddy. The paddy would be cut by people brought from outside. If there was a conflict over the matter, only Allah knew what would happen. Phulmoti did not know any prayers or Quranic verses; ‘Allah’ and ‘Bismillahe Rahamanur Rahim’ were the only sacred words she knew. She inwardly uttered those whenever the fear overwhelmed her.

One morning, Qutubali suddenly spotted someone in the distance, running along the boundary ridge towards their house. The person appeared familiar. So, he kept looking, trying to make out who it was. And why on earth was he running like that?

He recognized the man soon enough. ‘Aare, it is Mahindar!’ Qutubali advanced. Gasping for breath, Mahindar informed him that he had been to Ranisankoil to meet the peasants’ union there. He said he saw many men from Bihar at Pirganj station. They had long-moustachioed faces, and were hefty of build, and they were all carrying long lathis with a brass grip. He had heard that they were going to the house of the landlord Mitra Babu of Ranisankoil to guard the paddy fields. Apparently, thieves were cutting the paddy and taking it away and so the paddy on his field had to be guarded.

Qutubali grew anxious when he heard the news. Both of them rushed to the market, discussing the matter as they went. If the landlords in their locality too brought in Bihari watchmen from the west and made them guard the paddy fields, what would the peasants do? Would the watchmen let the sharecroppers cut the paddy? And what if they did not? Would the sharecropping peasants sit idly by with folded hands? The plough and the bullocks belonged to the sharecropper; he was the one who toiled, and it was he who raised the crop. Would he have no claim over that crop now? Would they not permit him to even enter the crop field? What nonsense was this? Hired musclemen from Bihar to guard ripe paddy in the fields was simply unacceptable!

Both of them were in agreement. No, the sharecroppers would cut the paddy. If there was resistance, then a fight would break out, and if indeed it did, then they must fight.

‘There’s no option but to fight,’ Mahindar said. ‘Let anyone say what they want, but we must fight.’

When they reached the union office, they saw that Baram Horo was already there, puffing on a beedi. He was surprised to see the two of them.

‘You people? Where’s Mondol? And Dinesh?’

Qutubali and Mahindar were startled. ‘Why, was Delbar Mondol supposed to come here?’

‘Yes,’ Baram said. ‘Dinesh asked Mondol to come. He needs to be here.’

‘Why? What happened?’

The news wasn’t good, Baram informed them. ‘Instructions have been received in all the police stations that since the paddy in the landlords’ fields might be looted, the police must guard the paddy with rifles until the harvest is over. I think they won’t let the sharecropping peasants cut the paddy.’

They didn’t realize how quickly the day passed—it was already afternoon. A lot of people had joined them by now. All were sharecropping peasants, except for Dr Abhimanyu Sen. There were discussions and information was shared. No one could say what the district-level leaders had decided.

‘They will decide what they think is appropriate,’ Doctor Babu said, ‘but will we sit twiddling our thumbs because of that? The landlords are bringing musclemen. We can’t bring guns, but we too have to pick up lathis. This isn’t anything new; the peasant earlier carried a cattle-prod, now he’ll carry a six-foot-long lathi of seasoned bamboo. Go, brothers, go and cut lathis from bamboo clumps…’

Dinesh Murmu kept shaking his head, growling, ‘What rubbish is this! Saala, the government, police and political parties are all on the side of the landlords. No one is on our side.’

The stalks full of ears of ripe paddy stood all over the floodplain with their heads bowed, waiting for the festival of harvest to begin! But the festive moment never arrived.

Qutubali was unable to sleep. Countless millions of stars shed dew smeared with blue light as the night advanced towards the next horizon. From many faraway fields could be heard the cries of ‘Hoshiyar…jaagte raho—o—o… Beware, stay awake!’ He had seen with his own eyes that Ghosh Babu too had brought a hired band of Bihari guards from Purnea district. He had no idea whose counsel the Mistress had followed in taking this step. Was she planning on getting the paddy cutting done by someone else? What about the task of husking the paddy? That too?

His wife was asleep next to him, as was his son, but he remained awake.

At some point during those still hours, Doctor Babu arrived at their house on a bicycle. He gave clear instructions: Delbar Mondol and Mahindar Burman were not to remain at home at night, nor were they to set foot in the nearby town or the marketplace in the market town. If they did, they might be arrested by the police and sent to jail. Doctor Babu also conveyed the news that the police had gone to arrest Dinesh and Baram, but fortunately, they couldn’t. Having got the news, the two had gone into hiding.

‘We are not going to start fighting just now…that’s right… but that doesn’t mean that we will let the police catch us,’ Doctor Babu said. ‘We will be careful and keep ourselves safe. And we will cut the paddy and bring it home—we must keep that in mind.’

No cutting of the paddy, no ploughing of the soil for the next crop, just sitting and waiting! If the ears dried up, would the paddy be fit to cut? All the stalks would drop off their ears.

Extracted from The Struggle: A Novel by Showkat Ali, translated by V. Ramaswamy and Mohiuddin Jahangir. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2025.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Set in a remote village in the Dinajpur region of undivided Bengal during the mid-1940s, The Struggle tells the intertwined story of Phulmoti—a young widow fighting to hold on to her land, her dignity and her child—and Qutubali, a simple-minded outsider whose unexpected kindness and fierce loyalty make him her unlikely ally amid the upheavals of a precarious feudal order and the stirrings of a nation on the verge of independence.

The death of Phulmoti’s husband shatters her fragile world. Her ten-year-old, Abed, can offer little defence against the men now circling her—neighbours, relatives, even the local cleric—drawn by desire and the lure of her small property. Malek, a kindly bookseller at the local market, too, proves not to be what he seems. It is Malek’s hired hand, Qutubali, who finds himself drawn into her struggles, standing by her in ways that others do not. The politics of the Congress and the Muslim League hover on the margins of village life, far removed from their daily battles. But when the tebhaga struggle breaks out in Bengal—with sharecroppers demanding two-thirds of the harvest from landlords as their rightful due—Phulmoti and Qutubali stand to lose what little of their lives they have pieced back together.

First published in 1989 as Narai, this novel is not only a vivid portrayal of endurance in the face of isolation and rural exploitation, but also a sharp indictment of the social and political systems that deny justice to the poor. This sensitive translation introduces to a wider audience a forgotten classic of Bengali literature—politically clear-eyed and deeply moving.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Showkat Ali (1936–2018) was a renowned Bangladeshi novelist, short story writer and journalist whose work explored history, class and identity in Bengali society. His most celebrated novel, Prodoshe Prakritojon (1984), is considered a landmark in Bangladeshi literature.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS

Mohiuddin Jahangir is currently Assistant Professor in Khabashpur Adarsa University College, Bangladesh. His articles on literature, history and heritage have been published in scholarly journals, and he is the author of seven books.

V. Ramaswamy has translated many well-known Benglai authors. He was awarded the Translation Fellowship by the New India Foundation, and the English PEN Presents award in 2022.

Click here to read the review of the novel

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

Tags Bangaldeshi, Bangladesh, Bengal, Bengali, Bihar, Bihari, Khabashpur Adarsa University College, Mohiuddin Jahangir, Muslim League, Narai, PEN, Prodoshe Prakritojon, Purnea, Quranic, Showkat Ali, Speaking Tiger Books, The Struggle: A Novel, V. Ramaswamy

Excerpt

The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date January 14, 2026
No Comments on The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta

Title: The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta

Author: Anuradha Marwah

Publisher: Rupa Publications

Boyfriend

There is communication because there is no communication, thundered the supervisor in a sudden spurt of lucidity.

Three dark heads bent obediently over the notebook to glean these pearls of wisdom.

‘When I say cat, you may think of a black cat, a white cat, a fat cat, a thin cat…’

I wondered where to put this in. I was going to write a dissertation on A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul, I had decided last night. At what point should I bring in the feline? This brand new structuralist approach… For the past twenty minutes, this impressive lady from Sorbonne had only spoken about the difficulty in identifying cats. I had even drawn one in my notebook. Structuralism had spread far and wide, she had told us; it had reached Cornell, where a professor had simplified it at once for the simple non-European brain. Only Americans are capable of such simplifications, she had added laughingly.

Cornell, America… Vinita.

Vinita had changed so much. She now had a baby girl. She did all the household chores herself, she had told me. She had become plump. Her breasts had lost their upright quality; she had even started applying a lot of make-up—bright lipstick, mascara and eyeshadow.

She wouldn’t know about American universities though—that wasn’t the America she had gone to. She had gone to drudgery and loneliness… No servants to chat with all day long.

In Ratish’s house, there were servants… Lakshmi said Ratish was far too predictable. She said I was predictable too. That I would get married in a hotel, watched by a whole lot of people I didn’t know; that I would have two easy deliveries and be pleasantly miserable all my life. She even predicted I would get fat.

When I told her I wasn’t predictable and would make her sit up one day, she began singing ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’.

Every discourse has a mediatory role as an instrument of change.

Who would mediate between my estranged parents and me?

Which discourse—the discourse of commitment or the discourse of tradition? Lakshmi or Ratish?

Ratish had come to Desertvadi to say that he loved me. Mummy had said it was absolutely dreadful the way I could never make up my mind about boys. She had cried. Andy had cried too; Papa was the only one who hadn’t. And then, suddenly, there had been a letter from the university saying I had cleared the written exams for the MPhil programme, would I appear for an interview?

I was where I wanted to be, for the first time in life, although the umbilical cord of parental expectations was yet to be cut… Ratish said he valued family and respected my parents, and that I should be gentle with them… Cruel to be kind, kind to the potential children in my womb. What if there weren’t any? What if I couldn’t have any? So much of our planning would go haywire, Ratish. I would have been cruel for nothing.

There would be nothing to do except cry or make a phone call to your office… No patter of little feet. What would I do with you then?

Tonight, we are going for a party, I will ask you then.

Words are either arbitrary or associational.

Is that a word, ‘associational’, or was it coined in Sorbonne this very summer? Lakshmi says it would be better to check the professor’s antecedents; perhaps she is not from Sorbonne at all.

Lakshmi looks down on our department anyway.

Economics people have this strange nose-in-the-air attitude towards languages. Our department was housed in the School of Languages, so everybody thought it was a Linguistics department… But we were doing literature, three of us. One was from Utkal University, Orissa; another from Ramakrishna Mission, Pondicherry; and I, from Rajasthan University.

I was disappointed that there was nobody from Lutyenabad in our course. All Lutyenabad students went to the Capital University because all the jobs were there. I had heard that there was a danger of never landing a job in Lutyenabad after doing an MPhil from Jana University.

So Andy, your curse may yet materialize—if I don’t have children and I don’t get a job. You had said as much, hadn’t you?

‘You will never be happy, Geetika, never… Don’t think you can find happiness by wrecking mine.’

But what could I do, Andy?

‘Geeti, my mother wants us to marry,’ you had said.

‘But Andy, my parents do not want me to marry yet.’

‘Look, the situation is getting very difficult for me. My parents are rather worried about the fact that your parents have not made any overtures to them.’

‘Why don’t you explain to them—’

‘I have done enough explaining. Your brother got married without even calling his parents for the wedding…’

‘What does Bhaiya have to do with this?’

‘Geeti, I can understand my parents… They didn’t question my decision to marry you. Surely, they are entitled to some sort of say in my affairs.’

‘I am not saying they are not…but Andy, what am I to do?’

You could never answer that one, could you, Andy? It just went on and on—your duty towards your parents, the obduracy of mine. I was tempted, sorely tempted, to just tell my parents that I was marrying you that very day but Ratish’s card saved me.

It came by the evening post the day you left Desertvadi after extracting a promise from me that I would speak to my parents. It was a lovely card; it said: ‘I can’t forget you, little one’.

It became easier to write that letter to you, dear Andy… It became easier to tell you, when you came running after receiving that letter, that it won’t work… But it wasn’t easy dealing with the lava of your frustrated anger as it burnt down my unsuspecting ears whenever I picked up the phone for months after that.

‘You bitch, you found somebody else at the Sportsaid, didn’t you? Don’t think you can ever be happy with him…’

Discourse becomes necessary because of the ambiguity inherent in the nature of language.

But I understood even what you didn’t say… I knew that I had wronged you, Andy. I did not cry as much as you did; I would have to make up for it. I had always appeased the gods by crying… This time, I slipped up…

About the Book: Desertvadi, Rajasthan, is a retirees’ paradise, but for a young girl like Geetika it is a claustrophobic trap. Academically gifted and sexually curious, she feels suffocated by small-town mediocrity and dreams of faraway lands and liberated lives – the kind that fill the pages of her beloved novels.

So, when an opportunity to study in the big, bustling Lutyenabad presents itself, Geetika leaps at it, eager to get away from her parents and the miasma of chronic boredom that envelops Desertvadi. Soon cosmopolitan life begins to feel like a snug fit especially when her new boyfriend, a famously fine catch, offers her the many luxuries of a conventional marriage.

But life in a metro impacts her in ways she never expected. Her aspirations inflate, her tastes evolve, and her ambitions solidify. As her boundaries expand uncontrollably and the daydreams she was escaping to inevitably shatter, Geetika is compelled to face some tough questions.

Published in 1993, The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta was one of India’s earliest campus novels. Republished for a new generation, this is a bold and intimate coming-of-age tale – unafraid of its hunger and unashamed of its heat.

About the Author: Anuradha Marwah is a professor, playwright, and novelist. Her wide-ranging publications also include poems, essays, articles and reviews. Aunties of Vasant Kunj, her fourth novel was published in 2024 to immense acclaim. Anuradha lives in Vasant Kunj, surrounded by a community of trees and cats.

Click here to read the review of the novel

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Tags Anuradha Marwah, Aunties of Vasant Kunj, Orissa, Pondicherry, Rajasthan University, Ramakrishna Mission, Rupa Publications, The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta, Utkal University