Category: Stories

In Translation: Lakhvinder Virk

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date March 16, 2026
1 Comment on In Translation: Lakhvinder Virk

Story by Lakhvinder Virk, translated from Punjabi by C. Christine Fair

Translator’s note

This story comes from Lakhvinder Virk’s first collection of Punjabi-language short stories titled, Colors that Were Not Red (Rang Jo Suuha Nahin Sin), which was published in 2024 by Ojj Parkashan in India. Punjabi literature, despite the presence of important giants such as Amrita Pritam and Ajeet Cour, is still dominated by male voices and male interiorities. Even when male authors ventrilolocute for female characters, it often feels voyeuristic. Upon reading this story, I was immediately struck by its distinctive voice and storyline. This story is distinctive both because of its adventurous female protagonist, who is willing to explore her own sexuality and negotiate the boundaries of marriage, but also its theme of a husband who seeks an open marriage. In India such concepts are even more rare and controversial than they are in the United States. Upon encountering this story, I was awed by Virk’s brave willingness to engage a subject matter that is so verboten in India. While other stories in her collection of short stories flirt with similarly provocative themes, I believed “Open Marriage” was an important story to translate. While the specificities of this story are rooted in upper-class Mumbai, India, the challenges confronted by the young female protagonist are universal. How do women everywhere negotiate unreasonable demands and behavior from a husband who was heretofore presented as loving and caring? When has the Rubicon been crossed? When does a woman leave a marriage that is destroying her? How much is too much to tolerate? This story presents its own answers.

Open Marriage by Lakhvinder Virk

The sound from the phone caught both of their attention. It was likely text message. Indeed, Siddarth got a message on his phone. He did not pick up his phone to look. Tania’s gaze was fixed on the television screen. Because it was Sunday, both were free, and they planned to watch the film Animal on Netflix. They ordered out for food and began watching the movie.

On the TV. screen, there was a scene: the hero, having lied to his wife, formed a physical relationship with another girl. When the wife found out, she was inconsolable. She cried and left the house, taking the children with her.

Siddharth picked up the phone and went to the bathroom. But the sound of the message on his phone kept nagging Tania.

Tania tried to focus on watching the film. “Is it such a big deal if a husband is involved with another woman? He still loved his wife,” she thought to herself. “If what is being depicted is real, then so what?”

Siddarth and Tania were married two years ago. Siddarth was the CEO of a multinational company in Mumbai, and Tania was the general manager in a branch of the State Bank of India. They had an arranged marriage through a matchmaking app. After marriage, the husband and wife would clean the kitchen together as well as other household chores. Because Tania shifted from Delhi to Mumbai, she had to work hard to understand the new place and new environment. Siddarth helped her thoroughly in this process.

One day Siddarth asked, “Tania, did you have a boyfriend before marriage?”

“I am not so narrow-minded. Don’t worry. Come on. Tell me.”

“In truth, no.” Tania was collecting herself.

“This isn’t possible, dear. Don’t lie.”

“No Siddarth, it’s the truth.”

“This means that you don’t trust me, Tania. These days, there’s nothing bad about having relationships. Moreover, in our society, if you don’t have a relationship, it means that there is something wrong with you.” Siddarth wanted to know about Tania’s past.

“I never got the free time, Siddarth. I just focused upon my career and studies,” Tania answered, looking away. She was afraid that Siddarth would read her emotions.

“Tell me about yourself,” Tania asked.

“Yes. I had many. I had my first girlfriend when I was in the sixth grade. Before marriage, I had thirteen girlfriends.” Siddarth answered proudly, counting them on his fingers.

“Oh my god! At such a young age,” Tania said in bewilderment.

“Young?” Siddarth looked at Tania as if she had come out of the jungle and knew nothing about the world. “Some of my friends had several physical relationships by the time they were in the tenth grade. I even had a friend who was caught with his girlfriend in the school toilet. Both of them were kicked out of school. In this regard, I was slow. My friends would make fun of me because I was clueless. Then somehow, during my graduation, I mustered the courage with my fourth girlfriend,” Siddarth explained while laughing. Tania was looking at him, astonished.

“Delhi is also an open environment like this. How is it possible that you did not have a boyfriend? Yaar[1], these days one has to do a lot of things due to peer pressure. Among my friends, if someone didn’t have a girlfriend, they would kick him out of the group. I don’t believe you didn’t have a boyfriend. Come on. Tell me,” Siddarth insisted.

“It’s not necessary that every girl has a relationship.”

Tania had two boyfriends. One was in the twelfth grade. When Tania saw him, she fell in love with him. But this was a childhood crush that ended in a few days when he became friends with another girl. The second was when she was doing her MBA. She fell in love with a classmate. She was fairly serious in this relationship. She wanted to marry him, but when she raised this matter with him, he responded in rage. Tania was outdated to him. “I’ve never even thought like this. What does marriage mean?” he had said.

After that, they could never be normal again, and they broke up.

Tania wanted to tell all of this to Siddarth, but she was afraid. She had always heard that a boy could do whatever he wanted, but a boy wouldn’t tolerate hearing this from girls. Her mom said that talking about such things could lead to a divorce. Thinking about all of this, she kept quiet.

Siddharath brought Tania into his embrace and said, “This is normal, Tania. We go out of the house, it’s natural that we’re attracted to members of the opposite sex. If I can, why can’t you? I am not an old school type.”

Even though Tania didn’t want to, she hid the truth. After this, Siddarth did not raise the issue again.

One night after dinner, when all of the work was finished, Tania came into the bedroom. Siddharth was reclining on the bed, reading a magazine.

“Do you know about open marriages?” Siddharth asked, signaling her to come near him.

“Open marriage?” Tania asked out of great curiosity, sitting beside him.

“I am reading some stuff about open marriages and…So be it. I myself am thinking about this,” Siddarth said.

For a moment, silence spread between them.

“What is an open marriage?” Tania stood up and started putting on some lotion. She had put on a nightie in Siddarth’s favourite color, but Siddarth had paid it no attention.

“An open marriage means that within the marriage, there are some commitments, but both partners can form relationships apart from the other,” Siddarth explained. “It’s not cheating but understood as a different aspect of intimacy.” He was looking towards Tania and saying, “In doing this, the couple’s bond can deepen and they never get bored.”

Before responding, Tania was quiet for some time, thinking about this.

“It seems interesting but….is it practical? Moreover, it could bring stress to the couple. And consequently, the marriage will get very complicated.”

Siddarth shook his head, “I know that this isn’t easy, but if one talks openly and honestly with each other, it seems to me that it isn’t so hard.”

For some time, a silence spread between them.

“Tania I don’t want our marriage to become old and conventional, and after some years we fight and become distant. Many of my friends are in open marriages or are into wife swapping. Actually, I didn’t want to get married, but my parents pressured me and I got married.”

“You mean you can have a girlfriend, and I can have a boyfriend. Right?” Tania asked in astonishment.

“Yes. It’s necessary to keep our marriage alive.”

“But how will this work? This seems very awkward to me.” Tania was stuck, conflicted.

“Go back deep into history, there is polygamy in our culture,” he began to explain to Tania. “In our country, there are multiple such examples in which Kings had hundreds of marriages. Apart from this, they had other relations. The queens had relations with the various slaves living in her palace. Were these not open marriages? We boast about that culture. I also want to follow that culture. It’s not impossible.” Siddharth wanted to convince her through whatever means.

Tania, flabbergasted, sat there in silence listening to him speak.

“Then after some time when there are children, nothing can happen anymore. At the very least, until then, we should enjoy our life according to our wishes.”

For some days, this argument went on between them. In the end, after hearing the various arguments, Tania agreed with Siddharth, and they decided to have an open marriage.

Whenever Siddarth had a new girlfriend, he discussed it with Tania. If he went to see a film or went on a date, he definitely told Tania. In the beginning, Tania did not like this. She felt jealous, but this feeling gradually faded. Siddarth kept on asking Tania whether she had a boyfriend. Tania, in those days, was very busy at the office. She didn’t take a liking to any man.

“You are so lazy,” Siddarth teased her, laughing.

“I have made a third girlfriend and tomorrow I am going on a date with her.”

“Well done,” Tania said with great flair. They both began to laugh.

The next day, Tania looked very closely at the men working with her, but none struck her fancy.

For the last few days, Tania had begun taking yoga classes. On that day, she went to her yoga lesson after work, and she saw a new face in the class. He was about 30 years old. He was a tall, attractive young man. Tania’s attention kept floating towards him. As soon as the session finished, people began gathering their mats.

“Hello.” The young man said to Tania, sitting on the same bench where Tania was sitting, and putting on her shoes.

“Oh. Hello, I am Tania.” Tania extended her hand and immediately felt that her hand was the hand that had touched her shoes. She pulled her hand back.

“Gavi.” The young man extended his hand, smiling. “My hands also touched my shoes. It’s no big deal.”

Tania really liked his style. “This is the first time I am seeing you?” Tania asked.

“I have just joined. Actually, I just shifted from Chandigarh a few days ago,” he replied.

“Oh nice. Chandigarh is a happening place. I wonder how people from Chandigarh can live in a congested place like Mumbai,” Tania said as they were heading towards the parking.

“You are right, but this is my first required posting outside of the state. No doubt, Chandigarh is a very beautiful and peaceful city, with zero crime. But you have to leave it for career growth. Chandigarh is a city of retired people. After retirement, I will definitely shift to Chandigarh,” Gavi looked toward Tania while smiling.

“In which department are you?” Tania asked.

“I am an Indian Police Service Officer.”

“Oh Wow!” Tania said happily.

“And you?” Gavi also wanted to learn about her.

“I am a general manager at the State Bank of India.”

“Good post.”

“Thank you. My flat is just here, and where do you live?” Tania asked as she was opening the car door.

“My flat is a five-minute drive from here.”

“Nice to meet you. See you soon.” Saying this, Tania sat in the car.

“Same here.” And as he said this, Gavi closed Tania’s car door.

After some days, Gavi and Tania became good friends. They sat side by side doing yoga. Sometimes, after class, they would stop to drink organic juice, and they would make small talk. Because he was newly arrived in the city, Gavi had no friends, but because of Tania he felt no loneliness. Tania also felt a lot of affection for Gavi. When she was with Gavi, she felt very special herself which she had never felt with anyone else.

On a vacation day, they planned to see a movie.

Tania had a message from Gavi on her phone that they would leave their homes at 10 o’clock. First, they would see the movie, then they would have lunch together. Siddarth read this message.

“You are dating someone?” Siddarth asked over dinner.

“Not exactly dating, but something like that. It’s nothing like this. We are good friends.”

“Hmmm. So you are going?”

“Yes. We made a plan.”

“Listen. I don’t like this,” Siddarth said, twirling his fork on his plate.

“What?” Tania asked with inquisitive eyes.

“This open marriage…Let’s close it.” Siddarth said.

“So…You have been enjoying the open marriage. I am just going to see a movie, and you want to close it?” There was bitterness in Tania’s voice.

“Yes. I want to close it. I cannot now live in an open marriage. You yourself were saying that marriage would get very complicated. Now I think the same.” Siddharth announced his decision.

“OK. No problem.” Tania agreed. “But it should be closed from your side too.”

“Yes. Done.”

Tania messaged Gavi that she was busy and, for this reason, she couldn’t come. After that, on several occasions, Gavi tried to make plans with her, but Tania made some excuse or another. She began to ignore Gavi.

For some days, Siddarth was working from home. One day, Tania finished her work early and returned home quickly so that she could spend some time with Siddarth. She took the duplicate key from her purse, unlocked the door, and went inside.

From inside, she heard a girl’s voice filled with anger. “Bastard. Scumbag. Have you no shame in having relations with me even though you are married? Did you tell me that you are married? I didn’t know anything. Either divorce your wife and marry me, or give me 2 Crore Rupees. Otherwise, I am going to the police station.”

Tania was astonished hearing this.

She went to the bedroom from which this noise was coming. She saw Siddarth begging this girl to forgive him. Tania didn’t know what she should do. She felt pity for Siddarth as well as anger.

Seeing Tania, the girl left quietly.

Siddarth told Tonia that he had been in a relationship with her for the past five months, and now this girl was blackmailing him. “She kept some videos and photos of our private moments, which she is threatening to make viral,” he added.

Tania didn’t know how to help Siddharth.

During this dilemma, she went to her evening yoga class. When the class finished, Gavi asked her why she was so sad, “What happened. Is your health okay? You are absolutely ashen. What happened?”

Tania needed a friend at this time. She went with him to a nearby coffeehouse. While drinking coffee, Tania told Gavi everything. It was like icing on the cake that Gavi was a friend but also a police officer.

Gavi listened to the entire thing and said, “Don’t worry, Tania. These kinds of groups, which ensnare people, are very active these days. They take their photos. Make videos. Then they blackmail them. Sometimes, these people don’t personally meet the victim. They do sexting and then record the phone sex. On this basis, they blackmail them. This is an elaborate net that has been cast. Our entire department is searching for these people. Don’t you worry. I will help you as much as possible.”

“Thank you so much, Gavi. I had no idea what I should do.” Tania felt as if a burden would be lifted.

The next day, Gavi called Tania and Siddarth to the police station. Sitting them in his office, he took the First Information Report and began to take action. It turned out that the girl was a member of such a group. The police wiretapped the entire group and arrested them.

During this, the way Gavi took care of Tania drew her even closer to him. She felt as if she had always needed a wise companion like him. She saw in Gavi’s eyes love and honour for her, something she had always wanted to see in Siddharth’s eyes. But apart from emptiness, there was nothing in his eyes.

Siddarth returned from the bathroom and became engrossed again in watching a movie.

Siddarth had taken his phone to the bathroom. She was very bothered by this. For the past few days, she was feeling that Siddarth was hiding something from her, whereas they both had agreed that they would not hide anything from each other.

“Should I ask him straightaway?” Tania thought to herself, but she thought it better to wait a bit. He may tell me himself. Is he still?…”

“Tania, tomorrow I am going to Pune for two days, for a workshop,” Siddarth told Tania while looking at his screen.

“Okay. Alone?” Tania asked.

“Of course. Can I take friends to a workshop?” Siddharth said in irritation.

The film was over, but in Tania’s mind, the phone’s notification kept playing. She could not stop thinking about this.

In the evening, when Tania was in the kitchen working, Siddharth’s phone was on the dining room table when a message came. Tania saw that Siddarth was taking clothes out of the armoire and packing them.

Tania picked up the phone, but it was locked. She was very baffled. Previously, Siddarth did not lock his phone. She tried to unlock it. After some efforts, she managed to unlock the phone. She saw that a message had come on WhatsApp. When she opened the message, she saw a girl in a transparent nightie. The girl wanted to confirm that she should bring this nightie to Lohkhandwala if Siddharth liked it.

Tania, seeing this, was stunned. She messaged Gavi, “Can I stay in your house tonight?”

“Why not. But what happened?” Gavi quickly responded.

“I’ll tell you when I get there.” After messaging Gavi, she went to her armoire and took out clothes and necessary documents and began to pack them in a bag.

Seeing her do this, Siddarth repeatedly asked her where she was going? Why is she packing?

Tania did not answer. When she was leaving the house, she left the key to the flat on the shoe rack, and Siddarth grabbed her arm.

“Where are you going? What happened to you? Why aren’t you talking?” Siddarth didn’t understand what was going on.

“Wherever I may be going, I am definitely not going to Lokhandwala,” she said looking straight into Siddarth’s eyes.

Hearing this, Siddharth knew he was busted. He said nothing, and his grip loosened.

Tania left, closing the door behind her.

[1] Friend

Lakhvinder Virk obtained her PhD from Punjabi University, Patiala in the department of linguistics and lexicography under the supervision of Professor Joga Singh. She lives in Chandigarh and serves as the head of the Punjabi Department in JDSD College in Kheri Gurana, Banur in Punjab. Her first book of short stories, Colors That Were Not Red, (Rang Jo Suuha Nahin sin) was published in 2024. This story was published in that volume.

Christine Fair did her Ph.D. in South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. She is currently a professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University. Her translations have appeared in LIT Magazine, Muse India, Orientalia Suecana, The Bangalore Review, Borderless, The Punch Magazine, The Bombay Literary Magazine, and The Bombay Review.

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 Ajeet Cour, Amrita Pritam, C Christine Fair, Chandigarh, Delhi, Georgetown University, India, Indian Police Service, JDSD College, Lakhvinder Virk, Mumbai, Ojj Prakashan, Patiala, Punjabi, Punjabi University, Rang Jo Suuha Nahin Sin, State bank of India, United States, University of Chicago

Stories

The Onion

By JK Miller

I used to go to the beach and run and play and fly a kite. As an afterthought, I would reach into the picnic basket for a piece of Mama’s taboon bread. That was when we had a house, and in the house, we had a kitchen and my mother— I loved being by her side—- stayed up the night before mixing the flours and kneading and placing the dough in the clay tabun oven with river rocks which gave the loaf its dimples. Mama would pinch my cheeks and say she must have had some river rocks in her womb. That was when I had a mother.

When we had a house in Khan Yunis, I had a father, and he would take me to Asda’a amusement park. We would ride the miniature train together. Now, the trees in the park have all been cut down. The wood is used to make shelters and prop up tents.

Now I live on the beach, and I dribble sand and make the shape of taboon bread.

I play marbles with the other boys. The beach is a good place for that. There are stretches without rubble, though once we found a hand reaching up out of the sand.

The rubble is good for hide and seek.

It’s not all play for me. I sweep the tent each morning. I repair the tent poles. I line up for water. That can take hours. Because of my size, I am shoved aside and lose my place. That makes me want to pick up a stone and throw it at the guy who pushes me, to pretend it is an F-16 missile, but every guy looks somewhat like my father, the eyes numb and the mouth flattened, so I drop it.

I make kites from scrap materials—plastic bags, woven rice sacks, pieces of wire from broken appliances, fishing line, that kind of thing—- but I don’t fly them anymore. I sell them for pocket change. Ten kites will buy an onion at the market. At least it did this morning. Maybe not tomorrow.

We sweep the dirt with our hands and collect lentils that have fallen from the aid packages. We wash them with the precious water, and when we boil them, the onion really helps to spice things up. That’s what Aunt Tala tells me. I do it for her, for the smile it brings briefly to her face. Like an ocean wave washing away the old trudging footprints and making a smooth place to dance.

JK Miller lives on the edge of cornfields. His poems have also been recently published, or will be, in shoegaze literary, Midsummer Dream House, Harrow House, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Rat’s Ass Review, 50-Word Stories, Verse-Virtual, Paratextos, Amethyst Review, The Poetry Lighthouse, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Up North Lit. and Eunoia Review. In the summer of 2025, he completed a solo 1,335-mile bicycle ride from his house to his son’s house to see his newborn grandson.

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 JK Miller, Khan Yunis, Palestine

Stories

Disillusioned

By Sayan Sarkar

“Belepole, Santragachi, Dhulagarh! Belepole, Santragachi, Dhulagarh!”

The singsong voice of the conductor filled the air in the busy intersection of Rabindra Sadan.

Sanjib crossed the road hurriedly, raising his hand to attract the conductor’s attention lest the bus left the stand before he reached it. The conductor nodded assuredly, indicating they had no intention of leaving so soon.

Sanjib boarded the bus and occupied a window seat near the front. Flicking his wrist, he looked at his watch — 4:15pm. He had ample time to make the trip to Belepole and return by 9pm

After a couple more minutes of waiting at the stand, the engine revved and the bus slowly made its way towards the Second Hooghly Bridge. As the conductor made his customary gesture for the ticket, Sanjib handed him a 50 rupee note.

“Belepole,” he added with excitement.

Sanjib’s heart was fluttering in his chest. He was going to visit Belepole, the place where he was born, after almost two decades. He had spent fourteen years of his life in that place — almost his entire childhood. But when he was in grade 9, his father — a central government officer —got a posting in Delhi, and they moved there permanently after selling their house to a promoter. Things became very hectic after that. There was school, then college, then masters, then PhD, then a post-doc in Europe, and finally a teaching position in a reputed central government institute in the capital city. The years passed by like a whirlwind, starting and ending within the blink of an eye. Sanjib had come to Kolkata only a handful of times within that period but never found the time or opportunity of visiting his birthplace.

This time, however, was different.

This time, he had come to Rabindra Sadan to attend the inauguration of an art exhibition hosted by his school friend and renowned artist Pulak Banerjee. The interactions with his old friend brought back memories of his birthplace — which was only half an hour from the gallery on the other side of the Hooghly River — to his mind, and he was filled with an intense desire to pay a visit to the locality where his journey had started. Pulak supported this idea wholeheartedly, but he let Sanjib go on the sole condition that he be back for dinner at Peter Cat around 9 pm.

As the bus raced past the innumerable cables of the Second Hooghly bridge, countless fond memories of his youth flooded Sanjib’s mind. Memories of their three-storied house — which was almost a hundred years old, memories of the pond where he used to swim summer and winter, memories of his neighbors and their smiling faces, memories of all the childhood mischief and scoldings. They started appearing one after another, like hours-long video fast-forwarded to finish within only a few seconds.

But even amid this deluge, the memory of a single person stood out sharply against the rest. The memory of his childhood friend — Anil.

Anil, who was only one year his senior, had been his next-door neighbor. The two friends had grown up together and were almost inseparable. Not a single day had passed in those fourteen years that the two friends hadn’t played or spent some time together. Wherever one went, the other followed. Whatever one did, the other copied. They were up to all sorts of mischief together, and had become the terror of the locality for an extended period of time. Anil belonged to a relatively poor family, and could only afford education in a Bengali medium school. Sanjib, and his parents always welcomed him into their household with open arms, and he went on multiple trips with Sanjib and his family.

Anil wasn’t very good in studies, and barely passed his examinations is school. But what he lacked in intelligence, he more than made up for in athleticism. He was a great cricketer and an expert swimmer. He participated in many state level competitions and even won a few medals over the years. The two friends had a pact — Sanjib would help Anil with his studies, and Anil would help Sanjib improve his batting and swimming forms.

For fourteen long years, they had laughed and cried and fought and grown up together, until one day, Sanjib had to move away. It was the most difficult moment of their young lives, and a lot of tears were shed and promises were made. Anil didn’t have a landline at home at that time, so it was decided that he would visit a nearby shop every other day at a pre-determined time and Sanjib would call him there.

This ritual was followed religiously for nearly two years before Sanjib’s tuition timings and the pressure of his impending board and competitive examinations finally caught up with him. Slowly but surely, the two friends drifted apart. Pretty soon, Anil was relegated to Sanjib’s subconscious mind, waiting to be liberated again by some external stimulus.

That stimulus finally arrived nearly two decades later, and Sanjib’s mind was once again filled with the memories of his dear old friend and companion.

“Belepole is coming. Belepole is coming,” the conductor announced in his characteristic voice.

Sanjib got up from his seat.

Alighting from the bus, he slowly made his way towards the familiar by lane that led to his neighborhood — his para. As he walked along the alley, his mind was once again crowded with incidents from his childhood. These streets were once his playground, and there was a time when he knew every square inch of this locality like the back of his hand. Every nook and cranny of this place was filled with memories. Some of the old buildings he could still recognise, but many of the old ones had given way to more modern apartments. His para had undergone a transformation with time, confirming the old saying that change is the only constant in the universe.

Sanjib soon reached the location of his old house and found a modern four-storied apartment standing tall in its stead. He had seen pictures of this apartment in his father’s phone, but this was the first time he saw it with his own eyes. He stood rooted to the spot, mentally drawing the outline of his old house and comparing it with the present architecture.

He could still visualise every detail clearly against the modified backdrop — his bedroom, the living room, the kitchen, the dining room. It was as if he was seeing through the new apartment and staring into his long-lost past.

“Heyyy maaan. What’s your problem?”

A hoarse voice suddenly interrupted Sanjib’s reverie.

He turned around in surprise — a bit ashamed that he had been caught staring at a building for so long — and found a tramp sitting a little way off along the edge of the street. His clothes were in tatters, and it seemed like he hadn’t taken a bath in years. His long hair and beard had become matted with oil, dirt, and dead skin cells. His frail frame shook with every word he said. Even from afar, Sanjib could realise that he was inebriated by the intonations of his voice.

“Get outta hereee!” He shouted again. “What’re you doing standing and staring in the middle of the streeeetttt!”

Sanjib’s face filled with disgust. He felt an overwhelming sense of aversion towards the tramp. He quickly turned away from him and walked towards the new apartment.

Beyond the apartment was Anil’s house, and Sanjib had half expected to find his friend at home. It was, after all, a Sunday evening. So, chances were higher than usual.

But he was taken by surprise when he found Anil’s house barely standing at all. One of the walls had completely crumbled, and the rest were ready to follow suite. The entire plot had become a garbage heap with dogs and crows roamed around ravenously in search of leftovers. Nature had already started reclaiming the land and the dilapidated building was covered with creepers and crawlers.

The juxtaposition of the dazzling new apartment and the crumbling old house in such close proximity had a great effect on Sanjib’s mind and he stood dumbfounded in front of his friend’s former residence.

“Sanjib?” A second voice broke out in the background. “Is that you?”

There was uncertainty in the voice, but it sounded very familiar.

Sanjib’s brain had already started connecting the dots, and by the time he turned around, he had matched the voice with a face from his past.

“Bimal kaku[1]!” He nearly shouted with delight. “How are you?”

The warm and welcoming smile of Bimal Das felt very soothing to Sanjib’s eyes.

“I am fine, Sanjib.” The man replied with a touch of warmth and emotion. “How big you’ve grown! It’s been such a long time since I last saw you!”

Sanjib embraced his Bimal kaku lovingly.

Bimal Das used to own a grocery shop in the neighbourhood, and he had always been very fond of all the kids in the locality. He often used to give them free snacks below the counter, and invited them to his house whenever there was an occasion.

“Come,” Bimal led Sanjib by his arm. “We’ll sit and talk in my house.”

The next half an hour was spent in fond recollection.

Sanjib leant that Bimal’s shop was not running very smoothly ever since the advent of online shopping. His sons, however, had all gotten jobs outside the state, and they regularly sent him money to ensure he never lacked the basic amenities required to live a modest life. They had also suggested that he close the shop and stay with them, but Bimal had always felt a strong affection towards his shop and refused to shut it down.

He opened his shop regularly, sat behind the counter like old times, and spent most of the time chatting with the retired people of the locality.

“You see Sanjib, I will continue running the shop as long as my body permits,” he concluded with a defiant tone.

Sanjib looked admiringly at his Bimal kaku. He had aged significantly, but his vigour and liveliness were worthy of praise.

“Bimal kaku,” Sanjib spoke apprehensively. “What happened to Anil? His house is in ruins.”

A pall of gloom suddenly descended on Bimal’s smiling face. He looked down towards the floor and sat silently.

Sanjib’s heart sank. With each passing moment, his mind grew heavier with anxiety.

When Bimal started speaking again, Sanjib braced himself for the worst.

“Around five years after you left,” Bimal spoke softly. “Anil lost his mother — who was his biggest well-wisher and who loved him the most in the world.”

“Anil was heartbroken,” he continued.

“Still, he had his father to look after him, guide him, and reign in his emotions. The father-son duo clung onto each other and battled the storms of adversity. Anil gradually recovered from the shock and tried his best to live his life to the fullest.

“But alas. The fates had marked him as a child of misfortune. Five years later, his father passed away as well. Anil was all alone.

“Although all of us, his neighbours, tried our best to console him and help him in his time of need, he never recovered from this second shock. He left his house, started roaming about the streets aimlessly, got drunk, and all but lost his mind. We tried numerous times to bring him back to his senses, but it was not to be. Anil would be absent for weeks at an end, and then suddenly, one morning, we would find him sleeping unceremoniously near the edge of the main road.

“Those of us who felt sorry for him gave him food and clothes from time to time. While he ate and drank to sustain himself, he rarely touched the clothes. After a few years, he stopped recognising us completely. He just came and went as he pleased.”

Sanjib couldn’t believe his ears. Every word that Bimal spoke appeared to drive a nail through his heart. He felt an indescribable pain and sadness for his friend.

“Coincidentally,” Bimal continued morosely. “Anil is here now.”

“He came a couple of days ago. Just this afternoon, I found him sitting and blabbering at the intersection. I gave him some food and water. He was quite drunk. His clothes were in tatters, and he looked more dead than alive. Oh, how it pained me to see him in such a condition.”

Bimal covered his face to hide the tears that flooded his eyes.

Sanjib jolted upright, as if struck by lightning. His mind had already raced half an hour back into the past.

He recalled the hoarse voice that had interrupted his day dream.

He recalled the countenance of the tramp that had disgusted him so much.

He brought forth every feature of that haggard body in front of his mind’s eye. The unkempt hair and beard, the tattered clothes, the frail frame.

His friend had spoken to him after twenty years. And he had turned and walked away disgusted. His friend, who probably had a bright future as a cricketer or a swimmer, but was reduced to nothingness. His friend, who had lost his sanity thanks to the cruel workings of fate.

The image of the modern apartment and the crumbling house flashed in front of Sanjib’s eyes. He was the modern apartment, shining and well established in life. Anil was the crumbing house, battling against insanity and counting his days.

In the face of this incomprehensible truth, the contrast seemed even more cruel.

Sanjib sat still. His vision had become blurry and his cheeks were hot with the stream of tears that flowed down like water from a dam.

At the intersection, Anil was still sitting on the road, speaking gibberish, and cursing anyone who passed the street.

[1] uncle

Sayan Sarkar was born and raised in Kolkata. He is a passionate reader and lifelong learner who spends his leisure time immersed in books and new ideas.

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

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Tags Belepole, Bengali, Europe, Hooghly, Hooghly Bridge, Kolkata, Peter Cat, Rabindra Sadan, Sayan Sarkar

Stories

The Beaten Rooster

By Hamiruddin Middya: Translated from Bengali by V. Ramaswamy

Babu, I am merely a poor Santhal. Please don’t take offence at anything I say. After all, we people who belong to the forest have always been losing. We are day labourers. We neither have nice houses nor do we possess any cultivable land.

Rangakul, Kusumkanali, Nabindanga and Mohulboni were all small Adivasi villages in the forest. Nearby were farmers, and people of the Ghosh, Mahato and Sinha communities. All the land belongs to them. We gaze at the sky in the hope of rain and cultivate a single crop. Some people have taken up the timber business and become rich and arrogant overnight. Why would they care about farming! It’s us who want to farm the land. A one-third share to the landlord, or else a monetary arrangement. We are poor folk, where will we get so much money! So, we cultivate the land on a crop sharing crop basis. But can one survive the whole year with that? The moment there’s no more rice for the cooking pot, we queue up beside the metalled road, wave out to any bus going eastward and get on board. After all, there’s no shortage of jobs there. With water from the canal available there, the fields yield golden paddy twice a year. By the grace of Marang Buru, all we want is to work our bodies so that we can feed our bellies.

When water is scarce at the edge of the forest where we live, famine looms. What’s new about that!

Singh babu is the big warehouse keeper here. He’s in the timber business. His house is at the fringe of the forest, across the railway line. It’s not a house but a fortress. He has done well in business with the help of his sons. Our men and women carry dry wood gathered from the forest to the babu’s warehouse across the railway bridge. He weighs our bundles and buys them. Even if the price is higher in the marketplace, who wants to go there if you have someone close by!

I cultivate a bigha-and-a-half of the babu’s land. It’s his warehouse that Lokha’s Ma carries wood to. There was a terrible drought this year. Fields, pastures and ponds were all parched, gasping for water. The paddy harvest was not good. The stalks were not tall. Just like a mother’s milk dries up if she is unable to eat, it’s the same with the ears of paddy. What will we eat the whole year? An unpared bamboo in the arse! How will I go to the babu and tell him?

I got the opportunity. Lokha set a trap somewhere and caught a waterhen. I told him, “Give me the bird, son. Let me give it to the babu.”

But Lokha did not want to part with it. “Why should I give it just like that?”

I said, “It’s not just like that, son. I have to make the babu happy, he’s very fond of bird meat. After all, we survive by cultivating his land.”

Who knows what Lokha thought but he did not argue any more.

I went with the bird at dusk. Singh babu was sitting with his son on a platform under the mango tree in front of the warehouse, he was doing some calculations. As soon as he saw me, he exclaimed, “Arey[1] it’s Hansda! What’s that in your hand?”

I went close to the babu. The babu studied the bird and exclaimed, “Wow! You’ve brought a waterhen!”

The babu never called me Sanatan Hansda, only Hansda. I could see that he was very happy to get the waterhen. His middle son, Haru, took the bird from me and left. Their house, surrounded by walls, was just behind the warehouse. I sat down below the platform.

The babu asked, “Has the paddy been threshed?”

“Babu, that’s what I came to tell you about. All the paddy has been destroyed in the drought! After threshing the remaining stalks, I could only get six sacks of paddy.”

The babu’s face turned grave. He blurted out angrily, “What the hell are you saying, bastard! Six sacks? I went to the field and saw for myself, it was full of swaying stalks.”

“Yes, babu, it was like that then. But there was no rain in Magh[2]. The plants began to droop after that!” I pleaded with the babu.

“Enough of your nonsense! Haru will go tomorrow and see how it’s only six sacks. Don’t try to be cunning!”

“Sure, send him then, babu. I am not telling you lies.”

Haru didn’t come. The next day, Singh babu himself arrived in haste. He came in the middle of our festivities. I was anxious wondering where I would ask him to sit, and what I would feed him. All of us, men and women, drink hanriya [3]and dance. Ours is a small village. We can’t afford to buy a dhamsa or a madol. We had everything earlier, but they broke long ago. When the boys and girls of the village grow up and it’s time for them to get married, we get those drums on rent. During our festivals, the boys in the youth club play music on the mic. We dance to that. Seeing our song and dance, Singh babu later whispered to me, “Give me a glass of hanriya too. Let me try it. But mind it, don’t tell Haru!”

“Oh no, babu. Don’t worry about that. Have as much as you want.” I thought it was funny. The father drinks out of his son’s sight. After all, we have none of all that. Father and son drink together to their heart’s content.

Why were Singh babu’s eyes so bloodshot today? I was scared. I said to him, “Come, come babu. Come inside and sit comfortably.”

The babu said angrily, “I haven’t come to sit, Hansda. Show me the paddy quickly.”

So, I showed the babu the paddy. He looked at me sternly and asked, “You haven’t hidden it somewhere, have you?”

“No, no babu. I would never do something like that in my life,” I said, holding my ears with my hands. “Why don’t you ask someone?”

“Chandmani and Gona Murmu got a good harvest. What kind of farming are you doing?”

“They got a pump-set from somewhere and irrigated their fields twice. There’s a shallow tubewell in the field there.”

The babu was about to leave with a sullen face. I said to him, “Let us keep the crop this time, babu. It’s a meagre harvest. My family can survive for a few days with that. I’ll repay you next time.”

The babu came to a halt with a start. He lowered his voice, and said, “Why should you go without food – am I not there! You have a young wife at home. Send her to the warehouse in the evening. After all, you can’t send her when people are around!” And saying so, the babu left. There was a strange smile on his face. Seeing that smile, my chest heaved. What on earth did the babu say before he left! How could I send Lokha’s Ma to the warehouse with wood now?

There was a fair in the nearby village of Mohulbani. As the Shalui festival is not celebrated with much fanfare in our village, it’s to the fair in Mohulbani that everyone dresses up and goes. There’s a cockfight every year during this time. This year, I too was a hauchi. Someone who participates in a cockfight is called a hauchi. I had never put a cock to fight. But the idea of doing that during this year’s festival caught my fancy.

Lokha’s Ma had brought the rooster as a tiny chick from her father’s house. I saved it so many times from the jaws of wretched mongooses and civets. It was big now, and sparkling red in colour. It crowed, konk konkkor konk, in the semi-darkness of dawn. Hearing its crow, the birds on the trees then began chirping. It hovered around every hen in the village, all by itself. It walked with its chest puffed out, as if it was the king of the forest. If such a rooster could not fight, then why on earth was it born?

Lokha tugged at my lungi and demanded, “I’ll go too, Baba. Take me along with you to see the fair.”

Lokha’s Ma said, “Take him along. He’s my little boy. On a festival day, he’ll go to see the fair, he’ll eat jilapi[4], but no – what kind of a father are you!”

“All right. Come along then.”

Mustard flowers were in bloom in the fields. It was yellow everywhere, both on the lowlands and the uplands. After all, it was a festival of flowers now. Men and women, old and young, were walking to the fair along the narrow boundary ridge. Some raced along on bicycles on the red laterite road, ringing their bells, kring kring. Close to the forest was the field known as Bhangatila Maath, which was where the fair took place. Shops with captivating wares, flutes for children, toy drums. Such a variety of food items, telebhaja[5], jilapi. Earthen pots and utensils were selling somewhere under a tree canopy. Rows of bicycles and pick-up vans were elsewhere. An old Santhal man was going around selling bamboo flutes. He himself was rapt in the melody he was playing. There was a cloud of red dust. Girls and young men were walking around holding hands, disregarding the dust. The crowd at the fair was made up of people from all the nearby villages.

Was it only Santhals? No, babu folk too had come to have fun. Everyone was dressed in new clothes, looking their best. Girls had applied mahua oil on their hair and parted their hair, with wildflowers adorning their coiffure.

Hidden away from the fair, in a clearing inside the forest, there was a crowd of people. That’s where the cockfights took place. It used to take place in the fair ground itself earlier. But a few times, police vans had arrived and pulled down everything. It has moved its venue into the forest ever since. I went there with Lokha. Sal-wood poles had been planted, and the spot had been encircled with a rope. Everyone was standing around the rope, Some of them were hauchis, with roosters in their hands. Others had come only to watch.

I asked Lokha to stand under a tendu tree, and told him, “Don’t go anywhere, son. Just stand here and watch the cockfights. I have to find us an opponent.”

I was going around with my rooster, looking for an opponent, when a suited and booted babu with a camera on his shoulder pushed his way through the crowd. Everyone gaped at the man.

A few kaatkaars, those who tied blades to the roosters’ feet, had gone into the enclosure through the boundary rope. Seeing the babu, they said, “Hey babu, what business do you have here? You want to publicise the cockfight? Stop taking pictures, we warn you!”

The babu put his camera into his bag following the threat.

As I went around searching, who should I encounterbut Singh babu — a pleasure-seeking man indeed! He frequently participated in cockfights to indulge his fancy. From time to time, he also wagered money on the days of the weekly market. There was a spirited rooster in the babu’s hands. Seeing me, he said, “What’s up, Hansda, have you brought one too?”

I nodded my head, and said, “Yes, babu. I did it for fun.”

“But you’re in bad times! So how come you’re indulging your fancy?”

Seeing the rooster in my hand, the babu’s rooster stretched its neck, fluffed the feathers on its neck, and glared agitatedly. When I had told the babu about the six sacks of paddy, the babu had glared at me in the same way. My rooster’s eyes too emitted fire. They were a fine pair, but how could I tell the babu that! He was a well-known man, why would he agree to a cockfight with me?

The kaatkar Hiralal, from Panchal was nearby, tying blades toa rooster’stoes. Seeing our two roosters, he burst out, “The two make a fine pair! Why don’t you get them to fight?”

Had Hiralal lost his head or what! What’s this he was saying! Would someone like Singh babu agree to a cockfight with my rooster! I was a poor Santhal. I survived by farming the babu’s land. But I was astonished to hear the babu’s response.

“Hey Hansda! Are you willing?”

I replied hesitantly, “Whatever you wish, babu.”

Hiralal began tying blades to the two roosters’ toes. We didn’t call them blades. The blades were known as heter. Kaatkars had arrived to tie the heter to the toes of all the fighting roosters. After all, there were so many roosters for the cockfight! If there had been only one kaatkaar, it would be night by the time the contests were over.

The rooster belonging to Budhon Ghosh, the ration-dealer from Harindanga village, was fighting now with the one belonging to Fatik Ghosh from Panchal. There was a circle made with lime powder within the roped-in enclosure. The two roosters were made to face each other within the circle. The roosters in the hands of other cockfighters in the crowd raised their necks and crowed. The cockfight was going to be a lively one.

Meanwhile, the beats of the dhamsa and madol came wafting from the fairground. Intoxicated with mahua [6]and hanriya, our young men and women were dancing in a circle, hand in hand. A tide of joy washed over the hills. The whole forest was in a state of intoxication with the drim drima drim beat.

Budhon Ghosh won the cockfight. The spectators clapped and whistled to congratulate him. Fatik’s defeated rooster was his now.

It was our turn next. Singh babu and I entered the roped enclosure. We held the tails of the two roosters and stood them face to face in the middle of the lime circle. Singh babu and I too were face to face. These weren’t roosters! They were like magnets drawn to iron. They could not be restrained, they kept pulling forward. As soon as the whistle blew, fweeeet, we released the roosters. The fight began. They flapped their wings, torn feathers flew into the air. Neither of them spared the other.

When the babu’s rooster was overcoming mine, the spectators applauded, and cried out, “Singh babu! Singh babu!” Again, when my rooster was beating the babu’s rooster, a few spectators behind me excitedly burst out, “Hansda! Hansda!”

I was witnessing another battle. After all, the two roosters weren’t roosters. They were Singh babu and me. We were down on our hands and knees, both of us had become roosters. We were in an unflinching face-off. Behind me were rows and rows of Santhal men and women, mothers, brothers and sisters, standing with bows and arrows, battle axes, and spears in their hands. And behind the babu were row upon row of diku, as outsiders were known.

I suddenly heard the Santhals cry out excitedly, ‘Sanatan! Sanatan!’ I realised I had lost my concentration. I saw that my brave rooster had pierced his blade into the breast of the babu’s rooster and felled it. I had won!

I rushed and picked up the babu’s rooster. It was mine according to the regulations. The kaatkaar too had to be paid for fixing the blades. There was no end to Lokha’s joy! The next fight had already begun.

Lokha’s Ma had forbidden me again and again. “Hey, what if this fully grown rooster loses? How about indulging yourself with food only at the festival instead?” But I paid her no heed. How happy Lokha’s Ma would be now!

But as soon as I glanced at Singh babu, I had a strange feeling. Why had his face turned so ashen? After all it was merely a battle between two roosters…

I felt no joy despite having won. What had I done, oh dear! I had beaten the babu. How could I take his rooster home and eat it?

I said to Lokha, “Go, my son. Go and give the rooster to the babu.”

Lokha asked me, “Are you very angry? We won! So why should I give it?”

What was Lokha saying! That we won? After all, we had never been able to win! We had been beaten time and again, my dear! Ever since some distant time. What had I done now, oh dear, by beating the babu! My eyes turned moist. I went with the rooster to the babu.

The babu did not say a single word to me.

I said, “Hey babu! Take this. Let your boys have a feast. I have one already!”

The babu said, “No, Hansda. I won’t take a beaten rooster home.”

Hearing that, I shook my head. The babu patted my shoulder and said, “Let’s see what happens next year.”

[1] Oh!

[2] Bengali month starting mid-January and ending mid-February

[3] Local liquor

[4] A fried sweet

[5] Deep fried snacks

[6] Local liquor

Hamiruddin Middya was born in 1997 in Ruppal, a remote village in Bankura district in West Bengal. Born in a marginal farmer’s family, he has been in agricultural fields and farming from his childhood. His passion for writing started from his school days. He has worked as a domestic helper, a migrant construction mason, and travelled to rural fairs to sell wares. Hamiruddin’s first story was published in the magazine Lagnausha in 2016. Since then, three collections of his short stories have been published, Azraeler Daak (2019), Mathrakha (2022), and Ponchisti Golpo (2025). The story collection, Mathrakha, received the Yuva Puraskar for 2023 from the Sahitya Akademi, India.

V. Ramaswamy took up translation following two decades of engagement in social activism for the rights of the labouring poor of Kolkata. Beginning with the iconic and experimental writer Subimal Misra, he then devoted himself to translating “voices from the margins”, both in fiction and nonfiction. Besides translating four volumes of Misra’s short fiction, Ramaswamy has translated Manoranjan Byapari, Adhir Biswas, Swati Guha, Mashiul Alam, Shahidul Zahir, Shahaduz Zaman and Ismail Darbesh, among others.

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 Amazon International

Tags Adhir Biswas, Bankura, Bengali, Hamiruddin Middya, India, Ismail Darbesh, Kolkata, Manoranjan Byapari, Mashiul Alam, Rupal, Sahitya Akademi, Shahaduz Zaman, Shahidul Zahir, Subimal Misra, Swati Guha, Translation, V. Ramaswamy, West Bengal

Stories

Santa in the Autorickshaw

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date February 16, 2026
No Comments on Santa in the Autorickshaw

By Snigdha Agrawal

The December breeze had turned nippy in Bengaluru, carrying with it the aroma of roasted peanuts and freshly fried banana chips from roadside stalls. Fairy lights blinked across MG Road, and plastic Santas dangled from shopfronts. Ravi watched the sparkle through his rear-view mirror as he waited for his regular passenger, Ananya, to emerge from the Barton Centre, where she worked at a real estate firm.

“Sorry, Ravi bhaiya,” she said, sliding into the back seat. “The office party ran late. You know how these Christmas celebrations are: too much food, too little meaning.” She sighed, glancing at her half-open goody bag stuffed with unopened chips and chocolates.

Ravi smiled politely. He liked Ananya. Always punctual, always courteous, never haggling over the fare. But her words lingered. Too much food, too little meaning.

That night, after parking his autorickshaw near his rented room in Ejipura, Ravi noticed a group of slum children huddled under a flickering streetlight. They were watching a television through the open window of a well-to-do home. A Christmas carol drifted out, and the children sang along, slightly off-key.

“Santa will come!” one of the younger ones shouted.

“Arrey, fool,” another replied, “Santa only goes to rich houses.”

Their laughter carried a quiet truth. Ravi walked past them slowly, his chest tightening. What if Santa came here—just once?

The thought stayed with him.

The next morning, Ravi tied a cardboard sign inside his auto:

CHRISTMAS DONATION BOX – HELP BRING A SMILE TO CHILDREN LIVING IN SLUMS

An old plastic box sat beneath it. Some passengers glanced at it and looked away. Others smiled. A few dropped in coins or notes.

“What’s this for?” many asked.

“I want to buy small gifts for the children near my place,” Ravi explained. “Like Santa.”

An elderly woman patted his shoulder before slipping in a hundred-rupee note. “Good man. May God bless you.”

Within days, the box filled faster than Ravi had imagined. One evening, he counted the money: over three thousand rupees. More than a week’s earnings. His hands trembled slightly as he folded the notes.

At the market, he bought candy packets, crayons, and small notebooks. In a second-hand shop near Shivajinagar, he found a faded red Santa coat, a cotton beard, and a cap. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do.

On Christmas Eve, Ravi transformed his green-and-yellow auto. Fairy lights ran along the roof. Paper stars swayed gently. A hand-painted ‘Merry Christmas’ sign was fixed to the back.

His neighbours laughed. “Ravi, have you gone mad? You’re a Hindu. Why Christmas?”

Ravi grinned. “Santa doesn’t ask who you are before giving gifts, right?”

By evening, the narrow lanes were alive with whispers and giggles. When Ravi stepped out dressed as Santa, a cheer erupted.

“Santa has come! Real Santa!”

He handed out candies, crayons, and notebooks. Laughter echoed between the tin roofs, mingling with jingling auto coins and distant church bells.

A barefoot little girl with bright eyes tugged at his sleeve. “Santa uncle, will you come next year also?”

Ravi bent down, his beard slipping sideways. “Only if you promise to study well and share your chocolates.”

She nodded gravely. “Done.”

Ravi laughed, blinking back, gripped by a sudden ache in his throat.

Later that night, he removed the Santa costume and counted the remaining money. Rs 1,800 still lay in the box. Someone had quietly slipped in two Rs 500 notes during the evening crowd. Ravi sat silently for a long moment, overwhelmed.

The next morning, he went to the Hanuman temple, where he prayed every Tuesday. He placed the leftover money before the priest as a thanksgiving.

The priest, an elderly man with cataract-clouded eyes, listened patiently as Ravi explained: the happiness he had brought to the slum children with the donation box, the costume, the Christmas star.

“I know it’s not our festival, Swamiji,” Ravi said apologetically. “But I wanted to do something good.”

The priest smiled. “Tell me, Ravi, did you ask those children their religion before giving them sweets?”

“No, Swamiji.”

“And did they ask yours?”

Ravi shook his head.

“Then where is the difference?” the priest said gently. “Whether one calls Him Krishna, Allah, or Christ, God smiles when His children care for one another. This is the true spirit of dharma[1].”

He placed his hand on Ravi’s head. “May your auto always carry light, not just passengers.”

That evening, Ravi drove through Bengaluru once more. Some fairy lights on his auto had dimmed, but a few still twinkled. The donation box remained inside. Though Christmas had passed, coins continued to clink into it.

For the first time, Ravi understood that Christmas wasn’t about religion, decorations, or abundance. It was about sharing warmth in a world that often forgets to care.

The road stretched ahead, glowing with city lights that shimmered like stars. And in the soft hum of his modest auto, Ravi felt as though he carried a small piece of swarg[2] through the streets of Bengaluru.

[1] Faith

[2] Heaven

Snigdha Agrawal (née Banerjee) is the author of five books, a lifelong lover of words, and the writer of the memoir Fragments of Time, available on Amazon worldwide. She lives in Bangalore (India).

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 Allah, Amazon, Bangalore, Bengaluru, Christ, Christmas, Hanuman, India, Krishna, Santa

Stories

Decluttering by Vela Noble

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date February 16, 2026
No Comments on Decluttering by Vela Noble

I levitate around my home. My toes barely graze the cold stone floor. Moving one box here, displacing another there, but still not getting any real work done. For I am a sorceress, a descendant from a rare and powerful subspecies of human who knows fearsome magic. Yet still, I cannot part with my piles of odd socks and large frocks. I clasp my slender, bejewelled hands together. That’s it, today I will declutter the castle for only twenty minutes – as that’s what the pros recommend.

There is a friction keeping me from knowing how to start, as too many souls have come and gone from this castle over the centuries. My father passed away grumpily in his bed in the north wing four decades ago. In his chambers, he left behind a husk of a gaming computer, piles of tangled tendril-like cables, a dusty vinyl record turntable and hefty piles of skating and street art magazines. He was bizarrely fascinated with the subculture he observed in mere mortals, one which he called ‘hip and cool’, despite being a gaunt three-hundred-and-forty-two-year-old wizard. He spent his last decades of life locked away in that room playing video games. I only ever witnessed an unearthly rainbow glow and pew-pew sounds from under his door day and night.

Then don’t get me started on my mother. She left behind her lifetime of artsy hobbies. From mosaic tile clippers, to a vinyl design t-shirt press, she had been the crafting queen. I don’t mind the crafting supplies, but other items of hers are more of a dilemma for me to know whether to keep. As a prolific vampiress, she had a tendency to never part with even a single skull belonging to her victims. They’re nostalgic, she used to parrot at me over the dining table. I opened the closet in her room and more than a dozen skulls fell on top of me. Mother, I am not up for dealing with your nostalgia right now!

Yet the worst of it all was my brother. It all happened one morning in the dead of winter, a blizzard was raging outside.

He said: ‘I can’t stand this place anymore!’

I remember his pained green eyes as he pushed open the large iron doors. With nothing but a bag on his side and tattered coat on his back, he left. That was half a century ago. It really worsened my father’s depression, and he never really got over it. I haven’t talked to my brother since then. I had assumed his old room had probably been taken over by clusters of breeding spiders by now. Yet, the one time a draught creaked the door open, I was horrified to see how empty it was — not a single book or a scrap of a poster left on any wall. Just bits of hardened Blu-Tak. Now whenever I pass by his room, I cannot remember the good times me and my spellcasting sibling had. I can only remember the hurt in his eyes when he left, so many moons ago. That memory is the one thing I cannot get rid of.

Decluttering is a challenging task, even for a wise and formidable sorceress such as myself, who can conjure up thunder and lightning with a mere twitch of my finger. It is inherently existential – well – it is for me at least. It makes you think about what legacy you’ll be leaving behind. Despite knowing I will probably live longer than both my mother and father, (both never, never exercised and the latter had a video game addiction, mind you) I feel such dread seize my heart just by looking at the piles. My lifelong research, reduced down to flaky and pitifully unsubstantial yellowy parchment.

I do not have any progeny, at least not yet, so will I leave behind a sorceress’s lifetime of sorry spellbooks that no living soul can decipher? How I wish there was any spell in one of these antediluvian old grimoires, anything to help me shift through these emotions and clutter! The only spell I can conjure up is to magically teleport everything to a storage shed in another continent, but my conscience gets the better of me.

The only living soul in this cold old mansion is me — and well, my greyhound, whose name is Speckles. I dust off my hands, I may not have made much progress today, but there is something I must do. I go into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. I then plop down in the loungeroom. Speckles snuggles his delicate pointed snout into my lap, I smile at him, I pick up a loose piece of parchment, dip my pen in ink and begin to write:

Hello dearest brother, how have you been?

Time will sort things out. The skulls in the closet can wait.

Vela Noble is multidisciplinary artist and writer based in Adelaide, Australia. She finished a BA majoring in Creative Writing at Adelaide University. You can see her work at velanoble.com.

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Tags Adelaide, Adelaide University, Vela Noble

Stories

The Value of Money

By Naramsetti Umamaheswararao

Mr. Williams lived in a town called Vinjamur. He owned several businesses and was well-known for being extremely careful with money. Whether at home or in his shop, he made sure that not even a single rupee was wasted.

One day, Mr. Williams had to go out on some work. Before leaving, he asked his fifteen-year-old son, Raman, to sit in the shop. While Mr. Williams was away, a group of devotees came to the shop asking for donations for the construction of a temple. Raman took Rs 100 from the cash box and gave it to them as charity.

When Mr. Williams returned and heard of Raman’s donation, he became very angry. He made his son sit in front of him and said sternly, “First learn how hard it is to earn money. Only after that should you think of charity. If you do this again, I will not tolerate it.”

Another incident happened sometime later. One day, when Mr. Williams was not at home, a beggar came asking for food. His ten-year-old daughter felt pity for the poor man. She fed him till he was full. She also gave him some rice to take home.

When Mr. Williams came to know about this, he was angry with his daughter as well. He warned her strictly never to do such a thing again.

Mr. Williams’ wife knew her husband very well. She never argued with him about money matters, but she warned the children to be careful and not to go against their father.

A few days later, an old man with an unshaven beard and torn clothes came to Mr. Williams’ shop. He asked the workers about Mr. Williams. Looking at his appearance, the workers assumed he was a beggar. Afraid that their owner would scold them if he saw the man, they asked him to leave at once.

But the old man did not go away. He waited patiently for a long time. After some time, Mr. Williams arrived at the shop. The moment he saw the old man standing there, he recognised him.

Mr. Williams immediately called him inside, made him sit on a chair, and offered him drinking water. When the old man said he was hungry, Mr. Williams arranged food for him. He sat in front of him until he finished eating. Before the old man left, Mr. Williams spoke to him privately and gave him ten thousand rupees.

The workers were stunned. They could not believe that their master—who never spent money easily—had given away such a large amount.

Just then, Raman came to the shop to deliver some things. He saw an unknown person eating in front of his father and, to his shock, saw his father give him a bundle of money. Raman could not believe his eyes.

He went to his father and asked,

“Father, you scolded me for donating just one hundred rupees, and you scolded my sister for giving rice to a beggar. Then how could you give ten thousand rupees to a stranger?”

Mr. Williams smiled and replied,

“He is not a stranger. He is someone I know very well. And he was once a very prosperous man. You don’t need to know anything more.”

Saying this, he returned to his work.

Confused by his father’s words, Raman went home and told his mother everything that had happened. Curious to know the truth, Mrs. Williams came to the shop.

“I know you never give anything away for free,” she said. “You ask for accounts even if ten rupees are spent. So, I cannot believe that you gave ten thousand rupees to a stranger. Who is he?”

Mr. Williams sighed and said,

“So, this matter has reached you as well? He is not a stranger. You know him very well. Do you remember how, soon after our marriage, our relatives cheated us and threw us out? We were on the streets with small children and not a single rupee in hand.”

“Yes, I remember,” she said softly.

“At that time,” continued Mr. Williams, “one great man gave us shelter. He fed us and even gave me some money to start a business. Do you remember him?”

“Yes,” she replied. “His name was Parandham. I can never forget his kindness.”

“The man who came today was Parandham,” Mr. Williams said. “His sons and daughters-in-law took away all his property and threw him out. He said his wife needs medical treatment and he needed money. The foundation of our success today was laid with the help he gave us back then. Today, I got the chance to repay that debt of gratitude.”

Mrs. Williams was deeply moved.

“Has he fallen into such trouble? If he comes again, please bring him home. We will look after him and feed him for as many days as he wants,” she said.

Mr. Williams agreed.

Turning to his son, who was watching everything with wonder, Mr. Williams said, “We have reached this position only after swallowing many hardships and humiliations. Every penny we earned came through hard work. That is why I know the true value of money. When we have nothing, we cannot beg anyone with an outstretched hand. So, when we have money, it must be spent carefully and thoughtfully. I scolded you earlier because you are still too young to understand charity. I did not want you to suffer the hardships we once faced.”

Raman finally understood. He realised that parents always think of their children’s welfare, and that every action of his father had a deeper meaning behind it. From that day on, he learned not to misunderstand his father’s actions, but to try to understand them.

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao has written more than a thousand stories, songs, and novels for children over 42 years. he has published 32 books. His novel, Anandalokam, received the Central Sahitya Akademi Award for children’s literature. He has received numerous awards and honours, including the Andhra Pradesh Government’s Distinguished Telugu Language Award and the Pratibha Award from Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University. He established the Naramshetty Children’s Literature Foundation and has been actively promoting children’s literature as its president.

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Tags Anandalokam, Andhra Pradesh, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao, Naramsetty Children's Literature Foundation, Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University, Sahitya Akademi award, Telugu

Stories

Used Steinways by Jonathan B. Ferrini

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date January 14, 2026
No Comments on Used Steinways by Jonathan B. Ferrini

“Where’s Momma?”

“Passed out cold from her morning fix.

“My gang members are lookin’ for a score and think there’s money inside a storefront full of old pianos.”

“How’s your gang going to steel a store full of pianos?”

“Those are Steinway pianos and handmade from the finest woods, metal, and copper. We’ll bust ‘em apart and sell the salvaged metal and wood. Get your ass over there and scope out the inside of the store for me.”

“You have until the end of the week or I’m throwin’ you out on the street.”

I never expected to find friendship in the most unlikely place, a dusty old piano store on Whittier Boulevard in an East Los Angeles barrio[1].

I stepped inside, greeted by the musty scent of wood and rusting metal. The store was quiet, almost sacred, and I was drawn to a black grand piano in the corner. As I pressed the keys, their voices rang out clear, strong, and unexpectedly comforting.

Suddenly, a head popped up from behind the piano.

“What are you doing here?”

“I just came into look around, Sir.”

“I’m Saul Bernstein, the store’s owner and a piano tuner by trade.”

“I’m Lupe Jimenez.”

“Do you play the piano?”

“No, but I’m curious about all these pianos. Do you sell them?”

“I run an orphanage for Steinways. These orphans are used, broken, abused, and seldom sell. They have souls and require a home just like people.”

“Where do they come from?”

“Some were rescued from burnt out homes, piano teachers with arthritic fingers who could no longer teach, and some from great performers who passed away. I gave them all a name. The gold grand Madame is ‘Goldie’. ’Red’ was owned by a famous singer songwriter who used it in his longstanding Las Vegas act. The others are called ‘Blackie’, ‘Ginger’, ‘Mira’ and ‘Rose’.”

Saul showed me the intricate insides of the Steinway, explaining how each string and key were crafted from beautiful wood and metals. The Steinways, he said, had personalities and stories including joy and tragedy just like lives. I watched as Saul spoke to them, dusted their keys, and shared memories of their former owners. In those moments, the store felt less like a place of business and more like a House of Worship.

Saul beckoned me over to “Goldie”, his hands steady as he opened the lid to reveal the intricate strings and hammers inside.

“Tuning a piano isn’t just about tightening strings. It’s about listening to what each note wants to say.” He pressed the key, and a slightly sour note rang out.

“Hear that? It’s off. Now, watch.”

He placed the tuning hammer on the pin and gently adjusted it, his ear close to the strings.

“You don’t force it. You coax it, like you’re persuading an old friend to sing again.”

He invited me to try. My hands trembled as I fitted the hammer onto the pin. Saul guided my fingers, showing me how to turn just enough, then play the note again.

“Now, listen for the waves resemble a beating sound. When the waves slow down and disappear, you’re in tune.”

I listened, adjusted, and played the note. The sound grew clearer, steadier. Saul smiled. “That’s it…You’re tuning not just the piano, but learning patience, care, and respect for the instrument.”

Saul became my mentor and friend. He taught me how to tune pianos, how to listen to the subtle differences in sound, and how to care for each instrument as if it were alive.

His passion was contagious, and I found myself returning day after day, eager to learn more.

My uncle pressed me for information, convinced the Steinways were worth a fortune if stripped for their materials. Torn between loyalty to my family and my growing affection for Saul and his Steinways, I invented stories to delay any plans for theft. Each day, the risk grew, but so did my resolve to protect the store and the friendship I’d found there.

The bell rang above the doorway one day and an ominous looking man with arms of steel, full of tattoos, wearing a red cap embroidered with “Ace” approached the counter. I witnessed that look of desperation in a man’s face many times before and feared for Saul’s safety.

“Where’s Saul?”

“Saul is over here tuning ‘Blackie’. How may I help you?”

“I’m Ace Menendez. You sold me a piano on an installment plan for my little girl.”

“I seem to remember you and a friend came in a big truck and picked up the piano. Is the instrument out of tune?”

“No, Sir. I’ve come to apologize for being three payments behind and ask for more time to bring the account current. My trucking business hauling shipping containers is suffering due to the strike at the port, and all the truckers in the neighborhood are struggling financially. It would break my daughter’s heart if you came to repossess the piano. My wife and I fear that without the discipline and love for the piano; she’ll fall victim to the crime elements in our poor neighbourhood.”

“When you’re ready to settle your account, just stop by.”

“Thank you, Mister Berstein. You have a big heart.”

“Tell that to my family wanting me to sell this joint. Vaya con Dio’s, Ace.”

I came to learn, Saul, ever generous, offered installment plans and low interest rates, caring more about the music and joy the Steinways brought than about profit.

He lived a sparse existence upstairs with only a cot, hotplate, while surviving on canned food, crackers, fruit, and his love for the Steinways sustained him.

Saul shared stories of the Steinways he tuned over the years, each with its own history and quirks.

“Every piano has a soul. And every tuner leaves a little piece of themselves behind.”

With each lesson, I grew more confident not just in tuning, but of myself. The shop became a place of transformation, where the music we coaxed from the old Steinways echoed the changes happening within me.

Saul watched as I gripped the tuning hammer, my knuckles white with concentration. I turned the pin, but the note wavered, stubbornly out of tune. Frustrated, I pressed the key again, harder this time, as if force would tune it into harmony.

“You’re fighting the piano. It’s not about strength. It’s about finesse.”

He took the hammer from me and demonstrated his movements slowly and deliberately.

“Hear those waves? That’s the sound of disagreement between the strings.Your job isn’t to overpower them, but to guide them into agreement.”

He handed the hammer back.

“Try again, but this time, breathe. Turn the pin just a hair, then listen. Let the sound tell you what it needs.”

I followed his instructions, turning the pin more carefully, my ear tuned to the subtle changes. The waves slowed, then faded. The note rang true.

“Remember, tuning a piano is a conversation, not a battle. If you listen, the piano will tell you when it’s ready.”

Saul wasn’t just teaching me about Steinways. He was teaching me patience, respect, and how to listen, not just to music, but to the world around me.

“Let’s tune ‘Mira’ who I rescued from a closed piano bar. She was soaked in decades of spilled booze and witness to trashy cocktail bar conversations.”

Saul watched as I struggled with the tuning hammer, frustration tightening my grip. The note wavered, refusing to settle. He gently placed his hand over mine, stopping me.

He took the hammer and demonstrated, his movements calm and precise. “Tuning a piano is like tending a garden. You can’t yank the weeds or drown the flowers. You have to be patient, gentle always giving each note what it needs to grow strong and true.”

He struck a key, letting the sound linger. “If you rush, you’ll miss the moment when the music is ready to bloom. But if you listen, really listen, you’ll hear when everything comes into harmony.”

He handed the hammer back to me. “This time, treat each string like a seed you’re coaxing to life.”

I breathed, relaxed my grip, and turned the pin with care. The waves in the sound slowed, then faded. The note rang clear and bright.

Saul smiled. “With patience and respect, you help the piano find its voice and your own along the way. Life is much the same. Sometimes, you can’t force things to happen.You have to listen to what life is telling you, make small adjustments, and trust that, with time, things will come into tune.”

I realized Saul wasn’t just teaching me about tuning a piano. Saul taught me how to live a life of harmony.

The next time my uncle pressed me for information about the store, I remembered Saul’s advice.“You have to listen to what life is telling you, make small adjustments, and trust that, with time, things will come into tune.”

I paused and listened to my conscience. I could make small, careful choices to protect what mattered. I lied telling my uncle that the store was under CCTV surveillance including a silent alarm system, a warning that steered him away without confrontation.

When I struggled at public school, frustrated by lessons that never seemed to stick, I recalled Saul’s metaphor. I stopped blaming myself for not learning as quickly as others. Instead, I adjusted my approach, asking for help, taking breaks, and celebrating small victories. Gradually, things began to make sense, and my confidence grew. I was told I could earn a scholarship to college to study music. I wanted to share the good news with Saul.

After school, I ran to the store and found Saul on his knees gripping his chest. I phoned for help. The paramedics told me Saul suffered a heart attack and invited me to ride to the emergency room with them. Saul gripped my hand and smiled. “I’m as tough as piano strings. I keep a card inside my wallet with my family emergency contacts for the hospital.Remember what I told you, ‘…every tuner leaves a little piece of themselves behind.’I hope a little piece of me is left behind inside you, Lupe.”

The doctor informed me Saul passed away, and the family was on its way. He handed me the keys to the store saying Saul had instructed him to place them in my possession.

Saul took a big piece of me with him to the beyond and the fate of the Steinways hung in the balance. I faced a chorus of doubts and obstacles, remembering,“Don’t force, listen.”

I reached out to the community, listened to their ideas, and coordinated efforts with patience and care. I was told to visit the neighborhood parish and speak with the priest who took me to a school for developmentally disabled children.

It was a room of beaten up, out-of-tune, upright pianos with eager students stridently following the teacher’s instructions. Others simply tried their best, pounding on the keys.

“Piano music is a miracle and enables these learning-disabled children to find joy and a sense of accomplishment in playing the piano. I’ll make inquiries with fellow priests, and we’ll pray for a home for Saul’s Steinways. The logistics of moving those heavy Steinways may be insurmountable.”

I learned to trust the process, and to believe that, with time and care, even the most troublesome moments could come into harmony like Saul’s garden metaphor.

Night had fallen over Whittier Boulevard. The streetlights flickering outside the dusty windows of the piano store. I stood inside the store, surrounded by the silent witnesses of my transformation, Saul’s beloved Steinways.

My uncle’s voice echoed in my mind, his demand clear:

“Tonight is the night!”

The gang was waiting. All I had to do was unlock the door and let them in.

I gripped the tuning hammer Saul had given me, its weight familiar and comforting. Memories flooded back about Saul’s gentle guidance, his stories, the metaphor he’d shared: “Tuning a piano is like tuning your life. You can’t force harmony; you have to listen, make small adjustments, and trust that, with patience, things will come into tune.”

My heart pounded. I could betray Saul’s legacy, give in to fear and loyalty to my uncle, or I could honour the music, the lessons, and the hope these Steinways represented.

I closed my eyes and listened to the notes from each piano signaling my decision. I imagined more children, their faces alight with joy as they played the rescued Steinways. I remembered Saul’s faith in me, his belief that I could choose a different path.

With trembling hands, I locked the door from the inside and dialed the police. As sirens approached, I stood by the Steinways, ready to face the consequences of my choice.

The gang sped away, but I remained, surrounded by the instruments that had given me a second chance. In that moment, I understood Saul’s lesson fully, “Sometimes, the hardest notes to tune are the ones inside us. But with patience, courage, and a willingness to listen, even the most discordant life can find its harmony.”

Without Saul, the piano store no longer felt like a happy orphanage for rescued Steinways but a dark, soulless, graveyard. His family, overwhelmed by grief and unable to afford to move the Steinways, decided to dismantle them for scrap. The thought of those beautiful instruments, each with its own story, each witness to Saul’s kindness being destroyed was unbearable.

Desperate, I remembered Saul’s lesson: “You can’t force harmony; you have to listen, make small adjustments, and trust that, with patience, things will come into tune.”

I reached out again to the community and anyone who might care. The parish priest had found a network of schools inside Mexico in need of pianos. Word spread, and soon a group of neighbourhood truckers led by Ace volunteered their time and their trucks. The plan was bold: we would transport the Steinways to poor schools in Mexico, where children with learning disabilities and limited resources could discover the joy of the Steinways.

On the moving day, a procession of battered trucks lined up outside the store. Men and women from the neighbourhood, some who had never set foot in the shop before, worked together to carefully load each piano. The journey was long and uncertain, but the spirit of Saul’s generosity guided us.

The Steinways found new homes in schools where children’s laughter and music filled the halls. I watched as students, many barely able to speak, some communicating only in sign language, sat at the old Steinways and played with wonder and delight. The instruments, once gathering dust, now sang again.

After betraying my uncle and the gang, I couldn’t return home. The priest arranged for me to move into a parochial school with boarding facilities run by a nunnery.

Years passed. I grew up carrying Saul’s lessons with me. Eventually, I returned to one of those schools, this time as a teacher. On my first day, I walked into a classroom filled with the very Steinways we had rescued. Their familiar shapes and worn keys greeted me like old friends.

“Hello, class. I’m Ms. Jimenez, your piano teacher. I was once a young person like you sitting in front of a grand piano called a Steinway. Don’t fear it’s size or complexity. Make it your friend, trust it, and it will take you on a journey into happiness you can’t yet realise.”

I realised that Saul’s legacy lived on inside me, not just in the music, but in every child who found their voice through these instruments. The harmony I had sought for so long was engrained inside my soul and spilled into the lives of those who needed it most.

And in the quiet moments, when the sun set over the schoolyard and the last notes faded, I would whisper a thank you to Saul, knowing that, together, we had tuned not just Steinways, but futures.

“With patience and respect, you help not just a piano, but your own life, find its voice.”

[1] Spanish quarters in a town.

Jonathan B Ferrini has published over eighty stories and poems. A partial collection of his stories has been included in Heart’s Without Sleeves: Twenty-Three Stories available at Amazon. Jonathan hosts a weekly podcast about film, television, and music, titled “The Razor’s Ink Podcast with Jonathan Ferrini”. He received his MFA in motion picture and television production from UCLA and resides in San Diego, California.

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

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Tags Amazon, California, Jonathan B. Ferrini, Los Angeles, San Diego, Steinway

Stories

Mrs. Thompson’s Package

By Mary Ellen Campagna

Mr. Foley’s sister, Gin Thompson, was somewhat taken aback when the mail person arrived on the Wednesday after New Year’s with a suspicious looking package; suspicious because it was both heavy and oblong; a dimension heretofore not observed by her, at least not pertaining to a package.

“Mercy!” she yelled upon twisting the last bit of brown paper away from its contents.

Mr. Thompson stood beside his wife as she read the note addressed to her from St. Paul, Minnesota. They lived in Sioux City, Iowa.

“This is obviously from your brother Jack,” Harold Thompson said, grinning due to the curiosity aroused because Jack had been out of touch for years.

His wife didn’t find her husband’s big grin amusing. She usually knew what he was thinking. Yet, he was right. Jack hadn’t contacted Gin, his only sibling, in coming on fifteen years.

“It’s not FROM Jack!” Gin screamed. “It IS Jack!”

“What the hell?” was all Harold could find to say. To ask. Whatever.

Gin plopped down in Harold’s usual chair holding the ominous quart jar in both hands. “Gee whiz,” was all she could muster, and then a quieter, “Damn.”

“I had so many things I wanted to ask him,” she said.

“I wanted to pick his brain a little too,” Harold said, trying not to smile. “I guess that opens up a can of worms now,” he continued, still pretending a serious demeanor.

“Shut up, Harold!” Gin insisted.

Still, the couple agreed that what Jack Foley did, sending himself to his sister in such an unadulterated, absurd and impossible form with only a brief note was, in itself, unthinkable, untenable, and even morose.

They didn’t use those exact words, but that’s what they thought and Gin did say: “He’s made a mockery of my life.”

After all, Jack Foley had known that ever since his older sister turned sixteen, she’d adored canning. He was present in the Foley home attending grade school when Gin enthusiastically learned to can and pickle cucumbers, beets, zucchini, radishes, and okra. There were also jars of tomatoes and a host of other vegetables.

This very day in the Thompson basement assorted canned veggies were lined up with care on grease papered shelves.

But what should I do with this jar of mortal remains? Gin wondered.

She suffered, perhaps more than was necessary, over the prospect of Jack’s ashes getting mixed up with the onions which were the same color, though of a coarser texture, of course; dear nostalgic memories mixing with fatigued, cooked vegetables in a pickled sauce.

“What do you make of it?” Harold asked with a ruddy faced naivete that deserved scolding, but she didn’t have the stamina for it at that moment.

His question seemed as rottenly absurd as the jar full of what had been her brother for over 59 years. She pondered over how she was to remember him now. The phrase: Jack the vagabond’s last stop occurred to her but was quickly abandoned.

Jack was once an itinerant deli worker. A pill popper of barbiturates; yet he’d probably saved the life of a little girl named Betsy Sears by taking her to Hobby ’N Crafts every Friday so she could buy supplies and paint her way past the abuse she was dealing with at home until she was old enough to go out on her own. Ten years of going to the craft market, reading the ads while Betsy shopped.

He’d desperately wanted to donate one of his corneas to the Eye Bank but they’d insisted on a pair; something he couldn’t bring himself to sacrifice. Still, it was a sweet thought, their mother always said.

“And what would Mama think of Jack passing this way?” Gin asked, conjuring a gnawing question that Harold certainly couldn’t answer.

“What way?” Harold asked. “We know nothing of how the fellow actually died; if he were ill for a long time or hit by a bus. We just don’t know.”

“I guess I mean, what would she think of him passing himself to me like this?”

Gin confessed that she should have called her brother more often, not understanding the true nature of her failure; yet, realising deep down that there must have been a time when she dropped the ball, when she might have kept it surging in the air until Jack could have caught it, might have returned it, and kept the momentum going. She’d never been one to send birthday cards, or even Christmas cards. She thought of that too.

“You did all you could,” Harold soothed.

Everyone who says that phase knows it’s a lie. Still, as Harold saw it, soothing was a husband’s duty in such a situation, and he was merely doing his duty. He certainly felt no guilt in regard to the strange demise of his brother-in-law — no guilt or remorse whatsoever.

His only hidden concern was that Gin would somehow grow less fond of canning. This might affect his daily menu as it was presently full of pickled relish and mango chutney, condiments he favored almost as much as he loved a good cut of beef.

And Harold was right to worry, for it did take Gin a few weeks to bounce back, but canning was in her nature. Her mother had always told her that, and it was true.

She would store Jack on the bottom shelf, far to the left of the vegetables, and that would be that.

Mary Ellen Campagna taught Creative Writing and Essay at Virginia Western Community College after receiving her Master’s in Liberal Arts from Hollins University in Virginia. She now writes full-time from Upstate New York. She was recently published in Wild Sound Festival/Experimental Stories, Half and One Literary Magazine, and the Hudson Valley Writers’ Guild.

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

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Tags Christmas, Hollins University, Mary Ellen Campagna, New York, Virgina, Virginia Western Community College

Stories

Hold on to What You Let Go

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date January 14, 2026
No Comments on Hold on to What You Let Go

By Rajendra Kumar Roul

After nearly twenty years, perhaps more, I bumped into Sadhu Kaka[1] again.

That meeting—sudden, strange—pulled me back. Back to a time before Google was born. When the world still moved at its own unhurried pace, unshackled by the glow of mobile screens; when days stretched longer; when people were simply, quietly human.

That morning, I sat at the bus stop with my wife and daughter. The air was still; the sunlight tender. We were on our way back to Bhubaneswar when he saw me—came running, shouting my name, and clasped my hands tightly. I felt the roughness of his palms, the faint tremor of age in his grip. A smile lingered on his lips—gentle, unguarded, like the soft fragrance of fresh jasmine. And yet, no matter how hard I tried, I could not bring myself to smile. Something within me had gone still, as if time itself had forgotten to move.

I looked at my wife, bewildered and uncertain. My guess had been right. By then, her face had set like stone, her eyes dulled by silence. She looked at me once, then at him, and turned away. A grimace flickered across her lips, carrying the sting of quiet satire. She stepped aside and stood there wordlessly, her gaze fixed on the road. Cars passed in a slow rhythm, their noise distant and unreal, as though the world around me had quietly lowered its volume.

I wasn’t surprised by my wife’s reaction. She had always flinched whenever I surrendered to the weakness of my heart. I knew my failing well, and what rose in me was not anger but a slow, lingering guilt. Men like Sadhu Kaka have long taken advantage of the tenderness in me, and each time, it was my family that carried the scar. Once, in a moment of misguided affection—or perhaps a surge of foolish tenderness—I had pushed my daughter into danger for his sake, and now, it was my turn to bleed before the world—this time, for the same fragile sentiment that refused to die, the one I still hold for my childhood friend, Jagabandhu.

There was a time when Jagabandhu and I sat side by side in class—sharing the same bench, the same cracked slate, the same fragile dreams that fluttered like paper kites in the dusty afternoon air.

Then one day, poverty came and sat beside him—silent, patient, and unyielding. From that day on, his place in the classroom remained empty. He began walking to the fields with his father instead, turning the soil where once he had turned the pages. The spade and the hoe became his prayer, the sun his only witness.

I went on, class after class, until the village felt too small for my growing dreams. I left, but he stayed behind, as though the earth itself had claimed him, unwilling to set him free.

The words came unbidden as I walked to the bus stop. Without intending to, I turned down the narrow lane that led to Jagabandhu’s house.

He was sitting beneath the guava tree in his courtyard, the same spot where I had seen him years ago. The tree had grown denser, its shadow trembling on the cracked earth. A brown cow stood nearby, chewing its cud in slow, unhurried rhythm.

When I saw Jagabandhu, I hesitated. It took a moment to recognise him. His face had grown thinner, his eyes sunken, as if time had quietly worked its way through him. His life, I thought, could have belonged to one of those tragic stories that never make it to paper.

The years had pressed heavily on him. The weight of poverty had bent his frame. Life, for him, had withered into a cruel jest of fate—an endless hum from some tired, indifferent machine. His wife lay ill inside the house. Last year, his eldest daughter had died. The papers called it suicide, but Jagabandhu whispered that her in-laws had murdered her. Three unmarried daughters still lived with him, and he carried their future like a stone in his chest. At night, he said, a dull pain rose from his stomach and stayed there until morning.

My eyes welled with tears the moment I heard of Jagabandhu’s plight. I have always been an emotional soul; sorrow, whether on screen or stage, seeps into me until I lose sense of where the story ends and my own ache begins. But this was no performance. This was the truth of a man’s suffering, and I was only a witness, powerless to soften his suffering.

A heaviness gathered in my chest. I laid my hand upon Jagabandhu’s shoulder. A long, tremulous sigh slipped out of me, as though my heart itself had grown tired of carrying sorrow.

“Give me five thousand rupees,” I said to my wife.

Startled, she looked up. Her eyes widened—half fear, half disbelief. I ignored her and pressed on, my voice firm. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

For a moment, a spark of rebellion flared in her eyes, but she held it back. Wordlessly, she opened her purse. Her fingers trembled. She drew out a bundle of hundred-rupee notes and placed it in my hand as though it weighed a mountain.

I passed the money to Jagabandhu and whispered a silent prayer to Lord Jagannath. Not for fortune, but for mercy. Then I turned away and walked toward the bus stop, leaving him behind with his burden of sorrow.

The road stretched empty; my footsteps sounded hollow. It felt as if every sound within me had fallen still—as though the earth itself had grown quieter than it should be. I seemed to sink into a darkness so deep that I had not known it existed within me.

How does Jagabandhu live beneath such sorrow? How does he bear a life so heavy? Is what he endures truly a life—or a curse disguised in the clothes of living?

If I were in his place…

No. My body trembled. I tried to imagine it, but I could not. It was not merely difficult—it was impossible, like trying to build a ladder that reaches heaven.

Just as I was making a futile attempt to step into Jagabandhu’s shoes, and failing all the same, my wife’s voice drifted through the silence.

“You gave the last note to charity. Do you have money for the bus fare?”

I snapped out of my thoughts and asked, “Why? What about the money I gave you the day we came to the village?”

As though she had already anticipated my question, she quietly handed me a notebook where every expense was recorded, down to the last coin.

“The money you gave your friend was the last you ever gave me,” she said. “Now you’ll have to take care of the bus fare yourself.”

It was as if a cold hand had struck me awake. I stepped out of my daze into the harsh glare of truth: I was penniless. I didn’t even have enough to buy the bus tickets.

What madness drove me to Jagabandhu’s house? Why had I stopped there on my way to the bus stop?

He is my friend, yes—but that doesn’t mean I must lose my head every time I think of him. More than anything, why had that sudden tide of emotion risen in me the moment I saw him?

It would have been different if I’d been alone. But I wasn’t. My wife and daughter were there, silent witnesses to my grand stupidity. How could I tell the bus conductor, without shame, “Brother, I have not a paisa left. Take us to Bhubaneswar for nothing”?

My mind went blank. Darkness pressed close, thick and suffocating. I wished I could slap myself. And if anyone asked why, I’d tell them plainly: because I earned it.

Sadhu Kaka broke my trance. “Are you disturbed?” he asked gently. “Your wife doesn’t seem well. Has there been some disagreement between the two of you?”

I forced a smile. A thin, artificial smile.

I wanted to tell him, Life isn’t as simple as you think, Sadhu Kaka. You, who have stepped away from the world, can never truly understand it.

I studied, loved, built a home, became a father—and soon, I’ll be the one giving my daughter’s hand away. And yet, I still wonder if I’ve ever truly grasped the delicate mathematics of living.

If I had, would I, once again ensnared by emotion, have placed my last bit of money in Jagabandhu’s hands today—just as I did twenty years ago, when my daughter burned with fever and I gave you the money meant for her medicine?

I still remember it clearly: my daughter’s asthma had flared again after days of fever. The doctor had ordered an urgent injection, and I set out in haste to buy it.

Sadhu Kaka caught me in the traffic. He ran to me, gasping, and gripped my arm.

“Jayant, disaster has struck. I must leave for the village right now, but my bag is gone. Lend me some money. I’ll send you a money order the moment I reach home.”

I opened my wallet, not even sure why. There were three thousand rupees inside. The instant his eyes fell on them, he said, “That will do. Don’t worry, I’ll return it as soon as I reach the village.”

Before I could protest, he tore the notes from my hand and disappeared onto a bus.

I went back home with nothing. No medicine, no words to explain. My daughter’s condition worsened that night, and by morning she was in the ICU.

That morning never left me. Even now, the sound of an ambulance makes my chest tighten.

Twenty years have gone by since then.

And now, Sadhu Kaka again, after twenty long years.

I wanted to cry out, to shout until my voice broke. I wanted to grab Sadhu Kaka by the shoulders and plead:

“I desperately need that money today, Sadhu Kaka. Otherwise, the bus conductor will humiliate me in front of my wife and daughter. If only you could return what I gave you twenty years ago, it would save me now.”

But I said nothing. His vacant eyes, his frail face, left no space for words.

Long ago, he had loved someone. She betrayed him, and he never recovered. He lived only as long as duty required—until his parents were gone. Then he simply let the world slip past.

People say he has no place to call his own. No one knows what he does or where he lives. How could I expect anything from a man who has already abandoned everything, even himself?

The bus pulled in at the stop. My wife caught our daughter by the hand and climbed aboard. I loosened my grip on Sadhu Kaka’s hand and turned to follow them. But before I could reach the door, he ran after me. With trembling fingers, he straightened my collar and smoothed the stray hair from my forehead. Perhaps he wished to speak, but no words came.

For an instant, I faltered, my mind adrift. His face glowed before me like that of the Lord Buddha at the Peace Pagoda in Dhauli—calm, compassionate. Then I turned away in revulsion. I’ve always been vulnerable to such people. Who would help me now? Sadhu Kaka, or Jagabandhu?

My face hardened in defiance. I pushed him aside, climbed into the bus, and sank onto the three-seater beside my wife. My eyes closed. Inside me, it felt as though the cyclone of ninety-nine was still raging.

Ah, why does this keep happening to me? Why do I remain a slave to my own emotions? Even after stumbling into trouble time and again, why can’t I understand that charity is good—but never at the cost of losing yourself?

I don’t know when I drifted into sleep. A soft touch pulled me back. I opened my eyes. The bus conductor stood before me.

Oh my God!

Startled, I cried out silently. Sweat broke across my skin; the ground seemed to give way beneath my feet. My blood turned cold. I saw my wife and daughter staring at me, their faces pale with fear.

“Mr. Jayant, right?” the bus conductor said, smiling. “Here—your ticket to Bhubaneswar. And three thousand rupees.”

I looked up, uncertain I had heard him correctly.

A ticket… money… what was all this?

The bus conductor’s smile lingered.

“Sadhu Kaka bought the tickets for you,” he said. “He told me to give you the money as well. He was afraid you might refuse if he tried to hand it to you himself.”

So, this time in the crowded market place, both my wife and I smiled and looked with contrition at him. Before we could speak, he smiled and said, “Stay well!” Then he disappeared.

[1] Kaka means “uncle” and is often used in Odia as a respectful form of address for an elderly man. Thus, Sadhu Kaka may be understood as “Uncle Sadhu.”

Rajendra Kumar Roul is an acclaimed bilingual fiction writer. A professional feature journalist, he has written more than a hundred short stories, over a thousand feature articles for Odia daily newspapers, two novels and several plays for the stage.

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Tags Bhubaneswar, Buddha, Dhauli, Odia, Rajendra Kumar Roul