Category: Stories

Nandu by Ajit Cour

Translated from Punjabi by C. Christine Fair

His name was “Nandu”. He was a servant in our neighbour’s house, where he did all of the household chores. He was a smallish boy. Who knows what his actual name was. Everyone just called him Nandu.

Sometimes he would finish his work in the afternoon and would come sit with me. Although he was from Garhwal, he spoke Punjabi well, albeit haltingly. His face always made it appear as though he were laughing. We gave him the nickname “Laughing Man.”

“Nandu, how many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“Four sisters and three brothers. All of the sisters are older than I am, and the brothers are younger.”

Then Nandu fell silent. It was as if he were thinking that if his brothers were older, they would be working, and Nandu would not have cuts on his hands from washing vessels all day at such a young age. Nor would he have been forced to leave his small house nestled in the mountains.

“Nandu, how did you manage to leave your parents and everyone else to come here?”

Then he smiled, and his lips spread out. “Who knows why?” he smiled, but it seemed as if the smile was trying to convince me that it doesn’t matter whether you want to or don’t want to do all of this work, you still have to do it. Right?

“Madam, back there, we barely eat twice a day. We cooked once a day, and we ate the leftovers for a second meal. Moreover, I was not free there at all. I would take the cows outside for grazing. I also bathed them sometimes. I would also feed them fodder. When my mother would milk the cows, I wanted to drink the milk fresh from the bucket. But madam…if we don’t sell the milk, then maybe we won’t even be able to cook one meal.

“And there, people must have their own lands?”

“What kind of lands, Madam? Just small parcels. And then you have to pay land tax and interest on the loan.”

When Nandu spoke like this, it seemed to me that this child was a fifty-year-old man. Yet he was hardly thirteen years old. He was eight or nine when he ran away from his village to come here. Perhaps, he couldn’t tolerate hunger. There had been a time when he had been self-respecting. He would go on saying, “Where I used to work before, the old woman was angry with me one day. And I left.”

I was astonished that now he is verbally abused all day long, but he has gone nowhere. The reason may be that he had grown accustomed to it.

Nandu only spoke Punjabi. He would say that he had forgotten Garhwali. And he never posted letters to his family. He would say that he only knew his father’s name and the name of his village. Nothing else. And the villages in Garhwal had such long addresses. Sometimes he would become very sad thinking of his mother and father. Once, I saw him outside, wiping his eyes with his dirty Ludhiana shirt. But usually, he would try to hide his pain in a smile from which his broad lips would stretch wide. He said carelessly, “According to them, I died long ago.”

Our neighbors were Sikhs. And Nandu bought a gutka[1] with his salary, even though he was completely illiterate. (He only took that part of his salary that he needed for necessities.) He also bought a picture of Guru Gobind Singh Ji and wrapped it in his spare shirt to keep it safe. When the shirt he is wearing gets dirty, he washes it, wraps the picture of Guru Gobind Singh in it, and wears the other shirt.

Over time, he began imitating the children of his boss, a Sikh man, and began wearing a turban. He also got the worn-out turban of his boss’s youngest son. For two annas, he bought some grey dye and dyed the turban. He also acquired a small kirpan[2], which he did not remove while bathing or sleeping. He went from Nandu to Nand Singh.

One time, a man from his village came to find him.

“Does someone by the name of Nandu live here?
“There’s no one here by that time. You’ve come here by mistake,” Nandu said with deliberation. He was already afraid that if some man from the village recognised him, he would have to send money home. And maybe he would have to return to that place, where, after caring for the cows all day, he got only one meal, and for the second meal, he was given dried pieces of roti. Here, he could satisfy his hunger at least twice a day. He didn’t need to worry a bit about work. And what about scolding and abuse? Ultimately, a person learns to tolerate these things.

Even though Nandu’s face had completely changed, seeing his wide laughing lips, the man from his village recognised him. He said something to Nandu in Garhwali. Nandu began to say somewhat angrily, “I don’t understand what you are saying. Don’t talk nonsense. Speak correctly.”

And the next day in the afternoon, when he told me that he no longer understood Garhwali, I suddenly let out a sigh. Maybe I sighed because Nandu had forgotten his mother tongue, which must have been the first words he heard when God threw him on this planet, thinking him to be disposable.

“What did he say to you, Nandu?”

“Nothing. He said only that ‘your mother is missing you a lot.’ But I know no one is crying for me. She must be thankful that there is one less hungry mouth to feed. She used to always say to me, ‘May you die.’”

But that man from Nandu’s village kept coming around. Over time, Nandu’s heart softened. Nandu remembered his mother, he remembered his elderly father, who must no longer be able to work the fields. And Nandu remembered his small, dirt shack, whose outside wall was plastered with rocks. The fragrance of fresh soil and paste made of cow dung and mud floated to his mind. And now Nandu was constantly sad. In the end, he was still a child, all of thirteen years old.

Then one day, who knows what happened, but cysts appeared near his ear. The boss, the Sikh, was charry of the illness, thinking no one would keep a sick man in his house. He tossed Nandu out. While leaving, Nandu cried copiously! He gave me the gutka and the picture of Guru Gobind Singh. He was going back to his village. He said he would take them back when he returned from his village.

So much time had passed without hearing from him. On several occasions, my eyes would well up looking at his things. Poor Nandu.

Then one day, there was a knock at my door. It was the afternoon. I opened the door. A smallish boy was standing there wearing a dirty hat and a filthy shirt, and in his hands was a smallish bundle. I thought someone must have come to meet our servant. But seeing those wide lips smiling in his laughter, I immediately recognised him. It was him. Nandu.

Nandu had cut his long hair. Now his name was Anand Ram. I asked him how he was doing and gave him some water. He spoke haltingly. While speaking, he said some words that I had difficulty understanding. In the end, embarrassed, he began to explain that due to living in his village, it was hard for him not to speak Garhwali. In the end, he was still Nandu, who had come to me in the afternoon and to tell me all of his sorrows.

“Your things are still with me, Nandu.”

“You keep them.” It seemed as if words were not coming to him. He didn’t know what to say, “I have another photo.” He began to open his bundle. There were a few pieces of clothing from which Nandu withdrew a picture. It was a picture of Lord Krishna.

I kept on thinking that hunger knows no religion. Wherever one gets food, one adopts that religion and that language. Then what is the essence of a person? A cog that has to fit into every machine because a cog outside of a machine doesn’t get oil, and it becomes rusty. And Nandu? What was Nandu? A thing without life? He was a ball rolling down the mountainside, which, moving very quickly down the hill, would get stuck on a rock momentarily, then again begin rolling. Maybe Nandu was like that same wind-up doll that my little brother has. The only difference is that the wind-up doll is fat, whereas every one of Nandu’s ribs could be counted.

After two years, Nandu came yesterday. There was barely any difference in his build. I recognised him immediately. But he could not recognise my little brother. In those two years, he had grown a lot. The wheels of time leave different marks on different people.

Now Nandu spoke Hindi. He spoke some words very quickly, which I had difficulty understanding.

“So Nandu, where are you these days?”

“I’m working for a woman from Madras. She’s terrible. She harasses me a lot. Otherwise, everything is fine. Initially, I couldn’t eat their food, but now I can.”

Then I thought he was doing this just to keep his belly full, just like sparrows and crows who eat to keep their bellies full. Just like wild dogs roaming the streets to fill their bellies. What is a meal? Whatever you get, you eat, whether it’s leftover food or something else. Something just to fill one’s stomach. But to feed himself, one has to sell himself.

I had thought that Nandu had sometimes become Nand Singh and sometimes Anand Ram. There was a time when he kept a picture of Guru Gobind and a gutka. Now he keeps a picture of Krishna. Sometimes he spoke Garhwali, sometimes Punjabi, and now Hindi. But Nandu kept on washing dishes. Nandu kept on sweeping. He kept on washing clothes. He went on cooking. And he continued to be scolded. Still, he’s a child. Poor Nandu!

“Sister, are you still writing stories?”

“Yes, Nandu. I’m writing now.”

“And you were saying that you were going to write my story?”

I smiled. Feeling demoralized, he began to ask, “But who will read it?”

Then it occurred to me that Nandu couldnot read his story himself, but many others would read it.

“Nandu, the people of future generations will read about Nandu and thousands of Nandus, just like the Bible. And these stories will be worshiped just like you worship these pictures. Because you all strengthen the foundations of the new world.”

Who knows whether he understood what I was saying, but he smiled.

[1] A quid of betel and tobacco

[2] Small dagger, a ritualistic thing carried by Sikh men

Ajeet Cour (born 1934) is an Indian writer who writes in Punjabi. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award by the Government of India. She is the author of twenty-two books, including novels, novellas, short stories, biographical sketches, and translations. Her novellas include Dhup Wala Shehar (The town with Sunshine) and Post Mortem. Her novel, Gauri, was made into a film, while her short story Na Maaro (Don’t Beat) was serialised for television. Her works have been translated into English, Hindi, and several other languages.

C. Christine Fair (born 1968) 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 Muse India, Orientalia Suecana, The Bangalore Review, Borderless, The Punch Magazine, The Bombay Literary Magazine, and The Bombay Review.

Tags Ajit Cour, Dhupp Wala Shehar, English, Gauri, Georgetown University, Hindi, Na Maaro, Padma Shri, Post Mortem, Punjabi, Sahitya Akademi award, Translation, University of Chicago

Stories

Ali the Dervish

By Paul Mirabile

Whirling Dervishes, painting by Jean Baptiste Vanmour (1671-1737). From Public Domain

In 1976, I bought a small country cottage very pleasantly located near the town of Sheffield at Dronfield in South Yorkshire from an elderly woman who informed me she that had travelled quite extensively throughout Asia in the nineteen twenties and thirties before settling down here. She never married. The learned woman left no forwarding address.

Settling in took much time and energy because of my abundant belongings. At last, one rainy afternoon having nothing to do, I climbed the shaky stairway that led to the garret. The door had been left ajar. Inside the low-ceiling, ill-lite space, there was nothing but a large chest placed in the middle. The lid lay aslant. Its hinges were broken.

Curious about its contents, I began rummaging through the numerous newspaper and magazine clippings, booklets, letters and other documents. A particular envelop caught my eye because the red wax seal had been broken. Wax-sealed letters are very out-dated these days. When I opened the envelop I understood why it was sealed. A seven-page letter had been written in fine, elegant script, by Lady Sheil, dated 1869. Lady Sheil was quite a prominent woman in her time[1] . This indeed was a remarkable find. It baffled me why the former proprietor would leave in a chest of documents a letter of such archival interest. Since there was little light in the garret, I took the letter downstairs to read it. Unfortunately there was no addressee, so I assumed it was sent to the former proprietor. I must confess that a feeling of guilt touched me when I began my reading. Luckily I overcame this sensation because the contents of the letter proved extraordinary …

Lady Sheil details a very peculiar adventure of an Englishman who named himself Ali the Dervish -or as she spelt it, Deervish — who had undertaken a voyage to ‘Balochestan, Persia’[2]. As I read through her letter, I came to realise that the Englishman had abandoned his British ways entirely, adopting those of the semi-nomad Balochi. To such an extent was his assimilation that he even married a Balochi woman, something utterly unthinkable at that time — in the year 1856. Why Lady Sheil would write a long letter about this chap to an unknown reader or readers heightened my curiosity.

I began investigations at the Sheffield library and found Lady Sheil’s Glimpses of Persian[3] though I found nothing at all about Ali the Dervish. Lady Sheil mentioned something about his diary but nothing substantial came of this. Be that as it may, the letter fascinated me by its mysterious allusions and ellipses, especially concerning this unusual identity change. Not a simple task for a European in the nineteenth century, or even in our century for that matter. This Ali even outdid Sir Richard Burton’s bursts of outlandish impersonation …

Examining the letter carefully, I felt a strange, slight tremor goading me to do justice to this eccentric Ali. Something unsaid in the sentences urged me to read between them, to scrutinize the margins and the paragraph indents as if Lady Sheil had deliberately left out parts of her narrative for her reader to fill in those blank, yellowing spaces.

I picked up my pen, imagining myself to be both Lady Sheil and Ali the dervish, and began filling in the those blanks, writing in the gaps, the lacuna, the untold events and details so to speak. Indeed, I had convinced myself that the letter had been destined for me. And this resolution was enough for me to divulge the mystery of Ali …

Ali, whose English-born name was left unknown, had had the best of aristocratic educations in the fine arts, especially languages. He was fluent in Hindustani, Persian, Pashtun and Turkish, besides having mastered four or five European languages, including Hungarian. This was quite a linguistic feat, second only to Richard Burton whom, by the way, Ali had the occasion to meet in Lahore. A meeting which lasted two or three weeks according to a friend of Burton’s memoirs. Little, however, is reported about their relationship.

Prior to Ali’s arrival in India and that fortuitous encounter with Burton, he apparently had led a rather lukewarm existence in England, and this in spite of his family wealth, or perhaps because of it. His accumulation of capital was analogous to his successive accumulations of prolonged bouts of depression. They left him utterly exhausted. How and when he left England is not written in the letter, although he probably reached India by ship, then on horseback or foot into Northwestern India, accompanied often by erring minstrels and story-tellers. From whom Ali learned the art of dancing, chanting and story-telling. It was not a question of imitating these rituals and customs. Ali had integrated them as if they had been part of some distant, latent self that required jolts of recollection to surge up from the depths of the unconscious. In fact, Burton was quite taken aback by Ali’s very ‘unEnglish’ appearance. His manner of speaking English, too, possessed a curious twist of Persian and Hindustani syntax — a ring of their tonal stress.

To Ali’s pleasant surprise, he no longer suffered from bouts of violent depressions. The former Englishman on leaving Burton, perhaps in 1849, rid himself of paper money, donating it to missionaries, then rode off into the verdant valleys of North-western India towards Afghanistan carrying only the clothes on his back, two gourds of fresh water, several loaves of acorn-bread and a pouch of Arabic gum. Ali carried no weapon.

Ali’s sound knowledge of Hindustani, Pashtun and Persian offered him unparallel glimpses of these undomesticated lands. Lands of shifting desert sands whose rising heat conjured in the distance illusions of ravishing oases and sparkling cascades off tree-laden crags. Ali had been warned about these deceitful mirages (by Burton?) whose marvellous vision had been the death of many a brave adventurer.

He kept to the clayey track, accepting food and board from the hospitable villagers or sleeping under the silver stars on his woven kilim-saddle cloth. He rode days or nights penetrating landscapes of indescribable beauty, of terrifying singularity, of unbearable heat in the day and equally freezing nights. At one point in his wanderings, Ali, slumbering on his horse due to the rising heat and lack of food, looked up to discover a gigantic Buddha hewn into a tuft-like cliff. A small stream ran in front of the lithic niche along which flourished many date trees. There the Buddha stood, calm, reposed, sedentary, encased in his stone casket, home to a myriad birds who had made their nests on his rounded shoulders and shaven head. Ali jumped off his horse, filled his gourds with clean water, scouted about for fresh dates. With one last look at the towering Enlightened One he set off towards Persia, filled with equivocal sensations. He felt that his nomad days would soon be numbered …

A month or two passed. Now villagers tilling their fields or collecting wood no longer greeted or spoke Pashtun to him, but in Dehwari or Persian. He welcomed this language shift. Ali felt more at ease in Persian, albeit it be the Dehwari dialect, which he had learnt from one or two erring Zarathustrian talebearers in India. By then his uncombed beard touched his chest and his hair his shoulders. In one village he traded his khaki-coloured shorts for a shalwar[4] and his boots for goat-skin sandals. In another his Safari sun hat for a turban and his heavy flax shirt for a long, cotton tunic. Whenever he met tillers or merchants they would greet him with the customary ‘hoş amati’[5]. By their pronunciation and vocabulary Ali knew he was travelling southwards into Balochestan. Temperatures rose and rose — 37° C … 42° C. His horse trotted slower and slower. Her rider drooped soporifically over her mane. Ali no longer calculated his wanderings in farsakhs[6] but by the risings and settings of the sun …

Notwithstanding these discomfitures, the persevering Ali carried on. To his delight the track widened, hospitable shepherds driving before them their herds of sheep or goats offered the solitary traveller the warmth of their camp-fires, goat’s milk, cheese and acorn-bread. Caravans of transhumance nomads pressing towards the high plateaus nodded to him. The stony-faced herdsmen chanted in their own language which translated means —

 A breath of mountain breeze,
A breath of wind from the Sea,
In the middle,
We trudge
The pilgrims of the fountain…

Then they called after their huge, savage dogs. Ali seized upon that admirable chant and intoned it to himself or aloud …

One sparkling, azure day, Ali, road-weary, alighted from his horse in a large settlement of tents, called Sa’idi. There both Persian and Dehwari were spoken, judging from the scores of people who came to greet him. It was a charming settlement, surrounded by fields of red poppies, iris, bluer than the blue of the sky, crown imperials whose orange tints glowed like lit candles, and tulips. Horses, sheep and goats dotted the terraced rows of poppies on the hills and skirts of the low-laying piebald mountains, motionless. Ali, both dazzled and comforted by the undulating kaleidoscope colours decided to halt for the night in this welcoming settlement to rest his fatigued physical and mental state and his horse.

When he asked for the elder of the settlement, he was directed to a very large white tent. In fact, since his arrival the snowy-bearded elder had been eyeing the stranger askance. He threw open the flap of his tent and greeted him in Persian as custom would have it, inviting his visitor inside for tea. Sipping their respective glasses of sugared tea, the snowy-bearded elder’s deep-set black eyes peered into those hazel-brown of Ali’s. Though he was pleased to meet this curious traveller, he was confused about his identity. Finally he put the question point blank to his sipping visitor: “Are you Persian?”

Ali nodded neither yes nor no. His ambiguous nod set off the string of events that followed. events that transformed the already transforming Ali into a rather ambiguous Other …

The snowy-bearded elder had read that ambiguous nod as a sign of belonging. Ali’s sun-mat complexion, his extraordinary command of both Persian and Dehwari, his knowledge of social and religious habits and practices, mostly acquired during his years on the road, opened the elder’s heart and those of the Balochi people of Sa’idi, people who now had stepped into the tent, forming a large circle round Ali and the snowy-bearded elder. Out of this wide circle came the elder’s three sons and daughter to lead him to his own red tent at the outskirts of the settlement. His horse was led to pasture with the others.

On the thick carpets of his medium-sized tent, Ali sat and meditated upon that ambiguous nod. Had he really become the one of them? Deep within his heart, the former Englishman rejoiced … rejoiced at his ‘crossing over’. He had become what he really was …

Several years passed. Ali no longer felt guilty about leaving his past behind. His immersion seemed complete. He sang and danced round the ritual fire at night. He told stories night after night after a hard day’s work in the poppy fields, apple and peach orchards and the vineyards, the tribesmen chanted their chants of ancestral lore, joined him in his whirling dance, one palm to the Heavens and the other to the Earth, eyes staring into a void of quiescence …

It was in Sa’idi that he began to be called Ali the Dervish, whirling as he did before and behind the leaping flames. Ali taught his dance to the snowy-bearded elder’s three sons. In turn, the elder offered his daughter to him in marriage — a privilege since this signified entrance into the chieftain’s family.

Once the three-day marriage ceremonies were over, his lovely bride — for she was truly lovely — sat next to him in the nuptial red tent. His wife, whose name has never been recorded, demanded nothing of him. She accepted all his nightly hesitations … ‘failings’ … Her fruity laugh and obsidian back eyes spoke a language that communicated higher values … loftier treasures than uncertainty, physical gratification or hereditary obligations.

Ali slowly discovered that his young bride possessed the quality of a seer, perhaps even belonged to a long lineage of Central Asian mystics. Intense were her meditations and visions of the Other World, of events passed and those to come … His past … Their future … Ali, both bewildered and beguiled by this power of prophesy, would timidly question his bride about her unusual gifts. She would answer enigmatically: “One must remove the Husk before bringing in the Bride,” an adage he never fully understood, nor would she ever elucidate.

On other moonlit nights, alone within the sanctuary of their intimacy, Ali’s wife would envision scenes of his long aristocratic lineage, each member afflicted by physical or mental atrophies, plagued by wasting ennui. The Dervish listened in awe as she revealed events quite unknown to him. Yet, he remained speechless, peering into the almond-shaped eyes of this woman depicting scenes that could very well cost him his life. She said nothing. He yearned to avow everything to her but some fey voice prevented him each time. She read his mind and laughed her fruity laugh, delving ever deeper into his life … theirs !

Ali accompanied her with his eyes then turned them to the dying embers of the stove fire, the glowing logs sizzled lightly in the silence. Was he deluding himself? He knew that his wife had discovered his native idenity. But were all those past scenes his true identity? He indeed stemmed from that hoary lineage, the last scion. Was he the last to play a role on this world stage of masquerade and mummery? No ! He was Ali the Dervish … Here amongst these hearty tribesmen he played no role. He had overcome the hardships of childhood as a fatherless boy. That unknown gentleman had left for Africa never to return! Never a letter nor a message brought by acquaintances. Before dying of grief, his poor mother repeated to him everynight: “Look to the stars.” And the sullen boy looked, and believed that they would lead him to another life … another identity !

Once Ali began to cry softly listening to the sizzling embers and the light, rhythmical breathing of his strange wife.

Many years had passed and yet, they had no children. His hair and beard had greyed. Yet, no reprimand, no rebuke, no judgement ever came from the community, especially from her aging father. Was the power of her revelations known to him ? Would he be the last branch of that gnarled and rotten aristocratic tree ?

Ali rode often into the fields and mountains to gather wood to build tent-frames or glean fruit from the many apple and peach trees. During these solitary moments his past crept up on him, making him feel guilty. There seemed only one solution : speak openly, candidly to his wife about his British birth, his genuine desire to become the Other. She would surely understand since she had already read his former life by sounding his heart. That night he would go straight to his wife.

But, just then out of the blue sky his wife came galloping towards him, whipping up her stead. She jumped off, an odd expression wrinkling her forehead. Ali ran up to her, took her shoulders gently, admiring the sapphire blue that framed them so perfectly like a painting. There she stood, basking in the soft glow of the mellowing, evening sun. Before he could utter his rehearsed confession she put a hand to his lips.

“Father has just passed away,” she whispered softly, without emotion. “He has been freed from the trammels of worldly existence.” She smiled. “Now you too are free to divest yourself of a personage that has been conferred to you by the stars and the strength of your will.”

“But who am I really, my dear?” her husband wondered. She caressed his bearded, burning cheeks. She answered: “If you want the horse to neigh, you must slacken the reins.” Turning round, she rode back to the settlement to wash the body of her deceased father and prepare the three-day funeral rites with her brothers. Ali puzzled by that enigmatic counsel trudged to his horse.

He rode back far behind her, meditating his ‘freedom’. What other choice had he?

This sentence was the last in Lady Sheil’s long, detailed letter. On further investigation into this strange fellow at the London library, I discovered that Ali the Dervish had divorced and remarried his bride to one of her brother’s mates, then left Sa’idi. He was last seen in Tabriz, Persia. No document reports his whereabouts after his reaching that northwestern town in the lands of the Azeri people.

I have often wondered whether Lady Sheil ever knew who Ali the Dervish really was. I have my doubts. Only his Balochi wife knew, and of course, that mysterious person could have never been questioned. It’s also odd that Ali himself — whatever self that be– had never woven his thoughts and experiences into a book, never enlightened a Western public on integration and assimilation into a foreign culture.

As time went by I even considered that this letter might have been a hoax to hoodwink a naive fellow like myself into clothing Ali in legendary fashion. On second thought, though, who’s to arbitrate between fact and fiction ? Not I, in any case. For isn’t it a refreshing act of freedom to slip from one to the other without a pinch of guilt ?

[1] 1803-1871.

[2] Balochistan is in Pakistan but the Baloch community spreads to Iran and Ali’s story dates before the formation of Pakistan.

[3] Published in 1856.

[4] Large, light baggy trousers.

[5] ‘Welcome’ in Persian.

[6] A Persian measurement equivalent to 5.35 kilometres

Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

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Tags Asia, Balochi, British, Buddha, Central Asia, England, English, France, Hindustani, India, Jean Bapiste Vanmour, Lahore, Pashtun, Paul Mirabile, Persia, Persian, Richard Burton, Tabriz, Turkish, Yourkshire

Stories

The Gift

By Naramsetti Umamaheswararao

It was a science class for the 9th grade. All the students were listening attentively as the teacher was explaining the lesson. Just as there were 15 minutes left for the bell to ring, the attendent walked in with the notice register.

After sending him away, the teacher looked at the class. He noticed Ramu and Gopi sitting at the back and talking to each other.

“Children! Are you all listening?” the teacher asked aloud.

All the students except Ramu and Gopi raised their hands to show they were paying attention.

The teacher felt that Ramu and Gopi were talking about something more important than the class. Curious, he quietly walked over to them.

At that moment, Ramu was saying, “Mohan’s gift wasn’t liked by anyone at our home.”

“I thought it would be something valuable because he told me he would give a special gift,” replied Gopi.

“You didn’t come to our new housewarming ceremony, so you don’t know. Honestly, I feel a bit embarrassed to talk about it,” Ramu said sadly.

Hearing Mohan’s name in their conversation, the teacher felt it was something worth discussing. He gently tapped their desk with a stick and asked them to explain what they were talking about.

Mohan was a smart and well-behaved student, so the teacher was surprised to hear any complaints about him.

“Ramu had invited his friends for the housewarming a few days ago. I couldn’t go,” said Gopi. “But we were just talking about how the gift Mohan gave wasn’t good when you came, sir.”

“I see… what kind of gifts did the other students give?” asked the teacher.

“They gave useful household items,” replied Ramu.

“And what did Mohan give you?” asked the teacher.

“A mango plant,” said Ramu with a laugh.

The whole class burst out laughing. The teacher looked at Mohan, who bowed his head in embarrassment.

The teacher scolded the students and asked, “How can you say that a plant is not a good gift?”

Ramu replied, “To grow a plant, you need space. You have to water it every day. If it grows into a tree, its leaves will fall everywhere. Cleaning up is hard. It would have been better if he gave something else.”

“So, is that all you know about plants?” asked the teacher.

“Growing and maintaining a plant is difficult,” said Ramu again.

The teacher turned to the class and asked, “Is Ramu right?” The students nodded.

Then the teacher told Mohan to stand up and asked, “You said you would give a valuable gift, but you gave a plant. Why?”

Mohan answered, “The other gifts may break or become useless after a while. But a plant won’t. That’s why I chose it.”

“Tell us more about why you think it’s valuable,” the teacher encouraged him.

Mohan began to explain: “When a plant grows into a tree, it gives us many benefits. It absorbs the carbon dioxide we breathe out and gives us oxygen in return. Trees give us clean air to live. Their branches and leaves spread out to give us shade. People rest under trees to cool down. That’s why trees are important.

“If this mango plant becomes a tree, it can give us mangoes. Raw mangoes can be used for pickles and other dishes. Ripe mangoes are tasty fruits. A tree can give fruits worth thousands of rupees in its lifetime. We can eat the fruits or share them with relatives. The branches can be used as firewood. Even the dried leaves can be used to cook food. There are so many benefits. That’s why I gave a plant. I hoped Ramu would understand.”

“Is that all? Most people know these things. Tell us what science says about plants,” said the teacher, encouraging him further.

Mohan continued: “Cutting trees reduces forests. Because of that, rainfall is not coming on time. Pollution is increasing. Holes are forming in the ozone layer, and the Earth is becoming hotter. If we give plants as gifts and grow more trees, it helps society. If every citizen does this, we can enjoy green nature. It also reduces air pollution caused by too many vehicles. People will become healthier.”

“Well said! You explained it beautifully. I’m proud to say you’re my student,” said the teacher, clapping.

The class clapped too, just as the bell rang.

Looking at Ramu, the teacher asked, “Now tell me, was Mohan’s gift a good one?”

Ramu replied, “I couldn’t understand the value of the gift before. I behaved wrongly. Mohan’s gift is truly valuable.”

The teacher concluded, “Children, be wise. If you want to give a gift to someone, give them a book… or a plant!”

“Yes, sir!” the whole class replied loudly.

At that moment, the next class bell rang.

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.

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

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Tags Anandalokam, Andhra Pradesh, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao, Naramshetty Children’s Literature Foundation, Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University, Sahitya Akademi

Stories

I Am Not My Mother

By Gigi Gosnell

My name is Amina Salvador, 13 years old. I was born in the rural community of Santa Maria, Philippines. I want to share with you the events that prompted me to give testimony to the police. That day was the hardest day in my life. After it was done, two long months went by until my mother received the decision of the Prosecutor’s office, stating:

“A person here left unnamed raped me, while I was still a virgin. The charges against the perpetrator were two counts of rape of a minor by sexual assault and three counts of lascivious conduct.”

The course of my life changed abruptly when my mother Selina decided to leave for Dubai in search of work as a domestic worker. Before she left, she spoke to me with tears in her eyes, promising to give me a good future and proper home where I could have access to all the comforts of life, good internet access, and would be able to pursue my studies. She would also buy me new clothes and provide for adequate food so I would not starve.

My mother left me under the care of my father. He was 43 years old, a muscular and strong man. He worked as a painter for newly built church buildings. Initially, he started pampering me with fancy items, like trendy watches and expensive clothes. This might seem like he was an ideal father.

My mother is an attractive woman, rather plump, with a pleasant face. She had a difficult life. Her parents were poor and not able to give her an education. Now, she is 40 years old.

It was by accident that I found out that my mother ran away from my “father”, the man she had married. After daily beatings in the hands of her alcoholic and abusive husband, she had no choice than to go south where her parents lived.

With a small bag of clothes and photographs of the five young children she had left behind with her abusive husband, she returned to her hometown to start afresh. At the time when all this drama was unfolding, I was still not born.

I heard that I was conceived when my mother fell in love again with another man who promised her to love and protect her. I suppose that I came into life as the sweet fruit of that promise. It didn’t take long, however, for her to discover the true character of this man whom she saw as a savior from her former abusive husband. It turned out that her boyfriend was a womaniser and a very jealous person. He too was another wife-beater.

As a result, my mother ran away a second time, with a three-month-old baby growing inside her. Feeling she had nobody to turn to, she returned to the cruel husband she had left some months ago. In this way, my mother continued her old subservient life.

I was born in a dilapidated clinic in our town, and three months later I was baptized as Amina Salvador. I took my mother’s husband family name. Anselmo Salvador was the father I got to know while growing up, until my mother, black and blue from physical abuse and humiliation, fled once more. Sad to say she ran away once more to her previous lover boy, the jealous and cheater one. Are you confused by now?

I am too young to understand what was going on inside my mother’s head. All this time I just kept quiet and did not ask questions about adult matters. As a young girl, I just wanted to play with my friends, go to school, and be myself. I still considered myself a normal kid.

Dark clouds started to form a few days after my mother flew out to Dubai. As I told you before, my mother entrusted me to her live-in partner. As you remember, previously my mother had left her lover already pregnant with me. It turns out that Solomon, yes him, is my real father. That is what my mother thinks and I have no right to refute her own truth. I was only 7 years old when she and I took a long bus ride back to her old lover boy. She held my left hand tight when we reached Solomon’s house.

The fights between her and Anselmo, and her and Solomon left a lasting impression in my young mind, yet I could not understand the causes of all of this. I suppose I was just caught in the middle of some nasty adult fights, whether I liked it or not.

I remember exactly after I said goodbye to my mom at the airport, my papa started abusing me. I woke up once in the middle of the night feeling his hands sitting on me. I was crying almost every night. I didn’t tell anyone what was going on. I was too ashamed to talk to anyone. I felt dirty. I lost weight and became more reserved.

I tried to reach out to my mother, but my monster papa was controlling my cellphone and my Facebook account he had created himself. He interfered with the messages I tried to send out. I have no idea how on earth he did this.

My harrowing experience went on and on for several months until I finally got a chance to message my mother. I did not know what to say. I simply wrote, “Is it right for may papa to kiss me on my lips?”

Instinctively, my mother felt there was something completely wrong happening to me. She asked her sister, my aunt Lenny, to take me away from my papa’s house. Aunt Lenny took me to her house and stayed with me until my mother’s immediate return from Dubai.

I am in safe hands now, under the protection of my mom and aunty. My dad was arrested and is now in prison, currently applying for bail. Prior to his arrest, he posted sexually explicit materials about me and my mom on social media, exposing me and my mom to shame in front of our extended families and friends. He also tried to kidnap me at school before my mother could return from Dubai. He orchestrated a smear campaign against me to make me appear as a flirt and a lose girl. It was terrible.

I am relieved that he is in prison right now, although he is begging my mother to withdraw the charges against him in exchange for money, and all kinds of tricks to make us back down and settle out of court.

While I am happy to see the monster in prison, my mother has a different idea. She wants to protect me from the prying incursions of the court. She knows that my case may take a year or more to conclude. She keeps telling me that she just wants to me to move on with my life. She also plans to go back to Dubai to make some money so she can support me and the rest of my siblings from my other father. I tell her, “It’s up to you, mama.”

You see, I am traumatised like my mother, but I am trying to convince myself that what happened to me should not define who I am. I can’t be in a similar situation like my mother is. It is sad to say that while we are still busy with my legal case, she has met another man. At first, he appeared gentle and kind, but lately, I overheard him cursing my mother over money squabbles. So, what can I say. It’s her life.

I choose not to be broken by my story. I will fight the demons in my head. I know it won’t be easy. I will show my mother that there is another way to live, and it is to love myself.

Gigi Baldovino Gosnell has degrees in Psychology and Education. She lectures in Psychology, worked in various NGOs, and the public service in the fields of women empowerment, land reform, social development and local government.

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Tags Dubai, Facebook, Gigi Baldovino Gosnell, Philippines

Stories

The Archiver of Shadows

By Hema R

She restores textiles at the museum in Central Chennai. Her fingers work over ancient threads as if decoding messages from the dead. This is a job that requires patience, belief in the value of preservation and a certain kind of loneliness.

Every day she lets the early morning sunlight into her apartment, 308, which has walls the colour of abandoned hope.

Her grandmother named her Yazhini. “It originates from the name of a stringed instrument in Tamil,” she had explained to the young girl. A stringed instrument, a hollow vessel, designed to resonate with whatever touches it. To amplify what might otherwise go unheard. Yazhini has spent thirty-two years resisting resonance. She has built her life in measures: the precise fold of conservation tissue; the exact temperature of her morning filter coffee; the calculated distance she maintains from her neighbours and from herself.

She first noticed her shadow move on a Wednesday. It lingered on the wall after she had stepped away, like an afterthought or a question. Yazhini noticed and catalogued the anomaly in her mind under “phenomena: unexplained” and continued washing dishes.

But the shadows continue to persist in their small rebellions. They stretch toward one another when she isn’t looking directly at them. They pulse slightly, as if breathing. Waiting.

She watches her grandmother’s lacquered trunk, brought from their ancestral house after the funeral. For three years it has served as an oversized paperweight, holding down memories she has no interest in excavating. The trunk is red-black, the colour of dried blood, with brass fittings gone green at the edges. Sometimes, in the thin light between sleeping and waking, Yazhini imagines it breathes in time with the shadows.

On the night of the new moon, Yazhini returns home damp with rain. The power is out. She lights a candle, and in its uncertain illumination, the shadow cast by her hand seems to drift away from her fingertips.

Without thinking she reaches toward the disloyal shadow and brushes against it. Immediately it feels cool like silk underwater, substantial as regret. Her shadow peels away, a layer of herself she didn’t know could be removed.

She holds it cupped in her palms. It doesn’t weigh anything, but it carries something. Memory, perhaps.

The trunk seems the logical place for it. When she lifts the heavy lid, the interior smells of camphor, cloves, and memories. Her shadow slides from her hands to the bottom of the trunk, spreading and settling as if it has found its home.

This doesn’t frighten her. Instead, she feels the first vibration of a string, long silent inside her. An unheard note being played.

The trunk closes with a sound like satisfaction.

In the days that follow, Yazhini discovers what it is to be a collector of absences. Other shadows reach for her now. The barista’s shadow stretches across the counter, elongating itself unnaturally. The museum director’s shadow pools at her feet during budget meetings.

The shadows know. They have been waiting for someone hollow like her who’s sensitive enough to hold them.

She learns that permission matters. A shadow freely given slides easily into her hands, cool and weightless. A shadow taken leaves a residue like ash on her fingertips.

Mr. Renganathan from apartment 110, a man, eighty-seven years old, who feeds pigeons on the rooftop with the devotion of the religious, is the first to offer his shadow directly to Yazhini. “Take it,” he says, not looking at her but at the sky beyond the building’s edge. “It’s tired of following me.” His shadow has worn thin in places, gossamer with age, and the edges fraying like old silk. When it detaches from his feet, there is a sound like a sigh of relief.

That night, with Mr. Renganathan’s shadow nestled among the others in the trunk, Yazhini dreams of the flood. Not the sanitized version from newspaper archives, but the visceral experience of it: the roar of rising waters, the weight of sodden belongings hastily gathered, the sight of familiar streets transformed into rushing rivers. She wakes tasting salt, uncertain if the tears are hers or that of the memories’ from the shadow. The trunk is open a crack. A thin seam of darkness spills onto her bedroom floor.

Inside, the shadows are not still. They dance, or perhaps they struggle. Yazhini watches until dawn.

In the morning, she examines herself in the mirror. There is no visible difference. Her body casts a shadow. Weaker, perhaps, diluted like the tea she makes some evenings; steeped too briefly, but present nonetheless.

She has not become a vampire or a ghost, those staples of stories where the self is compromised. Yet something has changed. The stringed instrument of her name now plays notes she cannot control. She feels the absence of her original shadow like an amputee might sense a phantom limb, present in its nonexistence.

At the museum, she works on a fragment of brocade retrieved from a shipwreck. Three hundred years underwater, and still some threads hold their colour. Preservation is an act of defiance against time. Or perhaps an accommodation with it or a negotiation. As she works, she becomes aware of the shadows cast by ancient fabrics, the negative spaces between threads that have outlived their creators. These shadows too seem to recognize her. They lean toward her hands as she passes over them with her tools. She learns that history casts its own kind of shadow. She wonders what these textile shadows would feel like if she were to collect them. What medieval fingers might have left behind, what Renaissance whispers might still cling to the weave? She restrains herself. There are boundaries, even in the unprecedented.

That evening, she visits Mr. Renganathan on the rooftop. He sits with the pigeons arranged around him like attendants. His frail body is wrapped in a cardigan despite the Chennai heat. Without his shadow, he seems more substantial. Unburdened.

“You saw?” he asks, not specifying what. Yazhini nods.

“Madurai, 1993,” he continues. “When the floods came. I was 55 then, with my clockmaker’s shop well-established for over two decades. The waters rose so quickly.” His voice softens. “I carried my mother on my back through waist-deep water. My wife Lakshmi held our daughter’s hand, clutching our family documents in a waterproof pouch around her neck. We lost the shop, all my precision tools, everything we’d built. But we survived.” He tells her about rebuilding the clockmaker’s shop where he worked for the next fifteen years, the precision of gears and springs, the satisfaction of fixing what is broken; his wife Lakshmi, who died remembering the garden of her childhood home that she never saw again. As he speaks, Yazhini notices that a new shadow has begun to form beneath him, faint as a watermark. Shadows regenerate, apparently. The body forgives.

The shadows in her trunk multiply. Each night, they perform for her, or perhaps for themselves. Shadow theatre without the puppeteer. They blend and separate, forming patterns that remind her of the textiles she restores: mandalas, paisleys, intricate borders that tell stories in a language she almost understands. Sometimes she sees faces in the patterns, sometimes entire scenes: a child running through monsoon puddles; lovers meeting beneath a banyan tree; an old woman teaching a girl to play the Yazh, an instrument that resembles the harp. Their fingers move in unison across phantom strings. Yazhini begins to understand that she is not collecting shadows but stories, not capturing darkness but light impressed upon it. Memory, it turns out, has texture and weight, density and dimension. It can be archived like fabric, preserved against the ravages of forgetfulness.

As weeks pass, Yazhini decides to take only what is freely offered, and even then, she is selective. Some burdens are not hers to carry.

Mr. Renganathan’s health deteriorates. His visits to the rooftop become less frequent, then cease altogether. Yazhini visits him in apartment 110. His new shadow, still forming, has a different quality than the one she keeps. Cleaner somehow. Unburdened by memories, his body has learned to grow only what it can bear.

“I have a daughter,” he tells her on a Thursday morning when his breath catches between words.

“In Toronto. We haven’t spoken in eleven years.” He doesn’t explain why.

That evening, Yazhini brings a portion of his original shadow to him, the part that holds his daughter at age seven, spinning in a light blue dress. He cups it in papery hands, and for a moment his eyes focus on something beyond the walls of apartment 110.

She helps him record messages. Not the formal apologies of deathbed reconciliations, but everyday words: descriptions of pigeons on the rooftop, complaints about the building manager’s music, recipe of his wife’s biryani. The shadows know what needs to be said when words alone are insufficient.

One morning, “Twilight Towers” absorbs another absence, the way buildings do.

After the funeral, Yazhini finds Mudra, the daughter from Toronto, standing in the hallway outside apartment 110. She wears her grief awkwardly, like borrowed clothing.

“He left me a key,” she says, “and instructions to meet someone named Yazhini.” The resemblance to her father is not in her features but in the quality of her shadow, which stretches toward Yazhini of its own accord.

Back in apartment 308, the trunk waits. When Yazhini opens it, the shadows perform not their usual abstract patterns but a specific scene: a man teaching a little girl to repair a clock. Precise and tender movements. Mudra watches without speaking, her hand at her throat where a locket might hang if she were the type of woman who wore her memories visibly.

“What is this?” she finally asks.

“A type of conservation,” Yazhini answers.

That night, after Mudra returns to her hotel with a promise to visit again tomorrow, Yazhini sits with the open trunk. The shadows have settled into a new configuration. Among them, she notices something unexpected: a small patch of darkness the size of a thumbprint, containing no memory but rather the impression of potential. Not a shadow of what was, but of what might be. A beginning rather than an archive.

The seasons shift. Mudra extends her stay. She finds an apartment in Chennai city, ostensibly to settle her father’s affairs but really to settle something within herself. She visits Yazhini often. They drink coffee. They feed pigeons. Occasionally, they examine shadows together.

The trunk accommodates its growing collection, expanding inward in defiance of spatial logic. The shadows develop rhythms, preferences. Some cling to each other, forming composite memories that never existed but feel true nonetheless. Others maintain their integrity, reluctant to blend. All of them, Yazhini notices, seem to pulse in time with her heartbeat.

One morning Yazhini arrives at the museum to find her supervisor agitated. A rare textile has arrived. A fragment of silk believed to belong to an unnamed Tamil musician from the colonial era. “It needs your touch,” he says, which is as close to praise. The fabric, when Yazhini, unwraps it, carries a pattern she recognises instantly. It had the same configuration the shadows formed in her trunk the previous night.

She works with careful precision. As she does, she becomes aware of her own shadow on the workbench. She wonders how it has changed in these months of keeping others’ darkness. It carries subtle patterns now, impressions from all the shadows she’s collected. The outlines of her fingers contain multitudes: Mr. Renganathan’s clockmaker precision, the barista’s musical rhythm, the museum director’s careful assessment, and countless others.

In her apartment that evening, Yazhini sits before her grandmother’s trunk. “Is this what you meant me to find?” she asks the empty room. No answer comes, but she doesn’t expect one. The dead cast no shadows. They become them.

She opens the trunk and watches the shadows dance. In certain slants of light, she can see them extending beyond the trunk’s confines, threading invisibly throughout the building and beyond, connecting residents who may never speak to one another directly. Mr. Renganathan’s clockmaker hands. Mudra’s cautious smile. The barista’s fluid movements. The child who skips instead of walking.

Yazhini remembers her grandmother’s words about her name. That it meant not just any stringed instrument, but specifically one that requires both hands to play: one to create the note, one to shape it. One to preserve, one to transform. One to hold the past, one to invite the future.

She has become a keeper of shadows, yes, but more importantly, a keeper of the light that made them possible.

Hema R is a novelist, children’s author, and poet. Her short story is featured in Ruskin Bond’s “Writing for Love” anthology.

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

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Tags Chennai, Ruskin Bond, Tamil, Writing for Love

Stories

Blue Futures, Drowned Pasts

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date July 14, 2025
No Comments on Blue Futures, Drowned Pasts

By Md Mujib Ullah

The air at Patenga Sea Beach hung thick with salt and memory, a living weight that clung to Karim’s skin and settled in the grooves of his thoughts. He stood motionless, his feet half-buried in the damp embrace of sand, facing the heaving expanse of the Bay of Bengal. Each wave broke with a rhythm once known to him, a lullaby of youth and simplicity. Now, it rolled like an echo chamber of loss.

He didn’t just see the sea—he saw the absence it bore. Azimpur Union, a coastal village once nestled like a secret in the arms of Sandwip, no longer existed. The Meghna River had devoured it, inch by insatiable inch, until it was reduced to memory. His family, like countless others, had fled inland, displaced not by war or persecution but by the creeping violence of climate change. Halishahar became their reluctant refuge. Karim, now a climate scientist, carried the wound like a relic—not healed but honed.

Beside him, Anika traced idle circles in the sand with her bare toe, drawing galaxies destined to be washed away. Her short hair fluttered in the breeze, framing a face defined by quiet determination and dark, searching eyes. As a student of Environmental Sciences at the Asian University for Women, she viewed the beach not just as a source of beauty, but as a battleground.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” she asked, not breaking her gaze from the horizon, where cargo ships floated like steel ghosts. Karim nodded. “It’s not just the sea creeping in. It’s the salt in our fields, the poison in our wells. My grandfather spoke of golden paddy fields in Azimpur. Now it’s all water. Still. Empty. Unforgiving.” A voice, crisp and clear, cut through the air. “That’s why your work matters, Bhaijaan[1].”

Hafsa had arrived, stepping into the wind like it obeyed her. Younger than Karim by a decade, she wore her uniform from Feni Girls Cadet College like a blade sheathed in pride. Her eyes, sharp and unwavering, carried a fire that scorched complacency.

“Understanding the science is our first defence,” she said. “You’re giving us a fighting chance.” Karim smiled—not the performative curve of lips, but the rare, involuntary kind that cracked through layers of grief. “That’s why I studied Oceanography. Not for grades. To learn the language of the sea. To understand the force that took everything from us.”

They drifted to the quieter banks of the Chittagong Boat Club, where boats bobbed like dreams tethered to fragile ropes. Here, the water lapped gently, less a threat, more a whisper.

“Sandwip’s shoreline is disappearing,” Karim said, leaning on the railing. “Sometimes by metres each month. It’s a perfect storm: rising seas, broken river systems, displaced sediments. The Bay of Bengal funnels it all into disaster. It’s not just nature. It’s a mirror of our neglect.” Anika picked up the thread like a weaver. “It’s a slow massacre. Salt invades the soil. Crops wither. Freshwater turns brackish. The mangroves—our final fortress—are dying. The Sundarbans are gasping.”

“And with them,” Hafsa added, “everything unravels. People flee inland. Cities like Halishahar swell and groan. Agriculture collapses. Food security frays. And without mangroves, every cyclone cuts deeper. Everything is connected.”

Karim nodded, the weight of data behind every word. “The models I build are no longer predictive. They’re prescriptive. They warn of what is already unravelling. Sea levels, salinity, erosion—they all spike. The IPCC[2] confirms it. But the tide doesn’t wait for consensus.”

At Foy’s Lake, serenity shimmered over the water like an illusion. But their thoughts grew darker.

“Bangladesh knows storms,” Anika said, her voice soft. “Bhola, 1970. Chittagong, 1991. Cyclones that rewrote our history in wind and water.”

“Those storms taught us resilience,” Karim said. “Shelters. Warnings. Community drills. However, the storms are now stronger. Hotter oceans feed them. And higher seas mean bigger surges—even from weaker storms.”

Hafsa’s voice quivered at the edges. “But how much more can we endure? Our grandparents rebuilt after every storm. But if this continues, is it resilience, or a kind of slow exile?” Anika nodded. “Traditional adaptation isn’t enough anymore. We need foresight. Long-term planning. Even planned migration. And that’s not just about moving people. It’s about moving lives, cultures, entire identities.”

They sat for a while, sharing silence, watching birds slice the air like omens. In that stillness, Anika said, “You know what hurts most? It’s not the loss of land. It’s the loss of certainty. The knowledge that what raised you, fed you, and shaped your memories is vanishing. And there’s no going back.”

Silence followed them to the War Cemetery, where white stones bore witness to another kind of war. One with bullets and borders. Karim saw it differently now: this, too, was a battlefield. But here, the enemy was time, water, and indifference. Later, among the blooms of DC Park and the Sitakunda Botanical Garden and Eco Park, their talk turned to life beneath the waves.

“Most people think of fish,” Karim said, gesturing to a flowering hibiscus. “But the ocean’s true wealth lies in biodiversity. Coral reefs, like those near St. Martin’s Island, are the lungs and nurseries of the sea.”

“And they’re dying,” Anika said. “Warming waters bleach them. Carbon dioxide makes the ocean acidic. Reefs dissolve before our eyes. It’s extinction, hidden by depth.”

Karim’s voice dropped like an anchor. “The blue economy—fishing, tourism, aquaculture—depends on healthy oceans. Without reefs, fish vanish. Livelihoods collapse. The sea becomes a graveyard.”

“So it’s not just conservation,” Hafsa said. “It’s survival. But how do we grow our economy without destroying what sustains it?” Karim didn’t hesitate. “Balance. Policy grounded in science. Marine protected areas. Sustainable fishing quotas. Eco-tourism. Stewardship over extraction.”

They spent hours walking through the botanical paths, discussing seagrass, kelp forests, and the future of ocean farming. Anika shared her dreams of working with community-led marine conservation, and Hafsa spoke of pushing climate policy debates in every youth parliament session she attended. High in the Chandranath Hill, where the wind carried the scent of leaves and legacy, their voices softened.

“There’s more to the sea than science,” Karim said, his voice almost reverent. “There’s a myth. Memory. Identity. That’s what the blue humanities teaches us. When Azimpur disappeared, it wasn’t just land. It was language. It was lullabies.” Anika blinked; her eyes were glassy. “I see it in displaced communities. They lose more than their homes. They lose stories. The names of trees, the tastes of festivals.” Hafsa, ever the compass, brought it home. “So blue humanities means recognising the ocean not just as a resource but as part of us. A mirror. What we take from it, we take from ourselves.” Karim looked at them and felt a surge rise in his chest, not of sorrow this time, but something like hope. “You’re right. This fight isn’t just scientific. Or economic. It’s human. And we can only win it together.”

As the sun dipped behind the Chandranath Hill, setting the sky ablaze in golds and blood-reds, they walked in a hush, not of despair, but of reverence. They were young, yes. But in their hearts, they carried the future—and it was heavy.

Then Anika asked, “What gives you hope?” Karim looked at her, then at Hafsa, and smiled. “You do. The fact that we’re talking like this. That we care. That we haven’t given up.” And Hafsa, eyes firm as stone, said, “We won’t. We’re the generation that listens to the tide before it screams.”

They turned from the sea, toward the uncertain shore of tomorrow. The water behind them was not done. But neither were they.

[1] A respectful way of addressing a man, translates to brother

[2] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Md Mujib Ullah reads, researches, thinks, and writes. His work has appeared in Artful Dodge, Text, Borderless, and elsewhere.

‘

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

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Tags Azimpur Union, Botanical Gardens, Chittagong, Coral reefs, Cyclones, DC Park, IPCC, Md Mujib Ullah, Meghna, Oceanography, Patenga Beach, Sandwip, Sitakunda Hills, St Martin's Island

Stories

Unspoken

By Spandan Upadhyay

The city hummed in the distance, a restless body of lights and shadows. From the 10th-floor balcony of an aging apartment building, the sound of honking cars, barking dogs, and occasional train whistles formed a chaotic symphony. The night air was thick with the scent of rain-soaked pavement, diesel exhaust, and something else, something old, unspoken, waiting: like the breath of a forgotten tomb.

Flat 10-B faced east. At dawn, sunlight strained through grime-caked windows, pooling weakly on floors that hadn’t seen polish since Madhavi’s husband died. The walls, once eggshell white, had yellowed like ancient newspaper clippings. Cracks branched across the ceiling in fractal patterns, mapping silent histories of monsoons absorbed and endured.

Madhavi Bose had lived in this apartment for twenty-seven years. She had moved in as a young bride, her heart brimming with the quiet satisfaction of middle-class security. Her husband had been a government officer with a voice like a rusted hinge and hands that smelled always of mustard oil and ink. She’d learned to love him through ritual: starching his shirts, packing his tiffin, listening to his stories of petty office politics. Her world contracted to the geometry of his needs, his nap times, his preference for fish on Thursdays, his mother’s backhanded compliments about Madhavi’s rice.

And then, suddenly, he was gone. A heart attack at forty-five, slumped over a stack of tax files. No time for goodbyes, no time for regrets. Just the scent of his hair oil lingering on pillowcases, and the pension that arrived every month like a condolence card.

Left with a sixteen-year-old daughter and a life halved, Madhavi had done what was expected of her. She survived. She woke each morning, brewed tea for one, and scrubbed the balcony tiles until her knuckles bled. She learned to kill cockroaches without flinching. She stopped wearing sindoor.

And then there was Riya.

Riya, now twenty-four, had been a bright, sharp-eyed child, full of questions, full of hunger. At eight, she’d torn maps from schoolbooks to tape above her bed. Patagonia! Istanbul! Marrakech! Places whose names rolled like marbles in her mouth. At fourteen, she wrote stories about women who rode motorcycles through deserts. Too restless for a city like this, too impatient for a life like her mother’s. She devoured novels as if they were contraband, hiding Rushdie under her mattress, scribbling poems in the margins of math notebooks.

University had been a brief reprieve. For three years, she’d rented a hostel bunk near campus, subsisting on muri[1]and the euphoria of all-night literary debates. She fell in love twice, once with a Marxist poet who quoted Faiz, once with a biology student who sketched ferns in her notebooks. Both left for Delhi. Both promised to write. Neither did.

Her first job interview had been at a glossy magazine office where the editor yawned while she spoke. The second, at a publishing house, ended when they asked her to fetch chai for a visiting author. “You’ll start as an intern,” they’d said, though she’d graduated top of her class. Soon, she found herself in a cubicle the colour of wet cement, editing corporate brochures about cement. The future is built on solid foundations. Her colleagues wore polyester saris and discussed baby formulas. At lunch, she hid in stairwells, nibbling canteen samosas gone cold, scrolling through friends’ Instagrams: New York! Berlin! — until her eyes burned.

And so, she returned to Flat 10-B. To her mother. To a house where the only real conversations happened in the spaces between words.

The apartment’s rhythm was metronomic. Madhavi rose at 5:30 AM, the click of her alarm clock splitting the dark like a dry twig. She brewed Assam tea, the pot whistling two precise notes. The newspaper arrived with a thud; she read it front to back, circling typos in red pen. By 6:45, she descended the ten flights (the elevator had died with her husband), her cane tapping each step like a metronome. She walked exactly three laps around the park, nodding at the same widows on the same benches, their saris fading to identical shades of ash.

Riya woke at 8:00 AM to the smell of cumin seeds burning, Madhavi’s eternal attempt at breakfast. She dressed in the dark, avoiding mirrors. The corridor to the front door felt longer every day, lined with family photos fossilized in time: her parents’ wedding portrait, Madhavi’s smile stiff as starched cotton, Riya’s fifth birthday, half the cake uneaten, her father’s garlanded graduation photo gathering dust.

Evenings condensed into separate silences. Madhavi parked herself before the television, absorbing soap operas where women wept over stolen inheritances and switched-at-birth babies. The flickering blue light etched her face into something statue-like, immovable. Riya retreated to her room, headphones blaring punk rock, rereading The Bell Jar [2] for the twelfth time. She’d marked a passage years ago, I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree, but now the figs seemed rotted, the tree petrified.

Dinner was a sacrament of avoidance. “There’s dal in the fridge.” “Okay.” They passed each other like shadows, careful not to touch. Once, Madhavi’s fingers brushed Riya’s wrist while handing her a plate. Both recoiled as if scalded.

They never argued. Arguments required collision, and collision required caring enough to crash.

Then the sleepwalking began.

It was Riya who noticed it first. She woke one morning with grit beneath her nails, the taste of soil sharp on her tongue. Her legs ached as if she’d climbed mountains. On a hunch, she checked her shoes, the soles caked with mud.

The next night, she hung her mobile around her neck. The footage, grainy and green-tinged, showed her move out at 2:17 AM. Her movements fluid as that of a marionette. She glided past the cracked full-length mirror, her reflection blurred, as if out of focus, turned the doorknob with eerie precision. Moments later, Madhavi emerged from her room, eyes milky in the dark, nightgown billowing like a sail. Together, they drifted into the hallway, bare feet soundless on cracked tiles.

Riya didn’t speak of it. Words would make it real. Instead, she began stealing glances at her mother, really looking, for the first time in years. Madhavi’s hands fascinated her: long fingers calloused from scrubbing, nails pared to the quick, a silver band still indenting her ring finger. Once, she caught Madhavi humming a Rabindra Sangeet tune while chopping onions, her voice girlish, almost playful. The sound froze Riya mid-step. By the time she exhaled, the humming had stopped.

One rain-heavy evening, Madhavi broke the unspoken rules. “I wanted to be a teacher,” she said abruptly, ladling dal onto Riya’s plate.

Riya’s thumb hovered over her phone screen. “What?”

“At Bethune College, I’d been accepted. History. Your grandfather said educated wives were headaches. So.” She shrugged, a single lift of the shoulder that contained a lifetime of folded dreams. “Your father preferred my fish curry to my opinions anyway.”

The admission hung between them, delicate as a cobweb. Riya thought of her own application to Columbia’s MFA program, buried under a strata of rejection emails. She wanted to ask, Were you angry? Did you ever scream? Instead, she muttered, “The dal’s good.”

Madhavi stared at her, eyes glinting with something that could’ve been pity. Or recognition.

The sleepwalking intensified. Riya began waking in strange tableaus: perched on the fire escape, her toes curled over the edge; kneeling in the building’s puja[3] room, marigold petals stuck to her knees; once, standing in the parking lot, arms outstretched as if awaiting crucifixion. Her phone footage revealed nightly pilgrimages, down ten flights, through the lobby’s broken turnstile, into the skeletal garden behind the building. Always, Madhavi followed.

Then came the monsoon night.

Rain sheeted the balcony grilles, the wind howling through gaps in the window seals. Riya was sleepwalking, mud squelching between her toes, her nightdress plastered to her skin. She stood in the garden’s center, lightning fracturing the sky. To her left, Madhavi hovered, drenched and spectral, her gaze locked on Riya.

A current passed between them, not a spark, but a surge.

Madhavi spoke first, her voice unspooling like smoke. “At last. At last, my enemy.”

Riya’s jaw clenched. The words came out involuntarily. “Hateful woman. Selfish and old. You want my life to be your epilogue.”

“You devoured my youth.” Madhavi’s hands flexed. Her eyes had a glassy look, but they were inanimate. Still. “You, who blames me for her cage.”

“You never fought! You just… folded.”

“And you?” Madhavi’s laugh was a dry leaf crushed underfoot. “You run, but only in circles. You think I don’t see your applications? Your hidden bank account?”

Riya’s breath hitched. The garden seemed to pulse, neem leaves trembling, earth exhaling decades of buried words.

“I could’ve left,” Madhavi whispered. “After he died. Gone back to school. But you-”

“Don’t.”

“– you needed stability. Security.”

“I needed a mother, not a martyr!”

Lightning flashed. For an instant, Madhavi’s face was a mask of cracks. Then, a dog barked, the neighbor’s irritating new resident, and the spell snapped.

Madhavi blinked, rain dripping from her lashes. “Is that you, darling?”

Riya hugged herself, shivering. “Yes, Ma.”

And then, as if nothing had happened, they went back inside. They climbed the stairs in silence, leaving wet footprints that evaporated by dawn.

[1] Puffed rice

[2] Novel by Sylvia Plath published in 1963 under the penname of Victoria Lucas

[3] Prayer

Spandan Upadhyay is a new writer whose work captures the vibrant nuances of everyday life. With a deep appreciation for the human experience, Spandan’s stories weave together subtle emotions and moments of introspection. Each of his stories invite readers into a world where ordinary occurrences reveal profound truths, leaving a lasting impact.

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 Berlin, Bethune College, Columbia, Delhi, Faiz, Istanbul, Marrakech, Marxist, New York, Patagonia, Rabindra Sangeet, Rushdie, Spandan Upadhyay, Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Stories

Nico returns to Burgaz

By Paul Mirabile

Nico hurried off the steamer at Burgaz Island, oblivious of the swarming passengers disembarking and embarking. How long had it been since he had stepped foot on the island of his grandfather’s birth: twelve … thirteen years ? He made a bee-line for the central plaza. There he still stood, Saït Faïk, ever so thoughtful, leaning against that eternal tree. Nico approached the Turkish poet –Grandpa would have been so delighted to be here with us again. I’m sure he would have asked you about the talking seaweed and weeping mussels, Nico mused.

Vasiliki had passed away six years ago, a natural death, probably in his sleep. The old fisherman had asked Nico to have him buried between his wife, Nefeli, and daughter, Myrto, which he dutifully accomplished. Since the adolescent was the sole inheritor, he sold his grandfather’s little house for a good price, which permitted him to live comfortably in Athens while completing his university studies. Indeed, because he was parentless, and because his grades in grammar school were excellent, Nico had qualified for a scholarship. The ambitious student, thus, enjoyed financial ease to continue studying several more years for his doctorate. He excelled in Greek language and literature, French and English philology, in European History. At nights he read and spoke Turkish with several Turkish friends, for the vision of returning to Burgaz stole upon him like those perfumed nights on Burgaz with his grandfather as they contemplated the star-studded sky. That seemed so long ago …

Once his doctoral thesis defended, Nico left Greece and set off for Burgaz, off on an adventure. Poetry had been a major part of his thesis, and he had written quite a few poems, contributing to the university Literary Club’s weekly journal. Some of his poems and short stories caught the eye of an editor in Athens who had them published in a widespread monthly magazine. Soon he was invited to poetry readings and story-telling jousts, and because of these eventful evenings his circle of readers widened like concentric ripples in a pool of water after a rock had been thrown in …

The young poet left Athens not knowing exactly what Destiny held for him … nor what drove him so powerfully to return to the island. Was it because of his love for his grandfather ? His fascination for Saït Faïk? Or both? Saïk’s provided him with inexhaustible inspiration. Perhaps, too, it was the mystery of Burgaz of which his grandfather had so oftentimes spoke. Yes. It might have been that.

The horse-drawn carriage pulled up in front of the long flight of stairs to Zorba’s ‘humble’ home. Nico paid and began to ascend the worn-out mossy steps. Nothing had changed as the fretted gable slowly loomed in front of him. The perfumed scent of azaleas, roses, honeysuckles and pomegranate stirred distant memories. He had written to Zorba about his project to spend some time on Burgaz, and the good merchant, although away for several months in the United States on business, insisted that the young poet stay as long as he wished in his ‘humble’ home. He would be greeted and well-fed by his trusty maid, Zelda.

On hearing carriage bells Zelda rushed out, waiting for the ascending Nico arms akimbo. He dropped his knapsack, shoulder-bag and hugged the good woman. Speaking Greek had been her wont when Nico accompanied his grandfather years ago, but now, since the young man had decided to sojourn in Burgaz, she spoke to him in Turkish. Zelda was pleasantly surprised to hear him reply quite readily in Turkish. In fact, Zelda would prove an excellent tutor for Nico. Her grammar was excellent and her accent easy to understand.

So, after a solid diner, exhausted after a long day of travelling, Nico once again trudged up the steps of the floating stairway, the tinkling sound of the fountain below tickling his ears, opened the door to the room he knew so well with its frescoed ceiling of Greek heroes and large bay window looking out upon the darkened forests and the Marmara Sea. He washed and before drifting off to sleep, read a few chapters from Homer’s Odeyssus, which he always carried with him when ‘on the road’, and several paragraphs from Saït Faïk’s Son Kuşlar (Last Birds), underlining the words he couldn’t understand.

Up early the next morning, Zelda had prepared a breakfast of black olives, goat’s cheese, hard-boiled eggs, bread, butter, rose jam and black tea. She had gone to the local market (it was Tuesday) and would not be back before eleven.

Dressed lightly — the weather was very warm, Nico sauntered down the same long and winding path through the wooded slope that led to the stony beach, hoping Abi Din Bey would still be serving grilled-cheese sandwiches, and spouting poetry for his customers. How the brisk island breeze of the sea swept away the cobs of lingering doubt in Nico’s mind as he descended — doubts that had tortured him because his grandfather would no longer be at his side, physically. Yet, when he stepped upon the beach these doubts evaporated. Vasiliki was there and would always be there. He spotted several fishing boats out at sea. Had Nico built a new boat with the help of his grandfather? Indeed he had. It was the biggest and most beautiful of all his boats! Much bigger than the Nefeli which was still in route towards China. But this wonderful boat would not be launched into the leaden seas: it lay housed in a small museum in Hydra where it can be admired by both the young and the old. In fact, Nico even won an award for that marvellous construction. He had named her Myrto in memory of his grandfather’s daughter. The tombstone engraver, on Nico’s behest, carved the silhouette of his boat on Vasiliki’s gravestone.

Abi Din Bey’s welcoming gate had been sealed! The homely front gardens lay desolate, the trees devoid of fruit, clusters of weed and couch grass grew wild. The poet’s house, albeit perfectly intact, exhaled an odour of negligence. Nico stared at this bleak scene, his heart growing heavy. It had never occurred to him that Abi Din Bey would not come rushing out to greet him. That this solitary man was mortal like all other human beings … like his grandfather. He felt like a child who believes his or her parents immortal out of love for them.

From behind a middle-aged man walked up to him: “Abi Din died about ten or eleven years ago,” he began in a soft voice in broken Turkish. “He has no inheritors, so his house stands derelict and abandoned.”

Nico, snapped out of his despondency, eyed the stranger with mixed emotions. “What of his poetry?”

“Abi Din’s life of a poet held absolutely no interest for most who prefer to live in a cloud of unknowing. Abi Din Bey wrote some excellent poems, but alas no one had ears to listen to them.”

“We listened to them,” remonstrated Nico, though rather lamely.

“I know you did, you and your grandfather, Vasiliki.”

Nico reeled back as if struck by a blow. “How do you know … Who are you?”

“Oh, who I am makes no difference to anyone. But if you insist. I am the pilgrim of the heart, I voyage throughout the world admiring its marvels, an idler preaching the blessings of uselessness. Abi Din was one of those marvels, one of those brilliantly elevated idlers.” With those words, the stranger turned to leave.

Nico caught him by an arm: “Sir, where is the old man who piled up stones on the beach ? I haven’t seen him.”

“Nor will you ever see him again. Gone too, and some say that he recited several passages from Saït Faïk’s Son Kuşlar on his dying breath. Have you read Saït Faïk?”

Overcome by all these converging threads of some hidden or latent fabric beyond his grasp or comprehension, Nico could only stutter: “Well … yes … in fact…”

The other interrupted: “Listen, if you want to pay respects towards Abi Din and Saït, you should buy his house. It’s not very expensive.”

“But you …” The unnamed pilgrim put up a hand.

“I have no possessions. That is my first life principle. I idle my way through countries, people and books like a phantom. You buy it, my friend. Buy it before either Time brings about its ruin or the Burgaz municipality its demolition. For now, there are no plans to do either. It’s a mystery why that quaint house has not caught the eye of some eager artist.” And he gave Nico a wink.

“Mystery?” A sudden bout of remorse paralysed Nico. Had his grandfather not spoken of a mystery on Burgaz?

“Yes, mystery! Isn’t that why you’ve returned?” With that last question left unanswered by a flummoxed Nico, the pilgrim strolled away along the beach, chanting some sea-faring tune.

When Nico came to his senses he literally jumped for joy. he would buy Abi Din’s house, settle on Burgaz and pursue his artistic life simply, wholeheartedly. He could become a resident of Turkey merely by depositing enough money in the Osmanlı Bankası[1]. The anonymous figure of the pilgrim had since vanished into a haze of blue. Nico ran up the winding path to Zorba’s home, where Zelda had been preparing lunch. Excitedly he explained his project. She thought it a smashing idea, and promised to help him with the paper work. They ate, had their coffee, and at two o’clock walked to the crossroads, hailed a carriage and rode to the Town Hall, a majestic, white-washed villa near the centre of town.

On the way, Nico asked Zelda whether or not she knew of a middle-aged man who walked about the island, idling his way here and there. Zelda giggled: “Oh yes, him. The Turks call him Mister başı boş [2]and the Greeks tempelis[3].”

“But he’s far from empty-headed,” remonstrated Nico.

“I’m sure he isn’t, that’s why I call him ‘aylak‘.”

“I don’t know the word.”

“Someone who idles about without any definite destination.” Nico nodded, puzzled none the less at these attributes of a person who seemed quite ‘full-headed’ to him …

The irksome formalities to purchase Abi Din’s house would fill a book. Suffice it to report that in two weeks the house belonged to Nico, once he had deposited enough money in the bank, and of course, bought the house in cash …

Although Nico now spent most of his time in his acquired house, he always ate lunch with Zelda at Zorba’s house, and sometimes dinner. It must be recorded here that Nico was better versed in writing stories than in culinary skills.

Every morning after breakfasting, Nico would roam the hilltops of Burgaz sauntering cheerfully along the dirt paths, jotting down in his little notebook details that caught his eye or thoughts that scudded across his mind. The island air intoxicated him as he conjured up characters and events for future stories or poems.

On Sundays, Nico would attend services at St John’s Greek cathedral, there mingling with the small community members who had taken a liking to this young man, calling him their ‘island writer’! He became a novelty for the islanders, who invited him dine or to read his creations. Meanwhile, several of Nico’s short stories and poems were being published in Athens by his editor and were read by the Greek community in Burgaz. Nico even attempted to write poems and stories in Turkish which Zelda not only corrected, but suggested a more fitting word or subtle syntax structure.

Once a month, Nico took the steamer to Heybeliada, or in Greek, Chalki[4], the third of the four Princess Islands where he was fortunate enough to consult the books at the library of the massive Greek Theological Centre, opened in 1844 for seminarists but closed by the Turkish authorities in 1971. Although prohibited, Nico’s reputation, which had spread to all the islands, allowed him to study at the library, the second largest religious library in the western world, several million tomes behind the Vatican’s. The young artist even managed to work two days a week there. How he managed that remains a mystery.

Once or twice a month, accompanied by Zelda, Nico would go to Büyükada (Big Island) called ‘Prinkipo’ in Greek because it is the largest island of the four, and stroll along a tarred road to contemplate the largest wooden building in Europe, a former Greek orphanage, built by the French in 1898. The Greeks bought it and children who had lost their parents were lodged here until its forced closing in 1964. This eerie-looking structure remained intact. Surrounded by high barb-wire fencing and guarded by savage dogs, no one could enter it. Every time Nico stood before this ominous edifice, he thought of his grandfather who had salvaged him from such a parentless fate. Perhaps, the children here were well taken care of…

One day as Nico sauntered along one of the myriad paths in the wooded hills of Burgaz he came face to face with the idling pilgrim. So delighted was Nico to meet this eccentric character that he began to pour out all the good news that had occurred to him since their last encounter many months ago. The other smiled kindly: “No need to repeat what many have already told me,” he stated indifferently. “Nothing on Burgaz goes unnoticed, especially novelties such as yourself. I wouldn’t want to puff up your pride, but some have considered you as a new Saït Faïk.”

Nico stared at the pilgrim disconcertedly. “I can assure you, my dear friend, that you have made quite a reputation for yourself on Burgaz. And who knows, you may be able to solve the mystery of which your grandfather so often spoke.” Baffled, Nico remained speechless. The other took his arm and they strolled together downwards into the sinking sun.

Nico could not contain his surprise: “How could you know about …”

“About Vasiliki’s mystery? Ah, that would entail hours of explanation, Nico. For now let us discuss your writings, for the intention behind those writings may have given you the key to unlock the mystery.”

The pilgrim paused sniffing the pine- and spruce-scented air. “You know, many writers have lost touch with reality, or have been completely overwhelmed by it. They seem incapable of telling a story, transmitting the joys and sorrows of their characters whose traits lie deep in their own hearts, imprisoned like birds in a cage, fluttering frantically, unable to express the Truth of what lies beneath the masks and costumes. Saït Faïk, Edgar Poe, Dino Buzzati[5], Guy de Maupassant[6], Somerset Maugham, Katherine Mansfield all drew their inspiration from fragments of a separate reality, the glints of a deflected flood of light, the shards of a broken vase to disclose the experiences of their characters, to bestow upon their readers the amalgamated emotions that flew freely from their hearts. Their stories and poems are not talk-of-the-day productions. They were derived from the unlocking of the cage, the flight outwards into the battlefield between joy and sorrow. You would think that their eyes were turned both inwards and outwards at the same time. There is something powerful, even sacred, if I may use that word, in their narrated experiences, which does not necessarily entail the use of I, nor does it insinuate a ‘message’ to be harnassed or brought into line by the opinionated or bigoted. The syntax rhythms and word combinations expose the élan or the coming and going between the inward and the outward regard … I discern in your regard that inward and outward alternating vision, the aura that enhaloes your stories and poems. But mind you, this is only an idler’s perception.”

“What do you mean by aura?” Nico, crimsoning under the weight of so many complex compliments, managed to ask, almost out of breath.

“The halo of tradition that all sincere writing bears,” came the succinct reply. “A poem or a short-story, as in your case, bears an aura familiar to the reader, yet whose tale and expression of this tale transports him or her to strange, unfamiliar places. This is especially noticeable in your Turkish writings, an uncanny concoction of familiarity and eeriness. Perhaps it’s due to Zelda’s mixed origins.”

Nico stopped in his tracks, a blank look on his face. “Yes, Zelda, who, when we cross paths, addresses me as the ‘aylak‘. Her father was a remarkable writer and professor of philosophy in Greece and in Turkey. She inherited much of his wisdom as well as her mother’s strong character.” Nico stood stunned by this revelation.

“Zelda is only …”

“Only what, my friend ? Zorba’s maid or servant ? Ah ! I see you haven’t delved deep enough into the hearts of those who are very close to you. I’ve noted, too, that you have never written one line or verse about your deceased grandfather.”

Nico, stung to the quick by the very truth of that remark, bowed his head. He felt a surging wave of shame, and on this billowing wave rode an undulating image of a squealing seal that he and his grandfather had admired on their fishing adventure — an image gradually over-shadowed by another, more fuzzy, the stiffening body of a seagull on a pebbly shore near the mouth of a cavern.

The mild voice of his companion brought back these troubling scenes: “When all is said and done you will surely open wider the cage and let fly the encaged birds towards brighter poetic heights. Heights that perhaps you have yet to imagine.” With those comforting but enigmatic words the pilgrim turned to leave. He halted and asked: “Tell me, have you been to Granada?”

“Granada, Spain? No I haven’t, why?”

“You look like someone I met there.” The idler disappeared downwards into the crimson glint of sunset.

Nico ran back to Zorba’s house, undecided whether to speak to Zelda about her family. He never dreamed of broaching the subject to her as she herself had never bought up.

When the young writer had lumbered up those mossy steps he found Zelda seated on an armchair in the corner of the dining room, a shadow of gloom etched on her face. Her eyes were red. Wordlessly, she handed him a letter. It was written in faulty Greek, addressed to Zelda from an associate of Zorba’s in New York. A moment later Nico looked at Zelda with deep compassion. Zorba had died of a heart attack. His body would be sent to Burgaz for burial, accompanied by several of his associates who intended to buy his house.

“What will happen to me?” were Zelda’s first strained words. “I refuse to live in the same house with strangers even if they are Zorba’s associates.”

“Have you any family, Zelda? Anywhere to go? Anyone to help you financially?” She nodded in the negative to all these questions.

Nico sat down beside her: “Listen Zelda, come live with me, it’s a bit cramped, but at least you will have a roof over your head, food on the table, and a good friend who will always be at your side.”

Zelda dried her eyes and stared at Nico in embarrassment.

“I’m old enough to be your mother,” she said faintly.

“Exactly!” responded Nico excitedly. “You shall be the mother I hardly ever knew, in the same way that the presence of Abi Din in his house has been the father I hardly ever knew. How my grandfather would rejoice at that family reunion, however surreal, if I may say so.” Zelda smiled.

And with that acquiescing smile the two orphaned destinies appeared to converge into one …

[1] The biggest bank of Turkey at the time of Nico’s arrival specializing in international transactions. (Ottoman Bank).

[2] Empty-headed

[3] Lazy bones

[4] ‘Chalki’ in Greek means ‘copper’. The Ancient and Byzantine Greeks excavated copper on this island.

[5] Italian short-story writer ‘(1906-1972).

[6] French short-story writer.(1850-1893)

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 Europe, France, French, Granada, Greek, New York, Ottoman, Paul Mirabile, Saït Faïk, Spain, Turkey

Stories

Mastan Anna

Story by Surya Dhananjay, translated from Telugu by Rahimanuddin Shaik

That night, in Tarnaka, Hyderabad city, all the apartments were silent as if lost in deep sleep. Sujatha’s flat was one among those. Her husband and children were sound asleep. Meanwhile, she, in the bedroom, faintly heard the phone ringing in the hall. Sujatha, a lecturer by profession, was awake, preparing for the next day’s class. A strange fear gripped her as the phone rang at that hour. As if someone was chasing her, she rushed to answer the phone. It was an unknown number. She thought of calling back but decided against it, thinking it was too late at night. The phone rang again. She immediately picked it up.

“Hello Attayya[1]! It’s me, me.”

The call got disconnected.

The sounded familiar.

Who could it be? Why would they call at this hour of the night?

Various thoughts raced through her mind. Thinking she’d find out who it was if she called back, she redialled

“Hello,” she said, and that was it!

She could hear crying and shouting from the other end. Then the phone got disconnected again. Anxiously, she redialled, but the phone had been switched off. She checked Truecaller app[2] to see who it might be. ‘Not found’ was the result. Putting aside the book she was reading, she lay down. But she couldn’t sleep. Various thoughts haunted her. She didn’t know when she finally drifted off to sleep.

Morning dawned bright. Waking up, she fearfully picked up her phone. There were four or five messages.

She read: “Mastan anna² is no more. He has left us.”

She felt like a thunderbolt had stricken her heart. Her eyes filled with tears. Wiping them away, she read the message again. The news slowly sank in – the news that the brother she had cherished since childhood, Mastan anna[3] who eagerly awaited for the rakhi[4] she tied every year, was gone. Tears flowed uncontrollably from her eyes. Her tear-filled eyes became slightly blurry. Through that blur, her childhood memories, mixed with tears, began to drip down drop by drop.

Sujatha was then studying in the sixth standard at Miryalaguda Girls’ High School. She came from Hemanayak tanda,[5] near the Sagar canal. Her mother, Dhwali Bai, and father Bhadru Naik were forward thinking people. Though they had only daughters, they educated them well instead of arranging child marriages for them like everybody else. Sujatha was the youngest. Theirs was a family living happily in the lap of nature, drawing their living from small-scale farming and raising cows.

Dhwali Bai occasionally went to the Miryalaguda market for groceries. On her way back, she would drop off the children’s clothes for stitching at tailor Mastan’s shop in the old bus stand area. Not just her, everyone from the tanda got their clothes stitched there for festivals and occasions. Mastan treated his customers well. He was thin in appearance and always wore clothes as white as jasmine flowers. He captivated everyone with his gentle speech. He had immense respect for Dhwali Bai and Bhadru Naik’s family. He called Dhwali Bai ‘Amma[6]’. Dhwali Bai always wished well for others. He was won over by her kindness. Dhwali Bai, who had no sons, saw a son in him. After some time, their bond grew, and Mastan became a member of the family.

Back then, there was only one bus service from Miryalaguda to Hemanayak tanda. It made only two trips a day – one in the morning and one in the evening. Sujatha, studying in Miryalaguda, would go home every Saturday evening by this bus. Her mother would wash all her school dresses white. She would oil her hair and braid it into two plaits. While making her hair, Dhwali Bai would advise Sujatha to be careful in the town.

“Because I didn’t study, I didn’t know the world. You, at least, study well and bring light to our tanda, Beti[7]. Even if Bhadru Naik has no sons, the daughters he has should study well and become role models for everyone,” Dhwali would say.

One day, Dhwali Bai, having come to drop Sujatha at the hostel, introduced Sujatha to Mastan.

“Look, Beta[8], this is your younger sister. You need to make a uniform for her. Otherwise, they won’t let her into school today. Also, whenever she comes to board the service bus, you must save a seat for her by placing a towel near the window. Tell that conductor to take the girl carefully and drop her off at the tanda gate. There aren’t good boys on the buses these days. Tell the driver to scare those boys a bit,” Dhwali instructed, as if instructing her own son.

Mastan smiled. “Alright, Yaadi[9], I’ll do as you say. I’ll look after Sujatha like my own sister. From the moment she gets off the bus all the way to her school, and after school, putting her on the bus to the tanda – it’s my responsibility,” he said, engaging them in conversation while quickly stitching a skirt and blouse for Sujatha.

“Here, sister, this dress is a gift from your brother,” he offered.

Sujatha shook her head as if declining the gift and looked at Dhwali Bai.

“Don’t take it for free, Amma. Instead, she can tie rakhi on me every year,” he said, placing the dress in her hand. From that day, their bond grew. Mastan looked after Sujatha like the apple of his eye. Their brother-sister relationship became known in the tanda as well. Every year, Mastan would go to the tanda, have Sujatha tie the rakhi, and receive Dhwali Bai’s blessings before returning. Mastan’s wife, Rajitha, was very happy that he treated Sujatha with such respect and love, even though she wasn’t his biological sister.

However, some people in the tanda didn’t like their bond. Naturally, the tanda dwellers lived happily like deer in the forest, away from the plains. Just as deer get agitated by the presence of a new creature, they hesitated when non-tribals mixed with them. They viewed Mastan’s visits to the tanda with suspicion. Kalya, Sakku, and Saida decided they must somehow stop Mastan from coming to the tanda. They didn’t dare discuss this with Bhadru Naik and Dhwali Bai. The tanda dwellers had immense respect for Bhadru. He treated everyone lovingly. Raising his daughters admirably, he stood as a role model. They didn’t dare oppose such a person. But they wanted to stop Mastan from coming to the tanda and were waiting for an opportunity.

Mastan, living amidst the car horns and crowds of Miryalaguda town, constantly stressed, dearly loved the tanda, its people, and its atmosphere. The peaceful tanda air, the innocent talk of the Lambadis, the mouth-watering jowar rotis and garlic chutney, the pleasing sight of green trees, cows, goats, and chickens in every house – Mastan liked all this very much. Moreover, like Bhadru Naik and Dhwali Bai, Mastan had an immense love for people and relationships. He helped those who came to his shop within his means and earned a good reputation around the old bus stand. If anyone came to the Mandal[10] Revenue Office with work, he would inquire about their problem, connect them with officers he knew, and provide appropriate help.

That day was 15^th August[11], flag hoisting Day. Mastan went to the school looking for his sister. But Sujatha wasn’t there. As it was also Rakhi that day, Mastan learned from her friends that Sujatha had gone to the tanda the previous day to tie rakhis to her brothers there. Mastan set off for the tanda, cycling. Near the tanda, he saw some children and gave them chocolates. Sakku and Saida, who were coming that way, saw Mastan giving chocolates. They came up to him.

“Hey Mastan! What are you giving the kids? Are you giving them some enchanted marbles?!” they asked suspiciously.

“Ayyo, nothing like that, Bhiya[12]! These are just chocolates distributed at school, I brought them in my pocket. That’s what I’m giving,” Mastan replied and moved on.

Reaching Dhwali Bai’s house, Sujatha saw Mastan and shouted joyfully, “Yaadi, Mastan anna has come!”. Sujatha tied the rakhi on Mastan’s wrist and fed him sugar.

“Mastan anna, I tied the rakhi, what will you give me?” she asked.

“You’ll go to Hyderabad for higher studies, won’t you! If you get a job, you’ll stay there. Then, I myself will look after Yaadi and Bapu[13]. That is the gift I give you,” he said, smiling as he mounted his cycle.

Ten days later, suddenly, everyone in the tanda fell sick with fever. Some had diarrhoea and vomiting. Every house had patients. The tanda, which until then was like a marigold field full of bright flowers, now looked like a cotton field stripped of its flowers. Dark and unwell.

‘Some evil misfortune has befallen the village,’ people began to think.

“No, no, some ghost has possessed the tanda,” said one. “No, we didn’t celebrate the Seethlayadi festival grandly this time. That’s why the goddess is angry,” said another.

“Yes, the village deities of the tanda are angry. We must call the priest. We need to talk. Let’s all contribute a hundred rupees each and celebrate the festival well,” said the Tanda Naik[14].

“Oh Naik, these are not the real reasons why the people in the tanda suffer. That tailor shop Mastan is the cause of all this. He did this. They say he knows magic spells. Whatever he wishes, happens, they say. We found out in town,” Saida spoke passionately, his words sparking fear in the hearts of the tanda people.

“Hey, don’t talk nonsense, Saida! Mastan is not that kind of person,” Bhadru Naik thundered angrily.

Realising that his words would be wasted if he didn’t counter Bhadru, Saida looked at Sakku. “Hey Sakku! Didn’t Mastan give marbles to our tanda boys the other day…?”

“Oh… he did, Saida. I saw it too.”

“Ah! He put enchanted spell on those marbles.”

The people slowly nodded their heads, seeming to agree with Saida’s words. Meanwhile, someone from the crowd said, “In that case, we must catch that Mastan! We must make him confess what spell he used. If we just leave him, our tanda will be ruined. Only if we punish him severely will anyone else be afraid to even look towards our tanda,” they said.

“We will go and catch him,” said Kalya, Sakku, and Saida, setting off for Miryalaguda. Since everyone was united on this, Bhadru Naik and Dhwali couldn’t refuse.

The next day, Sakku, Saida, and Kalya met Mastan. “Our tanda dwellers have asked us to bring you. Come!” they said and took him away. Learning about the situation from school friends, Sujatha also left the hostel for the tanda. People gathered in front of the Tanda Naik’s house. Mastan was brought there. Sujatha reached the spot.

“Why have you brought me here?” Mastan asked the Tanda Naik.

“Everyone in our tanda has fallen ill with fever. We have never seen everyone get fevers like this at the same time. We are strong people. We can withstand any disease. But today, the entire tanda is troubled like this. They are saying you are the reason for all this. They say you gave some enchanted marbles to our boys. People apparently saw it. If that is true, tell us the counter-spell. Otherwise, the people are angry. They won’t leave you,” the Naik concluded, looking straight into Mastan’s eyes.

The accusation pierced Mastan’s heart like a crowbar.

“Spells?… I don’t know what those are. I only know how to love others. Please trust me,” he replied pitifully.

“Then what did you mix in those chocolates? What about them?” Kalya questioned.

“Those were distributed on the Independence Day at Sujatha’s school.”

“Then why did you bring them here? Aren’t there any little boys in Miryalaguda? Our boys look healthy and vibrant. That’s why you got jealous. You couldn’t bear it. Isn’t that it?!” they bombarded Mastan with question after question.

Kalya, Sakku, and Saida, who wanted to stop Mastan from coming to the tanda, saw this small opportunity as a great one and launched their attack. The people, suffering from fear and pain due to the fevers, couldn’t think rationally about right and wrong. They almost fell upon Mastan and beat him. Even though Bhadru, Dhwali, and Sujatha tried to stop them, no one listened. Swinging furiously, they attacked him.

“Don’t do this my fellow brothers, Mastan anna is not like that.”

“Hey Mastan, don’t ever look towards our tanda again! Go!” Before the Naik could finish his words, Sujatha interrupted, “Dada[15], is this your wisdom? Can’t your leadership distinguish between good and bad people?” she asked, her voice filled with anger and anguish.

“You don’t know about him, child,”

“I know everything, Dada! I am studying in the sixth standard. Science doesn’t accept spells and magic. Those are just our fears. Mastan anna is a good man. He considers not just me, but all the children of our tanda as his brothers and sisters. To stay in our tanda which suspected and insulted a good man like Mastan anna, I too feel humiliated, Dada!” she cried, taking Mastan away.

From then on, Mastan stopped coming to the tanda and Sujatha moved out of the tanda to study in less than a month. Eventually, she married and settled down in the capital town of Hyderabad. But she would come to Miryalaguda every year on Rakhi just to tie the rakhi on Mastan’s wrist. No matter how much anyone threatened, their brother-sister bond continued.

Hearing the news of Mastan’s death, Sujatha set off from Hyderabad to Miryalaguda with a grief-stricken heart. As she travelled in the car with her husband and children, childhood incidents flashed before her eyes.

“Though not of our caste, our religion, our tribe, the bond of humanity and the jewel of goodness united Mastan anna with our family. How good was Mastan anna! Though his shop was a small one, his heart was vast. Mastan anna always had the quality of helping others in his own way,” she thought to herself, looking out the car window. She realised they had reached the town. People were bustling in the shops along the roads. ‘What is it?’ she wondered, rolling down the car windows. People were enthusiastically buying rakhis. Whichever shop she looked at, only rakhis were visible.

Just then, Mastan’s small shop near the old bus stand came into her view. It was open. Seeing it, her heart grew heavy. Inside, she saw Mastan’s photo with a gentle smile and a serene face. Hundreds of rakhis surrounded the photo. The whole shop was filled with rakhis. Seeing this, crying she got out of the car and paid her respects. She was surprised and astonished looking at the farewell Mastan received.

The car reached Mastan’s house. There was no one outside the house. Only a few people were inside. Seeing Sujatha, Mastan’s wife, Rajitha, came out of the house crying and held her tightly. Rajitha’s told her that the cremation ceremony was over the night before. She said in a gloomy tone that only Mastan’s memories remained for them now. This left Sujatha stunned. She felt immense pain for not being able to have a final glimpse of Mastan.

Composing herself, Sujatha asked, “On the way, I saw many rakhis around Anna’s photo in that small shop. Who put them there?”

Then Rajitha replied, “The people of Hemanayak tanda tied them,” leaving Sujatha even more surprised.

“Our tanda people? Weren’t they angry with Anna, Vadina[16]?”

“That was once upon a time. The very people who misunderstood him under the pretext of spells came to admire him after knowing the truth. The occasion never arose to tell you this matter!”

“Really! How did they find out?” Sujatha asked eagerly.

“A month after they insulted him in front of the tanda Naik’s house, your brother went to the tanda on his cycle to plead with them and to tell them he knew nothing. On the way, beside the road, he apparently saw groups of crows and vultures gathered some distance away. Going closer, he saw that chicken shop owners from Miryalaguda town were dumping their waste there. Crows gathered around it, picking up the rotten stuff with their beaks, flying to the tanda’s water tank, sitting on it to eat, and dropping some of the pieces into the water tank. Those waters got contaminated, and cholera spread throughout the tanda.

She continued, “As soon as he understood the matter, he returned to Miryalaguda, complained to the Municipal Health Department, and got the waste removed. He got the tank cleaned. He got fines imposed on the chicken shop owners who dumped the waste there. He ensured no one came that way again.

“After some days, the diseases in the tanda subsided. The people learned the truth. Everyone came from the tanda and apologised and expressed their gratitude to your brother. They asked him to come to the tanda again. But your brother had too much self-respect. He said, ‘It’s enough that you know the truth, I won’t come again.’ The occasion never arose to tell you all this,” Rajitha said, handing Sujatha a packed cardboard box.

“Your brother asked me to give this to you,” Rajitha said. Sujatha opened it with great curiosity. Inside, he had carefully preserved all the rakhis she had tied on Mastan over the past twenty years. Seeing them, Sujatha cried profusely, realising Mastan’s noble personality, his heart as vast as the ocean, and his love for her as high as the Himalayas.

Along with the box, Rajitha gave Sujatha a packet that Mastan had also asked her to give. Inside was a green saree with a red border.

“Your brother himself spun the yarn and wove this saree. He worked hard for six months to weave it. Saying one shouldn’t remain indebted to a sister, and that he had never given you anything, he planned to call you for the Dasara festival this time and give you this saree,” Rajitha explained.

Mastan belonged to the Padmashali[17] community. In truth, Mastan had long forgotten how to spin yarn and weave sarees. But Sujatha was astonished that he had personally woven a saree for her.

“How much Mastan anna loved me! Truly, having such a brother is my fortune,” she offered a tribute from her heart. She felt very happy that the tanda people had understood Mastan’s goodness. Assuring Rajitha that she would take responsibility for educating Mastan’s two children and making them successful, Sujatha got into the car.

Now her heart felt elated. The anger she held towards her tanda for twenty years vanished. “My tanda dwellers are children of the forest. They are not aware of the outside world and its cunning ways. They all live together like one family. They don’t easily trust non-Lambadis or newcomers. That’s not just their characteristic. It’s also the law of the forest for their own protection. That’s why they insulted Mastan anna like that, that day. But if they love someone, they cherish them dearly. For them, everything is intense — love or anger. ” thinking thus, Sujatha reached Hyderabad with Mastan’s memories and a heavy heart.

Originally published in Telugu as Mastananna Dabba (tr. the box of Mastan brother) in Namaste Telangana, Sunday edition, on 8^th March, 2020

[1] Attayya – Aunt or Mother-in-law

[2] Truecaller is a smartphone app that can identify caller ID.

[3] Anna – Elder brother

[4] At this festival, sisters of all ages tie a talisman called the rakhi around the wrists of their brothers.

[5] Tanda – Village or hamlet

[6] Amma — Mother

[7] Beti – Daughter

[8] Beta- Son

[9] Yaadi/Yadi – mother, mom

[10] An administrative subdivision

[11] India’s Independence Day

[12] Bhiya — Brother

[13] Bapu – Father

[14] Tanda Naik – Village Chief

[15] Dada – grandfather

[16] Sister

[17] A weaving community from Telugu states

Prof. Surya Dhananjay is an eminent Telugu scholar and folklorist from Osmania University. She champions tribal heritage and education with her writing. With an illustrious literary career spanning decades, Prof. Dhananjay has authored 28 books, including poetry, short stories, critical essays, historical studies, and compilations, alongside 80+ research papers. Her seminal work, Gor Banjara: An Enduring Tribe (co-authored with Dr. Dhananjay Naik), is a landmark exploration of Banjara (gipsy) heritage. Through her writings and advocacy, she has championed the preservation of cultural identities, leaving an indelible mark on Telugu literature and tribal studies.

Shaik Rahimanuddin has translated children’s literature on Storyweaver, Analpa and Prajasakti have published his children’s book translations.

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Tags Hyderabad, Osmania University, Shaik Rahimanuddin, Surya Dhananjay, Telugu

Stories

Misjudged

By Vidya Hariharan

“This is Judge G.K.’s house”, the constable informed his senior officer as they were waiting for the front door of the apartment to open in response to their knock. He blew on his cupped fingers. “I have come here many times. They serve the best coffee. I hope they give us some now,” he continued, on meeting his colleague’s questioning look. “A strict but fair man. He retired a few years ago. He must be about seventy now.”

It wasn’t the Judge who opened the door and welcomed them in, but his diminutive wife. “I presume you have come to meet the Judge,” saying this, she ushered them cheerfully into a terrace. At the end of it was a hot house full of flowering plants and a giant of a man reclining in a chair, eyes shut enjoying the apricity of the winter sun. His eyes snapped open at their approach. Nothing old about those black eyes, thought the inspector. He and the constable sat down on the chairs indicated. It was humid inside the glass cabin, but pleasant after the outside chill.

“Namaste¹, sir. We are here about a hit and run that happened last night”, began the inspector.

“You want my nephew then”, the Judge interrupted.

“Janu, call that Vinay”, said the Judge to his wife, who had entered bearing glasses of water on a tray.

Turning to the inspector, he said, “He’s my sister’s son. He’s staying with me till he finds a job.” The Judge shook his head sadly. “Lazy to the core. Stays in bed all day with his laptop and his phone. When he does step out, he’s gone all day and sometimes all night. Last night he came home late, I am sure. He has an Engineering degree. Hope he lands a job soon,”he continued.

The inspector set his glass down on the centre table. At that moment a young man came in. He was in flannel long pants and a Nirvana T-shirt. Short and slim, he looked almost like a schoolboy. He eyes were heavy with sleep and as he entered the room he was suppressing a yawn.

“These policemen are here to arrest you”, the Judge said, closing his eyes. The young man looked startled.

“Are you Vinay?” the inspector asked. The lad nodded.

“Sir, the reason we are here is this: Last night a car knocked down an old woman near the flyover at around midnight. The driver didn’t stop. You were nearby, and you took the victim to the hospital,” said the inspector.

“Yes, sir,” said Vinay.

“The victim…,” said the inspector.

The constable referring to a folder he held open in his hands, said, “Srimati Deepaben Goradia. Age 82.”

“Yes”, continued the inspector, “The victim regained consciousness this morning. She doesn’t recall much except being hit from behind and being in great pain, before she fainted.”

“Yes, sir”, said Vinay, “I saw a woman lying huddled in the middle of the road while I was returning home after watching a movie at Aurora theatre last night. At first, I thought it was a bundle fallen from a vehicle, a tempo or truck or something. It was really cold last night, and dark, I was hurrying home. Then when I went closer, I recognised Deepa ji.”

“How did you know it was her?” asked the constable.

“Well, I tutor her grandson who lives in the US. I teach him calculus. Online,” said Vinay, glancing at his aunt, who smiled at him encouragingly.

“Oh, I see,” said the inspector, glancing at the Judge, “You stay up late because of the time difference.”

“Yah,” said Vinay, giving in to his yawn.

“How did you trace Vinay?” asked the Judge’s wife, Janaki.

“I gave my name and address at the hospital front desk, mami²,” said the boy.

“Yes. And it’s a good thing you did. Mrs. Goradia’s family is very grateful to you. So is the police force. It was very kind of you to take care of her. In this weather and at her age, she would not have survived without your timely assistance. We need more people like you in this world. Most people would not have bothered to help,” said the inspector, standing up and shaking Vinay’s hand.

The constable handed a small plaque to the Inspector. “For your kindness and presence of mind, the Police Force would like to award you with this plaque. We have instituted this recently to thank and recognise the citizens who help others selflessly.” The Inspector stood up and gave the plaque to Vinay. The constable had the camera ready to click a commemorative pic. “We will upload this pic on our website with a message,” he informed them.

“Thank you, sir. I only did what any one else would have done,” said Vinay.

“I don’t think you need to worry about this young man, sir,” said the inspector turning to the judge. “We’ll take your leave now.”

Vinay accompanied the policemen to the door and let them out.

About to turn the key in the ignition, the inspector turned to his junior, and said, “Sometimes we are fair to others but judge our own family harshly.”

“No coffee,” said that stalwart, morosely.

Namaste is a respectful way of greeting in India. ↩︎
Aunt: Mother’s brother’s wife ↩︎

Vidya Hariharan is an avid reader, traveller, published poet and teacher. Currently she resides in Mumbai.

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Tags Mumbai, Vidya Hariharan