Nazrul’s Tumi Shundor Tai Cheye Thaki(Because you are so beautiful, I keep looking at you) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Hotel Acapulco, has been composed and translated from Italian by Ivan Pozzoni. Click hereto read.
Farouk Gulsara pays a tribute to a doctor and a friend. Click hereto read.
Musings of a Copywriter
InBecoming a ‘Plain’ Writer, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores the world of writer’s retreats on hills with a touch of irony. Clickhere to read.
Notes from Japan
In Educating for Peace in Rwanda, Suzanne Kamata discusses the peace initiatives following the terrors of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide while traveling within the country with her university colleague and students. Click here to read.
Bijoy K Mishra writes of cyclones in Odisha, while discussing Bhaskar Parichha’s Cyclones in Odisha – Landfall, Wreckage and Resilience. Clickhereto read.
Landscape of Change by Jill Pelto, Smithsonian. From Public Domain
Hope is the mantra for all human existence. We hope for a better future, for love, for peace, for good weather, for abundance. When that abundance is an abundance of harsh weather or violence wrought by wars, we hope for calm and peace.
This is the season for cyclones — Dana, Trami, Yixing, Hurricanes Milton and Helene — to name a few that left their imprint with the destruction of both property and human lives as did the floods in Spain while wars continue to annihilate more lives and constructs. That we need peace to work out how to adapt to climate change is an issue that warmongers seem to have overlooked. We have to figure out how we can work around losing landmasses and lives to intermittent floods caused by tidal waves, landslides like the one in Wayanad and rising temperatures due to the loss of ice cover. The loss of the white cover of ice leads to more absorption of heat as the melting water is deeper in colour. Such phenomena could affect the availability of potable water and food, impacted by the changes in flora and fauna as a result of altered temperatures and weather patterns. An influx of climate refugees too is likely in places that continue habitable. Do we need to find ways of accommodating these people? Do we need to redefine our constructs to face the crises?
Echoing concerns for action to adapt to climate change and hoping for peace, our current issue shimmers with vibrancy of shades while weaving in personal narratives of life, living and the process of changing to adapt.
An essay on Bhaskar Parichha’s recent book on climate change highlights the action that is needed in the area where Dana made landfall recently. In terms of preparedness things have improved, as Bijoy K Mishra contends in his essay. But more action is needed. Denying climate change or thinking of going back to pre-climate change era is not an option for humanity anymore. While politics often ignores the need to acknowledge this crises and divides destroying with wars, riots and angst, a narrative for peace is woven by some countries like Japan and Rwanda.
Suzanne Kamata recently visited Rwanda. She writes about how she found by educating people about the genocide of 1994, the locals have found a way to live in peace with people who they addressed as their enemies before… as have the future generations of Japan by remembering the atomic holocausts of 1945.
In translations, we have poetry from varied countries. Ihlwha Choi has self-translated his poem from Korean. Ivan Pozzoni has done the same from Italian. One of Tagore’s lesser-known verses, perhaps influenced by the findings of sensitivity in plants by his contemporary, Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) to who he dedicated the collection which homed this poem, Phool Photano(making flowers bloom), has been translated from Bengali. Professor Alam has translated Nazrul’s popular song, Tumi Shundor Tai Cheye Thaki (Because you are so beautiful, I keep gazing at you).
Stories travel around the world with Paul Mirabile’s narrative giving a flavour of bohemian Paris in 1974. Anna Moon’s fiction set in Philippines gives a darker perspective of life. Lakshmi Kannan’s narrative hovers around the 2008 bombing in Mumbai, an event that evoked much anger, violence and created hatred in hearts. In contrast, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao brings a sense of warmth into our lives with a story about a child and his love for a dog. Sreelekha Chatterjee weaves a tale of change, showcasing adapting to climate crisis from a penguin’s perspective.
Trying something new, being out of the box is what helped humans move out from caves, invent wheels and create civilisations. Hopefully, this is what will help us move into the next phase of human development where wars and weapons will become redundant, and we will be able to adapt to changing climes and move towards a kinder, more compassionate existence.
Thank you all for pitching in with your fabulous pieces. There are ones that have not been covered here. Do pause by our content’s page to see all our content. Huge thanks to the fantastic Borderless team and to Sohana Manzoor, for her art too.
From Left to Right: Boethius, Keirkegaard and Montaigne. Courtesy: Abdullah Rayhan
“Do you hear the whisper of the shadows? This happiness feels foreign to me. I am accustomed to despair.”
-Forough Farrokhzad (1934-1967), Iranian Poet and Filmmaker
We seek psychotherapy to deal with the distress, sadness, depression, and psychological dimensions that are beyond our reach. Even after going through the medical procedure, we are seldom left with the satisfying sensation we deeply crave. This is where philosophy comes in.
To Socrates, philosophy was basically the way to live a life. He mainly observed how life functions and examined the influences that allocate life with certain affects. Other philosophical ideas too somewhat try to interpret the nature of existence in a similar manner. There are tons of such schools: from absurdism, to existentialism, nihilism, Hegelian, Kantian, and whatnot. But, apart from offering ideas and perspectives on existence, what else do they contribute? It can be a bit vague to trace the purpose of such philosophical ideas where the basic understanding, instead of leading toward fulfillment, can plunge us into the deepest pit of darkest despair. Existential philosophy will constantly remind you of life’s futility, ethical philosophies will keep painting idealistic portraits all to no avail. Finally, you are left with novel knowledge that does not necessarily help you deal with the struggles drowning your heart within a blurry tumult.
Fortunately, practical application of philosophy exists. Last year, when I was particularly at my lowest, estranged from everything I adored, all prospects of happiness ruined, abandoned to face monstrous adversities with a heavy bleeding heart, I found Boethius[1] comforting.
Camus, Sartre, and Nietzsche will comfort you with the assurance that you can construct optimism with your own effort. They tell your life has no inherent meaning, thus you are allowed to come up with your own sense of existence and give it any meaning you can conjure up at will. Bentham will tell you how to establish collective contentment. Kant will give you formulas to maintain peace. But none of them essentially gives a clear picture of what happiness really is. This makes Boethius unique. He doesn’t adhere to any false hopes, he rejects all things that are constructed, yet, through a transparent honesty, he shows a path that can lead toward organic satisfaction, not laced with any promises of universal fulfillment, just simple reasoning advocating for individual contentment.
Boethius basically inspires us to contemplate on our happiness. He directly questions the idea of happiness we so intimately endorse. Boethius asks you,
“Do you really hold dear that kind of happiness which is destined to pass away? Do you really value the presence of Fortune when you cannot trust her [Fortune] to stay and when her departure will plunge you in sorrow? And if it is impossible to keep her at will and if her flight exposes men to ruin, what else is such a fleeting thing except a warning of coming disaster?”
We consider ourselves lucky when we get our desired happiness. But, being lucky or ‘fortunate’ cannot be the standard that constructs happiness. In Boethius’ words, “happiness can’t consist in things governed by chance” mainly because there’s no guarantee it will last. He argues anything that is ephemeral, transient, and temporary cannot be of any value in terms of happiness as when that happiness evaporates, it is replaced by sorrow that is sometimes too much to bear. In this way, state of happiness is “a warning of coming disaster”. Happiness should not be the reason for despair and discontent. Thus, happiness brought by luck is not what it appears to be.
He further asks if something that is temporary can really be claimed as one’s own. Boethius’s voice renders one mute when he states, “I can say with confidence that if the things whose loss you are bemoaning were really yours, you could never have lost them.”
A significant portion of Boethius’s argument is surrounding the transience of happiness. If happiness lies in what’s temporary, then isn’t misery temporary as well? Boethius puts it with much clarity. He comforts you, saying: “If you do not consider that you have been lucky because your onetime reasons for rejoicing have passed away, you cannot now think of yourself as in misery, because the very things that seem miserable are also passing away.”
Boethius inspires you to wonder about the nature of misery. We are miserable, sad, melancholic usually because we had a taste of happiness sometimes in the past, which is missing at the moment. We were happy once. But happiness is no longer part of our lives, and this absence is what’s causing our misery. Had we not had that happiness before, we wouldn’t have the misery that chokes our heart with a suffocating grip. This is the reason Boethius called happiness “a warning of coming disaster”.
Think about it. Someone who is currently living the same life as you may not be in similar misery as you because, as they haven’t had the happiness you had, they are not burdened to deal with the absence that you are compelled to plummet in. Thus, neither happiness nor misery operate based on any strict blueprint, rather it is something formed by one’s own experience and are inter-dependent. Boethius puts it very eloquently saying, “There is something in the case of each of us that escapes the notice of the man who has not experienced it, but causes horror to the man who has […] Nothing is miserable except when you think it so, and vice versa, all luck is good luck to the man who bears it with equanimity”. We lose our ability to “bear it (despair) with equanimity” because of our past interactions with pleasant experiences.
Perhaps you would relate to Boethius in terms of misery though not in an entirely literal sense. Boethius had everything. A beautiful wife, two affectionate children, popularity, respect, novelty, an amazing home, and enough money to live without any worrying. Yet, because of some false accusation, he was suddenly deprived of it all and was imprisoned. His happy life suddenly became a dark den overpouring with impenetrable despair. Many of our misery too is born because of its contrast to the time when we were happy. Now think about it for a moment. Boethius was devastated in the cell because he previously had a satisfying life. Had he lived like a homeless person with nothing of his own, the confined space of that very cell would appear satisfactory because of the roof over the head and chunks of food on the plate no matter how dim and damp the dark roof or how stale the smelly food. It shows how subjective the texture of happiness is.
Boethius deconstructs the common perception of happiness, breaking it down to a rather ‘mundane’ prospect of life on the contrary to our belief of it being a significant one. He believes our idea of happiness itself is laced with misery. He proclaims, “how miserable the happiness of human life is; it does not remain long with those who are patient and doesn’t satisfy those who are troubled.”
So, if happiness indeed is of the nature that compulsorily leaves one unsatisfied, then does happiness deserves to be attributed with divine epithet? Boethius disagrees. He presents a compelling argument for this, saying, “[H]appiness is the highest good of rational nature and anything that can be taken away is not the highest good – since it is surpassed by what can’t be taken away …” It is the unreliability of our perceived idea of happiness that makes it a futile one with little or no value.
So, if happiness is something that is transient, unreliable, and can never offer the contentment it promises, then is happiness really something to chase after? “Happiness which depends on chance comes to an end with the death of the body,” propounds Boethius. Thus, to cling on to happiness is to cling on to a slippery rope dangling on top of a void filled to the brim with invisible abyss. You cannot do anything to make this notion of happiness fruitful in the sense you believe it to be. Boethius thinks it’s foolish to attempt to make this ineffective happiness endure and persist. He words it differently saying, “what an obvious mistake to make – to think that anything can be enhanced by decoration that does not belong to it.” Thus, again, the problem lies with the way we shape the notion of happiness.
As our immediate cognition tells us, the most apparent formula of happiness is a combination of romantic love and successful career. But is it really true? If you have understood Boethius, you probably realise that these temporary agents (romantic partner and career) cannot make you content for long. Something that is not entirely yours own cannot get you that contentment you crave. Kierkegaard too agrees how things that are not inherently one’s own are subject to loss, thus misery. Kierkegaard delivers the idea with a touch of subtle humour,
“Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both.”
Kierkegaard and Boethius clearly intersect at certain points. Having happiness too, with its transience and all, is always the cause of a constant despair. Boethius very wittily points out that when we don’t have happiness, we strive and struggle to attain it. Once we have attained it, we become anxious to preserve it because no matter how much we enjoy happiness, at the back of our mind, we are aware of its temporary and fragile nature. This is why Kierkegaard says all our prospects of happiness are ultimately fated to end up in regret. Michel de Montaigne words this human tendency more concisely saying, “he who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears”. In other words, as being in happiness always contains the risk of losing the happiness, this fear actually prevents one from ever fully attaining that state of mind.
Kierkegaard reaches such a conclusion because he too believed happiness as we know it is transient and fragile. The reason, as he locates, is its inorganic essence. Happiness modified with external force will never be permanent or make one content. He imagined happiness as an inswing door. He says, “the door of happiness opens inward, one should keep aside a little to open it: if one pushes, they close it more and more”. This is to say that one should not put any external force to influence happiness. That way, it’ll only cause more damage than good, or as Kierkegaard words it, the door of happiness will “close more and more”.
This overall means, our understanding of happiness, which is generally tied to external factors, can never bring within our reach the happiness we idealise with transcended romanticism. Thus, we are putting so much value in that idea of happiness in futile attempts, not knowing what it has in store for us while in reality it does not deserve to be the glorified item that sits at the epitome of human desire.
Interestingly, Boethius, Kierkegaard, and Montaigne have similar ideas on obtaining true contentment. They all agree that it’s not attainable with external properties and should be dug up from ones within. They commonly emphasise internal resources over external acquisitions.
Montaigne, for example, closely focuses on the nuanced foundation where the true happiness lies. Yes, material and metaphysical attainments can make us happy, he agrees, but not genuinely as we want it to be. He suggests, “[W]e should have wife, children, goods, and above all health, if we can, but we must not bind ourselves to them so strongly that our happiness depends on them. We must reserve a backshop wholly our own.” Similar to Boethius, Montaigne too recommends not relying our happiness on subjects that are subject to transience. Rather he advices to “reserve a backshop”. This “backshop” is the inner sanctum, a profound part of ourselves that remains untouched by the outer world, free from all kinds of external force. He designs this backshop as a space “wherein to settle our true liberty, our principal solitude and retreat”.
Kierkegaard too advocates for contentment that arises from within rather than from external influences whose essential nature is transient. In Kierkegaard’s perception, similar to Montaigne’s, it is silence, solitude, and introspection within us that can get us the contentment we idealise as happiness. He perceived all kinds of temporal gains as a reason for eventual dissatisfaction and advocated for things that remain untainted for eternity like intellect and truth.
Similar to Kierkegaard and Montaigne, Boethius agrees it is internal stability that overpowers the temporary shower of ecstatic sense of euphoria external fortune brings. Boethius advocates for this internal stability with better wording,
“If you are in possession of yourself you will possess something you would never wish to lose and something Fortune could never take away.”
This internal stability, according to Boethius, comes from one’s power of reasoning. Similar to Kierkegaard, Boethius prioritises intellectual resources because it has the ability to make one indifferent to their own fate. Intellect can make one recognise that there cannot be any prospect of contentment in things that are unstable, and everything that fortune brings is laced with this vicious instability. By fortune, Boethius does not mean a sudden stroke of good luck that potentiates all of our solvencies, but rather it’s everything good that happens to us without our own effort whether it’s a small gift from a loved one, or the smile of a baby. These make us happy, yet these are external forces. Fate intervenes in our life, leaving us with little to no control over our own selves. We can’t control a baby from smiling, and we won’t get out of our way and prevent a loved one from offering us a flower which they have invested so much thought in, but when babies do not smile at us, or when no one is left to offer even a stem of flower to us, that is when we experience a suffocation that could break our already shattered heart. Boethius asks us to realise all these with a clear conscience and allow our intellect and power of reasoning to locate what’s unstable and help us grip onto only what’s inherently ours.
All these perspectives boil down to the fact that the reason we are not happy isn’t because we are constantly chasing it, but rather we have a wrong perception of what happiness is. Happiness is not the greatest good, nor is it anything to die for. It is, as clichéd as it may sound, something present within all of us with a very apparent eminence, and all one has to do to access it is have an open mind and reach ones within with honesty. Through this lens one doesn’t have to ‘imagine’ Sisyphus happy, rather Sisyphus is ‘happy’ for real and for eternity.
Works Cited:
On the Consolation of Philosophy by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
Either/Or by Søren Kierkegaard
[1] Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480-524), Roman statesman, historian and polymath
Essais by Michel de Montaigne
Abdullah Rayhan studies Literature and Cultural Studies at Jahangirnagar University.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
ProfessorFakrul Alam brings to us Tagore songs in translation and in discussion on the season that follows the scorching heat of summer months. Clickhereto read.
“May is pretty, May is mild,
Dances like a happy child…”
Annette Wynne (Early twentieth century)
Each month is expressed in a different form by nature in various parts of the world. In the tropics, May is sweltering and hot — peak summer. In the Southern hemisphere, it is cold. However, with climate change setting in, the patterns are changing, and the temperatures are swinging to extremes. Sometimes, one wonders if this is a reflection of human minds, which seem to swing like pendulums to create dissensions and conflicts in the current world. Nothing seems constant and the winds of change have taken on a menacing appearance. If we go by Nazrul’s outlook, destruction is a part of creating a new way of life as he contends in his poem, ‘Ring Bells of Victory’ — “Why fear destruction? It’s the gateway to creation!” Is this how we will move towards ‘dancing like a happy child’?
Mitra Phukan addresses this need for change in her novel, What Will People Say — not with intensity of Nazrul nor in poetry but with a light feathery wand, more in the tradition of Jane Austen. Her narrative reflects on change at various levels to explore the destruction of old customs giving way to new that are more accepting and kinder to inclusivity, addressing issues like widow remarriage in conservative Hindu frameworks, female fellowship and ageing as Phukan tells us in her interview. Upcoming voice, Prerna Gill, lauded by names like Arundhathi Subramaniam and Chitra Divakaruni, has also been in conversation with Shantanu Ray Choudhuri on her book of verses, Meanwhile. She has refreshing perspectives on life and literature.
Devraj Singh Kalsi has written a nostalgic piece that hovers between irony and perhaps, a reformatory urge… I am not quite sure, but it is as enjoyable and compelling as Meredith Stephen’s narrative on her conservation efforts in Kangaroo Island in the Southern hemisphere and fantastic animals she meets, livened further by her photography. Ravi Shankar talks of his night hikes in the Northern hemisphere, more accurately, in the Himalayas. While trekking at night seems a risky task, trying to recreate dishes from the past is no less daunting, as Suzanne Kamata tells us in her Notes from Japan.
May hosts the birthday of a number of greats, including Tagore and Satyajit Ray. Ratnottama Sengupta’s piece on Ray’s birth anniversary celebrations with actress Jaya Bachchan recounting her experience while working for Ray in Mahanagar(Big City), a film that has been restored and was part of celebrations for the filmmaker’s 102nd Birth anniversary captures the nostalgia of a famous actress on the greatest filmmakers of our times. She has also given us an essay on Tagore and cinema in memory of the great soul, who was just sixty years older to Ray and impacted the filmmaker too. Ray had a year-long sojourn in Santiniketan during his youth.
Eulogising Rabindrasangeet and its lyrics is an essay by Professor Fakrul Alam on Tagore. Professor Alam has translated number of his songs for the essay as he has, a powerful poem from Bengali by Masud Khan. A transcreation of Tagore’s first birthday poem , a wonderful translation of Balochi poetry by Fazal Baloch of Munir Momin’s verses, another one from Korean by Ihlwha Choi rounds up the translated poetry in this edition. Stories that reach out with their poignant telling include Nadir Ali’s narrative, translated from Punjabi by his daughter, Amna Ali, and Aruna Chakravarti’s translation of a short story by Tagore. We have more stories from around the world with Julian Gallo exploring addiction, Abdullah Rayhan with a poignant narrative from Bangladesh, Sreelekha Chatterjee with a short funny tale and Paul Mirabile exploring the supernatural and horror, a sequel to ‘The Book Hunter‘, published in the April issue.
All the genres we host seem to be topped with a sprinkling of pieces on Tagore as this is his birth month. A book excerpt from Chakravarti’s Daughters of Jorasankonarrates her well-researched version of Tagore’s last birthday celebration and carries her translation of the last birthday song by the giant of Bengali literature. The other book excerpt is from Bhubaneswar@75 – Perspectives, edited by Bhaskar Parichha/ Charudutta Panigrahi. Parichha has also reviewed Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canadaby Ujjal Dosanjh, a book that starts in pre-independent India and travels with the writer to Canada via UK. Again to commemorate the maestro’s birth anniversary, Meenakshi Malhotra has revisited Radha Chakravarty’s translation of Tagore’s Farewell Song. Somdatta Mandal has critiqued KR Meera’sJezebel, translated from Malayalam by Abhirami Girija Sriram and K. S. Bijukuma. Lakshmi Kannan has introduced to us Jaydeep Sarangi’s collection of poems, letters in lower case.
There are pieces that still reach out to be mentioned. Do visit our content page for May. I would like to thank Sohana Manzoor for her fantastic artwork and continued editorial support for the Tagore translations and the whole team for helping me put together this issue. Thank you. A huge thanks to our loyal readers and contributors who continue to bring in vibrant content, photography and artwork. Without you all, we would not be where we are today.
The bird just died in his hand, a brown bird with a yellow beak. It didn’t bleed, but its senses were silent beneath the greenish-dark eyelids. The tiny heart within its chest didn’t beat anymore. “What have I done!” thought Manik.
He put the slingshot back into his torn pocket and tenderly held the dead shalik[1] in his sunburnt arms. Something inside his chest thumped heavily as if a mad giant was scampering within him. A gloomy whirlpool of clouded sorrow confused Manik. Where did his happiness go?
Two months ago, when his elder brother Ratan crafted this slingshot for him, Manik started to dream of hunting a bird with it. As Ratan cut the stick and attached the elastic to the leather pad, Manik crafted a colourful tapestry in his mind. Thousands of times, he imagined the bright, flamboyant vision of shooting birds with pebbles and capturing them once they had fallen to the ground. His mind would light up at the thought of it all.
But after the slingshot was built, and Manik threw his first shot with it, he realized it wouldn’t be as easy as he assumed. He nagged his brother to teach him how to shoot perfectly, but Ratan got irritated.
“Isn’t it enough that I made this slingshot for you? Don’t disturb me, or I will break it apart”. Ratan had yelled.
However, this didn’t deter Manik. He went on exploring his village, looking for a vulnerable bird. He would have a handful of tiny pebbles in the pocket of his dirty khakis. Their weight would weigh down his pants a little, and he would pull it up repeatedly.
In his own mind, Manik was a hunter. His one and only goal was to hunt down a bird. The moment the bird tumbled, Manik would cage it in his fists and put it inside the small mosquito net he used to sleep in when he was an infant. Everything was arranged. He even had his mother mend the hole in the net. Now there wouldn’t be any way for the bird to escape!
But where was the bird? That’s what Manik tried to hunt all day long.
He would wake up before the first ray of the sun blanketed their village because that’s when birds were abundant. Though his mother would scold him, he didn’t care much.
His hunt would begin near the bank of the canal. On either side of the stream, there were numerous nests of shalik, doves, and sparrows. Manik could never pinpoint the location of the nests, but he was aware of where the birds lived.
Right beside the canal, he would walk on the dewy grass and collect tiny stones for the day. While collecting the pebbles, he would sling some if he saw any bird, and obviously, he missed every time. His stone collection continued until the sun rose higher in the horizon. Then he would run around the village. Occasionally to spot a prey, he would tiptoe quietly and cautiously.
He would see hundreds of birds sitting here and there. But Maniks’ amateur hands would miss them by a yard, and the bird would fly away at the sound of the slingshot. After a week or two of this routine, almost all the birds were familiar with the little hunter who had a bad target and pulled up his pants every now and then. Thus, Manik had a hard time finding any prey.
He would sit silently in the bushes for hours and hours, waiting for at least a sparrow to show up. But nothing did. Every bird was aware of Manik now. The barber told Manik that his attempts had scared off all the feathered friends.
Just like every year, on the carpet of shadows beside the bamboo forest, the barber was shaving Maniks’ hair for the summer.
The barber said mockingly, “How is the hunting going?” while running the blade on his half shaven head.
Manik sat on a high stool with his feet dangling in the air, “There aren’t any bird around. I wonder why!” A tone of disappointment vibrated in his words.
“Well, probably they are scared because they all know your intention.” The barber said, not stopping the razor.
“So, what should I do?” Manik asked with genuine concern.
“You can try looking for birds in my village.”
“Will you take me?” Manik said, excitedly turning his face toward the barber who was still shaving the back part. This sudden jerk sliced a thin, long cut on Manik’s bald head. Blood began to slowly stream out of the fresh wound.
“Ehhe[2]! I asked you to sit still. Look what happened.” The barber washed Manik’s head and finished the rest of the job irritated. He was annoyed by the sudden movement.
But, even with a cut on his head, Manik was delighted by the thought of exploring a new territory. The next day he followed the barber. It was noon when Manik reached the new village.
The new village was just like his native one. The same trees, same odour of bamboo, wet mud, and the stench of cow dung were an imitation of his home. There were a lot of birds here too. The whisper of their fluttering wings expanded a new sky of hope in Manik. “I will catch one for sure,” he thought as he started on his hunting mission.
After missing a few, Manik found a shalik sitting on a bamboo fence. Manik was stealthy this time. He slowly approached a hedge near his target. From behind the bush, Manik stared at the bird for a while, memorising its position. Then he slowly grabbed his slingshot, drew out a good, round stone from his pocket, and set it on the leather pad properly. Holding the handle with a steady grip, he pulled the elastic with all his might to the back of his ear. The target was fixed on the bird.
Swoosh…
A tiny stone ran into a tiny bird. The prey fell on the ground and twitched its thin yellow feet for a few seconds. And then, the Shalik was still.
Maniks’ heart immediately filled up with victorious ecstasy. He couldn’t believe he had finally hit a bird. Holding on to the slingshot, he ran to his prize and picked it up.
But the smile faded away from his face in an instant. He realised that the bird had died. The profound innocence that slept inside him suddenly woke and stared at the dead life with melancholic eyes.
The brown Shalik lay like cold silence in his clutch. Its feathers dampened as Maniks’ tears fell on them. Though weeping like a beaten child, Manik didn’t know why he was crying. Something heavy was crumbling inside of him. His heart thumped loudly under his dust-covered chest.
Other birds gathered around and watched a small bald boy, wearing loose pants and torn shirt, digging a small hole in the ground with his bare hand. The sadness in his eyes echoed the vibration of his cracked heart. A small stream of thick, transparent mucus drooled down his nose, and he kept sucking it back as he patted the ground. When the hole was deep enough, the boy gently laid the Shalik to rest and then spread the loose soil all over the dead bird. A hefty cloud continued to blur his sight while a heart-wrenching torment swarmed inside him. He felt he was crumbling.
Borderless 