Offerings during Qing Ming Jie, a festival honouring ancestorsSongkran(Thai New Year) CelebrationsFestivals in April: From Public Domain
April is a month full of celebrations around the world. Asia hosts a spray of New Year festivities. Then there are festivals like Qing Ming Jie, Good Friday and Easter. All these are in a way reminders of our past. And yet, we critique things as old fashioned! So, where does tradition end and ‘outdated’ or ‘outmoded’ start? Meanwhile we continue to celebrate these festivals with joy but what happens to those who have lost their home, family and their living due to war or climate disasters? Can they too join in with the joie de vivre? Can we take our celebrations to them to give solace in some way?
In our April issue, we have stories from climate and conflict-ridden parts of the world. From Bangkok, Amy Sawitta Lefevre gives an eyewitness account of the March 28th Earthquake that originated in Myanmar. While in her city, the disaster was managed, she writes: “I’m also thinking of all the children in Myanmar who are sleeping in the open, who lost loved ones, who are feeling scared and alone, with no one to reassure them.” As news reels tell us, in Myanmar there have been thousands of casualties from the earthquake as well as shootings by the army.
From another troubled region, Pakistan, Zeeshan Nasir gives a heartrending narrative about climate change, which also dwells on the human suffering, including increase in underage marriages.
Human suffering can be generated by rituals and customs too. For instance, if festivals dwell on exclusivity, they can hurt those who are left out of the celebrations. Odbayar Dorje muses along those lines on Mongolian traditions and calls for inclusivity and the need to change norms. On the other hand, Devraj Singh Kalsi hums with humour as he reflects on social norms and niceties and hints at the need for change in a light-hearted manner. Farouk Gulsara makes us laugh with the antics of his spoilt pet cat. And Suzanne Kamata dwells on her animal sightings in Kruger National Park with her words and camera while Meredith Stephens takes us sailing on stormy seas… that too at night.
Art is brought into focus by Ratnottama Sengupta who introduces artist Haren Thakur with his adaptation of tribal styles that has been compared to that of Paul Klee (1879-1940). She also converses with filmmaker Leslie Carvalho, known for his film The Outhouse, and his new novel, Smoke on the Backwaters. Both of these have a focus on the Anglo-Indian community in India. Also writing on Indian film trends of the 1970s is Tamara Raza. Bhaskar Parichha pays tribute to the late Ramakanta Rath (1934-2025), whose powerful and touching poetry, translated from Odia by the poet himself, can be found in our translations section.
We have an excerpt from Professor Fakrul Alam’s unpublished translation of Tagore’sRed Oleanders. It’s a long play and truly relevant for our times. Somdatta Mandal shares with us her translation of Tagore’s essay called ‘The Classification in Society’, an essay where the writer dwells on the need for change in mindsets of individuals that make up a community to move forward. A transcreation of a poem by Tagore for his birthday in 1935 reflects the darkness he overcame in his own life. Two poems expressive of longings by Jibananada Das have been translated from Bengali by Professor Alam aswell. From Balochistan, we have an excerpt from the first Balochi novel, Nazuk, written by the late Syad Zahoor Shah Hashmi and rendered into English by Fazal Baloch. Among contemporaries, we have a short story by Bitan Chakraborty translated from Bengali by Kiriti Sengupta, a poignant story that reflects on gaps in our society. And a Korean poem by Ihlwha Choi rendered to English by the poet himself.
This issue has been made possible because of support from all of you. Huge thanks to the team, all our contributors and readers. Thanks to Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork. Do pause by our contents page as all the content could not be covered here.
Perhaps, world events leave a sense of pensiveness in all of us and an aura of insecurity. But, as Scarlett O’ Hara of Gone with the Wind[2] fame says, “After all, tomorrow is another day.”
Looking forward to a new day with hope, let’s dream of happier times filled with sunshine and change.
Title:Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India
Author:Anuradha Kumar
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
INTRODUCTION
The Wanderers, Lost and Seeking
The people you will meet here—the ‘first Americans in India’—were indeed all wanderers. They came, not attached to the intentions of a country, or even protected by it, unlike their peers, the Englishmen who made up the East India Company, and who came to trade backed by a royal charter granted by Elizabeth I in the year 1600.
The wanderers, the first of whom came at a time when the United States of America had not come into being—and their actions, thus, were different from what was ordained as state policy. The ‘wanderers’ were not ‘state actors’ in that sense, but they, men, and some women, came to India, on their own, driven by their own spirit of search. They were brought here by a sense of adventure, or by a wild dream—that of finding something that would make their fortune—gold or inspiration quite like gold—or by the need to do something good and enobling.
But they were in some ways quite lost after they came to India.
Stepping Into a Mosaic
To these wanderers who travelled to Asia between 1700-1950s, India came as a mosaic of many impressions, a spread of colour and many experiences. It offered a field of new sensations compelling them to revise received knowledge. They were intrigued, they saw its contradictions, its strangeness, and how things were very different from the homes they had left behind. In the process, life for these wanderers was made afresh.
They came as traders, adventurers, military men, fortune hunters, seekers of knowledge, storytellers, mystics, those seeking a new career, or who came simply to serve.
To them, India—that looked quite different from what it does now—was a land of adventure. A land to make a fortune in, or to find fame.
It was a mysterious, magical place, one that fuelled the imagination, a land that contained the ancient truths of the universe. Yet it was a place caught in the ‘medieval age’, a place they had been sent to, a matter ‘divinely ordained’—as the missionaries and mystics believed—to save souls.
A place one could write about, for it was as strange as fiction; it was a land that offered inspiration and where one could find new, yet old, wisdom. A place to serve and cure and heal. A land where a new world was possible, or an arena to set the world aright.
The wanderers were awed and overwhelmed, and then, scandalized and shocked in equal measure. Some of what they wrote mirrored each other’s experiences. For example, their surprise at the number of servants that were needed. The astonishing beauty of the temples. The majesty of the Taj Mahal. The artistry produced by craftsmen and artisans, an art passed down generations. The riot of unexpected colour—in the bazaars, in the turbans men wore, and in the forests with ‘exotic’ fauna and flora yet to be named and classified by the new science of taxonomy. Balmy days spent on houseboats—‘doongas’—in Kashmir. The spiciness of the food, the liberal doses of pepper in curries. And then, the sad state of its women, especially the child brides, and the young widows, who had to be ‘saved’. The timeless stubbornness of the caste system. The very unchanging nature of things.
Change in America
To look at this period—1700-1950—and talk of Americans is somewhat anomalous. For one thing, for the early part of this time, America was a British colony. By the mid-1770s things would change. The United States of America emerged as a new political entity only in 1776.
On the other hand, from the early 18th century onward, the once dominant Mughal Empire was in decline. Aurangzeb, the last powerful ruler of that dynasty, had worn himself and the empire out with his battles in the Deccan and the upsurge of discontent elsewhere that he failed to contain. Even before the Battle of Plassey in 1757 tilted the balance—beginning in the east—in the East India Company’s favour, India was a patchwork of regional rulers, each brimming over with ambition and jostling for power. To adventurers and fortune-seekers—like the ‘wanderers’—who had no master, who came lacking the conqueror’s zeal, but who had their own sense of adventure, such a state of affairs was ideal to make a fortune, to remake a life.
It is thus of little surprise that the first of the wanderers came as part of the East India Company, to associate themselves with it, as ordinary private traders. America at that time, showed the same precarity that characterized India. It was a continent divided up between competing European powers, and to the west of the continent, the different native American groups too had their territories.1
In the next decades, as America extended westward into new frontiers, set its own foundations as a young democracy, some of the wanderers, citizens of a new nation, also faced their own frontiers, as they sailed eastward onto an unknown land.
Most of these early travellers were those who lived on the northeastern seaboard of the American continent, that is, in the port towns of New England that had historic links with England since the early 17th century. These travellers who came all the way from the faraway West to the East were immigrants themselves, children of people who had moved a generation or two ago, a westward journey from Europe to the ‘New World’. The wanderers to India—the South Asian subcontinent—were thus children of wanderers themselves.
(Extracted from Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India by Anuradha Kumar. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2025)
THE BOOK
In 1833, Frederic Tudor, an American businessman, made history when he shipped 180 pounds of ice harvested from Walden Pond in Boston, to Calcutta—this luxury item being much in demand amongst the elites of British India. Tudor was deservedly christened the ‘Ice King’, and soon built a flourishing trade exporting American ice to India.
Others were drawn to the country by less materialistic goals. Like the ‘medical missionaries’ who were deeply concerned with the ‘women’s condition’ in India. Ida Scudder’s efforts in the 1900s resulted in the setting up of the Christian Medical College in Vellore, which continues to save lives till this day; in 1873, ‘Doctor Miss Sahiba’ Clara Swain set up the first hospital for women and children in Asia, in Bareilly, on land donated by the Nawab of Rampur.
There were also those who came to stay. Twenty-two-year-old Samuel Evans Stokes came to Kotgarh in the Himalayan foothills in 1904, embraced Hinduism and became Satyanand Stokes. He revolutionized apple cultivation in the area, now in Himachal Pradesh, by introducing the ‘Red Delicious’ apples of Missouri; today, his descendants still live and work in the region. Likewise, the Alter family. Martha and David Emmet Alter arrived in Mussoorie in 1917, to spend the summer studying at the Landour Language School; in 1941, Emmet became principal of Woodstock School, just around the hillside. Twenty-five years later, his son Robert occupied the same position. Robert’s son Stephen continues to live in Mussoorie, pursuing a successful writing career; his cousin Tom Alter was a much-loved actor in Indian films until he passed away in 2017.
These are just some of the ‘first Americans in India’ who came here, beginning in the 1700s, with different motives and dreams—as adventurers, traders, reformers, writers and artists. All of them, without exception, were fascinated, astonished, moved and, in the end, profoundly changed by their ‘Indian experience’.
Anuradha Kumar’s skilful and well-researched account of these early visitors makes this an important and engrossing book that informs, surprises and amuses in equal measure.
THE AUTHOR
Anuradha Kumar lived in Mumbai for over a decade, where she worked for the Economic and Political Weekly. She now lives in New Jersey in the US, and writes often for Scroll, The India Forum, The Missouri Review, Catamaran Literary Reader, The Common and Maine Literary Review. Two of her essays received ‘notable’ mention in Best American Essays editions of 2023 and 2024.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Borderless Journal started on March, 14, 2020. When the mayhem of the pandemic had just set in, we started as a daily with half-a-dozen posts. Having built a small core of writings by July, 2020, we swung to become a monthly. And we still continue to waft and grow…
Art by Sohana Manzoor
We like to imagine ourselves as floating on clouds and therefore of the whole universe. Our team members are from multiple geographies and we request not to be tied down to a single, confined, bordered land. We would welcome aliens if they submitted to us from another galaxy…
On our Fifth Anniversary, we have collected celebratory greetings from writers and readers stretched across the world who share their experience of the journal with you and offer suggestions for the future. We conclude with words from some of the team, including my own observations on being part of this journey.
Aruna Chakravarti
Heartiest congratulations to Borderless on the occasion of its fifth anniversary! Borderless, an international journal, has the distinction of carrying contributions from many eminent writers from around the world. From its initiation in 2020, it has moved from strength to strength under the sensitive and skillful steering of its team. Today it is considered one of the finest journals of its kind. I feel privileged to have been associated with Borderless from its very inception and have contributed substantially to it. I wish to thank the team for including my work in their distinguished journal. May Borderless move meaningfully towards the future and rise to greater and greater heights! I wish it every success.
Professor Fakrul Alam
Five years ago, when Borderless set out on its literary voyage, who would have imagined the length and breadth of its imaginative crossings in this span of time? The evidence, however, is digitally there for any reader who has seen at least some of its issues. Creative writing spanning all genres, vivid illustrations, instant links giving resolute readers the option to track a contributor’s creative voyaging—here is boundless space always opening up for those seeking writing of considerable variety as well as originality. The best part here is that unlike name-brand journals, which will entice readers with limited access and then restrict their spaces unless you subscribe to them, all of Borderless is still accessible for us even though it has attracted a wide readership in five years. I certainly hope it will stay that way.
And what lies ahead for Borderless? Surely, more opportunities for the creative to articulate their deepest thoughts and feelings in virtual and seemingly infinite space, and innumerable avenues for readers to access easily. And let us hope, in the years to come Borderless will extend itself to newer frontiers of writing and will continue to keep giving space to new as well as emerging writers from our parts of the world.
May the team of Borderless, continue to live up to their claim that “there are no boundaries to human imagination and thought!”
Radha Chakravarty
Since its inception, Borderless Journal has remained true to its name, offering a vital literary space for writers, artists and scholars from around the world to engage in creative dialogue about their shared vision of a world without borders. Congratulations Borderless, and may your dream of global harmony continue to inspire.
Somdatta Mandal
According to the famous Chicana academic and theorist Gloria Anzaldua, the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where peopIe of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape. There, at the juncture of cultures, languages cross-pollinate and are revitalized; they die and are born. Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants.
About five years ago, when a new online journal aptly called Borderless Journal was launched, these ideas which we had been teaching for so long were simply no longer applicable. Doing away with differences, with limits, it became a suitable platform where disparate cultures met, where people from all disciplines could express their views through different genres, be it poetry, translation, reviews, scholarly articles, creative writing and so on. Many new writers from different parts of the world became regular contributors to this unique experimentation with ‘borderlessness’ and its immense possibilities are very apt in this present global context where social media has already changed many earlier notions of scholarship, journalism, and creativity.
Jared Carter
In its first five years Borderless has become an important witness for international peace and understanding. It has encouraged submissions from writers in English based in many different countries, and has offered significant works translated from a wide range of national literatures. Its pages have featured writers based in India, Pakistan, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the UK, and the US. In the future, given the current level of world turmoil, Borderless might well consider looking more closely toward Africa and the Middle East. As the magazine continues to promote writing focused on international peace and freedom, new horizons beckon.
Teresa Rehman
The best part of this journal is that it is seamless and knows no margins or fringes. It is truly global as it has cut across geographical borders and has sculpted a novel literary genre called the ‘borderless’. It has climbed the mountains of Nepal, composed songs on the Brahmaputra in Assam, explored the hidden kingdom of Bhutan, walked on the streets of Dhaka, explored the wreckage of cyclones in Odisha, been on a cycling adventure from Malaysia to Kashmir, explored a scenic village in the Indo-China border, taken readers on a journey of making a Japanese-Malayalam dictionary, gave a first-hand account of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and described the syncretic culture of Bengal through its folk music and oral traditions. I hope it continues telling the untold and unchartered stories across mountains, oceans and forests.
Kirpal Singh
In a world increasingly tending towards misunderstandings across borders, this wholesome journal provides a healthy space both for diverse as well as unifying visions of our humanity. As we celebrate five distinguished years of Borderless Journal, we also look forward to another five years of such to ensure the underlying vision remains viable and visible as well as authentic and accurate.
My heartfelt Congratulations to all associated with this delightful and impressive enterprise!
Asad Latif
The proliferation of ethnic geographies of identity — Muslim/Arab, Hindu/Indian, Christian/Western, and so on — represents a threat to anything that might be called universal history. The separation and parcelling out of identities, as if they are pre-ordained, goes against the very idea (proclaimed by Edward Said) that, just as men and women create their own history, they can recreate it. Borders within the mind reflect borders outside it. Both borders resist the recreation of history. While physical borders are necessary, mental borders are not. This journal does an admirable job in erasing borders of the mind. Long may it continue to do so.
Anuradha Kumar
I have been one of Borderless’ many readers ever since its first issue appeared five years ago. Like many others, I look forward with great anticipation to every issue, complete with stories, , reviews, poems, translations, complemented with interesting artwork.
Borderless has truly lived up to its name. Within its portal, people, regardless of borders, but bound by common love for literature, and the world’s heritage, come together. I would wish for Borderless to scale even greater heights in the future. As a reader, I would very much like to read more writers from the ‘Global South’, especially in translation. Africa, Asia and Australasia are host to diverse languages, many in danger of getting lost. Perhaps Borderless could take a lead in showcasing writers from these languages to the world. That would be such an invaluable service to readers, and the world too.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan
To me, Borderless Journal is a completely free and open space. Topics and styles are never limiting, and the various writers explore everything from personal travelogues to the limp of a helpful druggist. Writers from all corners of the globe contribute, offering a plethora of unique voices from countless circumstances and walks of life. Because of this openness, Borderless Journal can, and likely will continue to grow and expand in many directions simultaneously. Curating and including many new voices along the way. Happy 5th Birthday to a truly original and wonderfully eclectic journal!
George Freek
I feel the Borderless Journal fills a special spot in the publishing world. Unlike many journals, which profess to be open-minded and have no preference for any particular style of poetry, Borderless actually strives to be eclectic. Naturally, it has its own tastes, and yet truly tries to represent the broad spectrum which is contemporary poetry. I have no advice as to where it should go. I can only say keep up the good work, and stooping to a cliche, if it’s not broken, why try to fix it?
Farouk Gulsara
They say time flies when one is having fun. It sure does when a publication we love regularly churns out its issues, month after month, for five years now.
In the post-truth world, where everybody wants to exert their exclusivity and try to find ways to be different from the person standing next to them, Borderless gives a breath of fresh air. At a time when neighboring countries are telling the world they do not share a common history, Borderless tries to show their shared heritage. We may have different mothers and fathers but are all but “ONE”!
We show the same fear found in the thunderous sounds of a growling tiger. We spill the exact hue of blood with the same pain when our skin is breached. Yet we say, “My pain is more intense than yours, and my blood is more precious.” Somehow, we find solace in playing victimhood. We have lost that mindfulness. One should appreciate freedom just as much as we realise it is fragile. Terrorism and fighting for freedom could just be opposing sides of the same coin.
There is no such thing as a just war or the mother of all wars to end all wars as it has been sold to us. One form of aggression is the beginning of many never-ending clashes. Collateral damage cannot be justified. There can be no excuse to destroy generations of human discoveries and turn back the clock to the Stone Age.
All our hands are tainted with guilt. Nevertheless, each day is another new day to make that change. We can all sing to the tune of the official 2014 World Cup song, ‘Ola Ola,’ which means ‘We are One.’ This is like how we all get together for a whole month to immerse ourselves in the world’s favourite sport. We could also reminisce about when the world got together to feed starving kids in Africa via ‘Band-Aid’ and ‘We Are the World’. Borderless is paving the way. Happy Anniversary!
Ihlwha Choi
I sincerely congratulate Borderless Journal on its 5th anniversary. I am always delighted and grateful for the precious opportunity to publish my poetry in English through this journal. I would like to extend my special thanks for this.
Through this journal, I can read a variety of literary works—including poetry, essays, and prose—from writers around the world. As someone for whom English is a foreign language, it has also been a valuable resource for improving my English skills. I especially enjoy the frequent features on Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry, which I read with great joy. Tagore is one of my favourite poets.
I have had the privilege of visiting Santiniketan three times to trace his legacy and honor his contributions to literature and education. However, one aspect I find a little disappointing is that, despite having published over 30 poems, I have yet to receive any feedback from readers or fellow writers. It would be wonderful to have such an opportunity for engagement.
Additionally, last October, a Korean woman received the Nobel Prize in Literature—the first time an author from South Korea has been awarded this honor by the Swedish Academy. She is not only an outstanding novelist but also a poet. I searched for articles about her in Borderless Journal but was unable to find any. Of course, I understand that this is not strictly a literary newspaper, but I would have been delighted to see a feature on her.
I also feel honoured that one of my poems was included in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles: An Anthology of Writings from across the World. I hope such anthologies will continue to be published. In fact, I wonder if it would be possible to compile and publish collections featuring several poems from contributing poets. If these were made available on Amazon, it would be a fulfilling experience for poets to reach a broader audience.
Moving forward, I hope Borderless Journal will continue to reach readers worldwide, beyond Asia, and contribute to fostering love and peace. Thank you.
Prithvijeet Sinha
The journey of authorship, self-expression and cultural exchange that I personally associate with Borderless Journal’s always diverse archives has remained a touchstone ever since this doorway opened itself to the world in 2020. Going against the ramshackle moods of the 2020s as an era defined by scepticism and distances, The journal has upheld a principled literary worldview close to the its pages and made sure that voices of every hue gets representation. It’s also an enterprise that consistently delivers in terms of goodwill and innocence, two rare traits which are in plenteous supply in the poems, travelogues, essays and musings presented here.
The journey with Borderless has united this writer with many fascinating, strikingly original auteurs, buoyed by a love for words and expression. It is only destined for greatness ahead. Happy Birthday Borderless! Here’s to 50 more epochs.
From Our Team
Bhaskar Parichha
As Borderless Journal celebrates its fifth anniversary, it is inspiring to see its evolution into a distinguished platform for discourse and exploration. Over the years, it has carved a unique niche in contemporary journalism, consistently delivering enlightening and engaging content. The journal features a variety of sections, including in-depth articles, insightful essays, and thought-provoking interviews, reflecting a commitment to quality and fostering dialogue on pressing global issues. The diverse contributions enrich readers’ understanding of complex topics, with a particular focus on climate change, which is especially relevant today. By prioritising this critical issue, Borderless informs and encourages engagement with urgent realities. Having been involved since its inception, I am continually impressed by the journal’s passion and adaptability in a changing media landscape. As we celebrate this milestone, I wish Borderless continued success as a beacon of knowledge and thoughtful discourse, inspiring readers and contributors alike.
Devraj Singh Kalsi
Borderless Journal has a sharp focus on good writing in multiple genres and offers readable prose. The platform is inclusive and does not carry any slant, offering space to divergent opinions and celebrating free expression. By choosing not to restrict to any kind of ism, the literary platform has built a strong foundation in just five years since inception. New, emerging voices – driven by the passion to write fearlessly – find it the ideal home. In a world where writing often gets commercialised and compromised, Borderless Journal is gaining strength, credibility, and wide readership. It is making a global impact by giving shape to the dreams of legendary poets who believed the world is one.
Rakhi Dalal
My heartiest congratulations to Borderless and the entire team on the fifth Anniversary of its inception. The journal which began with the idea of letting writing and ideas transcend borders, has notably been acting as a bridge to make this world a more interconnected place. It offers a space to share human experiences across cultures, to create a sense of connection and hence compassion, which people of this world, now more distraught than ever, are sorely in need of. I am delighted to have been a part of this journey. My best wishes. May it continue to sail through time, navigating languages, literature and rising above barriers!
Keith Lyons
Is it really five years since Borderless Journal started? It seems hard to believe.
My index finger scrolls through Messenger chats with the editor — till they end in 2022. On the website, I find 123 results under my name. Still no luck. Eventually, in my ‘Sent’ box I find my first submission, emailed with high hopes (and low expectations) in March 2020. ‘Countdown to Lockdown’ was about my early 2020 journey from India through Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Australia to New Zealand as COVID-19 spread.
Just like that long, insightful trip, my involvement with Borderless Journal has been a journey. Three unique characteristics stand out for me.
The first is its openness and inclusiveness. It features writers from all over the globe, with various contributions across a wide range of topics, treatments and formats.
The second feature of the journal is its phenomenal growth, both in readers and writers, and in its reach. Borderless really does ‘walk the talk’ on breaking down barriers. It is no longer just a humble literary journal — it is so much bigger than that.
The third unique aspect of Borderless is the devotion endowed in nurturing the journal and its contributors. I love the way each and every issue is conceived, curated, and crafted together, making tangible the aspiration ‘of uniting diverse voices and cultures, and finding commonality in the process.’
So where can we go from here? One constant in this world is change. I’d like to think that having survived a global pandemic, economic recession, and troubling times, that the core values of Borderless Journal will continue to see it grow and evolve. For never has there been a greater need to hear the voices of others to discover that we are all deeply connected.
Rhys Hughes
I have two different sets of feelings about Borderless Journal. I think the journal does an excellent job of showcasing work from many different countries and cultures. I want to say it’s an oasis of pleasing words and images in a troubled sea of chaos, but that would be mixing my metaphors improperly. Not a troubled sea of chaos but a desert of seemingly shifting values. And here is the oasis, Borderless Journal, where one can find secure ideals of liberty, tolerance, peace and internationalism. I appreciate this very much. As for my other set of feelings, I am always happy to be published in the journal, and in fact I probably would have given up writing poetry two years ago if it wasn’t for the encouragement provided to me by regular publication in the journal. I have written many poems especially for Borderless. They wouldn’t exist if Borderless didn’t exist. Therefore I am grateful on a personal level, as a writer as well as a reader.
Where can Borderless Journal go from here? This is a much harder question to answer. I feel that traditional reading culture is fading away year after year. Poets write poetry but few people buy poetry books. They can read poems at Borderless for free and that is a great advantage. I would like to see more short stories, maybe including elements of fantasy and speculative fiction. But I have no strategic vision for the future of the journal. However, one project I would like to try one day is some sort of collaborative work, maybe a big poem with lots of contributors following specific rules. It’s an idea anyway!
Meenakshi Malhotra
Borderless started with a vision of transcending the shadow lines and has over time, evolved into a platform where good writing from many parts of the world finds a space , where as “imagination bodies forth/ The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen/Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing/A local habitation and a name.”
It has been a privilege to be a part of Borderless’s journey over the last few years. It was a journey based on an idea and a vision. That dream of creating solidarity, of transcending and soaring over borders and boundaries, is evident in almost every page and article in the journal.
Mitali Chakravarty
Looking at all these responses, thinking on what everyone has said, I am left feeling overwhelmed.
Borderless started as a whimsical figment of the imagination… an attempt to bring together humanity with the commonality of felt emotions, to redefine literary norms which had assumed a darker hue in the post Bloomsbury, post existentialist world. The journal tried to invoke humour to brings smiles, joys to create a sense of camaraderie propelling people out of depression towards a more inclusive world, where laughter brings resilience and courage. It hoped to weave an awareness that all humans have the same needs, dreams and feelings despite the multiple borders drawn by history, geographies, academia and many other systems imagined by humans strewn over time.
Going forward, I would like to take up what Harari suggests in Homo Deus — that ideas need to generate a change in the actions of humankind to make an impact. Borderless should hope to be one of the crucibles containing ideas to impact the move towards a more wholesome world, perhaps by redefining some of the current accepted norms. Some might find such an idea absurd, but without the guts to act on impractical dreams, visions and ideas, we might have gone extinct in a post-dino Earth.
I thank the fabulous team, the wonderful writers and readers whose participation in the journal, or in engaging with it, enhances the hope of ringing in a new world for the future of our progeny.
Imagine the world envisioned by John Lennon. Imagine the world envisioned and partly materialised by Tagore in his pet twin projects of Santiniketan and Sriniketan, training institutes made with the intent of moving towards creating a work force that would dedicate their lives to human weal, to closing social gaps borne of human constructs and to uplifting the less privileged by educating them and giving them the means to earn a livelihood. You might well call these people visionaries and utopian dreamers, but were they? Tagore had hoped to inspire with his model institutions. In 1939, he wrote in a letter: “My path, as you know, lies in the domain of quiet integral action and thought, my units must be few and small, and I can but face human problems in relation to some basic village or cultural area. So, in the midst of worldwide anguish, and with the problems of over three hundred millions staring us in the face, I stick to my work in Santiniketan and Sriniketan hoping that my efforts will touch the heart of our village neighbours and help them in reasserting themselves in a new social order. If we can give a start to a few villages, they would perhaps be an inspiration to some others—and my life work will have been done.” But did we really have a new social order or try to emulate him?
If we had acted out of compassion and kindness towards redefining with a new social order, as Miriam Bassuk points out in her poem based on Lennon’s lyrics of Imagine, there would be no strangers. We’d all be friends living in harmony and creating a world with compassion, kindness, love and tolerance. We would not have wars or regional geopolitical tensions which act against human weal. Perhaps, we would not have had the issues of war of climate change take on the proportions that are wrecking our own constructs.
Natural disasters, floods, fires, landslides have affected many of our lives. Bringing us close to such a disaster is an essay by Salma A Shafi at ground level in Noakhali. More than 4.5 million were affected and 71 died in this disaster. Another 23 died in the same spate of floods in Tripura with 65,000 affected. We are looking at a single region here, but such disasters seem to be becoming more frequent. And yet. there had been a time when Noakhali was an idyllic vacation spot as reflected in Professor Fakrul Alam’s nostalgic essay, filled with memories of love, green outdoors and kindnesses. Such emotions reverberate in Ravi Shankar’s account of his medical adventures in the highlands of Kerala, a state that suffered a stupendous landslide last month. While Shafi shows how extreme rainfall can cause disasters, Keith Lyons writes of water, whose waves in oceanic form lap landmasses like bridges. He finds a microcosm of the whole world in a swimming pool as migrants find their way to New Zealand too. Farouk Gulsara muses on kindness and caregiving while Priyanka Panwar ponders about ordinary days. Saeed Ibrahim gives a literary twist to our musings. Tongue in cheek humour is woven into our nonfiction section by Suzanne Kamata’s notes from Japan, Devraj Singh Kalsi’s piece on premature greying and Uday Deshwal’s paean to his sunglasses!
In translations, we have Nazrul lyrics transcreated from Bengali by Professor Alam and poetry from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. We pay our respects to an eminent Balochi poet who passed on exactly a year ago, Mubarak Qazi, by carrying a translation by Fazal Baloch. Tagore’s Suprobhat (Good morning) has been rendered in English from Bengali. His descriptions of the morning are layered and amazing — with a hint of the need to reconstruct our world, very relevant even today. A powerful essay by Tagore called Raja O Praja(The King and His Subjects), has been translated by Himadri Lahiri.
Our fiction hosts two narratives that centre around childhood, one by Naramsetti Umamaheswararao and another by G Venkatesh, though with very different approaches. Mahila Iqbal relates a poignant tale about aging, mental health and neglect, the very antithesis of Gulsara’s musing. Paul Mirabile has given a strange story about a ‘useless idler’.
A short story collection has been reviewed by Rakhi Dalal, Swadesh Deepak’s A Bouquet of Dead Flowers, translated from Hindi by Jerry Pinto, Pratik Kanjilal, Nirupama Dutt, Sukant Deepak. Somdatta Mandal has written about a book by a Kashmiri immigrant which is part based on lived experiences and part fictive, Karan Mujoo’s This Our Paradise: A Novel. Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Ayurveda, Nation and Society: United Provinces, c. 1890–1950by Saurav Kumar Rai, a book which shows how healthcare was even a hundred years ago, politicised. Meenakshi Malhotra has reviewed Anuradha Marwah’s novel, Aunties of Vasant Kunj, of which we also have an excerpt. The other excerpt is from Mineke Schipper’s Widows: A Global History. Ratnottama Sengupta converses with Reba Som, author of Hop, Skip and Jump; Peregrinations of a Diplomat’s Wife.
We have more content that adds to the vibrancy of the issue. Do pause by this issue and take a look. This issue would not have been possible without all your writings. Thank you for that. Huge thanks to our readers and our team, without whose support we could not have come this far. I would especially like to thank Sohana Manzoor for her continued supply of her fabulous and distinctive artwork and Gulsara for his fabulous photographs.
Let us look forward to a festive season which awakens each autumn and stretches to winter. May we in this season find love, compassion and kindness in our hearts towards our whole human family.
Title: Maya Nagari: Bombay-Mumbai A City in Stories
Editors: Shanta Gokhale, Jerry Pinto
Publisher:Speaking Tiger Books
The very mention of the name Mumbai (or Bombay) brings to our minds a great city in India where the thriving metropolis grows at a rapid speed because people not only flock here from different parts of the country to make quick bucks and survive against all odds, but also because the film industry of Bollywood has also established it as a city of dreams, one that never sleeps and instead creates a mirage-of-sorts — an illusion, rightly labelled by the editors of this anthology as ‘Maya Nagari’. Edited by Shanta Gokhale and Jerry Pinto, this book, comprising twenty-one short stories about Mumbai takes the road less taken to create a non-uniform image of the metropolis. In tune with its multicultural and multilingual nature, we have stories about the city that is a sea of people and speaks at least a dozen languages. There are stories translated from Marathi, Urdu, Gujarati, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, and stories written originally in English. Among the writers are legends and new voices—Baburao Bagul, Ismat Chughtai, Pu La Deshpande, Ambai,Urmila Pawar, Mohan Rakesh, Saadat Hasan Manto, Ambai, Jayant Kaikini, Bhupen Khakhar,Shripad Narayan Pendse, Manasi, Krishan Chander, Udayan Thakker, Cyrus Mistry, Vilas Sarang, Jayant Pawar, Tejaswini Apte-Rahm and Anuradha Kumar.
As Jerry Pinto clearly states in the introduction, the stories can be read as we like, we can begin with the first story or the last, or any story in between. The observant reader might notice that he and the other editor Shanta Gokhale have deliberately chosen not to organise the material according to chronology, or geography. This is partly because they believe that the city lives in several time zones and spaces at once, as does India, but also because there is something essentially chaotic about its nature. So, he says, “the stories echo and bounce off each other, they do not collide, but there is a Brownian motion to these patterns” and he hopes to let the readers find it. Here, Mumbai is stripped of its twinkle; it is deglamourised to reveal how it’s the quotidian that lends the city its character—warmth and hostility alike and as inhabitants of the city the editors call ‘home,’ they hope a narrative will emerge.
In the twenty-one stories of this collection, there is the city that labours in the mills and streets, and the city that sips and nibbles in five-star lounges, the city of Ganapati, Haji Malang and the Virgin Mary. What binds the stories together is ‘human muscle’ – the desperate attempts of men and women of all classes and castes to survive in this heartless city amid all odds.
The stories are of different lengths and written in different narrative styles. Of the five or six stories translated by Shanta Gokhale herself from Marathi, one is struck by the excessive length of the so called ‘short’ stories. The very first one “Oh! The Joy of Devotion” by Jayant Pawar, forty-five pages in length, narrates in detail about the Ganapati festival and how it is related to the fate of the local people. Pu La Deshpande’s story “A Cultural Moment is Born”, set in the 1940s, tells stories of people living in chawls [slums] and how they spend their cultural days. Another very long story translated by Gokhale called “The Ramsharan Story” tells us about the rise and fall of a bus conductor by the name of Ramsharan who turns out to become a union leader. Baburao Bagul’s “Woman of the Street”, written originally in Marathi and translated by Gokhale again, tells the story of Girija, a sex-worker trying to collect money to cure her son in the village. The story ends on a disturbing note, as it reaffirms the relativity of success.
Once again, Krishan Chander’s story “The Children of Dadar Bridge” translated from Hindustani by Jerry Pinto is so long that it qualifies to be called a sort of novella. In this powerful story God comes to earth to a chawl and offers food to the first-person narrator. Then, impersonating as a small and innocent child, and along with the child narrator, he moves around different places in the city to witness its activities firsthand — we get to know about behind the scene affairs that take place in the film studios, about satta[1] dens, about bribery, local dons who arm-twist every new hawker to carry on their business after receiving their weekly cut money and more. In “Civic Duty and Physics Practicals”, Malayalam writer Manasi reveals the different experiences one comes across living in a society defined by power equations. Issues of hooliganism, superstition, illegal colonies, corruption, intimidation and violence are explored in a single story where the narrator is struggling, for days, with blaring speakers at a wedding nearby, even as her son tries hard to prepare for his upcoming exams. The story soon takes a dark turn where power trumps over consideration for fellow human beings.
A very powerful story written by Ambai in Tamil called “Kala Ghora Chowk” deals with issues of Marxist ideology, trade unions and the fate of a raped woman called Rosa. Anuradha Kumar’s “Neera Joshi’s Unfinished Book” tells us the life story of one woman who “made the city” and the perennial problems of displaced mill workers when the closed mills give way to high-rise buildings. Some of the stories are of course written in a lighter vein, though they also depict different problems related to city life. As the title of Vilas Sarang’s story “An Afternoon Among the Rocks” suggests, it narrates the plight of a couple trying to make love in the deserted seashore and how they get hijacked by a smuggler! In “The Flat on the Fifth Floor”, Mohan Rakesh writes about two sisters who meet the narrator after one failed love affair. A moving picture of the closing down of cinema halls in Mumbai comes out very beautifully in the Kannada story “Opera House” by Jayant Kaikini, especially narrating the plight of one of the sweepers working there when the declaration of permanent closure is pasted everywhere. Tejaswini Apte-Rahm’s “Mili” tells the story of a man who meets his ex-girlfriend after five years.
Though it is not possible to give the details of each and every story included in this anthology in this review, one must mention some of the stories that were originally written in English. Cyrus Mistry’s “Percy” about a young and lonely Parsi boy is so compelling that it was even made into a Gujarati motion-picture. “House Cleaning” by Jerry Pinto tells the story of a woman cleaner and his son, who talks about the reality of street dwellers. Eunice de Souza’s “Rina of Queen’s Diamonds” is not a straightforward narration at all but offers a collage of different vignettes of life in Bombay.
Though most of the stories portray the seamier side of life and in some ways de-glamourise Mumbai, at the same time they also portray how human resilience can combat all sorts of odds, and the city can be revealed only through shared experiences. Thus, each of the twenty-one stories in this collection tells a different tale of Mumbai, Bombay, Momoi, Bambai, Manbai and many others. As the editors have rightly pointed out at the beginning of their introduction, “You cannot catch a city in words. You cannot catch a city at all.” They felt that “it is not meant to be caught…this city resists even more because it was not designed at all; it just happened and it keeps on happening.” Thus, the four-hundred plus pages of this anthology Maya-Nagari remains a book to be treasured and read now at leisure and also at any time in the future.
In Cherry Blossom Forecast, Suzanne Kamata brings the Japanese ritual of cherry blossom viewing to our pages with her camera and words. Clickhere to read.
Where the mind is without fear … Where the world has not been broken up into fragments … Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way … Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action…
As we complete the fourth year of our virtual existence in the clouds and across borders, the world has undergone many changes around us, and it’s not only climate change (which is a huge challenge) but much more. We started around the time of the pandemic — in March 2020 — as human interactions moved from face-to-face non-virtual interactions to virtual communication. When the pandemic ended, we had thought humanity would enter a new age where new etiquettes redefining our social norms would make human existence as pandemic proof as possible. But before we could define new norms in the global context, takeovers and conflicts seem to have reft countries, regions and communities apart. Perhaps, this is a time when Borderless Journalcan give a voice to all those who want to continue living as part of a single species in this world — where we can rise above our differences to find commonalities that make us human and part of the larger stream of humanity, that has been visualised by visionaries like Tagore or John Lennon — widely different cultural milieus but looking for the same things — humankind living together in harmony and moving towards a world without violence, without hate, without rancour and steeped in goodwill and love.
Talking of positive values does not make sense in a world that seems to be veering towards darkness… Many say that humankind is intrinsically given to feelings of anger, hate, division, lust, shame and violence. But then we are just as much inclined towards happiness, fun, love, being respectful and peaceful. Otherwise, would we be writing about these? These are inherited values that have also come down to us from our forefathers and some have been evolving towards embalming or healing with resilience, with kindness and with an open mind.
If you wake up before sunrise, you will notice the sky is really an unredeemable dark. Then, it turns a soft grey till the vibrant colours of the sun paint the horizon and beyond, dousing with not just lively shades but also with a variety of sounds announcing the start of a new day. The darkest hours give way to light. Light is as much a truth as darkness. Both exist. They come in phases in the natural world, and we cannot choose but live with the choices that have been pre-made for us. But there are things we can choose — we can choose to love or hate. We can choose resilience or weakness. We can choose our friends. We can choose our thoughts, our ideas. In Borderless, we have a forum which invites you to choose to be part of a world that has the courage to dream, to imagine. We hope to ignite the torch to carry on this conversation which is probably as old as humanity. We look forward to finding new voices that are willing to move in quest of an impractical world, a utopia, a vision — from which perhaps will emerge systems that will give way to a better future for our progeny.
In the last four years, we are happy to say we have hosted writers from more than forty different nationalities and our readers stretch across almost the whole map of the world. We had our first anthology published less than one and a half years ago, focussing more on writing from established pens. Discussions are afoot to bring out more anthologies in hardcopy with more variety of writers.
In our fourth anniversary issue, we not only host translations by Professor Fakrul Alam of Nazrul, by Somdatta Mandal of Tagore’s father, Debendranath Tagore, but also our first Mandarin translation of a twelfth century Southern Song Dynasty poet, Ye Shao-weng, by Rex Tan, a journalist and writer from Malaysia. From other parts of Asia, Dr Haneef Sharif’s Balochi writing has been rendered into English by Fazal Baloch and Ihlwha Choi has transcreated his own poetry from Korean to English. Tagore’s Phalgun or Spring, describing the current season in Bengal, adds to the variety in our translated oeuvre.
Devraj Singh Kalsi has explored darker shades of humour in his conversation with God while Suzanne Kamata has ushered in the Japanese spring ritual of gazing at cherry blossoms in her column with photographs and narrative. Keith Lyons takes us to the beautiful Fiordlands of New Zealand, Ravi Shankar to Malaysia and Mohul Bhowmick trapezes from place to place in Sri Lanka. Farouk Gulsara has discussed the elusiveness of utopia — an interesting perspective given that we look upto ideals like these in Borderless. I would urge more of you to join this conversation and tell us what you think. We did have Wendy Jones Nakashini start a discussion along these lines in an earlier issue.
I would want to thank our dedicated team from the bottom of my heart. Without them, we could not have brought out two issues within three weeks for we were late with our February issue. A huge thanks to them for their writing and to Sohana Manzoor for her art too. Thanks to our wonderful reviewers who have been with us for a number of years, to all our mentors and contributors without who this journal could not exist. Huge thanks to all our fabulous loyal readers. Devoid of their patronage these words would dangle meaninglessly and unread. Thank you all.
Wish you a wonderful spring as Borderless Journal starts out on the fifth year of its virtual existence! We hope you will be part of our journey throughout…
Enjoy the reads in this special anniversary issue with more content than highlighted here, and each piece is a wonderful addition to our oeuvre!
Title: The Kidnapping of Mark Twain: A Bombay Mystery
Author: Anuradha Kumar
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
At the turn of the nineteenth century, Bombay was a city bustling with economic activity. A city that stood on the verge of modernisation and rivalled cities like Paris, London and New York. A city that had much to offer to those coming in to make a living or to simply visit it for sightseeing. A city that offered home and work opportunities to people from different countries across the world. It was also during the years 1896-97 that Samuel L. Clemens, or Mark Twain as he was better known as, travelled to Bombay with his family and wrote about his experience in his travelogue, Following the Equator.
In The Kidnapping of Mark Twain, Anuradha Kumar weaves the historic facts from Twain’s book with some intriguing and riveting detective fiction and makes it a fascinating read, especially for the mystery readers. Anuradha Kumar has published more than thirty books, has won the Commonwealth awards for short stories a couple of times, written under the pseudonym of Aditi Kay, worked in the Economic and Political Weekly for almost 9 years and writes from USA now.
The book starts with Henry Baker, an American trade consul, waiting impatiently for the arrival of Mark Twain and his family to Bombay. His arrival is shadowed by the news of murder of a young girl named Casi which has also left Henry’s friend Maya Barton disturbed. Within a day of his reaching Bombay, Mark Twain suddenly vanishes from his hotel room. What follows then is a series of trailing and mystery solving that keeps the reader in thrall.
Henry, with the help of Maya and his loyal aide Abdul, takes upon himself to find the writer. With much that is happening in the city, including murder, a labour unrest, a threat of strike, Henry finds the authorities a little too preoccupied or uninterested to follow Mark’s case. Since he cannot further risk any diplomatic disagreement between the United States and Britain, he follows through even though his position offers no legal authority. What he encounters at each step leads him to more confusing scenarios but he manages to pull through despite the shocking and bizarre revelations coming in.
Kumar skilfully crafts characters who carry the most unusual of acts which keep the readers on an edge – a ‘Waghare’ thief, a stilt walking magician, a fanatic preacher and a sad Serbian musician. Along with Maya Barton who excels in impersonating appearances. All this and much more. With the help of Maya and Abdul, Henry succeeds in unravelling the mystery of Mark Twain’s disappearance. The mystery that is solved, however, is just not of Mark’s disappearance but also of Casi’s murder and truth behind fanatic Arthur Pease’s de-addiction centre.
Anuradha Kumar’s research that has gone in writing this novel shines through her depiction of the city of erstwhile Bombay – its sights and sounds as well as all the places which stand out in the making of this city. The novel hustles with everything quintessentially Victorian Bombay. Action happens in places like the Victoria Terminus, the Bombay Police Headquarters, Colaba Causeway, Elephanta Caves and the Bombay Cotton Mills. Mark Twain takes rooms at the famous Watson’s Hotel where he finds it difficult to sleep because of all the noise made by crows. Henry Baker lives at Byculla club and Maya Barton at a Colaba bungalow. Tukaram, Casi’s husband and a suspect, is the labour supervisor at the Bombay Cotton Mills. The day Mark Twain lands, he attends a party hosted by a rich Parsi businessmen where the famous nautch girls present a dance. The reader gets a grasp on the city that once was. On the other hand, the novel also stirs with the city’s underbelly where crime, opium addiction, poverty and class dynamics are at play.
It is fascinating to note that the author would make use of Mark Twain’s disappearance as mentioned in his travelogue and spin it to make a thrilling mystery. The portrayal of events is so vivid that sometimes the reading seems akin to watching an Agatha Christie in a TV series. Then there are historic events mentioned in the backdrop which gives an idea about the world politics at large. The narrative refers to Oscar Wilde’s trial and his subsequent imprisonment in England and the first protest of women’s right to vote. It brings forth the discriminatory policies that British persisted in India like labelling certain ethnic groups as criminals and makes use of the social reforms like women education underway in the Indian society. All of these, combined with the adventure that the book offers, make for a gripping tale that could have been only set in the Bombay of 1896.
Rakhi Dalal is an educator by profession. When not working, she can usually be found reading books or writing about reading them. She writes at https://rakhidalal.blogspot.com/ .
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Interviewing Bulbul: Remembering Mrinal Sen… Ratnottama Sengupta introduces Bulbul Sharma to converse with her on Mrinal Sen, the legendary filmmaker, reflecting on Bulbul Sharma’s experience as an actress in his film, Interview. Click here to read.
In conversation with Gajra Kottary, eminent screenplay writer, and a brief introduction to her recent book of short stories, Autumn Blossoms. Click hereto read.
Translations
Nazrul’s poem, Samya or Equality, has been translated from Bengali by Niaz Zaman. Click here to read.
Masud Khan’s Fire Engine has been translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Let’s look forward to things getting better this New Year with wars tapering off to peace— a peace where weapons and violence are only to be found in history. Can that ever happen…?
Perhaps, all of us need to imagine it together. Feeling the need for peace, if we could dwell on the idea and come up with solutions, we could move towards making it a reality. To start with, every single human being has to believe firmly in the need for such a society instead of blaming wars on natural instincts. Human nature too needs to evolve. Right now, this kind of a world view may seem utopian. But from being hunter-gatherers, we did move towards complex civilisations that in times of peace, built structures and created art, things that would have seemed magical to a cave dweller in the Palaeolithic times. Will we destroy all that we built by warring – desecrating, decimating our own constructs and life to go on witch-hunts that lead to the destruction of our own species? Will human nature not evolve out of the darkness and chaos that leads to such large-scale annihilation?
Sometimes, darkness seems to rise in a crescendo only to be drowned by light emanating from an unknown source. This New Year — which started with an earthquake followed the next day by a deadly plane collision — was a test of human resilience from which we emerged as survivors, showing humanity can overcome hurdles if we do not decimate each other in wars. Bringing this to focus and wringing with the pain of loss, Suzanne Kamata, in her column tells us: “Earthquakes and other natural disasters are unavoidable, but I admire the effort that the Japanese people put into mitigating their effects. My hope is that more and more people here will begin to understand that it is okay to cry, to mourn, to grieve, and to talk about our suffering. My wish for the Japanese people in the new year is happiness and the achievement of dreams.”
And may this ring true for all humanity.
Often it is our creative urges that help bring to focus darker aspects of our nature. Laughter could help heal this darkness within us. Making light of our foibles, critiquing our own tendencies with a sense of humour could help us identify, creating a cathartic outcome which will ultimately lead to healing. An expert at doing that was a man who was as much a master of nonsense verses in Bengal as Edward Lear was in the West. Ratnottama Sengupta has brought into focus one such book by the legendary Sukumar Ray, Abol Tabol (or mumbo jumbo), a book that remains read, loved and relevant even hundred years later. We have more non-fiction from Keith Lyons who reflects on humanity as he loses himself in China. Antara Mukherjee talks of evolving and accepting a past woven with rituals that might seem effete nowadays and yet, these festivities did evoke a sense of joie de vivre and built bridges that stretch beyond the hectic pace of the current world. Devraj Singh Kalsi weaves in humour and variety with his funny take on stocks and shares. Rhys Hughes does much the same with his fun-filled recount on the differences between Sri Lanka and India, with crispy dosas leaning in favour of the latter.
Our stories take us around the world with Paul Mirabile from France, Ravi Shankar from Malaysia, Srinivasan R from India and Rebecca Klassen from England, weaving in the flavours of their own cultures yet touching hearts with the commonality of emotions.
In conversations, Ratnottama Sengupta introduces us to the multifaceted Bulbul Sharma and discusses with her the celebrated filmmaker Mrinal Sen, in one of whose films Sharma ( known for her art and writing) had acted. We also have a discussion with eminent screenplay writer Gajra Kottary on her latest book, Autumn Blossoms and an introduction to it.
Somdatta Mandal has reviewed Sudha Murty’s Common Yet Uncommon: 14 Memorable Stories from Daily Life, which she says, “speaks a universal language of what it means to be human”. Bhaskar Parichha takes us to Scott Ezell’s Journey to the End of the Empire: In China Along the Edge of Tibet. Parichha opines: “The book evokes the majesty of Tibetan landscapes, the unique dignity of the Tibetan people, and the sensory extremity of navigating nearly pre-industrial communities at the edge of the map, while also encompassing the erosion of cultures and ecosystems. Journey to the End of the Empire is both a love song and a protest against environmental destruction, centralised national narratives and marginalised minorities.” Meenakshi Malhotra provides a respite from the serious and emotional by giving us a lively review of Rhys Hughes’ The Coffee Rubaiyat, putting it in context of literature on coffee, weaving in poetry by Alexander Pope and TS Eliot. Rakhi Dalal has reviewed a translation from Punjabi by Ajeet Cour and Minoo Minocha of Cour’s Life Was Here Somewhere. Our book excerpts from Anuradha Kumar’s The Kidnapping of Mark Twain: A Bombay Mysteryintroduces a lighter note as opposed to the intense prose of Srijato’s AHouse of Rain and Snow, translated from Bengali by Maharghya Chakraborty.
Translations this time take us to the realm of poetry again with Fazal Baloch introducing us to a classical poet from Balochistan, the late Mulla Fazul. Ihlwha Choi has self-translated his poetry from Korean. Niaz Zaman brings us Nazrul’s Samya or Equality – a visionary poem for the chaotic times we live in — and Fakrul Alam transcribes Masud Khan’s Bengali verses for Anglophone readers. Our translations are wound up with Tagore’s Prarthonaor Prayer, a poem in which the poet talks of keeping his integrity and concludes saying ‘May the wellbeing of others fill my heart/ With contentment”.
May we all like Tagore find contentment in others’ wellbeing and move towards a world impacted by love and peace! The grand polymath always has had the last say…
I would like to thank our contributors, the Borderless team for this vibrant beginning of the year issue, Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous art, and all our readers for continuing to patronise us.
With hope of moving towards a utopian future, I invite you to savour our fare, some of which is not covered by this note. Do pause by our contents page to check out all our fare.
Borderless 