Tag: Australia

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Slices from Life

Salvaging the Furling Line in the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf

Narrative by Meredith Stephens & photographs by Alan Noble

I donned my fluffy hooded jacket on a wintery June morning in Adelaide, desperately trying to insulate myself against the cold. Today, Alex and I were due to fly four hours north to Darwin in order to complete the first leg of sailing his new boat back to Adelaide along the northern and western coasts of Australia. Darwin was in the same country, so I couldn’t conceive of it being much warmer than Adelaide. It was just over 2600 kilometres away.

What I was most looking forward to was dropping into the airport lounge before the flight. Later, there would be all sorts of deprivations and challenges, but in the lounge, I could put these thoughts out of my mind. For thirty minutes or so, I could savour being pampered. I could drink as much chai latte as I wanted and help myself to thinly sliced watermelon and cantaloupe. When I was in the lounge the prospect of being the only vessel on rough and unpredictable seas was unimaginable. But eventually, I was summoned from my indulgences when our flight to Darwin was called. Alex and I made our way to our economy seats, and relaxed in-flight for the next four hours. When we exited the airport in Darwin, the heat was tropical and the sunshine seared. Instead of using my fluffy jacket for warmth I held it over my head for sun protection. Was I really still in the same country?

I had declined the offer of sailing previous blue water passages. When Alex crossed the Great Australian Bight, over the Southern Ocean, I had insisted he be accompanied by a qualified sailor. How could I rescue him if something untoward happened? He had been accompanied by a much younger sailor, Sven, whose ancestry could be traced back to the Vikings. One day when they were twenty nautical miles offshore in the Blight, Alex had noticed that one of the lines had become tangled in the propeller. He tied one end of a rope around his middle and handed the other end to Sven, instructing him to hold it. Then he dived under the boat to untangle the rope from the propeller.

Sven was flabbergasted to have been asked to do this, but relieved when Alex emerged having untied the line. Hearing this anecdote, I felt vindicated in having insisted that Alex sail with a qualified sailor instead of me. Surely, I would never be put in the same position as Sven. But this time in the north of Australia it was just the two of us.

Alex is a qualified sailor, but I am not. I had thought I could manage because the seas would be calmer in the dry season of northern Australia than the Southern Ocean.

We made our way from the airport to the marina and spent the next morning provisioning the boat for the next three weeks. We didn’t make time for swimming because we were afraid of encountering crocodiles, Box jellyfish and Irukandji jellyfish. The following morning, we departed. The first step was exiting the marina through the lock. We booked our passage through the lock at 11 am and cautiously motored past the other boats to get there. The passage through the lock was narrow, so Alex reduced the width of the boat by folding the starboard hull. “Stand on the port bow so you can make sure we don’t scrape against the side of the lock,” he urged me.

I carefully walked along the narrow hull, so I could hold the lockside rope in order to create distance between the boat and the lock. I worried about losing balance. What if I fell into the gap between the lock and the boat and got crushed? I gave it my full concentration and maintained my balance. The attendant opened the barriers of the locks one by one, and the water in the lock levelled with the ocean. We called out our thanks to the attendant, as he heartily wished us a good day. I carefully turned around and retraced my steps back to the middle of the boat.

The sail to the Berkeley River across the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf took us three days. There would be no marinas and no shops along this long coastline until Port Hedland, over 2,000 km away, so every stop would be at anchor. The first two days of sailing and anchoring were uneventful.

Banks of the Berkley River

The third day, aiming for the Berkeley River, was to be a very long day. Alex rose at three am and departed. The waters were rough, although not as rough as the Southern Ocean. In my case, seasickness takes the form of extreme drowsiness and minor nausea. I spent most of the day sleeping and relieved the nausea with dry ginger. Every now and then I would try to walk around the boat, steadying myself as I grasped furniture.

Then, as the sun was low in the sky I heard Alex gasp. “Oh no! The furling line has gone overboard! I can’t furl the reacher without it.”

Then he looked under the netting of the trampoline to the water below. “There it is! It’s twisted around the port propeller.”

“Excellent!” I replied. At least we hadn’t lost it.

“Not excellent,” he countered. “I have to dive in and get it.”

“No! Don’t put me through this. You know I can’t rescue you.”

“It’ll be fine.”

He had already tied one end of the rope around his waist. The other end was tied to a pole. Then it was twisted several times around a winch for extra safety.

“You just have to pay out the rope from the winch. You don’t have to hold it,” he explained.

After all my protestations, I was being placed in the same position as Sven. Only I wasn’t of Viking stock, and I was quite a bit older. I could feel my heart pounding. I couldn’t meet Alex’s eyes. This was the predicament I most wanted to avoid, being responsible for the physical safety of my irrepressible husband. But he wasn’t entering into discussion. Dismissing my objections, he slid into the water. I wasn’t even sure when to pull in the line, or when to pay it out. I was too scared to look over the edge of the boat. What if I fell into the water? But within a couple of minutes, I heard Alex’s triumphant voice.

“Success!”  he shouted, clutching the line. Then he quickly pulled himself onto the boat.

“At least you weren’t eaten by a crocodile.”

‘We are too far away from the coast for that,” he explained.

“What about the Irukandji jellyfish?”

“That’s more of a possibility, but I was only in for a couple of minutes.”

Finally, Alex accepted the beach towel I proffered him. He was too exhilarated by the success of his mission to be sensitive to the cold you would normally feel after emerging from the ocean. The sun was setting.

“I would have been unable to do this in the dark,” he added cheerily.

There were five hours of sailing left to get to the Berkeley River. Night sailing is anathema to me, but there was nowhere to anchor at such depths. Alex used his chart plotter and radar to guide him into the bay. The moon was yet to rise. As we glanced upwards, we saw the Milky Way with a clarity we had never seen before. The level of the tides varied by about six metres every day, so he had to ensure the tide was right not just for when we anchored but also the next morning. Eventually the instruments told us we were in 3.9 metres and Alex decided to anchor, just after midnight. We celebrated with a gin and tonic and Toblerone. The waters were choppy, so that night it was not unlike lying in a sleeper car of an overnight train.

The next morning, we rose to the sight of waves crashing over a nearby beach.

“If I had known we were this close to the beach I wouldn’t have anchored here!” exclaimed Alex.

We had survived the first two hundred nautical miles of our voyage. Now only eleven hundred more lay between us and our destination on the west coast, Port Hedland.

Sunrise over the Timor Sea. Port Hedland is located on the Timor Sea.

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Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.

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

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

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

Categories
Poetry

Postscript by Brenton Booth   

Brenton Booth
POSTSCRIPT 

David Lynch had always been my favourite living 
filmmaker since I watched The Straight Story on 
new-release Blockbuster DVD back when I was 
nineteen. At that time, I was still acting and dreamed 
of a role in one of David's strange, beautiful films. It 
took me several years to understand Lost Highway 
was simply a story told from two different perspectives: 
reality, and the twisted reality of the murdering protagonist. 
Or, that Mulholland Drive was both the idyllic fantasy, 
and inevitable stark reality, of a talent starved actress 
desperate to make it in Hollywood. Blue Velvet, a bleak 
exploration of the dark violent extremes man is capable 
of resorting, to when stricken by uncontrollable love. 
Twin Peaks, a contagious evil, perpetually travelling 
throughout cultures, people, and time. Navigating a 
lengthy wake of heartache, and loss. As the decades passed, 
I no longer desired to be in David Lynch movies, just simply 
wished to meet him. Maybe share a few drinks and talk 
about those wonderfully distinct pictures, that to this day, I 
continue viewing. Mr. Lynch, the night before you died, I 
was sipping on Tennessee whiskey marvelling at you and 
Harry Dean Stanton in that brilliant scene from John Carroll 
Lynch's Lucky, where you say a final affectionate farewell 
to your recently escaped much beloved ageing tortoise 
President Roosevelt, following an endless shift at my blue-
collar job working the entire miserable shift in the unrelenting, 
saturating rain. You brought the first, and only smile to my 
face that exhausting day. A marvellous gift I owe to you 
completely. Cheers, you spectacular madman. Your atoms have 
now passed the stars. What glorious pictures they must see.

Brenton Booth is a writer residing in Sydney, Australia. His writing has been published by New York Quarterly, Midwest Quarterly, and North Dakota Quarterly.

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

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

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

Categories
Excerpt

My Summer of Cricket

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

Author: Nikhil Kulkarni

Chapter 4

NEW YEAR’S TEST/PINK TEST, SYDNEY

Days 0 and 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ABOUT THE BOOK:

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

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

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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

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

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

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

Categories
Slices from Life

Serendipity in Vietnam

Narrative by Meredith Stephens: Photographs by Alan Noble

Boat which took the author and her husband to Mekong Delta

We alighted from the ferry and disembarked at a small island in the Mekong Delta. Our Vietnamese guide had promised us that we could witness how local people lived. After walking along a trail, we were ushered into a small boat with a local lady at the rear who would row us down the river. We stepped into the back of the boat and another couple stepped into the front.

“Would you mind taking a photo of us?” asked a woman with a bright smile and an energetic voice. I could hear she was English. Then the four of us started bantering and I detected that her partner was English too.

Next, we hopped off the boat and were treated to the chance to hold a cobra, sample local delicacies, and listen to the villagers’ musical performance. The next day we were taken to a restaurant where you could make your own seafood pancakes. Just before lunch, we were given the opportunity to cycle along a nearby path. Those of our group who wished to cycle selected a bicycle. I chose one and headed to the path. Then I looked ahead of me and realised that the English woman’s bike was the wrong size for her.

Cycling tour of the village

“Would you like to swap bicycles? Mine is too large and yours seems to be too small.”

She nodded. We swapped bicycles and seemed to find the perfect match. Our tour guide gave the signal and off we went. After a few kilometres, he signaled to stop so the group would stay together. I found myself at the front of the group and turned around to see the English woman immediately behind.

“I commuted to work by bike for twenty years,” I explained, surprised to be the one who had to stop so the others could catch up.

“I was in Japan. Japan is much friendlier to cyclists. The traffic is slower, and the roads narrower. It’s easier than driving, at least for short distances.”

She nodded. “They cycle a lot in Amsterdam. Also in Cambridge, where I lived for three years.”

I didn’t want to ask too many personal questions of this woman I had only just met, but I was curious. I wondered if she had studied at Cambridge University. Instead of being nosy, I added a few comments about Cambridge.

“We visited there recently. We stayed on the outskirts, and walked in. We had to walk through a park where there were cows grazing with bells around their necks. I much prefer Cambridge to Oxford.”

“Yes, it’s smaller. But Oxford is pretty good too!” she added.

By then the other cyclists had caught up. We continued along the path and then returned for lunch. We resumed the tour and were dropped off back in Ho Chi Minh City.

“Where can we store our luggage?” Alex asked her.

“Here at the tourist agency. We’ll leave ours there while we pop into the markets to get Ian a new backpack. His is broken.”

“Thanks for the tip. By the way, do you have an email address so we can exchange photos?”

“Sure. Where are you heading next?” she asked.

“Hoi An,” she replied.

“Oh! We are going there too. We are doing a cooking class. Would you like to join us?” offered Alex.

“Sure! Send us the link.”

We parted ways.

“See you in Hoi An,” I said, hoping that we could meet again.

The English woman was so easy to talk to, so quick to respond, and pick up on any nuance. I’d already decided that she must be a therapist. I had been trained since early adulthood not to ask people what they did for a living. It wasn’t fair to allow your knowledge of their career success to determine your assessment of them. But I admit to being curious. If she had studied at Cambridge, what career had followed?

Alex and I caught a sleeper train to Hoi An. There we found generously proportioned historic buildings. However, there were too many tourists in Hoi An, people like us. We walked around the town and felt overwhelmed. We could barely move down the street without bumping into other tourists.

Night train
Train station

The next day Alex texted the English woman. He must have been just as eager to meet the couple again as I was.

“Sorry, your cooking class was full. We booked another one. How about drinks this evening?” she replied.

Alex accepted. That evening we made our way to the bar she had suggested. They stood up and hugged us.

“I’m Jill* by the way. And this is Ian*.”

“I’m Alex, and this is Merri.”

We ordered a gin and tonic. They were drinking beer.

“Since we were meeting you today, we thought we’d better order a gin and tonic,” I explained. This drink brought back memories of England.

After we had sipped our drinks, Alex broached the question that was on my mind.

“So, what do you do when you’re not touring in Vietnam?” he asked.

“I write historical fiction. Ian has retired. When the children were younger, he supported me, but now it’s my turn to support him.”

I was beside myself with excitement. If you asked me which profession intrigued me most, I would have said a writer. I have little inclination to meet actors, politicians, astronauts, rocket scientists, or billionaires, but I certainly would like to meet writers (not to mention musicians). For the next couple of hours, Jill shared her experience of writing, and Alex and I shared our experiences of sailing. I was so excited that I lost my appetite and only nibbled a few snacks at the end of the evening. They told us that they lived in a nearly three-hundred-year-old house in Somerset*, one of my favourite places in the UK.

“Just a warning. We will visit,” Alex added.

“Certainly!” replied Jill.

“And please come sailing with us when our boat is ready!” I urged.

We parted company, and I floated all the way back to the hotel. I looked up her many books online and resolved to read her latest one as soon as I could.

A day later, Alex and I caught another sleeper to Hanoi. It was so pleasant rolling along the tracks that I was lulled to sleep as soon as I lay down. I informed Alex that when we returned to Adelaide, I needed a sleep machine that mimicked the motion of rolling along the tracks and provided the accompanying background noise.

When we exited the station a throng of taxi drivers approached us to offer us rides. We had been advised that it is more secure and economical to use the local ride called Grab[1]. I shielded Alex from one driver that persisted in following him around too closely. I positioned myself between Alex and the driver with my back to the driver. Then we looked over and saw a couple laden with suitcases and eyes glued to their phones. The husband made eye contact with me and gave an exaggerated Gallic shrug and I immediately knew they were French. They looked desperate, and I knew I had to put my rusty French to practice. Years of study at the Alliance Francaise did not equip me to use my French in context. French speakers tended to switch to English as soon as I made my opening gambit in French. This was either because my English accent was too strong, or the French speakers wanted to practice their English. However, this time, the urgency of the situation prompted me to use my French.

“Have you tried to use Grab? It’s less expensive,” I informed them.

“We couldn’t install it. We’re trying to contact the hotel. They were meant to pick us up.”

Her husband was persevering on the phone.

“We’re meant to be going home tomorrow,” the wife informed me. “But our flight has been cancelled.”

“Because of the…,” I offered, unable to quickly find the words for ‘Middle East conflict’.

“Because of the…,” she confirmed. She knew what I meant.

“We were here for our anniversaire,” she explained.

I knew that ‘birthday’ is ‘anniversaire’ in French, but as I was scrambling to communicate, I temporarily assumed that it meant its false friend, anniversary.

“How many years?” I asked.

“69 and 64,” she explained.

Whoops! She must have meant birthday. I pointed to Alex. “He’s ten weeks older than me,” I added.

She laughed and then switched to English.

‘Where are you from?” she asked.

She must have known we were anglophones, but not which anglophone country we came from.

“Australia,” I replied.

She was very surprised to hear this. I continued to scramble to make meaningful conversation, sacrificing precision for getting the words out quickly.

“We come from a town that no-one has heard of,” I added in exaggeration, reverting to French. “Our city Adelaide often gets left out when visiting performers and VIPs come to Australia.”

She laughed again. Then Alex saw on his phone that our Grab ride had arrived. We picked up our bags and exited the station.

Alex decided to join in in French.

“Bonne chance,” he said, hoping they would soon find their transport.

“Bon voyage,” she replied.

“Bon voyage,” I echoed.

I felt sorry and guilty as we boarded our Grab outside the station.

The third serendipitous encounter was on our boat tour in Lan Ha Bay. After spending the night on a small cruise ship, we boarded a dinghy to take us to the rowing boats which were to take us to the caves.

Our tour consisted of two Indian couples, two Danish girls, three Russian couples, and a young Australian family of four from the east coast. Each rowing boat seated eight. As Alex and I were lining up to board we were directed to the boat with the three glamorous young Russian couples. I was a bit concerned about how we would converse in the boat. Sitting in silence would be awkward. The only Russian I knew were those words from the media in the ‘80s, perestroika and glasnost. They wouldn’t get us far because these Russians would be too young to remember the times when these words were used. Alex and I averted our gaze, and the tour guide gave up trying to persuade us to board the boat. We turned around and saw the young Australian family lining up behind us. We smiled at them.

“Aussies!” I exclaimed. We had been deprived of conversation with our compatriots for quite a few days.

The six of us hopped in the rowing boat and were taken inside the stunning Lan Ha Bay. I am not sure that our conversation with our compatriots amounted to much, but it was animated and fun, and I hardly had the time to take in the wonderful bay.

Lan Ha Bay

Seeing the sights in other countries is both a privilege and an enormous treat. What is just as exciting is meeting locals, and the random, sometimes fleeting, and yet meaningful encounters with fellow tourists. We may meet Jill and Ian again. We will never meet the French couple again and don’t even know their names. We just hope they made it to their hotel and then safely back to France. We probably won’t meet the young Australian family again either. The east coast is just too far away. Nonetheless, we have been enriched by the knowledge shared by our kind, enthusiastic and energetic Vietnamese tour guides, and the unexpected encounters with fellow tourists trying to navigate this unique culture together.

* Some names have been changed.

[1] A Singaporean company that caters all over Southeast Asia

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Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Carlos by Tony Dawson

Tony Dawson
                 CARLOS

My friend Carlos is an artist of some renown.
He is well-known locally for his sculptures
and life drawings. A star of the Faculty 
of Fine Art, his work is sought after
in Seville where he exhibits frequently.
He is also a character with an impish grin
that reflects his saucy sense of humour.
Janet and I consider him a lovable rogue.
He is obviously enamoured of my wife,
although he presents no threat at all
because he’s queer and is just teasing me.
Every time we run across each other,
he promises to leave me a piece of his art
with one of his shopkeeper friends
as a token of his esteem. I’m still waiting…

Tony Dawson, an 89-year-old English writer, lives in Seville and has published widely in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia since he took up writing during the pandemic.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Edward Reilly

Edward Reilly
LITTLE FISH: 1958

Little fish are transparent in their felicity, darts
Rippling over gullies and flat stones, shadows
On the sand, flashes of lightning as they hide themselves,
My big feet stirring grit and making such a din
They cannot hear the gulls’ songs.

And thou art dancing in the shallows, all heart,
All joyousness as the afternoon sun follows,
Looping over the cliffs at Port Stanvac to dwell
Like Neptune in the depths of Gulf St. Vincent,
Hymning to the marine throng.

We had swum out to the reef, and were startled
By the passage of a shark, no, a dolphin, ogling
To know if we were some kind of fish as well:
O Nereid! Would that the moment return again,
Neither knowing of right nor wrong.

Edward Reilly is a retired teacher and lecturer. His poetry has been published in Australia and overseas, as well as a travelogue, First Snow (2004).

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

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Categories
Editorial

What Do We Yearn for?

Most people like you and me connect with the commonality of felt emotions and needs. We feel hungry, happy, sad, loved or unloved and express a larger plethora of feelings through art, theatre, music, painting, photography and words… With these, we tend to connect. And yet, larger structures created over time to offer security and governance to the masses—of which you and I are a part — have grown divisive, and, by the looks of it, the fences nurtured over time seem insurmountable. To retain these structures that were meant to keep us safe, wars are being fought and many are getting killed, losing homes and going hungry. We showcase such stories, poems and non-fiction to create an awareness among those who are lucky enough to remain untouched. But is there a way out, so that all of us can live peacefully, without war, without hunger and with love and a vision towards surviving climate change which (like it or not) is upon us?

Creating an awareness of hunger and destruction wreaked by war is a heartrending story set in Gaza by JK Miller. While Snigdha Agrawal’s narrative gives a sense of hope, recounting a small kindness by a common person, Sayan Sarkar shares a more personal saga of friendship and disillusionment — where people have choice. But does war leave us a choice as it annihilates friendships, cities, homes and families? Naramsetti Umamaheswararao’s story reiterates the belief in the family – peace being an accepted unit. Vela Noble’s fantastical fiction and art comes like a respite– though there is a darker side to it — with a touch of fun. Perhaps, a bit of fantasy and humour opens the mind to deal with the more sombre notes of existence.

The translation section hosts a story by Hamiruddin Middya, who grew up as a farmer’s son in Bengal. Steeped in local colours, it has been rendered into English by V Ramaswamy. Nazrul’s song revelling in the colours of spring has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Atta Shad’s pensive Balochi lines have been brought to us in English by Fazal Baloch. Isa Kamari continues to bring the flavours of an older, more laid-back Singapore with translations of his own Malay poems. A couple of Persian verses have been rendered into English by the poet, Akram Yazdani, herself. Questing for harmony, Tagore’s translated poem while reflecting on a child’s life, urges us to have the courage to be like a child — open, innocent and willing to imagine a world laced with trust and hope. If we were all to do that, do you think we’d still have wars, violence and walls built on hate and intolerance?

While in a Tagorean universe, children are viewed as trusting and open, does that continue a reality in the current world that believes in keeping peace with weapons? Contemporary voices think otherwise. Manahil Tahir brings us a touching poem in a doll’s voice, a doll belonging to a child victimised by violence. While violence pollutes childhood, pollution in Delhi has been addressed by Goutam Roy in verse. Poignant lines from Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal make one question the idea of home and borders while Snehaprava Das has interpreted the word ‘borderless’ in her own way. We have more colours of humanity from Allan Lake, Chris Ringrose, Alpana, Lynn White, C.Mikal Oness, Shamim Akhtar, Jim Bellamy,John Swain, Mohul Bhowmick and SR Inciardi. Ryan Quinn Flanagan has given fun lines about a snow fight while Rhys Hughes has shared a humorous poem about a clumsy giant.

Bringing in humour in prose is Devraj Singh Kalsi’s musing about horoscopes! While, with a soupçon of irony Farouk Gulsara talks of his ‘holiday’, Meredith Stephen takes us to a yacht race in Australia and Mohul Bhowmick to Pondicherry. Gower Bhat writes of his passion for words while discussing his favourite books. Ratnottama Sengupta introduces us to contemporary artists from her part of the world.

Mario Fenech takes a look at the idea of time. Amir Zadnemat writes of how memory is impacted by both science and humanities while Andriy Nivchuk brings to us snippets from Herodotus’s and Pericles’s lives that still read relevant. Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan gives the journey of chickpeas across space and time, asserting: “The chickpea does not care about your ideology, your portfolio, or your meticulously curated identity. It will grow, fix nitrogen, feed someone, and move on without a press release.” It has survived over aeons in a borderless state!

In book excerpts, we have a book that transcends borders as it’s a translation from Assamese by Ranjita Biswas of Arupa Kalita Patangia’s Moonlight Saga. Any translation is an attempt to integrate the margins into the mainstream of literature, and this is no less. The other excerpt is from Natalie Turner’s The Red Silk Dress. Keith Lyons has interviewed Turner about her novel which crosses multiple cultures too while on a personal quest.

In reviews, Somdatta Mandal discusses a book that explores the colours of a river across three sets of borders, Sanjoy Hazarika’s River Traveller: Journeys on the TSANGO-BRAHMAPUTRA from Tibet to the Bay of Bengal. Rakhi Dalal writes about a narrative centring around migrants, Sujit Saraf’s Every Room Has a View — A Novel. Anindita Basak reviews Taslima Nasrin’s poetry, Burning Roses in my Garden, translated from Bengali by Jesse Waters. Bhaskar Parichha reviews Kailash Satyarthi’s Karuna: The Power of Compassion. In it, Satyarthi suggest the creation of CQ — Compassion Quotient— like IQ and EQ, claiming it will improve our quality of life. What a wonderful thought!

Could we be yearning compassion?

Holding on to that idea, we invite you to savour the contents of our February issue.

Huge thanks to all our contributors and readers for making this issue possible. Heartfelt thanks to our wonderful team, especially Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork.

Enjoy the reads!

Let’s look forward to the spring… May it bring new ideas to help us all move towards more amicable times.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE CONTENTS FOR THE FEBRUARY 2026 ISSUE.

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READ THE LATEST UPDATES ON THE FIRST BORDERLESS ANTHOLOGY, MONALISA NO LONGER SMILES, BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK.

Categories
Poetry

Where Poems Come From

By Chris Ringrose

sometimes they arrive like a fox with a mouthful of feathers
because somewhere, something has died or been eaten alive
or they startle you like the clapping of pigeon wings – a spasm of applause in a silent wood –
an idea stirring up there in the wet branches, one you’d half forgotten
others push their way out of dreams, in the way tiny quills would poke through a feather bed
or goose down pillow, to remind you of all you are resting on
but the best of them drift down like a blessing, rocking like an airborne cradle 
to land between the gold of the nib and the cream of the paper
with a message from the bird who’s already flown

Chris Ringrose is a writer of poetry and fiction who lives in Melbourne, Australia. His latest poetry collection is Palmistry (ICoE Press, Melbourne, 2016). Creative Lives, a collection of interviews with South Asian writers, was published by Ibidem Press, Stuttgart, in 2021. His poetry website is http://www.cringrose.com

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

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

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Categories
Poetry

At Large in a Big City by Allan Lake

From Public Domain 
AT LARGE IN A BIG CITY  

Beside a relentless freeway,
which is anything but free and takes 
its toll on users and non-users as well, 
‘boys’ meet for coffee at Mothers Instinct 
with no apostrophe or wives in sight. 
They’re old boys now, content to breathe 
and able to coast on Old Age Pension.
They laboured long, fathered kids by un-
leashing millions of apostrophes into wives, 
had operations via Medicare to fix things 
that could have meant never retiring. 
Considering current high price of houses 
in their suburb, they are now wealthy but 
that does not stop them breakfasting 
at home before venturing out for second 
coffees. Too late to become loose with money, 
they leave that to the next generation. 
Every boy knows what every other boy 
knows – they watch same TV shows – 
so, no serious debate. Chuckle, toss gossip, 
kid each other, talk sport while picking 
at pastries that wives wouldn’t approve. 
You’d think their lives had been one long 
joke here in big city. Sip that pricey espresso, 
chat, zone out then wander home for lunch. 
Their wives, the ‘girls’, are elsewhere for
pre-coffee yoga. They also laboured long, 
had the babies, kept every body fed. 
Fact is women usually outlive men, 
perhaps due to mothers’ instinct.

Allan Lake is a migrant poet from Allover, Canada, who now lives in Allover, Australia. He has published poems in 24 countries. His latest chapbook of poems, entitled My Photos of Sicily, was published by Ginninderra Press.

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

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Categories
Slices from Life

Champagne Sailing

Narrative by Meredith Stephens: Photographs by Alan Noble

Sydney Skyline

We are not champagne sailors. The only time Alex and I drink champagne aboard a boat is to celebrate the end of a voyage of hundreds of nautical miles. Our sailing expeditions are characterised by breakages, deprivations and isolation. Sometimes the seas are so rough that I cannot move around the boat, let alone change clothes. I can only bathe once a week, and that consists of a dip in the ocean at anchor.

Our meals often consist of fish we have caught and cooked, unless we consume them immediately as sashimi. A single fish might last us days, served in various guises. Other meals are prepared from lentils or canned foods. In contrast to land trips, I usually lose a kilogram or two when at sea. I prefer not to use the term ‘yacht’, because people imagine us sunning ourselves on the deck while sipping champagne. Instead, I use the term ‘sailboat’. I do confess to a tad of reverse snobbery in the deprivations I endure and look down on those I describe as ‘champagne sailors’. But was that about to change?

We had been invited aboard the luxury observer vessel known as The Jackson to watch the start of the annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race on Boxing Day. After Christmas lunch, we headed to Adelaide Airport to catch our ninety-minute flight to Sydney. Upon arrival at our hotel, we caught the lift to our room. The lift doors opened on the third floor to let two brothers in, aged around 10 and 12. They met our gaze.

“Would you like us to sing you a Christmas carol?” the younger one asked.

The older one looked a bit embarrassed, but I thought asking strangers to join in singing a carol in a lift on Christmas Day was a nice, if not brave gesture, so I nodded enthusiastically. The younger one started singing ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’, and facing us, moved his hands in the manner of a choir conductor. I joined in. Then the boys noticed that they had arrived at their floor and stopped singing.

“See ya!” said the older one, as they exited.

We continued to the seventh floor and deposited our bags. The light was fading, so we decided to head back outside to take a stroll around the harbour. We returned to the lift. Once we reached the fifth floor the doors opened and the two boys entered again. Three other guests were standing behind us.

“More carols?” asked Alex.

They nodded and smiled. “Yes!”

They launched into another familiar carol, and again I joined in. The tall guest behind me gave a kindly chuckle. Then they reached the third floor, bade us farewell, and exited. We continued to the ground floor and made a tour of Darling Harbour in the remaining light. It had been a wonderful Christmas Day, and what better way to end it than the act of goodwill in being serenaded by children in a hotel lift.

The next day was the yacht race, which has been held annually since 1945 and is one of the world’s great ocean races. The sailors would be competing in a gruelling and treacherous race of 128 boats covering 628 nautical miles (1,200 km), south down the Tasman Sea, across Bass Strait, to Hobart in the south of Tasmania. This race is one of the highlights of Boxing Day and a television staple.

Start of Sydney to Hobart race

We walked to the appointed wharf and noticed a long queue waiting to board. Upon being noticed by our hosts, we were directed to a shorter queue and were ushered up the stairs to the top deck, limited to fewer than sixty people. A ribbon with ‘The Jackson’ written on it was affixed to our wrists. We were greeted by a waiter holding a tray proffering a range of drinks. Alex picked up two glasses of champagne and handed one to me. Was this the beginning of my new career as a champagne sailor?

The Jackson soon departed and we headed out to the deck to view the boats lining up for the race. Even though it was summer the cold penetrated my body and my hands shook. I was determined to brave the cold in order to hold my place to view the start of the race. The lady next to me made some commentary.

“That’s the start line,” she said, pointing to two yellow buoys. The start lines are staggered depending on the the size of the boats to help prevent collisions. It’s a southerly, so that should help.”

I nodded, feigning comprehension. I was not yet a competent enough sailor to pick up the wind direction so quickly. The cannon sounded on the deck below, and a plume of smoke rose. The yachts set off. Soon they had overtaken our observation vessel and most of the guests moved back inside the boat to watch the race on a large screen. Alex and I and a few other hardy souls remained on the outside deck to savour the unique setting of Sydney Harbour. Waiters braved the cold regularly to top up our champagne and offer us canapes. We accepted each time, although I eventually slowed down and shared a glass of champagne with Alex. Had we become the dreaded champagne sailors?

The yachts sailed through the heads until most of them disappeared from view. The Jackson turned around and headed back to King Street Wharf. We remained outside on the deck in the cold, making the most of every minute because Sydney Harbour is so far from home, and we may never have this opportunity again.

I stubbornly refuse to accept the title of champagne sailor though. We are temporarily boatless (which is another story) but once we resume sailing again later this year, we hope to return to the days of self-reliance on the boat and sourcing our meals from the ocean. Maybe not too much deprivation though, because we will continue to uncork a bottle of champagne, as is our tradition, after completing a major ocean passage of several hundred nautical miles.

Sydney to Hobart race

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Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International