Tag: Bangladesh

Categories
Review

The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told 

Book Review by Bhaskar Parichha

Title: The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told: Fifty Masterpieces from the Nineteenth Century to the Present 

Editor: Arunava Sinha

 Publisher: Aleph Book Company

The Indian subcontinent has had a long tradition of storytelling that is referred to as ‘contes’ or tales, by the French. ‘Kathasaritsagar‘ by Somdev in Sanskrit compiled in the 11th century CE is a great example of this. Flavourful folk tales can also be found in renditions after the 11th Century CE — like the ‘Singhasan Battisi’[1].

Various Indian languages soon adopted this genre, gaining popularity throughout the country. Over the past 150 years, hundreds of memorable and popular stories have been written in more than 20 different languages. There are many ways in which they have become cultural cornerstones. Even those who do not read books often quote from a Premchand story or refer to a Tagore character in conversation. There are more people who know about our recent history as a result of Manto’s stories than any other history book published.

The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told: Fifty Masterpieces from the Nineteenth Century to the Present  edited by Arunava Sinha, is a welcome addition to the genre. As an English translator, Sinha specialises in translating Bengali fiction and non-fiction from Bangladesh and India into English, including classic, contemporary, and modern works. More than seventy of his translations have been published so far in India, UK, and USA. He has twice won India’s top translation prize, the Crossword Award for translated books. He teaches at Ashoka University, where he is also the co-director of the Ashoka Centre for Translation.

This anthology contains stories that draw inspiration from a wide range of Indian regional dialects, languages, literature, and cultures, and includes early masters of the form, contemporary stars, and brilliant writers who came of age during the twenty-first century.

Among these authors are some of the most revered in Indian literature and have, between them, won almost every major literary award, including the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Jnanpith Award, the Sahitya Akademi Award as well as numerous other honours at the state, national, and international level. 

There is a plethora of literary delights in this collection, from Tagore’s evocative prose to Amrita Pritam’s emotional depth, from Ruskin Bond’s enchanting stories to Mahasweta Devi’s thought-provoking stories. It is a treasure trove of narratives translated to or written in English. If all these weaving the colours of the diversities in India are to be savoured across all the Indian states with diverse languages, they need to be in English. Collections of some of the best literary short fiction written by Indian writers began to emerge in the country at the end of the nineteenth century. And now in the twenty first century, the trend has been retained by this collection.

A must-have for any Indian literature enthusiast, The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told provides a literary journey that explores space and time, which makes it a precious collector’s item that will become a valuable over time. Anyone who is interested in India’s rich cultural heritage as well as the rich tapestry of Indian storytelling should definitely read this anthology in order to gain some insight into the country’s rich cultural heritage. It promises to be an exciting and enticing literary feast, leaving readers awe-struck and enriched by the depth and beauty of Indian storytelling whether you are familiar with these eminent authors or are new to them, regardless of whether you know their work or not.

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[1] Collection of ancient Indian folk tales; Literally, 32 tales of the throne, compiled after the 11th century CE

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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
Interview

Translation as an Act of Possession: Fakrul Alam

Professor Fakrul Alam discusses his new book of Tagore translations, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore, published by Journeyman Books, Dhaka

Professor Fakrul Alam

Professor Fakrul Alam translates Tagore songs with a passion, refers to them as ‘song-lyrics’. In a recent essay, he claimed his favourite book is the Gitabitan, which houses 2232 songs by Tagore. The first edition of the book was published in 1931 and 1932 in three volumes. Over a period of time, Vishwa Bharati combined the three into one single volume.

During the pandemic, Professor Alam — a translator who has been lauded for his translation of Jibananda Das and also something as diverse from poetry as the autobiography of the founding father of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — took to translating Tagore songs to make a 300 strong collection, which has been published recently. When asked what was the basis for his selection of the songs, he responded: “What was the basis of my selections? Most important was my love for them. I listen to Rabindra Sangeet, that is to say, the songs of Rabindranath Tagore, every day without fail, unless I am travelling outside Bangladesh. Over the years, some songs by a few singers became so much a part of me that I began translating them. As was the case with my Jibanananda Das translations, you could say that translation was an act of homage as well as a way of coming really close to what you love. It strikes me also that many of the songs I ended up translating are by my favourite Tagore song singers — artistes like Debabrata Biswas and Kanika Bandhopadhyay for instance.  Once again, translation as an act of possession!”

Professor Alam has been the recipient of  both the Bangla Academy Literary Award for translation and the SAARC Literary Award. He has published around a hundred translations of Tagore songs and poems, edited and translated The Essential Tagore with Radha Chakravarty and lectured in a number of countries about Tagore. In his recently published translation, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore, he brings to us a wide variety of songs which he has grouped into different sections. In this interview, he discusses his translated works, especially his new book.

You have translated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Jibanananda Das, Nazrul and Tagore. What turned you towards translating poetry from prose?

Actually, I translated poetry first and then switched to translating prose. The first literary pieces I translated were poems by Jibanananda Das—surely the greatest Bengali poet of the twentieth century, if we leave aside Rabindranath Tagore who, of course, began writing poems towards the end of the nineteenth century and stood out among Bengali poets till his death in 1941. I then turned to translating some Tagore poems and songs for The Essential Tagore (2011) that I co-edited with Radha Chakravarty.

Also, from the time my book of translations of Das’s poems came out I either ventured into translating some poems by contemporary Bangladeshi poets from time to time either because I felt like doing so, or as responses to requests of a few poets to translate their verse. An example is Masud Khan, some of whose poems you have published in my translations in Borderless.    

What moved you into translating?

I have to begin answering this question by once again naming the person I mentioned at the beginning of my answer to your previous question—Jibanananda Das. It was when I came across his works in Abdul Mannan Syed’s selection of his poems in the mid-1990s, and was so swept away by them, that I felt like translating Das’s verse. This was translation as an act consequent to being possessed—or if you like—gripped. Poems like “Banalata Sen” or “Abar Ashibo Pheere[1]” or “Bodh[2]” or “Aat Bachor Age Ek Deen[3]” seemed to want me to translate them. In fact, my translation of the word “Bodh” for the English poem is “Overwhelming Sensation” and that is how I would say I was taken by these works. And once I started with these poems I felt like translating a whole lot more.   

You have a book of Das’s poetry and many poems of Tagore in various anthologies and sites. What made you decide to do a book of Tagore translations?

Rabindranath, of course, is the summit as far as Bengali poetry and song-lyrics are concerned. Because I grew up in a house where his songs were either being performed on the radio or on television, or sung by one of my sisters, in retrospect it appears to me that I was destined to translate them sooner or later. Once I had published Jibanananda Das: Selected Poems in 1999, I began to translate a poem or song by Rabindranath every once in a while. When I heard some of Rabindranath’s songs being sung by a singer like Debabrata Biswas or Kanika Badopadhyay, I felt I had to translate them. And that is how I ended up with the nearly 300 songs that constitute Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics.  

Is translating Tagore different from translating other poets?

Of course, and inevitably! Almost every great poet writes differently from his predecessor or contemporary poets and composes uniquely. As the great American critic, Harold Bloom, has put it in talking about Western canonical poets, they suffer from “the anxiety of influence” and must destroy all vestiges of their predecessor poets in them. They may begin conventionally but will soon find their distinctive voice or voices. They will as well move away from their earlier works all the time and not get stuck with one style. Thus, Tagore kept experimenting and, so to speak, shifting gears and taking new routes in versifying all the time. This is also true of Jibanananda. That makes the early Tagore or Das different from the later versions of these poets. In Tagore’s case, let me stress that he was particularly polymathic and kept opting for distinct poetic directions all the time. But as far as I can tell what makes him truly different is the musician in him. In particular, the songs have melodic components that take them away from established poetic forms. In fact, I would be happier with the term “song-lyrics” for his songs. Only in his later verses, did he move away from a melodic base towards relatively free verse or prose-poems. And so a translator of Tagore must strive to capture the music in his poetry, especially the songs, which makes the task of translating him quite a distinct as well as challenging task.         

Tell us about this new book of Tagore translations. Are the translations a collection of your earlier publications or do you have new songs?

My new book is the result of years and years of translating the song-lyrics, something I do mostly during weekends. A few of them I published in Bangladeshi English language newspapers and a few came out in periodicals like Six Season Review, which I co-edited.

A few in have come out in Borderless. But all these years, I translated not with a definite plan but unsystematically. It was during the enforced period of home confinement during the pandemic years, however, that my translations of the songs gained momentum. I began at around this time to post my translations on FB regularly, hoping that the comments I receive would include constructive ones that would enable me to revise my work, if and when necessary. Nabila Murshed, an ex-student now living in the United States, then came up with the idea of forming a FB group called “Gitabitan in Translation” for not only my translations of the songs but also those of others who might be interested in contributing their own translations, or sharing their responses to the translated songs posted. She also decided to complement the translations with recorded versions of the songs that she collected from YouTube. All these things eventually led me to the idea of publishing a full book of translations.

I then hired an ex-student as a kind of assistant to sort out the songs I had been translating, according to the divisions and sequencing Tagore imposed on them in his collection. There are thus 13 divisions in my book, one of which, “Prokriti” or “Nature”, is itself divided into six sections following the six seasons of the Bengali calendar. But to sum up my answer to your question, the majority of the song-lyrics are going to see in print for the first time. I would say no more than 100 of them have been printed before.

Sometimes, your republications change from the earlier publications. The words change. Have you done that in this anthology too?

Occasionally. As I said previously, I translate a song when I hear it on YouTube. I might listen to the same song a couple of years later and feel like translating it again, forgetting at times that I had translated it before. This led occasionally to 2 or 3 versions of the same songs. Inevitably, while these versions would be close to each other, they would never end up being exactly similar. For the final round of selections for my book, however, I have chosen only one version of what I did, that is to say, the one I think was definitive. And, of course, I revised what I had done for the final print version.

Would you consider translating Tagore’ prose?

Of course. And I have translated a few already. For The Essential Tagore I translated “Hindus and Muslims” and “The Tenant Farmer”. And for Shades of Difference: Selected Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, I translated “The Co-operative Principle” and “The Divinity of the Forest.” As these titles indicate, Rabindranath is a writer whose works you can mine for topics that have continuing thematic relevance. That is why all translators will go back to him every now and then for essays and prose extracts relevant for our time.

Would you like to bring out a book of Nazrul translations too?

Who knows? I have translated about 12 of his poems and a short story by this great Bengali writer, who is also Bangladesh’s national poet. But at present I feel more inclined towards going back to Jibanananda Das and will continue to translate more of Rabindranath’s song-lyrics. This is because around the time I published my translations of his poems at the turn of the century, a trunk full of new poems by Das were discovered. Most of them have been published by now. If and when I can, I would like to bring out a new edition of my Das poems, incorporating some of these newly discovered ones. This is because I have already come across some that are truly memorable and deserve to be translated. Certainly, he is a poet the best of whose unpublished as well as published works need to be introduced everywhere.    

Tagore is unique in as much he was socially committed to improving the lot of the villagers in Bengal. He practically created Santiniketan and Sriniketan. At a point, he wrote: “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 neighbors 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.” This was in a letter in 1939 to Leonard Elmhirst, an agricultural scientist who helped him set up Sriniketan. Has any other poet done work of this kind in Bengal? What do you see as his greatest contribution —poetry or his ideals of human excellence and the work he did to realise his ideals?

Very few writers can come close to Tagore as far as the variety of his works are concerned. Such a polymath dedicated to the world of the spirit and the mind as well as human welfare is surely rarely to be found anywhere in any period of world history. Once he took charge of his father’s estates in what was then East Bengal and is now Bangladesh, Tagore plunged into work for the betterment of the people there and the surrounding areas. But he kept writing poems, fictional and nonfictional prose, plays and wrote all sorts of things for the amelioration of his people as well as his own need to articulate beauty and depict the Sublime in all its manifestations. And he would combine theory with practice, carrying out experiments and introducing new ideas for his tenants and others to implement in their farms and lives. His greatest contribution, however, was not only his poetry and prose but also his contribution to Bengali language and literature. I remember Dryden on Chaucer at this point: “He [Chaucer] found it [English writing] brick and left it marble.”

Thank you for giving us your time.

(The online interview has been conducted by emails by Mitali Chakravarty)

Tagore articles & Translations by Professor Fakrul Alam

My Favourite Book by Fakrul Alam

The essay is a journey into Fakrul Alam’s fascination with Tagore’s Gitabitan. Click here to read.

Rabindranath’s Monsoonal Music 

Fakrul Alam brings to us Tagore songs in translation and in discussion on the season that follows the scorching heat of summer months. Click here to read.  

Songs of Seasons: Translated by Fakrul Alam: Fakrul Alam, translates seven seasonal songs of Tagore. Click here to read.

Endless Love: Tagore Translated by Fakrul Alam: Ananto Prem (Endless Love) by Tagore, translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Monomor Megher Songi (or The Cloud, My friend) has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Giraffe’s Dad by Tagore: Giraffer Baba (Giraffe’s Dad), a short humorous poem by Tagore, has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read. 

Oikotan (Harmonising) has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam and published specially to commemorate Tagore’s Birth Anniversary. Click here to read.

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[1] Fakrul Alam translates this as ‘Beautiful Bengal’, but lietrally, it means I will return again

[2]  Fakrul Alam translates this as ‘An Overwhelming Sensation’, but literally, it means sensation.

[3] Translates to — eight years ago, this day

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
Editorial

As Imagination Bodies Forth…

Painting by Sybil Pretious
And 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

 A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595) by William Shakespeare

Famous lines by Shakespeare that reflect on one of the most unique qualities in not only poets — as he states — but also in all humans, imagination, which helps us create our own constructs, build walls, draw boundaries as well as create wonderful paintings, invent planes, fly to the moon and write beautiful poetry. I wonder if animals or plants have the same ability? Then, there are some who, react to the impact of imagined constructs that hurt humanity. They write fabulous poetry or lyrics protesting war as well as dream of a world without war. Could we in times such as these imagine a world at peace, and — even more unusually — filled with consideration, kindness, love and brotherhood as suggested by Lennon’s lyrics in ‘Imagine’ – “Imagine all the people/ Livin’ life in peace…”. These are ideas that have been wafting in the world since times immemorial. And yet, they seem to be drifting in a breeze that caresses but continues to elude our grasp.

Under such circumstances, what can be more alluring than reflective Sufi poetry by an empathetic soul. Featuring an interview and poetry by such a poet, Afsar Mohammad, we bring to you his journey from a “small rural setting” in Telangana to University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches South Asian Studies. He is bilingual and has brought out many books, including one with his translated poetry. Translations this time start with Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s advice to new writers in Bengali, introduced and brought to us by Abdullah-Al-Musayeb. Tagore’s seasonal poem, ‘Megh or Cloud’, has been transcreated to harmonise with the onset of monsoons. However, this year with the El Nino and as the impact of climate change sets in, the monsoons have turned awry and are flooding the world. At a spiritual plane, the maestro’s lines in this poem do reflect on the transience of nature (and life). Professor Fakrul Alam’s translation of Masud Khan’s heartfelt poetry on rain brings to the fore the discontent of the age while conveying the migrant’s dilemma of being divided between two lands. Fazal Baloch has brought us a powerful Balochi poet from the 1960s in translation, Bashir Baidar. His poetry cries out with compassion yet overpowers with its brutality. Sangita Swechcha’s Nepali poem celebrating a girl child has been translated by Hem Bishwakarma while Ihlwha Choi has brought his own Korean poem to readers in English.

An imagined but divided world has been explored by Michael Burch with his powerful poetry. Heath Brougher has shared with us lines that discomfit, convey with vehemence and is deeply reflective of the world we live in. Masha Hassan is a voice that dwells on such an imagined divide that ripped many parts of the world — division that history dubs as the Partition. Don Webb upends Heraclitus’s wisdom: “War is the Father of All, / War is the King of All.” War, as we all know, is entirely a human-made construct and destroys humanity and one cannot but agree with Webb’s conclusion.  We have more from Kirpal Singh, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Nivedita N, John Grey, Carol D’Souza, Vernon Daim, George Freek, Saranyan BV, Samantha Underhill and among the many others, of course Rhys Hughes, who has given us poetry with a unique alphabetical rhyme scheme invented by him and it’s funny too… much like his perceptions on ‘Productivity’, where laziness accounts for an increase in output!

Keith Lyons has mused on attitudes too, though with a more candid outlook as has Devraj Singh Kalsi with a touch of nostalgia. Ramona Sen has brought in humour to the non-fiction section with her tasteful palate. Meredith Stephens takes us on a picturesque adventure to Sierra Nevada Mountains with her camera and narrative while Ravi Shankar journeys through museums in Kuala Lumpur. We travel to Japan with Suzanne Kamata and, through fiction, to different parts of the Earth as the narratives hail from Bangladesh, France and Singapore.

Ratnottama Sengupta takes us back to how imagined differences can rip humanity by sharing a letter from her brother stationed in Bosnia during the war that broke Yugoslavia (1992-1995). He writes: “It is hard to be surrounded by so much tragedy and not be repulsed by war and the people who lead nations into them.” This tone flows into our book excerpts section with Red Sky Over Kabul: A Memoir of a Father and Son in Afghanistan by Baryalai Popalzai and Kevin McLean. Popalzai was affected by the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1980 and had to flee. A different kind of battle can be found in the other excerpt from The Blue Dragonfly – healing through poetry by Veronica Eley – a spiritual battle to heal from experiences that break.

In our reviews section, KPP Nambiar reviews The Stolen Necklace: A Small Crime in a Small Town by Shevlin Sebastian and VK Thajudheen, a book that retells a true story. Sangeetha G’s novel, Drop of the Last Cloud, we are told by Rakhi Dalal, explores the matrilineal heritage of Kerala, that changed to patriarchal over time. Bhaskar Parichha reviews Burning Pyres, Mass Graves and A State That Failed Its People: India’s Covid Tragedy by Harsh Mander. Parichha emphasises the need never to forget the past: “It is a powerful book and sometimes it is even shattering. The narrative is a live remembrance of a national tragedy that too many of us wish to forget when we should, instead, etch it in our minds so that we can prevent another national tragedy like this one from recurring in the future.”  While we need to learn from the past as Parichha suggests, Somdatta Mandal has given a review that makes us want to read Ujjal Dosanjh’s book, The Past is Never Dead: A Novel. She concludes that it “pays tribute to the courage and tenacity of the human spirit and its capacity for hope despite all odds.”

We have more content than mentioned here… all of it enhances the texture of our journal. Do pause by our July issue to savour all the writings. Huge thanks to all our contributors, artists, all our readers and our wonderful team. Without each one of you, this edition would not have been what it is.

Thank you all.

Have a wonderful month!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

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Visit the July edition’s content page by clicking here

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

Categories
Stories

A Troubled Soul

By Mahim Hussain

“Amma[1], it . . . it feels like fire is running through my veins!”

These were the words Abir uttered sitting on the rear seat of their car. His mother, a fifty-five-year-old woman, was sitting right beside him. She was trying to help her son any way she could to relieve him of his suffering. With moist eyes, she kept massaging Abir’s hands and neck constantly.

“Everything is going to be all right, abba[2]. Try to relax,” she said to her son.

Leaving other cars behind, the white Toyota sped through the street – piercing the thickness of the night. Their deft driver devoted all his attention to dodging and overtaking other cars on the road. The car had headed to the Labaid Hospital, situated in the Dhanmondi area of the bustling city of Dhaka.

Abir’s older brother, Rafique, was sitting in the front seat next to the driver. He kept turning back frequently to see how his younger brother was doing.

“Amma . . . I can’t breathe . . . I can’t breathe amma!” Abir cried out to his mother.

Abir’s mother pleaded with Rafique to lower the wind shield on his side. Without being asked, the driver flicked a switch swiftly, and the windshield came down with a whirring sound. Abir, with the help of his mother, managed to get his head out of the window to breathe fresh air. With his head sticking outside the car, he could see the taillights of the passing cars growing faint in the distance. To the boy, it seemed like red and yellow fairies were flying in the darkness. Soon, Abir slid back on his mom’s lap, as he could no longer bear the weight of his head.

“Don’t worry, amma. We will get their soon,” Rafique tried to console his anxious mother.   

About forty minutes later, the car entered through the lofty gate of the hospital – battling an abysmal traffic jam. They were lucky it was a weekend. On any other night of the week, it would have taken them at least an hour and a half to get there from the Mirpur area. By the time they arrived at the emergency entrance, Abir had already lost his consciousness. He could not move any of his limbs or open his eyes.

A door man and two female nurses came out of the emergency department running. They carefully hauled Abir out of the car. Then, putting him on a stretcher, they hastily took the boy inside the emergency department. Rafique and his mother ran after them, frantically.

Passing a long corridor, they entered a ward. The nurses again lifted Abir gently off the stretcher and laid him on one of the empty beds. At ten-thirty of the night, the whole ward was empty and quiet. The nurses started to commence their usual protocol. One nurse put a clip of a pulse meter on the boy’s index finger of his right hand. It was attached to a screen above the bed with a cord. Another nurse tied the strap of a blood pressure machine, connected to the same screen. While Abir’s family was worried to see him unconscious, one of the nurses tried to calm them down. She told Rafique to accompany her to the information desk and fill out some forms. The other nurse kept her eyes on the screen, monitoring the patient’s vitals.

After observing the patient for about ten minutes, the nurse blurted out: “His pulse is too weak. I am calling the duty doctor.”

“Ha! What happened nurse? What’s wrong with my son?” cried out the mother.

Without responding to her, the nurse ran out of the ward in a hurry. Abir’s mother was in tears. She started rubbing Abir’s chest incessantly, overwhelmed by apprehension.

Before long, the nurse came running with the duty doctor. After glancing at the monitor for a moment, the doctor turned around and said to the nurse: “The pulse and pressure rates are too low. We can’t treat him here.”

By this time, Rafique was back. The female doctor told him that they didn’t have all the equipments in the emergency ward to treat a critical patient like his brother.

While the doctor and Rafique were engaged in a discussion, suddenly, Abir started having convulsion.

“Nurse, call the ICU upstairs. Tell them that we are bringing a patient, quickly!” the doctor passed the order.

As the hospital staff pushed the movable bed and took the boy inside an elevator, Abir’s mother started to lament.

“What’s happened to my little boy, Rafique? Bring my Abir back to me . . .  bring him back!”                     

Rafique took his mother in his arms and held her tightly. He too was on the verge of falling apart. But he bit his lips and managed to keep his poise. Rafique was the eldest son. If he had broken down, who was going to take care of his family? With glistening eyes, Rafique recalled the fateful day when it all started.

Rafique entered their apartment of a three-storied building with a heavy, black briefcase in his hand. Their family doctor walked behind him with brisk steps. Going past the dining room, they walked straight inside Abir’s bedroom.

As soon as they entered, Rafique felt a piece of glass getting crushed under his left shoe. Raising his head, he saw broken pieces of a plate and some food were strewn all over the floor. His mother was cleaning up the mess with a sweep and a scraper. His father, seated on Abir’s bed, stood up seeing the doctor.

“Look, doctor, what he has done to himself this time,” said Abir’s father, pointing at his son in the bed.

The doctor looked at the boy over his reading glasses.

Sixteen-year-old Abir was lying in the bed quietly. But his chest was rising and falling in quick succession. He had his face covered with his forearms. A white bandage was wrapped around his left wrist. On one side of the bandage, blood had seeped through and had left a big stain.

“Some time last night, he tried to cut the veins of his wrist with a blade,” Abir’s father related with a distressed tone. “This morning we found him in the bed with blood all over the bed sheet.”

The doctor kept his gaze fixed on the boy and listened to Abir’s father intently.

 “Moreover, he has not eaten anything in two days. A few minutes ago, his mother brought some food for him. But as soon as she got close to him, he took the plate off her hand and smashed it on the floor. He has been having angry outbursts quite frequently these last few days,” added the father.

The doctor slowly walked to the bed and sat beside the boy warily.

“Well, dear boy. Let uncle see your hand,” saying this, he gently picked up Abir’s wounded hand. The doctor examined his wrist from different angles and tried checking his pulse.

Only a few moments had passed, when suddenly, Abir sat up and pulled his arm out of the doctor’s hand with a savage jerk.

“Let go of my hand, you devil!” screamed the boy.

The doctor jumped off the bed, and Abir’s parents lunged to restrain the boy. Rafique kept the doctor from losing balance, and quickly took him in the dining room.

He sat the doctor at the table and poured him a glass of water.

Glug, glug, glug, ahh . . .

“Rafique, I don’t think Abir was able to cut any of his major veins. If he did, he would have bled out over the night and have been unconscious by now. The bandage on his wrist was done nicely and the bleeding has stopped.” confirmed the doctor. “However, as you have shared with me earlier, Abir has been showing such erratic behavior for several months now. So, his problem is actually psychiatric rather than physical.”

“Yes, doctor. We have taken him to a psychiatrist named Samsul Huq, twice. But during the last session, he suddenly got violent and hurled a glass of water at the doctor. Thankfully no one got hurt. But after that, we could not take him to the doctor again,” shared Rafique.  

“Humn . . . At this moment, he is not in the condition to be taken anywhere. So, I suggest you go back to the psychiatrist and tell him about Abir’s present condition,” concluded the doctor.                                                                     

*

Doctor Huq’s chamber was in a mental health rehabilitation center in the affluent neighbourhood of Gulshan. Rafique had been sitting outside his chamber with other visitors. It was a big lobby under a wooden shed. There were about thirty people outside the chamber, waiting for their turn. A middle-aged man was sitting behind a small table facing the visitors. As patients were coming out of the room, the assistant was calling the next person in serial. Rafique had been waiting there for about two hours now. Feeling bored and exhausted, he was snoozing sitting on his cozy little chair.

“Mr. Rafique Ahmed . . . who is Rafique Ahmed?” inquired the assistant sternly.

When his name was called loudly a second time, Rafique woke with a shudder. In frenetic motion, he got off the chair and almost dashed inside the chamber.

It was a spacious, soundproof room with a gigantic air-cooler hanging above the door. On the far end of the room, there was a big mahogany desk. In the middle of the desk, there was a plastic dummy head with an open brain coming out of it. Beside it, there was a pile of big, thick medical books and journals on one side of the desk. On the other side were two pen holders containing pens of different colors and design. In the front of the desk, there were two cane-made chairs for the visitors to sit on. A few feet from them lay a big, comfortable couch on which a patient could easily lie down. The doctor was sitting on the other side of the desk on a reclining chair the size of a throne.

Professor Huq was an elderly man with long, cotton-like beard and hair. He always wore a fatua[3] and loose pajamas and a big smile on his face. As soon as Rafique entered, the doctor recognised him. It was Rafique who had accompanied Abir to his clinic a week ago. The doctor nodded and made a gestured with his hand, telling him to take a sit.

“How are you doing? Didn’t you bring your brother today?” asked the doctor.

“No, doctor, Abir is not doing too well. He is having mood swings again. Two days ago, he tried to kill himself by slashing his wrist. We don’t understand what is going on with him. Why is he acting like this, doctor?” exclaimed Rafique in a tensed voice.

“Well, Mr. Rafique, I’ve told you on the first day that Abir is showing symptoms of bi-polar disorder. A typical bi-polar person has periods of energetic activities followed by bouts of severe depression. But some of these symptoms may vary from person to person. In your brother’s case, he has moments of angry outbursts followed by long periods of depression. And it’s not uncommon for bi-polars to have suicidal thoughts,” informed the doctor.

“But, doctor, how are we supposed to thwart him from harming himself?” inquired Rafique.

“The condition he is in right now, he needs to take some medications. Here, I am writing down the name of a medicine called Lithosun SR, which contains the chemical lithium. Across the world, lithium has been proven to prevent suicidal thoughts. But there is a catch. Too much of lithium can cause toxicity in the blood, which could be fatal. Therefore, he should take exactly 400 mg per day, and not more than that. In addition, Abir needs to have his blood tested every fortnight to check the level of lithium in his body,” enlightened the doctor.

After that, he tore a page from his pad and handed it to Rafique.

*

                                                         

At six in the evening on the Friday night, Abir was sitting on his study table. It was a medium sized table with a bookshelf attached on one side. The shelf was laden with books, copies and note papers. A history book was open in front of him. Because of his illness, the boy had not been able to attend his school for two months. His final term exam was in two weeks. After taking the prescribed medication for a month, his thoughts of self-harm started to subside.

It had been an hour. The boy was struggling to focus on the book. But so far, he had not been able to read a single line. He was having difficulty concentrating. All kinds of negative thoughts were churning inside his fragile mind. Soon, fat tears started trickling down his cheeks. Abir could not fathom, why was he unable to control his emotions? Why did he feel so gloomy and miserable all the time?

Unable to bear the frustration anymore, suddenly he stood up with a grunt and tore the book into small pieces. Then, he picked up other books from the bookshelf and started throwing them in the air. This rampage lasted a few minutes. Then, he dashed away from the table, crashed on his bed and started to sob burying his face in the pillow.

After lying there motionless for a while, the boy raised his head for a moment. Incidentally, his eyes fell on the side table attached to his bed. He saw the container of his medication lying on the table, beside his bottle of water.

If I took some extra pills, it should help me get rid of the melancholic thoughts.

Slowly, he clambered on the side of the bed and picked up the container. Popping it open in a fit of impulse, her started pushing several pills down his throat at once and drank a lot of water. Afterward, he lay in the bed, still struggling to harness his emotions.

Around 08:00 p.m., Abir’s mother knocked on his door.

“Baba[4] Abir? Come out, son. Dinner has been served.”

Not getting any response for a while, she opened the door which was unlocked from inside. Walking in, she was flabbergasted to find torn books and papers scattered on the floor. Facing the other way, her son was lying in the bed and seemed to be asleep.

The mother walked to the bed and sat next to him.

“Abir? What’s wrong, abba?”                        

There was no response. His mother got little concerned. She held his shoulder and turned his torso toward her.

“Wake up, sweetheart. The dinner is getting cold.”

After calling him several times, the boy lifted his heavy eyelids gradually.

“Amma . . . I am not feeling so well. My . . . my head is throbbing in pain.”

Saying these words, the boy closed his eyes again. His mother nudged his shoulder several times, trying to keep him awake. But the boy slowly succumbed deeper and deeper to the side effect of the medicine.

“Mr. Rafque . . . Mr. Rafique!”

The voice of the duty doctor brought the man back to present time.

“What’s going on, doctor? How is my little brother doing,” asked Rafique agitatedly.

“Your brother has been shifted to the ICU. The overdose of the medicine has rendered him unconscious. We are trying to separate the toxic substance in his blood with some medicines and saline. But his pulse rate is still low. Nothing can be said until few hours pass,” reported the doctor and walked away.

Hearing this news, Abir’s mother started wailing and was at the brink of losing her senses. Rafique laid his mother on a bed and tried to pacify her.

Meanwhile, Abir lay in one corner of the ICU with all kinds of tubes and electric wires attached to his body – battling with death.

.

[1] Mother

[2] Father

[3] A short, kameez-like collarless shirt worn by people of South Asia

[4] Father

Mahim Hussain is a 38-year-old man and lives in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He couldn’t finish high school diploma. However, that did not deter him from reading and learning on his own.

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Categories
Poetry

Masud Khan in Translation by Fakrul Alam

Homa-birds are mythical birds of Iranian origin 
HOMA-BIRD 
 
Once I fall, how much must I drop down before I can rise up again? 
 
As this thought crosses my mind, I am reminded of the Homa-bird found high in the sky. It even lays its eggs there. The eggs then fall down. But because the bird lives so high in the sky its eggs take ages to fall. Its chicks hatch even as the eggs descend. And then it’s time for the chicks to fall. As they begin to fall the chicks sprout eyes and feathers and wings. And one day they discover that they are falling down and down. It is then that they begin to fly to their mothers high up in the sky. They fly so high now that they emerge as specks scattered all along the spread-out body of the sky
 
We are of the breed of these birds. We procreate, raise children; we drop down and rise up again!
 
[Homapakhi; Translated by Fakrul Alam]          

GONE WHO KNOWS WHERE 

An unending queue of children flowed forward
Going who knows where?
 
With great difficulty, I spotted my own child there.
But when I tried kissing him 
I ended up kissing someone else’s child!
 
And then I lost him— lost him forever! 
Dazed, distressed— I seem doomed to a lifetime of waiting.
 
[Aggato Uddesh; Translated by Fakrul Alam]


REJECTION
 
Abruptly today a baby is expelled from its mother’s breasts.
Though it keeps gravitating towards her— hopefully— 
It continues to be rejected. Startled, it still keeps trying.... 
   
How can the innocent baby make sense of such evictions? 
It can comprehend nothing— neither the implications 
Nor the reasons behind its mother’s bizarre actions. 
All it can do is wonder— is mother playing with it? 
Or is she just being cruel, suddenly unmotherly, 
Distracted by the sudden heat wave of the season? 
  
The baby broods, all alone, helpless. And then once again 
It turns towards its mother, only for another round of rejection... 
  
Now inconsolable, it breaks out into tears, feeling hurt     
And rejected, sobbing endlessly till sleep silences it... 
  
Only its craving for love keeps striking one’s ears 
Its magnitude scattering here, there, everywhere! 
      
[Protyakhyan; Translated by Fakrul Alam]

Masud Khan (b. 1959) is a Bengali poet and writer. He has, authored nine volumes of poetry and three volumes of prose and fiction. His poems and fictions (in translation) have appeared in journals including Asiatic, Contemporary Literary Horizon, Six Seasons Review, Kaurab, 3c World Fiction, Ragazine.cc, Nebo: A literary Journal, Last Bench, Urhalpul, Tower Journal, Muse Poetry, Word Machine, and anthologies including Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co., NY/London); Contemporary Literary Horizon Anthology,Bucharest; Intercontinental Anthology of Poetry on Universal Peace (Global Fraternity of Poets); and Padma Meghna Jamuna: Modern Poetry from Bangladesh(Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature, New Delhi). Two volumes of his poems have been published as translations, Poems of Masud Khan(English), Antivirus Publications, UK, and Carnival Time and Other Poems (English and Spanish), Bibliotheca Universalis, Romania.  Born and brought up in Bangladesh, Masud Khan lives in Canada and teaches at a college in Toronto.

Fakrul Alam is an academic, translator and writer from Bangladesh. He has translated works of Jibonananda Das and Rabindranath Tagore into English and is the recipient of Bangla Academy Literary Award (2012) for translation and SAARC Literary Award (2012).

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Categories
Poetry

Carnival Time

Poetry by Masud Khan, translated from the Bengali poem, ‘Aj Ullash Diba’ by Fakrul Alam

Courtesy: Creative Commons
It’s carnival time today.
Serfs and plebeians pour into streets.
Behold the giggling, decked up undertaker’s wife, 
That man over there, completely soused, is her spouse! 
He holds his pay tight in his fists and grins grotesquely, 
See the sweeper there, lips reddened by betel leaf!

There he is— the constable— sporting a shiny wristband. 
And look at that rotund young eunuch—
All merry, like dusky Abyssinians or Afghan revellers in the rain. 

Today it’s time to collect wages and bonuses and forget files. 
Today superiors have trade place with subordinates

And mandarins have transformed themselves into mere clerks.

The roly-poly slave and Kishorimohon Das
Sleep fitfully next to each other near the town reservoir, 
Stirred again and again by the mayor’s snores,

The hapless water bearer gets completely wet. 
The woman over there is a streetwalker,
Visiting town for the first time with her snotty-nosed brother. 
That man there trades in lead, and there is the perfume seller, 
He is the accountant, and he, the treasurer,
And next to him on this day of intermittent rain 
Is the petty thief’s no-good brother.
And there— leaning, bent by the weight of his imagination, 
As if in a trance, is the poet, the king of poets!

This day all have spilled out into the streets and stroll there 
Endlessly — intransitive
Wrapped in newly spun silk.

Masud Khan (b. 1959) is a Bengali poet and writer. He has, authored nine volumes of poetry and three volumes of prose and fiction. His poems and fictions (in translation) have appeared in journals including Asiatic, Contemporary Literary Horizon, Six Seasons Review, Kaurab, 3c World Fiction, Ragazine.cc, Nebo: A literary Journal, Last Bench, Urhalpul, Tower Journal, Muse Poetry, Word Machine, and anthologies including Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co., NY/London); Contemporary Literary Horizon Anthology,Bucharest; Intercontinental Anthology of Poetry on Universal Peace (Global Fraternity of Poets); and Padma Meghna Jamuna: Modern Poetry from Bangladesh(Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature, New Delhi). Two volumes of his poems have been published as translations, Poems of Masud Khan(English), Antivirus Publications, UK, and Carnival Time and Other Poems (English and Spanish), Bibliotheca Universalis, Romania.  Born and brought up in Bangladesh, Masud Khan lives in Canada and teaches at a college in Toronto.

Fakrul Alam is an academic, translator and writer from Bangladesh. He has translated works of Jibonananda Das and Rabindranath Tagore into English and is the recipient of Bangla Academy Literary Award (2012) for translation and SAARC Literary Award (2012).

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

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Categories
Poetry

Addendum

By Md Mujib Ullah

addendum

if you look at my journey, from your point of view,
you will find, i have been grateful to people
who nurture me, encourage me, and criticise me to be better,
to make me a thoughtful and considerate human 
in times of crises, in the era of finance.
how can i forget those moments? 
i don’t ask you to be on my side
rather i want my own space, my territory.    
if you don’t know what’s happening inside and around the world,
how can you be updated? how can you be on par? 
you may not know what a bird thinks, and how a fish smiles in our region.
checking me is a violation, i am not a weapon of chess. 
and it matters when you don’t make any assumptions
about the issues. you are not heard of. do you know
what i am doing now apart from typing verses 
with my hands and looking at the device’s screen?
while you care about these, i am on top of the hour of hope.
i look outside my windows on a spring afternoon, 
to see how leaves fall from the trees, and to enjoy the breeze. 
pause. no endnote. no final full-stop. a continual task…

Md Mujib Ullah from Sandwip, Chittagong, Bangladesh, is a researcher, writer, and translator. His poems have appeared in Journal of Poetry Therapy, Text, Asiatic, Capitalism Nature Socialism, and Postcolonial Text.  

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Categories
Poetry

Kurigram

By Masud Khan: Translated from Bangla by Professor Fakrul Alam

Courtesy: Creative Commons
I’ve never been to Kurigram.

In the dead of night, sleeping Kurigram steadily detaches itself 
From the world that we know.
Ignores gravity completely 
Taking off with its tiny kingdom 
To some far-off galaxy.

We keep looking then at the deep blue of the sky 
While the tiny village becomes a speck up high.

For a long while Kurigram floats from one dome of heaven to another.
Till that star in the southern sky that pursued it so single-mindedly 
Settles by its side and claims it as its own.
Then from this new luminary
A mild red vaporous smell wafts across the sky.

In that realm, in Kurigram,
The Kingfisher and the Pankouri bird are stepbrothers. 
When all the rivers of Kurigram become calm
The two brothers make the river their home 
Squabbling with each other like families bickering!

When the river calms down again
The womenfolk, once bound by scriptural edicts, 
Throng to the riverbank.
Breaking all barriers,
They sparkle like large resplendent crystals.
 
Suddenly, a lonely babui bird, sans weaving skills, 
Perched on a battered old mast, starts swinging,
Finally settling down on the translucent steel-foiled river water. 
Kurigram, ah Kurigram!

Where Kurigram used to be
Is a dark and solitary space now.

Alas, I’ve never been to Kurigram
And I don’t think I ever will!

Kurigram—An innocuous town located in the northern region of Bangladesh
Paankouri—A species of bird, black in colour, found in marshes and rivers
Babui—A species of weaving bird
Kurigram is marked in red. Courtesy: Creative Commons

Masud Khan (b. 1959) is a Bengali poet and writer. He has, authored nine volumes of poetry and three volumes of prose and fiction. His poems and fictions (in translation) have appeared in journals including Asiatic, Contemporary Literary Horizon, Six Seasons Review, Kaurab, 3c World Fiction, Ragazine.cc, Nebo: A literary Journal, Last Bench, Urhalpul, Tower Journal, Muse Poetry, Word Machine, and anthologies including Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co., NY/London); Contemporary Literary Horizon Anthology,Bucharest; Intercontinental Anthology of Poetry on Universal Peace (Global Fraternity of Poets); and Padma Meghna Jamuna: Modern Poetry from Bangladesh(Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature, New Delhi). Two volumes of his poems have been published as translations, Poems of Masud Khan(English), Antivirus Publications, UK, and Carnival Time and Other Poems (English and Spanish), Bibliotheca Universalis, Romania.  Born and brought up in Bangladesh, Masud Khan lives in Canada and teaches at a college in Toronto.

Fakrul Alam is an academic, translator and writer from Bangladesh. He has translated works of Jibonananda Das and Rabindranath Tagore into English and is the recipient of Bangla Academy Literary Award (2012) for translation and SAARC Literary Award (2012).

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

Categories
Stories

Letting Go

By Tasneem Hossain

Courtesy: Creative Commons

“If only you had some wisdom, then you would not have raised that issue. I am going to block you. I am going to sever all ties with you. Bye!” The harsh words kept echoing in Farzana’s head. Her eyes moistened. She could not control the incessant tears rolling down her cheeks. The man behind the counter looked at her sympathetically. Farzana tried to smile back but her face distorted. She had never ever been able to control her emotions.

She was standing in the immigration line to board the next plane to New York from Dhaka.

The last one year came flashing back.

She had come in contact with Tariq during an official online meeting in Bangladesh.

He was a man of great repute. They had to contact each other often for business purpose. Gradually, their relationship changed from that of an acquaintance to very close friends. They would talk almost every day. He would go on telling her about his life. How he had built a million dollar business. How unfortunate he had been in his personal life. She would listen patiently.

She met him twice during two workshops on financial management. Tariq had invited her many times but somehow they had never been able to meet in the real world.

Tariq was a short squarely built man. But there was an air of personality that was undeniably magnetic. His well-articulated deep voice and the twinkling smile in his eyes were enough to make women swoon over him. He was witty and had a sense of humour that made him very attractive. He had sharp twinkling eyes but something told Farzana that he was a sad man, hiding behind his witty and jovial nature.

Their professional relationship turned into friendship.

Tariq would tell her details of the problems he faced in life and ask her to pray for him. Farzana became emotionally attached to him as a friend and would pray for him religiously every day.

Four months passed. One day they were chatting lightly and having fun in an online conversation on Messenger. Suddenly, Tariq got irritated and muted the Messenger box. She had never faced anything like this before. She felt insulted. She called and urged him to unmute, but he was reluctant.

A week later Farzana sent Tariq birthday wishes on his phone.

He called her and apologised. He told her he was very sick that day and couldn’t control his anger and, hence, had muted her.

Life became normal. Months passed. Farzana would wait for him to call or message her. When he called he would go on talking about his problems, his life and sometimes even flirt with her. Farzana knew he was just having fun. She would ask him to be serious and then again they would have the normal conversations.  

She never called him because he was a busy person and he would remain sick for days too. Sometimes Farzana had doubts that he was lying to her.

“Why? We are not romantically involved. We are just friends so why does he lie to me?” she would ponder.

*

She was getting ready to meet Tariq today. He had invited her for a candle light dinner in one of the fanciest restaurants ‘Rose La France’. This was the first friendly meeting with him. Farzana wore a pink chiffon blouse and saree. The white pearl necklace set with earrings and bangles were a perfect match: simple, yet elegant.  As she looked in the mirror, a smile curled up on her face. The reflection of a tall fair woman with an athletic supple and strong physique with a pair of hazel coloured eyes and thick black eyelashes stared back. She brushed her shoulder length wavy auburn hair. She was an attractive woman in her 30s. She was aware of the fact that her presence, anywhere, made quite a few heads turn.

Tariq picked her from her home and they drove to the restaurant. Somehow Farzana felt very conscious of herself as Tariq smiled at her.

“You look ravishing.”

“Thank you,” she smiled.

“Is it happening? Is he falling in love with me?” Farzana was quiet for a while.

Farzana wanted to change the topic, “You can recite so well. Please recite the poem you were reciting on that day over the phone.”

“First you have to kiss me,” Tariq said mischievously.

Farzana burst into laughter. She couldn’t stop laughing.

Tariq looked intently at her.  

*

“Why do you text? Don’t text me.” suddenly Tariq fumed one day.

Click!No sound on the other end. Farzana called every other day to check but the calls would only show ‘calling’, no ‘ringing’ sign. The messages she sent also didn’t pass through.

After trying a few days she realised he had blocked her everywhere without any reason that she could think of. She would cry long nights. No one knew that she was suffering inwardly as she would act totally normal in front of her family.

Farzana knew that Tariq was the only child and couldn’t control his emotions, but deep down he was a compassionate man. He always made amends so sweetly and genuinely that it was impossible to resist.

*

Tariq loved the way Farzana talked. The smile on her lips and twinkle of her eyes somehow vibrated through the calls. He could visualise the innocent smile on her happy face talking with fervour. She would also listen to him talk patiently for hours.

“Oh Lord I am in love with this angel!” The moment it popped in his head, he felt his nerves playing havoc in his mind. He cut off the line. He blocked every single thing: Telephone, Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber.

“No, I cannot destroy her life. She is such a kind soul. I am not suitable for her. I am a devil, and she is an angel. What if I propose her and get married? What then?” He kept rambling, “I am sick and she will suffer seeing my illness. I cannot let anything sadden her.”

Tariq had a very traumatic childhood. His father was an alcoholic and mother was on drugs. Almost each day they would have fights. The fights did not end just in verbal abuse but would turn into physical scuffles.

He lived in terror of such violence as sometimes he would also become the victim.

His father would point at him and say: “Ah. This bastard! Who is his father? Tell me now or I will kill him.”

His mom would just sit there and keep laughing and say. “Why? aren’t you man enough to have a child of your own?”

His father would then push away Tariq and start kicking his mother.

One day Tariq’s grandparents came and took him away. That was the turning point for him. He had a loving aunt who started looking after him. Slowly his life became more meaningful. He started to have great results at school.Soon he got involved in sports. The confidence in him attracted the attention of his teachers and they started mentoring him for inter school competitions.

Success followed him everywhere. It was as if he was with vengeance erasing his past life and pouring the best that he had into his present. Rather than being defeated by the harsh childhood he had had, he became adamant to succeed. But the trauma remained with him. Often he would have panic attacks and it was difficult to calm him down.

On top of that he was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder on his 39th birthday. Occasionally, he would become violent and would hurl abuses at anyone who came in contact with him. It seemed as if his parents’ demons overpowered him during those times. He seldom remembered what he had done. He was an informed man and knew the consequences and symptoms of this disease.

As he had suffered in his childhood, he didn’t want anyone to be hurt by his behaviour. So he asked his caretaker to tell him everything that happened during those attacks. Later when he regained sanity, he would beg forgiveness in such a gentle way that no one could stay angry with him.

Though he was a famous and moneyed man, his compassionate nature earned him respect from everyone who came in contact with him.

*

For some days she had been having stomach aches. She saw a doctor and had to do some tests.

“You have appendicitis and need surgery,” the doctor informed.

“If something goes wrong and I die?” she mused.

She knew it involved a major surgery. Though fatality was rare but it could happen.

She didn’t want to leave the world with the regret of not having talked with Tariq. So she contacted Tariq’s friend, told him about her surgery and requested him to tell Tariq to call.

That evening Tariq called. He was very rude with her and threatened that he would not unblock her. She pleaded that she wanted just to talk normally with him before the surgery. She wanted to be mentally strong and prepared. She just wanted him to be friends again. He cut off the line.

The next evening Farzana called him. He had unblocked her. They talked for an hour. Farzana disclosed to him about the surgery next morning. The call ended on a friendly note of wishes and prayers.

The next morning, as Farzana was getting ready, he called her and wished her. These small little gestures made him irresistibly charming.

The surgery was successful.

Days passed. Farzana was happy. Sometimes in the mornings Farzana would see that Tariq had called her at night, knowing fully well that she did not take calls at night. She would say “sorry” in her texts.

“Has he fallen in love?” She would muse.

Another evening he called and told her that he was sick. Farzana was concerned.

“You know I have been praying the whole night for your…”

Stop! She was cut short in the middle of her sentence.

“You know what? This is why I don’t want to talk to you. If only you had some wisdom, then you would not have raised that issue. I am going to block you; I am going to sever all ties with you. Bye!”

*

Tariq knew that Farzana had developed a soft corner for him over time. He had fallen madly in love with her. She was there all the time in his heart.Whatever he did he could not get her out of his head. Her gentle sweet smile was like a magnet and oh her eyes! Those had so much innocence and concern that they were irresistible. He had fallen madly in love with her.

He knew that if she saw his condition when he had those panic attacks, she would not be able to bear it. She was too gentle. She would be heartbroken for him and he could not let that happen.

He would call her but somehow it was so painful not to be with her that he would become rude and cut the line off. There was an unbearable silence as Farzana sat dumbfounded. She couldn’t say a word.

Suddenly all emotions dried up. She knew that Tariq was a self-made man. Though soft at heart, it had made him proud and egoistic too. But it did not give him the right to be so discourteous and ungrateful towards her. He knew fully well that she wished him well unconditionally and his welfare had always been a priority for her. 

“This is the end,” she muttered. “I have been supportive of him all through, prayed for him every day. Yet, he treats me like trash. He knows that I care for him too much. Perhaps, this is why he has taken me for granted.”

The thought of abandoning him suddenly made her realise that she was in love with him. It would be unbearable for her to part with him. 

She couldn’t take it anymore. “I have been sympathetic all through but there’s a limit to being compassionate. He has his tantrums, but I am also human. I have my pride.”

In her heart she knew that she loved him. But there was no hope for this love to materialise. So she needed to leave him before she did anything irrational.

Her decision was final.

She decided to go back to the USA. She knew if he was ever alone and needed her, she would come back to help him; give him company in his old age. But right now she needed to leave.

“Your ticket Madam.”

“Oh, sorry,” Farzana replied unmindfully. She showed the ticket and passport to the immigration officer.

Leaving Tariq without telling him was painful. She couldn’t hold back her tears. The man behind the counter looked concerned. Farzana gave him a reassuring smile and wiped away her tears confidently.

She felt a heavy stone lifted away from her chest. Too much neglect and verbal abuse had made her strong. She was free now.

“Thank you,” she smiled and waved. “Have a wonderful day!”

As she walked towards the shuttle bus, she felt the warmth of the sun on her face. Everything around her wore a brighter look. She was ready to face the world: alone but stronger. The needle pricked her heart and she flinched in pain.

“Is he thinking about me and in pain?”

Whenever Tariq needed her she had this feeling inside.

“It can’t be!” Her pace slowed down.  

Tariq stood behind the glass looking at the girl whom he loved with all his heart. He prayed silently. Teardrops rolled down his cheek for the first time

She would never know…

.

Tasneem Hossain is a multilingual poet, op-ed, columnist, fiction writer, translator and trainer. Her writings have appeared in different countries. She has authored two poetry books and a book of prose.

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

Categories
Poetry

History by Masud Khan

Translated by Professor Fakrul Alam from the Bengali poem, Itihas (History)

Masud Khan
How then can an authentic history of the world be written? The one who writes— who is he and where is he writing from? When is he writing? From which vantage point is he writing and for what reason? All these factors will decide the truth of the history. And in any case the subject itself is bound by its own conventions and is inevitably subjective.

Is it then impossible to write an authentic history of the world?

No! In the light already reflected from the surface of the world till now is impressed the history of the world— chronologically! Which is to say, the history of the world is in the light dispersed from the world. And that must be authentic version of the history of the world since it’s being written naturally. Perhaps in kingdom after kingdom of the cosmos someone or the other is sighting that history through telescopes, unknown to us all.

But will such a history be absolutely authentic? What about the chapters of history that are dark and depressing? Of episodes that have been denuded of light and have become shrouded in darkness and decadence? Of episodes that have never exuded light and will never reflect any radiance anywhere? What about them?

And what about the history of people who are dark or tan-brown?

Perhaps their evolution has become blurred in the lenses of telescopes; perhaps their histories have become obscure in the telling— since they are dark and tan-brown; perhaps because they are able to transmit only a feeble light they are deemed to be totally incapable of reflecting any light at all!

Does this mean that the history of dark and tan-brown people will remain obscure forever in the history of mankind? And in nature? Bereft of light and therefore of history too?

Masud Khan (b. 1959) is a Bengali poet and writer. He has, authored nine volumes of poetry and three volumes of prose and fiction. His poems and fictions (in translation) have appeared in journals including Asiatic, Contemporary Literary Horizon, Six Seasons Review, Kaurab, 3c World Fiction, Ragazine.cc, Nebo: A literary Journal, Last Bench, Urhalpul, Tower Journal, Muse Poetry, Word Machine, and anthologies including Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co., NY/London); Contemporary Literary Horizon Anthology, Bucharest; Intercontinental Anthology of Poetry on Universal Peace (Global Fraternity of Poets); and Padma Meghna Jamuna: Modern Poetry from Bangladesh (Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature, New Delhi). Two volumes of his poems have been published as translations, Poems of Masud Khan (English), Antivirus Publications, UK, and Carnival Time and Other Poems (English and Spanish), Bibliotheca Universalis, Romania.  Born and brought up in Bangladesh, Masud Khan lives in Canada and teaches at a college in Toronto.

Fakrul Alam is an academic, translator and writer from Bangladesh. He has translated works of Jibonananda Das and Rabindranath Tagore into English and is the recipient of Bangla Academy Literary Award (2012) for translation and SAARC Literary Award (2012).

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