Tag: Bipin Nayak

Categories
Contents

Borderless, May 2025

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

“Imagine all the people/ Living life in peace”… Click here to read.

Translations

The Day of Annihilation, an essay on climate change by Kazi Nazrul Islam, has been translated from Bengali by Radha Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Arise O Woman and Two Flowers on One Leafstalk, lyrics by Nazrul, have been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Five poems by Bipin Nayak have been translated from Odia by Snehaprava Das. Click here to read.

Identity by Munir Momin has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Among Strangers, a poem by Ihlwha Choi  has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Asha or Hope by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Ryan Quinn Flangan, Jim Bellamy, Snehprava Das, George Freek, Niranjan Aditya, Christine Belandres, Ajeeti S, Ron Pickett, Kajoli Krishnan, Stuart McFarlane, Snigdha Agrawal, Arthur Neong, Elizabeth Anne Pereira, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Did He Ever?, Rhys Hughes gives fun-filled verses on Lafcadio Hearn, a bridge between the East and West from more than a hundred years ago. Click here to read.

Musings/ Slices from Life

Will Dire Wolves Stalk Streets?

Farouk Gulsara writes of genetic engineering. Click here to read.

The Boy at the Albany Bus Stop

Meredith Stephens dwells on the commonality of human emotions. Click here to read.

The Word I Could Never Say

Odbayar Dorj muses on her own life in Mongolia and Japan. Click here to read.

Social Media Repetition

Jun A. Alindogan discusses the relevance of social media. Click here to read.

Shanghai in Jakarta

Eshana Sarah Singh takes us to Chinese New Year celebrations in Djakarta. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In My Writing Desk, Devraj Singh Kalsi writes of the source of his inspiration. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Feeling Anxious in Happy Village, Suzanne Kamata relates a heartwarming story. Click here to read.

Essays

Reminiscences from a Gallery: The Other Ray

Dolly Narang muses on Satyajit Ray’s world beyond films and shares a note by the maestro and an essay on his art by the eminent artist, Paritosh Sen. Click here to read.

This Garden Calls Out to Me: A Flaneur in Lucknow’s Sikandar Bagh

Prithvijeet Sinha takes us back to a historical landmark, made for love but bloodied by war. Click here to read.

Stories

Going to Meet the Hoppers

Fiona Sinclair writes a layered story on human perspectives. Click here to read.

The Ritual of Change

Parnika Shirwaikar explores the acceptance of change. Click here to read.

The Last Metro

Spandan Upadhyay explores the spirit of the city of Kolkata. Click here to read.

Nico Finds His Dream

Paul Mirabile narrates how young Nico uncovers his own yearnings. Click here to read.

The Bequest

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao gives a story reflecting a child’s lessons from Nature. Click here to read.

Conversation

Ratnottama Sengupta introduces and converses with photographer, Vijay S Jodha. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Devabrata Das’s One More Story About Climbing a Hill: Stories from Assam, translated by multiple translators from Assamese. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Ryan Quinn Flangan’s Ghosting My Way into the Afterlife. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Arundhathi Nath‘s translation, The Phantom’s Howl: Classic Tales of Ghosts and Hauntings from Bengal. Click here to read.

Andreas Giesbert reviews Rhys Hughes’ The Devil’s Halo. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Aubrey Menen’s A Stranger in Three Worlds: The Memoirs of Aubrey Menen. Click here to read.

.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

“Imagine all the people/Living life in peace”

God of War by Paul Klee (1879-1940)
The sky weeps blood, the earth cannot contain
The sorrow of the young ones we've slain.
How now do dead kids laugh while stricken by red rain?

— from Stricken by Red Rain: Poems by Jim Bellamy

When there is war
And peace is gone
Where is their home?
Where do they belong?

— from Poems on Migrants by Kajoli Krishnan

Poetry, prose — all art forms — gather our emotions into concentrates that distil perhaps the finest in human emotions. They touch hearts across borders and gather us all with the commonality of feelings. We no longer care for borders drawn by divisive human constructs but find ourselves connecting despite distances. Strangers or enemies can feel the same emotions. Enemies are mostly created to guard walls made by those who want to keep us in boxes, making it easier to manage the masses. It is from these mass of civilians that soldiers are drawn, and from the same crowds, we can find the victims who die in bomb blasts. And yet, we — the masses — fight. For whom, for what and why? A hundred or more years ago, we had poets writing against wars and violence…they still do. Have we learnt nothing from the past, nothing from history — except to repeat ourselves in cycles? By now, war should have become redundant and deadly weapons out of date artefacts instead of threats that are still used to annihilate cities, humans, homes and ravage the Earth. Our major concerns should have evolved to working on social equity, peace, human welfare and climate change.

One of the people who had expressed deep concern for social equity and peace through his films and writings was Satyajit Ray. This issue has an essay that reflects how he used art to concretise his ideas by Dolly Narang, a gallery owner who brought Ray’s handiworks to limelight. The essay includes the maestro’s note in which he admits he considered himself a filmmaker and a writer but never an artist. But Ray had even invented typefaces! Artist Paritosh Sen’s introduction to Ray’s art has been included to add to the impact of Narang’s essay. Another person who consolidates photography and films to do pathbreaking work and tell stories on compelling issues like climate change and helping the differently-abled is Vijay S Jodha. Ratnottama Sengupta has interviewed this upcoming artiste.

Reflecting the themes of welfare and conflict, Prithvijeet Sinha’s essay takes us to a monument in Lucknow that had been built for love but fell victim to war. Some conflicts are personal like the ones of Odbayar Dorj who finds acceptance not in her hometown in Mongolia but in the city, she calls home now. Jun A. Alindogan from Manila explores social media in action whereas Eshana Sarah Singh takes us to her home in Jakarta to celebrate the Chinese New Year! Farouk Gulsara looks into the likely impact of genetic engineering in a world already ripped by violence and Devraj Singh Kalsi muses on his source of inspiration, his writing desk. Meredith Stephens tells the touching story of a mother’s concern for her child in Australia and Suzanne Kamata exhibits the same concern as she travels to Happy Village in Japan to meet her differently-abled daughter and her friends.

As these real-life narratives weave commonalities of human emotions, so do fictive stories. Some reflect the need for change. Fiona Sinclair writes a layered story set in London on how lived experiences define differences in human perspectives while Parnika Shirwaikar explores the need to learn to accept changes set in her part of the universe. Spandan Upadhyay explores the spirit of the city of Kolkata as a migrant with a focus on social equity. Both Paul Mirabile and Naramsetti Umamaheswararao write stories around childhood, one set in Europe and the other in Asia.

As prose weaves humanity together, so does poetry. We have poems from Jim Bellamy and Kajoli Krishnan both reflecting the impact of war and senseless violence on common humanity. Ryan Quinn Flanagan introduces us to Canadian bears in his poetry while Snigdha Agrawal makes us laugh with her lines about dogs and hatching Easter eggs! We have a wide range of poems from Snehprava Das, George Freek, Niranjan Aditya, Christine Belandres, Ajeeti S, Ron Pickett, Stuart McFarlane, Arthur Neong and Elizabeth Anne Pereira. Rhys Hughes concludes his series of photo poems with the one in this issue — especially showcasing how far a vivid imagination can twist reality with a British postman ‘carrying’ sweets from India! His column, laced with humour too, showcases in verse Lafcadio Hearn, a bridge between the East and West from more than a hundred years ago, a man who was born in Greece, worked in America and moved to Japan to even adopt a Japanese name.

Just as Hearn bridged cultures, translations help us discover how similarly all of us think despite distances in time and space. Radha Chakravarty’s translation of Kazi Nazrul Islam’s concerns about climate change and melting icecaps does just that! Professor Fakrul Alam’s translation of Nazrul’s lyrics from Bengali on women and on the commonality of human faith also make us wonder if ideas froze despite time moving on. Tagore’s poem titled Asha (hope) tends to make us introspect on the very idea of hope – just as we do now. At a more personal level, a contemporary poem reflecting on the concept of identity by Munir Momin has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. From Korean, Ihlwah Choi translates his own poem about losing the self in a crowd. We start a new column on translated Odia poetry from this month. The first one features the exquisite poetry of Bipin Nayak translated by Snehprava Das. Huge thanks to Bhaskar Parichha for bringing this whole project to fruition.

Parichha has also drawn bridges in reviews by bringing to us the memoirs of a man of mixed heritage, A Stranger in Three Worlds: The Memoirs of Aubrey Menen. Andreas Giesbert from Germany has reviewed Rhys Hughes’ The Devil’s Halo and Somdatta Mandal has discussed Arundhathi Nath’s translation, The Phantom’s Howl: Classic Tales of Ghosts and Hauntings from Bengal. Our book excerpts this time feature Devabrata Das’s One More Story About Climbing a Hill: Stories from Assam, translated by multiple translators from Assamese and Ryan Quinn Flangan’s new book, Ghosting My Way into the Afterlife, definitely poems worth mulling over with a toss of humour.

Do pause by our contents page for this issue and enjoy the reads. We are ever grateful to our ever-growing evergreen readership some of whom have started sharing their fabulous narratives with us. Thanks to all our readers and contributors. Huge thanks to our wonderful team without whose efforts we could not have curated such valuable content and thanks specially to Sohana Manzoor for her art. Thank you all for making a whiff of an idea a reality!

Let’s hope for peace, love and sanity!

Best wishes,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the contents page for the May 2025 Issue

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

Categories
Poetry

Found in Translation: Bipin Nayak’s Poetry

 Five Odia poems by Bipin Nayak have been translated by Snehaprava Das

WITHIN 
                           
An equestrian within me 
Mounts an unbridled horse
And plays a violin.
A boatman inside me 
Crosses an imaginary river
Again, and again  
In a non-existent boat.
                             
Within me, there is a wayfarer
That refuses to 
Travel the trodden road
And takes a turn.
                              
A lake ripples in me, 
Waiting futilely
To lose itself in the sea,
And a waterfall  
Leaps noisily from above 
To wet the rocks.                            
                                                       
A cloud floats within me,
All of a sudden,
Flashes a lightning smile
And goes back to sleep.
                            
In me, a cowherd
Returns home in the twilight
Painted in the colours of sunset      
And lights a kerosene lamp.
                       
A camel inside me
Sags under a sack-load of salt,
But trudges across the sands
Dreaming of a lush meadow. 
  
A mother in me conceives words,
Bleeds in labour, 
Nourishes the vulnerable words 
With love and care
And watches them grow…                  
                                                                          
PAPER BIRD
                                                       
My woes pull your neck longer.
My beloved words become the air 
To stuff your insides. 
I forge your wings from  
The crumpled paper of my dreams,                           
And mold your beak with my kisses,
Paint you in the colour 
Of my solitary nights….
Trim you with 
All my fears and frustrations.  
Because I could not 
Make a paper-boat of you
To sail in the muddy puddle,
I lift you up  
To fly across 
The monsoon sky.
When you climb a little higher 
Into the air
And are drenched out of shape,
I, a naked child, 
Stand here in the rain, look up and cry! 

THE MAKING 

I pick a few bones of my hardest grief,
Scoop some blood 
Oozing red to create.
                                                                                    
I fix a face of smoke or a patch of weepy cloud    
Mold a nose from the wafting breeze.  
I fix a pair of eyes, like day and night,
There in the face.
In one of them, I put a tornado, 
A bird in the other.
With flowers of joy and grief,
I shape the lips.
The body I try to make 
Out of a river that hides under it,
A fire and a perpetually vain desire 
To reach the sea or a desolate jungle.                                   
I design the limbs from a  
Lingering surge of green.                                  
All these efforts 
Are but only to replicate 
What has been made before.
I set afloat 
Because it has been set to drift
Much before…
And because it has sprinkled  
A cosmic fervour across 
A secret sanctum inside me,
To bring a god to life, 
I worship it! 
I keep trying to create and re-create inside me
Because it has made me much before that!  

            
A SKY AS I AM

I have set out to paint a sky of my own --
A sky that is exactly as I am! 
And for that I have picked up
Some nomadic dreams, a sunset, 
I have collected the blood of flowers,
The tune of a stream that has flown away,
The chirping of orphan birds,
The layers of moss spread over
A decrepit piece of rock-writing.
I have scooped up 
A handful of ash from the debris of
Perished time,
And a wild storm that had retreated 
After having blown me away.
I took out the wet melody from a violin and
the primeval music of the insect,
throbbing inside the grass.
From the reminisces stuck in the sinews 
I have gathered a few scattered sighs,
 And from the darkness, the mysteries of nights,
 I have got warmth from dreams,
 Sin from pollen grains.
 With these elements beside me
 And a canvas in shreds, 
 I sit down to paint a sky of mine
A sky that is exactly as I am!      

LET THEM SING  

Let them sing a song.
I do not mind
If my wound heals them,
Or my tears make them glow,
And my blood paints them crimson.

My quick breathing flits about, but
I do not mind if someone plays a flute
Blowing into the holes of my bones 
And sings through the lips 
Borrowed from me.
 
Let them sing, why must I mind it?
The lips are not mine. Nor is the song!

 

Bipin Nayak

Bipin Nayak (1950), a bold and engaging voice in the literary scenario of modern Odisha, is a trend setter who explored new possibilities for Odia poetry. One of the most significant postmodernist and minimalist poet in Odia, Nayak is a believer in the artefact of words than the meaning and medium. For him poetry is an aesthetic exploration through the fragile, fluid words which could be liberated from its conventional canons and connotations. There is a distinct undertone of metaphysical too in his poetry that hovers over the slim divide between the real and the surreal. Bipin Nayak is a pioneer in Odia auto-fiction writing. His ‘Jatra ra Ketoti Pada’[1], an unprecedented experimental work, that challenges the conventional style through a blending of prose and poetry and does not conform to any traditional literary genre. Besides being the recipient of the prestigious Odisha Sahitya Akademi award the poet has received several accolades for his contribution to Odia literature. Significant amongst them are the Bishuba Jhankar Purashkar, Akhila Mohan Kabita Sammana, Sachivalaya Lekhaka Parishada Sammana and Sammana from Kalinga Sahitya Samaja. He has been widely published in Hindi, Bengali and also in English and has adorned the pages of Indian Literature, Kavya Bharati and other prestigious journals. His major works include Swarachitra (The Painted voice) that fetched him the Odisha Sahitya Akademi award, Nija Nija Barnabodha Apustaka, Sadaja, Bidagdha Bichara, Band Ghara ra Basna.         

[1] Translates to ‘how many steps are there in a journey’

Dr.Snehaprava Das, is a noted writer and a translator from Bhubaneswar, Odisha. She has five books of poems, three of stories and thirteen collections of translated texts (from Odia to English), to her credit. 

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International