Meenakshi Malhotra writes of the diverse ways histories can be viewed, reflecting on the perspective from the point of view of water, climate, migrations or women. Click here to read.
Sometimes, we have an idea, a thought and then it takes form and becomes a reality. That is how the Borderless Journal came to be six years ago while the pandemic raged. The pandemic got over and takeovers and wars started. We continued to exist because all of you continue to pitch in, ignoring the differences created by certain human constructs. We meet with the commonality of felt emotions and aesthetics to create a space for all those who believe in looking beyond margins. We try to erase margins or borders that lead to hatred, anger, violence and war. Learning from the natural world, we believe we can be like the colours of the rainbow that seem to grow out of each other or the grass that is allowed to grow freely beyond manmade borders. If nature gives us lessons through its processes, is it not to our advantage to conserve what nurtures us, and in the process, we save our home planet, the Earth? We could all be together in peace, enjoying nature and nurture, living in harmony in the Universe if only we could overlook differences and revel in similarities.
A young poet Nma Dhahir says it all in her poem that is a part of our journal this month —
This is how we stay human together: by refusing the easy damage, by carrying each other without calling it sacrifice, by believing that what we protect in one another eventually protects the world.
Translations has more poetry with Professor Fakrul Alam bringing us Nazrul’s Bengali lyrics in English and Fazal Baloch familiarising us with beautiful Balochi poetry of the late Majeed Ajez, a young poet who left us too soon. Isa Kamari translates his own poems from Malay, capturing the colours of the community in Singapore to blend it with a larger whole. And of course, we have a Tagore poem rendered into English from Bengali. This time it’s a poem called ‘Jatra (Journey)’ which reflects not only on social gaps but also on politics through aeons.
Christine C Fair has translated a story from Punjabi by Lakhvinder Virk, a story that reflects resilience in women who face the dark end of social trends, a theme that reverberates in Flanagan’s poetry and Meenakshi Malhotra’s essay, which while reflecting on the need of different perspectives in histories – like water and nomads — peeks into the need to recall women’s history aswell. This is important not just because March hosts the International Women’s Day (IWD) but because one wonders if women in Afghanistan are better off now than the suffragettes who initiated the idea of such a day more than a century ago?
This time our non-fiction froths over with scrumptious writings from across continents. Tamara-Lee Brereton-Karabetsos muses on looking at numbers and beyond to enjoy the essence of nature. Farouk Gulsara ideates about living on in posterity through deeds and ideas. Gower Bhat shares how he learns story writing skills from watching movies. Meredith Stephens talks of her experience of a fire in the Australian summer. Bhaskar Parichha writes with passion about his region, Odisha. We have a heartfelt tribute to Mark Tully, who transcended borders, from Bhowmick. And an essay on Arundhati Roy’s memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, from Somdatta Mandal, which explores not just the book but also the covers which change with continents. Prithvijeet Sinha travels beyond Lucknow and Suzanne Kamata brings to us stories about her trip to Phnom Penh.
Keith Lyons draws from the current crises and writes about changing times, suggesting: “Changes aren’t endings, but thresholds.” Perhaps, if we see them as ‘thresholds of change’, the current events are emphasising the need to accept that human constructs can be redefined. I am sure a Neolithic or an Australopithecus would have been equally scared of evolving out of their system to one we would deem ‘superior’. Life in certain ways can only evolve towards the future, even if currently certain changes seem to be retrogressive. We can never correctly predict the future… but can only imagine it. And Devraj Singh Kalsi imagines it with a dollop of humour where tails become a trend among humans again!
Humour and absurdity are woven into a series of short fables by Hughes while Naramsetti Umamaheswarao weaves a fable around acceptanceof differences. In fiction, we have stories of resilience from Jonathon B Ferrini and Terry Sanville. Bhat gives us a story set in Kashmir and Sohana Manzoor gives us one set in Dhaka, a narrative that reminds one of Jane Austen… and perhaps even an abbreviated version of the 2001 film, Monsoon Wedding.
In reviews we have, Mohammad Asim Siddiqui discussing Anisur Rahman’s The Essential Ghalib. Rituparna Khan has written on Malashri Lal’s poetry collection reflecting on women, Signing in the Air. And Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Deepta Roy Chakraverti’s Daktarin Jamini Sen: The Life of British India’s First Woman Doctor, a book that reflects on the resilience that makes great women. Thus, weaving in flavours of the IWD, which applauds women who are resilient while urging humans for equal rights for one half of the world population.
While we ponder on larger realities, Borderless Journal looks forward to a future with more writings centred around humanity, climate change, our planet and all creatures great and small. This year has not only seen a rise in readership and contributors — and the numbers rose further after our unsolicited Duotrope listing in October 2025 — but has also attracted writers from more challenged parts of the world, like Ukraine, Iran, Tunisia and Kurdistan. We are delighted to home writing from all those who attempt to transcend borders and be a part of the larger race of humanity. I would like to quote Margaret Atwood to explain what I mean. “I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one ‘race’—the human race—and that we are all members of it.” And I would like to extend her view to find solidarity with all living beings. I hope that there will be a point in time when we will realise there’s not much difference between, a lizard, a fly, a human or a tree… All these lifeforms are necessary for our existence.
I would want to hugely thank all our team for stretching out and making this a special issue for our sixth anniversary and Manzoor for her fabulous artwork. Huge thanks to all our contributors and readers for being with us through our journey. Let’s change the world with peace, love and friendship!
An introduction to Aruna Chakravarti’s Creeping Shadows: 13 Ghost Stories, published by Penguin India, along with a discussion with the author.
Ghosts are evocative of a past… of history one could say. Then who could be a better storyteller of the past than an author steeped in colours of historical fiction — Aruna Chakravarti! In the past she not only translated novels set in colonial India but evoked the Bengal Renaissance to perfection in her two Jorasanko novels and details of a court hearing in her retelling of the Bhawal prince! This time the diva of historical fiction brings to us a book of spine chilling, ghost stories, Creeping Shadows: 13 Ghost Stories. It is her third collection of short stories.
Aruna ChakravartiPublished in 2026
The narratives are so vivid and visual that they could be worthy of being made into films. They are distinctive in that she has mostly created her own very horrific ghouls – not the traditional ones. They pop up and frighten the reader with their bizarreness and terrifying presences which linger even when you try to sleep at night! She has given us thirteen stories — a spooky number in itself — spread across multiple communities in Asia.
Some of the narratives evoke the past, starting from the 1800s. ‘The House of Flowers’ is set in China partly and partly in Kolkata, where there is now a thriving Chinatown known as “Tangra” and a Kali temple that serves ‘noodles’ as its prasad or offering. The story has echoes of Pearl S Buck’s China interestingly. What was a surprise was the fluency with which she wove in the influences that impact a community of migrants!
Chakravarti has used her skills as a writer of historical fiction in some of the stories like, ‘The Road to Karimganj’, in which a spook takes us back to undivided Bengal, when passports were not needed as in the story of the migrant Chinese. Hovering around history are more narratives like ‘Possessed’, where a courtesan who performs with the legendary Girish Ghosh1 of the nineteenth century Kolkata undergoes, along with the audience, a strange spooky experience!
Traveling down the century, closer to our times, is the story that is perhaps one of the most bizarre and yet most relatable, ‘The Necklace’. Set in the Anglo-Indian community and the glamour of Park Street — where Wiccan writer, Rajorshi Patranabis, claimed to have met a colonial ghost awaiting her lover — Chakravarti’s narrative is of black magic and betrayal. The fiction is far more impactful and frightening than the factual narrative, which too was spine chilling! You realise what makes fiction so much more gripping than facts — anything can happen in fiction. Chakravarti is imaginative enough to make it as creepy and shadowy as any regular horror writer!
Holding on to that thought, the author holds the key to our experiences as she skillfully outlines two demons grown out of poverty in ‘A Winter Night’. The conclusion has a sense of irony and tragedy. ‘Truth is stranger than Fiction’ weaves in more of the diversity in the historic annals of Bengal. The story that starts the book, ‘The Caregivers of Gazipur’, has an unresolved ending, like some of her other narratives. Though there is a frightful resolution in ‘They Come Out After Dark’. The ghosts play spine chilling havoc with fears of the living while recalling the senseless violence of 1947. ‘There are More Things in Heaven and Earth’…takes us back to the atrocities committed during the Sikh riots of 1984 in Delhi. The mingling of fact and fiction to create weird a fantastical narrative is addressed during a conversation on the supernatural. And there is an exploration of the lines from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which probably is a touch of the academic as Chakravarti had a long tenure as the principal of a girl’s college in Delhi. It also defines the authorial stance in this story:
‘Don’t forget what Hamlet said to Horatio? There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
What is unusual about these stories is the way she has created fictitious geographies and personas, evoking historic realities. They seem perfectly authentic to the reader, including the one set in China. There is a vast mingling of facts and fiction in these stories all to lead to spine-chilling ends with strange twists.
‘Grandmother’s Bundle’ stands out in its rendition as the ghosts given out are part of the mythical lore of Bengal — stories that were related to most Bengali kids of the twentieth century. They have a touch of humour and dry wit, perhaps introducing a sense of comic relief among very dark and horrific stories that transport us into different worlds.
‘The Motorcycle Rider’, set in modern times, takes us into a university campus to shock us with horrific spooks born out of tragic deaths, while ‘Twenty-nine Years, Seven Months and Eleven Days’, merges a modern outlook with an unfathomable past, touching upon strange tantric yearnings. ‘Vendetta’ twirls nature and supernatural to give a frightening narrative of how nature takes its revenge… a theme that reiterates in writings addressing our current concerns with climate change.
The ease and fluidity with which she has switched from history and realism to horror and fantasy is amazing. Let’s find out more from her about this new persona that inhabits her writerly self…
Till now we have had translations, numerous novels—many of which can be called historical fiction—and realistic short stories with their base in history or contemporary life. What made you think of writing ghost stories?
After writing The Mendicant Prince which involved extensive research into the life and times of Prince Ramendranarayan Roy of Bhawal, I didn’t feel up to writing a historical novel again. The work had demanded delving into sociological texts, court records, letters, insurance papers and medical reports. Apart from research, historical fiction also demands a certain amount of field work.
Published in 2013Published in 2016
Before writing the Jorasanko novels I visited the Tagore mansion thrice and while writing The Mendicant Prince, I went to Bangladesh to see the royal palace in Bhawal, renamed Gazipur. Though it has been totally neglected, with shopkeepers and squatters having overtaken most of the area, I was able to get some idea of the topography of the palace and its grounds. I saw the lake and the temple (which was locked) and was able to visualise where the halls and galleries and the apartments of the queens and princesses would have stood. All this work was exhausting. So, for a change, I decided to try my hand at short stories which emerge straight from the imagination. And while at it, I decided to break out of the mould of “historical fiction” writer in which I had trapped myself and try a completely new genre.
Published in 2022
I wrote the first one on an impulse and found myself quite enjoying the process. I didn’t even think of publishing at that time. The first story led to another and another. When eleven stories had been written I sent the manuscript to three publishers and was surprised when all three accepted it. It was then that I found out that ghost stories were the in-thing. That they were selling well and that publishers were looking out for them. I signed up with Penguin as you know. At one point my editor Moutushi Mukherjee suggested I write another two. Thirteen stories will make it even more spooky, she said. So, I wrote another two.
Would you list these stories as fantasies or fantastical? Or are they stories of personal experience? Please elaborate.
No. They are not born out personal experience. I must confess that I have never seen a ghost in my life. I believe in sixth sense. As a matter of fact, I have acted on my sixth sense on occasions. I have had sudden impulses to do certain things and realised later that if I hadn’t yielded to the impulses, I would have regretted it. But I have had no brush with the supernatural. These stories were sparked off by sudden memories. Something I had read somewhere. Something somebody had told me years ago. A face I had seen in childhood which had stuck in my mind though whose I don’t remember. A conversation overheard which made no sense at the time but which, as an adult, seemed ridden with sinister nuances. A phrase from a book whose title and author’s name I had forgotten. In fact, I didn’t even remember the context from where the phrase had come.
Sudden flashes such as these triggered off the stories. But in the writing, they took on a life and soul of their own. I even feel, sometimes, that the pen took over and they were written by an invisible hand.
Your stories are set, sometimes in real landscapes and sometimes in fictional ones. What kind of research went into creating them? How do you make them so vivid and real?
There wasn’t any immediate research. I needed to look up a few facts, now and then, mostly to be sure of their authenticity. But nothing truly back breaking. The landscapes, both physical and of the mind, were culled from my travels and my reading of both English and Bengali writers over the eight decades of my life. Much of it stayed with me tucked away in some unconscious part of the mind. Although I write in English, you will notice that almost all the stories are about Bengalis. Bengalis living in Delhi, Kolkata, Bihar and the small towns and villages of Bengal. There are Anglo-Indians, Punjabis and Chinese, too among my characters. But having lived in Bengal for generations, they have adopted Bengali customs and a quasi-Bengali way of living. Many of the locales in which, they appear are fictional…gathered from my reading and observation of people from different strands of Bengali life.
You have a story set in China which also has the Chinatown of Kolkata in it. Have you been to China? What was the reason for the choice? Were you influenced by any Chinese writers? How did you visualise the Chinese migrants in Kolkata?
Yes, I have been to China. I visited the cities of Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing in 2004. Naturally, I have no personal experience of life as it was lived in the late 18th century which is the period covered in the story ‘The House of Flowers’. For this I had to rely totally on my reading of English authors writing about China like Pearl Buck and Amy Tan. Pearl Buck was a great influence on me while writing this story. It was from her books that I was able to catch the ambience of tea houses and brothels of the period. In depicting the Chinese family who lived in Calcutta in the early 20th century I had to rely on childhood experience, I knew some Chinese girls who had lived for several generations in Calcutta. And my imagination went into full play, of course.
In ‘Grandmother’s Bundle’ you have written about spooks from Bengal. It departs from your other stories in as much as it does not really introduce the supernatural except as a source of folklore. Do you feel it blends with the other narratives in your collection?
Well. It is different from my other stories in certain ways. Firstly, it is three stories rolled into one. Secondly, unlike the others, they are children’s stories. Thirdly, it is the only one that deals with ghosts and other supernatural beings with humour. Lastly, they have been drawn from folklore. I agree that it doesn’t quite blend with the others in this collection. But it is also true that each story in this collection is different from another. There are different time spans. Different locales. Different themes. Characters from different levels of society. That being the case, I think that this story lends variety and another flavour to the collection.
Your stories aren’t like the usual ghost stories one reads. The structure and content seem different. Your comments.
You are right. These stories do not belong to the gothic/horror genre. They are not about vampires, blood sucking bats, severed heads or violence heaped on violence. They are essentially human-interest stories with a supernatural twist at the end. I have taken my cue, you may say, from Coleridge’s demand for a willing suspension of disbelief before reading his poetry. These stories have innocuous beginnings. Two friends sharing an apartment, a boy walking from his village to an unseen destination, a dinner party in an exclusive area of the capital, a marital spat or a telephone call at dawn. Then, a few paragraphs later a subtle hint is dropped startling the reader into a realisation that it is not a simple story of human relationships. That it is headed in another, more sinister direction. Another hint is dropped and another. Then in the final sentence the bomb bursts. The last line is the most important line of the story.
Which is your favourite story? And why?
Just as a mother loves all her children, I love all my stories. But mothers also have favourites and so do I. “The House of Flowers,” “Vendetta,” “Possessed” and “The Necklace” are my favourites. That’s because their themes are unusual and posed a greater challenge. And, perhaps, because I had to work harder on them than on the others.
Are you planning any new books? Exploring any new genres? Any new book we can expect soon?
I always think of a new book even when I am writing the current one. Yes, I am planning to explore yet another genre of writing. But my ideas are nebulous at the moment. Still in a fluid state That being the case I cannot share them with you. All I can say is that the work will be a challenging one and I’m not even sure I’ll be able to see it through. So, we must both wait for some more time
Girish Ghosh (1844-1912) Actor and Director from Bengal ↩︎
(This review and online interview by email is by Mitali Chakravarty)
Zihan stirred in his sleep. A chill breath passing over his limbs had awakened him. He strained his eyes, still heavy with wine fumes, and looked around. Where was he? This was not his room and this wasn’t his bed. He was lying in what seemed to be a small, confined space under an ornate gilded ceiling in a bed so soft, his limbs were sinking into its depths. The sky was paling with first light and long beams from a dying moon streamed in through the open window. The fragrance of an unknown flower, wild and sweet, filled the room.
He turned his head towards the window. Something, like an opalescent haze, was obscuring his vision. At first, he thought it was a sheet of mist. Then, before his amazed eyes, it started to take a shape and form. It became a woman. He could see her slender limbs, smooth as white satin, shimmering through the garment that swayed and billowed around her form. Diaphanous as a film of gossamer. So light, it seemed woven out of moonbeams. Her face was swathed in mist.
The figure moved from the window and came gliding towards him. He could see her face clearly now. A perfect oval with apricot shaped eyes, brows like strung bows and hair that fell down her back like a sheet of black silk. He stared at the vision of loveliness so long and hard …his eyes began to hurt. He had never seen such beauty in a woman before.
She stood by his bed for a while gazing into his eyes, then lay down, her body light as a feather against his. Taking his face in her hands, she caressed it with a tenderness that reminded him of his mother’s touch. She drew the silky strands of her floating hair all over his naked body. Across his chest and abdomen, over his genitals, thighs and legs, down to the insteps of his feet. The wildflower scent from her limbs filled his nostrils. Her kisses fluttered on his lips, soft and cold as drifting snow…
The wine, still running in his blood, quivered in his veins. His limbs, untouched by a woman before, heaved luxuriously and his eyes closed in ecstasy. He drifted away…
How long he lay in this state of bliss, he couldn’t tell. It could be minutes. It could be hours. Gradually, an uneasy feeling came over him. Something heavy was pressing against his body. It was squashing his chest and squeezing the breath out of his lungs. He moved aside but the pressure grew in intensity, driving him further and further towards the edge of the bed. And now his heart beat rapidly with an unknown dread. What was happening? Washe still asleep and this a fearful dream? Suddenly his eyes sprang open and what he saw sent currents of ice water rippling down his spine. He felt the hot blood pulsing and pounding in his ears. A muscle twitched and shuddered in his cheek…
The reed-slim body of the woman beside him had bloated to a colossal size. Her eyes, thin slits in the vast globe of her face, glittered with hate. Her mouth was a deep red gash through which yellow teeth, long and sharp as a panther’s fangs, hung to her chin.
The mountain of flesh was growing larger and larger every moment. It was filling the bed. He would fall over the edge any moment now. A scream gathered in his lungs but froze before it could reach his throat…
Suddenly she sprang on him; her nails sharp as claws ripping the skin off his chest and thighs. Digging her teeth into the soft flesh just below the right shoulder, she bit off a large hunk. Zihan’s eyes were glazed with pain and fear. He stared mesmerized as the monstrous creature rose from the bed and swayed and shuffled towards the opposite wall. She wore a garment of sheer white muslin that swelled and surged like waves about her form. Blood dripped from her slavering mouth and fell on the floor as her great body waddled, like a gorilla’s, from side to side. And now, for the first time, Zihan saw the coffin. It was open…
Zihan screamed. Shriek after shriek burst from the throat that had been frozen all this while, hit the walls, and sent fearful echoes all through the house. Then, exhausted and half dead from shock and loss of blood, he lay motionless, whimpering like a child.
Kueilan was a light sleeper and the first to hear the cries. They seemed to be coming from the dead girl’s room. Her heart thudded with fear as she rushed to it and flung the door open. She stood where she was for a while, her eyes glued to the coffin. It stood in the same place but the seal was broken and its open lid rested against the wall. A lily-white hand with long tapering fingers was dangling from the edge. And now the lid began to move downwards. Slowly, soundlessly, it was falling in place. In a few moments it would reach the hand and crush it. A tremor ran through Kueilan’s frame. Her mouth opened in a scream but before she could utter a sound, the hand glided over the edge and slipped into the hollow where the rest of the dead girl lay. Then, before Kueilan’s amazed eyes, the coffin closed, the seal came together and all was as it had been.
‘Published with permission from Penguin Random House India from Creeping Shadows (2026)’.
About the Book:
The stories in Creeping Shadows are spread over a vast canvas, both in terms of time span and locale. A teahouse in ancient China. A brothel in nineteenth-century Calcutta. A forest lodge in Bankura. An old mansion in Bangladesh. A university campus in today’s Delhi. Beginning as human-interest narratives, they end with sudden, unexpected twists that raise hair ends and send trickles of ice water down the spine. Here are tales of shadows, tingles and chills…
About the Author:
Aruna Chakravarti has been principal of a prestigious women’s college of Delhi University for ten years. She is also a well-known academic, creative writer and translator with eighteen published books on record. They comprise five novels, two books of short stories, two academic works and nine volumes of translation. Her first novel, The Inheritors (published by Penguin Random House), was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and her second, Jorasanko, received critical acclaim and became a bestseller. Daughters of Jorasanko, a sequel to Jorasanko, has sold widely and received rave reviews. Her novel Suralakshmi Villa was adjudged ‘Novel of the year (India 2020)’ by Indian Bibliography published in The Journal of Commonwealth LiteratureU.K. Her other well-known works include The Mendicant Prince which has been shortlisted for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize, and Through a Looking Glass: Stories. Her translated works include an anthology of songs from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitabitaan, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay’s Srikanta and Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Those Days, First Light and Primal Woman: Stories. Her most recent work is titled Rising from the Dust. Among the various awards she has received are Vaitalik Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and Sarat Puraskar. She is also a scriptwriter and producer of seven multi-media presentations based on her novels. Comprising dramatized readings, interspersed with songs and accompanied by a visual presentation by professional artists and singers, these programmes have been widely acclaimed and performed in many parts of India and abroad.
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