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pandies' corner

Songs of Freedom: The Seven Mysteries of Sumona’s Life

A real life narrative by Sumona (pseudonym), translated from Hindustani by Grace M Sukanya

 Songs of Freedom bring stories from women — certainly not victims, not even survivors but fighters against the patriarchal status quo with support from the organisation Shaktishalini.[1]

–Sanjay Kumar (1961-2025), founder of pandies’ 

What I Don’t Know

If I had to choose a moment that changed everything, it would be when the police rang the bell at Nakul’s house. Or perhaps, when I found out that I was pregnant. But both happened within a few hours of each other so… maybe it was that whole day.

Or maybe it was when I was finally rid of the brothels? I am so glad to be out of it and it was Nakul who helped me do that, no matter what he did otherwise. I am grateful for that.

Or maybe when I found out that Sanjay was married. I didn’t believe it for the longest time. And I lost the only family that had ever cared about me because of that… 

The First Mystery: Maybe sometimes it can be an accident?

My older brother was sick. They said someone gave him drugs, mixed in with some chicken, and he became an addict. The drugs ate away at him.

Even when I was a child – he was very sick. And he was the most important person to me in the world; my mother had died, my stepmother drank, and my father did bad things to me at night. (I don’t know whether he did it on purpose or accidentally… maybe he didn’t know what he was doing because he used to be quite drunk too?)

So, I had to save my brother somehow…  I asked a pastor in my village to help me find work. He knew a couple in Sikkim, he said, who needed help taking care of their two children. I decided to go.

I was very young then. I hadn’t even started my periods. For the first couple of years, things were okay. I even came back home at the end of those two years, to meet my brother. He was still unwell and my employers had told me they’d send my earnings home as soon as I went back to work.

But when I did go back — the man started abusing me. And not like my father – he knew what he was doing because he told me to keep quiet about it or he’d kill me.

I used to believe him too. Of course, he could me kill me – and no one would know. Or even care. Even if I told anyone, who would believe me? His wife would obviously be on his side. And the pastor would scold me. I was ashamed, and I was scared. So, I kept quiet.

I also needed the money. I asked him to send it to my parents, so my brother could get treated. After a few days he said he had done it. Therefore, I kept quiet.

He used to do things to me so frequently that I was not able to complete my chores. His wife started getting annoyed with me. She started burning me with things. Once she did it with a hot pressure cooker. The burn festered and became large and infected.

It was he who took care of me then… He scolded her on my behalf, told her if something happened to me, they would be held responsible. And I don’t know how but he got the wound to heal faster somehow.  

I escaped back to my village soon after that.

I came back and found out that my brother was still sick, despite the Rs. 12,000 [2] my employers had sent to my home for the two years of work I had done in their house. I went and asked the doctor why he had not been treated yet. He told me he had never received any payment for the treatment. Then I found out from others that my step mother had used the money to buy alcohol. I had to look for work again…

I finally told the pastor the truth about the couple. He was angry with them, and at first, I was relieved. But then he decided to call and confront the family, and tell them off. The lady told him that they were on their way to speak to me, and that I should not say anything to anyone else until they met with me.

Sikkim was 3 hours away from my village by car (there were no buses plying on this route)  and I was terrified of meeting them.

I ran away from home a second time.

The Second Mystery: Can I have a home in city I don’t know?

There was a girl called Rekha in my village, my age, or maybe slightly older than me. She worked in Delhi and earned fairly well. I asked her if she would help me find work in the city too. I told her I had experience working as a maid and a nanny. She said that I could go to Delhi with her.

So when the pastor told me that my former employers from Sikkim were on their way, I hightailed it out of the village with her.

We reached Delhi around 11 am in the morning. Rekha took me to a building that had a lot of small, independent rooms on a floor. In one room were some young men who did some work with computers. One room had a family with some children. And in one room were some young girls just like us. I thought I was to live with the girls and look after the family.

Within 5-10 minutes of reaching, Rekha told me that we had to go shopping. She took me to a large bazaar — it was bigger than any village market I had been to. There, she bought me a bunch of clothes: a lot of short dresses and skirts, the kind I had never worn before. I was happy to be starting this new phase of my life, and I couldn’t believe someone was buying clothes for me. It made me very happy.

We went back to The Home That Wasn’t. Rekha told me to get ready. As I was tired, I asked her why I was getting ready in the evening? Why could I not start working next morning? She told me I had to get ready right then in the new clothes I’d bought. I didn’t understand then what was about to happen.

I got “ready” in my new clothes, and Rekha took me to a hotel. Some men joined us, drinks were passed around, and then I was sent off with one of them to a room.

I was shocked. I didn’t know what to think or even feel about it. I said nothing.

The next morning, Rekha took me back to The House That Wasn’t and told me to pack my bags. I put all my new clothes in a bag and walked out of there. This time she took me to a tall, narrow building in a congested, crowded street. On the 4th floor of The Tower was a very small, very dirty room, not big enough for even a bed. I was told to get in.

I still didn’t understand what was happening.

There was a man there, Nishant. Rekha spoke to him for some time, then left. When I asked what was happening, he told me that she had left me there to work for him. I still didn’t know what to think (I was 11).

Soon after, an old man came to my room. He was as old as my father. He started forcing me to do things, taking advantage of me. This is when I first had the thought that maybe what was happening to me was wrong…   

But it was too late. I was never let out of that room. The door was always locked. There was some space between the bottom of the door and the floor – it was used to slide in food. I don’t know how many years I spent in that room.

I used to dream of the things I would do once I got out. I kept trying to figure out how to get out. But I knew nothing at all – I didn’t know this city, or where I was located, or even the language. How would I ever get out?

Soon, they started sending me out to men’s places. The men were supposed to come pick me up and then drop me back. I didn’t know how to run away and they knew that: my captivity was complete.

The Third Mystery: If my work pays someone else, what am I?

There were always other people who got the money I earned.

After a few years in the city, I was sometimes allowed to visit The Home That Wasn’t. Nishant knew that it was the only place I “knew” (except for the The Tower). If I was sent to work from there, Meera got the money. If I was sent to work from The Tower then Nishant got the money. Rekha I never heard from again (she ran away with all the commission she had earned on my work in The Tower, while I was still locked up in the small dirty room).

One day, I was feeling unwell so I went to The Home That Wasn’t.

They had a frequent customer, Nakul. All the girls there had already been to his place. He insisted on someone “new”. So Meera sent me to him.  

He was young, maybe about 25 or 26 years old. He was in the police, I don’t know what post. He was married, he told me, but it had been against his will so he was unhappy and therefore sleeping with other women.

That first day he met me, he asked me whether I was doing this out of my own free will or whether I was being coerced. I told him the truth. He said he would help me. I didn’t trust his offer of help – men often asked me whether I was being coerced, and then offered their help; but no one ever actually did anything to help me.

Nevertheless, I was hurt when Nakul proceeded to take advantage of me – I kept telling him no but he did bad things to me anyway. I was hurt that I had told him the truth about my life and he still treated me badly, like everyone else had.

One day he called his friends over and introduced me to them. They were all drinking and encouraged me to have a cold drink too. But they’d put something in it, and I passed out. When I came to, I knew that his friends had done things to me– and I knew it had been planned and he was in on it. I hated that but I didn’t say anything because he had also promised to save me.

Meera and Nishant called him about 2-3 days after he took me to his place, asking when he’d be bringing me back. I told him to say that I had run away and was no longer with him. They threatened to report him to the police. But he was fearless – he told her that he would them report them for forcing me into prostitution. They backed off after that.

And that is how I became free. Nakul helped me get free. So, I started living with him.

The Fourth Mystery: If my “friend” stands between the whole world and me, am I free?

About a week into staying at his place, he bought me an enormous bundle of clothes and so many shoes!

The shoes were all the wrong size though… he said he would go back and exchange them for the right size.

Two days later, he took me out on a drive at night with three other men, two of whom I knew.

We stopped after some time, and everyone was asked to put their phones in a small polybag. I didn’t understand what was happening. At this point, another man was called to the car. All the four men I had arrived with started beating this man up. Gunshots rang out. I don’t know who fired them. A crowd had gathered. We heard the police siren. Nakul shouted at me to get into the trunk of the car. I jumped in, and I saw him get into the car as well. I could see everything from a crack in the cover.

The police chased us through many streets. The car was being driven very fast and recklessly to lose them. I was starting to feel sick and suffocated; I kept banging around inside the trunk and I was hurt. Eventually, after several hours, the car stopped. I was asked to get out. Only one man was left – the one I didn’t know. He asked me to get into the front seat. He’d managed to lose the police.

I finally felt like I could breathe again. We drove some distance. Dawn was breaking. The man stopped the car and started trying to do things to me. But I had had enough. I felt sick and angry. I did everything I could to stop him. Finally, when I had scratched his face, he stopped and agreed to send me to Nakul’s.

Luckily, we also found Nakul’s phone in the car, maybe he had dropped it by mistake. My phone had disappeared with the polybag. I identified Nakul’s friends’ numbers by their profile pictures on Whatsapp. The man tried these numbers one by one and finally got through to Nakul. He took the address down and booked me a cab home.

I arrived back at Nakul’s place around 7 am. The two other men who had been in the car with us were there, as was a woman I didn’t know.

I shouted at Nakul then about what he had put me through. I knew he didn’t treat me well; I knew he slept with other women; I knew he pimped me out – but I also felt like I had a right over him, that I could shout at him and he would listen to him. Not that he gave me any explanations… I still don’t know what exactly happened that night.

Eventually, the two men left for their homes. Nakul also left with the woman, saying he had to drop her off. By 11:30 am, I was alone in the house.

My brain wasn’t working. I had shouted at Nakul. But I had failed to process anything anybody had said that morning. I felt like I kept swimming in and out of consciousness – not literally… but I couldn’t hear people, I couldn’t process what I was hearing… I felt like my brain had shut down.

That was the state I was in when the bell rang at 11:30 pm that night. I was still alone at home. When I went to open the door, it was the police along with the two men who had been there at the house that morning. No sign of Nakul.

The Fifth Mystery: It is my decision

The police took me to the thana[3] with them and questioned me till about 2-3 am that night. Eventually they understood that I had no idea about what these men had been up to. And also, that I had been taken advantage of. Early in the morning they took me to a hospital. I was tested and I (along with everyone else) found out I was pregnant.

At this, my brain shut down even further. I was taken to court. As a minor, I was put under the protection of the state and assigned a hostel. The police asked me if I wanted an abortion – they even urged me to get one. They told me I was still a child, I would not be able to take care of a baby of my own, that I would find it difficult to lead a life of my own, or move on from everything that had happened if I were to become a mother, that it would be best for my future if I aborted the foetus… But there were also people who told me that the baby had a life too, that if I aborted, I would be killing a life and did I want to be a murderer?

For a long time, I could not think for myself at all. But the police did tell me they’d support whatever decision I made… To be honest, I found them very helpful. It took me over a month to come to a decision. I thought about all the things I would be able to do if I didn’t have a child – get educated, get a job, earn money, maybe fall in love again and get married.

I also thought about what life with my kid would be like and all the things I would do for him / her that weren’t done for me. These dreams also made me happy – but I realised I had no means to fulfill them. How would I feed the kid without a job? How would I educate him / her? Some people kept telling me I could give my child up for adoption but that thought filled me with sadness too… So finally, I decided to get an abortion.

The police, as promised, helped me get it done. It was done at a state hospital. I was four months pregnant. The whole thing took almost a month. Then I needed two more months to recover. I wasn’t getting proper food at the hostel I was in, so at my request, my case supervisor had me transferred to another hostel. And this is where a new life began for me.

The Sixth Mystery: How unconditional is the love of a “family”?

I was sent to another hostel in Delhi NCR, which was quite large.

Sometime after the move, my stepmother turned up at the gates and asked me to leave the facility to spend some time with her. Since I was still under state protection, the hostel had to take clearance from them. When they were called, a woman at the institution told them not to let me out at any cost as my life was in danger: Nakul had managed to break out of prison and would try to kill me to stop me from testifying against him. So, I wasn’t let out to see my stepmother.

Years later, when I asked her how she had found the money to come all the way to Delhi to see me, she admitted that some man had bribed her to lure me out of the hostel…

In the 3 years I was there, my father and older brother passed away. My father was an old drunk so it wasn’t a shock. But my brother – he died terribly. By the end, he had TB, cancer, paralyses. He couldn’t move. And with both of them gone, I had no home to go back to anymore…

The hostel warden and other staff had become my new family. Here, I finally felt accepted and taken care of. After I turned 18, they even made me floor-in-charge for one of the floors of the hostel (since I could not be a resident anymore). They were the only people I felt I could depend on.

Until I fell in love with the wrong man.

Sanjay was significantly older than me – perhaps, by about 15 years, definitely more than 10. He was a shopkeeper near the hostel. I used to go to his shop sometimes to buy some groceries. I never noticed him but he started flirting with me one day.

I didn’t respond to it for some time but he was relentless. Every day, he would propose that we start up with something. Eventually I started talking to him. We exchanged numbers. We started talking all day. I’d even write letters to him.

The hostel people found out and they didn’t approve of the age difference. But I said I was in love with Sanjay and that I intended to marry him. I convinced them that I was serious about it and so was he. Therefore, they went off to talk to his family about the relationship.

They came back and told me something I never expected to hear: it turned out that the man I was in love with had been married for three years; he had one child, and another one was on the way.

I couldn’t believe this. For a long time, I didn’t believe it. Then one day, his wife called me. She had found one of my letters to him. She screamed at me a lot on the phone. And then I could no longer deny the truth of the situation…

All this turned my new family against me. I was asked to leave, and that is how I ended up here at Shakti Shalini. Or maybe it was because you can’t stay in the hostel past the age of 19… But they no longer speak to me.

If I could change one thing in life, it would be this. I wish they’d talk to me once again. I miss them all very much.

The Seventh Mystery: The First Revelation: This is Me

I don’t know why I still find it difficult to let go of the feelings I have for Sanjay when I know that everything he ever said to me was a lie…Or why I always love like it’s a drug… Maybe it’s about finally feeling like I belong somewhere. With Sanjay, I had imagined a whole life together. It’s very painful to accept that this’ll never happen.   

And there’s so much more I have learnt about myself in all this time…

I know I can take care of myself. I know I can stand up for myself. I know now when someone’s touch feels wrong. For a long time, I didn’t know how to feel or think about these things… I used to be so shut down. I had no control over what I would eat or drink… I could not make any decisions at all.

But now I can fight for myself and others.  

I am grateful I am out of the brothel. I am grateful Nakul got me out of it even if he tried to kill me later. I am grateful I got to experience care at the hostel, even if they don’t speak to me anymore.

And I know now what makes me happy:

Making fried rice and momos for myself and everyone else

Travelling to new places — I went to Jim Corbett with the hostel people and loved it!

Meeting new people, making new friends — like at my new workplace!

Earning my own money — I hope to buy myself a phone soon.

Wearing nice clothes and accessorising how I please — I love matching clothes to jewellery.

Listening to songs – this always makes me smile, and I love the feeling.  

Dancing – I dance quite well, and I like learning new steps and choreography.

The way my life keeps changing and moving, no matter what happens; people leave, yes, but new people also keep arriving and isn’t that the best part?

From Public Domain

Sumona (pseudonym) is 19 years old and hails from Darjeeling in West Bengal. Currently she working as a Child Caregiver with a family based out of Delhi. Sumona loves her piping hot momos with spicy chutney and finds peace and solace when she spends time with children.

[1] “pandies and Shaktishalini – different in terms of the work they do but firmly aligned in terms of ideological beliefs and where they stand and  speak from. It goes back to 1996 when members of the theatre group went to the Shaktishalini office to research on (Dayan Hatya) witch burning for a production and got the chance to learn from the iconic leaders of Shaktishalini, Apa Shahjahan and Satya Rani Chadha. And collaborative theatre and theatre therapy goes back there. It is a mutual learning space that has survived over 25 years. Collaborative and interactive, this space creates anti-patriarchal and anti-communal street and proscenium performances and provides engaging workshop theatre with survivors of domestic and societal patriarchal violence. Many times we have sat together till late night, in small or large groups debating what constitutes violence? Or what would be gender equality in practical, real terms? These and many such questions will be raised in the stories that follow.” — Sanjay Kumar

[2] Rs 12000 equals USD 131.13

[3] Police station

Grace M Sukanya, the translator, has facilitated workshops with Shaktishalini through 2020 and 2025, and been associated with pandies’ theatre since 2020 in various capacities. 

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

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

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

Categories
Tagore Translations

Winter by Rabindranath

Sheeth or Winter was first published in 1909 in Tagore’s collection called Shishu (Children). The poem looks forward to winter giving way to spring using simple but eloquent verses.

Art by Sohana Manzoor
The bird says, “I will leave.”
     The flower says, “I will not bloom.”
The breeze merely says, 
       “I will not flit across the woods.”
Young shoots do not look up,
   Instead, sprouts shrivel to shed.
Dusty bamboos loom
     To paint an untimely dusk. 
Why do the birds migrate? 
        Why do flowers not bloom? 
Why has the agile breeze 
    stopped romping in the woods? 
The heartless winter 
        Has a bleak outlook. 
Wrinkled and harsh, 
       She imparts hard lessons. 
The gleaming moonlit night,
        The fresh fragrance of flowers, 
The youthful sport of breeze, 
      The cacophony of leaves — 
All these she looks upon as sins, 
       She thinks in nature, 
The knowledgeable only sit 
       Still like a picture. 
That is why the bird bids “goodbye”. 
     The flower says, “I’ll not bloom.”
The breeze merely says, 
       “I’ll not run across the woods.”
But when Hope says, “Spring’ll come,”
        The flower says, “I’ll bloom.” 
The bird says, “I’ll sing.”
         The moon says, “I’ll smile.”
The newly-fledged spring 
       Has just started to awake. 
He smiles at whatever he sees. 
       He plays with everything. 
His heart is full of hope.
          Unaware of his own desires, 
His being runs hither and thither 
         Looking for kindred spirits. 
Flowers bloom, so does the child. 
         Birds sing, so does he. 
He hugs the caressing breeze 
         To play vernal games. 
That’s why when I hear, “Spring’ll come,”
    The flower says, “I’ll bloom.” 
The bird says, “I’ll sing.”
         The moon says, “I’ll smile.”
Winter, why did you come here? 
       Your home is in the north — 
Birds do not sing there, 
       Flowers do not bloom on trees. 
Your home is a snowy desert 
        That’s dark and lifeless — 
Sit there alone, O knowledgeable, 
         Spend your days contemplating.
Snowy Kanchenjunga photographed from Darjeeling, West Bengal, in winters.

This poem has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty with editorial input by Sohana Manzoor 

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

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

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

Categories
Excerpt

The Great Himalayan Ascents

Title: The Great Himalayan Ascents

Author: Frank S Smythe

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

The Himalaya

TWO HUNDRED YEARS ago mountains were regarded as useless and terrible masses of inert matter where dragons had their lairs and the spirits of the damned lay in wait to claim the unwary. But as man emerged from the superstitions and materialisms of the Middle Ages he began to realise that mountains were beautiful and their summits worthy of attainment. The nineteenth century saw the conquest of the Alps. Unknown difficulties and dangers had to be faced by the pioneers of mountaineering. Disasters occurred, lives were lost, and mountaineering thrown into disrepute. The mountaineer was not dismayed. He knew that beauty was his for the seeking; he rejoiced in a newfound comradeship and in the acquirement and exercise of a new craft.

The great alpine summits fell one by one; traditions were established; a technique was evolved; a literature was born. The ripples of alpine mountaineering radiated outwards, bearing with them mountaineers to other ranges: the Caucasus, the Rockies, the Andes, the New Zealand Alps. On their highest peaks the skill acquired in the Alps was sufficient to ensure success. But there remained one great range that defied invasion of its strongholds – the Himalaya. There, the technique acquired in the Alps was not sufficient. Height alone was a physical deterrent, and coupled to height was steepness and danger. Expeditions had to be organised to reach even the foot of the great peaks; time and money had to be found. Yet, despite these disadvantages, Himalayan mountaineering and exploration progressed steadily. Pioneers such as the Schlagintweit Brothers, Sir Joseph Hooker, The Duke of the Abruzzi, Mr W.W. Graham, Lord Conway, Sir Francis Younghusband, Mr D.W. Freshfield, Doctor T.G. Longstaff, Doctor A.M. Kellas, General Bruce, Mr C.F. Meade, Doctor and Mrs Bullock Workman, Messrs. Rubenson and Monrad Aas, and many other pre-war pioneers opened up a region unsurpassed for its beauty and grandeur, and by their experiences pointed the way to the highest summits.

Many people refer to the Himalaya as though their limitations in scenery and climate were similar to those of the Alps. The tourist who gazes upon Kangchenjunga, 28,226 feet, from Darjeeling returns home saying that he has seen the Himalaya. So he has, but how much of two thousand miles of mountains stretching from the Pamirs to the borders of Indo-China, and beyond these limits, in terms of mountains? A lifetime might be spent wandering about the Himalaya, yet the knowledge acquired would embrace but an infinitesimal portion of that vast labyrinth of peaks, valleys and plateaux scrawled across the map of Asia.

In climate alone there is an extraordinary variety. From hot steamy tropical valleys, filled with luxuriant vegetation, it is but a few horizontal miles to zero temperatures and the highest snows in the world. Between these two extremes is an immense range of climate, the common despot of which is a fierce sun. Added to the complexities of climate due to height alone is the added complexity of seasonal weather fluctuations, due directly or indirectly to the influence of the monsoons and weather conditions emanating from the plateaux of Central Asia.

Racial characteristics are as diversified as the climate. From the people of Hunza and Chitral to the Sherpas and Bhotias of Northern Nepal, the almost extinct Lepchas of Sikkim and the wild races of Bhutan, the Himalaya can show many different types, for they form a natural frontier between India and Tibet, and a pudding-bowl wherein is stirred a mixture of Mongolian and Indian blood.

Politically, only a comparatively small portion of the Himalaya is accessible to the mountaineer and explorer. Democracy is unknown in Tibet and Nepal, and both these countries have closed their frontiers to Europeans and resolutely set themselves against infiltration of European thought and ideas. Some of the finest peaks of the Himalaya lie within the borders of Nepal, including the southern side of Everest, 29,140 feet, Dhaulagiri, 26,795 feet, Gosainthan (Shisha Pangma), 26,305 feet, and many other great peaks. In addition there are other districts where the mountaineer is not always welcomed, owing to political and other objections. The three most interesting districts accessible to mountaineers and explorers are the Karakorams, the Kumaun and Garhwal Himalaya and the Sikkim Himalaya, including the eastern side of Kangchenjunga, and it is in these three districts that the most notable mountaineering expeditions have been carried out, with the  exception of Everest (now barred politically) and the northern side of Nanga Parba (forbidden territory to expeditions at present). Each of these districts is magnificent in its own way. In the Karakoram there is no glacier to rival in grandeur the Baltoro, and no peaks surpassing in ferocity the terrific ice- armoured spires dominated by K2 (Mount Godwin Austin), 28,187 feet. From the Kumaun Himalaya rises Nanda Devi, 25,645 feet; the highest peak entirely within the confines of the British Empire, a mountain so difficult to approach that no one has yet succeeded in treading the glaciers at the foot of it, whilst Kamet, 25,447 feet, dominates the ranges of Northern Garhwal. In Sikkim, Kangchenjunga boasts the most wonderful snow and ice scenery in the Himalaya, owing to its exposure to the moisture-laden airs of the monsoon. It has defeated three determined attempts to climb it, in 1929, 1930 and 1931 by mountaineers well versed in the technique of high-altitude mountaineering. The highest point reached was 26,000 feet, by the gallant Bavarian expedition in 1931 and that only after incredible difficulty.*

Geologically, the Himalaya are a young mountain range, due to an uplift of the ancient seabed covering Central Asia. This uplift took place so slowly that rivers such as the Indus and the Brahmaputra, which have their sources to the north of the Himalaya, have been able to carve their way through the range as it rose. This is the only explanation that can account for the deep valleys cutting through from Tibet to India.

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(Extracted from The Great Himalayan Ascents by Frank S. Smythe. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2025.)

About the Book

Frank S. Smythe (1900-1949) was one of the greatest mountaineers of the twentieth century, and a celebrated memoirist and adventure writer. This collection brings together three accounts of Smythe’s most thrilling ascents in the Himalayas—The Kangchenjunga Adventure, Kamet Conquered and Camp Six.

The Kangchenjunga Adventure narrates in detail the 1930 expedition to climb the third-highest mountain in the world: how Smythe, as part of an international team of mountaineers, attempts to reach the summit of Kangchenjunga, before a deadly avalanche—which kills one of the Sherpas— forces them to change course and scale the Jonsong Peak instead. In Kamet Conquered, Smythe makes a successful bid at ascending Mount Kamet in 1931, which was at that time still unscaled. On their way back, Smythe and his team chance upon the spectacular and colourful Bhyundar Valley, which they christen the ‘Valley of Flowers’, and which is now a National Park. Camp Six recounts a gripping adventure on the world’s highest mountain—the 1933 Everest Expedition, in which Smythe, climbing alone, ascends to a point higher than any human had reached before. Made without ropes or oxygen to support him, and in terrible snow conditions, the climb is regarded as one of the greatest endeavours in the history of mountaineering.

This majestic omnibus edition offers a fascinating window into early mountain climbing and Himalayan exploration. It is also a rare treat for every lover of fine, entertaining writing.

About the Author

Frank Sydney Smythe was a British mountaineer, botanist and adventurer. Smythe, who began his mountaineering career in the Alps, joined the international Kangchenjunga expedition of 1930 which ended in failure. In 1936, he led the expedition which successfully ascended Mount Kamet, then the highest peak ever to have been climbed. Subsequently, in the 1930s, Smythe was thrice part of teams which attempted to climb Mount Everest. An accomplished photographer and a prolific writer, Smythe wrote twenty-seven books in all, the best known among which are The Kangchenjunga Adventure, Kamet Conquered and Adventures of a Mountaineer. Smythe died in 1949.

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Categories
Editorial

The Kanchenjunga Turns Gold…

The Kanchenjunga turns gold

Ghoom, Darjeeling, is almost 2.5 km above sea level. Standing in the rarified air of Ghoom, you can watch the Kanchenjunga turn gold as it gets drenched in the rays of the rising sun. The phenomenon lasts for a short duration. The white pristine peak again returns to its original colour blending and disappearing among the white cirrus clouds that flit in the sky. Over time, it’s shrouded by mists that hang over this region. The event is transitory and repeats itself on every clear morning like life that flits in and out of existence over and over again…

Witnessing this phenomenon feels like a privilege of a lifetime as is meeting people who shine brightly and unusually, like the Kanchenjunga, to disappear into mists all too early. One such person was the founder of pandies’ 1 who coordinated the pandies’ corner for Borderless Journal, the late Sanjay Kumar (1961-2025). The idea of starting this column was to bring out the unheard voices of those who had risen above victimhood to find new lives through the work done by pandies’. In his book, Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre: Exploring Play, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, he described his scope of work which in itself was stunning. His work ranged from teaching to using theatre and play to heal railway platform kids, youngsters in Kashmir, the Nithari survivors and more — all youngsters who transcended the scars seared on them by violations and violence. We hope to continue the column in coordination with pandies’.

Another very renowned person whose art encompassed a large number of social concerns and is now lost to time was the artist, MF Husain (1915-2011). This issue of Borderless is privileged to carry an artwork by him that has till now not been open to the public for viewing. It was a gift from him to the gallerist, Dolly Narang, on her birthday. She has written nostlgically of her encounters with the maestro who walked bare-feet and loved rusticity. She has generously shared a photograph of the sketch (1990) signed ‘McBull’ — a humorous play on his first name, Maqbool, by the artist.

Drenched with nostalgia is also Professor Fakrul Alam’s essay, dwelling on more serious issues while describing with a lightness his own childhood experiences. Many of the nonfiction in this issue have a sense of nostalgia. Mohul Bhowmick recalls his travels to Bhutan. And Prithvijeet Sinha introduces as to a grand monument of Lucknow, Bara Imambara. Lokenath Roy takes us for a stroll to Juhu, dwelling on the less affluent side. Suzanne Kamata describes her source of inspiration for a few stories in her new book, River of Dolls and Other Stories. A darker hue is brought in by Aparna Vats as she discusses female infanticide. But a light sprays across the pages as Devraj Singh Kalsi describes how his feisty grandmother tackled armed robbers in her home. And an ironic tone rings out in the rather whimsical musing by Farouk Gulsara on New Year days and calendars.

With a touch of whimsy, Ratnottama Sengupta has also written of the art that is often seen in calendars and diaries as well as a musing on birthdays, her own and that of a friend, Joy Bimal Roy. They have also conversed on his new book, Ramblings of a Bandra Boy, whose excerpt is also lodged in our pages, recalling their days in the glitzy world of Bollywood as children of notable film director, Bimal Roy (1909-1966), and award-winning writer, Nabendu Ghosh (1917-2007).

We feature the more serious theme of climate change in our other interview with Bhaskar Parichha, who has written a book called Cyclones in Asia: Landfall, Wreckage and Resilience. He has spoken extensively on resilience and how the incidence of such storms are on the rise. We carry an excerpt from his non-fiction too. His book bears the imprint of his own experience of helping during such storms and extensive research.

Climate change has been echoed in poetry by Gazala Khan and the metaphor of thrashing stormy climate can be found in Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal’s poetry. Touching lines on working men spread across the globe with poems from Michael Burch, Shamik Banerjee, Stuart McFarlane and Ashok Suri while Ryan Quinn Flanagan has written of accepting change as Nazrul had done more than eighty years ago:

Everyone was at each other's throats,
insistent that the world was ending.
But I felt differently, as though I were just beginning,
or just beginning again…

--Changes by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Poets, like visionaries across time and cultures, often see hope where others see despair. And humour always has that hum of hope. In a lighter tone, Rhys Hughes makes one laugh or just wonder as he writes:

I once knew a waiter
who jumped in alarm
when I somersaulted across
his restaurant floor
after entering the front door
on my way to my favourite
table: he wasn’t able
to control his nerves
and the meal he was bearing
ended up on the ceiling
with people staring
as it started to drip down.

--No Hard Feelings by Rhys Hughes

We have many more colours of poetry from John Drudge, Cal Freeman, Phil Wood, Thompson Emate, George Freek, Srijani Dutta, Akbar Fida Onoto, and others.

Translations feature poetry. Lyrics of Nazrul (1899-1976) and Tagore (1861-1941) appear together in Professor Alam’s translations of their love songs from Bengali. He has also transcreated a Bengali poem by Jibananada Das (1899-1854). Profoundly philosophical lines by Atta Shad (1939-1997) in Balochi has been rendered to English by Fazal Baloch for his birth anniversary this month. Ihlwah Choi has translated his poem from Korean, taking up the poignant theme of transience of life. A Tagore poem called ‘Kheya (Ferry)’, inspired by his rustic and beautiful surroundings, has been brought to us in English.

Our fiction this month features human bonding from across oceans by Paul Mirabile, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao and Snigdha Agrawal. This theme of love and bonding is taken up in a more complex way by our reviews’ section with Meenakshi Malhotra writing of Syed Mujtaba Ali’s novel, Shabnam, translated from Bengali by Nazes Afroz. Bhaskar Parichha has explored the past by bringing to focus Abhay K’s Nalanda: How it Changed the World. Somdatta Mandal’s review of Amitav Ghosh’s latest Wild Fiction: Essays touches upon various issues including climate change.

Huge thanks to all our contributors, the Borderless team for all these fabulous pieces. Thanks to Gulsara, Kamata, Bhowmick and Sinha for the fabulous photography by them to accompany their writings. Heartfelt gratitude to Sohana Manzoor for her cover art and to Dutta for her artwork accompanying her poem. Without all your efforts, this issue would have been incomplete. And now, dear readers, thank you for being with us through this journey. I turn the issue over to all of you… there is more as usual than mentioned here. Do pause by our contents page.

Let’s celebrate life this spring!

Happy Reading!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

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  1. pandies’ was started in 1987. It’s spelled with a small ‘p’ and the name was picked by the original team. Read more about pandies’ by clicking here. ↩︎

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

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Categories
Excerpt

Let’s Be Best Friends Forever

Title: Let’s Be Best Friends Forever: Beautiful Stories of Friendship

Publisher: Talking Cub, Speaking Tiger Books

From ‘The Tunnel of Friendship’ by Ruskin Bond

I had already started writing my first book. It was called Nine Months, but had nothing to do with a pregnancy; it referred merely to the length of the school term, the beginning of March to the end of November, and it detailed my friendships and escapades at school and lampooned a few of our teachers. I had filled three slim exercise books with this premature literary project, and I allowed Azhar to go through them. He was my first reader and critic. ‘They’re very interesting. But you’ll get into trouble if someone finds them,’ was his verdict.

We returned to Shimla, having won our matches against Sanawar, and were school heroes for a couple of days. And then my housemaster discovered my literary opus and took it away and read it. I was given six of the best with a Malacca cane, and my manuscript was torn up. Azhar knew better than to say ‘I told you so’ when I showed him the purple welts on my bottom. Instead, he repeated the more outrageous bits he remembered from the notebooks and laughed, till I began to laugh too.

‘Will you go away when the British leave India?’ Azhar asked me one day.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘My stepfather is Indian. My mother’s family have lived here for generations.’

‘Everyone is saying they’re going to divide the country. I think I’ll have to go away.’

‘Oh, it won’t happen,’ I said glibly. ‘How can they cut up such a big country?’

‘Gandhi will stop them,’ he said.

But even as we dismissed the possibility, Jinnah, Nehru and Mountbatten and all those who mattered were preparing their instruments for major surgery.

Before their decision had any effect on our life, we found a little freedom of our own—in an underground tunnel that we discovered in a corner of the school grounds. It was really part of an old, disused drainage system, and when Azhar and I began exploring it, we had no idea just how far it extended. After crawling along on our bellies for some twenty feet, we found ourselves in complete darkness. It was a bit frightening, but moving backwards would have been quite impossible, so we continued writhing forward, until we saw a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Dusty, a little bruised and very scruffy, we emerged at last on to a grassy knoll, a little way outside the school boundary. We’d found a way to escape school!

The tunnel became our beautiful secret. We would sit and chat in it, or crawl through it just for the thrill of stealing out of the school to walk in the wilderness. Or to lie on the grass, our heads touching, reading comics or watching the kites and eagles wheeling in the sky. In those quiet moments, I became aware of the beauty and solace of nature more keenly than I had been till then: the scent of pine needles, the soothing calls of the Himalayan bulbuls, the feel of grass on bare feet, and the low music of the cicadas.

World War II had just come to an end, the United Nations held out the promise of a world living in peace and harmony, and India, an equal partner with Britain, would be among the great nations…

But soon we learnt that Bengal and Punjab provinces, with their large Muslim populations, were to be bisected. Everyone was in a hurry: Jinnah and company were in a hurry to get a country of their own; Nehru, Patel and others were in a hurry to run a free, if truncated, India; and Britain was in a hurry to get out. Riots flared up across northern India.

At school, the common room radio and the occasional newspaper kept us abreast of events. But in our tunnel Azhar and I felt immune from all that was happening, worlds away from all the pillage, murder and revenge. Outside the tunnel, there was fresh untrodden grass, sprinkled with clover and daisies, the only sounds the hammering of a woodpecker, and the distant insistent call of the Himalayan barbet. Who could touch us there?

‘And when all wars are done,’ I said, ‘a butterfly will still be beautiful.’

‘Did you read that somewhere?’ Azhar asked.

‘No, it just came into my head.’

‘It’s good. Already you’re a writer.’

Though it felt good to hear him say that, I made light of it. ‘No, I want to play hockey for India or football for Arsenal. Only winning teams!’

‘You’ll lose sometimes, you know, even if you get into those teams,’ said wise old Azhar. ‘You can’t win forever. Better to be a writer.’

One morning after chapel, the headmaster announced that the Muslim boys—those who had their homes in what was now Pakistan—would have to be evacuated. They would be sent to their homes across the border with an armed convoy.

It was time for Azhar to leave, along with some fifty other boys from Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar. The rest of us—Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs and Parsis—helped them load their luggage into the waiting British Army trucks that would take them to Lahore. A couple of boys broke down and wept, including our departing school captain, a Pathan who had been known for his unemotional demeanour. Azhar waved to me and I waved back. We had vowed to meet again some day. We both kept our composure.

The headmaster announced a couple of days later that all the boys had reached Pakistan and were safe. On the morning of 15 August 1947, we were marched up to town to witness the Indian flag being raised for the first time. Shimla was still the summer capital of India, so it was quite an event. It was raining that morning. We were in our raincoats and gumboots, while a sea of umbrellas covered the Mall.

(Extracted from Let’s Be Best Friends Forever: Beautiful Stories of Friendship, with an introduction by Jerry Pinto. Published by Talking Cub, the children’s imprint of Speaking Tiger Books.)

ABOUT THE BOOK

 An Afghan trader and a young Bengali girl form a touching connection that transcends cultural barriers in Rabindranath Tagore’s classic story ‘The Kabuliwala’. Jo March and Laurie from Little Women meet at a dull party and become companions for life. L. Frank Baum’s timeless characters Dorothy and Toto adventure around Oz forging magical bonds of friendship.

The brave queen of Jhansi and her ally Jhalkaribai come together to fight for freedom and dignity; Jesse Owens narrates an inspiring tale of sportsmanship and solidarity from his Olympic days; and twelve-year-old Kamala and her friends, Edward, Amir and Amma, endure the Partition riots together in Bulbul Sharma’s heart-warming story.

In these pages you will also meet Nimmi and her best pal, Kabir, whose school misadventures include spirited debates; Sunny, whose love for books leads to a new friendship on a trip to Darjeeling; Cyril and Neil, who face life’s challenges with inventive word games, and Siya, who discovers that true friends can come in the most unexpected forms—even as a cherished doll.

Animal lovers will delight in the escapades of Gillu, the charming squirrel, Harold, the handsome hornbill, Rikki-tikki-tavi, the loyal mongoose, Hira and Moti, the powerful oxen, and Bagheera, the brave panther who looks after the young boy Mowgli.

With stories from beloved and popular authors—Ruskin Bond, Rudyard Kipling, Mahadevi Varma, Jerry Pinto, Shabnam Minwalla, and many more—Let’s Be Best Friends Forever is an enchanting collection that celebrates the universal power and beauty of friendship.

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Categories
Essay

From Place to Place

By Renee Melchert Thorpe

Formative years can imply simply a growing body or the development of a complex outlook on life.   My mother, born Mary Ann Hostetler in Pontiac, Illinois, lived her formative years in colonial India.   Here is what I know about two formative migrations that made her who she was.  She was a quick study, a keen photographer, and resourceful traveler, but she also had an uncanny sensitivity to the need of people to feel welcome anyplace.

She had a deeply fond memory of arriving with her family in West Bengal when she was a mere 2 years old.  On the dock of Calcutta, waiting to greet the Hostetlers, was another Mennonite missionary, a man who would escort the family to the mission compound.  Dispatched aloft by her mother, little Mary Ann absolutely “sailed into his arms”, feeling sincere love and comfort from this steady and attentive new man.  He would sometimes take her for walks in the farms and villages, letting her reach out safely.  There was nothing to fear in this new place, and she was allowed to build her confidence.

Crates and luggage would have been handled by porters, a first lesson in India’s system of echelons, privileges and defenses, which even Anabaptists would adopt. India would embrace Mary Ann with her cacophony and vibrancy.  There was always the conservative life at home and in the classroom, but she could escape into the chowrasta[1], eat street food, and read the discarded letters such food was wrapped in.

From the age of 5, she boarded at a dreary school in the extraordinary altitude of Darjeeling, wintered in the rural outskirts of Calcutta, spoke street dialect like an urchin, and learned to draw from memory a Mercator map of the world showing the borders of all the British colonies.  During school break back in her parents’ mission compound, she and her brother might pass time picking fat ticks from the tender hide of a little bullock her parents kept, but her favourite activity in those warm days was to climb an old mango tree which stood just out of range of her mother’s call and read a book.  Any book.  She was never without one.

She and her family made two returns to the US, the first in 1936 for a Mission Board furlough, and again in 1944, when she had graduated from high school and the war, closing in first on the Straits Settlements, and soon after striking the Calcutta docks, was too close for comfort. 

For that 1936 furlough, the family stayed a few days in Calcutta’s Salvation Army hotel while her mother shopped for items to bring back with them to the States.  Her list would have included a tablecloth and sheeting, cotton yardage, British wool, perhaps a few sandalwood items. These things would not have been exotic souvenirs but rather, practical items for their year ahead enduring America’s Great Depression.  They were, after all, the family of a pastor, disinclined to appear exceptional or proud.

Through their Salvation Army hotel window, my mother gazed down at the Fairlawn Hotel next door, where well-heeled families relaxed with tea service on white rattan furniture, children scattered gleefully on the vast greensward, late afternoon birdsong above, and a distant Victrola warbling from inside the forbidden edifice.  She longed to experience such pleasures, and decades later, she did finally stay a few nights at the Fairlawn in 1992, with me, as I had chosen the hotel without knowing its gnawing maneuvers deep in my mother’s soul.

Checking in, we met the flamboyant and zaftig British redhead in charge of the place, my mother’s very age, daughter of the owner from those last days of the Raj.  That woman could scream gutter Bengali at the top of her lungs, and the next moment turn to my mother and politely ask about some little thing important only to little girls from a faraway garden city.  I watched as these two disparate women embraced and laughed together.    

The day she and her own mother arrived in the Los Angeles port of San Pedro, she was astonished to disembark and hear sweaty stevedores yelling and chattering in English.  This told her more about America and what was purportedly its classless society, than any adult’s own description could have.  She thrilled at this discovery.  She was unconcerned about fitting in with new school mates, got along well with them, even though they whispered amongst themselves about “her brogue.”

She never told me anything about her trip back to India, a year later.  But she would have sailed again, stuffed into Second Class.  I imagine her trying to lose her parents, availing herself of the ship’s library.  But I don’t know.

She graduated from Mount Hermon School as the “Best Girl,” although if you visit there, you can discover that the clueless new headmaster from her graduation year neglected to have the big silver trophy emblazoned with her name for the class of 1944.  Her brother’s is there with the year 1943 on the school’s “Best Boy” cup.  But he simply forgot to put in the engraving order when it was Mary Ann Hostetler’s honor.  My mother harbored few resentments, but this was a sore point, as she had worked very hard at academics.

I have never seen Bombay Harbour, where she finally left India as a young woman, but this is what she has told me.  It was wartime, 1944, but she was full of hope and thrilled to be out of that grim and cold school in the clouds.   

Mary Ann and her family boarded a passenger liner repurposed to carry a large number of troops.  A little sister had been born in India, making the family five, now billeted in what was once a First Class cabin, as were other American families leaving India.  Of course, no monogrammed towels or French milled soaps awaited them, but she relished the luxury of portholes and her own bunk.

The ship left Victoria Dock in April of 1944, mere days before the catastrophic accident of the munitions-laden SS Fort Stikine accidental fire and explosion, which destroyed every vessel in the harbor.  Wartime secrecy held successfully for decades, and my mother never learned of the near miss until many years after the war was over. 

All kinds of security measures were taken, even though the atmosphere on the crowded ship was convivial and relaxed. No flags flew.  And they sailed a zigzag course as a precaution against torpedoes.  They were in a convoy with two other soldier and civilian transports, but never saw the other ships except when in harbour.  One of those harbours was Melbourne, where boarded dozens of Australian war brides, and every last one of those young women, my mother said, had a screaming infant.  Those women shared second class cabins.  Two mother/baby pairs had bunks and one pair slept on their cabin floor.

Everyone aboard seemed to be flirting with the soldiers and welcoming distraction.  My mother and her new girlfriends, and even a few of the young Australian mothers, were nurturing chaste romances and enjoying their youth.  It was so much fun, and so stress-free, that my mother looked down at her wrist one day, where there had flourished for many months a large filiform wart, resembling some sort of fleshy agave plant; it had vanished. 

They went through the Panama Canal, a surprise for everyone aboard as well as for their stateside families.  All had been told by the war department that the convoy would land in San Francisco.  Instead, they went to Boston.  Plans were upset, lives were disrupted, and thousands of families who had made their way to California were now faced with crossing the wide country to meet their loved ones.  Typical instance, my mother said, of the war and the US government inflicting the population with whimsy, wasted efforts, or red tape in the name of national security.

To glimpse at last the American flag flying in Boston harbour gave my mother an indescribable feeling of safety and delight.  Worries carefully buried were truly gone.  The war would end in a little over a year’s time.  She had the rest of her life ahead of her.  

The USA was a safe harbour for a few years of university before she was off again, this time to Japan.  Decades later, with an empty nest, she and my father chose Italy.   Migrations were just part of living, and wherever she went, if she met another person displaced by whatever reason, she had a new best friend.  I knew them, too.  The Finnish dry cleaner, the Salvadorian woman who answered the phone at the Honda repair shop, or the Japanese lady who ran an art supply store: these people came from away, and so had she.

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[1] An intersection of four roads.

Renee Melchert Thorpe has fiction and nonfiction work has appeared in several Asian journals and magazines.

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Categories
Poetry

Sunrise from Tiger Hill

By Shamik Banerjee

Sunrise at Kanchenjunga from Tiger Hills, Darjeeling. 
Blue Sunbirds haunt this region. They
Convert this hill into an odeum.
At five a.m, tree branches sway
When dawn winds blow, making a constant hum.
By six, a gradual colour change
Occurs above the distant mountain range.

The sky, once lazuli and white,
Gets flooded by the hue of orange-gold
From Heaven's massive source of light.
The tourists, standing cheek by jowl, behold
This incandescent spectacle
Like witnessing a one-time miracle.

The children are moon-eyed and thrilled,
Adults and elders bow in adoration
(As if to God Himself), all stilled,
When Kangchenjunga gets its coronation,
And youngsters click and store this view
Until that light has fully bathed them too.

Shamik Banerjee is a poet from India. He resides in Assam with his parents and works for a local firm. His poems have appeared in Fevers of the Mind, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and Westward Quarterly, among others, and some of his poems are forthcoming in Willow Review and Ekstasis, to name a few.

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Categories
Poetry

Satirical Poems by Maithreyi Karnoor


HIGH AND MY TEA


A cup of Darjeeling 

Just brewed, dark, steaming

Sat on the high table 

That at first seemed stable 	

It wasn’t. I’m sullen.

Look! How my tea has fallen! 





DEATH OF THE AUTHOR 


The author is a scripter who no longer bears 

Passions, feelings, impressions

He simply sits on chairs

He hands over the keys to the meaning of his words 

To a reader who lacks history 

And biography – what a nerd!

Forlorn for want of importance he takes to eating much

Cakes, biscuits and puddings 

Custards, pies and fudge

He eats and eats and mopes over the sordidness of writing

And the ingrate world that takes away  

One’s claim over one’s citing

His blood sugar shoots up like a star he’d hoped to be

He swears aloud at Roland Barthes 

And dies of diabetes  





MEN BELONG IN THE WOODSHED 


Men belong in the woodshed 

Swinging axe, chopping kindling

It’s as sweet mother nature intended 



Boys raised well will always tread

The right path – which isn’t writing and reading

For men belong in the woodshed



Buffing brawn is their daily bread

And not knitting or pee sitting 

Just as sweet mother nature intended 



Let no state be by man led 

They would take wars for playthings

As men belong in the woodshed 



Men must be to women wed 

Who push them to fulfil their calling 

Where they belong – in the woodshed 

As sweet mother nature intended 





LETTING IN THE DRAUGHT 


Topple a tipple 

We’re lager than life 

Never an outsider in cider 

But all ale pales 

Before pale ale 

A draught as smooth as eider





THIRD WORLD LITERATURE AS NATIONAL ALLERGY* 



Our pulp fiction is pulped too fine

Rising up it irritates the sine-

-uses, giving headaches and fevers

In Fahrenheit of ninety nine  



Every hero in lit prose

Makes the nation preen and pose 

Blowing pollen on the west 

Giving it a runny nose 



Stories of the global south 

Of reddened eyes and cottonmouth

Will try to claim postcolonial angst

But in fact they are mouldy growths 



Our novels are but spicy stews

With peanuts slipped in for the chews

We try to match the great canon 

But all we write is achoo achoo! 



*Fredric Jameson’s essay ‘Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism’ that claims all third world literature is a ‘national allegory’.

Maithreyi Karnoor is the author of the novel Sylvia and the translator of Kannada novels A Handful of Sesame and Tejo Tungabhadra. She is a two-time finalist of The Montreal International Poetry Prize and the recipient of the CWIT fellowship at LAF and UWTSD.

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

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

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Categories
Interview

Of Spooks & Ghosts: In Conversation with Abhirup Dhar

Abhirup Dhar

Do you enjoy ghost stories or stories of haunting that send shivers down your spine? Meet Abhirup Dhar, a young writer of horror who juggles a corporate job with his love of writing. He puts on his writerly shoes at night – like ‘Nina, Pretty Ballerina’[1] – to create horror stories that are not just taken up by reputable publishing houses but also by Bollywood. His books[2] have been endorsed by a renowned filmmaker, Vikram Bhatt, and Dhar is now scriptwriting for a number of films based on his own books and more. His earlier book, Ghost Hunter: Gaurav Tiwari (2021) was picked for a screen adaptation even before it was published. The book is based on a real-life event where a young paranormal researcher, Gaurav Tiwari (1984-2016), was found dead… And did Dhar, while writing the script, have a visitation? Read on to find out more about the genre, visitations by spirits, the author and his fascination for the paranormal…

You are a banker by profession. What made you turn to writing? Since when have you been writing? What gets your muse going?

Firstly, thank you for having me for the interview. I have been a banker for many years after which I changed the sector and am currently into travel. In the corporate world, it’s important that one keeps a track of the market and switches when it is the right time rather than continuing in a saturated atmosphere.

Coming to writing, I have always been a writer much before I was anything else! As a child, I used to write stories on notebooks and keep them to myself. Some went for the school and local magazines. When I was in college, I blogged and did some freelancing too, also wrote movie reviews for certain portals. It was during a break between my postgraduate course and first job that I utilised a few weeks and wrote my first book at a stretch. Getting published was never in my mind and I had written only for the sheer joy of it. Then I got busy with my job till a few years later when I began writing movie reviews for a portal again. It was then that I had shared the manuscript with a few people who loved the book. They said it was fun and struck a chord and that I should get published. So, I did! I was an amateur then but that’s where my writing career began. My first book was out in 2015 and it was an extremely special and emotional moment for me holding its copies! Passion is what keeps me going. It’s been an interesting and worthwhile journey of learning from successes and failures, unlearning, persevering and also importantly for me, multi-tasking.

Why horror? What made you choose this genre of writing? Your first book was a story of relationships. Why did you move into horror?

I was always a big horror buff. The first book I read was horror. The first movie I watched was horror. The first story I wrote was horror. And I enjoyed visiting deserted and supposedly haunted places. Anything supernatural intrigued me and I was curious about the afterlife. I still am. I was actually supposed to debut with a horror book which came out later. Based on a short story I had written while studying at a boarding school in Darjeeling, The Belvoirbrooke Haunting didn’t really shape up earlier. I guess for a difficult genre like horror, a little more maturity is required. So, I came out with Once Again… With Love! first as the manuscript was ready. My second book — Stories Are Magical — had six stories from six genres, including horror. While writing the book, I went back to my childhood days and realised it was horror which I enjoyed the most. It was a genre hardly focused upon and I knew it was risky. But I just wrote Hold That Breath without thinking about the repercussions. It went on to surprise everyone including me! The idea was to tell horror stories just the way I like them and have a common link – urban legends. It was followed by The Belvoirbrooke Haunting and Hold That Breath: 2 after which we now have Ghost Hunter: Gaurav Tiwari and HAUNTINGS. My horror outings have been enjoyable to say the least though I personally enjoy other genres like thrillers, murder mysteries and romance too.

Would you view horror as the voice of the age or as a genre which brings catharsis to masses? Does horror only entertain or have a larger value than appeasing the appetite of the people who read or watch a film?

We all lived through horror during the pandemic, didn’t we? It’s relevant, relatable and now a voice of the age. I wouldn’t say it is a massy genre in India yet but for those who enjoy reading it, horror provides relief. It also teaches you how to overcome fear and come out strong in life. So, it isn’t only about entertaining. Though I do think, it’s very important for a writer to make the genre fun. My books are relatable, relevant and entertaining for sure. It also helps that I have been a huge horror buff myself so I know how the genre and also a few tropes work for readers.

Your horror novels have been picked up by Bollywood. Tell us a bit about that.

Ghost Hunter: Gaurav Tiwari was acquired for screen adaptation much before its release itself. There are talks on about other books too. An upcoming book is going to be adapted for the screen and I’m writing the script myself. Screen adaptation deals are important because they begin reaching out to a wider audience right from the announcement itself. While the entire process is a very lengthy one, it’s a good validation for writers apart from other aspects. Horror has come a long way now. Thanks to efforts made by Suhail Mathur, a literary agent from The Book Bakers, it is getting noticed by the big traditional publishing houses. I’m sure it will have a better position in the film world too. There are very few filmmakers who have focused on it yet and the best way is to adapt horror novels or get good writers.

You have moved into scriptwriting from novel writing? How is it different?

I write both books and scripts now and I enjoy them equally. Though scriptwriting and books are two different mediums, they are both about one common thing – storytelling. Very different! Books are a lot more about descriptions and one can play with words. But in a script, it’s visual storytelling which means that one needs to be very specific. It’s more about the action and dialogues while books are more about characterisations and inner thoughts.

Your novels are in English. What language do you use for screenwriting for Bollywood? Are you bilingual and is it an easy transition?

Scripts are mostly in English these days. It can later be translated by the dialogue writer. It has become very professional in Bollywood now and smart filmmakers know or should know that the story is the king. I’m fluent in Hindi as well so that certainly helps but I don’t write in Hindi. I love Hindi films though.

What makes the most impact to create the semblance of horror in books and in films? How is it different?

Relatability. And this is extremely difficult in a genre like horror. Most people can relate with a genre like romance as most have fallen in love and even if they haven’t, they want to fall in love. With a genre like horror which is driven on the basic of fear, it becomes important that a reader relates with the characters and the events because most would not have seen a ghost. But they have experienced fear. In a book, a writer can scare readers with the situations. However, what a book misses out on is something extremely integral to the genre – background music. You get that in movies. I wouldn’t say that jump scares and scary faces are the most important things in horror as I personally like to find fear in moments, silence and circumstances.

You are associated with some paranormal societies too. Do you believe in ghosts or the paranormal? Please tell us more about it.

Just one and they are the pioneers of paranormal research in India. I’ve collaborated with Indian Paranormal Society which was founded by Reverend Gaurav Tiwari in 2009. Yes, I do believe in ghosts, the paranormal and the afterlife and I have a theory which I have researched on. The Afterlife or ‘The Other World’ as I call it is simply a phase after death where we wait for reincarnation. The better the karma in the life we led, the quicker the time. But again, there is no concept of time there. One needs to read my books to understand the theory as it is a very detailed one. To make it understandable to the layman, ghosts or spirits dwell in The Other World due to some baggage or unfulfilled desires. They may not even want to accept that they are dead and try to latch on to the living physical world to make their presence felt. There are boundaries not to be crossed either by us or them. That is how the balance remains.

Have you ever had any out of the world/ paranormal experience?

I used to visit many deserted and supposedly haunted places as a child. Also tried calling ghosts with friends. But nothing really happened. I won’t lie here. But something did happen after I completed the manuscript of Ghost Hunter: Gaurav Tiwari that I discussed with the folks at Indian Paranormal Society. I mostly write at late nights because that’s when I get time. And it’s also the best time to write horror. So, I mailed the manuscript to the erstwhile publisher Westland (the book is getting republished by Rupa now) and tried to sleep. It took me some time to close my eyelids as I felt a little uneasy. I dreamt about Gaurav Tiwari that night. I don’t really remember much but there was something he was trying to tell me. I don’t know what it was. I had a word with IPS the next morning and was shocked to know that after Gaurav’s death in 2016, most of his team members had a similar dream. He always wanted a good writer to write a book about him and his cases so I’m guessing he had come to thank me!

Share a few of your most interesting experiences as a horror writer.

Every time I sit to write something, the experience is interesting! My imagination takes me to different places, and I get to meet different characters. But researching on both Ghost Hunter: Gaurav Tiwari and HAUNTINGS took me to a different aspect of being a horror writer – Empathy for the dead is important because they lived once too.

What are your future plans? Do you plan to juggle all your jobs or would you focus on one that is your favourite?

I’m an aspirational person. By being aspirational, I don’t just mean being ambitious about studies, job or career but life as a whole. While I can focus more on writing if I stop juggling it with my job, I see a future in both – of course, in different ways. But you never know. However, in present times, a writer can’t just live in a bubble. One needs to make money out of the craft as you need to pay the bills. So, a more feasible option would be to become a ‘writerpreneur’. If a writer can’t be that, he or she needs to have other avenues of income. No writer earns a living only through books and the royalty. Screen adaptations and scripts are good ways to expand for sure.

Thanks for giving us your time.

[1] A song by ABBA where a girl transformed from an ordinary person to a ballerina of exquisite grace

[2] Hold That Breath: 2 released in 2022

(This interview has been carried out via emails by Mitali Chakravarty. The images have been provided by Abhirup Dhar. )

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Categories
Poetry

Entwined Places

By S Srinivasan

Artwork by Gita Viswanath
ENTWINED PLACES

Standing on the Juhu beach,
I heard, more than a decade ago, 
The winds from the Marina, 
In a smattering of Marathi and Tamil,
Accompanying birdsongs.

Blame that on a bout of homesickness
But what about last year, when

The Sealdah station, its turf
Pounded by the waves of human feet,
Seemed to me to reverberate 
With the weighty steps of the rush hour, 
Also felt in Mylapore and Nariman Point?

Perhaps, the crowds stirred me then
But that cannot be all, for

Often on cool Hyderabadi afternoons,
I have worn, in silence, the unease
Of Bangalore's woolen evenings;
And sensed in Delhi's nippy nights
The cold grip of other Indian winters...

Extremes sometimes addle the brain
And lull the heart, but…

Even when I take a leisurely stroll
On a summer dusk, around the lake
That girdles my neck of the woods,
I am greeted by the lush sights, of
The long winding ways yonder...

To Darjeeling and Kodaikkanal,
To Yercaud and Dehradun,
To Kashmir and Kanyakumari,
And to all that lies beyond.

Srinivas S teaches English at the Rishi Valley School, India. He spends his free time taking long walks, watching cricket and writing poetry in short-form (mostly haiku).

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