Sometimes, after a downpour, there is a rainbow. Though finding a real leprechaun with a pot of gold at the end of the shimmering diaphanous arch seems unlikely, rains inspire another type of treasure — a trove of poetry written around clouds, showers, thunder from across continents. We would like to share with you some of our gatherings from the Borderless treasury, starting with translations of Tagore to modern day poetry — all conversing around seasonal outpourings from the sky in their own way…
Tagore Translations
Monomor Megher Songi (My Friends, The Clouds), a song translated by Professor Fakrul Alam.
My mind keeps company with clouds
And soars with them in all directions.
To the pitter patter pitter patter of sravan showers,
My mind swerves towards infinite space....
Only when it began to rain could I hear it,
in late summer, after they had all risen high
in the saucer magnolia tree – a soft, slow rain
at first, while the light still held in the west.
Tagore’s Mono Mor Megher Shongi (‘The Clouds, My Friends‘)has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
The Welcome, a skit by Tagore, has been translated by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.
The Bus Conductor, a short storyby Dalip Kaur Tiwana has been translated from Punjabi by C. Christine Fair. Click here to read.
Hasan Sol: A Balochi Folktale from Geedi Kessah-4(Folktales Vol: 4) compiled and retold by Gulzar Khan Mari, has been translated by Fazal Baloch from Balochi. Click here to read.
Cry of the Sunflower written in Korean and translated to English by Ihlwha Choi, a poem for Ukraine. Click here to read.
This narrative is written by a youngster from the Nithari village who transcended childhood trauma and deprivation. Lockdown had been written in Hindustani by Jishan and translated to English by Grace M Sukanya. Click here to read.
InThe Anthology in my Mind, Rhys Hughes talks of a make believe anthology. Clickhere to read and find out what he imagines.
Conversations
Eminent film journalist, Ratnottama Sengupta, converses with legendary actress, Deepti Naval, on her literary aspirations at the Simla Literary festival, Unmesh, in June 2022. Click hereto read.
Keith Lyons interviews Steve Carr, a writer who has written 500 short stories and has founded the Sweetycat Press. Click here to read.
Meenakshi Malhotra reviews Tagore’sGleanings of the Roadtranslated by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.
Rakhi Dalal reviews Geetanjali Shree’s Mai, Silently Mother, a Sahitya Akademi winning translation of the Hindi novel by Nita Kumar. Click hereto read.
WEAVING THE LONG NOW TOGETHER
What stories might Mother Elephant tell
to guide her herd through the dark eclipse?
What songs might the whales exchange
of bygone currents and plenty krill?
Do gods send sighs over centuries,
as we waste seconds and breath,
barely seeing what is with us still?
Devangshu Dutta is a student of life.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Dust
Dust in the mouth
Do you taste the victory whose reason
you have long forgotten,
Or the defeat whose arrival terrorises your nights?
Does it matter?
Whether it is the romantic reminder
of stardust beginnings,
Or the foreteller of its entropic end?
Devangshu Dutta is an entrepreneur, business advisor and a student of life. His published writing in recent years has largely been restricted to business analyses, but he’s exploring publishing in other spaces.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
Devangshu Dutta is an entrepreneur, business advisor and a student of life. His published writing in recent years has largely been restricted to business analyses; this is his first non-business published work in decades. Upbraided frequently about not having put out a book yet, he promises to start working on at least one of the many manuscripts sketched out over the years before 2020 is out.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
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