Tag: Farouk Gulsara

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Editorial

Celebrating the Child & Childhood…

Mother & Child by Jamini Roy (1887-1972)
Mother and Child by Picasso (1881-1973)
‘Victory to Man, the newborn, the ever-living.’
They kneel down, the king and the beggar, the saint and 
the sinner, 
the wise and the fool, and cry:
‘Victory to Man, the newborn, the ever-living.’

— ‘The Child’ by Rabindranath Tagore1, written in English in 1930

This is the month— the last of a conflict-ridden year— when we celebrate the birth of a messiah who spoke of divine love, kindness, forgiveness and values that make for a better world. The child, Jesus, has even been celebrated by Tagore in one of his rarer poems in English. While we all gather amidst our loved ones to celebrate the joy generated by the divine birth, perhaps, we will pause to shed a tear over the children who lost their lives in wars this year. Reportedly, it’s a larger number than ever before. And the wars don’t end. Nor the killing. Children who survive in war-torn zones lose their homes or families or both. For all the countries at war, refugees escape to look for refuge in lands that are often hostile to foreigners. And yet, this is the season of loving and giving, of helping one’s neighbours, of sharing goodwill, love and peace. On Christmas this year, will the wars cease? Will there be a respite from bombardments and annihilation?

We dedicate this bumper year-end issue to children around the world. We start with special tributes to love and peace with an excerpt from Tagore’s long poem, ‘The Child‘, written originally in English in 1930 and a rendition of the life of the philosopher and change-maker, Vivekananda, by none other than well-known historical fiction writer, Aruna Chakravarti. The poem has been excerpted from Indian Christmas: Essays, Memoirs, Hymns, an anthology edited by Jerry Pinto and Madhulika Liddle, a book that has been reviewed by Somdatta Mandal and praised for its portrayal of the myriad colours and flavours of Christmas in India. Christ suffered for the sins of humankind and then was resurrected, goes the legend. Healing is a part of our humanness. Suffering and healing from trauma has been brought to the fore by Christopher Marks’ perspective on Veronica Eley’s The Blue Dragonfly: healing through poetry. Basudhara Roy has also written about healing in her take of Kuhu Joshi’s My Body Didn’t Come Before Me. Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed a book that talks of healing a larger issue — the crises that humanity is facing now, Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World, by ex-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Nobel Laureate Michael Spence, Mohamed El-Erian and Reid Lidow. Parichha tells us that it suggests solutions to resolve the chaos the world is facing — perhaps a book that the world leadership would do well to read. After all, the authors are of their ilk! Our book excerpts from Dr Ratna Magotra’s Whispers of the Heart – Not Just A Surgeon: An Autobiography and Manjima Misra’s The Ocean is Her Title are tinged with healing and growth too, though in a different sense.

The theme of the need for acceptance, love and synchronicity flows into our conversations with Afsar Mohammad, who has recently authored Remaking History: 1948 Police Action and the Muslims of Hyderabad. He shows us that Hyderabadi tehzeeb or culture ascends the narrow bounds set by caged concepts of faith and nationalism, reaffirming his premise with voices of common people through extensive interviews. In search of a better world, Meenakshi Malhotra talks to us about how feminism in its recent manifestation includes masculinities and gender studies while discussing The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle, edited by her, Krishna Menon and Rachana Johri. Here too, one sees a trend to blend academia with non-academic writers to bring focus on the commonalities of suffering and healing while transcending national boundaries to cover more of South Asia.

That like Hyderabadi tehzeeb, Bengali culture in the times of Tagore and Nazrul dwelled in commonality of lore is brought to the fore when in response to the Nobel laureate’s futuristic ‘1400 Saal’ (‘The year 1993’), his younger friend responds with a poem that bears not only the same title but acknowledges the older man as an “emperor” among versifiers. Professor Fakrul Alam has not only translated Nazrul’s response, named ‘1400 Saal’ aswell, but also brought to us the voice of another modern poet, Quazi Johirul Islam. We have a self-translation of a poem by Ihlwha Choi from Korean and a short story by S Ramakrishnan in Tamil translated by T Santhanam.

Our short stories travel with migrant lore by Farouk Gulsara to Malaysia, from UK to Thailand with Paul Mirabile while chasing an errant son into the mysterious reaches of wilderness, with Neeman Sobhan to Rome, UK and Bangladesh, reflecting on the Birangonas (rape victims) of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation war, an issue that has been taken up in Malhotra’s book too. Sobhan’s story is set against the backdrop of a war which was fought against linguistic hegemony and from which we see victims heal. Sohana Manzoor this time has not only given us fabulous artwork but also a fantasy hovering between light and dark, life and death — an imaginative fiction that makes a compelling read and questions the concept of paradise, a construct that perhaps needs to be found on Earth, rather than after death.

The unusual paradigms of life and choices made by all of us is brought into play in an interesting non-fiction by Nitya Amlean, a young Sri Lankan who lives in UK. We travel to Kyoto with Suzanne Kamata, to Beijing with Keith Lyons, to Wayanad with Mohul Bhowmick and to Langkawi with Ravi Shankar. Wendy Jones Nakanishi argues in favour of borders with benevolent leadership. Tongue-in-cheek humour is exuded by Devraj Singh Kalsi as he writes of his attempts at using visiting cards as it is by Rhys Hughes in his exploration of the truth about the origins of the creature called Humpty Dumpty of nursery rhyme fame.

Poetry again has humour from Hughes. A migrant himself, Jee Leong Koh, brings in migrant stories from Singaporeans in US. We have poems of myriad colours from Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Patricia Walsh, John Grey, Kumar Bhatt, Ron Pickett, Prithvijeet Sinha, Sutputra Radheye, George Freek and many more. Papia Sengupta ends her poem with lines that look for laughter among children and a ‘life without borders’ drawn by human constructs in contrast to Jones Nakanishi’s need for walls with sound leadership. The conversation and dialogues continue as we look for a way forward, perhaps with Gordon Brown’s visionary book or with Tagore’s world view of lighting the inner flame in each human. We can hope that a way will be found. Is it that tough to influence the world using words? We can wish — may there be no need for any more Greta Thunbergs to rise in protest for a world fragmented and destroyed by greed and lack of vision. We hope for peace and love that will create a better world for our children.

As usual, we have more content than mentioned here. All our pieces can be accessed on the contents’ page. Do pause by and take a look. This bumper issue would not have been possible without the contribution of all the writers and our fabulous team from Borderless. Huge thanks to them all and to our wonderful readers who continue to encourage us with their comments and input.

Here’s wishing you all wonderful new adventures in the New Year that will be born as this month ends!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

  1. Indian Christmas: Essays, Memoirs, Hymns edited by Jerry Pinto & Madhulika Liddle ↩︎

Click here to access the content’s page for the December 2023 issue

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Categories
Stories

Wrath of the Goddess?

By Farouk Gulsara

1960s, Malaya

The big day will be here soon, tomorrow, to be exact. School life had been going on, dragging its feet. They say time flies when you are having fun. I do not remember having any fun, but it flew by anyway. Whenever I start thinking of the future, time seems to be ticking like a time bomb. There is so much uncertainty, and so much can happen. So, I tell myself to tread one day at a time. The best thing to do is not to think too far ahead. But then, that would make me no different from my father, would it not? Enjoy today of what is uncertain tomorrow.

Today is Sunday. The restaurant is closed after lunch. I have been helping out at an Indian restaurant near my house to earn some extra cash to pay for my school fees, the fees that my father refuses to pay. In his eyes, I am old enough to earn for the family, not draining from it. Money is always not enough.

I have some free time. As promised, I decide to meet up with Johnny to discuss some matters about the coming examination. I have not been feeling well for the past few days, with constant lethargy, malaise, body itch and muscle aches. I passed it off as the stress of facing one of my biggest challenges in life, the Middle Certificate Examinations.

As I walk towards Johnny’s house, I run my hand over the back of my neck to scratch. I thought I felt a small globule there.

“Oh no, is that something serious?” I ask myself. “Maybe Johnny can examine it for me.”

Johnny runs his hand over the area.

“Thamby, you have many spots like that over the neck and back. It could be smallpox that they are saying on the radio,” he says, “I think we better see our schoolmaster, Mr Peter. I know his house. He stays in the school compound. Let’s go.”

We race to our school master’s house. In no time, we are banging on Mr Peter Tan’s gate. Standing on his balcony, he acknowledges our presence. “Boys, what are you all doing here?” he says. “Johnny, your father isworried about your examinations. You better be at home, studying.”

“Sorry, sir,” I interject. “Mr Tan, I want to tell you something. I think I have smallpox.”

“What? Smallpox?” he implodes. “Thamby, you better go to the hospital and get yourself admitted. You cannot be walking around spreading the illness to every Tom, Dick and Harry that you see on the street!” he starts preaching. “You can sit for the exams next year, not this year, no way.”

“But, sir, I am all ready for the exams.” I object. “It’s not fair.”

The first thing that goes through my mind is working for another whole year all over again to pay another year’s school fees. I had to think of another way to sit for the public examinations I had been waiting for so long.

“I tell you what,” Mr Tan continues, “you check yourself into the General Hospital. I will talk to the Headmaster to get a refund for you. You go now.”

I am not going to throw in the towel so easily.

“Sir, can I sit for the test in the hospital?”

“No way, boy,” he exclaims. “In my ten years of experience, I have never heard of such a thing. If you are sick, especially with pox, nobody would dare come near you. Sorry, I can’t do anything!”

By now, I must be appearing like a nagging pain in the neck to my teacher, but like a rabid dog, I do not seem to let him go.

Upon my insistence, he tells me, “I tell you what. Try the good offices of the Director of Schools of Penang Island, Mr Ingram Bell.”

He, however, quickly adds, “He stays just around the corner, but don’t keep your hopes too high.”

With a heavy heart, I drag my feet to the living quarters of Mr Bell. Johnny and I stood at the gate after ringing the bell hanging in the corner. A thin and tall, moustachioed Indian man, who must be his servant, starts shooing us away from the premises. Our attires and appearances must have been out of character from the government quarters and its whitewashed walls.

In between the shenanigan of the coolie telling his employer that just some uninvited pests had shown up at the premises and his trying to get us just to buzz off, a muscular man with a build of a pugilist appears.

“What is happening here?” he asks as he looks toward us. “Who are you, and why are you here?”

Before the coolie could utter another sentence, I rushed in, “Sir, I am supposed to be sitting for my MCE tomorrow. They tell me I can’t sit for it tomorrow. They say I have to sit for it next year. I am from a poor family. I cannot afford to pay another year’s school fees…” I rattle on without catching a breath.

“Hold, hold on to your horses, young man,” he says. “Come in.”

“Mani, open the gate, let them in. And get some juices.”

He invites us to sit at the verandah. I tell him my whole life story in a single breath and end it with my dire straits of affairs. Mr Bell listens to the saga intently and looks up at the ceiling as I finish my story in a time that appears forever. Then, like looking for a flower to blossom, I waited with bated breath for his words of wisdom. Time stands still. I can hear my heart pounding. I think I heard a gecko chirping.

“Tambi, listen to what I have to say.” he finally vocalises. “You get admitted now. Take the treatment. Come tomorrow, I will make sure that you can sit for the examination. Trust me!”

With a heavy heart, I admit myself to the Penang General Hospital. Luckily, I have chickenpox, not smallpox, as I had dreaded. I have to be hospitalised anyway as per orders of the State Director of Schools. (gulp…!)

The night proves to be a very long one. The uncertainty of events of tomorrow and the febrility of the illness kept me wide awake. I did not want to be the one who slept through the examinations, though.

“Why me? Why now?” I keep asking myself. “Did I incur the wrath of Goddess Mariamman, the guardian of pox illnesses?”

Maybe the Gods are angry with me for not paying my respects to the Divine forces since Ma passed away. I have not gone to the temples for so long. But then, Ma used to be a loyal temple-going devotee who never missed her chance to perform penance, fasts and rituals. See how she turned out — stripped of her lifelong dreams of self-empowerment, entrapped in an awkward, unhappy marriage, afflicted with a deadly disease at a young age, suffering and dying in a gruesome manner, not seeing her offspring blossom to adulthood.

“Shouldn’t the divine powers at the level of a Creator, from the status of a Mother or Father, be protective, not vindictive, not demanding salutations and showing narcissistic tendencies to gloat in the joy of being feted by His parishioners?” I wonder sometimes.

Slowly, I conclude that I decide my fate, not the intergalactic planetary constellations of the stars. The philosophical labyrinth were so exhausting that I doze off eventually.

Dawn comes with the murmur of the hospital attendants and their paraphernalia. I wake up in a daze. I soon remember the events of the day before: the admission, the chicken pox and … Oh no! Today is examination day. My pulse raced. I run my hand over my neck, and I feel scores of fluid-filled blisters, many more than I had felt yesterday.

It had spread downward to my back and my limbs. I have an intense desire to scratch the lesions, but I know I am not supposed to do that. And the body aches and the fever have not subsided. I shower, pop in two Aspro fever tablets, eat the hospital breakfast and wait.

Is the Director of Secondary School going to live up to his words, or

were his words mere rhetorics to get rid of me and my poxed-self from his abode? I glance at the large Smith clock with the Roman numeral on the ward wall. It is 7 am. The first paper is due to start in two hours. What is it going to be? Am I going to sit for the test, or will it be another disappointment, just like the many uncertainties that had plagued my family? Every turn in my life seems to hit a dead end. Is there no future for me?

I decide to have a last-minute glance at my books before the reckoning, but it is only an attempt at futility. The butterflies in my tummy and the pulsatile gush of blood to my head are too disturbing. I keep glancing at the clock. Time ticks slowly. It is fifteen minutes before nine. The background murmur of the ward suddenly comes to a halt. Piercing the silence is the sound, rapid staccato of heels. I rush out of my quarantine.

The scene of neatly dressed shirt-and-tie-donning men walking across the medical ward is a sight for sore-eyes. They must be the education officers that Mr Bell had promised. I give out a sigh of relief. I feel like I have already done and passed the examinations. And guess who is moving in with them? It is none other than the pessimistic Mr Peter Tan who told me, in not so many words, to go back home and sleep off my chicken pox away and kiss my exams bye-bye. What is he doing here? He looks pretty pleased with himself, gleaming from ear to ear like Punch and walking in long strides to keep pace with a Caucasian man, probably an Education Department staff.

As if the wards are devoid of action-packed activities, everyone, the nurses, ancillary workers, and even patients, stop whatever they are doing to give full attention to the visitors who seem to walk in boldly even though it is not visiting hours. They must have been wondering what was about to happen. The Caucasian man stops in my room to ask, “Young man, are Nalla Thamby?”

I tried to vocalise, but my voice seems stuck. I clear my throat to give out a feeble whisper, “Yes, I am, sir.”

“We are from the State Education Department,” he rattled on. “We are here to supervise your MCE examinations in this hospital.”

A trail of busybodies flock around my room to quell their sense of curiosity. They must be wondering who in the devil’s name is this unassuming young boy who gets visits from Government officials! Pretty soon, they understand what is happening with all the desk arrangement, clocks, papers, ‘Exams in progress’ notices and the flashing of cameras by photographers. The tests progress without much fanfare.

The most amusing thing about this fiasco is what is reported in the next day’s newspaper. Mr Tan is pictured patting me on my shoulder, no more the persona of the day previously who shooed me like a bug from his compound. He is seen patting me in the part most visibly infected with pox vesicles, ironically. In his interview, he mentioned that he was instrumental in ensuring that I did not miss my papers, and it is unfortunate that I should be inflicted with this illness at such a wrong time. He boasted that he knew about my true potential and that I would turn out tops in the examinations. I also found out later that my seating of the Senior Cambridge examination in the hospitals was the first of its kind in the history of the state, and Mr Tan took all credit!

I smile to myself. It does not matter who takes the credit. The important thing is that I completed the examinations. Like what Mr Tan had predicted, the examination results proved to be in my favour. I was successful. The vesicles dried up fast enough but not the memory of this whole brouhaha and all. One thing that I learnt through this debacle is that you hold the reign to your future. Nobody owes you a living. What you want, you have to search for it. Perhaps the guardian angels are there to help me to think out the correct things at the fastest of times. Maybe all of Ma’s prayers played a role too.

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Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog Rifle Range Boy.

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Categories
Narratives of Humankind

Looking for a Refuge

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Our population crossed the 8 billion mark in November, 2022. As we move towards trying to hunt for alternative domiciles for our ever-expanding population, even in outer space, we still have to take into account  the increased movement of people across the Earth in search of alternative homes driven by external circumstances or by personal needs.

Some have lost their homes and lands to war, some to climate emergencies and some moved out out of choice. Here we have collected narratives of past and present migrations, emphasising the fluidity of borders, despite the lines drawn artificially by manmade constructs. In an earlier interview, Anthony Sattin talks of nomadic migrations and the concept of asabiyya, or brotherhood, which tied humans to ideas and ideals instead of a piece of land mooted in Arabia by Ibn Khaldun in the fourteenth century. Has the time come to revive this concept with conflicts and the climate crises becoming real? As weapons, fire and water affect our habitats, one wonders if reverting to the concept of nomadic existence is not becoming a necessity… This small collection of writings will hopefully highlight the concerns.

Migrants

In Migrating to Myself from Kolkata to Singapore, Asad Latif explores selfhood in context of diverse geographies. Click here to read.

In How I Wound Up in Japan, Suzanne Kamata gives her story as an immigrant. Click here to read.

In Belacan, Farouk Gulsara shares a narrative based on the life of a migrant in 1950s Malaysia. Click here to read.

Ujjal Dosanjh, former Minister from Canada and former Premier of British Columbia, talks of his own journey and learning as he migrated out of India to Canada. Click here to read.

Migrant poems by Malachi Edwin Vethamani. Click here to read. 

Refugees

In Mister, They’re Coming Anyway,  Timothy Jay Smith writes on the refugee crisis in Lesbos Island, Greece, in 2016 with photographs by Michael Honegger. Click here to read.

In A Voice from Kharkiv: A Refugee in her Own Country, Lesya Bakun relates her journey out of Ukraine as a refugee and the need for the resistance in 2022. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Ramy Al-Asheq’s Ever Since I Did Not Die, translated from Arabic by Isis Nusair, edited by Levi Thompson. The author was born in a refugee camp. Click here to read.

Refugee in my Own Country/ I am Ukraine… Poetry by Lesya Bakun. Click here to read.

Bringing Along their Homeland, a poem by Abdul Jamil Urfi, for refugees from the India- Pakistan Partition. Click here to read. 

In 1947, a biographical poem by Masha Hassan, set during the India-Pakistan Partition. Click here to read. 

The Grave is Wide, poems on refugees by Michael R Burch. Click here to read. 

Art by Sohana Manzoor

We are very grateful to our contributors who shared these unique narratives with us.

Categories
Contents

Borderless August 2023

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Other Echoes in the Garden… Click here to read.

Interviews

Ujjal Dosanjh, former Minister from Canada and former Premier of British Columbia, discusses his autobiography, Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canada, and the need for a world with less borders. Click here to read.

Professor Fakrul Alam discusses his new book of Tagore translations, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore. Click here to read.

Translations

Tagore’s Musalmanir Galpa (A Muslim Woman’s Story) has been translated from Bengali by Aruna Chakravarti. Click here to read.

Masud Khan’s poem, In Another Galaxy, has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Wakeful Stays the Door, a poem by Munir Momin, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Dangerous Coexistence, written in Korean and translated by Ilhwah Choi. Click here to read.

Proshno or Questions by Tagore has been translated by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Pandies Corner

Songs of Freedom: An Ordinary Tale is a narrative by Nandani based on her own experiences, translated from Hindustani by Janees. These narrations highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and Pandies. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Jared Carter, Rhys Hughes, Malachi Edwin Vethamani, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Saranyan BV, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, A Jessie Michael, Jahnavi Gogoi, George Freek, Koushiki Dasgupta Chaudhuri, David Francis, Akil Contractor, Michael Burch

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In An Experiment with Automatic Poetic Translation, Rhys Hughes auto translates an English poem sequentially through 28 languages and then back to English with hilarious results. Click here to read.

Musings/ Slices from Life

Mister, They’re Coming Anyway

Timothy Jay Smith writes on the refugee crisis in Lesbos Island, Greece with photographs by Michael Honegger. Click here to read.

Migrating to Myself from Kolkata to Singapore

Asad Latif explores selfhood in context of diverse geographies. Click here to read.

Islands that Belong to the Seas

Paul Mirabile muses on how humans are like migrants on islands borrowed from the seas. Click here to read.

Of Dreams, Eagles and Lost Children

Aysha Baqir muses on the narrow, closed borders that condemn children. Click here to read.

Mushroom Clouds and Movies: Response from a Hibakusha’s Daughter

Kathleen Burkinshaw discusses Oppenhiemer the movie. Click here to read.

Sleepless in the High Desert, Slumber in the Sierra

Meredith Stephens covers Nevada to Columbia in a car with her camera. Click here to read.

My Hostel Days

Ravi Shankar reminisces on bygone days. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In The Amateur Professional, Devraj Singh Kalsi writes of a amateur who thought of himself as a professional. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In How I Wound Up in Japan, Suzanne gives her story as an immigrant. Click here to read.

Essays

A Different Persuasion: On Jane Austen’s Novels & their Adaptations

Deepa Onkar delves into the world of Jane Austen books and films. Click here to read.

A Foray into Andamans

Mohul Bhowmik explores Andaman with a camera and narrative. Click here to read.

Bhaskar’s Corner

In Chittaranjan Das: A Centenary Tribute, Bhaskar Parichha discusses the life of one of the most legendary Odia writers. Click here to read.

Stories

Belacan

Farouk Gulsara shares a story based on the life of a migrant in 1950s. Click here to read.

The Japanese Maple

Shivani Shrivastav weaves a story of friendship and loneliness among migrants. Click here to read.

The Coin

Khayma Balakrishnan explores human and supernatural interactions in a school setting in Malaysia. Click here to read.

The Vagrant

Reeti Jamil narrates a strange tale set in a village and told by a farmer. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Ujjal Dosanjh’s Journey After Midnight: A Punjabi Life from Canada to India. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World and Other Garden Adventures, by M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Amitav Ghosh’s Smoke and Ashes: A Writer’s Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy reviews Greening the Earth: A Global Anthology of Poetry, edited by K. Satchidanandan & Nishi Chawla. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Arunava Sinha’s The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told: Fifty Masterpieces from the Nineteenth Century to the Present. Click here to read.

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

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Categories
Editorial

Other Echoes in the Garden…

“Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them…”

— TS Eliot, ‘Four Quartets: Burnt Norton’(1936)

Humans have always been dreamers, ideators and adventurers.

Otherwise, could we have come this far? From trees to caves to complex countries and now perhaps, an attempt to reach out towards outer space for an alternative biome as exploring water, in light of the recent disaster of the Titan, is likely to be tougher than we imagined. In our attempt to survive, to live well by creating imagined constructs, some fabrications backfired. Possibly because, as George Orwell observed with such precision in Animal Farm, some perceived themselves as “more equal”. Of course, his was an animal allegory and we are humans. How different are we from our brethren species on this beautiful planet, which can survive even without us? But can humanity survive without Earth? In science fiction, we have even explored that possibility and found home among stars with the Earth becoming uninhabitable for man. However, humanity as it stands of now, continues to need Earth. To live amicably on the planet in harmony with nature and all the species, including our own, we need to reimagine certain constructs which worked for us in the past but seem to have become divisive and destructive at this point.

Ujjal Dosanjh, former Minister in the Canadian cabinet and former Premier of British Columbia, in his autobiography, Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canada, talks of regionalism as an alternative to narrow divisive constructs that terrorise and hurt others. He writes in his book: “If humanity isn’t going to drown in the chaos of its own creation, the leading nations of the world will have to create a new world order, which may involve fewer international boundaries.” We have a candid conversation with him about his beliefs and also a powerful excerpt from his autobiography.

An interview with Professor Fakrul Alam takes us into Tagore’s imagined world. He discussed his new book of Tagore translations, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore. He has brought out a collection of 300 songs translated to English. In a bid to emphasise an inclusive world, we also have a translation of Tagore’s ‘Musalmanir Galpa’ (A Muslim Woman’s Story) by Aruna Chakravarti. A transcreation of his poem, called ‘Proshno or Questions’ poses difficult challenges for humanity to move towards a more inclusive world. Our translation by Ihlwha Choi of his own Korean poem to English also touches on his visit to the polymath’s construct in the real world, Santiniketan. All of these centring around Tagore go to commemorate the month in which he breathed his last, August. Professor Alam has also translated a poem from Bengali by Masud Khan that has futuristic overtones and builds on our imagined constructs. From Fazal Baloch we have a Balochi translation of a beautiful, almost a surrealistic poem by Munir Momin.

The poetry selections start with a poem on ‘Wyvern’, an imagined dragon, by Jared Carter. And moves on to the plight of refugees by Michael Burch, A Jessie Michael, and on migrants by Malachi Edwin Vethamani. Ryan Quinn Flanagan has poetry that suggests the plight of refugees at a metaphorical level. Vibrant sprays of colours are brought into this section by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Saranyan BV, Jahnavi Gogoi, George Freek and many more. Rhys Hughes brings in a spot of humour with his mountainous poetry (literally) and a lot of laughter with his or rather Google’s attempt at automatic translation of a poem. Devraj Singh Kalsi has shared a tongue in cheek story about an ‘amateur professional’ — rather a dichotomy.

We travel to Andaman with Mohul Bhowmick and further into Sierra with Meredith Stephens. Ravi Shankar travels back in nostalgia to his hostel and Kathleen Burkinshaw dives into the past — discussing and responding to the media presentation of an event that left her family scarred for life, the atomic holocaust of 1945 in Japan. This was a global event more than seven decades ago that created refugees among the survivors whose homes had been permanently destroyed. Perhaps, their stories are horrific, and heart wrenching like the ones told by those who suffered from the Partition of India and Pakistan, a divide that is celebrated by Independence Days for the two nations based on a legacy of rifts created by the colonials and perpetrated to this day by powerbrokers. Aysha Baqir has written of the wounds suffered by the people with the governance gone awry. Some of the people she writes of would have been refugees and migrants too.

A poignant narrative about refugees who flock to the Greek island of Lesbos by Timothy Jay Smith with photographs by Michael Honegger, both of whom served at the shelters homing the displaced persons, cries out to halt wars and conflicts that displace them. We have multiple narratives of migrants in this issue, with powerful autobiographical stories told by Asad Latif and Suzanne Kamata. Paul Mirabile touches on how humans have adopted islands by borrowing them from seas… rather an unusual approach to migrations. We have an essay on Jane Austen by Deepa Onkar and a centenary tribute to Chittaranjan Das by Bhaskar Parichha.

The theme of migrants is echoed in stories by Farouk Gulsara and Shivani Shrivastav. Young Nandani has given an autobiographical story, translated from Hindustani to English by Janees, in which a migration out of various homes has shredded her family to bits — a narrative tucked in Pandies Corner.  Strange twists of the supernatural are woven into fiction by Khayma Balakrishnan and Reeti Jamil.

In reviews, Parichha has explored Arunava Sinha’s The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told: Fifty Masterpieces from the Nineteenth Century to the Present. Somdatta Mandal’s review of Amitav Ghosh’s Smoke and Ashes: A Writer’s Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories seems to be an expose on how historical facts can be rewritten to suit different perceptions and Basudhara Roy has discussed the Greening the Earth: A Global Anthology of Poetry, edited by K. Satchidanandan and Nishi Chawla.

There is more wonderful content. Pop by our August’s bumper edition to take a look.

I would like to give my grateful thanks to our wonderful team at Borderless, especially to Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork. Huge thanks to all our gifted contributors and our loyal readers. Borderless exists today because of all of you are making an attempt to bringing narratives that build bridges, bringing to mind Lennon’s visionary lyrics:

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Thank you for joining us at Borderless Journal.

Have a wonderful month!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

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Visit the August edition’s content page by clicking here

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

Categories
Stories

Belacan

Migrant stories of yore from Malaysia by Farouk Gulsara

“There she goes again,” thought Saraswati as she cut vegetables she had never seen in her native country. “Here goes Ah Soh cooking her stinky dish again.”

Ah Soh with Nand Lal, Sarawswati’s son.(Photo taken circa the early 2000s).Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

Saraswati, Ah Soh and the rest of the pack are people commonly called fresh off the boat. They hail from various parts of China and India. 

The loud beating of a metal ladle against a frying pan, accompanied by the shrilling Chinese opera over the radio and her shrieking at her children, need no guessing whose kitchen ‘aroma’ is coming from. Everyone knows Ah Soh is frying belacan, a fermented Malay shrimp paste. 

A house in the New Village (Photo taken circa the early 2000s). Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

Ah Soh is Saraswati’s immediate neighbour in a New Village in Ipoh. Ah Soh, by default, is the self-appointed leader of the pack. Since she is one of the oldest occupants of New Village, she leads the group of housewives, all living along the same row of single-story wooden houses. These houses were the brainchild of the British when they wanted to keep the communist at bay in the 1950s. More than ten years into its inception, the houses are still strong and are a catch for many newcomers to Malaya.

Ah Soh and her husband, Ah Leong, hail from Canton, China. Escaping poverty and famine, Ah Leong scrapped the bottom of the barrel to buy himself a one-way ticket to Singapore in the early 1950s, then an up-and-coming international port, to try his luck. 

After trying a few odd jobs here and there, Ah Leong heard of an opening in newly opened tin mines in Ipoh. He made a dash for it and found Ipoh and the work he liked. Soon, he saved enough cash and paid an agent to bring over the newly married wife that he left behind in China. Ah Leong, Ah Soh and later, their two young daughters develop roots in the New Village. 

Life was no bed of roses for Saraswati either. Losing most of her family members to famine, a 13-year-old Saraswati was bundled off to a distant relative’s house in Bihar. Saraswati is pretty sure she was sold off to work as a maid, as she scrubbed and cleaned from dawn to dusk.

Lady Luck manifested most peculiarly. Saraswati was labelled bad luck when many mishaps hit her new family soon after joining them. One of the kids died of diarrhoea, and a big branch of a peepal tree growing in the compound fell on the house, destroying the roof. So, when the family heard of an elderly widower looking for a suitable bride, Saraswati was bundled off yet again. 

Hence, Saraswati’s next phase of life started with her boarding a ship, S Rajula, from Calcutta to Penang, Malaya. She spent an entire month suffering from motion sickness, not only from the ship’s motion but by the various smells of people and their cooking. Starting life as a complete vegetarian, by the time she arrived in Malaya, after overexposure to a plethora of aromas and sights, she had garnered enough courage to taste various types of meat. 

So, Ah Soh’s pungent belacan was tolerable to Saraswati’s smell buds, even though she hails from the Hindi heartland where, by design, everybody in her community was vegetarian.

Saraswati’s husband, Lal, had his own tale of melancholy. After losing his family to famine, he became an orphan and a guardian to his 12-year-old sister. With much difficulty, he somehow, doing odd jobs, managed to sustain his little family to adulthood. He was in the marriage market after getting his little sister happily married off. Unfortunately, three months into his marriage, the young bride succumbed to tuberculosis, then a deadly death sentence to anyone. Even the President of Pakistan had died of TB.

Nursing a heartbreak, he heard the news that some people he knew were going to try their luck in Malaya. The talk around town was that Malaya, the land of milk and honey, was the darling was the Empire and had great job opportunities. So that is how he landed in Malaya. 

Again, after doing whatever work that came by, he landed in a more secure job washing the British Army’s dirty laundry in a camp in Ipoh. Cleaning, starching and ironing kept him busy, but he was happy for the first time. With money in his pocket and regular meals to look for, he ventured out for humble accommodation. That is how this New Village house came about.

He returned to his hometown in Bihar, India and got a bride for himself. So, here he is, with his second wife, Saraswati, and two young boys. 

The New Village is a melting potpourri of people escaping from famine and depravity. If in the 1950s, this place protected the country from communist threat, in the 1960s, it was a pillar of hope for displaced people to start life anew.

Ah Soh had her kind, who hailed from China, and Saraswati had hers hail from various parts of India. It is incredible that despite the skirmishes between the two countries, they were bosom buddies here. These economic immigrants soldiered on, straddled in unfamiliar circumstances, struggling towards an uncertain future with zest in their chests and youth in their limbs. They go on to build their camaraderie, work, mingle, and live in harmony. Graduating from convenient sign language, they have now mastered the art of communication. Like how a cat would communicate with a dog in an adverse situation, such as absconding from the animal catcher, they cling to each other desperately as they go on with life. 

Saraswati’s new home gave them, the newcomers, a simple language that contained many Chinese and Indian words to use. Language or no language, they were still able to communicate and fulfil each other’s needs. If one person from one part of China or India could not connect with a fellow compatriot, here they had a motley crew of economic migrants from these countries speaking, eating and looking out for each other. 

Lal’s contract workers took him to various towns and kept him away from the family for months. An illiterate Saraswati with only street smartness skills would go on to manage the children and household on her own. With the convoy of housewives from New Village, Saraswati would do her marketing and grocery. Pointing and making gesticulating would constitute making an order, and hawkers were honest enough to return correct change. Slowly, she began to develop a liking for Chinese food. 

Monthly grocery was by credit, and things were obtained from Ah Meng’s sundry shop, packed to the brim with everything under the sun. Lal would pay the bills at the end of the month as he returned from numerous contract jobs. 

Besides her Chinese neighbours, Saraswati had neighbours from Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Ajit Singh had a few dairy cows at the back compound of his house. From Ajit, Saraswati and her children had an uninterrupted supply of fresh milk. 

R-L: Shobha(Saraswati‘s daughter) , Ah Soh(by then in her early 70s), Meela (Sarawati’s daughter), Saraswati and Kamala. (Photo taken circa the early 2000s). Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

Two doors away from Saraswati’s house was Kamala’s. It was always a hive of activities from day to night. Kamala had so many children that Saraswati had lost count. People came and went as if it were the marketplace, and their main door was always open. There were always people singing, dancing or simply yakking there. 

Ah Soh’s house was next to Devi’s house. Her household was loud, too, at the end of the month, but for a different reason. Devi has five children to show for her seven years of marriage. Her husband, a postman, also had something to offer, a mistress. Somewhere along the way, he picked up drinking, and his frequenting at the local liquor shop introduced him to a dancer. It was a routine that at the end of the month, as everyone received their pay, the neighbourhood would be filled with much noise; the clanging of kitchen utensils from Devi’s, music from Kamala’a and shuffling of mahjong tiles from Ah Soh’s front porch. Devi’s family quarrel noise over money got buried over the rest.

Saraswati has been feeling easily lethargic these days. She realises that her monthlies have been delayed. Her husband’s monthly visit has been productive. She now has to get used to the idea that there will be an addition to the family. 

Maybe it is the pregnancy; she is getting a little pensive these days. She sometimes reminisces about the life that she had. Uprooted from her family by the forces of nature, she started a life as a child labour. Because of superstition, she was packed off again into marriage. Driven by economic hardship, she and her husband crossed the dreaded Black Waters to try their luck in a new land. 

From an illiterate teenager, now she has morphed into a woman who could command leadership in her circle of friends and care for her family. From a meek non-adventurous vegetarian, she has savoured all meats and dishes, some of which her ancestors would have never dreamt of tasting. 

She wonders what the future holds for her, her husband and the three kids she will raise to adulthood in this independent young country called Malaya as it crawls into the mid-1960s.

The foreground: Rohan, Saraswati’s grandson. In the background, Kamala’s son, Raja, in deep conversation with Nanda Lal and Shobha (Saraswati’ kids). The same house they all grew up in, albeit the extensions and refurbishments. (Picture taken circa the early 2000s) Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara

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Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, ‘Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy’ and ‘Real Lessons from Reel Life’, he writes regularly in his blog ‘Rifle Range Boy’.

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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
Contents

Borderless June 2023

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Where have All the People Gone? … Click here to read.

Translations

Hena, a short story by Nazrul, has been translated from Bengali by Sohana Manzoor. Click here to read.

Mohammad Ali’s Signature, a short story by S Ramakrishnan, has been translated from Tamil by Dr B Chandramouli. Click here to read.

Three poems by Masud Khan have been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Shadows, a poem in Korean, has been translated by the poet himself, Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.

Pran or Life by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Conversations

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri converses with Vinta Nanda about the Shout, a documentary by Vinta Nanda that documents the position of women in Indian society against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement and centuries of oppression and injustice. Click here to read.

In Conversation with Advait Kottary about his debut historic fiction, Siddhartha: The Boy Who Became the Buddha. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Michael Burch, Ananya Sarkar, George Freek, Smitha Sehgal, Rachel Jayan, Michael Lee Johnson, Sayantan Sur, Ron Pickett, Saranyan BV, Jason Ryberg, Priya Narayanan, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Evangeline Zarpas, Ramesh Karthik Nayak, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Ghee-Wizz, Rhys Hughes talks of the benefits of Indian sweets while wooing Yetis. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Humbled by a Pig

Farouk Gulsara meets a wild pig while out one early morning and muses on the ‘meeting’. Click here to read.

Spring Surprise in the Sierra

Meredith Stephens takes us hiking in Sierra Nevada. Click here to read.

Lemon Pickle without Oil

Raka Banerjee indulges in nostalgia as she tries her hand at her grandmother’s recipe. Click here to read.

Apples & Apricots in Alchi

Shivani Shrivastav bikes down to Alchi Ladakh to find serenity and natural beauty. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Trees from my Childhood, Devraj Singh Kalsi muses on his symbiotic responses to trees that grew in their home. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Superhero Sunday in Osaka, Suzanne Kamata writes of her experience at the Osaka Comic Convention with her daughter. Click here to read.

Stories

The Trial of Veg Biryani

Anagha Narasimha gives us a social satire. Click here to read.

Am I enough?

Sarpreet Kaur explores social issues in an unusual format. Click here to read.

Arthur’s Subterranean Adventure

Paul Mirabile journeys towards the centre of the Earth with his protagonist. Click here to read.

Essays

No Bucket Lists, No Regrets

Keith Lyons muses on choices we make while living. Click here to read.

In Search of the Perfect Dosa

Ravi Shankar trots around the world in quest of the perfect dosa — from South India to Aruba and West Indies. Click here to read.

“Bookshops don’t fail. Bookshops run by lazy booksellers fail.”

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri takes us for a tour of the Kunzum bookstore in New Delhi. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Greening the Earth: A Global Anthology of Poetry, edited by K. Sachitanandan and Nishi Chawla. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Advait Kottary’s Siddhartha: The Boy Who Became the Buddha. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Behind Latticed Marble: Inner Worlds of Women by Jyotirmoyee Devi Sen, translated from Bengali by Apala G. Egan. Click here to read.

Rakhi Dalal reviews Rhys Hughes’ The Wistful Wanderings of Perceval Pitthelm. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy reviews Prerna Gill’s Meanwhile. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Zac O’Yeah’s Digesting India: A Travel Writer’s Sub-Continental Adventures With The Tummy (A Memoir À La Carte). Click here to read.

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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
Slices from Life

Humbled by a Pig!

By Farouk Gulsara

Courtesy: Creative Commons

“It is 5.23 am,” I told myself as I glanced at my watch. “I guess I got up early. Anyway, SK should be here right about now, right on the dot at 5.30am, as he has always been. Today is not going to be any different.”

I plugged on my earphones to hear the continuation of a podcast that I had been listening to from the previous week. It was a day before the full moon, but the cloudy skies and the lack of streetlights made the road look pretty dark. I sat on the raised stone fence as the auto-gate slowly closed from the inside.

Far behind a parked car, I could see a moving shadow. It looked like the silhouette of two stocky legs pacing haphazardly as if they were swaying. At once, I thought that it must be my neighbour’s son struggling to get back to his home after a long Saturday night out with the guys.

“Wow!” I was thinking as I symbolically patted myself on the back for keeping up with the routine all these years despite raging inner demons and concerned naysayers who keep advising me to slow down on account of being a half-centurion! “Only madmen would be running on a Sunday morning when the sane recovers from a stuporous night out!” they say.

Just as I was drowning in the nectar of my self-praise, I realised that the shadow cast under the car was not that of a man. The contour of two legs soon became four, and a greyish, horrendously ugly-looking face with a tinge of what appeared like thick whiskers soon manifested. I was 10 feet away, locking eyes with Vishnu’s third avatar, the Varaha, a wild boar!

Here I was, I thought, in the comfort of city living, enjoying the fruit of my lifelong struggle to benefit from the support of privacy and security of the gated community, I felt I had had it all. Within the luxury of economic independence and intellectual reasoning, the brutal combat of our ancient ancestors and the street smartness of the lesser beings have taken a back seat. Even in my wildest dream, I never envisaged a moment when I would have to face a wild beast!

It was the stare between two worlds; one of the modern domesticated kind who had a fight-or-flight response limited to his autonomic nervous system versus one who had to fight to stay alive and keep his place in the hierarchy of the pecking order of the jungle.

The stare looked like it lasted for an eternity. The boar, of course, hungry and desperate for food, did not want a competitor. As if he knew that I was not interested in his food, thank you very much. Negotiation naturally was out of the question, and so were all civil niceties.

I turned around to ring the bell to my house as I did not have the gate key. The sudden movement must have startled the beast. It gave a low-pitched snorting grunt as if it was showing its displeasure. Interesting, it was my neighbourhood, and the visitor or rather an intruder was displeased! Well, that is the law of the jungle. Might is right, and there is no place for logic. This is the ‘id’ that Freud asks us to put under check by societal pressures. It could manifest in a mob situation when enforcement crumbles.

Just when I thought that nay was near, me being gored by a wild beast, a beacon of hope came in the form of a beam of light from an SUV. My ride arrived right on the dot, just in time to turn the table on the aggressor. Awed by the approach – perhaps it thought the vehicle was a giant animal with a louder roar — its ‘fight’ mode downgraded to ‘flight’ as it turned its back to return to its own home. It retreated.

As we drove along, we saw a humbled pig strutting with its tail between its legs heading towards the secondary jungle. Probably my friend must have been reminded of the carefree days of his childhood when sauteed and spiced wild boar meat with toddy was a delicacy among friends.

That is why we are repeatedly advised by wise men to get back to nature. Nature gives a purpose to our existence. Its massive structures, like the trees, the mountains and elements of nature, awe us to the ground. It impresses upon us our deficiencies and our feebleness. It drills unto us that we are nothing, just a passer-by who makes a cursory appearance, while Mother Nature and the Universe continue into eternity. We are not even a single fragment of a tiny dot in the Milky Way, and even lesser in the ever-expanding dimensions of the Universe.

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Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, ‘Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy’ and ‘Real Lessons from Reel Life’, he writes regularly in his blog ‘Rifle Range Boy’.

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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
Editorial

Will Monalisa Smile Again?

Book display at Om Bookstore
Book display at Midlands

The first month of 2023 has been one of the most exciting! Our first book, Monalisa No Longer Smiles: An Anthology of Writings from across the World, is now in multiple bookstores in India (including Midlands and Om Bookstores). It has also had multiple launches in Delhi and been part of a festival.

Delhi University panellists from left to right: Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, Meenakshi Malhotra, Debraj Mookerjee
Panellists at Om Bookstore launch: Aruna Chakravarti, Mitali Chakravarty, Radha Chakravarty

We, Meenakshi Malhotra and I, were privileged to be together at the physical book events. We met the editor in chief of Om Books International, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, the editor of our anthology, Jyotsna Mehta, along with two translators and writers I most admire, Aruna Chakravarti and Radha Chakravarty, who also graced a panel discussion on the anthology during our physical book launch. The earlier e-book launch had been in November 2022. My heartfelt thanks to the two eminent translators and Chaudhuri for being part of the discussions at both these launches. Chaudhuri was also in the panel along with Debraj Mookerjee at a launch organised by Malhotra and the English Literary Society steered by Nabaneeta Choudhury at Hans Raj College, Delhi University. An energising, interactive session with students and faculty where we discussed traditional and online publishing, we are immensely grateful to Malhotra for actively organising the event and to the Pandies’ founder, Sanjay Kumar, for joining us for the discussion. It was wonderful to interact with young minds. On the same day, an online discussion on the poetry in Monalisa No Longer Smiles was released by the Pragati Vichar Literary Festival (PVLF) in Delhi.

At the PVLF session, I met an interesting contemporary diplomat cum poet, Abhay K. He has translated Kalidasa’s Meghaduta and the Ritusamhara from Sanskrit and then written a long poem based on these, called Monsoon. We are hosting a conversation with him and are carrying book excerpts from Monsoon, a poem that is part of the curriculum in Harvard. The other book excerpt is from Sanjay Kumar’s Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre: Exploring Play, a book that has just been published by the Cambridge University Press.

Perhaps because it is nearing the Republic Day of India, we seem to have a flurry of book reviews that reflect the Sub-continental struggle for Independence from the colonials. Somdatta Mandal has reviewed Priya Hajela’s Ladies Tailor: A novel, a book that takes us back to the trauma of the Partition that killed nearly 200,000 to 2 million people – the counts are uncertain. Bhaskar Parichha has discussed MA Sreenivasan’s Of the Raj, Maharajas and Me, a biography of a long serving official in the Raj era — two different perspectives of the same period. Rakhi Dalal has shared her views on Shrinivas Vaidya’s A Handful of Sesame, translated from Kannada by Maithreyi Karnoor, a book that dwells on an immigrant to the Southern part of India in the same time period. The legendary film writer K.A. Abbas’s Sone Chandi Ke Buth: Writings on Cinema, translated and edited by Syeda Hameed and Sukhpreet Kahlon, has been praised by Gracy Samjetsabam.

We have a piece on mental health in cinema by Chaudhuri, an excellent essay written after interviewing specialists in the field. Ratnottama Sengupta has given us a vibrant piece on Suhas Roy, an artist who overrides the bounds of East and West to create art that touches the heart. Candice Louisa Daquin has written on border controls and migrants in America. High profile immigrants have also been the subject of Farouk Gulsara’s ‘What do Freddy Mercury, Rishi Sunak & Mississipi Masala have in Common?’ Sengupta also writes of her immigrant family, including her father, eminent writer, Nabendu Ghosh, who moved from Bengal during the Partition. There are a number of travel pieces across the world by Ravi Shankar, Meredith Stephens and Mike Smith — each written in distinctively different styles and exploring different areas on our beautiful Earth. Sarpreet Kaur has revisited the devastation of the 2004 tsunami and wonders if it is a backlash from nature. Could it be really that?

Suzanne Kamata gives us a glimpse of the education system in Japan in her column with a humorous overtone. Devraj Singh Kalsi dwells on the need for nostalgia with a tongue-in-cheek approach. Rhys Hughes makes us rollick with laughter when he talks of his trip to Kerala and yet there is no derision, perhaps, even a sense of admiration in the tone. Hughes poetry also revels in humour. We have wonderful poetry from Jared Carter, Ranu Uniyal, Asad Latif, Anaya Sarkar, Michael R Burch, Scott Thomas Outlar, Priyanka Panwar, George Freek and many more.

The flavours of cultures is enhanced by the translation of Nazrul’s inspirational poetry by Professor Fakrul Alam, Korean poetry written and translated by Ihlwha Choi and a transcreation of Tagore’s poem Banshi (or flute) which explores the theme of inspiration and the muse. We have a story by S Ramakrishnan translated from Tamil by R Sathish. The short stories featured at the start of this year startle with their content. Salini Vineeth writes a story set in the future and Paul Mirabile tells the gripping poignant tale of a strange child.

With these and more, we welcome you to savour the January 2023 edition of Borderless, which has been delayed a bit as we were busy with the book events for our first anthology. I am truly grateful to all those who arranged the discussions and hosted us, especially Ruchika Khanna, Om Books International, the English Literary Society of Hans Raj College and to the attendees of the event. My heartfelt thanks to the indefatigable team and our wonderful writers, artists and readers, without who this journey would have remained incomplete. Special thanks to Sohana Manzoor for her artwork. Many thanks to the readers of Borderless Journal and Monalisa No Longer Smiles. I hope you will find the book to your liking. We have made a special page for all comments and reviews.

I wish you a wonderful 2023. Let us make a New Year’s wish —

May all wars and conflicts end so that our iconic Monalisa can start smiling again!

Mitali Chakravarty,

borderlessjournal.com

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Photographs of events around Monalisa No Longer Smiles: An Anthology of Writings from across the World. Click here to access the Book.


Left to right: Mitali Chakravarty, Sanjay Kumar, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, Meenakshi Malhotra and Debraj Mookerjee

After the event with a few students and teachers
At Delhi University

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Left to right: Radha Chakravarty, Mitali Chakravarty, Aruna Chakravarti, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri
Left to right: Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, Aruna Chakravarti, Mitali Chakravarty, Radha Chakravarty, Jyotsna Mehta
At Om Bookstore, Ambiance Mall, Gurgaon
With book reviewer Rakhi Dalal

Insta Link to an excerpt of the launch at Om Bookstore. Click here to view.

E-Launch of the first anthology of Borderless Journal, November 14th 2022. Click here to view.

Categories
Musings

What do Rishi Sunak, Freddy Mercury& Mississippi Masala have in Common?

By Farouk Gulsara

Rishi Sunak. Courtesy: Creative Commons

Rishi Sunak’s appointment to 10 Downing Street has made people aware of the significant presence of Indians in the African Continent. Indian-African cultural and trade exchanges had been ongoing as early as the 7th century BC. Africans are also mentioned to have significantly influenced India’s history of kingdoms, conquests and wars.

The second wave of Indian migration to Africa happened mainly in the 19th century with British imperialism via the indentured labour system, a dignified name for slavery. It is all semantics. What essentially happened at the end day is a large Indian diaspora in countries like South Africa, Mauritius, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and many more. Many of the Indians who made their way there as labourers, over the generations, began to play significant roles in the economy and professional representations in these countries.

A certain famous Indian diva born in Zanzibar to British colonial civil service who kicked a storm in the rock and roll is, of course, Freddy Mercury (1946-1991) as Farrokh Bulsara.

Statue of Freddy Mercury in Montreux, Switzerland
Freddy Mercury
Courtesy: Creative Commons

Idi Amin declared himself the President of Uganda after a coup d’état in 1971. The first thing that he did was to expel Indians from Uganda. His reasoning is that the South Asian labourers were brought in to build the railways. Now that the rail network was completed, they had to leave. They had no business controlling all aspects of Ugandan wealth.

In Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala (1991), the protagonists, Jay, Rinnu and young Mina, had to uproot themselves from Kampala overnight when Amin decreed that all Indians were no longer welcome in Uganda. With a single stroke of the pen, they became refugees. 

By 1990, they are shown to have become residents of Mississippi. The 24-year-old Mina is entangled with a local Afro-American man. This creates much friction between the two families. That is the basis of the movie. 

It is interesting to note many Asiatic societies complain that the rest of the world practises discriminatory, racist policies against them. In reality, they are quick to differentiate each other within their community — the high-heeled, the aristocratic ancestors, their professions, the fairness of the colour of their skins, you name it. And they call others’ racists. For that matter, everyone is a racist. The Europeans subclassify their community by economic class. The seemingly homogenous Africans also differentiate themselves by tribes. Remember Rwanda with their Tutsi and Hutu civil war? Even the Taiwanese have subdivisions. China and Russia have varying ethnicities across the vast span of their lands.

Interestingly, the politics of the oppressed is much like what we read in George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) and saw in the South Korean 2019 Oscar winner Parasite. Like how some animals are ‘more equal’ than others, the maids of the Parks feel more entitled than the freeloading dwellers of the bunker. Even amongst the oppressed, there is a class consciousness to sub-divide the oppressed.

Photo provided by Farouk Gulsara

Race-based politics is so passè. In the post-WW2 era, when the people of the colonies needed to unite to reclaim their land, it made a lot of sense to join under race. Past that point, it did not make any sense for the dominant ethnicity within the nation to claim the country as theirs. At a time when purebreds are only confirmed to be prized pets, it is laughable that politicians are still using racial cards to get elected. Each nation’s survival depends on its competitiveness, anti-fragility, and ability to withstand a Black Swan event. Race does not fall into the equation. With changing social mingling at school and the workplace, interracial unions are the norm. How is race going to be determined anyway? The fathers? The mothers are not going to take that lying down, of course!

The Afro-Americans were emancipated in 1863 after the Civil War, after generations of living as slaves. The black community, at least, still complained that they had received an uncashable cheque from the Bank of America for insufficient funds. Many Indian (and other races, too) labourers were no longer labourers by the second generation and had managed to springboard themselves out of poverty to occupy important positions in society. What gave? Did the coveted American dream slip them by? 

Coming back home to Malaysia, it appears that we will forever be entangled in race politics. In an era when minions around us who were basket cases decades ago have leap-frogged by leaps and bounds in science and technology, our leaders and people stay inebriated in the intoxicating elixir of race superiority. Imagine starting a political party in the 21st century where only people of a certain race can hold critical positions. In day-to-day dealings, expertise is compromised to maintain racial purity. Intertwined with race these days is religion.

Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, ‘Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy’ and ‘Real Lessons from Reel Life’, he writes regularly in his blog ‘Rifle Range Boy’.

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