Tag: George Freek

Categories
Editorial

And Wilderness is Paradise Enow…

Prayer Wheel at Nurulia, Ladakh. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara
We lock eyes, find glimmers
of smiles, trust our leaders.
We break bread with strangers
because there aren’t any.

--Imagine by Miriam Bassuk

Imagine the world envisioned by John Lennon. Imagine the world envisioned and partly materialised by Tagore in his pet twin projects of Santiniketan and Sriniketan, training institutes made with the intent of moving towards creating a work force that would dedicate their lives to human weal, to closing social gaps borne of human constructs and to uplifting the less privileged by educating them and giving them the means to earn a livelihood. You might well call these people visionaries and utopian dreamers, but were they? Tagore had hoped to inspire with his model institutions.  In 1939, he wrote in a letter: “My path, as you know, lies in the domain of quiet integral action and thought, my units must be few and small, and I can but face human problems in relation to some basic village or cultural area. So, in the midst of worldwide anguish, and with the problems of over three hundred millions staring us in the face, I stick to my work in Santiniketan and Sriniketan hoping that my efforts will touch the heart of our village neighbours and help them in reasserting themselves in a new social order. If we can give a start to a few villages, they would perhaps be an inspiration to some others—and my life work will have been done.”  But did we really have a new social order or try to emulate him?

If we had acted out of compassion and kindness towards redefining with a new social order, as Miriam Bassuk points out in her poem based on Lennon’s lyrics of Imagine, there would be no strangers. We’d all be friends living in harmony and creating a world with compassion, kindness, love and tolerance. We would not have wars or regional geopolitical tensions which act against human weal. Perhaps, we would not have had the issues of war of climate change take on the proportions that are wrecking our own constructs.

Natural disasters, floods, fires, landslides have affected many of our lives. Bringing us close to such a disaster is an essay by Salma A Shafi at ground level in Noakhali. More than 4.5 million were affected and 71 died in this disaster. Another 23 died in the same spate of floods in Tripura with 65,000 affected. We are looking at a single region here, but such disasters seem to be becoming more frequent. And yet. there had been a time when Noakhali was an idyllic vacation spot as reflected in Professor Fakrul Alam’s nostalgic essay, filled with memories of love, green outdoors and kindnesses. Such emotions reverberate in Ravi Shankar’s account of his medical adventures in the highlands of Kerala, a state that suffered a stupendous landslide last month. While Shafi shows how extreme rainfall can cause disasters, Keith Lyons writes of water, whose waves in oceanic form lap landmasses like bridges. He finds a microcosm of the whole world in a swimming pool as migrants find their way to New Zealand too. Farouk Gulsara muses on kindness and caregiving while Priyanka Panwar ponders about ordinary days. Saeed Ibrahim gives a literary twist to our musings.   Tongue in cheek humour is woven into our nonfiction section by Suzanne Kamata’s notes from Japan, Devraj Singh Kalsi’s piece on premature greying and Uday Deshwal’s paean to his sunglasses!

Humour is wrought into poetry by Rhys Hughes. Supriya Javelkar and Shamik Banerjee have cheeky poems that make you smile. We have poetry on love by Michael Burch and poetry for Dylan Thomas by Ryan Quinn Flanagan. Miriam Bassuk has described a Utopian world… but very much in the spirit of our journal. Variety is brought into our journal with poetry from Jackie Kabir, Jennifer McCormack, Craig Kirchner, Stuart MacFarlane, George Freek, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal and many more.

In translations, we have Nazrul lyrics transcreated from Bengali by Professor Alam and poetry from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. We pay our respects to an eminent Balochi poet who passed on exactly a year ago, Mubarak Qazi, by carrying a translation by Fazal Baloch. Tagore’s Suprobhat (Good morning) has been rendered in English from Bengali. His descriptions of the morning are layered and amazing — with a hint of the need to reconstruct our world, very relevant even today.  A powerful essay by Tagore called Raja O Praja (The King and His Subjects), has been translated by Himadri Lahiri.

Our fiction hosts two narratives that centre around childhood, one by Naramsetti Umamaheswararao and another by G Venkatesh, though with very different approaches. Mahila Iqbal relates a poignant tale about aging, mental health and neglect, the very antithesis of Gulsara’s musing. Paul Mirabile has given a strange story about a ‘useless idler’.

A short story collection has been reviewed by Rakhi Dalal, Swadesh Deepak’s A Bouquet of Dead Flowers, translated from Hindi by Jerry Pinto, Pratik Kanjilal, Nirupama Dutt, Sukant Deepak. Somdatta Mandal has written about a book by a Kashmiri immigrant which is part based on lived experiences and part fictive, Karan Mujoo’s This Our Paradise: A Novel. Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Ayurveda, Nation and Society: United Provinces, c. 1890–1950 by Saurav Kumar Rai, a book which shows how healthcare was even a hundred years ago, politicised. Meenakshi Malhotra has reviewed Anuradha Marwah’s novel, Aunties of Vasant Kunj, of which we also have an excerpt. The other excerpt is from Mineke Schipper’s Widows: A Global History. Ratnottama Sengupta converses with Reba Som, author of Hop, Skip and Jump; Peregrinations of a Diplomat’s Wife.

We have more content that adds to the vibrancy of the issue. Do pause by this issue and take a look. This issue would not have been possible without all your writings. Thank you for that. Huge thanks to our readers and our team, without whose support we could not have come this far. I would especially like to thank Sohana Manzoor for her continued supply of her fabulous and distinctive artwork and Gulsara for his fabulous photographs.

Let us look forward to a festive season which awakens each autumn and stretches to winter. May we in this season find love, compassion and kindness in our hearts towards our whole human family.

Have a wonderful month!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the content’s page for the September 2024 Issue.

.

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

Categories
Editorial

A Sprinkling of Happiness?

A Pop of Happiness by Jeanie Douglas. From Public Domain

Happiness is a many splendored word. For some it is the first ray of sunshine; for another, it could be a clean bill of health; and yet for another, it would be being with one’s loved ones… there is no clear-cut answer to what makes everyone happy. In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (JK Rowling, 2005), a sunshine yellow elixir induces euphoria with the side effects of excessive singing and nose tweaking. This is of course fantasy but translate it to the real world and you will find that happiness does induce a lightness of being, a luminosity within us that makes it easier to tackle harder situations. Playing around with Rowling’s belief systems, even without the potion, an anticipation of happiness or just plain optimism does generate a sense of hope for better times.  Harry tackles his fears and dangers with goodwill, friends and innate optimism. When times are dark with raging wars or climate events that wreck our existence, can one look for a torch to light a sense of hope with the flame of inborn resilience borne of an inner calm, peace or happiness — call it what you will…?

It is hard to gauge the extreme circumstances with which many of us are faced in our current realities, especially when the events spin out of control. In this issue, along with the darker hues that ravage our lives, we have sprinklings of laughter to try to lighten our spirits. In the same vein, externalising our emotions to the point of absurdity that brings a smile to our lips is Rhys Hughes’ The Sunset Suite, a book that survives on tall tales generated by mugs of coffee. In one of the narratives, there is a man who is thrown into a bubbling hot spring, but he survives singing happily because his attacker has also thrown in packs of tea leaves. This man loves tea so much that he does not scald, drown or die but keeps swimming merrily singing a song. While Hughes’ stories are dark, like our times, there is an innate cheer that rings through the whole book… Dare we call it happiness or resilience? Hughes reveals much as he converses about this book, squonks and stranger facts that stretch beyond realism to a fantastical world that has full bearing on our very existence.

Poetry brings in a sprinkling of good cheer not only with a photo poem by Hughes, but also with more in a lighter vein from Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Michael R Burch, Arshi Mortuza, Jason Ryberg and others. Sanjay C Kuttan has given a poem dipped in nostalgic happiness with colourful games that evolved in Malaysia. Koiko Tsuuda, an Estonian, rethinks happiness. George Freek, Stuart MacFarlane and Saranyan BV address mortality. Nilsa Mariano and G Javaid Rasool have given us powerful migrant poetry while John Grey, Craig Kirchner, Jane Hammons, Nia Joseph, Noopur Vedajna Das and Adeline Lyons refer to climate or changes wrought by climate disasters in their verses.

A powerful essay by Binu Mathew on the climate disaster at Wayanad, a place that earlier had been written of as an idyllic getaway, tells us how the land in that region has become more prone to landslides. The one on July 30th this year washed away a whole village! Farouk Gulsara has given a narrative about his cycling adventure through the state of Kashmir with his Malaysian friends and finding support in the hearts of locals, people who would be the first to be hit by any disaster even if they have had no hand in creating the catastrophes that could wreck their lives, the flora and the fauna around them. In the wake of such destructions or in anticipation of such calamities, many migrate to other areas — like Ranu Bhattacharya’s ancestors did a bit before the 1947 Partition violence set in. A younger migrant, Chinmayi Goyal, muses under peaceful circumstances as she explores her own need to adapt to her surroundings. G Venkatesh from Sweden writes of his happy encounter with local children in the playground. And Snigdha Agrawal has written of partaking lunch with a bovine companion – it can be intimidating having a cow munching at the next table, I guess! Devraj Singh Kalsi has given a tongue-in-cheek musing on how he might find footing as a godman. Suzanne Kamata has given a lovely summery piece on parasols, which never went out of fashion in Japan!

Radha Chakravarty, known for her fabulous translations, has written about the writer she translated recently, Nazrul. Her essay includes a poem by Tagore for Nazrul. Professor Fakrul Alam has translated two of Nazrul’s songs of parting and Sohana Manzoor has rendered his stunning story Shapuray (Snake Charmer) into English. Fazal Baloch has brought to us poetry in English from the Sulaimani dialect of Balochi by Allah Bashk Buzdar, and a Korean poem has been self-translated by the poet, Ihlwha Choi. The translations wind up with a poem by Tagore, Olosh Shomoy Dhara Beye (Time Flows at an Indolent Pace), showcasing how the common man’s daily life is more rooted in permanence than evanescent regimes and empires.

Fiction brings us into the realm of the common man and uncommon situations, or funny ones. A tongue-in-cheek story set in the Midwest by Joseph Pfister makes us laugh. Farhanaz Rabbani has given us a beautiful narrative about a girl’s awakening. Paul Mirabile delves into the past using the epistolary technique highlighting darker vignettes from Christopher Columbus’s life. We have book excerpts from Maaria Sayed’s From Pashas to Pokemon and Nazes Afroz’s translation of Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Shabnam with both the extracts and Rabbani’s narratives reflecting the spunk of women, albeit in different timescapes…

Our book reviews feature Meenakshi Malhotra’s perspectives on Shuchi Kapila’s Learning to Remember: Postmemory and the Partition of India and Bhaskar Parichha’s thought provoking piece on Malvika Rajkotia’s autobiographical Unpartitioned Time: A Daughter’s Story. While both these look into narratives around the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent, Rakhi Dalal’s review captures the whimsical and yet thoughtful nuances of Namita Gokhale’s Never Never Land. Somdatta Mandal has written about Upamanyu Chatterjee’s latest novel, Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life, which is in a way a story about a migrant too.

When migrations are out of choice, with multiple options to explore, they take on happier hues. But when it is out of a compulsion created by manmade disasters — both wars and climate change are that — will the affected people remain unscarred, or like Potter, bear the scar only on their forehead and, with Adlerian calm, find happiness and carpe diem?

Do pause by our current issue which has more content than mentioned here as some of it falls outside the ambit of our discussion. This issue would not have been possible without an all-out effort by each of you… even readers. I would like to thank each and every contributor and our loyal readers. The wonderful team at Borderless deserve much appreciation and gratitude, especially Manzoor for her wonderful artwork. I invite you all to savour this August issue with a drizzle of not monsoon or April showers but laughter.

May we all find our paths towards building a resilient world with a bright future.

Good luck and best wishes!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the content’s page for the August 2024 Issue.

.

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

Categories
Poetry

‘Like people, winters come and go’

Poetry by George Freek


Storm at Sea on a Moonlit Night, Painting by Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900)
AT THIS MOMENT

The moon is a frightened bride,
with nowhere to hide.
The wind is a wolverine.
Wandering lost in a fog.
My boat shakes like a leaf of tea,
as I drift like a sodden log.
I look for a crack in the sky,
Where light can shine,
but rain falls like razors.
At such a time,
I should think of my wife,
how worried she’ll be,
but in moments like this,
afraid for my life,
I can only think of me.


IN NOVEMBER

Dead leaves fall from trees
with a cancer-like disease.
Clouds drift by
in their ordinary way,
moving too quickly to say
what they might say.
The river still flows somewhere.
I don’t know where.
I’ll never go there.
Time is only important
when you need to say goodbye.
It will soon be snowing.
Like people, winters come and go.
The snow begins falling.
I stare at my unmade bed.
It’s now been a year,
that you’ve been dead.

George Freek’s poetry has recently appeared in The Ottawa Arts Review, Acumen, The Lake, The Whimsical Poet, Triggerfish and Torrid Literature.

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 Amazon International

Categories
Contents

Borderless, July 2024

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Seasons out of Time… Click here to read.

Conversation

A brief introduction to Suzanne Kamata’s Cinnamon Beach and a conversation with the author about her latest novel. Click here to read.

Translations

Tagore’s Achhe Dukhu, Achhe Mrityu, (Sorrow Exists, Death Exists) has been translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Nazrul’s Ghumaite Dao Shranto Robi Re (Let Robi Sleep in Peace) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Amalkanti by Nirendranath Chakraborty has been translated from Bengali by Debali Mookerjea-Leonard. Click here to read.

Speech Matters, a story by Naramsetti Umamaheswararao, has been translated from Telugu by Johnny Takkedasila. Click here to read.

Every Day by Hafeez Rauf has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

The Long Journey by Ihlwha Choi has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Mrityu or Death by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Jared Carter, Michael Burch, Kirpal Singh, Rakhi Dalal, Stuart MacFarlane, Averi Saha, John Grey, Surbhi Sharma, David Francis, Pramod Rastogi, David Mellor, Saranyan BV, Jim Bellamy, Tasneem Hossain, Thompson Emate, George Freek, Mitra Samal, Lizzie Packer, Shamik Banerjee, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Rhys Hughes

Musings/ Slices from Life

Stop, Look, Think!

Farouk Gulsara muses with a slice irony at a traffic junction. Click here to read.

Norman Rockwell: Out of the Closet

Wayne F. Burke gives a vignette of the life of the legendary illustrator. Click here to read.

Unveiling the Magic of Mystical Mangroves

Sai Abhinay Penna travels to the second largest mangrove forest in the world. Click here to read.

Glimpses of an Indian Summer

Madhuri Bhattacharya nostalgically captures the nuances of a hot summer. Click here to read.

The Pearl of the Indian Ocean

Ravi Shankar travels to Colombo. Click here to read.

Essays

The Myriad Hues of Tagore by Aruna Chakravarti

Aruna Chakravarti writes on times and the various facets of Tagore. Click here to read.

Picked Clean

Snigdha Agrawal writes of the impact from the loss of green cover in Bangalore. Click here to read.

Fast Food for a Month

Keith Lyons gives an in memoriam about the late documentarian, Morgan Spurlock. Click here to read.

Stories

In the Shadows…

Paul Mirabile gives us a story steeped in art and mental health. Click here to read.

The Last Hyderabadi

Mohul Bhowmick talks of the passage of an era. Click here to read.

Alvin and the Curious Case of Spoilt Milk

Anagha Narasimha gives a light hearted piece about the impact of demonetisation. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from The Poisoner of Bengal/The Prince and the Poisoner by Dan Morrison. Click here to read.

An excerpt from The Sunset Suite by Rhys Hughes. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Knife:  Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy reviews Wild Women: Seekers, Protagonists and Goddesses in Sacred Indian Poetry by Arundhathi Subramaniam. Click here to read.

Navleen Multani reviews Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map, edited by Basudhara Roy and Jaydeep Sarangi. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Derek Waller’s The Pundits: British Exploration of Tibet and Central Asia. Click here to read.

.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

Seasons Out of Time

Climate disasters. From Public Domain
...the horror of dark red sky – the gates of hell opened wide so they say that even atheists prayed to save the souls of the dead...

— Lizzie Packer, 'Hot Dry Summers'

The description in ‘Hot Dry Summers’ is not of hell but what is perceived as happening on certain parts of Earth due to global warming or climate change. Forest fires. Nearer the equator, the storms have become harsher with lightning strikes that seem to connect the Earth to the sky. Trees get uprooted as the soil is softened from excessive rain. Sometimes, they fall on passers-by killing or injuring them. There is no rain in some places, forest fires or flooding in others… The highest temperatures touched 55 degrees Celsius this year. Instead of worrying about losing our homes lodged on land masses to the oceans that continue to rise, becoming dark heat absorbers due to loss of white ice cover, we persistently fight wars, egged on by differences highlighting divisive constructs. It feels strange that we are witness to these changes which seem to be apocalyptic to doomsday sayers. Are they right? Our flora, fauna and food will also be impacted by global climate change. How will we survive these? Will we outlive these as a species?

Keeping the myriad nuances of living on this planet in mind, we have writings from more than a dozen countries showcased in this issue, with a few highlighting climate change and wars — especially in poetry. Michael Burch has given us poetry on weather. John Grey has celebrated nature. Other than Lizzie Packer, Mitra Samal has a subtle poem on climate change. Stuart McFarlane and David Mellor bring the disaster of war to our doorstep. Jared Carter, Kirpal Singh, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Averi Saha, Shamik Banerjee, David Francis, George Freek, Rakhi Dalal and more have reflected on the varied nuances of life. Rhys Hughes has brought in humour and a comment on our perspectives, with his poem ‘Devil’s Bridge to Istanbul’… Can a shortcut be found across continents with the magic of a signboard?

Poetry in our translations’ section travels to Balochistan, from where a Hafeez Rauf translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch, talks of burning tyres, again conflicts. It takes on a deeper hue as Ihlwha Choi translates his poignant poem from Korean, reflecting on the death of his mother. We have a translation of Tagore’s less popular poem, Mrityu[1], reflecting on the same theme. His reflections on his wife’s death too have been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam who has also shared a song of Nazrul, written and composed on the death of Tagore. Another lesser-known poet but brilliant nonetheless, Nirendranath Chakraborty, has been translated for us by Debali Mookerjea-Leonard. And what a tremendous poem it is when the person called Amalkanti wanted to be sunshine! We have a story too — ‘Speech Matters’ by Naramsetti Umamaheswararao translated by Johny Takkedasila.

Our stories as usual travel around the world — from Holland (by Paul Mirabile) to Hyderabad (by Mohul Bhowmick) and with a quick pause at Bangalore (by Anagha Narasimha). Travels in the real world are part of our non-fiction. Sai Abhinay Penna takes to a the second largest mangrove forest in the world and Ravi Shankar to Colombo. Madhuri Bhattachrya gives us a glimpse of an Indian summer and Snigdha Aggrawal explores the impact of climate change in her part of the world. Farouk Gulsara actually writes his reflections at a traffic junction. And it reads droll…

We have an in memoriam by Keith Lyons on Morgan Spurlock, the documentary maker who ate McDonald fare for a month and then made a film on it. We have two tributes to two legends across time. Wayne F Burke has given a brief piece on the iconic illustrator, Norman Rockwell. And Aruna Chakravarti, the queen of historic fiction who brought the Tagore family alive for us in her two very well researched novels, Jorasanko and Daughters of Jorasanko, has given us a fabulous tribute to Tagore on the not-so common aspects of him.

We have excerpts from another historical novel set in Bengal of Tagore’s time, Dan Morrison’s The Prince and the Poisoner: The Murder that Rocked the British Raj and Hughes’ The Sunset Suite, a set of absurd tall tales that make you smile, squirm or wonder…  Reviews of Salman Rushdie’s Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Somdatta Mandal and of Arundhathi Subramaniam’s Wild Women: Seekers, Protagonists and Goddesses in Sacred Indian Poetry by Basudhara Roy bring two latest books to our readers. Navleen Multani reflects on Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map, edited by Basudhara Roy and Jaydeep Sarangi. And Bhaskar Parichha tells us about a group of men called Pundits during British Raj, “In the closed files of the government of British India, however, they were given their true designation as spies…” in his review of Derek Waller’s The Pundits: British Exploration of Tibet and Central Asia.

Suzanne Kamata, the novelist who does a column from Japan for us normally, has spoken to us about her new novel, Cinnamon Beach, which overrides multiple manmade constructs. It’s an interesting read from someone who lives her life across multiple cultures and transcends many boundaries.

This is a bumper issue, and it is difficult to convey the vibrant hues of words that colour this edition. Please do pause by our contents page for a more comprehensive look.

This issue would not have been possible without all our fabulous contributors and a wonderful, dedicated team. We are delighted that Rakhi Dalal — who has done many reviews and shares her poetry with us in this issue — has agreed to be a writer-in-residence with us. A huge thanks to all of you, and especially Sohana Manzoor for her artwork. I am truly grateful to our readers for popularising our efforts to put together an online space with free and vibrant reads.

I would like to end with a few lines that gives me hope despite climate change, wars and doomsday predictions.

There’s more to life,
he says to me,
than what you choose to see. 

— George Freek, 'The Imponderables'

Enjoy the reads.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

[1] Death

Click here to access the content’s page for the July 2024 Issue.

.

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

Categories
Poetry

There’s More to Life…

By George Freek 

THE IMPONDERABLES 

The sun moves through the sky
as if it were pulling a plough,
turning up clouds like dust.
In the moonlight the river shines
like a silver chain,
with no relation to reality.
The sudden cry of a dove
might mean a plea for love,
or a sound of grief.
Truth is deceiving,
if you don’t know
what it means.
A crow circles the sky.
His harsh screams mock me.
There’s more to life,
he says to me,
than what you choose to see.

George Freek’s poetry has recently appeared in The Ottawa Arts Review, Acumen, The Lake, The Whimsical Poet, Triggerfish and Torrid Literature.

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 Amazon International

Categories
Contents

Borderless, May 2024

Painting by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Though I Sang in my Chains like the Sea… Click here to read

Translations

Three poems by Nazrul have been translated by Niaz Zaman from Bengali. Click here to read.

Projapoti (Butterfly) by Nazrul has been translated by Fakrul Alam from Bengali. Click here to read.

Human by Manzur Bismil has been translated by Fazal Baloch from Balochi. Click here to read.

Now, What I Can Do by Ihlwha Choi has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Chhora or Rhymes by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Michael Burch, Kirpal Singh, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Shamik Banerjee, Stuart McFarlane, Mary Tina Shamli Pillay, George Freek, Radhika Soni, Craig Kirchner, Tapas Sarkar, Stephen Philip Druce, Anjali Chauhan, Michael Lee Johnson, Milan Mondal, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Dylan on Worm’s Head, Rhys Hughes describes a misadventure that the Welsh poet had while hiking as a tribute to him on Dylan Thomas Day. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Hooked for Life and Beyond…

Ravi Shankar looks at the computer revolution in a light vein. Click here to read.

Sundays are Only for Some…

Snigdha Agrawal introduces us to the perspectives of a child of parents who iron clothes for the middle class in India. Click here to read.

Eternalising the Beauty of Balochistan

Munaj Gul gives an in memoriam for a photographer from Balochistan. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In ‘Is this a Dagger I See…?‘, Devraj Singh Kalsi gives a tongue-in-cheek account of a writer’s dilemma. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In A Golden Memory of Green Day in Japan, Suzanne Kamata tells us of a festival where she planted a tree in the presence of the Japanese royalty. Click here to read.

Essays

When the Feminist and the Revolutionary Met

Niaz Zaman writes of the feminist leanings of Nazrul’s poetry in context of Madam Roquiah, a contemporary of the poet. Click here to read.

Metaphorical Maladies

Satyarth Pandita looks into literature around maladies. Click here to read.

The Storied Past of Khiva

Gita Viswanath takes us to the heritage city in Uzbekistan. Click here to read.

Akbar Barakzai: A Timeless Poet

Hazaran Rahim Dad explores the universal poetry of Akbar Barakzai. Click here to read.

Stories

Don Quixote’s Paradise

Farouk Gulsara takes us through a dystopian adventure. Click here to read.

The Buyback

Devraj Singh Kalsi gives a tale of reconnecting with the past. Click here to read.

Pier Paolo’s Idyll

Paul Mirabile traces a story of a young boy in the outskirts of Rome. Click here to read.

Conversations

Ratnottama Sengupta in conversation with Sohini Roychowdhury, who tries to bridge cultures with dance. Click here to read.

A brief overview of Rajat Chaudhuri’s Spellcasters and a discussion with the author on his book. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Selected Essays: Kazi Nazrul Islam, translated by Radha Chakravarty from Bengali. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Aruna Chakravarti’s Jorsanko. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Radha Chakravarty’s translation of Selected Essays: Kazi Nazrul Islam. Click here to read.

Malashri Lal reviews Lakshmi Kannan’s Nadistuti: Poems. Click here to read.

Ajanta Paul reviews Bitan Chakraborty’s The Blight and Seven Short Stories. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Will Cockrell’s Everest, Inc. The Renegades and Rogues who Built an Industry at the Top of the World. Click here to read.

.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

Though I Sang in my Chains like the Sea…

      Time held me green and dying
    Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

Perhaps when Dylan Thomas wrote these lines, he did not know how relevant they would sound in context of the world as it is with so many young dying in wars, more than seven decades after he passed on. No poet does. Neither did he. As the world observes Dylan Thomas Day today — the day his play, Under the Milkwood, was read on stage in New York a few months before he died in 1953 — we have a part humorous poem as tribute to the poet and his play by Stuart McFarlane and a tribute from our own Welsh poet, Rhys Hughes, describing a fey incident around Thomas in prose leading up to a poem.

May seems to be a month when we celebrate birthdays of many writers, Tagore, Nazrul and Ruskin Bond. Tagore’s birthday was in the early part of May in 1861 and we celebrated with a special edition on him. Bond, who turns a grand ninety this year, continues to dazzle his readers with fantastic writings from the hills, narratives which reflect the joie de vivre of existence, of compassion and of love for humanity and most importantly his own world view. His books have the rare quality of being infused with an incredible sense of humour and his unique ability to make fun of himself and laugh with all of us. 

Nazrul, on the other hand, dreamt, hoped and wrote for an ideal world in the last century. The commonality among all these writers, seemingly so diverse in their outlooks and styles, is the affection they express for humanity. Celebrating the writings of Nazrul, we have one of his fiery speeches translated from Bengali by Radha Chakravarty and a review of her Selected Essays: Kazi Nazrul Islam by Somdatta Mandal. An essay from Niaz Zaman dwells on the feminist side of Nazrul while bringing in Begum Roquiah. Zaman has also shared translations of his poetry. Professor Fakrul Alam, who had earlier translated Nazrul’s iconic ‘Bidrohi or Rebel‘, has given us a beautiful rendition of his song ‘Projapoti or Butterfly’ in English.  Also in translation, is a poem by Tagore on the process of writing poetry. Balochi poetry by Manzur Bismil on human nature has been rendered into English by Fazal Baloch and yet another poem from Korean to English by Ilwha Choi.

Reflecting on the concept of a paradise is poetry from Michael Burch. Issues like climate, women, humanity, mourning, aging and more have been addressed in poetry by Shamik Banerjee, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Milan Mondal, Kirpal Singh, Craig Kirchner, George Freek, Michael Lee Johnson and many more. Hughes brings in a dollop of humour with his response to a signpost in verse. Irony is woven into our non-fiction section by Devraj Singh Kalsi’s musing on writers and assailants. Ravi Shankar explores his passion for computers in a light vein. Snigdha Agrawal gives us a poignant story about a young child from the less privileged classes in India. Suzanne Kamata writes to tell us about the environment friendly Green Day in Japan.

Ratnottama Sengupta this month converses with a dancer who tries to build bridges with the tinkling of her bells, Sohini Roychowdhury. Gita Viswanthan travels to Khiva in Uzbekistan, historically located on the Silk Route, with words and camera.  An essay on Akbar Barakzai by Hazran Rahim Dad and another looking into literature around maladies by Satyarth Pandita add zest to our non-fiction section. Though these seem to be a heterogeneous collection of themes, they are all tied together with the underlying idea of creating links to build towards a better future.

Our stories travel from Malaysia to France and India. Farouk Gulsara sets his in futuristic Malaysia, again exploring the theme of utopia as did his earlier musing. Paul Mirabile creates a story where a child tries to create his own idyllic paradise while Kalsi writes of fiction centring around a property tussle. The book reviews feature a couple of non-fiction. Other than Kazi Nazrul Islam’s essays, Bhaskar Parichha reviews Will Cockrell’s Everest, Inc. The Renegades and Rogues Who Built an Industry at the Top of the World. Ajanta Paul discusses Bitan Chakraborty’s The Blight and Seven Short Stories, translated from Bengali by Malati Mukherjee. Malashri Lal has written on Lakshmi Kannan’s Nadistuti: Poems, poems dedicated to Jayanta Mahapatra who the poet reflects lives on with his verses. And that is so true, considering this issue is full of poets who continue in our lives eternally because of their words. That is why perhaps, we recreate their lives as has Aruna Chakravarti in Jorasanko.

In focus this time is a writer whose prose is almost akin to poetry, Rajat Chaudhuri. A proponent of solarpunk, his novel, Spellcasters, takes us to fictitious cities modelled on Delhi and Kolkata. In his interview, Chaudhuri tells us: “The path to utopia is not necessarily through dystopia. We can start hoping and acting today before things get really bad. Which is the locus of the whole solarpunk movement with which I am closely associated as an editor and creator…”

On that note, I would like to end with a couple of lines from Nazrul, who reiterates how the old gives way to new in Proloyullash (The Frenzy of Destruction, translated by Alam): “Why fear destruction? / It’s the gateway to creation!” Will destruction be the turning point for creation of a new world? And should the destruction be of human constructs that hurt humanity (like wars and weapons) or of humanity and the planet Earth? As the solarpunk movement emphasises, we need to act to move towards a better world. And how would one act? Perhaps, by getting in touch with the best in themselves and using it to act for the betterment of humankind? These are all points to ponder… if you have any ideas that need a forum on such themes, do share with us.

We have more content which has not been woven into this piece for the sheer variety of themes they encompass. Do pause by our content’s page and browse on all our pieces.

With warm thanks to our wonderful team at Borderless — especially Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous art — I would like to express gratitude to all our contributors, without who we could not create this journal. We would also like to thank our readers for making it worth our while to write — for all of our words look to be read, savoured and mulled, and maybe, some will evolve into treasured wines.

Thank you all.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the content’s page for the May, 2024 Issue

.

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

Categories
Poetry

Poems by George Freek

THE HAWK IN THE MOONLIGHT

I stare at the dying sunlight.
When that passes, stars
will light the night,
but sleep won’t come.
My wife is gone.
My children are grown.
The story is very old.
I watch darkness closing in alone.
A hawk slowly circles
over the sluggish river.
The moon has vanished.
It’s unable to light my way.
That hawk is my only companion,
and I won’t be unhappy,
if he doesn’t stay.


AS IT IS IN OCTOBER

As autumn arrives,
dressed in somber gray
like an expectant mortician
the flowers die.
Where squirrels scurry
to gather a few remaining nuts,
leaves fall to their rest
in yellow, red and brown
on the cold ground
without a sound.
The moon’s silver light
clings to the trees,
then fades into eternity.
If I look at the stars,
I barely see them,
and they never look back at me.

George Freek’s poetry has recently appeared in The Ottawa Arts Review, Acumen, The Lake, The Whimsical Poet, Triggerfish and Torrid Literature.

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 Amazon International

Categories
Contents

Borderless April, 2024

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

April Showers… Click here to read.

Translations

Baraf Pora (Snowfall) by Rabindranath Tagore, gives a glimpse of his first experience of snowfall in Brighton and published in the Tagore family journal, Balak (Children), has been translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.

Himalaya Jatra ( A trip to Himalayas) by Tagore, has been translated from his Jibon Smriti (1911, Reminiscenses) by Somdatta Mandal from Bengali. Click here to read.

Bhumika (Introduction) by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Ratnottama Sengupta. Click here to read.

The Fire-grinding Quern by Manzur Bismil has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

The Tobacco Lover by Ihlwha Choi has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Pochishe Boisakh (25th of Baisakh) by Tagore(1922), has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Pandies Corner

Songs of Freedom: Dear Me… is an autobiographical narrative by Ilma Khan, 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

Michael Burch, Kirpal Singh, Scott Thomas Outlar, Nusrat Jahan Esa, George Freek, Snigdha Agrawal, Phil Wood, Pramod Rastogi, Stuart McFarlane, Ahmad Al-Khatat, Shamik Banerjee, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Lisa Sultani, Jenny Middleton, Kumar Bhatt, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In The Desk, Rhys Hughes writes of his writerly needs with a speck of humour. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Heatwave & Tagore

Ratnottama Sengupta relates songs of Tagore to the recent heatwave scorching Kolkata. Click here to read.

The Older I get, the More Youthful Feels Tagore

Asad Latif gives a paean in prose to the evergreen lyrics of Tagore. Click here to read.

No Film? No Problem

Ravi Shankar takes us through a journey of cameras and photography, starting with black and white films. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Witches and Crafts: A Spook’s Tale, Devraj Singh Kalsi finds a ghostly witch in his library. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Of Peace and Cheese, Suzanne Kamata gives us a tongue in cheek glimpse of photo-modelling mores. Click here to read.

Essays

Discovering Rabindranath and My Own Self

Professor Fakrul Alam muses on the impact of Tagore in his life. Click here to read.

The Lyric Temper

Jared Carter explores the creative soul of poets through varied times and cultures. Click here to read.

Bengaliness and Recent Trends in Indian English Poetry: Some Random Thoughts

Somdatta Mandal browses over multiple Bengali poets who write in English. Click here to read.

Stories

Hope is the Waking Dream of a Man

Shevlin Sebastian gives a vignette of life of an artist in Mumbai. Click here to read.

Viceregal Lodge

Lakshmi Kannan explores patriarchal mindsets. Click here to read.

The Thirteen-Year Old Pyromaniac

Paul Mirabile gives a gripping tale about a young pyromaniac. Click here to read.

Conversation

Ratnottama Sengupta in conversation about Kitareba, a contemporary dance performance on immigrants, with Sudarshan Chakravorty, a choreographer, and founder of the Sapphire Dance Company. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Jessica Mudditt’s Once Around the Sun – From Cambodia to Tibet. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Bhaskar Parichha’s Biju Patnaik: The Rainmaker of Opposition Politics. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Meenakshi Malhotra reviews Mahasweta Devi: Writer, Activist, Visionary, edited by Radha Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy reviews Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala and English Poetry from Sri Lanka and its Diasporas, edited by Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne, Shash Trevett. Click here to read.

Swagata Chatterjee reviews Sanjukta Dasgupta’s Ekalavya Speaks. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Bhang Journeys: Stories, Histories, Trips and Travels by Akshaya Bahibala. Click here to read.

.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International