Tag: Greek

Nico returns to Burgaz

By Paul Mirabile

Nico hurried off the steamer at Burgaz Island, oblivious of the swarming passengers disembarking and embarking. How long had it been since he had stepped foot on the island of his grandfather’s birth: twelve … thirteen years ? He made a bee-line for the central plaza. There he still stood, Saït Faïk, ever so thoughtful, leaning against that eternal tree. Nico approached the Turkish poet –Grandpa would have been so delighted to be here with us again. I’m sure he would have asked you about the talking seaweed and weeping mussels, Nico mused.

Vasiliki had passed away six years ago, a natural death, probably in his sleep. The old fisherman had asked Nico to have him buried between his wife, Nefeli, and daughter, Myrto, which he dutifully accomplished. Since the adolescent was the sole inheritor, he sold his grandfather’s little house for a good price, which permitted him to live comfortably in Athens while completing his university studies. Indeed, because he was parentless, and because his grades in grammar school were excellent, Nico had qualified for a scholarship. The ambitious student, thus, enjoyed financial ease to continue studying several more years for his doctorate. He excelled in Greek language and literature, French and English philology, in European History. At nights he read and spoke Turkish with several Turkish friends, for the vision of returning to Burgaz stole upon him like those perfumed nights on Burgaz with his grandfather as they contemplated the star-studded sky. That seemed so long ago …

Once his doctoral thesis defended, Nico left Greece and set off for Burgaz, off on an adventure. Poetry had been a major part of his thesis, and he had written quite a few poems, contributing to the university Literary Club’s weekly journal. Some of his poems and short stories caught the eye of an editor in Athens who had them published in a widespread monthly magazine. Soon he was invited to poetry readings and story-telling jousts, and because of these eventful evenings his circle of readers widened like concentric ripples in a pool of water after a rock had been thrown in …

The young poet left Athens not knowing exactly what Destiny held for him … nor what drove him so powerfully to return to the island. Was it because of his love for his grandfather ? His fascination for Saït Faïk? Or both? Saïk’s provided him with inexhaustible inspiration. Perhaps, too, it was the mystery of Burgaz of which his grandfather had so oftentimes spoke. Yes. It might have been that.

The horse-drawn carriage pulled up in front of the long flight of stairs to Zorba’s ‘humble’ home. Nico paid and began to ascend the worn-out mossy steps. Nothing had changed as the fretted gable slowly loomed in front of him. The perfumed scent of azaleas, roses, honeysuckles and pomegranate stirred distant memories. He had written to Zorba about his project to spend some time on Burgaz, and the good merchant, although away for several months in the United States on business, insisted that the young poet stay as long as he wished in his ‘humble’ home. He would be greeted and well-fed by his trusty maid, Zelda.

On hearing carriage bells Zelda rushed out, waiting for the ascending Nico arms akimbo. He dropped his knapsack, shoulder-bag and hugged the good woman. Speaking Greek had been her wont when Nico accompanied his grandfather years ago, but now, since the young man had decided to sojourn in Burgaz, she spoke to him in Turkish. Zelda was pleasantly surprised to hear him reply quite readily in Turkish. In fact, Zelda would prove an excellent tutor for Nico. Her grammar was excellent and her accent easy to understand.

So, after a solid diner, exhausted after a long day of travelling, Nico once again trudged up the steps of the floating stairway, the tinkling sound of the fountain below tickling his ears, opened the door to the room he knew so well with its frescoed ceiling of Greek heroes and large bay window looking out upon the darkened forests and the Marmara Sea. He washed and before drifting off to sleep, read a few chapters from Homer’s Odeyssus, which he always carried with him when ‘on the road’, and several paragraphs from Saït Faïk’s Son Kuşlar (Last Birds), underlining the words he couldn’t understand.

Up early the next morning, Zelda had prepared a breakfast of black olives, goat’s cheese, hard-boiled eggs, bread, butter, rose jam and black tea. She had gone to the local market (it was Tuesday) and would not be back before eleven.

Dressed lightly — the weather was very warm, Nico sauntered down the same long and winding path through the wooded slope that led to the stony beach, hoping Abi Din Bey would still be serving grilled-cheese sandwiches, and spouting poetry for his customers. How the brisk island breeze of the sea swept away the cobs of lingering doubt in Nico’s mind as he descended — doubts that had tortured him because his grandfather would no longer be at his side, physically. Yet, when he stepped upon the beach these doubts evaporated. Vasiliki was there and would always be there. He spotted several fishing boats out at sea. Had Nico built a new boat with the help of his grandfather? Indeed he had. It was the biggest and most beautiful of all his boats! Much bigger than the Nefeli which was still in route towards China. But this wonderful boat would not be launched into the leaden seas: it lay housed in a small museum in Hydra where it can be admired by both the young and the old. In fact, Nico even won an award for that marvellous construction. He had named her Myrto in memory of his grandfather’s daughter. The tombstone engraver, on Nico’s behest, carved the silhouette of his boat on Vasiliki’s gravestone.

Abi Din Bey’s welcoming gate had been sealed! The homely front gardens lay desolate, the trees devoid of fruit, clusters of weed and couch grass grew wild. The poet’s house, albeit perfectly intact, exhaled an odour of negligence. Nico stared at this bleak scene, his heart growing heavy. It had never occurred to him that Abi Din Bey would not come rushing out to greet him. That this solitary man was mortal like all other human beings … like his grandfather. He felt like a child who believes his or her parents immortal out of love for them.

From behind a middle-aged man walked up to him: “Abi Din died about ten or eleven years ago,” he began in a soft voice in broken Turkish. “He has no inheritors, so his house stands derelict and abandoned.”

Nico, snapped out of his despondency, eyed the stranger with mixed emotions. “What of his poetry?”

“Abi Din’s life of a poet held absolutely no interest for most who prefer to live in a cloud of unknowing. Abi Din Bey wrote some excellent poems, but alas no one had ears to listen to them.”

“We listened to them,” remonstrated Nico, though rather lamely.

“I know you did, you and your grandfather, Vasiliki.”

Nico reeled back as if struck by a blow. “How do you know … Who are you?”

“Oh, who I am makes no difference to anyone. But if you insist. I am the pilgrim of the heart, I voyage throughout the world admiring its marvels, an idler preaching the blessings of uselessness. Abi Din was one of those marvels, one of those brilliantly elevated idlers.” With those words, the stranger turned to leave.

Nico caught him by an arm: “Sir, where is the old man who piled up stones on the beach ? I haven’t seen him.”

“Nor will you ever see him again. Gone too, and some say that he recited several passages from Saït Faïk’s Son Kuşlar on his dying breath. Have you read Saït Faïk?”

Overcome by all these converging threads of some hidden or latent fabric beyond his grasp or comprehension, Nico could only stutter: “Well … yes … in fact…”

The other interrupted: “Listen, if you want to pay respects towards Abi Din and Saït, you should buy his house. It’s not very expensive.”

“But you …” The unnamed pilgrim put up a hand.

“I have no possessions. That is my first life principle. I idle my way through countries, people and books like a phantom. You buy it, my friend. Buy it before either Time brings about its ruin or the Burgaz municipality its demolition. For now, there are no plans to do either. It’s a mystery why that quaint house has not caught the eye of some eager artist.” And he gave Nico a wink.

“Mystery?” A sudden bout of remorse paralysed Nico. Had his grandfather not spoken of a mystery on Burgaz?

“Yes, mystery! Isn’t that why you’ve returned?” With that last question left unanswered by a flummoxed Nico, the pilgrim strolled away along the beach, chanting some sea-faring tune.

When Nico came to his senses he literally jumped for joy. he would buy Abi Din’s house, settle on Burgaz and pursue his artistic life simply, wholeheartedly. He could become a resident of Turkey merely by depositing enough money in the Osmanlı Bankası[1]. The anonymous figure of the pilgrim had since vanished into a haze of blue. Nico ran up the winding path to Zorba’s home, where Zelda had been preparing lunch. Excitedly he explained his project. She thought it a smashing idea, and promised to help him with the paper work. They ate, had their coffee, and at two o’clock walked to the crossroads, hailed a carriage and rode to the Town Hall, a majestic, white-washed villa near the centre of town.

On the way, Nico asked Zelda whether or not she knew of a middle-aged man who walked about the island, idling his way here and there. Zelda giggled: “Oh yes, him. The Turks call him Mister başı boş [2]and the Greeks tempelis[3].”

“But he’s far from empty-headed,” remonstrated Nico.

“I’m sure he isn’t, that’s why I call him ‘aylak‘.”

“I don’t know the word.”

“Someone who idles about without any definite destination.” Nico nodded, puzzled none the less at these attributes of a person who seemed quite ‘full-headed’ to him …

The irksome formalities to purchase Abi Din’s house would fill a book. Suffice it to report that in two weeks the house belonged to Nico, once he had deposited enough money in the bank, and of course, bought the house in cash …

Although Nico now spent most of his time in his acquired house, he always ate lunch with Zelda at Zorba’s house, and sometimes dinner. It must be recorded here that Nico was better versed in writing stories than in culinary skills.

Every morning after breakfasting, Nico would roam the hilltops of Burgaz sauntering cheerfully along the dirt paths, jotting down in his little notebook details that caught his eye or thoughts that scudded across his mind. The island air intoxicated him as he conjured up characters and events for future stories or poems.

On Sundays, Nico would attend services at St John’s Greek cathedral, there mingling with the small community members who had taken a liking to this young man, calling him their ‘island writer’! He became a novelty for the islanders, who invited him dine or to read his creations. Meanwhile, several of Nico’s short stories and poems were being published in Athens by his editor and were read by the Greek community in Burgaz. Nico even attempted to write poems and stories in Turkish which Zelda not only corrected, but suggested a more fitting word or subtle syntax structure.

Once a month, Nico took the steamer to Heybeliada, or in Greek, Chalki[4], the third of the four Princess Islands where he was fortunate enough to consult the books at the library of the massive Greek Theological Centre, opened in 1844 for seminarists but closed by the Turkish authorities in 1971. Although prohibited, Nico’s reputation, which had spread to all the islands, allowed him to study at the library, the second largest religious library in the western world, several million tomes behind the Vatican’s. The young artist even managed to work two days a week there. How he managed that remains a mystery.

Once or twice a month, accompanied by Zelda, Nico would go to Büyükada (Big Island) called ‘Prinkipo’ in Greek because it is the largest island of the four, and stroll along a tarred road to contemplate the largest wooden building in Europe, a former Greek orphanage, built by the French in 1898. The Greeks bought it and children who had lost their parents were lodged here until its forced closing in 1964. This eerie-looking structure remained intact. Surrounded by high barb-wire fencing and guarded by savage dogs, no one could enter it. Every time Nico stood before this ominous edifice, he thought of his grandfather who had salvaged him from such a parentless fate. Perhaps, the children here were well taken care of…

One day as Nico sauntered along one of the myriad paths in the wooded hills of Burgaz he came face to face with the idling pilgrim. So delighted was Nico to meet this eccentric character that he began to pour out all the good news that had occurred to him since their last encounter many months ago. The other smiled kindly: “No need to repeat what many have already told me,” he stated indifferently. “Nothing on Burgaz goes unnoticed, especially novelties such as yourself. I wouldn’t want to puff up your pride, but some have considered you as a new Saït Faïk.”

Nico stared at the pilgrim disconcertedly. “I can assure you, my dear friend, that you have made quite a reputation for yourself on Burgaz. And who knows, you may be able to solve the mystery of which your grandfather so often spoke.” Baffled, Nico remained speechless. The other took his arm and they strolled together downwards into the sinking sun.

Nico could not contain his surprise: “How could you know about …”

“About Vasiliki’s mystery? Ah, that would entail hours of explanation, Nico. For now let us discuss your writings, for the intention behind those writings may have given you the key to unlock the mystery.”

The pilgrim paused sniffing the pine- and spruce-scented air. “You know, many writers have lost touch with reality, or have been completely overwhelmed by it. They seem incapable of telling a story, transmitting the joys and sorrows of their characters whose traits lie deep in their own hearts, imprisoned like birds in a cage, fluttering frantically, unable to express the Truth of what lies beneath the masks and costumes. Saït Faïk, Edgar Poe, Dino Buzzati[5], Guy de Maupassant[6], Somerset Maugham, Katherine Mansfield all drew their inspiration from fragments of a separate reality, the glints of a deflected flood of light, the shards of a broken vase to disclose the experiences of their characters, to bestow upon their readers the amalgamated emotions that flew freely from their hearts. Their stories and poems are not talk-of-the-day productions. They were derived from the unlocking of the cage, the flight outwards into the battlefield between joy and sorrow. You would think that their eyes were turned both inwards and outwards at the same time. There is something powerful, even sacred, if I may use that word, in their narrated experiences, which does not necessarily entail the use of I, nor does it insinuate a ‘message’ to be harnassed or brought into line by the opinionated or bigoted. The syntax rhythms and word combinations expose the élan or the coming and going between the inward and the outward regard … I discern in your regard that inward and outward alternating vision, the aura that enhaloes your stories and poems. But mind you, this is only an idler’s perception.”

“What do you mean by aura?” Nico, crimsoning under the weight of so many complex compliments, managed to ask, almost out of breath.

“The halo of tradition that all sincere writing bears,” came the succinct reply. “A poem or a short-story, as in your case, bears an aura familiar to the reader, yet whose tale and expression of this tale transports him or her to strange, unfamiliar places. This is especially noticeable in your Turkish writings, an uncanny concoction of familiarity and eeriness. Perhaps it’s due to Zelda’s mixed origins.”

Nico stopped in his tracks, a blank look on his face. “Yes, Zelda, who, when we cross paths, addresses me as the ‘aylak‘. Her father was a remarkable writer and professor of philosophy in Greece and in Turkey. She inherited much of his wisdom as well as her mother’s strong character.” Nico stood stunned by this revelation.

“Zelda is only …”

“Only what, my friend ? Zorba’s maid or servant ? Ah ! I see you haven’t delved deep enough into the hearts of those who are very close to you. I’ve noted, too, that you have never written one line or verse about your deceased grandfather.”

Nico, stung to the quick by the very truth of that remark, bowed his head. He felt a surging wave of shame, and on this billowing wave rode an undulating image of a squealing seal that he and his grandfather had admired on their fishing adventure — an image gradually over-shadowed by another, more fuzzy, the stiffening body of a seagull on a pebbly shore near the mouth of a cavern.

The mild voice of his companion brought back these troubling scenes: “When all is said and done you will surely open wider the cage and let fly the encaged birds towards brighter poetic heights. Heights that perhaps you have yet to imagine.” With those comforting but enigmatic words the pilgrim turned to leave. He halted and asked: “Tell me, have you been to Granada?”

“Granada, Spain? No I haven’t, why?”

“You look like someone I met there.” The idler disappeared downwards into the crimson glint of sunset.

Nico ran back to Zorba’s house, undecided whether to speak to Zelda about her family. He never dreamed of broaching the subject to her as she herself had never bought up.

When the young writer had lumbered up those mossy steps he found Zelda seated on an armchair in the corner of the dining room, a shadow of gloom etched on her face. Her eyes were red. Wordlessly, she handed him a letter. It was written in faulty Greek, addressed to Zelda from an associate of Zorba’s in New York. A moment later Nico looked at Zelda with deep compassion. Zorba had died of a heart attack. His body would be sent to Burgaz for burial, accompanied by several of his associates who intended to buy his house.

“What will happen to me?” were Zelda’s first strained words. “I refuse to live in the same house with strangers even if they are Zorba’s associates.”

“Have you any family, Zelda? Anywhere to go? Anyone to help you financially?” She nodded in the negative to all these questions.

Nico sat down beside her: “Listen Zelda, come live with me, it’s a bit cramped, but at least you will have a roof over your head, food on the table, and a good friend who will always be at your side.”

Zelda dried her eyes and stared at Nico in embarrassment.

“I’m old enough to be your mother,” she said faintly.

“Exactly!” responded Nico excitedly. “You shall be the mother I hardly ever knew, in the same way that the presence of Abi Din in his house has been the father I hardly ever knew. How my grandfather would rejoice at that family reunion, however surreal, if I may say so.” Zelda smiled.

And with that acquiescing smile the two orphaned destinies appeared to converge into one …

[1] The biggest bank of Turkey at the time of Nico’s arrival specializing in international transactions. (Ottoman Bank).

[2] Empty-headed

[3] Lazy bones

[4] ‘Chalki’ in Greek means ‘copper’. The Ancient and Byzantine Greeks excavated copper on this island.

[5] Italian short-story writer ‘(1906-1972).

[6] French short-story writer.(1850-1893)

Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

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

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

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Tags Europe, France, French, Granada, Greek, New York, Ottoman, Paul Mirabile, Saït Faïk, Spain, Turkey

Musings

Hope Lies Buried in Eternity

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date June 16, 2025
1 Comment on Hope Lies Buried in Eternity

By Farouk Gulsara

I learnt early that life is never fair. They say time and tide wait for no man, moving along their own trajectory.

I heard money solves all problems or at least eases the pain of tough times. There was a time I ventured into saving mode. I started my own piggy bank, dropping in a coin almost daily into a plastic-mould chick figurine. I patted myself on the back as the clink of coins became louder and louder. It was not much, but every jingle reminded me of the value of money and the comfort it would provide me one day. The trouble was that my sisters were equally pleased that my coffers were filling to the brim. They began needling out coin after coin to finance their addiction of buying little treats. I felt frustrated. I knew saving was hard, but I never expected reaching my goal to be so difficult. My sisters’ malfeasance came to light one day when I noticed that the piggy bank had been displaced away from its usual place, tucked behind my nice shirts. That was when I confronted my sisters.

In my eyes, I did nothing wrong. Instead of admonishing my sisters and compensating for my loss, Amma claimed it was my fault. She taught me the harsh truths of life. It was my responsibility to safeguard my property, not anyone else’s. After that realisation, I sought out other ways to save money.

Then, I had a new group of friends. I joined a competitive group of classmates who wanted to excel academically. I thought that would be easy. I devoted all my time to studying and paying attention in class. It seemed easy, but it was a different story when the examination results were released. It was the class jester, for whom everything was a joke, who came out on top. Another valuable lesson I learnt was not just to study hard, but to study smart.

As I grew older and the screaming radio became a constant background to my daily life, I realised that the world was not a peaceful place. On one hand, songs promised a tranquil world of apple trees and honeybees[1]; from the same country, they sent tanks and bombs to annihilate each other. It seemed that the Vietnam War would never end. Peace in the Middle East was merely a pipe dream.

Amidst all that, a hippie song emerged, envisioning a world without boundaries, an airspace free from control, and a peaceful existence [2]. It instilled a sense of hope that life might indeed have something to look forward to after all. The image of two figures dressed entirely in white playing a white grand piano remains permanently etched in my mind as the beacon of hope that one day everything will be all right. And life went on.

After many years of burning the midnight oil and reaping bitter seeds, its sweet fruit finally emerged. Yet, all my classmates who were partying and living life to the full had already gained a head start in their careers. They had ascended the ladders of their professions and were cruising around in flashy cars, while I was starting as an intern with little to show except a few letters behind my name. The competitive streak within me, however, reassured me that academic excellence is superior to the acquisition of wealth.

I continued my healing work, convincing myself that what I was doing would be returned in kind and that I would receive blessings of a different kind. As time passed, I realised that those were merely comforters to soothe a colicky baby. The old adage ‘health is wealth’ was a fallacy. In the real world, wealth buys health, just as one gets justice with all the money one can afford to pay for legal services. The youthful cry of ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ [3] was another lie. Money buys everything, and it feels better to cry in a BMW than by the footpath of the street.

So, there I was, thinking that if I were to follow the ways prescribed by the elders, I would be all right. “Tell no lies.” They said. “Speak only the truth!” Then there were people who made lying— or they would call it ‘bending the truth’— the pillar of their profession. “Don’t be materialistic, look at humanity!” Tell that to the stockholders who do not take it kindly when the conglomerate shows high praises and blessings but announces no monetary returns in dividends. For one thing, even big countries help each other not for altruistic reasons but for geopolitical and economic interests. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything comes with its encumbrances.

I was advised not to fight back but to turn the other cheek. Yet, behind my back, the world has regarded me as a fall guy, and I was merely a useful idiot—someone they could blame for all their wrongdoings because I was naïve enough to admit my mistakes. Now my friends urge me to strike before the other party draws first blood and to never admit to any wrongdoings.

As human beings, we yearn for a world without conflict. We all desire peace of mind—a world where everyone follows a single prescribed path, where everything falls into place, a utopia in which one person sees another not by the colour of their skin or the tunic they wear, but by the strength of their character. Most prayers we offer to a higher being invariably end with ‘Peace on Earth’ or ‘Happiness for All’. Prayers like ‘Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinaha‘ [4] and ‘Om Shanti‘ [5] assume that everyone can have things their way at one given time, creating a win-win situation. Such a situation can only exist in our imagination. Regardless of what everyone else says, life is a zero-sum game. For someone to win, another must lose, somewhere, somehow. For the lion colony to be happy, a goat must be sacrificed. Contentment is achieved when we acknowledge our limitations and accept that sometimes things do not go in our favour. Outcomes may improve if we recognise that we can only do so much.

An Earth without conflict is a pipe dream. The natural course of events is entropy interspersed with instances of chaos and order. One can choose to adopt a nihilistic view of our existence and do nothing, or be like Sisyphus [6] — resigned to the fact that we are in a hopeless situation — but strive to find joy in setting small targets and achieving modest successes, filling our hearts with laughter and happiness during the lull before the storm, and endeavour to leave a better future for the next generation.

When everyone found it impossible to carry a big load, the human mind devised the wheel. When the greener pastures across the lake obsessively stirred the curious, it took one brave young man with the imagination to make a raft of fallen tree trunks. Hope springs eternal in the human breast[7]. The change we want the world to embody starts with the man in the mirror. Numerous social experiments have repeatedly shown that doing a kind gesture is contagious. One good turn deserves another. No good deed remains unreturned. We can try.

[1] A verse from The New Seekers’ “’I’d Like To Teach the World to Sing” became a jingle for Coca-Cola later.

[2] John Lennon’s most successful solo single, ‘Imagine’, envisions a world of peace without materialism, without borders separating nations, and without religion.

[3] The Beatles’ 1964 hit ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ is a McCartney composition that naively preaches that true love cannot be bought. In the later stages of his life, McCartney discovered the hard way that divorce, without a pre-nuptial agreement for someone of his stature, could be financially draining. Money can’t buy love, but falling out of it can be costly.

[4] Sanskrit for ‘May all be happy’

[5] Sanskrit for ‘Peace’

[6] In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a shrewd king. The gods condemned him to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, only to see it roll down again after reaching the summit. Albert Camus, in his book ‘The Myth of Sisyphus,’ implies that Sisyphus was happy. He found performing and completing the act itself meaningful. He gave meaning to the meaningless.

[7] “Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” an excerpt from Alexander Pope’s poem “An Essay on Man.”

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.

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

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

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Tags Albert Camus, Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, Beatles, BMW, Coca-Cola, Farouk Gulsara, Greek, John Lennon, Middle East, Myth of Sisyphus, Rifle Range Boy, Sanskrit, Sisyphus, The New Seekers, Vietnam, Vietnam War

Excerpt

The Cave of Echoes

Title: The Cave of Echoes: Stories about Gods, Animals and Other Strangers

Author: Wendy Doniger

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

It is impossible to define a myth, but it is cowardly not to try. For me, the best way to not-define a myth is to look at it in action, which is what have tried to do throughout this book: to see what myth does, rather than what myth is. It seems to me that by the time you’ve defined your terms in an argument, you’ve lost interest in the problem. But at this point, as we begin to reexamine our own assumptions about myths, it might be useful to list some things that I think myths are not: myths are not lies, or false statements to be contrasted with truth or reality. 1bis usage is, perhaps, the most common meaning of myth in casual parlance today. Indeed, other cultures, too, call myths lies. The Malagasy end the recitation of any myth with a traditional tag-line: “It is not I that lie; this lie comes from olden times.” In our culture, in particular, myths are often given the shadowy status of what has been called an “inoperative truth,” when in fact they might better be characterized as operative fictions. Picasso called art a lie that tells the truth, and the same might be said of myths.

What a Myth Is and Is Not

The desecration of the word “myth” to mean “lie” began with Plato, who contrasted the fabricated myth with the true history. It is, I think, an irony that our word for myth in most European languages, together with our basic attitude to myths, comes from ancient Greece, one of the very few cultures in the world from which we have almost no example of real, live myths, of myths as a part of a vital tradition; by the time most of the Greek myths reach us, they have been so thoroughly reworked in artistic and philosophical forms that they are mythological zombies, the walking dead. Plato was, as Eliade pointed out long ago, the first great demythologizer; he “deconstructed” the myths of Homer and Hesiod. It was Plato who challenged, successfully, the status of the poetic myth-carvers and myth collectors and banished them from his Republic. We can see in Plato a spectrum of mythmakers: at one end are anonymous wet nurses, who transmit the old myths to helpless infants; at the other end are the poets, like Hesiod and Homer, the “mimetic clan” who cannot imitate the true forms since no one has ever seen the forms and the poets can only imitate what they have seen.

Plato warns us that we must not tell these poetic myths about the gods even if they are true; in this, I think, he affirms the power of myths to influence human life; for he fears that a bad myth will make a bad life. (We shall see, in chapter 6, other Greek arguments against the evil effects of the myths in Greek tragedies.) Moreover, it is hard to escape from this image of the bad life; the stories that we learn in childhood have a marvelous hold on our memory.

Yet it is necessary for people to believe in good myths, even if they are false; this is the argument that Plato advances for the “noble lie” (gennaion pseudos) in the Republic, the statement that distorts an outside surface in order to convey an inner truth. Some of these good myths come from the old days; Plato distrusts this sort of “mythologizing,” the stories about centaurs and Chimaeras and Pegasus and so forth, but he distrusts even more the people who analyze them away as metaphors for the North Wind and so forth ( anticipating Friedrich Max Miller by some twenty-four hundred years); such analyses are altogether too clever and waste an awful lot of time. 13 People do have to have myths, Plato concedes; if they don’t believe in the old ones, we must construct new ones for them, logically, and this is very difficult to do, for we must convince them, in the cold light of reason, of the truth of the myths in order to make them accept the laws that we wish to give them:

“How can one assert in cold blood that the gods exist? Because we must hate and find unbearable those who, today as in the past, due to having refused to allow themselves to be convinced by the myths related to them since earliest childhood by a mother or a nurse giving them the breast, have obliged us, and still do so, to develop the arguments which take up our time now.”

For this reason, despite his opposition to myths and mythmakers, Plato himself was also a great “remythologizer” who invented the drama of the philosophical soul and made it a new kind of myth, a reasonable, logical, “likely” myth, to challenge the old myths of centaurs and so forth. In this way, when it came to myth, Plato managed to hunt with the hounds and to run with the hare. As Marcel Detienne has put it: “Plato’s work marks the time when philosophy, while censuring tales of the ancients as scandalous fictions, sets about telling its own myths in a discourse on the soul, on the origin of the world, and on life in the hereafter.” It was Plato who transformed ancient mythic themes to make the myth of Er, the myth of Eros, and the myth of the creation of the universe. Though Plato’s “likely or resembling story” can be a myth in the sense of a narrative ( and in that sense is interchangeable with logos meaning “narrative”), it is not a myth in the negative sense of a bad copy, like the myths of Homer ( which are negatively contrasted with logos meaning “reason”).

Yet Plato does apply the word “myth” ( mutbos) to the story of the world that he creates in the Pbaedo, a myth that he says is “worth hearing,” though it is merely another “likely story”:

“Now, to assert vehemently that things like this are really so as I’ve narrated them, doesn’t befit any man of sense. But that this is so, or something pretty much like it, about our souls and their dwelling place, since it is clear that the soul is immortal-it is quite fitting that we say that. “

The likely story is not the truth; but it resembles the truth, and is as close as we can ever get to the truth about certain subjects. Plato confesses that he resorts to telling myths, despite the fact that such stories are not literally true, because there is no other way of using words to produce even the effect of truth.

Plato regards the myth that he constructs in the Pbaedo as an essential vehicle for salvation, a kind of religious or magic charm:

“It is well worth running the risk that these things are so for anybody who thinks them so. (For it’s a fair risk.) And he must recite these things over and over to himself like a magic charm, even as I at this moment and for a long time past have been drawing out this myth.”

Plato ends the Republic with his own myth, the myth of Er, which he certainly does not regard as a lie: “And so the myth was saved and was not lost, and it will save us, if we believe it, and we shall safely cross the river of Lethe and we will not sully the soul. “

For Plato admits that a myth says something that cannot be said in any other way, that cannot be translated into a logical or even a metaphysical statement. A myth says something that can only be said in a story.

Which brings me to what I think a myth is. Let me begin with a rather cumbersome and rather functional definition: A myth is a story that is sacred to and shared by a group of people who find their most important meanings in it; it is a story believed to have been composed in the past about an event in the past, or, more rarely, in the future, an event that continues to have meaning in the present because it is remembered; it is a story that is part of a larger group of stories.

The assertion that a myth is a story is basic to my argument; for I think that the myth is persuasive to us because the action itself is persuasive. Even when what happens in the myth is not physically possible in this world ( as when, for instance, a man turns into a fish), when the event is described in detail, as something that happened, we can see it happening, and so it enlarges our sense of what might be possible. Only a story can do this.

About the Book

The Cave of Echoes celebrates the universal art of storytelling, and the rich diversity of the stories—especially myths—that people live by. Drawing on Hindu and Greek mythology, Biblical parables, and the modern mythologies of Woody Allen and soap operas, Wendy Doniger—renowned scholar of the history of religions—encourages us to feel anew the force of myth and tradition in our lives, and in the lives of other cultures. She shows how the stories of mythology—whether of gods, sages, demons or humans—enable cultures to define themselves. She raises critical questions about how myths are interpreted and adapted, and the ways in which different cultures make use of central texts and traditions. Drawing connections across time and place, she proposes that myths are not static beliefs but evolving narratives, and that by entering into other cultures’ stories, we may unexpectedly rediscover our own.

Written with scholarly depth and characteristic wit, this is a landmark work in the comparative study of mythology. It’s essential reading for anyone interested in how we understand others—and ourselves—through the stories we tell.

About the Author

Wendy Doniger is the author of several acclaimed and bestselling works, among them, The Hindus: An Alternative History; Hindu Myths; The Ring of Truth; Women, Androgynes and Other Mythical Beasts; Dreams, Illusion and Other Realities; Winged Stallions and Wicked Mares; An American Girl in India; and translations of the Rig Veda and the Kamasutra (with Sudhir Kakar). She is Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of the History of Religions at theUniversity of Chicago, and has also taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and the University of California, Berkeley.

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Essay

Drinking the Forbidden Milk of Paradise…

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date March 14, 2025
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By Meenakshi Malhotra

Mount Parnassus in Greece, where the muses were said to gather, was regarded as the home of poetry: From Public Domain

For the longest time, women were uncomfortable occupants of the house of poesy[1], particularly where there were existing canons of poetry established by the institutional gate-keepers and male custodians of literature. At best, they were viewed as Jane-come-latelies who sought to transgress the hitherto hallowed domains of high verse, interlopers to the hallowed heights of Parnassus who dared not “drink the milk of paradise”.

This ‘absence’ of women from the terrain of poetry is in spite of the fact that women have always written poetry, from ancient times to now. Sappho in the western tradition, was a Grecian poet from 5^th-6th century BCE who was the pioneer of lyric poetry, a genre which apart from being set to music, also inaugurated the poetic ‘I’. In India, Buddhist nuns in the Mahayana and Theravadas who wrote poems known as the therigathas were early precursors of female poets. These early women poets engaged in the sometimes forbidden, sometimes lascivious charms of verse and versification. Down the ages, there were many others who joined them and kept the lamp of women’s versification lit. However, if women have always been versifiers, why has there been a resistance and grudging admission for women to the poetic domain, which becomes a sort of “No (Wo)man’s land”? Why do women poets have only a token presence in traditional poetic anthologies?

Some reasons have been offered, not least among them being the preponderance of male poets who have often also been self-proclaimed and self-appointed guardians, legatees and arbiters of poetic tradition. Canonical poetic traditions, many claim, require a knowledge and understanding of Latin and Greek in the West while a knowledge of Sanskrit/Persian in the Asian context was deemed necessary. Thus women, who, for the most part, lacked formal education and had but small Latin and less Greek, could only hover around the margins and fringes of poetry. The situation with Sanskrit and Persian was similar and women remained mostly absent from or shadowy denizens of poetic terrains. Even if and when women were writing, they were doing so in colloquial registers and in the languages of the common people and not in formal or decorative language, deemed essential for poetry, for the most part. Almost the first group of women writing poetry in India were Buddhist nuns who wrote in Pali, one of the many ancient languages in the ancient Indian subcontinent, which enshrined its own scholarly tradition. Sappho wrote in the Greek Aeolic dialect, which was difficult for Latin writers to translate.

Between 12^th and 17^th century, there was an advent of devotional mystic poetry called “Bhakti” and “Sufi” poetry. While the poems were uttered/written in a devotional idiom, the poems and songs were often rebellious and iconoclastic, rejecting institutional religions and social norms. This poetry was rooted in personal and unmediated devotion and rejected formal languages and established societal norms. Some of this poetry was in an informal register, colloquial language and performative with a strong dramatic quality. Thus we have lines in Kannada from Akka Mahadevi (1130-1160) who rejects her earthly husband:

I love the handsome one: He has  no death decay nor form… no end no clan, no land.
Take these husbands who die, decay, and feed them to your kitchen fires.(Vachanas)

Women poets for the longest time had a crisis of identity, identification and non-belonging. They laboured under the anxiety of authorship where they felt the absence of precursors and fore-mothers and the lack of a poetic tradition to which they could belong. They were often made to feel as if they lacked genuine poetic talent or that they were transgressors against womanhood and femininity.

In Aurora Leigh (1855) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the eponymous title character, considers the diverse fields of literature where women can exercise their talent and claim a space. The field of dramatic writing poses a challenge because the former demands that the woman writer be in the public eye in order to promote her plays. Further, to achieve or even aspire to the rank of Poet, Aurora must become capable of “widening a large lap of life to hold the world-full woe”. Over the course of the long epic poem, she tries to reconcile her femininity with her artistic aspirations. In both cases, she is denied emotional fulfilment. She refuses to accept the role of an obedient wife, since it would mean foregoing the intellectual independence needed to develop as an artist, but then she must also refuse the love of a husband. In Book Five, she mentions three poets, none of whom she admires for their “popular applause”. Yet she admits that she envies them for the time they can devote to their chosen vocation and the adoring women that surround them and provide emotional support and fill their days with glory.

Another issue with women’s writing and poetry is the uncomfortable positioning of women in relation to patriarchal language or male centred language. If as Dale Spender declares in “Man-made Language”, the masculine is asserted as the norm, where do we position women’s voices? While language is a universal medium of communication, man-made language is full of sexism and chauvinism and expresses reality from a predominantly masculine and patriarchal perspective. If language is a social system which women are persuaded or co-opted to use, how do they work within its confines to express their poetic aspirations? How do they stretch, bend, subvert language to express their own realities? Can we read techniques of irony, satire and other figurative and metaphoric strategies of defiance and subversion and an attempt to undermine from within?

Juliet Mitchell in her essay on ‘Femininity, Narrative and Psychoanalysis’ states that the woman writer/novelist must of necessity be a hysteric, straddling two opposed worlds. One world is that of male definitions and conceptions of femininity and the other, a resistance and defiance of such conceptualising, accompanied by an attempt to undermine from within. Her defiance and resistance makes her character that of a hysteric, one who defies accepted notions and standards of femininity and is therefore considered transgressive. She troubles fixed gender categories, roles and definitions. She also disrupts and challenges the symbolic order of language, one which insists on rules of grammar and linguistic structures through the semiotic order which uses word play, repetitions and childish rhymes, in order to express inner desires and drives. The symbolic order deals with the denotative aspects of language and the semiotic order with the affective aspect.

Women’s poetry often houses and accommodates the semiotic, seeming psychobabble that plays with and disturbs fixed notions of femininity and binary gender identities.

What are the popular themes that inform women’s poetry? Some themes are to with women’s search for authentic self-hood and identity, their search for roots and a space of their own. As we see in Aurora Leigh, much of women’s poetry is self-conscious and self-reflexive, about the act of writing itself, the “awful daring of a moment’s surrender which an age of prudence could never retract.”(T.S.Eliot)

Many contemporary women poets, across continents, have evinced a substantial interest in exploring their poetic self through their poems. On the one hand is the confessional poetry of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, on the other the brief gnomic utterances of Emily Dickinson. Before the advent of the twentieth century, one hears of Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti, among many others. Names like Aphra Behn and Anne Bradstreet have been included in many syllabi, often as a token inclusion in an otherwise male centric course.

Women poets have talked about the horrors of war including rape, pillage and destruction. In their critique of war and violence, we find the forging of transnational solidarities, whether it is women’s poetry from Sri Lanka or Birangona (War heroines).

In India the many names that come to mind are that of Kamala Das, Eunice D’Souza, Meena Alexander, Sujata Bhatt and Sunuti Namjoshi. Women poets have employed effective means to explore the entire gamut of experience.The private and the public domain, their process of self-analysis; the process of poetic creativity and a probe into poetic identities are all significant fields of exploration. For these women writers, analysing the creative process becomes much more than just a poetic theme. As they unravel the mystery of their poetic psyche in their writings, it becomes an epiphanic journey for the poets and their readers.

[1] Archaic word for poetry

Dr Meenakshi Malhotra is an Associate Professor of English Literature at Hansraj College, University of Delhi, and has been involved in teaching and curriculum development in several universities. She has edited two books on Women and Lifewriting, Representing the Self and Claiming the I, in addition to numerous published articles on gender, literature and feminist theory. Her most recent publication is The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle.

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Contents

Borderless, February 2025

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date February 14, 2025
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Editorial

The Kanchejunga Turns Gold … Click here to read.

Translations

Tumi Kon Kanoner Phul by Tagore and Anjali Loho Mor by Nazrul, love songs by the two greats, have been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Tumi to Janona Kichu (You seem to know nothing) by Jibananda Das has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Where Lies the End of this Unquenchable Thirst?, a poem by Atta Shad, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

The Bird’s Funeral a poem by Ihlwha Choi has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here read.

Kheya or Ferry, a poem 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, Shamik Banerjee, John Drudge, Ashok Suri, Cal Freeman, Lokenath Roy, Stuart McFarlane, Thompson Emate, Aditi Dasgupta, George Freek, Gazala Khan, Phil Wood, Srijani Dutta, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Akbar Fida Onoto, Ryan Quinn Flangan, Rhys Hughes

Musings/Slices from Life

Just Another Day?

Farouk Gulsara muses on the need to observe various new year days around the globe and across time. Click here to read.

Of Birthdays and Bondings…

Ratnottama Sengupta reminiscences on her past experiences. Click here to read.

As Flows the Gomti: A Palace of Benevolence

Prithvijeet Sinha takes us for a tour of the Bara Imambara in Lucknow with his words and camera. Click here to read.

The Midwife’s Confession and More…

Aparna Vats shares a narrative around female infanticide centring her story around a BBC interview and an interview with the journalist who unfolded the narrtive. Click here to read.

Juhu

Lokenath Roy gives a vignette of the world famous beach. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In The Heroic Fall, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores dacoits and bravery. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Finding Inspiration in Shikoku’s Iya Valley, Suzanne Kamata has written of a source of inspiration for a short story in her recently published book. Click here to read.

Essays

Reminiscences from a Gallery: MF Husian

Dolly Narang recounts how she started a gallery more than four decades ago and talks of her encounter with world renowned artist, MF Husain. Click here to read.

In The Hidden Kingdom of Bhutan

Mohul Bhowmick explores Bhutan with words and his camera. Click here to read.

When a New Year Dawns…

Ratnottama Sengupta writes of the art used in calendars and diaries in India. Click here to read.

What Is Your Name?

Fakrul Alam recalls his mother as a person who aspired for fairplay for women. Click here to read.

Stories

Vasiliki and Nico Go Fishing

Paul Mirabile gives a heartwarming story set in a little Greek island. Click here to read.

Naughty Ravi

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao writes of an awakening. Click here to read.

The Wise One

Snigdha Agrawal gives a touching story around healing from grief. Click here to read.

Conversations

Ratnottama Sengupta converses with Joy Bimal Roy, author of Ramblings of a Bandra Boy. Click here to read.

A discussion on managing cyclones, managing the aftermath and resilience with Bhaksar Parichha, author of Cyclones in Odisha: Landfall, Wreckage, and Resilience. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Bhaskar Parichha’s Cyclones in Odisha, Landfall, Wreckage and Resilience. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Joy Bimal Roy’s Ramblings of a Bandra Boy. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Amitav Ghosh’s Wild Fiction: Essays. Click here to read.

Meenakshi Malhotra reviews Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Shabnam, translated from Bengali by Nazes Afroz. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Abhay K’s Nalanda: How it Changed the World. Click here to read.

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Tags Abhay K, Aditi DasGupta, Akbar Fida Ononto, Amitav Ghosh, Aparna Vats, Ashok Suri, Atta Shad, Balochi, BBC, Bengali, Bhaskar Parichha, Bhutan, Cal Freeeman, Cyclones in Odisha – Landfall Wreckage and Resilience, Devraj Singh Kalsi, Dolly Narang, Fakrul Alam, Farouk Gulsara, Fazal Baloch, Female Infanticide, Gazala Khan, George Freek, Greek, Ihlwha Choi, India, Iya Valley, Japan, Jibanananda Das, John Drudge, Joy Bimal Roy, Juhu, Kanchenjunga, Kheya, Korean, Lokenath Roy, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, MF Husain, Mitali Chakravarty, Mohul Bhowmick, Nalanda: How it Changed the World., Naramsetti Umamaheswararao, Odisha, Paul Mirabile, Phil Wood, Ramblings of a Bandra Boy, Ratnottama Sengupta, Rhys Hughes, Ryan Quinn Falangan, Shamik Banerjee, Shikoku, Snigdha Agrawal, Sohana Manzoor, Somdatta Mandal, Srijani Dutta, Stuart McFarlane, Suzanne Kamata, Tagore, Thompson Emate, Tumi to Janona Kichu, Wild Fiction: Essays

Editorial

“We are the World”

In 1985, famous artistes, many of whom are no longer with us, collaborated on the song, We are the World, to raise funds to feed children during the Ethiopian famine (1983-85). The song was performed together by Michael Jackson, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Paul Simon, Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick, Lionel Richie, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen. The producer, Julia Nottingham, said: “It’s a celebration of the power of creativity and the power of collective humanity.” The famine was attributed to ‘war and drought’.

Over the last few years, we have multiple wars creating hunger and drought caused by disruptions. Yet, the world watches and the atrocities continue to hurt common people, the majority who just want to live and let live, accept and act believing in the stories created by centuries of civilisation. As Yuval Noah Harari points out in a book written long before the current maladies set in, Homo Deus (2015), “…the stories are just tools. They should not become our goals or our yardsticks. When we forget that they are mere fiction, we lose touch with reality. Then we begin entire wars ‘to make a lot of money for the corporation’ or ‘to protect the national interest’. Corporations, money and nations exist only in our imagination. We invented them to serve us; why do we find ourselves sacrificing our lives in their service?”

What Harari says had been said almost ninety years ago by a voice from another region, by a man who suffered but wrote beautiful poetry, Jibanananda Das… and here are his verses —

“The stories stored in my soul will eventually fade. New ones—
New festivals—will replace the old — in life’s honey-tinged slight.”

— Jibananda Das, from ‘Ghumiye Poribe Aami’ (I’ll fall asleep), 1934, translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam

We carry the poem in this issue translated by Professor Fakrul Alam, lines that makes one dream of a better future. These ideas resonate in modern Balochi poet Ali Jan Dad’s ‘Roll Up Not the Mat’ brought to us in English by Fazal Baloch. Korean poet Ihlwha Choi’s translation takes us to longing filled with nostalgic hope while Tagore’s ‘Probhat’ (Dawn) gives a glimpse of a younger multi-faceted visionary dwell on the wonders of a perfect morning imbibing a sense of harmony with nature.

“I feel blessed for this sky, so luminous. 
I feel blessed to be in love with the world.”

--‘Probhat’ (Dawn) by Tagore, 1897, translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty

Starting a new year on notes of hope, of finding new dreams seems to be a way forward for humanity does need to evolve out of self-imposed boundaries and darknesses and move towards a new future with narratives and stories that should outlive the present, outlive the devastating impact of climate change and wars by swapping our old narratives for ones that will help us harmonise with the wonders we see around us… wonders created by non-human hands or nature.

We start this year with questions raised on the current world by many of our contributors. Professor Alam in his essay makes us wonder about the present as he cogitates during his morning walks. Niaz Zaman writes to us about a change maker who questioned and altered her part of the world almost a century ago, Begum Roquiah. Can we still make such changes in mindsets as did Roquiah? And yet again, Ratnottama Sengupta pays homage to a great artiste, filmmaker Shyam Benegal, who left us in December 2024 just after he touched 90. Other non-fictions include musings by Nusrat Jan Esa on human nature contextualising it with Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667); Farouk Gulsara’s account of a fire in Sri Lanka where he was visiting and Suzanne Kamata’s column from Japan on the latest Japanese Literary Festival in the Fukushimaya prefecture, the place where there was a nuclear blast in 2011. What is amazing is the way they have restored the prefecture in such a short time. Their capacity to bounce back is exemplary! Devraj Singh Kalsi shares a tongue-in-cheek musing about the compatibility of banks and writers.

Rhys Hughes’ poem based on the photograph of a sign is tongue-in- cheek too. But this time we also have an unusual exploration of horror with wry humour in his column. Michael Burch shares a lovely poem about a hill that was planted by his grandfather and is now claimed as state property… Afsar Mohammad explores hunger in his fasting poems and Aman Alam gives heart rending verses on joblessness. Poems by Kirpal Singh contextualise Shakespearian lore to modern suffering. We have more poems by Kiriti Sengupta, Michelle Hillman, Jenny Middleton, G Javaid Rasool, Stephen Druce, John Grey, George Freek and many others — all exploring multiple facets of life. We also have a conversation with Kiriti Sengupta on how he turned to poetry from dentistry!

Exploring more of life around us are stories by Sohana Manzoor set in an expat gathering; by Priyatham Swamy about a migrant woman from Nepal and by Naramsetti Umamaheswararao set against rural Andhra Pradesh. While Ahmad Rayees gives a poignant, touching story set in a Kashmiri orphanage, Paul Mirabile reflects on the resilience of a child in a distant Greek island. Mirabile’s stories are often a throwback to earlier times.

In this issue, our book excerpts explore a writer of yore too, one that lived almost a hundred years ago, S. Eardley-Wilmot (1852-1929), a conservationist and one who captures the majesty of nature, the awe and the wonder like Tagore or Jibanananda with his book, The Life of an Elephant. The other book takes us to contemporary Urdu writers but in Kolkata —Contemporary Urdu Stories from Kolkata, translated by Shams Afif Siddiqi and edited by Shams Afif Siddiqi and Fuzail Asar Siddiqi. A set of translated stories of the well-known Bengali writer, Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay by Hiranmoy Lahiri, brought out in a book called Kaleidoscope of Life: Select Short Stories has been reviewed by Somdatta Mandal. Malashri Lal has discussed Basudhara Roy’s A Blur of a Woman. Roy herself has explored Afsar Mohammad’s Fasting Hymns. Bhaskar Parichha has taken us to Sri Lanka with a discussion on a book on Sri Lanka, Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Island by an academic located in Singapore, Razeen Sally.

Bringing together varied voices from across the world and ages, one notices recurring themes raising concerns for human welfare and for the need to conserve our planet. To gain agency, it is necessary to have many voices rise in a paean to humanity and the natural world as they have in this start of the year issue.

I would like to thank all those who made this issue possible, our team and the contributors. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I cannot stop feeling grateful to Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork too, art that blends in hope into the pages of Borderless Journal. As all our content has not been mentioned here, I invite you to pause by our content’s page to explore more of our exciting fare. Huge thanks to all readers for you make our journey worthwhile.

I would hope we can look forward to this year as being one that will have changes for the better for all humanity and the Earth… so that we still have our home a hundred years from now, even if it looks different.

Wish you a year filled with new dreams.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

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Tags A Blur of a Woman, Afsar Mohammad, Ahmad Rayees, Ali Jan Dad, Aman Alam, Andhra Pradesh, Balochi, Basudhara Roy, Begum Roquiah, Bengali, Bhaskar Parichha, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Borderless Journal, Bruce Springsteen, Contemporary Urdu Stories from Kolkata, Devraj Singh Kalsi, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Ethiopian Famine 1983-85, Fakrul Alam, Farouk Gulsara, Fasting Hymns, Fazal Baloch, Fukushimaya, Fuzail Asar Siddiqi, G Javaid Rasool, George Freek, Ghumiye Poribe Aami, Greek, Homo Deus, Ihlwha Choi, Japan, Jenny Middleton, Jibanananda Das, John Grey, Julia Nottingham, Kashmiri, Kiriti Sengupta, Kirpal Singh, Korean, Lionel Richie, Malashri Lal, Michael Burch, Michael Jackson, Michelle Hillman, Milton, Mitali Chakravarty, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao, Nepal, Niaz Zaman, Nusrat Jahan Esa, Pal Mirabile, Paradise Lost, Paul Mirabile, Paul Simon., Priyatham Swamy, Probhat, Ratnottama Sengupta, Ray Charles, Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Island, Rhys Hughes, S. Eardley-Wilmot, Shams Afif Siddiqi, Shyam Benegal, Smokey Robinson, Sohana Manzoor, Sri Lanka, Stephen Druce, Stevie Wonder, Suzanne Kamata, Tagore, The Life of an Elephant, Tina Turner, Urdu, We are the World, Willie Nelson, Yuval Noah Harari

Poetry

Oizys

By Vidya Hariharan

Yesterday I saw a fool
Give up her love 
for she lacked the courage
to stand up and fight
for all that she deserved.
Yesterday this fool stood by 
And let the world 
Rob her of joy,
Helpless and hopeless
She made her own bed 
Of guilt, shame and regret.
Yesterday she failed to care
Enough to move ahead
In life, whiled away her time
In pointless pastimes.
Yesterday she hid again,
From challenges and promises.
Afraid to seize and wrest
Opportunities life presented.
Today it is too late,
All the yesterdays have passed, 
Tomorrow may or may not,
Give her another chance.
As she lies there, staring
Sightlessly at the transparent 
Tube, snaking from her arm,
The regrets come crowding in
And ask, “Why didn’t you live life?”

Vidya Hariharan is an avid reader and traveller. Her poems and prose narratives can be found in Setu, Contemporary Haibun Online, Under the Basho, Glomag, Poetry Super Highway, Poem Hunter and Pan haiku review.

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Tags Greek, Oizys, Vidya Hariharan

Stories

Hope is the Dream of a Waking Man

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date April 15, 2024
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By Shevlin Sebastian

There is a large grey wave painted in the middle of the canvas. It is falling over a large group of people standing on the edge of a seashore. Many men wear skullcaps. The women have black burkas. The group has widened eyes and open mouths. Some have turned their backs to flee. Others have raised their arms and clenched their fists, as if they are about to break into a run.

At the bottom of the canvas, on the left, there is another group of people. They are also standing on another seashore, with windswept hair. There is a woman with a large sindoor in the middle parting of her hair. A young man, in jeans, has a necklace with a gold crucifix. A boy stands with a placard showing a dove with a leaf in its beak. The words, ‘Let’s all live in peace,’ are written in bold, red letters. Others raise placards with slogans like ‘Say No to communalism’, ‘Syncretism is in our DNA’, and ‘We are all brothers and sisters in this great nation’.

Painter Ashraf Mahmood steps back and stares at the image. A slight smile plays on his lips. He had woken up that morning and this image had come floating into his mental screen. Ashraf kept staring at it, eyes closed, lying on his back. His wife had got up and gone to the kitchen. Alia liked to make her tea using Tata Gold. He preferred Brooke Bond Red Label. So they made separate cups.

When he entered his studio on Mira Road, in Mumbai, at 9 am, he got down to work, using an easel and grey paint.

He worked steadily. It was silent inside. But Ashraf did register the outside sounds of a typical Mumbai street. The horns blowing. Tendrils of smoke from exhaust pipes floated in through the window. His nose twitched as he noticed a foul smell. It seemed as if somebody had thrown garbage on the street. Ashraf closed his nose with the tip of his fingers for a few seconds. “The crazy smells of Mumbai,” he thought.

He grew up near Mandvi Beach in Ratnagiri (343 kms from Mumbai). The air was fresh, and the wind blew constantly. The only sound was the roar of the waves and the beautiful sight of seagulls making circles as they flew above the sea. Ashraf’s father, Mohammed, was a government school teacher. His mother was a homemaker. He had two elder brothers and three sisters. Ashraf was the youngest. He displayed artistic talent from his school days.

Unlike most fathers, Mohammed encouraged his son. His father took him to an art teacher, who taught him how to draw and paint. Ashraf’s major breakthrough happened when he got admitted to the JJ School of Art in Mumbai. After that, there was no looking back…

It was evening when he finished the work. His soles ached. Ashraf had been standing for hours.

This image reflected all that he felt. The grey resembled the growing intolerance towards Muslims. This seemed to be overwhelming especially in places like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. There was the rise of majoritarianism. And the fracturing of relations between people of different communities. And yet, Ashraf felt that the DNA of the people over centuries was syncretic. A ready acceptance of people of all faiths.

It was only the hate campaigns, through speeches, social media, and songs, that had swayed the people. He was sure the fever would die one day. Syncretism would rise again. “After all,” he thought, “throughout human history, love always conquered hate. But it took time.”

Ashraf wanted to tell the viewers of his work not to lose hope. And hence the pigeon and the symbol of peace. For the title, he used a quote by the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, “Hope is the dream of a waking man.”

Ashraf rubbed his chin a few times and walked to a table on one side. A packet of fresh buns lay on the table. Ashraf opened a fridge. He took out a container which contained butter and a bottle of strawberry jam. He sliced the bun into half with a stainless steel knife, placed butter and jam in between, and began eating it. These were fresh buns from a nearby bakery. Ashraf had bought them when he had stepped out for lunch. He made tea on the gas stove. Then he sat on a stool near the table and sipped it.

This was his 35th year as a painter. Now, at 55, he could look back with reasonable pride. He took part in regular exhibitions and won a few awards and grants. Profiles of him appeared in the newspapers and on social media. His paintings sold, thanks to his realistic and simple style. An art sensibility was only gradually building up among the people. Ashraf knew that images drawn from his unconscious mind had a pulling power. Why this was so, he did not know. He remembered how one art critic described a David Hockney painting as having a ‘psychological charge’. Hockney was a renowned English painter. Ashraf realised that art needed to have a psychological charge if it had to have an impact.

But Alia had already made an impact on him. He met her when she came to view his exhibition one day at the Jehangir Art Gallery. She was slim and tall, with curves that were accentuated by the chiffon saree she wore. Like Ashraf, she came from a small town. Through grit and perseverance, she passed competitive exams and got a government job. They went for dates. Ashraf was smitten. Within a year, he proposed and they got married.

Alia was a superintendent in the sales tax department. She would earn a pension once her career got over. She had another ten years to go. Their two daughters had married and settled down in Aligarh and Delhi. Both had two children each, a boy and a girl.

Alia wanted Ashraf to earn more money. But he was not a hustler or a man who liked to build a network. If a buyer came and offered a decent price, he sold it. Most of the time, he remained isolated. Sometimes, he met other artists at exhibitions and art seminars. He would chat with them. But that was all.

He was not keen on extramarital flings or experimenting with drugs or drinking too much. Ashraf led a steady life. In many ways, he was happy with the way his life had turned out.

He washed the cup and the pans. Ashraf placed the cup on a hook which hung on a wall. He had yet to finish the bun.

He made his way back to the painting. It was 5.30 p.m. In half an hour, he would close his studio and walk back to his house, fifteen minutes away. The couple owned their apartment. Alia, with help from Ashraf, had cleared the bank loan over 15 years.

At this moment, he heard a murmur of voices from outside the door. Ashraf wondered what it was. The sound arose. “Was there an emergency?” he thought. “Is the building on fire?”

He came to the door. Ashraf saw that the lock was coming under strain. It seemed to be bulging backwards towards him. Somebody gave a violent kick and the door sprang open. Ashraf moved to one side.

A group of young men rushed in. Some wore red bandanas. Many were in T-shirts and trousers. Some had thick, muscular arms. They were shouting. It seemed like slogans. In his shocked state, Ashraf could not register the words. They rushed to the canvas on the easel. One man, using a long knife, sliced the canvas into two. He pushed the easel. It fell with a clattering sound to the floor.

There were a bunch of finished canvases placed on one side. Ashraf had been doing work to showcase in an upcoming solo exhibition. The group spotted it. They rushed there, pushed the canvases to the floor, and began ripping them one by one with their knives. Within a few minutes, the work of several months lay ripped out. Ashraf remained by the side of the door. He had not moved.

“Hey you Muslim kutta (dog),” one of them said. “We will come again if you carry on working. No art for Muslims. Clean the sewers. That’s the only job you are good at.”

Ashraf half-expected one of them to stab him. But they didn’t. They left as quickly as they came.

Ashraf felt as if a large, round ball had settled at the base of his throat. He could not swallow it nor could he spit it out.

He blinked many times. Ashraf wasn’t sure whether this event had actually happened. It took place so fast. But there was no doubt about the ripped canvases lying all over the floor.

He felt a pain in his heart. Ashraf rubbed the area. “I hope I am not having a heart attack,” he thought to himself, as he took in lungfuls of air to calm himself down. Employees from other offices on the same floor came to the door. They entered. Most had goggle-eyes.

“Sir, what happened?” one young man said.

Ashraf shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Who were these people?” a woman said.

“No idea,” Ashraf said, as he surveyed the damage.

“Sir, you will have to call the police,” another man said.

“Yes, I will,” said Ashraf.

A couple of men shook his hand.

All of them surveyed the damage silently. Work was calling them. “All chained to their desks,” thought Ashraf. “At least, that way, I am free. No boss on top of me. No attendance marking every day. No targets to meet. No one shouting at me. But then, no steady income. And no camaraderie. Large amounts of time spent alone.”

Then he returned to the stool, returned to the present, and placed his head in his hands.

‘What’s happening to this country?’ he thought. ‘‘There seems to be a collective madness. Indians attacking Indians. And these young people were ruining their lives by working for political leaders. They will be used and discarded.”

He had not seen them before in the locality. They might have come from some other area. Was it a deliberate ploy to send a shock wave through him and the community? Who knew how they thought?

What should he do now?

Ashraf realised he had to think rationally. He stood up and went to the door. He realised immediately, he could not do anything immediately. A carpenter would have to be called tomorrow.

He called Alia and informed her about what had happened. She said she would come directly to the studio from the office. Ashraf called up his media contacts, both in the print and visual media. They said they would arrive with their photographers and cameramen. Ashraf took several photos and videos on his mobile phone, documenting the damage.

He would have to report the attack at the police station and file an FIR.

Ashraf realised his work had been ruined, but he would recreate it. He had photos of all the canvases.

To prove to himself, he had returned to normality, he went back to the table and finished the rest of the bun. He put the butter and the jam back into the fridge. He washed the plate and the knife.

Fifteen minutes later, Alia arrived.

In silence, she stared at the canvases lying on the floor. Ashraf saw her press her hand against her open mouth. He realised it was a silent scream.

In the end, she came up to Ashraf and said, “They have tried to violate your dignity as an artist and a person.”

The couple hugged.

After a while they broke away.

“Don’t keep the canvases here anymore,” she said.

Ashraf rubbed his chin with his fingers.

Finally, he nodded.

“There was something strange about the attack,” he said. “They didn’t overturn the table or the fridge. And for some reason, they did not assault me. It seemed to me they had to leave in a hurry. So I got saved.”

Alia said, “They are keeping a watch on everybody.”

“Yes, I read online there is a pervasive deep state,” said Ashraf. “In every neighbourhood there are spies who report about all that is happening.”

“What is the next step?” she said.

“I am waiting for the media to come. After that, I will file the FIR,” he said.

At that moment, a few print and TV journalists arrived.

Ashraf spoke to the reporters. The photographers and cameramen began recording all that had happened.

They left after half an hour.

The couple then shut the door, as best as they could. But there was a small gap at one side. They went to the police station. The police allowed an FIR to be filed against ‘unknown persons’. He faced no hindrances because, as Ashraf surmised, the police were aware of his reputation as an artist.

The couple took an autorickshaw and returned to their apartment.

Alia changed into a nightgown. She washed her face, and informed their daughters about what had happened on her mobile phone.

Ashraf changed into a T-shirt and shorts. He made a glass of whisky mixed with water for himself. Every night he had one peg.

As he sat on the sofa, nursing his drink and staring at the TV screen, he felt the pain arise in him. It was an ache in the middle of the chest. To see his work treated in such a callous manner was a calamity. He wondered whether he would ever overcome this fear that had come into him. Work on a piece the whole day and in the evening, somebody could come in and rip it up.

Closed doors did not offer any protection. It was a time of lawlessness. People with criminal behaviour could operate with impunity. Leaders wanted to instil fear in people.

And would he be able to recreate these ripped-up paintings with the same intensity? He was not sure.

On the screen, some leader was having his say. His eyes enlarged, he made violent movements with his hand, and spoke with a loud voice. “Horrific,” thought Ashraf. “How do you create art in this environment?”

Yes, indeed, how do you?

But it did not take long for him to tell himself, “But we must, whatever be the cost. Art is the candle that brings light to the darkness.”

Shevlin Sebastian has worked for magazines like Sportsworld, belonging to the Ananda Bazar Patrika Group in Kolkata, The Week, belonging to the Malayala Manorama Group, in Kochi, the Hindustan Times in Mumbai, and the New Indian Express in Kochi. He has also briefly worked in DC Books at Kottayam. He has published about 4500 articles on subjects as varied as films, crime, humour, art, human interest, psychology, literature, politics, sports and personalities. Shevlin has also published four novels for children.

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

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Musings

Trojan Island

By Nitya Amalean

It was the year 2020. When most of the world was lacking connection and normalcy, I had the privilege of being in Sri Lanka, an island that I had referred to as ‘home’ but hadn’t truly been my home since I left at the age of eighteen. Being here gave me connection with a sugary coat of ‘normalcy’. I had my affectionate family, who made lockdowns entertaining with the purchase of a ping pong table, the nightly binge of true crime documentaries and the occasional games night, including a terrible decision to play ‘Cards Against Humanity’. I had a relationship with my boyfriend in all the physical sense of the word after two years of long-distance phone calls. I had my friends who were all a 15-minute drive away. I had a flexible job where I could interact with smart and passionate coworkers, something I ignorantly thought I wouldn’t find in Sri Lanka. Add to that, countless long weekends and public holidays, mostly spent in the beach towns down south, a region brimming with excellent food options, tasty cocktail bars and magnificent sea swims – truly this was an island that brought comfort, safety and security.

But I wanted more.

This romanticised version of the pandemic years spent in Sri Lanka, while all true, evoked such strong feelings of being lost, purposeless, and devoid of self-worth. This most comfortable of comfort zones made me feel completely out of sorts and yearning for something different. Long, sleepless nights of overthinking, questioning and wondering, “What on earth am I doing here?” Did I spend four years in an exceedingly difficult academic environment and four years working in the most ambitious, individualistic, enlightening city to land up here? Did my parents really spend thousands of dollars on American college tuition for me to end up back home feeling like a failure?

The initial move back home in May 2020 was going to be temporary. I was placed on furlough from my job in London and I believed it was best to wait it out back home. I thought that once the pandemic was all well and done, which would obviously be in a few months, I’d return to London, like nothing had changed.

As I fell in deeper with the aesthetically pleasing confines of beautiful beaches in Trincomalee, the delicious home-cooked meals, the hugs from my parents, the kisses from my boyfriend, the cuddles with my little nieces and nephews, and the long weekend trips with friends, it would be an outright lie to say I wasn’t relieved when the furlough continued and ultimately, ended with the expiration of my work visa. That seemed to seal the decision. I had no way back to the United Kingdom. Sri Lanka was to be my home now.

Looking back at that time, it was like being given this Trojan horse of a cozy, tender, warm embrace, disguising claws that pierced slowly, leaking poison and disillusionment. The surrounding Indian Ocean was as confining as it was endless, as isolating as it was welcoming, as suffocating as it was refreshing.

Scrolling through social media, I compared myself to others. And no, it wasn’t the mindless glazing-of-the-eyes watching Tik Tok or Reels but the reading-every-post-with-anxiety on LinkedIn. I compared myself to my friends in New York City, progressively moving up the ladder with impressive promotions and new six figure salaries. I compared myself to my best friends, living their lives independently, powering through their work passionately. I compared myself to peers in my graduating class who seemed to be smashing it in whatever life path they were on. And I felt thoroughly sorry for myself.

While pleased to be working with smart individuals at my WFH startup job in Sri Lanka, the lack of growth and opportunity for professional development made me itch. There were too many moments in the middle of workdays, where I laid sprawled across my bed, staring up at the fan and berating myself down a black hole. I switched between two toxic mindsets, one telling myself that I was no longer worthy of doing exciting, cutting-edge, fulfilling work and the other questioning why I couldn’t be content with all the positives that I had around me? Why did I always want more? Why did I always have this “grass will be greener” frame of mind? Why couldn’t I just ‘be’? This second mindset would set in when I heard my mum’s call to come for her home-cooked lunch of rice and curry. Wasn’t I begging for all these luxuries when I was living abroad?

While work was a huge factor contributing to my discontent, lifestyle was a secondary, significant reason. Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer that everyone has different priorities and are in different stages of life and I spent a lot of time (over)thinking about my priorities. I wanted new experiences. I wanted to be pushed outside my comfort zone to do things that terrified my introverted self. I wanted to work remotely from a Greek island. I wanted to pick up Spanish again and stay in Barcelona for the summer. I wanted to take a creative writing course in Paris. I wanted to hop on a flight and visit my best friend in Munich, where she was living on a farm. I wanted the luxury of having a multiple-year multiple-entry Schengen visa which would be stamped every few months. I wanted a different passport. I wanted to go for an innumerable amount of plays, whether they were in small, 30-seater spaces with no set design or in beautiful, historic theatres where the lead actor is naked almost the entire run time (for artistic purposes apparently). I wanted to watch Jodie Comer in Prima Facie. I wanted to laugh hysterically at a live interview with the legendary Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I wanted to listen to the beautiful minds of Konkona Sen Sharma, Nandita Das and Aparna Sen discussing the perils of censorship in their films in India; watch a match at Wimbledon; find a way to go to the Berlinnale Film Festival. Enjoy the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

I wanted to do so many things.

Could I find these things while living in Sri Lanka? I convinced myself that I couldn’t.

Recently, at my one-year work anniversary in my current job, my manager thoughtfully said, “Thank you for always striving for excellence.” While very kind words, they made me understand something I perhaps always knew about myself, without ever being explicitly told. Always striving for excellence even as a type-A young person, pushing for excellent grades, in order to go to an excellent college in the United States, and ultimately, secure an excellent job. (I’m exhausted just typing out this sentence.) And after being extremely fortunate to work with intelligent and supportive people and have challenging, exciting projects, my own benchmark for excellence kept rising.

I wanted to really enjoy my work but also be challenged by it. I wanted to learn from diverse, brilliant colleagues. I wanted to learn new technical skills. I wanted to have workshops with Product teams on developing new AI functionalities and how best to position them in the marketplace. I wanted to brainstorm with the Content team on how to best partner with a certain Tamil British-Indian actress and not feel like the token voice of diversity. I wanted the promotion and the salary bump and the senior title and the recognition and the reputation. And if not now, then it was in the five-year plan. I can say that this is what New York City does to you, but that would be a lie. It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.

All this ambition drove me straight into a brick wall, dissolving my confidence in my own capabilities. I blamed Sri Lanka. I blamed a whole country for making me feel like this.

Soon, the island was facing its worst economic crisis since independence and to watch the destruction of possibility, willpower and any minute form of political stability in real time was heartbreaking. I won’t even attempt to put into words the plight of Sri Lankans who lost almost everything, unable to access the most basic essentials of fuel, electricity, cooking oil, milk powder and medicines. By early 2022, ‘home’, an island that had nurtured me, that gave me the most special roots, that offered me safety and security, was broken. In my siloed social bubble of international school kids, foreign-educated graduates and Colombo’s upper-middle class families, I desperately wanted to get out. And so did thousands of others who did not want to waste their potential in a nation that was falling apart at the seams.

After years of only regarding Sri Lanka with fondness, I found that bitterness, resentment, and animosity towards my island nation magnified to a point where I couldn’t even hold a conversation with friends who could leave but were choosing to stay. Give me a work permit, give me a Western passport, give me a student visa, give me anything that will allow me to leave this place.

A family meeting was called when my black mood permeated through the home, along with wine, cheese, and a whiteboard to discuss my future plans — the pleasures of coming from a business family — efficient but with alcohol. My family, the ever-loving, supportive, encouraging guiding lights in my life, told me point-black, “You need to leave.” In an atypical South Asian, fashion, they said, “Do what makes you happy. Get a job or do your Masters. Travel everywhere.” My sweet parents, knowing that they would once again be empty nesters with my brother and me elsewhere, knowing that they fully enjoyed having the house full again, also recognised that their kids would be their happiest selves outside of Sri Lanka.

To have diametrically opposing emotions about the right path forward is confusing to say the very least. If I chose to remain in Sri Lanka, it would have been because three people lived there. My parents were not getting any younger and more substantially, we treasured each other. My partner and I were finally living in the same city after years of distance and savouring every moment of togetherness. And to have all three people only having words of encouragement further deepened the guilt.

But I wanted to be selfish. I didn’t want to stay because I’m a patriotic citizen contributing to the brain drain. I didn’t want to stay because I’m a good daughter or girlfriend. I wanted to leverage my resources, my experiences and most importantly, my LinkedIn, to do the impossible. A broken island meant I had to put together the pieces. For myself.

To leave or not to leave? And to which part of the world? To return back to the country where I have the privilege of residency but do I want to live in the land of mass shootings and a work-till-you-die mentality? Or to pursue an entry into the U.K. through a student visa by doing an unwanted MBA? Or to strive for the most idealistic, unrealistic scenario — a job in London?

But in that snug, tightly wrapped, a-little-too-hot Anokhi[1] blanket of a comfort zone, the decision was always clear. Maybe one day, I’ll make my peace with my ‘home’. Maybe one day, my blood won’t boil with frustration when I’m on Sri Lankan soil for more than a fortnight. Maybe one day, I will feel the affection again. Maybe one day.

Fast forward two years to the present day, sitting in my cozy flat in London, having just spent a few electrifying weeks in Greece, riding on a high from a successful partnership with a certain tech juggernaut, and preparing for next week’s launch of a new AI product, I appreciate my new ‘home’. It might not be the island I once thought I would spend the rest of my life in, and it’s a little colder and gloomier than the tropics. But the possibilities are endless once again, my dreams are daring once again, and life is feeling full once again

[1] Anokhi Quilt

Nitya Amalean is an emerging writer and storyteller. She was born and nurtured in Sri Lanka, college-educated in the United States and currently, lives in London where she works for an audio media company.

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

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Poetry

Poems by Caroline Am Bergris

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date December 14, 2023
No Comments on Poems by Caroline Am Bergris

Portrait of an Old Man by Johannes Vermeer(1632-1635)

YOU AND YOU

I know exactly how to touch you,
how to slide my finger
down your forehead and moist nose,
then tickle you under your chin
with four of my fingers;
I glide down your back
navigating the abacus of your spine
as you turn over
and lie back in unabridged bliss, woofing.
I tickle your nipples
and softly caress your furry belly.

I know exactly how to touch you,
how to shelter your clawed hands in mine,
I dab concealer onto your eyebags
with my second finger
then, using my whole hand like a spider,
massage your grey scalp
until you murmur wordlessly.
I slap my hand on your back
during one of your coughing fits
and give you my arm to hold on
as I become your walking stick.

TRANSGRESSION

It wasn't the shock of him saying it.
It was the shock of my reaction -
" I just do it to kill time."
KILL TIME?
AT OUR AGE?

Killing time is for twentysomethings
with long hair and journals
and daisychain dreams,
or for the terminally ill,
drinking regret on the rocks.

I felt an electric numbness --
he had taken time in vain.
When the hourglass sand
begins to look bottom-heavy,
then a year begins to feel like a month.
Like a crack addict,
all you want is more.

I wanted to shake him,
screech some sense into him,
but it was his time to lose,
not mine.

GIOVANNI

I can’t write a poem about you. It would be like flashing an emotional boob. We sit every week, talking, and I look at the curls in your beard dashed with grey. They seem to be a different formation every time, a different highlight, a different sign. It’s like interacting with a dynamic ancient Greek statue. The Vermeer light haloes in through the window to your right even when there is no sun, and the pink-brown skin of your face shimmers with optimism and comfort. Our conversation is sprinkled with ancient languages, modern dilemmas, and each other’s violent Netflix recommendations. We could have a timeless friendship except I signed a contract that we can’t be friends. It is so easy to read too much into cultural commonalities and humorous asides. So I do. We are both very Latin and very English at the same time, with veins of sarcasm pulsating at the temples. Maybe we are modern day explorers destined to meet like Livingstone and Stanley in Africa. I don’t love you. I don’t think you’re perfect. You leak grumpiness as you listen. Your feminism is mild. But. And we haven’t even met.

Caroline Am Bergris is a half-Colombian, half-Pakistani poet living in London. Her poems have been published, online and in print, in Europe and America.

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

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Tags Africa, America, Caroline Am Bergris, Combian, Europe, Greek, Latin English, Livingstone, London, Netflix, Pakistani, Stanley, Vermeer