Tag: India

Categories
Interview Review

Of Wanderers and Migrants & Anuradha Kumar

A review of Anuradha Kumar’s Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India (Speaking Tiger Books) and an interview with the author

Migrants and wanderers — what could be the differences between them? Perhaps, we can try to comprehend the nuances. Seemingly, wanderers flit from place to place — sometimes, assimilating bits of each of these cultures into their blood — often returning to their own point of origin. Migrants move countries and set up home in the country they opt to call home as did the family the famous Indian actor, Tom Alter (1950-2017).

Anuradha Kumar’s Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India captures the lives and adventures of thirty such individuals or families — including the Alter family — that opted to explore the country from which the author herself wandered into Singapore and US. Born in India, Kumar now lives in New Jersey and writes. Awarded twice by the Commonwealth Foundation for her writing, she has eight novels to her credit. Why would she do a whole range of essays on wanderers and migrants from US to India? Is this book her attempt to build bridges between diverse cultures and seemingly diverse histories?

As Kumar contends in her succinct introduction, America and India in the 1700s were similar adventures for colonisers. In the Empire Podcast, William Dalrymple and Anita Anand do point out that the British East India company was impacted in the stance it had to colonisers in the Sub-continent after their experience of the American Revolution. And America and India were both British colonies. They also were favourites of colonisers from other European cultures. Just as India was the melting pot of diverse communities from many parts of the world — even mentioned by Marco Polo (1254-1324) in The Kingdom of India — America in the post-Christopher Columbus era (1451-1546) provided a similar experience for those who looked for a future different from what they had inherited. The first one Kumar listed is Nathaniel Higginson (1652-1708), a second-generation migrant from United Kingdom, who wandered in around the same time as British administrator Job Charnock (1630-1693) who dreamt Calcutta after landing near Sutanuti[1].

Kumar has bunched a number of biographies together in each chapter, highlighting the commonality of dates and ventures. The earliest ones, including Higginson, fall under ‘Fortune Seekers From New England’. The most interesting of these is Fedrick Tudor (1783-1864), the ice trader. Kumar writes: “In Calcutta, Dwarkanath Tagore, merchant and patron of the arts (Rabindranath Tagore’s grandfather), expressed an interest to involve himself in ice shipping, but Tudor’s monopoly stayed for some decades more. Tagore was part of the committee in Calcutta along with Kurbulai Mohammad, scion of a well-established landed family in Bengal, to regulate ice supply.”

Also associated with the Tagore family, was later immigrant Gertrude Emerson Sen (1890-1982, married to Boshi Sen). She tells us, “Tagore wrote Foreword to Gertrude Emerson’s Voiceless India, set in a remote Indian village and published in 1930. Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore called Emerson’s efforts, ‘authentic’.” She has moved on to quote Tagore: “The author did not choose the comfortable method of picking up information from behind lavish bureaucratic hospitality, under a revolving electric fan, and in an atmosphere of ready-made social opinions…She boldly took in on herself unaided to  enter a region of our life, all but unexplored by Western tourists, which had one great advantage, in spite of its difficulties, that it offered no other path to the writer, but that of sharing the life of the people.’” Kumar writes of an Afro-American scholar, called Merze Tate who came about 1950-51 and was also fascinated by Santiniketan as were some others.

Another name that stuck out was Sam Higginbottom, who she described as “the Farmer Missionary” for he was exactly that and started an agricultural university in Allahabad. Around the same time as Tagore started Sriniketan (1922), Higginbottom was working on agricultural reforms in a different part of India. In fact, Uma Dasgupta mentions in A History of Sriniketan: Rabindranath Tagore’s Pioneering work in Rural Reconstruction that Lord Elimhurst, who helped set up the project, informed Tagore that “another Englishman” was doing work along similar lines. Though as Kumar has pointed out, Higginbottom was a British immigrant to US — an early American — and returned to Florida in 1944.

There is always the grey area where it’s difficult to tie down immigrants or wanderers to geographies. One such interesting case Kumar dwells on would be that of Nilla Cram Cook, who embraced Hinduism, becoming in-the process, ‘Nilla Nagini Devi’, as soon as she reached Kashmir with her young son, Sirius. She shuttled between Greece, America and India and embraced the arts, lived in Gandhi’s Wardha ashram and corresponding with him, went on protests and lived like a local. Her life mapped in India almost a hundred years ago, reads like that of a free spirit. At a point she was deported living in an abject state and without slippers. Kumar tells us: “Her work according to Sandra Mackey combined ‘remarkable cross-cultural experimentation’ and ‘dazzling entrepreneurship.’”

The author has written of artists, writers, salesmen, traders (there’s a founder/buyer of Tiffany’s), actors, Theosophists, linguists fascinated with Sanskrit, cyclists — one loved the Grand Trunk Road, yet another couple hated it — even a photographer and an indentured Afro-American labourer. Some are missionaries. Under ‘The Medical Missionaries: The Women’s Condition’, she has written of the founders of Vellore Hospital and the first Asian hospital for women and children. Some of them lived through the Revolt of 1857; some through India’s Independence Movement and with varied responses to the historical events they met with.

Kumar has dedicated the book to, “…all the wanderers in my family who left in search of new homes and forgot to write their stories…” Is this an attempt to record the lives of people as yet unrecorded or less recorded? For missing from her essays are famous names like Louis Fischer, Webb Miller — who were better known journalists associated with Gandhi and spent time with him. But there are names like Satyanand Stokes and Earl and Achsah Brewster, who also met Gandhi. Let’s ask the author to tell us more about her book.

Anuradha Kumar

What made you think of doing this book? How much time did you devote to it? 

These initially began as essays for Scroll; short pieces about 1500-1600 words long. And the beginnings were very organic. I wrote about Edwin Lord Weeks sometime in 2015. But the later pieces, most of them, were part of a series.

I guess I am intrigued by people who cross borders, make new lives for themselves in different lands, and my editors—at Scroll and Speaking Tiger Books—were really very encouraging.

After I’d finished a series of pieces on early South Asians in America, I wanted to look at those who had made the journey in reverse, i.e., early Americans in India, and so the series came about, formally, from December 2021 onward. I began with Thomas Stevens, the adventuring cyclist and moved onto Gertrude Emerson Sen, and then the others. So, for about two years I read and looked up accounts, old newspapers, writings, everything I possibly could; I guess that must mean a considerable amount of research work. Which is always the best thing about a project like this, if I might put it that way.

What kind of research work? Did you read all the books these wanderers had written?

Yes, in effect I did. The books are really old, by which I mean, for example, Bartolomew Burges’ account of his travels in ‘Indostan’ written in the 1780s have been digitized and relatively easy to access. I found several books on Internet Archive, or via the interlibrary loan system that connects libraries in the US (public and university). I looked up old newspapers, old magazine articles – loc.gov, archive.org, newspapers.com, newspaperarchive.com, hathitrust.org and various other sites that preserve such old writings.

You do have a fiction on Mark Twain in India. But in this book, you do not have very well-known names like that of Twain. Why? 

Not Twain, but I guess some of the others were well-known, many in their own lifetime. Satyanand Stokes’ name is an easily recognisable still especially in India, and equally familiar is Ida Scudder of the Vellore Medical College, and maybe a few others like Gertrude Sen, and Clara Swain too. I made a deliberate choice of selecting those who had spent a reasonable amount of time in India, at least a year (as in the case of Francis Marion Crawford, the writer, or a few months like the actor, Daniel Bandmann), and not those who were just visiting like Mark Twain or passing through. This made the whole endeavour very interesting. When one has spent some years in a foreign land, like our early Americans in India, one arguably comes to have a different, totally unique perspective. These early Americans who stayed on for a bit were more ‘accommodating’ and more perceptive about a few things, rather than supercilious and cursory.

And it helped that they left behind some written record. John Parker Boyd, the soldier who served the Nizam as well as Holkar in Indore in the early 1800s, left behind a couple of letters of complaint (when he didn’t get his promised reward from the East India Company) and even this sufficed to try and build a complete life.

How do these people thematically link up with each other? Do their lives run into each other at any point? 

Yes, I placed them in categories thanks to an invaluable suggestion by Dr Ramachandra Guha, the historian. I’d emailed him and this advice helped give some shape to the book, else there would have been just chapters following each other. And their lives did overlap; several of them, especially from the 1860s onward, did work in the same field, though apart from the medical missionaries, I don’t think they ever met each other – distances were far harder to traverse then, I guess.

What is the purpose of your book? Would it have been a response to some book or event? 

I was, and am, interested in people who leave the comforts of home to seek a new life elsewhere, even if only for some years. Travelling, some decades ago, was fraught with risk and uncertainty. I admire all those who did it, whether it was for the love of adventure, or a sense of mission. I wanted to get into their shoes and see how they felt and saw the world then.

Is this because you are a migrant yourself? How do you explain the dedication in your book? 

I thought of my father, and his cousins, all of whom grew up in what was once undivided Bengal. Then it became East Pakistan one day and then Bangladesh. Suddenly, borders became lines they could never cross, and they found new borders everywhere, new divisions, and new homes to settle down in. They were forced to learn anew, to always look ahead, and understand the world differently.

When I read these accounts by early travellers, I sort of understood the sense of dislocation, desperation, and sheer determination my father, his cousins felt; maybe all those who leave their homes behind, unsure and uncertain, feel the same way.

You have done a number of non-fiction for children. And also, historical fiction as Aditi Kay. This is a non-fiction for adults or all age groups? Do you feel there is a difference between writing for kids and adults? 

I’d think this is a book for someone who has a sense of history, of historical movements, and change, and time periods. A reader with this understanding will, I hope, appreciate this book.

About the latter half of your question, yes of course there is a difference. But a good reader enters the world the writer is creating, freely and fearlessly, and I am not sure if age decides that.

You have written both fiction and non-fiction. Which genre is more to your taste? Elaborate. 

I love anything to do with history. Anything that involves research, digging into things, finding out about lives unfairly and unnecessarily forgotten. The past still speaks to us in many ways, and I like finding out these lost voices.

What is your next project? Do you have an upcoming book? Do give us a bit of a brief curtain raiser. 

The second in the Maya Barton-Henry Baker series. In this one, Maya has more of a lead role than Henry. It’s set in Bombay in the winter of 1897, and the plague is making things scary and dangerous. In this time bicycles begin mysteriously vanishing… and this is only half the mystery!

We’ll look forward to reading a revival of the characters fromThe Kidnapping of Mark Twain: A Bombay Mystery. Thanks for your time and your wonderful books.

.

[1] Now part of Kolkata (Calcutta post 2001 ruling)

Click here to read an excerpt from Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India

(This review and online interview is by Mitali Chakravarty)

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

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

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

Categories
Essay

It Doesn’t Rain in Phnom Penh

By Mohul Bhowmick

Phnom Penh: From Public Domain

Blank faces welcome me in Phnom Penh. That the people smile at all is a miracle; years of haggard living, tortured upbringing, and painful deprivations have reduced this golden city of Indochina to one filled with figurative corpses. What America could not achieve, Pol Pot did in a flash and years of oppression turned into that of a blood-filled regime that the Mekong did not even try to wash away. For all its salubriousness, this river, among the greatest in the world, stood by and watched its children be consumed by an ephemeral fire that could only be extinguished in 1979.

Then the Vietnamese intervened, returning only after being loathed by almost everyone in Cambodia. The former, among other benedictions, took apart whatever little credibility the Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) government had amassed in three and a half years in power. Pol Pot’s name, quite naturally, does not feature on the political billboards and hoardings that seem to have made themselves inconspicuous in Phnom Penh today. The national dish, Amok, made of fish or several vegan accoutrements to serve the European traveller, takes up the spot left by those of the beggars in the parking spot north of the royal palace.

As I sip my umpteenth sugarcane juice, fortified with cubes of ice that may have once come out of Tibet, I wonder whether the king curls his lips in distaste seeing the beggars and rag-pickers waiting outside the golden gates of his palace. But the official line in Cambodia is that Sihamoni is a staunch Buddhist who likes the occasional bit of Czech opera, and all my thoughts of irreverence — born out of weeks of living in Indochina — flush down the confluence of the Mekong and the Tonle Sap while looking past Sisowath Quay to the east.

This river, the lifeblood of Indochina, had once emerged as a trickle in Tibet, and I am perplexed by the lack of cohesion it shows while merging with the Tonle Sap, which also shares its name with a large freshwater lake in Siem Reap. During the monsoon season, the Mekong forces the Tonle Sap to reverse its water with such gushing force that the latter is left with no choice but to flood itself with fish.

It doesn’t rain in Phnom Penh; I had heard this phrase before but am accosted with it with painful lucidity for the first time when visiting the Tuol Sleng primary school that served, for years, as a torture centre for the Khmer Rouge. Had it rained on the frangipani-filled lush gardens of the school — belittling the despair and agony that went on inside — I would not have noticed. I envy the frangipani blooms and their ability to distance themselves from such emotions as those that afflict men. Outside, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge years sells his story for a few pennies; recognition from the foreigner seems more validating to him than acceptance from his countrymen, who have long forgotten his ordeals. I am told that a McDonald’s might soon open across the street.

When encountering the fabled ‘baby-killing tree’ in the ignominious Killing Fields in Cheoung Ek outside Phnom Penh, there is a numbing sensation which I have scarcely felt before. The tears fall heavier than the unseasonal rains I would have wished to encounter in Phnom Penh; it was not too long ago when I could have claimed that I had not cried in ten years. That this tree is also a Pipal, a cousin of the one under which Sakyamuni attained enlightenment, seems a cruel joke to me. That there is still some sign of life on it, populated by the innumerable butterflies and twittering sparrows, exacerbates this feeling all the more.

Angkor

Angkor[1], a few days later, seems resplendent at dawn, but I am unable to escape the reality that the men who built this monument had also given birth to the reality that the Khmer Rouge would later become. Indeed, Pol Pot was known for his selective readings of the classics of the Khmer kingdom of Angkor — if building this city was possible, anything was, even his vastly unerudite idea of returning the country to a year ‘zero’, doing away with the market economy, abolishing money and persecuting intellectuals for wearing spectacles.

The rain that evades me in Phnom Penh finally catches up with me in Angkor Wat; unable to make a visit early one morning on a bicycle in a thunderstorm through the black jungle, I remain rooted to my guesthouse and eventually fall asleep.

On my first visit to Angkor Wat, I am stunned by the intricacies and details that seem to have permeated every angle of Khmer design. The frescoes on the walls and the images on the gates of the large temple complex depict wars fought and construction projects undertaken; for all its virility in eventually losing its grasp over modern-day Cambodia, the Hindu-Buddhist Khmer kingdom — of whose ilk Jayavarman VII had been, and whose predecessor Suryavarman II had ordered this temple made in 1150, at first as a tribute to Vishnu, and eventually, a mausoleum for himself — was remarkable in its aesthetic sensibilities. 

Ta Prohm

The several other temples in the area, including the great Bayon, Ta Phrom and Prasat Preah Khan — not to mention the gigantic meadows located in the heart of the old city of Angkor Thom — attract and drive my senses even as I struggle to cycle on flat roads in the deadening midday heat. The meadows, which feature statues of elephants attired in regal resplendence, remind me of a time simpler than this, when a thousand parasols could be had for cheap and held over the head of the king. The climate of Indochina, I surmise, may not have been too different from what it is now; I look yonder for concrete jungles mimicking the ones that seem to have sprung up choc-a-bloc in west Hyderabad, but encounter only lush blackness.

Angkor Thom

In effect, understanding Khmer society or the part of it which is shown to the visitor, is a challenging affair unless one undertakes a voyage of the heart that infrequently involves short-changing between lives of a different kind. The Mekong, which makes no appearance in Siem Reap, slithers away from the intemperate nature one finds in Angkor.

When I walk past Sisowath Quay one night under a moonless sky, I am reminded of my own idea of happiness, which seems to have been torn to shreds on this journey; a group of middle-aged Khmer men, devoid of languor in this dark hour and well-fortified with Angkor, the brew and not the temple, beckon me over to join in their game of sai[2]. It is then that I know it is time to put the killing tree to bed. For now.

Playing sai
Shuttlecock that is used to play sai.

[1] Angkor Wat is in the city of Siem Reap

[2] Played with the foot with a shuttlecock-like structure

Mohul Bhowmick is a national-level cricketer, poet, sports journalist, essayist and travel writer from Hyderabad, India. He has published four collections of poems and one travelogue so far. More of his work can be discovered on his website: www.mohulbhowmick.com.

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

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

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

Categories
Contents

Borderless, June 2025

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

‘How do you rebuild a life when all that remains is dust?’… Click here to read.

Translations

The Great War is Over and A Nobody by Jibanananda Das have been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Sukanta Bhattacharya’s poem, Therefore, has been translated from Bengali by Kiriti Sengupta. Click here to read.

 Five poems by Soubhagyabanta Maharana  have been translated from Odia by Snehaprava Das. Click here to read.

Animate Debris, a poem by Sangita Swechcha has been translated from Nepali by Saudamini Chalise. Click here to read.

Lost Poem, a poem by Ihlwha Choi  has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Sonar Tori (Golden Boat), 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

Allan Lake, Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan, Ron Pickett, Ananya Sarkar, George Freek, Bibhuti Narayan Biswal, Jim Bellamy, Pramod Rastogi, Vern Fein, Saranyan BV, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Juairia Hossain, Gautham Pradeep, Jenny Middleton, Mandavi Choudhary, Rhys Hughes

Musings/Slices from Life

Where Should We Go After the Last Frontiers?

Ahamad Rayees writes from a village in Kashmir which homed refugees and still faced bombing. Click here to read.

The Jetty Chihuahuas

Vela Noble takes us for a stroll to the seaside at Adelaide. Click here to read.

Hope Lies Buried in Eternity

Farouk Gulsara muses on hope. Click here to read.

Undertourism in the Outback

Merdith Stephens writes from the Australian Outback with photographs from Alan Nobel. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Driving with Devraj, Devraj Singh Kalsi writes of his driving lessons. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In The Tent, Suzanne Kamata visits crimes and safety. Click here to read.

Essays

Public Intellectuals Walked, So Influencers Could Run

Lopamudra Nayak explores changing trends. Click here to read.

Where No One Wins or Loses a War…From Lucknow with Love

Prithvijeet Sinha takes us to a palace of a European begum in Lucknow. Click here to read.

Bhaskar’s Corner

In Can Odia Literature Connect Traditional Narratives with Contemporary Ones, Bhaskar Parichha discusses the said issue. Click here to read.

Feature

The story of Hawakal Publishers, based on a face-to-face tête-à-tête, and an online conversation with founder Bitan Chakraborty with his responses in Bengali translated by Kiriti Sengupta. Click here to read.

Stories

The Year the Fireflies Didn’t Come Back

Leishilembi Terem gives a poignant story set in conflict-ridden Manipur. Click here to read.

The Stranger

Jeena R. Papaadi writes of the vagaries of human relationships. Click here to read.

The Opening

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao relates a value based story in a small hamlet of southern India. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Wendy Doniger’s The Cave of Echoes: Stories about Gods, Animals and Other Strangers. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Mohua Chinappa’s Thorns in My Quilt: Letters from a Daughter to Her Father. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Madhurima Vidyarthi’s Job Charnock and the Potter’s Boy. Click here to read.

Rakhi Dalal reviews Dhruba Hazarika’s The Shoot: Stories. Click here to read.

Satya Narayan Misra reviews Bakhtiyar K Dadabhoy’s Honest John – A Life of John Matthai. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews David C Engerman’s Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made. Click here to read.

.


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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

‘How do you rebuild a life when all that remains is dust?’

The Great War is over
And yet there is left its vast gloom.
Our skies, light and society’s soul have been overcast…

'The Great War is Over' by Jibanananda Das (1899-1954), translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam.

Jibanananda Das wrote the above lines in the last century and yet great wars rage even now. As the world struggles to breathe looking for a beam of hope to drag itself out of the darkness induced by natural calamities, accidents, terror attacks and wars that seem to rage endlessly, are we moving towards the dystopian scenario created by George Orwell in 1984, which would be around the same time as Jibanananda Das’s ‘The Great War is Over’?

Describing such a scenario, Ahmed Rayees writes a moving piece from the Kashmiri village of Sheeri, the last refuge of the displaced refugees who were bombarded after peace was declared in their refuge during the clash across Indo-Pak borders. He contends: “People walked back not to homes, but to ruins. Entire communities had been reduced to ash and rubble. Crops were destroyed, livestock gone, schools turned into shelters or craters. How do you rebuild a life when all that remains is dust?”

People could be asking the same questions without finding answers in Gaza or Ukraine, where the cities are reduced to rubble. While we look for a ray of sunshine, amidst the rubble, Farouk Gulsara muses on hope that has its roots in eternity. Vela Noble wanders on nostalgic beaches in Adelaide. And Meredith Stephens travels to the Australian outback. Devraj Singh Kalsi brings in lighter notes writing of driving lessons while Suzanne Kamata creeps back to darker recesses musing on likely ‘criminals’ and crimes in her neighbourhood.

Lopamudra Nayak writes on social media and its impact while Bhaskar Parichha writes of trends that could be brought into Odia literature.  What he writes could apply well to all regional literature, where they lose their individual colouring to paint dystopian realities of the present world. Does modernising make us lose our ethnic identity and how important is that? These are questions that sprung to the mind reading his essay. As if in an attempt to hold on to the past ethos, Prithvijeet Sinha wafts around old ruins in Lucknow and sees a cemetery for colonial soldiers and concludes: “Everybody has formidable stakes, and the dead don’t preach the gospel of victory or sombre defeat.”

Taking up a similar theme of death and war is a poem from Saranyan BV. In poetry, we have colours from around the world with poems from Allan Lake, Ron Pickett, Ananya Sarkar, George Freek, Jim Bellamy, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Juairia Hossain, Gautham Pradeep, Jenny Middleton, Mandavi Choudhary and many more. Multiple themes are woven into a variety of perspectives, including nature and environment, with June hosting the World Environment Day. Rhys Hughes gives a funny poem on the Welsh outlaw, Twm Siôn Cati.

We have mainly poetry in translation this time. Snehaprava Das has brought to us Soubhagyabanta Maharana’s poems from Odia and Ihlwha Choi has translated his own poem from Korean. Sangita Swechcha’s poem in Nepali has been rendered to English by Saudamini Chalise. From Bengali, other that Jibanananda Das’s poems translated by Professor Fakrul Alam, we have Tagore’s pensive and beautiful poem, Sonar Tori (the golden boat). Yet another Bengali poet, one who died young and yet left his mark, Sukanta Bhattacharya (1926-1947), has been translated by Kiriti Sengupta. Sengupta has also translated the responses of Bitan Chakravarty in a candid conversation about his dream child — the Hawakal Publishers. We also have a feature on this based on a face-to-face conversation, giving the story of how this publishing house grew out of an idea. Now, they publish poetry traditionally, without costs to the poet. Their range of authors are spread across continents.

Our fiction again returns to the darkness of war. Young Leishilembi Terem has given a story set in conflict-ridden Manipur from where she has emerged safely — a story that reiterates the senselessness of violence and politics. While Jeena R. Papaadi writes of modern human relationships that end without commitment, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao relates a value-based story in a small hamlet of southern India. 

From stories, our book excerpts return to the real world, where a daughter grieves her father in Mohua Chinappa’s Thorns in My Quilt: Letters from a Daughter to Her Father while Wendy Doniger’s The Cave of Echoes: Stories about Gods, Animals and Other Strangers, dwells on demystifying structures that create borders. We have two non-fiction reviews. Parichha writes about David C Engerman’s Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made. And Satya Narayan Misra discusses Bakhtiyar K Dadabhoy’s Honest John – A Life of John Matthai. Somdatta Mandal this time explores a historical fiction based around the founding of Calcutta, Madhurima Vidyarthi’s Job Charnock and the Potter’s Boy while Rakhi Dalal looks at fiction born of environmental awareness, Dhruba Hazarika’s The Shoot: Stories.

We have more content. Do pause by our contents page and take a look.

Huge thanks to all our contributors without who this issue would not have materialised. Heartfelt thanks to the team at Borderless for their support, especially Sohana Manzoor for her iconic artwork that has almost become a signature statement for Borderless.

Let’s hope that next month brings better news for the whole world.

Best wishes,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the contents for the June 2025 Issue

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

Categories
Slices from Life

Where Should We Go After the Last Frontiers?

By Ahmad Rayees

It was late evening in the Valley—the kind of dusky calm that usually tucks our village into a blanket of silence before nightfall. But that night, the situation wasn’t peaceful. It was tense, suffocating. A silence not of rest, but of retreat. A silence that echoed with the footsteps of the displaced, the sobs of children, and the distant rumble of a war edging ever closer.

Nestled along the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad Highway, my village (Sheeri) had never imagined becoming a place of refuge. But over the past few days, it had slowly transformed into a shelter—not by design, but out of sheer necessity. It wasn’t a government-built camp or an official safe zone. It was a modest private school—its classrooms stripped of desks, Its walls were painted green, and its floors were covered with modest mats. The blackboard still bore lessons from a world that now felt impossibly far away.

They came by the dozens—families from the frontier town of Uri and other nearby hamlets, fleeing the deadly storm that had erupted along the Line of Control. The shells and gunfire hadn’t spared anyone. Mothers clutching newborns, elderly men barely able to walk, children with dust in their hair and tears in their eyes—each carried with them a fear that couldn’t be packed away. Their homes? Gone or abandoned. Their cattle? Lost. Their belongings? Scattered to the wind. All they had brought with them was survival.

We did what little we could, each small act stitched together into a fragile lifeline—volunteers arriving with rations and essential supplies, neighbours wrapping strangers in donated blankets, and someone rigging a single battery-powered generator in the school courtyard to pierce the darkness—just enough light to charge phones and confirm what we already feared through shaky mobile updates: India and Pakistan were at war again.

Just as we began preparing food that night, the sky above us erupted into unnatural color—bursts of red and orange, glowing like fireworks. For a breathless second, we hoped it was a celebration somewhere far away. But the thunderous roar that followed shattered that hope. These were no celebrations. They were drones. Missiles. Rockets. Tools of destruction lighting up the sky like angry constellations.

Photographs from the shelter camp: Provided by Rayees Ahmad

Panic was instant. Some people ran instinctively, nowhere in particular. Others froze. Mothers clutched children closer. Prayers spilled into the night air like smoke. The school—our fragile sanctuary—quaked with fear. And so did we.

I had heard stories of war. I had seen its images in books and on screens. But that night, war had a smell. A taste. A sound. That night, war breathed down our necks.

We stayed awake through the dark hours, huddled close under a full moon that bore witness to everything. The distant mountains glowed—not from moonlight, but from mortar fire.

The explosions echoed back and forth across the valley like angry giants arguing. Sleep was impossible. For many, so was hope.

For four harrowing days, the shelling continued. Relentless. Unforgiving. As India and Pakistan traded fire, villages on both sides were emptied. The front-lines moved like ghosts—never visible, always fatal. Each explosion wasn’t just an act of violence; it was a theft. It stole security, trust, homes, futures.

The ones who suffered weren’t the architects of war. They weren’t the men in polished suits or behind mahogany desks. They were farmers, schoolteachers, shopkeepers, daily wage earners. The ones who raised goats and crops, not guns. The ones who wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

And yet, here they were—broken by a war they didn’t start, begging for a peace that never came.

The soldiers too—barely out of their teens—were casualties in a different way. Sent to defend lines drawn generations ago, they carried weapons they barely understood, defending ideologies they didn’t create. On both sides, the blood spilled looked the same. The mothers’ grief sounded the same.

And as the bombs fell, something else collapsed quietly: Faith. Faith in leaders who promise peace and deliver bullets. Faith in ceasefires that last only until the next provocation. Faith that tomorrow would be better.

When the ceasefire was finally announced, there was no celebration. There were no cheers. Just silence—and not the comforting kind. It was the silence of disbelief, of loss too deep for words. People walked back not to homes, but to ruins. Entire communities had been reduced to ash and rubble. Crops were destroyed, livestock gone, schools turned into shelters or craters.

How do you rebuild a life when all that remains is dust?

These are the questions that haunt the air like the smoke refusing to clear —

Where should the birds fly after the last sky?
Where should we go after the last frontiers? 
Where should the plants sleep after the last breathe of air? – Mahmoud Darwish

Ahmad Rayees is a freelance journalist and a fellow at Al-Sharq Youth fellow program. 

.

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

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

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

Categories
Feature

In Translation: Bitan Chakraborty

The story of Hawakal and a conversation with the founder, Bitan Chakraborty, whose responses have been translated from Bengali by Kiriti Sengupta.

Hawakal Publishers grew out of the compulsive need young Bitan Chakraborty had to express and connect. This was a young man who was willing to labour at pasting film hoardings to fund his dreams. An Information Technology professional by training, Chakraborty realised early he did not want to tread on trodden paths and started his journey as a creative individual. Now, he not only writes and publishes but also designs the most fabulous covers and supports local craftsmen.

Over the last nearly two decades, the brand Hawakal has become synonymous with traditional poetry publication from India. They do not offer buy back deals or ask to be paid like most publishers but pick selectively. No one seems to know what it is they look for. All Chakraborty says is – “We aimed to introduce a fresh wave in publishing.”

First Bengali book by Hawakal: Ut Palaker Dairy – Diary of a Camel Herder published in 2009
First book in English published by Hawakal in 2015

Chakraborty writes fully in Bengali which is why the dentist-turned-writer-turned-publisher, Kiriti Sengupta, had to chip in with the translation of his responses in Bengali. Their friendship matured over the last decade when Sengupta approached Chakraborty to publish a book of critical essays, which along with essays on Sharmila Ray’s poetry homed critical writing on his too. This was the first English publication of Hawakal.

Sengupta had given up dentistry by then and was living in a hostel on a packet of Maggi a day to indulge his creative passions.  A skilled poet with a number of books under his belt, he eventually joined Chakraborty to run the English section of Hawakal.  He also translates from Bengali to English. We have one of his translations of Chakraborty’s short story, Disappearance. A powerful reminder of social gaps that exist in the Subcontinent, it’s a poignant and frightening narrative, the kind someone writes and imagines out of a passion to reform.

Some of Bitan’s works are available in English. His style — by the translations — seems graphic. The deft strokes make the landscape and the stories almost visual, like films. 

Chakraborty worked with ‘Little Magazines’ for some time. Then he made his way into publishing full time. Though he found it hard to make ends meet, he started his adventure without compromising his beliefs. He wanted to take books to readers and, with that spirit, they started the Ethos Literary Festival, where they host writers published by them. In fact, in the 2025 festival, Hawakal sold more than 400 books in seven hours! Who said poetry doesn’t sell?

Bookstall at Ethos Litfest 2025
Packed House at Ethos Litfest 2025
Glimpses from Ethos Literary Festival 2025. Photos provided by Hawakal

Chakraborty and Sengupta have yet another hallmark. They wear matching clothes. These are tailored with material sourced from handloom weavers. They resorted to this when they found that commercialisation was killing the traditional homeborn handlooms. In that spirit, they started a clothes venture too, Mrinalika Weaves. 

Chakraborty is an unusual person – as the interview will reveal – humble, stubborn with aims like no other publisher or writer in this day and age! He doesn’t talk of money, survival, politics, awards or glamour, but what matters to him. He is direct and straightforward and perhaps, his directness is what makes his outlook appealing. He translates a few to Bengali for his own growth. But these are poets who are known for their terse writing. Maybe, that is what he looks for… Let’s find out!

Conversation
Bitan Chakraborty. Photo Courtesy: Kiriti Sengupta

Bitan, you are a multifaceted person: a writer, an artist, a photographer, and, most importantly, a publisher for all writers. What is it you most love to do and why?

I need to talk. What I observe or learn from my experiences compels me to express myself. Therefore, regardless of the medium I use, I strive to convey meaningful messages. Nevertheless, the range I enjoy in weaving words is unparalleled.

What sparked your interest in writing? Please elaborate. Do you only use Bengali to communicate with others? Do you translate from other languages to Bengali?

I felt emotionally down when I began writing. What a dreadful time it was! I believe it must be the emotional turmoil of my youth. However, writing has never left me since then. It’s more accurate to say that I have never managed to rid myself of my urge to write. During the early period, my writings contained more emotion than substance. In my college years, I was engaged in student movements that helped me discover the purpose of words. Society, socio-economic status, politics, and human dissatisfaction are the themes that run through my stories. Bengali is my mother tongue: I think, speak, dream, and curse in Bengali. I find it challenging to derive the same pleasure from using another language; it is my shortcoming.

Nevertheless, when I meet outstanding works in English, I attempt to translate them into Bengali. Not everything I read, but I have translated poems by Sanjeev Sethi and Kiriti Sengupta. I have consistently translated Gulzar into Bengali, but it has yet to be published in book format. Translation is a mental exercise; it particularly helps when I am experiencing writer’s block. I read poetry when I wish to untangle my thoughts, and when I come across fine poems in another language, I try to make them my own — bring them into my culture through translation.

Do you write only prose or poetry too?

I have been writing stories and essays for the past fifteen years. Interestingly, I began with poems, but they turned out to be junk. Therefore, I focussed on writing fiction.

Many of your stories focus on the Bengali middle class. What inspires your muse the most? People, art, nature, or is it something else?

I grew up in a lower-middle-class environment. Poverty, unemployment, and debt were parts of my formative years. I witnessed how this economic disparity allowed a particular segment of society to insult and humiliate others. Consequently, I have developed a strong affinity for those who are underprivileged. Later, when I began writing fiction, my political awareness enhanced my observations — I was able to merge the existing economic inequality with the nation’s political perspectives. The lessons I have learned over the years motivate me to write.

You design fabulous book covers. Do you have any formal training, or is it a natural flair?

When I entered the publishing industry, I had no funds to commission professionals for book covers or layouts. I had been involved with Little Magazines since my college days. I used to spend hours with the printers, meticulously observing how they designed cover spreads and interior text files. This experience proved useful when I began producing books. For the past several years, I have frequented bookstores, picking up a book or two — I also purchase books online, especially those that help me stay abreast of recent developments in book architecture. In my early years, I was unable to learn design formally due to financial constraints.

When and why did you decide to go into publishing? Could you tell us the story of Hawakal?

From 2003 to 2008, I was involved with four Little Magazines. Bengali Little Magazines thrive on minimal funds. Therefore, we (the team) managed everything necessary to publish a little magazine. We oversaw printing, distribution, book fairs, and other activities. By the middle of 2007, I realised I wasn’t suited for a day job. I understood that I would struggle to survive the conventional 10 am to 5 pm career. During that time, my family was in financial difficulties. Suddenly, we had the opportunity to publish Kishore Ghosh’s debut collection of poems, Ut Palaker Diary. It was published under the banner of the little magazine I was actively working with. As we worked on the book, I learned that publishing a magazine and publishing a book were entirely different endeavours. A little magazine is primarily sold through the efforts of its contributing writers and poets, while a book is sold through the combined efforts of the author and the publisher. I decided to pursue publishing as my career after we successfully sold 300 copies of Ghosh’s book in 10 months. That was the beginning.

Why did you opt to name your firm after a windmill — Hawakal in Bengali? Please elaborate.

We spent days selecting a name for our publishing concern. Finally, we chose the title of one of Kishore Ghosh’s poems as our company name. Hawakal, in English, means windmill. It signifies an alternative source of energy. We aimed to introduce a fresh wave in publishing. As an independent press, we have consistently operated ahead of our time. From developing a fully-fledged e-commerce hub (hawakal.com) in 2016 to producing the highest number of books during the pandemic (2020-2021), Hawakal has accomplished it all.

The first logo of Hawakal designed by contemporary artist, Hiran Mitra and then modified over time by Bitan Chakraborty.

You have boutique bookshops in Kolkata, Delhi — any other places? I believe you started a collaboration to get your books into the USA? Could you tell us a bit about your outlets and how you connect writers with the people? Are your boutique shops different from other bookshops? Do they only stock Hawakal books?

As you know, Hawakal has two functional ateliers in Delhi and Kolkata, while our registered office is located in New Delhi. We do not have any plans for an additional studio in India. We also have a bookstore in Gurgaon called Bookalign. There is a small outlet in Nokomis, Florida. It is a new unit in the United States. We primarily stock books published by Hawakal and its imprints (Shambhabi, CLASSIX, Vinyasa). However, we carefully select titles from other publishers for our store. We have sufficient seating in the store, allowing readers to browse the books before making a purchase. Since we publish non-mainstream authors, readers need to make a conscious choice. This not only benefits the authors we publish, but it also helps us evaluate the effectiveness of our selection process.

You started as a Bengali publisher, if I am not mistaken, and then forayed into English; now you are bringing out a translation in Hindi? How many languages do you cover? Do you plan to go into publishing in other languages?

We initially focused on Bengali books. Our venture into English titles began when Kiriti Sengupta joined Hawakal as its Director. Publishing a Hindi book was unexpected. However, we will not release books in other languages that we cannot read or speak. It is essential, as a publisher, to be well-versed in the language of the books we publish.

What kind of writers do you look for in Hawakal?

Would you like me to reveal the truth? We expect more than just satisfactory work from our writers: we want writers who will value their work passionately and take the necessary steps to reach a wider readership. Please don’t assume that what we expect from our authors is not something we adhere to ourselves. We expect this because we understand what it means to be truly passionate about one’s writing.

I heard that Hawakal was diversifying into textiles. How does that align with your writerly and publishing journey?

We opened our first kiosk in Mathabhanga, North Bengal, back in 2016. We simultaneously sold books and sarees from that small outlet. We had to close the shop due to a lack of staff. Kiriti Sengupta has long cherished the dream of representing the fine textiles of Bengal. Our family has grown larger. Bhaswati Sengupta and Lima Nayak have joined the team; they are the ones who established Mrinalika, collaborating with artisans from remote regions of India to showcase their creations to a wider audience.

Where do you envision yourself and Hawakal, your most extraordinary creation, ten years from now?

We aim to publish fifty timeless books over the next decade.

Thanks for your time and for the service you render to readers and writers.

Cinema’s Artform edited by Bitshok Bhattacharya
Covers designed by Bitan Chakraborty

[1] Ut Palaker Diary – Diary of a Camel Herder

Click here to read Disappearance, a story by Bitan translated from Bengali by Kiriti Sengupta.

(This feature — based on a face to face conversation — and online interview is by Mitali Chakravarty)

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

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

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

Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Gautham Pradeep

Gautham Pradeep
GOTAMA 

Shadows vanish
under his watch,
seedlings sprout 
in the autumn sun,
munching on unattended grass,
a cow converses 
with the ants.

The silent hills open paths 
to a different plane,
where one finds his space to smile.
When the monsoon hits west,
she awakens from her long slumber.

Mountains show beautiful avenues.
Snow is replaced by shallow dunes.
Rain fills the world.
Man traces his existence.

Gautham Pradeep was born in Kerala, India. He is now pursuing an MBBS. He tries to explore the existential dilemmas of the present generation through his poetry.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Essay

Where No One Wins or Loses a War…From Lucknow with Love

Narratives and photographs by Prithvijeet Sinha

Talking about Vilayati Bagh as being an isolated cousin among the many gardens and monuments of Lucknow would be feasible given its elusive nature. I say elusive because it is nestled in the lush environs of the cantonment area and forested canopy that lies ahead of Dilkusha Palace which is one of the city’s many frequently visited wonders. Within this canopy lies Vilayati Bagh, “Vilayati”(foreign) referring in no small terms to not only a colonial past but also the stark fact that it is home to three tombs of erstwhile British officers who perished in the high noons of 1857’s First War of Independence. It was only a year ago that I, myself, had the opportunity to go there for the very first time. But that March morning changed everything. I have been there twice already to revel in its tranquility.

Its history is quite like other gardens and leisure spots of Awadh. It was built in the earlier parts of 19th Century by Ghazi Ud-Din Haider[1], the Nawab of Awadh, as a gift for his beloved European consort. During the revolt of 1857, it fell prey to shellings and other bombardments. But like most of Lucknow’s quintessential monuments, the spirit of renaissance did not elude it for long. In the present day, it is still tucked away in its quiet corner, slumbering and awakening for discerning eyes (and minds) who go there to capture crucial echoes of its unique identity.

Flanked by the Gomti close by and a cemetery in the middle of a spacious compound, the property begins its enchanting passage as one takes a straight drive (or walk) from Dilkusha Palace, approaches Kendriya Vidyalaya and then continues to move ahead to encounter a railway crossing, opposite which lies the cantonment granary, quarters and the grand and haunting Bibiapur Kothi. Taking a left turn from that location brings one to the verdure of old, huge trees, a moderately spacious road and pleasant sounds of cicadas and birds. In this pithy journey to Vilayati Bagh, the feeling of time-traveling to a gracious era of architectural elegance comes into sight the moment we reach its immediate premises. A beautiful Sufi dargah bathed in impressive green lies on the left and a few moderate homes of those who probably maintain this compound meet us.

Then the real journey begins. A sophisticated sense of the building blocks of this elusive garden are elucidated by its brown- yellow, almost auburn walls. The lakhauri[2] paint and plaster give it luster on a sunny day. These ramparts retain their history of age, war and past reckonings. Yet it’s the sun that designs their colour schemes in the most sublime shades.  Archeological Survey of India has restored its lost glory in recent years and the result is there for all to see.

The boundary walls have a sturdy presence and are enclosed by arrow-shaped iron structures painted in pleasant brown. As one explores the interiors of the garden compound, little monoliths, corrugated outer flanks that look like barracks emerge, the exposed bricks red and pink in their sublimity of skin tones. A Y-shaped drain also flanks them. There is an aura of extraordinary peace all around. This isn’t meant to be a tourist spot. This is the one for aesthetes and true aficionados of history. The mind wanders and is arrested by trees whose branches are shaped like pitchforks.

A dargah (miniature Sufi shrine) greets one at the outer end of the compound while a majestic gulmohar tree seems to appear like a tall fellow wearing red scarves. Arches and domes subsist in this sturdy network of walls.

The saga of Vilayati Bagh is one of beauty but the starkness of its melancholy is evident in the cemeteries that lie in a little distance from the main gateway. They belong to fallen English soldiers Henry P. Garvey, Captain W. Helley Hutchinson and Sergeant S. Newman. These tombs are made in the image of a wide basin, crypts depicting that no one side can win or lose a war. Everybody has formidable stakes, and the dead don’t preach the gospel of victory or sombre defeat. Flanking these resting places are miniature pavilions with domes; they are surrounded by white rectangles made from cloth supported by twigs — sobering symbols of lives lost and the unpredictable designations of mortality.

Despite this unique mixture of melancholy and beauty, sobriety reigns. Of course, the obvious euphoria of discovery overrides every other emotion. Lucknow is a city that lives and breathes in such possibilities where a monument or elusive corner of its expanse can prompt an awakening for its discerning residents. Going further than the limitations imposed by acquired knowledge is always a source of deeper reckoning. This garden that houses nature and ghosts of mortality in its inner sanctum gives me another reason to keep my curiosity intact.

[1] Ghazi-ud-Din Haidar Shah (1769-1827), The first King of Oudh and the last Nawab Wazir of Oudh. He started a line of kingship which ended with the exile of Wajid Ali Shah(1822-1887).

[2] Traditional natural ingredients, often dyes or pastes from plants, used for coating buildings in Lucknow

Prithvijeet Sinha  is an MPhil from the University of Lucknow, having launched his prolific writing career by self-publishing on the worldwide community Wattpad since 2015 and on his WordPress blog An Awadh Boy’s Panorama. Besides that, his works have been published in several journals and anthologies. 

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

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

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

Categories
Stories

The Year the Fireflies Didn’t Come Back

By Leishilembi Terem

(This is in loving memory of my friend, Ethan Henkholen Doungel and my cousin, Nungsibi Sangdonjam, both of whom lost their lives to this conflict.)

The mist in those Imphal mornings clung to the world like a mother’s embrace, pooling in the hollows where night lingered longest. I can still feel it swirling around our bare ankles — mine pale as rice flour, Lalen’s golden like sun-warmed honey — as we raced through the dewy grass toward the river. Our bags would tangle in our haste as we stumbled over roots still drunk with midnight’s shadows. The damp hemp of our bags smelt of earth and childhood.

We’d arrive breathless at the water’s edge just as the first monsoon drops began to fall. Lalen would throw his head back, his laughter skipping across the river’s skin like the kingfishers we loved to chase, his tongue catching raindrops with the solemn concentration of a temple priest receiving blessings. I’d giggle until my stomach ached, until the cold water found its way down my collar in tickling rivulets that made me shriek. I remember how it fell in fat, warm drops as Lalen and I raced through the fields, our school bags abandoned by the roadside. We would catch fireflies as they buzzed over us…. We were fifteen that May of 2023, old enough to understand the tensions simmering around us, young enough to believe it wouldn’t touch us.

Our families were woven together. Every Sunday, Lalen’s father would arrive at our household carrying jars of wild honey, his laughter booming through our courtyard. My mother would press a steaming cup of tea into his hands while scolding him for leaving mud tracks on her freshly swept floors. Both our dads would sit on the porch sharing a single bottle of Yu (wine), and hamei (rice cakes). Their voices blending as they argued about football and nothing at all.

“To start off another season,” Ipa[1] would say, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he was cheering on for Northeast United, in the new ISL season kicking off.

“To the fools who can’t hold their liquor,” Lalen’s father would counter, making them both laugh until their shoulders shook.

As I was lost in these thoughts… a voice from behind broke the silence!

“Heyy, wait!” Lalen’s voice floated through the downpour as he slipped in the mud. I turned just in the nick of time just to see him crash into me, sending us both tumbling into the flooded field. The water was warm as blood against our skin.

That was the same evening, our fathers sat on the porch watching the news reports with grim faces. Two communities — the Kukis and Meiteis began protesting against each other. The first roadblocks appearing along the highways. Still, back home our father’s still shared their usual bottle of rice wine, their friendship stubborn as ever.

“Things will calm down,” Ipa said, his voice steady.

“This is all politics,” Lalen’s father agreed.

They were wrong.

By June, the valley smelled of burning. No one knows who attacked whom first. Maybe it was the Kuki villages in the hills — we’d wake to columns of smoke staining the morning sky. Then the retaliatory attacks began in Meitei neighbourhoods. The day they burned our school, Lalen and I stood on the ridge watching the flames consume the building of our school.

This was also the night, when our fathers had perhaps argued for the first time. The voices were loud:

“They’re burning our churches!” Lalen’s father shouted, his usual warmth gone.

“And your people are attacking our temples!” Ipa countered.

“They killed my neighbour last night,” Lalen whispered. His hands were shaking. “Said he was storing weapons.”

“My cousin disappeared at the protest yesterday,” I admitted.

We didn’t say anything besides this. The space between us had become a minefield.

The next morning, Lalen wasn’t waiting by our gate. His bicycle sat unused in their yard, its tires going flat with each passing day. People say his family moved back to Churachandpur. I did not think much of it then, but yes, I did miss him a lot.

But none of that mattered when the monsters came on August 3rd. This date I will never ever forget the date — Ima’s[2] birthday. She’d just pulled her pineapple cake from the oven, the sweet coconut scent wrapping around us like one of her hugs. Then the air turned sharp with kerosene.

Through our kitchen window, shadows moved wrong. Not the dancing light of lamps, but torch flames licking at night. Men — no, not men, shapes with black masks where faces should be. Their boots kicked over Ima’s potted marigolds as they came.

“Run to the back!” Ipa shouted as bullets zoomed through the window and exploded.

I remember the exact shade of orange the flames consumed my mother’s best silk phanek[3]. The sound Ipa made when the bullet found him — not a scream, just a soft “oh” of surprise. I ran until my lungs burned, until the screams faded behind me, until I collapsed in a drainage ditch with the taste of mud and blood in my mouth.

The Assam Rifles Refugee Camp at Moirang was a nightmare of flapping plastic tarps and wailing children. At night, I’d lie awake listening to the old women whispering about which family had been wiped out that day. When the news came about Lalen’s village, I didn’t cry. They said the militants had locked the doors before setting the houses ablaze. They said you could hear the screams from three kilometers away.

I turned sixteen in a makeshift tent, eating stale rice with fingers that still smelled of smoke. I wondered where Lalen would be now…

The day I saw him again was April 2024. Nearly more than a year since we’d last spoken. I was digging through the ruins of the market, searching for anything salvageable, when I felt eyes on me.

He stood between two gutted shops, taller than I remembered, his features hardened by hunger from what I could tell. Then something caught my eyes, and I could not believe it. The Kuki national army (KNA) armband on his sleeve was frayed at the edges. KNA is a prescribed terrorist outfit by the Government of India, and I never expected my best friend to wear their uniform… He is around the same age as me… The rifle in his hands looked too heavy, yet he carried it like an extension of himself.

“Wait … you…?” He called out and took my name. However, this time, my name sounded foreign in his mouth now, stripped of all the friendly warmth.

The jar of turmeric in my hands slipped, shattering at our feet. The yellow powder bloomed between us like a poisonous flower. “You’re alive.”

His knuckles whitened on the rifle. “No thanks to your people.”

The air smelled of rotting fruit and something worse beneath. A body, probably. There were always bodies now.

“They weren’t my people,” I whispered. “The men who killed my parents — your people killed my family. You are wearing the uniform of the people who killed Ipa and Ima…” I flinched as I could not express myself.

“Does it matter? What about what you all have done” His voice cracked. “Your cousin was in the mob that burned my sister alive. I saw his face.”

The words punched through me. I hadn’t known.

The rifle trembled as he raised it. I saw the exact moment his finger found the trigger — the way his breath hitched, the way his eyes flickered to the scar on my left wrist from when we’d both fallen out of the mango tree.

“I should,” he whispered. “For sis… For my parents.”

I didn’t close my eyes. “Then do it.” After all, what’s the point of living, when I do not have my family or even now my friend with me?

The seconds stretched. A drop of sweat traced the new scar along his temple. The rifle had slipped from his now trembling fingers like that of a dying man’s last breath hitting the dirt. The metallic clang as it fell, echoed through the ruined marketplace and the rubble of what was left, bouncing off bullet-riddled walls in a way that made my stomach twist.

His hand moved toward his pocket and my body had already reacted before my mind could catch up — a full-body flinch that sent pain shooting through my half-healed ribs. Every instinct screamed that he was reaching for another weapon, that this was some cruel trick. After everything we’d seen, after all the betrayals, how could I believe otherwise? But what he pulled out wasn’t a weapon.

A scrap of blue cloth, frayed at the edges. The Kangla emblem I’d clumsily stitched back in third grade — the symbol of kangleipak[4]  — still visible beneath the stains of gunpowder and blood.

My breath caught. That stupid handkerchief. The one I’d given him when he scraped his knee falling off his bicycle. The one he’d pretended to lose when the boys teased him for keeping a girl’s gift.

“Don’t…” My voice cracked. “After everything… why would you still have this?”

His fingers trembled around the fabric. When he spoke, his words were barely audible over the distant gunfire.

“Because it was the last thing that ever smelled like home… And most importantly it reminded me of you…”

Then his other hand moved- too fast, too practiced-and suddenly I was staring down the barrel of his pistol. The standard-issue 9mm that people say were smuggled from Myanmar. The same weapon that had executed twelve Meitei civilians just last month.

I didn’t scream. The girl who would have screamed died the night I watched my parents being killed helplessly.

The shot never came.

Instead, the pistol’s muzzle tilted-just slightly-toward his own temple. His eyes locked onto mine one final time, and in them I saw the boy who used to share his tiffin with me under the Bonsum tree.

The explosion of gunpowder was deafening.

The shot echoed through the ruined market as Lalen collapsed. I caught him without thinking, his blood immediately warm against my chest. His lips moved against my ear, forming words lost to the ringing in my ears.

When the light left his eyes, I realised I was rocking him like a child. The handkerchief lay between us, with crimson everywhere.

The fireflies had never returned to Imphal valley after that. The monsoons still come, but the rain tastes different now — metallic, like blood. Some nights I swear I can hear our fathers laughing on some distant porch, their voices carried by a wind that no longer blows here.

What does it take to make a child point a gun to his best friend's head?
What does it take for neighbours to douse each other in gasoline?
What does it take for a land to forget how to love its own?
Most importantly, where is my country? Did everyone forget Manipur existed? 

This is Manipur.
This is what happens when hate wins.
These are the children we sacrificed.

Till then its silence, just pure silence.

Bonsum tree, the state tree of Manipur. From Public Domain.

[1] Father

[2] Mother

[3] Sarong

[4] Manipur

Authors Note:

This is a work of fiction, but the horrors it describes are all too real. The violence in Manipur has torn apart communities that once lived as neighbours, friends, and family. What was unthinkable years ago has become commonplace- children recruited into militancy, villages burned to the ground, and lifelong bonds shattered within just months.

I did not write this story to take sides or point fingers at who is to blame. War has no heroes- only victims. The Kuki and Meitei people have both suffered unimaginable loss. Friends have become enemies, and children have been robbed of their futures. I wrote this therefore, not to sensationalise, but to mourn. Most importantly I hope that this would force us to confront what happens when hatred is allowed to fester. To remember that behind every headline from Manipur, there are real people-mothers, fathers, children-whose lives have been destroyed.

Leishilembi Terem is a student from Manipur with a quiet love for growing things– whether nurturing plants in her garden or stories in her notebook. When she isn’t studying plant biology or digging her hands into soil, she writes about the world she sees: the fragile beauty of her homeland, Kangleipak, the political storms that shake it, and the ordinary people caught between.

.

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

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

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

Categories
Excerpt

Letters from a Daughter to Her Father

Title: Thorns in My Quilt: Letters from a Daughter to Her Father

Author: Mohua Chinappa

Publisher: Rupa Publications India

LOSS

4 August 2022

Living Room, Bengaluru

Dear Baba, Today is your shraddho, the puja for your departed soul. Referring to you as a soul seems so distant. Calling you anything but ‘Baba’ seems like two strangers speaking to one another. The purohit is here to do the rituals. The atmosphere is sedate. The room is lit and the flowers in the vases are in full bloom. I am glad we have cousins in the city; otherwise, it would be very lonely for Ma and me. We know very few people who would make the effort to attend a staid function like a shraddho. How does one end a tie so deep with a mere ritual? One can’t. It does feel surreal to watch your photograph with a jasmine garland around the lifeless frame. The sandalwood phonta or tika on your forehead makes you look different. The living room has been cleared. The large antique box has been covered with a white cloth, and your photograph is placed on it in such a way that you are facing the direction that will lead you to the other world. The shraddho among Bengali Hindus is a ceremony that is performed to ensure a passage for the recently deceased to the other world. The rite is both social and religious and is meant to be conducted by the son. But you have no male heir. So I defy tradition and lead the puja.  I follow the rites dutifully and chant the mantras, which don’t mean much to me. You are gone. There is no mantra that can soothe my heart. On the floor is a bed, laid out with a pillow and an umbrella for your onward journey to God-knows-where. I follow the purohit. Neel joins me in the ceremony. I feel so anchored, having him next to me. What a loving child he is. He makes life so much simpler for me. After the puja, we put out a plate of your favourite food so that a crow can come and eat it. Leaving the food in the corner of a lane seems ridiculous, but I have decided not to question any of the rituals, for I don’t want Ma to feel that I didn’t do my best. I leave the plate on the ground. There are bottles strewn around, and the ground is not very clean. I don’t turn back for another look. Your photo has now been removed and stands on my marble corner table. I put out the burning incense sticks and remove the flower garlands. It is still sinking in that I won’t be able to hear your voice ever again, calling out to me, asking me for something or the other. As we sit down to eat, Neel reminds me how you discussed Left politics and he argued with you on capitalism, just to rile you up in jest. You had such a wonderful bond with my child. I smile as I hear Neel mimic you and your quintessential Bengali ways of reacting to situations. Those debates between you both. I loved the way you both called each other Dadu. Baba would say, ‘Dadu, you must read about the world and its magnificent history. The great idea of how civilizations emerged, and how revolutions took place in protest against tyranny and oppression. As you read, you will learn that the world is a beautiful study of humanity and historical events.’ And Neel would say, ‘Na, Dadu, I will only read books that emphasize the profit and loss of capitalist businesses. Whoever cares about art and philosophy?’ Neel knew how you would go red in the face. And you would say, ‘No businessman ever built a nation; it is the thinkers and the dreamers who created a world of equal opportunities.’ This camaraderie you both shared remains the most beautifully preserved and poignantly pure memory of you with your grandson. I remember those days when you constantly waited to hear from Neel, and how the Sundays were marked aside to have your long-awaited conversations with him. You truly were a wonderful grandfather to my son. I feel empty as the furniture in the living room is rearranged to how it was before. Like nothing has happened, and no one is now gone forever. It looks as if you will come back in a minute, ask for a cup of tea and brood with your arms crossed over your chest. I think just being there to watch me do everyday things made you feel calmer. I don’t know. But I hope someday, I will understand the silence between us. Comfortable spells of silence, and some very terrifying ones. Like your death.

Love

Manu

*

5 August 2022

Bengaluru

Dear Baba, The vermilion has been removed now. The parting is stark white the hair oiled tied into a braid of acceptance. The grey mixed with the leftover black strands falling carelessly on her shoulder. I had seen her one lonely noon take a pair of scissors cut off her locks Like Samson and Delilah. She was at war A war with her own existence Her identity has been shaken Her oar is cracking open along with her broken sail. She sets to the seas but the land is far away on the horizon shining like the crystals found on a crown lost in a war lying forlorn for the head of the right king but now Samson is dead the Philistines have left too the palace has been torn down but parts are intact. Her locks sheared from guilt for being alive. Will she find her shore with her broken boat and tattered sail hoping the seas take her in or the fire of her breath is gutted before it becomes wild like a forest fire burning the little birds coloured kites stuck between branches and her capsizing boat too lost in the new world!

Love,

Manu

About the book:

Thorns in My Quilt: Letters from a Daughter to Her Father is a series of letters written by a daughter to her father after he passed away. Unspoken thoughts, unshared memories and unsaid words combine in this searing and poignant account of a relationship filled with joy, but with equal moments of sorrow.

Mohua Chinappa (Manu) loved her Baba, who was as kind as he was cruel, as well-read as he was unworldly, as loved as he was unloved. His dearest Manu recollects her childhood in Shillong, infused with the aroma of vanilla essence that went into the butter cookies he baked. She reminisces about her father holding her little hand while helping her through the undulating, rain-drenched roads. Mohua returns to Delhi, where she spent a part of her growing-up years, and revels in the memory of a government house with a harsingar tree. She writes to him about her broken marriage, recalls how her parents left her side, and how she reinvented herself. The letters are often selfish yet strangely cathartic.

Her father’s kidney failure prompted a daughter to confront the demons within—the loss, the doubts, the emptiness, the guilt of saying things, and the angst of not saying things.

About the author:

Mohua Chinappa is an author, a columnist, a renowned podcaster in India, a TEDx speaker, a former journalist and a corporate communications specialist.

The Mohua Show, a podcast she started in 2020, has close to 2 million downloads. She contributes regularly to various national dailies and magazines, including The Telegraph, Deccan Herald and Outlook. She is regularly invited as a speaker on TEDx and Josh Talks.

Mohua’s other initiative—NARI: The Homemakers Community—provides a platform for homemakers to voice their everyday challenges.

Her book—Nautanki Saala and Other Stories—was awarded the PVLF Best Debut Non-Fiction (in English) Award 2023. She also has two poetry collections to her credit—If Only It Were Spring Every day and Dragonflies of My Dreams.

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