Nazrul’s Tumi Shundor Tai Cheye Thaki(Because you are so beautiful, I keep looking at you) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Hotel Acapulco, has been composed and translated from Italian by Ivan Pozzoni. Click hereto read.
Farouk Gulsara pays a tribute to a doctor and a friend. Click hereto read.
Musings of a Copywriter
InBecoming a ‘Plain’ Writer, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores the world of writer’s retreats on hills with a touch of irony. Clickhere to read.
Notes from Japan
In Educating for Peace in Rwanda, Suzanne Kamata discusses the peace initiatives following the terrors of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide while traveling within the country with her university colleague and students. Click here to read.
Bijoy K Mishra writes of cyclones in Odisha, while discussing Bhaskar Parichha’s Cyclones in Odisha – Landfall, Wreckage and Resilience. Clickhereto read.
Landscape of Change by Jill Pelto, Smithsonian. From Public Domain
Hope is the mantra for all human existence. We hope for a better future, for love, for peace, for good weather, for abundance. When that abundance is an abundance of harsh weather or violence wrought by wars, we hope for calm and peace.
This is the season for cyclones — Dana, Trami, Yixing, Hurricanes Milton and Helene — to name a few that left their imprint with the destruction of both property and human lives as did the floods in Spain while wars continue to annihilate more lives and constructs. That we need peace to work out how to adapt to climate change is an issue that warmongers seem to have overlooked. We have to figure out how we can work around losing landmasses and lives to intermittent floods caused by tidal waves, landslides like the one in Wayanad and rising temperatures due to the loss of ice cover. The loss of the white cover of ice leads to more absorption of heat as the melting water is deeper in colour. Such phenomena could affect the availability of potable water and food, impacted by the changes in flora and fauna as a result of altered temperatures and weather patterns. An influx of climate refugees too is likely in places that continue habitable. Do we need to find ways of accommodating these people? Do we need to redefine our constructs to face the crises?
Echoing concerns for action to adapt to climate change and hoping for peace, our current issue shimmers with vibrancy of shades while weaving in personal narratives of life, living and the process of changing to adapt.
An essay on Bhaskar Parichha’s recent book on climate change highlights the action that is needed in the area where Dana made landfall recently. In terms of preparedness things have improved, as Bijoy K Mishra contends in his essay. But more action is needed. Denying climate change or thinking of going back to pre-climate change era is not an option for humanity anymore. While politics often ignores the need to acknowledge this crises and divides destroying with wars, riots and angst, a narrative for peace is woven by some countries like Japan and Rwanda.
Suzanne Kamata recently visited Rwanda. She writes about how she found by educating people about the genocide of 1994, the locals have found a way to live in peace with people who they addressed as their enemies before… as have the future generations of Japan by remembering the atomic holocausts of 1945.
In translations, we have poetry from varied countries. Ihlwha Choi has self-translated his poem from Korean. Ivan Pozzoni has done the same from Italian. One of Tagore’s lesser-known verses, perhaps influenced by the findings of sensitivity in plants by his contemporary, Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) to who he dedicated the collection which homed this poem, Phool Photano(making flowers bloom), has been translated from Bengali. Professor Alam has translated Nazrul’s popular song, Tumi Shundor Tai Cheye Thaki (Because you are so beautiful, I keep gazing at you).
Stories travel around the world with Paul Mirabile’s narrative giving a flavour of bohemian Paris in 1974. Anna Moon’s fiction set in Philippines gives a darker perspective of life. Lakshmi Kannan’s narrative hovers around the 2008 bombing in Mumbai, an event that evoked much anger, violence and created hatred in hearts. In contrast, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao brings a sense of warmth into our lives with a story about a child and his love for a dog. Sreelekha Chatterjee weaves a tale of change, showcasing adapting to climate crisis from a penguin’s perspective.
Trying something new, being out of the box is what helped humans move out from caves, invent wheels and create civilisations. Hopefully, this is what will help us move into the next phase of human development where wars and weapons will become redundant, and we will be able to adapt to changing climes and move towards a kinder, more compassionate existence.
Thank you all for pitching in with your fabulous pieces. There are ones that have not been covered here. Do pause by our content’s page to see all our content. Huge thanks to the fantastic Borderless team and to Sohana Manzoor, for her art too.
Poetry and translation from Italian by Ivan Pozzoni
Ivan Pozzoni
HOTEL ACAPULCO
My emaciated hands continued to write, turning each voice of death into paper… That he has left no will, forgetting to look after what everyone defines as normal business of every human being: office, home, family, the ideal, at last, of a regular life.
Abandoned, back in 2026, labelled as unbalanced, I'm locked in the centre of Milan in Hotel Acapulco, a decrepit hotel, calling upon the dreams of the marginalised, exhausting a lifetime's savings in magazines and meagre meals.
When will the carabinieri burst into the decrepit room of the Hotel Acapulco and find yet another dead man without a will? Who will tell the ordinary story of an old man who lived breaking wind?
Ivan Pozzoni was born in Monza in 1976. Between 2007 and 2018, he published 13 poetry books. He has written 150 volumes, 1000 essays and founded an avant-garde movement (NéoN-avant-gardisme).
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