Tag: Jim Bellamy

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Contents

Borderless, June 2026

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Changes, Ruskin, Snakes and Frogs… Click here to read.

Translations

Nazrul’s lyrics of Mor Ghumogore Elo Monohor (In my Sleep, Came the Enchanting One) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Four of his own Malay poems have been translated by Isa Kamari. Click here to read.

The Heartless, a Balochi story by  Abdul Qayum Sarbazi, has been translated by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Dragonfly 2 has been composed and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.

Tagore’s poem, Amra Choli Somukhpane (We Look Forward and March), has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Pandies Corner

Songs of Freedom: Pink Dreams is an autobiographical narrative by Priyanka, written and compiled by Deeksha Vats. These stories highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and Pandies. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Erik Kennedy, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, Anne Whitehouse, Snehaprava Das, George Freek, Pramod Rastogi, SR Inciardi, Aardhra Chandran, John Grey, Heera Unnithan, Jim Bellamy, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In A Few More Rhysop Fables, Rhys Hughes shares more absurdist fables. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

The Stars that Watch Us…

Sai Abhinay Penna muses during his morning jog. Click here to read.

Vignettes from the Past

Gowher Bhat mulls over his conversation with a debut author who published his first book at ninety-three. Click here to read.

Salvaging the Furling Line in the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf

Meredith Stephens takes us on a sailing adventure with photographs by Alan Noble. Click here to read.

Looking for that Goodness…

Farouk Gulsara explores why ‘evil’ exists with the help of experiments in science. Click here to read.

The Gift of Grace

Jun A. Alindogan talks of blessings and narrow escapes, including from the Typhoon Ondoy. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Consulting a Physician, Devraj Singh Kalsi writes of doctors and patients with a touch of humour. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In It’s in the Bag, Suzanne Kamata explores Japanese etiquettes. Click here to read.

Essays

Homecoming

Larry S Su, who migrated from a mud cave in Shaanxi province to America, shares his story of the changes he sees during three visits to his home and muses on the gaps he has observed between these two places. Click here to read.

One Soul, Two Seas

Charudutta Panigrahi explores similarities across two geographically separated regions. Click here to read.

A Cyclist’s Diary: Criss-crossing Titiwangsa

Farouk Gulsara explores local colours as he cycles in the highlands of Malaysia. Click here to read.

Stories

The Sea of Loneliness

Keiran Martin journeys to the depths of the ocean. Click here to read.

The Silent Valley

Jeena R Papaadi builds a mystery around an experience. Click here to read.

The Art of Letting Go

Plamen Vasilev shares a human interes story set in Europe. Click here to read.

The City that Refused to be Found

Rabiya Rehman sets her fiction in Lahore. Click here to read.

The Village that Chose Trees

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao imagines a utopian, environment friendly village. Click here to read.

Interview

Keith Lyons converses with Erik Kennedy, a migrant poet who lives in New Zealand. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

Excerpts from Ruskin Bond’s Scenes from the Magic Mountain: Five Seasons in the Mussoorie Hills and Beyond. Click here to read.

Excerpt from Anmol Diddan’s Burnout Highway. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal has reviewed Ruskin Bond’s Scenes from the Magic Mountain: Five Seasons in the Mussoorie Hills and Beyond. Click here to read.

Rakhi Dalal has reviewed Shyam Manohar’s The Cold War of Sadanand Borse, translated from Marathi by Jerry Pinto. Click here to read.

Meenakshi Malhotra has reviewed Giti Chandra’s debut poetry collection, Setting Traps for Light. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Stephen Alter’s The Fragrance of Rain: A Brief History of the Monsoon. Click here to read.

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Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

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

Categories
Editorial

Changes, Ruskin, Snakes and Frogs…

Summer, Dune in Zeeland by Piet Mondrain (1872 – 1944)
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.

‘Burnt Norton’, Four Quartets (1941) by TS Eliot

If we look back in time, we have a better life than that of our ancestors. Though conflicts rage and climate change is a reality that we all dread, it can safely be said, we have progressed beyond the imagination of those who lived a hundred years ago. The fact that some books from the past still reverberate with echoes of what the present holds says much for the outliers or authors who could think out of the box. Despite this complex intermingling of ideas and times, perhaps the world will change more now than before. We do not know anything for sure though experts are always predicting a future that for most of us remains unknown. What we can present is our own estimate of what can be and a definite assertion of what is. Truth as such is a matter of perception. That complicates it further. However, one of the changes that is definitely here to stay is climate change and our changing environment. Given that this is the month that homes World Environment Day, we have a smattering of writings that revolve around nature and also the human spirit that defies age.

We have featured a writer who revels in nature and is an ageless voice that bridges multiple cultures, Ruskin Bond. As he turned ninety-two last month, he published multiple new books. We have an excerpt from one of them, Scenes from the Magic Mountain: Five Seasons in the Mussoorie Hills and Beyond, a brilliant collection of snapshots of his interactions with nature over time — be it frogs, snakes or just trees. Some of the vignettes are humorous and some, as all classics are, thought provoking. Bond puts into words how he chose to work in Landour (a small town in Himalayas) and continued to write from there for sixty years. He talks of the spell the mountains cast on him, “I like to think that I have become a part of this Magic Mountain; that by living here for so long, I can claim a relationship with the trees, wild flowers, even the rocks that are an integral part of this landscape.”  The other book excerpt is a contrast to Bond’s, a non-fiction called Burnout Highway by Anmol Diddan. It explores the collective suffering of stress at work where achievements distance humans from nature and a fulfilling life and urges readers to be open to changes.

Somdatta Mandal discusses Bond’s Scenes from the Magic Mountain: Five Seasons in the Mussoorie Hills and Beyond and concludes: “It [the book] is a collector’s delight and also one to be gifted and recommended for anyone who loves to read about Ruskin Bond’s deep and lifelong love for the Himalayas. Bond’s poetic prose can hardly be imitated…”

In keeping with the theme of environment, Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Stephen Alter’s The Fragrance of Rain: A Brief History of the Monsoon. He tells us: “The Fragrance of Rain is much more than a history of weather. It is a meditation on nature, culture, memory, and belonging… Like the season it celebrates, the book is refreshing, nourishing, and lingering in its impact…” While Rakhi Dalal expresses her delight with Shyam Manohar’s The Cold War of Sadanand Borse, a novella translated from Marathi by Jerry Pinto, Meenakshi Malhotra revels in Giti Chandra’s debut book of poems, Setting Traps for Light.

The June poetry section also homes a poem on monsoon by Aardhra Chandran. Anne Whitehouse takes us to Egypt with her vivid words. Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri has shared a series of poems in memory of his late father. We have more from Snehaprava Das, George Freek, Pramod Rastogi, SR Inciardi, John Grey, Heera Unnithan and Jim Bellamy. Ryan Quinn Flanagan’s lines do bring a smile to the lips while Rhys Hughes writes of census of centaurs! Erik Kennedy, a migrant poet from New Zealand, shares his poetry and also his views in a candid interview with Keith Lyons.

In translations, Professor Fakrul Alam has captured the flavours of Nazrul’s Bengali lyrics, which also echo of the rainy season or monsoons. Isa Kamari brings to us more of his Malay poems in English and Ihlwha Choi shares a rendering of his Korean poem, ‘Dragonfly 2’, into English. One of Tagore’s poems from Balaka (Flight of the Cranes, 1916) has found its way into this issue after being translated. We also have a touching Balochi story around social gaps from the late Abdul Qayum Sarbazi, brought to us in English by Fazal Baloch.

Hughes has continued sharing his short fables, which are absurd but also, comical! A sensitive story about the natural world mingled with Maori concepts by Keiran Martin seems so much in sync with the oceans while Jeena R Papaadi has woven a strange narrative located in a land that only one man could visit. Plamen Vasilev shares a human-interest story set in Europe and Rabiya Rehman takes us to Lahore in quest of a missing destination! Naramsetti Umamaheswararao’s narrative takes us back to a village that opted for trees, thus enriching the environmental lore in this issue.

We have a real life heart rending story from a young girl in our Pandies Corner, written and related by Deeksha Vats, based on the story told by a victim of familial violations and violence.

Our non-fiction section homes Larry Su’s essay on how his life took him from a rural mud cave in Shaanxi province to the glamour of Chicago. Reflecting on the changes he has experienced on his rare visits to his original homeland, Su muses on the cultural and socio-economic gaps he has observed between the two places. Charudutta Panigrahi – as if in direct opposition — shares similarities between two diverse geographies.

Suzanne Kamata explores a custom which may not be that eco-friendly in her column from Japan. Jun A. Alindogan brings home the impact of climate disasters while dwelling on blessings with his narrative about a narrow escape from the Typhoon Ondoy (2009). While Meredith Stephen writes of sailing to Timor Sea with photographs by Alan Noble, Farouk Gulsara takes us on a cycling adventure around the mountains of Titiwangsa. In another musing, he also explores the idea of good and evil in a sardonic tone while Sai Abhinay Penna dwells on the grandeur and vastness of the universe over his morning jog. Gowher Bhat writes of a man for whom age seems to be just a number as he publishes his debut book at 93! One wonders at the frequency of such occurrences — we have writings about two authors above ninety in the June issue. In contrast, Devraj Singh Kalsi brings in mortal fears while writing of visiting doctors with a soupçon of humour – some of it directed at himself. 

Perhaps, laughter is really the best medicine to keep well! Ruskin Bond makes us laugh and writes of nature in a way that touches hearts and makes us forget the contrasting glitzy world, where we suffer stress and burnout. Our environment makes a difference, doesn’t it?

With that we wrap up our June issue. Huge thanks to our fabulous team, especially Sohana Manzoor for her wonderful artwork. To all our contributors, heartfelt thanks — we are because you are. And gratitude to our readers who make it worth our while to write and publish here.

We will next meet you during the monsoon months of South Asia though, near the equator, it rains almost every day and, in the Southern Hemisphere, it will be peak winter!

Happy reading!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE CONTENTS FOR THE JUNE 2026 ISSUE

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READ THE LATEST UPDATES ON THE BORDERLESS ANTHOLOGIES BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK

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Poetry

The Ceiling Hummed by Jim Bellamy

From Public Domain 
THE CEILING HUMMED


The ceiling hummed, a coldframe of evening spread,
A loop that questioned whether time was real;
She felt her thoughts detach, begin to peel—
A script that argued with the scene instead.
The floor dissolved beneath her cautious tread,
A mesh of doubt no footstep could conceal;
She wondered if her grief could even feel,
Or if it only played the part of dread.

The monitors blinked out, then back again,
As though the world were testing its own claim;
She sensed her name detach itself from name,
A file corrupted past what might remain.
The ward became a theory built by pain,
A thesis drafted just to shift the blame;
She walked its halls as lopers after guttered bums,
A wanderer through someone else’s frame.

She touched the bed and felt the moment split—
One version stayed, the other walked away;
She watched herself dissolve into the grey,
A copy failing bit by failing bit.
She whispered of her wedding dress conceived, unlit,
A vow unstitched by what she could not say;
Her lashes burned to ashes for the day,
And steller tears rewrote the edge of it.

She left the room, but not the aftermath;
Her shadow lagged, refusing to align.
The space ahead unspooled its crooked spine,
A maze subtracting her from every path.
She passed the ghosts of buttered sons in wrath,
Their silhouettes refusing to resign;
Yet still she walked, though nothing felt like mine,
A child rewritten by a broken bath.

Jim Bellamy was born in a storm in 1972. He studied hard and sat entrance exams for Oxford University. Jim has a fine frenzy for poetry and has written in excess of 22,000 poems. Jim adores the art of poetry. He lives for prosody.

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

Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

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

Categories
Contents

Borderless, February 2026

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

What Do We Yearn for?… Click here to read.

Translations

Nazrul’s Ashlo Jokhon Phuler Phalgun (When Flowers Bloom Spring) has been translated from Bengali to English by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

An Elegy for the Merchant of Hope by Atta Shad has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Four of his own Malay poems have been translated by Isa Kamari. Click here to read.

Two of her own Persian poems have been written and translated by Akram Yazdani. Click here to read.

The Beaten Rooster, a short story by Hamiruddin Middya, has been translated from Bengali by V Ramaswamy. Click here to read.

Tagore’s Shishur Jibon (The Child’s Life) has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Allan Lake, Goutam Roy, Chris Ringrose, Alpana, Lynn White, C.Mikal Oness, Shamim Akhtar, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Snehaprava Das, Jim Bellamy, Manahil Tahir, John Swain, Mohul Bhowmick, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, SR Inciardi

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In The Clumsy Giant, Rhys Hughes shares a funny poem about a gaint who keeps stubbing his toes! Click here to read.

Musings/Slice from Life

From the Land of a Thousand Temples

Farouk Gulsara shares attitudes towards linguistic heritage. Click here to read.

A Tangle of Clothes Hangers

Mario Fenech explores the idea of time. Click here to read.

Dreaming in Pondicherry

Mohul Bhowmick muses in Pondicherry. Click here to read.

Champagne Sailing

Meredith Stephens narrated a yatch race between Sydney and Hobart with photographs by Alan Noble. Click here to read.

In the Company of Words

Gower Bhat shares a heartfelt account of a bibliophile. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Horoscope or Horrorscope, Devraj Singh Kalsi reflects on predictions made at his birth. Click here to read.

Essays

The Chickpea That Logged More Mileage Than You

Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan gives an interesting account of the chickpeas journey through time and space, woven with a bit of irony. Click here to read.

Memories: Where Culture Meets Biology

Amir Zadnemat writes of how memory is impacted by both science and humanities. Click here to read.

The Restoration of Silence

Andriy Nivchuk brings to us repetitious realities that occur through histories. Click here to read.

Aeons of Art

In If Variety is the Spice of Life…, Ratnottama Sengupta introduces upcoming contemporary artists. Click here to read.

Stories

The Onion

JK Miller brings to us the story of a child in Khan Yunis. Click here to read.

Santa in the Autorickshaw

Snigdha Agrawal takes us to meet a syncretic spirit with a heartwarming but light touch. Click here to read.

Disillusioned

Sayan Sarkar shares a story of friendship and disillusionment. Click here to read.

Decluttering

Vela Noble shares a spooky fantasy. Click here to read.

The Value of Money

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao writes a story that reiterates family values. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Arupa Kalita Patangia’s Moonlight Saga, translated from Assamese by Ranjita Biswas. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Natalie Turner’s The Red Silk Dress. Click here to read.

Interview

Keith Lyons in conversation with Natalie Turner, author of The Red Silk Dress. Clickhere to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Sanjoy Hazarika’s River Traveller: Journeys on the TSANGO-BRAHMAPUTRA from Tibet to the Bay of Bengal. Click here to read.

Rakhi Dalal reviews Sujit Saraf’s Every Room Has a View — A Novel. Click here to read.

Anindita Basak reviews Taslima Nasrin’s Burning Roses in my Garden, translated from Bengali by Jesse Waters. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Kailash Satyarthi’s Karuna: The Power of Compassion. Click here to read.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

What Do We Yearn for?

Most people like you and me connect with the commonality of felt emotions and needs. We feel hungry, happy, sad, loved or unloved and express a larger plethora of feelings through art, theatre, music, painting, photography and words… With these, we tend to connect. And yet, larger structures created over time to offer security and governance to the masses—of which you and I are a part — have grown divisive, and, by the looks of it, the fences nurtured over time seem insurmountable. To retain these structures that were meant to keep us safe, wars are being fought and many are getting killed, losing homes and going hungry. We showcase such stories, poems and non-fiction to create an awareness among those who are lucky enough to remain untouched. But is there a way out, so that all of us can live peacefully, without war, without hunger and with love and a vision towards surviving climate change which (like it or not) is upon us?

Creating an awareness of hunger and destruction wreaked by war is a heartrending story set in Gaza by JK Miller. While Snigdha Agrawal’s narrative gives a sense of hope, recounting a small kindness by a common person, Sayan Sarkar shares a more personal saga of friendship and disillusionment — where people have choice. But does war leave us a choice as it annihilates friendships, cities, homes and families? Naramsetti Umamaheswararao’s story reiterates the belief in the family – peace being an accepted unit. Vela Noble’s fantastical fiction and art comes like a respite– though there is a darker side to it — with a touch of fun. Perhaps, a bit of fantasy and humour opens the mind to deal with the more sombre notes of existence.

The translation section hosts a story by Hamiruddin Middya, who grew up as a farmer’s son in Bengal. Steeped in local colours, it has been rendered into English by V Ramaswamy. Nazrul’s song revelling in the colours of spring has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Atta Shad’s pensive Balochi lines have been brought to us in English by Fazal Baloch. Isa Kamari continues to bring the flavours of an older, more laid-back Singapore with translations of his own Malay poems. A couple of Persian verses have been rendered into English by the poet, Akram Yazdani, herself. Questing for harmony, Tagore’s translated poem while reflecting on a child’s life, urges us to have the courage to be like a child — open, innocent and willing to imagine a world laced with trust and hope. If we were all to do that, do you think we’d still have wars, violence and walls built on hate and intolerance?

While in a Tagorean universe, children are viewed as trusting and open, does that continue a reality in the current world that believes in keeping peace with weapons? Contemporary voices think otherwise. Manahil Tahir brings us a touching poem in a doll’s voice, a doll belonging to a child victimised by violence. While violence pollutes childhood, pollution in Delhi has been addressed by Goutam Roy in verse. Poignant lines from Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal make one question the idea of home and borders while Snehaprava Das has interpreted the word ‘borderless’ in her own way. We have more colours of humanity from Allan Lake, Chris Ringrose, Alpana, Lynn White, C.Mikal Oness, Shamim Akhtar, Jim Bellamy,John Swain, Mohul Bhowmick and SR Inciardi. Ryan Quinn Flanagan has given fun lines about a snow fight while Rhys Hughes has shared a humorous poem about a clumsy giant.

Bringing in humour in prose is Devraj Singh Kalsi’s musing about horoscopes! While, with a soupçon of irony Farouk Gulsara talks of his ‘holiday’, Meredith Stephen takes us to a yacht race in Australia and Mohul Bhowmick to Pondicherry. Gower Bhat writes of his passion for words while discussing his favourite books. Ratnottama Sengupta introduces us to contemporary artists from her part of the world.

Mario Fenech takes a look at the idea of time. Amir Zadnemat writes of how memory is impacted by both science and humanities while Andriy Nivchuk brings to us snippets from Herodotus’s and Pericles’s lives that still read relevant. Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan gives the journey of chickpeas across space and time, asserting: “The chickpea does not care about your ideology, your portfolio, or your meticulously curated identity. It will grow, fix nitrogen, feed someone, and move on without a press release.” It has survived over aeons in a borderless state!

In book excerpts, we have a book that transcends borders as it’s a translation from Assamese by Ranjita Biswas of Arupa Kalita Patangia’s Moonlight Saga. Any translation is an attempt to integrate the margins into the mainstream of literature, and this is no less. The other excerpt is from Natalie Turner’s The Red Silk Dress. Keith Lyons has interviewed Turner about her novel which crosses multiple cultures too while on a personal quest.

In reviews, Somdatta Mandal discusses a book that explores the colours of a river across three sets of borders, Sanjoy Hazarika’s River Traveller: Journeys on the TSANGO-BRAHMAPUTRA from Tibet to the Bay of Bengal. Rakhi Dalal writes about a narrative centring around migrants, Sujit Saraf’s Every Room Has a View — A Novel. Anindita Basak reviews Taslima Nasrin’s poetry, Burning Roses in my Garden, translated from Bengali by Jesse Waters. Bhaskar Parichha reviews Kailash Satyarthi’s Karuna: The Power of Compassion. In it, Satyarthi suggest the creation of CQ — Compassion Quotient— like IQ and EQ, claiming it will improve our quality of life. What a wonderful thought!

Could we be yearning compassion?

Holding on to that idea, we invite you to savour the contents of our February issue.

Huge thanks to all our contributors and readers for making this issue possible. Heartfelt thanks to our wonderful team, especially Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork.

Enjoy the reads!

Let’s look forward to the spring… May it bring new ideas to help us all move towards more amicable times.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE CONTENTS FOR THE FEBRUARY 2026 ISSUE.

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

Categories
Poetry

‘Shadows on a Screen’

By Jim Bellamy

AND MURDERED THROUGH


And murdered through their masks, as if to sift
My trembling from the air; the corridors
Grew longer, bending out of shape, and drift
Enshrouded every threshold. Through the doors
Came whispers, half‑remembered, half‑designed,
That pressed like winter’s knuckles on my chest;
And still the ward‑lights flickered, re‑aligned
To mark the pulse of something unexpressed.
I walked as though the floorboards might collapse,
Or tilt me toward a darkness I had known,
Where every echo tightened into traps
And every heartbeat felt no longer owned.

Yet through that trembling hush, a figure stood—
A patient, pale as frost upon a blade—
Who watched me with a calm misunderstood,
As if my fear were something he had made.
He raised a hand, then let it fall again,
And muttered fragments drifting into sense:
That storms of thought could batter any brain,
That none were proof against experience.
His voice, though cracked, retained a tempered grace,
A cadence forged from long‑endured despair;
And in the trembling angles of his face
I saw a truth too heavy to declare.

For madness, in its quietest disguise,
Can settle like a frost upon the bone;
It does not always shout, but softly lies
In corners where the mind stands most alone.
And so I passed him, feeling something shift—
A weight that was not his, nor wholly mine—
As though the ward itself began to lift
Its veil and show the seams beneath design.
The nurses moved like shadows on a screen,
Their footsteps merging with the humming vents;
The world grew thin, translucent, in between
The drifting of my fractured sentiments.

And still the year went on, a tightening thread
That pulled me through each hour’s unsteady frame;
The nights were long, the mornings filled with dread,
Yet somewhere in that cycle, something came—
A gentler breath, a pause within the storm,
A moment where the mind, though bruised, could rest.
It did not heal, nor wholly re‑transform,
But held itself with slightly steadier chest.
And in that pause, I learned to stand again,
To walk the ward without the same despair;
To see, in every trembling fellow‑patient,
A fragile strength that hovered in the air.

So through the endless corridors I moved,
Not cured, not whole, but slowly re‑aligned;
And though the year remained a thing unloved,
It left a quiet scaffold in my mind—
A place where all the fractured thoughts could meet,
Where shadows softened, though they did not cease;
Where every trembling pulse, though incomplete,
Could find a moment’s tentative release

Jim Bellamy was born in a storm in 1972. He studied hard and sat entrance exams for Oxford University. Jim has a fine frenzy for poetry and has written in excess of 22,000 poems. Jim adores the art of poetry. He lives for prosody.

.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Contents

Borderless, October 2025

Painting by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Imagine… All the People… Click here to read

Translations

Jani Jani Priyo, Ea Jebone  (I know my dear one, in this life) by Nazrul has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Four of his own poems in Malay have been translated by Isa Kamari. Click here to read.

Five poems by Hrushikesh Mallick have been translated from Odia by Snehprava Das. Click here to read.

The Headstone, a poignant story by Sharaf Shad has been translated by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Shukh (Happiness) by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

John Valentine, Saranyan BV, John Swain, Ahmad Al-Khatat, Stephen Druce, Jyotish Chalil Gopinath, Jenny Middleton, Maria Alam, Ron Pickett, Tanjila Ontu, Jim Bellamy, Pramod Rastogi, John Grey, Laila Brahmbhatt, John Zedolik, Snehaprava Das, Joseph K.Wells, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

Rhys Hughes shares his play, Night in Karnataka. Click here to read.

Musings/ Slices from Life

Just Passing Through

Farouk Gulsara muses on humans and their best friends. Click here to read.

Feeding Carrots to Gentle Herbivores

Meredith Stephens looks back to her past adventures with horses and present ones with giraffes. Click here to read.

Linen at Midnight

Pijus Ash relates a real-life spooky encounter in Holland. Click here to read.

Two Lives – A Writer and A Businessman

Chetan Datta Poduri explores two lives from the past and what remains of their heritage. Click here to read.

My Forest or Your City Park?

G Venkatesh muses on the tug of war between sustainabilty, ecology and economies. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Karmic Backlog, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores reincarnations with a twinge of humour. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In DIY Dining in Japan, Suzanne Kamata in a light note talks about restaurants with robots. Click here to read.

Essays

Peddling Progress?

Jun A. Alindogan writes about what is perceived as progress from Philippines. Click here to read.

From Madagascar to Japan: An Adventure or a Dream…

Randriamamonjisoa Sylvie Valencia writes of her journey from Africa to Japan with a personal touch. Click here to read.

From Bombay to Kolkata — the Dhaaks of Durga 

Ratnottama Sengupta explores a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Festival. Click here to read.

Stories

Sleeper on the Bench

Paul Mirabile sets his strange story in London. Click here to read.

Sandy Cannot Write

Devraj Singh Kalsi takes us into the world of adverstising and glamour. Click here to read.

The Wise Words of the Sun

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao relates a fable involving elements of nature. Click here to read.

Discussions

A conversation with Swati Pal, academic and poet, on healing through writing and bereavement. Click here to read.

A conversation with five translators — Aruna Chakravarti, Radha Chakravarty, Somdatta Mandal, Fakrul Alam and Fazal Baloch — from across South Asia. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from That’s A Fire Ant Right There! Tales from Kavali by Mohammed Khadeer Babu, translated from Telugu by D.V. Subhashri. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Swati Pal’s poetry collection, Forever Yours. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp: Selected Stories, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi. Click here to read.

Meenakshi Malhotra has reviewed Malachi Edwin Vethamani’s anthology, Contours of Him: Poems. Click here to read.

Rupak Shreshta reviews Sangita Swechcha’s Rose’s Odyssey: Tales of Love and Loss, translated from Nepali by Jayant Sharma. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Kalpana Karunakaran’s A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras. Click here to read.

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

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Categories
Editorial

Imagine… All the People…

Art by Henry Tayali(1943-1987). From Public Domain

Let us imagine a world where wars have been outlawed and there is only peace. Is that even possible outside of John Lennon’s song? While John Gray, a modern-day thinker, propounds human nature cannot change despite technological advancements, one has to only imagine how a cave dweller would have told his family flying to the moon was an impossibility. And yet, it has been proven a reality and now, we are thinking living in outer space, though currently it is only the forte of a few elitists and astronomers. Maybe, it will become an accessible reality as shown in books by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke or shows like Star Trek and Star Wars. Perhaps, it’s only dreamers or ideators pursuing unreal hopes and urges who often become the change makers, the people that make humanity move forward. In Borderless, we merely gather your dreams and present them to the world. That is why we love to celebrate writers from across all languages and cultures with translations and writings that turn current norms topsy turvy. We feature a number of such ideators in this issue.

Nazrul in his times, would have been one such ideator, which is why we carry a song by him translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. And yet before him was Tagore — this time we carry a translation of an unusual poem about happiness. From current times, we present to you a poet — perhaps the greatest Malay writer in Singapore — Isa Kamari. He has translated his longing for changes into his poems. His novels and stories express the same longing as he shares in The Lost Mantras, his self-translated poems that explore adapting old to new. We will be bringing these out over a period of time. We also have poems by Hrushikesh Mallick translated from Odia by Snehprava Das and a poignant story by Sharaf Shad translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch.

We have an evocative short play by Rhys Hughes, where gender roles are inverted in a most humorous way. It almost brings to mind Begum Rokeya’s Sultana’s Dream. Tongue-in-cheek humour in non-fiction is brought in by Devraj Singh Kalsi and Chetan Dutta Poduri. Farouk Gulsara and Meredith Stephens write in a light-hearted vein about their interactions with animal friends. G. Venkatesh brings in serious strains with his musings on sustainability. Jun A. Alindogan slips into profundities while talking of “progress” in Philippines. Young Randriamamonjisoa Sylvie Valencia gives a heartfelt account of her journey from Madagascar to Japan. Ratnottama Sengupta travels across space and time to recount her experiences in a festival recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Suzanne Kamata brings a light touch again when she writes about robots serving in restaurants in Japan, a change that would be only fiction even in Asimov’s times, less than a hundred years ago!

Pijus Ash — are we to believe or not believe his strange, spooky encounter in Holland? And we definitely don’t have to believe what skeletons do in Hughes’ limericks, even if their antics make us laugh! Poetry brings on more spooks from Saranyan BV and frightening environmental focus on the aftermath of flooding by Snehaprava Das. We have colours of poetry from all over the world with John Valentine, John Swain, Ahmad Al-Khatat, Stephen Druce, Jyotish Chalil Gopinath, Jenny Middleton, Maria Alam, Ron Pickett, Tanjila Ontu, Jim Bellamy, Pramod Rastogi, John Grey, Laila Brahmbhatt, John Zedolik and Joseph K.Wells.

Fiction yields a fable from Naramsetti Umamaheswararao. Devraj Singh Kalsi takes us into the world of advertising and glamour and Paul Mirabile writes of a sleeper who likes to sleep on benches in parks out of choice! We also have an excerpt from Mohammed Khadeer Babu’s stories, That’s A Fire Ant Right There! Tales from Kavali , translated from Telugu by D.V. Subhashri. The other excerpt is from Swati Pal’s poetry collection, Forever Yours. Pal has in an online interview discussed bereavement and healing through poetry for her stunning poems pretty much do that.

Book reviews homes an indepth introduction by Somdatta Mandal to Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp: Selected Stories, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi. We have a discussion by Meenakshi Malhotra on Contours of Him: Poems, edited and introduced by Malaysian academic, Malachi Edwin Vethamani, in which she concludes, “that if femininity is a construct, so is masculinity.” Overriding human constructs are journeys made by migrants. Rupak Shreshta has introduced us to immigrant Sangita Swechcha’s Rose’s Odyssey: Tales of Love and Loss, translated from Nepali by Jayant Sharma. Bhaskar Parichha winds up this section with his exploration of Kalpana Karunakaran’s A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras. He tells us: “A Woman of No Consequence restores dignity to what is often dismissed as ordinary. It chronicles the spiritual and intellectual evolution of a woman who sought transcendence within the rhythms of domestic life, turning the everyday into a site of resistance and renewal.” Again, by the sound of it a book that redefines the idea that housework is mundane and gives dignity to women and the task at hand.

We wind up the October issue hoping for changes that will lead to a happier existence, helping us all connect with the commonality of emotions, overriding borders that hurt humanity, other species and the Earth.

Huge thanks to our fabulous team, especially Sohana Manzoor for her inimitable artwork. We would all love to congratulate Hughes for his plays that ran houseful in Swansea. And heartfelt thanks to all our wonderful contributors, without who this issue would not have been possible, and to our readers, who make it worth our while, to write and publish.

Have a wonderful month!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE CONTENTS FOR THE OCTOBER 2025 ISSUE

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Categories
Poetry

When Oceans take to Dry & More …

By Jim Bellamy

Wood block by Michael Wolgemut (1434 – 1519).
WHEN OCEANS TAKE TO DRY


When oceans take to dry whatever the madman's rib,
Through the hollows of time, where shadows pose,
We shall levitate across the Rose, so glib.

The stars, they flicker, on this darkling crib,
As night's embrace cloaks the world's woes,
When oceans take to dry whatever the madman's rib.

Beneath the moon's pale gaze, we'll imbibe the fib,
Of a world turned upside down, where chaos grows,
We shall levitate across the Rose, so glib.

The madman laughs, his mind a twisted ad-lib,
While the sea's heart beats, slow and morose,
When oceans take to dry whatever the madman's rib.

In this dance macabre, no need to transcribe,
The silent whispers of ghosts in throes,
We shall levitate across the Rose, so glib.

So let the waters rise, no need to bribe,
The fates that spin the end's close,
When oceans take to dry whatever the madman's rib,
We shall levitate across the Rose, so glib.


FOR WHEN THE ACRID MOONSTONES GROAN ACROSS GAS


For when the acrid moonstones groan across gas,
In twilight's veil, the sirens wipe away.
Beneath the stars, where shadows dare not pass.

The madcap dance, where spirits raise their glass,
To toast the dark, where light has lost its sway.
For when the acrid moonstones groan across gas.

The night's embrace, a chilling, cold morass,
Where echoes of the lost in silence pray.
Beneath the stars, where shadows dare not pass.

The moon's pale gaze, on fields of withered grass,
A serenade for souls led far astray.
For when the acrid moonstones groan across gas.

In dreams we find the gates of alabaster brass,
Where time's cruel hand can never hold its sway.
Beneath the stars, where shadows dare not pass.

Jim Bellamy was born in a storm in 1972. He studied hard and sat entrance exams for Oxford University. Jim has a fine frenzy for poetry and has written in excess of 22,000 poems. Jim adores the art of poetry. He lives for prosody.

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

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

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Categories
Contents

Borderless, September 2025

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Seasons Out of Time… Click here to read

Translations

Nazrul’s Karar Oi Louho Kopat (Those Iron Shackles of Prison) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Five poems by Ashwini Mishra have been translated from Odia by Snehprava Das. Click here to read.

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

Tagore’s Aaj Shororter Aloy (Today, in the Autumnal Light) has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Onkar Sharma, Ron Pickett, Arshi, Joseph K Wells, Shamim Akhtar, Stephen House, Mian Ali, John Grey, Juliet F Lalzarzoliani, Joseph C.Obgonna, Jim Bellamy, Soumyadwip Chakraborty, Richard Stimac, Sanzida Alam, Jim Murdoch, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Soaring with Icarus, Rhys Hughes shares a serious poems. Click here to read.

Musings/ Slices from Life

Parenting Tips from a Quintessential Nerd

Farouk Gulsara relooks at our golden years and stretches it to parenting tips. Click here to read.

Instrumental in Solving the Crime

Meredith Stephens takes us to a crime scene with a light touch. Click here to read.

What’s in a Name?

Jun A Alindogan writes about the complex evolution of names in Phillippines. Click here to read.

Bibapur Mansion: A Vintage Charmer

Prithvijeet Sinha takes us for a tour of Lucknow’s famed vintage buildings. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Demolition Drives… for Awards?, Devraj Singh Kalsi muses on literary awards. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Contending with a Complicated History, Suzanne Kamata writes of her trip to US from Japan. Click here to read.

Essays

The Bauls of Bengal

Aruna Chakravarti writes of wandering minstrels called bauls and the impact they had on Tagore. Click here to read.

The Literary Club of 18th Century London

Professor Fakrul Alam writes on literary club traditions of Dhaka, Kolkata and an old one from London. Click here to read.

Stories

Looking for Evans

Rashida Murphy writes a light-hearted story about a faux pas. Click here to read.

Exorcising Mother

Fiona Sinclair narrates a story bordering on spooky. Click here to read.

The Storm

Anandita Dey wanders down strange alleys of the mind. Click here to read.

The Fog of Forgotten Gardens

Erin Jamieson writes from a caregivers perspective. Click here to read

The Anger of a Good Man

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao makes up a new fable. Click here to read.

Feature

A review of Jaladhar Sen’s The Travels of a Sadhu in the Himalayas, translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal, and an online interview with the translator. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Jaladhar Sen’s The Travels of a Sadhu in the Himalayas, translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Prithvijeet Sinha’s debut collection of poems, A Verdant Heart. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Aruna Chakravarti’s selected and translated, Rising From the Dust: Dalit Stories from Bengal. Click here to read.

Rakhi Dalal reviews Mohua Chinappa’s Thorns in My Quilt: Letters from a Daughter to her Father. Click here to read.

Pradip Mondal reviews Kiriti Sengupta’s Selected Poems. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Kalyani Ramnath’s Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942–1962. 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