Tag: Julius Caesar

An Unfinished Memoir

Title: Janaki Ballav Patnaik: An Unfinished Memoir

Author: JB Patnaik

Translated into English from Odia by Bhaskar Parichha

Publisher : BK Classics

Chapter 17 A Journalist across Continents

My association with Prajatantra[1] also opened doors to experiences beyond the country. In 1959, the British Information Services invited four journalists from eastern India to visit England. From Odisha, I went as the editor of The Eastern Times. Along with me were representatives from The Statesman, Amrita Bazar Patrika, and Searchlight of Patna.

Our visit to England proved deeply enriching. We toured institutions such as University of Oxford and University of Cambridge, and also visited the British Parliament. At Bristol, we paid our respects at the tomb of Raja Ram Mohan Roy. We were taken to an atomic energy plant, a steel factory, and even a coal mine in Wales. On London’s Fleet Street, where most of the major newspapers were published, I had the chance to observe the workings of the Daily Telegraph office—its news gathering systems, teleprinter composition, and massive printing machines. We also engaged in discussions with British journalists about our experiences and about Indo-British relations.

We had arrived in England in June. One day, the temperature rose to ninety degrees Fahrenheit. By Indian standards, it was nothing remarkable, but in a country accustomed to cold weather, it was almost unbearable. News came of workers in several factories halting work due to the heat. We visited places like Buckingham Palace and the bridges over the Thames, taking in as much as we could of London’s historic landscape.

From London, I felt a strong desire to visit Germany. It was not uncommon for distinguished Indian journalists visiting London to be invited onward, so I approached the German Embassy and expressed my interest. To my pleasant surprise, they promptly invited me for a fifteen-day visit and granted me a visa.

I reached Frankfurt around ten in the morning. There, I was warmly received by Dr. Reikel, secretary of the Indo-German Association. With a smile, he informed me that the annual session of the German Indologists’ Association was being held that very day in Essen, and asked if I would like to attend. I readily agreed.

At the conference, nearly four hundred scholars of Indology had gathered—an impressive assembly devoted to the study of India’s past. After the session, during lunch, I was greeted by a former German Consul General who had once served in Calcutta. He asked me which city in India I came from. In an affected English accent, I replied, “Bhubaneshwar.” He smiled gently and said, “You must have just returned from England. The correct pronunciation is ‘Bhubaneswar.’”

I felt a moment of embarrassment. But he went on to say something that stayed with me. He told me that it was in Bhubaneswar, while visiting the Rajarani Temple, that he had first met his future wife. Then, with quiet warmth, he added that the German people held India in great affection. “You have seen it yourself,” he said, gesturing toward the gathering. “Hundreds of scholars here are devoted to studying ancient India. Wherever you go, you will find a spirit of friendship.”

And indeed, that is what I felt—a sense of India’s presence, respected and cherished, far beyond its own shores.

From there, we took our leave and travelled to Bonn, then the capital of West Germany. Bonn, I found, was much smaller than Berlin. In those days, Berlin stood divided—one part belonging to West Germany and the other to East Germany, which claimed it as its capital. Surrounded entirely by East German territory, West Berlin remained cut off, an island of a different world.

Dr. Reikel next took me to a refugee camp in West Germany. There, day after day, people fleeing from East Germany sought shelter. Pointing them out to me, he explained that East Germany was a communist state, almost a satellite of the Soviet Union. Life there, he said, had become so difficult that many risked everything to escape into Berlin and beyond.

We then visited West Berlin. I was struck by its prosperity. It was hard to imagine that this thriving city had once been reduced to rubble by bombing during the war. The transformation was astonishing—order, wealth, and vitality had returned. Except for one ruined church, left deliberately unrestored as a reminder of the World War II, there was little visible trace of destruction.

Curious to see the other side, we boarded a tourist bus to East Berlin. The bus carried visitors from many countries. As we entered, the conductor announced that we could now compare capitalist Berlin with communist Berlin. The contrast was stark. East Berlin appeared plain, almost austere, lacking the vibrancy of its western counterpart. Many buildings stood incomplete, as if time itself had slowed. One could immediately understand why people were fleeing from East to West.

From Berlin, we flew to Hamburg, the principal port of West Germany and a city rich in history and beauty. Its City Hall, harbour, and music halls left a lasting impression on me. Later, I also visited Wildbad.

At a hotel there, I noticed the Indian national flag fluttering. For a moment, I wondered if some distinguished visitor from India had arrived. Dr. Reikel smiled and told me that there was no one else—it had been hoisted in honour of me, their guest. Not long before, he added, another Indian guest had stayed there—Narayan Dutt Tiwari, who too had been invited by the Friendship Society.

While I was still in Bonn, an incident occurred that touched me deeply. A professor of philosophy had come to my hotel and left behind a card for me. On it, he had written a simple yet profound message: that he had come to pay his respects to my country—the land of Mahatma Gandhi and of the Upanishads.

It was a quiet gesture, but one that reminded me how India lived in the imagination of distant lands—not merely as a nation, but as a civilisation.

Everywhere I went in Germany, I felt a genuine warmth—an unmistakable atmosphere of friendliness. Even in an ordinary park, if one happened to meet a passerby, he would acknowledge you with a gentle nod of greeting. It was a small gesture, yet it spoke volumes about the people.

From Hamburg, I travelled to Munich by train. From there, I was to take a flight onward to Paris. The margin between the train’s arrival and the flight’s departure was barely half an hour. I asked Dr. Reikel, half in doubt, what would happen if the train were delayed. He replied with quiet confidence that it would not be late even by a second. And indeed, it arrived precisely on time.

I took leave of him there. For fifteen days, he had been my constant companion, guiding me through the principal cities of West Germany with a warmth that felt almost familial. He was a widower, deeply patriotic, critical of Adolf Hitler, yet appreciative of the discipline and courage of the German army of that era. The German people, I observed, were extraordinarily industrious. Whether worker or employer, all seemed united by a culture of hard work. Strikes were rare, almost unheard of.

At the time of my visit, Konrad Adenauer was the Chancellor of Germany. There was a popular saying that captured the spirit of the nation’s recovery—that the Chancellor had asked every worker to add just one extra hour of labour to their day, and that this collective effort had helped rebuild Germany. Whether apocryphal or not, the sentiment reflected the ethics of the people.

From Germany, I travelled to Paris—a city steeped in history, as ancient in its own way as London. Paris had witnessed the rise and fall of monarchies, the turbulence of revolutions, and the flowering of culture. In terms of civilisation, it was often regarded as the cultural capital of Europe; in matters of diplomacy, some even called it the capital of the world. And when one spoke of fashion, Paris stood unrivalled.

Above all, Paris carried the legacy of the French Revolution—an event that became a beacon for oppressed people everywhere. From that revolution emerged the enduring ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity—principles that have guided countless movements across generations. The revolution of eighteenth-century France remains one of the most profound and unforgettable turning points in human history.

I stayed in Paris for three days, in a modest yet elegant little hotel. By then, I was no longer an official guest of any government, as I had been in England or Germany. I was simply a traveller, left to discover the city on my own. And for that, the first necessity was a map. With it in hand, I resolved to begin from the city’s most prominent landmarks.

The most striking modern monument of Paris was, of course, the Eiffel Tower, followed by the imposing Arc de Triomphe. Guided by my map, I made my way from the hotel to the Arc de Triomphe, that grand arch built to commemorate the victories of Napoleon Bonaparte. Not far from there stood the Élysée Palace, the residence of the French President.

Paris, as I observed, bore the imprint of careful planning. During the time of Napoleon III, the city had been redesigned with remarkable foresight. From central points like the Arc de Triomphe, avenues radiated outward in all directions. Standing atop the monument, one could see twelve grand avenues stretching out with striking symmetry—a vision of urban elegance.

Near the lane where I stayed stood a well-known theatre, the Folies Bergère, famous for its ballet performances. The area around the Arc, however, was a ceaseless whirl of motion. With twelve avenues converging, traffic flowed endlessly from all directions, leaving hardly a moment for a pedestrian to cross.

Perplexed, I approached a policeman and asked—in English—how one might reach the monument without traffic lights. He offered no reply. Whether he chose not to understand or simply did not wish to respond, I could not tell. The French, I soon realised, take immense pride in their language; even if they understand English, they are often reluctant to use it.

Finding no answer, I half-humorously tried speaking in my own mother tongue, Odia. The policeman looked at me, puzzled, and remained silent. That, too, was an answer of sorts.

Over those three days, I explored the notable sights of Paris on foot. Along the way, I was joined by two fellow Indians—students from London studying accountancy. Together, we wandered through the city until one day we encountered a gentleman from Malaysia. At first glance, he might easily have been mistaken for an Indian; such was the resemblance. He turned out to be a senior official in his country’s archaeology department. From the next day onward, he became our companion.

One afternoon, as we strolled along the banks of the Seine River, he pointed out that the famed Louvre Museum was nearby. There, he said, we could see the celebrated painting of Leonardo da Vinci—the Mona Lisa.

We entered the gallery and stood before it. The painting’s fame, I realised, lay not merely in its artistry but in that enigmatic smile—so subtle, so elusive. Wherever one stood, it seemed as though her gaze followed. It is often said that no other portrait in the world carries such a delicate curve of expression.

At that moment, a line from the Odia poet, Jadumani Mahapatra, came to my mind, describing a smile of pure, almost celestial beauty—untouched by earthly colour or artifice. It felt as though that poetic vision had, in some distant way, come alive before my eyes in that quiet hall of the Louvre.

As I stood before the world-renowned Louvre Museum, gazing at Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, I found myself drawn not merely to the painting, but to the mystery of her smile—subtle, elusive, and impossibly pure.

It was then that a line from the witty Odia poet Jadumani Mohapatra surfaced gently in my mind:

“Chandi nishi dhaba dhabale mishichi adhavala jyoti kuranga
Kshira sagara udara adarichi naba mudira jyoti sanga
Bishuddha hase ramara
Nilimaara nahi sanchara
Emanta kirti jara shuddha kara ehi kala bichara.”

(A tint of blue, a trace of blemish, haunts all that exists—
the moon carries its stain; upon Shiva’s stainless form lingers the azure of his throat; and in the Ocean of Milk, Vishnu shines in a cloud-hued grace.
Yet, in the smile of a beauteous maiden, no shadow ever falls—
it remains the purest radiance of all.
Only those whose hearts mirror such unsullied purity
are truly worthy to partake of this poem.)

The essence of these lines struck me with renewed clarity in that moment. The poet reflects on how, in this world, even the most luminous and sacred entities bear a trace of imperfection—
the moon carries its blemish.

In that quiet gallery in Paris, an Odia poet’s verse and a Renaissance masterpiece met—across centuries—and spoke the same silent truth.

Paris seemed to carry its beauty with a quiet, unmistakable pride. The graceful flow of the Seine River, the wide and elegant boulevards, the triumphal monuments raised in memory of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the countless churches—along with the place where Napoleon himself lies buried—all stood as living testimony to the city’s grandeur.

One day, we found ourselves standing by the roadside, not far from the magnificent Notre-Dame Cathedral. As we lingered there, a few American women tourists approached us. They seemed a little lost and asked, in English, where Notre-Dame was. We simply raised our hands and pointed—it was right there, almost within sight.

They thanked us warmly, but then, with a hint of amusement and mild irritation, remarked that the French were rather peculiar. “We ask them in English,” they said, “but no one answers.” English, they insisted, was the most important language in the world—surely the French must know it. Yet, perhaps out of pride, they pretended otherwise, choosing silence over response. Still, in hotels, we noticed, the staff spoke English quite comfortably—practicality, it seemed, softened pride.

Three days later, my journey carried me to Zurich in Switzerland. The country’s two principal cities, Zurich and Geneva, each held their own significance. Geneva, in particular, stood as an international hub, housing several offices of the United Nations and serving as the headquarters of the International Labour Organization. Every year, representatives—labour ministers and worker delegates—from across the world gathered there for its annual conference.

Zurich, however, captivated in a different way. Adorned with serene lakes and set against a tranquil landscape, it was a city of quiet beauty. Its streets were lined with shops displaying exquisite timepieces—especially wristwatches—for which Switzerland is renowned. The country’s reputation also extended to its health resorts, places of rest and recovery nestled in pristine surroundings. Remarkably, during both the World Wars, Switzerland had declared itself neutral, and the storms of war had left it largely untouched.

I stayed in Zurich for just a day before setting out again—this time toward Rome.

Rome, the capital of Italy, seemed to breathe history at every step. Its past stretched deep into antiquity. There was a time when the Roman Empire stood as one of the greatest powers the world had known, extending from Britain across the Mediterranean to the edges of West Asia.

Rome is counted among the most ancient cities on earth. It is said to have been founded in 753 BCE, and with its origins comes a legend—one both strange and enduring. Two twin brothers, Romulus and Remus, were, according to lore, nurtured by a she-wolf who fed them with her own milk. In time, a quarrel arose between the brothers, and Romulus killed Remus. The city he founded thereafter came to bear his name—Rome.

The history of Rome unfolded in many forms: it began as a monarchy, transformed into a republic, later came under the rule of the Popes, returned again to monarchy, and eventually became a republic once more. Its story, like the city itself, is layered, dramatic, and endlessly fascinating.

From the first century, Christianity found its way into Rome. Saint Peter, one of the foremost disciples of Jesus Christ, is regarded as among the earliest preachers of the faith, and tradition holds that he too was martyred. After him, through the passage of centuries, a succession of Popes carried forward the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church.

Within Rome itself lies a distinct and remarkable entity—the Vatican City. It is the residence of the Pope and the spiritual centre of Roman Catholicism. Though enclosed within Rome, it stands as an independent state, and like Switzerland, it maintained neutrality during both World Wars. During my visit to Rome, I made it a point to see this sacred enclave.

The most imposing structure there was St. Peter’s Basilica—a vast and awe-inspiring church that seemed to embody centuries of faith and devotion. Equally captivating was the Sistine Chapel, whose ceiling is adorned with masterpieces by the great artist Michelangelo. Standing beneath those paintings, I felt a quiet sense of wonder, as though art and divinity had merged into one.

In the history of the world, two names stand out as champions of freedom and republican ideals—Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi. They were inspirations not only for Italy but also for many Indian freedom fighters. Though the republic they envisioned did not endure for long, their efforts eventually led to the end of papal rule and the unification of Italy under a monarchy, which lasted until 1922. Thereafter came the era of Benito Mussolini and fascist rule; and after the Second World War, Italy finally emerged as a republic—a system that continues to this day.

Rome is also famed for its fountains—countless works of art in flowing water, built over nearly two thousand years. Wherever one walks in the city, one encounters these graceful structures. The city is equally rich in historical monuments: the ancient Colosseum, the timeless Pantheon, the broad Spanish Steps, and the many sculptures and paintings associated with masters like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. The Vatican Museums, too, draw countless visitors from across the world.

Rome has long been called the “Eternal City”—a name that feels less like a title and more like a quiet acknowledgment of time itself. Through cycles of rise and fall, glory and ruin, the city has endured, carrying its past within its present. In that sense, I could not help but think of Varanasi—or Kashi in India—another ancient soul that has survived the ages with an unbroken continuity.

In its earliest days, Rome was ruled by a succession of seven kings, one after another. Then came the birth of the Republic, and governance passed into the hands of a Senate—an institution whose echo we still hear in modern democracies. The very word “Senate” travelled across time and continents, finding place in systems like that of the United States Congress, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as in the parliamentary traditions of United Kingdom and India, with their respective upper and lower houses.

In Rome, however, the Senate was once the singular centre of authority, and from its ranks emerged powerful dictators—figures entrusted with absolute authority in times of crisis. Among them, Julius Caesar stands preeminent. His life and death were immortalized by William Shakespeare in the play Julius Caesar, and later revisited by George Bernard Shaw in Caesar and Cleopatra.

The Roman Republic itself took shape around 510 BCE. Interestingly, around the time of Gautama Buddha, India too had republican states—Vaishali being one of the most notable, governed by the Licchavis.

Then, in 27 BCE, power took another decisive turn. Augustus—also known as Octavian—rose to authority through the Senate and declared Rome an empire. Under him, the vast dominion of Rome expanded and, in time, came to be divided into the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. The eastern capital, Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), would go on to become one of the great cities of history in its own right.

During the reign of Augustus, the Roman Empire reached extraordinary heights, stretching across much of Western Europe. He was not merely a ruler but a patron of culture—supporting art, sculpture, and music. His court was adorned by great minds, among them the poet Virgil, whose Latin works continue to be celebrated.

Latin itself, like Sanskrit in India, is an ancient and foundational language. From it have flowed many modern tongues—English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and others—each carrying faint echoes of that old Roman voice.

Before arriving in Rome, I had heard a caution—one must be careful, or one might easily be deceived. I had my own small lesson in this.

One afternoon, I stepped into a restaurant and ordered a thick vegetable soup. It was hearty and satisfying. Like in Paris, many restaurants in Rome spill out onto the streets, with tables and chairs arranged outside. I sat there, quietly enjoying my meal, when an Indian lady approached. She was from Bombay—a Parsi—and, noticing me, paused as if recognizing a familiar presence in a foreign land.

Watching me eat, she remarked gently, “You may be overcharged.”

And indeed, I was. The restaurant billed me five pounds for the soup—an amount far beyond its worth in those days, when even one or one-and-a-half pounds would have been reasonable. It was a small deception, yet it stayed with me.

Later that evening, in another restaurant, I encountered something entirely different. The owner, upon learning that I was from India, asked with a certain warmth, “You come from the land of Mahatma Gandhi?”

He spoke of Gandhi with deep reverence. “When my father died, I did not cry,” he said, “but when Gandhi died, I wept.”

I was struck by the contrast—here, in a distant Roman eatery, stood a man whose life had never touched India, yet whose heart had been moved by Gandhi. It reminded me how far the influence of a great soul can travel—beyond borders, beyond language, into the quiet corners of human feeling. When Gandhi passed, it seemed, the world itself had paused in grief.

Rome, in its own way, continues to remain connected to the wider world. It serves as the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization, just as Geneva houses the International Labour Organization, and Paris hosts institutions like UNICEF. In these cities, history and modern purpose seem to meet—quietly shaping the world, even today.

I stayed in Rome for three days, and each day I walked nearly twenty to twenty-five kilometres, exploring these places on foot. I did not use any vehicle, for I have always believed that a city reveals itself best to those who walk through it.

A curious incident from those days often returns to my mind. When I was a Member of Parliament, Jagjivan Ram was serving as the Union Minister for Food and Agriculture. He had travelled to Rome to attend an international conference related to his department.

After his return, the matter came up in Parliament. From the benches of the Utkal Congress, Surendra Mohanty, the Lok Sabha member from Kendrapara, raised a calling-attention motion and began criticising the visit. Jagjivan Babu, with a touch of wit, replied, “I am not quite sure whether the honourable member is speaking about Rome or rum.”

The remark drew laughter, for Surendra Babu—celebrated writer though he was—was also widely known for his fondness for drink. During the Kendrapara elections, a popular slogan had even circulated: “Surendra, Surendra in Kendrapara—one a socialist, one for hire.”

In the 1971 Lok Sabha elections, the contest in Kendrapara had been particularly close. Surendra Nath Dwivedy of the Praja Socialist Party and Surendra Mohanty of the Utkal Congress stood against each other. In the end, Mohanty won—by the narrowest of margins, a single vote. Such was the drama of democracy.

From Rome, my journey next took me to Cairo, then the capital of the United Arab Republic (Egypt). At that time, the country was led by Gamal Abdel Nasser—a towering figure in the Arab world, regarded by many as a liberator and a voice of dignity for his people.

Nasser was also a close friend of Jawaharlal Nehru. Along with Josip Broz Tito, the three of them stood at the forefront of the Non-Aligned Movement, guiding newly independent nations through the uncertain currents of the Cold War.

What struck me most about Nasser was not merely his stature, but his simplicity. Despite being President, he lived in a modest two-storeyed house, leading the life of an ordinary, disciplined, and devout man.

I had long been drawn to Cairo—not only because of Nasser and his revolution, but also because of the ancient pyramids. As fate would have it, the day before my visit, the anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution was being celebrated—a reminder of the country’s transition from monarchy to republic.

I stayed in Cairo for two days, determined to see the pyramids. When I asked the hotel manager how best to get there, he arranged a guide for me, advising that we settle the charges beforehand. A camel was hired, and I set out—riding across the sands—toward one of the world’s most enduring wonders.

Soon, I stood before the Giza Pyramid Complex—those immense triangular structures rising out of the desert like frozen time itself. Among them, the Great Pyramid of Giza remains the most renowned, a monument not just of architecture but of human ambition.

Egypt’s history stretches back into a past so distant that it almost feels mythical—thousands upon thousands of years before Christ. The Pharaohs, anticipating death, built these pyramids as their tombs. Within them, their bodies were preserved with remarkable care—wrapped in layers of cloth and treated with substances that allowed them to endure across millennia.

Many such tombs have since been excavated, revealing mummified remains still intact, silent witnesses to a vanished age. Yet, alongside history, there lingers legend: it is said that those who disturb these resting places invite misfortune—even untimely death. And, strangely enough, there have been occasions when such stories seemed to find unsettling echoes in reality.

Standing there, before those ancient stones, I felt both awe and unease—as if I had stepped, briefly, into the deep and watchful memory of civilization itself.

Returning from the pyramids of Giza, I stood by the window of my hotel and let my eyes rest upon the quiet, flowing beauty of the Nile. It struck me then how often the English, in their time, had altered the names of cities and rivers across the world. The Nile, for instance, they had called “Nile”, while its truer name, as my guide gently corrected me, was simply Neel—the blue river.

When I mentioned the “Nile,” my guide smiled and asked why I used that word at all. “That is an English distortion,” he said. “Its real name is Neel.” And indeed, as I looked at its waters, they seemed clear and faintly blue—much like the Ganga appears in Varanasi during the autumn months. Even the Ganga, he reminded me, had been turned into “Ganges” by the English.

The thought stayed with me. Names like Munger becoming “Monghyr,” Cuttack remaining “Cuttack,” Bhubaneswar once pronounced differently, Calcutta instead of Kolkata, Bombay instead of Mumbai—these were all echoes of a time when language itself had been reshaped by foreign tongues. Some places, like Kolkata and Mumbai, had since reclaimed their original identity, though others still lingered in their altered forms.

My guide frequently used a word—sabr—urging patience, asking me to wait. It was an Arabic word, one that had found its way into Urdu as well. There is a saying built around it: “Sabr ka phal meetha hota hai”—the fruit of patience is always sweet. In that distant land, the familiarity of such words felt strangely comforting.

My stay in Egypt lasted only two days, but within that short time, I visited another remarkable place—the old museum of Cairo. There, the grandeur of ancient Egyptian civilization unfolded before my eyes. Golden statues of the Pharaohs, intricate ornaments, and objects of daily use—all fashioned in gold—spoke of a culture both opulent and enduring.

Among the other notable places were the grand mosque of Muhammad Ali, with its vast domes and imposing structure, and Al-Azhar University, one of the greatest centres of Islamic learning in the world. It was here, I was told, that Maulana Abul Kalam Azad had once studied.

At one point, my guide led me through a narrow lane, famous for Egyptian attar—perfumed oils known for their rich fragrance. “One must buy some attar when visiting Cairo,” he insisted. I obliged, though it seemed to me that, like many guides, he was not entirely free from a touch of commerce.

Two days later, I left Cairo and returned to India via Mumbai, carrying with me memories of an ancient land where history seemed to breathe through every stone and street.

The following year, another journey beckoned. An invitation arrived from the Ford Foundation, under the auspices of the United States government—a two-month visit to America.

About the Book:

From the Translator’s Note

An Unfinished Memoir (Asamapta Atmalipi) by Janaki Ballav Patnaik is more than the recollections of a public figure. It is also a record of the political, social and cultural changes that shaped Odisha and, in many ways, modern India. The memoir takes us through different stages of his life—from childhood and education to journalism, public life and politics. Along the way, we meet the people who influenced him and encounter events that left their mark on the Odisha of his time. The book is valuable not only for its account of public events but also for its glimpses of everyday life. Patnaik writes about teachers, friends, colleagues, political associates and ordinary people, often beginning with a small personal memory and moving towards a larger reflection. This movement between the personal and the public gives the memoir much of its character.

My primary aim in translating the memoir from Odia into English has been to remain faithful to the original while preserving the author’s voice. A translation should convey

more than the literal meaning of words. It should also carry the tone, mood and character of the original. I have therefore tried to retain the simple and reflective quality of Patnaik’s writing, particularly in passages dealing with people, places and memories from his younger years.

Translating a work rooted in Odisha’s language and culture presents its own challenges. Many Odia expressions, idioms and references do not have exact equivalents in English. This is especially true of words associated with local customs, festivals, social practices and everyday life. Where a literal translation seemed inadequate, I have tried to convey the sense and spirit of the original. Certain words, names and cultural references have been retained because translating them would have diminished their flavour or meaning.

I have also tried to preserve the historical character of the memoir. Some political terms, institutional references and descriptions belong to an earlier period of Indian public life. Rather than unnecessarily modernising the language, I have sought to make these passages clear while retaining their original context.

The title Asamapta Atmalipi itself is significant. It suggests a record of the self that remains unfinished. The memoir was left incomplete, and that incompleteness is part of its character. It does not present a neatly concluded life story. Instead, it offers fragments of a long journey—memories, encounters, experiences and reflections that together provide a picture of both the man and his times.

For readers familiar with Janaki Ballav Patnaik, the memoir may bring back memories of an important period in Odisha’s public life. For younger readers, it offers an opportunity to see that period through the eyes of someone who lived through and participated in many of its developments. For readers outside Odisha, it provides an introduction to a political and cultural world that deserves wider attention. No translation can reproduce every shade of another language. There will always be expressions, associations and rhythms that resist being carried across. My effort has simply been to build a bridge between the Odia original and the English reader, without coming between the author and his readers. I hope this translation will allow a wider readership to discover Janaki Ballav Patnaik not only as a political leader, but also as a journalist, observer, traveller and chronicler of his times—and to encounter, through his unfinished memoir, a part of Odisha’s own journey.

About the Author

Janaki Ballav Patnaik (1927-2015) lived in many worlds at once—politics, literature, journalism, and public life. For more than five decades, he remained close to some of the defining events and personalities of post-Independence Odisha, while pursuing a parallel life of books, ideas, and language. ‘An Unfinished Memoir’ is an attempt to look back on that journey. From his childhood and student years to his early political awakening and long career in public life, the memoir brings together people, places and encounters that shaped him.

Unlike a conventional autobiography, this is a personal narrative—insightful, candid and observant of the world around him. It offers glimpses of the making of a public figure while revealing the writer, scholar and observer behind the politician. It is at once a record of a remarkable life and a window into an important period in the history of Odisha and India.

Part memoir, part history and part reflection, the memoir is a cherished account of a life lived in public.

About the Translator

Bhaskar Parichha is a journalist and author based in Bhubaneswar, with a professional career spanning over three decades. He writes in both English and Odia on politics, society, people, and culture. His work reflects sustained engagement with Odisha’s heritage and its contemporary transformations. An incisive observer of public life, he has authored nine books. Through his journalism and writing, he continues to chronicle the evolving story of Odisha and its place within a rapidly changing India.

[1] Democracy

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Essay

Ozymandias Syndrome and the Illusion of Permanence

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date May 14, 2026
No Comments on Ozymandias Syndrome and the Illusion of Permanence

By Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan


I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said, “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

By Percy Shelley, 'Ozymandias', 1819 edition

The real world spark for Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” wasn’t purely poetic imagination but it was archaeological gossip with excellent comedic timing. In 1816, news reached England that a colossal granite bust of Ramesses II, often referred to as the Younger Memnon, (aka Ozymandias by the Greeks) had been unearthed in Egypt and was on its way to London. The statue was enormous, ancient, and very much not intact. Broken, battered, and missing key pieces, it arrived less like a triumphant relic and more like history’s version of a “before” photo gone permanently unanswered. Shelley, never one to miss an opportunity for philosophical irony, saw exactly where this was going.

Ramesses II, after all, was not a man known for moderation. His titles alone read like a LinkedIn profile written without character limits. One of them, “King of Kings”, was inscribed on the pedestal of the very statue now showing up in London looking like it had lost an argument with time itself. Shelley translated that title straight into the poem, ensuring that Ozymandias’s voice would echo loudly, right before being undercut completely.

At its core, “Ozymandias” is what happens when an ancient ruler commissions the Bronze Age equivalent of a massive Instagram flex, and time responds by absolutely ratioing it.

The poem opens with a traveller recounting what sounds suspiciously like the least glamorous vacation slideshow imaginable. Instead of sunsets or souvenirs, we’re given ruins in a desert. Not even dignified ruins, either, just two giant legs standing awkwardly in the sand and a shattered face lying nearby. This is not the kind of monument that inspires awe so much as mild concern. If this were a modern tourist site, it would come with a plaque reading: “Formerly Impressive. Please Use Imagination.”

And then comes the inscription, which is where the satire really starts to stretch its legs. Ozymandias doesn’t simply claim power, but he declares himself the King of Kings and commands all who pass to look upon his works and despair. It’s bold. It’s confident. It is, as history clearly demonstrates, wildly optimistic.

Because immediately after this declaration of unmatched greatness, the poem delivers its deadpan punchline, “Nothing beside remains.” That’s it. No empire. No cities. No loyal subjects live tweeting his victories. Just sand. Vast, flat, indifferent sand. It’s as if time paused, reread the inscription, raised an eyebrow, and quietly erased everything else.

The statue’s physical condition doesn’t help his case. The face, half buried, cracked, and broken, still carries what Shelley calls a “sneer of cold command.” This suggests that even in ruin, Ozymandias managed to retain the personality of someone who would have been exhausting to follow online. You can practically imagine him posting daily declarations of greatness with comments disabled. His empire didn’t last, but his bad attitude, preserved in granite, somehow did. It’s the archaeological equivalent of a fossilized ego.

What makes the whole thing even more amazing is the sheer effort that went into creating this monument. This wasn’t a casual side project. Designers planned it. Sculptors carved it. Workers hauled it across landscapes to place it somewhere appropriately dramatic. Years of labour went into capturing Ozymandias in his full “behold my glory” aesthetic. And now, centuries later, it’s a broken art installation in the world’s largest sandbox. If monuments received annual evaluations, this one would read, “Strong initial impact. Failed long-term objectives.”

Shelley’s point isn’t just that power fades, it’s that Ozymandias genuinely believed he’d outsmarted mortality. Death might come, sure, but his legacy would remain forever, intimidating future generations into awe. Instead, his message survives only because it’s so spectacularly wrong. Readers don’t despair when they see his works, they experience second hand embarrassment on his behalf. His warning to rivals has become a warning to himself.

The setting seals the joke. The “lone and level sands” contain nothing else, no ruins of cities, no remnants of civilisation. Nature has gone full minimalist, stripping the scene down to its most brutal contrast. Against that emptiness, Ozymandias’s claims look less commanding and more delusional. The silence delivers the verdict more effectively than any narrator could.

Of course, Shelley isn’t just mocking one long dead Pharaoh. Ozymandias stands in for every leader who confused dominance with permanence. History is full of people who built monuments, declared themselves irreplaceable, and assumed the future would be impressed. The future, as it turns out, is rarely in the mood.

Even Ramesses II himself, arguably one of Egypt’s most powerful and accomplished Pharaohs, could not escape this irony. His statues were propaganda tools, meant to scream greatness across centuries. When one finally arrived in London, broken and incomplete, it did exactly that but not in the way he intended.

‘Ozymandias’ in that sense, isn’t just a warning about fading power, it’s a satire about how absurd unchecked confidence looks once time has had a say. The king who demanded despair now inspires reflection, humour, and a gentle reminder that the louder the boast, the quieter its echo tends to be.

Time doesn’t argue. It waits. And then it lets the ruins speak.

In the 19^th century, Benito Mussolini fancied himself less a man and more a monument, preferably one carved in marble, chest thrust forward, chin angled eternally toward destiny (or at least a flattering light source). In his own imagination, he was the sequel to Rome, not a mere politician, but a reboot of empire, complete with dramatic speeches, synchronised salutes, and an alarming number of uniforms for someone who never quite won a war.

He spoke often of glory, of legions, of history bending obligingly in his direction. If Julius Caesar had crossed the Rubicon River, Mussolini would cross the street, provided there were cameras. His Italy would be disciplined, resplendent, and feared. Trains would run on time, crowds would roar on cue, and maps would gradually recolour themselves in reassuring shades of “Italian ambition.”

But there is something endearingly fragile about men who compare themselves to eternity. They tend to forget that eternity has a long memory and a sharp sense of irony.

Like the boastful Ozymandias in the poem with the shattered statue in the desert, Mussolini constructed not just a regime, but a self-image meant to outlast sand, wind, and inconvenient facts. He posed, proclaimed, and postured his way into history, convinced that future generations would gaze upon his legacy and tremble appropriately.

Instead, history did what it does best, it waited.

The Round Colosseum originally built in 80CE

Because while Mussolini was busy reenacting Rome, the world had moved on to more modern catastrophes. His empire turned out to be less of a Colosseum, more cardboard set, impressive from a distance, but distressingly flimsy up close. Military campaigns faltered, alliances shifted, and the grand narrative began to fray like a cheap banner left out in the rain.

And then came the collapse, swift, humiliating, and utterly indifferent to his carefully rehearsed grandeur. The man who styled himself as Il Duce (The Leader), the infallible leader, found that infallibility has a very short shelf life when reality intervenes. Statues, literal and metaphorical, do not crumble all at once. First, a crack. Then another. Then, suddenly, the whole thing looks less like a monument and more like debris.

In the end, Mussolini’s legacy resembles that broken colossus in the sand, a once imposing figure reduced to fragments, surrounded not by awe, but by a kind of puzzled silence. The grand declarations echo faintly, like lines from a play no one remembers attending. “Look on my works,” he might have said, but history, squinting into the distance, struggles to find anything intact enough to admire.

What remains is not the empire he promised, but the cautionary tale he became. A reminder that self-mythology is a risky business, especially when you start believing your own press releases. The louder the proclamation of greatness, the more satisfying the eventual deflation.

And so, Mussolini endures, not as the architect of a new Rome, but as a rather theatrical footnote to its long shadow. A man who aimed for immortality and achieved, instead, a kind of poetic symmetry, the bigger the statue, the more dramatic the ruin.

Then in 21^st century, Trump arrived, as not so much as a politician but as a brand, capital letters implied, gilded edges included. His name was already stamped across towers, steaks, ties, and the general concept of self-confidence. When he entered politics, it seemed less like a campaign and more like a licensing deal with history.

Here, at last, was a figure who understood that power, in the modern age, is as much about spectacle as substance. Why simply govern when you can perform governance? Why speak when you can proclaim? Why build policy when you can build a persona so large it requires its own skyline?

Like the monarch in that well-worn desert poem, he projected an image of immovability. His words carried that same tone of “cold command”, a conviction that reality itself ought to rearrange in response to his declarations. Critics were dismissed, facts negotiated with, and complexities flattened into slogans sturdy enough to fit on a hat.

He cultivated loyalty not just as support, but as devotion. Crowds gathered, slogans echoed, and the line between leader and legend blurred in the heat of repetition. There were rallies that felt less like civic exercises and more like episodes in an ongoing series, complete with catchphrases and recurring villains. The message was clear, this was not merely a presidency, it was an era, a brand extension into the realm of destiny.

And then there were the monuments. Not carved in desert stone, perhaps, but etched into skylines, social media feeds, and the collective consciousness. Towers bearing his almost spoken name stood as vertical declarations of success. Each structure seemed to say, “Look on these works,” though one suspects the subtext was “preferably from a flattering angle.”

But the thing about monuments, whether sandstone colossi or glass and steel high rises, is that they depend heavily on perspective. From up close, they can appear overwhelming, permanent, inevitable. From a distance, or with time, they shrink into context. The desert, metaphorical or otherwise, has a way of reclaiming narrative.

History, as always, proved to be an uncooperative audience. The seemingly untouchable aura began to flicker, then waver, then, most inconveniently, invite scrutiny. The voice that once filled arenas began to echo differently, as though the acoustics had changed. What once sounded like certainty started to resemble insistence.

And here the comparison to that shattered statue becomes irresistible. Not because everything vanishes, far from it, but because what remains is oddly disjointed. Fragments endure, phrases, images, impressions. A pedestal without its full figure. A face remembered more for its expression than its achievements.

The lesson, if there is one (and satire insists there must be), is that power built on projection is particularly susceptible to erosion. The louder the declaration of permanence, the more history seems to take it as a challenge. “Observe my greatness,” says the ruler. “Give it a moment,” replies time.

In the end, the figure who once seemed larger than the system becomes part of it, filed, debated, reinterpreted. The monuments still stand, of course, but their meaning shifts. What was once awe inspiring becomes, with enough distance, a curiosity. A relic of a moment when personality tried to outpace permanence, and, like that ancient king in the sand, discovered that time is the harsher critic. Perhaps his current antic in the Middle East could be his “Waterloo”.

If Ozymandias had taken a brief detour eastward say, a spiritual exchange programme before commissioning that ill-fated statue, he might have found in the Mahabharata a rather comprehensive warning label, “Caution, ego may appear permanent but is, in fact, highly perishable”.

Because if there is one text that understands the fine art of watching powerful men dramatically overestimate their shelf life, it is this sprawling epic of dynasties, destinies, and deeply committed bad decisions.

Take Duryodhana, for instance. Here was a man who didn’t just believe the kingdom was his, he believed the universe had personally notarized the claim. If Ozymandias carved “King of Kings” into stone, Duryodhana essentially carved “Mine” into an entire map and dared anyone to bring an eraser.

Like our desert bound statue enthusiast (and certain more modern figures with a fondness for branding), Duryodhana cultivated loyalty that blurred into devotion. Courts were filled with nodding allies, affirming uncles, and the occasional voice of reason that was quickly ignored for disrupting the aesthetic. After all, nothing ruins a good narrative of invincibility like someone pointing out reality.

Enter Krishna, who might best be described as the epic’s version of a calm, cosmic fact-checker. While others delivered speeches, Krishna delivered perspective, the kind that gently suggests, “Perhaps don’t build your identity entirely on winning at all costs.” This advice, naturally, was received with all the enthusiasm of a terms and conditions agreement.

And so, like a man commissioning a statue taller than his own foresight, Duryodhana doubled down. The result? The Kurukshetra War, an event so catastrophic it makes Ozymandias’s lonely desert look like a minimalist art choice rather than the aftermath of total collapse.

What’s particularly Ozymandian about the whole affair is not just the fall, but the confidence before the fall. Duryodhana walked into the war convinced of his permanence. His power was vast, his allies numerous, his rhetoric polished to a fine sheen of inevitability. If he had a pedestal, it would absolutely have read, “Look on my armies, ye Mighty, and reconsider.”

History (or epic poetry, which is history with better dialogue) responded in its usual way, by waiting.

Because just as the sands eventually reclaim the boastful statue, the battlefield of Kurukshetra quietly dismantled every assumption of permanence. One by one, the pillars of Duryodhana’s certainty collapsed. Not all at once, never all at once but enough to turn confidence into something far less photogenic.

By the end, what remains is strikingly familiar, not the empire he imagined, but the lesson he unintentionally authored. Much like Ozymandias, Duryodhana’s greatest legacy is not his power, but the spectacular mismatch between his expectations and reality.

Meanwhile, characters like Yudhishthira, hardly perfect, occasionally indecisive, and significantly less interested in self-branding, endure in a different way. Not as towering monuments, but as complicated, human figures who understood (sometimes too late) that power without humility is just a very elaborate countdown.

The Mahabharata, then, reads like a long form satire of the Ozymandias Syndrome, the irresistible urge to declare oneself permanent in a universe that specialises in editing such claims down to footnotes.

So, if there is a lesson worth carrying forward, it is not about avoiding ambition, monuments, or even great struggles. It is about perspective. Before we carve our names into stone, raise towers toward the sky, or wager everything on a certainty, it is worth pausing to ask, how will this endure when seen from far away, at a distance measured not in kilometres, but in time?

Because time does not rush to correct us. Like Krishna, it does not need to raise its voice. It allows events to unfold, lets pride exhaust itself, and waits patiently for meaning to reveal itself. When the noise has faded and the dust has settled, what remains is not the spectacle of victory, but the quiet truth of what was built with wisdom, humility, and awareness. And that, more than triumph, is what lasts.

Ravi Varmman explores leadership, culture, and self-inquiry through a philosophical lens, weaving management insight with human experience to illuminate resilience, ethical living, and reflective growth in an ever shifting world today.

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Bibliography:

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ozymandias.”
The Poetry Foundation, Online, accessed 2026.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature
Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. D: The Romantic Period.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.

Ramesses II
Tyldesley, Joyce. Ramesses: Egypt’s Greatest Pharaoh.
London: Penguin Books, 2001.

Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt.
London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.

Younger Memnon
British Museum. “Colossal Bust of Ramesses II (Younger Memnon).”
London: British Museum Collection Online, accessed 2026.

Benito Mussolini
Bosworth, R. J. B. Mussolini.
London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2002.

Farrell, Nicholas. Mussolini: A New Life.
London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003.

Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism.
New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1951.

Donald Trump
Setoodeh, Ramin. Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass.
New York: HarperCollins, 2024.

Mahabharata
Debroy, Bibek, trans. The Mahabharata (10 vols.).
New Delhi: Penguin Random House India, 2010–2014.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are solely that of the author and not of Borderless Journal.

Review

Voices from Beyond

Book Review by Swagata Chatterjee

Title: Ekalavya Speaks

Author: Sanjukta Dasgupta

Publisher: Penprints

Poetry which goes beyond the boundaries of words and speaks for a greater cause calls for a captivating read. The lines become more significant when the verses address multiple socio-politico-cultural issues, aesthetically and without didacticism. Poet and academician Sanjukta Dasgupta’s latest book of poems Ekalavya Speaks is not merely a gathering of words, they rather, “[…] spread out their wings untiring/ And never rest in their flight” (Yeats) and attempt to hark at deaf ears and represent unheard voices. She is a strong voice for the otherized, marginalised sections raising issues from multiple spheres of life. Caste, gender, myth, history, pre-history, and technology all find space in her chosen selection of poems. The very last lines of the first poem, ‘Accident of Birth’ says,

“No accident could be 
More catastrophic than
The accident of birth, alas.”

This sets the tone of the whole collection, bringing out the angst of not one voice or one poet but an entire nation. The poet is a strong voice, at times ironic as she says in her titular poem ‘Ekalavya Speaks’-

“The Sun also Rises for us
 I may claim your thumb some day.”

These lines are from Dronacharya, the tutor of the royal princes who asks his disciple to gift him his thumb after lopping it off as a fee to maintain his allegiance to the throne. Ekalavya, the tribal prince could not question the ‘guru’ in the Mahabharata, whereas the poet in the surreal space gives him the voice to speak for the treachery of the great guru. The guru reappears in the poem ‘Dronacharya: The Teacher of Princes’ where questions are thrown at the intentions of a biased guru who was “The glamourised bonded labour/ Leashed to the regal court.”

Her poem, ‘Kurukshetra-The Killing Field’, goes beyond the boundaries of territories and is akin to any war where lives are lost. At once Kurukshetra becomes the battleground of Ukraine or Gaza where humanity is killed every day. The crying mothers and wailing children are the same everywhere and they are representatives of the universal sorrow of pain and loss and how peace is a mere myth as “Peace was restored at the price/ of rivers of blood […]”. In fact, ‘In the Holy Land’, she talks of dying children and the toxic air of war-trodden Gaza; of the grief-ridden Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

In her greater narrative, Ekalavya and Karna unite to quest for justice, for a space in the mainstream, and for a better liberated world. In Dasgupta’s poetry, Ekalavya, Shambuka or Shikhandi are not figures from the great epics, they represent the backwards sections of society who perhaps after eons of silence they have now found the time to come out of death, saying– “ I rise from my ashes/ Resurrected!”

With Shikhandi, Draupadi’s brother in the Mahabharata, who was born a female and exchanged gender with a yaksha (nature spirit) for that of a male, Dasgupta brings in the suffering caused by gender identity. She sensitively writes about Oscar Wilde’s homosexuality in her poem ‘The Poet In Reading Gaol’. One’s sexual orientation can ironically be treated as a heinous crime. Heterogeny is also a kind of capitalism as the poet strongly urges and questions progressiveness and maligning of human rights.

In her earlier books Lakshmi Unbound, Sita’s Sisters, and Indomitable Draupadi. Dasgupta has primarily addressed the feminist question. Her latest includes poems like ‘Bapu’ and ’Manipur’. In ‘Bapu’, she talks about the rape of a 12-year-old child in the name of religion in India with sensitivity.

‘The Coffee Shop’ is an interesting and ironic poem. Dead leaders meet in a surreal space where neither murderer nor violence can touch them. They are ‘immortals’ and ‘martyrs’ and, now, are even invincible. It is utopian when Gandhi, Jesus, Martin Luther, and Julius Caesar meet each other. Religion and politics, peacemakers and warriors, all blend in a higher realm of understanding. The flavour of this poem is unique and different from the rest of the poems in the collection and yet thematically it stands out as a statement against violence and death. Death cannot bring an end to the ones whose deeds and ideals are immortal. The same can be said about another visionary poem, ‘Shakespeare and Kalidasa’.

In all the poems, the poet comes across as a strong, sensitive voice whose pen cuts across dogmas, blind faiths, violence and otherization. At the same time, she speaks for the cause of humanity. There are personal poems, like ‘I can’t breathe’; a brilliant poem describing psychological claustrophobia in a world where no peace or no prayers can end the suffering of souls. ‘The Exit’ or ‘Loss’ add richer gravity .

As a poet Dasgupta’s language is lucid and she draws her allusions and examples from the myths, from the past and the projected the future. She strongly voices her opinion. As an educator and as a responsible human being she becomes the voice of the many. Each poem unfolds a story to guides our way through obstructions, which are not physical but mental barriers from which one must liberate oneself. As I read her, I am reminded of a few lines by the great Urdu poet, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, who wrote:

Speak, your lips are free.
Speak, it is your own tongue.
Speak, it is your own body.
Speak, your life is still yours.

Swagata Chatterjee is an Assistant Professor of English at a state-aided college under Vidyasagar University. She is an academician and a keen reader.

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Stories

Arthur’s Subterranean Adventure

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date June 14, 2023
No Comments on Arthur’s Subterranean Adventure

By Paul Mirabile

Arthur was a secretive lad, a strapping boy of alcoves and copses, of coombs and chasms … of shadows. He had no friends nor at school, neither in the neighbourhood. His extraordinary imagination provided him all that he required to communicate with the marvels of the world.

It was early spring, and unseasonably warm. After school, Arthur would rush up to his room to examine, over and over again, maps of the world and his large globe, which he turned ever so slowly, scrutinizing all latitudes and longitudes. The sixteen-year-old boy had been brewing a remarkable idea for months, and now would be the time for that idea to take a definite form: Dig a tunnel from his village that would lead him diagonally to Australia! The idea had struck him like a lightning bolt. It seemed perfectly feasible as he spun that globe round and round. He would have to tunnel southwards to the asthenosphere[1], then veer eastwards. It would take a year… No! Perhaps years. But it could be done…

For now, however, certain preliminaries had to be dispensed with: locating the exact place to start digging without being seen, concealing the tools, the ladder, the dug up dirt. Yes, it was quite a lofty programme that required organisation and determination.

He looked beyond the meadow from his upstairs room window, over the rye fields and into the thick woods where hidden in the thickets lay a seventeenth century cemetery into which no one ever ventured. That would be the perfect location to start his tunnel. His father had all that he needed; that is, a pickaxe, a shovel and a bucket. As to the dirt, he would just scatter that about the woods or fill in the plots that had long since sunken deep with their fallen, crumbling tombstones. Arthur wasn’t afraid of the dead, nor of their ghosts.

To put his journey into action he needed time, and above all, the utmost secrecy. No one must guess his intentions, especially not his parents. On Monday after school, Arthur went out on reconnaissance. He changed his clothes and trotted into the woods beyond the meadow. In the abandoned cemetery, he began searching for a place to dig. He strolled in and out of the tombstones amusing himself by reading the epitaphs on the cracked tombs, most of them having been written in Latin. Huge, yawning holes filled with weeds and yellow grass could be possible candidates for the digging, but … Arthur stopped dead in his tracks.

Behind a copse of sycamores and weeping willows, he spied out a low stone structure that appeared to be an old, village well. And indeed it was! He had never seen it before. A well rigged out with a rusting hand crank and bucket to boot. When he bent over the coping, he noted that iron rungs ran down the mossy side of it which, undoubtedly, served as a ladder. The coping had been broken on two sides, but there seemed no danger of it further crumbling. He peeked down, the bottom appeared dry. Arthur drew back in great excitement, for if the well were deep enough, how much time and energy he could save ! This was surely a good omen. Still, he would need to climb down with a torch to inspect the bottom. Arthur cringed at the thought of rats or other rodents of the subterranean world. He would just have to muster all the courage he possessed. He felt like dancing. And indeed he did, in and out of the sinking tombstones. What a wonderful beginning to his adventure, to his voyage to the centre of the Earth … and beyond to the lands of kangaroos and koala bears.

The adventurer wasted not a moment. The next day, and the many more that followed, after school he would change, pack a clean shirt and trousers, gloves and sneakers in a backpack so that after his digging he could change his boots and work clothes before returning home. He hid the pickaxe and small shovel in the woods near the well, knowing perfectly well that his father, a rather absent-minded man, would never miss them. In fact, his father never had any need for them since he used the tools at the construction site.

As Arthur thought, the iron rungs proved to be sturdy. Equipped with his helmet, onto which he had strapped a torch, he descended into the well, mindful not to touch the moss or slime. At first, the horrible stench of rats or of their urine caused him to retch, but he got used to that.

The bottom, clayey, showed no signs of water, so he inspected the fractured stones of the sides following the needle of his compass, which slowly swung to a south-easterly direction, and there broke through the stone easy enough, picking and shovelling away the earth. Every half-hour or so he would fill the well-bucket, climb the rungs and pull it up with the hand crank. It was laboriously boring and tiresome work but better than carrying that bucket up and down those rungs.

Day after day, month after month, alone in his underground solitude, Arthur banged away at the brittle earth, carving out a tunnel into which he could easily crawl until seven o’clock in the evening. To tell the truth, the going was easier than expected. He would leave the tools in the tunnel (who would ever find them?), climb up, change into his ‘dinner clothes’ and return home, where his parents would be preparing their meal. He would run upstairs, jump into the shower (his fingernails were black with soil) and saunter down to join them at the table. The usual conversation ensued: How was school ? Where had he been the whole afternoon ? Had he any homework … and so on and so forth.

Everyday Arthur trained his mind and body to adopt to this new adventure, however arduous and lonely. His body grew leaner and muscular, his face taunt. His parents admired their son, who seemed to be in brighter spirits the past few months, more pleasant at the dining table, more affectionate, too, in the evening while chatting. His gradual metamorphosis truly surprised them, although his father couldn’t quite understand why the bright summer sunshine hadn’t tanned his son’s manly face ! But being a discreet father he never enquired about this unusual pallor.

After seven months of tunnelling, Arthur observed that the underworld temperature had risen considerably. His breathing grew erratic, oftentimes accompanied by bouts of coughing, even retching. Was he still in the Earth’s lithosphere, some forty-five miles thick ? The increase in the pressure and density of the air worked its way into and through his aching muscles and bones. His mind drifted to the upper world: the singing birds, the blue skies when it wasn’t raining, the fresh, cool breezes … Here, in the underworld all he heard were the screeching of rats and at times a deep, rumbling sound, hollow, unidentifiable.

One day as he toiled with much difficulty, hammering through a layer of granite, he discovered a coin. It was a two pence with the effigy of a queen, and on the reverse side a plume of ostrich feathers with a coronet. He smiled. It was his first underworld gratification. He would investigate the origins of his find more closely when back in his room. Which he did with much zeal. Arthur learned from a numismatic entry in his encyclopaedia that this coin dated from the 1970s, composed of bronze, copper and zinc. The head was that of Queen Elizabeth the Second. He placed his prize delicately in a box, hiding it in a secret place lest his parents, by chance, should discover it.

As the Autumn months slid by, the whirling leaves had no effect on Arthur as he tunnelled and tunnelled, deeper and deeper, always in an easterly direction. And as he did, he discovered coins of the most extraordinary mint : A very rare 1937 Edward the Seventh brass three pence, three hammered coins from the seventeenth or fifteenth century called ‘Limas‘, during the reign of George the Second, two ‘Groats‘ from the fifteenth century from which Henry the Seventh gleamed perfectly visible. His box grew heavier and heavier with these extracted treasures whose wealth must have been estimable. Arthur’s excitement reached an apex when he scraped out of the extracted earth two imported coins of Frankish mint, a denier[2] and a sou[3]. Three days later, he added to his precious hoard a ‘Gold Slater’ whose effigy of Julius Caesar left him breathless.

Dreams of reaching the centre of the Earth visited his restless sleep every night now. He dreamed of encountering dwarves mining for gold, clinging to the walls of gigantic shafts tapping and hammering away. He dreamed of boring into enormous chambers glittering with sunny gems or sprouting with enormous mushrooms. One night he found himself on a deserted strand gasping at a vast ocean, out of whose fuming, stilled waters huge reptiles swam, whilst others lay bathing on the sunless sands. He would awake in a cold sweat. He had been reading too much of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

Winter. Arthur crunched over a frosty bed of snow ‘back to work’. The weather had become terribly cold in the ‘upperworld’, whereas in the ‘lowerworld’, Arthur’s world, temperatures had become almost unbearable. How deep had he dug ? The outer crust of the Earth measured some 3,400 miles. His digging, shovelling, climbing up and down the rungs had become so laborious. At times he lay down flat on his belly in the damp tunnel and sobbed. Arthur reckoned that it would take years and years of unending toil to reach the centre of the Earth like his Jules Verne hero, much less the lands of kangaroos and koala bears. His spirits brightened, though, when he dug up three ‘Henistbury Head’ coins dating from 150 B.C., no doubt imported from Roman Gaul. They had been in circulation in England since the times of the Keltic tribes living in Dorset and Somerset, so he learned from a numismatic magazine he had recently purchased. In spite of this cheery event, the days went by rather drearily.

Then the miracle occurred! Banging away listlessly into the bleak and black airless universe in which he was engulfed, his shovel broke through a thin layer of sand sediment which tumbled into a pocket of emptiness. Arthur carved out a hole large enough to crawl through and lo and behold he found himself in a tunnel; a vast tunnel high enough to stand in, wide enough for two, even three men to walk abreast ! It must be a miner’s tunnel– he thought, and with a burst of fatigued emotion, leapt for joy. A miracle! A miracle!

How many miles would he gain? How many extracted buckets saved? How much energy economized? He could now walk, even trot if he felt so inclined. And the tunnel led downwards, deeper and deeper into the Earth. He checked his compass, not only deeper to the South, but also veering to the East. The work had been done for him.

Arthur checked his watch ; he still had an hour or two, although with Winter, night fell early. None the less, he had to explore this miracle a bit more before crawling back to the well. Which he did, jogging along, leaping now and then, inspecting the wooden framework of the tunnel, rotting here, split there, but still solid. He stopped in his tracks : At his feet lay a yellowing, rat pellet-filled newspaper : “The Dundee Evening Telegraph?” he queried aloud. Odd, there was no echo here. He shouted. Nothing. Shrugging his shoulders, he picked up the paper and put it in his backpack to be examined once in his room. He spun on his heels and hurried back to the well: running, crawling and climbing.

As expected, his older sister came home for the Christmas holidays from university. Arthur was jolly glad to see her but said nothing of his subterranean adventure. That must never be revealed to anyone, even to his sister whom he loved very much, and in whom he had always confided his most intimate secrets. He chose to take a rest for that week; he had earned a bit of a holiday, and after all, the miners’ tunnel would save him days, even months of labour. That night when alone, he checked the newspaper found in the tunnel: 1934. Incredible. A miner must have packed his lunch in it.

When the festivities had ended and his sister had departed Arthur returned to his timeless underworld. The mine was longer than he imagined. He walked on and on and on, descending ever deeper, the heat oppressing him, compressing him. He laughed nervously: Would he stumble upon Smeagol or Gollum frantically searching for his ‘precious’ (ring), or Bilbo Baggins the Hobbit, he, frantically searching for a way out of his underworld impasse? Or a dragon’s lair, where the hoary creature lay upon its hoard of gold? At times he swore he heard the gnomic chanting of bearded dwarves, their rhyming tunes. He laughed and laughed at these imagined airs. Was he to become a dwarf, too … Or a Hobbit, lost in the dark, inventing riddles?

The air became thinner and thinner, his head lighter and lighter. He laughed and laughed. His dreamy thoughts wandered to his parents, completely unaware of his underworld activities, to his teachers, who marvelled at his good scores in history, geography and natural science. He laughed and laughed. How many hours at night had he pored over the history of his treasured coins, their minting and circulation? How many hours had he studied the layers of the Earth, its rock formations? He had scored the highest marks in his class! His parents were so proud of him, a bit sceptical at first, but none the less, proud. They had always favoured his sister, indeed highly intelligent, more intelligent than him. Perhaps they would now consider him ‘university material’ like his sister. Perhaps. But who really cared! And he laughed and laughed as he walked and trotted.

He must have reached the asthenosphere at this time because seams of sand sediment, roan red, broke through the rotting frame beams as he trained his torchlight on them. Yet, according to his research this meant that the temperatures would be ranging at 900 degrees ! Impossible. It was the last layer, some 250 miles wide and 1, 700 miles from the Earth’s crust. Could he have come that far into Mother Earth ? He shuddered at the thought and broke out into peals of hysterical laughter. So much laughter that he began to cry. Hot tears rolled abundantly down his dirty, hairless cheeks. He heard the plump-bellied rats screech around him and covered his ears.

Arthur walked on and on in sluggish footfalls imagining himself in Australia without having had to fly or sail. His head spun, and as it did frightful images of underworld creatures passed before his puffy, red eyes. Breathing had become a toilsome effort, whilst his heart beat at rapid paces. Suddenly Arthur’s torchlight fell upon a mass of rock. The tunnel had come to an abrupt end!

He stood face to face with seams of sediment stone, dull green. He listlessly took out his compass: The digger would have to renew his digging, slightly to the right. This very plain and painful fact soured his spirits. But at least he would not have to fill bucket after bucket with extracted earth ; he had only to shovel it out and throw it into the miners’ tunnel. That, at least, was somewhat of a compensation. He checked his watch, three more hours. So he set immediately to work, albeit with unenthusiastic, torpid strokes of his pickaxe, so heavy his limbs had grown, so hot the temperature had risen, so thin the air had become.

As he picked away in a slow-motion dream state, he saw himself near the liquid core of the Earth. What would he find: A vast ocean or sea? But that was 1, 700 miles deep under the crust of the Earth. Nonsense. He had lost all track of measured miles, of time … of reality. The digging, however, was easy enough, the earth dripping with humidity and somewhat sandy. “It must be the lower mantle of the asthenosphere,” he whispered as if not to disturb the spirits of the underworld. One last stroke before retiring for the day.

Besides, he had an examination in mathematics in the morning and had to go over his notes. He raised his pickaxe but there it remained in mid-air. Some weird noise caught his attention. He pressed his ear to the hot rocky earth; a distant swishing like a flush of bats unsettled him. He crawled back a bit then struck a blow to the rocky noise. Arthur gasped as a blast of hot air flushed his face rowan red. He screamed in pain, crawling backwards, rubbing his face with a gloved hand. The tunnel filled with steaming air, followed shortly by blasts of scolding water which sent the boy tumbling over and over. He rolled and floundered about in the tremendous rush of hot, scalding water. They were driving him towards the miners’ tunnel at incredible speed. He could hardly keep his head above the flow; a flow that scorched his chin and cheekbones.

His backpack was borne along with the rush as were hundreds and hundreds of rats or other creatures of the underworld, for he heard their high, pathetic screeches above the precipitating din. Keeping his head above the rolling flood he was propelled into the miners’ tunnel where he managed to get to his feet.

Arthur grabbed his backpack and dragged his water-logged boots as quickly as he could towards the first tunnel, the rushing flow somewhat slackened by the steep upward inclination of the miners’ tunnel. A myriad of rats were scurrying on all sides of him, as if they were keeping pace with their underworld companion. Arthur, no longer frightened of them, but thinking only of his own salvation, pushed on upwards, the waters now swirling about his feet. They were gaining momentum. The boy fell several times, crying aloud, praying that he would get out alive. Then a terrible thought seized him: He was responsible for this disaster. For indeed it was a disaster! A terrible one indeed that no one was to know … No one ! But what would happen when the flow reached the well ? Arthur trembled at the very thought of it.

The boy slushed on and on as the now cooling waters rose to his ankles … to his calves. When he spotted the first tunnel, diving into it, he was literally crawling through torrents of a lukewarm current, whose incredible swiftness swung him from one side of the wall to another. Parts of the tunnel were now caving in. Screams rose in his throat, choking him, making him cry: Would he be buried alive through his own monstrous making? Why had he not consulted a speleologist before undertaking such a dangerous journey ? No ! All this had to remain his secret … for ever…

And poor Arthur bounced along with that current, gasping for breath, dog-paddling alongside rats, mice and moles. Hours and hours seemed to pass. His limbs weakend. His head bobbed above the flow like a cork. But there, just ahead, the salutary shaft of light of the well. Out he was flung like the cork of a champagne bottle into the miry clay of the pit. He scrambled for the trusty rungs, climbed frantically towards the palely lit sanctuary of the upperworld, taking a look now and then at the ever-rising waters bearing all the beasts of the underworld …

Arthur threw himself over the coping, took a last peek down at the slow but steady rise of the unleashed watery fury, then dashed into the cemetery to change his clothes. Indeed, his parents must not know anything about this mishap. He stood shivering in the failing light of evening. The greyish sky was so low. He felt drops on his feverish face. It was sleet or snow. “The pickaxe and shovel ?” he cried out in a tearful voice. “ Ah, who would ever find them ?” In the dim whitish glow he thought he espied tribes of rats streaming out over the coping, scurrying for safety into the woods. They too sought sanctuary in the light of the upper world, deprived now of the secure darkness of theirs … and his ? It was all so paradoxical.

Without further ado, Arthur made a bee-line for home. No light shone at any window. His parents must have been out. So much the better. He charged up to his room, into the shower to scrape the dirt and filth out of his fingernails and hair, put cream on his rowan-red face, then fell on his bed, exhausted, crying like a baby.

When his parents came home and noticed all the lights off in the sitting room, they mounted the stairway and knocked at Arthur’s door somewhat perplexed at the sullen atmosphere of the house. But there he was, their loving son, studiously going over his notes for the next morning’s mathematics examination. He smiled at them and they smiled back. How happy they were that Arthur took his schooling so seriously, his father, however, somewhat wary about the his son’s sunburnt face ! In early Spring ? Anyway, they were sure that he would be excellent ‘university material’ like his older sister. They closed the door quietly.

The next morning Arthur awoke to the disturbing sounds of fire engines and police sirens. Through his window he looked out over the meadow, the rye fields and into the thick woods where firemen, police and neighbours had gathered to witness and stave off the dark waters spiralling up from the abandoned village well… from some dark subterranean past into the greyish wee morning hours of the present.

[1] The layer of semi-molten rocks under the lithosphere

[2] A penny.

[3] A shilling.

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

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Tags Asthenosphere, Australia, Christmas, Dorset, Earth, Edward the Seventh, George the Second, Gollum, Henry the Seventh, Hobbt, Jules Verne, Julius Caesar, Lithosphere, Paul Mirabile, Queen Elizabeth the Second, Roman Gaul, Smeagol, Somerset