Festivals are affirmations of joy and love that bind humanity with their sense of hope even in a world torn by violence and climate change. As the end of the year approaches, we invite you to savour flavours of festivals past and, a few, yet to come, before the cycle starts again in the new year. The colours of celebrations are vibrant and varied as shades of nature or the skies.
We have new years spread out over the year, starting with January, moving on to the Chinese New Year around February, the Bengali new year in April to festivals of environment, light, darkness as in Wiccan beliefs, Tagore’s birth, more conventional ones like Deepavali, Eid, Durga Puja and Christmas. People celebrate in different ways and for different reasons. What we have also gathered is not only the joie de vivre but also the sadness people feel when celebrations are muted whether due to the pandemic, wars or for social reasons. In some cases, we indulge in excesses with funny results! And there are of course festivals of humanity … as celebrated by the bauls — the singing mendicants of Bengal — who only recognise the religion of love, compassion and kindness.
Ramakanta Rath’sSri Radha celebrating the love of Radha and Krishna have been translated from Odiya by the late poet himself, have been excerpted from his full length translation. Click here to read.
Bijoya Doushumi, a poem on the last day of Durga Puja, by the famous poet, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, has been translated from Bengali by Ratnottama Sengupta. Click here to read.
A Clean Start: Suzanne Kamata tells us how the Japanese usher in a new year. Click here to read.
Shanghai in Jakarta: Eshana Sarah Singh takes us to Chinese New Year celebrations in Djakarta. Click here to read.
Cherry Blossom Forecast: Suzanne Kamata brings the Japanese ritual of cherry blossom viewing to our pages with her camera and words. Clickhere to read.
Pohela Boisakh: A Cultural Fiesta: Sohana Manzoor shares the Bengali New Year celebrations in Bangladesh with interesting history and traditions that mingle beyond the borders. Clickhere to read.
The New Year’s Boon: Devraj Singh gives a glimpse into the projection of a new normal created by God. Click here to read.
A Musical Soiree: Snigdha Agrawal recalls how their family celebrated Tagore’s birth anniversary. Click here to read.
An Alien on the Altar! Snigdha Agrawal writes of how a dog and lizard add zest to Janmashtami (Krishna’s birthday) festivities with a dollop of humour. Click here to read
Memories of Durga Puja : Fakrul Alam recalls the festivities of Durga Puja in Dhaka during his childhood. Click hereto read.
KL Twin Towers near Kolkata?: Devraj Singh Kalsi visits the colours of a marquee hosting the Durga Puja season with its spirit of inclusivity. Click here to read.
Hold the roast turkey please Santa: Celebrating the festive season off-season with Keith Lyons from New Zealand, where summer solstice and Christmas fall around the same time. Click here to read.
Title:One More Story About Climbing a Hill: Stories from Assam
Author: Devabrata Das (translated from Assamese by multiple translators)
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
1. A Night with Arpita
(‘Arpitar Erati’ translated by Meenaxi Barkotoki)
The side berth was created by lowering the back rests of the two single seats along the aisle of the compartment. Crouching in one corner of that berth, chin in her hands, eyes looking out of the window, could the expression on her face be called disinterest, or was it heartache? On the other hand, she had not the slightest curiosity about what was going on inside the compartment. Drawing the free end of her sari tightly around the upper half of her body, she had withdrawn even her feet into the cavity created by her sari. Her presence in the compartment seemed more like an absence. She seemed completely oblivious and unaware of her surroundings; her look betrayed a sense of resignation. Or perhaps of surrender.
Having positioned myself in the compartment, the sense of resignation that was evident in her demeanour attracted me to her the very first time that I looked at her attentively. I told myself that if I wrote a story someday on the girl, I would name her Arpita (the one who offers herself). Arpita what? Ganguly or Acharya, Roy or Majumdar? Because on hearing the Hindi strewn with Bengali words spoken by the girl’s father, (who had complained animatedly to the waiter about the stale fish served for the meal) I was certain that the girl was not an Assamese disguised in a sari, she was actually Bengali. Regardless of whether she was Assamese or Bengali, she was just a girl, a more or less pretty girl, and she was presently in another world, completely oblivious to her surroundings. Her entire being was concentrated on a point in the darkness of the world outside the compartment, a point that could easily be defined as infinity. Her absentminded beauty aroused my curiosity. Puffing at my Charminar cigarette I kept staring at her from my middle berth in the three-tiered compartment. Just then Kiran returned from the bathroom and broke my reverie. ‘What is this? Why are you already in bed? You don’t mean to go to bed so early, do you?’
This story is actually the story of Arpita and me. I am the protagonist, Arpita the heroine. Apart from the two of us, there is no need for anyone else in this story. The problem, however, is that in order to be able to describe the chain of events, the inclusion of some redundant characters becomes necessary; their presence in the story is not essential but without them it is difficult to narrate what happened. Among those extras, unnecessary characters actually, one is my friend Kiran Debnath. We work in the same office and it is on official work that both of us are travelling by train to another city. We had to travel at very short notice, so we had no reserved train seats; hence the second unnecessary character, Krishna, became necessary. Krishna lives in our neighbourhood. A young man barely out of his teens, he had recently joined the NF Railway as Travelling Ticket Inspector, in short TTI. The moment I saw him at the train station, I was relieved; we wouldn’t have to travel in the crowded, unreserved compartment after all. Since Krishna was there, with his help we would get at least two sitting seats for ourselves. But luckily there was not a huge rush that day and after doing the rounds, Krishna arranged two sleeping berths in a three-tier compartment for us. The sleeper charges for a night are five rupees fifty paise each, so eleven rupees in all. I gave him three five-rupee notes. He forgot to return the change. A little while after the train started, another uniformed ticket checker came and wrote out our reservation slips. The fourth unnecessary character in this story is Arpita’s father, who, after finishing the long and animated argument with the waiter about the stale fish served for dinner, turned his attention to his daughter. She was still staring out of the window. He told her to lie down and go to sleep, and gave her other sundry bits of advice, all of which were met with monosyllabic answers. He then climbed onto the upper berth, above his daughter. In a little while, his snoring proved that he was fast asleep. This is the last time I will mention these unnecessary characters, except for Kiran.
I told Kiran that we had a lot to do the next day. We would have to go through all the documents and records of our branch office in the town we were travelling to. It was not clear whether we would have any free time at all. So instead of sitting up chatting till late in the night, since we had secured two sleeping berths, it might be wiser to go to sleep. Like a good boy, Kiran agreed immediately and went to sleep in the berth below me. To tell the truth, I was not at all sleepy. If I had wanted to or if we were somewhere else, I would have easily chatted with Kiran for an hour or two. But at that moment, in that situation, the single-minded desire to enjoy the distracted attractiveness of a beautiful girl made me give up the wish to chat with Kiran.
Arpita sat immersed in herself on the rattling train, on that otherwise still night, ignoring the silent presence of the many other passengers sleeping in the compartment. No exam results had been declared recently. Then why was Arpita so unwaveringly distracted and sad? Was her pain intensely personal? For instance, had some sly lover cheated her and gone away, after having made a thousand promises of many-hued rainbows and eternal love? Or was there some complication in her recent wedding proposal? Had the partner that her parents chose for her, seen and approved of her but demanded a huge dowry, which made it completely impossible for her to leave her parents’ home? What could it be? What was her real story?
(Extracted from One More Story About Climbing a Hill: Stories from Assam by Devabrata Das, Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2025.)
About the Book:
In ‘A Night with Arpita’, a beautiful young girl in a train compartment captures the imagination of the writer—but he is unable to fathom the reason for her melancholy until it is too late. In ‘Ananta with His Seema’, three apparently disconnected incidents take place on a railway platform. Descriptions of the incidents are interspersed with passages from a letter written by Ananta’s friend, that lays bare his helplessness in the face of injustice and the loss of his youthful ideals.
In the eponymous story, life imitates art with a disastrous twist. A young couple treks up a hillside to recreate for themselves the experience of two characters in a love story set in idyllic Shillong. But the beauty of the pine shrouded hills is marred by extremist violence and their climb to the top of the hill has an unforeseen, macabre end.
Each of the eighteen stories, translated by multiple translators, in this collection provides an insight into life in an area of conflict, told with irony and ingenuity. Regarded as a torchbearer of post-modernism in Assamese literature, Das is often a character in his stories, blurring the distinction between writer and narrator and, often, between fiction and reality, leaving readers to construct their own endings. This first English translation of his work is a valuable addition to the pantheon of India’s regional literature.
About the Author
Devabrata Das is considered to be a torchbearer of post-modernism in Assamese literature, following in the footsteps of other great Assamese writers such as Saurav Kumar Chaliha and Bhabendra Nath Saikia. With more than twenty-five bestselling books to his credit in a career spanning more than four decades, his repertoire ranges from fiction to non-fiction, and from screenplays to reviews and critical essays. He received the Sahityarathi Lakshminath Bezbarua Award in 2018, the Sahitya Sanskriti Award of the literary organization Eka Ebong Koekjan in 2010, and the Tagore Literature Award of the Sahitya Akademi in 2011.
About the Translator
Meenaxi Barkotoki is a mathematician turned anthropologist by profession. An avid translator from Assamese into English, her most recent work includes a couple of novels, notably a children’s novel by Arupa Patangia Kalita titled Taniya (Puffin Classics, 2022). Her translations have appeared in newspapers and periodicals as well as in prestigious compilations like The Oxford Anthology of Writings from North-East India (OUP, 2011) and in Asomiya Handpicked Fictions (Katha, 2003). She also writes short stories, travel pieces and current interest articles, and her work has been published in newspapers, journals and magazines. She is a Founding Member of the North East Writers’ Forum.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
The feminine mystique has defied every attempt to capture its attributes. If clusters of stories surround a goddess, dilemmas are embedded in them. If the pavement-dwelling mother with children clinging to her skirt images economic deprivation, there are stories hidden in her grey-flecked eyes. Basudhara Roy recognises this amorphous, protean aspect of the feminine and titles her collection A Blur of a Woman, poetically declaring; “she owns the place/and the little magic she has earned…she will use it someday to unbuild herself/disappear dissolve/ become a blur”.
This collection is a subtle attack on patriarchy as it encompasses the history and socio-cultural conditions that have moulded women into being mercurial yet tangible, pliant as well as resistive, buoyant but also vulnerable. As the poems flow in a drumroll of many contexts, vignettes of the journey are captured, symbolically strong and offering a plethora of layered meanings. The lines encourage a dialogic exchange whether with the poet, or with one’s own half-acknowledged self that is suddenly confronted by Medusa’s mirror.
The first two sections begin with poems titled ‘Duhkha’ and ‘Soka’[1], directing us towards the Buddhist principle of inevitable mutability and the need for acceptance.
I have seen hearts shut and bolt doors from within, their windows walled while on love the mold of ingratitude thrives
With such adaptations, the contemporary takes precedence over the philosophical teachings, and the identification with thwarted expectations, social discord, betrayal and helpless sorrow is almost immediate. If solace is to be found it is now individual—and, in this instance, by turning to the gnarled trunks of trees where tears have watered the serrated bark. Speaking of the imagistic density of Roy’s phrases, this kind of interlinking through poetic shorthand is perceived in much of her narrativisation. The ‘betrayal’ that causes sorrow and also the maturity of recovery is a process resonant through the history of women’s writing. ‘Soka: A Triptych’ strings this further through contemplating the elegiac notes of death and mourning—yet birth and death are twins: “If life alone can be seen/all this emptiness must surely be death.”
A sizeable section of the book charts a trajectory of feminist fables, gleaning references from Rabindranath Tagore, Jayadev’s Geet Govinda, Philomela’s story, Virgo’s distress, and others. In Roy’s hands, irony becomes a viable and effective tool of social critique as in the poem
‘In Which Bimala Agrees to an Interview for a Special Issue of Post-Text Feminism’. Tagore’s popular novel Ghare Baire/ The Home and the World presents Bimala as the conventional woman who is persuaded to discover the turmoil of the world outside the threshold. Basudhara devises an imaginary conversation, some of which is quoted:
Where, then, would you locate yourself? Here. Now. Come on! I am hardly lost and need no GPS of theory to find myself!
Such a startling reinvention of a canonical text subverts many assumptions with sharp, clear strokes: the jargon of literary theory, the leap into digital alignments, the confidence of the liberated woman, and the time travel that feminism has enabled.
My other favourite piece is about ‘Lalita’, a sakhi or friend of the beauteous Radha who is always the heroine in the traditional tale. In Lalita’s version of the mysterious raas leela where Krishna is perceived by each woman as her partner, she is jubilant about her societal escape and physical abandon;
limbs supple like vines we danced, thrilled to be where love was recklessly returned.
This may be the right time to refer to the Author’s Note which is titled ‘I Write from the Body’ and seems to carry forward the feminist discourse of theorists such as Hélène Cixous who invented the term écriture feminine, or Julia Kristevawho perceived the chora as a specially maternal zone. According to Roy, “In the earth-bed of this woman’s life that I live, poetry runs as a river, its plenitude being both a lesson and an antidote to the prosaic borders of my world.” In which case, “Blur” is the right metaphor for attempting to break the boundaries through word-play and subversive themes expanded in poems such ‘Aid to Forgetting’, ‘Praise for the Subaltern’, ‘Dis/enfranchised’—and several other poems are expressions of resistance to the bastions of control. Philomela’s severed tongue has again learned to speak– but it’s a new language of assertion and intertextuality.
The semiotic breakthrough in Roy’s poems is accompanied by stylist experiments too, the Ghazal section being one such. The transcreated use of the Urdu structure allows for couplets on a variety of subjects—for example, the seasons in the manner of the Baramasa (songs of the twelve months) with a twist that the woman is no longer the bereft, perpetually waiting figure uttering her woes to the firmament. She says confidently now:
You etch every constellation on your palm Yet secrets line the arcane of the body
In all, A Blur of a Woman, offers poems for the intellect and the heart which are indivisible aspects of a woman’s existence. That she is mercurial and evasive is once again a reminder of a fascinating mystery that has prevailed over time — and perhaps its more exciting to keep it that way.
Malashri Lal, writer and academic, with twenty one books, retired as Professor, English Department, University of Delhi. Publications include Tagore and the Feminine, and the ‘goddess trilogy’ (co-edited with Namita Gokhale) In Search of Sita, Finding Radha, and Treasures of Lakshmi. Betrayed by Hope: A Play on the Life of Michael Madhusudan Dutt received the Kalinga Fiction Award. Lal’s poems Mandalas of Time has recently been translated into Hindi as Mandal Dhwani. She is currently Convener, English Advisory Board of the Sahitya Akademi.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Birth Of Krishna: Madhubani Art. From Public Domain
Throwback to the early 60s. Janmashtami[1] was a highly anticipated event for us kids, back then. In our community of expats, the Sharma household outdid others in celebrating the festival with great fanfare. Aunty Sharma would start the preparations days ahead of the festival, instructing the gardener to collect loose soft soil from the periphery of her kitchen garden. Plying the soft soil between her fingers, a miniature model village scene was crafted, closely resembling Mathura, where Lord Krishna was born. Single gauge railway track winding through the plains, midway a station master’s cabin, cows grazing in the green fields at the foot of the grassy sloped conical hills, built into the scene. Village belles dressed in colourful clothes poised to fill their urns from the lake, (formerly an empty biscuit tin overlaid with mud), made it more picturesque. Thatched roofed huts, and a post office with a red-letter box, made it complete. Picture perfect in every respect identical to villages depicted in Bollywood movies with heroines dancing around trees. Placed right in the centre was the crib with the bronze idol of Baby Krishna, looking indolently at worshippers. The entire scene rested against the living room wall, covered with Auntie’s gold brocaded wedding saree, the two edges tied to the door hinges on either side.
The highlight of the evening was not in the rituals but in the eating of the prasad and the special ‘shudh shakahari’[2] dinner that followed. It was a once-in-a-year dinner that we relished and hogged till our tummies could take no more. Apart from the binge-eating of homemade besan[3] and coconut laddoos[4], soaked in ghee, offered to the idol, it was the ‘panjiri[5]’ prasad[6], our eyes were fixed on for reasons, other than holy. Made of roasted wheat flour, dry fruits, powdered sugar, spices and a generous helping of ghee added to give it a unique taste and texture, this offering had special significance for us. Of powdery consistency that could go in any direction; swallowed or blown in faces for the heck of it. The latter was always on our minds, the fun part of the festivities. Never begrudged by the seniors, who were tickled pink seeing our ‘panjiri’ covered ghostly faces, with pieces of dried fruit stuck in the hair, hanging from eyelashes, stuck at the corners of the mouth. And always ended in a contest of who could blow the most. Who looked the weirdest? Thus, acquiring the name ‘phoo phaa’. The ‘phoo’ sound from the funnel-shaped mouth in the act of blowing, followed by the ‘phaa’ from the mouth muscles stretched sideways. Those amongst us with missing frontal teeth struggled to get it right as the powdery ‘panjiri’ got moistened by saliva a bit too soon, the ‘phoo’ producing zero results.
One year, the contest was struck off. For no fault of anyone. Nor any shortcomings in the puja[7] arrangement. The scene was up like every year, with a little modification here and there. Bronze plates were laid out with homemade laddoos, whole fruits, the steel dekchi filled with ‘panchamrit[8]’, a sweet drink made by mixing five ingredients — milk, yoghurt, crushed basil leaves, honey and Ganga Jal[9]to which sugar, ghee, chironji[10] and makhana[11] are added for the crunch part and flavouring. A drink commonly had to break the day-long fast. This fast was observed by Uncle and Aunty Sharma only. A cupful of the delicious drink had us craving for more. It was rationed to pass around to all the attendees. No one left without partaking of this prasad spooned out on open palms. We were treated to a second helping of the leftovers, if any.
The puja rituals progressed as usual with the offering of flowers, prasad, and singing of hymns, to be followed by the aarti. Aunty was about to light the ghee lamp for the aarti[12] when our attention was diverted to the sound of a splash in the biscuit tin lake.
An unexpected visitor had landed from outer space! Uninvited, it dropped from the ceiling above. We jumped in fright and disgust at the sight of an ugly lizard amid the holy scenery. The creepy-looking reptile stared at us, unblinking, flicked its tongue, cocked its head to one side, then to the other and slithered up to the railway track, making clear its intention of lingering.
That was not to happen. Baxter the two-year-old Alsatian, otherwise a well-disciplined pet, sitting on his haunches, guarding the inmates and watching the puja with full devotion, bounded across the room barking at the invader, ready to crush the creature under his paws. After all, it was his job to protect the family. In his view, this intruder certainly did not qualify as a worshipper.
Uncle and Aunty tried to calm him. That was out of the question. He went straight into the village scene, bringing it down, chasing the half-tailed lizard, looking at him tauntingly as if to say ‘Catch me if you can’. The laddoos went flying into the air, the fruit platter upturned, and the ‘panjiri’ mixture floated up like a cloud over the village. ‘Baxter stop…stop’ from Uncle and Aunty went unheeded. Baxter was not in a mood to give up the chase. Just as he was about to paw swipe, the lizard darted between the folds of the brocaded saree and vanished in the blink of an eye. Baxter barking furiously spun around, nose to the ground, desperately searching for the invader. Chintu the cook, busy in the kitchen preparing dinner, heard the commotion and came running, grabbed Baxter by his collar, deftly clipped on the chain, tying him to the balcony railing. Peace was restored.
Wasn’t this a bad omen, Aunty questioned with concern. “No…no…Lord Krishna had visited in the avatar of the lizard and blessed us all” comforted Uncle. Baby Krishna was lifted out of the crib and placed in the alcove on the wall, which served as the mandir for all Gods and Goddesses. Aarti was resumed, to the ringing of the heavy brass bell and singing of “Om Jai Jagdish Hare[13]”, a hymn sung when concluding the puja.
Baxter sat in the balcony corner with his ears drooped, tail tucked between his legs, a soulful look in his eyes, fixed on Uncle, seeking forgiveness for his misdemeanor. “It’s okay, Baxter,” Uncle whispered, patting him on the head, and unchaining him. He lifted his head slightly, his tail beginning to wag again slowly. The reprimand was over and forgiveness had arrived. He joined us at the dining table, crouching underneath and parking himself near Auntie’s feet. The grand ‘shudh shakahari’ dinner commenced with deep-fried kachoris[14], an assortment of cooked vegetables, both dry and with gravy, lachha — ginger juliennes soaked in lemon juice, ending with the thick and creamy kheer[15]. With the arrival of the last, the missed ‘phoo phaa’ contest that year, receded into the far corners of our minds.
.
[1] A festival celebrating the birth of Krishna held in mid-August in India
Snigdha Agrawal (nee Banerjee) is a spontaneous writer, writing in all genres, covering poetry, prose, short stories and travelogues. A non-conformist septuagenarian, she took up writing as a hobby post-retirement and continues to learn and experiment with the out-of-the-box style.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
In Conversation with Malashri Lal, about her debut poetry collection, Mandalas of Time, Hawakal Publishers
Professor Malashree Lal
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable.
‘Mandalas’ means circle in Sanskrit, the root, or at last the influencer, of most of the Indian languages in the subcontinent. Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-Germanic family, which homes Latin and Greek among other languages. Malashri Lal, a former professor in Delhi University, has called her poetry collection Mandalas of Time.
Her poetry reiterates the cyclical nature of the title, loaning from the past to blend the ideas with the present and stretching to assimilate the varied colours of cultures around the world.
Embracing an array of subjects from her heritage to her family — with beautiful touching poems for her grandchild — to migrants and subtle ones on climate change too, the words journey through a plethora of ideas. Nature plays an important role in concretising and conveying her thoughts. In one of the poems there is a fleeting reference to wars — entwined with the Pilkhan (fig) tree:
The Pilkhan tree thinks of its many years Of shedding leaves, bearing inedible fruit, of losing limbs But smiles at his troubles being far less Than of unfortunate humans Who kill each other in word and deed But gather around the tree each Christmas With fulsome gifts and vacant smiles To bring in another New Year.
--Another New Year
Amaltas (Indian Laburnum) or Bougainvillea bind her love for nature to real world issues:
Only the Amaltas roots, meshed underground Thrust their tendrils into the earth’s sinews below. Sucking moisture from the granular sand, desperately. The golden flowers pendent in the sun, mock the traveller Plump, succulent, beacon-like, they tease with The promise of water Where there is none.
--Amaltas in Summer
And…
The Bougainvillea is a migrant tree, blossom and thorn That took root in our land And spread its deception Of beauty.
--Bougainvillea
Her most impactful poems are women centric.
Words crushed into silence Lips sealed against utterance Eyes hooded guardedly Body cringing into wrinkled tightness Is this what elders called ‘Maidenly virtue?’
--Crushed
There is one about a homeless woman giving birth at Ratlam station during the pandemic chaos, based on a real-life incident:
Leave the slum or pay the rent Who cares if she is pregnant, Get out — go anywhere. … Ratlam station; steady hands lead her to the platform. Screened by women surrounding her A kind lady doctor takes control. Pooja sees a puckered face squinting into the first light. "This is home," she mutters wanly, "Among strangers who cut the cord and feed my newborn,”
-- Ladies Special
In another, she writes of Shakuntala — a real-world migrant who gave birth during the covid exodus. She birthed a child and within the hour was on her way to her home again — walking. It reminds one of Pearl S Buck’s description of the peasant woman in Good Earth (1931) who pauses to give birth and then continues to labour in the field.
Most interesting is her use of mythology — especially Radha and Sita — two iconic characters out of Indian lore. In one poem, she finds a parallel to “Sita’s exile” in Italy, at Belisama’s shrine. In another, she finds the divine beloved Radha, who was older to Krishna and married to another, pining after the divinity when he leaves to pursue his life as an adult. And yet, she questions modern stances through poems on more historical women who self-immolated themselves when their husbands lost in battle!
Malashri Lal has turned her faculties post-retirement to literary pursuits. One of her co- authored books around the life of the poet Michael Madhusudan Dutt, received the Kalinga award for fiction. She currently serves on the English advisory board of Sahitya Akademi. In this conversation, Lal discusses her poetry, her journey and unique perceptions of two iconic mythological women who figure in her poetry.
When did you start writing poetry?
Possibly my earliest poetry was written when I was about twelve, struggling with the confusing emotions of an adolescent. I would send off my writing to The Illustrated Weekly which used to have pages for young people, and occasionally I got published. After that, I didn’t write poetry till I was almost in my middle age when the personal crisis of losing my parents together in a road accident brought me to the outpourings and healing that poetry allows.
What gets your muse going?
Emotional turmoil, either my own or what I observe within the paradigms of social change. With my interest in women’s issues, my attention is arrested immediately when I hear or read about injustice, violence, exploitation or negligence of women or girl children. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic or extreme event but even the simple occurrences of decision making by a husband without consulting his wife has me concerned about the dignity and agency of a woman. Some poems like “Escape”, hint at such inequality that society takes for granted. On the other hand, my poems about migrant women giving birth on the long march to a hypothetical village “home” during the pandemic, are vivid transferences from newspaper stories. “Ladies Special” is about Pooja Devi giving birth at Ratlam station; “The Woman Migrant Worker” is based on a report about Shakuntala who stopped by the roadside to give birth to a baby and a few hours later, joined the walking crowd again.
Why did you name your poetry book Mandalas of Time?
To me ‘Mandalas’ denote centres of energy. Each node, though distinct in itself, coheres with the others that are contiguous, thus resulting in a corporeal body of interrelatedness. My poems are short bursts of such energy, concentrated on a subject. They are indicative of a situation but not prescriptive in offering solutions. Hence the spiritual energy of ‘Mandalas’, a term used in many traditions, seemed best suited to my offering of poems written during periods of heightened consciousness and introspection. The poems are also multilayered, hence in constant flux, to be interpreted through the reader’s response. Many of them end in questions, as I do not have answers. The reader is implicitly invited to peruse the subject some more . It’s not about closure but openness. See for instance: “Crushed”, or “Shyamoli”.
Today, I rebel and tug at a Divided loyalty — The feudal heritage of my childhood Fights off the reformist Bengali lineage, My troubled feminism struggling Between Poshak and Purdah White Thaan and patriotism Can one push these ghosts aside?
--Shyamoli *Poshak: Rajasthani dress *Thaan: White saree worn by the Bengali widow
You have written briefly of your mixed heritage, also reflected in your poem dedicated to Tagore, in whose verses it seems you find resolution. Can you tell us of this internal clash of cultures? What exactly evolved out of it?
My bloodline is purely Bengali but my parents nor I ever lived in Bengal. My father was in the IAS in the Rajasthan cadre and my mother, raised in Dehradun, did a lot of social work. In the 1950s and 1960s, Rajasthan was economically and socially confined to a feudal heritage and a strictly hierarchical structure. Rama Mehta’s novel Inside the Haveli (1979), describes this social construction with great sensitivity. Elite homes had separate areas for men and women, and, within that, a layout of rooms and courtyards that were defined for specific use by specified individuals according to their seniority or significance. Such hierarchies existed in Bengal too — the ‘antarmahal[1]’ references bear this out — but the multiple layers in Rajasthan seemed more restrictive.
In my “mixed heritage” of being born of Bengali parents but raised in Rajasthan, I started noting the contrasts as well as the similarities. I recall that when my father went on tours by jeep into the interior villages along rutted roads, I would simply clamber on. At one time I lived in a tent, with my parents, during the entire camel fair at Pushkar. I would listen to the Bhopa singers of the Phad painting tradition late into the evening. So my understanding and experience of Rajasthan is deep into its roots.
Phad paintingBhopa singersFrom Public Domain
Bengal– that is only Calcutta and Santiniketan–I know through my visits to grandparents, aunts and uncles. My cousins and I continue to be very close. I saw a fairly elite side of Calcutta—the Clubs, the Race Course, the restaurants on Park Street, the shopping at New Market, and sarees displays at Rashbehari Avenue. Santiniketan though was different. I was drawn to the stories of the Santhal communities, visited their villages, attended the Poush Mela[2] regularly and knew several people in the university. After Delhi, the wide-open spaces, the ranga maati (red soil), the Mayurakhi River, and the tribal stories were fascinating. I am fluent in Bengali and because of my relatives in Calcutta as well as Santiniketan, I never felt an outsider. My father’s side of the family has been at Viswa Bharati since the time of Rabindranath Tagore. So, I felt comfortable in that environment. And through an NGO called Women’s Interlink Foundation, established by Mrs Aloka Mitra, I had easy access to Santhal villages such as Bonerpukur Danga.
Poush Mela, started by the Tagore Family in 1894Santhali Performance at Poush Mela
However, in summary, though I lived with both the strains of Bengal and Rajasthan, the daily interaction in Jaipur where I received all my education till PhD, was more deeply my world. The fragmented identity that some poems convey is a genuine expression of figuring out a cultural belonging. Poems such as “To Rabindranath Tagore” helped me to understand that one can have multiple exposures and affiliations and be enriched by it.
Do you feel — as I felt in your poetry — that there is a difference in the cultural heritage of Bengal and Rajasthan that leads you to be more perceptive of the treatment of women in the latter state? Please elaborate.
Indeed, you are right. Bengal has a reformist history, and my family are Brahmo Samaj followers. Education for women, choice in marriage partner, ability to take up a career were thought to be possible. My paternal grandmother, Jyotirmoyi Mukerji, was one of the early graduates from Calcutta University; she worked as an Inspectress of Schools, often travelling by bullock carts, and she married a school teacher who was a little younger than her. They together chose to live in Rangoon in undivided India, heading a school there. These were radical steps for women in the late 19th century. My father grew up in Rangoon and came to Rajasthan as a refugee during the Second World War. My grandmother, who lived with us, was a tremendous influence denoting women’s empowerment. But what we saw around us in Jaipur was the feudal system and purdah for women in Rajasthan.
Fortunately, Maharani Gayatri Devi had set up a school in 1943 in Jaipur to bring modern thinking in the women, and I was fortunate to study there till I went to university. Let’s recall that Maharani Gayatri Devi was from Coochbehar (Bengal) and had studied at Santiniketan. She brought Bengal’s progressive ideas to the privileged classes of Rajasthan. My classmates were mostly princesses. I visited their homes and families and delved deeply into their history of feudalism. Without being judgmental, I must say that Rajasthan’s heritage is very complex and one must understand the reasons behind many practices and not condemn them.
You have brought in very popular mythological characters in your poems — Sita and Radha — both seen from a perspective that is unusual. Can you explain the similarity between Sita’s exile and Belisama’s shrine (in Italy)? Also why did you choose to deal with Radha in a post-Krishna world?
Namita Gokhale and I have completed what is popularly known as the “Goddess Trilogy”. After In Search of Sita and Finding Radha, the latest book, Treasures of Lakshmi: The Goddess Who Gives, was launched in February 2024 at the Jaipur Literature Festival, and the Delhi launch was on 8th October 2024 to invoke the festive season.
Version 1.0.0
In answering your question let me say that myth is storytelling, an indirect way of contending with issues that are beyond ordinary logic or understanding. Sita and Belisama coming together is an illustration of what I mean. The backstory is that Namita Gokhale and I had a joint residency at Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio (Italy) and we were revising the final manuscript of our book In Search of Sita. The thrust of that book is to recall the strength of Sita in decision making, in being supportive of other women, in emerging as an independent minded person. Our research had unearthed a lot of new material including oral history and folklore. In Bellagio, we started enquiring about local mythical stories and chanced upon Belisama,[3] a Celtic goddess known for her radiant fire and light, and in the village we chanced upon an old grotto like structure. Unlike in India, where we have a living mythology of commonly told and retold tales, in Italy the ancient legends were not remembered. The poem “Bellagio, Italy” took shape in my imagination bringing Sita and Belisama, two extraordinary women, together.
As to my poems on Radha, I cannot think of a “post-Krishna” world since Vrindavan and Mathura keep alive the practices that are ancient and continuous. Radha is the symbol of a seeker and Krishna is the elusive but ever watchful divine. They are body and soul, inseparable. The stories about “Radha’s Flute” or “Radha’s Dilemma” in poems by those names have an oral quality about them. The craft of writing is important, and for me, the theme decides the form.
Interesting, as both the poems you mention made me think of Radha after Krishna left her for Rukmini, for his role in an adult world. You have a poem on Padmini. Again, your stance is unusual. Can you explain what exactly you mean — can self-immolation be justified in any way?
This is a poem embedded in the larger query about comparative cultural studies. Rani Padmini’s story was written by Jayasi[4] in 1540, and it described a ‘heroic’ decision by Padmini that she and her handmaidens should commit Jauhar (mass self-immolation) rather than be taken prisoners and face humiliation and violent abuse by the men captors. You will note that my poem ends on a question mark: “I ask you if you can rewrite /values the past held strong?” Self-immolation has to be seen in the context of social practices at the time of Padmini (13-14th queen in Mewar, Rajasthan). The jauhar performed by Rani Padmini of Chittor is narrated even now through ballads and tales extolling the act if one goes into oral culture. But there is counter thinking too, as was evident in the controversy over Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film Padmavat (2018) which stirred discussions on historicity, customary practice and oral traditions. Sati and Jauhar are now punishable offences under Indian law, but in recording oral history can one change the storyline? It’s not just self-immolation that comes under such a category of questioning the past — polygamy, polyandry, child marriage, prohibitions on widows and many other practices are to be critiqued in modern discourse, but one cannot rewrite what has already been inscribed in an old literary text.
This is a question that draws from what I felt your poems led to, especially, the one on Padmini. Do you think by changing text in books, history can be changed?
“History” is a matter of perspective combined with the factual record of events and episodes. Who writes the “history” and in what circumstances is necessary to ask. The narration or interpretation of history can be changed, and sometimes ought to be. To take an obvious case why is the “Sepoy Mutiny” of 1857 now referred to as the “First War of Independence”? In current discussions on Rana Pratap[5] in Rajasthan’s history, there are documents in local languages that reinterpret the Haldighati battle of 1576 not as the Rana’s defeat but his retreat into the forests and setting up his new kingdom in Chavand where he died in 1597. The colonial writers of history—at least in Rajasthan– were dependent on local informers and had little understanding of the vast oral repertoire of the state. Even Col. James Tod’s Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (1829) about the history, culture, and geography of some areas in Rajasthan, is often reproducing what he has heard from the bards and balladeers which are colourful and hyperbolic renderings as was the custom then. In Bengal, the impact of Tod is seen in Abanindranath Tagore’s[6]Rajkahini (1946), which is storytelling rather than verified facts. I feel history cannot be objective, it is author dependent.
Nature, especially certain trees and plants seem to evoke poetry in you. It was interesting to see you pick a fig tree for commenting on conflicts. Why a Pilkhan tree?
The Pilkhan is an enormous, bearded old fig tree that lives in our garden and is a witness to our periodic poetic gatherings. Mandalas of Time is dedicated to “The Poets under the Pilkhan Tree” because my book emerged from the camaraderie and the encouragement of this group. I see the tree as an observer and thinker about social change—it notes intergenerational conflict in “Another New Year”, it offers consolation against the terrors of the pandemic in the poem “Krishna’s Flute”. It’s my green oasis in an urban, concrete-dominated Delhi. In the evening the birds chirp so loudly that we cannot hear ourselves speak. Squirrels have built nests into the Pilkhan’s wide girth. It’s not a glamorous tree but ordinary and ample—just as life is. By now, my poet friends recognise the joy of sharing their work sitting in the shadow of this ancient giant. There are no hierarchies of age or reputation here. We are the chirping birds—equal and loquacious!
You have successfully dabbled in both poetry and fiction, what genre do you prefer and why?
Mandalas of Time is my first book of poems and it comprises of material written unselfconsciously over decades. During the pandemic years, I decided to put the manuscript together, urged by friends. Meanwhile my poems started appearing in several journals.
As to fiction, I’ve published a few short stories and I tend to write ghostly tales set in the mountains of Shimla. Its possibly the old and the new that collides there that holds my attention. I’ve been urged to write a few more and publish a book—but that may take a while.
Should we be expecting something new from your pen?
Mandalas of Time has met with an amazing response in terms of reviews, interviews, speaking assignments, and online presentations. The translation in Hindi by 13 well known poets is going into print very soon. Permission has been sought for a Punjabi translation. I’m overwhelmed by this wide empathy and it is making me consider putting together another book of poems.
Badshah Amanullah was surely off his rocker. Or else why would he hold a ball-dance in an ultra-conservative country like Afghanistan? On the occasion of Independence Day, Afghanistan’s first ball-dance would be held.
We, the foreigners, were not that bothered. But there was a buzz of restlessness among the mullahs and their followers—the water carriers, tailors, grocers, and the servants. My servant, Abdur Rahman, while serving the morning tea, muttered, ‘Nothing is left of religious decency.’
I did not pay much heed to Abdur Rahman. I was no messiah like Krishna. The task of saving ‘religious decency’ had not been bestowed upon me.
‘Those hulking men will prance around the dance floor holding on to shameless women.’
I asked, ‘Where? In films?’
After that there was no stopping Abdur Rahman. The ancient Roman wild orgies would have sounded like child’s play compared to the juicy imageries of the upcoming dance event that he described. Finally, he concluded, ‘Then they switch off the lights at midnight. I don’t know what happens after that.’
I said, ‘What’s that to you, you mindless babbler?’
Abdur Rahman went mum. Whenever I called him a blathering prattler, he understood that his master was in a bad mood. I would use the Bengali slang word for it and being a seasoned man, though Abdur Rahman did not know the language, he would be able to read my mood.
I was out in the mild evening. Electric lamps lit up the bushes of Pagman. The tarmacked road was spotlessly clean. I was meandering absentmindedly, thinking it was the month of Bhadra and Sri Krishna’s birthday had been celebrated the previous day. My birthday too, according to Ma. It must be raining heavily in Sylhet, my home. Ma was possibly sitting in the north veranda. Her adoptive daughter Champa was massaging her feet and asking her, ‘When will young brother come home?’
The monsoon season is the most difficult one for me in this foreign land. There is no monsoon in Kabul, Kandahar, Jerusalem or Berlin. Meanwhile in Sylhet, Ma is flustered with the nonstop rain. Her wet sari refuses to dry; she is in a tizzy from the smoke of the wet wood of the oven. Even from here I can see the sudden pouring of rain and the sun that comes out after a while. There are glitters of happiness on the rose plants in the courtyard, the night jasmine at the corner of the kitchen, and on the leaves of the palm tree in the backyard.
There was no such verdant beauty here.
Look at that! I had lost my way. Nine at night. Not a soul on the street. Who could I ask for directions?
A band was playing dance numbers in the big mansion to the right.
Oh! This was the dance-hall as described by Abdur Rahman. The waiters and bearers of the building would surely be able to direct me to my hotel. I needed to go to the service doors at the back of the building.
I approached.
Right at that moment, a young woman marched out.
I first saw her forehead. It was like the three-day-old young moon. The only difference was the moon would be off-white—cream coloured—but her forehead was as white as the snow peaks of the Pagman mountains. You have not seen it? Then I would say it was like undiluted milk. You have not seen that either. Then I can say it was like the petals of the wild jasmine. No adulteration of it is possible as yet.
Her nose was like a tiny flute. How was it possible to have two holes in such a small flute? The tip of the nose was quivering. Her cheeks were as red as the ripe apples of Kabul; yet they were of a shade that made it abundantly clear it was not the work of any rouge. I could not figure out if her eyes were blue or green. She was adorned in a well-tailored gown and was wearing high-heeled shoes.
Like a princess she ordered, ‘Call Sardar Aurangzeb Khan’s motor.’
Attempting to say something, I fumbled.
She, by then, looked properly at me and figured out that I was not a servant of the hotel. She also understood that I was a foreigner. First, she spoke in French, ‘Je veux demand pardon, monsieur—forgive me—’ Then she said it in Farsi.
In my broken Farsi I said, ‘Let me look for the driver.’
She said, ‘Let’s go.’
Smart girl. She would be hardly eighteen or nineteen.
Before reaching the parking lot, she said, ‘No, our car isn’t here.’
‘Let me see if I can arrange another one,’ I said.
Raising her nose an inch or so, in rustic Farsi she said, ‘Everyone is peeping to see what debauchery is taking place inside. Where will you find a driver?’
I involuntarily exclaimed, ‘What debauchery?’
Turning around in a flash, the girl faced me and took my measure from head to toe. Then she said, ‘If you’re not in a hurry, walk me to my house.’
‘Sure, sure,’ I joined her.
The girl was sharp.
Soon she asked, ‘For how long have you been living in this country? Pardon—my French teacher has said one shouldn’t put such questions to a stranger.’
‘Mine too, but I don’t listen.’
Whirling around she faced me again and said, ‘Exactment—rightly said. If anyone asks, say I’m going with you, or say Daddy introduced me to you. And don’t you ask me any question like I’m a nobody. And I will not ask anything as if you have no country or no home. In our land not asking prying questions is akin to the height of rudeness.’
I replied, ‘Same in my land too.’
She quipped, ‘Which country?’
I said, ‘Isn’t it apparent that I’m an Indian?’
‘How come? Indians can’t speak French.’
I said, ‘As if the Kabulis can!’
She burst out laughing. It seemed in the fit of laughter she suddenly twisted her ankle. ‘Can’t walk any longer. I’m not used to walking in such high heels. Let’s go to the tennis court; there are benches there.’
Dense darkness. The electric lamps were glowing far away. We needed to reach the tennis court through a narrow path. I said, ‘Pardon,’ as I touched her arm inadvertently.
Her laughter had no limits. She said, ‘Your French is strange, so is your Farsi.’
My young ego was hurt. ‘Mademoiselle!’
‘My name is Shabnam.’
(Extracted from Shabnam by Syed Mujtaba Ali,translated by Nazes Afroz. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2024)
About the Book
Afghanistan in the 1920s. A country on the cusp of change. And somewhere in it, a young man and woman meet and fall in love.
Shabnam is an Afghan woman, as beautiful as she is intelligent. Majnun is an Indian man, working in the country as a teacher. Theirs is an unlikely love story, but it flowers nonetheless. Breaking the barriers of culture and language, the two souls meet. Shabnam is poetry personified—she knows the literary works of Farsi poets of different eras. Majnun is steeped in the language and thoughts of Bengal. Together, they find love in immortal words and in the wisdom of the ages.
As the country hurtles towards yet another cataclysmic change, and the ruling king flees into exile, Shabnam is in danger from those who covet her for her famous beauty. Can she save herself and her Indian lover and husband from them?
Shabnam has been hailed as one of the most beautiful love stories written in Bengali. Lyrical and tragic, this pathbreaking novel appears in English for the first time in an elegant translation by the translator of Syed Mujtaba Ali’s famous travelogue Deshe Bideshe (In a Land Far from Home).
About the Author
Born in 1904, Syed Mujtaba Ali was a prominent literary figure in Bengali literature. A polyglot, a scholar of Islamic studies and a traveller, Mujtaba Ali taught in Baroda and at Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan. Deshe Bideshe was his first published book (1948). By the time he died in 1974, he had more than two dozen books—fiction and non-fiction—to his credit.
About the Translator
A journalist for over four decades, Nazes Afroz has worked in both print and broadcasting in Kolkata and in London. He joined the BBC in London in 1998 and spent close to fifteen years with the organization. He has visited Afghanistan, Central Asia and West Asia regularly for over a decade. He currently writes in English and Bengali for various newspapers and magazines and is working on a number of photography projects.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
A brief overview of Once Around the Sun : From Cambodia to Tibet (Hembury Books) by Jessica Mudditt and a conversation with the author
Jessica Mudditt
Jessica Mudditt’s Once Around the Sun: From Cambodia to Tibet is not just a backpacker’s diary but also her need to relate to humanity, to find friendships and even love, as she does with Kris, a photographer named after Krishna, the Hindu god, because his parents while visiting India fell in love with the divinity!
The Burmese translation of Our Home in Myanmar was published recently.
Hurtling through Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Tibet, young Mudditt concludes her narrative just at the brink of exploring Nepal, India and Pakistan in her next book… leaving the reader looking forward to her next adventure. For this memoir is an adventure that explores humanity at different levels. Before this, Mudditt had authored Our Home in Myanmar – Four years in Yangon, a narrative that led up to the Myanmar attack on Rohingyas and takeover by the military junta. Once Around the Sun: From Cambodia to Tibet is the first part of a prequel to her earlier book, Our Home in Myanmar, both published by her own publishing firm, Hembury Books.
What makes her narrative unique is her candid descriptions of life on a daily basis — that could include drunken revelry or bouts of diarrhoea — while weaving in bits of history and her very humane responses. Her trip to Angkor Wat yields observations which brings into perspective the disparities that exist in our world:
“I was gazing out at an empire that was once the most powerful and sophisticated in the world. In 1400, when London had a middling population of 50,000, the kingdom of Angkor had more than a million inhabitants and a territory that stretched from Vietnam to Brunei. It had flourished for six hundred years, from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries.
“But somehow Cambodia had become one of the world’s poorest countries, and surely the most traumatised too, following a recent war and genocide. I knew that when we came back down to the ground, there would be a collection of ragtag street kids and downtrodden beggars desperately hoping for our spare change. It was difficult to reconcile the grandeur of Cambodia’s past with its heart-breaking present in the twenty-first century. How did a country’s fortunes change so dramatically? Could the situation ever be turned around?”
How indeed?
Then, she writes of Vientaine in Vietnam:
“I was struck by the fact that sex work seemed to be the consequence for countless young women living in poverty. It made me angry, but mostly sad.”
In these countries broken into fragments by intrusions from superpowers in the last century, judged by the standards of the “developed countries” and declared “underdeveloped”, an iron rice bowl becomes more important to survive than adventure, discovering other parts of the world or backpacking to self-discovery. Travel really is the privilege of that part of the world which draws sustenance from those who cannot afford to travel.
Jessica showcases mindsets from that part of the Western world and from the mini-expat world in Hong Kong, which continue alienated from the local cultures that they profess to have set out to explore or help develop. One of the things that never ceases to surprise is that while the ‘developed’ continue to judge the ‘third world’, these countries destroyed by imposed boundaries, foreign values, continue to justify themselves to those who oppress them and also judge themselves by the standards of the oppressors.
Some of these ‘developing’ countries continue to pander to needs of tourism and tourists for the wealth they bring in, as Jessica shows in her narrative. She brings out the sharp differences between the locals from Asia and the budgeted backpackers, who look for cheap alternatives to experience more of the cultures they don’t understand by indulging in explorations that can involve intoxicants and sex, their confidence backed by the assurance that they can return to an abled world.
Backpackers from affluent countries always have their families to fall back on — opulent, abled and reliable. Mudditt with her candid narrative explores that aspect too as she talks of her mother’s response to her being sick and budgeting herself. Her mother urges her to cut short her trip. But she continues, despite the ‘adversities’, with an open mind. That she has a home where she can return if she is in any kind of trouble begs a question — what kind of ‘civilisation’ do we as humans have that she from an abled background has a safe retreat where there are those for whom the reality of their existence is pegged to what she is urged to leave behind for her own well-being? And why — as part of the same species — do we accept this divide that creates ravines and borders too deep to fathom?
Mudditt with her narrative does create a bridge between those who have plenty and those who still look for and need an iron rice bowl. She mingles with people from all walks and writes about her experiences. Hers is a narrative about all of us –- common humanity. Her style is free flowing and easy to read — quite journalistic for she spent ten years working as one in London, Bangladesh and Myanmar, before returning to her home in Australia in 2016. Her articles have been published by Forbes, BBC, GQ and Marie Claire, among others. This conversation takes us to the stories around and beyond her book.
What led you to embark on your backpacking adventure? Was it just wanderlust or were you running away from something?
It was primarily from wanderlust, but I also didn’t know what I was going to do with the rest of my life. After six years at university, I was still yet to have any particular calling. However, I was also glad I didn’t know. It meant that I was free to go and explore the world, because I wasn’t putting my career on hold. I had no career.
I also had a broken heart when I set off for Cambodia – but the trip was planned before that relationship had even begun. But again, part of me was glad that my boyfriend had called it quits, because my plan was to be away for a very long time (and it ended being a decade away).
What made you think of putting down your adventures in writing? As you say, this is a prequel to your first book.
It was the pandemic that made me realise that backpacking was really special. There was a period in 2020 when it looked like travel may never be so unrestricted again, so it motivated me to document my year of complete freedom. It was also before social media was even a thing. When I was lost, I was really lost, and I had to use my problem-solving skills.
Prior to the pandemic, I sort of thought that backpacking itself was too fun to write about. I hadn’t actually lived in any of the countries I visited – I was just passing through. But that is also a valid experience, and one that many people can fondly relate to. There were also some really confronting and difficult moments.
You have written of people you met. How have they responded to your candid portrayals? Or did you change their names and descriptions to convey the essence but kept your characters incognito?
While I was writing the book, I got back in touch with the people I travelled with – I can thank Facebook for still being in touch with most people mentioned. They helped me to remember past anecdotes and I got some of the back story of their own trips. I have only used first names to protect their privacy, although there are some photos in the book too. Thankfully the world is so big that the odds are small that anyone would recognise, say, an Irish guy from Adam in Vietnam in 2006! Clem from Shanghai has just sent me a photo of her with my book, and Romi from Vietnam actually came to my book launch, which was awesome.
What was your favourite episode in this book — as a backpacker and as a writer? Tell us about it.
I think it was crossing into China and meeting ‘the man.’ I felt so alive with every step I took into China after crossing over on foot from Vietnam. To be chaperoned in the way I was – without being able to communicate a single word – was unusual. His kindness left me speechless, so the anecdote has a nice story arc.
In your travels through China, you faced a language handicap and yet found people kind and helpful. Can you tell us a bit about it?
I foolishly underestimated the language barrier. It was profound. In Southeast Asia, there was always at least a sprinkling of English, and I sort of just assumed that I’d be fine. I entered China from Vietnam, so my first port of call was Nanning, where there is not even really an expat population. I couldn’t do the most basic things, from finding the toilet or an internet cafe or something to eat! I used sign language and memorised the Chinese character for ‘female’ to make sure I went into the right toilet! In a restaurant, I just pointed at whatever someone else was eating in the hope that they would bring me a bowl of whatever it was. There were times when I was seriously lost and lonely, but I ended up staying in China for two months and saw the comedic side. I was bumbling around like Mr Bean (who is hugely popular in China).
I met a lot of people who were really kind to me, and I was just so grateful to them. I didn’t have Wi-Fi on my phone back then, so getting lost in a massive city in China was a bit scary. I met a student called Mei-Xing who ‘adopted’ me for a few days in Guilin. We had a really nice time together and it was so great to hang out with a local.
What is/are the biggest takeaway/s you had from your backpacking in this part of the world? Tell us about it.
I think it’s something quite simple: the world can be a very beautiful place, and a very polluted place. Tourism can do a great deal of damage when there are too many people clambering over one area. There is also an incredible level of disparity in a material sense on our planet. Some humans are travelling into space on rockets. Others are pulling rickshaws, as though they are draught horses. It is profoundly inequitable.
Having travelled to large tracts of Asia, what would you think would be the biggest challenge to creating a more equitable world, a more accepting world? Do you think an exposure to culture and history could resolve some of the issues?
I think that democracy is key. It slows us down and forces us to act in the interest of the majority, not the top-level cronies. That is definitely also something I witnessed in Myanmar. When a few people hold all the power, the population is deprived of things that ought to be a human right.
I think that travel definitely alters your perspective and broadens your mind, and it is something I’d recommend to anyone. Realising that the way that things are done in your home country is not the only way of doing things is a valuable thing to learn.
Mostly, you met people off the street. In which country did you find the warmest reception? Why and how?
In Pakistan. The hospitality and friendliness was unparalleled. I think it was in part due to not having many tourists there. Nothing felt transactional. I met some fascinating people in Pakistan who would have a profound impact on my own life. I am still in touch with several people I met there.
At a point you wondered if the poverty you saw could be reversed back to affluence in the context of the Angkor kingdom. Do you have any suggestions on actually restoring the lost glory?
I believe that it is beginning to be restored. Pundits have called this the “Asian Century.” I am convinced that the United States and the UK are in decline, and this process will only speed up. India, to me, holds the most promise as the next superpower, because it is a democracy (albeit flawed – like all of them), English- speaking, enormous, beautiful, fascinating and its soft power is unmatched. China is facing headwinds. I blame that on making people sad by removing their agency.
How long were you backpacking in this part of the world? Was it longer than you had intended? What made you extend your stay and why?
My trip was exactly 365 days long. I planned it that way from the beginning. I wanted to travel for no less than a year (more than a year and I might stay feeling guilty for being so indulgent!). That is also why the book is called Once Around the Sun – my time backpacking was the equivalent of one rotation of the Earth. I set off on 1 June 2006 – the first day of winter in Australia – and I arrived on 1 June 2007 in London, on the first day of the British summer. I love the sunshine.
After having travelled around the large tracts of Asia and in more parts of the world, could you call the whole world your home or is it still Australia? Is your sense of wellbeing defined by political boundaries or by something else?
Home for me is Sydney. I absolutely love it. I get to feel as though I am still travelling, because my home city is Melbourne. I go down a new road every other day and I love that feeling. The harbour is beautiful, and the sun is shining most days. It’s very multicultural too.
My kids are three and five, so I haven’t travelled overseas for years. My plan is to travel with them as much as possible when they are a bit older. I hope they love it as much as me. I cannot wait to return to Asia one day. I am also desperate to visit New York City.
What are your future plans for both your books and your publishing venture?
The second part of Once Around the Sun will come out in 2025. It’s called Kathmandu to the Khyber Pass, and it covers the seven months I spent Nepal, India and Pakistan.
My goal is to complete my fourth memoir by 2027. It will be called My Home in Bangladesh (it will be the prequel to Our Home in Myanmar!).
My fifth book will be about how to write a book. I am a book coach and in a few years I will have identified the most common challenges people face when writing a book, and finding their voice.
In the next twelve months, there will be at least 12 books coming out with Hembury Books, which is my hybrid publishing company. I love being a book coach and publisher and I hope to help as many people as possible to become authors.
Please visit the website and set up a discovery call with me if you plan on writing a nonfiction book, or have gotten stuck midway: https://hemburybooks.com.au/.
Photographs from Once Round the Sun, provided by Jessica Mudditt
(The online interview has been conducted through emails and the review written by Mitali Chakravarty.)
Light of mine, O light, the universe is filled with your effulgence,
My heart is yours; my eyes drown in your refulgence.
….
The sky awakens, the breeze flits, the Earth laughs.
As luminous currents surge, thousands of butterflies take flight.
— Aalo Amar Aalo (Light, My Light), Bichitra, 1911, Rabindranath Tagore
There was a time when lights were a part of joy and celebrations as in Tagore’s poem above. Lighting lamps, people welcomed home their beloved prince Rama on Deepavali, who returned after a fourteen year exile, and during his banishment, killed the demonic Ravana. On the same day in Bengal, lamps were lit to ward off evil and celebrate the victory of Kali, (the dark woman goddess wooed by Tantrics) over the rakshasa, Raktabeeja. In the Southern part of India, lamps were lit to celebrate the victory of Krishna over Narakasura. The reasons could be many but lights and fireworks were lit to celebrate the victory of good over evil during the festival of lights.
In the current world with lines blurred between good and evil, while climate crises seeks smoke free, coal free energy, flames of fire or fireworks are often frowned upon. In these times, we can only hope to light the lamp of love — so that differences can be settled amicably without killing the helpless and innocent, infact without violence, greed, peacefully and with kindness, keeping in mind the safety of our species and our home, the Earth. We invite you to partake of our content, writings that light the lamp of love —
Twenty-one months later, Rai[1] arrives in Paris. It is spring and she is here on a pilgrimage of memory. It is not her first time in this city, she has visited it before through the eyes of another: a city bathed in the mellow yellow of an exceptional limestone, chestnut trees abloom beside the Seine, a river green as malachite, the white sleek pleasure boats and the chuffing barges passing under the grave arches of thirty-seven bridges, each distinct from the last, a differently shaped shadow rippling below, connecting over and again the opposites of what divides the city, a people who know the art of touch all too well. Yes, the sights, the smells, all familiar. The spring air smells of her beloved; an enormous peace descends upon her.
Ever since she stepped on the train from the suburbs where she has taken her rooms, she finds herself scanning every face in the metropolitan crowd, every face looking elsewhere, somewhere, lost outside the present of their almost mechanical movements, perhaps like her, seeking another face. Strangely, this feels like home, like the city she left behind many months ago, ostensibly to travel. For all it takes from its inhabitants, a great city gifts them an anonymity that is sacred to the human heart. Therein remains its primary seduction for diversity. Your face becomes a mask of itself. You live, unapologetic, learning to make room for yourself where none exists. Every great city has this air of elsewhere, she concludes. I can already see Rai could live here; it is reminiscent of where she grew up. Yet, today, more than ever before, she is homesick, for the soil, the faces, the lives she tore herself away from.
You wonder how I glance into her heart with such ease. Let me lead you to the answer.
She has your address, half-a name, a few photos. What does it matter? One cannot create what one did not destroy first. She is obeying the laws of physics you joked about nineteen months ago, the laws that would inevitably bring you nearer and nearer. Here she is, touching you almost, a ghost walking beside her, pointing out every other piece of beauty in this city which does not lack of them. You stood here once, your feet touched this pavement, oh god, you stood here! This is where you clicked the photograph you sent her saying, “Remember me.” But she isn’t speaking to you, not yet.
Insecure, naïve, scared, stuck she had been, but mostly scared…terrified… of losing you, the last thread of sanity in a world collapsing around her, screaming into her ears with a deathly consistency, inevitability. You had been her escape, god, how she had escaped… Looking back, she thinks… no, there is no looking back. I almost lost my mind when you left, she would like to say, but… almost, that word… I was living with monsters tearing each other apart. To you, I showed only what I hid from others, and hid from you all that offal the monsters would leave behind at the end of each meal. They knew how to devour a girl of nineteen. The result is her face, at twenty-one, that of an old woman.
But that is an advantage, especially in big cities.
Her poet knows she remembers every place you promised to show her. It is the city of forgotten promises. She has read every book you ever recommended, watched every movie you spoke of, revisited two languages for you, painted you, cursed you, pleaded with you, desired you, hated you, shattered the boundaries of her known world for you; for the rest of her life, she will celebrate the nineteenth of July as the birthday of her heart; and yet, you are only a ghost who she cannot talk to. But she will, now that she has reached your city. Tomorrow she will talk to you. Tonight, she will write for the first time in twenty-one months. Through the dim lights of the small window of the suburban apartment, you will see her typing away. She will write again.
The painting earlier this morning made her think of God. This is not unusual, merely the first impact of a Monet painting on one who has only seen photographs all her life. Remember the poems she would translate for you? She reads them sometimes now, searching for mistakes. Her innocence makes me laugh, her capacity for love is adorable. It is what she will write about.
Why did you introduce all those new words in her mind? That was a mistake. Didn’t you know words are a writer’s biggest fear? Well, you can see the result for yourself, aren’t you happy? That she forgot how to write, that she mixes up alphabets of three different scripts every time she picks up the pen, trying to find a language that will make you answer. But you tricksters play on…
This city is a mausoleum of your memory. This is the first line she writes. The rest of the night is spent weeping between fits of sleep. You watch on, right outside the window. I watch you watch.
It is still very dark when Rai finds herself irretrievably awake. A faint fragrance of some spring blossom is wafting in through the half-open window. It is light by the time she reaches the small station; the air is crisp as the ticket in her hand, the cold from the river making her button up her coat. Today she will walk beside the Seine.
Many have said that the soul of Paris flows in the green waters of the Seine. Obviously, those fools know nothing about souls. Souls do not flow away, they haunt.
The yellow aura of the buildings is enhanced in the pale morning light, the river dappled in the golden, the empty promenade inviting. Later in the day the tourists and hawkers will crowd this part of the city, but it is yet hers, all hers. A few joggers and some sleepless ones as her claim the early hours.
She starts walking from the tower towards Musée d’Orsay along the river. You walk behind her, slightly unsure. On this morning you realise this city entwined itself in her personal history long before you arrived. It wounds your pride, shakes your confidence in her fidelity. The artworks hanging in that building yonder have been the pursuit of her fascination for almost a decade now. You knew it, if fact, that is where you met, in a shared longing of elsewhere, of nostalgia for a world you were never a part of.
In senior school math, they taught that for an equation to have real solutions, one must apply constraints. But within the parentheses of those limits exist an infinity of choice. Remembrance is a choice. Her math tutor from school, the old man with the twinkling eyes, would insist mathematics is the purest form of poetry. How long has it been since she remembered him? What is the pollen in this air that brings back the past so lovingly?
The path Rai traces, to a viewer like me, appears most comical. But I’ve been around here long enough to know lunacy is the mother of imagination, it afflicts the seekers more often than you would think. Sometimes she walks beside the river, sometimes climb the stairs to cross a bridge that fancies her, then strolls again along the other bank, as if her wandering steps cannot have enough of the novelty of a river joined with such frequency, such care. In her culture, the poets have sung for centuries of the two banks of a river as lovers separated in togetherness, together in separation. This far from home, the metaphor revisits her.
My memory is again in the way of your history2. A city with a history of over two millennia, glorious in this spring, what does it care of your unrequited love, foolish girl? Yet she would repeat under her breath these lines from her favourite poet. He spoke of war, of a heritage blown to bits overnight, over years, preserved in the memory of its refugees; how interchangeable is it with the torn love she carries with such grace? Foolish as she is, I think I am getting quite fond of her stubbornness.
And you! I almost forgot your apparition there, caught in watching her too. What are you sulking about? Quick, she is walking towards the Pont des Arts. Wicked rogue, won’t you play her once on the love lock bridge of clichés? She is standing at the centre now, spread before her the split halves of tremendous urban life, speeding fast in the midday heat; on either side, decades of forgotten promises caught in iron, rusted, locked away. She bends to inspect the locks. Even as you rush ahead to play your game, you turn back and shout at me, “You are wrong, it is a cliché only if you win in love.” Through the strong breeze on the bridge, I try to make myself heard: “So much for your words, go close enough if you dare and she will speak to you.” I think you heard me. The plan works. On one of these locks, Rai discovers her own name, a single name, a word, perhaps echoed in rust from decades of a solitary namesake on the same bridge, but that staunch heart knows what it wants to believe. Who will save her? You are close enough to touch her now, and she senses you. When you have spied on people’s secret lives for as long as I have, you tend to expect melodrama. But Rai, travelled across twenty-one months of quiet longing, is not surprised. You have appeared before her on fretful nights, sweat-stained afternoons, rainy mornings, in songs, in tears, in sudden joy, in sunshine, in broken shadows of grief, in the citadel she has built for you, how can she not expect you? She is narrating a story now, the story of what her name, written on that lock, means.
It was the one of the first fables of love ever fabricated in her part of the world. Centuries old. The story of a woman who falls in love to the music of a cowboy she has never laid her eyes on. Their illicit love-making becomes the whisper of the land. With the passing years, the musician in the boy slowly succumbs to the warrior in the man, who eventually gets crowned in a country far away. Rai is left waiting; music is not so easily forgotten. Like all classics, this too is of unrequited love.
The lazy warmth of the afternoon has brought out many on the promenade. Sunning away, relaxing with beers, some sitting alone, some in picnics; in the little island of Île de la Cité, a band of young jazz enthusiasts blow into their trumpets; the flowers compliment the myriad soft colours on all dresses: the Seine is the frame of happiness. I watch the two of you stroll, a happy couple, woman and ghost, breathing in the Spring you promised her not so long ago. Grief is the kindest of opiates, it dissolves in its own fantasia. Tonight, with all the walking, she will need some wine. The cheap wine of this tired evening will put her to sleep. You do not have to sing lullabies, but pray, lie down beside her. Let her hold in her palm the ghost of your erect manhood, rest her head against the illusion of your chest. In you, she desires sleep so in her sleep she may desire you, consummate a mirage. Do not stay outside.
It is night yet when she leaves. “The Frog & British Library” glows in its ironic neon, the streetlights halo in the clear blue hour. The Pont de Tolbiac stoops groggily over the ultramarine blue of the water pregnant with shimmering reflections: the illumined buildings, the barges anchored at the edge, the symmetrical reflections from the arch of the next bridge, perhaps (she fancies), the last of the stars too. The beauty of this night stings her eyes with an almost physical pain. She is thinking of you, of what remains of what you were.
I’m everything you lost. You won’t forgive me.
My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.
There is nothing to forgive. You won’t forgive me.2
Her poet is speaking again. Yes, she is here to ask for your forgiveness. She has left everything behind, for nothing ahead, in this long, long solitary journey only to ask for your forgiveness. Forgiveness for naïveté, for insensitivity, for distance, for loving with more sincerity than a heart bears without protest. The little crystal she wears around her neck on a string, she believes it has a beauty she does not deserve, like you, who loved her more for the magnanimous reflection in your kindness than her own small artless self. Your absence fills the air above the deep blue Seine like a forgotten god of this city that is yours. The semi-circle of these lanterns shiver beneath her like a pantheon of answers. Hope costs nothing, you told her once, and that is how she dared. To cross an ocean for you. The boatmen of this world speak of riches on the opposite bank, her voyage was merely to free the emptiness of her claustrophobic heart, restless, restless, oh, ever so restless. Perhaps, and I speak only as the outsider who inhabits you both, you should forgive her now.
Years ago, on summer nights, her grandmother would tell her the story of the boy who dived into the bottomless pond in the middle of the desert to salvage the pink pearl. The next morning, the villagers found a banyan tree at the centre of the pond, its roots vanishing into the fathomless. Legend says every full moon night, the heart of the boy cries for the pearl, and in the morning, a new column is added to the mass of hanging roots, a stream of condensed tears feeding the pond. Thus grew the desert city of Ehsaan around an oasis of endless fertility.
The blue is beginning to fade, a turquoise haze envelopes the bridge, the barge, the lamps, her; from the horizon, a faint blush rises, spreading softly over the sky. It is still night, the crescent moon still in bloom, but the last scattered stars are evasive now.
Suddenly, the streetlights go off. In this instant, dawn has arrived. The sky transits less hastily. The city of her beloved is waking up. A bus awaits to take her where she came from, through fields of uniformly shaven colour- yellow, green, brown, waves of symmetry upon a calm earth. A piece of this calm resides in her now, the river has doused the fire scourging her insides. Something has healed.
She will return. I, the Seine, rushing past a million lives, over a hundred thousand springs heartbreakingly beautiful, have promised to save the pink pearl in my bosom until then.
[1] Another name of Radha, the beloved of the divine cowherd Krishna
TWO BIRDS
In a coop of gold, lived Cage Bird,
In the forest dwelt Free Bird --
How did the twain meet on a dawn?
What had Fate ordained?
"Dear One in cage," Free Bird called out,
"Come, let's fly into the wood."
"You come inside," chirped Cage Bird,
"The enclosure can be our home!"
"No!" Free Bird cried, "the chains are not for me!"
"Alas!" Cage Bird sighed,
"How can I live in the holt!"
Free Bird sat outside and sang
All the forest songs he loved.
Cage Bird parroted all
The tricks it had been taught -
'Twas as if they spoke two tongues!
Free Bird pleaded, "Dear one!
For me sing one Forest song!""
Cage Bird said, "You better rote
Songs of the cage, loved one!"
"No!" Free Bird wailed,
"I do not parrot cliches!"
"Alas," sobbed Cage Bird,
"How do I sing what I've never heard!"
The Free Bird chimed, "Deep is the blue
Of the sky above,
There's no bar in its expanse!"
"See!" Cage Bird twittered,
"How well-netted is the aviary
on all its four sides!"
"Let go of yourself!" Free Bird whistled,
"In the clouds above, just once!"
"This cosy corner is so very tranquil!"
Cage Bird chirped, "Why not
Submit to its peace?"
"No! Where will I then fly?"
"Alas! Where in the clouds
Will I find a perch?"
Thus the two birds loved each other
But could not unite.
Through the gaps their beaks would kiss
Their eyes bespoke their longing
But neither could understand
Nor express to the other
Their biding constraints.
They flapped their wings
They stretched their arms
"Come to me dear, let me
Hold you to my heart!"
"No!" the Free Bird feared,
"The door might snap shut!"
"Alas!" lamented the Caged Bird
"I have no might to fly!"
Birds in a large cage in Saratchandra’s home. Photo Courtesy: Ratnottama Sengupta
Growing up in a Vaishnav family where kirtan was a part of daily life, I had always loved this song Rabindranath Tagore composed in the kirtan style. In my later years I thought the Universal Poet had penned the Natya Geeti — song drama — in the context of the Freedom Struggle. No, I learnt in an essay by the poet: it was penned in 1892 to put into words a more universal philosophy — the duality that is part of every human existence. Difficult to comprehend? Perhaps not, once we obliterate the sameness of the two birds and attribute gender markers to them. Tagore himself thought of the caged bird as the woman in every man, and the free bird as the man in every woman. Perhaps that is why it is structured along the lines of the traditional Shuk Shari samvad — a conversational song between between two birds (parrots perhaps?) — wherein Shuk is a follower of the masculine, Purushottam Krishna, and Shari of Radha, the essence of femininity. However, I was prompted to look up the poem recently when I saw a large birdcage in a corner of Saratchandra Chatterjee’s house in Deulti some 60 km from Kolkata. It was pretty routine, apparently, for households then to have aviaries ‘domesticating’ finches, canaries, parakeets, cockatiels, lovebirds and other feathered pets — much like today’s people with pet dogs and cats. But I was struck by a different thought: Did the two birds represent the two stalwarts of Bengali Literature who lived at the same time? Did one look inside homes and scan woes besetting the happiness of their human relationships? And did the other take off from his perch on a branch of the tree rooted in terra firma, to swim in the boundless ocean above? Even today, one draws you out into the vast expanse while the other pulls you homeward. Together? They give us a universe…
Notes:
Kirtan is devotional music.
Tagore (1861 to 1941) and Saratchandra (1876-1938) were contemporaries. While Saratchandra wrote stories based on real life to expose and reform social ills, Tagore’s work was more philosophically inclined, though he has written of such societal issues too.
In 1894, Rabindranath wrote in Aadhunik Saahitya while commenting on the works of the poet Biharilal Chakraborty –
“… There is an independently moving masculine entity within our nature, which is intolerant to bondage alongside a feminine one which preffers to be enclosed and secured within the walls of the home. Both of them remain united in an inseparable fashion. One is eager to develop significantly his undying strength in a diverse way by savouring ever-new tastes of life, exploring ever-new realms and manifestations and the other remains encircled within innumerable prejudices and traditional practices, enthralled with her habitual deliberations. One takes you out into the vast expanse and the other seems to pull towards home. One is a forest bird (or the free bird of the translation by Ratnottama Sengupta) and the other is a caged bird. This forest bird is the one that sings much. Although, its song expresses with its diverse melodies the whimper and its craving for unrestricted freedom.”
Rabindranath Tagore was a brilliant poet, writer, musician, artist, educator – a polymath. He was the first Nobel Laureate from Asia. His writing spanned across genres, across global issues and across the world. His works remains relevant to this day.
Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Borderless 