Lakshmi Chithra – Borderless

Borderless, August 2024

Editorial

A Sprinkling of Happiness?… Click here to read.

Conversation

A review of and discussion with Rhys Hughes about his ‘Weird Western’, The Sunset Suite. Click here to read.

Translations

Two Songs of Parting by Nazrul have been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

The Snakecharmer, Shapuray by Nazrul, has been translated from Bengali by Sohana Manzoor. Click here to read.

Leaving for Barren, Distant Lands by Allah Bashk Buzdar has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Loneliness has been translated from Korean by the poet, Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.

Tagore’s Olosh Shomoy Dhara Beye (Time Flows at an Indolent Pace) has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Michael Burch, Arshi Mortuza, Jason Ryberg, Saranyan BV, Koiko Tsuuda, Jane Hammons, Noopur Vedajna Das, Adeline Lyons, George Freek, Naisha Chawla, John Grey, Lakshmi Chithra, Craig Kirchner, Nia Joseph, Stuart MacFarlane, Sanjay C Kuttan, Nilsa Mariano, G Javaid Rasool, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Rhys Hughes

Musings/ Slices from Life

Breaking Bread

Snigdha Agrawal has a bovine encounter in a restaurant. Click here to read.

That Box of Colour Pencils

G Venkatesh writes of a happy encounter with two young children. Click here to read.

The Chameleon’s Dance

Chinmayi Goyal muses on the duality of her cultural heritage. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Godman Ventures Pvt. Ltd., Devraj Singh Kalsi looks into a new business venture with a satirical glance. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In In Praise of Parasols, Suzanne Kamata takes a light look at this perennial favourite of women in Japan. Click here to read.

Essays

The Comet’s Trail: Remembering Kazi Nazrul Islam

Radha Chakravarty pays tribute to the rebel poet of Bengal. Click here to read.

From Srinagar to Ladakh: A Cyclist’s Diary

Farouk Gulsara travels from Malaysia for a cycling adventure in Kashmir. Click here to read.

Bottled Memories, Inherited Stories

Ranu Bhattacharyya takes us back to Dhaka of the 1930s… and a world where the two Bengals interacted as one with her migration story. Click here to read.

Landslide In Wayanad Is Only The Beginning

Binu Mathew discusses the recent climate disaster in Kerala and contextualises it. Click here to read.

Stories

The Orange Blimp

Joseph Pfister shares a vignette set in the Midwest. Click here to read.

A Queen is Crowned

Farhanaz Rabbani traces the awakening of self worth. Click here to read.

Roberto Mendoza’s Memoirs of Admiral Don Christopher Columbus

Paul Mirabile explores myths around Christopher Columbus in a fictitive setting. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Shabnam, translated from Bengali by Nazes Afroz. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Maaria Sayed’s From Pashas to Pokemon. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Upamanyu Chatterjee’s Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life. Click here to read.

Meenakshi Malhotra reviews Shuchi Kapila’s Learning to Remember: Postmemory and the Partition of India. Click here to read.

Rakhi Dalal reviews Namita Gokhale’s Never Never Land. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Malvika Rajkotia’s Unpartitioned Time: A Daughter’s Story. Click here to read.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Tillandsia

Once, on a dark snowy day in a strange land,
I metamorphosed to an air plant.
First, I lost my tongue; then I lost my limbs;
My brown trunk swirled into itself.
A crusty mossy green veneer over my fern-like body.
I lay still, a green cocoon– I am going back.

This chip based plastic card is my DNA barcode.
It lets the rootless ausländer reside in this land,
to breathe it's AQI certified perfect-for-a walk air
for these exact contractual work years.
It keeps me safe -- a new sample specimen,
well preserved in a laboratory bell jar.
A permit -- a hermit immersed in nirvana liquid.
I gaze outside through the transparent glass --
everything magnified, everything distorted.
An enticing pool of sunlight at the far end of the lab,
beyond the windows, there are patches of green.
I look for familiar faces, long lost cousins and neighbours --
Is that the rabbit-ear-leafed* herb?
(the long wanderings on monsoon mornings to cure the little one’s cough)
the small-flowery-leafed* one?
(the herbal decoction for feverish nights)
the crawl-on-the-ground-palm* and down-the-stream-gooseberry*?
(a folk song, a ritual, the cure for yellow-fever)
The patches of green remained as aloof as they were.
They denied my identification procedure –
“Wir bist nicht deine ‘name-place-animal-thing’,
we are google lens-approved rational scientific botanic beings,
we were featured in Systema Naturae and
we are alien to your wobble-gobble”.

I swayed away and stared at the supermarket herbs section for hours.
Familiar fragrances -- dried and powdered and renamed.
And the authentic all-rounder -- “Indische Curry-Englisch style”
Black pepper from my backyard would disown me for this affair.
I reside, breathe in and breathe out the AQI verified air.
I reside, observe and wait, in this permitted residence of mine.
To live -- to live and thrive one should go back or grow roots.
(And then, herbs are no longer a supermarket section
they are an image of your soul in green,
a fibrous embrace that warms your blood.)

*Literal translations of medicinal herbs from author’s mother tongue