Tag: Lokenath Roy

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Contents

Borderless, February 2025

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

The Kanchejunga Turns Gold … Click here to read.

Translations

Tumi Kon Kanoner Phul by Tagore and Anjali Loho Mor by Nazrul, love songs by the two greats, have been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Tumi to Janona Kichu (You seem to know nothing) by Jibananda Das has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Where Lies the End of this Unquenchable Thirst?, a poem by Atta Shad, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

The Bird’s Funeral a poem by Ihlwha Choi  has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here read.

Kheya or Ferry, a poem by Tagore, has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Michael Burch, Shamik Banerjee, John Drudge, Ashok Suri, Cal Freeman, Lokenath Roy, Stuart McFarlane, Thompson Emate, Aditi Dasgupta, George Freek, Gazala Khan, Phil Wood, Srijani Dutta, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Akbar Fida Onoto, Ryan Quinn Flangan, Rhys Hughes

Musings/Slices from Life

Just Another Day?

Farouk Gulsara muses on the need to observe various new year days around the globe and across time. Click here to read.

Of Birthdays and Bondings…

Ratnottama Sengupta reminiscences on her past experiences. Click here to read.

As Flows the Gomti: A Palace of Benevolence

Prithvijeet Sinha takes us for a tour of the Bara Imambara in Lucknow with his words and camera. Click here to read.

The Midwife’s Confession and More…

Aparna Vats shares a narrative around female infanticide centring her story around a BBC interview and an interview with the journalist who unfolded the narrtive. Click here to read.

Juhu

Lokenath Roy gives a vignette of the world famous beach. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In The Heroic Fall, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores dacoits and bravery. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Finding Inspiration in Shikoku’s Iya Valley, Suzanne Kamata has written of a source of inspiration for a short story in her recently published book. Click here to read.

Essays

Reminiscences from a Gallery: MF Husian

Dolly Narang recounts how she started a gallery more than four decades ago and talks of her encounter with world renowned artist, MF Husain. Click here to read.

In The Hidden Kingdom of Bhutan

Mohul Bhowmick explores Bhutan with words and his camera. Click here to read.

When a New Year Dawns…

Ratnottama Sengupta writes of the art used in calendars and diaries in India. Click here to read.

What Is Your Name?

Fakrul Alam recalls his mother as a person who aspired for fairplay for women. Click here to read.

Stories

Vasiliki and Nico Go Fishing

Paul Mirabile gives a heartwarming story set in a little Greek island. Click here to read.

Naughty Ravi

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao writes of an awakening. Click here to read.

The Wise One

Snigdha Agrawal gives a touching story around healing from grief. Click here to read.

Conversations

Ratnottama Sengupta converses with Joy Bimal Roy, author of Ramblings of a Bandra Boy. Click here to read.

A discussion on managing cyclones, managing the aftermath and resilience with Bhaksar Parichha, author of Cyclones in Odisha: Landfall, Wreckage, and Resilience. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Bhaskar Parichha’s Cyclones in Odisha, Landfall, Wreckage and Resilience. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Joy Bimal Roy’s Ramblings of a Bandra Boy. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Amitav Ghosh’s Wild Fiction: Essays. Click here to read.

Meenakshi Malhotra reviews Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Shabnam, translated from Bengali by Nazes Afroz. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Abhay K’s Nalanda: How it Changed the World. Click here to read.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

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Editorial

The Kanchenjunga Turns Gold…

The Kanchenjunga turns gold

Ghoom, Darjeeling, is almost 2.5 km above sea level. Standing in the rarified air of Ghoom, you can watch the Kanchenjunga turn gold as it gets drenched in the rays of the rising sun. The phenomenon lasts for a short duration. The white pristine peak again returns to its original colour blending and disappearing among the white cirrus clouds that flit in the sky. Over time, it’s shrouded by mists that hang over this region. The event is transitory and repeats itself on every clear morning like life that flits in and out of existence over and over again…

Witnessing this phenomenon feels like a privilege of a lifetime as is meeting people who shine brightly and unusually, like the Kanchenjunga, to disappear into mists all too early. One such person was the founder of pandies’ 1 who coordinated the pandies’ corner for Borderless Journal, the late Sanjay Kumar (1961-2025). The idea of starting this column was to bring out the unheard voices of those who had risen above victimhood to find new lives through the work done by pandies’. In his book, Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre: Exploring Play, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, he described his scope of work which in itself was stunning. His work ranged from teaching to using theatre and play to heal railway platform kids, youngsters in Kashmir, the Nithari survivors and more — all youngsters who transcended the scars seared on them by violations and violence. We hope to continue the column in coordination with pandies’.

Another very renowned person whose art encompassed a large number of social concerns and is now lost to time was the artist, MF Husain (1915-2011). This issue of Borderless is privileged to carry an artwork by him that has till now not been open to the public for viewing. It was a gift from him to the gallerist, Dolly Narang, on her birthday. She has written nostlgically of her encounters with the maestro who walked bare-feet and loved rusticity. She has generously shared a photograph of the sketch (1990) signed ‘McBull’ — a humorous play on his first name, Maqbool, by the artist.

Drenched with nostalgia is also Professor Fakrul Alam’s essay, dwelling on more serious issues while describing with a lightness his own childhood experiences. Many of the nonfiction in this issue have a sense of nostalgia. Mohul Bhowmick recalls his travels to Bhutan. And Prithvijeet Sinha introduces as to a grand monument of Lucknow, Bara Imambara. Lokenath Roy takes us for a stroll to Juhu, dwelling on the less affluent side. Suzanne Kamata describes her source of inspiration for a few stories in her new book, River of Dolls and Other Stories. A darker hue is brought in by Aparna Vats as she discusses female infanticide. But a light sprays across the pages as Devraj Singh Kalsi describes how his feisty grandmother tackled armed robbers in her home. And an ironic tone rings out in the rather whimsical musing by Farouk Gulsara on New Year days and calendars.

With a touch of whimsy, Ratnottama Sengupta has also written of the art that is often seen in calendars and diaries as well as a musing on birthdays, her own and that of a friend, Joy Bimal Roy. They have also conversed on his new book, Ramblings of a Bandra Boy, whose excerpt is also lodged in our pages, recalling their days in the glitzy world of Bollywood as children of notable film director, Bimal Roy (1909-1966), and award-winning writer, Nabendu Ghosh (1917-2007).

We feature the more serious theme of climate change in our other interview with Bhaskar Parichha, who has written a book called Cyclones in Asia: Landfall, Wreckage and Resilience. He has spoken extensively on resilience and how the incidence of such storms are on the rise. We carry an excerpt from his non-fiction too. His book bears the imprint of his own experience of helping during such storms and extensive research.

Climate change has been echoed in poetry by Gazala Khan and the metaphor of thrashing stormy climate can be found in Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal’s poetry. Touching lines on working men spread across the globe with poems from Michael Burch, Shamik Banerjee, Stuart McFarlane and Ashok Suri while Ryan Quinn Flanagan has written of accepting change as Nazrul had done more than eighty years ago:

Everyone was at each other's throats,
insistent that the world was ending.
But I felt differently, as though I were just beginning,
or just beginning again…

--Changes by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Poets, like visionaries across time and cultures, often see hope where others see despair. And humour always has that hum of hope. In a lighter tone, Rhys Hughes makes one laugh or just wonder as he writes:

I once knew a waiter
who jumped in alarm
when I somersaulted across
his restaurant floor
after entering the front door
on my way to my favourite
table: he wasn’t able
to control his nerves
and the meal he was bearing
ended up on the ceiling
with people staring
as it started to drip down.

--No Hard Feelings by Rhys Hughes

We have many more colours of poetry from John Drudge, Cal Freeman, Phil Wood, Thompson Emate, George Freek, Srijani Dutta, Akbar Fida Onoto, and others.

Translations feature poetry. Lyrics of Nazrul (1899-1976) and Tagore (1861-1941) appear together in Professor Alam’s translations of their love songs from Bengali. He has also transcreated a Bengali poem by Jibananada Das (1899-1854). Profoundly philosophical lines by Atta Shad (1939-1997) in Balochi has been rendered to English by Fazal Baloch for his birth anniversary this month. Ihlwah Choi has translated his poem from Korean, taking up the poignant theme of transience of life. A Tagore poem called ‘Kheya (Ferry)’, inspired by his rustic and beautiful surroundings, has been brought to us in English.

Our fiction this month features human bonding from across oceans by Paul Mirabile, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao and Snigdha Agrawal. This theme of love and bonding is taken up in a more complex way by our reviews’ section with Meenakshi Malhotra writing of Syed Mujtaba Ali’s novel, Shabnam, translated from Bengali by Nazes Afroz. Bhaskar Parichha has explored the past by bringing to focus Abhay K’s Nalanda: How it Changed the World. Somdatta Mandal’s review of Amitav Ghosh’s latest Wild Fiction: Essays touches upon various issues including climate change.

Huge thanks to all our contributors, the Borderless team for all these fabulous pieces. Thanks to Gulsara, Kamata, Bhowmick and Sinha for the fabulous photography by them to accompany their writings. Heartfelt gratitude to Sohana Manzoor for her cover art and to Dutta for her artwork accompanying her poem. Without all your efforts, this issue would have been incomplete. And now, dear readers, thank you for being with us through this journey. I turn the issue over to all of you… there is more as usual than mentioned here. Do pause by our contents page.

Let’s celebrate life this spring!

Happy Reading!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

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  1. pandies’ was started in 1987. It’s spelled with a small ‘p’ and the name was picked by the original team. Read more about pandies’ by clicking here. ↩︎

Click here to access the contents page for the February 2025 Issue

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

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Poetry

Search…

By Lokenath Roy

From Public Domain
SEARCH FOR CONSCIOUSNESS

the expanse of the splintering fire flames flash
across space time, pouring onto grey pupils.
I like how they appear once, and then in another form: another.

lanterns of tinted glass in power starved the rural households,
streaking through bland darkness.
arrival of the faintest rays from the shaded corner of the
mud brick encased kitchen,

lights the letters on the pages to life.
rice puffs and fluffs on the oven pit, letting out splinters,
across the skin of burnt deadwood, like sparks in the void
of silence.

the newborn within me giggles to the flickering flames.
carried by the wind across the face of decades of dead, burnt leaves,
I search for consciousness.

I SEARCH FOR A FRIEND

I left my home; not knowing where I'd go. I
search for my friend in

the narrow alleys led on by dim lit street bulbs. 
it is the aftermath of the Bengali New Year; 
feels like the last one to bless us.

my friend, he has a voice. he wants to sing.
I run off in my pajamas for a front row seat

to the courtyard converted into an
auditorium. I knock at his front door. 
years of knocking scatter to dilution.

the deserted terrace smiles at me. empty smile.
empty house. rust crawls to my palm

from the railings. darkness piles on
my sweaty shirt collar. 

hands grappling through piles of epitaphs among
cluttered newspaper columns. I search
for a corpse.

Lokenath Roy, a writer from Kolkata who explores themes of society, memory, and the human experience, has published  in several literary journals and online magazines like The Cawnpore Magazine, The Monograph Magazine, The Aeos Magazine and the Borderless Journal.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Contents

Borderless, December 2024

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

‘Footfalls Echo in the Memory’… Click here to read.

Translations

Jibananada Das’s Andhar Dekhecche, Tobu Ache (I have seen the dark and yet there is another) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Manish Ghatak’s Aagun taader Praan (Fire is their Life) has been translated from Bengali by Indrayudh Sinha. Click here to read.

Manzur Bismil’s poem, Stories, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Homecoming, a poem by Ihlwha Choi on his return from Santiniketan, has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Tagore’s Shotabdir Surjo Aji ( The Century’s Sun today) has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Michael R Burch, Farah Sheikh, George Freek, Rajiv Borra, Kelsey Walker, Lokenath Roy, Thompson Emate, Joy Anne O’Donnell, Jayant Kashyap, John Grey, Aman Alam, Stuart McFarlane, Ayesha Binte Islam, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Saranyan BV, Rhys Hughes

Musings/ Slices from Life

Autumn in Hyderabad

Mohul Bhowmick muses on Hyderabad. Click here to read.

Straight Back Across the Strait

Meredith Stephens gives a vignette of life in South Australia with a sailing adventure built in. Click here to read.

My Patchwork Year

Keith Lyons muses on what 2024 meant for him. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Byline Fever, Devraj Singh Kalsi travels down the path of nostalgia. Click here to read.

Essays

Still to Moving Images

Ratnottama Sengupta explores artists who have turned to use the medium of films… artists like the legendary MF Husain. Click here to read.

How Dynamic was Ancient India?

Farouk Gulsara explores William Dalrymple’s latest book, The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World. Click here to read.

A Short, Winding, and Legendary Dhaka Road

Professor Fakrul Alam takes us on a historical journey of one of the most iconic roads of Dhaka, Fuller Road. Click here to read.

Stories

Significance

Naramsetti  Umamaheswararao creates a fable around a banyan tree and it’s fruit. Click here to read.

The Dance of Life

Snigdha Agrawal explores ageism. Click here to read.

The Unsuspecting Suspect

Paul Mirabile wraps his telling like a psychological thriller. Click here to read.

Conversations

Ratnottama Sengupta converses with Divya Dutta, an award-winning actress, who has authored two books recently, Stars in my Sky and Me and Ma. Click here to read.

Lara Geyla converses about her memoir, Camels of Kyzylkum, and her journey as an immigrant. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Thomas Bell’s Human Nature: A Walking History of the Himalayan Landscape. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Savi Naipaul Akal’s The Naipauls of Nepaul Street, a retelling of VS Naipaul’s heritage in Trinidad by his sister. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Kusum Khemani’s Lavanyadevi, translated from Hindi by Banibrata Mahanta. Click here to read.

Aditi Yadav reviews Nanako Hanada’s The Bookshop Woman, translated from Japanese by Cat Anderson. Click here to read.

Jagari Mukherjee reviews Kiriti Sengupta’s poetry collection, Oneness. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Noor Jahan Bose’s Daughter of The Agunmukha: A Bangla Life, translated from Bengali by Rebecca Whittington. 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

Categories
Editorial

‘Footfalls Echo in the Memory’

Painting by Claud Monet (1840-1926). From Public Domain

Acknowledging our past achievements sends a message of hope and responsibility, encouraging us to make even greater efforts in the future. Given our twentieth-century accomplishments, if people continue to suffer from famine, plague and war, we cannot blame it on nature or on God.

–Homo Deus (2015), Yuval Noah Harari

Another year drumrolls its way to a war-torn end. Yes, we have found a way to deal with Covid by the looks of it, but famine, hunger… have these drawn to a close? In another world, in 2019, Abhijit Banerjee had won a Nobel Prize for “a new approach to obtaining reliable answers about the best ways to fight global poverty”. Even before that in 2015, Yuval Noah Harari had discussed a world beyond conflicts where Homo Sapien would evolve to become Homo Deus, that is man would evolve to deus or god. As Harari contends at the start of Homo Deus, some of the world at least hoped to move towards immortality and eternal happiness. But, given the current events, is that even a remote possibility for the common man?

Harari points out in the sentence quoted above, acknowledging our past achievements gives hope… a hope born of the long journey humankind has made from caves to skyscrapers. If wars destroy those skyscrapers, what happens then? Our December issue highlights not only the world as we knew it but also the world as we know it.

In our essay section, Farouk Gulsara contextualises and discusses William Dalrymple’s latest book, The Golden Road with a focus on past glories while Professor Fakrul Alam dwells on a road in Dhaka , a road rife with history of the past and of toppling the hegemony and pointless atrocities against citizens. Yet, common people continue to weep for the citizens who have lost their homes, happiness and lives in Gaza and Ukraine, innocent victims of political machinations leading to war.

Just as politics divides and destroys, arts build bridges across the world. Ratnottama Sengupta has written of how artists over time have tried their hands at different mediums to bring to us vignettes of common people’s lives, like legendary artist M F Husain went on to make films, with his first black and white film screened in Berlin Film Festival in 1967 winning the coveted Golden Bear, he captured vignettes of Rajasthan and the local people through images and music. And there are many more instances like his…

Mohul Bhowmick browses on the past and the present of Hyderabad in a nostalgic tone capturing images with words. From the distant shores of New Zealand, Keith Lyons takes on a more individualistic note to muse on the year as it affected him. Meredith Stephens has written of her sailing adventure and life in South Australia. Devraj Singh Kalsi describes a writerly journey in a wry tone. Rhys Hughes also takes a tone of dry humour as he continues with his poems musing on photographs of strangely worded signboards. Colours are brought into poetry by Michael R Burch, Farah Sheikh, George Freek, Rajiv Borra, Kelsey Walker, John Grey, Stuart McFarlane, Saranyan BV, Ryan Quinn Falangan and many more. Some lines from this issue’s poetry selection by young Aman Alam really resonated well with the tone defined by the contributors of this issue:

It's always the common people who pay first.
They don’t write the speeches or sign the orders.
But when the dust rises, they’re the ones buried under...

— Whose Life? By Aman Alam

Echoing the theme of the state of the common people is a powerful poem by Manish Ghatak translated from Bengali by Indrayudh Sinha, a poem that echoes how some flirt with danger on a daily basis for ‘Fire is their life’. Professor Alam has brought to us a Bengali poem by Jibanananda Das that reflects the issues we are all facing in today’s world, a poem that remains relevant even in the next century, Andhar Dekhecche, Tobu Ache (I have seen the dark and yet there is another). Fazal Baloch has translated contemporary poet Manzur Bismil’s poem from Balochi on the suffering caused by decisions made by those in power. Ihlwha Choi on the other hand has shared his own lines in English from his Korean poem about his journey back from Santiniketan, in which he claims to pack “all my lingering regrets carefully into my backpack”. And yet from the founder of Santiniketan, we have a translated poem that is not only relevant but also disturbing in its description of the current reality: “…Conflicts are born of self-interest./ Wars are fought to satiate greed…”. Tagore’s Shotabdir Surjo (The Century’s Sun, 1901) recounts the horrors of history…The poem brings to mind Edvard Munch’s disturbing painting of “The Scream” (1893).  Does what was true more than hundred years ago, still hold?

Reflecting on eternal human foibles, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao creates a contemporary fable in fiction while Snigdha Agrawal reflects on attitudes towards aging. Paul Mirabile weaves an interesting story around guilt and crime. Sengupta takes us back to her theme of artistes moving away from the genre, when she interviews award winning actress, Divya Dutta, for not her acting but her literary endeavours — two memoirs — Me and Ma and Stars in the Sky. The other interviewee Lara Gelya from Ukraine, also discusses her memoir, Camels from Kyzylkum, a book that traces her journey from the desert of Kyzylkum to USA through various countries. In our book excerpts, we have one that resonates with immigrant lores as writer VS Naipual’s sister, Savi Naipaul Akal, discusses how their family emigrated to Trinidad in The Naipauls of Nepaul Street. The other excerpt from Thomas Bell’s Human Nature: A Walking History of the Himalayan Landscape seeks “to understand the relationship between communities and their environment.” He moves through the landscapes of Nepal to connect readers to people in Himalayan villages.

The reviews in this issue travel through cultures and time with Somdatta Mandal’s discussion of Kusum Khemani’s Lavanyadevi, translated from Hindi by Banibrata Mahanta. Aditi Yadav travels to Japan with Nanako Hanada’s The Bookshop Woman, translated from Japanese by Cat Anderson. Jagari Mukherjee writes on the poems of Kiriti Sengupta in Oneness and Bhaskar Parichha reviews a book steeped in history and the life of a brave and daring woman, a memoir by Noor Jahan Bose, Daughter of The Agunmukha: A Bangla Life, translated from Bengali by Rebecca Whittington.

We have more content than mentioned here. Please do pause by our content’s page to savour our December Issue. We are eternally grateful to you, dear readers, for making our journey worthwhile.

Huge thanks to all our contributors for making this issue come alive with their vibrant work. Huge thanks to the team at Borderless for their unflinching support and to Sohana Manzoor for sharing her iconic paintings that give our journal a distinctive flavour.

With the hope of healing with love and compassion, let us dream of a world in peace.

Best wishes for the start of the next year,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.

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

Click here to access the content’s page for the December 2024 Issue

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

Categories
Poetry

My Father’s Detour

By Lokenath Roy

MY FATHER's DETOUR
 

I sat with my school dress on; waiting
for baba to finish his detour of the paddy fields
on his way home. It made me curious --

this detour. I would ask mother with raised eyebrows,
but never get an answer.

I have seen the cycle lie slanted
on a slender date tree bark by the pond.
Maybe he caught fish.

Years ago, when there was no toilet in the household,
he frequented the shabby unused ghat and

smoked beedi* as he squatted beside the stone steps on
the dewy brown grass patches.

Now we have toilets made
for everyone in the village.

Stashes of fuming beedi litter the ghat.
Maybe, after all these years, he has grown attached
to the pond side. A daily attachment.

*Beedi: A thin cigarette smoked in the Indian Subcontinent

Lokenath Roy’s work explores themes of society, memory, and the human experience. His poems have appeared in several literary journals and online magazines like The Cawnpore Magazine and The Monograph Magazine. His work is also immensely popular on platforms like Quora.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International