Tag: Maithreyi Karnoor

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Editorial

The Sky

The sky is, was and will be.

It stretches without borders, without interruptions, without contentions, unifying all under its life-giving ambience. We live nurtured by the sky, the water and the Earth. If we think back to times before humans made constructs and built walls to guard their own, to times when their ancestors roamed the Earth and moved to meet their needs, the population was not huge, and resources were abundant. Our species lived in consonance with nature. People revered natural forces and found trends that evolved into traditions and constructs which eventually made their progeny forget that the sky, water and Earth did not belong to them. These belong or perhaps exist for some reason that we do not comprehend despite the explanations given by science and religions. Being merely transient passers-by through these, humanity, unlike dinosaurs, has an urge to survive and be like the sky — with a past, present and future and a sense of the eternal. Though we all have short lives compared to the sky, Earth or universe, we continue to find ourselves in a homo centric world that considers all else to be made to meet their aspirations. But there was a time, when humans lacked this arrogance. They just tried to survive. And move with shifting rivers in an unbordered world.

Exploring such times, is Anthony Sattin’s profound book, Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped our World. He converses to reinforce reviving the concept of asabiyya or bonding between humans so that they find it in their hearts to move forward with necessary changes to avoid following in the footsteps of mammoths. A change maker who redefined constructs for humankind, a devdasi’s[1] daughter who rose to become a pioneering doctor and activist a hundred years ago, is Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy. We have an interview with her recent biographer, R Devika, who authored Muthulakshmi Reddy: A Trailblazer in Surgery and Women’s Rights.

The books reviewed this time include one featuring the writings by the greatest change maker in cinema — Satyajit Ray. Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Satyajit Ray Miscellany: On Life, Cinema, People & Much More while Professor Somdatta Mandal has given us a candid opinion on BM Zuhara’s The Dreams of a Mappila Girl: A Memoir, translated from Malayalam by Fehmida Zakir. Taranath Tantrik and Other Tales from the  Supernatural by Bibhutibhushan, translated from Bengali by Devalina Mookerjee brings unexplored dark mysterious forces into play and has been reviewed by Basudhara Roy. We have an excerpt from the titular stories of Tarantath Tantrik. Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay(1894-1950) was a legendary writer from Bengal. He wrote stories and novels, some of which were immortalised in cinema, such as the Apu triology by Satyajit Ray. The other book excerpt is from a translation from Kannada by an upcoming voice that needs to be heard, Maithreyi Karnoor. She has brought to the anglophone world Shrinivas Vaidya’s Handful of Sesame.

In our section on translations, we are privileged to carry voices that remain relevant to date, Tagore and Nazrul. Nazrul’s poem on poverty, Daridro, has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam and we have a transcreation of Tagore’s inspiring lyrics (Aalo Amar Aalo) to energise one’s life with the refulgence of light. Rosy Gallace’s poetry has been translated from Italian by Albanian writer, Irma Kurti. Korean poet, Ihlwha Choi, has translated his own poem on peace for us. And a Tamil short story by S Ramakrishnan, has been rendered into English by B Chandramouli. It is an interesting potpourri as is our poetry section, which even features poetry from Iraq by Ahmad Al-Khatat. We also feature poems by Michael Burch, Kirpal Singh, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Jonathan Chan, Ron Pickett, George Freek, Gayatri Majumdar, Vandana Kumar, Mike Smith and many more along with the inimitable witty ditties of Rhys Hughes which not only make us laugh but also wonder…

Evoking humour is not easy, but we do have a few such writers who manage it very well. Hughes has given us a tongue-in-cheek piece on the dateline, which has more than humour. And Devraj Singh Kalsi has shared his discovery that laughter is the best medicine to shrug off a dentist’s drill. He has also visited the colours of Durga Puja which, with its spirit of inclusivity, transported visitors in one marquee near Kolkata to the iconic Malaysian Twin Towers. Thus, bringing festivals in October into our purview. Candice Lousia Daquin has actually explored why we celebrate festivals and the God gene… Did you know we have a biological need for spirituality?

Suzanne Kamata has introduced us to Mount Bizan, which houses a writer by the surname of Moraes – Wenceslau José de Souza de Moraes, an expat writer who lived in Japan at the turn of the twentieth century. Wonder if he could have been related to the Anglo Indian writer, Dom Moraes? Aditi Yadav has also given us an essay on the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-sabi with its world view centred on imperfections and transience. Ravi Shankar has suggested walks for all of us, sharing his experiences in the Himalayas, the Caribbean island of Aruba and in many more places. Meredith Stephens has written of sailing to Tasmania.

The essay that brought back a flavour of home for me is one by Asad Latif, now a journalist in Singapore but long ago, he was an icon in India. We are very privileged to have his writing on what borders do for us… a piece exploring the idea on which we base our journal, also perhaps with a touch of Anthony Sattin’ s asabiyya. ‘Pandies’ Corner‘ starts another run, showcasing women’s tryst for freedom. Amreen’s ‘Moh-Reen’, her own story, translated from Hindustani by Janees, is a brave start to the series. The voices ring out asking for a change, to heal social norms to accommodate love and kindness with the backing of Shaktishalini and Pandies as does the unsupported solo voice of an older woman from Balochistan, Ganji Baloch, brought to our notice by Ali Jaan Maqsood.

We have fiction from Sohana Manzoor – again bringing to fore strange stories of women rebelling against social norms. Paul Mirabile explores death and the sea in a horrific story. Sunil Sharma’s fiction explores madness and ideators, making a social comment on recent happenings. As the sky stretches out to accommodate all kinds of writings, all creatures great and small, we try our best to give voice to a fair cross section from around the world as we have done this time too.

There are as usual pieces that we have not mentioned in this note but they are all worth a read. Do drop in to check out our contents in this October issue. We are truly grateful to our contributors who continue to connect with words and thoughts that waft along with clouds. We would like to thank Sohana Manzoor especially for her wonderful artwork. The journal would not be a possibility without the support of the whole team and our valuable readers who make writing worth the effort. It is lovely to be read and remembered for the words we write.

Wish you all a wonderful October.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

[1] A woman ‘married’ to Gods and forced to live as a mistress to mortal men.

Categories
Excerpt

A Handful of Sesame

Title: A Handful of Sesame

Author: Shrinivas Vaidya

Translator: Maithreyi Karnoor

Publisher: Gibbon Moon Books

Although Navalgund had been roused from its slumber by the Mainavati elopement episode, in a few days after the eloping couple returned, going by the saying, ‘she becomes of this earth when she starts lighting the hearth’ the scandal lost steam and the town went back to sleep again.

The people returned to their busy routines of asking each other in the mornings if they were up, and turning their faces to the skies in the afternoon and saying “What do you know? There’s not a hint of rain yet.” They went back to sitting on the knoll near the Lalgade temple until darkness stepped in and until the concluding strains of the raag Bhairavi  of the Magdum’s band rehearsal became thin air, they discussed such pressing matters as the ghost in the tamarind tree beside the Sankawwa pond, or the yard-long wheat-hued cobra that had slithered into the rock cluster before the Taluk office, or the Halladmatha’s Sire’s persistent cough, or Mamlatdar’s minor wife Mandakini, or the plague mice falling dead in Hubballi, or Bal Gangadhar Tilak. After ruminating over these never-ending topics, they would hasten home to eat their evening meals and shut their doors upon the darkness outside and turn in before the wicks in the kerosene lamps in their respective homes went off with a phtt.  The womenfolk kept themselves busy with hearth, childbirth, and a little mirth of water’s worth on their way to the pond. Once in a while, they created their own entertainment with gossip and slander and quarrels – scold this one, taunt that one or mock another one. 

Navalgund has grown considerably in the thirty or forty years since the mutiny. Fleeing the Company’s oppression, many families from Nargund are now settled in Navalgund. With the increase in population, more merchants have set up shops. Earlier, Adoni’s was the only trading family in all of Navalgund. Now, with the addition of Mhantshetty, Mhankali, and Yirapakshimath, there are four merchant families. The Queen’s government had laid down with great care gravel roads because of which trade and businesses are growing. Open-topped and covered bullock carts and even horse-drawn carts are now plying from town to town on these roads. The municipality that has been there for a while has now started a school, a library and — can you believe it — even an English hospital! But no one goes to that hospital because it is rumoured that they put the flesh of chickens, sheep, and donkeys in their medicines. Hence, Vasudevaachar’s patients are constantly growing in number. Bullock carts crowd at the Panths’ door every morning. Moaning, groaning and coughing patients covered in woollen blankets wait in their veranda. Vasudevaachar walks among them bare-chested, stroking his sacred thread with both hands and advising the patients on their medication, treatment and diet, offering soothing words of courage or stern reprimands as the occasion demanded.

“Ningawwa, if give up garlic chutney for two days the sky won’t fall on your head”

“Krishtya, I’ll give you a Shankhvati. Powder it, mix it with lemon juice and lick it. Your stomach will be alright. You won’t die if you cut down on your food for a couple of days”

“Bharmya, I’m giving you this bottle of Balantsyrup. Give it to your wife and don’t drink it yourself, you whoreson…”

“Basangauda, you have the sugar disease. Fire two of your farmhands and do their work yourself. You must also eat less…”

“Subbi, I told you that feeding your daughter-in-law the red figs of the Banyan tree will beget her children. But I don’t remember promising they would be male children!”

“Do not eat or drink undrinkable and uneatable things, you sons of unwed mothers!”

“Goudra, your lady is showing signs of consumption. See if her spittle is red-tinted. It’s a terribly infectious disease. Stay away for a few days – it’s good for you and also for her.”

“It’s not just medicines that will cure you, Shambhu. You must also have faith in god. Here, repeat after me, ‘medicine is the waters of the Ganges, the doctor is a manifestation of god’. Now, once more…”

Such medical jargon could be heard in the halls of the Panth house every day. 

From early morning to the ripening afternoon, Vasudevaachar sits in the outer hall attending to his patients. He then heads to the backyard, draws seven or eight pots of water from the well and pours it over himself completing his bath before heading to the altar and sitting down for a two-hour long, uninterrupted prayers. Sometimes the municipality’s three o’clock bell would have rung before his prayers are complete. Then, after a meal and a short siesta, with only a thin shawl covering his bare chest, he heads to the Lalgade Hanamappa temple for prayers in the late afternoon. Sometimes, if there is a sermon or sacred storyrecitation on, he sits down to listen to it. If not, he sits a while on the stone bench that’s open to the skies outside and lets himself afloat in Magdum’s melodies before slowly heading back home.

On one such rippleless evening, Tulsakka and Vasudevaachar sat chatting on the porch outside the house. The children who had gone out to play hadn’t returned yet and Ambakka was at Antambhatta’s corner house, when suddenly Rukuma rushed from the backyard to the main-door looking excited and coughed a couple of times to draw Tulsakka’s attention. She then called out to her sotto voce, “Tulsakka… tssst… come here… come quickly…” Sensing her excitement and strange expression, Tulsakka left Vasudevaachar behind and walked over looking quizzically at Rukuma who began gushing and flailing her arms animatedly.

“She’s here!” she said.

“Who ay Rukuma? Who is here?” Tulsakka asked in her normal calm voice.

“She… she!” Rukuma insisted.

“She who?” asked Tulsakka as calm as before.

Rukuma came close to Tulsakka and said with wide eyes, “She! The one from Annigeri”

Taken aback by her words, “What’s this new drama now” Tulsakka exclaimed and followed her to the backyard.

Covering the child in her lap with the loose end of her sari, she sat by the stack of cotton twigs in the backyard, her poignant face both nervous and hopeful. As soon as Tulsakka and Rukuma came close, she stood up and held the child out and her eyes filled with tears.

“Please don’t be angry, my lady… it’s three days since he’s burning with a fever. Even the master of my home hasn’t visited in a while. Do what it takes but please save my child. I heard the master of your home is a great doctor with healing hands. So I came running here. Please don’t tell my master that I was here… he will be very angry. This is my only son… please save him for me…” she implored them.

Tulsakka hesitated for a moment and then said, “Come, sit here…” and showed her to the holy basil pedestal. The Annigeri woman sat down where she was asked to. Then spotting someone else, she suddenly covered her face with her sari, handed the baby to Rukuma and stood back in fright. Even Rukuma and Tulsakka were a little scared as they turned around and saw that it was Vasudevaachar. He fixed a dark gaze upon them for a moment before looking at Rukuma and saying “Bring the child in, I’ll take a look.” He walked back to his desk in the outer hall and Rukuma followed with the baby.

The Annigeri baby’s fever was owing to a knot in the stomach. Vasudevaachar gave a handful of small sachets to Rukuma and said, “Tell her to mix this in thin, watered-down milk to make a paste and feed it to the baby four times a day. Children often get fevers. Tell her not to worry. The baby will be well in a couple of hours. Open one of the sachets and give it to the baby yourself so she can learn how it’s done. Also, tell the mother to drink boiled water and to feed the baby a little less for the next four days.” He sent Rukuma away and went back to sit on the porch outside.

As Vasudevaachar’s instructions were being carried out, Rukuma and Tulsakka had formed an easy friendship with the Annigeri woman as only women could with one another. ‘Where are you from? How many years since you came to Annigeri? What did you say your name was? Mhaashaabi? What does it mean? Where did you meet Venkanna? Is this your only child?’ they were asking her. ‘How many grandchildren? I hear you haven’t seen your own lands in Annigeri… why don’t you visit once? If the baby gets well soon, I will go to the annual fairat the mausoleumof the Yamanoor saint…’ she was saying to them when suddenly Ambakka walked in through the backyard door straightening the parting in her sari. Upon finding out who the stranger was, Ambakka sprung back as if stung by a scorpion. “Ayya may her pyre be lit!” she started shrieking, “That thing may have no sense, but what about you? You have let it in like this! Hey, you! Get up… you have polluted the holy basil with your touch… pick your child up…” Rukuma and Tulsakka were saddened to see the Annigeri woman’s plight. Tulsakka spoke with her usual calm and dignified voice.

“Ambakka, please be quiet. Is this how you treat a guest?” At this Ambakka suddenly came into her wild avatar and started yelling in a shrill, sarcastic tone.

“Ayya… who’s stopping you, my lady? It’s your home… do what you like in it. Who am I to tell you anything? Venkanna mistress is your sister-in-law after all, isn’t she? She’s brought her son home moreover… it’s the procession of the family’s heir. Get the cradle out. Welcome him in, bestow gifts into her lap, give her a new sari– you haven’t given her one on her wedding, have you? Who am I to stop you…?”

“I don’t understand what she’s saying” exclaimed Mhaashaabi alarmed by the scene Ambakka was making. She said a hasty “I’ll take your leave, madam” to Tulsakka and left quickly.

The next day, after the atmosphere had cleared a bit, Rukuma went up to Tulsakka and said in a low voice, “Did you notice the baby’s nose, Tulsakka? Wasn’t it exactly like Venkanna’s?” and smiled knowingly.

A few days since then, Venkanna cornered Ambakka in the backyard. “Ambi, this is the last time. If you stick your nose in my affairs again, I’ll erase all traces of you. Be warned” he said menacingly.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A sweeping historical novel. Shortlisted for the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, 2019. The original work Halla Bantu Halla won the Central Sahitya Akademi Award.

It is the year 1857. A great uprising — what would come to be known as the first war of Indian independence — has broken out. Two brothers, emissaries of a northern king, on a mission to garner the support of the southern rulers, wander lost and hungry in a forest not far from their destination. They are captured and one of them is hung by the British. Caught in the rough and tumble of the mutiny, the other brother settles down in a place that was never meant to be more than a temporary refuge. He spends his life far away from home among people who do not speak his language. The novel spans the story of three generations of his family living under the burden of inherited nostalgia, a story that unfolds with all its flying fancies and stumbling follies on the threshold between tradition and modernity. Set against the backdrop of the freedom movement, the novel explores the lives of the people of the Dharwad region of Karnataka; their acts of faith and the realpolitik of ritual. Masterfully and sensitively translated from the Kannada, A Handful of Sesame is funny, tragic, ironic, satirical, lyrical and deeply allegorical of a young, modern nation. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shrinivas Vaidya was born in the Dharwad district of Karnataka. He conceived of the plot of Halla Bantu Halla — inspired in part by the history of his own family — a long time ago, but it wasn’t until he retired from his four-decade long career in banking that he managed to sit down and write it. The novel won the Sahitya Akademi award – the highest honour by India’s National Academy of Letters. He has written several collections of short fiction since then.  

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Maithreyi Karnoor is the recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust Fellowship for creative writing and translation at Literature Across Frontiers, University of Wales Trinity Saint David. She has won the Kuvempu Bhasha Bharati prize for translation and has been shortlisted for the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize and is a two-time finalist of the Montreal International Poetry Prize. Sylvia: Distant Avuncular Ends is her debut novel.

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

Categories
Editorial

Triumph of the Human Spirit

Courtesy: Creative Commons

On August 8th 2021, the chief of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, pointed out during the closing ceremony that these games were “unprecedented” and brought messages of “hope, solidarity and peace” into a world torn with the desolation generated by the pandemic. It was a victory of the human spirit again, a precursor of what is to come. That the Japanese could get over their pandemic wrought hurdles, just as they did post the nuclear disasters wrought by the Second World War and by the 2011 earthquake-tsunami at Fukushimaya, to host something as spectacular and inspiring as these international games reflects, as the commentators contended, a spirit of ‘harmony and humility’. The last song performed by many youngsters seemed to dwell on stars in the sky — not only were the athletes and organisers the stars but this also reminded of unexplored frontiers that beckon mankind, the space.What a wonderful thing it was to see people give their best and unite under the banner of sports to bring messages of survival and glimpses of a future we can all share as human beings! Our way of doing things might have to evolve but we will always move forward as a species to thrive and expand beyond the known frontiers.

One such explorer of yet unknown frontiers who mingles the historic with the contemporary, Goutam Ghose, an award-winning filmmaker and writer, has honoured our pages with an extensive interview showing us how art and harmony can weave lores that can help mankind survive. This is reinforced by the other interview with Singaporean academic, Dr Kirpal Singh, whose poetry reflects his convictions of a better world. With our intelligence, we can redefine processes that hold us back and grind our spirits to dust — be it the conventional ‘isms’ or norms that restrict our movement forward – just as Tagore says in the poem, we have translated this time, ‘Deliverance’.

…On this auspicious dawn,
Let us hold our heads high in the infinite sky 
Amidst the light of bounteousness and the heady breeze of freedom.

As the Kobiguru mentioned earlier in the poem, the factors that oppress could be societal, political, or economic. Could they perhaps even be the fetters put on us by the prescribed preconceived definition of manmade concepts like ‘freedom’ itself? Freedom can be interpreted differently by multiple voices.

This month, on our pages, ‘freedom’ has found multiple interpretations in myriad of ways — each voice visualising a different dream; each dream adding value to the idea of human progress. We have discussions and stories on freedom from Nigeria, Argentina, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Malaysia and more. Strangely enough, August holds multiple independence/ national days that are always for some reason seen as days of being ‘freed’ by many — at least from oppression. But is that true?

From Malaysia, Julian Matthews and Malachi Edwin Vethamani cry out against societal, religious and political bindings – quite a powerful outcry at that with a story and poems. Akbar Barakzai continues his quest with three poems around ideas of freedom translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Jaydeep Sarangi and Joan Mcnerny pick up these reverberations of freedom, each defining it in different ways through poetry.

Jared Carter takes us back to his childhood with nostalgic verses. Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Michael Lee Johnson, Vandana Sharma and many more sing to us with their lines. Rhys Hughes has of course humour in verse that makes us smile as does Jay Nicholls who continues with her story-poems on Pirate Blacktarn – fabulous pieces all of them. The sport of hummingbirds and cats among jacaranda trees is caught in words and photographs by Penny Wilkes in her Nature’s Musings. A poetic tribute to Danish Siddiqui by young Sutputra Radheye rings with admiration for the Pulitzer prize-winning photographer who met his untimely end last month on 16th while at work in Afghanistan, covering a skirmish between Taliban and Afghanistan security forces. John Linwood Grant takes up interesting issues in his poetry which brings me back to ‘freedom’ from colonial regimes, perhaps one of the most popular themes for writers.

Indo-Pak independence, celebrated now on 14th (Pakistan) and 15th August (India), reflects not only the violence of the Partition which dislocated and killed millions historically but also the trauma caused by the event. Capturing this trauma is a short story based on memories of Partition by Nadir Ali, translated from Punjabi by his daughter, Amna Ali. Ratnottama Sengupta translates from the diary of Sandhya Sinha (1928-2016), a woman’s voice from the past that empathises with the subjugated who were subdued yet again after an upsurge of violence during the Quit India Movement (1942) against the colonials. Sinha contends that though the movement frittered away, the colonials were left with an after-taste of people hankering for self-rule. A thought-provoking short story by Sunil Sharma explores the results of self-rule in independent India.

Alluding to Jinnah’s vision for women, Aysha Baqir muses emotionally about the goals that remain yet to be fulfilled 74 years after independence. Moazzam Sheikh’s story of immigrants explores dementia, giving us a glimpse of the lives of Asian immigrants in America, immigrants who had to find a new home despite independence. Was this the freedom they dreamt of — all those who fought against various oppressive regimes or colonialism?

Tagore’s lyrics might procure a few ideas on freedom, especially in the song that India calls its National Anthem. Anasuya Bhar assays around the history that surrounds the National Anthem of India, composed by Tagore in Bengali and translated to English by the poet himself and more recently, only by Aruna Chakravarti. We also carry Dr Chakravarti’s translation of the National Anthem in the essay. Reflecting on the politics of Partition and romance is a lighter piece by Devraj Singh Kalsi which says much. ‘Dinos in France’ by Rhys Hughes and Neil Reddick’s ‘The Coupon’ have tongue-in-cheek humour from two sides of the Atlantic.

A coming-of-age story has been translated from Nepali by Mahesh Paudyal – a story by a popular author, Dev Kumari Thapa – our first Nepali prose piece.  We start a four-part travelogue by John Herlihy, a travel writer, on Myanmar, a country which has recently been much in the news with its fight for surviving with democracy taking ascendency over the pandemic and leaving the people bereft of what we take for granted.

Candice Louisa Daquin discusses a life well-lived in a thought provoking essay, in which she draws lessons from her mother as do Korean poet, Ihlwha Choi, and Argentinian writer, Marcelo Medone. Maybe, mothers and freedom draw similar emotions, of blind love and adulation. They seem to be connected in some strange way with terms like motherland and mother tongue used in common parlance.

We have two book excerpts this time: one from Beyond the Himalayas by the multi-faceted, feted and awarded filmmaker we have interviewed, Goutam Ghose, reflecting on how much effort went in to make a trip beyond boundaries drawn by what Tagore called “narrow domestic walls”. We carry a second book excerpt this time, from Jessica Muddit’s Our Home in Myanmar – Four years in Yangon. Keith Lyons has reviewed this book too. If you are interested in freedom and democracy, this sounds like a must read.

Maithreyi Karnoor’s Sylvia: Distant Avuncular Ends, is a fiction that seems to redefine norms by what Rakhi Dalal suggests in her review. Bhaskar Parichha has picked a book that many of us have been curious about, Arundhathi Subramaniam’s Women Who Wear Only Themselves. Parichha is of the opinion, “Elevated or chastised, exonerated or condemned, the perturbation unworldly women in India face is that they have never been treated as equal to men as spiritual leaders. This lack of equality finds its roots not only in sociological and cultural systems, but more particularly at the levels of consciousness upon which spirituality and attitudes are finally based.”One wonders if this is conclusive for all ‘unworldly women’ in India only or is it a worldwide phenomenon or is it true only for those who are tied to a particular ethos within the geographical concept of India? The book reviewed by Meenakshi Malhotra,  Somdatta Mandal’s The Last Days of Rabindranath Tagore in Memoirs, dwells on the fierce independence of the early twentieth century women caregivers of the maestro from Bengal. These women did not look for approval or acceptance but made their own rules as did Jnadanandini, Tagore’s sister-in-law. Bhaskar Parichha has also added to our Tagore lore with his essay on Tagore in Odisha.

As usual, we have given you a peek into some of our content. There is more, which we leave for our wonderful readers to uncover. We thank all the readers, our fantastic contributors and the outstanding Borderless team that helps the journal thrive drawing in the best of writers.

I wish you all a happy August as many of the countries try to move towards a new normal.

Mitali Chakravarty

Borderless Journal, August 2021

Categories
Review

Sylvia: A Genre-Bending Book

Book Review by Rakhi Dalal

Title: Sylvia: Distant Avuncular Ends

Author: Maithreyi Karnoor

Publisher: Tranquebar, 2021

Maithreyi Karnoor’s Sylvia is a genre-bending book which appreciates the immensity of life while treading insouciantly.

Maithreyi Karnoor has won the Kuvempu Bhasha Bharti Prize for translation from Kannada to English. She was shortlisted for the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, and twice for the Montreal International Poetry Prize. Her essays, poetry, translations and reviews have been published in most mainstream and literary journals in India. She is currently putting together her poetry collection Skinny Dipping in Tiger Country, and collaborating with Rhys Hughes on Rainbow Territory. Sylvia is her debut novel. 

We live life linearly. Growing, ageing and experiencing, we pass through events which stop us by to assert the primacy of time. Still, too often, we tend to dwell much upon the emotions we happen to go through – focusing hugely on our own desires and despairs. So much so that we lose sight of the only event which is bound to be certain – death. We overlook the fact that our lives, though lived in a linear manner, are also tangentially connected to lives of others, to all those people we come across. And taken together, the web that it creates, affirms our nothingness in the immensity of this design. Wouldn’t it be then wise to live the life in the constant knowledge of it. And not to take our own emotions too seriously, to make the journey bit easier for us.

Maithreyi Karnoor’s experimental novel appears to be an exploration of this idea. She gives us a character, Sylvia, and then proceeds to create a tapestry of life which includes warps of lives of the people she either meets or stumbles by, where her own life runs as an underlying nap, at times palpable while at others, invisible.

The novel is divided into two parts. Part I tells us the story of Bhaubaab, Sylvia’s uncle whom she happens to meet accidently, and of Lakshmi, Bhaubaab’s neighbour in a sleepy Goan village. Part II consists of nine distinct stories, telling the tales of its characters who may or may not be acquainted with Sylvia. At times, one wonders whether it is the same Sylvia in each story but the author doesn’t make it apparent. She weaves these stories with a confident hand, like a weaver who knows the design instinctively and doesn’t have to necessarily abide by the set patterns of construct.

Spanning sixty pages, Bhaubaab is also the longest story in the book. Cajetan Pereira or Bhaubaab returns and settles down in a village in native Goa from Africa where his forefathers had migrated. Karnoor’s research into the practices of living in both the places comes through her deft narrative. She touches upon the notions of familial conflict, ambitiousness of impressionable youngsters, smugness of educated elite and homosexuality as she intertwines the three characters of Bhaubaab, Lakshmi and Sylvia in the first part.

In Bhagirati, Karnoor probes mental illness of a character who dies by suicide. In Venison, she looks at the superstitious beliefs of people of a village where a young couple, Shaila and Sujeeth, make a home far away from conventional city life. In Blue Barrel, Karnoor tells us the story of Reshma, from an underprivileged background, who has to steal water even to bathe. Eighteen Spoons, presents a snippet of Sylvia’s life as a well-established writer through the lens of another character with whom she exchanges messages. The title draws its name from a poem included in the narrative which exemplifies Karnoor’s craft as a poet.        

The story A Cat named Insomnia seems to render a closure to the stories of characters from previous stories in the sense that it suggests an ending whereas the other stories give the impression of seeping into each other. We meet Bhaubaab from Part I again in The Afterlife of Trees and RIP but not Lakshmi. The last story, RIP of Part II, also appears to suggest a closure as we witness Sylvia getting ready to go back to her home after what looks like some years of travelling.  

All rest and peace is for the living

Know peace while you can

What if what lies beyond is more of the same thing

Get some sleep tonight

Appearing at the beginning of last story, these lines are a remarkable expression of the underlying idea of the genre-bending book – that of appreciating life for its vastness, of accepting, to borrow from the author, that love, loss, success, disappointments, shouldn’t be taken as seriously as we do. That if all these are taken in our stride perhaps they would hurt less. That we must know peace and cling to it. The pen which so assertively forges to interpret and portray this imperative view towards life is a pen worth watching for.

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Rakhi Dalal is an educator by profession. When not working, she can usually be found reading books or writing about reading them. She writes at https://rakhidalal.blogspot.com/ .

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

Categories
Poetry

A Burden of Beasts

By Maithreyi Karnoor

The climb is steep and the water deputed to cool

The heaving body orgasming to the cold outside.

Ration your tears for the out-of-breath

Achievement of each breath-taking summit.

The Himalaya is a rock and a hard place

Treacherously beautiful like unrequited love.

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The mountains that do not care for your burdens — personal, political—

And are unmoved by the selfie-flashes stacked as high as the peaks

Offer lessons in humility in a thousand shades

Peeking out of cracks and crevices — sometimes entire valleys —

Only to be refused with loud whoops for group poses.

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The gush of the muddy glacial melt hurrying on purposefully to Pakistan

Since long before it was tickety boo*,

The unamused tinkle of the bells on the necks of mules

Carrying civilization on their backs — toilet bowls, gas cylinders,

Celebratory beverages, wet-wipes, instant noodles

And hand sanitizers — for the connoisseurs of the wilderness,

The dry coldness of Spiti’s winds like the gaze of outlived love,

The amusement in the muted breath of the accompanying porters

At your victory signs, do not outdo the racket of bollywood

Ricocheting off the rocks with Himalayan dignity.

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The Beas in not wanting to be the same river twice

Flows on as an aphorism.

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*tickety boo:  Term used by British colonials  to convey all is fine.

Maithreyi Karnoor is the winner of the Kuvempu Bhasha Bharati prize for translation. She was shortlisted for the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, and twice for the Montreal International Poetry Prize. Her novel Sylvia: Distant Avuncular Ends will be published in early 2021.  

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