“The theme of this book is Palestine and its history, and the displacement and exile of its people. But it is, above all, a human story… My father’s story makes the basic point that, like all people, the Palestinians are made of flesh and blood and their children feel the agony of pain as strongly as they enjoy the warmth of happiness.”
—Nada Tarbush (Son of Mohammed Tarbush) in the ‘Foreword’.
Mohammad Tarbush was born in Beit Nattif, located in proximity to Jerusalem. In 1988, he assumed the role of managing director at Deutsche Bank, subsequently moving to UBS. He has authored multiple books, including Reflections of a Palestinian. His articles concerning Palestine have been published in various esteemed outlets, such as the International Herald Tribune, The Guardian, and the Financial Times among others.
As a child, he and his family were compelled to leave their village along with the entire community following the Zionist victory that resulted in the formation of the State of Israel. This upheaval marked a profound turning point in their lives, as they were forced to abandon their homes, their memories, and the land that had been their ancestral heritage for generations. The trauma of displacement was palpable, as families were torn apart and communities fragmented, leaving behind a deep sense of loss and longing.
Subsequently, as displaced refugees in the West Bank, the family fell into a state of poverty. The harsh realities of refugee life were stark — they struggled to find adequate shelter, access to education, and basic necessities. The once vibrant community they had known was replaced by a life of uncertainty and hardship, where every day was a battle for survival. The children, including him, were often caught in the crossfire of political tensions, their dreams overshadowed by the weight of their circumstances. Yet, amidst the adversity, a resilient spirit emerged, fostering a sense of solidarity among the displaced families.
During his teenage years, Tarbush departed from home, ostensibly to visit relatives in Jordan; however, he embarked on a year-long hitchhiking adventure across Europe. This journey was not merely a quest for adventure but a profound exploration of identity and purpose.
As he traversed the diverse landscapes of Europe, he encountered a myriad of cultures, ideas, and perspectives that broadened his worldview. Each hitchhike brought new experiences, from the bustling streets of Paris to the serene countryside of Italy, and he absorbed the lessons of resilience and ambition that he witnessed in the lives of others.
Ultimately, he achieved great success as an international banker, navigating the complex world of finance with skill and acumen. His rise in the banking sector was marked by a blend of hard work, strategic thinking, and an innate ability to connect with people from various backgrounds.
Despite his professional accomplishments, he remained deeply aware of his roots and the struggles of his people. He became a significant, albeit discreet, advocate for the Palestinian cause, using his influence and resources to raise awareness and support for those who continued to suffer from the consequences of displacement and conflict.
Through his advocacy, Tarbush sought to bridge the gap between his successful life in the West and the harsh realities faced by his community back home. He understood that his journey was not just about personal achievement but also about giving voice to the voiceless and fighting for justice. His story became a testament to resilience.
In My Palestine, Mohammad Tarbush intertwines a moving personal narrative with sharp political and economic analysis, reflecting on the significant events that have influenced the history of Israel, Palestine, and the contemporary Middle East.
The sturdy book offers a profound exploration of the Palestinian experience, capturing the essence of resilience that defines a people who have faced immense challenges and adversities. Through a lens of deep empathy and insight, the narrative delves into the multifaceted struggles and triumphs of the Palestinian community, illustrating how they navigate the calamities that have profoundly impacted their lives.
At its core, the narrative serves as a heartfelt and poignant testament to the ingenuity of the human spirit. It highlights not only the hardships endured but also the remarkable ways in which individuals and communities adapt, innovate, and find strength in the face of overwhelming odds. The stories woven throughout the narrative reflect a rich tapestry of cultural heritage, personal sacrifice, and unwavering hope, showcasing how the Palestinian people maintain their identity and dignity despite the challenges they encounter.
The book chronicles the everyday realities of those living in a region marked by conflict and uncertainty. It emphasises the importance of storytelling as a means of preserving history and fostering understanding, allowing the voices of the Palestinian people to resonate with authenticity and depth.
Through vivid imagery and compelling accounts, the narrative underscores the resilience that is not merely a response to adversity but a fundamental aspect of the Palestinian identity.
Bhaskar Parichha is a journalist and author of Cyclones in Odisha: Landfall, Wreckage and Resilience, Unbiased, No Strings Attached: Writings on Odisha and Biju Patnaik – A Political Biography. He lives in Bhubaneswar and writes bilingually. Besides writing for newspapers, he also reviews books on various media platforms.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
A brief introduction to Rhys Hughes’ Sunset Suite, published by Gibbon Moon Books this year, and a discussion with the author on this ‘Weird Western’ and more…
Rhys Hughes
Perhaps — that’s the wrong way to start a review or any article— but given that this is a book that offers immeasurable possibilities, like sunsets or stars, one could still start with a ‘perhaps’… You might start with another word of course!
Perhaps, Rhys Hughes’ TheSunset Suite is a novel? Or, is it not? It seems to be a group of short, tall tales tied neatly into coffee lore, coming closest structurally to The Arabian Nights — stories told by the Scheherazade, originating around Middle Ages, much after coffee was discovered in Ethiopia by a goatherd in 800 CE. The book departs in various shades from the One Thousand and One Nights, even though magic creeps in every now and then.
Hughes also seems to have a fascination for coffee lores for he redid TheRubaiyatof Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), translated from Persian by Edward Fitzgerald, substituting the wine with coffee a year ago. And here you have two men in the Wild West, telling tall tales, inspired by 26 mugs of coffee.
In The Empire Podcast by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, there are a couple of episodes on coffee. Coffee houses sprouted around the fifteenth century in the Middle East and flourished during the Ottoman Empire, spreading over time to Europe, and even to America… if we are to believe Hughes! In those times, soldiers, among others, gathered in coffee houses, much to the dismay of kings. The warriors started turning to tall tales, philosophy and gossip instead of training all the time. The rulers were unhappy at the turn of events. Germany went so far as to ban coffee. An article on food history tells us: “One of the most curious of these events happened in Prussia, a precursor to modern-day Germany, where it’s leader Frederick the Great banned coffee by decree in 1777. And he did it for a reason that is almost baffling to modern notions of health and what’s good for society: He wanted people to drink more beer.” In the podcast, they do tell us Germany produced beer. In those days, coffee was seen as a suspicious drink, an aphrodisiac with magical qualities. It is these magical qualities that are invoked in TheSunset Suite.
Brand and Thorn are two coffee drinkers under the stars, sitting over a bubbling pot — and each cup from the pot has a tale in it, professes the author. That the tales are part of a dreamscape of darker hues verging on the absurd, bringing out the strangeness of the illusion we call life and its endless possibilities, comes as a surprise.
People turn into corn cobs, biscuits, musical notes, sombreros and are resurrected in paintings of nightmares at the end, tying the characters loosely into a frame. Phoenixes swim underwater and horses turn into boats and ‘a hill of beans’ becomes a ‘mountain of beans’. The transformations seem to be reminiscent of Kafka’s Metamorphosis (1915) or Pinter’s The Room (1957) … but we are left wondering, are they?
The settings are often realistic at the start but head for the absurd as they end. Each story has a punch and leaves the reader open mouthed in amazement. They are imaginative, clever — sometimes playing on words — like the story of a genie who was told by a robber to make money ‘no object’ — a turn of a phrase which should mean that money is so plentiful that anything is affordable. But the genie, trapped in time and traveling over centuries, misunderstands the grave robber. He makes money into a literal ‘no object’— ‘abstractions, vague colours, mental scents and other intangible things’.
Hughes expands the literary world to a frog, a dog and even an armadillo who are yet to publish their books. This seems almost like an inversion of Luigi Pirandello’s play Six Characters in Search of an author (1921), where the characters left incomplete by a deceased author are looking for a resolution. Hughes’ reader, who talks of these authors from the animal kingdom, waits patiently for the books to turn up. In another story, evocative of the same play by Pirandello, the characters from his earlier tales are trapped in a painting and talk to the artist, ‘the keeper of Lore’, who paints his own nightmares peopled by the creations of Hughes. One of the last narratives, this one ties the stories into a loosely structured unit.
“I am Grampsylvania. That wasn’t my original name, but it’s my name for the foreseeable future. He changed me, you see, from a man into a gigantic but sapient corncob pipe. I don’t mind.”
“And he changed me into a biscuit,” said another voice. “I was just George Lewis once but now I’m The Biscuit Kid.”
A third voice added, “Turned me into a hat, a sombrero. I was Max Grizzly originally. Not that I dislike being a hat.”
“Wonder what he’ll turn you into?” they said to Henry [the artist inside the painting].
“I don’t want to change.”
“Well, you don’t have a say in the matter.”
The idea of the writer as the ultimate creator stretches through tall tales to experimental forms. ‘The Biscuit Kid’ is a one-and-a-half-page story written in one sentence — is it an attempt at what is known as the stream of consciousness technique (as in James Joyce’s Ulysees, 1918) or just a quirky experiment? A strange tale about a man turning into a biscuit in a sulphurous pond with tea dunked into it with an allusion to the Boston Tea Party has the victim floating in infinite circles … is it a comment on history repeating itself? The narrative of ‘Reintarnation Smith’ maps the history of the world rather randomly through the many reincarnations of the protagonist, from a palaeolithic shaman (were there shamans in that time frame?) to a Napoleonic soldier and a First World War trooper to an intelligent tree in a world where humanity has become extinct! The alternatives offered and suggested are mind boggling…
Each story sees itself as a possibility expressed in a light gripping vein, characteristic of the author, who has ostensibly been seen as a cult writer… though I am not sure what that term means or how Hughes, who has authored more than fifty books and writes up storms of stories and poems, feels about it — Let’s ask him. We start with the most pressing question —
This is on something that has me perplexed after reading Sunset Suite. How do you think a frog, a dog or an armadillo would hold a pen? Can we read frog/ dog/ armadillo — or would one need to download a special app from Google to read their books? Or is it better to have a frogman/ dogman/ armadilloman translate these? Please enlighten us.
Armadillo: Image from Public Domain
I hadn’t really thought about it until you asked the question. They would have to use telekinesis to hold a pen. The power of their minds. Maybe they have bigger minds than we think. Having said that, I don’t know why we always assume that if you have a bigger mind, you will be able to move physical objects just by thinking. When I was young, I often tested my own telekinetic powers. They never worked, of course. Except for once, when I made a cardboard box cover a daisy during a storm. I was staring out the window and willing the box to fall on the daisy and protect it from the wind, and that is what actually happened! All of a sudden, the box rose in the air and came down over the flower. Certainly it was the wind that did the trick, rather than my mental powers, but at the time I wondered if perhaps I had found the secret of telekinesis. Frogs, dogs and armadillos would write books using telekinesis. The real question is how much we would understand of what they had written. I don’t suppose we have much in common with frogs or armadillos. The dog’s books might be more accessible. I guess most of the descriptive writing in a dog’s novel would be smell-based because that’s how dogs map the world. But while reading a dog’s novel, should we dog-ear the pages to keep our places? Or human-ear them?
That’s an astute observation… Maybe we can dino-ear them! Did all dinosaurs have ears…? Let’s leave that discussion for another time. Next, I need to know what is a cult writer? Are you one? Please explain.
I don’t really know, to be honest, and I’m not sure if I am one or not. Many years ago, I was told that I was one. I think it’s another way of saying, “Your books aren’t very popular,” but softening that blow by implying that, “At least some people read and enjoy them.” I embraced the definition for want of any better label. We do like labels, that’s the problem. When I write, I write just for myself. Not quite. I do try to write in a similar mode to the writers I most enjoy, and they have audiences. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t know about them. I adore the books of Italo Calvino [1923-1985], but I don’t know many other readers who read him. Does that make him a cult writer? I don’t think so. I think it’s just more likely that I am a little isolated and simply don’t know the readers who do read that kind of fiction. And yet I am in contact with some people on the internet who seem to share my taste in fiction. In fact, they give me recommendations of authors I’d never heard of, who turn out to be wonderfully in tune with my taste. Apparently, if you are a writer who is more loved by other writers than by readers who don’t write, you are a writer’s writer, and that’s a form of cult writer. Last year, I read the nine novels of the almost forgotten Henry Green [1905-1973], who was described as a writer’s writer’s writer, in other words a cult writer cubed. I suppose that to be a cult writer is simply a stage for some writers as they work their way up to greater popularity. It’s probably possible for writers who were once hugely popular but who are no longer appreciated by a sufficiently wide readership to turn into cult writers on the way down.
Why did you not write of a squonk in this book since it is your favourite fantasy animal? Will you be writing on a squonk soon?
A squonk: A mythical creature in American Folklore. Image from Public Domain.
There are no squonks in The Sunset Suite because I have written too much about them elsewhere. I don’t want to oversquonk myself. I first learned about squonks from Jorge Luis Borges’ Book of Imaginary Beings [1957] I think. And then I noticed references to the creature in all sorts of places. Years ago, I wrote a short story called ‘The Squonk Laughed’ because squonks are the saddest of all entities. I wanted to write about one that cheers up. And one of my longest ever poems is about a squonk ragtime pianist who works in a Wild West saloon, ‘Honky Tonk Squonk’. The very word is funny. It sounds round but also squelchy, rather like a cream-filled pastry. There is an excellent song by the band Genesis about squonks called simply ‘Squonk’ and it’s a song that will tell you absolutely everything you need to know about squonks if you listen carefully to the lyrics. In my book, it seemed to me that it was time to show some restraint when it came to squonks. You can have too much of a good, weepy thing.
How long did this book take to germinate into a full blown one and how did it come about?
Not long at all. Some of my projects proceed very slowly, they take years or even decades to be completed. But most of my projects are done fast. This is because if I take too much time over them, I worry that I will lose the thread or threads of the plot or plots, or that the mood and atmosphere of the work will change and be lost. That’s not always a disadvantage. I might begin work on a book thinking it is going in a certain direction. Then I put the project aside for a long time. When I return to it, I have often forgotten the direction I had intended to take the book. So I make it go in a different direction, and it seems to me that sometimes this other direction is a superior journey to the original intended direction. Who knows? But that has no relevance to The Sunset Suite because I wrote it in just a few weeks. I can’t recall exactly how long it took, but it wasn’t a drawn-out process. It happened to be one of those projects that flowed easily. Many do, and I am always grateful to them. It is almost as if I am not doing the work but simply acting as a channel for a set of stories that exist in some cosmic cloud. This is probably a fanciful delusion, but it is one that many writers have had over many centuries. We are conduits as well as creators. We are pipelines as well as pipers.
Have you actually been to the Wild West? Why have you set your book against this backdrop?
I have never been to the Wild West. I have never even been to the West. Even the most easterly part of the American continent is west to me. The furthest west I have been is Ireland. Yet I love Westerns, especially so-called ‘weird’ Westerns. Having said that, I have been to Almeria in Spain, the only desert in Europe, where many ‘Spaghetti Westerns’ were filmed. It looks the way I imagine Mexico or Arizona might look, but I can’t know that for sure because I haven’t been there. Maybe one day I will. I have written quite a few Westerns, all of them weird and unusual. The first was a novella called The Gargantuan Legion. I had the idea for that when I was very young. Much later I wrote a novel called The Honeymoon Gorillas [2018], and then a collection of stories, poems and short plays called Weirdly Out West [2021]. Shortly after finishing The Sunset Suite, I wrote a Western novel
called Growl at the Moon that has been accepted for publication. I am currently working on a novel titled The Boomerang Gang. I find writing weird Westerns to be great fun, relaxing too, yet they apply a strong stimulus to my imagination. Next year I hope to write a novel called Fists of Fleece, which will combine Welsh folklore with Wild West tall tales, creating an especially offbeat hybrid.
You have strange names given to characters peopling The Sunset Suite. Why? Please elaborate.
I enjoy giving my characters strange names. I also think it’s safer. Suppose I have a character in a story named Tim Jones and something absurdly odd happens to him. There might be a real Tim Jones out there in the world who will start thinking that I am referring to him and maybe even mocking him. It is better to give the character a name that surely no real person will ever have. Argosy Elbows, for example, or Crawly Custard. Readers can regard these as nicknames, if they wish. I often make lists of offbeat names for characters that I will use in future stories. Some of these names have been waiting decades to be used. Other names I invent on the spur of the moment while writing. Invention on the spur of the moment is an appropriate thing to do when writing a Western. But in fact the names in The Sunset Suite are still fairly conventional. Jake Bones, Shorty Potter, Killy the Bid, Grampsylvania, Max Grizzly, Cowboy Bunions, Dan Flyblown, Lanky Ranter. It’s not beyond the bounds of plausibility that real people out there do have such names.
Why do you keep obsessing over coffee? Please explain.
I hope it’s not quite an obsession. I like coffee, that’s all. I guess it’s my favourite drink. No offence to water, tea or beer! I am in the process of cutting down on my coffee consumption. I have been reducing my intake for the past twenty years, but it’s still not at zero. I am reducing it very slowly indeed, that’s why. Mind you, the reason why there is so much coffee in The Sunset Suite is simply because cowboy films always show the characters drinking coffee around a campfire. They surely told stories to each other at night while drinking the coffee. It occurred to me that I could use this as a frame for my book. A sequence of strange stories set in the Wild West linked together by the fact that each tale was generated by a cup of coffee. At the end of the book, the two tale tellers have drunk too much coffee. The book is a warning that will be heeded too late. But we are all adults. We don’t really need to be warned about such perils as coffee consumption.
Since classification is an important aspect of human existence, how would you classify your book?
It’s a ‘Weird Western’. That’s what I have been calling it. This is a real sub-genre, and I think my book can be labelled as such without any objections. I might also call it a comedy, a picaresque or portmanteau farce, a speculative whimsy. But it remains a Western, that’s undeniable. It makes substantial use of parody, pastiche, paradox and probably other things beginning with the letter ‘p’. At the same time, I don’t mind if the book is classified just as a fantasy or even only as fiction.
What have been the influences on this book? On your writing?
The main influences on this particular book of mine were other weird Westerns by writers I admire, in particular The Hawkline Monster [1974] by Richard Brautigan, which was marketed as a Gothic Western. Brautigan was especially good at writing short but thoughtful passages that are often at tangents to each other but nonetheless do combine with each other satisfyingly. Another influence was probably a collection of stories I read when I was young, The Illustrated Man [1951] by Ray Bradbury, in which a sleeping man’s tattoos come alive one at a time and tell stories as they do so. But in my book, it is the cups of coffee that come alive in a fictional sense. I also think that the pulp Western author Max Brand was an influence on my book, especially his stranger works, such as The Untamed [1918], which seem to blend echoes of ancient mythology with the more conventional cowboy motifs and clichés.
Would you call these stories humorous? They do linger with absurdity and a certain cheekiness.
I like to think they are humorous. I like to think that The Sunset Suite is a comedy among other things. Most of my fiction has some comedic elements, even if the general tone of the story is serious. Real life is a mishmash of tragedy, comedy, indifference, absurdity, beauty, and who knows what else, so it’s only right and proper for fiction to be such a mishmash too. Obviously, in a short story there’s not much room in which to throw everything, so one has to be more careful when it comes to constructing the piece. The mode of the book, which features a framing device in which is found a set of individual tales that echo each other’s themes, is one I especially enjoy using. I am planning other books that follow this structure.
What books are you whipping up now?
I always work on several projects at the same time. I am currently working on two novels. One of them is a satirical thriller called Average Assassins, and the other is another weird Western called The Boomerang Gang, which is about an Australian immigrant to the Wild West in the late 19th Century and it features an experimental aeroplane with boomerangs for wings. I am also working on a large project called Dabbler in Drabbles, which consists of four volumes of drabbles. A drabble, as I’m sure you know, is a flash fiction exactly 100 words in length. There will be one thousand drabbles in total when the project is finished. The first three volumes have already been published and I am pushing ahead with the fourth. Yet another project I’m working on is a collection of short meditations called City Life. These meditations are supposedly written by the cities themselves and there will be sixty of them in total. I am working on other projects too, but I won’t mention those yet.
Thank you Rhys for your fantastic writing and your time.
(This interview has been conducted through emails and the review written by Mitali Chakravarty.)
Let’s look forward to things getting better this New Year with wars tapering off to peace— a peace where weapons and violence are only to be found in history. Can that ever happen…?
Perhaps, all of us need to imagine it together. Feeling the need for peace, if we could dwell on the idea and come up with solutions, we could move towards making it a reality. To start with, every single human being has to believe firmly in the need for such a society instead of blaming wars on natural instincts. Human nature too needs to evolve. Right now, this kind of a world view may seem utopian. But from being hunter-gatherers, we did move towards complex civilisations that in times of peace, built structures and created art, things that would have seemed magical to a cave dweller in the Palaeolithic times. Will we destroy all that we built by warring – desecrating, decimating our own constructs and life to go on witch-hunts that lead to the destruction of our own species? Will human nature not evolve out of the darkness and chaos that leads to such large-scale annihilation?
Sometimes, darkness seems to rise in a crescendo only to be drowned by light emanating from an unknown source. This New Year — which started with an earthquake followed the next day by a deadly plane collision — was a test of human resilience from which we emerged as survivors, showing humanity can overcome hurdles if we do not decimate each other in wars. Bringing this to focus and wringing with the pain of loss, Suzanne Kamata, in her column tells us: “Earthquakes and other natural disasters are unavoidable, but I admire the effort that the Japanese people put into mitigating their effects. My hope is that more and more people here will begin to understand that it is okay to cry, to mourn, to grieve, and to talk about our suffering. My wish for the Japanese people in the new year is happiness and the achievement of dreams.”
And may this ring true for all humanity.
Often it is our creative urges that help bring to focus darker aspects of our nature. Laughter could help heal this darkness within us. Making light of our foibles, critiquing our own tendencies with a sense of humour could help us identify, creating a cathartic outcome which will ultimately lead to healing. An expert at doing that was a man who was as much a master of nonsense verses in Bengal as Edward Lear was in the West. Ratnottama Sengupta has brought into focus one such book by the legendary Sukumar Ray, Abol Tabol (or mumbo jumbo), a book that remains read, loved and relevant even hundred years later. We have more non-fiction from Keith Lyons who reflects on humanity as he loses himself in China. Antara Mukherjee talks of evolving and accepting a past woven with rituals that might seem effete nowadays and yet, these festivities did evoke a sense of joie de vivre and built bridges that stretch beyond the hectic pace of the current world. Devraj Singh Kalsi weaves in humour and variety with his funny take on stocks and shares. Rhys Hughes does much the same with his fun-filled recount on the differences between Sri Lanka and India, with crispy dosas leaning in favour of the latter.
Our stories take us around the world with Paul Mirabile from France, Ravi Shankar from Malaysia, Srinivasan R from India and Rebecca Klassen from England, weaving in the flavours of their own cultures yet touching hearts with the commonality of emotions.
In conversations, Ratnottama Sengupta introduces us to the multifaceted Bulbul Sharma and discusses with her the celebrated filmmaker Mrinal Sen, in one of whose films Sharma ( known for her art and writing) had acted. We also have a discussion with eminent screenplay writer Gajra Kottary on her latest book, Autumn Blossoms and an introduction to it.
Somdatta Mandal has reviewed Sudha Murty’s Common Yet Uncommon: 14 Memorable Stories from Daily Life, which she says, “speaks a universal language of what it means to be human”. Bhaskar Parichha takes us to Scott Ezell’s Journey to the End of the Empire: In China Along the Edge of Tibet. Parichha opines: “The book evokes the majesty of Tibetan landscapes, the unique dignity of the Tibetan people, and the sensory extremity of navigating nearly pre-industrial communities at the edge of the map, while also encompassing the erosion of cultures and ecosystems. Journey to the End of the Empire is both a love song and a protest against environmental destruction, centralised national narratives and marginalised minorities.” Meenakshi Malhotra provides a respite from the serious and emotional by giving us a lively review of Rhys Hughes’ The Coffee Rubaiyat, putting it in context of literature on coffee, weaving in poetry by Alexander Pope and TS Eliot. Rakhi Dalal has reviewed a translation from Punjabi by Ajeet Cour and Minoo Minocha of Cour’s Life Was Here Somewhere. Our book excerpts from Anuradha Kumar’s The Kidnapping of Mark Twain: A Bombay Mysteryintroduces a lighter note as opposed to the intense prose of Srijato’s AHouse of Rain and Snow, translated from Bengali by Maharghya Chakraborty.
Translations this time take us to the realm of poetry again with Fazal Baloch introducing us to a classical poet from Balochistan, the late Mulla Fazul. Ihlwha Choi has self-translated his poetry from Korean. Niaz Zaman brings us Nazrul’s Samya or Equality – a visionary poem for the chaotic times we live in — and Fakrul Alam transcribes Masud Khan’s Bengali verses for Anglophone readers. Our translations are wound up with Tagore’s Prarthonaor Prayer, a poem in which the poet talks of keeping his integrity and concludes saying ‘May the wellbeing of others fill my heart/ With contentment”.
May we all like Tagore find contentment in others’ wellbeing and move towards a world impacted by love and peace! The grand polymath always has had the last say…
I would like to thank our contributors, the Borderless team for this vibrant beginning of the year issue, Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous art, and all our readers for continuing to patronise us.
With hope of moving towards a utopian future, I invite you to savour our fare, some of which is not covered by this note. Do pause by our contents page to check out all our fare.
Rhys Hughes’ creative adaptation of Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam[1] is a delightful read. Located somewhere between tribute and parody, it has recreated the tonal and prosodic rhythms of the original translation, quartet by quartet. Yet, there is a thin line between parody and subversion, and Hughes’s adaptation negotiates this with a tongue-in cheek flippancy.
To illustrate the close parallel of the original 1st quartrain of Fitzgerald’s translation and Hughes creative adaptation:
Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
The original aubade is wittily recast as:
Awake! For the alarm clock next to the bed
Is ringing the bells that can wake the dead:
And Lo! The ruby rays of the rising sun
Colour the espresso machine a pinkish red.
This paean to coffee is replete with personifications –“Dawn’s lips are coffee-smeared”(vi).
Some of Hughes odes to coffee poke fun at the metropolis and its quirky inhabitants, the poem(s) capture the rhythms of life and its frenetic pace in the urban metropolis. Thus in quatrain 18, we get a glimpse, a veritable word-picture of the tube/metro train commuter:
I sometimes think that never blows so hard,
The commuter who is late, reputation marred,
To cool his coffee so he can catch his train
Before all the doors are closed by the guard.
Literary- and other-Histories of Coffee
In a ‘Brief History of Coffee around the World’, Garrett Oden clarifies that , unlike tea and alcohol which have been around and in use for more than five thousand years, coffee has had a relatively recent history. Although it has supposedly been around for over a 1000 years, its first verifiable documented use was about 500 years ago. Accidentally discovered by a goat herder whose goats turned unusually frisky after consuming some red beans, it became popular in Yemen and the areas surrounding it, the area we know now as the Middle East or as west Asia. The journey of coffee to Europe and beyond is replete with narratives of colonialism, plunder, pillage and scandal. This murky history was often forgotten as the roasted magic bean became a rage in coffee houses across the world.
The dubious antecedents of this heady brew derived from the magic bean is invoked in literary works such as Alexander Pope’s ‘The Rape of the Lock’ where the effects of coffee are thus described:
“Coffee, (which makes the Politicians wise, And see thro’ all things with his half-shut eyes)/Sent up in vapours to the Baron’s brain new stratagems” to fulfil his nefarious designs. Closer to our own times, we have T.S. Eliot’s line in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ where his persona declares, summing up the urban ennui of his quotidian existence, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”, a line which is yet another testimony to the fact that coffee has become an inseparable and indispensable part of our everyday life.
Echoes of Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat are interwoven into each quatrain and the poems follow the chronology of the original sequence. From the chess board (p 56-XLVIX) to the image of the “moving finger” which is replaced by the “moving tongue” (LI, p58), in poem after poem, we have many hyperboles to capture the effects of this drink which stands for a way of life. It is a way of life familiar to inhabitants of the modern metropolis where one’s life is lived under the glare of neon lights, and where sleeplessness, stress are all par for the course.
Although the poems employs the resources of several figures of speech like metaphor, personification, hyperbole, perhaps the most apt and commonly used figure is that of bathos. It is an effect of anticlimax created by a lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial. A typical example is Pope’s line in ‘The Rape of the Lock’ where he says, “Great Anna, whom three realms obey/ Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea”: In Hughes’s case, “the cosmos is nothing but a frappucino” ,”the inverted cup we call the sky.”
The poems are crafted in a spirit of irreverent good humour and this book is definitely a little nugget, worth savouring. Even if (to persist in the metaphor) one’s cup does not run over, it is definitely a cup that cheers.
[1] The translation was first published in 1859. Omar Khayyam, an astronaut, mathematician, a philosopher and a poet lived from 1048–1131 and wrote in Persian.
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Dr Meenakshi Malhotra is Associate Professor of English Literature at Hansraj College, University of Delhi, and has been involved in teaching and curriculum development in several universities. She has edited two books on Women and Lifewriting, Representing the Self and Claiming the I, in addition to numerous published articles on gender, literature and feminist theory. Her most recent publication is The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Is it appropriate to speak of transnational glee as a legitimate audience response to a film? If so, that might be a fitting label for the global spectator reaction to the blockbuster Indian film, Jailer, released worldwide on August 10, 2023. The film whose OTT rights were purchased by Amazon Prime is streaming online while simultaneously playing to packed theatres in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, China, the Middle East, Australia, Canada, the US, the UK, France, and other countries. In its first month of theatrical release, Jailer brought in an impressive 300 crores in India alone with over 600 crores and counting (just shy of 22 million US dollars) as its worldwide earnings. Many Indian blockbuster films have had a worldwide high-performance index recently with the likes of Ponniyin Selvan, Pathaan, Bahubali etc. thriving on an exoticised glamour of an India of kings and queens and palaces and freedom fighters and medieval breakdance routines, a sort of mystified enchanting India of the travel brochure version for viewers both inside and outside India. Even a mediocre film like RRR had a localised transnational success in the United States during the academy award season as well.
Unlike these historical and revisionist costume dramas, Jailer is a full-on pop culture phenomenon, a movie of the moment, a tale of its time; it is as au courant as cellphones and police corruption. It is full of attitude, and packed chockful of allusions and homages to both Indian and western movies in what is essentially a fun romp. Shot mostly in sumptuous wide shots and rhythmic cuts, it establishes an onscreen India, dry and dusty, with industrial warehouses running forgery, guns and knives, roadside ice cream vendors, fly-by beheadings, and struggling gardens along with elementary school YouTube influencers. Its real distinction is that people all over the world get it. But it is as Indian, specifically, it is as Tamil as a Tamil can be, and it puts a smile on the face of anyone anywhere who watches it. The international blockbuster with no pretensions to anything other than cinematic entertainment is back, thanks to Jailer and its vibrant young director Nelson Dilipkumar.
Jailer tells the story of two men, a hero and a villain, a retired police officer Tiger Muthuvel Pandian, the eponymous jailer, and a criminal mastermind Varman who runs an art forgery ring. They make counterfeit Indian statuary and sells them in the international market. Their encounter becomes complicated when the jailor’s son, a corrupt police officer, starts working for the villain, the male melodrama of father-son conflict being a favorite trope in Tamil cinema from older films like Thangappathakkam (The Golden Badge,1974) that starred an earlier era’s superstar Shivaji Ganesan. Jailer belongs to the same pedigree of male melodramatic films. The hero is played by the Tamil superstar Rajnikanth and the villain, the psychopathic leader of the forgers by Vinayakan from the nearby Malayalam film industry in Kerala.
Both Rajnikanth and Vinayakan belong to the highly successful world of mainstream, commercial Indian cinema with strong populist reception while also maintaining a certain level of middle-class entertainment sophistication. When compared to Rajnikanth, Vinayakan is relatively a newcomer, but one who has very quickly claimed his own space in Mollywood, Kerala’s film industry that produces Malayalam language-based films.
Vinayakan’s breakout performance as an underworld operative, an executioner and strongman, a complex character who is right, wrong and everything in between in Kammatti Padam[1] (2016) earned him a Kerala State Film Award for Best Actor. Jailer sees him as a criminal psychopath with unpredictable ticks like instructing his lackeys to dance for him, drowning his enemies in big vats of sulphuric acid, delivering his Tamil-Malayalam pidgin with menacing comic timing etc. The overall excesses of his character have the potential to turn him into a stereotypical villain, especially since the sulphuric acid dunking trope has a colourful cinematic legacy in Indian popular culture. (The “sulphuric acid joke” is an instantly recognisable film joke in Indian pop culture attributed to the persona of an outlandish villain played by the erstwhile Bollywood star Ajit who is credited with asking his henchman Raabert (Hindi pronunciation of Robert) the following purely apocryphal lines: “Raabert, is haraami ko liquid oxygen mein dal do; liquid ise jeene nahin dega, oxygen ise marna nahin dega” (Robert, drown him in Liquid Oxygen; the Liquid won’t let him live, and the Oxygen won’t let him die!”). Jailer abounds in many such recognisable “quotation marks” throughout the film, including an ear-slicing scene, an evident homage to Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs(1992), and “Stuck in the Middle with You”. These artfully placed allusions create an enjoyable self-reflexive layer in the film where Jailer talks to film materials that have provided evident inspiration. The self-conscious scripting and direction, and the sheer enjoyment and abandonment with which Vinayakan embraces the deranged psyche of Varman makes him a bonafide villain and not a caricature.
Rajnikanth who plays the title role of the jailer is the 72-year-old veteran superstar of Tamil cinema known to his massive adoring fan base as thalaivar (“Leader/Chief” in Tamil). Rajanikanth started his film career with the 1975 romantic drama Apoorva Ragangal (Rare Melodies), a far cry from the action crime thriller genre which would soon become synonymous with his name in the industry. With his trademark moustache, lopsided pursed lips, thick mop of straight black hair swiped across the forehead, lean frame, and long lanky legs, Rajnikanth from the 80s onwards played the righteous underdog on both sides of the law who took on the snobbish elite as well as the violent underworld players and won. He played orphans, rickshaw drivers, underworld consigliere, police officer, milkman, engineer, writer, grandfather, father, son, brother, husband, lover – he played the full spectrum of masculine roles in mainstream Indian cinema.
There is an underacknowledged colour line in Indian films where the relatively whiter-complexioned actors and actresses are considered stardom material. Rajnikanth with his dark-complexion and Midas touch at the box office demolished this industry practice and became the mirror for the ordinary darker Dravidian face on the Indian silver screen. Jailer sees him aged but fuller and lighter than his earlier years, though what has not changed are his instantly recognisable dance moves; underworld or the penthouse, underdog or the aggressor, Rajnikanth’s dance moves set the tone in his films. The standing jogs, the high kicks, the hip shake, the robotic arm movements and hand props like dark glasses and hand towels showed a new definition of “cool” to his fans. His tentative dance performance in Jailer is reminiscent of another accomplished dancer who exhibits a pretend stage fright; John Travolta in Pulp Fiction dancing with Uma Thurman to Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.”
Other significant performances include Vasanth Ravi as the jailor’s corrupt and clueless son, Ramya Krishnan as the jailer’s visibly irritated wife, along with hilarious cameos by Malayalam superstar, Mohanlal, Bollywood star, Jackie Shroff, and Kannada star, Shiva Rajkumar — all of them act as outlaws who help the jailer in his fight against Varman. An equally hilarious subplot involves a love triangle between the dancing beauty Kamna, her lecherous costar “Blast” Mohan, and her lover, the timid film director.
The film clocks an impressive two hours and fifty minutes on the strength of these men and their vivacious performances, smart, sharp, and funny dialogue, over-the-top violence, and a sizzling cameo dance sequence, popularly known in Indian film lingo as an “item number” by the alluring Bollywood actress Tamannah. The single “Kaavaala[2]” composed by the music director, Anirudh, is a proper earworm turned worldwide viral hit with the young and the old alike shaking their hips to its mood altering percussive rhythm, the latest being a Japanese version of the song. Perhaps as a testament to the song’s instant infectious popularity, the original dance features dancers of multiple ethnicities, a global potpourri as it were, with a set reminiscent of the production design of Raiders of the Lost Ark[3] (1981) as well as a flute intro that calls out to Andean musicians. If any song can bring the world together, “Kaavaala” can.
Indeed, the multiple references to Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are unavoidable while watching Jailer. As with Tarantino, director Nelson (as he is popularly known) too operates inside a similar vision of cinematic storytelling.
The proper subject of Jailer is cinema, cinemas of India, cinemas of the world. Tamil melodramas of the 1970s, the middle class Tamil comedies of the eighties and the nineties, Bollywood action flicks, Hollywood adventure films, the black crime comedies of Quentin Tarantino, the epic blood splatter of Robert Rodriguez, the bumbling and menacing sociopathic capers of Guy Ritchie films – Jailer tips its hat to all of these crime-as-entertainment influences through its multilayered dense scripting, the large cast of characters, and the no holds barred display of gory violence. It is a refreshingly confident film without any false notes though some of the repeated explosion scenes could be tightened.
Jailer tells an old story familiar to the Tamil audience, a story as old as Shivaji Ganesan in Thangappathakkam(1974)—the upright police officer father and the fallen corrupt son. The film chugs through its dense thicket of plot and counterplot towards an inevitable moral resolution to this impasse. This is where the power of the star system in Indian cinema, a status equal to that of gods, plays its trump card. With Rajnikanth playing the jailer father there can be only one moral resolution, son, or no son. It is a formula that never fails, and speaks of a justice perhaps unique to cinema.
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[1]Kammatti Paadam — is the name of a slum in Kochi, Kerala. It is a place name. Kammatti is a proper noun without any traceable etymology. Paadam means “field” in Malayalam. “The Slum Fields” of “The Slum” could be an appropriate translation.
[2]Kaavaalaya — A Telugu phrase, “I Want You, Man”
Title:Journey After Midnight: A Punjabi Life from Canada to India
Author: Ujjal Dosanjh
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
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A variation on the common Indian expression “Mullan de daur maseet taeen,” which roughly translates as “An imam’s ultimate refuge is the mosque,” sums up my relationship with the world: India is my maseet. I have lived as a global citizen, but India has been my mandir, my masjid, and my girja: my temple, my mosque, and my church. It has been, too, my gurdwara, my synagogue, and my pagoda. Canada has helped shape me; India is in my soul. Canada has been my abode, providing me with physical comforts and the arena for being an active citizen. India has been my spiritual refuge and my sanctuary. Physically, and in the incessant wanderings of the mind, I have returned to it time and again.
Most immigrants do not admit to living this divided experience. Our lack of candour about our schizophrenic souls is rooted in our fear of being branded disloyal to our adopted lands. I believe Canada, however, is mature enough to withstand the acknowledgement of the duality of immigrant lives. It can only make for a healthier democracy.
Several decades ago, I adopted Gandhi’s creed of achieving change through non-violence as my own. As I ponder the journey ahead, far from India’s partition and the midnight of my birth, there is no avoiding that the world is full of violence. In many parts of the globe, people are being butchered in the name of religion, nationalism and ethnic differences. Whole populations are migrating to Europe for economic reasons or to save themselves from being shot, beheaded or raped in the numerous conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. The reception in Europe for those fleeing mayhem and murder is at times ugly, as is the brutal discrimination faced by the world’s Roma populations. The U.S. faces a similar crisis with migrants from Mexico and other parts of South America fleeing poverty and violence, in some cases that of the drug cartels. Parents and children take the huge risk of being killed en route to their dreamed destinations because they know the deathly dangers of staying. Building walls around rich and peaceful countries won’t keep desperate people away. The only lasting solution is to build a peaceful world.
Human beings are naturally protective of the peace and prosperity within their own countries. A very small number of immigrants and refugees, or their sons and daughters, sometimes threaten the peace of their “host” societies. But regardless of whether the affluent societies of western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and North America like it or not, the pressure to accept the millions of people on the move will only mount as the bloody conflicts continue. Refugees will rightly argue that if the West becomes involved to the extent of bombing groups like ISIS, it must also do much more on the humanitarian front by helping to resettle those forced to flee, be they poverty-driven or refugees under the Geneva Convention. With the pressures of population, poverty and violence compounded by looming environmental catastrophes, the traditional borders of nation states are bound to crumble. If humanity isn’t going to drown in the chaos of its own creation, the leading nations of the world will have to create a new world order, which may involve fewer international boundaries.
In my birthplace, the land of the Mahatma, the forces of the religious right are ascendant, wreaking havoc on the foundational secularism of India’s independence movement. I have never professed religion to be my business except when it invades secular spaces established for the benefit of all. Extremists the world over—the enemies of freedom—would like to erase both the modern and the secular from our lives. Born and bred in secular India, and having lived in secular Britain and Canada, I cherish everyone’s freedom to be what they want to be and to believe what they choose to believe.
I have always been concerned about the ubiquitous financial, moral and ethical corruption in India, and my concern has often landed me in trouble with the rulers there. Corruption’s almost complete stranglehold threatens the future of the country while the ruling elite remain in deep slumber, pretending that the trickle of economic development that escapes corruption’s clutches will make the country great. It will not.
Just as more education in India has not meant less corruption, more economic development won’t result in greater honesty and integrity unless India experiences a cultural revolution of values and ethics. The inequalities of caste, poverty and gender also continue to bedevil India. Two books published in 1990, V.S. Naipaul’s India: A Million Mutinies Now and Arthur Bonner’s Averting the Apocalypse, sum up the ongoing turmoil. A million mutinies, both noble and evil, are boiling in India’s bosom. Unless corruption is confronted, evil tamed, and the yearning for good liberated, an apocalypse will be impossible to avert. It will destroy India and its soul.
On the international level, the world today is missing big aspirational pushes and inspiring leaders. Perhaps I have been spoiled. During my childhood, I witnessed giants like Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew of the Indian freedom movement take their place in history and even met some of them. As a teenager, I was mesmerized by the likes of Nehru and John F. Kennedy. I closely followed Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy as they wrestled with difficult issues and transformative ideas. I landed in Canada during the time of Pierre Trudeau, one of our great prime ministers. Great leaders with great ideas are now sadly absent from the world stage.
The last few years have allowed me time for reflection. Writing this autobiography has served as a bridge between the life gone by and what lies ahead. Now that the often mundane demands of elected life no longer claim my energies, I am free to follow my heart. And in my continuing ambition that equality and social justice be realized, it is toward India, the land of my ancestors, that my heart leads me.
Extracted from the revised paperback edition of Journey After Midnight: A Punjabi Life from Canada to India by Ujjal Dosanjh. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2023.
About the Book: Born in rural Punjab just months before Indian independence, Ujjal Dosanjh emigrated to the UK, alone, when he was eighteen and spent four years making crayons and shunting trains while he attended night school. Four years later, he moved to Canada, where he worked in a sawmill, eventually earning a law degree, and committed himself to justice for immigrant women and men, farm workers and religious and racial minorities. In 2000, he became the first person of Indian origin to lead a government in the western world when he was elected Premier of British Columbia. Later, he was elected to the Canadian parliament.
Journey After Midnight is the compelling story of a life of rich and varied experience and rare conviction. With fascinating insight, Ujjal Dosanjh writes about life in rural Punjab in the 1950s and early ’60s; the Indian immigrant experience—from the late 19th century to the present day—in the UK and Canada; post-Independence politics in Punjab and the Punjabi diaspora— including the period of Sikh militancy—and the inner workings of the democratic process in Canada, one of the world’s more egalitarian nations.
He also writes with unusual candour about his dual identity as a first-generation immigrant. And he describes how he has felt compelled to campaign against discriminatory policies of his adopted country, even as he has opposed regressive and extremist tendencies within the Punjabi community. His outspoken views against the Khalistan movement in the 1980s led to death threats and a vicious physical assault, and he narrowly escaped becoming a victim of the bombing of Air India Flight 182 in 1985. Yet he has remained steadfast in his defence of democracy, human rights and good governance in the two countries that he calls home—Canada and India. His autobiography is an inspiring book for our times.
About the Author: Ujjal Dosanjh was born in the Jalandhar district of Punjab in 1946. He emigrated to the UK in 1964 and from there to Canada in 1968. He was Premier of British Columbia from 2000 to 2001 and a Liberal Party of Canada Member of Parliament from 2004 to 2011. In 2003 he was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, the highest honour conferred by the Government of India on overseas Indians.
Atom Nuclear Bomb Explosion- Illustration “Atomic Landscape” Nagasaki, Japan 1946 Art by Robert Graham Courtesy: Creative Commons
When in 1945, the Allied forces dropped atom bombs on August 6th in Hiroshima and on August 9th in Nagasaki, the Second World War drew Japanese aggression to a halt. But what was the impact on the lives of those innocents whose home, family and future changed forever? Their lives were wrecked — within a few seconds for no fault of their own. The impact clearly continues to ravage the second generation, as can be seen from the narrative of a hibakusha’s daughter who shares her travails while expressing her candid views on the recent movie, Oppenheimer, and the sale of ‘Boppenheimer’ products. She writes: “I live with it1 now having a chronic progressive nerve pain disease. My damaged immune system is attributed to my mother’s exposure to radiation from the atomic bombing.”
Are we forgetting that past, where two whole towns were decimated by atomic bombings with uncountable numbers of deaths and suffering handed down generations? Will we repeat the horrific story again to resolve issues as conflicts continue to ravage the planet with weapons, without considering their impact on the already felt climate crises? Will there be a replay of the bombing of 1945 to annihilate a people, their way of life and create suffering among all humanity? We may not be around to comment on the outcome!
Way back in 2017, climate experts contended that in case of another such bomb blast, “The effect would be similar to that of the giant meteor believed to be responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. This time, we would be the dinosaurs.”
With that in mind, we hope for a world without wars. In this special edition, writings look for peace by creating awareness and suggesting alternatives. Kathleen Burkinshaw writes about the 1945 bombings and her perspectives on media packaging of mushroom clouds. We have a story from a soldier’s perspective during the First World War by the eminent Bengali poet, Nazrul, who fought in it as a soldier for the British army. Current conflicts show up in the writing of Ramy-Al-Asheq, who was born in a refugee camp in the Middle East. They move to Ukraine with voices of Lesya Bakun, a refugee on the run, and Ron Pickett, a US army veteran. Poetry on Myanmar in the past by Sister Lou Ella Hickman and a story of the Rohingya’s plight by Shaheen Akhtar brings the focus into civil wars within Asia. More poems by Don Webb and Michael Burch urge for peace through poetry. Awareness about conflicts that nonetheless impact an interconnected world are brought in with interviews with journalists who were in Afghanistan (Andrew Quilty) and Myanmar (Jessica Muddit) when the takeovers by the current regimes started. We conclude with a discussion for alternatives towards a better future with Anthony Sattin.
Non-Fiction
Mushroom Clouds and Movies: Response from a Hibakusha’s Daughter:Kathleen Burkinshaw, a second generation victim who suffers nerve disorders from the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, where her mother watched her own father perish, responds to the recent media packaging of the event. Click here to read.
The Refugee and the Other, an excerpt from Ever Since I Did Not Die by Ramy Al-Asheq, translated by Isis Nusair. Click here to read.
Poetry
I am Ukraine by Lesya Bakun, a refugee from Ukraine. Click here to read.
Wars and Rumours of War, a response on the war in Ukraine by Ron Picket, a a retired naval aviator with over 250 combat missions and 500 carrier landings. Click here to read.
My Visit to Myanmar in 1997, a poem about peace in the land where Buddha flourished by Sister Lou Ella Hickman. Click here to read.
Henais a short story by Nazrul from the perspective of a soldier during the first world war, translated from Bengali by Sohana Manzoor. Click here to read.
The Magic Staff is a poignant short story about a Rohingya child seeking refuge by Shaheen Akhtar, translated from Bengali by Arifa Ghani Rahman. Click here to read.
Interviews
A discussion about Afghanistan, with journalist Quilty who went back to Kabul as Taliban entered the city. Click here to read.
Keith Lyons talks to Jessica Mudditt, who watched from within the country as the Myanmar Junta took over. Click here to read.
Could there be a way out of this world wide unrest? A discussion with Anthony Sattinas he explores concept of brotherhood unique to earlier times, when borders were not this well defined. Click here to read.
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Hiroshima after August 6th, 1945Hiroshima after bombingCourtesy: Creative Commons
“It just so happens that their[1] universes were different from ours: because why would their imaginations be constrained by a nation-state that would not exist for another thousand years?”
These lines from a recent article on conquests carried out by the Indian subcontinent in ancient times brings to focus that earlier countries or nation-states as we know of them today did not exist till the industrial revolution set the concept in motion. In the month many countries in Asia celebrate their independent existence or rather the drawing of borders based on colonial mapmakers’ whims, we should perhaps relook at the way the world stands divided.
Is this what we want as humans? Where are we headed? While conquerors write the history, we tend to gloss over what is left unsaid. The millions who died crossing borders, in race riots and of hunger, starvation and disease in refugee camps is overlooked, or worse, used to justify the divisions that still hurt the residents of the sub-continent and try to destroy any sense of oneness among the human species. We tend not to forget the atrocities of the colonials but we overlook the violence of the mobs that incensed with hatred instilled by politics annihilated and murdered. Their story is reduced to “us” and “them”. In our mood of jubilation, the recent bombings in the Middle East and the Ukraine-Russia war have already been delegated to the newsreels. But these are all people who are killed and displaced without any justification for the need to do so. One of the things that George Orwell had depicted in 1984 was an acceptance of a constant state of war. Are we stepping into that frame of mind with our cold acceptance of the situation worldwide?
In the last century, many united against the atrocities of the empire builders. They wanted to rise above the divides. At least greats like Nazrul vociferously objected to the basis of divides that were used to draw the borders. Translations brought to us by Professor Fakrul Alam showcase such poetry as does much of Tagore’s own writing and actions. Tagore organised a protest march against the colonial proposal of Partition of Bengal in 1905 by taking a procession in which he encouraged Hindu and Muslim women to tie rakhis[2] on men from the other community and make them their brothers. Tagore put the welfare of humanity above nationalism as can be seen in his writings and speeches. Reflecting on humanity, we have Munshi Premchand’s powerful story,Pus Ki Raat or A Frigid Winter’s Night, translated from Hindi by C Christine Fair, dwelling on the sad state of peasantry under the Raj. In a bid to rouse people like the protagonist of Premchand’s story, Tagore wrote inspirational songs, one of which, Hobe Joye(Victory will be Ours) has been translated on our pages. We also continue sharing Rabindranath’s humour with a skit translated by Somdatta Mandal from Bengali.
Humour is also stirred into Borderless by Rhys Hughes with a series of mini sagas in his column and a trip around the world in eighty couplets. These couplets actually are more in number — I tried counting them — and are guaranteed to make you laugh. We have travel stories in plenty too. Ravi Shankar again treks to the Himalayas and brings us wonderful photographs of his journey and G Venkatesh stops over at Istanbul airport to find a friend from across the border. Meredith Stephens travels to a French colony called Lifou Island — sounds unbelievable as in the month we celebrate the independence of so many countries across Asia, there is still a country in the Pacific that owes allegiance to a democratic European power! But other than writing about the beaches, Stephens talks of a temporary pet dog while Suzanne Kamata gives us cat talk in her notes from Japan in a lighter vein — a very pleasant glimpse of life. Devraj Singh Kalsi brings a grin when he talks of his stint at trying to run a restaurant.
Interesting non-fictions from a book lover, Sindhu Shivprasad, and from PG Thomas who talks of King Lear performed a la classical Indian dance mode, Kathakali, by an international caste add to narratives that focus on bringing the pleasanter side of life to our readers. Such stories are a welcome relief in dark times when people find themselves caught between price hikes due to the pandemic and wars. An essay by Candice Louisa Daquin looks for a way out of the stresses of these times. Erwin Coombs gives us a funny, poignant and tragic classroom encounter which reminds me of the 1967 Sidney Poiter movie, To Sir, with Love. We have darker tones brought into our journal also with Aysha Baqir’s story on child exploitation, a sad but hopeful narrative from Nepal by Santosh Kalwar about the rejection of a girl-child by her mother and a horrific murder brought to us by Paul Mirabile.
An excerpt from B. M. Zuhara’sThe Dreams of a Mappila Girl: A Memoir, translated from Malayalam by Fehmida Zakeer, brings us close to a community we know very less about in the Southern part of India. Meenakshi Malhotra has reviewed Tagore’s Four Chapters translated from Bengali and introduced by Radha Chakravarty, a book that is a powerful voice against violence in the name of nationalism touching on the independence of women, a theme that is reiterated in another book that has been visited by Rakhi Dalal. While exploring Neelum Saran Gour’s Requiem in Raga Janki, Dalal contends that the book familiarises us with a singer “who carved her own destiny and lived life on her own terms, in times when women were generally subjugated and confined to roles given by society”. Gracy Samjetsabam has visited Mamang Dai’s Escaping the Land, a novel that tries to weave issues faced in the Northeast of India and integrate it with the mainstream by stirring human emotions. Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Rakesh Batabyal’s Building a Free India, a collection of powerful speeches from the past.
Within the confines of the Raj, there was a long court case where a prince who had been declared dead resurfaced as a Naga sadhu[3], a claimant to the throne, this time not to abuse his power as of past but to be a sympathiser of the people in their tryst to fight the Raj. Aruna Chakravarti has woven a historical fiction around this controversy centring around the prince of Bhawal. In an exclusive interview, she tells us the story behind the making of The Mendicant Prince— her novel that was published just last month. Her responses could well teach us how to write a historical novel.
We have much more than the fare that has been mentioned here. Pause by on our contents page to take a look. My heartfelt thanks to the whole team at Borderless for helping with this issue, which we managed to get out in a shorter time than usual and Sohana Manzoor for her wonderful artwork. I am grateful to all our contributors as well as our readers. We could not have made it this far without all of you.
In the spirit of uniting under a borderless sky, let us look forward to cooler climes and happier times.
[1] Guptas (4-6 century CE), Cholas (300 BCE -1279 CE) and other ancient rulers in the Indian sub-continent
[2] A festival held in August where sisters of all ages tie a talisman or amulet called the rakhi around the wrists of their brothers, who promise to protect them.
Dr. Dalip Kaur Tiwana (4 May 1935 – 31 January 2020) is recognised as one of the most consequential Punjabi authors who substantially contributed to the development of modern Punjabi literature. Prior to her death, she published twenty-seven novels, seven collections of short stories as well as a literary biography. Tiwana was also a distinguished academic. She was the first woman in the region to obtain a Ph.D. from Punjab University in 1963. She joined the Punjabi University at Patiala from which she retired as a Dean as well as a Professor of Punjabi. Dr. Tiwana garnered innumerable regional as well as national awards within India, including the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award and the Padma Shri, India’s fourth largest civilian honor. She surrendered her Padma Shri in 2015 expressing “Solidarity with other writers who are protesting against the increasing cultural intolerance in our society and politics and the threat to free speech and creative freedom.”
The Bus Conductor
Art by C Christine Fair
The lady doctor, Polly, had been transferred from Nabhe to Patiala. Her family members were trying to get the transfer rescinded. That is why, instead of taking a house and living in Patiala, she got permission from the senior doctor to come from Nabhe every morning by bus and return in the evening.
She felt ill at ease because of the shivering sound of the idling buses, the heat, the sweat, the crowds, the ludicrous indolence of the conductors, and the rude banter. Thinking to herself, “But this is just a matter of days,” she suffered it all. On the days when Jit was on duty for that bus, she would feel a bit comfortable because that conductor seemed to be good natured.
One day, a man asked Jit, “Where does that girl with the bag work?”
Jit said discretely as he was handing over the ticket, “Aho[1] sir! She is a lady doctor. A very senior lady doctor. People say that her salary is a full three hundred rupees.”
“Sir, these days women are earning more than men. That’s why men are no longer the boss,” said the man as he sat down on a seat nearby.
“Sir, no matter what they earn, girls of a good household still must lower their eyes when they speak…and this lady doctor, I go to Patiala all the time and by god, she doesn’t even speak…,” said the Sardar who was sitting behind while gazing towards Polly.
“By god! I also….” He stopped mid-sentence when Jit, while handing the ticket to this dandy in a pink shirt, glowered at him and said, “So, brother. Do you want to go? Or should I toss you off the bus now?”
“Conductor Sir. I didn’t anything. Why are you getting angry like this?”
While Jit was handing the ticket over to Polly, she began to give him the ten she took out.
“I don’t have any change. Forget about it and pay in full tomorrow.” Having said this, Jit moved on.
Ahead, there was elderly woman who also took out a ten. “Ma’am, I don’t have change. The entire fare is 10.5 annas[2] and you take out such a large note and hand it to me? Fine. Go and get change and then come back,” Jit said in a rather stern voice.
“Young man! In that time, the bus will have left and it’s urgent that I go. You can return the rest of the money to me in Patiala,” the elderly woman begged of him.
“Fine, ma’am. Sit down,” he said as he began to cut her a ticket.
Polly was thinking about the hospital, all of the patients, the medicines, the nurses, and the various duties as the bus left behind Rakhra, then Kalyan and then Rony and neared the Chungu toll booth.
Jit told the driver, “Yaar[3]! Today drive towards this blue building right here.”
The passengers who were travelling to the gurdwara grumbled a bit, but by now the bus had turned and was once more on the direct route. Near the Flower Cinema the conductor rang the bell to stop the bus, opened the door, and began to tell Polly, “You get down here, the hospital will be nearby.”
Polly got down quickly. She even forgot to say thank you. She thought to herself, “That poor fellow is such a nice conductor.”
By the time she reached the bus station that evening to begin her journey home, the bus was already full. With great difficulty she waited 45 minutes for another bus. A bus conductor, with his shirt unbuttoned, passed her three times while mumbling the song from the film Awaara[4]. He gave an anna to a female beggar to get rid of her for some time. She didn’t know why, but people were staring at her wide-eyed.
The next day, it happened by chance, that when she reached the Nabha bus station, the buses were already full, and Jit was turning away additional passengers without a ticket. Jit approached her and said, “You can pick up the bag on the front seat and sit down. I saved a seat for you.”
Polly passed by several gawking passengers and sat down. Jit immediately rang the bell for the bus to move forward.
“This conductor is so good-natured,” Polly thought to herself.
As the delays in getting her posting to Nabha stretched over time, she became depressed. The sound of the idling buses and fears of the bus leaving were constantly on her mind. Whenever she was forced to sit next to a fat passenger, her nice clothes would get wrinkled, and the stench of sweat would make her dizzy.
Then one day when she was about to give money for her ticket, Jit said, “No madam, forget about it,” and moved ahead.
“No sir, please take the money,” Polly emphatically requested.
“What difference will it make whether I take your money or not?” he asked. He walked further ahead and began to give a ticket to someone.
Polly, feeling self-conscious from the argument, sat down quietly but throughout the journey she was wondering why the conductor didn’t take money from her. She did not like it at all. For someone earning Rs. 300 what is the value 10.5 annas?
The next day she intentionally left five minutes late, thinking, “Today I won’t go on the Pipal Bus. Instead, I’ll take the Pepsu Roadways Bus. What nonsense is this that he won’t take the money!”
She was stupefied to see that the driver had started the bus and was standing yelling at the conductor.
“Oye! I am just coming. Why are you yelling? Why do want to leave so early? Is it about to rain?” Jit said, while walking very, very slowly.
“Are we going to the next station or not? You’re taking your sweet time getting here,” the driver said.
“Get over here, Madam and take the front seat, and open the window,” Jit said to Polly.
“How can the bus leave without Madam?” mumbled a clerk in the back who took the bus from Nabhe to Patiala every day.
Jit glared at him. Everyone fell silent. The bus left. Polly took out the money but despite her repeated attempts, Jit refused to take it. Polly became very angry. “Jit is making me a part of this scam…But why is he neither charging me nor giving me a ticket?… Still, this is defrauding the company…” She was thinking this just as the bus stopped and a ticket-checker boarded. When he was checking the tickets of the other passengers, Polly broke out in a nervous sweat.
“How humiliating it is that I don’t have a ticket…. I will tell him that the conductor didn’t give me a ticket even though I asked for one,” she thought. “But what will the poor man say? No. I will tell him that I forgot. But no. How can I lie,” she debated with herself.
Then the checker approached her.
As soon as he said, “Madam…ticket,” Jit, taking a ticket out of his pocket, called out, “She…. she…This woman is my sister. I have her ticket.”
Seeing the ticket, the checker glanced at the conductor whose pants were threadbare at the knees and whose khaki uniform was worn at the elbows. Then, he looked over the woman in the expensive sari. He smiled with his eyes.
Jit became flustered. The checker quickly got down from the bus.
Polly, surprised and worried, was thinking that perhaps this man, who earns a paltry Rs. 60 per month, didn’t eat during the day so that he could pay for my entire fare.
In the hospital, she kept thinking about this. She felt so uneasy about it.
In the evening when she reached the station, Jit was sad as he slowly made his way towards her.
“My older sister also studied medicine in Lahore…and she died there during the riots of partition. The rest of my family perished too. I somehow managed to make it here alive. How could I even think about studying when I could barely feed myself? Then I became a conductor. When I saw your bag and stethoscope, I remembered Amarjit…and…and….” Then he choked up.
Polly was very distraught. She didn’t know how to respond.
Meanwhile, the bus came. He quickly walked towards it and Polly kept on watching him walk away with affection in her moist eyes.
C. Christine Fair is a professor in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. She studies political and military events of South Asia and travels extensively throughout Asia and the Middle East. Her books include In Their Own Words: Understanding the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (OUP 2019); Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War (OUP, 2014); and Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States (Globe Pequot, 2008). She has published creative pieces in The Bark, The Dime Show Review, Furious Gazelle, Hypertext, Lunch Ticket, Clementine Unbound, Fifty Word Stories, The Drabble, Sandy River Review, Barzakh Magazine, Bluntly Magazine, Badlands Literary Journal, among others. Her visual work has appeared in Vox Populi, pulpMAG, The Indianapolis Review, Typehouse Literary Magazine, The New Southern Fugitives, Glassworks and Existere Journal of Arts. Her translations have appeared in the Bombay Literary Magazine, Bombay Review, Muse India and The Punch Magazine. She reads, writes and speaks Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
twelve thousand seven hundred and seventy five prayers
Had been answered
She thought, as his tiny fingers wrapped
Around hers, his eyes still closed
‘Ya Allah!’ she thanked God
for Omid
.
‘Omid’ – it means hope
His body still warm
From being nursed
At her breast
Now he lay still
His pure, fresh blood splattered on the white floor
I want to understand why Omid died
Was it her punishment?
For giving birth to hope –
an unforgivable mistake in the eyes of non-believers.
.
I thought like them that thrust the bullet
Into his tender chest. It shattered his ribs
and punctured his heart.
I cannot understand
I think, maybe, because I am not as bad.
I thought like the merciful God who gave him life
Seventeen seconds of motherhood He had granted
In exchange for her every prayer
I cannot understand
I think, maybe, because I am not as good
.
For God is always good
and merciful
my mother says
I cannot understand
So, I pray –
For Omid and
his mother
And others like Omid-
crushed
before they knew what, it means ‘to be alive.’
.
Smitha Vishwanath is a banker turned writer. A management professional, she embarked on the writing journey in 2016, with her blog, https://lifeateacher.wordpress.com, while still heading the regional Cards Operations of a bank. After having worked for almost two decades in senior roles in the banking industry, in the Middle East, she quit and returned to India in July 2018 when her husband was transferred on an assignment. Her poems and articles have been published in various anthologies. In July 2018, she co-authored a book of poetry: Roads – A Journey with Verses. Other than writing, she enjoys reading, travelling, and painting.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
