Ranu Bhattacharyya takes us back to Dhaka of the 1930s… and a world where the two Bengals interacted as one with her migration story. Click here to read.
A Pop of Happiness by Jeanie Douglas. From Public Domain
Happiness is a many splendored word. For some it is the first ray of sunshine; for another, it could be a clean bill of health; and yet for another, it would be being with one’s loved ones… there is no clear-cut answer to what makes everyone happy. In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (JK Rowling, 2005), a sunshine yellow elixir induces euphoria with the side effects of excessive singing and nose tweaking. This is of course fantasy but translate it to the real world and you will find that happiness does induce a lightness of being, a luminosity within us that makes it easier to tackle harder situations. Playing around with Rowling’s belief systems, even without the potion, an anticipation of happiness or just plain optimism does generate a sense of hope for better times. Harry tackles his fears and dangers with goodwill, friends and innate optimism. When times are dark with raging wars or climate events that wreck our existence, can one look for a torch to light a sense of hope with the flame of inborn resilience borne of an inner calm, peace or happiness — call it what you will…?
It is hard to gauge the extreme circumstances with which many of us are faced in our current realities, especially when the events spin out of control. In this issue, along with the darker hues that ravage our lives, we have sprinklings of laughter to try to lighten our spirits. In the same vein, externalising our emotions to the point of absurdity that brings a smile to our lips is Rhys Hughes’ The Sunset Suite, a book that survives on tall tales generated by mugs of coffee. In one of the narratives, there is a man who is thrown into a bubbling hot spring, but he survives singing happily because his attacker has also thrown in packs of tea leaves. This man loves tea so much that he does not scald, drown or die but keeps swimming merrily singing a song. While Hughes’ stories are dark, like our times, there is an innate cheer that rings through the whole book… Dare we call it happiness or resilience? Hughes reveals much as he converses about this book, squonks and stranger facts that stretch beyond realism to a fantastical world that has full bearing on our very existence.
A powerful essay by Binu Mathew on the climate disaster at Wayanad, a place that earlier had been written of as an idyllic getaway, tells us how the land in that region has become more prone to landslides. The one on July 30th this year washed away a whole village! Farouk Gulsara has given a narrative about his cycling adventure through the state of Kashmir with his Malaysian friends and finding support in the hearts of locals, people who would be the first to be hit by any disaster even if they have had no hand in creating the catastrophes that could wreck their lives, the flora and the fauna around them. In the wake of such destructions or in anticipation of such calamities, many migrate to other areas — like Ranu Bhattacharya’s ancestors did a bit before the 1947 Partition violence set in. A younger migrant, Chinmayi Goyal, muses under peaceful circumstances as she explores her own need to adapt to her surroundings. G Venkatesh from Sweden writes of his happy encounter with local children in the playground. And Snigdha Agrawal has written of partaking lunch with a bovine companion – it can be intimidating having a cow munching at the next table, I guess! Devraj Singh Kalsi has given a tongue-in-cheek musing on how he might find footing as a godman. Suzanne Kamata has given a lovely summery piece on parasols, which never went out of fashion in Japan!
Radha Chakravarty, known for her fabulous translations, has written about the writer she translated recently, Nazrul. Her essay includes a poem by Tagore for Nazrul. Professor Fakrul Alam has translated two of Nazrul’s songs of parting and Sohana Manzoor has rendered his stunning story Shapuray (Snake Charmer) into English. Fazal Baloch has brought to us poetry in English from the Sulaimani dialect of Balochi by Allah Bashk Buzdar, and a Korean poem has been self-translated by the poet, Ihlwha Choi. The translations wind up with a poem by Tagore, Olosh Shomoy Dhara Beye (Time Flows at an Indolent Pace), showcasing how the common man’s daily life is more rooted in permanence than evanescent regimes and empires.
Fiction brings us into the realm of the common man and uncommon situations, or funny ones. A tongue-in-cheek story set in the Midwest by Joseph Pfister makes us laugh. Farhanaz Rabbani has given us a beautiful narrative about a girl’s awakening. Paul Mirabile delves into the past using the epistolary technique highlighting darker vignettes from Christopher Columbus’s life. We have book excerpts from Maaria Sayed’s From Pashas to Pokemonand Nazes Afroz’s translation of Syed Mujtaba Ali’sShabnamwith both the extracts and Rabbani’s narratives reflecting the spunk of women, albeit in different timescapes…
When migrations are out of choice, with multiple options to explore, they take on happier hues. But when it is out of a compulsion created by manmade disasters — both wars and climate change are that — will the affected people remain unscarred, or like Potter, bear the scar only on their forehead and, with Adlerian calm, find happiness and carpe diem?
Do pause by our current issue which has more content than mentioned here as some of it falls outside the ambit of our discussion. This issue would not have been possible without an all-out effort by each of you… even readers. I would like to thank each and every contributor and our loyal readers. The wonderful team at Borderless deserve much appreciation and gratitude, especially Manzoor for her wonderful artwork. I invite you all to savour this August issue with a drizzle of not monsoon or April showers but laughter.
May we all find our paths towards building a resilient world with a bright future.
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)From Public Domain
I, Roberto Mendoza, in this year 1550, ship’s boy on Christopher Columbus’ first and second voyages to the West Indies before my promotion to sailor on his third and fourth voyages, testify to the veracity of the eye witness events that I record for posterity. And in spite of their devastating raw truth, it is my troubled conscious that has conducted my hand, goaded my intelligence to write down these sorrowful facts. For facts they are, regardless of the prestige and boons that Columbus received from his protectors and admirers.
Where shall I begin? How do I burrow through the layers of unquestionable fame that has marked that name to reverberate with the clanking of the slave chains, the death rattles in the gold and silver mines, the gnashing of teeth, the hangings and dismemberments … the insensible apathy of the subjugation or submission of the Indian masses?
It has always appeared to my young eyes that Columbus’ achievements were enveloped in an aura of mystery or incomprehension. I may even add an aura of fantastic falsifications, mainly initiated and authorised by Columbus himself and his unquestioning gallants.
I knew him well, too well to be duped by those seductive charms of his, that subtle cunning, a mask donned whenever a fruitful occasion arose, yet under which lay a brutal, tyrannical individual bent on attaining his greatest ambition: wealth and glory, and this at any price. What was the little ditty that some fool invented for innocent children and naive adults to recite: “In fourteen ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue?” A ridiculous rime to recall that wretched year. Yes, I say that wretched year for it celebrated the Genoan hero’s glorious voyage.
During that fatal year of 1492, two other major events occurred in Spain which I believe to be in relation to Columbus’ conniving his way into Isabella’s confidence: the expulsion of the Jews to North Africa, Italy and Constantinople, and the capitulation of Granada, the last stronghold of the Muslims in Spain, to the Christian kings. Henceforth, Spain rid herself of those ‘impure’, centuries-laden ‘foreign’ plunderers. Did not Columbus write in his logbook (if we are to believe Bartolomé de Las Casas’s transcribed copy of it) that he was overjoyed by those two events: ”thus you (the Monarchs) have turned out all the Jews from your kingdoms and lordships”, and ”the royal banners have been placed on the towers of Alhambra”[1].
This being said, because of the expulsion and the reconquest, Columbus’ true birthplace had to be concealed, for any negotiation with Isabella or Ferdinand. This hero was not born in the city of spaghetti and banks, Genova, as commonly known. The darling of the Spanish monarchy was born in the land of the corsairs, in Calvi, a lovely port town in Northern Corsica, indeed conquered by the Genovans and governed by them during five centuries, but none the less born and bred far from the banks of Italy. Corsica, where for centuries Vandals, Ostrogoths, Greeks and Lombards, and ill-bred Aragonese and Genovans vied for domination, intermingling, integrating and assimilating.
Why would Columbus lie about his place of birth? Was it out of fear of a possible ‘corsair descent’? One that connoted piratry, pillage and other misdeeds [2]? Be that as it may, the rogue managed to cajole Queen Isabella into giving him enough maravedis[3]to undertake a voyage that would heighten the glory of the conquering Spanish Monarchy and the new-founded kingdom.
And that was how Admiral Don Christopher Columbus frayed his way to fame and fortune!
With the Queen’s glittering maravedis he commissioned three caravels : the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, the third of which he navigated himself, the other two by the Pinzón brothers. How I happened to be aboard the Santa Maria is a long story with which I shall not bore my readers.
So there he stood at the prow, mantled in a vaporous circle of pride and arrogance whilst we, his sea-faring companions, sweated away on deck or in the hold, were fed rotten food, furled and unfurled the sails without respite, hunted out the innumerable rats that ran amok below, withered under the insufferable heat of September. I myself almost fainted under the long, long hours of tedious work, boredom and especially fear; fear that we and our tiny caravel, surrounded by thousands of leagues of far from blue waters, would be food for the horrible undersea monsters that had swallowed many a brave crew and their vessels with yawning jaws and leathery tentacles. All of us were terrified, and the five weeks we spent crossing a swelling ocean towards the East, or so we all thought, triggered a feeling of panic, alienness and remorse. The admiral described the ocean like a river; I myself felt like a cork in a rainswept pond, jostled and jolted, no land in sight, our water and meat, taken aboard at the Canary Islands, foul-tasting, half-eaten by the enormous black rats.
Did the great Admiral not consult the stars? Eastward? There was nothing — only rolls and rolls of higher and higher walls of water battering the fragile sides of our vessels. And I, so young, asked myself time and time again, how did an incompetent sea-faring fellow like Columbus ever win the confidence of Isabella and Ferdinand ? Oh how I recall his bulky figure at the prow, oftentimes behind the helm, screaming orders or simply staring out into the watery vastitude, dreaming no doubt of gold … gold … and more gold … He had written the word ‘gold’ seventy-five times in his logbook during the first two weeks of our crossing!
How many of our poor sailors had been beaten for insubordination, had suffered the excruciating trial of keelhauling[4], one or two even hanged for attempting mutiny, so fearful were they of being devoured by sea monsters, dying of thirst or hunger or being bitten by the furry rats that thrived below in our beds of straw?
At long last I heard the cry “Land ahoy!” coming from the crow’s nest. Yes, we finally reached a cluster of islands that would be named Guanahani[5], Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic on the maps of future cartographers. It was on these islands that my first glimpses of a barbaric and despotic Columbus would not only be corroborated, but magnified to the heights of psychopathic insanity. For it became more and more evident to me that the Admiral, whom I considered in my youthful age as a hero, had no intentions of treating the indigenous peoples of these islands either as equals or with a soupçon of humane sympathy. He indeed judged them somewhat higher than animals, yet whose only human value was how much they would bring him as slaves sold in Spain, or how much gold and silver they would extract for him from the mines and rivers. All he saw in these peaceful peoples was the glitter of gold fastened to their noses and the rings of equal glitter hanging off their ears and arms. He saw gold everywhere, even gold stones shining in the rivers! He wrote in his logbook that gold grew in clusters and could be plucked off trees like fruit!
The way in which he ferreted information out of the Indians about gold deposits turned my stomach. His obsession with gold drove him into periodical frenzies during which time he would beat, even torture the poor indigenous man or woman who failed to locate the deposits. He spent his sweltering nights tossing and turning in bed, totally possessed by this maniacal craving.
But his brutality was not limited in this direction: The Spaniards or other Europeans who disobeyed him or sought to outmanoeuvre him in the pursuit of power or riches were tracked down and hanged, accused of criminal acts. His barbarity knew no bounds, nor his slave-selling which began to enrich him immensely.
On our second and third voyages, which led us to the islands of Granada and Tobago, the abundance of gold extracted was tantamount to the number of Indians he enslaved for his own ‘household’ purposes, and those he sold into a slavery which by then had become a thriving, lucrative business. We navigated from island to island sowing the seeds of destruction as the stoic Admiral described their beauty, the exotic animals and birds, and especially the immense, awaiting riches buried under that beauty. How many of the indigenous he had killed when several tribes revolted against him, and how many committed suicide cannot be accurately tallied. I would learn much later that Las Casas put that tally at 1,500 Taion Arawaks.
Indeed, as time went by Columbus’ wrath found merciless outlets against Indians and Europeans alike as the settlements grew in economic and political importance. Indians who failed to extract enough gold from the mines had one of their arms cut off[6]. On many occasions he had rebellious Spaniards dismembered in public much to the outrage of the governors appointed to the settlements by the Spanish Monarchy.
The governors of these settlements began sending reports to the King and Queen relating the horrendous behaviour of Columbus, his obsession for power and riches, his masquerading as a ruling god-like figure over the ignorant natives. Testimonies piled higher and higher on the Queen’s pearl-inlaid writing-table, relating cases of rape, murder and mutilation.
On his return trip to Spain she immediately had him seized, chained and thrown into prison. She also expropriated all his extorted possessions, be they gold or land. There he rotted away for six weeks, so enraged was the Queen, betrayed by this ‘foreigner’. However, his brother Bartholomew, on his knees, pleaded tearfully in favour of his brother’s heart of gold, his innocence in all matters of governance, having been slandered by the governors and their lackeys who wrote defamatory reports to wreak vengeance upon a man whose glory and greatness surpassed theirs. The Queen hesitated. It was King Ferdinand who decided to have him released.
His release from prison had puffed up his ego, unlocked his megalomania.
Columbus’ fourth and last voyage, between 1502 and 1504 with four caravels, took us to Martinique, Honduras, Jamaica, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. I had been appointed a full-fledged sailor by then and relished the idea of accompanying the Admiral, jotting down all his actions, prudently of course, so that I would not to be arrested for bearing witness to his ruthlessness, perhaps even hanged as a traitor. The ‘civilising’ process undertaken by him included plundering, murdering, enslaving and mutilation. Amidst the unbridled violence and sadism, he posed as an evangelist, a disinterested zealot deeply desirous to convert the ‘savages’ into God-fearing Christians, into ‘civilised’ beings like himself.
Columbus returned to Spain a hero of piety, magnanimity, sanctity. The impostor even wrote two books : the Book of Privileges[7] in 1502, an indecent mass of statistics which enumerate all his accumulated rewards wrested from the Crown under which lay the beaten and mutilated bodies of the indigenous, and the Book of Prophecies[8] in 1505, a shameful scream of smut comprising hundreds of citations from the Bible, all of which spell out in his vapid style his Christian ‘mission’ in the New World, ever so charitable and lenient towards the ignorant, child-like ‘natives’ ; a mission, indeed, pure in spirit, rightful in act.
With Columbus’ death the unwarrantable fervour that he had kindled slowly shrivelled into ashes. I retired from sea-life and found work in the Custom’s Bureau, a most comfortable employment. Besides, I was disgusted by all the tales told about him by the sailors, especially their bawdy narratives about the native women in the New World. I wished to leave my sea-legs behind and tread more earthy paths. Furthermore, my new tasks gave me ample time to read the posthumous reports about Columbus[9], many of which belied the benignant deeds and bountiful achievements of the monarchial and New World idol. It was after these important readings that I decided to begin my memoirs …
The rogue’s Book of Prophecies created quite a stir amongst the aristocratic castes : Columbus’ fantasies of promoting Isabella and Ferdinand as heads of a new crusade to the Holy Lands to defeat the Muslims, and there spread Christianity kindled many a nostalgic and gun-ho heart. The monarchs, wary of the old Admiral’s apocalyptic inaccuracies and religious bigotry, never took him seriously. I wonder if they had even read his book …
None the less, Columbus certainly provided an excellent example for other freebooters to follow in the wake of his doughty adventures. The slave trade between the Old and the New World thrived as well as the gold and silver that flooded the Spanish markets. It is no mere metaphor that this period in Spain was called as El Siglo de Oro (The Golden Century).
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[1] Bartolome de Las Casas (1484-1566) a Dominicain priest who spent forty years in Hispaniola (Haiti and the Domican Republic) transcribed an abstract of Columbus’ lost logbook. How accurate or truthful is this copy is difficult to assess. Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus (1492-1493), translated by Clements R. Markhma : London, Hakluyt Society, 1893, pp. 15-93
[2] Corsica : Columbus’ Isle, Joseph Chiari, edition Barrie and Rockcliff, 1960.
[3] Gold coins used in mediaeval Spain during the 11th and 14th centuries.
[4] A maritime punishment by which the sailor is ‘hauled’ under the ‘keel’ of the ship with ropes.
[5] As called by the Indians. Columbus called this island San Salvador. Today it is called Watling.
[6] On this point see Howard Zinn, Christopher Columbus and Western Civilization, Open Magazine Pamphlet Series, 1992.
[7]El Libro de Privilegios. The English edition : Book of Privileges, The Claiming of the New World, John W. Hessler, 2014.
[8]El Libro de Profesías. The English edition : Book of Prophecies, Repertorium Columbianum, Blair Sullivan, 2004.
[9] Columbus and Las Casas : Two Readings on the Legacy of Columbus(1542 (The Devastation of the Indians. A brief Account) and 1550 (In Defense of the Indians).
Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The description in ‘Hot Dry Summers’ is not of hell but what is perceived as happening on certain parts of Earth due to global warming or climate change. Forest fires. Nearer the equator, the storms have become harsher with lightning strikes that seem to connect the Earth to the sky. Trees get uprooted as the soil is softened from excessive rain. Sometimes, they fall on passers-by killing or injuring them. There is no rain in some places, forest fires or flooding in others… The highest temperatures touched 55 degrees Celsius this year. Instead of worrying about losing our homes lodged on land masses to the oceans that continue to rise, becoming dark heat absorbers due to loss of white ice cover, we persistently fight wars, egged on by differences highlighting divisive constructs. It feels strange that we are witness to these changes which seem to be apocalyptic to doomsday sayers. Are they right? Our flora, fauna and food will also be impacted by global climate change. How will we survive these? Will we outlive these as a species?
Poetry in our translations’ section travels to Balochistan, from where a Hafeez Rauf translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch, talks of burning tyres, again conflicts. It takes on a deeper hue as Ihlwha Choi translates his poignant poem from Korean, reflecting on the death of his mother. We have a translation of Tagore’s less popular poem, Mrityu[1], reflecting on the same theme. His reflections on his wife’s death too have been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam who has also shared a song of Nazrul, written and composed on the death of Tagore. Another lesser-known poet but brilliant nonetheless, Nirendranath Chakraborty, has been translated for us by Debali Mookerjea-Leonard. And what a tremendous poem it is when the person called Amalkanti wanted to be sunshine! We have a story too — ‘Speech Matters’ by Naramsetti Umamaheswararao translated by Johny Takkedasila.
Our stories as usual travel around the world — from Holland (by Paul Mirabile) to Hyderabad (by Mohul Bhowmick) and with a quick pause at Bangalore (by Anagha Narasimha). Travels in the real world are part of our non-fiction. Sai Abhinay Penna takes to a the second largest mangrove forest in the world and Ravi Shankar to Colombo. Madhuri Bhattachrya gives us a glimpse of an Indian summer and Snigdha Aggrawal explores the impact of climate change in her part of the world. Farouk Gulsara actually writes his reflections at a traffic junction. And it reads droll…
We have an in memoriam by Keith Lyons on Morgan Spurlock, the documentary maker who ate McDonald fare for a month and then made a film on it. We have two tributes to two legends across time. Wayne F Burke has given a brief piece on the iconic illustrator, Norman Rockwell. And Aruna Chakravarti, the queen of historic fiction who brought the Tagore family alive for us in her two very well researched novels, Jorasanko and Daughters of Jorasanko, has given us a fabulous tribute to Tagore on the not-so common aspects of him.
Suzanne Kamata, the novelist who does a column from Japan for us normally, has spoken to us about her new novel, Cinnamon Beach, which overrides multiple manmade constructs. It’s an interesting read from someone who lives her life across multiple cultures and transcends many boundaries.
This is a bumper issue, and it is difficult to convey the vibrant hues of words that colour this edition. Please do pause by our contents page for a more comprehensive look.
This issue would not have been possible without all our fabulous contributors and a wonderful, dedicated team. We are delighted that Rakhi Dalal — who has done many reviews and shares her poetry with us in this issue — has agreed to be a writer-in-residence with us. A huge thanks to all of you, and especially Sohana Manzoor for her artwork. I am truly grateful to our readers for popularising our efforts to put together an online space with free and vibrant reads.
I would like to end with a few lines that gives me hope despite climate change, wars and doomsday predictions.
There’s more to life, he says to me, than what you choose to see.
A Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers by Marc Chagall (1887-1985). From Public Domain
Tommy ordered a second pint of beer at the counter. The bar buzzed with the usual crowd, and a few groups of tourists, mostly from northern Europe, were beering it up as they did at home. Tommy had had a long day preparing breakfast and clearing the rooms at the Hotel Van Acker, Jan Willem Brouwersstraat, 14. Afterwards, he accompanied three Spanish tourists to the ‘high’ spots of Amsterdam: Anne Frank’s house, Vondel Park, the Rijks and Stedelijk museums, Rembrandthuis, Madame Tussauds, completing his tour at the ‘hot’ spot for all such tourists — the red light district. There he left the Spaniards, tired of having dragged them about the town while straining to understand their Spanish.
How long had he been at it ? Four … five years ? Who knows. Something in his mind had snapped. Oftentimes he suffered from bouts of amnesia or blackouts, a succession of synapse that triggered in him extreme panic, even paranoia. He felt an elbow nudge him lightly in the ribs: “ All right, mate?” asked a middle-aged man with long, blond, silken hair and ultramarine blue eyes.
Tommy eyed the man suspiciously. He had managed to squeeze himself in at the counter as imperceptibly as a ghost. “Yes, I’m all right. Why?”
“Oh, I just saw you staring into space as if you were in great thought or pain.” Tommy smiled leerily.
“No pain, just thinking small thoughts.” The other smiled. His teeth were very white. He reached over, took a few pinches of tobacco from a drinker’s pouch with unabashed effrontery and rolled himself a cigarette.
“Do you do that often?” Tommy enquired lamely.
“What?” the other asked puffing away dreamily.
“Pinch tobacco from people’s pouches.”
“Of course I do, it’s been my custom for ages,” answered the tobacco pincher with a whimsical gleam in his eyes. “What are you doing in Amsterdam, working I suppose?”
Tommy straightened up. “I work at the Hotel Van Acker doing odd jobs for the owner.”
“Ah, yes, Van Acker … Where they found that murdered dwarf.”
“He wasn’t murdered. He died of a heart attack.”
“The police never found the key to his room. That is strange. To die of a heart attack in a hotel room without the key.”
“So what?”
“Sounds a bit shadowy to me. But that’s all in the past. And who cares anyway, right ? What’s your name?”
“Tommy.”
“From?”
Tommy hesitated: “From Luton.”
“Luton?”
“It’s in Bedsfordshire.”
The pincher of tobacco nodded, rolling himself another cigarette. “I’ve seen you handing out leaflets or pamphlets in the streets.”
“That’s possible.”
“How’s the salary at Van Acker’s?”
“I get on. Van Acker gives me my meals and I sleep in the cellar room under the stairway.”
There was a very long silence — a silence so long that Tommy began to grow nervous. Finally, the man said: “Listen, I might have a job for you Tommy that will earn you enough money to live like a prince anywhere in the world for the rest of your life. One night ! Only one night, and you’ll become as rich as Crassus.”
“Who’s Crassus?” asked Tommy mistrustfully. The other laughed.
“The richest man in the Roman Empire. You see, my proposition deals with paintings; I’m an art collector.”
“Pictures? I like pictures. I take all my hotel tourists to the art museums.”
“Perfect. Here’s my address. Come by any time after eight at night. By the way, my name is Gustav.”
“Gustav … Gustav what?”
“Gustav Beekhot. I hope to see you soon, Tommy. Tot ziens[1]!” Gustav slapped Tommy on the shoulder and left the crowded bar, weaving through the mass of throbbing, bulky bodies like a shadow amidst a darkening, nameless stretch of land …
Five days later, after having wrestled with his thoughts, Tommy leaned his bicycle at the gate of a plank which led to Gustav’s house-boat on the Ruysdaelkade Canal. It was quite an impressive barge. He knocked at the door. Gustav, eyes a watery blue, opened the door and wished his visitor a hearty welcome ‘aboard’. “Just in time for dinner,” he said flippantly. When Tommy stepped in he couldn’t believe his eyes: they swept over a long ‘hold’ full of paintings of all sizes and colours, some hanging off the walls, others on easels, and still others scattered on the uncarpeted ‘bottom deck’, unfinished.
“You might open a museum here,” he suggested, strolling from painting to painting. “I like to look at pictures. When I accompany people to the Rijks or to the Rembrandthuis I always take my time to examine the pictures. The tourists just look at the title and at the name of the painter.”
“Yes, very few people really examine a painting.” Gustav placed two bowls of rice, shredded carrots and two pints of Heineken beer on a hackney table. “I for one prefer to paint them, buy or sell them, although I do often go to the museums for inspiration.”
“You sell your own pictures, then?” Gustav chuckled.
He gave Tommy a conspiratorial wink: “No, who would ever buy a Gustav Beekhot ? To tell you the truth I sell the ones I steal or have stolen from museums or from private collectors.” Tommy, who had sat down at the table dropped his fork. He stared at Gustav in disbelief. All that had been said with absolute aplomb. “Yes, Tommy my lad, sometimes I do buy them from contemporary Scandinavian painters living in poverty, but I prefer to steal them … It’s cheaper!”
“But … but how can you steal a picture from a museum?” questioned Tommy in alarm.
“It’s quite simple. It’s a question of know-how. Thievery is an art, my dear lad. And if you are willing, you will learn this art easily, and by doing so, earn a half a million dollars!”
Tommy jumped up. “No, please, let us eat, and I shall spell out all the niceties to you. There’s really nothing to it: a wiry, loose-limbed body like yours, will-power and the common sense to keep your mouth shut. And I do believe you possess all those aforesaid qualities. Am I correct?” Tommy remained voiceless. “Of course you possess them. But you doubt my word. Others too doubted, and today are living like kings in Tahiti, the Seychelles or in some Central American country.”
“A half a million dollars?” Tommy managed to stammer, sitting down slowly as Gustav glided between his paintings in a breezy, phantasmal gait to procure a bottle of Jenever in his kitchenette at the ‘prow’.
“Yes, Tommy. One night. One night only.” Tommy peered out the ‘porthole’, it had begun to drizzle. He watched as the drops gently fell upon the unruffled canal waters; they fell gently, rocking his host’s barge dreamily. He suddenly felt a seizure coming on. He strained to control it, the house-boat rocking … rocking so gently, like the drops of drizzle. Something snapped in his head; he shook it out. Gustav ate his rice and carrots as if he noticed nothing of the crisis that his visitor, and future accomplice, was suffering. He was smiling that engaging smile.
“What do I have to do?” came Tommy’s belated reply in spite of himself. He had asked that without being fully conscious of actually asking it.
Gustav stopped eating, sized him up, then thrust his taunt face forward. It had a ghostly white appearance to it: “Crawl through a very very narrow tunnel about two hundred metres long behind the Zadelhoff Café to the storage room of the Stedelijk museum. In that storage room you will find a painting by Marc Chagall, A Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers, which will be waiting for you to cut out of its frame with a razor blade. The nightwatchman has already put the painting exactly where you will pop up from the storage room hole.”
Gustav stood, went to a broken, plastic shelf over his wash-basin and picked up a razor-blade. “Look, this is how it should be done.” And the art dealer began to cut out a painting from its frame. Tommy gasped. The other laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s one of my worst chefs-d’oeuvre …” Gustave then rolled up the canvas and placed it into a plastic cylinder. “There you have it my boy,” he beamed. “Sling the cylinder over your shoulder, drop down into the hole and crawl back through the tunnel where I shall be waiting for you.”
“But this tunnel … I can’t see …” Gustav put up a hand.
“The tunnel was dug during the second world war and used either to store ammunition by the local militia or as an escape route for Jews and communists.”
“How do you know all this?” Tommy asked incredulously.
“I studied history, and have many friends who deal in these particular matters.” There was a shrewd, impish twinkle in his host’s eyes.
Tommy seemed a bit sceptical about the whole operation. Gustav’s eyes were all alit, the glow of which stabbed at his distrustful heart. Gustav noted his guest’s wavering emotions. “My buyer will be in Amsterdam in five days,” he proceeded in a haunting undertone. “He’s arriving from Tampa, Florida and will be paying me one million three hundred thousand dollars for the painting. You will receive five-hundred thousand.”
He went to a drawer. “Here, this bank card will permit you to withdraw your share of the profits in any bank machine in the world. It’s a Swiss Banker’s card. But under no circumstances must you withdraw more than two thousand a day; bank administrators may become suspicious.”
“Where’s my bank?”
“That I cannot tell you,” Gustav answered sharply. “I suspect that you are mistrustful of me?” he chaffed.
“No, I’m not, but still …”
“No buts. The card is perfectly valid once the money has been deposited. And it will be after your mission has been completed. But I warn you Tommy, you must leave Amsterdam immediately before the museum authorities realise that the Chagall has been stolen. My buyer will leave on a morning flight back to Florida.”
At that moment Gustav poured out two glasses of Jenever, raised his and cried — ‘Godverdomme’ [2]! And with that coarse shout they both gulped down the divine nectar. Tommy felt a mounting tension in his chest, throat and jaw. Had he made a pact with a man whom he hardly knew ? He left at midnight, benumbed, as if he were a bit tight.
For two days Tommy struggled to control his taut emotions. To weigh the consequences of this incredible proposition. He could become immensely rich after a few hours of mental and physical toil, yet something irked him. It all seemed so unreal! He walked the streets of Amsterdam in the late afternoons, flicking matches into the air one after the other, watching the lit sticks glide gently to the street where the last lingering sparks sizzled out. He repeated aloud, “Tahiti, the Seychelles … I wonder where they are?” over and over again. He would take out the bank card and study it carefully. “It looks real to me,” he assured himself, albeit nervously.
On the fourth afternoon they met for tea at the Zadelhoff Café, after which Gustav took Tommy behind the café and showed him the sewer lid which led to the tunnel. Then they strolled over to the Stedelijk Museum, and whilst promenading through the halls of paintings Gustave cautiously pointed out the storage room where the Chagall had been stored for a future exhibition at another museum. All that day Tommy had admired the art collector’s professionalism and precision in elucidating the details of this very risky, but lucrative operation.
“Will-power, nerve and stamina, my lad,” Gustav kept repeating until he told Tommy to meet him that very night behind the Zadelhoff Café at one o’clock sharp. The buyer had booked a morning flight back to Florida. “One night ! Only one night, my friend. Don’t let us down … “ Tommy clenched his fists. He suddenly felt a surge of unwonted force, a force he had experienced many years ago before his unexpected arrival in Amsterdam. Gustav slapped him on the shoulder and glided away like a phantom in the reddening twilight …
A far away church-tower bell struck the hour of one. And so it happened, happened like a dream …
Gustav cut a spectral figure outlined against an ill-lit, moonless night as he waited impatiently for his accomplice. At that moment Tommy arrived, a trifle late. They both set immediately to work to open the heavy sewer lid. Once pried open, Tommy climbed down the rusty rungs, a torch in hand, the plastic cylinder slung over his shoulder. “The rats! The rats!” he called, looking up, his lithe body trembling.
“Rats ? The rats will scramble away when you train your torch-light on them,” Gustav shouted down in a weird, stilted voice. “Don’t talk nonsense ; just move on …”
And he slid the sewer lid over the hole. Tommy stopped. Darkness engulfed him. The boy panicked. — All alone! All alone! — he lisped to himself in fear. He nevertheless carried on down into the damp darkness training the light along the broken stone walls dripping with age. There, the opening of the tunnel! It was true. There was the tunnel … But so narrow … so terribly narrow …
Poor Tommy was hardly able to push himself into the opening. He began to cry. He felt he had been buried alive in a toolless coffin. All alone! All alone! “Mummy!” escaped from his dry, chapped lips. Yet Tommy crawled on and on. The thought of a half million dollars flooded his inflamed brain. The brave boy elbowed a painstaking trail over root and rock, his torch-light cutting out a thin stream of blissful light that disappeared into a dark Nothingness. A Nothingness that frightened him, reminded him of vague scenes in some other life that he had once led, a former life of battling and crying out in a moonless, raging darkness …
His head struck stone. Yes, it was stone! The gallant Tommy had reached the museum storage hole. He straightened up with difficulty, touched the cold walls; a ladder had been provided for the Second World War escapees.
“The rest will be child’s play,” he whispered in an echoless vacuum. Up he clambered excitedly. The hole seemed endlessly deep. Was that possible ? Ah, the floor tile … Finally. He pushed it open as easy as that. “Child’s play,” he sniggered as if speaking to Gustav.
Tommy pulled himself out into a deep, deep darkness. A darkness he had never experienced before. He searched for the razor-blade in his trouser pocket, trained his torch …
A merciless neon light suddenly blinded him, absorbing all the darkness, save that which still lay heavy and hauntingly in his head. Four policemen stood pointing at him, laughing and laughing. A very stoutish, well-dressed man stepped out from the policemen and grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck. “So this is the little twit that has been hiding out like a rat!” the man chidded in broken English. “Hiding in the storage pit, hey? Think you’d slip away from us? What on earth are you doing in here you scamp, playing hide and seek?” Tommy said nothing. Baffled, he had lost all contact with reality. “Deaf and dumb, hey? Let’s see.” One of the police officers struck the boy across the face.
“Please don’t,” he whimpered.
“There you are, he can speak after all, and with a British accent, too,” pursued the well-dressed man who happened to be the museum director. “So, why are you hiding here ? What are you doing in that pit? Look at the mess you’ve made.” Indeed, the storage hole was filled with empty cracker and potato chip bags that Tommy had been eating. “Were you drinking water from the lavatory tap ? Look at this floor, there’s water all over it.” He poked Tommy in the chest.
“I was sent to steal a picture … Marc Chagall …”
“Steal a painting ? A Marc Chagall ? How were you to get it out of the museum ? Are you masquerading as Honest Jack[3] ?” This was asked with biting irony.
“Through the tunnel back to the Zadelhoff café.”
“Oh, I see … a tunnel to the Zadelhoff café.” He turned to the policemen: “Is there a tunnel to the Zadelhoff café.” All the policemen laughed and laughed, pointing at the sulking boy whose filthy, ill-smelling clothes struck a grotesque contrast with the museum director’s well-tailored suit.
“And with a razor-blade cut it out of its frame,” Tommy hurriedly added.
“Where’s the razor-blade?” one of the policemen demanded, taking him by the arm. “Give it to me.” Tommy searched his pockets. He held out a safety-pin.
“No tunnel, no razor-blade,” broke in the museum director. “You’re either a liar or a raving lunatic.”
“But I crawled through it. Gustav Beekhof showed me the tunnel and told me to steal the picture when he invited me to his house-boat,” Tommy pleaded, tears flowing over the dark shadows of his wild, tired eyes.
“There is no tunnel you little liar!” screamed a policeman. “And who is this Gustav Beekhot? Where is his house-boat?”
Tommy racked his brains: “I don’t know the exact address but I can take you there.”
He was hustled out of the museum into the moonless night, bundled into a police van and off they sped through, along and over streets, canals and bridges … until …
“There, on the Ruysdaelkade Canal,” the boy shouted in triumph. “His house-boat is the second …” Tommy stared in horror: there was no house-boat ! A police officer pulled him out of the van and dragged him to the slip where the house-boat should have been docked. Tommy rubbed his red, stinging eyes : “But it was there … I …”
“Shut-up you impudent little runt!” the officer barked. “I’ll check.” He returned to the van.
A few minutes later, he returned. “There’s no house-boat registered in that slip, and we have no record of a Gustav Beekhof,” he stated stiffly, looking hard at Tommy. “You’re raving mad.” A bewildered Tommy stepped back, his thoughts running riot.
“No house-boat. No Gustav Beekhof,” fumed the police officer. “A little scamp of a thief, that’s what you are.” And he twisted Tommy’s ear until it turned beet-red. “What’s your name, boy?”
“My name ? My name is Outis,” he lisped, holding his smarting ear.
“And your papers?”
“Papers ? I have no papers … I’m …”
“Shut-up!” the police officer stormed, turning red. He took Tommy by the shoulders and shook him so hard that his teeth chattered. All of a sudden something snapped in his brain. The boy was seized by a mounting tension which sent him spiralling into a dark nothingness that he had never before experienced — a nothingness where he drifted through a darkened, nameless stretch of land …
DOCTOR VAN DIJK’S REPORT
The patient who calls himself Outis, as recorded by the police, most probably English-born, was found hiding in the Stedelijk museum storage room for two days with, according to the patient, the intention of stealing Marc Chagall’s ‘A Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers‘, which the aforesaid patient claimed had been deposited in the room for that purpose. This claim was disclaimed by the museum director, Mister Aalbers who avowed that the painting hangs in its usual place in the museum. The patient being questioned by the police, maintained that he was put up to the supposed theft by a certain Gustav Beekhof who apparently does not exist, according to police records, nor does his place of residence: a house-boat on the Ruysdaelkade Canal. The patient was promised a half a million dollars for the theft, which, as he declared, was undertaken by crawling through a tunnel from behind the Zadelhoff Café to the museum storage room. The police confirm that this tunnel has never existed. Furthermore, when the patient showed the police his bank card with which he was to withdraw his share of the theft, it turned out to be a library card whose owner’s name and library location had been thoroughly effaced beyond deciphering.
The patient has fallen into a coma for several days now. There seems to be no doubt that he is suffering from an acute case of schizophrenia, caused perhaps by a sudden mental or physical traumatism that has created an imaginary parallel world through which the patient wanders in and out whenever jolted by an unsual event or encounter.
The patient thus will remain in our clinic under strict observation until he emerges from his unconscious state.
Chief Psychologist of the Psychotherapierpraktijk Overtoom
[2] ‘God damn it’ in Dutch. A rather ‘informal’ interjection when making a toast amongst close friends.
[3] The notorious English robber John Jack (1702-1724). He was hanged for his daring thefts.
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Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Ratnottama Sengupta muses on acts of terror and translates a Bengali poem by Tarik Sujat which had come as a reaction to an act of terror. Click here to read.
Renee Melchert Thorpe recounts her mother’s migration story, hopping multiple countries, starting with colonial Calcutta and Darjeeling. Click here to read.
Paul Mirabile wanders into the realm of the supernatural dating back to the Potato Famine of Ireland in the 1800s. Clickhere to read.
Conversations
In conversation with eminent Singaporean poet and academic, Kirpal Singh, about how his family migrated to Malaya and subsequently Singapore more than 120 years ago. Click hereto read.
There was a time when humans walked the Earth crossing unnamed landmasses to find homes in newer terrains. They migrated without restrictions. Over a period of time, kingdoms evolved, and travellers like Marco Polo talked of needing permissions to cross borders in certain parts of the world. The need for a permit to travel was first mentioned in the Bible, around 450BCE. A safe conduct permit appeared in England in 1414CE. Around the twentieth century, passports and visas came into full force. And yet, humanity had existed hundreds of thousand years ago… Some put the date at 300,000!
While climate contingencies, wars and violence are geared to add to migrants called ‘refugees’, there is always that bit of humanity which regards them as a burden. They forget that at some point, their ancestors too would have migrated from where they evolved. In South Africa, close to Johannesburg is Maropeng with its ‘Cradle of Humanity’, an intense network of caves where our ancestors paved the way to our evolution. The guide welcomes visitors by saying — “Welcome home!” It fills one’s heart to see the acceptance that drips through the whole experience. Does this mean our ancestors all stepped out of Africa many eons ago and that we all belonged originally to the same land?
And yet there are many restrictions that have come upon us creating boxes which do not allow intermingling easily, even if we travel. Overriding these barriers is a discussion with Jessica Mudditt about Once Around the Sun: From Cambodia to Tibet, her book about her backpacking through Asia. Documenting a migration more than a hundred years ago from Jullundur to Malaya, when borders were different and more mobile, we have a conversation with eminent scholar and writer from Singapore, Kirpal Singh. Telling the story of another eminent migrant, a Persian who became a queen in the Mughal Court is a lyric by Nazrul, Nur Jahan, translated by Professor Fakrul Alam from Bangla. Ihlwha Choi has self-translated his own poem from Korean, a poem bridging divides with love. Fazal Baloch has brought to us some exquisite Balochi poems by Munir Momin. Tagore’s poem, Okale or Out of Sync, has been translated from Bengali to reflect the strange uniqueness of each human action which despite departing from the norm, continue to be part of the flow.
We have a tongue in cheek piece from Devraj Singh Kalsi on traveling in a train with a politician. Uday Deshwal writes with a soupçon of humour as he talks of applying for jobs. Snigdha Agrawal brings to us flavours of Bengal from her past while Ratnottama Sengupta muses on the ongoing wars and violence as acts of terror in the same region and looks back at such an incident in the past which resulted in a powerful Bengali poem by Tarik Sujat. Kiriti Sengupta has written of a well-known artist, Jatin Das, a strange encounter where the artist asks them to empty fully even a glass of water! Ravi Shankar weaves in his love for books into our non-fiction section. Recounting her mother’s migration story which leads us to perceive the whole world as home is a narrative by Renee Melchert Thorpe. Urmi Chakravorty takes us to the last Indian village on the borders of Tibet. Taking us to a Dinosaur Museum in Japan is our migrant columnist, Suzanne Kamata. Her latest multicultural novel, Cinnamon Beach, has found its way to our book excerpts as has Flanagan’s poetry collection, These Many Cold Winters of the Heart.
In reviews, Somdatta Mandal has written about an anthology, Maya Nagari: Bombay-Mumbai A City in Storiesedited by Shanta Gokhale and Jerry Pinto. Rakhi Dalal has discussed a translation from Konkani by Jerry Pinto of award-winning writer Damodar Mauzo’sBoy, Unloved. Basudhara Roy has reviewed Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay’s Tales of Early Magic Realism in Bengali, translated by Sucheta Dasgupta. Bhaskar Parichha has introduced us toThe Dilemma of an Indian Liberal by Gurcharan Das, a book that is truly relevant in the current times in context of the whole world for what he states is a truth: “In the current polarised climate, the liberal perspective is often marginalised or dismissed as being indecisive or weak.” And it is the truth for the whole world now.
Our short stories reflect the colours of the world. A fantasy set in America but crossing borders of time and place byRonald V. Micci, a story critiquing social norms that hurt by Swatee Miittal and Paul Mirabile’s ghost story shuttling from the Irish potato famine (1845-52) to the present day – all address different themes across borders, reflecting the vibrancy of thoughts and cultures. That we all exist in the same place and have the commonality of ideas and felt emotions is reflected in each of these narratives.
We have more which adds to the lustre of the content. So, do pause by our content’s page and enjoy the reads!
I would like to thank all our team without who this journal would be incomplete, especially, Sohana Manzoor, for her fabulous artwork. Huge thanks to all our contributors who bring vibrancy to our pages and our wonderful readers, without who the journal would remain just part of an electronic cloud… We welcome you all to enjoy our June issue.
I had gone on a five-week walking tour of western Ireland when a very perplexing and unsettling event took place. I am not one to believe in the supernatural or in anything more ‘alien’ than, let us say, a snowstorm in May. Nevertheless, what I experienced at Hog’s Head[1] in 1973 shattered all those former positivistic convictions …
My Irish jaunts led me through the Ghaeltacht areas of western Ireland where the majority of the Irish population speak Gaelic. Armed with my trusty walking stick, I tramped over sheep-and horse-dotted meadows, espying every now and then a fleeing fox; trekked near the massive cliffs that plunged into the Atlantic, alive to the thunderous roar of the puffing holes[2]. I pointed my stick at the numerous sea-caves — home to the black-headed gull and the common tern, and above these arched bulky flying buttresses with brilliant sheen.
One particular morning while lodging at a farm near Hog’s Head, I set out very early on the famed loop road all around which spread a series of blanket bogs[3]. The excellent hostess of the farm, a spirited gaunt-faced middle-aged widow with a florid complexion, advised me to stay on the road, the bogs reputed to be dangerous, especially when the fog lay low and thick upon them. As the sun rose, and the fog with it, I pressed forward breathing the clean air of Ghaeltacht Ireland, lands so enchanting both to the eye and the ear. At times my ears caught the echoes of ancient harps, strumming bardic ranns[4] of dead warriors and poets. My Irish was getting better thanks to the communicative people and my constant reading of Irish poetry and children’s stories written in simplified Irish. So delighted was I that particular morning that I broke into an impromptu tune!
I reached a sharp bend in the road which led me around to the other side of a long, grassy hillock. There, at the foot of the hillock, through the recalcitrant wisps of mist, my eyes fell upon the ruins of a homestead. The stone walls remained more or less intact, but its roof had caved in. What astonished me most were the layers of lime that covered the ruins, mantled them like a blanket of soft snow. The lime aroused my curiosity more than the remoteness of the ruins themselves, so far from hamlet or village. I thought of inspecting them but the advisory from the hostess of the house caused me to baulk … I carried on round the bend reaching the farm towards late afternoon.
That night after supper, the hostess, my co-lodger– a young, taciturn man from Devonshire — and I sat comfortably near the sizzling, glowing fire of the hearth in the sitting-room. Aligned like a row of sentinels on guard duty stood a dozen alcohol bottles on the chimney-piece, in between which were snugged two framed photographs of her late husband, a good-looking man with steel-blue eyes. For five evenings now it had been our wont to take our after-supper brandy near the welcoming hearth, listening to the crackling of the logs, inhaling the perfumed scent of resin mixed with the hostess’s excellent brandy.
No longer able to contain my curiosity, I asked the good woman about those ruins and the layers of lime. She turned her eyes from the fire and gave a piercing glance in my direction! I involuntarily fell back into my armchair. She placed her glass on the three-legged table adjacent to her armchair stared at me.
“Did you go into them, lad?” she asked sternly.
“No … no … the bogs.” I stammered.
“Don’t you be going into them,” she followed up, lowering he voice. “Don’t you ever be going into them.” She pulled up her wicket chair closer to us, eyes aflame, face wan.
“Why not?” enquired the other lodger. The young man appeared a bit put out by the change of atmosphere from the usual casual and flippant ambiance. She answered him in a sort of fey chant: “Ruined stone walls, roofless. Former homestead of the famine-stricken. Mournful black tombs never to be laid low.” An eerie silence followed. She took a quick glance out the big bay window as if expecting someone … or something! The logs crackled. The fire glowed. I felt the hour was ripe for story-telling. Had she captured my thoughts? A broad smile spread across her taunt face, one that invited listeners to ready themselves as the curtain slowly rises on a stage already set.
“So I see that both of you would like to know why …”
“Yes. Why?” the other lodger sputtered, taking up his brandy glass.
“Yes, why. Why the lime? Why do those ruins need to be left intact?” I added.
The setting had now been perfectly set; I imagined a reincarnated Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley[5] about to embark on a most disquieting tale. And so she did …
“I need not comment on the terrible Potato Famine that swept over Ireland in the 18th century[6], which caused a million deaths mostly because Irish farmers were forced to produce wheat and corn for export instead of potatoes to feed their families.” The hostess of the house looked sharply at the young man. He, slowly sank into his seat.
The Potato Blight (1847), painting by Daniel Macdonald (1821-1853)
“Do you lads know that one acre of potatoes can feed a family of four for a year?” We shook our ignorant heads. “Anyway, during that famine the Brits ladled out free soup only to those of us who agreed to Anglicise their Irish family names. No change, no soup! Many who refused, emigrated. The others died of starvation. Well, the parents of that poor family refused to Anglicise their names or emigrate. A family of six, three boys and one girl, all under ten years’ old, managed to scrape up some potatoes, but soon were eating the peels of them before they gave up their souls. First their dog, then the children, finally the parents (Here she made the sign of the cross). No one dared offer them food lest the Brits punish them either by a whipping or stopping their soup rations.
“My great grandfather wasn’t afraid of the Brits. One day he went by to help the family with his horse-drawn cart full of flour, corn and some vegetables. He thought to feed them, then ride them from their out-of-the-way homestead over to his farm near Waterville. He found the whole family lying on the only bed of the house, on their backs, the whole lot of them holding each other’s hands, eyes bulging out of their sockets staring into the void of death. Then it happened …”
“Happened?” I spurted out in spite of myself, taking a gulp of brandy.
“IT happened,” she repeated frigidly. “First he heard the horrible yowling of their dog, yet couldn’t really see the animal. The poor beast yowled and whined so much that he covered his ears. Then before his eyes they all rose from their death bed, all of them I say. They rose and floated up, and down on to the bare floor with outstretched hands and open, toothless mouths. They shuffled towards him, all of them huddled together, whining and crying, their cries rising above those of the dog’s! My great grandpa screamed and ran to the bedroom door, then ran for his life across the bogs to the cart. He jumped up to the seat, took up the reins but when he looked back at the homestead there was no one … No one!”
“No one?” squeaked the young man who had been swallowing liberal amounts of the hostess’s brandy.
“No one. It was their ghosts that rose up before my great grandpa’s eyes…what we call in western Ireland appearances or the unquiet dead. You know, they dwell in the invisible world and will emerge at the presence of the living. The living must never disturb the sorrowful slumber of the unquiet dead. They gave up their ghost, their spirit, and if the intruder to their slumber looks upon them, it is their mortal coil that we see (and again the hostess made the sign of the cross), although they be only spirits or ghosts of themselves. That’s why we say they are no longer ‘living’, but do retain ‘life’ in them.”
“Life?” I echoed.
“Yes, life. Because those poor souls have to be saved and not lose themselves in the throes of limbo or Hell … “ And her eyes were ablaze like the blazing flames of the hearth. She went on in fiery tones: “They have been freed from the misery of the living; and because their souls have so suffered we spread lime over their famine-stricken corpses and doomed home so that nothing would trouble their soundless sleep. Nothing! So that no one dares trespass on their earthly hardship and misfortune. Their home has been preserved like a memorial for everyone to see and feel the tragedy of that period. So I’m telling you lads, let them rest wherever they be. You can see it from the roadside but don’t you be going in there.” She paused, lowering her head. “My poor great grandfather; I’m sure those hapless souls were pleading for salvation or heavenly mercy from the only person who dared venture into their damned dwelling.”
By that time I was sitting on the edge of my chair. I managed to state emphatically: “But ghosts don’t exist.”
Her eyes grew fiery: “No ghosts, my lad ? No ghosts you say ? Let me warn you never to set a foot in those ruins; that homestead has been doomed. Don’t go in I say. The shock may turn your wavy blond hair grey in an instant.” She made the sign of the cross, threw a cursory glance out of the bay window then stared at me as if lost in thought. “You know lads I’ve seen them meself.”
Her story was growing thicker like the dense flames rising in the hearth …We sat still in anticipation.
“Yes, meself. I was too stupid or curious after listening to all the tales told about that wretched family. Told again and again by my family and neighbours …”
The young man asked abruptly: “You haven’t told us their name.”
Why he wished to know the name of that family was beyond me. The woman sighed, clearly annoyed at this interruption, and answered with overt irritation: “The Donnellans if that is so important to you, lad. A good Irish name if there ever was one.”
“And what is your good name?” I ventured with a faint smile, attempting to quell the compressed atmosphere of the sitting-room.
“O’Casey, if that makes you happy to know,” she responded, now quite ruffled by our ‘irrelevant’ questions. “Now lads, may I proceed or is there something else that you both would like to know ?” There was not.
“Good! Now, I must have been about twelve or thirteen at the time when one day I gathered courage enough to enter the house of the dead. The smell of lime almost put me off, but I wanted to see for meself ! And see I did: There they lay on the death bed, covered in a smooth blanket of lime, holding hands. I imagine that the lime conserved their bodies. As I stared down at them, little by little my head throbbed and my ears went mute. Everything became so estranged in the world that surrounded me, so blurry, as if I were caught up in a morning mist. Then as God be my witness, voices rose from the death-bed like soft flakes of falling snow. Then they slowly rose from the bed and floated upwards, then downwards to the broken limed boards of the room, slipping out of their bleached mortal coils. The soft voices and the shrivelled bodies all drifted in the air huddled up to one another, drifting closer to me, those skeleton-like hands outstretched, tiny, toothless mouths wide open, chests sunken. Closer and closer they approached in mid-air. I cried out backing away to the doorless bedroom then ran out across the bogs to the road crying sidhes[7], banshees[8]until I got home, my clothes covered with mud. When my father found out about my whereabouts he gave me a proper whipping.”
The hostess collected her thoughts. “Don’t do anything foolish. Stay away from the dead. The dead are the dead, the living, the living.” She stood up and bid us a good night.
Was she being ironic? A good night after that tale? I glanced at my fellow lodger. His face was as white as a ghost’s, if I may say so. We both sat in silence, listening to the crackling of the fire slowly dying into soft glowing embers.
As I trudged up the creaking wooden steps to my room, I will say that her story really spooked me. My pragmatic education had taken quite a few blows, knocked off its pedestal of pedantry. Needless to say my sleep was hounded by queer, saturnine scenes difficult to decipher much less interpret.
It goes without saying that the next morning I felt as if I were in some sort of trance. Ambiguous thoughts wrestled within my confused mind. Our hostess had left for the day to Waterville, and the other lodger had not as yet been down for breakfast.
I remember that it was a rather chilly morning. The fog undulated in rhythmic wavelets over the bogs. I bent my direction towards the homestead walking briskly. As the mist gradually lifted, the ruins rose to my left. The mist, for some odd reason, lay stationary upon the forsaken stones like a shroud upon its corpse. Suddenly I heard the barking and whining of a dog whose echoes filled the misty bogs with rueful omens. I had never heard them on my previous promenades along the loop road. I stole a glance behind me: no one …
Whatever impelled me to cross those bogs to the ruins God only knows! But there I found myself at the threshold of the baneful interdiction. I stepped in, tip-toed towards the bedroom, the thick lime sticking to my walking boots. I tried to chip it off with my stick. Shards of roof tiles and chimney bricks lay scattered under a layer of foul-smelling lime. At that instant the wailings of the dog grew closer. They almost brought tears to my eyes. I felt a sudden helplessness due to this odious intrusion into their mirthless home.
My ears began to drum, pulsating and pulsating an uneven tempo, benumbing my senses, deadening my limbs. A terrible fatigue overwhelmed me. The whining and barking of the dog somewhere out over the bogs aroused such a sadness in me, an uncontrollable desire to cry. The poor beast whimpered and wailed like a baby. I eventually reached the master bedroom: there they lay, the six of them, hands locked together. Sound asleep ? No, their eyes stared up into the now descending mist; eyes without pupils, only the rims of the orbits, blackened by starvation. And as the mist descended soundlessly like falling snow upon the prostrate corpses, the little girl turned her head towards me, lethargically, mechanically like a toy doll, an arched smile spread across her bleached face, widening her bloodless lips. Patches of caked lime clung limply to her tattered clothes as she rose out of the bed like a feather, stood up and began to limp towards me, her tiny, dirty hands outstretched, her eyes … no … no eyes, only empty sockets peered steadily at me, approaching … approaching. I couldn’t move. I screamed but heard nothing. Screaming … screaming my voice summoned no echo, no one flew to my aid. She approached, that horrible smile now an ugly sneer deforming a fleshless face.
How I reached the bogs and over them I’ve never been able to recall. I saw myself running and running, my screams now pounding the misty morning. I splashed through the bogs like a maniac, wallowing in the low, dirty waters, my clothes and long, blond hair mud-splattered. My only salvation was the loop road, which I finally gained, panting like a tracked animal. I remember hearing the voice of the young man calling out to me, his long, lanky figure looming out of the mist like a phantom’s! He caught me in his arms as I screamed a terrible scream. He struggled to get me to my feet and whisked me away as best he could. I looked behind. There was no one.
And still, as the courageous fellow dragged me over the salutary road, I carried on screaming much to his dismay. He tried to calm me down as I tried to explain … No explanation was needed: He understood, frowned, and soon had me hustled off to the farm. It was only late in the evening that I began to regain my senses thanks to the steadfast care of my fellow lodger who plied me successively with tea, brandy and spurts of lively conversation whilst I lay prostrate on my bed.
Luckily the hostess had not as yet returned; she surely would have sensed something amiss and if she did find out about my misadventure would have certainly broken out into a storm of abuse. Contrary to what I expected, however, I slept like a top, waking quite fresh at six in the morning, although I had sensed someone slipping into my room twice or trice that night, most probably my fellow lodger checking on me.
The next morning at breakfast, I said nothing. Our hostess was much too busy to ply me with questions of my whereabouts yesterday, and the Englishman, sipping his tea gloomily, uttered not a word. He departed an hour after breakfast, peering at me from under a pair of reproachful brows which, I suppose, meant to upbraid me for my irresponsible actions in the realms of the supernatural. Before closing the door, though, he gave me a conspiratorial wink and an uneasy smile. I myself took leave of the good woman and her wonderful hospitality en route for Sligo, thanking her warmly for such insights into Irish lore. She looked at me funnily and wished me all the best of Irish luck.
Sauntering towards Waterville, my stick beating out a well-paced rhythm, I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks realising that I never found out the names of my fellow lodger or the hostess. Ah well, no one would hold it against me. Off I went on my wary way in the opposite direction of the accursed homestead not quite avid as last week for any new ‘adventure’ …
Here I now write, back in my cozy house-boat in Amsterdam, somewhat recoverred from that shocking encounter. Although my hair has not turned grey and the ghostly vision of that little girl from the homestead still haunts my sleep every now and then, a gruesome vision that I find impossible to come to grips with. Was it real or a figment of my imagination ? Dangling, wispy threads of the Irish hostess’s eerie yarn ? I’ll probably never seize the reality of that horrible moment
One day as I strolled along the canals on my way to the Stedelijk Museum and the Rembrandt House Museum, my usual haunts, and recently, havens to calm my overtaxed nerves, a book caught my interest in the window of the Scheltema book shop: Visions and Beliefs[9] in the West of Ireland by Lady Gregory[10]. I bought the 1970 Coole edition. Since that purchase, I have read five to ten pages every night, rereading them until the effects of those gleaned encounters with the supernatural banalise mine! A curious woman this Lady Gregory — she learnt Irish and orally collected the stories of banshees, sidhes and ghosts from the inhabitants of the Gaeltacht regions before writing them down and publishing them. She might be acclaimed the Jacob Grimm[11] of Ireland ! So inspiring are her accounts that I am also reading her Poets and Dreams and A Book of Saints andWonders[12].
This being said, in spite of the many months that have passed since my encounter with the unquiet dead, and my readings of Lady Gregory, the image of that little girl has for ever left its indelible imprint on my mind and heart. Mind you, it no longer terrifies me, but I remain wary, none the less.
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[1] A hamlet located in Kerry County of western Ireland.
[2] Large circular holes located above sea-caves out of which water ‘puffs up’ when the ocean waters rush into the caves.
[3] Wild areas that cover the lowlands of western Ireland made up of decomposed plants.
[4] A stanza of Celtic poetry. It is of Irish origin.
[5] Mary Wollstonecraft (1797-1851) author of the Frankenstein story told before the hearth to her husband, Percy Byshe Shelley and to Lord Byron one stormy night.
[10] Lady Gregory (1852-1932). A remarkable woman who was one of the foremost literary founders of the Irish Republic by her stage works and translations.
[11] Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) A German philologist who collected folk tales from German peasants orally, then had them published, retaining their orthographic and dialectal traits.
Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.
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Perhaps when Dylan Thomas wrote these lines, he did not know how relevant they would sound in context of the world as it is with so many young dying in wars, more than seven decades after he passed on. No poet does. Neither did he. As the world observes Dylan Thomas Day today — the day his play, Under the Milkwood, was read on stage in New York a few months before he died in 1953 — we have a part humorous poem as tribute to the poet and his play by Stuart McFarlane and a tribute from our own Welsh poet, Rhys Hughes, describing a fey incident around Thomas in prose leading up to a poem.
May seems to be a month when we celebrate birthdays of many writers, Tagore, Nazrul and Ruskin Bond. Tagore’s birthday was in the early part of May in 1861 and we celebrated with a special edition on him. Bond, who turns a grand ninety this year, continues to dazzle his readers with fantastic writings from the hills, narratives which reflect the joie de vivre of existence, of compassion and of love for humanity and most importantly his own world view. His books have the rare quality of being infused with an incredible sense of humour and his unique ability to make fun of himself and laugh with all of us.
Nazrul, on the other hand, dreamt, hoped and wrote for an ideal world in the last century. The commonality among all these writers, seemingly so diverse in their outlooks and styles, is the affection they express for humanity. Celebrating the writings of Nazrul, we have one of his fiery speeches translated from Bengali by Radha Chakravarty and a review of her Selected Essays: Kazi Nazrul Islam by Somdatta Mandal. An essay from Niaz Zaman dwells on the feminist side of Nazrul while bringing in Begum Roquiah. Zaman has also shared translations of his poetry. Professor Fakrul Alam, who had earlier translated Nazrul’s iconic ‘Bidrohi or Rebel‘, has given us a beautiful rendition of his song ‘Projapoti or Butterfly’ in English. Also in translation, is a poem by Tagore on the process of writing poetry. Balochi poetry by Manzur Bismil on human nature has been rendered into English by Fazal Baloch and yet another poem from Korean to English by Ilwha Choi.
Ratnottama Sengupta this month converses with a dancer who tries to build bridges with the tinkling of her bells, Sohini Roychowdhury. Gita Viswanthan travels to Khiva in Uzbekistan, historically located on the Silk Route, with words and camera. An essay on Akbar Barakzai by Hazran Rahim Dad and another looking into literature around maladies by Satyarth Pandita add zest to our non-fiction section. Though these seem to be a heterogeneous collection of themes, they are all tied together with the underlying idea of creating links to build towards a better future.
In focus this time is a writer whose prose is almost akin to poetry, Rajat Chaudhuri. A proponent of solarpunk, his novel, Spellcasters, takes us to fictitious cities modelled on Delhi and Kolkata. In his interview, Chaudhuri tells us: “The path to utopia is not necessarily through dystopia. We can start hoping and acting today before things get really bad. Which is the locus of the whole solarpunk movement with which I am closely associated as an editor and creator…”
On that note, I would like to end with a couple of lines from Nazrul, who reiterates how the old gives way to new in Proloyullash (The Frenzy of Destruction, translated by Alam): “Why fear destruction? / It’s the gateway to creation!” Will destruction be the turning point for creation of a new world? And should the destruction be of human constructs that hurt humanity (like wars and weapons) or of humanity and the planet Earth? As the solarpunk movement emphasises, we need to act to move towards a better world. And how would one act? Perhaps, by getting in touch with the best in themselves and using it to act for the betterment of humankind? These are all points to ponder… if you have any ideas that need a forum on such themes, do share with us.
We have more content which has not been woven into this piece for the sheer variety of themes they encompass. Do pause by our content’s page and browse on all our pieces.
With warm thanks to our wonderful team at Borderless — especially Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous art — I would like to express gratitude to all our contributors, without who we could not create this journal. We would also like to thank our readers for making it worth our while to write — for all of our words look to be read, savoured and mulled, and maybe, some will evolve into treasured wines.
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