Tag: Paul Mirabile

The Wave of Exile

By Paul Mirabile

Mr Richards, employed by the British Council, had been teaching English at a posh, private preparatory school in Thailand for more than four years in the Province of Prachuap Khira Khan in a coastal town named Mawdaung. His first and sixth form pupils enjoyed his humour much more than his tedious grammatical explanations, and Mr Richards had no qualms about this.

Mr Richards taught twelve hours a week which offered him ample time to learn Thai, travel extensively throughout the country, especially up North in the dusk-filled jungles and along the Mekong River shores exploring villages and temples.

The one-storey school, perched high up on the brow of a hill, overlooked the turquoise-tainted Indian Ocean. The large windows of his class afforded pupil and professor much visual pleasure when grammar became too much of a bore, and Mr Richards too weary or hot to break the boredom.

“Now, instead of casting cursory glances out of the windows,” shouted a nettled Mr Richards, one very grey, windy day, “who can tell me what function the word ‘chewing’ plays in the composed word ‘chewing-gum’ ?” All the smiling faces and darting eyes happily translated their perfect ignorance of the answer. However, a minute later, a very pretty girl, one of the brightest in his class, excitedly cried out, “A verb, sir !” Mr Richards gave her a benign smile and shook his head.

“No, no. It is not because it ends in -ing that it is a verb,” he lectured in a paternal tone, so overtly exercised by Mr Richards, and so perfunctorily accepted by the pupils. He scanned the eager heads of the others ; alas none had the desire to crack the enigma. He checked his watch : “Oh well, I’ll let them out ten minutes or so before the bell rings. I have to catch that bus to Bangkok,” he sighed, still waiting for an answer that never came.

“No bother. Tonight think about it and tomorrow morning let me know, right ?” He stood up. “Go on now … down the hill … off to the beach, I’ll give you a treat this afternoon.”

Before he had even finished the word ‘afternoon’ the whole class, besides two girls, grabbed their books and scrambled for the door. Out they stormed, racing downhill towards the shingled beach of the crescent-shaped bay. Mr Richards observed them from the large windows. Their delightful screams made him a bit queasy: he had been told never to allow the pupils out before the bell. He, nevertheless, had done so on several occasions. He shrugged his shoulders, picked up his books and papers from the wooden desk and was about to make for the door when a terrible thundering or roaring sound froze him in his footfalls. He swivelled on his heels and gasped in horror as rolls and rolls of water smashed against the plate glass of the window panes. The violence of the impact threw the two girls to the floor screaming, but besides a few chinks through which spouts of water gushed in, the windows had miraculously withstood the brunt of the tidal wave. For a tidal wave it was, and a tremendous one! The two girls remained lying on the floor, crying but unhurt.

Mr Richards ran to the windows. The waves had receded, but what he espied below on the crescent-shaped seascape, or what had been a crescent-shaped seascape, caused him to fall back and scream involuntarily : “Dear God! There’s nothing left!” Indeed nothing remained: no palm trees, no vendors’ shacks along the shore, no boulders. No shore ! Only a vast ocean that lay several metres below the school, now churning a glaucous thickness under grey, sultry skies, upon which floated a myriad bobbing flotsam: uprooted palm-trees, lifeless cows and dogs, shoals of bloated fish, roofs of straw, pots and pans, planks, bright coloured robes with or without their proprietors’ bodies inside them !

“Bodies !” he cried covering his mouth. “My pupils … Have they all …” He dared not finish his sentence. The two girls stared at him, mouths agape, eyes deorbited. “The boys and girls floating in the water … Dear God they’ve all drowned !” He wept and wailed, stamping his feet, grabbing at his hair. The girls too began to weep and wail.

In an instant he came to himself. “Their deaths are my fault,” he mused. “I let them out too soon … against all school regulations. Blast ! Why did I do that … just today ?” He soon realised that the headmaster would be on to him soon enough; he feared his starched character. And the parents ? They would accuse him of manslaughter. He would be arrested and put in prison, even hanged for involuntary homicide ! He had every call to be frightened …

Taking hold of himself, Mr Richards knew he had to flee very quickly from Thailand before the headmaster and the parents learned about his unpardonable blunder. And they would learn about it soon enough when the panic and hysteria had died down.

He leapt over the still supine girls and rushed out the door. Once outside he noted that the town near the school had hardly been damaged. But below, he caught glimpses of undulating corpses being poled out of the waters by villagers and policemen in pirogues, rowboats or catamarans. The tidal wave had been gigantic. He turned his attention away from the catastrophe and fled home …

He jogged up to his bungalow further up the grassy hill at the edge of town. Speedily he gathered what he could, for the alert would be out for him at any moment … Or, so he believed. A change of clothes, one or two books and his official documents he stuffed into a small backpack, and without locking his door quickly made a bee-line for the bus station, where luckily he managed to jump on a bus for Bangkok. Apparently no one recognised him, nor followed him. He paid the fare, settled into one of the many empty seats and stared stony-eyed out of the window. His red, puffy eyes filled with tears. What a blithering fool he had been ! And now, what had he become ? A fugitive … no, worse, a murderer ! “Dead ! All dead !” rose a ghastly whisper in his ear. He had to get away as far as possible as the scenes of the bloated pupils danced before his bloodshot eyes.

Once in Bangkok he wasted no time. Further North he travelled by bus into the Province of Chiang Rai. There, in a village whose name he hardly recalled, he spent two nights pondering his dilemma, assuaging his jaded nerves, chary of leaving any sign or evidence of his frantic intinerary, thinking only of a plan to save his neck. He couldn’t possibly stay in Thailand, the police surely were now on his trail, or would be very soon. Neither could he return to England: the bobbies would be waiting for him at the airport, ready to handcuff the murderer of over a dozen innocent children !

Then in the middle of a hot, sleepless night it suddenly occurred to him: he would shave his head and eyebrows, don a monk’s robe, change his expensive Russell and Bramley shoes for sandals and set out for Laos. He had travelled widely in Laos and could even speak a smattering of Kra-dai. He had taught in Luang Prabang for three years and had many friends amongst his former pupils, two of whom had entered monkhood in Pak Beng at the Wat or temple Jin Jong Jaeng. “I shall escape naked from the shipwreck of mundane life,” he murmured, smiling inwardly at his little metaphor which he recollected from his childhood upbringing. But would he ?.. Mr Richards sunk into his lumpy bed: the figure of an outlaw, a pariah, a self-exile stood before him like a shadow … a double of himself: -swollen little bodies drift like flotsam in waters, darkly … that fey voice droned above a tumult of incongruous thoughts.

Mr Richards shook his head and said aloud, “To Pak Beng. There I’ll join the sangha[1] of the Theravada monks. There I shall seek spiritual solace, rid my mind and spirit of those drifting bodies of cheerful boys and girls, swept away from the joys of life because I had a bus to catch!” So he hoped.

Yet the obstacles of reaching the temple caused him concern. The Laotian government frowned upon Western spiritual-seekers cluttering their monasteries and temples. He needed a visa. Where would he find a consulate in the North of Thailand ? And would they issue one to a ‘Western monk’ ?

He jumped up from the bed, and as he did his mind cleared of all that tumultuous tossing. He had befriended many of his pupils’ parents whilst working in Luang Prabang, and he knew, by correspondence, and his frequent voyages to Laos, that one of them, Mr Inthavong, had been appointed consul in one of the North Thailand consulates. He rushed down to the reception and asked at the desk where the nearest Laotian consulate could be found.

“You must travel by bus to Wiang Kaen near the Mekong River, sir.”

“Are there any other consulates ?”

“Not that I know of, sir.”

Mr Richards heart skipped a beat; Mr Inthavong must be working there. He had to take the chance.

The next morning the ‘Western monk’ got on a bus for Wiang Kaen, carrying only a small bag for his passport, photos and a bit of lunch. All along the tedious journey to the North-Eastern town Mr Richards prayed that Mr Inthavong would be there; it was his only chance to obtain a visa for Laos.

He reached Wiang Kaen by nightfall, found accommodations at a temple guest house and spent a horribly sleepless night, tormented now by the thought of the failure of his plan, now by the screeching rats and buzzing mosquitoes.

At nine o’clock sharp he was at the front gate of the bright new consulate, a lovely two-storey bungalow-like edifice enshrined by lush gardens carpeted with the most perfume-scented fruit trees and flowers. He rang. The security guard strolled out and sized him up. Mr Richards politely mentioned his friend’s name. The unshaven security guard raised two quizzical eyebrows, but took his passport and photo and left him to ruminate the events that were about to unfold behind that iron barrier, inside the lovely bungalow. It all seemed hours to him as that voice repeated “irresponsible murderer !” Suddenly the security guard stood before him, together with a small, portly man dressed in a suit and tie.

“Can that be you Mr Richards? A bonze? A monk? What have you done? Where is all your beautiful black hair ?” All this was said in imperious tones much to the delight of the monk who sighed in relief: his pupil’s father had recognised him! He wiped the perspiration off his furrowed brow. “Step in, please … out of the heat,” the consul pleaded. So they both strolled into the air-conditioned consulate, Mr Inthavong wearing Russell and Bramley shoes, recently polished, Mr Richards, a pair of worn-out sandals.

Inside the monk was served tea and a bowl of rice in Mr Inthavong’s office, he himself abstaining from joining him since he had already breakfasted. “I’m so happy to see you Mr Richards,” began the enthusiastic consul. “What brings you here, and dressed like that ? Are you really a monk now ?” Mr Richards broke into a tapestry of lies that, as time went by, he himself began to believe: Living so long in Asia had infused his soul with the compassionate virtues of Buddhism, and in Laos, he hoped to pursue his path deeper in the compassionate depths of Buddhahood in order to glean its treasures. The consul smiled like a child does when listening to his or her favourite nursery rhyme.

Mr Richards then got down to business: his visa ! Mr Inthavong nodded, examining his passport and two photos. “You shall have it in three days. Meanwhile, you are to be my guest here, upstairs with my wife and two children.”

And so the first snag had been circumvented. For those three days, Mr Richards, plied with food, drink and homely conversation, had all but forgotten the wave, the floating bodies and merciless whisper … the abominable figure of a self-exiled …

On the morning of the fourth day, armed with a three-month visa, the Western monk set out to cross the Mekong River to Ban Houei Sai on a Nam Ou boat with six other passengers. It had been so long since he had been on the Mother of all Rivers. He inhaled the tropical river air in silent jubilation. As they navigated slowly downstream, his thoughts interlaced with the flecks of foam, wandered back to his days spent on the Mekong at Guan Lei on the Chinese border, where having been temporarily stranded, he finally was welcomed aboard a small six-cabin dai, a Chinese boat, heading for Thailand.

What a voyage! They had anchored by the soundless jungles at night, machetted through them in the evenings in search of mangoes, navigated by bathing rosy water buffalows and by tiny golden stupa-tipped isles. What an adventure! The crew had left him off in a small Laotian village where he made his way to Luang Prabang on one of those blue, wooden box-boats, gliding by stilt-home villages under whose piles lounged or snorted huge black pigs, scenes so reminiscent of Alix Aymé’s paintings[2] housed at the Luang Prabang Royal Palace. Then the real adventure began, upstream on the Nam Ou in a frail six-seater river boat, slowly weaving between treacherous snags and swift cross-currents. He passed the Park Ou caves, Nong Khiaw and Muang Khwa, sleeping in bungalows and eating rice with thick pieces of pork in the pristine territories of the Hmong tribal peoples. Alas, his grand voyage to Hatsa ended in Sop Pong near the Vietnamese border, the authorities refusing him an entry visa to cross Vietnam then back into Laos where he wished to continue on his river voyage to Chao Dan Tra at the Chinese border.

Ah yes, those were the days of freedom … of existential sovereignty. And now ? A fugitive … a prisoner to his own wretched egoism, Mr Richards suddenly felt overwhelmed by a deep loneliness. His mixed recollections were suddenly interrupted by shouts from the shore : they had reached Ban Houei Sai.

Once the formalities were completed, Mr Richards managed to hop on a collective taxi which sped him towards Pak Beng on a smooth road. He reached the town before nightfall, and to his joy he spotted his two former pupils seated on the temple steps. Were they waiting for him ? Indeed they were, thanks to a letter sent by Mr Inthavong who had explained in great detail to the Satu or Venerable Father of the temple-sangha Mr Richards’ religious fervour and enthusiastic intentions to enter monkhood. The consul had added that nothing should be said to the police or to other state authorities of his entry into Buddhahood.

His former pupils, who had grown into full manhood, heads shaven and bare foot, happily led him to meet the Satu Father. To tell the truth, Mr Richards hardly recognised them. But that made no difference. As expected, he deposited a large donation (all the cash he had on him which amounted to some six hundred pounds), then was given three bright new ochre-coloured robes of pure cotton, shown to his splayed window cell, through which he had a slight view of the inner temple gardens, and was told the daily procedures of his initiation as a pha or a novice: collective prayers in the Prayer Hall, breakfast, Sutra readings until lunch, discussion, rest period, an hour or two of manual labour such as gardening, restoring frescoes or termite-riddled woodwork, personal perpetual moving meditations, yoga exercises, then a light meal before the final collective prayer and sleep until the sound of the gong at four o’clock in the morning.

When the two monks had left him, Mr Richards lay back on the straw mat on the earthen floor that served as a bed. He had been given immaculately clean sheets and a pillow. A mosquito net had been nailed to the splayed window. The walls bore no images nor any other colour than a light beige. Putting his hands behind his head he followed the slowly turning ceiling fan with his eyes: yes, his plan had succeeded. No one would ever find him here. Yet he had no reason to rejoice. He would never again see his aging parents seated at the hearth reading or conversing in low voices, his trusty Irish Setter … his friends at the pub. A sharp pain of remorse, or better put, compunction stabbed at his chest. “Dead! Drowned ! All dead !” the whispers hammered at his temple. Would that relentless voice ever grant him respite ? Would anyone ever forgive him ? Only penance. Only the fires of tribulation could scrape away the rust of vice that had corroded his being. A life of contrition would be the most appropriate path for him, the most responsible. Tears again began to well up in his eyes. He fell asleep and awakened to the cascading sound of two or three vibrating gongs.

So began Mr Richards’ initiation into Therevada monkhood. He had to learn the akkara alphabet in order to read the sutras, the Buddhist acriptures. His practice of many languages enabled him to accomplish this in two months. What he enjoyed most was the tham nong or the musical rhythm method which empowers the monks to memorise the hundreds of sutras of the Sacred Books ; it formed part of the didactic games that the bonzes played every morning and afternoon. These didactic games also included dancing and chanting sessions. The ‘western bonze’ adapted quite rapidly to his new lifestyle … his new home … No doubt his last …

As time passed, the rigours of the monastic code, the kindness of all the monks towards him, his slow but steady immersion into the Kra-Dai language and the marvels of the modality of Buddhist life attenuated, to a certain extent, the mortifying effects his spirit and body had suffered since that horrendous wave. Images of the drowned bodies did wake him up in the middle of certain nights, heaving and panting in one sweaty mass of anguish. However, the whispered voice had long since been silenced. His prayers and ruminations served as a watershed for those waves of guilt, an oceanic ointment for his slowly healing wounds. He was so glad to do service at the temple, run errands for the personnel who worked in the kitchen, wash and hang to dry the three robes of all twenty or so monks.

Gradually he succumbed to the beauties of Buddhahood, of attaining inner peace, his mind having all but vacated that remorseful past. His wide struggles between jubilation and despondency, gaiety and sorrow, ecstasy and debasement dwindled to a few chinks of dread. In short, he enjoyed his laborious leisure …

It was his seventh year at the temple. In spite of his three-month visa having expired, the Satu Father allowed him to take up his begging bowl and go into town to beg for donations, and even have a bite to eat at one of the roadside stands if he so desired. Mr Richards beamed with joy. In all those seven years he had hardly stepped out of the temple. He knew nothing of Pak Bent besides several photos that had been left behind by some tourists on the bench of the veranda of the main Prayer Hall.

He strolled about the crowded streets of the main arteries admiring the colourful markets and smelling the cooked food that had once given him pleasure, especially the pork and prawns. He went from shop to shop, his bowl filling with dented coins and frazzled bills. He was about to order himself a vegetarian meal in one of the market eateries when a group of well-dressed men addressed him in broken English. He shrugged his shoulders, prudently. They then spoke in Thai which he feigned to understand a bit. They appeared to be part of a large tourist group. One man placed a five-dollar bill in the monk’s bowl. They spoke very politely to him, and even invited the good monk to their hotel for a bite to eat … vegetarian of course ! The monk hesitated at first, but finally agreed. Who knows, perhaps these good men, quite wealthy-looking, would donate a fine sum to the temple-sangha.

They hailed two taxis and soon stood outside the palacial Le Grand Pakbeng, a sumptious five-star hotel. The finest in Pak Beng. In the lift that shot them up to the Presidentielle Suite, he looked at himself in the lift mirror ; he hadn’t seen his face for over seven years (the temple-sangha had no mirrors) and noted that the corners of his eyes had shrivelled into crow’s eyes. He winced.

ThePresidentielle Suite was fabulously fitted out with an outdoor spa and living area. The majestic terrace looked out upon the rolling Mekong which snaked through the rich greens of the mountainous forests.

The door was slammed shut and locked behind him …

And that was the last time anyone ever saw the monk from the Wat Jin Jong Jaeng, alias Mr Richards.

An investigating detective, sent by the Richards’ family, after a year or two of intense enquiry, believed that their son had been abducted by the group of Thai tourists who had checked into Le Grand Pakbeng. The detective, once learning their names, discovered that three or four of them were the parents of the pupils who had drowned in the terrible tidal wave that struck southern Thailand some nine or ten years back. Alas nothing could be proven against them. What proved very odd was the fact that Mr Richards’ parents had no idea their son had been the cause of the drowned children in Thailand, and even ignored his entry into monkhood, having received no letter from him for over seven years ! The detective had nothing to say about this silence. Nor did he wish to say anything.

The detective concluded in his report to the grief-stricken parents, rather sententiously, that no human being has ever disappeared completely, however altered his or her appearance. This trite remark hardly brought a ray of solace to them.

[1] A monastery or convent of Buddhist monks.

[2] (1894-1989) French painter. She discovered the use of lacquer in her landscape paintings of Southeast Asia.

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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Tags Alix Aymé, Asia, Bangkok, British Council, Buddhist, Chiang Rai, Chinese, France, Guan Lei, Hmong people, Indian Ocean, Kra-dai, Laos, Luang Prabang, Mekong, Muang Khwa, Nong Khiaw, Park Ou, Paul Mirabile, Thai, Vietnam

Contents

Borderless September 2023

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date September 14, 2023
No Comments on Borderless September 2023

Editorial

What do They Whisper?… Click here to read.

Conversations

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri in conversation with M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan ( grand daughter of President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan) on their new book, Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World and Other Garden Adventures. Click here to read.

In conversation with Isa Kamari, a celebrated writer from Singapore, with focus on his latest book, Maladies of the Soul. Click here to read.

Translations

A Hunger for Stories, a poem by Quazi Johirul Islam, has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

A Hand Mill, a story by Ammina Srinivasaraju, has been translated from Telugu by Johny Takkedasila. Click here to read.

Kiyya and Sadu, a part of this long ballad on the legendary lovers from Balochistan, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

The Time for the Janitor to Pass by, poetry written in Korean and translated by Ilhwah Choi. Click here to read.

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

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Jared Carter, Rhys Hughes, Santosh Bakaya, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Sagar Mal Gupta, Nirmala Pillai, George Freek, Pramod Rastogi, Peter Devonald, Afshan Aqil, Hela Tekali, Swarnendu Ghosh, Alpana, Michael Burch

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Tintin in India, Rhys Hughes traces the allusions to India in these iconic creations of Hergé while commenting on Tintin’s popularity in the subcontinent. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Black Pines and Red Trucks

Meredith Stephens shares the response of some of the Californian community to healing after the 2020 forest fires with a narrative and photographs. Click here to read.

Remembering Jayanta Mahapatra

KV Raghupathi travels down nostalgia with his memories of interactions with the recently deceased poet and his works. Click here to read.

The Toughness of Kangaroo Island

Vela Noble draws solace and lessons from nature around her with her art and narrative. Click here to read.

Where is Your Home?

Madhulika Vajjhala explores her concept of home. Click here to read.

A Homecoming like No Other

Saumya Dwivedi gives a heartwarming anecdote from life. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Hair or There: Party on My Head, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores political leanings and hair art. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Against Invisibility, Suzanne Kamata challenges traditions that render a woman invisible with a ‘sparkling’ outcome. Click here to read.

Essays

Jayanta Mahapatra: A Tribute to a Poetic Luminary

Dikshya Samantrai pays tribute to a poet who touched hearts across the world with his poetry. Click here to read.

Celebrating the novel… Where have all the Women Writers Gone?

G Venkatesh writes about a book from 1946. Click here to read.

Chandigarh: A City with Spaces

Ravi Shankar travels back to Chandigarh of 1990s. Click here to read.

The Observant Immigrant

In Climate Change: Are You for Real?, Candice Louisa Daquin explores the issue. Click here to read.

Stories

The Infamous Art Dealer

Paul Mirabile travels through Europe with an art scammer. Click here to read.

Getting Old is like Climbing a Mountain

Saranyan BV explores aging and re-inventing homes. Click here to read.

The Airport

Prakriti Bandhan shares a short, whimsical narrative. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Tales of a Voyager (Joley Dangay), translated by Nazes Afroz. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Sanket Mhatre’s A City Full of Sirens. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Begum Hazrat Mahal: Warrior Queen of Awadh by Malathi Ramachandran. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy reviews Sanket Mhatre’s A City Full of Sirens. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Samragngi Roy’s The Wizard of Festival Lighting: The Incredible Story of Srid. Click here to read.

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

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

Tags A City Full of Sirens, Afshan Aqil, Alpana, Balochi, Basudhara Roy, Begum Hazrat Mahal: Warrior Queen of Awadh, Bengali, Bhaskar Pariccha, Californian forest fires, Candice Louisa Daquin, climate change, Devraj Singh Kalsi, Dikshya Samantrai, Fakrul Alam, Fazal Baloch, G Venkatesh, George Freek, Girija Viraraghavan, Hela Tekali, Hergé, Ihlwha Choi, Isa Kamari, Jared Carter, Jasna Gugić, Jayanta Mahapatra, Kangaroo Island, Kiyya and Sadu, Korean, KV Raghupathi, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, M.S. Viraraghavan, Madhulika Vajjhala, Maladies of the Soul, Malathi Ramchandran, Meredith Stephens, Mitali Chakravarty, Nazes Afroz, Nirmala Pillai, Paul Mirabile, Peter Devonald, Prakriti Bandhan, Pramod Rastogi, Quazi Johirul Islam, Ravi Shankar, Rhys Hughes, Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World and other Garden Adventures, Sagar Mal Gupta, Samragngi Roy, Sanket Mhatre, Santosh Bakaya, Saranyan BV, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, Somdatta Mandal, Swarnendu Ghosh, Syed Mujtaba Ali, Tagore, Tales of a Voyager (Joley Dangay), The Wizard of Festival Lighting – The Incredible Story of Srid, Tintin, Vela Noble

Editorial

What do they Whisper?

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

‘Moment’ by Margaret Atwood

With an unmanned mission reaching the moon — that moon that was chipped off the Earth’s surface when Theia bashed into the newly evolving planet — many feel mankind is en route to finding alternate biomes and perhaps, a solution to its housing needs. Will we also call moon our ‘Homeland’ and plant flags on it as we do on Earth? Does the Earth — or the moon — really belong to our species. Do we have proprietary rights on these because of lines drawn by powerbrokers who say that the land belongs to them?

These are questions Margaret Atwood addresses in her writings which often fall into a genre called cli-fi. This is gaining in popularity as climate has become uncertain now with changes that are wringing fear in our hearts. Not all fear it. Some refuse to acknowledge it. While this is not a phenomenon that is fully understood by all of us, it’s impact is being experienced by majority of the world — harsh stormy weather, typhoons, warmer temperatures which scorch life and rising water levels that will eventually swallow lands that some regard as their homeland. Despite all these prognostications, wars continue to pollute the air as much as do human practices, including conflicts using weapons. Did ‘climbing a hill’ and ‘planting the flag’ as Atwood suggests, ever give us the rights over land, nature or climate? Do we have a right to pollute it with our lifestyle, trade or wars — all three being human constructs?

In a recent essay, Tom Engelhardt, a writer and an editor, contended, “Vladimir Putin’s greatest crime wasn’t simply against the Ukrainians, but against humanity. It was another way to ensure that the global war of terror would grow fiercer and that the Lahainas of the future would burn more intensely.” And that is true of any war… Chemical and biological weapons impacted the environment in Europe and parts of Afghanistan. Atom bombs polluted not only the cities they were dropped in, but they also wreaked such havoc so that the second generation’s well-being continues impacted by events that took place more than seven decades ago. Yet another nuclear war would destroy the Earth, our planet that is already reeling under the impact of human-induced climate change. Flooding, forest fires and global warming are just the first indications that tell us not only do we need to adapt to living in changed times but also, we need to change our lifestyles, perhaps even turn pacifist to survive in a world evolving into an altered one.

This month some of our content showcase how to survive despite changes in norms. Suggesting how to retain our flora in a warming world is a book, Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World and Other Garden Adventures, by M.S. Viraraghavanand Girija Viraraghavan, the grandson-in-law and granddaughter of the second President of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975). They have been in conversation with Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri to explain how they have adapted plants to create hybrids that survive changing climes. Would it be wishful to think that we can find solutions for our own survival as was done for the flora?

Critiquing the darker trends in our species which leads to disasters is a book by an eminent Singaporean writer, Isa Kamari, called Maladies of the Soul. He too looks for panacea in a world where the basic needs of humans have been satiated and they have moved on towards overindulgence that can lead to redundancy. In a conversation, he tells us how he hopes his writings can help towards making a more hopeful future.

This hope is echoed in the palliative poems of Sanket Mhatre from his book, A City full of Sirens, excerpted and reviewed by Basudhara Roy. Bhaskar Parichha’s review of Samragngi Roy’s The Wizard of Festival Lighting: The Incredible Story of Srid, is a tribute also from a granddaughter to her grandfather celebrating human achievements. Somdatta Mandal’s discussion of fiction based on history, Begum Hazrat Mahal: Warrior Queen of Awadh by Malathi Ramachandran not only reflects the tenacity of a woman’s courage but also explores the historicity of the events. Exploring bits of history and the past with a soupcon of humour is our book excerpt from Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Tales of a Voyager (Joley Dangay [1]), translated from Bengali by Nazes Afroz. Though the narrative of the translation is set about ninety years ago, a little after the times of Hazrat Mahal (1820 –1879), the excerpt is an brilliant introduction to the persona of Tagore’s student, Syed Mujtaba Ali (1904-1974), by a translator who describes him almost with the maestro’s unique style. Perhaps, Afroz’s writing bears these traces as he had earlier translated a legendary work by the same writer, In a Land Far from Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan. Afroz starts with a startling question: “What will you call someone who puts down his profession as ‘quitting job regularly’ while applying for his passport?”

Other than a semi-humorous take on Mujtaba Ali, we have Rhys Hughes writing poetry in a funny vein and Santosh Bakaya giving us verses that makes us laugh. Michael Burch brings in strands of climate change with his poems as Jared Carter weaves in nature as we know it. George Freek reflects on autumn. We have more poetry by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Pramod Rastogi, Peter Devonald, Afshan Aqil, Hela Tekali and many more, adding to the variety of colours that enhance the vivacity of conversations that run through the journal. Adding more vibrancy to this assortment, we have fiction by Paul Mirabile, Saranyan BV and Prakriti Bandhan.

In non-fiction, we have Devraj Singh Kalsi’s funny retelling of his adventures with a barber while Hughes‘ essay on the hugely popular Tintin makes us smile. The patriarchal past is reflected in an essay by G Venkatesh, whereas Suzanne Kamata from Japan talks of women attempting to move out of invisibility. Meredith Stephens and Candice Louisa Daquin both carry on the conversation on climate change. Stephens explores the impact of Californian forest fires with photographs and first-hand narrative. Vela Noble draws solace and strength from nature in Kangaroo Island and shares a beautiful painting with us. Madhulika Vajjhala and Saumya Dwivedi discuss concepts of home.

Two touching tributes along with a poem to recently deceased poet, Jayanta Mahapatra, add to the richness of our oeuvre. Dikshya Samantrai, a researcher on the poet, has bid a touching adieu to him stating, “his legacy will continue to inspire and resonate and Jayanta Mahapatra’s name will forever remain etched in the annals of literature, a testament to the enduring power of the poet’s voice.”

Our translations this time reflect a diverse collection of mainly poetry with one short story by Telugu writer, Ammina Srinivasaraju, translated by Johny Takkedasila. Professor Fakrul Alam has introduced us to an upcoming voice in Bengali poetry, Quazi Johirul Islam. Ihlwha Choi has translated his own poetry from Korean and brought to us a fragment of his own culture. Fazal Baloch has familiarised us with a Balochi ballad based on a love story that is well known in his region, Kiyya and Sadu. Our Tagore translation has attempted to bring to you the poet’s description of early autumn or Sharat in Bengal, a season that starts in September. Sohana Manzoor has painted the scene depicted by Tagore for all of us to visualise. Huge thanks to her for her wonderful artwork, which invariably livens our journal.

Profound thanks to the whole team at Borderless for their support and especially to Hughes and Parichha for helping us source wonderful writings… some of which have not been mentioned here. Pause by our content’s page to savour all of it. And we remain forever beholden to our wonderful contributors without who the journal would not exist and our loyal readers who make our existence relevant. Thank you all.

Wish you all a wonderful month.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

[1] Translated literally, it means Water & Land

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Tags A City Full of Sirens, Afghanistan, Afshan Aqil, Ammina Srinivasaraju, Basudhara Roy, Begum Hazrat Mahal: Warrior Queen of Awadh, Bhaskar Parichha, Borderless Journal, California, Candice Lousia Daquin, Devraj Singh Kalsi, Dikshya Samantrai, Earth, Europe, Fakrul Alam, Fazal Baloch, Forest Fires, G Venkatesh, George Freek, Girija Viraraghavan, Hela Tekali, Ihlwha Choi, In a Land Far From Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan, Isa Kamari, Jared Carter, Jayant Mahapatra, Johny Takkesdasila, Kangaroo Island, Kiyya and Sadu, Lahania, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, M.S. Viraraghavan, Madhulika Vajjhala, Maladies of the Soul, Malathi Ramchandran, Margaret Atwood, Meredith Stephens, Michael Burch, Mitali Chakravarty, Moon, Nazes Afroz, Paul Mirabile, Peter Devonald, Prakriti Bandhan, Pramod Rastogi, Quazi Johirul Islam, Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World and other Garden Adventures, Rys Hughes, Samragngi Roy, Sanket Mhatre, Santosh Bakaya, Saranyan BV, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Saumya Dwivedi, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, Sharat, Sohana Manzoor, Somdatta Mandal, Suzanne Kamata, Syed Mujtaba Ali, Tagore, Tales of a Voyager (Joley Dangay), Telugu, The Wizard of Festival Lighting – The Incredible Story of Srid, Theia, Tintin, Tom Engelhardt, Ukranians, Vela Noble, Vladimir Putin

Stories

The Infamous Art Dealer

By Paul Mirabile

The Scream by Edvard Munch(1863-1944). Courtesy: Creative Commons

I met Gustav Beekhof twice whilst travelling in North Africa, once in Tunisia on the island of Djerba, and then in Algeria when I emerged from the desert after spending about seven months living amongst the Touregs.

Gustav was a Dutchman, tall, slender, long blond hair falling to his rounded shoulders. His blue eyes shone like scintillating mountain lakes in the morning sun. He spoke excellent English, French and German, all learned at school but polished and refined ‘on the road’ as he said in his high, nasalised voice.

Over a glass of tea, we spoke about many subjects, he emphasising that the voyager must touch Africa with his or her feet, and not ‘do’ it either in vans or in Land-Rovers as so many ‘doers of Africa do’. Gustav indeed had a whiff of smugness about him.

We split, the cocky Dutchman en route to Morocco, I back into the desert to Tamanarasset. Before leaving, however, he gave me his phone number and insisted that if I ever found myself in Amsterdam I should look him up. He threw back his long blond hair and as he got up to leave, said that he held my friendship in high regard.

Seven years later this was exactly what I did! I had been shuffling between Madrid and Burgundy France as a Flamenco guitarist at Rosario’s dance studios in the mornings and Antonio’s mesón[1] at night, and as a grape-picker at several farms between Dijon and Beaune in Burgundy. Every Autumn I would hitch to Burgundy from Madrid and for a month or so labour in the fields, in the wine-cellars, bottle wine and study oenology with the wine-growers in my spare hours.

The life of a mediocre musician and a seasonal farm labourer made no sense. I needed a change. Was not life a thick forest of possibilities ? One day as I treaded wine in one of the enormous kegs that aligned the cellar of a famous wine-grower, what the Burgundians call ‘piger‘, I suddenly thought of Gustav Beekhof. That night, back in my little room on the farm, I searched through my belongings and found his address. Yes, I would go to Amsterdam for that change.

When my work had finished on the farm I left my guitar with some friends, borrowed a bicycle and cycled up to Holland via Liechtenstein and Belgium, a strenuous journey, given the fact that the bicycle had no gears. I arrived in Amsterdam, thoroughly exhausted, but immediately set out to find my ‘friend’, if I may say so at this point in my narrative.

And indeed I did find him: having telephoned Gustav, that nasalised voice gave me directions to his home. I set off on my bike in search of him. It took me hours as I crossed bridges, turned in and out of little roads and lanes. As I struggled on, I had a strange feeling that Gustav did not know with whom he was speaking over the phone. Be that as it may, I finally found his ‘humble home’ as he merrily said, one of the many barges that float listlessly in the canals that criss-cross Amsterdam. A rather shoddy one at that, but its bohemian appearance did suit the personality of the individual I had met some seven or eight years ago in North Africa, and who was at present standing on the plank that led to the barge from the grassy pavement-bank. He was all smiles. He gestured for me to come ‘aboard’, shook my hand and led me into his ‘humble home’ …

A home that rocked and rolled ever so gently when a barge cruised by. Gustav warned me that to live in a barge one must develop sea-legs. He laughed, and the twinkle in his eye intuited that the Dutchman had no idea with whom he was speaking. I felt rather uncomfortable at first, but this loss of memory seemed not to disturb my host who spread out his long arms as if to engulf all the belongings that swam before my eyes: dozens and dozens of paintings, either framed, rolled up in clusters or on easels covered the uncarpeted ‘bottom deck’ along with hundreds of acrylic paint tubes, whilst more books and documents rose in high stacks against the unpanelled ‘starboard’, barring the grey afternoon light from penetrating two ‘portholes’. Large packages lay on a bunk bed at the ‘stern’. There were no rooms, only a very long and narrow ‘hole’ with a kitchenette at the ‘prow’. Rusting red-painted iron beams horizontally crossed the ‘hull’. Two tables had been placed in middle of this capharnaum[2], one for writing, I presumed, and one for eating ; both had seen better days. The toilet, a cubby hole, was located on ‘portside’ …

I was overwhelmed by the quantity of paintings, some of which I recognised.

“How do you like my prized collection ?” Gustav began. His tone had an undercurrent of secrecy. “I have acquired them at great pains, some are originals, others copies … and a few a result of my own genius.” Modesty was never a quality of Gustav’s personality … not even false modesty !

“But you have a Jasper Johns[3] … a Frans Van Mieris[4] and a Nicolais Astrup[5]!” I rejoined in amazement. They must have cost a fortune. My host shrugged his shoulders.

“Why do you think I live on a rubbishy barge and not in a golden palace, my dear lad ?” He threw back his long blond hair and motioned to the hackney table, where two plates, two forks and two knives had been neatly set. I sat opposite a lovely Laurits Andersen Ring painting: Road in the village of Bunderbrøde. Original or copy ? From the kitchenette Gustav sailed back gingery to the table carrying a large tray of chips ; they were dripping with oil. I put one or two in my mouth and felt sick to my stomach. From a cupboard near the toilet he brought forth a bottle of Jenever which presumedly was to wash down the chips. I looked over to his writing table and observed an open notebook.

“My Waybook,” he laughed. “I’m writing a collection of poems and stories about my voyages in India, Central Asia and Africa. Poems and stories written out ‘on the road’, but here in my barge-solitude, polished to a lacquered lustre.” My host was beaming with self-complacency.

I let Gustav make inroads on that greasy stack of chips whilst I cast cursory glances at those many paintings… “Remember those horrible mosquitoes in Africa ?” he reminisced. “They always bit me … perhaps because my blood is so sweet.” His voice had a fluty tone to it. I nodded perfunctorily.Was his blood sweeter than mine ?

I left about midnight, rather sozzled from all that Jenever.

For the next few days, my Dutch friend took me about Amsterdam, especially to the bars where we would invariably get thoroughly drunk, but also to the countryside on bicycle, gliding by the still standing windmills cranking their sails, the tulip fields in blushing bloom, over a streamlet or two, our bicycles poled over on small barques. One day we stopped near one of those streamlets to indulge in some Gouda and Edam cheese. It was there that Gustav, his mouth full of cheese and bread, made me a proposition which I was to regret for the rest of my living days …

“Listen,” he began, munching merrily, washing down his cheese and bread with a few shots of Jenever. “Since you’re out of work, how about working for me ?” I raised a quizzical eyebrow. He gave me a sly wink. “Don’t worry, it’s not hard labour. I need an itinerant salesman for my paintings. You know, I’m stuck here in Amsterdam and can’t meet the demands of all my clients. I have clients in Italy, Spain, France, England ; all over Eastern Europe, too. You’d be a perfect dealer for me, you know many languages, you have a bit of artistic talent yourself to explain certain niceties, and above all, you’re honest. I know you won’t cheat me.” His grin stretched from ear to ear. A strange grin, plastic-like. “I’ll give you ten percent of the proceeds.” And he had another spot of Jenever.

“Why ten ?”

“Why not ? It’s a number like any other. And don’t forgot, some of those paintings are going for over 8,000 Guilders, even double that in other currencies. What do you think ?” He eyed me fixedly, the deep blue of those two tarns swirling before me like turbulent whirlpools.

It took me three days to think over his proposition, and during those three days, when I visited him, we tramped about Amsterdam’s bars, drinking and conversing. Never once did he enquire about my decision. It was whilst licking off the foam of my Heineken in one of Gustav’s favourite bars, where it was his wont to reach into a drinker’s open poach of tobacco, serve himself a good pinch and roll a cigarette without ever asking permission, a rite that he alone exercised at the counter, that I decided to accept his offer. “Fifteen percent !” I added. He winced at first, but that mask slowly transformed into a broad smile. We shook hands and the deal was sealed. He ordered another round for us whilst pinching a bit more tobacco from the pouch of his displeased but stoic neighbour …

And that is how I became an itinerant dealer for Gustav Beekhof’s paintings. My wanderings took me to the most remotest of European towns, and to the most hideous suburbs of those towns. Instead of dealing with rich bourgeois families, small museum curators or private collectors, Gustav’s mailed instructions directed me to shifty-eyed men, well-dressed and well-spoken indeed, but shifty in our negotiations. Besides, we effected our transactions in the oddest of places: warehouses, depots, repositories, seedy hotel rooms. I would remove the paintings from long, plastic cylinders similar to those that the Chinese use to carry their scrolls, unroll the merchandise they were expecting, and after a thorough inspection, the head of these delegations would produce a wad of bills, and without counting them push them into the pocket of my vest. They would leave me standing there without a word, although now and then, one of them was given orders to drive me to the centre of the town and drop me off at my hotel.

Gustav had advised me to deduct my fifteen percent from the purchases, deposit the maximum amount of cash that was permitted in one of the subsidiaries of a Dutch bank, found in Greece, Norway, Belgium, France, England, Luxembourg and Germany. If a large amount of cash remained, I was to travel to another country, locate another subsidiary and deposit the rest. Gustav had absolute faith in my integrity; at any time, I could have run off with thousands of francs, liras, pounds or any currency and simply disappeared. Of course the thought never occurred to me. As to the paintings themselves, they were sent through a special mail service along with a note at one of my hotels directing to the addresses where I had my the appointments. In this way I had no need to return to Amsterdam.

These proceedings continued without respite for two years as I scurried from country to country and town to town. I must admit that over the course of time I began to question the probity of the individuals I was dealing with, for all these transactions seemed enshrouded in mystery, carried out by dubious characters, each and every one of whom bore a rank odour of unprincipled morals, although their behaviour towards me was always impeccably polite, aloof indeed, but nevertheless perfectly respectful. I, thus, disregarded these apprehensions; after all, I was earning vast amounts of money. And I wasn’t one to, as the French say, cracher dans la soupe[6] !

One fine Spring day, I received six paintings at my hotel in Thessaloniki, Greece, and a note directing me to Istanbul, where an Armenian merchant was waiting impatiently to buy the paintings at a very handsome price. However, the note warned me that the merchant was a bit of a rogue, and a clever one at that. I smiled inwardly; I had been to Istanbul several times and could negotiate quite well in Turkish. I rubbed my hands ready for the joust …

It was on the fourth day of my arrival in Istanbul by bus from Thessaloniki that our appointment had been fixed in the Armenian’s small shop near the Armenian Church of Üç Horan (Trinity) inside the Fish Market. His shop, crowded with every object that one could possibly find on the face of the earth: wooden religious statues, candelabras, thuribles, musical instruments, Ottoman-styled hanging lamps, church paintings, ikons, antique furniture, travelling chests dating from the Ottoman Empire, sabres and shields, made it difficult for me to find the merchant seated behind a long, knotty mahogany table upon which had been stacked books, paper-weights and a scruffle of yellowing documents. He had a sinister look about him, doleful, suspicious, a darkly look that matched his dark frizzy hair, thick eyebrows and beard. When he noted my arrival he sat there in frozen silence which lasted longer than I had expected of a potential buyer of Gustav’s long-sought paintings. I sensed something amiss … something which did not sit well in this Ali Baba’s cave.

The Armenian stood and cleared away the books that encumbered his table. He bade me deposit the paintings in his outstretched arms. I took them out of the cylinder and placed them gently in the crooks of his arms, where like a mother holding her child, he cradled them for a few long seconds before laying them delicately on the knotty mahogany table.

Without a word he unrolled each one, admiring the colours, the textures, the shapes, the lines.

“Very nice … lovely !” he finally said in rough Turkish. “The colour saturation of this one is marvellous. And here, the crackle paste indeed gives the village a mediaeval aura. The application of mica flake certainly highlights the effects of the tempest over the sea, whilst here, the dry brush technique impresses an eerie velatura of the Scandinavian landscape.” He looked up at me. “And what do you think of Jasper Johns’ Between the Clock and the Bed ?” The question snapped me out of my reverie; no client had ever posed a question to me concerning the contents or quality of the paintings ; all my dealings had always been conducted with the utmost taciturnity.

“I don’t know … I’m not an art specialist, only a dealer.”

He chuckled : “Are you now ?” He touched the painting ever so delicately. “Pop art ? Expressionism ? What do you think, dealer ?” I remained silent, fidgeting about, the atmosphere had become unbearably oppressive. “Look, these fourteen colours set out like a lithograph should have been painted on Japan paper … do you follow me ?” I shook my head, ignorant of all these technical details. “Well, Mr Dealer, this is not Japan paper, consequently, the painting it not an original, which leads me to surmise that it’s a forgery !” The word forgery shot through me like a bullet. “So are those four, all falsified due to over-enthusiastic scrambling[7]. Only one is an original: The Scream, one of the eight versions by Munch, stolen this year from the Munchmusect in Oslo !” He stopped, stealing a glance at me. “How did you steal it?” he asked in a deep-toned voice, authoritative, one that does not brook rebuke. “And all the others stolen from museums, private collectors and galleries ? Just how do you do it ?” I cringed, feeling engulfed in a welter of confusion.

Mouth agape, I stammered : “I’m not a thief … I sell paintings for Gustav Beekhof, that’s all. I know nothing about where the paintings come from, except that …”

“I shall repeat the question once again,” retorted that deep-toned voice: “How do you steal them ?”

I stepped back. The whole affair was becoming a nightmare. “I told you I sell paintings for Gustav …”

My interrogator bent over the table and slapped me twice in the face. The violence sent me reeling backwards into some wooden statues. He circled round the table and stood menacingly over me. “We have been following your doings for months and months Mr Gustav Beekhof. Your repugnant affair has brought death and destruction to many innocent people.”

“Please, I don’t understand …”

“Shut up and listen !” And he punched me in the stomach, doubling me over. “Interpol shall be here in a moment or two to question you. But I would suggest you tell me everything here and now, for their methods are far from savoury.”

“Really … I’m not Gustav Beekhof … my name is Vigilius Notabene …”

“Oh really ?Vigilius Notabene ? Well now, Mr Notabene, let me inform you that you have been selling stolen paintings and forgeries to underworld criminal organisations and terrorist groups. Do you understand what that means Mr Notabene ? That means with the money they earn by selling what you have sold them for double or triple your amount, they buy arms to execute military personal and politicians, bombs to blow up train stations and aeroports. Did you think you could continue your lucrative affair with impunity ?” He grasped my collar, his face screwed up.

Suddenly, the shop door swung open. Three or four burly men dressed in civilian clothes wove their way towards us. They took me by the arms whilst the Armenian slapped me repeatedly across the face. I began to swoon. He turned to the men: “Gustav says his name is Vigilius Notabene.”

“But … I’m not Gustav !” I whimpered.

“Shall I juggle your memory ?” continued the Armenian. And that powerful fist drove into my chest. I cried out, hanging limp in the strong arms of the agents who looked on indifferently. “No, I’ll tell you your real name. Javier Fuentes, born and raised in Madrid, lover of bullfights and flamenco music. You left Spain for Holland where you changed your nationality and became Gustav Beekhof, amateur painter, counterfeiter and arch-cozen. Do you think we would never get on to your little affair ?” Again that hairy fist ploughed into my ribs.

I gasped for air. In low voices, the agents spoke to the Armenian in Dutch and in Turkish. I was amazed that I understood every word that was said. “Yes, yes Mr Beekhof, you understand everything we are saying. Polyglot, dilettante painter and musician, intrepid thief and casual traveller — it has taken us a while to corner you. And here we all are in my little shop. Cozy, eh ?”

A blow to the midriff sent me hurtling against a gaggle of porcelain geese, where I then slid squirming to the floor breaking the necks of two ! The agents violently grabbed my long, blond hair and stood me up.

“I’ll give you Gustav’s address …” I managed to gasp, my mouth filling with blood. Two agents squeezed my rounded shoulders so hard that I buckled over.

“Still on about Gustav, eh ? There is no Gustav Beekhof in Amsterdam on a barge. Gustav is right here in front of me, and there he will remain until he tells us the truth … If not …” I lifted my arms to ward off a blow, albeit none came.

“Come, come Gus, your mind has been unsettled by all these false identities ; all these wanderings in and out of cheap hotels, dealing with a bunch of thugs and killers. Fifteen percent ? Why give yourself fifteen percent when you deposit the rest in your own name in a Dutch bank account ? You must be completely daft!” I stared at my interrogator in disbelief. How did he know such precise details ?

“We know everything about you, Gussy!” as if reading my mind. “Everything except how you managed to steal these paintings from the museums. That remains a mystery to us all.”

“I’m Vigilius Notabene, born in Gotland on a farm. My parents died when I was thirteen so I left for Holland, Spain and France. In France …”

“Enough!” The Armenian began pummelling me. The agents stopped him. Then I heard the door of the shop swing open. I caught a glimpse of four men dressed in white ; tiny, white skull-caps coiffed their bald heads. They forced me into a straitjacket and hurried me into an ambulance. I was given an injection and that is all I remember until now …

I awoke in a small room, an all ghost-white room: white walls, door, window bars, curtains, bed and bedsheets, writing table. The whiteness pricked my eyes. My arms were strapped to my sides ; they had straitjacketed me. I lay helplessly surrounded by all this monochromatic melodrama.

One day a man, dressed in white whisked into the room, threw me a cursory glance, laid a notebook and pen very carefully on the white, metal table then strode to the bedside. He undid the straps of the straitjacket, pointed to the notebook on the table, and left as quickly as he came, wordlessly.

I stretched my stiff limbs and sat at the table. I had no idea where I was, and no one to turn to: no family, no friends, no lawyers … no one. I stared down at the white, lineless, notebook pages. Yes, I knew what they wanted from me. Ah, Gustav, you are a slippery sod. Here you are at last slipping out of that phantasmagoria of so many faces and places. So many existences that never existed! Take note that Vigilius Notabene will expose the truth of the past. As to Javier Fuentes, he had no future. Gustav is the true wayfarer, the ever-questing pilgrim present, here and now.

So in a renewed state of extreme excitement I now record on those very white pages :

“I met Gustav Beekhof whilst travelling in North Africa…”

[1] A small bar or tavern where people eat, drink and listen to flamenco music if there is a guitarist and a singer present.

[2] ‘Shambles, disorder, mess’.

[3] American painter ‘1930- ).

[4] Dutch painter (1635-1681)

[5] Norwegian painter (1880-1928)

[6] To spit in the soup’.

[7] A technique that allows to paint over areas of a painting to enhance the tone of dark-coloured areas.

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Contents

Borderless August 2023

Editorial

Other Echoes in the Garden… Click here to read.

Interviews

Ujjal Dosanjh, former Minister from Canada and former Premier of British Columbia, discusses his autobiography, Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canada, and the need for a world with less borders. Click here to read.

Professor Fakrul Alam discusses his new book of Tagore translations, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore. Click here to read.

Translations

Tagore’s Musalmanir Galpa (A Muslim Woman’s Story) has been translated from Bengali by Aruna Chakravarti. Click here to read.

Masud Khan’s poem, In Another Galaxy, has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Wakeful Stays the Door, a poem by Munir Momin, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Dangerous Coexistence, written in Korean and translated by Ilhwah Choi. Click here to read.

Proshno or Questions by Tagore has been translated by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Pandies Corner

Songs of Freedom: An Ordinary Tale is a narrative by Nandani based on her own experiences, translated from Hindustani by Janees. These narrations highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and Pandies. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Jared Carter, Rhys Hughes, Malachi Edwin Vethamani, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Saranyan BV, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, A Jessie Michael, Jahnavi Gogoi, George Freek, Koushiki Dasgupta Chaudhuri, David Francis, Akil Contractor, Michael Burch

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In An Experiment with Automatic Poetic Translation, Rhys Hughes auto translates an English poem sequentially through 28 languages and then back to English with hilarious results. Click here to read.

Musings/ Slices from Life

Mister, They’re Coming Anyway

Timothy Jay Smith writes on the refugee crisis in Lesbos Island, Greece with photographs by Michael Honegger. Click here to read.

Migrating to Myself from Kolkata to Singapore

Asad Latif explores selfhood in context of diverse geographies. Click here to read.

Islands that Belong to the Seas

Paul Mirabile muses on how humans are like migrants on islands borrowed from the seas. Click here to read.

Of Dreams, Eagles and Lost Children

Aysha Baqir muses on the narrow, closed borders that condemn children. Click here to read.

Mushroom Clouds and Movies: Response from a Hibakusha’s Daughter

Kathleen Burkinshaw discusses Oppenhiemer the movie. Click here to read.

Sleepless in the High Desert, Slumber in the Sierra

Meredith Stephens covers Nevada to Columbia in a car with her camera. Click here to read.

My Hostel Days

Ravi Shankar reminisces on bygone days. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In The Amateur Professional, Devraj Singh Kalsi writes of a amateur who thought of himself as a professional. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In How I Wound Up in Japan, Suzanne gives her story as an immigrant. Click here to read.

Essays

A Different Persuasion: On Jane Austen’s Novels & their Adaptations

Deepa Onkar delves into the world of Jane Austen books and films. Click here to read.

A Foray into Andamans

Mohul Bhowmik explores Andaman with a camera and narrative. Click here to read.

Bhaskar’s Corner

In Chittaranjan Das: A Centenary Tribute, Bhaskar Parichha discusses the life of one of the most legendary Odia writers. Click here to read.

Stories

Belacan

Farouk Gulsara shares a story based on the life of a migrant in 1950s. Click here to read.

The Japanese Maple

Shivani Shrivastav weaves a story of friendship and loneliness among migrants. Click here to read.

The Coin

Khayma Balakrishnan explores human and supernatural interactions in a school setting in Malaysia. Click here to read.

The Vagrant

Reeti Jamil narrates a strange tale set in a village and told by a farmer. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Ujjal Dosanjh’s Journey After Midnight: A Punjabi Life from Canada to India. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World and Other Garden Adventures, by M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Amitav Ghosh’s Smoke and Ashes: A Writer’s Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy reviews Greening the Earth: A Global Anthology of Poetry, edited by K. Satchidanandan & Nishi Chawla. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Arunava Sinha’s The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told: Fifty Masterpieces from the Nineteenth Century to the Present. Click here to read.

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

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

Tags A Jessie Michael, A Journey After Midnight: A Punjabi Life from Canada to India, Akil Contractor, Amitav Ghosh, Andaman, Aruna Chakravarti, Arunava Sinha, Asad Latif, Aysha Baqir, Balochi, Bengali, Bhaskar Pariccha, British Columbia, Canada, Chittaranjan Das, Columbia, David Francis, Deepa Onkar, Devraj Singh Kalsi, Fakrul Alam, Farouk Gulsara, Fazal Baloch, George Freek, Girija Viraraghavan, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore, Greening the Earth: A Global Anthology of Poems, Hibakusha, Ihlwha Choi, Jahnavi Gogoi, Jane Austen, Janees, Japan, Jared Carter, K. Satchidanandan, Kathleen Burkinshaw, Korean, Koushiki Dasgupta Chaudhuri, Lesbos Island, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, M.S. Viraraghavan, Malachi Edwin Vethamani, Masud Khan, Meredith Stephens, Michael Burch, Michael Honegger, Migrant, Mitali Chakravarty, Mohul Bhowmick, Munir Momin, Musalmanir Galpa, Nandani, Nevada, Nishi Chawla, Oppenheimer, Pandies, Paul Mirabile, Ravi Shankar, Reeti Jamil, Refugee crisis, Rhys Hughes, Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World and other Garden Adventures, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Saranyan BV, Shaktishalini, Shivani Shrivastav, Smoke and Ashes: A Writer’s Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories, Somdatta Mandal, Suzanne Kamata, Tagore, The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told: Fifty Masterpieces from the Nineteenth Century to the Present, Timothy Jay Smith, Translations, Ujjal Dosanjh

Editorial

Other Echoes in the Garden…

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date August 14, 2023
No Comments on Other Echoes in the Garden…

“Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them…”

— TS Eliot, ‘Four Quartets: Burnt Norton’(1936)

Humans have always been dreamers, ideators and adventurers.

Otherwise, could we have come this far? From trees to caves to complex countries and now perhaps, an attempt to reach out towards outer space for an alternative biome as exploring water, in light of the recent disaster of the Titan, is likely to be tougher than we imagined. In our attempt to survive, to live well by creating imagined constructs, some fabrications backfired. Possibly because, as George Orwell observed with such precision in Animal Farm, some perceived themselves as “more equal”. Of course, his was an animal allegory and we are humans. How different are we from our brethren species on this beautiful planet, which can survive even without us? But can humanity survive without Earth? In science fiction, we have even explored that possibility and found home among stars with the Earth becoming uninhabitable for man. However, humanity as it stands of now, continues to need Earth. To live amicably on the planet in harmony with nature and all the species, including our own, we need to reimagine certain constructs which worked for us in the past but seem to have become divisive and destructive at this point.

Ujjal Dosanjh, former Minister in the Canadian cabinet and former Premier of British Columbia, in his autobiography, Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canada, talks of regionalism as an alternative to narrow divisive constructs that terrorise and hurt others. He writes in his book: “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.” We have a candid conversation with him about his beliefs and also a powerful excerpt from his autobiography.

An interview with Professor Fakrul Alam takes us into Tagore’s imagined world. He discussed his new book of Tagore translations, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore. He has brought out a collection of 300 songs translated to English. In a bid to emphasise an inclusive world, we also have a translation of Tagore’s ‘Musalmanir Galpa’ (A Muslim Woman’s Story) by Aruna Chakravarti. A transcreation of his poem, called ‘Proshno or Questions’ poses difficult challenges for humanity to move towards a more inclusive world. Our translation by Ihlwha Choi of his own Korean poem to English also touches on his visit to the polymath’s construct in the real world, Santiniketan. All of these centring around Tagore go to commemorate the month in which he breathed his last, August. Professor Alam has also translated a poem from Bengali by Masud Khan that has futuristic overtones and builds on our imagined constructs. From Fazal Baloch we have a Balochi translation of a beautiful, almost a surrealistic poem by Munir Momin.

The poetry selections start with a poem on ‘Wyvern’, an imagined dragon, by Jared Carter. And moves on to the plight of refugees by Michael Burch, A Jessie Michael, and on migrants by Malachi Edwin Vethamani. Ryan Quinn Flanagan has poetry that suggests the plight of refugees at a metaphorical level. Vibrant sprays of colours are brought into this section by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Saranyan BV, Jahnavi Gogoi, George Freek and many more. Rhys Hughes brings in a spot of humour with his mountainous poetry (literally) and a lot of laughter with his or rather Google’s attempt at automatic translation of a poem. Devraj Singh Kalsi has shared a tongue in cheek story about an ‘amateur professional’ — rather a dichotomy.

We travel to Andaman with Mohul Bhowmick and further into Sierra with Meredith Stephens. Ravi Shankar travels back in nostalgia to his hostel and Kathleen Burkinshaw dives into the past — discussing and responding to the media presentation of an event that left her family scarred for life, the atomic holocaust of 1945 in Japan. This was a global event more than seven decades ago that created refugees among the survivors whose homes had been permanently destroyed. Perhaps, their stories are horrific, and heart wrenching like the ones told by those who suffered from the Partition of India and Pakistan, a divide that is celebrated by Independence Days for the two nations based on a legacy of rifts created by the colonials and perpetrated to this day by powerbrokers. Aysha Baqir has written of the wounds suffered by the people with the governance gone awry. Some of the people she writes of would have been refugees and migrants too.

A poignant narrative about refugees who flock to the Greek island of Lesbos by Timothy Jay Smith with photographs by Michael Honegger, both of whom served at the shelters homing the displaced persons, cries out to halt wars and conflicts that displace them. We have multiple narratives of migrants in this issue, with powerful autobiographical stories told by Asad Latif and Suzanne Kamata. Paul Mirabile touches on how humans have adopted islands by borrowing them from seas… rather an unusual approach to migrations. We have an essay on Jane Austen by Deepa Onkar and a centenary tribute to Chittaranjan Das by Bhaskar Parichha.

The theme of migrants is echoed in stories by Farouk Gulsara and Shivani Shrivastav. Young Nandani has given an autobiographical story, translated from Hindustani to English by Janees, in which a migration out of various homes has shredded her family to bits — a narrative tucked in Pandies Corner. Strange twists of the supernatural are woven into fiction by Khayma Balakrishnan and Reeti Jamil.

In reviews, Parichha has explored Arunava Sinha’s The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told: Fifty Masterpieces from the Nineteenth Century to the Present. Somdatta Mandal’s review of Amitav Ghosh’s Smoke and Ashes: A Writer’s Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories seems to be an expose on how historical facts can be rewritten to suit different perceptions and Basudhara Roy has discussed the Greening the Earth: A Global Anthology of Poetry, edited by K. Satchidanandan and Nishi Chawla.

There is more wonderful content. Pop by our August’s bumper edition to take a look.

I would like to give my grateful thanks to our wonderful team at Borderless, especially to Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork. Huge thanks to all our gifted contributors and our loyal readers. Borderless exists today because of all of you are making an attempt to bringing narratives that build bridges, bringing to mind Lennon’s visionary lyrics:

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Thank you for joining us at Borderless Journal.

Have a wonderful month!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Visit the August edition’s content page by clicking here

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

Tags Amitav Ghosh, Animal Farm, Arunava Sinha, Asad Latif, August, Aysha Baqir, Balochi, Basudhara Roy, Bengali, Bhaskar Pariccha, Bhaskar Parichcha, Burnt Norton, Chittaranjan Das, Deepa Onkar, Devraj Singh Kalsi, Earth, Farouk Gulsara, Fazal Baloch, Four Quartets, George Freek, George Orwell, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore, Greek, Greening the Earth: A Global Anthology of Poems, Hiroshima, Holocaust, Ihlwha Choi, Independence Days, India, Jane Austen, Janees, Japan, Jared Carter, Jhanavi Gogoi, Journey After Midnight - A Punjabi Life: From India to Canada, K. Satchidanandan, Kathleen Burkinshaw, Khayma Balakrishnan, Korean, Lennon, Lesbos, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozabal, Malachi Edwin Vethamani, Masud Khan, Meredith Stephens, Michael Honegger, Mitali Chakravarty, Mohul Bhowmick, Munir Momin, Musalmanir Galpa, Nandini, Nishi Chawla, Pakistan, Pandies Corner, Paul Mirabile, Proshno, Ravi Shankar, Reeti Jamil, Rhys Hughes, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Santiniketan, Saranyan BV, Shivani Shrivastav, Sierra, Smoke and Ashes: A Writer’s Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories, Sohana Manzoor, Suzanne Kamata, Tagore, Timothy Jay Smith, TS Eliot, Ujjal Dosanjh, Wyvern

Musings

Islands that Belong to the Seas

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date August 14, 2023
No Comments on Islands that Belong to the Seas

By Paul Mirabile

Islands belong to oceans and seas and lakes. They are born within the deepest depths of the marine underworld like infants in the depths of their mothers’ wombs. Born often from surging volcanic eruptions, the molten lava hardens into rock. The rock is smoothed by ocean-swept sands that turn fecund over time. They are gradually populated by migrating birds who rest their weary wings and deposit seeds from which sprout rich and luxuriant vegetation. To these shingled or sandy shores, little by little, pirates, buccaneers, conquistadors, renegades, the exiled or self-exiled, slaves, missionaries and migrant workers come to explore and eventually settle.

They all come flocking to this primordial land floating in the waters of the world, birds and humans, animals too follow. Bees buzz their contentment, donkeys hee-haw, goats baa and mosquitoes whine. And yet the islands do not belong to any one of these creatures. They belong to the oceans and seas and lakes — their creators and benefactors.

Ah! The birth of an island! The centre of which rises high above those shingled or sandy shores, the dense jungles or arid scrub, where Vulcan in rampant rage had spat out smouldering rock and tongues of lava. There they now waft as if levitating from their aqueous-bed, home to a new Humanity …

Since my childhood, whenever I poured over maps my eyes would invariably fall on the islands that dotted the oceans or seas or lakes of our world. They held a more significant, a more imaginative, a stronger attraction for me, ones with which I could empathise. For Sicily was my genealogical point of attachment on those maps, a legacy of thirteen civilisations or so which had landed, settled or departed, leaving their immemorial traces both on the land, in the architecture, in our very mixed genes. Sicily is a perfect ‘officina‘[1] which I translate as the ‘melding of Humanity’ !

I day-dreamed while pouring over those frazzled maps and islands, whilst reading Jules Vernes’ Mysterious Island and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Actually, I don’t believe that I love islands because of those novels (or any other), but they did arouse in me a sense of friendship, affection and human compassion towards islands because of the extraordinary diversity of their errant or settled communities, their many languages and customs, their manifold landscapes. Languages that have forged the hybrid compositions of Creole, forged inter-marriages, forged populations whose quotidian merges into the hybrid species of fauna and flora.

I read and read again and again the fabulous tale of Hayy Ibn Yaqzān[2] who lived on his uninhabited island amongst the plants, trees and animals, all alone in wondrous solitude, learning from them: his human qualities, his religion, his love of humanity and sympathy for every quintessential being or object that came into contact with him — be it mineral, vegetal, animal or eventually human …

Islands are bursting with nature and nature is a friend of humanity, thus islands are bursting with friendship — bursting with hybrid species … like their ethnicities and their languages. Even when Nature can become an enemy, this enmity offers islanders the possibility of strength and force through trial and error. When storms arise, they build sturdier homes. When dangerous interlopers reach their shores, they offer hospitality and eventual integration. Perilous sea creatures and beating waves against boulders demand of islanders to muster their ingenuity and imagination. To cultivate friendship, virtue ; to draw closer to one another ; to be able to live only in a way that conforms to Nature … to an island’s generous and bountiful treasures ; to befriend Nature and Humanity, for they are equal in diversity and disinterestedness.

I suddenly stopped dreaming of islands as they pinched with patriotism, narrow nationalism, circumscribed communitarianism. I stopped dreaming of islands and with my fingers touched Sicily, Cuba, Cyprus, Malta, Madeira, and the Princess Islands stringing out in the Marmara Sea. I slid them upon the island of Olkhon on Lake Baikal in Russia, the oldest and deepest in the world; an island where Shamanism, the oldest religion of the world, and Orthodox Christianity vie in relative peacefulness. There my fingers brushed against layers of civilisation, of ethnic blending, of howling winds and raging white-crested waves off boulders and high cliffs and laughing seagulls on the wing. There I heard a myriad of languages spoken by the communities of Humanity both in the public and the private domains: Greek, Turkish, Sicilian, Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Russian, Arabic, Jewish-Spanish, Norman, Armenian and so on. There swelled dark secrets of mythical creatures, of legendary figures whose wild wisdom infused a shroud of enigma that piqued my curiosity towards the universal sympathy that exudes from those aforesaid islands: the fragrance of bougainvillaea, wisteria, honeysuckle and jasmine, of ossified forests laden with the ice of deep winter, of the briny sea spray of stoic rocks, of cries of fishermen at the docks and those of traders at the markets. When I lift my finger that sacred moment, that spell which has been cast upon me vanishes from my waking state …

To Sicily, Cuba, Malta, Madeira Cyprus, Olkhon and to the Princess Islands I weighed anchor and set sail on various shaped vessels — ships that cleaved the high seas or navigated the coasts. At dawn upon disembarking, the colours of the skies drip from violet to orange to red to blue. The fishermen at the harbours or docks always asked me: “How do you like it ?”

“What, the island ?”

“Yes.”

“There is no point on Earth that rivals an island,” I would always repeat in sympathetic earnest.

On shore, wherever that shore be, we would drink coffee or tea in one of the wooden cooperatives for fishermen, traders and sailors. Chickens cackled, dogs barked, seagulls laughed whilst glasses and conversation chimed out the tunes of the islanders’ community spirit: tunes chanted in many tongues, gesticulated in many forms. I broke bread and filled my glass, observing the leathern faces of these hard-working tradesmen mending their nets, fitting their poles, scraping or painting their sea vessels … accomplishing their livelihood together as a whole.

“The wind is blowing from the southeast,” a rough-looking chap declared for all to ponder upon.

“That’s rain !” shouted another with a slight nod of his head.

And then I fell asleep in my bungalow and dreamt of dancing boats and throngs of fishermen talking about their fortunes or misfortunes. Villagers living near the rising waves filled my sleep with their colourful robes or coiffeurs, their daily gestures of sympathy to both nature and humanity.

Pouring over maps filled my childhood. Fingering the points that we call islands submerged me in oceanic rhapsody. Entire archipelagos coiling from North to South and West to East pervaded my soul with the rhythmic cadence of their tides. And as the tides beat out cosmological tunes, my dreams ended. I woke and embarked on many an island adventure in Sicily, Madeira, Cuba, Cyprus, Olkhon, Malta and on the Princess Islands. Points on the map became the unchartered lands of my great middle age sympathetic adventure. I had returned to the lands of my ancestors ! Ships had bore me to those points of human sympathy, exploring fantastic landscapes, communicating in innumerable tongues. There I breathed the air of island sovereignty, simplicity, silence and solitude.

I lived happily on all those islands. And in spite of certain prejudices and intolerances, I rejoiced living with the islanders who are good, heroic, honest and fair in their daily commerce. Who earn their daily living by the sweat of their brow and by the devotion to one another, whoever be that one or other. Inside the cafés faces furrowed by wind and sun concentrated on their drink or their cards or dominoes, whilst outside, hands hardened by generations of toil and moil, mended nets, built boats, cut fish, rowed boats. I rejoiced at all those acts of universal friendship.

I lived happily, intermingling with the melded species of plants, birds and humanity — not only as a spectator, but as an actor: the spectator who observes himself acting, and the actor who perceives his observations. Like in a dream … day and night !

It seemed to me like paradise. Paradise, a word derived from the Old Persian ‘pairidaëza‘ which meant ‘enclosure, a place walled in’: walled in or enclosed by its creator — the water ! But its meaning shifted when read by the Hebrews and became ‘pardēs‘ ‘a garden’. The Garden of Eden ? Yes, a garden so pristine and divine, yet possessing that infamous apple tree of the forbidden fruit. All paradises can descend into the bowels of Hell if tempted by a slithering, sly, snaky and insidious interloper … As we shall soon see !

At present the tides of time have consumed my youth, so I have decided to write a humble meditation about my mingling amongst the islanders of so many islands, of so many archipelagoes. I see them all from the porch of my bungalow, stretching out like a necklace of pearls. A pearly necklace cast in its oceanic casket. So I write and wander upon the silent, deserted roads of the many islands that I have treaded; that I have seen, touched, smelt and tasted. The time has hence come to render homage to those islands, to the nature of those islands, to the nature of those populations.

At this point, I expect readers will retort and point out that not all islands should benefit from such a distinguished homage: How about Cyprus, and the Turkish-Greek conflict ? And Sri Lanka and the terrible war that raged between 1983 and 2010 ? Japan and England, too, big islands indeed but islands, nevertheless. Was the subjugation of Welsh, Scot and Irish not enough? No, those English islanders set out on the high seas to subjugate other ethnic communities … other islands! The first being Ireland, invaded in the XIVth century and conquered uninterruptedly by Henry the Eighth and Oliver Cromwell. The ‘de-Irelandising’ of the island, or more appropriately formulated, the genocidal ‘civilising mission’ produced exile, persecution, misery and death until the founding of the Irish Free State in 1921 and finally the Republic of Ireland in 1949![3]

Were the Japanese not content to eliminate any foreign intrusion on their precious island ? No, they set out to decimate and enslave the ethnic communities that thrived on the islands of the Pacific: Guam, Wake Island, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, the Aleutian Islands, etc. Japan’s violent and bloody imperialism during WW II, and England’s century’s long brutal colonisation have marked all our History books and memories of their so called ‘civilising missions’. Be it the imperialistic brutality in the lands of the rising sun or that of the setting, as the French say: c’est bonnet blanc et blanc bonnet ![4]

Yes, these counter examples are, alas, historically documented. Are they then accidents of history or sorrowful exceptions? I will answer that in the case of Cyprus, the Cypriots, a fine blend of Greek and Turkish ethnic commingling since the Middle Ages, with a sprinkling of English since King Richard the Lion Heart (1191), became the unfortunate victim of Britain’s ‘civilising mission’. One needs only to read Lawrence Durrell’s Bitter Lemons of Cyprus[5]to understand the sad and tragic events that erupted in the 1950s and their never-ending aftermath and continuity. Cyprus belongs neither to Greece nor to Turkey (and certainly not to Great Britain), but to the Cypriot Greek and Turk, who in turn know perfectly well that their grand island for centuries has always belonged and will always belong to the brilliant whiteness of the Mediterranean Sea! The tragedy that befell this island sprang from the combined effort of British cynicism, Greek nationalism and Turkish overweening military reaction.

As to Sri Lanka, Sinhalese and Tamils had been living together since the twelfth century, assuredly not under the most perfect idyllic neighbourly conduct, yet the intermingling populations, be they Hindu, Christian or Budddhist, carried out their daily lives without too many eruptive disturbances. It was only with the full British conquest in 1815, and their fancied game of pitting one community against another, there, favouring the Tamil populations of the island, that a slow but steady bitterness, rancour and animosity grew within the Sinhalese population. The pent-up enmity exploded as soon as the British abandoned their ‘mission’, leaving both communities in a sort of political vacuum: Who was to govern? Who was to replace the ‘civilisers’ once they decamped without preparing Sinhalese and Tamil for self-rule, as the British had always done in the benignity and magnanimity of their decolonisation? The vacant legacy they left behind was rapidly filled with ethnic rivalry, exposed to Sinhalese vindictiveness and Tamil claims to share power and land in spite of their minority status. Each community claimed their rights as the deprived community at the expense of one another, a situation so similar to the void left behind by the British in Cyprus. The dramatic events that followed became the final act in the history of Britain’s ‘civilising mission’ performance …

In these two cases, the two communities, forsaken victims of the British colonial mindset, instead of achieving ethnic unity, wallowed in the abysmal chasm of oblivion. Islands that could be paradises plunged into the throes of Hell !

To conclude, an island belongs to the vast waters that enshrine it, as its etymology translates: a ‘land’ in ‘water’. Islands do not belong to imperialists or colonialist powers ; they belong to the oceans or seas or lakes that give birth to them, to the nature that stretches its silken carpet over them, to the ethnic groups or communities that gradually settle upon them, intermingling, trading, marrying, creating together a hybrid or Creole culture worthy of any ‘continental’ civilisation. For this very reason, there should not be any dominate power on an island, or official boundaries which sever communities from one another save the natural one that has nurtured and provided for its very existence: the surging billows and silent tides of their eternal creator …

[1]‘Factory’ or ‘workshop’ of production. It is of Latin origin

[2] An allegory written by Alī Ibn Sinā or Avicenna (950-1037) Hayy Iby Yazqān, the Bird Salāmān and Absāl interpreted and adapted by Ibn Tufayl with the same title, born in Muslim Spain in the XIIth century. See Lenn Evan Goodman, Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy Ibn Yaqzān, gee tee bee, Los Angelos, CA, 2003.

[3]The slaughter of all Irish aristocrats, the prohibition of inter-marriage between Anglo-Normand and Irish and the prohibition of the Gaelic written language in 1592 were part of the English ‘civilising mission’ in Ireland.

[4]‘It all amounts to the same thing’ or ‘It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other’.

[5] Lawrence Durrell, Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, 1957.

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

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

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

Contents

Borderless July 2023

Editorial

As Imagination Bodies Forth… Click here to read.

Translations

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Bangalar Nobbyo Lekhokdiger Proti Nibedon (a request to new writers of Bengali), has been translated from Bengali and introduced by Abdullah-Al-Musayeb. Click here to read.

Poetry on Rain by Masud Khan has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Dancer by Bashir Baidar, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Motherhood: A Tiny Life inside Me, a poem by Sangita Swechcha, has been translated from Nepali by Hem Bishwakarma. Click here to read.

The Wind and the Door, has been written and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.

Megh or Cloud by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Conversation

In conversation with Afsar Mohammad, a poet, a Sufi and an academic teaching in University of Pennsylvania. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Afsar Mohammad, Rhys Hughes, Kirpal Singh, Don Webb, Masha Hassan, Vernon Daim, George Freek, Arya KS, Robert Nisbet, Dr Kanwalpreet , John Grey, Nivedita N, Samantha Underhill, Vikas Sehra, Ryan Quinn Falangan, Saranyan BV, Heath Brougher, Carol D’Souza, Michael Burch

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Productivity, Rhys Hughes muses tongue-in-cheek on laziness and its contribution in making a nation more productive. Click here to read.

Musings/ Slices from Life

Should I stay or should I go?

Keith Lyons muses on our attitude towards changes. Click here to read.

Bangal-Ghoti-Bati-Paati or What Anglophilia did to My Palate

Ramona Sen journeys in a lighter vein through her taste buds to uncover part of her identity. Click here to read.

Awesome Arches and Acrophobia

Meredith Stephens takes us for a fabulous treat of Sierra Nevada mountains with her camera and narrative. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In The Lost Garden, Devraj Singh Kalsi writes of how his sense of wellbeing mingles with plants. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Better Relations Through Weed-pulling, Suzanne Kamata introduces us to an annual custom in Japan. Click here to read.

Essays

The Story of a Land at War with Itself

Ratnottama Sengupta presents the first hand account of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992-1995) from a letter from her brother, who was posted there as part of the peace-keeping troops. Click here to read.

‘Wormholes to other Worlds’

Ravi Shankar explores museums in Kuala Lumpur. Click here to read.

Stories

A Troubled Soul

Mahim Hussain explores mental illness. Click here to read.

The Llama Story

Shourjo shares a short fun piece written from a llama’s perspective. Click here to read.

Mister Wilkens

Paul Mirabile gives a strange tale set in Europe of the 1970s. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Red Sky Over Kabul: A Memoir of a Father and Son in Afghanistan by Baryalai Popalzai and Kevin McLean. Click here to read.

An excerpt from The Blue Dragonfly – healing through poetry by Veronica Eley. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews The Past is Never Dead: A Novel by Ujjal Dosanjh. Click here to read.

KPP Nambiar reviews The Stolen Necklace: A Small Crime in a Small Town by Shevlin Sebastian and VK Thajudheen. Click here to read.

Rakhi Dalal reviews Drop of the Last Cloud by Sangeetha G. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Burning Pyres, Mass Graves and A State That Failed Its People : India’s Covid Tragedy by Harsh Mander. Click here to read.

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

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

Tags Abdullah-Al-Musayeb, Afsar Mohammad, Arya KS, Balochi, Banglar Nobbyo Lekhokder Proti Nibedon, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Baryalai Popalzai, Bashir Baidar, Bengali, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Carol D'Souza, Devraj Singh Kalsi, Don Webb, Dr Kanwalpreet, Drop of the Last Cloud, Fakrul Alam, Fazal Baloch, George Freek, Heath Brougher, Ihlwha Choi, John Grey, Keith Lyons, Kevin McLean, Kirpal Singh, Korean, KPP Nambiar, Masha Hassan, Masud Khan, Michael Burch, Mitali Chakravarty, Nepali, Nivedita N, Paul Mirabile, Rakhi Dalal, Ramona Sen, Ratnottama Sengupta, Red Sky Over Kabul: A Memoir of a Fathe and Son in Afghanistan, Rhys Hughes, Robert Nisbet, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Samantha Underhill, Sangeetha G, Sangita Swechcha, Saranyan BV, Shevlin Sebastian, Shourjo, Sohana Manzoor, Tagore, The Blue Dragonfly – healing through poetry, The Stolen Necklace: A Small Crime in a Small Town, Translations, Vernon Daim, Veronica Eley, Vikas Sehra, VK Thajudheen

Stories

Mister Wilkens

By Paul Mirabile

“Indeed, so fierce was this sense of resistance to change, and so universal were the powers ascribed to it, that in reading the Orientalists one understands that the apocalypse to be feared was not the destruction of Western civilisation but rather the destruction of the barriers that kept East and West from each other.”

This unreferenced passage was found upon the mangled body of a certain Mister Wilkens after he had thrown himself from a speeding night express from Paris to Madrid. I, riding on that train, and possessing a peculiar nature for the bizarre, decided to investigate rhe reasons for such a gruesome suicide. Fortunately, upon arriving in Madrid, I ran into the Englishman who had shared the compartment in which Mister Wilkens had been travelling on that memorable night. I had seen him on the railway tracks whilst the train officials searched the surrounding embankments for the body of the poor man. Apparently, it had been Mister Wilkens’ travelling companion who had alerted the officials. He knew why Mister Wilkens had killed himself but seemed rather parsimonious with the details when questioned by the police or the press, feigning that he was about to fall asleep when the tragic event occurred, and was only awakened by a terrible laugh or scream. (Which we shall soon learn was a blatant lie!)

When I met him in Madrid by some extraordinary chance and bought him a drink at the famous beer saloon at the Plaza Santa Anna, made famous by its association with Ernest Hemingway who drank and got rowdy there, I offered the man money to divulge the reason for the suicide to me. He bluntly refused. I explained my idiosyncrasies towards the bizarre and he, smiling a wicked smile, promised to tell me only if I would not submit the story for publication or spread its contents orally to the press, friends or family until he authorised me to do so. As to my offer of payment, he suggested two hundred quid would do! I agreed all agog, albeit the amount of money seemed to be rather steep. In any case, I assured him that I had neither friends nor family, and that I had no great love for journalists. His story, thus, would be perfectly safe with me.

This was how I came to be the first to put into writing the nature of Mister Wilkens and the reasons for his suicide. Now if readers ask themselves how I’ve managed to publish the testimony without breaking my solemn oath, I would then have to elaborate on the unforeseeable and tragic end of my informer (whose name, by the way, I never learned). But that is yet another story. Permit me to recount this one first.

“We were the only two in the compartment.” My English informant began smugly in a slightly high nasal tone while the air smelt somewhat of that Cambridge midnight lamp oil. “I can genuinely recollect at the train station in Paris that his personality was of a sullen, meek sort, one of a man who had fallen hard, got up, but only to fall again. He wore a tragic, tormented face, and if I recall correctly, every two or three minutes suffered an unsightly twitch under his left eye that made the other eye seem exorbitant. Anyway, once we had left Paris far behind, he engaged in the most singular gambit as regards the way in which he sought to enlist my attention : ‘Have you ever travelled to the Orient ?’ The gambit put so bluntly shook me out of my dreamy thoughts. I noted that his left eye began to twitch as if it sought to put me out even before I ventured an answer.

“‘No I haven’t, although I’ve read many travel writers and adventurers’ tales of the Orient.’

“‘Oh really !’ he snorted in overt contempt. ‘For example ?’

“ ‘Well … there’s Marco Polo.’

“He guffawed : ‘He never left his dingy cell in Venice, the seedy bugger !’ I shrugged my shoulders.

“ ‘I have perused Sir Richard Burton[1].’

“He lifted an appraising eyebrow : ‘Yes, a remarkable polyglot and reader of the Oriental heart ; an ethnologist and anthropologist avant la lettre. He was, nevertheless, a man fraught with prejudices and terribly dogmatic. Alas, a man of his times. Yet, his writings do hold much insight, and so humorous at that. Did he not say that England was just a tiny island ? He secretly despised it for he breathed more spacious air in Asia, Africa and Continental Europe.’ He adjusted his badly knotted tie. ‘Go on …’

“ ‘I’ve read all of Alexandra David-Néel’s novels[2]?’ I pursued with an amused air of a child.

“ ‘Ah ! Now there’s an outstanding, pugnacious explorer ! She outstrips them all — except Burton of course — in intrepidity, intelligence, will-power and writing style. Her sarcasm and irony suit my humour, whilst her practice and research into Buddhism bear the seriousness of any so called specialist or expert.’ He smiled a self-congratulatory smile as if he had brought up the name himself. I must admit that I too was pleased at his overt approval; indeed, to have outsmarted the Brits and the Tibetans through cunning and acumen in order to reach Lhasa on foot safe and sound was a fantastic feat.

“My travelling companion lifted his chin for me to continue my enumeration : ‘Pierre Loti[3] ?’

“He snorted : ‘Please be serious, sir.’ And he yawned.

“‘André Malraux[4],’ I jested.

“He threw up his hands : ‘His novels are wonderful, but his Orient is as imaginary as his imaginary museums.’

“‘Pearl Buck[5] ?’ I countered with excessive decorum as if all this were just a parlour game.

“ ‘Hum … yes, she is the only Westerner who really knew China, more so than the American journalists Louis Strong and Edgar Snow. Read her Nobel Prize speech, it’s an incredible lesson in Chinese literature. Yes, Pearl Buck had a genuine love for the East. Her books plunge us into the remotest depths of twentieth century rural China. The Mother is a sparkling piece of penmanship …’

“ ‘I shall not name all the modern travel-writers to the East whom I have read on my train rides, many of whose narratives are quite dull and stereotyped.’ I rejoined, hoping to put an end to this ridiculous ‘parlour game’.

“ ‘So right you are, sir,’ he beamed. He sat back in his seat fidgeting with the buttons on his vest, some of which were missing. ‘I noted, too ….’

“Our compartment door slid open violently. The conductor practically jumped in demanding our tickets. My heart almost jumped with his jump ! Anyway, we dutifully showed them to him. When he had jumped out, so to speak, Mister Wilkens, although unperturbed by all this jumping about, seemed, none the less, beset by something, his eyes staring blankly at the table aside the window where he had placed a shoulder-bag, perhaps because he had lost the thread of our conversation. He looked up and blurted out: ‘You know sir, I spent over forty years living in the East : Turkey, Syria, Armenia, India, China, Laos, Mongolia, not as a conquering dolt, a cosmopolitan snob or a professional prig, but as a pilgrim in quest of my humane origins.’

“My travelling companion was in a state of unusual excitement. ‘Humane origins ?’ I repeated with a soupçon of irony.

“ ‘Yes, humane origins. I see that you fail to grasp the essence of that formula. Humane is another word for Humanism, my dear fellow. Humane defines our human heritage, the fount of our soul and spirit.’

“Just at that moment several French customs officials slid our door open and asked for our passports. When they were examined and returned, a few minutes later the Spanish police entered and inspected them in the same taciturn manner. As soon as these formalities had been completed we leaned back in our seats.

“I sat politely, absorbed in Mister Wilkens’ rather dark comments, exposed with such bursts of emotion. I swallowed every word he said, albeit the digestion caused me great discomfort. Be that as it may, sceptical at first, I grew somewhat more interested as he rambled on, amused at the man’s gyrating gesticulations, wondering, however, if he had gleaned his monologue from a book or from his own experiences as he so pompously pretended. This being said, I did feel a certain fraternal respect for him, although I will confess that he annoyed me with that composed self-sufficient poise. A poise I had stupidly preened in my old university days at Cambridge; you know, the eloquence of words, however boastful and bombastic, hollowing out dismal logic and stale equations. But I was dead sure that if I hadn’t been to Cambridge, this man would have never even addressed a single word to me. He sniffed out his ‘own kind’ ! But of this ‘kind’ I was particularly sceptical and mistrustful, especially of pedants like him. A sentiment of distrust one encounters in people who throw themselves upon you, spilling out their watered down philosophies or immature phantasies during long hours in trains. To be fair though, I did not detect this incorrigible comportment in Mister Wilkens’ hurried, but measured spurts. His words were solid, linked together like the shiny mail-coats of those fine mediaeval smithies.

“ ‘Are you then not content with your many years spent amongst the populations of Asia ?’ It was a mundane question but…

“ ‘Disorientation …’

“ ‘What ? Disorientation ?’

“ ‘Yes, disorientation, sir. Look at the word closely : ‘dis-‘ apart from and ‘orient’ … I am separated from the Orient … my Orient ; like dis-order, out of order, or dis-jointed, out of joint. Or how does disease appeal to you : out of or separated from ‘ease’, or disaster, out of the harmonious movements of the ‘astres‘ or stars ? The Eastern stars of course. Have I made myself understood ?’ He sneezed.

“I nodded without conviction. That pedantic tone, plus his semantic shenanigans unnerved me as well as that left eye of his which had been twitching with each jerky gesture of head and hands. He then began wringing those hands of his like some sort of maniac, gazing at the top berth above me, starry-eyed.

“ ‘Were you there on mission ?’ I ventured, hoping to regain his attention.

“ ‘Mission ? Yes, my mission ; not there, but here in Europe. I must relocate my orientation here in the West, if that is at all possible, given the fact that I am completely disorientated.’ He scratched that twitching eye peevishly. ‘So many languages and cultures studied and taught all gone up in smoke. A tragic fire has set aflame my life since returning to Europe; it has turned all my dreams to ashes. All my written and spoken words wrapped in the flame of a setting sun! And I can assure you sir, no phoenix will ever arise from them. Once disorientated, always disorientated as they say.’ He reached for his shoulder-bag, pulled out a soft-covered book, opening it at random with a look of disdain.

“I must admit that I found it painstaking to follow Mister Wilkens’ histrionic tirade with any seriousness. There he sat, lofty and smile-less, his head swaying listlessly from one side to the other like a puppet. His twitching eye had become intolerable to look at; I turned my head away and peered out of the window. Darkness had mantled the low-lying countryside in a softness that diverted my attention momentarily from those inflamed words. During this dream-like state, the darkness absorbing me within her lush, humid vortex, it seemed to me — though I am hardly a psychologist — that my travelling companion had experienced a traumatic relationship crisis with peoples of very alien values to his own European ones, a crisis that exhausted and put to trial his intellectual and emotional limits, exhausting him of any margin of repartee, driving him to self-accusation, even to self-maceration. His ‘Oriental’ experiences hardly broadened his vision of the world; on the contrary, they left him in an utter state of culpability. I felt that all his monologuing, if I may use that ugly word, was a confession pronounced before the hour of death. This may be an exaggeration, but I did sense that Mister Wilkens had been touched by some unknown madness, perhaps a loss of identification or an explosion of a multitude of identifications with which he could not cope … nor wished to cope! He made weird grimaces, sighed, fidgeted about in his seat, ignoring me completely until the train pulled into a station. Three minutes later we pulled out. Mister Wilkens had not once raised his eyes from that book, which I am sure he was not reading at all.

“If I remember correctly it was a very cold night, the sky, a crisp, obsidian black, the stars, frozen, and the moon, full and bright. I dare say our compartment was so cold that we were forced to bundle up in our overcoats. Mister Wilkens looked up at me several times from his pretended book-reading, though he displayed no desire for conversation. I broke in on him once, rather bombastically, lauding the French railway system. He nodded apathetically, then plunged his pug nose back into those pages. A few moments later the conductor poked his head in to apologise about the heating that, he promised, should be coming on shortly. I sighed in relief for I was freezing.

“Mister Wilkens cast me a cursory glance: ‘Have you studied things seriously, sir ? I mean the things in life, yourself, for example ?’

“I found the question impertinent, but answered, none the less: ‘Yes I have as a matter of fact … including myself,’ I retorted, holding my head haughtily high. ‘I too have travelled widely.’ He snorted. I remember at that point I had taken off my overcoat, for the heating was slowly coming back on. Mister Wilkens, however, kept his on in spite of the beads of sweat rising to the surface of his high, furrowed forehead. He offered no repartee, thumbing nervously through that book of his.

“I thought to retaliate, judging him an unmannerly upstart: ‘So you consider yourself an Orientalist ?’

“He looked up from his ‘perusing’ and stared at me as if I had insulted him with the grossest of four-lettered words. ‘That is an ugly word,’ he sneered. ‘All your years at Cambridge have taught you nothing. Anyway, to answer your question: no, I am not an Orientalist. Alas, as I have just finished explaining, everything has gone up into smoke: to have learned all those languages for nothing… to have undertaken all those voyages for nothing; to have taught and written for nothing ! Do you understand, sir … For nothing …’

“ ‘But …’

“ ‘But what ? Please, don’t pretend to console or pamper me, I abhor puerile commiseration. For nothing, sir. Do you realise that besides this train from Paris to Madrid back and forth, back and forth …’ A woman threw open our compartment door to step in, but when she saw Mister Wilkens’ twisted face and his twitching eye, she gasped and slammed it shut. He scoffed, fell mute and turned to the window.

“Large snowflakes fell. They formed little rims of melting sleet on the window. The wind whipped them about, giving an impression of so many odd geometric configurations. During that uneasy interlude I searched frantically for something to say. I couldn’t bear that slice of silence arching over us, that biting irony of contempt.

“Before I was able to say what I had finally conjured up to say, he burst brusquely into my crowded thoughts: ‘I must tell you a little story about Sandy, a mate of ours at Cambridge with whom we would go out on Saturday nights to “drink up the town” as the Americans say! There we were, a bit tipsy, carousing with the crowd, having a jolly good time, and Sandy, making a perfect bore of himself. So, to enliven the ambience I mustered everyone’s attention to inform them that I had stuck up for Sandy a week ago. Hearing his name suddenly mentioned, he raised his fat face out of the beer mug and looked blankly at me. I turned to Sandy and said : ”Sandy, how ungrateful you are, just think, I stuck up for you the other day, someone said that Sandy wasn’t fit to live with the pigs and I said that he certainly was !” All of us roared with laughter whilst poor Sandy buried his pasty face in the froth of his beer. In fact the whole pub was howling with laughter. It was truly a smashing night out.’

“Mister Wilkens was choking with laughter. He appeared so pathetic to me. He wore such a cretinous smirk on his twitching face. That revolting anecdote of his was cheap and full of childish contempt. Was he doing this purposely to disgust me, to urge me to get up and leave the compartment? He calmed down and eyed me with a sort of conspiratorial smile: ‘Have you ever thought of taking the Leap, sir ?’ He pushed his tortured face forward waiting for an answer. His hysterical tone had shaken me up a bit. I wished only now to be left alone.

“ ‘The leap ?’ I asked, examining him rather warily. It was an odd word which he emphasised with an accompanying gesture of his hand raised high overhead. He noted the tint of circumspection in my voice. He sneered and threw open our compartment window. Stretching his hand out, he caught the flakes of snow that shone in the half-lit wintry night. I made no move. Cold air rushed into the warmth of the compartment. I nodded towards the window. He feigned to ignore me and his sneer erupted into a series of ugly snickers. I snuggled up in a corner and for an instant thought it best to leave him to his madness. It was becoming frightfully cold, and furthermore, his attitude frightened me, his gestures were nervous, erratic. His face, morose, spiteful. He kept tapping his feet and hands, playing nervously with the frayed ends of the cuffs of his shirt. Was it because of the cold or some inner anxiety? I sensed that he was displeased with the tone of my voice and most probably even disgusted with my company, and was undoubtedly endeavouring to communicate it to me. I sprang to my feet to take leave of him. He grasped my shoulder. His fingers were wiry, hard as steel.

“ ‘Yes, the leap, my good fellow. Leaps are like twilights and rainbows, terribly brief. Do you understand who all those peanuts in a jar are ? No, you have understood absolutely nothing of what I have been saying.’ I stood gaping at him, frozen in terror. He released his grip and in one violent movement pushed me aside against the compartment door. ‘You may plead in my favour that I’ve had my day in the sun; I shan’t disapprove of that banality. But tell me, sir, you, so well cultivated, was it all then just fairy dust ? A forty-year timeless fairy tale existence before … before the plunge into this nightmare, waking up into a dank, grim prison of biological and material utility ? Are we all forbidden to accomplish our dreams ? Must we live out our lives in a stifling cocoon of time- and energy-consuming survival of the fittest ? Well sir, yes, I’ve had my day in the bold, rising sun, but it has since sunk …’ Mister Wilkens threw back his head in the most theatrical fashion, grabbed his book, leapt up on to the table aside the window then rolled out of it without uttering the slightest sound. Confounded, I made no effort to stop him. At length, coming to myself, I ran for the conductor. The rest of the story you know.”

When he had finished his account and his fifth beer (which I had been paying for) I again promised him that I would neither write nor mention this unusual event to anyone. I enquired, however, about the book he had been reading or pretended to be reading in the train. My informer said that he had tumbled out of the window with it cradled in his arms, but no one, apparently, made any effort to find it. I paid him, and without another word, he stood and left the beer-hall.

At this point the reader is undoubtedly eager to know why I have broken my vow and have divulged the tragic end of Mister Wilkens. Well, let me record without going into details that a similar tragedy befell my English informer some months ago on the December 9, 1976, on a night train between Paris and Madrid, so reported El Pais[6]. A large photo of him reminded me that I had never asked him his name, and it was only by the photo that I knew it was my informer. Perhaps he, like Mister Wilkens, had also made the leap, although I doubt whether he dabbled in the field of Orientalism. This being said, I hope these suicides are not contagious, and that because of poor Mister Wilken’s embryonic virus, I too have been contaminated by his travelling companion! To look at it from another point of view, however, I have often wondered about that book; that is, Mister Wilkens’ book which he had held in his arms when he leapt out of the speeding train. My guess is that it may be the key in understanding the reason for killing himself, that and the citation found on him, which I have put into quotation as an epigraph to my narrative, and unfortunately –I must confess– whose author I have never been able to discover. I’m sure the key to the mystery lies in that name of the book.

[1] (1821-1890) British military officer, explorer, erudite, writer and polyglot.

[2] (1868-1969) French explorer, intellectual and writer.

[3] (1850-1923) French military officer, traveller and writer.

[4] (1901-1976) French writer, traveller and Minister of Culture under President General De Gaulle.

[5] (1892-1973) American writer, winner of the Nobe Prize for Literature in 1938, born in China.

[6] The national newspaper of Spain (The Nation)

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Tags Armenia, Cambridge, China, French, general De Gaulle, India, Laos, Marco Polo, Mongolia, Paul Mirabile, Pearl Buck, Sir Richard Burton, Spain, Syria, Turkey

Editorial

Where have All the People Gone?

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date June 14, 2023
No Comments on Where have All the People Gone?

Can humankind ever stop warring and find peace?

Perhaps, most sceptics will say it is against human nature to stop fighting and fanning differences. The first recorded war was fought more than 13,000 years ago in what is now a desert but was green long ago. Nature changed its face. Continents altered over time. And now again, we are faced with strange shifts in climate that could redefine not just the dimensions of the surface area available to humankind but also our very physical existence. Can we absorb these changes as a species when we cannot change our nature to self-destruct for concepts that with a little redefining could move towards a world without wars leading to famines, starvation, destruction of beautiful edifices of nature and those built by humankind? That we could feed all of humans — a theory that won economist Abhijit Banerjee his Nobel Prize in 2019 so coveted by all humanity — almost seems to have taken a backseat. This confuses — as lemmings self-destruct…do humans too? I would have thought that all humanity would have moved towards resolving hunger and facing the climate crises post-2019 and post-pandemic, instead of killing each other for retaining constructs created by powerbrokers.

In the timeless lyrics of ‘Imagine’, John Lennon found peace by suggesting we do away with manmade constructs which breed war, anger and divisions and share the world as one. Wilfred Owen and many writers involved in the World Wars wrote to showcase the desolation and the heartfelt darkness that is brought on by such acts. Nazrul also created a story based on his experience in the First World War, ‘Hena’, translated for us by Sohana Manzoor. Showcasing the downside of another kind of conflict, a struggle to survive, is a story with a distinctive and yet light touch from S Ramakrishnan translated from Tamil by B Chandramouli. And yet in a conflict-ridden world, humans still yearn to survive, as is evident from Tagore’s poem Pran or ‘Life’. Reflecting it is the conditioning that we go through from our birth that makes us act as we do are translations by Professor Fakrul Alam of Masud Khan’s poetry and from Korean by Ihlwha Choi.

A figure who questioned his own conditioning and founded a new path towards survival; propounded living by need, and not greed; renounced violence and founded a creed that has survived more than 2500 years, is the man who rose to be the Buddha. Born as Prince Siddhartha, he redefined the norms with messages of love and peace. Reiterating the story of this legendary human is debutante author, Advait Kottary with his compelling Siddhartha: The Boy Who Became the Buddha, a book that has been featured in our excerpts too. In an interview, Kottary tells us more of what went into the making of the book which perhaps is the best survivor’s guide for humanity — not that we need to all become Buddhas but more that we need to relook at our own beliefs, choices and ways of life.

Another thinker-cum-film maker interviewed in this edition is Vinta Nanda for her film Shout, which highlights and seeks resolutions for another kind of crisis faced by one half of the world population today. She has been interviewed and her documentary reviewed by Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri. Chaudhuri has also given us an essay on a bookshop called Kunzum which continues to expand and go against the belief we have of shrinking hardcopy markets.

The bookshop has set out to redefine norms as have some of the books featured in our reviews this time, such as Rhys Hughes’ latest The Wistful Wanderings of Perceval Pitthelm. The reviewed by Rakhi Dalal contends that the subtitle is especially relevant as it explores what it says — “The Absurdity of Existence and The Futility of Human Desire” to arrive at what a person really needs. Prerna Gill’s Meanwhile reviewed by Basudhara Roy and poetry excerpted from Greening the Earth: A Global Anthology of Poetry, edited by K. Satchidanandan and Nishi Chawla, also make for relooking at the world through different lenses. Somdatta Mandal has written about Behind Latticed Marble: Inner Worlds of Women by Jyotirmoyee Devi Sen, translated by Apala G. Egan and Bhaskar Parichha has taken us on a gastronomic tour with Zac O’Yeah’s Digesting India: A Travel Writer’s Sub-Continental Adventures with the Tummy (A Memoir À La Carte).

Gastronomical adventures seem to be another concurrent theme in this edition. Rhys Hughes has written of the Indian sweets with gulab jamun as the ultimate life saver from Yetis while trekking in the Himalayas! A musing on lemon pickle by Raka Banerjee and Ravi Shankar’s quest for the ultimate dosa around the world — from India, to Malaysia, to Aruba, Nepal and more… tickle our palate and make us wonder at the role of food in our lives as does the story about biryani battles by Anagaha Narasimha.

Talk of war, perhaps, conjures up gastronomic dreams as often scarcity of food and resources, even potable water and electricity is a reality of war or conflict. Michael Burch brings to us poignant poetry about war as Ramesh Karthik Nayak has a poem on a weapon used in wars. Ryan Quinn Flanagan has brought another kind of ongoing conflict to our focus with his poetry centring on the National Day (May 5th) in Canada for Vigils for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women by hanging red clothes from trees, an issue that perhaps has echoes of Vinta Nanda’s Shout and Suzanne Kamata’s poetry for her friend who went missing decades ago as opposed to Rachel Jayen’s defiant poetry where she asserts her womanhood. Ron Pickett, George Freek and Sayantan Sur have given us introspective perspectives in verse. We have more poetry asking for a relook at societal norms with tongue-in -cheek humour by Jason Ryberg and of course, Rhys Hughes with his heartfelt poem on raiders in deserts.

The piece that really brought a smile to the lips this time was Farouk Gulsara’s ‘Humbled by a Pig’, a humorous recount of man’s struggles with nature after he has disrupted it. Keith Lyons has taken a look at the concept of bucket lists, another strange construct, in a light vein. Devraj Singh Kalsi has given a poignant and empathetic piece about trees with a self-reflective and ironic twist. We have narratives from around the world with Suzanne Kamata taking us to Osaka Comic Convention, Meredith Stephens to Sierra Nevada and Shivani Shrivastav to Ladakh. Paul Mirabile has travelled to the subterranean world with his fiction, in the footsteps perhaps of Jules Verne but not quite.

We are grateful to all our wonderful contributors some of whom have not been mentioned here but their works were selected because they truly enriched our June edition. Do visit our contents page to meet and greet all our wonderful authors. I would like to thank the team at Borderless without whose efforts and encouragement our journal would not exist and Sohana Manzoor especially for her fantastic artwork as well. Thank you all.

Wish you another lovely month of interesting reads!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

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Tags Abhijit Banerjee, Advait Kottary, Anagha Narasimha, Apala G. Egan, Aruba, B Chandramouli, Basudhara Roy, Behind Latticed Marble: Inner Worlds of Women, Bhaskar Pariccha, Borderless Journal, Digesting India: A Travel Writer’s Sub-Continental Adventures with the Tummy (A Memoir À La Carte), Fakrul Alam, First World War, George Freek, Greening the Earth: A Global Anthology of Poems, Ihlwha Choi, Imagine, India, John Lennon, Jules Verne, June, Jyotirmoyee Devi Sen, K. Satchidanandan, Korean, Ladakh, Malaysia, Masud Khan, Meanwhile, Meredith Stephens, Michael Burch, Mitali Chakravarty, National Day (May 5th) in Canada for Vigils for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Nazrul, Nepal, Nishi Chawla, Nobel Prize, Osaka Comic Convention, Paul Mirabile, Pran, Prerna Gill, Rachel Jayen, Raka Banerjee, Ramesh Karthik Nayak, Ravi Shankar, Rhys Hughes, Ron Picket, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, S Ramakrishnan, Sayantan Sur, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, Shivani Srivastav, Shout, Siddhartha: The Boy Who Became the Buddha, Sierra Nevada, Sohana Manzoor, Somdatta Mandal, Suzanne Kamata, Tagore, Tamil, The Wistful Wanderings of Perceval Pitthelm, Translation, Vinta Nanda, Wilfred Owen, World War, Zac O’Yeah