Tag: Punjabi

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Editorial

Dancing in May?

Courtesy: Creative Commons
“May is pretty, May is mild,
Dances like a happy child…”

Annette Wynne (Early twentieth century)

Each month is expressed in a different form by nature in various parts of the world. In the tropics, May is sweltering and hot — peak summer. In the Southern hemisphere, it is cold. However, with climate change setting in, the patterns are changing, and the temperatures are swinging to extremes. Sometimes, one wonders if this is a reflection of human minds, which seem to swing like pendulums to create dissensions and conflicts in the current world. Nothing seems constant and the winds of change have taken on a menacing appearance. If we go by Nazrul’s outlook, destruction is a part of creating a new way of life as he contends in his poem, ‘Ring Bells of Victory’ — “Why fear destruction? It’s the gateway to creation!” Is this how we will move towards ‘dancing like a happy child’?

Mitra Phukan addresses this need for change in her novel, What Will People Say — not with intensity of Nazrul nor in poetry but with a light feathery wand, more in the tradition of Jane Austen. Her narrative reflects on change at various levels to explore the destruction of old customs giving way to new that are more accepting and kinder to inclusivity, addressing issues like widow remarriage in conservative Hindu frameworks, female fellowship and ageing as Phukan tells us in her interview. Upcoming voice, Prerna Gill, lauded by names like Arundhathi Subramaniam and Chitra Divakaruni, has also been in conversation with Shantanu Ray Choudhuri on her book of verses, Meanwhile. She has refreshing perspectives on life and literature.

Poetry in Borderless means variety and diaspora. Peter Cashorali’s poem addresses changes that quite literally upend the sky and the Earth! Michael Burch reflects on a change that continues to evolve – climate change. Ryan Quinn Flanagan explores societal irritants with irony. Seasons are explored by KV Raghupathi and Ashok Suri. Wilda Morris brings in humour with universal truths. William Miller explores crime and punishment. Lakshmi Kannan and Shahriyer Hossain Shetu weave words around mythical lore. We have passionate poetry from Md Mujib Ullah and Urmi Chakravorty. It is difficult to go into each poem with their diverse colours but Rhys Hughes has brought in wry humour with his long poem on eighteen goblins… or is the count nineteen? In his column, Hughes has dwelt on tall tales he heard about India during his childhood in a light tone, stories that sound truly fantastic…

Devraj Singh Kalsi has written a nostalgic piece that hovers between irony and perhaps, a reformatory urge… I am not quite sure, but it is as enjoyable and compelling as Meredith Stephen’s narrative on her conservation efforts in Kangaroo Island in the Southern hemisphere and fantastic animals she meets, livened further by her photography. Ravi Shankar talks of his night hikes in the Northern hemisphere, more accurately, in the Himalayas. While trekking at night seems a risky task, trying to recreate dishes from the past is no less daunting, as Suzanne Kamata tells us in her Notes from Japan.

May hosts the birthday of a number of greats, including Tagore and Satyajit Ray. Ratnottama Sengupta’s piece on Ray’s birth anniversary celebrations with actress Jaya Bachchan recounting her experience while working for Ray in Mahanagar (Big City), a film that has been restored and was part of celebrations for the filmmaker’s 102nd Birth anniversary captures the nostalgia of a famous actress on the greatest filmmakers of our times. She has also given us an essay on Tagore and cinema in memory of the great soul, who was just sixty years older to Ray and impacted the filmmaker too. Ray had a year-long sojourn in Santiniketan during his youth.

Eulogising Rabindrasangeet and its lyrics is an essay by Professor Fakrul Alam on Tagore. Professor Alam has translated number of his songs for the essay as he has, a powerful poem from Bengali by Masud Khan. A transcreation of Tagore’s first birthday poem , a wonderful translation of Balochi poetry by Fazal Baloch of Munir Momin’s verses, another one from Korean by Ihlwha Choi rounds up the translated poetry in this edition. Stories that reach out with their poignant telling include Nadir Ali’s narrative, translated from Punjabi by his daughter, Amna Ali, and Aruna Chakravarti’s translation of a short story by Tagore. We have more stories from around the world with Julian Gallo exploring addiction, Abdullah Rayhan with a poignant narrative from Bangladesh, Sreelekha Chatterjee with a short funny tale and Paul Mirabile exploring the supernatural and horror, a sequel to ‘The Book Hunter‘, published in the April issue.

All the genres we host seem to be topped with a sprinkling of pieces on Tagore as this is his birth month. A book excerpt from Chakravarti’s Daughters of Jorasanko narrates her well-researched version of Tagore’s last birthday celebration and carries her translation of the last birthday song by the giant of Bengali literature. The other book excerpt is from Bhubaneswar@75 – Perspectives, edited by Bhaskar Parichha/ Charudutta Panigrahi. Parichha has also reviewed Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canada by Ujjal Dosanjh, a book that starts in pre-independent India and travels with the writer to Canada via UK. Again to commemorate the maestro’s birth anniversary, Meenakshi Malhotra has revisited Radha Chakravarty’s translation of Tagore’s Farewell Song. Somdatta Mandal has critiqued KR Meera’s Jezebel, translated from Malayalam by Abhirami Girija Sriram and K. S. Bijukuma. Lakshmi Kannan has introduced to us Jaydeep Sarangi’s collection of poems, letters in lower case.

There are pieces that still reach out to be mentioned. Do visit our content page for May. I would like to thank Sohana Manzoor for her fantastic artwork and continued editorial support for the Tagore translations and the whole team for helping me put together this issue. Thank you. A huge thanks to our loyal readers and contributors who continue to bring in vibrant content, photography and artwork. Without you all, we would not be where we are today.

Wish you a lovely month.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

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Editorial

Can Love Change the World?

The night has nearly come to an end.
The old year is almost past.
Under this dust, it will lay down
Its worn-out life at last.
Whether friend or foe,      wherever you go,
Old wrongs cast
Away. On this auspicious day,
Old grievances shed as the old year parts.

— Nobo Borshe or on New Year by Tagore
Art by Sohana Manzoor

Mid-April, Thailand celebrates Songkran and Cambodia, Thingyan — water festivals like Holi. These coincide with the celebration of multiple New Years across Asia. Sikhs celebrate Baisakhi. Kerala celebrates Bishu and Tamil Nadu, Puthandu. Nepal celebrates Nava Varsha and Bengal Nobo Borsho or Poila Boisakh. A translation of Tagore’s poem on the Bengali New Year in spirit asks us to dispense with our past angst and open our hearts to the new day — perhaps an attitude that might bring in changes that are so needed in a world torn with conflicts, hatred and anger. The poet goes on to say, “I want to tie all lives with love” but do we do that in our lives? Can we? Masud Khan’s poems on love translated by Professor Fakrul Alam explore this from a modern context. From Korea, Ihlwha Choi tells us in his translation, “Loving birds is like loving stars”. But the translation that really dwells on love bringing in changes is Nabendu Ghosh’s ‘Gandhiji’, translated by Ratnottama Sengupta, his daughter. The short story by Ghosh highlights the transformation of a murderous villain to a defender of a victim of communal violence, towering above divides drawn by politics of religion.

Another daughter who has been translating her father’s works is Amna Ali, daughter of award-winning Punjabi writer, Nadir Ali. In ‘Khaira, the Blind‘, the father-daughter duo have brought to Anglophone readers a lighter narrative highlighting the erasure of divides and inclusivity. A folktale from Balochistan, translated by Fazal Baloch, echoes in the footsteps of ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ — a story that can found in the Andersen’s Fairy Tales published in the nineteenth century. I wonder which narrative had come first? And how did it cross cultures retaining the original ideas and yet giving it a local colour? Was it with traders or immigrants?

That such narratives or thoughts are a global phenomenon is brought to the fore by a conversation between Keith Lyons and Asian Australian poet Adam Aitken. Aitken has discussed his cross-cultural identity, the challenges of travel, writing, and belonging. Belonging is perhaps also associated with acceptance. How much do we accept a person, a writer or his works? How much do we empathise with it — is that what makes for popularity?

Cross cultural interactions are always interesting as Rhys Hughes tells us in his essay titled ‘My Love for RK Narayan’. He writes: “Narayan is able to do two contradictory things simultaneously, namely (1) show that we are all the same throughout the world, and (2) show how cultures and people around the world differ from each other.” The underlying emotions that tie us together in a bond of empathy and commonality are compassion and love, something that many great writers have found it necessary to emphasise.

Mitra Phukan’s What Will People say?: A Novel is built around such feelings of love, compassion and patience that can gently change narrow norms which draw terrifying borders of hate and unacceptance. We carry an excerpt this time from her ‘Prologue’. Somdatta Mandal has reviewed Chitra Banerjee Divakurni’s latest , Independence. Starting from around the time of the Indian Independence too is Song of the Golden Sparrow – A Novel History of Free India by Nilanjan P. Choudhary, which has been discussed by Rakhi Dalal. The Partition seems to colour narratives often as does the Holocaust. Sometimes, one wonders if humanity will ever get over the negative emotions set into play in the last century.

Closer to our times, when mingling of diverse cultures is becoming more acceptable in arts, Basudhara Roy introduces us to Bina Sarkar Ellias’s Ukiyo-e Days…Haiku Moments, a book that links poetry to a Japanese art-form. While a non-fiction that highlights the suffering of workers by enforcing unacceptable work ethics, Japanese Management, Indian Resistance: The Struggles of the Maruti Suzuki Workers by Anjali Deshpande and Nandita Haksar has been reviewed by Bhaskar Parichha. The narrative, he writes, “tells the story of the biggest car manufacturer in India through the voices of the workers, interviewed over three years. They give us an understanding that the Maruti Suzuki revolution wasn’t the unmitigated success it was touted to be when they tell us about their resistance to being turned into robots by uncompromising management.” That lack of human touch creates distress in people’s hearts, even if we have an efficient system of management and mass production is well elucidated in the review.

To lighten the mood, we have humour in verses from Rhys Hughes and Richard Stevenson’s tongue-in-cheek dino poems. Michael Burch’s poetry explores nuances of love and, yet, changes wrought in love has become the subject of poetry by Malachi Edwin Vethamani and Anasuya Bhar with more wistful lines by George Freek highlighting evanescence.  Sutputra Radheye and Jim Landwehr bring darker nuances into poetry while Scott Thomas Outlar mingles nature with philosophical meanderings. We have more poetry by Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Abdul Jamil Urfi and many more exploring various facets of changes in our lives.

These changes are reflected in our musings too. Sengupta has written on how change is wrought on a murderous villain by the charisma of Gandhi in her father’s fiction, as well as this world leader’s impact on Ghosh and her. Devraj Singh Kalsi addresses food fads with a pinch of sarcasm. From Japan, Suzanne Kamata has written of a little island with Greek influences, a result of cultural ties brought in by the emperor Hirohito. Ravi Shankar takes us to Pokhara, Nepal, and Meredith Stephen expresses surprise on meeting a shipload of people from Colorado in the far reaches of the Southern Hemisphere while on her sailing adventures with beautiful photographs. Stories by moderns reflect diverse nuances depicting change. While Brindley Hallam Dennis writes of the passing of an era, PG Thomas integrates the past into the present to reflect how they have a symbiotic structure in the scheme of creating or recreating natural movements through changes wrought over time in his story. Paul Mirabile explores the darker recesses of the human existence in his fiction. As if in continuation, the excerpt from Rhys Hughes’ The Wistful Wanderings of Perceval Pitthelm seems to step out of darker facets of humanity with a soupçon of wit at its best.

To create a world that endures, one looks for values that create inclusivity as reflected in these lines from Charles Chaplin’s My Autobiography, “Mother illuminated to me the kindliest light this world has ever known, which has endowed literature and the theatre with their greatest themes: love, pity and humanity.” This quote starts off a wonderful essay from film-buff Nirupama Kotru. Her narrative carries the tenor of Chaplin’s ‘themes’ to highlight not only her visit to the actor’s last home in Switzerland but also glances at his philosophy and his contributions to cinema across borders.

Our issue rotates around changes and the need for love and compassion to rise in a choral crescendo whirling with the voices of Tagore, Charles Chaplin as well as that of twenty-first century writers. Perhaps this new year, we can move towards a world – at least an imagined world — where love will wipe away weapons and war, where love will take us towards a future filled with the acceptance of myriad colours, where events like the Partition and the Holocaust will be history, just like dinosaurs.

Huge thanks to all our readers and contributors, some of whom may not have been mentioned here but are an integral and necessary part of the issue. Do pause by our April edition. I would also like to give my thanks to our indefatigable team whose efforts breathe life into our journal every month. Sohana Manzoor needs a special mention for her lovely artwork.

Thank you all and wish you a wonderful April.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

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Read reviews and learn more about Monalisa No Longer Smiles: An Anthology of Writings from across the World by clicking here

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Stories

Khaira, the Blind by Nadir Ali

Translated from Punjabi by Amna Ali

Why did I resent Khaira? Rivalry among equals makes sense, but he was just a poor, blind beggar. The first thing that got under my skin was his cry. “Seeing ones! Vision is indeed a blessing! Show sympathy for a blind man’s daughters! In the name of your eyes! In the name of your daughters! O seeing ones!” My wife glances at her purse and then the cash she needs to pay the school fees of our sons, daughters and granddaughters. She always keeps ten rupees for Khaira separately. Ten rupees is a decent amount, even in these days of sky-rocketing costs. And god forbid if one of our children is unwell! Fortune smiles on beggars then.

Our daughter’s daughter was unwell, and we were both worried. “Khair Din, listen carefully!” my wife entreated him.  She handed him a five hundred rupee note with an appeal: “You have to pray for my grand-daughter Khaireya,” as if Khaira were a specialist.

“Lady! God will shower you with blessings as vast as your generous heart!” he exclaimed.

I couldn’t stay quiet. “For heaven’s sake, stop bribing god!”

My wife reacted angrily to my words. “None of that now! The poor have a right to a portion of our earnings.”

“Sweetheart, I didn’t mean it that way. How about a kind glance my way too once in a while!” I said to appease her.

Truth be told, a wall of pious rituals grows between a husband and wife as they get older. Often things end in divorce. It matters little whether the man genuinely loves her or only pretends to do so. Once he is old, the woman makes sure he gets the treatment he deserves. But we were discussing Khaira. Since he irritated the hell out of me, I managed to discover his secret.

I followed his every move as if he were my enemy.

“I have a feeling he is not blind,” I said one day.

“Have some fear of God! He’s been frequenting this neighbourhood for five years,” my wife replied.

“Well, I have a suspicion,” I continued.

“Let’s see you trek through two neighbourhoods in the punishing afternoon heat,” she retorted. “His little girl is the one who suffers in the heat. He is built like a wrestler. Two of me could hide inside him!” I said.

As they say, great discoveries are often right around the corner. I spotted Khaira hopping over a drainage ditch during the rainy season. I announced my findings once I was home. “The scoundrel has been exposed! He is not blind!”

“It must be time to get your eyes tested! You are already hard of hearing. If you could tell the difference between a blind and a sighted person, Rahma would not be our son-in-law today.”

Once again, my wife changed the direction of the conversation. But I remained on the lookout for the enemy. The next day I dragged him inside. As soon as I produced a dagger, Khaira begged for mercy. “Forgive this miserable person. It is his livelihood. I don’t know how to drive or cook for a living. I would have become a servant at a young age if I did. No one takes to begging because he wants to.”

He attempted various explanations. I threatened to turn him in to the police at first, but then decided to present him at my wife’s court. “Appear before the Chaudhrani and confess,” I ordered. I felt vindicated.

But my wife left his fate to Allah. “He will answer to Allah for his deeds. And we will answer for ours,” she declared.

The story did not end here. Khaira left our neighbourhood only to take up begging in the streets of Garden Town. I entertained the thought of stopping the car one day and saying hello. Instead, I ended up forgiving him like my wife had.

*

An unplanned, ramshackle neighbourhood lay along the back of ours. It boasted a tiny market. Late one night, I went to buy cigarettes and Khaira emerged from one of the doorways, all smiles. He seemed like another person. His clothes were spic and span and he held a cigarette between his lips.

“Do you know that man?” I asked Hayata, the cigarette vendor, as I gestured towards the figure walking away from us.

“That is Khaira, the gambler, Chaudhry Saheb,” he replied.

“Gambler?” That persona of his was completely new to me.

“Why else would he hang out with Chabba Butt? To say his prayers?” Hayata asked with a laugh.

My wife would consider what happened next beneath us, but the story took a strange new turn. I didn’t know Chabba Butt personally, but he was a known goon of the area. I went up to him early one morning and asked, “Do you know someone named Khair Din?”

He mistook me for a police officer given how well-dressed I was. “Why the investigation, officer?” he asked.

“Butt Saheb, I am no police officer, just an oppressed citizen. He tricked me out of a large sum of money over the years,” I replied.

“Sir, he is not a behrupiya[1],” Butt went on, “but he is a wonderful actor. He can act deaf, blind, just about anything, it is none of our business. When it comes to gambling, he often loses.”

“Butt Saheb, I too play poker,” I shared. “If I happen to pay you a visit, you won’t have me thrown out would you?”

He tried to dissuade me. “Sir, you belong with your kind at the clubs. Only kanjars and dregs visit this place.”

“Tell me, is this Khaira from the kanjar caste?” I asked.

“No sir, he is a Rajput. He does visit the brothels often though.”

“Ah, he belongs to my fraternity then . . . I didn’t ask out of any enmity . . .  it’s just that he is an interesting fellow. He is a virtuoso, as if he were a behrupiya. Looking at him now, who would guess that he roams the next neighbourhood dressed as a beggar?”

My introduction to Chabba came about thanks to my quest for Khaira. Chabba seemed to be a goon from the bygone days, not the current brand connected with the land mafia or arms smugglers. He was a gambler and gamblers need their den. I was not one of them, but who doesn’t enjoy some wagering and betting now and then. Add the lure of money and the habit can turn deadly. I avoided the club scene. Old age seemed to usher in a kind of boredom. Upscale neighbourhoods like Gulberg and Cantonment reminded me of a graveyard. What is an old man like me supposed to do if he is forbidden alcohol and a second marriage. The tiny market reminded me of the old city. Poverty bothers those who lack spirit, otherwise, the company of the poor is superior to that of the rich. It offers a refuge for those who have endured a beating, a helping hand when one is in a fix. I visited a couple of times and overcame my self-consciousness. The gamblers also shed their discomfort. “Come, respected elder! What do you make of the situation? Will Nawaz Sharif win the election?” What other news was there to mull over . . .The short rounds of poker, rummy and blackjack, with small bets would continue till evening. I would get up and head home once the gambling really gathered steam.

In that company, Khaira was no blind man. He was a loud and loquacious character. Still, he showed some diffidence around me. In any case, he had the strange habit of avoiding eye-contact. Instead of looking at one directly, he would focus on the ground or high above one’s head. His gaze left me feeling strangely uneasy.

Then came the calamity that can finish off an old man. My wife caught me red-handed with Kulsoom. Luckily, I survived. Nothing happened. My class status shielded me. I remained deeply affected. Khaira somehow sensed it. I opened up to him. “I have been exposed. I am very worried!”

“Choose a different neighbourhood!” he suggested mirthfully. “That is a man’s basic nature. He is a deceitful being. There is no choice but to be a blind behrupiya. Now ask yourself: Is Khaira the blind one or me?”

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“Khaira, the Blind” is a translation of the Punjabi story Khaira Annha. It is from Nadir Ali’s short story collection titled Kahani Paraga , published by Suchet Kitab Ghar in 2004 in Lahore. Photo provided by Amna Ali.

[1] A professional pretender who earns money by entertaining people, especially at weddings. Once widespread in South Asia, this profession is now in decline.

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Nadir Ali (1936-2020) was a Punjabi poet and short story writer. In 2006, he was awarded the Waris Shah Award for his collection Kahani Praga. Coming late to writing, particularly fiction, Nadir Ali is credited with spearheading a unique style, blurring the boundaries between significant and petty, artistic and ordinary, primarily due to his preference for and command over the chaste central dialect understood by the majority of Punjabi speakers. He is also noted for writing and speaking about his experiences as an army officer posted in East Pakistan at the height of the 1971 war.

Amna Ali is Nadir Ali’s daughter.  She translated a selection of Nadir Ali’s short stories into English in collaboration with Moazzam Sheikh. The translations were published by Weavers Press in USA in a book titled Hero and Other Stories in 2022. She is a librarian and lives in San Francisco with her husband and two sons.

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Editorial

Whispers of Stones

When the mountains and grass
had life, stones whispered
how the world came to be…

'Stonehenge', Daily Star

And as the world came to be, there was war — war that seems to rage in some part of the world or other. The British Museum has an exhibit which states the first battle was staged 13,000 years ago… in what is now Sudan, long before the advent of written history. This was even before the advent of people who built the ancient Stonehenge which was constructed around 3000-2000 BCE. And battles still continue to rage. The Jebel Sahaba casualties in Sudan 13000 years ago were less than 100. But the current conflicts claim in terms of tens of thousands which prolonged could stretch to millions. The last world war (1939-1945) which lasted for six years had a total of  75-80 million persons who perished. Ukraine-Russia conflict has within five months had a casualty count of more than 14000. And yet weapons and nuclear arms continue to proliferate decimating humanity, nature and towns, destroying homes, erasing ruthlessly and creating more refugees. The only need for such battles seem to be to satiate the hunger of the warlords secure in their impenetrable fortresses while tens of thousands are annihilated and natural or nurtured landscapes lie emaciated, mutilated and polluted.

What would be a good way of ending such wars?

Tagore sought the development of better instincts in humankind as an antidote. He wrote in the last century: “Any teaching concerning man must have human nature for its chief element. How far it will harmonise with human nature is a matter of time.”

With wars getting deadlier and more horrific, we can only try to awaken, as Tagore suggests, the better nature in man to move towards a peaceful world. What would be a more effective way of doing it than writing with the hope of a kinder and accepting future?

For that let us start with translations of the maestro Tagore himself. We have a song about the season — monsoon, ‘Monomor Megher Songi (My Friends, the Clouds)’, translated by Professor Fakrul Alam, a painting by Sohana Manzoor interpreting the lyrics and a transcreation of ‘Nababarsha or New Rains’ was shrunken into a popular Rabindra Sangeet and reduced to twenty lines in English by Tagore himself. The connect with nature is an important aspect that enables humans to transcend petty concerns leading to dissensions of different kinds as evidenced in the maestro’s humorous feline skit, translated by Somdatta Mandal. A translation of Dalip Kaur Tiwana’s ‘The Bus Conductor’ from Punjabi by C. Christine Fair adds zest to this section. Fazal Baloch has translated a folktale from Balochistan involving the supernatural and Ihlwha Choi has taken on the cry for peace on behalf of Ukraine while translating his own poem in Korean. The Nithari column has a story by Jishan in Hindustani, translated to English by Grace M Sukanya, showcasing the struggle of a youngster during the pandemic – rather a sad narrative, which though fictitious has its roots in reality. 

Our poetry section touches upon the timelessness of dissensions and darkness with Michael R Burch’s poem on Stonehenge and Supatra Sen’s poem on Ukraine. This has been allayed by love poetry by Maid Corbic from Bosnia. George Freek’s poem ruffles with its reflective lines. And in the midst of it all, is poetry by Ryan Quinn Flanagan reflecting on the seven stages of man. Will the process of aging or human nature ever change? I wonder if Rhys Hughes can find an answer for that in humorous verses as he has shared in this issue. In his column, Hughes has written about an imagined anthology of short stories.

Our short story section has echoes of humour around felines by Manzoor, somewhat in tune with the mind frame seen in Tagore’s skit on this issue. Humour rings tinged with an apparition in Erwin Coombs’s narrative – should one call it dark humour or is it just his style? Paul Mirabile goes for gothic darkness in his meanderings around Italy.

Strangely, we seem to have a focus on short stories this time. Keith Lyons has interviewed Steve Carr, a journalist, a publisher and writer of 500 short stories who is questing to create a ‘perfect short story’. Reading out excerpts from her short story at a literary festival in Simla, Bollywood celebrity, Deepti Naval, was in conversation with eminent film journalist, Ratnottama Sengupta. She spoke of her literary aspirations while unveiling her autobiography in verse, A Country Called Childhood. This conversation has been shared by Sengupta with Borderless. It is interesting to see how Naval’s reactions to social malaise contrasts with that of the film director, cinematographer and actor, Goutam Ghose, who was present during the unveiling of her book. He had responded to communal violence by making a film on Lalan Fakir extolling virtues of love and kindness, called Moner Manush (2010) and then made a book on the film called, The Quest (2013) which has beautiful translations of Lalan Fakir’s lyrics by Sankar Sen.  

Our non-fiction sections seem to be hosting multiple travel stories across UK by Mike Smith, along the Australian coastline by Meredith Stephens, on the Himalayas with Ravi Shankar and an unusual visit by Hema Ravi to a farm in US where animals that had been used in Disney films in the past are homed. Our environmental columnist, Kenny Peavy, actually wrote about his cycling trip from Thailand to Indonesia on a bamboo cycle made by a Singaporean! And from Japan, Suzanne Kamata explored a museum in the neighbouring town of Mure. The museum on a hill hosts the art of American Japanese Artists, Isamu Noguchi.

We do have non-fiction that moves away from travel: noir humour by Devraj Singh Kalsi and an essay by Candice Louisa Daquin on a very interesting subject – ‘Is it Okay to be Ordinary?’ Is it?  Dan Meloche has written a literary essay on Canadian novelist Andre Alexis’s award-winning novel, Fifteen Dogs: An Apologue (2015). While Meloche spoke of how the novel departed from Orwell’s Animal Farm, his narrative brought to my mind a novel closer to our times set in England by Jasper Fforde called Constant Rabbit (2020) – this a science fiction while Alexis’s was an apologue or an animal fable. Fforde did use the rabbits rather well to highlight the current times.

We have book excerpts of two recent books that I would call really outstanding. One of them is Aruna Chakravarti’s The Mendicant Prince, which is being released this week, and is based on the evergreen contentious case of the prince of Bhawal that has even been explored even in cinema. The other, Dadamoni: The Life and Times of Ashok Kumar by Nabendu Ghosh, has been published posthumously and is not a translation from Bengali but written in English originally by this trilingual writer.  

Called ‘Dadamoni’ affectionately, iconic actor Ashok Kumar is regarded as “the one personality who symbolises Indian cinema’s journey from Bombay Talkies to Bollywood”.  This book has been reviewed by Indrashish Banerjee, who calls it ‘a reflection on the Hindi film industry’ as well as a biography. Rakhi Dalal has reviewed Booker winner Geetanjali Shree’s Mai, Silently Mother, a Sahitya Akademi winning translation of her Hindi novel by Nita Kumar, reiterating the dialogue that had been kindled on motherhood last month by Rinki Roy Bhattacharya and Maithili Rao’s The Oldest Love Story (2022). Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Prosanta Chakrabarty’s Explaining Life Through Evolution plotting how life evolved on earth. Parichha tells us: “Meaningful, wide-ranging and argumentative, this is a must-read book. It will propel us to imagine and reimagine life around us.” Another book that sounds like a must-read has been reviewed by Meenakshi Malhotra, Tagore’s Gleanings of the Road, translated by Mandal. She tells us: “ ‘Gleanings’ represents the quintessential Tagore…Ably introduced and translated by Somdatta Mandal, a renowned Tagore scholar, the translation captures the iridescent and luminous quality of Tagore’s prose and its chiaroscuro effects.”

There is more to tempt. Please stop by on our contents page and take a look.

We would like to hugely thank all our contributors and readers for being with us and helping us grow. I would like to thank my team, who despite hurdles they face, always lend a helping hand and wonderful words from their pens or computers to get Borderless on its feet. I apologise for the delay and thank you all for your patience. Special thanks to Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork.

I wish you all a wonderful July and peace in a war-torn world. We are all affected by the ongoing conflicts. Let us hope for peaceful and just resolutions.

Thanks.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

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Stories

The Bus Conductor by Dalip Kaur Tiwana

Short story by Dr. Dalip Kaur Tiwana, translated from the original Punjabi by C. Christine Fair

Dr Dalip Kaur Tiwana. Courtesy: Creative Commons

Dr. Dalip Kaur Tiwana (4 May 1935 – 31 January 2020) is recognised as one of the most consequential Punjabi authors who substantially contributed to the development of modern Punjabi literature. Prior to her death, she published twenty-seven novels, seven collections of short stories as well as a literary biography. Tiwana was also a distinguished academic. She was the first woman in the region to obtain a Ph.D. from Punjab University in 1963.  She joined the Punjabi University at Patiala from which she retired as a Dean as well as a Professor of Punjabi. Dr. Tiwana garnered innumerable regional as well as national awards within India, including the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award and the Padma Shri, India’s fourth largest civilian honor. She surrendered her Padma Shri in 2015 expressing “Solidarity with other writers who are protesting against the increasing cultural intolerance in our society and politics and the threat to free speech and creative freedom.”

The Bus Conductor

Art by C Christine Fair

The lady doctor, Polly, had been transferred from Nabhe to Patiala. Her family members were trying to get the transfer rescinded. That is why, instead of taking a house and living in Patiala, she got permission from the senior doctor to come from Nabhe every morning by bus and return in the evening.

She felt ill at ease because of the shivering sound of the idling buses, the heat, the sweat, the crowds, the ludicrous indolence of the conductors, and the rude banter. Thinking to herself, “But this is just a matter of days,” she suffered it all. On the days when Jit was on duty for that bus, she would feel a bit comfortable because that conductor seemed to be good natured.

One day, a man asked Jit, “Where does that girl with the bag work?”

Jit said discretely as he was handing over the ticket, “Aho[1] sir!  She is a lady doctor. A very senior lady doctor. People say that her salary is a full three hundred rupees.”

“Sir, these days women are earning more than men. That’s why men are no longer the boss,” said the man as he sat down on a seat nearby.

“Sir, no matter what they earn, girls of a good household still must lower their eyes when they speak…and this lady doctor, I go to Patiala all the time and by god, she doesn’t even speak…,” said the Sardar who was sitting behind while gazing towards Polly.

“By god! I also….” He stopped mid-sentence when Jit, while handing the ticket to this dandy in a pink shirt, glowered at him and said, “So, brother. Do you want to go? Or should I toss you off the bus now?”

“Conductor Sir.  I didn’t anything. Why are you getting angry like this?”

While Jit was handing the ticket over to Polly, she began to give him the ten she took out.

“I don’t have any change. Forget about it and pay in full tomorrow.” Having said this, Jit moved on.

Ahead, there was elderly woman who also took out a ten. “Ma’am, I don’t have change. The entire fare is 10.5 annas[2] and you take out such a large note and hand it to me? Fine. Go and get change and then come back,” Jit said in a rather stern voice.

“Young man! In that time, the bus will have left and it’s urgent that I go.  You can return the rest of the money to me in Patiala,” the elderly woman begged of him.

“Fine, ma’am. Sit down,” he said as he began to cut her a ticket.

Polly was thinking about the hospital, all of the patients, the medicines, the nurses, and the various duties as the bus left behind Rakhra, then Kalyan and then Rony and neared the Chungu toll booth.

Jit told the driver, “Yaar[3]!  Today drive towards this blue building right here.”

The passengers who were travelling to the gurdwara grumbled a bit, but by now the bus had turned and was once more on the direct route. Near the Flower Cinema the conductor rang the bell to stop the bus, opened the door, and began to tell Polly, “You get down here, the hospital will be nearby.”

Polly got down quickly. She even forgot to say thank you. She thought to herself, “That poor fellow is such a nice conductor.”

By the time she reached the bus station that evening to begin her journey home, the bus was already full. With great difficulty she waited 45 minutes for another bus. A bus conductor, with his shirt unbuttoned, passed her three times while mumbling the song from the film Awaara[4]. He gave an anna to a female beggar to get rid of her for some time. She didn’t know why, but people were staring at her wide-eyed.

The next day, it happened by chance, that when she reached the Nabha bus station, the buses were already full, and Jit was turning away additional passengers without a ticket. Jit approached her and said, “You can pick up the bag on the front seat and sit down. I saved a seat for you.”

Polly passed by several gawking passengers and sat down. Jit immediately rang the bell for the bus to move forward.

“This conductor is so good-natured,” Polly thought to herself.

As the delays in getting her posting to Nabha stretched over time, she became depressed. The sound of the idling buses and fears of the bus leaving were constantly on her mind. Whenever she was forced to sit next to a fat passenger, her nice clothes would get wrinkled, and the stench of sweat would make her dizzy.

Then one day when she was about to give money for her ticket, Jit said, “No madam, forget about it,” and moved ahead.

“No sir, please take the money,” Polly emphatically requested.

“What difference will it make whether I take your money or not?” he asked. He walked further ahead and began to give a ticket to someone.

Polly, feeling self-conscious from the argument, sat down quietly but throughout the journey she was wondering why the conductor didn’t take money from her. She did not like it at all. For someone earning Rs. 300 what is the value 10.5 annas?

The next day she intentionally left five minutes late, thinking, “Today I won’t go on the Pipal Bus. Instead, I’ll take the Pepsu Roadways Bus.  What nonsense is this that he won’t take the money!”

She was stupefied to see that the driver had started the bus and was standing yelling at the conductor.

“Oye! I am just coming. Why are you yelling? Why do want to leave so early? Is it about to rain?” Jit said, while walking very, very slowly.

“Are we going to the next station or not? You’re taking your sweet time getting here,” the driver said.

“Get over here, Madam and take the front seat, and open the window,” Jit said to Polly.

“How can the bus leave without Madam?” mumbled a clerk in the back who took the bus from Nabhe to Patiala every day.

Jit glared at him. Everyone fell silent. The bus left. Polly took out the money but despite her repeated attempts, Jit refused to take it. Polly became very angry. “Jit is making me a part of this scam…But why is he neither charging me nor giving me a ticket?… Still, this is defrauding the company…” She was thinking this just as the bus stopped and a ticket-checker boarded. When he was checking the tickets of the other passengers, Polly broke out in a nervous sweat.

“How humiliating it is that I don’t have a ticket…. I will tell him that the conductor didn’t give me a ticket even though I asked for one,” she thought. “But what will the poor man say? No. I will tell him that I forgot. But no. How can I lie,” she debated with herself.

Then the checker approached her.

As soon as he said, “Madam…ticket,” Jit, taking a ticket out of his pocket, called out, “She…. she…This woman is my sister. I have her ticket.”

Seeing the ticket, the checker glanced at the conductor whose pants were threadbare at the knees and whose khaki uniform was worn at the elbows. Then, he looked over the woman in the expensive sari.  He smiled with his eyes.

Jit became flustered. The checker quickly got down from the bus.

Polly, surprised and worried, was thinking that perhaps this man, who earns a paltry Rs. 60 per month, didn’t eat during the day so that he could pay for my entire fare.

In the hospital, she kept thinking about this. She felt so uneasy about it.

In the evening when she reached the station, Jit was sad as he slowly made his way towards her.

“My older sister also studied medicine in Lahore…and she died there during the riots of partition. The rest of my family perished too. I somehow managed to make it here alive. How could I even think about studying when I could barely feed myself?  Then I became a conductor. When I saw your bag and stethoscope, I remembered Amarjit…and…and….” Then he choked up.

Polly was very distraught. She didn’t know how to respond.

Meanwhile, the bus came.  He quickly walked towards it and Polly kept on watching him walk away with affection in her moist eyes.

(Translated and published with permission from the Punjabi publisher at https://punjabistories.com. Link to the Punjabi story: https://punjabistories.com/tag/bus-conductor-by-dalip-kaur-tiwana/)

[1] A Punjabi expletive like Oh!

[2] Equal to 1/16 of a rupee

[3] Friend

[4] A 1951 movie – Awaara means vagabond

C. Christine Fair is a professor in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program.  She studies political and military events of South Asia and travels extensively throughout Asia and the Middle East. Her books include In Their Own Words: Understanding the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (OUP 2019); Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War (OUP, 2014); and Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States (Globe Pequot, 2008). She has published creative pieces in The Bark, The Dime Show Review, Furious Gazelle, Hypertext, Lunch Ticket, Clementine Unbound, Fifty Word Stories, The Drabble, Sandy River Review, Barzakh Magazine, Bluntly Magazine, Badlands Literary Journal, among others. Her visual work has appeared in Vox Populi, pulpMAG, The Indianapolis Review, Typehouse Literary Magazine, The New Southern Fugitives, Glassworks and Existere Journal of Arts. Her translations have appeared in the Bombay Literary Magazine, Bombay Review, Muse India and The Punch Magazine. She reads, writes and speaks Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu.

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Categories
Tribute

In Memory of Peace

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori*.
-- Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

*Translated: "It is sweet and fitting to die for the homeland."

  • South Africa
  • India
  • Singapore
World War 1 memorials stretched across countries: Courtesy: Creative Commons

On 11th November, we remember the men who gave up their lives to win wars for those in power. Remembrance Day started as an annual event after the First World War (28th July, 1914- 11the November, 1918) more than a hundred years ago, in memory of soldiers — some of who were lost in the battle grounds, whose remains never got back to their families. Some of these men who fought were from countries that were subservient to colonial powers who started the war and some, like the soldier-poet, Wilfred Owen, were from conquering nations.

This was much before atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Eventually, a nuclear armistice was declared. Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), an internationally acknowledged apostle of peace, had an opinion on this: “‘The very frightfulness of the atom bomb will not force non-violence on the world? If all nations are armed with the atom bomb, they will refrain from using it as it will mean absolute destruction for all concerned?’ I am of the opinion that it will not.” Has this nuclear armistice made the world more peaceful? And if so, what is the quality of peace that has been wrought by drumming fears of annihilation in human hearts? Could the ‘fakir…striding half-naked up the steps of the viceregal palace’ be right after all?

Here we have collected a few stories and poems around ongoing conflicts and wars which stretch to the present day, some old and some new… some even written by men who faced battle…

Poetry

A poem and art by Sybil Pretious in memory of soldiers who died in the World War I.

Soldiers & Missives by Prithvijeet Sinha … Click here to read.

Our Children by Bijan Najdi, translated from Persian by Davood Jalili. Click here to read.

Prose

Line of Control by Paresh Tiwari, a story about the life of soldiers set in the Indo-Pak border… Click here to read.

I am a Coward with Priorities by Tejaswinee Roychowdhury, a story from a soldier’s perspective. Click here to read.

From the Pages of a Soldier’s Diary… by Mike Smith takes you on a journey through the pages of a colonial diary and muses on choices he has made. Click here to read.

Bundu, Consoler of the Rich is a story based on memories of the Partition by Nadir Ali, translated from Punjabi by Amna Ali. Click here to read.

In a Land Far From Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan, an excerpt from an account by Syed Mujataba Ali, translated from Bengali by Nazes Afroz. Click here to read.

  • America
  • Portugal
  • Russia
World War 1 memorials stretched across countries: Courtesy: Creative Commons
Categories
Bhaskar's Corner

Amrita Sher-Gil: An Avant-Garde Blender of the East & West

Bhaskar Parichha explores how the life and art of Amrita Sher-Gil was an amalgam of the best of India and the West

  • Self Portrait by Amrita Sher-Gil
  • Three Women by Amrita Sher-Gil
Courtesy: Wiki

Much before the Punjabi diaspora spread its wings across continents, there was one woman who not only became a venerated name in the field of art but also gave art an altogether new identity in India. She was Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941). Born to Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia, a Sikh aristocrat and a great scholar of Sanskrit and Persian, and Marie Antoinette Gottesmann, a Jewish opera singer from Hungary, Amrita inherited a legacy that was consummate and effervescent. 

Amrita was the eldest of the two daughters. Her younger sister was Indira Sundaram, mother of   painter Vivan Sundaram. Amrita spent her early childhood in Dunaharaszti, Hungary. She was also the niece of the Indologist Ervin Baktay. It was Baktay who guided her — by being a critique of her works — and gave her the academic underpinning that helped Amrita flourish. Ervin also taught her to use domestic helpers as models; and the reminiscence of these models eventually motivated her to return to India. 

Sher-Gil’s quest for the fine art led her to Paris, with her mother, when she was barely sixteen. She studied first at the Grande Chaumiere under Pierre Vaillant and subsequently at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where she was taught by Lucien Simon.

In her early twenties, Sher-Gil returned to India in 1921. The family began living in Shimla. She was by now an accomplished painter, equipped with some of the most essential modules that make one a great artist. She had an unquenchable thirst to be on familiar terms with the grammar and the language of painting, a virile tenacity of purpose and the single-mindedness about her role in life. 

 In 1924, she went to Italy and joined Santa Annunciata, a Roman Catholic institution. In Santa, Amrita Sher-Gil got an exposure to the works of Italian artists. While studying in Paris, she had already been influenced by the works of European greats like Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin. Her later paintings would echo a strong influence of the Western artists, chiefly from the Bohemian circles of Paris of the early 1930s.

 In 1932, she displayed her first important work, Young Girls, which led to her appointment as an Associate of the Grand Salon in Paris in 1933, making her the youngest ever and the only Asian to have received such recognition. In 1934, while in Europe, she was haunted by what is known through her letters ‘an intense longing to return to India’ and ‘feeling in some strange way that there lay my destiny as a painter’. 

After her return, she began a rediscovery of the traditions of Indian art which would continue till her death. It was also during this period that she pursued an affair with Malcolm Muggeridge. In the mid-thirties, Amrita Sher-Gil’s mission for exploring further into Indian art began. It was a never-ending journey and her contributions to art was a breakthrough and uniquely superb. From Mughal miniatures to the Ajanta paintings and Southern styles, the Indian influence on her work was complete and irreversible. 

 In 1936, at the behest of Karl Khandalavala, art collector and critic, Amrita pursued her lifelong passion for realizing her Indian roots. She found inspiration in the Pahari School of painting. Later, in 1937, she toured South India and produced the famous South Indian trilogy paintings- ‘Bride’s Toilet’, ‘Brahmachari’ and ‘The South Indian Villagers’. These paintings mirror   her passionate sense of colour and an equally passionate empathy for Indian subjects. Poverty and despair constitute a major theme in Amrita Sher-Gil’s works and they find plentiful representation on her canvas. Her works also showed an engagement with the works of Hungarian painters, especially the Nagybanya School of painting in the interwar years.

In 1938, Amrita married her Hungarian first cousin, Dr. Victor Egan. After this marriage, they moved to Gorakhpur (UP) and, still later, the couple shifted to Lahore where she lived till her death in 1941.

Amrita Sher-Gil was one of the most gifted Indian artists belonging to the pre-colonial era. Her works reflect her deep ardour and perception for colours. Her profound understanding of the Indian subjects comes so vividly in her works that it is difficult to find parallels elsewhere. The works of Amrita Sher-Gil have been declared national art treasures by the Government and most of her paintings adorn the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi. There is also a Delhi road named after the painter — Amrita Sher-Gil Marg. 

Amrita Sher-Gil’s legacy stands at par with those of the masters of the Bengal renaissance. She is said to be the ‘most expensive’ woman painter in India. Besides remaining an inspiration to many contemporary Indian artists, she was the muse for one of the longest running Urdu plays, Tumhari Amrita (1992), directed by Javed Siddiqi, with Shabana Azmi and Farooq Sheikh playing the lead roles. Her works are also a central force in the novel, Faking It, authored by Amrita V Chowdhury. The beauty and depth of Amrita Sher-Gil’s paintings has earned her inordinate admiration and recognition beyond her days.

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Bhaskar Parichha is a journalist and author of No Strings Attached: Writings on Odisha and Biju Patnaik – A Political Biography. He lives in Bhubaneswar and writes bilingually. Besides writing for newspapers, he also reviews books on various media platforms.

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Categories
Essay

Remembering Shiv Kumar Batalvi

By Amrita Sharma

Shiv Kumar Batalvi: Sourced by Amrita Sharma

A shayar (poet) who received exceptional fame, a poet who became the youngest recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award and a star who left too early at a young age of 36, Shiv Kumar Batalvi remains one of those few poets who lived and died within the embrace of poetic charm. Being an immensely popular poet during his lifetime who wrote in one of the Indian regional languages, Punjabi, he received international acclaim within a very brief span of time.

With around eight collections of poems to his credit and as a performer who read and sang his verses across innumerable public gatherings, Shiv Kumar Batalvi (1936-1973) remains a popular subject for critical writings ranging from doctoral thesis to popular magazines. Born on July 23, 1936, in a village, named Bara Pind Lohtian, situated in the northern part of pre-partition Punjab, Batalvi spent a peaceful childhood until his family migrated to India after Partition. As a young man in his twenties, writing in the 1960s, a period marked by a new force of modernity across the world, Batalvi’s verses ranged over a vast canvas of themes and wanderings. Though largely remembered as a love poet who was fascinated with death and grief, he wrote prolifically on subjects that even remained unconventional and anti-stereotypical for his time.

As the month of May marked the time of the year when Batalvi breathed his last, this article is a revisit to his poetic style that commemorates and celebrate his poetic vibrancy. Perhaps one of his most popular compositions remains his song titled “Ki PuCHde Ho Haal FakeeraaN Da” (The Condition Of Fakirs) that opens with the following lines that grew immensely popular with his performances:

Ki puCHdiyo ho haal fakeeraaN da
SaaDa nadiyoN viCHRe neeraaN da.
SaaDa haNjh di joone aaiyaaN da
SaaDa dil jaleyaaN dilgeeraaN da!

Why ask about the condition of fakirs like us?
We are water, separated from its river,
Emerged from a tear,
Melancholy, distressed!

With a poetic sensibility that remained enchanting with its rhythmic flow and vigour, Batalvi may be credited with enriching his first language with poetic compositions that captured its cultural essence. While not losing out on the classical Punjabi style, he wrote songs that were cast in a traditional tone and yet remained a part of the emerging modern verse. For instance, the following lines from his poem “Vidhva Ruht” (“Widowed Season”) read as follows:

Is ruhte sab rukh nipatare
Mahik-vihoone
Is ruhte saaDe sukh de sooraj
SekoN oone.
Maae ni par vidhva joban
Hor vi loone.
Haae ni
E loona joban ki kareeya?
Maae ni is vidhva rut da ki kareeye?

In this season the trees are leafless,
Without fragrance.
In this season, the sun of my happiness
Has no warmth.
But even more bitter
Is my widowed youth.
Tell me,
What should I do
With this bitter youth.

With suffering and its accompanying emotions remaining closest to Batalvi’s poetic outlook, he carved verses that spoke to his readers and listeners, thus, revisiting an oral tradition. Recreating and enticing the concept of sorrow with his love for the natural, Batalvi wrote of an optimistic vision to it in a manner of a folk song, as in his verse titled “JiNdu De BaageeN” (The Garden Of Life) where he writes:

k taaN taeNDaRe
Kol kathoori,
Dooje taaN dard baRe,
Teeja te taeNDRa
Roop suhaNdaRa
GalaaN taaN milakh kare!

Remember that you have
The sac of musk,
You also have great sorrow.
Thirdly you are
Beautiful,
And your words are precious

Batalvi’s verses thus particularly remain memorable for his fascination with grief, pathos and pain.

Though having suffered severe critical dismissals, Batalvi nevertheless remained extremely popular with the masses. Majority of his compositions have been now cast into songs by numerous popular singers on both sides of the border within the Indian subcontinent. Having lived a life that often became a subject of social critique and having died at a very young age due to failing health, Batalvi perhaps remains a singularly unique poet who lived and died with  the unconventionality of his poetic romance.

While India faces a surge in the outbreak of the Covid 19 virus, we continue to alternate between emotions of anxiety and grief. Poetry by Batalvi encapsulates within itself a range of emotions that contain the charm of enticing an entire tradition of such alternating emotions, it remains endearing to remember such poets today. Difficult times as those we face today may serve to strengthen our faith in the capacity of literature that helps us look beyond our immediate surroundings. Recalling Batalvi’s poetry, I would like to end by leaving you with the following lines by him:


Ih mera geet dharat toN maela
Sooraj jeD puraana.
KoT janam toN piya asaanu
Is da bol haNDHaana.
Hor kise di jaah na koi
Is nu hoNTHeeN laana,
Ih taaN mere naal janmeya
Naal bahishteeN jaana

This song more soiled than the earth,
As old as the sun,
For many births I have had to live
The weight of its words.
No one else is able
To bring voice to it.
This song was born with me,
And will die with me.

(The texts for the poems  and their translations were taken from http://apnaorg.com/poetry/suman/index.html)

Amrita Sharma is a Lucknow based writer currently pursuing her Ph.D. in English from the University of Lucknow. Her works have previously been published in various online forums.Her area of research includes avant-garde poetics and innovative writings in the cyberspace.

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