Nazrul’slyrics ofMor Ghumogore Elo Monohor (In my Sleep, Came the Enchanting One) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Four of his ownMalay poems have been translated by Isa Kamari. Click here to read.
The Heartless, a Balochi story by AbdulQayum Sarbazi, has been translated by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Dragonfly 2 has been composed and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.
Tagore’s poem, Amra Choli Somukhpane(We Look Forward and March), has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Clickhere to read.
Pandies Corner
Songs of Freedom: Pink Dreams is an autobiographical narrative by Priyanka, written and compiled by Deeksha Vats. These stories highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and Pandies. Clickhere to read.
Larry S Su, who migrated from a mud cave in Shaanxi province to America, shares his story of the changes he sees during three visits to his home and muses on the gaps he has observed between these two places. Clickhere to read.
Summer, Dune in Zeeland by Piet Mondrain (1872 – 1944)
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past.
‘Burnt Norton’, Four Quartets (1941) by TS Eliot
If we look back in time, we have a better life than that of our ancestors. Though conflicts rage and climate change is a reality that we all dread, it can safely be said, we have progressed beyond the imagination of those who lived a hundred years ago. The fact that some books from the past still reverberate with echoes of what the present holds says much for the outliers or authors who could think out of the box. Despite this complex intermingling of ideas and times, perhaps the world will change more now than before. We do not know anything for sure though experts are always predicting a future that for most of us remains unknown. What we can present is our own estimate of what can be and a definite assertion of what is. Truth as such is a matter of perception. That complicates it further. However, one of the changes that is definitely here to stay is climate change and our changing environment. Given that this is the month that homes World Environment Day, we have a smattering of writings that revolve around nature and also the human spirit that defies age.
We have featured a writer who revels in nature and is an ageless voice that bridges multiple cultures, Ruskin Bond. As he turned ninety-two last month, he published multiple new books. We have an excerpt from one of them, Scenes from the Magic Mountain: Five Seasons in the Mussoorie Hills and Beyond, a brilliant collection of snapshots of his interactions with nature over time — be it frogs, snakes or just trees. Some of the vignettes are humorous and some, as all classics are, thought provoking. Bond puts into words how he chose to work in Landour (a small town in Himalayas) and continued to write from there for sixty years. He talks of the spell the mountains cast on him, “I like to think that I have become a part of this Magic Mountain; that by living here for so long, I can claim a relationship with the trees, wild flowers, even the rocks that are an integral part of this landscape.” The other book excerpt is a contrast to Bond’s, a non-fiction called Burnout Highway by Anmol Diddan. It explores the collective suffering of stress at work where achievements distance humans from nature and a fulfilling life and urges readers to be open to changes.
In keeping with the theme of environment, Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Stephen Alter’s The Fragrance of Rain: A Brief History of the Monsoon. He tells us: “The Fragrance of Rain is much more than a history of weather. It is a meditation on nature, culture, memory, and belonging… Like the season it celebrates, the book is refreshing, nourishing, and lingering in its impact…” While Rakhi Dalal expresses her delight with Shyam Manohar’s The Cold War of Sadanand Borse, a novella translated from Marathi by Jerry Pinto, Meenakshi Malhotra revels in Giti Chandra’s debut book of poems, Setting Traps for Light.
In translations, Professor Fakrul Alam has captured the flavours of Nazrul’s Bengali lyrics, which also echo of the rainy season or monsoons. Isa Kamari brings to us more of his Malay poems in English and Ihlwha Choi shares a rendering of his Korean poem, ‘Dragonfly 2’, into English. One of Tagore’s poems from Balaka (Flight of the Cranes, 1916) has found its way into this issue after being translated. We also have a touching Balochi story around social gaps from the late Abdul Qayum Sarbazi, brought to us in English by Fazal Baloch.
Hughes has continued sharing his short fables, which are absurd but also, comical! A sensitive story about the natural world mingled with Maori concepts by Keiran Martin seems so much in sync with the oceans while Jeena R Papaadi has woven a strange narrative located in a land that only one man could visit. Plamen Vasilev shares a human-interest story set in Europe and Rabiya Rehman takes us to Lahore in quest of a missing destination! Naramsetti Umamaheswararao’s narrative takes us back to a village that opted for trees, thus enriching the environmental lore in this issue.
We have a real life heart rending story from a young girl in our Pandies Corner, written and related by Deeksha Vats, based on the story told by a victim of familial violations and violence.
Our non-fiction section homes Larry Su’s essay on how his life took him from a rural mud cave in Shaanxi province to the glamour of Chicago. Reflecting on the changes he has experienced on his rare visits to his original homeland, Su muses on the cultural and socio-economic gaps he has observed between the two places. Charudutta Panigrahi – as if in direct opposition — shares similarities between two diverse geographies.
Suzanne Kamata explores a custom which may not be that eco-friendly in her column from Japan. Jun A. Alindogan brings home the impact of climate disasters while dwelling on blessings with his narrative about a narrow escape from the Typhoon Ondoy (2009). While Meredith Stephen writes of sailing to Timor Sea with photographs by Alan Noble, Farouk Gulsara takes us on a cycling adventure around the mountains of Titiwangsa. In another musing, he also explores the idea of good and evil in a sardonic tone while Sai Abhinay Penna dwells on the grandeur and vastness of the universe over his morning jog. Gowher Bhat writes of a man for whom age seems to be just a number as he publishes his debut book at 93! One wonders at the frequency of such occurrences — we have writings about two authors above ninety in the June issue. In contrast, Devraj Singh Kalsi brings in mortal fears while writing of visiting doctors with a soupçon of humour – some of it directed at himself.
Perhaps, laughter is really the best medicine to keep well! Ruskin Bond makes us laugh and writes of nature in a way that touches hearts and makes us forget the contrasting glitzy world, where we suffer stress and burnout. Our environment makes a difference, doesn’t it?
With that we wrap up our June issue. Huge thanks to our fabulous team, especially Sohana Manzoor for her wonderful artwork. To all our contributors, heartfelt thanks — we are because you are. And gratitude to our readers who make it worth our while to write and publish here.
We will next meet you during the monsoon months of South Asia though, near the equator, it rains almost every day and, in the Southern Hemisphere, it will be peak winter!
The Cold War of Sadanand Borse, translated from Marathi by Jerry Pinto, was originally published as Sheetyuddha Sadanand in the 1980s. Written by Shyam Manohar, the work is considered writer’s noteworthy contribution to modern Marathi literature. A deceptively slim novel, it packs much in its exploration of ordinary lives of ordinary people. Comic yet unsettling, the novel, set within the world of Maharashtrian middle-class, deals with the ‘cold war’ of everyday existence, their struggles, ambitions and anxieties.
Most of Shyam Manohar’s writing deals with the theme of ordinary existence. He is an author two collections of short stories, eight plays, nine novels, and a collection of speeches and critical articles. He has received numerous national and state awards for his works, including the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2010.
The novel begins with a scooter colliding with a funeral procession of a child on a sweltering afternoon. The chance incident results in an absurdly comic encounter. It triggers a chain of events which not only bewilders but keeps the reader on tenterhooks with its acute observations on the tensions which ripple through the aspirations of middle-class. Sadanand collides with Govind and Shrirang, who are the friends of the bereaved father and part of the young son’s funeral procession. As they try to extract an apology from Sadanand, the subsequent events turn his world upside down.
Although the book centres around Sadanand Borse, whose recent one lakh lottery win has made him both suspicious and nervous, the author explores the anxieties of middle-class respectability through the reactions of his pregnant wife Urmila and his immediate neighbours in the aftermath of the incident. With Govind and Shrirang constantly at their door, an atmosphere of latent conflict (as suggested by the title) sets in, and Sadanand’s wife, his neighbours and acquaintances all become participants in a discreet struggle for recognition and influence. The subtle shifts in behaviour reflected in small acts of envy, admiration, cooperation, resentment and suspicion, which emerge when social hierarchies are disrupted, are captured effectively in the seemingly simple prose. The visual imagery of the prose takes the reader into a world echoing Sai Paranjype’s comedy movie ‘Katha’ (Story, 1982). The book revolves arounda similar satire on middle-class aspirations.
Neighbours watch each other closely, interpreting every gesture and decision as confirmation of success, failure, arrogance, or insecurity. Their discussions often seem harmless, yet underlying their narratives is the continuous evaluation of social norms, niceties and hierarchies. Through these characters, the author illustrates how middle-class communities function under companionable scrutiny. The characters aren’t reduced to moral categories. There are no villains in the usual sense. Even the most petty and self serving characters are portrayed perceptively.
The spare yet evocative prose also takes the reader into routine spaces like streets, hospitals, and neighbourhood gatherings where broader questions of morality are enacted. Satire also hinges around the ethics of institutions like hospitals and police stations, where greed or power takes precedence over morality.
The Cold War of Sadanand Borse is a work of remarkable intelligence and restraint. Shyam Manohar brilliantly captures the quiet conflicts that shape ordinary lives. The Cold War thus becomes a condition of social existence itself—a state of constant, low-intensity conflict hidden under outward courtesy.
Jerry Pinto’s brilliant translation of this Marathi work by Shyam Manohar succeeds in capturing the quiet comic energy and perhaps even the tone and precision of the original work. This novel is a must read for its sheer energy, fun and its precise portrayal of the middle-class.
Rakhi Dalal is an educator by profession. When not working, she can usually be found reading books or writing about reading them. She writes at https://rakhidalal.blogspot.com/ .
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
In a world torn by conflict, why would one mention hope or compassion? In an age of dystopian scenarios, why would we dream of utopias?
Perhaps it’s wishful musings, but at some level what people need to survive is probably something to look forward to — a speck of light — a wishful idea called hope. Hope builds resilience. Utopias are built on hope, on love and compassion. Dystopias are built on desperation and despair. They take fear or horror to the extreme and play on people’s vulnerabilities. They might induce a cathartic effect and one might say— we are better off as we are in the present or we must act so that this never happens. Is that something we can really say in a world where wars are disrupting peace and lives of all humanity, where violence against civilians is becoming an accepted norm, where shortages could also be a reality for most of us? Utopias, on the other hand, build on the element of an ideal, a dream towards which we can move on the bleakest day of our existence. They could be used to stir hope and envision a reality devoid of violence. And perhaps, some of it would congeal into a real-world scenario with smaller doses of the bad and ugly. In a conflict-ridden world, which almost feels like a reenactment of George Orwell’s 1984 (only about four and a half decades after his predicted date) what would touch your heart, give you a sense of relief— hope for a better future or dwelling on doomsday predictions? What would you want for your progeny?
Just before the pandemic changed our lives, a book was published where while questing for their own utopia, a group of young people became part of a dystopian reality. They were known as the ULFA rebels[1] and their story was told in Bulletproof:A Journalist’s Notebook on Reporting Conflict by Teresa Rehman. The current relevance of this book cannot be undermined because not only does it humanise the insurgents perspective, but it also shows how a centrist set up can neglect the needs of particular fringe communities. In addition, Rehman’s heartrending stories of poachers and people who live unaccepted in the margins only strengthen the need for an unboxed world where tolerance and compassion would transcend these artificially created fences that divide and lead to violence. This issue features Rehman’s book and an online discussion with her which stretches beyond the confines of pages.
We have more poetry in our translations, some sombre and some funny. A Bengali poem written as a tribute by Nazrul on the death of his older friend, Rabindranath Tagore, has been rendered into English by Professor Fakrul Alam. To add a lighter touch, we have translated a fun-filled poem by Tagore. Isa Kamari continues to translate his own Malay poems to bring in flavours of the culture. This time his poems seem to urge a need to transcend age-old stratifications. We also have a Balochi human-interest story by Younus Hussain brought to us in English by Fazal Baloch.
Hughes’ column too has fiction. His humorous and absurdist fables continue to urge re-evaluation of the world as well as genres. We also have a poignant narrative built around a Vietnamese migrant family by Mario Fenech. Sayan Sarkar shares a tale upending norms set in Kolkata while Naramsetti Umamaheswararao narrates a story about a young boy overcoming his fears. Abhik Ganguly gives us a strange fiction set in the future in a different galaxy, where Earth is seen as the original planet of human evolution.
C Christine Fair, who is an established translator, has surprised us — like Lyons — this time with a personal memoir which dwells on the deeply annihilating impact of norms that define gender roles. Upending the idea of an immutable ruler who can overpower us, is an essay by Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan with its roots in the ruins Rameses II — known as Ozymandias too — and Shelley’s poem of the same name.
We have had an overflow of writing about the unusual and redefining norms in our non-fiction section. Odbayar Dorj weaves an unusual narrative and shares photographs from a village of scarecrows in Japan that has a population of 27 humans and 370 scarecrows. She tells us: “In a place where people and scarecrows live side by side, I began to understand something simple but profound: sometimes, when human presence fades, we find our own ways to fill the silence with memories, imagination, and love.” Humanity never ceases to hope. Filling in silences are narratives by Arathi Devandran and Mubida Rohman on how they deal with the quietness left by departed loved ones.
We have more from Meredith Stephens with photographs by Alan Noble on their trip to Vietnam — as they travel to places that are less touristy while Gowher Bhat explores the Sunday Book Bazaar at Old Delhi. Farouk Gulsara travels back to Penang where he spent his childhood and reflects on changes. Are they always for the best?
Suzanne Kamata takes up changes with a soupçon of humour as she writes of how the AI finally conceded to her husband, “Your wife is not wrong…” while Jun A. Alindogan writes of how social media can create mayhem if misused to spread fake news. Devraj Singh Kalsi resorts to sardonic humour of a darker hue as he explores ways to make a living.
Gulsara has also explored Sam Dalrymple’s Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asiawhich starts with the extent of the British Empire with its western-most point at Aden and stretching in the east to Burma. There was a period from 1839 to 1867, when it stretched from Aden to Singapore[2], which was a part of Malaya, leaving out Siam or Thailand which never succumbed to colonial rule. The book starts at a later date — 1928 — and talks of the piecing of the British Empire, with questionable stances taken by historically heroic figures, thus urging a critical relook at our own past — just over the last hundred years.
Our reviews include Rakhi Dalal’s take on Maithreyi Karnoor’s rather unusual stories fromGooday Nagar.Bhaskar Parichhahas wandered back to non-fiction with the late Kaukub Talat Quder Sajjad Ali Meerza’s Wajid Ali Shah: A Cultural and Literary Legacy, translated from Urdu by Talat Fatima, a history that makes us reassess views on the last of the Awadhi nawabs. Somdatta Mandal has also shares a discussion on Sushila Takbhaure’s My Shackled Life, translated from Hindi by Deeba Zafir and Preeti Dewan, a narrative that showcases the resilience of the author.
This issue could not have been put together without all our wonderful contributors. Heartfelt thanks for sharing your gems with us. Huge thanks to the Borderless team too who continue to support bringing in variety, colour and reinforcing our values. Much thanks to Sohana Manzoor for the fabulous cover art and to all those who share vibrant visuals with their writing. Many thanks to our readers too who make our efforts worthwhile. Do write in with your comments.
Look forward to greeting you all again next month!
Where is this city – Gooday Nagar? What does the city mean to the people living in it? Are they happy? Do they hope, love, endure? What do they do when their lives are upended — do they shatter or carry on?
Maithreyi Karnoor’s Gooday Nagar is a city that could be located anywhere in the world. It’s a city where ordinary people keep trying to live their ordinary lives, come hail or storm or love or pain or whatever else life throws their way. It’s a city where the ordinary stories hinge on a disquieting peculiarity governed by something unnamable or as one of the characters in the story refer ‘the greater sentience’. Imagined differently for each story, the city thus functions less as fixed geography and more a state of mind.
A bilingual author, Karnoor has to her credit an earlier novel in English, Sylvia, a Kannada one, Hettavara Neralu (Parental Shadow), and a poetry collection, Skinny Dipping in Tiger Country. Her English translations of Kannada novels A Handful of Sesame and Tejo Tungabhadra have won the Kuvempu Bhasha Bharati Prize for translation. A writer with an unusual perspective, she has imagined a fictitious city that takes on varied hues.
The stories in this collection resist neat categorisation. In the first story ‘Return of the Salesman’ we meet common aspiring people of Gooday Nagar fascinated by the appearance of a smart English-speaking salesman. Their curiosities pique, awakening desires for a better life. With his return though, the business resumes as usual. Here, the city is a self-contained world evoking nostalgic reminiscence of R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi Days.
‘Uncity’, composed of a poem and three striking vignettes — each starting with lines from C.P. Cavafy , is bound by a shared attentiveness to the absurdities and dislocations of contemporary life. The characters here are defined by their situations, by the peculiar worlds they inhabit. Existing in places they can’t leave, they navigate through life with serenades on the known and unknown.
‘You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
The city will always pursue you.
You’ll walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighbourhoods,
Turn gray in these same houses’
— ‘The City’ by C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933)
These stories are about people who inhabit the city, yet whose lives remain unaffected by the places they dwell in. For no matter where they live, there is no escape from the city — it is a shifting construct — at once everywhere and nowhere.
In ‘Ringa Ringa Roses’, spinning around love and betrayal and ‘A Writing Competition’, where writing sustains the balance perturbed by COVID, the characters move through the fragile process of rebuilding meaning. The ordinary is attuned to the all-knowing but not all-loving ‘the greater sentience’ who can either metamorphose the incoherent to coherent or just let its unhurried hand write the destiny.
The most memorable stories in this collection hinge on a single, disquieting conceit pursued with both rigour and restraint. In ‘Alone at Last’, a post-apocalyptic landscape where everything has turned into cake becomes the stage for a meditation on excess, decay, and survival. What begins as a darkly comic premise gradually acquires an unsettling weight, as the quest for survival also becomes a quest for companionship.
Karnoor handles the tonal and narrative shifts in the stories with a deliberate lightness, introducing the strange without spectacle. This restraint prevents the stories from tipping into excess; even the most fantastical elements are anchored by clarity of language that makes them feel oddly plausible. As the reader move from one story to the next, the sense of disorientation deepens, until the surreal begins to feel like the only adequate language for the world the book describes.
Rather than offering a unified vision of the city she invokes, Karnoor presents it as a shifting assemblage of experiences, each story illuminating a different facet of its strangeness. The result is a collection that lingers not because it resolves its questions, but because it refuses to, leaving the reader suspended in its unsettling, darkly luminous world.
Rakhi Dalal is an educator by profession. When not working, she can usually be found reading books or writing about reading them. She writes at https://rakhidalal.blogspot.com/ .
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Six years ago, a few of us got together to bring out the first issue of Borderless Journal. We started as a daily blog and then congealed into a monthly journal offering content that transcends artificial borders to meet with the commonality of felt emotions, celebrating humanity and the Universe. Today as we complete six years of our existence in the clouds, we would like to celebrate with all writers and readers who made our existence a reality. We invite you to savour writings collected over the years that reflect and revel in transcending borders, touching hearts and some even make us laugh while exploring norms.
In this special issue. we can only offer a small sample of writings but you can access many more like these ones at our site…Without further ado, let us harmonise with words. We invite you to lose yourselves in a borderless world in these trying times.
Rebel or ‘Bidrohi’, Nazrul’s signature poem, ‘Bidrohi‘, translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Manish Ghatak’s Aagun taader Praan (Fire is their Life) has been translated from Bengali by Indrayudh Sinha. Click here to read.
Tagore’s poem, Tomar Shonkho Dhulay Porey (your conch lies in the dust), has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty as ‘The Conch Calls’. Click here to read.
Ihlwha Choi spent some time in Santiniketan and here are poems he wrote in reaction to his observations near the ‘home of R.Tagore’, as he names Santiniketan and the Kobiguru. Click here to read Nandini.
Rituals in the Garden: Marcelo Medone discusses motherhood, aging and loss in this poignant flash fiction from Argentina. Click here to read.
Navigational Error: Luke P.G. Draper explores the impact of pollution with a short compelling narrative. Click here to read.
Henrik’s Journey: Farah Ghuznavi follows a conglomerate of people on board a flight to address issues ranging from Rohingyas to race bias. Click hereto read.
The Magic Staff , a poignant short story about a Rohingya child by Shaheen Akhtar, translated from Bengali by Arifa Ghani Rahman. Click here to read.
A Cat Story : Sohana Manzoor leaves one wondering if the story is about felines or… Clickhere to read.
When West Meets East & Greatness Blooms: Debraj Mookerjee reflects on how syncretism impacts greats like Tagore,Tolstoy, Emerson, Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi and many more. Click here to read.
The Day Michael Jackson Died: A tribute by Julian Matthews to the great talented star who died amidst ignominy and controversy. Click here to read.
Potable Water Crisis & the Sunderbans: Camellia Biswas, a visitor to Sunderbans during the cyclone Alia, turns environmentalist and writes about the potable water issue faced by locals. Click here to read.
My Love for RK Narayan, Rhys Hughes discusses the novels by ths legendary writer from India. Click here to read.
Travels ofDebendranath Tagore: These are travel narratives by Debendranath Tagore, father of Rabindranath Tagore, translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.
Baraf Pora (Snowfall): This narrative gives a glimpse of Tagore’s first experience of snowfall in Brighton and published in the Tagore family journal, Balak (Children), has been translated by Somdatta Mandal . Clickhere to read.
The Day of Annihilation: An essay on climate change by Kazi Nazrul Islam has been translated from Bengali by Radha Chakravarty. Clickhereto read.
Reminiscences from a Gallery: The Other Ray: Dolly Narang muses on Satyajit Ray’s world beyond films and shares a note by the maestro and an essay on his art by the eminent artist, Paritosh Sen. Click here to read.
The Bauls of Bengal: Aruna Chakravarti writes of wandering minstrels called bauls and the impact they had on Tagore. Click here to read.
Most people like you and me connect with the commonality of felt emotions and needs. We feel hungry, happy, sad, loved or unloved and express a larger plethora of feelings through art, theatre, music, painting, photography and words… With these, we tend to connect. And yet, larger structures created over time to offer security and governance to the masses—of which you and I are a part — have grown divisive, and, by the looks of it, the fences nurtured over time seem insurmountable. To retain these structures that were meant to keep us safe, wars are being fought and many are getting killed, losing homes and going hungry. We showcase such stories, poems and non-fiction to create an awareness among those who are lucky enough to remain untouched. But is there a way out, so that all of us can live peacefully, without war, without hunger and with love and a vision towards surviving climate change which (like it or not) is upon us?
Creating an awareness of hunger and destruction wreaked by war is a heartrending story set in Gaza by JK Miller. While Snigdha Agrawal’s narrative gives a sense of hope, recounting a small kindness by a common person, Sayan Sarkar shares a more personal saga of friendship and disillusionment — where people have choice. But does war leave us a choice as it annihilates friendships, cities, homes and families? Naramsetti Umamaheswararao’s story reiterates the belief in the family – peace being an accepted unit. Vela Noble’s fantastical fiction and art comes like a respite– though there is a darker side to it — with a touch of fun. Perhaps, a bit of fantasy and humour opens the mind to deal with the more sombre notes of existence.
The translation section hosts a story by Hamiruddin Middya, who grew up as a farmer’s son in Bengal. Steeped in local colours, it has been rendered into English by V Ramaswamy. Nazrul’s song revelling in the colours of spring has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Atta Shad’s pensive Balochi lines have been brought to us in English by Fazal Baloch. Isa Kamari continues to bring the flavours of an older, more laid-back Singapore with translations of his own Malay poems. A couple of Persian verses have been rendered into English by the poet, Akram Yazdani, herself. Questing for harmony, Tagore’s translated poem while reflecting on a child’s life, urges us to have the courage to be like a child — open, innocent and willing to imagine a world laced with trust and hope. If we were all to do that, do you think we’d still have wars, violence and walls built on hate and intolerance?
Mario Fenech takes a look at the idea of time. Amir Zadnemat writes of how memory is impacted by both science and humanities while Andriy Nivchuk brings to us snippets from Herodotus’s and Pericles’s lives that still read relevant. Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan gives the journey of chickpeas across space and time, asserting: “The chickpea does not care about your ideology, your portfolio, or your meticulously curated identity. It will grow, fix nitrogen, feed someone, and move on without a press release.” It has survived over aeons in a borderless state!
In book excerpts, we have a book that transcends borders as it’s a translation from Assamese by Ranjita Biswas of Arupa Kalita Patangia’s Moonlight Saga. Any translation is an attempt to integrate the margins into the mainstream of literature, and this is no less. The other excerpt is from Natalie Turner’s The Red Silk Dress. Keith Lyons has interviewed Turner about her novel which crosses multiple cultures too while on a personal quest.
Holding on to that idea, we invite you to savour the contents of our February issue.
Huge thanks to all our contributors and readers for making this issue possible. Heartfelt thanks to our wonderful team, especially Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork.
Enjoy the reads!
Let’s look forward to the spring… May it bring new ideas to help us all move towards more amicable times.
Every Room Has a View— A Novel by Sujit Saraf is a narrative of exceptional dignity and subtle audacity. A dark comedy, a rumination on loss, and an evocative picture of a diasporic life – this book manages to turn what could have been a simple account of bereavement and rites into something much richer – into a luminous examination of identity, remembrance, and ever shifting territory between tradition and revivification.
The author is an engineer by training. His novel, The Peacock Throne, has been was shortlisted for the Encore Prize in London. His third novel, The Confession of Sultana Daku, is being made into a motion picture. He also runs Naatak, an Indian theatre company in America for which he writes and directs plays and films.
In this novel, Naveen Gupta, an Indian engineer who made a life in Silicon Valley over three decades, is dead. His Bay Area home boasts of panoramic vistas of the Golden Gate Bridge, portraying the American dream he managed to make into a reality for himself and his family. Naveen’s final wish is, however, strikingly paradoxical. He wishes to be cremated on seashore in San Francisco with the same rites that his father was cremated in India with. This odd wish becomes the pivot around which the story revolves—divulging not only operational absurdities but innate questions about what it means to belong, or to crave for belonging, in a place that would hardly understand those traditions.
Narrated through the voice of Usha, Naveen’s widow, the novel gives a glimpse into the quiet perplexities of those living between cultures. We witness at once the chaos and comedy that ensues when a circle of well-meaning friends and relatives make attempts to honour Naveen’s wishes in a land where neither permits nor precedent exist for such rites. The absurd painted through images — a pandit in jeans and a backpack, a rented cow brought up through an apartment elevator, and confusions with local authorities who mistake a funeral pyre for a beach campfire — play like a comedy. These images are, however, never frivolous. They reveal how sometimes diaspora may cling to rituals in unsettling times.
The story’s procession brings in focus characters whose dilemmas and idiosyncrasies deepen the central themes. Maaji, Naveen’s mother, at first unsure about how to navigate life in a foreign land, eventually finds solace and community among other seniors in Sausalito. Her ache of displacement replaced by a sense of belongingness in a society. Ajay, the teenage son, is silent and observant. Standing on the edge of two cultures, he carries his father’s legacy in his reticent response to loss and his passionate retreat into music. Through these figures, the author explores different ways in which immigrants may carry and reconcile their heritage while forging new selves on unfamiliar ground.
The most compelling journey, though, is Usha’s own. What begins as confusion over her husband’s last wish slowly progresses into a thoughtful inner quest for meaning and autonomy. She moves through grief not as a passive mourner but as a pilgrim of her own consciousness.
Saraf’s narrative invites us to laugh at the ludicrousness of circumstance, to pause in instants of quiet contemplation, and to wonder at the fault lines between what is reminisced and what is lived. He shows that the immigrant experience is not uniform but a constellation of small, vivid moments — a recollection of a far-off village or city street, a misplaced ritual, a cautious chat in a new language or a yearning for ancestral soil that may never be touched again.
In Every Room Has a View, the titular phrase itself becomes a brilliant metaphor. The rooms in Naveen’s house may offer views of an iconic bridge and sweeping bay—a testament to success and achievement—but the novel invites us to look beyond the literal. Every room in Usha’s life, every memory and every ritual, holds its own view: of history, of loss, of transformation. It prompts the reader to ask: What do our “views” reveal? What do they conceal? And what remains when all the windows have been opened, and all the rituals performed – especially towards the end when Usha comes to know of the reason of Naveen’s reluctance to make a journey back home.
This novel is not a simple commentary on cultural collision nor a mere satire on complications of creed and law. It is a humane narrative of the perennial human quest for meaning. In seeking to honour his father’s rites, Naveen’s family—and through them, the reader—discovers that identity is not something anchored in a fixed geography or grammar of practice, but something that must be negotiated with love, imagination, and an openness to the unpredictable vistas of the heart.
Rakhi Dalal is an educator by profession. When not working, she can usually be found reading books or writing about reading them. She writes at https://rakhidalal.blogspot.com/ .
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
It has been a strange year for all of us. Amidst the chaos, bloodshed and climate disasters, Borderless Journal seems to be finding a footing in an orphaned world, connecting with writers who transcend borders and readers who delight in a universe knit with the variety and vibrancy of humanity. Like colours of a rainbow, the differences harmonise into an aubade, dawning a world with the most endearing of human traits, hope.
A short round up of this year starts with another new area of focus — a section with writings on environment and climate. Also, we are delighted to add we now host writers from more than forty countries. In October, we were surprised to see Borderless Journal listed on Duotrope and we have had a number of republications with acknowledgement — the last request was signed off this week for a republication of Ihlwha Choi’s poem in an anthology by Hatchette US. We have had many republications with due acknowledgment in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and UK too among other places. Our team has been active too not just with words and art but also with more publications from Borderless. Rhys Hughes, who had a play performed to a full house in Wales recently, brought out a whole book of his photo-poems from Borderless. Bhaskar Parichha has started an initiative towards another new anthology from our content — Odia poets translated by Snehaprava Das. We are privileged to have all of you — contributors and readers — on board. And now, we invite you to savour some of our fare published in Borderless from January 2025 to December 2025. These are pieces that embody the spirit of a world beyond borders…
I Am Not My Mother: Gigi Baldovino Gosnell gives a story of child abuse set in Philippines where the victim towers with resilience. Click here to read.
Persona: Sohana Manzoor wanders into a glamorous world of expats. Click here to read.
In American Wife, Suzanne Kamata gives a short story set set in the Obon festival in Japan. Click here to read.
Sandy Cannot Write: Devraj Singh Kalsi takes us into the world of advertising and glamour. Click here to read.
Reminiscences from a Gallery: The Other Ray: Dolly Narang muses on Satyajit Ray’s world beyond films and shares a note by the maestro and an essay on his art by the eminent artist, Paritosh Sen. Click here to read.
A discussion of Jaladhar Sen’s The Travels of a Sadhu in the Himalayas, translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal, with an online interview with the translator. Click here to read.
