They tell you one must learn to let go to remain sane. What they miss out telling is how much it takes to forget and let go people who make a whole city in your life. A city that is not home still, the only home you know; A home that consumes and yet the only place that sustains you; A sustenance that holds but offers no release. When you have lived long in such a city, your hopes are entangled with the unyielding forces of knots difficult to untie.
THE OFFERING
I despair when things don’t go as I planned. I forget to breathe, and lament the spaces around for smothering me. I forget time is as mercurial as the fancies of my mind. I forget it only takes as much warmth as that bestowed by a weak winter sun to step out and begin from the beginning.
Resilience makes itself every day appear from unexpected places. We are shown in abundance if we stop to notice amidst the muddle beget by ordinary ordeals. A shoot emerging from the stem of a withered plant in your balcony, long after you thought it had died because you forgot to water it for months, tells you life clutches tightly after all. And pushes forth with might through everything it is denied.
Rakhi Dalal writes from a small city in Haryana, India. Her work has appeared in Kitaab, Scroll, Borderless Journal, Nether Quarterly, Aainanagar, Hakara Journal, Bound, Parcham and Usawa Literary Review.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
There was a time when humans walked the Earth crossing unnamed landmasses to find homes in newer terrains. They migrated without restrictions. Over a period of time, kingdoms evolved, and travellers like Marco Polo talked of needing permissions to cross borders in certain parts of the world. The need for a permit to travel was first mentioned in the Bible, around 450BCE. A safe conduct permit appeared in England in 1414CE. Around the twentieth century, passports and visas came into full force. And yet, humanity had existed hundreds of thousand years ago… Some put the date at 300,000!
While climate contingencies, wars and violence are geared to add to migrants called ‘refugees’, there is always that bit of humanity which regards them as a burden. They forget that at some point, their ancestors too would have migrated from where they evolved. In South Africa, close to Johannesburg is Maropeng with its ‘Cradle of Humanity’, an intense network of caves where our ancestors paved the way to our evolution. The guide welcomes visitors by saying — “Welcome home!” It fills one’s heart to see the acceptance that drips through the whole experience. Does this mean our ancestors all stepped out of Africa many eons ago and that we all belonged originally to the same land?
And yet there are many restrictions that have come upon us creating boxes which do not allow intermingling easily, even if we travel. Overriding these barriers is a discussion with Jessica Mudditt about Once Around the Sun: From Cambodia to Tibet, her book about her backpacking through Asia. Documenting a migration more than a hundred years ago from Jullundur to Malaya, when borders were different and more mobile, we have a conversation with eminent scholar and writer from Singapore, Kirpal Singh. Telling the story of another eminent migrant, a Persian who became a queen in the Mughal Court is a lyric by Nazrul, Nur Jahan, translated by Professor Fakrul Alam from Bangla. Ihlwha Choi has self-translated his own poem from Korean, a poem bridging divides with love. Fazal Baloch has brought to us some exquisite Balochi poems by Munir Momin. Tagore’s poem, Okale or Out of Sync, has been translated from Bengali to reflect the strange uniqueness of each human action which despite departing from the norm, continue to be part of the flow.
We have a tongue in cheek piece from Devraj Singh Kalsi on traveling in a train with a politician. Uday Deshwal writes with a soupçon of humour as he talks of applying for jobs. Snigdha Agrawal brings to us flavours of Bengal from her past while Ratnottama Sengupta muses on the ongoing wars and violence as acts of terror in the same region and looks back at such an incident in the past which resulted in a powerful Bengali poem by Tarik Sujat. Kiriti Sengupta has written of a well-known artist, Jatin Das, a strange encounter where the artist asks them to empty fully even a glass of water! Ravi Shankar weaves in his love for books into our non-fiction section. Recounting her mother’s migration story which leads us to perceive the whole world as home is a narrative by Renee Melchert Thorpe. Urmi Chakravorty takes us to the last Indian village on the borders of Tibet. Taking us to a Dinosaur Museum in Japan is our migrant columnist, Suzanne Kamata. Her latest multicultural novel, Cinnamon Beach, has found its way to our book excerpts as has Flanagan’s poetry collection, These Many Cold Winters of the Heart.
In reviews, Somdatta Mandal has written about an anthology, Maya Nagari: Bombay-Mumbai A City in Storiesedited by Shanta Gokhale and Jerry Pinto. Rakhi Dalal has discussed a translation from Konkani by Jerry Pinto of award-winning writer Damodar Mauzo’sBoy, Unloved. Basudhara Roy has reviewed Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay’s Tales of Early Magic Realism in Bengali, translated by Sucheta Dasgupta. Bhaskar Parichha has introduced us toThe Dilemma of an Indian Liberal by Gurcharan Das, a book that is truly relevant in the current times in context of the whole world for what he states is a truth: “In the current polarised climate, the liberal perspective is often marginalised or dismissed as being indecisive or weak.” And it is the truth for the whole world now.
Our short stories reflect the colours of the world. A fantasy set in America but crossing borders of time and place byRonald V. Micci, a story critiquing social norms that hurt by Swatee Miittal and Paul Mirabile’s ghost story shuttling from the Irish potato famine (1845-52) to the present day – all address different themes across borders, reflecting the vibrancy of thoughts and cultures. That we all exist in the same place and have the commonality of ideas and felt emotions is reflected in each of these narratives.
We have more which adds to the lustre of the content. So, do pause by our content’s page and enjoy the reads!
I would like to thank all our team without who this journal would be incomplete, especially, Sohana Manzoor, for her fabulous artwork. Huge thanks to all our contributors who bring vibrancy to our pages and our wonderful readers, without who the journal would remain just part of an electronic cloud… We welcome you all to enjoy our June issue.
The Jnanpith and Sahitya Akademi Award winning Konkani novelist Domodar Mauzo’s Jeev Divum Kai Chya Marum is translated into English as Boy, Unloved by the acclaimed writer, Jerry Pinto. The translation succeeds in offering an immersive experience to the reader, especially of the life, sights and cuisine redolent of a Goan village in the backdrop. Although a reader, in the absence of knowledge of Konkani and hence the original work, may not be able to gather the nuances often difficult to translate.
This novel is a bildungsroman which follows the life of its protagonist, Vipin Parob, born into a loveless marriage in a serene village in Goa. It navigates his lonely formative years and explores his friendships in teenage years. While the exploration of his growing up years as a kid wrenches the heart of a reader, those of his later pre-adult years leaves one with an unsettling feeling. And that makes a reader wonder at what went amiss…
At the outset, the harrowing circumstances within the family of five-year-old Vipin are revealed. His house, with its closed windows and doors, restricts his body and mind. He becomes lonesome, finds solace in books and has difficulty making friends at school. In an environment which stifles him both physically and emotionally, he adheres to reclusiveness to cope with his ruthless father and careless mother. An unloved child of a bitter and broken wedlock, Vipin’s plight, as stunningly portrayed by the author, wrings the reader’s core. Mauzo’s incisive insight into the complexities around childhood trauma emerges in his portrayal of Vipin’s manners. His submissiveness in front of his parents, because of the treatment meted out to him perhaps, indicates how distress during childhood years may affect a person’s sense of self-worth. In fact, when his brilliance in academics makes his father’s relation with him transactional, where he is favoured because his father believes he can become a doctor, Vipin lets go off his own desire to study the subject he likes.
During his time in junior college, Vipin comes across people he befriends. Martin Sir, his English teacher from school, is the first person who understands and mentors him. Subsequently, although reluctantly at first, he manages to forge meaningful connections with Chitra and Fatima from his college. Krishna (initially a house help), and Amanda (the nurse caring for his mother later) also become people he can relate to. However, a narrative inconsistency appears in the depiction of the dynamics among teenagers, Vipin, Chitra and Fatima who despite becoming very close to each other, grapple with unnecessary confusions. Where Vipin’s character appears reliable, the characters of both Chitra and Fatima come off as unreliable. Perhaps because they are not fully explored and much appears unsaid in terms of their backgrounds and their mannerisms.
Regardless of the lack of love and care in his familial relationships, when it falls upon Vipin to take care of his ailing parents during their respective illnesses, he does it with a sense of responsibility and concern, if not love. It is something that also comes forth in his relationships with others, whether it is helping Krishna to study further, helping him financially or protecting Amanda from his cousin.
Mauzo, very strikingly captures the quagmire which makes a vulnerable, unloved child grow up to become a young adult who fiercely feels protective towards people close to him. However, Vipin’s journey of exploration of his self and subsequently of his aim in life, wrestle with disparities thrown at him by circumstances. The loneliness of his heart swells to consume the ties he forged in hope of love, leaving an emptiness he finds difficult to conquer. For the invested reader, it renders a disconcerting mark.
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 Cherry Blossom Forecast, Suzanne Kamata brings the Japanese ritual of cherry blossom viewing to our pages with her camera and words. Clickhere to read.
Where the mind is without fear … Where the world has not been broken up into fragments … Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way … Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action…
As we complete the fourth year of our virtual existence in the clouds and across borders, the world has undergone many changes around us, and it’s not only climate change (which is a huge challenge) but much more. We started around the time of the pandemic — in March 2020 — as human interactions moved from face-to-face non-virtual interactions to virtual communication. When the pandemic ended, we had thought humanity would enter a new age where new etiquettes redefining our social norms would make human existence as pandemic proof as possible. But before we could define new norms in the global context, takeovers and conflicts seem to have reft countries, regions and communities apart. Perhaps, this is a time when Borderless Journalcan give a voice to all those who want to continue living as part of a single species in this world — where we can rise above our differences to find commonalities that make us human and part of the larger stream of humanity, that has been visualised by visionaries like Tagore or John Lennon — widely different cultural milieus but looking for the same things — humankind living together in harmony and moving towards a world without violence, without hate, without rancour and steeped in goodwill and love.
Talking of positive values does not make sense in a world that seems to be veering towards darkness… Many say that humankind is intrinsically given to feelings of anger, hate, division, lust, shame and violence. But then we are just as much inclined towards happiness, fun, love, being respectful and peaceful. Otherwise, would we be writing about these? These are inherited values that have also come down to us from our forefathers and some have been evolving towards embalming or healing with resilience, with kindness and with an open mind.
If you wake up before sunrise, you will notice the sky is really an unredeemable dark. Then, it turns a soft grey till the vibrant colours of the sun paint the horizon and beyond, dousing with not just lively shades but also with a variety of sounds announcing the start of a new day. The darkest hours give way to light. Light is as much a truth as darkness. Both exist. They come in phases in the natural world, and we cannot choose but live with the choices that have been pre-made for us. But there are things we can choose — we can choose to love or hate. We can choose resilience or weakness. We can choose our friends. We can choose our thoughts, our ideas. In Borderless, we have a forum which invites you to choose to be part of a world that has the courage to dream, to imagine. We hope to ignite the torch to carry on this conversation which is probably as old as humanity. We look forward to finding new voices that are willing to move in quest of an impractical world, a utopia, a vision — from which perhaps will emerge systems that will give way to a better future for our progeny.
In the last four years, we are happy to say we have hosted writers from more than forty different nationalities and our readers stretch across almost the whole map of the world. We had our first anthology published less than one and a half years ago, focussing more on writing from established pens. Discussions are afoot to bring out more anthologies in hardcopy with more variety of writers.
In our fourth anniversary issue, we not only host translations by Professor Fakrul Alam of Nazrul, by Somdatta Mandal of Tagore’s father, Debendranath Tagore, but also our first Mandarin translation of a twelfth century Southern Song Dynasty poet, Ye Shao-weng, by Rex Tan, a journalist and writer from Malaysia. From other parts of Asia, Dr Haneef Sharif’s Balochi writing has been rendered into English by Fazal Baloch and Ihlwha Choi has transcreated his own poetry from Korean to English. Tagore’s Phalgun or Spring, describing the current season in Bengal, adds to the variety in our translated oeuvre.
Devraj Singh Kalsi has explored darker shades of humour in his conversation with God while Suzanne Kamata has ushered in the Japanese spring ritual of gazing at cherry blossoms in her column with photographs and narrative. Keith Lyons takes us to the beautiful Fiordlands of New Zealand, Ravi Shankar to Malaysia and Mohul Bhowmick trapezes from place to place in Sri Lanka. Farouk Gulsara has discussed the elusiveness of utopia — an interesting perspective given that we look upto ideals like these in Borderless. I would urge more of you to join this conversation and tell us what you think. We did have Wendy Jones Nakashini start a discussion along these lines in an earlier issue.
I would want to thank our dedicated team from the bottom of my heart. Without them, we could not have brought out two issues within three weeks for we were late with our February issue. A huge thanks to them for their writing and to Sohana Manzoor for her art too. Thanks to our wonderful reviewers who have been with us for a number of years, to all our mentors and contributors without who this journal could not exist. Huge thanks to all our fabulous loyal readers. Devoid of their patronage these words would dangle meaninglessly and unread. Thank you all.
Wish you a wonderful spring as Borderless Journal starts out on the fifth year of its virtual existence! We hope you will be part of our journey throughout…
Enjoy the reads in this special anniversary issue with more content than highlighted here, and each piece is a wonderful addition to our oeuvre!
Title: The Kidnapping of Mark Twain: A Bombay Mystery
Author: Anuradha Kumar
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
At the turn of the nineteenth century, Bombay was a city bustling with economic activity. A city that stood on the verge of modernisation and rivalled cities like Paris, London and New York. A city that had much to offer to those coming in to make a living or to simply visit it for sightseeing. A city that offered home and work opportunities to people from different countries across the world. It was also during the years 1896-97 that Samuel L. Clemens, or Mark Twain as he was better known as, travelled to Bombay with his family and wrote about his experience in his travelogue, Following the Equator.
In The Kidnapping of Mark Twain, Anuradha Kumar weaves the historic facts from Twain’s book with some intriguing and riveting detective fiction and makes it a fascinating read, especially for the mystery readers. Anuradha Kumar has published more than thirty books, has won the Commonwealth awards for short stories a couple of times, written under the pseudonym of Aditi Kay, worked in the Economic and Political Weekly for almost 9 years and writes from USA now.
The book starts with Henry Baker, an American trade consul, waiting impatiently for the arrival of Mark Twain and his family to Bombay. His arrival is shadowed by the news of murder of a young girl named Casi which has also left Henry’s friend Maya Barton disturbed. Within a day of his reaching Bombay, Mark Twain suddenly vanishes from his hotel room. What follows then is a series of trailing and mystery solving that keeps the reader in thrall.
Henry, with the help of Maya and his loyal aide Abdul, takes upon himself to find the writer. With much that is happening in the city, including murder, a labour unrest, a threat of strike, Henry finds the authorities a little too preoccupied or uninterested to follow Mark’s case. Since he cannot further risk any diplomatic disagreement between the United States and Britain, he follows through even though his position offers no legal authority. What he encounters at each step leads him to more confusing scenarios but he manages to pull through despite the shocking and bizarre revelations coming in.
Kumar skilfully crafts characters who carry the most unusual of acts which keep the readers on an edge – a ‘Waghare’ thief, a stilt walking magician, a fanatic preacher and a sad Serbian musician. Along with Maya Barton who excels in impersonating appearances. All this and much more. With the help of Maya and Abdul, Henry succeeds in unravelling the mystery of Mark Twain’s disappearance. The mystery that is solved, however, is just not of Mark’s disappearance but also of Casi’s murder and truth behind fanatic Arthur Pease’s de-addiction centre.
Anuradha Kumar’s research that has gone in writing this novel shines through her depiction of the city of erstwhile Bombay – its sights and sounds as well as all the places which stand out in the making of this city. The novel hustles with everything quintessentially Victorian Bombay. Action happens in places like the Victoria Terminus, the Bombay Police Headquarters, Colaba Causeway, Elephanta Caves and the Bombay Cotton Mills. Mark Twain takes rooms at the famous Watson’s Hotel where he finds it difficult to sleep because of all the noise made by crows. Henry Baker lives at Byculla club and Maya Barton at a Colaba bungalow. Tukaram, Casi’s husband and a suspect, is the labour supervisor at the Bombay Cotton Mills. The day Mark Twain lands, he attends a party hosted by a rich Parsi businessmen where the famous nautch girls present a dance. The reader gets a grasp on the city that once was. On the other hand, the novel also stirs with the city’s underbelly where crime, opium addiction, poverty and class dynamics are at play.
It is fascinating to note that the author would make use of Mark Twain’s disappearance as mentioned in his travelogue and spin it to make a thrilling mystery. The portrayal of events is so vivid that sometimes the reading seems akin to watching an Agatha Christie in a TV series. Then there are historic events mentioned in the backdrop which gives an idea about the world politics at large. The narrative refers to Oscar Wilde’s trial and his subsequent imprisonment in England and the first protest of women’s right to vote. It brings forth the discriminatory policies that British persisted in India like labelling certain ethnic groups as criminals and makes use of the social reforms like women education underway in the Indian society. All of these, combined with the adventure that the book offers, make for a gripping tale that could have been only set in the Bombay of 1896.
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
Interviewing Bulbul: Remembering Mrinal Sen… Ratnottama Sengupta introduces Bulbul Sharma to converse with her on Mrinal Sen, the legendary filmmaker, reflecting on Bulbul Sharma’s experience as an actress in his film, Interview. Click here to read.
In conversation with Gajra Kottary, eminent screenplay writer, and a brief introduction to her recent book of short stories, Autumn Blossoms. Click hereto read.
Translations
Nazrul’s poem, Samya or Equality, has been translated from Bengali by Niaz Zaman. Click here to read.
Masud Khan’s Fire Engine has been translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Let’s look forward to things getting better this New Year with wars tapering off to peace— a peace where weapons and violence are only to be found in history. Can that ever happen…?
Perhaps, all of us need to imagine it together. Feeling the need for peace, if we could dwell on the idea and come up with solutions, we could move towards making it a reality. To start with, every single human being has to believe firmly in the need for such a society instead of blaming wars on natural instincts. Human nature too needs to evolve. Right now, this kind of a world view may seem utopian. But from being hunter-gatherers, we did move towards complex civilisations that in times of peace, built structures and created art, things that would have seemed magical to a cave dweller in the Palaeolithic times. Will we destroy all that we built by warring – desecrating, decimating our own constructs and life to go on witch-hunts that lead to the destruction of our own species? Will human nature not evolve out of the darkness and chaos that leads to such large-scale annihilation?
Sometimes, darkness seems to rise in a crescendo only to be drowned by light emanating from an unknown source. This New Year — which started with an earthquake followed the next day by a deadly plane collision — was a test of human resilience from which we emerged as survivors, showing humanity can overcome hurdles if we do not decimate each other in wars. Bringing this to focus and wringing with the pain of loss, Suzanne Kamata, in her column tells us: “Earthquakes and other natural disasters are unavoidable, but I admire the effort that the Japanese people put into mitigating their effects. My hope is that more and more people here will begin to understand that it is okay to cry, to mourn, to grieve, and to talk about our suffering. My wish for the Japanese people in the new year is happiness and the achievement of dreams.”
And may this ring true for all humanity.
Often it is our creative urges that help bring to focus darker aspects of our nature. Laughter could help heal this darkness within us. Making light of our foibles, critiquing our own tendencies with a sense of humour could help us identify, creating a cathartic outcome which will ultimately lead to healing. An expert at doing that was a man who was as much a master of nonsense verses in Bengal as Edward Lear was in the West. Ratnottama Sengupta has brought into focus one such book by the legendary Sukumar Ray, Abol Tabol (or mumbo jumbo), a book that remains read, loved and relevant even hundred years later. We have more non-fiction from Keith Lyons who reflects on humanity as he loses himself in China. Antara Mukherjee talks of evolving and accepting a past woven with rituals that might seem effete nowadays and yet, these festivities did evoke a sense of joie de vivre and built bridges that stretch beyond the hectic pace of the current world. Devraj Singh Kalsi weaves in humour and variety with his funny take on stocks and shares. Rhys Hughes does much the same with his fun-filled recount on the differences between Sri Lanka and India, with crispy dosas leaning in favour of the latter.
Our stories take us around the world with Paul Mirabile from France, Ravi Shankar from Malaysia, Srinivasan R from India and Rebecca Klassen from England, weaving in the flavours of their own cultures yet touching hearts with the commonality of emotions.
In conversations, Ratnottama Sengupta introduces us to the multifaceted Bulbul Sharma and discusses with her the celebrated filmmaker Mrinal Sen, in one of whose films Sharma ( known for her art and writing) had acted. We also have a discussion with eminent screenplay writer Gajra Kottary on her latest book, Autumn Blossoms and an introduction to it.
Somdatta Mandal has reviewed Sudha Murty’s Common Yet Uncommon: 14 Memorable Stories from Daily Life, which she says, “speaks a universal language of what it means to be human”. Bhaskar Parichha takes us to Scott Ezell’s Journey to the End of the Empire: In China Along the Edge of Tibet. Parichha opines: “The book evokes the majesty of Tibetan landscapes, the unique dignity of the Tibetan people, and the sensory extremity of navigating nearly pre-industrial communities at the edge of the map, while also encompassing the erosion of cultures and ecosystems. Journey to the End of the Empire is both a love song and a protest against environmental destruction, centralised national narratives and marginalised minorities.” Meenakshi Malhotra provides a respite from the serious and emotional by giving us a lively review of Rhys Hughes’ The Coffee Rubaiyat, putting it in context of literature on coffee, weaving in poetry by Alexander Pope and TS Eliot. Rakhi Dalal has reviewed a translation from Punjabi by Ajeet Cour and Minoo Minocha of Cour’s Life Was Here Somewhere. Our book excerpts from Anuradha Kumar’s The Kidnapping of Mark Twain: A Bombay Mysteryintroduces a lighter note as opposed to the intense prose of Srijato’s AHouse of Rain and Snow, translated from Bengali by Maharghya Chakraborty.
Translations this time take us to the realm of poetry again with Fazal Baloch introducing us to a classical poet from Balochistan, the late Mulla Fazul. Ihlwha Choi has self-translated his poetry from Korean. Niaz Zaman brings us Nazrul’s Samya or Equality – a visionary poem for the chaotic times we live in — and Fakrul Alam transcribes Masud Khan’s Bengali verses for Anglophone readers. Our translations are wound up with Tagore’s Prarthonaor Prayer, a poem in which the poet talks of keeping his integrity and concludes saying ‘May the wellbeing of others fill my heart/ With contentment”.
May we all like Tagore find contentment in others’ wellbeing and move towards a world impacted by love and peace! The grand polymath always has had the last say…
I would like to thank our contributors, the Borderless team for this vibrant beginning of the year issue, Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous art, and all our readers for continuing to patronise us.
With hope of moving towards a utopian future, I invite you to savour our fare, some of which is not covered by this note. Do pause by our contents page to check out all our fare.
India’s independence in 1947 came with its own set of political as well as social uncertainties and challenges. For the people displaced from their native places, it was a struggle to find a home in unknown places amidst strangers, a firm footing to hold. The stories in this collection by Ajeet Cour, a profound and powerful voice in Punjabi Literature, offer observation of everyday lives of common people in the wake of Partition and during the early years of settling of migrants in Delhi and Punjab. But more than accounts of struggle for their livelihoods, these are stories of interpersonal relationships, of pain, anguish, betrayal and heartbreaks.
Ajeet Cour was born in 1934 in Lahore and migrated to Delhi in 1947 after the Partition. She began writing short stories as a teenager and today is the author of twenty-two books which include novels, novellas, short stories, biographical sketches and translations. In 1986, she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for her autobiography. In 2006, she was awarded the Padma Shri for her writing and her contributions in the field of social upliftment. She is the Founder President of the Indian Council for Poverty Alleviation, and has been President, Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature. In 1977, Ajeet Cour also founded the Academy of Fine Arts and Literature, a non-commercial institution in New Delhi for the promotion of the arts, literature, theatre, music and dance.
This book is a collection of fourteen short stories translated from Punjabi to English by Ajeet Cour and Minoo Minocha. In her note at the beginning of this collection, the author says:
“I write because I am a witness to the horrors of daily life, day-to-day existence of people living next door, or in Punjab or Kashmir or Assam, or in Bosnia or Chechnya or Rawanda, or anywhere else in the world, feeling my destiny entwined with theirs, living in fear, dying like flies. And I can’t look the other way. I write because I believe that those who remain silent become a part of the dark conspiracy.”
The stories comprising this collection are accounts of everyday horrors faced by common people, of the brunt of estranged and conflicted relationships bore by people even as they grappled to find and hold onto a ground in life after the suffering endured during partition. Most of these stories are women centered and carry a first person narrator. The story ‘Walking a Tightrope’ is that of a woman torn between her husband and an irresponsible son disowned by his father. The author offers a nuanced glimpse into before/after the partition in a big household. She employs the image of kitchen to demonstrate a married woman’s domain as well as her confines in a patriarchal household. ‘Death Among Strangers’ is a story of a grief stricken daughter who could not take care well for her father post Partition due to the apathy of her husband. Both stories use death as the pivot which jostles the main women characters out of their pre-determined roles of mother and wife respectively.
In some of the stories, characters navigate through the ‘babudom’ of Indian Bureaucracy. Trying to find ways to get their problems addressed, they often surrender to the system which becomes increasingly inaccessible to them. Often, the characters are irritated by the system which makes them invisible and works only at the behest of those in power. The title of such a story ‘Clerk Maharaja’, otherwise an oxymoron, denotes the high esteem accorded to a regular class government employee who carries enormous power when it comes to the movement of files from one desk to the other.
In the titular story ‘Life Was Here Somewhere’, a helpless and disgruntled narrator declares the whole country as a heap of garbage no one is interested in cleaning, and those running the country as visceral creatures feasting on the stinking pile.
The story ‘The Kettle is Whispering’ explores kinship between a single and a widowed woman whereas the story ‘Unsought Passion’ explores the ugliness of unwarranted attention. Both stories take us to the corridors of working women hostels in the early years of Delhi post independence, presenting a window to the dynamics of interactions and disagreements.
In a couple of stories the horror of terrorism is explored where the loved ones are either targeted by extremists or by the forces fighting extremism. These stories focus upon the suffering families, their anxieties and pain as they try to make sense of their loss. In ‘Dead-End’ a young woman tries to save a young wounded extremist even though she is apprehensive that he might have killed her brother.
Ajeet Cour poignantly portrays the internal and interpersonal conflicts as faced by ordinary people in the course of their everyday lives in the stories of this collection. Her writing resonates with their pain, her words capture their mindscapes bearing witness to horrifying bestiality humans are capable of and continue to exhibit in their dealings with their fellow human beings.
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
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Bangalar Nobbyo Lekhokdiger Proti Nibedon(a request to new writers of Bengali), has been translated from Bengali and introduced by Abdullah-Al-Musayeb. Clickhere to read.
Poetry on Rain by Masud Khanhas been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Dancerby Bashir Baidar, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Ratnottama Sengupta presents the first hand account of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992-1995) from a letter from her brother, who was posted there as part of the peace-keeping troops. Click here to read.
Borderless 