Ratnottama Sengupta talks to Ruchira Gupta, activist for global fight against human trafficking, about her work and introduces her novel, I Kick and I Fly. Click here to read.
The White Lady by Atta Shad has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Sparrows by Ihlwha Choi has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.
Tagore’s Dhoola Mandiror Temple of Dust has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.
Pandies Corner
Songs of Freedom: What are the Options? is an autobiographical narrative by Jyoti Kaur, translated from Hindustani by Lourdes M Supriya. These narrations highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and pandies’. Click here to read.
Ratnottama Sengupta travels back to her childhood wonderland where she witnessed what we regard as Indian film history being created. Click here to read.
Aditi Yadav explores the universal appeal of the translation of a 1937 Japanese novel that recently came to limelight as it’s rendition on the screen won the Golden Globe Best Animated Feature Film award (2024). Click here to read.
Love is a many splendoured thing and takes many forms — that stretches beyond bodily chemistry to a need to love all humankind. There is the love for one’s parents, family, practices one believes in and most of all nurtured among those who write, a love for words. For some, like Tagore, words became akin to breathing. He wrote from a young age. Eventually, an urge to bridge social gaps led him to write poetry that bleeds from the heart for the wellbeing of all humanity. Tagore told a group of writers, musicians, and artists, who were visiting Sriniketan in 1936: “The picture of the helpless village which I saw each day as I sailed past on the river has remained with me and so I have come to make the great initiation here. It is not the work for one, it must involve all. I have invited you today not to discuss my literature nor listen to my poetry. I want you to see for yourself where our society’s real work lies. That is the reason why I am pointing to it over and over again. My reward will be if you can feel for yourself the value of this work.”
And it was perhaps to express this great love of humanity that he had written earlier in his life a poem called Dhoola Mandirthat urges us to rise beyond our differences of faith and find love in serving humankind. In this month, which celebrates love with Valentine’s Day, we have a translation of this poem that is born of his love for all people, Dhoola Mandir. Another poet who writes of his love for humanity and questions religion is Nazrul, two of whose poems have been translated by Niaz Zaman. Exploring love between a parent and children is poetry by Masood Khan translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam. From the distant frontiers of Balochistan, we have a poem by Atta Shad, translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch, for a fair lady — this time it is admiration. Ihlwha Choi translates poetry from Korean to express his love for a borderless world through the flight of sparrows.
Suzanne Kamata writes a light-hearted yet meaningful column on the recent Taylor Swift concert in Tokyo. Aditi Yadav takes up the Japanese book on which was based a movie that won the 2024 Golden Globe Best Animated Feature Film Award. Sohana Manzoor journeys to London as Devraj Singh Kalsi with tongue in cheek humour comments on extracurriculars that have so become a necessity for youngsters to get to the right schools. Snigdha Agrawal gives us a slice of nostalgia while recounting the story of a Santhali lady and Keith Lyons expresses his love for peace as he writes in memory of a man who cycled for peace.
In reviews, Somdatta Mandal has explored Tahira Naqvi’s The History Teacher of Lahore: A Novel. Srijato’s AHouse of Rain and Snow, translated from Bengali by Maharghya Chakraborty, has been discussed by Basudhara Roy and Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Toby Walsh’s Faking It: Artificial Intelligence in a Human World. News and Documentary Emmy Award winner (1996) Ruchira Gupta’s daring novel born of her work among human traffickers, I Kick and I Fly, has been brought to our notice by Sengupta and she converses about the book and beyond with this socially conscious activist, filmmaker and writer. Another humanist, a doctor who served by bridging gaps between patients from underprivileged backgrounds, Dr Ratna Magotra, also conversed about her autobiography,Whispers of the Heart — Not Just a Surgeon: An Autobiography, where she charts her journey which led her to find solutions to take cardiac care to those who did not have the money to afford it,
We have fiction this time from Neeman Sobhan reflecting on how far people will go for the love of their mother tongue to highlight the movement that started on 21st February in 1952 and created Bangladesh in 1971. Our stories are from around the world — Paul Mirabile from France, Ravi Shankar from Malaysia, Sobhan from Bangladesh and Ravi Prakash and Apurba Biswas from India — weaving local flavours and immigrant narratives. Most poignant of all the stories is a real-life narrative under the ‘Songs of Freedom’ series by a young girl, Jyoti Kaur, translated from Hindustani by Lourdes M Supriya. These stories are brought to us in coordination with pandies’ and Shaktishalini, a women’s organisation to enable the abused. Sanjay Kumar, the founder of pandies’ and the author of a most poignant book about healing suffering of children through theatre, Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre: Exploring Play, writes, “‘Songs of Freedom’ bring stories from women — certainly not victims, not even survivors but fighters against the patriarchal status quo with support from the organisation Shaktishalini.”
While looking forward in hope of finding a world coloured with love and kindness under the blue dome, I would like to thank our fabulous team who always support Borderless Journal with their wonderful work. A huge thanks to all of you from the bottom of my heart. I thank all the writers who make our issues come alive with their creations and readers who savour it to make it worth our while to bring out more issues. I would urge our readers to visit our contents’ page as we have more than mentioned here.
“Kaki[1], do not worry. Will you not go to Ajmer Sharif just because you do not have money? No, no. As long as I am to support you, you are going to Khwaja’sDargah[2]. I will give you the money. Lose not this chance. When the Khwaja has summoned you, how can you deny? And, that too, because of money! No, no – never. Tomorrow is the final hearing of a case, and I will get a good sum. Pack up your luggage and be ready. I will arrange for the expenses. Take no stress. You are going to Ajmer Sharif, okay?” Mishraji said to his neighbour, an old Mohammedan widow.
Mishraji was an advocate by profession. His law practice in the district court paid well, but to assume him rich would be an exaggeration. He was not poor either; his wife wore jewellery and he had a 110-cc Honda bike.
The old widow lived alone. Her husband had died two years ago, and her two sons, too, had gone to Saudi Arabia for earning a better livelihood. Such migrations for getting a better pay were not new in the village. One or two from every family had migrated elsewhere to overcome the persecutions of poverty.
The widow, Saliman, had taken a vow that if her sons started to earn there, she would offer a Chadar[3] at the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer. Apparently, she needed the money for the pious journey. Her sons had promised to send as soon as they got their first pay, but even after three months, she had not received a dime.
Maybe her sons had squandered the money away, or it might also be that they had not got it themselves yet. The widow subsisted on the rations she got from the PDS (Public Distribution System) and the vegetables in her kitchen garden. As for cash, she had little money she used to get as rent for her fertile land, less than an acre. The rent she got was just enough for the daily expenses, not for the pilgrimage she had taken upon herself.
Now, when the time to go had come closer, she had almost nothing except two hundred rupees she had saved somehow. She knew it would not be sufficient even for the bus fare to the dargah.
Since many of her acquaintances were going, whenever someone asked, “Kaki, have you done your packing for Ajmer Sharif?” She would humbly reply, “Not this time. I will go next year.”
When Ramakant Mishra, the advocate known as Mishraji among the villagers, got this news from his wife, who must have heard this at Kaffu’s confectionery – the one and only one in the village, he offered to help Saliman kaki. In good will, of course.
(2)
The next day was Monday. The court was in session. He pleaded his client’s case. After the closing argument, he was waiting for the decision. The decision was in his favour. The client, who had just been cleared of robbery charges, handed him a bundle of cash amounting to ten thousand rupees. Mishraji’s eyes smiled; the crispy notes had tickled his senses.
To keep his promise, Mishraji left the court early and started on his bike towards the village. He wanted to give the money to kaki in time for her to catch the bus.
Sixteen kilometres separated the town from his village. A dilapidated zigzag road, full of potholes and hairpin bends connected both. It ran between paddy fields, hamlets, shops, temples, and mosques. Had a photographer taken an aerial shot from a minaret, the photo would have looked like a reticulated python coiled between green and grey spots.
Mishraji set out for the village at three in the afternoon. He had to reach kaki before a quarter to four because the bus was scheduled to leave at four. He was in a hurry to get to her in time.
(3)
By quarter past three, Mishraji had covered almost half of the distance; the old peepal tree, taken as the abode of a Brahmarakshasa[4]by the villagers, the brick kiln which provided work to destitute men and women and school dropouts, and the chai tapri[5] – also used as a gambling den by the idlers, all these landmarks were left behind as the bike sped past. Now, Mishraji was passing by a temple, situated near a well on his left side; but right then, a truck overloaded with cement sacks came from the opposite direction. He had to stop to let it pass. It went on rambling and trembling and leaving a cloud of dust thick enough to make him cough. These were the day-to-day realities of his life. He had forgotten that these were the problems to think about, complain about, and raise questions about.
When the truck went away, Mishraji sped off on the bike again. He could see the next hairpin turn in a distance of a few hundred meters and a boy of fourteen or fifteen riding a mule cart loaded with sun-baked bricks. The boy must have been a daily wage labourer from the nearby kiln, Mishraji thought, and he was probably going to deliver the bricks there. The boy and the mule cart were the only objects of his undivided attention then, for the boy’s focus wasn’t on the road but on the mule. He was in a hurry. He was using the whip as an accelerator on the poor mule. As the boy whipped, the mule would start braying and tried to drag the cart with greater force. The mule slobbered and writhed in pain. Mishraji wanted to stop the boy and slap him for this cruelty. But fate had some other plans.
At the turn lay a deep pothole in the middle of the rutted road. No sooner did Mishraji turn his bike than the mule cart arrived close to him, and before he could pass, the right wheel went into that pothole. The mule, already exasperated, came down on its knees. The brick stacks, at rest earlier on the plain surface of the cart, plunged with a fierce thud on the right where Mishraji was. A few bricks fell on his thigh. And a few on the wheel guard, petrol tank, and windscreen, too. The result was an instant damage. The bike skidded off, and Mishraji fell before he could control himself. His left leg rasped against the loose gravel of the road. It tore off his pants, and the abrasion against the gravel made him bleed. He also got scratches on his elbow and knee. However, his head was safe because of the helmet.
The lad, no less responsible than the road and the turn, stood on the other side of the road with a flabbergasted face. Scared to death.
The villagers working in the nearby fields ran for help when they saw the mule cart collapsing. At first, they supported Mishraji, and then, one of them straightened the bike and put it on the stand. Misraji was 46, but he had maintained his body through yoga. He stood up and walked a few steps just to check for any fractures. He was fortunate, there were none.
A searing pain tormented him, but an abrupt rage had halted on his face. He pointed the people towards the mule – still kneeling under the weight of the cart. While they ran to balance it, his eyes looked for the real culprit.
He saw the boy standing on the other side of the road and beckoned him with a wave to come to him. The boy was shivering with fear; he had not imagined that something like this could happen. He started slowly and, with measured steps, came near. When he came close enough, without asking or saying a word, Mishraji held his hand and hit a hard slap on his face. Tadaak! It at once reddened his grimy cheek; a five-fingers-mark emerged on it as if the lightning flash were imprinted on the cloud; then another slap with the same force, and then again, a third one. The boy bellowed and cried for help. Mishraji growled, “Bastard, you almost killed me! Guttersnipes like you have oppressed the whole country.” He went on abusing with the same rage. And the boy kept crying.
Someone in the crowd ran towards him, and said, “Sahib, this boy is unfortunate. Mustaqim, his alcoholic father, beats him and his mother daily; his master, Chobe Singh, at the kiln, beats and abuses him if he arrives late. The master does not tolerate a late delivery. Forgive him, please. Who knows, but maybe God saved you from a greater danger.”
The rage Mishraji felt did not calm. Though he wanted to keep slapping the boy, since he had to reach the village on time, he jerked the hand of the boy and said, “Get last, and never show me your face again. Otherwise, I’ll wring your neck off. Buzz off!”
The boy, sobbing and wiping tears on his dirty sleeve, went to collect the scattered broken bricks. Apart from the recent slapping, he was much more afraid of the upcoming insults and scurrilities from the master waiting at the kiln. He gathered and stacked the bricks and started the cart. The mule limped at first but picked up pace after a slash of the whip.
For a few minutes, Mishraji watched the boy and said nothing. The crowd had already started to disperse. Since he had to reach on time; without giving much thought, he moved towards the bike. The accident had damaged it enough. The indicator, the headlight, and the visor were broken. The wheel guard had a crack; the petrol tank, an ugly scratch; and the front number plate had twisted off in such a way that it was hard to read the numbers from afar. Nonetheless, the bike started on the second attempt and carried the angry and injured advocate to his destination.
(4)
Seeing Mishraji’s condition, Saliman Kaki guessed at once that he must have had a narrow escape from an accident. As he came near, she hugged him and started weeping. Tears rolled down her cheek, and between the sobs, she said, “For me, you had to go through this. Allah, why did You punish this kind-hearted man for my sins? How unfair it is that You always test good men!”
Mishraji tried to console her, but she kept on crying and sobbing. Tears choked her. People on the crossroad, where the driver had parked the bus, watched the emotional scene in amazement. When the driver honked a fourth time, Mishraji realised the urgency of the situation, and taking out five thousand rupees from the bundle, handed them to the widow, saying, “Kaki, do not worry about me. I just got some scratches; they will heal in a day or two. Take care of yourself and eat well. Relax. Relax and call me when you reach Ajmer.”
She was just speechless. She said, in the end, while parting from him and stepping on the bus, “I will offer a Chadar for you, too. I will also pray for you. You are also like my son.”
The bus started, and Kaki stood at the entrance doorway looking at Mishraji until he was out of sight. He stood there, oscillating between joy and joint pains. He felt happy; he had forgotten about the boy.
He came home. His wife was sad and angry and cursed the boy who caused the accident. She also cursed Saliman Kaki. Mishraji bathed, put some bandages on the scratches, and gulped a few painkillers. After dinner, he fell asleep soon.
(5)
The next day, at the breakfast table, he saw the newspaper. He was dumbstruck after reading a short report in the corner of My City page. The headline read, ‘Man Beaten to Death. Accused is Absconding’. The report read thus:
‘Shravasti: A 50-year-old brick-kiln manager was allegedly beaten to death by a teenage daily wage labourer in Angadpur village of Ranipur block on Monday. The police said that the incident took place at four in the evening when the labourer arrived at the brick kiln with his mule cart to deliver the sun-baked bricks. The manager was angry due to the late delivery and tried to hit the alleged teenager by throwing a rosewood baton at him. When the baton missed the aim, the manager ran and caught the labourer and beat him black and blue. When the labourer fell, the manager moved back and went to his shanty chamber. While the manager was busy with his notebook, the labourer came into the chamber with the baton in hand and hit him on the head. He kept hitting until the manager was unconscious. Within an hour, the manager was taken to the District Hospital by people working around, where the doctors declared him dead. The primary cause of the death happened to be the skull fracture and severe brain haemorrhage, as told by the doctors. The accused teenager is absconding. According to the police, he must have crossed the border by now.’
Ravi Prakash has spent thirty years of his life in a small town near the Indo-Nepal border in the district Shravasti. He now lives in Meerut and teaches English in a Government Inter College. Although, he has left the place, it has not left him yet; and possibly, will never leave him. Ravi tries to narrate the stories that haunt him day and night. A few of his stories and poems have been published in several online journals.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
We did it! … Announcing our first anthology … Monalisa No Longer Smiles… Click here to read.
Conversations
Suchen Christine Lim, an iconic writer from Singapore in conversation about her latest book, Dearest Intimate. Click here to read.
Blazing trails, as well as retracing the footsteps of great explorers, Christopher Winnan, a travel writer, delves into the past, and gazes into the future while conversing with Keith Lyons. Click hereto read.
Saturday Afternoon is a poem by Ihlwha Choi, translated from Korean by the poet himself. 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.
Basudhara Roy has reviewed Afsar Mohammad’s Evening with a Sufi: Selected Poems, translated from Telugu by Afsar Mohammad and Shamala Gallagher. Click hereto read.
That day, the vast crowd on the road took me by surprise. I was riding back home from the school in the village where I teach. People had jammed the road near a cremation ground. I stopped my bike to ask a man: “What happened? Why are there so many people on the road? They must be thousands in number, don’t you think?”
“Don’t you know? Manglu died this morning. All these men have come to attend his funeral,” the man told me.
“Oh, was he a great leader or saint?”
“No, he was a great funeral attendee.”
“A funeral attendee! I had heard of poets, leaders, and saints whose funerals attracted a crowd like this but never of someone called a funeral attendee. What was so special about him?” I asked again.
“Manglu never left a funeral unattended if he came to know about any death nearby. It was his legacy.”
“Oh, achha[1]!” interjected I, and, having nothing to say more, started the bike.
“What is so great about that?” I thought. But the crowd I was moving amidst defied the arguments my thoughts provided. This dead man must have been a man extraordinaire in his lifespan.
But who cares?
I made my way somehow into the crowd and moved the bike ahead.
I came home. The day went as usual, but I realised that I could not stop thinking about that funeral attendee.
The next day, in school, during recess, when I put a question about the dead man while chatting with my colleagues, it at once caught everyone’s attention. The head teacher, a greybeard, and a native of the village knew about him. He narrated Manglu’s story:
“About thirty years ago, Manglu had to leave his native village Kherupura due to the disastrous flood. He could never return, for the flood had engulfed his village. The whole of it had vanished into the Rapti.
“Manglu had nowhere to go. His father died in that flood. His mother had died earlier — a few years ago, and, as he had no sibling, he was left alone with his wife, who was pregnant at that time.
“He had to move out. Destiny forced him to live a nomadic life. He came to live in Silva village near the main road, which connected two headquarters of the adjacent districts – Shravasti and Bahraich.
“At first, the couple lived under a tree, but later on, seeing the condition of Manglu’s wife, the village head gave him a small piece of land. On it, he built a mud house. They lived happily for a few months, but Manglu could not save his wife till the following year. She died, I believe, during her childbearing. Manglu was all alone after that tragedy. He had no one whom he could consider as a family. His relatives were living in different places. He could go to any of them, but he decided to live on his own in the village.
“To make ends meet, he worked as a woodcutter, a labourer, and a hawker, but he never left the village. After his day job, he actively participated in village life and attended every function and funeral, either invited or uninvited. Since he had no one he could call his own, he started regarding everyone as his own. No one took him seriously, but he maintained this routine.
“After many years, finding himself unable to do hard physical labor, he opened a kiosk-like shop by the roadside where he sold petty items like cigarettes, tobacco, and paan[2]. He made acquaintance with everyone who came to his gumti[3]. Motorcyclists, bus drivers, hawkers, rickshaw pullers, peddlers, and beggars – men from all walks of life were his friends. In a year or two, Manglu acquired such fame that people started talking about the directions and distances by referring to his kiosk as a distinctive landmark.
“Manglu never indulged in hoarding money; he devoted himself to making friends. Anyone could purchase from him on credit. And such a good-natured man he was that even the vilest man paid him back.
“He widened his social circle. People from adjacent districts knew his name and his thatched kiosk. I would say that he was more famous than a monument. In those days, too, he never left any funeral unattended, either in his village or in any other ones. If the dead belonged to another village, he would take a ride as soon as possible. Sometimes, people at the cremation ground wondered why he had not arrived yet, but he always arrived sooner or later.
“As he grew older, he found himself unable to run the shop. He took shelter in one of his friend’s houses to spend his last days. He could not walk straight then; he suffered from camptocormia–the bent spine syndrome, and he had to take the support of a bamboo staff. He roamed in the village all day with the bamboo staff in one hand and enquired about the well-being of whosoever came in his way. Even at that time, if someone died somewhere, he would try to go there to attend the funeral.
“The villagers thought he had a mania for attending funerals. And thus, in the last days of his life, people started calling him ‘the funeral attendee.’ He had become a piece of curiosity for the youngster in the village.
“And then, he died yesterday. The news of his death spread like wildfire. Can you believe that more than two thousand people attended his funeral? I am not sure what exactly all this resembles, but I would say that Manglu must be smiling in heaven.”
.
Glossary
[1] Connotes– Is that so? Literal translation from Hindi — yes.
Ravi Prakash teaches small kids in a rural primary school. He lives in a small town near the Indo-Nepal border in the district of Shravasti, Uttar Pradesh.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Borderless 