Jun A. Alindogan gives an account of how an overgrowth of water hyacinth affects aquatic life and upsets the local food chain while giving us a flavourful account of local food. Clickhereto read.
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne…
The Canterbury Tales (1387-1400) by Chaucer, Prologue
This is the month Asia hosts sprays of new years across multiple regions. Many of these celebrate the fecundity of Earth, spring and the departure of bleak winter months. Each new year is filled with hope for the coming year. The vibrant colours of varied cultures celebrate spring in different ways, but it is a welcome for the new-born year, a jubilation, a reaffirmation of the continuity of the circle of life. Will the wars, especially the shortages caused by them and felt deeply by many of us, affect these celebrations? Had they impacted the festivals that were celebrated earlier? These are questions to which we all seek answers. We can only try to gauge the suffering caused by war on those whose homes, hopes, families and assets have been affected other than trying to cope with the senselessness of such inane attacks. But, in keeping with TS Eliot’s observations on Prufrock, most of us continue our lives unperturbed and as usual.
Some of us think and try to dissent for peace and a world without borders with words – prose or poetry. To reinforce ideas of commonalities that bind overriding divides, we are excited to announce a poetry anthology mapping varied continents with content from Borderless Journal, Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems. We are hugely grateful to Hawakal Publishers for this opportunity and to Bitan Chakraborty for the fabulous cover design. We invite you all to browse on the anthology which is available in hardcopy across continents.
Our issue this month is a bumper issue with the translation of Tagore’s Roktokorobi (Red Oleanders) by Professor Fakrul Alam. It’s the full-length play this time as earlier we had carried only an excerpt. The play is deeply relevant to our times as is Somdatta Mandal’s English rendition of his story, ‘Daliya’, set in Arakan. We also have also translated Tagore’s response to the idea of mortal fame and deification in poetry. Kallol Lahiri’s poignant Bengali story about the resilience of an ageing actress has been brought to us in English by V Ramaswamy. Isa Kamari brings us translations of his Malay poems exploring spirituality through nature.
But what really grips are the fables that Hughes will be sharing with us over four months. He calls them Rhysop Fables, after the ancient ones from Aesop’s with the ancient author himself being mentioned in one of the short absurdist narratives this time. In fiction, our regular fable writer, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao explores a modern-day dilemma, that of social media intruding into the development of children. Jonathon B Ferrini glances at resilience and mental disability while, Sangeetha G looks into societal attitudes that still plague her part of the world. Oindrila Ghosal gives a story set in Kashmir.
From Kashmir, Gower Bhat shares a heartfelt musing on being a first time father. Mohul Bhowmick writes of Eid in Hydearbad (Hari Raya in Southeast Asia) — echoing themes from Kamari’s poems — and Anupriya Pandey ponders over the quiet acceptance of mundane life that emphasises social inequities. Jun A. Alindogan brings home issues from Phillipines. While we have stories about Vietnam from Meredith Stephens, Suzanne Kamata muses about Phnom Penh, mesmerised by Cambodian dancers.
Farouk Gulsara writes of his cycling trip from Jaipur to Udaipur bringing to life dichotomies of values and showing that age can be just a number. Chetan Poduri reinforces gaps created by technology as does Charudutta Panigrah, a theme that reverberates from poetry to fiction to non-fiction and much of it with a light touch. Devraj Singh Kalsi sprinkles humour with his strange tale about hiring a bodyguard.
Keith Lyons has brought in Keith Westwaters, a soldier-turned-poet who seems to find his muse mainly in New Zealand. We have also featured an author who overrides borders of continents, Marzia Pasini. Her book, Leonie’s Leap, has a protagonist of mixed origin and her characters are drawn out of Russia, India, Bulgaria and many other places.
This rounds up our April issue. Do visit our content’s page and explore the journal further.
Huge thanks to the wonderful team, especially Sohana Manzoor for her art. They help bring together the colours of the world to our pages. Huge thanks to contributors who make each issue evolve a personality of its own. And heartfelt thanks to readers who make it worth our while to write.
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (1870-1953) was a writer and political activist. From Public Domain
A MOTORBIKE AT KNOSSOS (in memory of Hilaire Belloc)
The chief defect of Arthur Glee was unrestrained velocity. Let’s listen to his final story even though it’s rather gory.
Arthur rode a bike of chrome and red, filled onlookers’ hearts with mortal dread, for he had sworn that he must go to see the island grotto below where the Minotaur in darkness dwelled deep down within a stony hell, his awful bellow the only sound in that grisly underground, and Arthur raced through ruined halls and never hit a single wall. But speed is such a fickle thing, as Arthur learned, while wandering.
The labyrinth, built of stone and myth, was something he would reckon with. He sped past pillars, tall and wide, with nothing but a desire inside to prove that modern speed and gear can conquer every ancient fear. “The Labyrinth!” he roared with pride, and threw the throttle open wide.
But as he leaned into the curve, he lost his grip (and then his nerve). For history is a heavy weight on those who challenge it too late. He struck a wall of Minoan brick and though a rescue team was very quick they found that Arthur, in his haste, had gone most thoroughly to waste.
The surgeons, with astounding skill, repaired his frame against his will. With plastic, steel, titanium plate, they mended his unhappy state until, like Theseus’ famous ship, he’d lost his true identity’s grip. Was he the boy who crashed the bike or something more… robotic-like?
Now tourists stand in frozen lines beneath the Mediterranean pines, while Arthur ponders, strange and grim, with nothing left that was part of him.
The Moral: If you must visit ancient sites, do not go chasing bullish frights. For he who races through the past will find himself replaced at last.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
A pig, a waffle, a box, a chump, a resentment, a caterpillar, a gift, a loom, a cuttlefish, an aurora borealis, a duvet, a chair, a sunken continent, a cup that runneth over, an ancient paradox, a snivel, a bone, a toothless cog, a piecrust, a passionate kiss, an aching thigh, a broken window, a phantom, a cat, a bathtub, a chimney clogged with twigs, a forced laugh, a chewed pencil, a beetroot stain, a vague feeling, a hovercraft, an argument, a dog, an example of jargon, a butterfly, a solecism, a grotesque fiend, a coconut shy, a confident papaya and a thousand other things had gathered together in a restaurant for a celebratory meal.
The waiter came over to their table and shook his head.
“It’s off, I’m afraid,” he told them.
“But that’s nonsense! We haven’t ordered yet!”
The waiter smiled and said, “I didn’t mean the food, I meant the moral. There’s no way you’ll make a decent fable out of this situation. There are far too many characters in the story.”
THE IMPROBABLE VELOCIPEDE
A rich and powerful madman clapped his hands and said, “See that tall mountain over there? I want you to remove it from its base and set it on two wheels; then I want you to connect the back wheel to a system of gears and pedals, so that a climber sitting on the summit of the peak can make the whole thing trundle along.”
“That’s a really big job,” people warned him.
“So what? I’m rich and powerful and I can easily afford it. Do what I say with minimal delay!”
Six months later it was ready. As the madman pedalled the mass of rock and ice along, sounding his alpenhorn at pedestrians, he chuckled to himself. “I’ve always wanted a mountain bike.”
THE SEA SERPENT AND THE ROWING BOAT
A sea serpent fell in love with a rowing boat. “I love you. Do you love me in return?” asked the sea serpent.
“Yes, I think so,” replied the rowing boat.
“Despite the enormous age difference? I mean, I’m a living fossil from the Jurassic period but you were constructed in 1959; and the trees from which you are made aren’t older than a hundred years. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a younger monster?”
The rowing boat dismissed her anxieties.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “It’s my design that matters, not my building materials. And that dates back several thousand years at least. So put your mind at rest and let’s get smoochy!”
The sea serpent was happy to be formally courted by the rowing boat. Every day he brought her a little gift, usually a human being that she was able to devour in one tasty gulp.
One afternoon the rowing boat turned up with a man dressed in a frock coat and top hat. This man struggled with the oars but he wasn’t in control and had to go where the rowing boat wanted. Then the rowing boat cried out, “Look honey! A saint for you!”
The sea serpent surfaced at that point. “A saint?”
“I thought it was time we got properly engaged. That is how much I love you! It occurred to me that a saint’s halo could be used as a ring. It’s up to you whether you accept or not…”
The sea serpent examined the occupant of the boat.
“It’s a very sweet idea,” she said, “and of course I would accept. But I don’t think this fellow is a saint. He looks more like an industrialist. And he doesn’t have a halo, just a top hat.”
“He’s in disguise. His halo is beneath the hat!”
“So it is! How odd! Yum!”
THE LOST FABLE
A fable that was lost burst into tears. “I don’t belong in this collection of postmodern fripperies. I’m a decent fable, not a facile whimsy, and I was originally part of a traditional collection with real morals and everything. This Rhysop fellow has debased the form with his travesties and I want no part of his despicable project.”
A passing crow asked, “What’s the issue?”
The fable told him and the crow replied that he knew a clever earwig who could easily solve his problem.
So the fable set off on a long journey and eventually reached the cave where the earwig lived. When the earwig asked him what the matter was, the fable said, “Can you take me out of this set of facile fables and put me into Aesop’s collection instead?”
“Are you sure about that?” the earwig asked.
The fable nodded, so the earwig went to consult one of his books of magic and then he waved his legs in a special way and the fable vanished from sight. “What a strange request!” muttered the earwig to himself, as he went back to playing scales on the zither; he was learning the zither in his spare time. Why the devil not?
Aesop’s fables were passed on in the oral tradition and were written down only many centuries after the real Aesop (lived between 620 and 564 BCE) died in Greece. He was a slave
The fable opened its eyes and found itself wedged among dozens of used napkins and handkerchiefs. “This isn’t the middle of Aesop’s Fables! Where are the hare and the tortoise and all the other favourites? All I can see are snot rags and stained bibs!”
Across time and space floated the voice of the earwig. “The historical Aesop was a slave. He didn’t actually write down his fables. And he didn’t have enough money or opportunity to indulge any normal hobbies, so he made do with collecting bits of discarded cloth. This is the only collection Aesop ever had in his lifetime…”
“Now he tells me!” groaned the fable.
THE SCARED GHOST
There was a ghost who was scared of life. “But you’re already dead and the danger is over,” pointed out a skeleton.
“D-d-d-d-don’t tempt fate!” shivered the ghost.
“What is it exactly about life that alarms you so much?” the skeleton asked. The ghost turned elap and began…
“One moment!” cried the skeleton. “What is ‘elap’?”
“The opposite of pale,” answered the ghost. “Living men and women turn pale when they are scared; so it follows that a frightened ghost will turn elap. That’s logical, isn’t it?”
The skeleton waved a bony hand. “Fair enough. Continue.”
“I’ve forgotten what I was going to say…”
“It can’t have been important, in that case,” said the skeleton.
The ghost shrugged. “Maybe not.”
“What are you doing tonight?” asked the skeleton.
“Are you hitting on me?”
“Yes, I am. I’ve fancied you for ages.”
“As it happens, I’m free. What did you have in mind?”
“How about the cinema?”
“I don’t know. What are they showing?”
“A romance. It’s all about a man and a woman who meet on a train and fall in love and kiss each other with lips. Then they get married and dwell happily ever after in a nice house.”
The ghost recoiled. “No! I hate horror films!”
GHOST IN THE MACHINE
A ghost once used its entire deathtime’s savings to purchase a mainframe computer, to make possible the calculation of some of the parameters of the afterlife, I don’t know which ones. But after operating for many hours at a frantic pace, the device froze.
“Bother!” exclaimed the ghost. “It must be jammed on the inside. I had better find out what the trouble is.”
The ghost was the romantic partner of a skeleton and didn’t want to be the victim of sarcasm when it became obvious what a waste of money the machine had been. “I ought to try and fix it before ‘Bones’ gets back,” the ghost said to itself in desperation.
So it floated through the computer and ended up on the inside, but one of its wisps got snagged on a diode and it couldn’t get back out. When the skeleton returned from work and heard the cries for help emanating from within the mainframe, it was astonished and thought there was some deep symbolic meaning in this incident.
“I didn’t know computers had souls!” it gasped.
DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY
An antibody met a germ and said, “How do you do? I am very happy to make your acquaintance. Would you like a cup of tea? May I fetch you a small cake? If you require anything to improve your comfort, please let me know and I’ll do my best to provide it. I like your colour, shape and other physical characteristics. You are cool. You are grand. What a fine germ you are! I admire you so much.”
“Well, that reaction wasn’t what I was expecting!” cried the germ. “I came here to infect this bloodstream, but I don’t think I’ll do that now. I am too charmed by your kind words.”
“It’s a new style of resistance and I’m glad it seems to work. It’s called diplomatic immunity,” said the antibody.
TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK
A monkey that had more than two cheeks on its face was sprawled on the ground when a clever sage who knew everything there is to know about religion, philosophy and ethics happened to pass by. “Why do you look so sad and angry?” the sage enquired.
“I imagine it’s because I keep getting insulted,” said the monkey, “on account of my utterly freakish visage.”
“And that’s why you are lying in the dirt, is it?”
“Yes, I’m prone with hairy despair.”
The sage snorted and answered, “Whenever someone hurts you, turn the other cheek. That’s all you need to do. Try it and you’ll go far, believe me. I’m a sage and full of wisdom.”
The monkey considered his advice.
“Fair enough, I will,” he said.
And because he needed the practice, he started turning the other cheek immediately; but because he had so many of them, and because they went right around his head, he began rolling along the ground. He went faster and faster as he kept turning them, accelerating like a horizontal tornado that stank of banana juice and peanuts.
Soon he had vanished over the horizon. The sage smiled.
“I said he’d go far, didn’t I?”
GOOSE WRITING ADVICE
“Hey, what are you doing?” cried a goose as it waddled past a man who was brushing tar all over the manuscript of an unpublished book. “Why are you coating that tome with the sticky thick residue of the petroleum industry? That is peculiar behaviour!”
“I’m pitching my new novel,” came the answer.
“You fool!” cackled the goose. “You’re supposed to proofread it, not waterproof it. But the real issue is that you’re supposed to pitch the idea to a publisher first, not the actual book.”
“Pitch the idea?” frowned the man.
“That’s the way it is usually done,” confirmed the goose.
“But the idea is contained in the manuscript, embodied by the prose I have employed to tell the story that occurs, so by pitching the book I am also pitching the idea within, aren’t I?”
“You employed prose? What wages did you pay it?”
“Don’t try to be hilarious, bird!”
The goose said, “Well, pitching a novel is no use if the idea is smeared over and thus can’t be appreciated.”
The man considered this. “I see your point. Luckily the idea still exists in my head. I keep a copy there. So if I pitch my head, but leave a gap so the idea can still be viewed from outside, I’ll stand a better chance of my novel being published. Is that right?”
“Yes. It works for me,” replied the goose.
So the man began coating his head with tar and eventually only one of his ears jutted out from the black mess.
THE GLOVE
“I wish I could fly!” sighed a glove. “It’s true that I enjoy surfing waves; but waves only occur when the person who waves me lifts their hand and makes a gesture meaning hello or goodbye. Flying is surely superior to surfing or any other activity. I wish I knew the secret of rising into the air and staying there.”
“I’ll teach you to fly,” offered a hot-air balloon who happened to be drifting past. And he did exactly that. He showed the glove how to fill itself with hydrogen gas and seal itself at the wrist. Away flew the glove and thanks to a bizarre meteorological phenomenon involving the lower atmosphere acting like a magnifying lens, the flying item of handy fashion appeared much bigger than it really was, dominating the whole sky. You know what they say:
¶ Glove is in the air: everywhere you look around.
EDUCATED SHAPES
A myopic triangle that had gone to university to study economics became friendly with a segment and one day said, “Will you come dancing with me tonight? Then maybe we could go for a walk in the moonlight. I like you very much, to be perfectly candid.”
The segment blushed. “I must reject your amorous proposal for the simple reason that we’re not compatible.”
“What do you mean? We are both young triangles.”
The segment shook its head. “I’m not. You must be very shortsighted indeed. One of my sides is curved. I’m a segment, part of a circle. In fact I came to university in the first place to graduate as a complete circle, but it’s taking a very long time, I’m afraid.”
“Pardon my mistake!” cried the mortified triangle.
“I have been at this university for a hundred years already,” sighed the segment, “and I probably won’t leave for another century or two. I have studied so many subjects I feel sick!”
“But why can’t you graduate sooner than that?”
The segment answered sadly, “Because to become a proper accredited circle I require exactly 360 degrees.”
From Public Domain
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The Wave (1917), vintage illustration by C. R. W. Nevinson. From Public Domain
On world poetry day, we gather the colours of humanity to bring to you flavours of peace, compassion and love. With these poems, we seek solace and a future laced with the vibrant shades of humanity living in harmony with nature, the Earth and the Universe. These poems bring together not just writers from across the world but also some writings that are cross-cultural. Some of the poems express the condition of people living across the world. In this one page, we meet poets and translators from more than 25 countries fand translations from a dozen languages… Enjoy!
The Dragonfly, a poem by Ihlwha Choi, has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.
Four of his ownMalay poemshave been translated by Isa Kamari. Clickhere to read.
Hotel Acapulco, has been composed and translated from Italian by Ivan Pozzoni. Click hereto read.
Poetry in Bosnianfrom Bosnia & Herzegovina, written and translated by Maid Corbic. Click here to read.
Amalkantiby Nirendranath Chakraborty has been translated from Bengali by Debali Mookerjea-Leonard. Click hereto read
Poems of Longing by Jibananada Das homes two of his poems translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Clickhereto read.
Masud Khan’s poem,In Another Galaxy, has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click hereto read.
Quazi Johirul Islam’s The White-Coloured Book has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Four cantos from Ramakanta Rath’sSri Radha, translated from Odiya by the late poet himself, have been excerpted from his full length translation. Click here to read.
For Sanjay Kumar: To Sir — with Love has been written for the founder of pandies’ theatre by Tanvir, a youngster from the Nithari village where pandies’ worked with traumatised victims.
Miathili Poetryby Vidyanand Jha has been translated from Maithil by the poet himself. Click hereto read.
Meenakshi Malhotra writes of the diverse ways histories can be viewed, reflecting on the perspective from the point of view of water, climate, migrations or women. Click here to read.
Sometimes, we have an idea, a thought and then it takes form and becomes a reality. That is how the Borderless Journal came to be six years ago while the pandemic raged. The pandemic got over and takeovers and wars started. We continued to exist because all of you continue to pitch in, ignoring the differences created by certain human constructs. We meet with the commonality of felt emotions and aesthetics to create a space for all those who believe in looking beyond margins. We try to erase margins or borders that lead to hatred, anger, violence and war. Learning from the natural world, we believe we can be like the colours of the rainbow that seem to grow out of each other or the grass that is allowed to grow freely beyond manmade borders. If nature gives us lessons through its processes, is it not to our advantage to conserve what nurtures us, and in the process, we save our home planet, the Earth? We could all be together in peace, enjoying nature and nurture, living in harmony in the Universe if only we could overlook differences and revel in similarities.
A young poet Nma Dhahir says it all in her poem that is a part of our journal this month —
This is how we stay human together: by refusing the easy damage, by carrying each other without calling it sacrifice, by believing that what we protect in one another eventually protects the world.
Translations has more poetry with Professor Fakrul Alam bringing us Nazrul’s Bengali lyrics in English and Fazal Baloch familiarising us with beautiful Balochi poetry of the late Majeed Ajez, a young poet who left us too soon. Isa Kamari translates his own poems from Malay, capturing the colours of the community in Singapore to blend it with a larger whole. And of course, we have a Tagore poem rendered into English from Bengali. This time it’s a poem called ‘Jatra (Journey)’ which reflects not only on social gaps but also on politics through aeons.
Christine C Fair has translated a story from Punjabi by Lakhvinder Virk, a story that reflects resilience in women who face the dark end of social trends, a theme that reverberates in Flanagan’s poetry and Meenakshi Malhotra’s essay, which while reflecting on the need of different perspectives in histories – like water and nomads — peeks into the need to recall women’s history aswell. This is important not just because March hosts the International Women’s Day (IWD) but because one wonders if women in Afghanistan are better off now than the suffragettes who initiated the idea of such a day more than a century ago?
This time our non-fiction froths over with scrumptious writings from across continents. Tamara-Lee Brereton-Karabetsos muses on looking at numbers and beyond to enjoy the essence of nature. Farouk Gulsara ideates about living on in posterity through deeds and ideas. Gower Bhat shares how he learns story writing skills from watching movies. Meredith Stephens talks of her experience of a fire in the Australian summer. Bhaskar Parichha writes with passion about his region, Odisha. We have a heartfelt tribute to Mark Tully, who transcended borders, from Bhowmick. And an essay on Arundhati Roy’s memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, from Somdatta Mandal, which explores not just the book but also the covers which change with continents. Prithvijeet Sinha travels beyond Lucknow and Suzanne Kamata brings to us stories about her trip to Phnom Penh.
Keith Lyons draws from the current crises and writes about changing times, suggesting: “Changes aren’t endings, but thresholds.” Perhaps, if we see them as ‘thresholds of change’, the current events are emphasising the need to accept that human constructs can be redefined. I am sure a Neolithic or an Australopithecus would have been equally scared of evolving out of their system to one we would deem ‘superior’. Life in certain ways can only evolve towards the future, even if currently certain changes seem to be retrogressive. We can never correctly predict the future… but can only imagine it. And Devraj Singh Kalsi imagines it with a dollop of humour where tails become a trend among humans again!
Humour and absurdity are woven into a series of short fables by Hughes while Naramsetti Umamaheswarao weaves a fable around acceptanceof differences. In fiction, we have stories of resilience from Jonathon B Ferrini and Terry Sanville. Bhat gives us a story set in Kashmir and Sohana Manzoor gives us one set in Dhaka, a narrative that reminds one of Jane Austen… and perhaps even an abbreviated version of the 2001 film, Monsoon Wedding.
In reviews we have, Mohammad Asim Siddiqui discussing Anisur Rahman’s The Essential Ghalib. Rituparna Khan has written on Malashri Lal’s poetry collection reflecting on women, Signing in the Air. And Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Deepta Roy Chakraverti’s Daktarin Jamini Sen: The Life of British India’s First Woman Doctor, a book that reflects on the resilience that makes great women. Thus, weaving in flavours of the IWD, which applauds women who are resilient while urging humans for equal rights for one half of the world population.
While we ponder on larger realities, Borderless Journal looks forward to a future with more writings centred around humanity, climate change, our planet and all creatures great and small. This year has not only seen a rise in readership and contributors — and the numbers rose further after our unsolicited Duotrope listing in October 2025 — but has also attracted writers from more challenged parts of the world, like Ukraine, Iran, Tunisia and Kurdistan. We are delighted to home writing from all those who attempt to transcend borders and be a part of the larger race of humanity. I would like to quote Margaret Atwood to explain what I mean. “I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one ‘race’—the human race—and that we are all members of it.” And I would like to extend her view to find solidarity with all living beings. I hope that there will be a point in time when we will realise there’s not much difference between, a lizard, a fly, a human or a tree… All these lifeforms are necessary for our existence.
I would want to hugely thank all our team for stretching out and making this a special issue for our sixth anniversary and Manzoor for her fabulous artwork. Huge thanks to all our contributors and readers for being with us through our journey. Let’s change the world with peace, love and friendship!
I’m a canoe. How do you do? I’m the sleekest fastest vessel on the wide ocean blue.
Yes, I’m a canoe and I haven’t got a clue how to arrest my motion if I’m paddled with devotion by an energetic crew.
I’m a canoe. How about you? Fated by design to rigorously combine extreme elongation with ease of navigation I’ll pass through all the sudden storms and surging waves that Neptune sends to test the brave and save the day. I’m a valiant canoe.
But I’m no fool. I have learned my lesson. I avoid whirlpools, whether hot or cool, and grimy monsters with grave expressions who bathe in slimy caves and yearn to take possession of boats of any description or anything else that floats.
I’m a pragmatic canoe like a sensible shoe, slim not grim, modelled for efficiency, the envy of seagulls, hoping to travel far before I am eroded by the pressure on my hull.
Are you a schooner? I wish I’d met you sooner. We can explore the world together no matter what the weather and I will admire your rudder as we investigate the other seascapes that exist beyond the impenetrable drapes of mist and fog, those soggy vapours that kissed a frog long ago, so I’ve been told.
I’m a canoe. There’s a ban on catamarans where I come from and that’s why I am single. Would you care to mingle, sooner rather than later, dear schooner, procrastinator, my seaworthy resistor of a love that’s true? I’m a canoe.
From Public Domain
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
A group of creatures sat on a wall watching the sunset. The wall had been constructed to stop the sand from the beach blowing over the fields where crops grew. The scene was beautiful.
The hare said, “Let’s jump down and dance for joy.”
And that’s exactly what he did.
The weasel cried, “I’m coming too!” and he also jumped down. So did the fox, cat, monkey, grasshopper and aardvark. They capered in the ruby light and their shadows on the beach were amazingly long. The millipede was scared and remained on the wall.
“It’s a long way down,” he said nervously.
The hare said, “Don’t worry. It won’t hurt if you just bend your knees when you land to absorb the impact.”
“Bend my knees!” exclaimed the millipede. “But it’s almost evening. I don’t have all day, you know!”
BATHTIME FOR MOONS
A crescent moon was feeling tired, so he decided to have a nice dip in the Pacific Ocean. He lay back on his curve and just floated there without a care in the world or a care in the moon.
But an iceberg happened to pass along and when it saw the moon it couldn’t believe its eyes, partly because it didn’t have any eyes and partly because it had no belief. Yet it was amazed.
“Oh my!” it muttered to itself. “Look at the size of that banana!”
NET PROFIT
Drifting along in space, a cosmic spider was explaining to a galactic moth how it caught supper for itself. “First I make a web and then if I wait long enough, I always catch something edible.”
The moth was intrigued. “What’s your favourite food?”
“Planets,” answered the spider.
“Do you catch many of those, I wonder?”
The spider nodded. “So many that I can’t eat them all, so I leave some in storage for a rainy day. We don’t get many rainy days in outer space, but you know what I mean. Anyway, the funny thing is that some of these planets are infested with parasites.”
“Civilisations, you mean?” queried the moth.
“Exactly. And the inhabitants of those civilisations often think that my webs are lines of latitude and longitude. They sometimes use the separate strands for navigational purposes.”
“That’s hilarious!” chuckled the moth.
“Isn’t it?” agreed the spider.
The moth said, “Well, it was nice talking to you, but I’ve got work to do now. I have to circle that star over there a hundred times and then try to extinguish it by flying into it.”
“Good luck. Take care,” said the spider.
NOT A PATCH
A cumulus cloud kept rushing through the atmosphere, north, south, east and west; it never stopped for a moment. A sentient hot-air balloon asked if it had lost something. “I can’t think of any other reason why you should be hurrying through the sky like that.”
“I’m looking for a patch on sunlight on the ground,” said the cumulus cloud, “because I have been told they are worth seeing, but whenever I learn that one has appeared somewhere, it always vanishes by the time I arrive at the designated location. All I get to see is a shadow that happens to be precisely the same shape as me.”
“That’s a weird coincidence,” said the hot-air balloon. “The same thing happens to me but on a smaller scale.”
SWEET TALK
A chimp, a scarf and a hive were debating among themselves which of them had the most beautiful life. “I can peel bananas with my feet,” said the chimp, “and that’s one of the most beautiful things anyone can ever hope to do.” But the scarf wasn’t intimidated in the slightest and shouted, “I get thrown around necks and often my ends just dangle down, but in a strong wind they stick out horizontally; how can any conceivable thing be more beautiful than that?” But the hive laughed and said, “Flying insects live inside me and fill me with honey.”
Beauty is in the ‘i’ of the bee-holder.
JAM ON AN AARDVARK’S NOSE
A gorilla was bored and made a private vow that he would do something that nobody else had ever done before, so he travelled for many months until he came across an aardvark asleep in the shade of a tree. “Sorry for waking you,” said the gorilla, “but I’m wondering if you can do me a favour?” The aardvark responded sleepily, “What’s that, my hairy friend from faraway?” The gorilla explained, “Just stay where you are while I spread some apricot jam on your nose.”
The aardvark sighed. “You didn’t have to wake me up to make that request! You could have just gone ahead and spread the jam when I was sleeping and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.” The gorilla accepted this rebuke meekly and opened the jam jar.
When the nose was completely covered in jam, the gorilla stood back to examine his work. “Are you satisfied?” asked the aardvark. “Yes, it’s not bad,” said the gorilla. “Did you want anything else?” questioned the aardvark. “No, that’s sufficient. I’ll go home now. Nice to meet you and thanks for this opportunity. Goodbye!”
And the gorilla began the journey back home, but when he arrived, he found that his female had run off with an ocarina.
An Ocarina. From Public Domain
ABOVE HIS STATION
A philosopher was travelling on a train from Swansea to Tenby. It was a nice journey, but he wasn’t happy because his mind was a blank. It was his official job to keep having ideas, but not a single new one had come to him for ages. When he reached his destination, he got out of the train with the words, “This is my station.”
As he stood on the platform, he wondered if jumping into the air might help. So he made a pole from the branch of a tree and pole-vaulted over the railway tracks. As he reached the highest point of his immense jump, a new idea finally came to him.
His delight was short lived. On the opposite platform a hippopotamus was waiting for its own train and it happened to be yawning at that exact moment, maybe because it was tired or practicing for a competition. The philosopher landed in its mouth and vanished down its throat and into its stomach, never to be seen again.
Don’t get ideas above your station.
THE ROOK AND THE JACKDAW
A crow that had recently eaten cheese and olives with a scarecrow was interested in unusual friendships. He saw a rook and a jackdaw together in a field and said, “Excuse me, but I’m curious to know why rooks and jackdaws always seem to get on so well. You never mix with ravens or magpies or jays or any other corvid.”
“Rooks and jackdaws are natural allies,” said the jackdaw.
“Yes, but why?” persisted the crow.
“Because we have a shared interest in chess,” said the rook.
The crow was amazed. “Really?”
“Yes, it’s true,” confirmed the jackdaw, “but you won’t see us with a board and we use random objects for pieces. For instance, this twig is the white king and this leaf is the queen.”
“What are the pawns?” asked the crow.
“These little stones here.”
“What about the bishops and the knights?”
“Worms and mushrooms.”
“And the piece that is shaped like a castle? I can’t remember its proper name. What do you use for that?”
“I play that part myself,” said the rook.
APPEARANCE OF THE REALM
A strange face materialised above the bed of a weasel. “What the heck are you?” muttered the trembling weasel.
“An unexplained appearance,” came the answer.
“Is that like a ghost?”
“Yes. Sort of.”
“Well, what do you want?” asked the weasel.
“I need to borrow some cash.”
“Whatever for?”
The appearance sighed sadly and said, “I’m not any old appearance but an appearance of the realm, which is the most significant kind. I lost my bulging wallet in a strong current.”
“Was that a current of water or a current of air?”
“Neither. A landslide of dried grapes.”
The weasel was sympathetic. “Look, I only have £35,000 on me at the present time. Is that sufficient?”
The appearance nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
The weasel handed the money over. “When will you pay me back?”
“Tomorrow,” said the appearance.
Then he dematerialised, leaving the weasel much poorer. “I think I’ve been tricked,” said the weasel to himself.
And it was true. He had. The appearance never returned. And when the weasel checked on Wikipedia, he learned that there was no such thing as an ‘appearance of the realm’.
¶ Appearances can be deceptive.
SILLY GOOSE
A meteorite skimmed low over a pond. “Duck!” cried a heron. All the birds dived under the water except one, who was grazed painfully by the passing of the fiery space stone. “Why didn’t you warn me?” it shouted at the heron. “But I did!” came the response. “No, you didn’t,” insisted the wounded bird. “I shouted out ‘Duck’,” said the heron. “Yes indeed,” was the retort to this, “but I’m a goose.”
A QUICK DRINK
Three friends went into a bar. “I’ll have a glass of brandy,” said the first friend, who was an old fellow.
“Vodka for me,” said the second friend, who was a tomb.
The barman served them efficiently.
Now it was the third friend’s turn. He happened to be an egg. “Give me a stiff shot of rum!” he ordered.
The barman shook his head. “Sorry. You’re underage.”
“What do you mean?” cried the egg.
“You haven’t even hatched yet!” pointed out the barman.
“Look here,” responded the egg, “I’m much older than my two friends. The old fellow is only ninety-eight years old; the tomb dates merely from 450 BC; but I’m the egg of a dinosaur.”
From Public Domain
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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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.
Borderless 