Tag: Rhys Hughes

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Poetry

Twm Siôn Cati Cave by Rhys Hughes

Photo Courtesy: Rhys Hughes
Ogof
Twm Siôn Cati
  Cave
  is the place
  the outlaw graced
with his face
and the remainder of
  his ruffianly presence when
  he was hiding
  from the drab forces of Law
  and Order.

Ogof is the Welsh word for Cave,
a word never heard
over the border in England,
and Twm Siôn Cati
is hardly known outside his native
land. I understand
why: he is obscure and there’s no
use being in great
haste to fashion poems about him.

He was a Robin Hood character, I
guess you can say.
If you trudge the wrong way on the
road between
Rhandirmwyn and Soar y Mynydd
you might even
end up as his involuntary guest and
be forced to relax on his stone sofa
while staring down
the barrel of his old flintlock pistol.

He might whistle
through his teeth a merry tune,
but no melodies later
than the 17th Century.
  Twm Siôn Cati
  never listened to the music
  of Erik Satie
  or Debussy or Shostakovich.
How could he?
and how can you expect him to
be familiar with their melodies
  if it’s true he lived
  so long ago in a damp cave?

You have slipped
  back through time
and that’s the reason
  if not the rhyme
for the mess you find yourself in
now: wave farewell
to modern comforts,
be resigned to a tougher life and
  I think you’ll find
  solace in the challenge.

Unlike Robin Hood,
Twm Siôn Cati never did
and never would
rob the rich to give to the poor.
  He robbed the rich
  and the poor as well to give
  to himself,
but needless to say, 
on any given day he preferred
  wealthy victims.

Enjoy
your stay in
Ogof
Twm Siôn Cati
  Cave.
Be brave: the scenery is
wonderful,
there are blackberries in
early autumn,
  the colourful rocks,
  odd as socks
  glisten in the rain.

You ought to remain sane
if you accept
your fate: no pain, no gain:
  no coin to toss,
  no loss.
Twm Siôn Cati has adopted
you as his heir,
you must prepare to follow
  in his footsteps
  and become a troglodyte,
  a night bandit plaguing
the heights of
the region: he planned it this
way all along.

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

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Contents

Borderless, May 2025

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

“Imagine all the people/ Living life in peace”… Click here to read.

Translations

The Day of Annihilation, an essay on climate change by Kazi Nazrul Islam, has been translated from Bengali by Radha Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Arise O Woman and Two Flowers on One Leafstalk, lyrics by Nazrul, have been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Five poems by Bipin Nayak have been translated from Odia by Snehaprava Das. Click here to read.

Identity by Munir Momin has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Among Strangers, a poem by Ihlwha Choi  has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Asha or Hope by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Ryan Quinn Flangan, Jim Bellamy, Snehprava Das, George Freek, Niranjan Aditya, Christine Belandres, Ajeeti S, Ron Pickett, Kajoli Krishnan, Stuart McFarlane, Snigdha Agrawal, Arthur Neong, Elizabeth Anne Pereira, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Did He Ever?, Rhys Hughes gives fun-filled verses on Lafcadio Hearn, a bridge between the East and West from more than a hundred years ago. Click here to read.

Musings/ Slices from Life

Will Dire Wolves Stalk Streets?

Farouk Gulsara writes of genetic engineering. Click here to read.

The Boy at the Albany Bus Stop

Meredith Stephens dwells on the commonality of human emotions. Click here to read.

The Word I Could Never Say

Odbayar Dorj muses on her own life in Mongolia and Japan. Click here to read.

Social Media Repetition

Jun A. Alindogan discusses the relevance of social media. Click here to read.

Shanghai in Jakarta

Eshana Sarah Singh takes us to Chinese New Year celebrations in Djakarta. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In My Writing Desk, Devraj Singh Kalsi writes of the source of his inspiration. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Feeling Anxious in Happy Village, Suzanne Kamata relates a heartwarming story. Click here to read.

Essays

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.

This Garden Calls Out to Me: A Flaneur in Lucknow’s Sikandar Bagh

Prithvijeet Sinha takes us back to a historical landmark, made for love but bloodied by war. Click here to read.

Stories

Going to Meet the Hoppers

Fiona Sinclair writes a layered story on human perspectives. Click here to read.

The Ritual of Change

Parnika Shirwaikar explores the acceptance of change. Click here to read.

The Last Metro

Spandan Upadhyay explores the spirit of the city of Kolkata. Click here to read.

Nico Finds His Dream

Paul Mirabile narrates how young Nico uncovers his own yearnings. Click here to read.

The Bequest

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao gives a story reflecting a child’s lessons from Nature. Click here to read.

Conversation

Ratnottama Sengupta introduces and converses with photographer, Vijay S Jodha. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Devabrata Das’s One More Story About Climbing a Hill: Stories from Assam, translated by multiple translators from Assamese. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Ryan Quinn Flangan’s Ghosting My Way into the Afterlife. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Arundhathi Nath‘s translation, The Phantom’s Howl: Classic Tales of Ghosts and Hauntings from Bengal. Click here to read.

Andreas Giesbert reviews Rhys Hughes’ The Devil’s Halo. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Aubrey Menen’s A Stranger in Three Worlds: The Memoirs of Aubrey Menen. Click here to read.

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Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

“Imagine all the people/Living life in peace”

God of War by Paul Klee (1879-1940)
The sky weeps blood, the earth cannot contain
The sorrow of the young ones we've slain.
How now do dead kids laugh while stricken by red rain?

— from Stricken by Red Rain: Poems by Jim Bellamy

When there is war
And peace is gone
Where is their home?
Where do they belong?

— from Poems on Migrants by Kajoli Krishnan

Poetry, prose — all art forms — gather our emotions into concentrates that distil perhaps the finest in human emotions. They touch hearts across borders and gather us all with the commonality of feelings. We no longer care for borders drawn by divisive human constructs but find ourselves connecting despite distances. Strangers or enemies can feel the same emotions. Enemies are mostly created to guard walls made by those who want to keep us in boxes, making it easier to manage the masses. It is from these mass of civilians that soldiers are drawn, and from the same crowds, we can find the victims who die in bomb blasts. And yet, we — the masses — fight. For whom, for what and why? A hundred or more years ago, we had poets writing against wars and violence…they still do. Have we learnt nothing from the past, nothing from history — except to repeat ourselves in cycles? By now, war should have become redundant and deadly weapons out of date artefacts instead of threats that are still used to annihilate cities, humans, homes and ravage the Earth. Our major concerns should have evolved to working on social equity, peace, human welfare and climate change.

One of the people who had expressed deep concern for social equity and peace through his films and writings was Satyajit Ray. This issue has an essay that reflects how he used art to concretise his ideas by Dolly Narang, a gallery owner who brought Ray’s handiworks to limelight. The essay includes the maestro’s note in which he admits he considered himself a filmmaker and a writer but never an artist. But Ray had even invented typefaces! Artist Paritosh Sen’s introduction to Ray’s art has been included to add to the impact of Narang’s essay. Another person who consolidates photography and films to do pathbreaking work and tell stories on compelling issues like climate change and helping the differently-abled is Vijay S Jodha. Ratnottama Sengupta has interviewed this upcoming artiste.

Reflecting the themes of welfare and conflict, Prithvijeet Sinha’s essay takes us to a monument in Lucknow that had been built for love but fell victim to war. Some conflicts are personal like the ones of Odbayar Dorj who finds acceptance not in her hometown in Mongolia but in the city, she calls home now. Jun A. Alindogan from Manila explores social media in action whereas Eshana Sarah Singh takes us to her home in Jakarta to celebrate the Chinese New Year! Farouk Gulsara looks into the likely impact of genetic engineering in a world already ripped by violence and Devraj Singh Kalsi muses on his source of inspiration, his writing desk. Meredith Stephens tells the touching story of a mother’s concern for her child in Australia and Suzanne Kamata exhibits the same concern as she travels to Happy Village in Japan to meet her differently-abled daughter and her friends.

As these real-life narratives weave commonalities of human emotions, so do fictive stories. Some reflect the need for change. Fiona Sinclair writes a layered story set in London on how lived experiences define differences in human perspectives while Parnika Shirwaikar explores the need to learn to accept changes set in her part of the universe. Spandan Upadhyay explores the spirit of the city of Kolkata as a migrant with a focus on social equity. Both Paul Mirabile and Naramsetti Umamaheswararao write stories around childhood, one set in Europe and the other in Asia.

As prose weaves humanity together, so does poetry. We have poems from Jim Bellamy and Kajoli Krishnan both reflecting the impact of war and senseless violence on common humanity. Ryan Quinn Flanagan introduces us to Canadian bears in his poetry while Snigdha Agrawal makes us laugh with her lines about dogs and hatching Easter eggs! We have a wide range of poems from Snehprava Das, George Freek, Niranjan Aditya, Christine Belandres, Ajeeti S, Ron Pickett, Stuart McFarlane, Arthur Neong and Elizabeth Anne Pereira. Rhys Hughes concludes his series of photo poems with the one in this issue — especially showcasing how far a vivid imagination can twist reality with a British postman ‘carrying’ sweets from India! His column, laced with humour too, showcases in verse Lafcadio Hearn, a bridge between the East and West from more than a hundred years ago, a man who was born in Greece, worked in America and moved to Japan to even adopt a Japanese name.

Just as Hearn bridged cultures, translations help us discover how similarly all of us think despite distances in time and space. Radha Chakravarty’s translation of Kazi Nazrul Islam’s concerns about climate change and melting icecaps does just that! Professor Fakrul Alam’s translation of Nazrul’s lyrics from Bengali on women and on the commonality of human faith also make us wonder if ideas froze despite time moving on. Tagore’s poem titled Asha (hope) tends to make us introspect on the very idea of hope – just as we do now. At a more personal level, a contemporary poem reflecting on the concept of identity by Munir Momin has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. From Korean, Ihlwah Choi translates his own poem about losing the self in a crowd. We start a new column on translated Odia poetry from this month. The first one features the exquisite poetry of Bipin Nayak translated by Snehprava Das. Huge thanks to Bhaskar Parichha for bringing this whole project to fruition.

Parichha has also drawn bridges in reviews by bringing to us the memoirs of a man of mixed heritage, A Stranger in Three Worlds: The Memoirs of Aubrey Menen. Andreas Giesbert from Germany has reviewed Rhys Hughes’ The Devil’s Halo and Somdatta Mandal has discussed Arundhathi Nath’s translation, The Phantom’s Howl: Classic Tales of Ghosts and Hauntings from Bengal. Our book excerpts this time feature Devabrata Das’s One More Story About Climbing a Hill: Stories from Assam, translated by multiple translators from Assamese and Ryan Quinn Flangan’s new book, Ghosting My Way into the Afterlife, definitely poems worth mulling over with a toss of humour.

Do pause by our contents page for this issue and enjoy the reads. We are ever grateful to our ever-growing evergreen readership some of whom have started sharing their fabulous narratives with us. Thanks to all our readers and contributors. Huge thanks to our wonderful team without whose efforts we could not have curated such valuable content and thanks specially to Sohana Manzoor for her art. Thank you all for making a whiff of an idea a reality!

Let’s hope for peace, love and sanity!

Best wishes,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the contents page for the May 2025 Issue

READ THE LATEST UPDATES ON THE FIRST BORDERLESS ANTHOLOGY, MONALISA NO LONGER SMILES, BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK.

Categories
Poetry

West Exit Barrier

Photograph and Poem by Rhys Hughes

West Exit Barrier Operational,
declares the sign,
but I ask you: is this really the
best way to ease
my considerable stress?

I am a carrier for a postal outfit.
Dressed in a vest
and shorts and little else,
I confess to feeling 
vexed by the implications.
The package I carry contains
something sensational.

Dare I risk passing under such
a rickety barrier?
Don’t look now but my precious
cargo has come all the way from
Lucknow in India,
and I am supposed to deliver it
safely to Ludlow,
a town on the border of Wales.

But the West Exit Barrier doesn’t
look to me as operational
as it claims to be
and I find this fact worrying.

What’s the point of hurrying if I
run into a trap?
My package is full of sweets
from the streets
of the City of Nawabs, wrapped
carefully and warily.

Shahi Tukda, Sheermal, Nawabi
Zafrani Kheer, Makhan Malai,
Kali Gajar ka Halwa…
All as pleasing to the famished
eye as they are
to the drooling mouth.

I suspect an ambush ahead.
Some villain with a craving for
sweets intends to
knock me over the head
and render me unconscious.

Then he will loot my package
and gorge himself
and in my unplanned sleep I
will dream that I am
forging ahead on my mission.

But when I awake with a skull
as heavy as lead,
throbbing and wobbling on my
aching neck,
it will become apparent that I
failed to fulfil
my vow to my regular clients.

I promised to defend
their sweets with all my might!
What a sight it will be
if I am found asprawl,
able only to crawl, victim of an
outrageous robbery!

What should I do
to assure the safety of delights
that can be chewed?
I might as well open the parcel
and eat them myself
just to keep them out of the hands
of the scoundrels
who plan to steal and scoff them.

Then the sweets
will be safe for eternity
in my stomach and the West Exit
Barrier will hold no
terrors for me, operational or not.

Yes, that’s the best
solution to the difficulty I face.
Waste not, want not.

With maximum grace
I devour the lot
and now my vest no longer fits
me: I slump in
satisfied torpor, a justified hero,
chomping jaw
swollen slightly, adjacent to the
West Exit Barrier,
and I no longer care about how
operational it is.

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

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

Did He Ever?

Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was a British-Japanese national of Irish-Greek descent. Also known as Koizumi Yakumo, he was a writer, translator, and teacher who introduced Japanese culture to the West. From Public Domain.
Did Lafcadio Hearn
ever write about a worm
that went to
university in Tokyo?
I don’t think so.

Did he write about a fright
that coughed all night
in the loft of
a barn in Uzbekistan?
No, he didn’t.

Did he ever tell a tale
about a purple whale
who drank tea
with Yukio Mishima?
Of course not.

Did he dance
in France with a pig
named Nancy
in a fancy club in Nantes
while wearing a wig?
Even if he did,
I care not a fig.

Did he fancy Albert Camus
and take him
to a fair where he gambled
his underpants
for the chance to win a pear?
How should I know!

Did he surf with a flea
or row with a gnat
on tempestuous seas
while thunders boomed
and blunders
loomed in a volatile sky
that resembled a curtain?
Impossible
to be absolutely certain.

Did he acutely applaud
a cute fruit bat
that loved to sing songs
and bash gongs with twigs
in twilight hours
while the sleepy flowers
shut their petals
like silky eyelids? Beats me!

So what did he do?
What about him isn’t untrue
but genuinely odd?
Did he cavort with a frog or
plot with a toad
to overthrow the lords
of chaos and dismay?

Did he rummage his way
through the remains
of the day,
barking like a dog
balanced on a log
that is floating down a river?
I suspect not.

That’s the most curious thing
to learn about
Lafcadio Hearn: no one ever
finds anything
definite to say
about his strange experiences.

I don’t even know
if he ever kissed a ghost
on the lips
or played billiards
with a host who turned out
to be a vampire
or ate toast burned to a crisp
by dragon breath
and thereby ruined the health
of his breakfast.

Confirmation is hard to find.
Sometimes I think
that all these events are just
in my mind.

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

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Review

In the Waiting Room of Hell…

Book Review by Andreas Giesbert

Title: The Devil’s Halo

Author: Rhys Hughes

Publisher: Elsewhen Press

Imagine standing at the gates of hell only to be told that you are not one of the clear cut cases that immediately get a circle of hell assigned. As the judgment of a life is “morality, not calculus”, this process can take some time. Not less than 24 Aeons in the case of our morally ambiguous protagonist. Quite a long time in the waiting room that is at least better than boiling in hell. His first task is getting to his place in line. As his name is Montgomery Zubris and the waiting spots are in alphabetic order, it’s only a matter of 380.5 years of walking. Thus our poor Monty invents a number of contraptions to hasten his journey. 

Hughes paints a surreal but somehow plausible image of an endless waiting room with its own logic. It is up to Montgomery to understand its innerworkings: the hatches that deliver food and drinks and the rules that the ever-watching angels enforce. “This afterlife is a riddle.” And even if death itself is of no danger anymore, “the afterlife [still] contains risks. People who say that the dead have no more troubles are talking nonsense. There are worries down here too, lots of them. Worries are one of the fundamental constants of the universe, just as photons and neutrinos are.”

The endless room itself and the unsettling surreal angels aren’t what make for the core of the book though. It is the stories that his chance encounters have to tell. As time is abundant and entertainment scarce, the inhabitants of this limbo indulge in storytelling. “Everyone tells tales down here. It’s a compulsion.”

The ten chapters are in some way a short story collection connected through the overarching theme of afterlife’s waiting room and how its inhabitants ended there. The range of stories is quite impressive. They range from the silly to the serious and all convincing by playing out a core idea to its full consequences. For instance, we have a fire fighter who sees fire as a living being and kindles it like a pet; an abbot who becomes a rocket scientist or the struggles of a migrant in a world that’s no longer welcomes those that cross borders. And then there is Marcus Fakus Aurelius, a perfect Stoic robot and of course in the end, awaits the devil himself …

In addition to a shared theme, the stories intersect. We learn different perspectives on the same stories and get to know characters that are part of other stories. It’s entertaining literature that is lightened up by occasional philosophical observations but mostly shares a humorous level of surreality. It’s safe to say that Hughes is a master of taking words and phrases literally. Whenever he catches an odd phrase he hoboes the train of thought and shovels deep for its meanings. That technique leads to a humorous and creative set of somehow surreal stories. The prolific author is truly one of a kind. His books are driven by a genius ability to connect dots between ideas that seem far apart and create a unique story by being blended together.

I have to admit though, that somewhere in the last third, I lost interest in some of the stories as I was looking for some deeper revelations. The last few pages do not disappoint in this regard, but it takes some time to get there and the stories don’t necessarily contribute to it. This is my subjective experience of a technically very well written and designed entertaining book though. With Hughes you get an original author with the unique ability to play out the surreal of our world, even if that means stretching the inner workings of our reality by some lengths. That’s no  issue though as Monty clarifies at the start: “If some of this seems unlikely or even a little silly, please bear in mind that you haven’t really yet questioned the fact I am dead and wandering through the astronomically long Waiting Room of Hell, and if you can accept that, then you should be able to accept anything.“ Welcome to a journey beyond our imaginative restrictions!

Andreas Giesbert is a reviewer of speculative fiction, board games and more based in the Ruhr Valley. He mostly writes for online magazines such as www.zauberwelten-online.de and  Lovecrafter-Online.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Contents

Borderless, April 2025

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Seasons in the Sun?….Click here to read.

Translations

An excerpt from Tagore’s long play, Roktokorobi or Red Oleanders, has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Tagore’s essay, Classifications in Society, has been translated by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.

Poems of Longing by Jibananada Das homes two of his poems translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Four cantos from Ramakanta Rath’s Sri Radha, translated from Odiya by the late poet himself, have been excerpted from his full length translation. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Syad Zahoor Shah Hashmi’s Nazuk, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Disappearance by Bitan Chakraborty has been translated from Bengali by Kiriti Sengupta. Click here to read.

Roadside Ritual, a poem by Ihlwha Choi  has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Tagore’s Pochishe Boisakh Cholechhe (The twenty fifth of Boisakh draws close…) from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Thompson Emate, Pramod Rastogi, George Freek, Vidya Hariharan, Stuart McFarlane, Meetu Mishra, Lizzie Packer, Saranyan BV, Paul Mirabile, Hema Ravi, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Three Gothic Poems, Rhys Hughes explores the world of horrific with a light touch. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

The Day the Earth Quaked

Amy Sawitta Lefevre gives an eyewitness account of the March 28th earthquake from Bangkok. Click here to read.

Felix, the Philosophical Cat

Farouk Gulsara shares lessons learnt from his spoilt pet with a touch of humour. Click here to read.

Not Everyone is Invited to a Child’s Haircut Ceremony

Odbayar Dorje muses on Mongolian traditions. Click here to read.

From a Bucking Bronco to an Ageing Clydesdale

Meredith Stephens writes of sailing on rough seas one dark night. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

Stay Blessed! by Devraj Singh Kalsi is a tongue-in-cheek musing on social norms and niceties. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

On Safari in South Africa by Suzanne Kamata takes us to a photographic and narrative treat of the Kruger National Park. Click here to read.

Essays

Songs of the Adivasi Earth

Ratnottama Sengupta introduces us to the art of Haren Thakur, rooted in tribal lores. Click here to read.

‘Rajnigandha’: A Celebration of the Middle-of-the-Road

Tamara Raza writes of a film that she loves. Click here to read.

‘Climate change matters to me, and it should matter to you too’

Zeeshan Nasir writes of the impact of the recent climate disasters in Pakistan, with special focus on Balochistan. Click here to read.

Bhaskar’s Corner

Ramakanta Rath: A Monument of Literature: Bhaskar Parichha pays a tribute to the late poet. Click here to read.

Stories

Jai Ho Chai

Snigdha Agrawal narrates a funny narrative about sadhus and AI. Click here to read.

The Mischief

Mitra Samal writes a sensitive story about childhood. Click here to read.

Lending a hand

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao takes us back to school. Click here to read.

Conversation

Ratnottama Sengupta talks to filmmaker and author Leslie Carvalho about his old film, The Outhouse, that will be screened this month and his new book, Smoke on the Backwaters. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Anuradha Kumar’s Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Snigdha Agrawal’s Fragments of Time (Memoirs). Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Sheela Rohekar’s Miss Samuel: A Jewish Indian Saga, translated by Madhu Singh. Click here to read.

Gracy Samjetsabam reviews Tony K Stewart’s Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Classic Bengali Tales from the Sundarbans. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Raisina Chronicles: India’s Global Public Square by S. Jaishankar & Samir Saran. Click here to read.

.

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

Seasons in the Sun?

Offerings during Qing Ming Jie, a festival honouring ancestors
Songkran(Thai New Year) Celebrations
Festivals in April: From Public Domain

April is a month full of celebrations around the world. Asia hosts a spray of New Year festivities. Then there are festivals like Qing Ming Jie, Good Friday and Easter. All these are in a way reminders of our past. And yet, we critique things as old fashioned! So, where does tradition end and ‘outdated’ or ‘outmoded’ start? Meanwhile we continue to celebrate these festivals with joy but what happens to those who have lost their home, family and their living due to war or climate disasters? Can they too join in with the joie de vivre? Can we take our celebrations to them to give solace in some way?

In our April issue, we have stories from climate and conflict-ridden parts of the world. From Bangkok, Amy Sawitta Lefevre gives an eyewitness account of the March 28th Earthquake that originated in Myanmar. While in her city, the disaster was managed, she writes: “I’m also thinking of all the children in Myanmar who are sleeping in the open, who lost loved ones, who are feeling scared and alone, with no one to reassure them.” As news reels tell us, in Myanmar there have been thousands of casualties from the earthquake as well as shootings by the army.

From another troubled region, Pakistan, Zeeshan Nasir gives a heartrending narrative about climate change, which also dwells on the human suffering, including increase in underage marriages.

Human suffering can be generated by rituals and customs too. For instance, if festivals dwell on exclusivity, they can hurt those who are left out of the celebrations. Odbayar Dorje muses along those lines on Mongolian traditions and calls for inclusivity and the need to change norms. On the other hand, Devraj Singh Kalsi hums with humour as he reflects on social norms and niceties and hints at the need for change in a light-hearted manner. Farouk Gulsara makes us laugh with the antics of his spoilt pet cat. And Suzanne Kamata dwells on her animal sightings in Kruger National Park with her words and camera while Meredith Stephens takes us sailing on stormy seas… that too at night.

Art is brought into focus by Ratnottama Sengupta who introduces artist Haren Thakur with his adaptation of tribal styles that has been compared to that of Paul Klee (1879-1940). She also converses with filmmaker Leslie Carvalho, known for his film The Outhouse, and his new novel, Smoke on the Backwaters. Both of these have a focus on the Anglo-Indian community in India. Also writing on Indian film trends of the 1970s is Tamara Raza. Bhaskar Parichha pays tribute to the late Ramakanta Rath (1934-2025), whose powerful and touching poetry, translated from Odia by the poet himself, can be found in our translations section.

We have an excerpt from Professor Fakrul Alam’s unpublished translation of Tagore’s Red Oleanders. It’s a long play and truly relevant for our times. Somdatta Mandal shares with us her translation of Tagore’s essay called ‘The Classification in Society’, an essay where the writer dwells on the need for change in mindsets of individuals that make up a community to move forward. A transcreation of a poem by Tagore for his birthday in 1935 reflects the darkness he overcame in his own life. Two poems expressive of longings by Jibananada Das have been translated from Bengali by Professor Alam aswell. From Balochistan, we have an excerpt from the first Balochi novel, Nazuk, written by the late Syad Zahoor Shah Hashmi and rendered into English by Fazal Baloch. Among contemporaries, we have a short story by Bitan Chakraborty translated from Bengali by Kiriti Sengupta, a poignant story that reflects on gaps in our society. And a Korean poem by Ihlwha Choi rendered to English by the poet himself.

Our poetry section celebrates nature with poetry by Lizzie Packer. Many of the poems draw from nature like that of George Freek and Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal. Some talk of the relationship between man and nature as does Stuart McFarlane. We have a variety of themes addressed in poems by Thompson Emate, Meetu Mishra, Saranyan BV, Paul Mirabile, Pramod Rastogi, Ryan Quinn Flanagan and many more. Rhys Hughes brings in both humour and social commentary of sorts with his poem. And in his column, Hughes has shared three gothic poems which he claims are horrible but there is that twinge of fable and lightness similar to the ghosts of Ebenezer Scrooge’s world[1]— colourful and symbolic.

Stories sprinkle humour of different shades with Snigdha Agrawal’s narrative about mendicants and AI and Mitra Samal’s strange tale about childhood pranks. Naramsetti Umamaheswararao takes us back to schooldays with his narrative. We have a fun book excerpt from Agrawal’s Fragments of Time (Memoirs), almost in tone with some of her stories and musings.

An extract from Anuradha Kumar’s latest non-fiction making bridges across time and geographies. Called Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India, the book is an intriguing read. We have a review by Professor Mandal of Sheela Rohekar’s Miss Samuel: A Jewish Indian Saga, translated by Madhu Singh. Highlighting syncretic folk traditions, Gracy Samjetsabam has discussed the late Tony K Stewart’s translation of oral folklore in Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Classic Bengali Tales from the Sundarbans. Parichha has written about a high-profile book that also hopes to draw bridges across the world, Raisina Chronicles: India’s Global Public Square, by S. Jaishankar and Samir Saran.

This issue has been made possible because of support from all of you. Huge thanks to the team, all our contributors and readers. Thanks to Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork. Do pause by our contents page as all the content could not be covered here.

Perhaps, world events leave a sense of pensiveness in all of us and an aura of insecurity. But, as Scarlett O’ Hara of Gone with the Wind[2] fame says, “After all, tomorrow is another day.” 

Looking forward to a new day with hope, let’s dream of happier times filled with sunshine and change.

Enjoy the reads!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

[1] A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, 1843

[2] Gone With the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, published in 1936

Click here to access the contents page for the April 2025 Issue

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Categories
Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

Three Gothic Poems



THE CLOCK DEMON

The demon in the clock
haunted the early hours
of the heir
to an estate
so old that
all the hate
of countless generations
had faded
to a murmur in the walls.

The face behind the dial
was as melancholy, vile,
as the iron
crocodile
in the room
below the
passage where the gloom
had grown
much louder than a shout.

But this demon was silent
throughout the long nights
of winter
when the
freezing
mansion
reversed a grim expansion,
wheezing
in a manner not displeasing.

The clock: it is a guardian,
charged by aeons archean,
to chime
to death
the heir
bearing
ghoulish responsibilities
nowhere
without ceremonial fury.

They claim the creature
trapped there, not daring
to beware
will stare
at forever
resentfully
until those who truly care
decimate
the new legions of eternity.

And still the hours pass,
the demon tries a laugh,
cascading
the shades
of certain
odd hues
into a tone that you alone
will adore
if cosmic doors slam shut.

 
THE BEGGAR

The beggar
remembers a time
when he drank the rarest
wine from a goblet
and sprawled
on a couch, eyes hooded.

Then one day
an uninvited guest
arrived at his house, worn out,
a man in rags,
eyes ablaze, his tongue hanging
like a vast flatworm
from the lower lip of a blistered
mouth: or like a flag
drooping from a derelict ship
one evil afternoon.

The stars had shuddered
over him: the moon had juddered
high like the jawbone
of a slain man, crescent shattered
by a twisted club
and hurled into the sky.

The rich man spilled his wine
and demanded
without quite knowing why:
Are you me? A future vision
of what I will become?

And the stranger answered:
No, you are me. The future image
of what I will be
when I am no longer just a beggar
but the subject
of nostalgia: the figure in a memory.
When you become
a beggar yet again, the circular path
that pretends to be
a shady lane
may reveal itself to be a spiral chute
leading to the centre
of a brute tormentor’s awful domain.

This paradox is painful, the irony
stabs the beggar’s side
like the barbed tip of a javelin.
From rags to riches
and back to rags:
pain, bliss, and then more agony,
tragedy, comedy,
an inevitable turn of the axletree.

And so he sips his cheaper wine
philosophically,
hunched in the inadequate
shelter of the leaning tombstone
he now calls home.


 
THE ROTTEN DUNGEON

The dungeon rotted away:
stones crumbled,
iron rusted,
slime evaporated,
heavy keys in grim locks
melted: even
the sense of despair faded
until nothing
was left but stubborn bones.

And the archaeologists say:
there is nothing
here worth excavating.

But the screams
still radiate, propagate,
through the interstellar dust
between nebulae:
extinct at source, of course
they persist elsewhere,
swirling unknown particles
in waves of fear.

The dungeon,
a sullen impression, appears
to have done its work well:
degradation
broadcasting itself as a type
of Hell among
the brimstone constellations.
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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Categories
Poetry

Lagoon Boss by Rhys Hughes

Photograph by Rhys Hughes 

Lagoon Boss:
We will pull it off.
That’s what he
said as he mopped
his forehead
with a damp cloth.

Pull off what?
I wanted to know.

The Boss replied:
The disguise worn
by the Creature from
the Black Lagoon.

Then he sighed
and seemed rather
sad. I was just glad
he didn’t cry. It was
too soon for that.

He was very upset
and I bet the issue
with the eerie chill
waters of that geographical
feature (the Lagoon
where the Creature
lurks in the light
of the reflected full moon)
had made him sweat
more than the tissues
in his coat pocket
could cope with. Hence the
handkerchief pressed now
to his brow.

My next question was
inevitable: How
was he aware
that the Creature liked
to wear a disguise?

Because one night,
he said solemnly,
I turned over in bed
and saw that the face
of my wife had fallen off
in her sleep: and I knew
immediately that she
was really a monster.
Yes, she was a demon
from the deep, and not
Mrs Boss, as I’d always
believed. I can’t say
I was relieved to discover
this squamous fact. No,
it rather rattled my nerves.

Those were his very words
and I believed him.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon
had clearly decided
it preferred a bedroom
to the slimy bottom of a grubby lake.
There are no snakes
in ordinary houses, no crocodiles,
alligators or toxic frogs,
and even if the style
of the furniture is quite passé
on any given day
it’s still better to dwell in peace
than cavort with leeches
and torment one’s thoughts with
the strange dangers
that exist in a legendary Lagoon.

The Boss shrugged his shoulders
and made a statement
bolder than any uttered so far:

He was duty bound
to pull off the monster’s disguise
in public and shame
the soggy villain to such a degree
that it would agree
to depart the region forevermore.

But I had my doubts
about the wisdom of this
strategy. I said:
What if the Creature doesn’t feel
any shame? What if it
refuses to accept the blame? The
game will be lost.

The Boss glared at me
as if I was trying
to trick him or take the monster’s
side. He snarled
and lifted a gnarled fist and cried:

I am the chief of this town
and my frown
is feared by all and sundry.
If I crease the
skin above my eyes, don’t
be surprised at
the fuss it might create. I
am sure the bravest men
in the vicinity
will help me in my quest,
whether they walk about
bare chested
or prefer to wear a vest.

While waiting for infinity
to finally arrive
we are inclined
to be a little petty. I sighed
and volunteered
to join the band
of volunteers he proposed
to assemble. Not because
I wanted to help
the Boss unmask the beast,
but simply for
the lily-lagoony experience.

But I knew deep down
that love is mysterious
and that the Boss
was secretly pleased he had
married a monster
who liked to tease him
by pretending
to be his devoted wife.

Life is strange:
the Boss is stranger,
he thrives on danger,
and when he plays his nose
like a flute, the tune
he elicits will be sure
to attract her back to him.

His scaly underwater spouse
will leap into his arms
from the gloom of the Lagoon:
houseproud but dripping,
his awfully web-handed wife.

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.

.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International