Tag: Rhys Hughes

Categories
Editorial

Clinging to Hope

‘I will cling fast to hope.‘

— Suzanne Kamata, ‘Educating for Peace in Rwanda’

Landscape of Change by Jill Pelto, Smithsonian. From Public Domain

Hope is the mantra for all human existence. We hope for a better future, for love, for peace, for good weather, for abundance. When that abundance is an abundance of harsh weather or violence wrought by wars, we hope for calm and peace.

This is the season for cyclones — Dana, Trami, Yixing, Hurricanes Milton and Helene — to name a few that left their imprint with the destruction of both property and human lives as did the floods in Spain while wars continue to annihilate more lives and constructs. That we need peace to work out how to adapt to climate change is an issue that warmongers seem to have overlooked. We have to figure out how we can work around losing landmasses and lives to intermittent floods caused by tidal waves, landslides like the one in Wayanad and rising temperatures due to the loss of ice cover. The loss of the white cover of ice leads to more absorption of heat as the melting water is deeper in colour. Such phenomena could affect the availability of potable water and food, impacted by the changes in flora and fauna as a result of altered temperatures and weather patterns. An influx of climate refugees too is likely in places that continue habitable. Do we need to find ways of accommodating these people? Do we need to redefine our constructs to face the crises?

Echoing concerns for action to adapt to climate change and hoping for peace, our current issue shimmers with vibrancy of shades while weaving in personal narratives of life, living and the process of changing to adapt.

An essay on Bhaskar Parichha’s recent book on climate change highlights the action that is needed in the area where Dana made landfall recently. In terms of preparedness things have improved, as Bijoy K Mishra contends in his essay. But more action is needed. Denying climate change or thinking of going back to pre-climate change era is not an option for humanity anymore. While politics often ignores the need to acknowledge this crises and divides destroying with wars, riots and angst, a narrative for peace is woven by some countries like Japan and Rwanda.

Suzanne Kamata recently visited Rwanda. She writes about how she found by educating people about the genocide of 1994, the locals have found a way to live in peace with people who they addressed as their enemies before… as have the future generations of Japan by remembering the atomic holocausts of 1945.

Writing about an event which wrought danger into the lives of common people in South Asia is Professor Fakrul Alam’s essay on the 1971 conflict between the countries that were carved out of the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent. As if an antithesis to this narrative of divides that destroyed lives, Luke Rimmo Minkeng Lego muses about peace and calm in Shillong which leaves a lingering fragrance of heartfelt friendships. Farouk Gulsara muses on nostalgic friendships and twists of fate that compel one to face mortality. Abdullah Rayhan ponders about happiness and Shobha Sriram, with a pinch of humour, adapts to changes. Devraj Singh Kalsi writes satirically of current norms aiming for a change in outlook.

Humour is brought into poetry by Rhys Hughes who writes about a photograph of a sign that can be interpreted in ways more than one. Michael Burch travels down the path of nostalgia as Ryan Quinn Flanagan shares a poem inspired by Pablo Neruda’s bird poems. Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal writes heart wrenching verses about the harshness of winter for the homeless without shelter. We have more colours in poetry woven by Jahanara Tariq, Stuart MacFarlane, Saranyan BV, George Freek, G Javaid Rasool, Heath Brougher and more.

In translations, we have poetry from varied countries. Ihlwha Choi has self-translated his poem from Korean. Ivan Pozzoni has done the same from Italian. One of Tagore’s lesser-known verses, perhaps influenced by the findings of sensitivity in plants by his contemporary, Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) to who he dedicated the collection which homed this poem, Phool Photano (making flowers bloom), has been translated from Bengali. Professor Alam has translated Nazrul’s popular song, Tumi Shundor Tai Cheye Thaki (Because you are so beautiful, I keep gazing at you).

In reviews, Somdatta Mandal has discussed The Collected Short Stories of Kazi Nazrul Islam, translated by multiple translators from Bengali and edited by Syed Manzoorul Islam and Kaustav Chakraborty. Rakhi Dalal has written about The Long Strider in Jehangir’s Hindustan: In the Footsteps of the Englishman Who Walked From England to India in the Year 1613 by Dom Moraes and Sarayu Srivatsa, a book that looks and compares the past with the present. Bhaskar Parichha has written of a memoir which showcases not just the personal but gives a political and economic commentary on tumultuous events that shaped the history of Israel, Palestine, and the modern Middle East prior to the more than a year-old conflict. The book by the late Mohammad Tarbush (1948-2022) is called My Palestine: An Impossible Exile.

Stories travel around the world with Paul Mirabile’s narrative giving a flavour of bohemian Paris in 1974. Anna Moon’s fiction set in Philippines gives a darker perspective of life. Lakshmi Kannan’s narrative hovers around the 2008 bombing in Mumbai, an event that evoked much anger, violence and created hatred in hearts. In contrast, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao brings a sense of warmth into our lives with a story about a child and his love for a dog. Sreelekha Chatterjee weaves a tale of change, showcasing adapting to climate crisis from a penguin’s perspective.

Hoping to change mindsets with education, Mineke Schipper has a collection of essays called Widows: A Global History, which has been introduced along with a discussion with the author on how we can hope for a more equitable world. The other conversation by Ratnottama Sengupta with Veena Raman, wife of the late Vijay Raman, a police officer who authored, Did I Really Do All This: Memoirs of a Gentleman Cop Who Dared to be Different, showcases a life given to serving justice. Raman was an officer who caught dacoits like Paan Singh Tomar and the Indian legendary dacoit queen, Phoolan Devi. An excerpt from his memoir accompanies the conversation. The other book excerpt is from an extremely out of the box book, Rhys Hughes’ Growl at the Moon, a Weird Western.

Trying something new, being out of the box is what helped humans move out from caves, invent wheels and create civilisations. Hopefully, this is what will help us move into the next phase of human development where wars and weapons will become redundant, and we will be able to adapt to changing climes and move towards a kinder, more compassionate existence.

Thank you all for pitching in with your fabulous pieces. There are ones that have not been covered here. Do pause by our content’s page to see all our content. Huge thanks to the fantastic Borderless team and to Sohana Manzoor, for her art too.

Hope you enjoy our fare!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the  content’s page for the November 2024 Issue

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

Categories
Poetry

Danger Sinking Mud

Poetry and Photography by Rhys Hughes

Danger! sinking mud
will drag you down and as
you frown it will
perish you; but mud’s good
for the skin, they say,
so come what may
I intend to dive straight in.

Why? A logical question
that I can answer
in a single session. Ready?

It’s because my
skin is very wrinkled, and
though my eyes
are periwinkle blue, it’s true
they don’t do much
to take out the creases of my
face, that façade
on the hutch called my head
where my brain
dwells in isolated splendour.

Therefore it seems
to achieve my fondest dream
of a smoother brow
I must plough a way through
seas of sinking mud;
for the aesthetic good of my
appearance, I have
validated clearance from stick
in the mud officials.

Watch me as I bound along
the beach while preaching
the benefits of goo to you
as I do; in I go,
and so now there’s mud in
your eye. Why?
An inevitable result of the
gloopy splash.
I dashed, jumped high and
came back down.
Goodbye to my corrugated
frown! Farewell
to the ripples in your eyelids.

I wave at spectators,
some well-wishers, others
haters; a dozen intellectual
debaters who wish
to pursue the philosophy of
my immersion
into the liquid glue of fate.
But it’s too late
to prevent my slow descent.

What use is talk?
Ideas are merely stalks
without the flower.
The power to cure my skin
is right here; mud
provides answers to ridged
romancers, removes
the erosion of years; that’s
the proof of the
squelchy sucking pudding.

And now I am deep
under the beach; I can teach
sedimentary schools
how to churn out filthy fools
with complexions
smoother than soft centred
confections that elephants
have reclined on.

But who might hear me down
here? Very few,
if any, that’s clear, that’s true.
I am isolated
but beautiful in the face; mud
has given me
a graceful profile, good looks
that will remain
while I abide inside the sludge.

I am grateful
but also a little bored.
I wonder if I ought to climb up
through the gunk,
my mind chanting like a monk,
emerging at last,
a singing shore thing,
ironed by pressure, troubled by
enforced leisure,
a sandy dandy with frictionless
skin? Yes, I think
I will, I certainly must; too much
mud makes me ill.

I’m the colour of rust, but I trust
you recognise me
still? I’m the mud monster but I
dream of soap suds.

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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Categories
Excerpt

Growl at the Moon by Rhys Hughes

Title: Growl at the Moon, a Weird Western

Author: Rhys Hughes

Publisher: Telos Publishing Ltd

1.

She rode to the crest of the hillock and looked down. The other rider was a pale shadow on the trail below and in the moonlight his shadow was even paler than he was. That was because of the mica in the rocks which gleamed, glittered and shone and turned the landscape into something ethereal and strange. With a low snarl, she spurred her horse forwards.

She zigzagged down the slope and still the other rider didn’t hear her. Was he engrossed in his private thoughts? That must be the answer. Her Winchester was cradled in her arms and her low snarl turned into a stealthy laugh. Her prey seemed oddly incautious, but this was to her advantage. At the base of the slope, she spurred her mount to a fast canter.

The other rider finally became aware that something was behind him. As he turned in his saddle, she raised the rifle and aimed at his face. She slowed in order to be sure of hitting him square.

“Hey, what’s this?” he cried in astonishment.

His head, which was that of a giant rabbit, bobbed up and down, his nose twitched and his long ears undulated.

“Howdy, pard,” she said, and then she added, “I guess you think I’m just a bandit, some unwashed desperado who wants your money. But that’s not true at all. My name is Jalamity Kane and I’m hunting all the men who are part animal. I know what it means that you’re a man-rabbit, it means that you studied with a shaman, one of the Mojave wizards.”

“Well, yes I did,” answered the other rider.

“I make the same speech every time I find one of you people. When I was younger and full of hope and desire, I also sought out a shaman to study with. I found one. Seven years in a subterranean cavern, putting myself through horrid exercises, expanding my mind! But it didn’t work, I didn’t acquire the power. I failed and my soul became bitter. It’s not nice to be bitter and that’s especially true when I look upon your sweet little visage. Gonna blow a hole right through it. Say your final prayers, bunny boy!”

The other rider raised a paw to remonstrate with her but it was too late. Her finger squeezed the trigger and the canyon echoed with the shot. He slumped in the saddle and his horse bolted. He didn’t fall off but remained in place, his feet held by the stirrups. Jalamity watched him vanish into the crystalline darkness. She said to herself, “I’ll destroy all of you. I have no interest in money. I have no interest in anything, only in slaying every cat-man, owl-man, worm-man and cougar-man in the land. You’ll see!”

It was her mission in life. A cruel and futile mission, but a mission all the same, and a gal’s gotta have a mission.

2.

Jalamity was in position to ambush her next victim. She squatted in the shallow pit she had dug. The dry plain extended all around here, as flat as a tune played on a badly-maintained piano in a rotten old saloon somewhere in the worst kind of decayed ghost town where the railroad was supposed to come but didn’t. She had constructed her own cover because there was no natural cover available in the geography of the bland landscape.

The rider was a puff of dust at the limits of her vision. It was early evening and he was evidently trying to cover as many miles as possible before night fell and she chuckled at the malevolent thought that he was hurrying to his doom, a circumstance he would soon be aware of. The Winchester was firm in his grasp and she chewed a stick of licorice root.

This wasn’t European licorice or Glycyrrhiza glabra which also grew in a few places in a few states, having been brought over by settlers, but the harsher Glycyrrhiza lepidota that the Zuni people had liked to chomp as a medicine. Not that Jalamity needed a cure for anything. She just liked to chew on something at the end of a day and she hated tobacco.

She waited patiently as the cloud of beige dust that was the rider expanded in size and took on more of a familiar shape. His horse was tiring a little and his pace was slowing. As he approached, she saw that he wore a hood. All of these fools liked to cover their telltale faces!

She stood up straight, rising out of the pit like a snake about to strike, and strike she would, by which we mean attack and not cease working because of dissatisfaction with pay. She cared nothing for wealth. No ordinary bandit, this Jalamity, half woman and half man, the product of seven years’ meditation that hadn’t worked out the way she’d wanted.

“Hey, what’s this?” he cried in astonishment.

His head, which was that of a giant squirrel, bobbed up and down, his nose twitched and his jaws chattered.

“Howdy, pard,” she said, and then she added, “I guess you think I’m just a bandit, some unwashed desperado who wants your money. But that’s not true at all. My name is Jalamity Kane and I’m hunting all the men who are part animal. I know what it means that you’re a man-squirrel, it means that you studied with a shaman, one of the Mojave wizards.”

It was the same speech, or nearly the same speech as before. It was a short speech but one she had made dozens of times. Very few people ever got to hear it more than once, apart from herself.

An occasional victim escaped her, but it was such a rare event that in terms of statistics it counted for nothing at all.

Jalamity was now reaching the end of the speech. “Gonna blow a hole right through ya. Say goodbye, squirrel boy!”

The other rider raised a paw to remonstrate with her but it was too late. Her finger squeezed the trigger and the plains absorbed the sound of the shot. First he slumped in the saddle and then he fell off. His horse didn’t bolt but remained where it was, looking confused. One day, Jalamity knew, she would meet a man who was half horse. What would the horse he rode on do then? Would he regard Jamality as an enemy of all horses and try to kick her? She had no idea. It was a riddle that only the future could solve.

Most horses didn’t care about their riders but that one might be different. It was better to wait to find out the answer for sure. Speculation was a waste of her time. She climbed out of the pit, moved to the side, leaned over and reached out with her hands and jerked her wrists.

An unseen blanket came up in her fingers. Her horse was beneath it, lying on its side, and now it got clumsily to its hooves. She had covered it with a sheet and covered the sheet with sand and gravel and grit so that it resembled only the smallest of humps in the almost featureless plain. There had been nowhere else to hide it. She could have dug a pit, as she had for herself, but that would have been very hard work. Alternatively, she could have covered herself with a sheet too, but that would have restricted her visibility. Everything had worked out for the best. The squirrel-man was dead.

And now she had his horse as well. She could maybe use his horse as some part of a trap for her next victim. Killing these beasts was her mission in life. A cruel and futile mission, as we already have been told, but yes, a mission all the same, and a gal’s gotta have a mission.

About the Book

Bill Bones was a normal human being until he studied under a Mojave Shaman and was transformed into a man-dog called The Growl. Now, driven by a keen sense of justice, The Growl is on the hunt for the villains who killed his boss, newspaperman Ridley Smart … and he’ll stop at nothing!

Crossing the deserts and forests of the American continent, The Growl searches for the men he must kill. Along the way he meets more beast-men, more magicians, the avenger Jalamity Kane who is seeking to rid the world of the beast menace, and other dangerous characters, from the artificial to the wild, from the robotic to the demonic.

In the deft hands of Rhys Hughes, this inventive tale becomes a masterpiece of twists and turns … exploring and questioning our definitions of humanity, discovering the very meaning of what life and reality might be.

About the Author

Rhys Hughes is a writer of Fantastika and Speculative Fiction.

His earliest surviving short story dates from 1989, and since that time he has embarked on an ambitious project of writing a story cycle consisting of exactly 1000 linked tales. Recently, he decided to give this cycle the overall name of PANDORA’S BLUFF. The reference is to the box of troubles in the old myth. Each tale is a trouble, but hope can be found within them all.

His favourite fiction writers are Italo Calvino, Stanislaw Lem, Boris Vian, Flann O’Brien, Alasdair Gray and Donald Barthelme, all of whom have a well-developed sense of irony and a powerful imagination. He particularly enjoys literature that combines humour with seriousness, and that fuses the emotional with the intellectual, the profound with the light-hearted, the spontaneous with the precise.

His first book was published in 1995 and sold slowly but it seemed to strike a chord with some people. His subsequent books sold more strongly as my reputation gradually increased. He is regarded as a “cult author” by some and though pleased with that description, he obviously wants to reach out to a wider audience!

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

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Categories
Humour & Horror

Spooky, Chooky, Gooky

Art by Sohana Manzoor

It’s again that time of the year when we have fun spooking each other with stories of ghosts and haunting. While festivals of light1 and darkness vie with each other for a spot on the same date, observances to pay our respects to our forefathers follow at their heels, some before and some after.

In this selection, we bring to you narratives that could be dark, strange or funny or all of these … a selection of poetry, fiction and non-fiction from around the world. Enjoy the reads!

Poetry

Of Singing Mice, Biscuit Tins & Gym Bikes… by Rhys Hughes. Click here to read.

Human by Manzur Bismil has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

In Another Galaxy by Masud Khan has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

The Waiting by Stuart MacFarlane. Click here to read.

Walking Gretchums by Saptarshi Bhattacharya. Click here to read.

Bonfire by Ihlwha Choi has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Exaltation in D. Minor (I’ll Be Around) by Ryan Quinn Flangan. Click here to read.

It’s Halloween! by Michael Burch. Click here to read.

Prose

From Diana to ‘Dayaan’ : Rajorshi Patronobis talks of Wiccan lore. Click here to read.

The Ghosts of Hogshead: Paul Mirabile wanders into the realm of the supernatural dating back to the Potato Famine of Ireland in the 1800s. Click here to read.

My Christmas Eve “Alone”: Erwin Coomb has a strange encounter at night. Is it real? Click here to read. 

Orang Minyak or The Ghost: A Jessie Michael explores ‘ghosts’ in a Malay village. Click here to read.

The Browless Dolls: S.Ramakrishnan‘s spooky story, has been translated from Tamil by B Chandramouli. Click hereto read.

 Witches and Crafts: A Spook’s Tale: Devraj Singh Kalsi finds a ghostly witch in his library. Click here to read.

In The Chopsy Moggy: Rhys Hughes gives us a strange feline adventure. Click here to read. 

Ghosts, Witches and My New Homeland: Tulip Chowdhury muses on ghosts and spooks in Bangladesh and US. Click here to read.

Nagmati: Prafulla Roy’s long story based on strange folk beliefs has been translated from Bengali as Snake Maiden by Aruna Chakravarti. Click here to read.

From Public Domain

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  1. Deepavali or festival of lights is on October 31st this year along with Kali Puja and Halloween. October 30th is Bhooth Chaturdashi, or Indian Festival of Ghosts while All Saints’ Day and all Souls’ Day are observed at the start of November. Early October hosted Pitri Paksha, observances for apeasing forefathers in India. ↩︎

Categories
Celebrating Humanity

Autumnal Melodies

Art by Sybil Pretious


October spins a series of celebrations that carry on to herald a glorious start of a new year and beyond. From the Chinese Festival of the Nine Emperor Gods which happens to coincide with Navratri to Christmas and beyond — festivals bring joy into our lives. Majority of these human constructs ring in happiness and hope while reflecting the victory of what we consider good over evils. Often these celebrations are syncretic, roping in people from all cultures and religious creeds, creating a sense of oneness in a way that only a stream of contentment can.

Here we bring to you writings that reflect this cross cultural joyous streak of humanity with translations of Tagore, Nazrul, poetry from the contemporary voices of Ihlwha Choi and John Grey and more prose from Fakrul Alam, Aruna Chakravarti, Ravi Shankar, Snigdha Agrawal, Rhys Hughes, Keith Lyons and Farouk Gulsara. Let us celebrate our commonalities with joy and revive love in a war-torn world. 

Poetry

A Lovesong in the Battlefield by Afsar Mohammad. Click here to read.  

One Star by Ihlawha Choi. Click here to read.

Groundhog Day by John Grey. Click here to read.

Nazrul’s Prolloyullash ( The Frenzy of Destruction) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

 Tagore’s Andhokaarer Utso Hote(From the Fount of Darkness) has been translated from Bengali. Click here to read.

Prose 

The Oral Traditions of Bengal: Story and Song by Aruna Chakravarti describes the syncretic culture of Bengal through its folk music and oral traditions. Click here to read.

Memories of Durga Puja : Fakrul Alam recalls the festivities of Durga Puja in Dhaka during his childhood. Click here to read.

An Alien on the Altar! Snigdha Agrawal writes of how a dog and lizard add zest to festivities with a dollop of humour. Click here to read

In Dim Memories of the Festival of Lights, Farouk Gulsara takes a nostalgic trip to Deepavali celebrations in the Malaysia of his childhood. Click here to read.

A Doctor’s Diary: Syncretic Festivities: Ravi Shankar writes of his early life in Kerala where festivals were largely a syncretic event. Click here to read.

In I Went to Kerala, Rhys Hughes treads a humorous path bringing to us a mixed narrative of Christmas on bicycles . Click here to read.

Hold the roast turkey please Santa  Celebrating the festive season off-season with Keith Lyons from New Zealand, where summer solstice and Christmas fall around the same time. Click here to read.

Categories
Editorial

Where Are Those Happy Days?

From Public Domain

Festivals are like friends.

They bring hope, solace and love to those who believe in them. But, when the structures holding the fiestas in place start to crumble, what do we do then?

Our lives have moved out of wilderness to cities over centuries. Now, we have covered our world with the gloss of technology which our ancestors living in caves would have probably viewed as magic. And yet we violate the dignity of our own kind, war and kill, destroy what we built in the past. The ideological structures seem ineffective in instilling love, peace, compassion or hope in the hearts of the majority. Suddenly, we seem to be caving in to violence that destroys humanity, our own kind, and not meting out justice to those who mutilate, violate or kill. Will there be an end to this bleak phase? Perhaps, as Tagore says in his lyrics[1], “From the fount of darkness emerges light”. Nazrul has gone a step further and stated clearly[2], “Hair dishevelled and dressed carelessly/ Destruction makes its way gleefully. / Confident it can destroy and then build again …Why fear since destruction and creation are part of the same game?”

And yet, destruction hurts humans. It kills. Maims. Reduces to rubble. Can we get back the people whose lives are lost while destruction holds sway? We have lost lives this year in various wars and conflicts. As a tribute to all the young lives lost in Bangladesh this July, we have a poem by Shahin Hossain. Afsar Mohammad has brought in the theme of festivals into poetry tying it to the current events around the world. In keeping with the times, Michael Burch has a sense of mirthlessness in his poems. Colours of emotions and life have been woven into this section by Malashri Lal, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Fhen M, Shamik Banerjee, George Freek, Matthew James Friday, Jenny Middleton and many more. This section in our journal always homes a variety of flavours. Stuart MacFarlane has poems for Wordsworth… and some of it is funny, like Rhys Hughes’ poem based on photographs of amusing signposts. But then life has both sorrows and laughter, and poetry is but a slice of that as are other genres. We do have non-fiction in a lighter vein with Hughes’ story and poem about pizzas. Devraj Singh Kalsi has given a tongue in cheek narrative about his library experiences.

Suzanne Kamata has written for us about her visit to Rwanda. Farouk Gulsara has pondered over humanity’s natural proclivities.  Wiccan lore has been discussed by Rajorshi Patranabis. And Snigdha Agrawal has tuned into humour with her rendition of animal antics that overran festivities. Ravi Shankar, on the other hand, has written about the syncretic nature of festivals in Kerala. Professor Fakrul Alam has given a nostalgic recap of Durga Puja during his childhood, a festival recognised as an “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” by UNESCO, and known for its syncretic traditions where people from all backgrounds, religions and cultures celebrate together.

Festivals have also been taken up in fiction by Tanika Rajeswari V with a ghostly presence hovering over the arrangements. Paul Mirabile has taken us around the world with his story while Saeed Ibrahim writes from his armchair by the Arabian sea. Sahitya Akademi winner for his children’s stories, Naramsetti Umamaheswara Rao, has showcased peer pressure among youngsters in his narrative.  

Two stories have also featured in our translations. Christine C Fair has rendered Veena Verma’s Punjabi story about an illegal immigrant into English. Hinting at climate concerns, Sharaf Shad’s fiction, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Tagore’s powerful poem on Africa has been brought to Anglophone readers by Debali Mookerjea-Leonard as well as his inspiring lyrics, Andhokaarer Utso Hote (From the Fount of Darkness), by our team. Nazrul’s vibrant lyrics, Shukno Patar Nupur Paye (With Ankle Bells of Dried Leaves), has been rendered into English from Bengali by Professor Alam.

Our reviews explore immigrant stories in fiction with Somdatta Mandal reviewing Ammar Kalia’s A Person Is a Prayer. Bhaskar Pariccha has written about Selected Works of Vyasa Kavi Fakir Mohan Senapati, edited by Monica Das. Fakir Mohan is a legendary writer from Odisha. Meenakshi Malhotra has discussed a book on another legend, Safdar Hashmi, one of the greatest names in street theatre in India. The book is by Anjum Katyal and called, Safdar Hashmi: Towards Theatre for a Democracy.

Our book excerpts usher good cheer with a narrative by Ruskin Bond from Let’s Be Best Friends Forever: Beautiful Stories of Friendship. And also hope with a refugee’s story from Ukraine, which travels through deserts, Italy and beyond to US and has a seemingly happier outcome than most, Lara Gelya’s Camel from Kyzylkum. This issue’s conversations take us around the world with Keith Lyons interviewing Lya Badgley, who has crossed continents to live and write. Malashri Lal, the other interviewee, is an academic and writer with sixteen books under her belt. She travels through the world with her poetry in Mandalas of Time.

Huge thanks to the Borderless team for putting this issue together – the last-minute ties – and the art from Sohana Manzoor. Without all this, the edition would look different. Heartfelt thanks to our contributors without whose timely submissions, we would not have a journal. And most of all we thank our readers – we are because you are – thank you for reading our journal.  As all our content, despite being indispensable, could not be mentioned here, do pause by our content’s page for this issue.

We wish you a wonderful month!

Cheers,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

[1] Tagore’s Andhokaarer Utso Hote (From the Fount of Darkness)

[2] Nazrul’s Proloyullash translated by Professor Alam as The Frenzy of Destruction

Click here to access the content’s page for the October 2024 Issue.

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

Categories
Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

Two Pizza Fantasies

I can’t quite remember the first time I ate pizza. But I do remember that it came as a revelation. What a marvellous invention! The circular kind seems superior to the square or rectangular style, I don’t know why, and thin crust is better than deep pan, again I am unable to offer an explanation for this truth, though I guess mathematics definitely plays a role. But why a thin circle should be tastier than any other shape is beyond my understanding. No matter! The important thing to know about pizzas is that there are very few official variants, all vegetarian. It is a Rule of Naples that this should be so, Naples where pizza originated, and who are we to violate the ancient laws of a distant land? There is the margherita and the marinara, both simple and delicious. I don’t know if any other variations are acceptable. I am a pizza eater, not a pizza pundit. Let us be satisfied with those two types. And now allow me to present a story and a poem both themed around this most delectable of cheesy meals!

Down in the Park

There had been another report of a flying saucer over our town and this time I believed it. I saw it with my own eyes, not with anyone else’s, because I generally use my own eyes to see things. How about you? Maybe you use the eyes of your best friend, borrowed when he is sleeping, but I don’t do that. Messy and inefficient.

Anyway, I saw the flying saucer when I rose in the early hours to fetch a glass of water back to my bedside table. Flashing lights, weird flight path, eerie low drone and no sign of any trickery at all. Actually it wasn’t water in my glass. It was neat brandy and it was in a bottle, but I don’t want you to think I’m an alcoholic. I don’t want you to think I was drunk when I saw it. I wasn’t drunk.

I was as sober as an octopus. A postgraduate octopus.

The flying saucer hovered above my garden briefly, as if waiting for something, but I didn’t run out in my pyjamas; the grass was wet and I couldn’t find my slippers. I suppose you would have worn waterproof shoes made from the stitched skins of watermelons? That’s the kind of person you clearly are, but I’m not, no sir.

So I forsook the opportunity of getting a closer look. Too bad. Too bad is what you are. A scoundrel.

The next morning, I met Clive in the bakery. I was buying iced buns and so was he, but to my mild surprise he also bought a pizza, vegetarian, with a topping of extra olives.

I have to stress that my surprise really was mild. It’s not as if he was buying a machine gun made from bread or a cake in the shape of a centaur’s elbow.

“Did you hear about the—,” I began.

“Yes, Douglas, yes; I saw it myself and I stood and wondered. It hovered above many gardens, that flying saucer thing, including mine, and then it moved on. What purpose did it have? I pondered long and suddenly I realised!”

“You did what?” I croaked.

“I realised the truth about them, about the flying saucers. I know what they are and why they come here. I’m going to the park now and if you accompany me there, I’ll explain everything to you. Even though you aren’t as intelligent as me, I feel sure you will be able to understand the meaning of my words.”

The chance was too good to miss, so I followed Clive along the street that led to the nearest park. When we got there, we gravitated to the lake, as always, and watched the ducks. Some men watch women in the park, but not me. I watch ducks. That’s just the way it is.

I munched on an iced bun and cast my spare crumbs into the ripples. I often do that. I cast crumbs. I am a crumb caster. What the heck are you?

The ducks were happy to eat the morsels I offered them, but Clive held my arm in a powerful grip, most unlike him, because even though he is a strong man he is a bit of a simpering clot, and he prevented me from casting more pieces.

“Watch this!” he cried, so I did.

I often watch things when asked to do so.

Sometimes even when I’m not asked, I will watch.

I am a crumb casting watcher.

Like a discus thrower, Clive rotated on the spot and threw his pizza as far as he could. It was still warm, that pizza of his, and the olives glittered like crystals, and steam rose from the tomato paste as it soared over the waters. I know little about the aerodynamic properties of Italian cuisine, but it seemed to hang in the air for ages.

Then it dropped into the lake and sank.

“I was expecting it to float,” I remarked feebly.

But Clive was ecstatic. “Did you see? The ducks misunderstood it! They simply didn’t know what to make of it! They didn’t recognise it as food and why should they? They don’t know what a pizza is. That proves my point!”

I frowned. “You mean that—”

“Yes, Douglas, yes! Flying saucers are scraps of food that are being thrown to us by aliens from outer space. It’s so obvious! Why has no one thought of this before? We throw food for ducks; the aliens throw food for us. It’s a perfect analogy! Flying saucers are alien pizzas!”

I didn’t believe him, and I told him so. But that same night I moved my dining table and a solitary chair into my garden and sat there, expectantly, with a knife and fork.

I’m still there, waiting. And I’ve drunk all the wine.

So I’ve started on the brandy…

And I am wondering what the aliens are like.

Maybe they are like you.

In fact, I now think that you are one of them.

You cosmic rascal!

TAMPERED WITH 

The evidence 
was tampered with 
in Tampa.
I read about the case
in the Italian newspaper,
La Stampa.

But why was a crime
committed
in far flung Florida
considered
so newsworthy in Naples
and Rome
when there were horrider
cases much closer
to home?

It’s because of the man
suspected
of being behind the scam,
Don Avidograsso,
the celebrated mafioso.

He had defrauded a bank
of millions
one quiet morning
with a few trusty minions.
But he had made
a fatal mistake:
leaving behind the pizza
he’d baked
for his lunch, a margherita.

This delicacy was taken
and placed
in storage for forensic
examination.
Undigested, it would
provide a clue
as to who
should be arrested.

Everyone knows that Don
Avidograsso is
obsessed with margheritas.
No other pizza
is to his taste, but in haste
to flee the scene
he had abandoned it like a
discus in a dream.

Aware of the danger
he was in,
Don Avidograsso forced
entry into
the storage facility
one night
to alter the incriminating
pizza by
adding toppings regarded
as rotten
by his unforgiving culture.

Pineapple slices, no less!
And now
let me confess
that I never could assume
that a purist
such as Don Avidograsso
would ever
find room in his stomach 
for the Hawaiian
variety of pizza, a travesty
to his way
of traditional thinking.

Such evidence would be
inadmissible
in court! But he was seen
and caught
by an alert guard not hard
of hearing.
Don Avidograsso’s belly
gave him away,
rumbling and grumbling
all the way
like thunder over the sea.

His pizza tampering failed
and now he waits in jail,
hungry and gaunt,
the same way
we wait in this restaurant.


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

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Categories
Poetry

Slow Cats Loose

Poetry and Photography by Rhys Hughes

Slow cats loose.
Fast cats tight.
Cats of middling
velocity
are neither slack
nor light.

Pretty witty kitty,
heavy on the purrs,
I don’t know why
you remain so shy
with the passing
of the years.

No moonbeams in
our dreams
are mellower than you,
no hats in fact
have softer fur
in all of fashion history
(although it’s true
we lost the clue
to the solution
of that mystery.)

A smoother, cooler
ruler of
our town will never
be seen again.
The largest bat and
ten hot rats,
a gymnast and a clown,
however caught,
ought to frown
in random tandem
at the very thought.

Cats, cats, cats, cats,
cats, cats, cats
cats, cats,
cats.

Why do we keep thinking
about and winking at
and writing about
and glorifying
our cats?

Is there something
not quite right about that?
I don’t know,
I can’t say for sure,
but the accepted rules
of the matter in hand,
to say nothing
of the laws of the land,
require, nay demand,
that we appreciate,
accommodate,
adjudicate and anticipate,
authenticate
and tolerate
and even overcompensate
with great
enthusiasm cats!

The taut sort,
wiry and wild,
and the haughty taught sort,
portly and mild,
all belong in our domain:
that’s the main
thing for us to remember
(and they’ll never
let us forget it.)

In the meantime
it’s teatime: the slow cat
with eyes like saucers
watches the cup
of brimming brew
as it hovers
towards my mouth.
The hot liquid
will soon be going south
into the humid
tropicality of my belly.

This is a diversion,
a subject tangential to the
theme of cats.
Will the feline masters
regard teatime
as an incursion into a poem
that rightfully
belongs to them?

I don’t know but I hope not.
The knot of life
tangled from threads of strife
is undone by tea,
so let me be, feline fandango!

In a village we stayed,
picked blackberries and made
beautiful jam
(at least she did, I am
clueless at such things)
and every time
we stepped into the lane
the same slow cat
was sleeping
next to a windowpane,
and we tiptoed past fast 
in order not to
wake him.

Cats, cats, cats, cats,
cats, cats, cats
cats, cats,
cats.

Why do we keep thinking
about and winking at
and writing about
and glorifying
our cats?


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

Categories
Contents

Borderless, September 2024

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

And Wilderness is Paradise Enow… Click here to read.

Translations

Raja O Praja or The King and His Subjects, an essay by Tagore, has been translated from Bengali by Himadri Lahiri. Click here to read.

Nazrul’s Roomu Jhoomu Roomu Jhoomu has been transcreated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

The Mirror by Mubarak Qazi has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

The Source by Ihlwha Choi has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Suprobhat or Good Morning by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Rhys Hughes, Cal Freeman, Jackie Kabir, Jennifer McCormack, Pramod Rastogi, Miriam Bassuk, K B Ryan Joshua Mahindapala, Paul Mirabile, Shamik Banerjee, Craig Kirchner, Thomas Emate, Stuart MacFarlane, Supriya Javalgekar, George Freek, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Michael Burch

Musings/Slices from Life

Finding the Fulcrum

Farouk Gulsara gives a poignant account of looking after an aged parent. Click here to read.

Watery World

Keith Lyons finds the whole world within a swimming pool. Click here to read.

Days that don’t Smell of Cakes and Candy

Priyanka Panwar muses on days which not much happens… Click here to read.

Rayban-dhan

Uday Deshwal revisits his life with his companion sunglass. Click here to read.

In Favour of a Genre…

Saeed Ibrahim argues in favour of short stories as a genre. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Shades of Grey – Hair and There, Devraj Singh Kalsi writes of adventures with premature greying. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Sneaky Sneakers, Suzanne Kamata grins at life in Japan. Click here to read.

Essays

Ah Nana Bari!

Fakrul Alam writes nostalgically of his visits to Feni in Noakhali, a small town which now suffers from severe flooding due to climate change. Click here to read.

A Manmade Disaster or Climate Change?

Salma A Shafi writes of floods in Bangladesh from ground level. Click here to read.

A Doctor’s Diary: Life in the High Ranges

Ravi Shankar writes of his life in the last century among the less developed highlands of Kerala. Click here to read.

Stories

The Useless Idler

Paul Mirabile writes of a strange encounter with someone who calls himself an ‘idler’. Click here to read.

Imitation

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao explores parenting. Click here to read.

Final Hours

Mahila Iqbal gives a poignant story about aging. Click here to read.

Friends

G Venkatesh writes a story stirring environmental concerns. Click here to read.

Conversation

Ratnottama Sengupta converses with Reba Som, who recently brought out, Hop, Skip and Jump; Peregrinations of a Diplomat’s Wife. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Mineke Schipper’s Widows: A Global History. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Anuradha Marwah’s Aunties of Vasant Kunj. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Karan Mujoo’s This Our Paradise: A Novel. Click here to read.

Rakhi Dalal reviews Swadesh Deepak’s A Bouquet of Dead Flowers translated from Hindi by Jerry Pinto, Pratik Kanjilal, Nirupama Dutt, Sukant Deepak. Click here to read.

Meenakshi Malhotra reviews Anuradha Marwah’s Aunties of Vasant Kunj. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Ayurveda, Nation and Society: United Provinces, c. 1890–1950 by Saurav Kumar Rai. 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

And Wilderness is Paradise Enow…

Prayer Wheel at Nurulia, Ladakh. Photo Courtesy: Farouk Gulsara
We lock eyes, find glimmers
of smiles, trust our leaders.
We break bread with strangers
because there aren’t any.

--Imagine by Miriam Bassuk

Imagine the world envisioned by John Lennon. Imagine the world envisioned and partly materialised by Tagore in his pet twin projects of Santiniketan and Sriniketan, training institutes made with the intent of moving towards creating a work force that would dedicate their lives to human weal, to closing social gaps borne of human constructs and to uplifting the less privileged by educating them and giving them the means to earn a livelihood. You might well call these people visionaries and utopian dreamers, but were they? Tagore had hoped to inspire with his model institutions.  In 1939, he wrote in a letter: “My path, as you know, lies in the domain of quiet integral action and thought, my units must be few and small, and I can but face human problems in relation to some basic village or cultural area. So, in the midst of worldwide anguish, and with the problems of over three hundred millions staring us in the face, I stick to my work in Santiniketan and Sriniketan hoping that my efforts will touch the heart of our village neighbours and help them in reasserting themselves in a new social order. If we can give a start to a few villages, they would perhaps be an inspiration to some others—and my life work will have been done.”  But did we really have a new social order or try to emulate him?

If we had acted out of compassion and kindness towards redefining with a new social order, as Miriam Bassuk points out in her poem based on Lennon’s lyrics of Imagine, there would be no strangers. We’d all be friends living in harmony and creating a world with compassion, kindness, love and tolerance. We would not have wars or regional geopolitical tensions which act against human weal. Perhaps, we would not have had the issues of war of climate change take on the proportions that are wrecking our own constructs.

Natural disasters, floods, fires, landslides have affected many of our lives. Bringing us close to such a disaster is an essay by Salma A Shafi at ground level in Noakhali. More than 4.5 million were affected and 71 died in this disaster. Another 23 died in the same spate of floods in Tripura with 65,000 affected. We are looking at a single region here, but such disasters seem to be becoming more frequent. And yet. there had been a time when Noakhali was an idyllic vacation spot as reflected in Professor Fakrul Alam’s nostalgic essay, filled with memories of love, green outdoors and kindnesses. Such emotions reverberate in Ravi Shankar’s account of his medical adventures in the highlands of Kerala, a state that suffered a stupendous landslide last month. While Shafi shows how extreme rainfall can cause disasters, Keith Lyons writes of water, whose waves in oceanic form lap landmasses like bridges. He finds a microcosm of the whole world in a swimming pool as migrants find their way to New Zealand too. Farouk Gulsara muses on kindness and caregiving while Priyanka Panwar ponders about ordinary days. Saeed Ibrahim gives a literary twist to our musings.   Tongue in cheek humour is woven into our nonfiction section by Suzanne Kamata’s notes from Japan, Devraj Singh Kalsi’s piece on premature greying and Uday Deshwal’s paean to his sunglasses!

Humour is wrought into poetry by Rhys Hughes. Supriya Javelkar and Shamik Banerjee have cheeky poems that make you smile. We have poetry on love by Michael Burch and poetry for Dylan Thomas by Ryan Quinn Flanagan. Miriam Bassuk has described a Utopian world… but very much in the spirit of our journal. Variety is brought into our journal with poetry from Jackie Kabir, Jennifer McCormack, Craig Kirchner, Stuart MacFarlane, George Freek, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal and many more.

In translations, we have Nazrul lyrics transcreated from Bengali by Professor Alam and poetry from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. We pay our respects to an eminent Balochi poet who passed on exactly a year ago, Mubarak Qazi, by carrying a translation by Fazal Baloch. Tagore’s Suprobhat (Good morning) has been rendered in English from Bengali. His descriptions of the morning are layered and amazing — with a hint of the need to reconstruct our world, very relevant even today.  A powerful essay by Tagore called Raja O Praja (The King and His Subjects), has been translated by Himadri Lahiri.

Our fiction hosts two narratives that centre around childhood, one by Naramsetti Umamaheswararao and another by G Venkatesh, though with very different approaches. Mahila Iqbal relates a poignant tale about aging, mental health and neglect, the very antithesis of Gulsara’s musing. Paul Mirabile has given a strange story about a ‘useless idler’.

A short story collection has been reviewed by Rakhi Dalal, Swadesh Deepak’s A Bouquet of Dead Flowers, translated from Hindi by Jerry Pinto, Pratik Kanjilal, Nirupama Dutt, Sukant Deepak. Somdatta Mandal has written about a book by a Kashmiri immigrant which is part based on lived experiences and part fictive, Karan Mujoo’s This Our Paradise: A Novel. Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Ayurveda, Nation and Society: United Provinces, c. 1890–1950 by Saurav Kumar Rai, a book which shows how healthcare was even a hundred years ago, politicised. Meenakshi Malhotra has reviewed Anuradha Marwah’s novel, Aunties of Vasant Kunj, of which we also have an excerpt. The other excerpt is from Mineke Schipper’s Widows: A Global History. Ratnottama Sengupta converses with Reba Som, author of Hop, Skip and Jump; Peregrinations of a Diplomat’s Wife.

We have more content that adds to the vibrancy of the issue. Do pause by this issue and take a look. This issue would not have been possible without all your writings. Thank you for that. Huge thanks to our readers and our team, without whose support we could not have come this far. I would especially like to thank Sohana Manzoor for her continued supply of her fabulous and distinctive artwork and Gulsara for his fabulous photographs.

Let us look forward to a festive season which awakens each autumn and stretches to winter. May we in this season find love, compassion and kindness in our hearts towards our whole human family.

Have a wonderful month!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the content’s page for the September 2024 Issue.

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