Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection...
Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore, written in 1910 in Bengali as Chitto Jetha Bhoy Shunno and translated by the poet himself in 1912.
We celebrate Rabindranath Tagore(1861-1941) on his 165th birth anniversary with translations of his works by contemporary writers. We hope to woo our readers into experiencing Tagore as a visionary and a thinker who used his writing to showcase his convictions transcending divisive human constructs. Most are aware he was much more than just a poet or writer with his pet projects of Santiniketan and Sriniketan, that continue to flourish, even today — eighty-five years after his death.
He wrote a birthday poem every year. The last one was drafted as he lay sick on his bed in 1941. We have the lyrics translated by Aruna Chakravarti in her book, Daughters of Jorasanko with an imagined description of his last birthday celebrations.
The outlay includes stories translated by Somdatta Mandal and Chakravarti; essays brought to us in English by Himadri Lahiri and Mandal. And our piece de resistance is Professor Fakrul Alam’s translation of his full length ‘dance-drama’, Roktokorobi (Red Oleanders), with songs and theatre brought together, somewhat like in a musical. What absolutely amazes is that all his work can be read as comments on contemporary life. Enjoy the translations!
Tagore’s Last Birthday Celebration: This has been excerpted from Aruna Chakravarti’s Daughters of Jorasanko. It includes has her translation of the last birthday song he wrote in 1941 a few months before he died. Click here to read.
Short Stories
Daliya, a story by Tagore, has been translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.
Baraf Pora (Snowfall) : This narrative gives a glimpse of Tagore’s first experience of snowfall in Brighton and published in the Tagore family journal, Balak (Children), has been translated by Somdatta Mandal . Clickhere to read.
Daliya by Tagore, published in Magh 1298 B.S. (Jan/February 1891), has been translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal
Daliya by Tagore
Preface
After being defeated, Shah Shuja feared Aurangzeb and ran away to take shelter under the king of Arakan. He had three beautiful daughters with him. The king of Arakan wished to get the three daughters married to the princes. Shah Shuja was extremely unwilling to accept the proposal and so one day, according to the king’s orders, he was lured by trickery to travel in a boat on the river and then there was an attempt to sink that boat mid-river. During that incident, the youngest daughter Amina was hurled into the river by her father himself. The eldest daughter committed suicide. And one of Shuja’s trusted aides called Rahamat Ali took Julekha and swam away with her, while Shuja died fighting in a war.
Amina floated along with the strong current and quite soon got entangled in a fisherman’s net miraculously and gradually grew up in his hut.
In the meantime, the old king died, and the prince was initiated into the kingdom.
Chapter One
One morning the old fisherman came and reprimanded Amina and said, “Tinni.” The fisherman had renamed Amina in the Arakan language.
“Tinni, what has happened to you this morning? You haven’t laid your hand on anything. My new net hasn’t been glued, my boat…”
Amina came close to the fisherman and affectionately told him, “Old man, my elder sister has come today, so today is a holiday.”
“Who is your sister, Tinni?”
Julekha came out from somewhere and said, “Me.”
The old man was surprised. Then he came close to Julekha and carefully observed her face.
Suddenly he asked, “Do you know any sort of work?”
Amina said, “Old man, I will work on behalf of didi[1]. Didi won’t be able to work.”
The old man thought for a while and asked, “Where will you stay?”
Julekha replied, “With Amina.”
The old man thought, this was also trouble. He asked, “What will you eat?”
Julekha said, “There is also a way.” Saying that she contemptuously threw a gold sovereign in front of the fisherman.
Amina picked it up and handing it over to the fisherman said in a hushed tone, “Old man, don’t say anything else. You go and do your work. It is quite late in the day.”
Julekha had travelled in different places in disguise and at last found out Amina’s whereabouts and landed in this fisherman’s hut. But narrating all that will result in a second story. Her saviour, Rahamat Seikh, worked in the Arakan king’s court under a pseudonym.
Chapter Two
The narrow river was flowing by, and the cool breeze from the first spell of summer made the red flowers from the koilu tree fall below on the ground.
Sitting under that tree Julekha said to Amina, “God has saved the lives of we two sisters just to take revenge of father’s death. Otherwise, I don’t find any other reason.”
Amina kept on looking at the farthest and the densest trees on the other side of the river and said very slowly, “Didi don’t say such words. I like this world quite well. If they want to die, let the men fight with each other and die, I have no sorrow here.”
Julekha said, “Shame on you Amina. Aren’t you the daughter from the Shehezada[2]’s lineage. Where is the throne in Delhi and where is this fisherman’s hut in the Arakans!”
Amina laughed and replied, “Didi, this old man’s hut is better than the throne in Delhi and if any young girl finds the shade of the koilu tree much better, the throne of Delhi won’t shed a drop of tear.”
Julekha partly unmindfully and partly replying to Amina said, “Yes, you cannot be blamed because you were really small then. But just think about it once, Father loved you the most and that is why he had thrown you in the water with his own hands. Don’t consider this life to be more loving than that death given by Father. But if you can take revenge, then the meaning of life is justified.”
Amina kept quiet and kept on looking at the distance. But it could be clearly understood, despite all those words, this pleasant breeze outside, the shade of the tree and her own youth had kept her engrossed in some happy memories.
After some time, she gave a deep sigh and said, “Didi please wait for a while. I have household work to do. The old man won’t be able to eat if I don’t cook for him.”
Chapter Three
Julekha thought about Amina’s condition and kept on sitting in a very desolate mood. Suddenly, there was the sound of a big jump, and someone came from behind and covered Julekha’s eyes with his hands.
Julekha was alarmed and said, “Who are you?”
Hearing her voice the young man left the eyes and came and stood in front of her. Looking at Julekha’s face he said without hesitation, “You are not Tinni.” It was as if Julekha was always trying to pass on as Tinni, only the exceptionally sharp intelligence of the young man could decipher the cleverness.
Julekha gathered her clothes, stood up brilliantly, and cast a firm look at him. She asked, “Who are you?’
The young man said, “You don’t know me. Tinni does. Where is Tinni?”
Hearing the commotion Tinni came outside. Seeing Julekha’s anger and the bewildered face of the young man, Amina gave a loud laugh.
She said, “Didi, don’t take his words into consideration. He is not a human being. He is a deer of the forest. If he has behaved impertinently, I will scold him. Daliya, what did you do?”
The young man instantly replied, “Covered her eyes. I thought she was Tinni. But she is not Tinni.”
Suddenly Tinni expressed terrible anger and said, “Again! Uttering big things with your little mouth. When did you cover Tinni’s eyes? You seem to have too much courage.”
The young man said, “It doesn’t take too much courage to cover someone’s eyes; especially if someone has the previous habit. But I am telling you the truth, Tinni. Today I was a little scared.”
Saying that he secretly pointed out his finger at Julekha and kept on looking at Amina’s face and smiled.
Amina said, “No you are a brute. You are not worthy of standing in front of a Shahezadi, a princess. It is necessary to teach you manners. Look, you should salute like this.”
Saying that Amina bent her youthful slim body very pleasantly and paid a salute to Julekha. The young man tried very hard to follow her orders in an incomplete fashion.
She said, “Do this and take three steps backwards.” The young man moved backwards.
“Salute her once again.” He saluted once more.
In this manner by moving backwards, by saluting, Amina took the young man up to the door of the hut.
She said, “Enter the room.” The young man did so.
Amina came out and bolted the door from outside and said, “Do some household work. Light the fire.” Saying that, she came and sat next to her sister.
She said, “Didi, please don’t get annoyed. The people here are like this. I am sick and tired with them.”
But that didn’t get reflected in Amina’s face or her behaviour. Instead, in many instances she expressed a particular bias towards the men here.
Julekha expressed as much anger as possible and said, “Really, Amina. I am surprised at your behaviour. How does an outsider have so much courage to come and touch you!”
Amina added to her sister’s concern and said, “Look at this, sister. If any Badshah or Nawab’s son acted in this manner, I would have insulted him and thrown him out.”
Julekha couldn’t control her inward smile – she laughed out loud and said, “Tell me the truth Amina. You were saying you liked the world, was this because of that brute young man?”
Amina replied, “Well, let me tell you the truth, didi. He helps me a lot. He plucks flowers from the trees, hunts animals and brings them, and rushes forward whenever he is asked to do a certain job. I have often thought of reprimanding him, but that attempt is of no avail. If I tell him with deep anger in my eyes, ‘Daliya, I am very dissatisfied with you’ – he stares at my face and silently keeps on smiling as if in jest. Mocking in this country is probably of this kind; if you give them two blows, they feel very happy. I have even tried that. Just see, I have locked him in the room – he is enjoying himself there. If I open the door, I will see him happily blowing at the fire with his eyes and face all reddened up. Tell me, sister, what should I do with him. I cannot take it anymore.”
Julekha said, “I can give a try.”
Amina laughed and said politely, “I beg at your feet, sister. Don’t tell him anything.”
The way she said those words it seemed as if the young man was a pet deer belonging to Amina, till now his wild habits have not left him. She feared that he would disappear if he saw some other people around.
In the meantime, the fisherman came and asked, “Tinni, hasn’t Daliya come today?”
“Yes, he has come.”
“Where has he gone?”
“He was disturbing too much. So, I locked him in the room.”
The old man was a little worried and said, “If he disturbs you, tolerate it. Everyone is so restless at a young age. Don’t reprimand him too much. Yesterday Daliya gave me a tholu, i.e. a gold coin, and took three fish from me.”
Amina said, “Don’t worry old man. Today I will extract two tholus from him, and you won’t have to give a single fish.”
The old man was very happy to see the cleverness and worldly wisdom of his adopted daughter at such a young age, and he affectionately caressed her head and left.
Chapter Four
It was strange that gradually Julekha no longer objected to this coming and going of Daliya. She thought that there was nothing strange about it. That was because there was current on one side of the river and the shore on the other bank, the passions and public shame of a woman were also like that. But outside civil society, in this remote corner of Arakan, where were people here?
Here nature manifested itself with the change of seasons – trees were blooming and the blue river in front was at spate during the monsoon; during autumn it would be clear and again become faint during summer; there was no criticism in the loud voices of the birds, and the southern wind would occasionally carry in the faint sound of human voices but not their actual conversation.
Just as a deserted mansion gets gradually covered with deep vegetation, similarly staying there for some time, the secret attack of nature gradually weakens the societal rules made by men and everywhere it gets blended with the natural world. The union of a man and a woman who are equal to one another seems so beautiful that it doesn’t seem out of place for a woman to look at it. They are steeped in mystery, happiness, such deep and unending curiosity, that nothing else seems relevant. So, when the lonely shade of poverty in this barbarian hut gradually turned Julekha’s pride about her heritage and standard of dignity into something lax, she started really enjoying watching the union of Amina and Daliya under the flowering shade of the koilu tree.
Probably an unsatisfied desire would arise in her young heart too and make her restless in pleasure and pain. In the end, it so happened that if the young man would arrive late, like the anxious Amina, Julekha would also eagerly wait for him, and when they all came together, they would fondly observe the scene in a manner in which a painter looks at his just completed painting from a distance. On some days there would be verbal duels, she would play tricks to reprimand them, and lock Amina inside the hut to prevent the mating urge of the young man.
There is a similarity between the king and the forest. Both are independent, both are the sole rulers in their own territory, and neither of them had to follow any rules. Both possessed a natural magnanimity and simplicity. Those who followed the middle path spent their days and nights obeying the rules implemented by folklore, and they were the ones who remained somewhat independent minded. They were the ones who were servile to the great men, were masters of the lower classes, and remained rather undecided and out of place. The barbarian Daliya was the untamed son of Mother Nature; he had no shyness for the shahajadi, the princess, and both the shahajadis, the princesses, also didn’t recognise him as an equal. He was jovial, simple, humorous, fearless in all circumstances, and his unshrinkable character did not display any trace of poverty.
But even amid these games sometimes Julekha’s heart would start lamenting – she would think about the dire state of a princess’s life!
One morning, Juelkha held Daliya’s hand as soon as he arrived and said, “Daliya, can you show me the king here?”
“Yes, I can. But tell me why.”
“I have a dagger and I want to plunge it into his chest.”
Daliya was somewhat surprised in the beginning. After that, seeing Julekha’s revengeful face, his whole face was filled with a smile; as if he had never heard such a funny thing earlier in his life. If you call it irony, well it was befitting a princess. He kept on constantly visualising the scene when without any talk or message, half of a dagger would be placed in the breast of a living king and how surprised the king would suddenly be when this intimate behaviour would take place. This made him laugh silently at first and occasionally erupt in a loud laugh later.
Chapter Five
The very next day Rahamat Seikh wrote a secret letter to Julekha stating that the new Arakan king had found out two sisters living in the hut of a fisherman and has been greatly enamoured after secretly watching Amina. He was making all preparations to bring her to the palace immediately and marry her. Such a nice opportunity for revenge would not be available again.
Then Julekha held Amina’s hand firmly and said, “One can clearly see God’s wishes. Amina, now the time has come to obey your life’s duty, and now playing games does not look well anymore.”
Daliya was present there. Amina looked at his face and saw him smiling self-indulgently.
Amina was hurt seeing his smile and said, “Do you know Daliya, I am going to become a queen.”
Daliya said, “But that is not for a long time.”
With a hurt and surprised heart Amina thought to herself, “It is really true he was a deer in the forest. It is my craziness that i treat him like a human being.”
To make Daliya more conscious, Amina asked, “Shall I come back after killing the king?”
Daliya found the words logical and said, “Yes, it is difficult to return.”
Amina’s entire soul turned totally pale.
She looked towards Julekha and casting a deep sigh said, “Didi, I am prepared.”
After that she turned towards Daliya and pretending it to be an irony emerging from her suffering heart said, “As soon as I become the queen, first I will punish you for conspiring against the king. After that I will do what is required.”
Hearing that Daliya found it to be especially funny, as if a lot of fun was involved if the proposal was turned into reality.
Chapter Six
The fisherman’s hut seemed to break down with the cavalry, foot soldiers, elephants, music and lights. Two palanquins covered with gold were sent from the palace.
Amina took the dagger from Julekha’s hand. For a long time, she kept on looking at the intricate design carved out of ivory. After that she opened her clothes and tried to ascertain its sharpness upon her own breast. It touched the tip of her breast, and she put it back in its case and hid it within her clothes.
She earnestly desired to meet Daliya once before she commenced on her journey towards death, but he had disappeared since yesterday. Was the pain of arrogance hidden in his smiles?
Before climbing inside the palanquin Amina looked at the shelter of her childhood through tear-filled eyes – the tree in her house, the river next to it. She held the hands of the fisherman and with a suppressed quivering voice said, “Old man, I am leaving. Who will look after your household after Tinni goes away?”
The old man started crying like a small boy.
Amina said, “Old man, if Daliya comes here, please give him this ring. Tell him that Tinni has left it before leaving.”
Saying that she quickly climbed into the palanquin. The palanquin left with great pageantry. Amina’s hut, the riverside, the place beneath the koilu tree, remained dark, silent and without any people.
In due course, the two palanquins crossed the main gate and entered inside the palace. The two sisters left their palanquins and came out.
Amina had no smile on her face, nor tears in her eyes. Julekha’s face was pale. When their duty was far away, they had a lot of excitement among them – now with a shivering heart she embraced Amina with a lot of affection. In her mind she thought how she had plucked the new-found love from its stem and was leading this blossoming flower into sailing in a stream of blood.
But there was no time to think about it now. Surrounded by the attendants with thousands of lamps casting their sharp radiance along the way, the two sisters kept on moving spell bound. At last, they reached the door of the nuptial room and stopping there for a moment, Amina called Julekha, “Didi.”
Julekha embraced Amina deeply and kissed her.
Both entered the room slowly.
The king was dressed in his regal attire and was sitting on a decorated bed in the centre of the room. Amina stood near the door with trepidation.
Julekha advanced towards the king and saw him laughing silently with humour.
Julekha blurted out, ‘Daliya!’ Amina fainted.
Daliya rose and lifted her in his arms like an injured bird and carried her to the bed. Amina became aware and taking out the dagger from her chest looked at her sister’s face. Didi looked at Daliya’s face. Daliya kept quiet and looked at both of them with a smiling face. The dagger also peeped out a little from inside its case and seeing this mirth started laughing with a twinkle.
Somdatta Mandal is the Former Professor of English and Chairperson at the Department of English & Other Modern European Languages, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan. Somdatta has a keen interest in translation and travel writing.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Title: The Tree Within: The Mexican Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz’s Years in India
Author: Indranil Chakravarty
Publisher: Penguin Random House India
‘For me, India was an accident.’ – Octavio Paz
The Mexican Nobel laureate poet and essayist Octavio Paz (1914-1998) was a writer of lightening insights and electric intelligence. His impassioned poetry is meditative, with a precision of language that is imbued with a strangely sensuous quality. In fact, language and poetry per se were some of his key thematic concerns. The announcement on the cover of this book states that The Tree Within is the enchanting story of Octavio Paz’s passionate love-affair with India where he served as Mexico’s ambassador in the 1960s but reading through this very detailed 518 pages well-researched biography of the Nobel Laureate poet one realises that it is a lot more.
Immersing himself in India’s rich cultural life and contemplative traditions, Paz travelled widely, forged deep friendships with some of India’s finest minds, and produced several of his most inspired poetry and essays. It was here that he met the love of his life and until the day he died, he continued to refer to India as the place where he experienced what he called his ‘second birth’. It is difficult to find similar cases in our history when a major creative figure from abroad drew inspiration from India’s culture for one’s own works over such an extended period. His writings became a bridge between continents, blending Eastern and Western sensibilities in ways that enriched the literary landscapes of both. In India, where the erotic and the sacred blend in ecstatic union – unlike in the West, where the two are scrupulously kept apart – he saw the possibility of a new synthesis through the dissolution of dualities. Interestingly, Mexico belongs to the western hemisphere but is generally considered non-West, like India. Blending biography, cultural history, and literary criticism, The Tree Within is a luminous testament to the enduring alchemy between India and the world through one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.
The book is divided into ten stand-alone chapters, and one can move to the topic of one’s choice. The first two chapters entitled ‘Family and Nation’ (1914-36) and ‘Paz Before India’ (1936-1951) serve as the background of Paz’s lineage, his growing up, and his passionate engagement with India can be understood in terms of the seeds planted early in his life through his family as well as the national cultural ambience where the idea of India was inscribed. All of them played a role in reinforcing his attraction towards the country. Unlike T.S.Eliot, Paz became politically active from an early age, with an initial inclination towards anarchism and Marxism and a subsequent rejection of Communism. He witnessed the Spanish Civil War firsthand, and he also had a close relationship with the surrealists in France.
It is only in the third chapter, ‘The First Sojourn’ (1951-52), that India is physically present when in 1951 Paz, then 37-years old, was assigned the task of opening a new embassy in New Delhi. It recounts his long sea-journey to India and his experiences and poetic output during that brief period of six months. To some extent, he externalised his inner unhappiness on India during his first trip. India of that time had little to offer him by way of intellectual excitement or fulfilling companionship. Things were in disarray when under Nehru as the new nation-state had just been born a few years ago. In New Delhi, Paz stayed at the Imperial Hotel, which became his residence during his entire stay. He also carried a lot of baggage in terms of Western cultural prejudices towards India. India not only smothered his senses; the grinding poverty and rigid mores of life left him disgusted.
In Chapter Four, ‘Paz and Satish Gujral: In Light of Mexico’ describes the personal friendship between Paz and Satish Gujral, one of India’s leading painters and how Paz shaped his development as an artist by inserting Gujral among the maestros of the Mexican mural movement. In fact, the influence of the Mexican mural movement on modern Indian art through Gujral would not have been possible without Octavio Paz’s decision to send him to Mexico. The meeting with Nehru and Indira Gandhi through Satish’s brother I.K. Gujral also offers interesting information. The following chapter, ‘Coming Home, Going Away’ (1953 -62) traces Paz’s life and creative evolution from the time he left India to the time he was sent to India as Mexico’s ambassador in 1962. This ten-year period between his first sojourn in India in 1952 and his return as the Mexican ambassador in 1962 involved many defining moments in his personal and professional life which shaped his creative evolution as a writer. The extent to which he had already immersed himself in Indian philosophy is evident from the ways he assimilated his experiences and insights of his first stay in the writings of the next decade even when their themes had little to do with India.
‘Making Poetry, Making Love’ (1962 -68) is an account of Paz’s travels through the Indian subcontinent (he was given additional charge of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Ceylon), his relationship with Bona Tibertelli with whom he spent an idyllic vacation across the Indian subcontinent, his unhappy marriage with Elena Garro, his meeting and eventual marriage with his second wife, Marie-Jose Tramini, and the poetry that grew out of that amorous experience – all find ample space in this chapter. The way in which their love affair unfolded is wrapped in secrecy. It is also said that he developed some unsavoury practices for a man of his position. Nevertheless, it was the most bountiful period of an unimaginably productive life.
Chapter Seven named, ‘The Poet as Diplomat (962-68), recounts his role as a diplomat and his pioneering bridge-building efforts. His life stands as a shining example of how the advantages of diplomatic life can be used for maximizing literary output. The title of the next chapter ‘Paz’s Indian Friends: Surrounded by Infinity’ is self-explanatory. It recounts Paz’s close personal friendships with major Indian painters, musicians, writers and thinkers. We are given details of the close relationship with Indira Gandhi, and Paz throws interesting light on Indira by contrasting her with Nehru: “Indira was concrete and sober. She never forgot the old maxim that politics was the art of the possible…”
Among the literary figures, mention is made of Santha Rama Rau, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, Satchidananda H. Vatsyayan, and many others. The story of Paz’s dramatic resignation in October 1968 over his own government’s massacre of students at the Plaza de Tlateloco is explained by the author through studying archival documents. The next chapter ‘Under Western Eyes: Visiting Writers and Artists’ tells the story of famous international writers, musicians and painters who met Paz in India and forged lifelong bonds and collaborations based on their common love for India.
The final chapter ‘Paz After India’ (1968 -98), traces the continued presence of India-related themes in Paz’s body of work, particularly his prose, ever since his departure from the country. Leaving India was not easy for Paz and Marie-Jose. Over the next three years, he would drift around the world, accepting fellowships, residencies and lecture assignments. Though Indian themes gradually faded out of his poetry, in prose it continued to engage him till his last days, thirty years after leaving India. Even in old age, Paz continued to maintain epistolary contact with his Indian friends and welcomed distinguished Indian visitors to Mexico with his characteristic Latin American warmth. ‘Cantata’ tells the knotty story of Paz’s legacy in Mexico and how India has periodically remembered him, one as late as February 2023, at a large international conference held in IIC[1], New Delhi, on the cultural links between India and Latin America. There was unanimity in the acknowledgement that the Mexican poet had created a permanent, direct bridge between India and Latin America that no state-led enterprise could have done.
Before concluding, a few words need to be said about the author of this book. An academic and a filmmaker by profession, Indranil Chakravarty’s interest in Hispanic literature and culture comes out clearly through the translations he made of Paz’s poems. His enormous labour to bring out this volume comes out in the manner he reconstructs the inner journey of the poet by delving into multilingual archives, declassified diplomatic files, personal letters, and intimate interviews. The labour that has gone into selecting the innumerable photographs that don almost every page of the book, many borrowed from the website zonaoctaviopaz.com (an ongoing repository of photographic and news material on Paz put together by a group of Mexican scholars) clearly exemplifies the author’s emphasis on visual imagery too. In Acknowledgements, he clearly mentions that he has merely tried to fill up the missing information on the poet’s India-years. He entirely agrees with Ramchandra Guha’s contention that an autobiography or memoir must be understood as a pre-emptive strike against a future biographer. The poet’s memoir of India elides most of the aspects that are interesting to us today.
Let me begin by saying that like most readers enamoured by her works, I really enjoyed reading Arundhati Roy’s first work of memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me published in 2025. It is a soaring account, both intimate and inspiring, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as a gangster, as ‘my shelter and my storm’. In the meantime, many reviews of the book have already been published, some full of praise and some quite critical, but it can be undoubtedly said that the book created a literary storm that one hadn’t experienced for quite a long time. And to add to that, social media is now flooded with her interviews, readings etc., some very recent and some as old as fifteen years. This essay delves into several issues pertaining to it that have struck me as unique.
Born out of the onrush of memories and feelings provoked by her mother Mary’s death in 2022, this is the astonishing, often disturbing and surprisingly funny memoir of the Arundhati Roy’s life, from childhood to the present, from her movement from Kerala to Delhi. There are forty-two chapters in this book, not numbered, but the titles themselves are self-explanatory. By following their interesting nomenclature, one can get an inkling of how Roy has laid out her narrative strategy, by talking not only about her own life but how it has been intertwined with her mother in a peculiar love-hate relationship. In the very first chapter titled ‘Gangster’, (which Roy has been reading in many gatherings till now), she tells us about her peculiar relationship with her mother. In her excellent and unique narrative style, she says:
“As a child I loved her irrationally, helplessly, fearfully, completely, as children do. As an adult I tried to love her cooly, rationally, and from a safe distance. I often failed. Sometimes miserably. I wrote versions of her in my books, but I never wrote her.”
She then advices her reader: “Most of us are a living, breathing soup of memory and imagination – and that we may not be the best arbiters of which is which. So read this book as you would a novel. It makes no larger claim.”
The narration of the incidents always does not follow a strict chronological order. Some of the stories are already quite well-known. This tells us how the young Syrian Christian Mary Roy married a Bengali tea planter in Assam and had to soon leave her husband because of his drunkenness and lack of responsibility towards his family. Having no support except for a bachelor’s degree in Education, she takes the bold decision of walking out of the marriage and lands in Ooty along with her two young children to live in her father’s cottage. A few months into her fugitive life, her estranged mother and elder brother arrived from Kerala to evict her. They told her that under the Travancore Christian Succession Act, daughter had no right to their father’s property and that they were to leave the house immediately. Years later Mary would challenge the act in the Supreme Court and demand an equal share of her father’s property, and luckily by winning the case in 1986 she became a sort of celebrity overnight.
The story then moves on to Kottayam and then to Ayemenem in Kerala (some of the details of which are beautifully narrated in The God of Small Things too) where Mary Roy struggles to find a foothold for herself and the children and open a school. That story of how that school began in a rudimentary form and how it gradually grew into the well-known residential institution called Pallikoodam designed by the famous architect Laurie Baker, how it remained a top priority in Mary Roy’s life ( the school children prioritised over her own) along with her own eccentricities, her uncompromising nature and peculiar behaviour ( her refusal to be accepted as the mother of the famous writer Arundhati Roy, being one of them), till her death remains one major strand of the narrative.
The other major narrative strand pertains to Roy’s own life. Arundhati’s version of the story tells us how in the summer of 1976 she finished her high school at sixteen and leaving Kottayam (and of course her mother whom she wanted to dissociate forever), arrived alone without any contact in a completely alien territory in Delhi to take the entrance exam for the School of Architecture. Not having any contact with her mother for several years, she led a bohemian life, lived together with different people, saw partly the underbelly of life and did odd jobs to sustain herself. In the architectural school, she met Pradip Kishen and eventually married him (who was then the husband of the boss under whom she was working for a while). She scripted a screenplay for a movie called In Which Annie Gives ItThose Ones about the college life and though it was once telecast in Doordarshan decades ago, it had been lost till recently the footage has been recovered, restored and set as an official entry in the Berlin Film festival this year but one which Roy refused to attend citing the cause of Palestine.
She was involved in another movie script Electric Moon and acted in minor roles in some off beat films like Massey Sahib till she changed her mission of life. After the publication of The God of Small Things, Roy stopped writing novels and got involved in political and social causes and got involved with social activists like Medha Patkar and the Maoists in the Chhattisgarh region and even faced jail for a day for her protests. The writing she produced for a couple of decades were all powerful political manifestos supporting leftist politics (“The Algebra of Infinite Justice” being one of the well- known texts and My Seditious Heart, published in 2019, is a collection of her non-fiction) till she came up with her second novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.
In the meantime, the handsome royalty she received from her first novel changed her living style and for the first time Arundhati Roy managed to eke out a comfortable lifestyle and even buy a house of her own. Her narration is interspersed with several interesting anecdotes, relating to her relationship with her brother whom she mentions throughout as LKC, and their chance meeting with Micky Roy, their father in pathetic condition in Delhi. The chapter titled ‘Mama Bear, Papa Bear’ is very interesting to read. It begins with the following lines: “Seven years had gone by since I’d last seen Mrs Roy. The strangest thing is that I cannot remember how she and I came to be in contact with each other again”. Then the joy of seeing her brother after so many years was exacerbated with their meeting of their father Micky Roy, who had totally disappeared from their lives when they were kids. The pathetic state of the man almost dying out of liquor addiction, we are told about how he was “as frail as a small bird, lame and hunched over …he was severely malnourished, like people in UN pamphlets.” This is how Roy narrates the incident:
‘You would never have believed I was your father. You look so much more like me than your mother. Doesn’t she, Kapil Dev? Same nose. Same eyes…sorry eye.’(Giggle.) ‘I say Orundhuti, do you hit the bottle?’
He pronounced my name the Bengali way.
‘Me? No.’
‘Oh, go on. Tell the truth. All good Roys hit the bottle. Whaddyou say, Kapil Dev?’
(Giggle. Slap.)
After going through all the ups and downs of life, especially in relation to her mother (too many to be narrated here), the story end in the last chapter aptly titled ‘A Declaration of Love’ when in January 2022 she got a message from her mother saying that she loved her. Despite everything that had happened between them, somehow, she knew that to be true. “My lifelong refusal to stop loving her, no matter what, had finally breached her barriers.” The story ends with her death, the details of her cremating process, the performance of the Kottayam Police Band, the 21-gun salute she received and ultimately the memorial they built for her in the bamboo grove where the headstone mentioned Mary Roy as ‘Dreamer Warrior Teacher’ and ‘Founder Pallikoodam.’ The strange love-hate relationship that persisted between Arundhati and her mother comes out beautifully in the end when she writes:
“The first night in a Mrs Roy-less world, I spun unanchored in space with no coordinates. I had constructed myself around her. I had grown into the peculiar shape that I am to accommodate her. I had never wanted to defeat her, never wanted to win. I had always wanted her to go out like a queen. And now that she had, I didn’t make sense to myself any more.”
Another interesting piece of information is revealed in this concluding chapter is about how Arundhati casually decided to get divorced from Pradip Kishen with the same lack of seriousness with which she had got married, so that he and the girls (and their property) had no legal connection to her. The order granting them the divorce had been delivered to her the previous morning, at the very moment Mrs Roy died. ‘So, I, free woman, free falling, was heir to nothing at all. But I was curious about our great will-making mother’s will.’ Later she gets to know that her brother had marked off Mrs Roy’s house and its compound from the rest of the school and had it registered in her name. So, she decided to renovate the house and build the Grove simultaneously in it.
The Cover Design
Before concluding, I want to draw the reader’s attention to the special care that has been taken to make and market this book. The cover design is a highly skilled piece of production. On the stark red cover of the book with the title embossed artistically, we have half a dust jacket in white with two different pictures of Roy on the front and the back cover– one a current photograph of the author with her head full of pepper and salt curls and with a discreet smile on her face. The other photograph is of a much younger and radical Arundhati with a distinct far-away look in her eyes and with a burning cigarette on her lips. Though the publisher gives the statutory warning that cigarette smoking is injurious to health and it does not support it in any way, a very stark visual statement about the unnatural bohemian nature of the author gets revealed through this photograph.
Incidentally, this selling of a book through its stark and attractive cover reminded me of a similar strategy undertaken in 1997 when Roy’s debut novel The God of Small Things won the Booker Prize and took the literary world by storm. The book came out in what was essentially the pre-internet and social media era and the maximum number of reviews and essays that came out during that time were in print. In an essay which I had authored then, calling it “The Making and Marketing of Arundhati Roy”, I had shown that the contents of the dust jacket of the book differed radically from region to region and it was done through a deliberate and effectively thought-out strategy. So, in the Indian edition we had a different story outline giving us a gist of what to expect inside, especially the love of a paravan, an untouchable man with an upper-caste woman, along with the local setting in Kerala, Ayenemem, to be exact.
In the Random House edition published from New York, the story outline was completely different, not only telling us about untouchability and the love between Radha and Krishna that would lure the western reader to pick up the book about a unique place in India defined as ‘God’s Own Country’ in tourist brochures. Also, the photographs of Roy (both taken by her then husband Pradip Kishen) differed radically. With this new book, of course, such strategies didn’t work anymore. With innumerable book launches, readings by the author everywhere (a search on Youtube will even land you with interviews that are more than a decade old) we now come upon other ways and means through which the book has been popularised. But all said and done, I must conclude by saying that whether you agree or disagree with the extreme left wing political views that Arundhati Roy professes, those who still haven’t read this memoir have really missed reading a wonderfully written book with its 372 pages that is really unputdownable, with its lyrical as well as down to earth style of narration, full of new metaphors, new word coinages that are the USP of Arundhati Roy.
Somdatta Mandal, critic and translator, is former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Six years ago, a few of us got together to bring out the first issue of Borderless Journal. We started as a daily blog and then congealed into a monthly journal offering content that transcends artificial borders to meet with the commonality of felt emotions, celebrating humanity and the Universe. Today as we complete six years of our existence in the clouds, we would like to celebrate with all writers and readers who made our existence a reality. We invite you to savour writings collected over the years that reflect and revel in transcending borders, touching hearts and some even make us laugh while exploring norms.
In this special issue. we can only offer a small sample of writings but you can access many more like these ones at our site…Without further ado, let us harmonise with words. We invite you to lose yourselves in a borderless world in these trying times.
Rebel or ‘Bidrohi’, Nazrul’s signature poem, ‘Bidrohi‘, translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Manish Ghatak’s Aagun taader Praan (Fire is their Life) has been translated from Bengali by Indrayudh Sinha. Click here to read.
Tagore’s poem, Tomar Shonkho Dhulay Porey (your conch lies in the dust), has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty as ‘The Conch Calls’. Click here to read.
Ihlwha Choi spent some time in Santiniketan and here are poems he wrote in reaction to his observations near the ‘home of R.Tagore’, as he names Santiniketan and the Kobiguru. Click here to read Nandini.
Rituals in the Garden: Marcelo Medone discusses motherhood, aging and loss in this poignant flash fiction from Argentina. Click here to read.
Navigational Error: Luke P.G. Draper explores the impact of pollution with a short compelling narrative. Click here to read.
Henrik’s Journey: Farah Ghuznavi follows a conglomerate of people on board a flight to address issues ranging from Rohingyas to race bias. Click hereto read.
The Magic Staff , a poignant short story about a Rohingya child by Shaheen Akhtar, translated from Bengali by Arifa Ghani Rahman. Click here to read.
A Cat Story : Sohana Manzoor leaves one wondering if the story is about felines or… Clickhere to read.
When West Meets East & Greatness Blooms: Debraj Mookerjee reflects on how syncretism impacts greats like Tagore,Tolstoy, Emerson, Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi and many more. Click here to read.
The Day Michael Jackson Died: A tribute by Julian Matthews to the great talented star who died amidst ignominy and controversy. Click here to read.
Potable Water Crisis & the Sunderbans: Camellia Biswas, a visitor to Sunderbans during the cyclone Alia, turns environmentalist and writes about the potable water issue faced by locals. Click here to read.
My Love for RK Narayan, Rhys Hughes discusses the novels by ths legendary writer from India. Click here to read.
Travels ofDebendranath Tagore: These are travel narratives by Debendranath Tagore, father of Rabindranath Tagore, translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.
Baraf Pora (Snowfall): This narrative gives a glimpse of Tagore’s first experience of snowfall in Brighton and published in the Tagore family journal, Balak (Children), has been translated by Somdatta Mandal . Clickhere to read.
The Day of Annihilation: An essay on climate change by Kazi Nazrul Islam has been translated from Bengali by Radha Chakravarty. Clickhereto read.
Reminiscences from a Gallery: The Other Ray: Dolly Narang muses on Satyajit Ray’s world beyond films and shares a note by the maestro and an essay on his art by the eminent artist, Paritosh Sen. Click here to read.
The Bauls of Bengal: Aruna Chakravarti writes of wandering minstrels called bauls and the impact they had on Tagore. Click here to read.
Title: River Traveller: Journeys on the TSANPO-BRAHMAPUTRA from Tibet to the Bay of Bengal
Author: Sanjoy Hazarika
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
Sanjoy Hazarika, a former reporter for the New York Times, dons many hats, combining roles as researcher, columnist, mentor and practitioner. Over decades this veteran journalist has travelled extensively across the Northeast and its neighbourhood. His interests include developments in Myanmar, Bhutan, Tibet (PRC), Bangladesh and Nepal and he has produced over a dozen documentaries including on the Brahmaputra, dolphins, governance, conflict, and rights.
River Traveller tells the story of a great river, as powerful as it is mysterious. The Brahmaputra rises in Tibet, travels through three countries and, after travelling over 2,900 kms, flows into the Bay of Bengal. But the most interesting part is that this river is known by many names: Yarlung Tsangpo and Po Tsangpo in Tibet, Siang in Arunachal Pradesh, Brahmaputra in Assam, the Jamuna in Bangladesh, merging with the Ganga at Arichar Ghat, to form the vast Padma on its unending flow to the Bay of Bengal and its quest for union with the sea.
This book has come together over decades of travels on this braided river (including on the boat clinics that he launched in 2005 in Assam) where Hazarika had seen its beauty and faced its wrath, been stuck on sandbanks and swept out to sea. He listened to those who plied the boats, the pilots, drivers, fishermen and their families, the sick and the ailing, women and children, Buddhist and Hindu monks, Sikh and Muslim priests, officials, politicians, students and scientists. He has listened to poets, singers, writers and artists, and to businessfolk and daily wage earners, boat builders, contractors, tea planters and workers. The writer amalgamated all their stories which were a mix of sadness, a determination to survive, an acceptance of fate and joy. Therefore, his traveller’s tales span not just his own journeys but the stories of those who had gone before him. Like the river, the region and its neighbourhood “never cease to delight, surprise, inspire, sadden and confound.”
Of course, the most ostentatious reason for Hazarika’s travels is the filming of documentaries on the river at different points of time. His first travel was for the film A River’s Story, the Quest for the Brahmaputra that he scripted and produced with Jahnu Barua as the director, Sudheer Palsane as cinematographer, Sanjoy Roy and Jugal Debta as audiographers as well as many others. The thrust area was to study the stories of the river and its people, from its beginnings in the Tibetan Plateau to the end in the Bay of Bengal. It wasn’t about science and theory, or politics and the environment, or climate change, but about the river and its moods, and especially its people and their relationship with each other, through history and changing geography, culture, faith, peace and poverty.
In the second venture, Gautam Bora was director and cinematographer of Brahmaputra, a six-part series for Doordarshan, shot in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. In his third venture, he was involved in the making of Children of the River, the Xihus of Assam, which was directed and filmed by Maulee Senapati and where he learned much about dolphins.
Divided into three parts, the book is as exhaustive a study on the river as can be imagined. The Brahmaputra is one of the world’s longest and widest rivers—sustaining entire civilizations and agrarian systems. It has fascinated cartographers, lured adventurers, attracted kings and dynasts, and has supported life and ways of living by its banks. Before beginning with the actual travel in Part One that includes his sojourns in Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh, Hazarika goes back to history of the thirteenth century when in about 1215 AD, the Tai-Ahom prince Siu-ka-pha left his native land now on the China-Myanmar border and undertook a long march before settling down in Charaideo, his capital, with its surrounding flat plains, rich red soil, streams and the vast Brahmaputra nearby. After that for centuries, traders, smugglers, fighters, fugitives, goods, cuisines, languages and ideas as well as religions and religious people have travelled in either direction on the Siu-ka-pha trail.
Hazarika begins his yatra in Tibet and narrates how the challenges relating to it were not new. He describes a Tibet that was trying to hold on to its cultural legacy in the face of Chinese rule and the land’s exploitation for its resources. He recounts stories of explorers, spymasters and mapmakers, especially a motley crowd of intrepid men in the service of the East India Company and the Survey of India, who discovered the route of the river especially when it’s source was hidden in the most inhospitable terrain on earth. They finally solved the puzzle of the vanishing river and established that the Brahmaputra and the Tsangpo were the same river.
In Arunachal Pradesh, Hazarika views the river from a helicopter and to him it resembled a great, brown meandering serpent, moving in huge loops, with many channels; at times, a stream or two which joined the flow backed down on themselves, creating elegant oxbow lakes. At Gelling, the first village on the Indian side, the turbulent Tsangpo churns its way through a narrow valley after a cascading drop from Tibet. Here for the first time the Tsangpo changes its name and is known as the Siang or Dibang for the next 200 kilometers before it enters Assam. At a place called Kobo, the Lohit meets the Dibang, Noa Dihing, Tengapani and Siang and develops the immense power that is mirrored in the Brahmaputra in full flow.
Part Two comprising of nine chapters focuses on Assam. After the earthquake of 1950, water ‘blockades’ happened not just on the Siang but also on several other rivers flowing into the Assam Valley and as a result the river changed its course, lifted the riverbed, flattened the banks and land, and braided it in many places far more than ever before. As a result, many towns like Rohmoria, Sadiya simply vanished after being embraced by flood waters, and places like Barpeta, Goalpara and Dhubri underwent demographic changes.
In separate chapters we learn about the tea gardens of Assam, the influence of Srimanta Sankaradeva and his satras[1], about the great river island Majuli, the singer Bhupen Hazarika, the presence of dolphins in the Brahmaputra, the thousands of islands known as the chars and saporis, which are permanent in their impermanence, where the Muslim residents are known as Miyas, the large number of migrants that inhabit the place, the sand bars and sandbanks that dot the riverscape from Upper Assam and how the collection of sand and its sale and distribution has changed the lives of many along the river to the point where it enters Bangladesh. He also gives us details about the ferry system, the boat clinics on the river that represent both a dream and a reality, as annually, nearly three lakh people are treated in these mobile structures.
The third part of the narrative obviously ends with four chapters on Bangladesh. We are told how to move from a slow riverine economy to a bustling one is quite challenging. This section includes fear of being hunted by pirates on an open sea, the faith in the navigators, ‘drivers’, pilots and other crew members who can read the mind of the river, the trip to the confluence of the Ganga and the Brahmaputra along with a Bangladeshi singer called Maqsoodul Haque or Mac. Both these rivers have different names in Bangladesh. The Ganga is the Padma while the Brahmaputra is the Jamuna. We are told about the story of the island known to Indians as New Moore Island and to the Bangladeshis as Sandwip island that appeared and disappeared, causing a diplomatic furore. The Brahmaputra’s role in shaping the destiny of low-lying Bangladesh is well-established and we are told of the connectedness of the people to the river, on either side of the human-made border. There are many places where the turbulent river refuses to accept human markers and controls and the border just remains an imaginary line snaking across shifting sands.
After reading about the multifarious experiences of Hazarika, it is needless to state that this book of non-fiction mesmerizes the readers to such a great extent that one hankers for more information. It is best to conclude the review by quoting from the poetic way Hazarika himself speaks at the end of the book about the interconnectedness that lies even in a grain of sand:
“I have traversed the river, shared my secrets with it and laid my fears and troubles to rest there. It too has spoken to me and has been kind and generous, in the midst of its vastness and power, to someone who could not swim.
“River Traveller is deeply personal and piloted by my life and learnings on the river, failings, shortcomings, understanding. It’s about shared stories, loves gained and lost, inspiration and sadness. Autobiographical in parts, it navigates history and crosses borders.
“Many travels beckon, for the river still calls.“
From extremism to environmental responsibility, politics to ethnography, River Traveller touches on a multitude of subjects, and is an enduring study of human life and natural history. It is a rich and memorable portrait of one of the mightiest rivers on our planet. The colour photographs that are included in the middle of the narrative add extra charm to the narration. A volume worth possessing and reading and rereading repeatedly.
[1] Specialised Vaishnavi monasteries in Assam serving as socio-religious, cultural and educational centres since the fifteenth century.
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Somdatta Mandal, critic and translator, is a former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Showkat Ali (1936 – 2018) was a renowned Bangladeshi novelist, short story writer and journalist whose work explored history, class and identity in Bengali society. In 1989, he published a novel called Narai (translated from Bengali as The Struggle) which is set in a remote village in the Dinajpur region of undivided Bengal during the mid-1940s.
The novel is broadly divided into three sections. In the first section entitled ‘A Ploughing Household,’ the author gives us detailed description of an agrarian society where poor Muslim farmers as well as some other lower classes of untouchable Hindus eked out their living primarily through farming as well as other low-paying jobs. The feudal setup of the society is complete with threatening and wily landlords (often Hindus) who are always on the lookout for cheating the sharecroppers of their legitimate dues.
The story begins with a poor farmer called Ahedali who, unable to procure a second bullock to till his field, bore one side of the yoke himself, and soon fell ill and succumbed to death leaving his young wife Phulmoti and a ten-year-old son Abedali behind. The real problem for this widow begins when she is left alone to fend for herself along with a few ducks, chickens and goats. Her fragile world is shattered. People in the village start advising her to get married once again and she gradually finds it very difficult to survive from the ogling eyes and salacious offers from different men in the community. Her son can offer little defense against the men now circling her—neighbours, relatives, even the local cleric—drawn by desire and the lure of her small property. Malek, a kindly bookseller at the local market, too, proves not to be what he seems. It is Malek’s hired hand, Qutubali, who finds himself drawn into her struggles, standing by her in ways that others do not.
The second section of the novel ‘Home and Family’ describes in detail how Qutubali, the simple-minded outsider whose unexpected kindness and fierce loyalty turns into Phulmoti’s unlikely ally. Apparently, he was a senseless and stupid man who provided her benefaction again and again. Much younger to her, he was totally ignorant of standard man-woman relationships and though he often stayed back at Phulmoti’s house, he didn’t express any sort of physical desire for the young widow. He tended to the animals, helped in sowing seeds and worked relentlessly to bring some comfort and peace in the household.
This entire section gives us details of how they come close to each other. Finding no other alternative to live a decent and harmonious life, they go to a mosque where a saint called Darbesh Chacha, who had brought up the orphan Qutubali earlier, gets them married in order that both can live their lives peacefully hereafter. Since then, things gradually changed. If a young widow found a husband, or brought home a ‘ghor jamai’[1], that was definitely news, especially if the man in question was from another village. But people gradually accepted it. Of course, the widow’s suitors fumed with resentment, though even that fire cooled eventually. Qutubali also gradually started learning the tricks of the trade – he had their own land and along with the yield of the sharecropped land, he knew he could become a full-fledged farmer soon. He was sure the days of his misfortune were over. At the end of this section, when Phulmoti announces to the simple-minded Qutubali that she was pregnant, the reader feels that the rest of the story would follow suit in domestic harmony and bliss. The family had a happy air about them. But that was not to be.
The third section of the novel aptly titled ‘We Must Fight!’ begins amid the upheavals of a precarious feudal order and the stirrings of a nation on the verge of independence. Qutubali did not have the time to stay at home. He was never clear about where he went and what he did. When asked, he replied in monosyllables. He started attending sermons. The headmaster of the village school started indoctrinating him and the village folk with the idea of swadeshi.
The politics of the Congress and the Muslim League started to hover on the margins of village life, far removed from their daily battles. But when the tebhaga[2]struggle broke out in Bengal—with sharecroppers demanding two-thirds of the harvest from landlords as their rightful due—Phulmoti and Qutubali stand to lose what little of their lives they had pieced back together.
By that time, she no longer saw Qutubali as a callow youth. He had become a regular, responsible, labouring man but his gradual involvement in the politics could not be avoided. He got involved in the activities of the peasants’ union. The novel remains open-ended with Phulmoti keeping on waiting for her husband to come back from wherever he was even after a decade is over.
Before concluding, a note must be added about the excellent quality of translation. Both V. Ramaswamy and Mohiuddin Jahangir have done a wonderful job in translating this social realist novel from one of the most celebrated novelists of Bangladesh for the benefit of a wider audience to remember a very detailed study of rural Bengal from both social and political angles from the 1940s — a very significant time when amidst the prevailing feudal order of the agrarian society in rural Bengal, the stirrings of a nation on the verge of independence as well as outside forces were gradually creeping in.
[1] In the usual Bengali tradition, a wife moves on to live in her husband’s house after marriage. The situation is reverse when the married man comes to live in his wife’s or in-law’s house and is then called a ‘ghor jamai.’
[2] The Tebhaga movement was significant peasant agitation, initiated in Bengal in the late 1940s by the All India Kisan Sabha of peasant front of the Communist Party of India. It aimed to reduce the share of crops that tenants had to give to landlords.
I was in Oxford on a Charles Wallace fellowship to study John Ruskin’s influence on M K Gandhi and R N Tagore. Like any other student I lived in a hostel, walked up to the Ruskin School of Art and Ashmolean Museum, to the High Street and the flea market, to the Bodleian Library, and – of course – the book stores that continue to make that ancient city of academic excellence such a delight for a person like me who started crawling in the midst of books.
What caught my fancy on the book-lined shelves in the hometown of a ‘legal deposit’ library? The screenplays of Quentin Tarantino. Countless books on Elizabeth 1 – perhaps because Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth had just released worldwide. And the volumes on art. The gorgeous reproductions halved the tedium of walking miles of museums and galleries. And the history of art rekindled my love for paintings from our collective past.
But what I didn’t take kindly to was the neglect of – if not bias against — art from my homeland. There were books on Greek, Chinese, Japanese , African, Egyptian, Mayan, Roman art, on Russian Icons and Stained Glass windows, on French Impressionists and German Expressionists, Cubists and Moderns… But Indian art? For crying out loud, where was Ajanta-Ellora? The glass paintings and Miniatures? Pichwai and Patachitra, Nathdwara and Kalighat Pat, Warli and Madhubani, Santiniketan and Baroda?
That’s when I told myself, “Put the journey of Indian paintings between covers.” For, which other country has a continuity that I can boast, of a tradition that has continued unchequered for three thousand years and more?
Once I was back home, my friend Reeta Dutta Gupta approached me to edit an Encyclopedia of Culture for the India Series she was nursing. And Dr Jain of Ratna Sagar entrusted me to author a Notebook that would recount for school-going children the story of Indian art from Bhimbetka to the present millennia. What luck!
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Be it the hunters and the hunted of Bhimbetka, the rock art now on the UNESCO list of World Heritage, or Kolam and Alpana and Rangoli, the decorative designs of Kerala and Bengal and Maharashtra. Be it the Buddha of Ajanta Frescoes or the ploughmen and blacksmith of the Haripura Congress panels painted by the Bengal master Nandalal Bose, be it the illuminations in the Jain manuscripts or the Mughal manners immortalised by the kalams: art in India has grown out of everyday life. These art expressions have been an integral part of the people’s existence, regardless of the style or the period in which they were painted. Yes, down centuries Indian art has withstood change of regiments, religions, philosophy, social content, historical setbacks. And, aesthetic excellence has found an outlet in forms and lines, strokes and colours, whether these were obtained by crushing gems or pounded rice.
This has helped India enjoy a continuity that is rare even in the developed societies. From the sketches of Bhimbetka to those of the tribal artists of Warli, from the murals of ancient India to the art of contemporary masters, from the miniaturised figures to the Tantric patterns – art in India has reinvented itself again and again. And each time it has emerged with renewed vigour and vitality. Because, every age has related to art in an intimate way. By painting on the wall. Decorating the floor. Placing it on the altar. Or simply by keeping an account of the times.
Bhimbetka Cave paintings from prehistoryA fresco from the Ajanta caves, 2nd century BCE to 6th century CEArt from Indian past. From Public Domain
As A Ramachandran – then professor of art at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi – had said to me, “Even when our ancient language that was deemed the language of the gods, fell into oblivion, art transcended centuries because it was communicating through a universal language – the visual language of colours and hues.” The lines defined the form, and also created a unitary area for the use of colour, he had further explained. “No matter what the subject, comprehension was never a problem for the Indian – until he was confronted by the art that was imposed by the colonialists.”
The Western overemphasis on realism played havoc, with the native sensibility that allowed for imagination and stylization, Nair Sir had pointed out. That sensibility had no problem accepting a ten-armed goddess, Dasabhuja Durga, or Dasanan, the ten-headed Ravan. “Lifestyle changes too have led to the dilution of Indian aesthetics that once enveloped our workaday lives. The only living art today is the visual art traditions in the villages, but that too might not last as villagers now want to ‘rise’ to the level of the urbans!” he had lamented.
In such a situation, art becomes doubly significant in the life of a child. When she or he is exposed to it, the child can not only access the history and the continuity of a culture but also nurture it with love that can ensure it lives in the days to come… With this in mind, I will write to focus on the high points of Indian art.
Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and writes books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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“Contrary to common perceptions, Lhasa is not forbidden to outsiders” – M.A.Aldrich
Old Lhasa: A Biography, (a revised edition published in 2025 for the South Asian market of a book originally published in 2023), is a voluminous 615-page book that combines historical research, travel writing, religion, and culture to offer a comprehensive account of Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet. The author, M. A. Aldrich, is a lawyer who has lived and worked in Asia since the 1990s and had earlier published books on cities like Peking and Ulaanbaatar. Written on the basis of his multiple trips to Lhasa and its surroundings (the last one as late as September 2024), he is happy to discover that Old Lhasa has stood the test of time and still accurately captures the sight, sounds, and feelings of the city and foreigners can wander about freely without a minder so long as their papers are in order. As this book slowly emerged, it grew into both a portrait of the history and culture of that city as well as a serviceable guidebook for readers who are able to go to Tibet when political and regulatory circumstances permit.
Aldrich paints an intricate portrait of Lhasa, a storied city and its history, by giving us the evolution of how the Tibetan script came to be, with inspiration from ancient India and at the same time livens up the narrative with humorous anecdotes, interesting legends and charming fables that makes this book blend many genres into one. Divided into 49 chapters and enriched with several maps and black and white photographs, the chronological narration rightfully begins with the first chapter titled ‘Prelude to Lhasa’ where we are told that with Lhasa as the geographical focal point of their faith, Tibetans believe the dharma[1] has always been connected to their country. He begins the journey in the seventh century during the final moments of the life of Buddha, mentions specific Buddhist virtues such as compassion, wisdom, and benevolent power, among other essential qualities for the path to awakening. For Tibetan followers of the dharma, the history of Tibet is the history of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, which is simultaneously woven into the story of Lhasa.
In the 1920s, when Tibet enjoyed its greatest freedom from outside interference in the modern era, Lhasa had a population of only around twenty-five thousand. It was divided into two districts: one that is now the Old Town, with its seventh-century Jokhang Temple (or, more simply, the “Jokhang,” meaning the “House of the Lord”) at its centre; and the other being Shol Village, which is at the foot of Marpo Ri (Red Mountain). These administrative districts were divided by a north-south boundary that ran through the Turquoise Bridge, another structure dating to the seventh century. The Old Town was not much larger than two- or three-square kilometers, while Shol was even tinier. The residents of Lhasa at that time took immense pride in the religious heritage of their city. Nearly every luminary in Tibetan history had come to Lhasa because of the importance of the Jokhang as the focal point from which Tibetan civilization evolved and expanded. No other city could rival it.
Lhasa grew organically outward in concentric circles. Around 1160, a monk built the Nangkhor, a pilgrim’s circuit (korlam) directly adjacent to the inner sanctum of the Jokhang, so that devotees could practice the religious ritual of circumambulation. It is from this kernel that the boundaries of Old Lhasa came into existence. By the 14th century, Lhasa was enclosed within the Barkhor, a kilometre-long korlam circling the temple and a monastery among other buildings. By the 1650s, Lhasa’s outer limits had been expanded to the Lingkhor, a ten-kilometre pilgrimage route. And so, the boundaries of the city remained until recently.
Lhasa’s significance also drew heavily upon the nearby presence of government buildings and monastic sects of learning. The Potala Palace, with its superb representation of Tibetan architecture, is a massive and dazzlingly beautiful fortress-like monastery that had been the residence of the Dalai Lama and the seat of the Tibetan government since 1648. Three monasteries outside the city were centres of the so-called Yellow Hat or Gelukpa School of Tibetan Buddhism, preserving a venerable tradition of scholasticism and monastic training that had been imported to Tibet from the universities at Nalanda, Odantapuri and Vikramshila in Northern India. Daily life in early 20th century Lhasa was mostly grounded in religion for both the laity as well as the clergy. The Lhasa calendar year revolved around a sequence of religious festivals that tracked the flow of one month into another in a never-ending cycle of faith and devotion. Though religion permeated society, Lhasa was not an “other-worldly” place. In 1951, when the People’s Liberation Army marched into Lhasa behind portraits of Chairman Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Liu Shaoqi, the days of the city with its self-administered culture were numbered. During the 1959 Tibetan Uprising, the Chinese Communist Party reacted to the civil unrest as if Tibet should be taught a lesson. The Party continues to do so despite brief intermittent periods of slightly relaxed policies. Though Chinese modernity has been imported wholesale into Lhasa, the author opines that Old Lhasa is still there in its people who maintain their centuries-old faith and customs. One just needs to know where and how to look.
In the Prologue, Aldrich had confessed that this is not a “serious book” about Lhasa as the term is understood within the narrow confines of modern academia, since its objective is only to share what he had learned about Lhasa with simpaticos. His audience is the general reader or armchair traveller with a basic understanding of the tenets of Buddhism and the broad outlines of Asian history. He does not go into great depth on religious theory, and he hopes his views might also be of interest to Tibetans who have come of age in the diaspora and are curious about what a non-Tibetan thinks of this fabled city. He attempts to avoid the excessive solemnity and despair that attends much writing about Tibet. It is not that he is ignorant of ongoing atrocities and the appallingly cruel policies of the Party, but he has no doubt Tibet will have a renaissance. He opines Tibetans will overcome the current dark cycle just as they have overcome other bleak phases in their history.
In conclusion, it can be said that even after reading it thoroughly and enjoying it, this book as the author rightly states, “will nudge readers to learn more about Tibet and Tibetan culture.” Also, as Dr. Lobsong Sangay, former head of the Tibetan Government in Exile, rightfully mentions in the ‘Foreword’
, “Though the story of Tibet is an ongoing tale of tragedy, it also is a tale of the human spirit and the resilience of the Tibetan people. …this book is a window for seeking genuine access that will help you make meaningful discoveries of your own, whether you are physically travelling through the streets of Lhasa or traveling through the pages of this book far away from Lhasa.”
After Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand, the first novel to receive the International Man Booker Prize in 2022 for a work of fiction written in an Indian language and translated into English, history repeated itself once again when this year in 2025, Banu Mushtaq’s book of selected short stories Heart Lamp, written originally in Kannada and translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, was recipient of the same coveted prize. It proved that translating from Indian bhasha languages to compete worldwide with other canonical literatures has gained maturity to impress the jury who finally evaluate the prize.
In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, published originally in Kannada between 1990 and 2023, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. As a journalist and lawyer, most of the stories are women-centric and in all of them she tirelessly champions women’s rights and protests all forms of caste and religious oppression. As a believer in the highly influential literary movement in Kannada during the 1970s and ‘80s – the Bandaya Sahitya tradition – that started as an act of protest against the hegemony of upper caste and mostly male-led writing that was then being published and celebrated, Banu Mushtaq’s literary career therefore gave importance to dissent, rebellion, protest, resistance to authority, revolution and its adjacent areas at par with the movement that urged women, Dalits and other social and religious minorities to tell stories from their own lived experiences.
The author goes on to highlight several harmful social practices that are still prevalent in the Muslim community and even supported by law, which impede girls including women of all ages, from having freedom to make positive choices, thus hampering them from realizing their full potential. In story after story, the deeply patriarchal structure of Muslim society is depicted in such a manner that it is not only applicable to the Muslims living in villages and town in south India but can be applicable elsewhere too. She shows how child marriage is still in practice and mentions the suffering and trauma women experience because of legally sanctioned polygamy which causes social and financial insecurity and hardship for women and their offspring. The curse of teen talaq[1]and the practice of issuing multiple fatwas[2] which are deliberately aimed at constricting women are urgently in need of being addressed legally.
In the very first story, ‘Stone Slabs for Shaista Mahal’, we find Iftikar’s too much effusive declarations of love for his wife Shaista vanish into thin air immediately after her death and he soon marries a young girl leaving all his children to be looked after by his eldest daughter. The ‘Fire Rain’ has mutawalli[3] Usman Saheb heading the community and making hundreds of decisions for others, but when her sister comes begging he refuses to give her the legitimate share of his ancestral house. Whereas the ‘Black Cobras’ has the mutawalli saheb refuse to help a woman whose husband has deserted her for giving birth to three daughters and provide any support for her youngest sick daughter who dies without any treatment. The story ends with a focus on female revolt when his own wife decides to go and have an operation to stop childbirth. In an interesting story ‘A Decision of the Heart’ the author narrates the plight of a man called Yusuf who is unable to balance the love between his wife and his mother and finally decides to arrange a nikah for his mother Mehaboob Bi.
One story that delves deep into Muslim customs that we generally are not aware of, is entitled ‘Red Lungi’. It tells us about a mass circumcision programme at the mosque for the poor where a young boy Arif undergoes the procedure and is cured in due course. His plight is then contrasted with Samad, the son of a rich man who remains weak and unfit despite the elaborate festivities for his circumcision and the gifts.
The titular story ‘Heart Lamp’ centres around Mehrun who is left to fend for herself as her husband falls for another woman. When she goes to her parents’ house for support, her brothers send her back. Leaving the responsibility of her children upon her eldest daughter Salma, she attempts to burn herself to death. The scene where her daughter begs her to stop and so finally, she aborts her suicide attempt, is extremely moving. The depiction of rural Karnataka comes out very clearly in ‘Soft Whispers’. The story narrates in detail the childhood antics of an eight-year-old girl visting her grandparent’s house in Mabenahalli village. Her young playmate, Abid, who would join her to play tricks, turns into the supervisor of a dargah[4]. When he comes to invite her to join the festival, he keeps his head lowered and does not even meet her eye.
Despite mentioning serious social issues pertaining to the average middle and lower-middle class Muslim families, Mushtaq’s stories are laced with a sense of wry humour and pathos. For instance, in ‘High-Heeled Shoes’, Niaz Khan envies his sister-in-law who comes from Saudi Arabia wearing gorgeous high-heeleded shoes and, in the end, manages to buy a pair for his pregnant wife Arifa which does not fit her at all. The difficulty in walking with those shoes on, and the interaction she has with her unborn child in her womb takes this story to a different level altogether. ‘A Taste of Heaven’ has Bi Dadi, who turns into stone after her ja-namaz[5]is soiled, gaining solace by drinking Pepsi and thinking it to be aab-e-kausar, the nectar from heaven, and starts living in a delusory world of her own in the company of her long-lost husband. In ‘The Arabic Teacher and Gobi Manchuri’, the young Maulvi Hazrat’s penchant for eating “gobi manchuri[6]” is the comic fulcrum on which the story turns. Again, Shazia’s desperate attempts in ‘The Shroud’ to locally procure a kafan[7] and sprinkle it with the holy zamzam water from Mecca after having callously forgotten to bring one for poor Yaseen Bua from her Hajj pilgrimage, makes her grief and being conscience-stricken rather ludicrous.
In the 2025 International Booker Acceptance Speech Mushtaq said: “This book is my love letter to the idea that no story is ‘local’ – that a tale born under a banyan tree in my village can cast shadows as this stage tonight…. [It] was born from the belief that no story is ever ‘small’ – that in the tapestry of human experience, every thread holds the weight of the whole.”
Her observation power is indeed very strong. Muslim women have been victims of deprivation and discrimination in various matters owing to a dearth in education and awareness. To bring a change in the family, a change in mentality is very crucial. The last story of this collection, ‘Be A Woman Once, Oh Lord!’ is a typical tale of male chauvinism, where deprived a dowry, a man throws out his sick wife and children to get married again.
A woman must construct her own identity besides being someone’s daughter, somebody’s wife or someone’s mother. Only education and self-dependence can establish a woman as a human being beyond her religious and family identities. But as her translator rightly points out, it would be a disservice to reduce Mushtaq’s work to her religious identity, for stories transcend the confines of a faith and its cultural traditions. So, she should not be seen as writing only about a certain kind of woman belonging to a certain community, that women everywhere face similar, if not the exact same problems, and those are the issues that she writes about.
Before concluding, a few words need to be written about the translator and the translation too. In the Translator’s Note, titled ‘Against Italics’, Deepa Bhashti reiterates that the “translation of a text is never merely an act of replacing words in one language with equivalent words in another: every language, with its idioms and speech conventions, brings with it a lot of cultural knowledge that often needs translating too.” She mentions that she was very deliberate in her choice to not use italics for the Kannada, Urdu and Arabic words that remain untranslated in English. She believes that italics serve to not only distract visually, but more importantly, they announce words as imported from another language, exoticizing them and keeping them alien to English. She also mentions that there are no footnotes used at all.
In her separate International Booker Prize Acceptance Speech, Bhasthi also tells us how through the work they could bring out what would otherwise be unread, uncelebrated texts to a new and very different sets of readers. She stated how the story of the world was really a history of erasures. It was “characterized by the effacement of women’s triumphs and the furtive rubbing away from collective memory of how women and those on the many margins of this world live and love.” Therefore, the stories in this collection are recommended for reading not by reducing Mushtaq’s work to her religious identity, but by transcending the confines of a faith and its cultural traditions.
[1] It’s an Islamic practice in which a Muslim man could divorce his wife by uttering the word “talaq” (divorce) three times.
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