Tag: Satya Narayan Misra

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Borderless, July 2026

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Oh! For an Ark?… Click here to read.

Translations

Ghumiye Geche Shranto Hoea ( Spent, He’s Fallen Asleep) by Nazrul has translated the lyrics from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Isa Kamari has translated his own Malay poems. Click here to read.

Short poems by Mohammad Hussain Anqa have been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Blazing Summer Sun has been composed and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.

Barashar Dine (On a Rainy Day) by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Jyotish Chalil Gopinathan, Norman J. Olson, Shamim Akhtar, SR Inciardi, Deepa Srivastava, Ron Pickett, Tanisha Tanwar, Jane Downing, Snehaprava Das, John Swain, Snigdha Agrawal, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Maithreyi Karnoor, Rhys Hughes

Musings/ Slices from Life

Downpour

Ian C Smith muses during a downpour. Click here to read.

A Peek into the Future?

Farouk Gulsara muses on uncertainties. Click here to read.

Is that a Rock or a Croc?

Meredith Stephens narrates their sailing adventures in the Western Australia with photographs by Alan Noble. Click here to read.

Bringing Hope to the War-Torn

Gowher Bhat introduces us to an aid worker who helps war victims in Ukraine and Syria. Click here to read.

What the Stars Kept Secret

Subramaniam Cheemalapati muses on the star studded sky through his anecdotal experiences. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In The Sherwani and Me, Devraj Singh Kalsi muses on his wedding attire of yore. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Remotely Controlled, Suzanne Kamata ponders on a modern mania. Click here to read.

Essays

Tagore’s Dance-Dramas in Translation

Somdatta Mandal explores six dance-dramas by Tagore translated from Bengali and Brajbuli by Indrani Haldar. Click here to read.

A Prince who Opted for Poetry over a Crown

Charudutta Panigrahi introduces us to to the eighteenth century literary giant, Upendra Bhanja, who gave up his crown for the love of words. Click here to read.

The Idea of Civilisation: Trust and Power?

Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan highlights the contemporariness of Sangam Literature with discussion about a narrative based on trust and power politics. Click here to read.

Stories

The Son who Came Home Last

Jonathon Ferrini narrates a story across generations and the sweep of continents. Click here to read.

The Ghost from the Past

Darshana Dutta shares a short fiction set in a fast-paced social media centric world. Click here to read.

Her Hyderabad

Mohul Bhowmick looks at the city from the perspective of a disillusioned woman. Click here to read.

Full Circle

Sayan Sarkar shares a heartwarming story set in Kolkata. Click here to read.

The Search for a Useless Thing

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao gives a fable set in Southern India. Click here to read.

Interviews

Keith Lyons in conversation with Helen Townsend, environmental entrepreneur and plant enthusiast. Click here to read.

Suzanne Kamata interviews Lily West, author of West goes East and a traveller who has visited every country on Earth. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Kanupriya Dhingra’s The Sunday Book Bazaar: Daryaganj and the Making of a Reading Public in Delhi. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Bhaskar Parichha’s Icons of Odisha – Lives that Shaped a State. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Siddharth Kak’s A Fire over Mount Everest. Click here to read.

Satya Narayan Mishra reviews Bhaskar Parichha’s Icons of Odisha – Lives that Shaped a State. Click here to read.

Andreas Geisbert reviews Angel Ramon’s Requiem of a Lost Nation. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Rajat Chaudhuri’s The Climate Crossroads: Literature’s Encounter with a Planet on Fire. Click here to read.

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Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

Click here to read the latest review of Wild Winds in The Hindu

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

Published from Singapore, ISSN: 2737-4688.

Duotrope listing: https://duotrope.com/magazine/borderless-39488

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Editorial

Oh! For an Ark?

Art by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851). From Public Domain

Floods, heatwave, hurricanes and storms — wild weather rips parts of the earth. While experts attribute these to El Niño and climate change, one wonders if peace and lifestyle choices could have any impact to reverse the changes on our home planet. Do wars add to our deep distress? We lose people, homes, what we nurtured and loved, the beautiful cities and structures we built, even forests, fields and rivers. The nuclear holocausts, the killing fields of the World Wars, the mined fields of Cambodia and Vietnam which continue to maim farmers… all these should have taught us to avoid wars but now when the television throws up images of war-torn zones, one wonders if those are worse than climate disasters?

In climate disasters we lose lives, homes and cities too — but people can step in to help and rebuild after the disaster. In a war setting, rescue workers are at a risk as bombs mow down terrain and destroys the tenor of daily lives. The disasters born of climate change too can be irreversible — especially with rising water levels, depleting shorelines and warmer climes ripped by storms. Which is worse — wars or climate disasters? What do you think? Could we go back to a pollution free world and reverse the darker impacts of climate change?

 Just as history accepted wars and moved on, perhaps the time has come when climate change has to be accepted as a part of the new reality, and we have to find new ways of life. Exploring such stories is a book by Rajat Chaudhuri, The Climate Crossroads: Literature’s Encounter with a Planet on Fire. It has been reviewed by Bhaskar Parichha who tells us: “It reminds us that the climate crisis is not solely a scientific or political problem but also a crisis of imagination. Rajat Chaudhuri demonstrates with remarkable insight that stories are among humanity’s most powerful tools for understanding uncertainty, confronting ecological loss, and envisioning more just futures.” Somdatta Mandal, on the other hand, has brought in more on environment with her discussion of Siddharth Kak’s A Fire over Mount Everest. Andreas Geisbert adds colour to this section with his exploration of Angel Ramon’s Requiem of a Lost Nation. Satya Narayan Misra has reflected on Bhaskar Parichha’s Icons of Odisha – Lives that Shaped a State, a non-fiction whose excerpt tells us much about the journey of the author to bring to us community builders in various streams of life. We also have a bit from Kanupriya Dhingra’s non-fiction about a book bazaar that flourishes despite bookshops finding it hard to survive, The Sunday Book Bazaar: Daryaganj and the Making of a Reading Public in Delhi.

Our interviews this month touch upon environmental issues with Keith Lyons conversing with Helen Townsend, environmental entrepreneur and plant enthusiast who is high on sustainability and earth friendly solutions while Suzanne Kamata has interviewed Lily West who has travelled to all the countries in the world and has put it all down in her memoir, West goes East. Like Kamata, she teaches in Japan now. Kamata has also given us a humorous piece on remote controls. Humour is a sentiment that has also been wrought into our nonfiction with a flourish by Devraj Singh Kalsi too. He writes of his wedding sherwani almost with a passion like the Dickensian Ms Havisham[1] exhibited for her crumbling wedding gown, except it has a different tone — that of wry tongue-in-cheek irony. Farouk Gulsara has a similar twinge of sarcasm as he muses on uncertainties in the future. Ian C Smith brings in a bit of the weather as he muses on a rainy day while Subramaniam Cheemalapati muses on the star-studded sky, dwelling on his anecdotal childhood experiences. Gowher Bhat introduces us to an aid worker who helps war victims. Meredith Stephens continues on her sailing adventures in Western Australia with photographs by her husband, Alan Noble. The photograph of the pink jellyfish is awesome. Do check it out!

Mandal has also explored six dance-dramas by Tagore translated from Bengali and Brajbuli by Indrani Haldar while Charudutta Panigrahi introduces us to an eighteenth-century literary giant, Upendra Bhanja, who gave up his crown not only to write but to found styles that are used to this date. Ravi Varmman K Kanniappan dwells on the contemporariness of ancient Sangam Literature with discussions on a narrative based on trust and power politics.

Fiction brings to us varied colours with a story from Jonathon B. Ferrini that almost has the lilt of a Hemingway novel. Naramsetti Umamaheswararao gives us a fable about a mischievous monkey with a ‘moral’ et all. Darshana Dutta shares a short fiction set in a fast-paced social media centric world while Sayan Sarkar gives a heartwarming story set in Kolkata. Mohul Bhowmick explores Hyderabad from the perspective of a woman.

Translations have brought in a shower of poetry with Tagore’s poem on a rainy-day hinting at shared confidences. Professor Fakrul Alam has translated Bengali lyrics Nazrul wrote for his friend and mentor, Rabindranath Tagore. Ihlwha Choi has brought to us a whiff of the Korean summer with his verses and Fazal Baloch has brought to us soulful poems from Balochi by Mohammad Hussain Anqa. Isa Kamari’s translations carry a flavour of Malay life in Singapore, and this set of verses bring to a close his book, The Lost Mantras. We are very privileged to have his entire book translated solely in our pages. Isa Kamari is an eminent literary voice of the Malay Singaporean community.

We have variety in poetry by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Maithreyi Karnoor, Jyotish Chalil Gopinathan, Norman J. Olson, Shamim Akhtar, SR Inciardi, Deepa Srivastava, Ron Pickett, Tanisha Tanwar, Jane Downing, Snehaprava Das, Snigdha Agrawal, and John Swain. Quite a few poems are to do with nature and environment. And humour — our best bet at surviving dark times — is chiselled into this section by Ryan Quinn Flanagan who dwells on the idea of a fountain of youth! And the inimitable Rhys Hughes brings us a genii of a Moka Pot! Is it funny? You tell me! He has gone back to his coffee mania – remember he had written The Coffee Rubaiyat and had a whole book called The Sunset Suite where they told tales over mugs of coffee – a bit in the tradition of Arabian Nights!  

We have news about our hardcopy poetry anthology. We have had six media coverages in less than three months. Professor Malashri Lal deems: “For those of us who still believe in principles of care and compassion, humanism and amity, Wild Winds is a lifeline to keep afloat…It is especially commendable for wrapping global concerns in the fine tissue of hope.” And Mandal tells us: “Reading through these one hundred poems is indeed a pleasurable experience even for readers with a more prosaic temperament.” We are delighted that the book has had a warm welcome. Huge thanks to our publishers for giving us a hardcopy platform.

Thanks to all our contributors, readers and the fabulous team that make borderlessjournal.com come alive each month with a vibrant soul. Huge thanks to Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork. Do pause by our contents page for the July 2026 issue.

We wish you all happy reading!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

[1] Great Expectations (1861) by Charles Dickens

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Review

Lives that Mattered

Book Review by Prof Satya Narayan Misra

Title: Icons of Odisha – Lives that Shaped a State

Author: Bhaskar Parichha

Publisher: BK Publications Private Limited

Odisha had been in the past been under the hammer for its grinding poverty and wide spread starvation deaths, despite its rich mineral resources. Beneath the markers of its civilisation – its magnificent temples, hoary history of maritime trade and its resuscitation as a distinct linguistic state in 1936, lurks the story of individuals whose ideas, actions and creative energies have shaped the heartbeats of the land. Bhaskar Parichha, a writer and critic of repute, without being hagiographic has tried to capture the life, ideas and contributions of 30 such individuals from the 19th Century to the present day, with the fond hope that they brush the imagination of the world.

Odisha has a very proud literary pedigree. Starting with Sarala Das in the 15th Century, who is called Adi Kabi (first poet), and Upendra Bhanja in the 18th century, who is called Kabi Samrat (emperor of poets) the father of modern Odia literature has to be Fakir Mohan Senapati.

Senapati was, as Parichha writes “to Odia literature what Prem Chand was to Hindi and Tagore to Bengali – the conscience keeper of his people.” He was a literary polymath, who explored almost every genre — poetry, translation, satire and fiction. He is best remembered as pioneer of modern Odia fiction. With his eye for realism and flair for humour, he created characters who were products of their times but universal in their emotion. His short story Rebati (1898), translated in to thirty languages all over the world, is a subtle commentary on gender, education and superstition, themes that resonate even today. Senapati’s contribution to the novel is monumental. Of his four masterpieces Cha Mana Atha Guntha (Six Acres and a Third, 1902), is widely recognised as India’s first novel on peasant exploitation. Preceding even Prem Chand’s Godan ( Gift of a Cow,1936), it was written long before Marxian ideas took roots in India, it’s a searing account of ruthless oppression of landless peasants in India. The other  writer  of eminence is  Gopinath Mohanty. His empathetic portrayal of tribal life in Odisha in  his landmark novel Paraja ( Citizens,1945)  won him the Jnanpith award in 1974. Manoj Das, the bilingual master story teller completes the troika, whose stories Graham Greene considers have “the same quality as RK Narayan’s Malgudi Days, with perhaps an added mystery”.

Revered as the principal architect of modern Odissi dance, Kelucharan Mohapatra ensured that Odissi emerged not merely as a revived dance style but as a sophisticated, codified and spiritually grounded classical tradition. Among his celebrated choreographies are adaptations of Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda. His greatest legacy are his disciples like Sanjukta Panigrahi whose luminous performances and deep emotional expressiveness brought Odissi to national and international prominence.

In the field of music, Balakrishna Das is celebrated as Odissi musicologist, vocalist and renowned music guru. His proximity to Ghulam Ali and mastery of Hindustani music inspired him to make Odia traditional music more beguiling and effective. In the field of cinema, Jharna Das was a trail blazer. By bridging literature and cinema, classical arts and modern media, performance and public service, she helped lay the foundations of Odia cinema and broadcasting. Dinanath Pathy would be fondly remembered as a visionary Odia painter, art historian, scholar, curator and writer whose life was devoted to the preservation, documentation and global promotion of Odisha’s artistic heritage. Akshya Mohanty captures the popular genre of musicians who sang romantic ballads with equal felicity as devotional songs.

Rama Devi, Sarala Devi, Kuntala Kumari and Nandini Sathpathy are some of the women figures highlighted in the essays. Rama Devi is a beacon of women’s liberation, a distinguished freedom fighter and social reformer. Kuntala Kumari was a trail blazing Odia poet, physician, editor, and social reformer from colonial Odisha. Sarala Devi belonged to that first generation of Indian women who claimed a decisive role in public life. Nandini Sathpathy as the only female Chief Minister of Odisha earned the sobriquet of the “Iron Lady of Odisha”. She is also remembered for her literary achievements and showcasing of the cultures within the state.

Of all the politicians, Parichha has upheld Naba Krushna Chowdhury(1901-1984) who left behind a legacy of simple life and moral integrity he displayed as the Chief Minister of Odisha. He showed steadfast commitment to the underprivileged and implemented significant reforms and progressive policies. The politician, Mehtab, brought in to journalism rare integrity. Biju Patnaik, a politician whose biography had been authored earlier by Parichha, believed that industrialisation flows from the fountain of political power and he brought to politics a rare flash of colour, dynamism and was the tallest politician Odisha.

Madhusudan Das, remains the ultimate talisman of intellect, courage, compassion, whom Gandhi adored. Gandhi visited Odisha eight times, beginning with 1921, and in August 1925 when he came at the invite of Madhusudan Das to see his Utkal Tannery. Along with Madhu Babu, Pandit Gopabandhu Das wears the pride of place as the tallest Gandhian, who embraced his ideas of Khadi and Swadeshi and promoted cottage industries as a means for economic independence. His life stands as a luminous example of self-less service, incredible sacrifice and humanism that encompassed every aspect of Odisha’s journey – social, educational and cultural. Quite justifiably both Madhu Babu and Gopabandhu Das carry the epithet of Utkal Gaurav and Utkal Mani.  

Parichha is highly respected for his clarity, sense of balance and insight. His choice of icons is both eclectic and discerning. Ideally, he could have included Sunanda Patnaik, who represented the best of classical music or Kanta Kabi Laxmikant Mohapatra who wrote an iconic patriotic song. All the same, his careful research brings out rare nuggets, which are both delicious and nostalgic. Hopefully, the secular culture that Odisha prides itself on will continue to thrive as will independent spirits like writer Fakir Mohan, visionaries like Madhusudan and Gandhians like Naba Krushna. The Icons of Odisha is an invaluable addition to any literary tapestry.   

Click here to read an excerpt

Satya Narayan Misra is a Professor Emeritus and Author of seven books, the latest, Against the Binary, was published in December 2024. He is a regular columnist and reviewer of books for several leading newspapers in Odisha and national news digital platforms like Scroll.in and The Wire.

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

Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

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Contents

Borderless, November 2025

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Spring in Winter?… Click here to read.

Translations

Nazrul’s Musafir, Mochh re Aankhi Jol (O wayfarer, wipe your tears) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Four of his own Malay poems have been translated by Isa Kamari. Click here to read.

Five short poems by Munir Momin have been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Five poems by Rohini K.Mukherjee have been translated from Odia by Snehprava Das. Click here to read.

S.Ramakrishnan’s story, Steps of Conscience, has been translated from Tamil by B.Chandramouli. Click here to read.

Tagore’s poem, Sheeth or Winter, has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Usha Kishore, Joseph C. Ogbonna, Debadrita Paul, John Valentine, Saranyan BV, Ron Pickett, Shivani Shrivastav, George Freek, Snehaprava Das, William Doreski, Mohit Saini, Rex Tan, John Grey, Raiyan Rashky, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Nomads of the Bone, Rhys Hughes shares an epic poem. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

When Nectar Turns Poisonous!

Farouk Gulsara looks at social norms around festive eating. Click here to read.

On a Dark Autumnal Evening

Ahmad Rayees muses on Kashmir and its inhabitants. Click here to read.

The Final Voyage

Meredith Stephens writes of her experience of a disaster while docking their boat along the Australian coastline. Click here to read.

Embracing the Earth and Sky…

Prithvijeet Sinha takes us to the tomb of Saadat Ali Khan in Lucknow. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In A Fruit Seller in My Life, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores the marketing skills of his fruit seller a pinch of humour. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Return to Naoshima, Suzanne Kamata takes us to an island museum. Click here to read.

Essays

The Trouble with Cioran

Satyarth Pandita introduces us to Emil Cioran, a twentieth century philosopher. Click here to read.

Once a Student — Once a Teacher

Odbayar Dorj writes of celebrating the start of the new school year in Mongolia and of their festivals around teaching and learning. Click here to read.

Bhaskar’s Corner

In ‘Language… is a mirror of our moral imagination’, Bhaskar Parichha pays a tribute to Prof. Sarbeswar Das. Click here to read.

Stories

Visions

Fabiana Elisa Martínez takes us to Argentina. Click here to read.

My Grandmother’s Guests

Priyanjana Pramanik shares a humorous sketch of a nonagenarian. Click here to read.

After the Gherkin

Deborah Blenkhorn relates a tongue-in-cheek story about a supposed crime. Click here to read.

Pause for the Soul

Sreenath Nagireddy writes of migrant displacement and adjustment. Click here to read.

The Real Enemy 

Naramsetti  Umamaheswararao gives a story set in a village in Andhra Pradesh. Click here to read.

Feature

A conversation with Amina Rahman, owner of Bookworm Bookshop, Dhaka, about her journey from the corporate world to the making of her bookstore with a focus on community building. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from from Love and Crime in the Time of Plague: A Bombay Mystery by Anuradha Kumar. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Wayne F Burke’s Theodore Dreiser – The Giant. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews M.A.Aldrich’s Old Lhasa: A Biography. Click here to read.

Satya Narayan Misra reviews Amal Allana’s Ebrahim Alkazi: Holding Time Captive. Click here to read.

Anita Balakrishnan reviews Silver Years: Senior Contemporary Indian Women’s Poetry edited by Sanjukta Dasgupta, Malashri Lal and Anita Nahal. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Diya Gupta’s India in the Second World War: An Emotional History. 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

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Editorial

Spring in Winter?

Painting by Claude Monet (1840-1926)
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

'Ode to the West Wind', Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 -1822)

The idea of spring heralds hope even when it’s deep winter. The colours of spring bring variety along with an assurance of contentment and peace. While wars and climate disasters rage around the world, peace can be found in places like the cloistered walls of Sistine Chapel where conflicts exist only in art. Sometimes, we get a glimpse of peace within ourselves as we gaze at the snowy splendour of Himalayas and sometimes, in smaller things… like a vernal flower or the smile of a young child. Inner peace can at times lead to great art forms as can conflicts where people react with the power of words or visual art. But perhaps, what is most important is the moment of quietness that helps us get in touch with that inner voice giving out words that can change lives. Can written words inspire change?

Our featured bookstore’s owner from Bangladesh, Amina Rahman, thinks it can. Rahman of Bookworm, has a unique perspective for she claims, “A lot of people mistake success with earning huge profits… I get fulfilment out of other things –- community health and happiness and… just interaction.” She provides books from across the world and more while trying to create an oasis of quietude in the busy city of Dhaka. It was wonderful listening to her views — they sounded almost utopian… and perhaps, therefore, so much more in synch with the ideas we host in these pages.

Our content this month are like the colours of the rainbow — varied and from many countries. They ring out in different colours and tones, capturing the multiplicity of human existence. The translations start with Professor Fakrul Alam’s transcreation of Nazrul’s Bengali lyrics in quest of the intangible. Isa Kamari translates four of his own Malay poems on spiritual quest, while from Balochi, Fazal Baloch bring us Munir Momin’s esoteric verses in English. Snehprava Das’s translation of Rohini K.Mukherjee poetry from Odia and S.Ramakrishnan’s story translated from Tamil by B.Chandramouli also have the same transcendental notes. Tagore’s playful poem on winter (Sheeth) mingles a bit for spring, the season welcomed by all creatures great and small.

John Valentine brings us poetry that transcends to the realms of Buddha, while Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Ron Pickett and Saranyan BV use avians in varied ways… each associating the birds with their own lores. George Freek gives us poignant poetry using autumn while Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal expresses different yearnings that beset him in the season. Snehaprava Das and Usha Kishore write to express a sense of identity, though the latter clearly identifies herself as a migrant. Young Debadrita Paul writes poignant lines embracing the darkness of human existence. Joseph C. Ogbonna and Raiyan Rashky write cheeky lines, they say, on love. Mohit Saini interestingly protests patriarchal expectations that rituals of life impose on men. We have more variety in poetry from William Doreski, Rex Tan, Shivani Shrivastav and John Grey. Rhys Hughes in his column shares with us what he calls “A Poem Of Unsuccessful Excess” which includes, Ogden Nash, okras, Atilla the Hun, Ulysees, turmeric and many more spices and names knitting them into a unique ‘Hughesque’ narrative.

Our fiction travels from Argentina with Fabiana Elisa Martínez to light pieces by Deborah Blenkhorn and Priyanjana Pramanik, who shares a fun sketch of a nonagenarian grandma. Sreenath Nagireddy addresses migrant lores while Naramsetti Umamaheswararao gives a story set in a village in Andhra Pradesh.

We have non-fiction from around the world. Farouk Gulsara brings us an unusual perspective on festive eating while Odbayar Dorj celebrates festivals of learning in Mongolia. Satyarth Pandita introduces us to Emil Cioran, a twentieth century philosopher and Bhaskar Parichha pays a tribute to Professor Sarbeswar Das.  Meredith Stephens talks of her first-hand experience of a boat wreck and Prithvijeet Sinha takes us to the tomb of Sadaat Ali Khan. Ahmad Rayees muses on the deaths and darkness in Kashmir that haunt him. Devraj Singh Kalsi brings in a sense of lightness with a soupçon of humour and dreams of being a fruit seller. Suzanne Kamata revisits a museum in Naoshima in Japan.

Our book excerpts are from Anuradha Kumar’s sequel to The Kidnapping of Mark Twain, Love and Crime in the Time of Plague: A Bombay Mystery and Wayne F Burke’s Theodore Dreiser – The Giant, a literary non-fiction. Our reviews homes Somdatta Mandal discussion on M.A.Aldrich’s Old Lhasa: A Biography while Satya Narayan Misra writes an in-depth piece on Amal Allana’s Ebrahim Alkazi: Holding Time Captive. Anita Balakrishnan weaves poetry into this section with her analysis of Silver Years: Senior Contemporary Indian Women’s Poetry edited by Sanjukta Dasgupta, Malashri Lal and Anita Nahal. And Parichha reviews Diya Gupta’s India in the Second World War: An Emotional History, a book that looks at the history of the life of common people during a war where soldiers were all paid to satiate political needs of powerbrokers — as is the case in any war. People who create the need for a war rarely fight in them while common people like us always hope for peace.

We have good news to share — Borderless Journal has had the privilege of being listed on Duotrope – which means more readers and writers for us. We are hugely grateful to all our readers and contributors without who we would not have a journal. Thanks to our wonderful team, especially Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork.

Hope you have a wonderful month as we move towards the end of this year.

Looking forward to a new year and spring!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE CONTENTS FOR THE NOVMBER 2025 ISSUE.

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

Categories
Review

Ebrahim Alkazi: Holding Time Captive

Book Review by Satya Narayan Mishra

Title: Ebrahim Alkazi: Holding Time Captive

Author: Amal Allana

Publisher: Vintage Books, Penguin

During an extensive interview, Pankaj Kapur, the highly acclaimed actor, director and writer, nostalgically remembered his days in NSD[1] as a student in the 70s and of Ebrahim Alkazi who was the guiding light of the school as the Director from 1962-77. Mandi House was the vibrant cultural hub where the quartet of NSD, Triveni Kala Sangam, Sriram Art Centre and Kamani Auditorium breathed cadences of art, music, dance and theatre. As the presiding deity of NSD, Alkazi’s prodigious talent in all aspects of theatre except costume (where his wife was the moving spirit) brought his dynamic genius into the quest for intercultural and interdisciplinary thinking in artistic expressions that was both transformative and liberative for his myriad students like Sai Paranjpye, Nasir, Om Puri, Surekha Sikri, Uttara Baokar and Pankaj Kapur[2], who later on lit the stage and celluloid  though their exceptional talents and skill. He would have been a hundred this month. Amal Allana, his daughter has authored a biography of her father, Ebrahim Alkazi: Holding Time Captive. The book  makes an absorbing read.

She brings out Alkazi’s early encounters and reception by the Hindi Theatrewallas of Delhi in the early 60s. It is the story of a western educated Bombayite who was presumptuous enough to think he could teach Delhi theatre buffs a thing or two. As a second-year student, Sai Paranjpye recalls Ebrahim as a storm under whom a metamorphosis took place in the NSD overnight. Walking in to the den of Hindiwallah writers’ camp, Alkazi caught them unawares by picking up the works of the most cerebral and experimental of the Hindi new wave movement; Mohan Rakesh’s Aashadh Ka Ek Din[3]and Dharmavir Bharat’s Andha Yug[4].  Aashadh ka Ek Din, a play with a rural background, was the story of the Indian villager, whose lifestyle, pace and values were succumbing to the inevitable onslaught of urbanisation. The basic theme was autobiographical to Mohan Rakesh himself, where he identified himself with a classical playwright like Kalidas. This mix of history and the present entwined in to a single entity, was a modernist strategy that Alkazi too had attempted while contemporising myths. He exquisitely crafted the mise en scene[5]that sparkled with delicate, nuanced performances from young student actors such as Sudha Sharma as Mallika and Om Shiv Puri as Kalidas.

 India had lost a war with China in 1962.  Alkazi had chosen Andha Yug, set during the last days of the Kurukshetra war, when Aswasthama stood in rage, prepared to use the ultimate weapon to annihilate the mankind. It was just not the play’s topicality, its anti-war thrust that drew Alkazi to it. Alkazi tried to shrug off the baggage of European modernism he was carrying, embarking now on a foundational journey towards a deeper ‘discovery of India.’ Through Andha Yug, Alkazi came closer to learning about India’s value system and philosophy as explored in the Mahabharata, while Aashad gave him an appreciation of the artistic sensibility of the great Sankrit poet-dramatist Kalidas, India’s veritable Shakespeare. From now on, he would engage with the idea of India between the two polarities: India as a myth and India as a kind of documented reality. Alkazi was introducing the idea that theatre was a performance art, not literature performed on stage. He was creating a language of performance that was distinct from the language of words.

The making of Tughlaq and its staging in Purana Qila is a watershed event in the theatre landscape of Delhi. Alkazi was greatly drawn to Girish Karnad’s play Tughlaq. Karnad had confided in him how Tughlaq was the most idealistic, the most intelligent king ever to come on the throne of Delhi and one of the greatest failures also. And how in the early sixties India had also come very far in the same direction. Alkazi felt that this play effectively reflected the trials and opposition a visionary leader faced, while trying to function within a corrupt political scenario. The cast of Tughlaq had some of the most brilliant actors, each painstakingly trained by Alkazi himself. There was Manohar Singh who was playing Tughlaq, Surekha Sikri and Uttara Baokar were doubled as Sauteli Ma, Nasiruddin Shah as the Machiavellian Aziz, Rajesh Vivek as Najeeb. The young reporter members included Pankaj Kapur, KK Raina, Raghuvir Yadav, a veritable who is who of latter-day cinema. Tughlaq was staged in 1972 at the Purana Qila (Old Fort) in Delhi, utilising the historical ruins as a backdrop for the dramatic spectacle. This production is considered a landmark event in Indian theatre, combining history, politics and performance to create a commentary on the reign of Tuqhlaq[6] and politics of the 60s.

Nehru’s dream of reconstructing the nation needed a powerful and unitary concept of ‘nationalism’ to recognise all productive forces in the country. Culture was very much a part of the reconstructive process that needed to be systematised and brought under one umbrella and for this purpose, three national academies had been set up: the Sangeet Natak Academy, the Lalit Kala Academy and the Sahitya Akademi. The desire to modernise Indian theatre was part of the same reconstructive cultural policy. And Alkazi was the mascot of the theatre movement and Mandi House, the epicentre of cultural conflation and crescendo.

The Purana Qila festival in 1972, with Tughlaq, Sultan Razia and Andha Yug became the most talked about cultural event of the decade He wanted to offer both the hoi polloi and the cognoscenti, including burqa clad women, high quality theatre that did not conform to ‘popular taste’; theatre that had a social relevance, that both instructed and entertained. This was Alkazi’s ideal of what constituted national theatre.

There have many stars in firmament of Indian theatre. Ebrahim revitalised Indian theatre. Habib Tanvir, blended folk traditions with modern drama. Badal Sirkar revolutionised Bengali theatre by challenging conventional norms. They are like the great troika of Indian Cinema, Satyajit Ray, Ritwick Ghatak and Mrinal Sen.

Alkazi left NSD as it was denied autonomy by scheming bureaucrats. Allana brings out how Alkazi passionately believed that an artist belongs to no political party, and has no religious ideology. An artist has to distance himself from each one of these in order to see each one of these objectively. “And finally, he has to distance himself from himself.” He wrote: “ It is our duty and moral responsibility to study history dispassionately, but with a passion for the truth, with humility and with a profound sense of responsibility and to ask ourselves seriously: What is the legacy that we shall leave behind?”

[1] National School of Drama

[2] Well known Indian actors

[3] A Day in Aashadh (June-July) was a Hindi play that debuted in 1958

[4] Blind Age was a verse-play in Hindi written in 1953

[5] Placed on stage

[6] A 1964 Kannada play by Girish Kannad, translated to Urdu in 1966 in NSD and most famously performed for in Purana Qila, New Delhi, in 1972

Satya Narayan Misra is a Professor Emeritus and author of seven books. The latest, Against the Binary, was published in December 2024. He is a regular columnist and reviewer of books for several leading newspapers in Odisha and digital platforms likeScroll.in and The Wire. He was associated with the NSD in the 70s.

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Contents

Borderless, June 2025

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

‘How do you rebuild a life when all that remains is dust?’… Click here to read.

Translations

The Great War is Over and A Nobody by Jibanananda Das have been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Sukanta Bhattacharya’s poem, Therefore, has been translated from Bengali by Kiriti Sengupta. Click here to read.

 Five poems by Soubhagyabanta Maharana  have been translated from Odia by Snehaprava Das. Click here to read.

Animate Debris, a poem by Sangita Swechcha has been translated from Nepali by Saudamini Chalise. Click here to read.

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

Sonar Tori (Golden Boat), a poem by Tagore, has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Allan Lake, Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan, Ron Pickett, Ananya Sarkar, George Freek, Bibhuti Narayan Biswal, Jim Bellamy, Pramod Rastogi, Vern Fein, Saranyan BV, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Juairia Hossain, Gautham Pradeep, Jenny Middleton, Mandavi Choudhary, Rhys Hughes

Musings/Slices from Life

Where Should We Go After the Last Frontiers?

Ahamad Rayees writes from a village in Kashmir which homed refugees and still faced bombing. Click here to read.

The Jetty Chihuahuas

Vela Noble takes us for a stroll to the seaside at Adelaide. Click here to read.

Hope Lies Buried in Eternity

Farouk Gulsara muses on hope. Click here to read.

Undertourism in the Outback

Merdith Stephens writes from the Australian Outback with photographs from Alan Nobel. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Driving with Devraj, Devraj Singh Kalsi writes of his driving lessons. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In The Tent, Suzanne Kamata visits crimes and safety. Click here to read.

Essays

Public Intellectuals Walked, So Influencers Could Run

Lopamudra Nayak explores changing trends. Click here to read.

Where No One Wins or Loses a War…From Lucknow with Love

Prithvijeet Sinha takes us to a palace of a European begum in Lucknow. Click here to read.

Bhaskar’s Corner

In Can Odia Literature Connect Traditional Narratives with Contemporary Ones, Bhaskar Parichha discusses the said issue. Click here to read.

Feature

The story of Hawakal Publishers, based on a face-to-face tête-à-tête, and an online conversation with founder Bitan Chakraborty with his responses in Bengali translated by Kiriti Sengupta. Click here to read.

Stories

The Year the Fireflies Didn’t Come Back

Leishilembi Terem gives a poignant story set in conflict-ridden Manipur. Click here to read.

The Stranger

Jeena R. Papaadi writes of the vagaries of human relationships. Click here to read.

The Opening

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao relates a value based story in a small hamlet of southern India. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Wendy Doniger’s The Cave of Echoes: Stories about Gods, Animals and Other Strangers. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Mohua Chinappa’s Thorns in My Quilt: Letters from a Daughter to Her Father. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Madhurima Vidyarthi’s Job Charnock and the Potter’s Boy. Click here to read.

Rakhi Dalal reviews Dhruba Hazarika’s The Shoot: Stories. Click here to read.

Satya Narayan Misra reviews Bakhtiyar K Dadabhoy’s Honest John – A Life of John Matthai. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews David C Engerman’s Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made. Click here to read.

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Categories
Editorial

‘How do you rebuild a life when all that remains is dust?’

The Great War is over
And yet there is left its vast gloom.
Our skies, light and society’s soul have been overcast…

'The Great War is Over' by Jibanananda Das (1899-1954), translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam.

Jibanananda Das wrote the above lines in the last century and yet great wars rage even now. As the world struggles to breathe looking for a beam of hope to drag itself out of the darkness induced by natural calamities, accidents, terror attacks and wars that seem to rage endlessly, are we moving towards the dystopian scenario created by George Orwell in 1984, which would be around the same time as Jibanananda Das’s ‘The Great War is Over’?

Describing such a scenario, Ahmed Rayees writes a moving piece from the Kashmiri village of Sheeri, the last refuge of the displaced refugees who were bombarded after peace was declared in their refuge during the clash across Indo-Pak borders. He contends: “People walked back not to homes, but to ruins. Entire communities had been reduced to ash and rubble. Crops were destroyed, livestock gone, schools turned into shelters or craters. How do you rebuild a life when all that remains is dust?”

People could be asking the same questions without finding answers in Gaza or Ukraine, where the cities are reduced to rubble. While we look for a ray of sunshine, amidst the rubble, Farouk Gulsara muses on hope that has its roots in eternity. Vela Noble wanders on nostalgic beaches in Adelaide. And Meredith Stephens travels to the Australian outback. Devraj Singh Kalsi brings in lighter notes writing of driving lessons while Suzanne Kamata creeps back to darker recesses musing on likely ‘criminals’ and crimes in her neighbourhood.

Lopamudra Nayak writes on social media and its impact while Bhaskar Parichha writes of trends that could be brought into Odia literature.  What he writes could apply well to all regional literature, where they lose their individual colouring to paint dystopian realities of the present world. Does modernising make us lose our ethnic identity and how important is that? These are questions that sprung to the mind reading his essay. As if in an attempt to hold on to the past ethos, Prithvijeet Sinha wafts around old ruins in Lucknow and sees a cemetery for colonial soldiers and concludes: “Everybody has formidable stakes, and the dead don’t preach the gospel of victory or sombre defeat.”

Taking up a similar theme of death and war is a poem from Saranyan BV. In poetry, we have colours from around the world with poems from Allan Lake, Ron Pickett, Ananya Sarkar, George Freek, Jim Bellamy, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Juairia Hossain, Gautham Pradeep, Jenny Middleton, Mandavi Choudhary and many more. Multiple themes are woven into a variety of perspectives, including nature and environment, with June hosting the World Environment Day. Rhys Hughes gives a funny poem on the Welsh outlaw, Twm Siôn Cati.

We have mainly poetry in translation this time. Snehaprava Das has brought to us Soubhagyabanta Maharana’s poems from Odia and Ihlwha Choi has translated his own poem from Korean. Sangita Swechcha’s poem in Nepali has been rendered to English by Saudamini Chalise. From Bengali, other that Jibanananda Das’s poems translated by Professor Fakrul Alam, we have Tagore’s pensive and beautiful poem, Sonar Tori (the golden boat). Yet another Bengali poet, one who died young and yet left his mark, Sukanta Bhattacharya (1926-1947), has been translated by Kiriti Sengupta. Sengupta has also translated the responses of Bitan Chakravarty in a candid conversation about his dream child — the Hawakal Publishers. We also have a feature on this based on a face-to-face conversation, giving the story of how this publishing house grew out of an idea. Now, they publish poetry traditionally, without costs to the poet. Their range of authors are spread across continents.

Our fiction again returns to the darkness of war. Young Leishilembi Terem has given a story set in conflict-ridden Manipur from where she has emerged safely — a story that reiterates the senselessness of violence and politics. While Jeena R. Papaadi writes of modern human relationships that end without commitment, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao relates a value-based story in a small hamlet of southern India. 

From stories, our book excerpts return to the real world, where a daughter grieves her father in Mohua Chinappa’s Thorns in My Quilt: Letters from a Daughter to Her Father while Wendy Doniger’s The Cave of Echoes: Stories about Gods, Animals and Other Strangers, dwells on demystifying structures that create borders. We have two non-fiction reviews. Parichha writes about David C Engerman’s Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made. And Satya Narayan Misra discusses Bakhtiyar K Dadabhoy’s Honest John – A Life of John Matthai. Somdatta Mandal this time explores a historical fiction based around the founding of Calcutta, Madhurima Vidyarthi’s Job Charnock and the Potter’s Boy while Rakhi Dalal looks at fiction born of environmental awareness, Dhruba Hazarika’s The Shoot: Stories.

We have more content. Do pause by our contents page and take a look.

Huge thanks to all our contributors without who this issue would not have materialised. Heartfelt thanks to the team at Borderless for their support, especially Sohana Manzoor for her iconic artwork that has almost become a signature statement for Borderless.

Let’s hope that next month brings better news for the whole world.

Best wishes,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the contents for the June 2025 Issue

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