Tag: Shubha Apte

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Contents

Borderless, September 2026

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Because We Are… …Click here to read.

Translations

Nazrul’s lyrics of Mor Ghumogore Elo Monohor (In my sleep, came the one who won my heart) have been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Chapter 2 of Isa Kamari’s novel, The Throne, has been translated by the author from Malay. We will be running the whole novel as serial through the year. Click here to read.

A Tiny Piece of Homeland, an autobiographical narrative by Kallol Lahiri in Bengali, has been translated by V. Ramaswamy. Click here to read.

Walking Together, a poem, has been written and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.

Swopno (Dream), 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

Mary Pomfret, Ananya S Guha, Jim Bellamy, Veerashetty Aurad, George Freek, T. Manjunath, Ron Pickett, Hassan Ismail Adekunle, SR Inciardi, Subramaniam Cheemalapati, John Zedolik, Shazia Khatoon, Richard D. Houff, Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Emily’s Ghost, Rhys Hughes gives us an elusive story poem. Click here to read.

Musings/ Slices from Life

Switching Sails for Saddles

Meredith Stephens writes of a camel ride in Australia with photographs by Alan Noble. Click here to read.

We Come with Nothing…

Farouk Gulsara muses on the importance of getting rid of belongings collected over time. Click here to read.

Anchors

Shruti Keskar responds to changes in her life. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In  Art, Artist & a Copywriter , Devraj Singh Kalsi visits an art museum. Click here to read.

Essays

Kazi Nazrul Islam: Bringing the Ghazal Home

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri shows how cultures can intermingle to enrich and create a unique fusion as in Nazrul’s lyrics and style. Click here to read.

Harmonising a Symphony

Yatish Kumar S explores what One World means to him. Click here to read.

Rise, You Magnificent Mess

Charudutta Panigrahi writes with the hope of transcending the darknesses of our times. Click here to read.

Stories

Small Town Journal Entry: The Red Wagon and Red Robin

Jonathon Ferrini tells a poignant story about a child and an injured bird. Click here to read.

The Weight She Carries

Gowher Bhat brings a vignette of a young girl’s life in the hills of Kokernag. Click here to read.

A Family Wedding

Fiona Sinclair writes of family interactions during a wedding. Click here to read.

A Clever Verdict

Naramsetti Umamaheswara Rao gives a story set in Southern India. Click here to read.

Feature

A conversation with Kanupriya Dhingra with a brief introduction to her book, The Sunday Book Bazaar: Delhi’s Book Street and the Making of a Reading Public. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Teresa Rehman’s Her Hajj Story: Travel Diaries of Women Pilgrims from Assam. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Shubha Apte’s When the Road Becomes the Teacher. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Omair Ahmad’s Homecoming. Click here to read.

Mudassar Javed Baryar reviews Saima Begum’s The First Jasmines. Click here to read.

Meenakshi Malhotra reviews Romila Thapar’s Just Being: A Memoir. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Shanta Gokhale’s Of Ancestors and Friends: A Life with Books. Click here to read.

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

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

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Published from Singapore, ISSN: 2737-4688.

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Editorial

Because We Are…

Melting Glaciers
Peat Fires
From Public Domain

We have started feeling the impact of climate change with a bevy of natural disasters this August. Glacial ice melts, peat fires, haze, rising seas, more storms, warmer climes and fires wiping out greenery are just a few that come to the mind. But, long ago, our ancestors — without the support of technology — survived climate events. Göbekli Tepe (Turkey), an ancient human settlement, more than 11,000 years ago was lush and green. People moved as it turned arid. Humankind was nomadic then. They moved with shifting riverbeds. In Europe, humans survived the last glacial age, about 20,000 years ago. Then, now when we are faced with the reality of climate change, why is it we tremble with trepidation? We even have technology in hand. Ideators and writers like Asimov found solutions. In Caves of Steel (1954), Isaac Asimov had humanity move underground to survive unfriendly surface conditions. He created a huge city underground for humanity while some moved into other planets. Perhaps, the time has come for us to think out of the box. And that is what we hope all of you will join to do in Borderless.

September has thrown up varied content. We have non-fiction which reflects on how changes are a part of human lore and how diverse cultures can co-exist to enrich each other. Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri dwells on this idea while talking of Nazrul’s approach to the Persian Ghazal. He writes, the poet through his adaptation of this form “showed how a culture can absorb another culture without losing itself, and how, in the process, both cultures can become something larger than they were before.” And perhaps from that largeness of thought will emerge a one-world community — that Yatish Kumar S espouses. Maybe from people who think beyond borders, we will find the solution to tackling and adapting to climate change. We have an essay from Charudutta Panigrahi where he attempts to arouse the survival instinct in humans. Young Shruti Keskar writes of how she finds a new lease to life by accepting and adapting to changes while Farouk Guslara philosophises on living and possessions. We have Meredith Stephens adding to the vivacity of non-fiction with a recount of her sailing adventures with wonderful photographs by Alan Noble. And Devraj Singh Kalsi brings in sardonic humour with his piece on art and artists.

Humour is woven into poetry with ‘Emily’s Ghost‘ by Rhys Hughes. We have poetry on rain and silences by Ananya S Guha and SR Inciardi. Ron Pickett explores nature as does T Manjunath. Diverse themes resonate in poems by Jim Bellamy, Veerashetty Aurad, George Freek, Hassan Ismail Adekunle, Mary Pomfret, Subramaniam Cheemalapati, John Zedolik, Shazia Khatoon, Richard D. Houff and Ryan Quinn Flanagan. We have a translation of a Korean poem by Ihlwha Choi that reflects how putting aside differences and walking together can make for a happier world, thus reflecting themes from our non-fiction section. Perhaps, the best illustration of this idea is in Nazrul’s Bengali lyrics translated by Professor Fakrul Alam.

A story-poem by Tagore, Swopno (Dream), has also been brought to us in English. An interesting memoir by Kallol Lahiri centring around his childhood in Bengal has been translated by V Ramaswamy. Translations offer fiction from Isa Kamari. He has transcribed in English the second chapter of his Malay novel, The Throne. The novel focussing on psychological torment is being serialised in Borderless.

Our stories trot around the world with a narrative about a wedding by Fiona Sinclair. While she talks of a world where the basics of life are taken for granted, Gowher Bhat brings to us an account about a young girl who has to work hard to have her daily needs met. Jonathon B Ferrini on the other hand shares a tale about a young child, using the epistolary technique. Naramsetti Umamaheswara Rao narrates a tale of two brothers.

In this issue, we seem to have gathered a number of reviews and excerpts based on memoirs. Teresa Rehman has shared women pilgrim’s narratives in Her Hajj Story: Travel Diaries of Women Pilgrims from Assam and in the excerpt we carry, we have her reflecting on how she gathered these gems. The other excerpt is from Shubha Apte’s memoir, When the Road Becomes the Teacher.

Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed a rare book-centric memoir by Shanta Gokhale. He tells us, “Of Ancestors and Friends: A Life with Books is an unusual kind of literary memoir. It is neither a conventional autobiography nor a conventional work of criticism. Instead, it occupies an intimate space between the two, tracing a life’s intellectual and emotional history through books.” Meenakshi Malhotra has discussed the renowned historian Romila Thapar’s memoir, Just Being, a book that reflects not only her own journey but the freedom and outreach that privilege and capability can bestow on women in South Asia. On the other hand, Mudassar Javed Baryar refers to the plight of birongonas, war time widows during the 1971 conflict that birthed Bangladesh, while discussing Saima Begum’s The First Jasmines. He reflects: “Begum’s profound innovation is to turn the narrative back not just to these women’s trauma but to their ‘humanity, resilience and heart’, depicting them as ‘architects of family and community’.” Somdatta Mandal has praised Omair Ahmad’s novel, Homecoming.

We have also featured Kanuprya Dhingra, who has written a book on a unique book bazaar. In a candid exchange, she tells us her non-fiction, The Sunday Book Bazaar: Delhi’s Book Street and the Making of a Reading Public, “is for the reader in Singapore, or Mumbai, or London, or Lahore who has their own version of this informal, unruly, necessary space and sees it reflected here. It is a book about books, the people who read them, and the people who make that possible…the book is for everyone.” It’s an interesting read almost inviting you to stroll into the serendipitous democratic reading space full of local colour and stories.

We would like to thank not only Dhingra but all our contributors for their wonderful work. Huge thanks to the fabulous Borderless team for their input and to Sohana Manzoor for her artwork. Thank you all — without all of you and our wonderful readers, it would be difficult to have a journal. In the spirit of ubuntu, heartfelt thanks.

Do pause by our September content’s page. And let’s look forward to the hope for happier climes and times.

Best wishes,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

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Excerpt

When the Road Becomes the Teacher

Title: When the Road Becomes the Teacher

Author: Shubha Apte

Chapter 4

THE FIRST FLIGHT — LESSONS FROM SINGAPORE

“A journey is not so much a place, but a new way of seeing.” — Pico Iyer

Travel has always been my passion. From childhood, the love for exploring new places was instilled in me by my parents. They believed travel was not just recreation, but education.

Every school vacation, my father would plan a month-long trip, taking us across cities, temples, forests, and historic landmarks.

By the time I stepped into adulthood, the entire stretch of Gujarat and Saurashtra was familiar terrain — Dwarka, Porbandar, Jamnagar, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat, Rajkot.

We traveled across the country too, exploring Calcutta in the east and venturing north to Kashmir, Amritsar, Agra, Delhi and Jaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer in the Northwestern part.

Along the way, each place offered its own unforgettable charm — the serenity of the Golden Temple, the fragrant rose gardens of Jodhpur, the majestic palaces of Jaipur, the golden deserts of Jaisalmer, and the shimmering beauty of Dal Lake in Srinagar.

Each journey painted my childhood with stories, sights, and memories that would stay with me forever.

Perhaps that is why, when I was finally given the opportunity to travel abroad on a business trip to Singapore, my excitement was indescribable.

But beneath that excitement was a quiet nervousness — it was my first international trip, a solo journey, and I had to navigate visas, documentation, and the unfamiliarity of foreign travel.

I still remember the night before my flight — the quiet hum of anticipation, the open suitcase neatly arranged with formal wear and presentation notes, and the flutter in my heart that felt both brave and uncertain. This wasn’t just another professional assignment — it felt like a rite of passage.

Singapore was my first glimpse of a world beyond India — an island nation I had only encountered in business magazines and travel columns.

As the aircraft lifted off the runway, I felt something shift inside me. Beneath the official purpose of the trip lay something more personal: the realization that I was crossing a threshold that would reshape the way I saw work, people, and myself.

The first few days were busy with meetings and deliverables, yet my Singapore-based colleagues made sure I didn’t miss the beauty of their city.

Over weekends, they took me to Gardens by the Bay, Sentosa Island, Universal Studios, Little India, and shopping districts filled with light and energy. Their warmth made the newness less intimidating.

I experienced my first metro journey abroad — taking the MRT from Ang Mo Kio to Raffles Place — and was amazed at the punctuality, efficiency, and discipline that seemed to pulse through the city’s transport system.

Gardens by the Bay left me mesmerized; Sentosa offered calm and peace, while Universal Studios was a burst of color, joy, and laughter.

Singapore’s friendliness, cleanliness, and multicultural harmony made a deep impression on me.

It was a place where professionalism coexisted effortlessly with warmth, where discipline didn’t suppress diversity but strengthened it.

When I returned home, friends and colleagues asked about the presentations, the meetings, and the outcomes.

But what stayed with me long after the trip was not just the work accomplished — it was the inner shift.

Singapore taught me that stepping outside our comfort zone widens our world in ways we never expect.

That first flight did more than carry me across countries — it carried me into a broader way of thinking, observing, and belonging.

It showed me that growth often begins at the edge of comfort, and that the world is much larger and more welcoming than our fears allow us to believe.

“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” — Miriam Beard

What Singapore Taught Me

Every first step into the unknown teaches us something essential about ourselves.

Singapore showed me that courage doesn’t always roar; often, it’s the quiet decision to board a plane alone and trust that you will find your way.

In every MRT ride, every unfamiliar street, and every new conversation, I discovered the subtle power of openness — the willingness to learn, adapt, and embrace difference.

When we travel with curiosity instead of fear, the world responds with generosity.

And sometimes, one journey becomes the beginning of a much larger unfolding — a reminder that confidence grows one step, one city, and one experience at a time.

Reflection: The First Flight Within

We often believe that courage lies in grand actions — but sometimes, it lies in handing your passport to an immigration officer with shaky hands.

My first flight taught me that courage is a journey too.

That every time we step out into the unknown, we return home a little braver.

A little wiser.

A little more ourselves.

About the Book:

When the Road Becomes the Teacher: A Reflective Memoir of Wisdom Gained Around the World is a memoir about how travel can transform the way we see the world and ourselves. Drawing on four decades of journeys across India and beyond, Shubha Apte reflects on the experiences, encounters, cultures, and unexpected moments that shaped her understanding of resilience, confidence, leadership, cultural intelligence, and personal growth.
From her first international business trip to Singapore to later journeys across Japan, Norway, Malaysia, Europe, and the United States, each destination became more than a place to visit—it became an opportunity to learn.
Part travel memoir and part reflection on personal transformation, the book invites readers to look beyond destinations and discover the lessons that every journey can offer.

About the Author:

Shubha Apte is an author, executive coach, and leadership consultant with over 35 years of corporate experience. She is the author of multiple books including the Amazon Bestseller, When the Road Becomes the Teacher. Her writing blends real-life insight with storytelling, exploring themes of resilience, purpose and human connections.

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

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

Categories
Contents

Borderless May 2022

Painting by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Catch a Falling Star…Click here to read

Interviews

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri: In Search of Serendipity: Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, an iconic editor and film writer from India, converses on his own journey and traditional publishing. Click here to read.

A Wonderer Who Wanders Between Waves and Graveyards and Digs Up Ancient Tales: In Conversation with Amit Ranjan, a writer-academic, who is trying to redefine academic writing, starting with his book, John Lang the Wanderer of Hindoostan, Slanderer in Hindoostan, Lawyer for the Ranee. Click here to read.

Translations

Jibananda Das’s All Afternoon Long, translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

The Colour of Time, Korean poetry composed and translated by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.

The Ordeal of Fame, a humorous skit by Rabindranath, translated by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.

Fazal Baloch translates a retold folktale from Balochi, The Precious Pearl. Click here to read.

Tagores’ Lukochuri has been translated from Bengali as Hide and Seek by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Pandies’ Corner

These narratives are written by youngsters from the Nithari village who transcended childhood trauma and deprivation. The Story of Rajesh has been written by Yogesh Uniyal in a mix of English and Hindi, and translated fully to Hindi by Nirbhay Bhogal. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read

Michael R Burch, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, Ron Pickett, Abin Chakraborty, Tohm Bakelas, Mini Babu, Sudakshina Kashyap, George Freek, Shailja Sharma, Allison Grayhurst, Amritendu Ghosal, Marianne Tefft, S Srinivas, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

Rhys Hughes shares why he put together an anthology of humorous poetry with seventeen writers, Wuxing Lyrical. Is his logic funny or sane? Click here to find out.

Stories

Intersleep

Nileena Sunil gives us a flash fiction. Click here to read.

Ants

Paul Mirabile tells a strange tale set in Madrid. Click here to read.

Mausoleum

Hridi gives us a poignant story on the banks of the river Seine. Click here to read.

The Persistence of Memory

Vedant Srinivas reflects on a childhood lost and a career found. Click here to read.

Viral Wisdom

Rhys Hughes finds humour within pandemic sagas. Is it dark or light? Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Sea Days, Sea Flowers

Mike Smith uncovers the wonders of British writer, H.E Bates. Click here to read.

Ruleman Ngwenya and Johannesburg

G Venkatesh shares the experience of his first trip out of India long, long ago. Click here to read.

“You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live”

Shubha Apte muses on a book that taught her life lessons. Click here to read.

Mission Earth

In Falling Down and Getting Up, Kenny Peavy explores how to raise resilient children. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In An Encounter with the Monet on Naoshima, Suzanne Kamata writes of snacking on Claude Monet’s hundred year old recipes while savouring his art and that of the famed artist who makes bold art with polka-dots, Yayoi Kusama. Click here to read.

A Special Tribute

In Jean Claude Carriere: A Writer for all Directors, Ratnottama Sengupta pays homage to Jean Claude Carriere (1931-2021), the legendary screenwriter of Peter Brook’s Mahabharata. Click here to read.

Essays

Hesse’s Siddhartha: Towards a Shadowless Present

Dan Meloche revisits a hundred-year-old classic by Herman Hesse that is based on Buddhist lore. Click here to read.

Himalayan Stories: Evenings with Nuru at Pheriche

P Ravi Shankar takes us to a trekkers’ life in the Himalayas. Click here to read.

Living up to my Seafaring Name in Tasmania

Meredith Stephens explores Tasmania on a boat and with hikes with a gripping narrative and her camera.Click here to read.

The Observant Immigrant

In A Post Pandemic Future …?, Candice Louisa Daquin takes a look at our future. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Upamanyu Chatterjee’s Villainy. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Ramy Al-Asheq’s Ever Since I Did Not Die, translated from Arabic by Isis Nusair, edited by Levi Thompson. The author was born in a refugee camp. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Rakhi Dalal revisits Tagore’s The Post Office, translated from Bengali in 1912 by Devabrata Mukherjee. Click here to read.

Indrashish Banerjee reviews Upamanyu Chatterjee’s Villainy. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy reviews Sunil Sharma’s Burn The Library & Other Fiction. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Radhika Gupta’s Limitless: The Power of Unlocking Your True Potential. Click here to read.

Categories
Musings

 ‘You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it’

By Shubha Apte

Life is never a straight line, and it isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. It always has ups and downs. By experience, we learn to navigate all the potholes and make the journey of life victorious. During this journey, we fall at times. But we pick ourselves up and continue to move forward. Confucius has said, “that our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time, we fall.”

 Looking through the rear-view mirror, we sometimes think of our choices and regret our decisions. But time does not standstill. It does not allow us to go back in time and change our decision. This is when the “what if” feeling grips us. We regret what we did, leading to a feeling of sadness.

As humans, we face millions of choices every day. Some of these choices can be good for us, but others can be damaging and significantly impact our lives.

When we make a wrong choice, we experience an overwhelming feeling of regret and know we cannot alter anything. We wish we could have done it differently. It can leave us stuck, always looking backwards and unable to move forward in our lives.

Trapped in this cycle of regret, we can become rigid, constantly blaming ourselves. But avoiding doing anything for fear of regretting it later is also not good as it tends to disengage us from relationships, opportunities and progress gets stalled. We cannot make all the correct decisions to make life perfect. A perfect life is more of an illusion. Accept that life is not perfect and start living.

“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren’t living. Easy to wish we’d developed other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we’d worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.

 “It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn’t make and the work we didn’t do, the people we didn’t do and the people we didn’t marry, and the children we didn’t have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.

 “But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It’s the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worst enemy.

 We can’t tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”

 ― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

This quote about regrets made me start thinking about my own journey and the regrets holding me back. Some of the professional choices did not work out the way I had imagined. I decided to join a company based on its brand value but later realised that my personal core values conflicted with the values of the people that I was working with. When frustration set in, I decided to quit the job at the peak of my career. Looking back, I realised I had better choices and opportunities, and I had boarded the wrong bus. The disappointment I experienced from this haunted me for days. With a lot of determination, I did come out of this phase. I did not allow pain and despair to drag me into depression. It required me to look at life with a totally different lens and not allow the past to discolour my present.

I read the New York Times bestseller “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig around the same time when I was deeply entrenched in regrets, and the book resonated with me. This fictional story would resonate with anyone who has faced disappointment and regrets and wants to improve their life. The book is a gentle reminder to live life and find joy in the present moment. It is an affirmation of life’s many possibilities. We keep thinking of the days gone by and the opportunities that we may have missed, and in the process, ignoring the glories of the present.

Matt Haig is an English novelist and author. Through Nora Seed, the fictional character’s narrative, Haig encourages readers to let go of their past and make the most of their present. The central character, Nora Seed, has lost her job, her best friend, her brother and her cat, her relationships are a mess, and she decides to end her life. She ends it with an overdose of antidepressants, but she finds herself in the midnight library between life and death. Every book in the library offers her a chance to enter a life where she made a different decision and has regrets. By experiencing alternate versions of her own life, she realises there is nothing called a perfect life and prefers to live in her current state.

I loved the author’s idea of envisioning an infinite library between life and death.

The book compelled me to look at life from a totally different perspective. In life, you need to be strong from within, face the consequences of your choice and not get caught in the trap of regrets. We don’t need to understand life; we need to live it, and like Matt Haig said, “You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live.”

In the last few years, I have made many changes in my life. I have decided to use my potential to the best of my abilities and learn from my mistakes and the wrong choices that I had made and not to get caught up in regrets.

The past does not lead to happiness. The future is beyond our control, but it is the present that we are in complete control.

“It’s not the lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It’s the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worst enemy”- Matt Haig.

Shubha Apte is an engineer, business leader, certified executive coach, speaker, trainer and a freelance writer based in Bangalore with focus on diversity initiatives and women leadership. Her articles have been published in online publications for LeadChangeGroup, Pratilipi, IndusWomenWriting, Unscreen.org, LinkedIn. She blogs at  https://www.shubhaapte.com/

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