I had arranged to leave at half past four in the morning; my friends arrived even earlier to bid me farewell. It was a moonlit night, and the entire world lay silent and still. Could this small change in my life affect the grand workings of the earth? I was leaving everyone behind; friends and relatives accompanied me for quite some distance. It was evidently difficult for them to sever the affectionate ties they had nurtured with me for so long. I requested that they not proceed further; in the end, they reluctantly turned back. I, too, glanced back several times to take one last look at them. I couldn’t help but wonder—if this separation from friends was so painful, how much more difficult would it be to part from one’s own family?
A few days ago, I had read Pilgrim’s Progress*, and one scene from the book kept recurring in my mind. As we walked, my thoughts wandered to such reflections. Soon, the sun rose. We began moving towards Hrishikesh. This was an unfamiliar route—rarely travelled by others. After crossing several mountains and forests, we arrived at a small village called ‘Khanu’† around 11 a.m. This peaceful village with only five to seven houses nestled beneath a canopy of trees, resembled a tiny bird’s nest. A small stream meandered near the village. We went and took shelter under a tree by the stream, and, parched and famished, we gratefully drank its water to our hearts’ content. After eating our meal there, we resumed our journey around 5 p.m.
After leaving the village, we noticed two monks walking ahead of us. Since it was just the two of us travelling, I thought, why not join these holy men? At least the four of us could travel together for a while. We quickened our pace, but when we caught up to the two sanyasis, I felt a mix of amusement and irritation. One of them turned out to be my former servant, whom I had dismissed twenty or twenty-five days earlier for theft. His transformation was remarkable—dressed in the elaborate robes of a sanyasi, with tangled hair and constant chants of ‘Har Har Bom Bom’, he was barely recognisable as the thief he once was. It was sheer bad luck on his part that our paths crossed that day.
I recounted the whole story to Swamiji, who commented, ‘Perhaps his companion has some money in his jhola, and he has disguised himself in this manner to swindle it.’
Indeed, there seemed to be no limit to the number of people who cloaked themselves in saffron robes, with matted hair and a kamandalu, only to engage in theft, deceive innocent people, or even commit heinous crimes when the opportunity arose. Readers will encounter many such so-called sadhus in my travel narrative.
At first, my servant seemed confident I wouldn’t recognise him in his new guise. He appeared smug, believing that his ‘western intelligence’ would outwit my ‘Bengali intellect’. Seeing us, he began chanting ‘Bom Bom’ even louder, as if to reinforce his act. Unable to tolerate his pretence any longer, I burst out laughing and said, ‘Aare lounde, kabse chori chhod ke sadhu ban giya?——Oh, you scoundrel, since when did you give up thievery to become a monk?’
He was utterly stunned and rendered speechless by my words. I then explained everything to his companion, a naïve and well-meaning man. This stout young fellow had accepted my servant as his disciple, feeding him well in exchange for a few religious sermons. I said, ‘Sadhu, you may keep him and feed him—I have no objection. But if you have any money in your jhola, guard it carefully. If a man can become a sadhu in ten or twelve days, there’s nothing stopping him from becoming a murderous dacoit in a few hours.’
Later, I heard that the sadhu heeded my unsolicited advice.
By evening, we reached Bhogpur. This village was home to many people, and the presence of small brick houses suggested that some wealthy residents lived there. Close to the homes of these affluent villagers stood a dharamshala, built and maintained by the villagers themselves. Travellers and sadhus from afar could find shelter here, with food and amenities provided by the locals. However, if a traveller carried money or the village had a shop, they need not rely on these dharamshalas.
There is a great deficiency of dharamshalas in Bengal. In many respects, we are far more developed and civilised than people from other parts of India; however, we are so preoccupied that we do not have the leisure to spare time for travellers or sick people who might perish on their journeys. Of course, it must be acknowledged that there are still a few among us who are exceptions to this. Nevertheless, I feel that the uneducated Garhwali farmers, who help others, offer shelter to the distressed, and wholeheartedly care for guests, are far more sincere than the educated people of Bengal.
We spent the night at the dharamshala in Bhogpur. Exhausted from the rigours of travelling, we had no need for food and instead went straight to sleep.
7th May, Thursday
We resumed our journey early in the morning and entered the forest of Hrishikesh, which we had traversed before. Although the forest was familiar, the path was entirely unknown; we could not determine whether we were following the same route we had previously taken. We reached Hrishikesh at 1 p.m. and rested beneath a tree, still without any food. Once the afternoon sun’s glare had lessened, we resumed our journey and reached Lakshman Jhula by evening.
The few shops overlooking the Ganga at Lakshman Jhula were bustling with travellers. A group of Udasi sanyasis had arrived that very day. They were Sikhs.
(Excerpted from The Travels of a Sadhu in the Himalayas by Jaladhar Sen, translated by Somdatta Mandal. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2025.)
THE BOOK
In the summer of 1890, Jaladhar Sen left behind a life of domesticity and embarked on an adventure across some of India’s most sacred landscapes, from Hrishikesh, all the way to Badrinath. Armed with little more than a blanket, a staff, and a book of songs by the renowned Bengali poet and Baul singer Kangal Harinath, he journeyed through perilous mountain passes, snowbound valleys, and remote pilgrim towns—seeking not the divine, but solace for a life fractured by loss.
Sen’s deeply personal travelogue chronicles the breathtaking beauty of the Himalayas—the roaring Alakananda, the towering peaks of Nara and Narayan, the spiritual might of Shankaracharya’s Joshimath, the bustling markets of Srinagar, and the ethereal stillness of Badrinath—along with a vivid cast of characters—from stoic sadhus, cunning pandas and officious police personnel to ailing young boys, large-hearted villagers and even fellow Bengali pilgrims. In the shadow of the Himalayas, Sen reflects on the complexities of faith, the hypocrisies of ascetic life, and the profound tenderness of human connection.
Blending diary observations and literary flourish, Himalay—first published in 1900—had once captured the imagination of a generation of Bengalis, inspiring them to travel far beyond their homeland. This English translation reintroduces Sen’s compelling account to a new audience, highlighting its historical importance and enduring charm as one of the earliest modern Bengali narratives of the Himalayan experience.
THE AUTHOR
Jaladhar Sen (1860–1939) was a Bengali writer, poet, editor and a philanthropist, traveller, social worker, educationist, and littérateur. He was awarded the title of ‘Ray Bahadur’ by the British Government. In 1887 he suffered the greatest loss in his life when his mother, wife and daughter died in quick succession. Overwhelmed by grief and seeking solace, Jaladhar moved to Dehradun at the foothills of the Himalayas, where he worked as a teacher. It was during this time, in 1890, that he travelled to the Garhwal Himalaya. This journey inspired his travelogue Himalay.
THE TRANSLATOR
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.
Book Title: The Long Strider in Jehangir’s Hindustan: In the Footsteps of the Englishman Who Walked From England to India in the Year 1613
Authors: Dom Moraes and Sarayu Srivatsa
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
During the years, in the early seventeenth century, when East India Company began a search for the possibilities of trade with India via sea route, Thomas Coryate of the village Odcombe in Somerset, England, made an ambitious plan to travel to the Indies, as he called it, on foot. This wasn’t his first undertaking. Having travelled across Europe on foot before, writing a travelogue Crudities on his experience which brought him some fame, he now wished to travel to a place no Englishmen had gone before. Motivated by the thought of gaining more fame with this venture so as to win the affection of Lady Ann Harcourt of Prince Henry’s Court, even the idea of traversing 5000 miles on foot as compared to 1975 miles that he did in Europe did not dissuade him.
Known as ‘the long strider’, in 1612, Coryate set for his journey to the Indies from London. And in year 1999, more than three hundred years later, his journey and subsequent struggles, somehow inspired Dom Moraes to traverse the same route to correlate Coryate’s experience in the now altered places and its people. Coryate travelled alone, Moraes took the journey with Sarayu Srivatsa, the co-author of this book.
Dom Moraes, poet, novelist and columnist, is seen as a foundational figure in Indian English Literature. He published nearly thirty books in his lifetime. In 1958, at the age of twenty, he won the prestigious Hawthornden Prize for poetry. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for English in 1994. The Long Strider in Jehangir’s Hindustan was first published in the year 2003. Moraes passed away in 2004.
Sarayu Srivatsa, trained as an architect and city planner at the Madras and Tokyo universities, was a professor of architecture at Bombay University. Her book, Where the Streets Lead, published in 1997 had won the JIIA Award. She also co-authored two books with Dom Moraes: The Long Strider, and Out of God’s Oven (shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize). Her first novel, The Last Pretence, was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, and upon its release in the UK (under the title If You Look For Me, I am Not Here), was also included on The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize longlist.
Srivatsa, who travelled with Moraes to all the places Coryate passed through, writes diary chapters coextending the same routes subsequently. So, each fictive reconstruction of a period and place of Coryate’s travel by Moraes is followed by a diary chapter for the same place by Srivatsa. In that sense the book becomes part biographical fiction and part memoir.
Coryate, son of a Vicar and dwarfish in stature, was seized by this desire to gain fame and respect. What desire seized the imagination of Moraes, eludes this reader. It, however, doesn’t escape the notice that both the writers shared somewhat similar plight towards the end.
Some of Coryate’s writing during the period did not survive as it was destroyed by Richard Steele, but the rest was sent to England and was posthumously published in an anthology in 1625. Basing his research on such sources, after extensive three years of investigation, Moraes managed to create an account of Coryate’s demeanour, his lived life in a new land with diverse people and customs at different places which he found both shocking and fascinating. Coryate found the people of India loud and violent but he was also touched by their generosity and kindness. He witnessed the disagreements between Hindus and Muslims, the caste system where the upper caste oppressed the people from lower caste, sati, and the ways of Buddhist monks, Sikhs, pundits of Benaras and Aghoris[1], the lifestyle of Jehangir and the city of Agra before Taj Mahal. He was fortunate to have an audience with Jehangir, the main reason of his travel, but he failed in securing his patronage or enough money to continue to China which he had been his original intent.
In Moraes’ writing, the era comes alive. Vivid imagery and description makes the struggles and sufferings of Coryate palpable on one hand and on the other offer a view on the unfolding of history in a country where these many hundred years later, the echoes of a past similar to the present can be heard. In the preface, Moraes posits one of the reasons to take on the book — to compare the India then with the country during his times. As the reader proceeds with the story, the comparison becomes apparent in Moraes’ construction vis-a-vis Srivatsa’s entries.
Towards the end, an ailing Coryate succumbed to his illness and his body was buried somewhere near the dock at Surat. He could not make a journey home in 1615, but in 2003 a brick from his supposed tomb was sent back to the church in Odcombe by Srivatsa where a ninety six year old vicar waited patiently for the only famous man from Odcombe to return home. The epilogue by Srivatsa gives an account of Moraes’ own struggle with cancer and his demise in 2004, a year after the book was published. It is but right that the soil from his grave in Mumbai also found a resting place in Odcombe.
Rakhi Dalal writes from a small city in Haryana, India. Her work has appeared in Kitaab, Scroll, Borderless Journal, Nether Quarterly, Aainanagar, Hakara Journal, Bound, Parcham and Usawa Literary Review.
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Title:Let’s Be Best Friends Forever: Beautiful Stories of Friendship
Publisher: Talking Cub, Speaking Tiger Books
From ‘The Tunnel of Friendship’ by Ruskin Bond
I had already started writing my first book. It was called Nine Months, but had nothing to do with a pregnancy; it referred merely to the length of the school term, the beginning of March to the end of November, and it detailed my friendships and escapades at school and lampooned a few of our teachers. I had filled three slim exercise books with this premature literary project, and I allowed Azhar to go through them. He was my first reader and critic. ‘They’re very interesting. But you’ll get into trouble if someone finds them,’ was his verdict.
We returned to Shimla, having won our matches against Sanawar, and were school heroes for a couple of days. And then my housemaster discovered my literary opus and took it away and read it. I was given six of the best with a Malacca cane, and my manuscript was torn up. Azhar knew better than to say ‘I told you so’ when I showed him the purple welts on my bottom. Instead, he repeated the more outrageous bits he remembered from the notebooks and laughed, till I began to laugh too.
‘Will you go away when the British leave India?’ Azhar asked me one day.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘My stepfather is Indian. My mother’s family have lived here for generations.’
‘Everyone is saying they’re going to divide the country. I think I’ll have to go away.’
‘Oh, it won’t happen,’ I said glibly. ‘How can they cut up such a big country?’
‘Gandhi will stop them,’ he said.
But even as we dismissed the possibility, Jinnah, Nehru and Mountbatten and all those who mattered were preparing their instruments for major surgery.
Before their decision had any effect on our life, we found a little freedom of our own—in an underground tunnel that we discovered in a corner of the school grounds. It was really part of an old, disused drainage system, and when Azhar and I began exploring it, we had no idea just how far it extended. After crawling along on our bellies for some twenty feet, we found ourselves in complete darkness. It was a bit frightening, but moving backwards would have been quite impossible, so we continued writhing forward, until we saw a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Dusty, a little bruised and very scruffy, we emerged at last on to a grassy knoll, a little way outside the school boundary. We’d found a way to escape school!
The tunnel became our beautiful secret. We would sit and chat in it, or crawl through it just for the thrill of stealing out of the school to walk in the wilderness. Or to lie on the grass, our heads touching, reading comics or watching the kites and eagles wheeling in the sky. In those quiet moments, I became aware of the beauty and solace of nature more keenly than I had been till then: the scent of pine needles, the soothing calls of the Himalayan bulbuls, the feel of grass on bare feet, and the low music of the cicadas.
World War II had just come to an end, the United Nations held out the promise of a world living in peace and harmony, and India, an equal partner with Britain, would be among the great nations…
But soon we learnt that Bengal and Punjab provinces, with their large Muslim populations, were to be bisected. Everyone was in a hurry: Jinnah and company were in a hurry to get a country of their own; Nehru, Patel and others were in a hurry to run a free, if truncated, India; and Britain was in a hurry to get out. Riots flared up across northern India.
At school, the common room radio and the occasional newspaper kept us abreast of events. But in our tunnel Azhar and I felt immune from all that was happening, worlds away from all the pillage, murder and revenge. Outside the tunnel, there was fresh untrodden grass, sprinkled with clover and daisies, the only sounds the hammering of a woodpecker, and the distant insistent call of the Himalayan barbet. Who could touch us there?
‘And when all wars are done,’ I said, ‘a butterfly will still be beautiful.’
‘Did you read that somewhere?’ Azhar asked.
‘No, it just came into my head.’
‘It’s good. Already you’re a writer.’
Though it felt good to hear him say that, I made light of it. ‘No, I want to play hockey for India or football for Arsenal. Only winning teams!’
‘You’ll lose sometimes, you know, even if you get into those teams,’ said wise old Azhar. ‘You can’t win forever. Better to be a writer.’
One morning after chapel, the headmaster announced that the Muslim boys—those who had their homes in what was now Pakistan—would have to be evacuated. They would be sent to their homes across the border with an armed convoy.
It was time for Azhar to leave, along with some fifty other boys from Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar. The rest of us—Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs and Parsis—helped them load their luggage into the waiting British Army trucks that would take them to Lahore. A couple of boys broke down and wept, including our departing school captain, a Pathan who had been known for his unemotional demeanour. Azhar waved to me and I waved back. We had vowed to meet again some day. We both kept our composure.
The headmaster announced a couple of days later that all the boys had reached Pakistan and were safe. On the morning of 15 August 1947, we were marched up to town to witness the Indian flag being raised for the first time. Shimla was still the summer capital of India, so it was quite an event. It was raining that morning. We were in our raincoats and gumboots, while a sea of umbrellas covered the Mall.
(Extracted from Let’s Be Best Friends Forever: Beautiful Stories of Friendship, with an introduction by Jerry Pinto. Published by Talking Cub, the children’s imprint of Speaking Tiger Books.)
ABOUT THE BOOK
An Afghan trader and a young Bengali girl form a touching connection that transcends cultural barriers in Rabindranath Tagore’s classic story ‘The Kabuliwala’. Jo March and Laurie from Little Women meet at a dull party and become companions for life. L. Frank Baum’s timeless characters Dorothy and Toto adventure around Oz forging magical bonds of friendship.
The brave queen of Jhansi and her ally Jhalkaribai come together to fight for freedom and dignity; Jesse Owens narrates an inspiring tale of sportsmanship and solidarity from his Olympic days; and twelve-year-old Kamala and her friends, Edward, Amir and Amma, endure the Partition riots together in Bulbul Sharma’s heart-warming story.
In these pages you will also meet Nimmi and her best pal, Kabir, whose school misadventures include spirited debates; Sunny, whose love for books leads to a new friendship on a trip to Darjeeling; Cyril and Neil, who face life’s challenges with inventive word games, and Siya, who discovers that true friends can come in the most unexpected forms—even as a cherished doll.
Animal lovers will delight in the escapades of Gillu, the charming squirrel, Harold, the handsome hornbill, Rikki-tikki-tavi, the loyal mongoose, Hira and Moti, the powerful oxen, and Bagheera, the brave panther who looks after the young boy Mowgli.
With stories from beloved and popular authors—Ruskin Bond, Rudyard Kipling, Mahadevi Varma, Jerry Pinto, Shabnam Minwalla, and many more—Let’s Be Best Friends Forever is an enchanting collection that celebrates the universal power and beauty of friendship.
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Title: Learning to Remember: Postmemory and the Partition of India
Author: Shuchi Kapila
Publisher: Springer
Shuchi Kapila’s book on Partition focuses on the hinge generation — the one separated by a generation or two from the actual experience of the Partition, but increasingly drawn to analyse its memories in their own lives and its significance for the future. Simply because, the Partition with its trauma and losses remains a huge part of their parental, familial and collective memory.
While Kapila’s book recovers these embedded memories through interesting anecdotes, the fact remains that the historical event of the Partition cast a huge shadow on her parents’ lives, and that of many like her. She, like others (Priya Kumar, Urvashi Butalia) are drawn to excavate and unpack this silence and trauma that impinged upon the parents’ lives and shaped them in umpteen ways. Such postmemory is described by Marianne Hirsch as “the experience of those who grow up dominated by narratives that preceded their birth, whose own belated stories are evacuated by the stories of the previous generation shaped by traumatic events that can be neither understood nor recreated” (Hirsch 1996, 659, quoted by Kapila). She goes on to write: “It is the largeness of these stories that dominate our psyches even as we often know very little about them, a kind of haunting that is often not understood.”
Like many in this generation, Kapila was protected from all knowledge of the event by the silence of those who had experienced it directly. At the same time, she strongly felt a compulsion and an ethical imperative to understand the legacy of the Partition on her own terms.
Kapila points out that the flood of writing on the Partition that has emerged since the fiftieth anniversary of independence in India and Pakistan includes scholarly histories, oral histories, feminist studies, and literary and cultural studies of the Partition (which have poured out in a steady stream in the decades after 1997), show a strong inclination to exhume buried and seemingly lost memories. Priya Kumar’s Limiting Secularism, one of the most significant studies of the ethics of remembering, presents a compelling summary of this terrain of ‘return’ to the Partition. She argues that it is not merely that the first generation of Partition migrants is now dying out leading to an understandable anxiety about capturing their voices(as Butalia also voices in her book The Other Side of Silence) but also that the fact that Partition is the “founding trauma” (Dominick la Capra) of the subcontinent to which we must return in constant acts of “avowal” (Kumar 2008, 87).
Kapila’s book then is one such act of return and avowal in exploring again from a post memorial position the travels and travails of Partition memory. The enormity of the Partition— around a million dead, migration of between twelve and fourteen million across the borders of Punjab and Bengal, 75,000 women of different faiths abducted and very few “rehabilitated”– the numbers are mind-numbing.
Given that Partition was a territorial, social, and political division of peoples who had lived together for the previous centuries, there were many who resisted the idea of this division but recognised equally that it was a moment for Muslim self-determination in the formation of Pakistan. A common feeling in this context which prevailed among all communities, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, was a feeling that the departing colonial powers had betrayed them. With these affects,the act of remembering Partition, the author feels, can never be a single, linear, decisive and discrete fact specific to communities but somewhat fuzzy and porous. It is inevitably marked by the recognition of multiple narratives jostling for attention with all communities involved as perpetrators and victims. The Indian nationalist myth that the Indian Congress party wanted a united India whereas Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, wanted to divide India and secure Pakistan for Muslims has been interrogated most famously by Ayesha Jalal who argues that literary narratives have also offered scholars the opportunity to think through the ethics of co-existence, which is the focus of Priya Kumar’s study, Limiting Secularism (2008), in which she considers how literary texts imagine possibilities and histories of productive relationships that seemed to have been irrevocably lost with partition.
Another significant area of research opened up was that of collecting narrative oral histories, a methodology which has been referred to by Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin in Borders and Boundaries(1998) and used powerfully in Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence(1998). These accounts revealed that women’s lives were deeply impacted by the rape and violence visited upon them during Partition and the silencing of their narratives as a patriarchal state was inaugurated. Jill Didur (2006) reads the silences and ambiguities of women’s stories as an important counter-narrative that unsettles Partition, revealing, for instance, how the agency of abducted women was completely eluded even in the recovery operations to establish a benevolent paternalist state. Given that there is a necessary relationship between the public and private realms of memory, it is unsurprising that some of the same themes can be found in testimonials and oral histories as well. This is the case made by Anindya Raychaudhuri (2019) whose attempt to think through Partition as “a productive event” is very much in line with Kapila’s effort to highlight the different generational voices of interviewees (Raychaudhuri 2019,13).
The book also considers private family memory and public institutions like the 1947 Partition Archive and the Amritsar Partition Museum. However, Kapila is aware that both these public institutions are relatively recent developments making it difficult to gauge their impact on private memory. Like literature and cinema, oral histories have also expressed themes of loss, violence, home, childhood, and trauma that appear repeatedly in stories of Partition migrants. Yet, as Kapila avers, “despite scholars’ clear understanding of the particularity of each oral history encounter, most studies distill them for themes and documentary evidence rather than as specific performances” based on “the subject position of interviewer and interviewee, time, space, social and regional position.” In contrast to this, Kapila is observant about the processual aspect of memory that are constituted by a more expansive understanding of “the filial and affiliative in each encounter as it rearticulates the nature of family, belonging, and community and while Partition literature and film have coloured narratives and tropes which shape how people remember or narrate,” her focus is on the interaction between the subject position of interviewer and interviewed.
Anjali Gera Roy’s significant work on Partition testimonies works toward an amplification of the historical record, which works by filling in “the personal, sensory, affective memories of both documented and undocumented historical events”(Gera Roy 2019, 24). She describes her work, as a “corrective and as supplement” to historical accounts. In the 160 testimonies gathered by her and her research assistants in many cities of North and East India, she unearths the ‘intangible violence’ of Partition.
The questions she poses sheds considerable light both on the processes and workings of memory as well as the methodology of such an enquiry: “How much of my parents’ relationship was structured by a deep and intimate understanding of Partition trauma? How much of their subterranean anxieties about their children were shaped by the experience of Partition? Heeding Marianne Hirsch’s description of postmemory mediated “not by recall but imaginative investment, projection, and creation,” she asks how we could help in exploring its potential for progressive futures (Hirsch 2012, 5). Family history, though repeated many times and extensively written about is both representative and singular, each experience one more testimony to what millions experienced.
In emphasising a humanistic approach to Partition memory, she explores it not as aggregation of historical or social fact but for the relationship it sets up among post memorial generations and between them and first-generation migrants and the importance of each act of articulation. This book is thus a study of the culture of Partition memory that is being built by post memorial generations through public institutions, research, oral history, and family stories. For these generations, studying Partition is an experience in learning to remember from new socio-political locations not just in South Asia but also in its diaspora in Europe and the United States, and other parts of the world. These acts of memory are significant not only to gain insight into an event, but also ultimately to address the psychological impact of the event.
Kapila’s work is a significant contribution to Partition and memory studies. In revisiting Partition through the lens of memory, her book reminds us about the significance of processing painful memories as a way of approaching the past. The chronology is also significant, coming as it does, more than seventy-five years after Partition. Yet it is precisely this belatedness which makes it significant. In their preface to their edited book on The Psychological Impact of Partition in India, psychiatrists Sanjeev Jain and Alok Sarin (2018), mention the lack of conversation or research material on the psychological impact of Partition in the sub-continent. They flag the urgency of revisiting and processing traumatic memory. Understanding the delayed effects of trauma thanks to their extensive experience as psychiatrists and psychologists, they view the time lapse and belatedness as central to the way memories work.
Kapila’s book has a chapter on the idea of ‘nostalgia’ for instance and then also on new institutions of memory like the museum. She explores different avenues that have been developing to rectify some of this missing memory of Partition, through extensive interviews. This is the thrust of the first half of the book—these intergenerational conversations and understandings of Partition. The second half of the book looks more closely at the two physical spaces that have been established to communicate about Partition. These two physical spaces include the Berkeley, California 1947 Partition Archive, which now contains at least 10,000 oral histories of Partition, available for researchers, scholars, and individuals to explore and examine. India has also recently opened the Partition Museum, Amritsar, the first museum of its kind in India. Museums tend to craft particular narratives of events or experiences, and Kapila considers this new museum in that light
Postmemory and the Partition of India: Learning to Remember is a fascinating interrogation of this concept of remembering and memory, and how we craft narratives of our understandings of events through our memories or the memories of others. Ultimately, Kapila is asking the reader to consider how it is we learn to remember, particularly how we learn to remember complex, political events that shape who we are and how we think of ourselves in the world. Focusing on the centrality of processing traumatic memory in order to negotiate our daily lives, Kapila’s work is deeply interdisciplinary. Her scholarship can also be viewed as a labour of love and a tribute to her parents — and their generation — for the considerable emotional labour they invested to ensure that their children were able to go beyond their own memories of loss.
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Dr Meenakshi Malhotra is Associate Professor of English Literature at Hansraj College, University of Delhi, and has been involved in teaching and curriculum development in several universities. She has edited two books on Women and Lifewriting, Representing the Self and Claiming the I, in addition to numerous published articles on gender, literature and feminist theory. Her most recent publication is The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle.
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Autumn,
The bridge between nature’s seasons,
Summer and winter,
Heat and cold,
The cooling whites and the fiery oranges
So beautifully reflected in the shiuli’s* colours.
Autumn, when the shiuli carpets the ground in legion,
Signifying the advent of the Goddess Durga in Sharad season,
Corresponding to the months of Ashwin (September-October).
Dusshera, too, comes in this season.
Both celebrate the victory of good over evil and corruption…
Maa Durga (the Goddess) triumphed over Mahisasur, the demon,
While Lord Rama triumphed over Ravana.
Autumn, that celebrates both festivals with great revelry
Turning our minds towards triumphing over evil
In our own lives, and evil within us.
The evil of ego that is the cause of suffering.
Ego, that is the demon that persuades us to discriminate with frivolity,
Between man and nature leading to a loss of biodiversity,
Between man and man leading to a false state of superiority.
Stemming from a mind of inferiority,
Judging against age, weight, skin colour, poverty and other such absurdity.
Autumn,
The time of the Shiuli flower
The time that reminds us to put our minds in favour
Of the divine and all that they have to teach us with fervour.
In the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of the Sikhs,
Guru Arjan says, that when we contemplate on the divine,
In our life manifest immense virtues with blessings combined
Akin to precious jewels like the flowers of the wish-fulfilling Harshringar*.
*Shiuli is also known as parijat, harshringar, and night jasmine.
Avantika Vijay Singh is the author of Flowing…in the river of Life and Dancing Motes of Starlight.
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Ujjal Dosanjh left his village in Punjab in quest of a better life. He had a bare smattering of English, very less money and some family overseas when he left his home at Dosanjh Kalan at the age of seventeen. That was in 1964. He spent the first three years in Britain and then, moved to Canada to become a prominent lawyer, activist and political figure.
When he started in the 1960s, to earn a livelihood in England, he shunted trains in the British Railways. He left for Canada in hope of a better future. He had to work initially in sawmills and factories to support himself. Eventually, he could get an education and satisfy his ambitions in British Columbia, which became his home. Coming from a family which contributed to the freedom struggle of India, it was but natural that he would turn towards a public life. His uprightness, courage, tolerance, openness and commitment had roots in his background, where his parents despite different political ideologies, lived together in harmony. His family, despite their diverse beliefs, stood by him as he tried to live by his values.
Dosanjh voiced out against separatist forces that continue to demand an autonomous country for Sikhs to this day. In 1985, he was beaten almost to death by such Khalistani separatists as he boldly opposed the movement that had earlier led to the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) and to the bombing of an aircraft where all 329 people aboard died. However, undaunted by such attacks, he continues to talk unity, welfare for the underprivileged and upholds Mahatma Gandhi as his ideal. He went into Canadian politics with unfractured belief in the Mahatma. Dosanjh was the Health Minister of Canada and earlier the Premier of British Columbia. He has been honoured by both the Indian and Canadian governments. In 2003, he received the highest award for diaspora living outside India, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, and, in 2009, he was a recipient of the Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Award.
Now, sixty years from the time he left his country of birth, he shares his narratives with the world with his updated autobiography — the first edition had been published in 2016 — and also with fiction. As an immigrant with his life spread over different geographies, he tells us in his non-fiction, Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canada:“Canada has been my abode, providing me with physical comforts and the arena for being an active citizen. India has been my spiritual refuge and my sanctuary.”He writes of what he had hoped could be a better future for humankind based on the gleanings from his own experiences and contributions to the world: “If humanity isn’t going to drown in the chaos of its own creation, the leading nations of the world will have to create a new world order, which may involve fewer international boundaries.”
In this interview, he shares his journey and expands further his vision of a world with diminishing borders.
You travelled from a village in Punjab, through UK and ended up in the Canadian cabinet to make changes that impacted humanity in your various public roles as a politician. Would you have been able to make an impact in a similar public role if you had never left India? Was the journey you went through necessary to help you become who you are?
It’s almost next to impossible to imagine what actually would have happened to my life in India had I stayed there. The most complicating element would be the standards that I would apply in such reimagining, the standards I most certainly wouldn’t have known or applied to my Indian life’s journey. I do think though and I have said it often in conversations with friends that had I stayed in India I would have either turned into a saint or devil; nothing in between for one who in 1964, the year I left, already hated the beginnings of the corruption that has now almost completely enslaved the country’s polity and ensnared the society.
Even though what has guided me throughout my life were the lessons I learnt from my freedom fighter maternal grandfather, my activist father and Mahatma Gandhi’s life, I believe the ethics and mores of public life, first in Britain and then in Canada helped shape and sculpt who I became and how I conducted myself. Had I not been to Britain and not lived most of my life in Canada, it’s impossible even to imagine the ‘me’ that would now be walking upon our planet earth.
While within five years of landing in Canada, you were studying in University of British Columbia and driving an Austin, some other immigrants fifteen years down the line continued in abject poverty. What does it take to rise out of endemic poverty? Do you see that happening in the world around us today?
The way you phrased the question conceals the fact that before I resumed full time college in January 1970s and went on to complete my BA and then LL.B. in 1976, I had spent full six years of my life in UK and Canada working jobs including shunting trains with British Rail, making crayons in a factory, being a lab assistant in a secondary school and pulling lumber on the green chain in a saw mill in Canada while often attending night school.
And I must add that my extended family and my spouse were largely responsible for paying my way through my B.A. and LL.B.
While even then it wasn’t easy, I do recognise the union wage then available to students in summer employment enabled them to save enough for the school year; with most summer jobs that’s not the case now. The students now more often than not have to depend on loans or help from the parents.
A significant section of the immigrant diaspora has done reasonably well while for many it’s becoming harder and harder to just make ends meet.
And by the way the Austin, you refer to, was the used Austin 1100, Austin Mini’s sister, I had bought for the then princely sum of six hundred dollars; it took mere six dollars to fill its tank.
That’s truly interesting. At the beginning of your biography, you stated ‘politics is a noble calling’. Later you have written, “I had realized I needed to make a clean break from thepettiness of politics.” Which of these is true? And why the dichotomy — pettiness as opposed to nobleness? And what made you change your perspective?
No, I have not changed my view of politics. It is a noble calling but only if you do it for the right reasons. More and more I found that a significant number of people seeking public office did so for glory that they perceived the elected public office bestowed upon them. Shorn of any lofty ideals and the pursuit of public good politics often degenerates into petty squabbles rather than the giant battles of great and contrasting ideas.
The pettiness is the result of small minds pursuing the mirage of glory in phony battles that barely move the needle on the bar of public good. I often refer to the absence of great leaders in the political landscape of India and the world; Canada has not escaped the current curse of the dearth of great minds in the political arena. Hence my exasperation at the situation I found myself in.
The world over, politics seems to have become the refuge of intellectual dwarfs—no offence intended to our shorter brothers and sisters. The small minds tend not to see too far into the future; they are oblivious to the need to constantly challenge the world to be what it could be.
After a lifetime of activism and close to eighteen years of elected office it was only natural for me to tire of the myopia and pettiness in what otherwise remains a noble endeavour.
You met Indira Gandhi — the second woman to lead a country in a prime ministerial role — and had this to say of her “Indira Gandhi loved India immensely. One can be an imperfect leader and yet a patriot”. Do you think she was an effective leader for India?
My wife and I spent an hour speaking with Indira Gandhi on the afternoon of January 13, 1984. We spent the first few minutes comparing notes about our grandparents and parents as freedom fighters and activists before discussing the issues related to the agitation in Punjab, its growing militancy and increasing violence in and outside the Golden Temple. From what she said it was clear she was extremely troubled about the dangerous situation of the militants holed up in the Temple and the toll it was taking on the peace, politics and the economy of the state. I sensed a certain helplessness in this otherwise quite brave woman when describing the unsuccessful efforts she and her office had made to reach a peaceful settlement of the issues raised by the Sikh agitation. Because I had met both the militant Bhindranwale and the peace loving leader of the agitation, Longowal, and understood the tension between the two men and their followers, I knew she was grappling with a political minefield. All of this and much more that we discussed left me in no doubt about her love for the country and all its people.
But I do believe she allowed the situation at the Golden Temple to linger too long and deteriorate before trying to bring it under control; thus, it and the Operation Bluestar, her ultimate response to the armed militants holed up in the Temple, remains one of her great misjudgements—perhaps as grave as the declaration of the National Emergency in 1975.
Imperfection being part of the human condition, one isn’t surprised that Indira Gandhi who saw all Indians as equally Indian, too, was imperfect; a strong but imperfect leader.
“Sikri was the capital for the new world of unity that Akbar had wanted to create. Ashoka took a similarly bold leap toward peace after a bloody war. Two millennia after Ashoka and four centuries after Akbar, Mahatma Gandhi shared with India a similar vision and a path out of colonialism. India killed him.” Please explain why you feel India killed Gandhi.
One can’t and mustn’t blame an entire country for the actions of one or two persons and yet what I said of Gandhi’s assassination, at least figuratively if not literally, can be said with ample justification; not one but several attempts were made to end Gandhi the mortal. If many Indian hearts and minds—and there were many in his lifetime, perhaps not as many as there are in Modi’s India—wanted Gandhi and his philosophy of nonviolence and love for all dead, then I must say, even without resorting to the writers’ licence, India stands accused and guilty of his January 30th, 1948 assassination; India killed Gandhi.
Even before the advent of Modi on the national scene India’s politicians had substantially diminished and damaged Gandhi’s legacy of Truth, Love and Non-violence. Considering the so few prominent voices in the public domain criticising the Modi regime’s single-minded undermining of Gandhi’s legacy, almost to the point of extinction, it can be said that if it already hasn’t done so, India is close to annihilating Gandhi’s Truth, Love and Non-violence.
“To India’s shame, the rich and ruling classes of today mimic the sahibs of yore. Some of them still head to the hills with their servants, the Indian equivalent of the slaves of the United States.” As Gandhi is seen as one of the architects of modern India, what would have Gandhi’s stand been on this?
When Gandhi lived in England and South Africa, he was part of the diaspora of his time and learnt new things as such. Today with social and digital media one hopes even living in India he would have been aware of the yearning of humanity for equality and economic and social justice. The way most rich and powerful treat the poor and the weak in India is absolutely antithetical to what an egalitarian India would demand of them.
I’m aware of how Gandhi didn’t support the abolition of caste and of his position or lack thereof on the question of equality for the blacks of South Africa at the time. But different times throw up leaders with different and perhaps better approaches to the fundamental issues. Were he alive today, he would have argued for the abolition of caste, equality for all and he wouldn’t have accepted or ignored how India treats its workers, poor and the powerless.
You have told us “India leads the world in the curse of child slavery and labour. Millions of India’s children are trapped in bonded labour, sex trafficking and domestic ‘help’ servitude.” Most people plead poverty and survival when they talk of children working. Do you see a way out? Is there a solution?
Yes, like all problems, this, too, has a solution:
Legislate, legislate and legislate.
Enforce, enforce and enforce the legislation.
I know some laws do exist but we need legislation with more teeth. The laws regarding minimum wage, hours of work, overtime and holiday pay and health regulations must be strengthened and more vigorously enforced, in particular, in the so-called domestic help sector. Better wages and working conditions rigorously enforced would attract adult workers who would be able to send their children to proper schools rather than thrust them in to slavery in exploitative homes, factories and workplaces.
Not much will improve on this front though unless Indians end the endemic corruption in law enforcement. You see corruption confronts and stares us in almost all, if not all, issues Indian; it is the elephant almost in each and every room.
“Violence can never be a tool for change in a modern, democratic nation.” You tried to use Gandhian principles through your life — even in Canada. Do you think non-violence can be a way of life given the current world scenario with wars and dissensions? How do you view Gandhi sanctioning the participation of soldiers in the first and second world wars? Can wars ever be erased or made non-violent?
First let’s deal with Gandhi’s sanction of the soldiers in the two world wars. Whether or not he had sanctioned their participation, the soldiers would have gone to war; most of them fought for wages, not for the love of war or the country except those for whom the Second World War was a war against fascism and hence justified.
I don’t believe Gandhi ever stated that in fighting a violent enemy or a perceived enemy one was not allowed to use violence. All I ever remember him saying was that you throw your unarmed body wrapped in soul force in front of the enemy but if you are too chicken to do so or can’t do so for some other reason but fight an aggressor you must, violence is better than doing nothing.
As for countries fighting each other I don’t believe he ever said that, in an uncertain world where the military of another country could invade at any moment, a country must forego a military of its own.
As for nonviolence being a way of life, it can and must be for a country in its internal life. On the borders however one always has to deal with what one is presented with; you can’t ask Ukraine to not fight; in the face of a suddenly expansionist China or a belligerent Pakistan, Gandhi wouldn’t have urged the Buddha’s meditational pose for India; he didn’t do so in late 1947 when Pakistani fighters invaded Kashmir.
As for wars being non-violent, they can never be if the likes of Russia continue to invade others.
You opposed the Khalistani separatists and stood for a united India. What is your stand on Khalistan, given the recent flare up? Did you do anything this time to allay the situation in Canada?
I have always been opposed to countries being carved out on ethnic, linguistic or religious basis; I am a firm believer in multilingual, multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-racial populations living together in peace within the boundaries of peaceful countries; for that to happen, secularism remains a sine qua non[1]. That is why I so passionately continue to support a secular and inclusive India.
As for me doing something in the face of what is happening in Canada today vis a vis the Khalistanis, I didn’t say anything because I don’t believe it would have added to the debate; everyone already knows what I think and believe.
What does concern me though is the weak-kneed response and reaction of the public leaders of Canada; they have not unconditionally condemned the glorification of terrorists, known murderers or those who on the streets of Canada glorify and revere the killers of Air India passengers or of Mrs. Indira Gandhi. For me, someone who immigrated to Canada in 1968 when the elder Trudeau became the Prime Minister of the country, the near silence of our politicians on Khalistani violence and its glorification has been a low point; the older Trudeau knew how to deal with the terrorists; he didn’t and wouldn’t have pussy footed around terrorism or its glorification.
When your autobiography was published the first time in 2016, your column in Indian Express was cancelled. As many of us grew up in India of the past, we believed in secularism and democracy with freedom of expression. How has it changed over a period of time?
After I left India and particularly when I was introduced to the Hyde Park, I reflected on India and it seemed to be one of the freest places in the world; any intersection of a city road or a corner of the village served as a mini Hyde Park; from the millions of speeches made in such Hyde Parks all over India, millions of ideas tumbled forth from the lips of ordinary but engaged Indians.
Of course, I do realise that in the lives of the poor and the powerless, the freedom hadn’t shone as bright. The imprisoning of the Naxalites without charges and Indira Gandhi’s Emergency were the first real jolts of un-democracy and unfreedom I felt India as a whole had suffered. From there it went downhill; that sporadic communal riots continued; that Godhra was done to the Muslims as was done the post Indira assassination violence to the Sikhs; lynchings of Muslims and Dalits continue today.
India’s response to the first major unfreedom, Indira’s Emergency censorship, was encapsulated in the blank front pages of the censored Indian Express, that symbol of the Journalism of Courage. That symbol may still burn today but it is smouldering and clearly less bright enveloped as it and others are in the atmosphere of fear of the likes of ED[2] and CBI[3]; almost none amongst the traditional media homes shines much or at all; the digital media has thrown up some brave examples like The Wire. But the overall scene is dismal. India needs many revolutions; one of them is the reawakening of some semblance of fortitude in India’s Godi[4] media outlets.
Over repeated trips to India, you observed that people did not want to talk of major issues like availability of potable water but wanted to discuss issues like the eroding culture among the diaspora. Why do you think this has happened? Is there a way to change this mindset?
Human mind is an amazing thing; it seeks engagement but when the immediate is painful to observe and feel, it finds solace in contemplating the scenes afar; for sheer survival in its troubled and troubling milieu it develops numbness; such numbness shields it from the immediate while thinking about the distant problems, imagined or real, offer it a sense of engagement. Such is what I thought happened to many in Punjab.
Another troubling thing was that much beyond the essential human pride a sense of chauvinism and superiority, at least among its rich and powerful, has plagued Punjab for a long time which has blinded it to the need for change and progress—one didn’t need to improve what one believed to be perfect and hence superior.
Punjab has significantly slipped in the Human Development Index. That this humbling fact is now quite widely acknowledged in intellectual and political circles gives me some hope that things may improve.
“There are massive water shortages across the country. There’s a crisis in health care…Under the weight of crippling debts and droughts, small and marginal farmers are killing themselves. There aren’t enough jobs being created for the millions of youth joining the job market every year. The human-rights record of the Indian State inKashmir, the Northeast and other parts in the grip of insurgency is horrific and shameful. Dalits and Muslims are lynched with impunity by Hindutva-inspired mobs for skinning dead cows, or being in the vicinity of meat that may or may not be beef.” Do you see a way out? What can India do to step out of the condition you have described so accurately?
I have argued for some time that what India needs is a new freedom struggle, a Values’ Revolution, to rid itself of corruption—rishwat[5], unethicality, religious and cultural fanaticism that impinges on many Indians’ right to life, dignity and liberty. In arguing this I am aided by Gandhi’s dictum—that I have always alluded to in my own writings—that he was engaged in not creating a new India but a new Indian; my reading of what he said has led me to conclude he meant a caring, humane, compassionate, egalitarian and an ethical Indian. To create an India with 1.4 billion ethical and progressive Indians requires a mammoth revolutionary change in our values; hence a Values’ Revolution.
At the moment I see the country’s civil society under constant attack by the forces of social division whereas in fact social solidarity and cohesion are sorely needed. A Values’ Revolution will require giant leaders; I see none on the scene today but I’m not disheartened because once begun the Revolution itself may, as do all revolutions, throw up the necessary giants.
You are an immigrant who has lived out of India for almost half a century. Do you think as part of the diaspora living outside India, we could all act together to heal a region broken by its own inability to live up to the vision created by those who wrote the constitution of the country? What would be your vision of India?
The diaspora coming together to even slightly nudge India forward is an emotionally compelling and noble thought; many of us constantly dream of doing something for the country we have left behind. Some of us do so while others revel in its imaginings only.
A major stumbling block to the diasporic unity on this question has been the ideological divisions amongst the Indians abroad which usually mirror India’s domestic political fault lines and unfortunately those difference have been only rendered sharper by the way elements of the diaspora have recently been employed in aid of India’s domestic political machinations. The old diasporic divisions now seem and feel more rabid; it is as if the political battles of India now rage equally actively in the diaspora itself.
I always dream of India as a caring, compassionate, egalitarian and ethical India. One that values all its citizens equally and brims with social and economic justice.
That is such a wonderful thought with which many of us agree wholeheartedly. You have written: “If humanity isn’t going to drown in the chaos of its own creation, the leading nations of the world will have to create a new world order, which may involve fewer international boundaries.” What is the world order you suggest?
For starter no order can be imposed by the so-called leading nations, no matter how powerful. It may take a significant amount of nudging and cajoling by them to change anything.
When I wrote my autobiography, I was imagining the world moving, at least to begin with, in the direction of regional groupings like the European Union. We saw that as the number of member states of the United Nations trended upwards, Europe witnessed the opposite where many countries dared to create the EU practically erasing borders; granted Britain rebelled – but even within its borders a referendum held today would most likely approve it re-joining the EU.
As a possible beginning for the rest of the world, our best hope lies in grand imaginings such as a South Asian Common Market at once reducing the expense of standing militaries staring angrily at each other across the borders; Southeast Asia, Africa, South America could follow; North American Free Trade Agreement already exists creating at least an economic union.
If to begin with the countries regionally moved toward the free flow of human beings along with the necessary and more convenient local trading, one could foresee the international will and desire developing toward a world populated by fewer borders and more freedom. Hopefully that would move humanity toward more international egalitarianism, prosperity and fewer wars.
Hopefully, the vision materialises. Thank you very much for giving us your time and wonderful books that make us think and emote.
First published in the collection titled Baethar Daan (Offerings of Pain, 1922), Kazi Nazrul Islam’s short story, Hena, is set against the backdrop of the First World War where the writer himself had fought as a young soldier (1917-1919). It has been translated by Sohana Manzoorand brought out to commemorate Nazrul’s 124th Birth Anniversary.
Nazrul in British Army uniformBaethar Daan or Offerings of Pain book cover
A trench in Verdun,France
This must be what they call rain of fire! And the sounds! The roaring sound of the artillery! Not a speck of blue sky can be seen– as if the whole sky has been set on fire. The thick rain of fire that pours down from the exploding cannonballs and bombs is so intense that if those were real raindrops trickling out of the blue eyes of the sky, the entire world would have been flooded just in a day. And if these sounds that were louder and more intense than any thunderstorm, would continue like this, people’s eardrums would split, turning them deaf. Today, we the soldiers could only recall the song that is sung during Holi celebrations:
“We will play holi with swords today,
All the soldiers of the world are gathered here
Shields playing the trumpets, cannon balls the squirt pumps
Ammunitions are colourful, the battle is intense.”
It is very true that the ammunition has caused the sky and ground to turn completely red. The reddest are the congealed blood on the bayonetted chests of the unfortunate ones! No other colour but red! As soldiers fall one by one, each one a martyr, they lie on the ground, dressed in red like bridegrooms!
Agh! The worst of all is the smoky smell. It is enough to turn your stomach. Are not human beings the best of all creations? Then why have them killed in such ugly and terrifying ways? When the inanimate lead bullets, hit someone’s bones, they explode with a horrid force and tear through the flesh.
If human beings used their intelligence in more productive ways, they could have claimed a place close to the angels. Oh, and this heart-rending thirst! The friend lying next to you, his rifle slipping from his hand, cannot be awakened even if a thousand cannons roar by his ear. No general can ever make him obey his orders. After fighting for seven days at a stretch in this muddy trench he has finally fallen asleep. He is finally at peace! A rare touch of soothing contentment lingers on his cold and dry lips.
But I feel so thirsty. Let me take the water-bottle from his waist and take a sip! I haven’t had a drop since yesterday. No one cared to offer me a drink. Aah…! This one sip feels so sweet! My Lewis gun doesn’t work anymore. It grew tired after days of continuous shooting. I will take the gun of my deceased friend then. If his mother, sister or wife were present here, they would surely have taken his broken skull on their laps and cry their hearts out! Well, I guess, in a few minutes, a heavy shell will land in front of the trench and bury the two of us! It won’t be too bad actually!
It is really funny as I think of the women crying. All of us will die one day, what is there to weep? Death is an eternal truth — why should one grieve over something that is so normal and inevitable?
I am going through so much pain, after receiving so many wounds, but my heart is filled with a demonic joy! I cannot sketch this feeling with this wooden pencil! There is often a joy that lies asleep at the heart of extreme pain which we can’t really feel! And is this habit of writing something bad? I have been swimming in fire, with scores of dead bodies under my feet and bombs dropped from aircraft bursting over my head, artillery shells are exploding and rifle and machinegun bullets are zooming past, still, deep inside, I feel restless because I couldn’t write down my innermost thoughts in the past seven days! But today, I feel relieved that I could start writing again!
Let me rest for a while, leaning against my dead friend. Ah, it feels so good!…
An unknown young girl of this distant land across the sea gave me some pickles and two slices of bread with butter which I haven’t had time to eat… The women of this country look at us with affection and pity! . . . . Ha ha ha, look at the bread here—these are dry and seem roasted! Let’s see if the bread is tougher than my teeth. I have no other option but to eat these — I am so hungry. The pickle is still quite fresh though!
That girl who was thirteen or fourteen (in our country, she would be wedded by now, if not already a mother), put her hands around my neck and kissed me. She said, “Brother, you must drive the enemy out with full force.” I broke into a pure, sad smile.
Ah! I can finally see the sky. A strip of blue sky can be seen behind the mass of heavy clouds. It is so beautiful– like a pair of blue eyes filled with tears! Anyway, I will write down my other thoughts later. The spirit of my dead friend must be mad at me by now. What, my friend, you want a drop of water? See, how he is staring at me! No, my friend, I tell you your beloved is waiting for you with a glass of lemonade in the other world. I would not want to disappoint her, would I?
Ah, I seem to remember so many things today. But no! There’s nothing to remember! These are all lies. Let me pick up the Lewis gun and start shooting. I see some of those who are helping me have stolen a nap!
But there, I can hear the sound of footsteps. They are all marching– left-right-left. That sound is so melodious! Are they coming to relieve us from duty?
Ouch! A moment of distraction has allowed a bullet to bruise my arm! Let me dress it. I hate those nurses. If a woman cares for me without loving me, why should I accept it? Ah! A war shows how killing others can be addictive.
The man who has fallen beside me is far stronger and healthier than me! But I have also seen how one’s mind has more strength than one’s body.
This Lewis gun is shooting about six to seven hundred rounds per minute. If only I could know how many I have killed! But the two Lewis guns here are keeping the enemies confined to their position. You can hear the loud groans of the enemies as they die in droves! The beauty of such youthful deaths is boundless!
A tent at the river Seine, France
I slept for all forty-eight hours of the last two days. And now I have to get dressed for battle and go out to destroy God’s creatures once again. The killing game is the right kind of activity for stone-hearted person like me.
Today that kind girl took me to visit her house… How clean and pretty are the houses here! The girl has clearly fallen in love with me. And I, too, have begun to love her… In our country, people would have said that the girl has gone bad… They would not have liked to see a young girl going out with a young man of twenty or twenty-one.
People look at love in such ugly ways these days! Are these human beings, or vultures? There is so much sin in the world! How did the people become so petty? The sky above is so vast and blue, but beneath the same sky human beings are so mean and narrow-minded!
Fire, you keep raining down! Let the curse of God float downward like frozen chunks of ice… Oh the horn of Israfil[1]! Do blow and immobilize the world! Oh, the thunder of destruction, strike inside the human brains, like the bombs and the artillery shells. And let the entire sky fall on the heads of those people who slander love, and blight the flowers…
If I could dress up one of my countrymen the way I am dressed now, and pushed him down, I am sure he wouldn’t be able to get up, no matter how hard he tried. I am highly amused at my bulky and sluggish appearance.
A ‘wicked’ friend once commented “What pleasing looks!” What a weird adjective! And another one is supposed have said, “The bullock looks like a katla fish!”
A thick forest near Paris, France
All on a sudden, we were sent to this dense forest yesterday. I have no clue why we had to fall back. This is the beauty of military life—an order is given and you are told “Get it done!” You can never ask “Why do I have to do this,” or ask for an explanation. It’s an order –that’s all!”
If I say, “I am going to die,” a stern voice will reply, “As long as you breathe, keep on doing what you are doing, if you fall dead on your right foot while you are marching, let your left foot keep up the pace!”
There is a strange beauty in obeying orders with blind obedience! What tenderness it is that lies at the heart of a thunder! If the entire world could come under one (and only) such military regime, then it would turn out so beautiful that even calling it a heaven on earth would not be enough.
The British nation is so great now because of the discipline they exercise on everything they do. They walk so tall that we can never see the crown of their heads no matter how hard we crane our necks — and let our headgears fall off while doing that! To speak frankly, their empire is like a huge clock that is always correct and faultless. Its two hands run in precision. The clock is oiled every day so there is no speck of rust anywhere.
We were the ones who chased the Germans to the Hindenburg Line and then we had to retreat so far! Only the maker of the clock knows which hand has to move at what pace, but the hands don’t know anything about it. But the hands have to keep ticking because these are continuously driven by a spring from the rear.
We badly need a disciplined, clockwork system like this. This reckless nation of ours really needs to be tied up and disciplined; otherwise, there is no hope of it rising anytime in future! If everybody wants to be the leader, who will do the work?
Oh, the artillery shells raining on us even at this distance! This is really uncanny… The war is being fought so far away but cannon-balls are dropping on us in the forest!
Well, an elephant might think that it is the biggest animal in the world. But even a mosquito can cause it enough trouble through a single bite in its head.
It’s cool in this shady darkness here. How my heart had been yearning for this solace in darkness.
Alas! Darkness seems to trigger in my mind so many fond memories! But, no, let me just climb up the tree and see if any enemy is hiding nearby.
How charming that distant ice-covered river looks from the tree! But there are also some big houses around which shells have torn through, leaving ugly gaping holes! This game of destruction reminds me of my childhood when we used to build clay doll’s houses. After we were done with our play, we used to crush them with our feet and sing:
“We made them gleefully with our hands
We broke them gleefully with our feet!”
The cannon-balls are flying through the air and dropping on distant planes, and from my vantage point, they look like falling stars.
And the sound these fighter planes are making! Oh! The way they are climbing and diving– it looks as if an expert kite flier is maneuvering his fighter-kite to hurtle through the sky in search of a rival. That plane is ours! The German zeppelins look from a distant more like big, flying caterpillars.
Anyway, let me get a bit of pickle out of my haversack. That foreign girl is so far away from me today but the pickle seems to retain her touch! Hell! What am I doing? Why do I keep on thinking of all this gibberish? I don’t need the pain that arises from nowhere and tortures me!
Well, well! What do I see there? A friend of mine is trying to take a nap on that tree. See, he has tied himself with his belt to a branch quite tightly. If he somehow falls in the water below, it will be quite a hassle for him! But then why not? Oh God, let him fall!
Should I shoot a bullet past his ear? Ah, no! Poor thing! Let him sleep awhile. Nobody except me has such hapless eyes that sleep never touches, or a blasted mind like mine which gets sick thinking about the goings on in the world. It’s night – quite deep into the night, I guess! I will have to stay here in this crouching position till dawn…. Perhaps when I am old (if I live that long), the trials I am going through will turn into sweet memories.
The light of the moon, which will turn into a full moon tomorrow night, is creating patterns of light and shadow in the forest below, which make the forest look like a giant cheetah! The heavy, dark clouds over my head are slowly drifting towards some unknown destination. A few drops of cool water fall on my head. Ah, how sad these drops feel! Ah!
The moon is now hidden by a cloud, and now it shoots out and hides behind another cloud! It seems like a game of peekaboo played by beauties living in the glass palace of a king. Who is running in the sky now? The clouds or the moon? I would say the clouds but a simple child might say the moon. Who is right? Aha! How lovely is the play of light and shadow!
What’s that bird cooing in the distance? The delicate tones of the bird songs of this country seem to evoke a sweet laziness… I find them intoxicating.
In this light and shadow, I remember so many things! But the memory is so full of pain.
I recall telling her, “I love you so much, Hena.”
Hena shook her raven black silky hair and replied, “But Sohrab, I haven’t been able to love you.”
That day, the bright saffron flowers seemed to be playing a game to welcome the new day in the garden of Balochistan. Unmindfully, I broke a branch of walnut and collected some flowers from the deodar tree and threw them at her feet.
A few drops of tears trickled down her dark eyes lined with Istanbul kohl! Her face turned redder than her henna dyed hands!
I picked up a bunch of raw plums and threw them at the nightingale sitting in bush of screw pine flowers. The birds stopped singing and few away.
What Human beings think is the closest turns out to be the farthest from them! This is indeed a profound mystery! Hena! Oh Hena! There’s just so much regret…!
Hindenburg Line
Oh! What is this place? I cannot believe that this is an underground land of fairies and monsters! Can a trench built during the wartimes be really as huge as a city full of houses? Who could have imagined this? What a gigantic venture so deep down underground! This is indeed another wonder of the world! One can live as luxuriously as the Nabobs of Bengal in this place!
But I did not come here for the peace it offers! I did not ask for comfort. I only wanted pain and suffering. I am not made for enjoyment and comfort! I would have to seek out another path then. It seems like I found a house under the tamarind tree in trying to escape from tasting sour things.
No, I need to be active. I want to drown myself in work. But this life of comfort here is embarrassing!
I heard that iron turns into steel when it burns in fire. What about human beings? Only ‘baptised’?
Being freed of restraints, my mind has fled again to that room full of grapes and pomegranates! I recall those days again!
“Hena, I’m about to jump into the fire that burns in a free country. I am burning inside, so let my body burn too! Maybe, I will never return. But what means do I have? How do I find travel expenses? How will I live in the foreign land?”
Hena’s henna-dyed fingers trembled like young shoots in my hands. She replied in a clear voice, “But that’s not how your life becomes meaningful, Sohrab! This is only the hot-headed youthfulness! You’re clinging to a lie! There is still time for you to get the message!… See I’ve not been able to love you yet.”
All is empty. Nothing remains. A gusty wind blew through the thick tamarisk trees and cried, “Ah!… Ah!… Ah! When the first battalion of our Baloch Regiment 127 started off for this country from Quetta, one of my friends, a young Bengali doctor, sang while sitting under a pear tree:
“How will you make him return
The one you bade farewell in tears.
In this languid air
At night in the garden
Have you recalled him under the bakul tree?
How will you make him return!
The honeymoon of the full moon
Returns from time to time,
But the one who has gone, does not come back!
Now how will you make him return?”
How weak I am! No wonder I did not want to come to this place. What would I do in this palatial life? Fellows of my regiment think there is no one as carefree and happy as I am. It’s because I laugh a lot. Does anybody know how much blood is hidden in the heart of the henna leaves?
I played “Home sweet home” on the piano and sang along so beautifully that the French were amazed! It was as if we are not human beings and so we cannot do anything as well as them! We have to break such preconceived notions.
Hindenburg Line
What else can I do if there’s no work? I have to find something to do. So last night I crawled for about a couple of miles and cut through much of their wires. Nobody seemed to notice.
My commanding officer said, “You’ll be rewarded for this.”
So, I became a corporal today.
The other day, I met that foreign girl too. She has grown much prettier in these two years! She told me directly that if I had no objection, she would like to have me as her partner! I told her, “That’s impossible!”
I said to myself, “A blind man loses his staff only once. Again? No way. I have had enough.”
The way her blue eyes filled with tears and her bosom heaved made a stone-hearted person like me cry!
She controlled herself and said, “But you’ll allow me to love you? Like a brother at least…?”
I am just a god forsaken wayfarer. So, I showed a lot of interest and replied, “Of course.” Then she left bidding me adieu. She never came back! I can only recall that line, “But the one who has gone does not come back.” Oh!
Anyway, the day was well-spent with the Gurkhas. These Gurkhas were really like big babies. I would not have believed that grown men could be so naive and innocent. These Gurkhas and their brothers-in-law, the Garwhals– both turn into killing machines in the battle field! Each of them turns into a tiger, a “Sher-e-Babbar.” Even the Germans throw away their rifles and run off at the sight of their kukri knives. If these two fighter groups did not exist, we would never be able to achieve this much. Only a handful of them are still alive. Entire regiments of them have perished. Yet, the few of them that are still alive are so full of life, as if nothing has happened!
Nobody can make them understand what great feat they have achieved. And those tall and sturdy Sikhs—what betrayers they have turned out to be! Some shot themselves in the arm and ended up at the hospital.
Look there! There is a battalion ‘march’ going on in the trench. We are marching at the beat of a French band! Left- right-left. A thousand people are all marching at the same pace– all at once. How amazing!
Balochistan
My cottage in Quetta
In the grapevine garden
What happened? I am trying to find out an answer to the question, sitting in this walnut and pear garden. All our Indian soldiers have returned home, and so have I. But how happily did those two years pass by!
I am looking at the blue sky washed by rain, which reminds me of the wide blue eyes of the young French woman. Looking at the mountain-yaks I remember her silky curly hair. And those ripe grapes– aren’t they exactly like the sparkling tears of her eyes?
After becoming an ‘officer’ I also received the title “Sardar Bahadur.” My boss would not let go of me. How could I make him understand that I was not there to form a permanent bond? I did not cross the seas with any high ideals. I only went to purify myself in fire — to hide myself too.
And I never thought I would return here of all places. But I had to– it seems I am tied to this land!
I have no one, I have nothing. And yet I feel, everything is here. Who am I trying to comfort?
I have not hurt anybody; nobody hurt me. Then why was I reluctant to come here? But that’s a matter of unspeakable agony. I can’t articulate it well enough. Hena! Oh! There’s nobody around, still the wind carries the broken echo “na…na”. “No” it is then!
The brook still flows through the hill; only the girl Hena, whose footprints are still etched on the stone-steps, is no longer there. There are so many things lying around that remind me of her soft touch.
Hena! Hena! Hena! Again that echo! Na –Na- Na!
***
I have found her! She is — here. Hena! My Hena! I saw you here today, here in Peshawar! Why do you keep hiding the truth behind those lies? She watched me from a distance and cried. She did not utter a word; she only looked at me and shed tears.
In such meetings, tears are the most articulate language of the heart. She told me again that she could not bring herself to love me. The moment she uttered the word “no” she cried so dejectedly that even the morning air became mournful!
The biggest puzzle in this world is the mind of a woman!
Kabul
Dakka camp
When I heard that the great man Ameer Habibullah Khan had been martyred, I felt that the top of the Hindukush had collapsed! And Suleiman Mountain must have been torn out of its base!
And I wondered what I should do. For ten days, I kept on thinking. It was no easy task!
I decided that I would fight for Ameer. Why? Well, there’s no answer to that question. But let me say candidly that I do not consider the British as my enemy. I have always thought of them as my best friends. But even if I say the reason for my joining the war this time was to protect the weak, even if it meant sacrificing my life, it won’t be quite the right answer. Even I do not understand my own whims!
That morning, someone seemed to have set fire to the pomegranates. They looked bright red! That was perhaps the blood from the hearts of many like me!
The vast sky had just paused after crying incessantly. Its eyes are still misty, so it would start crying again. A broken-hearted cuckoo had also been weeping somewhere, turning its eyes red and its voice rang through the damp winds of the autumnal morning. Someone on the other side of the dried river was playing the Asawari raga[2]on the shehnai. Its notes echoed the doleful cries of a lonely heart. I felt the sadness more than anyone else. The strong smell of henna flowers intoxicated me.
I said, “Hena, I am going to war again, to fight for the Ameer. I won’t come back. Even if I live, I won’t come back.”
Hena buried herself in my chest and cried, “Sohrab, my love! Yes, go wherever you will. Now is the time to tell you how much I love you. I won’t hide the truth anymore. I won’t cause my love further pain….”
I understood. She was a warrior-woman, a daughter of the Afghans. Even though being an Afghan myself I have spent my entire life fighting, she had wanted me to sacrifice my life at the feet of our country. She wanted me to sacrifice my life for our land.
O, the heart of a woman! How could you hide yourself like this? What perseverance! How could such a soft-hearted woman be so tough at the same time?
Kabul
My body has taken five bullets. But until the moment I lost consciousness, I had defended my soldiers with all my strength!
O my God! If protecting my country with my blood makes me a martyr, then I am a martyr.
I came back. Hena followed me like a shadow. How could she hold back so much love that flowed like a rapid tumbling uncontrollably down the mountain with her fragile ribcage!
The Ameer has given me a place in his court. I am one of the commanders of his army.
And Hena? There is Hena, sleeping by my side, clinging to my chest…. Her heart is still fluttering with some unknown fear. Her sighs are still pervading the winds with some dissatisfaction.
The poor girl has also been badly wounded like me! Let her sleep. No, we’ll sleep together. O God — don’t give us any more pain by waking us up from this pleasurable sleep! Hena! Hena! –na—na—Ah!
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[1] The angel who blows the trumpet on the day of judgement in Islam.
[2] A morning raga or melodic composition in the Hindustani classical tradition.
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Kazi Nazrul Islam(1899-1976) was born in united Bengal, long before the Partition. Known as the Bidrohi Kobi, or “rebel poet”. Nazrul is now regarded as the national poet of Bangladesh though he continues a revered name in the Indian subcontinent. In addition to his prose and poetry, Nazrul wrote about 4000 songs.
Sohana Manzoor is an Associate Professor at the Department of English and Humanities at ULAB, a short story writer, a translator, an essayist and an artist.
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