India is perhaps the one country where the Jews have maintained their identity without ever being exposed to antisemitism at the hands of their host. Although representing a microscopic segment of the Indian population, the Bene Israel is one of the largest and oldest of the three major Jewish communities of India, the other two being the Cochin Jews of the Malabar Coast and the Baghdadi Jews of Bombay and Calcutta. The Bene Israels arrived at the Konkan coast, shipwrecked, and have lived in India for more than 2,000 years and claim descent from the ten lost tribes of Israel. After they had settled down permanently in the Konkan villages of Western Maharashtra, the Bene Israels were called ‘Shaniwar Telis’ or Saturday oil pressers – a relatively low-caste designation – by the local population because they refrained from working on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Later, they also farmed their land, peddled produce, and took up petty jobs, with the majority working as clerks in government offices and private firms. With time, they adopted Hindu names similar to their Biblical names and took up Marathi surnames such as Rohekar, Penkar, Palkar, and Ashtamkar by adding the suffix ‘-kar’ to the villages and town they came from. They adopted Marathi, the local language, as their mother tongue, and to outsiders, became physically indistinguishable from the local population. But within the village society, the Bene Israels were clearly differentiated from others because they adhered to Judaism. Initially overtones of a caste system coloured the Bene Israelis but they changed with time. Intermarriages between other Jewish communities became common.
With the formation of the nation-state of Israel in 1948, the exodus of the Jews of India took place on a very large scale, and only a few hundred members were left in Gujarat. Initially the integration of the Bene Israels into Israeli society was not easy and many of them returned to India but re-emigrated to Israel later after 1964 when their religious status was finally accepted.
Miss Samuel: A Jewish Indian Saga is written by Sheela Rohekar, a Bene Israel Jew, who is probably the sole-living Jewish Hindi author, and she managed to recreate the distinct identity of her own community. Bearing across life histories of her ancestors, she seeks answers to those questions that troubled her in the novel. Originally written in Hindi, it is aptly translated into English for the first time by Madhu Singh, a professor of English teaching at the University of Lucknow. The novel is narrated by Miss Seema Samuel, an almost 70-year-old Bene Israel living at an old age home called Parisar on the outskirts of Pune, and it portrays her unsuccessful struggle to fit into a majoritarian Hindu society along with the plight of being an unmarried woman in India. She tells the story of her community, of their trials and tribulations, love and loss, and their longing for ‘Aliyah’ — the return to the Promised Land of Israel. Shifting from the Konkani shores to the bustling streets of Ahmedabad (called Amdavad in the local parlance), and finally to the tranquility of an old-age home, each generation of Seema’s family grapples with the tension between their Jewish faith and Indian identity, struggling with their fear of persecution on the one hand and a yearning for acceptance on the other.
In the novel, apart from giving a macrocosmic view of the Bene Israel community which makes its members victims of isolation and alienation from mainstream Indians, and depicting their ancient history and present status, Sheela Rohekar also very deftly presents the microcosmic view of the extended family of her community along with the problems of cross-cultural liaisons and the problems each individual member of her family faces. She states: “But some images embed themselves in the mind, not in the eyes, and chase you – all your life. The role of time in fusing images is not much but the trick of a fading memory. They light up in a flash!”
Since her narration spans six generations and moves deftly backwards and forwards in time, in some places it becomes difficult for the readers to keep track of who’s who in the narrative and occasionally one must go back to the family tree chart at the beginning to place the characters in their proper perspective.
Miss Seema tells the story of Isaji Eloji, who, having married a Hindu woman named Narayani, is believed to have ‘blackened’ the Jewish name. Two generations later, burdened by his grandfather’s transgression, David Reuben stops at nothing to keep his Jewish identity pure, even poisoning his daughter Lily for loving a non-Jewish man.
Again, years later, his son Samuel David (Miss Seema’s father) finds that his Jewish identity makes him an outsider in his own country; and his grandson, Bobby, faces persecution of the worst kind – when he is murdered by a mob in Ahmedabad. It is through reading the loose notes and a long essay that Bobby had left behind that Seema manages to tell us the background history of their community. With his collection of yellow, crumbling newspaper cuttings about the Jews, old coins, badges, awards, certificates, degrees, and moth-eaten black and white photographs that were around 150 years old, Bobby tried to illuminate the path taken by the fellow members of his community – the Bene Israel, the pardesi, the foreigners – whom the people of Amdavad did not know in the twentieth century and believed to be Maharashtrians or converted Christians. The story of how his brother, David, and his Hindu wife. Jyotsna Prajapati, managed to throw Seema out of their apartment in Gitanjali Society also reminds us about such machinations that prevail in our Indian society in general. Through the different tales, the narrator remains a constant, and her memories commingling the past with the present are deftly handled by the novelist.
Further, Miss Samuel becomes a key novel to understand not only for its Indian-Jewish identity but also its multicultural Indian identity and its challenges in the present time. The old age home, Parisar, is not at all a closed space and it opens to new forms of solidarity among elderly abandoned women who, though belonging to different faiths and identities, abandon their frustration with the twists of patriarchal society to discover the meaning of friendship, love and solidarity.
Seema writes: “The campus where I live is surrounded by hills. There is silence, always. I can see residents of my age, some even older, shuffle from one room to another. Constructed at a distance of two hours from Pune, all stories seem to end up here, in this building.” Parisar is thus a model of a tolerant society that not only accepts differences but even respects, maintains and transcends them at the same time. The translation is lucid, and the translator labels her endeavour as ‘interpretive performance’ and a journey beyond imaginary borders. A good read indeed.
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Somdatta Mandal, critic and translator, is a former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Jibanananda Das’ poems on war and for the common masses have been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
A Scene with an Aged Queen, a poem by Ihlwha Choi has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Clickhere to read.
Tagore’sEsho Bosonto, Esho Aj Tumi(Come Spring, Come Today) has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.
Pandies’ Corner
For Sanjay Kumar: To Sir — with Love has been written for the founder of pandies’ theatre by Tanvir, a youngster from the Nithari village where pandies’ worked with traumatised victims. Over time, these kids have transcended the trauma to lead fulfilling lives. The late Sanjay Kumar passed on this January. This is a tribute to him by one of his students. It has been translated from the Hindustani original by Lourdes M Surpiya. Click here to read.
Drops of water gather to make a wave. The waves make oceans that reshape land masses over time…
Five years ago, on March 14th, in the middle of the pandemic, five or six of us got together to start an online forum called Borderless Journal. The idea was to have a space that revelled with the commonality of felt emotions. Borderless was an attempt to override divisive human constructs and bring together writers and ideators from all over the Earth to have a forum open to all people — a forum which would be inclusive, tolerant, would see every individual as a part of the fauna of this beautiful planet. We would be up in the clouds — afloat in an unbordered stratosphere— to meet and greet with thoughts that are common to all humans, to dream of a world we can have if we choose to explore our home planet with imagination, kindness and love. It has grown to encompass contributors from more than forty countries, and readers from all over the world — people who have the same need to reach out to others with felt emotions and common concerns.
Borderless not only celebrates the human spirit but also hopes to create over time a vibrant section with writings on the environment and climate change. We launch the new section today on our fifth anniversary.
Devraj Singh Kalsi with a soupçon of ironic amusement muses on humans’ attitude to the fauna around him and Farouk Gulsara lays on a coating of sarcasm while addressing societal norms. Meredith Stephens brings us concerns for a green Earth when she beachcombs in a remote Australian island. Prithvijeet Sinha continues to familiarise us with his city, Lucknow. Suzanne Kamata, on the other hand travels to Rwanda to teach youngsters how to write a haiku!
Professor Fakrul Alam takes us to libraries in Dhaka with the hope that more will start writing about the waning of such paradises for book lovers. Other than being the month that hosts World Environment Day, March also homes, International Women’s Day. Commemorating the occasion, we have essays from Meenakshi Malhotra on the past poetry of women and from Ratnottama Sengupta on women in Bengali Cinema. Sengupta has also interviewed Poulami Bose Chatterjee, the daughter of the iconic actor Soumitra Chatterjee to share with us less-known vignettes from the actor’s life. Keith Lyons has interviewed Malaysian writer-editor Daphne Lee to bring to us writerly advice and local lores on ghosts and hauntings.
We also have a translation by Lourdes M Supriya from Hindustani of a student’s heartrending cry to heal from grief for a teacher who faced an untimely end — a small dirge from Tanvir, a youngster with his roots in Nithari violence who transcended his trauma to teach like his idol and tutor, the late Sanjay Kumar. With this, we hope to continue with the pandies corner, with support from Lourdes and Anuradha Marwah, Kumar’s partner.
Borderless has grown in readership by leaps and bounds. There have been requests for books with writings from our site. On our fifth anniversary, we plan to start bringing out the creative writing housed in Borderless Journal in different volumes. We had brought out an anthology in 2022. It was well received with many reviews. But we have many gems, and each writer is valued here. Therefore, Rhys Hughes, one of our editorial board members, has kindly consented to create a new imprint to bring out books from the Borderless Journal. We are very grateful to him.
We are grateful to the whole team, our contributors and readers for being with us through our journey. We would not have made it this far without each one of you. Special thanks to Sohana Manzoor for her artwork too, something that has almost become synonymous with the cover page of our journal. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
Wish you all happy reading! Do pause by our content’s page and take a look at all the wonderful writers.
Titles: Little Lhasa: Reflections in Exiled Tibet and Tibetan Suitcase
Author: Tsering Namgyal Khortsa
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
Following the forced escape of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in March 1959, thousands of Tibetans were forced to flee Tibet, and it was these refugees who formed the early exiled community. The refugee community now stands at a figure of around 130,000, with Tibetans spread across numerous settlements in India, Nepal and Bhutan, and thousands more displaced all around the world. The Tibetan government in exile is based in Dharamsala, India. It is called the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) and was founded in 1959 by the 14th Dalai Lama. In the 1980s, a second wave of Tibetans fled due to political repression. The CTA advocates for human rights, self-determination, and the preservation of religion and culture for Tibetans. The CTA has a parliament, judiciary, and executive branch and its principles include truth, non-violence, and genuine democracy. The Dalai Lama has said that the exile administration would be dissolved as soon as freedom is restored in Tibet.
After over seventy years of being in exile, a whole generation of Tibetans have come of age in a land far from home. With the Dalai Lama and other great masters as their spiritual guides, they have grown up cut off from their homeland. Their experiences have been unique, as they have, despite globalization, kept alive their religion and culture. In Little Lhasa: Reflections in Exiled Tibet, Tsering Namgyal Khortsa writes comprehensively about the different aspects of their life today. Comprising of ten essays and six interviews, this volume becomes an eye-opener on the multifarious aspects of the present situation of Tibetans at large. Beginning with different writers writing about Tibet and exile in the very first essay titled ‘Little Lhasa’, the next one ‘Shangrila Online’ tells us about the role of social media, internet cafes and how technology in remote Dharamsala often enables one to participate in other people’s experiences in real time. The writer describes in detail how such lifestyle changes in contemporary times have enabled the creation of a “virtual Tibet”. In the next essay ‘Buddha’s Children’, Khortsa describes the young generation of exiled children in India and how their religious identity has triumphed over all other identities. We are also told about the different kinds of foreigners who come to India to take religious courses, and the writer wonders whether they go home feeling merely inspired by their visit to India and their meetings with Tibetan masters or whether such exposure and experience actually triggers a paradigm shift in the way they view the world.
In the next essay we are told how Tibetans lead demonstrations in Dharamsala and other parts of India every year, especially the one held on March 10th that commemorates the anniversary of the failed uprising against Chinese invasion. ‘Movies and Meditation’ mentions a film festival in Dharamsala which reveals how recent Tibetan films highlight a growing and vibrant filmmaking community within the Tibetan diaspora, but Khortsa laments the paucity of full-length films about Tibetans in exile and the issues they confront, namely patriotism, individualism, and reconciliation of personal fulfilment with the Tibetan cause. The titles of the three following essays, ‘Dharma Talk’, ‘The Lure of India’ and ‘The Monk at Manali’ are self-explanatory. The last essay of this section ‘Nation of Stories’ tells us about writers who write and publish in the English language, and though diverse in terms of their education, upbringing, background and geographical location, one common condition that they all share is the collective trauma of the Chinese occupation of Tibet, which is invariably a leitmotif in Tibetan literature.
Part Two consists of six interviews, each one different in perspective than the other, and they must be mentioned here to understand the kaleidoscopic nature of the people involved in the Tibetan cause. Thus, we have conversations with Lisa Gray as ‘A Western Buddhist’, Ananda Nand Agnihotri as ‘An Indian Tibetan Buddhist,’ Ngawang Woeber, ‘An Ex-Political Prisoner’, Nyima Dhondup, ‘A Swiss Tibetan’, Tenzing Sonam, ‘A Tibetan Writer and Filmmaker’ and Tenphun, ‘The Tibetan Poet’. All in all, Little Lhasa becomes a valuable record of the life of a people who refuse to bow down or forget, and even while adapting to a rapidly changing world, continue to nurture their roots.
II
After the non-fiction, Tsering Namgyal Khortsa comes up with a brilliant piece of fiction and read together, each text complements the other beautifully. In the ‘Editor’s Note’ at the very beginning of the novel Tibetan Suitcase, Tsering Namgyal Khortsa tells us that while he was working as a business journalist in Hong Kong he once ran into Dawa Tashi, an old acquaintance and an aspiring novelist from Dharamsala, India who was working as a meditation teacher and was quite busy with his job. He had a suitcase full of letters and documents and wanted him to turn the contents of the suitcase into a book. After going through the collection, Khortsa discovered that the contents of the suitcase, if organized with care and discipline, could indeed make for an epistolary novel. So, he declares that except for correcting a few typos here and there and add note and datelines to the letters, he had not done anything. He also categorically states, “None of the letters are mine, except some entries that I wrote, making the book partly fictionalized.” He also wanted to leave room for readers to imagine (or ‘feel’ for themselves) what is not mentioned in the book, in deference to the Tibetan culture of reticence and taciturnity, rather than turning himself into an all-knowing chatterbox.
Tibetan Suitcase is a remarkable novel about the peripatetic Tibetan community in exile. It is divided into six parts, beginning roughly from 1995 to 2000. It opens in Hong Kong where a tycoon Peter Wong opens a meditation centre and employs Dawa Tashi, our protagonist as a meditation teacher and a guru, though he is not really trained to be a lama. Dawa Tashi is an India-born Tibetan. His parents fled Tibet when the Chinese invaded, and Dawa has grown up in the quiet, verdant Indian Himalayas. When Dawa applies to a well-known university in America (Appleton University in Wisconsin) to pursue a course in creative writing, his hitherto ordinary life changes dramatically. At the university he befriends, and falls in love with, Iris Pennington, an unusual American student who is studying Buddhist literature. He also comes in contact with Khenchen Sangpo, a renowned scholar of Buddhism and a reincarnated Rinpoche himself. Circumstances lead Dawa back to India too soon, but the connections he makes take his life into many new directions. Some, with Iris and Khenchen, take him deeper into the mystical and mysterious world of Buddhist scholarship. Other journeys take him back to his roots, making him question his life’s directions.
Apart from the interesting incidents and characters we meet in the first four parts of the novel, Part Five is an exceptionally engrossing to read. Beginning with the reportage in the Fall Issue of the journal Meridian, which is edited by Brent Rinehart, we are told that on his seventy-ninth birthday Khenchen decided that he had to go back to Tibet to see his native land. Having gained a quick residency status in the United States, and possessing an American passport, Khenchen still had many relatives in Tibet, some of them quite alive and well, despite the Chinese occupation. He travels to Lhasa in 1996 and goes for a trip to Lake Manasarovar but things take a different turn when he is arrested by the Chinese authority because he was apparently “endangering national security”. What follows are different press releases from the US Statement Department, reports from the International Association of Tibetan Studies in London, address by the President of Appleton University and as Iris writes to Dawa, she never expected herself to be so politically involved and “did not realize Tibet was such a political subject”. It was ironic that one of the world’s most spiritual places was one of its most burning political issues. Tibet might be a small place, but it has a reasonably big space in the collective consciousness of the world. Of course, Khenchen Sangpo is ultimately released and without disclosing the actual ending of the novel, which in a circular fashion ends in Hong Kong from where it began, many loose ends are tied up and life came to a full circle for everybody, especially for Iris Pennington who finally managed to find her roots.
Both the non-fiction and the fiction book by Tsering Namgyal Khortsa prove to be eye-openers for all readers who have very little knowledge about the sorrow and plight of the uprooted Tibetans who live in exile and many of whom do not even have a country to call their own. Based in Dehradun, India at present, Khortsa’s narratives are so powerful that it has aptly prompted Speaking Tiger Books to reprint the updated versions of both the books in 2024 and one can call it a yeoman service to readers both serious and casual. A must read.
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Somdatta Mandal, critic and translator, is a former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Tumi Kon Kanoner Phulby Tagore andAnjali Loho Morby Nazrul, love songs by the two greats, have been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click hereto read.
One Life, One Love, 300 Children : Keith Lyons writes of Tendol Gyalzur, a COVID 19 victim, a refugee and an orphan who found new lives for many other orphans with love and an ability to connect. Click here to read.
When West Meets East & Greatness Blooms: Debraj Mookerjee reflects on how syncretism impacts greats like Tagore,Tolstoy, Emerson, Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi and many more. Click here to read.
Dilip Kumar: Kohinoor-e-Hind: In a tribute to Bollywood legend Dileep Kumar, Ratnottama Sengupta, one of India’s most iconic arts journalists, recollects the days the great actor sprinted about on the sets of Bombay’s studios …spiced up with fragments from the autobiography of Sengupta’s father, Nabendu Ghosh. Click here to read.
Are Some of Us More Human than Others ?: Meenakshi Malhotra ponders at the exclusivity that reinforces divisions, margins and borders that continue to plague humankind, against the backdrop of the Women’s Month, March. Click here to read.
Reminiscences from a Gallery: MF Husain: Dolly Narang recounts how she started a gallery more than four decades ago and talks of her encounter with world renowned artist, MF Husain. Click hereto read.
Baraf Pora (Snowfall) by Rabindranath Tagore,gives a glimpse of his first experience of snowfall in Brighton and published in the Tagore family journal, Balak (Children), has been translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal. Clickhere to read.
Cherry Blossom Forecast: Suzanne Kamata brings the Japanese ritual of cherry blossom viewing to our pages with her camera and words. Clickhere to read.
Two Pizza Fantasies, Rhys Hughes recounts myths around the pizza in prose, fiction and poetry, Click here to read.
An Alien on the Altar!: Snigdha Agrawal writes of how a dog and lizard add zest to festivities with a dollop of humour. Click here to read.
Where it all Began: Sybil Pretious recounts her first adventure, an ascent on Mt Kilimanjaro at the age of sixty. Clickhere to read.
Conversations
Rabindranath Tagore: A Universal Bard.: This conversation between Aruna Chakravarti and Sunil Gangopadhyay that took place at a Tagore Conference organised by the Sahitya Akademi in Kochy in 2011. Click here to read.
Sriniketan: Tagore’s “Life Work”: In Conversation with Professor Uma Das Gupta, Tagore scholar, author of A History of Sriniketan, where can be glimpsed what Tagore considered his ‘life’s work’ as an NGO smoothening divides between villagers and the educated. Click here to read. (Review & Interview).
In conversation with the late Akbar Barakzai, a Balochi poet in exile who rejected an award from Pakistan Academy of Letters for his principles. Click here to read.
Jim Goodman, an American traveler, author, ethnologist and photographer who has spent the last half-century in Asia, converses with Keith Lyons. Click here to read.
InBridge over Troubled Waters, the late Sanjay Kumar tells us about Pandies, an activist theatre group founded by him that educates, bridging gaps between the divides of university educated and the less fortunate who people slums or terror zones. Click here to read.
In Lessons Old and New from a Stray Japanese Cat, Keith Lyons talks with the author of The Cat with Three Passports, CJ Fentiman who likes the anonymity loaned by resettling in new places & enjoys creating a space for herself away from her birthplace. Click hereto read.
Fiction
Aparichitaby Tagore: This short story has been translated as The Stranger by Aruna Chakravarti. Click hereto read.
Hena by Nazrul has been translated from Bengali by Sohana Manzoor. Click here to read.
Playlets byRabindranath Tagore: Two skits that reveal the lighter side of the poet. They have been translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.
Abhagi’s Heaven, a poignant story by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay translated by Aruna Chakravarti. Click here to read.
An Eternal Void, a Balochi story by Munir Ahmed Badini translated by Fazal Baloch. Click hereto read.
The Witch, a short story by renowned Bengali writer Tarasankar Bandopadhyay (1898 to 1971), translated by Aruna Chakravarti. Clickhere to read.
I Grew into a Flute: Balochi Folktale involving magic retold by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Give Me A Rag, Please:A short story by Nabendu Ghosh, translated by Ratnottama Sengupta, set in the 1943 Bengal Famine, which reflects on man’s basic needs. Click here to read
Rakhamaninov’s Sonata: A short story by Sherzod Artikov, translated from Uzbeki by Nigora Mukhammad. Click hereto read.
The Magic Staff , a poignant short story about a Rohingya child by Shaheen Akhtar, translated from Bengali by Arifa Ghani Rahman. Click here to read.
Khaira, the Blind, a story by Nadir Ali, has been translated from Punjabi by Amna Ali. Click here to read.
The Browless Dolls by S.Ramakrishnan, has been translated from Tamil by B Chandramouli. Click hereto read.
No Man’s Land: Sohana Manzoor gives us surrealistic story reflecting on after-life. Click hereto read.
The Protests Outside: Steve Ogah talks of trauma faced by riot victims in Nigeria. Click here to read.
Flash Fiction: Turret: Niles M Reddick relates a haunting tale of ghosts and more. Click here to read.
Henrik’s Journey: Farah Ghuznavi follows a conglomerate of people on board a flight to address issues ranging from Rohingyas to race bias. Click hereto read.
Does this Make Me a Psychic?; Erwin Coombs tells a suspenseful, funny, poignant and sad story, based on his real life experiences. Click here to read.
Phôs and Ombra: Paul Mirabile weaves a dark tale about two people lost in a void. Click here to read.
A Queen is Crowned: Farhanaz Rabbani traces the awakening of self worth. Click here to read.
Borderless Journal started on March, 14, 2020. When the mayhem of the pandemic had just set in, we started as a daily with half-a-dozen posts. Having built a small core of writings by July, 2020, we swung to become a monthly. And we still continue to waft and grow…
Art by Sohana Manzoor
We like to imagine ourselves as floating on clouds and therefore of the whole universe. Our team members are from multiple geographies and we request not to be tied down to a single, confined, bordered land. We would welcome aliens if they submitted to us from another galaxy…
On our Fifth Anniversary, we have collected celebratory greetings from writers and readers stretched across the world who share their experience of the journal with you and offer suggestions for the future. We conclude with words from some of the team, including my own observations on being part of this journey.
Aruna Chakravarti
Heartiest congratulations to Borderless on the occasion of its fifth anniversary! Borderless, an international journal, has the distinction of carrying contributions from many eminent writers from around the world. From its initiation in 2020, it has moved from strength to strength under the sensitive and skillful steering of its team. Today it is considered one of the finest journals of its kind. I feel privileged to have been associated with Borderless from its very inception and have contributed substantially to it. I wish to thank the team for including my work in their distinguished journal. May Borderless move meaningfully towards the future and rise to greater and greater heights! I wish it every success.
Professor Fakrul Alam
Five years ago, when Borderless set out on its literary voyage, who would have imagined the length and breadth of its imaginative crossings in this span of time? The evidence, however, is digitally there for any reader who has seen at least some of its issues. Creative writing spanning all genres, vivid illustrations, instant links giving resolute readers the option to track a contributor’s creative voyaging—here is boundless space always opening up for those seeking writing of considerable variety as well as originality. The best part here is that unlike name-brand journals, which will entice readers with limited access and then restrict their spaces unless you subscribe to them, all of Borderless is still accessible for us even though it has attracted a wide readership in five years. I certainly hope it will stay that way.
And what lies ahead for Borderless? Surely, more opportunities for the creative to articulate their deepest thoughts and feelings in virtual and seemingly infinite space, and innumerable avenues for readers to access easily. And let us hope, in the years to come Borderless will extend itself to newer frontiers of writing and will continue to keep giving space to new as well as emerging writers from our parts of the world.
May the team of Borderless, continue to live up to their claim that “there are no boundaries to human imagination and thought!”
Radha Chakravarty
Since its inception, Borderless Journal has remained true to its name, offering a vital literary space for writers, artists and scholars from around the world to engage in creative dialogue about their shared vision of a world without borders. Congratulations Borderless, and may your dream of global harmony continue to inspire.
Somdatta Mandal
According to the famous Chicana academic and theorist Gloria Anzaldua, the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where peopIe of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape. There, at the juncture of cultures, languages cross-pollinate and are revitalized; they die and are born. Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants.
About five years ago, when a new online journal aptly called Borderless Journal was launched, these ideas which we had been teaching for so long were simply no longer applicable. Doing away with differences, with limits, it became a suitable platform where disparate cultures met, where people from all disciplines could express their views through different genres, be it poetry, translation, reviews, scholarly articles, creative writing and so on. Many new writers from different parts of the world became regular contributors to this unique experimentation with ‘borderlessness’ and its immense possibilities are very apt in this present global context where social media has already changed many earlier notions of scholarship, journalism, and creativity.
Jared Carter
In its first five years Borderless has become an important witness for international peace and understanding. It has encouraged submissions from writers in English based in many different countries, and has offered significant works translated from a wide range of national literatures. Its pages have featured writers based in India, Pakistan, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the UK, and the US. In the future, given the current level of world turmoil, Borderless might well consider looking more closely toward Africa and the Middle East. As the magazine continues to promote writing focused on international peace and freedom, new horizons beckon.
Teresa Rehman
The best part of this journal is that it is seamless and knows no margins or fringes. It is truly global as it has cut across geographical borders and has sculpted a novel literary genre called the ‘borderless’. It has climbed the mountains of Nepal, composed songs on the Brahmaputra in Assam, explored the hidden kingdom of Bhutan, walked on the streets of Dhaka, explored the wreckage of cyclones in Odisha, been on a cycling adventure from Malaysia to Kashmir, explored a scenic village in the Indo-China border, taken readers on a journey of making a Japanese-Malayalam dictionary, gave a first-hand account of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and described the syncretic culture of Bengal through its folk music and oral traditions. I hope it continues telling the untold and unchartered stories across mountains, oceans and forests.
Kirpal Singh
In a world increasingly tending towards misunderstandings across borders, this wholesome journal provides a healthy space both for diverse as well as unifying visions of our humanity. As we celebrate five distinguished years of Borderless Journal, we also look forward to another five years of such to ensure the underlying vision remains viable and visible as well as authentic and accurate.
My heartfelt Congratulations to all associated with this delightful and impressive enterprise!
Asad Latif
The proliferation of ethnic geographies of identity — Muslim/Arab, Hindu/Indian, Christian/Western, and so on — represents a threat to anything that might be called universal history. The separation and parcelling out of identities, as if they are pre-ordained, goes against the very idea (proclaimed by Edward Said) that, just as men and women create their own history, they can recreate it. Borders within the mind reflect borders outside it. Both borders resist the recreation of history. While physical borders are necessary, mental borders are not. This journal does an admirable job in erasing borders of the mind. Long may it continue to do so.
Anuradha Kumar
I have been one of Borderless’ many readers ever since its first issue appeared five years ago. Like many others, I look forward with great anticipation to every issue, complete with stories, , reviews, poems, translations, complemented with interesting artwork.
Borderless has truly lived up to its name. Within its portal, people, regardless of borders, but bound by common love for literature, and the world’s heritage, come together. I would wish for Borderless to scale even greater heights in the future. As a reader, I would very much like to read more writers from the ‘Global South’, especially in translation. Africa, Asia and Australasia are host to diverse languages, many in danger of getting lost. Perhaps Borderless could take a lead in showcasing writers from these languages to the world. That would be such an invaluable service to readers, and the world too.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan
To me, Borderless Journal is a completely free and open space. Topics and styles are never limiting, and the various writers explore everything from personal travelogues to the limp of a helpful druggist. Writers from all corners of the globe contribute, offering a plethora of unique voices from countless circumstances and walks of life. Because of this openness, Borderless Journal can, and likely will continue to grow and expand in many directions simultaneously. Curating and including many new voices along the way. Happy 5th Birthday to a truly original and wonderfully eclectic journal!
George Freek
I feel the Borderless Journal fills a special spot in the publishing world. Unlike many journals, which profess to be open-minded and have no preference for any particular style of poetry, Borderless actually strives to be eclectic. Naturally, it has its own tastes, and yet truly tries to represent the broad spectrum which is contemporary poetry. I have no advice as to where it should go. I can only say keep up the good work, and stooping to a cliche, if it’s not broken, why try to fix it?
Farouk Gulsara
They say time flies when one is having fun. It sure does when a publication we love regularly churns out its issues, month after month, for five years now.
In the post-truth world, where everybody wants to exert their exclusivity and try to find ways to be different from the person standing next to them, Borderless gives a breath of fresh air. At a time when neighboring countries are telling the world they do not share a common history, Borderless tries to show their shared heritage. We may have different mothers and fathers but are all but “ONE”!
We show the same fear found in the thunderous sounds of a growling tiger. We spill the exact hue of blood with the same pain when our skin is breached. Yet we say, “My pain is more intense than yours, and my blood is more precious.” Somehow, we find solace in playing victimhood. We have lost that mindfulness. One should appreciate freedom just as much as we realise it is fragile. Terrorism and fighting for freedom could just be opposing sides of the same coin.
There is no such thing as a just war or the mother of all wars to end all wars as it has been sold to us. One form of aggression is the beginning of many never-ending clashes. Collateral damage cannot be justified. There can be no excuse to destroy generations of human discoveries and turn back the clock to the Stone Age.
All our hands are tainted with guilt. Nevertheless, each day is another new day to make that change. We can all sing to the tune of the official 2014 World Cup song, ‘Ola Ola,’ which means ‘We are One.’ This is like how we all get together for a whole month to immerse ourselves in the world’s favourite sport. We could also reminisce about when the world got together to feed starving kids in Africa via ‘Band-Aid’ and ‘We Are the World’. Borderless is paving the way. Happy Anniversary!
Ihlwha Choi
I sincerely congratulate Borderless Journal on its 5th anniversary. I am always delighted and grateful for the precious opportunity to publish my poetry in English through this journal. I would like to extend my special thanks for this.
Through this journal, I can read a variety of literary works—including poetry, essays, and prose—from writers around the world. As someone for whom English is a foreign language, it has also been a valuable resource for improving my English skills. I especially enjoy the frequent features on Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry, which I read with great joy. Tagore is one of my favourite poets.
I have had the privilege of visiting Santiniketan three times to trace his legacy and honor his contributions to literature and education. However, one aspect I find a little disappointing is that, despite having published over 30 poems, I have yet to receive any feedback from readers or fellow writers. It would be wonderful to have such an opportunity for engagement.
Additionally, last October, a Korean woman received the Nobel Prize in Literature—the first time an author from South Korea has been awarded this honor by the Swedish Academy. She is not only an outstanding novelist but also a poet. I searched for articles about her in Borderless Journal but was unable to find any. Of course, I understand that this is not strictly a literary newspaper, but I would have been delighted to see a feature on her.
I also feel honoured that one of my poems was included in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles: An Anthology of Writings from across the World. I hope such anthologies will continue to be published. In fact, I wonder if it would be possible to compile and publish collections featuring several poems from contributing poets. If these were made available on Amazon, it would be a fulfilling experience for poets to reach a broader audience.
Moving forward, I hope Borderless Journal will continue to reach readers worldwide, beyond Asia, and contribute to fostering love and peace. Thank you.
Prithvijeet Sinha
The journey of authorship, self-expression and cultural exchange that I personally associate with Borderless Journal’s always diverse archives has remained a touchstone ever since this doorway opened itself to the world in 2020. Going against the ramshackle moods of the 2020s as an era defined by scepticism and distances, The journal has upheld a principled literary worldview close to the its pages and made sure that voices of every hue gets representation. It’s also an enterprise that consistently delivers in terms of goodwill and innocence, two rare traits which are in plenteous supply in the poems, travelogues, essays and musings presented here.
The journey with Borderless has united this writer with many fascinating, strikingly original auteurs, buoyed by a love for words and expression. It is only destined for greatness ahead. Happy Birthday Borderless! Here’s to 50 more epochs.
From Our Team
Bhaskar Parichha
As Borderless Journal celebrates its fifth anniversary, it is inspiring to see its evolution into a distinguished platform for discourse and exploration. Over the years, it has carved a unique niche in contemporary journalism, consistently delivering enlightening and engaging content. The journal features a variety of sections, including in-depth articles, insightful essays, and thought-provoking interviews, reflecting a commitment to quality and fostering dialogue on pressing global issues. The diverse contributions enrich readers’ understanding of complex topics, with a particular focus on climate change, which is especially relevant today. By prioritising this critical issue, Borderless informs and encourages engagement with urgent realities. Having been involved since its inception, I am continually impressed by the journal’s passion and adaptability in a changing media landscape. As we celebrate this milestone, I wish Borderless continued success as a beacon of knowledge and thoughtful discourse, inspiring readers and contributors alike.
Devraj Singh Kalsi
Borderless Journal has a sharp focus on good writing in multiple genres and offers readable prose. The platform is inclusive and does not carry any slant, offering space to divergent opinions and celebrating free expression. By choosing not to restrict to any kind of ism, the literary platform has built a strong foundation in just five years since inception. New, emerging voices – driven by the passion to write fearlessly – find it the ideal home. In a world where writing often gets commercialised and compromised, Borderless Journal is gaining strength, credibility, and wide readership. It is making a global impact by giving shape to the dreams of legendary poets who believed the world is one.
Rakhi Dalal
My heartiest congratulations to Borderless and the entire team on the fifth Anniversary of its inception. The journal which began with the idea of letting writing and ideas transcend borders, has notably been acting as a bridge to make this world a more interconnected place. It offers a space to share human experiences across cultures, to create a sense of connection and hence compassion, which people of this world, now more distraught than ever, are sorely in need of. I am delighted to have been a part of this journey. My best wishes. May it continue to sail through time, navigating languages, literature and rising above barriers!
Keith Lyons
Is it really five years since Borderless Journal started? It seems hard to believe.
My index finger scrolls through Messenger chats with the editor — till they end in 2022. On the website, I find 123 results under my name. Still no luck. Eventually, in my ‘Sent’ box I find my first submission, emailed with high hopes (and low expectations) in March 2020. ‘Countdown to Lockdown’ was about my early 2020 journey from India through Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Australia to New Zealand as COVID-19 spread.
Just like that long, insightful trip, my involvement with Borderless Journal has been a journey. Three unique characteristics stand out for me.
The first is its openness and inclusiveness. It features writers from all over the globe, with various contributions across a wide range of topics, treatments and formats.
The second feature of the journal is its phenomenal growth, both in readers and writers, and in its reach. Borderless really does ‘walk the talk’ on breaking down barriers. It is no longer just a humble literary journal — it is so much bigger than that.
The third unique aspect of Borderless is the devotion endowed in nurturing the journal and its contributors. I love the way each and every issue is conceived, curated, and crafted together, making tangible the aspiration ‘of uniting diverse voices and cultures, and finding commonality in the process.’
So where can we go from here? One constant in this world is change. I’d like to think that having survived a global pandemic, economic recession, and troubling times, that the core values of Borderless Journal will continue to see it grow and evolve. For never has there been a greater need to hear the voices of others to discover that we are all deeply connected.
Rhys Hughes
I have two different sets of feelings about Borderless Journal. I think the journal does an excellent job of showcasing work from many different countries and cultures. I want to say it’s an oasis of pleasing words and images in a troubled sea of chaos, but that would be mixing my metaphors improperly. Not a troubled sea of chaos but a desert of seemingly shifting values. And here is the oasis, Borderless Journal, where one can find secure ideals of liberty, tolerance, peace and internationalism. I appreciate this very much. As for my other set of feelings, I am always happy to be published in the journal, and in fact I probably would have given up writing poetry two years ago if it wasn’t for the encouragement provided to me by regular publication in the journal. I have written many poems especially for Borderless. They wouldn’t exist if Borderless didn’t exist. Therefore I am grateful on a personal level, as a writer as well as a reader.
Where can Borderless Journal go from here? This is a much harder question to answer. I feel that traditional reading culture is fading away year after year. Poets write poetry but few people buy poetry books. They can read poems at Borderless for free and that is a great advantage. I would like to see more short stories, maybe including elements of fantasy and speculative fiction. But I have no strategic vision for the future of the journal. However, one project I would like to try one day is some sort of collaborative work, maybe a big poem with lots of contributors following specific rules. It’s an idea anyway!
Meenakshi Malhotra
Borderless started with a vision of transcending the shadow lines and has over time, evolved into a platform where good writing from many parts of the world finds a space , where as “imagination bodies forth/ The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen/Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing/A local habitation and a name.”
It has been a privilege to be a part of Borderless’s journey over the last few years. It was a journey based on an idea and a vision. That dream of creating solidarity, of transcending and soaring over borders and boundaries, is evident in almost every page and article in the journal.
Mitali Chakravarty
Looking at all these responses, thinking on what everyone has said, I am left feeling overwhelmed.
Borderless started as a whimsical figment of the imagination… an attempt to bring together humanity with the commonality of felt emotions, to redefine literary norms which had assumed a darker hue in the post Bloomsbury, post existentialist world. The journal tried to invoke humour to brings smiles, joys to create a sense of camaraderie propelling people out of depression towards a more inclusive world, where laughter brings resilience and courage. It hoped to weave an awareness that all humans have the same needs, dreams and feelings despite the multiple borders drawn by history, geographies, academia and many other systems imagined by humans strewn over time.
Going forward, I would like to take up what Harari suggests in Homo Deus — that ideas need to generate a change in the actions of humankind to make an impact. Borderless should hope to be one of the crucibles containing ideas to impact the move towards a more wholesome world, perhaps by redefining some of the current accepted norms. Some might find such an idea absurd, but without the guts to act on impractical dreams, visions and ideas, we might have gone extinct in a post-dino Earth.
I thank the fabulous team, the wonderful writers and readers whose participation in the journal, or in engaging with it, enhances the hope of ringing in a new world for the future of our progeny.
Aparna Vats shares a narrative around female infanticide centring her story around a BBC interview and an interview with the journalist who unfolded the narrtive. Click here to read.
Dolly Narang recounts how she started a gallery more than four decades ago and talks of her encounter with world renowned artist, MF Husain. Click hereto read.
Ghoom, Darjeeling, is almost 2.5 km above sea level. Standing in the rarified air of Ghoom, you can watch the Kanchenjunga turn gold as it gets drenched in the rays of the rising sun. The phenomenon lasts for a short duration. The white pristine peak again returns to its original colour blending and disappearing among the white cirrus clouds that flit in the sky. Over time, it’s shrouded by mists that hang over this region. The event is transitory and repeats itself on every clear morning like life that flits in and out of existence over and over again…
Witnessing this phenomenon feels like a privilege of a lifetime as is meeting people who shine brightly and unusually, like the Kanchenjunga, to disappear into mists all too early. One such person was the founder of pandies’ 1 who coordinated the pandies’ corner for Borderless Journal, the late Sanjay Kumar (1961-2025). The idea of starting this column was to bring out the unheard voices of those who had risen above victimhood to find new lives through the work done by pandies’. In his book, Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre: Exploring Play, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, he described his scope of work which in itself was stunning. His work ranged from teaching to using theatre and play to heal railway platform kids, youngsters in Kashmir, the Nithari survivors and more — all youngsters who transcended the scars seared on them by violations and violence. We hope to continue the column in coordination with pandies’.
Another very renowned person whose art encompassed a large number of social concerns and is now lost to time was the artist, MF Husain (1915-2011). This issue of Borderless is privileged to carry an artwork by him that has till now not been open to the public for viewing. It was a gift from him to the gallerist, Dolly Narang, on her birthday. She has written nostlgically of her encounters with the maestro who walked bare-feet and loved rusticity. She has generously shared a photograph of the sketch (1990) signed ‘McBull’ — a humorous play on his first name, Maqbool, by the artist.
Drenched with nostalgia is also Professor Fakrul Alam’s essay, dwelling on more serious issues while describing with a lightness his own childhood experiences. Many of the nonfiction in this issue have a sense of nostalgia. Mohul Bhowmick recalls his travels to Bhutan. And Prithvijeet Sinha introduces as to a grand monument of Lucknow, Bara Imambara. Lokenath Roy takes us for a stroll to Juhu, dwelling on the less affluent side. Suzanne Kamata describes her source of inspiration for a few stories in her new book, River of Dolls and Other Stories. A darker hue is brought in by Aparna Vats as she discusses female infanticide. But a light sprays across the pages as Devraj Singh Kalsi describes how his feisty grandmother tackled armed robbers in her home. And an ironic tone rings out in the rather whimsical musing by Farouk Gulsara on New Year days and calendars.
Everyone was at each other's throats, insistent that the world was ending. But I felt differently, as though I were just beginning, or just beginning again…
Poets, like visionaries across time and cultures, often see hope where others see despair. And humour always has that hum of hope. In a lighter tone, Rhys Hughes makes one laugh or just wonder as he writes:
I once knew a waiter who jumped in alarm when I somersaulted across his restaurant floor after entering the front door on my way to my favourite table: he wasn’t able to control his nerves and the meal he was bearing ended up on the ceiling with people staring as it started to drip down.
Translations feature poetry. Lyrics of Nazrul (1899-1976) and Tagore (1861-1941) appear together in Professor Alam’s translations of their love songs from Bengali. He has also transcreated a Bengali poem by Jibananada Das (1899-1854). Profoundly philosophical lines by Atta Shad (1939-1997) in Balochi has been rendered to English by Fazal Baloch for his birth anniversary this month. Ihlwah Choi has translated his poem from Korean, taking up the poignant theme of transience of life. A Tagore poem called ‘Kheya (Ferry)’, inspired by his rustic and beautiful surroundings, has been brought to us in English.
Huge thanks to all our contributors, the Borderless team for all these fabulous pieces. Thanks to Gulsara, Kamata, Bhowmick and Sinha for the fabulous photography by them to accompany their writings. Heartfelt gratitude to Sohana Manzoor for her cover art and to Dutta for her artwork accompanying her poem. Without all your efforts, this issue would have been incomplete. And now, dear readers, thank you for being with us through this journey. I turn the issue over to all of you… there is more as usual than mentioned here. Do pause by our contents page.
pandies’ was started in 1987. It’s spelled with a small ‘p’ and the name was picked by the original team. Read more about pandies’ by clicking here. ↩︎
How can a 470-page long book turn into a page-turner when it is neither a historical novel nor a whodunit thriller that compels the reader to go on reading as quickly as he/she can? That too when it is a motley collection of twenty-six essays written on different occasions and on different topics for the last twenty-five years. The answer is of course Amitav Ghosh who can literally mesmerise his readers with his multi-faceted interests and subjects ranging from literature and language, climate change and the environment, human lives, travels, and discoveries. Divided into six broad sections, Ghosh clearly mentions in the Introduction that the pieces in this collection are about a wide variety of subjects, yet there is one thread that runs through most of them: of bearing witness to a rupture in time, of chronicling the passing of an era that began 300 years ago, in the eighteenth century. It was a time when the West tightened its grip over most of the world, culminating ultimately in the emergence of the US as the planet’s sole superpower and the profound shocks that began in 2001.
A subject very close to his heart and that is reflected in all the books that he has been writing over the last decade or more, the six essays of the first section are on “Climate Change and Environment.” Ghosh writes about different aspects of migration (both in the sub-continent and in Europe), about the storm in the Bay of Bengal, cyclones, the tsunami affecting the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and about Ternate, the spice island in Indonesia. According to him, by knowing about anthropogenic greenhouse emissions and their role in intensifying climate disasters, it is no longer possible to cling to the fiction of there being a strict division between the natural and the political. Climate change and migration are, in fact, two cognate aspects of the same thing, in that both are effects of the ever-increasing growth and acceleration of processes of production, consumption and circulation.
According to Ghosh, each of the six essays in the second section entitled “Witnesses” grew out of the research he undertook for his four historical novels, The Glass Palace, and the Ibis Trilogy. All the essays in it “are attempts to account, in one way or another, for the recurrent absences and silences that are so marked a feature of India’s colonial history”. While looking for accounts written by Indian military personnel during the First World War, Ghosh came across two truly amazing books, both written in Bengali, on which three pieces in this section are based. The first of these books is Mokshada Devi’s Kalyan-Pradeep (‘Kalyan’s Lamp’; 1928), an extended commentary on the letters of her grandson, Captain Kalyan Mukherji, who was a doctor in the Indian Medical Service. The second, Abhi Le Baghdad (‘On to Baghdad’), is by Sisir Sarbadhikari, who was a member of the Bengal Ambulance Corps, and is based on his wartime journal. Both Mukherji and Sarbadhikari served in the Mesopotamian campaign of 1915-16; they were both taken captive when the British forces surrendered to the Turkish Army in 1916 after enduring a five-month siege in the town of Kut-al-Amara – the greatest battlefield defeat suffered by the British empire in more than a century. He also writes about how these two prisoners of war witnessed the Armenian genocide.
Regarding the exodus from Burma, Ghosh narrates the plight of one Bengali doctor, Dr. Shanti Brata Ghosh from whose diary (written in English) we are given incidents of events that are a striking contrast to British accounts of the Long March. What the doctor remembered most clearly were his conflicts with his white colleagues and his diary represents a personal assertion of the freedom that his nation’s hard-won independence had bestowed upon him.
Section Four entitled “Narratives” consists of three essays. Speaking about the etymology of the word ‘banyan’, and a short personal anecdote about 11 September 2001, we come to the essay from which the title of this collection – Wild Fictions – is taken. It shows us how the policies and administrative actions have divided landscapes between the ‘natural’ and the ‘social.’ Discussing several environmental issues related to the manner in which over many decades there has been a kind of ethnic cleansing of India’s forests and how the costs of protecting nature have been thrust upon some of the poorest people in the country, while the rewards have been reaped by certain segments of the urban middle class, Ghosh warns us why the exclusivist approach to conservation must be rethought. Before environmental catastrophe happens, we have to find some middle way, one in which the people of the forest are regarded not as enemies but as partners. The idea of an ‘untouched’ forest is none other than a wild fiction.
As mentioned in the beginning, Ghosh’s intellectual curiosity ranges from exploring themes of history, culture, colonialism, climate change and the interconnectedness of human and natural worlds and the readers will get a sample of these different topics in this rich collection. Over the years, we had read some of the essays in journals like Outlook, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Hindu, The Economic and Political Weekly, The Massachusetts Review, Conde NastTraveller and so on, and some of the articles have been the product of his detailed research before he commenced writing a novel. The five essays in the penultimate section titled “Conversations” begins with a long correspondence that Ghosh had with Dipesh Chakraborty via email after Provincilaizing Europe was published in 2000. The two never met personally as Chakraborty was in Australia at that time, but the exchanges between these two scholars on such wide-ranging issues is surely a reader’s delight. The pieces on Shashi Tharoor’s An Era of Darkness and Priya Satia’s Time’s Monster which were written as reviews also form parts of ongoing dialogue. As Ghosh states, Sattia’s work “has given me new ways of understanding the role that ideas like ‘progress’ have played in the gestation of this time of monsters”. In ‘Storytelling and the Spectrum of the Past’, we are told about the historians versus the novelists view of seeing and documenting themes.
The final and sixth section comprises of three pieces that were originally conceived as blogposts or presentations, accompanied by a succession of images – “the texts that accompany my presentations are scripts for performances rather than essays as such”. In the first one, Ghosh gives us new insights from his diary notes (the Geniza documents) about how he chose to study social anthropology and how In an Antique Land was made—about the Muslim predominance in the Arab village where he stayed and how he evaded the attempt at conversion. In a lecture he delivered at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Ghosh asks us to think back for a moment to the intellectual and historical context that led to the foundation of such institutions as the IITs, the IIMs and the outstanding medical institutions of contemporary India. He tells us how we cannot depend on machines alone to provide the solution to our social problems and talks about mercenaries, prisons, the hegemony of the Anglo-American power and how the empires kept close control over rights to knowledge. One of the great regrets of Ghosh’s life was that he never met A.K.Ramanujan and in the concluding essay of this section, he tells us how he considered Ramanujan to be “one of the foremost writers and intellectuals of the twentieth century and how one of the most important aspects of his work is the context from which it emerged.
In the introduction to this collection Ghosh wrote that we were now in a time between the ending of one epoch and the birth of another – ‘a time of monsters’, in the words of Antonio Gramsci. In the Afterword he mentions how the strange thing about this interstitial era is that it could also be described as a ‘time of benedictions’ in that it has suddenly become possible to contemplate, and even embrace, potentialities that were denied or rejected during the age of high modernity. He reiterates that it is the elevation of humans above all other species, indeed above the Earth itself, that is largely responsible for our current planetary crisis. “The discrediting of modernity’s anthropocentricism is itself a part of the ongoing collapse that we are now witnessing.” The only domains of human culture where doubt is held in suspension are poetry and fiction. Though it is not possible to discuss all other aspects that Ghosh deals with in this anthology as the purview of the review is rather limited, I would like to conclude it by quoting the last couple of sentences written by Ghosh himself when he categorically states: “High modernity taught us that the Earth was inert and existed to be exploited by human beings for their own purposes. In this time of angels, we are slowly beginning to understand that in order to hear the Earth, we must first learn to love it.”
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Somdatta Mandal is a critic and translator and a former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
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