Tag: Somdatta Mandal

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Review

The Phantom’s Howl

Book Review by Somdatta Mandal

Title: The Phantom’s Howl: Classic Tales of Ghosts and Hauntings from Bengal

Translator: Arundhati Nath

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

Bengalis have always had a curious relationship with the supernatural and so stories of ghosts or bhoots are omnipresent in Bengali literature through generations. The Phantom’s Howl: Classic Tales of Ghosts and Hauntings from Bengal brings us a new collection to savour this genre once again. Written for adults and children by some of the best writers in the language, these stories have entertained generations of readers since they first appeared. Comprising eleven stories in all, from legendary authors such as Rabindranath Tagore, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay and Hemendra Kumar Roy (who contribute two stories each) to lesser-known writers like Jogeshchandra Bandyopadhyay, Niradchandra Majumdar and Amarendranath Munshi, the stories elucidate the supernatural elements in different forms. Manik Bandyopadhyay and Pramatha Chaudhuri, though well-known for writing in other genres, have also contributed their share in creating spooky tales.

Rabindranath Tagore’s immeasurable talent as a storyteller is well-known. In both Konkal (The Skeleton) where a vainglorious skeleton reminisces about her past beauty, and Kshudito Pasan (The Famished Stone), the supernatural element takes over in a slow burn and our understanding of the other-worldly is a cerebral exercise that is an interplay between emotion and intellect. Bibhutibhusan Bandyopadhyay’s repertoire of ghost stories is well-known. Two of his short stories about hauntings included in this anthology are Bhoutik Palonko (The Spectral Bed) and Paitrik Bhita (Paternal Legacy), and both have an enticing and intangible everyday quality in them. In the first story we are told of a mysterious cursed bed of a Chinese man whose dissatisfied soul still lurks every night and disturbs anyone who sleeps on that bed. In the other story, the generations-owned massive homestead of Radhamohan is inhabited by the ghost of a young girl Lokkhi, who happened to be their youngest paternal aunt who died at the age of twelve and she slips in and out of his conscious memory.

Hemendra Kumar Roy is known for adapting many Western writings of his time and creating his own brand of short stories. In his Bari Buro Bhoot (The House, the Old Man, the Hunting Boots), the ghost has ‘sahebi’ chops and in Bhooter Raja (The King of Ghosts), Mr. J. Taylor is a typical British Raj prop who being posted as the Police Superintendent of Santhal Pargana, had access to encountering the bizarre after spending the night in a hunting lodge in the jungle.

Manik Bandyopadhyay’s horror stories explore the psychological underpinnings of supposed ghost sightings and examine what the mind can do to the perception of a lived experience – something that stands out in Pora Chhaya (The Singed Shadow). In a totally different vein, Pramatha Chaudhuri in First Class Bhoot (The First-Class Ghost) tells the story of a proud English ghost who creates trouble on a train from Kolkata to Kashi and it is steeped in humour.

As the translator mentions, she discovered the three lesser-known writers from the pages of the Bengali magazine Shuktara with its special collection of 101 ghost stories. In Bon Kolmir Bile (Inside the Water Spinach Forest Marsh), Amarendranath Munshi creates a ghostly ambience where the lonely spirit of a young girl forever rows its boat in the marshes. In Sanket (The Signal), we are told of two friends who land up in a remote corner of Aara district and take up residence in an old, rambling, dilapidated house and are narrowly saved after they come across an innocuous black cloth that spells danger for all who wave it.  In Preter Kanna (The Phantom’s Howl), Jogeshchandra Bandyopadhyay tells us how the protagonist Debkumar was trapped motionless in a maze of indescribable fear and horror only to discover how the skeleton of a dead lady’s dissatisfied soul left her secret hideaway and then whatever happens is probably a re-enactment of reality.

Though most of the eleven stories that have been included in this collection are well-known to Bengali readers who grew up during the forties and fifties decades of the 20th century, The Phantom’s Howl is a quintessential representation of Bengal and its fascination with its many ghosts and stories of haunted houses. Basically, Arundhati Nath’s translations bring these household favourites to a new generation of readers. Most of the selected stories have undergone translation several times and even non-Bengali readers might already be familiar with some of them and therefore, for many readers they would seem like warmed up fare. In the translator’s note at the beginning of the text, Nath mentions her personal choices as she began listening to ghost and horror stories from her grandmother and reading some of them in Bangla from the books her parents bought for her as she grew up outside Bengal. So, the selection was ‘tinged with the wistfulness of memory.’ But unlike the stories of Dracula, we really do not find these stories ‘as thrilling and sometimes as spine-chilling’ as she claims them to be. At best they give us a lucid picture of the different kinds of ‘bhoots’ and some spooky tales prevalent in Bangla literature.

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Somdatta Mandal, critic and translator, is a former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India.

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Tribute

Celebrating Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) in the role of the blind singer in his play, Falguni (published in 1917). Art by Abanindranath Tagore. From Public Domain

On May 7th 1861, or Pochishe Boisakh of the Bengali year 1268, Rabindranth Tagore was born in Jorsanko, Calcutta. That time, there was one subcontinent. Borders were fluid though the concept of countries had already started making inroads with the onset of colonials more than a couple of centuries ago. Rabindranath Tagore — a man who rejected the academia and earned no degrees — set the world aflame with his words and ideals. Many of his works hope to inspire people out of miseries by getting them in touch with their own strength. He created Santiniketan and Sriniketan to train young minds, to close social and economic gaps, to override the stigma of walls that continue to box and divide humanity to this date. Subsequently, his works, especially his writings, have become subjects of much academic discourse as well as part of popular cultural lore.

Tagore celebrated his own birthdays with poetry on Pochishe Boishakh. Pochishe Boisakh falls between 7-9 May on the Gregorian calendar. We start our celebrations with translations of his birthday songs and poems. The song translated by Aruna Chakravarti was the last he wrote, and based on a long poem he had written in 1922, also featured here. We also have the first birthday song he composed in 1899. In prose, we bring to you works that showcase his call for change and reform. Fakrul Alam has translated a powerful play by him, Red Oleanders, which strongly seems to reflect the machinations of the current world and ends on a note of hope. We can only carry an excerpt from this long play but it will be a powerful read when published in full. Somdatta Mandal shares a translations of an essay in which Tagore airs his views on the need for change in social norms — the strange thing is it would still seem relevant today. And Himadri Lahiri rendered an essay from Bengali to English on his views about the British Raj. We also have a story about a woman who changed social norms and her religion, translated by Chakravarti.

Birthday Poems & Lyrics

Hey Nutan or Oh ever new has been translated by Aruna Chakravarti in Daughters of Jorasanko. This was the last birthday song he wrote in 1941, a few months before he died. It was based on the long birthday poem he had written in 1922. Click here to read.

 Pochishe Boisakh Cholechhe (The twenty fifth of Boisakh draws close…), a birthday poem written in 1935, seems to be a sad reminder of mortality and dreams left unfinished. Click here to read.

Pochishe Boisakh (25th of Baisakh) is a birthday poem Tagore wrote in 1922 and the poem from which he derived the lyrics of his last birthday song written in 1941. Click here to read.

Jonmodiner Gaan or  Birthday Song by Tagore was written in 1899 and later sung as Bhoye Hote Tobo Abhayemajhe ( Amidst Fears, May Fearlessness). Click here to read the translation.

Prose

An excerpt from Tagore’s long play, Roktokorobi or Red Oleanders, has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Tagore’s essay, Classifications in Society, has been translated by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.

 Raja O Praja or The King and His Subjects, an essay by Tagore, has been translated by Himadri Lahiri. Click here to read.

Musalmanir Galpa (A Muslim Woman’s Story), a story by Tagore, has been translated by Aruna Chakravarti. Click here to read.

Bengal Landscape. Art by Sohana Manzoor.
Categories
Contents

Borderless, April 2025

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Seasons in the Sun?….Click here to read.

Translations

An excerpt from Tagore’s long play, Roktokorobi or Red Oleanders, has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Tagore’s essay, Classifications in Society, has been translated by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.

Poems of Longing by Jibananada Das homes two of his poems translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Four cantos from Ramakanta Rath’s Sri Radha, translated from Odiya by the late poet himself, have been excerpted from his full length translation. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Syad Zahoor Shah Hashmi’s Nazuk, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Disappearance by Bitan Chakraborty has been translated from Bengali by Kiriti Sengupta. Click here to read.

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

Tagore’s Pochishe Boisakh Cholechhe (The twenty fifth of Boisakh draws close…) from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Thompson Emate, Pramod Rastogi, George Freek, Vidya Hariharan, Stuart McFarlane, Meetu Mishra, Lizzie Packer, Saranyan BV, Paul Mirabile, Hema Ravi, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Three Gothic Poems, Rhys Hughes explores the world of horrific with a light touch. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

The Day the Earth Quaked

Amy Sawitta Lefevre gives an eyewitness account of the March 28th earthquake from Bangkok. Click here to read.

Felix, the Philosophical Cat

Farouk Gulsara shares lessons learnt from his spoilt pet with a touch of humour. Click here to read.

Not Everyone is Invited to a Child’s Haircut Ceremony

Odbayar Dorje muses on Mongolian traditions. Click here to read.

From a Bucking Bronco to an Ageing Clydesdale

Meredith Stephens writes of sailing on rough seas one dark night. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

Stay Blessed! by Devraj Singh Kalsi is a tongue-in-cheek musing on social norms and niceties. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

On Safari in South Africa by Suzanne Kamata takes us to a photographic and narrative treat of the Kruger National Park. Click here to read.

Essays

Songs of the Adivasi Earth

Ratnottama Sengupta introduces us to the art of Haren Thakur, rooted in tribal lores. Click here to read.

‘Rajnigandha’: A Celebration of the Middle-of-the-Road

Tamara Raza writes of a film that she loves. Click here to read.

‘Climate change matters to me, and it should matter to you too’

Zeeshan Nasir writes of the impact of the recent climate disasters in Pakistan, with special focus on Balochistan. Click here to read.

Bhaskar’s Corner

Ramakanta Rath: A Monument of Literature: Bhaskar Parichha pays a tribute to the late poet. Click here to read.

Stories

Jai Ho Chai

Snigdha Agrawal narrates a funny narrative about sadhus and AI. Click here to read.

The Mischief

Mitra Samal writes a sensitive story about childhood. Click here to read.

Lending a hand

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao takes us back to school. Click here to read.

Conversation

Ratnottama Sengupta talks to filmmaker and author Leslie Carvalho about his old film, The Outhouse, that will be screened this month and his new book, Smoke on the Backwaters. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Anuradha Kumar’s Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Snigdha Agrawal’s Fragments of Time (Memoirs). Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Sheela Rohekar’s Miss Samuel: A Jewish Indian Saga, translated by Madhu Singh. Click here to read.

Gracy Samjetsabam reviews Tony K Stewart’s Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Classic Bengali Tales from the Sundarbans. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Raisina Chronicles: India’s Global Public Square by S. Jaishankar & Samir Saran. Click here to read.

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Categories
Editorial

Seasons in the Sun?

Offerings during Qing Ming Jie, a festival honouring ancestors
Songkran(Thai New Year) Celebrations
Festivals in April: From Public Domain

April is a month full of celebrations around the world. Asia hosts a spray of New Year festivities. Then there are festivals like Qing Ming Jie, Good Friday and Easter. All these are in a way reminders of our past. And yet, we critique things as old fashioned! So, where does tradition end and ‘outdated’ or ‘outmoded’ start? Meanwhile we continue to celebrate these festivals with joy but what happens to those who have lost their home, family and their living due to war or climate disasters? Can they too join in with the joie de vivre? Can we take our celebrations to them to give solace in some way?

In our April issue, we have stories from climate and conflict-ridden parts of the world. From Bangkok, Amy Sawitta Lefevre gives an eyewitness account of the March 28th Earthquake that originated in Myanmar. While in her city, the disaster was managed, she writes: “I’m also thinking of all the children in Myanmar who are sleeping in the open, who lost loved ones, who are feeling scared and alone, with no one to reassure them.” As news reels tell us, in Myanmar there have been thousands of casualties from the earthquake as well as shootings by the army.

From another troubled region, Pakistan, Zeeshan Nasir gives a heartrending narrative about climate change, which also dwells on the human suffering, including increase in underage marriages.

Human suffering can be generated by rituals and customs too. For instance, if festivals dwell on exclusivity, they can hurt those who are left out of the celebrations. Odbayar Dorje muses along those lines on Mongolian traditions and calls for inclusivity and the need to change norms. On the other hand, Devraj Singh Kalsi hums with humour as he reflects on social norms and niceties and hints at the need for change in a light-hearted manner. Farouk Gulsara makes us laugh with the antics of his spoilt pet cat. And Suzanne Kamata dwells on her animal sightings in Kruger National Park with her words and camera while Meredith Stephens takes us sailing on stormy seas… that too at night.

Art is brought into focus by Ratnottama Sengupta who introduces artist Haren Thakur with his adaptation of tribal styles that has been compared to that of Paul Klee (1879-1940). She also converses with filmmaker Leslie Carvalho, known for his film The Outhouse, and his new novel, Smoke on the Backwaters. Both of these have a focus on the Anglo-Indian community in India. Also writing on Indian film trends of the 1970s is Tamara Raza. Bhaskar Parichha pays tribute to the late Ramakanta Rath (1934-2025), whose powerful and touching poetry, translated from Odia by the poet himself, can be found in our translations section.

We have an excerpt from Professor Fakrul Alam’s unpublished translation of Tagore’s Red Oleanders. It’s a long play and truly relevant for our times. Somdatta Mandal shares with us her translation of Tagore’s essay called ‘The Classification in Society’, an essay where the writer dwells on the need for change in mindsets of individuals that make up a community to move forward. A transcreation of a poem by Tagore for his birthday in 1935 reflects the darkness he overcame in his own life. Two poems expressive of longings by Jibananada Das have been translated from Bengali by Professor Alam aswell. From Balochistan, we have an excerpt from the first Balochi novel, Nazuk, written by the late Syad Zahoor Shah Hashmi and rendered into English by Fazal Baloch. Among contemporaries, we have a short story by Bitan Chakraborty translated from Bengali by Kiriti Sengupta, a poignant story that reflects on gaps in our society. And a Korean poem by Ihlwha Choi rendered to English by the poet himself.

Our poetry section celebrates nature with poetry by Lizzie Packer. Many of the poems draw from nature like that of George Freek and Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal. Some talk of the relationship between man and nature as does Stuart McFarlane. We have a variety of themes addressed in poems by Thompson Emate, Meetu Mishra, Saranyan BV, Paul Mirabile, Pramod Rastogi, Ryan Quinn Flanagan and many more. Rhys Hughes brings in both humour and social commentary of sorts with his poem. And in his column, Hughes has shared three gothic poems which he claims are horrible but there is that twinge of fable and lightness similar to the ghosts of Ebenezer Scrooge’s world[1]— colourful and symbolic.

Stories sprinkle humour of different shades with Snigdha Agrawal’s narrative about mendicants and AI and Mitra Samal’s strange tale about childhood pranks. Naramsetti Umamaheswararao takes us back to schooldays with his narrative. We have a fun book excerpt from Agrawal’s Fragments of Time (Memoirs), almost in tone with some of her stories and musings.

An extract from Anuradha Kumar’s latest non-fiction making bridges across time and geographies. Called Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India, the book is an intriguing read. We have a review by Professor Mandal of Sheela Rohekar’s Miss Samuel: A Jewish Indian Saga, translated by Madhu Singh. Highlighting syncretic folk traditions, Gracy Samjetsabam has discussed the late Tony K Stewart’s translation of oral folklore in Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Classic Bengali Tales from the Sundarbans. Parichha has written about a high-profile book that also hopes to draw bridges across the world, Raisina Chronicles: India’s Global Public Square, by S. Jaishankar and Samir Saran.

This issue has been made possible because of support from all of you. Huge thanks to the team, all our contributors and readers. Thanks to Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork. Do pause by our contents page as all the content could not be covered here.

Perhaps, world events leave a sense of pensiveness in all of us and an aura of insecurity. But, as Scarlett O’ Hara of Gone with the Wind[2] fame says, “After all, tomorrow is another day.” 

Looking forward to a new day with hope, let’s dream of happier times filled with sunshine and change.

Enjoy the reads!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

[1] A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, 1843

[2] Gone With the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, published in 1936

Click here to access the contents page for the April 2025 Issue

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Categories
Tagore Translations

Classifications in Society by Rabindranath Tagore

This essay was first published in Tattwabodhini Patrika, Ashwin issue, 1319 B.S.(September-October, 1912) and reprinted in Pather Sanchoy (Gleanings of the Road). It has been translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal.

Tagore at Paris, 1921. From Public Domain

When we travel to Vilayet[1], then it is not simply going from one country to another; for us it is like entering a new household. The external differences of lifestyle are not that important. It is expected that there will be a difference between us and the foreigners in our dress, ornaments, eating and pleasure habits and so that doesn’t bother us too much. But not only in lifestyle, there is a deeper dissimilarity in our evaluation of life and to find a sense of direction there suddenly becomes a very difficult task.

We start feeling this from the moment we board the ship. We understand that we will have to abide by the rules of another different household. This sudden change is not to the liking of man. This is why we do not try to understand it very clearly; we somehow try to follow it or feel disgusted and then utter to ourselves—their manner and behaviour is too artificial.

The truth is that what is important is the difference we have with them regarding our social position. Our society has come and stopped within the limits of our family and village. Within those limits we have evolved certain fixed rules about how to behave with one another. Keeping those limits in mind it has been decided what we should do and what we should not. Some of those rules are superficial whereas others are quite normal.

But the society which is the target of these rules being framed is not very big in size and it is a society of relatives. So, our habits are quite domesticated. You cannot smoke tobacco in front of your father, you are supposed to pay obeisance to the guru and pay him some money, the sister- in- law must cover up her face in the presence of the elder brother-in-law and close proximity to your uncle- in- law is totally prohibited. Those rules that are outside the family or village society are based on caste(varna) differences.

It can be said that the thread of caste difference has tied our village society and families like a chain or necklace. We have reached a conclusion. India has resolved its societal problems once and for all and she feels that if this system can be permanently retained then there is nothing to worry about. That is why modern India is trying to strengthen in all manner this family and social bonding laws woven through the thread of varnashram[2].

It has to be admitted that India had been able to find a solution to the problems it was facing at one point of time. She has somehow reconciled the differences between diverse castes, she has pacified the struggle between diverse classes; by classifying professions she has managed to contain competition and disputes and has staved off the vanity created by differences of wealth and capacity through the fence of caste differences. Though, on the one hand, India has maintained through all means the independence of Brahmins who are at the helm of society to the people belonging to other castes, at the same time, she has also spread out small and big processes through which all facilities and education could be disseminated among the others. This is why what the rich person enjoys in India is also partly distributed among the ordinary people on various pretexts and in this way, by giving shelter to the ordinary and appeasing them, the powerful retains his power. In our country, there is no reason to go into a major clash between the rich and the poor and the necessity has not arisen by which the incapable person has to be protected by legal means.

The Western society is not family oriented; it is an open and large society which is much more widespread than ours. It is more on the outside than on the inside. The concept of family that is there in our country is absent in Europe and that is why the people of Europe are spread everywhere.

The nature of this spread-out society is such that on the one hand it is loosely assimilated and on the other it is more diverse and stronger. It is like composing a prose piece. Poetry is restricted within its rhymes and that is why its binding is simpler. But the prose spreads out. That is why on the one hand it is independent and on the other its steps are bound through logic and reason, through diverse rules on ideas about the development of the mind in a greater way.

Because the English society is so spread out and because all its activities are externally motivated, it must be always prepared for different social rituals. It hardly has time to wear casual domestic clothes. It must remain dressed up because its social area is not that of relatives. Relatives pardon you, tolerate you, but you cannot expect such tolerance on the part of outsiders. Everyone must do each and every work in due time, otherwise one will encroach upon another. If the rail line is in my area or is under the control of a few of my friends and relatives, then we can run the train as we wish and can even halt each other’s train as and when we desire. But if we try to detain a train for five minutes in the ordinary train route where lots of trains move up and down, then there will be lots of problems and that will be difficult to tolerate. Because our society is extremely domesticated or maybe because we are habituated with domestic practices, we behave with each other very loosely—we spread ourselves as much as possible, waste time and criticise formal behaviour as lacking in fraternal feelings. This is the first thing that prevents us from feeling at home in English society—there one cannot act in a carefree manner and then expect that people will pardon us. They have created different rules that will on an average benefit the maximum number of people. They have set up fixed rules for meeting each other, for invitation formalities, for dressing up, for entertaining guests. If we try and impose the laxity that we display with relatives in a place that is not actually a society of relatives, then everything turns out to be horrible and life becomes impossible.

Till now this wide European society has not come up with any solutions. It has made an effort through certain rules and regulations in external rituals and behaviour to retain self-restraint and gracefulness but is unable to make arrangements by which the internal strife at a personal level can be resolved. Europe is only going through experimentation, change and revolution. There is a constant rivalry cropping up between men and women, between religious society and professional society, between the power of the ruler and the ruled, between businessmen and worker groups. It has not pacified itself like the halo round the moon. Even now it is ready like a volcano waiting to erupt.

But how can we say that we have solved all our problems, have finalised our social structure, and are resting as peacefully as dead bodies? Even though time has elapsed, we can retain the system for some time, but we cannot keep the situation in chains. We are facing the entire world, now we cannot do with our domesticated society; these people are not merely our fathers, grandfathers or uncles, they are outsiders. They belong to different countries and so we should be extremely alert while interacting with them. If we are absent-minded and behave in a loose manner, then one day we will be totally unfit to act.

We are proud of our tradition, but it is not at all true that the society of India has not evolved through history. In different situations even India had to go through newer revolutions—there is no doubt about that—and history is replete with instances. But I don’t want to even utter that it is the end of all treading for her and from now on till eternity she will just be there and hold on to her traditionality. Society gets fatigued after each large revolution; during that time, it shuts its doors, switches off all lights and prepares to go to sleep. After the Buddhist revolution India had gone off to sleep latching her doors and windows with the hook of strict laws. She was sleepy. But to boast about this as eternal sleep will become a laughable though pitiable thing. Sleep is good only during the night, when there are no crowds of people outside, and when all the big shops and markets are shut down. But in the morning when everyone is awake and there is activity all around, if you go on quietly lying down and close all the old doors and windows, then you will be the loser.

The rules of the night are very simple. Its arrangements are sparse, and its requirements are very little. That is why we can complete all our tasks and go to sleep in an unperturbed manner. Then things go on lying where they were kept because there is no one to move them. The arrangements during the day are not so simple and completing the job once and for all in the early morning does not mean that one can relax and smoke tobacco the rest of the day. Work keeps pouring down our necks. We must keep attempting new things and if we cannot adjust ourselves to the flow of the outside world, then everything else falls out of place.

For some time, India has spent her nights in a system of strict and fixed set of rules. That does not mean that that situation will permanently remain very comfortable. Getting a beating is most painful and difficult, especially when it falls upon a sleeping body. Daytime is the period to receive such blows. That is why it is most comfortable to remain awake during the daytime.  

It is time for us to wake up whether we wish it or not, whether we are full of laziness or not. We are constantly being hurt both internally and externally in society and so we are sad. We are suffering from poverty and famine. The society is breaking down; the joint family system is being split into bits and pieces. And the role of the Brahmins in society has become so demeaning that with the aid of ‘Brahmin societies’ and such other things, they keep on shouting loudly to prove their existence and thus only attest to their weakness. The panchayat[3] system worn in the neck by the government’s chaprasi[4] has committed suicide and its ghost is dominating the village. The food in the country is incapable of satiating the small village schools. Due to famine, they are now relying on the charity of government dole. The rich people of the country have doused the light in their birthplaces and are roaming around in Calcutta in motor cars, and people of noble descent are ready to sacrifice their entire wealth and their daughters at the feet of a graduate groom. There is no point in blaming the Kaliyuga[5], or the foreign king or the native English-speaking people for this misfortune. The truth is that our lord has sent his assistant during the daytime, and he will not stop till such time he can drag us out of our traditional bedrooms. So, we cannot forcibly close our eyes and try to create the night at odd hours. The world that has come to our threshold has to be welcomed inside our house. If we don’t give it a cordial welcome, then it will break open our doors and gain entry. Hasn’t the door not yet been broken now?

So once again, we must think about resolving our problems. It cannot be done by imitating Europe, but we must learn from her. Learning and imitating are not the same thing. Actually, if we learn in the correct way, we will be relieved from the art of imitating. If we cannot know the other truly, then we cannot understand the truth ourselves.

But I was saying that we cannot adjust ourselves in the European society with our loose domestic habits. We can never prepare ourselves in any way. It seems that everyone is pushing us aside, no one is waiting for us for a moment. We are pampered human beings; we feel out of place without our relatives in society. After coming here, I have noticed that since our students are not used to entering other people’s houses, most of them come here and learn things by heart but they do not keep any contact with the society here. The society here is large and so it has more responsibilities. Only if we undertake those responsibilities, can we find a sort of connection with the people of this society. If we cannot connect then we shall be deprived of the greatest learning prevalent here. This is because society is the greatest truth here. The greatest strength, the greatest sublimity is in the society here and not in the battlefield. Sacrifice and self-respect suitable for a broad-minded society are being expressed at every step. They are nurtured here and are preparing themselves in different ways to sacrifice their lives for the welfare of man. In modern India, the educated class of people still consider school education to be the true education. They are deprived of the education of greater society. Even after coming here and entering the school factory, if they come out simply as mechanical things and do not enter the birthplace of humanity visible here then they will be deprived even after coming to a foreign country.

Art by Rabindranath Tagore. From Public Domain

[1] England or the Western world

[2] Casteism

[3] Villages in India are still administered by the panchayat, a council of five selected members from the community.

[4] Peon

[5] The current age in Hindu mythology which ends when the Kalki avatar comes to rescue humanity from darkness.

Somdatta Mandal is a critic and translator and a former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India. An earlier version of this essay was published in Gleanings of the Road (Niyogi Books, pg 20).

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Review

‘A Journey Beyond Imaginary Borders’

Book review by Somdatta Mandal

Title: Miss Samuel: A Jewish Indian Saga

Author: Sheela Rohekar

Translator from Hindi: Madhu Singh

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

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Contents

Borderless, March 2025

Happy Birthday Borderless… Click here to read.
Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Celebrating a Borderless World… Five Years and Counting… Click here to read.

Translations

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. Click here to read.

Tagore’s Esho 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.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Kiriti Sengupta, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Snehaprava Das, Stuart McFarlane, Arshi Mortuza, George Freek, Jyotish Chalil Gopinathan, Ahmad Al-Khatat, Michael Burch, Bibhuti Narayan Biswal, Mark Wyatt, Owais Farooq, Adriana Rocha, Rakhi Dalal, Rhys Hughes

Musings/Slices from Life

Nobody Knows…

Farouk Gulsara muses on the dichotomies in life exploring beliefs that shape our world. Click here to read.

Beachcombing on the Abrolhos Islands

Meredith Stephens goes beachcombing in a thinly inhabited island. Click here to read.

As Flows the Gomti: A Monument of Tranquility 

Prithvijeet Sinha takes us to the past of Lucknow. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In All Creatures Great and Small, Devraj Singh Kalsi talks of living in harmony with nature… is it tongue in cheek? To find out, click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Haiku for Rwandan Girls, Suzanne Kamata writes of her trip to Africa where she teaches and learns from youngsters. Click here to read.

Essays

Take One

Ratnottama Sengupta takes stock of women in Bengali cinema over the last fifty years. Click here to read.

Drinking the Forbidden Milk of Paradise…

Meenakshi Malhotra explores the past of poetry and women writers. Click here to read.

Where have all the Libraries Gone?

Professor Fakrul Alam writes of the loss of libraries as we knew them. Click here to read.

Stories

In the Realm of Childhood

Paul Mirabile gives us a story set in Scotland. Click here to read.

The Appropriate Punishments

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

Eyes of Inti

Swati Basu Das shares a lighthearted flash fiction. Click here to read.

‘Solitude is a Kind of Freedom…’

Munaj Gul gives an introspective story set in Balochistan. Click here to read.

Why I Stopped Patronising that Cheese Maker’s Shop…

Zoé Mahfouz shares a humorous vignette of Parisian life. Click here to read.

Conversations

Ratnottama Sengupta discusses the famous actor, Soumitra Chatterjee, with his daughter, Poulami Bose Chatterjee. Click here to read.

Keith Lyons interviews Malaysian author and editor, Daphne Lee. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Frank S Smyth’s The Great Himalayan Ascents. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Rhys Hughes’ The Devil’s Halo. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Tsering Namgyal Khortsa’s non-fiction, Little Lhasa: Reflections in Exiled Tibet and fiction, Tibetan Suitcase, together. Click here to read.

Malashri Lal reviews Rachna Singh’s Raghu Rai: Waiting for the Divine. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Sandeep Khanna’s Tempest on River Silent: A Story of Last 50 Years of India. Click here to read.

Vignettes from a Borderless World… Click here to read a special fifth anniversary issue.
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Editorial

Celebrating Borderless… Five Years and Counting…

Emerging by Sybil Pretious

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.

Adding to the wealth of our newly minted climate and environment section are poems by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal on the LA fires, Green by Mark Wyatt and Ecopoetry by Adriana Rocha in our March issue. We also have poetry on life in multiple hues from Kiriti Sengupta, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Snehaprava Das, Stuart McFarlane, Arshi Mortuza, George Freek, Ahmad Al-Khatat, Jyotish Chalil Gopinathan, Michael Burch, Bibhuti Narayan Biswal, Owais Farooq and Rakhi Dalal. Tongue-in-cheek humour in poetry is Rhys Hughes forte and he brings us just that in his sign poem.

 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. 

Our fiction truly take us around the world with Paul Mirabile giving us a story set Scotland and Naramsetti Umamaheswararao giving us a fable set in a Southern Indian forest. Swati Basu Das takes us on an adventure with Peruvian food while sitting by the Arabian Sea. Munaj Gul gives a heart-rending flash fiction from Balochistan. And Zoé Mahfouz shares a humorous vignette of Parisian life, reflecting the commonality of felt emotions.

Celebrating the wonders of the nature, is a book excerpt from Frank S Smyth’s The Great Himalayan Ascents. While the other excerpt is from Hughes’ latest novel, The Devil’s Halo, described as: ‘A light comedy, a picaresque journey – like a warped subterranean Pilgrim’s Progress.’ We have reviews that celebrate the vibrancy of humanity. Bhaskar Parichha writes of Sandeep Khanna’s Tempest on River Silent: A Story of Last 50 Years of India, a novel that spans the diversity that was India. Malashri Lal reviews Rachna Singh’s Raghu Rai: Waiting for the Divine, a non-fiction on the life and works of the famous photographer. Somdatta Mandal discusses two book by Tsering Namgyal Khortsa reflecting the plight of Tibetan refugees, a non-fiction, Little Lhasa: Reflections in Exiled Tibet and a fiction, Tibetan Suitcase.

One of features that we love in Borderless is that language draws no barriers — that is why we have translations by Professor Alam of Jibananada’s short poems on the impact of war on the common masses. We have a small vignette of Korea from Ihlwha Choi’s self-translated poem. And we have a translation of Tagore’s verses invoking the healing power of spring… something that we much need.

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.

Best wishes,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the contents page for the March 2025 issue

Happy Birthday Borderless… Click here to read.

Vignettes from a Borderless World… Click here to read a special fifth anniversary issue.
Categories
Review

Little, Lhasa, Shangrila and More in the Heart of India

Books Reviewed by Somdatta Mandal

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
A Wonderful World

Vignettes from a Borderless World

Enjoy some of the most memorable gems from our treasury … gems that were borne of pens that have written to make our world bloom and grow over time.

The first cover art by Sohana Manzoor published in Borderless Journal

Poetry

An excerpt from Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘The Child‘, a poem originally written in English by the poet. Click here to read.

Click on the names to read the poems

 Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal,  Masha Hassan, Ryan Quinn Flangan,  LaVern Spencer McCarthy, Prithvijeet Sinha, Shamik Banerjee, George Freek, G Javaid Rasool, Rakhi Dalal, Afsar Mohammad, Kiriti Sengupta, Adeline Lyons, Nilsa Mariano, Jared Carter,  Mitra Samal, Lizzie Packer, Jenny Middleton, Asad Latif, Stuart Mcfarlane, Kumar Bhatt, Saranyan BV, Rex Tan, Jonathan Chan, Kirpal Singh, Maithreyi Karnoor, Rhys Hughes, Jay Nicholls

Tumi Kon Kanoner Phul by Tagore and Anjali Loho Mor by Nazrul, love songs by the two greats, have been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Poetry of Jibananda Das translated by Fakrul Alam and Rakibul Hasan Khan from Bengali. Click here to read.

Mahnu, a poem by Atta Shad, translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read. 

Manish Ghatak’s Aagun taader Praan (Fire is their Life) has been translated from Bengali by Indrayudh Sinha. Click here to read.

Amalkanti by Nirendranath Chakraborty has been translated from Bengali by Debali Mookerjea-Leonard. Click here to read.

Ye Shao-weng’s poetry ( 1100-1150) has been translated from Mandarin by Rex Tan. Click here to read.

Homecoming, a poem by Ihlwha Choi on his return from Santiniketan, has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Essays

 Travels & Holidays: Humour from Rabindranath: Translated from the original Bengali by Somdatta Mandal, these are Tagore’s essays and letters laced with humour. Click here to read.

Temples and Mosques: Kazi Nazrul Islam’s fiery essay translated by Sohana Manzoor. Click here to read.

The Comet’s Trail: Remembering Kazi Nazrul Islam: Radha Chakravarty pays tribute to the rebel poet of Bengal. Click here to read.

The Oral Traditions of Bengal: Story and Song: Aruna Chakravarti describes the syncretic culture of Bengal through its folk music and oral traditions. Click here to read.

Discovering Rabindranath and My Own Self: Professor Fakrul Alam muses on the impact of Tagore in his life. Click here to 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.

Amrita Sher-Gil: An Avant-Garde Blender of the East & West: Bhaskar Parichha shows how Amrita Sher-Gil’s art absorbed the best of the East and the West. Click here to read.

A Manmade Disaster or Climate Change?: Salma A Shafi writes of floods in Bangladesh from ground level. 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. 

Dramatising an Evolving Consciousness: Theatre with Nithari’s Children: Sanjay Kumar gives us a glimpse of how theatre has been used to transcend trauma and create bridges. 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.

To Be or Not to Be or the Benefits of Borders: Wendy Jones Nakanishi argues in favour of walls with wit and facts. 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 here to read.

In The Hidden Kingdom of Bhutan: Mohul Bhowmick explores Bhutan with words and his camera. Click here to read.

From Srinagar to Ladakh: A Cyclist’s Diary: Farouk Gulsara travels from Malaysia for a cycling adventure in Kashmir. Click here to read.

Musings

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. Click here to read.

Migrating to Myself from Kolkata to Singapore: Asad Latif explores selfhood in context of diverse geographies. Click here to read. 

Cherry Blossom Forecast: Suzanne Kamata brings the Japanese ritual of cherry blossom viewing to our pages with her camera and words. Click here to read.

 Hair or There: Party on My Head, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores political leanings and hair art. Click here to read.

 Ghosts, Witches and My New Homeland: Tulip Chowdhury muses on ghosts and spooks in Bangladesh and US. Click here 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. Click here 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.

In A Voice from Kharkiv: A Refugee in her Own Country, Lesya Bukan relates her journey out of Ukraine as a refugee and the need for the resistance. Click here to read.

Andrew Quilty, an award winning journalist for his features on Afghanistan, shares beyond his book,August in Kabul: America’s Last Days in Afghanistan and the Return of the Taliban, in a candid conversation. 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.

In Bridge 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 here to read.

Fiction

 Aparichita by Tagore: This short story has been translated as The Stranger by Aruna Chakravarti. Click here to read.

Hena by Nazrul has been translated from Bengali by Sohana Manzoor. Click here to read. 

Playlets by Rabindranath Tagore : Two skits that reveal the lighter side of the poet. They have been translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.

Pus Ki Raat or A Frigid Winter Night by Munshi Premchand has been translated from Hindi by C Christine Fair. 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 here to read.

The Witch, a short story by renowned Bengali writer Tarasankar Bandopadhyay (1898 to 1971), translated by Aruna Chakravarti. Click here 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 here to 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 here to read.

Orang Minyak or The Ghost: A Jessie Michael explores blind belief in a Malay village. Click here to read.

Flash Fiction: Peregrine: Brindley Hallam Dennis tells us the story of a cat and a human. Click here to read.

No Man’s Land: Sohana Manzoor gives us surrealistic story reflecting on after-life. Click here to 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 here to 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.

The Chopsy Moggy: Rhys Hughes gives us a feline adventure. Click here to read.

Happy Birthday Borderless… Click here to read.
Art by Sybil Pretious