Tag: Stephen Druce

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Borderless, January 2026

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Sense and Nonsense: Atonal, Imperfect, Incomplete… Click here to read.

Translations

Akashe Aaj Choriye Delam Priyo(I sprinkle in the sky) by Nazrul has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

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

Six Fragments by Sayad Hashumi have been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Five poems by Pravasini Mahakuda have been translated to English from Odia by Snehaprava Das. Click here to read.

A Poet in Exile by Dmitry Blizniuk has been translated from Ukranian by Sergey Gerasimov. Click here to read.

Kalponik or Imagined by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Pandies Corner

Songs of Freedom: The Seven Mysteries of Sumona’s Life is an autobiographical narrative by Sumona (pseudonym), translated from Hindustani by Grace M Sukanya. These stories highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and Pandies. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Ron Pickett, Snehaprava Das, Stephen Druce, Phil Wood, Akintoye Akinsola, Michael Lauchlan, Pritika Rao, SR Inciardi, Rich Murphy, Jim Murdoch, Pramod Rastogi, Joy Anne O’Donnell, Andrew Leggett, Ananya Sarkar, Annette Gagliardi, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In What is a Prose Poem?, Rhys Hughes tells us what he understands about the genre and shares four of his. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Duties For Those Left Behind

Keith Lyons muses on a missing friend in Bali. Click here to read.

That Time of Year

Rick Bailey muses about the passage of years. Click here to read.

All So Messi!

Farouk Gulsara takes a look at events in India and Malaysia and muses. Click here to read.

How Twins Revive Spiritual Heritage Throbbing Syncretism

Prithvijeet Sinha takes us to the Lucknow of 1800s. Click here to read.

Recycling New Jersey

Karen Beatty gives a glimpse of her life. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In ‘All Creatures Great and Small’, Devraj Singh Kalsi writes of animal interactions. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In The Cat Stationmaster of Kishi, Suzanne Kamata visits a small town where cats are cherished. Click here to read.

Essays

The Untold Stories of a Wooden Suitcase

Larry S. Su recounts his past in China and weaves a narrative of resilience. Click here to read.

A Place to Remember

Randriamamonjisoa Sylvie Valencia dwells on her favourite haunt. Click here to read.

Christmas that Almost Disappeared

Farouk Gulsara writes of Charles Dickens’ hand in reviving the Christmas spirit. Click here to read.

The Last of the Barbers: How the Saloon Became the Salon (and Where the Gossip Went)

Charudutta Panigrahi writes an essay steeped in nostalgia and yet weaving in the present. Click here to read.

Aeons of Art

In Art is Alive, Ratnottama Sengupta introduces the antiquity of Indian art. Click here to read.

Stories

Old Harry’s Game

Ross Salvage tells a poignant story about friendship with an old tramp. Click here to read.

Mrs. Thompson’s Package

Mary Ellen Campagna explores the macabre in a short fiction. Click here to read.

Hold on to What You Let Go

Rajendra Kumar Roul relates a story of compassion and expectations. Click here to read.

Used Steinways

Jonathan B. Ferrini shares a story about pianos and people set in Los Angeles. Click here to read.

The Rose’s Wish

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao relates a fable involving flowers and bees. Click here to read.

Discussion

A brief discusion of Whereabouts of the Anonymous: Exploration of the Invisible by Rajorshi Patranabis with an exclusive interview with the author on his supernatural leanings. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Showkat Ali’s The Struggle: A Novel, translated from Bengali by V. Ramaswamy and Mohiuddin Jahangir. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Anuradha Marwah’s The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Showkat Ali’s The Struggle: A Novel, translated from Bengali by V. Ramaswamy and Mohiuddin Jahangir. Click here to read.

Meenakshi Malhotra reviews Anuradha Marwah’s The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta. Click here to read.

Udita Banerjee reviews The Lost Pendant, translated (from Bengali) Partition poetry edited by Angshuman Kar. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Rakesh Dwivedi’s Colonization Crusade and Freedom of India: A Saga of Monstrous British Barbarianism around the Globe. Click here to read.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

Sense and Nonsense: Atonal, Imperfect, Incomplete

Incomplete statues of Michelangelo in Accademia Gallery, Florence

In the Accademia Gallery, Florence, are housed incomplete statues by Michelangelo that were supposed to accompany his sculpture of Moses on the grand tomb of Pope Julius II. The sculptures despite being unfinished, incomplete and therefore imperfect, evoke a sense of power. They seem to be wresting forcefully with the uncarved marble to free their own forms — much like humanity struggling to lead their own lives. Life now is comparable to atonal notes of modern compositions that refuse to fall in line with more formal, conventional melodies. The new year continues with residues of unending wars, violence, hate and chaos. Yet amidst all this darkness, we still live, laugh and enjoy small successes. The smaller things in our imperfect existence bring us hope, the necessary ingredient that helps us survive under all circumstances.

Imperfections, like Michelangelo’s Non-finito statues in Florence, or modern atonal notes, go on to create vibrant, relatable art. There is also a belief that when suffering is greatest, arts flourish. Beauty and hope are born of pain. Will great art or literature rise out of the chaos we are living in now?  One wonders if ancient art too was born of humanity’s struggle to survive in a comparatively younger world where they did not understand natural forces and whose history we try to piece together with objects from posterity. Starting on a journey of bringing ancient art from her part of the world, Ratnottama Sengupta shares a new column with us from this January.

Drenched in struggles of the past is also Showkat Ali’s The Struggle: A Novel, translated from Bengali by V. Ramaswamy and Mohiuddin Jahangir. It has been reviewed by Somdatta Mandal who sees it a socio-economic presentation of the times. We also carry an excerpt from the book as we do for Anuradha Marwah’s The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta. Marwha’s novel has been reviewed by Meenakshi Malhotra who sees it as a bildungsroman and a daring book. Bhaskar Parichha has brought to us a discussion on colonial history about Rakesh Dwivedi’s Colonization Crusade and Freedom of India: A Saga of Monstrous British Barbarianism around the Globe. Udita Banerjee has also delved into history with her exploration of Angshuman Kar’s The Lost Pendant, a collection of poems written by poets who lived through the horrors of Partition and translated from Bengali by multiple poets. One of the translators, Rajorshi Patranabis, has also discussed his own book of supernatural encounters, Whereabouts of the Anonymous: Exploration of the Invisible. A Wiccan by choice, Patranbis claims to have met with residual energies or what we in common parlance call ghosts and spoken to many of them. He not only clicked these ethereal beings — and has kindly shared his photos in this feature — but also has written a whole book about his encounters, including with the malevolent spirits of India’s most haunted monument, the Bhangarh Fort.

Bringing us an essay on a book that had spooky encounters is Farouk Gulsara, showing how Dickens’ A Christmas Carol revived a festival that might have got written off. We have a narrative revoking the past from Larry Su, who writes of his childhood in the China of the 1970s and beyond. He dwells on resilience — one of the themes we love in Borderless Journal. Karen Beatty also invokes ghosts from her past while sharing her memoir. Rick Bailey brings in a feeling of mortality in his musing while Keith Lyons, writes in quest of his friend who mysteriously went missing in Bali. Let’s hope he finds out more about him.

Charudutta Panigrahi writes a lighthearted piece on barbers of yore, some of whom can still be found plying their trade under trees in India. Randriamamonjisoa Sylvie Valencia dwells on her favourite place which continues to rejuvenate and excite while Prithvijeet Sinha writes about haunts he is passionate about, the ancient monuments of Lucknow. Gulsara has woven contemporary lores into his satirical piece, involving Messi, the footballer. Bringing compassionate humour with his animal interactions is Devraj Singh Kalsi, who is visited daily by not just a bovine visitor, but cats, monkeys, birds and more — and he feeds them all. Suzanne Kamata takes us to Kishi, brought to us by both her narrative and pictures, including one of a feline stationmaster!

Rhys Hughes has discussed prose poems and shared a few of his own along with three separate tongue-in-cheek verses on meteorological romances. In poetry, we have a vibrant selection from across the globe with poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Ron Pickett, Snehaprava Das, Stephen Druce, Phil Wood, Akintoye Akinsola, Michael Lauchlan, Pritika Rao, SR Inciardi, Jim Murdoch, Pramod Rastogi, Joy Anne O’Donnell, Andrew Leggett, Ananya Sarkar and Annette Gagliardi. Rich Murphy has poignant poems about refugees while Dmitry Bliznik of Ukraine, has written a first-hand account of how he fared in his war-torn world in his poignant poem, ‘A Poet in Exile’, translated from Ukranian by Sergey Gerasimov —

We've run away from the simmering house
like milk that is boiling over. Now I'm single again.
The sun hangs behind a ruffled up shed,
like a bloody yolk on a cold frying pan
until the nightfall dumps it in the garbage…

('A Poet in Exile', by Dmitry Blizniuk, translated from Ukranian by Sergey Gerasimov)

In translations, we have Professor Fakrul Alam’s rendition of Nazrul’s mellifluous lyrics from Bengali. Isa Kamari has shared four more of his Malay poems in English bringing us flavours of his culture. Snehaparava Das has similarly given us flavours of Odisha with her translation of Pravasini Mahakuda’s Odia poetry. A taste of Balochistan comes to us from Fazal Baloch’s rendition of Sayad Hashumi’s Balochi quatrains in English. Tagore’s poem ‘Kalponik’ (Imagined) has been rendered in English. This was a poem that was set to music by his niece, Sarala Devi.

After a long hiatus, we are delighted to finally revive Pandies Corner with a story by Sumona translated from Hindustani by Grace M Sukanya. Her story highlights the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms. Sumana has assumed a pen name as her story is true and could be a security risk for her. She is eager to narrate her story — do pause by and take a look.

In fiction, we have a poignant narrative about befriending a tramp by Ross Salvage, and macabre and dark one by Mary Ellen Campagna, written with a light touch. It almost makes one think of Eugene Ionesco. Jonathan B. Ferrini shares a heartfelt story about used Steinway pianos and growing up in Latino Los Angeles. Rajendra Kumar Roul weaves a narrative around compassion and expectations. Naramsetti Umamaheswararao gives a beautiful fable around roses and bees.

With that, we come to the end of a bumper issue with more than fifty peices. Huge thanks to all our fabulous contributors, some of whom have not just written but shared photographs to illustrate the content. Do pause by our contents page and take a look. My heartfelt thanks to our fabulous team for their output and support, especially Sohana Manzoor who does our cover art. And most of all huge thanks to readers whose numbers keep growing, making it worth our while to offer our fare. Thank you all.

Here’s wishing all of you better prospects for the newborn year and may we move towards peace and sanity in a world that seems to have gone amuck!

Happy Reading!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE CONTENTS FOR THE JANUARY 2026 ISSUE.

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

Categories
Contents

Borderless, October 2025

Painting by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Imagine… All the People… Click here to read

Translations

Jani Jani Priyo, Ea Jebone  (I know my dear one, in this life) by Nazrul has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

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

Five poems by Hrushikesh Mallick have been translated from Odia by Snehprava Das. Click here to read.

The Headstone, a poignant story by Sharaf Shad has been translated by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Shukh (Happiness) by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

John Valentine, Saranyan BV, John Swain, Ahmad Al-Khatat, Stephen Druce, Jyotish Chalil Gopinath, Jenny Middleton, Maria Alam, Ron Pickett, Tanjila Ontu, Jim Bellamy, Pramod Rastogi, John Grey, Laila Brahmbhatt, John Zedolik, Snehaprava Das, Joseph K.Wells, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

Rhys Hughes shares his play, Night in Karnataka. Click here to read.

Musings/ Slices from Life

Just Passing Through

Farouk Gulsara muses on humans and their best friends. Click here to read.

Feeding Carrots to Gentle Herbivores

Meredith Stephens looks back to her past adventures with horses and present ones with giraffes. Click here to read.

Linen at Midnight

Pijus Ash relates a real-life spooky encounter in Holland. Click here to read.

Two Lives – A Writer and A Businessman

Chetan Datta Poduri explores two lives from the past and what remains of their heritage. Click here to read.

My Forest or Your City Park?

G Venkatesh muses on the tug of war between sustainabilty, ecology and economies. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Karmic Backlog, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores reincarnations with a twinge of humour. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In DIY Dining in Japan, Suzanne Kamata in a light note talks about restaurants with robots. Click here to read.

Essays

Peddling Progress?

Jun A. Alindogan writes about what is perceived as progress from Philippines. Click here to read.

From Madagascar to Japan: An Adventure or a Dream…

Randriamamonjisoa Sylvie Valencia writes of her journey from Africa to Japan with a personal touch. Click here to read.

From Bombay to Kolkata — the Dhaaks of Durga 

Ratnottama Sengupta explores a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Festival. Click here to read.

Stories

Sleeper on the Bench

Paul Mirabile sets his strange story in London. Click here to read.

Sandy Cannot Write

Devraj Singh Kalsi takes us into the world of adverstising and glamour. Click here to read.

The Wise Words of the Sun

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao relates a fable involving elements of nature. Click here to read.

Discussions

A conversation with Swati Pal, academic and poet, on healing through writing and bereavement. Click here to read.

A conversation with five translators — Aruna Chakravarti, Radha Chakravarty, Somdatta Mandal, Fakrul Alam and Fazal Baloch — from across South Asia. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from That’s A Fire Ant Right There! Tales from Kavali by Mohammed Khadeer Babu, translated from Telugu by D.V. Subhashri. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Swati Pal’s poetry collection, Forever Yours. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp: Selected Stories, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi. Click here to read.

Meenakshi Malhotra has reviewed Malachi Edwin Vethamani’s anthology, Contours of Him: Poems. Click here to read.

Rupak Shreshta reviews Sangita Swechcha’s Rose’s Odyssey: Tales of Love and Loss, translated from Nepali by Jayant Sharma. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Kalpana Karunakaran’s A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras. Click here to read.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

Imagine… All the People…

Art by Henry Tayali(1943-1987). From Public Domain

Let us imagine a world where wars have been outlawed and there is only peace. Is that even possible outside of John Lennon’s song? While John Gray, a modern-day thinker, propounds human nature cannot change despite technological advancements, one has to only imagine how a cave dweller would have told his family flying to the moon was an impossibility. And yet, it has been proven a reality and now, we are thinking living in outer space, though currently it is only the forte of a few elitists and astronomers. Maybe, it will become an accessible reality as shown in books by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke or shows like Star Trek and Star Wars. Perhaps, it’s only dreamers or ideators pursuing unreal hopes and urges who often become the change makers, the people that make humanity move forward. In Borderless, we merely gather your dreams and present them to the world. That is why we love to celebrate writers from across all languages and cultures with translations and writings that turn current norms topsy turvy. We feature a number of such ideators in this issue.

Nazrul in his times, would have been one such ideator, which is why we carry a song by him translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. And yet before him was Tagore — this time we carry a translation of an unusual poem about happiness. From current times, we present to you a poet — perhaps the greatest Malay writer in Singapore — Isa Kamari. He has translated his longing for changes into his poems. His novels and stories express the same longing as he shares in The Lost Mantras, his self-translated poems that explore adapting old to new. We will be bringing these out over a period of time. We also have poems by Hrushikesh Mallick translated from Odia by Snehprava Das and a poignant story by Sharaf Shad translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch.

We have an evocative short play by Rhys Hughes, where gender roles are inverted in a most humorous way. It almost brings to mind Begum Rokeya’s Sultana’s Dream. Tongue-in-cheek humour in non-fiction is brought in by Devraj Singh Kalsi and Chetan Dutta Poduri. Farouk Gulsara and Meredith Stephens write in a light-hearted vein about their interactions with animal friends. G. Venkatesh brings in serious strains with his musings on sustainability. Jun A. Alindogan slips into profundities while talking of “progress” in Philippines. Young Randriamamonjisoa Sylvie Valencia gives a heartfelt account of her journey from Madagascar to Japan. Ratnottama Sengupta travels across space and time to recount her experiences in a festival recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Suzanne Kamata brings a light touch again when she writes about robots serving in restaurants in Japan, a change that would be only fiction even in Asimov’s times, less than a hundred years ago!

Pijus Ash — are we to believe or not believe his strange, spooky encounter in Holland? And we definitely don’t have to believe what skeletons do in Hughes’ limericks, even if their antics make us laugh! Poetry brings on more spooks from Saranyan BV and frightening environmental focus on the aftermath of flooding by Snehaprava Das. We have colours of poetry from all over the world with John Valentine, John Swain, Ahmad Al-Khatat, Stephen Druce, Jyotish Chalil Gopinath, Jenny Middleton, Maria Alam, Ron Pickett, Tanjila Ontu, Jim Bellamy, Pramod Rastogi, John Grey, Laila Brahmbhatt, John Zedolik and Joseph K.Wells.

Fiction yields a fable from Naramsetti Umamaheswararao. Devraj Singh Kalsi takes us into the world of advertising and glamour and Paul Mirabile writes of a sleeper who likes to sleep on benches in parks out of choice! We also have an excerpt from Mohammed Khadeer Babu’s stories, That’s A Fire Ant Right There! Tales from Kavali , translated from Telugu by D.V. Subhashri. The other excerpt is from Swati Pal’s poetry collection, Forever Yours. Pal has in an online interview discussed bereavement and healing through poetry for her stunning poems pretty much do that.

Book reviews homes an indepth introduction by Somdatta Mandal to Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp: Selected Stories, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi. We have a discussion by Meenakshi Malhotra on Contours of Him: Poems, edited and introduced by Malaysian academic, Malachi Edwin Vethamani, in which she concludes, “that if femininity is a construct, so is masculinity.” Overriding human constructs are journeys made by migrants. Rupak Shreshta has introduced us to immigrant Sangita Swechcha’s Rose’s Odyssey: Tales of Love and Loss, translated from Nepali by Jayant Sharma. Bhaskar Parichha winds up this section with his exploration of Kalpana Karunakaran’s A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras. He tells us: “A Woman of No Consequence restores dignity to what is often dismissed as ordinary. It chronicles the spiritual and intellectual evolution of a woman who sought transcendence within the rhythms of domestic life, turning the everyday into a site of resistance and renewal.” Again, by the sound of it a book that redefines the idea that housework is mundane and gives dignity to women and the task at hand.

We wind up the October issue hoping for changes that will lead to a happier existence, helping us all connect with the commonality of emotions, overriding borders that hurt humanity, other species and the Earth.

Huge thanks to our fabulous team, especially Sohana Manzoor for her inimitable artwork. We would all love to congratulate Hughes for his plays that ran houseful in Swansea. And heartfelt thanks to all our wonderful contributors, without who this issue would not have been possible, and to our readers, who make it worth our while, to write and publish.

Have a wonderful month!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE CONTENTS FOR THE OCTOBER 2025 ISSUE

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

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Poetry

Two Poems by Stephen Druce

A CATASTROPHIC HABITAT


Nothing works in
my small flat -
it's a catastrophic
habitat,

the key to the flat
won't turn in the door,
the sign says three but
it's really number four,

the letterbox opening's
a millimetre wide -
the doorbell rings 
but only outside,

security was fitted
with the burglar proof -
so the thieves broke in
through the leaking roof,

a fire broke out and
the smoke alarm failed,
the wall fell down when
I pulled the curtain rail,

the power cuts are frequent 
so I'm often in the dark,
the cat can't meow and
the dog can't bark,

the stereo is broken and
the bathroom mirror cracked,
no signal on the wi-fi --
the extractor wont extract,

the microwave blew --
there's a hole in the bin,
the ceiling fell through and
the goldfish can't swim,

the fridge won't close and
the cupboards don't fit --
like my wrong-sized clothes
and the washing line split,

the rocking chair snapped
and I landed on my head,
I bounced into the bedroom
and I broke the waterbed,

the toaster burns the bread
when the settings on low --
the cork's stuck in the bottle
and the plants won't grow,

the vacuum cleaner won't suck --
the light bulbs have popped,
the superglue has never stuck
and all the clocks have stopped,

they undercut the window panes --
they all have two inch gaps,
the gas pipe burst -- I must be cursed --
the building just collapsed.


THEY'LL NEVER KNOW
THE WAY WE FEEL

They'll never know
the way we feel.

they'll know our names
and what we earn --
our capital gains --
our tax return,
and what we're worth --
our height and weight,
our place of birth --
the time and date,
our number flat --
our fixed abode,
our habitat --
our postal code,
our social links --
our network friends,
the way we think --
how much we spend,
our DNA --
the streets we go,
our resume --
the bills we owe,
our hidden scars --
our blood relation,
where we are --
our information,
star sign -- if
our passport's real --
but they'll never know
the way we feel.
From Public Domain

Stephen Philip Druce is based in Shrewsbury UK. He is published in the USA, India, the UK and Canada. He’s written for theatre plays in London and BBC 4 Extra. 

Contact: Instagram – @StephenPhilipDruce

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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
Contents

Borderless, January 2025

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

“We are the World”… Click here to read.

Translations

Jibanananda Das’s Ghumiye Poribe Aami (I’ll Fall Asleep) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Roll Up Not the Mat by Ali Jan Dad has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

My Father’s Jacket, a poem by Ihlwha Choi  has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Probhat or Dawn by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Michael R Burch, Kirpal Singh, Afsar Mohammad, Michelle Hillman, Kiriti Sengupta, Jenny Middleton, G Javaid Rasool, Stephen Druce, John Grey, Aman Alam, George Freek, Vidya Hariharan, Stuart McFarlane, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Midnight Tonight, Rhys Hughes gives us humour and horror together. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Not Quite a Towering Inferno

Farouk Gulsara gives an account of an experienced hotel fire in Colombo. Click here to read.

Do we all Dance with the Forbidden?

Nusrat Jahan Esa muses on human nature keeping in mid Milton’s Paradise Lost. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Banking Ideas?, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores the idea of writers and banking. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Weekend in Futaba at the Japan Writers Conference, Suzanne Kamata writes of the inception of the event and this year’s meet. Click here to read.

Essays

Well Done, Shyam! Never Say ‘Goodbye’!

Ratnottama Sengupta gives an emotional tribute to Shyam Benegal, focussing on her personal interactions and his films. Click here to read.

Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein: How Significant Is She Today?

Niaz Zaman reflects on the relevance of one of the earliest feminists in Bengal. Click here to read.

Morning Walks

Professor Fakrul Alam writes of his perambulations in Dhaka. Click here to read.

Stories

Nico’s Boat Sails to China

Paul Mirabile weaves a story of resilience set in Greece. Click here to read.

Anand’s Wisdom

Naramsetti Umamaheswararao relates a story set on pathways amidst Andhra villages. Click here to read.

The Forgotten Children

Ahamad Rayees gives us a poignant story set in Kashmir. Click here to read.

The Heart of Aarti

Priyatham Swamy gives a story about an immigrant from Nepal. Click here to read.

Persona

Sohana Manzoor wanders into a glamorous world of expats. Click here to read.

Conversation

In conversation with Kiriti Sengupta, a writer and a director of Hawakal Publishers. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from S. Eardley-Wilmot’s The Life of an Elephant. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Contemporary Urdu Stories from Kolkata, translated by Shams Afif Siddiqi and edited by Shams Afif Siddiqi and Fuzail Asar Siddiqi. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay’s Kaleidoscope of Life: Select Short Stories, translated from Bengali by Hiranmoy Lahiri. Click here to read.

Malashri Lal reviews Basudhara Roy’s A Blur of a Woman. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy reviews Afsar Mohammad’s Fasting Hymns. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Razeen Sally’s Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Island. Click here to read.

.

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

“We are the World”

Art by Sophia P, Cypress
Art by Hugo A, Quezon City
From Public Domain

In 1985, famous artistes, many of whom are no longer with us, collaborated on the song, We are the World, to raise funds to feed children during the Ethiopian famine (1983-85). The song was performed together by Michael Jackson, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Paul Simon, Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick, Lionel Richie, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen.  The producer, Julia Nottingham, said: “It’s a celebration of the power of creativity and the power of collective humanity.” The famine was attributed to ‘war and drought’.

Over the last few years, we have multiple wars creating hunger and drought caused by disruptions. Yet, the world watches and the atrocities continue to hurt common people, the majority who just want to live and let live, accept and act believing in the stories created by centuries of civilisation. As Yuval Noah Harari points out in a book written long before the current maladies set in, Homo Deus (2015), “…the stories are just tools. They should not become our goals or our yardsticks. When we forget that they are mere fiction, we lose touch with reality. Then we begin entire wars ‘to make a lot of money for the corporation’ or ‘to protect the national interest’. Corporations, money and nations exist only in our imagination. We invented them to serve us; why do we find ourselves sacrificing our lives in their service?”

What Harari says had been said almost ninety years ago by a voice from another region, by a man who suffered but wrote beautiful poetry, Jibanananda Das… and here are his verses —

“The stories stored in my soul will eventually fade. New ones—
New festivals—will replace the old — in life’s honey-tinged slight.”

— Jibananda Das, from ‘Ghumiye Poribe Aami’ (I’ll fall asleep), 1934, translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam

We carry the poem in this issue translated by Professor Fakrul Alam, lines that makes one dream of a better future. These ideas resonate in modern Balochi poet Ali Jan Dad’s ‘Roll Up Not the Mat’ brought to us in English by Fazal Baloch. Korean poet Ihlwha Choi’s translation takes us to longing filled with nostalgic hope while Tagore’s ‘Probhat’ (Dawn) gives a glimpse of a younger multi-faceted visionary dwell on the wonders of a perfect morning imbibing a sense of harmony with nature.

“I feel blessed for this sky, so luminous. 
I feel blessed to be in love with the world.”

--‘Probhat’ (Dawn) by Tagore, 1897, translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty

Starting a new year on notes of hope, of finding new dreams seems to be a way forward for humanity does need to evolve out of self-imposed boundaries and darknesses and move towards a new future with narratives and stories that should outlive the present, outlive the devastating impact of climate change and wars by swapping our old narratives for ones that will help us harmonise with the wonders we see around us… wonders created by non-human hands or nature.

We start this year with questions raised on the current world by many of our contributors. Professor Alam in his essay makes us wonder about the present as he cogitates during his morning walks. Niaz Zaman writes to us about a change maker who questioned and altered her part of the world almost a century ago, Begum Roquiah. Can we still make such changes in mindsets as did Roquiah? And yet again, Ratnottama Sengupta pays homage to a great artiste, filmmaker Shyam Benegal, who left us in December 2024 just after he touched 90. Other non-fictions include musings by Nusrat Jan Esa on human nature contextualising it with Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667); Farouk Gulsara’s account of a fire in Sri Lanka where he was visiting and Suzanne Kamata’s column from Japan on the latest Japanese Literary Festival in the Fukushimaya prefecture, the place where there was a nuclear blast in 2011. What is amazing is the way they have restored the prefecture in such a short time. Their capacity to bounce back is exemplary! Devraj Singh Kalsi shares a tongue-in-cheek musing about the compatibility of banks and writers.

Rhys Hughes’ poem based on the photograph of a sign is tongue-in- cheek too. But this time we also have an unusual exploration of horror with wry humour in his column. Michael Burch shares a lovely poem about a hill that was planted by his grandfather and is now claimed as state property… Afsar Mohammad explores hunger in his fasting poems and Aman Alam gives heart rending verses on joblessness. Poems by Kirpal Singh contextualise Shakespearian lore to modern suffering. We have more poems by Kiriti Sengupta, Michelle Hillman, Jenny Middleton, G Javaid Rasool, Stephen Druce, John Grey, George Freek and many others — all exploring multiple facets of life. We also have a conversation with Kiriti Sengupta on how he turned to poetry from dentistry!

Exploring more of life around us are stories by Sohana Manzoor set in an expat gathering; by Priyatham Swamy about a migrant woman from Nepal and by Naramsetti Umamaheswararao set against rural Andhra Pradesh. While Ahmad Rayees gives a poignant, touching story set in a Kashmiri orphanage, Paul Mirabile reflects on the resilience of a child in a distant Greek island. Mirabile’s stories are often a throwback to earlier times.

In this issue, our book excerpts explore a writer of yore too, one that lived almost a hundred years ago, S. Eardley-Wilmot (1852-1929), a conservationist and one who captures the majesty of nature, the awe and the wonder like Tagore or Jibanananda with his book, The Life of an Elephant. The other book takes us to contemporary Urdu writers but in Kolkata —Contemporary Urdu Stories from Kolkata, translated by Shams Afif Siddiqi and edited by Shams Afif Siddiqi and Fuzail Asar Siddiqi. A set of translated stories of the well-known Bengali writer, Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay by Hiranmoy Lahiri, brought out in a book called Kaleidoscope of Life: Select Short Stories has been reviewed by Somdatta Mandal. Malashri Lal has discussed Basudhara Roy’s A Blur of a Woman. Roy herself has explored Afsar Mohammad’s Fasting Hymns. Bhaskar Parichha has taken us to Sri Lanka with a discussion on a book on Sri Lanka, Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Island by an academic located in Singapore, Razeen Sally.

Bringing together varied voices from across the world and ages, one notices recurring themes raising concerns for human welfare and for the need to conserve our planet. To gain agency, it is necessary to have many voices rise in a paean to humanity and the natural world as they have in this start of the year issue.  

I would like to thank all those who made this issue possible, our team and the contributors. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I cannot stop feeling grateful to Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork too, art that blends in hope into the pages of Borderless Journal. As all our content has not been mentioned here, I invite you to pause by our content’s page to explore more of our exciting fare. Huge thanks to all readers for you make our journey worthwhile.

I would hope we can look forward to this year as being one that will have changes for the better for all humanity and the Earth… so that we still have our home a hundred years from now, even if it looks different.

Wish you a year filled with new dreams.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

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