Autumn Garden by Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890). From Public Domain
September heralds the start of year-end festivities around the world. It’s autumn in one part and spring in another – both seasons that herald change. While our planet celebrates changes, dichotomies, opposites and inclusively gazes with wonder at the endless universe in all its splendour, do we? Festivals are times of good cheer and fun with our loved ones. And yet, a large part of the world seems to be in disarray with manmade disasters wrought by our own species on its own home planet. Despite the sufferings experienced by victims of climate and war-related calamities, the majority will continue to observe rituals out of habit while subscribing to exclusivity and shun change in any form. Occasionally, there are those who break all rules to create a new norm.
One such group of people are the bauls or mendicants from Bengal. Aruna Chakravarti has shared an essay about these people who have created a syncretic lore with music and nature, defying the borders that divide humanity into exclusive groups. As if to complement this syncretic flow, we have Professor Fakrul Alam’s piece on a human construct, literary clubs spanning different cultures spread over centuries – no less an area in which we find norms redefined for, the literary, often, are the harbingers of change.
Mandal, herself, has a brilliant translation featured in this issue. We have a review of her book, an interview with her, and an excerpt from the translation of Jaladhar Sen’s The Travels of a Sadhu in the Himalayas. Written and first published in the Tagore family journal, Bharati, the narrative is an outstanding cultural bridge which even translates Bengali humour for an Anglophone readership. That Sen had a strictly secular perspective in the nineteenth century when blind devotion was often a norm is showcased in Mandal’s translation as well as the stupendous descriptions of the Himalayas that haunt with elegant simplicity.
Our fiction this month seems largely focussed on women’s stories from around the world. While Fiona Sinclair and Erin Jamieson reflect on mother-daughter relationships, Anandita Dey looks into a woman’s dilemma as she tries to adjust to the accepted norm of an ‘arranged’ marriage. Rashida Murphy explores deep rooted social biases that create issues faced by a woman with a light touch. Naramsetti Umamaheswararao brings in variety with a fable – a story that reflects human traits transcending gender disparity.
The September issue would not have been possible without contributions of words and photographs by many of you. Huge thanks to all of you, to the fabulous team and to Sohana Manzoor, whose art has become synonymous with our journal. And our heartfelt thanks to our wonderful readers, without who the effort of putting together this journal would be pointless. Thank you all.
I felt some trepidation as I prepared to enter the United States from Japan. It would be my first time to return to my native country since the new administration took office. Rumour had it that immigration officials would check my phone for leftist activity on social networks (they didn’t). I’d heard about books being banned, libraries and museums being closed, and the words “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” being suddenly prohibited in government documents.
My parents, originally from Michigan, in the North, live in South Carolina. This is where the Civil War began in 1861 when state legislators voted to secede from the union. They wanted to preserve slavery and allow its expansion into western territories. South Carolina and six other Southern states formed what was called the Confederacy.
The Confederate flag, a symbol, for many, of an ugly past, was first flown from a flagpole in front of the capitol building in 1961, in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the Civil War. It remained flying in protest of the Civil Rights movement, and was only taken down in 2017, after a twenty-one-year-old white supremacist entered a historically black church in Charleston and opened fire on a prayer group. He killed nine people and injured one. Now the flag is on display in a special room at the State Museum.
My visit to South Carolina coincided with a visit from my son, a student of history with a keen interest in politics. My dad thought it might be fun to take his grandson to the Statehouse for a tour. My son was enthusiastic about this idea. I went along, too, with some reservations.
We drove into the city of Columbia and parked in a public lot at the back of the Statehouse. As we entered the grounds, we came upon a statue of Strom Thurmond. He was a teacher, a lawyer, and a highly decorated soldier. He served as governor of South Carolina from 1947-1951, and as senator for 47 years after that, right up until his death at the age of 100. Until very recently, he held the record for the longest filibuster, which is a tactic used to delay voting upon a contentious bill. Basically, a senator takes the floor and keeps talking for as long as he possibly can. In August of 1957, Strom Thurmond gave a speech lasting 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to a law promoting civil rights. After his death, it was revealed that he had fathered a child with his family’s 16-year-old African American maid. Of course, that is not inscribed on the plaque at the base of the statue.
To be honest, I had expected to see this statue, as well as other monuments devoted to Confederate generals and segregationists. But I was pleasantly surprised to find a new monument commemorating the accomplishments of South Carolinian African Americans.
We went inside the building and were ushered to a room off to the side for a short film before the tour began. I noted that the film was narrated by a young African American man, which seemed like a nod to diversity, equity and inclusion. He mentioned, perhaps with false pride, that Strom Thurmond held the record for longest filibuster in the history of the United States. Nevertheless, I was glad to see that the film highlighted the achievements of women and minorities, such as South Carolina’s first – and so far, only – female governor, Nikki Haley, the one who ordered that the Confederate flag be removed from state grounds.
During the rest of the tour, I breathed a bit easier, admiring the intricate ironwork on the stair railings, and the stained glass above the chambers. I enjoyed hearing that Magdalen Feline, a woman goldsmith had crafted the symbolic mace, which is placed in a rack at the front of the Speaker’s podium when the House of Representatives is in session. And I was pleased to see a portrait of African American educator, philanthropist, and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955) prominently displayed.
South Carolina is a complicated state, and this is an increasingly complicated world. However, going on this tour gave me hope that my fellow Americans might get back to celebrating diversity, equity, and inclusion, and all of the best parts of human nature.
Suzanne Kamatawas born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Nazrul’s Jonomo, Jonomo Gelo(Generations passed) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read and listen to a rendition by the famed Feroza Begum.
Ajit Cour‘s short story, Nandu, has been translated from Punjabi by C Christine Fair. Click here to read.
The Scarecrowby Anwar Sahib Khan has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Naramsetti Umamaheswararao moulds children’s perspectives. Click here to read.
Notes from Japan
In American Wife,Suzanne Kamata gives a short story set set in the Obon festival in Japan. Click here to read.
Conversation
Neeman Sobhan, author of Abiding City: Ruminations from Rome, discusses shuttling between multiple cultures and finding her identity in words. Click here to road.
Storm in purple by Arina Tcherem. From Public Domain
If we take a look at our civilisation, there are multiple kinds of storms that threaten to annihilate our way of life and our own existence as we know it. The Earth and the human world face twin threats presented by climate change and wars. While on screen, we watch Gaza and Ukraine being sharded out of life by human-made conflicts over constructs made by our own ‘civilisations’, we also see many of the cities and humankind ravaged by floods, fires, rising sea levels and global warming. Along with that come divides created by economics and technology. Many of these themes reverberate in this month’s issue.
From South Australia, Meredith Stephens writes of marine life dying due to algal growth caused by rising water temperatures in the oceans — impact of global warming. She has even seen a dead dolphin and a variety of fishes swept up on the beach, victims of the toxins that make the ocean unfriendly for current marine life. One wonders how much we will be impacted by such changes! And then there is technology and the chatbot taking over normal human interactions as described by Farouk Gulsara. Is that good for us? If we perhaps stop letting technology take over lives as Gulsara and Jun A. Alindogan have contended, it might help us interact to find indigenous solutions, which could impact the larger framework of our planet. Alindogan has also pointed out the technological divide in Philippines, where some areas get intermittent or no electricity. And that is a truth worldwide — lack of basic resources and this technological divide.
On the affluent side of such divides are moving to a new planet, discussions on immortality — Amortals[1] by Harari’s definition, life and death by euthanasia. Ratnottama Sengupta brings to us a discussion on death by choice — a privilege of the wealthy who pay to die painlessly. The discussion on whether people can afford to live or die by choice lies on the side of the divide where basic needs are not an issue, where homes have not been destroyed by bombs and where starvation is a myth, where climate change is not wrecking villages with cloudbursts. In Kashmir, we can find a world where many issues exist and violences are a way of life. In the midst of such darkness, a bit of kindness and more human interactions as described by Gower Bhat in ‘The Man from Pulwama’ goes some way in alleviating suffering. Perhaps, we can take a page of the life of such a man. In the middle of all the raging storms, Devraj Singh Kalsi brings in a bit of humour or rather irony with his strange piece on his penchant for syrups, a little island removed from conflicts which seem to rage through this edition though it does raise concerns that affect our well-being.
Parichha has also reviewed a book by another contemporary Odia woman author, Snehaprava Das. The collection of short stories is called Keep it Secret. Madhuri Kankipati has discussed O Jungio’s The Kite of Farewells: Stories from Nagaland and Somdatta Mandal has written about Chhimi Tenduf-La’s A Hiding to Nothing, a novel by a global Tibetan living in Sri Lanka with the narrative between various countries. We have an interview with a global nomad too, Neeman Sobhan, who finds words help her override borders. In her musing on Ostia Antica, a historic seaside outside Rome, Sobhan mentions how the town was abandoned because of the onset of anopheles mosquitos. Will our cities also get impacted in similar ways because of the onset of global ravages induced by climate change? This musing can be found as a book excerpt from Abiding City: Ruminations from Rome, her book on her life as a global nomad. The other book excerpt is by a well-known writer who has also lived far from where he was born, MA Aldrich. His book,From Rasa to Lhasa: The Sacred Center of the Mandala is said to be “A sweeping, magnificent biography—which combines historical research, travel-writing and discussion of religion and everyday culture—Old Lhasa is the most comprehensive account of the fabled city ever written in English.”
With that, we come to our fiction section. This time we truly have stories from around the globe with Suzanne Kamata sending a story set in the Bon festival that’s being celebrated in Japan this week for her column. From there, we move to Taiwan with C. J. Anderson-Wu’s narrative reflecting disappearances during the White Terror (1947-1987), a frightening period for people stretched across almost four decades. Gigi Gosnell writes of the horrific abuse faced by a young Filipino girl as the mother works as a domestic helper in Dubai. Paul Mirabile gives us a cross-cultural narrative about a British who opts to become a dervish. While Hema R touches on women’s issues from within India, Sahitya Akademi Award Winner, Naramsetti Umamaheshwararao, writes a story about children.
With such hope growing out of a neolithic burial chamber, maybe there is hope for life to survive despite all the bleakness we see around us. Maybe, with a touch of magic and a sprinkle of realism – our sense of hope, faith and our ability to adapt to changes, we will survive for yet another millennia.
We wind up our content for the August issue with the eternal bait for our species — hope. Huge thanks to the fantastic team at Borderless and to all our wonderful writers. Truly grateful to Sohana Manzoor for her artwork and many thanks to all our wonderful readers for their time…
Suzanne Kamata shares a story from 1999, set during Obon or the Festival of Bon, a Japanese Buddhist custom that honors the spirits of one’s ancestors.
Obon Festival. From Public Domain
My husband is dancing.
The name of the dance is “Awa Odori,” “Awa” being the ancient name for Tokushima, where we live now, and “odori” being Japanese for “dance.” Its origins are unclear. Some say fertility rites, others claim it is a celebration of a good harvest.
My husband is thinking about none of these things as he dances with his friends of fifteen years. No doubt he is drunk on beer and fellow feeling, absorbed in the revelry of this annual festival.
I am at home alone in our apartment.
I could have gone, too, but I declined by way of protest. I’m demonstrating because while I am welcome to, indeed expected to, celebrate Japanese holidays, my own country’s holidays go ignored. When I’d wanted to do something special a month ago in observance of the Fourth of July, Jun had refused. “This is Japan,” he’d said, as if that would explain everything.
When I married Jun, I’d had a concept of international marriage as the combining of two cultures, not the elimination of one. True, I’d expected compromises, but on both sides, not just mine.
This time, however, I’m not giving in. I’m not going to budge. I didn’t go with him to visit his ancestors’ graves, and I am not going to don a cotton yukata[1] and dance in the streets to flute and drum. If he won’t see me halfway on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Independence Day, then I’ll just sit this one out.
.
During Obon, the whole family usually gathers at some point. I’ll admit that I did go along with Jun to his parents’ house where his sister Yukiko and her family, his aunts and uncles and cousins, and his grandmother were assembled.
Uncle Takahiro said, “Hello. How are you?” in English, and everyone laughed as if he’d just told a joke.
I answered politely in Japanese, then my husband’s sister pushed her three-year-old toward me. “Go ahead. Say it, Mari-chan,” she said, beaming with motherly pride.
Dutifully, Mari recited the litany of English words that she had learned since I last saw her: “Horse. Cow. Pig.”
Yukiko looked to me expectantly, and I indulged her with words of praise for her daughter.
I can see it now. Yukiko will be the worst kind of “education mama,” as they call mothers who obsess over their children’s school performances.
“They’re teaching English at Mari-chan’s nursery school now,” Yukiko told me. “A foreigner comes once a week.”
Then, unbidden, Mari launched into a song. It was “Eensy Weensy Spider,” complete with gestures. Though she garbled some of the words, she earned a hearty round of applause from the adults.
.
Even after all this time, Jun’s relatives still don’t know how to talk to me. I make them uncomfortable, and sometimes I feel that I should apologise for being there, or better yet, just disappear. They have never tried to talk to me about everyday things like popular TV shows, bargain sales at Sogo, the big department store in town, or new recipes. When conversation is flagging, someone usually says to me, “Don’t you miss your home? Isn’t it hard being so far away?”
“It’ll be different after you have children,” my friend Maki said. “They’ll accept you then.”
Maybe so, but it looks like children are a long way off for Jun and me. Although we have been married for seven years, we have no kids. Mari was born just nine months after Yukiko and her husband were married. Their second baby – a boy – came along a year later.
We want children. We have even tried. I know that there’s nothing wrong with my body because I’ve been to specialists all over town, but Jun doesn’t seem interested in getting checked himself.
His mother would never believe there was a problem with her son. I’ve heard her whispering with Jun’s grandmother. “It’s because she’s American.”
Jun’s grandmother, who doesn’t know any better, nodded her head and said, “Ahh, yes. I’ve heard that gaijin don’t keep the baby in the womb as long as we Japanese do. Gaijin and Japanese can’t make babies together.”
And Jun’s mother, who should know better, nodded her head and said, “Yes, yes. You may be right.”
My mother-in-law also tells Jun’s grandmother that I’m a lazy wife. She tells the story in a whisper loud enough for me to hear that sometimes when she drops by our apartment, Jun is loading the clothes into the washing machine! Another time, he was standing at the stove with an apron on, cooking dinner!
“He should have married a Japanese woman,” Jun’s grandmother says. “A Japanese woman would take care of him.”
.
Jun and I sleep together in the same bed. His sister sleeps apart from her husband, in another room entirely, with her two children. His parents sleep in the same room, but one of them sleeps in a bed, the other in a futon spread on the floor.
Just before we got married, we bought furniture for our apartment. At that time, Jun suggested getting separate beds. He said that it was practical. With two beds, there would be no tussling over sheets, no accidental kicking in the night. I cried because whenever I had thought about marriage, I’d had an image of us sleeping in each other’s arms, breathing in unison.
Finally, we got one bed, a “wide double” that we cover with a double wedding ring quilt. It’s true that sometimes one of us winds up wrapped in all the sheets while the other one nearly freezes, and sometimes I find myself pinned into an uncomfortable position by Jun’s heavy limbs, but I don’t care. For me, one of the great joys of this life is waking up close to him, close enough to kiss him and run my hand over his bare chest.
.
Jun likes carpet and sofas and colonial style houses. I have always admired the simplicity of tatami mats and just a few cushions to sit on, rooms enclosed by sliding paper doors. My ideal room is an empty one, totally void of any unnecessary object. From studying home decorating magazines while in the US, I’d come to believe that in Japan this minimalism was typical. When I got here, I found that that wasn’t true at all. Tiny spaces were crammed with every imaginable appliance, Western furniture, and tacky knickknacks from other people’s vacations.
Jun likes to live in the Western mode. Like most people of his generation, he rejects tradition, or says he does. He sometimes rejects Japan, but he will never leave this place.
He watches CNN via satellite, eats popcorn and s’mores and coleslaw. He sleeps in a bed and sits on a sofa and he’s married to me, an American.
Sometimes, when he’s tired or angry, he forgets that this is an international marriage. He says, “Why can’t you be more Japanese?”
I look at myself in the mirror and see what others see: my blonde hair, blue eyes, and white skin. I can’t help but laugh. “Because I’m not Japanese,” I say. Even if I changed my citizenship, changed my name, and acted exactly like a Japanese woman, people would still look at me and say “foreigner.” Even if I dyed my hair black, got a tan, wore contact lenses, and had plastic surgery, they would still be able to tell the difference.
At times like these, I look at Jun and say, “If you wanted a Japanese wife, then why did you marry me?”
And he always replies in the same way. “Because I love you.”
.
My friends Maki didn’t marry for love. She chose her husband in the same way that I chose a college, poring over applications and photos. She invited me to help her pick one out. I was puzzled by this process. I watched the reject pile become higher and higher and I felt sorry for all those men whom Maki didn’t want to meet.
“This one’s too short,” she said, tossing an application aside.
The next one she picked up went into the “no” stack as well. “He’s handsome, but I don’t want to marry a farmer. Farmers’ wives have to work in the field all the time.” She wrinkled her nose and studied her manicured fingernails. Her hand had never known hard work.
The few who went into the other pile had good jobs with decent salaries, respectable families, and compatible hobbies.
At first, I imagined that all of those men were clamouring to marry Maki, but then she told me she’d never met any of them. The profiles had been passed along by a matchmaker. Those men were probably going through pictures of women, too, picking and choosing, making little stacks.
I thought about all the things that had made me fall in love with Jun – things that you can’t tell from a photo or a piece of paper, like the sound of his voice and the sweet strawberry taste of his mouth. I asked her if any of that mattered.
“You fall in love after you get married,” Maki said. “You Americans think that life is like a fairy tale, and then you get a divorce when you find out you were wrong.”
Maki has been married for two years and has one child. She is still waiting to fall in love with her salaryman husband. She doesn’t complain, though. He works for a good company, and she can stay home with their baby or go shopping whenever she feels like it. Sometimes she whispers to me about the possibility of having an affair with an American man.
I have known Maki for four years. When I met her, she was working for a travel agency and struggling to master English. I gave her private lessons which eventually metamorphosed into coffee klatches and late nights in discos. She is sometimes irreverent and wild and I can’t help but like her.
I can hear the chang-cha-chang-cha-chang of the festival music, a rhythm that never ceases or alters during the dance. I can picture the scene in my mind. The women are in yukata with hats that look like straw paper-plate holders folded over their heads. They wear white socks with the big toe separate, and geta, those wooden sandals. The men don’t wear any kind of shoes, just the tabi – the white socks, that will become soiled from the streets. They wear white shorts and the happi coats that brush over their hips. They tie bands of cloth called hachimaki around their foreheads.
The women dance upright, their hands grasping at the air above their heads as if they are picking invisible fruit. With each step, they bend a knee and touch a toe to the pavement, the thong driving between the toes and causing pain.
The men’s dance is freer and sometimes women deflect and join them. They dance bent over, arms and legs flailing. Their movements become wilder as the evening wears on. The dancers become more drunk, the music continues as before. Chang-cha-chang-cha-chang.
.
When I was a kid, we used to have big family picnics on the Fourth of July. My uncles and father and older male cousins played horseshoes, then later everyone would join in a game of volleyball. There was always too much food, and after gorging on fried chicken, potato salad, chocolate cake, and watermelon, we would hold our bulging bellies in agony. Then some of the adults would lie down and take naps while my cousins and I poked around in the creek, catching frogs and other slimy creatures.
As soon as dusk fell, and sometimes before, we would light sparklers under the close supervision of an adult. We waved them in the air, describing circles with crackling sparks, our faces full of glee.
Later, we’d all climb into my uncle’s station wagon and drive to the riverside to watch the real fireworks. Before the display began, the American flag was raised in a glaring spotlight and “The Star Spangled Banner” blasted out of loudspeakers. We all sang along, impatient for the show to begin. It always started out with small single-coloured bursts, like chrysanthemums or weeping willows in the sky. Then the fireworks got bigger, turning to rainbow blossoms worthy of our wonder. The adults oohed and ahhed and we said, “Wow! Look that that!” The very last was red, white and blue, and image of the flag we’d sung to earlier. Its shape hung in the sky for just a moment before falling like fairy raindrops.
During Obon, there are fireworks, too, but when I see them it’s not the same. I feel a tightening in my chest and the tears well up behind my eyes.
I go to a store nearby, one of the few businesses open during the holidays. The woman at the cash register greets me and smiles when I walk in the door. I wonder if she’d rather be dancing, and if she has been left behind while her husband parades in the streets.
.
I pick up a set of sparklers which are on sale and put them in a basket. I add a cellophane-wrapped wedge of watermelon. This one-piece costs more than the huge oval melons you can buy roadside where I come from. Into the basket also goes a package of frozen microwavable fried chicken and canned potato salad.
I pay for everything and go back to the apartment to prepare my feast. Night has already fallen. By the light of the overhanging kitchen lamp, I eat my chicken and potato salad. It’s the best meal I’ve had in a long time.
Later, when the dishes are done and drying on the rack, I take the package of sparklers and a box of matches onto the balcony. I light them one by one and watch them burn brightly in the darkness. I draw figure eights in the night air, write my name, etch zigzags of light.
When I’m finished, I lean over the railing and start to sing. I belt out “The Star Spangled Banner,” “America, the Beautiful,” and “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.” My voice is so loud that a dog starts to howl.
I feel better. I go back into the apartment and push the kitchen table to one side. With my back straight and my elbows bent, I reach up as if I am about to pick an apple from a tree. There is a smile on my face as I start to dance. Chang-cha-chang-cha-chang.
Dance for Obon Festival by Takahashi Hiroaki (Japan, 1871-1945). From Public Domain
Suzanne Kamatawas born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Ratnottama Sengupta muses on her encounter with the writings of eminent artist and writer, Dhruba Esh, and translates one his many stories, Amiyashankar Go Back Home from Bengali. Click here to read.
All around us, we hear of disasters. Often, we try to write of these as Tagore seems to do in the above lines. However, these lines follow after he says he draws solace and inspiration from a ‘serene lotus’, pristine and shining with vibrancy. He gazes at it while looking for that still point which helps him create an impact with words. That is perhaps what we can hope to do too — wait for a morning where clarity will show us the path to express not just what we see, but to find a way to heal and help. Finding parallels in great writings of yore to our own attempts at recreating the present makes us realise that perhaps history is cyclical. In Rome, new structures rear up against thousand-year walls, reflecting how the past congeals into the present.
Congealing the past into our present in this July’s issue are stories of American migrants — like Tom Alter’s family who made India their home — by Anuradha Kumar in her new non-fiction Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India. We feature this book with a review and an interview with the author where she tells us how and why she chose to write on these people. We have more people writing of their own wanderings. Mohul Bhowmick wanders into Cambodia and makes friends over a local sport while Prithvijeet Sinha strolls by the banks of the River Gomti in Lucknow. Meredith Stephens not only takes us to the Prime Meridien in Greenwich but also to Carnarvon which houses a science and technology centre in Australia. Devraj Singh Kalsi wanders with humour to discover gastronomical inspiration and hopes for sweeter recompense.
Taking up the theme of cli-fi, Rajat Chaudhuri’s Wonder Tales for a Warming Planetseems to bring hope by suggesting adapting to changing climes. Rakhi Dalal tells us in her review: “It dares to approach the climate crisis through the lens of empathy and imagination rather than panic or guilt. In doing so, Rajat Chaudhuri gives us what many adult climate narratives fail to deliver—a reason to believe that another world is not only possible but already being imagined by the young. All we need to do is listen.” Bhaskar Parichha has discussed the autobiography of a meteorologist and Distinguished University Professor at George Mason University, Jagadish Shukla. In A Billion Butterflies: A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory, he claims Shukla has “revolutionised monsoon forecasting.” Somdatta Mandal has written about Dilip K Das’s Epidemic Narratives: The Cultural Construction of Infectious Disease Outbreaks in India. And Gower Bhat reviews Neha Bansal’s best-selling poetry collection, Six of Cups.
With that, we wind up the contents of this month’s issue. Do pause by our content’s page to check it out in more details.
This month’s edition would not have been possible without all our contributors, our fabulous team and especially Sohana Manzoor’s artwork. Huge thanks to all of them and to our wonderful readers who make it worthwhile for us to write and publish. Do write in to us if you have any feedback. Five years ago, we chose to become a monthly from a daily… We have come a long way from then and grown to host writers from more than forty countries and readers from almost all over the world. For this, we owe you all – for being with us and encouraging us to find fresh pastures.
Growing up as an American, school vacations were a time of freedom. I could play or watch TV or do nothing as much as I wanted. In fact, my brother and I had so many idle hours, we sometimes got bored and looked forward to going back to school.
Here in Japan, the breaks between semesters are busy. My kids were sent home for the school holidays with reams of worksheets, charts for keeping track of toothbrushing and chores, and a calligraphy assignment. Sometimes they would have to take care of the class pet for a week or so.
When my daughter was in kindergarten, she volunteered to take care of the class stag beetle during the first few weeks of summer vacation. She was supposed to feed it and moisten the soil with water from time to time. I guess we were supposed to change the soil, but no one said anything about that, and I didn’t get around to buying any.
My daughter was quite enthusiastic for the first few days, remembering to feed it the smelly jelly even when I forgot. But then, it crawled out of the plastic box once and she was freaked out. She said she wanted to give it to her grandmother. Since then, she had fallen in love with the kindergarten’s hamsters and had decided that she wanted one of those.
I’d been feeding the beetle and sprinkling water on the soil. Up until the last night, I heard it scrabbling around. But one morning, when I checked on it, the jelly was uneaten, and the beetle was belly up in the box. Nothing happened when I tapped the box. I was pretty sure it was dead.
My daughter was supposed to take it back to school the following day for the hand-off to her classmate. I figured they’d be having a beetle burial instead. But we went out for a while, and when we came back, the beetle had moved! Phew! I reached in and turned it over so it could burrow into the dirt. We never kept a beetle as a pet again.
In addition to pet care, there was also, typically, a craft assignment. For instance, every summer, as part of her elementary school homework, my daughter was required to make a bank. I wondered why she had to make the same thing, year after year? What were we supposed to do with all of those banks? Was some sort of lesson in money management embedded in the task? She was supposed to come up with an original design, and the result was entered in a contest. Of course, as the head teacher reminded us parents, the kids needed help.
At the beginning of summer, I would try to think of ideas. Maybe a papier mache rabbit? Or some kind of house constructed from all of the popsicle sticks we’d accumulated over the past couple of months? At the end of the vacation, with only a few days left to go, I would be casting about for something quick and easy that we hadn’t done before.
We’d stop by the bookstore to look for a craft book. At the beginning of school breaks, there were oodles of such books on display – books intended to give parents and kids inspiration for how to while the days away. Just before school started, they would be gone. In Japan, everything has its season.
My son went to a different school which had different requirements. The kids made banks only once, in first grade, many of them using ready-made kits. One summer, my son was supposed to paint a picture on the theme of “freedom.” I was thinking doves, or maybe of people of many colors holding hands, but he needs to come up with the idea on his own. I tried to help him out a bit. “What do you think of when you hear the word ‘freedom’?” I asked. My son said, “Getting out of jail.”
Now that my kids are out of school, my idea of freedom is not having to nag them to finish their homework, or fill out their charts, or feed the class beetle – or, especially, to come up with an idea for their summer crafts.
From Public Domain
Suzanne Kamatawas born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
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The story of Hawakal Publishers, based on a face-to-face tête-à-tête, and an online conversation with founder Bitan Chakrabortywith his responses in Bengali translated by Kiriti Sengupta. Clickhere to read.
The Great War is over And yet there is left its vast gloom. Our skies, light and society’s soul have been overcast…
'The Great War is Over' by Jibanananda Das (1899-1954), translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam.
Jibanananda Das wrote the above lines in the last century and yet great wars rage even now. As the world struggles to breathe looking for a beam of hope to drag itself out of the darkness induced by natural calamities, accidents, terror attacks and wars that seem to rage endlessly, are we moving towards the dystopian scenario created by George Orwell in 1984, which would be around the same time as Jibanananda Das’s ‘The Great War is Over’?
Describing such a scenario, Ahmed Rayees writes a moving piece from the Kashmiri village of Sheeri, the last refuge of the displaced refugees who were bombarded after peace was declared in their refuge during the clash across Indo-Pak borders. He contends: “People walked back not to homes, but to ruins. Entire communities had been reduced to ash and rubble. Crops were destroyed, livestock gone, schools turned into shelters or craters. How do you rebuild a life when all that remains is dust?”
People could be asking the same questions without finding answers in Gaza or Ukraine, where the cities are reduced to rubble. While we look for a ray of sunshine, amidst the rubble, Farouk Gulsara muses on hope that has its roots in eternity. Vela Noble wanders on nostalgic beaches in Adelaide. And Meredith Stephens travels to the Australian outback. Devraj Singh Kalsi brings in lighter notes writing of driving lessons while Suzanne Kamata creeps back to darker recesses musing on likely ‘criminals’ and crimes in her neighbourhood.
Lopamudra Nayak writes on social media and its impact while Bhaskar Parichha writes of trends that could be brought into Odia literature. What he writes could apply well to all regional literature, where they lose their individual colouring to paint dystopian realities of the present world. Does modernising make us lose our ethnic identity and how important is that? These are questions that sprung to the mind reading his essay. As if in an attempt to hold on to the past ethos, Prithvijeet Sinha wafts around old ruins in Lucknow and sees a cemetery for colonial soldiers and concludes: “Everybody has formidable stakes, and the dead don’t preach the gospel of victory or sombre defeat.”
We have mainly poetry in translation this time. Snehaprava Das has brought to us Soubhagyabanta Maharana’s poems from Odia and Ihlwha Choi has translated his own poem from Korean. Sangita Swechcha’s poem in Nepali has been rendered to English by Saudamini Chalise. From Bengali, other that Jibanananda Das’s poems translated by Professor Fakrul Alam, we have Tagore’s pensive and beautiful poem, Sonar Tori (the golden boat). Yet another Bengali poet, one who died young and yet left his mark, Sukanta Bhattacharya (1926-1947), has been translated by Kiriti Sengupta. Sengupta has also translated the responses of Bitan Chakravarty in a candid conversation about his dream child — the Hawakal Publishers. We also have a feature on this based on a face-to-face conversation, giving the story of how this publishing house grew out of an idea. Now, they publish poetry traditionally, without costs to the poet. Their range of authors are spread across continents.
Our fiction again returns to the darkness of war. Young Leishilembi Terem has given a story set in conflict-ridden Manipur from where she has emerged safely — a story that reiterates the senselessness of violence and politics. While Jeena R. Papaadi writes of modern human relationships that end without commitment, Naramsetti Umamaheswararao relates a value-based story in a small hamlet of southern India.
We have more content. Do pause by our contents page and take a look.
Huge thanks to all our contributors without who this issue would not have materialised. Heartfelt thanks to the team at Borderless for their support, especially Sohana Manzoor for her iconic artwork that has almost become a signature statement for Borderless.
Let’s hope that next month brings better news for the whole world.
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