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Out of Sri Lanka

Title: Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala and English Poetry from Sri Lanka and its Diasporas 

Editors: Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne and Shash Trevett. 

Publisher: Penguin India (Vintage)

AAZHIYAAL
(b. 1968)

Aazhiyaal (the pen name of Mathubashini Ragupathy) was born in Trincomalee in Eastern Sri Lanka. She taught English at the Vavuniya Campus, Jaffna University, before moving to Australia in 1997 where she worked for two decades in the IT sector and commercial management in Canberra. Aazhiyaal has published four collections of poetry in Tamil: Uraththup Pesa (2000), Thuvitham (2006), Karunaavu (2013) and Nedumarangalaai Vazhthal (2020), the last honoured by Canada’s Tamil Literary Garden. Her poems have appeared in anthologies and have been translated into several languages. She in turn has translated Australian Aboriginal poetry into Tamil (Poovulagaik Kattralum Kettalum, 2017). Aazhiyaal writes about women’s place within patriarchy and uses her work to make sense of the war in Sri Lanka: ‘I believe that poetry is the antidote to the present rat-race. It is needed, it is necessary.’


Unheeded Sights

After the rains
the tiled roofs shone 
sparklingly clean.
The sky was not yet minded 
to become a deeper blue.
The tar roads reminded me 
intermittently of rainbows.
From the entire surface of the earth 
a fine smoke arose
like the smoke of frankincense, or akil wood, 
the earth’s scent stroking the nostrils, 
fragrant as a melody.

As the army truck coming towards me 
drives away,
a little girl transfers her candy-floss 
from one hand to the other
raises her right hand up high 
and waves her tiny fingers.

And like the sweet surprise 
of an answering air-letter
all the soldiers standing in the truck 
wave their hands, exactly like her.

The blood that froze in my veins 
for an instant, in amazement, 
flows again rapidly, asking aloud, 
‘War? In this land?
Who told you?’ 

[tr. from Tamil by Lakshmi Holmström]


BASHANA ABEYWARDANE
(b. 1972)

Rohitha Bāshana Abeywardane was a member of the founding editorial board and later editor in chief of the Sinhala alternative weekly newspaper Hiru. In 2003, he was one of the activists who organised the Sinhala-Tamil Art Festival. His journalistic commitments brought on threats to his life, and he had to leave Sri Lanka. He continues to publish and coordinates Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, an organisation founded by journalists in exile. Following a stay in the Heinrich Böll House, Langenbroich, Abeywardane took part in the PEN Writers in Exile Program from September 2007 to August 2010. Today, he lives in Germany with his wife.


The Window of the Present

Nightmares, long dead,
peer through the shattered panes 
of the window of the present.

The dead of the south, killed on the streets, 
with bullet-riddled skulls,
walk once again, through an endless night,

and those of the north drowned in deluges of fire 
when rains of steel drench their unforgiving earth, 
gaze through the shards of glass empty eyed;

as slaughtering armies, prowl under starless skies, 
upholding sovereignty
with blood-soaked hands.

PACKIYANATHAN AHILAN
(b. 1970)

Born in Jaffna in the north of Sri Lanka, Packiyanathan Ahilan has lived through the thirty-year civil war. An academic as well as a poet, he has published three collections of poetry and is Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Jaffna. As well as writing about the visual arts, poetry, theatre and heritage, he curates art exhibitions and is co-editor of Reading Sri Lankan Society and Culture (Volumes 1 & 2). Ahilan’s poetry is sparse and staccato, like a heartbeat: he is one of the most influential poets writing in Tamil in Sri Lanka today.


Days in the Bunker III

Good Friday.
The day they nailed you 
to the cross.

A scorching wind
blew across the land and the sea.
One or two seagulls
sailed in an immaculate sky.
The wind
howling in the palm trees 
spoke of unfathomable terror.
That was the last day of our village.

We fishermen came ashore, 
only the waves
returned to the sea.
When the sun fell into the ocean, 
we too fell
on our knees 
and wept.

And our lament
turned slowly into night.

In the distance
our village was burning 
like a body being cremated.

Good Friday.
The day they nailed you 
to the cross.

[tr. from Tamil by Sascha Ebeling]


A Poem about Your Village and My Village

1
I do not know.
I do not know if your village
is near the ocean with its wailing waves 
or near a forest.
I do not know your roads 
made from red earth and 
lined with tall jute palms.
I do not know
the birds of your village
that come and sing in springtime.
I do not know
the tiny flowers along the roadsides
that open their eyelids when the rains pour down.
I do not know the stories 
you tell during long nights 
to the sound of drumbeats 
or the ponds in your village
where the moon goes to sleep.

2
Tonight,
when even the wind is full of grief, 
you and I know one thing:
Our villages have become 
small
or perhaps large 
cemeteries.
The sea with its dancing waves 
is covered with blood.
All forests with their
trees reaching up to the sky 
are filled with scattered flesh
and with the voices of lost souls.
During nights of war
dogs howl, left to themselves, 
and all roads and the thousands
of footprints our ancestors left behind 
are grown over with grass.
We know all this, 
you and I.
We now know about 
the flowers that died,
the abandoned lines of poetry,
the moments no one wants to remember.


3
But
do you know
if the burnt grass 
still has roots,
or if the abandoned poems 
can still be rooted in words?
If, like them, you do not know 
whether our ancient flames
are still silently smouldering 
deep down in that ocean 
covered with blood,
know this today:
They say that
after he had lain in hiding 
for a thousand years
one day
the sun rose again.

[tr. from Tamil by Sascha Ebeling]

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Out of Sri Lanka shines light upon a long-neglected national literature by bringing together, for the first time, Sri Lankan and diasporic poetry written in and after Independence.  Featuring over a hundred poets writing in English, or translated from Tamil and Sinhala reshapes our understanding of migrational poetics and the poetics of atrocity. Poets long out of print appear beside exciting new talents; works written in the country converse with poetry from the UK, the US, Canada and Australia. Poems in traditional and in open forms, concrete poems, spoken word poems, and experimental post-lyric hybrids of poetry and prose, appear with an introduction explaining Sri Lanka’s history.

There are poems here about love, art, nature – and others exploring critical events: the Marxist JVP insurrections of the 1970s and 80s, the 2004 tsunami and its aftermath, recent bombings linked with the demonisation of Muslim communities. The civil war between the government and the separatist Tamil Tigers is a haunting and continual presence. A poetry of witness challenges those who would erase, rather than enquire into, the country’s troubled past. This anthology affirms the imperative to remember, whether this relates to folk practices suppressed by colonisers, or more recent events erased from the record by Sinhalese nationalists.

 ABOUT THE EDITORS:

Vidyan Ravinthiran was born in Leeds, to Sri Lankan Tamils. His first book of poems, Grun-tu-molani (Bloodaxe, 2014), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize and the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize. His second, The Million-petalled Flower of Being Here (Bloodaxe, 2019) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the T.S. Eliot Prize and Ledbury Munthe Poetry Prize for Second Collections. After posts at Cambridge, Durham and Birmingham, he now teaches at Harvard.

Seni Seneviratne, a writer of English and Sri Lankan heritage published by Peepal Tree Press, with books including Wild Cinnamon and Winter Skin (2007), The Heart of It (2012), and Unknown Soldier (2019), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, a National Poetry Day Choice and highly commended in the Forward Poetry Prizes 2020.

She is currently working on an LGBTQ project with Sheffield Museums entitled Queering the Archive and her latest collection, The Go-Away Bird, was released in October 2023. She lives in Derbyshire.

Shash Trevett is a Tamil from Sri Lanka who came to the UK to escape the civil war. She is a poet and a translator of Tamil poetry into English. Her pamphlet From a Borrowed Land was published in 2021 by Smith|Doorstop.

Shash has been on judging panels for the PEN Translates awards and the London Book Fair, and was a Visible Communities Translator in Residence at the National Centre for Writing. Shash is a Ledbury Critic, reviewing for PN Review and the Poetry Book Society and is a Board Member of Modern Poetry in Translation. She lives in York.

Categories
Slices from Life

Serenading Sri Lanka

Photographs and Narrative by Mohul Bhowmick

Sri Lanka can be savoured best via its street food stalls; the aroma of the spices that emanates from the flurry of dishes left drying in the hot sun is supposed to hold the flavour of the country in its entirety.

Quite appropriately, I step out of the airport in Colombo just as dark clouds assemble overhead for an impromptu November gathering. The path to the bus terminal is waylaid in the melee, and the eventual taxi that comes around is met with immense gratitude for the warmth it emanates from within.

Meanwhile, the clouds have picked up pace and lambasted in full strength upon my flimsy raincoat. As the taxi — a Tata Nano — pulls out of the airport, I read a sign that tells me, rather ominously, ‘Welcome to Sri Lanka!’

.

But have I arrived? The drizzle accompanies me all day even as I try to venture out northwest from my dorm near the Galle Face Green towards Independence Square and Viharamahadevi Park. The park has a tinge of tenderness that makes me long for home barely six hours after I have left.

The soldier who has been entrusted to protect the monument of Gautama in the centre of the park slights me at first by asking me to put my camera away, but something about my nationality sparks enough curiousity and reverence in him to apologise and show me around its premises.

Named after the mother of the great Sri Lankan king Dutugemunu [161-137 BCE], who united the island under his banner after generations of oppression from Indian invaders, the park is tranquil in a manner that only the moneyed can afford to be. To be welcomed here by a member of the Lankan military seems ironic to me. Quite intrinsically, I discover that the affluent neighbourhood of Cinnamon Gardens is merely a stone’s throw away.

.

The sunset at Galle Face Green is where I lay my eyes upon the Indian Ocean for the first time; the gentle disappearance of the disk of fire in its graceful attire with lakhs of denizens of the city in attendance is not an event to be forgotten in a hurry.

It strikes me in the bouts of consciousness I still have with me on the start-stop train to Anuradhapura the next morning, which miraculously manages to reach the ancient capital of the island only moments after its scheduled time of arrival despite having spent about fifteen stoppages in the rough-hewn greenery of north-central Lanka.


The Isurumuni Royal Temple, Anuradhapura.

The Vanni, which separates the north from Anuradhapura, begins here, and I do not think I have gathered enough courage to bypass it just yet.

The Maha Sri Jaya Bodhi — a sapling of the Bodhi Tree under which the ascetic Sakyamuni had sat all night in meditation in the fifth century BCE and attained Enlightenment in Gaya — transposes much of the tranquillity one must have felt had Gautama himself been around; instead, hundreds of his lay followers deify his idol and consecrate his ideals with flowers and oaths of incorruptibility.

The compound where the Maha Bodhi stands allows one the permission to whisk the mind away from its constant whirl of thought and towards action based on feeling; its way, as Gautama’s, holds that offering the grant of ‘self-realisation’ to one’s fellow man is far more sumptuous a gift than an endowment of land or capital can ever accomplish.


Novice monks at the Ruwanwella Dagoba in Anuradhapura.

The Ruwanwella Dagoba, which the great Dutugemunu had painstakingly built, offers the refuge that the Maha Bodhi implores one to seek by going inwards. Two quarts of the Buddha’s relics are enshrined here, and the inflow of visitors ensures that the joyful policemen on duty are hard put to shred their visages of quietude, which one would have moments ago thought to be beyond them.

The next morning, with a German fellow traveller — whom I met at dinner while watching India decimate New Zealand on television in the semifinal of the cricket World Cup — I excavate whatever innards of peace and serenity I could from the Isurumuni Royal Temple.

My new friend from Germany tells me of of his experiences while travelling in Japan. He explains how he had made good use of the public parks (greens) at night as the locals did not use them after dark. He did not have money to sleep in hostels/ hotels and used benches in the public parks instead!

I offer him freshly plucked oranges from the gardens abutting the temple, where princes and princesses of an earlier age used to amble while seeking matches.

I get so drawn into the ethics that Gautama’s teachings must have instilled among the laypeople of the island that I almost forget to notice when my landlord — from whom I had also borrowed a bicycle — casually doubles the rate of his homestay when I check out. I learn — only much later — that he is no believer in the path Sakyamuni trod and speaks Tamil.


The Sigiriya rock fortress from afar.

Sigiriya seems much hotter than Anuradhapura1 was, and I write this even as the sun goes down and I climb up to a hidden rock far from the one which gives the town its name. The sun sets farther still from the Sigiriya Galla, and along with a bunch of British fellow travellers, I enjoy the last beads of light seeping past the horizon.

My evening is considerably brightened when our guide Vasu points me towards a green-looking hillock supposed to be the one Hanuman brought from the Himalayas as he sought for the life restoring ‘sanjeevani’ herb. While descending, a girl from Cornwall shrieks in considerable awe of the girth of the trunk of the first elephant she has ever seen.

The hike up Kasyapa’s fortress2 takes little effort, and the sparse crowd makes it feel worthwhile all the more. My newfound British friends — devoid of the SAARC3 protection of a reduced entry ticket to the top — climb the eastward facing Pidurangala instead. They tell me much later that they found the visage of Sigiriya quite appealing from the top of the latter; in a picture they show me, I cannot help but speculate that the black spot on the top of the rock was my shadow.

A dip in a hidden lake authorised by the owner of the backpacker’s hostel we are in is sprinkled liberally with views of the fortress in the backdrop; even the arrival of a slimy water snake that nibbles at my friend Jackson Price — a former telecommunications manager from Bristol — is not enough to shatter our sense of innate wellbeing.

.

There is just about enough time to catch the temple near the centre of Dambulla town unawares before Rapahel Nuding — a mechanical engineer from Stuttgart — and I take the bus south to Kandy. The carvings on the rocks inspire us both differently; me to poetry and him to decode how it could possibly have been done without the help of modern-age machinery.

Kandy is damp and misty when we arrive; the flecks of raindrops prance around nicely as neither of us wants to close the window shades of the rusty old bus we are travelling in. The lake can be sensed before we can see it; within an hour, we are back in the area to witness the ceremony at the Temple of the Tooth Relic where the dante dhatu, or the tooth relic, is displayed to laypeople.

Temple of the Tooth Relic

I help Raphael tuck into his — and my first this trip — masala dosa in the hordes of Tamil restaurants near the temple; I wonder if he asks for a second helping of the mango lassi to cool his inflamed tongue down or merely because he has liked the sensation the frozen — and possibly preserved — fruit. He stays back for a day, but I sling my bag to get on the morning train to Nuwara Eliya, having had enough of the cultural capital of Lanka already.

.

The bitter cold that greets me in Nuwara Eliya is only slightly lessened by the endless cups of tea that keep rolling through the night at the Laughing Leopards backpackers’ hostel. I struggle to explain to Helen Brinkmann, a post-graduate student from Dortmund, why I shall go to bed in tears having watched Australia demolish India in the final of the World Cup; the memories keep plaguing me a few days later in Ella when I sit down to get a grip upon myself and form an understanding of the ill-fated event.

Of the twin haunts of Nuwara Eliya and Ella, it is the journey that fascinates me the most; the rickety old contraption that passes off as a train is as old as I am in spirit and wanders only slightly off the gorgeous trails that have to perforce be left behind. Quite like the train, I am too enamoured by the countryside to trade it for the capital a week later.


The hills of Uva, as seen from Ella.

The hills that rise from the extensive green wildernesses filled with shrubs of undefinable assortment catch my eye in Ella, and it is some time before I can catch a grip of my sentiments and force myself to sit down. The bats and monkeys that gather in numbers at the Ravana Ella — or Ravana’s cave — scare me out of my wits before I can even put my foot into the mouth of the opening. Outside, the sun shines generously on a creek drifting past the hills in a muted whirr that only the sapient can perceive.

.

It speaks highly of the natural largesse that Sri Lanka possesses. Within hours of leaving the cool climes and peaks of Ella, I arrive at sea level, and the Indian Ocean peeks in patches to the left when the bus turns right from Matara, the southernmost tip of the isle. Indeed, I have breakfast in the hills and lunch on the coast.


Sunset at the beach in Mirissa

Mirissa, where I am headed next, brags of pristine beaches uninjured by the droves of tourists that fill it during the season. On arrival that evening, I find a rock to the west that garnishes a panorama that is stunning. My first encounter with kottu roti is astride a charitable helping of coconut sambal which my tongue finds excitable, and I tell myself that I am finally in the south.

.

Excursions are made to the beaches that litter the southern Lankan coast without rhyme or reason, or even distinction to one’s name or creed. Weligama, Midigama, Ahangama, the air force base at Koggala, Habaraduwa and Unawatuna all become names interchangeable with rapture perpetuated by the lack of inaccessibility. From another country, people struggle to reach me on my cell, and their needs stay blissfully away from my purview.

The sun shines on the coast much like it had done when I was in the west; the north and central parts of the country are barraged by untimely rains and I am glad to have left them behind.


The harbour as seen from Galle Fort.

Galle, where I am to stay for a night before heading back to Colombo, charms me out of my wits and looks askance as I walk away evincing a wry smile from the preposterous shindig that one might as well call a fort. The cricket ground stirs a longing for a home I have no rush to return to; on account of the goodwill and record I enjoy, I am allowed into the members’ stand for a gracious helping of a local under-19 match.

The entrapments that the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British had all in turn instituted — that now passes off as a spectacle of great pleasure — protect the town of Galle from outsiders, and also, it seems to me, from itself. Inward-looking to a fault, the Sinhalese of Galle have been known to open their hearts and hearths to all but those who have boasted of a skin tone less plentiful than white.

Upon being given to understand the intricacies of such delights and lodging in a palatial mansion owned by a Lankan Muslim family, I exult in the first serious gelato I have had in my life; an egg roti earlier in the day had barely served the purpose it was intended for.

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Return to Colombo. I see the capital with eyes that I had not been endowed with when I first landed on these shores; it seems to be a lifetime ago now. The polished highway outside the President’s House, which abut the Chinese-funded port and end up at the imperial inheritance of the Galle Face Green purport me to a world I thought I had left behind in the countryside.

I put it down to my lack of vision but the night creeps up on me unannounced even as I try to trudge out of the humongous man-eating machine they call the One Galle Face shopping mall. It is not without some discomfort that I take flight, aware that it may not be for the last time.

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  1. Kingdom of Dutugemunu ↩︎
  2. Built during the reign of King Kasyapa [477-495 CE] ↩︎
  3. South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation ↩︎

Mohul Bhowmick is a national-level cricketer, poet, sports journalist, essayist and travel writer from Hyderabad, India. He has published four collections of poems and one travelogue so far. More of his work can be discovered on his website: www.mohulbhowmick.com.

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 Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Contents

Borderless, December 2023

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Celebrating the Child & Childhood… Click here to read.

Special Tributes

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

Vignettes from an Extraordinary Life: A Historical Dramatisation by Aruna Chakravarti… Click here to read.

Conversations

A conversation with the author, Afsar Mohammed, and a brief introduction to his latest book, Remaking History: 1948 Police Action and the Muslims of Hyderabad. Click here to read.

A conversation with Meenakshi Malhotra over The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle, edited by Meenakshi Malhotra, Krishna Menon and Rachana Johri and a brief introduction to the book. Click here to read.

Translations

The Monk Who Played the Guitar, a story by S Ramakrishnan, has been translated from Tamil by T Santhanam. Click here to read.

The White-Coloured Book, a poem by Quazi Johirul Islam has translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Indecisiveness has been written and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.

Tagore’s 1400 Saal (The Year 1993) has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Nazrul’s rejoinder to Tagore’s 1400 Saal has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Ron Pickett, Prithvijeet Sinha, George Freek, Sutputra Radheye, Caroline Am Bergris, Thoyyib Mohammad, Kumar Bhatt, Patricia Walsh, Hamza Azhar, John Grey, Papia Sengupta, Stuart McFarlane, Padmanabha Reddy, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Jee Leong Koh, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In His Unstable Shape, Rhys Hughes explores the narratives around a favourite nursery rhyme character with a pinch of pedantic(?) humour. Click here to read.

Musings/ Slices from Life

Trojan Island

Nitya Amalean writes of why she chooses to be an immigrant living out of Sri Lanka. Click here to read.

Wayward Wayanad

Mohul Bhowmick travels to the tea gardens and hills of Wayanad. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Visiting Cards & Me…, Devraj Singh Kalsi ponders on his perspective on the need and the future for name cards. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Kyoto: Where the Cuckoo Calls, Suzanne Kamata introduces us to Kyoto. Click here to read.

Essays

Peeking at Beijing: The Epicentre of China

Keith Lyons travels to the heart of Beijing with a sense of humour and a camera. 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.

Where Eagles Soar

Ravi Shankar gives a photographic treat and a narrative about Langkawi. Click here to read.

Stories

Heather Richards’ Remarkable Journey

Paul Mirabile journeys into a womb of mystery set in Thailand. Click here to read.

The Untold Story

Neeman Sobhan gives us the story of a refugee from the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. Click here to read.

Wrath of the Goddess?

Farouk Gulsara narrates a story set in 1960s Malaya. Click here to read.

No Man’s Land

Sohana Manzoor gives us surrealistic story reflecting on after-life. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Dr Ratna Magotra’s Whispers of the Heart – Not Just A Surgeon: An Autobiography. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Manjima Misra’s The Ocean is Her Title. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Indian Christmas: Essays, Memoirs, Hymns, an anthology edited by Jerry Pinto and Madhulika Liddle. Click here to read.

Christopher Marks reviews Veronica Eley’s The Blue Dragonfly: healing through poetry. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy reviews Kuhu Joshi’s My Body Didn’t Come Before Me. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World by Gordon Brown, Mohamed El-Erian, Michael Spence, Reid Lidow 

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

Celebrating the Child & Childhood…

Mother & Child by Jamini Roy (1887-1972)
Mother and Child by Picasso (1881-1973)
‘Victory to Man, the newborn, the ever-living.’
They kneel down, the king and the beggar, the saint and 
the sinner, 
the wise and the fool, and cry:
‘Victory to Man, the newborn, the ever-living.’

— ‘The Child’ by Rabindranath Tagore1, written in English in 1930

This is the month— the last of a conflict-ridden year— when we celebrate the birth of a messiah who spoke of divine love, kindness, forgiveness and values that make for a better world. The child, Jesus, has even been celebrated by Tagore in one of his rarer poems in English. While we all gather amidst our loved ones to celebrate the joy generated by the divine birth, perhaps, we will pause to shed a tear over the children who lost their lives in wars this year. Reportedly, it’s a larger number than ever before. And the wars don’t end. Nor the killing. Children who survive in war-torn zones lose their homes or families or both. For all the countries at war, refugees escape to look for refuge in lands that are often hostile to foreigners. And yet, this is the season of loving and giving, of helping one’s neighbours, of sharing goodwill, love and peace. On Christmas this year, will the wars cease? Will there be a respite from bombardments and annihilation?

We dedicate this bumper year-end issue to children around the world. We start with special tributes to love and peace with an excerpt from Tagore’s long poem, ‘The Child‘, written originally in English in 1930 and a rendition of the life of the philosopher and change-maker, Vivekananda, by none other than well-known historical fiction writer, Aruna Chakravarti. The poem has been excerpted from Indian Christmas: Essays, Memoirs, Hymns, an anthology edited by Jerry Pinto and Madhulika Liddle, a book that has been reviewed by Somdatta Mandal and praised for its portrayal of the myriad colours and flavours of Christmas in India. Christ suffered for the sins of humankind and then was resurrected, goes the legend. Healing is a part of our humanness. Suffering and healing from trauma has been brought to the fore by Christopher Marks’ perspective on Veronica Eley’s The Blue Dragonfly: healing through poetry. Basudhara Roy has also written about healing in her take of Kuhu Joshi’s My Body Didn’t Come Before Me. Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed a book that talks of healing a larger issue — the crises that humanity is facing now, Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World, by ex-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Nobel Laureate Michael Spence, Mohamed El-Erian and Reid Lidow. Parichha tells us that it suggests solutions to resolve the chaos the world is facing — perhaps a book that the world leadership would do well to read. After all, the authors are of their ilk! Our book excerpts from Dr Ratna Magotra’s Whispers of the Heart – Not Just A Surgeon: An Autobiography and Manjima Misra’s The Ocean is Her Title are tinged with healing and growth too, though in a different sense.

The theme of the need for acceptance, love and synchronicity flows into our conversations with Afsar Mohammad, who has recently authored Remaking History: 1948 Police Action and the Muslims of Hyderabad. He shows us that Hyderabadi tehzeeb or culture ascends the narrow bounds set by caged concepts of faith and nationalism, reaffirming his premise with voices of common people through extensive interviews. In search of a better world, Meenakshi Malhotra talks to us about how feminism in its recent manifestation includes masculinities and gender studies while discussing The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle, edited by her, Krishna Menon and Rachana Johri. Here too, one sees a trend to blend academia with non-academic writers to bring focus on the commonalities of suffering and healing while transcending national boundaries to cover more of South Asia.

That like Hyderabadi tehzeeb, Bengali culture in the times of Tagore and Nazrul dwelled in commonality of lore is brought to the fore when in response to the Nobel laureate’s futuristic ‘1400 Saal’ (‘The year 1993’), his younger friend responds with a poem that bears not only the same title but acknowledges the older man as an “emperor” among versifiers. Professor Fakrul Alam has not only translated Nazrul’s response, named ‘1400 Saal’ aswell, but also brought to us the voice of another modern poet, Quazi Johirul Islam. We have a self-translation of a poem by Ihlwha Choi from Korean and a short story by S Ramakrishnan in Tamil translated by T Santhanam.

Our short stories travel with migrant lore by Farouk Gulsara to Malaysia, from UK to Thailand with Paul Mirabile while chasing an errant son into the mysterious reaches of wilderness, with Neeman Sobhan to Rome, UK and Bangladesh, reflecting on the Birangonas (rape victims) of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation war, an issue that has been taken up in Malhotra’s book too. Sobhan’s story is set against the backdrop of a war which was fought against linguistic hegemony and from which we see victims heal. Sohana Manzoor this time has not only given us fabulous artwork but also a fantasy hovering between light and dark, life and death — an imaginative fiction that makes a compelling read and questions the concept of paradise, a construct that perhaps needs to be found on Earth, rather than after death.

The unusual paradigms of life and choices made by all of us is brought into play in an interesting non-fiction by Nitya Amlean, a young Sri Lankan who lives in UK. We travel to Kyoto with Suzanne Kamata, to Beijing with Keith Lyons, to Wayanad with Mohul Bhowmick and to Langkawi with Ravi Shankar. Wendy Jones Nakanishi argues in favour of borders with benevolent leadership. Tongue-in-cheek humour is exuded by Devraj Singh Kalsi as he writes of his attempts at using visiting cards as it is by Rhys Hughes in his exploration of the truth about the origins of the creature called Humpty Dumpty of nursery rhyme fame.

Poetry again has humour from Hughes. A migrant himself, Jee Leong Koh, brings in migrant stories from Singaporeans in US. We have poems of myriad colours from Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Patricia Walsh, John Grey, Kumar Bhatt, Ron Pickett, Prithvijeet Sinha, Sutputra Radheye, George Freek and many more. Papia Sengupta ends her poem with lines that look for laughter among children and a ‘life without borders’ drawn by human constructs in contrast to Jones Nakanishi’s need for walls with sound leadership. The conversation and dialogues continue as we look for a way forward, perhaps with Gordon Brown’s visionary book or with Tagore’s world view of lighting the inner flame in each human. We can hope that a way will be found. Is it that tough to influence the world using words? We can wish — may there be no need for any more Greta Thunbergs to rise in protest for a world fragmented and destroyed by greed and lack of vision. We hope for peace and love that will create a better world for our children.

As usual, we have more content than mentioned here. All our pieces can be accessed on the contents’ page. Do pause by and take a look. This bumper issue would not have been possible without the contribution of all the writers and our fabulous team from Borderless. Huge thanks to them all and to our wonderful readers who continue to encourage us with their comments and input.

Here’s wishing you all wonderful new adventures in the New Year that will be born as this month ends!

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

  1. Indian Christmas: Essays, Memoirs, Hymns edited by Jerry Pinto & Madhulika Liddle ↩︎

Click here to access the content’s page for the December 2023 issue

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Categories
Stories

The Monk Who Played the Guitar

Short story by S Ramakrishnan, translated from Tamil by T Santhanam

It was Malavika who sent me the video of the monk who plays guitar. Malavika is my daughter. She is pursuing fashion designing course in Kingston University, England. Her desires and interests are a puzzle to me. Some days ago, she sent a recording of a poem by William Blake in her voice. After that, she sent a photo of her carrying a placard in a demonstration against global warming. As clouds change to forms unimaginable, her interests keep on changing. After watching a butterfly, she had sent her impressions in writing. It seemed as though it was from a seasoned writer. 

Children who leave home for far off places, in a sense, leave us. She was no longer the girl she was in Chennai. The new country and new environment have changed her. The changes are reflected in her appearance and deeds. My wife did not like these alterations. Below the video of the monk who played guitar, she had given the caption: “Music is Meditation”. I could not understand her. At the age of twenty-two, I thought she would be fondly giving herself to worldly pleasure. But she was immersed in meditation, agitation and museum visits.

In the video sent by Malavika, the monk must have been about thirty years old. His head was tonsured. He wore a robe coloured orange. His ears were slightly big. He had a sharp nose and small lips where a smile was frozen. It was hard to find out if he was a Nepali or a foreigner. On his left arm, was tattooed the image of Buddha.

It was funny to see a Monk with a guitar. The image we have formed about saints and the looks of current day saints are not alike. Perhaps, we refuse to update that image. Perhaps, the meaning of sainthood has changed.

The musical piece was given the title “Falling flowers”. From the way he was playing, it seemed as real as the blossomed cherry leaves falling gently. The normal rapidity and gush associated with guitar music was not there. Like an insect that moves in the water, his fingers moved on the guitar strings. Music tunes to the past more easily than photographs. A small piece of music is enough to take us back to our school days.

I saw the video once or twice. I felt the urge to listen to it again and again. While listening at night, I felt as if the fragrance of incense was wafting into the vacant spaces of my heart. I found His name was Limang Tolma while searching for his other videos. There were hundreds of musical pieces by him. All of them were only seven minutes long. Evidently, he played the guitar for only seven minutes in a day. That too under the sal tree in Coben Monastery seated on a stool. Hundreds of people from various countries pour in to listen to his performance. All this I gathered while browsing the internet. His music was melodious and sweet. Why did he play for seven minutes only at each stretch was beyond comprehension.

To know more about Limang Dolma, I called Malavika on her mobile. She sent a message that she was observing silence for the past five days. Why this silence? Tongue can be tied down. But the mind? 

I told my wife. She responded that she had scolded Malavika and that was why she was doing this.

I could not understand. What was the skirmish between mother and daughter? I sent a message to Malavika asking her how long her silence would continue. “God only knows,” was her reply.

As I am a senior executive in an automobile company, I had to conduct two to three meetings in a day. My blood pressure sometimes would rise after returning from these meetings.Sometimes, I would have a headache too. At times, the meetings would last for ten hours. After the meeting, I would feel as if somebody has placed a pile of iron on my shoulders. I would feel sick, wondering why we could not conduct our work without talking, discussing or fighting.

One day, before the commencement of the meeting, I started to listen to the monk’s guitar music from my cell phone rather impulsively. I closed my eyes for seven minutes as though I was in a deep meditation. It was as pleasant a feeling as a moist breeze caressing my body. There was peace in my heart and an exhilaration I had never known before. On that day, I could sense the change in my voice and the way I was moving towards a solution. Somehow the officials of the sales department seemed to understand this. After the conclusion of the meeting while coming down in the lift, Amarnath said, “There was something new in your speech today. You spoke like a Zen Master.”

“Yes” I nodded approvingly with a smile. I was just wondering how a small piece of music could bring such a tremendous change in me.

I wanted to know more about Limang Dolma. Searching through the internet I was more and more astonished. The real name of Limang Dolma is Christopher Cane. He was born in Milan. He had pursued Anthropology. After coming into contact with a Buddhist monk, he has embraced Buddhism and become a monk in the Buddhist Monastery. He plays the guitar only under the tree of the monastery and nowhere else. Young people throng to him. They listen to his music. Some of them stay there for days together to savour his music. They wear T-shirts bearing his image with the words, “Buddha plays Guitar”. In an interview, a young lady asks him. “All saints in India hold one or other instruments. Why does Buddha not play any instrument nor is seen holding one?”

“He himself is a musical instrument. One who knows how to tune himself finds no need for a musical instrument. In the same way, Nature tunes itself. Is there any tune better than what the water plays?”

“Why do you play only for seven minutes?”

“Seven is the symbol of consciousness in Buddhism.”

“Seven minutes is not enough for us. Can’t you play more?”

“Will you take honey in a gulp? Is a spoonful not enough?” he asks.

I admired Limong Dolma fo his speech, poise and the way he handled guitar. I too felt like wearing a T-shirt bearing his image. I sent the video of Limang Dolma to some of my friends asking them to listen to his music. Only Mohan Muralidharan, a neurologist and my school mate, sent a reply saying that a man from Turkey played better than the monk and shared the video. Why should one musician be compared to another? Can’t this foolishness be avoided?

I called Mohan and blurted out my irritation. He said in a mocking tone, “You’re aging. That is why you listen to a monk playing the guitar. Music should make us feel young. It should twinge our nerves. You have never touched a musical instrument in your entire life. Can you whistle atleast?”

Mohan was right. I haven’t even played the mouth organ which many played during my school days.

I felt like owning a guitar. The same evening, I went to a musical store in Leo mall. I showed the video of Limang Dolma and asked for a guitar like the one in the video. The face of the girl at the counter brightened. “Limang Dolma?” she asked. I felt glad that she too has listened to the music. She brought a guitar from inside. I told her, ” I don’t know how to play guitar. This is for my daughter.”

The girl told with a smile, “Limang Dolma was a thief. He was in prison. After his release, he became a Monk. People say he speaks to Buddha through his music.”

“Really!”

“I overheard two girls talk of it when they came to purchase a guitar.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I believe it partially.”

“Which part?”

“That he speaks to Buddha,” she smiled.

She looked like my daughter when she smiled. Perhaps for young girls Buddha is a different personality. May be, the Buddha known by the ones who have crossed fifty years like me and the Buddha these young girls adore are not the same.

When I brought guitar home, my wife chided me.

“Why have you brought this? Who will play?”

“Just let it be,” I responded.

“Is it a show piece to be kept just like that?” she asked.

I did not reply.

I placed the guitar in Malavika’s room close to her bed. I had a feeling that Malavika had returned. I sent that night the picture of guitar to Malavika by WhatsApp. She sent an emoji of two clapping hands. Also, she sent a message “We are going to visit Limang Dolma.” 

Though I felt happy, I was eager to know who was the other in the ‘We’. I did not venture to ask Malavika. Instead, I asked, “When?” She did not respond.

After five days, she sent a picture to me. She was among the hundreds of youngsters before Limang Dolma, as he was playing the guitar. My eyes were cast on a young man with long hair, not on Limang Dolma. The young man hung his arms around Malavika’s shoulder.

Who was this fellow? How long had she known him? I could not see his face properly. I widened the image. An European face. Perhaps was he also a musician?  I thought of asking Malaviika. But I curbed that thought and went on to ask about the musical event, as I called her. She was full of cheer. She told me,” Listening to Dolma’s music, one feels like a kite fluttering in the air. I do not know what to say. Flying to heaven.”

“I read somewhere that he was a thief,” I said.

” Oh, that’s a myth constructed by magazines. When asked about this, Dolma says raindrops do not have a past. Jonah and myself were in the Monastery for three days. Wonderful experience!”

A question arose on my mind as to who Jonah was. I was not sure whether to ask her or not. Why wouldn’t she talk about him?

I asked, “Is Jonah a musician?”

“Dad, how do you know? Indeed, he is. He plays the guitar well. It was he who introduced me to Dolma’s music.”

“Is Jonah your classmate?”

“No, he works in a bar where I hold a part time job.”

“You didn’t tell me,” I pretended to be angry.

“Dad, don’t tell Mom about this.”

“About your working in bar?” I asked deliberately.

“About Jonah too?” she laughed. As she was so laughing, she seemed to be some other young girl. After she hung up, I was thinking about Jonah. Was he a good person or bad? Was he also a thief earlier? Or could he be a drug addict? Who were his parents? Was he in love with Malavika? Had I become old? Was Mohan right? I

 admired a Monk playing guitar somewhere. But I do not like Jonah who also plays guitar. Why? I was perplexed. Suppose if Limong Dolma put his arm around the shoulder of my daughter, would I dislike him too? I was confused.

Two days later, Malavika forwarded a video of Limang Dolma downloaded in her phone. Limong Dolma walked as though he was floating in the air. He sat under the tree. Peace was on his face as he tuned the guitar — the same music that I savoured earlier. No longer did I feel close to that music. Somehow, instead of Limang, Jonah’s face came before me. I felt as if a bitterness had settled down on my tongue.

The same night, Malavika called me. Before my asking anything, she said, ” After visiting Limang Dolma, I do not feel like listening to his music again”

 “Why?” I asked as if I did not know anything.

“I do not like it any more just the way I suddenly liked it before.”

“How is Jonah?” I asked intentionally.

“Do not talk about him. I hate him. I hate whatever he introduced to me.”

Inwardly I was happy.

” Any problem? Shall I talk to Jonah?”

“Why should you talk to him? The days I moved with him, it was a nightmare. Daddy, why do you not rebuke me?”

“You are not a kid, after all.”

“But you think of me as a kid only. You don’t know me as Mom does.”

I was flummoxed. I could hear Malavika sobbing for the first time ever. I did not know how to console her. I hurriedly gave the phone to my wife. She started walking towards the kitchen with her words of consolation. What has transpired between her and Jonah? Why was she weeping? I could not make out. At the same time, I was happy that she disliked the world she created for herself and moved back towards my world. A thought arose that she was coming home. I asked my wife what Malavika had said.

“That boy is not good. I told her from the beginning itself. But she did not pay heed.”

“Did you know about Jonah before?”

“She told me six months back. I scolded her saying that your Dad will not like this. I have spoken to Jonah also.”

“To Jonah? You?”

“Yes, I could not understand a bit of what he spoke.”

“What is the problem now?”

“It’s over. No use talking about it!”

I could not understand what happened. But Malavika had been closer to her mother than to me. She had shared everything with her mother. I was pained at this. Why then did she asked me not to tell her mother? Why this drama? Children after growing up, treat their father as a plaything. The daughter I know is now the girl I do not know. I could not reconcile myself to this.

I heard the guitar music of the monk that night. I was more attracted to the tree than to the music.

Leaves do not stay on the tree for long. When a leaf falls, the tree does not reach out to catch it. When falling leaves sail along the wind, the trees can do nothing but look at them in silence. Somehow, the music stirred a grief in me.

As I prepared to leave for office next morning, I saw my wife keeping the guitar next to dustbin. What was the fault of the guitar after all?

” What are you going to do with this?” I asked.

“Anish told me, he will take it. What do we do with this? Malavika does not want it any more.”

I nodded giving the impression that she was right. But I felt sorry while doing that.

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S. Ramakrishnan is an eminent Tamil writer who has won the Sahitya Akademi Award in the Tamil Language category in 2018. He has published 10 novels, 20 collections of short stories, 75 collections of essays, 15 books for children, 3 books of translation and 9 plays. He also has a collection of interviews to his credit. His short stories are noted for their modern story-telling style in Tamil and have been translated and published in English, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Kannada and French. 

T Santhanam is a retired Bank Executive in Bangalore, India. He has a passion for literature with a special affinity for poetry. He writes poetry in Tamil. He is also a blogger.

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Categories
Contents

Borderless, November 2023

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Counting Colours… Click here to read.

Conversation

Banjara author Ramesh Karthik Nayak discusses his new book, Chakmak (flintsone), giving us a glimpse of his world. We also have a brief introduction to his work. Click here to read.

Translations

Demanding Longevity by Quazi Johirul Islam has been translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Moonlight, a poem by Bashir Baidar, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Maithili Poetry by Vidyanand Jha has been translated from Maithili by the poet himself. Click here to read.

The Window and the Flower Vase has been written and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.

Tagore’s Tomar Kachhe Shanti Chabo Na (I Will Not Pray to You for Peace) has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Michael Burch, Aineesh Dutt, Stuart McFarlane, Radhika Soni, David Mellor, Prithvijeet Sinha, John Grey, Ahana Bhattacharjee, Ron Pickett, Suzanne AH, George Freek, Arshi Mortuza, Caroline Am Bergris, Avantika Vijay Singh, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Kisholoy Roy, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In A Parody of a Non-existing Parody: The Recycled Sea, Rhys Hughes uses TS Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ to create a new parody. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

The Theft of a River

Koushiki Dasgupta Chaudhuri tells a poignant truth about how a river is moving towards disappearance due to human intervention. Click here to read.

In Quest of Seeing the Largest Tree in the World

Meredith Stephens writes of her last day in California. Click here to read.

Beyond Horizons: A Love Story

Sai Abhinay Penna shares photographs and narrative about his trek at Chikmagalur. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Crush on Bottles, Devraj Singh Kalsi inebriates his piece with humour. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Address Unknown, Suzanne Kamata shares a Japanese norm with a touch of humour. Click here to read.

Essays

Peeking at Beijing: The Wall

Keith Lyons travels to The Great Wall and writes of the experience. Click here to read.

Cinema, Cinema, Cinema!

Gayatri Devi writes of the translation impact of cinema, contextualising with the Tamil blockbuster, Jailer. Click here to read.

Coffee, Lima and Legends…

Ravi Shankar explores Lima, its legends and Peruvian coffee. Click here to read.

Stories

Jonathan’s Missing Wife

Paul Mirabile sets his story in a small town in England. Click here to read.

The Tender Butcher

Devraj Singh Kalsi weaves a story around a poetic butcher. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt of The White Shirts of Summer: New and Selected Poems by Mamang Dai. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Ramesh Karthik Nayak’s Chakmak. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Ali Akbar Natiq’s Naulakhi Kothi, translated from Urdu by Naima Rashid. Click here to read.

Ranu Uniyal reviews I am Not the Gardener: Selected Poems by Raj Bisaria. Click here to read.

Anita Balakrishnan reviews Lakshmi Kannan’s Guilt Trip and Other Stories. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Akshat Rathi’s Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions. Click here to read.

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

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Categories
Essay

Cinema, Cinema, Cinema!

By Gayatri Devi

Is it appropriate to speak of transnational glee as a legitimate audience response to a film? If so, that might be a fitting label for the global spectator reaction to the blockbuster Indian film, Jailer, released worldwide on August 10, 2023.  The film whose OTT rights were purchased by Amazon Prime is streaming online while simultaneously playing to packed theatres in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, China, the Middle East, Australia, Canada, the US, the UK, France, and other countries. In its first month of theatrical release, Jailer brought in an impressive 300 crores in India alone with over 600 crores and counting (just shy of 22 million US dollars) as its worldwide earnings. Many Indian blockbuster films have had a worldwide high-performance index recently with the likes of Ponniyin Selvan, Pathaan, Bahubali etc. thriving on an exoticised glamour of an India of kings and queens and palaces and freedom fighters and medieval breakdance routines, a sort of mystified enchanting India of the travel brochure version for viewers both inside and outside India. Even a mediocre film like RRR had a localised transnational success in the United States during the academy award season as well.

Unlike these historical and revisionist costume dramas, Jailer is a full-on pop culture phenomenon, a movie of the moment, a tale of its time; it is as au courant as cellphones and police corruption. It is full of attitude, and packed chockful of allusions and homages to both Indian and western movies in what is essentially a fun romp. Shot mostly in sumptuous wide shots and rhythmic cuts, it establishes an onscreen India, dry and dusty, with industrial warehouses running forgery, guns and knives, roadside ice cream vendors, fly-by beheadings, and struggling gardens along with elementary school YouTube influencers.  Its real distinction is that people all over the world get it. But it is as Indian, specifically, it is as Tamil as a Tamil can be, and it puts a smile on the face of anyone anywhere who watches it. The international blockbuster with no pretensions to anything other than cinematic entertainment is back, thanks to Jailer and its vibrant young director Nelson Dilipkumar.

Jailer tells the story of two men, a hero and a villain, a retired police officer Tiger Muthuvel Pandian, the eponymous jailer, and a criminal mastermind Varman who runs an art forgery ring. They make counterfeit Indian statuary and sells them in the international market. Their encounter becomes complicated when the jailor’s son, a corrupt police officer, starts working for the villain, the male melodrama of father-son conflict being a favorite trope in Tamil cinema from older films like Thangappathakkam (The Golden Badge, 1974) that starred an earlier era’s superstar Shivaji Ganesan. Jailer belongs to the same pedigree of male melodramatic films. The hero is played by the Tamil superstar Rajnikanth and the villain, the psychopathic leader of the forgers by Vinayakan from the nearby Malayalam film industry in Kerala.

Both Rajnikanth and Vinayakan belong to the highly successful world of mainstream, commercial Indian cinema with strong populist reception while also maintaining a certain level of middle-class entertainment sophistication. When compared to Rajnikanth, Vinayakan is relatively a newcomer, but one who has very quickly claimed his own space in Mollywood, Kerala’s film industry that produces Malayalam language-based films.

Vinayakan’s breakout performance as an underworld operative, an executioner and strongman, a complex character who is right, wrong and everything in between in Kammatti Padam[1] (2016) earned him a Kerala State Film Award for Best Actor.  Jailer sees him as a criminal psychopath with unpredictable ticks like instructing his lackeys to dance for him, drowning his enemies in big vats of sulphuric acid, delivering his Tamil-Malayalam pidgin with menacing comic timing etc.  The overall excesses of his character have the potential to turn him into a stereotypical villain, especially since the sulphuric acid dunking trope has a colourful cinematic legacy in Indian popular culture. (The “sulphuric acid joke” is an instantly recognisable film joke in Indian pop culture attributed to the persona of an outlandish villain played by the erstwhile Bollywood star Ajit who is credited with asking his henchman Raabert (Hindi pronunciation of Robert) the following purely apocryphal lines: “Raabert, is haraami ko liquid oxygen mein dal do; liquid ise jeene nahin dega, oxygen ise marna nahin dega”  (Robert, drown him in Liquid Oxygen; the Liquid won’t let him live, and the Oxygen won’t let him die!”). Jailer abounds in many such recognisable “quotation marks” throughout the film, including an ear-slicing scene, an evident homage to Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs(1992), and “Stuck in the Middle with You”. These artfully placed allusions create an enjoyable self-reflexive layer in the film where Jailer talks to film materials that have provided evident inspiration. The self-conscious scripting and direction, and the sheer enjoyment and abandonment with which Vinayakan embraces the deranged psyche of Varman makes him a bonafide villain and not a caricature.

Rajnikanth who plays the title role of the jailer is the 72-year-old veteran superstar of Tamil cinema known to his massive adoring fan base as thalaivar (“Leader/Chief” in Tamil). Rajanikanth started his film career with the 1975 romantic drama Apoorva Ragangal (Rare Melodies), a far cry from the action crime thriller genre which would soon become synonymous with his name in the industry. With his trademark moustache, lopsided pursed lips, thick mop of straight black hair swiped across the forehead, lean frame, and long lanky legs, Rajnikanth from the 80s onwards played the righteous underdog on both sides of the law who took on the snobbish elite as well as the violent underworld players and won. He played orphans, rickshaw drivers, underworld consigliere, police officer, milkman, engineer, writer, grandfather, father, son, brother, husband, lover – he played the full spectrum of masculine roles in mainstream Indian cinema.

There is an underacknowledged colour line in Indian films where the relatively whiter-complexioned actors and actresses are considered stardom material. Rajnikanth with his dark-complexion and Midas touch at the box office demolished this industry practice and became the mirror for the ordinary darker Dravidian face on the Indian silver screen.  Jailer sees him aged but fuller and lighter than his earlier years, though what has not changed are his instantly recognisable dance moves; underworld or the penthouse, underdog or the aggressor, Rajnikanth’s dance moves set the tone in his films. The standing jogs, the high kicks, the hip shake, the robotic arm movements and hand props like dark glasses and hand towels showed a new definition of “cool” to his fans.  His tentative dance performance in Jailer is reminiscent of another accomplished dancer who exhibits a pretend stage fright; John Travolta in Pulp Fiction dancing with Uma Thurman to Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.”

Other significant performances include Vasanth Ravi as the jailor’s corrupt and clueless son, Ramya Krishnan as the jailer’s visibly irritated wife, along with hilarious cameos by Malayalam superstar, Mohanlal, Bollywood star, Jackie Shroff, and Kannada star, Shiva Rajkumar — all of them act as outlaws who help the jailer in his fight against Varman. An equally hilarious subplot involves a love triangle between the dancing beauty Kamna, her lecherous costar “Blast” Mohan, and her lover, the timid film director.

The film clocks an impressive two hours and fifty minutes on the strength of these men and their vivacious performances, smart, sharp, and funny dialogue, over-the-top violence, and a sizzling cameo dance sequence, popularly known in Indian film lingo as an “item number” by the alluring Bollywood actress Tamannah. The single “Kaavaala[2]” composed by the music director, Anirudh, is a proper earworm turned worldwide viral hit with the young and the old alike shaking their hips to its mood altering percussive rhythm, the latest being a Japanese version of the song. Perhaps as a testament to the song’s instant infectious popularity, the original dance features dancers of multiple ethnicities, a global potpourri as it were, with a set reminiscent of the production design of Raiders of the Lost Ark[3] (1981) as well as a flute intro that calls out to Andean musicians. If any song can bring the world together, “Kaavaala” can.

Indeed, the multiple references to Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are unavoidable while watching Jailer. As with Tarantino, director Nelson (as he is popularly known) too operates inside a similar vision of cinematic storytelling.

The proper subject of Jailer is cinema, cinemas of India, cinemas of the world. Tamil melodramas of the 1970s, the middle class Tamil comedies of the eighties and the nineties, Bollywood action flicks, Hollywood adventure films, the black  crime comedies of Quentin Tarantino, the epic blood splatter of Robert Rodriguez, the bumbling and menacing sociopathic capers of Guy Ritchie films  – Jailer tips its hat to all of these crime-as-entertainment influences through its multilayered dense scripting, the large cast of characters, and the no holds barred display of gory violence. It is a refreshingly confident film without any false notes though some of the repeated explosion scenes could be tightened.

Jailer tells an old story familiar to the Tamil audience, a story as old as Shivaji Ganesan in Thangappathakkam(1974)—the upright police officer father and the fallen corrupt son. The film chugs through its dense thicket of plot and counterplot towards an inevitable moral resolution to this impasse. This is where the power of the star system in Indian cinema, a status equal to that of gods, plays its trump card. With Rajnikanth playing the jailer father there can be only one moral resolution, son, or no son. It is a formula that never fails, and speaks of a justice perhaps unique to cinema.

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[1]  Kammatti Paadam — is the name of a slum in Kochi, Kerala. It is a place name. Kammatti is a proper noun without any traceable etymology.  Paadam means “field” in Malayalam. “The Slum Fields” of “The Slum” could be an appropriate translation.

[2] Kaavaalaya — A Telugu phrase, “I Want You, Man”

[3] Set in 1936

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Gayatri Devi is a teacher, translator and writer living and working in Savannah, Georgia.

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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

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Categories
The Halloween Spookbook

Witches, Ghosts and Pirates?

Courtesy: Creative Commons

Can horror be fun?

While the horror generated by wars deeply saddens with its ultimate disregard for all kinds of flora and fauna, including humans, the horrific as we savour in festivals can cease to be terrifying. It can even be cathartic in the midst of the terror of destruction and violence. Halloween is a festival that brings to mind a time when kids go trick or treating as houses and gardens assume a ‘haunted look’. This year, in the spirit of fun, we bring to you a collection of the spooky and the gooky — poems and prose — from across multiple countries and cultures. These hope to provide a moment of respite and unalloyed fun for all of you, despite their darker notes. Perhaps, as an afterthought, these will also unite with the commonality of human needs to connect… even if it’s with a plethora of spooks from across all kinds of human borders…

Poetry

Poems for Halloween by Michael Burch. Click here to read.

Pirate Poems: Jay Nicholls brings us fun-filled ‘spooky-gooky’ adventures across the Lemon Sea. Click here to read.

Prose

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

Three Ghosts in a Boat: Rhys Hughes explores the paranormal. Promise not to laugh or smile as you shiver… Click here to read.

Red Moss at the Abbey of Saint Pons: Paul Mirabile takes us to St Pons Abbey in France in the fifteenth century. Click here to read.

The Browless Dolls: S.Ramakrishnan’s story about two supernatural dolls, has been translated from Tamil by B. Chandramouli. Click here to read.

Courtesy: Creative Commons

Categories
Editorial

We had Joy, We had Fun…

Pre-historic cave painting in France

La Tauromaquia. Leap with the Spear by Picasso (1881-1973)
Courtesy: Creative Commons

There was a time when there were no boundaries drawn by humans. Our ancestors roamed the Earth like any other fauna — part of nature and the landscape. They tried to explain and appease the changing seasons, the altering landscapes and the elements that affected life and living with rituals that seemed coherent to them. There were probably no major organised structures that laid out rules. From such observances, our festivals evolved to what we celebrate today. These celebrations are not just full of joie de vivre, but also a reminder of our syncretic start that diverged into what currently seems to be irreparable breaches and a lifestyle that is in conflict with the needs of our home planet.

Reflecting on this tradition of syncretism in our folklore and music, while acknowledging the boundaries that wreak havoc, is an essay by Aruna Chakravarti. She expounds on rituals that were developed to appease natural forces spreading diseases and devastation, celebrations that bring joy with harvests and override the narrowness of institutionalised human construct. She concludes with Lalan Fakir’s life as emblematic of the syncretic lore. Lalan, an uneducated man brought to limelight by the Tagore family, swept across religious divides with his immortal lyrics full of wisdom and simplicity. Dyed in similar syncretic lore are the writings of a student and disciple of Tagore from Santiniketan, Syed Mujtaba Ali (1904-1974). His works overriding these artificial constructs have been brought to light, by his translator, former BBC editor, Nazes Afroz. Having translated his earlier book, In a Land Far from Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan, Afroz has now brought to us Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Tales of a Voyager (Jolay Dangay), in which we read of his travels to Egypt almost ninety years ago. In his interview, the translator highlights the current relevance of this remarkable polyglot.

Humming the tunes of Mujtaba Ali’s tutor, Tagore, a translation of Tagore’s song, Amra Beddhechhi Kasher Guchho (We have Tied Bunches of Kash[1]) captures the spirit of autumnal opulence which heralds the advent of Durga Puja. A translation by Fazal Baloch has brought a message of non-violence very aptly in these times from recently deceased eminent Balochi poet, Mubarak Qazi. Professor Fakrul Alam has translated a very contemporary poem by Quazi Johirul Islam on Barnes and Nobles while from Korea, we have a translation of a poem by Ihlwha Choi on the fruit, jujube, which is eaten fresh of the tree in autumn.

A poem which starts with a translation of a Tang dynasty’s poet, Yuan Zhen, inaugurates the first translation we have had from Mandarin — though it’s just two paras by the poet, Rex Tan, who continues writing his response to the Chinese poem in English. Mingling nature and drawing life lessons from it are poems by George Freek, Ryan Quinn Flanagan and Gopal Lahiri. We have poetry which enriches our treasury by its sheer variety from Hawla Riza, Pramod Rastogi, John Zedolik, Avantika Vijay Singh, Tohm Bakelas and more. Michael Burch has brought in a note of festivities with his Halloween poems. And Rhys Hughes has rolled out humour with his observations on the city of Mysore. His column too this time has given us a table and a formula for writing humorous poetry — a tongue-in-cheek piece, just like the book excerpt from The Coffee Rubaiyat. In the original Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) had given us wonderful quatrains which Edward Fitzgerald immortalised with his nineteenth century translation from Persian to English and now, Hughes gives us a spoof which would well have you rollicking on the floor, and that too, only because as he tells us he prefers coffee over wine!

Humour tinged with irony is woven into Devraj Singh Kalsi’s narrative on red carpet welcomes in Indian weddings. We have a number of travel stories from Peru to all over the world. Ravi Shankar takes us to Lima and Meredith Stephens to Californian hot springs with photographs and narratives while Sayani De does the same for a Tibetan monastery in Lahaul. Keith Lyons converses with globe trotter Tomaž Serafi, who lives in Ljubljana. And Suzanne Kamata adds colour with a light-veined narrative on robots and baseball in Japan. Syncretic elements are woven by Dr. KPP Nambiar who made the first Japanese-Malyalam Dictionary. He started nearly fifty years ago after finding commonalities between the two cultures dating back to the sixteenth century. Tulip Chowdhury brings in colours of Halloween while discussing ghosts in Bangladesh and America, where she migrated.

The theme of immigration is taken up by Gemini Wahaaj as she reviews South to South: Writing South Asia in the American South edited by Khem K. Aryal. Japan again comes into focus with Aditi Yadav’s Makoto Shinkai’s and Naruki Nagakawa’s She and Her Cat, translated from Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori. Somdatta Mandal has also reviewed a translation by no less than Booker winning Daisy Rockwell, who has translated Usha Priyamvada’s Won’t You Stay, Radhika? from Hindi. Our reviews seem full of translations this time as Bhaskar Parichha comments on One Among You: The Autobiography of M.K. Stalin, the current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, translated from Tamil by A S Panneerselvan. In fiction, we have stories that add different flavours from Paul Mirabile, Neera Kashyap, Nirmala Pillai and more.

Our book excerpt from Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s Why didn’t You Come Sooner? Compassion in Action—Stories of Children Rescued from Slavery deserves a special mention. It showcases a world far removed from the one we know. While he was rescuing some disadvantaged children, Satyarthi relates his experience in the rescue van:

“One of the children gave it [the bunch of bananas] to the child sitting in front. An emaciated girl and a little boy were seated next to me. I told them to pass on the fruit to everyone in the back and keep one each for themselves. The girl looked curiously at the bunch as she turned it around in her hands. Then she looked at the other children.

“‘I’ve never seen an onion like this one,’ she said.

“Her little companion also touched the fruit gingerly and innocently added, ‘Yes, this is not even a potato.’

“I was speechless to say the least. These children had never seen anything apart from onions and potatoes. They had definitely never chanced upon bananas…”

Heart-wrenching but true! Maybe, we can all do our bit by reaching out to some outside our comfort or social zone to close such alarming gaps… Uma Dasgupta’s book tells us that Tagore had hoped many would start institutions like Sriniketan all over the country to bridge gaps between the underprivileged and the privileged. People like Satyarthi are doing amazing work in today’s context, but more like him are needed in our world.

We have more writings than I could mention here, and each is chosen with much care. Please do pause by our contents page and take a look. Much effort has gone into creating a space for you to relish different perspectives that congeal in our journal, a space for all of you. For this, we have the team at Borderless to thank– without their participation, the journal would not be as it is. Sohana Manzoor with her vibrant artwork gives the finishing touch to each of our monthly issues. And lastly, I cannot but express my gratefulness to our contributors and readers for continuing to be with us through our journey. Heartfelt thanks to all of you.

Have a wonderful festive season!

Best wishes,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

[1] Wild long grass

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Categories
Review

Autobiography of an Invisible Chief Minister

Book Review by Bhaskar Parichha 

Title: One Among You: The Autobiography of M.K. Stalin

Translator: A S Panneerselvan 

Publisher: Penguin Viking 

Muthuvel Karunanidhi, or MK Stalin, is a prominent politician in India. A member of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party, he is the son of former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi. In Tamil Nadu’s political landscape, Stalin has emerged as a key figure in politics for several decades. In 1966, M.K. Stalin began his political innings by launching the Gopalapuram Youth Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. Over the next five decades, his political career would see him rise to become Mayor of Chennai in 1996. Stalin began his political career in the 1980s when he was elected to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly. He has held various positions within the DMK party over the years, including Treasurer and Deputy General Secretary. He was appointed Minister for Rural Development and Local Administration in Tamil Nadu in 2011. He would also become the President of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in 2018 and the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in 2021.

DMK has seen significant growth and success in Tamil Nadu under Stalin’s leadership. His efforts have contributed to the implementation of various welfare schemes and development projects aimed at improving the quality of life for the people of the state. With his emphasis on social justice, inclusive growth, and empowering marginalized communities, he has gained a wide following and support among the general public.

Stalin’s leadership style is characterised by his ability to reach out to the people and address their concerns. His communication skills and ability to mobilise party members are well-known. The DMK’s success in state elections has been attributed to his strategic decision-making and political acumen. Aside from his political career, Stalin has also been recognised for his commitment to public service. Throughout his career, he has been actively involved in a number of social initiatives, including education, healthcare, and environmental conservation. Recognition and appreciation have been given for his efforts to improve education and healthcare facilities in Tamil Nadu.


One Among You, a translation of Stalin’s Tamil autobiography, Ungalil Oruvan, is the story of the first twenty-three years of his life, from 1953 to 1976. These formative years witnessed Stalin’s school and college days, his early involvement with the DMK and his integral role in the party publication, Murasoli. But Stalin’s journey extends beyond politics. He also had a profound connection to the world of theatre and cinema, where his passion for art intersected with his pursuit of social change.

Translator A.S. Panneerselvan is head of the Centre for Study in the Public Sphere at Roja Muthiah Research Library, Chennai. For nearly a decade, he was The Hindu‘s Readers’ Editor (an independent internal news ombudsman). Panneerselvan is also an adjunct faculty member at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. His book, Karunanidhi: A Life, was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.

The first volume of this book describes some of the pivotal events in Stalin’s initial twenty-three years of life, events that have significantly contributed to his current role as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, a topic to be explored in later volumes of the autobiography.

The autobiography begins with a declaration, ‘I was born as a son of a leader’, underscoring his father’s profound influence in his life. M. Karunanidhi popularly known as ‘Kalaignar’ (great scholar) served as CM for almost two decades, making him a major source of inspiration for Stalin. His name ‘Stalin,’ meaning ‘man of steel,’ was bestowed upon him by his father. His father drew inspiration from Joseph Stalin’s influential leadership in shaping the Soviet Union. Further, the book delves into the impactful role played by his grandmother, mother, former Chief Ministers C. N. Annadurai and MGR, and others.

Central to the book is the assertion that politics was Stalin’s destiny, his calling to leadership from the outset. Even in his early years, he actively participated in party activities, immersing himself in every facet. He contributed significantly to his father’s publication, Murasoli, engaged in theatrical performances at party gatherings, organised fundraising efforts, and even faced imprisonment, all while steadfastly pursuing his studies. In his own words, “I had fully surrendered myself as a flame to the party,” a testament to his deep-seated dedication to politics.

The title — One Among You — reflects Stalin’s relatability and ordinary life. He championed his state and party, always connected to the people. He stood as a fellow citizen, demonstrating he was no different from others.

Stalin’s life is meticulously examined in this book, which explains how he became a leader by highlighting the essential facets of his life. It provides a comprehensive overview of his life’s journey. Throughout the narrative, the author maintains a consistent tone and uses clear language. A number of characters who contributed to the shaping of Stalin’s trajectory are depicted in these pages. Portraits, both of Stalin and those intertwined with his narrative; provide further evidence of that era’s atmosphere.

An interesting read.

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Bhaskar Parichha is a journalist and author of Unbiased, No Strings Attached: Writings on Odisha and Biju Patnaik – A Political Biography. He lives in Bhubaneswar and writes bilingually. Besides writing for newspapers, he also reviews books on various media platforms.

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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 Kindle Amazon International