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…
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, AmraBeddhechhi 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’sWon’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.
“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 Borderlessto 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.
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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Can anyone say for sure, when Japan and Kerala or, for that matter, Japanese and Malayalam languages, came into contact for the first time? No, it is all buried in the chronicles of yore! This is so, in spite of the legendary Bodhidharma travelling from somewhere in the South-West part of India (Kerala?) to China on its way to Japan in AD 520, albeit still disputed!
With the arrival of the Portuguese in Southern Japan from Cochin(?) during AD 1543, there was obviously a possibility of Malayalee priests or laymen including ‘horse trainers’ and cooks, reaching Japan along with Portuguese navigators. But records of such visits are yet to be made public, being either in Portuguese, Chinese or Japanese archives.
However, according to Takako Mulloor, a daughter-in-law from Japan living in Kerala for the past half a century, such obscurities need not always be the case. She remembers the story of four Japanese youths who happened to visit Quilon and from there to North Kerala, sometime during the reign of Ōtomo Sōrin (1530-1587).
Sorin was one of the few feudal lords of Japan (Daimyo), to embrace Catholicism under the influence of Portuguese missionaries. Originally known as ‘Fujiwara-no-Yoshishige’, he was very powerful at the time, ruling most of Japan. Apparently, he thought it apt to ascertain the ‘truth’ behind the new religion that was spreading fast in his domain. Thus, he is said to have deputed four Japanese youths to Rome and Europe – a new world — to meet the Holy Pope and report back to him.
These youths, after completing their mission successfully, landed in Quilon, on their return voyage. Quilon was a flourishing port of that period. Due to some unknown reasons, they proceeded further north towards Cochin by local crafts, called ‘Kettuvalloms’. Unfortunately, one of them caught malaria and died somewhere on the way and was buried.
According to personal communication from Takako, such records are available with the NHK ( Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) Brodcasting Corporation of Japan. She remembered that a TV team from NHK had visited Kerala sometime in 1979-80, to make a documentary on these youths and to locate the grave of the one who had lost his life. Takako was their interpreter on this mission, being fluent in Malayalam, Japanese and English.
While I was in Japan from 1965 to 1969, very little information was available in Kerala about Japan. Prior to leaving India, except for some writings by the renowned author MT Vasudevan Nair, the knowledge of Japanese language or culture was scanty.
On joining Osaka University of Foreign Languages (Ōsaka Gaidai), I was fascinated by the general manners of people in and out of the university. They were always kind, polite and willing to help especially students and others from abroad.
Despite having an advanced ‘Language Laboratory’ and excellent faculty, my language proficiency was mostly strengthened by the people on the street or in the villages of the Osaka suburbs. From the very beginning, I was also struck with an inexplicable quality in their language, with its unaccented delivery and melodious intonations that always reminded me nostalgically, of Malayalam!
Amazingly, both these languages were similar in several respects such as the order of alphabets, vowels and structure of sentences that usually didn’t end in a consonant.
We foreign students had to learn some special topics namely ‘Things Japanese’ that included Flower arrangement (Ikebana); Japanese theatre traditions Kabuki, Bunraku and the oral Rakugo and so on. In general, most of them including folk arts, proverbs, and day to day practices, reminded me of the village life in Kerala.
For instance, ‘banishing’ evil spirits from home was just the same as practiced in villages here. Above all, I could also recognise a few Japanese words more or less similar in meaning and pronunciation, synonymous with Malayalam!
That was when the idea of a Japanese-Malayalam Dictionary germinated in me. But, back in Tokyo University after completing six months’ language course, my attention was mainly focused on research, to earn a doctorate. Still, I was able to hone my Japanese speaking skills by constant interaction with the local people who were always enthusiastic about teaching foreigners, their language.
During the second year in Tokyo, unexpectedly one day, the Indian Embassy in Tokyo called me to enquire if I could teach a few senior Japanese government officials, Malayalam.
Didactic skill being not my forte with Malayalam, my first response was a polite ‘no’, despite the attractive remuneration offered. But the potential pupils would not be dissuaded. Thus started my part-time job as ‘Malayalam Teacher’, in Tokyo. Nearly three years of teaching came to an end on my completing my doctoral research, so as to return home.
Contacts with my erstwhile students were soon reduced to almost nil. One exception was an exchange of communication with a Shyoichi Itoh, who retained his interest in Malayalam as also Kerala. Occasionally, he used to write to me in Malayalam to my great delight, for comments and correction. He had also written some articles on Kerala in Japanese journals, on topics of interest to Japanese readers, based on his experience.
The unique Writers’ Co-operative of Kerala (SPCS) was one of such topics covered. Similarly, at my request and as suggested by the editor M T Vasudevan Nair, he wrote an article for the Malayalam weekly, Mathrubhoomi, focusing on the ritual suicide of the famous Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, in 1970. He had also written a guide book for Japanese students interested in learning Malayalam entitled ‘Malayalam for Beginners’.
Subsequently in 1974, Itoh made a surprise visit to me in Poona where I was working at the time. In fact, he came with the happy news of joining The Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS) as Professor and Head of the Department of Malayalam. That was a deserving recognition of his dedication to the study of Malayalam. His Malayalam for Beginners is still in use in the University and elsewhere.
My last meeting with Prof. Itoh was during early 1982, when he visited my official residence in Tokyo, with his dear daughter. At that time, I was on a government of India assignment (1981-’85), renewing old contacts as well.
Sadly, Prof. Itoh passed away rather prematurely, in 1998.
After taking superannuation from my employer — an international organisation at that time – at the beginning of the current millennium, I settled down in Cochin, India. Still, the dictionary dream was alive and efforts for bringing Japanese and Malayalam closer, was always a passion!
During the early nineties, despite being immersed in professional activities, I had undertaken the translation of Nobel Laureate Yasunari Kawabata’s [1]novel, Yama no Oto or ‘Sound of the Mountain’ (1971) directly from Japanese to Malayalam as Malayute Shabdam.
Published by Current Books (Trissur) in 1994, the translation was well received by Malayalee readers, resulting in more editions. Considering the fact that such translations are usually based on the English version due to language constrains, my work, directly from the original Japanese, is thought to be the first of its kind, in Malayalam.
However, the dictionary project could not be taken up immediately even after retirement, due to personal preoccupations. Ultimately, work on this long-awaited project was started in 2002, two years after retirement, in right earnest.
An old dictionary of Japanese-English-Japanese format, brought along from my ‘student’ days in Osaka was used as the first reference source. Published in 1950 by the Obunsha Company of Tokyo, it was the only one available for me at that juncture.
Following untiring work, the first draft was ready in two years. It was prepared in the Japanese-English-Malayalam format covering some 2000 foolscap pages and nearly a hundred thousand head-words. The meaning of each word and phrase was given in English and Malayalam with Japanese pronunciation in Malayalam fonts. The entire manuscript was compiled in long hand, without using a typewriter or computer!
Thereafter, attempts to get a competent publisher in Kerala was futile mainly due to the non-availability of Japanese fonts for printing. As a final solution, it was felt necessary to obtain fonts from Japan. However, the impasse was broken finally when my old friend and great historian Prof (Dr.) M.G.S. Narayanan introduced Toshie Awaya, a faculty member of the TUFS, as a conduit for assistance from that university.
While discussing various possibilities with Awaya, it was a pleasant surprise to know that late Prof. Itoh, my ‘old student’, used to be her Malayalam Professor!
Subsequently, on visiting Japan with my wife, a meeting was arranged with the late Indologist and renowned historian, Prof. Noboru Karashima, whom I knew during Tokyo University days. He was living in Kamakura, and Awaye took us to his very impressive residence for discussion.
On that occasion, as he suggested, it was decided we meet Prof. Jun Takashima and Prof. Makoto Minegishi engaged in dictionary-related research, in TUFS. They were attached to the Institute of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA). Established in 1964 within TUFS, this institute was engaged in promoting academic exchanges between Japan and other Asian-African nations, having been recognised as competent to carry out that task.
The two Professors during a meeting that ensued in the Institute, were amazed to see the sample manuscript of the dictionary that was shown to them. Firstly, use of ‘long hand’ instead of typing or computer printing, seemed out of this world to them.
Another fact, of more importance, was that the dictionary used as reference source material was outdated. It was pointed out that in view of the fast-evolving nature of languages with the addition of new words incessantly, the earlier work had become redundant.
While agreeing to discard the manuscript, we decided to start afresh using a latest dictionary as source to digitalise the new version with the help of a software developed by Prof. Takashima! It was also agreed that the manuscript thus produced with my data would be arranged in a ‘camera-ready’ copy at the ILCAA, that could be suitably published in Kerala.
After several exchanges of visits from India to Japan and Japan to India followed by umpteen number of corrections and revisions, the promised ‘final’ product was ready by the end of 2018.
Then, it was a matter of finding a qualified publisher. The Kerala State Institute of Languages, Thiruvananthapuram, that readily agreed, was found to be the most appropriate one to accomplish that task, in an excellent manner.
The formal release of the beautifully printed and bound Japanese-Malayalam Dictionary of some 1500 pages was formally carried out in the presence of the ILCAA Professors, by Kerala State Cultural Minister A.K. Balan. Hideki Asari, Minister and Dy. Chief of Mission, Japanese Embassy, New Delhi and several other dignitaries were present on the occasion in Thiruvananthapuram on March 8, 2019.
With such a happy finale of a hard work put in during some sixteen years of my post-retirement years, the dictionary may represent a milestone in the annals of Japanese-Malayalam affinities.
During the half a century that elapsed from the time of my first landing in Japan and the release of the dictionary, major changes are manifested in the ethos of Japan-Kerala interactions. Exchange of visits by artists, academics, writers and common people, resulted in the publication of several travelogues, translations, studies, and so forth enabling people of these two parts of the world to come closer, as I dreamt in the 1960s.
Several literary works from Japanese were translated into Malayalam by eminent writers from Kerala including M.K. Menon (Vilasini), K. Kunhikrishnan and others! General studies were also published about Japan, in Malayalam. An in-depth study of Kerala-Japan cultural relations is available in the remarkable book, ‘The Throne of Chrysanthemums’ by the gifted writer and artist, K. Asok Kumar.
In addition to such developments, many professionals from Kerala are now finding gainful employment in Japan, something unheard of a few years back.
In conclusion, it has to be emphasised that the age-old affinity between Japanese and Malayalam needs to be studied afresh by our linguists and historians, in the light of significant evidence emerging from various new studies.
When Rev.(Dr.) Robert Caldwell (1814-1891) postulated the theory of possible origin of Japanese and Tamil languages from the same root, there was no mention of Malayalam, in particular. So also Japanese professors – Akira Fujiwara (1981) and Susumu Ohno (2007) — who revived that hypothesis recently, were also not referring to the Malayalam connection.
Meanwhile, some of our erudite linguists such as Prof. Naduvattom Gopala Krishnan, were able to prove the ancient origin of Malayalam, from the same root as modern Tamil, proving eligibility of both these languages to be included in the ‘Classical Languages’ category, already accepted officially.
According to Prof Gopala Krishnan, the very fact that some ‘Malayalam only’ words were identified in ‘Sangam Literature’ of 300 BCE- 300 ACE, reaffirms its classical position. Even epigraphical evidence from the Edakkal Caves of Wayanad (Malabar), that go back to 6000 BCE, are said to be supportive of ancient origin of Malayalam, together with Tamil.
As such, there is an urgent need for a relook into our perspective of the gamut of Japanese-Malayalam affinities!
[1] Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) was the first Japanese to win a Nobel prize in 1968
Dr. KPP Nambiar, formerly a Consultant/Technocrat at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, is the author of many scientific papers and books, including a 1500-page Japanese-Malayalam dictionary.
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Vincent Van Gogh written is different scripts. Courtesy:Creative Commons
The whole world opens up in the realm of ideas that have existed wafting and bridging across time and space. Sometimes they find conduits to come to the fore, even though they find expression in different languages, under varied cultural milieus. One way of connecting these ideas is to translate them into a single language. And that is what many have started to do. Celebrating writers and translators who have connected us with these ideas across boundaries of time and place, we bring to you translated writings in English from twenty eight languages on the International Translation Day, from some of the most iconic thinkers as well as from contemporary voices.
Prose
Tagore’s short story, Aparichita, has been translated from Bengali as The Stranger by Aruna Chakravarti. Click hereto read.
Nadir Ali’s The Kabbadi Player has been translated from Punjabi by Amna Ali. Click here to read.
Kamaleswar Barua’s Uehara by has been translated from Assamese and introduced by Bikash K. Bhattacharya. Click here to read.
S Ramakrishnan’s Muhammad Ali’s Singnature has been S. Ramakrishnan, translated from Tamil by Dr B. Chandramouli. Click here to read.
PF Mathews’Mercy, has been translated from Malayalam by Ram Anantharaman. Click here to read.
Road to Nowhere, an unusual story about a man who heads for suicide, translated from Odiya by the author, Satya Misra. Click here to read.
An excerpt from A Handful of Sesame by Shrinivas Vaidya, translated from Kannada by Maithreyi Karnoor. Click hereto read.
Writings from Pandies’ Cornerhighlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms. Each piece is written in Hindustani and then translated by a volunteer from Pandies’ in English. Clickhere to read.
Rakhamaninov’s Sonata, a short story by Sherzod Artikov, translated from Uzbeki by Nigora Mukhammad. Click hereto read.
Of Days and Seasons, a parable by the eminent Dutch writer, Louis Couperus (1863-1923), translated by Chaitali Sengupta. Click here to read.
The Faithful Wife, a folktale translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click hereto read.
An excerpt from Ramy Al-Asheq’sEver Since I Did Not Die, translated from Arabic by Isis Nusair, edited by Levi Thompson. The author was born in a refugee camp. Click here to read.
Poetry
Two songs byTagore written originally in Brajabuli, a literary language developed essentially for poetry in the sixteenth century, has been translated by Radha Chakravarty. Click here to read.
Rebel or ‘Bidrohi’, Nazrul’s signature poem, ‘Bidrohi‘, translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Banlata Sen, Jibananada Das’s iconic poem, translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Islands belong to oceans and seas and lakes. They are born within the deepest depths of the marine underworld like infants in the depths of their mothers’ wombs. Born often from surging volcanic eruptions, the molten lava hardens into rock. The rock is smoothed by ocean-swept sands that turn fecund over time. They are gradually populated by migrating birds who rest their weary wings and deposit seeds from which sprout rich and luxuriant vegetation. To these shingled or sandy shores, little by little, pirates, buccaneers, conquistadors, renegades, the exiled or self-exiled, slaves, missionaries and migrant workers come to explore and eventually settle.
They all come flocking to this primordial land floating in the waters of the world, birds and humans, animals too follow. Bees buzz their contentment, donkeys hee-haw, goats baa and mosquitoes whine. And yet the islands do not belong to any one of these creatures. They belong to the oceans and seas and lakes — their creators and benefactors.
Ah! The birth of an island! The centre of which rises high above those shingled or sandy shores, the dense jungles or arid scrub, where Vulcan in rampant rage had spat out smouldering rock and tongues of lava. There they now waft as if levitating from their aqueous-bed, home to a new Humanity …
Since my childhood, whenever I poured over maps my eyes would invariably fall on the islands that dotted the oceans or seas or lakes of our world. They held a more significant, a more imaginative, a stronger attraction for me, ones with which I could empathise. For Sicily was my genealogical point of attachment on those maps, a legacy of thirteen civilisations or so which had landed, settled or departed, leaving their immemorial traces both on the land, in the architecture, in our very mixed genes. Sicily is a perfect ‘officina‘[1] which I translate as the ‘melding of Humanity’ !
I day-dreamed while pouring over those frazzled maps and islands, whilst reading Jules Vernes’ MysteriousIsland and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Actually, I don’t believe that I love islands because of those novels (or any other), but they did arouse in me a sense of friendship, affection and human compassion towards islands because of the extraordinary diversity of their errant or settled communities, their many languages and customs, their manifold landscapes. Languages that have forged the hybrid compositions of Creole, forged inter-marriages, forged populations whose quotidian merges into the hybrid species of fauna and flora.
I read and read again and again the fabulous tale of Hayy Ibn Yaqzān[2] who lived on his uninhabited island amongst the plants, trees and animals, all alone in wondrous solitude, learning from them: his human qualities, his religion, his love of humanity and sympathy for every quintessential being or object that came into contact with him — be it mineral, vegetal, animal or eventually human …
Islands are bursting with nature and nature is a friend of humanity, thus islands are bursting with friendship — bursting with hybrid species … like their ethnicities and their languages. Even when Nature can become an enemy, this enmity offers islanders the possibility of strength and force through trial and error. When storms arise, they build sturdier homes. When dangerous interlopers reach their shores, they offer hospitality and eventual integration. Perilous sea creatures and beating waves against boulders demand of islanders to muster their ingenuity and imagination. To cultivate friendship, virtue ; to draw closer to one another ; to be able to live only in a way that conforms to Nature … to an island’s generous and bountiful treasures ; to befriend Nature and Humanity, for they are equal in diversity and disinterestedness.
I suddenly stopped dreaming of islands as they pinched with patriotism, narrow nationalism, circumscribed communitarianism. I stopped dreaming of islands and with my fingers touched Sicily, Cuba, Cyprus, Malta, Madeira, and the Princess Islands stringing out in the Marmara Sea. I slid them upon the island of Olkhon on Lake Baikal in Russia, the oldest and deepest in the world; an island where Shamanism, the oldest religion of the world, and Orthodox Christianity vie in relative peacefulness. There my fingers brushed against layers of civilisation, of ethnic blending, of howling winds and raging white-crested waves off boulders and high cliffs and laughing seagulls on the wing. There I heard a myriad of languages spoken by the communities of Humanity both in the public and the private domains: Greek, Turkish, Sicilian, Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Russian, Arabic, Jewish-Spanish, Norman, Armenian and so on. There swelled dark secrets of mythical creatures, of legendary figures whose wild wisdom infused a shroud of enigma that piqued my curiosity towards the universal sympathy that exudes from those aforesaid islands: the fragrance of bougainvillaea, wisteria, honeysuckle and jasmine, of ossified forests laden with the ice of deep winter, of the briny sea spray of stoic rocks, of cries of fishermen at the docks and those of traders at the markets. When I lift my finger that sacred moment, that spell which has been cast upon me vanishes from my waking state …
To Sicily, Cuba, Malta, Madeira Cyprus, Olkhon and to the Princess Islands I weighed anchor and set sail on various shaped vessels — ships that cleaved the high seas or navigated the coasts. At dawn upon disembarking, the colours of the skies drip from violet to orange to red to blue. The fishermen at the harbours or docks always asked me: “How do you like it ?”
“What, the island ?”
“Yes.”
“There is no point on Earth that rivals an island,” I would always repeat in sympathetic earnest.
On shore, wherever that shore be, we would drink coffee or tea in one of the wooden cooperatives for fishermen, traders and sailors. Chickens cackled, dogs barked, seagulls laughed whilst glasses and conversation chimed out the tunes of the islanders’ community spirit: tunes chanted in many tongues, gesticulated in many forms. I broke bread and filled my glass, observing the leathern faces of these hard-working tradesmen mending their nets, fitting their poles, scraping or painting their sea vessels … accomplishing their livelihood together as a whole.
“The wind is blowing from the southeast,” a rough-looking chap declared for all to ponder upon.
“That’s rain !” shouted another with a slight nod of his head.
And then I fell asleep in my bungalow and dreamt of dancing boats and throngs of fishermen talking about their fortunes or misfortunes. Villagers living near the rising waves filled my sleep with their colourful robes or coiffeurs, their daily gestures of sympathy to both nature and humanity.
Pouring over maps filled my childhood. Fingering the points that we call islands submerged me in oceanic rhapsody. Entire archipelagos coiling from North to South and West to East pervaded my soul with the rhythmic cadence of their tides. And as the tides beat out cosmological tunes, my dreams ended. I woke and embarked on many an island adventure in Sicily, Madeira, Cuba, Cyprus, Olkhon, Malta and on the Princess Islands. Points on the map became the unchartered lands of my great middle age sympathetic adventure. I had returned to the lands of my ancestors ! Ships had bore me to those points of human sympathy, exploring fantastic landscapes, communicating in innumerable tongues. There I breathed the air of island sovereignty, simplicity, silence and solitude.
I lived happily on all those islands. And in spite of certain prejudices and intolerances, I rejoiced living with the islanders who are good, heroic, honest and fair in their daily commerce. Who earn their daily living by the sweat of their brow and by the devotion to one another, whoever be that one or other. Inside the cafés faces furrowed by wind and sun concentrated on their drink or their cards or dominoes, whilst outside, hands hardened by generations of toil and moil, mended nets, built boats, cut fish, rowed boats. I rejoiced at all those acts of universal friendship.
I lived happily, intermingling with the melded species of plants, birds and humanity — not only as a spectator, but as an actor: the spectator who observes himself acting, and the actor who perceives his observations. Like in a dream … day and night !
It seemed to me like paradise. Paradise, a word derived from the Old Persian ‘pairidaëza‘ which meant ‘enclosure, a place walled in’: walled in or enclosed by its creator — the water ! But its meaning shifted when read by the Hebrews and became ‘pardēs‘ ‘a garden’. The Garden of Eden ? Yes, a garden so pristine and divine, yet possessing that infamous apple tree of the forbidden fruit. All paradises can descend into the bowels of Hell if tempted by a slithering, sly, snaky and insidious interloper … As we shall soon see !
At present the tides of time have consumed my youth, so I have decided to write a humble meditation about my mingling amongst the islanders of so many islands, of so many archipelagoes. I see them all from the porch of my bungalow, stretching out like a necklace of pearls. A pearly necklace cast in its oceanic casket. So I write and wander upon the silent, deserted roads of the many islands that I have treaded; that I have seen, touched, smelt and tasted. The time has hence come to render homage to those islands, to the nature of those islands, to the nature of those populations.
At this point, I expect readers will retort and point out that not all islands should benefit from such a distinguished homage: How about Cyprus, and the Turkish-Greek conflict ? And Sri Lanka and the terrible war that raged between 1983 and 2010 ? Japan and England, too, big islands indeed but islands, nevertheless. Was the subjugation of Welsh, Scot and Irish not enough? No, those English islanders set out on the high seas to subjugate other ethnic communities … other islands! The first being Ireland, invaded in the XIVth century and conquered uninterruptedly by Henry the Eighth and Oliver Cromwell. The ‘de-Irelandising’ of the island, or more appropriately formulated, the genocidal ‘civilising mission’ produced exile, persecution, misery and death until the founding of the Irish Free State in 1921 and finally the Republic of Ireland in 1949![3]
Were the Japanese not content to eliminate any foreign intrusion on their precious island ? No, they set out to decimate and enslave the ethnic communities that thrived on the islands of the Pacific: Guam, Wake Island, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, the Aleutian Islands, etc. Japan’s violent and bloody imperialism during WW II, and England’s century’s long brutal colonisation have marked all our History books and memories of their so called ‘civilising missions’. Be it the imperialistic brutality in the lands of the rising sun or that of the setting, as the French say: c’est bonnet blanc et blanc bonnet ![4]
Yes, these counter examples are, alas, historically documented. Are they then accidents of history or sorrowful exceptions? I will answer that in the case of Cyprus, the Cypriots, a fine blend of Greek and Turkish ethnic commingling since the Middle Ages, with a sprinkling of English since King Richard the Lion Heart (1191), became the unfortunate victim of Britain’s ‘civilising mission’. One needs only to read Lawrence Durrell’s Bitter Lemons of Cyprus[5]to understand the sad and tragic events that erupted in the 1950s and their never-ending aftermath and continuity. Cyprus belongs neither to Greece nor to Turkey (and certainly not to Great Britain), but to the Cypriot Greek and Turk, who in turn know perfectly well that their grand island for centuries has always belonged and will always belong to the brilliant whiteness of the Mediterranean Sea! The tragedy that befell this island sprang from the combined effort of British cynicism, Greek nationalism and Turkish overweening military reaction.
As to Sri Lanka, Sinhalese and Tamils had been living together since the twelfth century, assuredly not under the most perfect idyllic neighbourly conduct, yet the intermingling populations, be they Hindu, Christian or Budddhist, carried out their daily lives without too many eruptive disturbances. It was only with the full British conquest in 1815, and their fancied game of pitting one community against another, there, favouring the Tamil populations of the island, that a slow but steady bitterness, rancour and animosity grew within the Sinhalese population. The pent-up enmity exploded as soon as the British abandoned their ‘mission’, leaving both communities in a sort of political vacuum: Who was to govern? Who was to replace the ‘civilisers’ once they decamped without preparing Sinhalese and Tamil for self-rule, as the British had always done in the benignity and magnanimity of their decolonisation? The vacant legacy they left behind was rapidly filled with ethnic rivalry, exposed to Sinhalese vindictiveness and Tamil claims to share power and land in spite of their minority status. Each community claimed their rights as the deprived community at the expense of one another, a situation so similar to the void left behind by the British in Cyprus. The dramatic events that followed became the final act in the history of Britain’s ‘civilising mission’ performance …
In these two cases, the two communities, forsaken victims of the British colonial mindset, instead of achieving ethnic unity, wallowed in the abysmal chasm of oblivion. Islands that could be paradises plunged into the throes of Hell !
To conclude, an island belongs to the vast waters that enshrine it, as its etymology translates: a ‘land’ in ‘water’. Islands do not belong to imperialists or colonialist powers ; they belong to the oceans or seas or lakes that give birth to them, to the nature that stretches its silken carpet over them, to the ethnic groups or communities that gradually settle upon them, intermingling, trading, marrying, creating together a hybrid or Creole culture worthy of any ‘continental’ civilisation. For this very reason, there should not be any dominate power on an island, or official boundaries which sever communities from one another save the natural one that has nurtured and provided for its very existence: the surging billows and silent tides of their eternal creator …
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[1]‘Factory’ or ‘workshop’ of production. It is of Latin origin
[2] An allegory written by Alī Ibn Sinā or Avicenna (950-1037) Hayy Iby Yazqān, the Bird Salāmān and Absāl interpreted and adapted by Ibn Tufayl with the same title, born in Muslim Spain in the XIIth century. See Lenn Evan Goodman, Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy Ibn Yaqzān, gee tee bee, Los Angelos, CA, 2003.
[3]The slaughter of all Irish aristocrats, the prohibition of inter-marriage between Anglo-Normand and Irish and the prohibition of the Gaelic written language in 1592 were part of the English ‘civilising mission’ in Ireland.
[4]‘It all amounts to the same thing’ or ‘It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other’.
[5] Lawrence Durrell, Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, 1957.
Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
“What if you ran away?” Shyam suggested when she heard my story and saw the bruises on my hands. I looked at her between my tears. “Where?” I sniffled. Shyam stared at me blankly. She did not have an answer to that question. I won’t lie. I had thought about running away many times. But I was seventeen and SPM[1] was just a few months away. If I did run away, what would happen to my future? Sometimes I wished that I wasn’t a person who thought so much. Why can’t I be like one of those girls who couldn’t care less? Why couldn’t I take risks? I tucked my hair behind my ears, a nervous habit of mine and looked down at my book, attempting to solve a complicated Additional Mathematics problem. It seemed to be as complicated as my life. I closed my eyes and looked out of the classroom. I wished to be anywhere at all, except home.
After school, I walked home, dreading each step, hoping time would slow down. I walked by the big red mansion, wondering if it really was haunted? As I turned into the junction, I wondered if the aunty and uncle in the corner lot were really abandoned by their sons? Why were all the swings broken in the playground? How many cars were there exactly in the Chinese house? Where did the vegetable seller live? As I came closer to home, my heartbeat quickened. I tucked my hair behind my ears with shaky fingers. Why was the walk home so short?
It was another day of beatings, curses, and a night of sleepless slumber. My mother screamed at me that she wished I had never been born. My aunt slapped me across the face for daring to answer her back. My grandfather spat his tobacco on my face while calling me worthless. As I helped shower my grandmother and changed her clothes, she scratched me, adding on to the existing bruises. After five years, I had gotten used to it. I couldn’t wait to be back at school the next day so I could at least fit in a nap.
As I sat staring at my homework that night, I wondered if things could have been different. What if I had not run away with my mother from my father’s home. He was a drunk who hit us, but back then, my mother loved me. She would hug me and kiss the pain away. I agreed to leave that hell, not knowing my mother would then become the demon. She kept telling me that I ruined her life, that she was stuck in a horrible marriage because of me. Often, I was confused. Was it really my fault? I never asked her to stay. Why was I constantly blamed for her choices?
As I strolled to school the next day, I wondered if Shyam would be willing to listen about what happened the previous day at home. Afterall, it must sound the same to her. But before I could tell her, she came running to my table at the back of the class. “Don’t go to the canteen during recess, come to the Upper Six classroom, Steph has something to show you.” Before I could ask her more, Puan Vijaya entered the class. Shyam walked back to her table. I glanced at her, and she winked at me.
“Selamat Pagi, cikgu,“[2]we droned. History was fun. Normally, I would be interested. Now, I was curious. What could Steph have? Was it a new book? She had many of those naughty romances that were forbidden reads for us. Or was it a new picture she had drawn? She often drew pictures of men and women doing… that thing. I couldn’t focus as Puan Vijaya read about Malayan Union from the history textbook. Steph, Shyam and I met in Form Three. They have been listening to my stories ever since, offering a shoulder, often being angry on my behalf and asking me to run away from my home. But I was too much of a coward to do that.
The next two periods were biology and Bahasa Melayu[3], which crawled with an unbearable slowness. It was as if time was truly testing me. I kept drawing pictures all over my biology notebook as I barely registered what my teacher was saying. Science never interested me, but I took it to be close to Shyam and Steph. Finally, the much-awaited bell that indicated it was break rang. Girls poured out of classrooms and chatter filled the corridors of the whole school. Shyam looked at me meaningfully from the front of the class. My stomach felt like it might drop from the excitement. We walked together towards the stairs in silence.
On the way to the third floor, a patrolling prefect stopped us. “Masa rehat, tak boleh naik atas. Pergi kantin,[4]” she ordered. My shoulders slumped in defeat, but Shyam perked up. “Terlupa barang dalam kelas tambahan semalam. Sekejap je.[5] Please” I wondered what extra classes she meant but kept mum. The prefect looked at us both, and after a moment, let us pass. I was surprised. Shyam pulled my hand, and we climbed up the remaining stairs. Finally, we were outside the Upper Six classroom. It was a long classroom that had almost thirty tables. The classroom was usually empty as the girls in the Upper Six class were often in the library. Their classes were always conducted there.
Steph had closed the windows and pulled the curtains. I was excited. The moment was here. After we stepped in, we made sure to close the door and lock it. Steph took out a board that had numbers and alphabets. It looked like she had made the board herself. “This board will tell us our future,” she whispered. I eyed it sceptically. “How?” I asked out loud. My voice echoed in the silent room, making us jump.
“Shhhh,” she gestured. “Do you have a coin?” Shyam and I reached into our pockets. I produced a 20cents coin. She took it gleefully. “This is called Spirit of the Coin,” and my eye widened. I had heard of the game. Although I had never played it before, I knew many girls in my school played it, convening with the unseen and unheard. My stomach dropped further. “I’m scared,” I whispered. “Don’t you want to know when you can escape? When will she die?”
Her question piqued my interest. I nodded. Indeed, I did want to know. I just didn’t know if I was brave enough. I tucked my hair back and looked down at the board, studying it. It was a small board, had all of the Latin alphabets and numbers, ranging from zero to ten.
“It’s okay. Shyam and I will play first. You watch us. Then if you want, it’ll be your turn, okay,” I nodded again.
“First, the rules. You cannot summon a spirit that is dead for less than 30 days, or else the spirit will follow you home. You can only ask three questions. You cannot ask the spirit to do any favours for you. You must use the phrase — go home — when you want the spirit to leave, understand?” Shyam and I nodded again, as if in a trance.
I blinked and looked at her and asked, “Wait, what if you ask it to do a favour for you?”
Steph looked at me, surprised. Maybe she hadn’t expected me to ask a question. “From what I heard, the spirit will do it, but you will be indebted to the spirit for the rest of your life,” and I nodded.
“Who taught you how to play this? Did it work,” I pressed on further. I could see Steph was losing her patience.
“I watched my cousins play it yesterday. I remember it,” she said, her voice high from the annoyance she must be feeling towards me. I nodded silently. I had more questions but decided to be quiet. I didn’t want to make her too angry.
“I’ll go first, you girls watch,” Steph sat on the ground, with the board in front of her. She placed the coin in the middle and muttered something. We felt a blast of wind, which was weird as all the windows were closed and the air was still.
“It’s here,” Steph whispered.
What was, I wondered? But I tucked my hair behind and decided to stay silent. “Will I pass my SPM?” was her first question. The coin started to move, as if on its own. It was fascinating yet frightening for me. Sweat poured out of my forehead as I watched the coin go to the words Y then E and lastly to S. I saw Steph’s eyes grow big. “When will I get married?” was her next question, and again I watched the coin move to numbers 2, then 0, then to 2 and finally to 5. 2025! Steph didn’t look too happy with the answer though. “Go Home!” Steph said out loud. There was a blast of wind, and the air became still. She looked at Shyam. “Do you want to try?” Shyam nodded.
I looked at the clock in the classroom. We had five more minutes before breaktime was over. When Shyam’s finger touched the coin, we felt another blast of wind. I wonder who she summoned? “Will I pass my SPM?” was also her first question. The coin answered Y-E-S. But before Shyam could ask her second question, we heard a bell ring shrilly. It indicated that break time was over. We had to hurry. “GO HOME” Shyam commanded. We felt a blast of wind and it was quiet again. Steph folded her board. Shyam held the coin, not knowing what to do with it. Steph took it from her and shoved it in my hand. It felt warm, almost hot. I was stunned. I did not want the coin. “Keep it, you might need it,” she winked and opened the classroom door.
“Come, let’s go!” Shyam pulled my hand. I stuffed the coin into my pocket.
During the remaining classes, I kept stroking the coin in my pocket. I wanted to play the game, but what would I ask? About SPM? About my future? Or about my aunt? When would she die? When would the torment end? I had so many questions. But the most important question would be which spirit would I call? Appatchi[6]? Tata[7]? Or papa? As Mrs. Lee ended our class, we thanked her. The final bell rang, and as much as I did not want to, I had to start walking home. I wondered what awaited me at home today.
Once home, I quickly changed into my house clothes, and I kept the coin in the pocket of my shorts. I hoped it would give me strength to get through the day. I went through the routine like a clockwork. I bathed ammama[8], while she screeched and scratched me, blended her food and fed her. All while she spat it back on my face. At one point, I got so angry I wanted to scream at her, but I couldn’t. Because they were watching. And waiting for the opportunity to strike me. After feeding ammama, I did the dishes. She had laid out my food. Rice which was swimming in cold rasam[9]. Looking at it, I lost my appetite. I tucked my hair, made sure nobody was watching and threw the food away. I washed the clothes, took in the dry clothes, and folded them. I was used to doing six people’s laundry on my own. I swept and mopped the house. It was already six in the evening.
She had gone out to the pasar malam[10]. I sought permission from appaiya[11] to shower. He nodded and I ran to the washroom. As I was putting on my clothes after the shower, I heard her car honk. “No, no, no…” I muttered as I quickly pulled a t-shirt over and ran to the front of the house. I did not dry my hair and it was dripping, making my t-shirt wet. She had gotten out of the car and was opening the gate.
“Where were you?” she screamed. The neighbours looked over, and then continued to mind their own business. This was normal to them.
“So..sorry cinamah[12], I was bathing” I answered.
“Why did you take so long to shower? Because of your hair? Do you think you are so pretty that you need to wash your hair? I’ll put an end to this today!” and I knew the worst part of the day was upon me. She dragged me by my hair to the kitchen.
“Kneel!” she commanded. I cried and begged her for mercy. She hit my head with a metal spoon and forced me to kneel. She rummaged the kitchen drawers and took a pair of scissors. She started cutting my hair while I cried. She kept cutting it until the entire floor was filled with hair. My head felt bare and my tears wouldn’t stop. She kicked my back and I fell on the floor. “Sweep up the kitchen. I don’t want to see your hair anywhere,” and she walked away.
Appaiya and amma[13] were watching and had done nothing to stop her. “You deserve it,” I heard amma behind me. I got up and stared at the floor.
My hair was everywhere. I walked towards the broom and swept it all up. I threw it all away and went into the room. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked terrible. There were patches of hair in some parts while some parts were so bare you could see the skin on my head. My tears refused to stop at the sight. How was I going to go to school? The girls would laugh. The teachers would stare. More tears spilled out. At the same time, anger bubbled in me. I wanted revenge. Maybe it was time for me to actually do something instead of crying. I closed my eyes and touched the coin. It felt warm to my touch.
The night went by without any other incidents. Cinamah had a satisfied look on her face, while amma laughed every time she saw me. I stayed in the kitchen as much as possible, until it was time to feed ammama her dinner and put her to bed. I did the rest of my chores quietly, but a plan was growing in my head. By the time they had all gone to bed, it was eleven thirty at night. I was ready to end this torture as well.
I started working on my homework and waited till the clock struck twelve. Then I tip-toed outside each room and waited till I heard their snores. Once I was satisfied, I walked back to the dining table where my books were and took out a piece of paper. I remembered how Steph’s board had looked. I drew the alphabets and the numbers. I reached into my pocket to take out my coin. It still felt warm on my skin. I was ready. I closed my eyes.
“Can you kill my whole family?” The coin remained rooted on its spot. I felt a blast of wind as I caught the coin move slowly.
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[1] Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), or the Malaysian Certificate of Education equivalent to a GCSE exam
Khayma Balakrishnan enjoys writing stories and poems. Her work in English contains flavours of her native tongue, Tamil, as well as her national language, Bahasa Malaysia. Her works have been published both in print and online from 2017 till 2023.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
Shadows, a poem in Korean, has been translated by the poet himself, Ihlwha Choi. Click hereto read.
Pranor Lifeby Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click hereto read.
Conversations
Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri converses withVinta Nanda about the Shout, a documentary by Vinta Nanda that documents the position of women in Indian society against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement and centuries of oppression and injustice. Click here to read.
Perhaps, most sceptics will say it is against human nature to stop fighting and fanning differences. The first recorded war was fought more than 13,000 years ago in what is now a desert but was green long ago. Nature changed its face. Continents altered over time. And now again, we are faced with strange shifts in climate that could redefine not just the dimensions of the surface area available to humankind but also our very physical existence. Can we absorb these changes as a species when we cannot change our nature to self-destruct for concepts that with a little redefining could move towards a world without wars leading to famines, starvation, destruction of beautiful edifices of nature and those built by humankind? That we could feed all of humans — a theory that won economist Abhijit Banerjee his Nobel Prize in 2019 so coveted by all humanity — almost seems to have taken a backseat. This confuses — as lemmings self-destruct…do humans too? I would have thought that all humanity would have moved towards resolving hunger and facing the climate crises post-2019 and post-pandemic, instead of killing each other for retaining constructs created by powerbrokers.
In the timeless lyrics of ‘Imagine’, John Lennon found peace by suggesting we do away with manmade constructs which breed war, anger and divisions and share the world as one. Wilfred Owen and many writers involved in the World Wars wrote to showcase the desolation and the heartfelt darkness that is brought on by such acts. Nazrul also created a story based on his experience in the First World War, ‘Hena’, translated for us by Sohana Manzoor. Showcasing the downside of another kind of conflict, a struggle to survive, is a story with a distinctive and yet light touch from S Ramakrishnan translated from Tamil by B Chandramouli. And yet in a conflict-ridden world, humans still yearn to survive, as is evident from Tagore’s poem Pran or ‘Life’. Reflecting it is the conditioning that we go through from our birth that makes us act as we do are translations by Professor Fakrul Alam of Masud Khan’s poetry and from Korean by Ihlwha Choi.
A figure who questioned his own conditioning and founded a new path towards survival; propounded living by need, and not greed; renounced violence and founded a creed that has survived more than 2500 years, is the man who rose to be the Buddha. Born as Prince Siddhartha, he redefined the norms with messages of love and peace. Reiterating the story of this legendary human is debutante author, Advait Kottary with his compelling Siddhartha:The Boy Who Became the Buddha, a book that has been featured in our excerpts too. In an interview, Kottary tells us more of what went into the making of the book which perhaps is the best survivor’s guide for humanity — not that we need to all become Buddhas but more that we need to relook at our own beliefs, choices and ways of life.
Another thinker-cum-film maker interviewed in this edition is Vinta Nanda for her film Shout, which highlights and seeks resolutions for another kind of crisis faced by one half of the world population today. She has been interviewed and her documentary reviewed by Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri. Chaudhuri has also given us an essay on a bookshop called Kunzum which continues to expand and go against the belief we have of shrinking hardcopy markets.
Gastronomical adventures seem to be another concurrent theme in this edition. Rhys Hughes has written of the Indian sweets with gulab jamun as the ultimate life saver from Yetis while trekking in the Himalayas! A musing on lemon pickle by Raka Banerjee and Ravi Shankar’s quest for the ultimate dosaaround the world — from India, to Malaysia, to Aruba, Nepal and more… tickle our palate and make us wonder at the role of food in our lives as does the story about biryani battles by Anagaha Narasimha.
Talk of war, perhaps, conjures up gastronomic dreams as often scarcity of food and resources, even potable water and electricity is a reality of war or conflict. Michael Burch brings to us poignant poetry about war as Ramesh Karthik Nayak has a poem on a weapon used in wars. Ryan Quinn Flanagan has brought another kind of ongoing conflict to our focus with his poetry centring on the National Day (May 5th) in Canada for Vigils for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women by hanging red clothes from trees, an issue that perhaps has echoes of Vinta Nanda’s Shout and Suzanne Kamata’s poetry for her friend who went missing decades ago as opposed to Rachel Jayen’s defiant poetry where she asserts her womanhood. Ron Pickett, George Freek and Sayantan Sur have given us introspective perspectives in verse. We have more poetry asking for a relook at societal norms with tongue-in -cheek humour by Jason Ryberg and of course, Rhys Hughes with his heartfelt poem on raiders in deserts.
The piece that really brought a smile to the lips this time was Farouk Gulsara’s ‘Humbled by a Pig’, a humorous recount of man’s struggles with nature after he has disrupted it. Keith Lyons has taken a look at the concept of bucket lists, another strange construct, in a light vein. Devraj Singh Kalsi has given a poignant and empathetic piece about trees with a self-reflective and ironic twist. We have narratives from around the world with Suzanne Kamata taking us to Osaka Comic Convention, Meredith Stephens to Sierra Nevada and Shivani Shrivastav to Ladakh. Paul Mirabile has travelled to the subterranean world with his fiction, in the footsteps perhaps of Jules Verne but not quite.
We are grateful to all our wonderful contributors some of whom have not been mentioned here but their works were selected because they truly enriched our June edition. Do visit our contents page to meet and greet all our wonderful authors. I would like to thank the team at Borderless without whose efforts and encouragement our journal would not exist and Sohana Manzoor especially for her fantastic artwork as well. Thank you all.
Wish you another lovely month of interesting reads!
By S. Ramakrishnan, translated from Tamil by Dr B. Chandramouli
The man was around 30. He had sleepless eyes, unkempt hair, and pale lips. He had on a grey half sleeve shirt and blue pants which did not match. Wearing rubber slippers with frayed edges, he was carrying a cloth bag, which he guarded closely on his lap, as if it contained a rare object. Because persons like him were a common sight at the taluka[1] office, no one paid him any attention. He had the hesitant look of someone about to request a loan. He was sitting in a slanted position leaning on his right leg.
The taluka office assumes a relaxed atmosphere during lunchtime. Losing its stiffness, it becomes more like a public library. Workers smile; you can talk to them easily. Maybe he was waiting for that stretch of time. They had built this new office with three floors on a side street near the end of the overhead bridge. When you think of a taluka office, you get the picture of a dusty neem tree, dirty steps and semi-dark rooms; this building was not like that. But there was a jeep blocking the entrance and abandoned bikes that reminded of the old office.
Most government offices did not have lifts; even if they did, they did not work. This office also had only a big staircase. While climbing the stairs, you could see a big government poster pasted on the opposite wall. The office had big windows, like in wedding halls. One worker who did not like too much light had opened only half of the window near his seat. During lunchtime, there was big traffic of vendors: Bagyathammal who sells hot murukku in a silver bucket; Muthu, who sells sweets and snacks; Kasim, who sells towels and lungis, and Kalaivani, who sells nighties and cotton sarees. The workers at the office were their favourite customers.
They continued to visit, even though the office had moved. Especially, Kesavan who sells the hot coconut sweet ‘boli’, had a free run of this office; he would enter regardless of who was there. He will place two bolis wrapped in newspaper on the Tahsildar’s table.
Bagyathammal could climb the stairs slowly only because she was overweight and also had a corn on her foot. They would know of her arrival just by the noise the silver bucket made on the steps. Many workers would be satiated only after munching on her murukku after lunch. They had a water cooler for cold water, which the old office did not have. Kasim would always fill his green bottle with the cold water. He would relish drinking that cold water with a unique expression of bliss on his face. Except for the boy from the tea stall opposite, and Subbiah from the xerox store, most people who came to the office were there to get certificates for caste, income, residency or land ownership. You could easily identify them by their looks. Being nervous, they would drop and scatter their certificates; some could not even answer the questions. Though all the wooden tables were similar, only the table where the officer received the petitions would appear huge to them. Even the leaders in the pictures hung on the wall were unsmiling.
After lunch, many of the workers would not return to their tables immediately. Some would go downstairs to smoke. Raghavan, who was going downstairs, noticed the man sitting aslant.
“What do you want?” he asked while passing.
When the man hesitantly said, “You see.., I.. well,…”
Raghavan told him, “Go inside and ask.”
Some workers had returned after the lunch break. Jayanthi was keeping her washed tiffin box near the window. The man stood in front of Sabapathy’s table and called out — “Sir…”
.
Sabapathy was searching for a pin to use as a toothpick. Thinking that the man was selling some snacks, he asked, “What did you bring?”
The man produced an old photograph from his bag and said. “Muhammad Ali’s photo.”
Startled and uncomprehending, Sabapathy asked, “What is that?”
“Muhammad Ali Sir, the world famous boxer. My father is the one standing nearby; see here, it has Muhammad Ali’s signature at the bottom.”
“OK, but why are you showing it to me?” asked Sabapathy, not understanding.
“They took it when Muhammad Ali came to Madras.”
“That is all fine. Are you here to give some petition?”
“I came to sell Muhammad Ali’s signature, Sir,” he said hesitantly.
Sabapathy did not understand what he said.
“Selling a signature?… But what can I do with it?” asked sarcastically.
The man hung his head and said, “It is a very valuable signature, Sir. I have money problems at home; that is why I came to sell.”
Sabapathy smiled sarcastically, as if he has found the right person to pass the time with and said, “I know nothing about boxing. See Sekhar in the corner seat? Show it to him.”
Sekhar was the one who can get a loan for anybody in the office. Nobody knew where he got the money from. But he would get a commission of Rs50 for every Rs1000.He had loaned many of his colleagues money during contingencies. He would strictly collect his share on payday.
The man went to Sekhar and showed him the old photograph.
Sekhar looked up at it and asked thoughtfully, “Do you want a death certificate?”
“No, Sir; this is Muhammad Ali.”
“Muhammad Ali means?” Sekhar asked, confused.
“Famous boxing champion; he came to Madras in 1980. He boxed with Jimmy Ellis in front of MGR. My dad was a big boxer in those days; he lost one eye in boxing, but could still fight very well. Muhammad Ali himself had congratulated him. They took this photo when Muhammad Ali was staying in Connemara hotel. There was a huge crowd to see him. My dad was waiting to get his signature on this photo. Muhammad Ali himself took him to his room and signed it for him. My father was thrilled.” he was narrating it like a story.
“Just tell me what you want now,” said Sekhar.
“Please buy this signature. All I want is Rs 500.”
Sekhar did not expect this.
“What am I going to do with this — clean my tongue?” Sekhar asked angrily.
“Do not say that Sir. Muhammad Ali’s signature has value.”
“Let us see how many people in this office know who Muhammad Ali is.” As if taking up a great challenge, Sekhar grabbed the photo from the man and gathered all the office staff in front of him.
Sekhar said in a mocking tone,
“If anyone can correctly identify the man in this photo, I will give the person Rs100.”
One lady asked, “An actor?”
“There is a tailor in my street who looks just like him; his ears are exactly like his,” said Jayanthi.
“Isn’t he the football champion?” asked Mani.
Rangachari was the one who correctly said.
“That is Muhammad Ali, World heavyweight boxing champion. He was born Cassius Clay; he later changed his name to Muhammad Ali.”
“Correct Sir; and it is his signature. At least you can buy this.”
“I do not even have enough time to box with my wife; what am I going to do this? If it was a foreign stamp, at least I could give it to my daughter,” said Rangachari in a mocking voice.
“Do not say that, Sir. I can cut off my father’s picture. Please give me Rs 500,” the man pleaded.
“Five hundred rupees is too much for a signature,” said Rangachari.
“You people demand like that too,” he thought. But he swallowed the thought and said, “If my dad were alive, he would not sell this.”
“It is alright if you want to sell, but where did you come to the taluka office?” asked Rangachari mockingly.
“You are all educated people. I thought you would know the value of this.”
“Forget the signature; you see, even if Muhammad Ali himself comes here, there is no value.” Rangachari laughed automatically, as if he has cracked a joke.
Meanwhile, hearing some footsteps on the stair, peon Munusamy announced that the Tahsildar[2] has arrived.
The safari suit clad Tahsildar Rathinasamy must have noticed the man as he went to his room. He rang the bell as soon as he sat down.
Peon Munusamy hurried into the room.
“Who is that guy standing outside? Is he selling perfume? I told you not to let people like that.”
Munusamy said, “He is not selling perfume, Sir; he came to sell some photo.”
“Ask him to come in,” the Tahsildar said angrily.
The peon told the man who was standing helplessly that the Tahsildar wanted to see him.
The man entered the room slowly.
The Tahsildar asked him with a stern face, “What is this, a marketplace where anyone can walk in and sell stuff? Who are you and why did you come here?”
The man was scared at his anger and hesitantly said, “Muhammad Ali’s signature…photo”
“Ask S1 to come in,” said the Tahsildar angrily.
Sabapathy came.
“Is this a government office or an exhibition? How did you let this man in?”
“We thought he came to give some petition. But he is spinning a yarn about a photograph.”
The Tahsildar said loudly “We should not leave it like this; you call the police. If we grab someone like this, the next one will be afraid to come.”
The man said with a troubled face, “Sorry, sir. I will leave,” he turned to walk out.
“What do you have in your hand? Show it to me.” the Tahsildar asked with the same anger.
The man showed him the photo with Muhammad Ali and his father.
“Did you come to get a donation?”
“No Sir; I came to sell Muhammad Ali’s signature,” he said in a weak voice.
“Don’t you have some other place for that?” the Tahsildar threw the photograph on the table carelessly.
“It is alright sir; just give me the photo; I will leave”
By this time, Rangachari had entered the room and described about Muhammad Ali in fluent English; the Tahsildar listened, only half understanding.
“Who will buy this?”
“There are collectors for this. You can get for 5000, or 10,000 rupees for that.”
“Is that right?”
“Severe money problems at home; that is why I came to sell.” the man repeated.
“What am I going to do if I buy this? I do not even have a place to hang my picture at my home.” the Tahsildar expressed his sense of humour with that statement.
At his juncture, Sekhar came to the office and said, “It is a new type of fraud, Sir. They print a picture off the internet and try to sell it.”
“No Sir. This is my father.”
“Do you have any certificate to prove it?” asked Sekhar.
“Why should I deceive you, Sir,” the man asked pitifully.
“Sekhar is correct. Nowadays, it is difficult to trust anyone; we should be cautious,” said Rangachari.
“Get rid of him and post a notice saying no outside persons are allowed here.” said Tahsildar.
The man took the photograph from the table and placed it in his bag, and walked downstairs.
An old man waiting to submit some petition asked him if the Tahsildar has arrived. He answered yes and left.
It was after three. He felt like fainting because of extreme hunger. The street was hot in the scorching sun. There was no breeze. He walked towards the bus stand to catch a bus to his suburban home.
Suddenly the bag in his hand felt heavy. It sounded as though someone was laughing.
Was that Muhammad Ali laughing?
It was as if his arm was being dragged down by the heavy bag.
He took out the photo and looked at it. His father’s face standing near Muhammad Ali had a unique smile.
He was wondering what he is going to do by taking the photo back to his home.
There was a tar drum standing under the tamarind tree; it was leaking tar. He took out the photo and stuck it on the tar. Muhammad Ali was looking at the street baking in the scorching sun from the photograph stuck to the tar tin.
As if to express his anger, he shrugged off his slippers and started walking barefoot at a fast pace.
The road stretched like the tongue of a strange beast.
S. Ramakrishnanis 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.
Dr.Chandramouli is a retired physician.. He is fluent in English and Tamil. He has done several English to Tamil, and Tamil to English. He has published some of them.
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