Tag: Telengana

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Slices from Life

Technology War in the House

By Chetan Datta Poduri

From Public Domain

The other day I had a tough time explaining mobile telephony and its advancements to my dad who’s around 85 years old. Both of us are highly educated. Neither of us knew modern technology well. Nevertheless, me being a self-taught-geek-or-engineer-or-technologist-of-sorts keep explaining the advancements in technology at regular intervals to my father.

My father, 85, is still actively practicing in a nearby trust hospital. He retired from government service almost two decades ago. Ever since he has been actively consulting patients in local private hospitals. He always says that keeping oneself active (physically or professionally) is more than sufficient to keep ourselves healthy.

“No exercises needed”, he would say whenever someone asked him, and would add, “there isn’t any beach or a lake resort in the arid Hyderabad to sit back and relax. So, the patients give me some avocation to pass my time”.

I must also confess that my father has been using hearing aids in both the ears since he was 50 years old, and amnesia slowly started getting the better of him four years ago…

*

Six years ago, another problem cropped up…

In December 2019, as you all know this planet was plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst this hullabaloo, China made a small significant technological advancement – China silently unrolled 5G mobile telephony[1] in Wuhan.

As March 2020 neared, Indian government announced harsh restrictions, prominent amongst them are the lockdowns. To complicate the matters, my dad’s patients desperately needed to consult him for whatever…

… So, literally imprisoned at home my father embarked on video consultations to patients through WhatsApp. That represented the flashpoint between my dad and me.

Dad started complaining that his video conferences were not working properly.

The self-taught engineer in me explained that for proper video streaming and conferencing the mobile handset needs to have certain amount of memory in its RAM and storage all of which must be compatible with the ‘xG’ mobile telephony the government or service provider is offering (where ‘x’ represents a whole number like 2, 3, 4 or 5 and in near future can be 6 also). Like a true technocrat, I explained all the technology I knew with appropriate diagrams and flow-charts.

“What’s this RAM and storage?” asked my dad

“Well, I think RAM means Random Access Memory…”, I quipped peering through the edge of my glasses.

“What’s with the storage?”

“Well, everything your mobile handset receives, be it SMS or any other notifications or photographs you click with your mobile camera, it needs to keep somewhere. It needs a filing cabinet. That is called storage. If your handset has something called an SD card, it is external storage while every handset is sold initially with some storage called ‘internal storage’…”

“So … how much area does this storage take”

I casually replied, “Usually it is measured in GBs (giga bytes) … Your handset, I guess is some 16 GB or so… Mine’s about 32 GB…”

It’s been six years since we have had this discussion. The then government complicated the situation in our house by announcing that in another six months it will roll out 5G services in India to compete with Chinese …

“Ok! That’s alright but why are my phone calls not up to the mark. What does it have to do with storage? I understand if it is missing SMS, photos, storing and retrieving videos, etc… But why is the voice of the caller invariably broken or videos not clear?”

“Well, you might be using a 3G handset. Presently, the service providers are offering 4G+ services. Maybe you need to change your handset”

“Do I look like a fool? On one hand you are saying my phone is 16 G and on the other hand you are saying that government is offering only 4G services. Are you trying to ridicule me?”

Dumbstruck I tried to convince my dad. “Daddy, telephony G is different from storage GB … G of telephony means Generation and GB is giga bytes… 4G is different from 16 GB”.

“I know… I know… If government is offering only 4G and I have a 16 G handset, and there are two SIM cards in my handset 4G multiplied 4G is 16 G… then why is my handset not working properly?”, dad said angrily.

As an adolescent, I always felt that my father was very poor in mathematics and that’s perhaps why he asked me to opt for Biology stream in college. Had I known then that he knew how to square 4, I would’ve opted for mathematics stream giving many-a-CEOs a good run for their money…

“No!” I yelled, “the G in xG is different from GB”

“Now… Now… Now… My hearing aids are working properly… no need to shout… unnecessarily you’ll be disturbing the neighbours… Tell me, if my handset is 16 G why is it not working in 4G technology?”

I tried to pacify myself, “guess he has a hearing problem with letter ‘B’…”

“This G is not the same as that GB… Both are different…,” I said at the top of my voice

“Ok… But how to solve the problem?”

“Change your handset to something that can support 4G services…”

“But it is lockdown now… So… what’s the alternative?”

“The only alternative is to wait till they relax the lockdown and buy a new one until then endure the faulty video and audio calls… No other way out…”

*

Twenty years ago, in 2002, I bought my first mobile handset – a Nokia 3100 for about Rs3000. I was in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh then. There was a delayed roll-out of mobile telephony in North-western India and Kashmir regions of India for obvious reasons of them being very next to enemy nations, China and Pakistan. It was 2G technology then. Subsequently, a number of cheap Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese and Korean mobile handsets invaded India.

Back in 1991 CE, when India liberalised its economy, India was invaded by a number of international products in all spheres of life. Many Chinese and other Asian national companies also released their wares. This gave the average Indian at least four options.

The first option of buying highly priced superior quality original products from the Western Countries. The second option is that of the cheap lookalikes mostly from oriental countries like China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea. These were commonly referred to as duplicates. A third reasonable and genuine option was also offered by the liberalised Indian market – the Japanese products. These Japanese products, particularly the watches and calculators, were diametrically different from either the Western or the Oriental country products. They were priced somewhere in between and offered technology products with graceful designs. No matter what happens, these Japanese goods exceed your expectations. The fourth option was the local Indian products. These were rather crude in their design, usually low in quality and may or may not work testing your luck.

Chinese products, the duplicates, looked more American than the American products themselves but with Mandarin notations. From a distance it is difficult to say which is which. The most popular example in this direction was the copy of popular Batteries. Street vendors used to dispense American lookalike batteries for Rs5 while the original western would cost Rs95. Among the Indian products that stood the test of time were mostly food and dairy items and some watches/clocks.

This period of 90s in India paralleled the European Union’s efforts to revive the defunct industries that were bombed out in World War II. Also, around this time domestic airlines pampered the passengers by giving cheap watches as gifts and souvenirs. Net result: both my father and me developed a passion for collecting watches. My father’s patients would gift him cheap Chinese or so-called duplicates of the popular European watches. While he still collects these cheap watches, I, in due course, fizzled out. Of course, as of today, the pace at which the companies release newer designs outran our passion.

Mobile handsets, particularly the cheap ones that flooded the Indian market, fuelled our passion to collect handsets. So, now both of us have an additional avocation of changing mobile handsets as frequently as possible. Since in 2002 I was in Shimla and my dad was in Hyderabad, it became an unwritten rule between both of us that we appear with a different mobile handset every time we met. This passion continued for about a decade till 2012. By this time, I covered two cities – Shimla and Guwahati in Northeastern state of Assam. My father having retired from active government service lived (and continues to live in, touch wood) in Hyderabad which is in the south Indian state of Telangana.

A neighbourhood mobile vendor used to supply my father with cheap mobile handsets. For some unknown reason he used to call my father ‘Uncle’ and me as ‘Sir’. So, my mother and me used to pull my dad’s legs by calling the mobile vendor as his nephew.

As per our passion, we regularly changed our mobile phones. This continued till sometime… literally till 2018… when the 4G services were launched. Around this time the mobile ‘nephew’ of my father stopped supplying newer versions of handsets to my father.

But when he supplied mobile handsets to my father, he also used to do an additional service to my father: every time my father changed his handset, the mobile ‘nephew’ would somehow do a data transfer from the older handset to the new one. This I call an additional service because my father, as I mentioned earlier, uses hearing aids. So, the mobile handset must also be connected to the hearing aid through Bluetooth or other reliable technology. This is followed by a calibration of the hearing aid with the audiologist. All this took at least 2 – 3 days and multiple visits to both the mobile vendor and the audiologist. The mobile ‘nephew’ was very enthusiastic and never complained about any inconvenience. Other mobile shop owners would bluntly ask my father to get the calibration done elsewhere or with the service centre present at the other end of the city.

In one of the exchanges of mobiles, the data could not be properly transferred.

*

In June 2020, I guess, the government relaxed the lockdowns for the first time. Promptly, my father headed to a neighbourhood mobile phone shop and bought a 4G handset as per my recommendation. To my surprise, my father did not go to his mobile ‘nephew’. He went to a high-end mobile shop. My father this time bought an advanced model of a popular company’s handset.

After a day or two, and more video conferences later, my father expressed happiness and thanked me saying that for the first time in his life I gave a correct advice.

But now he needed something from the earlier unfinished data transfer. He wanted the data in the older mobile handset into the new handset. I took both the handsets to the new vendor and requested him to do the transfer. He gave a polished glib talk giving me the impression that the earlier handset is a cheap model from which it is better not to transfer the data. Crestfallen, I dragged myself to my-father’s-mobile-nephew and asked him to do the needful. The nephew told me that he failed to get permission for 4G and 5G so he’s at a loss as to help me.

“…that”, the nephew told me then, “is also the reason why your father no longer procures his mobiles from me”.

*

Two years of COVID restrictions rolled on somehow. For more than a year and a half every Indian was literally imprisoned in their respective homes due to the on-going pandemic.

The technology argument resurfaced between me and my father once again.

Dad said, “…again the problem of poor-quality video and audio…”

“Ah! Our service provider has now upgraded to 5G+ …Your handset is 4G… Change your handset…”

“Hmm… you mean there’s no problem with the handset?”

“Yeah! There’s no problem with the handset. It is just outdated. It is no longer compatible with the existing technology“, I quipped.

“What do you mean?“

I played the cards differently this time.

“We are three people in this house now. How comfortable will it be if suddenly there are 15 people in this house now?”

“If you talk like that, a greater number of people can be made to adjust in the house…”

“But what if everyday 15 people keep coming into the house without vacating?”

“Ah! Then that will be a problem…”

“Ditto for your handset… It is receiving more information from the network than it can handle…”

“The Apps are also freezing occasionally…”

“Same logic… they are receiving more information and upgrading themselves to the new technology… time to change your handset…”

“How much will a basic handset that works will cost me?”

“The one that is compatible will cost you around Rs15,000. The one that is also compatible with your hearing aids will be at the least Rs 20,000.”

Well, since my childhood, I always kept myself updated on the prices of the latest in market whether I need those items or not. Wishful thinking, I guess.

“If this is the case then, every year or two even if there is no malfunction, I am forced to change my handset. This is very bad…”

“That’s the flip side of the technological advancement… Whether you like it or not… Whether there’s a malfunction or not, we are forced to change our products leading to huge amounts of pollution…”

“Very bad state of affairs. Think about the laptops then. Unnecessarily we are shelling out truckloads of money just to keep us abreast of the technology…”

“Very bad state of affairs… the technology developers think everybody is a billionaire and everybody’s a computer geek…”

*

Thanks to our passions, every year, me and my dad each spend at least Rs8000 just for the batteries so that our watches are in working condition. The other day, I took an Indian watch of mine for servicing which I bought in 2001 with the first salary I received after my PhD. I bought it for Rs400 then.

The servicing personnel cooed, “Is this watch still working?”

Nostalgically, I asked, “What’s the price of this model now?”

“This model is no longer produced Sir…”

If this episode makes me misty-eyed, my Japanese watch always gives me goosepimples.

In 2010, I found a display board in a watch shop in the Fancy Bazaar of Guwahati that read, “Japanese – EcoFriendly watches”. I walked into the shop and bought the watch for about two thousand bucks. The manual said, “10-year Battery Life”. Believe it or not, it lasted 15 years and this is the only watch which did not give me an opportunity to change its battery.

Good and Honest things in life must be appreciated at the first opportunity.

[1] Telephony is the technology involving telephones for communication (audio or video), and data exchange between distant parties

Categories
Poetry

Solace in a Café

By Padmanabha Reddy

I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.*
 
So, you again want to walk
In these streets of powdered chalk,
Where nothing more than old trees
With ripened fruits lie in the winter freeze?
 
Do I know... Do I know
What lies here below the snow?
 
There is still time for the yellow walls,
The office shawls, and the colourful balls,
To close for the day and open tomorrow
When the lights come back from sorrow.
 
There are people on these tables
Beside the stables and mighty fables
Watching us through the crooked panes;
Let us walk away before they come again.
 
Do I know... Do I know
What lies here below the snow?
 
The legs, the hands, the mouth
The nose, the crimson rose,
The sound of lightning bows,
Everything's a dream, I suppose.
Perhaps I'd been better at home
Taking to my hair with that wooden comb.
 
I am done now... Sitting at the balcony
Watching the stars and people in myriad bars.
I'm not Diomedes or Odysseus,
Or Apollo stopping the charge of bows.
I'm Dolan, sitting on this table,
Amidst the foul winds, and living in a fable.
 
Do I know... Do I know
What lies here below the snow?
 
Perhaps I am better with this spoon
Whirling, Twirling, and Swirling the coffee
Till the last cube of life leaves me.
 
Do you still want to walk
In these streets of powdered chalk,
Where nothing more than old trees
With ripened fruits lie in the winter freeze?
 
Let us go then walking, talking
About Dolan, and not Odysseus,
About Hector, and not Achilles,
About me, and not you,
Before he comes by and kills us.
 
* ‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ by WB Yeats (1865 – 1939)

Padmanabha Reddy is a postgraduate student of English at Delhi University. He has a self-published novel, titled I Heard an Owl Scream. that has been felicitated by the Department of Language and Culture, Government of Telangana.

.

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Categories
Interview

In Conversation with Afsar Mohammad

Afsar Mohammad
In your final rest
on a rope-cot,
 
were you still dreaming
of a piece of bread?
 
Beloved one,
we the people
of this country,
 
of that country,
can make anything
 
but a piece of bread
for you. 

--Evening with a Sufi: Selected Poems by Afsar Mohammad, translated from the Telugu by Afsar Mohammad & Shamala Gallagher, Red River Books, 2022.

These lines send shivers down the spine and recreate an empathetic longing for immigrant souls in search of succour. They also swiftly draw an image laced with poignancy — a loss, a regret, the economics that deny innovative young men their keep and force immigration in search of sustenance. Would the poet have been one of them? 

Travelling from a small village in the South Indian state of Telangana, Afsar Mohammad has journeyed across continents and now teaches South Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Known as a trendsetting poet and literary critic for post-1980s Telugu literature, Afsar has brought out five volumes of poetry, one collection of short stories and two volumes of literary theory essays. He is also a distinguished scholar of Indian studies and has published extensively with various international presses, including Oxford and Cambridge. He is currently working on a translation of Sufi poetry from Telugu to English. In this interview, we trace his growth as a writer and editor of the webzine, Saranga, which now seems to be transcending linguistic barriers to give voice to multiple cultures… 

Tell us about your journey as a writer. When and how did it start?

It’s a long story, but to cut it short — the beginnings were somewhat puzzling… Inspired by Shakespearean sonnets, I first wrote some sonnets in English, and then switched to free verse. Since most of my friends in my high school started pushing me to write something in Telugu, I had to migrate to Telugu. Quite surprisingly, I was first published in English, and then it took me a while to get something published in Telugu. I had hard time getting published in Telugu due to its newness in expressions and most editors felt that there was nothing “Telugu” in that kind of writing. So, my early writings quite naturally found their home in some English journals!

Your poetry rings with the pain of distance, the pain and struggle from others’ suffering transcending your own self. What is the source of your inspiration — is it your past or your present? What affects you more — your being an immigrant or a Sufi?

We’re distanced by many things — not just physically!  We live in many shattered and scattered worlds, and sometimes we fail to reflect on those worlds. I feel like I’m a constant immigrant — despite my formal citizenship and legal boundaries. Sufism is merely a segment of this expansive realm. Both past and present define our destiny, right?! Of course, I try to live in the present rather than in the past, but never deny the baggage of the past.

Why do you subscribe to the Sufi school of poetry? What is Sufism all about? 

I come from an extremely local rural setting where such Sufi mystical practices openly defined my everyday life. It’s not about the technicalities and theories or institutionalised Sufi schools of their philosophies, this is more about what I learned from my childhood, and its physical surroundings dotted by several hybrid shrines. I’ve described this cultural setting in my 2013 Oxford University Press publication, The Festival of Pirs: Popular Islam and Shared Devotion in South India. This version of Sufism has more to do with everyday life rather than a spiritual domain. 

You have lived away from your country for long, and yet the past seems to still haunt you. What is the identity you seek as a poet? Is it necessary to have a unique identity or can one be like a drop that flows and moulds as per the needs of the vessel?  

In a way — physically– I’m away from my birth place, but in many ways, I’m also closer to my homeland than in my past. When I moved away from the actual picture, I see many dimensions from a new lens. Each dimension contributed to my rethinking and reconsidering the idea of India. As I wander around and meet totally different places and people, I learn more about my birthplace and moved a little closer to it. I totally understand this as a process to reconcile with the past and connect it to a new present intensified by many factors, not just personal. We’re living in a virtual world, which also looks like “real” in its sounds, colours and words. Every moment it makes me realise that I’m actually not that far. On the other hand, I also see the people in my homeland who are far more removed by their immediate reality and everyday experiences. We need to read this conditionality more in terms of perspective rather than physical distance. 

You are fluent in Telugu, Urdu and English. You started writing in English and then moved to Telugu. And all your poetry collections have been in Telugu. Why? Would the outreach of English not have been wider? What made you pick Telugu over English? 

Great question! My literary graph is neither linear nor simplistic. When I look back and reflect on it, it’s a quite messy roadmap — actually, there’s nothing like a map to get its contours.  Yes, I started writing in English and then suddenly stopped sending out the poems to magazines. In fact, I write more in my personal journals rather than in print journals. Theoretically, I saw poetry as a personal diary for my experiences for many years. Due to financial concerns within my family, I had to start working very early on and left most of my journals at home. Then, my friends found them by chance and put them together that became my first collection of poems in Telugu. The collection was an instant success for its innovative style and then that opened up my career in Telugu rather than English which was my first language of literary expression. 

You are now bringing out a bi-lingual online magazine, Saranga? What made you think of a magazine in two languages? 

Before entering into teaching career, I worked as an editor of the literary supplement and Sunday magazine for a largest circulated Telugu newspaper. When we moved to the USA, I thought it would be better to have some outlet to engage with my home language and literature. In the early phase, Saranga was primarily a Telugu webmagazine. When I started teaching South Asian literature, then I realised the importance of making Indian literary texts available to contemporary generation in the USA. That was just one reason, but there’re were many factors as our team saw a rise in the Indian diaspora writings in the new millennium. Luckily, we got wonderful support from writers and poets in various Indian languages. The humble beginnings have actually ended up as a rewarding experience. 

What is it you look for in contributors from two languages? Is it the same guidelines or different?

We’re still learning how this works! As it appears now, these two sections require two different approaches and guidelines. Since the English section has been now attracting writers from various languages, it’s moving more towards a multi-lingual base. We’re trying to accommodate more translations into English from different Indian languages. We still need to do lots of work there. 

Is the journal only aimed at South Asian diaspora or would you be extending your services to all cultures and all geographies? 

Saranga, as we see it right now, is more about South Asia and its diaspora. As you know, we need more such spaces for South Asia and its diaspora. Not sure about its future directions at this point, however, if the situation demands, we will extend its services further.

You have number of essays and academic books in English. But all your creative writing is in Telugu. Why? Would you be thinking of writing in English too because proficiency in the language is obviously not an issue?

Most of my academic writing came out of my teaching experience. As I started teaching new courses, I then realised that we need more material from South Asia. I started focusing on producing such materials primarily for my courses and then gradually, they became useful for many academicians elsewhere too. I still believe creating writing as a more personal space — that enables me to articulate more about myself. However, the publication of Evening with a Sufi, brought a new change — as I’ve been getting more requests for more writing in English for the last two years. As you know pretty well, I’m an extremely slow writer. 

How do you perceive language as a tool for a poet? 

I see language working many ways since I dwell in multiple languages. I started my elementary education in Urdu, and my middle school was in Telugu, and the subsequent studies were in English. Through the last day of her life, my mother was extremely particular about me learning Arabic and Farsi. So, I believe that helped me so much to understand how language works in a poem. When I published my first poem in Telugu, the immediate critique was it was a not a “Telugu” poem. Telugu literary critics labelled me as a poet who thinks either in Urdu or English, then writes in Telugu. Of course, most of them were also fascinated by the new syntax of my Telugu poems and the new images and metaphors—that totally deviate from a normative or mainstream Telugu poem of those days. The uses of language in a poem varies for each poet. If you’re reading, writing and thinking in just “one” language, that might be a safe condition. A contemporary or modern poet, however, belongs to many languages and cultures. We also migrate from one language to another in our everyday life. 

Do borders of nationalism, mother tongue and geographies divide or connect in your opinion? Do these impact your writing?

The response to this question might be an extension to the above conditionality of a person. Anyway, I’m not a big fan of those ideas of nationalism, mother tongue and singular geographies. They don’t exist in my world. Most of my writings both creative and academic contest such boundaries and borders. To describe this in a single term- borderless. In fact, I believe we’re all borderless, but unfortunately, many boundaries and borders are now being imposed on our personalities. 

(The online interview has been conducted by emails by Mitali Chakravarty)

Click here to access Afsar Mohammad’s poetry

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
Excerpt

Evening with a Sufi: Selected Poems

Title: Evening with a Sufi: Selected Poems

Author: Afsar Mohammad

Translator: Afsar Mohammad & Shamala Gallagher

Publisher: Red River

Across from the Char Minar

You see how one butterfly
left us a trace of its colour,
before killing itself
on this busy street.

Here one thousand people,
one then the other
crossed and walked on
without even looking. 

Any afternoon, when the sun
smiles like a white flower
on the head of the Char Minar,
just walk straight into his look.

It’s not so hard
to pour one look into
an ever-burning oven,
a house of molten sights.

Here where the butterfly forgot
its colour and flew off into the dark,
stay and stare straight into life.     
Tell me how it looks.

The thousand people who walked,
limped, and ran by this road
told me at least a thousand lies
but in innocent tongues. 

Another Word

At the end of crying out, 
my word is a dwarf. 

How long can I live on a dwarf? 

The tear that sang before my beginning
never leaves me a gasp of shore. 

I can’t become your sea or sky. 

I am just a tearlet
beneath your eye. 

The drop 
that can swallow a desert.  


In the Middle of the Poem

The line gasps, interrupted. 
Quick gulp of silence. 
Someone pants at the rear. 

The road flies back. 
A scene flits past,
along with the footsteps. 
Silence has so many faces. 

Someone walks on either side,
hazy, indistinct. 
Someone sighs behind the shoulder. 
The poem stops. 

A Rain Lost in Hyderabad
1

Since there is nothing like evening here,
I just dream an evening
in every bit of my sleep.

When the trees erase their shades,
when the sky dries out its final sunshine,
a cold wave scoops me.

I rush to my nest and hide in its wings
before the dark night takes me.

2

Never know if this was raining since morning
or just began this noon.
The lives that unfurl in the noons
don’t know morning breezes.

Getting up past noon,
I realise the alarm was tired
of alarming me and sighed itself off.

I am best at reading time
in reverse.

3

I am the crooked one

who is born when all the rains and winters
lose their hope of moving.

4

Hyderabad is my altered self —

a dreamless sleep,
a sleepless dream,

awaking slipped under a nap.

(Excerpted from Evening with a Sufi: Selected Poems by Afsar Mohammad, translated from the Telugu by Afsar Mohammad & Shamala Gallagher. Published by Red River, 2022)

About the book

Evening with a Sufi: Selected Poems volume brings together, for the first time in English translation (translated by the poet in collaboration with Shamala Gallagher) the selected, and often groundbreaking poetry of the celebrated Telugu poet Afsar Mohammad, known for his trendsetting poetry and literary criticism in the post-1980s Telugu literary culture. Beside an erudite translator’s note from Gallagher, Evening with a Sufi also contains two in-depth essays on Afsar Mohammad’s poetry by David Shulman and Cheran Rudhramoorthy, plus an interview with the poet by poet and translator Rohith.

About the Author

Born in a small village in the South Indian state of Telangana, Afsar Mohammad now teaches South Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Known as a trendsetting poet and literary critic in the post-1980s Telugu literary culture, Afsar has published five volumes of poetry, one collection of short stories and two volumes of literary theory essays. Afsar is also a distinguished scholar of Indian studies and has published extensively with various international presses, including Oxford and Cambridge. He is now working on a translation of Sufi poetry from Telugu to English. He can be reached at afsartelugu@gmail.com

About the translator

Shamala Gallagher is a mixed-race Indian American writer, community college teacher, and mother to a preschooler. She is the author of a poetry collection, Late Morning When the World Burns (The Cultural Society, 2019), and her writing has been published in several literary journals, including Poetry, Gulf Coast, Black Warrior Review, and the Missouri Review. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Athens, Georgia, USA with her family and cats.

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