Tag: The Coffee Rubaiyat

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Contents

Borderless, January 2024

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

‘Imagine all the People, Sharing All the World’… Click here to read

Conversations

Interviewing Bulbul: Remembering Mrinal Sen… Ratnottama Sengupta introduces Bulbul Sharma to converse with her on Mrinal Sen, the legendary filmmaker, reflecting on Bulbul Sharma’s experience as an actress in his film, Interview. Click here to read.

In conversation with Gajra Kottary, eminent screenplay writer, and a brief introduction to her recent book of short stories, Autumn Blossoms. Click here to read.

Translations

Nazrul’s poem, Samya or Equality, has been translated from Bengali by Niaz Zaman. Click here to read.

Masud Khan’s Fire Engine has been translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Short Poems by Mulla Fazul have been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Disaster Alert by Ihlwha Choi has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Prarthona or Prayer by Rabindranath Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Radha Chakravarty, David Skelly Langen, Urmi Chakravorty, Avantika Vijay Singh, JM Huck, Isha Sharma, Stuart McFarlane, Saranyan BV, Ron Pickett, Mereena Eappen, Ahmad Al-Khatat, Ganesh Puthur, George Freek, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Some Differences Between India and Sri Lanka, Rhys Hughes relates his perceptions of the two countries with a pinch of humour. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

When the Cobra Came Home

Antara Mukherjee nostalgically recalls her past and weaves it into the present. Click here to read.

The Old Man

Munaj Gul Muhammad describes his encounter with an old Balochi man. Click here to read.

Corner

Anita Sudhakaran muses on the need for a quiet corner. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Taking Stock…Finally, Devraj Singh Kalsi writes of stocks that defy the laws of gravity. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In A Sombre Start, Suzanne Kamata talks of the twin disasters in Japan. Click here to read.

Essays

Abol Tabol: No Nonsense Verses of Sukumar Ray

Ratnottama Sengupta relives the fascination of Sukumar Ray’s Abol Tabol, which has  just completed its centenary. Click here to read.

Peeking at Beijing: Fringe-dwellers and Getting Centred

Keith Lyons shares the concluding episode of his trip to Beijing. Click here to read.

Stories

The Gift

Rebecca Klassen shares a sensitive story about a child and an oak tree. Click here to read.

Healing in the Land of the Free

Ravi Shankar gives the story of a Nepali migrant. Click here to read.

Pigeons & People

Srinivasan R explores human nature. Click here to read.

Phôs and Ombra

Paul Mirabile weaves a dark tale about two people lost in a void. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Srijato’s A House of Rain and Snow, translated from Bengali by Maharghya Chakraborty. Click here to read.

An excerpt from The Kidnapping of Mark Twain: A Bombay Mystery by Anuradha Kumar. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Sudha Murty’s Common Yet Uncommon: 14 Memorable Stories from Daily Life. Click here to read.

Meenakshi Malhotra reviews Rhys Hughes’ The Coffee Rubaiyat. Click here to read.

Rakhi Dalal reviews Ajit Cour’s Life Was Here Somewhere, translated by Ajeet Cour and Minoo Minocha. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Scott Ezell’s Journey to the End of the Empire: In China Along the Edge of Tibet. Click here to read.

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

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Editorial

‘Imagine all the People, Sharing All the World’

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Let’s look forward to things getting better this New Year with wars tapering off to peace— a peace where weapons and violence are only to be found in history. Can that ever happen…?

Perhaps, all of us need to imagine it together. Feeling the need for peace, if we could dwell on the idea and come up with solutions, we could move towards making it a reality. To start with, every single human being has to believe firmly in the need for such a society instead of blaming wars on natural instincts. Human nature too needs to evolve. Right now, this kind of a world view may seem utopian. But from being hunter-gatherers, we did move towards complex civilisations that in times of peace, built structures and created art, things that would have seemed magical to a cave dweller in the Palaeolithic times. Will we destroy all that we built by warring – desecrating, decimating our own constructs and life to go on witch-hunts that lead to the destruction of our own species? Will human nature not evolve out of the darkness and chaos that leads to such large-scale annihilation?

Sometimes, darkness seems to rise in a crescendo only to be drowned by light emanating from an unknown source. This New Year — which started with an earthquake followed the next day by a deadly plane collision — was a test of human resilience from which we emerged as survivors, showing humanity can overcome hurdles if we do not decimate each other in wars. Bringing this to focus and wringing with the pain of loss, Suzanne Kamata, in her column tells us: “Earthquakes and other natural disasters are unavoidable, but I admire the effort that the Japanese people put into mitigating their effects. My hope is that more and more people here will begin to understand that it is okay to cry, to mourn, to grieve, and to talk about our suffering. My wish for the Japanese people in the new year is happiness and the achievement of dreams.”

And may this ring true for all humanity.

Often it is our creative urges that help bring to focus darker aspects of our nature. Laughter could help heal this darkness within us. Making light of our foibles, critiquing our own tendencies with a sense of humour could help us identify, creating a cathartic outcome which will ultimately lead to healing. An expert at doing that was a man who was as much a master of nonsense verses in Bengal as Edward Lear was in the West. Ratnottama Sengupta has brought into focus one such book by the legendary Sukumar Ray, Abol Tabol (or mumbo jumbo), a book that remains read, loved and relevant even hundred years later. We have more non-fiction from Keith Lyons who reflects on humanity as he loses himself in China. Antara Mukherjee talks of evolving and accepting a past woven with rituals that might seem effete nowadays and yet, these festivities did evoke a sense of joie de vivre and built bridges that stretch beyond the hectic pace of the current world. Devraj Singh Kalsi weaves in humour and variety with his funny take on stocks and shares. Rhys Hughes does much the same with his fun-filled recount on the differences between Sri Lanka and India, with crispy dosas leaning in favour of the latter.

Humour is also sprinkled into poetry by Hughes as Radha Chakravarty’s poetry brings in more sombre notes. An eminent translator from Bengali to English, she has now tuned her pen to explore the subliminal world. While trying to explore the darker aspects of the subliminal, David Skelly Langen, a young poet lost his life in December 2023. We carry some of his poems in memoriam. Ahmad Al-Khatat, an Iraqi immigrant, brings us close to the Middle East crisis with his heart-rending scenarios painted with words. Variety is added to the oeuvre with more poetry from George Freek, Ganesh Puthur, Ron Pickett, Stuart McFarlane, Urmi Chakravorty, Saranyan BV, JM Huck and many more.

Our stories take us around the world with Paul Mirabile from France, Ravi Shankar from Malaysia, Srinivasan R from India and Rebecca Klassen from England, weaving in the flavours of their own cultures yet touching hearts with the commonality of emotions.

In conversations, Ratnottama Sengupta introduces us to the multifaceted Bulbul Sharma and discusses with her the celebrated filmmaker Mrinal Sen, in one of whose films Sharma ( known for her art and writing) had acted. We also have a discussion with eminent screenplay writer Gajra Kottary on her latest book, Autumn Blossoms and an introduction to it.

Somdatta Mandal has reviewed Sudha Murty’s Common Yet Uncommon: 14 Memorable Stories from Daily Life, which she says, “speaks a universal language of what it means to be human”. Bhaskar Parichha takes us to Scott Ezell’s Journey to the End of the Empire: In China Along the Edge of Tibet. Parichha opines: “The book evokes the majesty of Tibetan landscapes, the unique dignity of the Tibetan people, and the sensory extremity of navigating nearly pre-industrial communities at the edge of the map, while also encompassing the erosion of cultures and ecosystems. Journey to the End of the Empire is both a love song and a protest against environmental destruction, centralised national narratives and marginalised minorities.” Meenakshi Malhotra provides a respite from the serious and emotional by giving us a lively review of Rhys Hughes’ The Coffee Rubaiyat, putting it in context of literature on coffee, weaving in poetry by Alexander Pope and TS Eliot. Rakhi Dalal has reviewed a translation from Punjabi by Ajeet Cour and Minoo Minocha of Cour’s Life Was Here Somewhere. Our book excerpts from Anuradha Kumar’s The Kidnapping of Mark Twain: A Bombay Mystery introduces a lighter note as opposed to the intense prose of Srijato’s A House of Rain and Snow, translated from Bengali by Maharghya Chakraborty.

Translations this time take us to the realm of poetry again with Fazal Baloch introducing us to a classical poet from Balochistan, the late Mulla Fazul. Ihlwha Choi has self-translated his poetry from Korean. Niaz Zaman brings us Nazrul’s Samya or Equality – a visionary poem for the chaotic times we live in — and Fakrul Alam transcribes Masud Khan’s Bengali verses for Anglophone readers. Our translations are wound up with Tagore’s Prarthona or Prayer, a poem in which the poet talks of keeping his integrity and concludes saying ‘May the wellbeing of others fill my heart/ With contentment”.

May we all like Tagore find contentment in others’ wellbeing and move towards a world impacted by love and peace! The grand polymath always has had the last say…

I would like to thank our contributors, the Borderless team for this vibrant beginning of the year issue, Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous art, and all our readers for continuing to patronise us.

With hope of moving towards a utopian future, I invite you to savour our fare, some of which is not covered by this note. Do pause by our contents page to check out all our fare.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the contents page for the January 2024 issue

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

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Review

A Cup that Cheers: Savouring The Coffee Rubaiyat

Book Review by Meenakshi Malhotra

Title: The Coffee Rubaiyat

Author: Rhys Hughes

Publisher: Alien Buddha Press

 Rhys Hughes’ creative adaptation of Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam[1] is a delightful read. Located somewhere between tribute and parody, it has recreated the tonal and prosodic rhythms of the original translation, quartet by quartet. Yet, there is a thin line between parody and subversion, and Hughes’s adaptation negotiates this with a tongue-in cheek flippancy.

To illustrate the close parallel of the original 1st quartrain of Fitzgerald’s translation and Hughes creative adaptation:

Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

And lo! the Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

The original aubade is wittily recast as:  

Awake! For the alarm clock next to the bed

Is ringing the bells that can wake the dead:

And Lo! The ruby rays of the rising sun

Colour the espresso machine a pinkish red.

This paean to coffee is replete with personifications –“Dawn’s lips are coffee-smeared”(vi).

Some of Hughes odes to coffee poke fun at the metropolis and its quirky inhabitants, the poem(s) capture the rhythms of life and its frenetic pace in the urban metropolis. Thus in quatrain 18, we get a glimpse, a veritable word-picture of the tube/metro train commuter:

I sometimes think that never blows so hard,

The commuter who is late, reputation marred,

To cool his coffee so he can catch his train

Before all the doors are closed by the guard.

Literary- and other-Histories of Coffee

In a ‘Brief History of Coffee around the World’, Garrett Oden clarifies that , unlike tea and alcohol which have been around and in use for more than five thousand years, coffee has had a relatively recent history. Although it has supposedly been around for over a 1000 years, its first verifiable documented use was about 500 years ago. Accidentally discovered by a goat herder whose goats turned unusually frisky after consuming some red beans, it became popular in Yemen and the areas surrounding it, the area  we know now as the Middle East or as west Asia. The journey of coffee to Europe and beyond is replete with narratives of colonialism, plunder, pillage and scandal. This murky history was often forgotten as  the roasted magic bean  became a rage in coffee houses across the world.

The dubious antecedents of this heady brew derived from the magic bean is invoked in literary works such as Alexander Pope’s  ‘The Rape of the Lock’ where the effects of coffee are thus described:

“Coffee, (which makes the Politicians wise, And see thro’ all things with his half-shut eyes)/Sent up in vapours to the Baron’s brain new stratagems” to fulfil  his nefarious designs. Closer to our own times, we have T.S. Eliot’s line in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ where his persona declares, summing up the urban ennui of his quotidian existence, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”, a line which is yet another testimony to the fact that coffee has become  an inseparable and indispensable part of our everyday life.

Echoes of Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat are interwoven into each quatrain and the poems follow the chronology of the original sequence. From the chess board (p 56-XLVIX) to the image of the “moving finger” which is replaced by the “moving tongue” (LI, p58), in poem after poem, we have many hyperboles to capture the effects of this drink which stands for a way of life. It is a way of life familiar to inhabitants of the modern metropolis where one’s life is lived under the glare of neon lights, and where sleeplessness, stress are all par for the course.  

Although the poems employs the resources of several figures of speech like metaphor, personification, hyperbole, perhaps the most apt and commonly used figure is that of bathos. It is an effect of anticlimax created by a lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial. A typical example is Pope’s line in ‘The Rape of the Lock’ where he says, “Great Anna, whom three realms obey/ Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea”: In Hughes’s case, “the cosmos is nothing but a frappucino” ,”the inverted cup we call the sky.”

The poems are crafted in a spirit of irreverent good humour and this  book is definitely a  little nugget, worth savouring. Even if (to persist in the metaphor) one’s cup does not run over, it is definitely a cup that cheers.

Click here to read an excerpt from The Coffee Rubaiyat

[1] The translation was first published in 1859. Omar Khayyam, an astronaut, mathematician, a philosopher and a poet lived from 1048–1131 and wrote in Persian.

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Dr Meenakshi Malhotra is Associate Professor of English Literature at Hansraj College, University of Delhi, and has been involved in teaching and curriculum development in several universities. She has edited two books on Women and Lifewriting, Representing the Self and Claiming the I, in addition  to numerous published articles on gender, literature and feminist theory.  Her most recent publication is The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle.

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

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

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Categories
Contents

Borderless, October 2023

Artwork by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

We had Joy, We had Fun … Click here to read

Conversations

A conversation with Nazes Afroz, former BBC editor, along with a brief introduction to his new translations of Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Tales of a Voyager (Jolay Dangay). Click here to read.

Keith Lyons converses with globe trotter Tomaž Serafi, who lives in Ljubljana. Click here to read.

Translations

Barnes and Nobles by Quazi Johirul Islam has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Cast Away the Gun by Mubarak Qazi has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

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

A Hymn to an Autumnal Goddess by Rabindranath Tagore,  Amra Beddhechhi Kaasher Guchho ( We have Tied Bunches of Kaash), has been translated by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Michael Burch, Gopal Lahiri, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Hawla Riza, Reeti Jamil, Rex Tan, Santosh Bakaya, Tohm Bakelas, Pramod Rastogi, George Freek, Avantika Vijay Singh, John Zedolik, Debanga Das, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry, and Rhys Hughes

In Do It Yourself Nonsense Poem, Rhys Hughes lays some ground rules for indulging in this comedic genre. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Onsen and Hot Springs

Meredith Stephens explores Japanese and Californian hot springs with her camera and narrative. Click here to read.

Kardang Monastery: A Traveller’s High in Lahaul

Sayani De travels up the Himalayas to a Tibetan monastery. Click here to read.

Ghosts, Witches and My New Homeland

Tulip Chowdhury muses on ghosts and spooks in Bangladesh and US. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Red Carpet Welcome, Devraj Singh Kalsi re-examines social norms with a scoop of humour. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Baseball and Robots, Suzanne Kamata shares how both these have shaped life in modern Japan. Click here to read.

Stories

The Wave of Exile

Paul Mirabile tells a strange tale started off by a arrant Tsunami. Click here to read.

Glimpses of Light

Neera Kashyap gives a poignant story around mental health. Click here to read.

The Woman Next Door

Jahanavi Bandaru writes a strange, haunting tale. Click here to read.

The Call

Nirmala Pillai explores different worlds in Mumbai. Click here to read.

Essays

The Oral Traditions of Bengal: Story and Song

Aruna Chakravarti describes the syncretic culture of Bengal through its folk music and oral traditions. Click here to read.

Belongingness and the Space In-Between

Disha Dahiya draws from a slice of her life to discuss migrant issues. Click here to read.

A City for Kings

Ravi Shankar takes us to Lima, Peru with his narrative and camera. Click here to read.

The Saga of a Dictionary: Japanese-Malayalam Affinities

Dr. KPP Nambiar takes us through his journey of making a Japanese-Malyalam dictionary, which started nearly fifty years ago, while linking ties between the cultures dating back to the sixteenth century. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Kailash Satyarthi’s Why Didn’t You Come Sooner?: Compassion In Action—Stories of Children Rescued From Slavery. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Rhys Hughes’ The Coffee Rubaiyat. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal reviews Usha Priyamvada’s Won’t You Stay, Radhika?, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell. Click here to read.

Aditi Yadav reviews Makoto Shinkai’s and Naruki Nagakawa’s She and Her Cat, translated from Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori. Click here to read.

Gemini Wahaaj reviews South to South: Writing South Asia in the American South edited by Khem K. Aryal. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews One Among You: The Autobiography of M.K. Stalin, translated from Tamil by A S Panneerselvan. Click here to read.

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

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

Categories
Editorial

We had Joy, We had Fun…

Pre-historic cave painting in France

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a wonderful festive season!

Best wishes,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

[1] Wild long grass

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Excerpt

The Coffee Rubaiyat

From Alien Buddha Press
Kindle edition

Title: The Coffee Rubaiyat

Author: Rhys Hughes

Publisher: Alien Buddha Press

Introduction

The famous old poem called The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is known to many through the translation Edward FitzGerald published in 1859. His first edition, a selection of 75 quatrains, is considered the best. He revised the quatrains several times, losing poetic force each time he did so.

His translations are regarded as highly inaccurate anyway, but they are musical, evocative and wistful, and I like them very much. They are among my favourite poems and I once resolved to learn them all by heart.

As it happens, I failed in that attempt, mainly through laziness, which is appropriate really, for FitzGerald himself was an especially lazy man, who wrote and did very little in his life.

The quatrains are all about the joys of wine. At any time of the day or night wine is good to drink. That is the essential message.

I have heard it said that Omar Khayyam’s wine is actually a metaphor, perhaps for God or enlightenment, but personally I find the idea unconvincing. Or rather, I lack the scholarly insight to feel the truth of that interpretation.

The verses seem to be about real wine, the kind that can get you drunk, though I am willing to entertain the notion that I am missing the point. At the very least they can be plausibly quoted in connection with real wine, and I have used them to justify drinking an extra glass, for yes, Omar is keen to insist that more is better than less, indulgence superior to restraint.

But although I am fond of wine, I am fonder of coffee by far. I can easily live without wine, but only with difficulty live without coffee.

Thus, I decided to write a Coffee Rubaiyat, matching FitzGerald’s first edition quatrain for quatrain but making mine all about coffee.

I daydream that copies of my slim collection will one day be found in the coffee shops of the world. If the cappuccino fits, wear it. So say I.

And now it is time for a coffee break and I shall say no more.

Rhys Hughes, June 2023

The Coffee Rubaiyat


I.

Awake! for the alarm clock next to the bed
Is ringing the bells that can wake the dead:
And Lo! The ruby rays of the rising sun
colour the espresso machine a pinkish red.

II.

Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky
I turned to Dawn with a very deep sigh,
“Crikey, dear, that’s a massive hand you’ve got.
Why not get out of bed and bring me coffee—a lot?”

III.

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The coffee shop shouted—“Open then the door.
We all rather fancy a round of cappuccinos
Before grappling with our foes upon the floor.”


IV.

Now the New Year reviving caffeine desires,
The thoughtful soul to the kitchen retires,
Where the white froth on the large cappuccino
Flows out, and steam from the kettle perspires.

V.

Biscuits indeed are gone with all their crumbs,
And Sinbad is reduced to sucking his thumbs;
But still the coffee bush her lovely beans yields,
And still the waiter with our beverages comes.

VI.

And Dawn’s lips are coffee smeared; but in divine
Extra-strong roast, sighing, “The coffee’s all mine!
Cream but no sugar!”—the fox cries to the toad
But those dregs have gone cold and that’s not fine.


VII.

Come, fill the mug, and into the boiling kettle
Pour more pure water to cool the red-hot metal.
Strange folks prefer fashionable herbal teas
To sip—and Heck! They include leaves of nettle.

VIII.

And smells—a thousand aromas within one year
Wafted—and a thousand had no aroma to revere:
And this first breakfast time that brings burnt toast
Shall smear Sinbad’s ear on the sheer frontier.

IX.

Come with Coffee Khayyam and leave the lot
of juice bars and water bottles forgot:
Let gym instructors rant about overconsumption
Or doctors cry Enough—heed them not.


X.

With me at the quiet table of a terrace café
That divides the indolent from those gone astray,
Where one may slurp and dribble in peace
And pity the pedestrians who hurry on their way.

About the Book:

Settle into the enchanting rhythm of this coffee-themed adaptation of the classic Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, as each stanza awakens the senses with witty, humorous, and thought-provoking reflections on the joys and quirks of coffee culture.

The Coffee Rubaiyat embraces the essence of morning awakenings, midday pick-me-ups, and contemplative sips, all while exploring the comical and heart-warming encounters that revolve around this beloved brew.

This collection celebrates the endless nuances and pleasures that coffee brings. Coffee lovers, literature enthusiasts, and anyone with a penchant for the art of the bean will relish in the fusion of two worlds – the timeless verses of Omar Khayyam and the contemporary charm of Rhys Hughes.

A delightful literary adventure that will leave you yearning for another sip.

About the Author

Rhys Hughes is a writer of Fantastika and Speculative Fiction.

His earliest surviving short story dates from 1989, and since that time he has embarked on an ambitious project of writing a story cycle consisting of exactly 1000 linked tales. Recently, he decided to give this cycle the overall name of PANDORA’S BLUFF. The reference is to the box of troubles in the old myth. Each tale is a trouble, but hope can be found within them all.

His favourite fiction writers are Italo Calvino, Stanislaw Lem, Boris Vian, Flann O’Brien, Alasdair Gray and Donald Barthelme, all of whom have a well-developed sense of irony and a powerful imagination. He particularly enjoys literature that combines humour with seriousness, and that fuses the emotional with the intellectual, the profound with the light-hearted, the spontaneous with the precise.

His first book was published in 1995 and sold slowly but it seemed to strike a chord with some people. His subsequent books sold more strongly as my reputation gradually increased. He is regarded as a “cult author” by some and though pleased with that description, he obviously wants to reach out to a wider audience!

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