Tag: Translation

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Review

Taslima Nasrin’s Poetry: Between Silence and Defiance

Book Review by Anindita Basak

Title: Burning Roses in My Garden

Author: Taslima Nasrin

Translated from Bengali by Jesse Waters

Publisher: Penguin Random House India

Imagine a woman bound by shackles – not of iron, but of her own people, her country, her religion, and above all, by men. This is not just a metaphor; it is the reality that moulded Taslima Nasrin’s life and journey as a writer. Her first English poetry collection, Burning Roses in My Garden (translated and edited by Jesse Waters), gathers 103 poems that bear the scars of exile and the defiance of survival.

Nasrin, hounded by fatwas and banned for her unflinching criticism of patriarchy and religious dogma in Bangladesh, writes from the margins yet refuses to be silenced. The anthology commences with early meditations on passion and desire, seen in poems like ‘A Bouquet of Scarlet Envy’ and ‘On Love’, toward darker elegies like ‘The Cycle of Loneliness’, ‘Walking through This Life and into Death’, and ‘Am I Not to Have a Country of My Own?’ that grapple with loneliness, mortality, and the burden of political banishment. These poems become the very tools with which she breaks the restraints, not to escape them, but to forge them into weapons of truth.

The collection opens with poems like ‘On Love’, which delve into romantic love and intimacy as the poet tenderly explores physical connection through sensory detail. In the piece ‘The Last Kiss’, the poet reminisces about a lover’s touch that transcends geographical boundaries. “That kiss that brought an entire world within her grasp, /…a rush of youth, /His kiss was becoming more than him,” compares her memories to permanent imprints. These early poems in the collection reveal a different register – more vulnerable, more willing to dwell in private emotions rather than public testimony. It creates a counterpoint to the later poems of exile and loss, suggesting what was left behind when she was forced to choose between fragile love and unwavering candour.

Through images of loss and displacement, which work both as wound and testimony, the poet confronts her banishment with stark honesty: “To me, my country is now a crematorium. /A lonely dog stands and whines all night, a few/Pyre-makers lie here and there, drunk to the bone.” In her traversal of exile, she transforms personal anguish into universal questions of belonging and continues to write from a place of loss. Her voice carries the weight of those who cannot speak, turning poetry into both elegy and resistance.

Feminist consciousness also flows through Nasrin’s verses with unflinching directness. In ‘Another Life’, she exposes the grinding reality of women’s domestic servitude through devastating metaphor: “Women spend half of their lives picking stones from rice. /Stones pile up in their hearts.” The image suggests not only physical drudgery but emotional calcification – the heart itself becoming a repository of unspoken grievances. Her feminist vision extends beyond individual suffering to collective oppression, revealing how patriarchal structures trap women in cycles of invisible labour.

The poet’s political views turn philosophical, confronting mortality while examining the cost of speaking truth to power through the lens of displacement and exile. This progression from the collection’s early love poems to these darker meditations reflect not only her growing maturing but also usher in a socio-political awakening – the recognition that private desire cannot exist separately from public consequence.

Nasrin doesn’t shy away from contemporary political realities; instead, she shows how religious fundamentalism and state censorship became suffocating forces that compress individual expression. She highlights the way authoritarian systems silence dissent through both legal mechanisms and social ostracism. In ‘Am I Not to Have a Country of My Own?’, she directly questions the price of dissent and the meaning of citizenship when one’s own nation rejects its truth-tellers. In contrast, particular tender pieces like ‘Miserable Ma’ highlight the endurance of personal relationships despite geographical separation within the collection’s otherwise relentless critique.

This collection’s strength lies in its refusal to separate the personal from the global. An American poet and professor, Waters preserves Nasrin’s directness in her translation while maintaining the emotional intensity that makes her work so compelling. These poems serve as both autobiography and historical document, charting one woman’s journey from intimate expression to public testimony. Her masterful use of juxtaposition, placing tender domestic moments against brutal political realities, creates a poetic tension that amplifies both spheres of experience.

Ultimately, Burning Roses in My Garden becomes a new mythology of endurance, not the tidy myth that comforts, but a foul-weather myth that survives storms. In the current climate, Nasrin’s poetry resonates with startling immediacy – mass rallies, hardline backlashes, midnight vigils, and student protests – the streets themselves find their voice through her verses. As if to remind us what her poetry truly stands for, the last poem of the collection bears the words: “I don’t write poetry, I write life on paper. /I don’t write poems; the wind that hits my body/When I stand on the top of a hill? I pen it down.” In closing lines like “when all game ends… I’ll sit down to write about love,” Nasrin promises that love’s survival against cruelty becomes an article of faith. The world of the poet and that of the reader blur here, and in that blurring, a strange comfort arrives, a lesson that even in a country’s crematorium, the rose of hope can burn and perfume the air.

Anindita Basak, a student at the University of Calcutta, is an avid enthusiast of literature and philosophy. Her published works include poetry, prose, and reviews in reputed magazines.

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Poetry

Persian Poetry in Translation

Persian poems written and translated by Akram Yazdani

UNTRAVELED SUITCASE 

The suitcase never left.
Its lock held untold stories,
its corners heavy with silence.
Each day, the road waited, empty,
while unseen journeys
moved quietly beneath its lid.

MULTI-VOICED MIND

In his mind,
multiple voices whispered at once—
not to command,
not to warn—
but to open windows
that led to different times.

Moments
folded over one another,
like two seasons unfolding
simultaneously on a single page,
and every choice
breathed silently in the hidden world
before it could find a word.

There,
there were birds,
half-formed,
with feathers unaccustomed to the world,
yet knowing the weight of flight;
birds whose path
was neither toward sky
nor toward earth—
but somewhere between decision and fear.

He paused.
He breathed.
And gazed at the path passing through him.
And there, in the impartial silence,
one of those half-formed birds
called his name—
not from the past,
not from the future,
but from a moment yet to arrive,
already decided.

Akram Yazdani is a poet and writer from Mashhad, Iran. She writes her works in Persian and provides English translations for publication. Her writing explores silence, memory, and minimal moments of perception, seeking to connect personal reflection with shared human experiences.

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Poetry

A Poet in Exile: Ukranian Poetry in Translation

Poetry by Dmitry Blizniuk, translated from Ukranian by Sergey Gerasimov

Dmitry Blizniuk

Dmitry Blizniuk is a poet from Ukraine. His most recent poems have appeared in POETRY Magazine, Five Points, Rattle, Los Angeles Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Nation, Prairie Schooner, Plume, The London Magazine and many others.  A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also the author of The Red Fоrest (Fowlpox Press, 2018). His poems have been awarded RHINO 2022 Translation Prize and his folio had been selected as a runner-up in the Gregory O’Donoghue Competition and the 2025 Gabo Prize finalist.

Directory:   http://www.pw.org/directory/writers/dmitry_blizniuk

A POET IN EXILE 

The sky above the highway is low
like a cunning dog's muzzle above a steaming saucepan.
A one-winged angel of advertising
stands by the roadside:
Aquafresh, perfect water of gods.
And I'm an imperfect verb, just someone in a windbreaker,
with pieces of canvas on my head that flap like a pterodactyl.
Here's my garden,
set back some distance from history,
a prehistoric place for ancient bugs,
and one of them stands on its hind legs
in depression,
while the gloomy autumn stares from above.

We've run away from the simmering house
like milk that is boiling over. Now I'm single again.
The sun hangs behind a ruffled up shed,
like a bloody yolk on a cold frying pan
until the nightfall dumps it in the garbage,
while I'm looking for clean socks, sniffing noisily 
like a dog with a mallard in its jaws.
I've had to leave the city and women behind,
make friends with the blissful world of sticks,
Like Lorca, I managed to avoid a firing squad.
He's grown old, he looks like a grey parrot with an earring,
keeps a rapier in his summer kitchen,
grows grapes and cucumbers, and something sparkles in his eyes
when blood pressure squeezes him
like a tube of Aquafresh.
If not for the Internet, I wouldn't exist.

A cat called Nostalgia
licks his balls on the windowsill.
The lampshade is a temple of flies, priestesses of summer schizophrenia.
I'm still destined to return,
I feel the power of a boomerang within me.
It's going to bend my way and carry me back to my youth,
otherwise, I don't care where.
An eyelid with long lashes has fallen away from the face of a garden doll.
The blue eye is unprotected now,
and the rubber body under the rain feels so at home in the garden.
For how many years will I decompose in the humus
in the garden of gods,
lie in the ground and see the black earth,
black caviar in the eyes of dawn,
then stretch up to the sky as a green needle of grass?
The smell of the rain that has just stopped is like spilled glue.
It's so fresh that I want to run up to the sky, but I can't.
A poet in exile is more than just a poet.
And a man? -- There is no man anymore.

Sergey Gerasimov is a Ukraine-based writer, poet, and translator of poetry. Among other things, he has studied psychology. He is the author of several academic articles on cognitive activity. His stories and poems written in English have appeared in Adbusters, Clarkesworld Magazine, Strange Horizons, J Journal, The Bitter Oleander, and Acumen, among many others. The poetry he translated has been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes. His books include Feuerpanorama: Ein ukrainisches Kriegstagebuch (dtv Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, 2022) and Oasis (Gypsy Shadow, 2018).

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Stories

A Lump Stuck in the Throat

Nasir Rahim Sohrabi

A Balochi short story by Nasir Rahim Sohrabi translated by Fazal Baloch

The bus had stopped in front of the roadside hotel, but the dust from the road still hung around it. The passengers, before getting off completely, were busy brushing the dust off the from their travel. The fatigue caused by the delipidated road was visible on their faces and in the creases of their clothes. I had been following the bus and was now sitting under the thatched shelter, drinking tea from a small boy’s cup. The sun was at its peak, glaring down like an angry man. The grime from the boy’s hands on the hot teacup had not yet dried when a red ambulance pulled up in front of the hotel. The dirt and dust stuck to it showed clearly that it had travelled a long way. Two men got out, dusted their clothes, and walked straight toward the water to wash their faces and hands.

The hotel waiter watched them closely. Then the back door of the ambulance opened and their third companion stepped out. His shoulders seemed burdened with many years, and he walked forward with heavy steps until he reached the shade of the shelter. He greeted everyone, and sat down leaning against a wooden pillar. A glass of water was placed before him, but he didn’t touch it. His eyes remained fixed on the ambulance, from which dust continued to rise as though it were still on the road.

After a while, the other two men joined him. Their faces were clean now, but the dust still clung to their ears, eyes, and nostrils. They ordered food. To their third companion they said only, “Come, let’s eat.” But he kept looking at the ambulance fixedly. They didn’t ask him again.

The young boy who had been watching him from a distance placed my tea before me and went toward the man. He touched his shoulder and asked,
“Why aren’t you eating?”

The man was startled as if waking from a deep sleep. His gaze shifted from the ambulance to the boy’s face. He looked at him the way someone, seeing the world for the first time after eye surgery.

“I can never eat alone,” he said. “Food never sits well with me unless someone eats with me. Will you sit here with me?”

The boy nodded.

Offering him the first bite, the man said, “I’ve always fed him the first bite. Until I fed him, he wouldn’t eat at all.”

“Who was he?” the boy asked.

The question seemed to trouble him. His teeth tried to chew the morsel while his eyes stayed fixed on the boy’s face. I saw clouds of dust gather in his eyes, and their darkness spread over his face. Pain began to pour like rain. Lakes of grief rose within him. His breath grew heavy. At last, composing himself, he said: “He was my son. But he had taken my father’s place in my life. When he was a child, I fed him. But over time, I became used to eating the bites he offered me. His mother left him and me long ago. She went away with those who were demanding water and electricity along with the young, the old, and the children. I pleaded with her not to go, but she didn’t listen. She left and never returned. At first, people wrote poems about her. But now, people have too much water in their eyes and too much brightness from electricity in their homes. Now they’re concerned only with their own reflection. She once lived in people’s memories, but the world has forgotten her now.”

After a pause, his eyes drifted again toward the ambulance, though the rain inside him didn’t stop.

“He was in a hurry too, just like his mother. He was always in a rush for everything. He would run to school and never delay returning home. He grew up before my eyes. One day he said to me, ‘Now you sit and rest. It’s my turn to look after you. I’ll feed you now.’ I insisted that my turn wasn’t over yet, but he was in a hurry and won the argument. Then he joined Captian Qasim’s boat as helmsman. But he didn’t stay there long. A year later he became a sailor on Ibrahim’s boat. He never hid anything from me, but after joining Ibrahim, I seldom knew when he left for the sea or when he came home. Whenever I asked, he only said, ‘Whenever the boss orders, we’re ready to go.’

This time too he was in a rush. The moment he came home, he said, ‘We’re leaving for the deep sea. We’ll be back in a few days.’ I wanted to stand up and hug him goodbye, but before I could rise, he had already stepped out the door. Then news came that their boat had caught fire. It didn’t sink, but it was badly burnt. Thanks to the boss, they sent us to Karachi by air. But maybe this time it was the order of the Great Boss. Or maybe the son was in a hurry to go to his mother. He didn’t stay in Karachi even for a day.”

The bus horn blared and the passengers hurried toward it. The boy got up too and began to put on his sandals.

“I haven’t even eaten yet,” the man said. “Where are you going?”

“Look, the bus is leaving. I have to hurry,” the boy replied.

The sun had now slipped behind the western mountains. The shelter had emptied. The red ambulance was gone too. But the old man still sat leaning against the wooden pillar, his eyes fixed on the road. The bus sped off, trailing dust behind it.

.

Nasir Rahim Sohrabi lives in Gwadar, Balochistan. He occasionally writes short stories. This story originally appeared in Monthly Balochi, Quetta in year 2000 and translated and published with  permission from the author.

Fazal Baloch is a Balochi writer and translator. He has translated many Balochi poems and short stories into English. His translations have been featured in Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters and in the form of books and anthologies. 

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Categories
Poetry

Five Short Poems by Munir Momin

Translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch

From Public Domain 
ENCHANTED

As I watched --
She wrapped the rainbow round her finger,
and drifted away -- slowly, ever so slowly.
Yet 
The Heavens saw nothing.

EVENING 

The wind wanders, 
seeking the fragrance of your musk:
My heart and a fading leaf are carried along.

SPRING

The poor larks that returned this year
peck at the scent of your bosom,
still drifting through the footprints
along the path of yesteryear.

JUNGLE

Such terror stirs within,
none dare to face themselves.
The road runs deep with fear—
no one walks it alone.  

THE WAIT

Shall I open a window?
Will you come—or the moon?

Munir Momin is a contemporary Balochi poet widely cherished for his sublime art of poetry. Meticulously crafted images, linguistic finesse and profound aesthetic sense have earned him a distinguished place in Balochi literature. His poetry speaks through images, more than words. Momin’s poetry flows far beyond the reach of any ideology or socio-political movement. Nevertheless, he is not ignorant of the stark realities of life. The immenseness of his imagination and his mastery over the language rescues his poetry from becoming the part of any mundane narrative. So far Munir has published seven collections of his poetry and an anthology of short stories. His poetry has been translated into Urdu, English and Persian.  He also edits a literary journal called Gidár.

Fazal Baloch is a Balochi writer and translator. He has translated many Balochi poems and short stories into English. His translations have been featured in Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters and in the form of books and anthologies. Fazal Baloch has the translation rights to Munir Momin’s works. 

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Stories

Steps of Conscience

A Tamil story by S Ramakrishnan, translated by B.Chandramouli

From Public Domain


That town had fewer than a hundred homes. Children playing in the street looked at them curiously when they alighted from the car. Kandasamy called one boy and asked him where Venangulam was. That boy asked him mockingly, “Do you want to do a penance in the Venangulam pond?” and pointed him towards the south.

His wife, their only daughter, and the astrologer who had brought them to perform the penance got out of the car. The astrologer tightened his loose dhoti and said, “This is a powerful pond, Sir; all your ‘dosha[1]’s would wash away.”

Kandasamy nodded and started walking towards the south.

Kandasamy had been suffering for over ten years with a skin disease; he had suffered an unexpected loss in his business. There were problems in his daughter’s in-laws home as well. As if these were not enough, he lost an old lawsuit he had been fighting in court. He felt as though the snake in the Snakes and Ladders game had brought him down. He visited many temples, performed pujas[2] and penances; nothing had worked. Only then did an astrologer tell him about Venangulam and the story of the king of Venangulam himself, who had dipped in that pond to get rid of his doshas. Kandasamy felt a sense of hope and agreed to visit Venangulam.

It was a small village with red tile roofs and somewhat broad streets. However, the people had nearly deserted it; some houses were locked up. When they went to Venangulam, they found it to be dry; the steps were dusty. There were four idols on the four sides of the pond.

Doubtful if that was Venangulam, he asked a person splitting logs nearby, “Is this the pond for penance?” That person nodded yes and continued his work.

Kandasamy stood on the dried-up pond’s steps and waited for his wife and daughter.

He wondered if they had come there not knowing that the pond had dried up; he felt angry thinking, “Didn’t the astrologer inquire about this even?”

The astrologer, Kandasamy’s wife and daughter, came near Venangulam.

The pond was full of torn clothes, dried leaves, and plastic waste. Kandasamy said to the astrologer, “There’s no water in this pond.”

The astrologer said,” It had been dry for several years. You get down, imagine that there is water, and sprinkle water on your head.”

“How can I bathe without water?” asked Kandasamy angrily.

“Can you see the sins you have committed with your eyes? But doesn’t the mind feel them? Similar to that, this pond contains invisible water; if you feel that and have a bath, your sins will wash away. Belief is everything, isn’t it?”

Kandasamy descended the steps of the dry pond. Though the pond appeared to have only ten or twenty steps, as he descended, the steps seemed to keep going down forever. Kandasamy kept on descending the steps alone. He did not know how long he had been descending, but when he looked up, it appeared as though he had descended into an abyss. He had not yet reached the bottom of the pond. The steps still kept descending.

He got confused, thinking, “What kind of magic is this? How did this small pond become so huge?” Various thoughts crowded his mind. He thought of how he had deceived his elder brother when they ran a joint business, and how he had cheated money entrusted to him. All these past sins returned as memories.

How can a person who deceived his own brother not fail in life? Suddenly, his elder brother’s face flashed in his mind. In that minute, the thought that until then, he had been pretending as though he had committed no mistakes bothered him. Kandasamy felt that one’s mistakes become weightless when hidden, but once you start realising them, they feel heavy.

Kandasamy realised he was descending the steps of his conscience.

He felt that to relieve himself of his sin, he must return the money he had cheated from his elder brother to his brother’s family. No sooner had this thought occurred to him than he felt a sudden wetness on his feet. The step beneath him seemed to be underwater. He pretended to bend down and sprinkle the water from the pond onto his head.

When his wife asked him loudly, “What are you thinking, standing on the steps?” he came to his senses.

Thinking, “Have I not gone to the depth of the pond? Was it all in my imagination?” He looked closely at the pond. He saw only dried steps and a pond without water.

He realised that the pond awakened the conscience and made you understand the crimes you have committed. It was indeed a magical pond.

He pretended as though he had had a bath and came out of the pond.

The astrologer said, “Think of something in your mind and throw coins into the pond.”

He took coins from his pocket and threw them into the pond, thinking that he would pay back the amount due to the family of his elder brother.

The idols’ eyes in the pond seemed to smile at him mockingly.

From Public Domain

[1] Sins, bad luck.

[2] Prayers

S. Ramakrishnan is a writer from Tamil Nadu, India. He is a full-time writer who has been active over the last 27 years in diverse areas of Tamil literature like short stories, novels, plays, children’s literature and translations. He has written and published 9 novels, 20 collections of short stories, 3 plays, 21 books for children, 3 books of translation, 24 collections of articles, 10 books on world cinema, 16 books on world literature including seven of his lectures, 3 books on Indian history, 3 on painting and 4 edited volumes including a Reader on his own works. He also has 2 collections of interviews to his credit. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2018 in the Tamil language category for his novel Sanjaaram.

Dr.B. Chandramouli is a retired Physician. He has published several translations. He has translted Jack Londen’s novel, White Fang and Somerset Maugham’s Razor’s edge (2024) to English and various English translations of Tamil fiction and non-fiction.

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Categories
Poetry

Found in Translation: Rohini K.Mukherjee’s Odia Poems

Five poems by Rohini K.Mukherjee have been translated from Odia by Snehaprava Das

Rohini K.Mukherjee
AT THE MYSTICAL SANCHI 

An unknown voice beckons 
At the early hours of the morning.
Moved by a new surprise
Buddha relapses into meditation.
A crystal dawn, cold as marble,
Is traced 
On his hands and feet
And his eyes and forehead.
Some instant, invisible signal prompts him
To turn on his side and sleep.

After Buddha’s Nirvana,
Calm settles in the valley, slowly.
Thousands of 
Branches and branchlets
Radiate blissful divine light.
The trees too, in a lavish growth,
Spread out everywhere --
From the earth below to the sky above --
And meditate! 


THE EXECUTIONER 

No one could predict 
The next scene. 
But in the one enacted now
The executioner has 
A prominent presence.

The executioner stalks the moon,
 His face hidden in the veil of clouds,
Knife in hand, a gleam of smile 
On a phony face, 
A sharp, keen gaze under the glasses,
Exuding the smell of 
An expensive perfume.

The indistinct footfalls may
Prompt one to flick a look back
 But there would be no one behind
Only clouds clad in midnight blue
Sailing in the sky.
From somewhere far floats in the music  
Of a mountain stream.
 Slowly, sorrow dissipates and a 
 Path opens up for the spring,
 A wonderland of fairies.
In his unguarded moments, 
The knife in the executioner’s grip 
Glitters in the furtive moonlight.   
Any moment that poison-coated knife
Could find the moon’s throat, 
The moon knows that well.
But it forgives,
Because it also knows well
That the executioner cannot 
Hide for long
And will be trapped in 
The moonlit garden of tangled clouds.


THE DEATH OF A HAPPY MAN

One day, the eyes lost sleep
And all the locusts flew away,
  
Not one spectator had guessed 
That one day 
The man will sprawl out on  
On the sea beach sands
Washed away by the waves 
From distant lands. 

The eyes lost sleep one day.
The flock of locusts flew away.

But no one could guess 
The pains, the sobs 
That seared that forlorn soul.

Petals drifted in piles 
To make him a delicate shroud.
The smell of sandalwood came wafting  
In the sea-breeze from the north.
Seagulls flocked around the body,      
Unintimidated by the crowd in the beach,
Drowning the voice of 
The living men there 
With their loud squawks of dissent.  
Ooh! What a long wished-for 
Happy death
On a cool and blissful sea beach!

After the flock of locusts flew away 
Carrying all the dreams back 
On their wicked wings, 
The eyes lost sleep!


ANKLETS OF THE NIGHT 

There is still time for the nightfall.
But the air tinkles with the sound of 
The anklets of the night
 As if someone is retreating from
An ineffectual, moon-washed garden, 
 As if someone from the grave  
Watching the landscape, 
Or someone standing at the riverside
Hums the tune of a departed season,
Or someone hurrying aimlessly away
To escape the approaching dawn. 

It is not yet night,
But the night’s anklets ring.
You are probably returning
To your shelter of old times
In search of a new hope.
Just take a look behind to see 
The painting of a conflicting wind
Fluttering across the courtyard.

It is not yet night
But its anklets begin to jingle in the air.

How cool you appear in your 
Evening chanting of the mantras!
 How calm and steady you are
In the pure fragrance of the descending steps 
As you set out on the journey
Holding your heart on your palm 
Like a burning clay-lamp.
May be when you arrive there
The dawn around you would be sonorous
With the notations of Raga Bhairavi.

There is still time for the nightfall
But the night’s anklets tinkle in the air!


THEY DID NOT COME 

I waited for them, but
They did not come,
I waited all this time in vain, and 
Knowingly, let myself fall a victim 
To the first rays of the sun.
The sun’s whiplash spurred me on
To the jungle. 
It forced me to cut wood 
And tie them in bundles. 
The hunger of the sunset hour
Prodded me back to where 
I had started.
The smell of soaked rice, and the aroma of
Onions and oil 
 Drifted thick in the air of my house.

The sun came in, an intruder, 
Sat by me and watched.
Then it devoured all the food, 
Leaving nothing,
Not even a single dried-up onion-peel.

Because they did not come, 
For me the morning was 
Meaningless in its futility. 
I knew I was never one 
In the list of their ultimate interests
When their tenure of life here ended.

The footfall of the light
Trod easy on my skin.
Days rolled on this way 
In sun and light.
The sun was everywhere, all the time.
Whenever the door opened,
The sun stood there. 
When the meteor came shooting down,
When words rode over 
the waves of sleep to float in the air,
The treacherous sun always appeared.

And for me, there was 
No hope of their coming back.

But, one day as I leapt up in a hurry  
At the Sun’s summon,
I discovered the Sahara Desert
That I believed had 
Remained hidden in my
School Geography book, 
Lying face down all these days 
Under my own hooves!

Rohini Kanta Mukherjee has authored, edited and co-edited several volumes of poetry and short stories in Odia and English. Many of his poems have been translated and published in various Indian languages , broadcast over several stations of All India Radio and Doordarshan . Some of his poems and translations have appeared in Wasafiri, Indian Literature, The Little Magazine , Purvagraha, Samasa among others. He retired as Associate Professor of English, from B.J.B Autonomous College, Bhubaneswar, Odisha.

Dr.Snehaprava Das, is a noted writer and a translator from Bhubaneswar, Odisha. She has five books of poems, three of stories and thirteen collections of translated texts (from Odia to English), to her credit. 

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Categories
Poetry

The Dragonfly

Poetry and translation from Korean by Ihlwha Choi

From Public Domain 
The dragonfly, it seems, wishes to be my companion.
Even when October comes, it still hovers close by my side.
On a late autumn morning, cloaked in white frost,
clinging to a withered blade of grass until its life is spent,
the dragonfly loves the fields, loves the sunlight.

As swallows line up in long ranks,
packing their final bundles for a faraway journey,
news may come from the city of someone’s suicide,
yet the dragonfly listens half-heartedly, caring little.
Beside the fisherman, beside the farmer gathering beans,
following the way of life of distant ancestors,
the dragonfly flits about, plays with innocence.
And then, from a withered blade of grass,
it departs the world as lightly as taking flight—
on a morning when leaves and blossoms alike have faded.
From Public Domain

Ihlwha Choi is a South Korean poet. He has published multiple poetry collections, such as Until the Time When Our Love will Flourish, The Color of Time, His Song and The Last Rehearsal.

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

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Categories
Stories

Nandu by Ajit Cour

Translated from Punjabi by C. Christine Fair

His name was “Nandu”.  He was a servant in our neighbour’s house, where he did all of the household chores. He was a smallish boy. Who knows what his actual name was. Everyone just called him Nandu.

Sometimes he would finish his work in the afternoon and would come sit with me. Although he was from Garhwal, he spoke Punjabi well, albeit haltingly. His face always made it appear as though he were laughing. We gave him the nickname “Laughing Man.”

“Nandu, how many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“Four sisters and three brothers. All of the sisters are older than I am, and the brothers are younger.”

Then Nandu fell silent. It was as if he were thinking that if his brothers were older, they would be working, and Nandu would not have cuts on his hands from washing vessels all day at such a young age. Nor would he have been forced to leave his small house nestled in the mountains.

“Nandu, how did you manage to leave your parents and everyone else to come here?”

Then he smiled, and his lips spread out.  “Who knows why?” he smiled, but it seemed as if the smile was trying to convince me that it doesn’t matter whether you want to or don’t want to do all of this work, you still have to do it. Right?

“Madam, back there, we barely eat twice a day. We cooked once a day, and we ate the leftovers for a second meal. Moreover, I was not free there at all. I would take the cows outside for grazing. I also bathed them sometimes. I would also feed them fodder. When my mother would milk the cows, I wanted to drink the milk fresh from the bucket. But madam…if we don’t sell the milk, then maybe we won’t even be able to cook one meal.

“And there, people must have their own lands?”

“What kind of lands, Madam? Just small parcels. And then you have to pay land tax and interest on the loan.”

When Nandu spoke like this, it seemed to me that this child was a fifty-year-old man. Yet he was hardly thirteen years old. He was eight or nine when he ran away from his village to come here.  Perhaps, he couldn’t tolerate hunger. There had been a time when he had been self-respecting. He would go on saying, “Where I used to work before, the old woman was angry with me one day. And I left.”

I was astonished that now he is verbally abused all day long, but he has gone nowhere. The reason may be that he had grown accustomed to it.

Nandu only spoke Punjabi. He would say that he had forgotten Garhwali. And he never posted letters to his family.  He would say that he only knew his father’s name and the name of his village. Nothing else. And the villages in Garhwal had such long addresses. Sometimes he would become very sad thinking of his mother and father. Once, I saw him outside, wiping his eyes with his dirty Ludhiana shirt. But usually, he would try to hide his pain in a smile from which his broad lips would stretch wide. He said carelessly, “According to them, I died long ago.”

Our neighbors were Sikhs. And Nandu bought a gutka[1] with his salary, even though he was completely illiterate. (He only took that part of his salary that he needed for necessities.)  He also bought a picture of Guru Gobind Singh Ji and wrapped it in his spare shirt to keep it safe. When the shirt he is wearing gets dirty, he washes it, wraps the picture of Guru Gobind Singh in it, and wears the other shirt.

Over time, he began imitating the children of his boss, a Sikh man, and began wearing a turban. He also got the worn-out turban of his boss’s youngest son. For two annas, he bought some grey dye and dyed the turban. He also acquired a small kirpan[2], which he did not remove while bathing or sleeping. He went from Nandu to Nand Singh.

One time, a man from his village came to find him.

“Does someone by the name of Nandu live here?
“There’s no one here by that time. You’ve come here by mistake,” Nandu said with deliberation. He was already afraid that if some man from the village recognised him, he would have to send money home. And maybe he would have to return to that place, where, after caring for the cows all day, he got only one meal, and for the second meal, he was given dried pieces of roti. Here, he could satisfy his hunger at least twice a day. He didn’t need to worry a bit about work. And what about scolding and abuse? Ultimately, a person learns to tolerate these things.

Even though Nandu’s face had completely changed, seeing his wide laughing lips, the man from his village recognised him. He said something to Nandu in Garhwali. Nandu began to say somewhat angrily, “I don’t understand what you are saying. Don’t talk nonsense. Speak correctly.”

And the next day in the afternoon, when he told me that he no longer understood Garhwali, I suddenly let out a sigh. Maybe I sighed because Nandu had forgotten his mother tongue, which must have been the first words he heard when God threw him on this planet, thinking him to be disposable.

“What did he say to you, Nandu?”

“Nothing. He said only that ‘your mother is missing you a lot.’ But I know no one is crying for me. She must be thankful that there is one less hungry mouth to feed. She used to always say to me, ‘May you die.’”

But that man from Nandu’s village kept coming around. Over time, Nandu’s heart softened. Nandu remembered his mother, he remembered his elderly father, who must no longer be able to work the fields. And Nandu remembered his small, dirt shack, whose outside wall was plastered with rocks. The fragrance of fresh soil and paste made of cow dung and mud floated to his mind. And now Nandu was constantly sad. In the end, he was still a child, all of thirteen years old.

Then one day, who knows what happened, but cysts appeared near his ear. The boss, the Sikh, was charry of the illness, thinking no one would keep a sick man in his house. He tossed Nandu out. While leaving, Nandu cried copiously! He gave me the gutka and the picture of Guru Gobind Singh. He was going back to his village.  He said he would take them back when he returned from his village.

So much time had passed without hearing from him. On several occasions, my eyes would well up looking at his things. Poor Nandu.

Then one day, there was a knock at my door. It was the afternoon. I opened the door. A smallish boy was standing there wearing a dirty hat and a filthy shirt, and in his hands was a smallish bundle. I thought someone must have come to meet our servant. But seeing those wide lips smiling in his laughter, I immediately recognised him. It was him. Nandu.

Nandu had cut his long hair. Now his name was Anand Ram. I asked him how he was doing and gave him some water. He spoke haltingly. While speaking, he said some words that I had difficulty understanding. In the end, embarrassed, he began to explain that due to living in his village, it was hard for him not to speak Garhwali. In the end, he was still Nandu, who had come to me in the afternoon and to tell me all of his sorrows.

“Your things are still with me, Nandu.”

“You keep them.” It seemed as if words were not coming to him. He didn’t know what to say, “I have another photo.” He began to open his bundle. There were a few pieces of clothing from which Nandu withdrew a picture. It was a picture of Lord Krishna.

I kept on thinking that hunger knows no religion. Wherever one gets food, one adopts that religion and that language.  Then what is the essence of a person? A cog that has to fit into every machine because a cog outside of a machine doesn’t get oil, and it becomes rusty. And Nandu? What was Nandu? A thing without life? He was a ball rolling down the mountainside, which, moving very quickly down the hill, would get stuck on a rock momentarily, then again begin rolling. Maybe Nandu was like that same wind-up doll that my little brother has. The only difference is that the wind-up doll is fat, whereas every one of Nandu’s ribs could be counted.

After two years, Nandu came yesterday. There was barely any difference in his build. I recognised him immediately. But he could not recognise my little brother. In those two years, he had grown a lot. The wheels of time leave different marks on different people.

Now Nandu spoke Hindi. He spoke some words very quickly, which I had difficulty understanding.

“So Nandu, where are you these days?”

“I’m working for a woman from Madras. She’s terrible. She harasses me a lot. Otherwise, everything is fine. Initially, I couldn’t eat their food, but now I can.”

Then I thought he was doing this just to keep his belly full, just like sparrows and crows who eat to keep their bellies full. Just like wild dogs roaming the streets to fill their bellies. What is a meal? Whatever you get, you eat, whether it’s leftover food or something else. Something just to fill one’s stomach. But to feed himself, one has to sell himself.

I had thought that Nandu had sometimes become Nand Singh and sometimes Anand Ram. There was a time when he kept a picture of Guru Gobind and a gutka. Now he keeps a picture of Krishna. Sometimes he spoke Garhwali, sometimes Punjabi, and now Hindi. But Nandu kept on washing dishes. Nandu kept on sweeping. He kept on washing clothes. He went on cooking.  And he continued to be scolded. Still, he’s a child. Poor Nandu!

“Sister, are you still writing stories?”

“Yes, Nandu. I’m writing now.”

“And you were saying that you were going to write my story?”

I smiled. Feeling demoralized, he began to ask, “But who will read it?”

Then it occurred to me that Nandu couldnot read his story himself, but many others would read it.

“Nandu, the people of future generations will read about Nandu and thousands of Nandus, just like the Bible.  And these stories will be worshiped just like you worship these pictures. Because you all strengthen the foundations of the new world.”

Who knows whether he understood what I was saying, but he smiled.

[1] A quid of betel and tobacco

[2] Small dagger, a ritualistic thing carried by Sikh men

Ajit Cour

Ajeet Cour (born 1934) is an Indian writer who writes in Punjabi. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award by the Government of India. She is the author of twenty-two books, including novels, novellas, short stories, biographical sketches, and translations. Her novellas include Dhup Wala Shehar (The town with Sunshine) and Post Mortem. Her novel, Gauri, was made into a film, while her short story Na Maaro (Don’t Beat) was serialised for television. Her works have been translated into English, Hindi, and several other languages.

C. Christine Fair (born 1968) did her Ph.D. in South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. She is currently a professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University. Her translations have appeared in Muse India, Orientalia Suecana, The Bangalore Review, Borderless, The Punch Magazine, The Bombay Literary Magazine, and The Bombay Review.

Categories
Poetry

Found in Translation: Aparna Mohanty’s Poetry

Five poems by Aparna Mohanty have been translated from Odia by Snehaprava Das

Aparna Mohanty 
STAR

A tiny star watched me
As I groped my way in a blinding darkness
Nudged to tears. 
It sparkled white   
Exactly the way my mother’s face did.
The tiny star was about to climb down
When I saw it and waved, stopping it.
I knew it could easily understand
My unvoiced pleading.
So, I closed my eyes and beseeched,
“Go back! This is no place
For a star that holds such 
 Pure whiteness in its soul.
 See, how pride and ego here
Hiss and howl  
Cloaked in a guise of false modesty.
 ‘Selfishness’ is brokering deals 
 In the trade-fair of power 
 Pretending redressal and help.
 Truth is ineffectual here,
 So is love!
Go back, dear
My little lodestar 
Because I can’t bear to see them
Smudge your serene whiteness, 
Defile you and seat you  
On a dazzling platform of deceit, 
And announce
‘Here is one of our bright ancestors 
We borrow our light from!’”

IN JUST AN INSTANT

Do not hold her 
in your devouring desire.
Hold her in your soul
Let the woman be safe.

Do not take her as a prize won, 
Treasure her with love.
Let the woman be happy.

Make her not a commodity.
Treat her as a virtue.
Let the woman feel elevated.

Just as much—
Assure her of 
Security, happiness 
And elevation,
A vast world of love and compassion. 
Free from terror and savagery, she 
Thrives on just that much assurance!
Wombs await great souls
And there is a promise of  
A healthy, wholesome future 
That carries pictures of a million hearts 
Steeped in love.

Just for once,
Unfetter a woman’s body
From the scaffold of lust   
And put it on the altar of worship.
You will then see
How in more than half of the world,
Shrines of love will come up in
just an instant. 

FEAR 

Too many restraints,
Numerous forbiddances. 
“Do not sit here
Do not laugh like this  
Don’t ever dare enter the forest
To taste the mangos, 
There the tiger sits stalking,   
 Fear the tiger!”

I wonder if ever my movements
Were easy and unrestricted
Like nature.
I wonder if the constraints
Were ever chosen by
An individual autonomy.  
 I am a soul deprived, and
Defined in obedience.  
I drag myself on by your will  
Slouching under the load of your 
Approval and disapproval.
I lie burning on an untimely pyre
At every intersection of the streets, 
At every city center,  
Where animal-howls echo
day and night. 
Who knows better than you
The trick of championing self-interest
Through a pretense of love?
You lock me in your embrace 
To mould me in a pliable shape,
Render me spineless, 
Leaving no strength in 
My arms to protest.
You gift me a heart that wallows 
In fear and defeat every moment. 
Why do you hold my 
Easy growth in check?
What are you afraid of? 
Do you fear that the arms of 
All the Dusshasanas* 
will be attracted 
once I let my hair loose?
Do you fear that the spear will pierce
the chest of many a Mahishasura* 
once I let my clothing drop?
Do you fear that many a ‘Lanka’ of gold
will burn to cinders 
once I step beyond the 
‘Lakshaman Rekha’?
    
*Dusshasana was Kaurava from Mahabharata who disrobed Draupadi, the wife of the Pandavas. 
*Mahisasura is an Asura or demon who was killed by Durga
*Lakshman Rekha(line) in Ramayan was the circular border drawn by Lakshmana to keep Sita safe. Once she stepped beyond the border, she was kidnapped by Ravana. 
 
THE WOMAN IN THE LAST ROW

The woman sits in the last row
lost in some strange 
unhoped for possibilities. 
Light and shadow 
play hide and seek on her face
like scenes shifting alternately between
a verdant paddy field of Bhadrav* 
and a gloomy Ashwina* sky.

The lines of mirrors in her front  
never catch her reflection
inside their gilded frames.

Neither has she the time nor the wish
to adjust her image in varying postures 
at every little maneuvering of her body,
She just sits there lowering her face,
her eyes downcast,
speaking to herself,
playing with herself,
contented in her own company.
The woman 
who sits at the extreme back row  
could hold anyone’s hand and
pull that person to
the delicate loneliness of her playhouse.   

And, when the meeting disperses 
amidst accolades and applauses,
the great ones stand up
weaved in blandishments 
like mountains tangled in the 
creepers of Malati*
raising their proud heads. 
Not a single glance is flicked 
at the last row.
No one would know when
the woman in the last row
had disappeared,
stealing the silence from there.  
 No one might believe
a river flowed there 
just a while before.

*Bhadrav—August-September
*Ashwina – September -October 
*Malati – a creeper with pink and white flowers

A SONG FOR THE LITTLE GIRL 

The day my little girl
Climbed the steps to her green age
And reached out to pluck 
The loveliest flower of Phalguna*
And the sweetest berry of Chaitra*,  
I cried out “Don’t” from below,
Stopping her.
She heard me and came down
To where I stood.
Since that day, questions 
Like the swelling waves 
Of an unseasonal flood 
Crash at the edges of her eyes --
Why such prohibitions, why?
 And I thought, why indeed…
 My movements would be 
Held in check.
Why must always pain and forbearance  
 Come in my lot?

I am a mother, after all
Like all mothers, 
The spells of Sravana*-showers 
In her eyes 
Swept me away in its current…
But, will it do if I let myself be tossed away
In the rushing flow
 Of her questions?

I am not a little girl like her. 
I am rather trapped perpetually
In the role of a culinarian
That cooks on a holy hearth to 
Feed the custodians of morals.
So now,
It is the time to cut and dress my little girl,  
Cook her to a savoury dish 
Of her father and her husband’s choice
And serve them on a gold plate! 

 *Phalguna – February-March
*Chaitra – March-April 
*Sravana – July August

Aparna Mohanty(1952) is a conspicuous voice in modern Odia poetry. Her poetry, with its feminist overtone, boldly asserts the significance a woman’s role in the family as well as in the society. They strongly defend the woman against the derogations perpetrated on her by a male-dominated society and defy the societal restraints imposed on her that curb her freedom. Aparna Mohanty has received several accolades for her contribution to Odia literature including the prestigious Odisha Sahitya Akademi Award.

Dr.Snehaprava Das, is a noted writer and a translator from Bhubaneswar, Odisha. She has five books of poems, three of stories and thirteen collections of translated texts (from Odia to English), to her credit. 

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