Tag: USA

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Poetry

Ahilya Park

By Prof. Sagar Mal Gupta

AHILYA PARK 

Three monkeys
with their babies
romped merrily in the park,
gambolled and jumped from one branch to another.
Twice, the group of monkeys crossed my path,
Preventing me from walking forward.
Three children swung on the swings.
On the adjoining the pillar,
squirrels, sparrows and sandpipers
shared food together with glee. 
All this added to my joy of
walking in the park.
The park is not just an assemblage of trees,
plants and creepers,
but a rendezvous for
men, animals, birds and trees
and together they exist,
happily and blithely.

Sagar Mal Gupta, educated at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Hawaii, earned his Ph. D. in Linguistics from the University of Hawaii USA. He has fifty-six years of teaching experience of English language and Literature in India and abroad. He has published four books of poetry in English and his poems have been published in a number of national and international journals of repute.

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Review

The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told 

Book Review by Bhaskar Parichha

Title: The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told: Fifty Masterpieces from the Nineteenth Century to the Present 

Editor: Arunava Sinha

 Publisher: Aleph Book Company

The Indian subcontinent has had a long tradition of storytelling that is referred to as ‘contes’ or tales, by the French. ‘Kathasaritsagar‘ by Somdev in Sanskrit compiled in the 11th century CE is a great example of this. Flavourful folk tales can also be found in renditions after the 11th Century CE — like the ‘Singhasan Battisi’[1].

Various Indian languages soon adopted this genre, gaining popularity throughout the country. Over the past 150 years, hundreds of memorable and popular stories have been written in more than 20 different languages. There are many ways in which they have become cultural cornerstones. Even those who do not read books often quote from a Premchand story or refer to a Tagore character in conversation. There are more people who know about our recent history as a result of Manto’s stories than any other history book published.

The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told: Fifty Masterpieces from the Nineteenth Century to the Present  edited by Arunava Sinha, is a welcome addition to the genre. As an English translator, Sinha specialises in translating Bengali fiction and non-fiction from Bangladesh and India into English, including classic, contemporary, and modern works. More than seventy of his translations have been published so far in India, UK, and USA. He has twice won India’s top translation prize, the Crossword Award for translated books. He teaches at Ashoka University, where he is also the co-director of the Ashoka Centre for Translation.

This anthology contains stories that draw inspiration from a wide range of Indian regional dialects, languages, literature, and cultures, and includes early masters of the form, contemporary stars, and brilliant writers who came of age during the twenty-first century.

Among these authors are some of the most revered in Indian literature and have, between them, won almost every major literary award, including the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Jnanpith Award, the Sahitya Akademi Award as well as numerous other honours at the state, national, and international level. 

There is a plethora of literary delights in this collection, from Tagore’s evocative prose to Amrita Pritam’s emotional depth, from Ruskin Bond’s enchanting stories to Mahasweta Devi’s thought-provoking stories. It is a treasure trove of narratives translated to or written in English. If all these weaving the colours of the diversities in India are to be savoured across all the Indian states with diverse languages, they need to be in English. Collections of some of the best literary short fiction written by Indian writers began to emerge in the country at the end of the nineteenth century. And now in the twenty first century, the trend has been retained by this collection.

A must-have for any Indian literature enthusiast, The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told provides a literary journey that explores space and time, which makes it a precious collector’s item that will become a valuable over time. Anyone who is interested in India’s rich cultural heritage as well as the rich tapestry of Indian storytelling should definitely read this anthology in order to gain some insight into the country’s rich cultural heritage. It promises to be an exciting and enticing literary feast, leaving readers awe-struck and enriched by the depth and beauty of Indian storytelling whether you are familiar with these eminent authors or are new to them, regardless of whether you know their work or not.

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[1] Collection of ancient Indian folk tales; Literally, 32 tales of the throne, compiled after the 11th century CE

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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

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Categories
Review

Behind Latticed Marble: Inner Worlds of Women

Book Review by Somdatta Mandal

Title: Behind Latticed Marble: Inner Worlds of Women

Author: Jyotirmoyee Devi Sen, translated from Bengali by Apala G. Egan

New Delhi: Niyogi Books

The very mention of the name of Jyotirmoyee Devi (1894 – 1988) brings to our mind the strong feminist Bengali writer, author of the famous Partition novel, Epar Ganga Opar Ganga (The River Churning), mainly depicted the lives of the women in Bengal who bore the burden of this communal divide, their bodies being inflicted with sexual violence, rape, and social exclusion as a consequence to the former two. Owing to the dearth in the literature that records such gruesome atrocities that were inflicted upon women, till date her work is extremely important. This present anthology however focuses on a totally different perspective of the writer where she tells us interesting stories about the life of the women and little girls of Rajasthan, and the discriminatory gender and caste norms that policed and defined their existence. 

Jyotirmoyee Devi was born in Jaipur in an upper-caste and economically well-off family. Her grandfather, who had emigrated there from Bengal during the British Raj, rose to occupy a high administrative position as the dewan or prime minister to the Maharaja of Jaipur. Thus, Rajasthan had a profound impact on her writings in the later years. Not being given an opportunity for formal education, her sole means to establish a relationship with reading became her grandfather’s library where she, along with her sister, were assigned to arrange newly arrived books and magazines. Therefore, even though she was a little girl, she attempted to make use of her multiple privileges that could help her access books and writing material. Married at the age of ten and widowed at twenty-five, she returned to her parents’ home along with her children and became a prolific writer during her long period of widowhood.

The ten fictional narratives in this anthology are all set in Rajasthan, and they create an elegant tapestry amidst the backdrop of Rajput grandeur and chivalry. Based on an eyewitness account of life in royal harems, these stories describe the very human interaction between men and women in this milieu. They highlight power play, disinheritance, and the threat of assault, which are perennial concerns for women. These include fascinating narration about the machinations that went on inside the royal households, as well as stories which tells us the plight of the veiled women in different strata of society. For instance, in “Beneath the Aravalli Hills,” a young village girl Dhapi disappears in the city where her father sold her for two hundred rupees. She is kept in a harem and punished for entering the festive hall without permission, she ends her life in prison. In “Frame Up” when the king dies, there is a heavy pall of suspicion in the kingdom that the queen had murdered him. Two decades later, when she is on her deathbed, she calls her son to tell him that the harem housekeeper and the chief eunuch had hatched a plot to kill his father but the young king walks away without acknowledging his mother’s innocence. In “The Child Bride” we read about the plight of a young widow Kesar whose jewellery is unlawfully snatched from her by the in-laws and she spends the rest of her life in poverty by serving like other destitute widows in the Govindji temple at Vrindavan.

Women-centric issues also recur in a story called “The Queen and the Concubine” where despite having plenty of riches befitting the Rajput royals, the ladies muse secret sorrows since their husbands, seldom, if ever, visited them. They spent their time in their sumptuous villas by holding pageants, dance dramas, and musical soirees. It tells the story of how the protagonist Kesar moved to the king’s harem upon his desire, metamorphosed from a mere maid to a courtesan, till she was burnt to death in the end. As per the rules of the state, sons of courtesans and concubines also lived luxurious and leisure lives, but somehow there always existed a fine dividing line between these men and the real heir to the throne. “The Taint” tells us of the king’s youngest son Samudra, who after receiving college education decides to take up a simple job in the British Indian army while his father arranges for his marriage with plenty of dowry albeit without his consent.

The human side of man is beautifully expressed in “Ungendered” where the royal eunuch decides not to have an heir and lets two young boys live a normal man’s life. Several other stories reiterate tragic tales of women in purdah and how many of them reach unfortunate ends when they try to escape from the strict socially imposed patriarchal norms that keep them totally voiceless. “The Princess Baby” (Beti ka Baap or Father of a daughter) calls for attention towards the evil of female infanticide by feeding them with an overdose of opium and focus on the limited social interactions allowed to young women. Though sometimes repetitive, the stories overall try and tell us about the miserable plight of women in Rajasthan, whether they were commoners or part of the royalty.

Before concluding, a few words about the translation. This anthology contains ten stories, each of which had been translated and published in different journals abroad (nine in different American journals and one in Turkey) before collating them into this present volume. The translator, residing in the USA, obviously had the western reader in mind and sometimes several complicated and difficult words and phrases are used probably to remain politically correct to the original text. But what this reviewer finds problematic is the introduction by the author. Who are the targeted readers? In her introduction, she mentions at random women’s issues from around the world and in different ages one wonders why the context of the stories translated here is not provided at all — except for giving us a bio-note of Jyotirmoyee Devi which is briefly included in the back flap cover. Also, the page-long bibliography provided at the end of the rather out-of-context introduction seems totally redundant. Apart from this lacuna of course, the volume will interest those readers who marvel at the eyewitness accounts of life of women and men, common and royal alike, in Rajasthan in the first few decades of the twentieth century.

Somdatta Mandal, author, academic and translator, is former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India.

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Categories
Excerpt

Greening the Earth

Title: Greening the Earth: A Global Anthology of Poems

Editors: K. Satchidanandan & Nishi Chawla

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Preface

Humanity’s power to degrade the environment has become unprecedentedly dangerous. In fact, we have already changed the environment irreversibly, and suicidally so. What we call nature is no longer nature in its pristine glory. Human intervention has transformed it into something sub- rather than semi-human: a combination of climate, topography, the original environment and the effects of the long history of human intervention. If it was agriculture that had transformed the landscape once, it is now urbanization that has affected the broader areas of our environment. Managing the environment is becoming a practical rather than a theoretical problem. It is not enough that we create theme parks or conserve a select few areas. ‘Museumizing’ nature and landscape will not be enough. Several animals and birds are on the verge of extinction; the list is growing, and human beings can easily be next in the at-risk list. What we require today is not isolated action, but concerted action at the global level. Techno- fascism that leads to eco-fascism—both have their roots in human greed and aggression—is one of the inevitable fall-outs of blind and unsustainable patterns of development.

While a few poems in this anthology offer a perspective on how humans can respond to the reality of extinction, others give us an awareness of how we can struggle to keep what we still have. Some poems share earnest insights into our own evolution, and others offer grim warnings or raise voices against the imminent threat of extinction and the fate of our planet. Some poets spin interconnected incantations and weave healing nature through their blood, and others honor it by connecting the sustainable with their personal poetic bones. The environmental theme of most poems can inspire meditation as well as a commitment to apocalyptic action. The poets anthologized here offer landscapes of beauty and joy, of rustic retreat, of communion with our natural world, against the larger looming questions of human survival, of spurring towards conservation and preservation, of recognizing our ancestral knowledge, of a complicated pact and a complex impact. The anthology, in short, is our kind of shock tactic to the glaring lacunae within our urbanized, post-industrial society. What distinguishes us further, is that our anthology is a global chorus of poetic voices. We cannot stress enough the ‘sustainable’ route felt in the ‘sustainable’ poetic voices of our anthology. Along with our conscious eco warrior poets, Greening the Earth is our kind of responsible activism.

Extinction

Maren Bodenstein

here

on the prairie we measure

the years

by the extinction of insects

that visit our porch lamps

the brittle

longhorn is gone

for a while now the giant

stick insect no longer flares its scarlet wings even

the bluewhite chafers have succumbed

to the heat

by day we dwell in the creek

my sisters and I

one of us pregnant

but I keep forgetting

if it is me

look I am full term now

I tell them stroking my flat belly

on the horizon

a fire roars

through the grasses and over

the houses it marches

the last army of insects

into the bellies of storks

a confusion of vehicles

full of belongings flees

towards us

Ma in her car

with the poodle

comes rushing at us

get in she shouts

misses the bridge

plunges deep

we must rescue her

I tug at the metal

but my sisters

heavy with chatter

do not hear

Ma broken mermaid sneezes

opens her blue-eyes

happy

to see me

Beholden

Erin Holtz Braeckman

I come to you as Crow. But not before you first come to me. My bones are left like tinder in the dark ashes of my feathers when you find them. Crouching low in the crisp clutch of Spring the way the grandmothers once did, you speak words of ritual from the cave of folk memory you’ve walked right into without knowing. And you ask—before you hear my totem call from the pines high overhead; you ask before you slip one of my bones into your pocket. Because wrapped inside the song of that old teaching circle you stepped within was this telling: what you collect, you become the caretaker of. Not the thing itself, but its living story. Those crystals on your altar? You are the steward of their mountains. Those shells lining your windowsill? You are the custodian of their oceans. The pressed petals and dried acorns and vials of sand—the bones; in them there are entire fields and forests and feral ones of whom you are a curator. Which is why I come to you this time, a cackle-caw of shade-shifters stalking through your sister spruces. The others fly when you near, leaving me below in the corner fencing, the wing you took the bone from a tangle of black shadow throwing back the light. I feel the moment you are beholden, Crow-Keeper; how you fold the wild beating of my body into your hands, placing me like a stone on a cairn into the bracken beyond; how those grandmothers come to braid feathers into your hair.

(Excerpted from Greening the Earth: A global Anthology of Poetry, Penguin Random House)

About the Book:

Greening the Earth is a rare anthology that brings together global poetic responses to one of the major crises faced by humanity in our time: environmental degradation and the threat it poses to the very survival of the human species. Poets from across the world respond here in their diverse voices-of anger, despair, and empathy-to the present ecological damage prompted by human greed, pray for the re-greening of our little planet and celebrate a possible future where we live in harmony with every form of creation.

Editors:

K. Satchidanandan is a leading Indian poet He is also perhaps the most translated of contemporary Indian poets, having 32 collections of translation in 19 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, English, Irish, French, German and Italian, besides all the major Indian languages. He has 24 collections of poetry, four books of travel, a full length play and a collection of one-act plays, two books for children and several collections of critical essays, including five books in English on Indian literature besides several collections of world poetry in translation. He has been a Professor of English, and also the chief executive of the Sahitya Akademi, the Director of the School of Translation Studies, Indira Gandhi Open University, Delhi and National Fellow, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. He is a Fellow of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi and has won 52 literary awards from different states and countries, including the Sahitya Akademi award, India-Poland Friendship Medal from the Government of Poland, Knighthood from the Government of Italy and World Prize for Poetry for Peace from the Government of the UAE. His recent collections in English include While I Write, Misplaced Objects and Other Poems, The Missing Rib: Collected Poems, Not Only the Oceans, Questions from the Dead and The Whispering Tree: Poems of Love and Longing.

Nishi Chawla is an academician and a writer. She has six collections of poetry, nine plays, two screenplays and two novels to her credit. Nishi Chawla holds a Ph. D. in English from The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. USA. After teaching for nearly twenty years as a tenured Professor of English at Delhi University, India, she had migrated with her family to a suburb of Washington D.C. She has taught at the University of Maryland from 1999 until 2014. She is now on the faculty of Thomas Edison State University, New Jersey, USA. Nishi Chawla’s plays get staged both in the USA and in India.

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Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Wilda Morris

Wilda Morris
A BLOB OF GOO? 
    
. . . instead of being like an empty room
 (a really big room) space is more like 
a huge blob of thick goo.     
 ~ Jorge Cham & Daniel Whiteson

When I was just a child I knew
the universe was awfully full
of emptiness and nothing more
surrounding us—that was the lore
taught in those times, the teacher’s store—
but now they say that’s bull.

Astronomers have changed the facts.
It’s hard for me to understand
how space can be a blob of goo
when astronauts tell us they flew
up to the moon itself, and new
research says space expands.

It’s not like taffy, that I know.
Not sticky gunk or sludge or slime.
It’s not like goop. It doesn’t jell. 
Invisible. It doesn’t smell.
So what it is, I just can’t tell.
I hope I’ll learn sometime.	

What Einstein said was surely true—
he said that space can stretch and bend.
Space goo is something like the air
in which we walk without a care
and hardly notice anywhere—
without it life would end.

Wilda Morris’s third full-length book of poetry, At Goat Island and Other Poems is scheduled for publication by Kelsay Books this spring. She lives in Bolingbrook, Illinois, USA.

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Stories

   The Kabbadi Player by Nadir Ali

Translated from Punjabi by Amna Ali

Painting by Amna Ali

Since I struggled with poor health most of my life, I imagined those who enjoyed good health must be happier too. As the saying goes, “Be fit and healthy and the world is yours!” The strong ones can till and plow the land, but that doesn’t win them the world, as far as I can tell. When I was younger, I naively believed that only the athletes at our college were truly vibrant and alive. The entire college and district worshiped Ahsanullah. Kabbadi[1] was a popular sport back then, and Ahsanullah a peacock strutting in the kabbadi arena. He would tag the opponent and remain standing. “Dare to tackle me big guy!” he seemed to say, before slipping away. Clapping his hands, he would be off and running and onlookers would marvel – “There he goes!”

We witnessed a new race of men when the team from Jullundhar’s Khalsa College arrived. The players — tall, big and heavy– were built like wrestlers. Unlike us, they didn’t tackle opponents with moves like the scissor or the squeeze or run with lightning speed. They would simply grab a man by the arm and immobilise him with sheer force. When they were the ones caught, a few vigorous shoves were enough to help them escape. But they failed against Ahsanullah. They couldn’t even touch him. He slapped the opponent, grabbed him in a tight embrace as if a vine had wrapped itself around the Sardar. Then he spun him to make him lose his balance. A carefully applied tug followed, enough to send him crashing to the ground. The Sardars realised that Ahsanullah’s slight frame was misleading. He was strong as iron. In the end, his opponents always lay defeated at his feet. Thanks to Ahsan and Shareefa, Zamindara College came first in all of Punjab. Khalsa College Jullundhar came in second. But gone are the days of college and kabbadi. Zamindara College was never the same and hockey and kabbadi met their demise. What a strange race everyone joined once the sports grounds disappeared.

I remained friends with all the kabbadi players. Shareefa became the head of a police-station and even played for the police. Ahsanullah would be invited to the village or the college for informal matches. Once he got married, worries seemed to swallow him up. Glasses appeared on his studious face. Kabbadi proved useless for all the players, except Shareefa who put it to good use, tackling and hustling even at his prison job. Thana, Bala, Qooma, Abdullah Raja, all my companions, simply disappeared from my life. The game of life is all about money and power. Some of them were even so-called leaders, honoured with titles like Chaudhry of the village, but being a Chaudhry is meaningless without also being a crook. Despite my ill health, I managed some thuggishness now and then. But those farmers didn’t manage too well. Some thirty years passed.

I left my job and moved to the US, but college days remained etched in my memory. Gujrat had turned into a graveyard where my youth lay buried. Lahore swallowed up everyone. And from Lahore I made my way to the US. The United States – a place filled with endless worry and anxiety, in which everyone seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere. The bright lights and women added some colour, but there was no time to look up.

One day, in the midst of all this, a man caught my eye. A partner in misery, he was staring at the ground. He was wearing glasses and sat slightly hunched, but I recognised that jawline of chiseled iron and the long nose sticking out. “Ahsan Sahab!” I called out. He looked up but his face showed no emotion. “I am Nadir Ali, from Dharekan!” I said.

“What fix have you gotten yourself into?” he asked. No greeting, no salam. What sort of a question was this? He shook my hand without enthusiasm and patted my back. “Managed to find any work?” he asked. I had addressed him as Sahab out of respect for my kabbadi hero. But this man was bent on remaining distant.

“Yes, I did, by the grace of Allah,” I replied mechanically.

“The grace of God does not make it to distant places like New York. It has yet to reach me,” he went on.

“What’s the matter Ahsan Sahab? Is everything alright? Are you well?” I asked.

“The night refuses to end!” he said. “Earlier, I worked a night shift. Now I work at a store at the bottom of a skyscraper. By the time sunlight makes it to the ground, it is evening.” His eyes, full of sadness, seemed to be longing for the sun just then.

“We are in a foreign land, Ahsan Sahab!” I said, acting all mature suddenly.

“Well, it is not like Pakistan is our father’s estate either!” he replied. He got off at the 34th Street station in midtown. I was free and decided to accompany him. He was carrying some stuff for the store, and I gave him a hand. It was not a long walk.

We both stood outside the store. The owner hadn’t yet arrived. Ahsan took out a hash-filled cigarette and lit it. “You didn’t smoke back then!” I commented, trying to put him at ease.

“It’s not like I play kabbadi anymore!” he said and smiled sweetly at last. He didn’t seem to be doing too well. He didn’t ask about Gujrat, and I didn’t bring it up. “I get off at six in the evening. Stop by if you are free,” he said, extending some warmth for the first time.

I returned at a little before six that evening and noticed that he smiled again. It was faint, yet for me that smile was worth a million. “Like the road to my village, like the path that leads me home”– words from one of my poems came to mind. He took me to a bar. “Two whiskeys!” he called out and presented cash at the bar as was New York’s custom. He sat silent. He had always been on the quiet side. But we were both comfortable in our silence.

A few drinks later, I noticed a slight sparkle in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. I felt intoxicated. “Brother, I should stop now,” I said, “I have exceeded my quota.” Once we were outside, I blurted out, “Ahsan Sahab, I write poetry.” What a thing to say! I noticed the moon was visible in the sky. “I have never been able to see the moon in New York before! How did it manage to survive the rough and tumble and make it up there tonight? Good lord, the memories!”

Ahsan Sahab benevolently prodded me — “What are you remembering?”

 “You are the moon, Ahsan Sahab! Somehow, God made you appear tonight.”

“But this is the waning moon, Chaudhry!” he replied, sighing deeply.

Two weeks later, he was dead. Someone at the mosque mentioned that they were raising funds to return the dead body to Pakistan. Words tumbled out of my mouth as I helped lift the coffin for the journey. “He was worth his weight in gold!”

.

[1] Traditional contact sport of Punjab. Players “raid” the opponent’s territory and tag or touch opponents and then attempt to make it back. The defending team tries to stop the player from returning.

.

This story is a translation of Nadir Ali’s short story, first published in a collection titled Kahani Paraga , published by Suchet Kitab Ghar in 2004 in Lahore.

Nadir Ali (1936-2020) was a Punjabi poet and short story writer. In 2006, he was awarded the Waris Shah Award for his collection Kahani Praga. Coming late to writing, particularly fiction, Nadir Ali is credited with spearheading a unique style, blurring the boundaries between significant and petty, artistic and ordinary, primarily due to his preference for and command over the chaste central dialect understood by the majority of Punjabi speakers. He is also noted for writing and speaking about his experiences as an army officer posted in East Pakistan at the height of the 1971 war.

Amna Ali is Nadir Ali’s daughter.  She translated a selection of Nadir Ali’s short stories into English in collaboration with Moazzam Sheikh. The translations were published by Weavers Press in USA in a book titled Hero and Other Stories in 2022. She is a librarian and lives in San Francisco with her husband and two sons.

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Categories
Stories

Letting Go

By Tasneem Hossain

Courtesy: Creative Commons

“If only you had some wisdom, then you would not have raised that issue. I am going to block you. I am going to sever all ties with you. Bye!” The harsh words kept echoing in Farzana’s head. Her eyes moistened. She could not control the incessant tears rolling down her cheeks. The man behind the counter looked at her sympathetically. Farzana tried to smile back but her face distorted. She had never ever been able to control her emotions.

She was standing in the immigration line to board the next plane to New York from Dhaka.

The last one year came flashing back.

She had come in contact with Tariq during an official online meeting in Bangladesh.

He was a man of great repute. They had to contact each other often for business purpose. Gradually, their relationship changed from that of an acquaintance to very close friends. They would talk almost every day. He would go on telling her about his life. How he had built a million dollar business. How unfortunate he had been in his personal life. She would listen patiently.

She met him twice during two workshops on financial management. Tariq had invited her many times but somehow they had never been able to meet in the real world.

Tariq was a short squarely built man. But there was an air of personality that was undeniably magnetic. His well-articulated deep voice and the twinkling smile in his eyes were enough to make women swoon over him. He was witty and had a sense of humour that made him very attractive. He had sharp twinkling eyes but something told Farzana that he was a sad man, hiding behind his witty and jovial nature.

Their professional relationship turned into friendship.

Tariq would tell her details of the problems he faced in life and ask her to pray for him. Farzana became emotionally attached to him as a friend and would pray for him religiously every day.

Four months passed. One day they were chatting lightly and having fun in an online conversation on Messenger. Suddenly, Tariq got irritated and muted the Messenger box. She had never faced anything like this before. She felt insulted. She called and urged him to unmute, but he was reluctant.

A week later Farzana sent Tariq birthday wishes on his phone.

He called her and apologised. He told her he was very sick that day and couldn’t control his anger and, hence, had muted her.

Life became normal. Months passed. Farzana would wait for him to call or message her. When he called he would go on talking about his problems, his life and sometimes even flirt with her. Farzana knew he was just having fun. She would ask him to be serious and then again they would have the normal conversations.  

She never called him because he was a busy person and he would remain sick for days too. Sometimes Farzana had doubts that he was lying to her.

“Why? We are not romantically involved. We are just friends so why does he lie to me?” she would ponder.

*

She was getting ready to meet Tariq today. He had invited her for a candle light dinner in one of the fanciest restaurants ‘Rose La France’. This was the first friendly meeting with him. Farzana wore a pink chiffon blouse and saree. The white pearl necklace set with earrings and bangles were a perfect match: simple, yet elegant.  As she looked in the mirror, a smile curled up on her face. The reflection of a tall fair woman with an athletic supple and strong physique with a pair of hazel coloured eyes and thick black eyelashes stared back. She brushed her shoulder length wavy auburn hair. She was an attractive woman in her 30s. She was aware of the fact that her presence, anywhere, made quite a few heads turn.

Tariq picked her from her home and they drove to the restaurant. Somehow Farzana felt very conscious of herself as Tariq smiled at her.

“You look ravishing.”

“Thank you,” she smiled.

“Is it happening? Is he falling in love with me?” Farzana was quiet for a while.

Farzana wanted to change the topic, “You can recite so well. Please recite the poem you were reciting on that day over the phone.”

“First you have to kiss me,” Tariq said mischievously.

Farzana burst into laughter. She couldn’t stop laughing.

Tariq looked intently at her.  

*

“Why do you text? Don’t text me.” suddenly Tariq fumed one day.

Click!No sound on the other end. Farzana called every other day to check but the calls would only show ‘calling’, no ‘ringing’ sign. The messages she sent also didn’t pass through.

After trying a few days she realised he had blocked her everywhere without any reason that she could think of. She would cry long nights. No one knew that she was suffering inwardly as she would act totally normal in front of her family.

Farzana knew that Tariq was the only child and couldn’t control his emotions, but deep down he was a compassionate man. He always made amends so sweetly and genuinely that it was impossible to resist.

*

Tariq loved the way Farzana talked. The smile on her lips and twinkle of her eyes somehow vibrated through the calls. He could visualise the innocent smile on her happy face talking with fervour. She would also listen to him talk patiently for hours.

“Oh Lord I am in love with this angel!” The moment it popped in his head, he felt his nerves playing havoc in his mind. He cut off the line. He blocked every single thing: Telephone, Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber.

“No, I cannot destroy her life. She is such a kind soul. I am not suitable for her. I am a devil, and she is an angel. What if I propose her and get married? What then?” He kept rambling, “I am sick and she will suffer seeing my illness. I cannot let anything sadden her.”

Tariq had a very traumatic childhood. His father was an alcoholic and mother was on drugs. Almost each day they would have fights. The fights did not end just in verbal abuse but would turn into physical scuffles.

He lived in terror of such violence as sometimes he would also become the victim.

His father would point at him and say: “Ah. This bastard! Who is his father? Tell me now or I will kill him.”

His mom would just sit there and keep laughing and say. “Why? aren’t you man enough to have a child of your own?”

His father would then push away Tariq and start kicking his mother.

One day Tariq’s grandparents came and took him away. That was the turning point for him. He had a loving aunt who started looking after him. Slowly his life became more meaningful. He started to have great results at school.Soon he got involved in sports. The confidence in him attracted the attention of his teachers and they started mentoring him for inter school competitions.

Success followed him everywhere. It was as if he was with vengeance erasing his past life and pouring the best that he had into his present. Rather than being defeated by the harsh childhood he had had, he became adamant to succeed. But the trauma remained with him. Often he would have panic attacks and it was difficult to calm him down.

On top of that he was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder on his 39th birthday. Occasionally, he would become violent and would hurl abuses at anyone who came in contact with him. It seemed as if his parents’ demons overpowered him during those times. He seldom remembered what he had done. He was an informed man and knew the consequences and symptoms of this disease.

As he had suffered in his childhood, he didn’t want anyone to be hurt by his behaviour. So he asked his caretaker to tell him everything that happened during those attacks. Later when he regained sanity, he would beg forgiveness in such a gentle way that no one could stay angry with him.

Though he was a famous and moneyed man, his compassionate nature earned him respect from everyone who came in contact with him.

*

For some days she had been having stomach aches. She saw a doctor and had to do some tests.

“You have appendicitis and need surgery,” the doctor informed.

“If something goes wrong and I die?” she mused.

She knew it involved a major surgery. Though fatality was rare but it could happen.

She didn’t want to leave the world with the regret of not having talked with Tariq. So she contacted Tariq’s friend, told him about her surgery and requested him to tell Tariq to call.

That evening Tariq called. He was very rude with her and threatened that he would not unblock her. She pleaded that she wanted just to talk normally with him before the surgery. She wanted to be mentally strong and prepared. She just wanted him to be friends again. He cut off the line.

The next evening Farzana called him. He had unblocked her. They talked for an hour. Farzana disclosed to him about the surgery next morning. The call ended on a friendly note of wishes and prayers.

The next morning, as Farzana was getting ready, he called her and wished her. These small little gestures made him irresistibly charming.

The surgery was successful.

Days passed. Farzana was happy. Sometimes in the mornings Farzana would see that Tariq had called her at night, knowing fully well that she did not take calls at night. She would say “sorry” in her texts.

“Has he fallen in love?” She would muse.

Another evening he called and told her that he was sick. Farzana was concerned.

“You know I have been praying the whole night for your…”

Stop! She was cut short in the middle of her sentence.

“You know what? This is why I don’t want to talk to you. If only you had some wisdom, then you would not have raised that issue. I am going to block you; I am going to sever all ties with you. Bye!”

*

Tariq knew that Farzana had developed a soft corner for him over time. He had fallen madly in love with her. She was there all the time in his heart.Whatever he did he could not get her out of his head. Her gentle sweet smile was like a magnet and oh her eyes! Those had so much innocence and concern that they were irresistible. He had fallen madly in love with her.

He knew that if she saw his condition when he had those panic attacks, she would not be able to bear it. She was too gentle. She would be heartbroken for him and he could not let that happen.

He would call her but somehow it was so painful not to be with her that he would become rude and cut the line off. There was an unbearable silence as Farzana sat dumbfounded. She couldn’t say a word.

Suddenly all emotions dried up. She knew that Tariq was a self-made man. Though soft at heart, it had made him proud and egoistic too. But it did not give him the right to be so discourteous and ungrateful towards her. He knew fully well that she wished him well unconditionally and his welfare had always been a priority for her. 

“This is the end,” she muttered. “I have been supportive of him all through, prayed for him every day. Yet, he treats me like trash. He knows that I care for him too much. Perhaps, this is why he has taken me for granted.”

The thought of abandoning him suddenly made her realise that she was in love with him. It would be unbearable for her to part with him. 

She couldn’t take it anymore. “I have been sympathetic all through but there’s a limit to being compassionate. He has his tantrums, but I am also human. I have my pride.”

In her heart she knew that she loved him. But there was no hope for this love to materialise. So she needed to leave him before she did anything irrational.

Her decision was final.

She decided to go back to the USA. She knew if he was ever alone and needed her, she would come back to help him; give him company in his old age. But right now she needed to leave.

“Your ticket Madam.”

“Oh, sorry,” Farzana replied unmindfully. She showed the ticket and passport to the immigration officer.

Leaving Tariq without telling him was painful. She couldn’t hold back her tears. The man behind the counter looked concerned. Farzana gave him a reassuring smile and wiped away her tears confidently.

She felt a heavy stone lifted away from her chest. Too much neglect and verbal abuse had made her strong. She was free now.

“Thank you,” she smiled and waved. “Have a wonderful day!”

As she walked towards the shuttle bus, she felt the warmth of the sun on her face. Everything around her wore a brighter look. She was ready to face the world: alone but stronger. The needle pricked her heart and she flinched in pain.

“Is he thinking about me and in pain?”

Whenever Tariq needed her she had this feeling inside.

“It can’t be!” Her pace slowed down.  

Tariq stood behind the glass looking at the girl whom he loved with all his heart. He prayed silently. Teardrops rolled down his cheek for the first time

She would never know…

.

Tasneem Hossain is a multilingual poet, op-ed, columnist, fiction writer, translator and trainer. Her writings have appeared in different countries. She has authored two poetry books and a book of prose.

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

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Categories
Poetry

Poems by Sukrita Paul Kumar

Sukrita Paul Kumar
TEDDY BEAR ON THE WAR FRONT
(News Report from Irpin, Ukraine, 2022) 
					
The teddy bear sits benumbed
presiding over the rubble
Of civilisation
Of compassion
Of humanity
A debris of fun and play

Teddy sits smirking over the  
Skeleton of the cat, her
Bones, a curled cadaver 
Her couch and cushions 
in smithereens

The house shredded by the missile 
Walls cracking and crumbling with the  
Child’s screams as shards
From the tiny throat

Teddy bear, the dumb survivor,
No arms to melt his frozen heart
Watching the carnage with
Big round buttons 
gyrated into unseeing eyes

Wrapped in grief
The gentle wool on Teddy spikes
The bristles stand stiff and sharp
Rivers of tears flow 
Into the turbulent ocean 

And a tsunami of teddy bears 
Marches into the war zone
Looking for children to comfort



TELLING VIGNETTES 
			
It’s dementia…

For grandmother
It’s a staccato war

Ends each day and
Starts the next morning again

            it is a re-wind
                     to World War II 

        the wake of bombing
        kills people seventy years later

*

Pregnant with deadly nightmares 
Moskva the missile cruiser sank

The Black Sea swallowed all her bombs 
Stuffed with a thousand deaths


*

Bullet marks on the walls
        remnants of war
people in homes behind
	unhealed  

*

Ghosts born of bombs
are stripped of death
        Sans the mortal attire 

        They live on to haunt

*




The web of nerves on
      the inert dog’s neck
             pulsates
                     with lifelessness
It’s wartime


*

More live than the forlorn dog
are the shadows of bullets on 
the walls of Irpin

Deep craters on the earth
hold silence
born of the boom

*

They are not moon craters 

       These on the earth mark 
       technology of warfare

       Massive progress
       in hunting and
       getting the big kill

Sukrita Paul Kumar, former Fellow of Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, held the prestigious Aruna Asaf Ali Chair at Delhi University. An honorary faculty at Corfu, Greece, she was an invited resident poet at the prestigious International Writing Programme at Iowa, USA. Her most recent collections of poems, are Vanishing Words, Country Drive and Dream Catcher. Her critical books include Narrating Partition, The New Story and Conversations on Modernism. She has co-edited many books, including Speaking for Herself: Asian Women’s Writings (Penguin). An Honorary Fellow at HK Baptist University, Hong Kong, she has published many translations and has held exhibitions of her paintings. Currently she is series co-editor of “Writer in Context” volumes being published by Routledge UK and South Asia.

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

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Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Candice Louisa Daquin

Courtesy: Creative Commons
POTENTIAL PEACE BENEATH THE WAR

Does humanity, as a concept
exist in a vacuum?
Where humble sentience is 
dislocated in the parched throat of self-interest? 
Where does the common man find solace?
Lost moniker describing individuals seeking equity 
in twitching furnace of somnambulist society,
their labour rebuked for birth right or whimsy,
inequality sewn into flimsy lapel, the holes of their shoes
before any nation’s birth is death; for what nationality
does anyone possess? Or own? What land is
ours or yours? What power? What skin? 
What impotent sieve tries to retain enough water before the monsoon shifts? 
Drunk, before any of us knew we could protest
what was never going to be given freely --
that division of us all, made clay, made stalagmite
what are anyone’s true wishes? Who hears? 
When war makers fabricate the mould and send 
into battle, scolded and uncooked, their children?
What does the crowing babe think; when war flies
its planes and machines overhead? Raining red loss 
upon the downtrodden, seeking only, meagre sense of existing --
hardly able to drag their weary bodies to vote
nor contemplate chess pieces above artificial stations.
Perhaps Marx had a point, the silver infusion
of distraction, an ultimate opiate, or
is it just our water-borne natures? If there is such
collective nature? To fight in dust -- swirl until we’re tired
then lay our guns down and pick on each other
with weary, blooded fists. Is anything appeased in our
vain battles or are mere silly devils playing ruined
games on a board where nobody watches?
Save the ember curl of time, reminding all;
Those who do not remember history
are bound, to repeat its grievous wounds. 
Then: Break free mockingbird 
find your own voice, not choked by common
dust, for we are all, for we all can find 
potential peace beneath the war.

.

Candice Louisa Daquin is a Psychotherapist and Editor, having worked in Europe, Canada and the USA. Daquins own work is also published widely, she has written five books of poetry, the last published by Finishing Line Press called Pinch the Lock. Her website is www thefeatheredsleep.com

.

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