The Maulana Who Loved Krishna

A .JOURNAL OF SOUTH ASIA!'I: LITERATURE City .\ ,JOlR\ ..\L OF SOlTII .\SL\\ LITER\Tl RI-: Prabhath Jayasinghe Umer Ishmael

ShrutiSareen Ajay Navaria

Kimaya Kulkarni MirzaAthar Baig

Rafiqur Rashid Surinder Neer

Syed Muhammad Ashraf Eric Illayapparachchi

Mohammad Abbas Afzal Ahmed Syed

Kunwar Narain Kuzhur Wilson

Goirick Brahmachari Mangalesh Dabral

Nabina Das SharmilaSeyyid

Ra Sh Ro Hith

Farha Noor

Ananya Chatterjee

Amit ShankarSaha S Kalesh

Meherin Roshanara Dona Mayoora

Roshni Swapna Stalina

SivaSagar Mohammad Ismail

Shahmeneh Majid Vijila Chirappadu

Uttaran Dasgupta AbhiSubedi

Suman Pokhrel Mukunda Prayas

SeemaAavas Krishna Bhooshan Bal

Arjun Dhungana DineshAdhikari

Haribhakta Katuwal Ishwar Ballav

Tanka Upreti Nayan Raj Pandey

Rajendra Prajuli Manorama Mathai Moss

Rashmi Sheila Manju Kanchuli

Neda Haffari Roshan Thapa Nirab

Kishore Pahadi l!:I

' ■ Cover Image: Shafiullah Anis

City A JOURNAL OF SOUTH ASIAN LITERATURE

Editors Ajmal Kamal Sophia Naz

cp CITY 6: 2018

A CITY PRESS BANGALORE publication in collaboration with NotNul, Lucknow

Publisher Gouri Patwardhan [email protected]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the publisher. All views/opinions/perspectives expressed in the published text represent those of the respective author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the publishers’ policy.

First City Press Bangalore / NotNul edition: 2019 ISBN 978-93-87621-24-4

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Translators

BENGALI Shabnam Nadiya

HINDI Sudarshan Purohit Apurva Narain Sarabjeet Garcha

MALAYALAM Ra Sh Binu Karunakaran

NEPALI Abhi Subedi Suman Pokhrel Keshab Sigdel Akhilesh Tripathi Ann Hunkins Karuna Nepal Saguna Shah

PERSIAN Omar Sadr Ajmal Kamal

PUNJABI Hartej Kaur

SINHALA Dinuka Wijetunga Gaya Nagahawatta

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TAMIL Lakshmi Holmström N Kalyan Raman Jayaraman N Srivatsa S. Pathmanathan ‘Sopa’

TELUGU Rohith

URDU Aqsa Ijaz Matt Reeck Sophia Naz Musharraf Ali Farooqi

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Editorial Notes

A mountain in flames framed by the darkness of night is a sight at once terrifying and beautiful. Seared in memory it burns on forever behind curtains of shut eyelids. Fleeing just such a massive wildfire that consumed vast swathes of California this past October, I had no way of knowing that this would be last time I would see my home. Two weeks later I returned to a pile of burnt rubble. Losing your earthly possessions to a catastrophe is a profound- ly life altering experience. Far more than valuables or heirlooms it was the irreplaceable loss of my creative output, handwritten poetry journals, artworks, photographs and musical instruments that felt like a body blow. Yet mixed in with all the sorrow was an oddly liberating sensation of lightness, such as a renunciate would feel. Possessions bring pleasure but are also encumbrances that tie you down. Immediately following the fire I was seized by a desire to walk out of my life altogether and embrace the existence of a wan- derer. To those of us for whom a life of wandering is not a practical option, literature offers a satisfying escape. Along with original and translated writing from all over South Asia, City 6 has a special focus on Nepal, a country that has seen horrific devastation and loss of life in the earthquake of 2015. Yet, as I can personally attest, the experience of loss is a powerful vehicle for creativity, just as the music of wind chimes is made resonant by the very hollows they en- close. I first visited Nepal in 1996 while working a documentary on icons and living traditions of feminine power in Buddhist tantra. Like many travelers before me I was immediately smitten by the convivial coexistence of the past and present. On the steps of the ancient temples in Durbar square women in scarlet saris sold their greens largely unmindful of the tourist lens. Forbidden to all such lenses a pre-pubescent girl was still worshipped as a living goddess and anointed yearly in a ceremonial procession by as-yet-un- murdered king. Twenty-one years later, in place of the living god-

5 CITY 6: 2018 dess there is a statue and at the site of the royal massacre a museum. The past is still there but is fading to a somewhat blurry back- ground. What has come into focus, however, is the tremendous en- ergy and enthusiasm of young Nepalis for the arts, especially poetry. The membership of groups like Spoken Word Nepal and Word Warriors consists overwhelmingly of people under thirty, many are in their teens. Corrupt officials and women’s struggles in a male dominated world are some the ruptures highlighted by the frictions of the irrepressible new rubbing up against the intransigent old. The literature of Nepal today is reflective of these seismic shifts in both the literary and literal landscapes. — Sophia Naz

City 5 was published in July last year with an intention to be fol- lowed on by the next anthology three months later. Several logistic hurdles prevented it from happening. Now, after the delay of about a year, city 6 is being issued with an arrangement with Zameen, New Delhi. It is hoped that now its reach to subscribers and bookstore counters would be smoother than has been the case with the previous anthology. For a small-scale private initiative – com- mitted not to seek institutional or corporate support – it is necessary to find this access. It is hoped that city will receive the vital support from its readers and contributors that it needs – and deserves – in order to survive and create a common platform for practition-ers of creative literature from all across South Asia – and beyond. — Ajmal Kamal

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Contents

1 Stories

Prabhath Jayasinghe 13 Hockey without Sticks Umer Ishmael 32 Fatima’s Man 34 Funeral for a Dog Shruti Sareen 39 Difficult Conversations Ajay Navaria 47 Honour Kimaya Kulkarni 70 Ajji Mirza Athar Baig 75 A Wall Theatre Rafiqur Rashid 84 Bird Thou Never Were Surinder Neer 96 Lavaase Syed Muhammad Ashraf 110 Rogue Eric Illayapparachchi 125 Kafka and the Father Mohammad Abbas 131 Hesitation

2 Poems

Afzal Ahmed Syed 141 Our National Tree 141 Only Unnoteworthy Poets 142 Viewers’ Choice 143 Lenin Before Fahmida Riaz

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145 A Picture on Page 163 147 A Dog’s Death 147 A Poet at the Gems Exhibit Kunwar Narain 149 City and Man 149 Bazaar Anarkali, Lahore 150 The Decay of Vijaynagar Kuzhur Wilson 151 Thintharoo 155 Map 155 On the 9th 158 Hodie Mihi Cras Tibi Antappan 159 4:35 pm Goirick Brahmachari 162 A song for Derek 163 Where we were 163 Sly Mangalesh Dabral 164 Our gods 165 Non-eternal 166 Nicotine 167 Father’s Glasses Nabina Das 169 The Call 170 Body Perennial 171 Living with(in) a forest 172 Love and Ruse Sharmila Seyyid 173 First Lust 174 The winged woman 176 Fallen in the Field Ra Sh 179 A biblio surgeon’s work book Rohith 181 Zhuangzi as Lover

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181 Last Days of Spring 182 My Grandfather’s Dream of Dying 183 Text Farha Noor 184 Evening Walk Anar 186 My sister’s laughter was like a bird in flight 187 A few additional blood-notes 188 Earthworm’s Night 189 Swing Ananya Chatterjee 191 Playthings 192 Cleanliness is next to Loneliness 192 Nalanda and Takshashila 193 Hunger 193 Of Noise and Stillness Padma Babu 195 Translation Amit Shankar Saha 196 Forgetting the Rains 196 How to Kill a Tree S Kalesh 199 The Sea of Sounds Meherin Roshanara 202 Arabian Nights Dona Mayoora 203 Life, post reading Roshni Swapna 205 The House of the Dead Stalina 207 A female spring Siva Sagar 209 Wait for me Mohammad Ismail 212 Dear Syamala Rao Shahmeneh Majid 214 Red Lipstick Vijila Chirappadu 216 The publication of Womanly deeds

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Uttaran Das Gupta 218 The Belarusian National Ensemble 218 Fish Curry on Sunday 219 Whiplash

3 Focus: New Writing from Nepal

Poems Abhi Subedi 220 Evening 220 Rebels 223 Soft storm Suman Pokhrel 227 My Search of You Mukunda Prayas 229 The Bamboo Seema Aavas 230 While Getting Chased Krishna Bhooshan Bal 231 As Night Descends to the City Arjun Dhungana 233 An Encounter Dinesh Adhikari 234 Life Swirls Whirlingly Haribhakta Katuwal 236 Wish Ishwar Ballav 237 Arrangements for Departure Tanka Upreti 238 Fingerprints

Stories

Nayan Raj Pandey 239 Country Rajendra Prajuli 243 The Pink Suit Manorama Mathai Moss 249 A Girl’s Story Rashmi Sheila 257 Leila: The Darkness

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Manju Kanchuli 263 Nausea Neda Haffari 271 Night Life Roshan Thapa Nirab 275 Single Kishore Pahadi 276 What was It that Bholaman gave me?

286 Notes on Contributors

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PRABHATH JAYASINGHE

Translated from Sinhala by Dinuka Wijetunga

Hockey without Sticks

Woke up from a long sleep. A familiar song, intertwined in a few bars of music, was soaking into me. It is the overwhelming warmth of that song that woke me up. But the whole body is terribly feeble. Feels kind of numb. Tried stretching my limbs a little to get rid of the numbness, but even that doesn’t seem to be possible. They keep knocking on some kind of roof overhead and something like walls surrounding the bed. To be precise, it’s as if I’m sleeping in a box. Suddenly my hand knocks on something. It has been laid close to me, parallel to my body. The hockey stick. I remembered that it’s mine. Good heavens. When is the next match? Why the hell don’t I remember anything? What is that song? Familiar, yet, eludes me. It’s coming, slowly. Ah, yes. The school anthem. How could I forget that? Where am I? This is like a small box. How can one even breathe in here? It was then that I suddenly realized that I wasn’t breathing. Not even a little bit. How did I manage that? The school anthem kept playing. My thoughts were on how to get out of this box-like thing. Then came the sound of some- one knocking. On the door? No. It’s right next to my ear. Maybe on the ‘box.’ “Who is it?” “Who are you?” That was the answer. “What kind of question is that? Don’t you know on whose door you’re knocking?” “I’m not knocking on anyone’s door, but on the side of this box I’m in. I was just trying to see if there was anyone out there.”