From the Editor’s Desk

As a country and as a region we have seen much in the past few days. And even while we sigh in relief now, I go back to the film Hiroshima mon amour(1959), and reflect on love in the times of war. A covid survivor, who had walked for two days to reach his home in Bihar had summed it up rather aptly, when I asked him what he would do in a village where everyone was dead- 'Grow onion, garlic and potatoes- survive, and live again.' Whether we shall survive well, and grow and fruit post this, only time will tell and our resilience, and in that process literature becomes the balm and comes to our rescue. We have poems, stories, books, prose and more in this issue. Dive in dear readers.

Here's to May. Happy reading.

Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury
Managing Editor, The Bangalore Review

Specials

Re-reading the Classics – Once There Was A King By Rabindranath Tagore

In Re-reading the Classics, TBR tries to entice the readers into going back to reading some of the most famous books that were a large part of our growing up.

Specials

Writer Bishwanath Ghosh takes TBR on a journey through his study and home

Writer Bishwanath Ghosh takes TBR on a journey through his study and home.

Poetry

TBR pays homage to the last of the Beats-poet Gary Snyder, who turns 95!

Poetry

Watercolor: A Quiet Moment in the Garden City—Bangalore, India

After dinner I hear the music of the ceremony across the street.

Poetry

Leaving the City

You board another train, but it’s another season, maybe even another year. You travel quietly. Pairs of eyes sit across in varying degrees of kindness.

Fiction

The Door and the Dog

Had I been asleep, I might have missed the sound, like a strange scuttling against the walls. I glanced over at the boy in the corner, but he remained silent

Literature

The Poetry of Prose Writers

Sudeep Ghosh offers snippets of some prose writers whose works do not cease to fascinate him for their levels of poetic sweep and grandeur

Fiction

October

I stub the butt of my cigarette out and stare blankly at the too trimmed row of bushes bordering our backyard. Michigan is chilly in October. I go inside.

Poetry

Aloe

Plant mother to plant mother, I get it The sun shines on, dutiful and tired And I am tempted to break

Translations

The Death by Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi (Translated by Jyotirmoy Prodhani from the Assamese short story, ‘Mrityu’)

Jyotirmoy Prodhani translates Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi's Assamese short story, ‘Mrityu'.

Poetry

On Hamlet’s Flute

On Hamlet’s flute old bones of Elsinore shook and shuckered up the graves they died and dyed the earth in.

Fiction

The Invasion

The berries they usually found in wild abundance failed to materialize. At first the stories struck her as apocryphal. Bears were reportedly ripping...

Poetry

House of the Dead

The dead mattered more than the living. One night, the fire alarm didn’t go off.

Poetry

rain is rare and it is welcome but it doesn’t solve anything and actually that’s okay

And the rain swept in a little fast for her liking but there was no helping it was there And nobody picked up the phone when she called