From the Editor’s Desk
Perhaps the mountains show the strength
I keep so well hidden, but I think of
skyscrapers, when I’m lost, and dream of little
boys I knew, before the mountains crumbled.
Can you tell me how many pots of gold to search for
before I realise I am entirely sure the rainbow is just strips of light
that mean only one short moment of delight
before despair sets in again?
Hello and welcome, dear readers, to yet another lovingly curated issue of The Bangalore Review. The above lines from the poem, Drought by Emily Rosier sets the trend for this issue, where we discuss and showcase a multitude of subjects which jostle, blend and find home in this October line up.
We course through lost and found mother tongues in the wonderful essay by Dami Oyedele - The Map of My Mother Tongue, where she discusses both comfort and discomfort of finding languages and losing them. Dina Hendawi in her essay Foreignness, says “We been here for twenty years, but look around, more skyscrapers, more Starbucks, more Banana Republics, but the same guy playing guitar in his underwear on that corner and the same stink of garbage and urine on the other. It’s all relative as they say.” The familiarity of being a New Yorker, the uneasiness of it too, of travels through the globe, of finding and inhabiting cultures, landscapes, homes and the forever question of belonging - all true of who we are as inhabitants of literature too, I suppose. And while we're talking of cities, of belonging and finding the mother tongue, there's Roz Weisberg, who defies the landscape of memory and its loss, history and defiance in the story, Signature. Stacey Johnson, walks us through the realisation of change, climate, memories of peace and more in a story, Leftright, while Allison A. deFreese packs in a punch with two flash fiction pieces bringing forth, stillness, shock, and flash backs.
We bring back TBR Recommends, this time with a fresh twist. Journalist and author Uttaran Das Gupta recommends his choices for good reads and the TBR staff reviews two wonderful books for you - all in all, it’s a book fest, folks!
And through it all there are poems that elevate and bring us home - Alan Hill for example, in his poem, Change of Season, depicts in more ways than one, what we feel at the TBR. As the colours of fall give way to Autumn and it's time again for celebration and festivities in the sub-continent, we hope to remain committed in our endeavour to bring you the most enriching, avant-garde and brilliant literature possible, from all ends of the hemisphere - enjoy the ride, read on.
Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury
Managing Editor, The Bangalore Review
