Border Less
Namrata Poddar
Dia Mittal is an airline call center agent in Mumbai searching for an easier life. As her search takes her to the United States, Dia’s checkered relationship with the American Dream dialogues with the experiences and perspectives of a global South Asian community across the class spectrum--call center agents, travel agents, immigrant maids, fashion designers, blue- and white-collar workers in the hospitality industry, junior and senior artists in Bollywood, hustling single mothers, academics, tourists in the Third World, refugees displaced by military superpowers, Marwari merchants and trade caravans of the Silk Road, among others. What connects the novel’s web of brown border-crossing characters is their quest for belonging and negotiation of power struggles, mediated by race, class, gender, nationality, age, or place. With its fragmented form, staccato rhythm, repetition, and play with English language, Border Less questions the “mainstream” Western novel and its assumptions of good storytelling.
Border Less was a finalist for The Feminist Press’s Louise Meriwether First Book Prize. Chapters from the novel won the Short Story Contest organized by 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English, judged by Bharati Mukherjee and Clark Blaise; the New Asian Writing Prize; and appeared in The Best Asian Short Stories anthology. The opening chapter, in a slightly different form, was published in The Kenyon Review.
Duration - 22h 1m.
Author - Namrata Poddar.
Narrator - Deepti Gupta.
Published Date - Sunday, 15 January 2023.
Copyright - © 2022 Namrata Poddar ©.
Location:
United States
Description:
Dia Mittal is an airline call center agent in Mumbai searching for an easier life. As her search takes her to the United States, Dia’s checkered relationship with the American Dream dialogues with the experiences and perspectives of a global South Asian community across the class spectrum--call center agents, travel agents, immigrant maids, fashion designers, blue- and white-collar workers in the hospitality industry, junior and senior artists in Bollywood, hustling single mothers, academics, tourists in the Third World, refugees displaced by military superpowers, Marwari merchants and trade caravans of the Silk Road, among others. What connects the novel’s web of brown border-crossing characters is their quest for belonging and negotiation of power struggles, mediated by race, class, gender, nationality, age, or place. With its fragmented form, staccato rhythm, repetition, and play with English language, Border Less questions the “mainstream” Western novel and its assumptions of good storytelling. Border Less was a finalist for The Feminist Press’s Louise Meriwether First Book Prize. Chapters from the novel won the Short Story Contest organized by 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English, judged by Bharati Mukherjee and Clark Blaise; the New Asian Writing Prize; and appeared in The Best Asian Short Stories anthology. The opening chapter, in a slightly different form, was published in The Kenyon Review. Duration - 22h 1m. Author - Namrata Poddar. Narrator - Deepti Gupta. Published Date - Sunday, 15 January 2023. Copyright - © 2022 Namrata Poddar ©.
Language:
English
Opening Credits
Duration:00:00:13
Dedication
Duration:00:00:06
Quote
Duration:00:00:34
ROOTS: HELP ME HELP YOU
Duration:00:36:23
SILK STOLE
Duration:00:19:57
LADIES SPECIAL
Duration:00:12:15
TRADEOFF
Duration:00:11:57
9/12
Duration:00:07:05
ANCHOR
Duration:00:09:22
CHUTNEY
Duration:00:19:00
EXCURSION
Duration:00:14:50
SO, LONG, COUSIN
Duration:00:28:06
ROUTES: ONE
Duration:00:04:16
BROTHERS AT HAPPY HOUR
Duration:00:11:49
NATURE, NURTURE
Duration:00:09:39
FIRANG
Duration:00:23:46
ORDINARY LOVE
Duration:00:23:33
BLUE AND BROWN
Duration:00:07:02
SHAKTI AT BRUNCH
Duration:00:17:41
VICTORIOUS
Duration:00:37:53
HOMECOMING
Duration:00:27:25
KUNDALINI
Duration:00:10:28
Closing Credits
Duration:00:00:28