Translated from Bangla by Mohammad Shafiqul Islam
For the Loss of Addresses: Kolkata 1978
On a sunny day, standing by the busy road at Sealdah,
I feel as if it weren’t Kolkata.
Meher Ali understood it right—
Jhut hya, sab jhut hya!
Lies, all lies!
This city has no meaning without Elora-Bratati.
There’s also a river meandering gently
under the Howrah Bridge.
Does she know your house? Now where do you
stay, in which congested closet? Or like a bird,
you’re flying towards the bank of the Karnaphuli?
While like a pastry full of ants,
I see double-deckers, passport faces on the windows.
I don’t find Elora Banerjee, not even Bratati Sanyal.
A homeless country boy has walked a wrong way
to reach the former Govindapur village.
In your pursuit, pushing and shoving,
travelling by dusty buses and trams,
he now sees the surreal.
“Hello, Dada, which tram goes to College Street?”
“There you see a depot, turn left and look at the right,
25 or 20, whichever you avail,
get on it and go.”
My eyes are aching, how long more can I keep looking?
The tram I wanted to ride on
went past, curving the waist like a coquettish river.
Kolkata is crammed with crowds like sticks in a matchbox,
does anyone of them know—
on which roof, at the rival moon’s illness,
does the hasnahena flower weep?
At which alley, does a lamp dazzle even at daylight,
or through which tap water flows day and night,
from which railing the sari falls, leaving the frame?
Where do honours notes fly in the wind—
close to her,
where do Bratati’s lips land in a kiss?
Aren’t these called addresses?
Then I say—this city of yours isn’t Kolkata too.
Where are you, Elora-Bratati?
Let me win. Keeping an eye on the moon’s mien,
realize that I’ve come. And listen,
I can’t fail, can’t leave this Sutanuti village.
Next morning, send out blue inland envelopes
to the right address, the Neelima—
only you match tilottoma, the celestial nymph.
——————
What Karl Marx Could Tell Jenny
My elder sister is your friend—
so you’re like a sister pro tem,
but don’t forget I’m a poet.
Surely senior to me, you have
Hellenic beauty and virtues. You’re at the centre
of all this unreal scuffle.
Hence proudly floating your golden hair,
you dispense radiance of neglect.
How to unlatch your door, with which key can I open
the gate of your fort and enter the dream chamber?
I’m a slave of your love—let it be my identity;
capitalizing on slavery, I’ll write the immortal
Das Capital.
Counter to loam’s powerful truth, sand and clay fail forever.
Soil doesn’t resist ploughs too.
Thus I speak for crops and labours;
but you don’t probably like it. Traditions
pull you like magnet. A reactionary
therefore you are.
Poles apart, we don’t match,
we move our own ways, the left and the right;
still I’ve looked for you
everywhere, despite knowing
you have a strong apathy to Marx’s manifesto.
Why are you, O queen,
so apprehensive of the leftist?
If left is dreadful, why then human heart on the left?
—————
A Tinge of Lipstick on the Teacup
It’s a few moments you left cheerily. Then
suddenly everything has stopped, dead silent
are the tablewares of tea and snacks.
Traces of chanachur, a savoury spicy snack, falling from
finger grips are lying languid, forks quiet, the cup too—
a tinge of lipstick on the left corner of the cup.
In a short while,
the live-in will take away the tablewares, the cup too.
Then she’ll clean everything so precisely
I can’t single out the cup with the lipstick tinge.
For such cruel flawlessness,
I’ll cut down salary of this wretch.
———————-
Mohammad Shafiqul Islam : poet, translator and academic, teaches English as Associate Professor in the Department of English at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet 3114, Bangladesh
