Now it is time
I did never say, but murmured in my mind:
Shall meet you, definitely some day
In some known or unknown spot
In a sudden turn of road. If we two could then
Walk along the legendary shades of margosa
A little ahead of the broken stairs of the tank
Digging up the past in its hazy smell coming out of
the bushes.
Oh ! if we could then utter something new and deep!
While alone I thought of these so many times
These lonely thoughts of mine.
Till to day we’ve not seen each other
What withheld it…I do not know,
I only know the promising hour is meanwhile lost,
Lost before I could realise it.
Now is alone the time
to look back to those picturesque days
to those lost beauty of life.
To walk with love
From every corner comes the roar of devastation,
the sound of something fresh and clean
going up in flames.
All the time I hear it.
Have you ever thought of what you should do
at such an hour as this?
What can you do when a hurricane builds up
before your eyes,
when a searing pain clutches at your heart
and cries out like the sharp strings
of a sarod1 ?
Yet can’t you for once bring down the sky
on a canvas, fashioned after your
heart’s desire,
at least strain your limbs
in a supreme effort?
You only delude yourself
when you shut yourself in a room,
close your windows,
and scribble idle words on the wall.
A senseless stupid game.
That way you only thrust
the river of your soul
into the bosom of a sandy shore,
Once upon a time
how often did you want to go on a walk
with love by your side !
Can you now walk without fear,
with her wrapped around you ?
Can you, in such a dark troubled hour
as this?
- an oriental musical instrument.
The gesture of a strong tree
The gesture of a strong tree
always attracts me,
It easily makes me forget
all about the spineless men
I see everywhere.
In its firm handsome root and
muscles and branches
lies a quiet strength,
sometimes it lets its eyes rest
on the blue of the sky
when it is moved by its inner feelings.
It has no impatience in its nature.
Its huge structure radiates courage,
patience and nobility.
They are its characteristic features.
None the less, the music of its leaves,
the play of colours on them,
its thirst for life…they provide
a new dimension to existence.
A mighty tree teaches one to live one’s life
with new savour
to find fulfilment close to the sunbaked earth.
My mother I never tried to understand
My mother I never tried to understand,
never wanted to find out
if her deeply lined face looked so listless
because of pain or grief,
And now all that I touch
all that I draw close to me
are only memories.
They feel at least like memories
full of pain.
Is life now heading somewhere
with the hint of a new dimension?
I haven’t forgotten the hurt look
in mother’s eyes.
Someone seems to be standing there always
never letting me forget that look
of hers.
I want to go on drawing that picture
till the last day of my life.
I had always looked at my mother
but had hardly ever seen her.
Frenziedly filling the little squares of time
I had simply scurried on
living from moment to moment.
And in all that rush I never noticed
her quiet entries and exits.
When the summer storm raged outside,
lightning flashed and thunder roared
she used to rest her sleepless eyes on me,
eyes that I could not read.
Alas, they still remain a mystery to me.
Now my heart bleeds,
a sharp thorn lacerates my heart.
For none of us could render
even a single night safe for her
from the killer’s murderous attack’s.
The dreams of the absurd world
Our intimate affection in the saddened world is
Dense and solemn; like a deep river
I want to embellish it with strong emotions of youth,
with a tidy warmth.
On our way ahead are the metalled roads
Bright fast-moving lines,
Beside us the inviting smell of ripe fields
Yet we go on moving, perhaps without knowing
That ours is the most mistaken path
leading to a wrong address.
Our dreams are like the pale anaemic naked children,
The emotions and hopes are skinny, bent down
By disease and malnutrition.
Sometimes when the sun of hope
Smiles with affection on the rough unshapely body
Our eyes become full of sublime enchantment
in deepest pleasure.
Words and songs
I search those pregnant words
That in a moment drive out the monotony,
That again and again brings in explosion
In our familiar map, in our homes.
I want those songs
That never forget to run on stilts
The journey of intense voice
knows not to halt even in scorching sun.
Moving procession of shadows
Cover my senses, my paths
the stiff shadows are red in the glow of mander1
The line of the sweating bodies singe
in metallic light, in the heat of the fields.
Now in the starving room, in the camp of life
Familiar fire shall be ignited.
- A kind of mythical oriental tree.
They look for
They look for the sweat and smell of existence
grown over the years in a rich tradition
into man’s sovereign self.
They look for them in the earth’s consciousness.
The grey germs scurry,
sniffing in innocent courtyards,
in fields and leaves of grass, .
in footprints,
in the quintessence of immortal life,
or in the taste of blood
right at the heart’s core.
They look for the growing cells
under the skin,
they seek out the deep contentment
of primitive salt.
That is why they will not permit the right
to a vigorous growing life,
or approve the wonderful charm of human beauty
that man and art can together build
through intimate dialogue …
a camaraderie with time—
where in every drop will throb
the affectionate pulse of certain life.
Poetry
Poetry is no wingless fairy.
Proud and sensitive, she slits open the sky
and speaks with fiery hunger in her eyes.
Poetry is the face of art,
Yet all on a sudden she is a fierce protest
on the street,
full of blood and sweat,
or a glowing portrait of life,
etched in bold lines, freshly arisen
from the bosom of the sea.
Poetry indulges in dreams,
sometimes she is a festoon of wrath,
at other times she is full of the fragrance
of delicious rice…
That is why poetry will not rise
like a flame just for one day;
she will not inspire one only momentarily.
Rather will she scatter from the depth
of the heart
a surprise, long-acting and many-splendoured.
Poetry does not belong to death
She is life, a metaphor for life.
And I seek that vital poetry
in every curve of my life,
in the surprised world of every way-farer’s eye,
in his angry queries,
or in the resonant procession
that parade the main streets.
Translated by Kobir Chowdhury
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Illustration : Rajat
