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Poems of Bijoy Sankar Barman

Writer's picture: Bijoy Sankar BarmanBijoy Sankar Barman

Updated: May 1, 2023

Translated by Amitabh Ranjan Kanu


I Know about a Woman


I

know

about a woman

who

gave birth to

an impaired child



Her womb

dreamt up

for a second one


She walked towards rail track

for a morning amble


and never came back






Ketetong’s* Tears Streaming His Eyes


Fattening clouds are hanging

Sitting somewhere

amid the chubby clouds

you shed tears


And the Dihing flows along


On the black hillock of Ledo

in the darkness

of scorched coal

in a half burnt shoe

death laid eggs

or

In the brown cocoon

of a butterfly

on a dry stem of the lebbek

death laid eggs


Tears

streaming from his eyes

appear’d like a hook

grabbed me


Dripping gently

from the waterspout of Patkai hills

that water

filled sacred ponds of Angfew*


And there

a yellow butterfly

was mirroring its image



Ketetong: a hamlet of Margherita
Angfew: An illustrious man who died of Cancer in 2008




Death in a Radio Centre


Not the hill

death was lying

inebriate

on its back



In haste

while going up

by slippery steps

as if I pushed the belly of the death

with the tip of my shoe



Death was lying numb

under the wild potherbs

in the wounded shades of poinciana trees


With a rock

fastened around its neck

the noon was leaning over

The brazen tower was smiling

Some horn rammed in my artery

A city

inhaled all oxygen,

suck’d all chlorophyll around it

And to get exhausted

what else it had not dropped empty



A poet

who knew the stiff

eagerly lamped my path

took me up through glossy stairs

and dumb houses to a fragile room


He listened to my poems

inscribed them on the body of silicon


By stairs

while coming back

passing dumb houses

a thin man

wearing specs of thick frame

had prevented us from advancing

He appeared very weak

Wiping spec’s glass with a silk handkerchief

he requested a colleague poet:


‘Do you know

I’ve seen his distressed face

he didn’t get anything in life

at least

do write a poem for him’


That thin man was not a poet, or was he!

How impaired was the truth


I didn’t know

that day

the poet’s colleague was passed away in the radio centre


Crossing the small huts and tall trees

while coming back

by pitched road

I looked back for a while



The hill was walking

towards me

with heavy foot







The Light


Surabhi,

Nagen Kaka’s only daughter

She was pretty enough


Leapt

in her child days

She lisped

‘biloteyhaliseydhuniyapadumi

Fulonitfuliseyful’

(water lilies are swinging over the lake

flowers are bloomed in the garden)

‘aaimoradormaloti o’

( O’my daughter, my eyeball…)

Railing his lap

as cradle

he kissed her



At present

Surabhi reads in Guwahati

She stays in a hostel

This year

she is promoted to class seven

she has been suffering from fever for few days

Kaka brought her back home


Today was her tolanibiya*

Kaka was so happy

for her only daughter

rituals were performed

women blew sacred sounds

the ceremony was quite grand


Kaka looks at her

for sometimes

she drabbed in Muga

appears beautiful in the attire

weaved at Sualkuchi

Noticing her

Kaka squeezes eyes

truly, she is grown up


The ayoti* teased one another

sung the bridal song


Surabhi smiled coyly

Touched gently

the floral fabric of her attire

Everyone spoke about her attire

and she grins gently


While passing her

Nagen Kaka asked Surabhi:

‘Did you eat anything, dear child?’


She nodded.

She beckoned him close

and asked:


Deuta*,

how is this dress?’


Ayoti: a woman with a living husband
Talonibiya: A symbolic wedding. It is performed a few days after the girl has her first menstruation.
Deuta: Father







In Love


You’re thinking something

but

you asked me:

‘what are you thinking?’



I’m thinking something

and

I asked you:

‘what are you thinking?’


We lost ourselves

in this bottomless mine of coal


In far off darkness

fern flowers tingle


You shed tears

I too

Stretching out the fingers

we ask ourselves:


‘Passion lies in tears’

Soul, tell me

Does passion lie?

Does passion toil

while wiping them?’





Saurabh Kumar Chaliha


This mustard field of Dadara

a paddy bird

buried to neck


To my deepen heart

suddenly

in a wintry morning

a bare question mark

deep like the head of heron

draws a line


Pieces of dead bones

of downy Kathiyatali

of Rupiyabathan

clustered in memory

flicker in our blonde childhood


It yoke them

and

take a halt







Poem of a Watery Afternoon

(Dedicated to Mahim Bora)


Today

once again

what splashes

suddenly

where it roars


No water

No fish either


Like the ruff

of gleam sands

The fish bones are lying

in the sunshine


In the namghar*

of late noon

The shreds of resins floating

The incenses are emanating smoke

in whooshing of conch

and loud bell


Through the smoke look at


What is that – a river?

No splash even there


The fish bones

grooving deep

to the ancient pond


Splash

Splash in the tears

Splash in the celestial hands

in which tears dripping




Namghar: A Prayer House of Assamese community
believes in Eksararana sect of Hinduism.






Love


In the Suweri* of Sundoridia


In the afternoon of SaatBihu

putting a keteki* flower in her hands he said:

‘I’ve gathered it

going long way down to forest,

keep it safely’.


Flood comes.

Slender filament

of keteki kneads its colour

The smell of keteki wishes to wrap her


Returning back the flower, she said:

‘I do not want keteki flower

Along that deep river bed

black snakes creep

Do not go there again’


‘I won’t go to your house to live forever

Your mother will not take meal with me

And this will make you unhappy’



Keteki withers

lying amid the page of Social Science book

It gets worn

but whenever

I open the book

reminiscences hurling down from the page

take me back

to that afternoon

of Suweri


Some day again…after many more years…cradling a new born child on his lap…

if a thin man goes towards Azara …and if an elite couple calls him

prevents him from advancing

and taking the child in their lap … if they say:

‘withour’s two, let this child grow’

Dear reader ….how a verse can translate this feeling?



Suweri: A festival celebrated in Holi at BarpetaSatra
Keteki: A flower. In English it is known
as umbrella tree or screw pine. The
botanical nomenclature of this plant is ‘pandanusodoratissimus’.






A Poem of Stone/ 1


You failed to feel me

when we were together

I was there

like a tranquil shadow



I was dreaded

in riverine air

Being your shadow

I was trembling


Now

in this summer noon

rain is falling in our place

cowherd boys have cut the arum leaf


Instantly

I wish to be your shadow

I wish to tremble again


Ah, I am not able to slant over

can’t even stand


Climbing

a rock mountain

every night

am I turned to the shadow

of that rock ?







A Poem of Stone/2


I’ve seen

stones strike

against one another

I’ve seen

something catches to fire in bamboo grove


Till now

I thought

you were a silk cotton

I thought

you were a star

moon too

In hunch you took a shape of water

How erroneous it was to arrogate you as a river

I wrapped you

in a dead stem

with golden thread


Sensing the throb

of an unknown bird

of place unknown

you fell down

upon my heart


And suddenly

you too

caught fire






Bijoy Sankar Barman (b. 1980)


BijoySankar Barman is an Assamese poet and translator, who writes both in Assamese and in English. Recipient of the prestigious Munin Barkataki Award in 2007 for his maiden collection of poems Deo, Barman received the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2013 for his second collection of poems Ashokastami. Marked by The Indian Express as one of the “Best Young Writers” of India in 2012, Barman has fifteen published books on different genres which include translated collections of his poetry Pisarateoja, Ketetong (2016) in Estonian published from Europe, Amar Angulgulir Ongkurodgam (2019) in Bengali published from Kolkata and Tug at the Gillnet (2021) in English published from Delhi. Besides all major Indian languages, his poems have been translated into Italian, French, Spanish, Mexican Spanish, among others. His translation of the Sangam-era Tamil classic Kuruntokai into Assamese appeared as Kurundoheir Kabita in 2014. His poems have featured in several anthologies including Great Indian Poems (2020), edited by poet-diplomat Abhay K.Barman, whose research work on tribal mythology of Assam has earned him a PhD degree, also studied as visiting Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, University of Tartu, Estonia.

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