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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