Who will light the world when I am gone, asked
the setting sun. Fearing a burden so great,
all kept mum. A little clay lamp, it said, Lord,
I’ll shine my best in your accord.
(This is my translation of a Bengali poem, ‘কর্তব্যগ্রহণ’, by Rabindranath Tagore.)
Let me sit beside you for a moment.
Let my tasks lie incomplete.
My heart knows no peace without a glimpse of you.
If I toil alone, I’ll be
at an endless sea.
Spring whispers joyfully into my window.
Idle bees buzz and float upon the garden ground.
Drowning in your eyes on a day like this,
I’ll sing of my devotion
in a restful sound.
(This is my translation of a Bengali song, ‘তুমি একটু কেবল বসতে দিয়ো কাছে’, by Rabindranath Tagore.)
‘Why do you not rather write a poem yourself —’
I asked, smiling a bitter smile; but the hunk of shadow didn’t reply.
I got then, he is not a poet — but a pretender:
atop the stack of manuscripts, versions, footnotes, ink, pen;
on a high chair; he sits —
a perennial, ageless professor; toothless — his eyes are filled with rheum of incapacity —
living on a wage of a thousand a month.
Another thousand and a half he earns
by vivisecting the flesh and intestinal worms
of the poets who are deceased.
Who lived in hunger, sought love, and swam
in shark-infested waters.
(This is my translation of a Bengali poem, ‘সমারূঢ়’, by Jibanananda Das)
This made-up light of the city at night,
prickles
my eyes: where are
the stars?
Only half the sky is left to observe
after a thousand divisions. That too’s stolen
by the rain cloud: where are the stars
in my city?
Where are the stars, or have they left us
to our own devices?
Or have the lovers plucked all up to gift
them to their sweethearts?
Without those stars, bland
is this dimly dark half-sky.
Invoke them. Or the night is incomplete
without —
(This is my translation of a nazm in Hindi, ‘रातों में शहरों की बनावटी रौशनी’, written by my writer and musician friend Saurabh Kumar)
Let your music fall against my face
like the Shravan rain.
On my chest, in my eyes.
With the morning light,
and through the darkness of the night,
let it fall on my everyday pain and happiness.
Let it fall, let it fall like the Shravan rain.
How you revive a fruitless, flowerless branch
with the monsoon breeze; revive me
so with your music. Let it seep through
my wretched-wrought,
lifeless self. On life’s unending thirst, hunger,
unceasingly;
let it fall, let it fall like the Shravan rain.
(This is my translation of a Bengali song, ‘শ্রাবণের ধারার মতো পড়ুক ঝরে’, by Rabindranath Tagore)
The children, after school, will often swarm around a crazy woman on the road to tease her mercilessly and say, “Oi Crazy, have a banana? Oi Crazy, why don’t you go to Dharmatala?” Until that woman will come running after them, threatening. The children will pretend to flee – as if they were a pack of wild dogs. Yet instead of fleeing, they will only change their formation to keep her encircled. Continuing with their cruel game, they will fling stones at her and laugh to their heart’s content. A prime example of human beings being one son of a bitch!
While coming back from the office, often I scold these children by saying, “Oi, why are you after her? Don’t bother her anymore – I am warning you.” After hearing this, the children will stop momentarily and look at me with such vehemence, as if I have snatched away their easy prey. That moment was the most crucial moment of my existence. I deem not the party cadres who surround me in front of my own house for a donation to be the most dangerous, or the midnight hijackers on a deserted highway. But these school children who swarm around a madwoman and tease her. I have no doubt they are the most dangerous. If they observe the slightest chink in my resolve, this ferocious swarm will encircle me too, and make me their new prey. They will pull my briefcase, pelt stones at me, and shout in unison, “Oi Crazy, have a banana? Oi Crazy, why don’t you go to Dharmatala?”
And, when their stones will hit me, and I will run after them in rage; they will pretend that they are making an escape. But in reality, it will only be a joke to them. Until I slowly turn crazy myself.
When that happens, will that crazy woman pick up a stone to defend me?
(This is my translation of a Bengali poem, titled ‘পাগলী’, by poet Ranajit Das)
This is the only piece of advice —
Never mess again with Nature.
Remember, it’s the wrath of the forest:
This Corona Virus.
There is only one piece of advice —
Never have a Chinese dinner with the warm blood of a bat.
Never make shoes for the Americans of the hide of a pangolin.
Remember, it’s the wrath of the forest: this Corona Virus.
There is only one piece of advice:
The destitute people of the world, recognize
This ferocious, deceptive, selfish bourgeoisie again:
This middle class, who are gloved and masked, wish
To spend their lives listening to music and watching TV —
They have killed the forsaken, helpless workers of the world
On the path to affluence.
Karl Marx prophesied it:
Go kneel again before his tomb!
This is the one piece of advice —
The selfie-obsessed children of humans,
Hear the directive from Delphi:
Man needs Nature, not the opposite.
You’ve wrecked this planet
With pollution and sins.
And, if you do not stop this endless stream
Of consumption and fraud;
I too will finish you
With the furious blows
Of the virus grown in the blood of the untamed beasts.
Remember this, Mr. and Mrs. Homo Sapiens.
(This is my translation of a Bengali poem, titled ‘করোনা ভাইরাস’, by poet Ranajit Das)
The robots are on the benches,
the metro’s on the move.
There’re rows of drooping heads — lost in respective mobile phones.
The headphones in their ears, their faces lit with red-blue light:
Like the Shaitan’s searchlight,
or the fatal sign of the ‘Blue Whale’ game.
Are they robots or aliens? Why don’t they have a glance at the world?
Are they robots or aliens? Why don’t they have a look at their fellow faces?
Why don’t they see who is before them? — A friend, a woman, a tired old man,
a Jhau forest, sea waves?
Lost deep in the virtual world, they are not looking up.
They are not looking at reality.
In the sun, under the cloud, in the field, even when in love:
they are indifferent, unconcerned.
A strange hypnosis has turned them into cyborgs,
has eaten up their souls.
This evening, in the metro, I am so frightened that I am speechless.
Alone and sad among the rows of silent mobile bound faces,
among those disguised aliens,
I am the last endangered man
reading a book of poetry
which has promised me ‘the foamy sea of life’.
(This is my translation of a Bengali poem, titled ‘এলিয়েন’, by poet Ranajit Das)
Every romance has an expiry date.
Before kissing your sweetheart,
kneel and bend her body and touch with your fingers
the pointed follicles that lie
in the corner of her curvy waist,
as a blind man reads the Braille:
There is an etching — a concealed date.
Now stand up. Notice carefully again,
before kissing her,
a neon sign gleaming in her eyes.
It is that concealed date
blinking like the traffic lights —
Now kiss her. Furiously. Madly.
Often, and in the certainty of losing her.
For every kiss is the last kiss
before separation.
Every romance has an expiry date.
Read it yourself before a kiss,
as a blind man reads
the Braille with his fingers.
(This is my translation of a Bengali poem, titled ‘এক্সপায়রি ডেট’, by poet Ranajit Das)
Look — on every wall the rows of cow-dung cakes;
on each one, a deep print of a hand.
Can you see it, dear Watson?
This is the clue
to this country. This strange wall-book of shit and sun;
every crease bearing the print of grief-
stricken, Dravidian fingers of skinny women —
Tell me, Watson, how many (respectively) crimes, manslaughters, sunburns,
heresies have you identified in this?
(This is my translation of a Bengali poem, titled ‘শার্লক হোমস-এর ভারত-ভ্রমণ’, by poet Ranajit Das)
