Luis Alberto de Cuenca (Translated by Maria Lopez)

Source: archive.4plebs.org

Political Incorrectness 

from the collection - La vida en llamas 
(Life in flames, 2006)

Be a good girl, tell me things that are incorrect
from a political point of view. For example:
that you are blond. another example: that the West
doesn´t seem to you a barbaric monster
devoted to the sordid task of destroying the planet. And yet something else:
that multiculturalism is a new fascism, only a bit more
tacky, or that you enjoy beating up a pedagogue or a psychologist,
or that the Mediterranean horrifies you.
Tell me things that would take you straight away
to the stake, tell me atrocities
that put into question absolute truths
like: “I don´t believe in equal rights”. Or tell me
terrible things such as that you love me
despite we have different gender identities,
that you love me fully, madly,
forever, like the females of the Earth
used to love before

Poetry | Kunwar Narain (Transated by Dibyajyoti Sarma)

photo by Sashikumar J

from Kumarajiva, a narrative poem by Kunwar Narain

Translated from the Hindi by Dibyajyoti Sarma

[We had such plans. I was lucky enough to meet Kunwar Narain at his home in CR Park on 17 September 2016. He had just completed 89 and his hearing was weak. That did not stop us from discussing poetry, and our favourite poets, Eliot, Yeats, Auden. He had translated almost all the major 20th Western poets into Hindi. He also told us about his trip to Turkey and meeting Nazim Hikmet. The Turkish poet had just been released from one of his jail sentences, and Narain was still a starry-eyed young poet. I can still hear his voice narrating the story. “He (Hikmet) was an imposing personality. He sat next to me and put his hand on my thigh. He had huge hands.”

I identified the awe in the voice because that’s what I felt meeting Narain, hearing him tell the tale. I gave him my book of poems and since he had already lost his eye-sight, Apurva Narain, his son, suggested that I read a few poems from the book to him. I did. And he said he liked them. There couldn’t be a bigger reward.

On leaving, with the promise to meet again, I received a copy of Narain’s last masterpiece, the epic poem (Kavya) Kumarajiva published by Bharatiya Gnanpith. I found the book a tad difficult. A poetic biography of Kumarajiva, the man who introduced Buddhist literature in China, the book tackles deep philosophical questions on existence, life, death and everything in between. But the prologue, ‘In Tathagata’s Company’ moved me beyond words. I read and reread the passages a thousand times until I was ready to attempt a translation. This translation is my humble tribute to the legacy of Kunwar Narain.]

  

In Tathagata’s Company

from Kumarajiva, a narrative poem by Kunwar Narain

Translated from the Hindi by Dibyajyoti Sarma

I’ve embarked upon a thousand-year journey,

with Tathagata;

we have an eternity together –

on our path we will find who knows

how many cities, how many deserts.

We’ll not stop anywhere;

we'll carry on like the blowing wind.

We’ll leave behind, just a few words –

some reverberation of ideas,

etching on thresholds –

footprints of roving mendicants.

The way trees and leaves soak in

light and air and

carry to the soil

the fertilisers,

the same way will spread

the fire of spiritual ideas – breathing

from flowers to roots.

Digesting ugliness, there will always bloom

the fragrance of beauty in the air,

breaking the walls of darkness,

there will always sparkle joy, and

we will always be visible

in the wholeness of lost past,

sometimes like a star

sometimes like the sun.

Kumarajiva can be resurrected again

the way he resurrected Tathagata;

because no one, Buddha or Kumarajiva,

remains dead.

His was a life of ideas,

which can be experienced any time,

by going to his time

or by bringing him to our time,

the way at one time Kumarajiva

had found completeness,

inhabiting the Buddha’s ideas

in his own time,

the way man inhabits

his memories and past customs

rehabilitating them

in present time.

Every dedicated follower – thinker – artist

draws parallel to the Time where he exists

an Alternate Time of his own.

It is a life at once contemporary

and universal

where resides permanently

the essence of

his ideas and his achievements,

where they grow continuously until eternity.

I, Kumarajiva, am a vehicle of

Buddha’s words, not just a translator.

Through him, I’m a message for myself too,  

interspersed with his message.

With Tathagata’s teachings,

there contain my dedication too.

Wrapped in my achievements,

I too am my Alternate Time

where I’ll endure

even after me — with Tathagata —

the way Tathagata is alive

even after him, in his self-created

Alternate Sub-Time,

even today, with me.

In every moment,

I live several moments.

Time cannot not divided like matter,

like matter, it’s neither whole nor separate.

It’s us with our knowledge of matter that

we divide Time into tiny little pieces.

Whichever epoch I fancy,

I resurrect it like the present day,

and the ones I don’t, I discard them.

            Bringing lifelessness to existence, a conscious being,

            I myself transform into my past, my yesterday,

            my today and my future,

            my eternity.

            It all comes to us,

            through our dreams, our ideas.

This is my present which has arrived after thousands of years,

and it can endure for thousands of years after me,

sometimes ancient,

some prehistoric, sometimes medieval.

With all humility, I invite Tathagata

from his epoch to mine.

Like a book, I open

his epoch in mine.

A lot is hidden in these writings

which are not visible

in the folds of time.

I study the closely-knit

threading of ‘present’, when loosened,

from its holes is visible a light

completely different from the

permanent razzmatazz of today.

Each book is a closed door

opening which I  

immerse into the words

and shower under words’

waterfall of time

which is the time of that language.

I notice

In the beauteous past somewhere,

I’m reincarnated — in some unknown place.

My mind is Jetavana,

somewhere there’s a Shravasti, an Amravati

and Tathagata’s flesh and blood companionship,

a disciple listening to his teachings,

where there’s Sarnath, Sanchi and Patliputra.

            Matching wheels to wheels with the chariots

of Licchavis, Ambapalika rides her chariot —

a Ganika who claims proudly, ‘Today in my

mango orchard, Tathagata will be my guest.’

‘Take thousand cowries, Ganika,

            and give us the pleasure to host him…’

‘I refuse even if you offer a thousand cities.’

The Licchavis heard and her chariot marched on.

I humbly return to Kucha — my own epoch —

where in the caves of Kinjil,

there is a festival in the honour of Maitreya’s return.

Who knows in how many different lives,

in how many different ways, I have experienced

            the different meanings of Home.

Who knows how many times I have experienced

the joys of being a householder

and then the pains of losing the household,

the happiness of setting up a home

and the sadness of witnessing its ruin.

Who knows how many times

I have uttered in exasperation —

I would not build any more homes

and who know how many times

spring up like tides,

mounds of termites on the body,

another home and family.

Who knows how many times

I have uttered with conviction,

like enlightened Buddha —

‘Oh, householder,

I would not allow you to build any more,

another home — this is your last shelter.’

Yet, I am forced to return again and again,

from the other world to this,

carrying in my hands the same begging bowl,

            writings or a torch of wisdom.  

Poems | Amrita Pritam (Translated by Kanupriya Dhingra)

Source: https://pixabay.com/

1. A Letter

(Translated from the original in Punjabi)

I am— a book kept in an attic

perhaps carrying the Word

or any hymnal
or a chapter from the Kama Sutra,
or quackery for easy, venereal diseases.

Apparently, I am none of these.
(if I were, someone would have read me)

And as it were — a proposal was passed
in a meeting of revolutionaries
and I am its transcript.
Although it carries a police-stamp
and was never enforced, passed anyway,
and was preserved, for the sake of
further legal proceedings.

Now only some sparrows come over
with a few twigs in their beaks
and they sit on my body
to worry about the next generation
(to worry about the next generation
is beautiful indeed!)

but for diligence of any sort
birds have wings,
but no proposal has any wings.
(nor do any proposal has
another generation?)

Only sometimes I think
of smelling out—
where my future lies
and in such worry
my binding comes off, partly
but whenever I try to smell something
I smell bird-shit, only.

O the future of my earth
          I am— your current state

2. A Meeting

(Translated from Amrita Pritam's एक मुलाकात)

after several years
suddenly, a meeting
our souls
shivered like a poem

ahead of us was an entire night—
while
one half of the poem,
huddled in one corner
another half
sat in another corner

then at daybreak—
we met, like pieces of
torn pages
I held his hand
in my hand
he took my arm
in his arm

and we
laughed like a censor
and placed the page
on a cold table,
casting a line
on that entire poem 

3. My Address

(Translated from Amrita Pritam's मेरा पता)

Today I
erased my house number
also removed
the street name impressed upon
the street’s forehead
and wiped off
directions to every road
but if you absolutely wish to find me
 then knock on
every door on the street of
every city of every country
This is a curse, a blessing as well
and wherever there is a
glimpse of a
free spirit

          —know that as my home

4. A Union with Self

My bed is here

But like shoes and shirt

Take off your body too

Keep it on the stool there

Nothing unusual—

It is a custom of one’s country

Poems | Sananta Tanty (Translated by Dibyajyoti Sarma)

Photo Credits: GB

Rootless

Getting down at Fakiragram junction when I went to catch a train
upcountry, just then they surrounded me, and shoving and dragging,
they made me stand on the platform.

Everywhere around my body were garments of the minority
community. In my tongue was the language of the minority. In the
eyes was the withered look of hunger. In the stomach was a terrible,
painful hunger. My dry thinning muscles were exhausted. My dirty
clothes screamed it to everyone how even after independence I was
a landless farmer and beggar-labourer.

I gave them my name. I gave them my post office. I told them the
name of my district. I just could not mention my house number. I did
not have a house. Neither did I have land. I did not have even any
certificates from school. My house went down in the flood. Along with
it, went down my entire world with my wife and children.

They asked my father’s name. They asked my grandfather’s name.
They asked me about my birthplace. I told them everything. I said I
don’t have anything called home. I don’t have a bed to sleep. I don’t
have clothes to cover myself. Except fire to warm myself, I don’t have
any quilt or blanket. Even after the Partition, I don’t have a mother
tongue. I don’t know alphabets. I don’t know words. I don’t know
language. I don’t know anything except hard labour.

Getting down at Fakiragram junction, when I went to catch a train
upcountry, just then they surrounded me and being able to catch a
traitor like me, they screamed in delight.

The more I tried to answer, the more they went mad to attack me.
I wept inside. I wept inside my heart. I curse my mother who gave
birth to me in this country, in this India. I look for my father to ask
why he created a rootless son like me who is without country in the
country of his own birth.

Getting down at Fakiragram junction when I went to catch a train
upcountry, just then they surrounded me, and branding me a
foreigner, they sent me to the prison. From the prison, they sent me
to the detention camp and since then, I wait for my death in my own
country as a rootless man.




Dear Northeast

Dear Northeast,
I know I am not the only poet who resides in the interiors of your
geography. I am not the only poet immersed in your indiscernible
beauty filled with immeasurable wonder. I am not the only poet
who is marked as a warrior in your gold-plated pride. I am not the
only poet who spends the nights in your love and trust, adding new
dimensions to life.

Like all the other poets, I too am your child. I am just another poet
who has drunk your milk to quench his thirst. Perhaps this is why I
am proud of my humanity. Perhaps this is why I live spanning you,
circumambulating you, touching you.

I exhale in the scent of the flowers that bloom on your body. Sleeping
in the shape of your body, I dream. In your flowing sound, I travel in
a fraction on the endless road. I remain awake in the fading applause.

Dear Northeast,
You are my mother. You are the state of dream that awakens in my
heart when I spend my silence and wake up in faith. Sometimes I
wake up in intelligence and conscience.

In silence, I walk on the road of hunger that stretches beyond the
horizon, slowly losing its shape in trust and relationship, slowly
building me like a rainbow in the making to break me in the light.

Dear Northeast,
I pick up the notes of the ethereal music of life in your unadulterated
air every day. I acquire the primal power of humanity in your
transparency. I spread everywhere in your reverberating hour. I wake
up in the dominance of your tireless conscience.

I am not the only poet who lives in your geography. I am not the only
poet immersed in your indiscernible beauty filled with immeasurable
wonder. Revealed in your soul, I am just a sound. I am an undeclared
war for life, touching you in your insides and outsides.



Whenever I protest, they
call me a terrorist

Whenever I protest, they call me a terrorist.
Whenever I protest, they tie my hands.
Whenever I protest, they thrust in my hand

complaint letter of the forged law,
declare me as a traitor and
cage all my freedom.

They keep me away from my children.
They keep me away from my wife.
They keep me away from my parents.

Whenever I protest, they call me a terrorist.
They shoot me dead in fake encounter.
Sometimes they keep me in prison for life without protest.

Whenever I protest, they call me a terrorist.
Whenever I protest, in democracy
they plant seeds of Indian fascism.





They might arrive today as well

They might arrive today as well.
At midnight they might surround my beloved village.
Pointing rifles and firing two-three rounds of bullets
in the air, they might alert
my sleeping people, alert young boys and girls, men and women.

Like hunters who surround from all around
to catch the hunt,
they might pounce upon my people.
In front of my mother they might rape my dear sister.
They might strip naked
our ancient civilization.
They might torture our agitated hours.
They might sexually assault and kill
my innocent moon-like sister.
They might arrest the youths or
chasing them to the field,
they might kill them in fake encounters.

They might arrive today as well.
They might attack our humanity.
Breaking the tradition of civilization,
they might turn us against mankind.

They might arrive today as well.
When they do
we must protest.
Standing tall, we will have to fight like men.
When they arrive, we will have to walk even towards death.
And far away from death,
somewhere near freedom.

Poems | Luz Marchio (Translated by Kathryn Kopple)

Artwork : W. Jack Savage

Agua sobre agua 

¿Ves esa gota que recorre la ventana?
Mirá, ahí viene otra.
Y otra.
Se pegan como animales en celo.
La fertilidad
es agua
en todas sus formas.
¿Crees que estamos listos
para escribir un tratado de amor
ahora que somos
pedacitos de río?
Nos estamos diluyendo en la ventana.
No está mal para empezar.


Water on water  

Do you see that drop coming down the window?
Look, there's another.
And another.
They stick like animals in heat.
Fertility
is water
In all its forms.
Do you think we're ready
To write a treaty of love?
Now that we are
bits of river?
We are diluting ourselves at the window.
Not bad for starters.


1.

La mañana
conserva para nosotros
un retiro
que nos ata a la tierra,
a los días de lluvia,
a todos los caminos insanos
que dan una adorable visión
en el dominio del aire y del sueño.
Así como el pájaro anuncia su mudanza
en cada estación
y planea
liviano
sobre los juncos nacidos
con la primera claridad del cielo,
el color deja a la intemperie
el pulso del tiempo.
Como si el tiempo pudiera dar una respuesta
las figuras aparecen
detrás de una línea retirada
en la tela.
Con el agua de espejo
vierten de lado a lado
una luz nueva
que descubre el espacio.
¿Qué puede hacer una figura con el temor al vacío?
Su sombra inicia una búsqueda solitaria:
el río, los juncos, el sol,
el fuego,
el susurro.
Recuerdos de la pequeña felicidad

1.

The morning
stores for us
a haven
which binds us to the earth,
to the days of rain,
to all the insane roads
that present a lovely vision
in the domain of air and sleep.
As with the bird that announces its move
in each season
and settles gently
down
in reeds born
with the first clearing of the sky,
color left out in the open,
the pulse of time.
As if time could give an answer
the figures appear
behind a distant strand
in the fabric.
With the water of the mirror
pouring side to side
a new light
that discovers space.
What can a figure do with fear of emptiness?
His shadow begins a solitary search:
the river, the reeds, the sun,
the fire,
the whisper.
Memories of small joys.


2.

Una luz forzada guarda la trama de nubes
que baja hecha bruma
hasta la calle.
Parece mentira,
cada tanto un puñado de pájaros migra
en forma de triángulo
como si pudieran elegir
algo de lo que les toca.
No saben que un árbol muestra
cada hoja con un color,
con una sombra distinta
y que en el borde
la luz que cae
vuelve poderosa
la oscuridad que lleva dentro.
Ninguna pintura podría decir tanto
como un pájaro que vuela.
Debe ser por eso:
los años vuelven aves
a las que alguna vez fueron nenas.

2.

A strong light saves the lot of clouds
that descend in fog
to the street.
It seems incredible,
every so often a handful of migrating birds
in the shape of a triangle
as if they could choose
something that touches them.
They do not know that a tree displays
each leaf with a color
in a different shade
and that at the edges
the light that falls
makes bolder
the darkness within.
No painting could say as much
as a flying bird.
It must be why
the years come back as birds
to those who were once girls.




About the author

Luz Marchio (Buenos Aires, 1982)  studied Letras at the University of Buenos Aires. She is the coordinator of the Department of Language and Cultural Research of the Xeito Novo Foundation. In 2012 she published the poemario Lugar, illustrated with watercolours by Diego Perrotta. She is currently working on her next project based on the songs of the Latin American ancestral peoples.

Poem | German Gallo (Translated by Kathryn Kopple)

Source : wikicommons

9 of October

There is a floor tile with seven black marks arranged in the form of a circle on Corrientes and Callao,

There’s a bookstore just in front with seventeen books by authors that begin with the letter C,

right here, right now,

there’s a guy with Che’s face tattooed on his shoulder and the word revolution written in cursive,

there’s a couple who are arguing out of jealousy - he says look if I go now you’ll be left alone and die of anguish, she remains quiet and looks at the small soda bottle on the table (they are seated at a bar next to the library),

there’s a green car with the window rolled down and the arm of a fatso with a black cigar,

there’s a music place and a CD of Lennon playing because it’s his birthday, it’s time that breaks while he says So keep on playing those mind games together,

there’s an old lady walking slowly dressed in two of your favorite colors and an umbrella in case it rains,

there’s a white and black sky and a sparrow half-hidden in the bough of a tree,

there’s a beautiful sea of cement and people without names,

there’s a street light that changes colors at this very moment, a taxi that breaks hard, an office worker in a white thong tying her shoelaces careful her skirt won’t ride up,

there’s a little boy with a dirty face laughing with his sister,

there’s the slapping of newspapers from cheap whores,

there are four tall policemen walking together and the fifth who is short and carries his hat in his hand,

there’s the billboard of a cinema announcing a series of French films,

there’s a juggler with three orange pins and puffy pants that change color depending on the light, there are the pins spinning by themselves in the air, there is one that gets wet because it begins to rain,

there’s the juggler laughing when they slip from his hands,

there’s the little old lady opening her umbrella, thinking - I had a point when I said she would take it all when she left,

there’s, right now, rain that repeats itself the way people do,

there’s a woman on her way to cry to her psychiatrist- I told you, shouting, into her cell  phone,

there’s the fear of missing the tram and getting wet and arriving home late,

there’s a forty-inch television that plays the same rain on a soccer field,

there’s a black dog that hides under a roof and tries to dry himself,

there’s a big clock at ten past five visible seventy seven-and-a-half meters of concrete away,

where one reads a sonnet by Baldomero Fernandez Moreno,

there are headlights from the vehicles reflected in the asphalt,

there are three friends who race to the corner,

there’s a contradictory festival of mirrors and singularities,

there’s a garbage can from which a chocolate wrapper hangs off the rim,

there is a couple kissing in front of a lamppost,

there are four going down the subway entrance,

there are thirty three cars crossing the street,

two bicycles,

four marks arranged in the form of a rhombus on a floor tile at Nueve de Julio and Saenz Peña  and a piece of mint gum stuck in the middle,

there’s a guy who thinks that

his loneliness

magnifies the details of the city.

9 de octubre

Hay una baldosa con siete manchas negras dispuestas en forma de círculo en Corrientes y Callao,
hay una librería justo enfrente con diecisiete libros de autores que empiezan con la letra C,
ahora, en este momento,
hay un tipo con la cara del Che tatuada en el hombro y la palabra revolución escrita en cursiva,
hay una pareja de novios que están discutiendo por celos -el le dice mirá que me voy ahora, te dejo sola y te morís de angustia, ella se queda callada y mira el vasito de soda que hay en la mesa (están sentados en un bar al lado de la librería),
hay un auto verde con la ventanilla baja y el brazo de un gordo sosteniendo un cigarrillo negro,
hay un local de música y un CD de Lennon sonando porque hoy cumpliría años, hay el tiempo que se rompe mientras él dice So keep on playing those mind games together,
hay una vieja caminando despacio vestida con dos de tus colores favoritos y un paraguas por si llega a llover,
hay un cielo blanco y oscuro y un gorrión medio perdido en la rama de un árbol,
hay un mar hermoso de cemento y gente sin nombre,
hay un semáforo que cambia de color en este instante, un taxi que frena fuerte, una oficinista de tanga blanca atándose los cordones con cuidado de que no se le suba la pollera,
hay un nene sucio que se ríe con su hermana,
hay un chasquido de papeles con putas baratas,

hay cuatro policías altos caminando juntos y un quinto que es bajito y lleva el gorro en la mano,
hay la cartelera de un cine presentando un ciclo de arte francés,
hay un malabarista con tres clavijas naranjas y pantalones abultados que cambian de color según la luz, hay las clavijas girando solas en el aire, hay una que se moja porque empieza a llover,
hay el malabarista riéndose cuando se le resbalan de la mano,
hay la viejita abriendo el paraguas, pensando yo tenía razón cuando dije que se iba a largar con todo,
hay, ahora, una lluvia que se repite como la gente,
hay una mujer que está yendo a llorar con su psicoanalista -lo dice, gritando, a su celular-,
hay el miedo de perder el bondi y empaparse y llegar tarde a casa
hay un televisor de cuarenta pulgadas que muestra la misma lluvia en una cancha de fútbol,
hay un perro negro que se esconde abajo de un techo y se sacude como puede,
hay las cinco y diez de la tarde en un reloj grande frente a sesenta y siete metros y medio de hormigón donde se lee un soneto de Baldomero Fernández Moreno,
hay las luces de los autos reflejadas en el asfalto,
hay tres amigos que juegan una carrera hasta la esquina,
hay un festival contradictorio de espejos y singularidades,
hay un tacho de basura que en el borde tiene colgando el envoltorio dorado de un chocolate,
hay dos besándose contra un poste de luz,
hay cuatro bajando por la boca del subte,
hay treinta y tres autos atravesando la calle,
dos bicicletas,
cuatro manchas dispuestas en forma de rombo en una baldosa de Nueve de Julio y Saenz Peña y un chicle de menta pegado en el centro,

hay un tipo que piensa que
su soledad
agranda los detalles de la ciudad.

________________________________________

* Gallo is a young poet from Buenos Aires, Argentina

Poems| Bhaskar Chakraborty ( Translated by Brinda Bose) 3/3

Artwork : Matthew Bialer 

বন্ধুত্ব

কে না বোঝে বন্ধুত্ব ব্যাপারটা?
কবিতা, আমি বলছি-
মানুষকে আনন্দে বাঁচিয়ে রাখার শিল্পই হচ্ছে কবিতা।
কবিতা লেখা সত্যিই সেরকম সহজ নয় যেরকম ভঅবেন আপনি।
না, সিগারেট ধরাবেন না
সাদা একটা কাগজে লিখুন: বন্ধু
লিখুন: বন্ধু বন্ধু বন্ধু।
আমরা হতভাগা।
বন্ধুত্ব দিয়ে আমাদের সম্পর্ক শুরু হয়
শেষ হয় খিস্তিখেউড়ে।


Friendship

Who does not understand this friendship business?
Poetry, I say –
the art of keeping humanity joyously alive
is poetry.
Writing poetry is really not as easy
as you seem to think.
No, don’t light that cigarette
on a white piece of paper, write: Friend
Write: Friend Friend Friend
We are the wretched
Our relationships start with friendship
and end in smearscurrility



মুহূর্তমালা

সকাল দশটা হবে হয়তো এখন ।
আজ রোদ্দুর নেই ।
বর্ষার হাওয়া শর্তহীন শুধু উড়ে বেড়াচ্ছে ।
জীবনের ভুলত্রুটিগুলো নিয়ে
আমি মাথা ঘামাতে চাইছি না আর ।
কে যেন বলছিল কাল সন্ধ্যাবেলা
‘প্রেমের কবিতা লিখুন ।’ আজ
ডুমুর গাছের কাছে ফিরে এসে আমি দেখছি
পাতাগুলো আরো সবুজ হয়ে আমার কাছে
আসছে, মনে হচ্ছে
যেন-বা স্বপ্ন ওরা সব; যেন-বা
সকালবেলার দুপুরবেলার
সন্ধেবেলার রাত্রিবেলার কবিতা


Garland of Moments

It is perhaps about ten in the morning now.
No sunshine today.
Only the monsoon winds flying about unconditionally.
About life’s mistakes I no longer feel like
worrying my head.
Who was it who said last evening,
‘Write love poetry’. Today
returning to the fig trees I see
that the leaves, turning greener, are coming
toward me, it seems as if
they are dreams, all of them; seems as if they are
poems of the morning, the afternoon,
the evening and the night



আঠাশে মে, আমার জীবনের

আঠাশে মে, আমার জীবনের সুন্দরতম
দিন হও তুমি
এই সাতাশে মে-র সন্ধেবেলা আমি
অন্ধকারে বসে লিখতে চাইছি
তুমি কুয়োর বালতির মতো নাচতে নাচতে
নীচে নামো, আর আমার জন্যে নিয়ে এসো
মসৃণ পবিত্রতম জল
নিয়ে এসো অভিমান পুরস্কার আর পতাকা


28th May, In My Life

28th May, be my life’s loveliest
day
On this evening of the 27th I
sit in the dark and wish to write
that you, like a bucket dancing
as it lowers in a well
go down and bring for me
water smooth and holiest
bring
hurt, prize and flag



যদি ভালোবাসা থাকে

এখন একলা আমি দিনরাত
ভয়ে ভয়ে
থাকি । সবকিছু
কীরকম ভাঙাচোরা ।
যাদের প্রেমিকা আছে
তারা শুধু
ঘাসের ভেতর দিয়ে
কোথায় যে চলে যায় রোজ... ।
আমার এ হাত আমি
বাড়িয়ে দিয়েছি-
যদি ভালোবাসা থাকে
মানুষের মতো যদি হও,
টান দাও,
বাজুক সেতার ।


If There is Love

Now day and night all alone
I sit in trepidation. Everything
seems to lie about in fragments.
Only those who have lovers
disappear through the grass,
who knows where, everyday…
I am offering my hand –
If there is love
If you are of flesh-and-blood
Pull it,
Let the sitar play.


ভূমিকাহীন

কী খুঁজে বেড়াচ্ছো তুমি সারাদেশ জুড়ে?
---- রুটি, শুধু রুটি।
দিন নেই রাত নেই ঘুম নেই
খোঁজা শুধু খোঁজা---
কী খুঁজে বেড়াচ্ছো তুমি সমস্ত জীবন?
---ভালোবাসা শুধু।


Without Preamble

What are you seeking all over the land?
--- Bread, only bread.
No day, night, sleep
searching just searching ---
What are you seeking throughout your life?
--- Love, merely.



More poems of Bhaskar Chakraborty translated by Brinda Bose :

Part 1/3

Part 2/3

Poems | Shiv Kumar Batalvi ( Translated by Sartaj Ghuman) | Part 2/2*

Photo : Lee La

ghazal

i am a sentence in a song incomplete
a journey of the footprints not made by any feet

of all the havoc that love has wreaked
of those ravages i am the peak


i am a lamp in your gathering that’s snuffed out
i am an allusion that from your lips leaked


that has death alone as its cure
i am the anxiety for such a life worth just a week


she, who saw me and looked away
i am the mute gaze of her eyes deep


my own face alone have I seen
what a strange man in this world I have been !


someone heard shiv say yesterday, sorrow’s
left me well known in this world bleak

Longing

people worship god
and i, your longing
it’s a hajj to a hundred meccas
oh your longing!
people say I have become the sun
people say i shine gloriously
what kind of a fire it lit me with,
oh your longing!

behind me is my shadow
in front of me, my darkness
my arm it mustn’t let go
oh your longing!

no soil of the body in it
nor garbage of the mind
i sifted it on a winnow
oh your longing!

whenever times of sorrow came
bringing pain and loneliness in tow
i called for it to come sit by my side
oh your longing!

it gets me to dye words sometimes
and sometimes makes me weave songs
a thousand crafts it’s taught me
oh your longing!

when pain fell at my feet
and swore by my perseverance
the whole world turned up to see
oh your longing!

through my passion i gained some standing
people came to congratulate me
and embracing me freely wept,
oh your longing!

i am a fool with no sign of sagacity
this the world told me
on a pedestal it’s put me today
oh your longing!

it’s a hajj to a hundred meccas
oh your longing!

*Thanks to TSC friend Taseer Gujral for her editorial suggestions

Poems | Shiv Kumar Batalvi ( Translated by Sartaj Ghuman) | Part 1/2

Photo : LeeLa

borrowed song

oh sweet lord
lend me another song or a half
my fire’s going out please
give me another spark

in my early years of infancy
i’ve laid all my hurt to waste
for the season of my youth now
please lend me more pain chaste

give me a song like my youth
dusky, mystically beguiling
like the red of the day at dawn
sets aglitter the whole tank
or like in a treeless land
at twilight the first star
in my land too it’s getting dark
give me another star or a half
or like the redness fiery
in the lake dissolve me
without a lover i can spend days long
but not, o lord, without a song
a lifetime anyone can squander
a fortunate few are fated pain
and lord, is every shore graced
by a doe sipping at the lake
drain away the untouched waters then
of my lake too unclaimed
or the songs that you got me to write
take those too back again

let me not extol beauty
that as an equal to fire doesn’t stand
and not praise the eye, o lord
whose tears are but bland
let me not sing songs that aren’t in pain steeped
or say words that aren’t fragrant scented sweet
if not fragrant my words happen to be
break them off the branch
or like my youth lend me
another song or a half

in my early years of infancy
i’ve laid all my hurt to waste
for the season of my youth now
please lend me more pain chaste

 







virtuous father dear

when the cotton does flower bear
o virtuous father dear!
buy me that season of the year
o virtuous father dear!
i lost a song in this season of yore
that of longing a garland wore
its face pockmarked with sorrow such
its eyes full of water from a ruined well
a song that when by the lips touched
sends the heart fluttering along
o virtuous father dear!
buy me that song
o virtuous father dear!

one day me and my song
in this season bewitched beguiling
the heart’s soil we ploughed
and dreams pure we sowed
with a million tears we irrigated it
no flower it bore however
o virtuous father dear
buy me just one flower
o virtuous father dear!

what use all your land
if daughters are to wither so
what use your mansarovar
if thirsty the swans go
to what end your scattered crumbs
against pearls weighed
o virtuous father dear!
if you can’t buy me that season of the year
o virtuous father dear
when cotton does flower bear
o virtuous father dear!

gazal

of dealing with sorrow, i’ve learnt the art

learnt to slowly cry and distract the heart

it’s best that you are someone else’s now

it's put an end to worries of making you mine somehow

oh you who breathe, but for this one fear i’d readily die

they sell for money even the land to light the pyre

my friends, lend me not these breaths

for i have not the courage to repay the debt

don’t try and drive shiv’s sorrow away

the treacherous rascal has a mind to cry today