TRANSLATED FROM THE BENGALI BY SARMISTHA DUTTA GUPTA AND SHAMBHOBI GHOSH

Clouds

Translated by Shambhobi Ghosh from the original poem ‘Megh’

Like primordial fishes, clouds roam in the darkness
From one corner to the next, sometimes, snarling, the opposite way.
Far beneath the clouds, there are houses, paddy fields, extinct rivers;
Clouds ignore them because they themselves aren’t perennial.
Someone’s singing lullabies, somewhere a baby is crying incessantly
As tireless as the oil-press; the clouds couldn’t care less.
They come and go, when the sun’s out, humans slackened like smoke
Run along with clouds above their heads, women reap the paddy amidst clouds.
A flock of children come running out of the clouds, school is over,
Rainy Day. Life is transient, yet humans look up to clouds,
There’s cloud-swathed paddy, cloud-wrapped poetry and songs.

Lover

Translated by Sarmistha Dutta Gupta from the original poem ‘Premik’

I am that ancient sari you now use for drying lentil blobs
Because it’s ripped in places
Neither hungry nor thirsty I am sucking in sunlight from the morning
And thinking you must be coming in any minute after your bath
Border faded, loose threads hanging from it
But still I think you should’ve got it mended
I could return home healed.

Love wounds gaping, my body sliced up in pain
I can no longer embrace you
I lie covered in sunshine and lentil paste
All ears for your footsteps since dawn.

You stand like a sepia-toned picture
Where the spiral staircase
Coils up towards destiny
A flock of spiralling stipes from my body
Rush to touch you

I know that
They’ll never reach their destination like the light from distant stars
So long as I live

Desire

Translated by Sarmistha Dutta Gupta from the original poem ‘Akinchan’

Do not forbid. Let me keep flowers at your
Feet. Five-petalled hibiscus, dusky red-olianders. White togor.
So many a time
Have returned disappointed
Carrying around this desire for touch,
Give it, at last, the right to devotion.

Break

Translated by Sarmistha Dutta Gupta and Shambhobi Ghosh from the original poem ‘Abbulish’ 

I’m not playing now
I’m sitting on a rock, in the middle of a river.
I’m now taking in the air, a complete unrestricted breath.
No one will catch me.
I’m now walking through a forest of segun trees, yellow leaves in my hair,
A primal scent hugging me like a sari
No one will catch me.
I am now the grey hill beyond the horizon, drenched in moonlight.
Not in play. In dreams.
I am now flying in the blue, looking at shooting stars
Close to the Andromeda.
I am not returning to the game now.
I breathe deep.

Drought

Translated by Shambhobi Ghosh from the original poem ‘Akaal’

In our parched life
Clouds turn back mid-way.
Buffalo skeletons rise
From the well’s waterless heart.
The pale ghost of crops
Climbs up the cornice
Of those who have been making money
Turning water into commodity.
Seen from outside
Their tables look overladen,
It’s rainless clouds they rip out
And devour with human blood.

Also, Read Curfew by Vandana Yadav, Translated from The Hindi by Shivani Yadav and Published In The Antonym

Curfew— Vandana Yadav

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